Pet Peeve.

I'm ticked off at SRAM. Their 2007 Rival crank requires a 16mm wrench for the self extracting bolt. Who has a 16mm allen wrench laying around? Where can you buy one? (not my local Ace hardware) I know this is the type of thing someone should only have to do once, but I'm chasing down a creak and there's no way for me to take apart the crank bolts. It seems really simple to design parts with commonly sized bolts, but instead I end up needing a 16mm allen wrench and a T-20 Torx wrench. WTF?

Computer's on the fritz

I tried installing Vista and it made a huge mess. Not that I think Vista did me in, moreso the old pile of junk was in such a brittle state that something as simple as switching hard drives and operating systems sent the whole thing swirling down the drain. Hopefully I'll get it up and running soon.

My cycling has been in a similar state. Since finals week I've been having trouble putting it on high. I can putz around just fine, but when I try to put in a hard, anaerobic effort, nothing comes out. If it doesn't change soon, I'll have to change the name of this blog to 'the little ring' or 'a 42 tooth chainring is big enough for me, thanks'. In the mean time, I'll just rest and eat.

Ma and Pa came out to visit last weekend. They wore me out running around LI and Manhatten, but we all had a good time.

Tour de Parc

Not much to say, really. The course was alright, nice and smooth with one tight corner and a small hill. Nobody caused a huge pileup (although maybe it would have helped if it was behind me). Everybody stayed together for the whole race. I had trouble moving around in the rather large pack. I wasn't strong enough to fight the wind by myself and I wasn't clever enough to pick my way through a tight pack, so I ended up sitting in and finishing in the middle. The phone was acting up too, so the pictures look a little goofy. Next time we'll have to bring the real camera. Larry(?) got forthish in the sprint, so the team did OK. The Babylon guys are really organized, I wonder how much riding they do together.

Finals week

I've been meaning to update all week with thoughts I've had, unfortunately I haven't.

Its been a rough week. I feel like I've gone 15 rounds with that guy Bonesaw from the first Spiderman movie, except I don't have superpowers from a radioactive spider. I want my mommy...

Early Birds

Tboughts went into New Jersey today to see her mom, so I went on the Early Birds.

It was a beautiful sunny day, mostly in the 60's and 70's. Spring series races are over, so a bunch of fast guys showed up and threw down. We were flying for most of the ride and I managed to average over 20mph with 40(!) of them solo. At one point as we cruised down the rolling hills of highway 51, I realized I had run out of gears and couldn't go any faster. We were pace lining at 35 mph!



It went pretty well. My legs felt good and I'm writing off last weekend to bad luck.


(Thanks for the pic, Percy)




I had ridden 50 miles by 9:15.
(Trevor wonders why the heck that kid is pointing his cell phone at a clock)











Next up is Tour de Parc for me and Tymor Park Challenge for Tboughts.

Empire State Games Qualifier

... didn't go so well.


I was really psyched to race again. The ESG's are sorta the amateur state championships. You need to qualify and make your regional regional team in order to race in the final omnium in July. The qualifiers are a 50k points race (today) and a 10 mile TT in June. Four racers are taken from the points race and 6 are taken from the TT.

I'm not interested in the finals, but the points race was free, so I thought I'd give it a shot. Things didn't go great. I think I had a little too much breakfast in my stomach and was still a little full when I went to the starting line. I was able to keep up with the leaders and make what turned out to be the final break. After a few sprints, though, I was pretty queasy and having trouble holding on. I dropped back to the first chase group, but that didn't help so I dropped out all together. I was pretty happy with things otherwise, I mean, I could have used more power, but thats always true. I guess I got what I paid for.

Next race is Tour de Parc, so I'll work to make that one go better.