Now what?

So take away my ability to talk about a seven day stage race, and what's left for blog fodder?

photo cred: Sue Haywood

The 18th Annual Tour de Burg, The Only Race That Matters™.  I missed this celebration of all things bicycle and wrong for the second year in a row.  I may be risking my chances of an invite back in 2014.  Barring any incident, I will have to prioritize a little better next year and be there.  Such debauchery should never go missing out of one's life.

What I used to refer to as "the most important race on the international cycling calendar" is coming up this weekend.   I've already mentioned the course change for 2013 and the loss of my long anticipated sub-5:30 goal.  My lack of enthusiasm is not reflected in this week's preparations.  I've already got the go-ahead on my nutrition plan from none other than fitness/nutrition guru, Selene Yeager.

I'm assuming by "sometimes," she means this weekend more than any other time.
This doth concern me though...

Not just gay, hellagay.

I'm not so sure I want to consider switching teams if that's what it takes to win.  Not because I'm homophobic.  It's just that I don't think The Pie would understand.  She puts up with a lot, the "training," the stolen moments fondling of components in my bike room, the travel, the money pissed away... but I think this would push her over the edge.  She likes her men like she likes her bourbon... straight and neat.

I've had a chance to look at the new course map.

Lots of squiggly red lines on top of brown lines and certainly a fair amount of arrows.  I'm familiar with the new route and aware of how this will affect my strategery.   I have made adjustments and planned accordingly.

Just as the top tour riders don't want to share their power data thus giving their opponents information that could be used against them, obviously I will not share everything with the class.  What I can tell you in the interest of keeping things interesting:

Seven new coats of Endust have been applied to reduce aerodynamic drag on the long, newly extended portion of the Blue Ridge Parkway.

My Incredibell has been custom tuned to deliver 7 more decibels of ringing power in order to alert all the riders that got away from me on the much longer approach to the first real climb that I am indeed "racing."

My stem is slammed to intimidate the other single speeders, as nothing says "I'm fast" more than a slammed stem (other than actual results).

My SRAM PC 1091R chain has been dipped in four different types of Pro Gold products and baked in an oven at 375° for 25 minutes.  I was really bored last night and the oven was already preheated for cookies.

I removed every fifth spoke in my Industry Nine wheels for decreased wind resistance.  Unfortunately I did not think this through very well.  As each wheel has 32 spokes, I eventually got to the point where there were only four spokes left in each wheel, and I decided I needed to just go ahead and put them all back in.  No real advantage gained as far as aerodynamics, but I did increase my manual dexterity quite a bit.

The big question?  Will I be faster thanks to almost 23 hours of saddle time (an off week for The Pflug) at the BC Bike Race a week ago or did riding the last four days with an exploded rectum and empty digestive tract cause more harm than good?