I could do this all day.

Strava Ruins Everything

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/28/fitness-tracking-app-gives-away-location-of-secret-us-army-bases


Kim Jong-un and 119 others gave you kudos on Location Of The Secret Base.  

Beauty Pageant Camel Doping

If Sled Dog Doping was the last bastion of hope for clean sport rhetoric in the modern age, then Beauty Pageant Camel Doping is almost certainly whatever the next step is - presumably downward into a Mad Maxian abyss of lawlessness.

Two Camels enter.  One Camel leaves.

It's all over.

Did you enjoy, once upon a time, watching sports on TV and wondering who is going to win?  Rooting for a team?  Believing in something?  All things that your kids will tell their kids that "your grandparents used to do."

And that will be hilarious for them, that we, once upon a time, believed people won things without cheating.

Case in point: All around good guy and badass local, B-slow, didn't get a contract this year, 2018.  Clean, hard working, role model of a dude, on the cusp of either a career in cycling or a career in engineering...and by all accounts it SHOULDA' been cycling given his talent and work ethic.

But instead, Francisco Mancebo continues to race on a pro contract.

It's our fault - the audience.  Without us, no one pays for this shit, which maybe doesn't help our boy B-Slow anyway, but at the very least Mancebo wouldn't get getting paid by Canyon Bikes to race their brand, whatever it is.

Who the fuck at Canyon bikes said, presumably in a board meeting or in an email, "let's sponsor Francisco Mancebo."  Did someone really do that?  I'd like to leave my botox-injected, facially tortured, molested, insane camel in a dark room with that guy for about an hour, let the pieces fall where they may.

For a real journey into the depths of hopelessness that pro cycling fans and racers find themselves in today, https://www.dopeology.org/ is a hoot.  Check out the incidents page...err, pages.  50 pages, in fact.  A lifetime of drugs and cheating.

Good for you, Bryan Lewis.  Not playing that game is probably the best career choice you'll ever make.  We are proud of you, boy.  (Though on your palmares, I can't find your Pantani win or your Tour De Burg win.  Must update.)

The rest of us, down we go, folks.

The race to the bottom is on, and to get there first you have to ride a camel on drugs.
down down down down down...

Step 2: Apply Turd Polish

Pantani Preparation, Step 2: like it says in the title.  It's all you can do at this point.  It's modestly effective, at least on the start line.  After that, not so much.

I'm omitting step 1, of course, because as we discussed last week, you didn't do it earlier, so there's no sense cramming now.  You'll shoot your eye out.  And then where will you be?  Fucked, for certain, but who knows exactly where.  Probably on brokenback, half-blind, and completely toast.

What you should do, though, is buy yourself a ticket to see The National on April 30th right here in town.  Fall into rivers with friends on the weekends.  You know, stuff you're actually good at.  

Step 3:  Thumb in ass. You're awesome at this part too.  Look at you there.  It's like your gift to the world.

Step 4:  Have a look at the map, cue sheet, and instructions from yesteryear, and have confidence that the more things change the more they stay the same.  Try not to think too hard about which bike you're going to ride, because we'll get to that next week, like we do every year, and shake the internet right to its very bottom (which, conveniently, is exactly where you are right now.)

Step 5:  In all the ways that Marco Pantani, in the end, could not - keep looking up, up, up.

Ready / Not Ready

3 weeks until Pantani.  At this point, you're probably either ready or you're not.

Ready, like riding 100 gravel miles in 20 degree weather at Gravelocity, is a pretty obvious state of being.  I've never done that route, mind you, but my understanding is that it makes Pantani look like Square Dance night at the Elks lodge.  Point being that when you're ready, you know.

Or alternatively, you're not ready, like...

Say anything.  Drink everything.  

There's very little middle ground actually.  Thinking you're maybe ready, just maybe, though not being quite sure, I can assure you, is the same as not being ready.  A few intervals between now and Feb 11th won't really help.

And, it's time we face it, ready sucks anyway.  Ready is a ton of work.  And ready is fragile - like when you get sick, or break a chain, or burn out, or get called into work, or any number of other things - and ready becomes not ready in an instant.

The upside of not ready, though inconvenient when it comes to actually climbing brokenback 3 hours into Pantani, is that it is actually a wonderfully freeing sense of self.  Everything except for brokenback comes easier when you're simply not ready and you know it.  For example, when faced with the decision of whether or not to drink that Bud Lite that sat in your car for 6 months after a near-riot broke out at Pantani2017 when a faulty tap rendered all of the real beer worthless, the answer is an enthusiastic, why the hell not?

In the world we live in today, where truth is now measured on a curve, and the concept of "fact" is a thing that people used to do but don't anymore, being ready doesn't matter anymore.

Take Pantani Course Record holder, B-slow, who, when pressed for advice that he'd give Average Joe Pantani Racer 3 weeks from glory, could come up with nothing.  NOTHING.

Similarly, Marky Mark, like the Yoda of questionable beer selection (only with better grammar), when pressed on the question of whether Bud Lite ferments if you leave it in the sun for too long, did not know.

These men are professionals.  Craftsmen.  Guys who should reasonably be able to answer basic questions about their trades.  And yet...being and nothingness.  That's why I'm stepping in here to set the record straight.

Fake Newsflash: Bud Lite Ferments.  (I don't actually know if that's true.)
But as a metaphor for fitness, it's spot on.
And we drink it anyway, don't we?

Look it up, up, up.

A mix of Audrey Hepburn and Queen

The fact that we are exactly, at this very instant, 1 month out from Il Pantani 2018 is hardly noteworthy for you.

As I mentioned earlier, many times, you are screwed.  Look at the route.  Look at the elevation profile.  Look at the guys who are out there killing themselves training already.  Now look in the mirror.  Racing this thing, by any stretch of the imagination, is out of the question.

Granted, I think you'll have fun anyway, near the middle of the group, cruising along with the mediocre likes of myself, talking shit and telling stories, pacing yourself, making sure you're ready with a proper calf joke for when we see Will Leet walking up brokenback with a headful of lactic acid, like a wobbly newborn pony.

"What does a quarterback say to a cyclist?"

"Hike."

And so forth.  
Indeed, that will be fun.  But racing?  No.  We aren't doing that.  So there's no need to actually stress about your fitness now.  In fact, at this point in my life, just showing up not injured is half the battle.  I say...don't prepare...just panic in the final week.  Panic is equally effective, and it takes less time.

For now, focus on the fun.  Winter riding is one of the best things about Virginia.  No bugs.  Huge views.  But not really any snow either.  This place glows in the winter, no matter how grey it might seem on the surface.

Build a trail.
Drink dark beer.
Go see Will Overman with a full band on Saturday at 6 PM at The Ante Room.

And worry not.  I've got a thumb on the panic button on your behalf, and I'll let you know when it's time.

Up, up, up.

Racing Age: 40

Racing Age: 40.
It's a somber moment, I can tell you.
Not bad, really.  Just earlier than I expected.  You always assume you have more time on this, because you actually DO have more time.  Your birthday isn't for a few months.  And yet, January 1, as a bike racer, you are 40.  Racing age.  Not real age.  Thanks for the early punch in the gut, USAC.

But then again, your real age, if that were somehow a measure of your mileage, would be way, way older than 40.  Look at you.  Your knees pop and creak like an old wood floor every time you stand up.  You pee every 7 to 10 minutes, like an over-hydrated golden retriever puppy.  You haven't stayed up past 10 PM in at least a year.  No indeed, racing age - 40 - that's being generous.  Take your 40 years and shut up.

In 2003, I raced the Firecracker 50 in Breckenridge, back when MTB categories were still Beginner, Sport, Expert, and Pro.  On your calf at registration, they marked you with a black sharpie - E2 was an expert in his 20's.  S3 was Sport 30's.  And so on.  As an S2 at the time, I was humbled on lap two to be in the mix with a lot of E5s and E6s.  By "in the mix" I actually mean "remorselessly dropped and left for dead."  More than an asskicking, these guys gave me pause, encouragement - I had some good years left.

And I still do, I guess.
So do they, I imagine.  One or two of them might even be an E8 by now.  Wow.  I imagine if "racing age: 40" gives you a jar, then "racing age: 80" will make you shit your pants.  Or by then, you'll be over it anyway.

It would be my honor to take that asskicking again, if they were so inclined.  Maybe I will get back out to Breck someday.  Maybe I'll do so as an E6 myself, look over on the paved road back up the mountain on lap two at some S2 spinning way to small of a gear and tell him, with no hyperbole, "you're pedaling like my grandson."  Maybe he will actually be my grandson.

We should all be so lucky.

Up, up, up.

Pinch the Grinch for being a Holiday Villain

Well, I hope the big guy in the red suit from the north pole treated you OK.  But if he didn't, at least you still have Death Row Entertainment.  And they can't take that from you.
At least not yet.  

Aside from that, happy new year or whatever, and being new as it is, let's go straight to Pantani info:

1)  The course will, indeed, remain the same this year, despite my threats to lengthen it and make it harder when B-slow and other mutants finished in under 3 hours.
Rather than make the course itself longer or steeper, I'll simply make it colder, and we'll hopefully have the same effect, that being Will Leet walking up brokenback (again.).

2)  Though I am no longer on Facebook, I do have eyes and ears posted up, and they keep me in tune with all of the questions, rumors, and so forth, including but not limited to stories of Will Leet walking up brokenback, jokes about Will Leet walking up brokenback, and the nefarious lack of photographs of Will Leet walking up brokenback.  And other Deep State type shit.  So don't think that just because I'm not there doesn't mean I'm not listening.

3)  Those very same eyes and ears sent me this:


As Pantani Claus would tell you, he makes a list and checks it twice.  And he is never wrong.  (See also, Will Leet walking up Brokenback, 2017.)

Get your shit together, old men.
It is later than you think.