Fear and Loathing in Rhode Island

History - American

2010-07-01T00:36:00.002-04:00

The Tour de France summertime is near. It's a solidly familiar, unchanging time of the year for me and probably for you. I started watching the Tour de France on television in the early 1990s - the English-speaking coverage was of course much more abbreviated, and the race much more mysterious back then. My parents just flipped it on because they liked to see the scenery and reminisce about times that they had lived there in the 1980s (and my dad as a kid in the 1960s too). I remember Indurain as a deity, even when he was no more - even Lance wasn't so God-like, albeit invincible.

Anyway, Phil and Paul are always there for that month in the summer (a much awaited reprieve from Sporza, though with the cost of Saab commercials every ten minutes). And the greens and blues and the yellows. And the hooligans with campers. And now Bob Roll (and my obligatory mention that Stephen Roche should be teamed with Bob Roll to make a most entertaining sport announcing duo).

And of course the histories of these famous climbs and these famous riders in grainy footage, mainly of Bernard Hinault growling and LeMond smiling and Merckx's butt. They're all interesting, but I've heard them all already. And read them all already. Tom Simpson died on the thirteenth stage on the thirteenth of July. Etc.

**********************************************************************************

Of course I'm a geek for sport history. I know more than most should about 1880s baseball and Roger Bannister's daily routines.

The explosion of competitive cycling in the US and most all of the English-speaking world during my lifetime demands, at least in my opinion, that greater attention be placed on this sport's history here.

The ECCC, and the New England cycling scene overall, had and have a rich awareness and respect for this sport's history here. It is too exhausting to give all of the examples.

A sport team, and a sport league, is about competition, about an enjoyable lifestyle, about personal development, and about being a part of a (hopefully) meaningful social network. Actually, I think that's what being a part of a college or university is largely about. But it's also about being a part of a tradition, a part of a history, and being a link in a certain continuous strain of time.

What I know is: Brown's cycling club was first officially organized in 1896, probably upon Columbia's founding of a collegiate competitive cycling league to organize existing teams (mainly in the NYC/NJ area) and potential ones. I have a picture of the Brown cycling club from about 1905 - posing with their singlespeeds, working-class/laborer's clothes (presumably the exercise attire of their time), and large mustaches, they basically look like the Brown fixie hipsters of today. Providence once had a stadium-sized velodrome - the mysterious Providence Cyclodrome - which is now a Whole Foods, a bank, a Boston Market, and a parking lot.

Oh - the Madison track events are named after Madison Square Gardens. It comes back to NYC always, no?

Back to Brown: I've met or corresponded with former Brown cycling racers who date back to the 1960s - gaps in between some years, unfortunately. It was a sparse affair, usually involving nerdy counterculturists and Volkswagen vans - the same narrative Princeton, Dartmouth, etc give, except that their programs were not as sparce as poor Brown's (we've never won the Ivy League in cycling, ever - and in a rare bitter explosion of a past 2007 grievance with a small few who probably aren't reading this anyway, and who I truly don't wish ill-will between us all: this fact IS F*%$ing RELEVANT!).

I'm looping my thoughts now. My ultimate point is probably:

Let's dig deeper, before the '70s or the '60s or the '50s, while of course giving those more recent 'nascent' eras the greater attention that they deserve of our appreciation, outreach, and historical appreciation. We're doing ourselves a disfavor, often counterproductive, with everyone young and old today in our sport thinking that we're the pioneers. A Holiday Inn is much more pleasant than a Conestoga wagon

***********************************************************************************

This is the cool part: facts that will make you smile.

These come from Greg LeMond's Complete Book of Bicycling 2nd ed. (Lemond and Kent Gordis; New York: Perigree Books, 1990). I think it's out of print, but can be picked up online used for a dollar or so anymore, as I did when I first bought it right at the moment I said "I want to race bikes." Seriously, it's a good read and a good buy - I lend it out like crazy. The equipment sections are mostly antiquated, and the nutrition section to a much smaller extent as well, but the info on tactics is textbook-perfect and very clear, and the training info is shockingly just like the Friel/Carmichael/etc conglomerate - except without powertaps and other expensive (and redundant) quantification devices, and the bullshit sugarcoating to attract those many who'll spend $40,000 on crap to do two (...you complete the sentence). The last chapter is on the sport's history - it's not sourced/footnoted, but anyway:

-The first known bicycle race, in Paris in 1868 of 1200 meters, was won by an Englishman: James Moore. He perhaps employed drafting, and was the first ever sprinter, as he followed the French favorites to lead until he passed the leader just meters from the line (319).
-The first known bicycle 'road-race', in 1868 from Paris to Rouen over about 83 miles, was won by an Englishman: the same James Moore. He was amongst the racers required to wait at the start 30 minutes after the rest of the field started - presumably as a sort of 'handicapping' (320).
-The first "recognized" road-race in Italy, in 1870 from Florence to Pistoia, was won by an American: Rynner van Neste (320).
-The British dominance, and subsequent popular boom, of competitive cycling in GB from the very start, probably led to the comprehensive outlawing of bicycle racing there in the late-Victorian orderly histeria of the 1890s - the bans which continued very far into the 20th century (321). As is well-known, both legal and strict-'informal' bans of bicycle riding of any sort, anywhere, by anyone in many British counties persisted into the 1950s.

I'll let that all settle-in. Oh, and, go Wiggo!

Fear and Loathing in Anywhere but Rhode Island

2010-02-03T18:42:00.003-05:00

I think it's time to turn my life and my world totally upside down. Hell, why not?

I began thinking, just preliminarily, recently about leaving this continent for a few years to do like Masters study (aka 5th-6th year) in a new environment, a new world, a new society - fields of historical study that gain no glancing notice in the United States. Since I've only sparingly mentioned any of these thoughts in person to people I know, since these thoughts are only sparingly making some sense in my mind, let's just say that they're in non-northern-hemisphere British Dominion nations (all of which, at times, I have been wrongly accused of hailing from).

But, wow, figuring all of this out is a complicated maze of non-American-English-logic. Of course I would like cycling and cycle racing to continue to play a role in any potential adventures of this sort. On this vein:

Man, the whole membership and licensing structure of USA Cycling, at least for amateurs with enough experience and ability to at least nominally compete in 'elite' amateur races, is so different than many other countries. I'm only beginning to get my head around the idea of only being granted some sort of 'elite' amateur racing license by membership on an official club. I guess, really, it's kind of like the continental European way of doing racing. And then there are the differences between 'elite' licenses and 'cyclosport' licenses for racing, and then the 'recreational' license. And licenses encompassing most or all disciplines at the same time. Perhaps beer drinking and brawling is a distinct discipline of Australian collegiate cycling. It is difficult to tell if South Africa has collegiate cycling competition.

They say that the United States is a society of merit. I guess the USA Cycling license structure certainly mirrors that claim. But it also embodies such intricate hierarchy. I know British Cycling's racing license system is much like USA Cycling's. It is reminiscent of old-school UK hierarchy. In such a latent, superficial way, such similarities touch my intellectual chuckle bone.

Massachusetts Citizens...

2010-01-19T05:07:00.002-05:00

Vote for Coakley. Do it today, do it now. Drive there, ride there, take the train there if you're a citizen of Massachusetts but out-of-state at university right now. Bring friends. Pack the cars, swarm the trains, form the pacelines. Vote for Coakley.

The blood will be on your hands if you do not. The stakes here are real. People will go homeless if you do not - including many thousands of citizens of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Your cities will continue to dive further into poverty, crime, and flames if you do not. Thousands, hundreds of thousands, and then millions of people will die if you do not. I will not respect faceless executioners.

I am completely powerless to act, aside from publishing such words. This is my last statement on the subject.

Hey, Massachusetts - What Are You Thinking?!?

2010-01-18T05:22:00.002-05:00

(This is merely a short statement of my personal views. This isn't campaigning or proselytizing. I have no intention for this dusty corner of cyberspace to fill with the political rhetoric of anybody but my own.)

Massachusetts, you're scaring the hell out of us right now. You're one of my favorite states. You've been like a neighbor to me. At times the relationship has been love-hate, but we have to admit it's usually just love. We've spent countless hours together, and it's almost always been very pleasant.

But still - what the hell? Seriously. You're really freaking everybody out with this Senate special election. Yes, this Scott Brown guy looks like the Romney of old on paper (the physical semblance is there, too). Yes, you all are pissed off because the world sucks, but it isn't like everyone else doesn't have it tough these days too (have you even seen Rhode Island recently?!?) and it's pretty darn immature to be throwing such a prima donna childish fit. You're old enough to know better, Massachusetts.

Grow up. If you really don't want the Kennedy Senate seat anymore, don't throw it away. At least give it to somebody more responsible, like Vermont (I was about to say New Hampshire, but, ya, that's probably not actually a good idea). Heck, even Rhode Island will take it if you're not responsible enough to handle it anymore - but we will corrupt it a bit before giving it back to you. Rhode Island may poop where it eats quite a lot, but we keep it inside our borders and do our duty by sending the right people to Washington D.C. Every ballot I've ever casted in my life has included a vote for a Kennedy.

I can't vote in your little special election, but this is fair warning: don't screw it up, Massachusetts. Rhode Island has already been talking with New Hampshire, and we're totally prepared to kick your ass. I think Connecticut would be in on that ass-kicking, too, and they have a lot of people.

*********************************************************************************

This blog has been silent recently. I essentially quit the Brown cycling team in late November. On one hand it's been good. I was still the head honcho president guy, and it had been painfully obvious to everyone that I shouldn't have been since I could barely scrape through normal everyday academic life with enough energy to be slightly more alive than a vegetable. I wish it had been so obvious to me sooner, but they've got the right leaders and organization now and my observation from afar has been that they're doing a very fine job. I haven't had much of any desire at all since then to be involved in the sport. I've been on the bike a bit recently, and doing some actual serious things in the past few weeks. I think I've turned a corner now. The pain and fatigue is physical, but I'm increasingly discovering that it's been just as mental as well. A lot of positive things seem to be brewing in the ECCC recently, and I'll try to add my little voice here about some of the things in the near future. A week or two of somewhat 'real' training will show if it demolishes or strengthens me, hopefully the latter, and if so I sincerely hope that the Brown team will let me rejoin its ranks so I can tailgun the A field for yet another time.

Experiment: Becoming a Morning Person

2009-11-08T18:26:00.002-05:00

I have never been a morning person. I hate the morning. I like going to bed at 3 or 4am. I like waking up in the afternoon. Now that the clocks have changed, it is only a matter of a few weeks when darkness envelops Providence at 4pm.

Early risers somehow inexplicably are more productive, happier people on the whole. Furthermore, it goes without saying that a successful collegiate bike racer in the northeast essentially MUST be an early riser.

Shocking admission that should only add to the verity of my self-appointed title as the worst bike-handler in the ECCC A category:
Over a third of all races that I've done in my life have been on absolutely no sleep the previous night.
That should scare you.

I see three major obstacles in the pursuit of being an early riser:
-Insomnia. I am naturally quite the insomniac, compounded with great difficulty waking up (at any time of the day) once I do get to sleep.
-Procrastination. Though a skillful procrastinator, I am nonetheless a chronic procrastinator. I also do schoolwork in extreme binges, usually in blocks of about 20 to 30 hours straight. It's very unhealthy, but that's been my style for the past three years.
-Rebelliousness. I just tend to rebel against anything 'imposed' on me - even if I impose it on myself. More particularly, I rebel against any schedules that I impose on myself. Stupid.

I also have some strengths to build on:
-I really love the breakfasts in the dining halls at Brown. It's hard to screw up breakfast foods - what I really like is the variety...it's like having an IHOP or Waffle House every morning.
-I have basically outgrown the so-called partying nightlife stage of life. It doesn't appeal to me anymore.
-I want to be a fast racer in the spring. I need to train to do that.

So, I'm going to try being an early riser for an entire week. This means being out of bed between 6 and 7am. I guess that also means going to bed in the pm rather than the am hours. I read that if I can strictly adhere to this schedule for a week, then I will be very much capable of keeping it going beyond. And I pity those who may encounter my morning-mood during the first few days.

Would you please stay in the little ring?

2009-10-22T14:48:00.004-04:00

"I would prefer not to."

Entropy:
psychodynamic psychotherapy
bartleby.
Wall Street ghosts.

New Poll: How Will my Power Test Turn Out?

2009-09-19T18:21:00.002-04:00

I've never used a powertap before. I have no idea how I stack up in the world of power (aside from knowing that, as ex-President of Brown Cycling, I'm entitled to Secret Service protection and a pension for a lifetime). I never train with power or a heartrate monitor.

My roommate Joey has a powertap wheel, and I think in about a week I'm going to do a baseline 20min power test on the trainer with it. I think it'd be cool to periodically test my fitness throughout the fall and winter.

Useful facts (I guess):
weight - between 145 and 150lbs
height - 6ft 0in
fitness - none/next to none

Howdy... Been a While

2009-09-18T19:57:00.002-04:00

It has been a while, but I have not forgotten about the internet and such. I figured I would give a quick update, and then offer an illustrated elaboration on wonderful things later.

Without elaborating too much and bringing people down, I had a flat out crappy summer - everything from illness to even getting hit by a car training (jeez) - but I am back at Brown (yay!) and getting into the swing of things. My stupid finger healed up fine, I sporadically tried four races this summer, but was never able to be even competitive enough to stick with the peloton much.

I did have the opportunity to see Nick Frey get fourth in a 100+ field at the Longmont Criterium, where the whole Garmin U23 team, Trek-Livestrong team, Waste Management team, even some Bissel riders and a Rabobank rider showed up to turn an otherwise routine local crit into an extraordinary spectacle. That has to have been one of the most fun races to watch I have ever experienced, and also served to remind me that as much as us racers can and often do complain about criterium racing, criteriums are a lot of fun for spectators (and bike racing, particularly in the United States, needs to be more than just for the racers, but also for the fans and spectators). Furthermore, it is wonderful to see so many of last season's ECCCers making a splash in the world of professional-level racing. That certainly must be seen as a testament to just how strong the ECCC is, and that collegiate cycling is continuing to play a larger role in preparation and development of athletes for the highest levels of our sport.

Anyway, digressions. I live with two other Brown Cycling teammates (Josh Parker and Joey Glaser-Reich) in what's a pretty good suite. I get the big room. Josh and I nearly beat each other to death while metal pipes when we built a bike rack for the floor. I already trashed the place, but I guess having five bikes and our accumulated years of bike junk all floating around isn't exactly conducive to having a warm and inviting place. I'm still already entertained at the places where tubes randomly appear (I wouldn't indeed be surprised to find one in the refrigerator sometime). The number of vulgar jokes has been surprisingly low. Josh already deemed my room a biohazard. It is.

When I walk out of my room groggy and having to pee first thing in the morning (or afternoon as sometimes it may be), Joey knows to give me space. I despise the morning as it is. Josh, though, always starts out with: 'two things, Graham', or'three things', etc. I swear he's awake and fired up at least an hour before his alarm goes off in the morning. He only gets vulgar remarks in turn. He's intense, but I guess that drives him a lot and he's been training like a monster and will only keep getting better.

I started my own training this week. Since Jamestown no longer has a P/1/2/3 race anymore (seriously, wtf?), I'm calling this week 1 of my training for the spring. I am so out of shape right now it's frustrating a bit. Training shouldn't have to hurt, but well, whatever. New England fall is the best time of the year for riding, in my opinion. I'm enjoying meeting so many newcomers to our team, and their enthusiasm keeps me going as well.

Brown Cycling's Coach has Passed Away

2009-06-14T03:23:00.004-04:00

Mark Louis Francis Nicholson

I know that this is partially a personal blog and a sort of announcement to the ECCC and beyond. With that in mind, the title says it all.

Coach Mark L.F. Nicholson died a few days ago from brain cancer. This was Coach Nicholson's second bout with the disease since his undergrad years (yes, he was an ECCC alum from UNH!) in the late '90s, and one that none of his friends or teammates knew was so deadly.

Mark came to Providence about 3 years ago to study at RISD's grad school. Upon his graduation, Coach N set up his business City of Industry and worked as Brown Cycling's fully-volunteer head coach.

Coach N had some invaluable points, both explicit and implicit:
-Smarts are more valuable than fitness - always!
-Don't adjust your seat ten minutes before a race (direct advice to me)
-All experienced team-members must give fruitful and friendly support to newer teammates
-Never, ever, ever, ever get dehydrated
-Finally...always, ALWAYS, have AT LEAST TWO teammates in any breakaway with you!!! :)

It hasn't fully hit me yet that Mark has passed away. He was a friend, a teammate, and a coach to me. This came as an extraordinary surprise, though. The last time I saw him, he was on his bike riding through the East Side from a group paceline. The last time he rode, Mark freaking smashed everyone into irrecoverable oxygen debt on his own smack down ride, just days before his death. It's so weird to believe that somebody I rode with so many times in previous months, and who taught me so much via kicking my butt in that time, isn't here anymore.

To read Mark's obituaries, they are here, here, and perhaps the best obituary from Brent.

Coach Nicholson's first win in cyclocross.

This upcoming year, the saying on the rear panel on the Brown Cycling shorts (which we consider special, ie What Cheer? and Hope!), will read Mark L.F. Nicholson.

Colorado Springs: The Good...

2009-05-21T00:21:00.010-04:00

I of course intend to follow this up at some point with the Bad and the Ugly. All exist. This is Fear and Loathing in Rhode Island, on over-clicheed homage to Hunter S. Thompson whom I adore and a series of essays that several friends made me promise to write (Fear and Loathing in Machado House; Fear and Loathing in New Jersey) but never did.

Riding on the road at home - that says it all.

These were the most stressful past two weeks of my life, though where I did essentially nothing.

The good:
3 miles from the house
It's a nice place to train, especially if you like climbing - the terrain, the altitude, and the weather (especially mild winters, with a New England bias) make the place great. NO POTHOLES - OMG, I CAN NOT REPEAT THIS ENOUGH - NO POTHOLES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Anywhere!!!!!!! Suck on that, New England (I laugh when my grandmother complains about the potholes in Colorado Springs - there isn't seriously a single goddamn one anywhere in town). Of course my definition of pothole is shaped not only by Massachusetts, but by the city of Providence - but nonetheless I am not exaggerating.

Anyway, a few more soothing pictures of a nice day on roads that I frequent quite often.

Cascade Ave., two blocks from the house, part of my usual flat interval loop (since it's hard to find an extended flat section of road with no stops).
Mesa Rd., with usual afternoon summer weather pattern (ie. buildup of evening thunderstorm), and an unusually snowy Pikes Peak for this time of year.

Further up on Mesa Rd., with the Garden of the Gods in the far background.

El Paso Blvd. in Manitou Springs - one of my favorite roads ever (especially if I follow it up to Ruxton Ave., and thus to the base of Pikes Peak).
Finally, the pedestrian bridge where in high school on the XC team we would spend a minute to hock loogies onto cars on I-25 during one of the best runs ever - the one where we had to sprint through somebody's entire goddamn yard, jumping two fences, and they owned dogs that would chase us down. Someday, I'll spit the same loogies and run the same run. In the meantime, I just ride and smile.I think I'm going to skip on the Louisville Crit. and the Boulder Koppenberg this weekend since I'm still a bit skittish with my confidence in the corners, and my ability to grip the drops. Maybe I'll do the Koppenberg. If nothing else, Hugo Road Race and Scott Kornfield Classic next weekend!

The Rules Police

2009-05-14T23:50:00.006-04:00

Races in Colorado are run under the American Cycling Association (ACA), and not USA Cycling. I have my opinions about this, as does most everybody, so I won't elaborate as to why this is stupid and inconvenient.

Aside from being stupid and inconvenient, sometimes the ACA resembles a flying three ring circus. NEBRA and ECCC have me spoiled. In any case, I find it humorous that the ACA posts its race communiques on the frontpage of its website, highlighting the penalties for assorted stupid behavior (the best was when an entire field sprint got relegated because they all ignored the yellow line).

I have been exceptionally amused by the weekly time-trial series at Cherry Creek, reading its communiques like I read the Sunday New York Times, as it has been a hotbed of rules violations, apparently - seriously, read them:

KHMTT #2 Results Communique
04/16/09
Communique: The following riders were penalized 30 seconds each for still having folded, cut, or otherwise badly placed numbers after last week's warning: 253 308 267 315 302 127 307 136 The following riders are warned about folded, cut, or otherwise badly placed numbers (1st offense): 108 133 513 523 Warning for wearing headphones during the race: 38 Tim Madden Chief Referee

Okay, fair enough, I don't get the riding with headphones during a TT, but that's cool, it's just a warning. And don't mess with the numbers, as we all know.

KHMTT #3 Results Communique
04/23/09
Communique Warning for improper number placement: 26, 436 Warning for hair over number: 34, 184 Riding with broken helmet: 369. Rider must repair or replace helmet before next race. IMPORTANT: Riders are not permitted to make U-Turns in the staging and start area. Riders are not permitted to warm up on the course after 4:30 p.m. The following riders are specifically warned for U-Turns in the staging area: 332, 339, 357. Dean Crandall Chief Referee

Damn hippies need to cut their hair. Rider #369 shouldn't be doing the 69 in his time trial helmet before the race, either (I find myself to be funny).

KHMTT #4 Results Communique
04/30/09
Communique: Rider #67 penalized 10 seconds for starting early, and an additional 30 seconds for a flying start. The following riders are warned for numbers which were upside down, folded, or on the wrong side: #259, #322, #324, #429, #498 Rider #208 is warned for u-turn in the start area. Rider #519 is warned for unsportsmanlike behavior and poor word choice. Tim Madden Chief Referee

This is where things start getting good, "poor word choice." Like "cock." Or "dickwad in a sandwich." "Cock, dickwad in a sandwich, screw you officials I'm going to start early AND take a flying start!"

KHMTT #5 Results Communique
05/07/09
Communique: Rider #104 – 15 second penalty - repeated centerline violation Rider #144 – 30 second penalty - Hand written number Rider #159 – 15 second penalty - making a u-turn in the staging area Rider #174 – 60 second penalty - No number Rider #251 – 30 second penalty - Hand written number Rider #299 – DQ’d (not Dairy Queened) - unsportsmanlike, foul language, abusive behavior towards a park ranger Rider #324 – 30 second penalty - upside down number Rider #350 – 15 second penalty - making a u-turn in the staging area Rider #429 – 15 second penalty - making a u-turn in the staging area Dean Crandall - Chief Referee

I think the referee finally found the humor in the situation by writing "Dairy Queened."

And thus I was disappointed by today's Results Communique:

KHMTT #6 Communique
05/14/09
Communique #510, .05 seconds for an early start Warning to #’s 340, 360, 432, 479, improper number placement #164warning for abusive language to a volunteer Dean Crandall, Chief Referee

"DAMN YOU, VOLUNTEER!" And .05 seconds for an early start?!?

Looking back, I'm not sure why improper number placement/handwritten numbers is a problem, as apparently they still know the number of the rider despite their behavior. Whatever.

I hope, for 2009-2010, the ECCC institutes a similar policy of public humiliation, via the Internet, for rules violators. Alan Atwood totally gets to write up the communiques, too.

**********************************************************************************

I am so fat right now it's not even funny. The thing is that I never gain weight anywhere except right on my stomach. Horrible.

Awesome Dad Quote on the Phone

2009-05-06T23:02:00.003-04:00

So today was my dad's birthday - I won't say how old, but he's still young and badass, as will always be the case (though probably the latter will continue to increase in size at a higher rate than the former).

Anyway, calling him to wish him a good birthday, mid-conversation was one of the best things ever:

-Dad: "Hey, I have something IMPORTANT to tell you...just a second, let me ask your mother something...HEY ARE, one second, ...[undecipherable]"
-Me: "What?" (internal voice: 'OH SHIT!!!')
-Dad: "Hey, sorry. Ya, we're buying you another trainer, so don't bother shipping the one you got there home."
-Me: "Um, thanks. Seriously, thanks! Wow." (internal voice: either this is a ploy to get me to cut down on my drinking, or a tangible expression of absolute parental badassedness.)

Certainly the latter.

They get the picture now: I love bike-racing.

************************************************************************************

It's not an easy thing to get parents to love. Even ones who used to live and France, can recount stories of cheering for LeMond, and used to set me up in front of the TV for the pre-Indurain TDF years' broadcasts.

I know at first they didn't think I was serious, nor did they think it was a good idea, nor did they really support the endeavor much. The turning point was, last year, when they happened to see me in an ECCC race. It was the Pitt crit, a solid 20 degrees, they thought it was crazy, and I finished the B race, they were like "Wow, hmmm, that hurt," and then I stood around to watch the Men's A, and then they were like, "Wow." I pointed out Ben Showman, and said, "I want to be like him someday." Obviously I probably won't ever be quite like him, but that's not the point. I'm not exactly sure how to best articulate the effect of the situation, though I'm sure that many of you can understand how this would have had such an effect.

I know many college bike racers struggle getting the support of their parents. My advice: Get good grades, Bring them to races, Teach them about the sport, Be committed.

Cheesy, but true.

***********************************************************************************
Good luck Nationals racers. I'd give you my two-cents on racing at altitude, but Priscilla preempted this and got my classic spiel on the situation - so now everyone must remain left out of the loop so as not to help the competition. Just watch out for the oxygen-dept monster!

Good luck Priscilla!

Team Pictures

2009-05-05T20:04:00.014-04:00

Brown University Cycling Team 2009

May is a helluva mover in terms of the months that cause emotions, apparently. The correlation between crabapple-tree blooms and spring emotions is what I talk chiefly about: growing up, I'm actually quite sure it happened in April, but apparently in the U.S. northeast it takes until May.

(haha, fools, talking about emotions, I ride my bike on the road one week from now...the second I step foot - I suppose with my bike - on pavement at my home in Colorado, next Monday - ya, I screwed up my flights, so I miss spectating at Nationals - whatever)

TEAM PICTURES!!!!! WITH COMMENTARY!!! :)
Haven't slept since Sunday, though produced already one grad-level final research paper, in 30hrs, gone to the doctor, 7am PT, shaved the legs once again, half a Red-Bull and two vodka shots every two hours, job gets done, thought about thoughtless revenge on Black Moshannon, historical miles spent pairing with Aaron Meyers last time around, self-destruction. I deserve a flower. LOOK AT MY LEFT HAND (free)!!!!!!!!!

What the hell am I supposed to say about this one? IVY LEAGUE LATE-NIGHT BEER SHENANIGANS CLUB - PROVIDENCE CHAPTER! (a small class this year)COLD? Glaser-Reich needs his blanket.

Line Up! It's kind of like being in a paceline, except without doing anything. Follow Bladi.Brown Weiner-Fest, 2009. Attractive.

Hot. 1.0

Hot. 2.0. Always better with flowers. (not available, unfortunately)

We're A Racers NOW! (you too, Priscilla)

Brown A-Rider Love. Forever.

Seniors. Happy. Not to Leave. Just Happy.

Facebook Dopers

2009-05-01T22:33:00.004-04:00

I'm pretty freaked out about the facebook advertising feed:
Close-up:
Now, of course, I get it...EPO's some chemical the kidneys produce naturally, and they produce more EPO at higher altitudes which is one reason why altitude training works, etc. Boost that shit. Actually, I don't get it.

And that's kind of creepy.

If this is what's popping up on my profile, imagine what Tyler Hamilton's seeing.

ECCC Season: Done

2009-04-24T00:39:00.004-04:00

I have decided to end my tangible involvement with the ECCC for the remainder of the season.

I should watch the Beanpot 2.0 weekend, but I won't. When my facebook profile says my interests are "Massachusetts in the morning and cobblestones," I mean it literally. I have to feel it, not watch it. It's been fun spectating, but this would be too hard to watch but not compete. I get the pins out of my hand tomorrow, but I still won't be able to move a good part of my hand for at least a few more weeks (if the hope of recovering full movement is achieved), and that's damn sketchy racing with 1.5 hands. And Penn State is a real long drive away.

Nationals: If SHopengarten believes that he is in the running for Nationals, then if I was motivated and reckless I would come out the next two weekends and try to blast for D.2 points as well (after all I think 2 years ago one of the Brown A's qualified for D.2 Nationals with only 2 ECCC points). I do live in Colorado, would love to race in front of family and many friends there on courses that I know, but the risk is not worth it. I have nothing at stake. What: risk the progress my hand made in the past month all to get dropped on a few semi-high-altitude climbs? The doctor says to stay off the road for at least another week, and away from racing for two more weeks. I trust an M.D. - at least this time. A whole summer of Colorado-based racing looms so beautifully.

If anybody needs moral/logistical/physical support at Nationals, I'd be willing and happy to come down to help within my means. I do live about 200 miles away from the course, but if Priscilla qualifies for Nationals I do plan on going down to the RR and crit anyway to help her out. Just let me know a good while ahead of time, and I'll see what I can do to help, my pleasure.

In the meantime, good-bye to the ECCC for the 2009 Road Season. It has been fun, strange, weird, and frustrating - familiar and perfect. I'm going to take a break from writing here until I'm back on the road riding/racing, which will either be during my last days in Providence this semester or in the high-altitudes of Colorado pavement.

Good luck. Good-bye.
Don't stick your hand in your wheel. Ever.

My Sister / Shameless Promotion

2009-04-22T01:35:00.003-04:00

First off, if you have at least 2 minutes of free time, anytime, you need to read this article about my sister, and then feel inspired. READ IT!!!!!!!!!!

And then when you have read that, and only once you have read that, you can read my interview with TrainingPeaks which unfortunately was published the same day (but does give a good shout out to the ECCC, rightly so).

For the record, she's about 3 or 4 times as talented as me in running or cycling. I kid you not - I worked the stopwatch seeing her on the track back when she was in 8th grade, and it was nothing short of impressive. I've seen her on a bike, too. Luckily, she has additional talents that I don't have - like for piano (jeez, like hell, since when do elementary school students whip off Debussy and explain its imagery in the process?) and the visual arts. Good thing. Luckily I can read books and write stuff at 3am without consequence. That's about it.

In any case, I again feel lucky that I can race bikes (and at that, still run, albeit without my past style). My injuries are nothing but temporary and false obstacles. Such sports are not a right but rather a wonderful privilege, at least as I now view it.

Skylar sure as hell doesn't view it as a privilege. Rightly so.

Spring Weekend Special (incompleteness)

2009-04-20T00:07:00.006-04:00

Criterium intensity thoughts in hindsight:

Priscilla is a badass. Priscilla never trains because of her thesis and classes but still kills it to get A points and go to Nationals. I love Priscilla. I love mountains. New Hampshire mountains are not mountains. Vermont mountains are hills. My parents' Colorado mansion is golden and open and embarrassing. Homegrown. Rhode Island potholes. Route 128. Cars. New Hampshire liquor laws. Who was Robert Frost? Is Thoreau dead? Trainer, huge finger. My sister will not attend Brown but rather Puget Sound. Concert pianists like her must not touch bikes. She's a much more talented cyclist (like runner) than me. Sacrifices. Broken fingers. Me. Barely her. Lowell, Massachusetts. Sunrise over pine trees. Trainer. Shaved skin. Mountain blood. Impossible desire. Beautiful legs. Sleek. Modern. WOW! Young lady checks me out many laps during her race. Safety compromised. Intensely charmed. You need to slow down to a non-velocity-induced pace in order to hear the nervous, time-delayed voice in the back of my throat ask you to stop. Come here. Feed zone. Safety compromised. City boy country man. Josh Parker is of my bike. Throw a bottle at my head. Shivering alone in a car. In control of a tree and another tree. Where the hell am I supposed to go in order to appease all parties and avoid prosecution as the rebellious leader of the first incomprehensible stages of the French Revolution? The art lies in Brooklyn. Come here. I'm here, but you're not there... so be here. There is not here. Time transcends now, and now transcends traditions. Scottish/Welsh accental undertones? Beer. Life and death of the Ivy League. Massachusetts time warp. Bay State foolishness. Roger Williams. Baptist rebellion. Route 128 unfettered. Sadness increasing upon direction. Please hear this unnatural non-poetry.

Please read here in a few days the successes of my sister, as they are many - and against the same heriditary odds that I never had to fight anywhere nearly to the extent (as in the auto-immune issues that have hurt her easily 10-million times as much as they've hurt me...though I'm not sure who's the winner here) - her newspaper article should be imminent.

Peace, God bless! For serious!

Dartmouth Weekend was awesome!

Trash-Talking My Victims

2009-04-15T14:07:00.013-04:00

First off, I've been slacking and haven't posted creepy, dimly lit pictures of myself in a while, so here's one:Creepy

***********************************************************************************

Professor Tim Harris is always chock-full of quotable statements that he'd probably be a tad unhappy about being published on the internet. This one today was worth repeating. Upon a student proposing that we should move class to a bar on Thayer Street so we could passively watch a soccer match during class, in an untainted English accent he booms so adamently:

"We can't go there, I'm suing the owner of the bar."

And he's serious. Tim Harris: historian, South Londoner, Cambridge graduate, and legal vigilante.
(I sort of have the right to do this, since he has tortured me the past two years with absolutely ungodly amounts of reading and unreasonably extraordinary expectations in terms of my research and writing. Nonetheless, he does give me food - good food, quite often, in large amounts - and plays Ricky Gervais in his living room for students on Wednesday nights...so I still feel a tad ashamed. Not really...)

Haha, one more quotable quote he's said nearly 8 thousand times:

Oh, see, now I'm engaging in stereotyping again
(...30 seconds after making a hugely offensive remark)

***********************************************************************************

I spent an hour during Professor Harris' class today internet-stalking Lindsey Bishop's blog. Haha, ECCC Blogosphere, you suck at promoting academic endeavors. Now, if I'm not mistaken, I can put a name to the face of that one other rider I saw essentially everyday out riding in Colorado Springs during the winter. Thanks for smiling and waving every time.

Ride with me this summer - stalk my blog so you read this! I'm helpless training in Colorado. I'm a New England fish out of water pitched into an odd sort of paradise there.

**********************************************************************************

I just checked out road-results.com and it was hilarious. As of today...

My top victims:
Robert Stumpf (Pitt)
Tyler Bauer (Temple)
Christopher Hair (Boston University)
Timothy Manzella (Drexel)
Ross Saxton (UVM)
Jeremy Durrin (UMass)

My top nemeses:
Evan Cooper (Tufts)
Stefan Grecu (Kutztown)
Christopher Redmond (Rutgers)
Peter Heinz (Connecticut College)
Brian Roberts (Boston University)
Aaron Meyers (Bucknell)

I don't know how they figured this out, nor do I want to know. Frankly, I don't think this is very true. In reality I'm a victim of everyone's speed. I think even my so-called victims kick my butt every weekend.

My real victims:
Pride (Brown)
Safety of the Peloton (UVM, et. al.)
Bladi Duran's Chastity (CRCA/Cervelo/Trojan Condoms)
The Republican Party (Harvard)Harvard. Haha.

I don't even know why I'm writing this, except to say in public what I've always wanted to say:

Tim Manzella: You are a victim of my velocity!
(...and at various times a victim of me falling down in front of you)Tim: student, cyclist, victim of Graham Anderson's speed.

So says the internet.

Fun

2009-04-14T18:56:00.002-04:00

That's the underlying current.

I'm actually kind of glad I didn't have to race at Yale because I probably would still be sore. The firepower in the Men's A field was comparable to an atomic bomb. It was wicked fun for spectating. All good ECCC events must also be graced with bad weather, making the Yale weekend, at least in my opinion and considering I was not at West Point or Philly, perhaps the best race weekend of the year so far. Our conference director, as I just read, cites the visible teamwork in recent races as a source of spectating excitement. I agree on an intellectual level, but the Yale weekend had another element that I really loved:

a preponderance of downright brave, pure baroudeur, attacking

I love to cheer the riders and breakaways that really shouldn't be attacking, but still do. I love solo breakaways. I love Thomas Voeckler. I love it when that one rider stands out in the field because he or she is the suicidal firecracker in the field, simply killing him/herself to try and win at all costs.

I'm not sure why, but this was going on all the time at the Yale criterium. I LOVED IT!!!!!! It didn't work most of the time, the notable exception being Rachel from Mount Holyoke's solo victory. In Men's B and A in particular, there were numerous riders turning on the baroudeur barrage and it was beautiful. There are too many guys there to name, though most of them came from Boston area teams (and I don't think that's a coincidence). Actually I'll name four instances that were wonderful. Evan Cooper from Tufts in the B race was just a treat to watch - he was just a fearless firecracker and I found myself spontaneously cheering for him; if he keeps racing like that he's very soon going to start racking up victories. The two sprint winners, Colin Jaskiewicz and the Yale rider (sorry, I don't know his name), totally won Robby McEwen-style and in absolutely beautiful and brave sprints. Finally, every rider in the one big break that stuck for a while in the A race deserves huge credit for having the baroudeur instinct to take on a peloton like that on a course like that.

************************************************************************************

I am now rapidly relinquishing my administrative role as president of Brown Cycling. It's not a problem because we have the core to fill my shoes. I've been through too much, and can't handle the constant frustrations that I've encountered in the past three years in my various leadership roles on the team. It's a horrible task trying to maintain and grow a team that the school simply does not want to have. I will say this unabashedly: our cycling team has received nothing but hate and pure bullshit from most of the Brown administration and student governing bodies. It has tainted my positive views of my own university, of a few of my peers, and made me a much more cynical person. The attitude from the majority of people I've had to deal with in the process can be summed up as such: fuck you, your team should not exist, and
I'm going to try my best to maliciously fuck you over. There have been bright spots, but not enough. Certainly in the future this will shape how I donate to Brown as an alum, I won't donate to the senior class gift, and it's because of the shortsighted actions of a few that have made me so cynical. I know many other teams face the same hurdles, and all I can say is: keep fighting the good fight.

What I'm going to do from now on is what's most fun for me: focus on continuing my own development as a racer, recruit, and act as a sort of mentor for my teammates. I feel that I've now fallen into this role, and need to accept it. I'm excited.

All that said, the Brown team means the world to me. And don't misinterpret me: Brown is a great school to be on a wonderful cycling team while receiving a great education. The transformation of our culture and the formation of a real team in the past two years has been beautiful, and it's the springboard for more to come.

***********************************************************************************

Speaking of fun, I've been training again. On the trainer. That part is not fun. Drinking beer and wine when riding the trainer is fun. Just a glass or two is all that's necessary, but it makes one happy. Very fun.

Freddy Maertens approved.

Inside the Brown Cycling Email List: Glaser-Reich-style

2009-04-09T20:06:00.007-04:00

I decided to share this team e-mail with the world. It is indeed an impressing feat, since Brown sold off its activity vans several years ago (to feed an expensive coke habit...seems like that's an only logical explanation for when the absurdly rich have to sell off their assets). Joseph Glaser-Reich concocted this plan, though let me offer first the alternative e-mails if two other of the team leaders would have organized this insanity, before getting to the juicy part - insight into the mind of Glaser-Reich:
***********************************************************************************

From:	Brown Cycling Listserv on behalf of grahamisreallyreallyhot@gmail.com	Sent:	Thu 4/10/2009 4:12 AM
To:	BCC-RACING@listserv.brown.edu
Cc:
Subject:	To hell with you

The transportation plan for Yale is as followed:

Hitchhike. I'm driving myself in the van and sleeping in it. I'm not even racing.

To hell with you.

Sincerely,
Graham

***********************************************************************************

From:	Brown Cycling Listserv on behalf of XXXXbigweiner@hotporn.czech.gov	Sent:	Thu 4/9/2009 6:37 AM
To:	BCC-RACING@listserv.brown.edu
Cc:
Subject:	How we get to Yale

Hey team,

Everything will be fine in terms of transportation. Just come to Faunce Arch and you'll get a ride

Love,
Bladi

disclaimer: Bladi Duran did not approve this message

***********************************************************************************

From:	Brown Cycling Listserv on behalf of Joseph Glaser-Reich	Sent:	Thu 4/9/2009 5:31 PM
To:	BCC-RACING@listserv.brown.edu
Cc:
Subject:	Nightmare take two - READ THIS if you plan to race at Yale

Here is the revised schedule. Again, please check to make sure it puts you where you need to be, when you need to be there.

Drivers: please contact your passengers to arrange specific pick-up times and locations. Also, please make sure you have at least one set of directions and one race flier for your car. Feel free to ask one of your passengers to print these.

Friday

1) We will take two cars.

Ross will drive Joey and Josh in his car.

Bladi will drive CC, Chris, Dre, and Ed's bike in the Briar van.

Graham and Ed will take the bus/train to New Haven.

2) Radu: please pick up the club rack from TFG Green before leaving for New Haven.

3) Bladi, CC, Chris, Ross, Dre, Graham, Ed, and Josh will stay in the Branford Motel 6 (~ 10 miles from New Haven). Ross, Josh, Ed, and CC will stay in one room. Graham, Bladi, Chris, and Dre will stay in the other room.

Here is the information for the hotel:

(203) 483-5828
320 east main street
I-95 at main st, exit #55
Branford, CT, 06405l

The reservation is under Josh Parker, zip code: 02912. Our expected arrival time is 7-8 pm. We need to call if we are going to be any later.

The confirmation numbers are: xxxxx (Friday and Saturday room) and xxxxx (Friday room).

I will stay with a friend at Yale.

Saturday before the race:

1) Radu will drive himself to the race.

2) Bladi will drive CC, Dre, Chris, and Ed's bike to the race.

3) Ross will drive Josh, Graham, and Ed to the race.

4) My parents will drive me to the race.

5) Brent will drive himself to the race.

Saturday after the race:

1) Dre's boyfriend will drive Dre back to Providence.

2) Graham will drive Bladi and Chris back to Providence.

3) Ross will drive Josh and Ed back to the hotel.

4) Radu will drive CC back to the hotel before leaving for the day.

5) My parents will drive me back to Yale.

6) Brent will drive himself back to Manchester.

7) Ross, Josh, Ed, and CC will stay in the hotel again.

8) I will stay at Yale again.

Sunday before the race:

1) Ross will drive Josh and Ed to the race.

2) Radu will swing by the hotel to pick up CC, and then drive both of them to the race. (CC's race starts at 9:55 am.)

3) My parents will drive me to the race.

4) Graham will drive Bladi, Priscilla, and her boyfriend from Providence to the race. Bladi's race starts at 12:25 pm, and Pricilla's race starts at 1:25 pm, so plan to leave Providence around 8:30 or 9 am.

5) Dre's boyfriend will drive her to the race. (Dre your race starts at 9:10 am.)

Sunday after the race:

1) Graham will drive Priscilla, her boyfriend, Bladi, and Ed's bike back to Providence.

2) Radu will drive CC, Ed, and Dre back to Providence. (I know this will be cramped, but unless someone wants to take the train or a bus, it's the best we can do.)

3) Ross will drive Josh and Joey back to Providence following the USCF 3/4 race.

Cell phone numbers, so that you can call me and tell me that my plan, currently held together with metaphorical bubble gum and shoe-strings, has fallen apart (it no longer has the energy necessary to blown-up):

xxxxx

Again, please make sure this plan puts you where you need to be when you need to be there.

Also, please let me know if you have any questions.

Rubber-side down,
Joey

Brunonia is proud/embarrassed

2009-04-06T22:29:00.006-04:00

Our own Ross Baldwin, fresh off his senior season with Brown's varsity wrestling team, produced Brown's second Intro win of the season.

I am proud of his win. I am also proud of the fact that he raced D's the following day! Ross is the ultimate anti-sandbagger.

I am embarrassed because his side-panel number was on upside down and parachuting.
I've gained a reputation on our team as being a real compulsive perfectionist about number pinning. I think most everyone on our team has been subjected to my 15 minute clinic on number aesthetics. This is my only obsessive aesthetic vanity in the cycling realm.

Why? My first mass-start race ever - Rutgers 2007 Intro criterium - I was not included in the results because I pinned my number on the wrong side. Mark Abramson on not being in the results: "Did you race?"

At Rutgers 2008 time-trial, I pinned my number upside down. Hours later, the Brown team received a pointed directive from none other than Mark Abramson that rider 247 "must correct his side-panel number (and immediately repair his unsafe-to-race bike)."
The worst faux-pas I ever made, though, was putting a handwritten frame number on my seat-post, in the D race, at the 2007 Philly criterium. Nothing screams poser greater than photographic evidence of such an embarrassing moment of youth and ignorance.

Points Towards Good Number Aesthetics

A crumpled number sticks to the body, preventing parachuting. When Mr. Frey hands you the jersey numbers, immediately relieve years of repressed anger and crumple those numbers as if they killed your family.
Where's the camera? Don't trust word-of-mouth. Check for yourself.
Am I an A racer? If so, fold inward the sides of the number. The more area that can be folded under, the better. Even if officials and conference directors threaten to suspend you because of number folding, you must at least symbolically fold a few millimetres of each side under just to spite the omnipresent spirit of Mark Abramson. If not, then don't fold your number for fear of actual permanent suspension and humiliation.
Four pins per number, never through the holes. More/less pins is indicative of ineptness.
Correct side up?
Look at your reflection in a car window. Bend over as if being penetrated sexually from the rear while holding out your arms as if on TT aero bars. Parachuting on the side? If so, unclothe and fix. Repeat. Good?
Correct side up?
Am I an A racer? If not, the frame number must go on the front triangle of the bike frame. The number must be trimmed to fit inside the frame. Zip ties are used, two on the front and one on the top-tube (trust me on that...it's counterintuitive but prevents flapping). If so, your frame number goes on your seatpost or, in the case of limited preparation time, pinned onto the rear-brake with a number holder. When on the seatpost, your number must be affixed with a sort of semi-permanent adhesive and never removed - ever - until the ECCC season ends (which prevents screwing around at Marblehead or Battenkill on the weekends instead of where you should be).
Proceed to warm-up. Expect this to take 30-45 minutes, so schedule your dressing and warmup schedule accordingly.

I'm serious. Number issues are perhaps the lowest level of racing-related problems one can have.

poop; winter-training, take 2

2009-04-03T17:46:00.008-04:00

It's going to be another 7-8 weeks before I can race again. I'll miss the rest of the ECCC season. I hate my hand. My hand is poop. It's weird having pins sticking out of it.

In the meantime there's the trainer. Since I slacked off way too much this winter I'm going to call my upcoming time winter-training, take 2. The self-flagulation factor will be extremely high as the weather becomes nice. It's pointless except I want to kick ass racing this summer.

I have a horrible challenge for myself: do a 25hr week entirely on the trainer.

I woke up yesterday with a craptacular hangover, and it never went away.

Updates on the trainer week from hell will be posted.

************************************************************************************

Denver Broncos: WTF?

The Denver Broncos are essentially one of the most important things in my life. I know that's weird, but that's what enough time spent at Mile High Stadium (old and new) during one's youth will do to you. Since owner Pat Bowlen sent this letter to Denver Broncos fans (me), I felt compelled to respond:

Dear Mr. Bowlen,

You may remember me as the annoying teenager from Colorado Springs who used to sit in section 512 row 13 (in front of the constantly drunk guy with the big horn). I apologize for my long absence, but I've been detained in New England for a while.

I don't know what sort of 1920s-era offense your new coach plans on running where a quarterback is unnecessary...but he sure as hell better figure out because you don't really have a quarterback anymore.

If someone you love gives you the silent treatment, you're not supposed to trade him - you send him flowers and Hallmark apology card. If that fails, throw a couple of million dollars at him until he gets a smile on his face again. Because he was Jay Cutler. He had a rocket arm and head on his shoulders.

I am surprised that you, of all people, have forgotten the most basic quality about the Broncos: no matter how favorable the circumstances for the Broncos, they're going to massively fuck it all up. This results in a fucked up situation. The only reason this worked out in the past was because Elway would usually clean up the massive fucking-up at the last second:
When Elway retired, the joker quarterback would, in the second step, typically fuck up the fuck-up:Granted, part of your logic makes sense. By not having a quarterback, you remove the step where the joker quarterback fucks it up. Nonetheless, there doesn't seem to be anything to suggest that the beginning circumstances and fucking it up step are inversely related: non-favorable circumstances do not lead to not fucking it up. With the Broncos, after all, the fucking it up step is always present. Therefore the result from our current situation will be:This is not a strategic plan. Therefore, the only option as I see it is to build a robotic clone of John Elway and pay it $16 million a year with bonus incentives for fighting evil.

Thank you,
G

Living With Cyclists...Next Year

2009-04-01T22:47:00.005-04:00

So I'm going to live with two of my teammates next year: Josh "road rash/BMC" Parker and Joey "Judge Brown" Glaser-Reich.

Josh

Joey

Lance Indurain Merckx

How this is relevant is that tomorrow is the Brown Housing Lottery (I just used 'is' three times in one sentence). I am now frantically trying to compile a list of rooms that we will choose when our number is called. I don't know how other schools do the whole housing thing, but at Brown everyone gathers in a big auditorium, they call your number live, and you have about ten seconds to respond with the building and room number you request, they cross it off on the big list of all the rooms in the school at the front, and then they proceed until the whole school does it. Your number, or your group's number, is based on your average semester number, and from these rankings your lottery number is assigned. If you miss your number, you're homeless for next year. It's a really high stress event - almost the highest stress day of the whole year - but also fun. People cheer missed numbers and when people choose crappy rooms, and boo you when you choose a good room/the room others' wanted. It traditionally gets quite rowdy.

Joey is a rising junior, Josh a rising sophomore, me a rising senior - so I sacrificed my senior semester number (and the luxurious quarters that would entail) to live with the youngsters for the good of the team/ready sanity during trainer and roller sessions/extra penis jokes. I also get the final call on what we choose, so I need to prepare my list for when our number is called. I'm thinking a quaint three bedroom suite with common room, but just need to make my list.

The question floating around the team is when one of us will kill another next year.

My lifestyle is not Joey's lifestyle, and my lifestyle is not Josh's, and Joey's is not Josh's. We're all OCD in totally different ways. I consume more alcohol when sober than Joey has consumed in his entire life. Joey has a girlfriend. Josh is a player. I'm a creepster. I have facial hair. Joey eats the exact same thing for dinner everyday. Josh's BMC his smaller than mine. I like cats and red meat. Josh rubs his legs with a rolling pin. Joey leaves five minute phone messages. I'm a Denver Broncos fan. Josh studies mathematics. I watch porn when riding the trainer. Josh used to be a wrestler. Joey used to be a wrestler. I played club field hockey last semester. I saw the Flaming Lips at 2007 Spring Weekend. Josh was born in the 1990s. Joey comes from North Carolina. Josh comes from New York City. I come from Colorado (aka New Zealand/Sweden/Scotland/Wales). Joey studies psychology. Josh eats oatmeal with bananas and peanut butter.

We do have a lot in common. We're top-notch straight A students who never compromise academics for anything (not to brag...I get a right to mention that I'm a double-major honors student that started taking graduate classes sophomore year). We're committed athletes that take cycling seriously. We find humor in life.

I guess I don't have a point aside from being bored and not being able to ride. Oh, ya, wait: we're not living together because we think we'll be ideal roommates, or we want to throw wicked awesome parties, or because we're sexually interested in each other. Cycling doesn't have team frats. Cyclists tend to be lone-ranger individualists. Some collegiate cyclists never train or hang out with their teammates, and only see them on the weekends. The Brown team has long suffered from this ad-hoc individualist mentality. This needs to change for us, and indeed it is beginning this year. We hang out together, eat together, know each other and look out for each other. We're all friends, and have soap-opera moments of social drama. It's called being a team. As long as college cycling has open rosters, team-building will be a constant but surmountable hurdle. The best teams are just that: teams. The big and little things off the bike, like living with other insane aerobic monsters or having team movie nights, matter more than the aero spokes and recovery drinks.

Friendship: for the hundreds of hours on the trainer next year. Chance brought us to Brown, ambition brought us to the bike, hope will bring us within the same four walls for a year of our lives.

I am NOT from New Zealand

2009-03-30T23:19:00.005-04:00

(discrete thoughts separated by asterisks)
*************************************************************************************

My teammates have informed me that several members of other teams think that I am from New Zealand. This is not true. At Philly there apparently occured conversations of this sort:

non-Brunonian #1: "Where's Graham?"
Brunonian: "He stuck his hand in his wheel while going 35mph in a criterium and is in Providence tripping on painkillers."
non-Brunonian #2: "Wait, who are you talking about?"
Brunonian: "Our A racer."
non-Brunonian #2: "Oh, ya, that guy from New Zealand who used to have that moustache."
Brunonian: "Ya, kind of like that."

I am not from New Zealand, not that there's anything wrong with that. I'll tell you up front that I was born in Colorado. Nonetheless, people usually reject this truth and accuse me of being from elsewhere no matter what. I do not understand this phenomenon, aside from an admittedly distinctive way of talking. Thus, to tickle my self-centered view of life and be a copycat of the whole cute blog poll trend, a poll has been added for the 6 people and pack of giraffes who read my internet ramblings.

*************************************************************************************
I dislike the majority of Brown students when returning from a break away from campus. Since the majority here are wildly crazy in ways that are non-mainstream and typically not socially-acceptable outside of this state, many have to repress being openly crazy over breaks. Upon return, there is an overcompensating blooming of being crazy, which is really damn annoying.

You, yes you, Brown student, if you push me over the edge, I may club you on the head with my cast and kick you in the crotch with my over-developed Hincapie-esque leg! If you feel a need to scream at the top of your lungs at a neighboring table in the dining hall about getting a blowjob from a Bulgarian circus clown while reading Foucault in the mezzanine of the Kennedy Center, all the while coming to dinner wearing peacock feathers and a tin-foil spacesuit, and bringing eighteen cigarette-puffing ironic hipsters to laugh along - well, you have just given me sensory overload and my head will explode. There's only so much I can handle, and I have a very high threshold for Brown-ness (almost as high as my LT). That is all.

************************************************************************************
If you, yes you, Brown student, show up to my dorm room at 3am demanding beer, and refuse to leave despite my sincerest insistences that I have already drank all that I previously possessed, I will kick you in the nuts.

************************************************************************************
My teammate Joey finally allowed me to be reunited with my bike today:

Joey: "Here's your bike back. I washed off all the blood from it."
Me: "Um, thanks. Are you serious about the blood?"
Joey: "Ya."
Me: "Oh, ya, you were. There's still some on the wheel."

Seriously. But I can ride the trainer now.

*************************************************************************************
Go watch on youtube the music video for "Hold It In" by Jukebox the Ghost. Do it.

*************************************************************************************
I wrote this after being in the ER. I am not sure why.

Crush on a Best Friend

Spiralling, we smile sheepishly. She sets her hand on the table just far enough away that I cannot hold it. Nothing further happens.

Last night I lay half-asleep in the back seat of a car rocketing through the flames of Philadelphia at one in the morning. The road later dissected the Bronx and we were travelling on the front lawns of a few poor immigrant families. Opiates warmed the innards of my torso and tickled my humors. I am confident that you must have been following that car.

She's busy getting boinked by older guys whom she meets at coffee shops. She finds my excursions into romance equally entertaining and pitiful. The equilibrium is maddening.

The first step is over, but the last step is the first: the terminal.

************************************************************************************
Get fit on your damn bike. Seriously, for all you who have never done it (or have had it done poorly) go do it this week. And tell them at the shop that you want to be fit like a racer - like a pro racer at that - not like some fred on a hybrid. Since I'm on a roll spouting anger and criticism, it really ticks me off to see people trying to race bikes when their handlebars are higher than a cokehead smoking marijuana. I was looking at some pictures of the Rutgers ITT, and noticed how damn beautiful I look compared to how non-beautiful some others look. Note how my back is just about parallel to the ground - and I'm only on the brake hoods. I might be slower than mollases in February, but I'm still one aerodynamic s.o.b. - it's all about maximizing the potential of the minimal watts I can produce. Actually there are probably pictures of many others that illustrate the point equally, but I'm feeling vain. Learn to love the long stem, and aerodynamics will love you - much cheaper than Zipps or TT helmets.

************************************************************************************
Every good blog post deserves a picture of Bladi making pain faces:

surgery, recovery, and a colorado summer

2009-03-28T11:37:00.004-04:00

So I had surgery to put my hand back together on Thursday. It went well, I'll be back riding on the road probably in a month or so, and in the meantime (close your eyes USADA officials) I'm well stocked with painkillers. The good news is that I'm cleared to start running and riding the trainer soon.

Word on the street is that Lance Armstrong also took a bit of a tumble and had surgery too. Lance attended my high school alma mater, General William Jackson Palmer High School in Colorado Springs (go Terrors! cheer for the Brown and White!) Perhaps our lives are intertangled. To be transparent, I'm a huge Armstrong fan. I'm no hater.

A week forcefully separated from my athletic endeavor has left me in a dreaming state for the near future. Knowing that most of my ECCC season is now gone, I think that I will most likely go back to my parents' house in Colorado Springs this summer and take advantage of the awesome Colorado racing scene. While the New England racing scene is the best in the country in my opinion, the racing in Colorado is also top notch and the training is also a (sarcastic tone) slight improvement to Rhode Island. One race I'm really looking forward to is the inaugural Carmichael Training Systems Cheyenne Canyon Time Trial! Cheyenne Canyon, though not a mountain pass, is definitely one hell of a brutal climb, and certainly one of the most beautiful rides in the U.S. My PR for the climb (done about a year ago) is 17:43, and my very ambitious goal for the race is to drop below 15:30...Danielson has apparently gone up it sub 14:00!!! I said this winter my goals this year are to drastically improve my time-trial and climbing abilities, so this will be one hell of a race of truth.

If any of you ECCCers are going to be riding/racing in Colorado this summer, please hit me up and maybe we can get connected (share rides, train, party, etc)! Since I was bred a cyclist in New England (but a runner in Colorado years ago), I end up doing most all of my riding solo there since I don't know too many people in the Colorado scene yet.

My Great-Grandfather is 100

2009-03-25T22:48:00.002-04:00

My Great-Grandpa Wilaby is now 100 years young. I say young because he has literally no health issues aside from bad hearing. He credits, quite rightly, his longevity and health to daily endurance exercise. I was touched by this little article about him in the Brookings, SD, newspaper.

To correct the article, he does 30 minutes of rowing and calisthenics first thing in the morning, then walks two miles in 30 minutes, then another two miles later in the day. Seriously, he walks fast - like a Manhattanite or college student late for class. He lived independently in just a regular apartment until last year, when he decided it was time to sell his car and stop driving (because he can't hear, not because he can't drive). If you saw him on the street, one would figure that he was about 60 or 65 years old - which is quite flattering considering that he's now 100. For all the talk now about an aging population, health epidemics rooting from sedentary lifestyles, etc. - sometimes a little common sense works.

When I asked him last year if he did his workouts first thing in the morning after waking up, he said: "Of course, or else they'll never get done."

Delaware: From Above and Below

2009-03-23T16:48:00.002-04:00

I just wanted to let people know that I loved the Delaware Weekend and appreciate all their work put into such awesome courses (especially such a long road race). Congrats to Josh Lipka, Erik Wilburn, Alex Bremer (it's such a pleasure to know that I'm even slightly good enough to at least line up for the race next to guys like them), and all other winners. Can the peloton be 'dropped' from the race? Thanks to Joe K. for his kind words to me about my race - it seriously helped with my confidence boost this weekend (Joe's always looking out for everyone in the conference!)

Sorry for the brevity, it's hard typing. I'm fine and will recover quickly, waiting to see what surgery if any is necessary on the hand. I feel bad for those in my race who I probably scared the hell out of there (Tim, was that you behind me?!?! SORRY!!!) it was all my fault and a fluke accident. I won't describe since it's made some queazy (including me). I love my teammates Josh and Joey for staying at the hospital with me in Delaware until midnight, and then driving my drugged-out ass all the way back to Providence by 7am. Also thanks to teammate Matt for bringing me back down to RI Hospital, and our team's faculty advisor Clinical Medical Professor Dr. Mark Greve (also team physician for TT1) for being on the phone with me throughout it all and treating me so wonderfully today in his ER.

I wish good recovery to all those who went down in the races this weekend and to see you soon. Hopefully I'll see you all soon at Philly, I won't be racing but would like to come and help out if possible!

A Beautiful Day in Providence

2009-03-17T20:15:00.011-04:00

The title says it all. Up at 6am. Two rides today. Corned beef brisket and soda bread in the dining hall. It was just a beautiful day in Roger Williams' city, and I hope to spread some of it to you via electronic images. Just keeping commentary brief, I got a bit of beer drinking and an honors thesis prospectus to work on (university would be so much easier if no work was involved...and you'd still learn something along the way).

It has been assumed that Rhode Island has no hills. This is true if one ignores the hills in Rhode Island. The East Side of Providence has its share of hills - even cobblestoned hills.

Bowen Street (aka "Let's-destroy-a-carbon-frame-today Street) is the site of hazing for new Brown cyclists. Providence hill-expert Brent claims that Bowen Street, though of course shorter, is harder than the Koppenberg. Check out his reports here and here. It's over 30% grade up there at the top. I have climbed it twice without falling over, and am very proud of it:

A sign that incites fear.
Another hazing hill is Jenckes Street. Broken chains occur here. It is worse than the picture suggests - what is seen is the false summit, and it turns steeper after that point. Apparently Lovecraft lived on this street.

College Street, surprisingly, leads to the college on the hill. What is seen here is the college on the side of the hill - RISD. I am, for the lifetime, undefeated in races up College Street to the Van Wickle gates. It's my hill, as long as Dan Cassidy stays away from Providence. Lovecraft also lived on this street, too.

Meeting Street is a favorite for cyclocrossers, since it is interrupted with a staircase. I'm serious, cyclocrossers actually do repeats of this hill, running the stairs. Sometimes us exclusive roadies do it, too, but we look like idiots running the steps.

Angell Street has some eclectic architecture (those who've done the Cox Criterium may recognize this)...
Across the street from the First Baptist Church in America (where Brunonians graduate).

Some of the hills are a tad too tight for comfort, though, for two-way streets. Rhode Island doesn't care.
A beautiful day in Providence.

Bike Providence: Seekonk/Rehoboth

2009-03-12T20:23:00.011-04:00

Let me preface by saying that the fact I can now Internet stalk the Mount Holyoke cycling team is undoubtedly the best development in my life in the past several weeks.

Internet stalking in my free time:

(SM, 21, VGL and W/E, seeking SF, 18-60, VGL with $$$. Willing to WTR to anywhere outside of RI. Seeking NSA relationship. Enjoys long walks in the middle of the night and cats.)

Anyway...

A while back I mentioned how I like to see pictures of where ECCCers get to train. Mr. Hopengarten and Mr. Roberts have so indulged me thus far. I figured that I would continue the project. Really I should do it most everyday, but it's not easy remembering a camera.

So, Rhode Island is a small place. I'd say that of all the on-the-road riding I do here, about 75% of it is in Massachusetts, 23% in Rhode Island, and 2% in Connecticut. From Brown, it is all of ten minutes to the Massachusetts border - where one is immediately out of the city. Granted, it's about 20-25 minutes to get out of the city going west from Brown, but it's more hectic that way. Certainly much better than living in NYC or Boston, but, ya, let's call it less predictable riding in Providence. I qualify this statement with personal experience and from the agreement of the New Yorkers and Bostonites on our team - but still, it's wicked awesome getting to live in the center of the city but leave it all via bike so quickly. Anyway...

Seekonk, MA, and Rehoboth, MA, are staples of our training. It's a nice little nook of old-timey New England countryside that's become too rare to find in southeastern New England. Quiet roads, nature, all just mere miles away from a very urban campus. It's also really, really spooky out there. I suppose that has been lost on me over time, but looking at the photos and realizing that today I saw a man who looked just like Mr. Burns from the Simpsons, decked out in a full tweed suit, walking along an absolutely deserted road in the deep dark woods - it's weird. Enjoy I hope:

Seekonk countryside

A hill/bump/Swiss Alp
I felt the no-trespassing signs were unnecessary since few in their right mind would treck into woods so spooky (near where I saw the spooky Mr. Burns guy walking)
Agriculture still exists here
Another rather unnecessary sign with embodying a keen grasp of the obvious
I always pretend that I'm riding a northern classic in Belgium when riding out here because the roads are bumpy and it's inevitably a jet-engine wind tunnel with no tree protection
This pasture always reminds me of that scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail where the peasants are digging in the mud
A town-line sign so lonely it is almost tragic

Keep riding, and see you all at Columbia and Stevens for some crit action!

NJ Race Report

2009-03-09T13:08:00.004-04:00

This is not the race report that I have to write for the team - that may be forthcoming. This is the race report where I don't make stuff up.

We had a lot of positives and negatives for Brown this weekend. Our shining positives were our Intro guys Josh and Chris. They employed textbook teamwork in the criterium and circuit. Josh won the Intro omnium, and also got the first win of his life in the circuit race. Pretty cool for first-time racers. I was displeased so see our C Joey wrecked out hard in the circuit sprint. They guys on both sides of him sandwiched him in the field sprint. He's hurt quite bad, and I'm sure other guys in that wreck were as well. Seriously, hold your line. It's pretty simple. One even gets reminded of it before every race. Sorry if it sounds like I take it personally, but I kind of do - nobody likes to see people get hurt for dumb actions. But we all learn from mistakes. Speaking of learning from mistakes...

I was 30 out of 51 in the TT, more than I could have expected. I did a fence-brushing on the turnaround which was very unbecoming of an A racer but very becoming of the bike-handler that I am (not). I was crapped off the back of the peloton in the criterium, which was very unbecoming of an A racer but very becoming of the athlete that I am (not). Alan Atwood had the most gracious generosity of pulling me before the pain was too bad, for which I am utmostly thankful. I was crapped off the back of the peloton in the circuit race, which was very unbecoming of an A racer - and indeed I now believe unbecoming of the rider that I can be. The officials were not kind of enough to pull me immediately. I got to ride with Anna McLoon, which was awesome. One cannot have even two seconds worth of a lapse of concentration and effort in an A race. I have no excuses, I just sucked.

I spent last night thinking about my categorization for the future. The first A weekend was a tough, horrible experience for me, but I also have concluded that I would not learn anything more racing B. This was trial-by-fire, and that's a good way to learn at a rapid pace. It was surreal lining up for a race next to Nick Frey, Josh Lipka, and Dan Cassidy - but surreal in a positive sense. They're just normal guys who are physical beasts. They got that way by training and racing. I am humbled, but equally realize that if they can do it, so can I someday. And if I can do it, so can anybody.

Thanks to Princeton and Rutgers for awesome weekends. Keep riding!

p.s. if anybody picked up a 2006 Mavic Kyrsium front wheel, with red Vredestein tire, labeled "ANDERSON, Brown University" in the pit at Princeton, I would be most appreciative.

Davis Square

2009-03-05T04:23:00.002-05:00

“Men are but flocks: Bradford beheld their need.
And long did them at once both rule and feed.”

-Cotton Mather, Magnalia Christi Americana (1702)

Davis Square

I awaken and resign myself to being alone. Fate’s sentence was written in stone, though I flaunt the imprisonment and terrorize the countryside. I slice through Route 79’s mist. I fly through the technical nuances of the day, snubbing the holographic machinery of my generation. We are unwitting saviors of Winthrop’s empire, your morning promenade a twenty-first-century Cromwellian pilgrimage of grace. The night primps me in candy colors and succulent allure. Then her voice rudely interrupts:

“No way, go to bed, buster. I might be dead but you still can’t cheat on me.” Never stopped me when you weren’t in such a preoccupied repose. Wait, the dead don’t talk? “Mental construction, freaking hell.” Clever angel, that one. Lord Protector Cromwell pops out from behind the dresser and Governor Bradford smashes in his skull with a candlestick. She kisses them both on the lips and they whimsically saunter off to a seedy bar. Drugs, God.

The night relocates me to waves of sweating bodies in a musty Somerville basement. A blonde-haired art student spills beer on my pants yet the music commands me to embrace her and reassure her uncertainty. She informs me that she grew up on Route 9. I know she is lying for no reason. We share a cigarette despite the environmental concerns. Its trails of white smoke mystify my delight. There appears a familiar earnestness in her conniving eyes. I gulp and come closer to smell her hair. Governor Bradford clubs me in the head from behind. I lay unconscious, uncertain of how the Puritans turned so militant.

Holy Crap Columbia Has 97 A-Racers

2009-03-02T21:45:00.002-05:00

I just checked the bikereg.com confirmed riders list to see if somebody on my team had registered me yet (I'm just the president of the club - that means I get to delegate!), and then I crapped my pants.

Let me get this straight:

UVM always has like 18 pros racing A's because apparently talented bike-racers like being snowed-in for six months of the year and seeing their teammates' penises/ass-cracks all the time
Though Columbia is rotten to the Core Curriculum, as has been stated they have 97 A's
The Princeton Pussies, umm, Tigers, have double-Nicks and even more A's if that's not enough - and being the exceptions none of them are exactly pussies
UNH is UNH, though I can perhaps hope that they forget to come to the first weekend again
This particularly harsh winter has certainly hardened the ever-present A's of Dartmouth since they probably all live in little tents in the mountains. (ahh, hell, I can't help it): Duck Fartmouth, but you all are still wicked fast.

Furthermore:

It seems now that all the B's who always beat me last year are now A's.
The A's who used to be A's but didn't graduate are still going to be A's.
Last year I could not beat A's since I was not fast enough to beat B's.
I will be an A.

The conclusion:
I'm f*cked. But not Starf*cked. I get to miss Starf*ck since I'll be sleeping in a cheap motel in a foreign state awaiting a bike race. For those who don't know, Starf*ck is like Sexpowergod, except in the spring instead of the fall and Bill O'Reilly never invaded Starf*ck with video cameras and broadcast to the world the obvious about Brown. At least we stopped holding such dances in Sayles Hall - aka "the Little Chapel" where the portraits of University presidents reside and stare down the students. That's actually creepy.

But ya, I'm f*cked. Not that anybody really cares, or should care. And I can smack-talk the other Ivies. They don't have ECCC blogs - except Nick Frey, but smack-talking him is fruitless because he just goes WHOOSH by you no matter what while remaining the ultimate class act. And everybody should drink Smithwick's. It's like a little Irish Starf*ck in a bottle.

Resolutions and Stubbornness in Anticipation

2009-03-02T01:34:00.002-05:00

I have a few resolutions and a few things that I should resolve but shall refuse to resolve in anticipation of the upcoming season:

Resolutions:

Go 'dry'. I know a lot of legitimate athletes do this for their seasons. Usually this means not drinking. For me, this will mean limiting the impact of my drinking on others. I shall curtail the number of drunken incoherent emails to the team where I call them a bunch of pussies. I shall curtail the number of times where I partake in drunken incoherent facebooking where I reveal all of the disturbing and depressed thoughts to everyone that I am facebook friends with but don't actually know in real life. I shall not partake in drunken incoherent facebooking to my sister and subsequently freak her out about the prospects of my immediate welfare and mental stability. I shall not exceed consuming fifteen beers in one sitting on a weekday. Drunk dialling shall only occur on Sunday evenings.
Train. I shall ride my bike on non-racing days.
Sleep for normal lengths at normal times. My bedtime shall thus be when the sky is dark and my awakening time shall be when the sun is shining.
Stay clean-shaven until I can consistently be assured of having the ability to place top10 in races. Hopefully this resolution will be enough for people to cheer for me when I am in the deepest darkest depths of the pain-cave at the tail end of the peloton.
Not develop tan-lines from training rides. I shall wear at minimum arm and knee warmers on all training rides until June. I have no justification for this resolution.

Stubbornness:

I shall not learn how to ride a bike with both hands off of the handlebars. I prefer being a super-sketchy rider lacking a suitcase of marketable skills.
I shall not cease to flip the bird to Yale each time we drive by on rt95. I may get suspended at the Yale race weekend, but it will be for a good cause.
I shall not stop eating cheese-fries in the dining halls. As a corollary, I shall take any efforts to curtail the disturbing knowledge that I have gained 15lbs in the past month - thus weighing more now than I ever have since junior year of high school.

Maybe I'll write one more post before Rutgers. Maybe not.
On a serious note, for all my friends/teammates/competitors out there who know me, I'm working on getting my mood-swings under control again since this past month was out of control. For example, I actually am making sure that my drinking is under control again. Words can add humor to a reality but that doesn't take the reality out of a reality. Racing again will be a good anchor. Cycling is the best therapy on the face of the planet. I personally apologize to all that I have freaked out recently.

Quincy

2009-02-26T12:00:00.002-05:00

fiction follows. it's really amateur. i am filled with hate and rage at the mere presence of my bicycle today, and academic obligations left untended.

“New England has a harsh climate, a barren soil, a rough and stormy coast, and yet we love it, even with a love passing that of dwellers in more favored regions.”
-Henry Cabot Lodge, speech to the New England Society of New York, 22 December 1884

Quincy

Yesterday evening I dashed off from College Hill to catch the last commuter train from Providence to Quincy. I initially balked at the invitation to attend a house-party there, but the illustrious company that it boasted convinced me. As I entered through the back into a linoleum-themed kitchen, Henry Cabot Lodge immediately grabbed my eye and he thrust his attention upon me. It was awkward since his usual preoccupation with getting laid causes him to make remarks so lewd that I cannot help but be ashamed of him and myself. We had our usual lively conversation about history for an hour. My Marxist tendencies and his new post-modernist inclinations clashed in a good-natured way. We embraced superficially. A rush of sirens flew through the house as police were arriving onto the scene of an accident on Route 53.

Unsurprisingly Oliver Cromwell was also at the party. He was unfortunately extremely drunk. Some of us conjectured that he had perhaps dabbled a bit in cocaine at least a few times during the night, though I never felt inclined to confirm our hypothesis with close examination. A striking Wellesley College sophomore, whom I recognized as occasionally making appearances in this social circle, was the object of Lord Protector Cromwell’s drunken advance. I could not recall her name. Strangely I remembered that her family lives in Florida. I intervened on her behalf, hoping that Cromwell would soon leave to sober up before returning to matters of state.

Her forwardness was an insult. Certainly the shape of her calves and bounce of her hair were to my taste. Her fingernails were painted black. I could not discern if her tan was real or artificial. Little was left to chance. I came to be her hero, but her interest in Cromwell lingered apparent. By this time I had stopped caring. I was disinterestedly grinding with her. To my relief, Cromwell returned to the dance floor and shot me with a Taser at 3 o’clock in the morning. The onslaught of voltage slashing through my bones was a welcome surge of warm comfort. This strike of luck ended my responsibilities for the evening.

Learn, trust, cheer, ride, hurt, hope

2009-02-24T17:42:00.004-05:00

I realized that there may be a readership of potential first-time racers reading some of these ECCC blogs. I realized that I do not want to give an impression that ECCCers are just a bunch of trash-talking equipment snobs with drinking problems, paralyzed by loneliness. At times things are fun and games but I want to clarify some of the thoughts in the back of my head.

I can't help but to be political here. Nonetheless nothing prompted me to write this except for my own previous actions.

Do see through the anti-aircraft flak of my tones and understand that I am pretty serious in my opinion, whatever its virtues or incorrectness.

I am by no means a grizzled ECCC veteran. Indeed I consider myself a newbie. That said I, like so many others, began in Men's E and have slowly moved up.

Little snippets of wisdom acquired from the experienced and awesome still stick in my head: "Accelerate into the draft," "Steer the back wheel with the feet," "Never go hungry on the bike," etc.

One such word of advice matters. "Earn what you ride." Show up to your first race on a $500 bike that weighs as much as a Volkswagen. That's how I started. I'm cool with it if you have a Colnago. But one should never feel inferior to the rider with a Colnago. Reward yourself with equipment upgrades at milestones of progression through the levels of the sport. In that spirit I broke the bank this year to buy a really nice bike, but it's still aluminium and doesn't have fancy wheels. Your equipment might slow you down when you reach a certain level of competition, but it will never make your faster. Training, knowledge, and drugs make you faster - emphasize liberally the first two of the three.

Furthermore, be prepared for the underlying role of deference in the sport. Be aware of the surrounding stratifications based on experience, speed, and past results. Everyone has their role in this caste system, though one's role is changeable over time. I have an exceptional sense of awe, respect, and deference for those who I will soon compete against, and fully expect to be treated as a newbie and a nobody by them. I also expect a tad bit of deference from others, too, but that's just how it all works.

With that said, those above you in the cycling caste system truly want to help and teach. They see themselves in you. Just be willing to listen and accept their advice. Over time, pass on the love to somebody else.

And trust. The cornerstone of bike racing is trust. You have to trust yourself in the strangest of situations, but you must trust everyone else in the race as well - because they are in turn trusting you as well. If society as a whole adopted such widespread trust in others, then crime would not occur. The moment people stop trusting each other in a race is when all goes to hell.

So if the Saturday after next will be your first bike race, I'm cheering for you. And don't worry, I made a worse fool of myself my first race weekend than you could ever possibly achieve. Learn, trust, cheer, ride, hurt, hope. And do whatever the hell Joe Kopena tells you to do.

Parallels

2009-02-23T18:26:00.003-05:00

I cannot help but to think of life as cyclical. This shall be the kiss of death for this historian.

The crank turns around over 5000 times in an hour of training.

The parallels are tempting. You must resist.

I race my bike wearing the same socks that I used to run in. Their resiliency is odd. No holes have formed.

The mind wanders, you question the contingencies. I clear my mind, and repeat.

5:30am runs with Andrew Nussbaum in Monument Valley Park will never happen again. Except I could call him up and get them started again.

So when your shoe falls off, just keep running. The race stops for nobody. To teammates who will always be teammates: a step into the unknown.

Things That I Learned Today

2009-02-21T19:48:00.005-05:00

One should never, ever, EVER call one's teammates sandbaggers. That was a poor choice of words. It should be noted that every, and I mean EVERY, Brown wheelman chooses his or her collegiate category ambitiously and as high as possible within the rules of one's USCF category. This means that cat3+'s are A's, cat4's are B's, and on down. What I should have emphasized was that I dearly hope that my teammates are mistakenly accused of sandbagging when in fact they are riding the maximum category possible. That'd be badass. "What, you're only a cat5?!? You're wicked pissah!" Trust me, we all are going to be working our darndest to move up in the categories so that any latent accusations of sandbagging will be allayed. (whew, sigh of relief on my part)

Wrestling. I watched Brown Wrestling's last home meet of the year. They WHOOPED UP on Columbia. Also, our cycling team will be rocking at least three ex-wrestlers this year - one fresh off his varsity season with Brown. So the next time I find myself getting ganged up on by a bunch of punks from New Jersey, I'll have some real fighters to back me up. Hopefully. Actually they know me enough to let me get my butt kicked when I deserve it.
Cheap shot: apparently collective memory of an entire team in the intro category for nearly the entire season is not relevant (yes, sorry, I know there was a legit reason for that, and that was a super-duper cheap shot...I've been drinking, that's my excuse)
Drinking numbs the pain that one experiences after doing a full-on faceplant from the bike. And yes, there is a French House party in my dorm tonight...but I don't feel like going. Drinking alone, dancing alone, etc., is all that one should ever do after a training crash. One must remain in a safe environment, leave nothing to chance.
My BMC either doesn't have lawyer tabs, or its lawyer tabs do not work. For an inexplicable reason, the quick release on my back wheel on the ride today came undone - as I was leading two dear teammates up a hill at full-out, like freaking zone5 (is that the hardest?) pace. Well, the result was the back wheel came out and I face-planted on my chin. I would sue BMC except they make really really really awesome bikes and I don't want them to go out of business since BMC is awesome (did I mention that they're awesome?) I'm still really sketched out, though.
Speaking of pain, when a teammate sitting in your draft tells you that his powertap has read over 500watts for the previous several minutes, and that you should slow down, choosing to speed up and drop him is generally not going to make one's legs feel good for the next several minutes/hours. (I couldn't help but to brag about the mini-epic moments that this mediocre cyclist will cherish for months afterwards)
Even people in New Jersey think that Rhode Island is backwards. I cannot disagree. It's a really, really, really weird place that has historically and continues to harbor really major weirdos.
Putting Sesame Street bandaids on one's face-wounds attracts chicks. Actually it doesn't. But I do like Big Bird and the Count a lot.
We got some wicked dedicated and awesome people on our team. Though it seems that on any big team-ride I go on I have a 75% chance of crashing (perhaps that's much more a statement about me than anyone else...actually it definitely is), there's still such wonderful enjoyment being in a big group ride. I think that the largest drawback of collegiate cycling is that the strength/experience discrepancies between riders on teams, along with chaotic academic schedules (ie the fact that cycling is not the only thing we have to do during the day), result in riders doing too much training solo, in pairs, or sometimes trios. Mais, c'est la vie.

Arrggghhhh...why do we have practice on Saturday mornings???? "I'm not sure if I'm really hungover or still drunk" -anonymous Brown rider (me)

Ahh, hardy Brown students, already protesting outside University Hall on a Saturday morning!
Picked up any latecomers in de Pasquale Square, Coach Nicholson has buzzed home to retrieve his 'forgotten' helmet, Brent's rocking the Carrera jacket, Chris is smiling...it's time to ride!

Race Simulation

2009-02-20T17:57:00.003-05:00

Mark McCormack talked at Providence Bicycle last night. I'll have to write about the McCormack man soon. He's evidence that the same damn roads that Brown trains on everyday sometimes produce bike racers.

So I'm doing a nice 2-man 3hr race simulation with my dear teammate Joey tomorrow. It was not my idea. One of us may die. Joey's going to be accused of sandbagging when the season starts. For the record, he will be sandbagging. Our men are also going to be sandbagging all the other categories except the A's (that's another story for another day). Or, at the very least, I dearly hope we are accused of sandbagging. We lack experience, but the pure honesty that 130mile rides put in the legs cannot be faked. That's really all the insight into the state of the boys in argyle that I feel comfortable announcing right now. I hope no other Brunonians read this, since we need to work on inculcating modesty in ourselves...(smack talk, smack talk, smack talk)

Grumble grumble grumble you said
And I said whoosh whoosh whoosh
Of the carbon wheel through the slipstream
And the lick of the chain on metal teeth
And the drops of the fog on shaved legs
And I’m two goddamn inches from your wheel
And his wheel is two goddamn inches from my other wheel
And we trust each other for no other reason than
We’re teammates.
I once wrecked my teammate in a race, though
He couldn’t chastise me because I injured my spine.
Laying on the asphalt shoulder crumbling like pie crust
For thirty seconds until I realized I wasn’t paralyzed.
And it’s tragic because little respect was ever given
Until I took command of the front before you had cardiac arrest,
Except you gave up and screwed over the team. I’m no Ben Showman
But you’re no class-A badass mofo like me, and you can eat on that
You little poser.

Why Don't You Have a Powertap Too?

2009-02-18T15:40:00.002-05:00

Q: Graham, with all your physical prowess in the sport of cycling (booming sarcastic laughter), why don't you use a Powertap?

A: Because I do not wish to quantify how slow I am.

And now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to ride the trainer for five hours. I forgot that races start in like two weeks.

**************************************************************

perhaps the strangest text ever that I don't remember writing:

Me (3:42am, 16 Feb.): I know u poisoned racoons in birmingham i dont care whu just stop we say. dear god please okay

literally literary monday

2009-02-17T02:01:00.003-05:00

Today felt like a poetry day. It was a day on the movie screen of an abandoned drive-in theatre. It can't always be about the bike, no? Please don't plagiarize. Plagiarizing this would be like injecting yourself with sugar water and cyanide in an effort to dope euro-style. I'm paranoid of the internet. I need to go to Boston. There are tall buildings there.

“Our New-England shall tell and boast of her WINTHROP, a lawgiver as patient as Lycurgus, but not admitting any of his criminal disorders; as devout as Numa, but not liable to any of his heathenish madnesses; a governour in whom the excellencies of Christianity made a most improving addition unto the virtues, wherein even without those he would have made a parallel for the great men of Greece, or of Rome, which the pen of a Plutarch has eternized.”

–Cotton Mather, Magnalia Christi Americana (1702)

The Beginning of the End

Over Longfellow Bridge and down Charles Street
We chanced upon Boston Common. With her
Separated from vehicle lying
Overturned, cabin smashed and imploded, leaking gasoline
Entrails on the Boulder Turnpike. It’s my
Willful suspension of disbelief which
Awakens me at night drenched in sweat.

Our hands touching with a thin film of sweat
We two happened upon a bearded man,
Homeless probably, talking to himself
On a bench. “Nobody remembers me,” he sobbed so serene.
“John Winthrop’s the name.” I shook his hand and
Samantha, such sweet angel, offered him
Two dollars. But rushing down Beacon Street

The greatest scoundrel we would ever meet,
Armed with .22 and a flask of gin,
Richard Bellingham came usurping and
Murderous. He wobbled the gun at Winthrop, who sat serene,
The chance of God around the corner. She
Buried her face in my chest, and he fired:
God’s worst calamity was no mere threat.

Winthrop’s corpse slumped limp. The killer did scream,
“Jedem das Seine!” so loud it echoed
Off the New State House. These days nobody
Knows Cicero so Bellingham left the scene of this grave crime.
Of course Samantha began to give chase,
But I grabbed her arm and pulled her back and
Stared into her eyes. “I think this scene here

“Was inevitable. Let’s depart here
Before the cops implicate us.” Her face
Was disgusted. She wanted adventure,
Chasing a killer through the Commonwealth, taking all our time,
Together, heroes. Fulfilling my fears,
Though, in marched the British army. Redcoats
In formation, their general did scream,

“Fire on the rebels!” His man-eating sneer
Indicated sincerity. We ducked
As their cannons carved holes through the top of
The distant Hancock Tower. We looked on intently: our time
Had abandoned morality. Sirens
Blasted the ancient cow paths of Boston,
But the redcoats stayed to subvert our dream.

Bike Providence: The East Bay Bike Path

2009-02-14T17:22:00.013-05:00

So I decided that since I don't have a fever today I could spin an easy hour and a half so I did.

I took pictures. I hope other ECCC bloggers will take pictures of their training (like Nick Frey did of California, making me envious and a tad scared of the prospect of being in the same race as him in a few weeks - as this was evidence that he hasn't in fact been sitting on his butt eating cheeseburgers for the last four months and taken up a cigarette habit...as I had kind of, well, hoped)

I really, really, REALLY REALLY REALLY want to see where all the other ECCCers train daily. The entire allure of cycling for me is exploring new places, seeing new places, and having that feeling (tough to verbalize) of having no physical barriers between me and my environs. I want to see Boston cycling (though I kind of know what that looks like, at least from like Newton on down south). I'd like to see all the Philly cycling stuff, where in the hell Stevens trains, etc.

So, this is the East Bay Bike Path and part of the way there along the Seekonk River (through Pawtucket and East Providence). It runs about 15 miles from East Providence, just over the river from the East Side where Brown is located, down through Barrington, Warren, to Bristol - all along the Narragansett Bay. It gets wicked crowded in nice weather, so it's best in the winter. Unfortunately it's been covered in snow and ice for the past, well, two months and today was the first day that one could realistically ride on it again with a road bike.

Anyway, enough blabbing, I hope you enjoy the pictures:

I saw my (new) bike and wanted to ride it

I left the front door

Out the north end of the East Side, on Blackstone Blvd. (and the first bike lane in Providence!)
Through industrial Pawtucket
On the bike path now
View of the East Side and downcity from the bike pathIt's called the Ocean State for a reason

Barrington Marina
A stop in Prospect Terrace Park (a block from my dorm)
And back at my dorm

Keep riding!

Texting ???

2009-02-13T23:34:00.005-05:00

So I threatened to publish this previous text exchange on the internet, though meant it jokingly at the time. The (male) fool decided to light up a certain leaf that grows in certain places and inhale a bunch of times, though, thus delaying our 11:30 dinner plans until later - for which I am slightly/very pissed about and thus going to blog about since I don't have a lot of friends to talk to in person, appearently (cough, cough, New Yorkers who go home every long weekend).

(just had to remind via telephone another certain friend of where she lives...unfortunate, seriously folks, unfortunate - combining a Friday the 13th with being single as a gray-coloured duck on a Valentine's Day - goodness, goodness, drugs - though they may be the answer for boredom and being a German fatass cyclist - are never the answer for loneliness)

anway:

-Me (10:00pm): What r u up to honeybear?
-Fool (10:02pm): Love songs 4 u my little lubricated bike wheel
-Me (10:07pm): So nothing fun? i may just go to bed
-Fool (10:08pm): Whatabt luvraisins isnt fun bubblethong
-Me (10:12pm): U know i'm too much of a heartbreaker for it to be worthwhile to go about lusting for me - god i am so lonely

And he's the one to trash his mind so horribly?

Seriously, though:

Peace, love, God bless and good night!
-your little lubricated bike wheel

Feelin' Feverish

2009-02-13T21:38:00.004-05:00

If Jan Ullrich is the flu, and I am me, then this is a visual representation of my day:

ECCC Blogging

2009-02-12T21:47:00.004-05:00

Ya, ummm, I think this is going to be a new part of the ECCC Blogosphere - which is a ridiculously wicked awesome idea - though I'm worried that my tangentially random ideas with no seeming connections (aside from reflecting my extraordinarily bipolar moods and interests) may be the impetus for the blooming of insanity from the ECCC Blogosphere that has already been predicted.

The idea of the ECCC Blogosphere got me back into blogging just a few days ago, since I fell off the side of the planet into nothingness in that cyber-world over a year ago.

Therefore, it is my intention to tighten up the posts a bit and focus more on cycling.

Though I'm still puking up dinner and sneezing/coughing up boogers as I lie in bed with my laptop, let me indicate my intention to keep this at least mostly cycling centered:

I wish I was doing this right now (in such weather - ah, sweet dreams)

My Body is Destroying Itself from the Inside, onwards Out

2009-02-12T20:32:00.003-05:00

If the Pentagon ever needed to create an infomercial on responding to a biological-warfare attack on an American urban area, as surely they do every year, their cameramen could very easily descend upon College Hill right now and take hours of realistic b-roll footage.

The men and women of College Hill never asked for the secret agents of some foreign entity, who no doubt have fled the country by now, to poison our water and air with microscopic pretadors. In the face of bombardment, though, we remain strong. Brunonians do not retreat. Just as Churchill stood his ground in the name of God, King, and Country, we stand our ground in the name of Roger Williams, Buddy Cianci, and Hope. Though we do not expect others to sympathize with our plight in the form of military support or supplies, any incursion on the peace and sovereignty of the proud people of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations shall be judged in the annals of history as an act of cowardice and evil.

Though shortages of Day-Quil and Kleenex may exist, it is our hope that our neighbors and brethren in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts will provide systematic material aid on this front as we face such an onslaught of evil.

"We shall defend our island whatever the cost may be; we shall fight on beaches, landing grounds, in fields, in streets and on the hills."

P.S.
On a realistic note, in no way did I intend this slightly subversive pastiche of sorts to detract from the heroism demonstrated by entire peoples, not at all unlike our's, over 60 years ago. Today would have been my grandfather's 86th birthday. He bravely volunteered to fly on B-29 Superfortress bombers, seeing combat from 1943 to 1945. He flew the Hump several times, until the B-29s were transferred to Tinian and flew out of there until the end of the war. As far as I know, he served on two different B-29s, with the first one ending up somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. After that, he continued serving in the Air Force in the engineering corps, seeing combat in Korea and three (3!) tours of duty in Vietnam. He fought cancer for 25 years until 1997, though even until his final days he was always there to watch me at every soccer or baseball game and every school assembly. He was the ultimate fighter - but always for a good cause - and thus I'd like to think that at least some of that has rubbed off on me. He worked hard always, but with hardly a complaint, and was always there to help someone else. Ultimately, I think his sense of humor carried him through life.

Johnny Lee Anderson (1923-1997)

Yes, It's Not Pres. Obama's Fault: But He's the Man to Fix It

2009-02-12T01:54:00.003-05:00

(yet another heart-felt early-morning post - Providence-style)...

I was a full-hearted, nearly uncompromising, George W. Bush Republican before 2008. The way that I voted in 2006, the first time I could vote, was admittedly heavily (though not entirely) Republican.

Talking to my father on the phone last night for almost an hour, I also learned that he was "a card-carrying Republican until 1980," before he got his first full-time job out of college as a demographer/economist for the state of Colorado's unemployment office in Pueblo, CO - at a time when the unemployment rate in that city reached over 20% of the workforce. This indeed came a bit as a surprise, since I've know him my whole life as a full-hearted, indeed uncompromising, Democrat.

Though I don't know the numbers (nor really does anyone else), I'm pretty sure the unemployment rate in Providence right now is probably about the same, though I suspect in reality even higher. Indeed my instinct says that it may be as high as 30% of the usual workforce, if one includes immigrants and those who have dropped discouragingly out of the documented workforce.

I am now a Barack Obama Democrat. I voted entirely Democrat in the 2008 election, from the First Ward of Providence, Rhode Island.

Obama, Reed, Kennedy.

This wonderful story embodies why I did a near-180 politically so fast:

The supposedly "conservative" response to Mrs. Hughes situation not just angers me, but indeed sickens me.

Homelessness in the United States is not a reflection on the failure of the homeless, but rather a reflection of the failure and arrogance of people like me (and indeed most likely you as well).

Compassion cannot be faked.

Compassion is action. It's feeling, emotion, religion, rightness. Right now, it's Obama.

Again, God bless and good night! And may God bless people like Mrs. Hughes as well!

ATTACK, ATTACK, ATTACK!!! and i have a head-cold

2009-02-12T00:01:00.001-05:00

So, I got my butt out of bed (miraculously, though without the help of angels, and with WAY too much cussing than was allowed by ancient rules in a good Christian university as Brown), early Tuesday morning - which means 11am. This was possible because of Josh calling me, perhaps (definitely) insulted that I had not yet woken up to ride with him as I had previously promised (the previous evening when I would promise anything but not really mean it when morning came).

Whatever. Hungover ride. We all know about that. Shut up Brunonian wussie.

Wrong. Not-hungover ride. I don't get hangovers. You don't know about the previous sentence (hopefully). Brunonian wussie.

I attacked Josh. He attacked me. We kept doing that back and forth. By the time of Hazeltine's class, I could still walk but he could no longer - thus I think I'm the ATTACK/ATTACK/ATTACK victor for this inaugural ATTACK week of 2009, though I set the rules this week, and in following weeks I may probably not be the rule-setter, so inter-East-Side (or if nothing else inter-Machado/Perkins) conspiracies may very well conspire.

"ATTACK, ATTACK, ATTACK!"

"EAT LACTIC ACID, BITCH!" said I.

"PASS MY FRONT WHEEL!" said Josh.

"Don't fall into that pot-hole and break your neck," said by anonymous individuals 3-times-per-minute in the previous two-months in the state of Rhode Island.

Goodness, it's all been reduced to Barack Obama and the stimulus package, has it not?

The Great Depression, after all, has now arisen within the confines of the post-industrial state of Rhode Island - that great revolutionary stronghold continuing to embody the purest elements of Puritanism and the spirit of 1641-42/1775-76 even though the great American Revolutionary majority has long since died.

Seriously, the photos of the Great Depression match what we (at least the Brown Cycling team) get to see in all of Providence everyday, beyond the ridiculously rich East Side, into the deepest depths of all urban poverty existing in the United States today, match precisely or at times not even as strongly to the extent of the mass poverty and human suffering existing here right now. Living in Providence, the way that I have been able to see it, in the past several months has been the most chilling and horrible experience of my entire life, and indeed I hope it shall never be matched in terms of the poverty and human suffering that I have unfortunately seen.

(tears have fallen from my eyes in writing this)

The worst part is that it's not George W. Bush's fault, nor Barack Obama's, nor your's, nor mine. It was the fault of business majors, Ivy League MBA's, and the recent smartest of the smart, who allowed unbridled greed to trump the most basic of human rationality.

Let us not ever make these same mistakes. Such meltdowns are preventable, with the proper societal morality and cohesiveness.

In any case, it only seems proper that I have finally been struck and fallen with a nasty head-cold, leaving me bed-ridden except for classes and eating.

God Bless, and good-night!

Sir John A. MacDonald

2009-02-10T01:16:00.000-05:00

John A. needs no further explanation:
The old homies know what I'm talking about...

Anyway...

(random thoughts at 1am after a Monday):
-Lady GaGa is wicked hot.
-Honoré de Balzac was more of an expert on Tudor/Stuart England than most any modern scholar (or at least me); La fille aux yeux d'or was partially inspired by the story of the Lord Dudleys in Tudor England from Henry VII to Elizabeth I (in particular the execution of Lady Jane Grey).
-Barrett Hazeltine is the twice-occurring highlight of my week (yeah for Tuesdays and Thursdays!)
-My ability so far to avoid another Massachusetts Face-Plant (to be explained soon) has been quite amazing
-If I can get my butt out of bed tomorrow morning, I'm so going to do the attack/attack/attack workout with Josh...and I'm giving him a 15 second head-start on his attack/attack/attack and him no waiting on my attack/attack/attack - should be exciting!

ATTACK! ATTACK! ATTACK! and good night!

How I Spend My Time off the Bike (on a Sunday Evening) in Preparation for ECCC Men's A

2009-02-09T00:46:00.000-05:00

This is what I'm reading:

This is what I'm eating:

This is what I'm drinking:

This is what I'm listening to:
I'm so totally going to either get my butt kicked or pull off a miracle of humanity...either way, it's not going to be a pretty sight...

(trainer tomorrow - I can feel it)

Let's Try the Blogging Thing Out Again

2009-02-08T18:10:00.000-05:00

I tried it once before. It didn't work...

I had this happen last fall.
That's blood. The bursa sack on the right knee was totally jacked up - for a long time. It actually still is, but that's our own little secret, okay?

The time off the bike made me actually realize how much I enjoy it - just riding, that is. After being a competitive runner for a long time, becoming a slave to training plans and schedules and strict intervals and effort zones, I have chosen to approach cycling in a very different manner. It boils down to one word: enjoy.

I go by feel. Recovery is the center of the training plan. The inspiration is Arthur Lydiard's training method. There exists no other sounder, more proven method for any endurance sport, at least in my opinion. It also allows me a reason to ride a lot.

Anyway, this blog will not be posts of power-logs and heart rate charts. I own neither power-tap nor heart rate monitor. Those things work for most riders, but if I were to have them then I would quit the sport in a month.

Training is my excuse for racing, and racing is my excuse for training. The cycling itself needs no justification. And at the end of the day, I try not to let cycling interfere with the rest of my life - because the rest of my life is also quite strange and exhilarating.