matt.

yesterday i did 4 hours w/ matt flavoino, the SLU cycling president.  we had a great ride.  he's strong (or i'm incredably weak).  really though, i'm seeing potential for us two.  We have our first race on the 28th.  We're going to start in the B's but are both hoping to be "A" racers as soon as possible.  the idea is to get ourselves into the A races, and while not taking them by storm, use really effecient tactics to sneak our way up into the top 20 spots and get scored.  A trip to nationals later in the spring?  Other lofty winter goals you can only make before you show up to race?

So pro.

the other night 9:30 had rolled around and for one reason or another i hadn't gotten my riding in yet.  i was due for some 2.5 hours, and rather than get on the trainer and annoy the hell out of myself and my room mate, i geared up, lit up, and set off for forest park.  

it was windy, cold, and completely abandoned.  i ended up riding laps the forest park crit loop - for 2 and half hours.  i don't know how, but it simply felt good.  my mind had plenty of time to wander, my legs had plenty of opportunity for variety since one direction was all headwind/uphill and the other tailwind/downhill.  

Plus, the park is beautiful.  i saw four racoons! and 1 fox. and innumerable opossums.  there was a two day old full moon and light cloud cover the quickly blew over in the wind ripping through there.  

there was something about the aloneness, the repeating road, and the magesty of the night that felt very professional - at least as far as the romanticism of chariots of fire goes.  it was great ride and one i almost fear repeating for compromising my view of its excellence.

I Love KC!

I'll be honest here.  the first time i went to overland park to visit amy, i hated it.  honestly, it was nothing but rediculously sized stores and strait flat roads as far as you could see.  there was no restraint in the city planning, no natural land marks, no fucking turns in the roads, nothing but all the traits show up in chesterfield area spread out over miles and miles of endless excess.  no sense of direction, no sense of anything.  bad deal.  

since then i've been back a few times, and have discovered little gems of places with the right guides, but the overall feeling remained the same, well at least untill this weekend.  

I brought my bike this week.  I rode south.  All that space that was so poorly used all of a sudden became something beautiful and seemingly endless, no less than 2 miles south.  Giant 4 lane boulevards turned into one lane rulural highway types.  traffic flow went from "crazy why am i even trying this" to spotting a car every say, 15 minutes?  All the fancy oversized brick commercial "improvements" morphed into the occasion ranch type home or the wellkept farm houses.  The pavement would suffer every now and again, but that was nothing to complain about when the scenery shifted from financial to biological.

Not only was there this quality to the area and the roads, but there was QUANTITY.  KC is a grid, and you could look ahead down the same little farm road and see successive "peaks" some 4-5 miles ahead of you - perfectly straight.  The amount of space out there is unbelievable.  one great open field after another - perhaps 3 or 4 homes for every square mile of land.  

These aren't the homes you find in rural missouri, with cars rusting and confederate flags flying.  these are gorgeous sometimes million dollar establishments with horses in the yard and white picket fences, and border collie/ shepherd dogs alone in great empty fields with cattle.  Its beautiful and its expansive.  

of course its not utopia.   there are no hills, only fluctuations in elevation.  plenty of difficulty is provided by the wind though.  winds just rip through the open prairre, unrestrained by land or vegetation of any sort.  there are headwinds, cross winds, and if you're lucky, tailwinds.  you'll spot hawks sailing around on these, looking like they're having a lot more fun than you.  

KC is fixie territory.  its all flat.  its also 'cross heaven.  the roads all digress into first bumpy poorly maintained chip and seal, but later into gravel.  And there are miles and miles of these.  its just like one abbandoned city, with all the roads in place, organized just as normal, simply with no one there.  its great.

there's a sort of intimate connection one aquires when cycling.  the speed is just right to assimilate into one's surroundings.  there's a keen sense not only of road condition, but of the land as a whole.  that and the lack of restrain on the mind form a unique bond between rider and landscape.  i now love kansas city.  

Kansas City.

this weekend i went up to KC, kansas w/ Amy.  i got out this morning at around 10 and well, it was 60 degrees!  happy day.  i rode south and w/in about 3o minutes met up with a group of guys from the blue valley bicycling club, here in kc.

these guys were great.  the crosswinds before were rediculous, but being able to echelon out with four riders was a welcome break.  they were all cat. 3's and i was probably as on form as their top rider there.  hard to say, but i matched all his accelerations and took him in one gas station sprint.  

i rode harder than i should have though.  they were out for a tempo ride, and while the pace was definately below tempo for me, it wasn't base mile cruising speed either.  

Sunday.

this had all the makings of a great sunday.  up at 7 o'clock, on the bike by 8.  rode out to chesterfield (so incredibly slow) in three hours, then went home for erin's birthday festivities.  it was great seeing everyone and we had soup in bread bowls, delish.  i got back to school at around 6 pm and went to the caffeteria. undid the "great" day.  

the theme at the caffeteria, the only meal swipe place open, was superbowl sunday.  no problem right, thats appropriate, and i'm accustomed to them serving the crap that would normally appear on supperbowl sunday, so no big deal.  today was different though.  

the selection was as follows:

curly fries, hamburgers, hot dogs

fried chicken, bbq wings, bbq rib tips, broccoli smothered in cheese.

a wilted, heavily picked over salad and the sraps of other veggies that might go on there.

one banana, which i snatched up.  

loads of the usual desert stuff.

the opportunities for a vegetarian were limitless.  i was pissed.  one becuase i was hungry and unwilling to compromise.  two, because our culture is disgusting.  i sat next to this really well designed flier, listing all the great things that chartwells does:  better oils, better economy, renewable resources, right portions, and healthy living overall.  bullshit.  

sorry i rant about things like this.  it just makes me feel better.

on the brighter side:

this week i start joe friel's base 1 stage.  oh boy.  14 hours next week.  maybe i will make something of myself - maybe not.

precedent.

rode the rollers this evening, and for the first time, at dinner on the rollers - yeah.  had a giant salad from terra ve around 30 minutes into a spin. set the thing out on my bed.  hopped on the bike, grabbed it, and proceeded to eat for the next 15 minutes while just spinning away.

i've reallized that multitasking can really only be appreciated at the tertiary level.  rollers, dinner, bio slidehow on the comp, and simpsons on the tv.  yes i didn't enjoy either as much as i would normally, but wow, what a fifteen minutes that was.