I am very excited that I'll get to go support the ABRA series in West Virgina this weekend at the Morgantown Road Race. I had a good ride there last year being bested at the line by the infamous Nick Waite. The race course is beautiful with decent climbs while being just long enough to cause attrition and selections in the outcome. It'd be fun if we could do two loops, but one will be enough as I look to prepare for Battenkill the following week. Last year I had to race on a twenty pound cyclo-cross bike. This year I'll be on my new Blue Axino full carbon frame with Zipp 303 wheels. I think I'm flirting around the fifteen pound range this time around. It also looks like I'll have some company with Sean Barrie and Russ Langley creating a stout three man roster.
I still have many things to get squared away before the season is in full swing. I have my bicycle fit pending with Josh Frick at Cyclelife and am flirting with the idea of having a body composition analysis test performed using their BodPod.
I didn't start thinking about that until yesterday when discussing my weight with John Cutler. I had a caliper test done my freshmen year of college and at a skant 130 pounds I was estimated to have 3.7% body fat. Now I'm hovering around 145 and with intentions to clean up some bad eating/drinking habits, I expect it to duck down to 140 or even less. I was 155 in November and have seen my power continuously improve while still losing weight, and if I can continue to improve my power to weight ratio in a healthy way, I intend to. I'm also trying to understand how to incorporate my power meter into my training. I'm still in the "Oooo, Ahhh" phase where I just look at the numbers and try to make the numbers do what I want. Normally that requires some structure... but I've been able to have my way with it, but that romance will soon fade and I'll be wondering how the heck I'm supposed to use it as a tool, and not just a guage.Just a few notes of late...
Haymarket Bikes is awesome. They did an awesome job putting my Blue together and it is without a doubt the best bike I've ever ridden.
Teaism is ridiculously good. The place has an awesome atmosphere and not a detail is missed in the food/drinks, decorations, and service. My goto is a chai tea, salty oat cookie, and the chicken bento box. Teaism is very supportive of the cycling community sponsoring multiple teams and being very bike friendly at their multiple locations.
Second day on the Blue I got rearended at a stoplight in DC by a Cabbie. We're damned if we run the lights, damned if we don't. We worked things out in an unusually polite and sympathetic manner and carried on.
Read The Great Gatsby. If you read it in highschool as part of assigned reading, it probably sucked, try again. If you have lived and loved at all - you will be grossly enamored with this book. I only picked it up because I heard that Baz Luhrmann, director for Romeo + Juliet and Moulin Rouge, was going to start production of this film remake later this year. These are admittedly a couple of my favorite films and the idea that The Great Gatbsy could compare, had me invested in the tragic love story immediately.
All that said...
This a rather matter-of-fact post that I am not all that thrilled about. I've had a lot of deeper things on my mind with a lot more subtance, but significance is hard to guage and appropriateness even moreso. I just didn't want to slowly fade out completely. I'll open up eventually, but those are the turtles.
