sloth

Bike Ailement/current condition

• polo bike: two waay out of true wheels, major brake adjustment
• cx bike: no brakes
• communter blue: two flats
• road bike: salty roads....
• bmx: there nothing wrong with it... i just dont ride it

solution: push all bike in the back of the garage and make room for the car. at least until spring and the garage is no longer freeeeeezing

the last blog tried too hard
its wet and cold and gray
and there's something living in the walls of my apartment
chirp chip scratch scratch

cold

Too often the cold is associated with an emotional feeling. Usually one that expresses depression. And sometimes too, the cold is associated with the lack of emotion, energy and movement. Here it is cold, but not depressing, and not emotionless. The cold is thick, weighted with water from the lake. The cold here does not stop when it pimples the skin into goose bumps, and instead persists till it unites with marrow of one's bones. The air of winter in Cleveland is no less vaporous during inhalation than it is in the opaque exhalations or one's breath. The water of the lake coats one's lungs and transits into ones circulatory system, until it it indistinguishable from the person them-self. Cold is lively and dynamic, and just as fleeting as the warmth.

building

They removed the outer most layer, a carapace of dark Plexiglas and plastic from the late 1980s. And beneath that Gordon Gecko facade was another. Bit by bit a crimson brick exterior was once again exposed to the suns strong rays. Fluted columns with Corinthian tops parted the recently knocked out windows, and separated the penthouse from the now cloudy sky. Each crease and pit was blackened and grayed as it went along with century old soot. Which at one point rose up from its smoke stacks in midtown, or the flats, or perhaps the near west side and made it's way here, only to be embalmed in a plastic time capsule. The soot of the porous sandstone which makes the Garfield monument hasn't fared so well. Sitting high atop the heights of the east side, this stone was once a prominent location for the collection of factory byproducts. A slow death of industry has choked the much needed flow of particulate, leaving the strong winds and rain to wash it clean.

kirtland park cx

I never heed my own advice. Three weeks ago I decided to wash the mud off my cyclocross bike and hang it up for the season. Several days went by, and in those days I enjoyed the luxuries of a lazy non athletic life catching up on teevee, reading books I've been meaning to read, finally repotting some plants, and spending some much needed time with the g/f. With the exception of the daily jog I had pretty successfully made the transition to being sedentary, and was looking forward to some winter weight gain. However this did not last. By Wednesday of last week I decided that Kirtland Park would be my last hurrah! I didn't have much time in between Wednesday and Sunday to ride, and hadn't been on my bike since Halloween's CX race/alleycat boner-jam-a-thon. So I just focused on running, and decided I'd do the C race and call it quits.
Sunday morning creeps in, and my parents are on the phone with a sudden need to come see me race. I oblige them, and though I was planning on riding to the course, (since I only live a few miles away) they insist on picking me up. I inherently know my Dad will be late, so I preempt this by telling him to show at 10:30 (the C race being at 12); He then silently calls my preemption and rolls up to my apartment at 12:05. Which I can't complain too much about because I knew deep down that I should be doing the B race anyways; though I wouldn't be much of a contender I shouldn't cheat myself of the experience. So we get to the course, and I run over to register while my mom and dad get my bike out and walk it over. My dad is pretty quick to point out that not only do I have the muddiest bike at the race its most likely to oldest, and least geared. I insisted that I prefered the spartan single speed to the complexity of gear-tastrophe shifter, and then made a rather honest joke about not being able to afford that kind of set up anyways. This was then demonstrated almost case in point by comparing a nearby junior's cx bike that was for sale for $300, to my centurion tourer which I bought for $40 and "upgraded" it with a cheap ass pair of ritchey cx tires. I then warned my parents that this race was most likely going to resemble the races of my highschool cross country days where I was consistently in an all out battle not to finish last.

Lets skip to the race. It went pretty well, I didn't bonk in this as I had in the spin race, and I didn't wreck like in PA, and I didn't toss my chain like a Wendy park, but I was by no means quick. I think I benefited largely from the three potential run ups two of them stair cases, and the third was the terrace short double hill which I would ride of the first half but the second part included a short climb and a left hand turn, which were beyond my caliber. None the less the jogging had proved to be beneficial and it was in these areas where I many times dismounted and made my way up a place or two. On the final lap of the race I decided it was do or die time so after the final harrowing east end descent I kicked it in to the highest spin rpm I could manage and held that as long as possible. Unfortunately I think I caught more A class racers who were warming up then B class finishers. This overdrive sprint took my stomach for a whirl where I shortly after finishing proceeded to paint the ground with my breakfast. All in all, a fun time though. And it was nice to have people there cheering for you.

About thirty minutes after the B race I was sitting with Jay Karp. on a bench watching the A's mercilessly tear up the course which had not-so-long-ago given me a reaming. Mesmerized by their speed I whimsically stated that next year I would buy a license and next year I'd train every day instead of twice a week, and next year I'd race the whole series, and next year I'd get a real bike. Dan Polito. was quick to respond with "What do you mean? you already have a real f*in' bike!"



other notes: Turns out my parents know someone on the bike authority team, I can't remember her name but seems like she had something to do with coordinating the race.

and I took 10th place. a season best

knowing when to cut an run

Chagrin River Valley Cyclocross two day race extravadanza was this past weekend. I only raced the first one on Saturday. Not having a car left my subject to a friend and fellow racer, having to pick me up at 10:30am to drive out to the course. Not having any idea how long it took to do misfits styled make up left me waking up at 7:30. Not wanting to get makeup on anything made the morning awkward as hell. As it turns out it only took about 20 minutes, which left me with about 2 and half hours to eat some cereal and not get make up on anything. The latter I failed at repeatedly. There was nothing special about the race other than I had finally gotten my endurance level up enough to not feel like I was going to simultaneously explode both my lungs and my heart and croak mid lap; and instead had energy to challenge people passing me and control my bike through the really technical parts, of which there was a ton. An entire section of the course was dedicated to this gnarly mud rutted single track romp through the woods which was eating roadies alive. Every time I entered that part of the course at least one person in front of me hit the deck in a slow motion panicked loss of balance, leaving me to either go off course into the pricker bushes to circumvent their inexperience, or dismount and jump them. Which leds me to my next little tid bit of learning in my first season of cyclocross. Running seems to be damned important. I think a big part of why this race went sooo much easier for me than the previous few was that I've been running two days a week instead of training in the park or on the boring ass indoor trainer. Originally when I would dismount I could hardly go more than a few yards running and would get back on the bike more tired than before. And now after a few weeks of run/jogging I can trot with the best. Which I believe, in hindsight, is a strategic advantage, such as in situations of this muddy rutted single track course where I often had to run a good 15-20 yards before finding a good place to remount my 25 year old Centurion tourer single speed conversion cross bike. I don't know where I placed in the race, somewhere in the middle, but it finally felt like the first race at Wendy Park, just awesome.

Later on that day I attempted an alleycat downtown. It was to be a 2 manifest slug-out between Cleveland's messenger and fakenger finest. I made it through the first manifest in the lead group of three (including myself Guy S. and Jay Karp.) with plenty of time to spare, and 19 miles behind use, when I gambled on a lift bridge being down and lost. With about 20 more miles of riding to do, and being sooo exhausted I could hardly hold a conversation with my g/f on the phone while waiting for the bridge to come back down I threw in the towel and headed home. And entered Halloween night as The Shadow, most people though I was a 30's gangster or a vampire.

deciding this is the best time to hang up the cx bike, .500 avg of postive post race attitude is more the good enough for me

murraysville cx

This race wasn't much better than last weeks. After my jump to the B class the races haven't necessarily gotten harder, with the additional 15 or so minutes tacked on due to the class upgrade, I think I've lost the early season adrenaline that I got in the first few C races. Moving from an allstar in the C's to mediocre fodder in the B's, may be caused by the pre-race notion that I am guaranteed to not win or place well. At least this season.
With my g/f out of town for the weekend, and no race happening in the Cleveland Area, I decided to go along with some friends to a cx race outside of Pittsburgh. After two hours of reading Frederick Douglas' My Bondage and My Freedom in the back of a late 90's model VW eurovan which was being driven like a bat out of hell by and ex-racecar and motocross racer we arrived in western PA. Just in time in fact to witness the end of the C race being sandbagged by some dingdong on a pair of crabon zipp rims. I think there should be a rule that if one has more then $50 invested aftermarket in their bike they should not be allowed in the "novice" class, evidently this man was not a novice. Maybe the 16 yr old on the Next mountain bike was but not this dood. This set the mood for the rest of the day. The B race was two races later so the course was a mud fest. I had a pretty awful start and was stuck behind this dooder who picked the worst and slowest lines through turns looking over his team kitted shoulders I could see the race careening away from me. Frustrated I attempted to overtake him, swinging wide too the right to give him room just in case he made any more poor decisions, I made my move, right into a pvc drain pipe which I had failed to notice in my practice rides. This laid me out, I shouted "DRAIN PIPE" during my fall. But I got up and finally passed him. In the laps to follow I hit the deck four more times. The last time on the final lap after passing four or so other races I take a downhill switchback turn too recklessly and mudslide down the hill somehow releasing my front wheel in the process only to watch it role away from me. Someone from the peanut gallery pointed out "hey you lost something" with half a mind to crack him in the face, i shot him a frown and he apologized, I surlily mounted my bike and finished. Being from Cleveland I've learned to suck up the days losses, count the few wins you got, in this case a couple of pretty sweet wrecks, and move on......theres always next week.