Shout Out to The Chainlink

I wanted to take a quick second and do a shout-out to a great site called The Chainlink. You may have seen it under Stuff to Surf on the right side, and if you haven't checked it out yet, you should. It was started by a girl in my spinning classes named Leah, and it's a pretty great thing for the Chicago cycling community. It's an online community dedicated to Chicago cycling - a one-stop place for all the rides and routes in the area, and it lets cyclists connect with each other. Let's face it, if you're not plugged into the scene, it's kind of hard to meet other cyclists who ride like you do. This helps connect cyclists in the city and gets them out on their bike! Check it out, sign up and leave me a comment - here's my page: http://www.thechainlink.org/profile/Velogoddess

'Double' Single Bong Short Recap and Other Stuff

Don't ask.

UPDATED 4/30

As has been the pattern of late, Sunday morning in Wisconsin greeted us with pissing rain, blustery wind and temps around 40 for the Single Bong 20K time trial. In a moment of weakness I 'd signed up to race in two categories: Women Open and Women 30+. Last weekend's Cherry Valley TT was made much more tolerable with a dry area to warm up - no such thing at the Bong - so with lots of embrocation on my legs and an 'okay' warm up I somehow managed to put up the best women's time on the day. I'm not talking about the second one...it was BAD!! I haven't seen full final results posted anywhere yet so I can't really provide a full team recap though several of the guys also showed up for the fun and as far as I know, all did reasonably well. Mike won his age group with a really good time though I don't know how his P1/2 ride ended up - the dude's a monster. UPDATE: Final results are posted here. As you can see, PACT/DishNetwork had a great team day. Well done, guys!

While racing was fun, I also went to see the Circus Cats of Chicago on Saturday afternoon. I swear - it was the best, most entertaining $12 I've spent in a long time! These kitties make my two cats look like real schleps! I managed to snap a few photos and will post them later, after I do a Blackberry-to-laptop sync. They've got a few more shows scheduled at Bucktown's Gorilla Tango Theater - 60min of quality entertainment not to be missed!

I just finished 'Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation' by Joseph J. Ellis - it was an excellent read about the relationships, politics, ideologies, and personalities of George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe, and Alexander Hamilton, among others. I just started 'The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo' by Stieg Larsson.

OH!! And how about the Blackhawks?! Kick ass!! The Bulls too, of course but I'm much more of a hockey fan than any kind of basketball fan (though I do like college basketball).

Coming up - another double TT day on Saturday and maybe a criterium on Sunday. Also - I'll be teaming up with US Masters National champ Leigh Thompson for a two-person 40K TT coming up in a couple weeks. I'm very excited about the chance to throw down with Leigh - she's a fantastic time trialist and a very cool person.

I have to send congratulations out to my client Tim Glinski who road tripped to Florida for the St. Anthony's Triathlon. This is only Tim's second season in the sport and he finished a very respectable 14th in his age group which qualifies him to compete at Nationals this year. Awesome job, Tim!!

Cherry Valley 30K TT Recap

Even though he's changed teams, moved up an age group and come back from a killer wreck, he's still MetLifeGuy. And still damn fast. photo: B. Cassidy

By this time in 2008 I'd already raced several times but everything I'd planned to do in early April was canceled so the Cherry Valley 30K was my first event for the 2009 season. The weather did not disappoint - it rained pretty much the entire day and the wind was definitely a factor in the misery and dampness. A huge thank you has to go out to the ABR organizing crew and Team RVO for making the event happen - they marshaled the corners, managed registration, and made sure the course was safe for everyone.

The morning started pretty early after a night of insomnia. MetLifeGuy retrieved me at dark-o'clock - he had an early start time for the first of his two tt's. I was warming up when he came back to the car after finishing the first one and got a pretty good idea of what was in store for me - serious shivering and frozen coldness. Fortunately we snagged some sheltered area for warm up - it made for a much better pre-race routine. The course in Cherry Valley is out-and-back and pretty much flat with a couple turns, some chip-and-seal pavement and a set of railroad tracks to cross twice. It's especially nice when the pavement is dry...

I had a good warm-up but wasn't feeling any of my usual pre-race nervousness and anxiety. My attitude was more like, "just get it over with" when I headed out at 11:01. I didn't really ease into any sort of rhythm until i was 2/3 of the way finished and was generally uncomfortable most of the time, probably because it was difficult to see through my fogged eyewear and I felt like I was fighting to keep my bike going straight through the wind. About the bike - it was my first race on the Cervelo and I LOVE IT!! I still might need to do a bit of dialing in on my position but the ride is sweeeeeet!

We headed out before seeing all the results because I was frozen (my lips were blue!) and didn't feel like hanging around. Based on what we saw posted, Mike won his age group and had a high finish in the P1/2. Some other PACT/Dishnetwork teammates were also there and did well - I'll update this post when the final results are posted. At the moment I don't know what my result was - I only know that based on what my power meter file shows my time was faster than what was the fastest women's time on the day when we left. It is entirely possible that the official timing is different - we'll see...

It was good to see and catch up with Mike Wakeley - he's riding my old Blue TT bike and has pimped it out quite nicely with Red and a set of Zipps. He's a strong cyclocross racer, an ace mechanic and a really great guy - not to mention an aspiring time trialist. Mike, I hope to see you often on the TT circuit this season - be sure to bring your biceps!

Up next, the Single Bong 20K in Wisco on Sunday. I'm planning to do two races which makes it a 'double single bong.' Or something. As of right now the weather will be dry and warm - a very welcome change. I'll take some pictures next time - I totally forgot to bust out the camera in Cherry Valley. Here's a link to some YouTube video from the day.

UPDATE: Final results have been posted and can be found here. PACT/Dish Network had a great showing on an unpleasant day. Nicely done, gentlemen.

The Replacement, Tunes and Hostility

After busting my Zipp 404 a couple weekends ago, Lou rebuilt my wireless Power Tap hub into an Edge 68mm carbon clincher wheel. Because the weather continues to *suck* I haven't had a chance to ride it yet - hopefully this week, after the snow and residual slop have vanished. You know it's bad when the White Sox postpone the season's home opener due to the possibility of snow. I love baseball but it just doesn't feel anything at all like baseball season yet - that means I should be able to snag some cheap tickets before things warm up too much!

Tuesday's playlist (very random!!):
What It's Like - Everlast
My Sacrifice - Creed
Rich Woman - Robert Plant and Allison Krause
Lithium - Nirvana
Good Times, Bad Times - Led Zeppelin
Plush - Stone Temple Pilots
The Hardest Button to Button - The White Stripes
Communication Breakdown - Led Zeppelin
Famous - Puddle of Mudd
I Don't Know - Ozzy Osbourne
That's the Way - Led Zeppelin

In class lately we've been talking about the fact that there's tons of angry, hostile, pissed-off people in the world right now. Seems to me that it tends to carry over especially into people's driving - I've been a party to numerous displays of aggressive, selfish impatience while talking on the phone of late and it just seems to keep getting worse. For a lot of the people who attend class those 60min are sometimes the best part of their day - so we've been using that environment to sort of 'release' and let go of all the anger and hostility in a positive and productive way. It seems to be working - when I have someone say to me, 'I work for AIG and this class is the one thing that has been getting me through the day lately' it speaks volumes about how powerful and positive the whole 'submit' philosophy can be. We can't make angry, anxious people nicer or more patient but we can indeed change how we react to them and their negativity - if only for 60min a few times a week.

OK, now I'm done being philosophical.

This past weekend was lame - the time trial I was scheduled to do on Sunday was cancelled due to poor weather conditions. It ended up not being terribly hateful and we actually managed to get in a decent ride (though we did encounter a little sleet along the way). Seriously, the race should not have been rescheduled - the weather sucked but I've raced and trained in worse. There was also a road race on Saturday that I tend to not do for a lot of reasons, the least of which is the fact that it's a 4hr drive each way for two hours of racing on bad pavement in killer winds. Heck, I can do that without driving anywhere! I'm not too bummed about missing out - there is plenty of good racing to be done in better weather soon enough.

What I'm reading, 'The Soloist' by Steve Lopez - an interesting firsthand account of an LA Times columnist's relationship with a Juilliard-trained homeless paranoid schizophrenic bassist/cellist/violinist. It's a true story and a compelling read so far.

Whoa

I just snagged this pic off VeloNews - it's the German team sprint team from track worlds.

One word: whoa.