Leatherface and Sore Legs

The legs are bit on the sore side this morning after riding my third race, and first at the Cat 3 level, yesterday. It was a bit longer than the previous couple at 104k and the front group that I was in averaged a good 37km/h. As the race was in the area that the Texas Chainsaw Massacre was filmed in(Manda, Texas I think?) they had some fella dressed up like leatherface swinging a running chainsaw around to start each race.

Since getting caught in the arse-end of the group in my first race and finishing a fair way behind the leaders I had ridden the second race and the first portion of the race yesterday just plain scared that this would happen again. After about an hour and a few good pushes I realized that there wasn't a dirty chance in hell I'd let that happen again and started feeling confident and actually had some fun. I found Derek after a while and asked him how he was doing, he said he was hurting pretty good or something and then the next thing I know he's driving the bus at the front chasing attacks.
http://www.firstpics.net/gallery/7760108_hEbDU#501921407_ZKapK
(Derek hammerin')

Seeing this I got fired up and decided to put some work in and tried a few times to bridge gaps and join attacks that went but ended up bringing the whole group with me everytime. At one point we were cruising along a road with no center line and I noticed that a bunch of guys were riding on the wrong side of the road which I know from experience is a pretty big deal. The commissaire drove up alongside the group screaming and honking sending people to the back. There happened to be an all mexican team who must not have spoken any english as the guy was just screaming at them and eventually told them to get out of the race, but they had no idea what was going on and just kept on cruising and he eventually just let them carry on with the group..disqualified.

I was really pleased and surprised at how my legs were feeling, though, as the race went on and everything was smooth sailing until about half way through the last lap when a bunch of wild stuff happened. I got caught in the gutter in a cross-wind twice, draining the legs. Both times I figured that I was done as a gap opened between me and the guy in front of me, but the pace slowed soon after and I was fine. I tried to be smart, seeing the whole group aside from the lead echelon pinned against the yellow line and swung to the right of the road alone to start another echelon but that was a wasted effort as nobody followed me. Shortly after this I heard a tire explode and about 5 bodies and bikes slapping the ground behind me, and then a fella blew a spoke, making a racket, which spooked me a bit, too. But I made it through that and I'm in the last km with the leaders. This was my first go at a group sprint. THE CHAOS! I guess this is something you can only get better at with experience and lord was I shaky. The pace lifted and everyone started fighting for wheels. I jumped up to giver only to have a fella bump hips with me, knocking me off the road into the grass, which he actually apologized for after the race. http://www.firstpics.net/gallery/7760108_hEbDU#501925128_oSSck
(I'm coming up the left side of the pic with green and orange sleeves)

That was pretty much it for me, not that I likely would have had enough left in the legs to do much if I hadn't of been put in the grass, but I hopped back on the road and gave it everything I had anyway to get 20th. I'm not sure how many started but it was a hell of a lot more than that and I'm happy with the day. I really wanted to steer clear of grinding big gears, which I have a terrible habit of doing, and I also wanted to eat and drink more which I've been too nervous to do so far. I made sure of spinning a high cadence yesterday, though, and managed to take my hands of the bars long enough to put 1 clif shot into myself and a full bottle of water. I definitely needed more to eat than that and should have brought a lot morewater, which are mistakes I'll not make again.

10 4

Been Readin'

I'm in Texas and it's about 5 degrees colder here than it is at home in Charlottetown at the moment, and with the 900mph windchill it's frigid. The forecast is saying to 20-25 for the next few days starting tomorrow, but it's not all sunburns and tanlines down this way.

Having no cable I've been reading everything that I can get my hands on. It's been mostly bike magazines, but I also picked up a Michael Phelps book while at the grocery store, stocking up on green tea and eggs, yesterday. I'm not saying that he's not absolutely a phenomenal athlete, but I think that his talent lies in his freakish body-type and not in his life story as the book poorly attempts to make out as being 'against the odds'. I'm a pretty firm believer in the overcoming of adversities in life serving as motivation for racing, and maybe I've been spoiled having read so much about Armstrong and his mind-boggling story of cheating death to win the TDF seven times, but this book doesn't present much of a story. The cover of the book states something like "Coming from a single parent home, Michael had it rough..." or something along those lines. Horseshit. Single parent homes are likely more common than obese Americans, and with his biggest adversity being a loving single parent and two sisters who spoil the shit out of him I don't see his life as much of a struggle. The most inspiring part of the book is a paragraph which talks about one of his relay teammates who started off as a poor, slow swimmer who's parents sold their possessions to get his suits and goggles. He worked hard as shit, though, and I think he eventually went on to be the first black fella to hold a world record in the pool doing something like a 21 second 50 free. I'd rather hear more about him.

I also picked up a cycling magazine which has a bunch of early-90's racing stories and profiles of riders back then. I've always found this type of old stuff boring until now. The flashy bikes and big name sprinters have always been what I enjoyed reading about, but after taking in some info about big names of old I have a different perspective. The most outstanding thing I've read had to do with the Tour de France. Of course it must have been tougher to ride the tour with a 50 pound bike in leather shoes and shitty roads right? What I didn't take into account was that the tour was about 1000km longer and raced entirely differently in its early days. Today you have directors studying the course for hours and the focus is on saving as much energy as you can and putting your big efforts in on a couple of key days. The hell with that. Apparently the older method was to go as hard as you could for as long as you could and hope that you finished ahead of everyone else..if at all. Wild animals and cheating in ways a lot greasier than taking drugs were common. That's god damn racing. None of this tip-toeing through the tulips for 2 weeks with a bunch of guys making sure you don't get too much wind or crash and then riding hard for a couple of hours to take the win.

I guess that does it for my book reviews.

Headed Home

I guess I'm set to make my way home next week and, riding wise, I couldn't be happier. The weather is niiice but I've had my fill, for the moment, of flat, windy, three lane roads populated with asshole motorists screaming at me from their 5 ton trucks. I feel as if I've accomplished what I came here to do; get a feel for and learn how to race in big groups, and build a big base for the long season. Having done these things I'm sooo excited to get home and head out to Emyvale and Hunter River to do some building and destroy myself on some hills. I don't care if it snows, rains or is -10, I can't wait to get out and do some climbing.

Before I head out, though, I'm heading to my first Cat 3 race on Sunday and I can't wait. The past two races have been really stressful and intimidating as I've been alone and ended up riding about 40k on both occasions just to get to the start line. This weekend, though, Derek is racing and his wicked nice family offered to drive us! I'm also feeling a bit more confident in my legs as I started to build a bit last week doing 3 days with a bit of intensity; one day of 5, 1.5 m hill intervals on the ONLY hill in Frisco, another of 5, 10m intervals at a hr of 165 and another day on which I rode with Derek and we did a few good pushes. It was really refreshing, and with a couple of days recovery this weekend I'm noticing that my legs are feeling fresher the morning after a day with a bit of intensity. I'm hoping that the couple of half-intense days will enable me to at least keep up with what I imagine to be a pretty fast pace.

I'm looking forward to getting home, too, for entertainment away from riding. I've been fighting off insanity for the past few months while having 800 channels to choose from and last week Marv came in and hauled out the cable to save him a few bucks(not happy). So I think I may now be on the market for a straight jacket. Aside from that I managed to misplace my bank card a few weeks ago, so I've had no money to go out and do anything until Tuesday of this week. Last night made up for this, though, as me and Derek hit up Hooters for a feed. The sights! We were kind of wondering if it was, like, ok to look/stare but if these people aren't looking for attention why would they be serving us 1/2 naked? When my food showed up I realized that I didn't even really know what I ordered as the mind was kind of pre-occupied but the Cuban sandwich was really good, likely clocking in at 60000 calories, but good. We headed to the theatre which happened to be COMPLETELY empty, aside from the two of us, to see Gran Turino. This came as a bit of luck as the Cuban sandwich left me a bit gassy. Clint Eastwood is what I want to be when I grow up.

Moving Along

After seeing the full results for the race on the weekend, as it turns out, I actually did quite a bit better than I thought I had. I was at the front of the race the whole time and didn't even notice the field shrinking substantially, but apparently about 30 people got dropped and I ended up finishing 32nd of 62 even with the mishap in the last kilometer. I also read on the state cycling forum that one of the guys that went down at the sprint for the line broke his collarbone. Yikes. I think I'll jump up to the next category for the next, and probably last, race before heading home which is a bit intimidating as last weekend the next category up(3) was grouped with 2's,1's and pro's. Hopefully Derek will come out for a tear, though, and I won't feel quite so intimidated by the 60 rider field filled with teams of 5 or 6 who are quite a bit further along in their training than I am.

This being my fourth and final week of my second base riding portion of the year, I get to enjoy a big cut in hours and have a rest week. I'm really excited to see how effective working rest into training is as I've never really properly paid attention to recovery even though it holds probably as much importance as riding itself. It's kind of funny, though, as I'm itching to do long rides again already and it's only Tuesday. What else is there to do? Even during weeks with long hours I find myself sitting at home bored a lot of the time, and now that my hours are pretty much cut in half the boredom is twice as bad. I never seem to get sick of watching the recorded Tour of California and Tour Down Under programs that I have, so they help, but I need a hobby or something. Maybe I'll pick up a model car or go play with the turtles in the lake out front.

I suppose I'll kill some more time and post some pictures up of where I'm living.

Me Legs is Rubbed Right Raw

Second race of the season this morning in Celena. This one went 200 times better than the first....other than a little slip up in the last kilometer. I got to know who was strong and who wasn't in the last race and decided that the Plano guys who destroyed the field last time were the ones to watch. As the race began I decided that I wanted to follow the wheel of the fella who seemed to lead that team, and instead of jumping at every attack, this time, I watched to see how he would react as I figured he knew everyone's strength better than I.

This went perfectly and I stayed in the top 8 guys the entire race and only went to the front twice. At one point during the 3rd lap the fella I stuck to the whole time dropped back beside me and with a smile and a heavy southern accent said, "You always seem to be in the perfect spot, I think I'll hang onto your wheel and take second across the line." I laughed a bit and told him I was hurting something awful. I was super happy at this as I've never really been the smartest at anything I've been into. I've sort of always been the idiot who goes too hard too early and usually pays for it. This is probably most evident in the way I ride my bmx. At one of the first comps I rode in I tried to backflip a jump before I could comfortably jump it. Idiot.

Anyway some attacks went and were brought back and then the stronger guys started going. I had a part in chasing all of these down, which I was pleased with and even got my hr higher than ever before. The fella I had been hanging onto launched a super heavy attack about 1/2 way through the last lap and nobody seemed to want to chase him down. It probably wasn't the smartest thing to do but I went to the front, and pushed it as hard as I could and brought him back.

So we're 3/4 of the way through the final lap and I'm 4th or 5th wheel I'm just hurtin' but am absolutely certain that I'm taking the win. As we're cruising up to the last little climb before the stretch to the line I got bumped over the yellow line. The hell I was going to drop back 10 places to an opening and lose my spot, so I accelerated a bit to go past the guy who bumped me. As I'm doing this the referee comes up to my side and gives me the boot to the back of the group. I argued a bit but kind of knew I was wrong and just sat up and drifted all the way to the back. When I got back there he said something like "You're lucky, I won't make you go all the way back to the cars." and told me to get back up to the group. So I figured I'd gun it and sprinted by everyone and back to the front. I completely emptied the gas tank doing this and as I got to the front the sprint for the line was starting and I had nothing left. I was passed by just about everyone as I soft pedaled the last 200m. Damndest thing, though, there was a wicked bad crash at the last sprint and 4 or 5 guys were lying on the road as I came over the last little hill so maybe I got a bit lucky by being penalized.

Anywho, off to the hot tub.

Stevie's Hurtin'

Im hurtin', but it feels good. I've put in some heavy hours on the bike this week as I'm coming to the end of my third week of a build period and the legs are definitely feeling it. It seems as if I've moved to the only place in the world with wilder weather than the island. On Sunday I had to bundle up in my jacket, gloves and leg warmers and had to turn in after two hours as I was too cold. Today, however, it was 83 degrees and I couldn't get the water into me fast enough. This is pretty much how every week seems to go.

Today was probably the roughest day of riding I've had since getting here. Intervals and 50km/h winds, along with the 80 degree heat left me pretty beat after riding. At home, I would like to ride for 2 hours into the wind and then turn around and ride with it at my back for the ride home as the legs don't have quite as much left in them for the second half of the ride. Here, though, all of the good riding is in the same direction and everyday I turn around to head home after about 2 hours of fairly easily ripping along at 40km/h and wrestle with my bike into the wind for the 2 hour ride home. Today I found this harder than usual, and for the final hour all I wanted to do was come home and watch Wedding Crashers while eating pancakes and drinking coffee, but instead the apt. seems to have fallen apart. Handyman that I am, though, everything is fixed....sort of.

The toilet gave away earlier in the week, and Lord knows I need a working toilet, so I dove elbow deep into the back of the thing to inspect the situation. I managed to mend the problem by jamming a dime under the stick on the end of the balloon thing to stop it from running and set the top back on all cockeyed to hold everything in place. It ain't pretty, but it does the job. Today, however, the hot water heater lost its mind and sprung a leak, spraying water all over the storage room. So I grabbed the duct tape and applied enough to slow the spray to a drip. Good to go.

Another breakthrough this week came when I became desperate enough to ask the main building staff if I could use the business center to fax some stuff. Marv told me that if I were to interact with them that I would be subjected to a heavy fee and some other stuff, so I've been hiking an hour to the library to get computer use. Yesterday I needed a fax machine right then and there, though. Low and behold the two most beautiful women are working the front desk and were more than happy to let me use the computer and fax machine. Not only that theres an assortment of free cookies laid out for me to dig in to. What a treat.

There are 3 races in the area this weekend, a TT, Crit and Road Race and I had originally planned on doing them all. After the long, rough week, though, I think I would like to stick to only the Road Race as that's really where I'm looking to gain experience and I'd rather not go into it having a 20mile TT and 45 mile Crit in my legs from the day before. I'm hoping it goes well but I think I'm really just going to try and have fun and gain some experience as opposed to going into it feeling as if the world will end if I don't win as I did in my first race. My real goals lie further on in the season so I guess I'll not get bent out of shape in these early races.

Anywho, better get back to the swampartment and make a pancake.

Stevie

New Man

After not getting the results I would have liked on the weekend I was a bit bummed and couldn't figure out why I felt so weak. I've done a bit of research and asked around which has led me to the realization that I've unfortunately been training at an intensity that has been far too easy, even for the easy riding time of year, and likely hasn't been doing anything for me. Though it's a bit of a bummer, it may come in handy to have ridden with no intensity thus far as the races I hope to do well in aren't until the end of summer and maybe the super easy riding up until now will help in preventing burn out.

That being said, after returning home from the race on the weekend I was more than ready to up the intensity a bit. I've put in 2 fairly hard 2.5 hr rides on Monday and Tuesday and a 3.5hr recovery ride today at the intensity that I should have been working at all along. I tell ya it feels like I've been reborn. I enjoy riding all sorts of bikes at all sorts of intensities but the part of riding, and I guess all aspects of life, that I enjoy most is pushing myself. I don't think I enjoy anything more than pushing myself so hard that I can't feel my legs and I'm on the verge of puking out my right lung. This sounds a little odd to some but I think most endurance athletes share this, or a similar, outlook on things.

The fact that Dallas is the 3rd windiest city in America used to drive me batty. Previously, when mistakenly trying to maintain a hr of 120, I despised the wind as any resistance at all would put me over this. Now, that I've realized that I should be riding harder than this, I love it. Most of the roads here a fairly flat and to have a good strong headwind is something I'm really starting to enjoy. The temperature has also shot up significantly in the past week and today I got a mean arm burn as it got up to about 25 celsius.

OH! I also got to live out a dream of mine on the weekend! Made it to the IHOP on Friday night for the $4 all you can eat pancakes. I don't know what happened but I couldn't manage to put anything more than one plate-full down. Terrible. I also found out that Tuesday was National Pancake Day. God bless America.

Rough Weekend

Well, a lot of shit happened this weekend so this should be up there in word-count. I got fixed up financially at the end of last week and hurriedly organized a trip to Austin to race this Texas cup "Walburg" race. The whole weekend was filled with over-spending, shitty travel and overall pain but I feel it was all worth my while as I got some great experience at this massive (compared to home) race. I haven't done a lick of hard riding thus far and figured I was walking into a field which consisted of old guys and youngens. Got a pretty rude awakening.

I woke up at 5 on Saturday morning, mowed on the continental bfast and, as I had no ride, rode the 35k to the race as the sun was coming up. I was absolutely overwhelmed as I got there. There must have been 6-700 people there. Soon after I rolled in I watched the pro/Cat1 guys roll out and got an understanding of how things worked.

My time came to race and I walked my bike to the front of the 50 or 60 rider field and took a look around only to notice 4 or 5 super strong looking teams(Texas A&M among them) and not the old guys I had anticipated. http://www.firstpics.net/gallery/7415663_d88Hi#479226427_28xyD
The gun goes and we roll out and soon after the race began the rain and 50k winds kicked up. An early solo attack went and I just sat in the peloton for a while to see how things would go. After some sitting I got anxious to chase the solo fella down and just then some batshit crazy guy blasted by me on the shoulder and I somehow got on his wheel and we rode to the solo guy only to be brought back in shortly after. This is when shit went pear-shaped and I learned the importance of staying at the front.
http://www.johnmichaelharris.printroom.com/ViewGalleryPhoto.asp?userid=johnmichaelharris&gallery_id=1437018&image_id=165
I ended up in the middle-to-back of the field as we took a sharp right hand turn and the first 25 guys just shot away. The whole field broke into chaos and I coudln't weasel my way back to the group before they broke completely away. I got super frustrated at first as I tried to ride in the wicked bad wind on my own and eventually joined up with some other guys to try to chase down the leaders unsuccessfully. So I finished my first race in the middle of the field, which I'll take as I've barely ridden hard enough to sweat yet, and gained some experience in riding in a big group. I had forgotten what the good old pain of a hard ride felt like and am super psyched to do some hard riding now that I have my base miles in and hopefully get some better results soon.
http://www.firstpics.net/gallery/7415663_d88Hi#479227234_bgK3t

Allday

Well Then

So I've encountered a bit of a pickle here in Texas as the person who was supposed to be coming to stay with me, and had also planned on sharing all expenses, is now staying home. I've been super stressed in trying to organize a ride, registration and accomodations to a race this weekend and now I've received this news. I'm sort of all over the road on what I'm going to do at the moment. I really can't afford to stay where I am on my own and have been seriously considering packing up my shit and heading to Austin to camp for the remainder of my time here as this would be a much cheaper alternative and the riding there is said to be unbelievable. This change in terrain, I think, would be great as I've gotten close to 1500 slow kms in so far and I would love to have a few hills to ride when I get up to about 2000 and Frisco has absolutely nothing in the way of hills.

This being said, though, I've been loving where I am lately. I now know a number of decent spots to ride and I've developed a routine which I've grown to love. I wake up, eat some oatmeal and sip on coffee while watching the tour of cali recap show, ride all day and come home to cook up a feed and drink more coffee while watching seinfeld or the latest stage of the tour. This is such a simple way of living but with all of the stresses of school, numerous jobs and a consistently empty bank account over the past few years, the simplicity of living like this has been much needed and I hate the fact that worries have found me again.

The Amish Throw a Mean Party

I guess it's spring in Texas? It's strange because prior to last week I had to wear leg warmers and a jacket on the majority of my rides but last week and this have been super warm. I got some wicked work on my tanlines today with 4 hours baking in the sun. It's not unbearably warm either yet, either, which is nice. Marv says that in April it's consistently 30, which will be my cue to head back north.

I have a pretty sweet routine going of riding all day and then watching documentaries all night. I've always wanted to be the guy who knows a bunch of pointless and interesting facts(Stan Dewar), but usually I just spend my free time watching Seinfeld so all I really have up in the thinking station is Kramer quotes. Over the past week I've watched documentaries on prison life, the hells angels, the bandidos and last night on an Amish tradition known as 'Rumspringa'. Aside from learning about the process I discovered that when an Amish teen throws a party, people from Amish communities all over the nation come and they've been known to get as big as like 1500 people. I wonder if its possible to get into one of these? I think if nothing else it'd be an experience.

In other news I got a super bad scare the other night when the city's tornado alarm howled for about 10 minutes and the weather network shit itself after a tornado ripped some houses apart in Oklahoma. The same storm was set to pass through here, too. I don't know a whole lot about preparing for a tornado as the only preparation I've ever done for bad weather has been for snow storms, and all I really do is stock up on cereal and beer. At first I piled a bunch of important shit into the bathtub but apparently you're supposed to be on the lowest floor possible so I grabbed my bike and sat on the lawnmower downstairs in the garage until the storm passed. Nothing too bad came through this exact area but I guess some relatively close cities got hit pretty hard an some buidlings were dinged up.

Keep your stick on the ice.

New Bike!

O ya, I got a new ride alright. Marv came through and lent me his 10 yr old sons old beaten up ride. I can't imagine what the people in the billion dollar neighborhoods I rode through today thought of me as I cruised down the road on this old kids bike singing Beyonce and wearing these rediculously short shorts as all of my clothes are still wet from washing them this morning. Having my weiner fall out from time to time probably didn't help my cause.

I decided to take a, what I think is a well deserved, day off today after putting in 8 hours of riding over the course of Saturday and Sunday. On Sunday, however, the wind warning definitely put a damper on my ride and had me more angry than I've been in a long time. I'm not an angry person but wind pisses me off like nothing else. Everytime I got a decent spin going I'd be jerked by the wind throwing me off. I figure, though, that it'll only make me stronger. Some people have mountains to climb, I have 60km/h winds to pedal through.
After the ride I figured I'd unwind and have some Stevie time, so I bought a big burrito, a few cookies and relaxed while watching The Notebook.

I also recently found out that I have the VS. channel which features a lot of the big races and has a bunch of cycling related stuff to offer. I used this fancy digital cable feature to record a Tour Down Under recap show and a Tour of Cali preview and have been watching those quite a bit which has me wired to ride and I can't wait to get to my first race on the 21st. Good.

Posted Up Out Fronta Popeye's in The Mayback

Another week has passed and after riding around in the city for 2 weeks and having no luck in finding a quiet country road I've finally found an area that has a bunch of non-stop roads and very little traffic. Along with farms and open fields, though, I've also come across two ferocious dogs who are free to roam and chase me as long as they feel necessary. The schedule calls for a low heart rate, but I tell its not easy to keep the heart calm with two pissed off dogs losing their mind 4 feet behind me.

I don't think that I've ever enjoyed riding as much as I am right now. I've never really followed any solid program before and have pretty much always just gone as hard as possible at all times, so to have a schedule requiring a bunch of easy riding enables me to happily cruise while taking in some pretty sweet scenery. Slowly bumping up my time on the bike, too, has been going well. I've been listening to the body as much as possible and on week 1 I didn't feel as if I could comfortably do anythign over 1.5 hours. I was a bit worried at first but I slowly started feeling better and better and on Sunday I completed my first 4 hour ride feeling great. Also as a result of riding here, I appreciate the amazing riding that we are so lucky have at home on the island. As opposed to the routine that I go through here daily of picking through 3 lane roads and 25 traffic lights to get to anything that resembles quiet country roads, at home I can walk out the front door, pedal for 10 minutes and be in the thick of the country.

Aside from riding I've been trying to keep busy doing a few different things. The walk to the library to use these computers takes about an hour and a half each way and isn't something that I enjoy doing all that often. I got super excited in the first week to find a university about 2k from my apt. but was crushed to find that a student password is required to use their computer lab. I hatched a scheme, though, and I now have a routine in which I throw on the kitbag for disguise purposes, pretend to be looking for a book, and then use the call-number/book search computers to check my e-mail and facebook.

While at home I've finished Lance's book "It's Not About The Bike", which is amaaaazing, and have made it about 700 pages into Lord of The Rings. I was a bit skeptical in reading it as I've seen the movies 2000 times and thought it'd be the same, but there were a bunch of things left out of the movies that the book offers in its 1300 pages. Along with reading I've been raiding Marv's hidden Pillsbury stash, killing about 400 cinnamon rolls that were slightly expired but tasty nonetheless, and practicing the dance that Keri Hilson does in that 'Turnin Me on" video. I'll have it dialed for my arrival home. I guess that's about it.

All Day

Icestorms and Liquor at the Bikeshop

So, since this is my first post and I have quite a lot to talk about I'm going to ramble on for 5000 words likely not making any sense or saying anything interesting. To start, never take a bus to Texas. I was treated like a serial killer at the border and had all of my shit ripped apart and my oranges taken from me in the end. Real shame about the current orange problem in America. The only really decent thing to come of the 3 day drive, with 45 stop-overs in the greasiest bus stations imaginable, was the drive through NYC. I was sitting beside a nice lady from Harlem who informed me of each area we drove through(The Bronx, Harlem, Yankee Stadium etc.). The same lady also said she would pray for my safety during the rest of my travels which was nice. By far the scariest part of the trip was the 1.5 hr stop-over in the NYC bus terminal which is full of beggars and a crackheads, one of whom I watched scream profanities at one man and then try to steal another man's luggage before security intervened. I stayed huddled to my 2by4 ft. bike box with all of my bags on top and my wallet in my front pocket the entire time. I got super lucky, though, as by chance there just happened to be this great fella going from NYC to Dallas and he ended up driving me from Dallas to Frisco saving me a few bucks.

I've been here in Frisco for a week and a half and am still sort of getting settled. The apartment doesn't quite feel like home yet and I guess that's to be expected as I'm pretty much cut off from the outside world with no phone and no computer. The freak ice storm knocked out power last night scaring the shit out of me and leaving me reading lord of the rings in the dark with a flashlight and eating pop tarts for supper. On a more positive note, though, the apartment complex I live in is baaaallin. There's a hot-tub, fitness complex, 2 pools, and oddly enough theres rabbit running around everywhere. On top of all of that the gas station up the road makes a mean batch of cookies.

Riding has been great aside from the first day possibly being the worst of my life. After waking up to a beautiful 20 degree day and getting some breakfast and coffee into my system I put the bike together and headed out the door. I first noticed the chilly 45km/hr wind and soon after the 60psi in my tires as I had no pump and no idea where the bike shop was. So, I'm moving along at a blistering 15km/hr just suffering and terrified as I'm on this 6 lane road when this sweet girl leans out her window and yells "Get the fuck off the road!". Fiesty one she was. Aside from all of these problems I got lost more than once and ended up spending 3 hours in the saddle on day 1. Not a great start but I was happy to put some time in on the bike either way.

Things have gotten 100% better in the past week, however, aside from the recent shitty weather. I'm getting to know the area, making staying off of the main roads possible and haven't had anymore motorist related troubles. I still get lost daily, but am finding it easier to get back on track with every ride. Pedal strokes feeling a lot better, too, as the flat roads are great for working on efficiency and whatnot. I met up with a church ride group while riding Sunday and they were kind enough to show me to a few quick, steep hills which was a nice change and it felt great to finally hammer for a bit and get the hr up briefly.

As for bike shops...Frisco covers both ends of the spectrum. The first one I was directed to was a treat. I roll up at 2pm on a Wednesday and buddy's shutting the place down for the day. I asked him if I could get some air or buy an adaptor so I could head to a gas station, and nice guy he was, opened the shop up for me. I was a bit surprised as to the left theres a wall lined with coolers full of booze, in the center isthe inventory of bikes, and to the right he has his extensive vcr selection. He kindly sold me an adaptor and set me onto a road which promised to be less busy. Later that day I found the Richardson Bike Mart, which happens to have been Lance's first sponsor. The place is absolutely amazing. They almost have the entire 09 Trek line in stock along with a bunch of ballin Specialized whips. The staff are great and the guy working the counter gave me a bunch of rides to do.

Well, I guess a bunch of other stuff happened in the past weeks but I'm rambling and am craving a burrito something awful.

Stevie