if you’ve hit puberty, you’ll never be a ProTour rider

In a VeloNews interview, Vinokourov said, in reference to Alberto Contador, that “He’s only 27 and until he’s 32-33, he can [be] competitive on the bike because he began racing very late, at 15, so he’s still fresh.”

What a great insight into US cycling versus European cycling. I didn’t even know about bicycle racing when I was 15.

If you’ve read some of my other posts, you know I have a sort of love/hate thing for Vino. Well, that’s not going to end any time soon, because he’s able to, in the same quote, come off as rather intelligent and also prove that he’s still a complete dumbass.

“That’s just an excuse (Bruyneel) used to leave for the other team. He used my name, my image. He had one more year of contract with the team and the Kazakhs had no problem that he could continue.”

Well played. I still don’t understand how breach of contract is so prevalent in professional cycling.

“Why shouldn’t I be able to come back to the team that was in part created for me? Why didn’t Johan want me? I didn’t choose this road, but I never understood why Lance could race at Astana and not me.”

You didn’t choose this road? Seriously? You tripped into a bunch of bloog bags and IVs at the start of your training and then managed to trip back into that same bunch of bloog bags and IVs right before the tour???

This post’s image-stealing style courtesy of Nello.

source

2010
02/06
CATEGORY
Cycling
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a long december

The weather has destroyed my will to ride. Last year, I’d logged well over 100 hours on the bike by this point. This year I’m a few minutes shy of 35. It’s actually working out well, though. I spent a good bit of time talking with Sean, going over last year, identify strengths and weaknesses, developing goals, and applying all this to my training specifically to meet my goals. Instead of as much mediocre training as possible, I’m adopting relatively small amounts of high-quality training. I don’t need to put in a massive base with six plus hour rides; my longest race is four, and even those will be few and far between. I also don’t need to work on my aerobic system too much. Anyone who’s raced a crit with me knows I should probably focus on my anaerobic capacity. I’ve spent several days riding in Wilkesboro, which has been great. I’ve even ridden the trainer a handful of times… which is still more than I’ve ever ridden the trainer in a single season (not counting the hours spent in the Human Performance lab for the Quercetin trials). And races start in January now, with the chance to race twice, three, even four or five times a week from February to September.

I like training, don’t get me wrong, but I love racing. That’s why I do this whole silly bicycle thing. January Nats is tomorrow and will sort of kick things off, followed by NC State, Spring Training series, and then the “classics”: Rouge Roubaix, Blythewood Roubaix, Boone Roubaix, Harris Roubaix, anyone want to go to Battenkill?, take it easy for a week, then lather, rinse, repeat. And the best training for racing is racing, no? One of the best tips I’ve heard in regards to training is this: until you’ve dialed in the perfect training plan for you, take one aspect and do something totally different for a year. Last year was the year of high volume. This will be the year of specificity.

Here goes nothing.

2010
02/06
CATEGORY
Cycling
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shh…

No time to blog today. Mouse hunting.

2010
02/03
CATEGORY
Life
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buythiscar

I’ve noticed lately that car commercials have sort of cornered the market on good indie music in advertising. Especially Lincoln and Cadillac. Weird.

Honorable mention goes to Palm

2010
02/02
CATEGORY
Uncategorized
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Beer Review: Bell’s Expedition Stout

An old beer. And this is good.

Beer: Expedition Stout

Brewery: Bells

Country: USA, Michigan

Style: Stout

ABV: 10.5%




It looks like I took the door of a hundred year barn and cut it in half, but instead of woodgrain in various shades of fade and rot and bug-eaten pockets, this is a beer with a head full of giant bubbles bathed in tinier bubbles, all which seem to fade smoothly from white and light to darker, creamier, all the way down into the beer, until a sharp line divides the two. I poured the beer directly into the glass and the beer settled in, bubbleless. Then, slowly, a small but steady stream of carbonation drifted up to form a huge head. Kind of strange, but cool to watch.

And the first smell? Like opening a leather bound book, pages yellowed, crammed into the back shelf in a used book store. This is a true stout. And while I couldn’t tell at all this was a high gravity beer, rest assured a six pack of Expedition Stout will last you quite a while.

The most surprising thing about this beer isn’t a universal trait, but an olfactory reflection to childhood. After the beer decanted in the glass a bit, I got a strong whiff of… well, of printer’s ink, of paper still hot from a laser printer. I spent most of my life around my Mom’s work, in one way or another, and this beer amazed me; it took me back to the mostly unlikely of places, to a childhood spent in awe at a parent’s office.

2010
01/31
CATEGORY
Beer
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Beer Review: Bell’s Hopslam

I’ve been exploring some really great IPAs and Double IPAs lately. Sean is a big hop head so our regular routine is a solid 3-5 hour ride, lots of food, and then Peabody’s for the beer of the week. Previously, I had the Molayn’s Molaynder Double IPA and thought it was one of the best beers I’ve ever tasted.

Until I had Bell’s Hopslam.

Beer: Hopslam

Brewery: Bells

Country: USA, Michigan

Style: Double IPA

ABV: 10%





Pine resin and pinnaepple rind, a little lavender and pollen. The former as if the brewmaster managed to liquefy a fresh hop still on the vine, the latter more of an aftertaste mouthfeel from the honey in the beer. To use a cliche, Hopslam tastes like hops in a glass. Yet where other beers make the cliche with a bitter, face turning overload, Hopslam is sweet and savory, delicate but fully demanding of my attention. Really, honestly, truly, please try this beer if you can find it, whether you like IPAs or not. It might make you rethink the entire style.

No, really, this is a hoppy beer. A really hoppy beer. And it’s not hoppy like anything else I’ve ever had. The hops alone overwhelm, as if fresh, as if I could buy them at a farmer’s market and they had been picked the day before. You know that commercial where Jim Koch of Sam Adams sticks his whole face into a giant handful of hops? He probably had a Hopslam the night before and, after discovering it is a limited release, ravaged a farm in a fit of depressed rage, trying to recreate the way the hops in this beer overwhelms one’s senses. I know that the purpose of a beer review is to capture the smell, aroma, taste, mouthfeel of a beer, but doing so would be unfair. If you can, try this beer (and please, even though I’ll be accused of snobbery, use an appropriate glass for this one); you won’t be disappointed.

As a final disclaimer, I’d like to point out that this beer is 10% alcohol, but it drinks smoother than PBR. As such, I can assure you I wrote this post while tasting a few and then had to come back and edit my post the next morning. Drinker beware.

2010
01/31
CATEGORY
Beer
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need another reason to hate Ricco?

In response to his girlfriend testing positive in a control for CERA, Riccardo Ricco had this to say:

“When I was found positive, I confessed everything. I was honest. I hope she does the same. People know I don’t like her racing, you can imagine what I think about her taking anything. Cycling isn’t for women, it hurts too much.”

Spoken like a true gentleman.

Does anyone else find it irresponsible that, with the demands professional cycling places on one’s time, energy, and body, Vania Rossi is racing and training – quite obviously at a high level, as she recently finished second in Italy’s cyclocross national championship – with a six month old child?

Source: http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/ricco-denies-involvement-in-his-girlfriends-epo-cera-positive

2010
01/31
CATEGORY
Cycling
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snow day entertainment

The foot or so of snow outside has prevented any sort of bike riding, and there aren’t any good hikes within walking distance of down town, so I’ve had to entertain myself in other ways this weekend.

The most painful thing I saw was a group of skiers and snowboarders who had built a jump on campus that went down a hill, over a sidewalk, and continued down hill to a picnic area. One snowboard dude managed to land with the middle of his board square center on the wall the second half of the jump was built up on, cracking it. Another did the run clean, but after trying to jump onto a picnic table after face-planted onto the only exposed concrete. And the ski dude almost caught the tips of his skis on the same edge of the jump every time.

The funniest thing I saw was a kid who tried to snowboard down the big sledding hill behind the music building. He failed, so in an attempt to look heroic, he decided to steal a wheelbarrow and ride it down. A wheelbarrow with a flat wheel. Needless to say, it didn’t work, but he did manage to roll the thing end over end down the hill at a vain attempt to ride it. The two frat brothers sledding down the hill, running into each other, awkwardly fondling each other at the bottom as they got up, and then high fiving and chest bumping before running back to the top was a close second.

The most fun thing I did involved actually playing a table top game of risk from start to finish and keeping everyone involved actively engaged and entertained. For three hours. Not too bad. In the end, Noah and I allied ourselves against Sam’s Asian empire and Emerson’s strangehold on Europe. I probably should have started my assault on Noah a turn or two earlier instead of focusing on defeating the other two, as it came down to the two of us, and Noah managed to sweep through North America, which I had held all game. If only I had a third card to turn in a set…

The most delicious thing I ate was breakfast. It started out, as every good and proper breakfast does, with coffee and bacon. I took poured the fat rendered off the bacon into a giant skillet and cracked eggs directly in, covered the skillet, and let the bottoms of the eggs fry crispy and brown while the tops steamed light and fluffy. The last step, though, was the best. There was still quite a bit of bacon fat left, so I used it to toast some whole grain bread. Wow. It was kind of like really well buttered toast, but with a more crispy outside and less soggy inside. Oh, and it tasted like bacon.

So it was a pretty good weekend. Too bad I’m now addicted to conquer club and I need a coronary bypass.

2010
01/31
CATEGORY
Food
Life
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What will you be doing January 2013?

I’m not one for planning ahead, but I can say with almost full certainty I’ll be in Louisville, Kentucky, watching Cyclocross Worlds. A. W. E. S. O. M. E.

Cycling News article
VeloNews article

Tim, Noah, Fawley… clear your calendars.

2010
01/29
CATEGORY
Cycling
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Apocalypse Over There

For those that don’t know, my long term career goals include English professor. I intend for my area focus to be modern and postmodern literature with a focus on apocalyptic and distopic literature. Books like Cormac’s The Road and movies like Children of Men show humanity at its most extreme fringes. It allows us to explore hypothetical situations that one might assume would never occur in modern, civilized society. My taking society to its ultimate end, we’re allowed to dissect it as if an autopsy. I’m actually surprised there isn’t more study devoted to this area of literature. And, as an added bonus, the most unique and interesting depictions of the post-apocalyptic future come from video games, where the player is able to interact in and manipulate an end-of-the-world world.

And then Noah and Shaw introduced me to this video series. As a point of reference, I spent most of today working with the TV on in the background, and I went from watching MTV Cribs to this. I’m not one for ultra-bleeding-heart liberal sentimentalities, but it’s staggering to go from viewing ten million dollar homes to the West Coast of Liberia, which represents a world more harsh than even Cormac’s vision. The situation in Liberia is one of the fringe political world that I won’t even try to pretend to understand. And ultimately, it’s not the politics of how Liberia came to its modern state that concern me. What’s fascinating are the skyscrapers, gutted and skeletal, that still stand in even the poorest regions of Liberia, stripped of anything that might hold value. Not the wilderness or tribes or “primitive” Africa, but the Africa that has tried to become industrialized and modernized, failed, and now resembles our imagination of a post-apocalyptic world.

The Vice Guide to Liberia 1 of 8 | VBS Newsroom | VBS.TV

more about “The Vice Guide to Liberia 1 of 8 | VB…“, posted with vodpod

2010
01/25
CATEGORY
Academia
Life
Literature
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