Another reason to forego the nap has to do with the fact that I decided to sleep in this morning. Rather than rise and shine at 7:30 in the glorious AM, I took one look at the ominous clouds outside and decided against the fifity-mile B+ ride scheduled at 9:00. Threatening rain combined with the fact that I felt as if I could do with another eighteen hours of sleep, I fed the cat and quickly returned to bed.
At 11:45, I figured it was time to finally roll my lazy ass out of bed, have a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios, and hit the road. Which road? I logged on to Bikely.com this morning to put together something new and exciting, something about 45 miles long with a few hills. I mention Bikely.com yet again as it’s an interesting tool. Not only can you map your own rides to determine their exact length before you go out, but the program also has the ability to map out elevation changes.
For example, I just mapped out the weekend ride on Staten Island. CLICK HERE to see it and when you get to the page, move your cursor over SHOW--all the way to the left of the horizontal toolbar near the top of the page. Moving your cursor over SHOW will produce a drop-down menu including WHOLE ROUTE and ELEVATION PROFILE. Click on ELEVATION PROFILE which will give you exactly that, an elevation profile of the selected ride. In this case, you can see that the weekend SIBA ride includes a total climb of 1,363 feet over the course of the forty or so miles.
Now try a search for “pleasantville” within the FIND option in the horizontal toolbar on top of the page. You should find a “Pleasantville to Pleasantville” ride (my name will be under the CONTRIBUTOR column) which is the ride I put together this morning. Under the SHOW option, check the ELEVATION PROFILE, which should highlight a total climb of 3,175 feet over a course of roughly forty-five miles.
You know what would be really interesting to see? The hill-climbing ride on Staten Island. Keep in mind the scale changes for each ride, but that SIBA hill ride must have some serious peaks to it.
So, apart from Bikely.com (not the coolest name in the world, is it?), there’s a race in Prospect Park this weekend. Why it’s called the Tour of New York is beyond me, but it’s happening Saturday morning. I have the feeling I may bump into the Polish brothers Lester and Robert that day and in the event I do, I think the game plan is going to be to basically sit in their aftershave-draft for as long as humanly possible. In the unlikely event I have anything left once the sprint starts (Category 5 is five laps for 17 miles), I’ll just keep holding that wheel and see what happens.
That sounds nice but what will probably happen is I’ll be in the back, the last guy in line with my heart rate jacked up to 185, asking everybody to slow the hell down. “Come on, guys! What’s the rush? Why don’t we all just take it easy and see who’s got the biggest balls in the sprint a few hundred feet from the line?”
I get the feeling that won’t work either.
That’s it, I think. That’s all I’ve got right now.
Oh, wait. Did anyone read about how Belgium authorities began raiding houses late last week? Houses and apartments belonging to members of the Quickstep team? As our Old Testament-loving friends would say, Oy vey. If I find out Tom Boonen’s on the juice (we all know he is, but it’s nice to hope), I’m personally going to call Pat McQuaid at the UCI and explain that if he and his people don’t get a better handle on this stuff, I’m sending the Polish brothers after him with a couple of monkey wrenches.
And finally, if you’ve ever wondered what cheddar cheese-flavored Pringles do to the tongue, wonder no more.
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