2008

Breaking records and a nice little Thursday, really.

2008-06-05T09:41:00.000-07:00

That’s right, after weeks of racing characterized by sickness, forgotten shoes, and underwhelming results, I am finally breaking, no, obliterating world (cycling center) records. A couple of days ago, I was working on my bike with two unusually idle and chatty Swiss mechanics. After marveling at the size of my bike, they declared that I was probably the tallest cyclist to ever come through the center. I was promptly measured and now my name, height, and legacy are forever etched in pencil at the Centre Mondial du Cyclisme, not far from the Indurain, Armstrong, and Merckx shrines. They used the really dark kind of pencil, so even if it’s erased, you’ll probably still be able see the letters a little bit. Yeah, you could say I’m kind of a big deal.

By the mid-point of my ride today I was so hungry that I could’ve eaten at Arby’s, but this little meal felt like the foodie thing to do.
Michael Pollen says we should all be eating more little oily fish, and since I’d never tried sardines before, I didn’t know any better. Actually they weren’t bad, but the bird population of Montreux thought so too and this picnic didn’t last long.

I’ve reached the point in my blogging career where the initial excitement of posting has worn off, and Racechild is beginning to feel like a bad high school English assignment (I know, you would never guess from a post like this). I’ll try and do a proper bike-racer style report after this Sunday’s cross-country marathon.

Probably the biggest slug to ever pass through CMC, albeit slowly.

Five Views of Mount Outside My Window

2008-06-02T02:38:00.000-07:00

2008-05-31T08:01:00.000-07:00

“It’s easy to compare the initial thrill of evoking an immediate response to a blog post to the rush of getting high, and the diminishing thrills to the process of becoming inured to a drug’s effects. The metaphor is so exact, in fact, that maybe it isn’t a metaphor at all.”
-Emily Gould “Exposed: What I gained—and lost—by Writing About My Intimate Line Online” from the NYTimes Magazine May 25.

I couldn’t agree more, and after the overwhelmingly positive flood of comments I received after posting that winking cow, I’m looking for my next fix:
I swear I’ve only taken two, maybe three cow pictures since I’ve been here. But what can I say? The cows, they like me.

I ran into that little flirt while riding to a nearby rally car race today. For those of you unfamiliar with Rally, it’s pretty much the mountain biking of auto racing; that is to say, it’s cool, or so I thought from watching Rally highlight videos on Youtube. Sure, the cars today were going fast and making lots of noise, but to be honest, I’ve seen fast cars from a much MUCH closer vantage point while road biking (share the road!). Then, just as my pod shuffled from Kanye to David T’s morning mix, I had an epiphany. If rally can be so cool on TV yet so unimpressive in person, maybe mountain bike racing just needs a little TV coverage to make it cool too--give the action some context and let Dave Toll take viewers on a personal tour of downtown Pain City. Wishful thinking.

Biking

2008-05-29T00:45:00.000-07:00

Last weekend’s Swisspower Cup was a bad race. The organization, weather, competition, and course were all ideal, but for me, things didn’t go as I had planned.

I’ve become good at shrugging off such bad days (of which there have been many), but this one's bummerness was compounded by a few factors. Firstly, distractions from racing are hard to come by in Aigle for various reasons that I briefly whined about in my last post. Though single-mindedness seems ideal for improvement, I’m finding that it tends to make me a bit of a head-case. Secondly, when racing poorly at an NMBS race, you can usually find a crew of similarly disappointed but friendly guys to finish with and take solace in the fact that you’re still in front of a big name like Ryan Trebon, who’s likely cursing his equipment somewhere in the woods. You can then pout a bit, drum up some excuses, and call it a day. At the Swisspower Cup though, the short course and thus spectator-friendly style makes agro-euros race till the bitter end, and there’s hardly an English speaker, let alone friend or family member, there to console you when you finally get pulled from the race. Long story short, slow riding met distraction-less atmosphere and caused one of those rare moments when I questioned, though only momentarily and not at all seriously, why I race bikes. Aside from the obvious—chicks and money—I suspect it has a lot to do with rides like the one I did today.

A place where the beer flows like wine and beautiful women instinctively flock like the salmon of Capistrano…I’m talking about a little place called…Gstaad. Notoriously wealthy, Gstaad initially seemed modest and quaint compared to many other resort towns. Only when I got close to one particularly dilapidated garage did I realize that it was renovated on the inside to house an Ashton Martin, Ferrari, and Land Rover. It’s as if Gstaad is so wealthy that it hides its ostentatiousness, which is so much more ostentatious than just being obviously ostentatious to begin with.

Did that cow just wink at me?

Maybe it’s just the endorphins talking (according to Science, they’re actually quite potent), but there’s nothing like a long sunny bike ride in the mountains to erase any doubts about why I bike race.

mmmm, that sounds good...I'll have that.

2008-05-24T00:40:00.000-07:00

Not much is new here in Aigle. Not much at all. Still living without TV, internet (at the house), car, cell phone, English speaking friends other than Sam or Ethan, young locals in general, establishments open past 6 pm, and, and, and... That pretty much leaves bike riding, which, when one is sick as I have recently been, isn’t much of an option. We all deal with the overabundance of free time in different ways. Vitamin G has been using his newly acquired French to translate trashy American rap. Here’s his take on “money in da bank, shorty what’s your drank?” with his own personal flourish at the end.

I’ve been reading a lot and putting my passion for cooking to good use. Actually, “passion” and “cooking” might not be the right words to describe my fondness for ogling cooking magazines and napping while watching The Food Network, but nevertheless, I have a few recipes that the world deserves to know. Here are two new chocolaty spreads for when your Nutella runs out:
-Stir a bunch of cocao powder into jam. Simple enough. Saturate the jam with cocao powder (like the straight-up sugar-free kind or else it’ll be too sweet).
- And secondly, stir a bunch of cocao powder into mashed up bananas. The key here is lots and lots and lots of cocao powder. Cocao powder mixed in plain yoghurt on waffles or pancakes isn’t bad either. Or oatmeal with cocao powder. Cocao powder in pretty much anything actually. But I’ll emphasize that the key is a lot of cocao powder.

Another winner is coffee oatmeal. It’s a little tough to cook the oatmeal in coffee without giving the coffee a burnt flavor, but it’s nothing a little milk and sugar (even if you don’t usually take it in your coffee) can’t fix. I know what you’re thinking: “why didn’t I think of that!?” You too could probably be a culinary innovator; you just need to clear your cabinets of all but a few key ingredients (a few starches, coffee, and cocao powder in my case). A little open-mindedness helps too.

I wonder if by periodically highlighting recipes on Racechild I can tap into the growing celebrity chef phenomenon and expand my readership…

We’re not the only ones with free time.
Drinking beer at 11:00 AM? Mandatory military service might not be so bad after all.

Obligatory cycling blog coffee shot and other miscellaneoses

2008-05-18T05:36:00.000-07:00

Once caffeine-free Ethan can't resist the Euro cafe lifestyle. Pretty soon he'll be sporting a faux-hawk, puma's, and man-capris.

The Tour of Romandy coming through Aigle:

I've just discovered that making your color pictures black and white instantly makes them artsier.
Look out Ansel Adams.

Swan popo:

Pretty self explanitory--don't pick up bombs

Mature Content: Way too graphic stick figures. Apparently those who wear their hats backwards are of the same demographic as the scofflaws who dare to pee standing up.

Look closely and there's a rainbow.

View from my old room:

And if you zoom in on the building in the upper left, there's this:
A sign? Defininitely. I just don't know what of, and I've since moved out. creepy kind of...

A brief rest day recap turned ramble:

2008-05-16T01:31:00.001-07:00

A couple of days ago Ethan and I took the train to Geneva for the day. The trip was fast and stress-free given Switzerland’s amazing train system, and once there, getting around without car or cab would have been super easy too. For simplicity’s sake, we opted to walk, but we could have easily joined the rest of the city and got around by riding trains, busses, bikes, or scooters.
Unlike New York or Paris or something, Geneva isn’t nearly a big enough city to mandate such awesome public transportation (I think it’s way smaller than Colorado Springs). For whatever reason though (higher population density? Better foresight? Excess money?), Geneva has built such a seamless public transportation system that owning a car just wouldn’t be practical, and this seems to be the case in most of the European cities that I’ve visited.

Not owning a car strikes me as so novel and cool because it's such a necessity for most Americans, both socially and practically. A guy without a car is pretty much the stereotypical doomed bachelor (think 40-Year-Old Virgin). Can you imagine a hotshot American attorney stepping out of his high-rise office, tucking his suit legs into his socks and pedaling his bicycle home? No way in the US, but it’s common here. Even in supposed conscientious Boulder, where public transportation is relatively great compared to most other US cities, the bus system is mostly reserved for pimply high-school freshmen.

It’s like the question of the chicken and the egg; I don’t know whether Americans first became addicted to cars and then cities were built around them, or whether cities were so catered to cars that an addiction was inevitable. Probably neither, or both, but whatever. For some reason, aside from the devout environmentalists and those fortunate enough to have the luxury/health/infrastructure to get to work without a car, Americans just don’t have many alternatives. I face it myself—there is no practical way for me to get from Colorado Springs to Boulder without a car (excluding a cab, which is not the point).

This leads to all kinds of questions regarding energy independence, global warming, etc. etc. etc., to which neither I, nor anyone else for that matter, has any real answers. Undoubtedly though, oil will run out, and therefore the US will eventually run without it. It has to. After visiting Geneva, I think Europe was lucky not have the rise of the automobile coincide with the building of their cities--their adaptation to an oil-free world will likely be less apocalyptic than America’s. On second thought though, maybe the world is small enough that we’ll all be hit pretty hard. This placard at the Geneva Museum of Modern Art thinks so. I’m not sure how I feel about it and will reserve comment, but thought it might be a cheerful note on which to end this odd post.

No common theme.

2008-05-10T01:05:00.001-07:00

Porte du Soleil—just like the ball-in-the-cup game

Castle. Seeing old stuff everywhere is so new.

Still a long way to up go up…

…and it’s pretty steep too (picture taken at an equally steep angle).

A perfect reading bench, you just have to climb a few thousand feet to get there…

...or you could catch one of these, which cruise up and down one-way streets and single-lane mountain passes. Given the hysteria caused by some relatively benign sections of Independence Pass, hazards like these trains and the abundant single-lane mountain passes would terrify drivers in the US. Here though, such unmarked dangers are common, and drivers seem to embrace the challenge by accelerating through blind corners and narrowly passing cyclists. Oddly though, people drive with such confidence and assertiveness that I feel pretty safe, and I have yet to see an accident. I thought maybe the difference was the imported cars—the BMW’s, Mercedes, and Audis--that everyone seems to drive (maybe because here they aren’t that imported after all), but then again, most Aspenites have fast cars too. Must be all the F1 racing on Eurosport.

And to wrap-up this random post, here's a woos that crawled out from under Fraggle Rock:

Funny link

2008-05-06T10:20:00.000-07:00

I heard this and cringed:

http://www.theonion.com/content/radio_news/four_year_descent_into?utm_source=slate_rss_1

Living in a model train set...it needs to be at least...three times bigger than this!

2008-05-05T09:35:00.000-07:00

Before going abroad, or any new place for that matter, I leave home with a stereotype in mind of the place that I am going to visit, which inevitably doesn’t prove to be entirely true; it’s just a stereotype after all. For example, before going to Scotland, most of what I knew I had drawn from Babe. Though I did see green countryside and border collies, the hills were less well-lit and the border collies didn’t talk (most disappointing!). There were also plenty of Burger Kings and Britney Spears tabloid headlines to mar what I had thought of as quintessential Scotland. Another example: Quebec does indeed have the lush woods that it purports, but no, Canadians’ jaws don’t entirely unhinge when they speak. My idealized and stereotyped ideas of places don’t often bear much truth (meaning my ideal world resembles Southpark?). Switzerland however seems to be the exception. The mountains, valleys, villages, people, and animals are all straight out of one of those elaborate mossy train sets. The cows even have giant bells and the old men really do wear long wool socks and sturdy leather hiking boots. I’ve yet to see one of those giant Ricola horns, but I’m sure it’s only a matter of time. I’m not so naïve as to think that Switzerland is exempt from the problems of the rest of the world, but at least in terms of postcardableness, I’ve yet to see any evidence to the contrary. Like seriously, even the water in Lake Geneva is as clear as the pools of glue in train displays.
Because of this, I fear that every post from now till July will read “today I went riding and here are some pictures of the pretty things I saw.” For now at least, why fight it?

Heaven?

2008-04-30T06:30:00.001-07:00

I haven’t even taken many pictures while in Switzerland and it isn’t because I can’t find subject matter. On the contrary, at any given time I could point my camera in any direction and it would likely find a spectacular mountain vista, picturesque vineyard, or a village with narrow cobbled streets and an overabundance of pastry shops (if there were such a thing). Maybe I’ve been too busy gawking to pull out my camera, but here some of the few that I have managed to take
The new digs. We're on the top floor, directly above a psychiatrist.
World Cycling Center--the site of lunch, dinner, and internet access.
At the World Cycling Center are the best juniors and U23's from countries all over the world that don't have their own cycling federations (why we're here is another story). Ethan is ensuring that we Americans don't get lost in the spirit of international unity.

Comment dit-on "terrifying?"

2008-04-26T07:05:00.000-07:00

I thought I’d post some pictures of the course here in Offenburg, Germany. Granted, I’m a little top-heavy and lacking some wet root riding skilz, but these chutes are seriously scary.

I like to justify being timid by the fact that I’m taller than most riders, and therefore I look down these things from a higher vantage point.
These signs will help rowdy spectators find the most dangerous sections, each of which is accompanied by a biergarten. Most of them will have come to see us crash, but they’re fans nonetheless; we’ll take what we can get. Here’s to hoping the track (note: track here in Europe, not trail) stays relatively dry and the crash-seeking spectators don't get their way.
That's five dangerous sections per 16-minute loop--the odds of crashing are against us.

Check out this video from last year's race:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pik0V4a_CpU

Sheep with tails are less prec

2008-04-23T06:47:00.000-07:00

There was a moment on my ride today, sandwiched somewhere between riding through this vineyard,
and meeting this not-so-little little buddy,
when I thought, “I could really get to like Germany.” There are bike paths and bike lanes that run everywhere. Riding through the downtown is so easy that it feels as though bikers and pedestrians are the priority, not cars, and every road feels like Pearl Street, Boulder with cobblestones and shops with funky diverse housing above. Replace a few of the German bike-commuters with some Pata-gucci’d jogger moms and Ironman triathletes, and Offenburg would feel a lot like Boulder. It amazes me that such pedestrian/eco-friendly cities, considered novel and progressive in the U.S, have existed for centuries in Europe.

It’s also funny how so many American resort towns have appropriated the feel of towns like Offenburg (I mean, I guess I knew Vail’s quaint architecture wasn’t entirely original, but until coming here, a part of me still believed). I think I half expect the stone storefronts here to sound hollow like the particleboard facades of so many Colorado Ski resort towns. No town can have it all though. I got hopelessly lost on my ride today and searched in vain for someone in an orange jacket to point me home. I found my way home, but alas, my play button remained un-pushed. That one will go over all but two or three heads.

Houffalized

2008-04-21T08:17:00.000-07:00

In general, I won't give lengthy race reports because I’ve never been one to read them. Maybe if I have a good day I’ll gloat a bit, but unfortunately there is no gloating to be had by me today. The highlight may have been when I was waiting to get into some single-track on the first lap (yes waiting, like standing, for like minutes, and this didn’t just once either), and I was able to reach over and pinch my teammate Kevin Sollar in the po-po. He thought it was the German guy behind him. Maybe my race would have been better if I wasn’t losing sleep over this totally creepy “trophy” above my bed:

We’re driving four hours to Offenburg, Germany tomorrow with our new Swiss mechanic. He speaks about as much English as I speak French so hopefully we’ll learn from each other (but he happens to know German and Italian as well). He looks kind of like our old mechanic Joey, but actually has the piercings that Joey is too squeamish to get. He even likes heavy metal. All was going well until he said something about no chocolate or cheese at the World Cycling Center unless you’ve ridden at least 200 km. Joey didn't do that, and neither did Diddy.

Layover

2008-04-18T08:43:00.000-07:00

I haven’t yet decided whether this will be the kind of blog where I write occasional inspired blogposts, or whether I will write more frequent, less inspired updates. This entry is of the uninspired type, mainly to help kill an epic layover in Chicago before flying to Brussels before a 10 week euro-trip. And yes, it will probably be just like “Euro-trip” but hopefully entertaining.
It doesn’t seem like travel should be so exhausting since it’s comprised mostly of sitting, but it always takes me a few days to rebound. In hopes of getting some quality rest, I’ve brought along all the tools for near total sensory deprivation: ear-plugs, eye thing, neck thing, and the hard stuff Ambien. I’m hoping for a showing of “Becoming Jane” to seal the deal. Despite this meticulous preparation, all my attempts at sleep could be instantly negated by an arm-rest hogging, knee splaying, shoulder poaching neighbor. How come the shoulder poachers are never cute 20-somethings?

Venezuela

2008-04-08T17:36:00.000-07:00

Going to Venezuela was the longest short trip I’ve ever taken. I feel like I stepped into a bizarre time warp for a few days. It’s amazing how two places as different as Colorado Springs and San Juan de Los Morros can exist within only a 1 ½ hour time change (Chavez added the half hour. It’s his country…he does what he wants). Mary says you readjust your values after visiting places like Venezuela. Coming back to Colorado Springs, where grocery stores aren’t under armed guard and houses aren’t surrounded by razor wire, it’s easy to forget that this isn’t the norm for most of the world.
I had been told that as an American I should keep a low profile while down there—not an easy task when the entire purpose of my visit was to parade around in bright USA spandex. For this reason, we had two body guards with us the entire trip. Juan, a professional body builder with slick black hair, was always eager to chat despite his limited English. Louis, a black belt in karate, didn’t speak English but was incredibly kind and helpful. I thought they were probably just with us for the peace of mind of the USOC and people back at USA Cycling, but a few times, such as when we visited a late night fruit stand or when our van got a flat tire in an area known for “road pirates,” they appeared quite edgy and unwilling to take one hand of the pistols in their fanny packs. We were watched very closely and unable to venture anywhere without their supervision. The one time I dared was when I was warming up for the race, and I was immediately chased for a couple hundred yards by a fierce feral dog. I guess it was a good warm-up, but I wished Louis had been there to shelter me.
The race course went straight up and then straight down, over and over again for two hours in the 95 degree heat. I put in a good first couple of laps but then I hit the wall like I never have before. At one point I crashed on a straight non-technical section of fire road because I had become so dizzy and delirious in the heat. Even most of the South Americans, who are quite accustomed to hot weather, were hurtin pretty bad. Unfortunately my camera broke so I don’t have any pictures to share, but the mountains and huge rock outcroppings around the course were pretty spectacular.
Another crazy thing down there is that the gas is incredibly cheap—cheaper than water. A British guy told us it cost him 150 American dollars to fill up his van in the UK, whereas it cost $2.50 to fill up the same van in Venezuela. Our driver wouldn’t even turn his van off while we ate dinner.
Not one to return home without a souvenir, I brought back some sweet South American stomach bug that I'm now nursing with Pedialyte and Perrier cocktails. Chavez may make cheap gas, but his drinking water could use some work.

One down...

2008-03-30T20:58:00.000-07:00

...many more to go, and thankfully so, because I rode pretty eh this weekend.

The first round of the NMBS took us to sunny Fontana, California. Nobody seems to have heard of Fontana, but despite its anonimity, this charming sprawl has plenty to offer. For example, every fast-food chain ever created is represented within a one mile radius of our hotel. For all you Olive Garden fans, there are no less than 39 locations within a 6-mile radius of us. There is a collasal NASCAR arena nearby, and I've been told a mountain range as well (though I've yet to see it due to smog, more fondly known as the "marine layer"). But don't take my word for it (Reading Rainbow reference!). Just ask Edward Scissorhands, who apparently spends time here:

My roommate for the weekend, Ben Kraushaar, took this picture while pre-riding the course. He saw this bad-boy have a go at a pro woman riding just ahead of him. After seeing this picture, I thought every trail-side stick and piece of litter (of which there was plenty) was a rattlesnake. I was jumpy to say the least.

Huge thanks to Mitch Hoke for all the rides--you navigate traffic like a Californian, but you ride bikes like a Coloradoan. Word.

What is a blog anyways?

2008-03-26T21:10:00.000-07:00

Is that where you, like, write about your day and expect people to read about it? huh. I guess, but hopefully not that narcissistic. Now that I'm done with school, I have quite a bit of free time and there aren't enough crossword puzzles to try or blog-posts to read to fill the void of a CC block (for those of you who aren't bikers, everyone who's anyone has a blog these days and, as much as I hate to admit it, I find myself checking them quite often). Also, not matter how many pictures I try to take during trips, I never seem to take enough. I figure if I feel like a few of you will occasionally check-in (Mom, Dad, I know I can count on you two!), then I'll take more pictures and better document my trips. Lastly, one of the worst parts about bike-racing for me is being away from the people that I like. Hopefully this blog will inspire some more communication. So, I've jumped on the blog bandwagon partly out of boredom, partly out of a desire to journal trips, and partly as a way to spur emails with you all who I'll be missing while I'm away. I hope you'll cooperate.

What are you going to write about today Colin? Whatever I feel like I wanna write about, gosh! Not sure what kind of content racechild.blogspot.com will have (you wouldn't believe how difficult it is to find a unique site name--title creds to Mari). Undoubtedly some bike racing, but hopefully not too much. Surely some travel-gone-awry stories as well, but hopefully not too many. Fishing stories? Only if you're lucky. whatevs, we'll see.

Note: Any grammatical errors, misspellings, or general bad writing done on this blog is intentional. If you don't catch the subtle irony of these "mistakes," well, your bad, I guess. Don't expect me to live up to the critically acclaimed "Big Red does Japan" or "Two Nomads, One Continent" either. Those two are untouchable and trying to live up to their professionalism would overwhelm me with pressure.

Until I figure out a clever sign-off phrase,
Colin