Goal Setting -- Step 1: 2009 Tour of California

You all know the importance of setting goals for the upcoming season. If you don't, your goal should be to set some goals. (That will be $25 for the rocket science level coaching advice). Read through the varying Cyclingnews or Velonews websites and there are a bunch of articles about the pros outlining their varying goals for the season. Landis wants a good showing at Cali. Sastre has noted the Giro & World Champs as important objectives with Le Tour being his primary objective (i.e., "goal").

My first goal of the season is to make a good showing at the Tour of California. Yes, THE Tour of California -- as in the land of the Governator, great wine, crazy traffic, Alcatraz, earthquakes, & some amazing coastline. I have made plans to be in Solvang for the ITT on Feb 20 so if you happen to catch the race on Versus, look for the Brewery Ommegang flag -- yes, that will be my first goal of the season -- to get the Ommegang colors on TV. Ya gotta start somewhere right?

Snow, Snot and Gel Packs

I'm definitely longing for Mud, Blood and Beers, but I need to take what I can get. Saturday morning a group of us met to discuss the potential for a Wednesday night race series. Hopefully there will be more details to follow on that front.

After the meeting, it was a balmy 12 degrees, so Dave F. and I headed to Highland for some XC skiing. We got in about 2 and a half hours and hit some great hills. Southside loop, West loop and East Cut Off loop. I'd forgotten how crazy the East loop is. Good times. All in all a decent workout given the weather. There was also a lot of CX talk which was a bonus since I typically ski by myself and when I ski by myself I tend to talk about my other passion, pot holder weaving. Skiing certainly doesn't suck, but talking about riding and racing definitely made the time go by quicker. There's no question the hamster wheel would have been better training in the long run, but you can't put a price on sanity, and a basement full of stripper's couldn't keep me on the trainer for 2:30. Maybe that's what the YMCA needs, a stripper pole class during a spin class. Then again, I'm not a big fan of strippers or spin classes, nor do I belong to the Y.

Hopefully we'll see some temps in the 30's again soon. I'm ready to hit the road. Not so ready that I'm going to ride in 12 degree weather, but 30 degree ready in any event.

The weather channel has Sunday projected at 31, so if those sons-a-bitches can be trusted my next post might include an actual ride report. Mmmm ride report. Anyone want to ride? If it's too cold we can just drag our trainers to "Fantasy Nights."

It's Jan 19, '09 ... Know where your owner is?

Hey, Humperdog here -- Drumroll left his computer on and I think he's in the crapper (btw ... he spends alot of time alone in there) so I thought I'd add my two cents (or should I say "two scents" .. ha, dog humor).
First want to give a shout out to Barney for his faithful service as First Dog. He might be on the small side but c'mon, he's got his own website, the whole Barney-Cam thing going on and best of all, he took a chunk outta that reporter recently.
Anyway, Drumroll seems to be trying to maintain some semblence of fitness while simultaneously running me into the ground. Yeah, let's go freakin XC skiing.... bright idea .. Saturday and Sunday. Next time I wish he'd run in snow up to his chest while snow chunks ice up between his toes on his barefeet while I glide easily over a track made by someone else. He might even think twice if he had to let his sensitive parts dangle in the snow when it was time to take a leak. I'm all for getting out for some fun but c'mon here. The dilema is that I don't wanna tell him but he is getting a little jiggly around the middle cause he'll only freak out more and want to ski some more. At least the dumbass didn't take me along for his bike adventure on Friday. It was well below zero with the windchill but he went out for well over an hour on the canal path. He looked like a dork with his ski helmet on, ski goggles, face mask and other crap. Wondered if he was headed to a Halloween party, to rob a bank or to ride his bike. He ain't always too bright but he does feed me so it's not all bad. That's all for now, gotta run, I just heard him flush for the second time and he's swearing so he'll be probably be looking for the plunger again -- just hope he washes his hands this time before he tries to pet me.

It's 12:08 . . . do you know where your bike is?

It's 11 degrees out and word on the street, or least on weather.com, is that it feels like -2. Good time to hop on the hamster wheel and do work for a couple of hours. I'd hit the road like Dan and Paul, but I really don't want to chap my "lady" parts. Maybe tomorrow.

On an unrelated note, my leg hair is filling in nicely. As much as I don't enjoy shaving all summer, I can't say I enjoy my leg hair brushing against the top tube while I ride. Mmmm, sexy. My old lady came down to the basement to say goodbye before running an errand. Apparently riding shirtless in bib shorts while drenched in sweat wasn't appealing enough to merit a goodbye kiss. I even tried giving her a gun show by flexing the pipes but no dice. I can't imagine why that didn't do the trick.

Oh well, what can you do. My dog Leila gave me a kiss, so I'm going to take her to the park. Considering she isn't put off by licking her own butt, I must not have looked too bad . . .

Back in the saddle again

Not that anyone noticed, but after a three week break from the bike I'm back. I took some time off to give the legs a rest and enjoy the snow via board, shoe and ski. Unfortunately the end of my break was met with an intestinal bug that extended the hiatus by 8 days. It also made me a skinny Skinny Phil. Dropped to 132lbs to be exact. Tom Danielson eat your heart out.

The snow has been flying so I've been relegated to the trainer, but picking up where Drumroll left off on the movie reviews, I've been watching The Wire which is pretty entertaining. I'm currently on season four courtesy of Netflix. I also watched a pretty cool documentary on Fugazi. If you're a fan of punk or tour the country racing a bike, I highly recommend it. It's a little slow, but the similarities between a punk band and racers are certainly there. Think low income, passion, lousy hotels, but when it's time to perform you get to let 'er rip.

I also watched a cool movie called Mongol about Genghis Khan. I should warn you that it has subtitles, but it was very interesting and definitely trainer friendly. If you enjoyed the movie 300 (but actually know how to read) you'll really dig this. If you didn't enjoy 300 (because you know how to read) you'll really dig this. It had a lot of fighting scenes and a love story for the ladies (and sensitive CX'er).

I currently need to wrap up a Wire DVD and then I have a documentary on The Clash so I can pick back up on the punk theme. I think punk goes hand in hand with CX. Road guys can listen to rock, MTB'ers can listen to The Grateful Dead, and CX and Crit racers can have their mosh pit with punk.

Hopefully the snow gods will smile upon us in CNY this weekend so I can hit the road.

Word to your mom's, and hopefully some road rides will allow me to bring the funny back to the blog. As I say, all trainer and no play make Skinny a dull boy. Redrum.

PS - Sorry for using myself in the 3rd person.

Hey, Everybody else is doing it?

Time for the unofficial winter movie reviews -- sorry, what the frig else do you want me to talk about ... aside from the fact that I currently have hockey skates, snowshoes, XC skis & downhill skis in the back of my car (and have actually used 3 of the 4 recently), it's about the bike amigo and willing myself to ride it. Probably like you, I've realized a good movie is one of the best ways to get in some trainer time w/out completely losing your sanity (your numb senistive parts however, are your own problem). So here's how the ratings go in this little world of warped movie review reality -- the rating units are "Omme's" -- 4 Omme's (kinda like the 4-pack) is the highest rating, 1 Omme is a pretty lame movie where you'd wished you watched back-to back Seinfeld's (secretly hoping to see the Soup Nazi or shrinkage episode) And now, the list of recent movies ....

(1) Ironman: w/that hollywood rehab dude as the main character -- overall a real good trainer movie. Good action, decent plot, and touches of humor -- 3.5 Omme's;

(2) Lawrence of Arabia -- could be the longest movie I have ever seen -- we're talking 2 (as in multiple) trainer sessions here consisting of 2 hrs, 20 min on day 1 (until the intermission) and 1 hr, 20 min on day 2 for a grand total of 3 hrs & 40 minutes. Pretty cool movie based on a real story. Maybe a bit of current modern irony to see it now w/all the Middle East crap going on. Rated as 3.0 Omme's (the book it was based on by TE Lawrence definitely rates 4.0 Omme's if your so inclined).

(3) The Dark Knight -- w/that other Hollywood dude who never made it to rehab but was a freaking awesome freaky Joker. Batman/Bruce was cool and I definitely wanted to humperdog all his hot chick friends. Could argue this was the best of the Batman movies, it was dark so to speak and cool to see Batman get pissed -- 4.0 Omme's.

(4) And to save you a wasted rental, pay per view or DVD purchase, skip Marley & Me when it comes out. Yes, I liked Jen's tight shirts and all but (a) it was just a story about a dog, (b) it was freaking depressing -- and I'm gonna spoil it and tell you that the freaking dog dies and (c) it was just a story about a dog. Highlight was using a hose to spray away mango colored dog poo to find a necklace the dog ate.

Feed the Addiction

Proceed at your own risk ....these may push you over the edge if you are near cracking .... or maybe they will prevent you from cracking. You've been forewarned so here you go ....

(1) If you have officially cracked ... brainless hours of watching CX video await you ..... http://www.crosstube.net/

(2) For those that have nearly cracked but have a glimmer of hope left and want to be a little analytical ..... http://www.crossresults.com/

(3) For those that wanna learn Dutch and are only showing minor symptoms of cracking .... http://www.cyclo-cross.info/ (click "Kalendar & Uitslagen" and you will already be expanding your Dutch vocabulary).

(4) For those that are thinking about the upcoming CX races in Virginia and have a 2 hour date with the trainer tonight and still need more .... take your Amazon or B&N gift card and go buy and A Dog in a Hat and give it a read.


If these don't help, do yourself and your family a big favor, go chug a 750ml of Ommegedon and then register for Ironman Malaysia -- you have 2 months to train !!