Blather on Bicycling

I’ve heard that since ants can’t see, they smell their way along the trail of the ant in front of them. If you can get the lead ant back on an original path, they’ll keep following each other around in circles. That’s exactly what happened in the Chicken Dinner Race outside Nampa, Idaho today. A long string of ants kept circling around in the desert. I happened to finish as the lead ant in my group.

I always enjoy making the trip over to the tropical paradise of Boise. Before the race people kept talking about a fierce wind out on the course. I’m not sure what they were talking about because I didn’t notice any wind, and once again it was nice to be able to let my knees breath in the balmy weather of Southern Idaho. 

George’s found a very steep and longish climb for a nice racing circuit today. After a few times up the climb, I pulled out my dynamite stick to see if it had any pop. Apparently, the fuse was very short and the stick was big because it scattered our small group. I thought I had Austin dropped but somehow he clawed his way back to me. Our conversation went like on the steepest part of the climb near the top:

A: You are one strong Mr. Falcon [in the Die Hard 2 TV version context]
B: And you’re right here too.
Followed by an exchange of a resssspect pound.

We continued to work together, along with Taylor (his teammate we soon caught), for the last circuit to the finish. I had a good race and finally got to expose my armpits across the finish line. Now we’re set up for a big showdown at the crowning jewel of the series, Emmett-Roubaix. In this race, we will travel from Emmett, Idaho to Roubaix, France. It is a rough course and I have a special bike all rigged up for it. I can’t wait to ride it tomorrow for my training ride.

Lactic Acid teammate Milt also had a free and clear win in the Masters B race and Mike was in 3rd. Congratulations to them. The other UC boys failed to complete the trifecta, but it was a gallant effort. El-train demonstrated his mechanical failure techniques were dialed in with a flat early in the race. Or maybe he just understood my recommendation to go on an early break to mean “early brake” or “mechanical break.” Bri-Tel found out that race prep without a bike doesn’t work so well. I missed the money shot with my camera as they crossed the line together in a Lemond-Hinault-esque overhead joining-of-hands in celebration of last place.

Of the 3 training techniques I outlined in my last entry, it looks like Mt. Whits’ was the superior. He got in a very select group on the first lap and finished in 6th. This is giving further credence to Landis’ philosophy that there is no such thing as “overtraining.” In all seriousness, I’m beginning to subscribe to this philosophy and my personal experience is confirming it. You repeatedly crush yourself until there is no choice but for a positive adaptation by the body. One caveat is that you have to ease up a bit to do speed training and also to freshen up for races.

Next weekend I’ll be racing the Tour of Walla Walla. I’m on a pretty good run now with all top 10 results this year so I’m hoping for the same there. I’ve been packing in a lot of racing this year. I’m thinking about printing some rock band tour T-shirts for myself that have the following on the back:

By the way, I had on some new legs for the race this weekend. Stay tuned for an upcoming entry with pictures to be titled, “Bike P*rn.”

Also, I’ll put up some pictures of today’s race at LaGrandeRide.com later this week.