My Enduring Love...

Breakfast cereal, I've loved you for as long as I remember.
and that love has grown with each passing day --
grown to the incomprehensible infinity of affection that I now feel
Breakfast cereal, you lift me up and made my heart soar.
you are the nourishment of my soul, and my body
you have kept me alive for weeks on end
literally.

Breakfast cereal, I shall never be full of you.
even if my belly is stretched like a drum around tabbouleh and falafel
even if my belly is stretched like a drum around a turkey ruben
even if my belly is stretched like a drum around other goddam cereal
there is always room for more of you

Breakfast cereal, you've never diminished.
in my heart. Even for that month when I preferred granola.


This poem was written by a full grown man.

Glider Bison's Official Endorsement

The Glider Bison blog has decided to officially endorse senator Barack Obama's campaign to become the next president of the United States.

Last night, I participated in my first democratic primary election. I am proud to say that I am one of those "young people" who has been inspired to not only learn more about, but to actually participate in our nation's electoral process. This newfound interest is almost entirely due to Obama. He inspires me; it's as simple as that. I don't see him as any more "qualified" to be in the White House than senator Clinton (or any less so for that matter) -- they're both great candidates -- but I feel Obama's potential to unite and inspire our country is far greater than anyone I've ever seen in my lifetime. Here's an excellent blog post that mirrors much of my sentiment by good friend and political junkie Aaron Mandel.

Last night, in the Quest arena in downtown Boise, Ada county held the nation's largest democratic caucus. It was an absolute circus -- nearly 10,000 people showed up. Even after the stadium was filled to capacity, the line outside stretched for blocks. Idaho does its first round of voting with a paper ballot, allowing everyone there (including those waiting in the line outside) to cast a vote. My friends and I realized we weren't going to get inside the arena, so we cast our votes, and then went into the sports bar overlooking the arena. We couldn't participate but we got to see the spectacle. Several glasses of water (no alcohol could be served inside the building) and a basket of French fries later, someone told us that there was now room inside the arena, and I got to go down onto the floor and bathe in the bizairre atmosphere. After the paper ballots were tallied, any voters whose candidate did not receive 15% of the vote was given the opportunity to cast another vote, or to try to lure voters into increasing their numbers to 15%. This was not necessary. Obama took nearly 90% of the vote for our precinct, helping to give Idaho his biggest margin of victory in any state.

Obama drew a crowd of over 14,000 to his speech on Saturday. Please remember, this is Idaho. There are only something like 12,000 registered democrats in the state. You do the math.

A Super Bowl.

Yesterday, despite allotting a mere 35 minutes of my day to watching football (the amount of time I anticipated it would take the Patriots to score 9 touchdowns), I ended up watching the whole darn game. As anyone who did the same can tell you, it was a satisfying, nail-biter of a game, and the patriots lost, which makes most people happy (while simultaneously proving that a team's record means absolutely nothing when it comes to winning the super bowl).

There were some awesome new ads, namely, the baby explaining how easy it is to trade stock. He was hilarious (twice!).


I also like this advertisement (thanks to my teammate Patrick Stanko for sharing). It gives me hope that some day I'll find a job like this too...

The Crystal Ball: Gazing Into the Future!!

Recently, I went to a carnival. It was everything that I wanted from a carnival: creepy carnies, delicious fried foods, dozens of ways to lose my money playing rigged "games of skill", and best of all, a fortune teller. Situated towards the back of the carnival grounds there stood a saggy, purple and green tent, with the faded words "Wanda the Wise" painted on the side. I nervously poked my head inside the entrance and the smell of burning sandalwood greeted my nostrils. The tent was dimly lit by a single candle burning on a low table. A woman (who I assumed was Wanda) was seated behind the table on a dark red pillow, still and motionless. Her face was knotted, her hair frizzy and gray. Her eyes were closed.

"Hello? Wanda? Are you, uh, available?" I asked.

Wanda's eyes snapped open, and she pointed to the red pillow on the other side of the table. I sat down. Without saying a word, Wanda reached under the table, produced a crystal ball, and set it down in between us. She grabbed my hands with hers, and guided them onto the sides of the ball. BLAH BLAH BLAH.....

I'm getting bored of this fortune teller nonsense. I just want to talk about my upcoming schedule. I'll share what is in store for the next three months. Here it goes:

February
Basic outline: Stay in Boise, work a lot, train a lot. Wish that the winter would hurry up and end.
Major races: February 15,16,17 -- Valley of the Sun Stage Race in Phoenix, Arizona. This is a large race that serves as the season opener for dozens of fast guys from around the country, myself included. Many of the people who show up live in Arizona, and thus have been riding hard outside all winter. It will be a good opportunity to gauge where my fitness is, and I don't necessarily expect to do well.

March
Basic outline: Stay in Boise, work a lot, train a lot. Try to get as prepared as I can for the real racing (build my new bike, obtain any needed equipment, get my car a tune-up, etc.)
Major races: None. I will race the local Boise spring series and get smacked around by the Bob's Bicycles team. I might get very antsy in March.

April
Basic outline: Buckle up, because the ride gets bumpy. I'll pack my stuff into my car, and head out to Seattle. I'll be racing most of the month, but in between, I'll stay with my teammates and or Whitman connections. My schedule couldn't be better: three hard weekends of racing in a row, followed by a rest week (which I'll spend part of in New Mexico to adjust to the altitude), and then my first NRC of the season.
Major races: April 4,5,6 -- Tour of Willamette, outside Portland, Oregon. This three-day, four-stage race wasn't on the calendar last year, but was very popular in 2006.
April 12 -- Tahyua-Seabeck-Tahyua out on the Olympic Peninsula. This is a really tough, one-day "classic". There is inevitably lots of rain, lots of cold, and some extremely steep climbs that shatter the field. I've done well at this race in the past, and last year Hagens-Berman took first and second. We intend to defend.
April 13 -- Boat Street Crit, University District, Seattle. This is one of the most popular crits in Seattle. It's a great course and a fun atmosphere.
April 18,19,20 -- Tour of Walla Walla. My favorite stage race in Washington by a landslide. It's a blast racing in front of a home-town crowd of Whitties. The courses are hard, the field is usually full, and the weather is normally sunny. Yeehaw!
April 3o, May 1,2,3,4 -- Tour of the Gila, Silver City, New Mexico. This is my first NRC of the season. I'll be spending part of the previous week in Santa Fe so I'll have adjusted a little bit to the altitude. This will be my third year doing this race, and that experience will come in handy. I absolutely love the Tour of the Gila. Silver City is fun, the race is grueling, and the competition is intense. From The tour of the Gila, I'll be going straight to Portland to race the Mt. Hood Cycling Classic -- that's right, the first two stages are in downtown Portland.


You'll get the next three month "prediction" in a few weeks.
If you're lucky.

RACES OFF THE STARBOARD BOW!!!!

YAR MATEYS, HOIST AWAY -- AND PUT YER BACKS INTO IT!
TONIGHT WE SET SAIL, AND IN TWO WEEKS TIME, OUR WHEELS SHALL SPIN OVER THE RICHEST SET OF ROADS A RACER'S EVER SET EYES UPON.
THE CROSSING WILL NOT BE EASY, AND THE PLUNDER WILL NOT UNGUARDED, BUT A RACE IS A RACE, AND A'RACIN'S WHAT WE DO!!

ONLY A FOOL WOULD STAND 'TWEEN A MADMAN LIKE ME AND HIS GOLD, BUT FOOLS THERE ARE A'PLENTY DOWN IN THE VALLEY OF THE SUN. HEAR ME NOW AND SHIVER YER TIMBERS, YOU FOOLISH MEN WHO THINK THEY STAND A CHANCE 'GAINST THE MOST DREADED NAME IN THE IDAHO SEA -- I AM AFRAID OF NO MAN -- HAVE YOU NINE LUNGS AND SIX HEARTS, HAVE YOU A PRO CONTRACT WITH THE DEVIL HIMSELF, LOOK ME IN THE EYES AND KNOW:


I AM NOT AFRAID...

California

After spending a weekend in northern California, I am convinced that the sun still exists. My concerns that the world has been thrust into a Narnia-like permanent winter have been dispelled. While most of our trip was filled with overcast skies and rain, there were a few moments of sublime sunshine that made it all worth it. Actually, that's not true at all. Here's a slice of why:

• I climbed the twisting, craggy road that goes from Davis to Napa in the pouring rain. There were waterfalls appearing our of nowhere along the cliffs.
• I climbed to the top of mount Diablo, ascending nearly 3000' in a mere thirteen miles. I throttled it up the first half, and set a new season-high power record. The view from the top is panoramic, and I watched coyotes harass a colony of pikas along the way.
  
• I climbed the bluffs outside Sausalito, past the massive gun turrets from World War Two. The road looks straight down on the Golden Gate Bridge, and the one-way descent was as beautiful as it was steep.
  
• I climbed mount Tamalpias through sheets of fog so thick, I got scared and made us turn around -- New Mexicans have an innate fear of fog. I was later informed that it wasn't fog at all, but rather low hanging clouds. I didn't really care, I'm just glad we got the hell out of there.
  
• I climbed out of the Muir woods through a hundred-foot canopy of redwood trees. From within the forest, there was no way to tell the wind was that strong.
  

Velodromes...

For most cities, building a velodrome is like making a new year's resolution to lose eighty pounds before July: the idea sounds great, in theory it's what you want, you'll probably spend a bunch of money on gimmicky "quick fix" solutions, and there's a good chance absolutely nothing will actually happen.
Take my home state of New Mexico for example. The notion of building a velodrome in the Land of Enchantment is older than Lance Armstrong's recent squeeze. Numerous proposals have come and gone -- some of them more hair-brained than others. When I was first getting into racing, I spent a summer in Santa Fe. Daydreaming about how sweet the new Southwest Velodrome would be was a favorite pastime. The Southwest Velodrome Association got off on the right foot: they proposed a plan, asked city council for permission, and went about raising money. But when a wooden velodrome in Winnipeg, Canada (originally built for the 1999 Pan-American games) was put up for sale for a fraction of the cost it took to build it, the Southwest Velodrome Association bought the thing like a jittery E-bay shopper. They had the velodrome disassembled, and shipped it to Albuquerque. Since they had not yet procured a piece of land upon which to assemble a velodrome, nor had they sufficient funds to do so in a timely manner, the wooden pieces just sat on a lot. Outside. In Albuquerque, New Mexico -- a place so hot and dry that more often than not, when it rains all the water evaporates before it hits the ground (I shit you not). Naturally, the velodrome pieces warped horribly. It's uncertain whether or not the pieces are still usable (albeit with a substantial amount of sanding). What is certain, is that the Southwest Velodrome Association set themselves back a decade or more in their plans to bring track racing to New Mexico.


Boise, Idaho on the other hand, seems to have its shit a little more together. The Idaho Velopark is currently under construction. This impressive facility will make the lives of Boise cyclists much much better. As well as the 333.3 meter concrete velodrome, the Velopark will boast a BMX track, a combined cyclocross / short-track mountain bike course, and a "skills park" [I have no idea what this is]. My point is, there is currently a piece of land (one that I've seen with my own eyes!) with a sign on it. That sign that tells me that one day, there will be a massive, gleaming bicycle track for me to race upon, and I like that idea. I'm sure there will be snags, delays, and shortcomings, but clearly the people in charge of the Idaho Velopark aren't ninnies. And I hate ninnies. Unless they're dancing ninnies.