chasm54

It's only half way through the race, though, shovel. I'd be inclined to tell the pack to drop off and let the break get through them.

shovelhd

Well if you'd rather roll around and let team tactics sway the officials to affect your race, get off your ass and make a race out of it.

chasm54

Just a couple of months to go until my France tour. Tomorrow I'll make a reservation for me and the bike on Eurostar to Paris. So I'm starting to sort out bike setup, how much gear I want to take, am I going to do any camping or just stay in hostels/auberges/hotels, all that stuff.

In that spirit I took the touring bike out today for three hours at touring pace, just to check out whether anything needs changing. Pretty much perfect, really. Too much travel on the brakes, so they need adjusting, and my old and much-loved touring saddle is going on instead of the new one. But otherwise, good to go.

Heathpack 

Last fall, when I decided to lose some weight, I figured I better start paying more attention to nutrition, especially as relates to recovery. So I came up with maybe a dozen recovery drink recipes and got religous about a recovery drink after pretty much any workout besides a recovery ride.

I've refined these recipes as I've read more and I finally sat down last weekend & revamped them all to accommodate my current targets- 50 gm carb + 20 gm pro per drink. Now they all come out to around 300 cal.

Tasty stuff. They're now kind of a highlight of my day (I like food, lol).

Flavor of the day is Apple Cinnamon, which is skim milk, unflavored whey protein isolate, applesauce, apple syrup (a local farmers market product), cinnamon and ice. Mmm.

Racer Ex 

I've been making my own almond milk. 10 minute process. Great nutrition dump in the smoothies.

happybday29475

Few things in life are perfect. Chocolate milk is. Perfect recovery drink; perfect flavor. Often easily stolen from nearby small children.

If the world ever runs out of brown cows, I might try your Apple Cinnamon.

You could, however, help me out in the immediate future by inventing healthy ice cream.

Herbie53

What is in almond milk? I like it, but never read a label.

Herbie53

Nevermind.. I googled. Whodathunkit... almonds.

Heathpack 

I do make a killer orange sherbet. It's healthy-ish.

Sadly, it's at it's best when served with coconut ice cream. Which is decidedly unhealthy.

And if we're going to be ok with unhealthy, we could just go ahead with the Sweet Corn & Blackberry ice cream. Which is better than the coconut. (Think corn bread & blackberry jam, it's actually not weird once you try it.)

Oh wait. Maybe Browned Butter ice cream. With macadamia nuts. That one is good too. Like butter pecan but with mac nuts.

Or maybe this crowd would prefer Strawberry FroYo, which doesn't keep at all, you have to eat the whole batch ride after you make it.

Heathpack 

Did I mention that I like to eat delicious things?

Bandera

It's wired into the genome, and not a problem w/ a sufficient level of physical effort and the diverse intake of carbs/protein/roughage that a traditional diet reliant on non-processed foodstuffs well prepared with tasty seasoning provides for Enjoyment at day's end.

Food is not just fodder/fuel it is Culture, but how heavy/peasant work of any sort gets done with appetite not just cycling.



-Bandera

Heathpack 

I have no fear of food.

Here was my weekend: I had a quart of buttermilk I needed to use up. I know, I'll make bran muffins. Recipe calls for applesauce but I can't in good conscience buy applesauce when it's so simple to make. And besides, apples are on sale at the Persian market for $0.50/pound.

If I'm making applesauce, I'm not getting things dirty to just make a little, of course I make a vat. Now what am I going to do with the leftover applesauce?

I know, @sarals birthday is coming up and she's eating healthy, I might as well make her some granola, I have a great recipe that calls for applesauce rather than oil. And while I'm at it, a new apple cinnamon recovery drink.

Then with the rest of the buttermilk, the obvious choice is pancakes. It was Valetines Day after all and men love pancakes and bacon. Now what to do with the leftover batter? How about nutella-stuffed pancakes, if I make them silver-dollar sized, I can wrap em up and use them as bike snacks. Now they are waiting in the freezer.

Meanwhile back at the Persian market, tomatillos are on sale for $0.30/pound. That means cooked green salsa, which in turn leads to Enchiladas Suiza. And lots leftover for the freezer. Also red bell peppers, so inexpensive I can't resist. This leads to sweet & sour stir fry (because fresh pineapples were also on sale).

Now we have leftover rice. And hot damn some leftover coconut milk from last week. So a batch of Sea Salt-Coconut bites with dark chocolate centers. Also a bike snack. Made up in little cubes and packaged in sets of four, which fit perfectly in my bento box on my top tube.

Did I mention I like to cook? And also ride my bikes.

sarals 

@Heathpack

sarals 

I'm not bad cook, at all. I am a bad chef, though. Zero imagination in the kitchen. I am enjoying my new espresso machine, and I seem to have a good imagination when it comes to using it. I'm still zeroing in on the proper grind for the beans for that really great shot. I mask the experiment by making long blacks, The crema hides the fact that the extraction wasn't exactly on the mark. Fun!

Oh - I'm really good at ordering in a restaurant.

Bandera

I was prompted to expand beyond my traditional Gulf Coast cuisine w/ a gift subscription to "Cooks Illustrated" magazine from the folk who do "America's Test Kitchen". A variety of classic French, American home cooking and ethnic staples from around the globe looked at with serious food science and step by step recipes for the home cook. Foolproof, accessible and Tasty. Highly recommended for solid technique, no nonsense hardware reviews and a wide variety.

It's like a new racer getting a copy of Friel's "The Cyclists Training Bible" for the home cook.......



-Bandera

Heathpack 

Way ahead of you. I possibly have every issue dating back to 1999.

happybday29475

Your husband is a lucky (and probably not underfed) man.

sarals 

Mr HP is indeed lucky! He's a nice fella, too.

@Bandera, I watch the Food Network a LOT. What's funny is that I totally get the ingredients, line of thinking, and process that the chefs on, say, Iron Chef, are doing as I watch. Then I walk into my kitchen, open a cabinet, and.........duh? Blank. I have shelf full of cookbooks, and I make use of them when I have to. I'm good at following directions. I'm creative in other ways, but not in a culinary sense.

Cleave

Hi. The only kind of "mainstream" bicycle racing that I've never done is mass start track racing. I've tried everything else at least once (such as psychocross and it's cousin, mountain bike racing). Tomorrow, there is a Masters 50+ omnium (scratch race, points race, and miss-and-out). I am being harassed via Facebook, text messages, and in-person to be on the rail tomorrow afternoon. I actually got two other friends to do this race but I am still on the fence.

Why?

Mass start track races have always looked too scary! I don't participate in extreme sports for a reason.

I've been told that it will be a field of old, slow guys -- no Cat 1/2 or former Olympians, World Champions, etc. ringers. I've almost talked myself into doing it, especially since I'm not riding tomorrow morning as I'm playing team support for my wife as she competes in a short triathlon. Anyone want to talk me out of this?

Did intervals at the track Tuesday and yesterday evening. Still not feeling very fast.

Bandera

Not me, I'm w/ my old coach on this one:
Track racing is the heart and soul of cycling competition and teaches lessons that are only to be learned on the Velodrome.

The Omnium is way cool/crazy/challenging. Have fun!

-Bandera

Heathpack 

@Cleave, having not done this type of racing previously is exactly the reason you should try it IMO. Provided you have the skills to do it safely and your competition is appropriate/not reckless, both of which seem to be the case.

So I say give it a whirl. What do you have to lose (beside a fee broken bones and some wood splinters)? Just kidding.

Cleave

OK, I'm giving it a whirl.

Hermes

@Cleave Good luck. We will be at the track in the AM. The track mass start races are more chaotic. This is especially true after sprints for point where the field bunches up. Also, racers tend to make moves up track without looking and sweep out front wheels. That is what happened to my buddy John who I saw Thursday who is all banged up. He is a great bike handler and safe rider. He was in a miss n out and a racer abruptly shifted position and took out his front wheel. Also expect the speed to be a lot faster than crits. Expect the unexpected.

There are a bunch of racers from Hellyer at LAVRA and I suspect some may race tomorrow afternoon so the field may be bigger and they will not be as "experienced" as VSC racers.

Cleave

It went a lot better than I expected. The pace was generally high which kept it safer. It was fun. More in the other thread later.

VanceMac

Apologies Cleave. I failed in this regard... as the podium all had stars and stripes. But you hung with them just fine!!