To Ride Outside in the Chilly Spring?

First blog post. Well, what to write? About me, about the team, philosophy. I'll leave that to others. Others with the mind and temperament for those types of things. I guess I'll be the whimsical one.

I've got it. How about will it be too cold to ride outside tomorrow morning? OK. That's the question. Well, it really isn't a question because you can tell by other's posts that we have been riding outside for a few weeks now. But, anyway.

The goof balls with plastic hair and modeling school drop-outs on TV say it will be in the mid 50's this Friday morning. Side note: This is America and we rejected the metric system back in the 1970's, so unless noted all units are Empirical. You, the reader, are free to do the conversion math if you don't like it. Back to the question at hand. I guess I'm in a stage of my training right now that the following hold true:

1. I can't listen to my trainer any more

2. I could use a little HTFU

3. I know somewhere out there my competition is training harder than me

As for point one, it is no fault of the Kurt Company. The Kinetic Road Machine, purchased at Emery's Third Coast Tri (How's that for a shameless plug), has been nothing but flawless for three years now. I just can not, and I do mean cannot (spell check allows me to write it both ways without a preference), listen to that little hum behind me any more. I started my training this year the third week in January. All my cycling then to the second week in March has been in my basement on the trainer. I have seen Robin Meade on CNN HLN enough. My wife is not the jealous type, but I don't need any questions raised. I have also over done the whole Netfix Movies on Demand (Note two more possible sponsors to hit up). There are only so many independent films, foreign films, and documentaries one can watch while you pedal your way to nowhere. Never mind, the eight seasons of Miami Vice. But, I digress.

For point two, well Google (Another sponsor? They will not sponsor a F1 team but maybe us.) it. I think anyone trying to improve needs to do that every once in a while. I'll let you know.

Now point three requires a little explanation and will probably wind up having me 51.15ed some day. Look that one up too. I am competitive. Not just a little. I AM COMPETITIVE. I'm not saying I always win. Because I don't. Actually I rarely do. But I do enter a race not just to finish, but to compare myself and my finish to those others around me. In my mind second place is the first looser. I even commented this last Monday, when asked how my criterium race went on Sunday, that I was second looser. The sad part is that the person I was speaking with understood that I finished third without being told. So, the fact that I am competitive is not lost on those in my life. Probably more on that later too. Anyhow, if someone is out there training and suffering and I am not, I believe that there is a better than 50/50 (Do they still make that soda? If so, sponsor?) chance that they will beat me if it comes right down to it.

Yikes! This is getting a little long for a first blog. I'm going skip the whole right/wrong clothes thing here.

So, what am I going to do? I'm going to ride outside in the only slightly (Jedi mind tricking myself) chilling temperatures of a Wisconsin spring. I'm going to do my best to convince a couple of my teammates to come with me. This, by the way (if you haven't figured it out yet), is directed at you Ben and Steve. If you, the reader, want to join us (Friday April 2, 2010) at 6am you are more than welcome. We meet at 92^nd and Oklahoma and will ride for around 3 hours and 15 minutes. The average pace will be around 19mph for the approximately 65 miles and there will be one stop at a gas station for water, etc. Conversation is always good and you don't have to pull if you don't want to (But, you will be chastised if you don't. You've been warned). Dress for the weather, bring a sense of humor, and enough food/fluids to get you through. Come one, come all.