Dirty hAIRy

This poor air quality sucks. Let's let this whole state just burn down so we can get this out of the way and plant some new seeds and find some fresh air. Yeah, a little ranting never hurt, but this is just impacting on several fronts.

The kids are couped up in the house for the majority of the day because the air is nasty enough that playing outside just results in wheezing and general mucus madness. We're keeping Kleenex in business around my house for sure.

I'm bumming because I can't even see blue sky. Not too much to ask for, but when I don't see it due to general haziness it bums me out. I grew up in the Northwest so I'm used to not seeing blue sky for months, but at least I could rationalize and know that the clouds were bringing rain, which was good for everything (as a kid you do this, knowing that rain at your house in the cold winter means fresh powder for you and your snowboard on Mt. Hood). This crap in the air is just a really bad form of mass population genocide gassing on a subverted level.

Lastly, this poor air impacted me on my training ride today. When I last rode on Tuesday the air didn't bother me. In fact, I think the air quality was a bit better Tuesday night. But back to this afternoon... I rolled south out of Almaden Valley looking to do some sweet spot interval work (i.e. around 90-95% of my FTP). The first 12 minute interval wasn't too bad; the second was a little tougher. Both were within 2 watts of each other for average wattage and in the right range I was looking for.

My apologies to Hutchinson as I was acting anti-social during my second interval as we crossed paths on Santa Teresa. I was heading south, he rolling north sticking that sleek nose/bike/body of his into the headwind.

Another 8 minute interval up and over Willow Springs and then one last 8 minute blast of pain on the way home on McKean. Those last two intervals really hurt. My power on the mark again, but I think with all the dirty air my ability to process oxygen and get it to my muscles was impacted. I got done with those intervals feeling like I had just put myself into a timeout in the pain locker.

If this air quality doesn't get better I might just be sitting on the sidelines for another day or two.

Carbon Clincher or Tubulars?

Talk about not having the best of luck. I decided to give the deep dish tubulars a spin yesterday and see how they would hold up with the evening south bay winds. About 20 minutes from my house I realized the rear had a slow leak. I was able to get back home and safely put on my low profile tubulars. Back on the road I'm happily making my way to the SJBC Tuesday night crit and discover, yet again, that this wheelset has a slow leak too.

I get to the race and pump these back up and it was noticeable. The air leak could be heard and felt very clearly. The tire seemed to quit leaking at around 80psi, much less than the 140psi I wanted to run. Nevertheless I decided to ride anyways. It was super comfy, but not the most efficient ride.

So now I've got myself thinking about how much of a pain it is to deal with tubulars. I've been doing a bit of research on what's out there for carbon clincher rims and there are quite a few, ranging from Zipps (my least fav) to Lew's (mucho bling expensive). Throw in there the Reynolds and Edge Composite offerings and you've got an interesting blend of different price points, rim depths and build options.

On the plus side my abilities to glue a tubular real well were confirmed when I took off both leaky tires and about broke my thumbs off. In fact, while typing this up my hands are still fatigued. I doubt I'll be rolling my tubulars in the near future.

These announcers are brutal!

Just chillin' with the family this afternoon and I turn on the TV. Come to find out Tivo is recording the Philly race. After 30 seconds of listening to the announcers I want them out of my TV. Come on announcers, take a Valium and calm down. You're way too hyped up with 40 miles to go.

[fast forward to the bunch sprint...]

Announcers, it's pretty easy to tell the difference between the High Road and CSC kits. So, why oh why, can't you get it right. You keep screaming, "It's a High Road rider..." when it's clear as can be that CSC won the race. Then you don't even admit to your mistake when you make the right call.

I've heard better commentary on the mic from locals here in the Norcal region.

Not another forest fire in the Santa Cruz Hills

On the way home from dropping my mom off at the airport this afternoon I noticed some ominous clouds above the Santa Cruz mountains. I thought I saw a lightening strike but just wrote it up to something looking different with my new Oakley Ice Iridium lenses. However, I saw another strike only a few minutes later.

I really, really hope that these don't flare up into new forest fires. Those folks fighting the fires have been taxed and are probably at the end of their ability to function. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Now on to more happy things, I missed the first evening of AVC fireworks last night. But a change with the daughter's dance recital details might allow myself and Tate to get down to Hell-yeah. He doesn't know it yet, but there's a Kiddie Kilo race. He was stoked the last time he did this race a few Friday's ago, but he wouldn't clear the track. I literally had to pry his hands off his bars to get him off his bike. Adorable, but I can't have the little dude overtraining himself.

Dead after 4,500 miles

I've had pretty good luck with the batteries in my various PT wheels. Only once back in early November did I have my hub batteries die; it was a training ride where I really wanted the data as I was killing it on a common road I always train on.

Today the battery indicator started to blink, and again, I was doing some intervals. I had my fingers crossed that the batteries wouldn't completely die. They didn't! I looked back at my training log and saw that I last replaced these batteries roughly 4,500 miles ago. Not too bad for a $5 part.

Now if I could get the PT computer unit to give me this kind of performance I'd be happier. It seems to eat batteries every 2,500 miles.

The thrill of victory...the agony of kissing pavement

Gotta say I've never seen this happen at the front of the race, especially to the winner!

New man-crush

There aren't many tall pro cyclists out there, and this morning while watching the final stage of the Dauphine, the commentators discussion came up around the taller riders in the peloton. I think I'll be following this guy more: Marcel Sieberg. At 6'5" he's about the closest guy in height to me.

I also forgot to mention that Tom Zirbel is another tall guy too. Same height at Marcel, but doing more of the domestic racing stuff for Bissell.