Bubba Treats me Right! (outside the prison walls)

Sorry kids the casserole had to wait. I made a stop by Yeti Cycles yesterday afternoon, just to pick up a fork for my hard tail bike. (My 80 mm fork I currently have is a lot like me, hopelessly undersized)  I have often said the longest distance between two points is Taiwan and Golden Colorado.  I think the ship that brings the bike to the States adopts the theory of Columbus " I will go East by sailing West." I think they also stop at some secret strip club in the middle of the Pacific and get wasted for a couple of days.  I know it exists, the strip club that is. I have spent hours on Google Earth scouring the Southern Pacific. There are way too many small islands that have low resolution, thats got to be the reason. Wouldn't want to catch a ships captain in a compromising situation! Anyway my Full Suspension ASR Carbon has arrived, with the faint smell of perfume I might add.  Here is a cool pick of what I call the Frame Chapel

It's quite a sight, a couple hundred grand of caged carbon and aluminum just waiting to be set free.  Here is my beast.  It was kind of like picking a Puppy out of the litter, um here is a hundred frames, let it pick you grasshopper.

Bubba, my source at Yeti also dialed me with some tires to try out.  I also ran in to the probably one of the fastest guys in Colorado you've never heard of and a friend Timo182, and Grand Joe from Yeti. It was a good afternoon.  Check out the Race counter it changed, I know something you don't know. 

MFK, Coffee and a Dozen Eggs - who wants to party?

I know it's hard to believe but I actually cook. I like to think my specialty is breakfast. There is something about eggs that just intrigue me. I look forward to the weekend when it's just me, a pot of coffee, and a dozen eggs.  I think i'm going to tackle a Mexican Breakfast Casserole. I mean how can you go wrong eggs, cheese, and chorizo.  I'll put a load of hot sauce and peppers in just to get the burn I'm after.  A dish like this gives what a cyclist likes to call separation from the group.  A couple of pounds of this making it way lethargically through your large intestine and people will think twice about sucking on to the back of your wheel.

Vegetarian Pirate Booty

Have you ever watched a Vegetarian eat?  We'll it goes like this they get a whole bunch of bread, they slice up tomatoes (50% think tomatoes are nasty), some squash, don't forget the sprouts. Then they rave about some random vegetable some body at whole foods told them about.  They usually pile on the cheese (holy crap the plant watering guy just scared the  crap out of me, talk about creepy) Then they talk about some bean that gives them protein, usually beans only supply me with gas. They end up with something like this

They then sit down take a bite and exclaim "Sooooooo Tasty, I can believe the bounty that the earth has provided for me!" Why am I bitter, well first off I probably need a hug, but more often than not the only left over meeting food is Vegetarian. If there were no Vegetarians, the above colon blow would be a turkey, or ham sub. Instead I'm subject to the offerings of the Boulder Community Garden. On the bright side I figure I've eaten easily $200 in free lunch in the last 12 months, which I parleyed in to a refurbed ipod this morning (thats a whole other saga)

The Little Poop Fatory

My friend TC and Megan are having a fresh 2009 model year poop factory delivered to them (a.k.a. a baby) What's cool is they may have the baby on my birthday. I was browsing  the babies-r-us gift registry, and I have decided to fully equip them with an arsenal of poop control equipment.

I hope that can is big enough.

Behind the curtain of training (Maybe)

I just might have found the first clue to better training while using my Mountain Bike Power Tap. I finally got all my technology to talk to each other Power Tap Hub and Garmin Edge 705. Here are a couple of short climbs I regularly hit.

 

The pictures show The Hogback, The Grind, and Zorro.  In all these efforts I was moving pretty good but, still below full out race effort.  I usually get tunnel vision and space out when I really am working hard.  For grins I looked at some road files for similar efforts, power was the same but I was up about 100 ft/lbs of torque on the Mtn. Bike.  Maybe I need to grind a little more on the road bike or spin more on the MTB? I think I might do all my sweet spot LT training on the MTB. Here is the other revelation, Is my off road FTP different than my on road FTP? Any budding Excercise Physiologist need a thesis idea?

The MFK Paparazzi

The Denver Post caught me in action.  Notice the perfect sock height.

1st loser in the tough man competition

I ride  in some pretty uncomfortable conditions, but yesterday afternoon was outside of sane parameters. If it was just cold no porblem, but I can't fight 40 mph winds 3 days in a row.

Seriously would you ride in this?  The road outside my house has a frosting of snow, but I think it's going to melt quick. I hope so I gotta ride 4hrs today to stay on track!

I'm not leaving my wingman!

As the hours on my bike ramp, one starts to feel pretty good.  You start thinking about riding harder doing intervals and the like.  But, you got to remember the real racing doesn't start until May, and August is a blood bath with a race every weekend.  This year I have a back-log of base that is the envy of the cycling community. (I can't back that up)

I've got massive amounts of HR, and Power time smack in the middle of my Endurance zone, with a smathering of Tempo just to keep me honest.  One would be tempted to reach for greater fitness by training the Sweet Spot, but I'm not leaving my wingman, which is my base. I'm going for a full eight weeks.  Group rides are hard, because everybody flexes a bit on the climbs, they all get to the top and say "That was a good tempo" They are fooling themselves they were on the rivit the whole time, I cruise up a minute later and wonder why they are stopped. Do you want to train your body to stop at the top of a climb? I figure I have 12 solid races to show people what I can do. Not that I won't have to work hard in the next months before racing starts, but for now strict power discipline must be maintained. I think Contador said it best.

 "I’ve been doing very dedicated training for weeks and I am starting to feel good, but until now I’ve only done base work. I haven’t been doing climbs or intervals and I’m not going crazy over logging so many hours on the bike. Maybe at the camp I will start to work on intensity, but I don’t want to overdo it, because this will be a long season.”

Broke Back Saddle and Cuato, the leader of the "Resistance"

So I broke my third Specialized Body Geometry Toupe saddle today. That is 3 in two years. This one almost lasted a year, I wrote the purchase date on it for a test.

It got a little painful in the last hour of the ride. I'm afraid to look at my ass in the mirror. I've got a bad feeling my left cheek looks like this.

I've also been keeping up with the Tour of California stuff, I mostly enjoy the tech reviews. I read one about Floyd Landis's bike made by Kuato. Every time I see it I can get the Total Recall image out of my head of Cuato coming out of that guys stomach.

Or maybe it came out of this monkeys' ass who knows? It might be poetic justice that Landis rides the leader of the resistance of bikes. I still think he's innocent.  Anyway I think I'll try to bro deal a new saddle from Bikesource, I got the last one for free. 

What's the Difference?

What's the difference between a "real pro" and MFK?  Well (no pun intended) while I sit and rot in front of a computer screen waiting to ride 2hrs in an hour long lunch period*, real pros are just riding.  This is an excerpt from Todd Wells' blog.

In case you can't see it, it reads and I paraphrase " I have 2 days left to hit 27 hours." I'm going to try to hit 18 hours this week. Todd is doing 33% more hours than me, plus he's in the gym, playing with his dog, and being a husband. Furthermore, I've never ridden 27 hours in a week in my life, I think I did 24 one time. That was because I accidentally rode to Estes Park and back from Boulder.

* There is a rip in the space time continuum just outside my office, time slows for everyone except me while I'm riding my bike. However to the casual observer time appears to be normal. For me the day actually lengthens allowing me to ride my bike more without any disturbance to the work day. Oh I wish people would get on board with the String theory and once and for all tie Einsteins' Theory and Quantum Mechanics together. 

Stranded!

Yep, I'm going to have to talk to our Polish cleaning service tonight. Those were good socks too!

Decision Time

Sorry for no post yesterday (JF), but I probably do a double or triple today!  I managed to hit all my hours last week, and after an in depth analysis I have to ask, am I done with my base? Luckily I have a much larger and fuller decision to make.  Which perfomance enhancing drug should I take? Here are the contenders:

I found the packaging misleading, the price per unit factor was all wrong. They wasted my time with the number of pills per box.  I believe that in this situation length or girth growth per gram would be much provide much more transparency. I found it funny that just to the left of this display was the 5-hour energy bottles.  I think before a short track race I'm slamming a handful of, T.B.D. and a 5-hour energy. Any suggestions, or personal experiences would be appreciated in this difficult (hard) decision I must make!  I'm also still looking for suggestions in the Kinesio Tape Design Contest.

Perfect Crystalline Structure

Yes, that's what my testicles have become, perfect crystals. Why you ask? Well the farenheit crested at a balmy 27 degrees today.  I managed to get 3 hrs in on the bikes, 1.5 on the MTB and the balance on the road machine.  I'll spare you the pictures, but trust me those things have the aforementioned crystalline structure that could separate visible light in to the color spectrum.  Tomorrow is supposed to be 45, it will be like riding in a sauna!

The weekend is saved!

I have a Friday ritual, I must have the chocolate chip muffin! I have a Friday breakfast meeting every week, I couldn't tell you a thing said in the meeting (someone listens for me and I get minutes emailed to me) But, I will tell you I always get my  muffin. I pretty much base the entire weekend on the acquisition of the said foodstuff.  If I don't get it I don't even get out of bed. I brood and cry for two straight days only to somehow get up Monday and got to work. Probably the thought of getting my paws on the Chocolate Chip muffin motivates me. 30 degree temps tomorrow be damned, I got my muffin. Lets go riding!

Stomach UPdate

For those of you that are wondering, and I know throngs of what I call the MFK militia are, how are you feeling after yesterdays dumpster dive?  Well just like Tony the Tiger, I'm grrrreaattt!!!!

I slayed my lunch ride. I decided to do some tempo intervals (seems to be all the rage these days) and had some good leg sensations.  So I have a new pre-race ritual.  If you see someone rooting around behind the restaurant you just ate at, the night before a race, in some random ski town, its just me. (run on sentence more than likely)  Hey but please leave a couple dinner roles intact, and licking them just isn't cool.

Recession Training - Preparing for the worst!

I got back from my lunch ride today, and remembered that I did not bring a lunch.  I pretty much need a constant supply of calories or else I turn in to a mound of gelatinous mouse moving putty. I say dumpster dive. There was a lunch meeting today, and fortunately everyone is on a diet so lots of things get left alone. I've had a flu shot, I also have a dog's stomach and I stick to individually wrapped items.

Out of the above precious ore, I was able to mine one turkey sandwich,  pasta salad, potato salad, and a cookie. I know what your thinking gross, but is it really? I've read Kitchen Confidentials and that was much worse! Anyway if the economy gets really bad, I'm getting the skills that will sustain me until better times.

Wee Bit' of A Challenge

To keep consistency in my training, and avoid volume vacillations that could derail my form, I need to have at least 15 hrs this week. Normally thats not that hard, given you can get 8 of em on a weekend. I went a little crazy last week and logged 17 and change, I wasn't going to ride Sunday but I had to try my new MTB powertap and that added 2 hrs. (yawn...., I know) This week is uncooperative to say the least.

If the roads stay clear, I can get my lunch rides in and hopefully at least one or two dusk rides I can make it. I need to avoid the trainer at all costs, last night was miserable.   Denver weather people really have no clue what is going on so I got that going for me.

Static Cling

I was over at a friends house this weekend and their cat just threw herself on me. I proceeded to go in to some heavy petting, only to be repeatedly shocked. Yes it was electric the passion we shared.  So I saw this can of Static Guard in the office and I couldn't help wonder if this would help with the petting.

 

If you hit the link you can clearly see it being applied to a cat, and I'm not sure but it looks like another cat of sorts is gettin' a good spray down. I'll try it out and let y'all know how it works.

Have you seen my bush?

, I went to the dentist and someone stole the bush I stole from someone's office. They replaced it with this mutant green one. I'm not kidding the pic does it no justice. It hi-vis rec rider green!

 

Latest in Tooth Software

So I'm waiting in the pre drilling chamber (Dentist Office) and I spy this cool looking personal media player for your teeth.

 

Apparently you can navigate to specific teeth through their patented user interface.

and then with the included tools you can remove your teeth for individual cleaning. 

It even comes with a cool belt holder for those teeth you removed but didn't have time to get to! Check it!

In a time of economic uncertainty, you just don't know where to invest your money these days, well folks this is a sure thing!

Juth Do It

Hey for the four going on 4-million people who read this vote for Matt Juth for a free entry to the Breck Epic.

Click here and pick Matthew Juth as your first choice:http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=_2fSyN8trcRItHWo9YXQBfjg_3d_3d

Why you ask? Because he is going to ride for seven days 30,000 ft of climbing on this bike.

I personally think it is a little unfair, I mean look at this thing.  It has four wheels, a plush sheepskin seat, and fenders. Make it a challenge dude!

Competitive Eater

Yes, I'm also a semi-professional competitive eater. That's breakfast #1 If your going to ride your bike for 5 hrs, a bowl of cereal is just not going to cut it.  If you ever see a pro-cycling team roll in to an all you can eat buffet. You might as well leave, there will be none left for you. Never underestimate a rail thin cyclist if he has a fork in his hand. I think I'll have that bowl of cereal now!

Bent Over

Yes, come experience the most expensive racing in the nation. I did a quick look at all the MTB races posted on Sportsbaseonline here is what I came up with.

The Moutain States Cup at $55 and $75 for pro's, www.racemsc.com is the most expensive series in the Nation. Even more than the USA cup series. 

I can't turn left, there is no left.

 

Through my sponsorship with Garmin, meaning my sister works there (she's the voice on your GPS so don't yell at her when you can't turn left!) I get some pretty cool stuff, pretty cheap! I just got the EDGE 705. It's a GPS for your bike. More importantly it interfaces with My Powertap hub. My entire cycling life can now be easily classified, categorized, or properly filed. It also talks to my Cycling Peaks Software and Google Earth. What does this mean you can choose any range in your power profile and see where you sucked. You can then train your sucking (By the way this was my idea Garmin)

View in Cycling Peaks

 

View in the real world, kinda 

Here is my lame attempt at a movie, If I get Googel Earth Pro you could virtually ride your route.

Midgets and Lawn Aeration Shoes

I think you will notice a trend, I wait until something really starts to hurt before I get it fixed.

I've had a broken tooth for a year, but it never really bothered me unless I chewed on the right side. So I didn't do that for a year.   Then I started to wake up last week in the middle of the night with severe pain. It felt like tiny midgets were doing River Dance on my temple with those lawn aeration shoes.

So I did what any man would do, take some Tylenol, and ignore it.  That worked for about two days, and the Tylenol just pissed off the midgets. They started to build dirt jumps, come up short and auger themselves in to my temple feet first. So I got an emergency root canal. Check out the cool glasses you get along with a tooth brush at the dentist.

NIce to have two Legs back

For the last year I've slowly been neglecting my right leg, mainly because my knee hated me.  It's nice to ride my bike with zero pain.  As part of my first full month of training I performed the self torture test known as the "Field Test" warm up, ride 3 miles as hard as you can sustain, rest 10 minutes and repeat.  Your average normalized power (no zeros) multiplied by .90 is supposed to be your Full Threshold Power or purty darn near your Lactate Threshold. I think it's pretty accurate.  I didn't do a test last year, mainly because I just didn't feel like it, but I did do one in late Feb of 07' That was about two months before I crashed, and my knee started to hate me.  So I was off to the Cherry Creek Park testing Grounds (Home of the weekend time-trail warrior with horrible, I mean horrible bike positions)

Anyhoo, my end of January test surprised me.  I was about 15 watts higher in January than I was in February.

  

That's a lot considering I have done nothing to enhance this zone in my training. I like to think I'm squeezing out a few more watts because I have a stronger right leg. The effort still hurt the same an TT people are weird.  Another big plus is I guessed where I was at the start of January and set my training zones up accordingly. The test confirmed I guessed right so I didn't waste a month in a no-mans land zone.

Burrito Intensity Factor

I have decided to express how much I ride my bike in Chipotle Burrito Dietary Requirements per  month, or "CBDR".  I have this fancy Powertap on my bike that measures and collects all sorts of data about my bike rides. One of the parameters is work performed, or energy, expressed in Kilojoules.  There are 4.184 kj per calorie (1 kilocalorie = 1000 calories or big C what we know in the US as calories on the back of your cereal box). There is a lot of math going on here. To be exact I would divide my total kj by 4.184 to get calories. However, this work is only what goes directly in to the bike pedals, this would be correct if I was 100% efficient meaning every single calorie I ate went directly to propelling my bike forward. We all know nothing is that efficient, or else our car engines would never get hot, and we would never sweat, and there wouldn't be corn and peanuts in our poo.  So it has been determined that most athletes are 20-25% efficient, so if you multiply by .25 your pretty much back to your initial kilojoules.  For my purposes it's pretty darn close to a 1 to 1 ratio. 

It may be hard to read, but I had a total of 57 hours and change for January, 825 miles, and it took me 29,981 kilojoules of work.

So here is the nutritional info for the Burrito at the top of the post. If I take my Kj divided by calories, I slayed 30.13 burritos this month.  I divide that by miles it's .033 burritos a mile or my burrito intensity factor.

Kinesio Tape Design Contest

I've decided to do one leg all up in Kinesio Tape, that crap those two hot Volley Ball players made famous in the olympics. I think I'l do my bionic knee. The front runner design is the Nazca Lines in Peru. They say it's a humming bird, but I think they were trying to flip off the aliens that help them make it. I figure one whole leg in hot pink ought to scare the crap out of the competition.

It's Official I'm a PRO

I got my license in the mail yesterday. I am officially a Professional Cyclist.  It is a little bit harder to get this than to become an Ordained Minister of some religon, or become a 24hr Fitness personal trainer. Still, I wonder if I have any business lining up with people that go to the Olympics. Alas that is the Colorado racing scene, we crank it up to 11.

Sorry for Mr. Blurry cam, my iphone is my go to camera.

That's right, UCI Elite in cross-country. I also can't wait to do a road race as a CAT 5.  That is just above the category given to children that just did a solo no training wheels, USA cycling has some odd ranking criteria.

MFK in 7.1 Surround a BIM success story

I now have the ultimate stationary trainer diversion device. 50" TV linked to a blu-ray player. Just to be safe I went a step beyond and installed 4 speakers in my ceiling for the ultimate in movie soundtrack enjoyment 7.1.  Just because I'm a geek I modeled my living room in Sketchup to get the layout right, and then had it Chick approved. As of today the Ikea sofa and rug are the only thing that remains to be completed.

If you notice I modeled the joist and ductwork to make sure they did not interfere of clash with the speaker install. Taking it a step further I got the exact listening angles off the Dolby website and layed out my speakers according to my listening position.

I found a kick-ass deal online for the speakers monoprice.com, it was a total gamble 4 speakers for $84.00. I was betting they would be crap, but I thought I would try this before I spent a minimum of $84 for one.  I am fully satisfied, the sound every bit as good as the speakers I listened to at the big box stero store. Same thing with HDMI cables, 6 bucks. Compare that to $60 minimum at BestBuy.

Not the best pic, but you can imagine the finished product.  Everything went in no problems, almost too easy.  I didn't even get to drink enough beer and cuss a whole bunch before it was done. Moral of the story Building Information Modeling (BIM) works.

Retul Thy Self

After receiving what I now refer to as my bionic knee, I thought it would be a good idea to get a fancy professional bike fit. Luckily I'm sponsored by Retul Fittng Systems www.retul.com. Well by sponsored I mean I know one of the owners and he fits me for free. This is not me but, here is the jist of things, they stick reflectors on you and the systems captures your motion. The fitter then analyzes and adjusts your position to fall within bio-mechanical norms, and the comfort of the rider. I'm sure the gravitational pull of the earth, and the volume of residual Cheeto dust remaining on your fingertips is also factored in.

That' s Christian Vandevelde 4th in the tour (well fifth, but one guy got busted for doping) getting a Retul fit.  When your done you get a fit sheet of all your bikes measurements.

Tastes like chicken!

Well that's at least what it looks like on camera. I've been ignoring the fact that my knee hurts for approximately two years. So after an early season cyclocross race which made me unable to walk for about two days I went and saw this guy.

That's Andy Pruitt fondling perhaps the next Tour de France winner, Frank Schleck.  I'm pretty luck that one of the best knee men in the world is just up the road from where I live. After he fondled my knee for approximately 30 seconds he determined I have a lateral meniscal cyst resulting from a torn meniscus. Like I said it was only 30 seconds so this next pic wasn't as bad as it looks.

Long story short the MRI confirmed and the surgery was scheduled. You don't have to be an Orthodedic Surgeon to tell somethings wrong with this picture (see top pic). Here is the after all better.