Life - New Digs

So we bought a house and we moved. Tried to inject a few dollars into our country's economy, you know, patriotic and all that.

Plus we wanted to have our own place. Hang things on the wall without worrying about not getting our deposit back, things like that.

Bikes? Yeah, they're here. I even rode one yesterday, but right now, honestly, the focus is elsewhere. It's hard to focus on anything when I'm living in the middle of a pile of boxes. Hard to believe that's me saying that (I used to think it was fine), but the way it is right now it's too much even for me.

I like describing things, when trying to impress myself, using multiples. You know, something like this:

"He rode at twice my theshold wattage for the last climb!"
"That car accelerates to 60 miles an hour in one half the time it takes for that other car."

So, to impress myself, I'll briefly describe the new place in "multiples plus". This is where I run out of multiples so I have to actually describe additional things, i.e. the "plus" part of the "multiples plus". This exercise justifies buying the place so bear with me.

Compared to the apartment, the new place has 2.5 times as many bathrooms, 1.5 times as many bedrooms, and an infinite number more garage spots (what times zero equals two?).

Compared to the beloved house we sold last year, it still has 2.5 times as many bathrooms but it has only twice as many garage spaces, about 1/2 as many parking spots, and three times the number of finished floors (or twice the number of floors above ground level).

We have some non-multiple features too.

We now have an official dining room. This is, of course, the room "least likely to be used ever" so it's currently the laptop room, Tiger's hang out room (if I'm using the laptop), and the Room of Many Chairs. I count 9 chairs around the dining room table (the table is a beautiful new addition to our family, as are 6 matching chairs, all from the home's sellers). In the future we hope it's the room that no one goes into except on special occasions, sort of like the old fashioned living rooms.

We also have two finished rooms in the basement. I was thinking of making one a nicer version of the Dungeon but I realized that having space would be good, so I am looking to sell the big yellow machine. It takes up 90% of the room and doesn't leave much for a trainer, my bike memorabilia, spin bike, hanging all the bike posters and such I've saved over the years, and other assorted bike/winter must-haves.

In case I am not clear, I am selling this (fyi it weighs 465 lbs empty, uses a 10x12 foot space completely, and I don't want to sell the weights I have):

Yours for only $700, with a special SDC discount available if you ask for it (or I'll do a partial/full trade for track bike equipment - not SS/Fixie stuff, real track - or really tall aero wheels).

I can't deliver except under extreme duress and I figure it'll take me eons to deliver (to retrieve the van will take me about 6+ hours, and to load it will take another 30-40 minutes) so forget about the SDC discount if you are thinking of having it delievered- in fact the gas to get the van here and back will cost me about $60-70 alone.

The new kitchen will be big enough for two people (the apartment has a one person kitchen, the old house had an enormous three-four person kitchen), wash dishes sort of automatically (we had an special edition SDC dishwasher in the apartment), and give us some counter space so we can pull some of our appliances out of their storage boxes.

Well, right now the counters are full of various packed boxes so right now we're still eating with plastic utensils, at least until this morning when I found our normal metal ones. Those have been put in their place and now we can start filling the silverware part of the dishwasher.

Our garage is a bit of a misfit garage. Much of it is only four feet tall, preventing me from having, say, a beautiful high ceiling workshop, or from parking my 52" tall cars underneath. It is great for storing van bench seats, bikes, and other assorted things under four feet in height which will be dust and spiderweb covered in no time at all. I'd like to get it into more usable shape but right now it, too, is filled to the brim with packed moving boxes.

We do have an office room (or, more accurately, a room designated as an office). This has yet to be set up as we have no normal internet connection, no desktops, no chairs even. The latter are in the Room of Many Chairs (naturally). Hopefully it'll become the office soon, the IT/business hub of the household.

Upstairs, like way up on the second floor, we have the most luxurious of things - a second full bath. The missus and I rarely venture up there and we made a point of walking up the stairs a couple nights ago just to see what it looked like. I think it'll be like coasting after a winter on the trainer - it'll take some getting used to, because right now our mentality is that there is a downstairs (the basement) and the upstairs (the main floor). We've lived so long in two story residences that the second set of stairs going up just doesn't register.

I may take a shower up there just so I can say we used it, but right now it's a quiet spot. It doesn't help that Tiger found the top of the banister overlooking the living room - in other words the hand rail that prevents people upstairs from falling into the downstairs. It's really nerve wracking to watch him sitting 15 or 20 feet above the living room floor with only a hard, painted surface (i.e. no traction for claws) underneath his paws. I put padding on some of the tables below but I think we need a better solution.

We plan on using one upstairs room as the hobby/TV room. It is a nice sunny room and I figure that in the colder months it'll be a nice warm hang out spot.

The other room upstairs will be our guestroom, situated conveniently next to the luxurious bathroom. Instead of making our guests sleep on the floor of the living room, they'll sleep, err, well, on the floor of the guest room. Hey, look, we don't even have any couches, how would we have an extra bed?

At least they'll have their own room with a door they can close and their very own bathroom.

Life - Moving, New House

New to us anyway.

It's almost 9:00 PM on Sunday. We closed at about 3:30-4:30 PM on Friday, did some prelim move stuff on Friday, had dinner on a $155 rebate on the house (well, it wasn't like a rebate where if you borrow a quarter million dollars you get $155 back or something, but it was close), and then went to bed all ready for the big move.

Then my mind goes blank.

We did move Saturday. And we moved more on Sunday. But when I try to type anything in font, it comes out all garbly.

So, for now, I'll just say we're almost done moving. And there are boxes everywhere. And the cats are frightfully exploring, at least Tiger is (Lilly is loving it actually), and we're really tired.

And, and, and.

Oh, and we have to go to work tomorrow.

I'll write more later, when I can actually type and stuff.

Life - Closed on the House

The missus and I just got back from our official house closing. We did the walk through which was a nice experience. We met the other half of the selling couple, she was really nice, and she told us all the little things you learn about a house when you've lived there for almost 25 years. You could see the tears in her eyes when we were getting ready to leave - she'd be locking up the house and leaving it to the hands of the "new owners" for the first time since it was built.

We went to the lawyers, signed all these documents, and committed to being in debt for 30 years. 359 payments at one price, a last payment at a slightly higher price (a few dollars).

Yikes.

Then we called people, went to dinner, and started planning out the move. A lot of things were up in the air until the walk-through, mainly because we didn't know if the sellers would get a couch out of a particular room. If they did, it'd be a bedroom. If not, it'd be a den.

It'll be a bedroom.

Tonight we'll do some prelim move stuff, in preparation for tomorrow's major move.

My eyes are twitching a bit already so although I could eat normally through the day (the missus couldn't - isn't that cute?), apparently I am feeling some nervous stress as well.

Now that we have two places, at least for 9 days, it's much easier to think about "moving".

We're starting right now.

Life - Pre-Move

Today we're finalizing a long-time project - buying a new house. The closing is tomorrow, the move is the day after, and we have a LOT of stuff to move. Well, it seems that way when you try to put everything you own in one room. Then it looks like a lot of stuff.

Looks like a lot of stuff. Note the only remaining chair we have in the living room.

More stuff. Heh - you can see this post, without pictures, on the laptop screen.

Right now we have all this stuff in the living room, a basement with some stuff in it, and of course our bedroom, office, and bathroom. Not much furniture but a decent number of boxes and bins.

Oh, and bikes. Lots of bikes. Frames. Wheels. Trainers. Rollers. Weight lifting things. Stuff like that.

Some bike things in the living room.

More bike things.

Sad lonely bike.

Part of my severely reduced wheel goods pile.

The rest of my severely reduced wheel goods pile.

I've been steadily giving away things (again) in order to reduce the amount of stuff we have to move. The missus managed to give away all of our living room furniture to the point that her race-watching seat is now the only TV-watching seat around - our couches are all gone, as are one coffee table, two end tables, and even our hutch.

I've also been sorting boxes of bike parts, fantasizing about plastic nut and bolt organizers, and thinking of great ways to use the unusual garage space in the new place.

For now though it'll be a big push to get things out of here and into there. It's been a month or two of steadily organizing things in the basement, bringing things up to the living room, and repeating the process.

Training will be on hold just a bit, enough to recover for the Monday group ride and the last Tuesday night race. Then, as long as I get my cranks and wheels put together properly on my track bike, I'll venture north to the New England Velodrome and see what happens up there.

First things first though, and packing and prepping for the move is important. Maybe not as critical as the closing (else we won't have a house), but, yes, being able to live in the new place would be a nice bonus.

Life - Dentist and Stuff

I went to the dentist this morning.

Again.

And got an old filling redone.

Again.

And now my tooth is driving me bananas. I want to itch inside of it, or squeeze it, or something, but I can't. And I'm starting to get really jumpy and stuff. It feels "swollen" but I know it'll go away. I hope it'll go away. But I can't focus on anything now.

Arg.

I can't spend too much time here but we have some major things going on.

The biggest major thing is we'll be closing on a house in two weeks. It's been an arduous process, this whole "buying a house" thing, but it looks like all the hurdles are out of the way.

The second major thing is related to the first. Obviously we'll be moving the house, and that means we have to pack up here.

Remember the "Dungeon"? Well, it's even more full than it was in those pictures. And we've been working on emptying it out. The new house has a basement but it's mainly finished so I'll have to organize and such.

This packing doesn't (yet) include my friend Todd's garage, where I have a lot of car stuff (the new house has a garage).

And there's the standard living space of course.

Since we're moving the day after we close, we only have two weeks to pack.

"But you're a full time cyclist! It'll be easy to pack!"

True. But there's the third major thing.

I have a job.

Gasp. Horror.

It's actually at a local hardware store. 40-45 hours, depending on what they need, what I want. They recently implemented a computer system, they are losing three summer full timers (they're teachers and are returning to teach in the fall). It's very local. And they know that ultimately this is not my dream vocation.

They're a very understanding shop. They know I want to do a Tuesday night race, they know we're moving, and they know that I want to take time in September. They know the missus and they're nice people.

Anyway, I start Monday.

And we'll see how I do once I start doing that.

Life - House Hunting

The problem with life is that it sometimes gets in the way of blogging.

Seriously, though, we've been busy looking at houses - with a CPA's schedule (the missus), we either move before January or after tax season - May would be safe. March and April are out due to the Bethel Spring Series but the missus's schedule overlaps so it doesn't make a difference - we simply can't move then. Although moving around the holidays wouldn't be ideal, if we didn't we'd have to stay in our apartment for a few extra months. I know, not a big deal, but it feels like we're on hold and we'd like to hit "Play" on our life movie some time soon.

We spent the weekend looking at houses (online, in the paper, and then a whirlwind tour of open houses on Sunday). I did some recon first - and the best way, of course, it to ride a bike around. This is what I did - on what had to be the rainiest day we've had since we moved up here. I was looking forward to riding in the rain for some reason - I alluded to that in my prior post - and the rain, thankfully, didn't let up until I was well into my ride.

One thought that crossed my mind - if I'm going to get wet riding outside, it better be raining. It would be much worse getting wet from just road spray and dripping trees.

I planned a route, but without using any topo type maps, I had no idea how hilly the route would be - and I learned the hard way when I hit my first major hill out here. Struggling in the 39x25, I climbed this massive hill as best I could, my main goal simply to stay upright. Eventually I got up the hill and saw the house - a nice one, the road seemed reasonably trafficked, so the house went on the list.

A quick descent and I proceeded on my way. The roads up here are quite bucolic and I felt like I was riding into the foothills of the mountains.

Come to think of it, I was.

I avoided them all though - I didn't have that time to ride into the actual mountains - and returned to the apartment a couple hours later, soaking wet and happy.

Sunday we visited many of the houses I rode past the day before. We found two new ones in particular we like - one is about a mile away from here, 2500 sf (so a big house for us), older, and renovated to an extreme level (enormous stove in a beautiful kitchen, 8 foot tv screen in the living room with insane sound system, third floor plumbed for a master bedroom suite, beautiful garage, but only 1.1 bathrooms and a low ceiling basement that sometimes gets wet). The other is perhaps 8 or 9 miles away in the middle of nowhere, bigger (3200 sf), has central air, lots of land, usable basement, but has an old kitchen, tiny garage, and virtually no lawn (the land is mainly forest on a steeply angled valley - we'd own 2 acres on each side - with a stream at the bottom).

Seeing these two diametrically opposed houses really stopped and made us think of what we want in our home. Until now we had limited our looking to more cookie-cutter houses (4 bed, 2.5 bath, about 2000-2500 sf, some lawn, garage) and jumped when a house had an extra like, say, an office room. Our world view was relatively limited.

I read in a car racing book once that when you make a suspension change, first you should make an extreme one. Go out, drive it, and you'll see what an extreme, say, shock stiffening change would do to your car. Then you adjust it so it's closer to what you actually want. I did the same for mountain bike suspensions - make it super hard, ride a bit, then super soft, ride a bit. You get an idea of what each does and now you're in a position to make a better judgment on what you want.

These two houses were the extremes of our housing world and opened our horizons a bit. We ended up talking about them until we fell asleep.

We still have a few houses we want to check out but it seems our list of "housing wants" has been refined just that little bit more. We need to talk to our agent, schedule a few showings, and see what we find. However, compared to our prior showings, I think we'll be a lot better prepared for spotting what we want (as opposed to what we don't want - we're pretty good about that).

Life - Moving, Stage 3

Back online. Back on the bike (first ride in three weeks I think). Out of the house.

The last is pretty significant. My fiancee traded her Monday holiday and took it Friday. The walk through got pushed back by 24 hours (23.5 hours but who's counting, right?). We made a few trips to Simsbury to drop things off, a few to my brother's house (actually my brother made them with my friend and teammate Sean) to drop other things off, and two trips to Todd's to drop off car stuff.

I asked Todd, as part of my thanks to him, to drive the Z up to his place. Like-minded regarding cars, he called up and let me know the car's status once he got there. "Car is here, no scratches, no problems."

He understands.

My fiancee and I shuttled a few times, ending up back at the house with just the van and the red car, Friday morning. The previous night we'd loaded the van, driven 1.5 hours, unloaded the van, slept 4 hours, then driven back to the house.

Our goal was to be out of there by the time the buyers showed up for the walk through.

We missed by about 15 minutes. So that 23.5 hours became 23.25 hours.

Since they were there, we got to point out where we left all the manuals for the kitchen appliances, the burner, and anything else new we'd had installed in the last five years. We gave them our backup mini-blinds - and with one cat-chewed set, they could probably use it. The curtains went too (honestly we didn't have time, and if we'd taken them down, we'd have wanted to patch the frames). We also let them know about the cabinet knobs (we got them but never installed them), shelf brackets for the same cabinets (extras), and some other stuff.

We detailed the flower bulb types and locations (within a foot or so). I told them to paint the garage and basement before they moved a lot of stuff in (I thought I'd do it but never managed to get them cleared out enough in 14+ years there).

In return they found the bottle of champagne and two glasses we left them in the fridge. The wife thought it was sweet.

Actually we wanted to give them all our liquor and all our glasses as it would have given us less to pack.

It was a pleasant experience and we promised each other to keep in touch after all the house business was done. We look forward to really meeting them and talking about, well, stuff. They're really nice people.

The listing agent pointed something out. He also had a great selling experience. Everyone played well together. He pointed out in his mail that this experience demonstrated that transferring ownership of a house doesn't have to be "adversarial" (his words).

Very nice.

Without a whole lot of help the whole thing wouldn't have been possible. To name a few -

Andre, who I must post about later as he is an 11 time Hungarian National Champion, a very down to earth and friendly guy, and a really lively and animated character.

David and his kids Jonathan and Arianna. David got started by "unlocking" the PODS when I lost the key to the super duper padlock then arrived to help us move stuff around. Jonathan, one of the only under-18's I'd trust with all my money, and his sister (another one I'd trust), both lent a supportive hand.

Sean, who not only helped me out at my most important race, but also helped move stuff to my brother's place.

Todd and Donna, who not only came over to help pack but also allowed me to put all my car stuff in their garage.

Kelly and Jenn, who came over way back when to help us move stuff around before the final move. They actually got the PODS loaded up in May - we just crammed more things in after that bit of work.

My brother of course. He made me realize that selling the house took precedence over everything - and when I started feeling ill he essentially demanded that I take time off to get things done. If I hadn't taken a sick day and a vacation day and backed out of being at a bike race, we'd have missed the walk through by a mile. He also unconditionally gave us space, labor, and nearby shelter (their house). Without him, his wife, my dad, and the nephews (although they're too young to pick up more than a Lightning McQueen or two, they distracted us from stuff pretty well), life would have been horrible throughout this move.

Blood, as they say, is thicker than water.

Anyway, after the walk though we made a quick jaunt to my brother's, took a shower a piece, and then a trip back to the lawyer's office.

There we had a nice closing. The buyers had already done their stuff so it was really me accepting money and signing away the house.

Right, the signing.

I'd gone crazy for the last month looking for my "significant" pen. I bought all my cars with it, bought the house, the shop, signed virtually every significant legal document in the last 15+ years with that pen.

And now I couldn't found it.

Apparently the husband (i.e. the buyers) also lost his pen. The two of us commiserated for 30 seconds and then got on with the closing.

Fittingly I borrowed my fiancee's pen (not a Parker but a Cross) and sold the house with that. A sort of a close on my single life, embarking on my (to be in a short time) married life.

I went and deposited the checks (binder, deposit, balance) the next day. The teller smiled and told me the funds would be available in two days.

Simple as that.

Next time we're using movers. Not using movers is like watching a teenager drive a car. The key is that you have to first live as the teenager. Then you know what they're feeling, you know why they're doing what they're doing, but you also know that it's just not the way to do it. We spent a couple hundred dollars on gas, spent some insane amount of time shuttling things back and forth, and we finished exhausted, losing another few days after the move. I figure a move, if it costs less than $2k, is worth every penny.

We spent the last couple days finding some clothes, hooking up our washer and dryer, and getting our bathroom stuff in the bathroom. She had to work, we both went down to visit with my dad and my brother's family, and spent a day with her parents (returning the borrowed pickup truck).

With our internet working, my work and main play computer hooked up (as well as her computer), things are getting back to normal on a technology standpoint.

A key thing is I got my surge protector with all my chargers back. I have a little setup that I can plug into the wall and charge my various phones and accessories. I carry it everywhere in my trusty backpack and, somehow, I lost it in the move - it simply disappeared one day.

My exhausted and addled brain couldn't handle it and I looked everywhere for it. After a few days of thinking and looking I finally realized where it was - in the Z's passenger footwell area. At Todd's. When we retrieved the Z, it was there like I thought. And now all my phones are charged again.

Today I drove to her office (where the van is parked temporarily) with my bike gear. And literally pulled my bike out from under a few hundred pounds of stuff - like my 56 pound Schwinn Cotton Picker, a pile of wheels, two roof racks worth of stuff, a cutting board, clothes rack, and various other things that end up in the last load to be moved.

Miraculously nothing got bent or stripped or yanked too hard on my bike. I pumped up the tires (my light rear wheel still in place), snapped on my PowerTap, and finally got to turn the pedals on one of these beautiful sunny days.

I could barely pedal - the action seemed somewhat foreign. I'd jerk the bars too hard, over correct, not corner well. As the muscles started remembering I got smoother but then found another problem. I felt like I was suffocating. I felt like I could barely breathe, that I was holding my breath.

I guess that's what training does for me. Lets me process oxygen at a rate higher than watching TV demands.

I still have to find my bottles but in the meantime I want to get back on the bike. Learn the roads around here. Do a climb or two.

You know what I mean.

Breathe again.

Life - Moving Trials and Tribulations

I haven't posted about bikes in a while, and there are two reasons for this. One is the move - I'm simply exhausted and have no time or energy to ride. Given the choice between doing something related to the move or riding, I choose riding.

A second is a bit more straightforward - none of my bikes are here. My everyday bike, the carbon Giant, is sitting in the soon-to-be-sold house, along with my riding gear. The others are all sitting at my brother's house, waiting for me to pick them up.

With exhaustion comes some funny and somewhat inconvenient happenings. For example, I brought my work computer with me on the move. As you all know, the "computer" consists of more than just the box and a monitor. There is a keyboard, mouse, sound things, and various power supplies and such. My work computer is a dual flat screen setup with a booming sound system, a headset/mic (for Skype - which we use for work). So the flat screens have separate power supplies, the sound system has a bunch of wires, I have a headset/speaker switch (which involves wires), and I have my work set of phone charging things. I carefully packed it all and unpacked it all here at my other's office. Set things up. Only thing left?

Network cable.

At the townhouse. I drove back, got it, drove back. 25 feet long, just barely reaches the computer. The office here is not really internet connected - one centrally-located computer connects to the internet. The others are networked to a server, the whole thing being offline. So I took the one port available for the internet. Not a problem since the boss, the most avid internet user, wasn't due back from vacation.

About 5 minutes after I got things going, the boss walks in, two days early.

"Hey Aki, how's it going?"

Doh. I had to go get a router so both of us could use the internet at the same time.

Luckily I have three routers. Two are at the house. One is at the townhouse. So I went back to there, said hi to a chipmunk sitting on the steps. He darted between the steps and the building - of course I peered down there (there's about a 1 inch gap), scared said chipmunk who fled further down, laughed quietly at his self-perceived "stealthiness", and got the router. I was locking up when the keys dropped out of my hand.

Swished perfectly between the building and the steps, right down by the chipmunk's hiding spot.

Problem is that my hand is a bit wider than an inch. And the key was two feet down and a foot in.

I had to get online and working though so I left the keys there (luckily the truck keys weren't on the same ring).

Got back to the office. Reset the router (forgot the username/password), reset the network connections for my and the boss's computer, and got online. We had our daily handover call - and the internet connection burped (unbeknown to me, it was related to the lightning strike over the weekend). My boss (not the one who came back a couple days early) called me on my work cell. We continued the handover call.

Then my work cell died.

My boss called my on my personal cell. Asked why the work cell died. Didn't we get you two chargers, an extra battery, yada yada yada. Yes yes yes. I just haven't charged it since last week since I wasn't working from Friday evening through Sunday night.

I look around and realized at that time that, of course, my phone chargers were in the townhouse.

You know the one, it's the one with the keys in a crevice that would make a GI Joe climbing figure happy, maybe a chipmunk curious, but is perfect for keeping a key out of my grasp.

With the advent of plastic and wood hangers, the stylish wire hangers, the perfect implement for picking locked car doors and fishing keys out from tiny crevices, have disappeared. Even this non-internet office had no wire hangers.

I looked around and finally found something similar - the antenna to my little zippy RC cars (packed here as I had a couple on my desk at work). With a paper clip (they still use those) rubber-banded to the antenna, I had myself a little hook device.

Telescoping no less!

I went back, the chipmunk hid better than before, and I retrieved the keys. Checked the townhouse. Ends up I put the phone chargers in the van, with the thought that I'd use the in-vehicle plug adapter (allows you to plug in a wall charger into a device that plugs into the cigarette lighter). Of course that was in the future missus's car. That car was sitting at her mom's - she traded her car for the pickup truck. But I still had the chargers.

Anyway, I'm finally up and running. Even the phone lines being down (lightning over the weekend) somehow didn't affect the DSL at the office.

With the walk through a bit earlier than I anticipated, and a lot more stuff in the house (than I anticipated), I'm trying to get Wednesday off. I took Thursday and Friday off, the former to clean out whatever is left, the latter for the closing. The noon walk through means I have virtually no time Thursday so I really have to get things done before. That leaves... tomorrow.

And Friday, although I could have had the lawyer sign for me, I decided I really want to be there for the closing. It's my first sold house and I figure I want to pick up the check and deposit it into the bank.

Then ask for a printout of my account balance :)

Life - Moving, Stage 2b, PODS dropoff

The PODS saga continued on with the drop off of the PODS unit at the future missus's office lot. The townhouse complex doesn't allow such a thing to sit for more than a day so the only other possibility was the office 2.5 miles away.

We got a nice pickup truck (not full size as I thought - it was a mid-size truck) and the big van for the move. As a sort of scheduling bonus we loaded the van up at the house so we'd have that much less to move later.

I decided to "top off" the van and went to the house to pick up a few things. I ended up a few hours late, much to the consternation of the future missus. That was fair as even I didn't know I'd be gone for more than 30 or 40 minutes, but when I got a surge of energy at around 9 PM, I decided to ride it out till it was gone. It took till almost midnight.

We came up to the townhouse the next day (after staying for literally just the night at my brother's house). We planned on meeting a couple of friends (Todd and Donna) at 11 AM, but we needed to get the keys for the townhouse at 9. Once we did that, we did a walk around, realized it was going to be hot (hottest day of the year or something like that), and she went to get air conditioners while I started unloading the van.

We pretty much finished the van by the time Todd and Donna showed up, took time for lunch, moved some more stuff, and waited for the PODS guy to call. He did, we went to the office, and relaxed in the air conditioning until he showed up.

I saw the guy deliver the PODS to the house so for me it was old news but the other three hadn't seen it so went out to watch. I could hear the "oohs" and "aahs" and couldn't resist going out to watch whoever it was work.

I walked out there and said to my other, "You know, that guy looks like the guy that delivered the PODS." So I walked closer and sure enough, it was him.

So I asked him.

"Hey, you're the guy that delivered the PODS to the house!"
He looked at me like I was speaking Japanese to him.
"Right, you know, I think it'd be hard to remember a delivery from March."
He scratched his head so I continued my monologue.
"I don't know if you remember but I came out and videotaped you (motioning like I have a camcorder)"
His eyes lit up.
"Right! You live on the corner and I had to (and he motioned turning the PODS around a corner)".
"Yeah!"
We laughed.
He kept working.
And we had our PODS back.

As soon as he pulled the PODzilla thing away, we opened the door. We let the mattress slide out and we saw the inside of the PODS. I must have collapsed in exhaustion because when I turned around, the friendly PODS guy Keith was asking, from 50 yards away, with a thumbs up.

I gave him a thumbs up and he grinned and drove off.

The rest of the day was a hellacious day, hot, humid, and tiring. Lots of heavy lifting - probably literally tons of lifting. Getting the washer into the pickup was the hardest thing - getting it down was the second hardest.

The second most challenging thing of the day was getting the last few pieces into the van on the second round at the PODS - but we managed, after about 15 minutes of cussing, to get the sofa seat and three tables into a space that our cat would consider a bit tight.

The most challenging thing we did was get the box spring up into the bedroom. The box spring scraped the rug, wall, the other wall, and the ceiling of the stairway. And we had to make a U-turn at the top. Todd and I tried to get the box spring up to the second floor but simply couldn't. I pointed out that tilting the box spring level would require the tail to come up a bit - and since it was already scraping paint off the ceiling, it wasn't a likely proposition. This was a bit distressing. So, like an ostrich, we decided to move everything in around it and figure out what to do later.

My other asked a random friendly blonde walking by us (earlier she asked us "Don't you love moving?") if she had a queen size bed upstairs and she did. Armed with that knowledge, Todd decided that the box spring was going upstairs, my plane geometry arguments notwithstanding.

I'll give you a hint. It's called a box spring, not a box or a box box. And I virtually failed out of engineering in school, so my plane geometry might need some touching up.

Anyway, that thing sprung a lot. We scraped more paint and plaster off the various walls and ceilings but it somehow tilted down, tail went up, went into the bathroom, popped around a wall, and slid into the bedroom.

We pretty much called it a day after that, with just a few detail things done, and went out for dinner after cleaning up a bit. Since Todd drove, both myself and the future missus indulged and had a few drinks (i.e. three drinks between the two of us).

We got back to the townhouse and passed out, exhausted after a 14 or so hour day.

Sunday we get to do more the same. Packing up more of the House - garage, basement, my office, and a bit of the kitchen. And move it up north.

Yay.

Life - Moving, Stage 2a - PODS Pickup

So the PODS was picked up today but not without some drama. Last night I had the 1954 (and other years) Hungarian National Champion (1954 - 50 km) and a one time Florida State Road Race Champion help the future missus and myself cart out boxes and bins to the van and the PODS. The van is full of boxes - up to the windows - and the PODS was barricaded closed with the mattress and locked shut.

No bikes in the PODS but plenty of bike stuff - rollers, workstands (I have three now - a Park folding one from my friend Gene, the Blackburn tripod one, and a not-so-great white Blackburn one).

And virtually everything from the bedroom, middle room, living room, and kitchen.

Andre, the Hungarian guy, is pretty funny. Usually every other word is a swear. "Can you believe de bleeping Coppi was down 32 minutes by stage 6?! Den the bleep wins de bleeping race by bleeping 45 minutes or so." I warn the future missus so she wouldn't be surprised. And then he never swears.

We were rummaging through the basement for various things to fill gaps in the PODS. He's the one that brought out my rollers, workstands, fan, and some other bike stuff.

While we're down there he looks at one of my bikes. I have my carbon Giant, my aluminum Giant, a couple frames hanging, my mountain bike, all my "good" wheels, a ton of stuff. What does he home in on?

My $90 Riggio brown track bike (complete with yellow tape - and I chose that on my own, 15 years before I saw the picture I linked).

Of course.

No interest in the modern stuff. Super Record is new stuff. It's the old stuff that he likes - he cut his teeth on that gear.

Anyway, we managed to pack up the PODS without getting too engrossed in listening to Andre tell stories of his racing.

This morning, when I started charging the phone at work I saw I got some messages. Two were from the PODS guy. The first said he was on the way. The second said that my blue/fun car, a Nissan 350Z, was in the way. I've identified the car for, well, you'll see why.

A picture of the car from two years ago. Like my bikes, the car got a set of cool wheels (functional and cool - lightweight, cold forged Nismos) as well as brakes, intake, some other stuff.

He said in his message that he wouldn't be able to move the PODS unless the car was moved. I'd be glad to move it but it's over an hour away from the office.

This is the kind of stuff that stresses me out.

I let the future missus know. I told my colleagues I might have to leave. I tried to call him but no answer.

That kind of stuff stresses me out more.

I called the future missus, shared the bad news. We prepared to cancel the help we recruited for tomorrow. I prepared to drive home to move the car. And I called him about 45 minutes later, desperate.

This is how the call went.

"Hi. I'm calling about the PODS at..."
"You know, you need new rear brakes on that Z."
"What?"
"Cross drilled and slotted Brembos."
"Huh?"
"And you gotta paint those calipers gold. The grey looks terrible."
"Um, okay."
"And then we can race but I'd still kick your ass."
"Uh, well, at least I could stop well."
"I'd stop better than you also. I got Brembos all around."
"What kind of car you have?"
"I got two Z's. Twin turbo. '90 and '91."
"Those are fast cars."
"400 foot pounds at the wheels."
"Um, so anyway, I was calling about the.."
"Oh you're all set."
"Huh?"
"I got it out. It was tight. But your PODS is out. You're all set."
"Oh. That's great."
"Yeah."
"Thanks."
"No problem. Take care of those brakes."
"Yeah."

I'm glad he had a Z and that I had a Z. If I had a Mustang or Corvette or something he probably wouldn't have gotten the PODS out. Heck if I had driven the Z... well it wouldn't have been in the way. But if my Honda was in the way, I'm sure the guy would have said "Oh, can't do it, won't work, gotta go." And me and the future missus would have been up the proverbial creek without so much as a paddle.

Tomorrow we drive the heavily laden van, the future missus's mom's full size pickup (still to be loaded), and meet the PODS up in Simsbury. Then we get to move all that stuff into our new, rented townhouse.

After that, well, after the closing, I'll be working from there, no commute, no nothing. I hope to have more time to do stuff like train or work out or something. No more yard and no more garage so no yardwork or tinkering.

Today, then, is my last day in the office. They got together and we had a little lunch thing with brownies and cookies as desert. The cookies had on them "Good Luck". I felt like I was going to court or something. Me and, well, let's see, I could name a lot of cyclists.

Soon I'll be shutting down my computer, packing up the monitors, the computer, and the various accessories, and shuttling them back home. I'll use them next week from the future missus's office until we have internet, then I'll be working from home.

Sunday I was supposed to help promote this race. But I simply can't, just can't. I missed essentially a couple days of packing due to illness, the garage and basement are still painfully full. I have to clear all that stuff out in time for the walk through on Thursday at noon.

Noon!

I thought the walk throughs happened the morning of, not the noon before.

Anyway, by Thursday noon the house has to be broom clean.

And Friday, early in the afternoon, I'll hand over my beloved house to two very eager and excited new homeowners.

I think it'll be a bit tough, leaving the house. It's been home since 1992 and I went through a lot while I lived there. Lots of sweat equity. Lots of real equity. A great place, solidly built, not a single new crack in the plaster since I got there. Solid, like I said.

Really, though, it's time to move on. A bigger house, more room, more yard, more garage. Hopefully some little SprinterDellaCasas running around, that kind of thing.

For now all we have to do is move out.

Later, we'll move into whatever new place we find.

Life - End of Summer Blues

With my fiancee out "shopping" for the day (it was actually a surprise bridal shower), I was left alone at the house. Normally this would mean a mega-ride, maybe one of my "not this year" ride to Kent (120 miles or so). Or maybe doing Gimbels (and riding there and back). Or some other mega-mile, mega-time, mega-exhausting ride. A chance to spin, do some climbs, chase after some trucks, blast around a few turns, do a few tucks on fast descents, and then come back home and act like a zombie for the rest of the day. An eating, drinking, and sleeping zombie to be precise.

Instead, with the move looming big on the radar, I did other things.

First off there's this crack running between the driveway and the walls around it. I used about 20-25 pounds of pavement patching stuff and patched it. I have to seal it now but the patching is done. I didn't realize it until after I'd patched them that the cracks had been stressing me out. Somehow patching them gave me a lot of relief.

Putting the pavement patching stuff away, I started packing the van with all my car stuff to take to Todd's (he's married to one of my fiancee's bridesmaids - in other words, she was up in Todd's vicinity "shopping"). I had listed a lot of stuff I wanted to bring and asked about some "optional" items. He hinted that one of the optional items, the extension ladder, would be welcome. Since I hadn't planned on bringing it, I had to rearrange the garage to get to it. Easier said than done but after an hour or so I gingerly removed the ladder from said garage.

I started maneuvering it to get it into the van when I remembered, "Laundry line." Right. The laundry line that's been in the big tree in back since 1992. And which was last used in perhaps 1993. I needed to get it down. Now. If no ladder, no getting it down. Todd said he needed the ladder so not taking it was out of the question. Instead, I had to get the line down now.

So Mr. "I'm Afraid of Heights" got the ladder up on the tree, wobbled his way up to the line anchor (it's about 15 feet up), and after debating for a while on how to get it down, clambered back down, retrieved the BFH (the Big F-ing Hammer), and smashed the laundry line anchor clear to tomorrow.

Some pieces may have landed next door but honestly I don't know. I picked up what I could and tossed it in the garbage.

Anyway, that done, my eyes traveled to the branch hanging over the walkway like the Sword of Damocles. I got my relatively new (and expensive) telescoping saw and tried to get at it but it was at least 20 feet up and out of range of my ground-anchored self.

So as not to let this opportunity pass (i.e. the ladder), I propped the ladder up against the house, climbed onto the roof, precariously reached out with the extended saw, and cut up said Sword. Pieces fell everywhere but I felt a lot better about not having someone impaled while walking into the house.

I climbed down after the heart-stopping "How do I get onto the ladder again?" bit and got back down to the ground. The ladder didn't rattle too much so I wasn't quaking as much as normal. Still though it was nice to be down on Mother Earth again. Also a good reminder that I want to buy a ranch, not a two story (or more) colonial, so that during gutter cleaning season (the fall - leaves - and the spring - pollen stuff) I sit only 15 feet off the ground, not 20 or more when I clear the gutters.

I finished packing the van about three hard-laboring hours later and started on the drive up to Todd's. It was somewhere in the Route 8 valley where things sort of hit me.

Nothing physical mind you. No bugs in my teeth or bouncing hubcaps smacking the hood.

It was the End of Summer Blues, smack dab in the middle of my forehead.

Normally it's something I feel just before school starts. Since I haven't gone to school in almost two decades it's something else. I've been trained to have this feeling in the fall. Maybe if I was a bird I'd migrate or something. It's usually a consistent pattern. It goes something like this.

I've been training and racing like a madman. My body has gotten used to being tired or sore or both. The only days it isn't sore is when I show up at a "peak" race, a goal race. The legs usually feel okay but as the summer wears on a deep seated fatigue permeates everything. I find I get stronger and faster as the summer goes by, and even the achiness in my body doesn't stop me from making the enormous efforts required in a race or a hard group ride.

After each race or ride, dehydrated, bleary eyed, tired, I'd drive home, eat, read, lounge around, and wait for sleep to overtake me.

And I'd start it all over again the next day, the next week. The racing, training, lounging, eating, drinking.

It's a great feeling, living this riding and recovering cycle. You know you're in deep when you hit the deep seated fatigue part where you're tired but amazingly strong. The strength doesn't really go away, it just hides until you make that one extra effort and suddenly your legs are going and you close that gap.

After the effort you feel just like you did before you made that effort, tired and sore. But not more tired or more sore.

So when you need to make another effort, you ask your body again.

And it responds.

Again and again.

Somehow your body is able to do this, fatigued or not. A relentless reservoir of reserves, waiting to be tapped.

This year I barely raced, barely rode. But I felt the same achiness, the same fatigue, the same bleary eyes, the same response when I went to make an effort, but it was all for a different reason - moving. Working Saturday with my friends Kelly and Jenn, moving a lot of heavy and bulky things into the PODS, pre-loading the van, it was exhausting. We'd been moving stuff around for a while in preparation - and then the stress of the honeymoon planning didn't help. Then that morning I ended up editing the van, editing the garage, and loading a whole lot of other stuff. I finally felt that deep fatigue - it hit me in the van.

The End of Summer Blues got some help because the van has a quaint cassette player. I have some copies of tapes I listened to in college. I usually listen to the tapes when I was driving, and I was usually driving to go to races. So the music - REM ("Begin the Begin" and more), Smithereens ("Blood and Roses" and some others), U2 ("Gloria" and more), the Cramps (a PG-13/R song I won't even name), and some lessor known alternative 80's bits - helped bring back the flood of feelings pertaining to the ESBs.

The final ingredient was the cool weather and cloudy skies. The precursor to the fall days of September, the weather shifted pretty hard this last couple days. No A/C, windows open, and you need a blanket on the bed. The cats are a good barometer - when they're curled up, tails wrapped around like a shawl, nestled in some comfy warm spot, you know it's not that hot (the alternative being sprawled out on their backs on the cool hardwood floors). Driving the van (with its nice new firm shocks and re-lined brakes) in this weather simply completed the whole ESB thing. I found myself driving steadily, mellow, sort of the way a really tired, really fatigued, yet somehow alert person would drive.

I got to Todd's, we unpacked the van with the help of his friend Mark and that was it. In the race of life I blew up. I watched them work on what used to be my Passat (I gave the Passat to Todd in February, along with all the stuff I had for it). It starts now (bad connection in the anti theft circuitry prevented it from starting before) and he's been diligently working on the brakes and various little things to get it street worthy.

Todd's wife and my fiancee arrived after her surprise bridal shower and we all talked while Todd and Mark cleaned up. I drank Gatorade and water, ate pizza and cake, and sat around doing, well, nothing.

The drive home was a repeat except I could follow a leadout car - my fiancee, driving extremely consistently and predictably (as the van doesn't like going over 65 mph), led me through to the house.

Walking up to the house I realized I left the telescoping saw hanging on the gutter of the house. The BFH lay in the grass. Bits and pieces of dead branches littered the walk.

We left them there, I just took the time to lay the saw on the ground.

We walked into the house, the semi-empty house. The bed lay on the floor, about two feet below its normal height. The cats were having problems adapting - they'd pause, wiggle their butts, and then jump... all of 12 inches up. Then they'd try to get to the window above the bed. It used to be a climb down - now it's a two foot jump up. We helped the disoriented Tiger get to his watchtower sill so he could survey all those around him.

Only one more week living in this, my first house. I've lived here almost 15 years (it'll be 3 months short when we move out). I daresay it's in much better shape now than it was when I moved in that cold December morning in 1992. The agent called today to report that the lenders had done something about a mortgage contingency thing. I think this means they promise to lend the money to the buyers. This means the house is sold. I called my fiancee right away, she called the townhouse people, and so tomorrow we'll be the proud future tenants of a cozy two bedroom townhouse about 90 miles away from where we live now.

And we'll have until two Fridays from now to clear out the house. This means we have a lot of packing to do. "We" means "I" since a lot of the stuff is mine - bike stuff, garage stuff. The whole basement, except for some clothing, is all my stuff.

At some point, maybe tomorrow morning, I'll pick up a small container of pavement sealer. Seal the cracks in the driveway. Cover my patches (the patches are the foundation for sealer but are not waterproof themselves). It's not like anyone asked me to do this, but I feel it's only right. So, before we've moved, I'll get it done. The one thing we have to do is cap the chimney - and that should be done Wednesday night.

The soon-to-be owners seem really nice, really enthusiastic. I'm happy that the couple buying the house seem so involved - they've called a few times to ask about the house, the plants, things like that. Granted the house is in good shape - after all, except for the floors, I fixed things up for me, not for someone else. But it's still good to know the house is in great shape. I feel like I've done my part. It's a good feeling.

Like you might expect, it'll be sad to move out. I wonder if it'll be like the time I sat in the empty bike shop, looking around at "what had been". I had a bit of that feeling yesterday, perhaps brought on by the ESBs. Or maybe the other way around. Really, though, you can't live in the present (or the past) for your whole life.

Progress is sometimes disruptive.

The thing about the ESBs is that although they signal the end of a season, they also herald in the beginning of a new season, a rebuilding time (both figuratively and literally), a time of hibernation.

When I got my fun car (the blue one), I wanted to videotape it backing into some anonymous garage door. Then I'd do work on it, modify it, make it more powerful, make it handle better. Then I'd videotape the door opening, the engine starting, snarling, and the car pulling out, better, stronger, faster than before. Okay it probably won't be stronger. But man did I love watching the 6 Million Dollar Man when I was a kid.

Anyway, back to the ESB thing. The time my car would spend in the garage is like the fall and winter time here in New England. This year is winding down. A couple big events to go - the immediate move, the slightly less immediate wedding. And after that it'll be time for recuperation. To rebuild. To recover. Next year all sorts of things will blossom, come to fruition. Time to drive the car out of the garage. The end of the hibernation cycle.

But for now? For now it's the End of Summer Blues time.

Life - Move, Stage 1

So I've been sort of stressed this past week. Two big things occupied my mind. The most immediate is the upcoming move. There are three stages - this weekend doing some packing and moving car stuff to our friend Todd's place, next weekend actually moving to the our temporary new permanent place, and the following weekend clearing out whatever is left).

The second thing is the honeymoon.

On the latter, the future missus and I both searched all sorts of sites, my sister's recommendations (she lived there for a bit), and a couple tour guide books we bought a while back. We were looking for a place that was reasonable in cost, somewhat spacious, and had no known horrors. Oh, and one more very important thing, which we only figured out after a week or two - available rooms.

I registered for a few of the travel sites, searched high and low for hotels, saved a few dozen, went over them with my other half, and then, when I went to check rates (or book), the hotel was booked.

So we'd repeat this process again. And again. And again.

This went on for a couple weeks.

Instead of riding, I'd browse hotel sites. I've been consumed with finding a place to stay. And finally, a couple days ago, we found a slightly out of the way place, really nice looking, and, well, a bit out of our price range. We'd already doubled our initial budget, then we went up a bit more. And now this.

But, you know, a honeymoon is a once in a lifetime thing. And though I could probably think of a lot of things I could buy with the cost of one night there, it's really sort of beside the point. We're selling our house without buying another one, we have a lot of equity in it, so we'll make, in a couple months of interest, enough to pay for the whole honeymoon, even if we stay at this semi-extravagant place.

So, with that in mind, yesterday we finally booked the hotel and the flight we'd been eyeing for a couple weeks.

Phew.

So that means I can ride, right?

Well, not really.

I did ride once. The big white van I have for the bike race has been pressed into service as a mini-moving van - if a 10 foot wheelbase with about 16 feet of floor inside could be considered "mini". It's needed shocks for a while but driving about 20 miles each way on local roads to the race, well, the shocks waited for a few years. But with a couple 200 mile days coming up, I decided I should stop procrastinating and get the shocks done. To put it in perspective, the van had traveled only 269 miles this year - 6 or so trips up to Bethel for the races.

I jacked up the van, the jack creaking in protest, and after getting the heavy wheel/tire off, I realized I couldn't get the rust shock bolts off. So I dropped off the van at the local garage and in the process went for my first and only ride this week. I had to get back from the garage and I figured riding the bike beat walking for a few minutes. So decked out in street clothes, helmet, lights (it was 11 PM), I had a quick 2 minute ride, most of it coasting. I got to turn four times. The swish of the tires made me ache for a nicer, more involving ride, but this had to do for the week.

We got the van back, shocks nice now, and loaded it up for the first Stage of the move - all the car stuff to go to Todd's. Any big carbon fiber pieces (hood, fenders), the stainless dual exhaust, the original wheels (and the tires on them), my big bike wheel rack, compressor, air tools, regular tools, workbench, jack, stands, ramps, maybe the big ladder.

In preparation for Stage 2, we also emptied the bedroom and living room into the PODS. Rearranged things so we should get by with one of them. The day the PODS moves is stage 2 - and that's on Friday/Saturday.

Two good friends, Kelly (he works with me) and Jenn (his girlfriend), came by to help with the packing and stuff. We got an insane amount of work done. I even had time to change the future missus's oil before they showed up.

So today is the final bit of Stage 1, the drive to Todd's. I want to edit the load in the van a bit, it should take an hour or so, then I'll be on my way.

Training - Another Break

The last couple weeks have been good for the bike. I've been riding pretty frequently - I get out for a nice ride the mornings I feel fresh (or it's dry). The tired days I skip riding and play games (BF2 is my rediscovered new favorite game) or write or read or look at house stuff online.

The last bit, the house stuff, will be absorbing a lot of time and energy in the next month. A young couple whose wife visited the house really like it and gave us an offer that we accepted. They got an appraisal done as well as an inspection. The latter went well as the inspector could find virtually nothing wrong with the house - just a couple cracks in the concrete around the top of the chimney. So now they have to do some other stuff - title search, the actual mortgage, I don't know what else - and then we can close on the house at the end of the month.

One problem.

We don't have a place to move to at the end of the month.

With that in mind, we went house hunting Saturday, praying that the third trip up north (fourth if you count an open house we attended) would let us find something. We hope we can make something work out but we're also preparing to rent a small apartment for a short time - 6 months or something - enough to give us some time to look at every house out there. You know, drive our agent nuts.

Fiscally I'd call us conservative. Actually I'd call us aggressively conservative. We're looking for a house that's much lower than what we are supposed to be able to afford. It's more important for us to live in a slightly less extravagant house which would still let us do "fun" things. "Fun" things would include, say, bike racing (!), doing bike stuff (tandem riding, trips, etc.), car stuff, house stuff, and things like buying quirky t-shirts when I see one. The future missus also has her things and we don't want to forgo too much of that.

However this means that any chance of buying an SRM will go flying out the proverbial window. Or a third set of deep carbon wheels. Or that Ultra Torque Record crankset I've been eying. My TT bike will be my spare bike with TT bars on it and TriSpokes under it, if I ever get my TT bars, not some aero tubed TT specific killer frameset. And thoughts of a swoopy custom carbon frame, well, that's on hold until further notice.

But I hope that our move will pay some dividends other than the actual house and the fact that the future missus will commute 22 miles a day, not 170.

First off we'll be moving close to the Tokeneke Road Race course. It has something like a three mile climb on it - maybe not as steep as that one at the base of Palomar Mountain but it's still a three mile climb. I'll have more time to ride. And I'll be in a great riding area. There's a good training race in the area as well as a lot of group rides. They don't have Thursday Night Downtown Sprints but perhaps for the future...

Regardless, I figure though that if I have good miles, the sprinting will follow.

For now though, except for an interruption for helping promote the CT Coast Criterium, I'll be focusing on the whole House Thing.

Right after the house thing will be another Big Thing, the whole Wedding Thing.

All these Things means that in the next two months I'll have less time and energy for riding and related activities. This is okay - it'll be my typical end of summer rest period. Then I'll start training for 2008. Heck, I might even check out a 'cross race.

Oh wait, I don't have a 'cross bike.

Never mind.

And yes, this means the blog might quiet down a bit. I have a lot of ideas simmering and even a few entries virtually done but you won't see too many race reports or an entry on my new set of wheels. More editorials, maybe a how-to or three, and a couple of my favorite stories.

I hope to be able to offer the readers a treat or two so that keeps it fun for me.

Now for a trainer session while the future missus is at class.

Training - Everything But The Bike

So today was the house's official open house. This is when brokers come visit the house - essentially selling the house to the people who will sell the house.

This meant cleaning up. And it meant not really riding.

I snuck in a 90 minute late night ride on the trainer this week. I waited till everyone was asleep (my fiancee and the cats), went downstairs (cats promptly woke up and followed me), and started riding (cats scrammed out of the room when the bike rolls in). I focused on spinning since that's what suffers when I don't train. Instead of cruising along at 95-105 rpms, I slog at 75-85 rpms.

The PowerTap is good in that it graphs your cadence (and heart rate and speed and power). Coasting isn't good because the line drops to the bottom of the graph. It doesn't look good. I like graphs where the line starts at zero, goes up and down in some reasonable range, and then drops to zero at the end.

When I coast two big lines zero out. Power. Cadence.

I tried not to coast too much and ended up mildly successful. I don't recall my power but it was low - often in the low 100's. But I climbed off the bike with my body recalling what it's like to ride again. And that's what I wanted.

Work has been really busy recently and today was no exception. I got back late, tired, had dinner, and just finished up work. Last night I had to work late too (past 10 or so) and joked about how my job is a guaranteed form of birth control.

That and a great way to kill a week or two of training.

I have proof. I have no kids. And my form is, well, faltering.

Anyway, two days before a race is usually a rest day. With a rest week or four (essentially one ride a week), I was thinking any riding would be better than none. Nonetheless, it'll be a day off. Tomorrow I'll spin again in preparation for the race.

The interesting thing about this upcoming race day is that we're also having our "pre-enagagement" photographs taken. Wedding things. I never thought I'd mix weddings and bike racing but I am. And it'll happen at one of the more significant races (for me) - the Connecticut Crit Championships, a.k.a. the Nutmeg Stage Games. I hope that both go well - I don't want to mess up either.

To top it off, I have a true motivation to have a good cam setup as well as use the PowerTap. If this works out I'll explain it but suffice it to say that it's a really intriguing mission and I hope I can accomplish it well.

Now for a good night's sleep.

Training - Or How Not To Train

So the house is listed.

It took some pretty hard work to get the upstairs presentable and the future missus and I spent all of Saturday and Monday working on it. Sunday, of course, was the Hartford race, followed by a visit to the future mother-in-law's house.

I downloaded the helmet cam tape of Hartford as well as the Cat 4 "regular" clips of Hartford but have yet to assimilate them. Actually, I'm still working on the Plainville helmet cam clip.

Shows you where my priorities lay right now.

The house work explains the lateness of the Hartford post. Although I wrote a little bit of it on Monday (I wrote the title that night), I wrote the majority of it in a hotel room on Tuesday night, bleary eyed, and doing all sorts of random commands using the abhorred touchpad (I much prefer the Bobbitt stick or, as what I just learned it's really called, the "track point"). Actually I think a trackball would be cool (think Missle Command).

Whatever.

I'd gone on a very tough trip for work - waking up at 4 AM Tuesday, flying out, working till about 9 PM (in the Windy City), then working for another eight or so hours the next day. No surfing the web or anything. I spent all that time standing, kneeling, or sitting on a floor in a data center and doing data center things.

I had a few drinks after the first night of work. It seems this is the year for drinking - a few in Florida, a few in Las Vegas, and now a few in Chicago. At the race in Hartford a guy who did well said he figures his good form is due to cutting out drinking. Since I can't cut it out (I don't really drink - I have perhaps a dozen drinks a year) I figured I should start. This way when I quit I'll get really good.

Actually, that's not the case. I'm just joking.

I had a few drinks because I just wanted to have a few drinks. Nevertheless I figure I'll be working on doubling my annual drinking levels with the wedding and whatnot coming up (12 more drinks this year isn't too much of a stretch).

On the way back from Chitown we had an aborted take off. We had an interesting (read "terrible") taxiing experience. First we pulled out of the gate on time. As soon as we backed up about 50 feet the pilot came on to state that due to congestion in LaGuardia, we'd have to wait for 30 minutes.

We'd actually chosen the airline because of its online performance. Now I know - you pull out of the gate, that's when you've departed. Doesn't matter when you take off.

So we sit in the stifling plane for a half hour then start taxiing. We're trucking along for a plane, bouncing down the taxiways, and the pilot guns it to cross a runway. I mean he really gunned it - I thought we were going to take off. I figure there was a plane about to go across that intersection and the pilot didn't want to be there when it happened.

We took a turn, still going pretty fast for being on the ground, and then slowed. Then we started trucking along again and the pilot guns it for about 10 seconds. Then gets off the gas. The second bit sounded like a tire deflating.

Like "wwwwwhhhhrrrrrrrrrr-ssssssssssssssss".

We coasted down. I thought the pilot was scurrying across another live runway, but when we started taxiing back to the gate, everyone realized something was wrong. Apparently some alarm went off when they gunned it to take off. It was a false positive alarm, they replaced a microswitch, and we were on the way. Late.

I got home at 1 AM.

All this bent leg with no movement (at the data center and then on the plane and then driving home) meant my legs were unusually confined. I didn't get that "sitting in a plane and get a blood clot and die" thing but my muscles were twitchy and not feeling great when I "de-planed". After a couple hours of fitful sleep my calf cramped so badly that I thought I was going to pass out. I'm still hobbling along so this was an unusually hard cramp.

Today I worked from home, kept things neat (important for a listed house), and kept an eye on the plumber (he fixed something he should have done a while ago). Working from home is good in that there isn't an unlimited supply of chocolate, nuts, chips, soda, and coffee like there is at work. At home I have garden burgers, English muffins, and 100 calorie snack packs. So I haven't eaten too much junk today.

My next race is the Nutmeg State Games - June 9th. Hopefully I'll be able to get some proper training before then. I might be able to start today, after work and some decluttering in the house. I'd take a tandem ride. Or a short spin. I'll even take a basement spin.

And some crunches to kill the Rising Belly.

Training - Regrouping

This post isn't about group riding and how to regroup after a tough climb blows apart the tightly knit pack of riders. It's about regrouping on a different scale. It's about regrouping to figure out how to approach the rest of a season in a year filled with significant projects and deadlines.

Earlier this year I did a trainer ride in the early morning, came out of my dungeon (most refer to it as a basement), and realized how warm it was outside. So I tossed my bike and gear into the car and drove to work. After work I went for a nice ride, two laps of my standard loop. It's a loop I normally do in about 30 minutes - a really slow one is 35 minutes and my record is in the 26 minute range.

Two climbs on that loop I did out of the saddle, relishing the feeling of power as I rocked the bike up the hills. Pulling up on the bars - it's more like shoving the bars to one side, pulling up with one foot, pushing down with the other, all while tilting the bike. It's like sprinting in slow motion. And I love sprinting.

I forget that this tilting and the corresponding pulling up and over the pedal stroke is something you can't do on a trainer. Later, at home, I commented on how different it is to ride outside compared to the trainer - and that I should ride outside more. My fiancee looked at my knowingly and said, "You say this every year."

Oh.

Well I still consider it a revelation every time I discover it.

I ended up sore with muscles I forgot existed. I remember all the various things I hadn't thought of in a while - cornering, descending, even climbing. I remembered how much fun I have riding the bike. Cycling isn't a means to an end, at least not for me. It's an end in itself. This seems a bit contrary to my statement that "I train to race, not race to train" but I'll expand on it in a different post.

So what's this got to do with regrouping, you ask. Well, nothing. Actually, I wanted to illustrate where I was with the whole "I love bicycle racing" bit to illustrate what it means to prepare to sacrifice a year of racing. This year the sacrifice consists of lowering my 2007 season expectations.

There are a few factors skewing these expectations. The more immediate is the goal of selling the house and moving to a spot closer to the future missus's office. Bonus is that I get to work from home after we move. The second item on the agenda is getting married (hence "future missus" and not "girlfriend"), but since that's not until October, the move takes scheduling priority. And there are little things which have to get done - honeymoon planning and helping promote the CT Coast Crit. And there are things I want to get done - fixing up the red car, sprucing up the blue one, doing some maintenance on the van, creating a street sweeping gizmo, things like that.

I can't ride a bike while I'm working on those tasks so I have to choose.

Bike or Task.

You can guess what that means.

I've committed myself to working on the house. And this means writing off expectations of training. Last year, the future missus would say something like "You haven't ridden your bike, you should probably ride." Now it's "If you clip the grass along the wall, I'll paint the wall as you won't be home till later."

And although Monday's sprint workout was a relative failure, feeling the bike rock side to side under me put me in a "summer" mood.

That means I really, really want to ride.

But I decided getting the house on the market is more important than bike racing. At least for a few weeks anyway. House time becomes more important. And my training time takes the corresponding dive.

This doesn't mean a total abandonment of the bike. Au contraire.

My next race is Saturday morning - a great series in Prospect Park in Brooklyn. This week, it should be noted, I didn't get to ride after my Monday night sprints. This means I'll be really, really fresh for Saturday morning's race. I plan on using the race to see how I've held up between my form-building February through the form-destroying March and April.

After Saturday's race I think I'll be able to better formulate some goals for the upcoming "important" races - Hartford, CT Coast, and Nutmeg, a flurry of races in a three week period. Well four weeks if you count the Prospect a week later. I always do well in the first two Prospects and terrible at the rest.

I already know my first step in the regrouping process. (This makes the whole thing a lot easier.) It will be to do the 75k - 100k might be pushing it - of the May 20th Bloomin Metric on the tandem. I started my first Bloomin' in 1982 with my friend Ken (who really got me into cycling) and his dad. Unfortunately his dad got stung by a bee and we had to rush somewhere for first aid. I didn't complete the ride, and honestly, I don't know if I could have, little scrawny kid that I was. This year it'll be a nice, mellow ride to get some time on the bike, hang out with the future missus, and my friend and colleague Kelly and his girlfriend Jenn (they're riding too).

Hopefully, and I really hope this, in the middle of my regrouping I'll have to worry about moving sometime this summer. It would mean the house sold in a really depressed real estate market and we're getting on with things. Now I don't just "hope" without taking any action. We actually hired an inspector so we could work on things before any other inspector pointed things out. And we put in a lot of time and effort into making the house good for another 15 years without much maintenance. Thankfully the house really didn't need anything as I'd just had virtually everything done in the last few years. So the house is structurally ready. We still have to clean up though and it's been tough weeding out the stuff that's accumulated over 15 years and countless housemates (I know, it's called "going to the dump" and we have - literally thousands and thousands of pounds of stuff - and the house is still kind of full).

Of course then we'll have to find a house. But we'll do that once we are reasonably sure we've sold this one. Much less stress working that way than if we find a house we want but we haven't sold this one yet. In case we find ourselves homeless, we have an offer to stay at the future missus's best friend's house - and the fact the friend's husband is a good enough friend that I gave him my non-running green car and all its related parts is a bonus.

After the move I'd be working from home every day of the week. This would be in the nice cycling area northwest of Hartford. I won't have to drive to work anymore. We're talking of freeing up something like 15 hours a week.

Imagine how much training I'll be able to do with 15 hours a week! Talk about a regrouping period. Just wait till 2008!

Of course I'll probably spend it working on the yard.

Or the cars.

But, hey, that's a different thing altogether.

Sprinting - Failure to Achieve Sprint Goals

So Monday night I did some Summer Street Sprints. They didn't turn out quite as planned.

My goal was to do a number of sprints to help find my sprinting legs. With the house rapidly approaching bloom for the housing market, I decided to commit Monday night to the sprint workout. The rest of the evenings (and perhaps mornings) would be spent helping the blooming.

So Sunday I packed my bike, my new NiteRider, the helmet cam (with a new tape), my taillight, and all my gear, including the chargers for everything. Optimistically I packed shorts in the bag I bring into the office - it had been in the 60's each night.

Monday morning, before going to the office, I got done with a few things on my "to do" list. Figured I better get something done that day. First a dump run to get rid of stuff we found over the weekend. Next I bought a battery for my other car which is stored over the winter. (On a side note when will I learn to run the car every month while it's stored?) And finally I installed the Thudbuster seatpost I got for the future missus on the tandem.

A happy stoker goes a long way. So to speak.

Then I brought all the stuff I'd previously packed out to the car and drove in to the office. Once there I set about charging everything. I even charged my taillight batteries (rechargeable AAA's). Heck, I even brought my own powerstrip for all my various chargers.

But when I checked the weather, it was to be a bit cool - in the low 50's. Undeterred, I kept on my basic plan. I'd just add Atomic Balm to my preparation - I had a new bottle of rubbing alcohol (after realizing I was low at a Bethel this year) and my great small towel from Interbike a couple years back.

My first setback - I had to work late. Critical work kept me in the office until past seven - my normal expected departure would have been an hour previous. So when I left I was a bit flustered.

Then, on the way back (Summer Street on my way home from the office), I stopped for the restrooms at the final highway rest stop. It was really cold - and I cranked the heat to try and drive the chill away from my bones. I wasn't sure if the shorts would do it anymore - I was hoping for Atomic Balm to pull through.

Another setback was the fact that the water stopped working at the office - so no coffee to brew. I figured I'd buy one at a Dunkin Donuts. But with none on the way and not trusting the rest stop coffee, I resorted to stopping at an IHOP to get coffee. It was hot and had caffeine, but I couldn't start drinking it till I parked all of about a mile away from the IHOP (it's on my sprint loop). Not ideal for doing a hard ride.

I told you, I really wanted to do these sprints.

I gulped down most of the coffee as I prepared the various parts of the bike. Putting both the helmet cam and the light on my helmet was a bit tricky but I managed.

I also slathered on the Atomic Balm, noting how cool it was outside. The heat in the car had melted it so the first clump was about 2/3 the size of a golf ball - normally enough to set a pair of legs on fire. But mine just swallowed it up and I ended up using about twice that for my two legs. My legs glistened like I'd just dunked them in oil. At least if I was chilly I'd look pro!

I checked the helmet cam view and it looked fine with the headlight. But realizing I pointed it wrong after about 10 feet, I stopped and readjusted the light. So perhaps the whole tape would be of the back of the light. I have yet to review the resultant tape but those first 10 seconds looked pretty cool.

And I rode.

I was cold enough to wear a short sleeve jersey and the fleece long sleeve. I skipped the booties and decided against knee warmers because I had so much of the Balm on (I could have wiped some off but my frozen brain didn't work). I even wore a thick head covering - one designed for winter riding. My upper body was prepared for 50 degree weather. And though the wind came through (a vest would have been perfect), I was okay up top. But my legs were dressed for 65 degree weather.

The result? My legs never really warmed up. I felt stiff the whole ride. But having worked so hard to get where I was, and sacrificing a precious night of work on the house, I pushed on.

I quickly realized that I was going pretty fast on the "back stretch" where I don't sprint, indicating some kind of headwind on the "front stretch". And sure enough the buildings on this downtown street created some nice wind tunnel to cap sprint speeds.

But hey, they race in the wind all the time in Holland.

My other half called me a bit worried at 9 - I'd gotten on the bike less than 30 minutes prior. With the darkness complete she was a bit concerned with the cars and stuff. I reassured her things were fine. Whenever a car approached me, I'd turn my head (and the 10 watt halogen light on it) and look at it. Inevitably the car would firmly slow (I never heard tires squealing or ABS engaging) and move to another lane. All the roads I use have two or more lanes, barring a 150 yard stretch of quiet road which I started using to accelerate the sprint cycles.

I mentioned to her that I wanted to go another hour and although not particularly pleased, she agreed after hearing my trials and tribulations in getting on the bike. My mention of my commitment to house blooming stuff for the rest of the week didn't hurt either.

When I finally got some heat built up in my legs, work called. The lights and traffic had finally coincided for what might have been a good sprint when my phone rang. I was helping resolve an issue (meaning "I was fixing a problem") on my hands free when I got a perfect line-up at the sprint stretch. I started winding it up, going silent as I did - I sort of blanked on work.

Well "silent" might not be quite accurate. I was grunting as I jumped pretty hard. Then I heard "Hello? Hello?" and realized, "Oh right, work." I sat back down, panted as quietly as possible, and rode easy through what would have been the first or second good sprint of the night.

I kept trying to sprint in one gear lower than I selected because I tend to overgear when I'm not sprinting well. I kept shaking my head as I'd overgear again and again. Things just didn't seem to want to work out. Finally, after what seemed to be forever, I got in my first properly geared sprint. I got the bike rocking steadily, shifting up the whole time, accelerating...

To about 35 mph.

Quelle horrible.

At the Nutmeg State Games one year in the not too distant past, I started the race planning on working for my two teammates. When a break went without any of us and my two teammates started working to bring them back (they're the type that work, not like me who sits in), I had decided to help chase or get into the break so they could sit back.

By the time I got to the front, the break had been joined by a chase and numbered eight or nine riders. From the looks of it, they were committed to working. The gap had reached about 10 or 12 seconds, the maximum a solo rider can bridge.

Since I have very few efforts in my legs, doing a lot of pulls at the front would not work. I'd get one or two pulls in before I blew.

I decided that I had to bridge.

I told a friend (on a different team) I was going - an ally would help a lot. I was hoping to do the launch, he'd follow in my wake, and when I got a bit cooked he'd pull, and when he got a bit cooked I could pull through again. I gambled on reaching the break by this time.

Problem is when I jumped he couldn't follow. So I put my head down and went as hard as I could. A long time ago I read an interview with Sean Kelly after a Classic in which he bridged to a break. He said that when bridging to a break, you can't mess around - it's better to do a 1 km sprint than to time trial for 10 km a bit more comfortably.

So I went really, really hard.

And that's where my Summer Street sprint effort ties in.

At the Nutmeg State Games, I attacked over the top of the short hill (more like a rise) on the back stretch, went super hard down to the last turn, and did a leadout type effort going down the start/finish stretch.

When I looked down at my cyclocomputer at the start/finish line, after at least 30 seconds of effort, it read 38 mph.

I was absolutely flying. And I remember that particular effort whenever I think about sprint speeds. Because, for me, 38 mph is a leadout, not a sprint. Always has been, probably always will. But my legs no longer think that. And it gets demoralizing.

Back to Summer Street.

I started getting some sprints in. And they were all rather pitiful. So I focused on form, not absolute top speed. I was jumping in low gears - not the 14 but more like the 17. And I'd top out in the 13, not the 11.

With my morale taking such a beating, I resorted to doing a few jumps on the backstretch when the opportunity popped up. But with much narrower roads and less room for error, I didn't do much.

The winter hat I wore covered my ears so I didn't feel quite so aggressive in traffic - I learned that I don't like close quarters riding while I can't hear super well. And the CamelBak full of helmet cam gear was even more full with the headlight battery - and that made turning my head a non-trivial matter.

So I spent less time duking it out with cars and more time working on form.

And ultimately I did waste myself.

Problem was it was just more from fatigue than from going really hard. The frantic pace of work at the office, my early morning errands, the night chill, the multiple sprint attempts with no leadout, and uncertainty about my form (other than it's not there) led to my body and brain imploding after an hour and a half on the bike.

Good thing as I forgot about the time.

I did what I had to do to get into the car (change shoes, put bike in car, put helmet with Camelbak on seat) and drove home, Atomic Balm and all.

My legs were on fire as I drove but I wanted to get home more than I wanted to reduce the Balm-induced leg burning sensations.

Once home, I brought in only my helmet and Camelbak (uncharacteristically leaving the bike and my gear in the car), showered, and climbed into bed. Two fuzzy cats and a sleeping fiancee greeted me. My legs cooling off, I curled up in bed. One of the cats ("Tiger") greeted me like he always does - he climbed over the sheets and comforter and curled up underneath, between my fiancee and myself, purring contendedly.

I realized something in the middle of all this warm fuzzy stuff.

When I was rocking the sprints on Summer Street, a lot of the time I didn't have the warm bodies waiting at home - just a cold, empty house. In fact, for a while I slept either on the living room floor (when it was warm) or the couch (when it was cold). Who needs a bed if there's no one there with you?

So maybe the sprints didn't come off quite as I'd planned.

But it was okay. I was at home, warm and content.

And that counts for a lot.