Awesome Optics

So I finally bit the bullet and updated my riding glasses. My old pair was a pair of Briko's from the early/mid 90's (think Johan Museeuw during his Mapei days) - they've been good to me and the scratches in the lenses are proof that they were well loved, but it's getting harder and harder to see out of them.



What I ended up getting was a pair of Rudy Project Rydon glasses. These things are amazing. Now, I should mention that Rudy Project is a sponsor of mine so you may think I'm just pandering to my sponsor by saying they are great, but if that wasn't my honest impression, I wouldn't be saying anything at all.

The pair I ordered was the Rydon Racing with the white frame and comes with two lenses; laser blue and racing red.

My first outing, I used the racing red, since it was earlier in the AM and the sun wasn't at its full intensity yet. The blue is more for full on sun and the red are for everything else. Switching out the lenses was a little tricky, but once I figured it out, it wasn't too difficult.

The racing red lenses were amazing. It revealed all the details in the road surface while still cutting glare. The frames are so light, you barely notice them. But the most amazing thing I found was, even under really hard efforts on a cool morning, there was minimal fogging while waiting at stop lights... This is the first set of glasses I've had where I could still see after waiting through a stop light. Any fogging that did happen, was limited to the top portion of the lens and dissipated really quickly once I got moving again. Good stuff.

I've only used these glasses once so I can't comment on long term durability or scratch resistance but so far, I'd give these a 10 out of 10.

Team Training

I'm a solo artist. I like solitude. I really enjoy riding alone and I do most of my riding by myself. That said, I've been neglecting some crucial areas of my racing development.

This was made abundantly clear last night when I joined my cycling club for the weekly team training night at a local auto race track. My club rents the track every Tuesday night. I've been meaning to get up there but, I figured I could get just as good a work out on my own. I figured wrong.

The training session was about 2 hours long and consisted of some fast paceline work, a gear-restricted race (39x18) and an all out race (any gear) and then ended with some more paceline work as a cool down.

Here's what I learned in those 2 hours:

1. I'm terrible at cornering in a group - I loose about 2 bike lengths on the wheel ahead of me each time we enter a turn. My confidence had improved by the end of the session, but this is for sure an area I need to work on.
   
2. My pack riding comfort needs help. I've always thought I was a pretty steady rider but I found myself getting nervous. Again, I felt a lot more comfortable by the end of the session, but it's something I'm going to work on.
   
3. I'm pretty freaking strong - I finished 4th in both practice races, and this was in the A group...

The thing that's holding me back most is number 1 and 2 listed above. I'm definitely making it a point to go to these training sessions more often - some things can't be learned on your own....

das Tour de Frankenmuth Photos

Here are some pics from last weekend's race, das Tour de Frankenmuth -


Lap 1 - looking good...


The crash - notice the white bike, it sailed by my head...


Post crash - about 1 km to the finish.


Thanks to John Lachman of MVP Photography for capturing the action!

My Mini Training Camp

I took this week of work off. I was the only one in my family that had the time off so I was flying solo. With no daughter or wife, my time was all my own.

I put together a plan to do a bunch of riding with a main focus on hill work. After my humbling showing at the Tour of Kensington Valley, I decided I needed to focus a bit more on my climbing.

Living in Michigan, I feel like I should put quotes around "hills" and "climbing". You'd be hard pressed to find a "hill" in SE Michigan that takes longer than 3 minutes to climb... Basically, you can power up just about any hill you come to. Still, it was an area that I had neglected since moving here from Denver, Colorado over 7 years ago. Now that was some climbing out there... Miss those mountains!

Well, my mini training camp seemed to help. I went for a 40 mile ride this AM with some buddies and I could tell that I was climbing much more comfortably. And, after 30+ miles of rolling terrain, the last 7-8 miles were spent in time trial mode, just putting the hammer down to get home as fast as I could. My main motivation for this TT was not pissing off my wife. I was supposed to be home before 10 AM so she could get to kickboxing and I was about 8 miles from home. It was about 9:25 AM when my impromptu time trial started and it was 9:45 AM when I stepped up onto my front porch, winded and dripping in sweat. I made it, and I actually felt pretty good.

Today was the first day that I actually feel like all this training is paying off.

Happy Birthday Sean Kelly

Happy birthday to Sean Kelly, the Irish King of the Classics!

Here's his 1984 Paris-Roubaix victory to celebrate the occasion.