W

Picture above: Last W in cat 3's @ 2009 Cherry Roubaix Road Race. Couldn't have done it without the support and backing of my team. Thank you. It means more than you will ever know.

Welcome to the fall: "This will not be over quickly. You will not enjoy this."

Back to the grind. No racing this weekend, just riding. Drop me a line if you have any interesting rides planned...or parties...

Update...

This blog will lack any (as if there could be less) interesting content for a while. If I am ambitious (pfff) maybe I will learn how to update it from my phone. Many interesting posts and pictures are lost in translation between capture and the subsiquent brain fart release. Any tips or tricks on mobile posting/pic upload to blogspot would be much appreciated. Sorry no iphone to pull a fat cyclist. So please keep your hipster iphone tips to a minimum. I have windows mobile.

ordering some of this stuff...since most of you are local let me know if you want to monkey on my order: http://www.twinsix.com/gear/the-stuff/fat-cyclist

.....

Funk Deez Nutz

Not sure if it's been my recent three month battle against some kind of fungus that lives in my shorts or the lack of validation…but I'm in a funk. Not a training funk mind you, this is a pure and simple discipline funk. The last five years as a cyclist have been predicated around the dirt. Train on road to race off has always been the moto. Recently I've been more disillusioned with the spotty Michigan mountain bike scene. Within three minutes of being at the start line I can guess my final place within a few spots. Besides, what are you racing for anyway? There isn't even a carrot since the mmba has puckered up so tight you could give it a penny and get back wire. There is just no comparable series other states have.

Racing road the last few weekends…has been enjoyable. Not in the typical sense of joy. No. This is Adam we are talking about. No sir, no typical here. I enjoy it…well…Mr.Topher Chase put it best:

I love killing dreams.

I endure pain all winter training so that later I can inflict it on YOU. Nothing personal…but your failure is my success. Mountain biking never really validated me in that respect because you hardly see anyone. In the road scene you get to watch people suffer up close for hours on end. So next time you look over in the break and see me…be sure you are smiling, because if you aren't, I will be on the inside.

As for dirt...we shall see. Right now I am shifting it to the back burner till after SBF. Too many dreams and not enough races.

2008: The Year Of POWER!

Lets get to the meat...between the seat?

Disclaimer: I do not keep track of stats by bike, congrats to those of you who do. I have trouble keeping up with the data logging as it stands...so as a result my rb and mtb stats are a bit fudged because of trainer confusion....oops. The perils of owning a mtb powerTap mid season.

Road bike: 2003 Klein
TIME 458:15:57
DIST 8084.85

Mountain bike: 2008 RM Element Team / Vertex 70 / Kona Unit SS / MooU
TIME 229:08:42
DIST 3194.56

Trainer: rb and mtb's
TIME 203:09:29
DIST 8084.85

Racing: results here
TIME 56:19:44
DIST 912.67

TOTALS
TIME 679:36:27
DIST 11162.47



For you power monkey's here is my 2008 season in the form of TSB/ATL/CTL:


For those of you who track my weight here is some fun history:
SUMMARY:
All in all I've achieved every goal I set for myself in 2008. Some would argue that you should set goals that aren't achievable, but that just isn't my style. I am a person who pays a coach so I can sit down, shut up, and ride.

1) make the jump to Elite mtb and make sure my road license followed suit [done]
2) lose more weight. target weight of 155lbs [uhh, ya but not enough]

Special Thanks to Trails-Edge Staff Micheal "moose mitts" Flack and Aaron "the man" Mihalko. They've tolerated my perma funk this long, maybe they can tolerate it another season...maybe.

So what's next for 2009?
1) drop more weight: target 145-149lbs
2) get faster: break that mythical 5.0 watts/kg barrier
3) carve out a spot in the elite mtb field.

And as always...

To a fallen soldier....

Doppelganger....

Massive Fallout 2008 v2.0.Robert.666

The route was 115 miles with an 85-90mile option out of Rochester mills brewery. With the precision only Robert has the skill for here was the planned route / time table:

"Mile 0.00 (8:45 am) Roll out from my driveway...
Mile 13.70 (9:45 am) Stop for bagel and coffee at... Panera Bread 2508 S Adams Road Rochester Hills, MI
Mile 13.71 (10:10 am) Roll off for the trails and beyond... (this portion of the ride will cover 41.5 miles (ride time 2:47) 50 to 65 oz of fluid and 660 to 770 calories is sufficient for this time frame per hammer nutrition
Mile 55.20 (12:57 pm) Party Store Refuel Stop
Mile 55.21 (1:13 pm) Roll off for more trails and more beyond... (this portion of the ride will cover 41.5 miles (ride time 2:47) 50 to 65 oz of fluid and 660 to 770 calories is sufficient for this time frame per hammer nutrition
Mile 96.70 (4:00 pm) Rochester Mills Party time with that Massives Burger and Beer (I plan to carry a small cable lock around with me all day just for this stop...)
Mile 96.71 (5:55 pm) Last leg of the ride.... 18 miles to my driveway... Sunset is at 6:56 (safe ride "dusk" till 7:16) bring a blinky
Mile 115.00 (7:10 pm) Arrive back home... "

The Goon Squad:

I apparently missed something when we were rolling out of panera...but I guess my camera captured a little peak into the future of my day...

Rolling out we had 10 people....

Rolling into Rochester Mills Brewery we had 5....

Now here was the real schedule:

Mile 0.0 (9:24am) we are already late rolling out of Rochester Mills Brewery to meet up with goon squad. So we proceed to hammer 4.6 miles in Alan and Paul's draft well into my lower L3 zone. I find it hard to ride in a straight line as I strip layers off trying not to over heat.
Mile 4.6 (9:47am) Late at panera, but apparently just in time to wait in the slowest line in the world as we sweat profusely...the normal patrons glare at us. I guess stinky men with large packages have invaded their Saturday morning sanctuary. They look very confused.
Mile ??.?? (??:??am) Uhh this ride is faster than expected. We've come off the rail trail and hit bloomer, Cruise/Robert/DK/Greg/Alan/Paul lay it down, the weak are killed and eaten in short order...Important fact - I am not the slowest person (yet)
Mile ??.?? (??:??am) Blah blah blah ride stoney, people get lost, hilarity ensues.
Mile ??.?? (??:??am) Somewhere on a dirt road after stoney we've lost josh, jim, and the guy in a Giant Kit. We wait. They show up just in time for more gas to be poured on the fire. I don't know it yet but this is a preview of my fate. Cruise eventually turns around and heads home, he has a dance to attend.
Mile 55.20 (1:12pm) We are 15min behind schedule at our first party store pit stop. Everyone has survived to this point. Devour calories and fluids, Robert is not pleased with chit chat and signs people are having fun, we move on. The clock waits for no one.
Mile 70.00 (Time doesn't matter) Jim, Josh, and guy in giant kit have been shelled off the back in the maze that is bald mountain. I am the straggler of the group now in a heavy bonk state....luckily the pack waits up for me to point me the way to Addison Oaks. They dont look very pleased. I am the weak, they are looking hungry.
Mile 75ish (Does time exist?) I fix a mechanical as we fill up water at Addison Oaks parking lot. I get side tracked trying to find my head unit for my power tap and get left behind. The clock waits for no one. I finally catch up to DK, he is having nerve/neck problems so I follow him out of the trail on the paved path cutting off about 2miles of single track. I stopped caring.
Mile what? (If i don't look at my clock it goes faster) .........blargh
Mile 96.71 (Time to Drink) I'm done riding....time to drink

Great day in the saddle. Nice reminder of why I ride. Also reminds me and my legs that the season is OVER...which is fine by me. more pics here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/yorkadam/MassiveFallout2008

Welcome to mid twenties. population, me

In celebration of me surviving twenty four years with half a brain we did an AA->poto->AA ride on mountain bikes. Though my birthday was on Monday, its hard to squeeze in a 3-4hr ride followed by copious amounts of beer without upsetting the work life balance. Naturally it was pushed to the nearest Saturday. Meeting at 2pm 8/16 we started off by ogling at Alan's new rig:

Completely untested and new we were breaking all the rules (never ride an untested rig long distances or in races)…but hey, rules are meant to be broken. So we rolled on.


Took us about 57minutes on the road (sorry no dirt) to get to the trail head. We had geared up for an "easier ride" but Mr.John Heft begged to differ with our 17-22mph pace on the road. Paul took the lead out of the gate at the poto trail head. He quickly disappeared into the distance. Nothing new, Paul just goes one speed at poto: fast. Alan couldn’t get his new rig to shift and was otb with me. We regrouped every now and again at points on the trail chatting it up as an excuse to slug back more water.

We met an interesting DNR employee who got to sit in a lawn chair and just tell people a parking lot was full. Where do I sign up for this job? Heft opted for the shorter 15mile loop while Paul, myself, and Alan went on for the full loop. We stuck together till the last paved road crossing, and then we all hit our own strides. Eventually hitting the parking lot after . John was kind enough to reserve us a spot on the beech so we could consume flat soda and enjoy the view. I made the mistake in partaking in the American tradition of a hot dog. It was so good I got to taste it the whole way home!


On the way back about we identified Alan's shifting problem as a stiff link (to go with his other two stops: lose skewer, lose headset). Seems SRAM chains have been plagued with stiff links recently. Anyone else notice this? After a few minutes of messing with it we back on the road. The way back was quite a bit faster with periods of 24-27mph. The tailwind helped quite a bit. Paul decided to work on his tan lines a bit also:


Ride Time: 3:31:14
Ride Distance: 58.99 miles
Beers Consumed: ~8.3

Upon return we drank a few brews right in front of Alan's house sitting on the curb. I'm sure the neighbors loved this….



After showering up and it was time to hit up the bars in AA. Grizzly peaks for foodage (mmmm pulled pork sandwich) and an eight beer (5oz ea) sampler. Paul in his competitive nature naturally finished first, Heft second, me in third, and Alan with assistance from Paul was DFL. If you wanted me to recount the complex flavors of each beer good luck…Next up to bat was Ann Arbor Brew Co. followed by Ashley's. Even Mr Stephen Cain of UofM cycling showed:

(This is a rare sighting at best. Drink it in)

Now it's Monday and I'm officially 24. Miller High Life anyone?


(that's March 2008 in TN - good stuff)