No Festivus for either of us

BeanSS and I had been planning for months to head to Flagstaff for today's Fat Tire Ballyhoo of Bikes and Beer but last night, with the festival less than a day away, we had an attack of common sense. A 10-hour, 600-mile round-trip drive from Tucson to buy a few beers and pick up a souvenir t-shirt? Not the best use of our time, not to mention our money; we've got nearly 200 dollars worth of 24-hour race entry fees and the November El Bike Swap de Tucson coming up. Besides, there's still an outside chance of hitting the tour's last stop in Tempe in 3 weeks. And while Flagstaff is a far superior place to down a few (especially for an NAU alum like myself), Tempe is but 2 hours away. Moreover, we might be able to talk Veelz and The Dish into attending with us.

Anyway, with our 3-day weekend suddenly free of the need to tune and load our singlespeeds, pack street and cycling clothes suitable for Flag's 30 to 75-degree temperature range, hit up the ATM for some scrilla, and head north before dawn just so we could sit on folding chairs and get drunk, we decided instead to bike down on the town here in Tucson.

This morning, we threw our his-and-hers set of 1970s-vintage Schwinn Suburbans into the pickup and brought them downtown. We browsed the Ordinary Bike Shop on foot, and then saddled up to cruise the 4th Avenue environs, circle the U of A a coupla' times, and drop by a coffee house. We rode almost all the way over to BICAS before remembering that 2-wheeled activists don't get up before noon, but found a new bike shop on Main Street called JJ's or J&J or something like that. Dropped a few bucks on a I Heart My Bike dingbell for the BeanSS Machine.

The whole morning ended up being a freewheelingly good time, despite having to endure the cacophony of clanks, clunks, and clicks coming from our elderly rides. And to any who would question why we drove our bikes downtown before riding, I would respond by offering them the opportunity to ride either of our overgeared, overweight tourers back up the hill to where we live.

Lastly, with the gas money we saved, we can can pick a six-pack of NB Saison with which to toast tomorrow's sunset. Such a deal!

No better idea

Its been since February that I felt too lazy to blog properly (complete sentences, paragraphs, and all that), so once again, its bullet statement time.

• Happy autumnal equinox! Monsoon season - it was nice knowing you. There are 90 degree afternoon highs here and there but fall is definitely in the air, provided you're up and outdoors at 4:00am to feel it.
• Weather notwithstanding, these damned ankle-biter mosquitos (Aedes aegypti Linn.) are completely out of control here in Tucson. Its to the point where I'm getting mobbed even at midday, not just during the dawn and dusk high-risk periods. While A. aegypti carry the disconcerting common name of Yellow Fever Mosquito, they are said to be incompetent vectors of West Nile Virus. The Culex musquitos are a different story, and when I hear thier telltale buzzy whine, I get gone.
• Thrift score 1: A frosty blue, box-stock 1979 Schwinn Suburban, complete with a peculiar Shimano Front Freewheel system and a Positron indexed shifter. This will be my 4th Avenue and beer festival ride.
• Thrift score 2: A chestnut brown 1974 Schwinn Suburban with a step-thru frame, also stock (but for the tires), and lacking the oddball drivetrain. This will be BeanSS's downtown and beer fest bike.
• The next post will happen as soon as I find something worth talking about.

Racing season begins

Well, at least for me it has. Like Armstrong, I'm a one-event rider, though rather than prioritizing the winning of the Tour de France, I choose to focus simply on not killing myself in the 24 Hours in the Old Pueblo.

I've known I'd be racing the 2007 event since about 3 seconds after the 2006 event ended, but nevertheless, I let the last seven months more or less slip away. Spring was taken up by birding, summer sucked on a couple of counts, and only now, with the autumnal equinox nearly upon me and a mileage base made up primarily of 5-mile trips back and forth to work, am I trying to piece things back together in earnest.

And who knew that GnomeBrew would be reforming with the same roster and that I'd have to get back into this type of shape again? Yes, the shape is properly characterized as "lumpy", but don't laugh - it was 20 pounds lighter and worth double the laps compared to 2005 when, mercifully, it was too rainy for any photographers, professional or otherwise, to catch me stuffed all sausage-like into my QQQQ jersey.

At any rate, I've been back on the road bike every weekend for a month or so now, with whatever hill work and all-outs on the flats as I can find on Tucson's Left Side. The next phase of my training will involve a late-September visit to the GnomeBrew High Altitude Training Camp in Flagstaff. If the 7,000-foot altitude and beer-induced dehydration don't bump up my hematocrit, I may have to do something drastic, like traveling the following month to the GnomeBrew Sonoran Desert Training Facility in Tempe for additional PIDs (perfomance-inhibiting drugs).

And if I accomplish nothing else prior to the race, I need to at least do something about the full-custom zip-tie brake repair I implemented just before my first lap last year. Its inventive, but grim.

Oh hell no...

So here I am mindlessly trolling the proximal regions of the blogosphere and I see that Veelz has managed to remember that I agreed to duo the 24 Hours in the Old Pueblo this year. Shit. Trading laps with but one other rider for 24 hours probably sounded like a good idea to me right after last year's race when I was jacked up on endorphins (and perhaps also a little bit drunk) but right now, a dozen pounds heavier, with about a third of the monthly mileage base I had in last year's run-up, I have to wonder what the hell I was thinking. Yesterday's solo ride on my Chameleon, my first SS ride in 3 months, wasn't exactly confidence-inspiring either; I almost barfed. Moreover, BeanSS, my wife and teammate, is down for racing on a four-person squad again.

So given my reservations about my fitness level and more importantly, my wife's veto power over the duo racing concept, the question is this: will Veelz find another maladjusted soul willing to flog his or herself silly for 12 hours' worth of racing or will he throw in on yet another four-person effort in 2007? The various incarnations of QQQQ and GnomeBrew have yet to finish DFL. Maybe this is the year.

Normalcy

It has been some time since things have been as I thought they should be.

In July of 2005, BeanSS and I learned that our dog Kona had cancer of the lymphatic system. We got her into chemotherapy immediately, she rallied, and she's still with us today, fat and happy (emphasis on the fat). The relative sense of security brought about by having fought successfully for Kona's survival, however, was shattered this past July. That's when our other dog, Barnaby, injured his spine so severely that, after four nightmarish days, we had to say goodbye to him. And unlike with Kona, we never really had a chance to fight back.

The loss of our four year old Son blew a hole in my and BeanSS's life so wide and deep that we lost touch with almost everything. I missed work because, as it turns out, incessant crying is bad for productivity. We went camping the week after he died but came home feeling nothing of the rejuvenation that a few days at a mountain lake should bring; either we couldn't escape the grief of what had happened or we couldn't find the healing we were looking for. Soon thereafter, the monsoon season arrived in earnest and brought so much rain to the Old Pueblo that the desert exploded with life. Flowers bloomed, rivers ran, and departing storm clouds made the sunsets blaze orange and purple. Still, despite the aesthetic wonder of it all, our hearts remained broken.

It was weeks before I felt like riding a bike and even then, it was only for the utilitarian purpose of getting back and forth to work. Hiking was only somewhat enjoyable because all I could do was imagine Barnaby running ahead of us and, true to his Border Collie and German Shepherd Dog ways, looping back to ensure his parents and sister were keeping up. We went to the pound and looked at dogs, thinking perhaps that it was time to bring another one into our life. Merle was an Australian Shepherd mix with maybe a passing resemblance to Barnaby. Adoption didn't yet feel like the right thing to do and since that time, Kona managed to tear some tendons in her leg. No matter our emotional state of readiness, we can't have some young buck wrestling with and reinjuring her.

Now, a week short of two months since we lost Barnaby, things have come back to about as normal as I think they're going to be for a while. Kona's leg is healing up slowly and BeanSS, keeping both an open mind and open heart, even looked at a couple more dogs (sorry we didn't take you home, Tucker and/or Leon). I've returned to cycling beyond simple commuting and, in a dual-purpose attempt to make up for the mileage base lost to sadness and to begin preparation for the next 24 Hours in the Old Pueblo, I've managed a few, fairly intense road rides. Or maybe they only felt intense because I've lost so much strength. Who cares? No miles are bad miles. And lastly, I tend to lift weights around sunset, the time of day where we most remember Barnaby. A few weeks back, despite not having to ensure my Son wasn't standing under the plates or trying to jump on my lap, I managed a new personal best bench press. If I can't manage to be strong emotionally just yet, well, at least I can work on the physical side of things.

At any rate, wherever it is that BeanSS and I need to go, I imagine we'll be getting there soon enough.