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I haven't been sleeping well at night. This is strange for me and my normally abnormal self. Normally I fall asleep pretty early, and I'm out for the entire night, but now I find myself occasionally laying awake in bed for hours. I am not sure if this has anything to do with the lack of training making me less than my normal exhausted or perhaps the fact that I sleep in till 6:00AM as opposed to 5-5:30AM since I'm not hurrying to get out the door in the morning to ride. Last night I got up out of bed and looked for the end of the internet. I was almost there around midnight, but I lost interest in the pursuit.

Upon my announcement to stop training The Pie took it to mean open season on baking, purchasing, and creating all manner of deserts. There has been a fair amount of overlap in production, so on many days there is more than one tempting pile of food either on the counter, in the fridge, or lurking in the freezer. I have solidly locked myself into my winter weight in less than three weeks of untraining. Victory (of sorts)!

Over on Bike Rumor there was a pretty sweet tour of the factory of one of my glorious sponsors, Cane Creek. Sure, Tyler "Tool Bag" Benedict didn't focus on cool things like novelty sized brake levers...

or recycling bins full of aluminum shavings...

or even their top secret Double Barrel robot production...

What can I say? He just did the usual thorough professional journalistic type thing taking photos of all the new stuff and describing all the really interesting processes. Yawn.

Sorry folks, all those orange headsets are headed my way. I'm hording them all in order to corner the market thus creating a shortage and driving their value up ten fold. What's your retirement plan?

I got some good news yesterday. A charge showed up on my Mastercard from Santa Cruz Bicycles.

The good news is that this indicates that something is on its way to my house. The bad news is that the amount I was charged indicates that it's more than likely this:

A Santa Cruz logo emblazoned QR seat post collar in size extra-Dicky.

I'm pretty sure that's what is in the box en route to my house... that or Mark Weir gave Mike Ferrentino the wink and a nod indicating that I was a goodfella and deserve a deep, deep discount. I won't be sure for a few days till I see the size of the box, so let's keep our fingers crossed.

Over on Bike Rumor (once again) I noticed that the competition for the Bike Rumor Media Cup is heating up like a pan of beans on low simmer. You've already read Jasen Thorpe's profile and his inappropriate bashing of yours truly, but now Tyler "Tool Bag" Benedict is taking his turn at throwing cheap shots my way. Brandon Dwight of Dopers Suck fame has also thrown his hat into the ring, but he did not mention me, so I must assume that he is not aware that I'm obviously a huge threat. Peter, who is not a threat by any means, has yet to include his entry into the race within the race, but he did spend just as much time as he would have needed to complete his entry explaining why he hasn't completed his entry on his blog which also happens to not be a threat.

Both Tyler and Peter take great pleasure in the fact that their greatest cycling achievements would be that they both managed to beat me ONCE in a moment of mine weakness at some point in the past. Tyler, when my freewheel failed at the inaugural Cowbell Classic and Peter at the SSWC09 when my liver failed out in the high desert.

Maybe they should form a little club... I think Peter could design a nice T-shirt in all his spare time that he has now since he's hired an ACTUAL engineer to design his products. Something with rainbows, skulls, and extra gheyness.

Yeah, like that, but perhaps this is what Peter has in mind: