The stupid shit we do, and the stupid people who talk us into doing it.

"If you keep doing the same thing, you'll keep getting the same result". Probably the smartest thing Anthony Robins ever said! You know Anthony Robins right? The motivation speaker. Well I think an adjustment can be made that makes that statement even more correct.
"If you keep hanging around stupid people, they will just keep talking you into doing stupid shit" There. Now that is much better!
So we used to have a fun little bike ride on Thursday nights here in Austin and everyone looked forward to coming to it. It was about 20 miles long and included some hills, or more precisely, some pretty steep hills. Now when we first started doing the ride everyone just rode together and suffered together and just enjoyed the fellowship of the ride.
Well after awhile some "stupid people" decided that it needed to be a race instead and proceeded to haul ass around the course as fast as they could. Well being the mentally retarded type of people that bike riders are, we all followed along and pretty soon our nice little hill ride was a full on, puke your guts out, hope I don't have a heart attack throw down.
Well this went on for awhile until all the vertically challenged people figured out that unless they stopped eating for a month they were never going to keep up with the anorexic, all lung no brain dip shits that were making there life miserable every Thursday. So the ride fell apart.

Well, now that a few years have passed by it occurred to us that we missed the Thursday Hill ride so we decided to restart it and since we already race on Thursday night, we decided to move it to Tuesday night instead.

Now I consider Jason a friend, you know the kind of friend that you can turn to for support, the kind of guy that would give you the shirt off his back, well if he had another one to put on anyway. Just an all around good guy. And I have spent many a day riding around town with Jason. You know just talking and exploring new roads that we had not been on before. And I also have eaten dinner with Jason a lot. And when I say a lot I mean that I have lived in Austin for 20 years and I have known Jason for 3 of those years. In the first 17 years I had probably eaten at 25 different restaurants in town. In the 3 years I have known Jason I have probably eaten at 200 restaurants with him. Jason's goal is to eat at every place there is in Austin, and as "stupid" as that sounds, he probably has a better than 75% chance of doing just that. I think he eats out at least 3 times a day, maybe more.
So anyway, Jason in his infinite "stupidity" has decided that we will restart the hill ride and since we have found all these new roads to ride, we will link them into one big loop.
A Super Hill Ride!

Now, me being the good friend that I am, and not wanting to rock the boat as it were, I decided that he had a great idea and went along with his new plan.
"STUPID IS AS STUPID DOES"!
So this last Tuesday we set out on the maiden voyage of the Super Hill Ride.
You know I have often wondered what it was like to be on the Titanic while it was sinking slowly into the deep, dark depths of the Pacific. The freezing cold water sucking the air from your lungs and your muscles convulsing in pain and agony. It must have been horrible!
Well, that sounds like a day at the beach after giving Jason's new Super Hill Ride a go. I mean seriously, what dumb ass would think up this shit! "Well at least we are not racing up these climbs" NO SHIT. Its bad enough that you go out and find a steep hill to climb without finding another one, and then another one, and then another one, one after another with sometimes no rest between them. I swear my heart was beating so loudly, I set off a car alarm when I rode by one. And most of us only did the first half of the ride. Luckily one of the guys that was riding over to join us for the "stupidity" got hit by a car and was delayed, he had to wait to fill out a police report or we might have had enough sunlight to do the whole thing. Thank You Jim for taking one for the group! We all owe you dinner. (Jim was OK, just some minor scratches).
Whats funny is the ring leader, the designer, the architect, the freaking prison warden didn't even do the ride with us. Yep, Jason had to go to his daughters softball game so he skipped our little ride. How convenient!
Now to be fair, Jason did go do the ride earlier in the day, and in fact he did the whole enchilada, the full ride, the big kahuna. What a "stupid" move that was!
I saw him about 20 minutes after he got finished in the parking lot and he looked like shit! Not brown and smelly, but white as a ghost,(and smelly). He was trying to tell me about the ride but with all the drooling and passing out he was doing, it made it hard to understand him. I asked him if he needed anything to eat and he said that he had just had some chicken. I asked "wings or legs?" he said "Whole". If I hadn't seen the bones I wouldn't have believed him.
I tried to get more information about the ride and what we would be facing later in the evening when my little party would be heading out, but he just kept mumbling about how much pain he was in, and if I had the numbers for his next of kin. He seemed to be suffering somewhat, which I though was fitting since he thought up the "stupid" ride anyway. Well he finally figured out how to start his car and headed off to go to his daughters softball game. I think he was OK to drive, although until he was able to just miss the mailbox before getting on the highway I was unsure.I guess the brake and accelerate can be confusing sometimes.
Thank God he wasn't in a Toyota!
I do remember him saying something to the effect of "I am gonna be late for my daughters basketball game, she is pitching for the Yankees tonight". I knew what he meant to say even if he didn't!

I want to be Fabian Cancallara not Lance Armstrong!

You know there comes a time in every mans life when you have to decide what you want to be when you grow up. Some want to be a doctor, some a fireman, some of you may have wanted to be a police officer. Hell some of you may even have dreamed of being President!

Now for most of my life I dreamed of being just one thing. ME!

And what is so wrong with that? I already knew how to be me, I was good at being me and there is no one in the world who can say they are me but me! Its a rather exclusive profession for which I am extremely qualified.

I have run into plenty of people who tried to be me but couldn't handle the stress of being me, after awhile they had to go back to being someone else. I don't know if anyone could possibly be me but me, it takes lots of will power and discipline to pull it off. So I have been happy with my decision most of my life, that is until I started racing bicycles!

At first I wanted to be George Hincape, he seemed like such a nice guy, and since I have had little practice at that in life, I figured it would be fun to have people say nice things about me for a change. Then I saw his wife and realized she was way out of my league so I moved to my next choice.

Alberto Contador!

Yep, he's the real deal for sure, but there are two problems. One I don't speak Spanish so that's a problem right there and two, he looks like he eats nothing but vegetables. OK now we have a problem. I am a Texan, Texans eat meat and lots of it. Brisket, Sausage, Pork, Chicken, Ham, Turkey, Rabbit, Goat, Dove, Quail. If it can be shot and BBQ'd then it goes on the dinner table. So Contador gets the boot!

Next up Tom Boonen, the gift of looks and speed all in one package. He was right at the top of the cycling food chain! And since he liked to party with the ladies it was a match made in heaven. Yea right!One trip to the weather channel and after realizing how shitty the weather is in Belgium I said screw that and moved on to Floyd Landis.

Well, that lasted all of about 2 minutes. No it had nothing to do with his supposed doping, I figure he is innocent anyway and the French just cant stand another American kicking their ass on their home court so they framed him. No I moved on because he is younger than me and already has a screwed up hip. By the time he's my age he will probably need a walker. Next choice please!

Well its time to face the facts, if you want to be any current cyclist in the world there is only one choice Mr Lance "I don't need two balls to have children" Armstrong! That's right, the guy is so strong even on one testicle he produced a great looking child. Hell on two full running gonads my kid would turn out looking like Quasimodo! Lance is the MAN!

Well at least I thought so!

Over the last year I have been keeping tabs on an up and coming cyclist who you may have heard of before. Fabian Cancallara!

Yes I know he has not won a single grand tour let alone the 7 Lance has won but over the last year he has destroyed everyone who has come up against him. He is good looking, and his style is effortless, he looks like he is just out for a Sunday ride while killing everyone else in the race.

Now don't get me wrong, I would still be Lance if Lance would let me be Lance, even for a day that would be awesome. He has got good looks, plenty of money, gets to hang out with rich and powerful people, and other than sucking at golf, he has got it all. Now of course I know that he is testicularly challenged but think about it. He gave up one, apparently unneeded body part to kick Cancers ass. Hell, if it came down to Cancer and living, you could take my joystick and call me Nancy! I don't use it anyway, I'm married!

But as much as I would like to be Lance for a day, I think being Fabian for a day might even be better. A time trialing God, a classics rider unlike any around these days, and he is from Switzerland. I love the mountains, skiing in virgin powder, or skiing in virgins, either works for me. And I love hot chocolate! You know Swiss Miss, um good!

Lance or Fabian! Who should I be? I guess I would be either for a day if I could, but that's it, 1 day. Anymore than that and I might start thinking I am a cycling God and lose touch with the common folk, the ones who make my life so meaning full and whole.
And my wife would probably kick my ass if I was hanging out with hot women all the time. I don't see the problem though, she can hang out with all the hot women she wants. You'd never hear me complain.
That's just the kind of guy I am!

Wind, Wind go away, come back another year!

Well Travis Wilky, a former professional cyclist that's on our team decided to do a "tempo" ride this afternoon and asked me to join him. Now for Travis a "tempo" ride is ride at a pace that hurts almost to the point of throwing up. For some reason he invited my fat ass to join him and for an even dumber reason I said yes! Well I figured I needed someone to join us so I would have a voice of reason when Travis was putting a whipping on me and I invited Jason Newman to join the party.
Now anyone that knows me knows that I do stupid shit all the time and today was no different. Asking Jason to join the ride was like asking a match to guard the gasoline, can you say explosion!
So we met up and headed out into a nice little 20mph wind, which after Sundays hurricane really did not feel that bad, at first! Not more than a mile into the ride we hit some glass on the road that was probably a broken beer bottle from one of the 43,000 rednecks that live in Round Rock and bam, flat tire.
So after a not so quick tube change and CO2 refill, we head out on Travis's 2 hr "tempo" ride.
Well I usually need about 20 minutes to get good and warmed up but today 20 minutes came around 5 minutes instead. Travis is just hammering away like he was late for an all you can eat buffet and I am already getting dropped like 10th grade french class.
I feel kinda bad because Jason is in his element riding right on Travis's rear wheel, while I am just a blip in their rear view mirrors. At least they slowed up at each intersection to wait for me! Otherwise I would probably still be out there trying to figure out which way they went.
As we ride, well more correctly, as Jason and Travis ride and I ride alone, the wind gets stronger and stronger until I have to resort to riding in the name of my blog "Down in the Drops". I find myself in that position more and more these days. Old age is not being kind to me! Neither are all the hamburgers I eat either!
So for the rest of the "tempo" ride Jason and Travis make me chase them around farm fields, and back country roads and places that I am sure are pretty at certain times of the year but today with water in my eyes from the stupid freaking wind and pain in my legs from my hill ride last night,they looked as ugly as Hiedi Flyss and smelled just as bad I am sure.
2 hours later we finish and as a reward for all my pain and suffering, we head out to Serrano's for some good ol Tex-Mex food. I don't know how good it really was, but I didn't leave hungry that's for sure.
I may be a Cat 4 on a bicycle but I am a Cat 1 at the dinner table! Everyone has a special talent, the idea is to find yours. I know what mine is!

A ride in the Sun

So since I skipped my ride yesterday to let my legs rest from the weekends worth of races, I decided to get out this afternoon and get in some miles. The plan was to go down to Mellow Johnny's bike shop, more correctly Lance Armstrong's bike shop here in Austin and get in their ride.
On Tuesday nights there is a ride called the "Tuesday Nighter", imagine that. Its been going on for better than 20+ years and has a cult following around this part of Texas. In the old days it wasn't uncommon to have Lance himself show up and ride. It really is an unsanctioned race that can draw 60-100 racers of all abilities to throw down against each other on an old country road in South East Austin. But like all things in Austin, growth has changed the ride.
In the past few years housing developments and commercial developments have made the roads that are used to race on much more friendly to cars, than the bicycles that show up to attempt the race.
Well since I have never done a "Tuesday Nighter" and a few of the guys on my race team were going out to do it, I figured I would go see what all the fuss was about.
Since the traffic in Austin SUCKS! And it really SUCKS anywhere around 5 pm, I decided to head down to my favorite bike shop in town, Austin Bikes, around 3pm to beat the traffic.
Austin Bikes is a cool little shop on 5th street in downtown Austin, and since it is only a few blocks from Mellow Johnny's it was a great place to go waste some time with Sol and his crew before the 5pm ride start.
Sol or really Soloman Frost, man what a cool name, is a professional cyclist who raced in Spain for a while and came back to Austin and opened up a neat little bike shop. He carries mostly mid to high end bikes, out of my price range for sure, but the guys that work at his shop are such nice guys and Sol is about the nicest guy you will ever meet in your life, anytime I have a chance to visit I will. I always leave Austin Bikes in a great mood!
So I stop by and mention that I am going to try the Tuesday Nighter out finally. Well I thought I was.
Sol and Scott, another great guy who besides working at the shop is also is a top bike racer in Austin, proceed to tell me about how the ride has really become a dangerous event and that they would probably never ride it again. Well if two professionals say its dangerous then that's enough for me. I have no reason to go out chance it. So I call the guys up and tell them I am skipping the ride.
Well since the traffic will be terrible if I try and head home and my wife works downtown, I call her up and we meet at a burger joint called Phil's Icehouse for a great burger and fries. So we visit a little after the burger and my wife says she is going to go shopping for awhile, which means she might get home by midnight if the store closes and kicks her out. Since I know of another ride in town tonight I head over to join that ride so I can burn of the massive meal I just consumed.
This ride is a hill ride which means we go find some really steep hills in West Austin and ride one after another until you can hardly turn the pedals around. I did it last week and it is a lot of fun, well parts of it are. So we head out and hit the first few hills and I start feeling like I probably should have skipped the food before the ride, although it was nice to re-taste the meal I just finished. It was like having 2 burgers tonight.
Well the ride went good and we had about 10 riders show up which was a nice size for a hill ride. I hammered up a few of them and ground my way up the hardest, Ladera Norte and it was nice to get out and ride after the day off Monday.
I guess I'll get some miles in tomorrow and then get ready for the races on Thursday night.
That's when all of Austin shows up to race at the Driveway. The best weekly race in America!

Rest day for some tired legs.

So after two bike races this weekend, neither of which I did anything that memorable in, it is time for a day off the bike. This last week was a fairly tough week of riding with 2 spin classes on Monday, a hill ride on Tuesday, 2 Criterium races on Thursday and 2 hard races on the weekend. After all that I think my legs needed a day off, so I gave it to them. I did nothing all day and it was all that I expected it to be and more.
Since I had some free time I went to my favorite lunch spot, PF Chang's and hung out for a couple of hours shooting the shit with my bartender friend Jim and a customer that is there almost everyday that I go, Marty.
After awhile Marty and I got to talking about golf and before I knew it I was invited to his country club to play 18 holes with him and Jim and another guy from the restaurant. As much as I like the idea of getting back on the golf course, I used to be a golf professional, I have not played but a few times in the last 2 years so I might need to go hit a few balls this week to iron out the wrinkles. I think Marty is looking for a playing lesson and since he is picking up the green fee, which is probably $125 or more, I need to give him his money's worth.
Well I am hoping to make a good impression with Marty since he appears to be a mover and a shaker around town, and since I need to find a job, he might just be the contact I need to find employment.
So it looks like I will have to find time to ride my bike before the races this Thursday and hit the golf course for a practice session this week.
For someone with no job, I sure do have a lot to do!