Looking Forward

I get a lot of songs stuck in my head lately. Yesterday, the (Jamaican) electrician was playing a bunch of reggae. I'm generally a gigantic reggae fan, have been since I was about 13, but sometimes those reggae guys do some weird stuff. Like did you know that Celine Dion is a HUGE favorite among the dance hall dj scene? Which is how you wind up with Aswad or someone who sounds like them covering Ace of Base "Don't Turn Around". I generally consider Ace of Base to be about the worst thing that's ever happened to music (apart from Celine Dion herself), but this was a pretty catchy treatment and now it's planted in my head.

Next week, I'll contribute to the awful "best of" phenomenon when I name the Brewery of the Year, but generally it's pretty remarkable how bike racers look forward. TY2012 (that's "training year") is already well underway except for the people doing CX Nats or Masters Worlds next month. I've got a bunch of notes from last spring's training, which will be really helpful since I hit some things just the way I wanted to, and missed on others. But except for a point of reference, there's no rosy afterglow, it's just onto the next.

2012 took a nasty turn already two weeks ago, when my training partner had a bad non-bike injury that will cause trainus interruptus for a few weeks. We'd planned some early season stuff that just ain't going to happen now (it's hard to race with your right arm in a sling) so you stay thankful that it wasn't worse, and adapt and move on.

November 29er test bikes coming in a few weeks. Freaking psyched. Killington's a big one again for me this year, but other than that the MASS races are what I'm most psyched for. Lots of road races too, but with the womenfolk focusing on them plus the November role to play and trying to do care and feeding of the team that slides back a bit except as buildup for Killington.

Few amusing anecdotes or pithy comments to relate, it just seemed that the news roll didn't have anything new. So I hope I've staved off some amount of boredom. The Newsletter takes most of my mojo. If you don't get that, do sign up: www.novemberbicycles.com/subscribe.

Feliz navidad y año nuevo and all the rest of what you might be celebrating or not. At least a few extra days of sleeping in and more time to ride coming up for many.

New lows of boring writing there.