Here come the CLASSICS!

Wow...it's been a month since my last post...my new years resolution lasted about 2 months. Oh well.

ANYWAY...it's THAT time again! Cycling over in Europe is ON! Two big races were run this weekend, and the real Classics are on the way SOON! Nice to see Cav strike gold so early....and he basically did it on his own (AFTER the team worked for him all day I mean)....the sprint trains were all wiped out and it was every man for himself at the end, and he out-kicked the rest.

Sadly I won't be seeing any of the action...in the interest of saving $ our DTV satellite service is down to the basics just now....Obviously I'll up the package as the Grand Tours are near...Though I need to know if (who) will be broadcasting the Giro before I decide to do that in May or not.

Crazy weather seemingly everywhere right now...back east and up north is getting WINTER MADNESS this year...yet Alaska is not. Jill Homer and her boyfriend Beat fly up tomorrow I think...Beat is again doing the Iditarod (Anchorage to Nome) on FOOT! He's done it 2 years in a row...takes him just under a month if I recall...can you imagine doing that for FUN? Anyway, they had to move the start line up to Fairbanks as there's NO SNOW anywhere near Anchorage! Jill posted some pics last week supplied by local snowmobile clubs and such of the barren

A landscape around Anchorage...sheer madness that Boston is having FAR more winter than most of Alaska. Most will call that Global Warming, I'd tend to call it shifting weather patterns. It's certainly been a winter of record for a lot of the US, and I have no idea what Canada is getting (as nobody down here reports on that). But it seems most of these huge storms come down from Canada, so I'd think they must be getting a good one too?

As to the Sophie (aka: the Kracken), she grows like a WEED! I just weighed her today, she's 38.4lbs! (she was only 23 when we brought her home before Christmas). We both swear that some days you come home and you'd swear she's bigger than she was that morning. She just turned 6 months old yesterday...so we can't help but wonder just how big she will actually top out at...the vet said likely between 55 and 60lbs...which is a pretty-good size for a female bulldog.Time will tell...very soon she won't be able to fit under the bed anymore, which will be a real loss of comedy in the afternoons. She and PG like to play what I call "Jack in the box"...where PG chases Sophie barking and such, trying to boss her around, and Sophie crawls under the bed which infuriates PG (as she can't do that). Then as PG is patrolling the edge of the bed barking, Sophie suddenly shoots out like a J-in-the-b snapping and making some insane gurggly barky noise. PG charges over to where she shot out at, but she's already crawled back under, and moves around under there and pops out at a totally new place 10 seconds or so later...it goes on and on. I tried to video some of it, but they seem to have toned it down when I turned on the camera for some reason. I'll keep trying though, as it can't last much longer...Sophie barely fits as it is.

And so...enough on that. Next weekend is the annual "spring-forward" time change (HOORAY!). I always really look for ward to that...more light in the afternoons is always a good thing! I've been doing more mountain biking this year than in previous years...partly due to a close call on the road bike (my first road ride this year in fact)...and also because a friend is mt biking more too and it's always more fun to ride with people than solo. This weekend Mother Nature was laughing at us (again) and planned an entire weekend of storms for us (with windy, er, I mean WINDY weather all last week). I slipped in a solo mt bike ride on Saturday, thinking I was going to slip one past Mother Nature...she got me GOOD. The drizzly rain hit as I neared the summit of a LONG dirt climb (almost 2 straight hours of climbing) and it got COLD right quick too...so I turned around and headed for the car. Haven't been so cold in a long time..and as I neared the bottom the dirt road became a skating rink of icky slimy mud on top...I only went down once but got pretty gooky doing it...and then I had to put my muddy bike and body into my car...what a mess. My ride was cut short by over half of what I hoped to do, and I had a big mess to deal with. Rats.

Today I surprisingly slipped in an early road ride thinking I could again beat Mother Nature (it was sunny and clear by 8:30am). I did..sort of...she didn't rain on me, but she did bring back the COLD...I froze the last 15 miles or so (the rains hit HARD an hour or 2 after I got home). And while I was on today's ride, I had ANOTHER close call on the road. A gold mini van apparently not paying attention at ALL...I was just past the bottom of Vandenberg Grade and climbing slightly...riding in the middle of a nice wide shoulder (the roads were damp pretty much all day, and I'd already had one flat due to stuff sticking to the tires and then working it's way into the tube eventually). This minivan swooshed RIGHT by me (at likely around 65mph), driving at least 2 or 3 feet on MY side of the white line...missing be my WAY too little I can tell you. Scared the daylights out of me...again. I quickly remembered why I've been Mt biking more this year. Just about 2 or 3 minutes later I got passed on the climb by a "FAST" guy on my left...he swooped by me, and as he rode just on the right of the line (and stayed there the entire climb) I was thinking that had he been there when the mini van came by he would likely be dead. I just can't figure what people are thinking/doing in their cars...but it sure isn't paying attention to their DRIVING! Back in Jan if the truck guy hadn't had his drivers window down, I'm quite sure he would have driven right over the top of me (as he ran a stop sign). And then last fall the lady in a gold Lincoln Town-car did almost the same exact thing, only there were TWO of us, and if HER window had been up she wouldn't have heard us screaming and I most likely wouldn't be here typing.

OK...enough bitching about cars for now...I just don't want to die...or be seriously (or even not so seriously) injured by a car as I ride...I'd like to think I have that right...but I don't. It's pure luck. And I don't even have to do ANYTHING wrong...just be in the wrong place in the wrong time.But I guess that's what most accidents are. Bad luck. All we can really hope for is that it doesn't happen to us. I guess I'll mostly stick to Mt biking for a while...if I crash there I know where the fault lies...and I can live with that.

Have a great week, enjoy the time change AND the Classics!

Cheers!