Down with the sickness.....

Deep down I knew I should not of raced this weekend, but I did not listen to that inner voice and decided to get even sicker than I already was!  It was hard to say no to a race that is so close though!  Also it is the only WORS race I have on the calendar till late June now and it is always nice to see some of the people we race with!  So to say the least my race did not go well and I made it worse by throwing my bike on the ground and breaking the rear deraileur so that it would not stay in a gear and did not allow me to put much force to the pedals!  Oh well I guess. Either way I think the big news is the girls.  They showed up ready to go and had some good results, finishing in 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th.  Nice work to them!  Must be their mechanics taking good care of their bikes?  Here is the race report on cyclingnews for those who have not seen it. 

Besides the race, I think the best part of the weekend was spent in Amherst doing some Redneck weeding with firecrackers.  Yeah Ryan and Lisa brought bottle rockets up and it entertained us for most of Saturday afternoon!  Luckily we ended up getting out of it with all our fingers and did not catch anything on fire!  Flipp'n sweet! 

We then pre rode and had like 25 people over for dinner which made for even more fun!!  Starting to think that the race is the least exciting part of the weekend when you have a team like ours! 

Elvis, was that you?

So if you have not heard this past weekend at Cohutta was a bit of a roller coaster.  I got a  great start and actually took the hole shot into the first section of singletrack.  I set my pace early and tried to keep things controlled a bit even though Bishop was not happy with it.  I finally let him around me and the games started.  We hit the first section pretty hard then after we went down this road section, someone went to the front and set a pretty fast pace along the river.  It was like everyone wanted to win in the singletrack?  Everyone seemed nervous so I just backed off Christian a little and left enough gap to react if someone did end up going down.  Luckily that never happened!  So with everyone so amped up I tried to play it calm and it almost did not work out.  I laid back about 6th or 7th wheel with Christian just in front of me.  I ended up getting too relaxed and the next time I looked up a group of 4 were off the front!  Oops.  From then on the chase started.  Luckily I had some good help with Christian for a while, then Alexander for Costa Rica, and Christopher Michaels.  We ended up making it back on the lead group just before aide station 2 when Kevin Carter came up to us and finished the chase off!  Thanks!  We rolled pretty chilled for a while and I think that was the slowest I ever went up the long climb to aid 3.  Then through aid 3 Simonson attacked like normal since he receives feeds out there.  We all let him hang out there for awhile thinking it was too long for someone to go solo for that long and questioning what he was up to.  Justin Lindine and I would go to the front on the downhills to pull a few second back and then Christian would go to the front on the climbs.  After about 15 to 20 minutes of that we brought Mike back into the group.  Then at about 47 miles in, I got a glimpse of Elvis.  We were descending and at the bottom was a left hand corner.  I grabbed the brakes, and the entire front rotor flew apart.  Talk about panic!!  Luckily I yanked on the rear brake and slid it to a stop!  The skid though would of won any skid mark competition out there!   I took inventory and I made it out alive to fight another day!  At first I was disappointed cause we had a group of 7 that was away and not going to be caught and my legs were starting to feel good.  But in the end I thought about it and I was just happy that the front end did not lock up with a stray rotor piece.

So my next thought was, what next?  I was 10 miles from aid 3 and 4 miles to aid 4 so I started towards aid 4.  Well it was ALL downhill to aid 4 and it is very unnerving to be accelerating with the brakes on so I started to drag my feet.  I finally came around a corner and found the Michigan group standing there cheering everyone on.  I stopped and talked with them for a bit.  Asked if they had a spare rotor, they said no. Bummer!  Then I asked for the next best thing, you have a beer?  That was a yes!  So I set there and had a beer while waiting for Ryan and Scott to come through.  After they came through I made my way down to aid 4 to help with their support when they came back through and to work on how to get out of the woods! 

At aid 4 they told me that a ride would not be coming through till after the sweep vehicle, in about 6 hrs!!!!  Really!  Since I smoked my rear pads trying to get down the hill I now have no brakes and need to somehow get back to aid 6 where I knew Chuck was there giving us support.  I did have an extra set of brake pads with me so I changed them out.  I supported Ryan then when Scott came up I have never seen him in such a bad spot!  I made him take as much as I could stuff in his pockets and then I threw everything else in my pockets to get him back up the hill that we just came down.  The whole time back towards aid 6 I talked Scott's ear off and tried to get him to focus on anything but riding his bike.  I was getting no where!  All my questions and continual yapping went on without even an attempt to acknowledge.  Then out of the blue, Scott's alive!!  An event on the trail made him come to life, thanks to the person who offered the encouragement he needed!!  I will not go into what that was here, but it was pretty funny! 

So we finished our way back to Aid 6 where I finally pulled the plug on my day and got a ride back to the start with Chuck!  Once back there I learned that Sarah finished 2nd and Michelle 5th in the 65 mile race!  Nice way to start the season!!

So now onto the evening!  We decided to through Mark under the train, not sure what for, but it sounded like a good idea at the time!

Some more randomness, not just for bike anymore(you might have to zoom this one in?):

So next up is some training race for me in Iola!  Should be fun to see everyone again though and sounds like we might be racing in the rain?  See you there! 

Number on....

Just finished putting the first number plate on for 2012 and now chill'n with the rest of the team on the porch of our so called cabin on the river. Super excited for go time......... In the meantime here is the pre race press release. The stacked field is going to make it even more fun!

Game face

OK, not for me cause I really don't have one. What can I say, I like to mess around too much on the bike and race day is no different.  Either way the Cohutta 100 is just a few short days away and I am really excited.  It is going to be a fun time for sure and the race is sold out with a lot of familiar names on the start list.  I for some reason have had some good luck here and I hope that it continues this weekend.  The bike set up for the weekend is the Specialized Epic 29er, yes a 29er for me this year??  I will be running the Specialized renegades for tires, scrub rotors, Truvativ cockpit, and I will be doing my first race with the Quarq Power Meter.  Might have to just send that file to bossman without looking at it.  Not real sure I want to know what the power is at the end of 7hrs in the saddle??  Maybe I will post it here?? 

So to finish the prep for the big weekend, I ended up doing a big weekend of rides.  Started on Saturday on  the Tarmac.  Lets just say it was not a motivational ride by any means as I struggled to get my carcass back home.  Not sure what was a miss, but ouch that hurt.  Then I am not sure this is a bad day cause it happened, or a good day that a Pro bar wrapper became my tire tread and made it 40 miles back home???

 I know the picture is a little blurry but you get the idea.  I then decided to get the proper nutrient in my body so I was ready to go again on Sunday:

Come on, there is a water bottle back there, probably empty though!  That is also not Sprecher in the glass.  Timster stopped and picked up a couple growlers of Central Waters Belgian Blond.  One of the better brews that they make.  Next weekend at Iola I highly recommend you hit them up in Amherst.  Also hersheys was the only chocolate I could find in Tim and Sarah's house! I was going to say that is not right, but I probably ate it all the last time I was there:)   Also the last time we were there we had a beer from Mikkeller Brewery in Norway.  It was really expensive at $13 for a 8.5oz bottle.  It was their Brunch Weasel aged in Cognac barrels.  The interesting thing about it, well read the description of the stock beer before putting it in the Cognac barrels to age for 3 months.  Yup, it said what you thought it did.  Right from the Weasels butt.  I knew that they made coffee this way and it is the most expensive coffee that you could buy, but I swore you would never get me to try it.  That is unless you mask it in the beer form.  All I have to say is the beer is awesome, unfortunately we found out that we got 1 of 48 bottles brought into the state of Wisconsin!! As for the weasel, Mark mentioned he was OK with it cause he was going to just tell himself it was a free range weasel and that somehow made it better in his world??? 

So now that I was fueled back up, I was ready for some team action at the Kettles with Big D, Ryan, and Brian.  Was a good time for sure as we just traded leads and attacks on each other for the entire day!  By the end I think we all had a muffin moment and put in a little under 4 hrs, and a little over 40 miles of fun!! Was also a good last shake down on the bike leading into the first race. 

Next up is a 15 hrs drive to the south, east corner of Tennessee. 

All quiet on the bike front

So it is one week till the start of the season and everything seems to be in a nice place of zen.  It has been a long time sincee things were smooth sailing and everyday I woke up excited to ride my bike no matter the workout! Don't get me wrong VO2 workouts still suck, but they are more bareable when you are riding well.  It has also been nice cause I have parked the Tarmac and have been on the Epic 29er for the last week now.  I always find a day of soreness associated with a bike change.  I have tried everything and even have used Scott's Specialized BG fit knowledge on several occasions to make sure everything is dialed.  Everything that we can think of seems dead on , but there is something missing so going into bigger races I do all my rides on the MTB.  Using this plan has become easier this year because of the addition of the Quarq Powermeter to my MTB.  This allows me to still send bossman numbers of what I am doing instead of guessing at a TSS score for every ride.  Although I have noticed a huge difference between your TSS and KJs for the day on the MTB.  Especially when you get on a technical trail.  I really think that formula needs to be re-worked a little!  I can come off a hard mtb ride with several accelerations over 400 watts just completely tanked.  Then if I compare it to one of my road files it is not even close!  Must mean that I am efficient at just setting my pace and leaving it for hours on end and the accelerations are what kill me?  Could also explain why the 100 mile races keep calling my name.  This year I have added even more of them to the schedule and will be less present at the WORS racees, especially the early season ones.  So here is a peak at my schedule for the year:
  

This should keep me busy for the year.  I am still undecided for the PROXct race though.  It is the same weekend as the New Hamshire 100 and I really want to do that one but hard to skip a National race that allows you to sleep in your own bed.  Speaking of sleeping, I found this one the other day while riding.  I guess you never know when you might need a break.  From now on, this is where I will be doing all my intervals, just in case I need a nap!

If anyone knows me though, I do not nap!  I never really even sit down.  The one thing that I do get called out on is that I am always eating!  So my brother in law and his wife decided to help out with some extra calories! 

Yup, that is a 5KG(11lb) tub of Nutella!  So Michelle figured it out and I guess I need to get in something like 88 hrs of race pace workouts to use up all the calories in this thing! So if you have any good Nutella recipes send them my way! 

In other news, Big D has a birthday yesterday.  I think he turned 18 or so?? Acutally I think it was 27, so I started thinking about what was popular in 2001 when I was 27.  Well at the time I was riding a Litespeed Ocoee:

So after thinking about that I started thinking about Scott(oh yeah and McFadden), sorry older men.  I believe at that time Scott was riding a Yeti and McFadden a DBR, but not real sure so here is what Ned was riding in 1992.

Too funny! 

Just another day........

So there has not been much to talk about.  Been riding my bike a lot, having fun with it, and there are good leg days and some bad leg days.  All in all though I still love riding the bike.  Since being back from Prescott the road bike has been getting the love and I have chalked up some good miles on it.  Amazing how the difference in bike can affect the amount of miles.  Even between my cross bike to my Tarmac.  On my cross bike I would go out on a 4 hr ride and put out 60 or 65 miles, but on the Tarmac you can rip out 80 to 85 miles.  It seems to add to my motivation when you see more mileage. All in all I know it is still 4 hrs but it is not very often that someone actually asks you how many hrs you ride,  they always want to know the mileage. 

So with the change in weather and spring coming a lot of people have been getting that racing bug and it is coming quick.  I have my race schedule set for the year and it is heavily weighted with the long distance stuff.  Even skipping Chequamegon again this year.  I really thought I would miss this event, but I don't.  Yeah I miss the after race antics of the team, but the race itself has been my achilles heal for a number of years.  All I ever wanted was to hit the podium once and I have been close on a number of occasions but cant seem to get the job done.  So what takes its place, Marathon National Championships.  This year they are in Bend again and I cannot turn down another oppurtunity to head out there. I love the town and all the trails that surround it!  This year Michelle and I will be spending 2 different 2 week periods out there and one might include some house hunting?  Time will tell. 

Just might be.....

The best use for a Crap Pad!

Home again, Home agian!

But not after a fun trip home.  So Michelle and I rolled out of Press-skit on Friday morning after a good week of riding in the area.  Yup the snow melted and left us with some hard pack, fast, fun trails.  A little hard to piece them together so I made trail lists in the morning, here is our last day there:

It was nice that they used a number system, if not I would of needed more tape!  The grouping of trails pretty much finished the legs off and the ride almost ended up on the top of a picnic table. Tyler and I were descending the 305 and when we came out into a camping area I saw a table.  I rolled up to it and in one move rolled from my bike seat to laying on my back on top of the table.  Cooked!  The problem was, we had to get back over the hill to make it home, which meant over an hour of climbing and about 2 total hrs on the bike left!  So we set there for a bit and contemplated our options, yes one of them was to have Michelle pick us up!  We quickly ruled that one out though!

 So after some table setting we sucked it up and headed for home!  I really think the only thing that got me moving again was a double chocolate PRO bar, all I can say is Cocoa Pebbles!  Mmmm! 

Overall the day was not a waste, we made it to the top of Spruce Mountain, 7,600 and some odd feet in elevation.

Our other favorite trail in the area was the tire eater! Or as the locals called it the Black Canyon Trail.  Over the course of the 2 weeks we rode the entire 79 miles in both directions.  The last day Ryan was there we actually rode it from Meyer down to the Black Canyon Trailhead which turned out to be 6 hrs of saddle time!  Sweet.  The 6 hours were made better with the first hr of the ride all downhill, you have to love it when this is your Garmin profile, at least till you turn around:

With the day planned, Ryan thought he should do some calisthenics before getting going??  Its RK?:

In the end, this turned out to be our longest day, 6 hrs ride time.  6.5 hrs with the flats and chit chat breaks! 

So after everyone left us, it was down to Michelle and I to hit the roads for the trip cross country home.  We were loaded down with bikes and after some texts with Mikey I decided to call it the Peariso Non-Neutral Support Vehicle:

We narrowly missed a take over in New Mexico by an enemy that we could not see.  They had the biggest arrows ever though!

You can tell Michelle was driving at the time by the skew of the roadside barrel!  She is a speed demon in the new car!

After we avoided this attack, I thought we were safe for the trip home!  First Michelle's life was in danger after we left Albuquerque!  We did not find a latte from there all the way till we hit Wichita!!  Not good, then the only stop in Wichita that we found was Starbucks!  Really!!  No one in east New Mexico, the pan handle of Texas, or the pan handle of Oklahoma drinks espresso!! Must have something to do with bull riding and upholding an image?  Or there head has hit the ground so many times that it has knocked their sense of taste all of of whack and folgers tastes the same?  This could also explain chicken fried steak?? 

So things calmed after I found caffeine, that is until we heard that there were MTB trails in Lawrence Kansas and we decided to stop for the night and ride the next morning.  Ooops!  This was Saturday night, can you say final four!  Shows you how much I care.  Anyway, the first half did not go real well and Michelle and I did not want to stand around and witness what could happen if they lost:

Saw some pretty god sidewalk spills while walking the streets that made the stop worth while!  Anthoer thing that made the stop worth while:

So after a ride at the Clinton Lake Trails, we loaded up for the last time and made it back to the house late on Sunday night to complete the road trip!  Next up, Cohutta!

Press-skit

So the snow is gone and the trails are clear! Oh yeah, RK is gone too! Still blaming him for the snow that greeted us here, especially after his travel stories! One person should never have that much bad luck.


On Tuesday Michelle and I got out for a good amount of climbing around the area and started to scope the trails out. Some were good, some bad, but at the end of the day we rolled back into the house smiling and laughing even after the 6000ft of climbing, some hike a bike, and another 5hrs in the legs.

Then Tuesday night Tyler came up and joined us. So on Wednesday we went out and hit parts of the Whiskey 50 course, the good parts, and rallied around the west side of Press-skit. In the end we had another 6000ft of climbing, some killer downhill practice, and came up with the conclusion that the Whiskey 50 course is epic!

Today is the last day we have here and the course planning is in the works. There has been some discussion of doing the entire Whiskey 50 course, but that adds in some jeep trails, which at this point does not sound too bad. The legs are pretty tender from all the accelerations to get my butt over the hills and some steady tempo might be what I need.

Whatever we decide there is definitely some more "That does not suck" mountain biking in today's plans...........

No pedals needed

So week one of AZ camp is in the books and I have gotten used to the new bike.  I must say though, despite the 29er Kool Aid that has been passed out through out the cycling community I must say I do not notice a huge difference.  I think on a plus note the bike rides really well over technical accents which I really like!  On a negative though, I really notice the weight difference.  Hopefully this changes once I get my normal Roval Carbon Race wheels, race tires, and scrub rotors onto the bike.  This is probably good for at least a pound off the bike and should get it near the 21 pound range and only a pound heavier than its 26er "red" headed step sister.  Anyway, I feel good on the bike and really excited for the start of the season.  I know it is still a few weeks off, but my number say I am ready!  Lets hope?? 

So speaking of numbers, here is last week:

28.5 hrs
267 MTB Miles
14854 kjs

I am not real confident on the Mtb KJs though.  It seems really hard trying to get the numbers, especially when riding more technical courses.  Hard to overcome the zeros that get averaged in, but it is also hard to get any fatigue count on all the acceleration you make too.  Either way it is training and I am getting pretty comfortable on the MTB which was the plan. 

So the rides.  It seems like the Black Canyon Trail has become our go to.  Nice route and lets everyone ride their own pace with the out and back format.  It also eats tires though which we found out and has required the use of some duct tape to get home a couple times.  Sedona has also been a destination and I think we all enjoyed it.  Mark worked really hard to make all the hills seem smaller by crushing them with his fingers:

Not sure that really worked that well.  We also had Timster join us all week as he showed us his hidden skills!  Not sure how he made all the climbs he did with platform pedals!!  We even let RK guide us around Sedona!!

In the end it worked out though cause we did find the car. 

So now with everyone back home in Wisco, Michelle was stuck riding with me today. I had lots of fun, but I always get over zealous on my route planning.  Today was fun though as we explored the trails around Prescott now that the snow has melted.  We ended up with another 5 hrs of ride time and 6000ft of climbing.  The climbing was topped off though with a nice rip home of the 396 trail.  Sweet!!

Now we have a couple more days of riding then it is time to start working our way home! Bummer! 

AZ Team Camp

So we arrived in AZ on Sunday and it was snowing like Armageddon was approaching.  Starting to think there is something to the poles flip flopping with it snowing in AZ and 80 in Wisco.  Pretty crazy.  Either way, we came to MTB and that is what we will do.  Just means a little bit more driving which we are used to anyway living in Wisco and having to drive to most of the trail heads.  On Monday we rode McDowell park.  It was just as fun as I remembered for the NORBA days!  Fast, flowing, and the back side had a tail wind which made it faster than normal.  Also it was the first day on the 29er.  Not sure if I am allowed to talk about that anymore though, I am so far behind where all the companies marketing departments want me to be.  The next revolution is 650B since the World Cup win this past weekend!  Be ready to sell all your stuff and buy new again, just what the bike companies want us to do!  My opinion, if it matters, is that bikes are just fun to ride and I really do not care what the wheel size is! 

Yesterday we rode the Black Canyon Trails.  Those are a lot of fun and I learned that I went the wrong direction by starting on the south end and riding north towards Black Canyon.  Ended up with 5000 ft of climbing and 4 hrs of full on singletrack!! 

Today we are going to meet up with Tyler and ride from Black Canyon to the south trail head then back up again.  Should be about 5 hrs of ride time and 60 miles of singletrack, smiles, and sunshine!  Yesterday Mark won the tan line award with his helmet strap burned into the side of his head!  Here are some pics from the last couple days.   

So outdated!

So for the outdated news on Cali, here are the totals:

36 hrs and 24 min on the bike with a total of 498 miles.  Lattes, hmm, too many to count. Pastries much of the same. 

Now onto some of the more recent happenings.  All bikes are here, minus one which should be within the next couple weeks.  For the medium bikes we ended up needing to order an XT-cRap bike so the first thing to do with that is to scrap the stuff we do not need:

So if you know of anyone looking for parts, we have 3 XTR component groups to get rid of and they will go cheap.  Make me and offer and the easier you make it on me the cheaper the price. 

Also on the bike front we were hooked up with a sweet addition to the MTB this year and just in time for AZ camp. 

Quarqs!  Way excited to have this.  I plan to race with it, especially at the NUE races so look forward to some pathetic numbers at the 7 hr mark:)  So above is Michelle's bike in the build process, right down to some new decals.

Thanks to Mark for always setting the team up!  Now onto the team.  This year we have really made a point to ride as a group at least once a month.  At least as much of the group as we can since everyone is pretty busy.  This past weekend we actually split and the girls went to Milwaukee why the guys plus Brian came up to Amherst.  Made for a good weekend of riding an we managed to see how well Myles can suffer.  He is just coming of basketball season and his first long rides of the year are with us Ya-hoos.  Both days we did around 4 hrs and I think he blew at about the 2 hr mark both days but suffered like I have not seen someone suffer to make the entire distance.  I am pretty sure I would of found a coffee house and made everyone come back and pick me up in the truck! 

After Saturdays ride, we grilled out, drank beer, and made fun of Ryan and Myles building their bikes.  At one time we had 10 Sworks downstairs and 2 in the garage!  Spoiled!

So why those guys worked on the bikes, I just chilled and made my only strenuous effort a trip to the beer cooler!



I rested cause my bike is done, minus the carbon wheels:

Those wheels are freak'n huge!  Guess I will see how they work in AZ and I am hoping to not have to scramble for smaller wheels!

So now to Sunday, 75 miles for Myles, 2 sections of mud/gravel, some pretty good attacking each other up the hills, and a pacing session!  Oh yeah, and another Myles meltdown as stated before.  This one turned into a big suffer fest for all of us so I cannot imagine what was going through Myles head! 

We then finished off the weekend with some pizza! Good team weekend for sure!

Now onto the week.  Busy to say the least.  Yesterday my ride was cut short by a thunderstorm, yup in March.  I hid out at home, had lunch, then finished my ride back into work for 3 hrs of the 4 hrs planned.  Today is more of the same with 4 hrs on the schedule, but no thunderstorms, just mid 60's and the return of the road bike!  So for the year thus far I am sitting at 2406 of studded tire humming miles.  Ok and some warm Cali riding thrown in there as well.  For the week we are also trying to balance getting the new car, getting it ready to leave for AZ on Friday, and since I was getting board, I am leaving for Florida on Thursday to do some programming on an Audio/video system I put in last year.  I will fly out of Florida on Sunday to meet up with everyone else in Prescott to ride the new MTBs and kill some things with Timster! Can't wait! 

I'm Le Tired.......

That is what I got from bossman as we said our good byes yesterday.  It was a good week that had us riding our bikes all over the place and finishing with a climb up Mt Diablo.  Unfortunately I am bad luck to his bike cause he breaks it every time he rides up it with me.  This time it was spokes.  The weirdest thing is we removed the one that broke and while we were standing there another let loose!  We then decided that a 50 mph descent was not in the cards with a failing wheel and the fact it was rubbing the frame so we called for a ride.  Suck.  After the work to get up there we would not get the gratification of flying down the mountain.  Next time!  So with bossman tired:

And cold

I traded him in for a new training model!  Better looking too! 

So yesterday Michelle and I rolled out of the Mill Valley Inn, through the E Wok village where we ran into a young MTB friend then up Panoramic.  That is where Michelle put the hammer down on the new Tarmac SL4:  Here she is working on the catch:

So that is Phil ahead.  A really nice guy we met yesterday that has a place in San Fran and Stinson and rides between the 2 on the weekend.  An ex Irish rugby player and a pleasure to wag the jaw with as they say! 

So after the descent into Stinson we wrapped around to Muir Woods, then up and over to Mill Valley again.  Another good day on the bike!  We then finished off the day with a feast at Bungalow 44!  All I have to say is yum! 

So today she wants to hit the Mt Tam hill climb course to see how much better she is going than last year.  After 28 hrs last week, I am not sure I am as excited about that as she is, but as Sarah says, "suck it up buttercup"! 

The "A" Day

Today was awesome! Not only did the weather warm up into the 70s again, we rode our bikes ALL day again, we stopped again for pastries, but I had that no chain type of day as well. 

So the entire day started out with a bit of excitement though!  Still not sure what exactly was going on, but every morning I walk from the house down to Fairfax for coffee.  Takes about 45 minutes round trip but it gives bossman the time to wake up some before dealing with me doing mach 2 in the morning.  Anyway, on my way back this morning the San Jose SWAT team was raiding a house not a block down the road.  I must admit I was a bit nervous to walk by armed only with 2 lattes while everyone else was packing heat and wearing a bullet proof vest!  I need to surf the news some to see if I can figure out what was happening!

The other excitement of the morning was trying to finish bossman's bike up.  Earlier in the week he broke a shift lever return spring and bought a new set while his old set was being warrantied.  I will admit that I do not have a lot of experience with Campy, but this one took us for a ride.  We could not get the shift cable to route through the lever, it is supposed to feed straight up but it hit the lever body every time we tried. After a couple hours of cussing at it in Italian and using the "Poke and Hope" method we finally got lucky!  Good thing cause with the weather I was not interested in heading back to the bike shop to waste the morning. 

So now onto the ride!  Today we did the tried and true Marshall Loop, which is the same loop that Phillips, Bossman, and I beat the hell out of each other on last year till I finally called uncle.  This year no Phillips so bossman was in for some pacing.  The conditions were perfect for that with a nice tailwind, which meant the Bovine Bakery stop would come sooner!  Yum!  Here is a shot before the 50 mph plunge into Marshall.  Was working on my Tarmac ad:

So after a refill at the bakery, chocolate croissant to be exact, we were off again! We rolled south on 1 with the tailwind still puching us along.  We hit Bo-Fax road and decided to continue into Stinson Beach so that we could come down the Sisters and into Farifax.  This means we can skip the town riding which I am not a huge fan of.  We maybe shoul dof turned cause that stretch had bossman get stung by a bee and then some DB in an AT&T service truck try running us over?  It is always the smart ones, who has the idea of trying ot hit people in their company branded vehicle.  We caught him in Stinson and decided not to ruin the ride by arguing with someone with an IQ of less than the fence post in the above photo!

We rolled up Mt Tam again at a nice tempo pace and met up at the Rock Springs parking at the top, here is a view of the city on the way up:

We then rolled down the sisters were we met up with Wile E Coyote:

By the end of the day we were both pretty tanked and just rolled into the Fairfix for our Espresso Milk Shake fix.  All in all was 5 hrs in the saddle, 75 miles, 3200KJ, and 7000ft of climbing.  Here is a shot of our route: 



Just keep spinning

So today was a bit of an off day.  Which was OK since yesterday we hit it pretty good, at least for 38 minutes of the 5 hr ride.  That is what it took to get up Tam from the bottom near Stinson Beach. Nothing too crazy but a good bout with SST(Super Shitty Training).   The rest of the day was more of an easy spin around.  Was kind of cool though cause the fog was rolling in over the hill and flooding out San Fran.  We rode in the sun almost the entire day though.  Here is what it looked like on Paradise Loop. 

Toady's weather was even better with no fog in the morning so it allowed the temps to creep up and maybe even into the 70s for the day.  Here is the same view without the fog:

So today turned into another 4 hrs on the bike at an easy pace with stops at bike shops, lunch and pastries.  Kind of hard to keep entertained on the bike for that long though when you are not suffering.  The only thing that seemed to work was laying down the best skids!  Sweet. 

I also saw my best riding partner today.  He never complains, always rides my pace, and rides the same sweet Specialized Sworks Tarmac I do!  Thanks for the ride! Yep those are bare legs in the pic!