All In A Day's Work

Today was not my day. Rather than hitting the road, I should have gotten out of bed at my leisure this morning, had a bowl of cereal, walked over to the gym, and sat my ass on a spin bike for an hour. But no. When I woke up and spotted the sunshine outside, I just had to throw a leg over my bike, didn’t I? I just had to gear up and roll up toward the GWB and that’s exactly where the problems began.

When I left the apartment this morning, the temperature was maybe around 25 or 26 degrees and what does that mean other than it was cold? It means ice. It means goddam fucking ice which is exactly what my rear tire hit as I was rolling down the sidewalk about to make a right to take the ramp up toward the bridge.

I was lucky, though. Rather than slam on my side, I slammed on my side atop the four-foot concrete wall / divider, although it wasn’t that bad. I caught the top of the wall with my left hand, managed to keep my feet in the pedals, and also managed to keep my right hand on the brake which kept the bike from completely sliding out from under me.

It could have been worse. Had I caught the top of the wall with my chin, I would have did some serious damage although thanks to my lightning-like reflexes, all was fine.

Five minutes later, while making a hard left and then a hard right past one of the guards-in-a-box near the eastern side of the bridge path, I was about to take my hands off the brakes when WHAM! the bike slid out from under me. Half a second later, I was on the ground.

Considering how thin a layer of ice had covered the sidewalk on that particular stretch, I never noticed the damn ice. Immediately, the guard-in-the-box got out of her box and asked, “Are you all right?”

She didn’t seem too interested in telling me to slow down or be careful as I was riding up to the box and that is absolutely fucking bewildering. While I don’t exactly know what the guard-in-the-box’s job is, I would imagine part of it includes salting the patches of ice or at least putting out a few cones so cyclists, runners, and pedestrians know to be careful, but I guess that’s just too much to ask of one person, isn’t it?

Regardless, no major damage was done but going down on your side and almost going down on your side doesn’t really forebode well for the rest of the ride. While the route alone 9W was mostly quiet and uneventful (thank god), a chunk of snow did fall from atop a telephone pole and land directly in my lap with only a few miles to go as I was heading back toward the city.

That’s the kind of crap I really don’t need in my life, but I guess when you’re dumb enough to hit the road in icy, 25 degree temperatures, you sort of get what you deserve, don’t you?

Read All About It

For starters: my bad.

I realize I’ve neglected updating this page with as much frequency as I did in the past, although I have placed a fair amount of effort into the updates on the new blog. While the content is unrelated to cycling, I’m confident there’s a fair amount of entertainment to be had, so if you have a moment, check out www.ExpectTheWorst.com.

Before you do that, though, there are some cycling topics to discuss.

First and probably least important, the professional cycling team Astana has been barred from competing in both the Giro d’Italia and the Tour de France.

In my humble opinion, that’s a good thing. After everything I’ve read, it seems as though Johan Bruyneel made a damn good living making sure his team riders were doped up enough to win the biggest bike race in the world--which means he’s the mother of all cheats--and anybody who couldn’t see that has their head in the sand, so hats off to ASO for putting their foot down. If you genuinely believe Lance and Alberto won their Tours clean, wake up and smell the EPO.

Second, it’s f#cking freezing outside although I’ve been using those disposable toe warmers you can find in just about any sporting goods store and my feet have never been happier. Was out riding for over two hours this morning and not a single complaint from my toes, so the toe warmers are definitely worth the $0.99 / pair cost.

Third, I was thinking of starting a racing team in Westchester before I moved back to the city at the end of the year considering Westchester didn’t seem to have a single racing team but when I thought about it some more, I realized it wasn’t really a racing team I was interested in launching. To be more accurate, I wanted to start a team/group that could possibly race, but a bunch of guys who would definitely ride on the weekends and maybe a bit during the week with a bit more cohesiveness than a club group ride.

Know what I mean?

To me, the issue with club rides is that more often than not, you really don’t know the guy ahead of you or the guy (or girl) behind you. The group on Staten Island is the exception to that, but based on what I’ve experience elsewhere, club rides really don’t seem to have the structure and cohesiveness of a team ride.

Then, based on what I’ve only seen from team rides, they seem way, way too fucking serious. What I’m looking for is a team but without the elitist attitude they all seem to hold so dear. I know I’ve said this before, but every goddam time I pass a few team riders on the road, I say hello and they barely even look at me. What’s up with that?

So again, I’m thinking of starting something, maybe something like the CRCA.

Whatever. It’s a thought that will continue to linger until I do something about it.

Anyway, has anyone signed on for the Montauk Century on May 18th? I registered but only for the 65-mile option. Not much desire to be on my bike for more than five hours on a spring Sunday, but let me know if anyone else is heading out as I’ll be there.

And that’s about it for now, I guess.

Sheldon Brown Dies of Massive Heart Attack

Read the article HERE.

Not that I ever met the guy or new the guy, but I've been to his website for mechanical advice I don't know how many times, so it feels like big news.