My cold was still lingering a little Tuesday but I went ahead and went to Spinning. Class went fine and I don't feel any worse for wear. Still a little stuffy but no big deal.

Random thought: A bad ride in the rolling hills of Columbia is better than a good ride in the hills of Wildwood. Just tweakin' you a little, Bug. :-)

Those crazy Brits: And still they come. Just when you thought the flood of big rude messages turning up the satellite photos used by online maps might be dying away, it is reported that two pupils who used weed killer to draw a giant penis on their school lawn can now see the vast phallus from satellite photos posted on the internet.

And this time – unlike the previous examples of Edinburgh's giant poo and Rotherham's arse – it's not Google Maps that has the rudeness, but instead Microsoft's Virtual Earth.

The unnamed pair of year 11 pupils from Bellemoor School for Boys (stop giggling) in Southampton, Hampshire, burnt the 20ft willy into the grass as an end of term joke two years ago.

Staff at the school re-seeded the area but the penis has turned up on Virtual Earth, because the photo was taken before the new grass could conceal the enormous knob. (Google Maps image, on the other hand, shows a pristine, non-penised patch of grass.)

Staff, parents and pupils who log on can now see the image in all its glory.

This is not the first time that a British school has been hit with giant penis-related satellite imagery malarkey. In December, it was revealed that a big dong drawn on the roof of Yarm School in Stockton on Tees was visible on Google Earth.

A spokeswoman for Bellemoor school said: 'It was just one of those high school jinks.

'This was an act of vandalism that took place during the summer of 2005. Southampton City Council re-seeded the area and the grass was re-grown by the beginning of the new school term.'

My cold improved today. Not riding Sunday was probably a good thing. Not that I felt like riding with the splitting headache I had. My chest is pretty clear right now and my sinuses didn't drain too much. Maybe I can whip this thing without too much trouble.

Since I'm laying low for a few days it seems like a good time to hand out a few more award for 2006.
Best new road: I've gone back and forth on this category. Heads Creek almost got the win but it is inconvenient to get to. Instead, I chose the Mueller Rd/Zingg Rd combination. Mueller's repetitive turns followed by the tree-lined Zingg and quick plunging descent makes for a fun section of road.
Christopher Columbus award: While waiting for the ferry crossing on the banks of the big wide river in Ste Genevieve Justin asks "Is this the Mississippi?"
Fashion trendsetter of the year: Giuseppe gets the award for accidentally putting on his jersey backwards in preparation for our Gran Fondo.
Worst tire inflation of the year: I'm the proud winner of this illustrious award. My tire went flat just as we pulled into a gas station in Festus. I changed the tire and was going to use my frame pump when someone suggested using the station's air hose. I walked to the side of the building, deposited my money, the machine started and I placed the air hose on the valve. As hard as I tried, the tire would not inflate and I was more than a little confused. After pondering the situation for a while I realized that I put my money in the vacuum cleaner instead of the air compressor.

For a couple weeks I've been walking the fine line of getting a cold. I would have an irritated throat for a couple hours or my head would feel a little different for a while. Wednesday the cold finally kicked in. Not awful and, while sometimes having a stuffy nose, I felt pretty good.

We went for a team ride in Columbia Saturday. I had planned a 40 mile loop but while we were in a paceline I missed our turn and we were left to create a new route while on the move. The ride turned out okay but we didn't get to do as much good pacelining. Bohleysville was okay but was rougher than I recalled. Oh well, them's the breaks.

After returning to the parking lot, a few of us went for any extra loop on the flats. On the way back I saw yellow jacket off in the distance. I told Giuseppe there was a rabbit ahead. He said "Go for it". As it turned out, the guy wasn't going real fast but he was far enough away that it took a while and made for a good effort.

This morning my chest is congested and I'm bringing yellow goodness. I hate colds.

Spinning class tonight, blah, blah, blah.

Cyclocross World Cup #11 was held this past Sunday in Hoogerheide, Netherlands. It was a cold, muddy mess and the course designer had some fun at the cyclist's expense. Check out the mayhem unleashed on the best 'crossers in the world. You have to watch several times to see all the action. The last guy is a topper.

Friday's plan for an evening trainer ride after being reminded that I had signed up for the Joe Friel Lecture Spectacular at Maplewood. I'm not sure why Mr. Low-Tech (me) planned on going. As expected, discussion tended to focus on power this and heartrate that. Not exactly up my alley. Oh well, a few little tidbits may have been gleaned from the talk.

Saturday was our 2nd attempt at doing the Cat 3 ride in Columbia. Despite the chilly mid-20's temps we ultimately had a nice sized group of seven show up. Actually, it was six people until Giuseppe realized he no shoes to wear. Doh! On the bright side, the depleted ranks of our 8am ride were fortified when Jose and Thomas showed up at 8:10. Cyclists never seem to be the most punctual portion of society.

After a Mule Rd start, we did a few moderately paced loops of rolling terrain between Columbia and Millstadt so that we would always be reasonably close to Columbia. If someone needed to bail out early, it would be easy enough. Wouldn't you know, on the second loop Jose popped a spoke. I handed over a map and he headed back to town with Aaron and Glen.

When we got back, Giuseppe's car was in the parking lot. I had a hunch that he would be on the flats and probably getting close to returning. This was a good excuse for some extra miles so I headed out, with Thomas in tow, along the flats averaging about 33-34kmh. Sure enough, we crossed paths with Giuseppe up along 255. We stopped for a little refueling and finished up the loop. I'm not sure where the wind came from but it was tough going on the way back to Bluff Rd. A little too tough, so I backed off the pace.

We didn't get the 4-6 inches of predicted snow Saturday night. But, we got enough that I stayed off the wet roads. It was trainer time again for 2:15.

Weekend roundup: Saturday was supposed to be the first Shark 3's pedal-fest. As the week went on, the weather predictions got nastier and uglier but I planned route would have kept us pretty close to Columbia in case the weather turned ugly. Not surprisingly, the weatherman's forecast proved to be more alarming than reality. The temps were right at freezing and it was rainy. The roads seemed safe enough and we probably could have done a ride. It would have been very unpleasant, though. Several people were opting out and no one seemed very intent on riding. When push came to shove I decided to stay warm and dry inside.

As punishment for my lack of toughness, I pounded out a good three hours on the trainer. The time actually went faster than I expected. Three hours of watching Heras dancing up mountains in the '03 Vuelta seemed to work well. I was not too sad to climb out of the saddle, though.

On Sunday, the legs were a little fatigued. When I first started I thought of only doing 45 min, then an hour and finally settled on an hour and a half. I was satisfied with the my determination and not quitting so early. Mentally, I am in a good place right now. It is mid-January and my motivation is good. My knee is bugging me a little but I am wanting to ride. I normally start the year in pretty good shape but I think the trip to Italy is providing some extra motivation to be prepared in late May for big mountains.

While I was happy with a reasonably productive weekend on the trainer, I was no match for this fellow. From Cyclingnews...

An Illinois man may have ridden his way into the Guinness Book of World Records, but he didn't ride anywhere. Instead, 49 year old George Hood spent 85 hours on a stationary bike at a Burr Ridge, Illinois sports club in an attempt to have his name written into the book. The record still needs to be certified by the Guinness book officials, but his mark surpasses the previous record of 82 hours.

Hood was allowed a five minute break every for every hour of riding, and took a few naps during his record ride, but was still dangerously fatigued at the end of his ride, and was taken to hospital as a precaution after he climbed off the bike.

Obviously, Guinness has not been made aware of Justin Massivecarbonexcess' exploits. Twice a month, Justin manages to ride for 85 hrs during a standard 48 hr weekend.

I have been walking a fine line between feeling good and feeling sick for about a week now. My symptoms come and go. Sometimes I feel a little warm, maybe a little lightheaded, maybe a little congested. Then things go away and I feel fine. Kind of weird. This afternoon has been one the times when things feel odd so I am taking the night off and not stressing my body.

With nothing else going on here are a few more 2006 awards...

Toughest Crit: Normally I wouldn't award this year's Columbia Cup course as the toughest but I sucked so bad that weekend that I was out of the race after 18 minutes. I have no choice but call it the toughest crit this year.

Best road race: I did a whopping three road races all year. I rather liked the State Road Race. It was my first time on that course and found it's constant rolling hills to be very challenging. I wish I had been in better condition that weekend.

Toughest race: I'm not sure what happened in my race prep. The race started okay but a few miles into the race, the pace picked up and I was gasping for air. I chased and chased and chased at 25mph with some help from a couple others. I damn near caught back on to the pack only to blow up as we headed back into town for the first time. This year's winner is Hillsboro-Roubaix.

Leave it to Erik Zabel to be the one person talking some common sense about the Puerto affair...
(from Velonews.com)
Speaking at the Milram team presentation in Germany on Wednesday, Zabel said it was unfair for riders to languish in a legal purgatory, given the absence of hard evidence that they had doped.

"As long as there is no formal evidence accusing any of them of doping, what is the purpose?" he said. "It appears that all that (investigators) have to work with are rumors, innuendo and assumptions. As long as that is all they have, then all of them should be allowed to ride."

The 36-year-old Zabel said that his former teammate, defending Giro d'Italia champion Ivan Basso and others named as clients of the now-infamous Dr. Eufemiano Fuentes "must be able to take their rightful places in the peloton again."

Basso was signed by the U.S.-based Discovery Channel team, a move that has generated considerable controversy among other ProTour teams. Managers of competing teams - including Bjarne Riis, of Basso's old CSC squad - say the signing is a violation of a "gentlemen's agreement" not to hire riders named in the Puerto investigation. Ullrich, however, has not been successful in finding a ProTour team and is said to be in negotiations with the European continental squad, Acqua e Sapone.

Zabel embraced the idea of mandatory DNA tests in the case as a way of resolving any questions.

"They need to resolve this quickly," he said. "It is unfair to cycling in general and unfair to those riders."

Saturday a small group of BS 3's gathered at Aaron's house. We rode out to Chesterfield Valley and did a little paceline practice. Afterward Giuseppe and I tacked on another hour of or so of riding by going up Shephard, Pond, down Rockwoods, up Woods and back to Aaron's house.

Sunday morning, Giuseppe and I were going to hit JeffCo for about 3 hrs but I awoke to 40 degree rain. I'm just not keen on that type of riding and I called off the ride and instead watched some pros ride up El Angliru in the rain and then watched Boonen win Paris-Roubaix over Hincapie and Flecha while I knocked out a couple hours on the trainer.

In Pro news, you have to love one World Champ talking smack about another World Champ. In this case, Bart Wellens questions the panty size of one of road cycling's biggest stars, Tom Boonen... "This is why I became a cyclo-cross rider: for the rain, the coldness and the mud," Wellens said. "For Tom Boonen this is too much, but not for a real cyclo-cross rider.

I ushered in the New Year on Monday with a 2.5 hr trainer ride. Big ring starting in the 19 and then 16. This wasn't a structured ride other than keeping a good solid tempo and putting miles in the legs.

Today, the legs had a little fatigue early but were good by noon and I went to Spinning tonight. Class was warm again and my bike's tension control was rather sensitive. I left a good puddle of sweat.

In the Pro ranks, Saunier Duval's new signee, Iban Mayo, announced a change in his race program for '07. Instead of racing the Dauphine Libere, he will ride the Giro for the first time in preparation for his mid-race Tour de France abandonment. Go Iban!!!

Did my own thing Sunday. Today was like a spring day. Mostly sunny in the upper 50's and a stiff wind from the south.

The roads were still wet at 9:15 but I went anyway figuring that they would dry out along the way. I crossed into JeffCo and up Dutch Bottom and Hillcrest to get to Crique de Roche. Before getting to Haute Arete, I turned down Arete Quatre and then Crique d'ours into Ressorts de Chambre before moving on to Route de Franks.

For some strange reason I have only gone up Franks one other time. That was a looong time ago before I started racing, probably '92. It kicked my arse back then. You know what? That sucker is still tough. The first third was easier than I remembered but that middle section beginning at the pet cemetary is damn tough, at least in the 21 tooth it was. I should have gone to the 23.

Before the ride I had plans of climbing Franks 2 or 3 times. Thankfully, time constraints prevented me from doing that. Actually, I would have liked to do it at least one more time before heading home.

Who are Messrs. Reese and Sprogoe riding for this coming year? I passed them on the way down to Parc de Vallee. They all appeared to be dressed the same. The jersey looked similar to Manchester/Trek but the right sleeve (maybe more) was yellow. New Manchester design?

The entire ride was 72, or so, km's. I didn't take any food and after leaving Fenton I had a good hunger bonk hit me. That feeling really sucks. At least I was only a few miles from home.

The porn gods were generous on this last day of the year. They spewed forth three magazines from the porn underworld and deposited them on the roadside. I am unsure if it was a season ending gift or an early New Year's gift.