aguynamedlogan

Now home

2.27.05 I'm home and I'm spent. Lots of pictures were taken by various attendees of the Cycle Smart training camp and you'll see them all soon accompanied by my daily log of hundred mile days in the sunshine, sprinting against Tenacious D and 895 beers.

Southbound

2.16.04  I'm going to Florida at the end of the week. I have no idea how much, if any, computer time I'm going to get there. But this much I promise: I will have a good deal of pictures and interesting stories when I return. If I get computer time at all I'll drop a line anyway. I just found out that there is going to be an actual race at the end of the week! I have also heard that Floridians are, bar none, the nastiest crit racers alive. I'll let you know about that one. I'll also let you know what it's like to train in seventy five degree sunshine during February.
Armstrong to race Paris-Nice? I don't even know what to say. I bet he wins it. I mean, his last TDF victory made it look like he's been holding back until now. And that's cool, don't get me wrong! But I love to watch the man unravel in the Classics - making bad moves, getting over excited, being squarely beaten. Who wouldn't like to see Lance and Eric "in-your-face" Dekker tool on each other at the end of Amstel Gold again this year?
Check out the 2005 line up for Fiordifrutta. My man Phil Wong is a 1? I guess 2nd at Mt. Washington gets you the get backs. And who the new blood? Young gun Matt White, and dark horse king Larry Perera. Jeez, any other killers on board? How about Hamblen, Dietrich, Huseby, Hult. Yeah, all on the same team. And yeah, these boys are from around the way.

No Ride for You!

2.14.05 All my riding got nixed this weekend. Emergency call from my hommies at City Feed and Supply on Saturday, and moving my ass from Arlington to JP on Sunday. In fact, my ass moved from A-town to JP on Saturday, but then it only took half an hour. But we all got our days, and mine's comming soon. Yoga tonight and hopefully a ride and yoga tomorow. What does yoga have to do with bike racing? Well, I know that when I'm training I can push myself quite hard. But when I'm racing, I get pushed even harder. Yoga for me is an excersize in taking yourself as far as you think you can go, pushing untill you are pretty sure you can't push anymore, and then doing it anyway. Get just to the point where you're well ready to stop, and don't stop. Being familar with such an excersize on race day, when all I can do is look at the rear hub of the guy climbing in front of me and breath through a wide open mouth, standing and grinding in the 25 to just keep it there, I don't back off. Some of the best days of racing that I can remember occored after I held an internal vote; quit or don't quit, and didn't quit.
Speaking of not quiting, I will be talking about actual racing experiences with lush photos and hopefully video in just a few weeks! Stay Tuned!Training races start in two weeks and then REAL racing starts the first weekend of April. For me right now the fight is to stay fit and motivated. Period. Sounds easy enough right? Well word up. I'm at a record low for weight at this part of the year and I guess in retrospect the off-season hasn't seemed that hard. But then it is easy to feel good about your fitness when all you require during a ride is get from A to B, and get tuckered.
That all ends next week though, with some serious intensity starting to become part of workouts. It's about time.

What more could you want?

2.12.05  Matt and I geeked out on racing this upcoming year. The races we'll be racing will be the hardest there is to offer. And, when it comes down to it, that' s all I have ever wanted out of bike racing. I get to race the same races as the professionals, with the professionals. Bring it. I can't wait to test myself. After all the miles and the fucking salt and the snow and the sprints and the intervals, I get so see what it all equals and how my formula stacks up against the best. Do I have what it takes to compete with the best? Do I have, somewhere inside me, what the best have?

What's your fantasy?

2.10.05  Right now it's to race a bike race! But that's all bike racing is to me right now. I read about and fantasize about it. I bumped into Craig on Mass ave the other, and he told me that Track Worlds are in LA at the end of March.  !   Does anyone know if  Tournant will be there? 'Cause I'm going to try and get a bulldog flag and be the only american cheering the French!
I'm going to Florida at the end of the month for nine days of hard riding. The schedule of rides reads like: Day 1, threshold. Day 2, endurance. Day 3, sprints. Day 4, recovery. Day 5, threshold, and so on. I can't wait. It will actually be the first time I get back on a road bike since October.
It looks like the weekend is going to be strait up nice! I hope to see a bunch of the crews out banging out the miles. I'm sure I will. Despite blizzards and whatever else falls out of the sky, I think most cyclists in these parts are getting in some quality miles this winter. That just means that there will be some fast racing in the Spring. For a change.

more Pros

2.07.05 So who has won races so far? McEwen (a few times), Freire, Petacchi, Boonen, Cipollini. Any other superstar monsters feel like cracking the anvil on our heads? I mean, how does it feel for everyone to think they have a chance and then see that home boys been doing their homework too? I would like to attach a word to these names, if you'll bear with me. I have been hearing this word tossed around in reference to a local football team and I think it's time to apply it to the truly deserving. Three 'World Championship' games won? I don't even have to point out why that's ridiculous. Between the five individuals mentioned are four World Championships, four or five Classics (including minor classics), Giro and Tour sprint competitions,  countless Grand Tour Stage wins and something in the neighborhood of a thousand victories. I mean Cipo has 188 wins during his career. One hundred and eighty eight?  That's like two years of total race days for me. That's what I get for starting late. But I digress! DYNASTY. You're looking at it. These boys winning their first races back after the winter break are mostly scandal free, and race to win from two weeks ago until November every year. Boonen is the new hotness for sure, but he's delivering isn't he? Cipo is still winning in his seventeenth pro season! It gets me misty to watch it all begin again. Dynasty. They all win with panache. They all win with muscle and they all hold it down all fucking year. The spirit of the master (see picture) is alive. Since his last race I have almost not missed his presence with Oscar and Stuart winning the way they have been. I thought he might have been the last of his kind, but the DyNasty lives on.

How was your ride?

2.6.05  If you're a competitive cyclist on any level you rode this weekend. How did it go? Why don't you actually tell me? I licked salt off my lips for four hours while trying to find my way to Fitchburg.  I managed to get there without stopping. Hell, I didn't even unclip after I left my house until I was in Ayer. There was a pot hole the size of the three second lane filled with water. I saw it coming and stopped to let a sixteen wheeler pass and spray a city block when it tore through. I don't know what to attribute this to, but not a single person honked or gave me attitude all weekend.  People were even pausing at stop signs and waving me through. Did everyone watch the Tour last year? Or have they been glued to the Lance Chronicles? At Peets with my espresso and some Dad of Two is up at me all 'You and me go way back' and says "About time we got some great weather, huh?" All I could muster was a "True that," and salt fell like snowflakes from my beard.
Go Pats.
Speaking of ten yard fights, wouldn't it be cool to watch two pro cycling teams go head to head? Short course, like a crit with more terrain, a good hill maybe. Ten or twenty laps, nine versus nine. You could even do elimination rounds throughout a single day and at the end of the day the two top teams face off. How about free rider rotation? You don't have to race the same nine guys and you can change the lineup to suit the opposition. Save your sprinter, load up on breakaway junkies. Healthnet v Navigators. Cola-Vita v Webcore and so on. That would be fun to watch. I bet it would be fun to race.
Speaking of Pro bike racing, did you know that Pros are racing right this very moment? If you haven't been paying attention the Pro season is in full swing. A rad race coming up is the Challenge Illes Balears. It's a stage race consisting of five race days, and no requirement for riders to race every day.  So teams can rotate riders in and out from day to day.  I want to be a pro. Race one day, drink espresso all day the next, race, sleep in, race.  And it's in Mallorca, Spain. Sounds like a 'working vacation' to me.

We also bring Arlington Downtown

2.3.05 Ok I'm over it. I'm going to actually try and rewrite some of what I set out to write last night. I went on another groovy night ride that took me through Arlington, Somerville, Cambridge, Allston, Brookline, Back Bay, Beacon Hill,  and Downtown not necessarily in that order and some more than once. I did intervals on Beacon Hill, around the Common. I wore jeans.
High Five! So then I was going to tell about my experience with the blog and having an online presence.
Then I was going to rave about the city and get all urban appreciation and mention what was playing at the Brattle, back button...ok I KNOW I said I was over it. I am over it.  I was just getting you up to speed.
But I didn't night ride tonight, I went to a yoga class and was not flattened. In fact I may have actually generated some future phone numbers, and maybe some future ex-girrrlfriends. You'll be the first to know for sure!
It's supposed to be in the forty's this weekend. I've been thinking about the rides I want to do and I can hardly wait. I am feeling the urge to splurge on some mp3 player bling. Cables and housing first loosers!

We bring Arlington Downtown

2.2.05 yo I just wrote the longest GDF entry complete with pictures and pontifications, and was seriously about to wrap it up when, just to check one last fact, I hit the GDMF back button on my browser. I had a girl break up with me over the phone once and it felt like that. The last part, the part I was wrapping up, the third MF paragraph (I was on my second spell check) was all about how 'I have treated most of my online presence as hobby, but just like gluing model trains, the hours will disappear." It's eleven twenty two for G sake. And now the title doesn't make any sense and I'm going to leave it that way on purpose. Goodnight Boston!

not just a lifestyle anymore

2.1.05 I've always been a city mouse. Tonight I rode through the city, from Arlington to the Back Bay, through Downtown, again through the Bay, Cambridge, Fresh Pond for some imported mineral water, Arlington and my apartment. All the streets were lit, and the roads were empty. Especially Downtown. I still love all of the streets Downtown, after riding them for so many years. I know you think driving in Boston is a nightmare, and it is. But riding in it is different. Some intersections I have been through more than five hundred times, and once you put in that kind of time Boston traffic becomes clear. With that clarity, and the understanding that cars almost never exceed twenty five miles per hour on city streets, it's a play ground.
Painting is like bike racing. 'How is painting like bike racing Logan?' Good question. It's all about the preparation. You can't show up and be like 'I'll just chuck some paint on the walls. How hard can it be?' You got to: Know what you're up against, and prepare to face it. If you've prepared well then the actual application is a sinch.