Procrastination.

So the instructions say to torque steel compression nuts to 70 inch pounds and alloy compression nuts to 47 inch pounds. How the hell am I supposed to know if my compression nut is either steel or alloy? I'm a girl and don't know this type of shit. Shouldn't the manual tell me?

Nervous ramblings.

I haven't updated in a while. Sometimes that pesky full time job gets in the way of my life. Vacation the other week was great. I ended it with a 50 mile road ride with this chica. No Rock Cut for me as I had mountain bike issues that needed to be addressed. When I tried to remove my old Hayes rotors, I rounded out some of the bolts. The bike shop who assembled that bike did not use the proper T-25 torx bolts (initially I thought they used 4mm allen bolts, but upon further investigation my brother figured that they used some English bolts as one of his English allens fit perfectly in the hole....bastards), did not grease the bolts and over tightened the bolts. It was quite obvious that they did not use a torque wrench. That is the last time that I buy a bike or any major part from that shop. I took my wheels to another shop and they totally took care of the rotor removal situation for less than 25 dollars. Cronometro is the bomb! I can't thank them enough for fixing that problem.

Last week was a recovery week; only 6.5 hour of training. My leg has been doing well, but my wrist has been in agony and is keeping me up at night. My knee has been bothering me as well, but I think 20+ years of soccer has done a number on some of my body parts.

The countdown to WORS begins. I'm a little concerned as my Trek Fuel is not ready to go. I have to clean out the tires and add Stan's. The Avid 7's need to be cut and bled. My coach has scheduled a 12 hour cycling week. Work is super hectic and is totally flipping me out. We have my sister-in-law's wedding for which she has sent us an itinerary for Friday and Saturday and we must be active participants for all events. I haven't been on my mountain bike since June 2007 and I don't know that I'm going to get to ride it before Sunday. There will be little sleep on Saturday night and certainly no Iola pre-ride. Rain is predicted for Friday thru Sunday in WI. Blah,blah blah...it's all just nerves, stress and excuses talking. But don't be fooled, I'll be towing the line at Iola on Sunday rain or shine. I just might be nervously puking my lunch up beforehand.

New bike, first miles.

Which bike should I ride today?









The new singlespeed it is. Good thing I was heading out for an easy spin as the 34/18 - 175 crank was quite under geared for road riding. It might work pretty well for a Wednesday night ChainSmoker STXC race at Blackhawk though.

Knowing full well that it would probably start raining during my ride, I decided to leave my rain coat and fenders at home. My year off from cycling has softened me and it's time to toughen up a bit. I headed out on the Governor's Mansion-Tenney Park-Memorial Union route; it's a nice ride along Lake Mendota that I do when it needs to stay mellow.










I took this picture a good distance away from the Governor's Mansion. There were many people hanging around there today and I didn't want them to think I was a crazy picture snapping psycho biker chick. That's all I need is some secret service agent taking me out with a tazer gun.










Next, I rolled past Tenney Park. On the way I passed a guy riding a unicycle with his dog in tow. Unfortunately I couldn't get the camera out of my pocket in time for that one.










Onto the Memorial Union, then State Street. I would have stopped for a beer on the Terrace but it started to rain so I headed back home.










All in all, it's not a bad little bike but I'm truly amazed that my arse found the narrow WTB saddle comfortable.










I should have brought the rain coat...

Heavy shit...

Check out Tara's Video.

Life is good.

If you have a herding breed or other type of super active dog, you really have to love it when you see this (above).

It has been a total week of indulgence. Sex, drugs and rock-n-roll. Well, maybe not so much...but there has been plenty of eating, sleeping and cycling going on. Vacation is fantastic. Chores have been getting done around the house, the dog has been getting massive exercise, bike maintenance has been happening and tons of riding has been taking place. Monday was an easy one hour spin. Tuesday I somehow managed to miss my group ride, but ended up riding with Wendy. Wednesday I rode with Amelia. Today is a rest day and I'm getting a massage. Life really doesn't get much better. Not to mention that I'm still using unused vacation from 2007. After this week, I'll have 25 days of vacation left for 2008 and it's almost May. Damn that's sweet.

Is Rock Cut going to happen? I've been hearing conflicting reports. It's supposed to rain the next two days so I really hope they push it back a week. I don't need my first race of the year to be a demoralizing mud fest.

I'm having conflicting feelings about Iola. My sister-in-law's wedding is the night before the race. So that means little sleep, rushing around, and no pre-riding. This May will mark my 5th Iola and one could argue that a pre-ride won't be necessary. But man, that pre-ride sure settles the nerves... It won't be optimal, but I think I just need to balls out do it.

I'm waiting on my Tara Llanes road to recovery T-shirt. I meant to order one a long time ago, but finally got around to it now. As I sit here complaining about my permanent ulnar nerve damage, I need to remember that there are people out there who have larger problems than my own. Tara Llanes is a pro mountain bike racer who had a horrible crash during a race in Beaver Creek, CO which left her in a wheelchair. She seems to be a very strong person and is someone to be admired. I'm sure Tara will pop into my mind when I'm racing this year...

Flippin' Wisconsin

Why do I live in this god forsaken state? I ask myself this question every winter. But when summer rolls around, I soon forget about all the cold, shitty weather that I spent months enduring. It's like I somehow have a bout of amnesia. Summertime in Madison, WI has that effect on a people. It makes you forget about all the below zero wind chills, all the $300 MG&E bills and all the cycling hours that were logged indoors. On Saturday I found myself on the trainer for two hours, waiting for my bout of amnesia to come, pissing and moaning with every pedal stroke, cursing the city I live in. It's almost enough to kill my love of racing....but not quite.

Sunday was a little better. I wondered over to the Research Park crits. Seeing as my high end fitness hasn't been worked on yet, I decided to spectate instead of race. The Women's 4's had a pretty small showing due to the cold weather. I could only take about an hour of watching races before I was frozen solid. Next I headed over to my brother's house to defrost a little and address some of the issues that my race bike was having. I literally had to clean the cobwebs off the mountain bike - that's how long its been. Ryan helped me dial in the shifting, which is something I can never seem to properly do on my own. After tinkering around for a few hours, I headed back to my side of town and got ready for a three hour burner. Leaving for a ride after 4pm on a cold day is not the smartest (a.k.a. warmest) decision that has ever been made but I had a decent time (frozen feet not withstanding). I battled the cold and windy conditions in the rolling hills of Waunakee on my trusty cyclocross bike. The wind was an ass-beater and had me cranking up those hills at a whopping 7 mph. Suffer now or suffer later I guess...

I'm officially on vacation now. It should be a fun week of cycling, tinkering, exercising the dog, eating and drinking wine daily. Some of the best vacations are the ones where you just stay home.

Time is flying.

The month of March has been a busy one. Wendy and I participated in a charity spin class at Supreme Fitness and the proceeds went to Multiple Sclerosis. The morning of the class I rolled out of bed, didn't comb my hair and threw on my glasses. We hit up an hour of pilates before we dove into spin class. The spin class was pretty fun and full of energy. About 1.5 hours into spin, the cameras showed up. What I hadn't realized is that NBC 15 was covering this event for the local news. Boy did I look like shit. The camera man shot the class from a few different angles. For some strange reason he parked himself in front of me, zoomed in, and shot film of me for what seemed like hours (it must have been my bright yellow Chain Smoker jersey that attracted the camera). Sure enough, my ugly mug made the news. The next week at work I had multiple people come up to me to say they had seen my stellar cycling performance on Channel 15. Of course this included finger pointing and laughing.....which is a small price to pay for a great cause.

The MS issue hits home with me. In 2005 I had a MS scare. I was experiencing some very strange symptoms that were making me extremely sick. To make a very long story short, after multiple blood tests for various diseases, a trip to the ER for an EKG for my panic attack and a MRI of my brain to check for MS lesions, it was determined that I did not have MS. 10 days worth of super strong antibiotics "cured" me as I might have acquired a tick-borne illness that was similar to MS. We'll never know. But for that 2 month period, those MS-like symptoms turned my world upside down. I certainly feel for people who are affected by this disease.

Base training has been going well but has mostly been on the trainer. I haven't been impressed with the WI weather so far. Last March I remember doing a 60 mile ride in shorts and a jersey with Ryan. This year has me freezing my limbs in my winter cycling attire. I've been piling on the miles as my coach has been scheduling the hours. This week it's 10 hours, next week it's 11. My fitness has slowly been coming around but I'm certainly not in the shape that I was before my injuries.

Iola is around the corner and it makes me so nervous that I want to puke. I haven't had too many high end workouts yet, I haven't ridden on my mountain bike in almost a year, I'm still 10-15 lbs overweight and my usacycling license says Expert. I think I might be in trouble. I'd like to do the Rock Cut Race to gauge my fitness before I embarrass myself at a WORS race, but the weather doesn't seem to be cooperating and my mountain bike isn't ready to go yet. On a more positive note, Chequamagon is a go. I opted for the Short and Fat this year as I wasn't sure I would be able to handle the 40. My 2008 racing year is going to be centered around the Cheq Short and Fat and perhaps Sheboygan WORS.

The single speed commuter is almost done. Now it will be time to turn my attention to my Trek Fuel EX 9. I'm scrapping the Hayes disc brakes for Avid 7's. I'm convinced that there is not an easy way to bleed Hayes brakes and the brakes are constantly making noise (no matter how they are adjusted). My life was so much easier before disc brakes, but damn do I love them.