Why?

One must wonder why a person does this to themselves. Hours of toil. Efforts so hard they approach self immolation. Physical stress that not only tires, but physically alters my heartrate long after the bout. But even that doesn't compare to the mental stress of mainining intensity and concentration for such long periods. After a full day... it leaves me totally spent. Exhausted. Wasted. Irritable. I approach anti-social status. I just want to go to sleep. Just as well. It leaves one with no time for other pursuits. No time for family. No time or energy for friends. It's all consuming. I constantly think about quitting. Forever. And doing something completely different.

Why would someone do this to themselves?

I find myself asking this question a lot. I consistantly answer it with "I shouldn't be, I should be out on my bike." Wait, what? Oh, sorry. No, I wasn't writing about training above. I was describing my high-stressor job. Unacceptable. No idea what will happen yet, but, one thing is certain. Changes are coming.

Guinea Pig Test Results: Restaurant Food Sucks

I'm absolutely convinced there is a relationship between excess calories and/or poor nutrition and depression. I'm not sure what research says. I'd reckon it difficult to control which one precedes the other. Does the depression stem from the calories or does the excess calroies come from the depression. However my experiece this week leads me to think the food leads the way.

Because of work, I've eaten all but two meals out of restaurants this week. And I feel like crap. The physical effects are profound. I've had to loosen my watchband. My feet are swollen so much it feels like I'm walking in wet shoes. I smell wierd. My weight is obviously up. And despite consuming an excess quantity of calories... I still feel hungry!? Obviously there are tons of hidden salt, MSG, and calories ("enhancers?") added to the food I've eaten. It grosses me out. I also wonder if diet composition substrate plays a role here. My diet tipped drastically toward fat-based, instead of carbohydrate-based, this week.

With such profound physical effects... why *shouldn't* mental effects be anticipated? I feel a malaise. The blues. A funk. That I cannot attribute to any specific event or happening in my life. Granted this week has been tough. But I endured far worse. As I sat on the couch last night contemplating "why do I feel like this?", I can't help but think there is some mechanism pushing my chemistry toward this. Clearly my body's chemistry is far from it's natural stasis.

I've always thought vegetarians a touch crazy. But... it's a lot harder to hide "enhancers" in salads. Even harder in vegen dishes. Maybe... just maybe, there is something to the 'I just feel better' often cited. Like I always thought, it's all in their heads. HA!

Eating poorly and working excessively is no way to go through life. The true triangle of hell is high stress + poor nutrition + sedantary lifestyle. And although this is just a transient situation for me, for many it's not. It's the perfect description of most engineers. The office banter this morning affirms. Among a group of five people, none of us could recall co-workers or acquiantices in our career field that lived into their 80s. None. Not one. That is striking. The list of people that died young was easy to come up with. We've lost two in the office in the last few months. One was 73 and could barely even walk.

Granted. None of this is scientific. But, it's worth trying the obvious solution. Look for me to be packing my lunch when meetings go all-day. At minimus. I hate to come off as snobbish, or stand offish. But the alternative is way, way too expensive.

The Enemy Strikes

Plan: 4x 9'minute intervals at 95-105% FTP with 5'min recovery between. On the recovery, unclip and pedal lightly with high cadence with one leg until fatigue and swap.

Result: Nothing. I got screwed into an afterwork dinner, that I neither planned nor agreed to attend. I hate eating out in swanky places. My preference is simple, yet high quality food. Not what this place offered.

As I look over the menu there is literally *nothing* I want to eat. Nor should eat. Everything... From salad to steak to fish to crab had some sort of high fat adder. The menu called them "enhancers". Bacon where it didn't belong, cream sauce, butter sauce, oil basted, sesame encrusting, you name it. There was no escaping it. And all of it seemed designed to cover poor quality food, rather than "enhance".

With much persuasion of the waitress I ordered a 5oz filet steak with nothing added. NO! I don't want the lump crap meat and cream sauce on top. NO! I don't want the butter glazed (undoubtedly chinese) crawfish topping.

It came with two tablespoons of mashed potatoes. And nothing else for $38. Still it was curiously rich. I was left with a strong aftertaste of clarified butter. Not sure if that was from slathering the steak in butter, inclusion in the potatoes, or soaked into the $13 -i wish i were joking- side order of broccoli (consisting of 3 whole stalks!! about 12 cents worth) I ordered a la carte in attempt to make a somewhat complete meal. Despite my best effort... Somewhere somehow my food got "enhanced".

The best part... As soon as the dinner plates were cleared, the room seemed to get brighter. Startled, I looked around. But it wasn't the whole room. Just our table. I looked up at the ceiling above the table... they had a spot light above it shining brightly. (all the other tables had a similar light fixture, but where unlit) Just like a bar at closing time... Like clockwork, as soon as the cheque arrives... the light comes on encouraging you to leave. Sneaky bassturds! I felt like cattle. I also told the waitress to knock it off. She wasn't amused when I used the word "mooooo".

Most would say "you ate for free at one of the best known Houston restaurants". I'd have preferred to have ridden my bicycle and had a satisfying post ride PB&J. That's just how I roll.

The rest of the week is in jeopardy. All of the chores I needed to get done tonight, didn't get done. I've missed a key ride for the week. I'll be lucky to be caught up and on the bike by Friday. Crap. This was one expensive "free" dinner.

Maintenance Day

Woke up to rain today. Local trails doused. Add the unrecovered legs from yesterday's ride... it's a good day for some much needed bike maintenance.

The basics. Wash. Lube. Adjust. First the wife-in-training's bike. Then my bike.

I also re-cabled my bike. Gone are the Gore RideOn cables. Adios.



Replaced with standard DuraAce cables. The RideOn 'sealed' system just adds tons of drag. And after a short time the inner sheath frays, and drags more than a "dirty" cable does. Nice idea, but poor execution. My rear shifting is much improved, as is brake operation.

Betrayed with a Click

I've been working on bike, cars, ???, since my childhood. After a while, you develop a preeettty good feel for how tight nuts, bolts, and screws should be. However, with the advent of carbon fiber, and titanium bolts... I relied on a torque wrench for many fasteners on by bike.

About a week ago, while tightening the faceplate on the HighBall's stem, I noticed the torque seemed really, really high and no *click*. I backed off the setting, re torqued and everything seem to work fine. I reset to the proper torque and it just a touch *click*. Hmm... ok.. I'm crazy.

This weekend while relocating the shift levers on the HighBall, I again sense the torque is high, but no *click*. I proceed. *Crunch* What was that? Wassat? Nah. Couldn't be. I move to the other side and again *Crunch, pop*. I feel around the clamp, and yep. I've crunched the bar. Crap. Recheck the setting... it's correct.

When I remove the bar... the faceplate has dug in pretty good too. Failure waiting to happen.

I've used multiple click-type torques wrenches through the years with much success. Many claim they can fall out of calibration. But honestly, I've always dismissed this - if anyone designes a fastened connection that can't tolerate a 5, 10 or even 20% torque... shame on them.

But this wasn't a calibration error. It was outright tool failure -something I never contemplated. I can no longer recommend Syntace's wrench.

The old-fashioned beam type wrench can never suffer this type of failure. But, I find them really akward to use. And the Park Tool beam wrenches split the most common torque ranges -forcing one to buy and carry two wrenches, and use them at the extremes of their ranges. The higher-torque wrench not having the scale resolution for descent work, on the low end.

I compromised and bought a dial indicating wrench. Best of both worlds I hope. It's simply a deflecting beam tied to a calibrated dial indicator graduated in N-m in my case. Thus it can't really suffer the calibration or failure issues (like a beam wrench) and it's easy to read, (unlike a beam wrench).

It's worth developing a good "feel" for fastener tightness if you don't already have it. Most importantly: Trust thyself when it comes to torque wrenches.

Why is Buying a Bicycle Harder Than Buying a Car?

It just shouldn't be this difficult. Buying a bike ranks up there with having a rectal exam. It is actually worse than buying a car.

Bike manufacturers and shops do themselves no favors. Some of my pet peeves...

Shops have no stock. If you want a high end bike, you almost have to guess what you want. No one keeps any stock. "I can order that for you" say the local shops. But what if you it doesn't fit? Or you simply don't like it? Not to mention the wait, along with undeterminable deliveries from manufacturers. Might be five days, might be two weeks, might be three months. How about we'll get around to it whenever we feel like it.

Depsite having limited inventory... some local shops will only sell from stock. I know no one wants to sell you a bike when they have one already paid for on the floor. But that floor model isn't what I want. Gawd help you if you are an unusual size. One local shop acted as if they "might let me" order a bike. I "might" take my business elsewhere. Thanks.

Dealers trying the switcheroo. I went to one area dealer looking for a carbon-framed, high-end component bike. Knew exactly what I wanted. Just needed a dealer to order it. The sales manager said they didn't have that bike in stock (see above). Then suggested an aluminum, alivio and acera equiped, hard-tail that weighs over 35-lbs instead. The infamous "It's the bike I ride" line really put it over the top. Nothing wrong with the suggested bike. It was a bargain and good value. But it wasn't anything near what I was looking for. Not even in the same parish.

Manufacturers that put crappy components on high-end frames, and don't sell framesets. This has become a trend since my last bike purchase. Bad economy = keep the price-point down. I get it. But really... who wants $4,500 bike with SRAM X.3 shifters, and no-label brakes on it? Nothing wrong with those components. They work. But they are $450 price point, not $4,500. One can't help but feel they're not getting their $'s worth. The option is buy the bike and take it apart, rebuild it with new components, and throw away or fleabay the take-offs. This option is far more expensive and a huge headache. Ugg.

In all, the process is devoid of the expected joys and anticipation of making a major purchase. It is no wonder so many people are turned off to cycling. I can't say I blame them. For a newcomer to cycling... it must be a harrowing experience. It takes almost as much personal investment, dedication, and determination to buy a bike as ride a bike. As my friend Ted (not his real name), who reps a bike manufacturer, says: "I'm just glad I don't have to buy my bikes anymore."

Training Misfire

Rain again today. I'm tired of cleaning bikes! I wait it out, and around 7:30P it stops. I get dressed. Make my bottles. And it starts pouring again. I decide tho make the ultimate sacrifice. I'm going to ride the trainer. But before that, I must change the rear tire to a trainer tire.

This tire is hard to mount. But eventually... I get it. Hit it with the air, and... I've got a puncture. Probably from the mounting fight.

Off with the tire, patch the hole, remount the tire, pump it up, put it on the trainer. As I'm looking up my training plan I hear.... Piiizzzzzzttttt. Tire is now flat. Again. Oh boy.

Off with the tire. Bad patch job. Repatch the hole. Remount the tire. Pump it up. Put it on the trainer. I jump on the trainer and get through my plan's warm up.

The effort seems to be getting lighter all the time. I'm shift down several times to keep the same wattage... As I start my first power interval the tire slips on the roller. I'm not that strong, but the tire is that flat. Again.

Off with the tire. There were actually two holes and the second patch didn't quite cover it. Explains the first bad patch job. Patch the new hole. Remount the tire. Pump it up. Put it on the trainer.

Less than 5min into my "ride"... another flat.

Enough! It's rapidly getting late. I put a new tube in. Mount the road tire. This wasn't meant to be tonight. Off to bed. Somedays...

Mourning.

http://www.desertsportstx.com/masomenos.php

It is with a heavy heart that Desert Sports must announce the cancellation of the 2010 Starlight Theater Mas O Menos 100k Moutain Bike Fest.

It's been a great ride, since back in teh day (way back i n'04) when we first convinced the fine folks at the CASI site that this whole mountain bike thing was a possibility. We had visions then of how great it could be... but we never truly imagined how fabulous it would turn out! Dancing! Riding in sixty foot rattlesnakes! Racing! Eating!

CRAP! This is my favorite race of the year. There's nothing better than getting away from the cold, rain and spending a wonderful week camping out in the desert!

It was a festival-like atmosphere in one of the most unique places I've ever been. I've been excited about going back since I turned north on Hwy 118 last February. It's the perfect way to light the fires and kick start the spring season. Alas, it will not be... and. I. am. sad.

Pushing the Thresholds

Today's ride is designed to push the threshold up just a bit. The cooler temps are really nice! Only 85F at ride time today!

The days are getting shorter. And I'm preparing. The PowerTap display has no backlight. Riding intervals afterdark is tough business. You can only check your power whenever you pass under a street light! The Garmin 705 has a backlight, and can read a 2.4+ PowerTap. My rhode PT is 2.4; meaning it can't be read... until now.

I ordered an updater from Saris. This updater upgrades the PT hub to ANT+ so the Garmin can read it. They send the updater and a new cover. The only change to the new cover is the label. It says "2.4+", where as the original says "2.4". Silly to me. I don't really care what it says!

Real simple upgrade process. Remove the cover. Pull out the battery basket. Plug in the updater. Throw the switch. Remove it. Put the battery basket back on.

Then put the cover on. I like to use a bit (and just a bit) of silicone grease on o-rings to ensure a weatherproof seal. The update the computer head firmware and it's done. It immediately paired on the Garmin. Now I've got backlit power display! One step closer to being ready for the fall.

I Need a Manager

Today I woke up to the second workday of the week. Quick, what day is the second workday of the week? Right Tuesday. For me today was Tuesday. I did my normal Tuesday things at work. I ate my food off Tuesday's training plan. I even rode my scheduled Tuesday ride. BUT IT'S WEDNESDAY! And I missed my CX Race!! GGGHRRRRH!

Random Powers

My day starts with repair to my Garmin Edge 305. There's a known issue of them turning themselves off at random times after some use. Mine started this most annoying habit last week.

I debated replacing it with the newer 705. But it doesn't really do anything that I'm desparate for. And it's not cheap. Over at MTBGuru Blog a tutorial exists for just this very problem. It's excellent. My thought... what have I got to lose?

I didn't hardwire the connections as the tutorial suggested. I just bent the connection fingers a bit. It's working fine now. More detail pictures and commentary are >HERE<

I hold random powers myself! My ride today places my pace just a hair below FTP and tacks on 20-second big-ring-masher-sprints, every 5-minutes for an hour. The legs are feeling fantastic right now. I felt better as the ride goes on -unusual. I tacked on an hour of high L3 to meet my time goal for today. Tomorrow is some serious dirt time. Time to sleep up.

Cough! Caugh! Akkkkpoo! Cough! Cough! Pffffttt!

Those are some of the noises created on today's ride. The caughing got bad and I recieved many odd looks. Not surprising. I sounded like an emphysema patient riding in full kit. I probably could have done with an oxygen bottle and cannula. Do they make one small enough to fit in a jersey pocket?

The ride was nothing spectacular. Just some Z2-3 stuff. Wanted to go harder, but, anytime I need lung power... well... the coughing begins. Then the snot rockets. Oh, mercy the snot rockets. Some of those required two breaths! Yes, a double breath snot-rocket. Thank goodness for that patch of terry cloth on the gloves.

I'm trying this again tomorrow...

Sights Along The Way

Only a Boston Terrier would end up on the roof, vigorously defending his territory while simultaneously frightened to death!

... and yes, he was barking at every passerby. I wonder how he got up there?

I've been waiting for a year since this place was finished to time it right for a good photo op. Today was that day! Houston has some wonderful examples of Developers Gone Wild (TM). This is a great one:

If you can't read the sign... it says "Inside the Loop, Within Reach". What it doesn't say is that it's within reach of the TRAIN 5-feet from your bedroom window!!! Oh, the passed out hobo at the bus stop adds a nice touch too. This can be yours for a mere $320k! But hurry, it's only been on the market for a year!

Maybe the TRAIN has something to do with it?! Nawww...



Too bad it wasn't on the other track...

I'm A Dislexic Insomniac

I've been lying awake at night wondering if there really is a doG? Many sleepless nights over the past two weeks. I think part of the reason is due to training. It would seem that training would make you fatigued, and eager for sleep.

But... there is a logic trap at work. My day-job is spent jockeying a desk. That involves almost zero physical exertion. Daytime hours are my lowest physical demands of the day. This time of year, it's dark before I complete my rides. My physical and mental activities are just starting to come upto speed - as the sun goes down. The height of my mental and physical simulation occur in darkness! I think my body has grown to associate darkenss with activity and daylight with rest! Ugg... I need my sunshine!

Being up late and restless, I find things to do. Like rewrapping my handlebars. I thought about doing more detail, but this tutorial at >STUPID HURTS< covers it better than I ever could. Plus, I suck at wrapping bars.

I used Specialized Roubaix tape this time. In the package it seemed to have just the right amount of 'squishiness'. I don't like the super-squishy stuff, nor the totally flat stuff. I thought I'd like this tape. I don't. Pull it tight enough to keep it from moving around it flattens all the 'squishiness' out of it. It provides zero cushioning. Wrap it loose enough to have some 'squishiness' it moves around too much. It ends up with gaps between the wraps.

It'll be gone as soon as I can make it to the bike shop for a replacement.

Bad Day on the BIke?

Is a bad day on the trail possible? Nah. But it could have been better. I headed out during my lunch for some Memorial Park trail riding. I was anxious to trail test the new bars. The setup wasn't too good. Too much weight on the front wheel and the reach felt too far.

Back to the drawing board. Luckily, I keep measurements. Yes... I am a nerd. I learned from motorsports - always keep track of what you changed!

Looking over the setup sheets it was obvious. I increased the reach by over an inch-and-a-half by going to a straight bar. Those spec bars had a lot of sweep! Tonight...a shorter stem and another trail-trial tomorrow.

Setting up a bike is somewhat more difficult than a race car. There's not as much adjustability, and the bike seems to be very sensitive to very small changes. Part of the problem is that I don't understand the dynamics very well. Hmmm... learning.

What's wrong wiff this picture?

The dangers of rebuilding on your fork during the wee hours of the morning...

Here's another pic to help you guess what's wrong here.

Tired, but I got it finished. More pics >HERE<.

Beware of Tomato Basil Soup

La Madeline tomato basil soup is one of my favorites. I rarely make it to the restaurant, though. I saw this jar of the stuff at the market the other day. I was pretty excited, it tasted almost just like the soup at the restaurant. Not quite, but pretty close. Cool.

However, I looked at the label to put the nutrition into my training log. OMG! One serving is a whopping 32 grams of fat! One serving is less than a cup. That 2/3 of my fat goal for an entire day. Man, that stuff packs a wallop!

Modernization

I'm now the proud owner of a modern desktop computer. My old one died. When I say old, I mean OLD. It was still running Windows98. I suppose in computer years that's like 100 years old or something. Anyway the hard drive died a slow progressive death. I was able to get a good deal of data off before it quit completely, but not all of it. I lost my digital photo directories. Glad I have the blog, because that's the only pictures I have of the last year now...

Bad Scene

Rolled up to this scene this afternoon... Yale @ 14th. Ouch.



Ambulance, Fire, Police and wreckers showed up instantly and I cruised... Ride like you're invisible my friends, because you are!

doG Darn It Was Hot!

This is me... panting like a dog...



On the menu today 8x4:00 R4 anaerobic intervals. The legs didn't feel very good leading out from the house. They didn't get any better. I meowed after 2 intervals. Just. Could. Not. Doit. Not worth doing low-quality training...

Sometimes it's just not your day. Today's training started with a dead GPS. I really like my Garmin Edge. But, today it would not turn on. Completely dead. An omen perhaps? I have a Forerunner 301, too, but the HR montior has always been skiddish. I hurriedly rigged up a mount on the bike so I could have some hope of montioring the HR. I love zip ties! The HR montior worked today, luckily.



After my "ride" I got online in the hope of a solution. Google is your friend. HERE IS A USEFUL LINK. Pressing and holding the Mode+Lap button reset it. I've turned it on and off about 10 times and so-far-so-good.