Sunday, May 25, 2008

Scooters

In addition to biking around the neighborhood, I have been looking into buying a scooter. The four brands that I am concidering are Yamaha, Vespa, Genuine, and Schwinn. I should have a decision and some pictures at the end of this week.

Why a scooter? Motorpacing, beeboping around, saving on gas, etc. Fun.

In race news, Kudos to Kristin, Kim H, Lindsey, and the ladies in pink at Snake alley/melon city.

Sunday, May 18, 2008

Spokiz

These things are great. They are Kaos' new eyewear sponsor. Check them out

State Time Trial Thoughts

The thing that I would like to talk about most is the NSTT turnout - Pitiful. It is the state TT championships, show up and race for that shit. Bike-a-lists and Try-Athletes alike. Anyone that has a bike should do this race. There can never...be...anything ...bad...about...going... 1 hr+... on... your... bike... as... hard... as... you... can. Repeat this statement silently. Now again out loud. Never. Bad at the Chrono you are; this even is made for you. Practice. Practice. Practice. The Elkhart TT had like 75 people on a Thursday night. We had 40 yesterday. There are ~500 riders that hold Nebraska State USCF licences. Math- >10 % attendance rate. Poor form.

Question: what would make the state TT better received?

Answer: Add Eddie Meryx division/Single Speed division/market to triathletes and bicyclist at shops/Free entry give-a-ways.

Change of venue… incorrecto. NCN does a great job at both the NFCSR and the State TT. There events are great and poorly attended. If a 14 year old girl from Nebraska City can talk here mom into drive hundreds of miles to do the TT, her first race ever, you too can attend the race also.

In summation- Kudos to those kiddies whom attended the NSTT. It was great to see you all. Shame on you; from Iowa/Nebraska/Minnesota, and so forth that did not attend. I have spent a great deal of my time on the bike trying to not embarrass my friends/family/country/religion/sponsors/teammates/Mom/Dad. Some success; some failure. Perhaps you too should adopt this mindset.

State TT Results

I road the best time in my category (3). I road 1:00:10 for the 40 Km, out and back course. The shakedown went as follows –
Increasing winds throughout the day yielded suboptimal TT conditions. I went out with a tailwind and destroyed the first half of the course in 24 minutes. Note – race is not a true out and back, it ends one mile shy of the startline. I average over 34 mph on the way out. Perhaps a little too fast? That mean that I average ~16 mph on the way back. I just did not have the stuff on the way back. Imbarassing. Probably should ride 40 km smarter next time.

Good job Cody on setting the fastest time of the day. 56:40.

Friday, May 16, 2008

The Vegan and the Marathon

Vegan-noun
a vegetarian who omits all animal products from the diet.

I have bounced back and fourth between eating vegetarian and carnivorous foodstuffs for many years. I first started engaging in vegnik culture when I stopped eating meat during my freshman year in college. I operated under the modes operande that eating meat was then, morally offensive, and me being such a morally straight individual, would rather pull cuticles from my nail bed instead of eating meat. This was a lie. I just did not want to get fat like all the other freshman at Creighton.

To the other day, I still classified myself as pragmatically vegetarian. Definition - to abstain from meat unless doing so would inconvenience a host/parent/sister/friend/dining companion during a meal.

Until something fatefully interesting happened...

In the world of dentistry one scope of practice that I have is the root canal treatment. Yes. I do root canals. That is part of what I do. I enjoy them. I am good at them. It is one facet of dentistry that actually alleviates pain.

My professor Dr. Burrows also does these procedures. The difference is that he is a specialist, has had additional schooling, and his skill is far superior to my own. He has done RCT(root canal treatment) on humans, non-humanoid bipeds, tigers, cows, etc.

The interesting part. It may sound silly, but he(we) were asked to do a RCT on a Bengal tiger at the zoo. Apparently, the tiger had fractured an incisor and was in need of this treatment. So we went, we did the RCT; case solved.

On would think nothing of this experience, however, it prompted some thinking, some rationalization, and in the final analysis, I decide that like this large feline, life is too short to go around abusing our bodies(or teeth) consuming meat and subsequently the GRBH/grilling free radicals/etc. Hence vegan ism.

I went to cosco, bought large tubs of peanut/almond/soy/nutella/hummus/etc and started my life as a vegan. I feel great, and hopefully, the state time trial reflects my recent mood inflection wit a good result.

Marathon–noun
1. a foot race over a course measuring 26 mi. 385 yd. (42 km 195 m).
2. any long-distance race.
3. any contest, event, or the like, of great, or greater than normal, length or duration or requiring exceptional endurance: a dance marathon; a sales marathon.

I used to engage in this sport. Then I found out that this foot-race injures ones body. Ergo, stopped and biked instead.

I was riding on the trail, when I happen upon a male, early twenties, face framed with the entanglement of ipod cords. Egad, Jake Dendinger. I stopped to enquire what he was doing. Training for a marathon. He and all my friends from undergrad, the same friends that scorned me for Marathon, are now soon to have their marathon virginity taken away from Grandma(marathon).

Crazy that they are now addicted to running and love the sport. Best of luck. When you decide that you need to start biking, call me.

Monday, May 12, 2008

Elkhart TT

A lot of you are probably asking yourself, “What is the deal with Pavlovich. He hasn’t posted on his blog as of late.” Well, I apologize. The family has been in town, and I had a little thing called graduation.

While my friends were busy tearing the legs off of fellow bike-a-list at Joe Martin Stage Race, I was in Omaha neglecting my riding, cooking for two days straight, and participating in commencement. Graduation is sort of anticlimactic when you have to go back to college on Monday after your graduation, but whatever. It was great to see the family and friends. Thanks to K,D,D for cleaning and helping with the preparation of the foodstuffs.

Now for the post point, the Elkhart TT series. Lindsey and I drove over on Thursday, competed, met friends, and returned to Omaha. Lindsey and I were excited to race; she having not raced the whole season, and me having less than a handful of races under my bibs.

My race – official start time 6:58. I was using borrowed speed, specifically the H3C Todd Lundberg edition. Hed is apparently really booked and has a backlog of wheels for weeks. Dear Steve Hed, I need a job for the next two months until I get my DDS in the mail. Think about it…Steve. Anyway, I got going and caught my minuteman in about three minutes. I can’t imagine he was happy. I was just trying to keep a high speed and push a monster gear, but did not think I could get on top of the 54X11 like I wanted. Lindsey asked me if a 11-23 would be appropriate for the race, I responded the she probably would not spin it out on this course.

Then came the turn-a-round. Routine right, wrong. I was doing a really satisfying TT and decide that I needed to make it harder on myself, so I went ahead and dropped my chain. You’ll love this, folks. I dropped the chain on the outside of the crank, the chain got caught between the crank and the 55. If that were not enough, it got stuck on some little nub FSA decide to put there for me. I fiddled with the chain, back peddled, front peddled, grabbed at it, nothing. I though the day was lost. My minuteman even caught back up to me. Embarassing. Some how, it got back on after a good 30+ seconds of toil and off to the races. All said, I came across the line in 16:14, 4 seconds in arrears of Lane for A9Y. A good day, a good effort. I could probably have not gone any harder, but I for sure could have traveled faster. Lesion learned - don’t shift at the turn a round.

Sunday, May 4, 2008

LSD

I know what your thinking, Pav had a bad week and went off the deep end. No, not the electric koolade kind.

I'm talking about on the bike. Today was the first time in over a month that I went on one. With racing, intensity, boards, etc, there wasn't much time for this great american past time. Well, fear no longer, there back.

Things that LSD reminds me of:
- Old people in crown vic's hate everyone, including bicyclists.
- I CAN get below 70 kilos, it just takes twice as much riding as I do, or half as much food as I eat.

Thursday, May 1, 2008

The week

Sometime ago (probably at the beginning of dental school), I made a resolution to stay away from reading. In the beginning( of school), I was very much busy with studying and bookwork, and didn’t have time for reading… resolution, no books.

Well, I broke the resolution the other day when a friend loaned me a book “Into Thin Air”. Essentially, this book is about the shit show and amateur day during the summit season on Mt Everest, specifically the tragedy of 10 May 1996.

Apparently, there were people no more qualified than you and I climbing the tallest and one of the most difficult mountains in the world. Stupid. This would be like me starting racing as a cat five racing with pros, but with Thunderdome rules (two men enter one man leaves). Stupid.

Anyway, I would like to wish some good friends best of luck today at the tour of Gila in Silver City, NM. Ian and Landen are racing Gila and Joe Martin back to back. Ugh. I looked at the profile for Gila; 5-10k ft of climbing daily. Day one results Ian 35th (cat 1), Landen 25th(cat 2). Also, a colleague of mine from boulder, Brian Loflen won the cat 3 race. Kudos.

Quote of the Day

I am at Caffeine Dreams catching up on some much needed Internet and email. The weather is encouraging for a good bike ride, so I went outside on their back porch to enjoy the weather. I walked up their staircase and made my way to the directly to the back porch when I saw the sign

"If you think you are two awesome to use the ashtray on the deck, then please do not smoke. They are there for a courtesy. Please protect the environment ."

'nuf said