Maybe it's time I post something, since it has been a couple of months.
What have I been up to you ask? Well, since Jingle Cross in November I have spent over 99% of the time riding indoors. Who wants to hear about riding a bike inside the house? It's BORING, trust me on this. There is only so much boredom a person can put up with and I think I have reached my limits. There has been some nice weather over the last couple of weeks and I have had a chance to get out and ride. It was such a relief, even though it felt slightly cool. However, this week has just plain sucked and I am once again relegated to the inside of my house.
Now, maybe this wouldn't be so bad you think. You say, "Kevin, you have over 400 movies you could watch, or you could watch the Cycling show on versus." You would have been correct a couple of months ago; however, at the end of last month my satellite system just stopped working. Then two days later my stereo A/V receiver's power supply fried itself. The latter has been in the repair shop ever since, STILL waiting on replacement parts. So I have been riding inside with abso-fraggin-loutely NOTHING to moderately decrease the boredom.
I called Dish Network last Friday to cancel the entire service. They don't want to lose customers, so they came out, on Easter Sunday, fixed my dish, upgraded my receiver to the next greatest thing with 150 hours of recording capability, my old receiver only recorded up to 8 hours. They also added more channels to my line up including all the local channels, and to top it off, my monthly bill is actually 3 Washington's cheaper a month. All of this with no extra charge to me. I also now have the versus channel.
This is somewhat good now. The only down side is that since I still have no A/V receiver, I had to hook the dish through the tv, and the tv is mono sound.
Okay, enough feeling sorry for myself. The race season in Nebraska is almost upon us, and I am getting stoked. So much so that my road bike is getting some serious upgrades. New set of wheels, the Dura-Ace 7801 tubeless, upgrade from 9 speed to 10 speed, Ultegra levers and rear derailleur. I am also just replacing a few parts since they are getting rather worn. This is an expensive hobby. However, it isn't as expensive as flying, had to give that up because they fuel prices just kept climbing with no end in sight.
The first official road race is the Spring Classic April 12-13, and the first Psycowpath race is April 5. I will finally get a chance to see if all this training has paid off in spades or if it's just a bluff that has gone horribly wrong.
Also, I decided to attend the Officials clinic this past February, and passed the test. So I will be an official at some of the races this year. Since my main goal is doing well in road races, my capacity as an official will mostly be concentrated on the mountain bike races. My decision to do this was to get more involved in the sport, and also because I can get paid to be an official. Hey, I need a way to pay for all these new things for my bike. Not to mention I want to get an actual cyclocross bike this year and not race on my hybrid. That thing just digs into the shoulder and it's not very light.
Okay, time to wrap up this rambling of mine. Look forward to more frequent updates, especially when the season is in full swing.
5 comments:
As your coach and trainer I will tell you that I'm not providing a service that is a bluff. The physical training is all based on scientific principles. What you need to know is that it takes time to develop as a bike racer. This is the point where a coach can really help. Putting together a well thought out plan that will help you reach your goals based on your specific needs is one aspect of coaching.
With my years of bike racing and my life science education I provide an athlete with an insightful way to bike racing that is different then their perspective.
I provide motivation by giving out good, solid advice and guidance.
Bike racing for 25 years has given me the experience in training and racing that can be hard to find in a coach.
Also, there's more to bike racing than training. There's experience in bike races. You must know tactics and strategies. Then this part of a bike race can be changed numerous times depending on your opponent, team, and enviroment ect... The strongest doesn't necessarily wins. Road racing is a thinking game. Most pro's start in there early 20's but don't see results till around 30.
Your success is my success. I work at improving my knowledge of coaching and training by studying the scientific principles. I continue to participate in the sport to keep my understanding of "all" the physical aspects of racing and training. I keep in contact with other coaches thru USA cycling and sharing ideas. This is no bluff
Marc - dude...I'm so sorry, I didn't mean this in anyway as a bad on your training. I meant "bluff", as in myself fooling myself that I can be a bike racer.
Your training HAS helped out immensely, and without it I would have thrown in the towel ages ago.
Once again, I am so sorry.
now we're talkin! Bikes! Audio-visual equipment! Riding inside for months!
on the wheels -- are you running them tubeless? In my very limited tubeless mileage, I love them.
on the dish ... I switched to DirecTV when we got our HDTV. The $300 TV allowance didn't hurt, but I like it better than Dish Network. At least they fixed your stuff for you, though.
And, finally, riding inside ... it's only by the grace of a generous teammate and his ridiculous race DVD collection that I made it through. I still have four grand tours left to watch, too.
Bryan - I am still holding off on the whole HDTV thing. Though, I may have to get one as an xmas present to myself, so I can feel more like I'm outside when spinning inside. hehe
As for the wheels, definitely planning on running tubeless. Hopefully I will be able to start rolling on them next weekend.
I like to watch tv...
hmmm... that's all I got to add.
goodluck psychopathing!
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