Salvaged?

This week has in NO way been a good ride week. BUT, is that to say it wasn't a good week? Ummm, no?

I did get out for 15 miles of singletrack at MMCC on Thursday and that was sweet. At this point in THIS MY season, every ride I do that I don't break a bike part (or something on me) is something!

Today is The Best of The Worst: Light Beer Friday... sadly I started the bad light beer thing early by going out for a couple hours last night with Mike and Chris. One Miller Light, one Bud Light and one Mich Ultra. I'm not gonna lie... it was embarrassing and tasted like shit.

So tonight, The Best of The Worst: Light Beer Friday really didn't have chance. I mean yeah, I had a 12 pack of Miller High Life Light (YES, LIGHT!!!) in the fridge, but I also had a few liters of just shipped to Michigan New Belgium brews. Yum! The Miller really never had a chance. Sorry.

I DID have a couple... OK ONE of the Millers, but see the thing is they sucked... and the New Belgium stuff was REALLY good. My bad.

There are TENTATIVE plans for me to be part of a 4 person team at the 24 Hours of Hanson Hills on the 15th. Not sure if that will happen or not. Might be fun.. might not be. Who cares?

In any event I think Chris and I are heading to Hanson to ride a few laps tomorrow. Hopefully there are now mechanical issues like last week's valve stem issue. UG!

Later.

Mucking Futz

Ride time since Sunday = 0.

A series of unfortunate bike part events, combined with working my ass off to finish up XXC 17 by the weekend, combined with dad duties has left me all horned up and nowhere to go for dirt. I THINK I might be able to satiate the lust tomorrow, but at this point I won't hold my breath.

Funny tid bit...

I'm in Terry's on Tuesday to get a new valve core, etc., for my wheel. Mike says "I thought I was gonna have you other wheel fixed today, but then you came up with this mess." I'm cutting line in front of MYSELF. At this point I think half the bikes in queue there are mine. Looks like Mike and Terry will be able to make their next couple car payments on me. And that I will NOT make my next couple car payments.

I need a new sport....

Nahh....

Later.

Spent

I've had a pretty sweet week of riding with close to 180 miles in my legs and by the end of today's hot 42 mile ride I was feeling every one of them. This is a prime example of what it's like to be a sub par cyclist.

Yesterday I was on the mountain bike and went to MMCC with my buddy Chris. I had let some air out of my rear tire earlier because I was bouncing around a bit too much the last ride. A few miles in I knew I let too much out. But the low PSI had me hooking up like mad, so I pedaled on.

I was feeling real good and Chris and I had a nice pace going through the singletrack. But after I bottomed out a few times I pulled over to pump so air in it. Unfortunately it didn't seem like it was getting any air. Frig! Slow leak?

A few miles later I stopped to try again. Nothing. Would not hold air. WTF? Then I removed the pump and my valve stem came off with it! PPPPPPPPPPPFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFT. OK, NOW it's flat, ha!

I had just got the wheel back from Terry's where it had a spoke replaced after a Stick vs. Spoke incident. It turns out upon examination that the valve stem was bent/damaged in the spoke incident (the spoke damaged was the one right by the valve stem) and when I used the hand pump it just made it worse and ripped the f-er off.

OK, time to stick a tube in. Pump, pump, pump nothing. Frig. The tube must have a puncture in it. DRAT! OK, time to start walking. Luckily if I walk along the power line and road it's only about a mile to get back to the xB. Drat!


So the ride was cut short for me. What should have been 14+ miles of singletrack was 11 with a mile hike back to the car, walking along the road with a shit tube and a tire around my neck.


So now my bikes are in disarray: the Jake is in the shop getting some much needed love, the Spearfish is getting a new rear rim, the El Mariachi needs a new valve stem. Which leaves me the road bike. CUSS! It has not been my year as far as bike issues.

Today's ride was OK and I actually felt pretty good. It was once the heat started kicking in and I blew through my bottles that I started feeling it. For rides like this I just to stick a 3rd bottle in my jersey pocket, but back then I didn't have the ham roll up front that I have now stretching the kit uber tight.

Oh well  I've had my issues this week but least I'm still getting miles in and my shoulder is feeling good. Could be worse.

Later.

How Lance Ruined Light Beer Friday #1

Background: I am in the midst of trying to watch what I eat and drink. I am also laying off beer Sunday thru Thursday and in an attempt to limit calories, I decided that I would keep the routine of having a few beers on Friday night, but switch to a light beer for shits and giggles. This is how the first Light Beer Friday went.

The Best of the Worst: Light Beer Friday did not go as well as I planned and it's all Lance Armstrong's fault!! DAMN!

THE MISTAKE

I chose the Michelob Ultra as the bad beer of the night. I have never had it in my life and swore, after seeing the commercials 1,999,999 times over the course of my Tour de France watching, that I NEVER would.

I picked it up Thursday night at Rick's here in Mount Pleasant and woke up Friday a.m.. to see legendary road racer, accused doper/Mich Ultra spokesman/ Lance Armstrong's mug plastered all over the Internet because he has officially "given up" the fight to prove he is innocent of doping. Probably a wise move, he should have done it years ago rather than (appear to) lie and lie and lie and lie and lie.... Not sure how many folks in the cycling community REALLY believed he didn't dope anymore. Not WANT to believe him, but REALLY believe. Hell I WANT to believe they're ALL clean, but I want a LOT of things that are never going to happen (just ask Wifey).

Personally I gave up thinking Lance was innocent about 4+ years ago, and just sort off put it out of my mind since I am not a huge road cycling fan anyway. But I digress... this is about bad beer not Lance. At least it's supposed to be

So there I was with a sixer of Mich Ultra in the fridge and all I can think about is Lance and those ffffffucking commercials. Him playing golf, mountain biking and running with some random group of "young and fit" marketing target group Fred-types and then ending the day with the "crisp refreshing taste of Michelob Ultra." UG! Or worse him hanging out yucking it up with Dr. Ferrari talking 'bout blood and which Olson twin he should bang out when he retires.

At this point I knew Plan "B" needed to be hatched. Do I replace the Ultra with another bad beer or do I get a GOOD beer and alternate? I went with some Bell's Two Hearted Ale to help stymie the Lanceness of the Ultra.

So what of the Michelob Ultra? How bad was it? Well it wasn't good. But it wasn't as bad as I thought either. I refused to pour it in a glass (which surely helped), but I have to say I expected WAY worse. I can pretty much bet that I will never buy it again and I have to say much of my opinion of it was tainted by those Godawful commercials. I'd like to have a rating system for The Best of the Worst: Light Beer Friday, but since is the first one, I don't have a comparison to any other bad beers right now and comparing it to the Bell's just isn't fair. Maybe I'll try some Hamm's Light later or something? Ha!

Later.

Funky

Day off the bike today, but a day firmly implanted in the office chair TRYING get the last of XXC #17 finished. ALMOST there. Felt good not to ride, but I found myself feeling guilty for not riding. I guess that's a good thing... maybe?

Went to the Great Lakes Loons game with Wifey and B-Man tonight (hooray for free tickets!). They were playing the Lansing Lug Nuts. Neither teams defense decided to show up and the game was dragging on near 10 p.m. with the score 8-7 Lugs, so we split. I hate leaving early, but I gotz to get my beauty sleep.

Tomorrow is Friday. I will be celebrating Friday's happy hour with what I have dubbed The Best of the Worst: Light Beer Friday. Each Friday (when possible) I will be sampling a different light beer. For the record, the only light beers I have tasted (that I remember) are Sam Adam's Light (not bad), Coors Light (years ago) and the piss smelling Amstel Light. This Friday is...... Tune in Friday or Saturday to find out. I will say it's lame, I hate the advertising and if you watched ANY of the Tour this year (or last for that matter) you also hate their ads. My goal with L.B.F. is to have a few beers that will have virtually no effect on my diet, taste bad enough that I won't want more than a couple and make Saturday night's REAL beers taste even better. We'll see.

Later.

Getting Used To It Fast

I am into the 3rd day of the new old routine; work during the day, ride in the evening. Something that has been very hard for me to do since starting XXC in 2009. It's good to be back and I am really getting used to it. It has me wishing I would have done this ages ago. It feels more like a "normal" work day routine, and anyone that knows me knows that I am a creature of habit and routine. I know I won't be able to ride after work like this all the time, and will surely take advantage of my flexible schedule but this feels good. Hopefully I can also learn other ways to deal with end of the work day stresses/failures/self loathing) beyond drinking beer.

Last night I rode at MMCC again. I like to TT the 14+ mile course every so often. Last night was not the night to do it! My legs were dead straight away and I reckoned I must have lost gobs of minutes off my current PR lap time of 1:13 that I did on the Spearfish a week or so ago.

After the first little climb I thought about abandoning the TT idea, but pressed on and started getting some mojo. This week I was using the Ti El Mariachi with the Thudbuster. I don't see TOO much difference with using the Thudbuster on the HT. The only downside is that while it does increase comfort, it's still not a FS bike, meaning that even though it ads comfort it does nothing to help the bike contour the trail. Anyway....

I love riding in the woods on a summer evening. The sun in more orange, the greens of the forest floor "pop." Still, that did nothing for my TT. I was stoked at the HR I was able to maintain, but in the end I finished a full 3+ minutes off pace. Considering how dead my legs felt I'm shocked it wasn't worse. Ha! I am also SUPER stoked that my shoulder has been a NON issue for the past week or so (at least while riding). I still find it hard to believe how long it has taken to fully recover from that freaking crash, IN MARCH! Still it could have been worse (see Racin' Rick's hip, Goddamn that sucks. Feel super bad for him).

I realized today that I had ridden 4 days in a row and maybe should have taken a day off (you know, 'cause I suck), but I don't want the new routine to lose it's new "routine-ness." So I did Monday's road loop this evening but at an easier pace. I would have liked to hit the dirt roads but the Jake/Snake is down at Terry's getting a complete and LOOOOOONG overdue makeover. In any event it was another sweet night of riding out in the farm country of central Michigan.

Good stats on my bad fats

I have about 155 miles in the past 5 days (both road and mountain bike) and 3 beerless days. Not to mention for the past month I've been good about avoiding pasta and beans (baring one night of beans on vacation, it's been about a month... wish I could say the same for my vacation pizza/Beer binge. DOH!). There's just not enough nutrients and too many calories in the pasta (I can still hear Ben saying "I told you so"). It's also been fun to come up with new ways of getting good carbs and fiber. I am also over a month of no milk or sugar in my coffee. Because of that I am saving calories AND realizing how damn good a bathtub sized cup of black as night coffee can be.

But enough about me... Wait, this is MY blog. Kidding.

Later.

The New Routine

Today was Day One of the "new" routine. Work as much as I can all day, take care of the B-Man as needed and ride when Wifey  gets home from work. While this can't/won't be the routine every day,  and I of course will take to the roads during the day once the time changes in a month or so, but more often than not this is what I want.

Work
Ride.
Eat.
Sleep.

Little time for hop fueled shenanigans or much else other than Dad/Husband duties and cooking up my eats.

Tonight I did one of my 40+ mile paved road loops. I decided to ditch one section of pavement that I hate and substitute it with a dirt road. Actually the road isn't so much a dirt road as it is a paved road that the state appears to be just dumping some dirt on and letting "nature" take its course. Because of that, it was pretty easy to find a smooth line on the dirt. Yay.

It was nice to be out in the long shadows. It was nicer to get home and enjoy bunless turkey burgers, homemade sweet potato fries, corn on the cob and a side of baby spinach and Roma tomatoes. It was freaking ddeeeellish. Or it was just that I was starving after 43 miles? Either way.

Day One in the books. Easy breezy.

Later.

The Bender (The Good & Bad Kind)

Since I am so tired of fielding comment, calls, letters and emails about the status of The Soiled Chamois I figured I better post some drivel ASAP. OK, we both know that is a lie and that not one person cares if this blog lives or dies, I just have been super busy and occupied with the mag, racing, vacation (which is more like work for a depressive fucker like me) and working my way through a ride bender fueled by a multi-week beer binge.

Issues.

Anyway, I went to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to race the Ore To Shore and then once again headed to Copper Harbor with Wifey and B-Man for riding, swimming and goofing off.

I'm sure I will have more to say about the race later either here or on xxcmag.com, but I can sum it up by saying I still dig the Ore To Shore. 48 miles of pavement, two track, logging roads, XC ski trails, old mining roads, sand and a touch of singletrack.

I really wanted to beat my time last year of 3:16. Turns out I didn't, and finished in 3:19 dispite clearing more climbs, feeling better and hauling more (fat) ass than last year. I am sticking by my excuse of "it's where I lined up!" I still had a great time and a great race and I was stoked at how I felt. Next year will be better, I swear!!

The race was fun, seeing my friend Ben in from Colorado was fun and hanging out with folks Saturday night was all good and the U.P. in general has a vibe I dig. Not sure I could live through the winters there, but it's a cool place.

Sunday A.M. it was off to Copper Harbor. I rode bad ass single track, sweet forest roads, a bunch of snowmobile/ATV trails and had a great time on the bike.

I also hung out with B-Man and Wifey a ton and did some hiking with them. We climbed wet rocks and roots, saw toads, and goofed off in the woods. We were supposed to do a kayak trip together but it got cancelled due to the high winds on Lake Superior that Thursday. Bummer.

We got home Friday afternoon. Saturday I busted out a 43 mile road ride and today I got a nice 15 mile loop in up at MMCC. My legs were dead and my brain is fried.

Speaking of...

Tomorrow I am going to try and get back to the being a normal (for me) person. I am laying off the booze (as soon as I finish what's left in the fridge) and trying to adjust my routine so as to not feel like a complete fucking alcoholic. I fell into some really bad habits since I started the mag 3 years ago. I've blamed all my weight gain on food, but we both know it's not the food.. it's the beer. 

I have had some successes with the mag, but also a lot of failures IMO. I also put a lot of pressure on myself and deal with it all by drinking way too much. It's not good for me, it's not good for my family and I am tired of it. I'm not saying I won't go out or have a beer or four on the weekend, because I do really love fine craft beer, but I REALLY need to get back to a workday routine that doesn't end with me drinking 2 to 6 beers. If that means making adjustments to life or going back to work 9-5 to get back to where I was then so be it. I have gained 30 pounds in 3+ years, I don't sleep well, I'm on anti-depressants, I am tired, broke (as far as the mag is concerned) and mentally drained. I so want to give up, but I can't. At least not yet, not until I've tried everything.

I see the same sort of behavior now as I had back when I was a teenager. Back then I ate in an attempt to feel better about my piss poor life. To forget my mother was getting worse and worse with M.S. and that my dad was out of work 3 years due to his plant shutting down. I struggled in school, hated the way I looked, hated people, hated life and dealt with it by eating. I kicked that bad habit, lost 130 pounds, started racing bikes and never looked back. Now I find myself with a new and improved worse way of dealing with my problems and I've gained 30 of those pounds back. I guess it's just time to kick some ass again and keep riding. I am a creature of habit. I just need to get back to being a creature of GOOD habits.

Later.

Dirty Minds

Where am I? Where was I? I don't need to answer to you... OK, I'm sorry... I was on dirt fool! And not dirt roads (Nothing against those bad ass gravely threads of cycling goodness).

Not to sound like making it to the can in time after taco and beer night, but it's been a nice dirty run: Saturday at Hanson Hills, Sunday at MMCC, Monday... well, Monday I did nothing except work on the office chair sore on my ass and take care of the B-Man (you know make sure he doesn't die, feed him, play shit with him... all that). Tuesday I went for a rare evening ride at MMCC and the ride as the ballz! I left the camera and phone in the car and my hand pump on the kitchen table (oops!) and just enjoyed riding the 14ish miles of MMCC as hard as I could in a non-race sitch.

Saturday's ride was good at Hanson, but I felt about as fast as constipated turd having trouble getting around the last bit of lower in-tes-tine. Sunday was Sunday.... the day when one (or at least a stressed out bohunk like me) deals with the fact he drank a 6 pack+ of 7% ABV beer the night before. But Tuesday... Oh Tuesday. It was like the good/bad old days when I had 9 to 5 job (and got a paycheck). Work all day, then drive to the ride launching pad with my excited bung puckered and ready to ride. The temps were warm, the legs were fresh (enough for a dirt bag) and I was ready to best Sunday's time by a good bit. I did. It didn't take much.

I used the Spearfish. I haven't ridden the Spearfish much as of late. Not because I don't like/love my Spearfish, I mean in '11 it was my "go to" endurance race bike. But right now it is running on its SECOND, yes the SECOND "Sam's" rim to bust in the past year.

Why do I keep rolling it then? Because I have now fucked so much shit up I can't even list and I can no longer afford anymore. OK, I can list, but I still can NOT afford more right now. Here's the abbreviated list: THREEEEEEEEEEE "Sam's" rims (bull shit crap product for anyone over 115 pounds), a "Rock Sox," rear shock, two Fox forks (I've only replaced one), a rear derailleur snapped in two. crack a hanger, a crank arm fell off, etc., etc., etc., ). And that is just since Nov. 2011, I am now OUT of funds. Christ, if it wasn't for my credit card and its 45.2% APR I would not be able to roll what I have now. Fuck, I hate this sport... I hate my life... NO, I just hate ME!

OK, OK, if I took anything from the past 4 or 5 days it is that I love, nay!!!!!!! LOVEEEE! riding singletrack and that I am FINALLY feeling more at ease on it after last year's shoulder fuck up (which still hurts by the way).

I have no photos right now. The lap top is out of batteries, I am on the go and to be honest I don't care and I KNOW you don't care.

Later.

Dog Puke & Slow Dirt

Today I went up to Hanson Hills to ride. Some friends were racing places, some folk were doing 5K runs... I lost track and just decided that I would keep with this week's theme of doing shit by myself and rode solo. But I am ahead of myself here...

The day didn't start out well; Jake The Dog for some reason likes to eat the ivy growing on the side of the deck. He eats it, he pukes, he shits leaves, he does it again. It is REALLLLLLLY frustrating. Fucking dogs!!! I thought they were supposed to learn from repetition?? Obviously Jake is a dumb ass like me. So I spent the morning working on XXC stuff and listening to Jake's belly make all sorts of jacked up noises, followed by me cleaning up stinky, foamy dog puke. Jerk.

After that delay, I got my ever growing and flabby love handles stuffed down into my bibs, tucked in the belly and got ready to head north to Hanson.

Side note: Today's drive music of choice was my Up The Irons Iron Maiden iPod mix. Music is a funny thing with me. I have been a music junkie since 1985 or earlier. I went through an 80s pop phase, a prog rock phase, a metal phase, a sad bastard music phase and an indie pop/rock/punk phase. But in the past couple years I have REALLY struggled to listen to music. It's freaking me out!! Some days I go from 6:45 a.m. to 3-ish p.m. with NOTHING. Just ME and my thoughts (no wonder I am so fucked up). When I had a job where I actually got a pay check I would arrive at 8:55, put my earphones on and only took them off to go to lunch, take a dump and go home. Annnnnnnnnnnnnway..... As I get older I find myself NOT pursuing new, cool music and find myself regressing back to my 10th grade metal head days. Strange. It's familiar, feels good, and I know all the words, 20+ years later! LOL!

Wait, this is a cycling blog, right? Sorry.

Later than I expected I hurled the xB with the Ti El Mariachi on top towards Grayling. An hour later I took my exit but then decided to investigate some snowmobile trails before I headed to Hanson Hills.

My goal is to (if legal) start exploring the hundreds of miles of snow mobile (snow machine, if you're a local) trails that are in Michigan. I went down to one trail head today to see that there was 20 miles of marked trail just from that TH. Hmm..... The thing with the snow mobile trails in Michigan is that they are often SUPERRRRRR sandy, most are also ORV/ATV trails as well, so they get pretty torn up. But the miles of unexplored (by me) woods is really hard to not think about doing!! The question is.. Could those miles be done on a traditional mountain bike? Would the extremeness of a fat bike be ideal? How about about the new, yet to be released Surly Krampus?? Or what about trying to just squeeze some super fat, low pressure knobies onto the El Mariachi??

Well, we'll see how all that turns out.

I did finally make my way to Hanson. I did the Inner and Outer Loops and clocked about 20 miles of sweet northern L.P. singletrack. It was so nice to be in the woods riding my bike. Sure I rode the singletrack at MMCC the other day, but here it seems the further north you go, the more you see like you are riding in the mountains (without there being any mountains!).

The ride was good but I felt so slow. I haven't felt snappy on a bike in a long time. Is it me? Is it the bike? Is it the 29er? I don't know! I feel like I am always pushing a hard gear and my back is aching. It's fucking frustrating. Mountain bike rides have just been feeling supoer slow as of late.

But hey, it was super sweet to be out in the woods on my bike.

Later.

Dirty Stuff

Work has been sort of stressful as of late. I lost control of certain things that have to be done in order make the mag work and the result is some delays, some reworking and more delays. The suck thing is that all the issues are beyond my control. That makes things harder, but all I can do is the best I can do, right?

Moving on....

 I have had a pretty good run of rides of late. A couple days of mountain biking (ohhhh that felt goooood.... like soaking in a hot tube with a bosomy gal-pal good) followed by a nice ride on gravel roads and some sweet smelling fields...

One day I rode the El Mariachi with the Thudbuster post. It rocked. The 2nd day I rode the Spearfish and it rocked as well, but sometimes it didn't. It had all the comfort I was looking for, but I just felt really sluggish and I felt like I was all over the bike. Oh well. Still good rides though.

Thursday was a trip to the dentist and a big work day. I was pretty happy with some of the stuff I was pumping out. I did some layout work, some XXC Blog work and some xxc.cult:ure work. All fun and all pretty good.

Thursday I met some riding buddies and their lady folk out for some drinks. It was fun for sure, but I stayed out way too late for an old head like. Of course I am not the oldest in the bunch, so that is a relief!

Not sure the direction the rest of my season is taking? I am racing/riding the Ore To Shore next week and then heading to Copper Harbor to ride some sweet singletrack for a week. But after that I'm not real sure what I want to do. My fitness is still not what I want, but I don't want to not race. My friend Chris asked me to partner with him for a 24 hour Duo team, but I'm just not sure, my luck in 2012 has not been the best, not sure I want to drag someone else down into it.

Sadly work got in the way of riding today, but I plan to get out on the mountain bike for a couple hours tomorrow. Now I just need some sleep.

Later.