It's Getting Dark, Too Dark To See.

Over time I've come to think of myself as what I like to call an "Early Resister". This is the polar opposite of an early adopter - you know, the first guy on your block with an iPad, or the guy that knew about that cool new band before you did. Instead of taking new ideas and embracing them, I tend instead to hear of a new idea and think, "That sounds dumb." And, as this blog attests, I'm not particularly shy when it comes to expressing my thoughts.

The upside to being an Early Resister is that sometimes, when something does prove to be a short lived fad, you dodge the bullet. So, for example, I never wore a pork pie hat (think 1993) or thought The Offspring were an ok band (1996/7). The downside to being an Early Resister is that a lot of the time you're wrong. In fact, I distinctly remember arguing with Pete Hyde about Email. I was, unfortunately yet unsurprisingly, arguing that it was dumb. "If I want to get in contact with someone," I remember stating forcefully, "I'll just write them a letter."

The first email I ever wrote was to Pete. It said, "Dear Pete. You were right. From Brendan."

Incidentally, I was telling someone else about being an early resister just the other day, and related the same anecdote. "How could you be so stupid?" he asked, "Arguing against email is like arguing against telephones." I agreed, and added that I probably would've done that too. When you're wrong so often you get pretty good at it.

With this all in mind I should probably confess that when it comes to nutrition - and food science as a whole - I largely thought that it was bullshit. I mean, I've been vegan for a very long time, so obviously I took note of my diet, but anything beyond "this has no animal products in it" was alright by me. There were two sensations within my body that I took note of: Hungry (aka Undesireable) and Full (Desireable). The journey to each particular destination was pretty irrelevant. As such, I've been on some pretty interesting food adventures - I've lived on peanut butter and jam sandwiches for two weeks; I've eaten fifty shoddy dumplings from Camy Dumpling House in one sitting; I've battled the vegan chocolate cake at Vegie Bar singlehanded and won; and I've tried my best to disprove the myth of the skinny vegan. None of them - well, apart from the Dumplings - made me sick, and I certainly didn't notice any change in my day to day 'performance'.

Nowadays, of course, I ask a bit more of my body. I started off simply eating a little more of what I was already eating, which meant that even though I was exercising a lot, I wasn't really losing any weight. So eventually I started paying a bit more attention to what went in my mouth. People had been recommending that I read this book for a long time, but initially, true to form, I thought it was dumb. Some of this initial skepticism was due to the fact that Brazier is a triathlete, and as a cyclist I'm hardwired to view triathletes as slightly below wombats in intelligence. Casey bought the book nonetheless, and eventually I - in a moment of weakness - picked it up.

Now, I'm not following the diet meal for meal, so I can't state unequivocally that it's fantastic and you should live by it forever and ever and ever amen. I have, however, made a few changes to my diet as a result of reading it - trying to have one big salad a day, drinking the energy smoothies, exploring the weird and slightly gross world of dried fruit, eating fresh fruit and vegetables, cutting out bread and coffee and processed food, and paying more attention to my recovery. Hell, tonight I even got busy with the food processor and made a whole heap of homestyle energy bars. And when I eat them, I'll be paying attention. So far, it's been working out pretty well.

So, I've said it once, and I'll say it again: I was wrong. Apparently it is important to eat well, and the Thrive book isn't dumb. There.

Jus' Sayin.

Does He Wonder Where I Am?

Today I was looking at the stats from this blog and realized that there were some pretty distinct disadvantages to having a blog with the word "fuck" in the title. So I changed it. Feel free to update your bookmarks, etc. Rest assured the content will not deviate from the usual self-indulgent drivel. Some things you just can't change.

Stay Silent.

I was racing out near Kyneton today, on a course that I'd only ever been dropped on before this point. It was coming to the last climb and I was still feeling pretty good (probably thanks to this, with the addition of some of these wheels, courtesy of this guy - more on that later). I was starting to think about the sprint - there were two guys off the front, but it was definitely going to be on for third place. I think I even loosened off my brakes a bit. In the hope of covering any moves up the hill I'd gone to the front of the bunch, and was sitting there quite happily, before I started to hear this voice. Now, this was at the end of one hundred ks of racing, and I wasn't thinking real clearly at this point. "That's it," the voice was saying, in a disturbingly calm tone, "keep pushing it. Come on. Come on. Now drop down a gear. Come on. Big ring now, big ring. Out of the saddle now. Out of the saddle now. Come on. Come on. Smack it! Smack it!"

When eventually I blew (no similies this time, perverts) I was relieved to see that the voice belonged to Sean the Man, who took off up the hill without delay. I was also relieved to see that we'd shelled most of the other riders in the bunch. The Man ended up coming home third, taking some money off the organizers and sharing it with me.

There's a dubious moral in here, about how listening to the voices that could possibly be just inside your head leading to wealth and riches. Make of that what you will.

Hey! Ho! Let's Go!

One for the sponsors.

The Fundamental Things Apply.

This Is What We Mean.

When we talk about pulling the pin on a ride.


To add insult to injury: You see that dark blob on the counter there, just above my saddle? That blob is my gloves. As far as I know, they're still there.

Come With It Now.

Handicap races I can handle, and hilly races I can handle, but the two together is a bridge too far for me at this point. Three laps into a four lap race and I was done. After being swooped by a magpie - the bastards always seem to know when you're at your most vulnerable - I had ample time to think about what would happen when I finally rolled in. People would ask, "What happened to you?" and I'd say, "Well, I blew up." But this wasn't good enough for me. If you're going to lose, you have to be funny about it. So I started thinking about similies to echo my predicament. Sean the Man is fond of using "I blew like a hooker," but I like to think I only use highbrow material, so I ruled that out. The obvious comparison with things that blow up led me down some other unsavoury laneways (like an English pub in Belfast...), but eventually I settled on, "I blew up like the Hindenburg," and repeated it ad nauseum.

Here's a pic of me attacking the Pastoria hill:


Oh the humanity.

The Man and I hit up the store on the way home. DC, obviously sick of hearing every similie we had amassed on the hour-long journey home, decided that I should have a better chance of not blowing up in the hills, and prepared for me my new bike. You can read about it (and see pictures of me camping up the place) here.

I Got My Body And My Mind On The Same Page.

I've been driving quite a bit lately. The combination of the weather, a particularly hard training regime and a number of road races out in the countryside means that I'm in the car quite a bit. I don't mind driving, but I don't think I'm the best in the world at it. I've run red lights here and there, been caught speeding, don't pay enough attention sometimes. I'm pretty paranoid about hitting a cyclist one day, but I can see how it might happen.

Which is why I've always believed that as a cyclist, being hit by a car is a matter of 'when' rather than 'if'. It's the same as being in an accident involving two drivers - errors of judgement inevitably occur when fallible idiots like me - and like everybody - are in control. It's just that when you're in a car and you hit another car as you pull out of your driveway, the only damage done happens to your wallet. When you're in a car and you hit a cyclist, that cyclist gets fucked up bad. We - me included - need to take extra care, be more patient, more vigilant. It's easier said than done, but the way I figure it, we have an obligation.

Mind The Generation Gap.

Today held a lot of firsts for me. First road open. First race longer than 100ks. First time I've dropped in on my sister and my niece on my way back from racing in Bendigo. First time I've started a handicap in a bunch containing riders for whom cycling is a profession. And the first time I've been able to keep up with the scratch bunch for any discernible amount of time. Yep, I've had my cherry popped in so many ways today you could stick me in a cocktail. It was not, however, the first time I've been dropped. And nor, unfortunately, will it be the last.

It's Hard To Heal A Broken Heart.

So, it may be apparent that I'm pretty obsessed with cycling at the moment - way more than I've ever been before. But sometimes my obsession scares even me. Like, for example, when I was reading today's Cycling Tips Blog. It's about Chris Jongewaard and the time he spent in jail. Reading away, thinking 'Wow, that's pretty messed up,' which eventually led me to think, 'Man, if I had seven months away from all work and life pressures, maybe I'd come out of it all ready to smash the national road series'. That's probably not healthy, is it?

Civilian Casualties.

I used to want to be a road racer. It's true. When McNabb and Nath were trying to convince me to come down and try track racing, I told them no, I wanted to concentrate on the road. But eventually they suckered me in, and I kinda got addicted. Even with this addiction, however, I still remember being really freaking excited about the beginning of last year's road season. It took about two months for that excitement to wear off. The road was just too hard - I was getting dropped, getting cold and wet and sick, getting pissed off. It was obvious: I was a track rider. More than that - I was a sprinter. And when I first signed up with Rick, that's what I told him.

So I wasn't heaps happy when, after coming back from my break, I received my new program. Road racing. Every weekend. But I'm a willing pupil, and generally do what I'm told. I signed up for B grade and hoped I'd be able to hold on. I couldn't.

A few weeks went by. I did a mountain bike race, some crits, a lot of long hard ergo sessions on the wind trainer. In an attempt to actually find a road race each weekend I drove all over the place. I lost a lot of weight. The hills started getting easier and I started to learn how to suffer. And in some handicap held outside of Geelong I ended up on the podium. The next week, back with the Northern Combine, I made the top ten in another handicap. More results came in, I got bumped up to A grade, and I started thinking differently. I started thinking that maybe I could do this after all.

Of course, that led to choices, and lots of umming and ahhing. Some decisions don't come easy. I think I even lost a little sleep. Which I could've avoided had I just spoken to Rick straightaway. Aside from the Tour of Bright, Road season here seems to peter out around October, and he was all set to have me race road until at least then. And when I suggested that maybe I'd be better off as an endurance rider on the track, he fairly jumped at the proposal.

So now it's all settled. Road til October, perhaps culminating in the Melbourne to Warnambool. Then a couple of months of solid training on the track before the Christmas Carnivals - perhaps the Tasmanian versions. If you need me, you know where I'll be.

Is It In Me?

I also gave up coffee. I've done this before - through the early 2000s I didn't have any coffee at all, until the need to stay awake through the night in a Coca-Cola free Cuba broke the edge - and so didn't think it would be too much of a big deal. But holy crap, those first few days were rough. It's no decision to go legal drug free, so I smashed a few Panadols in that time, let me tell you. Now that I've come through I'm pretty happy with my decision. I'm feeling a lot fresher, and don't doubt that having less caffeine in my system has resulted in a greater absorption of iron. At the same time, the intense pendulum swings of mood that define the coffee high - and its consequent low - have been mellowed out considerably, so I'm a much smoother customer these days. Smoothness doesn't lead to much late night frenetic blog posting though. Sorry about that.

I Gotta Go, I Gotta Go.

I don't know if I've posted this clip before. If I haven't, I should have. Now that I've seen it, whenever I'm chasing someone down, be it on the road, or in a crit, or on the track, I get this voice in my head. That's not something I need to keep to myself. I want that voice to be in your head too.

The Negative Vibe.

Hey, road racing isn't so bad after all. If it wasn't for some typical tardiness, I'd probably be tackling this this weekend. I know, I know. Road Opens. What the hell am I thinking? Well, sit down and let me tell you.

I scored a 7th place in this handicap race the other day. I figured it was probably an anomaly, that I was only able to hold on due to scratch coming past us, then sitting up. Nonetheless, the handicapper bumped me up to B grade. And on a fucking shitty as hell day last Saturday I was able to eke out a 2nd place. The handicapper called me as I was on the way home, asking for a race report. When I informed him of the results, he decided to bump me up to A grade. I told him to fuck off. Only time will tell what he does, but he's a pretty stubborn bloke at the best of times, so I expect to be riding against some pretty serious competition come the next Northern Combine scratch race.

When I finally made it to A grade on the track I made a couple of decisions. I'd finally purchase my own track bike, and I'd start entering Opens. And now the same should probably occur for racing the road. I've been searching on the internet all week for a new road bike - my current whip is a 90s steel Serotta with a front derailleur that keeps bending and leaving me stuck in the big ring. And now it's my job to start testing myself against some more intense competition. So, there's a road Open in Bendigo coming up, and another one in Shepparton in a month or so. Better to be a small fish in a big pond. Or, perhaps more accurately, it's better to play bass for Springsteen at Madison Square Gardens than pretend to be Springsteen in the cover band rocking out at the Croxton next weekend.

Fuck I love Springsteen.