Grand Tours as viewed from a mtb'er

On my way back from getting blasted around Hanson Hills on Saturday with Randy and Sally Vernon we started discussing the grand tours. Randy, a mountain biker, mentioned that watching the Tour de France has become just like watching professional wrestling.

Think about the last 9 tours. Lance x 7, followed by the first real open tour in 7 years (Phloyd is either innocent or an absolulte idiot), followed by another Johan B. team taking control. A bit repetitive indeed. Don't get me wrong, I still (personally) enjoy watching all of the tours, but 60 minutes through a Belgian park is quite a bit more entertaining.

TdF meets WWF Smackdown! Interesting point from a mtb'er...

Training and E-bay...

First, here is a shameless plug for a new e-bay auction I'm listing. Buy it and I'll give you a high five and a hammer gel next time I see you.



Second, now that I am back to normal health I have been resuming training with my new training partner. Unfortunately when the weather gets nice she'll have to stay home, as I think she would be a bit of a drag after more than 5 miles of running behind me...

Despite what the picture would lead you to believe, I've actually lost weight since 'cx...I look like a tubbo here. Probably should lay off ice cream sometime soon anyway...

Enjoy the snow while we have it!

jb

Normalized

After my last post and my quick but hefty bout with the flu, I managed to come down with pneumonia for (what seems like) the 10th time in my short life of 25 years. I can almost count on the fact that I'll get it every other year. I love looking forward to that...

Anyway, after a crazy number of snow days I managed to get healthy but obviously my training was sidlined for a while. Good thing I don't give a rats rear about any races before the 'cx season. Don't get me wrong, road racing is entertaining but 'cx is what's fun. As long as racing is still fun I don't foresee taking another 5 year break. From what I remember about why I stopped racing as an 18 year-old, one of the primary reasons was because I raced almost all of the spring training series races through the end of the 'cx season with 2 peaks. Wow. Talk about burned out...

Granted I'm a different person now from when I was 18. My mind can probably handle that and still want to get on the bike come the following February-ish. But why? Let's face it, unless you're one of the 2 people I know that are either currently a pro or an aspiring pro, you and I aren't going pro any time soon. Therefore, why not focus your season entirely on the part that you care about (and are possibly good at)?

Enough of my rant for today. Hope you have a good weekend and are on the bike or skis with all of this snow!

jb

p.s. be sure to check out the Ithaca GP, as we got a new sponsor!

The Kone

So despite all the time off I still managed to get whatever bug everyone else has. So much for 2 good weeks of training.

Instead I figured it would be a good idea to get the 6+ inches of snow off of our driveway. Too bad it is going to be in the middle 30's on Tuesday so we'll (again) lose all of this snow.

After recently watching the cyclocross movie, Transition, I noticed a familiar face in the crowd...next time you're watching it take a look around 22-ish minutes (Deleware and Phili races) for TGM'er JEFF WEINERT! In Deleware he scored a front spot on the start line and pokes his head in and out of that coverage. In Phili he has a 2nd row start and gets a nice close up while riding with Trebon (or Wicks...somebody in orange).

jb