what a (non-cycling) weekend

On friday night my buddy Xander broke his nose. That was no fun. I then proceeded to stay up late, sleep in and not go skiing. There was a lupe fiasco concert I did not go to.

On saturday night I went out for loundess (final weekend before exams) celebrations, stay up late, sleep in and not go skiing. There was a colby/bowdoin hockey game I did not go to.

This afternoon I rode rollers w/ Sarah for an hour and a half, easy base miles, watching disc one of the 2005 tour of flanders. Normally I wouldn't post about that, because its boring. However, I got good at no handed roller riding. At first I could barely pull my hands a few inches from the bars for a split second before grabbing them in a panic. After quite a few near falls, ride-offs, unclippings, and other sketchy moments, I can now ride no handed about 95% as well on rollers as I can on the road. I can let go and sit up at will, hold it for a few minutes or as long as I really want to about 9 of 10 times. It's really nice to be able to do that, stretch out the back, and give the arms a rest from the never ending vibrations our old team rollers that are very warped make. While most people are like "yea, so..." I am excited. Perhaps 'cross gave me some bike handling skills or at least helped out my balance.

Alex Jospe, an alum now riding with nerac, won the stedman womans B cross race saturday, then on sunday took 3rd in a group of 4 that apparently lapped everyone but the top 4. While she could probably ride elite at this point, she has no real cross bike, and destroys a mtn bike. Goes to show you its the rider, not the ride. Congrats to her.

I spent 2 hours making my cross bike pretty. My hands are black and gross, but my entire drivetrain came completely off the bike and is now all shiny. The frame got a cleaning, as did the wheels. Cassette even came off the wheel and got scrubbed out. I then did some work on sarah's bike, which actaully shifts now. In return she helped me fold laundry. I hadn't done laundry in 2 weeks and was out of clothes so I did that today, sheets, towels, clothes, bike clothes, the whole shibang. I pretty much took over the laundry room for 2 hours this afternoon. I lost one of my favorite socks (a PI grey one I usually race in), normally i'd be pissed but I have 3 sweet new pairs of HUP socks on the way so i'm just gonna hope I find it stuck onto some pantleg or something.

After I finished making my bike pretty I decided I wanted a cyclocomputer for training data, so I put the one from my road bike onto the cross bike (which i'm currently riding with road tires on it as my main bike). Realizing I didn't have any zip ties to hold things on, I resorted to using alot of eletrical tape to hold the cadence and speed sensors on, in addition to a shim made of paper and more electrical tape. It is by no means pretty, and I honestly doubt it would hold up to a mere 10 miles in the rain or on rough roads, but it should work perfectly for the 10 trainer/roller rides it will see, but it works, at least in my short test (spin cranks, spin wheel, see if data shows up).

A special thanks to mike Z. He mentioned fitchburg in a comment. From that I have had spent a good 5 hours procrastinating looking at fitchburg, green mountain stage race, and a few others that I hope to race this summer. Nothing like wasting time trying to roughly figure out plans 6 months in advance for a bike race that you don't even know the dates of.

Speaking of summer, I need to figure out somethinig to do for 2 or 3 weeks so my parents won't complain to me that I am "wasting my summer" riding, racing, and working in a bike shop most likely. I want to go on some sort of b.s. program to europe for a few weeks, I think it would be a nice change of pace. If you know of a program, let me know. Preferably 2nd week of july-1st week of august. I figure i'll ride/race the little bit of may after exams, then all of june (and work in a bike shop), and do fitchburg which if its the same time as last year is pre-july 4th. Then go to europe for a few weeks (time off). After that I'll start training for cross, do some races like green mountain and maybe a charity ride (pan-mass), and head back to school for some late season crits and then cross season.....I have my summer figured out, if only I could do the same for the spring semester with classes.

Time to hit the books, because finals are here. On the bright side, I leave for Italy in 25 days (I think), which I am really excited for all of a sudden.