Here’s how it all shook out in the end.  BikeJournal.com got us all to ride a ton of mile this year.  It has been a great motivator.  I think 2008 is going to be interesting!  If you haven’t signed up yet, now is the time.

We hosted our last Jay’s Cycle ride of the year today, leaving from the shop about 2:20 and heading west into the wind.  It was cold, but sunny, so it didn’t feel too bad.  Great group, spinning nice and easy through Scotch Plains, Plainfield, and Watchung.  (Me, CR, Jennifer, Robin, Maria, Adrian, The Gock, Erik, Keith, Dennis, Steve Rosenberg, Arch, Bill, Jerry, Mike Anderson, and Trey) We headed out Washington Valley Road, and gradually picked up the pace.  That separated a few riders from the pack, so we turned around and headed back (we were running out of daylight, too).  We didn’t find the stragglers, who had returned to the shop with The Gock, but we did decide to climb Johnston Drive.  CR hadn’t been on his road bike in a month, and he was dying to ride hard, so he put the hammer down going down Mountain Blvd.  He climbed with me up to the top, and we finished far ahead of everyone else, except Erik who wasn’t too far back.  Then CR wanted to sprint when we finished on Elm Street, so I kept the pace fast.  I led the group out for the last mile, then jumped hard at Franklin School.  No one was close, and it was awesome to win the final sprint of the year.

Jen and I are off to Erik’s for a New Year’s Celebration.  He’s also celebrating 5 years of cancer remission, a milestone that means technically he’s cured.  That’s cause for celebration, no doubt.

Have a Happy New Year!  See you in 2008.

-Geoff

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I’m about to join the “10k Club”, as Dr. OKB has dubbed it.  8 miles riding to work Friday, then a 2 hour ride Saturday should do it.  My December riding journal has been pretty pathetic; my total miles for the month are less than most single days in October.  It has been nice to take it easy and recharge the batteries, so to speak, but it’s now time to get to work.

We celebrated Christmas with a day of overindulgence.  Jen and I hosted her family for Christmas dinner at our house, so after a 4-mile run in the morning I got to work in the kitchen.  I made mini Asian crab cakes for an appetizer, grilled asparagus wrapped in prosciutto with basil infused olive oil, butternut squash with fresh thyme and parmesan cheese over orecchiette pasta, and seared lamb chops with fresh rosemary from our garden.  Jen’s parents brought shrimp cocktail and Phyllis’ delicious inversion cake.  I love to cook, especially when all the ingredients are fresh and as healthy as possible.  There is nothing better than going out to the garden and picking fresh herbs, then enjoying the wonderful scents as you chop them.  Great stuff.

Needless to say, I had to burn off a few calories on Wednesday.  I did my favorite quick hill loop, up onto the Watchung Ridge, out to Martinsville, then back over the mountain and home.  It was bitter cold, but my Pearl Izumi gear kept me comfortable.  It felt pretty good to push the pace, much better than my last miserable ride, and it put me in a better frame of mind. 

If you need some motivation for winter training, how about a Guiness World Record?  World’s largest spin class?  Sounds like fun to me!

Since I work in a bike shop, this post that the Drake forwarded to me practically suffocated me with laughter.  I’m sure the humor is lost on many.  For those who get it, it’s good stuff.  If you don’t find it funny, when you check your bike in for service tell Chris “No rush, I won’t need it until this afternoon”.  Can you tell a spanner from a pedal wrench?  Yeah, I didn’t think so.  The pedal wrench is the one Chris will use to cleave your skull in two.  (Endurance Guru Rule #1:  practice humility.  It is only when you admit that you don’t know the answers that you actually learn something.  This is true in the field of bike mechanics too.) By the way, one of Chris’ favorite beers is Sam Adams Boston Lager.

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My Christmas shopping is finished.  Finito.  Done.  So rather than going shopping, as I have in the few other spare hours I have had in the last month, I went for a ride.  I headed to Westfield, hoping to make it to the bike shop for Don’s 10 am ride, but just missed them.  Sam told me they headed out through Plainfield, but I didn’t see them on my way in, so they must have taken another route.  I decided to head up through Watchung Reservation, and hopefully meet up with the group on their return trip.  However, after a few miles my hands were so frozen I couldn’t shift, in spite of wearing good gloves.  It was damp, cold and raw, only 36ºF, not pleasant.  I spun back to the shop, where I had left my car last night, then drove home with the seat heater cranked.  It’s rare that getting out for a ride doesn’t put me in a better mood, but this one wasn’t very rewarding.

Holiday business is finally starting to get crazy at the shop.  It seems lots of people waited until the last minute to shop this year.  I keep hearing from the news media that retail sales this month are the worst in 5 years, but I can only see a slight decrease for Jay’s Cycle.  Every store in Westfield is packed, and the town is locked in the midst of a huge traffic jam.  But I guess business is slow in other parts of the country.  Philadelphia area bike dealers must be hurting.  The Drake sent me this Craigslist posting.  Very interesting marketing tactic!

I heard about this ride yesterday.  Might be a fun one.  It’s a great cause, and the party afterward is rumoured to be excellent.

Dr. OKB sent me this video, which wins the Spectacular Crash of the Week award.  It’s ugly any way you look at it.

On that note, wear your helmet and ride defensively.  And keep it upright.

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Freezing rain all day, no riding at all.  I was going to ride my CX bike this morning in the crunchy ice, but Jen nixed that idea.  Would have been fun to mess with Bonsall - putting in miles on a day like today is ludicrous, but miles are miles.  Miles on a cross bike should be worth extra credit, too. We weren’t terribly busy at the shop today either.  We sold 10 bikes, but it was like BANG, Bang, bang. . . .BANGGGGGG!  Crazy first hour, then 2 hours of watching football and playing Pop-a-shot, then we sold another 5 bikes in the last 20 minutes of the day, after the Jets and Steelers lost and all the hopeful decided to go shopping.  The Bengals embarrassed themselves yesterday and screwed themselves out of the lamest wildcard berth the playoffs might have ever seen. I saw the headlines of the New York Times on Friday, and I’m laughing my ass off.  Cycling has been the sorry tackling dummy for too long, simply by trying to catch the cheaters and compete cleanly.  Baseball, however, is an ostrich with its head in the sand: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/13/sports/baseball/13mitchell.htmlAnd this adds to the comedy:

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We slept in until 11:46 today.  The Jay’s Cycle holiday party went late into the night, as we expected.  I don’t envy CR, Sam, Vince and Chris, as they had to put everything back in order this morning.  When we left the shop at 2:30 this morning, it was a disaster area, even though Jay, MG, Jen and I packed up all the leftover food and beverages, brought in all the display racks from outside, and tried to get the chaos under control.  We drove Trey home, then spent an hour hanging out with him and his 9 yellow lab puppies.  (If you would like a very cute puppy for Christmas, let me know).  We almost left with one.  Back at home, Jen made some garlic fries, and we went to bed with really stinky breath.

It’s hard to get out of funk when your day starts in the afternoon.  We went for a run, then after making French toast and returning phone calls, we headed out and bought a nice little Christmas tree.  A pretty little Douglas fir.  The cats think it’s awesome.  It looks great with some lights strung around the trunk, glowing from deep inside.

We were in the mood for a cozy, hearty dinner, so after some shopping in downtown Westfield, we headed to Star of India.  Amar fed us well, as always.  Now were home again, getting ready to trim the tree.  I was in the mood for some Over the Rhine: All I Ever Get For Christmas Is Blue.  Karen and Lindford are old friends from long ago in Cincinnati who continue to make amazing music year after year.  If you get a chance to see them perform live, do so.  It will warm your soul.  Warm, beautiful music.  Check out their lovely Christmas cd Snow Angels and their website Over The Rhine

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The Jay’s Cycle Center club on Bikejournal.com has passed our goal of 100,000 miles for the year.  I did the honors yesterday, riding to Somerville to pick up my car at Millenium VW.  I hammered*** 16 miles in the cold rain, trying to get there fast enough that I could stop back at home and shower before heading to work.  Of course, they didn’t fix the car right, so I had to wait around for another hour in my soaking wet clothes while they did the job they were supposed to have done in the first place.  Look, I don’t envy anyone who has to work on my car - it’s a rolling wreck - but at least check to make sure the parts you install work, for god sakes!  When I ran Wright Brothers Cyclery years ago, my one rule for mechanics was that they had to take each repaired bike for a test ride.  If they weren’t happy with the ride, bike’s owner certainly wouldn’t be.  Hopefully the guys did a better job fixing the bikes knowing that they would be venturing out into traffic and possibly suffer the consequences of poorly adjusted brakes, deraillers, etc. 

It’s official: Trek is the new bike sponsor of Astana.  So does Levi get a new bike, or are they painting his Madone 6.9 turqouise?

The Drake just sent me the newly announced 2008 Race Across America route.  Not much detail, but the route is probably the flattest, fastest route possible across the US.  And quite possibly the most boring, too.  I’m guessing the sudden southward change in direction in midwestern Ohio is to avoid the hills of Pennsylvania.

To get you into the holiday spirit, here’s the Nutcracker:

http://my.break.com/content/view.aspx?ContentID=358435

Okay, that was cruel.  This should mesmerize you and make you forget about it:
http://www.break.com/index/cool_backyard_track.html

Happy cycling!

***My average speed was 19.4, on 70 psi knobby cross tires, in the rain, no wind whatsoever.  I’m not sure where that effort came from.  Perhaps I’m just well rested after being a slug all week?   

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Not wanting to miss the last leaf pickup of the year, if it ever does happen, I sacrificed a gorgeous sunny morning to rake the last of the leaves from our yard.  That cantankerous maple way in the back of our lot still has a few leaves clinging to it, but hopefully a strong wind will blow them over the fence into the yard of our obnoxious neighbors whose dogs snarl at me whenever I go back there.  They must keep the dogs inside at night, because the deer seem to be sleeping back there on a regular basis.  Deer turds everywhere. 

The leaves were still really damp from the last few days of sporadic rain, so it was a chore to gather them up.  I piled some onto my 15×25 foot tarp, and found that my little pile weighed about 600 lbs.  Pretty tough to drag to the curb.  I got in a good workout, sort of like playing tug of war with the NY Giants.  Several repeats of this and the yard is clean.

I came back inside to find a message from Robin on the phone, looking for a riding partner.  It would have been nice to spin with her.  Bummer to miss out.  But the pile of leaves in front of our house is bigger than a ‘74 Cadillac Fleetwood.  I feel sorry for any kid who can’t resist the urge to dive in, as he’s on a collision course with deer poo.

So I dropped the Passat off at Millenium VW for emergency service.  Ruptured fuel line, and a pesky broken trunk latch.  Of course, they found another dozen things that needed to be done, totalling several thousand dollars.  No thanks.  The car has 171,000 miles on it, and I couldn’t even sell it to anyone in good conscience.  If it runs on the occasional day that I can’t ride where I need to go, I’ll be happy.  Having no car payment is a good thing. 

After dropping off the clunker, I rode my cyclecross bike home.  I wanted to do a longer spin down to Princeton, but it was starting to rain and the gorgeous sunshine had completely disappeared hours earlier.  It was raw and clammy.  I had loaned the cx bike to Nick for the last 2 months, and I forgot to raise the seat back up, so it was hard to get any leverage on the pedals and spin normally.  Still, it was nice to be out on the road, turning my legs over, even if my hands and feet were numb.

Pez posted a terrific interview with Chris Horner.  Great stuff from a class act in the pro peloton. 

Part 1:  http://www.pezcyclingnews.com/?pg=fullstory&id=5512&status=True

Part 2: http://www.pezcyclingnews.com/?pg=fullstory&id=5520&status=True

Velo News has the video highlights of the Portland GP of Cyclocross stop.  I think white is a terrible choice of color for a cx team jersey.  http://www.velonews.com/vntv/?Art_ID=1911   Horner is pretty much unrecognizable at the end, but I think he finished 4th, behind the Trebon/Johnson/Wells sandbagging trio that is usually glued to the podium.  I think it should be mandatory that if you win one USGP of Cross race, you have to go to Europe and race the Superprestige series the next season.  Not that any of these guys has a chance at knocking off Sven Nys for the overall title, but it would be cool if America’s best crossers would join Jonathan Page over there and begin to have an impact on what is still the most Euro of cycling disciplines. 

It makes me happy to think of Italy:

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Hollywood just decided that bike commuting is cool.  However,  I think that Mr. Pitt looks a little bit terrified in this photo. 

http://www.shorewoodbicycle.com/index.html

I can’t wait for the next Coen brothers film to do for bike commuting what The Big Lebowski did for bowling.  Yeah, you know what I mean.  Do you think Angeline Jolie is reading my blog?

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I don’t have any of my own riding to tell you about, so here’s some cycling history.  This is a fun trip down memory lane. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJSgzHTRg38

Much champagne was uncorked at my house that night.  No matter what you think of him now, Greg Lemond was freakin’ fast. 

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Today was a bit off.  It was my day off, and the weather didn’t cooperate.  The wind chill was ugly, and it was snowing intermittently, so I took it easy.  I was actually dressed and ready to run, and then it started snowing really hard for a while, and I just ended up writing for a while.  I was going to get my trainer and tri bike set up, but ended up running out of time.  I went out to Phillipsburg to  see Pam and pick up my new business cards, which have been sitting at Print Plus since she finished them in October.  It was good to see her and hang out for a bit.  She brought her border collie Radar to work today, and Radar was fired up to have people to greet.  She’s a cool dog.

I got a bit of Christmas shopping done, which I’m sure is going to get harder to do in the coming weeks.  Ran a bunch of errands, and then picked Jen up at school.  Her car was supposed to be finished today, but Richie needs until tomorrow to  finish putting in the new transmission.  Mrs. Andretti is going to have to make this one last a while.

We went to Shop Rite and stocked up.  The weather forecast must be bad, because every old person in Union County was at Shop Rite.  We had to park out in the boonies, which always drives Jen nutty.  Not sure why it’s such a big deal to someone who has run a marathon, but it’s funny to see her get so aggravated when she has to walk across a parking lot.  (Side note:  it is a universal law that anyone with a handicap license plate or parking exemption is a horrible driver.  In some cases, I suppose this is why they are handicapped.  In most cases, however, they’re just lazy and think they are entitled to their own reserved parking space, the right to change lanes on the freeway without looking, make left turns at red lights, make turns from the through lane, and go 50 in the fast lane.  I get pissed off when I see someone park in a handicap space and walk into a store.  I once turned down a good job offer because my boss would have been one of these people.  It would have made me crazy to be around her, knowing that she is a lazy slob who has resigned herself to getting old.  A walk would have done her some good.  As it would most of these people.  Okay, there’s my rant for the day.)  We left Shop Rite with an overloaded shopping cart and much lighter wallets, but we should be set for a while.  Except that we started to remember things we forgot to get as soon as we got home.

So now we are making some Indian dinner at home.  I have a big pot of lamb roganjosh simmering on the stove.  We just wolfed down some naan bread and some killer chutney.  We already polished off a delicious bottle of pinot noir/gamay blend that Mike at Total Wine’s recommended (Louis Chavy 2006 Bourgogne Grand Ordinaire).  Mmmm.  Started mellow and finished with a gorgeous bang on the taste buds.  And it’s only $8.

http://cozybeehive.blogspot.com/2007/12/lore-of-victory-salute.html

I hope you get a laugh out of it too.  The video is priceless.

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