Yesterday's minor leg pain must have been old age. I rode 45km today with no problem and I used a rather big gear up some good sized hills. The ride in short the Bottoms, over the 21 bridge, to Outer 21, Lonedell, Gary, Rock Creek, Romaine Creek, 141 and back over the 21 bridge. I had never ridden Gary despite often wanting to check it out. It makes for a good short cut from Lonedell to Rock Creek rather than going all the way down to the Rock Creek/Old Lemay connection.

Sighting of the Day: An empty box for "G Freak" dildo. Anatomically designed for her pleasure.

Fool of the Day: Al Gore for saying the cigarette smoking is a significant contributor to Global Warming. Personally, I think a hot air politician giving 3-hour speeches to the UN also contribute significantly.

Klaus' Quote of the Day: Rather ärmlich live than plentifully die.

No riding today. The knee felt a little odd at times. I also had a mid-morning meeting at work. This afternoon I didn't feel like riding. Four days in a row was enough for the potato that I had become in the last few weeks. Friday I will try to ride again.

One of these days I will get my CX bike back from the shop. It's been 2.5 weeks already and it would be nice to get more practice time on it before the season starts.

Sunday is our Ste Gen ride and it looks like a great day. We shouldn't be plagued by any of the rain we had last year and the wind forecasts are low. And with the leaves just starting to change color the ride should be that little bit better.

Klaus' Quote of the Day: People, which do not give up, are Floptimisten.

Ain't that the truth!

Another beautiful day. I picked the right week for a vacation. Today's ride was pretty basic. Twenty-five miles round trip down into Fenton with a few side trips up to the Civic Center, the Nooter building, through City Park and Winter Park.

The new saddle position still feels funky. It doesn't feel bad, only awkward.

I didn't get to ride like I hoped after dropping my car off for service. As I was about to leave I discovered my credit card was missing. I looked and looked but couldn't find it. Finally, I took the car in for service and would work out some way of paying them.

So, instead of going for a nice ride, I rode home to continue searching for my card. I'm going to skip the long story but the card was finally tracked down at a Kohl's. The same Kohl's that, earlier in the day, had said they didn't have my card. Thanks for extra stress guys.

While riding Monday I had the feeling my saddle was a bit low. This morning I raised it up a little. It felt awkward, as a saddle change often will, but I think it will be beneficial. My pedal stroke was feeling choppy with my leg extension getting cut off. Now my stroke felt smoother but maybe a little less powerful. Hard to say. It could be the newness of the position.

Klaus' Quote of the Day: Recession is, if the wages fall and the delegate parliamentary allowance rises.

While googling Italian mountains a couple weeks ago I somehow stumbled upon the Austrian town of Klagenfurt "The Rose of Worthersee". Klagenfurt is the southernmost regional capital in Austria. The city of 90,000 is located in the region of Carinthia. That's enough about Klagenfurt.

View Klagenfurt's oh-so-exciting webcam to see the lovely town on the shores of Lake Worthersee. Or click here for a larger view.

My discovery of Klagenfurt got me googling folks with similar surnames. That's when I found Klaus Klages, German poet and philosopher. It is with this discovery that I present the Klaus Klages quote of the day, lovingly translated by Google so you know they will be good.

Today's quote "Sex is the shortest connection between two thighs."

Alright class, discuss...

Today was darn near perfect. A little too windy but that is all that was wrong. My morning ride didn't pan out so I rode into Fenton after lunch. You get used to the wind during Spring and forget about in Summer when it is generally pretty calm around here. The last couple days were a rude re-introduction to windy days. The North Outer Rd heading west along 44 was a tough slog at about 16 mph. I happily turned into Maritz and down through the back way into Buder Park. After reaching 141, the ride back became much easier and I zipped home.

Tomorrow I am taking the Subie in to Webster to have the timing belt replaced. I've been pushing my luck and am now almost 30,000 miles past the recommended 60,000 mile change. The driver's side window doesn't work quite right either so maybe they can fix that too. I think I will take the bike along and will do some sort of ride after dropping the car off.

I had to go to work Sunday for an electrical upgrade. Good times. I took my bike to work because there was I time when the power would be out that I thought I would be able to slip away for a little ride. Sure enough, I was on the bike at 10:45. One good thing is that I had the chance to ride in a new area.

The day was windy and I had no set plans on where to ride. I went down the hill, past Rams Park and into Earth City. The traffic down there is pretty light on a Sunday and I took a loop on Rider Trail before heading south on the Earth City Expressway to the Maryland Heights Expressway. Along the way I decided to try and find the bike path for the Page Ave extension. If I had looked at a map maybe I wouldn't have made a couple bad turns. Eventually I decided to just turn down River Valley(?) where we had the Tour of StL TT a few years ago. The Page Extension was nearby and it seemed logical that there would be access to the bike path. If not I was just going to ride south for a while and turn around. Luckily, there was access to the path.

That's a nice deal being able to safely cross over the river. The switchbacked path leading down to the Katy Trail was kind of cool too. Not sure where you would go once over there but now I know how to get there.

Dark clouds were threatening and time was getting short so I headed back to work. Ride time: 1:15

Anyone know what the circus tents are for near Harrahs Casino.

My Worlds predictions went okay. Two of my top 3 (Bettini and Valverde) were correct. Sanchez got 4th. Schumacher, Schleck, DiLuca, Paulinho all finished just two seconds behind the leader. David George also finished in the main group. I was going mention that George was my darkhorse pick but then left that out of my predictions. Yeah, yeah, easy to say now but really its true.

I'm off all week so my hope is to get some good weather and good miles in before the Ste Gen ride.

I suppose I will make a prediction for the World Championships. If the course is raced hard like the Italians say they will, I think the hills will take out the sprinters. Boonen, Eisel, McEwen, etc will be cooked. Zabel may be able to survive. I look at this course as being like a hillier Spring Classic where the sprinters get weeded out. The long descent into town means a decisive move will need to be made on one of the hills. The winner will have to be aggressive climber with an explosive move good enough to lose his competitors.

My gut reaction is to go with Valverde. Certainly a good climber with a sprint if it is needed at the end.
Top 3 in no particular order: Valverde, Vinokourov, Bettini.
Others to watch: Schleck, Paulinho, Kohl, Pozzatto, DiLuca, Schumacher, Sanchez, Devolder, Gilbert
Longshot

On the American side I think Horner and Vandevelde could turn in decent performances.

Around noon yesterday I started getting a headache. By the afternoon sneezed a little and started feeling achey. I snorted some Zicam and took some Nyquil before in the hopes of putting a quick end to the cold. I still had a crappy night of sleep. Today has been better though and this evening I feel reasonably good. Not great but it seems like I might get over this quickly.

Speaking of feeling ill, many of the jerseys at the World Championships will turn your stomach. Some countries maintained good taste with clean, classic designs. Kudos to Australia, Denmark, Norway and Switzerland. Belgium was good, minus the pubic shorts.

Canada, Germany, Spain, Italy and Kazakhstan are nice enough designs.

Great Britain is not so good. Netherlands looks like a giant orange. Ireland has the most depressing jersey. South Africa's jersey with a lion, elephant and water buffalo wins the wacky award.

The USA's modernistic hodge-podge of Red, Blue and Black is most unfortunate. A Primal Wear jersey ALMOST looks okay next to the USA kit.

I was watching Ch. 4 news this evening. Vickie Newton began to read a story about today's military takeover in Thailand. The graphic over Vickie's right shoulder read "Thailand Coop". I listened throughout the whole story and not once did she mention any chicken coops in Thailand.

While reading about the coup today this paragraph was in a Reuters story, "A coup spokesman said the army and police were in firm control after tanks and troops took over Government House in Thailand's first coup in 15 years but its 18th since it became a constitutional monarchy in 1932."

Is that not sad? The writer almost seemed impressed that a government lasted 15 yrs without a coup. Can you imagine averaging a coup every 4 yrs? Crazy.

Did you see Heather Irmiger's imitation of Paola Pezzo?

Cruising around the net yesterday I saw a rumor that next year's Giro will not end in Milan. Speculation is that there will be a final day TT ending in Verona.

If you are reading this please root against Clown Bettini in the upcoming Worlds RR. Get out your voodoo dolls, your magic potions or spells. Unleash whatever you have. I will not be able to handle the rainbow and gold visual treat that Bettini will unveil if he becomes World Champ. The gold and Italian tricolore is too much already. We don't need to add any more colors. Aren't Italians supposed to have style?

In a related note, I read today that Quick-Step will be riding Cannondale's next year.

Patrick between turns 1 and 2 at Soulard.

I've been a slug all week so I fetl it would be good to get out and ride Saturday. At the team meeting, Joe and I had discussed doing an 8am ride at Meramec. Joe must have had something else come up because he never showed up. That's alright. I got in a few miles

Random thoughts: USPS/Discovery is contemplating a sawsuit against Frankie Andreu for saying he took EPO in preparation for the '99 Tour. Lance tends to file a lot of lawsuits but what is the point of this. The admitting doping took place 7 yrs ago and Andreu never implicated the team. In a time when more openness from riders about what drugs they do/did so that the sport can be cleaned up, there is nothing like a good lawsuit to shut people up and keep everything hidden in the drug closet.

For the first time, I went to the Forest Park balloon glow Friday night. I expected a good crowed but not that many people. I passed up a parking spot not long after entering the park. Big mistake. Twenty-five minutes later I found another spot, nearly on the other side of Forest Park. It was kind of cool, though, and I will try to post a picture or two.

Franco Ballerini passed over Francesco Del Ponte for the Italian World Championship team. There is no justice.

In all seriousness, the Italian team is stacked. There might be too many stars and not enough watercarriers, but I would take my chances with this team over the lame-ass US team. Pozzato, DiLuca, Rebellin, Ballan lead the team with Clown Bettini. Even support riders like Tosatto, Paolini and Bruseghin are pretty heavy hitters.

I find it ironic that the recent E Coli breakout caused by spinach originated at the country's largest organic food producer. The Food Police are some of the most annoying people around and seeing "healhy", organic food put 100+ people in the hospital puts a little warmth in my heart. However, I do hope everyone gets better and feel sorry for the family of the dead person.

Unknown rider at the Tour of Soulard

Belgian coach Carlo Bomans brought a great injustice upon the cycling world today. The insane, and obviously drunken, Bomans made the catastrophic blunder of not naming "enfant terrible" Franck Vandenbroucke to the Belgian national team. Vandenbroucke is riding a wave of fitness and beating up on amateurs in Italy. If he managed to show up at the start line without a mysterious ailment, he would greatly animate the race... until he pulled out after 45km.

I am still holding out hope that Franco Ballerini will name Vandenbroucke's alter ego, Franceso Del Ponte (see photo), to the Italian national team when it is announced Friday.


In a related note, the US is once again sending a sub-par group of representatives to the World Championships in Salzburg. Look at this powerhouse lineup.

Chris Horner (Davitamon-Lotto) Fred Rodriguez (Davitamon-Lotto), Christian VandeVelde (CSC), Tyler Farrar (Cofidis), Patrick McCarty (Phonak), and Guido Trenti (Quickstep-Innergetic) join U.S.-based riders Jackson Stewart (Calif), Danny Pate (TIAA-CREF) and Chris Baldwin (Toyota-United).

SNOOZE!!!!

Drove over to JB this morning after breakfast. Except for the occasional dismount over a curb, today was all about riding no work on the technique. Like an idiot I started riding again without lowering the insanely high saddle that I complained about yesterday. That lasted only a few minutes. No way was I going to ride in that position again.

There must have been a cross country race there yesterday. Chalk lines were still present on the grass. Seemed like a good idea to just follow the race route. It followed many of the same routes I have ridden in the past. The running course is not terribly technical in terms of turns or off-camber riding. But, there are a few semi-rocky sections that you don't want to ride wrong and JB is one rolling hill after another. You can't help but get a decent workout.

In total, I rode for a little over an hour and worked up a good sweat.

Saturday felt like a good day to get back on the bike. I pulled out the off-road shoes and took a little spin on the 'cross bike. This was just a "get acquainted' ride. The first thing I noticed was how much higher my saddle felt than on the road bike. How I raced last year in that position I do not know. I need to finally reverse my brakes too. I'd also like to dump my Avid brakes and maybe get some Paul's or Frogleggs.

As I said, Saturday was pretty simple riding. I went to the nearby school. Like most Saturday's at the beginning of the school year, there was a HS football game being played. It looked to be a Freshman game and Mehlville was having it handed to them. More interesting than the game were the handful of MILF's watching their son's get slaughtered. When I wasn't looking at the hot mom's, I concentrated mainly on basic CX technique. Specifically the remount. I was satisfied with how things went for the first time out this year.

I was thinking I had not taken any pictures since July. Likewise, it has been a long time since I put any photos on here. Seems like a good time to start posting some of my hard drive. Today's photo is from this year's Tour of Soulard.

It was a pleasure to skip Tues Worlds last nightand not feel any regrets about skipping the race. Gateway Cup was a great weekend but I am perfectly happy to see the end of the season. It is time to enjoy some down time and, for a few weeks, ride purely for the pleasure of riding.

I plan to do a LITTLE running, as long as my knees feel good. It's also time to mix in a little CX in prep for the fall and winter, too. It will be training, but a fun diversion from the road.

The Sandy Creek Century is the 23rd. I missed this ride last year. That was probably a blessing since it was in the middle of June and hot. A late September ride should be much nicer.

A week or two after that, by popular demand, it will be time for the 3rd Gran Fondo Ste. Genevieve. Bigger, and probably no better, than ever. But really, how can it get any better?

Th, th, th, that's all folks. The '06 road season is over. At least for me it is over and it turned out to be a great end of the season. Great weather, relatively safe racing, lots of pretty women watching the races, and a hopping good time at Mike's with BBQ, beer and a band to liven things up this year.

Today was another unspectacular race but I hung on finished 45th, Jose finished somewhere further up, Joe was around 40th, Chris struggled and Aaron appeared to pop along the way. I yelled to get on my wheel but I never saw him again. Either he paid for his efforts the other three days or the sweet System Six loaner he riding wasn' dialed in right.

Overall, it was a pretty crappy weekend for the team but I think we all tried. Regroup over the winter and give it another shot next year.

Someone explain to me how I gained weight this weekend.

Three down, one to go.

My thighs have been stiff and sore since before the Cup started. I'm not sure they got that way before the racing even began. If you lightly squeezed the thigh, it hurt. The pain was not noticeable so much when riding but I'm sure it was there.

Before heading to the race Sunday, I figured it would be good to give the legs a short massage. There was a fair share of grunting and groaning as my fingers and palms dug into the muscles. My untrained hands did what they could and I just hoped that there would be some benefit.

My legs did feel better once I started warming up. Better than the past two days, at least. And they still feel pretty good this morning. I'm thinking I will give them another rubdown before heading off to "The Loop"

The "Giro" went okay. Better than Washington Ave for sure. It was a day of mishaps, though. While warming up I saw Jose and stopped to say "Hi". I looked down and my rear tire was flat. That's twice in three days. Luckily, Jose had a tube in his bag and I changed it out without much hassle. Thanks Jose.

Then 15-18 minutes into the race, I suddenly felt myself struggling to hold onto the pack and heard an occasional squeak. Around turn 3 and 4 we went and heard it again going down toward the finish. It had to be my brake rubbing. I wasn't sure if that was a legit reason for a free lap but I pulled into the wheelpit anyway. I wasn't going to finish the race if I didn't get the problem fixed so nothing would be lost if they said I was out of the race. We fixed the problem and it was back to the rear of the pack again.

About 30 minutes into race, was the Hill's obligatory uphill crash on straight road. About three guys went down and several others, including myself, had to lay on the brakes to avoid running into them. One of the victims jumped up from the ground, grabbed his lower back and repeatedly yelled Fu@#, Fu@#, Fu@#. I took another free lap for that incident, as did about 11 others.

So again it was back to the rear of the pack. My legs didn't like stopping that second time. It took a good two laps before they started moving properly again. The rest of the race was no problem as I picked off some guys who began to struggle. The last lap saw a lot of guys sitting up for whatever reason on the backside and I picked up a bunch more places. All for a spectacular 64th place, woohoo! I'm not happy with the placing but satisfied with it after Saturday's debacle. The whole team was pretty worthless, I think. Aaron either sat up or blew up as even I passed him in the final 100 meters, Jose crashed, Joe and Chris were pack meat like me and Matt... I'm not sure about Matt.

Maybe the team can do a little something today. They better have that beer on ice at Mike's house. I'm ready for it.

Two down, two to go.

Despite knowing better, I began drifting to the back of the pack from the very start. Acutally, I was comfortably tucked into the pack early on. Further back than I would have liked but feeling good and without much worry about moving up. About 15 minutes in there was a wreck on the finishing stretch. Never saw the crash happen but there were lots of swerving, braking and rubber smell proceded by a lot of chasing back to the unaffected lead group. As I passed, one of our guys (a Texier?) seemed to be involved in a two-man pileup.

That was the beginning of the end for me. No longer was I tucked into the pack, my legs began to tire of the repeated efforts to catch back on to the pack going up each hill. Eventually I popped and pulled out after 38 minutes.

This was a first time event. The course is difficult enough and had decent crowds. Probably the roughest course all year with approximately 386 manhole covers dotting the course. Seriously, though, there was probably 40 covers. Some big, some small, some round, some square, some single ones, some in pairs. They were a little bumpy but didn't cause much concern if you simply rolled over them. The covers in the middle of the turns got into my head a little, I think. I don't like surface changes in the middle of turns when you are leaning the bike over. Bad images float through my head. Nevertheless, Washington Ave was a good race.

One down, three to go.

Lafayette Square got the Gateway Cup off to quick start again this year. Same basic course as year's past. The finishing stretch was narrowed down more than usual and earlier than usual but that was the only difference. We also started later at 7:30 so we were "under the lights" for almost the entire race. That was my first night race. The shadows were less confusing than I thought they would be. From the sidelines, they always looked confusing but maybe you are focused on the racing and don't notice smaller things like shadows in the heat of battle.

As usual, all the riders lined the sidelines waiting to jump into a good starting position. I snagged a mid-pack position. The whistle sounded and, uncharacteristically, I moved right through the field. Between turns 3 and 4 I was top 5 and enough throttled back a little to keep from being in the very front and wasting too much energy so early. I came across the line in 7th or 8th and was feeling good.

Lap 2 was good too as I held position pretty well until the 4th turn when the bike started handling oddly. Soon enough the ride became harsh and the tire was flat. I rolled into the wheel pit, and got the neutral support wheel provided by SRAM. The wheels were Zipp 303's. That was my first time on a Zipp and I will say that they seem like a really nice wheel. Not so nice was having to go to the back of the pack when let back into the race.

I was patient, picked my spots, and moved up steadily but never was in as good a position as those early laps. I'm sure, with some aggression, I could have been further up. Oh well, there are three more days to try and redeem myself. Aaron got a nice 6th place as the best Shark. Unfortunately, Ted got tangled up in a late wreck and apparently broke his collarbone. Get well Ted.

Oh yeah, I finished 58th out of the 125 man field. Can you say "Pack Meat"