I Feel....

....a vacation day coming on tomorrow. The weather has been kind of crappy of late but I've been stuck at work anyways during the day so what does it matter really I guess. It looks like tomorrow is supposed to be really nice though so I've decided to take a vacation day to get in a long ride. Right now a long ride for me is 4 hours, anything more than that right now and I'd keel over, that's about my max at the moment. After my ride I'll be showering and changing quickly to go to lunch and drink some beer with my friend Jason, that should make for a nice afternoon to relax my body after the ride. Not the greatest recovery for a longer ride but beer has carbs in it so I'll be replenishing my glycogen stores, um, I think. Hopefully we have as good a time as our last endeavour to Ray & Dots and Bennos, this time we won't drink the new Schlitz though, that stuff is nasty. So, I'm looking forward to a good day, it's a good way to celebrate Halloween and close out October.
As far as weights and bike training go, I forgot I had to work late last night and even though I brought all my workout clothes I had to fore go my lifting and head home. I didn't want to be eating dinner at 7:30 so I decided to just lift tonight instead and then obviously I'll skip it tomorrow since I won't be at work to utilize the facilities. Monday it will be back to the normal lifting program, I hope. I rode the rollers last night as well, another 75 minutes, and I felt pretty good. I watched about 45 minutes of a lame movie, "Stuck", about someone being hit by a car and then left in the windshield for dead while I was riding but I had to turn it off because it sucked so bad, I wouldn't recommend renting it. Other than that, the weekend weather looks pretty good although Sunday could be iffy for a little rain so hopefully I'll get a lot more yard work done and the plan is to do about 3 hours each on Saturday and Sunday on the bike as well. DST ends on Sunday as well and I'm not looking forward to the extended darkness, I'm going to have to start tanning or something to get my fix of radiation. That's it for now, until next time.........

Sore Start

Well, yesterday was the first day of weight work for the off-season and I have to say I was pretty sore today. I guess underneath my fat I actually have abs because they hurt today, my legs were pretty sore as well but after getting the blood flowing on the trainer tonight they are doing much better. I'll be back to hitting the weights tomorrow, I'll do different muscle groups tomorrow, more upper body and core stuff, and then will go back to the lower body on Friday again. Tonight was just a short ride on the trainer, only 75 minutes but it was more than enough for me since the first few rides in the basement are always the hardest. Jeez I hate riding inside. Anyways, not much else to report, here are a few pics of my newly cleaned bike below. A clean bike is a happy bike.......

Yardwork, Yardwork, and More Yardwork

Yeah, that was the theme for the weekend. The forecast called for a chance of snow showers overnight and possibly today, but thankfully I haven't see anything resembling snow yet. When I saw the forecast on Friday I knew that it was time for me to get some remaining yard projects done before the weather really takes a turn for the worst, the high is only supposed to be 39 today for cryin' out loud. So I made my list and set about finishing as much as I could over the weekend. Saturday I didn't accomplish as much as I had hoped, I think a combination of the wind and the persistent clouds made it difficult to get motivated. I slept in a little bit and then did some things around the house and then took a nap, it's hard work doing nothing you know. After waking up I did some more cleaning around the house and then basically called it a day, my motivation was completely lacking so I said, "there's always tomorrow". I think the onset of SAD is to blame for my dismal attitude, that would be Seasonal Affective Disorder, I think I get that at the onset of the first cold days of the Fall, I have some ideas to combat though this year, hopefully they work. Anyways, Sunday was a new day and I was full of energy (probably from the 13 hours of sleep) and the sun was actually out although it was still windy and a little chilly. I think the sun provided the motivation I needed to get out and I took full advantage of it until it finally set just before 6:00. I cleared the lawn of all those stinking leaves, I really wish they would have all blown off the trees yesterday but I still have quite a few trees yet that have to get rid of them so there will be at least another week or two of raking. I also mowed my lawn again with the push mower, that always takes about two hours as my lawn is a decent size. After that I decided to work on splitting logs and after maybe an hour and 50 or so logs I decided that my arms and shoulders couldn't take it any more. Cyclists are built well in the lower body, our upper body isn't meant for all this manual labor and I'm feeling it today, my arms are hurtin'. After splitting the logs I stacked them all up in front of the house for easy access once we start using the fireplace, I used the wheelbarrow to move them so that really wasn't all that much work. Once the logs were stacked I decided to do some transplanting of my Iris bulbs to extend the flower bed on the side of my house. I think I hacked a few of the bulbs so hopefully they recover and come up in the Spring. A new, thin layer of top soil and compost was laid over all the Irises and they are now set for the winter. The next and last project of the day was to take some lawn edging that has been sitting in my garage for about two months and dig a little trench and put that around the shrubs and flowers surround my garage. An hour later I was all done with that and called it a day as it was time for some dinner. I had thought about riding the trainer but I was too sore for that so decided to do some yearly maintenance on the Cannondale. I replaced the brake and shifter cables, took off the bottle cages and cleaned up the 4 or 5 layers of Accelerade that had built up over the year, gave the bike a good washing and put on some new bar tape. I still need to replace the chain and clean the cassettes but I'll do that more towards the beginning of the new year as this chain still has a little bit of life yet, very little, but enough to get me to January. I will be doing maintenance on the Pinarello (my road bike with cross tires) this week as well as that will be my winter bike. I didn't use that much last year so that will just get some cable cleaning and lubing, a chain cleaning and a good washing. The Specialized will get worked on next week and that needs quite a few things done to get it back to riding shape, basically it was used this year as a parts bike for my Cannondale, so a few things need to be replaced with other spare parts that I have laying around. I'll also get the SS all lubed up next week and ready to ride as well as it will be taken out in the rain and snow and I'm sure that crap is coming soon. That's about it for now, the plan is to start weight work tonight and do that Monday, Wednesday, and Friday until about the end of March. I'll also be hitting the trainer on a regular basis now, basically I'll try to stick to a more concrete plan instead of just riding when I feel like it. It's time to get off my fat butt and get going again, I'm not looking to lose a ton of weight this off-season, but 198 lbs. won't cut it either. Well, that's it for now, until next time.........

Too Much Beer....

.....and not enough biking. That was the theme last night as we had a celebration at Chammps for work and pretty much my whole evening was spent consuming Guinness and pulled pork sandwiches, oh yeah, chicken wings too. It was a good evening spent with co-workers in a nice relaxed atmosphere, of course everyone is relaxed because they are consuming lots of booze right? Definitely. It was all free, all night, which a lot of people took advantage of to the fullest. Loaded up food plates and bottomless glasses were the norm as I looked around the restaurant. I enjoy people watching at these events because when you get co-workers out of their comfort zone in the cubicles or get to see what they actually wear when they don't have to wear the business outfit, it's pretty amusing. I was drinking soda the second half of the evening so when others were starting to slur their words I was getting sobered up, that was the best part of the evening. "I shink I'd haf tooooo mush to drink, but dish ish reallllly a goot time"....um yeah, that line made me laugh when it came out of the mouth of an inebriated co-worker. Anyways, good times all around. So having done that I obviously didn't bike last night which is fine as I'll make it up tonight and this weekend although not sure how much I'll ride outside as the forecast is not looking all that great. It might be time to get out the SS and the rain gear for some long rides this weekend. Let's just hope it doesn't snow.

Leinie's Fireside Nut Brown.....

....is a really good beer, although a bit tame it really does the trick as a seasonal beer. I picked up a 6 pack the other day and it was money well spent. I was looking for something a little different as I normally get a brand of Oktoberfest beer this time of year, normally Sprecher, and when I saw this I knew I had to give it a try. Here is the link to check out the description yourself but I'll pretty much post all the info from their site below. The beer, a Lager, is a version of an English-style nut brown with English two-row malts. Alcohol content is pretty low at 4.9% but that just means you get to drink a lot more of them before you have to cut yourself off. The color is amber (no, not brown) although it is on the darker side of Amber, and as soon as you start pouring the smells just start opening up from the beer and then as you reach the top you get a nice head that lasts just long enough to get in a good sip or two. The smell is overwhelmingly roasted malt and caramel/chocolate, and a bit of hazelnut. The taste, don't be surprised, hits with a nutty flavor first and then the caramel and chocolate come right behind, a very smooth and satisfying combination. This is an easy drinking beer, meaning for me it's easy to drink one right after another, it goes down sooooo smooth and the tastes linger in your mouth calling for more within minutes, make that seconds, of finishing the first glass. It's a beer that Leinies recommends serving chilled at 45 degrees but as a comfort beer that's too cold for me, especially if you do as intended and sit by a fire, you want to be warm right? I poured my first at 55 degrees in to a room temp glass and it was more satisfying than the second one that I poured at the cooler recommended temperature. The colder temperature takes something away from the beer in my opinion, I didn't get the robust flavor that I had in the first pour, it was too crisp for me to really take in the flavors. Go ahead and try out different temperatures for yourself, I'm going to go higher than what they recommend to satisfy my own tastes, see what works for yourself, it never hurts to experiment. All in all, this is a solid 3 mug beer that you will not be disappointed with, another score for Leinies.

Oh yeah, I rode on the trainer tonight as well, but that's boring stuff, nothing special, just 75 minutes to keep the legs moving.

Weekend Re-cap

My weekend was pretty uneventful, I guess now that it's turning colder and October is nearing it's end, it's time to finish up all that last minute yardwork before we start getting frost on a nightly basis and then of course that first snow shows up at some point in November. Basically all I did this weekend was yard work and got in a couple of rides, of which one was quite enjoyable and the other was a little bit of a bother. Saturday I started by doing some driveway work, basically patching, leveling, and sealing. Once it warmed up I headed out for a 3 hour ride by way of Waukesha to Big Bend and then back home. I felt great and could have done a lot more but really had to get my leaves picked up and the lawn mowed. So after riding for 3 hours I ate a little bit and went right to working on the lawn for 2 hours, I had a ton of leaves to pick up and underneath all those leaves my lawn needed mowing. I only got the front done in those two hours, normally that's all it takes me to do the whole lawn. After the lawn work was done in front I moved in to the house, ate some dinner and settled down on the couch for a movie. Basically an uneventful day as I mentioned; eat, work on driveway, bike, eat, work on lawn, eat, watch TV. Sunday I was woken up early in the morning by the howling winds and realized that the 3.5 to 4 hour ride I had planned was just not going to happen for me. I just didn't feel like fighting sustained 25mph winds for that long, especially since they were gusting up to 35mph. I got up, realized we had no food in the house since Sunday is grocery shopping day and asked my wife to go get me the Deluxe breakfast at McDonalds which she happily obliged. Yeah, it wasn't the healthiest breakfast but I had a long day of yard work and a ride in front of me so I needed something with substance that would sit in my gut for a while. After eating I headed out and worked on picking up the leaves in my backyard which wasn't quite as bad as the front because the trees in back hadn't shed much of their leaves yet. I picked up as much as I could and then mowed that with the push mower for another 2 hours worth of yard work just like Saturday. After I finished that I ate some lunch, only a can of soup, and then headed out for a shortened 2 hour ride, not what I had planned but at this point of the year what's another hour or two of endurance pace riding? It's not going to hurt to cut it short right now. Basically the ride was a nice quick jaunt of 25-27mph with the tailwind and then a leg busting 15mph heading back home against the headwind. I was glad to be done and was cursing the winds for ruining what could have otherwise been a really nice October day. I did see a lot of rec cyclists and joggers on my route, I think everyone sensed that the nice days are starting to wind down so they were getting out in spite of the wind. After my ride I did some grocery shopping with my wife, ate some dinner and then hit the couch again for some relaxation. All in all it was a decent weekend, no frills, but sometimes that's a good thing, I like keeping things even keel.
Well, my work schedule is calling for a 4:50a.m. wakeup so it's time to go to bed, my beer review will come tomorrow, and after what will be a long day of work I may have to refresh my memory with another bottle before I start typing. Until next time.........

Just a Precursor

Well, I had a lot going on this weekend and am finally sitting down at the computer but unfortunately it's to do some work I forgot to do today while I was so busy. So I have to get that done now before tomorrow morning. I'll do a weekend re-cap tomorrow sometime, but for now here is a picture from my ride today, lots of leaves in Whitnall Park, I had to ride down the middle of the road to stay out of the leaf piles. Also, I'll do a review tomorrow of Leinie's Winter Seasonal beer, the "Fireside Nut Brown" English style Lager.



Whitnall

It's That Time

Fall colors are in full bloom or close to it, the air is getting crisp and for some of you the weekend bike rides are getting shorter. So once it's time to cut back on the cycling or move the training indoors when the snow starts flying, what are you going to do? I'll tell you....you should go on a brew tour and spend some time sampling some fine beers right here in the area, and I'm talking good beer, not a Miller tour. I shouldn't be so down on Miller, I started my beer drinking lifestyle sucking the top of an MGD bottle until I discovered the wealth of microbrews and wonderful imports that were out there. I was young and naive, I thought MGD was the best there was, and I'm not going to knock it now because I'll still take an MGD if it's offered, but the occasion is rare. Anyways, here are two in the Milwaukee area that I highly recommend, Lakefront Brewery offers a great tour, and the tour is actually a learning experience for those wanting to know the process in detail. Along with the tour you get a glass and of course you get to sample their selection of beer. There is some humor in the tour as well and for those that have been on it, you'll know what I mean. If you want to know what I'm talking about, then go on the tour!

Sprecher Brewery is also a good tour, but the tour itself is very basic and offers more information on the history of Sprecher than it does the detailed process of making the beer. The best part of the Sprecher tour is sitting in the indoor beer garden afterwards to sample the beers and then you get to move on to the gift shop. The gift shop has all of their normal beer selection along with most of their seasonal beers. The best part of the gift shop and something that I recommend you do, is to purchase a bottle or six of their Premium Reserve beers. It's about $20 a bottle but well worth the price, especially for the Russian Imperial Stout and the Bourbon barrel aged Pipers Scotch Ale. One bottle of the Russian Imperial and you are set for the night, it's an amazing beer and one that I need to stock up on again sometime fairly soon.

If you are looking to take a drive out of the city, then there are plenty of other brewerys around the state, too many to list here but a couple are Tyranena, New Glarus, Great Dane, Leinenkugels, Angelic Brewing, and Capital. If you are looking to get some food and sit down to eat and enjoy a few beers, then I'd recommend Delafield Brewhaus, Water Street Brewery, Rock Bottom, and Milwaukee Ale House. Delafield Brewhaus has a great sausage platter that you could pair with at least 2 of their 4 standard beers on tap, either the Pewaukee Porter or the Delafield Amber. Normally they have 3 to 5 more beers on tap in addition to the standards but those change often and are not listed on their web site.

Today is my birthday and I'm hoping to make it down to Sprecher maybe this weekend to get a couple of bottles at least, I think it would be a good idea for you all to get down there as well, or any of the other brewerys. Support your local brewery, even if it's Miller.

These girls love their beer, so should you....(sorry Lis)

All-Rounder??? Uh, No.....

If you haven’t read my previous post then go ahead and read that first and come back to this post….go ahead, I’ll give you time……ready then? Well now you know what this post will be about then. Basically I’m trying to figure out how I want to approach racing next year, although my racing will be minimal I’m obviously not just going to train haphazardly and not prepare as I should. I look at the calendar of races for the WCA and I wonder to myself, is it really worth trying to become as lean as I can be for racing a calendar of events in Wisconsin? We have 2 road races of note with any climbing in them, Baraboo and Denzer, and Baraboo to me is really a power climbing race, Denzer is a little bit more than that. The Baraboo RR hills are steep, but c’mon they aren’t all that long, Denzer is really the only race where a “climber” would have an advantage in any race in Wisconsin. Holy Hill in Superweek, I don’t think so. A power rider and good sprinter can handle Baraboo and Holy Hill, soooo, I can’t really see where being 6’1” and 160-some pounds would help me in any Wisco races, I think it’s better to play to the strengths of racing here. In my opinion, that strength would be sprinting as we have so many criteriums, and looking back at the results from this past season it was a lot of the same people winning the races over and over. I checked back to 2007, then 2006, and yes, it was the same guys winning. Guys that were power riders and really good sprinters because those are the abilities that are needed to win races here where almost all of our races are flat. There are races with opportunities, Evergreen maybe, only because that course is kind of messed up in that it goes through a winding section that’s about as wide as a foot path, then down a curving hill, then up a hill, and repeat. The skinny section and the subsequent downhill create some places to get away and then maintain the gap on the hill. GDVC has some opportunities as well because of the crosswinds usually, Elm Grove because of it’s dangerous turn before the finish, but a lot of the other races I can think of usually come down to a sprint. The State RR is tough but usually it’s a decent size group going up that hill to the finish, the long hill is a tough one but it’s maybe a third of a mile if you count the part that levels off at the top before it starts to go downhill again. Don’t get me wrong, there are some tough races in Wisconsin, but they are usually won by the strong men and the sprinters. So, how does that affect me? Well, the last two years I was really striving to get down to 170 to 171, but was accepting a racing weight of about 174 because I just couldn’t get much lower. I really had to starve myself to get down to 174 and it was especially hard this year. I think I’ve decided this year to just shoot for what I need to do in different terms, and that is to lower my body fat % to as low as I can go while building muscle and power to enable me to be a better sprinter. I’ve done some calculations and my guess-timate is that I can be about 180lbs and my body fat will be low but I won’t be starving myself to get lean and I also won’t have to stop doing yard work because I’m afraid my arms will get too big. I have a big upper frame, my shoulders are pretty wide and it doesn’t take much for me to build up some good size lats, shoulders and biceps. I’m not going to worry about that this year, I’ll do what I can to lower my body fat as low as I can go without sacrificing power and then I’ll be happy with that even if I can’t go up the hill at Denzer. I’ve been a better sprinter than climber the last two years so it makes no sense to kill myself to be 170 when I should just play to my strengths, although my strengths right now aren’t all that strong so to speak. Either way, I’ll do a lot more sprint specific stuff this year, work a lot in the weight room and then hope that whatever hill work I do will keep me with the group over the little bumps that I do have to go up. Denzer is probably off my calendar but Baraboo is still a possibility. The State RR is up in the air right now, but I’m not counting that off my list yet either because of my lack of climbing ability, maybe just pure strength will keep me with the group there. Right now it’s all a little premature to say because who knows what will come up. Last year I had a big work project come up that completely derailed my training, the same thing could happen in 2009 and I could end up getting fat on the couch again. Right now though, I have a plan, we’ll just have to see how that works out. Until next time…..

Thank Goodness That's Over

I'm glad to be home, I was getting too fat out in Florida eating all that delicious food that my company so graciously paid for, although they don't know the tally yet for my over-the-top consumption of said food. A little bit of Bahama Breeze, Tilted Kilt, Moxies, Smokey Bones, and Green Iguana all contributed to a weight gain of about 3.5 to 4lbs., yeah, I ate THAT much. Soooo, it's back to the "good" nutritional program now that I'm home and I'll be sure to watch my calorie consumption until the next holiday where I'm sure I'll eat a little too much again, but nothing like the 5 day bender I go on when I'm in Florida. I'm feeling a little under the weather today from being in the germ capsule that some people call an "airplane" and also from going in and out of air conditioning for 5 days, one minute it was 70 degrees then it was 90 degrees. A few days of that and my throat was hurting and headaches were pretty constant. As I mentioned in my previous post, no biking was possible but I did get in two walks and did a little jogging during the walks as well. Those two walks probably prevented me from hitting 5+ lbs of weight gain, at least I kept it below that. Basically that was my trip to Florida in a nutshell; hot temps, lots of air conditioning, lots of food, and a little exercise. Now that I'm home it's back to biking and taste testing a few more beers. Sunset is making cycling difficult as it will be tough to get out when the sun is already gone by 6:15 now-a-days, but I will make the attempt to ride for an hour after work with the light system and then maybe 30-60 minutes inside after that. I'll be doing that for the next few weeks in addition to longer rides on the weekends as the weather permits, basically if it's not raining then I'm riding outside. I'll also start weight training in a couple of weeks after work and then head home for the trainer rides. I'll do all that fun stuff through the beginning of December and then I'll start to ramp up my program. What is my program this year? Well, I'm just going with how I feel at the time, it's going to be an ebb and flow kind of thing.....something difficult to maintain as the weather gets colder and my motivation wains during the dark, winter months and then an unfolding and fervent desire to get out and ride as the white shit starts to dissipate in the early months of '09. I always have a basic plan, which then becomes a detailed plan as I start to get a feel for my fitness, and then it becomes meticulous preparation on an OCD level as the races near. Right now I'm in the embryonic stage, a beginning if you will, just riding, getting that bottom layer of the pyramid built and that will entail some weight work as well, building up the muscles, ligaments, and tendons. Riding and lifting, basic but key to my offseason workouts and I'll be doing that for a while until I feel I'm ready for the next stage. I'll tell you about the next stage some other time.

As I think about what my offseason workouts will entail I'm stuck in a bit of a quandary as to which direction I want to go, sort of like those old Dungeons & Dragons books where you could pick your next move and then turn to page 47 and find out that you just locked yourself in a room with death wraiths. Um, yeah, I was one of them, a RPG geek, but that's where I'm at right now with how I want to approach my season. What page do I pick? Go left down the wooded path, or take a right onto the old stone bridge, either way the hero usually ended up fighting something. Maybe it was only 5 goblins with great success, or it was an untimely death with 100 ogres. The best part of those books was being able to go back, turn the page to the other choice, re-live the adventure. In cycling, depending upon the path I take, it will be harder to turn the page once I get going down my path. What is this big conundrum you ask, nothing so big really, but both paths require a lot of work and going back after picking a path will be difficult. So, the choice is, do I put my eggs in the sprinting basket or the climbing basket (you thought I was choosing between mountain biking and road biking didn't you, maybe not)? It might not seem like a big choice but one of those choices will take a lot of work on my part and the other not so much, but both will be quite detailed in their preparations once I do decide. How do I decide, what difference will it make to my training, why bother making a choice? Well, this post is long enough, check back tomorrow to find out the answers to those questions and I'll have some good explanations. A quick teaser is that we all aren't Lance or Alberto, we all aren't great at both and we all aren't going to be riding the TDF any time soon, so in the races that we do around here (WCA), it's important to make a choice. That's it for now, until next time.........

Florida

A trip to Florida means business and no pleasure, although I do get pleasure in eating lots of wonderful seafood. Being in Florida through Sunday also means no biking, but I will be doing some pushups and situps in the room and also doing some daily jogging as long as it's not raining. Temps in the upper 80s and 50-60% chance of rain most days, typical Florida weather. More info on the training program to come next week and I'm thinking I'll sample some local brews and post a review or two next week, maybe even while I'm still in Florida.

For Your Pleasure....

....a couple of links to peruse while you have some downtime. My friend (and co-worker) Dave belongs to the Washington County Bicycle Club, you can visit their sites below and on my sidebar, some pretty good forums, pics, and if you live in the area there is some ride information as well.

http://washingtoncountybc.ning.com/

http://www.westbendtrails.org/wcbchome.html

Also, here is a site for race pictures for the Wisconsin and Illinois races, enjoy, you may see yourself -

http://peloton-pix.com


No outside riding today because of the rain, and no inside riding on the trainer because of boredom, I'm not ready to ride inside yet. I did do some yard work before the rain and then watched the Brewers and Packers lose, bummer of a weekend for Wisconsin sports as the Badgers lost yesterday as well.
Let's see, what else, I'm making progress but unfortunately not a lot of progress on losing weight after my summer of shame (no riding, lots of eating). Today's weekly measurements didn't do a lot to make me feel better about the riding I did this week, but I guess progress will be slow. It took me 3 months to get this fat and out of shape, I've only been back to riding for about 4 weeks or so. The weight is down to 194.5 from a high of about 210 at the end of August. Trust me, it was all fat, so now it's going to take a while to get rid of it. My weight last Sunday was 195.5 so it's disappointing that I only lost a pound this week, and I didn't lose anything off my waist measurements. The worst part is that I'm heading to Florida and will be there most of this week and all weekend so it will be hard not to eat all that great seafood, I will do my best though and will try to walk or jog when I get the chance. I was going to post a beer review tonight but felt so bad about my non-existent weight loss that I decided not to drink beer. Well, that's it for now, time to get some sleep.

Sunny Days

....well, until tomorrow anyways when it's supposed to rain. Today was sunny though, and I got to enjoy it with a lot of yard work and a 3 and a half hour ride. I am really sore now though and ready for bed, my legs hurt, my back hurts, and my arms...well, they don't hurt I guess. My legs got a good work out today as I did some driveway sealing and then used the push mower for my 1/2 acre lawn, that's a lot of walking for me. After mowing the lawn I went out and did my bike ride, so basically my legs got about 5 hours of continuous exercise, not too shabby. The rest of the evening was spent laying on the couch watching some TV and keeping the legs up, they really needed some rest and now hopefully the weather will hold out tomorrow morning so I can get in another ride before the rain comes. There is a 60% chance of rain and it's supposed to start about 9:00ish, and before that the temps will only be about 41-43 degrees so it will be tough to get in a morning ride. If the forecast calls for rain all day then I may go in to work to use the workout facilities, but we'll see, I dislike being there on a work day, I certainly don't want to have to go there on a day off. I don't want to ride the trainer already this Fall but I may have to just to get the blood flowing through the legs after today's ride to help in recovery. It's all up in the air right now and I'll just decide in the morning I guess.

Other than that, I just saw on Velonews that Vinokourov wants to come back again and ride for Astana next year, I think that's would be complete bullshit if they let him ride again. I hope the UCI goes to the CAS and appeals his one year suspension and pushes for the longer term, I really don't want to see him come back next year, he deserves to sit out at least a couple of years and really serve his punishment. I'd have a hard time believing that the ASO would allow Astana to ride the Tour next year if Vino is riding for them, having said that, I can't imagine that Contador would stick around on that team, he'd be smart to leave. Levi should leave as well and get on a team that's guaranteed a spot, a safe team if you will, just so we can see if he can really beat Alberto, only because I think Alberto's comments about Levi at the Vuelta were a crock of crap.
Well, that's my rant for now, more to come tomorrow, including a couple links that you all need to check out every once in a while. PLUS, another beer review!