After a 90km ride yesterday, I got 0 km in today. This may go down as a 3 ride week. That'll be the fewest rides a week for me in months.
It rained all day today - contrary to the forecast for overcast skies with "chance of rain in the evening." Tomorrow will be the day to get the rollers back out if it continues on the same rainy path we're on now. Fortunately, sunshine is in the forecast for the end of this week for the first time in almost a month. The second half of July should be a very productive mileage time period, and hopefully the same goes for August.
Speaking of rain, it looks like someone is raining on the parade for Team Discovery in the TdF. In one time trial, the team went from first to fifth, and lost a lot of time on all of its closest competitors today. I'm not really a Discovery fan, but I like the idea of Hincapie winning one since he put in years of pretty faithful service for someone else. It seems like a just reward. But at the end of the day, I really like the idea of a Floyd Landis winning too. Not like I've followed road racing very long, but for the last year I've at least learned some of the names and am able to speak a little more intelligently to the subject. At the end of the day, I want him to win just because I'm a fair weather fan. If Levi had won the Tour of California, I'd probably be rooting for him instead.
Here's hoping for fair weather - or at least no down pour - tomorrow. I'll get an 87km ride out to Nishiki and back in on the flats just to round out the mileage. It'll take me up to the 300km mark for the week. Another 4 day week. Man - the spring was great riding 5 days a week. I don't think I've had a 5 day ride week in a month or so.
VW
Rain, rain, go away
July 8, 2006, 9:34 amOshima Island
July 6, 2006, 10:23 am
Did my normal 120km loop from Iwakuni south and around Oshima Island today. I swapped out the 12x25 for a 12x23 cassette and am glad I did. The 18T cog on the 12x23 is exactly in the spot that I want. I'm finding that my "hammer" cadence is creeping higher and higher and rolling in around 105rpm's now.
I completed the 120k loop in the quickest time I've done it in yet today, and not necessarily intentionally - at least not until I got back on 188 north bound. Then I stuck my legs to it and pumped out dozenish kilometers at 43-45kph, until the headwind went from calm winds to 5-7knot winds. Then my legs told me they were done. Today was a day I would have loved to had a ride partner to trade pulls. We probably could have completed the ride around 35-36kph average. As it was, I rolled up to the house at a 32.6kph average.
The rest of this week might get rained out. Tomorrow I head to Ueki's to look at ordering a Specialized Toupe saddle. I'm hearing/reading great things about it and I've simply got to make a change from the Arione that I'm riding now. Definitely need the cut-out, iffin ya know what I mean.
This weekend. after I finish my IT Infrastructure term paper, I'm going to do some work on the web calendar and cross link the blog entries and add blanks for all of the stats that I now log in my Cyclistats. We'll see how it goes. It'll be an exercise in SQL and PHP for me, but the term paper is the last big item on the list for this particular class, so I have about 3 weeks to get the web calendar project done.
VW
I completed the 120k loop in the quickest time I've done it in yet today, and not necessarily intentionally - at least not until I got back on 188 north bound. Then I stuck my legs to it and pumped out dozenish kilometers at 43-45kph, until the headwind went from calm winds to 5-7knot winds. Then my legs told me they were done. Today was a day I would have loved to had a ride partner to trade pulls. We probably could have completed the ride around 35-36kph average. As it was, I rolled up to the house at a 32.6kph average.
The rest of this week might get rained out. Tomorrow I head to Ueki's to look at ordering a Specialized Toupe saddle. I'm hearing/reading great things about it and I've simply got to make a change from the Arione that I'm riding now. Definitely need the cut-out, iffin ya know what I mean.
This weekend. after I finish my IT Infrastructure term paper, I'm going to do some work on the web calendar and cross link the blog entries and add blanks for all of the stats that I now log in my Cyclistats. We'll see how it goes. It'll be an exercise in SQL and PHP for me, but the term paper is the last big item on the list for this particular class, so I have about 3 weeks to get the web calendar project done.
VW
The Tour de France
July 2, 2006, 8:17 am
I rode more kilometers this week than any other week so far this year. In reality, it wasn't as many as I could ride if I didn't have work to worry about. Oh to be paid to cycle. This week I rolled in at 457.08 km, which wrapped up 7394 km for the year - think I'll make 10,000 by December?
As I rolled over the 10000 mark on my Astrale8 cyclocomputer today, the cycling world is all a flutter about allegations of EPO usage across the pro-cycling circuit. In particular, Ivan Basso and Jan Ullrich are in the list. What distresses me the most about the whole situation is this whole "guilt until proven innocent" system that pro-cycling has. Maybe most frustrating is that the information available to the cycling fan public is only that the #1 and #2 (in no particular order) Tour De France competitors are sitting at home because someone might maybe have information that might possibly connect them to a doctor in Spain because one of their dog's name and a code name that might belong to the other says they are under suspicion.
As you read the news articles about this, you'll find out that the die-hard cycling public has pretty much accepted that their "heroes" are all taking performance enhancers. Reality is, we almost WANT them to do it. Why? Because we want them to be as fast as they can be - super human in reality. All of this storm brings us back to Mr Lance Armstrong.
Last year, he rolled across the finish line in the yellow jersey for the 7th time. I remember clearly telling my wife that I choose not to believe that he's taking performance enhancers. I choose not to believe because I, like millions of others, want a superhuman to look up to.
So, during the week our superhuman cyclists take a crash on their ascent of what might be the hardest climb of their career, 'Superman' is released in the movie theaters. Still looking for the superhero.
..
As I rolled over the 10000 mark on my Astrale8 cyclocomputer today, the cycling world is all a flutter about allegations of EPO usage across the pro-cycling circuit. In particular, Ivan Basso and Jan Ullrich are in the list. What distresses me the most about the whole situation is this whole "guilt until proven innocent" system that pro-cycling has. Maybe most frustrating is that the information available to the cycling fan public is only that the #1 and #2 (in no particular order) Tour De France competitors are sitting at home because someone might maybe have information that might possibly connect them to a doctor in Spain because one of their dog's name and a code name that might belong to the other says they are under suspicion.
As you read the news articles about this, you'll find out that the die-hard cycling public has pretty much accepted that their "heroes" are all taking performance enhancers. Reality is, we almost WANT them to do it. Why? Because we want them to be as fast as they can be - super human in reality. All of this storm brings us back to Mr Lance Armstrong.
Last year, he rolled across the finish line in the yellow jersey for the 7th time. I remember clearly telling my wife that I choose not to believe that he's taking performance enhancers. I choose not to believe because I, like millions of others, want a superhuman to look up to.
So, during the week our superhuman cyclists take a crash on their ascent of what might be the hardest climb of their career, 'Superman' is released in the movie theaters. Still looking for the superhero.
..