Hopefully done being poor. I have a job.

I have been "poor by choice" for a long time. I use the term "bohemian." It is nice to live cheaply, reuse things, not buy new stuff, etc. However it gets old sometimes. Jake jokes that I have a trustfund. Not so much. I have been getting by on a about 1,000 a month or so for the past 5 years. It has allowed me a lot of really awesome experiences, however the romanticism is almost gone.

Anyway. I have a job now. I am writing this from my office at Howard Hanna Real Estate. I am a licensed real estate agent. I am working with my brother. If you are looking to buy or sell a house in Pittsburgh, contact us. Awesome.

How being poor sucks:
- Pulling out a rear brake or derailer cable, cutting the end off and then putting that aside to use as a front later.

- taking said housing end and pulling the cap off of it to reuse. seriously.

- keeping the heat at 56 or so during the winter.

- having glasses that are approaching a decade old.

- not having been to a doctor for non emergencies in 12 years.

- ordering contacts from canada with a 10 year old prescription.

- only wearing those contacts for races so they last forever.

- having eating out be a luxury, and not spending more than $10 to do so.

- only running the dryer at night so it heats up the house.

- Having an allen key with a rubber thimble around it, plug the bath spigot in my bathroom for over 5 years cause someday I will remodel it.

- buying 3 pairs of non cycling shoes since 2002. A dress pair at goodwill, a pair of new balances on ebay used for 15 bucks and a pair of 100 dollar northface winter boots. 2002.

- Eggs, bread, bagels, milk and peanutbutter. Lots and lots.

Just a photo.

Been cleaning out my closet. I have a lot of cycling stuff. Who would have thought.
Apparently I have over 10 pairs of booties.
This makes sense cause I have 13 pairs of shoes, and one of them are winter shoes, so
they obviously dont need booties.

The rapid trend of Cyclocross being little league... Elbows. Products.

They started creeping up a few weeks ago in Cincinnati. There were a dozen or so kids under the age of 12 on carbon fancy tubular wheels. Whatever.

This weekend we parked near a junior. He had two matching 4000 dollar bikes (at least). His dad had a stopwatch and was telling him exactly how long his intervals had to be during his warm up (while riding said carbon tubulars on the trainer). His dad also dropped a few F bombs at his kid while "prepping" him for his race.

I dont want to dog on one person that I was near just cause I heard certain things, but honestly some people just bum me out. I give this kid a few years until he fights his dad. This is the same dad who a few weeks ago told me how to ride a section of a course, but I dont think he actually has ever ridden a bike.

Elbows:
So I am riding in a pack of four dudes yesterday. All of them were faster than me. I am third wheel. Into each turn for an entire lap, fourth wheel dude leaned on me and threw hard elbows at me. He sat on (just like I did) on the pavement while Bad Andy towed us around, but then for some reason wanted to just lean on me. I just kept asking him WTF dude? He informed me that it is a bike race and that I am a pussy and that I am pack fodder. Cool man. I saw him post race and realized that he was one of 2 or 3 dudes in the race that I could maybe beat up (It would be a toss up between me and this dude, mcgrath and bad andy). Anyway, if you want to pass me, just do it where it require skill or fitness and I will for sure let anybody around, but to try to force somebody over is just not cool. Keep that shit out of cross.


Whatever.... On to happy things! I had BOTH people who read my blog tell me so this weekend. Thanks guys! I wont embarrass you guys by saying your names. Then you cheered for me! Awesome!


Products:
I recently got aFancy Carbon Blue Norcross SL. I could be all like "this bike is sooooo much better than my last bike," but that is obvious cause my last bike was a 300 dollar aluminum redline. I will say that I also got the standard Norcross for a pitbike. It is aluminum, and it is nicer than the redline. The carbon one is sick light and real fast and accelerates super super quickly. Needless to say, I am super stoked on the Blue bikes.

Coaching. No seriously I have a coach. So for a few months I have been using a coach. I havent really talked about it yet to many people cause I didnt want to be like "yo I got a coach" then get double lapped or whatever. But I have been happy with my results, and I feel like I am going pretty good. Cross is so freaking hard to measure. I try to measure myself against guys around me, and I wanted to start finishing 1 group in front of where I used to finish, but I think the dudes from that group also got faster. I could talk about my power numbers and stuff, but then I think that in the past I said that if I blog about my power numbers you can kick my ass. So where doe that leave me?
Friday going into race day, I am sure that I am ready. There is not hesitation. I think all bike racers get it. When I walk upstairs the night before a race, I try to feel out how my legs feel, then I wonder if I am too fatigued or whatever. It is nice to go into a race knowing that you are prepped, not too fatigued, and ready to race. The workouts are not TOO far off of what I have done in the past, but it is when they are done, and how much addition riding happens. So all in all, I am really happy. And as lame as it sounds, it is nice to have somebody else to own up to. Last Wednesday, it was 45 and raining and I still went out and did intervals. I am sure that would not have happened if I did not have to send the files to somebody.

CyclocrAwesome

Sat - up at 5am drive to and race charm city
Sun - race day 2 charm city drive home. 11pm arrival.
Mon - box bike up. fly to vegas
Fri - fly home at 7am
sat - amy's bro's wedding





Vegas.

Fly in Monday. Crash out at like 9pm their time.

Tues:
We are all sitting wide awake in a dark room at 5am.
We get on the shuttle to the dirt demo, running into friends along the way.
Get on a carbon hardtail 2x10 29" orbea. We all rode a ton. Stubna rode a 10 grand specialized for like 5 hours. Super fun morning.




I tried staying up late Tuesday night to get my body ready for crossvegas the next night. It starts at 9pm, which is midnight east coast time, and the time we all fell asleep the night before.

Wednesday.
Walked around a bit in the morning. Ran into famous people in the Campy booth.
Rode to the race venue from the strip. The Race Across America truck passed us and told us to motorpace off of them. Honestly a really good warm up for a race. The wheelers and dealers race looked fast. Rode some laps. Had my yuppie bike in full force (carbon tubulars and white tires!). Rode an OK race that I was happy with. We rode back to the venue, changed and went out for the night. No dinner and I watched the sun come up. Good times. Babik couldnt hang and called it a night at like 4:30.

I dont drink, so all I can really do in vegas is people watch. I found my way into a dance club and watched a bunch of 40 year old white people dancing with each other. This is "what happens in vegas..." Sublime was playing, they were all sloppy drunk trying to sort through who is left to go home with. It was pretty boring stuff. This is freaking VEGAS.... I wanted to see real debauchery. Nothing. I have seen more excitement on the southside at 3am in the middle of January. Lamers.


Anyway, I dont really get star struck. However, this was awesome...
Smile Eddy.

and on Chodroff...

I am sure that you saw Jon Chodroff got caught and fessed up to cheating. I know that he used to read this blog, and I hope he is not looking at any cycling stuff right now, because nothing good is being said about him.

Jon Chodroff and I raced "together" at the Tour of Ohio and for a bit after. I remember when John (forgot to off the ipod) Minturn was like "wait until you see this dude." Dude was Jon. He flew instead of driving, and we met up with him there. He walked up wearing SUPER short workout shorts. Not in a hipster type of way, but in a richard simmons type of way. That coupled with a 2XL T shirt and super crazy messy hair. The dude traveled with 2 laptops, 1 for his cyclingpeaks (wko) and one for just standard internetting. Weird.

Jon jumped into cycling a few months prior, and was trying to become pro. He was a cat 3 at this point and had been racing for a few months. The thing is, his power numbers were probably 1.5x what mine were. He was naturally talented.

The race became a battle between Dewey Dickey (lifetime ban) and Hekman. Chod was just hanging on, putting out the power of a pro, just to try and win the Cat 3 jersey.

I harbor very little resentment. He went straight from there to NRC level racing, and didnt screw over too many people close to me. In fact, when he did race local races, its not like he freaking won, unless it had a time trial.

Cynical me says:
Jon treated cycling like the kid from The Toy treated Richard Pryor's character. He wanted the black one, no matter what the price, and he got it. Being a Pro bike racer was another check on a long list of "give mes" that a privileged kid gets. There is no money in the sport, but he did steal a lot of experiences from people.
- Living in the national team house in Belgium and racing
- Tour of California
- Tour of Taiwan or whatever he crashed out of the first day

For every dude like Jon, there are a hundred bum amateurs (and probably other teammates) that would jump at the chance for any of those. Unfortunately the act of a selfish person took them all away. This selfish person is going to use his ivy league degree to go to grad or law school, get a job and keep screwing people over... he obviously has no conscience.

He is one of 25 - 80 dudes on "the list." Why are they waiting on the rest of them? They obviously have the fucking proof.


Empathetic me says:
Jon is a nice dude. He didnt screw me over directly. I cant imagine what gets into somebody's head to make them think actions like these are normal or acceptable. Maybe this will teach him a life lesson and he can find a new career helping people who are not as fortunate as he is. It is only freaking bike racing, maybe something good will come of a bad decision.

He is one of 25 or so guys who bought drugs. He is probably the only one I had contact with....



Time will tell.

I once saw this band...

(sorry this is so crappy)

In like 1999 I drove to Buffalo to see this band Farside. That and to ride a cement skatepark, cause this is when skateparks were rare, before kids were totally spoiled. Anyway.. Farside.. they were a 90's melodic "hardcore" band. A newer younger popular band opened up for them named Kid Dynamite. Kid Dynamite was made up of superstars from other cool bands.

Anyway, the place was packed. Kid Dynamite played before Farside, cause Farside were on a big national tour. After their set, the singer said "stick around for Farside..." After the intermission, I could see why the singer said that. Probably 80% of the audience left.

My heart sank. I remember feeling a huge amount of pity for them. I mean, they put out a huge record in the 90's on one of the biggest labels, and now they are playing in front of a living room sized crowd, after hundreds of people left.

"Hey, we are farside.... I guess not too many people remember us... thanks for coming out.."

Again I felt bad.

Until halfway through their first song. Then I realized that it didnt matter. These dudes had been there done that. They had toured, and had kids rocking out hard to them. They were once the IT band. They seriously played as if it was 1992 and their album was all the rage. They were not there for the crowd or the kids. They were there because it is what they wanted to be doing right then. They had nothing to prove, they just wanted to have fun.

I saw this same attitude both days this weekend at the bike game. I am happy to see dudes having fun. That is what it is supposed to be about right?

Commodification of a culture (redux)

From the new Betsy Johnson spring line.


Seriously?

Last days of bike trip.

This is the final 3 days of our trip.
Sorry for delays. Im sure you were holding your breath.

Out of Windsor NY was a 20 mile long reservoir. Apparently it is one of a few places where New York City gets its drinking water. I have never seen DEP police until riding through here. They were like real police but it seemed they just drove around the water looking for people dumping or sabotaging it. Neat.

The rest of the day was spent just trying to get into the Catskills. We stopped in Dehi, which has a SUNY, which meant a cool coffee shop. We found the "catskill scenic trail." It was pretty rough, be we are like Cat 1 rail trail riders, so we bossed it.

We stopped in Stamford. Not too much going on there. We camped behind a school. I managed to get my bivy sack and my bike under a bridge for handicapped people in anticipation of rain. I hate packing a wet tent.

Scenic upstate NY. This farm had a "leave money take maple syrup" stand. Awesome.



"catskill scenic 'trail'"


We finally see some mountains.


Railtrail countdown.


Camping under a ramp. Nature. Wicked helmet tan.


Woke up to pouring rain. Got ripped off for breakfast. Started riding toward the Catskills. We rode for hours straight, stopping in hunter. At times there was standing water on the road because it was raining so freaking hard. It sucked. We stopped at least 2 hours in the town of hunter and sat in a cafe. This is where the Tour of the Catskills road race finished a few weeks earlier. We were a week too early for the world cup, that would have been sick. We decided to pay for a cabin, cause it was not supposed to stop raining. I am so glad that we did, cause it rained over 2 inches in 24 hours, straight through the night and into the next day.

The cabin was awesome. We had a crappy TV with a UHF dial and a kitchen. It had electric heat, so we put all of our clothing on the heaters and turned it up to 80. It was right around 60 all day, so being wet sucked. When we woke up, it was still POURING rain. We dilly dallied and told ourselves that if we made it to Port Jervis NJ, there was a chance of taking commuter trains back to Philly. (Euro or soft, you choose)... So we rode straight for 60+ miles to Port Jervis. We missed the 1pm train and sat in the little train booth for awhile trying to get warm.
LOW POINT OF TRIP: Pulling out what I thought was my rain pants, but what turned out to be a freaking backpack cover. Good job packing steevo.
We got lunch and went to the family dollar. We bought gloves and I looked for a wool cap. It was cold. I hate being cold and wet.

Then the rain stopped! 40+ hours of rain over!

It was awesome. We headed into the Delaware water gap to cycle the Old Mine Road. This is probably one of those things that is on a bunch of "must ride" lists. It is a 40 mile road in the water gap that cars can only enter, like a peninsula. This causes VERY little traffic. Like we saw 5 cars in 40 miles. It was awesome. The rain had let up and we had a great ride to an awesome camp site.

Our final day we rode from the Delaware Water Gap to Philly. 110 miles or so. There is a cool foot bridge that we were able to take that cars cannot (hence us being able to get out and cars not being able to)... it is part of the Appalachian Trail.

Google maps led us astray and we ended up going a bit out of the way. We could have taken 611, but instead ended up on 191 (Mountain Road) for a surprise 5 mile climb.

Here is a map of this whole area. SICK!



We headed south along the river. Jersey was on our left. We were going to take the D&L towpath the whole way, but IT CRACKED US. This was the like the freaking Race Across America of railtrails. It was grueling. We only made it 4 freaking miles before getting back on the road. RAILTRAILFAIL!


I actually turned around and took this while leaving, but you get the point.


Empty old mine road. Perfect shape.


Where were these when there were tons of bears?


Could not have asked for a better campsite.





No dietary restrictions at 5,000 calories a day.


We destroyed this railtrail.


Back at the Stubna estate!

24 hours of 7 springs... boring bike racing stuff...

Ben Stephens took a pic of my first lap pain face up the long ski slope climb.


My first 24 hour race of any type. "The champion challege at 7 springs." I am so tired today (day after) that I am going to write a long boring blog about it.

I got the invite onto the ProBikes corporate team. This seemed like the best way to adventure into a 24 hour race, to do it with people who have done it before, will lend you lights, and own canopies.

8 people = 2 or 3 laps each. Should be fun right?

6 hours of sleep. Breakfast and a good NPR show. First lap is still 9 hours away.


Roll up to seven springs. The atmosphere was pretty cool. There were tons of people. It was like a music festival without music but a bike race instead.

I was up 3rd, so I could watch how the exchange of the leg band worked between persons 1 and 2. The first person had to run around a lake, which I had no desire to even attempt.

My first lap I had very little traffic on the course (there was only 3 teams ahead of us at this point) and I had a LOT of energy. At this point, I figure that I am only doing 2 laps and go as hard as I can. Pass the lead teams on this lap and put some time into them.

Unfortunately, after about 6 hours in, we lost our advantage due to a mechanical. We were up by 10 minutes and lost 20 or so minutes. Ouch.

I hung out until midnight for my next lap. I thought this lap was cold, at 55 degrees, but it warmed up. I had fancy lights, good luck, and lots of energy. I turned out a decent lap time. I finished my lap, spun out for 10 minutes, drank some endurox R4 and crashed out in my Bivy sack by 1:30, with the alarm set for 6am.

LOW OF THE RACE: Being in my warm cocoon, wrapped in my sleeping bag, soundly asleep and waking up to my name being called. It was like 4:30. It was PERFECT tent sleeping weather. It was like 44 degrees outside at this point, and needless to say, kind of hard to get out of the tent.
"Steevo, we need you to start a lap in about an hour.". Uh oh.

Luckily somebody set my bike up with CRAZY lights. Like 1400 lumen headlamp and a 900 lumen handlebar mount. From what I gather, this is as bright, or brighter than one of those super annoying Lexus headlights. It was insane how bright it was. During the lap, people were moving over for me to pass when I was still 100 feet or so behind them, cause they thought I was right on them because it got so bright. Insane.

The sun came up for the last 20 minutes or so of the lap. This was incredible. I literally almost crashed cause I was paying attention to how awesome it looked. There were little birds that must have been burrowing all night on the some of the trails that would jump out of the way as they heard me coming. Amazing. I put in another decent lap.

I drank some coffee and ate some breakfast at what seemed like noon but was really 8am. We were still in contention for the win, but were down. In true bike race fashion we raced until the last minute.

My fourth, and final lap was about 10:30 am. My goal was to beat my first lap time. I knew some time splits, and at the top of the big climb, I was a minute up on my first lap. Somehow this advantage disappeared over the final 20 minutes of the lap, and I came in 25 seconds slower than my first lap. Still a good time, but not what I wanted. I got sloppy in the rock garden.

We came in 2nd overall to another really strong team. Good times were had by all. No major crashes and my fancy carbon fiber mountain bike didnt disintegrate over the brutal rock gardens.

At some point while talking to somebody I tried playing the "oh I am just a roadie" card, but got yelled at and was told that I am also a mountain biker. This was cool. Time to grow my leg hair out or something. Will do it again for sure.

Lap Times:
1st: 58:50 (2010 fast lap, which was a goal, barely beating a fast Evan Perrone by 13 seconds)
2nd: 1:02:36
3rd: 1:02:31
4th: 59:15

Full Results

Coburn - Ithica - Windsor... Photos. Soundtrack...

This could be a great song to listen to. "a little too easy seems seems just a little too hard today"...



Long day in the saddle.
Out of the Grand Canyon of PA, heading into New York, and up to Watkins Glen.

In the first 5 miles we saw a bear ahead. A BIG bear. We kept riding up to it, and it decided to run down between the trail and the river. I felt like we might be trapping it, which might lead to it ripping our faces off. Instead it jumped into the water. Mike was yelling "dude can you see it.... it is swimming"... But I was more concerned with THE OTHER BEAR I could hear below us. That one also decided to jump into the water. We watched both bears swim across the river. So awesome.

We cut through the Finger lakes National Forest and then over to Ithaca. We poached showers at a campground outside of town so we could be fresh to dine at the Moosewood, a famous restaurant and cookbook. I got lasagna that had polenta instead of noodles. I meant to take a picture, but I didnt. And chocolate cake. Then Dr Stubna and I rode at night like 10 miles to an observatory to camp. We were able to see a lightening storm rolling in, which was cool, despite the rain.


Bear #1 in upper left corner, bear #2 is in the water. Awesome.


Fog lifting off of the ridges around us.


The area around wellsboro, PA was like being out west. Everything was state game lands or state forests. It was empty.


We love railtrails. This one saved us from a brutal headwind.


Watkins Glen.


Drought summer left these pools wanting water.


Finger lakes national forest. Bonus miles as we took the scenic route to Ithaca.



I like this photo. Stubs riding with a lake in the foreground (the dark blue)... as we descend towards Ithaca.



BIG waterfall. Check out the people in the bottom right. It has been a dry summer for sure. Awesome bike touring destination, we didnt even get off of our bikes to see it.



Camped on a mountain outside of town.


124.8. 9:04 ride time.


We woke up and descended back into town. We rolled through Cornell. The campus was a great mix of old stone buildings and awful 70's architecture. We got bagels and watched the freshman. I guess it is a good school or something. Dr. Stubna got a phd there in dynamical systems (get my dynamical bear bag joke?)... and I have never actually heard him tell anybody this without prompting. I ate dinner last week with some chick who was bragging about some fancy pants school that she went to for music. No I didnt not mention the dirty dozen at all during dinner. Digression...
We rolled out of town and rolled fast toward the Catskills. We stopped in Owego, which was a surprisingly nice place. Stubna napped in the town park while I paced around and read historical markers. We headed on, stopping in Binghamton. We were pleasantly surprised by it. We went to a grocery store and there was a big poster for the Chris Thater memorial crit that was upcoming.
We pushed on a bit further to the town of Windsor, where we stopped and took in some culture before eating dinner and poaching a place to camp in the town park.

Every time I camp somewhere that it is illegal, I think of the above song... "See I only want to be a Free man but it's against the law to sleep on the ground in Gods land"



Nice outlook above Ithaca and the lake.


Bike only bridge in Binghamton!


Lots of bike routes at the end of the bridge.


The town of Windsor was proud to be on the NY17 bike route.


Taking in some culture. They were an old time band. They jammed. We felt real young.

Enjoy the weekend.
Cross starts in 8 days. Wow.