Costume Countdown

The following is for Jabba:



He is laboring under the delusion that Halloween is a few days away. Like most 7 year olds his sense of time is either wildly optimistic (as in this case) or dreadfully pessimistic (a ten minute time-out seems like 10 years).

P.S. The lightsabers are on the way.

P.P.S. Though it never happened in the movies, come Halloween we *will* determine who would win a fight between Darth Vader and Darth Maul.

ptb

Saquish

The Bride and I only got down to my brother's beach house in for two days this year. Rained one day. Beautiful the next. I would have preferred to stay a week...

Classic Saquish Beach Shack
Not where we stayed, for some reason I never took a picture of that.

Back Beach looking at Clark's Island

The beach house is in Plymouth, MA, the town I grew up in. I don't have any family living there full-time anymore so I don't get down much. And I was never much of a beach guy. Having grown up doing a lot of shell fishing, the water always meant long days and hard work. But that was a long time ago, and it's hard not to enjoy the beach on a day like this.

Bruno and his Dad Heading for the point of Back Beach.

Visitor on the back deck of the old officer's quarters.

I looked through that telescope.
You can't see anything.
But they still looked intently.

Scorpion #1 Strikes her best Movie Star pose.
$5 Sunglasses complete the look.

Clark's Island and the "Gatsby" House.

The Bear runs from some terrible sea nymph who threatened to turn him into a pile of rockweed.

Sunset over the Myles Standish Monument in Duxbury.

Monkey T and his Auntie.

Moonrise over Front Beach.

ptb

Hampshire 100: Results

Spun this round approximately 44,871 times last Sunday.
Rotor squealed for about 42,744 of those.

"What could possibly go wrong?"

Something *always* goes wrong, otherwise it would be called road racing. The weather was cool and dry and my legs never cramped, so far so good. But my new front brake, after much fiddling and tweaking the night before, started up its brain-numbing, will-sapping, death squeal about a mile into the race. And it continued to torture me for most of the race, stopping after some hard braking, only to return 30 seconds later or until I thought "Hey! It's stopped, maybe it fixed itself!".

Other riders would become annoyed and seemingly try to sprint away from me or drop back. One fellow appeared to drive right off the trail and crash into a thorny shrub in what appeared to be an effort to avoid the "Squealing Brake of the Apocalypse" (coming to theaters this fall, don't miss it). To those tortured racers I say, "Sorry folks, I know it's tough to be near my bike, but imagine having to ride the Squealmaster for 100k". I'll have to try some sintered pads and if that doesn't work I'm moving on to Voodoo.

"How bad could it be?"

I am comfortable in saying "quite bad". The race description led me to believe this was going to be a relatively mild course...well as mild as 62 miles off-roading in New England can be. The reality was 6000' of climbing (according to another racer's wrist altimeter), lots of overgrown double track, and some Mensa candidates on ATVs taking down the course arrows. There was one particularly charming stretch along a newly graded section of power line. Steep. Soft. Ugly. That was one of many low points. While there was some sweet singletrack, my rough estimate is that this only made up 20% of the course. Creating a 100k loop in this part of the world is always going to entail a few paved and dirt roads to hook everything together, so I didn't mind those. It's just that there were too many parts of the course that were simply crap riding. The kind of things you find when exploring for new riding spots and later report to your friends, "not worth it, it can be ridden, but why would you want to?".

Particularly "fun" were the fast double track downhills with random tree limbs poking out at eye and crotch level and covered with luxurious undergrowth which obscured the numerous rocks, logs, and unconscious racers ready to catch your front wheel and catapult you into next week. Now don't get me wrong, I like a challenge, but walking on your hands across a floor covered in broken glass and lemon juice while blindfolder is challenging too, I just don't want to do it.

Impressive performances and other factoids:

• As usual the nut job single speeders continue to awe me. On this decidedly SS-unfriendly course, just finishing was impressive.
  

• Elite class racer Michael Broderick won the overall, beating the next closest rider by a staggering 41 minutes! I do think I could beat that though, I just need a new bike.
  

Unimpressive Performances and Other Factoids:

• After 7:31:18 I rolled across the finish line. I came in 75th, which is pretty lame, but is better than 90th (which is what I though I came in when eyeballing the unsorted PDF results. Thanks the cky for the correction).
  

• Out of 175 registered entrants, there were 15 DNFs, 22 DNSs, and 1 disqualification.
  

• Gobbling down Sport Legs pills like a kid with a Pez dispenser did seem to stave off any severe legs cramps, but by mile 48 my legs had imploded and my pace slowed way down. I guess a lack of training can actually slow you down, who knew.
  

• The Bride and Scorpion #2 came to watch at the various food stations and give me helpful advice like, "I really think you should stop stuffing your face with Power Bars and get a move on". Seriously they were great, and without them there I probably would have dropped out in the last 12 miles. Amazing how a little encouragement can spur you on.
  

• Apparently I wasn't the only one getting encouragement. After the race I found the Scorpion sisters at a table of EMS sponsored racers and it came out that at each food station they would wait for the volunteers to yell out, "water, Gatorade, bananas, PB&J" then they would yell out "wine!" and motion to their box of wine. No one took them up on the wine, but a few guys almost crashed at the offer.
  

ptb

Hampshire 100

I must be mad. After a weak showing in the 24 Hours of Great Glen, mostly due to lack of training, I decided there was only one logical thing to do: Immediately enter another endurance race. I'm concerned that this is the lack of prudence that leads to substance abuse and singlespeeds.


Regardless of my misgivings, a quick bit o' Googlin revealed that this Sunday, right in my neck of the woods, is the inaugural Hampshire 100 in Greenfield, NH. Fortunately the '100' is kilometers, not miles. Even better, the race description states:

"The single loop, 100 kilometer course will give participants a good mountain bike workout, while not being so extremely challenging the entire way that one never wants to return for a second year."

Sounds like a nice ramble through the woods. How bad could it be? What could possibly go wrong? A quick check of the forecast (70, partly cloudy, 10% chance of precip) sealed the deal and off my money went.

The Bride and Scorpion #2 have generously offered to come along and cheer me on or carry my spasming body home as needed.

Check back soon for a report, hopefully one that covers the entire course, not just the first 18 miles, a stout tree, and a gruesome spoke injury.

ptb

24HoGG

Camp setup on Friday afternoon. Miraculously my $25 tarp shade would survive the night this year.

Well, it's over. The 2007 24 Hours of Great Glen are in the books. After last years 4th place Todd and I had dared think of a podium spot this year. Regrettably it was not to be and I must take the blame. A new job and home expansion cut into training this year, but not so much that we couldn't have done better than our 7th place in the men's pairs this year. The thing that killed us was a rookie mistake on my part, electrolyte imbalance.

The Bride and I's glamorous hotel room. New job pays enough to not sleep in tent Friday night. Still slept like poop and woke up at 5:00 am.

Last year we just alternated laps the whole race, except when we each went out for two night laps to allow the other racer to sleep for an hour. Noticing that all the teams ahead of us were doing multiple laps we thought we should do the same too. It worked well for the first 9 laps. We were in the 6th spot and feeling good, knowing that night would bring a host of problems for many teams (hopefully some in front of us). But on the end of lap 9 my left hamstring just went bezerk, cramping horribly. I went out for a tenth lap, but finished that in a glacial 1:25:18.

Ready to roll under a dry blue sky.

Campmates, team 'Still No Faster'. They lived up to their name :-D In fairness Chris did the fastest individual lap of our two teams, a tidy 48:12. Of course there were *FOUR* of them!

That was it for me for a while. My left hamstring would cramp if I even so much as bent my leg. I thought about dropping out, figuring there was no way it was going to come back to life without a full meal and good night's sleep. My "epic" lap had dropped us to 10th position.

"What'd you get?"
"Decoder ring, you?"
"Fake tattoos."

"Think the mandatory meeting will start late this year?"
"Yup."
"Think they will just tells us what we already know?"
"Yup."
"Think people will leave before it's over?"
"Yup."
"You ever say anything but 'Yup'?"
"Nope."

Todd of course just said he'd go out and see what he could do. He did two more laps which got us to 1:12 am, but he was hurting too. This was the low point of the race for me. My leg was still all screwy and riding was out of the question. I considered just pushing the bike around for a lap and maybe rolling down the flats. But that seemed rather pathetic, and feeling rather pathetic and wallowing in self-pity I couldn't bring myself to do it.

Arty-farty juxtaposition of synthetic and natural mountains.

Todd tries his luck at the ancient Chinese bike puzzle...

...hmmm, trickier than it looks...

"Out of my way fool!"

"See, it's easy!"

"I am Todd-Lor. I come to wage war on your puny and insignificant planet. Even now my battle cruisers have trained their plasma cannons on your major cities! Your only hope is to bring me your finest popcorn. Now hurry you sniveling dogs, don't force me to demonstrate my fleet's firepower on Manchvegas! Because I WILL SO DO IT"

So we decided to catch a few Z's and see how we felt in a few hours. Before sleeping I downed a few electrolyte pills and ate a box of Annie's Shells and Cheddar. Todd got back out sometime in the dark as I slept away with my guilt ridden dream, and proceeded to do three straight laps, nothing fast, but somehow during the night we managed to crawl up to the 7th spot.

For the benefit of people like my mom, this is the battery charging station. It's where, well, we charge our light's batteries between laps. I have nothing funny to say about it. Sorry, batteries just don't lend themselves to humor.

The cattle queue up for the start.

Todd follows my sage advice for this year's Le Mans start: "Run faster"

Todd-Lor contemplates calling in an orbital strike to thin out the pack.

Riders hoof it up the first climb on lap 1.

TM rails the plunge.

Max roars out of the start/finish area. Alas my alter ego would soon falter, and pitiful Paul would soon return clutching his left hamstring.

By this time I had gotten my sorry butt out of bed and was stuffing myself with food and more electrolyte pills. The leg started to feel a lot better. I went out for another lap and was able to do a 58:50, the leg was getting a little suspect so Todd went out for another after me.

Max Power is so fast he can barely be caught on film. Or possibly Scorpion #1 doesn't know how to operate the camera. Honestly, at first I thought this was some cool pan and blur shooting technique. Until I saw that all the other pictures she took were blurry too. Unless they were of Todd, those were all fine, in crystal clear sharp focus. I heard her muttering something about, "you look better blurry". Not sure what that means.

Still feeling fine and cruising to a 51:12 first lap.

Looking over the selection of sport beverages, it dawns on me, "blue" is not a flavor.

Do I like to wear my helmet at a jaunty angle? Or is my head just not symmetrical? The latter sadly.

Todd got back at 11:08 am. I headed out for the last lap. The power of your last lap is great, knowing you don't need to go back out lets you lay it out and not worry about saving anything. Of course when you haven't trained enough, laying it out only results in a 56:49 lap, but hey, I'll take it.

Haircuts like these just don't happen people, it takes preparation, poor grooming, and hours of helmet wearing. Giant Elvis Costello glasses complete the look.

We can all smile now that it's over.

So we held onto the 7th spot in the end. A tantalizingly small gap of 1:26 separated us from the 6th spot. Sorta wished I'd known we were that close before the final lap. Of course then I would be killing myself for *6th* place and that does seem rather pathetic!

The Bride says: "Ride faster next year you maggots, 7th place is unacceptable!"

So while it could of been worse, I must say I finished the race pretty disappointed. I had fun, the bike didn't give me any serious problems (aside from the front brake squealing like the proverbial pig for the whole race), but can't help but feel I didn't do my best. Not sure exactly what went wrong with the leg, it could just be a case of O-L-D. The lack of training miles compared to last year wasn't helping certainly. Or maybe just doing 2-2 alternating laps got me out of my eating and drinking rhythm. Whatever the case we'll be back next year if the fates allow.

This brings me to my parting random thoughts on this year's race:

1) Soloists are crazy right? So what does that make the single-speed soloists? I'm not sure, but kudos to both groups, it's a tough race when you are alone *are* the team, gears or not.

2) The weather - Three straight years I've done this race and three straight years the weather has been great. Why do I feel like we're due a monsoon come 08?

3) Peter Ostroski - Damn this kid is amazing. Two years ago his Red Jersey two man team just crushed everyone. This year he won the overall solo title with 24 laps. And he is still in the 0-18 age group. Yikes.

4) Even more impressive is Melanie Brown, winning her second women's overall solo title. Amazingly she beat all the men but Peter. Nice job.

Until next year...

ptb

Pimp My Ride

If you know what the following picture is, well not just what it is, but why this type of "what it is" is special, then please continue reading. If not, avert your eyes and spare yourself the boredom. This is for bike nerds only...

Goodbye Practical LX, hello XTR and SRAM hollow-pin chain.

In the spring of 2005 I bought my dream bike. Well, I bought my dream frame, a Turner Burner in metallic flake red. Sadly a lack of funds meant that a lot of components got carried over from my old Specialized.

Flamboyant gents like myself like gold. Hold the medallions though and give me some Chris King ISO Disk Hubs laced to Mavic 717s. Classic Salsa flip-offs are the cherry on top.

After a long night of cleaning and wrenching.
This bike will never be this clean again, ever.

Fast-forward to this summer. I'm getting ready for the 24 Hours of Great Glen, which as I mentioned previously, I'm not exactly in the greatest shape for due to [INSERT LAME EXCUSE HERE]. So I did the only reasonable thing possible in such a situation, no, I didn't train harder and sleep less, I did what makes this country great, I threw money at the problem.

First person to notice component installed upside down gets a prize.

In all seriousness, a lot of the parts needed upgrading, and why bolt on some LX ho-hum when you can have some XTR bling?

When you absolutely, positively need to stop right now:
Avid Juicy 7s with a 185mm front rotor.

So now I have the biking equivalent of a D200. Only thing holding it back is the motor.

Me and my girlfriend.

Well gotta hit the hay and get up tomorrow and pack for Great Glen. Bye for now.

ptb

Pottermania

A note on criticism: This is the first time I've ever offered an opinion of a book, album, movie, etc. on my blog. Typically I think written criticism of any art form is largely a waste of time, a pastime for those who (like myself) could never produce even a lousy piece of art, so instead critique those who try. Seriously, if I like "X" I don't really give a rat's behind if someone has painstakingly written a well-reasoned, thoughtful and compelling argument on why "X" is a piece of garbage, ill-suited for consumption by anything brighter than a house plant. Art is not science, or ethics, or morality, or politics, or religion. Like those realms, art is important, but unlike them, one's personal opinion of art is about as worthless as a one legged man at a butt kicking contest. Professional critics are bad enough, but the Internet has spawned legions of malcontents and fan-boys eager to prove that what they hate/like is awful/great. So don't expect an actual review or anything approaching thoughtful analysis here, it's all my ill-informed personal opinion. Of course I reserve the right to savage anything that actually *is* bad IMHO :-)

Potter Spoiler Alert: I give nothing away! My wife reads this and would kill me if I did!


Between a new and busy job, training (not enough) for the 24 Hours of Great Glen, and expanding our apartment into a real home I haven't had much time to read the last four months. I'd started Neal Stephenson's Quicksilver (The Baroque Cycle, Vol. 1) several months ago and was enjoying it quite a bit. But, as it was the first of three quite lengthy tomes and my reading time was reduced to infrequent 15 to 20 minute streches before bed, I reluctantly put it aside.

While on a short vacation I picked up Jay Lake's short debut novel Mainspring. That proved mildly entertaining, it's steam punk premise, that the world is literally a giant clockwork fashioned by God and it needs a rewinding, goes a goodly ways. Unfortunately some very odd plot turns in the last third of the book diminished my enjoyment. If you are a voracious fiction reader it's probably worth checking out, but if your time is limited or you are typically sci-fi/fantasy averse, then look elsewhere, this book isn't likely to please you.

That brings me to the real point of this post. You may be aware that Arthur A. Levine Books recently published a little book by Joanne Rowling, the last in a series of seven. I think that some of the earlier books may have been made into feature films as well, ahem...Anyhow, regardless of what I say here, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is going to sell a whole lot of books. And to that I say, "go forth an conquer Harry!". Rowling apparently is the first person to ever become a billionaire as a writer and this book shows why. I couldn't put it down and sacrificed a lot of sleep to finish it off. It was an absolute joy to read, it wraps-up all the loose ends I could think of (and some I forgot about) and in no way leaves the door open for any obvious sequels (e.g. Harry Potter and the Quest for More Money is not right around the corner). I guarantee that anyone who reads it will love it (since 99.999% of potential readers will already read the preceeding six books I feel pretty safe here, since it is certainly as good as these that have come before it). My only caution is for really young readers, this book is decidedly harsher than the others, but hey, life is pain.

ptb

Countdown

Less than 50 days until the 2007 24 hours of Great Glen (24HoGG). 47 to be exact. What the heck is 24HoGG you ask? Check out this video and you'll get the idea. At the 2:30 mark my ass makes its featured appearance (I'm the third rider down the chute). A Quicktime version is here.

My Weapon of Choice: A Turner Burner. Race day will see the bash guard off, the platforms replaced with Shimano 757s, and possibly the Conti 2.3" tires swapped for something a bit quicker.

My teammate Todd* and I will be racing in the two-person class for the 3rd straight year. We finished a disappointing 10th out of 15 two man teams in 2005. This was mostly due to a spectacular crash by yours truly that almost caused me to drop out with uncontrollable back spasms and general deceleration sickness.

Last year we flirted with a podium spot, taking 4th. This year we hope to hoist a prize, though work and my home expansion have conspired to keep training miles low. Still, seven weeks remain to ramp up and I still have some hope we can improve on last year's performance. The recipe is easy: Get on bike, ride 3 hours. Repeat daily for six weeks. Sprinkle liberally with a few 100+ mile days seasoned with big climbs. Don't forget to throw in some rest days! Let cool the seventh week and then race for 24 hours. So simple!

ptb

* Todd, please recall that that you, and I quote, "threw down the gauntlet", last year. You *should* be faster than me! I'm *much* older and substantially heavier than you :-)

Hail Yes!

If you are a runner/biker/swimmer you typically refer to the fastest you can go over a particular distance/time as "race pace". And that's it, it's as fast as you can go (unless you are being lazy).

Step 5.

But, in an exciting development, I have discovered something faster than race pace! Yes, despite what you may have heard you can actually give 110%! Here's what you do.

1) Wait for a severe thunderstorm alert.

2) Put your running shoes on, get your bike, head to the lake, whatever.

3) Start running/biking/swimming.

4) As the skies darken pick it up to race pace.

5) When the hail starts pelting you and lightning is striking close enough that there is no perceptible delay between the flash and the boom, then, and only then, open the throttle. You will find that you have unexpected reserves of speed and endurance.

6) Head for home.

ptb

Spring

Spring comes to the Monadnock region not slowly and gently, but more like a bowling ball dropped on a foot. Suddenly it is just irrevocably upon us.

Hmmmm, if I hadn't lost my wildflower book I could tell you what these are...probably some non-native, invasive species. They are pretty though.

My new job, while fabulous in most ways, has been wearing me out a bit lately. Add to that a business trip to CA a few weeks back, the Bride's upcoming opening and its attendant stresses, and the expansion of the house, and, well, Spring *really* snuck up on me this time.

I should really know what this flower is. I don't however.

So one day, after noticing that the tree all had leaves, that I was covered with black fly bites, and that for some reason it was 97 degrees in my office, I decided to stop and smell the flowers. The ones without bees in them anyway.

Bumbling

Ferns coming up by the cabin

The sledding hill. Sans snow.

I think most people consider this a weed and buy stuff to kill it. Our lawn is full of them. I just mow them along with the grass when they get too tall. A chemical solution seems excessive.

Cute rodent. Less cute when he lives in your attic.

Crab Apple blossoms.

The Bride ambles down our busy road. Sadly, the few drivers that do come blasting down it clearly should stay home and wait for DiRT to be released.

No clue what these are either.

The Really Old School. This is 'downtown' in my town. Seriously.

Not much else to say this post. 1 pic == 1k words and all.

Hope your spring is as nice as ours. Unless you live in the Southern hemisphere. Then you are SOL. And if you are in one of those places that has no seasons (San Francisco) then I pity you :-P

ptb