WEEKEND

greg and i got [2] good days of riding in this weekend, totally over 11hrs. the weather in socal has been perfect for december. today we went up and over the hill to santa monica and down to manhattan beach. the weather was ideal and apparently there was a party i wasn't invited too, as the roads were almost vacant of raging auto drivers. all in all a great preseason training weekend, tons of miles and some good efforts here and there. but mostly hours of leg speed work at high cadence. before i forget and the espresso wears off, we ran into our good friends from the iMartin days, todd, mike, joel, josh, and [?], it was really great to see them out riding and i hope we can all get it together and ride longer together real soon.


[i found a stash of dutch training treats, it's better than finding a dollar in your pocket.]


[greg and i taking off the early morning cold weather gear and getting ready to turn around in the south bay and head home. you can see by the way greg's jersey fits, he has lost a few stones and is in race fighting shape. as i mentioned before, his daily core workouts and cross training on the rowing machine is turning him into one legendary figure. be fore warned you youngsters on the team, he's 53 and will make you cry.]

RIDE

the weather has been great in socal the past week after the frigid temps during our fist true winter storm last week. everyone has been out training and exchanging quality banter.

greg update:
so greg wants to stay under the radar, but as an active team member he is to report training for all. he actually has an aversion to typing and sharing, being the man's man that he is. i will simply say that all the youngsters on the team had better step up and deliver as greg 'hard man' works long hours and usually is up by 4:30 - 5am each day. yet he still finds time to do 3 hours of training a day, and most days does 2 workouts. his cross training and core workouts are legendary. it will be sad if a 53 year old with bad knees, puts the rest of the team to shame. so if you are reading this, you had better be sitting on your saddle training or in between core workouts. because greg is. greg, your one of the teams inspirations and core medal.

[from blue and red blog]

michael and wes on the backside of GMR [?]


greg and i doing our civic duty and stopping at a red light during some afternoon LSD in the wind


these rouleur legs never run... from doing the work.

RIDE sunday

[27 apr 2008]

sundays ride was still hot or is that hotter. i drove this time to tim's place and we headed out to point loma to hit some beautiful rollers. it was a fairly good tempo day with a few attacks out on the rollers, at the navy base on the way to the light house. other than a few nobs / freds riding treks, the day was great. we headed back at a good clip through fashion valley and up the HILL to hillcrest through the UCSD hospital. this hill is a good 8 - 15% grunter and we both surprisingly felt fresh going up it. all in all a great weekend of riding with my brother from another mother. with in a year i may even be able to stay with tim when he decides he is tired of going fast and goes faster.

RIDE saturday

[25 april 2008]

ok, i've recovered from the heat and my rides with tim.
on saturday i started out from la mesa and headed west to meet up with tim in fashion valley, than on to fiesta island to do a few laps with manuel. after that tim i headed toward mt. soledad and i proceeded to wreak myself up it, in what was one of the first rides of the year in 100 degree weather, i swear i saw confederate soldiers on mt. soledad when i reached the top. from there we proceeded down the backside, on a decent i would rather forget [really bad concrete pads, that were raised up in every direction, usually pointing you straight into a pot hole at a grade of +15%] we then cruised over to UCSD and turned back towards the bike trail along the 5 freeway. out of no where as tim and i are doing a good clip and talking BS, a few riders from dewalt, ucc, etc. grab our tail and of course tim and i were having none of that, so tim put the hammer down, i followed and the boys behind, stayed behind. it seems that they couldn't muster enough strength to overcome tim's dieseling at 30+ into a headwind. i dropped tim off again in fashion valley and i proceed to climb my way back to la mesa in 100+ weather, uuugggg.

SATURDAY RIDE 19 apr

a good solid ride with wes, brian, john, stefan, peter, and the soon to be racing paul [well actually peter L should be racing too, but i don't know if i have that much mojo to get him out try again after all these years] we did a good pace out to descanso gardens, rose bowl, lida, and back to HQ. all in all a great ride with a few big ring power intervals.


[wes is one bad ass vegan]


[saturday gang minus a few]


[team pride]

WEEKEND RIG

so heres my weekend story, first i start off saturday putting in a great 2 loops of la tuna / verdugo / kenneth loop, a total of 68 miles of grinding rollers, la tuna, team TT speedwork with noah and paul. it was a truly great hard threshold workout, the boys really impressed. we did some speed work and team TT work on the downside from la tuna backside, on honolulu to verdugo, at a respectable 28mph + average [with stop lights]. noah and paul really let it fly. than after all that on saturday and a nap, i of course had to finish sizing my TT rig before a 6:45am sign-in in san diego sunday morning. needless to say in true blue fashion i got to our southern HQ in la mesa around midnight, stayed positive and set the alarm, it went off at 5am, than again at 5:20am and again at 5:30am, i felt like crap and blow off the fiesta island TT prep race [SDCV omnium next friday - sunday] and slept in for another few hours, woke up with the start of a bad i need sleep headache. i proceeded to arrange a ride on fiesta island to test the rig and sizing with big boy action masiguy jackson. the bike went great, it is really smooth and the position i believe is spot on, so not everything was a complete lose. after a few too many laps and an hour or so later, getting pushed around by the crosswinds, stupid drivers and trying to finagle tim into using his massive maggie size to block the ever changing winds lost its charm right about the time my head said 'enough, you can do what ever you want TT boy, but i am shutting down until i get some sleep and aspirin'. so that was my weekend. positive- TT rig is sized and ready to dominate [ie, i have to hang on], my head no longer feels like it did when i was in the andes the first time, and is back to normal [shutup].


[paul refueling for another lap over to the frontside of la tuna from glendale college, sporting his snazzy red shoes[ed. ok, so you can't see them, but trust me they are snaaazzzyy]


[paul striking a dominate pose or wondering why the hell he is doing the loop again]


[hi my name is tim, yes i am a dork. hi i'm jim, yes my head hurts and yes the wind is blowing]


[tim showing his disapproval of me being in front on him]


[proof i was in front of him]


[tim put his pride aside long enough to snap this great shot]


[finally where i should be, that is having tim's, huh, should we say large frameset, protecting me and setting quite the drafting precedent for the rest of the peloton]

PRI'S / RIDE 02.23

training this week has been good. i don't usually give much details on my current training as it is top secret. my spanish coach, we will call him F and my italian coach, we will call him F, really aren't suppose to have contact with riders right now, so i am on the down low [fresh espresso humor]. since it was on again off again rain and freezing temps this mid week, and since i missed my ride w/ TCBF on thursday due to working late on wednesday, i hit the trainer [which i probably spend about 6 hours a year on] to do some ultra top secret, uber hard punk rock intervals. let me explain, the pain comes from the randomness of the iPod playlist on shuffle. the intervals consist of high cadence workouts at beyond threshold for the duration of any punk rock song played. more background, my iPod has 2/3 [out of 8 hours] punk songs on it for motivation while riding alone. so due too the random song selection, i can do an all out interval for 2 minutes [usual punk attention span] or 5 back to back intervals or 30 minutes straight or rest for 20 minutes than do more. totally random and totally exhausting after 1.5 hours of no where to hide on the trainer.


[take note of the espresso machine within easy arm's length, these intervals require multi-able refuelings]

now on to todays ride w/ peter l., noah [hapy], stefan [andy], paul v.. we went out and did the course around the crazy rose bowl today. could there be anymore pedestrians pretending to be exercising? than hit lida canyon road a few times before andy and i broke off to head back to HQ [the kid had an appointment, wtf]. it was a good fairly easy solid ride.


[i had to get my big head in at least one shot]


[hapy and andy just chillin' lik villains]


the piece de la resistance was scoping out and talking the owner of an original circa 80'ish masi gran crit [SWEET], with the original gruppo and pump, into letting me take some pictures of his very cool ride. the images speak for themselves. the owners name was don and once i get more info on the bike from tim or don i will let you know. ok, time for my rub down before hitting the gym again for the 3rd time today.


[the proud owner don and his sweet blue masi gran crit]










[dig the paint detail]