I stole Ryan’s Garmin computer today & went out for a run on the Wolf River Trail. I wanted to make it a semi-urban adventure, so I decided to take a side trail out of the woods and into the bordering neighborhood. I didn’t quite know how to get back- obvious by the mile or so out & back on a dead end street off of Walnut Grove. Nearly 8 miles later, I arrived back at my car…
Here’s a recipe for all my fellow vegetarians (and vegetarians trying to satisfy meat-eating types with their cooking):
BBQ Tofu
1 block of extra firm tofu (if you can find extra firm silken, go for it)
1/4 white onion (other colors are OK, too)
1 jalapeno pepper
Wicker’s BBQ sauce*
Buns of your choice (I like whole grain wheat)
Slice the tofu into 1/4-1/2 inch slabs and place between several layers of paper towel. Put a cutting board or sheet pan on top & weigh it down with something heavy (I set my crock pot on it). Let it sit for at least 15 minutes.
After 15 minutes (or more), place a saute pan w/a little olive oil on the stove over low-medium heat. Dice your onion and japapeno while it warms. Toss in the pan w/some salt & let it sweat until the onions are soft. The heat should be low enough that there is very little sizzling noise coming from the pan.
While the onions sweat, cut the slabs of tofu into cubes & toss into a resealable container of some sort. Pour BBQ sauce on top, put the lid on, and toss to coat the tofu. Stick it in the microwave for about a minute & a half. Once it’s warm, add the onion/pepper mix. Toss again and pile it on to your buns (I warm mine up in the oven while the other stuff is cooking). Eat knowing that the pigs and cows are safe for now.
* Don’t cheap out on the BBQ sauce here… it’s the main flavor of the dish! If you live outside of the South, I’m guessing that good BBQ sauce will be hard to find. Look for one that’s not filled with high fructose corn syrup & preservatives. It should be sweetened with things like molasses and/or brown sugar. Don’t be fooled by sauces that have a picture of a black person on the front or that have some goofy southern-sounding name- most of them are artificially flavored bottles of crap. Read ingredients and choose wisely.
I finally gave in and bought a power meter :) Competitive cyclist had a sweet deal on a wired SRAM SRM, so I went for it. Pretty soon, I’ll be bragging about the massive wattages I’ll generate on a daily basis (eyeroll)
Anyway… I just finished installing it. It was pretty simple, though running the wires was a giant PITA. However, I do appreciate the relability of a wired system, so I’m not going to complain too much.
Photos:
The box (they apparently recycle the box of the crank that gets butchered to add strain gauges to the spider)
I don’t need no instructions to know how to rock!
The crank
Comparison of non-drive & drive side crank arms to the Red cranks I took off
Installed Crank
The whole thing
Thus ends the simple days of using the most basic of wired computers and a heart rate monitor :D
Ladies: Have you ever wished that your Fizik Vitesse had a cutout?
I know when I got mine that I thought that the shape of it was perfect, but that the lack of any soft tissue relief was problematic and eventually led to removing it from my bike. However, the other day I was reading the Team Estrogen message forum and saw a post by a gal who, with the help of her boyfriend, sucessfully skinned her Vitesse, created a channel in the foam, then cemented the cover back on. I immediately had to try it…
The initial peeling:
Marking where I want to cut:
I used a really sharp knife:
Then coated both surfaced with DAP contact cement:
Voila! My Fizik Vitesse now has some soft tissue relief:
Now whether it will be comfortable or not is something that I’ll have to find out tomorrow or Saturday. The one concern I have is that the edges of my cutout will do what the edges of every other cutout have done (cause saddlesores). Hopefully not. Either way, it’s been a fun project!
So I was just there to watch since I figured out on Monday that it’s not wise to try dismounting your bike at speeds greater than which you can run. I managed to get a few photos in the dark- here are a couple of my favortires…
The winner- Russ Griffin:
Some dirty hippie in a gay sweater:
I just saw this “outrageous” story on TV…
Last week in Palm Bay, FL, a 12-year-old was arrested for assaulting two teachers (throwing sticks at a pregnant one and kicking another). Apparently, he was trying to leave school property, and the assaultees were trying to stop him. Fisticuffs ensue… boy is arrested, handcuffed, and taken to juvenile hall.
His mom is OUTRAGED. The reporter interviewing her was obviously biased towards her outrage. She was crying and going on about how he had ADHD and couldn’t handle the teachers being physical with him without trying to defend himself (apparently they’d touched him while trying to prevent him from leaving school).
NEWSFLASH, LADY… ADHD IS NO EXCUSE FOR YOUR KID BEING AN ASSHOLE. I should know. I have ADHD. I never would have even thought about leaving school property- much less trying to beat up an adult who was trying to stop me!!! Why? Because my parents taught me that. If you aren’t going to discipline your kid because he has a learning disability, don’t get OUTRAGED when he acts like a little shit and gets disciplined by someone else! ADHD has nothing to do with it- you have failed as a parent. All ADHD means is that you and your kid have to work a little harder. Get over it and stop using his learning disability as an excuse.
Buy him a bike or something… maybe he’ll grow up to be the next Micheal Ball.
/rant
Ryan and I ventured out to Marion, Arkansas this morning to race the Tour de Heart. There were a lot of Memphis Velo guys out as well as some other local racers and recreational riders. The women’s field was pretty small, but nothing to sneeze at… somehow I ended up with bib number 13- woohoo!!!
The first lap (of two 16 mile laps) was pretty uneventful, and the race stayed together. However, a few miles into the 2nd lap, David Lasig of Marx & Bensdorf soloed off the front (as he had in the previous year!) Chasing ensued. I got into the chase group, and we had a good rotation going. Luckily, none of the other ladies were able to make the bridge. I stayed in the group until 1 mile to go, where I dropped off the back & cruised in for a solo finish.
Ryan ended up 3rd in his age group, and I was 1st overall (which included a sweet trophy and $100 cash). In the past, I’ve used the cash for sushi dinner, but it just so happened that I needed new pedals for my CX bike, so I spent it on that instead. Of course I had to go try them out at Shelby Farms and managed at least one “unclipped dismount fall.” It’s all good, though. I might be finally getting the hang of this remounting thing…
Last night was the 2nd race of the local Cyclocrunk series (didn’t go to the first one). I finally had a chance to try out my SS Surly Crosscheck!
The LeMans-style start was fun. I didn’t have any problems finding my bike in the mass of over 40 others because of my spiffy white handlebar tape! The course itself was really tough- not because of terrain, but because there were soooo many barriers- a single at the start, followed by a triple and three more doubles spread out across the park. Oh yeah- and all of the barriers except for the triple were more than regulation height. I felt really good about my dismounts. They were all fast and at the absolute last possible second. The place where I lost the most time was re-mounting- my inexperience combined with the height of most of the barriers made it difficult for me to maintain momentum and get a good remount. I also managed to jab my forearm with the nose of my saddle every time I lifted it over a barrier. Today I’ve got a pretty impressive bruise, and my forearm is remeniscent of Popyeye’s. I definitely need to work on my off-bike handling & remounting technique.
All in all, it was fun. I feel a little bit like I’ve been run over by a bus, but it’s OK. I did manage to finish ahead of the few other ladies that showed up, which is cool. Hopefully some photos will be up soon… Hopefully they aren’t the ones where I’m walking over barriers, either!
Ok, so I know my posts have been scarce for a while, but for good reason! A few weeks ago, I entered the world of domestic partnership with my most favorite person, Ryan (A.K.A. “shacking up” or “living in sin”). We had a 3 day weekend the last few days that we spent fixing up the yard/exterior of the house- cleaning gutters (which, at one point, resulted in my dropping the “F” bomb in front of the neighbor’s kids because I found a TREE growing in the top of one drainpipe), mowing and de-thatching the yard (A.K.A “raking the grass”), cutting back the overgrown bushes & shrubbery with an electric hedgetrimmer, Indy-proofing portions of the fence, and cleaning/replanting/mulching the front flowerbeds. It’s exhausting work that I’ve never enjoyed until now. It’s both instant gratification (how much better it looks right away) as well as how it continues to look nicer with just a little TLC. Edit: here’s my re-vamped flowerbed!
So, that’s why I haven’t been posting as much as usual.
Oh yeah, we also rode 125 miles over Saturday/Sunday and did some CX riding yesterday at Shelby Farms. Fun times :)
Q. What’s the difference between George W. Bush and Sara Palin?
A. Lipstick