Wednesday, November 11, 2009

You know it's offseason when...

...45 min. into a road ride you look down and see a spiderweb that spans your handlebars. True story, that happened to me yesterday. It was wasn't even my first road ride back...it was like the third or so.
You also know it's offseason when you travel for something other than bike racing. Rebecca and I took a little holiday to Peru last week. Peru is an incredibly cool country. It is so diverse in culture, ecosystems, and landscape. We spent time in Lima on the coast, Cuzco and Machu Picchu next to the Andes, and Puerto Maldonado in the rain forest. Machu Picchu definitely lives up to the hype. Yes, there are tons of stinkin tourists ;-) but it is well worth the hassle to see such a beautiful area and see for yourself how amazing the Incas were. And where we stayed in the jungle, it was about as untouched from development as I've seen. We saw a lot of monkeys (3 different species) and several big tarantulas among other wildlife. It was the first time I'd slept in mosquito nets and I was glad we had them after seeing the giant cockroaches roaming around our room after dark!
In other big-time news, I am now a proud (part) homeowner of a place in Boulder. Pretty sweet, not gonna lie. Moving always sucks, but the grunt work is over and the only thing left is unpacking boxes and finding a place for everything – no small task.
I've started riding my bicycle again. Splitting time between road riding, cx rides, and hiking/running. If I had to race in one of 3 tomorrow, I think I'd be faster hiking up a mountain, but that's okay. I may enter a cyclocross race this weekend or next. They really should let me enter the cat. IV race (and still get slaughtered but not by as much) but they won't. Oh well, it's good for me to get walloped from time to time. That's what I'll be telling myself next year too. :-)
Happy Autumn!

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

One needs some time away. I glad you visited another country to do something other then a race. Much more relaxing eh? I think you'll do fine in your races next year. You've raced against or with most of these guys anyway.

Uncle Don H.

Anonymous said...

Tom, Stated a Blog in Mason City, IA. Russ is helping out. I wanted to start a section on asking certain celebs questions about cycling and what not. Can you email me and let me know if you are interested in helping us out? eric@nibu.info

Check out the blog at http://blog.nibu.info/.

Thanks
ERIC

Anonymous said...

What happened to Garmin?

Anonymous said...

Indeed. Tom's not in the 2010 squad Garmin announced. What happened?

Anonymous said...

Do the right thing. If you cheated come out and say so. If you know you are innocent fight it like hell. Best of luck.

shemp said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
shemp said...

I'm generally skeptic about most doping denials, but this seems very similar to what happened to Scott Moninger. More to the point the literature on DHEA seems very inconclusive or relative effective. So it would be an extremely poor choice to use as something to enhance performance. I think that gives creditability to your press release.
Tom I wish you all the best, and hope you don't get the short end of the stick.

Unknown said...

I couldn't find a better place to post this so here it is: my gut says you're clean, so best of luck getting things sorted. Still hoping to see you in Garmin kit this year.

Anonymous said...

Honest guy given a short straw. I have heard for years about your clean riding. You have the support of the riders, and your fans.

Free Zirbel!

Antonio Dias said...

Hello TomZ!

Hope that you can overcome this hard issue that hit you. I have been following your career and I believe that you will prove you say it's the real truth. Sure, it will be a long and tortuous road, but the truth always comes out.

Wish you luck and a great 2010!

Cheers,
António, Portugal