Just 20km from my doorstep here in Oviedo, Spain, sits the Angliru (pronounced ong-LEE-roo). It’s widely considered to be one of, if not the most, challenging and difficult climbs in Europe. How could I not rent a bike and give it a go? Aka: just how stupid am I?
Let’s begin with a photo from the end shall we?
A preview of what's to come
A haiku I came up with while getting blown all over the West Hills yesterday:
Old Germantown Road
Bad enough without the wind
I long for Summer
Nothing else that went through my mind while getting shoved over 3 feet on a 10% grade is suitable for publication without drastic censorship.
But three hours of riding in the West Hills in those conditions will only make me stronger, right? They’d damn well better. I personally can’t wait for the relatively calm conditions that await TeamO for the training camp in The Dalles next weekend…
This weekend is bringing some big changes in my family; the parental units are relocating. This may not sound like a big deal to some, but they’re not just moving; they’re moving out of my childhood house. The house I grew up in. And “grew up” is the key phrase. My siblings and myself are grown and out of the house, and there isn’t much point in spending your weekends tending to a large, empty house and the big yard that comes with it, so my parents are downsizing to a rowhouse with a small garden. And hopefully they’ll be able to use the weekends for recreating rather than maintenance going forward.
And for my dad, that means riding his bike. He commutes 25 miles round trip, each day by bike, but recently has had the time to go out for weekend rides. The Reynolds tubing of his Lemond have been collecting sawdust while he spends his weekends chipping away at the to-do list, and it’s been eating him alive. My dad loves cycling. Not just riding, but everything that it encompasses; the sport, the shop time, the sun-dappled roads of summer. So, hopefully, he’ll be able to spend his weekends rolling along the countryside and tinkering with his bike soon.
My passion for cycling stems from him. He’s the one that taught me to ride on two wheels. He would take me to the I-205 bike path for rides, and even back then the rides were never far enough, or fast enough for me. I remember sitting on the couch next to him, marvelling at the Tour de France; the majesty of Miguel Indurain. He taught me how to be a wrench and helped me build my first wheel. My cycling life stemmed from him and that house.
Kinda like 'Cross, but more fun
Sunday was Banana Belt #1, and my first road race of the season. It was wet, grimy, a little windy, and a helluva good time. I had no aspirations for the race, other than to get in a good workout; with the exception of Jack Frost last week, it’s all been hilly endurance rides since my return from the collarbone snappage of ‘08, not a whole lotta of fast stuff, to say the least.
The gameplan was to get Adam into a break on the third lap, and he attacked off the front on schedule, establishing a break that stayed away for a while. Everytime a counter attack went off the front, I sucked myself onto the rear wheels sat in. Every counter attack was eventually reeled back in, shortening the advantage of Adam’s break, until it was finally shut down itself.
Sunday marked my return to racing and the beginning of the 2009 race season for me, and it hurt good.
The forecast for Jack Frost was temperatures in the 40’s, windy and rainy. Thankfully we were spared the latter, and it wasn’t as windy as predicted. After admiring Zach’s masterpiece of an aero helmet, which was comprised of his road helmet and a roll of clear duct tape, I hopped on the trainer and began to open up the legs.
Prior to Sunday, 99.99% of my workouts have been held in Zone3 or lower, so the shocking, searing pain that accompanied my trips up into the red zone were a bit terrifying, to say the least.
I have a long standing belief that dogs rule and that cats are the spawn of Lucifer himself.
And here is photograhic evidence:
Cats Are Evil
I’m Back!!!
I had the worst health of my life in 2008. In spring, I had the flu for the first time since I was like 6. I got a nasty bit of knee tendonitis later that summer. Following vacation in the Dominican Republic, I came down with disentary. JLV asked, “Isn’t that what people died of on the Oregon Trail game” Yes, Justin, and what a god awful way to go. And then this Fall I wiped out during a cyclocross race and broke my collarbone (and by broke, I mean obliterated, read: surgery, stainless steel plate, six screws and a wire to hold my shoulder together).
But now 2009 is here. My shoulder is slowly coming along, and in about six more weeks I hope to be riding my bike in a kinetic fashion. I am paying attention to my nutrition, following a training plan for the first time in my life, and generally looking forward to an awesome season and year.
So, to ring in the new year, it’s only suiting to fall back on what I know: ill-health. This week I’ve come down with a nasty head cold, and I fear it’s slowly descending to my chest. Now, I don’t mean to complain; when you look at the big picture, a headcold is a blessing compared to what it could be. It’s not cancer. It’s not dysentary or a mamed skeletal structure. But it is contradictory to my very nature.
I don’t do nothing well. I need a hobby, a project; something to do. If I’m not riding my bike, I’m working on my bike, and if I’m not doing that, I’m building something. You get the picture. So when my work sends me home for fear of contamination, and I’m actually forced into doing nothing… I get a little… what’s the word for it…. fidgety, I suppose.
I’m trying to be good and do as little as possible, but that’s a lot harder than it sounds.
So all of the pieces are finally complete, the camera move is finished, and the video brain has been rendered out of Cinema4D in 1080P HD quality. All I have left to do now is build the background in After Effects and do the composite in Flame, where I will ad depth of field and do the final tweaking.
A bit of Video Brain Progress:
I’m getting the lighting dialed in… Still need to work on some accent lighting though
Here’s the camera move. In post, I will do a bit of rack focusing. It’s getting there:
Portland, OR