Marathons & Cold Rides

This a.m. I hit the Net looking for some coverage and info on yesterday's World Cup Marathon in Gran Canaria. Here's your top 5 for the 90K event (according to CyclingNews.com).

1. Leonardo Paez (Col) 3:27.24

2. Thomas Dietsch (Fra)

3. Alban Lakata (Aut)
4. Mazio Deho (Ita)
5. Massimo De Bertolis (Ital)

Had fun checking out the sites of some of these racers. Be warned some of the Euros like to use some cheezy porn music on their sites, so if you're check them out on the d.l. at work you might want to kill the volume.

There are some cool archived .WMV videos linked from Deho's site that you can download to your desktop. The one of the Liquigas Cup is sort of neat. An "urban" mountain bike race. Kind of good inspiration for "urban assaults" when the trails are muddy. Would also be a neat idea for an early season race for a place like Pittsburgh.

On the Woman side Pia Sundstedt from Finland took 1st. Could Maja be "out", Pia "in" ? ;)

OK enough with "real" racers, now I'm gonna talk about me.

Are you still here?

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B-Man and I headed out to see my Dad today. This time of year that usually means that I take my road bike with me and while B-Man plays his ass off I get a couple hours or more of riding in. The roads were clear of snow, but the temps this a.m. were in the 20's so I said "F that!" and just planned a visit, with a serious "grump on" from not riding.

Well through the day as I scoured the Net looking at the Marathon coverage, I started getting the "itch" to get some chamois time. So I adjusted my diet (meaning I didn't eat anything that might see some time on my top tube later), and departure time so I could head home, get the Dos Niner, and get intimate with it for a couple hours this evening on the road despite the cold temps.

I chose to ride the Dos Niner, because I've spent so little time on it over the past few months I wanted to get used to the feel again and test out my new stem position.

The flipped stem rocked. What didn't rock was my saddle height. I hadn't marked the post and I've been switching saddle/post from my trainer to the Dos. I had it a few mm too low. Damn! Normally NOT a big deal. BUT I left my multi tool at home DOH!!! It wasn't too bad, but bad enough to F with my head for a few miles.

Temps at 4:30 were better than the 20's but still only in the high 30's. So by the end, the "headlights" were on full blast, and my fingers and toes were less than comfortable. Mental Note: Next year get some freaking booties!

Ended with a little under 2 hours, hit some good climbs, and got about 1:55 of nippy saddle time.

Super tired now. Later.