Dan Action

Growing legs February 23, 2009

The weather here has been pretty moderate, making for very little excuse to not get out and ride. I’ve been putting together some new loops to make things interesting. One with a good number of short but sharp climbs and others with constant rollers. I’m getting pretty excited for some warmer riding weather all the same though. It always feels like I’m working twice as hard in the cold. I really don’t have so much meat on my bones to speak of, so I tend to be really tense when on the bike for a couple of hours or more in the cold. I usually finish the ride, take a hot shower and crash out for a bit.

I did get out on the mountain bike a couple of times. It gave me hope for the season of fast riding to come. The trails were’t too soft, though on one of the warmer days (45 deg.) some sections started to thaw leaving me and Brendan to push our bikes through some horrendous mud.

In other news, all the Rapha coverage from the Tour of Cali we rode is finished up, leaving you, the hopeful viewer, with pages and pages of gorgeous photos and write ups. The gems of this ride, however, seem to be the videos taken. They’re posted up on the Rapha Continental site as well. They are nice additions to the project, not to mention, beautifully shot.

Last night there were some roller races here in Philly. Not too sparsely attended, but also the event seemed to be kept close to folks’ chest so as not to overwhelm the relatively small bar they took place in. Apparently, they were put on by some folks from NYC to rev up some excitement about Monster Track taking place this weekend. The top three finishers here were to be put into the finals at the roller races happening there. I did end up as the final winner and was assured to be given a round trip Chinatown bus ticket from Philly to NY, shown a good time throughout the weekend of events there, and get to compete. I also won a r.e. Load bag. Good times. Folks were super nice and I finally got to meet Jorge, a guy who I’d been in touch with for a while. Brendan got fourth, and a bit tipsy and we took a nice slow road home afterwards.

As spring draws near so much stuff is starting to ramp up. As mentioned earlier, Monster Track is this coming weekend, the Hand made show is also this coming weekend, training races are starting to happen most likely in your area, and I’m trying to navigate it all.

Nathalie’s spring break starts at the end of this week, so I hope to get to spend a bunch of QT with her, including a pre-ride of Battenkill’s new course. Anyone in? Probably the weekend of the seventh and eighth of March.

Here’s some photos to catch you up.