Hot Roddin'

Here's the thing about hot rods. In my opinion.
Hot rods to me are this romanticized thing. Like, 1950s muscle cars. 1960s bobbers, and early cyclocross bikes. I really enjoy the idea of taking things OFF your bike/motorcycle/car to make it lighter/faster. I mean, that is cool.
Sure, getting new Zipp wheels is cool but it's not all that clever either.
Hot Roddin, is doing with what you have and making it work. "Run what ya brung." As they say.
What's kind of cool about hot rods too, is that you could be a pretty incompetent driver, but if you were smart, you could probably go pretty dam fast.
Unfortunately this isn't true in the bike world. And hot rods are few and far between these days. At least real ones.
Cross bikes at one point were made from the left over pieces from your road season, last decades mountain bike parts, and whatever was on sale at the shop.
My first cross bike was even scarey. But it work. And I raced it. And then I sold it, and someone else raced it.

Getting spoiled with the latest and greatest stinks.

Do you really need Zipp wheels to be competitive in New England bike racing? I don't know...
I bet you could figure out a way to do it on some old school three cross low profile tubulars. Or maybe some Aksiums that you won in a raffle. Or maybe some 6 year old Dura Ace wheels.

This all came about when I was talking about the Zebra at work the other day and I mentioned it's "vintage" 9 speed Dura Ace components, which honestly, have seen a TON of miles. Someone said, "oh you can't ride that stuff." They were being sarcastic because they know I am a total bike junkie. And it got me thinking. Hot rods.
I built the Zebra with parts I had and only bought what I needed. And of all that stuff, the only things I bought NEW were the rear der. and the cables.

And I talked to Gabe today about his bike. And they weigh the same. Just shy of 17. And you know what? That's good enough to be competitive. Now... if I could only find a quality pilot.

But there is something beautiful about sleepers and dark horses. And then I thought about Vino before he was caught doping. And I was picking him to win the Tour when he was on T-Mobile because he was the Dark Horse. Turns out he was just a cheater.
But the point is... he could have. And that's what makes hot rods cool. They could be fast, and they could be light, and you're never really sure. True hot rods don't get dyno tested and computer monitored. They find a straight road, floor and watch the needle. And you know what, it still feels awesome.

Buying speed has never been all that cool. Sure, everyone wants a fast TT bike... but really? How far is the Hour Record? Somewhere in the 50's, yeah? Just a thought.

Hot rods... big engines, rusted floor boards, bald rear tires. Speed.
Because at the end of the day, going fast is what it's all about, and it doesn't matter if you spend $200 or $20000 on your bike. I'd bet we can both hit 60 mph on the back of Middlebury gap.

Mt. Washington, there are some hot rods. Those bikes are hacked, chopped, bobbed, and LEAN. Sure, some of them are ultra-lite custom PARLEEs with Lightweight wheels, and Power Cordz. But then there are guys who just took off their front brake, big ring, bottle cages, and bar tape.

Yeah, hot rods, dark horses, sleepers... that's the stuff that makes it interesting.
Is it really that surprising to see Cancellara win another World Championship on the 2nd most aerodynamic bike out there? No... but it's still cool.

And I know I have a fancy showy bike, and I like that one too. But then again... it's a sleeper in it's own right.

Fitchburg looms...

The Others...

First there was the Cannibal,
The Lion of Flanders
Mellow Johnny
Cipo
Little Baby Elephant AKA The Pirate
The Killer

And now...

The Zebra of Burlington.

You're been warned.

Hello world

So, my eye is healing just fine. No need to worry. So what was going on you may wonder... well. Turns out, the human eye ball was never really intended for contacts, this should come as no surprise. Oxygen, getting to the eye is very important it turns out. And when not enough oxygen gets to the eye, the contact can become a little incubater on your eye. Awesome.
So, at some point I had a small scratch on my eye. This is common, and usually doesn't cause any issues.
However, if you maybe have dirty contacts, or maybe wear them past their date, or maybe we them for too long, then! Oh yes, then! there can be some major eye trouble. I didn't actually do any of the above mentioned things, but some how I ended up with the same result.
Anyway, the contact acted as a warm little home for some bacteria that that cozied up inside that small scratch on the lense and blammo! I had my contacts all day and didn't feel anything, everything felt great. As soon as I took the contact out, it was awful. And I mean awful. It felt like there was bleach in my eye.
i figured, well, I must have gotten something in there.
I slept it off.
Or well, I tried to sleep it off. I woke up a bunch of times. It sucked.
I went to the ER. They told me all about the bacteria in my eye and how it had formed a tiny .5mmx.5mm hole in the lense. Which honestly, doesn't really sound THAT small to me. I have allen wrenches that size. Some eye drops and a week or so later and I'm back in business.

Why this has put a big damper on my training.
Not being able to wear sunglasses is a bummer, but I'm not that shallow. And I skipped the weekly mountain bike race because I didn't want dirt to get into an already sensitive eye, but the real problem was my eye became oddly light sensitive. Somehow the eye ball gets so caught up on fighting off the bacteria that it forgets to shut out the light so it was hard for me to keep my left open. As you can imagine, riding your bike like this, while doable, is not ideal. And it was pretty painful.
So, after finishing up my round of antibiotics today I will be back in action tomorrow on the Tuesday night World Championships so that I may slightly prepare myself for the Fitchburg so I can finish in annynomity.
Rad.

And for those that feared for the Circle A in what is always a hellfire of a crit, I have procured some older Rival bits to put onto the Zebra bike that I used as a TT bike last year. I am a big fan of this older S-Works bike. You can see the same frame moving quickly while piloted by Scott. However, he has the more appealing and less obnoxious red paint job.

And that's the word.
Oh! And my mom and Jerry came to visit this weekend and had a blast. So that was awesome.

It is raining today and I don't like it.
Aa

Corneal Ulser?!?

WTF?

There is a hole in my eyeball.
It is being treated and healing.

I am sensitive to sunlight and it is putting a damper on my training.

More news on that, later.

The fire!

The fire is back!!

I had toyed with the idea of heading down to balloon fest tomorrow until I remembered that I just towed my Jetta to the mechanic because it refuses to start. I know... I gave up. But really, it has been a LONG time and I have exhausted all of my ideas and all of my friends ideas, some more than once. So, I figured it was finally time.

You know that ride of the season where in theory everything sounds great and it should all go according to plan? Well, that was Wednesday for me. Still not 100% recovered from whatever illness has been kicking my ass as of late, I thought it would be a good idea to ride out to Catamount, compete in the 4 lap mtb race, then ride home.
The ride out there was HILLY, the folks that gave me the great directions failed to mention these details to me. Oh well. And it's about 12-13 miles, I think on the road on the kick ass GT Marathon.
Sweet.
I get there in a little under and hour.
Get signed up.
Drink some water, wait around, and boom! We're off. There are some fast folks at this race and there are some want to be fast folks and there are some used to be fast folks and everything in between. It's fun. I start off towards the back thinking I'll be conservative. As some of you well know, this technique lasts me about 3 minutes, but for whatever reason, I constantly try and employ the tactic. Oh well.
I start going wicked hard after afew minutes, passing people and loving it. Sliding in corners, realizing I have the suspension set up WAY to hard. I panicked before the start and added some PSIs to the shocks, I don't really know why.
Anyway... after 1.78 laps of wicked hard riding, I remember, "Hey, you have to ride home..." Oops.
I back it down, then realize I just way over stressed myself after still being sick and gracefully took and early exit from the race after 2 laps.
I hung out with Whit (one of the Service Managers at the shop) while he did some neutral support for the event and then hooked up the lights and headed home.
The ride home is a little shorter at about 10 miles, but it's still a trek.
But the fire, I am now stoking the fire and making grand plans for things to come...
So the season... has arrived. With the return of regretta the Jetta, things will be cooking in no time. And there is a slight chance I may have scored a sweet roof box for free. And I mean SWEET. Huge. I think I could my whole bike in there without taking anything apart. Awesome.

Side note.
Still looking for 40 or 42 cm shallow drop road bars.
And a Fizik Antares saddle.

I have... an XBOX 360 for sales, 2 guitars, games, lots of goodies. E-mail me.

That's it.
Back to planning the rest of the season and shredding, hard!