Also known as RAAM - this is the probably the hardest bicycle race in America, and quite possibly the hardest bicycle race in the world.  It’s also one that unless your a bike geek, you probably have never even heard of it.

I have heard of it, but there was so much stuff about this race I didn’t know until I started reading this book.

I can “almost” say this book captures the competition better than any TV Coverage could, especially when it comes to Ultra Endurance Racing – which btw – I know nothing about.  LOL.

My closest experience to this would be being on a four man team at a 24 hour mountainbike race – and that would be several years ago.  Yet reading this book, brought back memories of those races, and the similar issues about what the team in front of you is doing and that team that may be sneaking up behind you.  It was really a cool flashback.

Ms. Snyder’s book is about the 2009 edition of the race, if I wasn’t lazy I’d open the cover and tell you when it was printed.  She has an epilogue that dates late 2010.   Her book pretty much chronicles the solo riders, and the primary antagonist is Jure Robic (you’ll have to google it), but he’s basically the Lance Armstrong of this race.  His main opponent is a guy named Dani Wyss.  (nope they’re not American as we can’t even win our own damned bike races)

The book goes into detail about all the little stats you never dreamed of, and some of the ones I found most interesting were those that compared the race to the Tour De France.  There’s one especially interesting one that talks about one of the solo riders training with a ProTour team over here and smoking the best rider of the day to the top of a climb, that rider Dave Zabriskie.  The RAAM contestent was in his early 40′s.

Which I found to be very interesting, most of the solo rider are all middle aged.   The young rookies finish days behind.

The race covers 3000 Miles, starts in Oceanside, CA, and finishes in Annapolis, MD, and from what I can gather it passes through WV every year.   I guess the course does change a bit, but that’s the general.  Here’s a sample map and I don’t know what year it’s from:

The book talks about the riders coming over here a few weeks early to train in the desert, and offers insights to the various strategies.  Some rest early to bank rest, while others will pedal for two days straight!!   I do good to pedal two freaking hours straight!!

Some even get a condition called Shermer’s Neck (or something like that), and the name comes from a RAAM rider!  It’s where they’re riding so long they’re neck muscles just quit, and there head just bobs on their shoulder’s like a puppet with no string.   Yet they rig up these contraptions to hold their head up to finish the race – take a look:

You can Google or Bing more images of various contraptions that get rigged up to deal with the neck issue.   Makes my foot falling asleep while I’m taking a shit seem pathetic.

At the end of the day, this was a very damned good book about bicycle racing.   It talks about the women solo riders and the rules along with a young American rookie’s bid to be the fastest rookie.   It’s a quick read, and it got me hooked quickly, it will make some of your rides seem pretty much like most of mine are these days….

WIMPY.

Nevertheless if you want to purchase it from Amazon.com – click here and order it, I think I may get like 1/2 of 1/2 of 3/4′s of 2/3rds of one cent.

Ok I just purchased this on Tuesday May 8th, for $5 through Amazon’s 100 for $5 ea sale.  You should check it out there’s a few good albums on there and it probably doesn’t matter what your tunage taste is.  All this assumes I get the post up in time.

Man this is the first time I’ve listened to this band, and if Powerslave Maiden, Iced Earth, King Diamond, and Ram It Down Priest had a bastard child, this has to be what it would sound like.

I don’t know how else to describe it.   The metal is very much in the vein of any of those bands I’ve mentioned above.

The music is fast, the riffs are good, and the singer can belt out the notes.

My biggest problem has to be the song writing.  It seems to go all over the place from mythical battle scenes, to the lead track Metal Woman – see the video below.   Shit there’s a song about Hockey Fights I guess, with Leave It On The Ice.

I don’t know the subject matter seems to bounce around all over the place and it’s just hard to get a grip on it for me.   There’s a few songs I gave a four on, but I’ll be honest, this band probably should be glad it’s in the $5 bin as they may pick up some new fans, because if it was in the $10 bin, well you may feel a little disappointed.  I would.  But that all depends on how you like your metal and the way you like your riffs to sound between each song.

If you like them the same, you’ll love this disc.

Most of the songs I gave twos, Metal Woman I gave a four just due to the chicks in the video.   There’s a few more threes.  But again it all depends what you like.

I will say this, it’s made me go back and listen to some Iced Earth.

Metal Woman

It’s Friday, it’s late, and I’ve nothing to do but contemplate my existance.  BTW, rumors of it’s demise are greatly exagerated.

You know I’ve been great this week, I think I alluded to that in my last post, but yeah I think I have.   Was looking forward to some binging on some cold beers in an out and about setting with some friends.

But alas those fuckers are either out of town, or didn’t come into town.

So here I sit.

After a short bike ride – say about an hour – came home and caught up on some TV, got an incling of the slowness of the eve that awaits me, and well decided to open up a Dead Guy Ale.  Crank some tunes, and work on some photos.

I know, you’re wishing you could join me.  But you can’t.  This is a private party and no one’s invited.  After all I’ve a dead guy can only be shared for so long.

Let’s see I could back up a bit and say that since Tuesday was my last real post that I guess I posted on Wednsday, there’s still Wednsday and Thursday to tell you about.

Wednsday – nothing, that’s right came home and did nothing – well except maybe wrote something about Tuesday.

Thursday – yeah did go to the Y, after spending the day in Clarksburg.  Then I did a short spin on the trainer at the Y and read the latest issue of Discover Magazine that they had.  Came home and mowed grass.

Friday (today) I woke up at 245lbs, and feeling pretty good.

I ate well today, and hell I ate pretty good this eve, (other than this Dead Guy that I’m soon replacing with a Great Lakes Brewing Elliot Ness so excuse me for a second)……

…… one thousand one……

Ok I’m back, where was I?   Basically what I was getting at is I’m pleasantly surprised with myself, dinner was a piece of turkey and some grapes. (again, we’re not talking about the beverages lol)

Hopefully I’ll say something more about the weekend… we’ll see.

The picture is simply some Grassfed Beef, served with some Steamed Kale over loose leaf lettuce, with some Flax Oil, and a side of Cantelope.   The beef was simply coated with some McCormack low Sodium Montreal Season

Today was election day, and us State Workers were of course off doing our due dilligence voting for people in prison.   High Class Society here.  Nevertheless, my plan was to ride today, and maybe even do some other physically constructive activity – but it rained.  It rained hard at times.  We’re talking overflowing gutters, cats and dogs style drenching here.

No I wasn’t going to ride -

outside

Yes, true to form I managed to ride inside, and even get another little workout in.   Can you believe it?  Hell must have frozen over.

I guess the ride on the trainer was pretty easy, but I did spin for about an hour watching some TV.

Then it was mostly food and stuff.

More protien and veggie meals.

The picture here was grilled Cod on a bed of Kale with walnuts and apple slices.  I think it was pretty good.  But I over cooked a bit I think.

Nevertheless the day was a resounding success… stayed clean, the liver did some regenerating and some calories burned.

This is otherwise known as “preclude to failure” as it so often does.

See over the last couple weeks I’ve been doing pretty good about watching what I eat and actually exercising pretty regularly, which all pretty much started back with that KT Ride.

But for whatever reason, I’m not seeing results so much where I want to see the results.

Remember the motto should be:  Look, Feel, and Perform Better.

Well I have the “Feel”, and the “Perform Better” positives, as I’ve climbed some hills recently that I haven’t climbed in quite sometime, and well overall I feel pretty damned good.

It’s that “Look” thing though.

I don’t look any better.  I say this after pretty diligently watching what I eat for about two weeks.  Yes there’s the probably more than occasional wing night, or the drunken stupor that leads to too many days of drinking and not giving a shit about anything (just recently), and of course mixing wings and beer leads to the occasional pizza pie or potato chip and dip splurge (which had been happening on Sunday’s during Game Of Thrones).

So I decided I was going to be more strick with the ol’ diet.

This started Monday.

Planned my day out, shit, I’ve got my week planned out.  Grocery list made, etc.  Doing good.

Monday’s plan was Salmon and Kale for breakfast, with similar styled dishes for lunch and dinner.  Basically chunk of protein and some veggies.

Poached Salmon, Tomato & Kale w. Flax – Breakfast  – 356 Total Calories

Recipe: Poach Salmon; steam kale. Slice tomato and combine all three; drizzle oil and flax seed on top.

Kale, Raw
Tomatoes,  
Extra Virgin Olive Oil Olive Oil
Oven Poached Salmon                  
Flax Seed, Hodgson Mill Flax Seed  

btw this recipie is courtesy of Nell Stephenson – she typically cranks out all kinds of quick and easy ones, I simply modified the portions.

Also on the agenda was going to the Y – I typically do this twice a week and shoot for Monday’s and Thursdays, and well being off on Monday made a great day to do this during the day.  Came back mowed grass and then did a short easy ride on the Erwin.

Notice how I switched that up -  instead of ride, then mow, it was mow then ride.   Mainly I did this because it looked like rain out and I wanted to get the grass cut, but secondly I thought hmmmm maybe I wouldn’t have that Pavlovian Response for a beer after mowing grass if I went for an easy ride.

Well no such luck, once I got in from the ride, I said what the hell..  Michelob Ultra it is.

Then the phone rings, and some co-workers wanted to meet me at La-Roca for some drinks – I’m off Tuesday due to Election Day….   “Sure, I can meet you at 6!!”

So the plan is becoming derailed, I decide the Mexican chicken salad is always safe, and drink a few Ultra’s we’ll stay in line calorie wise with the exercising and all.

Well arriving after a couple additional Ultra’s, and start socializing with some Large Bud – Lights..

(insert mental image of train-wreck here)

The table next to me had this weird dish served in a pineapple – basically it’s fajita style meat and veggies served with pineapple in the pineapple.   I got that, and well I only ate half of it.   So I think it was a fairly paleo dish, and well I didn’t eat it all.  But I compromised with a few Margareta’s.

The wheels have now totally came off…

But I wasn’t done….

Getting home about 10ish, I decide I’m going to watch a movie – you can’t watch a moview without Pizza, and there just happens to be some frozen pizza in the fridge.

Hell Yeah!!

There seems to be this huge popularity of all things sleaze – you may have heard of bands like Crash Diet or Vains of Jenna.   Well here’s one that I came across thanks to MetalSucks and their Shit That Comes Out Today weekly post.  Crazy Lixx and Riot Avenue.

I don’t know much about this band and just decided to buy it to have something different to listen to..  pretty damned glad I did.

Anyhow, I guess this is their 3rd disc – you can wiki yourself and find a shit load more I’m sure.

It doesn’t take more than a few riffs from the dual guitars on the first track – Whiskey Tango Foxtrot – to see immediately what this band is like.  If you like good rock and roll you’ll enjoy this…  So What The Fuck  (get it “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot – WTF”).

You’ll be humming along before you even realize…

BTW -  I’m giving this first track three of those pesky iTunes stars.  It’s a catchy track and by all means one of the best lead off tracks on a disc I’ve purchased all year.  There’s just something that’s not taking it to the next level for me and I can’t put my finger on it.

Young Blood is the next track and it’s a testosterone filled track about a young chick ripping you up.   Good song, a little repetitive, but it’s such a refreshing breadth of fresh air in it’s nod to the my past.. that I can’t say too much bad about it.  Therefore another 3 iTunes stars.

The title track is on deck now – Riot Avenue – it’s my first four stars.  I may be being a bit generous, but I like the catchy rythym starting out, and the course takes me back to parachute pants and listening to Quiet Riot walking to catch the bus.  Nice guitar hooks are peppered throughout, and the lyrics to the song are well thought out.  Admittedly it’s not up there with some of more favorite tunes say from L.A. Guns or so – but it’s pretty damned good and I don’t give half stars.

The fourth track – Fire It Up – is much like the first two songs, and by now the ground isn’t being broken or expanded upon I get the sensation I know where the train is heading and I like the destination – there just may not be no crescendo – if any of that vague gibberish makes sense.  Basically in “laymen’s terms” – I like the song, it sounds good, but it’s time to change it up.  If it was the first song I’d give it three stars, but it’s now the fourth, so I’ve somewhat heard it already and I have to give it two stars.

Next we take a trip Downtown, my personal thought is this song could be much better, but it’s got some cool lines like “the drinks are on me, you know she can’t afford it..“  I just can’t figure if Steel Panther sells those lines better.  They’re blurring the lines between “sleaze” and “cheese” a bit too much here.  Just my take two stars.

In The Night is the first single from this disc and can be listened to here:

I can see why, I personally think Riot Avenue would have been a better choice – but there’s people that know more about these decisions than me so I can deal with that. lol. My problem is that this just falls on the 3.4 side of 3.5 as opposed to where Riot Avenue fell on the 3.6 side. Three Stars.

Now our we venture into the Church Of Rock, it’s got that bluesy riff and and hook that made Whitesnake famous. It’s a good catchy tune. Maybe a bit Jack Black’ish for some but damn we’re not talking thought provoking stuff here… just Rock N’ Roll – four stars.

We’re coming out of the church to take a ride on the Heatseeker. Some cool guitar parts, that’s about it… two stars.

“you’re the dirty dancer and I’m the stripper pole” – Damn you have to like any song with a line like that. Sweet, Bad, and Beautiful is the title of this tune. Much like the rest of the disc so far, this song does blend in with all the others and doesn’t stand out. Catchy lyrics, catchy riffs, and catchy hooks – but one has to ask by now what other tricks are in the hat? Three Stars.

Be Gone follows up that last tune. This is ok, but like the last three stars.

Last up you need to grab you’re cell phone quickly download the cigarette lighter app, and strike a pose, as we have the all important ballad with Only The Dead Know. I think it’s a pretty good tune, maybe they should have put up sooner in the rotation to break up some of the similarity of the other songs. But it’s last, and so we evaluate it in that context. Three Stars.

Overall Riot Avenue is a pretty good disc and does hark-en back to the hey day of metal. I like it and am currently enjoying the shit out of it. However there’s nothing on it like the first few bars of say BuckCherry’s Crazy Bitch. Nothing like Welcome To The Jungle, and definitely nothing written that would remind you of Hanoi Rocks. I just feel as I said in one of the tracks above… the line is blurred between “sleaze” and “cheese”.   But as they say “It’s only rock n’ roll and I like it!”

Unfiltered and unfettered, Circus Boy is a unique and refreshing American-style Hefeweizen. Is he a who? Or a what? Or perhaps some of both? Be amazed by the flavorful haze of this wonderful wheat beer.

Damn, I don’t know where I was when I picked up the six pack of this beer, yet I’m pleasantly surprised that I did.  I’m guessing I picked it up at Kroger’s somewhere, but not sure.  Anyhow, it’s a beer for us beer drinking light weights…

Yes we all know who we are…. “We are Legion – we like Bud Light”,  this is the craft beer for you.  If you can really call Magic Hat brewing a craft beer as they are pretty large out of Burlington Vermont.

This beer is a Hefeweizen – what is a “Hefeweizen” you say, well let’s bounce right on over to Wikipedia and find out…

“Hefe” is German for “yeast”, and “weizen” for “wheat”  – so basically it’s yeast and wheat and it’s given me an infection for more!

The following can be found from my beerAdvocate review:

The appearance is like a good vitamin laced moment of relief. Dark orangish yellow.

The Smell is a bit fruity, mine I thought had that flat tasting smell, but that sounds like a bad thing – I guess smell wise it is.
The taste I like, so even though my smell rating was average I liked the taste of this. Crisp, almost Bud Light (the masses scream in hate and amass outside my door with pitchforks and torches). After reading the other reviews of this beer, I can definitely taste the “black pepper” and it does bring out the other flavors. It must be Lemon Pepper – I don’t know, but the taste is a crisp fruit peppery taste.

Mouthfeel I mentioned is crisp.

Overall this is a pretty damned good offering from the boys and girls from Magic Hat. I would definitely drink more of it.

And here’s the beerAdvocate totals:

4.03/5  rDev +16.5% look: 4 | smell: 3 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 4 | overall: 4

A few weeks ago, I committed to doing a bike ride with some friends, I think it was around the first weekend of April.  The date for the most part is pretty irrelevant, as the relevant part is that I agreed to it.

I even remember being at the Outback eating one of their steak wedge salads and drinking, thus making my ego swell.  Obviously a lesson in humility awaited me.  But rest assured this post isn’t half as interesting as my suffering as I don’t really recall how I felt for the most part.   It was fucking tough, just know that.

You see, this section of trail is a trail I’ve always hated.  No not “hated” as in “disliked”… I truly “HATE” this section of trail.  It’s not a trail for fat guys.

It’s not a trail for big guys..

To be honest, I used to think it wasn’t even fit for a hiker.  The trail sucked.  It was this “UP”, then “Down”,  Then “UPPP”, then down… and that process repeated itself for I don’t know how many times.  I think four times total, with one section being a total HIKE-A-BIKE.

But…

I was feeling good – as I usually am with a few brews under the belt, and I committed to the ride.

I’ve been riding – nothing to the degree of difficulty this would be – but I’ve been riding, so I knew the issues I was going to have.

See, if you just flash back a few posts (as I’ve been posting so regularly), you know that I have this aFib issue going on.  Well sometimes I feel it’s a built in excuse…  Don’t get me wrong I feel it now that I know what I’m looking for.  But I’m also aware that I’ve never been this fucking fat in my life.

I mean look at that picture – I’m about 6 months – my Photoshop skills can’t even help that one.

So with that, and the warning to my pals that my jokes about impending heart attacks carry a lot more weight than they used to.. well I committed to riding.

I’m glad I did.. it was awesome to get out, and I don’t care how much I hated this section of trail.. I want to use it as “benchmark” material.  Here I am at the lowest, let’s see where we end up.

Least that’s my plan.. and no I haven’t ridden it since.  Yet, it has got me thinking and motivated.

For about a week now, I’ve been pretty damned dilligent about diet and riding and even more.  Hell I almost joined a CrossFit gym..  the finances didn’t quite allow that but I was close to it, and still may.

You say, what about the aFib – well that sucks and it is a fucking issue, but how much of an issue is up for debate.

How much of an issue is it that I’m a total fat ass right now?  I think that has more bearing on my miserableness when I’m riding or walking up the steps to my office, than an out of sync beat.    Not saying the beat doesn’t have an affect, but I think there’s other stuff that has more of an affect, and let’s get that dialed in first, and then be ready for the other.  My plan anyway.

Plus, I want to give ol’ Sawbones the best chance at success when I have this aFib worked on.  My plan is to be in decent shape…

Decent shape as attained in the amount of time possible…  That means…

I’m going to ride…

I’m going to watch what I eat…

I’m going to the Y two or three times a week….

I’m going to do more..

This “more” is the CrossFit workouts I’ve mentioned previously…  No the Gym is a bit still out of reach, but there’s thousands of websites that give you “WOD”s – “Workout Of The Day” and I’ve decided I’m adding that to a minimum of three times a week.

So is this all it takes?

I don’t know, but this is where I’m going..   we’ll see if it kills me.

Here’s a bit of info about the ride for which I speak…

I watched WVU beat USF yesterday starting at 11:30 and that was me at BW’s eating wings and drinking beer.  (left overs I think are going in the oven soon)

Came home passed ou  fell asleep, and then woke up about 10 PM, missing an invitation to meet some friends out for Mexican.  But Missing friends is one thing, but I followed through with heading out and seeing them at their house and enjoying pilsners way up into the early morning watching the Asshole play Skyrim.

I think I passed ou fell asleep AGAIN about 4AM, and soon woke up about 6AM to which I came home.

Loaded with beer I’ve been giving baths to dogs, packing clothes for the week, and surfing the net.

As I was surfing, or maybe I should say “stumbling” through the internet, I came across the video below.

Remember the band TOTO?  and their song “Africa“??

I hate to say it, but I did like that song, well the video posted below is by a band (??) called Robot Zombie - I say “band” because I’m not sure that their’s more than one member.  Anyhow, it’s a pretty talented remake, or home project, or whatever.  Plus if the dude is actually singing this, and from what I gather he is, it’s a pretty damned good job.  Not to mention it’s a “lesson” into current Metal music and how to construct songs and vocals.

Least I think it is.

Check it out the Kazoo solo about the 3:03 mark:

What did you think?

Anyhow it gave me a good chuckle, but that may be because I cleaned the beer out of my friends fridge this morning…

Also check out Sunday Morning Coming Down…

Forget when I purchased this six pack, a few weeks ago I’m sure, there’s a few still left, and well there is now one less.  But this is one of Flying Dog’s seasonal offerings.  This is a “Beire De Garbe”  which Flying Dog describes as a french farm house ale that’s brewed in March for drinking during the summer months. This description could have been taken directly from WikiPedia as their description goes on to describe them as being from the ”Pas-de-Calais region of France“.  Plus a little more as for origin of the term and a couple of french beers.

Well my first thought is that it is supposed to be drank in the summer why the hell is Kroger selling it around Christmas as a seasonal offering.  So naturally I’m concerned about the quality of the product I’m drinking.

But oh what the hell in the BeerAdvocate format here goes…..

Appearance – I poured this from a bottle into a glass, and like the style – Biere de Garde – says it did leave a nice head with a golden color.  The color is more of a burnt gold color, but easy to see through.  Wonder if you can make a camera filter line based on ales and beers?  That would be interesting wouldn’t it?

I think I should have probably smelled this out of the bottle as once in my glass it’s hard to smell with openness of the glass.  However my bluetick senses detect fruit, maybe cherry with a hint of lime or lemon and almost peppery.  Lemon Pepper or maybe a Lime Pepper if there is even such a thing.

The taste is tight, it’s crisp, not hoppy in my opinion but I guess its the malt that I’m tasting that is standing out.  It’s good, but I don’t know if I’d want too many back to back, I’m going with slightly better than average.

Mouthfeel – well I like crisp this has that.  It’s almost like putting pop rocks on my tongue as the beer splashes over it.  I’m going with 4.5 only because the beerAdvocate guys say 5′s should be rare.

Overall a pretty damned decent beer. 4

 

3.83/5  rDev +12% look: 4 | smell: 4 | taste: 3.5 | feel: 4.5 | overall: 4