Interest-Ing

Great ride in CT on Saturday. I didn’t even mind that it started raining halfway through. Fairfield County sure can throw up a nasty McMansion with the best of ‘em, but I have to say that the older houses there have a style that very much appeals to me. The old red New England farmhouse is pretty much the perfect joint for me. In any case, 40 miles of totally unfamiliar and interesting country roads did the trick. I think there is actually some training benefit to roads you’ve never ridden, like when the surprise short 12% climb shows up around the corner and you have to deal with it. Maybe it was just a nice ride.

Driving home yesterday, we saw an endless stream of ‘cross bikes leaving the greater downtown Baltimore area. It must have been a great day for the Charm City Race. And isn’t Baltimore a truly charming city?

For Ferris Bueller fans out there who didn’t know this, Ben Stein (“something ‘d-o-o’ economics, anybody, anybody”) is actually a pretty sharp economist who has a column in the Sunday Times’ Business Section. I thought yesterday’s article was a good one. You have to log in to read the whole thing, but NYT does give you an impressive amount of info for free (they just made all of their “premium” content – mostly the op-eds – available gratis) so it’s not a bad idea to take the big leap. And have people been noticing the nice run up in gold prices lately?

Speaking of big leaps, Mike at Gamjams.net makes an interesting proposal for a new, totally novice oriented race team, which you don’t have to sign in to read: I think the idea has a lot of validity. If he is able to generate a lot of interest from would-be racers, I think the other issues surrounding it are readily solved. Such as I am able, I’d be happy to help him has out a plan.

Apart from the question of whether or not you are ready to race (posed in the Flamenco archives how are people attracted to racing? I rode around aimlessly for years, never with any ambitions other than to stay in some semblance of shape and to regularly make weight at regattas with relative ease. When we moved to DC, the Sunday 10am ride got me thinking a little bit about racing, but it was two years of thinking about it before I actually did it.

Finally, I’m really glad I didn’t go sailing this weekend. Our host in CT sailed with the boat this weekend and he said it was just a fiasco. Apparently, pretty much nothing went right and they won the Lanterne Rouge. Of course, had I gone, I’d like to think I could have made a difference but that really wasn’t what I was looking for out of this weekend. I just wanted to wake up late, go for a nice ride and load up on cocktails and canapés all evening. Mission accomplished.

Oh yeah, sign up for the Ed Sander race if you are going to do it. Mark my words - 3 minute max lines at registration.