I’ve always prided myself with being able to ride a bike with some sort of consistency. It’s a little bit of a lie to myself, because recently, I’ve been all over the map with consistency, but usually only myself and my teammates know. I’m pretty great at faking it sometimes. The sport of bike racing allows fakers to get results. I like that about it. I hate that about it too.

This year I’ve tried something new. More mileage, less rest. It has been going pretty well for the past 6 weeks. I’ve been feeling pretty good training, but better yet, racing. But, in reality, I usually feel pretty good early season before everything flowers and it heats up.

I decided to leave Kansas to escape the March through whenever now, burning. I’m not sure how many places in the US allow this to occur, the burning of vast areas of land, but it needs to be addressed. I know they do it in Oklahoma and Iowa also, but Kansas seems to have much more cattle land that they burn on a annual basis. I don’t really mind the burning of the fields, but so many people are just burning ditches now. And the ditches have the plastic bottles and trash that burn too, which obviously isn’t good for our lungs. And now, they’ve spread the duration over months, instead of weeks, to keep the air quality in Kansas City good. So, instead of having just a couple weeks of horrible air, in Topeka we have a couple months of pretty bad air. It plays havoc on my lungs and performance.

But, escaping the Kansas smoke might not be enough. Yesterday I rode 70 miles and never felt very good. Like I said above, I’ve been riding pretty great for a month and a half, so this might just be the end of a good cycle, but for whatever the reason, I was off.

When I’m off, my legs don’t go around freely. It is like my tendons in my legs are tight and I’m fighting against myself to pedal. It really gets bad in my satorius muscles. They get so tight, usually when it is hot, that it makes pedalling really a chore. It’s pretty frustrating when it occurs. I’ve blamed allergies, smoke, lots of things for the change, but I’ve never really figured it out. I thought that by using a foam roller and stretching more that I was on to something and I could maybe avoid the whole issue this year, but maybe not.

I’m not completely panicking yet, my legs might just be a little rebellious because they had to sit in a car, stationary, for 3 days. I hope that is the case.

Catherine riding back from the race last weekend and the guy just burning because he can, not for the real reason for burning.

I had this little read foam roller, but Vincent gave me this gnarly one that really digs in a ton more.

I’m doing two things today that I really don’t much like doing. I’m driving to ride. Plus, I’m riding way too early. But, that is the way sometimes, in these beautiful places that have grown. The better riding is always further and further out.

I rarely, pretty much never drive to ride at home. There is no need for it. So when I have to do it somewhere else, it seems so foreign.

I don’t really like driving to races, even though sometimes I drive more than a day or two to get to one. One of the best things about racing in Belgium is that a very high percentage of the time I could ride to the race, race it and then ride back. Even though sometimes the races were 4 or 5 hours. It is a country made to race bicycles. Small and interesting.

So I kind of get the driving to ride deal. Going where there is better climbing, less traffic, etc. But I don’t get the leaving early thing. It is going to be in the lower 50’s at 8 am. By noon it is going to be in the mid 60’s. I usually ride, especially on the weekends, when it is the best temperature. Plus, I hardly ever race early in the morning. More of my races start at 10 pm nowadays than 7 or 8 am.

There are a lot of choices of what to do these weekend. I was hoping to race, but think I need another longer, slower ride to try to jump start my legs back into reality. Plus, the races are a couple hours north in Los Angeles. I am still kicking around racing tomorrow, a criterium in Ontario. It just depends how I feel riding today.

On a more depressing note, Trudi called yesterday from Europe. She had flown to Nice and picked up a truck to drive to Barcelona for the Volta a Catalunya. She pulled over at a rest stop to use the restroom and when she came back, someone had broken out the window of her truck and stolen all her personal stuff. She lost her computer, a cell phone, all her jewelry, etc. Last I talked to her yesterday, it was late at night her time and she was at a police station filling out a report. She was pretty depressed. She said what bothered her the most was all her stuff was floating around Europe on on its own. I sort of know what she means. It doesn’t belong there with who has it. Just wrong in general.

Okay, it’s pitch dark out, but I need to load up my bike. When it’s all over, it seems okay, but now, I still am rebelling.

This is Lake Hodges from Del Dios Hwy. Today we’re heading up to San Marcos to ride at Corky’s place. We’re riding Deluz, whatever that is.

These pelicans were flowing me up and down the coast the other day.