Bullets

A few ideas are bouncing around in my head, none sufficient for a real post. So you get some bullets instead. Too long to tweet, too short to blog. Hmm, wonder if there’s a business opportunity in there?

• My road bike has an “aero” seatpost. I doubt it provides any real aerodynamic advantage, especially since my saddle to bar drop is maybe 2cm. But I think all seatposts should be aero for the simple reason that I don’t have to try and get the saddle straight. How can a job so simple be so hard? Now if only someone would figure out a solution for straightening handlebars…
• Being fat is bad for you. I know, news flash, right? Nobody saw that one coming. Interestingly, though, recent studies show that obesity can adversely affect your mental as well as physical fitness. It should come as no surprise that the two are linked. Reason number infinity to eat right and get on the bike (or run or hike or walk or inline skate or whatever activity you like provided it’s actually active).
• Seems like all the cool kids are doing the fast Friday version of RAWROD this year and skipping Saturday. Sounds appealing, but between the knee and the saved vacation day, It’ll be Saturday or nothing for me.
• Speaking of the knee, I did an hour on the stationary bike last night. Minimal pain and then only for the first 15 minutes. Swelling stayed down after. Going to race tonight out at Miller. Circuits will make it easy to pull the plug if I have a flare up. If that goes well, I’ll do White Rim on Saturday.
• If I pull the plug on White Rim, I may still try to salvage something from the weekend with the UVU race. Any flatlander roadies who opted out of East Canyon should give this one a go.
• I’ve been a bit of a Cadel Evans hater in the past. Enough so that I was bummed to see him win the rainbow jersey. And enough so that Dug inquired about how I felt about him winning Fleche Wallonne yesterday. Surprisingly, I felt fine. He beat Contadoper, so that was a positive. And since winning the world championships, he hasn’t been whining—he’s just been riding his bike. Quite well in fact. I’ve always thought he was a bit of a head case. Maybe the world title and a new team has cured that. And simultaneously cured me of hating on him.
• Speaking of Contador, he, like Cadel, may have bumped himself off the top of my list of most hated pro cyclists (hi, Lancehole). Because as the Rev points out, unlike LA, he’s actually racing his bike outside the month of July. And getting some real results.
• As an amateur racer, I hesitate to focus my entire season on one event. Too much can go wrong. Not only that, but things can go right at races when you didn’t expect it. I’d rather do more events and have more opportunities for success. Wonder if LA will change his approach after he bombs at Le Tour this year. Or if he’ll again claim that beating a bunch of part-timers and masters racers at Leadville was his real priority. But I guess in fairness, Lance is also a masters racer.
• Turbo pointed out a somewhat auspicious podium at the Giro del Trentino yesterday: Ricco, Vinokourov, and Basso went 1-2-3. If you believe in redemption, it’s something to be happy about. If you’re more of a people-can-change-but-they-don’t-always-do type, it’s at best ironic and at worst suspicious. My commentary probably says enough about where I fall on the redemption-suspicion continuum.
• Arsenal suffered an embarrassing defeat at the weekend. Someone tweeted afterwards with regard to reserve goalkeeper Fabianski, “he should be sold for a bag of cement.” I would agree, but I think the guy selling the cement would be robbed. If Arsene Wenger doesn’t realize that he needs to buy some players to build a team deep enough that the stars aren’t forced to play every match and end up injured as a result, then he needs to go.