stop protesting me!

So a group has been protesting the US Olympic Committee for a few days about our involvement in the Olympic Games in Beijing. Maybe 4 or 5 people. I think the peak was 10 a few days ago. They stand outside the training center with some signs and they yell at tourists. Good stuff. Very effective. So they've attracted the attention of a big group of hippies in Denver, and are now determined to free Tibet by keeping me from working out. So today or tommorow (no one's too sure) there are 4 busloads of stinky hippies headed down from Denver to engage in "Political Action" against the USOC. The offshoot of this is that security at the center has gone into critical lockdown mode, and non-residents are stopped at the gate and turned around. That means me. That means even Des (the national team coach) couldn't get in today.

First off, I agree that China has a habit of doing some pretty nasty shit to innocent people. This sucks. So in order to fix things, a bunch of yuppies come down to the Springs to try and shut down a proccess that's already 2 years past the administrative point of no return. They protest the athletes that aren't even going to Beijing from working towards a goal. Why protest those of us that are trying to do something with our lives? Wouldn't a better target be the massive Wal-Mart/K-Mart/Target style corporations that fuel the Chinese economy and essentially fund the atrocities that these people are protesting? Nah. That probably wouldn't get them on the news...

As athletes, we're meant to be apolitical in competition. The Olympics have never been about making a statement. It has always been about putting political, religious, idealogical and all our other differences on the back burner for a week to engage in the highest level of sport and competition. It's unfortunate for the athletes that the Olympics are becoming a political tool, but in this world I suppose it's unavoidable.

Are these same people protesting soccer games in response to US run military torture prisons in Egypt and Cuba? Did they boycott football games when we sold weapons to Iran to fund terrorist activities in Nicaragua, or supported genocidal maniacs like Augusto Pinochet? It doesn't make sense.

DT

photodump

Posts are few and far between now that training is neverending and work is the only other thing I seem to do. Still no internet at home, so you'll just have to deal with the giant post on occasion.

So here we go.


Cliff diving is tough at Helen Hunt falls (did not make that name up).


Ping Pong had been working on his moustache for a couple of years, and brought it to Colorado to share it with the world.


I'm a competetive person, so I couldn't let an Asian with distinctly Aryan facial hair beat me in the stache-off.


I like this picture, because you can actually see the rays of hate that my cat is trying to shoot though Kacala's head.


Behold the new go-rocket.


This picture is all that could be recorded of what turned out to be a bit of a chaotic evening in the pursuit of "avoiding the bummer life." Eric from Ground Up cycles built a mini dirt velodrome on his front yard. It's 15 meters long, 14 inches tall and has a banking of almost 40 degrees. An average person on a 16 inch kids bike can do a lap in about 4 seconds. This track has become the centerpiece in a weekly barbeque/minidrome-cycleslaughterama. Never satisfied, Eric and co. has nearly completed a downhill course in his backyard which features some nasty switchbacks, a decent dropoff, a junkyard, a woodpile and a cactus field. Wheels bigger than 16 inches need not apply. Same goes for sissies. No sissies allowed.


On the ride home from the miniraces, we decided that finally, we really like it here.


Sharks with frickin laser beams on thier heads... Note the sweet Meshke bars. Still in the original poo brown.

And this is where I'll leave again for another stretch. Headed back to the track this afternoon to get chased down on a half lap start by the best starter in the country. I get a 10m gap, but we'll see how long that lasts.

DT

the pong is gone

So Eric spent last weekend sniffling and sneezing on my couch. Either he got some kind of asian bird flu in St. Louis, or just had a mean case of allergies and refused to admit it. Overall it was a good weekend. We ate (lots), we drank (lots), and we watch some really bad movies. The highlight was probably sitting on a rock at Garden of the Gods, watching rock climbers, heckling them amongst ourselves, wondering if they can hear us all the way up there and if they can, is it ruining their concentration and hurting their self-esteem. Some questions will never be answered.

Training-wise, I've run myself into the ground, and now I'm trying to get back up. I've slept somewhere between 12 and 15 hours a day in the last 3 days, and workouts got to the point where I was performing so poorly I was told to go home and not come back until I'd had a few days rest. Luckily this was the day before the Pong showed up, so I didn't spend his whole visit at the gym and track.

Nacho update: Jose Muldoon's nachos are on par with the Laurelwood's. Huge, chickeney, cheesey and not a soggy chip on the whole plate. A triumph in modern nacho-ing. If the salsa was any better, we'd be way ahead.

Project Leadville has hit a little stumbling block. So far we have a $10,800 4-inch travel full suspension race bike that weighs in at 20.7 pounds with pedals. The deal was "under 20 pounds no matter the cost." This guy will bring his own scale and weigh it before he picks it up. We've resorted to filing down the extra material off the custom titanium bolts we swapped out for all the steel ones, removing every decal and sticker in sight, cutting the post down to the absolute minimum length for his seat height, custom Stans ZTR Olympic wheels (each of which with tires and skewers weighs less than one of my training tires), a custom carbon shock, everything. Only options left are super-flimsy aluminum brake rotors and grinding off extra material from the seat. On the flipside, despite all the stress this causes, it beats selling hybrids for a living...

DT

plyos are bad for you

So about 3 weeks ago I'm doing box jumps with Blatchford. From the ground up to a platform 64 inches off the ground. Kinda like jumping onto someone's head. Even if your vertical leap is pretty high, it still takes a lot of effort, some luck and a smallish brain to jump that high repeatedly for a workout. So anyway, long story short on my third jump I drove my hand into the box with all my might and probably broke my thumb. At the time I was hoping it was a sprain (despite the grapefruit-size swelling and black and blue coloring), but 3 weeks on and I still can't do power cleans or anything that requires controlling a bar with weight on it. Riding's no problem, it's just a limiter in the gym. So more frustrating than anything. Fortunately my strength coach Mike figured out all the lifts I can do (like squats) and is punishing me for my lack of durability.

Ping Pong makes his grand entrance in T-minus 5 days. The couch is ready, I've got a couple days off and some mountain bike rides figured out.

Did some work on the truck the other day. Think it's coming along nicely.