Up In the Attic

Home Movies

2008-12-08T13:33:00.002-05:00

I have no news about exercising or working on cars or anything like that, so I thought I'd post a couple of videos featuring Clare for the one or two of you out there who still read this blog.

This shape-spitting video was from when she was around six months old. It was apparently a one-time-only performance. I've tried to repeat the hilarity but now Clare makes it clear she's seen that trick before and it's really not as funny in repeats.

About a month later, I grabbed the camera and was lucky to catch Clare showing off her amazing grip strength. I sure wish I knew what was going through her head while she was squeezing the bejebus out of that ball.

I'm in the worst shape physically of my life but I'm enjoying hangin' with my girl.

I RODE MY BIKE!

2008-08-21T13:16:00.002-04:00

Stop the presses! I actually threw a leg over my bicycle and went for a ride last night with the club. It was a fairly flat course with the first real hill coming around the ten mile mark, so it was a perfect opportunity to feel the speed of the peloton for a nice reminder of what it means to ride bikes. I sat in as best I could and chatted with some folks. Every little rise and surge sent familiar ripples of fire through my thighs. I made it about eight miles before I was shelled off the back. I joined another recently-new dad and we took the shortcut, talked about how babies suck the fitness out of their parents, and enjoyed a nice spin in the chilly air back to the start.

It was nineteen miles in all, which brings my year's total up to about 55. Normally, I'd be coming in on about 2500 this time of year, so I'm not surprised that my legs were burning a bit.

The first post-partum bike ride is in the books, and I hope it marks the beginning of the slow road back to feeling good in my own skin.

Cha cha cha changes!

2008-06-06T12:07:00.002-04:00

I've been off the blog for quite a while now, but with good reason. Clare arrived April 21st at 3:21 in the morning, and oddly enough, I haven't made blogging a priority. That isn't likely to change anytime soon, but I thought I'd do the proud papa thing and at least get her picture posted out here. Wow, what a ride this is!

New Year's Rockin' Eve

2008-01-04T13:15:00.000-05:00

Do we know how to party, or what? New Year's Eve rolled in and we had a great time planned. Friends had invited us to their house, but Sue was coming down with a cold and sinus headaches (not to mention muscle stress from her growing baby oven), I was tired from working much of the weekend to fix a failed disk controller, and we were both shot from the week of non-stop holiday merriment that came around Christmas.

We did dinner and a movie. In our house. We opted for "Carrington", a positively awful World War I era flick that Sue put in our Netflix queue about an intellectual gay author and his quasi-lesbian artist girlfriend who spend the entire movie in love triangles, rectangles, and pentagons with other men, women, and people who could easily pass for either one - only sub-titles could have made this movie worse. I lamented about how the actor playing the gay author had previously played a villian in Ronin, a De Niro movie with some of the best car chases ever put to film, and how we could be watching that instead. I passed the time by downing a bottle of Mackeson's XXX milk stout from Galeville Grocery in Liverpool and thumbing through the latest National Geographic magazine (whacky dinosaurs - were the thick spikes on the back used for protection or sexual display?), most of which I'd already read during previous morning trips to the hopper. We got through a little over an hour of the movie, then neither of us could stand it any longer, so we switched the TV over to one of the Law and Order channels and watched an episode we've already seen three or four times - you know, the one with the Afghanni drug lord diplomat whose Indian dealer orders a hit on three dealers who ripped him off and three prep-school girls get killed and a fourth gets put in intensive care. As usual, Sue didn't recognize the episode until we were 15 minutes into it and by then it was too late to change to watch something else. With about 20 minutes to go, she fell asleep and I switched over to the last half of Star Trek 8: First Contact that I'd caught on tape from the Sci-Fi channel earlier in the week. We were in bed and asleep just after 10:00. A New Year's Rockin' Eve indeed!

We spent most of New Year's Day cleaning and reorganizing the two closets in our office (my idea). I did manage to squeeze in time enough to pull off the front wheel on Sue's car to diagnose a clunking ball joint whose seal had broken. In the evening, we watched about 20 more minutes of Carrington, but then gave up for good and I mailed it back yesterday morning.

'Twas surely a raucous time welcoming 2008.

Audi S4 DIY Oil Catch Can

2007-10-24T11:33:00.000-04:00

I recently finished a DIY oil catch can install on the S. An oil catch can is designed to collect the oil from the vapors put out from the crankcase. In the old days, that vapor was vented to the atmosphere. In these greener modern times, the gases are recycled into the intake manifold and burned, or put into the air intake in turbo cars when they're on boost. Some of the oil precipitates out and over time can foul the intercoolers and make the engine burn less cleanly.

The design I used is based on one from here which was put into a turbo Volvo. I didn't include the snazzy clear hose for indicating how full the bottle is because I gave up trying to find clear hose with temperature ratings I wanted. I also didn't include a drain valve because it'd be a bear to reach where I mounted the can. Instead, I'll just periodically check it by taking the top off the can and sucking out oil with a small hose if I need to. While I had the Y-pipe out, I sanded it and painted it to clean it up a bit.

Earlier this year, with about 85K on the car, I put in the AWE intercoolers, along with some other upgrades, and discovered one to two tablespoons worth of oil in the driver side IC hoses and in the IC itself. I started looking at catch can installations to keep the new ICs clean, clean up the Y-pipe, and to help the engine burn cleaner internally.

Here's the bay before the OCC install. Note the bolt in the back I used to secure the OCC. I removed the bolt, drilled a hole in the middle of a large hose clamp, then mounted the clamp with the bolt.

The supplies I picked up included an aluminum camping fuel bottle for the can, an updated PCV "spider hose" from the Audi dealer, a couple stainless steel pot scrubbers from a restaurant supply shop, lengths of oil-resistant PCV hose to match the inner diameter of the pressure limiting valve and the hose section to the intake manifold, plus a couple brass hose barbs, an elbow, t-coupler, and a bunch of hose clamps. I certainly could have done this on the cheap with my old spider hose, but I wanted to take my time putting it together and drive the car while I was doing it, plus I figured it'd be good to start with nice clean new hoses and valves.

In the following picture, I've already removed the section of spider hose that goes to the IM and includes the check valve and capped off the output from the distributor piece. The picture also shows the spider hose barb that goes to the N75 capped, but I later decided to uncap that and hook it up normally to the N75 since the old N75 hose was pretty clean. It appears most oil doesn't precipitate out until later along in the spider hose. The N75 is a solenoid that controls parts of the turbos and apparently you can vent the sensor to the atmosphere, but I'm pretty paranoid so I hooked it back up like it's supposed to be.

I drilled two holes in the bottle. One about midway up for the dirty side, and one near the top for the clean side. I inserted the barbs and secured them with JB Weld, then painted the bottle black with some high-temp clearcoat. I stuffed one of the stainless steel scrubbers into the bottle to act as baffle material between the two barbs. Air flows very well through the scrubbers, and hopefully all that surface area will help the oil precipitate out of the gases into the can.

Getting the old spider hose out was a pain. The rest was easy, but tedious. The lower bottle barb needed to be connected to the output of the spider hose distributor piece that would normally go to the pressure limiting valve on the Y-pipe. The bend was too sharp for the rubber PCV hose causing a kink, so I put in a brass elbow midway. Out from the top barb, the hose leads to the pressure limiting valve on the Y-pipe, with a T-connector and hose heading down to the intake manifold hose with the check valve. After I took this picture, I had to cut a little off the topmost hose segment between the bottle and the T, then had to move the rest of the hose underneath the boost gauge line to get it to line up with the barb on the pressure limiting valve.

A little hose shortening and rearranging plus putting the painted Y-pipe back in and attaching the valve came out like these pics showing the finished product.

I don't know if this setup will help as well as the commercial OCCs, but it was a fun project and at least I'm pretty sure it won't hurt anything. I only have a couple hundred miles on it so far, so I anticipate it'll be a while before I see any results.

Hibiscus Red on Black

2007-09-13T10:01:00.001-04:00

Just a quick beauty shot after some detailing...

Sprockids 2007

2007-08-28T16:27:00.000-04:00

We're wrapping up another great year with the Sprockids program that my wife started with two other guys, what, five years ago now? Wow. How time flies. We take forty kids into the woods twice a week on their mountain bikes and we talk about rules of the trail, respecting nature and each other, and techniques for riding well.

We capped off the season this year with a two-night campout at a camp center nearby with some of the most technically difficult riding around. Our kids range from 10 to 15 years old, and it's great to see them, many of whom were afraid or unable to ride over a three-inch stick on the ground, now clearing two-foot high A-frames over massive logs in the middle of a slippery rock garden.

Many of the kids absolutely love the program and thrive in it much more than they do in the organized sports in school. I think about my childhood playing Little League baseball and other team sports. While an outstanding play might give a kid a temporary sense of accomplishment, I found that usually they're an opportunity for failure. A single missed ball or strike out or fumble at the wrong moment can bring the whole team down on you. In the mountain biking program, we foster a team environment in the sense that everyone encourages everyone else, and the bigger kids help spot the younger ones over obstacles. However, it remains a very personal sport. Each obstacle is a personal challenge and an opportunity to get real satisfaction and a sense of accomplishment by overcoming it. And if the obstacle remains insurmountable for the time being, there is a whole team of people saying, "That's okay, you'll get it next time" and truly meaning it because the failure didn't just cost the team a win. Watching the kids' faces light up when they tackle a scary feature on the trail and finally clean it after trying a few times is a huge reward to the adult volunteers. When the parents come to pick up their kids, we get many thanks, and I always get the feeling like they're a little bewildered about exactly what it is that we do on our bikes in the woods that lights their kids up so much. Very few kids go away not wanting to spend more time on their bikes right away.

Ride on!

Not Cycling Good for the Lungs?

2007-08-27T14:39:00.000-04:00

Ah, the "Great New York State Fair" is on!

It has rickety rides, game hawkers hoarse from cigarette smoke, and loads and loads of the same cheap junk to buy every year. At the beginning of August every year, someone asks, "You going to the fair this year?" and I reply with "No. It's the same junk every year."

And then somehow I always end up there.

This year my dad announced he would be driving up to go to the fair during senior citizen day (a.k.a. motorized scooter day). Senior citizens get in free, and if you go on this day, you have to have eyes in the back of your head to avoid getting your heels clipped by excited grannies on scooters. I decided to pop in for the morning to keep him company and put in some "guy" time.

We made a circuit of the "Center of Progress" building as soon as it opened. Every stupid TV infomercial is represented. Mops, slicers, glass cleaner, shower heads, cheap jewelry - you name it - is on sale. People cram into this place shoulder to shoulder.

A local radio station is running a mullet count. They're sitting at the fair and keeping a running tally of how many mullets walk past. A lot, I'm sure. The number of huge women in leather halter tops and pink spandex shorts is disturbingly high as well.

Anyway, I think of the state fair as my annual free asthma exam. There's always a booth in the "Feats of Strength" building - probably not the real name - where they do spirometer lung function tests. I actually discovered I had asthma many years ago at that very booth.

I started on a new medication about a month ago, so I was interested to see how well I could do now, but since I haven't been riding much, I thought maybe my results wouldn't be that strong.

I blew great numbers!

My total volume was 6.08 liters, 116% average. My peak flow was 10.25 L/s, 104% average. Even my lower lung numbers which usually stink were up at 67% average. My previous high had been only in the 40% range.

So either the new medication is working, or else by not riding, I'm not breathing in as many allergen triggers. Or maybe some of both. In any case, my lungs are looking pretty average - and that's a good thing. The bad part is this lessens my list of excuses for being slow.

Welcome to Stage Two

2007-08-24T12:56:00.000-04:00

Ain't software great? You just fiddle a bit with the programming on the car's computer and voila, the 250 stock horsepower and 280 ft/lbs torque is replaced by 318 horsepower with about 382 ft/lbs peak torque. Welcome to "APR Stage 2"!

Whoa ho ho ho ho!

The boost gauge needle no longer stops around 8psi, but proceeds on up to about 15. And that little speedometer needle swings to the right really quickly. The redline in first gear comes in a big hurry. You blink a couple times and you're over the state speed limit. Schweet. The APR 1.0 bar software really does feel stock smooth, except with far more urgency and authority.

I have trouble imagining what "stage 3" is like on these cars. That means bigger turbos and new air/fuel parts to produce horsies around 450 and torque nearing 500 ft/lbs. On the other hand, if I budget well (or if my stock turbos blow), maybe I'll get there someday. For now, the big upgrades are complete, and I'll be looking for future holiday sales on suspension and big brake kits.

Canal Classic Race Report

2007-08-13T15:29:00.001-04:00

It's been a while since I've done any real efforts on the bike. I went to the Little Falls Canal Classic race with one big goal in mind: don't get gapped on the first hill right out of town at the beginning of the race.

I did not make that goal. But I did have a lot of fun. When you're not in the lead group, you hope to settle into another group and have a mini-race with the guys around you. Forget those strong guys up the road. Once the groups on the road have been decided, then it's time to pull out the experience card and have some fun sticking the knife into whomever is left behind with you.

I went to the race with my friend Bill. It's safe to say neither of us are in the shape of our lives right now. We lined up midpack at the starting line. The race director announced that, as usual, the leading police car would lead us through town in front of all the spectators at a neutral pace of 10 to 12 miles per hour, then pull off near the top of the hill going out of town. The race would really begin there. Of course, those of us who've done this race ten or twelve times like Bill and me, knew that there's no such thing as a neutral pace, and it's darn near impossible for police officers to drive their cars under 25mph.

The siren went off and we started. I quickly made my way to the front as we wound through town. Down mainstreet, we took the right to start the climb and Bill appeared right next to me. The police car was going just shy of 20mph and my watt meter already read 385 W. Ouchie. I pulled to the right and tried to set a tempo I could maintain for the entire hill. People were rocketing past me. Every third person said, "Come on, Tim!" "Keep it up, Tim!" "You can do it, Tim!" The encouragement was nice, but it made the suffering just a little worse knowing that so many people recognized me as they went past.

By the top of the hill, a big group of about 35 riders was coming together at the front, and leaving me behind rapidly. To have any hope of catching them, I needed them to start dogging it on the rollers and I needed reinforcements fast. I could see Bill about 100 meters back in a small group so I sat up a bit, getting ready to chase hard. I settled into a group of about six. A couple guys had obviously cracked wide open on the climb and weren't able to push hard yet, and another older guy quickly earned the nickname "Surgie" due to his paceline technique. We'd start a rotating paceline and he'd suddenly come shooting by on the left. About thirty seconds later, we'd catch him. I said, "There's no reason to surge ahead like that and break up the paceline. Let's work together." to which he responded "Yeah!" in a tone that made me think that he thought that was what he was doing already. Huh? Okay, whatever.

The main group disappeared quickly over the rollers and with another medium grinder before the main four mile climb, I knew they were long gone. Our paceline was erratic with differences in ability, experience, attitude, you name it. We surged and sputtered down the road. I looked at Bill and smiled. "Well, we're in our own special little hell here for the next 25 miles."

We hit the next climb a couple miles later. Bill was suffering with stomach cramps in the intense heat of the day, and our little group was splitting, with another group coming up on us from behind. With about 100 riders on the course behind us, we were guaranteed to end up riding with someone. I eased off just a little to try to help pace Bill. We crested the climb and hit a few rollers followed by a long descent toward the base of the big hill. The climbs hurt, but I was feeling okay on the rollers. I was already thinking about the finishing sprint. When you're sprinting for 40th place or so, you need little victories.

On the downhill, I tucked into my ancient Scott rake bars and rocketed down the hill with Bill on my wheel. As the grade leveled out, I realized that I'd put a few seconds into the group just coasting down the hill. Sigh. I sat up and pedaled easily waiting for them. We took the right hand turn and onto the lower slope of the big climb. There's a steepish section for about a mile near the beginning, but then it tips down to a more easy grade for the last three miles. Bill's stomach was still holding him back a bit on the steep section and I stayed with him, but we kept the guys up the road in sight. A group of about ten was closing in on us. As the grade eased a bit, Bill pulled past and started setting pace. My watt meter jumped and as my heart rate popped back up to redline, I said, "Well, you're feeling better!" We traded back and forth a bit as we both alternated between feeling better and suffering miserably. Another mile up the hill, we'd were on the tail of the group we'd dropped out of, and the following group was nowhere to be seen anymore.

With plenty of rollers and fast sections after the main climb, there's little reason to try to leave a group behind unless there's another group to bridge up to, so we rode out the rest of the climb with about six guys. There was one obviously very young guy who kept leaping ahead half a kilometer, then blowing hard and coming right back. That was entertaining to watch. Another young guy kept hand signaling before pulling off the front of the paceline. I suggested that he could just make a quick glance to make sure no one was next to him before pulling off instead of making a signal. Another rider in the group played the role of the local tour guide. There's always some local guy who knows every darn crack in the pavement, upcoming turn, and nice view and likes to help out by pointing them out. We passed a rider or two who had been blown from the leading packs and couldn't or didn't want to sit in with us. I got into full glasscrank mode, and put in just enough efforts at the front to keep the pace up and people happy, but I had no interest in hurting myself.

At one point, one fellow pulled off the front and as I rotated past, he asked, "Do you think you can you maintain 22?" We'd already been going a little faster than that on the flats, so it seemed like an odd question. I paused briefly and replied, "Sure. Except on the uphills and downhills."

I thoroughly enjoyed the rest of the race. I had fun watching the guys around me waste energy. There's a quick chicane with about 200m to go to the line, and I usually like to be first through those turns. I can usually take them faster than others seem to be willing to do, it sometimes gives me a good gap going into the sprint, and it's safer than being behind someone. I asked Bill, "You know what I like to do at the end, right?" He nodded.

With about ten miles to go, there were some sharp little steeps and over the top, three guys had gotten a couple hundred meters on us. I wanted to close the gap before we hit any significant downhills where they might pull away. After I checked to see if Bill was on my wheel and ready, I cranked it up and made the bridge. We'd gapped the others, but they made it up eventually.

The young kid who'd surged earlier went ahead a few hundred meters, but had blown so hard that as we coasted past on the next long downhill, we dropped him for good. It felt strange dropping someone that quickly on a straight downhill.

With about three miles to go, a slight grade uphill caused another split. Bill was on my wheel, and I was following two guys. Three or four were up the road. This was looking more serious. I felt like I could bridge to them, but I wanted the two guys in front of me to work hard first. The leading guy was wearing a pretty nice kit, and I suspected he was glass cranking. We were not closing the gap. He pulled off finally, and "Mr. 22mph" took over. We inched closer. About two miles to go. We were coming up on a little shop we always notice that has signs that read "BICYCLE REPAIR. ADULT PRODUCTS." Seriously. What more do you need? That landmark meant the finish was coming very soon.

The guys up ahead were obviously working pretty hard. We needed to get up to them now. The finish was too close. Our leader finally pulled off and I stepped on the gas. I bridged the gap with only Bill on my wheel. It hurt more than I wanted it to. We only had about a mile and a half left for me to recover. Right after we bridged, an older guy in front of me yelled to the rider leading the pace, "The finish is coming, go hard now!" They weren't wearing the same jersey, so I was surprised when the guy obeyed and upped the pace. He pulled off, cooked. A very young guy launched on the right side, but the older guy leading me was happy to chase. He closed the gap with about a third of a mile to go, and kept going. I glanced back to see Bill tucked in on my wheel. The chicane came into view and I stomped on it, passing on the left. I leaned over hard to the right, then back to the left. My legs were threatening to seize up entirely, so I sat and took a few fast pedal strokes as hard as I could. I felt like I'd gotten a gap through the corner so I looked back. Bill was about twenty feet off my wheel, and the rest were sprinting but not gaining too quickly about thirty or forty feet behind him. I was safe, and as long as Bill kept his speed up, he'd be fine too. He came up alongside me as we crossed the line. I was pretty sure he'd nipped me by a tire's width but the electronic timing reported I was .003 seconds faster.

In the end, we had a hard workout, and had fun winning our mini-race against others around us. We took the glorious positions of 41st and 42nd overall. I enjoyed listening to and telling the usual post-race stories, catching up with people, sucking down free soda, and applauding as the trophies were handed out. Indeed, it's been a while.

One Removed, Two More On

2007-08-10T16:23:00.000-04:00

I removed the first official "mod" I had made on the S4, but added two others. Last fall, my first departure from stock was to replace the OEM dry air filter with a high-flow oiled K&N lifetime filter. The K&N, you see, doesn't have to be replaced. You just periodically remove it, wash it off, add a little oil, and then put it back in. All of the Audi tuners sell these things.

So there I am last week, surfing through Audiworld.com posts and don't I run across someone with a MAF problem. The mass airflow sensor is a delicate little electronic fiddlybit that sits in the airstream just downwind of the air box with the filter in it. The MAF costs something like $300 to replace.

Anyway, this guy posts saying that his MAF is acting up, and the first couple immediate responses are, "Did you put in a K&N filter? The oil from those fouls the MAF sensor."

Oh, goody. As I read it, I could feel the hot rush of adrenaline and paranoia creeping up my neck. I searched the Audi forum for K&N and found many cases of people ruining their MAF sensors by using K&N. Granted, most were probably from them over-oiling the filter, but why take a chance? I immediately ordered an OEM dry filter (which has plenty of flow by the way) and installed it when it arrived two days later. I gently wiped off the screen over the entry to the MAF sensor, and it did indeed have a fine coating of black junk on it. Fortunately, my S4 is the "2001.5" model year which has a Hitachi MAF sensor which seem to be much more robust than the earlier Bosch sensors.

I also swapped in a new cabin filter which I've never done before. Very easy.

Though I removed that first modification, I've added two more. She's now outfitted with a Twin2 cat-back exhaust and a drivetrain stabilizer, both from AWE. The exhaust is high flow with a nice low rumble at low RPMs, and without any harsh notes when you step on the gas. Plus, it's simply gorgeous polished stainless steel. The drivetrain stabilizer was crazy easy to install. You support the transmission with a jack, remove a couple mounting plates, then bolt the bar on. It uses stock bolts on the ends and in the middle bolts right into unused bosses on the stock transmission. The tranny in Audis and VWs is apparently known for being sloppy and this bar makes a big difference. Shifting and response is much more crisp, and the common "clunk" sound between low gear shifts is gone.

All in all, the exhaust plus DTS installation took me six hours, with a good hour and quarter of that spent just getting the car high enough on the jack stands and getting it back down. You can't raise one corner of the car all the way at once, so it's a matter of going up or down a notch or two on the stand, then repeating for each corner over and over until there's enough room to work. Very time consuming and quite a workout hauling the hydraulic jack around and around. It isn't light. The time spent also included lunch and two runs to the hardware store for a couple sockets and a thread tap.

I was pleased with how the underside of the car looked. The rear section of the transmission is rusty, but that's just about it. There were a few tiny spots on some of the suspension members and a couple other support bars, but I'm going to be hitting everything with some Rust Bullet and 3M Rubber Undercoating Spray before winter, so I'm not worried about them.

My next project I believe will be replacing the spider hose which is surely pretty well jammed up with oil by now. See the picture for an easy explanation of why they call it a spider hose. I'll polish and paint the Y-pipe and I'll splice a catch-can into the crankcase breather system to keep oil out of the intake (and turbos and intercoolers). I've been reading my Audi 2.7T engine study guide, browsing projects on Audiworld, and making plans. I used to enjoy upgrading my bike, but I ran out of parts to upgrade. There's way more stuff on a car to learn about and fiddle with. Woo hoo!

Six Degrees of Borat

2007-08-06T14:59:00.000-04:00

I had another brush with fame this weekend. I found out that a fellow cyclist from the area was in the same tour group as the guy who wore the Borat costume and yellow-green "over the shoulder thong" (?) at the Tour de France this year. In addition to being a fast runner as is obvious in the video, he's reportedly also very strong on the bike.

Worn-out Balls

2007-07-30T13:27:00.000-04:00

We picked up the old truck from the shop on Friday. It went in for a few minor things and the suspicion of something major, and indeed, came back to us with new belts, new oil and filter, two sets of upper and lower ball joints, new tie rod ends, a new tire, and an alignment. Ouch. I do have to say though, it does drive about $1100 better than it did before. No more hopping around in random directions, clunking on turns, and squealing in cool weather. Hopefully, it has many more mulch and stone loads to haul, trail maintenance trips to take into the woods, and commutes on salty roads to make.

He's Back

2007-07-26T12:03:00.001-04:00

My friend Rocky returned last evening for some fun. Sue and I were just wrapping up an episode on the Law and Order channel and were thinking about heading off to bed when I heard a skittering noise to my right. I looked to see nothing. A few seconds later, something caught my eye to the left. I turned to see another flying squirrel running along the top of the other couch.

While I have a primal fear of bats for some reason and become incapacitated when they're flying around my head, I'm better at handling flying squirrels. It's probably because they're so darn cute. We launched into action.

"Do we have a net of any sort?" Nope. "How about using the blanket as a net?" "Oh, how about a box from the basement?"

We pulled the doors to the parlor closed to at least contain him to one room and I went and grabbed a box and a garbage bag. I realized quickly that the garbage bag would be pretty useless but I was grasping for ideas. Our best plan was to shoo him into the box and then quickly close it up. In hindsight, I realize we were not considering the fact that a flying squirrel's reflexes are roughly 8x10^9 times faster than ours.

Sue grabbed a broom and the dust mop to serve as pokers and we went to work. We got him pinned in one corner and Sue held the box down with the open end towards Rocky as I shooed him in that direction. Just as it looked like he was going to run into the box, he launched straight up in the air, over the open end and directly towards Sue's face. I've never heard her scream like that before. Imagine the squirrel's experience. Two massive beasts a thousand times bigger than you chase you around while one screams bloody murder and the other laughs uproariously. Terrifying, no doubt.

We basically chased him from corner to corner to corner for about half an hour, trying to get him into a box. I cut a small squirrel hole in another box hoping he'd run into it thinking it was a great hiding place. No dice. They're smarter than you might think. Sue became convinced that throwing a blanket on him like a net would be a great idea. We worked him back into a corner, she got ready, and I flushed him out. She threw down the blanket and we quickly secured the edges. Unfortunately, she'd also captured a gallon jug that had water in it from the ironing we were doing earlier. We slowly smoothed out the blanket, being careful not to step on it and checking for any moving lumps. We got it down to only the area around the covered jug and then slowly worked the blanket up and over the jug. No lumps, no movement. No squirrel. The entire time we'd been carefully working on the blanket, Rocky was sitting on top of the couch behind us watching. Apparently, flying squirrels also have the power of teleportation.

I got the bright idea to open the window and remove the screen. If we could just get him to climb up and out the window... right, no problem. We spent several minutes with him hiding in a corner behind a speaker and us moving some furniture out of the room and overturning other furniture so he couldn't hide underneath it. We stacked pillows under the window to give him something to climb on. We then chased him around for a few minutes with no good results. We removed the pillows and propped up the screen as a ramp for him to run up and out. More chasing. Nope. Every so often, he'd duck down into a three-sided picture frame we have on a table and we'd try to trap him in it with the broom. He was too quick and smart for that too. We'd get close and he'd leap up and out. It was obvious that he was well aware of when he was about to be cornered, and he was more willing to run straight at us towards open space than to duck and cover. At one point, Sue was holding the screen horizontally and he jumped onto it and ran right towards her hands. Screen and squirrel were jettisoned into the air, one crashing down, the other gliding gently to the corner of the room.

After a few more minutes, I was shooing him off a table with a broom and he jumped onto the bristles. I swung him towards the window, but he leapt off midway and flew across the room between us. So close. Finally, after a total of forty-five minutes of squirrel chasing, he leapt onto the broom again. With Sue jumping around and screaming "Throw it out the window! Throw the whole broom out the window!", I finally got him poked out the window and he disappeared into the night.

We snapped a couple photos of the aftermath and of one of the warriors displaying her weapons, and then put all the furniture back in place. All in all, it was very entertaining, but not the most relaxing evening I've ever had. It might be time to invest in a fishing net or two.

Toyota Corolla Brakes

2007-07-26T11:53:00.001-04:00

Sue's 1998 Toyota Corolla has recently been showing evidence of a brake problem. There has been some pulsating in the pedal recently indicating a "warped" rotor. That's in quotes because warping of rotors as commonly understood is actually a myth. There are many ways that a rotor can become uneven due to pad deposits, uneven wear, etc. but actual warping due to overheating or splashing puddles isn't the real cause. Occasionally, the pads have not been releasing properly from the rotor and causing the rotor and wheel to heat up considerably. So here's a quick how-to for cleaning and/or replacing your disc brake pads and/or rotor. Though this is for a Corolla, the basic idea works for most disc brake setups.

Break the wheel nuts loose.

Jack up the car and place it on a jack stand with the stand under a secure part of the car capable of taking the pressure. Don't depend on the jack alone.

Remove the wheel and set it aside.

With a 12mm socket, remove the two bolts holding the caliper on the caliper carrier. These are the bolts that screw into the slide pins covered by the rubber accordion boots. You might need a breaker bar and some PB Blaster squirted on the rust to get them free.

Slide the caliper off (this may take some working back and forth leveraging with a screwdriver) and hang it from the suspension on a wire so there's no pressure on the rubber brake line.

With a 17mm socket, remove the two bolts holding the caliper carrier on. Again, you will probably need a breaker bar for leverage. Remove the caliper carrier completely. The brake pads are held by tabs in the thin metal sliders.

The rotor should just pull off the hub. There's nothing holding it on except for possible rust, so whack it from behind or screw bolts into the two little holes provided for forcing it off.
Clean rust flakes out of the rotor vanes with a pipe brush or similar tool and set it aside.

Admire your handiwork. You've successfully unbolted as much as you have to. Time to clean and reassemble.

Remove the pads from the carrier and clean everything with a wire brush. Don't brush the surface of the pads, but clean all the rough rust off everything else. There are thin metal plates on the back of the pads - for anti-squeal, I think. Keep track of them if they fall off and put them back on when reassembling.

Carefully pull the slide pins out of the rubber boots on the carrier without damaging the boots and without letting rust fall into the boots. Brush rust off the outer ends of the pins and apply silicone caliper grease to the pins before reinserting them. They should slide nicely after re-greasing.

Brush out the pad sliders. Grease them with the silicone grease, and put some on the pad tabs and put a coating on the back of the pads. Do not get grease on the surface of the pads. If you do, wipe it off with a clean rag without smearing it around. Put the pads back in the sliders, leaving enough space between them to slide it back over the rotor.

Brush rust off the caliper, taking care not to tear the rubber seal around the caliper piston. Apply some silicone spray to the seal to give it some moisture. In my case, there is a tiny tear in the boot, so that may very well be the cause of the sticky brake since water and dirt can get in around the piston and cause it to not return properly.

Put a block of wood over the piston and use a large C-clamp to push the piston back in a couple millimeters. You'll need to push it back in farther if you're replacing worn pads with new ones. If you are pressing it farther, check your brake fluid reservoir and siphon some fluid out with a turkey baster if it looks like it's going to overflow when you press the caliper in. Brake fluid takes paint off quickly so you don't want it spilling.

Smear anti-seize grease (e.g. copper grease) on the hub surface so the rotor won't stick and put the rotor back on. Slide the caliper carrier with the pads in it over the rotor and put the bolts back in, tightening them properly. Slide the caliper over the carrier and pads and put those bolts back in. Make sure the slide pins are turned so they fit properly.

Replace the wheel and lower the car. Pump the brake pedal gently a few times until it firms up. It may take a few pumps before the piston is back into position. Start the car and enjoy your new or re-greased brakes!

Syracuse Nationals

2007-07-23T16:59:00.000-04:00

This is what 2000 HP looks like.

I attended the Syracuse Nationals car show over the weekend out at the Fairgrounds. Jeez louise there were a lot of cars. We strolled for about eight hours to take them all in.

I couldn't really pick out a favorite, but this one caught my eye because it was the only one that was obviously tweeked with turbos. The owner put the charged air pipe back through the passenger compartment to an intercooler in the back seat, where it's hooked to an ice tank in the trunk for cooling. It's capable of about 35psi, but he normally runs around 25psi which makes about 2000HP.

The amount of time, work, and above all, money that has been put into the cars there is very impressive. From beautiful bone stock to the most outrageous custom beasts, you could find it all at this show.

Same Color Illusion

2007-07-18T15:55:00.001-04:00

Are square A and B the same color? They are. Are too.

That's a very cool illusion taken from the Astronomy Picture of the Day.

Don't believe your eyes.

On the Road Again

2007-07-06T11:54:00.000-04:00

I'm finally done with the latest phase of repairs and upgrades to the S4. It's been two solid weeks of greasy fingers and though it was fun and satisfying, there were enough frustrating moments to quell any urges to become a professional mechanic.

Over the winter I took advantage of some year-end sales and amassed a pile of aftermarket upgrades in my attic. The stack included new high-efficiency, all-metal intercoolers, a stainless bipipe, new diverter valves, and a cat-back exhaust. I also had an accessory belt tensioner left over from when I was going to replace the belt but ended up having the dealer do it during a warranteed timing belt replacement.

I learned a lesson a couple weeks ago about not trying to charge a dying battery with the alternator. After the battery was replaced, the volt meter (thank goodness the car has one rather than just an idiot light) was registering just over the minimum 12 volts, about 2 volts shy of where it should be. I picked up a remanufactured Bosch alternator at the local parts store.

Supposedly, all of the upgrades and the alternator replacement I had planned can be done without taking the front of the car off. However, since I've done it before and it's really not that big of a deal, I did it this time to give myself more room and make things much easier. It took me about fifteen hours the first time I did it, but this time, with checklist in hand, it took about three. In the process though, I dropped the front bumper assembly and snapped the air temp sensor bracket into pieces and broke a headlight washer hose connector. A trip to the dealer for a $5 bracket and generous amounts of superglue fixed those two problems respectively.

On paper, replacing the alternator is very simple. Just unclip the charge wire, unscrew the grounding cable, unscrew the three mounting bolts, pull it out, and reverse the procedure with the new one. In reality, it's a tight area in there and unscrewing the grounding wire is all blind work with your hand and a wrench jammed up in behind the thing. The tolerances on the mounts are super-tight, so I literally had to shave off some of the aluminum on the new alternator mount to create just enough of a beveled edge to get it started enough so I could pound it the rest of the way in with some high-tech tools (a piece of wood and big hammer). I wanted to take the least amount of metal off as possible of course, so it was a trial-and-error process of shaving off a tenth of a millimeter and trying to put it in. Each try took about ten minutes of squeezing, turning, wrenching and pounding then reversing to get it back out when it didn't work. About eight hours from when I popped the hood, the new alternator was in place.

While the alternator was out, I took the time to clean up the area that had been sprayed over time by the cam seal oil leak I had fixed under warranty. A clean bike is a fast bike, so I figure a clean engine is a fast engine, right? Plus, it just looks nicer having things shiny instead of covered with black sludge.

I popped in the new belt tensioner. That took about four minutes and required nothing more than a hex wrench. After the toil over the alternator, it was nice to do something very simple.

With the required repair done, it was time for the fun part: upgrades. The upgrades are basically all preventive measures to beef up the after-turbo part of the air intake system. Especially if I decide to put in a chip and ask more out of the turbos, I want to know I've done what I can to make it as easy as possible on them. The bipipe and diverters help prevent leaks which would cause the turbos to work too hard, and the high efficiency intercoolers that cool the pressurized air more also help decrease the load on the turbos.

I pulled off the old intercoolers and had a bit of a surprise. About a tablespoon of oil spilled out of the left intercooler and surrounding hoses. The photo shows the new intercooler in place with the old, oily one behind on the floor. Some research helped alleviate my panic about a turbo seal about to blow. "Blow-by" gasses that blow by the piston seals are re-circulated into the air intake via the PCV valve to help cut emissions of nasty gases into the atmosphere. The gases pick up little bits of oil as they pass through the crankcase and that oily air empties into the Y-pipe intake. The oil dribbles down the left side, through the left turbo, and ends up collecting in the left intercooler. Some S4 owners, especially those who track their cars and demand a lot from their engines, install a catch can between the crankcase and the PCV valve to collect that oil. I put that project as a possibility on my "to do" list for the future.

The stock rubber boot over the throttle body is notorious for tears at higher pressures, so I replaced it with a stainless metal bipipe from APR. The installation was pretty easy, though I did have to shave some off the diverter valve hoses to get the pipe to fit without hitting a wiring harness and to get the diverters to sit low enough to clear the engine cover. Still, the boost sensor sits high enough to interfere with the cover, so I'm leaving it off for now.

When you're heavy on the boost, and then let off the gas to shift or slow down, there's suddenly a build-up of pressure between the turbos and the closed butterfly valve in the throttle body. The diverter valves are then triggered by the vacuum system to divert that extra boost back into the pre-turbo air intake. I replaced the stock diverters (model 710A) with new, more robust diverters from the Audi TT (model 710N). As a point of interest, the short little fabric-covered vacuum hose on the driver's side diverter in the photo costs $41 to get a replacement from the dealer. I'm glad I didn't need a replacement. That seems like too much for a little rubber hose. Must be that German engineering, eh?

With bits around the throttle body assembled, I worked back down and started putting in the new intercoolers. The larger intercoolers required some cutting of sheet metal and plastic bits. Pulling out the Dremel, I took a deep breath, and started cutting.

When you start cutting pieces of your car off, it's a scary moment, let me tell you. Forget about "measure twice, cut once." Try "measure five times, check for other items in the way that you don't want to cut about three times, phone your mom and donate some money to charity to build up some good karma, then cut once." The intercoolers were a tight install, and I had to drill a couple new holes in the right fiberglass intake shroud and cut a bit of the left horn mount before everything was back together.

Last but not least. I pressed on the new snub engine mount. Again, easier said than done. I applied quite a bit of silicone lube and it took lots of pressing and wiggling to get that sucker on. Good thing I've been lifting a little recently. The mount is larger and tougher than the stock version, and is supposed to decrease and improve the play in the engine/transmission linkage.

I reassembled the front of the car. Reconnected the headlights, turn signals, horns, fog lights, headlight washers, air temp sensor, electric fan drive, air conditioner condenser, radiator, coolant temp sensor, condenser wire, and hood release cable. It took a couple hours to get all that stuff back together.

I replaced the coolant with G12+, refilled the windshield washer reservoir, and decided to change the oil while I was at it. I emptied the oil pan and then broke my rubber strap tool trying to get the filter off. Sigh. One last insult. The next day, I went to Sears and picked up the best damn filter wrench in the universe. That sucker made short work of the filter and it was off in no time.

I came close to putting the cat-back exhaust on, but after looking under the car, decided that I was too close to wrenching burnout. I put that project off for later, and might consider having a pro with a lift do it. My jack stands are fine, but it's still gonna be a bee-atch laying under there wrenching rusty bolts under close tolerances. It's an easy and not to costly job for a pro, and it's not a complicated job I'm worried about someone screwing up.

I started up the car, turned the heat on full, and warmed her up to coolant operating temperature to circulate it well and get all the air out. Then I tightened the snub mount bracket and took off for a test drive.

Sweet. None of these upgrades was supposed to make any big differences, but my seat-of-the-pants performance meter told me something was different. The shifting definitely seems tighter with less "thunking" from the transmission between lower gears. I swear the boost gauge is showing an extra psi or two of boost - up to about eight to nine from seven to eight - but it seems like it shouldn't be because the computer is still only asking for the stock amount.

In any case, everything seems very quick and solid, just a hint moreso than before and there are no obviously hissing leaks, no dentist drill turbo noises, no dripping oil, etc. She's good to go and back on the road.

Transportation

2007-06-19T13:08:00.000-04:00

I hopped on the bike yesterday, not for training, and not even necessarily for fun, but for transportation. I dropped off the S4 at Cantech Automotive for a new battery, new brake fluid and rear pads, rear diff oil check, and a NYS inspection. Cantech looks like a doctor's office, except the patients are cars. You could eat off the shop floor, and with Ferraris and Lamborghinis frequently arriving there for service, it's easy to trust that they know what they're doing. I can't wait to see the bill, which will likely look like it came from a doctor's office as well, except without insurance covering anything.

After dropping off the baby, I pulled my bike out of the back and took off for home. My saddle was creaking up a storm, and that spot of pain on my right sit bone came on after about ten miles. I need a new saddle, new shorts, or a new sit bone, or possibly a combination of those. On the way home, a section of road stretched out before me that was dead flat and straight as an arrow. I put it in the 53x15 and stood, winding it up slowly. I dropped it into the 14, then 13, then 12, still standing. I pushed on, then sat down and cruised at 32mph for about twenty seconds before my guts started to remind me of two things. One was that I haven't done many miles and even fewer with any intensity whatsoever. The second was that I had only very recently eaten a tuna sandwich for lunch. Urp.

My speed dropped and I swallowed a few times to make sure the tuna stayed down, then recovered and just cruised the rest of the way home, enjoying being outside in the 92 degree heat and thinking about having been alive for 36 years.

Yup, yesterday was my birthday and a reminder of the relentless march of time. I like it low-key on my birthday, and after my ride home, I just spent a little time in the garden pulling weeds then sat down to a simple dinner and presents (!) with Sue. Here's where things got interesting.

Sue is an expert gift-wrapper, and always ties what seem like kevlar-reinforced ribbons around boxes. Getting into a gift is always an exercise in finding tools sharp enough for the task. I made a comment about the green and white ribbon around the box she handed me.

"Your high school colors," Sue noted.

"Actually," I said, "my high school colors were green and gold. Green and white were the colors at Binghamton University."

I then launched into a story about the mascots at Binghamton. When I attended, you see, the teams were the Binghamton Colonials, and the mascot was a traditional revolutionary war era figure. Shortly after I graduated, they changed the mascot to be a bearcat. They publicized the qualities of the fierce and mythical bearcat. My friend and classmate, Bill, pointed out that the bearcat is not a mythical beast at all, but a real live creature, fairly small in size, that eats mainly fruit. Hardly the thing for a mascot viciously eating up opposing teams. We had generally thought the bearcat was ridiculous, and that the traditional colonial had more class. Related to the university's image, they had replaced the name "SUNY Binghamton" as we knew it with "Binghamton University" and the new name never sounded right to us.

So I finally wrapped up my monologue and continued opening the box, which turned out to contain four separately wrapped items. The first was a book that looks very interesting. As I picked up the next item, Sue said, "You might laugh pretty hard when you see this."

It was a t-shirt. I held it up and read the front:

Binghamton
University
Bearcats

D'Oh!

The next two items were a hoodie reading "Binghamton University" and a pair of gym shorts with "Binghamton University" and a bearcat pawprint on the leg. Double d'oh!

So I am now all set for Binghamton Bearcat clothing, and now I just have to figure out how to extract my paw from my mouth.

Whitney Point Race Report

2007-06-14T14:13:00.000-04:00

Testing the Waters

The Whitney Point Road Race is one of the classics on my annual racing schedule. I've missed the event maybe a couple times since 1992. I've ridden the 26-mile course, the 50-mile course, in rain and in sun. I've even ridden the 16-mile time trial course the year that it was a USCF stage race of sorts. That was spring 1993, before I got my racing license, back in the day when USCF races had "citizen" categories, and I managed to take first place in my age group, one of my very few wins.

Attending this year's race would be more about nostalgia and fun than serious competition. I'm averaging a bike ride about every two weeks, and I haven't done any intensity above tempo. Whitney Point would hopefully provide a stress-free "welcome back" to bike racing.

I would be doing the 26-mile version this year. I love the 50-mile course, but with that crew, I'd get dropped very early and likely ride 35 miles by myself. I packed up all the little things I've learned over the years can make a bike race really enjoyable. I had a cooler packed with a recovery shake and rice, beans, and chicken leftovers from a night out at La Cena, a local Mexican restaurant. I filled a Nalgene bottle with cool water and stuck a washcloth in to soak for a nice post-race shower. On my way out the door, I was searching for my sandals for lounging after the race when I happened upon my bike shoes. I hadn't packed them the night before and could have very easily left without them if I hadn't accidentally seen them. I haven't raced in so long, even my packing skills are rusty!

Bill and I drove to the race with pirate sea shanties (what else?) playing on the stereo. Some of those pirates had really dirty mouths. The trip reminded me of countless race trips we've taken before, carefully managing the pre-race music to keep it mellow enough not to stir up and waste adrenaline before we would really need it.

I went through the usual paces before the race. Bathroom. Registration. Assemble bike. Pump tires. Undress. Dress. (This reminds me: I have been thinking I should write a book about bike racing called "Between the Doors", an allusion to dropping trou and gearing up while ducking for cover between the doors on a four-door car. Alas, we came in Bill's pickup truck this time, so I could only manage a "Behind the Door".) Sunscreen. Ride. Bathroom. Go to start. How many times have I gone through this ritual before? A number approaching 250, probably.

Forty-four of us rolled off the start line in fantastic weather. The neutral climb to start allowed us all some time to chat. Many familiar faces rode around me. On the usually uneventful 11-mile stretch of riverside flat before the first major climb, the lone tandem in the group rolled off the front. Tandems usually don't get too much respect in a race like this, as everyone assumes that they'll just get caught on the climbs. They became a small dot a couple minutes up the road, and we all rolled along fairly easily with some quick spurts now and again. Soon enough, the right turn onto the climb came into view. The tandem was closer now, but still up the road, working with one other guy who had bridged up to them.

We swept right onto the climb and I pushed on the pedals, wondering how soon I'd crack wide open. I came to a virtual standstill, boxed in by three riders who were less ready for the hill than I was. I checked left then swooped around, stood up, and jumped back up to the group heading away up the hill. My legs felt fresh and light.

I managed to maintain contact with the group for most of the main climb, though a small group was getting away from the rest of us. I was surprised that I felt relatively good. Though I haven't been riding, I've been doing a few high-rep sets of lightweight squats in the mornings, and it was obvious that they have kept my legs in the game, at least for short durations. I glanced at my heart rate monitor. 195. Yikes. Sure enough, it was obvious that my legs were fresh and my aerobic system relatively untrained. Rarely when I'm training regularly do I see numbers that high. Still though, I felt fine, but my legs were near their limit. I settled in with Bill and a couple other guys, and over a roller at the top of the climb, we'd lost some ground to the main group, but we were coming up on the wheel of the tandem. We passed them briefly on the uphill, but then, predictably, they came rocketing past us on a short downslope. I stuck like glue to their wheel as they yanked us back to the group. With the main climb behind us and only short rollers to go before a long downhill, I knew the tandem would easily catch the main group before long. I settled in behind them like a pilot fish behind a shark, enjoying the slower pace up the hills, but then feeding on the remnants of riders they'd eat up on the downhills.

Sure enough, as we reached the bottom and turned right onto a flat section, the tandem had caught and passed the group. I gave up their wheel to Bill and settled back into the group. Suddenly the rubber band stretched taught. The tandem poured on the speed and in no time they were disappearing up the road. I saw Bill frantically hanging on, all over his bike recruiting every last muscle to try to keep their wheel. Gaps opened behind me. Gaps opened in front of me. Our group of nearly fifteen had shattered into several groups of two and three. My legs popped wide open as I hit 30mph while briefly trying to match pace with the tandem. That was all I had.

We hit the next turn and things started to come back together. The tandem eased off a bit, and the rest of us clawed our way back. A small handful of riders had the gas to drive our group, and the four breakaway companions who'd left us on the big climb lengthened their lead. We were battling for fifth. With most of the big group content to sit on, we just rolled along at a tough tempo, chatting occasionally.

A few short miles later, the penultimate climb loomed into view. In recent past editions of this race, but while doing the 50-mile course that included a mid-course extension, I would come to this point inevitably feeling fresher than my companions. I almost always would have lost contact with the strongest climbers by now, and would have settled in with a small group of riders I could beat on climbs. Nearing this climb, I'd attack, get a gap, frantically hold it on the downside, and then keep the gap up the finishing climb. That is not how it would work out this time. As soon as we hit the hill, the group dropped me hard, with only one other rider and the tandem dropping back further. I rocked my way up the climb, and at the top had managed to maintain contact with Bill, but the others were up the road. We traded pulls downhill and onto the flat. They were watching each other up there and their pace had slowed. I took one last pull to try and get Bill back in touch with them. I got to within spitting distance when Bill came up along side and asked, "Should I go ahead?"

"Yes! Go! Go get them!" I managed to blurt out. He launched and I sputtered along, my engine blown. He took them by surprise part way up the finish climb and stayed ahead of a few, finishing strong. I rolled up the hill and across the line, content in my effort. It was a hard race at times, my experience knowing to hang on the tandem with an iron grip kept me in touch, and I felt far better than I assumed I would have. It was great to know that I'm fit enough to go out and have fun competing with friends.

Paying for My Gluttony

2007-06-13T16:27:00.000-04:00

A couple hours ago, I sat at my office desk munching happily on two snack-size Dove chocolate-covered ice cream treats. I'd already eaten three of those delicious little bite-size chocolate covered cream puffs earlier this morning. A co-worker brought them all to a staff meeting yesterday and those we didn't suck down then were still sitting in the break room freezer today. I could hear their little voices calling to me from down the hall.

Now I'm paying for my lack of will power.

I just glanced down to see that, while eating that last bar, I must've dropped a big hunk of the chocolate coating right into my shirt pocket. My white shirt pocket. It has nearly soaked through to the outside already. It looks like I'm lactating chocolate milk.

The Brake Job

2007-06-11T14:47:00.000-04:00

This post is titled: "Changing Audi S4 Rear Brake Pads" or "How to Induce Enough Stress to Loose Interest in a New DIY Hobby"

This is a step by step brake pad replacement tutorial based on my personal experience over the past two weeks.

1. Read online how easy it is to change rear brake pads on an Audi S4. Admire pictures some woman took of how she did it in "ten minutes per wheel" in her driveway one sunny day. Brag to friend who installed a new car stereo himself how easy it is to work on disc brakes. You are truly a DIY car stud because you have read how to do this.

2. Research brake pads. No big brake kit upgrades are planned right now, so decide on relatively inexpensive, but slightly better-than-OEM, Mintex "Red Box" pads due to their reportedly low levels of brake dust at equal or better to OEM performance. Go to purems.com. Notice that they sell these clever little rubber pads for jacks and jack stands to protect the undercoating on the car. They're much more clever than little wooden blocks, so include a set with your brake pad order. Brake pads plus jack pads come to something like 60 bucks.

3. A special tool is needed to turn the rear caliper pistons while compressing them. ECSTuning.com carries a relatively cheap kit on sale for 45 bucks. It's nice to have an inventory of good tools, so decide to pull the trigger and buy a kit.

4. Wait for packages to arrive. It's like Christmas!

5. Procrastinate so you're pushing the limit on your New York State inspection sticker. Even though the pads aren't completely shot, you'd like to avoid having the garage doing the inspection possibly require that you have them put on new pads to get the sticker. So, start the brake job with four days left on the inspection. Waiting until the last minute is fun!

6. Jack up left rear of car and put on a jack stand. The jack stand pad works great but the pad for the jack is completely retarded and would put pressure in wrong spots around the pinch weld. Place package aside with intent of returning it to get the $20 back. Go back to using a thin wooden block. Chock front wheels to be safe, just in case.

7. Remove rear wheel.

8. Make sure parking brake is off. It's hard to replace the pads when they're pressed firmly to the rotor.

9. Look around in wheel well. Notice little bits of rust starting here and there. Sigh. Realize once again that living in Central New York in the winter sucks. Add a line on the project list to get some Rust Bullet and coat everything in sight. It'll be a time-consuming job to do it right, but worth it in the long run.

10. Have a wire coat hanger handy, and grab your camera to get some pictures to make the blog look more interesting to attract a third reader or fourth if you're lucky.

11. Remove caliper bolts with 13mm wrench. A thin 15mm wrench is necessary to hold the nuts attached to the rubber boots still. A bicycle cone wrench works great. Note how your two big hobbies come together in serendipity.

12. Remove caliper. It slides right off the rotor. The pads may stay on the rotor or come off with the caliper.

13. Hang caliper on bent coat hanger from suspension linkages above to make sure the weight of the caliper doesn't put any pressure on the brake lines.

14. Remove old pads and set aside.

15. Insert special caliper compression tool with the right size end and unscrew it so the back presses firmly against the inside of the outer caliper.

16. On recommendation from audiworld.com posts, clean cap on brake reservoir and partially remove it to make it easier to compress the piston.

17. Attempt to turn handle. Fail. Note how little handle on tool seems far too small to get any leverage. Try several times, eventually stopping because hands hurt and you haven't made any progress.

18. Go back into house and wash hands. Hop on the computer to search Audiworld forum. Find post where some guy had the same problem and simply removed the disc to provide space for the tool and then remounted the caliper so he could get more leverage. Happen upon a web page with more details about the Mintex Red Box pads you bought. Read about how they're not recommended to be used with worn rotors because they won't seat as well as softer organic pads. You should use them only with new rotors. Swear. Decide to try them anyway.

19. Go back to garage. Attempt to remove disc. Notice that disc cannot be removed without first removing the caliper mount. Find two 8mm hex bolts holding caliper mount on.

20. Grab 8mm allen wrench from bicycle tool box (again, serendipity!) and attempt to remove bolts. Tap wrench with block of wood, then hammer. Note that only thing that happens is that tool gets rounded slightly. Swear. Put apparently inferior allen wrench away.

21. Grab 8mm socket driver and breaker bar. See how breaker bar doesn't fit into area necessary to get to bolts.

22. Put 8mm driver on ratchet wrench. Attempt to remove bolts. Hit wrench with wood and hammer. Note how it doesn't budge.

23. Go into basement in search of length of pipe to put over little tiny handle on tool to gain more torque. Wonder why handle is so small on the caliper tool and why so many people said this was really easy to do. Wonder if you're doing something wrong. Wonder if caliper is bad. Assume caliper is fine since it was working well before this.

24. Find long pipe previous house owners left and grab a hacksaw. Start cutting a shorter piece off. Rest forearm halfway through after several minutes. Wipe sweat from brow. Continue until complete. Make note to buy a new hacksaw blade to replace your dull one.

25. You have cut through metal. Go back to garage carrying the new "torque pipe" triumphantly.

26. Place pipe over ratchet wrench handle and attempt to loosen the 8mm bolts. Fail again. Put Liquid Wrench on list of items to pick up at hardware store and forget about removing the disc and remounting the caliper for leverage.

27. Wonder if piston tool is binding on threads because it's too tight against the caliper. Loosen it a little and try again. Fail.

28. Spray some WD40 on the piston and boot to try to make sure the rubber doesn't rip and ruin everything. Wait for WD40 to soak in a bit. Wipe off excess. Try again to turn the tool. Fail. Note again how thumbs hurt. Swear.

29. Grab newly minted torque pipe and put it over the little tool handle. Attempt to turn handle. Notice that the caliper turned a little. It's working!

30. Now that the piston has turned almost a complete turn, check the brake fluid reservoir to see if you need to siphon any off because it's being pushed up. Nothing yet.

31. Grab pipe and continue turning. Be surprised how suddenly it becomes easy to turn the tool handle. Note however, that the piston is not turning.

32. Remove tool from caliper and hear little clinking sound as sheared-off shear pin falls out of the tool. Sigh, then swear, more loudly this time.

33. Reassemble everything with the old brake pads so you can at least drive the car if you need to. Tighten reservoir cap. Note that the caliper bolts obviously had blue lock-tite on the threads. Make a note to pick up some lock-tite for the next brake pad change attempt.

34. Drive around carefully to test brakes. Everything is working fine. Give up for evening.

35. Do some more research on Audiworld.com. Read how most people have had luck with a special tool rented from Auto Zone. Regret not having read about the tool rental before having bought one. Read about opening the bleeder valve to relieve fluid pressure.

36. Fashion yourself a receptacle for bleeding brake fluid. Use a 1/4" length of tubing and punch a hole through the cap of a clean glass jar to receive the other end of the tubing. An obsessively cleaned Vlassic pickle jar to works well.

37. At next opportunity to work on car, jack it up onto the stand, remove wheel, remove caliper, loosen reservoir cap, etc...

38. Remove bleeder screw rubber dust cap. Put tubing over bleeder screw. Attempt to open valve with 9mm wrench. Fail. Try 10mm. Fail. Grab next wrench in set. Note that it's too big. It's a 12mm. Wonder why there is no 11mm wrench included in the set you purchased when you changed the spark plugs and needed the 10mm.

39. Find 11mm socket and remove tube. Wonder what will happen when you loosen valve without tube attached. Put 11mm socket on valve. Realize it's not deep enough to cover nut fully over the valve nipple. Swear.

40. Find little English measurement wrench that fits "pretty" well. Try to open valve. See how the wrongly sized wrench begins to mar the valve without budging it. Put wrong wrench away and give yourself a dope slap for not using the right tool.

41. Go weed and mulch the garden because that's apparently all you're capable of doing.

42. Go shopping for a deep 11mm socket. It's crazy to buy an individual one for $4 when a set of ten costs only $20, so plunk down a 20 dollar bill.

43. At next opportunity to work on the car for a couple hours, go back into barn and hit the unlock button on the key remote. Notice that nothing happens. Note that the little red alarm light is not blinking. WTF? The battery is completely dead. Strain to think of what you've done that could possibly result in a dead battery. There is nothing. Wonder why the h*ll a battery that's only two years old from the dealer would be dead. Realize that since the car is no longer covered under warranty and road-side assistance like it was when the original battery went dead two years ago, the only option to start the car where it sits is to charge the battery, get an emergency rechargable jumper kit, or replace the battery yourself. Swear.

44. Ignore battery problems for now and loosen bleeder screw with the new 11mm socket. It works, but barely moves, and is very hard to turn. Fluid starts to seep out, so quickly remove the tool and stick the tube back on the valve. Do not get brake fluid on any painted surfaces. It will reportedly de-paint things quickly.

45. Stick a series of shear pin replacements including small nails, bolts, pieces of wire clothes hanger, etc. into the special tool and repeatedly attempt to compress the caliper piston. Fail each time, shearing off whatever you've stuck in there.

46. Tighten the bleeder valve and put the removed brake fluid back in the reservoir. Brake fluid absorbs moisture from the air, so you don't want it sitting around in the open. Hope that you're not doing something that will screw up your brake system internals.

47. Wonder if you just haven't opened the bleeder valve enough to really relieve the pressure. Drive to the hardware store, in the other car. Grab a $4 11mm wrench so you can open the bleeder valve farther while the tube is on it after starting it with the deep socket you bought earlier. Grab a $50 emergency jump-it 12V kit to start the car. It comes with a light and a DC output jack, so it'll be useful for emergencies anyway.

48. Re-open bleeder valve with socket and put tube on it. Attempt to open it further with wrench. It's hard to get the angle right and the wrench is too short to get good leverage, so... Fail. Loosen valve with socket, ignoring brake fluid. Just clean up well.

49. Pump brakes a couple times "to relieve pressure" as described on Audiworld.com. Notice more brake fluid coming out.

50. Shear off another series of bits in the special tool while still failing to compress the piston.

51. Drive in the other car to Auto Zone to rent a new special piston tool. While there, pick up a $5 bottle of DOT 4 brake fluid just in case and a $4 can of Liquid Wrench. Smile when you find out that the tool "rental" is essentially free. You "buy" the $98 tool set, but get all your money back when you return it. Wipe the smile off your face by remembering you have already paid $45 for a now-busted tool rather than using this free one in the first place.

52. Before leaving Auto Zone, open the rental tool kit. Notice first how the special tool looks exactly like the one you bought, right down to the broken pin. Take some level of satisfaction in knowing there's at least one other person out there who was unable to compress their caliper piston. Go back into Auto Zone and exchange kit for a working one.

53. Go back home and try to compress the piston with the new tool, and with the bleeder screw opened up farther than before. Fail. Put the torque pipe on the little handle on the tool and give it another try. Try to remember how much force it took to shear off the pin in your other tool and apply force just short of that. Fail to budge the piston.

54. Swear a blue streak, then hang your head in a dejected fashion. Sarcastically congratulate yourself that you've now managed to spend $138 on tools and parts plus $98 that you can get back when you return the Auto Zone tool in order to save money having a professional do the job. Note you haven't included the $50 for the battery jumper since that's an unrelated problem.

55. Tighten bleeder valve. Look in shop manual and online for torque specifications for bleeder value. Fail to find them. Decide "good and tight" is okay. Reassemble brakes using old pads. Press on brake pedal and note that it's good and hard, and no fluid is coming from the bleeder valve.

56. Put wheel back on car, lower it, then get wife to turn the key while you attach the emergency jumper kit.

57. Drive around for a while to charge the battery while keeping an eye peeled for police due to the now-expired NYS inspection sticker.

58. Go back to weeding and mulching your stupid garden.

59. Find that two days later, the battery is again too dead to start the car.

60. Call and make an appointment for a brake pad change, a new battery, and a NYS inspection.

61. Stare at the pile of aftermarket parts in your attic waiting to be installed. They once represented a budding new hobby and hours of fun, but now they look just like a huge patch of thorny brambles that need to be dealt with.

62. Write down each step you've taken, trying to add a humorous tone, so you can post it on your stupid blog in an attempt for catharsis.

Friday Funhouse

2007-05-18T16:19:00.000-04:00

I really have nothing exciting to report. We've been toiling away with the landscaping ("weeding" sounds so much better if you call it "landscaping") and that's about it. There is not much new in the house, not much about sport, and no real changes in the garage.

I did find myself lacing up my running shoes last Friday. I'd traced out a route on runstoppable.com from my front door, up the hill, around the block basically, for 2.38 miles. The first two minutes were pretty fun. The rest was, um, interesting. I tried to keep my heart rate down by slowing, but unlike cycling, you just can't coast. Who knew? I arrived back home in a little less than 20 minutes, felt a little shaky like I'd had a good workout, then stretched and cooled down.

It's now a week later and my knees have almost stopped hurting now, and I'm ready for run number two. At this rate, I'm planning on doing my first marathon in 2073.

So what really prompted me to make this post is some great fun I just had at work. This might not translate well outside the system admin realm, but hopefully you'll find a little humor in it. I've changed the names and generalized some terms to protect the guilty and to keep our choice of applications private.

Karen comes running into my office waving her arms in full panic mode, "What's wrong with the server? I can't connect to the server!"

Mind you, this is the server running our general ledger, property control, purchasing stuff, some financials, etc. It's pretty big, and it being down meant a hundred people or so sitting around twiddling their thumbs.

"Geez, I don't know. Hold on." I tried to log in. Sure enough, no dice. I tried to ping it. No response. "Yup, you're right. It's off the air." This was indeed odd. It's one of many servers plugged into a UPS, so power doesn't just disappear. There are very few things that could have taken it down without some trace of what happened.

"What do you mean, 'off the air'? What's wrong with it?"

"I don't know yet." I picked up the phone and dialed Operations, hoping that this problem wouldn't keep me too late on a Friday afternoon.

"Operations, Jim speaking."

"Hi Jim," I said, "Would you please do me a favor and look for any messages on the Finance server console? I think it might be down."

"Yeah," Jim replied, "Karen had me reboot it."

Well, this sure is odd. Jim's telling me Karen told him to reboot the server, and here she is in my office panicking.

"What did you say?" I wanted to make sure I'd heard right.

"Karen had me reboot it. I called her and told her I couldn't get into the Finance application, and she told me to reboot."

At this point, I just broke out laughing. Belly laughing. Right into the phone. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't be laughing. Jim, I'm pretty sure she meant to reboot your PC."

"Oh."

The server came back up without any problems, all applications started, mirrored volumes resynched, no corruption on the database. It's pretty lucky considering it'd been brought down hard with a quick flick of the power switch.

So Karen learned to be more explicit in her directions to our Operations staff, Jim learned (hopefully) to call me to double-check before pressing power buttons on my servers, and I had the best laugh I've had in a long time.

37 Watts and a Couple Inches

2007-05-07T09:31:00.000-04:00

Those of you who've been reading along know that this spring has brought a change for me. Usually, I'd be frantically getting in the miles, ramping up the intensity, and carefully planning my spring campaign with thoughts towards the big summer races.

Instead, I've spent time at the local gym lifting heavy objects and playing volleyball. I rediscovered my love for volleyball late last fall, and I also discovered that many years of cycling had made me strong on the bike but weak off it. I've thoroughly enjoyed getting some feeling of muscular balance back with some running, lifting, jumping, etc. all while still getting on the bike once or twice a week for some long rides to try to stay in touch. Combine my lack of racing fitness with the few kilos I've put on, and my bike rides have felt slow and heavy.

I had an interesting and encouraging surprise on a leisurely ride in beautiful but breezy conditions on Friday. I took off early from work and hit the roads with Sue and friends for a hilly 55 miles at a conversational pace. Part of the fun of a ride like this is watching carefully for town lines and then playing cat and mouse games sprinting for them.

The first town line came into sight and Sue jumped for it. She and I had rolled off the front of our little group after a red light and had quite a gap on the two behind. I sprinted up along side Sue trying to taunt/encourage her into going faster when suddenly our friend Jeff came rocketing by to take the sprint. The game was on.

Just a couple miles later, the second town line appeared on a long, flat, straight road. I slowly rolled off the front and looked back. Jeff jumped from behind to close the gap and I stood and cranked up to speed and got away for the line. Just for kicks, I checked my max wattage on the PowerTap. It read 1259. 1259?

I raced and trained all last year with the PowerTap and the maximum wattage I'd ever seen was 1222 during the Syracuse downtown street sprints. Now, out of shape, leisurely riding with friends, I'd casually jumped for a town line sprint and bested my max wattage ever recorded by 37 watts. Maybe there's something to this muscle balance thing besides just feeling good.

Related to the sprint, I've also gained a couple inches on my vertical leap. It's been over fifteen years since the last time I was able to touch a basketball rim, but it's getting tantalizingly close now and I think it'll come soon. In my younger days before cycling, I always seemed to do better at the fast twitch sports than the endurance ones, and I think I might be getting some of that back. My lightweight hill climbing days in long road races might be passing me by, but maybe there's hope for a future of some success in a few crits now and again.

See you on the road... or in the gym... or on the court...

Whiplash

2007-04-23T14:52:00.000-04:00

One week ago today, I got into work late because I had to shovel snow and string up a downed cable line in freezing temperatures. Today, it's 82 degrees outside. Welcome to Syracuse. If you don't like the weather in Syracuse, wait 15 minutes, and it'll change.

What's really freaky is standing out in 82 degree heat and seeing a pile of snow on the other side of the parking lot.

I had a good, hard ride with the club yesterday and reminded myself about eating properly on a ride when I bonked just as I was getting home. I stumbled through a shower, chomped down a tuna sandwich and drank some recovery fluid, then passed out on the couch for a nearly two-hour nap. When I came to, the blood sugar was coming back up nicely and my systems were rebooting. You might think that I'd know better.

Note to self: a 60-mile ride with several hard, sustained efforts, especially when one has only about 270 miles in the legs for the season, requires consuming more than a single packet of energy goo.

April... um, Showers?

2007-04-17T11:09:00.000-04:00

We returned from Asheville, NC just in time to get beaten down by a late-season snowstorm. It's great to be back. The heavy, wet snow accumulated on tree branches and power lines and after several electrical blinks throughout the night, we awoke at 5:10 AM Monday when the power went off and stayed off until after 2:00 PM. The furnaces never turned on for the day of course, and without the water pressure booster pump, the morning showers under a trickle were quite chilly. School was cancelled for Sue, though she still had to go in to get a staff day counted on the books. Shortly after she left, the still-falling snow got heavy enough on our television cable line to yank the support screw eye out of our house. It remained connected where it entered the basement, so it drooped leisurely at windshield height across the street next to our house. I had to run out and pull it taught so the snowplow could get through. I looped it over a plant hook on our porch which lifted it just enough for most vehicles to clear. I spent much of the morning shoveling, putting the perishables from the fridge outside to stay cool, and doing my best to knock snow off the branches in the big tree in the backyard. While I was outside, a large branch high up in one of the big pines snapped with a loud crack, but didn't fall. What fun on a Monday morning.

The Asheville trip was great, as usual. The weather was far cooler than normal, with highs only in the 50s. Still, it rained only on one day, and we were ready for a rest day by then. I personally put in about 235 miles, and several of the fourteen other people who went put in quite a few more. I felt pretty good despite having only 35 miles in my legs for the year, but I clearly had no ability to maintain any big wattage for more than about fifteen seconds. Large climbs there that I have usually attacked at 280 to 300 watts, I climbed this year slogging along at just over 200. Still, the superb roads there and the good friends I got to ride with provided me with another great Asheville experience. We rode "Bear Creek, a.k.a. Beer Creek", a new Potato Gap and Jenkins Valley loop, buried ourselves climbing Rt. 276 to the Blue Ridge Parkway and flew down the tight turns of Rt. 151, spun through the always amazing "Old Fort-Hickory Nut Gap-Bat Cave-Lake Lure-Shriner's Hill-Broken Road" ride, and then an intrepid five in the group attacked the Ox Creek to Mount Mitchell out-n-back climb fest with its thirty miles of uphill. I already have my eye on loops around some new area roads with great names like Possumtrot, Lickskillet, and Locust Grove for future trips.

Besides the rides, the atmosphere of staying in a big vacation house with fourteen other people who understand the love for punishing themselves on long climbs, rocky trails, and hair-raising descents is always a big rush. For a week, we get to hang with common spirits and prove to each other that we're not crazy for loving the incredibly demanding sport of cycling. This year we also had an Asheville trip first which made the trip really special. One couple rode off by themselves up on the Blue Ridge Parkway and when they returned, announced their engagement! The fella in the couple had found the perfect spot (the Blue Ridge is filled with them) and popped the question. It's truly a magical place down there.

See you on the road...

Raising the Driveway

2007-04-04T12:38:00.000-04:00

I finally got the new 18" feet on last night, and I think they're looking pretty good. It took me a long time to find something I liked and could afford. Most of the wheels out there for sale scream "pimp" or "rice" with lots of chrome and shiny bits. I looked at BBS wheels which are pretty common among Audi enthusiasts, but they're well above my price limit and I actually think they're a bit ugly. The O.Z. Ultraleggeras are silver rather than chrome, have a nice open look, and they're far lighter than the stock wheels. The gas savings from having lighter wheels and lower profile tires should pay for the wheels in no time...

There are only two problems with the new wheels. The brand-new finish is perfect of course, so I'll live in fear of the first scratch. Secondly, the car now cries out to be lowered a little. Something about having nice wheels accentuates the unattractive gap between the tire and the fender. I have two obstacles to overcome before lowering the car, though. The first is that I need to save up some buckaroos. The second is that I need to raise the driveway. The short little driveway we have goes up a hill and into the barn, creating an angle that makes clearance a problem. As it is right now, the gravel in the drive has settled so much that I'm already occasionally touching the board on the edge of the floor. I can't go lowering the car by an inch until I jack up the driveway at least an inch and a half or more. Who would've thought that improving the suspension on the car would require a load or two of gravel?

Double Digits

2007-03-28T10:12:00.001-04:00

I arrived at the court early to watch the mini-tournament kick-off match between the "A" champions and "B" champions. I grabbed a spot on the bleachers and had to smile as both teams ran through their hitting drills. Every set was near perfect and nearly every hit was a rocket to the hardwood. Man, were we going to get killed.

The A team dispatched the B team in two pretty quick games, and then it was our turn. Our main goal, besides just having fun of course, was to get a double-digit score and get through the rotation at least once. We did make it through the rotation plus two spots, but we only got 8 points in the first game. In the second game, they eased up and gave their women lots of practice hitting, and we managed to get to fourteen or fifteen points before they dealt the deathblow. Woo hoo! Double digits!

So, tonight we face the B squad in the first game. Hopefully we'll hold them off a little better, but it's still pretty much a foregone conclusion that we'll be watching the overall championship game rather than participating.

I'm not sure why the city holds an "overall championship tournament". You don't see minor league baseball champions facing the Yankees. They don't run the best cat 4 cyclists up against Hincapie for the national championship. My team playing the city's best A team is fun for me because of the personal challenge and the experience of watching a good team run a good offense. It has to be pretty unsatisfying for them to go through the motions of beating up on us, and it's anti-climactic for us to follow up a hard-fought and exciting championship win with two arse-whoopings.

The main thing I'm getting out of playing these teams is the knowledge of what I need to do to play at their level. The biggest thing I need to do is to gain about ten to fifteen pounds of muscle above the waist and to train the fast twitchers in my legs more to get a few more inches of air. So we'll see what happens. Do I fall back into large volumes of cycling for the summer and maintain my aerobic wispiness, or do I hit the gym to pack on some muscle and go into the fall crushing the volleyball?

New Steed

2007-03-27T12:56:00.000-04:00

I'm thinking of buying this bike in the hopes that it gives me more motivation for training. It doesn't look like it'd be that great in the hills, but maybe it feels so good, I wouldn't care. The picture is from engrish.com, one of my favorite websites for a guaranteed laugh.

Planet Earth

2007-03-26T11:28:00.000-04:00

There's nothing much going on for training right now, except I'm approaching full panic mode as our cycling trip to mountainous Asheville, NC is looming large. The swollen knee from volleyball is about 90% and should be back to normal for the last two games Tuesday and Wednesday night. Our team captain brought my free duffle bag to me from the "C" city league, emblazoned with graphics declaring us 2006-2007 champions. It's pretty nice, but smells funny. Since we'll be playing the "A" and "B" league champions and by all rights should get our arses kicked, it's likely that the bag is the end of the free schwag for this season.

On a side note, if you haven't seen it already, you owe it to yourself to tune in to the Discovery Channel and watch the 11-part series "Planet Earth" that premiered last night. They're repeating the episodes frequently, so check them out. The ground-breaking new camera technology will leave you staring in awe at your television. Watching a snow leopard pursue a mountain goat at high speed along death-defying vertical rock faces is just one of the many first-time-ever-filmed events that will take your breath away and leave you amazed at the diversity in life, weather, water, and earth on this little blue spaceship we call home.

Champions of the World!

2007-03-22T10:19:00.000-04:00

Well, okay, Champions of Syracuse!

Well, okay, Champions of Syracuse City Recreation League Class C!

Last night, my volleyball team fought through eight games in three matches to clinch the Class C Syracuse championship. Along with the trophy we picked up, I also came home with a gigundous hematoma on the outside of my right knee. I knocked it on the floor while diving near the end of our seventh game, and then about halfway through the last game, I squatted down and my knee felt a little tight. I looked down to see what looked just like half a lacrosse ball under the skin on my knee. Good old R.I.C.E. (rest, ice, compression, and elevation, of course) seems to be doing the trick. It's now still quite swollen, but it's much more diffuse and doesn't look like it's going to explode anymore.

Our first match as we went into the last night of the double-elimination tournament was against a team we'd already beaten once. It took us a while to get on our game, and they beat us in the first game, the second game was close with us on top, and then the third game, played to 15 instead of 25, was a ridiculously nail-biting 21 to 19, since we had to win by two points, of course.

We sucked down some energy gels between matches to keep the sugar and caffeine levels up - everyone on the team is a mountain biker and we came prepared. The next match was against a team we'd just played the night before. They were solid that night, and we had imploded, seemingly unable to pass the ball to our setters if our lives depended on it. We did a good job of analyzing their strengths, and adjusted our game to compensate. We took the match quickly in two games but they were warming up and we were getting more tired.

With that match won, it meant that both teams had lost one match in the tournament, and we had to play each other again immediately for the championship. We split the next two games closely, but momentum was on our side. The last game started off even, with a six to six score, before we started to make a run on serves. Pretty soon it was about twelve to eight, and then finally that magical number 15 appeared on the scoreboard and it was over.

Volleyball is a great sport. When it's played well, it's fast, powerful, and violent. There is a tremendous amount of power and skill necessary to play at the highest levels, and though we're not up there of course, we still manage to get some pretty good attacks going from time to time. It's so very satisfying when I'm on my game, get a good set, and have that sensation that time slows down and I can hang up above the net for a while, take a good look at where the blockers are, and then pound the ball down around them. This is the first time in years that I've gotten back into the sport, after having played a few years back in the city B league, and on an excellent boys high school team many years before that.

Though I've been short on cycling fitness of late, the good news is that I've gotten back a couple inches of my vertical leap that I'd lost after starting bike riding. That darn battle between fast- and slow-twitch muscle fibers is a tough one.

So, now we head on to contest the overall city championship. The winners from the "A", "B", and "C" classes do a round-robin double elimination tournament. By all rights, the A winners should mop the floor with the B and C teams, so we have nothing to lose, and it should be a lot of fun. All I have to do is get my knee loosened up by next week and I'll be set to go.

Mountain Biking in Tucson

2007-03-05T12:55:00.000-05:00

You've all been very patient (all one or two of you) and I've finally compiled a vacation report of our recent Tucson trip. I'm sure you've all been on pins and needles waiting for this post, so grab some popcorn and I'll get down to it.

We packed up our mountain bikes in Trico Sport "Iron" cases and headed out on US Airways. We were dinged 80 bucks per bike box each way. That's a big ouch, but it's still cheaper than renting, and cheaper than the $96 per bike each way we were quoted from Fed Ex and DHL. We got quotes from UPS and USPS also, but they were considerably higher.

We flew into Phoenix (pronounced pa-HOE-nicks, of course) where we had a "mid-size SUV" on reserve from Budget to take us to Tucson. We arrived around midnight to find a choice between a Hyundai Santa Fe and a brand-spanking-new Subaru Outback with 7 miles on it. Score. We grabbed the Outback and threw in the cases. The Outback (and Subies in general) is now high on our list for future car purchases. It felt a bit gutless to me, but then again I'm spoiled after being used to the S4. But otherwise, it was super smooth, solid, handled well, and was awesome over some very rough dirt roads.

We stayed for four nights at the Coyote Crossing Bed and Breakfast just northwest of Tucson. The location is perfect, nestled between the Desert Museum and Saguaro National Park West on one side and the Catalina Mountains on the other. The owners are a wonderful couple who will pack you full of local knowledge, trail information, and the best darn breakfasts you've ever eaten. The pool would be great in the boiling summer heat, but we found ourselves most often in the hot tub enjoying the cool evenings.

The trails around Tucson are amazing, no doubt about it. They're bone dry 99.9% of the time, it seems, and though there are no logs to hop over, there is plenty of bare rock, loose sand and baby heads to keep you attentive. The trails are amazingly well supported.

The "50-year trail" along the foot of the Catalina Mountains can be accessed at the end of Golder Ranch Road off of Oracle Road north of Catalina State Park. There is a long-term (50 years, apparently) contract with the ranchers on the open range to allow people to use the trail. At the north end of the trail you'll find the "Chutes", troughs carved through the rock and hard soil by flowing water. You start high in these chutes and then rocket downward, swooping this way and that, up and down, following the trough that sometimes is so narrow and steep on the sides, it threatens to grab hold of both pedals. The other end of the trail takes you on a long jaunt to Catalina State Park, with lots of baby heads and great views along the way.

Just east of the Davis-Monthan Air Force base on Irvington Road is the access point for Fantasy Island. This play park for mountain bikes rests on a three square mile plot, but the genius designers twisted and turned the one-way paths through the area to make something near fifteen miles of trails. There's an over-under bridge on a figure eight we've never dared do, a couple of rocketing downhills, some small hairpin climbs, loose berms on turns, lots of rocks, long stretches of fast hard dirt, a Christmas tree of sorts, and lots and lots of cacti to make sure you stay on the trail. The penalty for over-cooking a corner can be very painful.

For some amazing cross-country with harder technical challenges, we headed out to Starr Pass, a county park area west of the city off of Starr Pass Blvd. The county actually builds trails there, and they're fantastic. You ride among the Saguaros and enjoy the challenges of rocky downhills, stepped climbs, long rollers through tough brushland, and a mile-long wash filled with tiny gravel that saps your strength and tries to push around your front wheel while the rear is spinning.

We had vowed to take riding less seriously than we did on our trip in 2005, so we took some time to do some "touristy" things like normal people. We went on a short hike near the B&B to see some interesting and ancient petroglyphs maintained by the desert climate. We hit a couple of walking trails in the Saguaro National Park West, and toured the Desert Museum. The under-12 and over-60 demographics were certainly well represented there. The Desert "Museum" is more of a zoo than what I usually think of as a museum. It is interesting and very educational, but I have to say, once you've seen one pointy cactus and patch of brown dirt, you've pretty much seen them all.

We toured the University of Arizona at Tucson, a beautiful campus, and very attractive to tourists and students alike with museums, shops, and great displays in their research buildings. It made me wish I'd looked at it when I was choosing colleges. At that time though, I had no idea what was out there, and only enough resources to choose a school based on their brochure.

We stopped by the Mission San Xavier del Bac, a very old church founded by a Jesuit priest in 1692. The evidence of the native religions incorporated into the Catholic beliefs was strikingly evident. The intricate designs of architecture and paintings inside were awe-inspiring.

Further south from Tucson, we encountered the Titan II Missile Museum. This tiny hole in the desert once held a nuclear warhead pointed at who-knows-where, someplace deep inside the Soviet Union, for sure. The rest of the 56 silos throughout the southwest were dismantled or filled, but this one was turned into a museum that you can tour and remind yourself, or learn for the first time, about the nervousness of the cold war and the strategies of mutually assured destruction. The security, technology and construction was very impressive despite it being of a late '60s vintage. Anything important in the complex is suspended on huge springs (look closely in the command center photo) so it can bounce around and still work during a nuclear attack above ground. At ground level, the many, many ton silo door is halfway open, barricaded from opening farther by two large concrete barriers, a display for foreign satellites overhead keeping track to make sure treaties are obeyed. Through an observation window, you can peer down onto the business end of the 110-foot tall missile.

At the start of the tour, Sue handed me the camera, saying, "Here. You take the camera since this is a 'man' tour and you'll probably want to take more pictures." The next thing I knew, she'd taken the camera back, and was excitedly snapping photos of everything from the missile nose cone to the emergency eye wash stations. The tour guide even picked her to try closing the six-inch thick, many ton steel blast doors and to turn the key to simulate a launch. Lucky! At least I got to (had to) wear a blue hard hat because I'm over 5'10" tall. Hah! Sue's still talking about how the missile museum is the best museum she's ever been to.

Tucson is the home to the Davis-Monthan Air Force Base as well. When riding at Starr Pass, planes constantly fly overhead on practice maneuvers. The base is the graveyard for thousands of old planes. I spotted C-130 transports, A-6 intruders, F-4 phantoms, A-10s, F-16s, F-14s, and several others. We did not tour it, but just snapped some photos from outside the fence.

We wrapped up our stay in Tucson with a final meal at El Charro, the oldest family-owned restaurant in the country, founded in 1922. They've opened up two more locations in the city, but the one on Court St in the old section of town has the best atmosphere. We moaned through our pollo with mole sauce, our carne seca our salsa verde, and our tres leches cake. We were just about to leave when a Mariachi band came through with a great performance.

As the old saying goes, Tucson is a great place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there. I'm too spoiled by the beauty of pine covered mountains, lush grasslands, and crystal clear lakes and streams here in the northeast. The stark and brutal nature of the Sonoran Desert is interesting for a day or two, and then, unless you're challenging yourself on the amazing roller coaster of mountain bike trails, it gets old fast. The vistas there are beautiful from far away, but when you get close to anything there, you realize it's violent in its efforts to hoard water. All plants are terribly pointy and just want to be left alone. It's been a couple weeks and I still have the tips of about ten cactus spines in my pinky finger. They're broken off and too short to grab onto, so I just have to wait for my body to take care of them. The weather in Tucson is fantastic in the winter, but I wouldn't want to be there in the summer. Finally, the massive population growth that the Tucson area is experiencing turned us off. There is an obvious gap between the poor who've been there forever trying to eek out a living in the desert, and the newly rich who have some in, built big housing complexes next door, and waste water by trying to grow grass in their lawns like they had in wherever they came from. Our B&B owner was subtle with his opinions, but clearly shakes his head at the development he sees around him.

I will continue to complain about the cold and snow in Central New York winters, but I will surely admire the summer greenery of home a little more passionately after having toured in Tucson. It was a fun and relaxing trip, but it's good to be home.

We're Back and Why We Left

2007-02-26T16:28:00.000-05:00

We're back. We landed in Syracuse Saturday night around 10:30, having left Tucson, AZ around 1:30 Mountain time. The pictures in this post say enough about why we left Syracuse in the first place.

Two years ago, we examined the average temperature records for the places in the U.S. with the warmest February temperatures. The place also needed to be interesting for bike riding, so Tucson, AZ and southern California topped the list. We took our mountain bikes to Tucson and explored some great trails for a week. We hammered ourselves riding several hours each day.

This year, we decided to go back, but this time we spent far more time in the hot tub at the bed and breakfast and less time in the saddle. We still took our mountain bikes and hit the great trails there, but we acted much more like average tourists this time. Check back later for a thorough account of our adventure.

Sweet Potato Burritos

2007-02-06T14:16:00.000-05:00

It's so cold outside, the locker room at the local Y is filled with frightened turtles. This is exactly the kind of weather when it's nice to come home and pull something filling and tasty out of the fridge, already made. These sweet potato burritos fit the bill perfectly. Cook them up then freeze or refrigerate them for later. We made a mess of them last Friday and then ate them Saturday after skiing and then again on Sunday. We still have enough in the freezer for a couple more dinners when we're feeling lazy. I've been enjoying them so much, I thought I'd share the recipe.

Sweet Potato Burritos

(For you trivia buffs out there, I believe "burrito" means "Little Ito", which I'm guessing is a nickname that Los Angeles County Superior Court judge Lance Ito earned during the O.J. Simpson trial. But then again, my Spanish is a bit rusty.)

Olive or vegetable oil
3 T chili powder
2 t ground cumin (careful pronouncing that one lest you ruin the recipe)
1 pinch cayenne pepper (little less or little more depending on how hot you like it)
3 T soy sauce
4 t prepared mustard
1 medium onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 15oz cans red kidney beans, drained
2 15oz cans black beans ("frijoles negros", a fun food to say), drained
1/2 to 2 cups of water
3-4 pounds sweet potatoes, mashed
16 10-inch flour tortillas
8 oz shredded cheddar cheese

1) Prepare the sweet potatoes. Peeling, then dicing, then steaming for about 20 minutes, then mashing is a good way. Or if you're more ambitious and want a little more flavor, rub the skins with Crisco then bake the whole potatoes for about 50 minutes at 350 degrees F, or until soft, then peel them (ouch! hot!) and mash.

2) Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F

3) Saute the onion and garlic in the oil in a large skillet or wok until soft (the onion and garlic should get soft, not the wok)

4) Fold the beans in and mash them up a bit until it's a nice lumpy paste with some beans still whole or almost whole.

5) Stir in the water until the mixture is just a little sloppy and easy to slap onto a tortilla. Continue heating it at least until it's nicely warmed, if not a little hot.

6) Pour the chili powder, cumin, cayenne pepper, and mustard onto the beans. Admire the color combination from putting them in in that order, then pour in the soy sauce and stir it all up.

7) Sprinkle some water on the tortillas, stack them on a plate, and nuke them for 30-40 seconds to make them warm and pliable.

8) Smear a large spoonful of the mashed potatoes on the middle of a tortilla, followed by a large spoonful of the bean mixture, then topped with some cheese. Fold it up. Repeat until you run out of the fixins or the tortillas. It may take a couple tries to get the portions right, but we find we can get about 12-14 burritos out of the recipe.

9) Stack the folded burritos in a 9x13 glass or metal baking pan and bake them for 12-15 minutes, until the tortillas have your desired amount of crispiness.

10) Eat them until you can't eat anymore. Refrigerate or freeze the rest. They warm up just fine by nuking for a little while then re-crisping in a toaster oven.

Enjoy!

It Begins

2007-02-02T11:33:00.000-05:00

Yesterday marked a fresh beginning in my training. After 15 seasons of bike racing, I apparently needed a vacation. I put the bike away in late August of last year and since then rode maybe five times. I started running infrequently, and found that there were all sorts of stabilizing muscles that had been dormant during my cycling years. After the first couple runs, they complained miserably but came around eventually. I've been playing volleyball in a city recreation league over the winter too. After the first few games, my shoulders would seize up for a couple days and it would take a lot of effort to simply raise my arms above my head. As they strengthened and felt better the more I played, I realized they'd just been very weak and the demands I was placing on them playing volleyball was too high. I spent the time between volleyball games and infrequent runs working on house projects and generally sitting around watching Battlestar Galactica. In the middle of the cycling season, my weight hovered around 153 pounds. I am now at 162 pounds. I wouldn't mind the gain except that I know it's not muscle. There's this slightly squishy little band of flesh encircling my waist. I'm not used to being squishy. Running and volleyball served as a wake-up call telling me that, except for the few muscle groups dedicated to cycling, I was very much out of shape.

With a newfound desire to get into generally good physical condition, even if I have to gain some pounds of muscle and sacrifice my cycling climbing ability, I stepped into the attic last night, pumped up the tires, and hopped onto the rollers. I threw around some iron as well. The situps burned, the pullups and pushups completed numbered low and the reps fell off quickly with the dumbbells. But it felt good.

I put in an hour on the bike, with a 20-minute sub-maximal test I plan on doing weekly for a while. After warming up for ten minutes, I then rode for twenty trying to keep my heart rate at 175. In competition, I usually time trial around 185, so 175 is working somewhat, but not a killer. I will watch my average wattage at that heart rate go up as I become more fit. Last night, I spent the twenty minutes at 175HR at a paltry 205W average. I expect to see that number rise quite rapidly over the next few weeks. It had better, or else I'm going to suffer horribly on the mountain roads around Asheville in April.

See you on the road!

Walking Normally Again

2007-01-31T12:48:00.000-05:00

Sue and I went cross-country skiing last Saturday with friends in Osceola, a small village on the Tug Hill Plateau. Bands of lake effect snow blanket the plateau every year and usually provide for some kick-butt skiing conditions.

I hate cross-country skiing. Er, well, I *used to* hate it. Years ago, without knowing anything about the sport, I purchased a pair of skis from a local shop. They judged the length of ski I needed by my height rather than by my weight. Like many cyclists, I'm light for my height and with the 215cm, highly arched skis I was sold, I never was able to get much kick at all. Add that to the fact that I don't know how to glide, and I was guaranteed a horrible experience every time I tried it.

I spent an hour on the old skis on Saturday, lagging behind my friends and being pretty miserable. We stopped back at the lodge and I borrowed a new pair of skis from the shop. The owner suggested a pair of Solomon skis, 180cm in length, and wider than my old ones. Shorter and wider (easier but slower) seems to be the trend nowadays.

What a difference! I still had trouble gliding without falling over, but that's because I never learned how to ski or skate as a kid. I was able to get lots of kick and the stability of the wider skis relieved the soreness in my knees I'd been experiencing. After a few more hours of skiing, we headed back to the shop where I forked over the cash for the new skis.

We came home and I spent the next three days walking funny. My hip extensors, shoulder carriage, and all those little balancing muscles in my hips and legs were tighter than guitar strings and quite sore. It felt good to be sore and to know I'd worked myself a bit.

Tomorrow, February 1st, is the first day of my next training period. Forget build, base, etc. I'm finishing up the "sit around watching TV and getting fat" period and moving into the "lose weight and start pretending to be an athlete again" phase. Since I put up the bike in late August, I've added 9.5 pounds and subtracted lots of aerobic fitness. It's going to be a miserable year on the bike if I don't start something now.

It's time to get back in the Attic.

What I Do

2007-01-30T16:30:00.000-05:00

I've always maintained that what I do for a living is not who I am. I do not define myself by my job. The past few days at work have been a good example of the annoying stuff I wrestle with daily.

I am a Unix system administrator. Hear me weep.

Our database administrator informed me that he and the application developers wanted a server that was a copy of our new data warehouse, not yet in production, for testing purposes. Great idea.

I had set up the data warehouse as a non-global zone (virtual server) on a Solaris 10 server. I put the root of the zone is on a ZFS (Zettabyte File System) so I could do snapshots of the entire server when necessary. I looked for an easy way to clone the zone to create a duplicate test zone. Sure enough, Solaris has a command to clone a zone. However, my current operating system version is Solaris 10 6/06 and the clone feature is brand new in the 11/06 version.

I downloaded five CD-format upgrade images from sun.com and burned them onto discs. That took a good chunk of time. I scanned through 266 pages of release notes to plan for a couple "gotchas". I then went to the computer room to do the upgrade.

About half an hour into the upgrade, the system informed me that since I had a non-global zone installed, I would need to use the upgrade image in DVD format. So back to the office I went, and spent several more hours downloading the DVD images, concatenating them, and burning it to a DVD. Throwing a 4GB+ file around on the network takes some time.

It then occurred to me that one of the servers I wanted to upgrade is old enough not to even have a DVD drive. The only option left would be to set up a Solaris Jumpstart installation server and install the upgrades over the network.

I picked a third server of mine, mounted the DVD iso image with a "dolofi" utility I'd downloaded, and ran the commands to set up an installation server. I set up the client parameters on the server, then booted the client (the server I wanted to upgrade) with the "boot net - nowin" command. It was unable to mount the installation image, and kept stopping with a disturbing "panic" message.

After some googling, I found that there is a bug in the Solaris network installations that causes it to not work on supernetted networks. Sun doesn't call it a bug, but those who have run into the problem do. Short story is that Sun doesn't plan on fixing it.

The deal is that our network is a series of sequential class C networks. Our subnets are ranges within those numbers. For example, our main subnet is x.x.8.x through x.x.11.x. The installation server and the client are both 9.x numbers, but the default router is an 8.x. The default mask of a Sun client booting for a network installation is 255.255.255.0 (and annoyingly can't be changed by any boot arguments), so a 9.x number can't see an 8.x number even though they're on the same subnet. The easiest workaround is to install a DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) server that would assign a mask of 255.255.252.0 along with other network parameters to a client when it boots. That assignment would allow the client to see the installation server and the default router.

So, I ramped up the learning curve a little more and dug into the DHCP manuals. It actually didn't take too long before I had one set up, but there are several "vendor options" that need to be entered and configured, and the platform type of each of the servers you want to install have to be entered for each option. I set up options for a workstation on my desk I use for testing.

After an afternoon of wrestling over parameters to get them just right (the manuals conveniently left out a couple I needed), I was able to get my workstation to boot from the installation server with the "boot net:dhcp" command. Sweet. I proceeded to upgrade my workstation to the latest and greatest Solaris 10 11/06 release.

Back to the original server I wanted to upgrade, after checking the release notes, I knew I had to temporarily remove the lofs (loopback mounted file systems) of /usr/local and /usr/openv on the non-global zone with the zonecfg utility. I also had to detach one of the slices in the Solaris Volume Manager mirror that made up the boot partition and use "metaroot" to assign the boot device back to the device name c0t0d0s0 instead of the metadevice d0.

With those short tasks behind me, I requested more server downtime from the developers, and shutdown the data warehouse server in preparation for the upgrade. I added it as a registered client on the installation server, and added an entry for it, keyed by ethernet address, on the DHCP server. I just duplicated the entry that worked for my workstation.

Hmmm. When I went to boot it, it panicked and said it could mount the installation images.

ok boot net:dhcp - nowin
Boot device: /pci@1f,0/pci@1,1/network@0,1:dhcp File and args: - nowin
panic - boot: Could not mount filesystem.

I issued a snoop dhcp command on the installation server and saw that it was talking to the server correctly, but for some reason was unable to mount the Solaris miniroot. The location of the miniroot should have been provided as a DHCP option.

Back to google, I finally located someone who'd had a similar problem. I used these commands to debug the DHCP conversation between the two computers:

$ snoop -vv ether 0:14:4f:3b:21:15 | grep DHCP

DHCP: Message type = DHCPDISCOVER
DHCP: Client Class Identifier = "SUNW.Sun-Fire-V490"
DHCP: Requested Options:
DHCP: 1 (Subnet Mask)
DHCP: 3 (Router)
DHCP: 12 (Client Hostname)
DHCP: 43 (Vendor Specific Options)
DHCP: Maximum DHCP Message Size = 1472 bytes

[ ..... ]

DHCP: Message type = DHCPOFFER
DHCP: DHCP Server Identifier = x.x.9.172
DHCP: IP Address Lease Time = -1 seconds
DHCP: Subnet Mask = 255.255.252.0
DHCP: Boot File Name = SUNW.sun4u

The "Client Class Identifier" reminded me about those platform types I had to enter as part of the vendor options for the macros on the DHCP server. I checked - sure enough! I had missed entering "SUNW.Sun-Fire-V490" on two of the options. I put it in, restarted the DHCP server, and rebooted the client.

Fantastic! It booted right up and started the installation program. I walked through the steps to identify the system parameters. A few minutes later, the process stopped and reported that the upgrade had failed because of the non-global zones, and that I'd have to restore them from backup. Yikes. Fortunately, I'd read in the release notes that this was a lie. However, it was supposed to have been fixed by removing the lofs file systems like I'd done.

Back to more googling. After an hour or so of reading manuals from sun.com and other Solaris forums, I found a note that reported that the installation utility for Solaris 10 11/06 had a bug in it that caused it to be unable to upgrade non-global zones when their root was on a ZFS. The developers are planning to fix it in the next release sometime in 2007.

Sigh.

All in all, I've spent about a week working on this along with some other projects, but I'm back to where I'd started. I did upgrade my workstation, so that's nice, and I learned how to set up a network installation server and a DHCP server in the process, and that's nice too, but in the end I have two large servers that I wanted to upgrade but cannot.

My desire to have that handy little "clone" command that had prompted this whole process will have to wait for the next OS release "sometime" this year.

In short, I worked for about a week and really didn't accomplish anything tangible. So what else is new?

Musical Mattresses

2007-01-22T13:27:00.000-05:00

Oh, my aching back. We've been on quite the saga recently trying to find a mattress that works for us. Only two years ago, we bought a high-end Simmons mattress to replace one I'd had for years. On the old one, my back would ache after about seven hours, and if I dared to sleep in on a weekend for more than eight, I'd wake up with back spasms. Sue also thought it was really lumpy, so we plunked down something like $1100 for a Simmons spring mattress with some latex foam or something like that. Oooo, it felt good. For about a month.

After a month, the backaches returned. It's now two years later and my back hurts and Sue's hips kill her on the mattress. Her side is all lumpy and my side has a huge hole where my hips go. I'm not a heavy guy by any means, but I apparently have a knack for breaking down a mattress.

A few months ago, we got a poly-fill pillowtop for the Simmons mattress. It was nice and puffy for about a week. After that, the areas where we lie became all matted down and flat, and with the rest of it still puffy, each night we were sleeping in a deep valley. The middle of the bed between us became known as "the ridge".

A couple weeks ago, we'd had enough and decided to look seriously at a Tempurpedic visco-elastic "memory foam" bed. I'd heard great things about these beds. A cyclist I know swears by his. Money be damned, we headed to our local contemporary furniture store and flopped down for half an hour on a "Deluxe" Tempurpedic. It was very nice, comfortable, and supportive. We put $2200 plus on plastic and put the huge queen-sized box containing the huge queen-size mattress in the back of the pickup. These things are not light. A queen-size, dense memory foam mattress runs about 200 pounds. We called a neighbor friend over that evening to help get it upstairs. In the process, I fell backwards out through the latched screen door, snapping off the latch bracket. What fun it all was.

We made up the bed and flopped down. Clunk. Clunk? It was probably an imagined sound, but the mattress was so firm, clunk describes the feeling of my shoulders hitting the bed. Everyone talks about how you're supposed to sink into these mattresses and be so comfortable that you don't move at all during the night. Instead, I was aware of Sue flopping around like a fish yanked up onto a dock, and I also woke a few times and flipped sides. We're both side sleepers, and we clearly didn't weigh enough to sink into the mattress at all. It was far firmer than the one in the showroom.

I awoke in the morning with sore ribs, and although the change in support was favorable to Sue's hips, she could barely open her jaw and had a stiff neck from her shoulder being jammed up into her neck area.

We put our old pillowtop on the new mattress and spent a night that way. Not enough. It was so compressed from a few months on it, there was no longer enough cushioning.

After work the next day, I ran over to Bed, Bath, and Beyond (nice folks and very pleasant with returns as you will read) and picked up their best poly-fill pillow top. A couple nights passed with the same results. My shoulders were sore and Sue had trouble chewing breakfast.

I went back to BB&B and exchanged the $120 poly pillowtop for a $300 four-inch thick memory foam topper. This foam was much softer than the Tempurpedic, so the theory here was that the soft foam on the hard foam would be, in the words of Goldielocks, just right.

The "queen size" topper comes rolled up in a fairly small box. They must pack the thing in with a steamroller and vacuum packer to get it in the box. It was a bit like a novelty can of snakes the way the topper expanded after unwrapping it. I flopped it down on top of our mattress. Odd, it didn't reach the edges. The measurements of the topper were 54x76. Standard U.S. queen-size is 60x80. What's up with that? Strike one.

We slept on that for a couple nights. It smelled really bad. It was the kind of unnatural smell that made you wonder if you were destined to get some sort of cancer from inhaling chemical and plastic fumes every night for a few years. Strike two.

We were back where we started. It was soft enough for our shoulders, but now the back and hip aches had returned from lack of support. Strike three.

I tried to get the topper squashed back into the box. My best try involved an upside-down coffee table stacked with 45-pound weight plates (and me) on top of the thing, but it was no use. I wrapped it in packing plastic, and we headed back to Bed, Bath, and Beyond with it and the empty box. They were great and gave us a full refund, no questions asked except for the rhetorical the cashier asked as she carried the incompressible topper away, "Now, what am I going to do with this thing?" I hope she had more coffee tables and weights to stack on that thing than I did.

I spent an evening boxing the Tempurpedic mattress back up. We were done with it and it was going back, regardless of the $200 "restocking" fee it would incur. We'd kept the original packing materials to return it as they'd suggested. It took me about an hour to get the 200-pound mattress spun around, slid into the box, and taped shut with enough packing tape to keep it from breaking through. That was when I realized I hadn't put the plastic bag around the mattress. I spent another hour unpacking it, wrapping it in plastic, and then putting it back in the box. I might have skipped it, but I didn't want any excuses from the store during the return.

We borrowed my brother-in-law yesterday to help get the 200-pound box back downstairs and back into the truck. Then it was off to the furniture store.

The two women there were very nice, but started off by telling us we'd need to come back the next day when the manager was on duty to arrange the return. We started arguing that point when they brought up having to arrange for pick-up. "Oh, we brought it in our truck. It's in the parking lot." Their faces quickly turned to an expression of, "Oh, shit. What do we do now?" and they hustled off to get the manager on the phone. They still wanted us to come back the next day, but there was no way we were going to cart that thing back home and then back to the store again. They finally relented and opened their back door so I could slide the thing off the truck and back into their warehouse, in the exact spot it had come from.

I returned the next day, credit card and receipt in hand, to finish the paperwork with the store manager. I was ready for them to try and get a higher fee than the $200 return they'd quoted us. The manager said, "I spoke with the owner and he remembered when you picked it up. He said he'd quoted you $200. The return fee is actually $300, but we're sticking with his word and we'll only charge $200." Good thing. He ran the credit card through and gave us a refund of $2050.92. We'd paid a total of $2267.00, so I was surprised to find that $2267 minus $200 is $2050.92, but it was close enough not to dicker with the guy. I just wanted out.

So, we're now sleeping on our full-size Aerobed inflatable bed with the old, flat pillowtop on it. It's a little funny having a full mattress on a queen platform, but what the heck. It's not super-comfortable, but it's better for now than the old bumpy and hole-ful Simmons. We're looking into pursuing a warranty claim with Simmons, since the thing had a 10 or 15-year guarantee. I'm guessing that'll either go nowhere or else we'll decide it costs too much to ship a mattress back to the manufacturer.

So the search for the perfect mattress continues. We paid $216.08 to find out that we don't like Tempurpedic. We don't know what to try next. Air? Spring? Different foam? We want something that's not too firm, not too soft, and stays that way more than a month. Is that too much to ask? When buying a mattress, it might just be.

The Steak Connoisseur

2007-01-09T13:14:00.001-05:00

It's been a long time since my last blog entry, so I thought I'd start bringing things back up to speed with a little story of how my holidays went. It was a good holiday season, but there never seems to be enough time to fit in all the family visits, cooking and eating, gift-wrapping and unwrapping, and some time to recharge.

The Christmas season kicked off for us officially on Saturday, December 23. Although we had houseguests heading in from New York City that day, we were on the road to head to my mom's place for Christmas with her and my dad. We had put together a nice little gift bundle for each of them, but I wanted to get my dad one more item, a little something he'd enjoy but never buy for himself. Before heading out, I went to our local Wegman's grocery and to their fantastic butcher section. I had the butcher wrap up the reddest, juiciest looking sirloin steak in the display case. It was a thick one, and big, weighing in at 1.6 pounds of delicious Angus beef. This is the kind of tender steak that you just quickly sear on the sides to hold in the juices. A little kosher salt and coarsely ground pepper is all you need. It has enough flavor all on its own to make sauces unnecessary. At $14.99 a pound, it came to about $24.00 for just one slab of meat. But hey, my dad would definitely never spring for a taste treat this good, so I was pretty sure it'd be a nice gift.

I took the wrapped steak home and prepared it for the trip. I wrote the internal temperatures for rare, medium, and well-done on the wrapping. With a steak like this, cooking it more than medium is a crime, but I knew that my dad always liked his steaks well-done, so I steeled myself in anticipation of hearing him say something about that. Still though, I thought maybe if I wrote those temps on the package, it might encourage him to try it a little less done so he could enjoy more flavor.

I put the steak into a disposable styrofoam container we had lying around from when we received some frozen items in the mail. I added a couple reusable but disposable freezer packs that came in it as well, and a little red bow on the top. It would stay nice and chilled on the road.

So, fast-forward to evening at my mom's, and the four of us are sitting around her two-foot tall sparkling fiber-optic tree enjoying snacks and exchanging gifts. As my dad was opening his other packages, I brought out the styrofoam container and set it next to his chair.

My dad reached down and pulled off the top of the container. Sue and I sat in anticipation. He pulled out one of the freezer packs.

"Wow. Is this reusable?"

"Um, yeah, Dad."

"These are great. So, you can just put them back in the freezer and use them again later?!"

"Yeah, Dad. You know, the freezer pack isn't the gift. They're just keeping the gift cold."

"Oh." [pulls out wrapped steak] "Oh. Steak. Yeah, thanks. That should be good."

"Dad, I wrote the cooking temperatures on the package for you..."

"Oh, yeah, I see that." [smiling appreciatively] "I always do them well-done."

No problem. I was ready for that. "Well, enjoy!"

Now fast-forward a couple days to Christmas day. We've already returned home to our houseguests, had a big Christmas eve dinner with Sue's family (I think about 89 people were there, give or take 70), and now it's finally Christmas day and Sue and I are enjoying a quiet, lazy, late morning breakfast after sleeping in. I called my dad to wish him a merry Christmas on the actual day.

"Hi Dad. Merry Christmas!"

[some chatting about weather and the DVD player I got him omitted here...]

"Hey, I cooked up that steak! I broiled it in the oven."

"Oh yeah? Great! How was it?"

"Oh, I haven't eaten it yet."

I'm sure that spot above the bridge of my nose furrowed mightily at this point, because I couldn't figure out for the life of me what he meant.

"Er... what?"

"I got some good vegetables and cut up the steak to make a stew."

"Uh huh."

I hung up later and burst out laughing. I told Sue and she said, "Okay, that's it. Next year: McDonald's gift certificates!"

So, we all had a great Christmas. We enjoyed ours, and my dad enjoyed the world's most expensive stew. I love my dad, partly because he's exactly who he is. Paraphrasing Popeye, "He is who he is." He was also incredibly and overly generous with his Christmas gifts to us. When I was little, he gave me food, shelter, and all the flyballs and grounders I wanted out in the front yard, and now he still gives me too much. And by golly, the man likes his steak over-cooked and under water, and that's just the way it is.

Baby Needs a New Pair of Shoes

2006-12-14T11:33:00.000-05:00

I completed my second official "mod" to the wagon last week. I can now monitor the boost and vacuum in the manifold. I was limited on time the evening I put it in, so I'm afraid I don't have any "in progress" pictures. The boost gauge is from AWE and they did a great job getting it to look like the stock gauges. It was pretty simple to pop out one of the center vents and replace it with the new gauge. The most time consuming step was cutting a hole in the back of the vent for the electric wires and vacuum hose. The hose gets run up through the box that contains the car's computer, then through the firewall (gray hose in the picture). It's spliced into the fuel pressure regulator hose and you're done in the engine bay. Cutting the FPR hose was a tense moment as I tried to overcome the fear that I'd somehow identified the wrong hose and forced the muscles in my hand to squeeze on the cutters. Finally, attach the electric wires to a couple of screws near the fuse box, put everything back together, and that's it. I took the car out for a spin and was happy to see that everything looked fine. Vacuum at idle is 20 in/Hg and peak boost at wide-open throttle is 7-8 psi.

A couple nights ago, I discovered that the nice UPS man had rolled four new shoes for the baby up onto our porch. I'd been looking at the Bridgestone Potenza S-03 Pole Position tires on Tirerack.com for some time now. The price was reasonable for the tire compared to others in its class, and the treadlife and wet traction ratings appealed to me. The tread pattern isn't as sexy as some other high performance summer tires, but that didn't matter too much. Suddenly the other day, I checked Tirerack and found that the tires were on closeout pricing, something like sixty bucks off the price of each tire. I pulled the trigger.

The catch here is that I ordered a plus-one size 225/40R18 and the stock rims are 17s. I want the 18s so that I can upgrade to a big brake kit later on sometime, but of course that means I am now on the hunt for new wheels. I don't plan on spending too much time on the track, so my short list of wheels is based mainly on appearance. I've scoured wheel manufacturer web sites and I find it odd that the only wheels that I've liked the looks of are replicas of Audi RS4 stock wheels. I'd like to have the set ready to go by springtime, so I have some time left to make that decision.

Running (or How I Crippled Myself)

2006-11-20T16:46:00.000-05:00

Probably due to the inspiration of seeing our good friends Joe and Liz go for a run before breakfast while staying with us this past weekend, Sue and I decided that it'd be fun if we went for a trail run at Green Lakes on Saturday. The air was cool and damp, and it felt great to be out running on the soft trail. Well, that is, it felt great for about one and a half miles.

Now, please realize that I believe the last time I went for a real run was during soccer practice - eighteen years ago. Sure, I've been racing a bicycle for fifteen of those years, but there are all sorts of little muscles you don't use on the bike that get pounded while running. Halfway around the lakes, I began to feel that something was going to snap if I didn't start walking. I alternated between walking and running for the remainder of the three-mile path. By the end, my legs felt nicely tenderized, and it really was great to be out on a pleasant trail in the fresh air with Sue (who, by the way, kicked my butt and ran much more of the trail than I did).

Sunday, old memories of soccer practice came flooding in. Back then, I'd attend the late-August practices and run miles and barely be able to walk the next day. This was much the same, except far less exercise was required to elicit a similar response.

Surprise at the Dealership

2006-11-13T15:44:00.000-05:00

I went to the dealership Friday evening to pick up the car. They had agreed to fix a slight oil leak under warranty and a few other bits. Being a big labor job to dig that far into the engine, I asked them to replace the timing belt, pulleys, and water pump as preventive maintenance. It's a good idea to replace things run by the timing belt when the belt is replaced because a bad bearing in any of those parts could reduce the life on the new belt, break it, and bend lots of expensive parts in the engine. I arrived Friday and found the bill to be less than I had anticipated.

I scanned down through the work log to see what had been done. Air bag sensor replaced in rear seat - no charge. O2 sensor replaced - no charge. Cam seals replaced - no charge. Good so far. Timing belt and pulleys replaced - charge to customer.

I started shaking my head at that point because, as I had suspected, it looked like they had not replaced the water pump as I asked. I turned the page to find, "Water pump found leaking - replaced no charge."

Whoa. Let me get this straight. I asked for something to be replaced on my dime, and instead the dealer replaced it for free. They could have easily charged me and I would have happily paid never knowing the difference. How often do you see that sort of honesty at a garage, especially at a dealership?

So if you're an Audi owner in the Syracuse area, head on out to Roger Burdick Audi at the Drivers' Village in Cicero and feel confident that you're going to get an honest shake from the service department. Kudos to them for the great customer service!

Certified!! (?)

2006-10-31T10:16:00.000-05:00

So far, it looks like the dealership is going to treat the oil leak as a warranty item. I showed up last night with the pictures and I'm not sure how well they were received. I think I keep missing the service manager's jokes. Several times now, he's said something and smiled and I never know whether he's joking or not. I think I have a pretty good sense of humor so I'm not sure why I'm not picking up what he's laying down.

In any case, I'll be dropping off the car at the end of the weekend for some work. They're already due to replace the rear seat latch and rear seat belt tensioner sensor under warranty, and will be looking at the leak with the idea that fixing it will be under warranty and they'll do my timing belt replacement work while they're in there. It'll save me a bundle on labor and I'll mostly end up just paying for parts. He said, "Usually, Audi likes to see drops of oil to call it a leak." which I thought was interesting. Hopefully the level of wetness in the area will classify it as a "leak" and not some lesser level of unwarrantied seepage. If they tell me it won't be covered under the warranty then I'm back to fixing it myself in the barn. However it gets done, I'm looking forward to the feeling of well-being that'll come from knowing that there's a new timing belt riding on new bearings in there.

By the way, he officially verified that I could ignore the "change the toothed belt every 75,000 miles" red sticker under the hood. The good word from Audi is that the belts are good for 105K miles. Splash some rubber-degrading pertroleum around in there on the belt though, and I'll still be glad to have a nice new belt spinning the cams.

So now I'm starting to think less about the timing belt and more about phase one of my modification plans. I'm looking at new plus-one-size wheels and tires (I need new tires come springtime anyway), big brake kits, and new suspension. I'm like a kid with the Monkey Wards catalog before Christmas. Oooo... dating myself a bit with that one.

Full Frontal Nudity

2006-10-30T11:35:00.000-05:00

This weekend I dove into the front of the car to determine where the leaking oil was coming from. Front engine work in the Audi S4 requires removal of the "lock carrier", which is the frame that holds the headlights, electric fans, radiator, and A/C condenser. I had to yank off the front bumper, disconnecting the fog lights and headlight washer hoses in the process. Then came a multitude of tightly packed electrical wires, the hood release cable, draining and disconnecting of the radiator, and unmounting of the A/C condenser. Then remove a few large bolts and voila, the entire front of the car just slides right off, no sweat. Including the copious notes, photos, and even tape recording of all the steps to make sure I can put things back together again, I'd say the entire process took me about 698 hours. Well, it felt like it. But it was a fun process.

With the lock carrier off, it was really easy to tell where the leak is coming from. As I suspected, the left cam drive seal appears to be bad. I didn't remove the bipipes and timing belt cover to view it directly, but underneath the cover, everything is covered with a layer of moist oil and the accessory belt has carried that oil over time to other parts down below.

So, now it's off to the dealer after work today (in the pickup) to see if cam seals are covered under the warranty. Most everything that tends to go wrong with cars is called "wear and tear" and is not covered. For example, Audi used to cover tie rod ends under their certified warranty, but they replaced so many that they declared it a wear-and-tear item and stopped putting on new ones for free. I'm hoping to get lucky and have the dealer say, "Why yes, leaking cam seals are covered under your warranty, and sure, we'd be happy to replace the timing belt, pulleys, and other seals while we're in there to save you a bundle on labor charges."

If the work is not covered under warranty, then it's off to blauparts.com to get a timing belt kit (including seals) and a specialty tool ten-day rental so I can do it myself, have some fun (hopefully), and save myself about a grand in labor.

Borrowed Timing

2006-10-26T10:08:00.000-04:00

As I've mentioned before, I've been getting all into car maintenance recently. When I first got the car, like the good anal owner I am, I made a spreadsheet to visually graph out at what mileage points I should do certain maintenance. I consulted the maintenance guide that came with the car as well as the official Audi service bulletins I was able to download from the web. I carefully laid out when air filters, spark plugs, oil, etc. should be checked and changed.

Probably the most important item on the entire car is the "toothed belt", or "timing belt". The engine is a high-compression interference engine which means if the timing belt breaks, the pistons slam into the valves, the engine comes to a dead stop, and you tow the car to a shop and fork over at least $5000 for a complete engine rebuild. Not a good thing.

So I was very careful to note the mileage for the timing belt change. Both the maintenance schedule and the service bulletin I had noted that the belt should be changed at 105,000 miles. The service bulletin specifically said "2.7L V6 30V engine" which is the type of engine in the S4 and a couple other models.

I just went through the 80,000 mile mark on the car, and have been picking away at the scheduled maintenance. I changed the oil, air filter, and spark plugs. The fan belt is also due for replacement. To replace the fan belt and tensioner, you have to remove the bumper, air conditioner condenser and swing the radiator away from the front of the engine. It's not terribly hard (or so I read), but it's time-consuming. A layer behind the fan belt is the timing belt. While everything is off the front of the car, it's most time-efficient to replace both belts at once. For a beginning DIYer like me, changing a timing belt is pretty intimidating. Get it wrong and you break the engine. Take it to a shop though, and it's a $1500 bill, about $350 for parts and the rest for labor involved in dismantling the front of the car.

While changing my oil last week, I noticed some wet-looking oil seepage up on the front of the engine. The car is still under warranty but only until the end of January, so now is the time to identify all the bad stuff and have the dealer repair it. During all my past oil changes at the dealer, they failed to mention the oil seepage. I'm sure they'd rather wait until after the warranty is up to tell me about the expensive repairs that will be needed.

I finally decided on a course of action. I'd order a new fan belt and tensioner and take off the front of the car to replace it. I felt that it's easily within my ability range, I have compiled lots of instructions from various sources including the official Audi repair manual, and it'll be a great learning experience. While the engine is exposed, I'll document all the oil seepages and then take the car to the dealer armed with photos and say, "Here are the oil leaks. Please fix 'em for free." I decided not to change the timing belt myself at this time. If the dealer had to open things up to do the oil leaks, I'd just have them change the belt while they were in there and it'd cost me only parts instead of for labor.

I was talking cars with a coworker when it came up that a full-time contractor we've hired for a project is a master mechanic who repairs cars out of his house. I talked to him about timing belts and he said that if I wanted to do it myself, he'd be glad to make a house-call to my place to bless my work to make sure I'd done everything okay before restarting the car. He also gave me a couple tips to avoid a couple pitfalls during a DIY belt change. So that left me thinking about the "fun" of doing my own timing belt again.

While watching some disk arrays slowly rebuild late at work yesterday, I surfed over to AudiWorld.com and read every posting about timing belts I could. One thing that I always thought was odd struck me again. Every Audi S4 enthusiast out there has religiously changed the toothed timing belt at 60,000 miles. Since the manual reads 105,000 miles, I always assumed they were just being overly careful, or possibly changed their belts because many of them occasionally track their cars and/or have modified them which generally puts more stress on an engine. Just having driven through 80,000 miles, I figured that unless an opportunity for warranty work came up with the dealer, I'd be careful and do it myself in another 10K or so when I opened up the front to replace some other bits for performance reasons.

I happened on a thread of emails where one guy asked the question I'd always thought about. "Why do you guys change your belts at 60,000 miles when the manual says 105,000 miles?" There were a couple vague answers and then another guy posted this:

"The manual is generic across multiple Audi models. The S4 is different. Read the red sticker under the hood."

Huh? Red whazzit? Are you kidding?

Hands trembling, I finished up my work and headed out to the parking lot. I had driven the truck in, so I hopped in, drove home, and made a beeline for the barn and the hood release on the Audi. I pulled up the hood and peered in. Way in the back, near the windshield, I could make out a little red sticker, about two square inches in size. I leaned forward and focused.

"CHANGE THE TOOTHED BELT EVERY 75,000 MILES."

Strangled expletives quietly escaped my lips and a lead weight sank into my stomach. When I had first started reading the AudiWorld posts, I had laughed at a "noob guide" that humorously welcomed Audi S4 owners to the wonderful world of paranoia and obsessive worry about their cars. I'm not laughing so much anymore. The more I learn about the car, the more obsessive I am about every little part and the closer I am to having paranoia overwhelm me.

Having stolen 5,000 miles past the predicted life of the timing belt per that little red sticker, I'm now afraid to turn the key. So last night I put the car up on jack stands and tonight will start ripping off the front of the car. Before I dare start the engine again, for peace of mind I need to examine everything, document all the oil leaks for possible warranty work, and visually examine the toothed timing belt for any indications that it's about to snap. If it looks okay and I think I can get the dealer to change it during warranty work, then I'll do that. If it looks bad, then the car will stay up on the stands until I can get the parts and specialty tools shipped to me so I can do it myself.

Little red sticker, indeed.

No Bull...winkle

2006-10-13T12:08:00.002-04:00

Long time, no post. Sorry. I've been off the bike for quite some time, and have been working on house projects and obsessing about modifications I could do to the car. That's about it.

Last night after we got home from dinner with friends, I headed up to the bedroom and was about to go back downstairs when some movement in the corner caught my eye. I saw a big mouse go skittering behind a half-open door. I looked closely and saw a bushy tail sticking out. Hmmm... not a mouse.

I closed the door and startled a juvenile gray squirrel. It ran across the floor and into the bathroom. Great - more rodents in the house. At least this fellow wasn't a bat. I have some sort of instinctual problem with bats flying around my head and usually end up in a prone position on the floor while I crawl around to open up windows and doors.

Sue tossed up a big cereal box from the recycling bin. I figured if I could get the little guy into the box, I'd just take him outside. No problem.

I went into the bathroom and looked around the floor. Nothing. A scratching noise brought my eyes up to the top of the doorframe leading up to the attic. The little bugger had scampered up to there and was hanging out watching to see what I'd do next. It was then that I noticed something odd.

Wait a minute. His tail is bushy, but it's flat. And what's all that extra skin wadded up between his front and rear legs? And that's how I realized I'd met my first-ever flying squirrel.

photo source unknown

I slowly pushed the open box up the wall towards him. My plan was to get him to fall into the box, close it up, and carry him out. Well, flying squirrels have pretty good control over that "falling" part. He leapt into midair over my head and gently glided across the room to the far corner, then ran up the entry doorframe. Having a good amount of potential energy is a good thing when you're a flying squirrel, I suppose.

I tried the box thing again, with similar results. He dropped to the floor and ran for the corner between the sink and the enclosed tub. There, much to my chagrin, he found a gap between the wood and tiles just large enough for him to squeeze through.

With him safely back into the plumbing spaces in the floor and walls, there was nothing to do except go to bed and hope that he got out safely without taking a detour to run across our faces while we slept.

Thankfully, I haven't seen any sign of a moose in the walls, so I'm counting myself lucky.

Sore

2006-09-18T13:36:00.000-04:00

You know you're a home owner when...

Your hamstrings are sore not from powering through personal best pulls doing deadlifts followed by an hour on the time trial bike, but from bending over sealing the deck.

New Low for DIY

2006-09-13T13:42:00.000-04:00

My DIY projects hit a new low last night, and I thought I'd share the boring task with you. Hey, why stop now? I spent two hours cleaning out my vacuum cleaner. I had sucked up tons of dead bees during the big honey purge a couple weeks ago and filled my upright vacuum with some nasty, sticky, awful-smelling stuff. It was definitely a job for a wet-dry vac, but not having one, I tried it with the upright. I gave up after it became obvious the fan blades were going through hell chopping up sticky insect bodies and if I continued, would probably ruin the vacuum for good.

I took the entire thing apart, soup to nuts, and scraped out goo and hosed everything down in the backyard. I dripped some turbine oil down the motor shaft, then reassembled. Everything went back together pretty well - I only forgot one piece and had to backtrack a couple steps to get it back in properly - and it fired up like new.

It was definitely one of those "you know you're a homeowner when..." moments. You know you're a homeowner when you get a lot of satisfaction from a well-cleaned vacuum. When I hit the switch and the air came whooshing out, smelling all fresh, I had a real moment of triumph, followed by a slight nagging feeling that it might have been more fun to get outside and ride my bike instead of pulling smelly bee goo out of a vacuum.

Wax On, Wax Off

2006-09-12T15:10:00.000-04:00

Mr. Miyagi was a wise man. I got a nice shoulder and core workout in this weekend. I washed, polished, and waxed both steeds in the barn. I got handy with a drill and dremmel and took off some big rust spots on the old Corolla I'd let go for too long, and then primed, glossed, and clear coated them. The rust was mostly along the top of the windshield. I ground it down to bare metal as best I could, masked it off, then repainted. In a fit of lack of observational power, I didn't bother to notice until I was done that the Corolla is black metallic paint rather than just black, so the patches I put on stands out from the rest of the car a little. Oops. I hit a ton of little touch-up spots on both cars as well with the tiny brushes. The first owner of the S4 blacked it out, painting the chrome load bars, side mirrors, badges and grill. I like the look, but they didn't do such a great job, and the paint sometimes peels off in large strips. I'd touched up every last little chip and peel on the car, polished and glazed her, then was in the middle of waxing when my finger hit the edge of a loose paint strip on one of the load bars and took off about a two inch square section. D'oh! Oh well, the imperfection will give her character until the next touch-up session.

The stock 2001 S4 is rated at 250hp from the 2.7L six cylinder and twin K03 turbos. She has lots of get-up-and-go already, but I'm toying with the idea of fiddling with her and putting in some modifications. I don't think I'm up for the expense of upgrading the turbos (yet?), but it wouldn't be too painful to put in a new chip and cat-back exhaust. I've read that one can pretty easily top 300hp with just those simple modifications. On the other hand, it'd be nice to start with suspension and brake upgrades to increase driving fun in the curves since lack of power really isn't an issue. The problem is, you see, I've been reading several websites recently dedicated to modifying the very-modifiable stock S4, and they've gotten my blood going. However, I have lots of self-educating to do and lots of budgeting to do before I decide to become a true Audi enthusiast and start tinkering.

Over the weekend, I also ordered a Pella replacement window from Lowes. It'll arrive in about three weeks, and if we like it, we'll order a few more and replace windows in some of the colder sections of the house. The purchase of replacement windows may be one of the many things that keep me from playing with the Audi. Luxury car parts versus windows to keep us warm... hmmm... decisions, decisions. Oh well. Better to be nice and snug in the winter than to have extra horsepower that you can't really use on the highway anyway.

Speaking of wax, by the way, it turns out that the little larvae pictured in my bee report from a while back were probably wax moths, which infest honeybee hives. The bigger larvae I saw, and whose photographs I did not include in the blog, were the baby bees. Not terribly important, but I didn't want to spread misinformation about honeybees.

Chris Thater Race Report

2006-09-08T08:59:00.000-04:00

The Chris Thater is a big deal, National Race Calendar criterium in Binghamton, NY and for me always seems to mark the culmination of a racing season. To that end, I trained extensively for the high-power output efforts necessary in a hard criterium. In the 27 days leading up to the race, I took one 50 mile tempo ride and two easy to moderate spins of about 30 miles each on my road bike and rode my mountain bike about ten times with groups of small kids. When it came time to race, man, did I ever reap the fruits of my training program! (They were mealy and tasteless.)

I woke up that Sunday morning early but not quite early enough. It was starting to spit rain as I bolted out the door. Once on the road, I realized that, even if I sped between state trooper radar traps, I'd reach the racecourse with about twenty-five minutes to go before the race. The rain was alternating between sprinkles and moderate showers when I arrived. I quickly threw the bike together, tossed a helmet on my head, said a quick hello to my dad who'd come to watch, and took off for registration. It was great to have my dad there, but I felt bad knowing that he'd driven half an hour, early on a Sunday morning to, unknowingly to him, watch me have a very mediocre performance in a rain-soaked race.

I signed in quickly, and then got dressed with enough time for a couple warm-up laps. Usually I like to warm up for crits with about 40 minutes on the trainer, so I knew I was in for some pain right off the get-go. I picked a nice place center front, said hello to some guys I knew, and waited in the rain for the starting whistle. Starts in crits can be a little hairy. Everyone takes off like a rocket to be the first to the first corner, and you don't want to be behind the guy who can't get his foot in the pedal. Worse yet, you don't want to be the guy fumbling to clip in while everyone else disappears down the road. I've learned over the years to just stomp on the pedal and take a few revolutions to get up to speed before worrying about clipping in. Today, a good start would be especially important. When the roads are soaked, it's nice to have a few corners at the front to settle in without a big group around. The slide-outs always seem to happen early before guys get a feel for the available traction, and I knew the strong boys in the bunch would be pushing hard just to thin out the pack for safety. I got lucky with my stomp and clipped right in and found myself leading into the first corner and up the hill. The PT read 500+ watts and no one wanted to go any faster, so I was first into the first two corners before I let off the gas a little and let myself drift back a few places.

I could see guys' rear tires sliding a little in the corners and I could feel mine doing the same. We started the hill on lap two and I glanced back to see the peloton stretched way out with lots of little gaps already. By lap three, the gaps were becoming significant, and I was beginning to suffer some, my excellent month of training starting to show.

I switched over to survival mode pretty quickly. The prime laps were tough on the hill, and I didn't feel comfortable in the corners, so I was always chasing hard after turns. My brain just wouldn't let me hang it all out on the wet corners in the last race of my season in a race I had little hope of placing in.

A few more laps into the race, a guy rode past and told a teammate of his that he'd been in a crash. It appeared to be pretty minor, but combined with the wet roads and the efforts to thin the herd, it broke up the peloton very quickly. A third into the race, we were down to about 20 guys of the original 50.

I hung on to the back of the little pack until about 8 to go, when I finally got gapped for good coming out of the last turn. There are two little manhole covers there plus some crosswalk paint, and I was probably being overly cautious there. My trepidation through that corner finally took its toll and I couldn't get back on after a surge.

After a couple more laps alone, the ref signaled to me that I'd been pulled. I waved and departed the course to join a couple of my teammates who'd been pulled earlier to watch two other teammates take a solo second place and ninth. Officially, I ended up in 19th place, four places out of the money. It's been several years since I've been pulled at any race. It's not a terrible feeling. It's a bit disappointing, but it ends the hurt early and since I knew I didn't train at all for the race, getting pulled was not a surprise. I thought fondly for a moment of my glory days of getting 5th at Thater in 2002 and winning seventy bucks and a watch, congratulated my teammates, then headed back to the car for some warm, dry clothes.

My dad suggested he buy me breakfast at Denny's and although I'd eaten already, I agreed to join him at least for a cup of coffee. As I arrived in the Denny's parking lot, my dad was still in his car and drove up alongside.

"You can't even get in the door!" he said, shaking his head. My dad's not the kind to sit and wait for a table for more than ten minutes, so he wanted to try the Ponderosa down the street for breakfast. I followed.

There was absolutely no line at Ponderosa, so we entered. The only breakfast item though was the "breakfast buffet" which cost seven bucks. With coffee, the total was around $18. I felt guilty at this point and decided to try to make a good show of eating some food even though I wasn't hungry.

We filled our plates, more or less, and the waitress filled our coffee cups with a mysterious just-off-clear liquid. It smelled and tasted vaguely like coffee, but looked like maybe they'd made this batch from the fourth run through a single batch of grounds. The food was nasty, and I picked at it and kept my opinions about it to myself.

Just a few bites into the meal, my dad said, "These pancakes are terrible. And look at this sausage!"

So we had a little lesson about what the length of wait to get into a restaurant might indicate about the food. Otherwise, it was fun talking about guy stuff like him patching up the old house with new shingles and me trying to get rid of a bee infestation. We topped it off with a quick stop at Lowes (for some more shingles) and then I headed to my mom's place for a visit, glad to be inside in the now pouring rain while the runners ran and the pros rode back at the Chris Thater course. It was very nice to be done racing by 8:45 in the morning with a full day of doing something else ahead of me.

With my mind shifted away from road racing, I'll be hitting the singletrack more now, and turning my attention to more home projects and maintenance fitness. I have to replace some windows, seal and re-caulk a shower, weed and prepare the garden for fall and winter, and paint a couple rooms. We're also looking to buy a used, beater pick-up truck - something we can haul big stuff in and something I can drive in the winter so the Audi can stay nice and snug and rust-free inside the barn during the cold, salty, winter months. With her quattro footing, she loves to go out and play in fresh powder, but daily driving on salty, slushy roads makes her feel itchy all over.

By the way, the very cool poster in the above picture is straight from France. My brother-in-law, Mark, was in France during the time of the 2005 Tour and passed through a town a little while after the Tour had gone through. Some street workers (not to be confused with "street workers") were ripping down the promotional posters and he asked for it, folded it into his backpack, brought it home and gave it to us. We had it mounted (they did a great job - the creases and staple marks are only slightly visible) and the colors go perfectly in our dining room.

See you on the trail!

56 Pounds

2006-09-05T12:08:00.000-04:00

Most. Disgusting. Weekend. Ever.

My wife, our friend Jeff, and I spent about seven hours riding the trails at Shindagin Forest in Ithaca last Friday. The weather was cool and dry, perfect for a day in the woods. We finished off the adventure with a nice dinner at the Commons and then headed home. With a full day of recreating under my belt, I was ready to tackle some big house projects over the three day Labor Day weekend. Well, at least I thought I was ready.

It had been a full two days since I’d seen any bee activity in the attic. I had told myself that after two days of inactivity, I’d start digging further into the wall to really get a feel for the size of the battle before me.

Let’s review for you latecomers. When we looked at our current house in October of last year before buying, we saw some honeybees entering the outside wall between the attic windows. There’s a decorative, flared section of the wall, providing a perfect triangular void for insects to set up a nicely protected home. A helpful neighbor said that the previous owners had, from time to time, battled bees. We decided that the bees wouldn’t stop us from buying the house, even though by the time we’d close on it, they’d have had at least a full year of hive building completely unopposed since the previous owners had moved out the previous February. Sue is allergic to bee stings, and the bees were finding their way under the baseboards into our finished attic gym. Doing situps with bees crawling around on the floor didn’t sound like a fun idea. In addition, the outer wall of the house showed some evidence of stains from dripping honey from years past. We decided that the bees had to go. I read up on getting rid of problem honeybees and the news wasn’t good. We wanted to take them out alive, but all indications were that beekeepers wouldn’t want to do the carpentry work to get them out, and exterminators would cost an arm and a leg and kill the bees anyway. Advice on Cornell University's web pages said honeybees in a house required a professional exterminator to come in, kill the bees, and remove the hive and honey combs. Professional, shmofessional, I thought. I could take care of this myself. Pushing my guilt aside, my battle began with some tubes and Sevin-5 poison in powder dust form. I made myself a bee suit, cut a section of the drywall away, drilled a peephole, fashioned a poison dust puffer from tubing and an old bike pump, and applied doses daily for a couple weeks, inside the hive from the back and also into the outside entrance, which I reached through an open window with the tubing duct taped to an unwound wire clothes hanger. Whenever I had a hole in the wall, I’d put up screen to keep the little buggers as contained as possible.

So, finally, last Saturday morning arrived and I hadn’t seen any movement or heard the usual buzzing in two days. The smell from the wall was becoming stomach turning. A few thousand dead, rotting bees put off an indescribable smell. I donned the bee suit and started cutting the hole in the drywall bigger, then bigger, then bigger. My bee suit consists of a layer of cycling rainsuit plus plastic-coated painting overalls, so I end up soaked with sweat within ten minutes. It's terribly fun. As I cut further into the wall, I discovered that someone had done this very thing at least once before. The sections of drywall I cut away revealed a wooden panel screwed into place over a hole that had been cut in the original wallboards. I unscrewed the board, held my breath, and pulled it out.

Oh. My. God. Filling the cavity before me was layer after layer of honeycomb. Underneath the comb, the void in the wall was filled with little rotting corpses. I set down several garbage bags to cover the carpet, with one open in a milk crate, and began pulling out the comb, chiseling it away from the slanting wallboards, and filling the garbage bag. It was heavy with honey, and it dripped down my rubber gloves, over my tools, onto the corpses below, and covered everything. There is a wall partition to the right, but to the left, the hive extended into another wall section. Bees occasionally popped out from that side, angrily checking me out and then heading to a nearby window. I spent Saturday cleaning out the right side, and then screened it all up for the night. The work was messy and the smell disgusting, but otherwise it was very interesting. Little did I know the next day would be oh so much worse.

On Sunday, I cut away the drywall on the left, found another screwed-in panel, and removed that. The left side of the void was filled again with comb, but most of it looked different. I knew that this side must be where the brood comb would be, where the baby bees are raised. The smell was heavier here, and I occasionally escaped outside to take breaths of fresh air. I dug out the comb, filling another garbage bag. The honeycomb on this side was at the top, and then I got down into the brood comb. I pulled out the layers, revealing piles of squirming, maggot-like larvae. Between the sight of the wriggling grubs on the wall and on my hands, and the smell of the rotting insects below, it took quite a bit of willpower to keep my lunch down. If anyone had been walking below the open window, they would have heard some gasps, exclamations, near-gags and a lot of colorful language. By Sunday evening, I’d cleared out the left side. The next day, I’d tackle the bottom of the wall void.

I set up a third garbage bag Monday morning, and began scooping out the layers of dead insects, bee waste, pollen, and other rotting material that had been compacted in the wall over the past couple years. I wiped cologne under my nose and wore a facemask to try to keep the smell at bay, but it worked only for a couple minutes before the odor became overpowering again. It was not my idea of a fun time. With my face inches away from honey-covered roofing nails and dead bee larvae still stuck to the wall, I reached deep into the hole and dug out rotting, stinking death and waste.

I filled a third garbage bag, then sprayed down the wall with a bleach-water solution to try to knock down the smell. I’ll let it set open for a few days to dry out, then I’ll staple up the inside of the outer wall with some sort of insect barrier, then fill the void with insulation, put back the wood panels, then patch up the drywall.

In the end, I removed fifty-six pounds of honey and brood comb. No joke. I'll say that again. I carried out fifty-six pounds of honey, wax, and bee larvae in three full milk crates. I kept my food down during the entire three-day process, so I’m calling it a success so far. This weekend will definitely be recorded as my most disgusting Labor Day weekend ever.

Overnight Number One

2006-08-17T11:46:00.000-04:00

I'm recovering from Sprockids camping trip number one and preparing for number two. We took twenty-five kids into the woods Tuesday evening, played cards, roasted marshmallows, stayed up late cracking jokes and telling riddles, played team-building games, went swimming and most importantly, took them on some of the area's gnarliest trails.

They did great! I was very impressed as even the littlest kids tried the biggest obstacles. We spotted them over the toughest stuff, and they got over their fears and tackled huge chainring logs, wheelie drops, tall log piles, and skinny bridges over smelly, wet muck.

We take a smaller group of only the older, advanced riders to Highland Forest this weekend for our advanced clinic. After seeing how great everyone did on the technical trails at Vanderkamp, I'm thinking there's not much more we can challenge them with! The older kids though don't tire as quickly as the little ones, so we'll keep the pace up a little higher, cover more ground, and run them (and us) ragged this weekend.

Sprockids

2006-08-15T14:28:00.000-04:00

Tonight I head up to a local backwoods camp for the first of two overnight trips this week with Sprockids, a summer mountain biking program run by my wife Sue and several other volunteers including me. We'll be overnighting with the big group at Vanderkamp midweek, then taking the older kids to Highland Forest for a weekend camping/advanced skills clinic session.

It's rewarding to see kids' skills grow and have them get really excited about riding. A few of them have even gotten themselves road bikes over the past couple years and are starting to think about hitting the junior racing scene. Yeah!

See you on the trails.

Bee Battle Begins

2006-08-14T13:46:00.000-04:00

I launched the first attack of my War with the Bees yesterday. We have a very well established honeybee hive in our eastern attic wall. The little buggers come and go through a hole between the cedar shingle siding between and below the attic windows.

It's been very easy to procrastinate with this project. When you're thinking of dealing with a big hive in the wall filled with, who knows, up to 100,000 bees, it's easy to find other things to work on first.

At first we thought it'd be great to get rid of the bees while keeping them alive, and maybe give them to a local beekeeper. Bees are awesome, after all, and flowers and crops need them, and they make honey and all that. I'd seen an episode of Dirty Jobs that showed a professional bee man cutting a huge section out of the siding on a church to remove a honeybee hive. The idea of someone cutting a huge section out of my outside wall didn't thrill me however.

Further research though, indicated that people who keep bees buy their queens for new hives or gather up new clumps of bees when they "swarm", when a new queen sets off with a bunch of workers in search of a new home. Bees can be trapped by placing a wire cone over the entrance of the hive so they can't figure out how to get back in, and then placing a replacement hive near the entrance so they immigrate to the new home. Great, but it takes something like two or three months, requires attaching the new hive near the current one, and in the end, you still have to dig into the wall to remove the hive and the old queen and old bees that don't leave the hive. Yeah, I don't think so.

So, unfortunately, it appeared extermination was the way to go. We thought about hiring an exterminator, but I, in a moment of what may prove in the long run to be bad judgment, decided that this would be a fun D.I.Y. project.

A trip to a couple hardware stores and a fabric store netted me a set of white coveralls (apparently bees aren't as ornery on light colored clothing), some PVC gloves both for sting protection and for handling insecticide, some wedding veil fabric for my head, a big roll of duct tape (always handy), some wire screen, a long thin tube, and a carton of Sevin-5 Dust which contains Carbaryl. I have no idea what that stuff is but it's apparently very bad for bees. There are cautions on the carton about accidentally getting it near bees when trying to kill other insects because it'll kill them so well. Sounds perfect!

I read that the poison dust could be placed on the bee entrance, but if the hive was far from the entrance, it might take a long time and might require many applications. The recommended way was to access the hive from inside and put the dust directly into the hive. So, okay, here we go.

I donned the bee outfit, stretched the veil material over a bike helmet to keep the veil from touching my face, and headed into the attic. Let me tell you, by the way, that wearing sealed coveralls and rubber gloves in an 85 degree attic is a great way to loose some water weight. I was soaked in about five minutes.

I located the studs between the attic windows, and drilled a small hole through the drywall to see what I could see. Nothing. I poked at it with a screwdriver. Something moved then rebounded. Ah yes, the paper cover over fiberglass insulation.

Feeling more confident that the hive was on the other side of the insulation, I drilled some bigger holes to verify, then cut a big square of drywall away, from the middle of one stud to the middle of the next one.

At this point, I took my big square of screen material, and stapled it tightly along the bottom beam. If I exposed the hive, I would then flip up the screen and quickly staple it shut, hopefully before too many bees got out. I picked at the insulation, moving it carefully and slowly. Through a dark space on the right, I aimed a flashlight. The light beam fell upon the inside of the outer wood wall, and it was teeming with bees. Deep breath... I couldn't see the hive itself, but I'd certainly gained access to a major thoroughfare.

I stapled up the rest of the screen, then broke open a hole just big enough for my tube. I threaded the tube through the hole and back toward where I'd seen the bees. They were not happy with the intrusion. A couple bees popped out of the passage and circled the tube on their side of the screen nervously.

I carefully shook some of the dust poison into an open container, then tamped my end of the tube into it several times, slowly packing a nice dose of the powder into it. I then put the hose end into the head of an old bike pump - it fit nice and tight - and gave a couple pumps. I couldn't see where it went, but the tube emptied, and the bees were definitely not too pleased.

I checked this morning and the inside of the screen had several bees on it. About half were dead and some others didn't look very healthy. On my way to work, I glanced up to the outside wall and there was zero activity. It's probably because it was early morning and still cool, but it'd be nice to think that it was already having an effect. I'll apply several more doses over the next week or so, and if I continue to see no outside activity, or when I dare, I'll open up the screen a bit more and pull away some more of the insulation to see if I can get a glimpse of the hive itself.

Once (if?) I get all the bees killed off, it's going to be a big, nasty job removing the actual hive. Without bees to keep the honey cool, it can melt and stain woodwork throughout the wall. It can also attract other bees, honey moths, mice, and other critters, so it's got to go, and it's got to go relatively soon after the bees are gone. I understand the smell of many thousands of bees decomposing in the wall is none to pleasant as well.

It will be interesting to see if I can follow through with this project until the end, or if I bag it at some point and call in the pros.

Another Country Heard From

2006-08-11T11:32:00.000-04:00

What the heck, I'll weigh in on Floyd Landis' test results at the Tour. I don't know anything about endocrinology so all this is based on my layman's view. If anyone out there can clear up any misconceptions I might have, please let me know.

Here's what I think we know now:

1) The average guy has a testosterone to epitestosterone ratio around 1:1

2) A 4:1 ratio is the highest ratio legal for cycling

3) Floyd's ratio of testosterone to epitestosterone suddenly spiked to 11:1, from previously tested levels up to but not over 4:1

4) He tested positive for synthetic testosterone (unnatural carbon isotope ratios)

5) His absolute levels of testosterone stayed relatively constant throughout all tests, negative and positive, so the 11:1 ratio was caused by a drop in his epitestosterone of at least 64% (if his previous ratio was a max T:E of 4:1, then a 64% drop in the E would result in around 11:1, and if his previous ratio was less than 4:1, then we need an even greater percentage drop in E to account for the spike. E.g. if he were an average male at 1:1, we need a 91% drop. Wow. I hope my math is correct there.)

Possible "Floyd is GUILTY" Scenarios

1) Floyd was juicing all along with synthetic T and E, carefully managing his ratio to keep it below 4:1, but ran out of, or forgot, or incorrectly measured the E in his latest dose before the test, accidentally spiking the ratio. (Oopsie!)

2) Floyd took just enough synthetic testosterone to boost his levels of T back up to where they were before, but failed to boost his levels of E to make sure he would test below the 4:1 ratio. This would imply he was monitoring his natural levels of T and E very carefully and noticed a big drop, and that the synthetic testosterone was administered by someone who was a bumbling idiot or didn't have any epitestosterone handy. Also, by most accounts, the effects of the dose wouldn't have been seen for at least several days, so taking a single dose seems silly. (Oopsie again.)

Possible "Floyd is INNOCENT" Scenarios

1) The lab intentionally or incompetently got both ratio tests and the isotope test wrong. (The French are sick of Americans winning their Tour, and are willing to sacrifice the reputation of the Tour and the sport of cycling.)

2) Someone slipped Floyd a dose of synthetic testosterone without him knowing it, and coincidentally, Floyd just happened to have a huge drop in his natural T and E levels at the same time, and his drop in natural T levels matched the amount he received from the secret dose. (Uh huh. Riiiight.)

3) The positive ratio test was correct, but the synthetic test was a false positive, and Floyd had a natural drop in epitestosterone (at least 64%) without a corresponding drop in testosterone. (Can that even happen? What do the experts say?)

4) The experts in the field of testosterone and epitestosterone don't know enough about it, and someday we'll find out that the body can naturally produce testosterone of varying isotope ratios that look synthetic, and that the ratio of T to E in the body can fluctuate wildly under stress of bonking, having a couple beers, and eating French cuisine. (Hey, you never know.)

Possible Defense Strategies?

If the samples haven't been discarded and it's possible to do so, it seems Floyd could help his case by ordering his urine from previous drug tests tested for synthetic testosterone. If they all come back negative, then that effectively rules out guilty scenario number one and leaves him with only one scenario where he's guilty, and a complicated and bumbling one at that.

Attack the lab and other authorities for their lack of procedure and link their reputation for leaking results to their trustworthiness. Discredit the B sample result by showing that the lab wouldn't have been blinded during the test because of the leaked information, and that bias may have skewed the results. Getting the B sample result thrown out could then result in getting the isotope result thrown out, and although he'd probably still be guilty, he could get away with it because of the lab's shoddy procedures.

Unless Floyd can come up with a reason his natural epitestosterone dropped suddenly irrespective of his levels of testosterone, and a reason why the synthetic testosterone test would read a false positive, it would seem he's going to be guilty of doping, whether or not he gets away with it because of procedural problems by the lab or cycling authorities. I hope someone smarter than I can come up with a defense that can prove Floyd is truly innocent, but I won't be holding my breath.

It seems the most likely scenario has Floyd being guilty, and having been on a regimen of careful doping all along with one screw-up at an inopportune time. That's sad, and I'm considering deleting the coverage I have recorded on the hard disk and not burning it to DVD. That was several wasted hours of cheering in front of the television I'll never get back. Watching professional cycling seems a little like watching professional wrestling now.

I have to go ride my bike now. See you on the road.

Treadmill Winding Down

2006-08-09T11:45:00.000-04:00

Wow. I don't know where to start. It seems like the past two or three weeks had me on a treadmill at full steam. Things are winding down now, and it feels better.

July 22-23 Owasco Stage Race Report

I loaded up the car in showers Saturday morning with all the time trial gear. Aero helmet, trainer, TT bike, etc. It was warm, but the rain persisted. It let off in the hour before my start time, and I got in a pleasant warmup on the trainer. I was already soaked with sweat by the time the rain started again, fifteen minutes before my start. I packed up the car and headed out on the two-mile ride to the start line, hoping that I wouldn't get a flat halfway there. At my start the rain was pouring down. Buckets. The twelve-mile course was quite hilly for a time trial, but the start was flat and downhill for quite a while. I concentrated on holding a high cadence, especially on the climbs. I felt good and had ripped past two guys by the halfway mark. One was my 30-second man, and the other guy had missed his start time and had started about 45 seconds before me. On a climb on the way back, I pulled past a clump of three more guys, and while that was motivating to catch my 1:00, 1:30, and 2:00 men, I could feel my legs starting to go to rubber. On the final climb up to the finish line, I went to shift into the little ring and the chain got hung up between the rings. I slowed to almost stopping by the time I got it down, and two of the guys I'd passed came by. Ack! I stomped back up to speed and managed to bring them back and put about ten seconds back into them by the finish. I was pleased with the effort and ended up third overall going into the afternoon's circuit race.

The excitingly technical downtown criterium had been replaced by a boring circuit out in the middle of nowhere due to unexpected road construction. The circuit had a sharp little climb in it, not enough to drop me, but enough to take the sting out of the climbing muscles, not good preparation for Sunday's monstrous road race. There was no centerline on the rural roads, and despite the officials warning us about staying right, the pack was almost always curb-to-curb. A downhill section brought us into turn three at 40+ mph, and it seemed pretty hairy in the pack. After a few laps, the hill took its toll and we shed several riders that at least made things a bit safer. I was happy to sit in and not contest any of the sprints, sprinting not being one of my strong points. I lost two places overall due to time bonuses, but hoped to make it up in the road race.

Sunday morning brought beautiful weather and a road race that promised to be brutal, with a total of seven miles of climbing spread over six major climbs, with lots of rollers in between. I felt great at the beginning, and watched the guys around me in general classification closely. The first short KOM was no trouble at all, and I rolled over near the front of the pack. I knew that eating and drinking properly would be key, so I concentrated on that. As we entered one of the towns along the way, the pace car took a wrong turn onto the women's course, and then turned again, completely off all courses and up a steep hill. Our pack followed, but it didn't take those of us who knew the course long to convince everyone to stop. We turned ourselves around and rode back to continue on the proper course. We decided to ride at a "neutral" pace until the lead car got back in front of us. I was in the first couple rows of riders as we hit the steeps of the first climb. I glanced at the PowerTap. Yikes. Our "riding neutral" pace had me at 350 watts already. I tried to chat up the neutral pace thing, but others were getting antsy because of the KOM line approaching in about a kilometer. First one, then two, then several guys took off up the hill. I tried to stay within a reasonable distance while at the same time trying to keep it near my own pace. I popped off the back of the lead group of 25 guys or so near the top. I chased solo for several minutes and finally caught back on during a very steep downhill. It didn't look good though, because I'd spent way too much time at redline and the next steep hill was approaching quickly. I got up over the first steep section of the next climb at the front of the group, but that was all I had. I settled in pushing a hard pace, but it wasn't enough and rider after rider passed. Over the top, I was working with a teammate and a couple other guys, and we spent the rest of the race picking up stragglers and not killing each other on the climbs. I fell off that group on the last three sprinter's climbs right before the finish, to end up about seven, yes seven, minutes behind the winner. I rocketed down the standings from 5th to 16th, if I remember right. Not a good day. On one of the climbs in the middle, our group way off the back, another guy said, "You know, I thought I was a climber until today." He couldn't have summed up my thoughts better. I looked at my wattage report later. It was obvious that on those length climbs, max power over five minutes was the most important number. Mine had been very close to the best I'd seen in training, but not quite there, probably due to having raced the day before. Looking at the numbers which showed me at 4.8W/kg for the critical five minutes of the first climb, I would have normally thought it wasn't that bad, but unfortunately I estimate from the time gaps at the top that the real players were putting down about 5.0W/kg. Oh well. At least I brought home a little cash from the third place in the TT, and some good wattage data I can use in training. That is, don't anticipate being at the front in a competitive cat 4/5 race unless your MP(5) wattage climbing is 5W/kg or better.

July 27-30 Empire State Games Report

Thursday of the next week, I headed out to Rochester for the Empire State Games. A 10-mile individual time trial, followed by a 75-mile hilly road race, followed by a 39-mile criterium followed by a 40 mile team time trial, all makes for a fun long weekend indeed.

The ITT passed uneventfully. I was 38th of the 55 or so guys. The course was pretty flat, but the pavement was concrete, with seams and broken and patched sections throughout. Hitting those rough spots was far from comfortable in the aero position. A fairly strong sidewind was coming off Lake Ontario as well, so the going felt slow. Indeed, my time over 24:30 was a couple minutes off what I felt I could have done on smooth pavement with no wind, and everyone else's times reflected the slow conditions as well.

The light rain at the beginning of the road race quickly turned to a downpour near the top of the big climb at the end of the first lap. As we descended at 45-50 mph towards the run up to the finish line, I curled my lips in because the drops of rain hurt so much. Other guys with contact lenses were squinting with their eyes almost shut to keep their lenses in place. The first climb put me on the back of the pack, getting gapped a little then catching back on. With three more climbs up that hill to do, it wasn't looking good. Since every place counted though, my job would be to hold on for as long as possible, then stay ahead of guys who'd already been dropped. Sure enough, the second time up the hill popped me for good near the top. On the flats that followed, a stronger teammate who'd flatted behind me caught me, and we worked together to catch another teammate and the three of us made a push to try to catch the pack. No go. I popped, then they broke apart on later climbs. I really hoped the officials would pull me after the third lap, but they instead gave me encouragement, so I slogged, legs buckling and back aching, through one more lap to the finish. By that time, the rain had stopped and my bike had dried, and was now making some nasty noises from all the road grit that I picked up. I rolled across the finish, managing to stay away from small groups of riders who had been behind me.

The criterium was on a very short (.62 miles) course. There was one 90-degree right turn at the bottom of a slope, which fed into a gently turning uphill to the finish, followed by two more very gentle and slow turns. Experience definitely played a big part at the criterium. With a strong headwind on the uphill to the finish, I was able to stay in contact by just picking the right wheels to sit behind. I'd rest on the top of the course and the downhill, even letting myself drift off the back of the pack. Into the downhill turn, they'd usually hit their brakes and with the gap I'd let grow, I could always just swoop through the turn at top speed and get right back on the tail of the pack for the uphill without losing any speed and having to accelerate hard. After the halfway point, we'd dropped a huge number of guys, many of them quite a bit stronger than I am. I began to contemplate becoming a criterium specialist. If I could improve my sprint, my experience can usually get me to the front near the end, and I might actually do well. In this race, a pack of really strong guys got off the front, and we let them go, content to try to finish with the most guys at the head of the main pack. It worked pretty well, and we mopped up quite a few points just by being consistent.

The last day brought the team time trial. We divided up into two five-man teams. The course was the same as the individual course, except the turnaround was five miles farther, and we'd have to do the course twice for a total of forty miles, and the time would be taken on the third guy, so we needed to finish with at least three. On the first leg, we were flying. The New York City "B" squad was within sight at the first turnaround, and we passed them just as we were approaching the second turn at the end of the second 10-mile leg, which had been a little slower with a headwind. That's when it happened. I was in my aerobars and a bit cross-eyed from the effort. My brain whispered to me, "Pssst. You know, you're a little close to that wheel." I let off the gas as I came up a little on the left side of my teammate's rear wheel. Still in the aerobars, seemingly in slow motion, I was now drifting back away from him, but at the same time, I was heading a little to the right and/or he was heading a little to the left. VVVWWWIIIIPPPP! My front tire met the left side of his wheel for a split second as I leaned to the right into his wheel. I was sure I was going down, probably right onto my right shoulder for a snapped collarbone as I was still in the aerobars. The wheels released suddenly and I went rocketing off the road, a ways down the bank and into rough grass. Reflexes somehow got me out of the aerobars and I stood and sprinted in the big gear I was in over all the lumps of grass back towards the pavement. My teammate behind me was yelling, and the NYC guys were yelling and scrambling to avoid both me and my other teammates who were in the process of slowing down to gather me up and complete the turn-around at the same time. I'm sure the spectators were entertained by the mayhem. With a nice adrenaline rush, we got back together and were rolling again. NYC got past us as we were reorganizing, but then we passed them again. Farther down the road, one of our guys said he was cooked and popped off the back. NYC came by again, and this time, we just settled in about 100 meters off their backside and held that distance. At the last turnaround, we passed NYC again. A few miles later, our fourth guy who'd been mostly sitting on for a while gave a monster last pull and then popped off for good. Our third teammate soon started taking very short pulls and then they declined to zero length pulls. With just two of us driving the bus, it was purgatory. The bumps in the road now looked like foot-high speed bumps and each one tore a little bit more skin off the saddle sores I'd started during the wet road race and fully opened up the day before in the criterium. Combining the physical effort in those last five miles with the flames in my crotch from the raw skin on bumpy concrete, and I think it was the worst hell I'd ever been through on a bike. If I'd felt that bad during any other race, I'd quickly be off the back and riding my own tempo, but here I was one of two guys left with power to get the three of us to the finish as fast as we could go. There would be no stopping the pain until that thin white line on the pavement passed under the front tire.

In the end, with some great efforts from everyone, the team brought home the silver medal. In addition I brought home another ESG jersey, some pride from working that hard for team goals, some fun of meeting and riding with a couple new guys, and a really bad case of the runs. I don't know if it was the four days of dorm food, something in the water in Rochester, something I picked up from the wet road spray in the road race, or what. I actually think it might have been my guts saying, "Listen here, moron. If you work us that hard, we're going to do something to make you sit down."

After seven days of several long bathroom visits each day over the last week, I was just about to make an appointment with the doctor, when I noticed that my digestion was starting to feel like it might be getting back to normal. I'm putting off a doctor's visit pending the next big explosion, if one comes. I hope I'm through with them for a while.

Luella M. Whitaker Williamson
August 4, 1912 - August 2, 2006

Just after getting back from the Games, I spent some time at home visiting my grandmother. She passed two days shy of her 94th birthday. Her health had been quite good right up until near the end, and for that we were all grateful. She was a fantastic lady and a loving grandmother. I learned so much about how to live and how to love from the example set by her and my grandfather. I was incredibly lucky to have grown up on their farm and to have really known them well. She will be with me always.

Busy!

2006-07-13T12:39:00.000-04:00

I've unfortunately been so busy lately that updating the blog slipped off the priority lists. I thought I'd post some quick snippets of what's been happening recently.

I felt like superman on a club ride a couple weeks ago. The weekend of racing in Rochester and Auburn brought a surge in fitness. I've been riding it and spending time on the time trial bike and doing a killer hill loop near my house. Each time up the climb takes 13-14 minutes, with about 20 minutes of tempo riding to get back down around to the base of the climb again. My climbing legs are beginning to come back.

I did some recon on the new road course for the Owasco Stage Race coming in nine days. The road course is a beast. It's going to be great. It's the best I've ridden on since the old course in the defunct Killington Stage Race. Seriously, this race is going to rock. In the 59 mile cat 4/5 race alone, there are six major climbs with a total of about 7 miles of climbing, some of it very, very steep. It's going to be a suffer fest!

Sprockids, a mountain biking program for kids 10-14 that my wife runs, along with help from other adult volunteers and me, started up last week, and will occupy two nights a week through August.

My almost 94-year-old grandma is not doing well, so I've made a couple trips to Binghamton for visits this week. She's in the hospital with pneomonia and comfortable, but the outlook is not good.

I had an esophageal endoscopy on Monday to check for gastric reflux that often accompanies asthma. The "amnesia medicine" they mix in with the IV drip sedative worked a little too well for me. I remember about two minutes worth of the three hours or so that followed the five-minute procedure. The conversation with the doctor afterwards is totally gone, and I'm still piecing together images from the late breakfast at the diner. At 9:00 in the evening, I realized I had no memory of leaving the doctor's office, the ride home, and there was some medicine on the table and I had no idea what I was supposed to do with it. Very strange sensation. In any case, everything worked out fine with no real problems. My asthma itself is doing quite well with the new inhaled steroids I'm taking (don't tell WADA) and I'm breathing well on the bike and I can turn a bigger gear longer before the burn starts to come in.

Watching the tour has been great, although I've been able to catch about 15 minutes of each stage so far.

We've also spent quite a bit of time in the flower garden making the final weeding push. I've torn up some burdock that had roots the length of the Mississippi, sat on an ant hill without knowing it, and waged war on pervasive ground cover.

With all that going on, plus trying to cram in a couple training sessions now and again, the blog has been slipping. Hopefully there'll be more soon!

See you on the road.

Sacrifices and Spoils

2006-06-26T14:47:00.000-04:00

A weekend of fast racing is behind me, and I'm looking forward to the next 26 days of training race-free.

The Rochester Criterium

Saturday evening I drove out to Rochester for the Twilight Criterium. Sue and our nephew Brian came with me to watch. Brian just got hit by a baseball pitch and broke his arm for, I think, the fourth summer in a row. We thought that watching a fast, national-level pro criterium under the lights would be a good distraction from the pain.

I realized a few miles from home that I'd forgotten to pack the trainer. I was running a bit tight on time to get there before registration closed, so there was no going back. Warming up would be tricky. I'd driven to the race last year when Sue raced and I watched, and the directions I'd downloaded from the Rochester web site seemed different. They said they led to a parking garage. I assumed that must be a mistake - after all, why would you lead a bunch of cyclists with bikes on the roof to a parking garage?

Sure enough, I followed them, winding around several blocks in the city and discovered that they did indeed terminate at the entrance to a parking garage. I could see the course so I could get my bearings, and I had an idea of where last year's parking lot might be. I drove on, fast, of course, because when you're lost, you want to get there fast.

I headed south, and took a left turn on intuition. It ended at a familiar intersection. There was a "road closed ahead" sign to the left, with just enough room to get around it. I sped past. Hey, it said "road closed ahead", not "road closed". Another block, another "road closed ahead" sign. There was no room to go around it and stay in my lane, but I could see the parking lot I wanted to get to. After a quick glance around for John Brown, I sped around the island in the middle of the road, into the oncoming lane, back over into my lane, and into the parking lot, safe and sound, and fifteen minutes before registration closed.

The Rochester Crit course has nine turns, including a sweeping hairpin into a downhill section. The uphill section past the finish line isn't steep, but it sure can eat at the legs. I found the course easy technically, despite what I originally thought from looking at the map of nine turns. The only high-speed corner is at the bottom of the long, straight downhill, and it's a gently sweeping turn, so even at high speed you can pedal through it. All the technical sections are either wide open or come at the top of gentle climbs so the speeds aren't very high.

I bummed time on a trainer from a friend who'd raced an earlier race, and got the heart rate up and the legs burning. The burn tells you it's working. Ninety-three of us lined up at the category 3/4 start line.

Past the finish line, the road narrows into a single lane with a curbed traffic island on the left. It then turns right, then sweeps left and back right again around a hairpin. Our field was already beginning to stretch out. Someone at the front was putting on the gas. In the back, you come around that hairpin doing under 20mph, and already the front of the pack is halfway down the hill doing over 30. Talk about your slinky! Ouch.

The pace stayed hot for several laps. The announcer kept remarking on how long the 93-man field was when it was stretched out single file. I noticed that my uphill wattage in the finishing straight was between 400 and 550 watts every lap around. I figured maybe it was best I not look.

I could hear Sue and Brian yelling at the hairpin turn where they'd set up to watch the race. I heard my name at other points along the course as well, and they kept me hanging on tight. After four laps, I glanced behind me. Nobody home. I'd started out near the middle of the pack, but I'd somehow drifted all the way to the back! Into the downhill turn, I pushed the pace and slingshot past several guys, took the left then right tight, and settled down as best I could with the cushion of quite a few guys behind me in the train.

Three or four more laps went by. A teammate of mine popped and disappeared. Another one suddenly sat up and pulled to the side after the hairpin, cracked. I jumped across the gap and got back on the pack. Up the hill again, and I looked behind me. Nobody home again! I realized I wasn't drifting back in the pack. The pack behind me was disappearing! For the entire race, I seemed to be mark the edge of a cliff. As soon as I got ahead of somebody, they'd drop off and get pulled by the officials.

About two-thirds through the race, I almost ended my race in spectacular irony. The pace suddenly eased past the finish line. I moved up on the outside and found a nice little space to tuck in between the pack and the traffic island's curb. A guy behind me yelled, "Watch the curb, idiot!" I had plenty of space to move in, and did so, no problem. I glanced back and said, "Yeah, I got my eye on it." That was right about the time that the curb edged in another five inches or so, something I'd failed to notice on my previous laps. My left pedal came slamming down on top of it, vaulting my bike up into the air a few inches. My tires came safely back down to earth and I kept my mouth shut for the remainder of the race.

During the last lap, I managed a late surge to move up nine spots from dead last to 31st. We finished with only 40 of the original 93 left in the pack. During the race, I felt bad about being at the back, but after the finish, I felt pretty good about having held on and beaten 62 guys. What didn't feel good were my saddle bits, my nether regions, the creases between my legs and the "boys". I'd spent so long spinning on the rivet under high power, I'd chaffed off some skin down below.

Sue, Brian and I strolled off to the Golden Port restaurant with my friends from the area, Maria and Adam, for some dim sum. I sucked down rice, eel, chicken, vegetable dumplings, crab, wasabi, seaweed salad, and some kind of sweet red bean desert pocket. Good food! Brian was a real trooper. There's no way I would have tried eel at age 13, but he was in there swinging.

We headed back to the racecourse to watch the second half of the men's pro race. Their pace was obviously very fast this year, as their huge field suffered the same fate that mine did. By the finish, the announcer was noting that the pros had whittled off every last amateur cat 1 and 2 in the field. Friends of mine who I consider super strong were in this field and were cracked wide open. Amazing to watch.

The Owasco Lake Flyer

Sunday morning, I headed out to Auburn for the Owasco Lake Flyer. Around 200 people, I'd guess, of abilities ranging from fast tourist to decent cat 2 lined up. I spent the half-mile controlled start skimming up the shoulder of the road to get in the front. There was an early solo break. I knew the guy and I knew the horsepower in the pack could suck him back in with little difficulty when we decided to go. The first little hill loomed on the horizon, and someone up front lit a match. The field strung out and the solo break came back fast. A small group got a good gap on the climb as the rest of the pack slowed a bit. The major players sat in, waiting for the second half of the race where most of the climbing is, and the gap widened.

About halfway through the race, I heard the telltale, "Whoa, whoa, WHOA!" followed by metal and carbon hitting pavement coming from a ways behind me. No one was seriously injured, but the pileup would delay a couple of the major players who would catch up to the front only much later in the race,

I was able to hang onto the head of the peloton until about half way up the climbing sections when it got a bit steeper. I settled into a rhythm with a teammate of mine who's been climbing around my ability recently. After a few more minutes, I could feel my legs getting that feeling like I could push them beyond limits, and as I concentrated, my breathing began to relax a bit and opened up. I started pushing bigger gears, watched the watts on my PowerTap pop up a bit, and watched the group in front of me get bigger as the guys I'd been riding with got smaller and disappeared. I grabbed a wheel in a group of five other guys as they crested the climb, then sat in to rest briefly. Oddly enough, I then felt like I was one of the stronger guys in the group and we pulled hard to try to catch groups in front of us.

The last few miles of the course are an endless series of ups and downs, so any differences in ability became obvious as even small groups like ours split apart. I finished sprinting against an up-and-comer, one of the high school kids who attends the local Thursday night races. As his 17 year-old legs started to pull away from me on the finishing rise, my 35 year-old left calf threatened to cramp. It's done that before and I know that if I keep pushing, it'll cramp up and be sore for several days, so I sat up and brought home 20th place overall solo.

Everyone always seems so much friendlier at non-USCF races, and this was no exception. Everyone congratulated everyone else for doing their best, and everyone chatted over free food and drink and schwag for quite some time after the race. There were door prizes for the lucky, and awards deep into age categories for those who managed to be just a little bit speedy for their age.

Let the Healing and Suffering Begin

With some healthy doses of Bag Balm and Gold Bond, things down south are feeling better and I'm ready to embark on three solid weeks of some hard training. I felt some form beginning to come on over the weekend, and with some good training it'll keep coming along.

See you on the road!

Summer Weddings and Gold Mines

2006-06-23T12:01:00.001-04:00

Alert readers might notice the disappearance of two events on my calendar. Another wedding has claimed two more races, in Windsor and Union Vale. The wedding will be my first time ever to Central Park, so that'll be interesting, but the schedule will likely keep me off the bike for three days straight, Saturday through Monday, the weekend before the big Owasco Stage Race. I will have to plan my training carefully.

With the wedding July 15-16, me having dropped out of Fitchburg June 29-July 2, and no interesting races on July 8-9, I'm left with 26 days of no races between the races this weekend and the Owasco SR. It's actually the perfect opportunity to test my mettle, to see how well I can stick to a hard training schedule leading up to the big event. It's also an opportunity to enjoy some peak summer weekends with friends and family and to take part in some activities that normal people do during the summer while I'm usually off racing. Who knows? Maybe I'll actually move forward with taking care of that bee infestation and the replacement window project. Oh, but wait, there will also be lots of Tour de France watching to be done...

Speaking of watching television, I watched the US soccer team lose to Ghana last night. The announcer said that the government of Ghana had declared a half-day national holiday so everyone could go home and watch or listen to the match, and they asked the country's gold mines to shutdown during the match so that there would be enough electricity to power all of the TV sets and radios. Okay, it would have been nice for the US to keep going in the World Cup, but hey, if we have to lose, I'm glad it was to a country where they're so poor that they need to shut down industries to save electricity and where it's so important for national pride that everyone goes home from work to watch the game.

See you in front of the television.

Knees

2006-06-22T12:07:00.000-04:00

As many cyclists do, I tend to have overly tight hamstrings, quads, and IT bands. Things go pretty well when I stretch thoroughly every day, and especially after rides.

I've been pretty lax in my stretching routine earlier this year and my right knee was letting me know. When the muscles get really tight, my kneecaps don't track very well and the back of my kneecap gets sore and swollen, and bending the knee gets "crunchy".

I'd applied myself a bit more to stretching and was going pretty well. During Saturday's mountain bike ride, I fell off and nailed the end of my right vastus medialis just above my kneecap, possibly with my elbow or handlebar or stem, I'm not sure which. The swelling that resulted tightened the structures around the knee, and low and behold, during the 130 miles that I've put in on the road bike since then, my kneecap is back to being sore and a little crunchy.

Most of my riding has been in the tempo range, with a few intervals of higher wattage, but I've always tried to keep the gears easy and the torque low. The club ride on Wednesday was to include Moon Hill, a local .7-mile climb with grades of 19%. Usually, I find climbing Moon Hill "fun", but I avoided it this time around and stayed on the gentler climbs to keep the knee from yelling at me.

The swelling from the mountain bike fall is almost gone now, a yellowish bruise in its place, and the knee is feeling pretty good. I'll take a relatively easy spin tonight to warm up, concentrate on stretching well while watching the US vs Ghana match on tape (shhhh, don't tell me what happened) and then take tomorrow evening off. There's an annual block party on our street Friday evening, and as the newest residents, we're pretty much obligated to go meet the locals. I can't wait to talk about other people's kids.

The weekend will bring some big-time intensity, if not duration, with the Rochester Twilight Criterium on Saturday where I'll be racing in the 3-4 field, and the Owasco Flier on Sunday. The crit has a bunch of turns and a swooping hairpin, so I'm looking forward to racing it for the first time. I've found with experience comes an enjoyment of technical crit courses. The Flier is only 36 miles long and it's a non-USCF race with one massive open category. There is prize money though, so the field is always peppered with local cat 2s. The pace is usually pretty hot from the beginning as all the veteran riders fight to stay ahead of the danger of the rest of the 150+ rider peloton filled with riders with less experience racing in a big pack. The climbs begin about halfway through the course, and then it's pretty much a hilly, balls-to-the-wall time trial from then on as the pack strings out, breaks apart, and everyone chases the usual small group of strong guys that rolls off the front. With a technical crit on Saturday and a huge citizen race on Sunday, my biggest goal for the weekend is not losing any skin or expensive bike parts. It'll be a fun one!

See you on the road.

Riding for the Fun of It (Training in Disguise)

2006-06-20T12:28:00.000-04:00

Summer is finally here in Central NY, and it's playtime. After a week off the bike with a cold, I'm back in the saddle. I planned a string of tempo rides, just to get the legs back into riding and to just get in some miles. My rides have generally been quite short and intense, and it doesn't really build the kind of fitness that I'm going to need for the long road races coming up.

On Saturday, we attended a wedding of friends in the woods at a local hot spot for mountain biking. After the ceremony, some refreshments, and a little canoeing and swimming, there was a short introductory ride for everyone. Many brought extra bikes and helmets, and the couple put every able-bodied person on a bike and we took a spin on some of the less technical trails. There was one hairy trail that was off-camber and right next to a pond. Two people, one experienced and one novice, went for an inadvertent dip. Following that ride, the novices went back for more refreshments and the rest of us took off into the woods. I hadn't been on a mountain bike over technical stuff since last fall, and I balked at almost every wet log and rock, and took a couple good falls. Recognizing my head wasn't in the game, I dabbed just about every obstacle and just tried to get through the ride without impacting my road riding by hurting myself too much. It was still fun, but it'll be more fun after the road season is winding down for the year.

We got home late from the wedding, but we still sat down to check out the World Cup Italy vs US game we'd taped. I figured we could go to bed after Italy scored a couple, but was surprised by an exciting game. At midnight, we were still up yelling at the television.

That impacted my planned early morning ride. Sunday was my birthday (I'm now able to enter the Masters' fields) and I'd planned on getting up nice and early and treating myself with three or four hours of tempo solo, contemplating life and recharging my mental batteries like I can do only when by myself. With the late night of soccer watching, I slept in and didn't get on the bike until about ten. With my ride window shrunk to about 2.5 hours, I decided to try to hop in with the local club ride for some good efforts rather than do a long solo ride. I planned on riding the course backwards until I saw someone, but my timing was perfect and I ran into the group at an intersection on their way out. I put in some small efforts on some of the climbs, but didn't kill myself. I got in only about 32 miles, but I had a pleasant ride and a nice chat with some friends.

Monday evening, I took off by myself and hammered out a great ride. I ran into some friends, got chased by a beagle mix that had a serious set of wheels, and generally had a fantastic ride. I rode tempo on the flats, put in some good power on the climbs, but nothing too serious, and just had a fun forty miles on the bike. I got in a good workout, had tired legs afterwards, but I never dug so deeply that I couldn't recover overnight and hopefully do another such ride this evening. It was a great reminder of the pleasure of simply riding a bike, pushing oneself and enjoying the speed, but riding within your limits, free of the pressure of competition or obligatory intervals.

See you on the road!

(P.S. 32 more training days before the Owasco Stage Race)

Breathing Again

2006-06-14T12:08:00.000-04:00

I spent the weekend and Monday lounging at home, concentrating mostly on breathing. Head colds always turn into chest congestion for me, and they usually knock me out of the saddle for about a week. I'm keeping the local pharmacy in business with my myriad medications. Inhale this, squirt that, swallow the other... I'm feeling much more human today, and should be back on the bike in some form tomorrow, although a big project at work might keep me too late for that.

I took the opportunity while inside the entire weekend to apply some silicone caulk to the upstairs shower stall. Either the former owners never used the stall or else they finished it right before we moved in. They had sealed the plastic basin to the wall tile with a caulk that was almost as hard as the tile grout. The flex of the plastic basin from daily use popped the caulk away from the wall within a few weeks and mold set into the spaces where the water collected. I sprayed some nasty cleaning chemicals in there until the mold was gone, cleaned the surfaces well, then applied a big bead of silicone.

Let me tell you, this silicone is great stuff. It's flexible and waterproof, and adheres really well. Let me also tell you, be prepared when you go to apply it.

I read the instructions and ignored the part where they say to apply masking tape on either side of the joint. Bah. I would be applying just a little bead and I wouldn't need any masking tape. Sissies.

I donned rubber gloves and assembled the tube in the caulking gun. As I started pumping this stuff out, I realized I'd need a rather large amount to cover the joint between the wall and the edge of the basin. As I squeezed it in, it began to look like a rather poor welding job, a long bead with a series of large bumps. I looked around for something to smooth out the bead. I didn't want to use my fingers and make a mess. My hairbrush was nearby, and the end of the handle was curved perfectly to squeegee the bead into the joint and make a nice smooth concave surface. It went a little like this:

Pump, pump, pump. Hmmm, lumps in the bead. Grab hairbrush. Draw handle across bead. Oops. Not enough in one spot, too much in the other. A bit of spillage over the edge of the basin and up the wall. I'll just wipe the excess with my one finger tip, then not touch anything. Quite a bit stuck to the brush handle. Wipe that off. Oops, got some on the caulking gun from my fingers. Pump some more. Squeegee. Squeegee. Now there's some farther up on the brush and on my other hand...

Well, this went on for some time, and at some point I'd pretty much given up on being neat about it and was smearing this stuff all over everything. I felt a bit like I was back in kindergarten and was fingerpainting with pudding. My hairbrush, the caulking gun, my hands, the wall, basin, and well, at least the joint was covered adequately. By the time I finished, I was getting pretty good at laying down a nice, neat, smooth bead, but it was too late. My inexperience at the beginning had taken its toll.

It was then that I learned how tenacious silicone really is. It's waterproof, and it's not petroleum based, so soap, water, and any cleaners or solvents I could think of wouldn't touch it. I resorted to grabbing a box of tissues and mechanically wiping everything off as best I could. Once the silicone cured for a few hours, it was very easy to scrape off the extra from any places where it shouldn't have been.

One more house project down, and it's back to thinking about cycling. My two big races of the year, the Owasco Stage Race and the Empire State Games both come at the end of July, so I have approximately 38 days to try to get in the best shape of my life.

Here we go.

Summer?

2006-06-09T16:34:00.000-04:00

It's June.

It has been raining and cold for over a week.

It's 58 and raining today.

Tomorrow it will be in the high 50s with rain forecast.

I have been on the bike four times in the past week, for a grand total of only about 80 miles. I got wet and cold three of those times.

I am now getting sick, just in time for the weekend.

Near Miss

2006-06-07T12:18:00.000-04:00

A few weeks ago, I stopped by Bicycle Alley, the bike shop down the road from me. Hanging in the window was a fine looking Trek "Team Time Trial" bike. Full carbon, sweet Bontrager stem and bars, wing-like frame, saddle with a gel nose, and ten-speed Dura-Ace. "That's a nice rig in the window," I said to the shop owner.

"You should take it out to the local club time trial sometime and show it off to everyone. Maybe someone will want to buy it."

Well, you don't have to twist my arm. Although it was intimidating having custody of a $4600 rocket, I picked it up Monday night, spent a couple hours in the attic tweaking my position on it, then took it out to the Tuesday night ten-miler.

Even with my relatively heavy HED tri-spoke and disc on the bike, it's still pretty light. The new Dura-Ace is very nice. I'd never ridden it before. It's smooth and shifted like butter. The bike itself was very comfortable to ride, yet felt stiff and responsive when I stood up and put on some power. With the light weight and stiffness, it only took a couple pedal strokes to get it flying. I also noticed the sound. Or rather, the lack of sound. I could hear the swoosh, swoosh, swoosh of the wheels and tires as I pushed along, but that's about it. Very cool. Finally, about the gel Selle san Marco saddle: with its "triathlon" labeling, I expected it might not be my style. But, ahhhh... all that gel in the nose was welcome to the nether regions when perched on the tip during the time trial. When I got done, I realized that the only pain I'd felt during the ride was from my legs. My saddle bits were feeling just fine.

In the end, I came in at 23:20 and missed my personal best by 12 seconds. However, I usually don't approach 23 minutes until August fitness, and other measurements seem to indicate I'm not particularly fit right now. I figure the bike was good for at least an extra 30 seconds or so. I'll be taking the bike back to the shop, as it's not in my budget right now. But, oh man, if I had the money to burn, that ride might have found a new home.

I'm hoping that my position changes are responsible for some of the time gains, and that it wasn't all due to the bike. I have yet to take my own TT bike, the venerable GT Edge Aero, out with the full aero setup (disc instead of the PowerTap wheel) for an official time trial with my new position. I will continue working on the TT intervals in training, and will keep aiming at that sub-23 time. I declare, it WILL HAPPEN this year.

See you on the road.

...With a Little Help From My Friends

2006-06-05T13:20:00.000-04:00

The weekend's activities conjured up so many titles for this blog entry in my head, it was hard to decide. In the end, the biggest effects were produced by a friend's ideas and decisions, so I went with the title above. It was a long weekend, and this is a long post. Grab a cup of Joe and read on.

The Empire State Games (http://www.empirestategames.org/) is a great event. In 1978, New York State held the first ESGs, bringing together athletes from around the state to compete. The annual games are basically like the Olympics, yet at a single state level, rather than on the world scene. There are levels for scholastic, open, masters, and senior games. Teams and individuals in many, many sports attend from each region of the state (Western, Central, Adirondack, Hudson Valley, New York City, and Long Island). The site for the games moves around the state, and it's a fantastic experience to spend several days competing in your chosen sport, all the while being around athletes competing in so many other sports.

For cycling, the ESGs run an individual time trial, a road race, a criterium, and finally a team time trial. Ten men and three women are chosen from each region at the region's qualifiers, and they go on to represent their region in late July. I attended the games last year and had a blast, especially in the team time trial. I'd hoped to make the team again this year since it might be my last shot at it for a while. The qualifiers would consist of a 2.8-mile uphill time trial, followed by a 20-lap circuit race. The circuit has a little hill up to the finish in it, and is about 2 miles long. Points would be awarded to the top four finishers of every fourth lap, and then double, deeper points would be awarded on the final lap finish. My friend Ano suggested earlier in the week that we should try a break early in the race when everyone is still tired from the time trial to try and get ourselves the points on the first points lap. I'm not confident in my ability to stay away, so I thought the plan was a fine idea in theory, but in practice would probably be fruitless.

I awoke Saturday to the sound of steady rain on the roof. The forecast had been for 54 degrees and raining at race time, and it was spot on. I rushed through breakfast, a big mug of coffee, and loaded up the car with my gear.

As I headed south on the highway, the rain increased and the temperature dropped. I hate racing in the rain. I hate racing in the cold. Combine the two, and I might as well stay home. My legs lock up, I freeze, my toes and feet go numb, and a DNF almost always results.

I had Dave Matthews playing on the stereo, and one of my favorite up-tempo songs came on. I started jamming out, singing at the top of my lungs, tapping my feet, and wagging my head. My thoughts somehow turned away from the cold and wet misery that awaited me and towards using the conditions to help myself. I really don't know what happened; it's never happened before. I forced myself to ignore the rain. When I arrived at the race site, I saw people huddled under tents. One guy walked past with a blanket over his head. I put the amber lenses in my glasses, which always help a rainy day look sunny. I hopped out of the car, putting on my cap but leaving my hood down, ignoring the rain and cold. I approached Ano and said, "It's a good day to ride off the front, eh?"

"What a stupid sport!" came his reply. I said something about the plan to break away, and he indicated it wasn't very likely in this weather.

I registered and suited up. My only nod to the pouring rain was getting my base layer on inside the car with the heater running. After that, I got out the trainer and started spinning away. In my mind, it was sunny and warm, and the rivers dripping from my nose were all made of sweat. Whenever anyone made a comment about the cold or rain, I ignored them or lied to them and myself and said how much I was looking forward to the race.

I got soaked almost immediately on the way to the time trial course with road spray. I rode partway up the climb to continue the warmup. A couple teammates were talking about how their muscles seized up in the cold and wet. I ignored them and ignored similar signals from my own legs. A little piece of my consciousness realized that fooling myself into enjoying the weather was actually working.

The uphill time trial was hard as always, but I rode conservatively to avoid blowing up near the top like I did last year. My time was actually better this year, despite my worse fitness and the horrid weather. I scored 13th. I would absolutely have to get at least a few points in the circuit race to have any hope of being near the top ten places.

We gathered around the start line of the circuit race. We'd had long enough to wait for results from the time trial that we were getting cold. Again, I forced myself to ignore it. I literally kept telling myself that I was comfortable, and the chill in my hands, feet, and legs melted away. I could see others shivering. My thoughts turned to Ano's idea of an early breakaway. Theoretically, it should work even better in this weather, since the peloton would have even less desire to ride hard early in the race. With several teammates in the pack who would likely not chase, even though strictly speaking the qualifiers should not be a team event, my chances might be better yet.

We completed one lap, taking the finishing hill at a fairly easy pace. There is another short rise after the finishing hill, then a downhill. "Okay," I told myself, "Nothing to lose." I rolled off the front. Not wanting to trigger a reflex chase from the group, I didn't sprint hard. I just rolled off. Over the crest, I got as aero as I could and started pushing hard, but not too hard. I would have to complete nearly three full laps by myself to make this stick, and then I still needed enough gas in the tank to stick with the group if they caught me.

The gap grew a little at first. Up over the hill on the next lap, the gap was longer. Downhill around the bend, they were out of sight. I still could not see them as I climbed the hill again to complete the third lap. I heard the bell ringing. One more lap and I'd have some points. I upped the tempo a bit. Over the hill, down the hill, around the bend. I looked back. One rider was coming pretty fast, with the peloton a bit of a ways behind him. It was Dan, a cat 2. He grabbed my wheel and sat there briefly, then pulled through on my waggle of the elbow. The pack continued to approach, and it felt to me like we'd slowed down. I pulled around and pulled again for a while. He pulled again as we approached the hill, then took off. I glanced back to see the pack lining up for the sprint. Geez, this would be close. I upped my tempo as best I could after being off the front by myself and sighed in relief as my front wheel crossed the line in second. About one second later, a few riders came flying past. I'd made it in for three points.

The rest of the race was peppered with attacks from various people, and the whole while I sat near the back of the pack just trying to hold on. I would get gapped on the sprint laps, then catch back on as the pace lessened between them. In the end, I had saved enough for a reasonable sprint, and along with my three points from early in the race, placed ninth.

With some shuffling of places among other riders, I ended up back in 13th place overall. Two finishers ahead of me withdrew their positions - why you'd come out and race in this weather if you didn't plan on attending the Games, I'll never know. Then Ano asked to be signed up as an "alternate", to be called upon if anyone else withdrew before the Games. He cited family time that the training would require as the reason. Whatever the reason, it put me in the 10th and last qualifying spot. With his help from his breakaway plans and his forfeiting of a spot on the team, Ano had given me the last spot on the team and a chance to have one more year of ESG experience. Thank you, Ano.

Sunday brought more rain to Central New York, and also the Syracuse Biathalon club's summer event. It would be five 1.4K laps via mountain bike around a very muddy, hilly trail. After each lap, competitors would stop and shoot five rounds at five targets. Ten shots prone, ten shots standing. For every target you miss, you get 30 seconds added to your race time. I'd never done anything like this before.

My nephew, my friend Bill, and I were the only true beginners for the afternoon mountain bike division, so we took the mandatory training class and ten practice shots. The sights on the rifles were concentric circles, unlike the square open sights I've always used before, and they took some getting used to. (I'm not meaning to imply I'm used to them now - I am most definitely not.) In practice I hit 4 of 5 targets prone, and felt pretty confident. Standing, I was lucky to hit the hillside behind the targets. I hit 1 of 5 standing. This would not be an easy thing after a hard lap in the mud.

We lined up to start, three people at a time. My friend and clubmate, Kate lined up to my left. She's also a speed skater and apparently at the start line on the ice, they often give the person next to them a friendly push on the shoulder to claim their space. As the timer called out "fifteen seconds", Kate reached out and gave me a little push on the shoulder. It was just enough. My surprise immediately turned to a little panic as I tipped right. My right foot was securely clipped in, and it wasn't coming out. I went crashing over into the mud. Howls of laughter filled the air, my own adding to it. I scrambled up with Kate apologizing, and then we were off, leaving the laughing behind us. Kate caught plenty of ribbing throughout the remainder of the day for being one ruthless racer, pushing her competition over at the start line.

The course was plenty tough, and got worse throughout the race as the mud got deeper and deeper. The shooting stops were very hard. The end of the barrel wandered around and around as I tried to control my breathing. Try racing as hard as you can for a few minutes, then try holding your breath long enough to get a good sight on an itty bitty target half a football field away.

In the end, I had seven minutes of penalty time, having missed five of ten targets prone, and nine of ten targets standing. I left with a silver medal among the six of us in the beginner category, and a very healthy respect for those athletes who ski or run or bike or whatever, then succeed at putting a little .22 slug onto a quarter-sized circle from so far away. What an odd and tough combination of strength and skill!

The weather finally broke as the sun went down Sunday, and I spent about five minutes in the yard playing with our new battery-powered weed whacker. I hope to report on some more house projects soon. We're looking at replacement windows, paint for the master bath and bedroom, plus a bunch of other little things. The replanted strawberries are doing pretty nicely, but we just found out we have a family of five (count 'em, five) woodchucks living underneath our barn so those strawberries, and just about everything else in the garden, will likely disappear in short order. The honeybees in the attic wall are doing well. You can hear the buzzing from the hive. It's a bit intimidating.

There is a lot to be done, both on the house and on the bike. I will be spending quite a bit of time training in the next couple months leading up to the Owasco Stage Race and the Empire State Games, and we can talk about it all here in the Attic.

See you on the road.

Smokin'

2006-06-01T11:44:00.000-04:00

Whew! CNY was baking over the past two days with a blast of hot air. I'm not sure where it came from, but I'll take 95 degrees and sunny over the cold wet stuff we had just last week. Yesterday afternoon, the temps had cooled off to about 92, and it was a perfect day for some hill repeats. Ha!

There's a ridge near my house that has some kick-butt roads up and over the top. The hills take several minutes to climb each, and provide a great variety from a long climb at 6% to shorter steeps in excess of 15%. A circuit around and up and over the ridge hitting each road provides several good, long leg-breaking climbing intervals with fifteen to twenty minutes of spinning between.

Near the top of each climb, from the first to the last, as the sweat poured down, heart thumped, legs ached, and lungs gasped, I told myself, "This heat is too much! I feel terrible! I shouldn't be doing this! I'm going home right after I get to the top and take a cold shower." Then I'd spin for a few minutes, cool down slightly in the breeze, and decide to have a go at the next climb.

I tried to average a little over 300W on each climb. On the steepest one, I had to turn about 340W just to keep from falling over. Owie.

It always takes a while for the body to acclimatize to hot weather, and yesterday was a good day to start the process. As the summer progresses, one will lose less and less essential minerals in the sweat. When I finished yesterday, there was a big white line of salts around my shorts. I refueled with cytomax, a banana, and plenty of water. I love riding in the heat, but sweat practically squirts out of me, so I have to keep on top of my hydration.

Tonight I'm taking the TT bike out for some longer cruise intervals, hanging around the lower part of my LT range. I'm basically trying to get the legs ready for some effort on Saturday without digging too deep and burning them out. Saturday's ESG qualifiers features a two-mile climb time trial followed by a points race on a two-mile circuit with a little climb. I blew up hard on the TT last year and crawled over the finish line. I'll try to avoid that this year by watching the power meter and not overdoing it on the steeper steps. My fitness is off a bit this year, so placing well will require more skill, strategy, and a bit of luck.

See you on the road.

Syracuse Race Weekend Race Report

2006-05-30T11:39:00.000-04:00

Before I get started on the race report from this weekend, I want to put out a call for any information about possibly increasing the q-factor, the distance between the pedals, on a road bike. After the vacation-ending injuries to Sue in Asheville, she has stayed off the road bike and has been riding some on her mountain bike and has not had any hip/knee issues. In fact, she's been off the anti-inflammatories for several days now with no problems whatsoever. Sweet. Anyway, she hopped on the road bike Monday just to ride down to the village parade and back, and in that very short time, had the sensation that her feet were really close together. Rough measurements seem to indicate that the pedal-center-to-frame-center distance is about 1cm greater on the mountain bike. Most people tend to want advice on decreasing the q-factor, but as we've learned, Sue is definitely not "most people", and we want to try increasing the q-factor on her road steed to see if that eases some of her hip/knee problems while riding. We'd already moved the cleats inward a long time ago, so I'm looking for something different. I'm thinking replacing the bottom bracket spindle for a double with a spindle made for a triple but still using a double and then adjusting the front derailleur to match might work a little, but I'm not sure how that would turn out.

Moving on to the race report, the Syracuse Race was rather uneventful this year. The fog during the road race was probably the most interesting part of the weekend.

Most of my Colavita team lined up in the 3/4 field Saturday. The road race course is about a 30 mile loop with mostly flats except for a roughly two-mile climb in the middle. Most of the larger fields tend to race for the hill; that is to say, they ride piano until the hill, then make a selection.

The first time up the hill, I was selected to be dropped, along with about half the field. My wattage for the climb was about 20W higher then I'd done earlier in the week during the club ride, and I had thought that was hard. During the few rollers following the climb, a bunch of us regrouped into about a twelve-man chase group. We hit the gas for miles, and eventually did catch back on to the leading pack, which was spinning along a little less than tempo, content to just ride along until they hit the hill again for the next selection. As always, there were a few in the bunch who were driving the rest of nuts. They would surge ahead or take long pulls or otherwise disrupt the smooth progress of a nice tight double pace line. A few in the group had their tongues dragging on their front wheel and were obviously pretty blown from the hill climb, and there was one annoying guy who kept scolding them for not doing work. I've seen this guy in races earlier this year. I have no idea who he is, but he's always chatting about something, sharing his racing wisdom with the masses. I made it my mission to beat him up the final climb.

It was cool and wet with fog, and I had to make myself eat and drink. The many miles of flats and little rollers can sap the energy from your legs without you really recognizing it.

The second time up the hill, I was selected out again, and this time when I got to the top, I was with one other guy, a friend of mine on another local team. He was stronger than I was on the rollers and flats, so I said goodbye and let myself drop off as he caught another rider so I could ride my own pace home. A couple miles later, he cramped up so much, he had to get off the bike and stretch and waved me on. I caught up to one, then two more guys. We passed a few more who had cramped and blown up in the remaining miles to the finish line. One was the annoying guy from earlier in the race, and I was pleased to at least finish in front of him. A teammate, Jeremy, had finished third on the day, so he was best placed on GC points, so we'd work for him during the crit on Sunday.

The drag race street sprints downtown in the evening were, as usual, both fun and annoying at the same time. They do virtually nothing for showing your talent as a bike rider, and although it's interesting and fun, it's annoying to get suited up and warmed up for 10 to 30 seconds of racing depending on how many heats you win. I won my first easily with a peak power of 1208 watts, lost my second with 1222 watts, and then came in third in my last round, to get a handful of points added to my GC score.

It was a beautiful day in the park for the criterium on Sunday. The 3/4 field felt darn fast. We averaged just under 27 mph for the roughly 25 miles. There was one crash on the downhill; a single guy who did a superman onto a driveway that went down an embankment. He was seen standing afterwards, and I think he lost skin only and didn't do any major damage. The final turn was incredibly rough with pothole patches all over the place, and I'm surprised no one went down through there from the sideways float you got when spending half the time in the air over the bumps. The tree-lined road was echoing with the cracking, rapping sound of deep-dish carbon wheels. None came apart, but for sure there were a few microfibers that didn't survive the day.

When it came time late in the race to move our leader to the front, about two or three of us were up to the task. I joined the of the team in the middle of the pack, who's sole contribution to the leadout was yelling, "Go for it Jeremy! Good luck!" Later that evening, I would download the power meter to see an insane looking graph. Peaks and valleys all over the place. The average wattage for the crit was only something like 210W, but there was an awful lot of time spent in the 3, 4, and 500s.

All in all, it was good training, and I needed the intensity. The ESG qualifiers come up this Saturday, and I'm hoping to make the team again. It will depend mostly on the actions of others, whether or not they can go or want to go to the games in late July. Ten guys and three alternates are chosen, and if enough of the top guys would rather go to Altoona or do some other race, then I just might squeak onto the squad. I'm not holding much hope though. I feel like I was in better shape last year, and even then I still only scored 16th place and just made the team with seven guys above me decided not to go. With the games in Rochester this year, I think even more guys will want to go, so I'll probably be staying home in late July. But hey, you never know.

See you on the road.

Race Weekend

2006-05-26T13:12:00.000-04:00

Tomorrow marks the start of the two day Syracuse Race Weekend. There's a road race on Saturday morning featuring a relatively long climb on Oak Hill which my 3/4 field will do twice. The street sprint drag races are downtown Saturday evening, a fun and non-taxing event. Sunday is crit in the park day. It'll be a tiring weekend, if not from the actual racing, then from volunteering when not on the bike. The Monday parades and picnics will be a welcome day of relaxation. I'm not looking for any personal high finishes, but several team members have the gas to do pretty well. I'll probably be OTB in the road race after the first lap, do fairly well in the drag races, then be a moderately good team worker in the crit.

Last year, about five flat miles into the road race on Saturday, sitting in the middle of the pack of about 60 guys, I hit a big pothole square on. I quickly realized something wasn't right. The aluminum around the top of the two bolts in the face of my stem had snapped. The bottom bolt had bent, leaving the face plate wide open and my handlebars flopping around, sitting loosely on top of the bent face plate.

My first thought was about the best way to do a shoulder roll onto the pavement without breaking any bones, and then how to curl up tightly in a ball as the remainder of the pack crashed over me. Then a little voice in my head said, "Maybe you don't have to crash."

I grabbed what was left of my stem with my left hand to get a little steering control, and then started feathering the rear brake while keeping the bars from falling into my front wheel with my right. Riders around me yelled, "Hey, hold your line!" as I wobbled a bit. "MY STEM BROKE! I CAN'T STEER! GET AWAY FROM ME!" came my rather urgent reply.

I did my best to keep it straight while slowing, then when everyone had passed, I picked a section of ditch that seemed grassier and softer than the rest and headed for it. I hit the rear brake and stepped out with my left foot. It took a few hops on the foot, but I finally stopped, upright and with skin and bones intact. My race was over, but I hadn't gone down. Not too bad, considering how bad it could have been.

With that in mind, I have a nice new stem, I checked to make sure the pothole had been filled in, and I'm all set to race. It should be fun.

See you on the hill!

A Salted Ham

2006-05-25T14:01:00.000-04:00

Spring is finally here in CNY, and is scheduled to last for the next couple days, to be immediately followed by summer heat. So goes the usual spring around here. Anyway, with the weather breaking, I'm back to riding. Two days in a row now. Whew.

Tuesday I took the TT bike out to the "Mucklands" north toward Oneida Lake. If you want flat around here, that's where you go. The roads are long, straight, and flat. A 25 foot climb out there feels like a monster. I went pretty hard for a bit over an hour and a half and had lots of fun. It's simply fun to go fast, and that bike feels fast. On the way home, I twice spotted a rider up the road. I eased off a little to rest the legs a bit and to time my passing them to occur on a grade where I could really get up a lot of speed. Then I ripped past them, smiling and nodding hello and trying to look cool and relaxed, but in reality with my legs burning from dropping 400W into the cranks until I was far enough past them that my dropping speed wouldn't be so noticeable. We've all done it before, right? As Drew has said, "The best races are the ones where the other person doesn't know they're racing."

Wednesday night brought a weekly club ride. The course followed this coming weekend's race course for a little preview. It was a tough ride. I love riding with the club. If you want to kill yourself, you can get to the front and push the pace. If you need a rest, you just sit in the pack. We made the sharp turn onto Oak Hill, the main climb on the course, and several people launched themselves up the road. I just shifted down to a gear I could spin and tried to stick the wattage at 325. After about a minute, all but one of those who had surged ahead were heading backwards. The main part of the hill took me nearly nine minutes at an average of 303 watts. Saturday, I'll get to do it twice during the race. Yup, it's going to hurt.

At the top, we regrouped a bit, but then a small group rolled away when I wasn't paying attention, then started turning up the speed. It took me about a minute of max effort to bridge up to them, and I just barely made it. I had that amazing sensation of deep ache way down in the body of the quads that you get when you push really far, dig really deep; when you can somehow push past the burn and still you can get your legs to put out the power even though they're cooked. Awesome feeling.

I chatted with the guy I'd chased all the way up the climb. He said it was his second group ride. "You mean, with this group?" I asked. "No, second group ride ever. I just started riding after an elbow injury sidelined my rock climbing."

Sigh. One more brand new guy who's going to be faster than I am in about a week. It's great to see people new to the sport, and fun to watch them as their excitement about it grows. It would be nice though, if for just one year, those fast beginners would stay out for the season and let me win a race or two.

Anyway, today my TT position training and the efforts last night have left my legs sore, especially my hammies which feel particularly assaulted. (Sorry about the title.) I was going to race at the training circuit tonight, but I have instead decided to go home and plant strawberries. Actually, to replant strawberries.

My lovely wife, who has taken to the homeownership thing with unparalleled enthusiasm, spent hours last night in the garden weeding, digging up about thirty healthy strawberry plants. Along with them came lots of dandelions and other actual weeds too. A little voice in the back of her head made her take a sample to work today to show a coworker who knows about such things. She took one look and said, "Oh, those are strawberries."

Fortunately, Sue had dug them up with roots still intact (man, is she ever serious about weeding!) and put everything into a big paper sack. So they've been out of the sun today and we're hoping that they're salvageable. Sue feels bad, I feel bad that she feels bad, but I have to say it's also pretty damn funny.

Needless to say, unless you're an easily identified dandelion in our flower garden, you're going to get a free ride this year. Sue's sworn off weeding until everything has had a chance to bloom, flower, fruit, or whatever it's going to do this summer.

See you on the road, if I'm not still in the garden.

Going Backwards

2006-05-22T11:33:00.000-04:00

My cycling season is definitely going backwards, but hopefully will turn around soon. The weekend brought nearly endless rain and temperatures in the high 40s and low 50s. I kept thinking it would start snowing at any moment.

We've officially pulled out of Fitchburg, so there's a refund, minus processing fees, coming our way. The money we will save by not going to Fitchburg was spent promptly in two trips to Lowes on Saturday. Apparently if one has a back porch on one's house, one needs 2.5 gallons of cleaner, a pump sprayer, three gallons of stain/sealer, a barbeque, and an outdoor table/chairs/umbrella set. We threw in a weed whacker for good measure, some plywood and nails for a tool board and some hooks for wheels in the bike shop upstairs. By Saturday evening, we had a huge pile of new crap in the barn, and as we looked at it, like hunters back from a successful safari, I noted how that big pile plus a few hundred more bucks would buy a single pair of deep dish carbon wheels. Sorta put everything in perspective.

I was remounting light fixtures in the bike shop Sunday morning, as the previous owner had let them dangle when painting the ceiling and never put them back. I started cramming the wires back up into the ceiling when the rest of the lights went out. The radio I'd plugged in was still working, so there must be at least two circuits in the small room. Interesting. I kept wiggling wires until I found the one that was causing the problem. I wiggled it until the lights came back on and stayed on, then left it alone. So, a new task of figuring out which breaker that circuit is attached to, turning it off, and then recapping the loose wire is now on the "to do" list.

The bike shop is coming along, with most tools hung up and many wheels hanging up out of the way. I'll post some pics along the way sometime.

This time next week, I hope to have written a post about how the weather warmed up and dried up, how I've been training hard for a week, how the Syracuse Race Weekend went well, and how I was looking forward to a remote chance of making the ESG team at the qualifiers the next weekend. Basically, I need all the riders in shape to either stay home or decide they want to attend Altoona instead of the Games in August.

See you on the road!

Rocket Ship

2006-05-18T09:03:00.000-04:00

Just as I arrived home last night, the rain tapered off and the wind died down. I'd resigned myself to an evening in the attic, but then decided that I really should get outside. I grabbed the TT bike and headed out. This would be my first ride on the latest position changes.

Yeehaw. Increasing the saddle height made a world of difference on the legs, and lowering the armrests felt good too. I put in several minutes of TT effort and felt pretty comfortable. There is still somewhat of a saddle comfort issue, but in years of time trialing, I've never done one in any position when I finished with my nether regions feeling like flowers and sunshine, so I think that might just be part of time trialing. I'll keep fiddling with it though to see if I can get it any better. The saddle I'm using on the TT bike is an old one that could probably use an update too. I'm a bit stretched out in the bars, but it's comfortable, and if I bring them back any more, my knees will hit if I stand on a climb so I think they are where they will stay. I'd like to be able to lower them a bit more, but without getting a smaller frame, I can't see how I'd do that.

The overall position feels quite good though, and I was pleased with my PE levels at relatively high wattage for me, and it simply "felt" fast, even with the standard spoked training wheels. I'm looking forward to taking the rig out onto the weekly course and giving her an official go with all the aero junk on her.

No, not "Du-"

2006-05-17T11:46:00.000-04:00

Observant readers may have noticed that an event called the "Syracuse Summer Biathlon" has appeared on my calendar in June. Yes, it's a BIathlon and not a DUathlon. I did not know before, but there is an active biathlon club in CNY. They ski and shoot during the winter, of course, but also have events like these during the summer.

One option is a run and shoot, the other is a mountain bike and shoot. Although I was never a hunter, growing up on a farm like I did, I had ample opportunities to fire a variety of pistols, shotguns, and rifles, and I wasn't the world's worst shot. I can't wait to attend this event exclusively for the fun of it, with no pressure whatsoever to actually do well. The club furnishes rifles to first-timers, and there's a quick tutorial before the race where one can get in some practice shots.

The "mountain bike" part of the race is depressingly short at 7K - whew! I don't know the trails but I do know there won't be any obstacles to ride over. I'm thinking the cross bike will be the way to go. I assume you ride to where you shoot, then ride to the finish. I also assume you don't carry the rifle like the skiing version. That would be interesting. "Yeah, I endoed with rifle on my back and I've never been the same..."

Anyway, it's new, sounds a bit insane, and I can't wait. I've got to train hard. Much like the duathletes who ride hard then immediately run afterwards, I've laid out a program where every day I get on the bike, ride really hard for five minutes, then immediately stand very, very still. This plan has greatly reduced my time spent training, but you've got to train like you need to race, right? I'll let you know how that goes.

See you on the range.

Gettin' There

2006-05-16T08:55:00.000-04:00

I visited the hardware store over the weekend and, in addition to two bags of forest brown cedar mulch, (one day you're living in a nice little apartment socking money away and buying bike parts made from the latest unobtainium, and the next day you've bought a house and find yourself dropping bucks on stuff you're going to throw on the ground outside, stuff that will eventually become dirt - what's up with that? I just spent good money on dirt), I picked up a couple of simple washers to work on my aerobar position. The Profile Carbon X bars are nice because they provide lots of positions for mounting the extensions, but you're left with these big honkin' brackets that pretty much do nothing except take up space. I got some washers of the same approximate surface area as the bracket mounts so that the load would be similarly distributed over the carbon fiber wing around the bolt hole. I then simply removed the top brackets and threaded the inner bolt through the hole in the armpad mounting arm. The effect was to lower my arm position a bit over 3cm, a nice drop.

I also raised my saddle almost 1cm. Just riding around, it was fine, but in an actual time trial at race cadence, I found myself forward on the saddle and pedaling more with toes down so my effective saddle height was quite low. With the saddle up, and the armpads down, my back is quite a bit more towards the horizontal than before, without me feeling cramped in the hips. I'm looking forward to some intervals this week to give me some more feedback.

We'll see how the power development is in this position. Opportunities for change I see immediately include shortening the aerobar extensions a bit to remove some of the possible pressure on the shoulders from being stretched out and to get the elbows closer to the knees for better air flow, and then I might start tweaking the saddle forward and up, trying to get the upper arms more vertical and getting the back flatter.

There's nothing much sexier in cycling than a decked-out time trial bike, in my opinion. Something about those wheels and the broad carbon frames, I guess. I have an opportunity to do the local club time trial on a brand new Trek Team Time Trial bike, and I can't wait to give it a try. Talk about sexy! It's not quite the level of eye candy of the Cervelo P3 carbon, but it's pretty close. I'm just hoping that it doesn't beat my personal best by a huge amount or else I'll be walking back into the bike shop with my credit card instead of the bike.

See you on the road!

Confessions from a Vigilante Motorist

2006-05-15T09:01:00.000-04:00

It's true, folks. I just might be a douche bag.

I was on my way home from work Friday, taking an unusual route to run an errand. I found myself waiting in a left-turn only lane for several minutes. The protected left green signal is short, traffic heavy, and traffic always backs up there. It's frustrating to sit and watch the signal go through three or four cycles before you get a chance to go.

Anyway, I was within one cycle of getting my turn when suddenly on my right appears a dude in a silver Hyundai (I think) with his left turn signal on and the nose of his car virtually touching my right front bumper corner in an agressive, "I'm going to force my way in here" manner. As I tend towards the "vigilante" classification of road raging motorists, a switch clicked on in my head, and I wasn't about to let this guy get away with charging ahead of a long line of cars so he could cut in front of everyone.

As the light turned green, we both went and though I gave up a few inches by fading left, he eventually gave up and pulled in behind me, gesticulating madly. I saw one out of ten fingers prominently displayed. I pointed to my head in a "think next time" gesture as we all pulled to a stop for the next light cycle.

That was when he decided to get out of his car. I quickly figured I had enough room between me and the car in front to pull out and take some evasive action if I needed to, so I stayed put in the car. As he approached my door, I checked the door locks and focused on his suit jacket to see if there were any odd bulges I should be ready for.

This relatively thick-necked guy with short, curly blonde hair rapped on my window and I lowered it a couple inches. He proceeded to yell at me for not letting him in and I replied in kind telling him he should learn to wait in line like everyone else. He ended the conversation by calling me a "douche bag" and strode off in a huff back to his car. I haven't been called a douche bag since the football players in high school would occasionally blurt out with that one while sitting on top of me in the muddy field while playing outside at lunch time. Ah, good times, good times.

Anyway, I drove off and kept playing the incident over in my mind, and was very glad that there hadn't been any violence involved. Then it happened. I realized that if he had just exited from the local post office parking lot, he would've had no chance to wait in the line of cars, and I should have let him in. Technically, he should have gotten in line a few cars back near the exit, but it's extremely likely that I had, in fact, been a douche bag.

Then another thing occurred to me. I'm 99.9% sure that my car is the only one of its description in at least a 15 mile radius. I've seen only two other Audi S4 wagons in the area, and one is dolphin gray and the other imola yellow. And mine is certainly the only one with three bike rack trays on the top. So, I had just pissed in my own drinking water, so to speak, having wrongly ticked off a guy within 1.5 miles of my workplace. Every day that goes by that I arrive back at my car after work to find the tires not slashed nor a message keyed into my door will be a good one. I'm hoping that the dude was an out-of-town traveler or was too blinded by his rage to notice much about my car. For now, I'm on high alert for silver hyundais and I'm letting every huge truck and slow-driving little old lady get in front of me to try and get some karma back. If I run into the guy, I have an apology ready if he's willing to hear it.

Sorry man, my bad.

Small World

2006-05-12T15:48:00.000-04:00

After the fun of racing last weekend, and a kick-butt workout with a couple of teammates on Tuesday when we scaled the biggest hill we could find nearby once, twice, and three times, I've found myself sitting on the couch eating cereal far too often after work. The nights have been too short and my after-work energy points that out. This weekend I'll be trying to put together some plans to keep the days more organized, cut back on a couple of time-wasters, and buckle down on training hard and sleeping adequately.

Because of all the couch-sitting, I have nothing to report, except that Netflix delivered the next disc in the Band of Brothers series and I burned through two episodes as soon as I got it out of the mailbox. I'm starting a run on ordering up the Battlestar Galactica series. I saw most of the first season but then missed a few episodes and it's so great, I haven't allowed myself to watch the new ones without catching up on the ones I missed. Joey V also says 24 is a great series too, so they're going in the Netflix queue soon as well.

Finally, I just had a "small world" experience today. I was browsing over at The Daily Grind (see blog links) when I saw a comment by Solobreak. I followed that link, then started reading his blog. I discovered he attended Jiminy Peak, and curiously mentioned Joe's name. Reading on, I saw were he described following Tim to the Hollenbeck race. Wait just a minute. That was me! Solobreak had stayed at my place between Jiminy and Hollenbeck with the ladies from Team Terry. The Blogosphere just got a little smaller. It's nice to meet bloggers in person, or at least happen upon their blogs accidentally after you meet them in person.

See you on the road. If I can get off the couch, that is!

More than Groceries

2006-05-09T08:27:00.000-04:00

I freely admit that, like many cyclists, I am a germophobe (or to use a real word, a verminophobe.) Last night was a recovery night, which also means that it was a night to get things done that get neglected while I'm on the bike. Grocery shopping was number one on the list.

I collected the cart full, headed to the emptiest checkout line, and started unloading. After it was way too late to pick another line, I realized the checkout girl was picking something else.

A tissue box sat near the register. She was sniffing with every other breath. The trash can under the counter was overflowing with used tissues. Warning bells started ringing in my head. "She has a cold!"

I watched in horror as she readied a stack of grocery bags. Nose wipe! Not the side-to-side wipe that deposits nastiness on the back of the hand, but the upward smoosh that leaves a trail on the palm that would be touching my groceries. Finger lick! The new grocery bags were apparently sticking together and her solution was to lick her thumb to get enough finger friction to separate them. Thumb pick! That quick movement to the nose, looking like it might be a relatively innocent scratch but at the last second becomes a thumb burried up the nostril with a quick flick on the way out just in case it made purchase and came out with something good.

I stood there in visceral anguish as I watched my groceries go by.

Cereal. Milk. Wipe. Turkey. Cheese. Pick. Yogurt. Crackers. Lick. Lick. Tomatoes. Pick. Yam. Lick. Grapes. Bananas. Wipe.

The experience climaxed with a big, wet blow into a tissue during the pause waiting for the receipt to print out. I could swear that when I took the slip of paper from her, it briefly stuck to her fingertips.

I unloaded the groceries at home and was sure I could see every bag, every box, every carton shiny with goo and crawling with little bugs.

I think I'll go shopping this weekend for gas masks, water, and canned food, pile it high within the walls of the old cistern in the basement, and wait for the next big flu strain to come through.

Jiminy Peak and Hollenbeck's Race Reports

2006-05-08T12:08:00.000-04:00

I boosted the season's maximal power curve up a few notches this weekend. I went to the Jiminy Peak road race in Massachusettes on Saturday and then followed up with the Hollenbeck's road race around the Greek Peak ski area just a bit south of home in central NY.

I'm not a huge fan of the Jiminy Peak race. The course is pretty boring, doing laps on mostly flats with one 1.5K climb up to the finish followed immediately by a long fairly gentle descent. The weather has usually given me fits there. It always seems to be raining and cold. One year I decided to go only to support and cheer on Sue in her first road race, and left my bike at home. It was sunny and warm that year.

However, the New England riders always get a jump on us in central NY due to their better late winter weather, so the competition is always stiff and a good test. And this year, I was crashing at my good friend Joe's house near Albany the night before, and he'd be racing with me, so I was at least guaranteed some fun along the way.

We warmed up in fairly light rain, feeling okay on the uphills, but feeling pretty cold on the downhills. My PowerTap SL, which is supposed to be much more water-resistant than the old models, quit transmitting after about 45 minutes in the light rain. As long as it wasn't transmitting, I swapped the wheel out for the slightly lighter spare I had brought along. I was not impressed with the durability in the rain, but I've heard other people having much better luck with the PT SL.

At the start line, the rain broke and the sun started trying to peak through, so we tossed the rain jackets in the car and were off. The first lap was taken at a relatively firm pace, but quite manageable in the pack. My legs were cold and wooden to start, but loosened up with some efforts over the little rollers. The wide pack pinched through the narrow turn between curb and traffic island onto the main climb at the end of the first lap. I had to slow more than I wanted on the inside as the pack pushed right, but stood up and got back up to speed over the first pitch up. I tucked into the pack as best I could as the road flattened a bit, then pitched up again. The pack strung out with me near the tail end of the top 20 of 75 riders and it was starting to get pretty hard. I glanced over my shoulder to see that I had a couple riders behind me, but then a big gap had formed. I pushed hard to stay in contact over the top, but didn't have to dig too deeply into the fast twitch muscles. Right before popping near the top of a climb, sometimes you can just make it over the top by standing and sprinting 100% for about five seconds. It blows you, but if you can make it to the downgrade still in contact you'll be okay. I had just made it over without having to light those extra boosters.

Down the hill and around the flats again, the pack was completely unmotivated and we tooled along chatting at Sunday morning club pace. With about five miles left in the race, a chase group caught back on. Nobody cared too much. We'd dropped them once and they'd been chasing hard all this time. We'd surely drop them again.

We turned right onto the hill, up the first pitch, leveled out, then up again to the finish. I fairly quickly lost touch with the leading group of ten or so who had some good sprinting power, and I just sat and spun up with gaps behind and in front of me. One guy caught and passed me about 200 meters before the finish. He was completely redlined and I said, "Good finish!" But then he started to really crack with about 50 to go, and I felt a little bad as I spun by to take 16th place from him.

In the end, the day was perfect. It was dry and warm for most of the race, and I'd basically done a club ride with a couple brief, hard efforts. My legs felt good and I hadn't emptied them, so I could go into the more important and much harder Hollenbeck road race on Sunday.

Three members of Team Terry and one of their boyfriends crashed at our place Saturday night. They had all also raced at Jiminy, and were staying at our place, roughly on the way to Hollenbeck's. It was fun hosting a bunch of racers busy eating and resting and chatting about bike stuff.

Sunday morning, we all were up and heading south to Virgil, NY for the great Hollenbeck's road race, hosted by Hollenbeck's Fruit and Cookie Shop. That's probably not their official name, but there are free cookies and fruit at the finish of the race, so that's what makes an impression. The road course for the cat 3/4 field I did is two laps of a 22 mile circuit, with two steep climbs, one longer, one shorter, and then a single burst off the main loop up a tough finishing climb.

My Colavita team was out in force, with something like twelve of us in the field. On this climbers' course, our main goal was to protect our climbers so they could hit the second lap hard and reel in any breaks that tried to get away. At the gun, two guys took off like a shot and were up the road pretty quickly as we spun along. We kept them in sight for a few miles, and then they were gone around a couple of bends. It was far too early for a break to stick, and we knew the pack had some pretty big guns in it. Well, usually, it was far too early for a break to stick.

We pushed up and over the first climb. I was 99.5% redlined at the top, and a teammate of mine was on my wheel at 99.9%. Our climbers and some of the stronger cat 3 guys were doing fine, and we'd also popped two of our bigger flatlanders off the back. I told my partner in suffering that we should try to recover as much as possible, make it over the shorter, steeper "wall" to come after a few miles, then get to the front to bury ourselves to help catch the break before the start of the second lap.

As we approached the wall, I moved to near the front so I could fade back through the pack on the climb. I hit it hard, and glanced at the power meter to see numbers in the mid 500s for a while. I faded a bit, but maintained 400+ watts up and over the climb to stick pretty well in the pack. Unfortunately, we'd broken my closest teammate, and he was left behind.

On the downhills and flats and rollers that followed, I moved to the front to do what I could do. I'd bury myself for a minute or so, recover, then rejoin the chase. Three and sometimes four of us were working up there, and we maintained a pretty good pace, holding speeds nearing 30mph for much of it, the pack strung out behind us.

As we neared the beginning of the second lap, a bystander called out "two minutes!" Ack! Two minutes?! That's a big gap considering the way we were chasing and the course to come. Our only hope was that the break would crack on the second lap climbs. I stuck myself on the front and pushed to the first second lap climb, and then peeled off and wished everyone good luck. Considering my job done, I set a moderate tempo for myself up the climb, stopped to pee, then just rode out the course solo trying to maintain a pace just under LT.

At the finish, I discovered they'd never caught the break. We joked that the two guys up front were named "Lance" and "Floyd". They were college kids fresh off a tough collegiate season, and had beaten us with sheer fitness and power. One of our young guys, not necessarily picked as a climbing specialist, had out sprinted the remainder of the pack on the final climb for third, and we also grabbed fifth and some more places on down through.

I'd gotten an incredible workout with some maximal efforts on the climbs, some time trial intervals on the front of the pack chasing the break, and then a nice long, high tempo ride to finish it off. After a monster size chocolate chip cookie, a ginger ale, an apple, and a small thick tasty coffee from the Gimme guys, I was ready for a nice stretch, a spin down ride with the team, and the trip home.

This week is going to be a tough one, with a good hill workout, some work on the TT bike, and the intense and fun weekly training race. I've decided to skip the Bristol RR next weekend in favor of staying home for some nice longer rides, some chores around the house, some rest and relaxation, and a trip to Mom's and Grandma's for Mother's Day. I'm not on the climbing form I'd need to hang on to the lead pack on the long hills at Bristol, and it's too far to drive to do a simple high-tempo ride by myself or with other stragglers.

Sigh. A cup of that thick Gimme brew would taste awfully good right now.

Magnet

2006-05-04T10:31:00.000-04:00

There's nothing much to say about cycling today so I thought I'd prattle on about the house. I got some active rest on the sore knees last night by doing some yard work. Our property line extends only a few inches east of our wooden fence around the backyard, but the previous owners planted a nice yellow bush and a circle of some sort of thorny thing a few feet into the neighbor's big yard. (How about my detailed knowledge of horticulture, eh? I think the thorny thing might be a rose bush but "yellow" is the best I can do with the other bush.) The neighbor is currently renting the big old house next door, and left a big section of long grass between us and them when they last mowed. I can only guess they have no idea where the property line is and didn't want to go too far.

The old house next door sits on 3.8 acres of what used to be industrial property. The rumor is that it is being sold to a "developer" who will be putting in sixteen condo units, to be sold around $350-400K each. If we were looking to sell our house in the next five years, I'd say "whoopee" as I'm sure that will raise our property value, but we're not, so all that means is that we'll have to absorb a hefty increase in the already oppressive tax burden. If you don't like taxes, don't come to good old New York State.

Anyway, in a likely vain attempt to encourage the developer to not build right up to the property line, and to keep in place the nice row of pine trees on their side of our fence, I raked and mowed about three swaths past our yard to give the appearance that we're responsible for the trees. I imagine the first thing they'll do is come in and level the old house and cut down everything living before remaking the area it into what condo type people like. There goes our nice backyard shade.

Oh well, if you can't stand neighbors doing their thing, then you've got to buy a hundred acres in the country and live in the middle of it.

There's a huge project I need to dig into with the house. I desperately want to replace, refurbish, and or fortify the windows. We have storm windows on the first two floors, but on cold days in the winter, we still get ice built up on the inside of the inside pane, which then melts and over the decades, has damaged the wood in the sills. Damage aside, it's darn cold around the windows, and being a lightweight, I typically freeze all winter even with the furnace cranking. The attic is especially annoying because it has new windows, but they opted for super cheap ones, and there are no storms, so it'll get down to near 40 up there on the coldest days, with the wind whistling right through and that's just no fun for working out.

So, I need to do some major research about how to put in more efficient glass and tighter window frames, while maintaining the old, wide wood molding and the look of a classic victorian. Suggestions, anyone? With over 25 windows in the house, I'm looking to get nailed big time in the wallet.

For your daily cycling fix, here's something I ran into again on the 'net a few days back. The retirement of Lance means at least one big thing: Nike won't be pouring money into making any more awesome cycling commercials for a while. So, you've seen it before, but it's worth another viewing. Watch Magnet for some good music and some quick inspiration for training.

See you on the road.

Minutes and Millimeters

2006-05-03T09:19:00.000-04:00

I completed my first official club time trial of the year last night. There was a stiff, cool breeze, providing a nasty headwind and sidewind on the way out to the turnaround, and a sidewind and tailwind on the way back. I had left the disc wheel at home and instead rode the PowerTap wheel. I wanted a measurement of my time trial power under race conditions.

Time trials are terrible, terrible things. You have to ride on the razor's edge, ever vigilant about putting power to the pedals and suffering like a dog. The air was dry last night too, which meant I was in for a big case of hacking and coughing after the finish line.

By the end of the ten miles, the clock read 24:16, a little over a minute worse than my best-ever time. That's not terrible for this time of the year, especially considering I was lacking my disc wheel and it was quite windy, but it's not great either.

The race was good, though, at providing some education about power and position. I had been trying to get my position right on the trainer at home and on the road a bit a couple weeks ago. It's not until you go through the stress of a live time trial, dropping the hammer for over 20 minutes, that problems with position show their true colors.

From about mile two on, I had the sensation that my saddle was too low, and I found myself frequently trying to push myself rearward on the saddle. At the finish, my knees were aching a bit and my average power for the effort had been only 278 watts. I managed an average of 282 watts in an hour on my road bike on the rollers in dark, cold February, and my power analysis software tells me that my best 20 minutes so far this season was an average of 298 watts (on a climb in Asheville three weeks ago), so I must say that 278 in 24 minutes was a bit disappointing, but I'm taking it as a challenge to improve my position and train more on the TT bike.

I will be getting out the measuring tape, plumb bobs, and protractors and doing full measurements studying my road bike and comparing it with my TT bike. I'll probably be moving the saddle up and a bit back to start. When riding easily on the TT bike, the saddle appears to be at a good height. When doing a real TT though, I tend to inch forward on the saddle and spin faster on top of the gear without as much heel-drop for power as I use on the road bike. In the end, I think it all works to give me an effectively lower saddle when time trialing, and I felt it in my aching knees and drop in power.

I'll be trying to get the TT bike very close to the road position and probably raising the saddle a hair to try and get as much power as I can get on the road bike. Then I'll start inching towards a more aerodynamic position while trying not to sacrifice comfort and power.

If only I had a wind-tunnel and smoke tracers in my basement... Do you suppose a box fan and some incense sticks would do the trick?

See you on the road.

Monday Morning Fuzz

2006-05-01T08:30:00.000-04:00

Warm, dry, reddened face from forgetting sunscreen for a couple hours. Eyesight slightly bleary. Stuffy nose and chest tightness from inhaling lots of air filled with lots of spring pollen. Eyelids of sand. Slightly chapped lips. Tight, worked quads. Yup, it was a good, hard race yesterday, and I have a bad case of Monday Morning Fuzz.

In fact, it was *two* good, hard races yesterday. The Binghamton Circuit Race is held on a 1.6 mile loop, with big sweeping corners and a sprinters' uphill and a gently flowing downhill. It's a real power rider course. Which means I suffered.

The first race of the day was the 4/5 race, and I'd guess there were about 60 guys or so. The field felt fairly safe, but everybody was jumpy. Any breaks that got 100 meters on the pack were jumped on right away. Each time up the climb, I noticed the watt meter settling into the 500s, and I wondered how many of those matches I'd have to burn. I spun the pedals fast to try and lighten the load on the muscles to save it for the final sprint.

I had three teammates with me. One was hanging on pretty well, but then popped off the back a few laps before the finish. The other two are pretty strong guys right now, and we were working for a nice leadout into the sprint up the final hill to the finish. Fine plan, but we started way too early, and in the wrong order. On the back stretch, we found ourselves on the front of the itchy pack. I was second in line, and my first teammate started cranking up the speed. My other teammate behind me was yelling, "Here they come! Go now!" I glanced over my shoulder to see not a charging line of riders I expected, but just everyone gathering on our wheels, waiting for the base of the climb to start their sprints.

"Easy! Ease up! Not yet!" I yelled back. My legs were beginning to burn and we were still half a K from the finish.

"Here they come! Go now!" from behind me. Arrrgh!

So our first leadout man cranked it up a notch, then another. As we hit the bottom of the climb, he was gapping me and I was shot. "Go! Go!" I yelled to my teammates, then simply tried to ride as fast and as straight as I could to avoid a pileup on my rear wheel as the charging pack came flowing around me like a damn broke.

Our first guy popped half way up, and our third guy in effect became the leadout for the entire peloton. Needless to say, we didn't place well.

After the race, I sat on the tailgate of the station wagon by myself munching some of Saturday night's leftover cornbread, sucking down my Endurox R4 mix, and thinking that this sport of cycling is one damn hard sport, I wasn't in the shape I'd hoped to be in, and that maybe I'd rather be home putting together our new lawn mower and cutting some grass or painting a bathroom or something. The average speed for the 4/5 race had been just over 25 mph, and the multiple spikes of high wattage had toasted me. The matches in my current book are pretty short.

After a spin down and a good stretch, I reluctantly signed up for the last race of the day, a 3/4/5 combined field. I'm glad I did. In that field of about 35 racers, we had five teammates, picking up a couple of our cat 3 guys. The pace was fairly sedate for a few laps, with a couple of ill-fated breaks trying their luck. Another solo break went up the road, and it was one of our cat 4s, the leadout guy from the first race. The rest of us played policeman and diligently covered everyone who turned the pace up. For eight or nine laps, our guy sat out front with a decent lead, and we just worked behind, sitting in and breaking the rythym and morale of any riders thinking of bridging up. It's amazing that one can slow the pace so much just by not contributing. We didn't physically try to block anyone of course, but just having three guys continually sucking wheels really wears on the mind.

With very few laps to go, our solo break broke, and came back into the folds of the peloton. Short any true sprinters, we didn't organize any real leadout for the sprint, but we all picked our own positions. Funilly enough, we all did far better than we did in the first race, with a 4th, 5th, 9th, and I was in an unofficial 13th. Not all that bad for a bunch of non-sprinters, I figure.

The fun of teamwork and reasonable sprint for this time of the season for me helped to renew my racing desire, and my mind turned to recovering today and then the hard training days to come.

After downloading the PT info at home in the evening, I was amazed by the peaks and valleys in wattage during the race. I expected to see extended peaks on the climb, troughs on the downhill, etc. Instead, there are spikes all over the place, and until I looked at speed, it was hard to tell where the effort on the hill came each lap. What an interesting sport it is that requires lots of endurance, but punctuates events with frequent bursts of high power output. No wonder it's so hard. (And fun, I suppose.)

At the end of the day, I was home and joined Sue in the flower garden where she'd been all day yanking weeds. I put together the new mower and fired it up and took a recovery spin around and around and around the lawn, thankful that we'd opted for one that was self-propelled.

See you on the road.

Aero Carbon Crazy?

2006-04-28T10:34:00.000-04:00

What the heck is going on out there in aero-land, anyway? I decided that Sue really "needs" some aero wheels for her time trial bike. The old Mavic-CXP30s that I have on it just don't look fast enough, you know? I set up a couple of daily searches on Ebay and sat back to watch for a good deal on some slightly used aero wheels. I continue to be surprised by the results.

Over the past couple of weeks, I've watched some old HED tri-spokes and HED lenticular disc wheels go out on auction. I ride that particular tri-spoke/disc combo on my TT bike and, although the standard HED disc is pretty heavy, they work pretty darn well on flat to rolling courses that are common for time trials.

The old tri-spokes are going for between $500 and $600, and I just saw a HED disc go for $530 plus $25 shipping. Okay, let's think about this for a minute. The standard HED disc and tri-spoke have not changed in design for the past several years. Same weight, same everything. I'm not talking about the new full carbon tri-spokes here. I'm talking about the older style, the ones you could get in 2000, the same design they sell today for something like $595 per wheel brand new.

So, there are people out there who could get brand new versions of these wheels for $595 a piece, and they're paying 90-92% of new price on Ebay for used ones several years old. And here's the kicker. When I bought mine brand new in 2000, I paid $327 for the tri-spoke and $418 for the disc. I could sell them both on Ebay right now for a 47% profit, and I've ridden on them for six years. I wish I had sunk the money I put in certain looser stocks back then into buying a bunch of those wheels!

What's going on out there with the price of aero carbon wheels? Are we all nuts?

Asheville, NC

2006-04-27T08:55:00.000-04:00

There's no place I've found that's as good for road riding as Asheville, North Carolina. My experience isn't all that broad, but I did spend a week in Mallorca, Spain a few years back. While it was tremendously beautiful, mountainous, and fun, it still wasn't as good as the mountains in Western North Carolina.

This year's trip was my sixth trip to Asheville, and this year we had a full house. Friends came in from central New York, West Virginia, Canada, Pennsylvania, and Texas. We never did use the hot tub in the garage of the rental place, but we definitely used the garage. So many nice bikes in such little space!

I personally put in 290 miles and a little over 35,000 feet of climbing in four days of riding. That included sitting out two days resting due to a head cold I came down with the night we arrived in town. In the crisp, clear mountain air my cold stayed light and didn't bother my breathing much, so I was able to pour on the steam on most of the rides and felt great. Unfortunately, Sue developed left knee pain on the first full day of riding, sat out the next day, got an emergency visit with a local physical therapist, but still could not ride. She bagged the vacation and flew home on Wednesday. She worked so hard all winter inside on rollers and outside in dark and foul weather, with the racing season in mind, but especially planning for this Asheville trip. All that work for so much disappointment was a real killer.

We did what has become known as the "Old Fort-Hickory Nut Gorge-Lake Lure-Shriners' Hill-Broken Road" ride, which is a staple route for a trip to Asheville. The local bike club published a ride guide that includes an "Old Fort Hickory Nut Gorge" ride and we expanded on both the length of the route and the name. It's a ride southeast of Asheville, where the climbs are shorter and generally more shallow, but with a great variety of slopes, turns, pavement, and fantastic views.

It departs at a convenience store on Cane Creek Rd, just a couple miles away from the Cane Creek factory. We've never tried to get a tour, but we usually honk "hello" on the way past. From there, we hit the first climb over Hickory Nut gap, a mile or so long and fairly shallow, made for big guys with big gears. Very fast uphill. The descent into Bat Cave follows, a five or six mile working, twisting downhill. If you work hard you go really fast, or you can coast for a more gentle ride down. I ended up putting out more wattage on the way down in spots than I did on the way up the other side. Whew!

We passed the scenic Chimney Rock tourist site. We've never been to the lookout at the top since bikes aren't allowed up the twisting climb. Only pedestrians and motorists. They assume that cyclists will kill themselves on the way down, I suppose. Too bad really, as it would be a great climb with a nice reward at the top. We wind around Lake Lure, and the road there twists and weaves and dips and bobs like a prize fighter. We poured on the gas there, and turned the road into a roller coaster ride we had control over. Fantastic.

Leaving Lake Lure, we headed towards Old Fort. A couple of steep leg-breaking climbs softened us up before the Shriners' Hill, so named because one is inclined to weave up the steep sections like the motorcycle-riding octogenarians one sees in parades. A steep gravel road followed immediately, then a nice descent, and a stop for refueling in town.

From there, we went off-roading. The star section of the route is a long, shallow climb on an abandoned road, old route 70, I believe. It's barracaded at both ends, concrete in some sections, blacktop in others, all of it cracked and broken, with occasional sticks, dirt piles, leaves, and other natural rubbish scattered about. It would be great on cross bikes, but it's pretty darn fun on road bikes too, as long as you didn't bring your best lightweight carbon wheels. We regrouped at the top, then set off for Black Mountain, just a mile down the road.

The next turn put us on route 9 for the last climb of the day, over Lackey Gap. It's a moderate hill, fast, sweeping turns, and about 10 minutes long at my top pace. Even after all the miles before, I was able to stick my wattage between 290 and 325 (good for the shape I'm in right now) and felt like I was flying up the climb.

A descent and many rolling hills follow on the miles back to the cars. It's quite a ways, and with no major climbs left, one can fall into the idea that the ride should be over and then start a death march back. I had some gas left in the tank and on a couple sections of rolling sprinters' hills pushed hard with my friend and big engine, Drew, to hammer along over them.

By the end, we'd put in 78 miles with about 10K feet of climbing, and I felt great and knew that I'd laid down some great training, putting in several long intervals of high-wattage effort punctuated at the end with several short bursts of very high power over the bumps at the end.

For the final ride, the skies were clear and the temperatures near record warmth for our ascent up Mount Mitchell. We left from the house near Weaverville, and our first effort was climbing the steep Ox Creek Road up to the Blue Ridge Parkway. From there, it's miles and miles of gentle climbing with several tunnels, and marvelous views out over the valleys. I had waited to make sure everyone took the right turn off of Ox Creek, so I started the Blue Ridge climb a few minutes behind the leaders in our group. With the great motivation of having people up the road to try to catch, I just set my legs to turning out 225-250 watts, knowing that effort was below my LT and I could hold it for a long time. At last, the left turn onto the main park road appeared, marking about five more miles left, including some very steep sections. About 25 minutes and some very heavy breathing and aching legs later, I was in the parking lot at the top sitting on the grass, munching some food, relaxing and stretching. Riders drifted in to cheers from others of us who'd already reached the top. We lounged about soaking up the sunshine in the cool breeze, refilled our bottles, and eventually decided it was time to head down.

Getting off the mountain was a bit rough, with high winds on certain steep sections threatening to pull the wheels out from underneath us. Once we reached the parkway though, it was smooth sailing from there. There's actually a couple miles of climbing early on the way back, but then it's all downhill once you cross over the top of the ridge. A large group of us screamed down the parkway, putting in huge efforts at the front of the paceline, then swinging off to give the next person the thrill of pouring on the power and yanking us downhill at top speed. We skimmed over some potholes and flew through the dark tunnels, averaging 30-40 mph for most of the descent. Bleary-eyed from wind and effort at the bottom, we all regrouped and excitedly told tales of our own experiences on the way down.

Finally, we dropped like stones down Ox Creek, leaning over through hairpins and laughing along with the pull of gravity we'd been cursing just a couple hours before. After a bit of a death march back through town to the house, bodies soaked up liquids, crammed down food, and dropped into lounge chairs for some well-deserved rest.

As always, by the end of the trip, everyone was saying, "I can't wait to do this again next year!" One of these years I suppose we won't be able to make the trip for one reason or another, but when it happens, I'm betting it just won't seem like spring without beating ourselves up in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Asheville, NC.

Thanks to Bill Legere and Amy Kneale for the photos!

Best Laid Plans

2006-04-25T08:29:00.000-04:00

I have yet to find Sue's camera or remember to ask her where it is. There are a couple pictures on it from the Asheville trip I wanted to include with the proper vacation report, so I'll continue to put that off until later.

I returned from the Carolina Mountains feeling pretty good. I'd put in some long hard efforts on the climbs and was feeling like the season was really starting to roll along, and the legs were really starting to feel that spark. After the long drive back, I took a couple more days off from training to try to catch up with normal life and to properly rest the muscles.

Then, last Tuesday, I pulled out the TT machine. It's a GT Edge Aero frame, and I really like it. I picked up a set of Profile Carbon X bars on Ebay late last fall to replace the ancient cowhorns and Scott aerobars I've had on it for several years. The old Scotts were great, but anchors compared to the full carbon set-up. Plus, I had subscribed to the rotate-yourself-forward-around-the-bottom-bracket theory in an attempt to get as aero as possible. A forward position had also been necessary because the only stem I had was a long one and it stretched me way out. I had a Profile forward seatpost and it wasn't a super-bad position, but I always felt like I was lacking some power. Specifically, the forward position seemed to remove much of the role my back, glutes, hips and hammies had in power production, and relied more heavily on my quads, tiring them out faster.

Replacing the bars with the carbon Xs allowed me to bring the entire position back about three inches (!!) and now I sit on the bike much more like I do on my road bike. I even replaced the forward-bent seatpost with a normal straight one, which shaved about ten pounds off the bike. I rode on the bike only a couple times late last fall and it felt fast and far more comfortable, both on the muscles and on my tender saddle bits. I'm hoping that time trialing in a position I'm more used to from the road bike will boost my TT power and not decrease my aerodynamics too much.

Anyway, I took the TT bike out Tuesday, and was feeling strong and couldn't wait to hammer a bit and dial in the position. I hit a road nearby that has some small rollers but is generally pretty flat, put the hammer down, and watched the wattage. After the first couple minutes, I began to feel positively awful and was reminded that I really hadn't warmed up properly. After doing so, though, I felt better, but still couldn't seem to hold the wattage I'd been putting out in Asheville. The wind was fierce and chilly, and I pushed hard over the rollers, tending towards mashing bigger gears to try and get the watts up through force since my legs didn't seem to want to spin. I finished the day feeling like I'd had an adequate workout, but certainly nothing stellar.

On Wednesday, my right knee felt a little funny.

Thursday brought the first of the new, local Thursday night races. They're on a great little 2.7 mile circuit with relatively safe turns, little traffic, and a couple of small rollers to attack on but nothing too hilly to cause huge selections in the group. My right knee felt a little stiff, but after warming up, it felt fine. Only six of us showed for the inaugural race, but we took turns laying down the speed and attacking the group. We did a couple races of a few laps each, and it was fast and fun. By the end, my wattage graph had big peaks all over it, I'd spent quite a bit of time near VO2max land, and it was exactly the workout I was wanting in preparation for the Sunday race in Perinton which would bring with it several laps up a short but steep sprinter's hill.

Thursday I awoke to find my right knee sore and stiff. Shoot. I did it again. Last year, in the early spring, I'd started to feel really good on a ride and big-geared it a bit early on a favorite rolling road, only to strain my knee and force me off the bike. I had completely forgotten that lesson, and had strained my knee again in the same way. My TT ride started it, and the high-power attacks had finished it off.

I can't complain too much, because the soreness in my knee was a great excuse for avoiding the Perinton race in the chilly rain. The last thing my knee needed was to get freezing cold and wet and then hammered repeatedly by a steep hill. I have treated the knee delicately, taken some "vitamin I", and today is the first morning since last Tuesday when it hasn't reminded me there's something wrong with it.

So now, I'll be getting back on the bike and spinning, spinning, and spinning, followed by stretching, stretching, and stretching. The weather here in CNY has turned miserable though, and I have a serious case of the late-December blues. I want to race hard and well, but I absolutely do not want to get on the bike to train. Sue is currently on the disabled list, and thinking about exploring other interests besides bike racing. Seeing her depressed over not riding is feeding into my extreme lack of motivation as well. Top it off with a touchy knee and sunless, wet weather with high temperatures just touching 50F during the day, and all I want to do is sit around eating chocolate-covered coffee beans while watching Dirty Jobs on Discovery.

Bridging the Gap

2006-04-20T08:13:00.000-04:00

I'm finally bridging the gap in my to-do list created by last week's vacation in Asheville, NC. Unfortunately, posting to this blog is pretty far down on the list. The trip was good fun with friends, had some great training moments, but also brought some big disappointments. I'll post more later, but for now, I'll have to leave you with the picture above of the view from the Blue Ridge Parkway on the way up to Mount Mitchell taken by rider-and-shutterbug Bill Legere. Bill put in more miles than the rest of us, and still had time to take a bunch of photos - thanks!

See you on the road.

Lazy Days

2006-04-06T09:14:00.000-04:00

On the drive to work this morning, the sixth day of April, the 18th day of spring, the car themometer read a blistering 35 degrees and the sky was spitting snow onto the windshield. How is it that I ended up settling in a place where I hate the weather so much? I wonder what it's like to live in a place where one doesn't have to consult the weather forecast hourly in order to make outdoor activity plans properly.

Sue has been battling a sinus virus/infection for the past few days, and fearing what it means for our vacation next week riding in the mountains of North Carolina. Meanwhile, I've spent the past few days on the razor's edge of catching whatever she has, and fearing what that means for our vacation. With my asthma, a simple head cold can put me out of action for about a week. So while I've tried to be supportive of my loving wife, I've also tried to keep her at arms length. Yesterday, midday, I had a headache coming on, and my head and throat were starting to feel full. I never get headaches unless I'm dehydrated or getting sick, so warning bells and big red flashers were going off. I wrapped up a couple things at work early, and after lunch, sprinted home, stopping by the grocery long enough to grab handfuls of zinc lozenges, megadoses of antioxidant vitamins, and several other snake-oil products that promised quick cold cures and/or immune system boosters. I got home, turned the furnace thermostat up to "broil", stuffed appropriate orifices with tablets and sprays, and headed off to bed for a two hour midday nap.

When I woke up, all systems checked in normal, so at least for one day, I'd beat back those little nasties. Sue's feeling slightly better, so hopefully we'll both be ship-shape by Saturday afternoon when we swing our legs over our bikes for the first leg-loosening spin before we hit the big climbs on Sunday.

So this week has unexpectedly turned into a recovery week for us both. We put in a lot of miles during warm weather last week, but with the return of cold weather, battling illness, and packing and equipment checks in preparation for next week, we haven't been in the saddle once. Hopefully it'll work out okay, and we'll be super fresh for the long miles in the sun and warmth next week.

See you on the road.

My Hero Jeremy

2006-03-29T07:35:00.000-05:00

Good news! My man Jeremy from the customer support desk at Saris-PowerTap left me a phone message yesterday saying that the wheel is on the way back from Wisconsin to Central New York. They verified that the speed readings on the hub were all screwed up and replaced the "torque tube" and all the other fiddly-bits inside the hub. I should have it back on Thursday. I sent it out last Monday, so that's a darn good turnaround time. Let's hope the new guts in the hub last a nice long time.

It's racing season now, for sure. Not bike racing season quite yet for me, but racing to work early, so I can race home early, then racing around getting dressed then racing on the bike to beat the sunset and cold temperatures. Last night I crammed in 36 good tempo miles with plenty of rollers to make the legs and back know they did some work. My toes were little white icicles when I got done, but everything else stayed nice and toasty. I'm tired today, but my legs feel good and it's supposed to be a few degrees warmer today, so it looks like it'll be another race on the way home.

Turning to the particulars of training, for those of you interested, this time of year is a flux time for me. It's warm enough to finally get off the rollers and ride outside, but it's cold enough that my lungs get burned if I breathe too hard on the ride (darned asthma). Therefore, intervals with much intensity tend to go out the window. I'm doomed to tempo for the next couple weeks. A couple nights ago, I rode an hour outside until I got cold, then came home and sat on the rollers for another half-hour, warming back up with a 15-minute LT interval. That felt pretty good and I'll try and continue doing post-ride roller rides to keep some intensity going. I'll be stomping along in the Pisgah Mountain range in a couple weeks, and I want to be ready to go hard when the road turns up.

T.G.I.M.

2006-03-27T08:20:00.000-05:00

Yay! Monday!

I don't say that too often, but putting this past week and weekend behind me, and seeing the weather reports for the coming week have me pleased it's Monday. Cold temperatures kept me on the rollers last week, and my workouts suffered from very low motivation. Thursday night, I was getting excited because Friday's forecast was for reasonable weather, and I was planning on skipping out of work a little early to get in a nice long road ride to start the weekend off right.

Early, er, scratch that, *very* early Friday morning, my pager went off. A battery in one of the big UPSes in the computer room at work had split open, dumping acid onto the floor. Like a rip-off of Aliens, the acid was eating through the floor panels. Sparks were flying and electricity arching across metal bits. The operators shutdown the main power to the UPS, and it brought several of my servers down hard.

I checked the clock: 3:52 AM. Wow. That's early. It'd take a while for the UPS engineers to arrive to fix the batteries, so I had time for a quick shower and a real breakfast. This would turn out to be a blessing in disguise, because if I arrived at work around 5:00, I'd be able to get out early in the afternoon and do a very long ride. Sweet.

Fast forward to 7:15 AM. I was back in the office, after having rebooted and checked all the servers to find them coming up pretty well. Then, bang, the phone rang with word that the main web server was down. Corrupt data on the mirrored drives. A rebuild and restore from tape would be necessary. Then, the second part of the Perfect Storm. My cell phone rang with the phone number of my 93-year-old grandmother's house. My mom had found her in bed mostly unresponsive and apparently unable to speak. The medics who arrived guessed she'd had a stroke and they whisked her off to the hospital.

I hung around work long enough to get others involved in the server restoration, then hopped in the car to zoom through the nearly 1.5 hour trip to the hospital. I arrived there to find my grandmother sitting up and doing very well. All tests came back very well. Heart good. Lungs good. Brain good. Kidneys good. The worst part of the ordeal was her left hand where they'd stuck the IV in the ambulance. Her 93-year-old papery skin had bloated with blood upon removal of the needle at the hospital, and her hand looked like a big purple party balloon. The official diagnosis was just lack of oxygen. She'd must've slept wrong, heavily on her ribs or something, and her O2 level had gotten so low she had the symptoms of having had a stroke.

By 6:00 in the evening, we were all back to her house, with oxygen bottles to get her through these times in the future, and I was in the car speeding the 1.5 hour trip back to the office where my supervisor and co-worker were still toiling away on the problem. A disk had gone bad during the restore, and hell was breaking loose.

Fast forward three two-hour restores later, and at 2:30 AM Saturday, I was finally able to declare the server back up and running, and I went home to climb into bed around 3:00. Awake for twenty-three hours, including a trip to Binghamton and back. Welcome to the weekend.

Weather over the weekend was spotty at best, rainy and cold, and very windy when not raining. I got in a few hours out on the road, but after 14 years of bike racing, I have to admit that the novelty of training in nearly freezing weather has worn off. It's no longer fun to feel like the Michelin Man with so many layers of clothing on, to feel the sting of cold set in to my fingers and toes, to feel the bite of the frozen air inside my chest.

So, it's Monday and I'm excited about the week ahead. My grandmother is doing just fine taking a hit of oxygen every now and again to start the day off right, Mother Nature is promising us temps touching the 50s during the day, I'm promising myself some early departures from the office for some long rides, and I'll be happily busy at work trying to finish the web migration to new servers project that has just been bumped up several notches on my priority list.

See you on the road.

Cold and Alone

2006-03-20T14:09:00.000-05:00

It's the first day of spring, and the temps are topping out at 25 degrees F today, with the wind chill 14. At least it's not snowing. Several inches of new powder fell on us over the weekend, and that was plenty. Good news, though. The daily high temperature is supposed to be around 40 starting on Thursday and extending through the weekend. Whew. How will we deal with such heat?

The cat 5 guys on my team are freezing their lycra off hitting every race they can, in hopes of getting in enough to upgrade before the bigger races start. Poor bastards.

In other news, my PowerTap SL has now left me and I'm all alone with only my old Polar HR monitor. The PT is now working its way through the US Postal system, heading towards Madison, Wisconsin and the labs of Saris Cycling Group. They will receive it on the 22nd. They promised a ten-day turnaround, so I'm hoping it will be back in my hands by April 5th, with two days to spare before the big trip to Asheville, NC. It'll be a close shave, I'm sure.

See you on the road. Watch out for that black ice.

Back to Heart Rate Training

2006-03-17T08:42:00.000-05:00

Well everyone, I might be at the beginning of a tale of woe about how much PowerTap systems stink. After about 550 miles on the rollers and 100 miles outdoors of working properly, my new PowerTap SL has gone kablooey.

I hop on the rollers, and everything works fine for about five or ten minutes. Then the wattage starts jumping around briefly or for a couple minutes, then drops to zero, despite the transmission icon staying on solid. Cadence off the pedal and heart rate continue to register, but the clock and mileage stop, and wattage and speed show zero. Nadda. Nothing.

I have cleaned contacts, left the battery cover off for a day to "dry it out" despite there being no obvious moisture in the battery compartment, replaced all batteries, wiggled wires, reset torque, completed self-tests on the computer. It'd be easier to list the troubleshooting things I haven't done with this thing.

I have a second wiring harness and receiver for my TT bike. I will install that and run tests on that to rule out the wiring. Failing that, I'm trying to find someone locally with whom I can swap computers and hub long enough to see how they perform in an attempt to isolate the problem to one or the other. After that, it's very likely I'll have to send the entire thing back to Saris, and I'm not looking forward to that. There are many horror stories on the web about people who waited a very long time to get their fixed PowerTap back, despite the manufacturer claiming a ten-day turnaround.

I am not at all pleased that something that costs so much can go bad after a short time of mild use. I would expect this from a $20 cyclo-computer, not from something that costs a grand.

My short taste of training with power was enough to make me an addict. It's fantastic when it works. But now, I'm back to training with heart rate, and my motivation has taken a nose-dive.

Wish me luck, and buyers beware!

A Little Extra

2006-03-13T07:59:00.000-05:00

March presented central New York with the lamb half of the proverbial lamb/lion March combination this weekend, and it was oh so good to get out and ride without freezing. The local club's first group ride was Saturday, in temps nearing 55, and under sunny skies. The ride departure spot was about seven miles from my house, so I decided to spin over to get in a little extra.

About sixty people pulled into the plaza parking lot. Some were chatting loudly about ski adventures over the winter. Others were talking loudly about how they meant to get on the trainer over the off-season but never did and were feeling out of shape. And then there was a group of us quietly greeting each other and wondering who would be driving the bus today. It reminded me of the pro riders described in Lance Armstrong's War evaluating each other's butts to see who was in shape and who had a few extra pounds. Nods, smiles, waves all around. How great it was to meet under sunny skies and declare the riding season started.

We rolled out of the parking lot, and I took up a position near the back, chatting along with one of the usual bus drivers. About a mile into the ride, we'd turned onto a quieter road, and we both looked up to see a gap in the group. Game on. We both rolled up to the lead group and sat on them for a while.

After a few more miles, and a few fewer people in the lead group, the pace was popping up now and and again as people started feeling frisky on the front. There was no tongue-dragging punishment going on here, just people upping the pace ever so slightly on the front. No one wanted to drop anyone hard on the first ride of the season. They just wanted to make some people uncomfortable enough that they'd wish they'd hit the trainers a little more over the winter.

As we rolled back into the parking lot, I was happy to have had a great ride getting reacquainted with friends, and especially happy to be feeling great. So great, in fact, when Sue and Jeff got back to the parking lot, we rolled out for a little extra.

We rolled along with a nice spin for several more miles. Around the half-century mark, we reached an intersection. The house to the right, more miles to the left. I chose left. "I'll just get in a little extra by going this way."

I then set off on the solo exploration part of the day's ride, and made good use of the power meter. I just set the legs to a nice tempo pace, and tapped out the miles and enjoyed the views. Sixty. Seventy five. Still feeling great.

It occurred to me that it wouldn't be too hard to nail down a century on this 11th of March. The legs didn't seem to want to stop. I climbed up winding route 13, and admired Chittenango Falls. The river was bloated with spring thaw, and the water was crashing down with a roar.

In the end, I thought that a little restraint on my second outdoor ride of the year was in order, bagged the century idea, and comfortably rolled into home with eighty five miles under my belt. My "little extra" had turned into forty nine miles extra. Sweet.

The power meter is paying off, the time on the rollers is paying off, I easily completed more one-day miles than I ever have before so early in the season, and my first test with some of the other big boys in the club found me with plenty of watts in the quads. I couldn't have asked for a better second ride of the season. I hope you all out there had a similarly great weekend.

See you on the road.

Horizons in the Mucklands

2006-03-09T08:00:00.000-05:00

The temperatures were positively balmy last evening, all the way up into the high thirties (F). Like a summer's day.

Mounting the tank that is my bad-weather bike and feeling like the Michelin man because of all the clothing layers, I set out for a long spin that would see me getting home in darkness. I had the light batteries charged, the balaclava and lobster mitts on, and cross bike with fenders installed, and I was ready to go.

About five minutes into the ride, I attempted a shift from the big to little ring and remembered my promise to myself during my last ride on the tank many months ago to clean and lube the front derailleur. Downshifting required reaching down and pushing the derailleur cage in. I renewed my promise to lube it when I got home.

I headed north and east, into the seemingly endless wastelands of mucky flats south of Oneida Lake. Riding out there signals the official start of the racing season for me. The straight, flat, intensely boring roads there are perfect for those first few rides in the cold. One can maintain a nice steady tempo without getting too hot going uphill and getting too cold going downhill. At every intersection, I'd turn and face yet another flat road that disappeared onto the horizon. Surrounded by flat snow covered fields dotted with melted patches of brown muck, I spun on towards those horizons, wiggling my thumbs to try to keep the blood flowing in them.

I stepped up onto the porch in the dark, home safe and sound two hours after heading out. Only my nose, thumbs, sinuses, and lungs had felt the cold. My toe warmers and boots had done their job, and the balaclava had kept my head and ears toasty. I put the bike away, forgetting my promise to lube the front derailleur (which I'll probably remember about five minutes into my next ride), stretched, breathed warm wet air deeply in a long shower, and ate tasty leftovers.

The legs felt fine coming down the stairs this morning, but my eyes feel the general fatigue induced by a good early-season tempo spin over the nearly freezing mucklands.

It's unseasonably warm here over the next few days, and I hope to get in many more miles before Old Man Winter remembers it's only March and comes back in town to dump some serious ice on us.

See you on the road.

Pfffffft #2

2006-03-05T20:32:00.000-05:00

I had my second flat of the year on Sunday, but this time it wasn't a tire. It was me.

Friday evening was a night off from training as usual, and my high school friend Maria and her new fiancee Adam came in town for a visit. We dined out and then stayed up until after midnight eating ice cream and catching up. Sue and I were nearly dead by lights out at 12:30, at least two and a half hours past our normal bed time.

My aching back woke me up a little after 7am (don't get me started about expensive mattresses that break down in a year and a half) and after another half day of visiting, I was toasted. I had also recently started The 13 1/2 lives of Captain Bluebear, a book my mom had given me recently, and it was all too easy to nap and read the rest of the day away.

I was paged for work at 3:30am Sunday morning, got up and fixed the problem quickly, but upon returning to bed, found my back in knots again, and I sent the rest of the "night" tossing and turning and rarely sleeping. I have to figure this back problem out. I'm fine standing and sitting and deadlifting and squatting large heavy weights, but as soon as I lay down, the muscles in my back start to cramp up and often after about six hours, are nearly in full spasm.

So Sunday was another banner day for lack of motivation. I spent most of the morning nearly asleep, then dragged myself into the attic with a schedule for three hours on the rollers, to include 4x12min threshold intervals, and with the thoughts I should probably throw in some muscle tension intervals I skipped on Saturday.

Well, while stretching and putting on my shoes at a snail's pace, I finished off the movie Seven I had started a couple weeks ago. (Good movie. See it if you haven't.) I then put in Pirates of the Caribbean (mildly entertaining, but that's about it. Don't bother.) and finally got on the bike.

I warmed up for about twenty minutes, but my legs felt very sluggish. I pushed through one of the LT intervals, and it went fine, but was mentally draining. After that, I spent several minutes stopping, leaning on the chair next to me, pedalling again, stopping, starting, stopping, starting... stopping.

I went flat. I could feel future podium places slipping out of my grasp as I dismounted, but I didn't care. I stretched a little while watching the rest of the movie, ate dinner with friends, watched Little Bobbie Julich take the Paris-Nice prolouge by .71 seconds, sat to type this blog entry, and now I'm off to an early bedtime. Either I'm getting sick or else my friends brought their cats' hair into the house on their clothing (entirely possible) because now my head is blocked up solid and my throat is scratchy. I just have to make it through the next four days putting in some good spins on the rollers, because the Friday forecast calls for unseasonably warm and dry, with a 95% chance of skipping out of a half day of work for a remotivating ride outside in the fresh air.

Early to bed, early to back spasms, I always say. Maybe I'll check back in with you in the early morning hours if I find myself thrashing around in bed again.

Sleep well.

Pffffft

2006-03-03T08:41:00.000-05:00

I got my first flat of the season last night, on the rollers no less. How does one go about getting a flat on the rollers? You're pretty much guaranteed that you won't be running through any piles of broken glass, or nails, or thorns, or whatever. It was a new tube too, but one of those stupid ultralight tubes. I usually steer clear of them, but I got this one free from a race sponsor, who shall remain nameless. I put it in when I mounted the beat-up trainer tire at the beginning of the winter. I can only assume that the tire, being old and full of cuts and whatnot, has some stiff kevlar fiber sticking out somewhere, and it gradually wore through the paper-thin tube. I'll give it the twice-over when I replace it tomorrow. It was a fairly slow leak, so I was able to get about half an hour on the rollers out of each pump, and I didn't bother to replace it last night.

Despite the ever softening tire, I got in a great ride last night. I completed my 3x8min threshold intervals, although it was a big effort to hold the power up where I wanted it in the last couple minutes of the final interval. After that, I rode out the rest of the 1.5 hours tempo, playing around and doing some low-cadence muscle tension work every other mile. The quads were complaining a lot by the end of the ride. So much so, in fact, that twice while standing to give my bum a rest, my tired legs lost a bit of smoothness in their spin and sent me off the rollers backwards. The worst that happened was two black streaks on the carpet, but it's still a bit shocking when you unexpectedly drop four or five inches and everything suddenly stops.

See you on the road.

Warming Up

2006-03-02T08:22:00.000-05:00

Ouch. I was reminded of a couple "duh" lessons I should already know during the workout last night. I had scheduled myself for 3x4min "power" intervals, to be done in the wattage range just above my threshold range. This was to be my first foray into any real intensity this season. I did the intervals but I ended up cutting the ride's duration in half.

Last night's lessons:

1) Don't eat right before an intense workout (duh)
2) Warm up properly before doing an intense ride (duh)

I stayed a little late at work, hit the hardware store on the way home, then got caught in traffic behind an accident. Arriving at home late, my stomach was growling and my motivation to workout was dwindling. I threw down a quick mug of cereal and a salad. Sue left for folk group practice and I slowly pulled myself into the attic to ride.

I warmed up by spinning along for a while then hit the first of the three intervals. I was going along pretty well, but suffered quite a bit in the last minute of the first interval, and my wattage dropped off a bit. My stomach did a couple flip flops right after the interval letting me know it wasn't happy being stressed out while working on salad greens and garlic dressing.

I started the second interval and right after the second minute, I hit the wall and my wattage dropped through the floor. I could barely maintain threshold range, let alone getting above that. My lungs complained and my stomach threatened to show me what I had recently eaten. I made note of the location of the closest trash can just in case.

The third interval started off okay, within my target wattage range, then dropped in the third minute and I thought I was done for. But as the last minute approached, my legs suddenly picked up and I was able to spin back up to speed without too much trouble and finished the interval strong.

However, my motivation for completing my 1:30 ride time was shot from the queasy feeling in my gut, and it was getting pretty late into the evening, too close to bedtime for comfort. I dismounted at the halfway point.

I thought about the ride while stretching and gave myself a big dope slap. Don't eat right before a ride. No kidding. Also, before intense intervals, just like before races, especially criteriums and time trials, do a few short intervals of high power to get the lactic-acid-flushing systems going in the body. I had survived my first interval with flushing systems not on yet, but it had filled my legs with lactic acid. During the second interval, I ran smack dab into it all and my muscles just stopped working. By my third interval, the flushing systems were starting to crank up and by the last minute, my legs were back to working again. It was a very clear demonstration of the need to do intense efforts while warming up. It took me a few years of racing to realize that a proper warmup included intensity, and that although it seemed like I was burning matches I could use later in the race, it actually would enable me to work more easily at a higher intensity earlier in the race without building up lactic acid that would cause me to hit the wall and get dropped on the first couple race efforts.

Tonight I'll be on the bike enjoying some threshold intervals which will be longer, but much less likely to bring up my latest meal.

See you on the road.

Beans, Beans...

2006-02-28T08:44:00.000-05:00

With the bitterly cold temperatures outside, the stove in the attic needed a little extra time to warm the place up last night. I popped in the fourth tape in Carl Sagan's Cosmos series last night that my mom got me for Christmas. It's an interesting flash back in time watching the series and seeing what we knew in 1980 about the Universe. Last night's episode talked about the first explorer robots we sent to Mars, and talked about the possibilities of one day sending robots that could traverse the Martian landscape. Of course, Spirit and Opportunity recently celebrated their one-year anniversaries of their landings on the red planet.

Anyway, listening to Carl's droning voice distracted me from the ache in my thighs as I pressed through my 1.5 hour ride, 15 minutes of threshold work and the rest tempo and fartlek fun. I stood quite a bit and could feel the ache of effort sink into my legs. "This had better do something!", I exclaimed after dismounting the rollers. I'm sure those first few road miles will indeed be much easier because of these workouts. My legs are ready for a night off tonight.

I got home late last night so the post-ride dinner had to be quick. Sue found a new recipe for a super-quick meal, apparently common in Italy on hot summer days when you don't want to fire up a stove. In a bowl, throw in two cans of drained cannellini beans, one can of slightly drained tuna in olive oil, some diced up sweet onion for crunch, sea salt and pepper to taste, and about a quarter cup of virgin fruttato olive oil drizzled over the top. Serve it up at room temperature. It's super fast, good tasting, and a great source of protein, good fat, and complex carbs. And if you're like me, it'll also keep you jet-propelled on the bike for a while the next morning, if you get what I'm saying.

See you on the road.

Weekend Behind/Week Ahead

2006-02-27T08:15:00.000-05:00

I got through the weekend in relatively good shape considering. My parents arrived late morning on Saturday for their first visit to the new house. We ate too much and my mom toured the house repeatedly as my dad explored the cable channels. I got in 30 miles of good tough roller riding Saturday evening, and managed to burn off, according to the PowerTap, about 1500 of the calories I'd stuffed in my face over lunch. At the beginning of my third of four 12 minute threshold intervals on Friday night, my rear roller bearing popped out. I spent the rest of the workout time putting it back in and adding washers to take up space on the axle so it wouldn't happen again. I added those two intervals I'd missed to my Saturday evening ride, and then did the 4x4min muscle tension intervals I'd planned. Those felt good. Concentrate on form, drop the cadence to around 65, and lay down some serious wattage. The heart rate stays moderate with the low cadence, but the quads begin to scream for mercy. I emphasized ankle flex to give the calves some good stress too. Sunday, the schedule called for 4x15min threshold intervals, but it quickly became clear that my legs wouldn't be up to turning the wattage I did the day before. I got most of the way through the third interval before my thoughts turned to food and the fact I really hadn't eaten anything for almost six hours. Oops. The wattage kept dropping, and I decided to cut out early, stretch quickly, and run downstairs for dinner.

Below you'll find this week's riding plan. I've decided to post them here as they come up for added motivation. Even if no one is reading, if I think you might be, maybe I'll feel more responsible for keeping up with my plan.

M: 1:30 sub-LT tempo ride (with one 15 min LT interval left over from last night)
T: off
W: 1:30 3x4min power intervals, 4min rest between
T: 1:30 3x8min LT intervals, 5min rest between
F: off
S: 2:00 4x4min MT intervals, 4min rest between
S: 2:00 4x12min LT intervals, 10min rest between

I'm stressing work around P(LT) in an effort to boost it as quickly as possible before the group training rides start later in March. I'm avoiding really intense efforts this early in the season, but I am throwing in a few "power" intervals which will be performed in the VO2max-building range above P(LT). I've been watching my intervals closely, and the average wattage for the same perceived effort is rising with almost every ride.

On one hand, I want it to warm up quickly so I can get out on the road, but on the other hand, the roller riding is going well enough that I'm almost wishing it were the beginning of February so I'd have three more weeks of indoor training by myself before having the reality check of group rides.