Time to get back on that bike....

Well, after a subpar end to last season and taking an extended break off the bike I've decided it's about time to start training in earnest for the upcoming season. I can now say I've actually been on the bike for maybe five rides so far this year. I've done a ride here or there, the trainer, but since last weekend I've officially started putting in base miles. I even got a new set of tried and true Rubino Pro's for the training wheels. I've been through many sets of those tires and they've always come through for putting in the miles.

I've been playing hockey all winter, but it's not the same as getting in the long miles on the road. It's great cardio, but now it's time to get that endurance up. I can tell I'm not totally out of shape, but also know I'm nowhere near where I used to be. Hopefully the long break is what I needed. I took such a sabbatical from biking that after last years Gateway Cup crash that took out my Easton EA90SLX's I finally got them sent back into Easton for repair. $130 to replace one hoop and true the other seems pretty reasonable. I was actually expecting to pay a lot more. They were a $700 wheelset so it's well worth it.

My latest dilemma is getting a new phone and plan. I like gadgets and now I've got to have a smartphone to include in my collection. I've had pocket pc's with wifi before and thought having it on the phone was so gay. I've seen a couple new phones like the iphone and blackberry touch screen and thought, these would be great to have for the road, not to mention accessing the web at high speed from anywhere. I guess I would say I'm somewhat addicted to being "wired". The GPS would come in handy driving to races out of town. I even thought about integrating the GPS into a cycling computer somehow. I've already seen a couple applications that make your smartphone into a cycling computer. I've already got my Garmin, but it would be pretty cool to have a color screen of the route your riding and not spend another $500 for a cycling specific computer. I've even seen that Garmin is coming out with a new phone.......I wonder what kind of applications that will include.

Note to all you travelers. I was just told by the young Grasshopper aka Casey, that he was walking through the airport the other day(on his way to Jelly Belly camp....lucky dog) and saw a bunch of pictures promoting St. Louis. One of which was of the Gateway Cup. He said it was a huge poster and I was right in the middle of it. That's pretty cool. I work at the airport too and seemed to have missed it. I guess I'm not getting any royalties for that one.

New Season Approaching...

This was written back in January and never posted it so posting it now. A new seasons approaching. I can't say I'm raring to go just yet. I haven't really been riding much since mid september, in fact I can count on one hand how many times I've been on the road since then. I've been keeping in some sort of shape though playing hockey a couple times a week and riding the trainer. I've upped the time on the trainer lately, but really need to get outside on the road. I've also gained a few more injuries from hockey(bruised back, bruised ribs, arthritic wrists), but those should be totally healed by the start of the season. It's my ankles with tendonitis I hope will have been totally healed from the end of last season. I also need to shed some pounds, but that'll come with some miles on the road. At this rate I'd say my base miles and fitness should be in by mid march or later. I haven't looked at the race schedule yet or even know if it's out to know which races I'll do. I guess I could check out the stlbiking site, but I'm to lazy to do that right now. I'll check it later. It'll be tough to get in the miles and still play hockey since the season won't end until March or April. With any luck I'll be ready for all the early season road races.



Now for the dogs. Skates' training is coming along and he's turning out to be a great dog. I've taken him to the dog parks and he always makes friends. In fact it was pretty cool the other day when I put his food in his bowl and he sat there a foot away just staring at it. He was waiting for me to say "go" and I wasn't even trying to train him. He's also walking better on the leash. As for Bailey, she's just happy as long as she can play with her tennis ball.

a little off-season update.....

it's been a while since i've last updated. i haven't been up to much other then putting on a few winter layers around the mid section. all the holiday foods, plus not much riding may have something to do with it. i've just been working and playing a lot of hockey to stay in shape and get in a little cross-training. i haven't ridden outside now in almost two months? i really can't remember. the only biking i've done is riding the trainer for about an hour twice a week. i've really been away from the cycling scene since about mid september when a complete break was in order. i've been playing at least two times a week since then. my new skates i got last month are finally starting to get broken in.

the two teams i'm playing on down at brentwood are doing pretty good. we're in first place on wed. night, and i think third on thursdays. we had a hard battled come from behind victory a couple weeks ago against the second place team, o.b. clarks. they're one of the better teams from all three advanced leagues at brentwood. we didn't really beat them, but tied it in the last minute which felt like a victory for us. it was also nice since i knew most of those guys and played with and against a lot since high school and through the years. it's nice when you can take a spear to the back of the leg and then turn around and give him a smile instead of a two-hander.

last weekend was our francis howell high school alumni hockey game. it's amazing that i was a part of that team when it was just in it's infancy. just to put it in perspective, we were the only st. charles team to field a team and we even had to take a few guys from our sister school francis howell north. now you look at it and just about every team in st. charles county has a hockey team and some even have two or three teams. we also had to drive 30 minutes to north county for practice and now there are about 10 sheets of ice all within about a 20 minute drive of where i grew up. the alumni game was a lot of fun. it was actually pretty good hockey for an alumni game. i got to see some young faces and skate against some youngsters that graduated last year.

i hope everyone is enjoying the holidays and not packing on too many pounds. tomorrow i'm planning a two hour ride on the trainer......we'll see how that goes. hopefully next time i'm on here i can say i've got a few road miles under my belt.

GREAT SKATE ADVENTURE '08...

Well, here I sit in the Denver airport. This time yesterday I was sitting in the Chicago airport. Let me fast forward a couple days. I ordered a new pair of skates online the other day and when I received them they were defective. Now I've got to send them back, so in the meantime I've decided to get another pair. Since I've got abnormally narrow feet I can never get anything that fits good. I've always got to settle or make do. There is one pair of skates on the market that fit me the best and let me say when I received them in the mail I didn't like what I saw when going over the workmanship. So, Thursday morning I decided to fly to Minneapolis thinking that's the "state of hockey" they should have some quality hockey shops. Well, to my dismay, they weren't any different then shopping for hockey equipment here in St. Louis. Nobody ever carries narrow skates. I never even left the Minneapolis airport. I called about 10 hockey stores only to get the same answer, "NO, don't have that size". I then had the idea to fly to Vancouver. There was a store that had my size there and decided to fly out. I was hoping to make it in time to catch the Canucks/Coyotes game, but my flight was delayed in Chicago. I did finally make it only to get a hotel room. I got up this morning and got my skates, and they do fit like they were made for me. I guess it's like bike shopping for bike parts. Skates are like a good component group. Next pair of skates I'm goint to pay the extra money for a custom fit pair of skates. If I can spent several thousand dollars on biking stuff, whats $650 for skates.

It's too bad it was raining in Vancouver, it looked like it would've been beautiful. You could see the mountains right across the bay through the low clouds. Mt. biking seems to be pretty big there too. I drove down one street and I saw like three bike shops along with all kinds of outdoorsy type shops. Think I'll try to visit again and stay more then 14 hours to take in the sights. All the architecture and buildings made it look like some Scandinavian country. You know mt. biking is big when the magazine shops in the airport carry three different mt. bike magazines along with the usual bicycling. I thought I was at Borders.

a much needed update.....

it's been a while since last updating this. i've been doing a lot, keeping busy, but none of it on the bike. a few weeks ago my neck chronic neck problem that's plagued me for about the last 10 years reared it's ugly head again. i had been doing ok with it, but i started to get headaches and just felt like i had a lot of tension in my neck and head. well, i got x-rays and an mri. the x-rays showed considerable arthritis. the results from the mri were bulged disks in the c3-c4, and c5-c6 regions. i'm not too sure where i go from here. i'm supposed to go back for a follow up visit in the next week or two. i can fully function, but sometimes just have this ache and pain in my neck that just won't go away. i started playing hockey again after taking a year break and was not sure if the added strain was causing it to hurt, nonetheless i'm still playing. any damage is propably already done.

as for hockey i'm finally feeling normal on the ice again after a year and a half break, mind you i've always played hockey every year. even when i was in the marine corps i was at least able to play a little roller hockey. the two nights a week is going good although back to back nights can be rough sometimes. thank god it's not full contact anymore. i've even started buying some well needed new equipment. it's funny how out of date i am with the latest and greatest when it comes to hockey equipment. it's just like biking stuff, something better always comes along, as much as you resist the new stuff always wins. i'm old school with my skates though, but i finally broke down and bought some bauer vapor xxxx's. these are such a nice skate, i'm so impressed with them, but unfortunately i may have to get different ones since they don't quite fit right. i've got two new pairs, but i just don't want to spend the time to break in either of them when the ones i really want are the new graf 703's. i have such narrow feet that graf skates may be the way to go, plus i used to have a pair and they fit like a glove.

skates is doing well, he's getting bigger, but i would've thought he'd be much bigger by now. he'll hit his growth spurt soon and be as big as bailey soon enough. as it turns out, i wasn't feeding him enough. i was going by the recommended feeding on the bag and was told by my vet that wasn't enough. bailey is bailey, always wants to play ball, she's a good girl.

i've actually gotten on the trainer the last couple of days and did a few spinning classes. that's about all the desire i have right now to be on the bike. enough to get my heartrate up an break a sweat.