Gremlins

Well, I've been meaning to post here for a while now, but it appears that gremlins have invaded my home computer.

Any time I try to do anything it asks me what program I want to use, even for simple stuff like, oh, starting Internet Explorer or Firefox. It's got to be some kind of malware but antivirus, though it finds some stuff, has yet to kill this thing off. Alas, I've yet to find a solution and I fear that it's gonna take a reformat on the machine. Ugh

Do any of you techie types out there have ant suggestions? Pretty please?

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone. Any spelling errors are due to fat, clumsy thumbs.

An Open Letter to Winter

Dear Winter,

I really hate that it has come to this but I'm afraid we're going to have to stage an intervention if your current behavior continues. You see, we have always had a contentious relationship. We really do appreciate your existence because you provide a break from the often stifling heat of South Carolina and help us appreciate what have here, where we get to play outside pretty much 9-10 months out of the year.

You even provide the added benefit of dumping snow on little slices of heaven like Steamboat, Colorado, where we periodically get to go play in the snow.

An example of Winter behaving correctly in Steamboat

You, Winter, are the counterbalance, the one that keeps us honest, that tests our resolve. You send us inside to toil away on trainers or to simply hibernate in front of the television, dreaming of warmer and sunnier days. This is all well and good, but, sheesh, this is getting out of hand.

As I sit down to eat lunch while writing, this is the view outside my kitchen window:

This is not the Louisiana Bayou. It's my back yard.

You, Winter, have turned my back yard into a swamp. You, Winter, have decided, Montgomery Scott-like, to transport us, in terms of climate, to Belgium. Now, we love just about everything about Belgium: the chocolate, the beer, the cycling culture... Did I mention the beer? You, Winter, have however immersed us (pun intended) in the one thing we do not enjoy about Belgium: the weather.

This, my friend, must stop, and we would greatly appreciate your cooperation in ceasing and desisting all crappy weather activities until further notice.

And it is not only humans that dislike your current practices:

Seriously. You're making Jake sad, and he's NEVER sad..

Shiveringly,

The Yummy NOMs Brain Trust

I'm MELTING

Or, at least I WAS melting, for a very difficult 18 minutes 15 seconds last night. Case in point:

ahhh Whattaworld, whattaworld...

Last nite, I headed over to the Greenville Cycling Center  to participate in an indoor time trial on the computrainers to support JDRF. This would mark not only my first time on Coach Jim's slick computrainer set up, but also the first time I did a time trial in any format.

I even got to do it with some friends:

The hardest, and the prettiest gals in the Upstate Peloton

Robin's always so dang composed, she should join OREC

I, on the other hand, am rarely composed, but I've got this melting thing down

The wifey, channeling her inner Cavendish

Why is this important, you ask? Well I'm toying with the idea of bike racing this year, and, to that end, I joined the Greenville Spinners Racing Team just to see if I like the whole racing scene. To be honest, after hearing of several good friends crashing at local races as well as being a little turned off at how seriously people take themselves at these things, I'd been a bit resistant the whole idea. I like riding my bike, and typically, I like to keep it simple. However, after serious lobbying from the wifey and a couple of my P3C3 mates, I decided to dip my toe. I still don't know what races, or even how many I want to do this year. 

Then last night happened. It wasn't epic. I didn't even ride that strongly, but it was really cool to just saddle up and tap out 10k of full on effort on my own. I might be on to something here, especially when 10k of effort affords me the ability to demolish something like this afterwards:

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. This is the best part of being a cyclist

So, now, I've got to a) get a TT bike (WOOHOO! TOYS!) b) figure out how to ride it, and c) scope out local TT races that I can ride in.

Shouldn't be too hard. Stay tuned for updates, and until the next time, stay hungry, friends...


ps: Thanks again to Jim Cunningham for having the event, and also to April at The Living Pixel for taking all the pics. My sweat has never been captured in such stunning high definition.

Gauntlet

Well, so much for lots of updates all the time. I gotta shake these winter cobwebs.

In any case, we at Yummy NOMs want to congratulate the wifey on entering the blog world with her new space, The Wandering Cyclist.

She's going to be giving updates on her training plan, and race goals for the year, so go back early and often for tales of inteval workouts, blisters, carbo-loading, and other wonderful goodness.

I should also mention here that I'm participating in a training program as well, even with the same trainer. We have different goals, but we will be doing a lot of the work side-by-side, I'd imagine. No chance we'll end up getting hyper-competitive with eachother... None. Not at all...

(sewing machine leg kicks in..)

Seriously, we won't be talking smack or anything...

(getting really fidgety now)

Ok, ok... fine, the gauntlet is being thrown down. You think you can blog better than me. BRING IT ON!!!

(all better now)  

The Return of the NOMs

(The sun rises and shines through a window, revealing a dusty space, stale after months of neglect. Our intrepid consumer of The Good Stuff peers in, reluctant to enter for fear what he might find left behind. Luckily, he realizes that he is simply talking about a metaphor, and a pretty weak one at that...)

Oh, you thought I was gone? Pshaw. It's only been, oh, almost 5 months since we last saw each other. They tell me that patience is a virtue, and for all three of you who visited this space back in the fall, I'm sure I've been pushing the limits of that virtue.

See, this whole blogging thing gets pretty daunting as you get behind and watch the various stories/posts you want to write pile up like a sink full of dirty dishes that you just don't feel like emptying. After a while, there comes to be so much that you don't want to even begin. Better just to blow the house up and move on. Ok, maybe not blow the house up, but you get what I mean, right?

To that end, I won't be providing a JD-style blow-by-blow of rides, meals, conversations and all around hilarity that has occurred in the past few months, but here's a couple of highlights:

1. We completed the Ride to Austin. I won't begin to describe it. If you want to learn more about it, go here to see my and everybody else's updates along the way. I'll only say this about the experience: other than receiving the immense blessing of meeting and marrying my wife, the P3C3 ride is the greatest thing I have ever accomplished.
2. The first ever Casa Zeta Christmas Pizza Festa went off with a minimal amount of fuss and introduced a lot of friends to some NOMalicious grilled pizza recipes.
   
3. Thanksgiving, blessed, wonderful Thanksgiving came and went. Many delicious NOMs were plundered that day.
4. The wifey and I successfully navigated the annual Florida Migration at Christmas, and even managed to get a ride in.
5. Because of crazy cold temperatures, and a couple of bouts with illness, my wife and I have been pretty much off the bike for the past month, which sucks on approximately 73 different levels. As I sit here and write this, she's finally out riding the UWBL ride, a favorite of both of ours that we did every weekend last year, but have yet to complete until today. I'm still fighting a chest cold, so I'm currently trying to ignore my trainer sitting in the next room calling me names like "softie" and "wuss."
   

Anyway, like my trainer, this space has been sitting in a corner of my mind, mocking me for a quite a while now, and I'm here to declare that we are back, although probably not better than ever. Hopefully, dear reader, you will continue being patient as we work out the kinks and flex the muscles that have atrophied during our long hibernation. We going to try to keep this up more regularly, with shorter posts, random thoughts and musings, updates on a little thing called the FTC (the first rule of the FTC is that you DO NOT talk about the FTC), and many other topics. As the weather warms, I'm certain that the Master of All Things Epic will rear his head again and contribute some suffering fodder for your reading pleasure, so fear not if you have returned looking for epic ride updates.

Until then, my darling ones, stay tuned for the dawning of a new age here at Yummy NOMs.

Into (and out of) the Mystic...

Van Morrison has a few songs that just seem to capture the... well, the IT of a situation sometimes. "Into the Mystic," really is a love song, and not so much about mysticism and whatnot, but Van does a good job of evoking a lot of imagery in the song, to the point where you can really "smell the sea, and feel the sky. Let your soul and spirit fly into the mystic..."

On Saturday, we were nowhere near the sea, but we did feel the sky, and, if you ask me, my gypsy soul got rocked like way back in the days of old...

Dawn Patrol

We got the dreaded email from the Master of All Things Epic last week, naming the time and the place (6AM and the Simpsonville Sports Club parking lot) for our next P3C3 training ride. The wifey and I managed to rope Vinnie, charter member of YNHPF into joining us, so we had a nicely sized little group (somewhere in the neighborhood of a dozen).

We set out in the dark, like last week, but that's where the similarities ended. We were gonna be riding rollers this week. Lots of rollers. We'd also be seeing some pretty wild patches of fog, which, as the sun rose, gave the ride a truly mystical theme. Hence the title of this post, for those of you scoring at home. We're gonna let the pics do the talking for the first half of the ride. Here we go:

 

 Dawn set the stage

 

 We hit more fog banks than we could remember

I. Love. This. Pic.

Random streets become eerie in the early morning fog

The sun starts coming out in my feeble attempt to get artsy

Of Backsides, and good rides...

It's always fun to ride with like minded, similarly skilled people. It's even more fun to ride behind like minded, more highly skilled, similarly sized people. Vinnie, our globetrotting friend who, when not working his tail off in a very successful career doing something that I definitely couldn't begin to understand, is also training for an Ironman. So, he's very strong on the bike. He also, like me, has a large frame for a cyclist. Unlike me however, Vinnie has a pa-donk-a-donk kiester, which makes him the perfect person to pull on the flats to help, um, break the wind in front of me (Thank you, I'll be here all weekend. Be sure to tip your waitress. Now get your mind out of the gutter.)  Case in point:

 

It's like tail wind (pun intended), that slipstream is so big!

Anyway... Jokes aside,the first 30 miles disappeared quickly, but my tension level was on the rise. My trusty steed, Fred the Tennessee Stud, was not having a good day. The cassette and the rear derailleur were making so much noise by about mile 35, that I was seriously considering putting Fred out of his misery, tossing him into the woods and hopping into the sag wagon. At the halfway point however, Fred and I found salvation at what must be the most immaculate country convenience store on the planet. 

I'm not kidding, it was a family owned place, and you could eat off the floors. I came in and asked the wonderful lady if she had some WD-40 (a MacGyver favorite right up there with duct tape) on the off chance that I could lube Fred into being quiet. She checked every where, to no avail. I thanked her for being so kind and resigned myself to creaking and squeaking my way back the last 40 miles.

To my wondrous surprise, however, she found the lost (and very rusty) canister and came and got me. I crossed my fingers and doused Fred's nether regions, swearing that I'll do better about washing and lubing the chain in the future. About three gallons of WD-40 later, and I decided that was all I could do, but then a funny thing happened...

It worked, and the mental lift I got from that had me riding super strong for the rest of the route! So strong in fact, that I was able to goof around and catch my buddy Perry in a couple of sprints and climbs. Perry, also a fellow P3C3 rider, kicks my butt on a regular basis, and, though I wouldn't say I won any of the little skirmishes that I started out on the road that day, I did make him work a couple of times...

Which brings us to...

The Perry-Flavored Suppository (almost)

At the top of one of the many quick steep climbs, I thought I had gapped Perry and was feeling feisty. So, like the good little moronic newbie bike rider that I am, I kept blasting off the front on this fun, twisty little lane that we were on, doing my own little personal time trial, and pretending like I knew what I was  doing. There was a SHARP left hand bend followed almost immediately by a right turn that we needed to take, which I wasn't expecting. I grabbed the brakes, thinking I might be able to just make the turn, but, unbeknownst to me, Perry had snuck back on my wheel, probably to teach me a little lesson. If not for a quick hand on the brakes and some nifty handling on Perry's part, I might just have had an uncomfortable trip to the doctor. Rookie mistake, I guess. I need to learn to check my six more regularly. Perry was a good sport about it, which I thank him for, because I was pretty mortified.

Random Nathan update

I don't know where to put this, so I'm putting it here. Our friend Nathan joined in again, this time clad in a Slipstream kit with a white jersey, which I guess made him the best young rider in the GC or something like that. Just like last time, our view of him was decidedly one-sided.

  

I'll see the other side of him one day...

Anyway, the rest of the ride went off without much incident, with the sun getting higher and hotter. We were quite happy done by the time we rolled into the parking lot 85 miles and 4500 feet of climbing later.

Awards and Accolades

The Master of All Things Epic had engineered a little contest themed around the Little House on the Prairie, with the grand prize being an ice cold Fat Tire (a.k.a. God's Recovery Drink). Now I'm sure you're thinking "Wow, that sounds both creative and cool! How come you haven't talked about it until now?" The answer would be, due to my horribly deficient Little House knowledge and subsequent performance in the contest, I lost, and we don't talk about losses here at Yummy NOMs...

That being said, to the victor go the spoils. Congrats to Perry, winner of the first Little House on the Prairie Contest Thingy:

 

He can hardly believe it...

 

We even had podium girls

We at Yummy NOMs have a belated award however. Being follicly challenged, yours truly was ineligible for this contest, but were are proud and happy to bestow the first ever Arnold Poindexter Award for Awesome Helmet Hair to...

 

 Vinnie!

Whose resemblance to this guy inspired the creation of the award 

 

Yeah, how many people do you know that can take it from Van Morrison to Revenge of the Nerds in less than 500 words? It takes skillz, friends. Mad skillz...

All in all, it was a great ride, capped off by a lazy afternoon of post ride football and mexican recovery NOMs, which were mystical in their own right. Anyhow, we'll be heading out on our first annual Colorado Training Camp next week, so stay tuned for pics of mountains and tales of tasty western treats. 

'Till next time, stay hungry, friends.

NOM!!!!!

An Epic Labor Day Weekend (Part 2): The Giro di Tedd

It all started so innocently...

I got an email last week from my friend and fellow P3C3 rider, Tedd. In it he said that he would be leading an 80 miler with some good climbing from Furman starting at 6AM this Labor Day to supplement our training schedule for the Ride to Austin. Sounded like a good idea. Not only did I need some climbing and a nice long ride, but the early start would have us doing some riding in the dark (with headlights and taillights, for the safety minded of you out there), and I needed to get some miles in that way as well, as my team will likely be pulling a night shift on the way to Austin. All appeared on the up and up. Little did I know that I would be putting myself into the hands of an evil, maniacal genius.

A note on Tedd

Many of Tedd's friends know him to be a good, upstanding, church-going member of society. He is a loving husband and a doting father to these two lovely ladies:

Tedd is also an Ironman. Which should have been the first red flag.

Friends, I can unequivocally inform you that all those good things about Tedd mentioned above are merely a front, or, perhaps, the machinations of somebody trying to make a last ditch effort to get in the good graces of the man upstairs. Tedd is, without doubt, an evil madman, and possibly a genius.

Seriously, look at this guy.  Is that the smile of a benevolent family man?. No, dear reader. We are dealing with somebody who likes pain, digs suffering, seeks out new and horrible means of bodily punishment, and brings others along for the ride.

Fortunately, I have the same kind of tastes, so let the suffering begin!

(Note: I have it from good sources that Tedd wears a helmet not to protect his fragile dome while riding, but in fact to hide the horns that are peeking out of his hairline.)

Early wakeup call

I'm a self-professed morning person, but even I have my limits. If you're riding 80 miles, you gotta fuel up at least two hours beforehand. The ride started at 6AM. I'll let you do the math as to when I had to drag my carcass out of bed. Suffice it to say, we made it in time to Furman, but we were less than happy.

These things, however, soon passed, and we were on our way in the cool pre-dawn, our headlights showing us the way, and foxes taking the chance to dart out in front of our wheels in case the pot of rocket fuel coffee we drank beforehand didn't quite get us going.

Soon, the sun was rising, and we were in the beautiful part of northern Greenville County, watching as the sun painted the eastern horizon pink and gave us some lovely vistas. I was still trying to wake up, though:

All in all, however, things were going pretty well. Everybody was communicating bumps in the road, working together to keep the pace solid,  chitchatting, and generally having a lovely time.

We even got a bonus potty stop at La Bastide, which the perceptive of you will remember is where our good friend and YNHPF co-founder Josh is the breakfast chef. Things were looking pretty good, if we do say so ourselves.

As a super-duper added bonus, we got some tasty mid-ride NOMs straight out of the kitchen. Bacon and cheese breakfast scone anybody? Yes, please!!!

(Pause for NOMification of breakfast scone)

Things, friends, were just plain hunky-dory.

It was at this point, in hindsight, that I now realized that I had been lulled (by the aforementioned evil genius) into a false sense of security. From here on out, the road began to turn up, and there was much work to be done.

At this juncture, we at Yummy NOMs would like to take the opportunity to thank Nathan, a newer addition to our ride group, for pulling me up the climbs. Nathan is a very cordial gent, a musician and a good climber. I know, because I spent the rest of the day pretty much holding on to his wheel for dear life. As such, this was mostly my view from here on out.

I am told that Nathan is both attractive and smiles a lot. I wouldn't know, as this is all I have ever seen of him. I can attest to his lovely backside, however, especially when complemented with his old school Slipstream kit. Thanks Nathan. I couldn't have done it without you.

Back to the ride

So, up, up, up we went. And up some more over the watershed into North Carolina. I'm sure it was all lovely, but I was too busy sucking on Nathan's wheel (see above). We then settled into some rollers and smaller climbs, punctuated by some fun twisty descents, and were generally having a good time.

Then we turned left on Green River Road (or something like that)...

...and saw this sign:

For those of you wondering at home, that facial expression is the universal sign for: WTF?!!!!

I assured myself that, clearly, this MUST be a mistake. Not only would the brilliant people at the NC Department of Transportation not be so obtuse as to plop a gravel stretch of road in the middle of a perfectly good country lane, but also, surely, my good, benevolent friend Tedd would NOT lead us into such sketchy conditions... Right? Bueller?

As it turns out, it was I who was mistaken. This is what we rode. For the next 4 miles. Uphill. On carbon ROAD BIKES.

(for the non-cycling readers out there, road frames are designed to be as stiff as possible, thereby maximizing their efficiency on paved road. The down side is that you feel every minor bump and crack in your, well, everywhere.)

The immortal Ricky Bobby described our next 4 miles best when he said "Hang on, Baby Jesus, this is gonna get BUMPY!!!!"

Yet, here is where Tedd's evil genius really manifested itself. Taking a road bike on terrain like this is nothing less than pure lunacy. That being said, I loved it. It was my favorite part of the ride! What's wrong with me, you ask? Well, I guess I've gone over to the dark side. Kinda like pulling for the Yankees or Clemson. I didn't want to do it, but once I did, it was sooooo much fun. I jumped out ahead of the group and finished the gravel stretch solo.

On the other side, I replaced my fillings back in my teeth and snapped my ridemates as they exited their own gravel birth canal of pain. Needless to say, not all were thrilled, but I was. I was reminded of all the stories of the old Grand Tours that I had heard about, with Fausto Coppi and the like racing unsupported on gravel roads over alpine passes. This PALES in comparison to that, but it was quite a feeling. The Giro d'Italia still goes over gravel sometimes (even Lance made a point to train on gravel roads in Colorado this spring during his Giro prep)., which is why I decided to name this ride the Giro di Tedd, in honor of its creator. All this was going through my mind as I watched my ride mates come cursing out of the trail, covered in grime. I saw it as a badge of honor... They didn't agree.

(no zealot like a convert, right?) 

That pic of Tedd above was taken right at the exit of the gravel section. I submit to you that anybody that can laugh like that after that type of a challenge is truly a maniac. Since I was laughing too, I guess that means it takes one to know one. 

Oh, and did I mention that we were barely halfway through our ride? 

Hats off to Firemen Everywhere

Shortly thereafter, thank goodness, Tedd's wife and kids met us at a local fire station, where we refilled water bottles, shook out the kinks, and, thanks to these guys, managed to wash our bikes off. Quite possibly, the best sag stop ever. Thanks to the anonymous volunteer fire fighters for helping us out!

After, that, it was a leisurely jaunt up the back side of Caesar's Head  (surprisingly easy. No, really) with the big pay off of the long descent to the bottom.  With Tedd's wife and kids providing SAG, we leisurely knocked off the rolling route back to Furman with minimal fuss. When I clicked out, the trip distance on the bike computer said around 74 miles, which makes Tedd not only an evil genius, but a liar (he said it'd be 80). However, we all agreed that the gravel stretch should count as double, so that got us to 78, which was close enough for government work. PHEW!!!

On "Epic"

"Epic" is a term that is bandied about entirely too often in cycling circles, to the point that it has seemed to lose some of its meaning. An Epic ride is one that should leave you gutted, panting, thankful to be done, thrilled you did it, and excited for the next one all at the same time. Now, that term gets used so liberally that it's been diluted to the point where when a buddy says they went on an Epic ride, they may have been talking about Tuesday nights at Donaldson, for all you know.


That being said, I'll leave it to Tedd to justify the Epic-ness of this ride. On his Facebook page, he posted the following:

"EPIC - very imposing or impressive; surpassing the ordinary (especially in size or scale) - AS IN TODAY'S RIDE - 78 miles/ 6228 ft of climbing/4 miles of gravel/ 6ix brave souls....All in all - EPIC" 

I couldn't agree more, Tedd. Any road ride in the summer sun  that leaves my legs so filthy that I look like I just went slogging through the mud on my mountain bike has to be an Epic.

Hats off to Tedd (and Happy Birthday!), the newly anointed Master of All Things Epic here at Yummy NOMs. 


Fausto Coppi would be proud. I had a blast, and I can't wait for the next installment of the Giro di Tedd!!!

NOM!!!!!!