On the docket, Het Volk & Merco RR

For all the problems I've had with cycling.tv (which fully deserves its own post), I gotta say I love watching early in the morning with a cup of coffee and the newspaper. Gilbert is attacking at Het Volk, and I really like his style. He's the strongest with 25km to go and he just drops folks by going off the front again to drop those he caught from the original break after he bridged across.

So coming up this weekend is the fun in Merced. I haven't been racing for long, but I'm feel like I'm quickly becoming the Rick Steves of the central valley. Learning about all the backroads and local faire as I travel through the area for races. Some folks complain, but it's really a great way to discover new areas of the state that I haven't seen before. Maybe my tune will change in a few years when I realize that I've been doing the trek for many years and I get bummed out about the growing urban sprawl. Cynical, yeah...but I've seen it happen already. Just as long as Casa de Fruita is still in business.

The crit isn't on my list for today, but the RR is (Merco RR...). This looks like it will be a fun race with a relatively large field who hasn't seen much action yet. How can I make this prediction? Because I'm an Excel junkie and spent a bit of time looking over past results this season and slapping a few vlookups into a spreadsheet to give me my analytical advantage. Here's my secret...it's not focused training on long threshold intervals, nor doing sprint work. It's being able to know your competition and using something from the Bill Gates armada to give you that slight advantage of knowledge. Like GI Joe said, "knowing is half the battle".