I Declare Myself Healed

So take that, you stupid rib. Showed you.

Happy mothers day to my mother. And to the team mother as well. And to any other mothers reading this. Big ups.

Friday night was my first race back, and it wasn't as embarrassing as I had predicted. 200m time was still relatively slow and Steven McMuscles pretty much walked around me with a full lap to go, but at least I didn't end up last. And my chest didn't rip apart. That's good too. Oh and you know what else is good? I got a killer sunburn while doing a 5-hour track workout on sunday. boo-yah. Sunburns mean sun. And sun is good.

So how about that Aaron Tuckerman eh? I've been keeping a lazy eye on the results from the Joe Martin nrc stage race, and I keep seeing that angsty little guy up in the top 15. Who spiked his PBR before he took off? 6th on the first hilly road stage, lead group finish on the flatish sprint finish road stage, 13th in the TT, and 14th in the crit for a grand total of 12th overall. Damn. Not bad for a field full of the best domestic pro teams in the country. What a angry guy. He's like one of those little tiny birds that look like thier made of paper clips and tree bark, but then you walk by and they dive bomb and peck you freakin eyes out... But uglier.

Rest of the boys were up thier fighting it out as well, Kirk, Logan, Richard, you guys get gold stars for just going to Arkansas in the first place, let alone racing your asses off in that godforsaken place.

Good luck at Tri-Peaks you poor suckers.

So it's official. I'm pretty much the slow guy on the team then. I'm cool with that. I still have until October to prove my worth. Just have to keep my eyes open (while driving) and keep working to get back to pre-rib form and beyond.
DT

I Didn't Know I Had That Much In My Stomach (and other recent quotes)...

Now that I'm feeling healed enough to giver' a little bit on the bike, I'm realizing how slow I am. 5 Weeks off the bike doesn't do much for your sprint as it turns out. Or your endurance. Or your anything. I've been riding off and on since my accident, but I've carefully avoided any efforts. Now that I'm confident that I can jump a few times without ripping my ribcage apart, I've started to get back into the good stuff.

Rode out to the track last Sunday to do a little workout with Brian and the crew. No worries right? What could possibly go wrong? This is where Brian says "haaay!" He says "HAY we should do some sprints!" Sure, why not?

First ride is against Casey Deck, who has just done about 5 hard flying lap efforts, is wheezing a little bit and looks pretty beat. I on the other hand have been riding in my granny gear for twenty minutes, so I think "no problem." We wind it up, come around for the final lap and suddenly I felt like I broke a shifter cable in my legs. Normally with about 200 to go I'd turn on the go-jets and run it home, but here it seemed like I'm stuck on cruising speed while casey lopes right past me. My heart rate, however has no problem jacking all the way up to the sky, and after doing a 13 second 200m I feel dangerously close to passing out.


Same thing happens against Beardsley the senior a few times. I'm doubled over gasping on the infield in between sets. Everyone else seems to be fine. Maybe 3 or 4 sprints into the day I start feeling "it." Very calmly, I put my sandals on, grab some water, walk up to the parking lot and loose my clif bar breakfast in some of the most violent spasming heaves of all time. I manage to cover most of the upper parking lot in bile. What an accomplishment.

Not surprisingly, I feel a bit better after that and finally take doug in the very last race... but barely... and with some very questionable tactics.

I was really looking forward to taking things up a few levels this year, but looks like I'm starting off by taking a few giant steps back. Looks to be a long and difficult summer, so steer clear of me after a few hard efforts.

DT

Welcome To The Club

Sounds like the Willamette Classic was pretty much a disaster for the Rubicon/kiwi contingent. Tuckie crashed, richard crashed, adam crashed. We even lost people without crashing. Rough weekend. I on the other hand, watched some TV, hung out at the coffee shop next to my place and basked in the sun, went to the track, rode until it hurt and basked in the sun some more. So I guess Willamette wasn't a complete disaster, it went pretty well for me.

As a result, Richard's joining me on the team sick list. Sounds like he got punted off his bike in a sprint and spent the next couple days coughing blood. He came out for the yeah yeah yeahs at the roseland, apparently he's in the broken rib club now. Drag.

Speaking of the Yeahs, they took the stage late enough to let the crowd get anxious and liquored up, then proceeded to blow everyone's mind to little quivering peices. They were ON it, Karen O was slamming about the stage like she was on fire, the crowd was amping, Nick Zinner the guitarist was throwing down these crazy guitar solos from space even though he looked like he shouldn't be strong enough to hold his guitar up, tuckie was heckling random people like a true champ, everyone was into it.

Euro-pro sidenote: Horner kicks ass. Pulls the big victory in Romandie, takes the mello yello jersey and looks like he's having an epileptic seizure during his celebration. What a rock star.

Headline of The Day

From CNN (again)

"Naked carpenter: I wanted to stay clean"

OAKLAND, California (AP) -- A carpenter who keeps his clothes clean by working in the nude was arrested after a client returned home early and found him building bookcases in the buff.

Percy Honniball, 50, was charged with misdemeanor indecent exposure this week for the October incident.

He told officers he stripped before crawling under the client's house to do electrical work because he didn't want to soil his clothes, police said.

Honniball said Thursday that working in the nude gave him a better range of motion and that a skilled craftsman can work clothing -- and injury -- free.

Put Me In, Coach

You know what's stupid? Not racing.

I hate hearing about what happened in this or that race, knowing that I could have been there and would have had a killer time..

Oh well, at least I'm riding again. Still no lifting any time soon. Baby steps.

Check out Thursday's front page at CNN.com. Killer picture of a bike filling up its tires at a gas station, accompanied by an article about the skyrocketing price of gas...

p.s. My personal quote of the day for today has been "I'm more into revenge than justice..."

DT

i'm goin' harry....

The crushing pain's over, so tommorow's the first ride. We'll shoot for two hours, see how it goes. Not doing anything for a couple weeks has been driving me slowly insane. Thought I was going to come unglued yesterday when I got caught in traffic for 5 whole minutes... things are getting desperate.

Any longer period of rest tends to turn me into a bit of a lunatic...

Anyway. Ipod situation is solved. The new black 30g video is quite nice.

Supposed to be mid-60s and sunny all week... maybe i should take thursday off...

DT

meanwhile in france...

Pretty amazing how much time you have when work is slow and you can't ride or lift. It's really kicking up the blogging to the next level. Don't worry though, gimme 4 more weeks and I'll go back to updating every month or so.

Meanwhile...

Anyone been paying attention to what's going down in Frenchy-ville? That country has some seriosly liberal labor laws (say that ten times drunk), and thier system works pretty well. Poor bastards tried to pass a law allowing employers to fire employees under 26 within two years of thier hire date without cause, making the ex-employee inelligible for any kind of unemployment support.

Students and socialists had an absolute fit. Pretests everywhere, riots in the streets, general mayhem all over the place and all aimed at killing that one law. Seemed for a while kinda futile. Students vs. government.

But they won. Forced the government to overturn the law.

I'm not saying it's right or wrong. Just interesting.

Indymedia article
NY Times article
MSNBC article

DT

Kicking ass vicariously

Since I'm all laid up eating ice cream and feeling sorry for myself instead of riding for the next 6 weeks, I've decided to start racing vicariously through all my teammates. I'm starting with Sea Otter, where we did a pretty tough course with a bunch of pros, and I kicked ass. Here's one shot of me kicking ass:
Yeah, it was pretty tough, I was rocking pretty hard at the front, but I didn't stop there. Oh no. I took a break for a minute as you can see so I could give everybody else a rest, but really I was just letting everyone slip into a false sense of security. Check it out, this Health Net dude is wondering where I am. Wondering if he can relax or not.


I'm on pretty kill form and I've dropped some extra poundage from last year, so I decided to giver a little on the hill a couple times. You can see here that I'm not really breathing that hard as I string everybody out and split the field into little whimpering groups. Phill Ligget would have said something like "he's looking cool as a cucumber here," and then he'd be all like "he's really putting them in a spot of bother now!" I'm pretty sure I was in my 12.

I beat Gord Fraser in the finish, but I was out of the money. Nobody was there to give me a prize for rocking that hard.. but i know i rocked it and thats all that counts...

DT

all photos from www.steephill.tv.

meds (an update)

Vicodin is pretty rough stuff. Flexerall (some crazy muscle relaxer/sedative) ditto. Not sure how people can get addicted to this stuff and still function. It's like I've been on a two second delay for the last few days, I'll think about doing something like picking up a watter bottle to take a drink, the muscle command will lose a few details in translation, then two seconds later I'll watch myself knock the bottle off the counter onto a computer keyboard at work. Thank god for public transport. Likewise, everything I said in those first few days afterward fell about 20 yards short of making any sense at all. I'd think of something, the sentence would rattle around in my neck for a few seconds and come out as some slurred idiot rambling. Somehow dealt with those unpleasant jackals from the insurance companies within the first 48 hours while in a waking coma.

Friday was my first completely unmedicated day (ran out of vicodin... muscle relaxers scare me) and yeah, chest hurts, back hurts, head hurts, but it was manageable. Nightime sucked a big one though. Seems to be no way at all to avoid resting on or compressing or stretching that rib. That one stupid rib.

Feeling a bit manic without the ability to ride or lift.

Had dinner with my parents and watched Big George take a big dive at Paris-Roubaix today. Felt good to get out of my highrise box apartment (as cool as it is) and hang out in a big house with a few spazzy dogs. Nothing funnier than watching my previously submissive smaller female collie-dog mount and try to hump our much bigger young male collie. She's awesome.

Sounds like Tuckerman had a pretty sweet ride at Sea Otter and ended up 20th. Results are here. Good thing too, cause I told norrene beforehand that if he didn't beat Gord Fraser I was going to kick him off the team and send him home, so I guess he can stay.

Picked up the new Placebo disc "Meds" today in the spirit of the occasion. Pretty good stuff. Mostly about drugs, believe it or not. Solid album, it'll take a few more listens to see if it's as good as the last one, but signs are good.

DT

Mullet Haiku (extended version)

Shampoo stings my eyes,
I will never feel that twice:
slick hair smells like gas.

O! Squirrel brother,
Your tail, my hair. We are one.
Yet I must eat you.

I liked that foreign
legion movie so much, I
grew me one them hats.

Brown edged tank top sticks
to my white clumpy armpits
Somehow I get laid.

Flowing down the back
helps to keep mind closed, hate
released by short top

My hair is slammin
like Stone Cold. Can I get a Hell
yeah? Hell yeah. Hell yeah.

This super cool hair
and a bucket of chicken:
What more could I want?

my slick snakeskin boots
my silk shirt with rooster prints
always colored jeans

Lynnrd Skynnrd didn't
win no spelling bees. Who cares?
They rock the trailer.

Razor set to one.
Do front and sides and then stop
Reaffirm my style.

Metallica is
for first graders. Nothing rocks
harder than Winger.

Dogs urinate where
they so choose. And so do I.
Red and blue lights flash.

Teen runaway, I
hate my dad. Yet I am one.
Fly, thunderbird, fly.

Ponytails are for wimps.
But if you let that hair loose,
you are my brother.

New white tank top tucks
neatly into tight black jeans:
redneck romeo.

Short like your schooling.
Long like your prison sentence.
The penal haircut.

Bald on the top and
long on the back. Behold my
glorious skullet.

My mullet and me
like to climb up a tree. We're
the best friends that could be.

Dad likes my mullet.
The nurse calls it a critter
carpet. My head breeds.

One day I will dip
and race cars. Until then I
ride my bike, chew gum.

With long hair in place
how else can I rebel? Hand
me the bong uncle.

Under the Christmas
tree: tight black jeans and a comb.
I've been extra good!

Short for dad. Long for
the daughter mom always wanted.
Everyone's happy.

Jacked Up. again.

Not much to say about this one. My truck happens to be out of commission, so I drove Jenny's car to the race on Sunday. It was a road race, flat, exposed, crazy crosswinds, and a big break that we almost caught on the final lap. I was pretty cooked. Hitched a ride in the team van back to Vantucky, picked up Jenny's car, went to save a friend stranded at the bus station and gave her a ride back to Willsonville. Must have dozed off for the half a second it took to aim the car straight at a center divider on I-5 north. I jerked back to conciousness on impact.

Managed to escape with a broken first rib, a banged up knee (steering columns are hard) and a sore everything else. No airbags were involved, so I took the brunt of the 60mph impact with my chest.


How's that for accuracy? Couldn't have hit the divider more on the driver's side unless I had opened the door and jumped out at it. Awesome testament to the safety of the honda civic. And seatbelts. The fact that the car sustained this much damage without transfering too much of it to yours truly is quite astounding.

So the only question now is how much will it cost to repair the divider (yes, it's very damaged, and yes I'll have to pay for it). As for now, I'm taking painkillers, muscle relaxer/sedatives and a few days to recover. The doctor says 6 weeks for the rib, but I think he's full of shit. I'll give it a couple. 4 max.

DT

the man. again.

Midnight. Finally home. Full day today; lifted early, rode with Curry and Solomon up the cemetery, ate heroic amounts of biscuits and gravy, went to work and stayed there until a mere 20 minutes ago. Stupid sale, can't set itself up for some reason.

The city is inexplicably dark tonight. Sky is clear, no fog in sight, it's just wierdly dark outside my window.

The iPod died today. One minute I was adding the new Editors album and the next thing I knew the damn thing had no songs and was completely unreadable by my computer. Pretty sure they install these little devils with a self-destruct timer that bombs the shit out of it's own internals after enough expensive new versions come out. Another classic example of The Man trying to get my money. Trying to get me down.

Damn the Man.

A few new kiwis are in town. Met Richard at Fresh Pot this weekend. Haven't been able to get an impression yet, although rumor has it he doesn't drink coffee. Suspicious. Curry has returned a bit bigger but off the sauce for the next few months. Can't actually tell he's any bigger, but he claims to be a good 7kg's over weight. I give him a couple months and he'll be destroying some careers again this summer. Tuckerman on the other hand came over a few kgs underweight. That skinny little freak. Dude looks like he's stuck in some ancient potato famine. I feel like taking him to McD's and supersizing his goofy ass. Maybe the two g-units will just even each other out. We'll see.

First race this weekend. Dead flat. If a break goes away and a orange dude doesn't win it everyone's fired. I'll cover the field.

DT

ahh, erg.

This is a modern torture device.

The thing is so stable, so rock solid that nothing moves but the cranks trying to turn that 80 lb. flywheel. The fancy pully system behind the flywheel means that Brian can sit back there and choose how hard he thinks I should go. For some reason we always seem to disagree on that one. I can't see the wattage output from the SRM, I have no control over the resistance, all I can do is try not to let the pedals grind to an embarrassing stop. Guess what the garbage can next to the bars is for?

Massive effort tonight.

8 kilos full bore.

Underestimated the wattage on the first two and went through so much awful pain I nearly didn't make it to the end of the efforts.

Headaches started immediately after the first set.

Started losing vision after the third.

I think my heart is sore.

I need a cookie.

DT

Cops and Kiwis

So yesterday one of our mechanics rolls out the door of his apartment on his bike (in the rain) on his way to work. He slows at a stopsign, looks both ways, sees that the sleepy residential street is as empty as Wal-Mart during a Nascar final, and casually rolls through to his right, straight into a cop squatting on a BMW with a cup of coffee in his hand. From 10 feet away the cop yells into his megaphone PULL OVER RIGHT NOW!! The motorcop hands him a $242 ticket for disobeying a traffic control device. Drag.

You're doing the environment a service and saving yourself from credit card debt AND avoiding contributing to the terrifying state of oil in the world, just minding your own business, riding perfectly safely, and someone wants to ding you for it anyway. WTF. Saying that a person on a bike needs to put his foot down at every stop is like saying a car needs to turn it's engine off and put it's parking brake on at every stop. Some of us live on about that much money after the bills are paid every month. What are we supposed to do then?

On a completely unrelated note, Tuckerman landed at PDX after his 24 hours of travel limbo last night. The Godfrey's cat Digger will be so pleased. Tuckie's ramping up for a big St Paddy's day, followed by a huge season of racing, with a large number of Muchas Gracias burritos peppered in between.

mmm... burritos.

DT

Sun's Out

It's early. Cold. Frosty. But sunny.

Solomon wants to go ride, I want to drink coffee. That bastard. Guess we'll meet at Stumptown.

Guess the Veloshop got jacked up a couple nights ago, some idiots smashed one of the huge plate glass windows. Molly may have terrible grammar, but at least she runs a pretty killer shop, so you should go buy some sweet track stuff from her.

I guess Portland's pretty spoiled on the killer bike shop front. Between the Gallery, River Shitty, Cycle-Path, Veloshop and Bike Central, if you can't find what you're looking for around here, you are a freak and what you're looking for is probably really lame.

Oh and hey, when did Floyd Landis become the man?

And why is he wearing those glasses?

DT

Post Race Hypothetical Wrap-Up / Pirate Crit Series

First Bannana Belt of the year was last weekend. Here's how it would have gone if I had been there instead of here (at the shop).

I would have slept as long as possible, and therefore I'd get a pretty late start. On the drive I'd probably listen to NPR for a while to wake myself up, then I'd transition over to something more aggro like Raw Power by Iggy Pop or maybe even some old Dropkick Murpheys. I'd show up about a half-hour before race time and sit in the car until everyone starts to line up.

The start sounded pretty hard, with a couple guys going blocks from the parking lot. I'd laugh at them from the back of the group and joke around with Skerrit or whoever else is around back there. After the neutral zone break comes back, I'd probably be amused at how much bling-bling is rolling around in my field. The opera of screaming break pads on new carbon wheels would make me smile on every little roller. I usually try to take it (really) easy for these races as to avoid the embarrassment of getting dropped in a easy road race, but I think yesterday I would have gone after the first sprint like in my usual spring fashion. About 500m before the line, while sitting around 3rd to last I'd change my mind and decide to go for it, fly around the field in the gutter and miss winning it by about an inch. I would have done this twice and spent the rest of the day hurting and thinking I should have done a few training rides this winter longer than 3 hours.

I think I would have finished about 8th.

After that I would've hung out in the parking lot for a while with a few friends and talked about how I didn't win because "I didn't really care" and "it's just a training race" instead of just admitting that I'm weak and I don't like it when it's cold.


Speaking of racing, cold and sprinting, who's up for a wednesday night training crit series? Anybody? I'm thinking maybe a couple of different courses, no categories, kinda like fight club for bike racers and any other hooligans who want to show up.

I'm down, are you?

DT


Check out my sweet new custom track bike

Virtual Magic Mountain

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6869399616004720005

Olympic Bummer

http://www.nbcolympics.com/wgal/5121495/detail.html?call=wgal

City Made of Cookies

http://www.nicecupofteaandasitdown.com/theWife/biscuitcity/