Fall rides

I told my Boss this weekend that I don't think I'm the type of guy that can be fast on my bike while he has a job. I really can't be fast at 'cross. I hate the trainer, I'm not good at motivating myself when I'm tired, I drink too much beer.

But I forgot how much I like riding at night.

I headed out tonight on the newly completed bike path. It now extends about 10 miles up to the neighboring town (it was missing a bridge and had a mile long gap of bad rocks in the middle). It's the perfect length for long intervals, and with one very short exception, a very consistent grade. No one was out there but me, a few deer, an owl, and a retired couple out riding around with their flashing lights. I felt pretty good, the power numbers were higher than expected, there was a beautiful sunset, and I was home by 6:30 to eat tacos with the Monkey.

Maybe I can be sort of fast on the 'cross bike. If I stop flatting.

By the way, these rule. They're a bit spendy, but worth it. I almost didn't want to take them off when I got home.

In other news, I seem to have forgotten to mention that we added to the collection this summer. We've always thought that the Monkey was rather precocious: he crawled early, walked early, was running everywhere well before his first birthday, and generally was wearing us out early.

Our experience so far suggests that K2 is ahead of his brother. I'm not sure what we'll do if/when he's walking at 6 months.

(Granted, he is leaning against the couch, but he held it there happily for 2 or 3 minutes while we took about 10 photos. He finally got bored and just sat down, but he's not lacking leg strength.)

You lazy bastard

I was just informed that I'll lose my 'blogger' status after 3 months of inactivity. I'm not sure what the King of Denzer really knows about blogs, but it has been a bit too long. I have my reasons. It's hard to write about losing a bona fide (if obscure and relatively unwanted) national championship by 90 seconds. I could say we were the fastest, which we were, but that just sounds like whining. Next time we'll do some tube-changing practice sessions beforehand, although we'll probably have to do it after downing a fifth of Jack or something to better reflect actual race conditions.

But since I don't need to complain about what happened 3 months ago, I can complain about what's happened more recently. My 'cross season has been 4 races so far, maybe 3 hours of racing, and 18 hours of driving. I've broken several 6 year-long streaks. I've never flatted in a 'cross race before; this weekend I flatted three times in two days. I've never DNF'd before without a legitimate reason (like shattering some bones or something); I DNF'd Saturday. And I've never been lapped, until yesterday.

'Cross sucks. In the last 5 races I've done (of any type), I've had tire problems in every one, one of which cost us a nice new jersey. I'm hoping to get everything out of the way now.

Obviously, the Monkey didn't learn the pose in the 3rd photo by watching his dad.