Crisis of Faith
OK...so last night after the group decided to slow up to wait for me I remembered something I tend to forget every now and then....I suck.
Then it dawned on me: I signed up for 4 races next week alone. 2 of those are with packs of 19 to early 20 somethings who do nothing more than ride their bike all day. My "goals" or rather "intent" had been to be able to pack finish at least one race next week. I will still stick to that, but absolutely no promises (you hear me empty world we call the internet!).
Why was I thinking about cat'n up? I'm an idiot. At this point I wish the USAC system was set up a little differently. You come in as a 5 and race 10 mass starts. If you don't pack finish any of them then you are cat'd DOWN to a cat 6. When you start turning consistant results then you can go to Cat 4.
Yeah...like that will ever happen. USAC is filled with fellow weenies that can actually ride hard and tend to forget about the whole cat 5 thing because it's only temporary. Good riders scream through and forget. Bad ones suffer and quit.
It seems like many organizers have tried over the years to address the people in my position with mediocre success. Wisports series comes to mind. Meh.
The general line of thinking is HTFU. If you don't know what thay means I'll just say that parts of it are: Harden The ____ Up. To which I respond:
I suck.I suck.I suck.I suck.I suck.I suck.I suck.I suck.I suck.I suck.I suck.I suck.I suck.I suck.I suck.I suck.I suck.I suck.I suck.I suck.I suck.I suck.I suck.I suck.I suck.I suck.I suck.I suck.I suck.I suck.I suck.I suck.I suck.I suck.I suck.I suck.I suck.I suck.I suck.I suck.I suck.I suck.
Satan invented the scale
The last day of vacation I was feeling pretty trim. Almost as though I had actually lost weight during the trip. I knew that was impossible but I figured maybe I had at least minimized the damage.
The timing of the trip was kind of bad as far as my weight goes. I had just broken the 180 barrier that I seem to bottom out at every year. From what I know about those weights your body levels out at if you can actually get past them then the weight just sheds off to the next bottoming. I was hoping to start seeing that...then the trip came.
I took it all in stride and hoped for the best. The 2 days of car travel and chain fried food hell on the way back put some hurt on me. I got on the scale when I got back...187. I was pretty dissappointed. I knew that it was reading high and that most of that would come off in a few days so I tried to keep a positive outlook.
The next morning it read 185.5
Yesterday it read 183.
Today in the morning it read 182.
After the ride tonight it read 179.5. That's mostly water loss I know, but it still makes me feel good. I still have a pipedream of 165 sometime this year, but I would definitely settle for a mid 170's or low 170's that is sustainable. It's a lot easier to try to only lose 5-8 lbs next year.
I have said it before and I will say it again. If I can get to 165 the right way (not losing muscle, gradual loss through proper diet/blood sugar level control, etc) then I will be on fire on the bike.
Beautiful Day to Not Ride
Hrmpgh.
I got up at 5 to do the commute in to work. The Fox River Trail is what I use for the majority of the ride. The total commute is 50-ish miles round trip.
Well they decided to repave about 4 miles of the trail this year and decided to do so during the May 15-July 15 time period....right about the time gas prices started taking off.
The trail needs it. I just hate the fact that just about the entire affected area is along my commute. When I asked the Park Services about work arounds for the section they basically told me to go pound sand (in a nice way). They don't want to be liable for re-routing people on dangerous routes.
When I got up I found I was dragging a bit. I slowly put on my gear and was heading down to get breakfast when I realized I just didn't feel like playing I was Marco Polo this morning. Then it dawned on my that I could go change clothes, hang out with little psimet for a while, and then go to work and be early. Really early.
I chose the path of least resistance (get it?). Since I got to work everyone has come by saying 2 things: "Wow...you really are here this early." and "It's such a beautiful day. Why didn't you ride?"
Looks like I'll try to get home a little earlier to take lil psimet on a ride.
Hrmpgh.
Sometimes I hate wheelbuilding.
Wheel building can be a real pain in the ass sometimes. There really aren't a lot of really good resources for specific technical questions or aspects of building. I am too lazy to accurately model the stuff in a CAD program...although at some point I will need to, but that's top secret. So you end up having to make assumptions and just going with it.
Multiple times I have said...."it's just a mm. I should be able to compensate for it."
What's got my panties in a bunch right now is Mike Garcia's (well really they are Formula's) paired spoke drilling on his serenity rear hub (Formula RB217 or some such nonsense). Mike is just plain wrong when it comes to using an appropriate "X" variant to do spoke calculations.
He always says to use x.15. So to calculate the lengths needed for a 2X using that drilling you need to use a 2.15X in the calculations. He's burned me twice with that now. You end up with spokes that are about 2mm too short.
I can compensate for 1mm....not 2mm.
In my rush to put together the order list for the current 2 wheelsets I am building I paid little attention to a small change one of the recipients made. He changed the rear confirguration that I had put together for both sets from a 28 spoke 3X to a 24 spoke....leaving it 3X. Right now I have spokes running into the axle as they take the spoke line across the flange.
Dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb (me), dumb, dumb, dumb.
So in short....tonight I am an idiot. I was also an idiot when I approved the builds and ordered the parts. The Chinese engineer that designed the paried spoke hub flange on that hub is also an idiot. Paired spokes......idiot (sorry Keith).
Now I get to play "are you an idiot" with every LBS in the area tomorrow looking for the spokes I need. My guess is that I will find more than 1 idiot tomorrow. I will most likely end up having to order an additional batch from Cambria bike. At least with the Fredcast coupon you can usually get free shipping.
Sometimes wheels suck.
Most of the time they make you feel like you have tapped into the zen of the physical laws of the universe. Feeling the tension play between the components, massaging the assembly into a state of permanant static being. Knowing that when the rider takes them out turns the first pedal stroke they are going to think, "wow. Holy crap that's a big difference!"
I live to provide that. I can only imagine the feeling for me is not unlike what some operators feel when they have put forth their best effort in the manufacture of a weapon going to war. You know when you've tapped into the essence of the wheel while building and you know that, because it is well built, it will become an instrument of pain to be wielded by insanely skinny men on the steep slopes and windy flats of your local hammer ride.
Why not? Everyone else is.
