Cycling.tv

If you like to watch bicycle racing, this is a website you'll want to check out. I've mentioned them before, maybe a year ago, as at the time it filled the void left by the lack of race coverage at OLN.

Well, now Cycling.tv and OLN have teamed up to offer up Italian bike racing. Currently, you can see 45 minute to an hour of each of the 7 stages of the Tirreno - Adriatico.

I not at all sure, but from listening to the commentary while watching the Three Days of De Panne, that they may be broadcasting the Giro d'Italia on Cycling.tv. Wouldn't that be great. Last year, I paid $6 to watch an un-commentated video feed that was provided via the OLN website that came from RAI, I believe. Coupled with the play by play from CyclingNews.com, it was pretty good. But if it's going to be on Cycling.tv, it's bound to be better.

So, go check it out... www.cycling.tv

Interesting Article

Link to article. Be sure to read it soon as the link is only good for 14 days.

The article is about a Portuguese bakery in Orland. As a bonus there is also a recipe for pasteis de nata.

Weekend Rides...

Since I won't be riding outside today, I'll write about riding outside.

On Saturday, I snuck in 2.5 hours on the bike and then did about 30 minutes of stomach. Suprisingly, my legs were still kind of tired from doing hills on Wednesday followed by another workout on Thursday.

Sunday, I headed down to Browns Valley to do some riding with Jonathan. It was a nice mellow day of cruisin' the roads between Marysville Rd and HWY 20, in the foothills just east of Yuba City. The roads out there are great for riding because there is little to no traffic, there is lots of new pavement, and there are fun gravel roads.

Jonathan and I have a fondness for gravel roads. Tipically, we only ride up them as coming down a gravel road can be a little dangerous. I think we both like the added adventure of riding on something less stable than pavement as well as the feeling of acomplishment after climbing a dirt road at a 15 to 20 percent grade.

Out on the ride we happened upon a couple of riders who were a little lost and working from a hand drawn map. Jonathan suggested a few routes to get them back on track and mentioned about some of the gravel roads. They weren't at all interested in the gravel. This lead Jonathan and I into a conversation about why riders are so fearful of the gravel.

It wasn't much of a conversation since all we could come up with was that riders were either scared, didn't want to get their nice bikes dirty, or maybe just didn't grow up riding bikes like we did and might be out of the comfort zone while in the gravel. So, if anyone reads this far into this post, you can leave me a comment about why you do or don't like to ride in the gravel.

Ok, the ride stats for Saturday were:

2.5 hour
about 43 miles
no elevation

For Sunday:

about 4.5 hours
about 60 miles
not sure about the elevation but lots as most roads in that area go UP.

Oh, Monday I rode as well, right up until the skys decided to unleash. I was out for maybe an hour when it started to sprinkle a little. I thought, or hoped that it would pass and it did, it passed right over the top of me and dumped about half an inch. I did one more loop at that point and headed home only to be soaked to the bone by the time I got there. So, 1.5 hours is hardly even worth mentioning.

Until later!

Car Repair...

For the third time in about 6 weeks, I've dropped my car off at Concours Elite for body work. If you all remember back to Feb. 11th, that was the day I was rear ended. Well, I'm still dealing with getting my car fixed properly.

This will be the third time they try to get it correct and the owner, Bob, says it WILL be done right this time. I'm happy about his personal guarentee and it's not really a big deal as long as it's done right, eventually.

Currently, I'm cruisin' a PT Cruiser that only has 247 miles on it. Whatever! I'm not sure who would ever buy one of these thing, but as a rental, it's not half bad.

So, back to my car, they are going to re-paint, for the fifth time, the rear hood, bumper, and quarter panels. Before, though, they need to straighten out the rear of the car. It seems they didn't measure the distance between the edges of the rear panels when they fixed it the last time, resulting in irregular gaps between the hood and body.

Supposed to get the thing back Wednesday. I'm sure I'll bitch about it here later.

Mother Hips News

HIPS IN THE STUDIO RECORDING THEIR SIXTH LP IN FEBRUARY & MARCH!

That's right, you read correctly! Tim, Greg, Paul and John are in the studio in San Francisco in February and March to record their next full-length record ... their first since Green Hills of Earth in 2001! The band has been diligently working on freshly-written material adding a more mature approach to the existing Mother Hips patented California soul sound. Taking on the production duties this time around is Dylan Magierek (Mark Kozelek, Erlend Oye, Call and Response), label head of Badman Records. The as-of-yet untitled record is scheduled to be released in the Fall of 2006 on Camera Records.

As well, cruise over to Rolling Stone Magazine to read the article about the Hips.

The Hips will be back in Chico to play at LaSalle's on May 26th and have been out in Austin for SXSW 2006 this past week.

Sunday Sunday Sunday...

I slept in until 9:30 since I didn't go to bed until 4 AM. Once up I got the cleaning bug and went on a 4 + hour cleaning spree. Other than the shower, things are looking fairly clean at the casa.

After cleaning, I grabbed a quick bite to eat and then headed out for 2 hours of spinning around the park. I was still feeling some residual tiredness from the ride the day before, so I took it pretty easy. After the ride, I hit the gym for some stomach and legs. Usually I don't do legs after a ride, but figured what the heck. Well, it hurt, but hurt = big strong legs, right? We'll have to wait and see. Either way, after a fun Saturday night and cleaning all day, I was proud of myself to get 2.5 hours or workout in (pats self on back again, hey someone's got to do it!).

Yey for me!

Saturday Night Fun

Yeah, I still have fun, ocasionally, but it wasn't my fault!

So, my friend Ben and I figured we hadn't had any fun since a few weekends ago when we went to see Dan St. Paul, a comedian, at LaSalles and we were due. So, well past my bedtime (10 PM), we decided to go out to the new Indian casino in wonderful Corning, CA. As I'm low on the fundage (that means money), I was playing on my good looks, which come to find out is about $60.

We played some of our favorite slots, the penny machines, for a while before moving over to the high limits $5 blackjack table. Being that $5 is so high limit, Rolling Hills Casino only had one table available.

We had a good group going at the table and I was sitting even for quite sometime, which is great, free entertainment! Finally, after maybe 45 minutes of being even, the dealer changed up and everyone at the table went on a roll.

Things were looking up for everyone and I had managed to accumulated about $140. I was pretty proud of myself (pats self on back). Then, this guy sits down in between my friend and I in the 4th position at the table.

To make a long story a bit shorter, the guy proceeds to hit on 16 after 16 with the dealer showing 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6. The first time, we all just thought the guy made a mistake, the second time people started to grumble. Same thing on the third time. But the fourth time was too much for 3 of the 4 other people at the table.

The fourth time was ugly as the guy one position in front of me had a $25 bet down on the table, then doubled down and had 20. That's for sure money in my book as the dealer had a 6 showing.

I had 13 and figured I needed to be in the game to win, so I stayed. Dork master next to me has 16 and proceeds to hit and gets a face card to bust out. Next, my friend passes and the dealer hits on his soft 16 and gets a 5.

It's at this point that 3 of the 5 players get up and leave. My friend being one of those 3 people then asks the guy if he works for the casino followed by, because you're playing like an idiot!

The idiot then drops the F-bomb twice to my friend and states he is only loosing his money and to F-off. My friend thanks him for his offer and continues to get up from the table. The idiot then asks if he would like to go out to the parking lot. I'm assuming he means to fight, but being that he was a fairly old-ish, scrawny guy, he could have meant something else, who knows.

My friend, once again, thanks him for his offer but declines as he decides to take the high road on this one. During this episode, all play at our table has stopped and I'm the only one seated besides the idiot.

I figured that after that, maybe the guy will shape up and I can go back to taking the casino's money. Well, no luck, next hand the idiot gets 16 and hits while the dealer is showing a low card and I loose my money again.

I then get up and leave the guy sitting by himself with the dealer. Amazingly, the guy doesn't realize in the matter of 15 minutes, he's managed to help 4 other people loose about $200.

Luck for us, we are smarter than we are tough and didn't bother waiting around to beat the tar out of that guy. I just hope he didn't end up playing with guys from the local Mexican gangs, cause they aren't as nice as we are.

So anyway, we had fun, but it could have been more fun if it wasn't for the idiot.

Saturday Ride...

The Saturday ride was great fun. The weather couldn't have been better at 63 degrees in the valley and about 45 or so up in the hills. There was a bit of wind on the trip back but that was off set by the long down hill stretch. Most of the climbing was in the early part of the day so the wind made for a good workout coming back.



I figured to see a little snow, but was surprised by the amount still on the ground in some areas. These pictures were taken up on Forbestown Rd above Lake Oroville where the altitude was about 2500 feet or so. There were a couple of spots when we were at about 3800 feet that had lots of snow, but I was way to cold to stop and take a picture.



Below is the little map I did with Google Earth that tells me we covered about 60 miles in about 5.5 hours with about 8000 feet of climbing. Actually the map only tells me about how far we went. I should get a speedometer, but really, does it matter how far you ridden as long as you make it back home?



[Posted with hblogger 2.0 & Treo 650]

Sun, For Once

The sun has finally made it's presence know. Seems like it's been raining everyday for weeks, even though I know that's not true. But it's felt like it after only getting in one outside ride each week for the past couple.

Yesterday, I thought I would have to workout inside, but was able to go out and ride for two hours. Today, I'm heading to Browns Valley to do a ride with a friend. He's got some long ride planned that includes some climbing. I wonder if there will be any snow where we're going?

Tomorrow is the Italian Triple, a ride here in Chico. It's abougt 100 miles or so and heads up 3 of the local climbs. First comes the ride to Cohasset and back to Chico, then it's up Honey Run to Paradise. I'm not sure which road is taken on the return trip, probably Honey Run though. Then it's up to Forest Ranch and back to finish things off.

We'll have to see how I feel, but already don't think I'll be riding the whole thing. I'm getting tired just thinking about it.

Enjoy the sunny weekend!

Happy St. Patty's

Yeah, go out and gorge yourself with green beer and the traditional meal of Irish bacon and cabbage, not corned beef.

I'm already late as the bars in Chico open at 6 AM. I'm kidding of course, those years are long gone. But I have some fun stories about drinking too much and the antics that ensue, but I won't tell them here.

My plans for the day, after work, are to nuke the tummy muscles for 30 minutes, run for 30 minutes, and do a light leg workout which includes leg extensions, squats, and calf raises combined with short sessions on the bike trainer.

Then I might have a beer to celebrate, but only one since I need to get some serious miles in on Saturday and Sunday.

The riding plans are still a little up in the air as I'm supposed to go to my friend's house and ride in his area one day, preferable the better of the two days.

Happy St. Patty's!

More Weather

It looks like today is an inside workout day. I suppose I could go and ride in the rain, but really, all the extra cleaning afterward isn't really worth it after riding yesterday.

I was planning to head over to my friend's house in Browns Valley to do some hills with him, but the weather has screwed up our plans for a second weekend in a row. So, next weekend it'd best be clear, at least one day.

Ok, I'd better get to the workout!

I Got Snowed On...

After being cooped up inside for days on end because of a combination of work and weather, I finally was able to ride outside yesterday. I left the house at 9 AM only to have to turn around a half mile from home so that I could put on warmer gloves, shoe covers and my fenders. Thank goodness I did, it made all the difference. There is nothing worse than cold hands and feet while on a long ride.

The weather was actually pretty nice even those the forecast called for rain and snow. In Chico, it never happened and the day ended up being sunny but very cold. I headed out of Chico toward Paradise and then up through Magalia to Pentz Rd. On the way up I had shed some clothing since you don't need 4 layers when going up hill, unless you are attempting to create the human sauna. But at the top of Pentz, I put my last layer back on because I was about to do about 10 + miles of downhill and it was bound to get chilly. I'm glad I did, because not even a few minutes later, I hit a section of snow or fluffy hail that lasted about 15 minutes until I dropped below the snow line back into the valley.

The weather was particularly strange, snow up on the hills but once back into the valley 2000 feet lower, it was sunny. So, once I hit the low slope of the hills, it was time to turn back up and HWY 70 was the road. I took that to Table Mountain and into Cherokee and then back down into Oroville. That section of the ride was lacking snow, but I was OK with that as the decent into Oroville is steep and the road has lots of turns. I didn't need to contend with icy or snow on the ground and I was happy about that.

The rest of the ride was pretty uneventful and I made it home about 1:20 PM. I probably did about 65 or 70 miles.

Another Cool Picture...

Here is a pic of a great American cyclist and that guy who rides for Davitimon-Lotto isn't too bad either. Right after this picture, during stage 4, Chris Horner went out on a nice little break if I remember correctly.

He's tough as nails!

Johan and Some Dude...

Dude = Pat McQuaid, the President of the UCI, basically one of the most powerful people in cycling, today.

I took this picture down by Cannery Row and couldn't help but listen in on their conversation. Basically, Johan was trying to explain how there were some issues in with the ToC that he wanted cleared up and was pulling the "don't you want this race to be on par with the Grand Tours" card. I can't remember the specifics of the conversation, sorry. I should have busted out my digi voice recorder, not sure why I wasn't carring that thing around.

Some Pictures from ToC

A bad ass on a bad bike! This is a picture of Jens Voigt taken before Stage 7 in Redondo Beach.

Here is a picture of who's who in American cycling, sitting on the start line in Santa Barbara, before Stage 6. Levi, George, Floyd, DaveZ and Saul in the background.

Cool Pic From Stage 7

This is the grassy jersey that Fast Freddy wore in the Clifbar commercial played on ESPN2. It was made to promote Clifbar buying the Green Tickets to off set the emmisions of the entire bike race, via Native Energy.

More Car Problems II

The saga continues...

I received my car again this morning after the shop attempted, for the 4th time, to get things right.

I'm happy to say, the rear hood blemish was fixed properly and that I'm satisfied with the work on the blemish.

I'm freakin pissed to say, well I'm pissed. But I'm not happy that the interior still smells of paint, the color isn't matched properly and actually worse then the 3rd and previous attempt. As well, the overspray on my front wind shield isn't overspray, but little tiny pits. I don't recall the shield being jacked up like that before I took it in.

Oh, and the tolerances between the rear hood and the body of the car are messed up. So, I'm beginning to become concerned the problem is greater than what was diagnosed by the adjuster.

I'll try and take some pictures tonight that might show the problem I'm speaking of.

Boonen Unstoppable

For the 10th time this year, Tornado Tom Boonen has crossed the most important line of the race course first, beating the rest to the prize for the 3rd time of Paris-Nice.

I hope Alessandro Petacchi is going to be able to give Boonen a run for his money in the Grand Tours. I'm sure he'll be prepared and likewise, I believe his leadout men are a bit better than Boonen's. Petacchi has been relitively quiet compared to Boonen, though, Petacchi usually comes alive during the Grand Tours compared to Boonen starting off a little bit earlier in the season.

That being said, I think they are two different types of riders. Petacchi is a pure sprinter as far as I can tell and needs the good lead out, though he can power it home from a long ways out once he sees the line.

Boonen, he is strong man, literally. Yes he sprints and wins many sprints, but he can also ride off the front and power a break like he did in Roubaix last year.

I can't wait for the next head to head battle between these two and for the years to come. Very exciting!

Floyd Wears Yellow, Again

Well, technically the overall GC jersey for the Tour of California was Golden, but you get my point.

Floyd killed the field today during stage 3 of the Paris-Nice stage race. Simialar to the Tour of California, Phonak will now have to defend Floyd's jersey over the next 4 days. It's going to be tough for them as they have lost 2 of the starting 8 riders on the team; one to illness, the other didn't make the time qualification for stage 3.

But, this is nothing new as a very similar team defended the jersey for Floyd in California with much sucess.

Get used to seeing Floyd in this color jersey because I think he'll be wearing it in a few other races this year. Hopefully he'll have it for the race that means the most in July!

Pictures Up...

If anyone is interested, I've nearly finished posting "all" the photos I took at the Tour of California at my ToC site: www.tourofcalifornia.net. You can find them by clicking on the Gallery link on the right side of the page. Or for ease of use, just click here.

I just have to upload the pictures from the last stage and I'll be done. Please feel free to download the pictures you like from the gallery or if you are so inclined, you can order prints from Shutterfly.com via the gallery. You'll see the link for Shutterfly in the left-hand side navigational bar on the gallery page.

Enjoy, and get out and ride today, since it's about the only decent day we'll have all week!

What's With the Weather

This weather is really cramping my riding. Rain, wind, hail, what's next, snow. Well, luckily not in Chico, but a couple of miles up the highway, yes. It's supposed to snow down to 1000 feet elevation.

Anyway, what strikes me as odd is the number of times it's hailed in Chico lately. For the first 14 years I lived here, I don't really ever recall it hailing. Now, just in the past couple of months, it's hailed maybe 5 times. Good thing there is no way to blame this on weather changes due to that made up global warm thingy.

Looks like another night of working out inside. Or is that working myself inside out? Either way, I'll be working.

More Car Problems

The work on my car was "done" per the shop when I picked the thing up last Friday. But upon closer inspection, there were many problems.

First off, they clear coated over a flaw in the paint next to the Lexus badge on the rear hood. I can't believe they would even attempt to pass that off as being OK.

Then, the rear hood doesn't line up properly with the rear of the car. All the tolerances between the hood and the car are inconsistant. They say they can adjust that, I hope they are correct.

Then, upon getting in the car, I notice the strong smell of paint. So, I assume they didn't roll up the windows when they did the painting. So now that have to detail the interior to remove the smell.

I'll also add that it's now wonder the interior smelled, they had to redo the paint 3 times as they were having trouble matching up the color. I guess gold is hard to match, so they say. I also heard they fired the painter because of this problem.

Lastly, during one of the painting sessions, they didn't mask off the front wind shield and covered it in clear coat overspray. So, they'll need to clean that off before I accept the vehicle.

All in all, it's been a not so fun experience since the accident on Feb. 11th until March 9th when they think the car will be complete. But, as long as they make everything right, I'll be happy.

Funny Old Picture

Ok, I have a Myspace page, I admit it. But oddly enough, so do some of my friend who are my age. So, my friend Andy, whom I met when we were in the 7th grade, also has a page over there. I helped him with his layout a while back and he rewarded me by posting an old picture he had.

This picture was taken sometime around 1984 or maybe 1985. Oh the memories... if life could only be as easy and simple as it used to be back then.

Some things to note in this picture... The Vision Skate Wear berret, too cool. The old skool board shorts, even more cool. The look on my face, classic! Too bad we didn't have a shot of my face after I snapped the board in half doing this little stunt. Shortly after I went back to bicycle flat-land freestyle, way more safe.