An agreeable sound. Amy

Awhile I did a video like this. this is my wife's. pittsburgh people may recognize the cameo.

An Agreeable Sound : Amy from Matt Dayak on Vimeo.

So I deleted my Strava account...

I meant to post this the other day, and this news story reminded me to.Strava being sued over dude's death.

There used to be a bike shop at the bottom of a big climb around here. In the bike shop there was a chalk board with first names and times to the sign at the top of the climb. This was basically strava before Garmin existed. People would come test themselves against local fast times.

I won an account at a cross race for having the holeshot or something. I then emptied my entire Garmin 500 onto it. I immediately won a bunch of QOM's. I quickly realized that I signed up as a woman. I would be an awesome woman bike racer.

I switched it into dude mode and maintained a few KOMs. Neat. Whatever. Then it started happening, people were taking my KOMs. Hm. Id get an email from Strava saying "joe just beat your time up xyz." Most of the time I would have to click it to see what the heck they were talking about. Like I have Garmin stuff from all over the state and region from riding. A few of the emails were about local things that I did not know could have a KOM, like a road around a park with a stop sign.

So then it makes me wonder, did some dude put on his aero wheels and have a friend carry a spare tubular while he set out one day to break a record, or did he happen to feel good riding one day and hit a climb pretty hard? Maybe hill repeats? My worst fear was eventually confirmed by a third party. A climb that I went up with 28mm tires, a seat bag, frame pump, etc and got a KOM on apparently was beaten. A third party told me that somebody went out to "snipe" it.

So this puts me in a weird position. Do I play their game and go back and race up it and try to take back the KOM? Do I not care? In my mind I do not care. However I do not want some dude thinking that the terms were equal. In my mind I am like "pin a number on and lets race..." However I think by signing up for strava, you ARE kind of pinning a number on.

So basically dudes who use strava for fun, keep having fun. Dudes who use strava to "win," ... just go race. If you do race, race a harder category if you are winning. There is always going to be somebody faster than you. Race until you are racing a bunch of those people and learn to eat humble pie.

im not even going to talk about tail winds and drafting.

12 Hours of Granogue.

This was my first duo endurance race. Me and Bad Andy whimsically decided to go for it. Babik and Stubna were supposed to sign up to rival us, however Babik quickly remembered that nobody would be there to lead him out and bailed. It is fun to do something new. Drove to Lancaster to stay with Bad Andy and Bad Kat. We watched Tulsa Tough live streaming, which was pretty neat. Then we went to sleep.
Numbers: 35 minute laps. It was not enough time to really eat or do anything other than sit there.
9 laps for me. 10 for BA.
Distance: 59.79 mi
Time: 5:39:47
Avg Speed: 10.6 mph
Elevation Gain: 8,294 ft
Calories: 3,532 (garmin estimate..)
1 song in my head all freaking day. (under pressure... nothing to do with the race but had listened to it earlier in the week)
34:09 - I did two laps with this time!
40 seconds is how much faster BA's fast lap was than mine. dang.
2 weeks in a row that I went to freaking Delaware. That is far.

Food for a 12 hour race:
1 bagel with Peanutbutter
3 gu's
2 donuts
7 cans of coke
1 clif bar
Salt and vinegar chips
Handful of small cookies
5 bottles of secret drink mix
1 THREE TO GO 3musketeers bar.
1 soft pretzel
1 cinabon

My teeth were so slimy after the race that I stopped and bought a toothbrush after the race and brushed my teeth for 6 minutes while driving back. I cant believe people drink coke everyday and some drink that much. wow.
Garmin Link
I rocked a skinsuit all day, until I needed a pocket for my battery for my light. BA hooked me up with a speed sleeve. 20/20 cycling carries them apparently. It fits a tube, inflator, tire levers. It just chills there and is held on by velcro. Pretty clever. There is an under the seat version as well.

Mountain bike races...

So Brody and I headed out to Philly Saturday for the mass race at fairhill on Sunday. 10 hours of driving over two days for 90 mins of racing.

This was our first mass race. Brody's first USAC race. This is the problem with the USAC system. He had never done one so he was going to have to race beginner. He put a full day of phone calls in to get his cat 1 upgrade. He got 6th in the 1 race with one of the top 50 times all day. It would have been embarrassing to the sport if had to race beginner or sport or whatever numbers they are now.

Anyway, the weekend was rad. Stayed with gman and megs. They are old old friends who now race bikes. It is awesome.

The pro/1 race was stupid fast. This is two for two mountain bike races this year that have been pack riding. They are like road races. Yesterday the scott
kid and bad Andy attacked and there were like 3 Scott dudes around clogging it up after. It was like a crit. Andy rode well for second. I mistimed an effort for third and landed fourth.

The debate of the week was about skinsuits vs jerseys for a cool 90 min race. The solution will be posted shortly. I'm at work and this is from an iPhone.