So what are you saying?

Just read an article in The New Yorker about how these scientists are dumbfounded by these medications that back in the nineties had double the effectiveness than they do now. It goes on to say that this phenomenon isn't just happening in medicine but in psychology to ecology. It appears that all the research these great doctors and scientists did was somehow skewed to the favor of the researcher.It talks about how often subjects are proven but then the researcher is unable to attain the same result. To me that should mean that the one outcome was just a fluke and should not be taken as fact. At least that was what I was taught as a child in elementary school. Until something can be proven more often than not isn't it just a hypothesis?

I think that this is not human nature though. For instance take the long standing feud between the Lance lovers (Me) and the Lance haters. No matter how many times the man is shown to be clean people still believe that he is guilty. It has been shown time and time again with test after test that Mr. Armstrong is clean but as it appears people will subconsciously as well as consciously change facts and results to support their hypothesis.
Here is the article, they are pros at writing and research so they can explain it better than I can.
The New Yorker

I just finished reading Joe Parkin's latest book Come & Gone and I would have to say it is much better than his first book Dog in a Hat. This book is a continuation of his career after he comes back from Europe to live in the states again. In the first book it showed how tough his life was as a domestique bike racer living in Belgium. His first book was really just the same story over and over again about how he was never quite fast enough. Was smart enough to stay out of the doping stuff except for one or two instances, and lost all the time. This time around Joe gets involved in the young mountain biking scene in the USA. I would think that as an old European pro Joe would have been able to clean up more in the States than he did. A few times he made mistakes that Cat 5 racers make, like forgetting to eat or drink during a race. It was still a tough life for Joe back in the States though. He never really was able to put together a string of wins that would have attracted a larger team or sponsor. He always seamed to have a big win followed by a few terrible races.

It is interesting reading this book as well as other older pro's blogs like Steve Tilford's blog, and talking to some older (than me) guys who raced as young guys back at that point in time. They all seam to have the same point of view and speak the same way. They are true wanderers of the world; as long as they have their bike they feel at home. It is really quite cool to be that free, to be able to go where the road takes you so to say. I will never be that way, and I am sure that there are those who live that life that may look at how I live with envy as well.

I am riding with a new team member in the morning, his name is Micheal Kittler. He is a Cat 4 racer and knows Kurt. We are going to do an easy 30 or so miles and just get to know each other. I will have to do the ride on my TT bike because my ride is still at Mesa. Probably another 2 weeks before I get that thing back. Can't believe that Sram doesn't have more shifters laying around. I miss my pino.

Lazy Sunday

Didn't do much today. Had a company party last night and I drank A LOT :-). So I was a bit hung over. I have decided that last night was going to be the last time I drink alcohol for a while so that I can work on keeping my weight down. That is going to be really hard because I love beer.
My buddy Mike Rickey got me an awesome cycling jersey for Christmas. He said it was hard to buy because it is a Cubs jersey design and Mike is a big Cardinals fan. Gonna wear the crap out of that thing.

Things are darkest before the light

My racing career in St Louis started with me racing still for a team out of Champaign IL called Wild Card Cycling. It is a great group of mostly older guys who just LOVE to ride. It is headed by a great guy named Karl Crapse, who loves to ride his very cool looking bikes. I believe his goal was to have a very good racing team as well as a place for anyone who wants to ride to go. This group taught me a TON about riding, they took me in and showed me the ropes. They kept my desire high when I was just coming back into being an athlete. It was less than a year after joining this group of guys that I decided to move to the STL. It was a move that I had to make as there was really no advancement for me in Champaign, and no way for me to make more money which I really needed.
When I got to St Louis I looked for a team like the one that I came from. A group of guys willing to let me into their group, teach me what they knew, and race with me. It was much harder than it sounded. Any group that I was going to join I was going to just be "another rider" in a large group of people. I would just be pack fodder. After going on a bunch of rides with guys and paying attention to how people acted I decided I would do my own thing. I called Karl and asked him if he minded if I started a WC chapter down in St Louis. He was very cool with it and so began Wild Card Cycling STL. I brought in a friend of mine from college who pointed me in the direction of a parent and the gym I coach at. He would become one of my best friends and a mentor to me and my cycling "career". Mike Rickey was a great Cat 2 racer back in the mid 90's who quit his racing to start a career in systems engineering and have an awesome family who's 4 kids are btw great gymnasts on my team. I was enamored with the fact that he had a few times been in races with LA. He was my hero :-) I talked Mike into coming back into racing, which wasn't hard, and we started training together.
Mike taught me everything he knew, which was A LOT. He is also very open to new techniques and equipment.We were only a 2 man team but we KICKED ASS, or Mike kicked ass and I did a lot of leading out. Mike would do everything he could to help me do well but I am still just not that good. I was super pumped to do anything I could to help Mike as he had done a ton to help me improve light years over what I had done the season before.
Mike has an old friend that he raced with back in the 90's that had never stopped racing and was a beast. He was also an owner of a cool clothing line and was looking to start his own team. I was pumped to join with another guy like Mike who could teach me even more about racing.
To make a long story that I don't really want to tell short, we had some differences that should have been gone over at the start and we came as close to you can to splitting up as you can come. But I feel that Mike saved the day, helped everyone see the middle ground and NOW I feel like things are getting better everyday. Someone once told me that every friendship has a few bumps before things smooth out and I think that guy was very right. I am very hopeful, excited, and happy about this coming season and my team is going to do some big time damage when it comes time to put the anger into the pedals.

UUUgh I drank diet coke

Ok I think I am finally getting serious about losing some weight. The last time I was this into it I was an elite gymnast at the U of I. Really what I need to do is get through the Holiday without gaining 10 pounds. Last year I had to loose more than 12 pounds just to get back to my competitive weight. If I can keep the weight low it will be much easier for me to get down to my goal of 155. I have not been that light since high school. I feel like if I can get really dedicated about my training and weight this off season that I could have a really good racing season as a Cat 3 this year and maybe keep working my way  up the ladder.
Now I need to cut out the beer and really stop drinking pop all together again. The beer is going  to be really tough. It's not that I drink it all the time or anything like that. I just love the taste and when you are out with people it is REALLY hard to not drink with them. This Saturday is my company holiday party so that is going to be my last drink for some time.I need to come up with an end point though....

Well I need to get some time on the bike trainer today, Got my bike fit the other day and I need to get some time in my new position.

Later.

Spinning classes are HARD

So I went to a spinning class for the first time tonight. I have not been able to ride for a few days because my shifter was broken on Saturday so I was excited to get some bike work in. The gym was in a industrial area in a small building. The room with all the spinning bikes a small and jam packed with spinning bikes. We got there while another class was going on. It was really cool to see all these people churning away on these bikes at the same tempo.

To get warmed up for the class we did a yoga core type workout first that was about 30 - 45 min long. Most of it was okay but there were moments where it got really hard and the woman leading the class talked normally throughout the whole thing like it was nothing to her. Then we got into the spinning room. The bikes are nice because you can set them to fit you unlike bikes that are at normal health gym that have HUGE seats and sit straight up. There was a lot of changing of pace and difficulty during the class. This was not what I thought spinning class was. I thought it was a lot of high paced spinning.I guess that's what happens when you assume something. I could not believe how sweaty I got doing this class. I only brought one bottle of water, and no towel, so I was slipping and sliding all over the handle bars. The woman leading the class was the same from the yoga class before and she was KILLING it! I have seen her racing before but never realized how bad ass she was. Again she was talking like it was no big thing while the rest of us were dying! It was all I could do to reach down and finish that class. I wanted to quit so bad, all I could think about was "this is base season lady, why are we working so hard?!" I think I will be hurting tomorrow.

I think I am going to start working more on my art work again. I really like doing the photoshop stuff I have been doing, and it could be a way for me to make a little extra money for the season.

Mike Rickey's "The Look"

I shift too hard I guess

Did a late night training session last night. I had gone to the gym after work but wanted to get in some light interval work.No one was home and I procrastinated long enough that it was after 9pm before I got the bike set up on my trainer. I put in pirate radio on my protible DVD player, it is a movie about English radio ships of the coast of Great Britain back in the 60's or 70's. These guys would broadcast rock and roll outside the control of any government and it pissed everyone off. It was a pretty good fun watch.

The intervals I was doing were some quick spin ups and single leg work.The interval sets would only take about 30 min and noting over 200 watts really. I was just about to start my single leg intervals on my last set and I went to shift up a few gears into my 19 or so and CRACK, the shifter lever just kept going and all of a sudden my chain dropped down to the 12.

The funny thing about it was I just read an article about how Force and Rival shifters were breaking and how SRAM's claim that their products are all the same was shown to not be true. The Force and Rival shifters had a different shifting mechanism and were made with a lot more plastic. Here is the article and it can explain better what is going on.

The big bummer for me is that, of course the bike shop will be closed and I have to take a day off from riding. I am hoping that Mesa will have some in stock for me when I go on Monday morning. What I am REALLY hoping for is that they will let me warranty the part and then pay an upgrade charge or something and get the RED level shifter. I will just keep my fingers crossed.

I hate the winter

I used to love the winter when I was a kid. The snow was so fun and I did not mind the cold at all. I just figured that I could throw more clothes on and I would be good to go. I guess it was because I was always too hot as a kid, my parents would put me in too many clothes or something. Now it's different though. I lived for a few years barely being able to pay for my heating bill. My wife was going threw school and my job didn't pay well enough for us both to live on. Never feeling warm for 5 months at a time for 3 to 4 years was just too much. Now things are a millions times better but I still hate the cold. What passionate cyclist wouldn't? I know that there are guys that excel at cold rainy races but no one enjoys training in the cold, or rain. All I want to do is ride my bike but going out when it is under 20F is just crazy. So I am banashed to the deep dark depths that I know as the dungeon. I own a little 5' x 8' storage locker in the basement of my building that I set up my bike and trainer and go to town. I have it rigged up as good as it can get though. I have my little protable DVD player, a radio, plenty of light, some cool cycling photos and art. It is my little tiny man cave. Being able to watch movies or race DVD's does make the time go by a little faster but really it is still mind numbingly boring. It is the only way to improve for next year though unless I could travel to the warm places of the earth and train while staying at some 5 star resort.....we can all dream.

Maybe if there was something to do around here when it snows it might be more fun, like sking or snowboarding. There isn't even a really good sledding hill around that I know of. I guess I shouldn't complain too much though as this Fall was the best Fall in a few years. Almost no rain and plenty of time to ride.

Just please let it be over soon.