It is just about 2/3rd’s the way through winter, which mean here in Kansas, the weather is very unpredictable.  It can either be 10 degrees, with snow and ice or 70 degree and sunny.  The normal high here now is in the upper 40’s.

Luckily for us, it is going to be way warmer than colder.   The forecast for the next 15 days doesn’t show a day with the daytime high less than 56, with a couple days in the 70’s.  This should, if the forecast is correct, get us to March, where the temperatures are always consistently better for riding.

But the problem with warm temperatures is high winds.  I’ve written a ton about riding in wind. I like riding in wind, but it plays havoc on a big group out training.  For me, it makes the ride interesting, like riding in the mountains on climbs.  There is always the downhill/tailwind, to look forward to.

It really makes racing interesting.  Positioning is key in super windy conditions.

Windy around here is over 30 mph.  When it is less than 20, I’d say it is closer to a normal day. Less than 10 is nearly never.   Most of the warm days the next two weeks it shows the wind over 30 with gusts.  Gusts are what really make riding in the wind unsafe.

The first time I went to the Olympic Training Center, when I was a junior, I went out for the first organized group ride of all the best juniors the US had.  Greg Lemond, Jeff Bradley, Greg Demgen, Ron Kiefel, etc.  I was just a skinny little shit from Kansas.

On the ride, we headed out south and the wind was blowing from the right, or west, super hard.  We were probably less than 10 miles out and all struggling in a 35 mph+ side wind.  All of a sudden, we rode by a small dip in a field and the wind shifted 180 degrees and blew from the East.  Mark Frise, from Wisconsin, was riding a little off the front, he was way strong, but the rest of us were 2 by 2.  When the wind shifted, everyone in the group fell, but me.  All I remember is all these guys laying in the roads and their cycling caps blowing into the field and disappearing.  No stinking helmets in those days.

Eddy B. was following us in a car and pulled up.  He decided it was too windy to train and that we should go back to the Training Center.  He told me to go get Frise and tell him we were going back.

By this time, Mark had a good minute on me.  I started chasing him and it took me nearly an hour to catch up to him and tell him that the “training ride” was over.  I was doing a full on time trial chasing him and was wasted.

Mark most likely half-wheeled me back to the USOTC.  He was much stronger than me then.

Anyway, I’m fit enough that the wind should be fine the next couple weeks.  If I could only get rid of this chest thing I have going, it would be welcome to make the training just that much harder.

Click about 4 minutes into this video to see how the wind plays havoc at the start/finish of this race.

Pipsqueak is nearly bigger than Frankie, the dachshund.

Cyclingnews is doing this Dream Team thing by asking a bunch of retired Pros what team they would put together out of all the team mates they rode with throughout their careers.  I have no idea why they would ask David Millar this.   I’ve never been a fan of David Millar ever since he cried like a baby when they popped him for EPO, then he became born again and preached how much better it is to race clean.  I wrote a few posts about those thoughts already, so I don’t need to rehash it all again.

Anyway, David picks his dream team and includes in it 4 other riders that have either confessed or have been caught up in doping.  Those guys are Ryder Hesjedal, Dave Zabriskie, Stuart O’Grady and Christian Vande Velde.  So 5 out of 9 guys on his fantasy team were guys that doped to get their results.  And he wants them as team mate. Why?

It is hard for me to understand the picks of a rider like David Millar, who is an anti-doping advocate, and has been picked to mentor the British Cycling men’s endurance academy program. And out of all the guys he has had as team mates thru out the years, he picks a bunch of riders that were caught doping.

His reason for this, I guess, is – “For me, this isn’t just a dream team, it’s dream situation, so imagine these guys all coming up now and not having to deal with the stuff I and others had to – it would be amazing to see their nature given a real opportunity without their heads all being twisted and fucked up.”

So, it seems, David would like to do a little experiment and see if any of his former team mates were actually real athletes with any ability.  I always assume not.  Why give these guys the least bit of credit when they chose to cheat in athletics.  All of them knew they were cheating when they were doing it and now they are trying to convince us that they are the victims.

Shame on Cyclingnews for giving this guy a pulpit to stay relevant.  He had his chance and blew it.  Then he got it again and keeps spewing stupid shit like this dream team deal.  It should be embarrassing for him, but he is so caught up in the whole thing, he can’t even realize that is the case.

Tomorrow I’m going to pick my own dream team here, since I’m almost positive that Cyclingnews isn’t going to ask me to do it.  And I’d bet you a million dollars that my dream team would kick the shit out of David Millar’s dream team if they were normally aspirated.

Tucker after his first bath. He wasn’t a happy camper.