The 'ol Give and Get

I received a gift card to GNC from my Parents.

As far as my giving, I gave 3- Motorola Talk Abouts to Christie and Gus.

Aris Is getting a little something, but I haven't given it to him yet.

Is it just me or are...

my parents those people that are the butt of Jeff's Blog. I think they are part of those nieve people that don't even want to acknowledge a cyclists existence in the winter. They are the kind of people that is the topic of Jeffs Blog. They are making a stink about me going out riding today. Its mid 30, the roads are clean, its Saturday. Any other cyclist I know would be out on the roads right now, by winter standards today is a beautiful day. They said, "people aren't looking for cyclists in winter. That maybe true but that doesn't make us invisible. Then they said, if your going to go riding, better stay in town, and that is the last place I'd ride besides the fact you can't get any good training in that the highest probability for a rider driver confrontation would be in town.

I just want to ride in Rural Herman where the only thing I have to worry about is the farmers pretty much. I know those roads really well because its where I train in the summer. As a cyclist I know the fact that "I have rights on the road" doesn't mean anything in the here and now, as a cyclist I know you have to expect the unexpected. Its either that or to spend like 3 hours on the trainer, if you were me where would you rather be. They would rather me ride on a trainer for 3 hours or ride out on the road for 3 hours and anyone that has ridden a trainer for 3 hours knows I'd rather take my chances on the road.

Allow me to also point out I did 38 Races This year and I did at least 20 last year, how many have they been to? NONE!

This Evening's Feature is...

Rush Hour Starring Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker

I spent 1 hour and 30 Minutes on the trainer making my daily total 2 hours and 43 minutes, not too bad for one day. Now I just have to keep it up at this rate, I'll be 10 lbs lighter by Race day, but I doubt it.

Running Total is 4 hours and 33 minutes, at this rate I'll have 30 hours of training in before race day, not likely to stay at this high of a rate though. I would love to plug Russell's Self Run New years eve ride, I just copied this from his blog:

The Rusty Tool Shed's 7th Annual New Years Ride!
That's right Boys&Girls, there is no better way to celebrate the end of the year then to drag your sorry a$$e$ out on the one of the worst rides of the year. Last year we had 40 degrees and rain. The year before it was 34 degrees with an inch of slush on the road. On some years it was actually kind of nice out. What will the weather man bring this time?

This years excitement begins at 9:30 am and will last for about 3 hours - longer if people get flats or just plain ol' break down & cry. This fun event is a mildly-paced ride and it may include a mix of city streets & urban roads and maybe some of that fancy paved bike path. Finish and I promise to stuff your ugly faces full of cheese, sausage, crackers and PBR's (soda pop for the kids!) .


Where? - At The Rusty Tool Shed of course! 2559 N. 68th St in Wauwatosa. MAP.
When? - On New Years Eve. The ride leaves at 9:30AM!!! - be on time & be ready to ride.
What? - It's a road ride in winter so bring your Winter Road Bike! You say you don't have a Winter Road bike? Then bring your Cyclocross Bike! Or your regular Road Bike! You can bring a Mt Bike if you must, but please don't whine if it's too slow!
Why? - Don't make me slap you, cause I will.

Directors Commentary

Add another hour and 13 minutes, had to quite early to go to work. Total is over 3 hours already. I'm revising my goal to 18 hours before January 2nd.

As Personalized Products is Paying for my Flight to Florida and my Transportation to the Race I want to give credit where credit is Due, I have placed a link in my right hand bar. They offer Personalized Polo/Golf Shirts, Wool and Leather Jackets aka letterman's jackets, We are also a dealer of the Full Carhartt Line of products. In January and February we often turn orders in a week so come on in they'll keep you warm this winter. If that doesn't suit you we also do t-shirt and sweatshirt screen printing, many many selections to choose from.

I'm signed up, so now what?

Now we are going to do 12 straight nights of movies, by that I mean with my on my bike watching it, if I didn't watch it, I'd get bored especially on a mag trainer. Tonights movie was In Good Company, which had Dennis Quaid, Scarlett Johanson, and Topher Grace.



My blog isn't about to be about movie reviews, but the purpose of the blog is to prove to all of you people out I'm taking this race seriously, I want a good finish, and I won't let something like Darkness Stop me, aka yesterday's post. Today's movie was an hour and fifty minutes, I did it low resistance, medium cadence. I'm not going for HR intervals or Wattage testing or anything like that, just working on toneing my muscles, work out the ol' ticker a little bit with some medium intensity stuff and get myself into respectable shape. I think 50% of the Battle in endurance racing is just staying on the bike. So anyway.... keep it tuned right here for the Day by day progress Leading up to and including the 12 hours of Oleta.

Lights, + Plane ticket = 12 hours of Oleta

So my lights came, my Plane ticket will officially be bought tomorrow, and My bike will be hitting the UPS Truck Tomorrow or Friday. I'm so psyced, all you peeps are going to be freezing in WI, I'm going to be cramping up from heat exhaustion in Florida. I will be sure to document my Journey as best as possible, I highly doubt I will have any pictures of me on the bike in the race however, I'm self supporting myself for the race, I'm going to KISS as much as possible, I've found trying to keep it too simple can be as much of a problem in the past though. I'm going to be getting down there on the 3rd of January and the race is on the 5th, I hope that I have no issues with assembling the bike, I should have no problems, I should be able to assemble it with nothing more than a few allen wrenches. I still need to pack all of my support materials yet, I will be flying with most of that.

If I ride for the whole 12+ hours I see no reason why I can't get a top 10 in solo.

I can't Freaking Wait

For you Fans of Expo Racing

Put this on your Desktop



Its bigger that the Blog allows me to do so go to this LINK.

My 2008 Off Season Wishlist

1- Light and Motion Li-ion 9-Cell Battery

2- Stella 180-L

New Road Racing Wheels possibly the New Mavic R-Sys
or
Dura-Ace or White Industry Hubs w/silver Wheelsmith spokes and silver nipples on silver Wheelsmith rims. Now that is a silver/chrome overload.

1- White Industries 32h M16 Front Hub laced to a Black Velocity VXC w/DT Swiss Revolution spokes.

To pay off my Outstanding Account @ Expo.

To Make some Expo Racing Embroidered Team Collared Sport Shirts. If anyone on our team would like some I can do them for cheap.

The things I think about when I can't sleep at night

I couldn't sleep last night. You know when you see that guy in cartoons with a light bulb over his head when he gets an idea, it was something like that. So in response to my own post I think I will get an additional 9-cell battery for my arc and I will get (2) Stella 180-L. So I have three lights the reasoning being that if something happens to one of the other lights you have a back up for endurance racing. I need the extra battery anyway for endurance racing. Each of these set-ups provide 5 hours at the max setting which is approximately 3 solo laps at 9 mile.

Total system MSRPs at $1600. You can bet your bottom $ that I will be getting a deal on these. Gus is no longer formally sponsored by L&M (edit: he still loves them and endorses them though) but I have a hookup through Expo from QBP.

Cycling stuff for sale

I currently I have for sale my Bontrager Race Disc 6-Bolt Tubeless Wheels for sale on Ebay.
You can find then here.

I also have a Bontrager Race Lite fork for sale, you can find that listing here.

And last but not least I have a Pair of Size 8/42 SIXSIXONE Shoes found here.

You'll be happy to know I'm putting the money on this auction and my other auctions currently towards my choice of high performance lights. Tell you freinds about these listings and help me out.

I need some lights NOW!

I want to get some lights, I'm going to need them for the 12 hours of Oleta. I will have to ride from about 5pm till after I finish my last lap after 10pm. I'm thinking if I want to get lights on a budget I should get a set of Stellas, the great thing about Stellas is they have really long burn times on small batteries I can get 5 hours of burn on a 1 lb system. I can get into these very reasonably, I'm not at liberty to say how much. On the other hand I could bite the bullet and get some bight tried and tested lights, tested by people like Expo Racing's own Fixed Gear Gus I can buy two Stellas in place of one of the ARCs. The light out put is like 4 fold of that of one Stella 675 lm. vs 180 lm

Prices MSRP
Stella 180-N $200
Stella 180-L $300
Arc Li-ion $499
Arc Li-Ion Ultra $599
Ari Ni-MH $409

At this point I'm thinking its going to be either two 180-L Stellas or one Arc Li-ion Ultra.

lets race in the single digits

Aint that the truth

An item that you've been having trouble finding will finally turn up. Snap it up - even if it's not on sale..

SCORE!

A major score with a hookup with these will be forthcoming.
Sub 1500g for the set, AND THEIR DISC AND 3X LACING FRONT AND REAR!

This is bigger news than me racing the Illinois CX Championship. For that matter I'd rather not talk about it all together but the day was fun though. I'll make a post recappng the weekend During the Week sometime, This week and next week are my finals so time will be thin.

Guess what I did this afternoon

I registered www.exporacing.org