on my mind as of late...

it's been awhile since i posted here.  a lot has gone on, some good, some bad, but nothing i would change.  i've always viewed any experience a positive one.  there is something you can always learn.  in terms of cycling, i missed part of the tour while in the hospital for a week.  i'm not ready to explore that here now, but perhaps one day i will share.  it has been on the tip of my tongue.
it was amazing to see cadel evans win le tour.  since i missed some of the tour, i made sure to watch la vuelta every day.  last time i checked, people were still pointing fingers about cyclists doping.  i said goodbye to both my nana and kitty this fall.  the pages keep turning, and i feel many wonderful things on the horizon. 
this past weekend, i finished reading 'my war gone by, i miss it so' by anthony loyd.  it was amazingly well written.  while not being the history lesson i hoped, it was very insightful in to the horror that is modern warfare.  i remember hearing about the various yugoslav wars on the news and reading about it in the washington post, but admittedly pretty naive to the clashing sides' reasons.  i can't imagine living in a country where any trip outside could mean death.  what was living in a police state like?  anthony loyd poetically, yet graphically describes some of the scenes he witnessed.  sure, i live in the city and gang violence or a domestic crime makes the news often, but what if an army just invaded dupont circle and wiped out my neighborhood only because we all worshiped our iphones and blackberrys?  the modern, american way of social cleansing.  how would one deal with finding their entire family dead, killed by naive hands, a minuet between comander and soldier?  even in my wildest dreams, i can not relate.
this morning, i made my usual morning commute with my inevitable arrival to bethesda.  now, i have been working in bethesda for just over a year.  to be honest, for not being dc (the city i love), it's a pretty good suburban city.   you can walk everywhere and there is plenty to do.
since i have worked there for over a year, i have the unfortunate luck of knowing the last possible train i can catch.  by the way, it's the 8:09am train.  i enjoy the time between my initial alarm and the numerous snoozes in between.  thanks to my ability to run up and down escalators, i can still arrive at my desk two minutes shy of my 8:30am work time.  so i had just walked up the bethesda escalator, all 213 feet 10 inches of it when i got to the tunnel under wisconsin avenue.  i noticed a bunch of montgomery county cops and tsa agents.  i realized i was witnessing one of metro's bag checks.  they had stopped a man who was brown skinned, either hispanic or middle eastern.  i didn't know for sure because of my haste.  this bothered me, it was obviously racial profiling.  my mind started reeling with the bullshit that was this fake security blanket.

what exactly does a random stop do?   you have the right to decline one.  it's as easy as walking to the next stop or another entrance.  also, i think a terrorist has already taken the random, irregular bag checks in to consinderation.  i'm sure someone on twitter or another social media site has already made the internet aware of where to expect a bag check.  i could keep going, but in other words, it's a thinly veiled attempt to catch a blue collar worker illegally or the guy who forgot that rolled joint in his backpack.   basically, i didn't commit a crime by deciding to wake up and go to work.   the united states is a free country.  why is some man with a badge given the right to search me?   this has to stop.  this is america, the home of the free.   george orwell was right, my country is slowly becoming a police state.
after discussing the aforementioned book with a croatian friend and then complaining about what i witnessed this morning, she replied, "it's kinda interesting to me because I used to live in a police state, but now it's just a criminal state and funnily enough that seems to be better".   sadly, i think she is right.  our country was founded on the principle of freedom.  we fought our british overlords, we won.  now, i can't even commute to work without some police officer searching my gym bag.  what if i forgot the knife i carry with me late night in there?  what if i forgot a joint?  do i face possible jail time or interrogation while innocently traveling to work one morning?  when does it stop?  
please, i beg of you, don't roll over and just take this.  we are slowly saying goodbye to our freedoms.  you were lucky enough to be born in a beautiful country.  stop big brother before he gets bigger.

rest in peace wouter weylandt

today is a sad day at the giro.  after being touted as one of the hardest in years with epic climbs and crazy descents, the cycling world lost one of their own.  wouter weylandt was descending and crashed.  he suffered severe head trauma and they were never able to revive him.  there was video uploaded to youtube of weylandt post crash.  it was both gruesome and upsetting to see.  fumiyuki beppu had this to say about weylandt's crash, "Wouter Weylandt R.I.PI saw his crash real time. I was just behind him he was alone nobody around him at the moment on the downhill..."   the riders in the peloton didn't know the severity of the crash until after they all finished.  how gut wrenching for his teammates and for his best friend, tyler farrar.  not since the death of fabio casaretelli during 1995's tour de france, has the peloton had to deal with anything like this.  tonight i will raise my beer in weylandt's honor.  my thoughts and prayers are with his family, wife, friends and teammates. 

wow gilbert!!!

phillipe gilbert swept the three ardennes classics, with his final win today at liège-bastogne-liège.  i think this photo about sums up his awesomeness and his laughing at the schleck's while sitting up barely tops his last year's performance at lombardia when he pointed to his race number, 1.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpRNg8bIzIE&wl#t=10m00s  so congrats gilbert on a sweep of the ardennes classics.  chapeau!

keirin!!!

on the tale end of this story, i'm back obsessing over keirin again.  gah, i wish i was at the manchester velodrome this weekend.  soo jealous of some people on twitter who were!   i stumbled upon these posters for sale today.  i think i need one of them in my life!  it would look amazing in my apartment, i promise!  hrmmm, now i want a geekhouse track bike too.  anyone??  :)

come on spring!

it's february and spring is around the corner.  it was nice to keep the cycling jacket in the closet today.  a base layer and long sleeve jersey were enough.  although, i was very happy that i opted for the shoe covers.  my toes are always cold.  march (and my birthday) are almost upon us, as well as the spring classics.  more on my birthday later!  some of my favorites are milan-san remo,  paris-roubaix, and liège–bastogne–liège.  can't wait!

Lance Armstrong Does Drugs...DUH..He Rides Bikes for a Living!

via simon lamb's post! hilarious!!!

and now it all begins...

the 2011 road season started yesterday with the santos tour down under.  the new team, leopard trek is making their debut alongside newly merged garmin cervelo.  rounding out the black and baby blue is team sky.  i haven't been able to find a feed yet to watch here in the u.s., but i assume it's still going to be hard to distinguish who exactly is in the middle of the peloton.
it's also lance armstrong's last international race.  well, until another race offers him a 2 million dollar appearance fee.  sadly, australia has experienced some devastating floods lately.  armstrong gave $50,000 for disaster relief.  kind of seems like chump change to me for what he received.
speaking of armstrong, twitter is now a sponsor of team radio shack.  if you have read a few of my previous posts, you know i am not really a lance fan.  i also do not follow him on twitter, but i do enjoy people's re-tweets and off hand comments to him.  sorry, i never earned the "banned by lance" addition to my avatar.  i digress.  the fact that twitter is sponsoring team radio shack almost caused me to shut down my twitter account in protest.  i slapped myself silly and snapped out of it, but not after i curled up in a ball and cried for a few hours.  for the love of all that is holy, what's next in terms of sponsorship?
so after stage 1, matt goss (htc-highroad) took the stage win and seems to be giving andre greipel (omega pharma-lotto) a run for his money.  it would be nice to see an australian win, especially with cadel not riding in this year's tour down under.  unfortunately, i have yet to find a feed that works, so i am stuck looking at pictures via velonation and steephill.tv.  i know the tour down under isn't the most exciting race, but it is the first race.  personally, i am looking forward to the spring classics and then my favorite race the giro d'italia.  this will do for now.

two things i love!

cycling and football.   by the way, my fantasy football team has made it to the playoffs!  team pedalphile is hoping for a first or second place finish, and i have to no shame to admit it's for the money.  i hope to have a win this weekend to make the finals next weekend.  who would want anything less?  not this girl, that's for sure!   keep your toes crossed for me!  :)


*update* i made it to the finals!  wish me luck this weekend!!!!

*update 2* second place.  not bad for my first try at this and i'm $80 richer. 

mountain biking!

i headed up to pittsburgh this past weekend with my friend tom to do the punk bike enduro, a fun mountain bike stage race.  seemed easy enough, right?  admittedly, i was a bit nervous, as i have never really mountain biked before and i wasn't exactly sure what i was getting myself in to. well, i certainly found out sunday.  lesson learned, mountain biking is hard!
i didn't really have the skills or knowledge on how to handle my bike.  i learned that quickly in either the first or second stage.  while attempting to go down the single track, i hit something.  i flipped over my handlebars, yelled "oh shit" and then laid there whimpering with my bike on my back.  ouch.  thankfully tom heard my whimpers and when i didn't get up right away, he grabbed the 25lb bike off my back.  hey!  thanks guy!  it was really too cold out (snow!) to feel the pain except for the wind being knocked out of me.  it wasn't until later would i realize how badly i hurt and would debate which was worse, road rash or eating dirt.  i decided then i was pretty happy that i made the decision to stick with the platform pedals and not borrow shoes and pedals from our awesome hostess eryn! 
ok, soo maybe i wasn't cut out for mountain biking.  i mean, everyone made it look soo easy!  i am used to pavement, where i don't have to contend with snow, mud, tree branches, AND rocks!!!  what the hell?  it didn't help with below freezing temperatures and mud as by stage 6, my rear derailleur was no longer shifting.  cool, i am now rocking a single speed.  i think anyone who wasn't riding a single speed encountered the same problem.  so there were 12 stages.  by stage 6, i was cold and my bones had started to hurt from my crash.  the beer a guy offered me helped to warm me up a bit.  i decided against grabbing any beer from the kegs stashed in the woods earlier, because sobriety was probably a wise decision after my fall.  all in all, i think i walked my bike more than i rode it, but i had a blast!  i really like mountain biking and the people who come with it.  they don't seemed as concern with matching kits and carbon.  i am now rocking some pretty vicious bruises, and it's hurt to laugh and cough all week thanks to bruised ribs.  maybe by next year i will have the mad skillz to actually finish!  until then, i am going to find some mountain bike bunny slopes to hit!  :)

p.s.  if you are ever in pittsburgh, check out the otb bicycle cafe.  great spot!

p.p.s. check out simon lamb's post over at la gazzetta della bici.  thanks simon!  :)

tis the season...

is everyone's tummy full of turkey?  i hope you had a good holiday weekend!  i am going to take another break from babbling on about cycling to talk about something amazing that happened to me this weekend.  so sit back and relax for a moment, because i can tell you were on the edge of your seat.
saturday night started innocent enough.  i went over to my friends' apartment to celebrate a birthday.  good food, some libations and funny conversation were to be had.  unfortunately, i was with my twin sister, whom from this day forward, we shall refer to as satan.   sorry if satan didn't think a get together was enough for a saturday night and decided we needed to go balls to the wall.  well dang, i don't have a car (zipcar when i need it!) and all the bikes were sleeping at home.  satan decides to meet up with some other friends at a bar in bethesda.  awesome!  the exact opposite of what i like to do with my time on  a weekend night.  if you know me, then you know i prefer a dive bar, a show, listening to house music, at the very least, somewhere within bike/walk/stumble distance to my apartment in the city.  i decided to make the best of a crappy situation the best i could.  the decision was made, it was time to get wasted.  so i threw back some adult beverages and got sleepy.  i asked my sister for her car keys, went to her car and went to bed.  you know, it was like 1am or something.  don't judge me man, little did i know i was coming down with a cold and needed that sleep.  satan and her friends were in party-mode that night and i was in sleep mode.   so they dragged me around and i curled up where i could to get that essential beauty rest.  fast forward to 5am when i figure out that my wallet is missing.  panic sets in and some expletives are said.  i am pretty upset with myself for being so careless.  i should have ordered a coffee instead of another shot.  ugh.
why hello sunday morning, it should be nice to see you, but i am upset.  waaaaaaaa!!!  how could i lose my wallet?  license, bank cards, metro card, gym card, insurance card, you know, the things you keep in your wallet!  waaaaaaaaaa!!!!  i go online to check my account, interesting, my accounts haven't been touched.  hrmmm...  maybe my wallet is just hiding in my sister's car?  i go search to no avail. waaaaaaa!!!  i am sleepy, depressed and all that jazz.   top it off with both my fantasy football team and my redskins losing.  sigh...  sunday night comes and my accounts still haven't been touched.  i tell a girlfriend that for some reason i have a strange feeling i will find my wallet.   just to be safe, i finally decide to cancel my cards and off to bed i go.
in the morning i wake up and check my email like most of the world.  why...what the heck is this?  i get an email, "did you recently lose your wallet?  if so, can you describe it and confirm your birth date?"  what??!?!?!  huh?!?!?  i furiously type the description, my birth date and some other aspects of my wallet, hit send, and wait.   maybe i need some coffee, maybe i am still asleep and this is all a dream.  i get to work, open my email, and wait for a reply.   around 10:30 i get a message back.  "hi mary,  yes, i found your wallet".  it seems that at some point during saturday's debauchery my wallet fell on the ground and a good samaritan found it.  he went through the trouble of googling my name and stumbled upon my google profile.  wow, just wow.  the luck of it all!  i met up with him monday night and was reunited my wallet.  i picked up a little gift card for him to show him my gratitude.  he refused to take it.  he told me that he had lost his wallet and someone had taken the time to find him.  he had to pay it forward.   i will too.  it doesn't have to be a wallet, just anything.  it doesn't have to be the christmas season, it can be any time of the year.  pay it forward.  :)

fall city riding

even our four legged friends like bike rides!  say hello to the coolest chorkie in the world, sophie!   i should invent pooch helmets.  where would her ears go though?!?!

why, i don't even know what to think...

ok, so yesterday (saturday) was another perfect fall day here in dc.  i decided to bike to the pool, swim some laps and bike home.  after the pool, i made a quick diversion to my sister's place to say hello.  i had a glass of wine, it was kind of nice after the work out.  i left her place around 4pm and decided to bike home and get ready for the night.  i really need new brake pads, and had just enjoyed that glass of wine, so decided to not rush my bike ride home.  i kept a nice steady pace and was taking in the beautiful fall leaves lining the city streets.  per usual, i stop at the light at 14th and r st nw, i always hit this light.  i was stopped in the middle of the bike lane, behind the crosswalk waiting patiently for the light to change.  i had just caught it, so i sat there for a good 35 seconds or so waiting for it to change.  i checked out the subaru next to me and noticed the friends seemed mostly uninterested in each other's company.  they were each on their own cell phones with the exception of the driver.  to my right, a woman was stopped on her bike and talking to her friend who was on the sidewalk.  that's always nice to run in to a friend i thought.
so the light changes and i slowly take off and continue biking the last few blocks home.  suddenly, i see this guy come up to the left of me and turn right, cutting me off.  now this is odd, there was plenty of room behind me to pass and make his turn.  also, wasn't he aware that i was moving and why would you make a right turn from the left of someone while you are both on bikes??  i slow down, yet don't unclip.  quickly analyzing how ridiculous this guy's decision was, but then offended because did he really think he could pass me just because i was a girl and he was a guy?  i soon became horrified that this idiot could have caused me to crash.  i quietly, but firmly muttered, "seriously dude?  what the FUCK? come on now" and shake my head at him.  he apologizes profusely, he clearly knew he was in the wrong.  then i realized something, i just intimidated and scared the hell out of him.  i felt proud of myself and i pedaled off.
as i biked, i re-analyzed what the hell just happened.   at first, i felt kind of bad, maybe i was too harsh on him?  what if i came off as some scary bike chick?  you know, the girls with the scars that aren't afraid to go fast and crash hard?  what if it wasn't apparent that i like my face and bones the way they are, intact.  what if he never rides a bike again?  i hoped that wasn't the result.  i then come to the conclusion that he really made a poor decision and could have hurt both of us.  he didn't even have a helmet on while he rode his cruiser with one hand.  what was the point of his decision?  why couldn't he have just waited .2 seconds or gone to the right of me where he had plenty of room?  the level of intensity with which i said those words could have cut glass, although i said it low and was surprised he even heard me.  it was if he had heard my thoughts and felt my annoyance with him.  so, i decided, i didn't feel bad.  do you feel bad when you yell at the car next to you for cutting you off and not having patience?   i didn't have a horn (or bell), i had my mouth and i used it.  keep riding, but have some common sense out there.

luxembourg cycling project...

best new team in the peloton?  quite possibly with everyone making the mass exodus from team saxo bank and leaving mr. 60%, bjarne riis a lonely director sportif.  now riis is left standing there with the embattled contador.  well, maybe he won't be standing there if contador's people don't pay off the uci in time and he faces a ban for his plasticizers and tainted meat.  oh wait, he threatened to retire because his good name has been marred.   guess maybe he learned a thing or two from lance armstrong while they were teammates on the astana squad.  if contador isn't banned, whom better to be his new doping mentor than riis?  anyways, i digress...
let's focus on the more important subject here, which is my new favorite team to watch in the peloton, the luxembourg cycling project!  by now, if you've read my few blog postings or follow me on twitter, you know that my heart will always lie with garmin.  i suppose i favor them, because they are an american pro team, and they are actually pretty decent although some may disagree.  ;)  now, the reason i am looking forward to this new team is because my baby daddy andy schleck, his brother frank, and my other baby daddy, spartacus himself, fabian cancellara will continue to ride together.   mmmmm, hold on a few minutes..............................................................  ok, done daydreaming.  they will be joined by some of the best riders in the peloton, jens voigt, stuart o'grady, and jakob fuglsang to name a few.  how excited will you be to see big jens crossing the finish line and cancellara handing everyone their asses in the time trials???  mmmm, cancellara's booty............................................................   ok, sorry again, got distracted. 
so i think the 2011 year is shaping up nicely.  this new team is going to give the others in the peloton something to worry about.  i can't wait to see their final roster and all their new sponsors.  no need to speculate, the official news will come soon enough.  hurry up with the spring classics and my favorite stage race, the giro d'italia! until then my friends, let's hope for a winter filled with riding.

oh contador!!!!

with all the lovely pictures of el pistolero, why did i choose this one?  well, because after learning the news of contador's supposed doping, i quickly posted on a kiwi friend in japan's facebook page about the news.  his response?  "oh shit! oh well he was on lance's team, what do they expect?"  i might have literally LOL-ed.
i have never really liked lance armstrong.  he always came across as a douche bag, and i never appreciated his run through women.  now, i know i shouldn't judge one's personal life, but damn, your first wife gave you children and stood by you while you had cancer.  way to give her the finger in the end.  ugh... and frankly, i found the fact that he creates a twitter page for his yet unborn child highly annoying.  seriously dude?  i thought i was insane for making a page for the coolest chorkie in the world.  stay retired, drink your cold beers, sell yellow rubber bands and hang around austin.  i find you annoying.
ok, enough ranting about armstrong, back to contador.  soooo, his urine test came back a few micrograms positive for clenbuterol.   ummmm, the best part?  he blames it on bad meat.   wtf dude?!?!?!?!  that's the best you could come up?  can you tell me where you found asthmatic, needs to lose a few pounds, cow meat?  i'd love to find it.  i could breath better and drop a few pounds, all the while not spewing obscenities while climbing a little hill.   i figured his pr people would have at least come up with an excuse that he suffered from a bout of bronchitis during the tour, hence his only 36 second win to my boo andy schleck.  btw, andy, if you are reading, i still love you and my offer for marriage is still on the table.
in the end, i really hope this is all some major mishap and contador is innocent.  not sure cycling fans can take another blow of a doping scandal.  glad you guys don't watch baseball!

it's cyclocross season

bring on the frites and belgium beer!  you guys can bring on the pain for yourselves.  my cross bike serves one purpose, and that is to get me to the bar and back.  hey, it's a steel s/s that i don't worry too much about when it's locked outside.  for now,  i'll watch from the side.  :)

let's take a short diversion here...

we are going to take a short break from talking about anything cycling related here.  i have a small confession to make, i love american football.  i love the redskins!  you can feel free to scroll back a page or two and see a little post i made about a year ago in regards to my beloved redskins.  not only have they not won a superbowl since 1988, but, well, the team has since seem to be in some sort of behind the scenes breakdown.  they have also added making a few bad decisions to the mix.  i think we can all relate to the latter.
so this year, i decided i wanted to do fantasy football.  i asked my sister if i could join the league she was in last year.  she informed me i was too late in asking, and the league was filled.  bummer...  well, fast forward two weeks and i received a text from my sis asking me if i was still interested.  sure! i responded back, with enthusiasm!  i agreed to the $40 buy in and excitedly looked forward to fantasy draft day!
team peadalphile (best name, ever?) was selected and i was eager for september 12th to arrive.  well, now it's september 13 and monday night football has come to an end.  team pedalphile is just doing meh.  i never realized how many statistics were involved in the game of football.  is anyone really good at this?  i'll throw you a $20 and my password, and you bench the people i need to for the upcoming week!

r.i.p. laurent fignon

he died at 50 years young from cancer on august 31st.                                                                               

this is about right...

me too...

i got a wheel!!

woohoo! a very dear friend sent me a bike wheel the other day. as previously mentioned, i cracked the crappy wheel that came on my motobecane fantom cross uno. yup, still trying to figure that one out. well, it was a beautiful blue mavic cosmos, which after some research i found out is no longer being produced. now, i've put some time in to my road bike and a crash or two, ouch. plus, i live in the pothole capital of the world known as dc. the mavic open sport front wheel is in need of a truing, so i switched out the wheels. the murrrcycle deserves the nicer, albeit slightly heavier wheel. pfffttt, we are talking grams here people, i can't really tell the difference! i hate changing bike tires, but i've gotten quick! well, once i can pull that damn tire off the rim. thanks tire lever for saving my nails! the new wheel came perfectly true, and i got some strange looks walking home from work with a bike wheel in my hand. hey, it would have been better than dragging home the box that was pretty much the size of me. so my bikes are now both happy. can you see them giving each other googly eyes in the pic?? :) the best part? i am back to biking around the city and locking up my bar bike without a care in the world!!

fantasy vuelta!

so the vuelta a espana starts this saturday, august 28th. i can sense your excitement just as much as mine! it's the last big stage race of the summer. it's kind of bittersweet for me though. it's like that famous t.s. eliot quote, "this is the way the world ends, not with a bang, but a whimper." the vuelta is my least favorite big summer stage race. i love the giro and le tour! there is something about it that seems soo anti-climatic to me, and i am not sure why. maybe i should talk about it with a therapist, and please don't hate me you vuelta lovers!!! :)

ok, i am excited! why? because it's time for me to kick some butt in my fantasy cycling league. i am still riding high off my 35th placing in my tour de france league hosted by the wonderful simon lamb at his blog, la gazzetta della bici. so he decided to move the vuelta fantasy league to road.cc. i think there are some more prizes. it's cool, i fully expect to claim those prizes as the bootyhouse team has been rising steady ever since the giro! in fact, both times i kicked simon's butt. i don't expect my amazing team to do any different for this year's vuelta. so simon, i am looking at my vintage campagnolo water bottle where it belongs, on MY bike! you can send me some delicious british chocolate when i win! :)