Valentine's day

This is a bullshit day if you ask me. I love my wife and I guess this is as good a day as any to buy her something nice but this is really just crap. The flower people are the worst! How the hell do you charge $50 for a dozen roses when you can get them every day of the year at Sam's Club for less than $10! This year I talked my awesome wife into not really doing anything at all for Valentine's day. We are going to go have a nice dinner but no cards, no presents, just us hanging out, with me thinking about how hot of a wife I got.

 Thats her, I am a really lucky guy to have a woman as beautiful and as giving as her. She really takes care of me. Without her I would be a mess and not as successful as I am today. There are actually studies that show that happily married men do better in life than non-married men. They are promoted faster, make more money, all the good shit. Well I know why that is, because the guys without the great wives just can't do it all on their own. I know that I need this awesome woman behind me to do just about anything.

I didn't ride today but I went to the gym. I am going to try to keep going till maybe the middle of March. Mike should have my new workout schedule this week and I don't know if weights will be on it but I might just keep them going for a little longer. What Kurt said about pushing some heavy weight to improve the power on the bike has really paid off. Like I said yesterday I could tell that I was stronger and I attribute that to pushing the big plates. I pushed it hard today and did a lot more core work than I have done since I was a gymnast. I can feel the muscles finally coming back and I am able to go longer and use heavier weight again since I was at Illinois. I don't know what has brought on this ability to once again use my abs but I am liking it.

I am going to go ride with Chris in the morning on the flats of Columbia IL. I think Matt might come and I hope Mike will be able to get some time to come ride with us. I would like to do another longer ride but we will see how the wind is and what everyone is thinking. I am going to really hate when this weather goes back to shit. Fucking Winter, I hate you!

Good start to a great year

I was finally able to get the guys together for a ride today. Really it wasn't me, it was Chris who got everything started. He invited me to a ride with him and Matt, I just took it a step further and invited the rest of the guys. The weather was just too good for any of them to miss. My only mistake was to say that it was going to be an easy ride. I guess it wasn't so much a mistake as misdirection, if I said we were going to ride hard up the hills I don't think some of the guys would have come. It is early season and not everyone has been able to train as much as others. But I think this was good for everyone, it gets all the guys to know where they are at and what they need to do for the coming year. Everyone that showed up was on the 708 Racing Cat 3 team, and that made it an even better barometer for seeing where your fitness is at right now. If there were higher levels and they smoked you, you could blow it off as "they have to go faster they are better" or if you smoked them, or even hung with them it could give you a false sense of your fitness.
I felt great on the ride, and I really didn't expect to be as good as I was. I had done two days of intervals before it so I thought I would be hurting more. I think it was mostly because I was so excited to be riding with the new team, and outside. Everyone looked REALLY STRONG. Mark French finally took off his personal torture devices he calls Power Cranks (the cranks move independently of each other so you are riding single legged the whole time) so he was riding like an engine on high octane. (corny I know) I have known Mark for a few years and I knew he was going to be riding strong. Mike is also looking as strong as ever, he had done two hard days before today so on the penultimate climb of the day Mark got away from him. Mike is like a billy goat and a camel put together. The man climbs faster than anyone his size, 5'10" 165lbs, should be able to and can run almost all day long on no food or water. I think that is because he is old school, and did some hard, hard miles back when he was in his early twenties. I don't think he even drank a whole bottle of water today! The rest of the guys I had never ridden with, one teammate Keith, I had only met once but talked to a few times, and this was my first time meeting Drew. Chris is a salesman down at Mesa and is a really cool guy to shoot the shit with when he isn't selling some bangin bikes from Specialized . Man that dude is a diesel engine! He is going to put the hurt on some people this year. He is another big man who goes uphill faster than it seams he should be able to. Matt, Keith and Drew were also some great riders, I could see that Matt is a really good mountain biker just by his pedal stroke, guy could spin at like 500 rpms. Keith was very good up the hills and could keep a great clip on the flats. Drew seamed a little beat at the moment, he had just come off a long CX season and you have to have some down time somewhere. From what I hear he is another very good off road racer, and doesn't do a who lot of time on the road.
I think I could really go all day about how much fun I had on our ride but I have had this other thought on my mind that I wanted to put down.
I don't really know why this stuff bugs me so much, maybe because I just came into this sport just a few years ago and I feel like this stuff bashes on the things I love about the sport.I guess the stuff that bugs me is these people talking about how the old stuff is better than the new. I guess it is the "how it was" mantra that just about everyone talks about at some point in their life. I have not gotten to that point yet. Maybe it is because I  come from a time of fast improvement, instant gratification, real time reporting. But what is wrong with now? Why are carbon frames built by extremely smart men and women at the cost of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars, ugly? Why are the made in the USA, lighter, less expensive, just as precise as any other, not as prestigious or desirable as Campagnolo? Shit I don't even think Campy shifters make any sense, how the hell do you shift in the middle of a sprint? If I wanted to not be able to shift to a better gear when I am doing almost 40 mph I would have stuck with the  down tube shifters. If these guys who think that the old stuff is better than the new stuff why do they have the 10 gear cassette, the clip-less pedals, the STI shifters? I don't know why this bothers me so much, just does I guess.

We had to take two pictures because we couldn't find someone to take the whole team's but this is the 708 Racing C3 crew. I'll post our pics again when we get the new kit.

Thanks to our sponsors

So I have to say that my team has been crazy lucky in getting sponsors, big sponsors at that. Our major corporate sponsor is Dressel's Public House in the Central West End of downtown St. Louis, MO. It is one of the oldest pubs in St. Louis, opening their doors over 30 years ago. I feel like the atmosphere is a mix of old and new. You can go and get great get a beer pub food, but they also have higher end food as well. Their service is awesome as well. When my teammates and I go over for a few beers and some grub, we are often met by representatives from various beer and whiskey makers. These guys are awesome, often coming from over seas and tell you everything you could ever want to know about their product. Shoot sometimes they even might give you a free taste.
Our next major sponsor, and they are vital to our team, is Mesa Cycles. Without Mesa our team would grind to a halt. Everyone knows that you can find great deals online but the personal connection to the guys at the shop is what I really need. I really like to just go down there and hang from time to time, I hope those guys don't mind. I do like to do my own work on my bike also but there are times that I just don't have the time and those guys often times will go out of their way to get my bike back on the road asap. It is also helpful to the other guys on my team that are not as mechanically inclined as I am.
Then we have Specialized Bicycles. Man talk about a great company to get to work with. When I purchased my new bike last Spring I wanted a Specialized bike really bad, but they didn't have my size in stock, and I needed one in just a couple days. I am going to buy a Specialized Stumpjumper Evo 29er later this year. They only just came out this February, so I'm pretty pumped that I will be getting a very new bike. I have also been wearing Specialized S-Works Carbon shoes for the last season and man are they great. The sole is so much more stiff than my last pair of shoes, but the uppers are nice and supple and really form to the shape of your foot without having to use those oven fitting systems. I have also added one of Specialized's insoles to fit the arches of my foot better. One thing I noticed pretty quick after purchasing these shoes was that it straightened out my legs on my pedal stroke. What I mean by that is that when you look down and see your knee's going up and down, before my knees would make a figure eight like shape going up and down. This is less that optimal. So now I see that my knees go straight up and down, unless I am very tired and going up a very steep hill. Then they do tend to start turning in again. But I was amazed to learn that Specialized had built this shim into their shoes to fix most peoples pedal stroke. Seems like something that would be pretty easy but it took that outside of the box and innovative thinking of the engineers at Specialized to come up with it.
We are also lucky enough to be partnered with companies outside the sport of cycling. First is Quantum Solutions, a systems engineering firm out of Columbia IL. These guys do just about everything from work for Kraft, and Coke, to safety systems on oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico and Pacific Ocean. Then there is The Gateway Group, Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, Computer Trade who recycles computer info, and electronics in an environmentally green manner. St Louis Gym Centre, which is my place of employment and were just nice enough to indulge in my passion outside of the gym.  Foundation Grounds Coffee House, a very hip urban coffee shop. Buttonhole Chamois Cream, best stuff I have ever tried and cleared up most major undercarriage problems that I have had in a couple days.
Last is our team name, 708 Racing comes from 708 Urban Roadwear, a really cool line of clothes targeted at cyclists and hip urbanites.
Without these partners we would not be able to do what we plan on doing this year. They make this all possible and I am going to do everything in my power to make their investment in our team something they feel was well worth the money, time, equipment, and anything else. I am so excited for this year, I just can't wait.