these bike racers today are lightweights...

from an article on velonews today talking about the history of La Primavera (Milan-San Remo) here's a description of the 1910 running of the race...

In 1910, for instance, only four of the 63 starters survived a bitterly cold April day. They set off in low temperatures from Milan and headed south on rutted dirt roads toward the major climb over the Apennines at the halfway mark. Snow was in the forecast.

As temperatures plummeted, the snow set in over the 1745-foot Turchino Pass. Its descent was glacial, with the wind blowing snow into drifts 8 inches deep. The survivors, including eventual winner Eugène Christophe of France, had to dismount and push their heavy bikes through the drifting snow. Survival was becoming a matter of life and death.

After collapsing from the arctic conditions, a frigid Christophe was led by a local villager to a roadside inn, where the patron removed the French rider's wet, frozen clothes, wrapped him in a blanket and plied him with hot grog. When feeling returned to his body after a half-hour, Christophe returned to his bike and headed south through the snow.

On reaching the coast road of the Italian Riviera at the foot of the pass, conditions became brighter and Christophe, age 25, soon overtook the handful of riders who had passed him during his stop at the inn. He arrived in San Remo an hour before the runner-up, but he was still suffering from frostbite and spent the next month recovering in a clinic before he could ride his bike again.

now go read the rest of the article over at velonews...

tall regular coffee, black...

managed to roll out of bed early enough this morning to get a 30 minute run in before getting on the bike to come in to work. my legs felt heavy on the way in - thanks to the running i assume - but i made good time and it wasn't too cold out... tonight i'll take the scenic route home to. now it's time to head over to starbucks and get some free coffee

spring?

it think march has a bit of a sadistic side... teasing us with a beautiful weekend like the one just past and then sending us back into the freezer the next.

saturday i hit the roads of montgomery county to get some more miles and hours in on 2 wheels. started out the ride with dietrich, then split up when he had to head back to meet contractors. i kept heading north, up past falls to sceneca rd, then looped back down river road into potomac village where i ran across pooch, susan, and mark. we rode together for the next few miles, heading back into the city on macarthur blvd.

towards the end of the ride i ran across dominic and a friend of his in the park. they were looking for a way to connect a couple bits of road and i rode with them for a while to get them where they were going. it was a great day to be out, shorts and short sleeves (with armwarmers to start out) were all that was required, the sun was shining, and my legs felt great. saturday evening we had a few friends over to the house, grilled some buffalo steaks and sat around a fire in the backyard eating, , drinking, and talking...

sunday morning i had a couple of hours free so i loaded up the mountain bike and headed a couple of miles down 95 to fountainhead. i wasn't sure how my legs would feel after saturday's ride - i'd pushed pretty hard to make sure i was getting a good workout - but it turns out they felt really good. i rode 2 full laps in 1:40 at a pace that wasn't comfortable, but wasn't a full on race pace, without any signs of cramping or bonking. i like the new singletrack that's been added to remove the old doubletrack sections and make the old "optional dead-end loop" no longer optional or dead-end.

if i was smart i would have figured out my schedule for yesterday to take adavantage of the continued good weather, but alas, i ended up spending an hour on the trainer at last night. the temps are supposed to drop down into the 50s for the rest of the week and then into the 30s on saturday. hopefully i'll be able to make it out to wakefield this thursday, but it looks like saturday's group ride in philly is going to be a chilly one.

wakefield thursday

great ride at wakefield yesterday night... made sure to get there early enough to do a lap around accotink and ended up joining tommy, mike, bunky, pete, and david for a good tour around those trails then we looped back through the parking lot at wakefield to pick up lights and join up with the MORE thursday night ride. somehow i got singled out to lead the "fast" group but i let ricky & chris get to the front and just sat in the middle of the pack. a fast pace, few stops, and bone dry trails made for a good night. towards the end, mike miller and i dropped away from the group to get a bit of a cooldown in as we were out for over 2 hours.

it's feels great to be outside, on a bike, on dirt, in shorts & a short sleeve jersey, and riding with friends...

catch-up...

neglect? ok, yeah i probably have been neglecting this place a bit recently, but i feel like i've been running around non-stop for the last couple of weeks. things are calming down a bit now, so maybe it's time to fill in a few gaps... first up: downhill skiing at canaan & timberline, xc skiing at white grass. rather than a blow by blow of the whole weekend, here are quick reviews of the 3 areas...

canaan valley

canaan valley ski resort is a quiet little ski area nestled in located in canaan valley state park. many years ago when i first started skiing canaan was - at least in my mind - operating on about the same level as snowshoe, but as time passed and my skiing abilities have improved it's clear to see that canaan isn't much to write home about. the mountain itself is somewhat awkward, and the trails are laid out strangely. the hill is steep at the very top, then levels out for quite a while, and steepens up at the bottom. this makes for some good intermediate runs in the middle section of the mountain, but most of the trails converge in the middle of the mountain (meaning you're skiing the same section of trail all day) or have a long runout to steeper sections near the base. on the plus side there are almost no crowds - on the saturday of the presidents day long weekend we skied directly onto the lift - but this is mostly an indication of a resort in trouble as there where plenty of lines the next day at timberline.

timberline

a couple of miles up the road from canaan is timberline. the mountain and resort have a more typical layout without the ideosyncracies that plague canaan valley. there are a couple of green "bunny slopes" at the bottom of the mountain, a long (2+ mile) meandering green run from the top that's great for new skiers that are tired of the bunny slope yo-yo, plenty of blue cruisers, and a couple of black and double black runs to test the better skiiers in any group (and the edge grip of your skis on ice). the only gripe i have about timberline (other than the lift lines, which i expected on a holiday weekend) was the speed of the lifts - they were some of the longest lift rides i've been on in years... time for some high-speed quads?

white grass

which of these is not like the other? just between canaan and timberline in the location of an old rope-tow downhill area is white grass ski touring center. this was my first crack at cross country skiing and the folks at white grass couldn't have made it any better. heather and i were kitted out with gear in the their lodge/rental shop/ticket office/cafe/retail shop within a couple minutes of showing up. after i managed to get ahead of myself and fall down almost as soon as i got the skis on, tris gave us both a few tips, and we were out in the snowfarm within a few minutes. mike, tris, and i did make one excursion into some of the trails in the woods, but the lack of snow cover make the going difficult and we headed back to the snowfarm pretty quickly.

live action simpsons intro...

just in case there's anyone that hasn't already seen this...

commute...

i'll admit it, i'm a slacker about commuting by bike... i enjoy it - i've got a nice 6 mile ride through rock creek park - but it's hard for me to get over the inertia and get the ball rolling.

back in the fall i worked up to commuting a couple days a week, but the days were still long and the weather still fairly warm and when the clocks went back it wasn't as easy to do and fell back to the car.

now that the days are starting to get longer i'm trying to get back into the habit. i rode in yesterday, got to work early (though not as early as i'd have liked to) so that i could leave early and get in a good workout before heading home. need to remember to factor in the time it takes to change in and out of the bike gear though, as i was later leaving work than i'd planned and it was almost dark by the time i got home...

is it still february?

scardaville at whitegrass

the last few weeks have been an bit of a blur, but i am still here... i had a couple of weekends in philly, then a ski trip last weekend (that was moved from january), and this past weekend i took a whirlwind trip to england to go to my cousin tom's wedding...

tom & zoe

somehow in the midst of all of this, i've been managing to keep my training mostly on track, mostly thanks to early morning trainer rides... i'll fill in more details from the last couple of weeks later, but for now i'll leave you with a look at the english channel and the village of cawsands in cornwall...

cawsands, cornwall

snow...

another good philly group ride on sunday morning before the snow started falling... 3 hours heading north out of the city into regions unknown, at least to me. the pace seemed a little easier this week, maybe beacuse a couple of the really fast guys got off the front, or maybe my legs just had more in them. baked some french bread (loaves and baguettes) that had a pretty good reception from the hardy few that braved the (rather disappointing to that point) snow to come over saturday night. moist and dense inside, but i think the crust was a little too thick on the bottom.

sunday morning there was snow to be shoveled and a recovery ride that was moved inside to the trainer. in the afternoon we walked across town to watch the phildelphia theatre company's production of 'after ashley' and then finished off the day with an omakase dinner at morimoto.

omakase is a tasting menu designed to highlight morimoto's cuisine. the meal is tailored to your tastes (and allergies if needed) and well worth the experience. everything in the meal -- each of the 7 courses individually, the meal as a whole -- works together perfectly and was one of the best meals that i've ever had. after every course we were waiting in anticipation for what our server would bring out next.

as we were eating, i did a little sake tasting of my own, trying morimoto's junmai, junmai ginjo, and junmai daiginjo sakes. there was a definate continuum of flavor among the 3 grades of sake, with the lowest (junmai) having a warm and full flavor, and the highest (junmai daiginjo) having a more subtle and drier flavor.

busy week...

busy week... monday we had the city bikes team meeting at my house. 20 or so mountain bikers crammed into a little room, drinking, eating, trying on jerseys, and discussing (very loudly at times) what's going on with the team this year...

tuesday i rode down to pizzeria paradiso in georgetown to hang out at their newly renamed basement bar (bieria paradiso) and sample some malty beverages with the TNS crew... steve has a good writeup of the night over on wrench in the gears. between my own beers and sips of others peoples i managed to add a 1/2 dozen entries to my new beer journal: brasserie dupont saison dupont, van housebrouck kesteal biere du chateau gouden tripel, unibroue maudite, clipper city small craft warning uber pils (handpumped), fullers esb, and a dogfish 60 minute IPA plus rougue shakespeare stout black and tan.

wednesday i finally got out on a mountain bike for the first time this year for a quick sping around fairland with jason and wayne after work. it's been a couple of years since i've ridden there and i was really impressed with the trails. nothing really technical, but nice rolling singletrack. it's only 20 minutes from work, so i'll probably be out there more often as the year goes on and the days get longer. spent the rest of the evening scanning pictures from new york and working on a couple of projects for MORE.

hope the snow holds off long enough this weekend to get a good ride in on saturday morning.

two bridges, three views

has anyone got olympic fever?

since almost everyone else has forgotten about them this year i thought i'd post a little reminder that the winter olympics start this friday... i'm a big winter olympics fan, but it sort of snuck up on me this year.

in spite of Bode Miller getting more attention for what he's saying instead of his results (inconsistent) recently the men's ski team look have better chances than ever to medal... alpine skiing kick's off with the men's downhill on saturday.

if only 'cross was an olympic sport we might get to see some on tv.

chinese new year

a good hard 3 hour group ride on saturday morning in philly with a bunch of riders from guys, bike addict, and a lot of other teams that i don't know and then an easy 2 hours on sunday to recover.

sunday afternoon, as we were walking around philly, near chinatown, we heard some firecrackers and soon realized that it was a chinese new year celebration. we stopped and watched for a while as the lion dancers moved from business to business scaring away evil spirits and bringing good luck in return for a small donation (in this case to the chinese youth organization that was performing the dances).

seconds...

it's funny how hard it is to really get a grasp on the length of a second... in normal life they pass so quickly, flowing away behind us, gone in the blink of an eye... but on the trainer, at the end of a set of intervals, they seem drag on and on, slowing and stretching out in front of you.

DC For the Curling Gold...

Guam and Puerto Rico send teams to the Olympics... Why not DC?

dc olympic team website
washingtonpost.com article