On Sticking to the Plan

A quick aside: The original plan to ride to Rochester on Friday has been postponed by one day. My manager asked if I could take Monday and Tuesday instead of Friday and Monday so that I would be in the office on Friday. A number of guys are working through Canada day and so will take Friday off, I will cover for them on Friday and they get to cover for me on Monday and Tuesday.

Erin, my sweet little Roubaix, is in several discrete pieces in the basement, and it is driving me nuts!

Let me explain.

As I noted in a previous post, my plan for the ride to Rochester (200 miles one way, in one day) entailed that I do the following:

1. Go for a nice Saturday morning ride (check!)
2. Take the wheels off Erin and get them trued (check!)
3. Take the rest of Erin apart give her a full maintenance and cleaning.
4. Train very lightly if at all, i.e. taper.

So on my little checklist I am at the point where a bike chain so clean I can see the whites of my eyes reflected in it, is sitting on the floor beside a cassette so filthy with grease and gunk from the road that I leave it on a newspaper. Meanwhile on the repair stand is a carbon fibre red and black beauty in need of a sponge bath. Over on the chair in the corner are two true wheels with old (to protect the rims - as documented earlier) tyres, new tyres are in a box on the coffee table.

Of course now everyone is asking me if I can make it out for a ride on Wednesday or Thursday. (Can I use my tri-bike, Alex?) Its not fair dammit! I wanna ride.

In other news I updated my profile on the BCC website. There is a notion in politics, the expectations game it is often called. When George Bush went into a debate with Al Gore, credit where it is due, Bush played the expectations game beautifully. Everyone thought Gore was going to paste Bush to the wall with Bush's fecal stained underwear, when Bush made a less than sensational show but still held his head above water Gore came off looking bad. Well on the BCC website I basically did the same thing, except I never debated Ann Richardson and I am no Fausto Coppi either. (Read: I wrote I was really pathetic at cycling.) Hopefully people see it for the joke that it is, but I have found people can be unusually thin skinned online - not that I am any exception. I wonder why that is?

It is a bizarre thing, but I have cycling on my mind too much. I suppose the weather is a factor, but truth is so often I just want to walk away from my day job and become a bike mechanic. Actually I should become a city employee, look at the garbage collectors, $25/hr, 18 bankable sick days per year, vacation days. Assuming those guys work a 40 hour week, their after tax income is actually not all that much less than mine and I strongly suspect the pressures they are under are significantly less than what I have - to say nothing of the fact that I had to slog through undergraduate and graduate school.

I just got an email from the organizers of the North Shore Inline Marathon. Is there an address I can send a copy of... oh the last year or so of blog entries? News flash, I am not a skater anymore. Heck I don't even have the three point frames for my customs - I sold them, all I've got is my old Rollerblade Problades. I suppose it would be really cool to ride out to Duluth, take side roads up to Sault Ste. Marie and then either highway 11 or some side road through Michigan and Wisconsin to Duluth. But lets be honest here, that's a ride for the sake of the scenery. There is no way, having done those 1700km I would even think about skating 42km.

In yet other news Kilu, my short haired round ball of cuteness was very sick this weekend. He puked up a storm would not eat and became rather antisocial. I am pleased to report Kilu is back to his usual trouble making ways, I guess he had a stomach flu? This morning he wanted to watch the birds from the window in the master bedroom so employing his sharp instinct for driving Lesley bananas he opened the shutters and at 0600 allowed the sunlight to pour in. I have to admit the part where a cat can open the shutters is pretty impressive, if he could just land himself a stable job and help pay for his food, that would be quite the puss! Anyway I've got a really nice picture of Kilu in my arms, Lesley took it with her digital camera, sadly am too good at procrastination. I'll put the picture up later, more pictures of Kilu would be a good thing for this blog!