Knobs

Today was hot, very, very hot and humid, after several days of nice cool weather (at least for July), the regular Ohio Valley weather came back with a vengeance, and so of course, I decided to do a long ride today.

My plan originally was to drive to New Albany and ride from there, but what with gas prices being the way they are, I just could not justify that to myself, so leaving Utica, I rode down to the Falls of the Ohio and then on to New Albany. I ran into a teammate in Clarksville and he rode with me to New Albany before he had to turn off to head to work, either that or he just wanted to leave before I got to the hills. There were several long steep hills that I had to go over before I got to my objective for the day - Blunk Knob. Blunk is one of the longer knobs around, around 1.3 miles long, and while not terribly steep, is still a very long, grinding climb. At the top of this hill, I turned left on highway 62 and headed for Farnsley Knob, which I rode down (as I would not try to climb it, it is just too steep). By this time the heat was starting to take its toll on my. Finally, I worked my way back to New Albany and then home. The first picture is not Farnsley Knob, but one of the knobs right next to it, and the second picture is a wall along an alley in New Albany.

At least I made it home in time to see Carlos Sastre ride the time trial of his life to protect the yellow jersey in the Tour, and guarantee himself a win tomorrow.

Triple Digits

They say that some like it hot, well, that is not me. Summer is again here with a vengance, as it was over 100 degrees here yesterday and it feels like the temperature is headed that way again. And, hey I am the fool out there riding in this weather.

Yesterday was the Indiana State Road Race Champioships up in Indianapolis. I had to get up really early to make it there for the 8:15. This is a race that I was going to do earlier in the summer, but it had been rained out (actually stormed out) back in June. I was racing in the 4/5 field, so I felt that I should be pretty competitive in the race. Unfortunately the course did not really favor my strengths, nor did it favor breakaways, as the field of around 75 racers stayed together for the entire length of the race (42 miles). There was one little hill on the course at around 1 mile to go to the finish, and at the top of that hill on the last lap, I tried to shift down into a harder gear and my rear derailuer did not shift, so I kept trying to shift again and again. Well, it took my a minute to figure out that my derailuer cable had snapped (at first I thought that my shifter had bit the dust, but lucky that was not the case). The problem was that this left me with only one gear for the final sprint, my hardest gear. It might seem that this is the gear that I would want to use in a sprint, and yes it is, but only for one last burst of speed, I needed my other gears to build up to speed, instead of trying to grind out the 600 yard sprint to the finish from my 53/12 gear. I still did better than I thought I was going to, and was actually moving up into the top 15 or so with 100 meters to go, but then people started to catch me and I finished the race in 34th place, so who knows what it would have been if I had been able to use all my gears. But while that was disappointing, honestly, it did not bother me all that much.

This morning, Kate was going over to her parents to work on her costume for the Anime convention, so I took the opportunity to get in a long ride. There is a club ride that leaves from Silver Creek High School up in Sellersburg on Sunday mornings that has a 50 mile l00p, so with the mileage of riding up there, the ride would be around 68 miles for me, a pretty good distance.

When I got up there, a couple of my teammates were there also, so I knew that it would be a pretty quick ride. In the end, one of my teammates split off from the ride pretty early on, so there were just two of us to finish the ride. The ride heads north from Sellersburg, up in Scott County. Most of the scenery is classic southern Indiana, meaning rolling farm land, a few small villages, old homes, and scrub forests. We hammered the first part of the ride, and then took it easier when we turned into the wind at around 25 miles. The house in the picture is a little stone house that I have passed several times on rides and I always like it. It looks like something out of the Black Forest in Germany.

We did cut the ride short as we were tired of riding into the wind, and so the ride today ended up being 101Km or around 63 miles.

Lug Bro. Segundo checking in here. My like of my family has finally overcome my dislike for computers. Sorry to have been away for so long. And the real funny thing is that this is actually a post, in part, about a ride! But first, in beer news...The top photo is of Anchor Steam Summer Beer. And let me tell you, it sure is summer here. The beer was good, light and refreshing, a little bitterer than the Yebisu that I usually drink. But it really begged to be enjoyed outside, in the warm light of the Northern Michigan summer evenings, on the front porch or in a garden. Summer beer is really garden beer. And I finally found Westmalle! And in Tsukuba, no less. They have Dubbel and Trippel. The Trippel's still in the fridge. At 9% alcohol it calls for a special occasion (and maybe a friend to share it with--anyone want to come over some time and split it with me?!)
It's been hot here, and super humid. The humidity is what really kills me. But a thunderstorm blew through today and left us with a nice evening. So I jumped on my bike and got a little ride in before the sun went down. I wasn't on the bike long, but it was enough time to enjoy the smells of summer after a rainstorm, the mosses and the trees and the veggies and the flowers in the fields. The only thing that would have made it better is a friend to share it with. I think we need a Lug Bros. reunion pretty soon.

Norton Commons Crit

Today was my second day of crits. This race was at a development called Norton Commons which is just like the town from The Truman Show - there has got to be a bubble over it. It is called a traditional town development where everybody knows your name. The race was another 1/2 hour that started fast and stayed fast the entire time. But, unlike yesterday, I got a good start and was able to stay with the main group througout the race. There was one bad crash involving the leaders on the last lap and I finished on the lead lap about 10 seconds behind the winner. Kate, her mom, and grandmother came to watch the race. They found a nice shady spot on the corner to cheer me on. The funniest part of the race was that there was a "no cussing" rule enforced. I broke that rule.

We enjoyed some gelato after the race.

ps - Kate helped me write this. See if you can guess the parts that were commentary.

Rain & Lemon Beer

This is how I spend my days when it is raining. It is not a lot of fun to ride my trainer during the summer because even with the air conditioning, I still end up sweating terribly. But I guess it is better than getting soaked all the time outside. I was also caught in a huge downpoar, which I will admit was worse than riding inside.

This weekend I am doing two races here in Louisville. Both of the races are criteriums, which are short, fast races, which are the races that I am the weakest at.

Yesterday's race was certainly lousy, as I got off to a bad start and never got near the front of the race. The leaders rode away and I was stuck chasing, but kept feeling like I was riding backwards. After awhile a group of riders who were in similar position to me formed up, and we started to pick off a number of riders a head of us. Unfortunately, it was too late as the group I was in got pulled out of the race with about 6 laps to go.

The frustrating part of this race was that I did not feel like I races as well as I could and because I thought that I had been training well and riding strong. Oh, well.

On other note, I stopped at the local good beer store yesterday and picked up this bottle of Stiegl beer. It was a mix of a pilsner and lemon soda. It is a cool bottle if for no other reason than its label. Actually that is about all that it has going for it, the stuff tastes pretty funny and has a nasty aftertaste.

Mountains of Indiana

Here is a view from the mountains of Indiana (actually it is at the top of Farnsley Knob).

Le Tour and Donkeys

This weekend Mom (Linnea) came down to visit and we had a nice time with her. We mostly hung out around Utica, took the dogs for some walks, Mom took some walks to find fire works, we went to John and Sandy's for a cook out. We rearranged our new living room furniture 4 trillion different ways. We had John, Sandy, and Grammy out for dinner (and did more living room rearranging). Mom left around noon today and Kate and I took a nap this afternoon. After that, I headed out for what I had decided was going to be along ride.
I first rode up to Sellersburg, and past these donkeys, who had been trying to make more little donkeys just a minute before I took this picture (I am sure that the people who drove by me while I was standing there taking this picture thought I was a nut case).
After this I headed up into the Knobs, and rode out to Starlight, a small settlement where there is a huge tourist trap farm called Hubers. They have a small winery there, so here is my ode to France for the Tour. I then headed down one of the steepest hill that I have ridden down. I don't think that the picture does it justice. I was seriously contemplating getting off my bike and walking down.

At the bottom of this hill, I turned left and headed to the small town of Borden. I rode through town and headed up Daisy Hill, another Knob, and then came down on the other side through Farnsley Knob.

I am not sure how far the ride was, cause I accidently hit the reset button on my bike computer, but it was probably somewhere around 60 miles.

I see lots of single speed bikes in Tokyo (I hear they're popular in New York too, and probably in Berlin, Paris, L.A. and other fashion centers of the world, but what would I know about that?) Fashion aside, they're awesome bikes, all lugged steel and deep rims and old-school parts. Check out the seat post in the last photo--I'd love to have one of those for my Buddi, especially in gold!

How long do you think white tires look cool?

I like the new colors for the blog, by the way.

Regatta

I have no idea if I spelled Regatta correctly or not, but oh, well, I will let my editor correct that one. I was walking the dogs after work and we went down by the river and the local sailing club was out, so when I left for my ride I rode down to the rive to see if the boats were still out and as you can see, yes they were.

Kate got back from ALA late last night, and of course it was wonderful to have her back. This weekend while she was gone I did get in alot of riding (probably around 150 miles in the time that she was away), but I don't have any pictures of the rides, oh, well.

Nothing really excited to talk about on any of my rides, though I did cut my long ride on Sunday short to make it to my kickball game, which turned out to be a huge waste as Kate and I both agree that we probably played on the worst kickball team in the history of the world (but don't let me belabor that point).

The weather has been unseasonable mild here for the past week which also contributed to the good riding the past week or some.

Dude where Ferdinand?