Silly commuting racing

biondino

Il Principe wrote:

biondino wrote:

Il Principe wrote:

biondino wrote:

I also had a really filthy, perverted dream last night. I was riding a BMX. And enjoying it.

I will understand if I am banned.

Pah - I dreamt I was playing cricket the other night. Now that is perverted; I cannot stand cricket, dullest sport ever (after baseball).

How DARE you - baseball is the best sport in the world! I have become an enormous fan over the last few years, and spend almost as much time on a Colorado Rockies forum as I do here. So subtle, so immersive, such highs and lows. What a game.

Oh god, the only other person I know that loves baseball is 40, lives alone, doesn't work (thanks to an inheritance), has the worst halitosis ever and is a complete social retard who enjoys regaling people with stories of his sex trips to Thailand - he alone has been enough to put me off the 'sport'

You read Moneyball?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moneyball

Yep - it's a brilliant (it wasn't you who originally recommended it to me, was it Jash?). Of course at the moment I love baseball even more because the Rockies have won 17 of their last 18 games, which is pretty impressive in any sport.

I don't think I have too much in common with your acquaintance, though - I keep stories of my sex tourism quiet.

jedster

Cricket, on the other hand, is a glorious game. Full of finesse. Just look at the majesty of David Gower's strokeplay.

Indeed.

Seems to me that baseball is very like 20/20 cricket. All good fun but lacks some of the grace, subtlety and epic ebbs and flows of the real thing.

J

il_principe

biondino wrote:

Yep - it's a brilliant (it wasn't you who originally recommended it to me, was it Jash?). Of course at the moment I love baseball even more because the Rockies have won 17 of their last 18 games, which is pretty impressive in any sport.

I don't think I have too much in common with your acquaintance, though - I keep stories of my sex tourism quiet.

It probably was; I have the memory of a goldfish.

UndercoverElephant

Can I just enquire as to why so many baseball players seem to take performance enhancing drugs? To look at them, you'd think that actually walking to the fridge would double their exercise intake.

il_principe

itboffin wrote:

Riding in this morning was a fcuking challenge and a half damn you Jash and your one more beer... :roll:

Engaged super hyper mega POOTLE mode this morning only breaking double digits once :shock:

I'm now off to consume my body weight in greasy unhealthy food.

Don't blame me, it was your fault. I might have had a kebab on the way home. Then decided to fettle the Focus for Saturdays ride. I fettle well after 5 pints apparently - or at least I rode it in today with no issues!

cjcp

jedster wrote:

Cricket, on the other hand, is a glorious game. Full of finesse. Just look at the majesty of David Gower's strokeplay.

Indeed.

Seems to me that baseball is very like 20/20 cricket. All good fun but lacks some of the grace, subtlety and epic ebbs and flows of the real thing.

J

It's 20/20 with a caveman's club.

Have you also noticed how they *all* need gloves to catch the ball.

Paulie W

cjcp wrote:

jedster wrote:

Cricket, on the other hand, is a glorious game. Full of finesse. Just look at the majesty of David Gower's strokeplay.

Indeed.

Seems to me that baseball is very like 20/20 cricket. All good fun but lacks some of the grace, subtlety and epic ebbs and flows of the real thing.

J

It's 20/20 with a caveman's club.

Have you also noticed how they *all* need gloves to catch the ball.

It's much more like a test match than 20/20.

Baseball goes on for ever and is punctuated by long periods of absolutely nothing happening. There is also a rhythym to baseball as there is with a test match and if you watch it enough the subtlety becomes increasingly apparent.

Still crap though....

blu3cat

Baseball goes on for ever and is punctuated by long periods of absolutely nothing happening. There is also a rhythym to baseball as there is with a test match and if you watch it enough the subtlety becomes increasingly apparent.

Are you sure you don't hallucinate the subtle rhythm, sorta like one of those optical lllusions where you stare at the picture and the wheel in the middle rotates?

biondino

UndercoverElephant wrote:

Can I just enquire as to why so many baseball players seem to take performance enhancing drugs? To look at them, you'd think that actually walking to the fridge would double their exercise intake.

A lot of baseball players have made a career on power, i.e. how many home runs they can score. There are a number of different skills the perfect baseball player will have, of which power is the only one. But a) it's sexy, a headline stat that translates to the highest salaries, and b) it sort of legitimises laziness - you don't have to be a great fielder (in the American League, the pitcher doesn't bat so they use what's called a Designated Hitter - ALL he does is hit, he doesn't field at all, so any defensive skills are useless), and although running quickly is a plus, if you hit a homer you don't need to run at all but can stroll at your leisure around the bases.

Hence players like David Ortiz and Vladimir Guerrero can weigh up to 20 stone and can barely move compared to their nippy teammates. There are others, such as the enormous Prince Fielder ("currently listed at 5' 11" and 268 pounds"), who plays for a National League team where they don't use Designated Hitters, so he does have to field (he plays first base, where you have to be able to catch and little else - it's the "easiest" position on the field and thus tends to be where the strongest hitters field as they can concentrate on their hitting.

So it's very much in their interest for this kind of player to become as powerful as possible, so steroids (which weren't officially banned, with punishments for violators, until 2003) were an irresistible temptation for many. And it snowballed - as players like Mark McGwire (never proven to have doped but no-one in the sport for second believes he's innocent) and Sammy Sosa (only last week it was revealed he got caught in a 2003 test) started hitting beyond 60 homers a season, the other power players felt they needed to catch up.

The fact that drugs haven't been properly banned for very long means the memory of legit PEDs is still strong. Coupled with this, the ban for your first failed test is only 50 games - sounds a lot but it's less than 2 months, less than 1/3 of the season.

So that's why baseball players dope.

jimmypippa

Day off today:

Cycling proficiency at my kids' school in the morning (nooo don't cycle into that car... *Glance* behind you THEN TURN ROUND AND LOOK WHERE YOU ARE GOING.. nooo not into that parked car , on a loop)


Went up Kinder this afternoon, and *nearly* scalped a tractor on the way down, gained about half a mile on it, but it turned off about 40yds ahead of me...

(I was on foot, so I think it was noteworthy)

I have noticed someone on a FG/SS that does at least the first hill on my commute, and pretty fast too :shock:

biondino

At lunchtime today I was walking along Oxford Street and I could see a guy about to filter RLJ. So I just went and stood in front of him

Kieran_Burns

biondino wrote:

At lunchtime today I was walking along Oxford Street and I could see a guy about to filter RLJ. So I just went and stood in front of him

and if he complained you could say "I'm a cyclist as well you know!"

redvee

lost_in_thought wrote:

apart from the fact that I overslept (even by my standards) and woke up at 9... :oops:

Bloody hell girl, some of us are well into our working day, or is that cups of tea?, at that time of day.

itboffin

By that point I've eaten lunch no 1 and am looking for my next food fix :shock:

cjcp

I don't know whether it's the 10% or 15% rule for inreasing effort and distance, but, whichever it is, I absolutely kicked the backside out of it tonight.

Took full advantage of the tailwind (when the traffic permitted that is), dropping an assortment of roadies, and then busted a hump trying to keep up with four roadies out on their training rides. Managed a 18:55 lap with a backpack and slow moving traffic to Kingston Gate. HR in the 180s, much higher than usual. The legs are not very happy either.

Eau Rouge

Another baseball fan here. The bit I like is that they play almost every single day for 6 months. Following 25-30 guys every day for 6 months, you get all sorts of little threads and stories happening alongside the individual games, all 162 of them. Over that many games, you can see all the geeky stats playing out and you can see that they aren't just silly numbers, they actually mean something, unlike stats in most other sports.
So you can take this big picture view, see the season through 3 or 4 game series chunks of results and stats and highlights, but at the same time you can take the game each individual pitch at a time, what to throw next, to this batter, in this situation. There really aren't too many sports where you have such a big variation how you watch it. Nobody sits there wondering who Paul Scholes is going to pass to next...
It's a great game, but you really do need to pick a team to follow, find that cities local newspapers web site, and read the sports section online everyday to really get the feel of it.

Anyway, excellent commute home today. Took the 'old' route home that I hadn't taken in ages, and just flew home. I'm sure the wind helped somehow, but it was one of the quickest bits of cycling I've done, for all 7 miles of it. Didn't see anyone going my way (par for the course in the countryside) but did manage to catch the temporary roadworks light perfectly. Approaching, and seeing about 7 or 8 cars stopped at the red, I kept going down the right hand side past them, really not wanting to stop, but faced with a red light I didn't want to RLJ either. The temptation to be naughty was maybe just winning, thanks to the momentum I didn't want to lose, when, just as I get to the back of the first 4x4 thingy, the amber light appears and I attack! Swoop past the 4x4 on the right before he gets moving and keep the power down over the little rise of the bridge. I know I need to turn right in about a quarter of a mile, and as I have a lead by now, I'm taking the primary all the way, the last thing I want is those 8 cars passing me when I need to turn right half way up a rise. So I'm giving it the full Ballan treatment, get to the hill ahead of them, shoot up it...and have to pseudo-trackstand to let the 4 cars come down the hill before turning right. Varese flashbacks ruined.

Roastie

cjcp wrote:

I don't know whether it's the 10% or 15% rule for inreasing effort and distance, but, whichever it is, I absolutely kicked the backside out of it tonight.

Took full advantage of the tailwind (when the traffic permitted that is), dropping an assortment of roadies, and then busted a hump trying to keep up with four roadies out on their training rides. Managed a 18:55 lap with a backpack and slow moving traffic to Kingston Gate. HR in the 180s, much higher than usual. The legs are not very happy either.

Good work CJ!

The legs will thank you in due course .

redvee

I sort of scalped a beemer tonight, sort of as it was at a set of lights and he wasn't too quick off the lights when I flew past him but I had to pull into the left soon after as there as no way I was going to get across 4 lanes of fast traffic.

Bassjunkieuk

Well done CJ, that's a mighty impressive time for a back pack laden ride, as Roastie says your legs will thank you for it someday!

Still sweet FA to report from my commute, had a minor clipless moment but managed to somehow avoid a nasty meeting between my top tube and nether regions this morning.......fumbled the clip in from the last lights :shock: Thankfully I recovered as I think I might have had them removed if the guy on the BSO next to me had beaten off the line!!

lost_in_thought

redvee wrote:

lost_in_thought wrote:

apart from the fact that I overslept (even by my standards) and woke up at 9... :oops:

Bloody hell girl, some of us are well into our working day, or is that cups of tea?, at that time of day.

I was tired! And yeah, that is pretty late. Arriving in the office after 10 = bad form

biondino

I had a hairy moment tonight in the Hyde Park underpass on the fixie. I'd got up to my highest ever speed/rpm (about 30mph and, I guess, maybe 150rpm) when I came across a big puddle in the tunnel. I didn't know what to do and ended up taking my feet out of the clips. At 30mph. Fortunately, all I had to context with was a pretty substantial, but constant, wobble and the humiliation of knowing a swift roadie was behind me. And the adrenaline surge afterwards. Not fun!

However, I did go out after getting home to read scripts in Richmond Park as the sun began to set. Lots of bunnies! And 10 miles extra riding in the most beautiful conditions. Ah, British summer, when you're on form you're unbeateable.

cjcp

Bassjunkieuk wrote:

Well done CJ, that's a mighty impressive time for a back pack laden ride, as Roastie says your legs will thank you for it someday!

Thanks, chaps. That "someday" is not today, that's for sure.

Biodino - +1! It was fantastic in the Park last night. Lots of bunnies on top suicidal form too.

Gazzaputt

Don't you love it when the only way someone realises they'll drop you is by RLJ?

prawny

I saw my first proper roadie on my commute today on a nice dolan. Not for long though, I was sat at the lights and he sailed through the red at a busy cross road, so I caught him up and breezed passed when the lights changed. I could hear him pumping the pedals right behind me until we came to a busy roundabout where I was cautious and sensible and he just flew across without slowing down. He had headphones on too.

I claim moral scalp!

cjcp

Gazzaputt wrote:

Don't you love it when the only way someone realises they'll drop you is by RLJ?

And double-love it when you pass them again.

This morning, I paid for last night's exertions. I kept my scalp, but every gear felt hard and the headwind made it harder. To try to disguise my pain, I've become quite good at minimal breathing at lights, even when the HR is mid-160s-170s. :oops: I then take a deep breath as I'm pushing off, the whole inhalation thing being disguised by backpack and arm movement.

And according to this morning's weigh-in, I've lost 3lbs since Monday morning. :shock:

Kieran_Burns

I almost scalped a car last night, but it was only a Rover, so I'm not going to claim it (she was holding me up and I was urging her to get a bleeding move on, at 25mph)

This morning I did have one of the guys in the office come sailing past while I was fixing the mudguard I caught with my foot.

His joy was very short lived. No way is some knobbly tired monstrosity going to to stay in front. Last mile warm down... no chance. On the pedals and surged past with a cheery "did you know your back wheel is out of true" as I left him for dirt.

Some things have to be done, and some people put in their place. :twisted:


Speaking of which: I've looked at the bikes on display at work now the good weather is here and have concluded that my bike is worth at least as much as all the others combined. This is a little scary. What is worse is that my LOCKS are worth more than some of the bikes!

lost_in_thought

I was trying to put a smaller sprocket on this morning, in order to a) go back to fixed and b) not be so spinny, failed to get the lockring on, and popped the rear wheel back on. Annoyingly, I overtightened the chain.

Suffice to say I now know the ture meaning of 'less haste more speed'. That was quite a lot more like hard work.

I chased down a roadie, he was going at a decent pace, got right up behind him and he turned off, the barsteward. I'm choosing to think that it was because he heard me coming, spied me, and thought 'aaaaagh she's going to catch me'. Yeah.

In other news, a standard issue RLJer cruised through a set of reds on HSK this morning, and a BMW cruised through behind him! It seemed like the BMW was just following the cyclist. Oh for a policeman to appear at moments like that...

gtvlusso

Nothing for me this morning, few FWC's wobbling about, but no competition - left the "fleet" standing last night though! Feel sorry for the guys on the M4/M5 trapped in the aftermath of sevral big accidents......traffic into Brizzle looked a nightmare!

Nothing else to report!

shoulder_of_orion

"Blam-Blam" were the words of the 'orrible little oik as I swept through Nunhead last night as he mimicked the action of firing a pistol at my head.

I had a good tussle with a roadie in full team CSC kit this morning. All the way from Camberwell to Albert bridge. He was game I'll give him that but I scalped him twice and he never got past me on the open road. In any case it was all null and void due to his RLJ tendencies, but one of the scalps was a real beaut as I reeled him in on Embankment.

Passing someone who is going full guns while down on the drops is a great feeling.

Made it in to the office in a PB of 39:48 - the first time I had broken the 40min barrier on the way in.

"Blam-Blam", I thought as I dismounted.

Roastie

Nice and slow this morning, tho' the legs were lazy after last night and it felt like I had a headwind everywhere I was going.

Had a nice SCR vs. another train commuter who was headed to my place of work today. He was being picked up by a colleague, who was waiting for him outside the station. I rolled off as he was crossing the road, held him off until the traffic light that caught me and let them catch up. A blinding effort through Tilbury town centre gave me some "breathing room", but he caught up through the houses and passed me before we got to the "lanes". But he had to sign on at the security barrier where I was just waved through. I gave it welly to the 3/4 mile or so from there to the office block which was enough to claim the victory, even counting locking up time.