It was a beautiful place before a bunch of bike racers showed up and threw their energy wrappers everywhere.

Tour of the Catskills.

- Worst part of time trials is hearing the winner's time. Oh wow he beat me by 90 seconds in a 2 mile effort!
- Bike racers are seriously the biggest much of megalomaniac dickheads alive. Yes you are racing some fast dudes,
no you are not in the tour de france, so dont throw your garbage everywhere.
- In case you thought you were in the tour de france, check out when THEY finish in a group and know that they racing on time and when you do. They dont sprint for 50th place, they hold wheels and keep the pace high to limit their losses. You morons sprint for literally 50th place.
- Bob and I got the exact same time in the time trial. I think because I have an alphabetically lower last name, I took 68th and he took 69th. Battle is on tomorrow.

Highlights:
- After driving country roads through towns for literally 3 hours, we started paralleling the highway. I wondered aloud why we are not on the highway. Bob says "oh my gps might have toll roads turned off." Guess what, it did. We saved 1.60 each. Hours of redlights and towns.
- Eating dinner after the TT, we were talking about the finish time for Saturday's race.
Somebody: "Like I think 3:30 or so"
Bad Andy: "For 60 miles!?!?!"
Somebody: "Dude we do 82 miles each day"
Andy sat there talking about how he wouldnt have come if he had known that. The look on his face for like 10 minutes was like some stranger just punched him in the stomach. He seriously had no idea.

Breaking personal power records and still getting dropped. Awesome.

On time trialing...

I did a stage race this weekend where there was a TT. I admit I am horrible at Time Trials. I admit I dont train at them and have little motivation to do so. I also admit that if they were all done merckx style as I would like, I would still do poorly. However at the end of my TT I knew that I was honest. I cant say the same for the dude who placed in the top 5 who was blatantly drafting somebody as we passed going opposite directions on the course.

But lets be serious, instead of actually racing the time trial bikes, why dont we just rent out parking lots and show the bikes off. Dudes can wear dimpled skinsuits, their Snork helmets and tell you how aero their 4000 dollar zipp wheelset is rather than having you guess at 32 mph. It can be like a car cruise.

Im going to wax my time trial helmet.

Growing up.

Ok I got my wheels, which is good. People dont totally suck.

I turned 30 last Friday. That puts me at the age my father was when he had me. That is kind of freaky.

I have taken a job recently where I hang out with kids and fix bikes and ride bikes. According to Amy, they are "a good group." I cant imagine what "a not good group" would be. They are like 12-14 years old, most live in housing projects, and they can get rowdy. On my birthday they guessed that I was 40. Anyway, we are going to finish the summer camp by riding 40 miles and camping on the bike trail. Should be kind of nuts.

Every year at this time I think about how hard I have trained and how I am going faster than I ever have before, but it is still not fast enough. Then I think about how a nice bike tour is in order. Yep.

Test of humanity.

Left a 1500 dollar wheel in the neutral wheel truck today.
Will I get it back? I woke up just now at 2:30 am and am literally losing sleep over it.

On stuff...

Stuff. Im not into buying tons of needless things, especially expensive bike racing things.

However, when something is a good product, I try to stand by it.

First: Nuun. Nuun is a calorie free electrolyte replacement. It is kind of fizzy and there are a ton of different flavors. During the Tour of Ohio I was drinking literally gallons of water a day. We were racing in 97 degree heat with humidity each day. Some of the dudes from the south were saying it was like a Georgia summer. Well I didnt cramp at all, so I assume that it worked. I am a fan, and if water tastes good, I will drink more.

Second: Vittoria Pit Stop. So I flatted a tubular tire the second day of the Tour of Ohio. Annoying. I tried putting stans sealant in it. I put it up to 80 psi, and it was good. Put it up to 100 and it blew the hole out again. Stans squirted like 20 feet across my backyard. Before peeling the tire off and being cranky, I tried Vittoria Pit Stop. It is not a liquid like Stans, but more of a foam. BOOM. The tire still has a slow leak (like 3 days to go flat), but I can deal with that. Over 5 hours it only loses a single PSI. We will see if the hole grows and it becomes a faster slow leak, but so far I am impressed.

awesome