Monday, Monday

great ride this afternoon. We must have got back right before the gale force wind's started again. It was windy today while we were out, but it sound's like a major tornado going on right now though, wow! Temps. were in the 40's this afternoon and very comfortable, this ride actually felt better than most that we do in the summer. 1:30 for 28 miles and some easy climbs, nothing earth shattering, but that's not in the plans now anyway, just a great feeling ride.

Ciao

Rt.21 & Valley Parkway

group ride today. There were 21 of us total today, not pictured are Sally & Dave C., Rick Adams and Josh B. and me (the photographer), afterwards Brett Davis met us in the parking lot too. We did 2:15 with 41 miles and some nice climbs. We all kept the pace moderate with a few Matt Weeks attacks off the front that did not materialize cuz he would always be bent over working on his bike when we would eventually pass him a few minutes later......:-) Great weather today for the end of December and it was nice to get this many out for a base mileage ride, it just show's that everyone is still very interested in riding their bikes even after the long racing season is over.

Afterwards we went back to the shop, drank some coffee and told some good stories, It was a good day!

Later all.

Affligem Belgian Ale

This was a Christmas present from my bud and coach Shawn Adams. This is a pretty strong Belgian Pale Ale with an 8.5% alcohol content. The brewery is located in the Abbey of Affligem in Flanders and was founded in 1074 by the Benedictine Monks. It has a solid taste with many different fruit's. Pours a pretty thick head with a golden yellow ale color. This one made my nose go numb after a tall glass. I will definately look for another bottle of this.

Thanks Shawn and Merry Christmas, and to all the Benedictine Monks that still work at the brewery, keep up the good work, you Catholic boy's know how to brew a helluva good beer.

Hello!

something to get your mind off of these cold dreary days......

I love summer

Merry Christmas

Allright, I'm working on my 3rd. cup of Starbucks right now and I'm ready to head outside for about a 4 hr. run........ more caffeine....... Went to Mass last night, then to Lynn's parents where we ate, opened gift's and had a nice time. Opened present's here this morning, more caffeine........ took some pictures and it's only 9:00 am. more caffeine.......... Okay, I gotta lay loose on the caffeine for a while, I think I'm a little jazzed up right now...

Gotta go worko this coffee off.

Good Day!

Ho Ho Ho

this kids' gotta go........I'm sure that's what Santa was saying in this picture. If you notice the beard and glasses being a little off kilter on Santa's face, it was because of Nick. Lynn was digging through the archives of Christmas past pictures and came out with this gem, an all time favorite of mine.

Idita-bike

ride today. We rode the frozen and icy nursery roads for about an hour then rode to Indian Point and had some fun there. I mean fun like crashing about 47 time's on the icy trails and very icy Seeley Rd. I still have the Kenda small block 8's on my LeMond cross bike and those tires are slippery on wet grass! I felt like I was just learning to ride my bike all over again in some spots. I had flashbacks of crashing into the side of the church building in Fairport when my Dad was teaching me how to ride a two wheeler for the first time. It was pretty good though today, we did a few climbs, some steps with the bikes and lotsa skillz pracize for a 2 hour ride.

Nice, nice.

Trainer fun

I say this in a sarcastic way though. Actually Tony and I had a good trainer workout tonight. After he finished "posing" for the camera we did some climbs, jumps, and some flats at about 250 watts. We ended up at just over an hour while listening to our favorite Black Crow's CD. Definately motivational while riding in the "bike room"

Out

Bike Authority / Fleet Feet

have teamed up to form a multi-sport team. Very early stages right now but much more new's to come. From the looks of it so far the team will have some strong triathlete's and duathletes to form an awesome team.

Training has been fun lately. Nothing structured at this point, but we have been running quite a bit, we got a couple nice longer trail runs in and a road run along with 75 miles in on the bike last week. Also, Tony and Nick bought one of those Iron Gym pull up bar's that you hang in the door and do pull up's, chin up's and can do push ups, dips's etc. on, you have probably seen them advertised on T.V. Lemme tell ya, that thing will make you hurt. We've all been competing to see who can do the most of the exercises. After the first day our arms and back were pretty sore. It will be good for the swimming stroke too. We won't have to spend that much time in the weight room this winter with that thing hangin' in the door jamb.

Weather pending, we're planning a New Year's Day ride leaving from Mentor. We'll probably ride the cross bikes nd mountain bikes and do some loops at Chapin and other trails that we come across, along with road too. It's not going to be a race, just a fun ride, anyone interested lemme know.

Later

Brrrrrrr

it was cold out today, but hey, it's December in Northeast Ohio and we don't have 3' of snow on the ground, so it was a perfect day for a bike ride. I got going about 11:30 this morning after I came home from work and waited for it to warm up a little, it didn't warm up much. Just after I took this picture my tire went flat. I had to take my gloves off to do the tire change and by the time I was done and got my gloves back on my fingers were frozen and it took about 10-15 minutes for them to get warm again. I think either salt or cinders caused the flat, I always flat in the winter. Anyway, it was a good ride, nice and easy, total time was 1:53.06for 35 miles with a few hills thrown in just to keep the body temp. up. I had the tendancy to want to push the pace a little today but I had to remind myself that our next race isn't for about 3 1/2 months.....

See ya

Base training

and trail running is what's on tap for me during the next few months. I'm going to take it easy for a few weeks, doing some easy rides, get some swimming in at the club and do some running, all easy stuff though. I might have a few beers now and then too after a workout.

I think we're going to start up group training rides on Saturday's leaving from the public parking lot in Downtown Willoughby starting in January, weather dependant. We did these training rides last winter and got some nice miles in. If anyone that run's is interested, we could meet in the North Chagrin Reservation and get some good trail run's in too, there's some nice running trails in the North Chagrin, let me know if anyone is interested.

Okay, that's about it for now.

Later

Dave Thornton's

homemade brew. Our friend and fellow cyclocrosser from Erie P.A. Dave Thornton graciously brought me a 6 pack of his homemade lager's to try out and blog about.
Tonight I opened up a bottle of his Taj Mahal I.P.A. Lager along with a few of Lynn's peanut butter Hershey's kiss cookies. Beautiful combo. The Taj Mahal is a little on the lines of the GLB Christmas Ale which I don't like, but this has a very nice tangy aftertaste, not bitter like the Christmas Ale that sticks in your mouth. Medium dark in color and I would say medium bodied as well. Nice smell and nice taste make this very drinkable, even with some homemade cookies. This is a very good lager Dave, well done.

Next up is the 3 Sisters, Tiffany, Bambi & Amber Lager from Botulism Brewing...Erie, PA. Yes!

Another season

ended today and what a day it was. The weather turned out to be very nice despite it being cold and windy, but we had blue skies and sunshine and good racing for the last race of the season. Everyone from the team did very well starting off with Zack in the Junior's and Robert in the C's. Zack 2nd. and Robert was once again the winner and the Overall Winner of the C division. Congratulations Robert on a most dominating season.

Next up was the B's and Women. Julie and Gwen raced and did very well, as usual. Julie won, Gwen was 4th. Nicely done ladies. Julie was also the Overall Winner of the Womens division.

A's and A Masters lined up next. Tony, Shawn and Matt in the A's with good hard racing saw Tony finish a close 2nd. to Paul, (10 seconds close) Shawn 3rd., and Matt 10th. Masters had Rudy, Jeff, Derek, Chris and myself. Rudy was 2nd., Jeff 3rd., Derek 4th and me 5th, and Chris 9th. Hard racing today, I know because my heart rate was higher today on average than any other cross race this year.

We had a great series this year for it being our 10th. Year Anniversary. We had a total of 200 different racers participate overall this year and at our largest race, we saw 120 racers that being Wendy Park. Thank You to all that have been coming out for years race after race to support our series, we appreciate it and we are all very happy to see cyclocross getting bigger and better in the Cleveland area and throughout the state.

Thank You to all all of our volunteers that have helped throughout the year at our time trials and cross races, everyone know's that these races couldn't happen without them, Thank You.

Thanks goes out to Sherman for all of his support and all the generous gifts that come from him to give out as awards and prizes.

Bike Authority/Team Lake Effect Racing hopes everyone had a fun and competitive racing season and we hope to see you all again next year.

Later everyone.

Sam Adams

Winter Lager. One of the fine winter lagers in my opinion. Great smooth taste, not bitter, actually a little hoppy and a little sweet combined. I had one with dinner and it goes great with pasta, thumbs up to the Boston Brewing Company for this one.
This would be a great brew to have while sitting on the chair watching the wife put up the Christmas tree.

Quick spin

before the race tomorrow, or maybe it was just to get a little more used to riding in 20 degree weather. Anyway, it wasn't too bad. We rode down to Lakefront Park where we had the Fairport cross race, total riding time 1:05:57.

Later

Friday before......

Copley. Tony and I went out on the cross bikes for about 2 hrs. today. We rode on snow covered gravel roads, dry road's, nursery roads, ran some steps at Indian Point Park near our house, did a little hike a bikin' and had a good ride for it only being 23 degree's out. I was warm actually and felt pretty comfortable, good ride today. My week has been a little consuming with all kind's of stuff going on and this ride felt great since I haven't been able to get out much. Hopefully not too much before Copley though. Our bikes were pretty much covered with snow and ice when we finished up so we left them outside for a few hours, then Tony and Nick loaded them into Tony's truck and took em down to the spray carwash and blew all the snow and ice off of them. Thanks guys!

See everyone this weekend.

New laptop

I got me a new laptop too. I liked Tony's so much I had to get one. Much nicer with the wireless that I put in than sitting at the pc desk all alone. Now I can sit with the family and do all my computing, pretty cool. I feel like I'm finally getting in touch with the "times". Now all I need is that new color t.v. :-)

Tony's blog

Tony has a blog now that is up and is a work in progress

tony-marutsblog.blogspot.com. Ahhh, welcome blogghopper.

Love Dad :-)