Right Around the Corner...

CX that is. The CCCP(Crusty's CycloCross Program) is in full effect.  

Finally kick off the dust on the Orb.  I also decided to get a little artsy!

The secret CX training area.

Wildlife is in full abundance here.

Nice little 1km kicker at the end.Here is a shot for H-Man, yep that's a Turkey Hawk crossing the road in front of us.

The Boss was there to make sure that my CX program was up to snuff.

This sign is on the riding and walking trail at Legacy Park.
These trails remind me so much of the network of commuter trails in Colorado Springs, CO.
Nice wooden bridges to go over.
Some with a good view of the lake.
It's been a while since I posted stuff so  I'm going to try and cover somethings in one fell swoop.

For those in the area I recommend your attendance to hone your CX skills here.

I need to give a shout out to Endo for the new CX clothing (other stuff) coming in soon.  RV gets big props for making me look cool and seeing with clarity. (Where is the race report from Leadville 100?)  Bobke for having to deal with me and my "Can you get?" BS!  The other Craig for "Is it here, yet?" 

 Last person with whom I owe the most to is the Boss for letting me have a long kitchen pass this CX season.

You Get What You Ask For...

That is if you watched the Olympic MTB.  Both Men and Women complained about how the course was just a dirt road course.  Well pay back is a bitch.

If you watch the video you will see that this course really resembles the type of courses we encounter here in the Midwest.  Undulating, unforgiving, and unbearable hot with lots of humidity.  Many a rider paid dearly for opening their mouths and complaining about the ease of the old course.

Well after that they(UCI) sent in the four cross professor to set up the course to add some complexity to the course.  Let me tell you by watching that race he did an excellent job.  It is a very demanding trail with lots of baby heads, log jumps and drops and  nice little ditches to descend.  

I'm absolutely amazed by Julien Absalon.  Watching him descend was unbelievable but the real skills demonstration was by Jean-Christophe Peraud, a handy cyclocrosser from France.  Also take note, yeap the legend CX World Champion might be switching to fat knobby tires. I would be very nervous if I was in the World Cup series as soon as he makes his mind up what he wants to do.

Oh yeah CX season practice starts in two weeks, I'm really fired up for that.

BTW, if any of you crackheads are wearing My Wife Inc, wind vest please don't disgrace it to bad.  I would really like it back in the condition I left it on the road.

The Dead Group

Maybe I could ride in a group that followed these simple rules.

 That also reminds of the Bicycling mag's article on 'The Dead Zone Syndrome' which affects so many of these 'group' riders.  Look into it, if you start to analyze your training now, next year could be so much better if you follow some of the easy ways to mix up your training.

It's actually very simple.  Train hard, recover harder.

I'm feeling it..

Woke up this morning feeling like shit!!  Yep total shit.  I mean not the typical feeling like shit, but the shit you feel like after working 50 plus fucking hours.  Trying to train 10 hours, entertain the boss, talk to friends and family, watch the Olympics, look at the internet.  To much shit, to little time.

Sooo I decided to say fuck it and not race.  Sad, really fucking sad.  

As I fixed the morning bowl of coffee I could feel the remnants of the STXC race and lack of sleep from the night before.  The body was achy and  little tight, yea I'm feeling old.  After breakfast I went down to inspect the rig for the days planned race.  Low and behold the disc in the rear was rubbing, new fangulled technology sucks.  I searched high and low to find some washers to put in to give it space, but to no avail.  I haven't dug up all the bike parts yet from the move.  With the rub annoying me enough and the wheel not spinning freely I decided to visit the local bike shop to see if they had any brake washers.  NOPE!!  The local hardware store?  NOPE!!  Fuck!!

Came home and decided to go eat out and enjoy the beautiful day instead of racing for six hours and give my old body a rest.  After eating out we headed over to shop to line up my next session with the man.  Next up was some home shopping.  To finish the day off we headed for some dessert.  Oh yea one more stop for home furnishings.  

After all that shopping the boss and I decided to hit the road.  I rode the single to make it more entertaining and make it more of a work out.  The boss chose the route which was really great one in which we hit some roads that I haven't hit before.  Always refreshing to hit some new roads in the da hood.  On the way back home we found a couple of sick mansion that were open and we took a looksee, boy oh boy those two houses were on the unbelievable scale.  I don't know who is going to buy those but they had to be pushing at least 1.5 million dollars.

That was my day wrapped up in a nutshell.  Tomorrow will be a two hour training ride with the boys.

Its Officially Cool according to...

Bicycling magazine's Septembers issue...What is it?

Riding gravel, yep it's made a national magazine how cool it is to ride gravel.

For those who think road bikes shouldn't/couldn't be ridden on anything but smooth pavement are now proved wrong.

A couple people of note listed in the article are Tom Ritchey, Tim Johnson, Justin England, and Andy Hampsten. 

STXC BABY!!!!

On the quest for getting into shape in a small amount of time I decided to hit the new STXC series.  

Time, literally is of the essence, wasn't or isn't on my side.  So I decided to do the B's race which started at 6:30 and lasted 30 min's.  That way when the race was done I could get home by 8ish since the venue is about an hour away from the new casa!

One thing that you can depend on more than anything is that the meteorologists  will be correct when they predict only a 30% chance of rain, my ARSE!!!  It poured up north and I was running semi slicks on the front and rear.  Well the course was very slick and slimy, with twists and turns and two creek crossing's one wet the other rock strewn.  To say the least you had to be on your 'A' game the whole course without having the semi-slicks on.  

As the race started two of us broke away and set a steady pace.  I followed the JH's line through the course to help me later on.  Then about the half way mark JH bobbled and I grabbed the lead not to look back until the next to last lap when someone else started coming up on me.  I punched it and made a good gap to hold on to the end.  

What is funny is the last time I did an STXC was at the Tour of the Rockies.  Let me tell you doing a STXC at the base of Steamboat is an ass kicker.  Doing flat land dirt crits are way more fun.  

Learn Danielson....

Well I'm passing on knowledge that I have seen, stolen, tried, or none of those.

It's Cross season so what do you need....

I will pass on credit though...this idea came from Mud and Cowbells blog spot.

Not long now till Cross Season!

No Plan B

Well that's how the day started.

Singleminded focus on the objective at hand:  Ride to the Cliff Drive Classic and watch the boys suffer. 

Well, all I can say is that I made it there.  Also the boys did suffer. 

The weather has became very atypical for August,  65 degrees and cloudy was what I woke up to.  The weatherman started the forecast with the warning "Have a Plan B, because today we will get some rain throughout the morning and the afternoon!"  

I already told the fellows that I was going to make it out to watch them and damn it that's what I had planned to do!  As I started getting in My Wife Inc kit it just started to sprinkle.  Great, I love to ride in the rain!  I rolled out the door to be welcomed with a nice COLD breeze coming for the east.  Immediately I turned around to the house to get properly prepared for day in the rain.  Grabbed the arm warmers my wind vest, and rubbed a little of this on the knees.  Who would have thought that I would have to do that in August.

The ride started out great but by the time I reached 85th and Blue Parkway the temp had dropped and the rain was coming down pretty good.  The trees along the parkway make it very chilly in my opinion.  At this point I put the arm warmers on because I already had my wind vest on to keep the core warm.  As I scooted along towards the Zoo it became to stop raining a little.  But the pavement was really wet with lots of large hydroplane puddles on them.  For those who ridden the streets of Kansas City you know what I'm talking about.  Very sketchy in bad weather and very slick.  Euro baby, very Euro!  

I knew I wasn't going to make it time due to the rain slowing my speed (plus lack of fitness) so I took a new route towards Cliff Drive.  Prospect Avenue all the way through.  To say the least that must have been the most Culturally Enhanced Tour I have had.  It all started by Gates BBQ where I a nice lady propositioned me for a ride, and I think she didn't mean on my bike!

To say that the urban core isn't in plight is an understatement.  There are some strides being made but they fall very short of what is possible for this city.  Some new condo's, home's, and business' are trying but they seem to fighting an uphill battle.

As I reached the 18th & Vine corridor I got another shit grin moment, another cracked out lady almost falling off the curb, talking, (well yelling) something completely unrecognizable as English.  At the time of crossing the road the light turned green for us to move forward and she stopped right in the middle of the road to confront the cars honking at her to move.  The only thing I made sense of during her tirade was two middle fingers for the cars.  I wasn't quite done with the Cultural Enhancement just yet.  Oh yea Karls Jr would have loved this ride!!

I'm not really sure what street I was at when this big shit grin moment occurred but it was sure entertaining.  As I approached this apartment complex a older gentlemen comes to the edge of the deck and starts yelling or cheering for me to make it to the top.  I have to put this one delicately, but the gentlemen wasn't playing with a full deck of cards.  As Ben Stellar said in What About Mary " I Love those Tards!"  

After that nothing much occurred, arriving for the Cliff Drive Classic as 5 laps remaining I got to see the boys killing it, in what was one of the toughest editions I think I have seen, the corners where still wet and the construction had left the road rough and muddy.  Everyone in the groups were mud covered and looking totally Euro.  I was very impressed with SheaButter for his 6th place in the race, and Tulip looked good but got caught behind a wreck and couldn't make up the distance from the first group.

My ride back became a race with the clock, I had to get back home to sell one of my rigs, but as the clock ticked my legs decided they didn't want to.  At this time I think the training stimulus had expired.  At the 2hr 45min mark I reached a breaking point, threw down my go-go speed juice with the hopes of it making the system override that I needed. Then about at the 3hr 30 mark something clicked and the body started to fluctuate the heart rate as if I was actually training again.  WOW, I made it home with a little extra in the tank, which absolutely amazed me.  

So 4hrs 23min and 66.12 miles with a total of 2658 ft of climbing I had the best recovery food possible, the boss's enchiladas.  

What more could you ask for from one big shit eating grin ride?

Well I hoping my boy RV got his buckle at this race! 

Recreational Suicide

Well here is the plan...

Either build from this or suffer the rest of the season. At this point it's a total crap shoot.  

Now we are looking at 4 weeks off the rig, completely.  This is a sad state of affairs.

New motivation has arrived.... top secret info.  Will give a shout out soon!

The man has really decided to stick it to us.  We have been deemed 'critical' which means we will be working a shit load, and this schedule will mess with the upcoming cross season series'.  

Now I have alot of pain and suffering to get the body back into cross shape of any sort.  But I have a sick plan laid out.  Now if I can get my lazy ass up and rolling we can see some results later in the year.  

I'm going to try a new program for the Garmin.  It looks really trick so by next week I might be posting up some of the workouts done.  

Found a new team worth looking at.  At least the kit is cool.