Univest

This was how my weekend started: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExubrV3hSo4

Thought that I would have at least made it through the neutral section. I swear, this race is cursed.

The State of US Bike Racing

This video says lot about the state of bike racing in the US and how the media focuses more on parking and traffic than the actual race. Well, at least the bike racers will be crowding Mohamed's deli after the race.

Now I know what the problem is...

It turns out that I am getting a new 2010 SuperSix frame soon. Pretty bad ass, and about a pound lighter than my current bike. All this time, I was thinking that the reason my season hasn't been great was something to do with training, injuries, illness, being too busy, etc. and as it turns out it's just that my bike is too heavy! Damn, if only I would have known earlier!

Bald Dream

I dreamt last night that I was going bald. And not the normal kind of bald... not bald on the back of my head or receding hairlines. More like bald on the side of the head and kind of sickly looking thin hair on the rest. I have remarked in the past that it seems interesting that now most men just shave their heads when they start to go bald, a sign that men have become just as vain as women. In my dream I felt bad about saying that because I didn't know what to do except shave my whole head and it freaked me out because I think that I would look really bad bald. Maybe I'm just really vain.

You don't need a weatherman to see which way the...

Today I did an LT test on Channel 6 meteorologist Adam Joseph as part of a segment that they are doing for the Philadelphia Insurance Triathlon, which is coming up in 2 weeks. I hate to say this, but I don't really watch much TV, and when I want to know the weather I look at my iPhone. So, not knowing who he was, I did what anyone would do and googled his name. So, what did I find but a bunch of fan sites, such as the facebook group "Adam Joseph, the hottest meteorologist since the invention of weather" and this blog, which includes the quote, "Of course, he must be gay. He just HAS to be..."

I didn't think much of it, until he sent me a very nice thank you email after he left offering to give me a "personal weather forecast". Now, I am not one of those guys who thinks that every guy who may or may not be gay is hitting on me, but it did lead me to think a little bit... why is it that a man, simply by virtue of being good looking, well-groomed and single is presumed as gay? OR, alternatively, is there something about being straight that blocks out the part of the brain that controls our ability to match outfits, shave all the time, or get a good haircut?

Talk amongst yourselves...

Race Ave. & Philly

I went to the Race Avenue crit in Lancaster on Saturday. Wasn't originally planning on racing, but I wanted to do something before Giro di Jersey and I'm not racing this weekend. It was a small but strong field, with a number of pros that were racing Philly on Sunday coming out to open up. The legs felt great and I read the race well, making it into the winning break with Johhny "the punk" Sundt and one other Kelly guy, ex crack fiend Chad Gerlach, A Jittery Joe, Jeremy Grimm and Jamil Kayin. After I pulled through a couple times it was clear that I was having the same breathing problems that always affect me in early June. The last 2 years at the Reading crit the same damn thing happened. As soon as I start to redline I feel like I am wheezing and can't get any oxygen... which of course means that my ability to recover is severely impaired. I started to sit on but when the second Kelly guy got popped I got caught behind and couldn't close the gap. Apparently Jamil sat on the entire time and then sprinted at the end, taking third. Jamil... hope you enjoyed it because you can now consider yourself blacklisted. Elliot did well to take 2nd in the field sprint for 7th.

Sunday was a long day, but fun. Did the fun ride around the course with some of our VIPs, then had a catered breakfast, then took a shuttle down to the Kelly Benefits tent at the start/finish line and watched the rest of the race. My boy Francois looked great, and delivered a nice 1K leadout for Kevin Lacombe, who took 6th, but the race wasn't fast enough for him to get a good result himself. It was kind of a weird vibe all day at the race. No TV coverage. Fans were sparse, except on the Wall and Lemon Hill. No money. No lead up races at Lancaster, Reading or Allentown. Not much publicity. I think that it wasn't until yesterday that the reality of the recession really hit me. Hopefully we can find a way to bring this race back to it's former glory.

Live at the Apocalypse

I've been thinking a lot lately about the survival of the human race. This feeling doesn't come out of any religious belief, just an exploration of the question, "what have we done to deserve to rule this world?". Our extinction may not be too far away. There are many ways that this end might come. Nuclear holocaust. Great floods, famine or even a new ice age caused by climate change. War. Of course, meteors, alien invasion or the dolphins rising up against us are all possibilities, but most likely our demise will be an indirect result of our own actions.

No where is it written that our species will go on forever. And if that notion seems sad I agree, but when you think about it, have we really done anything that makes us worthy of everything we have been given? What gives us the right to destroy our planet, exploit all it's resources and all its' other species? Really, as sad as it may be, I am not sure that we really even deserve to survive. If I have mice, moths or cockroaches infesting my house, eating my food and shitting all over the place I kill them. What makes us any better then them? I can't really think of anything.

I am not sure what exactly we should be expected to do here, if anything, but I know that the destruction of our only home isn't part of it. Sustainability might be a start. "Sustainability" seems to be a new word in our culture. As logical as it is, the notion that we can't take more than we have is completely foreign to most of us. We are so used to thinking only about ourselves and only about right now that we rarely think about the big picture... and I mean the really big picture. The bottom line is this: if we continue to pollute our environment, if we continue to make other species extinct, if we continue to over fish our seas, if we continue to cut down the very trees that create the oxygen we breath, if we continue to grow our population at a massive rate, if we continue to make unsustainable practices a normal way of life, we will not survive.

Welcome

I deleted my old blog and I started a new one. I had stopped posting anyway back in October. Guess I got in trouble a few too many times and I started second guessing myself. Of course, I don't know if anyone will read this... maybe if I include enough names all of you vain bike racers will read when you are at work doing a google blog search on your own name. We'll see.