Floyd...WTF?

I read somewhat with dismay that Floyd Landis is in the process of tranferring to Rock Racing....
Now I used to be a big fan of his, and ride he put in during that mountain stage a few years back still rates as one of the greatest displays of athletisim I have ever seen! But signing for Rock Racing is scrapping the bottle of the barrel.
So see what a sh!thouse team they are just read this from Mike Creed about the way they treat their riders.

I can just see it ending in tears for someone

Merry Xmas

Well better late then never I guess.

So I got the family away on xmas eve alright with a 1.30am wake up so they could catch their 7.00am flight from Sydney to Auckland. So before 8.00am I had 6hrs of driving behind me. I then made the mistake I make every year and headed to a mall to pick up a couple of last minute things...I swear every year I'm not going to a go to a shopping centre but somehow always end up in one however briefly. And like normal it was absolutley nuts.

With this over I headed out for a short ride...and this would be the second mistake for the day. By 11am the SRM was reading 40°C(104°F) and I was only halfway through. What was left in the drink bottles was now luke warm and almost undrinkable and I had a headwind for the rest of the ride. By the time I got home and jumped on the scales I had lost 2.5kgs in fluids through dehydration!

So how did I spent Xmas day? Like this?


No 'fraid not, my xmas day was spent with this.... the pain machine



See it decided to rain here xmas eve and didn't stop till sometime on boxing day. So I was left with little choice but to head down to the garage for some 20min threshold intervals...yay for me!

Boxing day was more intervals and I when out for a short 2.5hr MTB ride in the PM.

So now I have a couple more interval sessions planned before Friday and a longish MTB ride set down for tomorrow. At the moment the hardest part is getting out of bed early to beat the heat. You really don't want to be riding past about 10.30am as the temps are really starting to get up at that point.

Anonymous Posting

I have changed the blog settings so that anonymous posting may happen....might generate a bit more discussion from the lurkers out there

Word on the Street is....

Anyone thinking about buying a Garmin 500 might want to hold off, there maybe a number of issues with this unit.
Will post more later.......

How cool would it be to have one of these next door!

Ray's Bike Park

Cycling Videos on CyclingDirt

Down with the sickness

And not the Disturbed song either.

It seems I have managed to pick up a cold either from wee man's playmates at daycare or because we now have ducted air conditioning at home. I haven't decided which and it probably doesn't matter much.
The easing back into training is coming along well with a large block planned over xmas as I'm flying solo. Wifey and wee man are off to visit the outlaws back in NZ and I have opted to stay home alone.

One the training front I have been haunting Stromlo over the last 3 weeks and laps have been going well. The only problem is by riding early I miss running into any snakes however, I seem to catch the Kangaroos having their morning latte mid trail.
There have been a couple of times where I have ripped through a corner to find a couple just standing there not wanting to move. This morning there was one huge brown male(?) that just wasn't going to budge. He just stood there eyeing me up and I really didn't want to get within striking distance of his legs so we had a 20 second stand off before he got bored and casually hopped off the trail....point made I guess.

As I mentioned last time there is no racing over the xmas period so it's going to be all 4-6hr endurance rides scoping out the Brindies. I haven't been on the hardtail recently so I'll be getting reacquainted with that.

Suspension
Have been playing around with the suspension on the El Salt, and have the rear tuned but I cracked it with the Fox forks. I have been trying to get these things running properly for the last couple of months and it just hasn't happened. So I ripped them of the bike last Thursday and threw on a set of Rockshox Reba's I had sitting there. The tuning setup is just night and day between the two. In two rides I have nailed down the settings and am finally happy!!!


WKO

Other news, TrainingPeaks have released version 3.0 of WKO. And they have added a couple of very cool features. The first is quadrant analysis and second is range analysis. Now that the boundaries of training load management have been pushed out, the guys on the bleeding edge of power analysis are starting to look at the neuro-muscular demands of training/ racing. So expect over the next few months to see some posts from me showing exactly what it takes from an endurance MTB POV.

The rumors of my demise are.....

Haven't posted up in the last couple of weeks so here is a quick update.
Things since probably the Fling back in early November have been a bit downhill. I had reached my final goal race for the year, but hadn't really programmed in a break so I have kept plugging along and the training just kept getting more sporadic till I finally pulled the pin two weeks ago and had a full week off with no riding.

It's been a long while now since I had a proper break and having a full week of no training was great for the head and the body. I'm now back at it slowly building up for next year. I did the WSMTB 4hr a couple of weeks ago which was my first night race. Great fun, good course, and I have to admit I really like riding at night!

Last weekend I didn't do either the club XC or SCUM's end of year race as my head still wasn't quite back in it yet, but that's it for the year...no more races.

Looking to next year, the first race up will be the next WSMTB 4hr in mid-January, then the gut-busting Alpine Classic down in Victoria.