Minor Details & a Grasshopper Explosion

I went out today for a training ride on CX bike and discovered that my hand is too weak to shift my bike into the front big ring. Oh crumb. That isn't so good when you are leaving for a bike race tomorrow. Oh well. It is what it is and I guess I will be spinning 150 rpms out there instead in my cyclocross race this weekend! Too dang funny. Geez. Minor oversight.....but really.....would it have changed anything for me if I had known the dirty truth? No, probably not. Especially since my family lives no more than a 10 minute RIDE from each cyclocross venue on Saturday and Sunday. So either way I was going to head to the races I guess - shifting or not.

So, with this being the case, I marched straight into my Hand Therapists office and told her what I CAN'T do and so I got a new toy out of it! Putty that we call "the blob". It is to help strengthen those tendons and muscles again so that I can shift! Ah yes the details of being a pro cyclist - shifting is a real good thing.....



Oh and total grasshopper explosion today. Yes, you read that right. I have never had anything like this happen. So I am flying down an 8% slope and buddy green flies right at my front wheel and completely gets chopped in my spinning wheel. Got yellow nasty guts ALL OVER ME, my bike, MY BOTTLES- ooooh sick!, my jersey, my bare legs.

I thought I was going to barf. It was soooo gross.

Next up was packing my bikes for the trip in my brand new cyclocross case. And I am going to admit that it took me about 3 hours to do it. The things are adjustable in the case and I didn't realize that until I got it all settled. SOOOO I had to take everything out and adjust it and then repack again. And thank god, Barb Howe was on call for moral support. I called her while I was very frustrated and not sure that it all was REALLY going to fit into the bike bag. As it turns out it did, but cramming was in order for sure as Barb suggested - CRAM and JAM!





What a long day and now a flight home tomorrow.