Made it.

The ride this morning, though chilly enough to need knee warmers AND arm warmers, was good. The tail bone held up and even though the power isn't great, it's good enough that I think I'll be at the track in the morning to race.

Rode the first half of the local group ride and then split off on my own to ride in the terrible headwinds- we had winds today that were blowing at 30mph at times. Somehow, I managed to avoid the rains that came and went all day. I apparently rode between the fingers of the clouds and only got a light dusting of rain a couple times. Otherwise, I stayed dry. The roads were in crappy shape from all the rain the night before, with all the crud and debris washed out into the open. Still, I managed to avoid getting a flat somehow too. All in all, it was a great day to ride!

After I got back, I got myself a shower and then hopped on the SoulVille and headed out for lunch at one of my favorite local Japanese restaurants- Ichiban. After that, I cruised around for a bit and visited my friends at Adams Avenue Bicycles before heading back home.

A good ride, a good lunch, a good recovery ride... and a not-too-painful tail bone = pretty decent day.

Tim

Masiguy contest reminder!

Just a quick reminder; the most recent Masiguy contest (guessing the correct amount of SockGuy socks I have) technically ended last night at midnight. However, since I didn't post a closing reminder, I am extending it until midnight (my time) tonight.

Guess the correct number of SockGuy socks I have in my sock drawer (or be the closest) and win a care package of socks from my good friends at SockGuy and a cool lock from my very good friends at Kryptonite.

Time is running out!

Tim
(Place your votes here in the comments of this post or in the comment section of the original contest post.)

Little reminders mean a lot.

Little reminders mean a lot some days.

(My "reminder board" in my kitchen, with a little graffiti left by an anonymous tagger.)

Thanks, Squirrel.

Tim

Riding through the pain...

Last Saturday, while the Princess was out being a Princess with my sister, I was out for a ride with my bestest friend.

For the record, since his version of the story differs slightly from reality, here's what happened;
We left from my place and got about 5 miles out and were riding on a fairly crappy section of road with a bad lighted intersection. The asphalt is really bumpy from all the buses and large delivery trucks that pass through. Squirrel was riding behind me and keeping an eye on the ground, avoiding the nasty potholes/ asphalt mounds, when the light at the intersection turned red. Since that particular intersection is one you do NOT want to run at the light, I applied the stoppers... while Squirrel was still avoiding potholes. He looked up just in time to see my largeness becoming rapidly larger in front of him. But it was a bit too late and he ran right in to me- essentially taking the bike out from under me. We both hit the deck pretty good- I skid across the ground on the heel of my carbon soled shoes (burned a hole through the heel) before landing right on my tail bone. He ate up his ankle and knuckles pretty good too. But both of us got up and we rode an additional 48+ miles, for about 53 miles on the day. Since he was coming off of recovering from shoulder surgery, the crash was a little bit spooky for us both, but he was just a little bruised and we were both laughing as we rode away. The fallout for me is that my tail bone is still super sore. Almost as sore as when I cracked it in a crash on the track during a race 4 years ago. I feel better on my bike saddle than I do in a chair, but I can't get too much power generated. Standing to climb or sprint is a little painful and applying 100% power while seated is nearly impossible. BUT... nothing seems to be really messed up and I think I can continue riding as things heal.

It's been dumping rain here all day, but it will hopefully stop and dry out so that I can ride tomorrow morning. If the rear end can handle the ride without too much problem and the weather cooperates, then I'll try racing at the track on Sunday morning. During the winter this year, there will be races on the first Sunday of each month. I'm hoping to get out and put some punishment on my legs and see just where they really are. Maybe, if I'm still too sore, I'll just sandbag and ride the B or C group races, instead of the A races. I'd rather get some laps than not get any laps. Plus, it's always good to hang at the track with all my fellow racers. So we'll see what happens Sunday- I'll try to remember the camera too.

Enjoy your weekend, whether you walk, ride, run, swim or simply read a good book. Enjoy it.

Tim

More New York Times!

This kicks ass!

Congratulations to Team Grumpy's- Little Guy Racing. The little team that could... and DID!

Tim

I know the feeling...

Tim

Remember these words...

William Faulkner's Nobel Prize acceptance speech from December, 1950;

I feel that this award was not made to me as a man, but to my work--a life's work in the agony and sweat of the human spirit, not for glory and least of all for profit, but to create out of the materials of the human spirit something which did not exist before. So this award is only mine in trust. It will not be difficult to find a dedication for the money part of it commensurate with the purpose and significance of its origin. But I would like to do the same with the acclaim too, by using this moment as a pinnacle from which I might be listened to by the young men and women already dedicated to the same anguish and travail, among whom is already that one who will some day stand where I am standing.

Our tragedy today is a general and universal physical fear so long sustained by now that we can even bear it. There are no longer problems of the spirit. There is only one question: When will I be blown up? Because of this, the young man or woman writing today has forgotten the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat. He must learn them again. He must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid: and, teaching himself that, forget it forever, leaving no room in his workshop for anything but the old verities and truths of the heart, the universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed--love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice. Until he does so, he labors under a curse. He writes not of love but of lust, of defeats in which nobody loses anything of value, and victories without hope and worst of all, without pity or compassion. His griefs grieve on no universal bones, leaving no scars. He writes not of the heart but of the glands.

Until he learns these things, he will write as though he stood among and watched the end of man. I decline to accept the end of man. It is easy enough to say that man is immortal because he will endure: that when the last ding-dong of doom has clanged and faded from the last worthless rock hanging tideless in the last red and dying evening, that even then there will still be one more sound: that of his puny inexhaustible voice, still talking. I refuse to accept this. I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. The poet's, the writer's, duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. The poet's voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail.

These words have remained with me since I was a Junior in high school, when I read them the first time in a creative writing class. Now, they hold new meaning and even greater significance.

Tim
(PS- Thank you for your emails today.)

Personal update;

I have a life outside of this blog and outside of my job, though the three are very closely linked and there is little in my personal life that I have omitted from this space in the nearly three years I have been blogging here. That said, I have kept many things private- my private life is just that... private. However, I have also cultivated a very public life via this blog- both for better and for worse. I have made many friends in the bike industry, outside of the bike industry, with consumers, with retailers, with the marketing community and with many other people I would have never met otherwise. Many of those people come to this space to get updates on me and my life, and not just on the Masi products. That is something that truly means a lot to me and I am blessed to have the many friends that I do.

All of that said, it will come as a surprise to nearly everyone who has been a regular reader of this blog that I am in the midst of a divorce. Out of respect for the privacy of my ex-to-be and our children, I am not going to go into any details about the divorce. Like many marriages, we had problems for years and they eventually took their toll on our marriage. We've been separated for several months now and that is the major reason why my postings here and elsewhere have been less frequent. I've had a lot on my mind outside of blogging, to say the very least.

The most important issue for me is my kids and they both seem to be handling all of this very well. My wife/ ex-to-be and I have been working very hard to protect their lives and keep things as normal as possible. This means that we share custody on a week on/ week off schedule so that we both have real, quality time with both children. I won't lie and say things are perfect, because they certainly aren't, but things are going as well as one might hope they would.

Why am I choosing to blog about this all now? Well, for a number of reasons- it's easier than sending a ton of emails to all the people I know, it keeps me from explaining what is happening in my life one uncomfortable conversation at a time (which really is more painful than tedious) and because I have been such a proponent of transparency in blogging- it seems I should put my money where my mouth is. During a "conversation" with my ex over the weekend, she pointed out the fact that my blog has been all about the good things happening in my life. She also pointed out that I have been living in a bit of a vacuum- not talking to anybody about the divorce or any of the things happening in my non-blog life. I realized she was right, so here I am.

I'm not fishing for sympathy or support or anything. I'm simply getting this "confession" off my chest so I can get back to my job and focus on what I need to focus on. Family first, so the posting will continue to be sporadic and will continue to jump around. I have turned off comments for this post because I am not asking for a big discussion, I just want to move on- both privately and professionally.

This time in my life feels like such a Greek tragedy; this is the best time of my professional life and yet the worst time of my private life. Still, I know some folks who are in far worse shape than myself and I try to recognize that blessing every day, no matter how hard it might be some days.

I thank all of you who have become regular readers and friends. As corny as it might sound, I really do feel lucky to have the community that has grown around this blog- I am humbled more than you know by each comment and each new friend.

Regular bike-related posting to follow soon... I promise.

Tim
PS- I also ask that you keep my ex-to-be in your thoughts and prayers too. Divorce is never easy for either party involved.

Saturday is Princess Day

Tim

More from Japan

As promised, here are a few more images and info from Japan...

Azuma, my distributor in Japan, set up this booth with the other brands they distribute; Easton Components, Kore Components and Cervelo bicycles being the biggest... aside from Masi, of course.

The Masi sign stood out really well in the sea of brand banners.

Looked good from a distance too.

Me, hanging out with the bikes- I really liked the way the Coltello race frame was built up as an urban fixie with riser bar and suede Keirin saddle. Hiro, my Keirin racing brother at Azuma built the bike up and was very eager to know what I thought of it. He was very happy that I liked it. It was really great to watch the Japanese consumers flock to it and take pictures with their cameras and camera phones.

One of the coolest things was the Japanese version of the Masi catalog. It's really cool, for me, to see all the Masi stuff written up in Kanji. I'll have to scan a few pages of the catalog this week and post them here- I got a big kick out of it.

Nothing makes a product guy happier than watching people stare at your products. Since I don't speak Japanese, I couldn't really talk to many of the consumers and mostly hovered around, waiting for the chance to answer questions when possible. It was awesome to see the reception the bikes were getting. I spent the two days of the show smiling from ear to ear. (Terai-san is the man in the grey suit waving and Masa Nagoya is standing next to him in the pink shirt.)

There were also test bikes there and they were on the road nearly constantly! Many of the test riders came back with very large smiles after riding the bikes... which in turn had me smiling very broadly too.

Needless to say, I was very happy with the experience of the show and I hope to be able to return next year. Today (Sunday) is the last day of the Osaka part of Cycle Mode and I am anxiously waiting to hear from my friends in Japan how the show went there. I am hoping that next year I can attend both shows; travel to Tokyo for the first show there, then travel to Taiwan to get my work there done and then return to Japan for the Osaka show. I think that would be a perfect trip... so if my bosses happen to read this... thanks in advance!

Next up; other cool products from Japan... and there were plenty.

Tim