Wednesday, May 28, 2008

BFF


This year's Bicycle Film Festival looks really good...Road to Roubaix, The Six-Day Bicycle Races, film shorts on bmx, messengers, David Millar (I hope they show him clubbing in Europe!!), etc. The above photo is from the Six Day Bicycle Races movie.

Looks like Toronto and Chicago are the two closest stops for this event.

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Race!

Don't forget to check out the two upcoming Mahoning Valley Cycling Club events...the Race for Alex on Sunday June 1 (a circuit race) and the Mill Creek Park Race (a criterium) on Sunday June 8. These are both very well run events on good courses. Link to info for both races is here.

Here is a photo of the break from last year's Mill Creek Park race:

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Monday, May 26, 2008

The week in pictures, W.Va style

Arrive at cabin.

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Ride.

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Cook.

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Eat.

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Hike.

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Repeat, several times.

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Monday, May 19, 2008

The Brave Sir Reuben...

...earned his first agility title on Sunday.

Saturday, May 17, 2008

The plan has come together

Finally.

And reservations have been made. After talking about it for a few years, this is the year I'll be doing the four-day Green Mountain Stage Race in Vermont from August 29 - September 1.

Now I just need to learn how to ride hills like those New England folks.

Friday, May 16, 2008

Thanks USCF

As I've already discussed on this blog, my trip to the (canceled) Bull Run Farm road race north of Cincinnati was a pretty big debacle. To add insult to injury, I also managed to lose my USCF racing license that day when I got it back from the promoter after turning in my timing chip.

A replacement license....a piece of paper with my info printed on it....costs $15. Wow, that really gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling inside. Sure, it's a donation to USA cycling, but I prefer my donations to be voluntary, not coerced. And I prefer that they be to organizations in which I have confidence with the way they are currently being run.

Lame.

Food for Thought

I tend to eat a lot. Biking makes me eat more. No surprise there. Did you ever wonder how all of that excess eating affects the world food supply? Yea, I know, we can drive ourselves nuts worrying about all of this stuff. But it's at least worth thinking about. And discussing. While out on the next ride, burning a bunch of calories.

And yes, I know, there are a million other reasons for food shortage issues....inefficiencies in the distribution chain, bad governments, subsidies to not grow crops, etc. etc.

Here is an excerpt from a recent article in the New Yorker:

The problem is not just the number of mouths to feed; it’s the quantity of food that each mouth consumes when there are no natural constraints. As the world becomes richer, people eat too much, and too much of the wrong things—above all, meat. Since it takes on average four pounds of grain to make a single pound of meat, Roberts writes, “meatier diets also geometrically increase overall food demands” even in those parts of Europe and North America where fertility rates are low.
***
Even now, there is no over-all food shortage when measured by global subsistence needs. Despite the current food crisis, last year’s worldwide grain harvest was colossal, five per cent above the previous year’s. We are not yet living on Cormac McCarthy’s scorched earth. Yet demand is increasing ever faster. As of 2006, there were eight hundred million people on the planet who were hungry, but they were outnumbered by the billion who were overweight. Our current food predicament resembles a Malthusian scenario—misery and famine—but one largely created by overproduction rather than underproduction. Our ability to produce vastly too many calories for our basic needs has skewed the concept of demand, and generated a wildly dysfunctional market.

Monday, May 12, 2008

Deep thought

Driving through the country and watching people spend hours obsessively mowing their multiple-acre yards/farmland before the grass has hardly even grown since the last time it was mowed makes me feel better about spending several hours a week riding and racing bikes.

That thought occurred to me while driving to southern Ohio on Saturday after racing in the final Race at the Lake.

The 1-2-3 race averaged around 26.9 mph and featured a bunch of dudes much more fit than I making people like me hurt a whole bunch for about an hour. How's that for a race report?

Here is a video of the riders entering the final lap:




Here is the finish:

Thursday, May 08, 2008

Well said

Cycle tracks will abound in Utopia.

~H.G. Wells

Tuesday, May 06, 2008

Westlake

Today was my first Westlake race of the year. We had four SBR's in the A field, including myself, John E., Chris B., and Tom K.

I managed to grab the first prime. Then, somewhere around halfway into the race, a well represented break got away without anyone from the team in it.

The field managed to catch the break with less than a half lap to go, and a mass field sprint ensued. Not much else to say, other than we didn't crack the top five.

I think we raced for about 40 miles, and averaged somewhere a bit above 26mph.

Monday, May 05, 2008

Bull Run Farms Road Race

Sunday presented many race options for those who were willing to drive 3 - 4.5 hours. A bunch of us from SBR decided to make the trip to southern Ohio for the Bull Run Farms Road race. It was closer and had a later start time than the Wilkesville to Wilkesville race that same day, and it was less likely to end in a flat tire than the Cone Azalia race (which featured 2.5 miles of gravel roads each lap) in Michigan.

The race was a disaster. After a bit more than one lap of riding around totally clustered with 60 other Cat 3's and no ability to move around because the center line rule was STRICTLY enforced and teams with riders in the break were blocking like crazy, the race was stopped because of two separate accidents, neither of which were in my field.

They postponed the race and are going to move it to a new location on a different day.

Did I mention that the second turn had cones along the center line of the road onto which we turned, right after the apex of the turn? Brilliant.

After the races were canceled, a few of us did a 20 some mile hammerfest. About 40 miles in all, including warm up, and 8 hours of driving.

I heart bike racing.

Friday, May 02, 2008

$147.77 road bike

Here is link to the bike.

Note that the GMC logo of the bike looks like the BMC brand logo, the Cionlli seat sure sounds (and looks) like Cinelli, and the style and font of the Vitesse logo on the wheels sure looks like the Easton wheels logo.

This bike appears to have more trademark violations than Wal-Mart has employees who receive health insurance.

edited: They changed the bike. The current photo is of a different bike than the one I had talked about in this post.

Thursday, May 01, 2008

Justice

A few weeks ago, I received a completely bogus ticket in Euclid for making an illegal left turn into the driveway of a business. I won't bore you with the details other than saying that I had resigned to the fact that I broke the law until I took another look at the "no left turn" sign I allegedly failed to obey and realized that it was actually more misleading than I had thought. Unfortunately I was driving home from paying the ticket when I realized this.

This ticket made me think about how many times drivers dangerously pass bicyclists with oncoming traffic or on a blind hill/corner. This is pretty much a given for most motorists, and it happens in front of police officers all of the time. Has anyone ever gotten a ticket for doing this? Perhaps unsafe operation of a vehicle? Driving like a selfish jackass? This happened twice last night on a group ride and scared the life out of us both times.

I guess it's only fair that I pay $125 for a victimless crime based on a deceiving sign while drivers everyday place our lives (and the lives of oncoming traffic) at risk for the sake of saving 6 seconds...and never receive a ticket.