Me and the Little Sister

Megan and Me, post T-Day Festivities. Foto courtesy of the iMac PhotoBooth, a shamelesss plug by yours truly =)

I Heart Cranksgiving!

Me and My New Italian Carbon Love =)

A Cranksgiving Miracle

Well not really a miracle but Cranksgiving is in full effect. I finished up my first block of training today with another great ride here in East Tenn. I must say, the roads here are by far the best I have ever ridden in terms of quality. I know my mom and dad would love it for me to make Cranksgiving an annual affair.

Today I did 125km. I made out a map on google maps then just followed the road numbers and didn't really know what to expect in terms of terrain. Legs were pretty heavy in the beginning, side-effect of Cranksgiving but I continued on and boy was it worth it. Since that fateful day in July, I cherish each ride I get to take whether its 3.2km to work or 125km today, riding is just awesome. But today's ride was definitely one for the training journal memory. I will ride this one again before leaving because it was just so amazing. So the route took me from my house in Piney Flats, TN to Elizabethton on a nice, super quiet and twisty road with amazing fall colors. From Elizabethton, I heading North towards Shady Valley, this is where it becomes epic. On the way, it was pretty flat and I was enjoying the quietness before a car pulled out in front of me but more dangerously, it pulled out in front of two Harley men. There was some massive fishtailing on the bikes and they actually clipped each other. I don't know how they kept the bikes up but they must have been quite handy with the fishtail recovery. I asked if they were okay, I think they appreciated it but didn't think much of my skinny cycling legs =) but thats another story. The girl who almost hit them stayed back about 80m and for good reason. I was more concerned with the two guys attacking this car which was why I stayed. So I pressed on after my diplomatic duties were exhausted. The road began to rise slightly but nothing serious. As i contined peddaling on the false flat, the valley i was in began to narrow then all of the sudden I am entering the Cherokee National Forest and there is a sick climb ahead, 7-8km, 5-9% with a top elevation of 1052m. It was about a 20min climb I think. Nothing short of epic. It was the first climb I had done since June that had rewarded me with so much pride since my march of the fabled Col du la Croix du Fer and Col du Galibier. This climb did so much more for my confidence than all of the riding I have done during Crankgiving-07. I was worried all week that I had lost my ability to climb but nothing has been really long, only 1-2km at most. Mainly big roller which wreck havoc on my Lionel Ritchie leg spinning rhythem. The latic was burning but for some reason, I still had a smile on my face. The followup climb was shorter but I was treated to a 10km descent which was icing on the cake. Didn't Bomb the Hill at my top ability. I was a little hesitent with the new ride and the occasional wet pavement. But the Cento is a climbers golden arrow and she doesn't shy away from the speed on the backside either.
After the last climb it was back on 41 heading towards Bluff City. Not super picturesque. Daylight continues to battle me and make my mom worry. But Cranksgiving has a grip on me and sometimes I get a little over eager and push the daylight to exhaustion.

If you are out visiting this area, let me know and I will throw out a map for you. On the descent out of the Cherokee National Forest, I was thinking of what a sick area this would be to have a stage race. Plenty of terrain variety and many quiet roads. I even had a woman encouraging me up the final climb saying I only had "1 mile to the top and its all downhill afterwards!" Got to love the support.

Well, I need to start making my Cran-Walnut Stuffing for tomorrow's festivities. Ohh, and if you are wondering about the culinary experiences with my grade school friends, well, it was epic. recipes will follow....
Chow,
Matthew

Tis the season for Cranksgiving!

Sorry to all my faithful readers for not writing sooner. Cranksgiving has taken a great deal of my time. What is Cranksgiving? Just the greatest holiday of the year! Basically its 10days of riding my legs into the ground with some quality base training. So far, the riding has been quite spectacular with my new lover, the Wilier Cento. Big thanks to Colin at Bike-RX for helping get her all pretty. When I arrived on Friday, I was only able to get in 1.5hours because of a decrease in available sunlight. Got in 4.5, 4 and 3.5 hours Sat-Today. Today was pretty wet and I got pretty hungry. But got in about 2500kjs.

Everytime I come back to Johnson City, I am continually impressed with the quailty of roads. Now that being said, I had my first flat today but these Michelin Pro Race 2 tyres are pretty soft and cut easily. But nevertheless, the roads here are the best that I have ridden in the country. So smooth and many quite roads to get lost on. The biggest difference that I have noticed is that everything is rolling, very few flats which makes it difficult to get into a rhythm. Altitude is 1600ft so not really super beneficial but maybe little more than CA. The Wilier is a pretty sweet ride. Still working on the fit but I will get it dialed in soon enough. Plan is to go bigger tomorrow and really big on Wed before I take off on Thursday. Will try to get in an hour to spin the legs on thursday but the weather report looks dicey. Friday-Monday will be big too.

I will post a new pic of the ride tomorrow. Tomorrow evening I am cooking with my friend Morgan and our dinner party. It should be epic, a culinary nirvana.

Want to also give a shout-out to the girls from South Carrick. I have been getting some good feedback from these ladies and a few late night calls asking for new material and talking about the greatest nights of their lives =)

Chow,
Matthew

The Macho Man

Today is the Macho Man Randy Savage's birthday. He's a cool 55 today. The Macho Man holds a close spot in my heart as I grew up watching this beast in the ring on WWF and WCW. I was also witness to his marriage to the Miss Elizabeth, rest her soul.

Well, you know you have hit the big time when you start getting 15% discounts at the West Portal Produce Market. That is correct! I have created quite the repoir with the produce guy at WP since I stop in and buy 3 fuji apples every morning. Call me a slave to the fuji or a slave to habit, but the fuji is the greatest tasting apple, firm, yet sweet.

I roll out to TN tonight on the JetBlue red-eye out of O-Town. Should be an exciting trip with lots of family time, cooking, and of course Cranksgiving. What's Cranksgiving? Just basically the most intense cycling holiday in TN =) My coach Shawn has prescribed a KJ burn over Thanksgiving holiday. I'm shooting for lots of Zone Two kms. Should be an epic adventure on the new ride. So if you are in TN or western NC, give me a shout and we can join up.

Chow,
Matthew

Happy Birthday Little Brother

Today is the birthday of my little brother, David. He turns a ripe 22 today and is well onto his way of creating mass fortune through this entrepreneurial expeditions. Hopefully he will save a little bit for sponsorship of my cycling program haha.

We are going to go for a ride together over the Thanksgiving holiday. Hoping that it will spark his interest back to getting more kms on his Giant. My case to get more of my family on bikes took a tough turn this summer when the truck nearly killed me but I will get them out on bikes and riding.

So to celebrate David's birthday here is a nice little photo for him...

Energy Bars

I am back making my energy bars after a long haitus. The increase in training has sparked my interest in it again. And I don't want to eat the run-of-the-meal energy bars. Namely because they are typically too sweet and #2 they are overpriced. Perhaps at some point I will market my creations to finance my global bicycle racing campaign =)

So what I need are suggestions for what you would like to see. Please use the comment section. I will make mass bunches of the ones that succeed through my testing and tasting and will let you name the bar if your bar is chosen as well as I will send you a large quantity of your bar to you. Sounds like a smashing deal ehh?

Here are the rules that each flavor suggestion must adhear to:
1) Ingredient is readily available or can be produced w/o intense labor, remember something that has to be mass produced in my kitchen.
2) The bar is based on rolled oats so keep that in mind
3) Seasonal suggestions are encouraged but not required. Its always good to have bars for all seasons.
4) Fruit suggestions will use dried fruit in most cases due to shelf life.
5) No meats, this is an energy bar not a Belgian breakfast

Deadline for submissions? Lets just try to get the ideas sooner rather than later, multiple submissions are allowed and encouraged. Think outside the box but tried and true suggestions are always good for those on the conservative side of energy bars =)

Chow,
Matthew

Another sweet mullet to wet your whistle

This is courtesy of my sweet little sis, Megan...Bow to your Sinsai!
If anyone at UTK is watching, call megan up, she loves to party =)
Chow,
Your Brother

Another Sweet Mullet

Courtesy of my brother Eric... Thanks Dog!

That's a sweet mullet!

This morning while on campus as SFSU, I got the glimpse of what makes this country great, the mullet! While getting some mullah out of the little house of money(ie ATM), I caught my first glimpse of one. The mexican dude sported the nice black wavy version of it. Seeing this guy made me think of the mullet master that roams the sidewalks of SF State. I hadn't seem him in awhile but just as I was walking back to my office with coffee in tow, I spotted him! The mullet master was rocking the lower back mullet. Meaning this dude has been growing out the mullet for several years now. It rolls down his back with the sides and front nicely trimmed. I didn't have my digital camera with me and thought it might be a little too weird even for me to take a photo with my mobile. Then I am not sure how I would get the pic off the mobile and onto this blog. So that leaves me with one option. I am going to have to scout this guy out and snap a digital foto of him. There are many types of heroes in this world, some save lives, some win race, and some just make you smile like the mullet master. So today, I want to pay honor to all those who rock the mullet! I encourage everyone to send in their favorite mullet shots. Remember with the mullet its clean up front with a party in the back...

For those of you who are uneducated in mulletness, here is a mullet shot =) Enjoy your Wednesday!

Honey and Erratic drivers

This morning I rolled out on the 'ol Trek1000 on my usual ride to work. Decided to ride up 7th to Laguna Honda to get a little more riding in before the day begins. On my way around West Portal School, this VW driver does a uturn into my lane and just stops to let his kids off. Fortunately, my jedi mind skills anticipated such a weak move on his part. Angered and frustrated for nearly being taken out before I had even a cup of coffee in the morning I rolled up to the guys window. I looked him in the eyes and said, "watch out!" He was a little blown away but he needed to be reminded that his kids won't be late and he should take his driving a little more carefully especially when he is performing illegal uturns. Disgusted at such action, I persevered and was soon back to my happy cycling self but I knew that he plastered onto the web as a bad driver, so if you are around West Portal School in the morning hours watch out for an Asian mid-40s male driver in a VW Golf.

My good friend Nettie Kelly and her sister arrived on the red-eye this morning from Honolulu, so I did the airport pickup. The Forester was in full capacity when I left SFO. They were quite impressed with her abilities to haul such quantities of goods. This was a pretty early pickup at 6:23 am. The plan was to pick them up and then drive home and get the bike and get a little breakfast at Squat and Gobble in West Portal. Arrive at Squat and Gobble at about 7:40am and they have a sign that says food only served between 8am-10pm. WTF dude?! What breakfast places only start serving breakfast at 8am? They are dead to me now so I rolled over to Noah's Bagels across the street and ordered a toasted pumpkin bagel. I like the seasonal flavors =) Most go with cc on their bagel, not me I prefer it plain but asked for a little honey to drizzle on the top. When I asked for the honey the attendant, rather than handing it too me, placed it on the counter box just inches from my hand. I was a little bothered on why she just didn't hand it to me. Its like travel companies offering you a sick deal then saying all you need to do is buy this ridiculously priced plane ticket to get here. If people were just a little more courteous with these small exchanges then I think bigger and better changes would occur in the world.

I picked up my 3 Fuji apples from the West Portal Produce again this morning. I am quite the regular. I think they have some of the freshest fruit in the city. The Chinese man who oversees the stocking in the morning always rings me up, $0.85 is the typical charge which I usually give exact change for but this morning it was $0.90, I guess I am a victim of inflation =) He always smiles and is very cordial. When I left he said, "see you tomorrow morning!" Nice guy and good reason to continue to support to local merchants.

The highly anticipated butternut squash ravioli had positives and negatives. The flavor was top notch. I roasted the butternut squash with a little olive oil drizzle over and sprinkled with sea salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg to give a nice fall flavor. After pureeing it in the food processor I sauted up some fresh sage until crispy then chopped it and added it to the squash puree then scooped in a little ricotta and mixed thoroughly. The next part is what I need to work on. I used Asian wonton wrappers. At first I tried doing the triangular fold with a little scoop of squash/ricotta in the middle. I used water on the edges to seal the wrapper. Then I tried the wrapper on top of wrapper square method. I think this was a better result. i used the end of a fork to make the nice ravioli presses on the end. Boiled in water with sea salt. I think I boiled them too long. Ravioli was very translucent and falling apart. I believe the wrapper are just too delicate for boiling. I looked on the web for suggestions. I found that they are probably good at 3minutes. Also need to take each one out and pat dry with a paper towel and not lay them on top of each other b/c the starches make them stick together. I think next time, I will try steaming them or going Gyoza on them, ie panfrying them which will give them a crispy outside. Soooo many methods to try! Perhaps I will have to start making my own pasta. My awesome office-mate Molly suggested I check out this Italian supermarket in the Mission where its possible I could buy some homemade ravioli pasta. Its worth a checkout....

Yesterday I started reading, Think Like a Chef, by Tom Collochio. Head chef on my only reality-tv drug, Top Chef. I thought he was some arrogant tv chef but his background is quite impressive and he earned himself his attitude through a lot of hard work. what I like most about his idea is his resilience to following recipes. I can never follow recipes. He proposes following what your tastes lean too and what is in season etc. His book does contain recipes but its more about how to think about making good food. Something that is always consuming me. I often go to high-end markets just to check out the deli and see how they pair things and getting ideas. Weird? Extremely, but I guess thats my cross to bear...lol...

Just got off the phone with one of my good friends, Morgan Colana, from St. Mary's Catholic School in Johnson City, TN. She just came up with this great idea to have a dinner party over the Thanksgiving break. I told her absolutely then I said its going to be off the hook so be prepared. Pretty much is going to be a fall culinary nirvana!

So if you are going to be TN and want to sync up shoot me an email...I will keep you posted as the menu develops but its going to be full-blown =)

Chow,
Matthew

Beautiful Fall Days...

Well, Standard Time is back. I guess that is better for my training atleast temporarily as I will have more light in the morning and won't cheat getting hit by a car not being to see me despite my use of lighting. It also gets a little warmer earlier on. Lots of good training this past weekend. I was able to get in 16 hours of riding last week with 11 hrs Fri-Sun. Pretty jazzed about that because I didn't ride on Tue/Thur except to go to work and home. Legs felt really good. I still lack the top-end dragsterness I had when I came home from Europe but I'm pleased with the comings of my training. What I am most impressed and happy with is my recovery. After the rides, my legs are pretty toasted and I'm starving but by the next morning, legs feel good and no soreness. Hopefully signs of good things to come.

One thing that really crept up this weekend was my appetite. Still working on keeping the kilos down but whenever I finish a workout, I'm pretty blown. Yesterday was an exception. I ate two Nature Valley bar packs(140cal a piece) and a banana on my 4 hour jaunt around Paradise Drive and out to Fairfax. Usually I would go for just a banana and be in blood-sugar meltdown on the last 20min of the ride. I managed to heed to my instinct and ate a little more during the ride. Definitely made the climb up to my house much easier. Perhaps I am on to something new in my training...proper food intake while training...For those of you that remember my race reports from La Vaujany and La Mure, I basically rode both of those races to complete caloric deficiency and probably did more damage to myself than normal. I've always struggled with eating and drinking on the bike. This winter's training I will focus more on it b/c I know my strength will be there to fight out and get in the p/1/2 ranks but my food supply process is seriously limiting to the long term performance in a race. I think a lot is psychological...I don't want to eat because I want to burn as many calories as possible without taking any in. But the logic is quite flawed. B/c I end up putting in the calories when I get back and recover slower due to my body being dragged to the bottom. Its also kind of a masochistic thing. When I did La Mure, 150km with a 70km solo effort, I had 4 pieces of bread before the race, 1 banana prior to start, one during the race(i stole both from the food providers at the race) and 3 energy gels. Race was 4hr53min. Not many calories to be used up which equates to muscles being burned and that is Muy No Bueno! Another case is where it really hurt me bad was at the San Dimas SR in Mar07. I was feeling great on the road race and ready to make the moves and get into that attack mode on the last lap but when I went up the climb on the last lap, my calfs went into deep spasm and I had to back off just so I didn't blow and miss holding my position. Why did this happen? Well it was in the mid70s and I drank maybe a bottle of water and no food. For a ~3hr race that is no bueno even if you are just sitting in. So it cost me a podium on that stage b/c I knew the legs were good but I had to settle for a ~top15? Doesn't really matter much because i missed the race on my own food problems.

So for 2008, I'm going to eat better on the bike and off and drink more on the bike =) Right now, I'm considering the Southern Nevada Stage Race January 26-28, 2008 as my breakout race. Its out of Las Vegas. I figure it would be a good 3 days of racing to get the season off nicely with no ambitions other than to get some racing kms in.

So on my ride this morning I saw this guy carrying two giant black bags of alum cans? Both bags were suspended with a wooden stick he placed over his shoulder. It was quite the balancing act but these things were huge. Wish I had the camera...So tomorrow is election day in San Francisco. For those of you who need a laugh, here goes....There are 14 candidates for Mayor. The incumbant, Gavin Newsom, has a pretty good lock. but it would be quite funny if any of these other characters gave him a run or even won. SF politics are quite ridiculous.

List of Mayoral Candidates courtesy of Wikipedia, the True internet information source lol

• Harold Brown
• George Davis
• Lonnie Holmes
• Harold Hoogasian
• Grasshopper Kaplan
• Quintin Mecke[2]
• Wilma Pang
• Michael Powers
• "Chicken" John Rinaldi[3]
• Ahimsa Porter Sumchai[4]
• Billy Bob Whitmer
• Josh Wolf[5]

Lots of good recipes created this past weekend. Tonight I will try my butternut squash ravioli...I will post pictures of the final piece
Boo Yah,
Matthew

Fall Treats

Fall is definitely in the air here in San Francisco. I always tell people that the weather is pretty temperate with a vary narrow swing in temperatures between dawn and dusk. The coldest parts are just north of the GGB in Marin County. My coach didn't have anything planned for my training today but I wanted to get in some more base stuff. Rolled out early to Fairfax again and it was quite nippy, upper 40s, low50s. Thats wicked cold for the Bay Area. Legs felt pretty good which was a welcome surprise. Yesterday I did my first core strength workout using weights. Core work is vital to staying injury-free throughout the season and it gives you that edge when the race starts to blow apart. For anyone that is interested in getting some core strength exercises which are excellent for ANYONE!, I suggest that you pick up a copy of Core Performance by Mark Verstegen. He has produced several followup books as well for more advanced workouts. Verstegen is the guru on core strengthening and can add benefits to anyone. The reason I like doing core stuff is that it doesn't require the use of a lot of free weights or machines. Everything is pretty natural. By not using a lot of weights, you are less prone to injury and you don't get bulky...bulky=no bueno for cycling up hills really fast.

This morning on the ride I saw some pretty funny stuff. #1 a guy was riding his bike and smoking a cigarette. I guess he is going for the zero-sum approach, ie cycling to improve health, smoking to destroy health = no change in health. Not sure if they are equitable though.

Now that fall is in full swing, I recommend diving into some culinary fall treats ie butternut squash and apples. Two evenings ago I made a sick roasted butternut squash risotto. Unbelievably creamy and delicious. I just finished off the last of it this afternoon for lunch. Tonight I am going to dig deep into my culinary arsenal and attempt a roasted butternut squash ravioli. I was originally intending to make a soup with the remainder but the sailing team gave me the idea to try a ravioli. Yesterday at practice I had a food smackdown with Joey, sailing team member. He thinks his kitchen skills are far superior. The dude doesn't even have a blog to share his treats and his main source of critics are college students. Now, we all know college students will say things are really good no matter what as long as they don't have to buy it or cook it.

For any of my readers that will be in Johnson City, TN over Thanksgiving, I will be visiting. Will be bringing my bike and hoping to get lots of kms. On another note, I saw today in the SF Examiner newspaper as picture of a guy(Aubrayo Franklin) I went to high school with in TN. Surprisingly it wasn't for lawless acts, the guy is playing pro football for the SF 49ers. Pretty crazy stuff. They listed his stats as 6-1, 334lbs. The guy is a monster. I weighed in yesterday at a fit 162lbs and 6-4. Of course, I am going for 30min threshhold power-to-weight. Whereas, Aubrayo is going for 5sec "I'm going to smother that quarterback" weight. I think I can bring down the weight to 72.5kg in the next month or so as my training increases. One of the side-effects of my new weight weeniness is that I get chilly crazy easy. Ohh well, its all for the cause of going faster up the hills. I believe I was at 166lbs in high school when i ran XC, no where near as fit as I am now. Age has been good to me I guess =)

Chow,
Matthew