Sunday, February 21, 2010

Day 1 - CALI SON!

GREETINGS ROCHESTER!



getting prepped in the AM for MDC Bonus Miles, guest starring SBR's Rick Ross.

ORANGES YO


First climb, ROC repping...


so we come across this nice steady uphill grade in between a mountain pass.   nothing too crazy (yet...that's this week).  we take it at a nice speed and decide to pull over at the top to regroup...upon pulling over, we glance to the left and POW!  amazing view.  one of a thousand on our first 4 hour ride today.


climbing!


MDC post-ride Bonus Miles®.  PALM TREES.  LOOOOVE EM.


60 miles in a little under 4 hours.  BASE MILES.

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Racing Cycling Bike Riding hmmmm? // ;;;;;;;;;

i need someone to help me understand this.  for some reason, i have never been a fan of the word Cycling.  Not sure why, just kinda sounds douchey.  But that aside, we all know i joined the Genesee Valley Cycling Club a couple years ago.  still not so keen on the wording; thought it might grow on me; it hasn't. (sidenote: you should be able to use 2 semi-colons although i think it's a grammar no-no and becomes a run-on like this sentence but i'm doing it anyways; "so there!" mrs. zazowski, take off all the points that you like, wah ; wah ; wah ; wah ; ; ; ;)  i'll fight you on it and get an A.  A+ at that!      


and no that's not a ;-) face although i have become a gayboy and kinda like em now. ;-)
;-p    (okay that one sucks.)
  
when i think of cyclist, i think of the guy going 14mph with mismatched gear and a huge parachute/windbreaker on.  and i really dumb helmet.  josh, please take off your visor (no offense MTBers).  so THAT being said, that was me about 2 years ago (insert picture of Georgetown bball shorts and yellow/black nashbar windbreaker....ffffffresh!)  

i always say "i do a lot of bike racing", but then i get, "like a motorcycle", "no, on a bicycle".  or "i do a lot of bike races", "oh my son did an MS ride last summer, that's awesome".  "right lady, whatever."  how do i easily say "i race bicycles at high speeds and it's awesome; we don't just look funny and friendship fest all day."  (MS and charity rides are awesome, just not what we're talking about right now, but then again, when aren't tangents acceptable?)


Princeton defines Cycling as "the sport of travelling on a bicycle or motorcycle."  okay let's leave motorcycle out of this because that's just dumb.  okay, so the "sport" of a bicycle.  i guess problem solved, no?  well then they call a Cyclist "a person who rides a bike".  and apparently my old hockey coach would be disappointed that i didn't remember this cycling.  Will SOMEONE get in the slot?!?!
okay but wikipedia lists Cyclists as athletes that are super fast.  But GVCC deems itself (and IS) Rochester's Premier Bicycle Racing Club.



SO, are we bike racers or cyclists?  Please explain.  I hope bike racer.

ps, you CAN use as many semi-colons as you want!  Hemingway did!

This sentence of 424 words, one which I personally think may be the best he ever wrote, and possibly the best sentence in literature, starts on page 148 of GREEN HILLS OF AFRICA:



"That something I cannot yet define completely but the feeling comes when you write well and truly of something and know impersonally you have written in that way and those who are paid to read it and report on it do not like the subject so they say it is all a fake, yet you know its value absolutely; or when you do something which people do not consider a serious occupation and yet you know truly, that it is as important and has always been as important as all the things that are in fashion, and when, on the sea, you are alone with it and know that this Gulf Stream you are living with, knowing, learning about, and loving, has moved, as it moves, since before man, and that it has gone by the shoreline of that long, beautiful, unhappy island since before Columbus sighted it and that the things you find out about it, and those that have always lived in it are permanent and of value because that stream will flow, as it has flowed, after the Indians, after the Spaniards, after the British, after the Americans and after all the Cubans and all the systems of governments, the richness, the poverty, the martyrdom, the sacrifice and the venality and the cruelty are all gone as the high-piled scow of garbage, bright-colored, white-flecked, ill-smelling, now tilted on its side, spills off its load into the blue water, turning it a pale green to a depth of four or five fathoms as the load spreads across the surface, the sinkable part going down and the flotsam of palm fronds, corks, bottles, and used electric light globes, seasoned with an occasional condom or a deep floating corset, the torn leaves of a student's exercise book, a well-inflated dog, the occasional rat, the no-longer-distinguished cat; all this well shepherded by the boats of the garbage pickers who pluck their prizes with long poles, as interested, as intelligent, and as accurate as historians; they have the viewpoint; the stream, with no visible flow, takes five loads of this a day when things are going well in La Habana and in ten miles along the coast it is as clear and blue and unimpressed as it was ever before the tug hauled out the scow; and the palm fronds of our victories, the worn light bulbs of our discoveries and the empty condoms of our great loves float with no significance against one single, lasting thing---the stream."

Monday, February 01, 2010

Road to Roubaix

Chasing Legends Trailer 2

this is going to be sooo awesome!