Mexico, day 1

I got to watch the sun rise over NYC while at Newark Airport.

14 hours later, I saw this view.

Rob, Mark, and Prem met me at the airport with a beer. Now that's service.

A few hours later, we had dinner at The Nowhere Bar. It was all-you-can-eat sushi, honestly the best sushi I've ever had. Fishing is a big industry in Cabo, and to say that this fish was fresh is an understatement. Also, it was all-you-can-eat... at least it was, until they cut us off.

Yes, we got cut off of all-you-can-eat. Yes.

This is when the drinking started. Continued, I guess. This is actually when the binge drinking started. Handloff bought me a jello shot. This is Mexico, though, where a beer is just a beer, a vodka-tonic is just a vodka-tonic, but a shot is an experience.

Then Handloff made a friend.

And so it went.

Today started slowly, as we all recovered from hangovers. The pool was a nice place to sweat out the alcohol.
View from the pool
After lunch, we went to a beach downtown - appropriately enough named "The Office" - where the adventure continued. The music was great.

Handloff bought himself a shot. As always, buying a shot entails more than you bargained for... in this case, assault with a phallus.


This is Cabo
This is Cabo's weather

Camp LivingRoom

One of the unsung features of the domestic racing scene is host housing. Why pay for a hotel when you can sleep on a couch? As far as what the reward is for the host, well, it's less tangible... but I'm pretty sure that one becomes faster by proximity to a pro.

Like meandering herds of grazing fauna, the pros roam the country, seeking sustenance in the form of prize money. I'm pretty sure Steve Irwin was going to do a special on the migratory habits of the professional cyclist (properly termed Tanlynicus Wattagous), but he felt they were too risky a species to work around.

Memorial Day weekend traditionally marks the convergence of the crit-mongers in Central Jersey. Crits are multi-lap, intense races around a short course, the Arena Football to road racing's NFL. You watch the race pass you dozens and dozens of times, you feel the gust of wind generated by the racers, and if you know what you're looking for, you can watch the drama unfold from the comfort of a lawn chair.

Friday through Sunday were pretty much the minor leagues, a chance for mediocre newbies such as myself to race before the big boys came out to play. Even today, they let the Juniors, Masters, and Cat3s warm the crowd up before the headliners took to the course.

Jenks plays in the Cat3 race
My good friend Mandy was the first Cottage of Wattage to grace my humble apartment. She rides for TargetTraining. She rides fast for TargetTraining.

On Sunday, after watching the 3/4 race in Bound Brook (which took place not 100 yards from where my Mom grew up), we collected a small group of Rutgers kids - Beastie, Rich, and Pluto joined us - and headed for the hills. It was a thoroughly fantastic ride, ~70mi of playing on the bikes.

The middle hour was super-competitive, and I set a new PR on my benchmark climb (3:32, 9 sec off my old time but still 2 sec behind Jenks' best). Then Mandy brought out the big guns. Withering, whimpering, wheezing 4 wheels back, I watched as she moved to the front of our train and her body language changed. I'm struggling to verbalize the metamorphosis; suffice it to say that if you've raced bikes, you know what she did, and if not, don't worry about it.

Mandy corners
Eventually I recovered. Since Mandy is racing a World Cup race in Montreal next weekend, I took it upon myself to aid her in her training. As we climbed the easy side of Washington Rock, I shouted such encouragement as "Allez l'Americain!", "Merde!", and "Fromage!"

We met up with Mike, of Team Jelly Belly, at the barbecue at the house of His Majesty King Hermes. Thanks, King Hermes! 'Twas delicious. Mike, too, invaded my living room, bringing the average wattage-production potential of the apartment to near-dangerous levels. The air was abuzz with wattage.

Am I going overboard?

Today was the big show, the Tour of Somerville. I drove Mandy and her sexy-hot Aegis out, then met up with the Rutgers kids and our sponsors, the Efingers crew. Like last year, we were lucky enough to mooch off the Colavita BBQ, and let me tell you, those guys know how to cook a burger.

Will, Mark, and Don represent Rutgers Cycling... so pro
There was, of course, a little chaos with which to contend. Mandy's stuff had to be transferred from my car to her team car, the location of which was a complete mystery to me. Even worse, she got crashed out of her race (she's too nice to write about it, but I saw it go down... she got crashed), so I had no idea whether she was at her team car, in an ambulance, at a hospital, or what.

During Mike's 2 hour race, Will and I set off to find Mandy. It turns out she was fine. A little bruised, but none the worse for wear, especially after a few cups of the Recovery Ale she'd liberated from somebody's keg.

Hooray for Charlie is all I have to say
Having traveled to Somerville via his bike, Mike rode a helluva race, especially given that he was solo in a giant field stacked with big teams. He made a couple of breaks, fought hard for position, and finished pretty easily in the money. The process of finding him afterwards to coordinate the return trip was, as expected, chaotic. Everything worked out well, though, also as expected.

It's a little like Where's Waldo... can you find the Mike?
What a great finish to an amazing weekend. Frankly, I'm running out of superlatives.

Leaving for Mexico in 2 days. Happy.

Podia

Today was my last Cat5 race, the Hall of Fame Crit in Somerville. I've been anticipating this race eagerly, wanting to finally get that elusive result that's been eluding me so elusively.

Will and I were expecting his race to start between 9:30 and 10am, so we left the house at 7:30. Will didn't race until 11. I raced at 1:30. It was a long day in the sun, and you know what? It was totally worth it.

First of all, let me just point out the emerging dominance of Team Hermutgers. The quasi-official alliance between the Highland Park Hermes and the Rutgers University Cycling Team has been pretty damn fruitful so far. Back in April, SpikyHairWill and AngryMark became Jenks' turn-coat lead out train, resulting in a decisive win at Picecone.

Today was a repeat of that, with Will and ProfessorAndy working for Jenks in his Cat3 race. You can read is report when he puts it up, but the point is that Jenks, a Hermes, rode a ballsy race with the help of Will, a Scarlet Knight.
Will corners
Same basic story in the Cat4s. BenedictMark, festooned in his yellow-and-green summer plumage, took advantage of Rich and BeastMasterChris' teamwork to launch a great, looong sprint, catching a late breakaway thanks to Beastie's leadout. He took 4th in a very tough race. Hermutgers strikes again!
(left to right, also back to front) Rich, Chris, and Mark race the 4s
I was all by my lonesome in the 5 race. The tactics of my fellow 5s were somewhat frustrating. I got 3rd.
What can I do but shrug?
By themselves, each of these could be a decent story, if properly told. The point here is that bike racing isn't about the bike... or the racing.

It comes down to the people you're with. Screaming obscenities at Jenks when he's relaxing at the back of the pack, screaming at encouragement at BeastMaster when he's attacking (who saw that coming?), commiserating after races... it's a very social activity.

The standard insult to a fraternity guy is to say "I didn't need to pay for my friends." Funny how every day of racing cost an arm and a leg. Chew on that, my indie friends.
The Highland Park Hermeseses
So we hang out, basking in the sun, for hours on end. We rip on each other. We gossip about other racers. We try to relax, and you know what? It is awesome. I couldn't ask for a better way to spend a weekend.

Karaoke Etiquette

There are a number of non-trivial rules that govern Karaoke Night. Some of them are unintuitive, like the "no Journey or 'Say It Ain't So' before midnight" or "only good songs" rule. I don't expect the novices to know these rules yet, and there's some leeway. No worries, Charlie, you rocked Weezer.

There are, however, some rules that should be completely obvious to all parties. For example, common courtesy dictates that if you have to bribe the Karaoke guy (Milky Manchester is our local Karaoke guy) to get your song up next, you're probably going to piss people off. I'm all for tipping the KJ (Karaoke Jockey, get it?), but going 3 times in a half hour is just rude.

Another easy rule is: don't do the Douchebag Shuffle. This dance involves sneaking over to Milky's headquarters, shuffling the song-request slips to put yourself up next, and sneaking away. You can just go to hell and die if you're that selfish.

If you want to know about how your favorite NinjaDon (that's me!!!) did at the Karaoke, you'll be pleased to know that I took 'Total Eclipse of the Heart' to a new level. I danced, I sang, I screamed... I sang the last line on the floor, in the fetal position, with my thumb in my mouth. Top that, hotshot.

The highlight had to be riding my new fixie home, absolutely drunk. Between the giant curb at the start of the bridge across the Raritan River, the hilly walkway at the entrance to Busch campus, and the many, many beers I drank, the ride home was an adventure.

SpikyHairWill, known primarly for his spiky hair, had a dilemma. What could he do to protect his intricately coiffed hairdo from the ravages of helmet-head? This question has been answered by our good friends at Scrubs.

Science in the News

I move that the news media no longer report on scientific discovery. Can I get a second?

The majority of newspaper and television audience members can't understand and don't have the patience for the depth and jargon of journal articles. By definition, the critical nuances of a study will be smoothed out to make the story more palatable.

At best, what we the audience are exposed to is a watered-down blurb of trivia, disguised as current events. At worst, the so-called news is thinly-veiled yellow journalism.

Take, for example, this gem. Apparently, WiFi causes cancer! Save the children! Run for the hills! Armageddon! Except, if you look at the very bottom of the article, you see that "wi-fi radiation [is] about 100,000 times less intense than that emitted by domestic microwave ovens." A journal article would've put that in the introduction, if not the abstract.

And then there's this report, which asserts that the relative lengths of your fingers are predictive of your relative SAT scores. Yeah. Wow.

I want to make some quip about phrenology, or the correlation between beady eyes and criminals. Will, however, already put it best: "I also heard that if your hand is bigger than your face, it means you have AIDS."

For whatever it's worth, I didn't just find some questionable websites and troll them for quasi-scientific content. Earlier tonight, Fox 5 News reported these stories, and I simply Googled them on my internet machine.

Screw the news. I'll just stick to watching Leno, because who could find fault with that big-chinned everyman?

Undecipherable

All that matters is this: first things first.

Caesar often negated God's rule, allowing Thespians unlimited libations after their inherently ostentatious nativity shows. Yesterday obviously undid his army's very elaborate, codified religion, and Caesar kicked every dog that he encountered. Could ordinary dictators, even heroic ones, want men using classical humanitarianism to interminably, miserably endure disrespect, indignity, dolorous youth? Oh, unfair world! Alas, such treachery everywhere!

Theatrical hedonists, each seeking every cool, refreshing entertainment, trade medicines eagerly. So sated, a gentleman's ego imparts surly genuflection on rogues. Each afternoon, developing actors betray old Occidental kings.

Bacchanalians enjoyed tasting heaven, every fermented imbibation resonating satisfactorily. Truly time only passes over such trespasses, thusly heroism and temerity make equally sordid sins. Again, given enough trust, only those hearing Euclid could obvioate Man's meager embellishment. Now, teaching Socrates' adages, newcomers develop wayward ideas. Never allowing parochial, rural interference, zealots earnestly yearn over understated habitats. Any valuable euphemism, once neglected evasively, will eviscerate, even kill.

My Day in Philadelphia

I discovered recently that I lost my passport, and that the only way to get one in time was to spend a day at the US Customs House in Philadelphia. In time for what, you ask? In time for my trip to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. More on my trip to el Mexico-o some other time.

From now on, all plans involving Philadelphia will have to include some time earmarked for getting lost. Once again, I had to wander about until I saw the signs (and they opened up my eyes, I saw the signs) for the Ben Franklin Bridge. By the time I got in line #1, it was about 9:45.

Line #1 was the security line. It was about two dozen people long, and it was flowing like molasses. How hard is it to have your pockets empty before it's your turn to walk through the metal detector? We're going one by one, with a very predictable frequency. You know when your turn is.

This led me to Line #2. For an hour, I stood in a windy serpent of a queue, waited my turn to see what I call the "dispatcher", who asked if we had all the proper materials before giving us numbers. Everybody spoke with the dispatcher, everybody got a sequentially-iterated number, and everybody then waited in Line #3. Line #3 was, thankfully, done in chairs. I read a book.

Truly this was the belly of the bureaucratic beast.

Finally, at 12:30, I got to leave the Passport Office. I would have to return at 2:30 to pick up my new, ultra-expensive passport. Okay.

What followed was indubitably the highlight of my day. After taking a walk, I wound up at the Delaware, making a few phone calls in a quiet little park. I went back to Chestnut street and stumbled across Eulogy, the Belgian Tavern. Their menu had frites, and their beer menu brought a tear to my eye. Alas! Alack! They were closed.

On the verge of dispair, I turned around, only to find that directly across the street was Triumph Brewery. Some of us patronized their New Hope location in November, after a brutal 'cross race. Their food and drink were found to be most worthy back then, and today did not disappoint. I had an inexpensive gourmet pizza and washed it down with a superb Oatmeal Stout (thanks, Jay#1, for the recommendation).

Olivia, Charlie, Mike, Perla, Jay, and Myriad Microbrewed Beers
With an hour left to kill, I got a coffee at a Starbucks a few blocks away, wandered into a Messenger Service office and spoke with their wrench about fixie conversions, and generally just tried to entertain myself.

Line #4 was a repeat of Line #1. The clerk had promised that anyone picking up a passport would be able to bypass the line for the security check, even if not the check itself. The clerk was wrong.

Finally, I said screw Line #5. People who'd been waiting on Lines 1-3 with me were picking up their passports, and were waiting on an unofficial line (Line #5) that had formed arbitrarily. It was shocking how mindlessly they flocked to the line, especially given that all day, people picking up their passports had been called up by name. I watched as one by one, they approached the first open clerk, only to be told "yours isn't ready yet". Silly sheep.

I'm free to move in and out of the country. That's all that matters.

Chief Wannatokabonga

Roadies unite! The title alone (which I've blatantly stolen from AngryMark) should be enough to express my feelings about the world of Mountain Biking. What a silly sport, where fitness is less important than handling, where the ability to bully people from other races trumps everything, where the finishing order of a 90 minute race is affected by the pre-race scrum for position. Give me a crit anyday.

Charlie on My Favorite Double-Track Climb
The real problem for me lies in the corners. I just don't trust myself, or my tires, to change my direction, and so I brake way too much. Cognitively, it is clear to me that I don't have to brake too much - in fact, the laws of physics dictate that less braking will make me safer. But still I ride the brakes through technical sections.

Clearly, though, I'm a roadie. Granogue has a lot of double-track, gravel, and pavement, which gave me plenty of room to open up the engine without worrying about obstacles. Every time the course went uphill, I just stomped on the pedals and made up time. On the steeper climbs, I was able to pass people pretty handily.

Charlie on My Favorite Road Climb
What I need is to find a form of racing that consists mostly of open, non-technical climbs. Egad! Road racing!

Thus, I officially announce a hiatus from the MTB. It's been a fun couple of weeks, but I need to get back into a world where the fitness I've worked so hard on can actually be applied to the pedals. I want to follow wheels and attack and chase and bridge and trade pulls, the poetry of the road race. You can have your single track, Chief.

For the bean counters, I got 7th today, 14 seconds behind my arch-nemesis Jay. Jay passed me with about 1/2 mile left in the 14 mile race, putting a ton of time into me on the last tricky descent. He then held me off valiantly, even breaking out the patented Rutgers "Look, Zip, Shoot" celebration. Of course I despise losing to Jay (loathe, abhor, am nauseated by the very thought of), but Jay gave me a delicious, cold, pre-noon beer, and that made it all better.

Don, Jay, Mark, and Beer!
Mark and Jay will probably write up their own posts about the race. Charlie is too cool for the blogosphere, so I will take the liberty of encouraging you to congratulate him; Charlie got his first top-10 finish in the Expert Category, putting nearly a minute into 9th in the last 3 miles and finishing very strongly.

High Fives for Charlie!

For all of the emo whining that occasionally works its way into my race reports, there is one invariable truth that is always worth reiterating. This is a team that I love racing with, and that I'm proud to be a part of.

Don, Mark, Jay, and Charlie

A Medium Thursday

When in a rut, one might as well enjoy that rut.

So I worked on the manuscript for a little while (hooray for technical writing!), then got on my bike. Knowing that Charlie was going to be doing 2 hours in the Watchung hills, I decided to do about 2 hours in the Watchung hills, then meet Charlie, then do his 2 hours.

Normally, a ride like this enables a lot of contemplation, or at least lets me induce some clarity in the usual mental chaos. Lately, though, my damn bottom bracket is making creaky noises to the point where I can't tune out. Which is okay. Not every ride needs to be nirvana.

I could've used a little solace, though. Apparently my legs have yet to recover from the combination of the 3 races in 4 days. If they feel this dead on Sunday, Granogue is going to be not-fun. The name of the game is recovery, kids.

Before meeting up with Charlie, I rode over to Shady Lane in Bound Brook. It's out of the way, but it has a special place in my heart. Until 2000 or so, it was where my grandparents lived, and I spent a lot of time there. In fact, it's where I learned how to ride a bike without training wheels. As I rode by, munching on a granola bar and decked out in my oh-so-pro Rutgers kit, I waxed a little nostalgic.

Charlie took me on a route I'd never traveled before, with some really nice scenery. Someday soon I'm going to have to go back there with a camera, especially Washington Rock, from which you can see Manhattan on a clear day (or so sayeth the Chaz).

Karaoke was pretty good as well. Will had a less than stellar time, mostly because while Eric the Karaoke Guy was singing, some drunken ass-hats moved their song-request slips in front of his. Jay, Ted, Ashley, Lena, and Jen were glowing the distinctly excited and terrified glow of recent college graduates (congratulations, guys!). I sang a little, and I danced a little. I got hungry around midnight, so I went with Dani and Megan to the DunkinDonuts. When I came back, my turn had come up, so I got to sing "Paint It Black" with half of a Croissant-Egg-Cheese sandwich crammed in my mouth.

Finally, the sad truth has sunk in... my femurs are of medium length. Not too short, I guess, but certainly not long enough to give that pro-ish leverage that drives the ladies wild. Check it:

Inappropriate

I wish it was the 60s
I wish we could be happy
I wish, I wish,
I wish that something would happen
--Radiohead

My labwork has, of necessity, been drier than usual. It's okay, I guess. I'm plodding along. Still, it's got me looking for some outlets. Stupid, pointless, misanthropic outlets.

I kinda want to walk around the student center carrying a big box, maybe a toolbox or something. That way, when people bump into me, I can drop the box and shout "oh no! my souffle!".

Or maybe I can sneak into a urologist's office and put up photos of skyscrapers and swords. Or photos of caves for proctologists.

I want to sing Journey in the middle of bike races. Shit, I already do that.

Immature? Yes. Hilarious? I'd like to think so.

The floor is hereby opened to you, my dear reader. Join me in brainstorming completely inappropriate things to do. Loud noises in public places. Random statements to strangers, like "Don't look now, but is the giant unicorn still following me?" Any ideas?

While we're at it, who do you think would win in a fight to the death: an octopus or a zombie?