Feels like Euro's back.

and for the especially pathetic among us, that cross is having to resort to critiquing someone's grammar on a bicycling message board in an attempt to find personal validation.

i'll take being from louisiana over that any day.

I'm kinda far from NYC and my schedule is all booked up, but I'll pass on an e-mail to Zabel, Hushovd, McEwen, Haedo, Bettini, Pettachi, and Boonen for ya. I don't have Oscar Freire's e-mail address, though. But he's a slacker anyway.

i can see that you may have learned a thing, or two, in the first world.

Heh...I certainly understand that situation. Today I've been trying to resurrect the ProTools sessions for a four-year-old abandoned EP project that someone suddenly wants finished. Time on my hands...

And, of course, arguing is fun too. I just love organized racing as much as I love disorganized cycling.

I'm really sorry to hear about that, and I hope the answer to those questions doesn't come to that. Weirdly two people I know here in NYC have recently been diagnosed with rather obscure degenerative retinal disorders. Are you facing something like that? It'd really be strange for three youngish, fairly healthy people to be experiencing that kind of thing. Something environmental?

Racing and fast, enjoy-the-scenery riding are not mutually exclusive. In fact, I've done both in the last few days.

that's funny. the stuff i'm rendering is a video project of a 1986 tour film that i cut for a band 8 years ago which they suddenly want to work on again. what the hell?

there could be something environmental. my GF's retinas both detatched recently. but for me, it was just simple conjunctivits gone haywire. i was given antibiotics for a simple viral (not bacterial) eye infection. i tried the antibiotics for a week and a half, the virus just got stronger and stronger and my eye started an immunoresponse that still hasn't turned off. the response results in weird protein masses that create opacities in my cornea. light can't get thru and images don't render correctly/quickly. what sucks is that the opacities change position all the time. i've been on steroidal drops for it since last august. it gets better. it gets worse. no one knows what's up, but everyone agrees that the steroids--even as eyedrops--have had too long a course.

so, when i say, "in the dark" i mean, i need to do laps at night after the park is closed so i don't endanger other cyclists. i have to ride 9W late in the day after clubs are done. i'm sometimes lucky enough to ba able to hook up with a few friends and do long road rides with people who know about my problem. it sort of sucks, but i love riding, so i adapt--and ride the hell out of rollers.

nah

No, actually here is your quote....

"we're expecting to keep it 25+ the whole way with 40+ sprints. a few of us are capable of 50+ flat sprints"

If your going to quote unbelievable figures like that don't get testy when you are called out on it. It's no biggie. I log lot's of miles and I am sure I can't keep up with you and your friends. There is no way I could keep a 25+ average for a century without a strong tailwind the whole way and that's ok.

Nostalgia for the present. Maybe our old clients have been terribly affected by Baudrillard's recent death.

I'd feared worse based on how you'd put it, but that's horrible enough. I hope you find some kind of resolution to that problem and figure out what's going on so you (and your girlfriend) make a full recovery. Best of luck.

"Your 2003 EP and 1986 Tour Did Not Take Place."

Hey now, we are inviting you to ride as a friendly gesture not as a throwdown, "see our mad skillz for rizzle" machismo.

I would also like to add a few things here, that maybe people (including VD) have not considered. First off the 50+ mph was the max speed, not average, the conditions (gradient, windspeed) were eyeballed by VD and not scientifically measured and there is also the distinct possibility that cyclometers crap out at high speeds.

Hey, I thought you couldn't back-pedal on a fixie?

on my road bike, i can back-pedal deep into the throes of hypocrisy and self-delusion! my laptop seems to have a freehub as well.

Garysol:

Man, thanks so much for detangling this. 162 cadence, 50+ sprints are nothing compared to a 25mph century! I was getting my order for EPO and HGH to BALCO ready. I see numbers like that and get real discouraged. Fortunately, it seems they may be a tad unrealistic.

Sheesh, I don't think I could average 25 for 50 miles on a TT Bike . . .

Yeah, I'm going to give a lot of credence to everything this guy says.

Just got back from a nice recovery spin. Average HR 112, average speed 36mph.

I could only average 30mph on my recovery ride tonight, but it was uphill the whole way.

A 50mph sprint, that's a good one

Man, I've never averaged 30 MPH on *any* ride. Is this when we start internet-worshipping your superiority?

Seriously Dr Pete? I'm not too sure what is real in this thread anymore. No way in hell I could have an average HR of 112 doing even 20 mph.

no, that's just his attempt at being witty.

and as far as the 25mph average on a century... the century we averaged 20mph was out to montauk. popdelusion is probably the only other person here that might be familiar with that stretch. it's essentially entirely flat. there are a few rolling hills here and there, but yeah... basically totally flat. six of us averaged 20mph fixed/brakeless with an average gearing of around 48x16 with not much of a problem so we got to thinking about what we'd be able to pull on geared bikes. VD, yoshi, and lee figured they could swing 25. as VD mentioned earlier - that's an expected avg. having ridden a good bit with each of them and being the reason they didn't avg higher on the last century i think they can swing it. i doubt my ability to do so though, but i'm up for trying. i mean, if i get a snazzy matching kit that'll give me a lot of extra speed right!?

A 4-hour century with an experienced, cooperative group is believable. A 50mph sprint on flat ground without divine intervention is not.

Absolutely not. I was just hoping to capitalize on VD's assertion that we shouldn't question what we read on the internets.

hey man, i never testified to nor am i defending his ability to pull a 50mph sprint. my only claim was that VD can pull a 31mph sprint easily in response to the belief that his computer wasn't properly set up or that he had kilometers and miles mixed up.

i fully support callin someone out, but i also think it can be done without being a total condescending ******. i also think it's silly to think, as many roadies seem to, that anyone who is fast would would race, and that anyone who isn't racing isn't fast.

Just to reiterate.....I was saying the 25mph century is not probable for ME....but very doable. My best century ever was a 5 hour flat and I was pretty proud of that.