Note to self

Don't stay at bar past your bedtime then come home and leave comments on The Mothership. While the intentions may be good, obsequious risk is high

Dee, tuh, dee

So now's the time of year in CA when next year's budget gets negotiated. I think the heads of state are looking at somewhere around $102 to $103 billion in general fund spending.

One of the sticking points is money for our thirsty state's water needs. Developers and their friends in the legislature want funds for dams or underground storage. Environmentalists and their friends in the legislature want funds for conservation efforts.

The Governor likes the idea of building more dams. In fact, in his proposed budget he included money for building two. He reasoned that dams will help us mitigate wild weather swings caused by global warming.

That just cracks me up. We need more dams because of global warming. Strategically, that's about the same as planning to swallow poison but dialing 911 before you do it.

Ride a Bike Save the World

Despite the jingoistic title on this post, I do believe there's a kernel of truth in that bumper sticker message (kinda relates to my use less oil, win the war in Iraq and overall war on terror ponderings - see, if you want, "Plain as the nose on your face" post below).

But this story here from today's LA Times is just one more spoke in the "Ride a Bike Save the World" wheel. Bamboo bikes. Who'd thunk it?

I'm kinda tongue-in-cheek on this one. Kinda not.

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In the ride a bike have some fun category, Saturday was the Specialized/Sierra Nevada Crit (that's my team's race). It wasn't fun getting schooled by Safeway, again, but talking afterwards with my teammates it feels like we came away with a better understanding of how to race together. Sometimes I get caught in a myopic trap thinking there's only one way to read a race as it's unfolding. Then I get unduly frustrated when it looks to me like a teammate isn't doing his assigned job.

But you know what, there are as many points of view on how a race is unfolding as there are bikes in the peleton. What's important is to trust your teammate. If things don't go according to plan, so what, time to ad lib.

And as far as getting the job done goes, I fell short on Saturday. Peter Allen started his lead out for me with about 2/3s of the last lap to go and mashed through the backstrectch at 34 mph, which was burning fast for the wind conditions. It was the best lead out I've had in my life, then I chundered the sprint by waiting too long to jump and got beat to the hole shot by someone.

Guys, if you're reading this, I shouldn't have said we rode poorly as a team. It wasn't a perfect race, but to me, it was encouraging. So onto Burlingame.

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"Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more." (Henry V)

Better than a stick in the eye

The first half of Sunday's 60-minute EMC geezer crit was about as exciting as a single's bar in a retirement community. Minor attempts at friskiness, but really, there's no point.

I had a lousy view once the action started. According to the AMD-geezerifics blog Safeway's Chris Wire went for a prime with AMD's Larry Nolan in tow and they got a gap on the field. Guys at the front who knew a good thing when they saw it started going across. Some went solo, others went in small groups. After a lap or two, the break had 13 or 14 riders. Having my head up my ass made for the lousy view and made it difficult to pedal, so I didn't go across. Luckily, however, my teammate Jason Brown wasn't suffering a similar condition and he got up there.

I spent the next five minutes or so extracting my melon and patrolling the front while AMD and another team I didn't recognize set tempo for the field. Meanwhile, the break split into two groups with seven in the lead group.

Now I was really mad at myself. I knew there was no way to make it to the front group of seven. Almost every strongman in the race was up there: Wire, Nolan, Bosch, Reaney, etc. Even if the field got organized, it would have probably taken 10 guys rotating at the front just to catch those seven and the odds of getting 10 geezers from different teams to organize a chase are about as good as Liebold hiring a Nobel Laureate for temp help instead of a carnival worker. (I only kid because I love)

With about 15 or 20 minutes to go the field had gained ground on the chase group. The bridge to the chase group looked like a job for two instead of one so I started hoping for someone to take strong flyer that I could to latch onto. Instead of cathcing a flyer, John Ashe, who's listed as unattached on the results page, just rolled off the front and I went with him. The field let us go and we got across to the chase group. The bridge brought me back to my teammate Brown, but we didn't stay reunited long.

Ashe attacked the chase group and created a five man split: Me; Ashe; Jeff Poulsen (Safeway); Kyle Glerum (Safeway); and Richard Jaurez (it says Pasadena Athletic Assoc on the results page, but he was wearing Merrill Lynch gear).

We did three or four laps all gentlemanly like, then the five-to-go cards came out. Ashe and Juarez started the attacking. Dumb ass me would let myself be on a Safeway wheel, so when the attacks came the Safeway wheel I was on would let a gap form, while the other jumped with the attack. I doubt Safeway was targeting me to take off the back, I just happened to be the one susceptible to the tactic.

So the five of us did the attack and counter attack dance for the last four laps. On the last lap we played a little cat and mouse then with about 500 to go Juarez jumped. The four of us covered. Poulsen jumped right before the last corner with about 300 to go and held us off for eighth place. I came in 9th.

I wish I knew what happened in the lead group of seven. Anyway here's the top 15 from the EMC results page:

Men - Cat 1/2/3 - Master - 35-99
1 (1 - Cat1) Lawrence Nolan 26205 AMD-Discovery Channel Cycling
2 (2 - Cat1) Chris Wire 152176 SAFEWAY/G.A.Communications
3 (3 - Cat1) Andres Gil 171882 Pacific State Bank/Anderson Homes Cyclin
4 (1 - Cat2) Brian Bosch 40703 Central Valley Cycling
5 (2 - Cat2) Joel Robertson 220316 Kaiser Permanente/ Team Oakland Cycling
6 (3 - Cat2) Eric Easterling 79101 Central Valley Cycling
7 (4 - Cat2) Steve Reaney 133288 California Giant Berry Farms/Specialized
8 (5 - Cat2) Jeff Poulsen 28533 SAFEWAY/G.A.Communications
9 (6 - Cat2) John Fairbanks 83306 Specialized/Sierra Nevada
10 (7 - Cat2) John Ashe 43660 Unattached
11 (8 - Cat2) Kyle Glerum 195470 SAFEWAY/G.A.Communications
12 (9 - Cat2) Richard Juarez 71186 Pasadena Athletic Assoc (PAA)
13 (10 - Cat2) Joseph Oliveri 26674 EMC2/Vellum Cycles
14 (11 - Cat2) Jason Brown 53115 Specialized/Sierra Nevada
15 (4 - Cat1) William Innes 52412 AMD-Discovery Channel Masters