Square Peg, Round Hole

Just got this box from Ben for my trip. Notice how nervous the Tarmac looks in the first pic.
Well he fits, now to just make it past check in without paying fees!
Also, please notice the sexy French towel on the floor. Its a Twingo ad I stole from a friend years ago!

I'm Out!

Thought I'd post one last time before I head down to FL for vacation. I'm really excited to get out of the cold for a while and see some old friends. Not much to report around here. The Jamis is done and looking sexy with new brakes and fork all installed by yours truly! Now I just have to sit and wait for all this snow to melt. We also just put up our xmas tree yesterday, yeah, its a little late but I've been very busy.
In my travels to many markets and shops around the city I've been collecting different brands of sardines! I know its weird but I do like them and some of them have this great '50's look to them. So I've been buying them up with the intent of doing a little taste test. Sardines are one of those foods that hold a special mystic with me. I think its because I have very vivid memories of my Dad eating sardine sandwiches when we lived in Connecticut (also salamis but thats another post). The funny thing is I eat them in the same way. Either on some dark rye or some of that hard Scandinavian cracker bread with a little butter. Whether or not these memories are real or something I've pieced together doesn't hold much value for me. The fact that such a simple food can bring me comfort and enjoyment is whats important. I've never been one to put much stock in food trends and fine dinning. I enjoy food in its simplest forms, no pretentious menus, no mangled sauces or forced emulsions. I'm glad the industry is moving towards embracing locals produce and "comfort" foods. The fact that pork belly costs as much as a steak is amazing!
So the next time you eat something don't just wolf it down. Take the time to consider why you like something. Associating food with a moment in time or a certain sense is a huge part of the overall experience. I have my sardines that remind me of a lake in our back yard and my Dad sitting on the porch eating sandwiches in the summer. The fact is, that is what food is all about, enjoyment. Nothing more, nothing less.

PRO Morning (aka F' The Trainer)

Opening scene, 1am in our protagonists bedroom:
Me: You awake?
Leyla: Yes.
Me: I'm sick of winter I want to go for a ride!
Leyla: What, now!?
Me: Sure, why not.
Leyla: You can ride your trainer tomorrow morning.
Me: Blah!
Fade out with me passing out slipping into dreams of single track and new components.

Ok, I'll stop that now. I can't do a whole post like that (as cool as it would be), not that creative. As luck would have it I got a text from Zach this morning asking me to go ride!! The sun was out and the wind chill a mere 26 deg. We met up by the Fullerton Beach, the only area free of ice patches and bathed in sunlight. We ended up doing about 6 intervals into the wind, around a mile each. The dense winter air was brutal on my lungs but it felt sooooo nice to be outside again. After the intervals I rode back up north with Zach just to get some more miles in. Despite not being able to feel my feet it was a great ride. You really forget how much human interaction helps in training. It was great just to be able and talk about the upcoming season and cycling in general. I turned around somewhere north of Montrose and started my ride back with the wind. I don't think I have every been more content on a bike. My spin was super smooth, the bike was quiet and responsive, nobody on the path and a gorgeous icy/snowy cover on everything. I cranked back doing about 23-24mph only slowing down for a couple ice patches, I felt like a million bucks. I love this sport.

Close scene with our hero sitting at his computer still in kit listening to Hank III and fading off into a day dream of groomed trails and post race victory beers.

Looking at this picture you can't help but wipe the drool from your chin as you admire the new fork and headset. But you may ask yourself why I have the Jamis hooked up to a trainer?! Well....there is a very simple answer to that. You are looking at my sorry excuse for a workstand! That being said I'm doing a nice year end tear down of the brake system. All the cables are getting replaced and I switched out the old lever and canti's for some SD 7 levers and XTR brakes I had on the single speed. I'm not sure what condition the XTR's are in but I know they have better stopping power then the old SD 7 cantis.

Had a nice little chat with Ben about the upgrades I'm doing and he was able to steer me away from buying some very pricey components. A little lesson kids, expensive+light=me crying when it breaks. I still am going to do the drive train when this team discount kicks in (I bet you wish you knew what team I speak of, patience my child).

Had my last dinner party of the year on Saturday. It was a 55 person buffet out in Schaumberg for some clients I did a class for in the summer. Great people!! Very friendly and I never felt pressured throughout the entire event, granted my assistant John performed like a well oiled machine and was really on his game. As the year closes I'm feeling very good about how work is going. I'm not overwhelmed but I'm making some descent money (for once). Hopefully I'll keep building my client base and I can stop juggling two jobs, but thats not anytime soon.

Ok, back to what matters in life. You got it, bikes and stupid cold weather! This Sunday was the Illinois State Cyclocross champs out at Montrose Park. I went out on my own but met up with some teammates who were racing that day. After an all day assault of questions about how come I'm not racing cross, I've decided to try it out next year. I won't be able to do a huge schedule but I can at least do the ChiCross cup for fun. Back to Sunday...Ben went off first and, well, look at his blog if you want to know what happened. Everyone has a bad day, and after pulling out so many great finishes this just wasn't his day. Mike went off with the 3's and had a great race and grabbed a bronze in the state champ. Not to shabby for his second cat 3 race. Everyone else went off in the 4a and b race. Long story short the 4a race was one by the biggest sandbagger I've ever seen. The guy had almost a 3 min lead on second place!! I have no respect for that, hope he enjoys his title and promptly looses it next year. Granted he did get punched/pushed off his bike by the second place guy! Not sure why, but I guess karma bit him in the ass. All in all it was a fun day, and I have come to realize that my hands will never get warm no matter what gloves I wear.

Pic stolen from Julie!

Hincapie at Roubaix 2001

If it isn't obvious I already miss my morning rides!! Only 2 1/2 more months!!

Nifty!

Here is my first attempt at posting with my iPhone. As you can see
the trainer is out! What you can't see is the couple inches of snow
outside, hence the trainer. Kinda weird riding due to its rigidity
and the fact that the heater is now on, which leads to some sweaty
sessions (ergo the towel underneath).

Ok, got to get back to work. This week is insane, full schedule at one
job and a 55 person Xmas party to cater on Saturday! Hopefully next
week will be a little slower.

Thank God I Didn't Race

Been a while since I posted but there really hasn't been much to talk about. We had our first serious snow on Saturday and of course I had to drive out to the 'burbs to teach a class! It didn't help that when I finished the event the clients driveway was frozen solid!! I couldn't even walk to my car as I would slide down the hill every time. I was forced to literally crawl to my car so I wouldn't break my leg/arm. Driving was a whole other ordeal, the second I let off the brakes the car slid down the driveway into the streets and spun 90 deg.! Luckily this was a residential area and nobody was out driving. Thankfully once I hit major roads the salt trucks had already been out and there was no ice left (I think).

Today Zach and I followed up on our plans to go support the Killjoy gang at the Wisconsin State cyclocross champs. Needless to say it was cold. And I don't mean nice brisk cold, I'm talking 2" of snow on the ground and rain coming down cold! We arrived just as the cat 4's were winding down and cheered on some old teammates and friends (mostly Henry and Jeff Kao). Up next was the cat 3 race which would be Mike's first race in the 3's. He had a great start and was killing the field until James Lalonde decided it was time to leave everybody behind. I'm not really sure what that family eats but 3 brothers should not all be that good! But they are, and James killed the field taking first in the race and the series. Mike ended up pulling a very nice 3rd with payout. Impressive for his first upgraded race. After that there was allot of standing around inside the warm shelter until it was time for Ben to race. By that point we were almost soaked with rain and starting to get a little grumpy.
Thankfully we didn't have to hang out to long and the rain subsided (for a couple minutes). Ben went down and lined up with the cat 1/2's and of course the second they took off it started to rain again! The course at that point was getting muddy and very slippery but Ben held it together and pulled off a very impressive 4th place. Once again a Marco Lalonde swept the field with a 1.5 minute gap for the win! Ridiculous!

Needless to say Zach and I jumped in the car and blasted some heat for a toasty ride home. Thankfully I had time to get home, shower and eat before our top secret meeting (all will be revealed soon....). Good job to all the Killjoy crowd and thanks to Julie and Zach for keeping me company!

Its Officialy Cold!

You know you shouldn't be riding when you have to warm up your bikes computer to get it started. But, against all good judgement I went out and met Zach for a short ride. Mind you, it was 20 deg. outside this morning! I now understand that the theory of thermic value in clothing is complete BS! I don't care how many layers of tight warm stuff I put on, when that wind hits your face you might as well be naked. With this weather rides get exponentially shorter with today's only being 15 miles compared to my usual 30.

My new Chris King headset just came in, along with the expansion nut for the new carbon steering tube on the Sid. When I get a spare second (probably after the holidays) I'm going to start tearing down the Jamis and slowly upgrading everything. I'm a firm believer that parts don't make you faster, I'm doing this because I am becoming concerned that the older parts may fail soon and I'd like that not to happen in a race. Plus it doesn't help that I've been looking at WeightWeenies. Some of the mtn. bikes just don't look safe, but they all claim to race them.

Might be heading up to Milwaukee for a cross race this weekend! Granted I'll just be watching and drinking free Half Acre. According to Ben the racing up there is great and some real good competition, so we figured it'd be nice to go support him and keep Julie company in the pits.

Just a quick little post. I was playing around on You Tube and found this great video of Jeremy Powers of Team Jelly Belly explaining how to bunny hop barriers.



Cookies should always be offered as preems!

Back to the Grind

I haven't posted much in the past couple days because nothing has been going on! We spent the days after Thanksgiving just taking it easy around the house. I was hoping to get some rides in the next couple days but my schedule is packed and the weather doesn't look to promising.

On the bike front I just ordered a new Chris King headset and compression cap for the Jamis! Hopefully I'll have the new fork installed soon. I've also been on the lookout for some good mud tires so I don't end up doing another messy race with the Larsen TT's next season! That didn't work out so well. On a side note, check out the pic of Ben lining up with Todd Wells at a cyclocross race in Iowa! He even got a high-five from him at the start.

I was going to post some pics of the great food I had for dinner at Lao Sze Chuan but I can't figure out how to get them off my new Iphone! Gonna have to save that for later.

I'm very excited about heading down to FL for xmas. I'm going to buy Ben's old case which will hopefully fit the Tarmac. I've never ridden on the road down there, not that its any more exciting than here, but I'm hoping to do a group ride over the holiday.

I also just got Negative Approach's "Total Recall" and Badlands' "Flame Still Burning". Never been into HC all that much but the NA album is great, real raw early hardcore with some real bad demos thrown in, great stuff. Badlands on the other hand is a little disappointing, I'm hoping it will grow on me but its nothing compared to "Hands of Time". They still have that nice early RAC sound but it almost sounds forced on this one. Also got D.Y.S's "Brotherhood" album the other day, and I have to say I've been nicely surprised. I never got into much Straight Edge stuff but this album is just plain fun. I gave a listen to their second album and I had to laugh, they basically made an overproduced terrible metal album. This in no way means I'm going to start sportin' X's or getting the whole Youth of Today discography (I can't stand them btw). Since I'm on the subject of music purchases, Leyla and I went by a record shop not long ago and of course I spent to much money! Found some interesting stuff though, Killed By Death #6 (all FL bands), Last Rights "No Guts, No Glory",Negative FX "Government War Plans" and The Templars "Pure Brickwall Oi Demos". Mind you, none of this is original pressings!!! I'm not that rich....yet. What is original is The Cramps "Bad Music For Bad People" Leyla found in mint condition! All in all it was a good day of record shopping, and I believe there were hot dogs that day also, so even better.

Not so Turkey Day

Quick little post for post Thanksgiving. This is what I ended up making for dinner: Quail pan seared in butter with truffled mash, parsley salad and roasted beet salad. The app didn't work out which is to bad since I was looking forward to it.

I'm also fairly disappointed in all these so called "Black Friday" sales! Not one thing worth buying. Looks to me like they just put overstocked junk out there and figure people will buy it since its such a "good deal". Whatever. Went for a chilly ride this morning and put in 25 miles in 30F temps. There was ice on the ground, thankfully I missed it!

Punk Rock Warlord

Just got finished watching "The Future is Unwritten" the Joe Strummer documentary. Funny thing is I'm reading his biography also, both have kind of hit a note with me. I'm not very impressed with fame or icons, but Joe was a person that I would have given anything to be around. He embodied everything I've always loved about punk and music in general. He understood that it's a community meant to make people aware and a force for change, to make young people get up and look at the world they live in. This was not limited to only his music. I loved that towards the end he was doing a world music show on the BBC World and he was still out on the streets just talking to kids and getting them to discuss music and the world. Yeah punk started as a fashion thing but Joe is the one who made it a cause, he gave it attitude and brains.
I know I can be very judgemental about what others listen to but I think I do it because they don't want to see what else is out there. The idea of going out and creating something from scratch no matter what your talent was why everything happened in '77, and now we're back to square one. Kids are spoon fed crap music, fashion and opinions without thinking twice. The concept of DIY is something we need to bring back, and quick. Thankfully I have always been able to surround myself with friends who create there own opinions, weather they are wrong or right. I feel this is why Leyla and I get along so well, we rabidly disagree with each other but in the end its about ideas. I don't like being proven wrong (which happens very often) but it opens my eyes to new things everyday. I like to think I've become very good friends with Pablo and he is a prime example of just living your life, something I realy admire. We've both followed the same path in life, from angry bootboys to laid back joes content with nothing more than some food, music and being outside.
Needless to say the film was great and I have a renewed love for Joe's music and life. On another note its the first snow of the season here! None on the ground but pretty none the less.

World Cup Goodness

Well if this ain't sexy I don't know what is! Look at his cute little WC colors! Finally came today in the mail and there is not a nick or scratch on it. For a used for it looks like it was never ridden. Unfortunately it's been pouring all day and is supposed to snow tonight so I guess I won't be riding it for some time. I'd like to get a Rotor Q1 stem (among many other things) to keep the cockpit looking nice. I think winter might be a rebuild period for the Jamis. Considering the drive train is from '01 I'm very surprised the fork is the only piece to have worn out. Ben has suggested that in order to improve my tracking around corners I should upgrade to disc brakes, of course this would involve new wheels and brake setup which does not come cheap. I'd like to see how this stiffer fork performs before jumping into that kind of financial commitment. I think I was loosing a ton of speed and steering with the old fork, more than I originally thought, causing me to loose control while entering a high speed turn. Of course none of this is going stop me from getting a SRAM X-O drivetrain and some stiffer cranks for next season! Here's to hoping my new discount kicks in soon (I can not reveal any more info than that since the team is not official yet)!

The rest of my day today was occupied with Thanksgiving, not really mine but a clients. I spent the morning transporting turkeys and wine, one of which was a '98 vintage Veuve Clique Grand Cru, and shopping at Whole Foods. Surprisingly it wasn't that full, which made for a quick exit only to get caught in holiday traffic. As much as I despise shopping at Whole Foods I enjoy the fun produce section. They had some really nice baby beets which I'm going to roast for our dinner and make a little salad. Leyla asked me to do quail this year so I think I'm going to roast them under real high heat and then pipe the cavity with some truffled mash potatoes. For a little app I'm stealing a page from Fergus Henderson's "Nose to Tail Eating" and doing his "Roast Marrow Bones with Parsley Salad". If it all turns out I'll take some pics.

Before writing this I was playing around on worldcycling.tv and I found the '95 San Sebastian Tour. This is a great 3 part video with Phil Ligget doing the commentating. Its also interesting for the fact that its Lance's first huge win (I think) and the first time an American won a single day classic. Pay attention at the end of part 3 and look at what a machine Lance is, he looks completely spent and then takes off with another rider leaving the rest of the break waaay behind. No hesitation just turns it on and goes.

Morning Ride

Somebody please explain to me the weather in this city! I was actually overdressed for my ride on the LFP. How is this possible at the end of November? I ended up rolling up my leg warmers and removing my gloves on the ride back north. This is by no means a bad thing but some consistency would be nice! Anybody who has some control over this please fix immediately, my morning routine would greatly appreciate it.

Weird thing about the path this time of year is the people on it. Summer is a mix of rich guys on their Cervelo TT bikes (getting aero of course) and joggers who only jog to prep for the Chicago Marathon. Winter seems to be a whole different crowd, and its great! The only joggers out are women (seriously), don't know why but more power to them. The cyclists out now are the real diehards. Like the older rider today in a full vintage Team Peugeot Kit on an late 80's Massi doing the only hill on the path over and over again. Gave him a nice little wave and he smiled and nodded while hammering up the incline (didn't stop me from passing him). I also had somebody go out of their way today to warn me of glass up ahead on the path! The cold weeds out the slackers and leaves a great ride for the rest of us. No weaving in and out, slamming on brakes or getting drafted for 2 miles by some jerk who won't return the favor. Just a nice pace, concentrating on form and speed. I know we only have a couple more weeks of riding out there, but I can assure I'll ride every chance I get.

On a completely different note, I've decided not to post anything about work on here. I tend to rant and complain and frankly that wouldn't be good for business! What I will try and do is post menus that I do and hopefully some pics of the food. I have a big xmas party coming up with some fun items that I came up with, we'll see how that turns out.

In other food news, I had my first experience at Hot Dougs! For those of you that don't know, Hot Dougs is an "encased meat emporium", ie he makes all his own hot dogs. Marco Pierre White (famous English chef) called it the best food in Chicago, even better then Charlie Trotters place!
I was having a real stressful day so I went on my own during the week (much to Leyla's chagrin) since the wait wouldn't be so bad, it was still bad. But holy hell it was worth it. The interior is small but set up like a 50's food stand with the waiting line curling out the door and around the corner. Some co-workers suggested I get 2 dogs one special and the traditional char-dog. For a special I ordered a Linguica sausage with herb and roasted garlic mayo, which was excellent! But the crowning achievement was the greatest Chicago dog I've had yet. Lots of celery salt, caramelized onions, and a damn fine piece of sausage (among many other ingredients). Needless to say I dragged Leyla out there on Saturday in the freezing rain to wait outside, actually I waited in the rain she stood under the awning. After we got in and started eating she declared it was well worth the suffering. Hopefully the Saveur magazine effect will wear off soon and the line will drop, but probably not.

Somebody with some talent please make me this stencil, it sums up so much in so few words!

Well here it is! In all its mediocre glory and bad grammar. This will be a nice cathartic exercise for me and great way to post my training and race results. One little problem....it's not racing season now. So, in the meantime you'll have to put up with other non-sense posts about food, music, bikes and other peoples races.

I wanted to do this after reading Ben's blog and Belgium Knee Warmers. Both of them are great motivators for me and I look forward to all new posts. Also, since I work late sometimes I spend a ton of time in front of the computer and this seems like a better pursuit of time then figuring out how to shave 100 grams off my race bikes. Speaking of that I am currently waiting on my new Sid World Cup front fork since the old Mars fork has decided not to hold air anymore. I've heard good and bad stuff about this fork but its white and has the WC colors on it! So, frankly it can be made of lead and use bed springs with its looks. Seriously I'm hoping this will correct some tracking issues I've had while cornering at high speeds. This is where I've been losing a ton of time during races and I'm trying to improve on.