A CX Philistine Travels to Mecca

Whenever anyone asks me if I race cyclocross I usually pick from the following standard replies:

1. No, racing cross is the only thing sillier than racing track and I already do that.
2. No, why would I get off of a perfectly good bicycle to heft it over my shoulder and run.
3. No, doesn't that involve running? I don't even like to walk briskly.
4. No
5. Hell no

So I am rather entertained by the fact that I am about to embark on a trip across the pond to journey to the holy land of cyclocross: Belgium. I am specifically traveling over to attend a cyclocross race. Not just any cyclocross race either but The World Cup being held in Koksijde.

I will be traveling over with Logan Owen who currently sits in 3rd overall in the Junior 17-18 World Cup Standings. Logan is aiming for the podium (specifically the top step of the podium) at The Cyclocross World Championships being held in KY in February. The top 16 starting positions (the first 2 rows) are determined by your standing in the World Cup. Logan has already attended the two World Cup races in CZK last month with USA Cycling and will be traveling back in December with USAC to compete in the events at Zolder and Rome. He wanted to add a little insurance and thanks to the gracious support of the Seattle area CX community and the USAC Development Foundation he will be able to make the trip to Koksijde. I will be accompanying him as his Mr French.

While we are there I am hoping to make a brief journey to one night of the Ghent Six Day which will be going on as well.

So I will be able to check off 2 boxes on the cycling discipline specific Mecca list.

It should be a ton of fun. Look for updates at TdlCycling.com.

And wish this Philistine some luck.

Bike Stuff for Sale

I can be a bit of hoarder. Most of my stuff is of the "vintage bike racing" variety. I have finally decided that it is time to cut ties with a lot of items that of late have done nothing but collect cobwebs in my basement. A few of these items are listed below.

I am motivated to get rid of these and ultimately I understand that any dollar given in exchange for these items is more than what I have for them right now. However, I also have an understanding of that these items do have some value and therefore I have a minimum threshold.

That said, any reasonable offer will be entertained. So, in no particular order, here are a few of the items:

Albert Eisentraut Tandem:

This is a late 70's tandem hand built by Albert for a very good friend of mine who happened to be Albert's college roommate. I have had since the mid-90's and it has been ridden "sparingly". 

Top Tube both front and back measures 56cm c to c and the seat tube measures 53cm c to c for both front and back.

Parts are a mix of Campagnolo NR and SR and TA Cranks. There are a few minor scratches in the places that you would expect to find them on a 30+ year old bike. The wheels are 27" (popular at that time) built onto 48 spoke Campagnolo large flange hubs. The wheels alone are a rarity.

Campagnolo Nuevo Record Brakes NOS:

What needs to be said? These are Campagnolo Nuovo Record Brakes that are New Old Stock. And yes, they still have the cardboard piece on the adjusting barrel. The box itself has some minor damage to it. Included are original cables and housing.

Campagnolo Sigma Pave Tubulars, C-Record Hubs

36 hole with Vittoria Competition tubular tires. I will include the Sun Tour New Winner freewheel. These wheels are bullet proof. If I could figure a way to put a 10 speed cassette on them I would still be racing them, but I can't. So I am selling them. 

As I said, I am motivated to sell this stuff. Any REASONABLE offers will be entertained and probably accepted, because this stuff is just collecting dust and cobwebs in my basement. Seriously , make me an offer. 

If interested ping me at: jgholmes at comcast dot net. 

The Evolution of a Cycling Lifer

The Evolution of a Cycling Lifer

The cycling bug bit me when I was a kid in the early eighties. My first ride of any note was during the summer of 1980. I was 12 years old and I rode a Schwinn Stingray Fastback complete with a banana seat, high rise handlebars and a 5 speed shifter on the top tube 86 miles in 8 hours on a 2.5 mile course. It was in a bicycle marathon on the University of Toledo's Scott Park Campus. I was also wearing blue jeans, and started out in a raincoat. It was awesome.

Later that summer I graduated from the Stingray to a 10 speed with 26 inch steel wheels and "safety" levers. It weighed a ton. I proceeded to ride that in various AYH Bicycle Tours in the area many of them in the 100 kilometer range. I even took my steel behemoth to the local Toledo Glass City Classic Bike Race and entered the youth race. I got dropped before the first turn trying to negotiate my foot into the toe clip.

Me, the steel behemoth and my buddy Mike getting ready for the '80 Irish Hills Tour 

(No, he wasn't the reigning World Champion at the time and yes he is wearing a skate board helmet.)

A bike upgrade and more recreational tours ensued. My riding partner at the time was a neighbor kid who was a year older than me. His parents took us to all of the local recreational rides. Our goal during these rides was to stay with the local racers for as long as we could. Eventually on one of these rides in '82 one of the racers suggested that we come out and give a local training race a try. So my buddy and I rode our bikes out to the local criterium that was located about 10 miles away. The course was a .8 mile flat, four corner affair in an industrial parkway. I got dropped, quickly. If memory serves me correctly I got lapped 7 or 8 times during the ensuing 60 minute race. I had no idea what I was doing. It didn't matter to me though. That was all it took. I was hooked. All I needed was a little taste and I have been addicted ever since. It is now thirty years later and I have yet to find a twelve step program that works.

Me doing my best Euro Guy Look for a HS Freshman Yearbook Photo Shoot

I think cycling beckoned to my "think outside the box" rebellious nature. I had played team sports when I was younger and although I enjoyed them they just didn't sing to me. Cycling was an entirely different thing. Give me my bike, my Walkman with auto-reverse and a mix tape of the Sex Pistols, Devo, the Smiths and New Order and Northwest Ohio in the eighties was not quite that terrible of a place.

Ever since I was bitten by the cycling bug as a kid the bike has always been a part of my life. There were years that I tried other endeavors like the period in college in the early nineties when I first discovered rock climbing. I put a lot of effort into climbing and approached it with a training mindset born from cycling. Even during the years that I was road tripping to climbing spots all over the country I still managed to ride and even enter the occasional bike race. A seven week road trip in 1993 was comprised of rock climbing in Leavenworth, Index, Smith Rocks, City of Rocks, American Fork Canyon, Devil's Tower, reaching the summit of Rainier for the first time.....and a bike race in Kent, Washington (along with my first ride on the BG Trail out to the Marymoor Velodrome for a few hot laps). My training for Denali in 1998 was comprised entirely of a spring of early season road races

Always the bike.....

I raced all over the Midwest and East Coast competing in such races as Superweek in Wisconsin (a.k.a. Christmas in July), the Tour de Moore in North Carolina, the National Capital Open held on the Ellipse in front of the White House, Windsor-Detroit on Labor Day, The Tours of Michigan and Ohio and Athens Twilight. I got my start on the track at the old Dorais Velodrome in Detroit getting advice yelled at me by two cycling legends, Mike Walden and Claire Young. I wasn't particularly good in those early years but it didn't matter. I still loved it.

Me rocking the hairnet, Adidas System 3's and Ray Bans at the Windsor Star Classic 1989

Training knowledge in NW Ohio was virtually non-existent when I started. Most of our summer training days were comprised of 1.5 to 2 hrs on the little ring with a few sprints thrown in. The remainder of the day was spent catching rays at the local swimming quarry Breaking Away style. In November the fixed gear went on (42x18 or so) and stayed on until almost March. When I moved to Columbus for college the cycling scene was much better there and I started to get a bit of a clue but still lacked the necessary discipline and dedication.

It took moving to Southern California for the light bulb to finally go from a dim flicker to actually turning on. I was very fortunate to become friends with a number of successful professionals and Olympians and see what real training was all about. But then the pendulum swung too far. I tried doing way too much volume and even though I had been racing for many years my body wasn't used to the work load. My other sin was being a slave to the many group rides that were available. These rides were fun but from a training standpoint proved counter-productive. They were too hard to be considered recovery but not hard enough to push the envelope. I spent a lot of time riding around at 75%. I improved, but never had the sharp edge needed to really perform at a high level. I was able to race on some pretty good teams during my time in So Cal and got a level of support that quite honestly a rider of my meager ability at that time didn't deserve. The learning process and love for the bike continued though.

About that same time I became a board member of the Encino Velodrome first as the race director and then president. Then I got my first sport director gig for an amateur team in 2002. 2003 followed with a job directing a professional team comprised of some Americans, some Australians and some New Zealanders. It was based out of New York. The team itself was a disaster and I would say "professional" in name only but I learned a lot of valuable lessons. I often think you can learn more from failure than you do from success.

2003 also saw a move from So Cal to the Pacific Northwest. I "stepped away" from cycling at the end of the season and focused on the task at hand which was managing a local climbing gym. Stepping away meant only doing a handful of races, not riding quite as much and rock climbing a little bit more.

Around 2005 some local businessmen discovered my cycling background and encouraged me to help them put on some bike races. I also started competing in more and more local races. The other thing that happened is that I spent a lot of time riding by myself (not a big cycling scene on the Kitsap Peninsula which is a 1 hour ferry ride from Seattle). Since I was working a full time job I also became very time disciplined and the B.S. rides came to an end. After getting some decent results and demonstrating that I knew my way around a bike race I was asked to join one of the better local teams. Rehab was over and I was back on the hard stuff. It was fantastic.

Victory is mine!

Fast forward to the present. Since I moved to the PNW I have promoted 10 races including 2 state championship events. I recently agreed to be the race director for the longest continuously held race in the country. I became a board member for the Washington State Bicycle Association which is the Local Association for USA Cycling and was elected president last year. 

I was a guest director for a team at Cascade in 2006 and even got to experience a stage win by one of the riders. From 2008 until May of this year I was the sport director for one of the most successful amateur programs in the country. In July I will be back at Cascade as a guest director for a continental team. 

Last year I also spent a lot of time expanding my knowledge base. I attended a couple of USA Cycling coaching seminars and became a Level 2 coach and am pursuing a Level 1 license. I have also had the good fortune of getting to work with some really great up and coming riders and I hope that trend continues. One rider that I have been working with for over four years now won his 7th National Championship in January and had the privilege of representing the US at the World Cyclocross Championships in Belgium. 

I have been a bike racer almost my entire life. There is nothing I know as much about as cycling. I have made some pretty bad decisions over the years because of it but at the end of the day all of my closest friends have come from cycling and it is a huge part of who I am.

Obsessed? Probably.

Addicted? Yes.

Better off because of it? Absolutely.

Let the evolution continue.....

Photo of me taken in a race just this past Saturday. 

Thanks for reading.

"the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes 'Awww!'
-Jack Kerouac, On the Road

Living the Dream

A master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between his work and his play; his labor and his leisure; his mind and his body; his education and his recreation. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence through whatever he is doing, and leaves others to determine whether he is working or playing. To himself, he always appears to be doing both.

-Francois Auguste Rene' Chateaubriand
 
That quote does a pretty good job summing up my existence as of late. Now, I would not be so bold to call myself a master of anything. I am not. If you consider yourself a master then you stand a good chance of falling into the trap of complacency. When that happens the pursuit of excellence comes to a screeching halt.
 
Rather, this quote for me sums up what happens when you are able to pursue your passion. The line between work and play becomes very fuzzy, almost non-existent. I have had the good fortune these past three years to be the sport director for The Hagens Berman Cycling Team. 2012 will be my fourth with the team. I have also started to expand my knowledge base by partaking in a number of coaching seminars in the past 12 months and toying with the idea of doing some coaching beyond the four athletes I currently work with. Prior to that I was was a climbing instructor/guide for over a decade.
 
The main take away is that I have been able to cobble together an income and live a life pursuing my passions. Am I getting rich off of it? No. Has it always been easy? No. Would I be able to do it without a partner of over 16 years who has always been supportive? No (and a big thank you to her for that). But what I am doing doesn't feel like work. And for that I am grateful because I really am living the dream.

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Best Training Tool Developed in the Past Decade? Powermeter? HR Monitor? I say, Neither.

I've been having some discussions lately with a few of my more training savvy friends on the pros and cons of training with power versus training with a heart rate monitor (as some are going back to HR such as Quick Step) and I've come to the conclusion that the best device for training that has come around in the past decade is the Ipod. It beats SRM's and HR Monitors hands down. I think I will just create playlists for training plans from here on out.

Today's playlist included songs by:
The Cult
Sisters of Mercy
Siousxsie and the Banshees
Shriekback
Nitzer Ebb
Front 242
The Stone Roses
Echo and the Bunnymen
Joy Division
New Order
The Cure
Big Audio Dynamite
Public Image Limited

I will let you figure out what zones I was riding in today.
With that, I will leave you with this:

For Sale: Campagnolo Nuovo Record Brakes

In an attempt to downsize I am going to be posting some stuff for sale from time to time.
This is the first in the installment.

I have a set of perfect condition, never been used, still in the box Campagnolo Nuovo Record brakes I am selling. They include: calipers, levers, cables and housing and the original box. They still have the blue cardboard on the adjusting barrel.

Pictures are below. I may or may not be putting these on Ebay (I have never been much of an Ebay guy). I will accept any reasonable offer. And by reasonable I mean this: I did not just fall off the turnip truck, I have been in the sport for a long time, I know what these are worth to a collector. That said, they are also doing me no good and I have had them for close to 20 years. So again, I will accept any reasonable offer.

Props From Cipo

I was just reading an article in Cyclingnews in which Cipollini was decrying the lack of machismo in today's cycling and it made me remember my brush with the great Italian sprinter who had a flair for the dramatic that is so missing from the current crop of pros.

I was working for a small frame manufacturer and we had a booth at Interbike back in 2007. It just so happens that we were also the official bike for the Susan G. Komen Foundation and we had 1 of those bikes on display at the bike show in my size. Pink of course.

2007 was the first year that the USA Crit Series held their final race in Vegas and they were also holding an industry crit as one of the events. I signed myself and one of our sponsored racers from the South Bay Wheelmen Women's Team up for the race and had my buddy at Champion Systems make up a special kit for us: all pink of course.

Now an important component of this story is that a friend of mine from Ann Arbor, Marne, was assisting us at our booth that year. Marne is a multi-sport athlete specializing in mtb, cross and Xterra events. Marne is also very....well let's just say that Marne is very easy on the eyes. Get the picture?

So the evening of the race I get changed into my all pink kit and proceed to ride my all pink bike down the Strip in Vegas on my way out to the race. I got stopped at a light and as I was sitting there I noticed a bike wheel roll up on my right side and a bike wheel roll up on my left side. I glance to my left: Massimiliano Lelli, and I glance to my right: Mario Cipollini. I nod to Cipollini and he asks in his heavy Italian accent:

"Are you riding out the bike race?"

"Yeah, I'm riding out the bike race.....are you riding out to the bike race?"

"Yes, we are. We don't know where it is. Mind if we join you?"

Pause..........

"Yeah, no problem." I offer my hand to shake, "My name is Joe."

"I am Mario, that is Max"

"Nice to meet you."

The three of us then proceed to roll a few more blocks down the Strip and we get caught at another light. As we are sitting there suddenly out of nowhere, Marne - tan, long brunette hair, easy-on-the-eyes Marne, wearing nothing but a running bra and short running shorts runs up to us from the sidewalk. She practically pushes Cipollini out of the way, grabs me, gives me a hug and a quick peck on the cheek, tells me good luck and she will be cheering for me at the race and then just as suddenly is gone, running down the sidewalk.

Cipollini looks at me, one eyebrow raised slightly and without a word, gives me the thumbs up.

I look back at him and reply, "I have no idea who that was but that happens all the time."

And then the light turned green and the three of us rolled on down the Strip.

WOODY HAYES, A LEGEND AMONG BUCKEYES

T-minus 2 days and counting to the biggest rivalry in sports and I have to devote some time to one of the greatest college football coaches of all time, a man whose name still invokes the type of reverence reserved for saints in the state of Ohio, Woody Hayes.

Woody Hayes was the Head Coach at OSU from 1951-1978. While at Ohio State, Woody Hayes coached the Buckeyes to a record of 205-68-10. Different people have different opinions of Woody, but all would agree on one thing -- he absolutely despised and refused to lose. People can label Woody Hayes as many things, but the one thing he was without question was a winner. He won four national championships, won 13 Big Ten titles, played in 8 Rose Bowls (including four straight from 72-75), produced 56 All-Americans, and had three Heisman Trophy winners.

The phrase "three yards and a cloud of dust" came from his conservative style of predominantly running the ball down opponent's throats. Woody believed that the pass should be used as an element of surprise; "There are three things that can happen when you pass, and two of them ain't good," he would say.

There are two stories that circulate about Woody Hayes that I love and they both involve his special hatred for that team from up north. Hayes was famous for his hatred for Michigan and anything that had to do with the state (he referred to it, of course, as "that state up north" or "that team up north"):

One night on a recruiting trip in the state of Michigan, an assistant noticed that the car he was driving was going to run out of gas. He told Woody, who was dozing in the passenger seat, that he had to pull over for gas. Woody refused, and the assistant drove on. The assistant, who saw the weather was starting to get bad, began to get worried about getting stuck in the middle of nowhere, and once again stressed his desire to pull over and get gas. Woody erupted: "No, goddammit! We do NOT pull in and fill up. And I'll tell you exactly why we don't. It's because I don't buy one goddam drop of gas in the state of Michigan! We'll coast and PUSH this goddam car to the Ohio line before I give this state a nickel of my money!" The assistant knew he wasn't kidding, and they barely made it across the border and sputtered into the first gas station they found in Ohio.

The second story comes from Ohio State's 50-14 drubbing of Michigan in 1968. The day after the landslide victory, then assistant coach Lou Holtz approached Woody and asked him why he opted to round off the win with a rub-their-noses-in-it, two point conversion after the Buckeye's final touchdown.

"Coach, why did you go for two?", asked Holtz.

"Because." replied Hayes, "they wouldn't let me go for three."

Hayes' competitive drive and legendary temper would prove to be his ultimate undoing. He was fired in 1978 after striking a Clemson linebacker named Charlie Bauman who intercepted a pass to clinch the game for the Tigers. Ohio State was embarrassed, and they had no choice but to immediately fire Woody Hayes.

That final incident left a sour impression on Hayes' brilliant career, and it is the picture that many college football fans envision when they think of Hayes. But that shouldn't take anything away from the fact that he is one of the greatest college coaches ever. Buckeye fans by and large still love The Old Man as he was known and remember very fondly the days when he was coach. For most Buckeye fans, Woody always has and always will be the very essence of Buckeye football.

The Bike Lane Discussion

A discussion got rolling on Facebook today spurred on by this article in the NYT

I have been able to enjoy some pretty nice bike lanes, most notably in the Agoura Hills/ Calabasas area of Southern CA where I lived for five years. It has been my experience though that these were the exception and not the norm.  I have to say that I am not a huge proponent of bike lanes. Typically they are nothing more than an after-thought, an existing shoulder that the municipality paints a bike outline in and proclaims it a bike lane. Then it is ignored and becomes a lane filled with debris that I, for one, have no interest in riding in. Then as you inch into the car lane you get nothing but grief from drivers yelling at you to "ride in the bike lane". I think bike lanes also reinforce the notion that cyclists have no business on the road, that they are second class citizens who belong in these lanes or on the sidewalks. I would prefer that more energy is put towards educating drivers to the rights that cyclists have and how to share the roads with them.

Thoughts?

Zen and the Art of Training:

In a recent exchange with the Hedge Fund, he had this to say which pretty much hits the nail on the head to what my approach has been for both myself and my young padwan (who will remain nameless to protect the "innocent" - most of you know who he is anyway).

"...but one thing I just haven't gotten into is the counting. I guess I'm like that with watts though...maybe it's useful to know sometimes, but on a certian level it makes my mind take over and deadens a bit fo the "feel" component. I believe more and more in getting your head around macro principles but then using a lot of intuition and personality and maybe you could even say personal expression for the rest. We've all got our own way of going about things and if you can plug into that, and treat your "training" and racing more like an art show than like a science experiment, I think that's when it starts to click. You've just gotta live it, and counting shit takes me out of that.”

Amen brother.

Tour of Walla Walla. A Tale of Soooo Close and Yet, So Far

I am back at the ToWW for the fifth year in a row. I did 3 as a rider and am now on my 2nd as a team director.  This is a race that comes really, really close to being a really good (maybe even great) race and yet every year it just falls short. Now I mean this as a constructive commentary in the hopes that the last few pieces can fall into place. Everything I mention is what the really successful NRC events are doing.  Some things that would take this race from a B- to an A include:

• Better Tech Guide. The stage maps look like an outline of a coffee spill. There are no turn by turn instructions or even cross roads named on the map. 
• True Neutral Wheel Support (at least for the Pro 1-2 men and women). Each rider here is paying a pretty hefty entry fee.  Spend a few hundred bucks to have a pro like Joe S come and do neutral tech support.  If not that then use the old "wheels in, wheels out" system.  They are using a "wheel lottery" system here. They randomly choose riders from teams and if chosen that team has to provide a set of wheels to the neutral follow vehicle for the use of any and all riders. All I know is that if I go to the trouble of bringing a spare set of wheels to put in the wheel car then I want to be able to use my wheels.  Why should I have to provide for somebody else if they can't go to the trouble?  And why if a team goes to the trouble of getting the resources to support their riders (car in the caravan) should they also have to provide for everyone else?  So: hire someone or use wheels in wheels out. 
• Have a start sheet with all the teams listed with their riders and numbers. And for god's sakes provide the riders on the same team with sequential numbers.  There was nothing provided at the manager's meeting with this sort of information so when Com 1 came on tour radio telling us riders 34, 78, 108 and 121 had 35 seconds on the field...well, you pretty much had to guess who they were.
• Tweak the schedule.  I said it before, but having a 7PM start time for a crit (second stage on the same day after a TT in the morning) and then a 9:25 start time for the RR the next morning is not Pro.  If this race ever takes the next step it just does not provide enough time for a team meeting, dinner, massage and then getting ready for the next day.
• Email the results in the evening or at least upload them to the website. It is the year 2010.  I heard the  internet is on computers now.  It is not hard to load an excel sheet with the results onto a site or attach it as an email to team directors or the riders. 
• Provide a little training to your volunteers who are driving vehicles in the caravan. Last year was a little touch and go and so was stage 1 this year.  A race caravan is not for the timid.  It makes an airport drop off at LAX during the holidays look tame.  It can also be down right dangerous for the riders.  Even saying simple things like don't leave too large of gaps in between cars and honk your horn when riders are advancing through the caravan would go a long way.

The Tour of Walla Walla is not a bad race.  The courses are good.  In fact, I love the downtown crit and the road courses are quite challenging.  Walla Walla itself is a great town and the host housing is top notch.  And the townsfolk love the race.  So, while being a good race, it could get better and it wouldn't take much.  With that said I also want to say thanks to all the people that make it possible.  A stage race is a huge undertaking and is one I would not want to attempt.  It's why I only promote crits-way easier.  So, my hat is off to the entire race staff.  Remember, this is just one racer's/ team manger's opinion.

Kudos.

A Brief Note to Stage Race Promoters:

Having a 9:25am start time for a road race the day after a double day which includes a morning TT and a criterium with a 7PM start time is probably not the best idea.  In fact, it is a really bad idea.  Especially when you consider that the Cat 3 men have an earlier crit start time (5:20PM) and a later RR start time the next day (10:45). 

Radio Bans

From Velonews:
Riis carefully directed Cancellara during the race from the passenger seat of the Saxo Bank team car. He revealed that he told Cancellara to attack when he did, after noticing that Tom Boonen was too far down the line of riders.Cancellara trusted his boss, didn't look back and opened up the after-burners, even though there was still 50 kilometres left to race. Before Boonen even realised what had happened and moved out of the line to look up the road, Cancellara had already opened a gap that would have been impossible for him to close."I told him to attack on the radio. As soon as I saw that Boonen was not on his wheel, I said: 'Now you go' ," Riis explained

So the UCI bans radios at all levels below class 1 to make racing more intuitive and less predictable, putting the onus on riders rather than their team directors to decide tactics.

I see that is working out well. Have they thought about banning televisions in the director's cars instead?

I am going to the AC/DC concert tonight and it is going to be awesome! One thing though, what exactly does a 41 year old wear to an AC/DC concert?

This is a test to see if I really can update my blog from my phone via email (because really, I am that busy and that important).

Hello Again

I am back, probably for a limited engagement, but I am back. I have been away, I have been busy. Busy training (because I love it), busy trying to develop racers to the best of my ability and knowledge (because I love it), busy racing my bike myself (because I love it) and busy working (because I have to but also because I am fortunate enough to earn an income doing things I love like direct a bike team and coach kids in climbing).

Because of some back and forth between myself and The Hedge Fund I directed him towards the Gym Jones site and Mark Twight. Twight and his writings have always resonated with me. Hedge already knew about Twight, which didn't surprise me because Hedge is not afraid of hard work and he is afraid of complacency and mediocrity.

I decided to check out the Gym Jones site again and came across this. I have probably posted this before. Well, I am going to post it again, because I like it.

In Defense of Elitism
As if it requires defending …Gym Jones is exclusive. We exclude. It is not a question of elitism vs. egalitarianism because there can be no question; the black belt is elite, the white belt is not. The black belt is earned through long, difficult work, rigorous education, commitment, and persistence. Not everyone gets a black belt. It's not T-Ball. We invite elite performers to train here because they foster the environment we prefer. It is the rare athlete who improves despite training exclusively with less capable practitioners and such exceptions may not be used to prove a rule. Talented athletes surround themselves with others of a similar or higher caliber – both mental and physical – and improve by doing so.
The parallel motive has to do with choosing who we want to spend our limited time with: why would we open our arms to any and everyone?

from www.cyclingnews.com:

USA Cycling seeks volunteer collegiate conference director

USA Cycling is recruiting a volunteer director of the Atlantic Collegiate Cycling Conference (ACCC) which covers North Carolina, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia and Washington, D.C.). The volunteer will work to promote the growth of collegiate cycling through individual membership growth, member retention, club stability, and new club development and will attend conference-related races, events and schools to support conference activities. He or she will coordinate conference scoring, results and rankings for each race, event and season and contribute conference news to USAC's website and other outlets. The position will require significant work during business hours.

Seriously USAC?, volunteer? Are you kidding me? Especially when the job description states that the position "will require significant work during business hours." I mean WTF?! Is this part of their long term plan to promote cycling in this country, seek volunteers to run multi-state conferences?

Le Roi D'Hiver makes his return...to the streets of Bremerton.