Catch-up

Oh man! I know I promised I'd fill ya'll in on what's been going on down here in the Caribbean, but the truth of the matter is I can't write fast enough to keep up with all the crazy S&#@. So here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to make a solemn promise to all ten of you people reading this blog that as soon as I get back to the states and wash all the sand out of my hair and maybe get an IV or two I'll write up a detailed report of this wacky adventure and slap ya'll upside the head with a whole pantload of photos. Until then I'll just rap at ya a wee bit so we're all generally on the same page.

Saturday night: We ride in a banana crit (two 180 degree turns) in almost total darkness during a tropical storm. I couldn't draft because the rear wheel in front of me threw up so much rain it felt like I was getting waterboarded. Jamie and Phil rode away from the field and I won the sprint for 3rd. Domination.

Sunday, 5:30 am we wake up and went to do the most ridiculous road race ever. Never a straight piece of road, never flat, never good pavement, never closed to traffic. Absolutely insane. Weather.com said 95, feels like 109. Phil won solo by 12 minutes over the field. I rolled third. Phil won the overall by a ton. Madness! (sidenote: best host family ever. Wayne, Karen and Gabrielle are simply fantastic.)

Monday. 3:50 am we get up to get back to Port of Spain to catch the ferry to Tobago. Sooooo tired. I got our bikes through security because the guy recognized me from the cover of the paper. Security girl got a photo with me. Best moment of my life. Mildly seasick as boats and diesel remind me of the (fishing) boat times. That was our first date.

Tuesday. we spend the majority of the day in a windowless room. Air conditioner has been raised to the status of minor deity. We do an easy ride to the beach and give the locals a bit of a show as we change into swim attire. Water is as warm as a bathtub and feels amazing.

Wednesday. Stage one of Tobago. 10 laps of a flatish 10k circuit. I busted out the first sprint and then missed the break like a sally prissypants. Jamie Sparling rocked the break like a champ. Phil gets deathly ill and makes it to within 8 seconds of the break before dying on the road. We get no bottles for half the race. Feels like I'm racing in a sauna. Jamie barely misses the win, takes third and puts 6 minutes into the field. Schwing!

Today (Thursday) 5:00 am. Up for the time trial on the same circuit. I feel pretty awesome (sarcasm). Seems as though my limbs are balloons, I am dizzy and every pore on my body is like a faucet. And its only 6:30 am. Phil is deep in the hurt box and does not even get out of bed. Jamie smashes the TT and takes the lead by 38 seconds. He wins because of my awesome skinsuit and booties. I want to punch him in the nuts because this means we will have to defend on this afternoon's terrifying circuit, but instead I give him the side pound and cheer.

Today (Thursday) 2:00 pm. We ride in defense of the jersey. If I'd known how painful this would be I probably would have slashed the tires on Jamie's TT bike. The team is full of warriors. Though the course features a few long pitches of 20% we smash our heads into the wall (figuratively) and hang tough. These guys are absolute animals. Again, as always, it is hotter than two rats "making love" in a wool sock. I think I used up about 5 of my 9 lives out there today. Whatever we did, it worked. Sparling still has a solid lead in the GC and we get to take that into a rest day tomorrow, which means snorkeling, glass bottom boats, jetskis, steel drums, and a whole lot of lying around. I may just get a floaty and a five gallon jug of water and see where the current takes me.

Tobago 2010 is pretty much a complete shitshow and when I fill in the details it will blow your minds.

Double Whammy

I don't usually go the boastful route, but I'm damn proud of my win yesterday. That's right! Ryan J. Parnes is the two time winner of the Newsday Cycling Classic. I say "my" win, but we all know it takes a team to win these races, and my team absolutely slayed it yesterday. Jamie Sparling was OTF for most of the race on a kamikaze solo mission, and he singlehandedly softened up the legs of the field while Mooney, Atze and Nathan covered anything that so much as twitched in the field. I got a free ride all the way to the finish thanks to their hard work. It was like riding a big puffy cloud... well, it was until I got caught behind a pileup in the treacherous second corner; the very same corner that I had assured Mr. Mooney was nothing to worry about.

Oh well. I snagged a free lap and got right back into the mix with just a few cuts and bruises to show for my trouble. The field continued their bonzai chase and managed, with great effort, to pull Jamie back with just a lap and a half to go. I managed to muscle my way into the Trek Team leadout and came around Gene "Geronimo" Samuel for the dub, with my friend Adam Alexander of Team Foundation in 3rd. Its a hell of a way to sart the trip. The team is even stronger than last year and this should be two awesome weeks of racing.

Time to hit the road and try to spin some of the post-crash soreness out. I'm hardly banged up at all: P$ put some bandaids on my elbow yesterday and it just looks like I cut myself shaving.

We're back with Wayne and his wonderful family for the rest of the San Fernando races. They take such good care of us that I feel more like sitting around drinking coffee and eatng all day, so I should probably get up and go now or I might never make it. Rage on, ragers.

Interwhat?

We're not getting a ton of love on the interweb front, so updates might be few and far between, but I'll give you what I can when I can. Our flight out of Miami sat on the tarmac for close to two hours so we didn't get into Trinidad and through customs until like 1am. After a moderately terrifying drive to the hotel we went went out for some doubles and apple soda. A double is like a fried dough tortilla-ish thing heaped with spicy chickpea curry. Awesome! Nothing like some 2am street food.

We spent the next day building bikes, sightseeing, and doing a small press conference at Mikes Bikes. We got some love from both the print media and TV and although we were pretty reasonable they took some artistic liberties with out quotes and we ended up sounding like Cavendish. I'll try to get a copy of the full article which came out in the paper today, but until then this will have to tide you over.

We're only two days into this trip and we've pretty much hit all the major culinary landmarks: doubles, roti (awesome curry served with piles of baked dough), bake and shark (fried shark on fried dough), and pholourie (fried, curried dough). Toss in some fresh made ice cream and its been a hell of an eating binge. Good thing its flat stages until Tobago.

I'll try to snag some photos from the other guys, but to tide you over here are some shots from our first ride around the Queen's Park Savannah. Now its time to kick back, put the legs up and prepare for tonight's Newsday Cycling Classic. Woo!

The Golden Years (read: days)

P$ and I spent the better part of a day at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. That place is pretty incredible, and I even managed to drag Phil away from the rock exhibits to explore the rest of the place. From mummies to mastodons the museum had it all, but the most surprising exhibit was a number of small Russian sculptures depicting peasant life:The crazy part is those sculptures were assembled from different precious stones and gems. Wild!

In the afternoon we took a ride over to Golden to check out the Coors brewery, the biggest in the world, and spend some quality time with the 25-cog on Lookout. Before we made it to the climb we had a run-in with the worst bike shop service I've ever encountered. Phil blew a Specialized tire about a half mile out of town, but as luck would have it Peak Cycles, a Specialized dealer, was just a 2 minute ride away. I took the faulty tire into the shop where the guy lied about Specialized's unconditional lifetime warranty, demanded the receipt for the tire and then sent me on my way without any help, leaving us stranded miles from home. Peak Cycles of Golden, CO: you suck. Hard to believe dicks like this are still in business. I'm definitely going to report them to Specialized. I rode all the way back home and got the car and a spare wheel and we had just enough time to get up to the top of Lookout. We were rewarded with some spectacular views and a display of such unadulterated awesomeness that it almost exploded my head.

Here's Phil at the top of the climb. You can see the road snaking up behind him.
And here are two absolute lunatics who were prepping to rip down the descent on longboards. They were stoked that two roadies were interested and they let us follow them as they absolutely FLEW down the mountain. They had plastic pucks on the palms of their gloves which they'd drag along the ground as they gapped me off through the hairpins. Ridiculous! Here's a video of some guys doing the same descent. I'm not sure if its any good because my computer is too slow to play video. Joel and his friend, whose name I sadly forgot, were super nice and happy to talk about the ins and outs of bombing mountains. If you're wondering how to learn all it takes is balls of steel and the absence of whatever gene is responsible for self-preservation. They'd make damn good crit sprinters. They were kind enough to pose for a picture and I've never felt like such pussy as I did standing bedecked in purple spandex next to two certified adrenaline junkies. Speaking of junk, that guy on my left surely approves of mine.

To make the day even better I got a text out of the blue from an old college buddy. Turns out she and her husband had just moved to the bottom of Lookout in Golden so we got to stop for a cold one on the way home. Awesome.

But that ain't all! I was so tired from all the riding at altitude that I could barely get dinner from my plate to my mouth, but when Dev told me it was ladies night at the Cowboy Lounge I sucked it up and put on an amazing, and quite lengthy, display of my dancing prowess. Fun Phil made friends with these gents who had the best threads of the night.
Yesterday turned into a nice slow day in Boulder replete with a homeless-style park nap, an amazing meal at Sherpa's, and a visit to University Cycles, the exact opposite of the loathsome Peak Cycles. University Cycles of Boulder is one of the coolest shops I've ever seen. They have just about everything you could ever want in stock, the employees were kind and helpful and they looked like they could wrench on a whole fleet of bikes. Yup, they had no fewer than 12 stands on the shop floor, and that doesn't count the other 15 stands upstairs dedicated solely to building new bikes. Unreal.

We're staying with Phil's good college friends Matt and Jenna Allen. They're legendary. So much so that they get their own post. And I'll get to that right after they finish riding me into the ground.

On the road again.

I'm in Denver. Boom! How did I get here? Well, its been a long, twisting road here from Tiburon, but I've enjoyed pretty much every step of the way.

1) Tiburon/ Giro di San Francisco.
Tyler and Amy were incredible hosts and it was with a heavy heart that Phil and I left Tiburon. In fact, the only thing that could lure us away from that little Eden was one of the best races of the year: the Giro. Long story short, Phil and Evan went up the road in an elite group of 8 including 2 Jelly Belly riders, Eric Wohlberg, and Jared "the manimal" Barrilleaux. The guys rode their brains out, lapped the field and P Mooney and Huffy ended up 3rd and 5th. A good solid showing considering the company. The Giro was also notable because it was the last race in the California Cup. Mooney has been on a hot streak and with his final finishes managed to vault himself into the lead. We cleaned up, Mooney 1st, Parnes 2nd. Niiiice.

2) Casa de Vanacht
Lisa and Filip were nice enough to let Phil and I crash for a few nights in their guest house. Not only did they put us up, but they stuffed us full of delicious food, took us on some excellent rides and let us hang out with their uber-cute kids. Good riding, good company and lots of pool time made for another great stop, but again racing called.

3)Switters Family Funtime/Folsom Cyclebration
Adam's lease was up at the same time mine was, but instead of moving into his van he chose to post up with his folks in Folsom before he heads east, and man are we glad he did. Debbie and Mark were incredible hosts, putting up a bunch of us Yahooligans and preparing huge feasts. They also let us relax in the most incredible massage chair. But we couldn't just lounge around eating all day, so we hit up the Folsom Cyclebration, a 3 stage omnium. The first race appeared to be an innocuous little 10 mile TT. It turned out to be possibly the gnarliest 22 minutes of my season. Sweat and sunscreen were burning my eyes, my legs felt like two sacks of flaming gravel, and my brilliant pre-race burrito threatened to make a second appearance. I almost stopped and threw my bike into the canal. In the end:4th. I guess I shouldn't have talked all that trash about being perpetual 3rd. Mooney was also in the hurt box and could only manage a pathetic 2nd place, which almost broke his spirit. Huffman crushed it for 3rd. The second stage was a crit. I won. Boom. Big ups to Switters and Briggs for the leadout. The third stage was a very cool circuit race in downtown Folsom that ripped across two bridges in one of the most scenic courses of the year. Evan had a huge ride for the win. Mooney took second out of a two man chase over Daniel Ramsey. I sprinted in for 6th, which was good enough to take the overall win. Not a bad way to end my domestic season!

Speaking of good ways to end the season, Mark and Debbie threw a grand ol' send-off shindig for Adam. When I wasn't busy schooling Patrick in ping pong I was doing sit-ups... or something like them.

4) The Road
No, not a depressing post-apocalyptic nightmare by Cormac McCarthy, my 18hr epic journey from Folsom to Denver. Phil and I made pretty good time, I must say. I contribute a good deal of this to Phil's willingness to forgo hydration in order to keep us from unnecessary bathroom stops. We laughed, we cried, we went slightly crazy, but after 1200 miles, some under the hood MacGyvering and a boatload of caffeine we finally rolled in around 3am. Epic drive.
5) Colorado
I'm a cyclist. I'm not prepared to let my driving prowess outdo my cycling. Thus, we set out today to complete an epic ride. We rode out of Boulder, which means the first hour of the ride was straight up Flagstaff with zero warmup.
It ain't easy to breathe at 8300 feet and I was getting a little worried about P$ when he started weaving across the road and muttering. I think he was having symptoms of PTSD related to his Tour of Utah experience. You can't see it, but behind those glasses Phil is cross-eyed. No, no, Phil's an animal, and I had to pretend to check out the view in order to catch a breather.Yes, an hour of climbing straight out of the chute is no joke, but the next stretch of road made that climb look like a coffee cruise. It was like riding down a dried up creek bed complete with waterfalls. Don't believe me? Check this out:
Planet of the Apes ride, eat your heart out. We finally managed to get back to civilization and then rushed off to my first ever pilates class. I was expecting something like yoga. I was dead wrong. They put me on some sort of medieval rack called "The Reformer" and tortured me for an hour. I may have been dying a slow painful death, but I got in some good stretching and strength training. Probably one of the most painful and awkward experiences of my life and something I'd definitely try again.

Well, I'm cracked. I've got just enough energy to enjoy some of Devyn and Steph's delicious curry and crawl to bed.

Filling in the Blanks

I'm no Bill Shakespeare, that's for certain. So, I thought I'd flesh out that last post with a couple of photos. Enjoy:

This is me in the honeymoon suite at Challenge RR

Tyler slept in his smart car.

This is where I spent last week: Heaven.

Misnomer

A few of us went up to have a go at the District Road Championships in Challenge on Saturday. People were all abuzz with their "witty" wordplay about how Challenge would present a real Challenge. Hilarious. If they wanted a truly descriptive name it would have been called the Skinny People Do Hill Repeats, Humiliate the Field and Make Them Want to Call it a Season Road Race. I'm going to lobby them to change the name.

Yet this race was memorable, if not for the team's great success then for the epic 7 hour drive, followed by a night spent sleeping in the dirt only to be awakened by Big Rick's bellowing at 6:15 in the morning. I did see some pretty incredible shooting stars, and I got to feast on delicious almond croissants that T. Dibbs and Phil talked me into buying. Huffy had himself a pretty incredible little ride to get some redemption for the team. He ended up 4th overall and 1st in the U23 category and Vinny hung tough for a solid 8th place. That's right. The Wolfman is U23 champ of all three disciplines. Nice.

We sacrificed another nights sleep to do the Esparto TT Sunday morning. Another TT, another 3rd place. It seems the top 3 are always the same, race in and race out: Phil 1st, Jesse 2nd, me 3rd. I think from now on I'm just going to send in my reg fees along with a letter requesting that they give me 3rd by default and mail me my t-shirt and 5 bucks. I did manage to beat my previous course best by about a minute and a half, which is sweet, although I think that was thanks to Bill and Russ, who loaned me a TT helmet and an unholy front wheel. Something about a 5am wake-up call doesn't facilitate solid cognition, hence the need to borrow these small necessities. Dibstar also put in a pretty good ride considering his lack of TT specific training and Huffy was only 3 seconds off another U23 victory. Good work all around.

Big thanks to Lou and Janice for putting us up at their place in Fairfield. But here's a little tip for you two: if you don't want smelly, vagabond cyclists stinking up your house you shouldn't feed them delicious burgers and decadent desserts. You're lucky you got rid of us! It did give me a wonderful idea for a children's book entitled, "If You Give a Cyclist an Oreo Cheesecake Mini." Seriously, though, thanks a ton for a place to stay, great food and better company.

I'd like to write a bit more, but I have to go crank up the Pantera, do 500 push-ups and self flagellate to get fired up for the sweat-soaked, bloody mayhem that is the Giro d'San Francisco. Happy Labor Day!

Cue the Willie Nelson

Finally my blog title is applicable again. As of this past Tuesday at noon I am officially homeless once more. Residence: the road. Forward all mail to 1998 Windstar Blvd Open Road, USA. Let the adventure begin!

There are a few key aspects of my life that separate me, the adventure seeking open roader, from your run of the mill, cardboard box squatting, wine-swilling hobo. First of all, I have a van. Boom! Second, and more importantly, I have a plan. I'm not wandering aimlessly, I'm chasing the dream. And I have some good friends helping me along the way.

After a long weekend of racin' bikes (hey, something new and different!), I spent two days packing up all my worldly possessions and loading most of them into Joe's Wan Hai. Joe is the owner of Davis Wheelworks, as well as the patron saint of elite cyclists. I don't actually have that much stuff, but my atrophied cyclist arms made moving both difficult and comical. Phil and I actually got everything packed and cleaned in time and then headed out for Adventure Part 1: TNT.

The Tuesday Night Twilights are a great little race series held primarily at the Fairgrounds in Santa Rosa. Ronnie Lenzi, photog extraordinaire and crusader for all things cycling, runs the show over there and puts on one hell of an event. Phil and I rolled over to reg and were greeted by a table full of tasty treats, from bananas and oranges to peanut butter pretzels and popsicles. Solid! Sterling took us for a little loop around Santa Rosa and then it was game on. The course is just about the craziest I've ever raced on. There's a long false flat headwind stretch to the start/finish followed by a speed bump, two sandy right-handers, a downhill chicane where the bottom falls out of the second turn and you get that stomach-floating roller coaster feeling, a huge sweeper around a tree island a sharp left around a building, over another speedbump and a gutter, around a sweeping off camber 180 and back to the S/F. Whew! Now picture all of that on bumpy pavement looping between unprotected and very hard looking buildings and poles. Chaos.

A field of 25 doesn't sound that large, but on this course it can get a bit crowded. Mooney and I lit out pretty hard and didn't stop until he was off the front with J-Rad. Those two smashed each other up until one to go when PM rode away. I limped in for the last podium spot, though that's a figure of speech; there's no podium, just cash, Chimay and a snack buffet.

Ronnie not only put on the race, but offered to put up Phil and I for the night, so we finally got to experience the splendor the is the Chateau d'Lenzi.Pete and Ronnie were about the most welcoming hospitable people I've encountered and after a delicious home-cooked meal, a tasty brew, and some quality hot-tub time I sacked out. Best day ever? It was a little weird sleeping inside a temple dedicated to the worship of Lance Armstrong, but the mattress was comfy and I was dead tired.

Great hosts: Ronnie, Pete and Ozzie

Adventure Part II, in which Ryan lives the dream. After a solid breakfast, a whole pot of coffee and some good palavering with Ronnie, Phil and I headed down to Tiburon to meet up with Amatron and T-Dibbs. Its been unusually hot around here lately, making for some amazing days on the coast and we took advantage. Long easy ride along Highway 1, up Tam and around the Paradise Loop? Check. Delicious curry and rice from scratch courtesy of Am(azing)y? Check. Prime prize Chimay paired with ice cream with warm brownies? Check. Bay view, fire-side bullshit session with good friends covering everything from Vonnegut to squirrel fights and bear maulings? Check. That's living.

Mountain bikers are so hard core.

As I sit here writing this I'm halfway through another possible challenger for best day ever. Brekkers, great coffee, home-delivered New York Times, Moby Dick, and freshly made pesto pasta for lunch. Those over-achievers already went out for a MTB ride, but I'm just gonna ease into this one.

Southpaw?

Sure, I don't really know what I'm going to do with my life after October, but its hard to be concerned with things so far down the road when the here and now is idyllic. I think right now the plan is maximum enjoyment, one day at at time. Some things I will hopefully be enjoying in the coming weeks:
-Final NorCal racing of the season.
-Visiting the sis in Denver (read: Cowboy Bars and long rides in the Rockies)
-Caribbean Cycling Island Insanity, aka Tobago Cycling Classic.
-The off season

Yup, its good and getting better.