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That's another one of the amazing things about vegans. The majority are agnostics or atheists, many realize that we are insignificant specks and so are the animals we work so hard to protect, yet we still do the "right thing". At least the things that we can logically conclude are best for everyone involved. All this without fear of some higher power punishing us if we aren't doing the right thing, or some greater reward for doing it. Completely the opposite really, we do all this fully realizing that nothing matters anyway.

 

Go figure.

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Had a great ride last night. I rode with a current sponsored expert racer and former sponsored expert who rode me into the ground as recent as 6 months ago. The last couple times out with him I noticed that I was hanging pretty good. Then last week I felt like I was stronger than him, but I wasn't sure. Then last night we hammered him. He's kind of a dick, so I didn't mind - we didn't leave him in the woods or anything, but he was definitely hurtin'.

I still can't touch the current expert race, but I'm getting closer, and that's a great feeling. Also, he's on a 21 lb rigid 29er and I'm on a 31 lb all-mountain full suspension, so that makes quite a difference for the smooth singletrack we were riding. My bike is better in the rocks and tech downhills, but there aren't many of those on last night's trails.

I know I have been steadily improving over the last year or so, but it's good to get a measure of that. And I've definitely improved more than anyone else I ride with, which I can only attribute to being the only vegan in the bunch.

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Awesome...maybe your doing better than you though. I train on my own most of the time and due to school I miss alot of the Sunday group rides...then we go out "easy" and I'm always going easier than a few people that are now behind me but were way infront of me. I also seem to be taking longer pulls in the front compared to nearly everyone I ride with. Oddly most of the time I feel like my training isn't that strong when this happens.

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Anticipating a snowstorm that was supposed to dump 4-6 inches on the Cape last night/this morning, I decided to sneak in a ride after work, thinking the snow might prevent me from riding for a few days. I did an interval ride, which I found more difficult than usual for a few reasons - 1) it was pretty cold (about 22) and when it gets that cold it seems harder to get full breaths - so I struggled with my wind; 2) the 1-2 inches of snow already on the trails from the last snow we got stuck to my tires, making them heavier; 3) after about 90 minutes I got a flat. And I was on the hardest trail at the point furthest from where I parked. Getting a flat is no big deal, but by the time I got it changed my feet were ice cubes.

To top it all off - the storm never came lol.

One of my favorite sayings that I apply to biking is "Some days you're the dog, some days you're the hydrant". I was definitely the hydrant last night.

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Maybe its just a bad week for vegan cyclists...luckily and oddly I haven't gotten a flat on a road ride for a couple months...which means I'm getting one later today since I just thought about it...anyway I'll complain about that later on my blog today once I get my flat

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Awesome ride last night. The ground was frozen with very little snow/ice on the trails, so I put a little extra air into my tires and hammered. The hills were easiest ever - flew up them like they were concrete. The extra inflation made it a little sketchy on frozen roots, but otherwise it was awesome. Riding in mid 20s degree weather definitely has it's advantages.

 

Got my fast group ride tonight on the snowier trails - hope I feel as good as I did last night, though it's starting to snow here, so it might be slow going. I'll probably deflate the tires a bit for tonight or I'll be slipping all over. But any ride is a good ride.

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The deep freeze continues to make the trails around here unbelievably fast. Last night was a 3 person group ride that was just a hammerfest. Awesome.

Bit slower group tonight, though if they all bail, I will be hammering solo with my ipod. It's a bit warmer tonight (high 20's), but the wind is gusting up to 45mph, so the wind chill might keep them away (for which I might be secretly hoping). But as I always say, there's no wind in the woods.

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NO, but I was just thinking about that this morning. There's this jump I really want to do - probably about a 15 foot (length) launch - and I was thinking of trying it this weekend, but then I thought of how hard the ground would be if I wrecked, and how much harder it will be on my bike even if I do land it clean. I just replaced my chainstay which I somehow bent (warranteed thankfully). So I might wait until it warms up a bit.

 

Why you ask? It would be just like wrecking on pavement at this point, which I know you're familiar with

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I got some serious porn I'll be posting soon - the best porn there is - BIKE PORN!

I'm building a steel single speed mt bike. It's going to be sick. It should be done next week and I can't wait (thus my premature post-ulation).

 

Otherwise, back from a week of snowboarding and my biking didn't miss a beat. It warmed a little too much yesterday and the trails thawed and it made it too muddy to ride, but it's going to get colder again tonight. The trails should be awesome this weekend as long as the temps stay frosty. Lots of off-Capers are heading down here this weekend to escape their snowy trails, so I'm hoping I can lead a good hard ride to help tie them over for a while.

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Tough ride today. Thought it would be awesome as it went down well into the teens last night and was about 23 degrees when I started, but there was way more ice and snow on the trails than I expected. I still got a med pace 2.5 hrs in, but it was death-defying at times. Still would rather ride than not, though

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I'm playing in a songwriting contest this weekend. It'll be recorded and then people can go on Cape Cod Internet Radio and vote for a winner. The eventual winner wins a trip to Nashville to record and play at the Bluebird cafe. I'll post the recording and voting info afterward in case anyone is interested...

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First road ride of the season yesterday. Felt good - 40 mi at an 18.2 pace. Not too quick, but not bad for first time out since winter started - LOTS of sand and salt on the roads though, which made it dicey at times. And I stopped by our friend's house and they had vegan mint chocolate cake they got from Buddha's in Boston. Mmmmm. Then a 1 hr hike with the dogs on my local (very technical) mtb trails - I clear the trails of branches and blowdowns from recent storms as we go, so it's a nice dual purpose hike.

 

Group mt bike ride this AM. Technical 10 miles - little slower pace than I would have liked, but still fun. I felt great - rode almost every rock clean and did a couple hucks I hadn't done before. Then another 1 hr hike with the dogs to clear another trail. The dogs go nuts out there - they love trying to find the trail and running up and down the steep, rocky hills. We have a blast.

 

Then I played in that songwriting contest, which went ok. Been a while since I sang in front of a crowd, and the crowd was bigger than I expected, so I was pretty nervous. I think my nerves showed through a bit, as my guitar playing wasn't so great. But my voice was ok and I got good feedback, so I'm fine with it.

 

Kristy's been working all weekend, in case anyone was wondering why I was flying solo

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Sounds like your doing well to hold that pace after not road riding...the warmer weather coming up will suit you well once it lets you get out every day. As for Buddha's thats the only veg place I've ever eaten at in Boston and I loved it.

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I broke out my newly-completed single speed for her maiden voyage Sunday morning. We had a Noreaster on Fri/Sat, so no riding, but Sunday was beautiful - sunny, mid 20's. Thanks to living on a sand bar, the trails drain really well, and thanks to the frosty temps, were for the most part hard and fast (except where there was snow).

 

The single speed was pretty cool - I think I'm going to get addicted very quickly. The bike probably weighs about 28/29 lbs. The steel frame is going to prevent me from getting it super light, but I have a heavy fork up front, and medium weight wheelset. If I get a light air fork and a lightweight wheelset (with some discipline to stay off the rocks!), I could probably get her down to 24-25 lbs. I have it geared at 34-18 right now, which seems to be the consensus choice around here. If she were lighter, I might go 34-17 to spin a little faster in the flats - I really didn't have as much trouble on hills as I thought I might. I've been running my fully in a higher gear in anticipation of using the SS, so I guess my legs are a bit stronger than I thought they were going to be.

 

On the flats and smooth downhills, this baby just takes off from under me. I have high rolling tires on there that really zip.

 

I can't wait to ride it again. I figure I'll switch on and off - concentrate on speed with the SS, and go a bit more freeride/aggressive XC on my fully.

 

Good times.

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You should turn it into a fixie...there are a few guys in Richmond that are very good mountain bikers that ride fixie mountain bikes...it sounds a bit crazy to me but they say they have more control...so long as they don't wack logs with their cranks.

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Wiferoo made vegan lasagna last night (orgasmic) and I got a bottle of wine and we talked about how the world is so f-ed up that Ahnold Schwarzenegger is making a lot of sense these days. He philosophically tore Rush Limbaugh a new one yesterday, while John Bolton was on John Stewart earlier in the week defending everything and anything conservative.

It dawned on me that there are 2 very distinct philosophies at work in government. The vast majority of people on both sides of the aisle are there to promote their side's agenda. The minority are working to promote what the majority of people want, which is, I suspect, somewhere in the middle. I believe that elected officials should try to represent what their constituents want, not what their party wants. Bush has surrounded himself with "yes" people, whose loyalty to him and the Right is valued above what the country wants. Bush thinks he and his folk know better than anyone else. Yet he won the election by a hair - thus he's ignoring half the people in this country.

And on that tip, any time you ask a politician why they won't talk to people like the Pres of Iran, they say it's because they "don't negotiate with terrorists". I think it's because they have no balls. You think Ahnold would be afraid to tell that guy what time it is? I don't think so. Kristy said that not only would he not be afraid to meet with him, he'd go over there wearing his Terminator outfit and scare the sh-t out of them.

Now, I'm not touting Ahnold as some political savior, I just think he's got the right idea as far as trying to represent his constituents, rather than his party. He's pissing off a lot of Republicans in doing so. Good for him.

 

Ok, now to update myself - here's what you did this week:

 

Rode SS tuesday, back killed, need to lighten SS with XC fork, lighter rims. Got about 10 painful miles in.

 

Wed: back on the squish and boy did it feel good. Another 10 or so at a decent pace.

 

Thur: played soccer for the first time in probably 8-9 months. It was fun - I wasn't in bad soccer shape, and I stretched a lot before and some after, so I am not as sore as I thought, which is good because I have a group ride tonight (pain train), then I'm going to do a solo interval ride in the AM, followed by leading a group ride for off-capers.

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Nice to see your coming around...Arnold's actually been making sense ever since he made Hercules in New York...whats taken you so long to come around???

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