News Flash: RandoBoy "Wins" Tour de France

Paris, France (Hubris International Press Service) -- In a stunning announcement today, the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) announced that beloved cycling blogger RandoBoy won the 2006 Tour de France. The UCI then went on to announce that RandoBoy has won every Tour de France "since Baron Eddy Mercxx finally retired in 1978," making RandoBoy the first 31-time Tour winner.

The news is doubly stunning in light of the fact that RandoBoy did not participate in the 2006 Tour de France, or any other Tour de France.

Pat McQuaid, president of the UCI, said that the organization's actions were precipitated by the recent revelations from Floyd Landis that "everyone in the pro peloton is a doper."

"I knew it all along," McQuaid said, "but now that Floyd has narc'd them all out, we're stripping them of their titles. Only riders who can prove that they ride clean will be allowed to win."

When asked how RandoBoy managed to prove that he rode clean, McQuaid answered, "Oh, come on. Look at how slow the poor bastard is. He's got to be riding clean."

When contacted at the RandoCave, RandoBoy said, "Really? Gee, that's kind of cool. Do I get one of those yellow jerseys? Do you think I could get Lance to sign one?"

Max Watzz could not be reached for comment.

How I "Won" Highland Rim

It really irritates me to have to put those quotes around "Won" in the title of this blog entry. Frankly, I won the 2010 Highland Rim Cycling Classic this past Saturday in every way that really matters -- which is my way. I dominated the event. I was masterful. My power was beyond mortal comprehension as I zipped past my lowly competitors and motored up the climbs.

The only reason that I place those contemptible quotation marks around the word "Won" (and I did win it) is because I was not actually the first person in my group to go over the finish line.

I consider this a minor -- and tiresome -- technicality.

My failure ... well, no, that's not the right word ... the inappropriateness of the timing by which I crossed the finish line in glorious victory (or what should have been victory) I can only blame on RandoBoy and Mother Nature. I can understand RandoBoy's hatred -- like almost everyone else on this planet, he envies my raw power, not to mention my ethereal handsomeness, quick wit, and raw sexual energy. But why does Mother Nature conspire against me so? What have I ever done to her?

But, I am probably getting ahead of myself (this happens when you are as fast as I am). I will tell you the story in a simple chronological fashion, so that your mortal minds will have a chance of understanding.

Another one of the wonderful things about me is that I can still relate to you little people.

First off, when I signed up for this race I was primarily interested in the time trial, a 2.5-mile climb up Hwy 8, with an average grade of 8%. I prefer to race time trials rather than road races, since the time trial is the "race of truth." It is the purest way to illustrate a cyclist's strength ... and I am all about strength. I signed up for the road race mainly as a lark, and for something to do in the morning before my time trial. I did not sign up for the criterium because it was not being held until Sunday, and the scenery on a criterium is usually boring.

Friday evening, I got everything ready to go and loaded in the RAAMinator. (I am willing to call RandoBoy's vehicle the RAAMinator since the R does stand for Race.) My Bianchi was clean and lubed, and I had packed recovery food and drink. I was bringing two sets of wheels -- my new Reynold's Strikes and some that Gran Fondo had built for RandoBoy.

I am racing on the Gran Fondo team this year, and I must admit that RandoBoy's association with this fine bike shop is one of the few semi-intelligent choices that I have seen him make. The wheels that I was bringing, for example, are 32-/36-spoke wheels, but fairly light with Mavic Open Pro rims and Shimano DuraAce hubs. They weigh about half a pound more than the Reynold's wheels, but I wanted to bring them in case it was windy at the race.

Saturday morning, I arose early and ate breakfast, and then drove down to McMinnville for the race. I arrived about 7 am, with plenty of time before my group was scheduled to go off just after 9 am. This allowed me to pick up my packet, pin on my numbers, drink a couple of bottles of Gatorade, and get my bike ready to go. The weather looked good for the morning, with light winds, so I decided to use the Reynold's wheels. This was when I discovered that RandoBoy was trying to ruin my race.

You see, the Reynold's wheels must be used with Reynold's brake pads, and I soon realized that RandoBoy had left the old training brake pads on my Bianchi. Worse, he did not put the Reynold's pads and some tools in the RAAMinator, so I could not change them that morning.

Fortunately, I am imaginative and inventive, and when life gives me limes I merely slice them up and serve them to myself on the edge of a glass filled with Bombay Sapphire, tonic water, and ice. I decided that I would do the road race on the heavier wheels, and then change to the Reynold's for the time trial. Since the time trial was an uphill 2.5-mile course, I would not need brakes there.

After warming up, I went to the starting line to wait with the other Category 5 racers. There, I finally met my sole Cat 5 Gran Fondo teammate, David Bradbury. As we talked, I discovered that he works for the same company as RandoBoy; he seemed like a nice-enough fellow, nonetheless.

The Cat 5's finally started about 9:15. A small group went off the front early, but we were all together by the time we reached the base of Baker Mountain Road. I had done this climb many times before ... or, at least, RandoBoy had ... and David and I stayed near the front as we went up. About half a mile from the top, I decided to ease off to conserve strength for the afternoon time trial (not that I needed to, of course, but it seemed prudent) and waved David on with the small group.

Once the climb was over, I pulled together some of the other riders as we motored along the plateau. We picked up some of the lead group's racers for the next 25 miles until we had about 10 riders. As we came down Hwy 8 towards the finish line, I could tell that the lead group, including my teammate David, had already crossed the line. The sprint in my group was fairly laid back, which suited me as I was already thinking about the time trial again.

I quickly changed into street clothes and ate some recovery food, then went to check on my start for the time trial. The schedule had me going at 4:25 pm, so I had plenty of time to kill. I hung around with some of my friends from Team Belladium, drinking and noshing and watching the Pro/1/2 racers finish up.

I watched the juniors and Pro/1/2 racers head off for the early slots in the time trial at 2:30 pm. The skies above me clouded up soon after, and then the thunder began. About 3:30, heavy rain began and I climbed into the RAAMinator, where I watched as the lightning and hail rained down until about 4 pm. During this time, I got back into biking clothes and got the Bianchi ready for the time trial. As always, I was thinking, planning, and getting ready to perform my best.

As the rain stopped, I pulled the bike out of the RAAMinator and finished putting on my cycling gear, then asked if starting times had been delayed by the weather. An official finally told us that they had temporarily halted racing when the lightning first began, and that they were waiting for it to stop. At this rate, I would not get to start until after 5 pm.

I started to wonder if Mother Nature was going to rain out this event to keep me from humbling the field, as she had done on the Gatorade Criterium May 2. The lightning storms continued to rumble through the area, and my concerns proved true (as do most of my predictions -- comes with the super-genius territory, I guess). They eventually cancelled the time trial for the remaining categories.

I had refrained from decimating the field on the road race so that I could annihilate them at the time trial, but Mother Nature stepped in and terminated the time trial. I am in the process of filing a protest with the Tennessee Bicycle Racing Association to have me named the winner of the time trial, using the precedences of manifest destiny and divine rule. Barring this, I will have them elevate me to my rightful position as winner of the road race due to force mejeure -- although it will be difficult to keep them from getting confused as to whether the weather was the Act of God, or if I am.

Sometimes I get confused myself.

Cry havoc and let slip the quads of war!

Max Watzz here. I put RandoBoy out of my misery for a minute because I know that you've all been dying to hear about my training and racing. And I would love to tell you about the inhuman numbers I've been putting out lately on the PowerTap ... but I don't want to give the other camp any kind of competitive advantage. Let's just say that I have lately become -- if you can possibly imagine -- even more awesome.

Sometimes I wonder if my awesomeness will ever reach a limit. This thought almost scares me (if I were capable of such a weakness as "fear"). I do not like to think that I could reach a point where I could not become greater than the incredible awesomeness that I already am ... which, if I haven't told you, is totally freaking awesome.

But that day is far away, because I am still constantly becoming more awesome every day. I work out, and I become stronger. I rest, and my wonderful body reacts to my earlier workout and I become stronger. It is a ceaseless spiral climbing ever upwards into the pinnacle of most awesome of awesomeness ever!

I sigh. And when I do, I become stronger.

I have yet to lose a race, you know. Of course, I have only signed up for one so far -- the Gatorade Criterium in Brentwood -- and it was rained out by the flooding on May 2, but I feel quite sure that I would have won it. Mother Nature has a strange way of keeping my competitors from being smashed by the power that is Me, and I almost feel a little guilty that she felt it necessary to kill people here in Tennessee and do billions of dollars of damage just to salvage the egos of the other racers.

I think you went a little far there, Mom.

Irregardless, you will no doubt be excited beyond words when I tell you that I will be racing this Saturday, doing the Highland Rim in McMinnville.

I invite you all to come out and witness the power that is me. Incredibly enough, there is no charge for this event, although many of you will no doubt want to give me money after watching me ride. In order to maintain my amateur status, however, I must decline your offerings (cash left lying around the van will, of course, be picked up ... wink-wink).

Barring some additional insidious interventions from Mother Nature or other forces of villainy, expect pictures of me on the podium in VeloNews on Sunday. I will also bless you with a riveting write-up of my awesome performance on Monday. Until then, I hope that you can fill your lives with ... well, whatever it is that you people do when I am not around to bring meaning to your existence.

Critical Dogma: Assessing Your Worth

I was out riding with a friend at a group ride a couple of weeks ago, and we got to talking about new bikes. Now, for those of you who are not addicts, talking about buying a new bike is one of the staples of cycling conversation, usually being about topic number four in the standard litany:

1. Been riding much?
2. How'd you do in the flood? (This is mostly a Nashville thing, and a new entry in the list ... hopefully, it will soon go away.)
3. What's your "big ride event" this year?
4. When are you going to replace that piece of junk you're riding?
5. How's the job?
6. You have a family!?

And so on into other trivial things. Frankly, if the conversation gets to this point you probably need to go up front and push the pace. As Max Watzz would say, "Too much yammering, not enough hammering."

Anyway, my friend's bike is about five years old, which almost qualifies as "vintage" in many cycling circles. He makes good money and rides enough that he could easily justify buying a new bicycle. Perversely enough, he even knows what he wants.

He just doesn't think that he's worthy of it.

"I wish I could buy one of those," he said, motioning towards a club member's new Pinarello Dogma.

"Why don't you?"

"Awww, well ... you know," he said, grinning to himself. "People would laugh at me."

I gave him a look. "Why?"

"Well, it's just ... those are for racers," he answered. "I'm not fast enough for that."

Now, I'd like to say that my friend was just being nuts, but I understood where he was coming from. We've all seen the guy who is borderline morbidly obese, wearing the latest Radio Shack kit (size XXL), riding a top-of-the-line Scott racing frame with electronic Dura-Ace and Zipp 404 wheels built with a PowerTap hub. I don't think that I'm the only one who has had the fleeting thought:

He's not worthy.

And, at some level, maybe he's not. That's $10,000 worth of bike -- and probably not the best choice for this guy, based on comfort or dependability. He'd probably be a lot happier on one of the so-called "plush" bikes -- a little less responsive in the corners and in sprints, but a lot nicer on the posterior, back, and neck. Also, those wheels are not going to last very long under that much weight. And the PowerTap ... well, he can keep that, so long as he's working with somebody to analyze the numbers (and hopefully lose that weight).

Max Watzz would say, "Yeah, but you can't buy speed." Max is not entirely right in that regard, however. You can buy a lighter bike, and that will certainly get you over Roan Mountain quicker than that 27-pound hybrid you've been riding for the past 10 years.

I guess what I'm saying is that the XXL Radio Shack guy above can go ahead and buy whatever he wants, so long as he still pays his mortgage and feeds his family. I'm pretty sure that, if he went to my favorite bike shop, they would try to push him in the direction of something that he would enjoy riding that would last for at least a few years, but I'm also sure that, ultimately, if he had his heart set on that sub-UCI weight limit race bike, they would sell it to him. It's kind of what they're in the business to do.

So I kept trying to talk my friend into buying the Dogma, telling him all the stuff I'd read about it in Bicycling magazine. As I went on, I found that I was talking myself into one, too ... or at least a new racing bike. My Bianchi is almost five years old, and I wouldn't mind trying some light carbon fiber toy. And this got me to thinking:

Am I Dogma worthy?

Sadly, the answer is "No." Sure, the Bianchi could be 3-4 pounds lighter, but so could I. It's a good, stiff, comfortable, and fairly light frame, and everything on it is in great condition. But the bottom line right now is, it's all I need.

Maybe I'll be Dogma worthy come Christmas, though ...

The Perfect Storm

Just in case you missed it, we had some bizarre weather here in Tennessee this past weekend. Creeks, rivers, and lakes flooded from 15 inches of rain, killing at least 12 people and doing millions of dollars in damage. Officials are saying this may be the worst flooding in the state's history, and that it may take years to repair the devastation.

The weird thing was that it didn't rain at Three-State Three-Mountain.

This was my fifth time doing 3S3M. In 2006, my first time, it was really nice and dry. In 2007, we had some early sprinkles and cloud cover, but that helped me do my first sub-6-hour finish there.

In 2008, the skies opened up. RandoGirl and I opted for the metric, and I rode my single-speed commuter. The fenders made me very popular.

In 2009, history repeated itself and the skies opened up. This time, however, RandoGirl would not be denied her opportunity to climb Burkhalter Gap Road, and we did the full century. Fortunately, the rain stopped more or less after the first 50 miles, so we had a decent ride.

But we decided then and there that we were not going to do this ride in the rain again. To avoid this, we did not register early this year, and we did not reserve a hotel room. As this past weekend approached, we began applauding our vision, since the forecast for the southeastern United States was a weekend of rain.

That was the first part of my perfect storm of pain.

You see, as this past weekend approached, I began to think that I was riding pretty well. My legs felt good, my weight was right, and I was playing with the thought of a new personal best at 3S3M.

Just playing, mind you ... I was not going to commit. And that was the second part of my storm of pain.

So, Thursday night, I did the Harpeth Bicycle Club's regular ride. I wasn't going to go hard, even though it didn't look like the weekend weather would work out for 3S3M. Frankly, my legs were still tired from last weekend's fleche.

But, going up Carter's Creek Pike, a couple of fast guys went off the front. Like an idiot, I went with them. Then, like another idiot, I suggested we go up Wilkins Branch. Finally, like the King of Idiots, I suggested we come back on Old Hillsboro, since Boyd Mill Road is so bumpy that you can't go fast on that.

Friday morning, my legs were shredded. I crawled out of bed, got some breakfast, turned on the weather, and heard the weatherman predict that the rain might hold off until Saturday afternoon.

Now, at this point, a sane man listens to his legs and stays home for the weekend. Me? I put on my biking clothes and rode in to work. Then I rode over to Vanderbilt Medical Center in the afternoon to see my friend, Peter Lee, who is recovering from surgery there. Then I rode home.

A 40-mile recovery ride. Smart.

By Friday night the weather forecast was good for Chattanooga on Saturday morning, but not so good for Nashville. RandoGirl thought about joining me, and then thought better. She does that.

Which is how the last part of the perfect storm hit, with me driving down from Nashville to Chattanooga at 4 am, signing up, and sitting at the front of the starting pack at 7:30.

My legs felt heavy, but generally okay for the first 40 miles. I made it over the first mountain, Suck Creek, just behind the lead pack. They descended better than I, and so I settled into the next pack. We passed the "decision point" -- go left for the metric, or straight for the full 100 miles -- and half a dozen of that group turned off. I kept going straight into the belly of the storm of the century.

I fell off that pack just before we got to the second state (Alabama). My legs were more than heavy now -- the quadriceps were lead, and the calves were CroMoly. Another group came by, and I worked with them up the second mountain: Sand.

Everything hurt by this point, and I finally stopped for water and a break at the rest area at mile 60. After five minutes, two other guys were ready to roll on, and we headed for our third state: Georgia. After eight miles of working into a stiff headwind, we turned left for a fast section to a little descent, heading towards the final mountain.

Again, I fell off on the descent, mostly because my legs had gone from being lead to feeling like spent uranium control rods. I could turn them over, but not with any "oomph" at all. At mile 75, I was riding by myself, in no man's land, with nothing in the furnace.

With only five miles before Burkhalter Gap Road -- the short, tough climb up the last of the mountains, Lookout -- I eased back and began budgeting my remaining energy. The following thought kept going through my head: "I've never walked Burkhalter before. I ain't gonna do it today."

I got to the base of that climb 4:20 into my ride. I got to the top -- about 2.5 miles later -- at 4:50. It was done on the bike, and it was all done really slowly.

With just over 15 miles left, I topped off my bottles and rolled on. The remaining miles up on top of Lookout Mountain are always kind of rolly, and will wear you down. I had nothing left to wear down, so I just gutted it out until I found a small group to work with. This ragged band dissolved as soon as we started down the mountain towards Chattanooga, and I motored the last couple of miles through the city back to the stadium.

The elapsed-time clock read 5:43 as I rolled in. It was a new personal best -- just not as good a personal best as I had hoped.

Driving back, I felt as if I had sort of failed. Of course, the flooding here has since put things back into perspective. I did my best -- I just didn't plan very smart. But I've lived to ride another day, and maybe next time I'll leave some gas in the tank before I start the ride.

Hours of Leisure Punctuated by a Period of Panic

As the day came grayly on, the handsome man shifted his bicycle into a higher gear and stood up, leaving his teammates behind as he cruised up yet another short hill. His lean calves glistened in the steamy morning, coated with road grime from the last hours of rain, and his bulging quadriceps rippled from the strain. After 220 hard miles of cycling, could any man find the strength for this one last effort?

Cresting the hill, his matinée-idol features set in a frighteningly determined stare, he shifted into his highest gear and began pedaling furiously on the descent, rooster-tails of rain sluicing in his wake as he continued to attack the Chattanooga streets. A fever-wracked demon, he hit the bottom and kept churning the pedals, his powerful gluteals pumping perfect circles as the bicycle strained toward the finish. He could feel the rear wheel getting soft again from the slow leak, and knew that he had scant minutes before it would fail.

Would he get to the end in time?

But, I'm Getting Ahead of Myself

Tennessee had a fleche this past weekend, with three teams converging from points around the globe -- albeit a very small globe -- arriving in Chattanooga by Sunday morning. Two teams came from Nashville, and one came from Georgia.

When Jeff Sammons, the Tennessee Regional Brevet Administrator (RBA) announced this in the fall, I immediately thought about re-forming my old Heart of the South team: Jeff Bauer, Vida Greer, and Alan Gosart. We all got along very well then, and have similar cycling abilities. When I asked each of them, they were all up for it, and we again made a great team. We decided on a fun name ...

I had t-shirts made up with this on them

We started from Vida and Lynn's house, following a huge breakfast of pancakes. I rolled up a couple of extra pancakes with some peanut butter and put them in a zip-lock baggie -- this ride was all about the food.

The wind was fairly stiff out of the south-southwest as he worked our way down, stopping briefly at Henpeck Market to get a receipt (and a cookie) before turning towards Bethesda. From there, our course shifted slightly east, helping us along for most of the rest of the day. We cruised up over Pulltight Hill, through Allisona, on to Eagleville, and from there to our first stop at Bell Buckle, 71 miles in.

At Henpeck, I pulled out my camera to get a picture of the baked goods, only to discover that I had left the memory card for this camera at home. Otherwise, you'd get to see some pictures. Fortunately, I am an excellent writer, so you can easily visualize things from my flowery prose. Just squint a little harder.

From Bell Buckle, we took a new series of roads up through Noah, picking up the winter 200K route on into McMinnville. My original plan had us hitting the Hardee's control here about dinner time, but we were over an hour early and instead opted for a quick malted and a break. We were now about halfway -- 110 miles in -- but all felt pretty good. We hung out for about half an hour, talking with the folks coming in for an early dinner/late lunch/just a snack. Everyone was interested in what we were doing, as usual, evincing equal parts admiration and doubt regarding our sanity. They were all very nice about it, though, and wished us a good trip.

Leaving McMinnville, we wound our way through a bit of traffic to Hwy 127, and from there to Hwy 30. Soon, we were climbing Baker Mountain Road -- which we had renamed Baxter Mountain Road (you get a little loopy out there) -- fighting the headwind again as we got up to the chilly plateau.

Our water bottles were all pretty empty by then, so we stopped at the store before Fall Creek Falls State Park, bought some water, and took another short break. One of my teammates is a couple of week's away from that teammates 50th birthday, so we would sing "Happy Birthday to You" every 50 miles. As we entered the park, dusk was coming on as we sang "Happy Birthday" for the third time that day.

Our next control was A&H Market, just past the park. We use this market as a control on the Green Acres permanent, and twice on the old Tennessee 600K course, so they are used to us. We paused just long enough to get our brevet cards signed, put on night-riding gear, and top off our bottles.

Rolling out, it seemed as if we woke up every dog in middle Tennessee. A few of them came out after us, and since we were now rolling through a very dark night over a really rough road, they had no trouble catching us. We yelled at a number of them, squirted one or two, and I began cursing them all. After 150 miles, ending your ride by bouncing over a pit bull is not what you want.

Soon, we were doing the steep winding descent into Pikeville -- a great way to test your brakes and get a good upper-body workout (isometric tension -- Charles Atlas would approve). We regrouped at the bottom, and then headed over to dinner at McDonald's. This may have been the only restaurant ... well, "business that sells food" is probably a more appropriate appellation ... in the area, which would explain why it was teeming with teens. For some reason, most of them seemed spattered with gray mud. This, and the preponderance of killer monster trucks parked outside, lead us to believe that there must have been some kind of "bogging" event in the area ... or they just like to play in the mud around there.

Is this really a good use of petroleum?

After two Angus steak burgers and a large fries, my tank was topped up again. We all tried to nap a bit, but the hub-bub of the adolescent mating ritual made that all but impossible. About 9:30 pm, we rolled out into the dark night.

It was a long climb up out of the valley on Hwy 30, and the wind had picked up considerably. Sometimes it was behind us, and sometimes it was in our face, but mostly it was blowing the last remaining bits of pollen around in a sinus-stiffling maelstrom. Jeff had been suffering more than most of us from the high pollen count that day, and this onslaught of yellow powder made the next few miles really hard on him.

Fortunately, it was less than 30 miles to the Dayton control, and traffic was fairly light, particularly for the long descent back down off this plateau. We were at the Huddle House control before midnight, where we again got the kind of looks that you just have to ride a brevet through the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere to really appreciate.

Despite her obvious questions regarding our intelligence, the waitress soon had us big cups of hot chocolate as she took our order. There were some other patrons for whom this seemed to be their standard late-evening hangout (I kept expecting a fat guy to walk in and have everybody yell out, "Norm!"), and they all had questions about what we were doing, why, and what our route was. Most seemed to agree that we had chosen good roads, although they suggested some alternatives that would be shorter and/or less hilly.

Generally, in a place like a Huddle House, you can get all kinds of information from the locals regarding how to go somewhere, what you can see on the way (not much at 2 am), and what used to be over that ways. Everyone was friendly and helpful, and seemed like the kind of folks that, when they passed you on the road later that night, would give you the full lane and wave at you. They're what my momma always called, "Good country folks."

We again tried to nap -- with a little more success than we'd had in the Pikeville McDonald's -- but the restaurant was closing at 2 am (we had now crossed into the Eastern time zone) and we soon had to roll out. It had started to rain, and as we crossed Hwy 27 and started up the very steep Providence Road we had to carefully balance between standing -- which would un-weight your rear wheel so that it slipped on the slick pavement -- or staying seated in such a way as to keep your front wheel from lifting up.

Oh, what fun.

The next 15 miles were a roller-coaster ride through the hills near the Tennessee River, and I'm pretty sure that we all wore out some brake pads there. The road was a little rough, littered with detritus, and the rain made for some slick spots and hidden holes. We plunged down into little valleys, brakes squealing, then pumped up the steep incline on the other side. By the time we reached Old Dayton Road -- a lovely, flat, calm two-lane that took us into Soddy-Daisy, we were ready for another break.

Pulling into the Huddle House, I noticed that my rear wheel felt spongy. The winter must have been very hard on the area roads, and we were bouncing off a barrage of heaved and cracked asphalt, so I assumed that the culprit was a pinch-flat. However, as Alan and I changed the tube in the light rain next to the restaurant, the small hole in the tube seemed to be on the rim side, and lacked the classic "snake-bite" pattern (two small holes right next to one another) that you get with a pinch-flat.

I checked the rim and tire as best I could, but couldn't find any thing that would have caused the puncture. Slightly uneasy, I inserted a new tube, pumped the tire up to full, and went inside to get some breakfast.

Vida had ridden over to the WalMart next door, where she managed to buy some dry clothes and borrow one of their industrial-sized space heaters to dry herself off ... mostly. She arrived soon after I finished the tire repair wearing a $3.00 jacket and a couple of $2.00 t-shirts, nice and toasty warm. We were all soon digging into our second breakfast of the morning (fourth breakfast of the ride), washing groceries down our necks with fresh steaming coffee like all-night truckers.

If there was a good side to the rain, it was that it had washed the pollen out of the air, and Jeff was no longer suffering. In Dayton, he had been forced to put wet paper towels over his eyes to take some of the swelling down. The hour of riding in the rain also cleared out everybody's sinuses.

Since this Huddle House was the "22-Hour Control," we could not leave before 5 am Central time (6 am there) -- or 22 hours after we had started our ride. We again lay down in booths to nap, and finally roused ourselves about 4:50 am, getting ready to sally forth once again.

My tire had not lost any air, so that whatever had caused the flat must have come out ... or so I thought. We headed out into a light drizzle, rolling down Old Dayton Road for another 10 miles before crossing into a series of side streets heading towards Hixson Pike.

Just before we reached the mall there, I noticed that the rear tire was again going flat. I pulled over and quickly pumped it up, thinking that whatever was causing the slow leak should let us get another 10 miles, and thus to the finish, before I was flat again.

No such luck. Less than two miles later, we pulled over again. This time, I felt around again to try to find the offending puncturer in the growing daylight, but couldn't find anything. I slapped in another spare tube, used Jeff's inflater to fill it (I only carry a frame pump), and we rolled on again. Another two miles, and it was flatting again, so I borrowed Jeff's inflater again and filled it.

Thus began a series of sprints to put mileage beneath our wheels -- particularly my mysteriously deflating rear one. Finally, with about 25 minutes before we ran out of time and less than two miles from the end, I borrowed a spare tube from Vida while Jeff cut up the flat one and inserted it in the tire as back-up rim tape. We popped in another C02 cartridge, inflated, and were climbing the penultimate hill to our destination. We had 15 minutes to finish, or we would be disqualified.

Furiously, we pedaled towards Frazier Avenue and the Walton Street Bridge. I was weaving across all the lanes in the early morning traffic trying to avoid any bump in the road, since I was pretty certain by now that the problem was a spoke that only poked through the rim tape when I hit one of the omnipresent ad hoc speed bumps littering the Chattanooga streets. We crossed the Tennessee River, turned right, and got to the Tennessee Aquarium at exactly 6:59 Central time. We had made it.

Jeff Sammons's team, which included Steve Phillips and Bill Glass, was there.

Jeff Sammons, Steve "Thumbs-Up" Phillips, and Bill Glass

Kevin Bullock had ridden with them from Sewannee, TN, and he took a picture of us standing around looking goofy and wet.

From left, Alan, Jeff Sammons, Steve, Bill, Vida, Me, and Jeff Bauer

The tire held out from here to our hotel, where we all got cleaned up and had yet another breakfast. RandoGirl drove down from Nashville and brought Vida, Jeff, Alan, and me back -- everybody but she and Jeff napped some more on I-24. I finally got to bed at 4 pm, and slept until midnight when I got up and cleaned my bike until 3 am. Although it was still holding up, I put fresh rim tape and a new tire on the wheel.

Then, finally, I deflated.

My New Old Bike

You know how it is when you get a different haircut or a new suit (back in the days when we used to wear suits to work and certain parties), and you feel like a totally different person? There's probably not a guy out there who hasn't put on a tuxedo, looked in the mirror, and felt like James Bond. You either smirk and say "Vodka martini ... shaken, not stirred" or fingerbang the reflection with a Walther PPK.

Licensed to Climb

My Bianchi feels like that right now.

Well, okay, it's not really my Bianchi -- it's Max Watzz's Bianchi. There's not much "RandoBoy" left to this machine, other than the fact that the frame is made of titanium. Max would probably like carbon fiber, like a Pinarello Dogma, but he's got to settle for what he gets.

And, frankly, what he's getting here is pretty nice.

The only thing different about it is the wheels and the saddle. I'm also going to put different handlebars on it, so that I can put clip-on aerobars on for time-trials.

The wheels are Reynolds Strike carbon clinchers, which weigh 1705 grams per set. With the bike on the work stand, I put the wheels on and gave them a spin Wednesday. I think they're still going.

The saddle is also not a RandoBoy saddle -- for distance, I've found the love of my life in the Terry Liberator Race Ti. Max will be using the Fizik Antares. Of course, he probably won't be on it for more than 60-70 miles at a time, and for that short a distance it shouldn't matter.

So, how much does this bad boy weigh now? 19 pounds. Yeah, that's not exactly encroaching on the UCI limit or anything, but it's lighter than any bike I've ever ridden.

Does it make a difference? Well, Wednesday, after I put it all together, I took a quick spin through the neighborhood over to the "tough" hill. It's not long, but it's steep enough. My speed never fell below 17 mph.

Of course, on the descent down the other side the wind was brutal, and those deep-section wheels caught all of it. It probably didn't help that the bike was so light, either, but I was feeling the wind a lot more than I used to on that bike.

In that way, this thing is a lot like a tuxedo. It will be fun to put on and play at being fast, but when it comes to doing real work give me jeans and a t-shirt.

Nothing Miles

I got a wonderful present Friday: A surprise day off.

The head of my department sent out a message Thursday afternoon telling everybody who didn't have pressing business to take the day, but I had a couple of meetings so went ahead and biked in. The ride in that morning was great, and right after I got in each of my meetings cancelled. I was biking back home just after 9:30.

By then the day had gotten decently warm, and during the ride I concocted a plan: I would go home, grab some cans of paint, stuff them in a pannier, and go back out and mark a route that my bike club plans to use next weekend. I didn't even have to go in the house, and by 10:30 I was headed for the route.

On the way, Max Watzz popped into my head with a question: "How hard should we ride this today?" He was concerned that we would go out of his "recovery threshold" (whatever that means), since he had done "jumps" with my legs the night before.

"I don't know. I guess these are maybe Endurance Miles or Foundation Miles," I told Max. He grumbled something about "muscles only growing when you let them rest."

Then I started thinking about it, though, and I decided that I didn't feel like Endurance Miles or Foundation Miles or Recovery Miles. I decided right then that today's ride was Nothing Miles. There was no training goal for my time on a bicycle -- I was just enjoying a beautiful day in lovely countryside, spraying the road with paint to tell other cyclists which way to turn.

I quickly marked the 12-mile route, and then started off on the 32- and 50-mile routes. I stopped at Black Dog Store in Rudderville to fill my bottle and eat some pretzels, chatting with the folks who were coming and going. "Nice day to be out for a ride," they'd say. "The best," I replied.

Chuck Dunn illustrates the proper way to hang out in front of a store on a ride

There was a nasty headwind going down Arno Road, and then on to Bethesda, but it was more of a crosswind as I headed up Pulltight and on to Peytonsville. Going up towards College Grove it became a full-blown tailwind, and I effortlessly cruised at 30 mph. Stopping at the grocery store in College Grove, I refilled the bottle again and had a mini-chess pie with a Diet Sun Drop, sitting on the bench out front soaking up some sun.

Life don't get much better than that.

While I was sitting there, I started thinking about how nice it would be to win the PowerBall lottery that weekend. With $103 million, I decided that I would buy a huge RV and hire somebody to drive it for me. I would then go riding every day, carrying a couple of bottles and maybe a tube, and a cell phone. I would call the driver of my RV if anything came up, and he could bring it to me or fix whatever was broken, or maybe bust some heads if somebody passed me too closely on a back road.

"Carlton," I would say (I named him Carlton after Rhoda's doorman ... you'd have to be old enough to get the reference), "I need a cold bottle." Or, "Carlton, go on up the road about 10 miles and wait for me there with a Diet Coke and a Moon Pie."

Carlton and I -- and RandoGirl, too, if she wanted to come along -- would go where the weather was nice. We'd summer in Canada and winter in Florida. We would stay at nice hotels and eat good dinners. Carlton would take excellent care of my large stable of superb bicycles, and when I wanted company on a fast training ride or long climb, Carlton could ride with me. He would take long pulls into the wind for me, too.

Of course, I know I'm never going to win the lottery -- statistically speaking, you have better odds of contracting leprosy -- but a guy can dream. As I dreamed more about it, I decided the next best thing would be to find somebody else that had won the lottery and become their Carlton. That wouldn't be too bad, either.

Anyhow, I knew the road wouldn't mark itself, so I soon got back to work. With the tailwind, it only took another couple of hours, and by the time I finished marking everything and biking back home, I had ridden 95 miles for the day.

They were Nothing Miles, but they sure felt like Something Great.

What the Heck Happened to the Hair on my Legs?!

Max Watzz!!!

RandoBore Does Not Understand Me At All

Max Watzz here. I just wanted to clear up RandoBoob's obvious misconception regarding my glorious training regimen. I have customized and tweaked my every movement so as to maximize my potential for speed on the bicycle. I not only weigh my food, I measure it's volume and displacement. If I had easy access to a mass spectrometer, I would have my food broken down into sub-atomic molecules before I even consume it. That would leave my wonderful body free to devote time to building even more muscle, rather than wasting energy on such a pedestrian act as "digestion."

But, I digress -- although (unlike RandoBlob) it is understandable given the subject matter: Me.

RandoBlah was nattering on last week about how I never go anywhere ... as if going somewhere was important?! He showed you some of my recent Garmin downloads, but failed to include the part that truly illustrates the magnificence that constitutes me. To rectify this, I will show you my downloads from this past Tuesday night at the track:

And now I'll show you my download from Thursday night jumps in my neighborhood:

RandoBum entirely missed the point of my extraordinary workouts: That incredible power curve at the bottom. Just looking at it now makes me want to kiss my splendid legs ... ah, what the hell. Mmmm. Although they are salty, they are very kissable. And I of course am a great kisser.

You know, some might call me narcissistic, but is it narcissism if you are truly worthy of this level of self-love? I didn't think so, either.

Anyway, despite RandoButt's attempts to torpedo all of my good work by running off on a sailboat that doesn't even have a bicycle, eating too much, and then missing the Rutledge, TN, time-trial for some ridiculously long ride in Kentucky, my training is right on track. Thursday night's jumps went very well, and then I cooled down by riding around the neighborhood and over to Liberty Church Road for a fast climb. Mostly, though, I just wanted to let the lucky souls who live near me bask in the glory of my beautiful legs. Had they been properly shaved, I am certain that grown men who saw them would weep and women would lust for me more than they already do (were that but possible).

Hmmm ... I think I'm going to go shave before RandoBore takes over again.

Going Nowhere Really Fast

A few of you have asked how Max Watzz has been doing getting ready for the race season. Basically, he's going nowhere ... but he's going there really fast.

I guess this is one of the things that confuses me about racing. I've got racer friends that I'll invite on 200Ks, and they'll tell me that they can't until the season is over. I'll ask if they're coming to the Tuesday night club ride, and they'll tell me that they can't because they're "in a rest week." We talk about biking to work, and they say that their coach won't let them since it would "mess them up for the Wednesday night crits."

But, if you want to get better at riding a bike, shouldn't you, maybe, just ... ride your bike?

RandoGirl gave Max Watzz a Garmin Edge cycling computer for Christmas. (I'm thinking that I should be worried about this -- if my wife has a crush on my alter-ego, is that cheating?) It's got a GPS, although he doesn't really use it to plot brevet routes and go exploring. He's more interested in the fact that it works with his PowerTap wheel and heart rate monitor to give him virtually every statistic that a racing cyclist needs. (As opposed to the statistic that other cyclists need, which is "Are we there yet?")

Here's some of Max's most recent rides, logged using the GPS:

This is from Tuesday night at the Nashville Fairgrounds race track. Note the legend in the lower right corner, showing that Max never moved more than 1,000 feet from where he started.

This is from a couple of weeks ago in my neighborhood. Most of this was just round and round and round the top loop. He was doing something called "jumps." Oddly enough, this isn't like the jumps they do in X-Games or anything, since there's no ramp and you're not supposed to airborne.

This is my personal favorite, and Max has a bunch that look just like this. Again, the legend gives it away: He was travelling less than 80 feet in any direction. Apparently, this is what you get when you put a bike with a GPS on a trainer.

Let's contrast this with the ride that I am going to do Saturday:

This is a 300-kilometer (188 miles) brevet that starts in Cerulean, KY. We'll go out to Morgantown, KY, and then ride back. With any luck, it should only take 12-14 hours.

Hoo-boy!

Now, Max is really pissed off that I am doing this. He was angry to begin with that I went off sailing for a week -- during which I did absolutely no training -- and then he was ticked that I ate like a pig all that week. Key lime pie is apparently not good for the power-to-weight ratio.

But Saturday I'm going to Cerulean, KY, and riding way too long for him, on the same day that there's a time trial in Rutledge, TN.

At this rate, Max will not get to actually race until May. By then I will have finished the 300K and 400K that I need to do so I can have a good shot at getting in to Paris-Brest-Paris (probably the most famous of all 1200Ks) in 2011. Once that's done, I just have the 600K in late May, so Max can race in May if he wants. After the 600K I'll ease back and he can tune his training.

Meanwhile, he keeps whining that I'm not doing enough for his five-second power numbers. Now, what freakin' good is five seconds of power? Why does he want 1400 watts for five seconds, anyway? Is he going to turn on a light bulb for just long enough to memorize the furniture in the room so he won't crash into it -- not that he would crash into it anyway because his bike is on a trainer and won't even go over near that lamp!

I just don't understand racing.

Eat Good Stuff and Do Good Things

It is part of the perverse nature of man to fixate upon that which he cannot have. During winter, we yearn for warm summer days. During blistering heat waves, we fantasize about cool winter rides. As children, we counted down the days until our birthdays, where we could open presents, eat cake, and wonder why the clown's breath smelled "funny." As adults, we pine for those birthdays of yore and compare them sadly to the ones we now suffer through, full of blazing black candles and numbers that are almost never prime.

This is why, in Spring most cyclists minds turn to thoughts of ... food.

However, as most basic statistics are, the power-to-weight ratio is a harsh value ... and one that cyclists value very, very much. It is what determines how fast we can climb a hill, and to a lesser degree how fast we can accelerate on the flats. And while this doesn't matter as much to RandoBoy as it might to, say, a racer like Max Watzz, it still matters every time the road my group is on turns skyward, or we see a county line to sprint over.

Just because randonneuring ain't a race doesn't mean that randonneurs ain't egotistical bastards.

Now, power-to-weight is determined by how much power you can produce and how much you weigh. As a human, I am ordinarily "X" strong. I can do things to make myself stronger, but it is very hard work and gains eventually come in only the most meager of increments. As someone who has been cycling an amount that almost anybody would quantify as "a sh-t-load" over the past few years, for me to gain strength I have to put in a lot of training.

Since the power that I have is pretty much the power that I am stuck with, I am forced to attack the other side of the equation: weight. If I weighed as little as either of the Schleck brothers, for example, I would have a very good power-to-weight ratio. Instead, I weigh more like one of the Mario Brothers. Maybe both.

(Nice-ah bibs, eh?)

Alright, I'm exaggerating. I've actually been dieting for the past couple of months and have finally gotten back down to a decent level. And this is why I've been thinking more and more about food, and how you've got to make every calorie and gram of fat count -- both in terms of what it can do for your tastebuds, what it can do to your posterior, and what it means to the world.

So, I'm gonna talk about peanut butter.

No, that ain't no Skippy's label. It's the logo of Team 2012 -- as in the 2012 Olympics. It's a professional women's cycling team whose main sponsor is Peanut Butter & Company. And Nashville's very own Katharine Carroll is on this team.

In February, Shelley Evans of Peanut Butter & Co. TWENTY12 won four stages en route to taking the General Classification victory in the Tour of New Zealand. Along with Kat, Mara Abbott is on the team. This is, basically, one of the hottest teams in women's professional cycling today.

And the peanut butter is really, really good. It's got all of these cool funky flavors, like Cinnamon Raisin Swirl, White Chocolate Wonderful, and The Heat is On -- which has peppers and chilli powder.

If it's spicy, it's mine. I mean, can you imagine how a big dollop of The Heat is On would taste on an Everything Bagel from Bruegger's ... maybe with a sliced up banana in there, too? We're talking a nearly perfect breakfast before a slightly cool morning ride. Mmmm ... nom, nom, nom ...

So, now that I've got your mouth watering, here's what I want you to do: Go to the Peanut Butter & Co. TWENTY12 site and buy one of their special packages of peanut butter and a t-shirt. I'm sorry that you can't just walk over to the RandoCave and have me fix you a sandwich, but what kind of superhero lair would that be? I mean, imagine Girl Scouts delivering cookies to the Fortress of Solitude. Get real!

And, sure, you could buy some flavors of this peanut butter at local stores, but most of them don't stock the really cool flavors, and they don't come with the neat shirt, and 100% of the proceeds don't go to support this team! If you order one of the special packages from the above site, however, your money will go to help out some American 2012 Olympians, and you'll get great peanut butter and a t-shirt.

That almost sounds like it should be a sandwich. "I'd like a peanut butter and t-shirt on rye."

Or, maybe not.

Anyway, if you're still not sure, come to the 400K in April in Manchester, TN. I'm going to help support the ride, and I'll bring a few jars from my order. You can fix yourself a sandwich with a little Mighty Maple or Dark Chocolate Dreams before you roll out at 6 am. I wouldn't count on there being much left when you get back, unless you ride really fast.

And don't even think about touching my jar of The Heat is On.

When Princess Pops, the Weather's Gonna Break

Sunday morning, I went out for a little recovery ride in a light snowfall. The temperature was just under freezing, but I wanted to get my ride in before the day reached its forecast high of 35 degrees, and the snow turned into a cold rain.

Oh, the things that I will do to ride.

Anyhow, the snow turned to sleet, which was pelting my face as I head home into a stiff wind, and I began to wonder if the universe hated me.

We all get these thoughts from time to time. You're running late for something, and the traffic lights are all against you, and you begin to wonder if the universe hates you. Or you have a big date coming up and a huge zit sprouts in the middle of your forehead, and you post on facebook that the universe hates you.

Of course, the more I thought about it Sunday morning, the more I decided that the universe does not really hate me. To imagine that the universe cared one whit about me would be crazy, and although the jury is still out on some of my other personalities, the main one is mostly sane.

Yes, there are undoubtedly a few yahoos out there that a proper universe should have it in for, but it's not out to get you or me or (unfortunately) even them.

The universe is, however, out to get Princess.

("Arf, arf. Kill me, universe")

Princess is my dog ... well, technically, Princess is RandoGirl's dog. The RandoDaughter would argue that Princess is her dog, but we all know whose feet Princess wants to lay on every night. My feet are nefariously flesh-coated icebergs that nobody wants to get near -- much less lie on -- so she's not my dog. As this is the way that dogs claim their property (at least girl dogs -- you don't want to be claimed the property of a boy dog) RandoGirl belongs to Princess.

Of course, that won't save her, because the universe hates Princess. And the rest of us must suffer because of it.

You see, Princess grew up in Florida, so she is not comfortable with snow. As a very simple beast, she does not adapt well, and so she has not yet figured how to go outside in the snow and ... well, do what dogs have to do when they go outside. Nonetheless, Princess is a good dog and behaves indoors, which means not breaking that most cardinal rule for dogs:

Don't pee or poop on my floor.

("Arf, arf. I am constipated")

So, the universe is not really torturing us -- it's just trying to make my dog explode. When Princess pops, the universe will be satisfied, and we can all go outside and ride our bicycles again.

I'm not telling you to wish bad things for my dog, of course. That would be wrong, and very selfish of me.

But, as I said earlier, Princess is not my dog.

How I Won the Nashville Super 80

This past Saturday I won another bike race, dominating the competition with a display of raw strength and power that redefined the bounds of what was heretofore considered possible of a "mortal" man.

I was awesome.

Me me me me me me me.

Get it?

Hmmm ... That's Not What I Heard

Oh, all right.

I was very fortunate to be a member of the Harpeth Cutters team this past Saturday, at the Music City Motorplex at the State Fairgrounds, when we won the inaugural Nashville Super 80 Bicycle Race. We managed to beat the other teams by four laps, averaging around 25 mph on single-speed bikes with flat (i.e., no clipping in and no toe-strap) pedals, going around the 0.8 mile banked track.

It was painful, it was hectic, it was exhilirating, and it was a blast.

Chance Favors the Prepared Mind

Again, the victory was a testimony to preparation and training. Les Wooldridge, our captain, put together an incredible team of athletes, including Connie Weisner, Vic Hardin, Bill Glass, Lisa Starmer, Greg Turner, Don Mason, Laura Reinert, and Bob Rowland. He then added me, RandoBoy, for plucky comic relief. And to give the other teams a bit of a chance.

Here we are at the end of the race doing jumping jacks.

Once Les had assembled his "crack" team, he then put together a strategy: Go in the direction that the other teams were going, but faster.

Brilliant!

Okay, there was more to it. He had us all get on the bikes at the track early, so we knew just what was going to be demanded of us. If you've ever ridden a single-speed bike with 67.4 gear inches you know why: You gotta spin. Fast. If you want to keep the speed over 20, you better be able to maintain a cadence of at least 120.

We're talking Road Runner here just before he goes "beep-beep" and flips the coyote off.

Les also acquired two bikes that suited our range of sizes (see picture above), and got Bill Glass to tweak the rides so that they were in top shape and easy to quickly configure for each rider during the race. As a fellow randonneur, Bill knows how to do this better than anyone. He is the MacGyver of Bicycles.

Bill also spins better than anybody. He and Les, during the training rides, were the only ones who could get these bikes over 30 mph.

Here's Bill coming across the finish line to take the checkered flag.

Bill got this assignment largely due to his years of racing: He was one of the few of us that could be trusted to take his hands off the bars like this.

By the way, if you don't think total preparation of a bicycle before a race is important, ask the RandoWife. Her group, Team Lanterne Rouge, came in third -- about one lap behind the second-place Wheel Banditos. On one of their team bikes, the rear wheel locked up about half-way around the track. Their rider cut a hole in his leg, and had to then shoulder the bike cyclo-cross style and run it back to the pit.

Here's the RandoWife riding for her team. Note that this bike has a rear derailleur, but it was locked down so she couldn't shift. This was their replacement bike for the one that broke.

The other invaluable piece of preparation was the racing order. Les sent out a hypothetical series of riders and laps, and everyone gave superb feedback on it. He then modified it, and modified it again, largely with the help of Connie Weisner. We then had a great plan that allowed us to use the right resources at the right time, changing rhythms to keep the competition guessing, and giving everyone just enough rest after their rides so they would be recovered, but not so much that they would get cold.

Perhaps as important on Saturday, the team stuck to the plan. We've all seen efforts go down in flames when folks decide to shake things up that are working great, but the Cutters didn't. We just sat back, continued to execute, and stayed loose.

We were loose enough that our captain was about to jump up on the wall and boogie in the middle of the race.

Now that's what a bike race should be all about.

Special thanks to Al Wagner, who took all of the great photos in today's blog. He even got one of me looking fast. 

I don't even seem to notice that my front tire is almost flat.