Sunday.......

I have been feeling sick and fighting to stay afloat with the house, work, and getting ready to go to Kenya (more on that later), so I wasn’t really thinking I would do the cross race last Sunday out at Woodward Park. In fact I was very close to just saying forget cross and selling my cross bike to remove the distraction. Well, anybody that knows me would understand that as soon as I was out there it was no turning back and I pinned a number on and went for it.

60 minutes of pure pain, suffering, dust, and mud holes of glorious goodness. It was fun and definitely recharged my batteries. It was great for me but the really cool thing was that Tracy got out there and lined up.

It was a big deal considering that it was pretty darn close to a year to the day that she walked for the first time after her accident. She looked great out there. I could tell she was nervous. I knew what a big deal it was to line up for the first time after the last year and a half of recovering, but I just kicked her in the butt and said go warm up….

Don’t know if all ya’ll know about cross racing but it is very demanding on the body. Ride as hard as you can on dirt, gravel, over loose sand and dust, through mud holes and then run up steep hills carrying your bike. Then you have to jump off and carry your bike over 18-inch tall barriers, then navigate sharp off camber turns and tricky, twisting descents with your heart rate pegged at threshold. Super hard physically and mentally. You either love it or hate it. So with that in mind, this was a good test of Tracy’s body, and she passed. Of course she was sore and tired, but her body and, more importantly, her hip handled it very well.

By the way did I mention that she won the women’s race? Stud. So there is another one this weekend and we will be out there again. So, if you get the inkling, come check it out.

Details at http://www.homegrowncross.com/

Later

Crazy Kids

Reed put those glasses back!!!!!

Doping

Ok,

So, to answer that question. I don't think every cyclist that wins a pro race is a doper, but when there are surprising amazing feats of strength out of somebody that usually or historically hasn't been that strong, then you have to wonder. That was the case with Ricco, and Schumacher, and to a certain extent Kohl.....

Back in the 90s that wasn't the case because everybody was doping, but now it is not that case. I have to truly believe that the sport is way cleaner now than in the past. I need to believe that, because I love this sport and have been following it for over 20 plus years. It is the only thing I follow closely.

The anti-doping advocates are out there. Pros are pissed that people keep screwing things up for everybody else. Now every time a positive comes in, a sponsor leaves or coverage gets pulled. That is not good for anybody, and not good for signing contracts. Anyway.....refining by fire, you burn away the crap to get back to the true metal, the Gold....

Schumacher

Once Again.....

If it sounds too good to be true. It probably is..........

Hum....

Interesting.....
and Very Nice.....

Barf

So, Lance is coming back.

Barf, hack, wretch...


That is the sound of me losing my lunch.

Just when things were getting good. Now we get to hear a whole bunch about him and not enough about all the other great, up and coming riders. Now I will have to answer a million questions about Lanc's comeback at work. Yeah, Excitement.

I think I just saw Levi jump off the Golden Gate Bridge.

Nice

Last Saturday I got out of bed at 4:30, and threw on my kit to meet Beers and a bunch of other dudes at his house to roll for 3 to 4 hours. I needed to drop a check off for the contractor so I decided to leave early and head over to his house and then turn east and make my way to Mike’s.

If I leave by 5:15 I would have plenty of time, but when I grabbed my bike….I had a flat. Now I was pushin it. Rolled out of the drive way at 5:25. Need to motor to make it. So much for a nice easy spinning warm up. Dark....Can’t really see, but blast forward.

I am rolling, cruzing the City streets. My shadow chasing and passing me, as I move under each streetlight. I remember when I was a kid when me and my partners in crime would head out at night on our bikes. I remember back then the same shadow, chasing me and then catching me. The shadow has changed over the years, but the same yellow streetlight illuminates the way. Baggy pants and ball cap, traded for spandex and Styrofoam lid. The feeling is still the same. So many great memories of warm summer nights, riding the bike. We were not necessarily looking for trouble, but occasionally we would find it.

Riding through the neighborhoods and residential streets, swapping leads with my shadow. I hit Bullard and Cedar and roll into the field north of State U. Lights are gone now and so is my shadow. Just me and the silhouette of the Sierra out in front. The turquoises blue of the early morning dawn the only light. Can’t really see the road, but I know its there. Nothing to get in the way. Rhythmic breathing and the turning of pedals. I love that feeling. Out on the bike before dawn, riding into a new day. Heading up into the hills, finally the sun hits you and the cold vanishes into a void of early day warmth. No cars……just breathing and the rhythm of the pedals turning. Black stretch of road just keeps on coming. Undulating, curving, rolling past the signs of other peoples lives. Lost in the midst of the moment. Oak trees and filtered sun are the only companions of the road. The road just keeps on going, until you make that turn into the driveway and you start dreaming of the next meeting with your shadow. The next time the wheels touch the road…..and it is nothing but breathing and turning.

Later

Uggh

Ughhh,

What a pisser. Sometimes, life deals you a little smack down, a little backhand action.

The Games We Play

Well, I finally have some time to write something down. Why? Cause I am waiting at the airport. Another one of those trips where I spent a 14 hour day for a one hour meeting. Well this time it was two meetings, actually one meeting with some pissed off developers and a presentation to the Big Gorilla.

Actually, the developers weren’t pissed until they heard what we had to say. It’s a long story, but I will try to tell the short version. You see, I am an infrastructure planner, developers love my stories, or they hate them. Good news, or bad, but never in-between. Yes or no, never maybe. Engineers like definite answers, no room for shades of grey. Yet, there is always grey. That’s what makes a good planner, being able to ferret out the important black and white and massage the grey to make it work. What are the hot buttons, who are the people involved, it’s a game, just like any. Deliver the message the right way so the right people like it, while still making sure the engineering is sound.

Anyway, we have this client, a Big Gorilla down in the jungle. They are in a tough spot as they need to make some improvements, and they have needed to do them for a while. Well, the projects only cost about 120 million bucks. They can’t bring in development unless they make the improvements, and they can’t construct the improvements unless they get some money from developers.

Anyway, these two guys, they got 50 acres, right, a mere speck in the Big Gorilla’s forest. Well, they want to build some houses. Can’t do that unless you got some place for the crap to go, right? Well, anyway, the Big Gorilla has been telling them, “sure you can connect, all you need to do is pay Joe Engineers to do this study, right.” Except the Gorilla already knows the answer, No capacity…….So they show up at the meeting where we tell them, “Sorry mates, no capacity”. The dude looks at us and calls the whole thing a set up, and starts spouting about litigation and lawyers and all that good finger pointing stuff. We say, hey man were just the messenger, but actually they weren’t pissed at us, just the fact that they have millions of dollars on the line and yet, they have to jump through another hoop.

We felt like some chumps…..you see….the Gig Gorilla needs money, and Joe developers got some (at least right now) and Joe developers, they really want this project to happen, right. So the Big Gorilla uses us to leverage Joe developer and squeeze some lunch money out of them. Except, these Joes are not going to back down, there like that scrawny kid who fights back, kickin and scratching, held up by his shirt collar as his feet swing two feet off the ground.

We got played as the middle man, and Joe was pissed, F-bombs dropping like its going out of style…….poor schmucks. You can tell they are under the gun. Looking at losing it all, the thing is, Big Gorilla needs them, or needs their money, but Big Gorilla needs them to sweat a little so they may agree to kickin down a little more than they would otherwise.

Playin with people like that ain’t right, but we had to keep our mouths shut, cause, you never know when that BIG contract could be right around the corner, and self preservation is the name of the game in Jungle. Big Gorilla dishing out bananas to those that scratch his back.

It’s a sick game.

Freakin Dopers

The Cobra, just like his idol, the Pirate.....goes down in flames. I feel sorry for the kid, led astray by his own ambitions. Now, likely jail time, a 100k euro fine and possibly the end of his career.

Maybe his nick name came from the needle marks in his arms. Cobra bites.