...what time it is...

We are on the eve of one of the most important dates on the cycling calendar, no it's not Eddy Merckx's birthday.  It's the tour day France, you silly!  I have to be honest and say that I am a Classics guy, and deep down I feel that le Tour is totally over-hyped, but I am such a fan.  I am secretly in love with the grand race that circumnavigates the nation of France.  One look at a clip of the race and you see such beauty, multicolored kits framed with sunflowers, roads winding up cols, and the castles that have furniture older than our country.  This exhibition of sport is eclipsed by none, man melds with machine for 23 days to labor for one to stand above all others.

 Yeah, I'm excited, the buzz of the stages; the talk of new bikes, wheels, and custom paint.  Who is going to win?  Who is going to challenge for the Green jersey?  Oh, and my favorite of all things cycling: The Breakaway -Going Rogue.  Putting your nose in the wind and damning the torpedoes, for what?  Glory?  TV sponsor time? To stay away and win?  Or is it just pure tactics?  Whatever the reason you have to love the break.  How boring would it be if everyone stayed together?  The leader's team has to take up the chase if the gap becomes to big, and then the sprinter's teams make sure that they can catch at approximately 10k to go.  The break, the chase, and the catch -or not- stick it, attack your companions and go for the stage... Solo.  To paraphrase Jens: if you don't try you have no chance of winning.

Yes I love the Spring Classics, I love the cobbles, I love watching the Rouleurs motor up the muurs, but when it comes down to it le Tour is what everyone knows.  For good reason.  It is huge.  Everything about it is big, it's like Texas.  People say "it's like the Superbowl", what a disservice to one of sport's biggest spectacles on the planet.  The Superbowl is two teams from American football going head to head in a span of a few hours with some multi-million $ commercials that are usually better than the actual game.  Le Tour lasts a full month has like 18 teams of nine riders, and millions of spectators that paid nothing -and those are the ones on the sides of the road, what you got?

One aspect of le Tour that we here in America have no concept of, unless you have been there, is the caravan.  I'm talking about the sponsor's cars that hand out water, candy and the odd giant green hand that precedes the peloton.  There is also the caravan that we get a small glimpse of every-now-and-then when a rider drops back for bottles or a bike change or heaven forbid has to get patched up by the race Dr.

If you could not tell I am ready for le Tour, I'm looking forward to watching a stage everyday for the next month.  If you don't have Tour fever, what's your problem?  The cycling gods are smiling on us, it's July and we are about to witness a new chapter in cycling history and the history of le Tour.  We are done with the neutral roll-out...   ATTACK!!!!

Father vs Dad

Just want to start out by saying how much my Dad has influenced my life, and how much I have become my Father's son.  If you knew my Dad you might think that we are nothing alike and we couldn't be farther apart and so dissimilar.  Yes it would seem that I take after my Mother more than my Dad, but I am slowly growing into my Dad's shadow.  I realize more and more that I have his mannerisms, I share his frustrations, and I snore like a missing V-8.

I grew up on a would-be third generation family farm, one that I should be working right now.  My Father and his Father before him have worked the land... their land all of their lives.  It was supposed to become my land, but farming was just not in the cards for me.  I worked with my Grandfather and Dad for a few years before I became the prodigal son and moved to Salt Lake to chase the snow.  Don't get me wrong, my Dad never pushed me to do anything, I was always allowed to make my own decisions, and for that I am very grateful.  I have experienced many things because of the support and love from my family and my Dad.

The one thing that my Dad has that I strive for in my day-to-day is his "lust for life".  No matter what he does my Dad loves to have fun and likes to be around people, he is the quintessential entertainer whether it is eating out at restaurants after church, having people out to the farm for dinner, or opening his house for giant 4th of July blow-outs.  My Dad knows how to have a good time and how to make other people have a good time -he is contagious and selfless.

My Dad is the definition of "old school".  Work hard.  Play harder.  He has a relentless work ethic and can work you into the ground, he will not give up on a problem.  Get a bigger hammer, heck my Dad doesn't mess with hammers, he grabs the "cutting torch" and fixes the problem.  He is a bit of a super hero, clown, handyman, mechanic, policeman, and fireman all rolled into one.  Now Fireman is a bit of a misnomer, he does not put out fires -he starts them, or makes them bigger.  I've witnessed him cheat death, fix the impossible, and care for his family.

Speaking of definitions.  Father n. -a male parent.  Dad n. -informal term for father. Pretty lame definitions for such an important figure.  My definition:   Dad n. -a person I want to be more like

Happy Father's Day  Thank you for everything you have done in my life.  I love you.
-GL

Meanderings

So what if I get some spare time to write?  Should I?  Should I go ride my bike? Drink some man sodas?  What to do, what to do?  Check, Check and Check.  Well, I'm working on the writing part...

I got home late today and scrapped my ride in favor for the couch, good trade off -right?  Anyway, the wife came home and changed into running clothes, so not to be outdone by a runner I quickly kitted up and headed out the garage for a raging recovery ride.  Whatever that is.  Recovery sounds like you have a mission to accomplish rather than saying "slow and easy".  Potato - patatoe.  Plus, recovery sounds like you've been working hard and need some rest or something.  Whatever it is, or was mine ended in a few adult beverages and banter with a teammate -completely unscheduled.  Who would have thought?

I just about quit my job today out of frustration with not knowing how to do my job.  It's like I care or something.  I mean, I'm selling coffee to people who want coffee and all I have to do is drive my truck to them and give them what they need.  Really? Who does not need COFFEE?  Seems like an easy proposition, but leave it to people to screw up the simple.  Oh, well I have to hang in there and give it some time, but I despise not knowing what the heck I am doing or supposed to do.  Is that a control issue?  I'm not a controller, I do like attention, but control is a different animal from "life of the party" status.  Right?  I will take life of the party for $200 Alex.

How is it, Why is it, What is it, that riding a bike makes everything bearable?  Livable?  I honestly don't know what I would do without a bike.  I know I should use it more for transportation, but let's be realistic I use it as a toy.  After all it is a toy.  But.  If you read your history, one of the first iterations of the bike was made by some lazy dude working in his garden.  I can identify with laziness, I don't like to work.  I just want to play, and if play involves two wheels and a cold one afterwards...count me in.

I know I can say with out a doubt that I know people because of the bike.  There is noway I would ever cross paths with some of my friends if it were not for this simple machine of locomotion.  I know that to keep my sanity it requires consumption of miles via bike, and if I did not regularly ride -I would not enjoy life in the capacity that I am able.

Thank you to everyone that I know because of the bike, I know it sounds silly to think that the link that brought us together is as simple as a bike. 

Looks like I'm going to be a once a week kind of poster right now.  That whole thing called work is really biting into my artistic ability to churn out witty repartee, or just turn some words into 1's and 0's.  Really? Witty?  No.  Maybe just sarcastic comments -my speciality. 

I have been so removed from ProCycling right now I couldn't tell you anything or even comment on what is going on.  The only thing I know is the UCI is the evil empire.  'Nuff said.  I've been following some Pros on Twitter and Ted King got busted up in Philly, and Craig Lewis broke his femur over in Europe, double ouch.  We have a new National champ in Matt Busche of RadioShack.  Other than that you better go to CyclingNews or Velonews.  Maybe if I got paid to do this I would have more time and I could write so much more and entertain you at work or on the john.

Tulsa Tough was this weekend and it was an absolute blast.  To be part of an event such as Tulsa Tough is an awesome feeling.  This feeling is why I race in the first place.  I race to be Pro, or should I say be like?  I will never be Pro, but lining up in a race makes me feel Pro.  Racing for me is not about winning, I know that is what mediocrity says and I resemble that, but it is true.  I race to race, as we say "I like to ride my bike really fast".  Results are fun and I do like to do well, but I love racing with my teammates and friends.  It makes the race the Race, the living breathing organism that is part flesh and blood and part carbon fiber machine.  This organism is never the same, it is always different and ever-changing.  Forest said "it's like a box of chocolates...".  I think it's more like drinking the water in Mexico -it's risky: sometimes you win and sometimes you get the S*** beat out of you.

Isn't that beautiful?  Pain. Suffering. Winning. Losing.  Coming in as packfill is my job and I will do my job and love it, yeah... maybe it's because that's all I'm good for, or maybe I just love to ride my bike really fast.

Pizza legs

Ok, if you are here to get one of those "look at me" "I love myself" race report recap crap, you are in the wrong blog-o-sphere.  I raced my bike really fast along with my teammates.  We had a great time and if you want to hear about it keep reading, if you are looking for turn by turn directions of the racing go somewhere else, or hang around after a group ride and bring a cooler full of man sodas.

So there I was, monkey fist firmly squeezing my medulla oblongata and a demon in full control of my upper and lower GI tract.  Staring down a 40min crit that was about four hours away.  How did I get here and why do I do this to myself?  Why?...the F word...Fun.  Yeah, it's all about the fun, and I am not the only one who likes to have fun.  We have several instigators and propagators of hilarity and hijinx.  Put all that in tight quarters, mix in some adult beverages a bike race or two and you have the recipe for one heck of a hangover.

Roadtrips are fun, seriously they are fun.  You have to be in the right company and you have to have the right combo of activities and geography.  Sometimes you have to look for the fun, but most of the time it will find you, just open your eyes and it will be all around you.  Crazy lives everywhere, I've seen it...I've done it.  Rule #1 only stop at truckstops, truckstops are like the seaports of the old world, you never know what you will find.  Treasures lurk in the shadows -take a camera, for proof of what you have seen.

The best part of the weekend was the people, should I say friends, family, teammates?  Yes, yes, and yes.  I have the great privilege to know and cavort with some of the most incredible friends/family.  In the last three years that I have been part of this crazy thing we call a cycling team, I have had some of the best memories off the bike with these cats.  I have friendships that have been forged through pain and suffering but polished with togetherness.  I'm not going to name any names -to protect the innocent- but we won a race had some podiums and that was all we needed to get the homebrews flowing and the google maps looking for a brewpub.  Several hours later an inflatable phallus, the bachelorette party and one of Wichita's finest that we swore was a male entertainer.  Oh, yeah it just happens to us.  If we had not left when we did, I am afraid that some dance moves would have been displayed, with minimal skill -but displayed nonetheless.

So that brings me back to the Sunday morning hangover minus the tattoo or missing tooth.  The only issue I had was, "why do I do this"?  I'm pretty sure I have a problem, my problem is that I have Rock Star ambitions and a Boyscout tolerance.  And that whole deal of having to race a crit in a parkinglot?  I mean really?  My body feels like I was part of a medical experiment at KU and me and solid food are not friends.  Did I mention it is as hot as the surface of the sun?  Yeah, I love roadtrips and bike racing.  Am I serious about it?  What do you think?  I'm serious about having fun.

Juicyfruit?

What is it like losing touch with reality?  I guess that would depend on your version of sanity or your view of reality.  Who is to say crazy is not the new black?  Or is it white, pink?  What's the whole deal with shoes and labor day?  Does that apply to nurses?  Tangent.  My wife went skydiving today and most 9-5er couch dwellers would probably view the activity as fringe, or I hate to use it -extreme.  Shall we, for all intense purposes just say crazy?  Is that crazy?  These tattooed cigarette and Redbull inhaling adrenalin addicted individuals probably look at the bean-counter chained to a desk and think that is crazy.  Who wants that?  Fluorescent tan, watercooler talk and a boss that needs a cover sheet on the TPS reports.  Did you get the memo?

It's easy for us to point a finger at someone who is different and pass judgment as if we know what the score is.  We all have things that we subscribe that might raise the eyebrow of our neighbors.  You paid how much for your bicycle?  Oh yeah, well how much did your putter cost?  Touche.  I can't cast the first stone, because of all the crazy skelotons hanging in my closet.  Skateboard  Snowboard  Kayak  MTB  Road Bike Climbing Gear

Today in the hangar the jump instructor asked if I wanted to jump and I said that, and I quote "I don't have the desire".  He looked back and said "it's not for everyone" -what is that supposed to mean?  It's not that I am scared to jump out of an airplane, I just don't want to jump out of an airplane.  I don't want tattoo's, does that mean I'm scared to get a tattoo?  Not my cup of tea.  Now, here is the weird thing -I would be more apt to jump off a cliff or bridge in a BASE jump, given the choice.  Now that's crazy.  Bungee just looks stupid to me, again not my cup of tea.  Of course I'm not a tea drinker.  Coffee -black.

My reality is not your reality, we might share some space in the padded room, but straight jackets come in all sizes.  Is it crazy to dress oneself in a micro-thin petroleum fiber, swing a leg over a carbon-fiber human-powered machine, and proceed to do battle with the narrow-minded cell phone-texting road-raging populace in their ginormous SUVs?  To do such a thing would be admittable. 

Where did I put that power of Attorney?

make it stop

Where do you go when you take the body past what you perceive to be a limit?  What allowes you to handle pain?  Suffering?  It always seems like there is somebody in front of me pushing harder than I can manage.  Fitness can get you so far, but pain management is the road less traveled.  The definition of Endurance is, and I'm paraphrasing here, the ability to withstand hardship or stress, power of withstanding an unpleasant or difficult process.  So really, Fitness is Pain management or in work-out terms Endurance.  Therefore training is just putting oneself into a deep dark place so that the next time you can go to deeper darker places, No not like Detroit -but similar.

I see you are scratching your head.  Yes, you hurt yourself so that you can hurt yourself even more the next time, because this time was just not good enough. Tolerance.  The body is a peculiar thing, you can push it and push and push, and for the most part it will take it and tolerate.  Sometimes it will push back, or it will go on strike.  The most cruel thing the body does to oneself is it will waste away if it is not constantly pushed to some extent.  I have heard that "fitness is a cruel mistress, hard to attain, difficult to maintain, and easy to lose."  Like every relationship known to mankind, pain is involved.  In fact pain is front and center in the relationship with fitness.  They say love makes the world go 'round, I say it is pain.  Pain is work, love is what people write stories about.

A man was hitting his head against a wall. I asked him why he was doing this?  He replied, "because it feels so good...when I stop."

Have you heard your name from out of the blurry crowd lining the street?  Did it make your pain go away?  Did you dig deep, move up, work together?  Did it inspire you just a little to have your Mom, Dad, Sister, Brother, Uncle, Aunt, Wife, Husband, Daughter, Son there yelling for you?  Yelling at your suffering, trying to make it ease a little so that you can push back ever so slightly if just for another moment.  The moment right before the body pushes back and you meet a limit.  I always think to myself, in the instant when the body sends the memo that it is about to check out for the day, "hey if this were easy everyone would do it."

I witnessed an awesome display of fortitude this weekend with a teammate of mine.  He cracked.  I've been there, you have been there.  It is a horrible experience, your nutrition is off, you are sick, you've pushed too hard, you are cooked.   I was there and I was not going to let him quit (I know I'm a cruel s06).  I did everything I could to keep him turning over the cranks, I tried motivation, I yelled, I tried jokes.  Even in spite of everything I did...He Would Not Quit.  I raced a crit the next day.  My teammate was there, and when I saw him I knew no matter what happened that day, I was not allowed to Quit.