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.

Longest 25 mile ride ever...

Last set of SMSP intervals today. I went to the biggest hill in the area and went up and down a dozen times. It was a nice day down at Port Jeff, everyone was outside shopping while I suffered. This sez I was hitting 500 watts during each interval, take it at what you will. Now its time to rest up!

Wheels

What did you do this weekend? I built some wheels, and they're good. This is my first try building some higher end wheels, usually its just assembling and tensioning the cheaper, easier stuff. Lets hope they hold together well.

Hubs: Real Designs OEM
Rims: IRD Cadence Aero Nio30
Spokes: Sapim CX- Ray 20/24

Built up around 1435g. I just FEEL faster on them! :p

Nothing to report...

Meghan and Evan came to visit on Friday. They're moving to the city soon, so they were in town checking it out. We showed them campus and had lunch at Pita Z. True to its name, greek food was available and Tboughts had a pita overflowing with goodness.




After some intervals, it was off to see The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. I really enjoyed it, the movie has more honest beauty than anything I've seen in a long time.

Not much to say about biking lately. SMSP intervals are going really well, but its all basically the same: Get on bike, push really big gear, rest a while, push big gear again, repeat. I can't wait to race next month. The weather is getting really nice and its tempting to go hit up some group rides.

More Intervals.

This month is SMSP intervals. Short and hard. They're set up in blocks to really wear you down, so by the last interval on the last day it feels like you'll never move your legs again.

I always like SMSP's because the volume is way low. They're super easy to fit into my schedule and since most of them are on the trainer, I don't waste time finding a good road to ride on.

Lately I've been sleeping a lot. It seems like 8-9 hours a night and I'm still tired. I know its just cuz I'm working hard in the hectic grad student life, but a little bit of me is always worried that I've got some strange disease that goes undiagnosed like Tristan Schouten, Jason McCartney or Gunn Rita Dahle. In the end I know I'm fine, though, since I probably worry more about my health than anyone my age (Tboughts sez I'm a hypochondriac).