i feel dusty

Winthrop in late July is a dusty, dirty, hot tinderbox just waiting to burst into flames. It's like Bend, but hotter. Great place for an outdoor wedding, don't you think? Actually Solomon's wedding was this last Saturday, it was pretty great. Hot, but great.

We showed up on Wednesday for some bachelor and bachelorette party time, and to help set up the big shindig in Brandy's parent's back yard. Actually, it's more of a mountainside acreage than a back yard, so setup involved alot of carrying chairs and tables around, building dance floors and clearing 20 years of accumulated knicknacks and gardening things. All the while, brandy's parents would keep us hydrated with a steady stream of beer, which does not work as well as one might think. (it's made of water, right?) The ceremony itself was cool, despite having to stand next to solomon in the groomsman attire of black shirt, black vest and black shoes in the 95 degree heat. I guess we know which one of my groomsmen is wearing the skirt and heels at my wedding...

The reception was all anyone could hope for. Plenty of drinking and merryment, good food, good dancing, and in true hippie fashion, an impromptu rhythemless drum-circle, which was fun all the same. Jenny and I retired late, woke up far too early the next day, piled in the truck, drove the 8 hours back home and collapsed on the couch. As I was sitting there I could hear Des in the back of my head reading me the riot act in his sickeningly calm and quiet carribean manner, bemoaning my 6 days without turning a single pedalstroke and 4 days of excessive calorie intake (mostly in beer form) and excessive alchohol intake (see previous parenthises). So I knew I had to do some kind of ride.

It's now 5:30pm. I could A: do the stumptown-bikepath-cemetery-stumptown loop, which makes for just short of an hour if I go slow, usually a good choice for a recovery ride or easy day. I could do B: The stumptown-cemetery-council crest-skyline-germantown-23rd loop, which is a good hard couple of hours. I could also do C: drive up to Vancouver, pay 15 bucks and see how long I can stay in the Courthouse Criterium, and hope there's an early prime wortwhile. C seems pretty alright... Long story short, I thought I was going to spew within the first 5 minutes, and 10 minutes in I realized that A or B would have been far smarter in the long run. I lurked around in the top ten for a while until I heard the bell ringing for 50 bucks cash around 20 minutes in. I stomped on it on the back straight, got a decent gap and who do I see coming up behind me in the last couple of turns but the Aussie. Fan-effing-tastic! Kept it fast but reasonable the last couple of turns as he drifted everyone back a couple of lengths, he made a show of sprinting up to me in finish straight, so I did the same and it was game over. So 50 bucks in hand I pull the pin, ride around the block a few times, barely avoid hurling in front of an 8 year old, and roll back to the van, where Engine 82 from the Vancouver Fire department had just pulled up to watch me race. Little embarrasing there... "hey, we thought you were racing today!" yeah... about that... I only dress the part and ride the bike... not really a bike racer today...

DT

transfusions of blood for make benefit glorious nation of kazhakstan

Another one bites the dust.

When Skerrit told me Vinokourov tested positive this morning, for a split second I thought "but he seemed like such a great guy!" Then I thought back on doping cases of the recent past:

Roberto Heras. Nice guy
Tyler Hamilton. Really nice guy
David Millar. Nice guy, and Scottish too
Stephen Alfred. Exceptionally nice guy
Ivan Basso. Quiet, but always looked nice
Floyd Landis. Funny looking, but nice
Alexander Vinokourov. Crowd favorite. Like cheering for a scrappy puppy in the middle of a huge dogfight.

How ironic that his road stage came at a very familiar point, and in a very similar situation as a memorable stage last year. He gets spooked by the testers on the TT stage so uses the same old blood he's had for the last 48 hours, gets stomped, recieves some fresh blood the next day and makes a miraculous turnaround. One day he rides like a cold turd and the next day he's a heroic pheonix soaring to victory on a flaming golden pillar of fire, burning to a crisp everyone in his magnificent wake. Didn't floyd do that? oh yeah. Tried to forget that one.

So I guess I'm bummed, but not surprised. It's like when you broke the glass vase on the mantle when you were a kid and your mom says "I'm not angry, I'm just dissapointed."

DT

the new harry potter book

RULES

DT

pull the trigger, push the kill button.

Turned in our 30 day 'notice to vacate' at our apartment today. The Plan thus far: Get married, get Jenny through her finals to finish her bachelors and out we go. Off into the great blue yonder. Looks like I'll be headed back to the springs for a few weeks before the nationals champs to see if I can get scary fast. If I get scary fast and ride some blazing times at Natz, I'll head home, pack up some stuff, grab Jenny and head on down to the other olympic training center in sunny San Diego for the cold winter months, train train train, race a world cup or two, then head to the new Home Base in Colorado Springs.

If I don't get crazy fast and can only manage to get pretty fast, and if I get the old "good job, at least it's progress... maybe next year" bs, then it's back to PDX for a couple of months, save up some cash, then head to CSprings in february or march, as soon as the goons get back from San Diego.

So I suppose my life is taking a rapid left turn that even I didn't really see coming. But hey, I'll roll with it. Jenny's into it. Adventure on, man. Damn the torpedoes, full steam ahead and all that good stuff. Just like kierins I suppose. You plan as best you can, but when it all comes down, you really just close your eyes, hit the gas and hope for the best.



DT

bored. gore ahead.

This picture is a 9.4 on the nasty scale, and will probably blow your mind.

I think we should rid our country of prisons and just hold a running of the bulls every couple of weeks. Idiots like this could thin themselves out of the gene pool.

proof

that dogs hate pink.






BLAM! Gotcha! Take that Pinky! Dog 1, skinny roadie 0.
Look at that form! Perfect slide tackle.

home again

back on home ground, and just finally getting caught up again. Lots of wedding stuff to do, lots of shop stuff to do, my apartment's a bit of a disaster and there's still and XL pile of riding to be done.


Missed that view.

AVC went well. Not as well as I wanted, because I didn't win everything and be crowned Champion Of All, but I'll take what I can get. Here's what I got:
Qualified first in the 200 with the ugliest, most completely out of control ride of my life. I tried a super-early mach 3 wind-up and came into 1 and 2 so fast I drifted all the way to the top of the track and rode on the vertical retaining wall for a couple of pedalstrokes. So my brain registers whats going on and immediateley goes AAAAAH!!! SHUT IT DOWN!!! so I did for a couple seconds and then my brain went AAAAHH!!! I"M GOING TOO SLOW!! and I re-jumped so hard i felt my ankles and knees shed a single tear.
Sprint rounds went well until I rode Felix Haspel. The Plan: Get the lane, keep him checked uptrack on my hip, twist the throttle on the backstraight, sail home for the V. The Reality: Got the lane with a semi-suicidal jedi manuever underneath at speed, let up for a split second to keep him checked, and just as I give one soft pedalstroke, he gives full juice and comes right back over the top. Obviously nobody told him the plan. Caught back on, tried to come back around, but could make it. That put me into a deep funk and into the 3rd 4th ride with Kelyn Acuna. In my book, Kelyn's just as fast as Felix, so I couldn't make the same stupid mistake. So defying all expectations, I didn't. Used a sweet Keirin-Fu manuever to steal the lane on the backside when he was looking right at me, wound it up on the front straight to uncomfortable speed, gassed it on the bakcstraight and sailed home.

Kierin also did not go to plan. Our first round was so F-ed up in to many ways that the officials completely cancelled the results and restarted us. Let me count the ways:
1. The heat featured 4 of the 6 riders that would eventually make it into the final, but only 1 rider would go through to the next round.
2. Rene Regimbald was riding like an 8 year-old playing Kierin Battlewars for XBOX. Guy was all over the place, trying to crash Jeff Hopkins for 4th wheel with 5 laps to go, telling Hoppy he was going to kill him. Come on. Hoppy may not be big, but he's crafty, and more importantly, he's from Australia, which gives him automatic danger-mouse status. Those guys are all descendents of murderers and theives, and you can see it in the way Robby McEwen and all the rest of them ride (excluding Michael Rogers and Cadel Evans).
3. They rang the one lap to go bell with two to go. We sprinted anyway, because when you hear the bell, you go. As Barlee and I came across the line with a bike throw, the bell rang again. Que?

So after a great reshuffling, we got out rides in and all went well. I led out both my heats, made it through each to the final. Final did not go so well. I pulled 6th up high, so had to start in the worst possible position. The only way to make good on this would be to A. jump with all I had and pull my guts out my ears to get first or second over the top of a bunch of strong dudes off the gun or B. gamble on the secret-squirrel jump from the back as soon as the motor pulls off. I chose B. My jump from the back was cancelled by the fact that Kelyn Acuna led it out at full gas as soon as the motor pulls of, so I switched to Plan C: close your eyes, hit the gas, shoot underneath everyone who drifts up for a split second and hope that a hole opens up before the line. Plan C generally isn't the most successfull way to go, but sometimes it's the only way, and it's fun in the way that that Big Drop amusement park ride is scaryfun. I'll take 4th by a wheel over 6th any day.

Did the team sprint, did the flying lap, both were kinda blah.

Brad and Dan rode like ten men in the endurance stuff. Brad pulled my favorite straight-arm shove "get out of my way" move in the madison. Brought a tear of joy to my face. Jimmy Lingwood gets the jersey for Most Agressive Asian Rider. Ping Pong would have been proud, but he was elsewhere. Probably napping.

Killer thunderstorm couple nights ago. Jenny and I watched like 6 year olds for a solid hour. "OOH! Good one!" "Whoah, I think that was close!"

DT

last couple pictures from the springs

I laughed a little every time we rode by these guys.


Must be tough...


The main weight room, the fishbowl. Hurt be here.


You wanna say that to my face?


The main drag. Sports medicine on the left, admin and weight rooms on the right and the athlete center straight ahead.


Kiss the rings...


Headed home. This building is our kitchen, the home of our coaching staff, dormitories and big TV's playing Wimbledon and SportsCenter.

DT

Mostly done...

Finally got some racing in last night. We crammed 2 days worth of racing into one night session (thanks CSprings for throwing down for a killer lighting system). Considering the field (4 olympians including a pan-am champ) I wasn't too sad about 5th in the sprints and 5th in the kierin. Best of the rest I suppose. We did manage a 2nd in the team sprint with the slowest first lap and best 3rd lap of the night(thankyouverymuch). Think I tied with Andy our mechanic for finest heckle of the night. Adam Duvendeck was feeling pretty green after a spot of food poisoning and a complete emptying of his stomach onto the warmup track after his 200m. So he lines up against Trini in the sprints and I hang over the rail stretching out an extra small Dixie cup and yell "If you're gonna spew, spew in THIS!" in a spot-on perfect Garth Algar voice. Made my day, ruined his, Trini wins, mission accomplished. Pictures, go!

Trinidad & Tobago rider Chris Esellier did a 40mph bellyflop and learned why you should never use tubular tape.


Jamaicans don't do rain.


We took cover just before the hail started. Tornado warnings started taking over the news channels shortly after.


The awesome thing about this one is, the track here dries so fast, we were racing again an hour after I took this picture and the hail stopped. The gutters were still packed with snow when I rolled out for my final sprint ride.


The infield may be underwater, but game on.



The barbeque smoke was killing me. So hungry. Soooo hungry...

DT

After endless sunny days, the moment our racing starts the sky opens up. My rollers were pointed in the direction of the oncoming black death in the sky, so I had the opportunity to watch it bear down on us. That big beast moved fast. Couldn't have been more than a half-hour between total sun and drowning in rainwater. I'm not talking Portland drizzle, this was violent rain.

Bummer deal. I've been doing quicker and quicker times since I did the 10.6, so I was ready to see what I could do on race day with good conditions. Instead we sat, tried to wait it out, watched endurance freakjob Colby Pearce play with his iPhone, eventually left, and ate ourselves to sleep.


Nerd alert!



This is how sprinters clean thier bikes.

DT

tired today.

This center is so huge, today was the first time I've seen the south end of it. Went to Sports Medicine to get an ice pack and was almost run over by a 30 person tour group. We live on the North end of the complex, behind huge ABSOLUTELY NO VISITORS signs, but a good deal of the support facilities and gyms are on the South end, in what people call the 'fishbowl.' For instance; one wall of our lifting room is a bank of glass windows. Tours run through the South end of the complex every hour, so at least once every workout we become a zoo exhibit. At first I found it a bit annoying, but it's not so bad if you have fun with it. Adam made a big show of doing some bicep curls with a pink plastic 1 pound dumbell, straining and huffing and puffing like a jerk. I just tried not to hurt myself in front of the tourists.

Watched the Juniors do a Kierin last night. Everyone in the group has thier targets set squarely on the back of the punk who won. The guy is plenty fast to win it the right way, but he insisted on racing like a juiced-up wrestler. Throwing unnecessary chops and putting everybody else at risk just so he could look cool. Should be good when he races with the seniors on the 4th.

Trini and I got locked into a giant Mario Kart-off last night, which lasted well into the morning hours. You've never seen true cut-throat competition till youve seen a bunch of Olympians trying to hit each other with turtles and bannanas in a four-way geek-out. I thought Sarah Hammer was going to eat us if she got knocked out of the match at one point. Adam Duvendeck was crowned Girliest Girl of the OTC after he couldn't stop letting pre-pubescent shreiks fly every time he got in trouble. He was so offended he went out and immediately slept with the first 20-something sports-med intern girl he found. I only made it to the quarterfinals, but I'm giving it all tonight.

Here's some pitchers.


Trini in my way, trying to capture the essence.



Blatch and Aaron Kacala, Gut-Off '07


Some idiot, Blatch, Trini, and junior enduro phenom (imposter) Kit Karzen


There it is. There's the essence.

DT

Did some race-wheel TT's today to get an idea of how everyone is going. I had no idea what to expect, since I've never even done a 200 on this track. First lap on the track I hear that horrible psssstftpssstft sound coming from my disk. Awesome. Des let me borrow a Zipp disk for the session, which was cool, but I missed my sweet white Campy straight away. We started with a couple of flying 100m sprints to see how fast everyone can turn on the power. I suprised myself by sticking within a short tenth of Blatch and Trini.

By the way. Junior nationals starts tommorow and there are 180 people registered. That means that although we have the track for our workout, there are more people hanging out in the stands than at most weekly races. Makes for an interesting atmosphere for a workout.

After 2 max efforts comes the 200m. Des is was happy with how things were going at that point, so he turns up the motivation: "If anyone goes 10.5 I'll take you all out to Mongolian Grill." MMmm. We can all taste the delicious heaps of beef, noodles, chicken, grilled veg... Now everybody needs it. Must have. Must do. I've been doing about 11.8 at Alpenrose. I figured our surface would add about a half second, which would give me 11.2. That in mind, I wanted to do a good time, but I was looking to the other guys to break into the 5's. Chris rides a 10.9. Solid time. I think for sure I'm gonna be at the back of the group today. I roll up, ride a sweet line and everything comes together for a 10.6. Fastest I've ever done. Des is so happy he runs up and wraps me in a big hug. It was tough to smile while I was still gulping oxygen-less air, but I was definitely psyched. Trini tops it with a 10.55 and Blatch finishes us all off with a 10.50.

I ate so much I went past the point of full and straight back to hungry. I think I won dinner.

You know how when anyone ever leaves home for a while, they always say "the first thing I do when I get home is *blank*"? First thing I do when I get home (after planting a big wet one on Jenny) is go directly to Stumptown, order up a couple Esspressos and enjoy a good coffee again. That's my one complaint about this place. The coffee is horrible. Comes out of a machine. You have to drink three cups of it to equal one Stumpy's. Yeah I know, they're trying to ween me off the bean so to speak, but I'm not going without a fight.

Speaking of coffee. The kitchen here is pretty funny. You have 5 or 6 choices of main dish at every meal with all the works. Thing is, everything has a sign above it that announces what you're eating. The page also lists the exact caloric content, fat content, saturated fat, protein, cholesterol, etc. At the top of the page, under a Olympic logo, is the phrase "every athlete has a dream, and every choice makes a difference." On every food choice. Come on. All I want right now is some ice cream and you're making me feel guilty about it. Jerks.

DT

Did you know that the 2008 Olympics are only 407 days away? I do. I'm reminded daily. Everywhere I look there are posters of memorable American Olympic performances, advertisements for Olympic games past, and reminders of the Big Beijing Shimmy. The computer I'm typing on happens to have a full color artist's rendering of the Laoshan Velodrome... which looks a little like this:

Kinda flying saucerish, eh?
A person could easily never leave this place for months, this village of motivation, support and seemingly impossible amounts of work.

Day 2 of workouts and I'm feeling wrecked. Been trying to keep pace with Trini, my roomate, which is no easy feat. Did I mention he's done 2 years of international competition? Rode a 10.2 at Moscow? Dude's fast. More importantly, he's also hilarious. The stuff that comes out of that Jamaican's mouth is enough entertainment, I might as well push the TV out our window. It's like a drunk, male Miss Cleo after smoking a couple gallons of PCP.

Gym sessions remind me of football practice. Tons of dynamic plyometrics, medicine ball work, box jumps, shuttle runs, windsprints, etc. Thought our strength trainer Jason was gonna kill me if I didn't beat Trini in the shuttle sprints.

I've been crowned with the title of Whitest Kid on the Block. Blatchford used to own the title hands down, but looks like he's stepping aside for a new champ. Also happen to be the skinniest sprinter this side of anywhere... Which is funny. After spending the winter locked in the gym I kept hearing people at the track go "hey you got bigger," "you gained some power this winter eh?" Here it's like I'm back in school. Skinny white kid.

Haven't been able to take a single picture yet. Too sore to walk anywhere but to food and bed. Probably should start taking it out on evening road rides. That's the only time I get to see anything other than the campus.

General impressions from the staff is I'm right about where they thought I would be. Which is good. Had a panic attack on the bus from the airport that I would show up, ride like a chump and be sent home with a "thanks, we'll call ya." Granted it's only day two, but things look good so far...

DT

landed...

...at the Training Center last night. Had a headache within an hour. Coach says it'll probably last a couple days with our workout load. No worries. Tried to drown it in coffee this morning, but now I'm just amped beyond control just in time to head to the gym.

The facilities here are pretty nuts. Could get very addictive to have everything taken care of, from laundry to food to transport to medical to massages to everything in between. Rooming with Jamaican sprinter Ricardo Lynch. Nicest guy in town, probably.

Kind of nuts to be around so many world class athletes. Weight lifters, vollyballers, gymnasts, wrestlers, swimmers, even a couple of shooters. The track cyclist camp is pretty small. Just 5 of us really. Seemed almost like high school again at breakfast this morning. Us at the trackie table scoping out the room. Mike Blatchford, Adam Duvendeck and Ricardo know just about everybody here, I'm still operating on advice and good guesses.

Time to lift. I'll try to get some pics up later.

DT

it's saturday!

it is for me anyway...

the hurt box

Two workouts a day while still working at the shop sucks the big one. Yeah, I know it'll make me fast and all that, but until I get used to it, it sucks. Take yesterday for example. Was up earlier than early to do some standing starts at the track before work. Had some food when I got to the shop at 8 or so, then got so wrapped up in work stuff that the only thing I ate or drank before riding to PIR was a piece of chicken and a cup of coffee. Real smart. Carbs? Don't need em. Hydration? overrated.
Led Big Brad out for a sprint and finished off one of my own after a screamin leadout by ANT and Kirk, and things seemed to be going pretty good. Then the cramps started. I could feel it starting in my calves and working up to my hamstrings. So against my more aggressive judgement I called it a day with 6 to go, pulled the pin and rode home. I figure theres no sense in wrecking tommorows workout by going into full cramp mode for the World Champs of PIR.

Rode home with Officer Curl, where we got the news by Bat Phone that there was a nasty pile up as soon as we left. Suddenly I felt great about leaving. With my luck I would've been right behind it, hurt myself and missed my trip to the training center. No PIR's worth that. No matter what a bunch of old men say.

Rode the first part of the State Champs last weekend. It was moist. Seriously. We started the day with a rain delay, and did hour or two sessions in between the two other rain delays before the whole day was cancelled. Laid down a decent 200 to get the top seed, despite being completely out of control the entire time. I was bleeding in two places after my 200. That's how bad it was. Smacked my knee on my stem and rubbed some skin off my knuckle on the rail. Out of control. All the ride went well, especially my race vs. Brain Abers. It was an old-school smackdown. Very little drag-racing, very much wrestling for control. More hooks and chops than a pirate ship. For some reason, this sequence from the movie Top Gun popped into my head:

Charlie: Well, if you were directly above him, how could you see him?

Maverick: Because I was inverted.

Iceman: [coughs whilst saying] Bullshit.

Goose: No he was man, it was a really great move. He was inverted.

Charlie: You were in a 4g inverted dive with a MiG28?

Maverick: Yes ma'am.

Charlie: At what range?

Maverick: Um, about 2 meters.

Goose: It was actually about 1 and a half I think. It was 1 and a half, I've got a great Polaroid of it, and he's right there, must be 1 and a half.

Maverick: Was a nice picture.

Goose: Thanks.

Charlie: Eh lieutenant, what were you doing there?

Goose: Communicating.

Maverick: Communicating. Keeping up foriegn relations. You know, giving him the bird!

Goose: [Charlie looks puzzled, so Goose clarifies] You know, the finger
[gestures apprpriately]

Bummer thing is, because it's rained out, they had to reschedule the finals and the kierin. The date they chose happens to be the day before my wedding. Which happens to be the day of our rehearsal. Dammit.

Ed Norton took some sweet pictures, posted at his sweet website Stopping Time This one rules. This is about a half-second before the door to that lane slams shut.

buy my beans

Ever wondered what a Team Rubicon Blend coffee tastes like? Me neither. Now that I think about it, seems like it should taste like Muchas Gracias, sports drinks and PBR. And maybe some blood. Seriously though, taste the rainbow and buy the Official Team Rubicon Blend Coffee, made by the awesome people at Portland Roasting.

No really, we have coffee and it's great. I challenge you to try some. Actually I challenge you to buy some, then try it, then buy some more. 10 bucks a pound, which if you know your way around a locally hand roasted bean, is a pretty good deal.

It'll be sold everywhere you see skinny guys in Orange racing other skinny guys. Places like Mt. Tabor for instance. Maybe even a PIR here and there, who knows.
Just look for the mildly sketchy looking scruffy guy named "dave" and ask him if you can grab his beans. Do it. If you can't find him, ask around. If you're shy, email trubicon@comcast.net. If you can't handle that, then bummer, you lose.

DT

night-time pre-final update

this whale is tougher than you

New links on the right somewhere. Chader's faster than you. Trust me. And Ms. Littlefaster is getting a littlefaster these days. Soon she's gonna get a wayfaster so watch out.

Oh and Russel Stevensen is addicted to meth and I have proof.

leavin on a jet plane

Headed to Colorado Springs to spend a couple of weeks at the Olympic Training Center with my new coach Des Dickie. I'll be riding with a couple of sprinters who are much, much faster than me, so I might die. But I hope not. If I do, I want my tombstone to say something clever, so get to work.