I feel pretty shitty in general. Add to that riding at 90 degress + at the same humidity and it makes it that much worse. I was definitely out of sorts the last couple days.

It definitely seems to be the case that I don’t ride as well in the heat as I used to. I don’t know why that is. I always read that age has something to do with it, but I don’t know about that. I’m not really sure what your body does to compensate for hot and cold weather. I know it does something because we all get more used to it eventually, but I don’t know the exact mechanism that is uses to do this.

I do know that Bromont mirrors my feelings in heat. But, he is covered with fur, so he gets a get-out-of-jail-free card. We took him out to the country to run and he barely did that. When it was all said and done, he had gone less than 3 miles on the Garmin GPS and spent the majority of time in the pond with the cows.

Last night we went out for Cinco de Mayo. It was fun. There were ping pong tables at the The Burger Stand. I hadn’t played ping pong in a long time. It wasn’t so good for my bad shoulder. Mainly because of the sudden quick movements necessary for the game. I’d already pretty much destroyed it earlier in the day helping Bill get rid of a tree that was blown over in a storm last week. I’m sticking with the do anything I want advise from Dr. Synder last week. I’m not sure he took into consideration using a chainsaw for a few hours, but it wasn’t that bad most of the time. Anyway, ping pong was fun. I used to play a bunch back in high school, but not much since. I was pretty rusty, okay, really rusty, but it was fun none the less. I should make it a point to play more often.

It is supposed to rain all afternoon here. We’re scheduled to ride at noon. It is going to be super muggy. Hopefully it will hold off for a couple hours, but just a couple hours. Right now, I have a small hang over and feel pretty wasted in general from yesterday.

The cattle pond, until.....

Bromont decided to take it over.

Trudi and Bromont.

Bill's yard mid project.

Mulching the branches so it's only one trip to the vegetation recyling center.

Patron margaritas and $1 Tecate beer were the specials yesterday. I know these don’t help in the heat the least bit.

Catherine showing off her ping pong form.

Bill and Catherine after their game.

Just finished watching the finish of the 2nd stage of the Giro. Man, that wasn’t good. Taylor Phinney fell when Roberto Ferrari made a right hand turn 200 meters from the line and clipped Mark Cavendish’s wheel. I think that Taylor’s Giro is done, but hopefully not. It looked like his ankle was twisted pretty good from the video. Ferrari is going to be removed from the race I’d think. Maybe not. I’ll try to post a link to the video, but there is a Farnese Vini – Selle Italia rider that bunny hops Cavendish when he is on the ground. It is pretty unreal.

Talking about crashing, Speedweek on the East coast is officially over. I vowed never to go there again a few years ago when I crashed 4 times in the first two races. When you run out of cycling gloves because they are all destroyed from falling, I decided to call it a week and just train. Those races are so, so stupid that you’d be an idiot to attend unless someone was forcing you to. They had to stop the race there on Friday night twice because nearly the whole field fell. That isn’t unusual there. Every year it happens. Never again.

But, Saturday, something different occurred. According to this article at Velonews, there was a “road rage” instance on Saturday night that left Isaac Howe laying on the ground with a broken collarbone. It is a little sketchy, but it seems this guy, Jonathan Atkins, of Newnan, Georgia, got pissed at Howe for some reason and intentionally knocked him down. Supposedly Atkins was handcuffed by the police sometime during the evening too. Wow.

I’m not sure what to think about that. Of course it is all bad. There is no place in the sport for anything of the sort. It seems to be getting to become more of a contact sport every year. That is what pisses me off about touching people. There should be no, absolutely no leeway enforcing that rule. You touch someone on purpose, you’re out of the race. The problem is we see it everyday at the finishes of the big European races, so everyone tries to emulate it.

But crashing someone on purpose is a completely different animal. I couldn’t tell you what the suspension should be, but getting the police involved doesn’t seem out of line. A broken collarbone is minor compared to what could have happened to many people here. I still don’t understand USAC ruling when Keough and Bahati get into it at Dana Point a couple years ago and half the field fell. They acted like it was all part of bike racing and since no one protested, they decided to drop it. It was bullshit. The amount of equipment destroyed was outrageous, not even mentioning the riders hurt. I would have made both of them sit out a few months.

This guy in Speedweek, Atkins, is going to have an issue, I assume. Sounds like there might be charges pressed legally. Seems alright to me. The sport is dangerous enough not to allow intention violence to occur at any level.

Dana Point Criterium was last night. It was the 2 year anniversary of this stupidness.

Here’s the video of the Giro crash. Go in about 3:45 to see the overhead shot. Thanks Ken.