Dealing with the heat

Tomorrow's Panoche RR will be interesting. The first true race of the season where the temperatures will be high and the riding fierce. For me, at least, I've lucked out with most of my races being earlier enough in the day that it's not too hot and heat isn't a significant factor.

However, tomorrow's going to be different. I was thinking that hauling one of these along might serve some good for teammates. No worries about going without a bottle. But I will give the Panoche organizers their due. There's going to be several water stations for racers and since it's an out'n'back route, we'll get several opportunities to hit these up.

I doubt this will help me (...but then again I wouldn't mind myself being proved wrong by some ill-thought actions leading up to the race). I decided after hitting the steam room at The Brown Palace while in Denver that there might be some application of sorts to endurance sports. I dug around with a few Google searches to see if saunas or steam rooms provided any perks. It wasn't easy to find any serious evidence.

Anyway, over the past 3 weeks I've been hitting up both the sauna and steam room after my weight workouts at the company gym. Not both after each workout, but just one or the other depending on the mood (yes, my mood dictates which door I open). If there's a benefit, that's great. If not, at least I know going into the race tomorrow that my pores are working really well.

Saddle Update

Just received the replacement for the Team Toupe saddle. The problem with the tighter rail/saddle tolerances of 4mm have been fixed with the regular Toupe saddle. I'm a little bummed that the white/blue combo of the Team saddle won't be on the bike because it looked pretty darn good, but the undercarriage will be much happier knowing that it won't be bottoming out and hitting the seatpost hardware. The new saddle is white with some faux carbon bits on the front and back. Still pretty good looking.

I tore apart the old Gel Toupe that had the busted rails. The kids and I ripped off the cover as we wanted to find out where and what the gel looked like. Once the black cover was gone we exposed the guts. The gel isn't so much a "gel", but more like a softer black padding that has gel-like properties. There's gel under each sitbone area; what I wasn't expecting was the patch of gel right near the tip of the nose. It makes sense that they put a bit there, but I had no idea it would be there.

In the end, I'm glad to say that the regular Toupe is doing its job. Plenty of clearance between the saddle and seatpost. Now it just needs some ride time to break in and get comfy.

Mile High Work & Play

Hitting the road for work happens every so often in the world of acquisition integration. I've been in Denver the last couple of days doing a major network cutover for a recent acquisition. However, my bike has been at home and I've been pretty darn focused on the work tasks as hand. There have been some pretty cool things in Denver that I've done and experienced...

Let's get the work stuff out of the way. When an acquired is operating on a couple of T1 circuits, things can be pretty slow. When you bring in a DS3 circuit it's like drinking water from the fire hose. More than enough bandwidth to do everything you need.

Getting these up and running requires a bit of change to hardware and cabling. Network cables have to be organized and laid out for patching. All sorts of hardware gets racked and stacked into the data center. Routers, gateways, switches and probably a few other things I'm forgetting. And don't forget about the power that's needed too...these things suck up power and produce a ton of heat. Air conditioning gets added to the mix to keep things in check.

Where the rubber hits the road for this network stuff is behind walls where nobody sees the 'magic' happen. Ok, maybe not behind the walls, but in the hole in the walls where the network connections make it to the desktop. I have a new appreciation for guys who have the finger dexterity to do this kind of work for a living. Basically, you've got to break down the cat5 network cable into the eight strands and rewire them to the appropriate junctions in the jack (there's probably a technical name for this, but I don't know it). I think the only redeeming quality I brought into this task was that I'm pretty good with my hands on fine stuff like this; but then it backfires when I think I can meat out and over-power the mere plastic bits and pieces. My thumb took a beating and got all cut up. To get to the point, we got the network up and it was time for some play.

A full agenda was in the plans for the next day. Staying at the Hampton Inn isn't so bad. Free breakfast, nice large rooms, two 32" flat screens in my room...works for me. Plus, it brings back the fond memories of hanging at the Hampton in Madera (except for the crank). But I needed to upgrade my coffee fix. I found a nice place in uptown and along the way I ran into Logan Street. My daughter would be proud that there's a street in this town named after her (I emailed her the picture after taking it...7 year-olds are so Internet savvy already).

I walk into the coffee joint and immediately the barista asks, "Hey, how come you aren't out cycling today?". Man, this guy must have a psychic connection with me! Nah, he's probably just observant as I was wearing my Capo cycling cap. I was thinking the same thing, but taking my road bike to Denver was not in the cards on this visit. I was just lucky enough to have a free day due to getting the technical work done ahead of schedule. I guess effective planning does have some merits.

Soon my friend showed up and whisked us over to the Pepsi Center. It's been several years since I've seen a NBA game, and almost twenty years since I saw a playoff game in person (I think the '90 playoffs in Portland was the last time). I can't recall how old this arena is, but it's got everything...and plenty of people who gawk. I probably had at least five people inquire about my height. Luckily for them I was in a good mood and didn't give them a jerk response (yeah, catch me on a bad day and I'm bound to be a smartass at times when asked questions about my height).

We ended up having seats about fifteen rows up from the Dallas bench. Everybody in our section was giving Mark Cuban a pretty hard time. Afterward a friend told me that Cuban tweeted about how brutal the fans were to him...it probably will only get worse. By the end of the series, if this goes the distance and Dallas has to come back to town, Cuban might just want to stay in his hotel room. Denver won the game and I became a fan, at least for the rest of the playoffs. Chris Andersen (aka Birdman) is a pretty high-energy athletic big guy who comes off their bench and gets the crowd into the game. My sister would be his #1 fan due to all of his colorful tattoos.

After the game I decided a little pampering was required. I visited the spa at The Brown Palace. The name itself just makes me chuckle; it sounds like something out of South Park. But this place is no laughing matter. The architecture inside the building is top-notch and the spa is pretty good too. I opted for the cheap twentyfive minute focus massage. My left shoulder has been pretty tight since the Wente RR when driving to the race I turned my head to change lanes and felt my muscles seize up a tad. The 'suse beat me up and I'm still sore (three days later).

Lastly, the food in Denver was really, really good. Between the tap room with its 100+ options (I got a Belgium brew, St. Bernardus or something like that), the Spanish tapas, Indian, Italian and a nice steak, the meals were superb. It helps that most of the reviews on Yelp! are pretty accurate. Here's the dessert from Sullivan's Steakhouse. It's a creme brulee, but sized for two people. I disagree...it's the right size for me. Rumors abound that sharing something like this can lead to marital difficulties. Thankfully it was all mine.

Bald Spot

Thanks to the genes in the family, going bald is probably a long shot for me. If I were to head down that path, you'd quickly see me going to the local Long's and buying a heavy duty Wahl to keep thing high and tight

It's been about a year since I decided to go all Grizzly Adams and let the old beard grow. The current growth is just a sign of laziness on my part since shaving while I've had this cold is not something I really feel like doing. However, I did notice something unusual this morning in the mirror when I looked at my mug.

Apparently my bicycle helmet snap had created a bald spot under my chin. I don't have any issue with being "Manley" and growing a beard, but these spots look weird. Yeah, spots...plural. Just checked again and there are two distinct areas. Apparently the bike helmet industry hasn't caught on to this adjacent benefit from their gear. Too bad it can't work for my entire face. Shaving is just a hassle.

Why 4mm matters - Specialized, read this and let me know your thoughts

This evening I received a box from my FedEx friends with some new bits for the road bike. Over the past year I've dabbled a bit with some lightweight parts. These have been fun given the light weight, but after riding some of our rougher venues I want to make sure I've got some solid components under me that will not fail.

Gone are the old stem (3T) and seatpost (KCNC). The 3T stem isn't a weight-weenie part in the truest sense, but you'll see my logic soon. The seatpost is definitely uber-light, but the clamping mechanism destroyed my rails on the old Toupe saddle (see last blog post for details). I went with a new Thomson stem and seatpost. Why both? Because I think it just looks better when you've got matching components. I'm just a bit OCD about this at times.

Why does 4mm matter? It matters when your underside is concerned! With my old Toupe there's a ~15mm gap between the rails and the edge of the saddle. The new Toupe I got last week (team edition in blue/white) only has ~11mm gap. This matters because the Thomson clamping mechanism has a part that protrudes up a bit. When the saddle bottoms out and flexes it now hits the top of this clamp.

I'm hoping it won't hurt me, but Specialized, why did you change the specs? Sure, one model is the gel version and the other is the team version, but wouldn't the distance between the rails and saddle be the same? If I've got a defective saddle, let me know and I'll personally drive down to Morgan Hill to get it replaced.

But then again, I do have three kids and we're not planning for any more. Maybe this is just a cheaper solution than taking a visit to the doctor for the snip-snip.

Saddle Showdown - Fizik vs. Specialized

You've probably heard it from everybody, more so than you know. Those wise words of advice around saddles where some wise experienced rider waxes about how it took them years to find the right saddle. And now that they have the right saddle, they continue to preach the mantra that "...everybody's different...".

I'll agree w/ the "different" argument. My first saddle was a Fizik Arione. It looked fast, cool and aggressive. Yeah, it was aggressive. Aggressive in how fast it caused me to go numb! Not to walk completely away from the Fizik's, I tried the Aliante next. Boy was that a comfortable saddle. But I could never get that dialed in; I still went numb.

I finally found bliss with the Specialized Toupe. Initial scorn of the big box "S" from Morgan Hill was soon turned to passionate zeal for their butt-friendly product. Once I got it dialed in, I knew I had found "my" saddle. Over the years I've tried a few different variations on the Toupe. The gel version was ok, but not as good as the original. Plus it weighs a bit more and that's a no-no. I've got enough padding on my rear end (but reasonable when you look at some of those larger behinds at our local crits...you know who you are).

The past two years I've been using the same black Toupe. It was with me pre-back injury and was a friend during my recovery and subsequent category upgrades. But I got a seven year itch this past week and wanted to try something different. I took the saddle off and realized that the rails were pretty beat up. The picture below might not do justice to just how bad they had bent. So much that the saddle could no longer rest flat on its' rails. Some of our local roads and races left a permanent mark on the ole' Toupe.

The silver paint on the plastic front had worn off. If you look close enough you can see just a bit of daylight underneath the bent rails. I hated to have this thought go through my mind, but this old horse needed to be put down. So what was I going to try instead? Another Toupe? Nah, let's see what new saddles might work...



A quick call to Bicycle Outfitters and I found out they had just received the latest Fizik saddle. The Antares hit the market a few months ago after being introduced at Interbike. The bright orange saddle stuck out like a sore thumb. Hopefully it would feel better than sitting on your own thumb.

The nose of the saddle is a tiny bit wider than the Toupe, but not too noticeable. I did notice, however, that when I would climb out of the saddle and then sit back down, the width of the saddle was a tad startling at first. Apparently my taint wasn't prepared to meet so much saddle when sitting down, but I soon got over this and it didn't bother me. And speaking of climbing, this saddle was very nice on the climbs. Very firm, with no noticeable flex. The flare of the saddle toward the rear makes it very comfortable to sit and spin up our longer climbs. No issues with going up.


However, things just didn't feel right when on the flats and in the drops. Maybe it was me being so used to the cutout of the Toupe that having a normal saddle just felt wrong. I could never really get comfortable, and knowing how much I like to just bite the bit and hammer in the drops, this was a non-negotiable for me. No way did I want a squased underside to hinder the hammering.

I ended up riding about 150 miles on the Antares. I probably could have ridden the saddle more and seen more positive changes to both my adaptation and that of the saddle from breaking in a bit more. But my old love the Toupe was calling. Not the busted friend that had been with me all these years, but a new Toupe to match the colors of the bike. Might I right the Antares? Sure, but it's in second place. My "boys" are sticking with the product made by the boys down at the big "S" shop.

Death by Salad

At my place of employment, cafeteria services have been outsourced for a long time. So much so that people have been receiving on hell of a deal for their meals at the various cafeterias on our campus. One staple of my infrequent visits to the cafeteria has been the salad bar.

I work from home the majority of the week, so when I have the option to build out a fantastic salad, I jump at the opportunity. My two "go to" ingredients are the blue cheese crumbles and the fresh-off-the-grill bacon bits. Last week the bacon bits were still warm and glistening! Not technically veggies, they do serve their purpose in the whole scheme of my salad.

What you see in this picture is a large salad bowl. Not completely heaped up with veggies to the max, but a nice full bowl. This normally would have cost around $5.

Last week the prices changed and the salad bar would be charged at $0.40/ounce. I don't know much about ounces; besides all my bike components are weighed in grams. But I did receive one cautionary note from a peer earlier in the week. He gave me fair warning that the salad bar was THE most impacted cafeteria item from the price increases. Sure, it might be a bit more, but probably something reasonable.

What you see in this picture, besides a nice salad, is a meal that just cost me $9.93! Yes, almost ten dollars for a salad. I was blown away. In fact I was so enraged (but not so overly enraged that I didn't pay for it and walk away...) that I raised my voice at the checkout counter to let others know how much of a ripoff this meal had just become.

The cafeteria vendor has just taken a probably high margin item where they make a ton of money on anyways, and just jacked it up astronomically. What's even more sad is that this is the most healthy thing left in the cafeteria. They took away the fresh fruit, yogurt and cottage cheese...now they are charging an arm and a leg for the most healthy items remaining on the menu.

If people continue to eat there and realize that they have to change their eating habits due to the cost of food, you'll see the general population become unhealthy because the $4.25 cheeseburger and fries are the only reasonably priced option left on the menu.

This could be the last salad I eat at my employer for a very, very long time. Sad.