Mother Nature just kicked my ass

Holy headwind Batman! The seven and a half mile ride home from work today was straight into what I am positive was hurricane force winds. Two days ago my average speed on the same route was a blazing 15.4 mph. Today? 12.5 mph.

I am tired now, and I need a beer.

Swine Flu

Best comment on the Teabaggers yet!

Thursday pic

Montalcino

Good quotes on the teabaggers

You know what really irritates me about the tea parties? The basic fact that if right now, it were President John McCain and not President Obama, and nothing else had changed, these tea parties wouldn’t exist. You know it, I know it, and even the teabaggers know it. It is just such transparent bulls**t that it is offensive. The most these guys ever did during the last lost eight years was put a limp Porkbusters logo on their website, but now that we have President Malcom X George McGovern Shabazz, they are freaking out like there is no tomorrow. So absurd.

John Cole

"Crowd at Boston Tea Party=7,000, equal to 46% of population of Boston

Crowd at Boston Teabaggers's Party= 500, equal to 0.08% of population of Boston.

BTW, the original Boston Tea Party didn't have free advertising from Fox News."

Dana Houle on Daily Kos

This new Holy Trinity of right-wing basket cases has been pushing all sorts of crazy hallucinations of late, from Bachmann warning that the Americorps program would eventually be turned into a regime of forced re-education for American youth, to Beck’s meanderings about Obama creating FEMA-run concentration camps to warehouse conservative dissidents, to Norris and Beck stirring up talk of secessionist movements. And a lot of people are having fun with this, because, well, it’s funny. It’s like a Farrelly Brothers version of right-wing political agitation.

Matt Taibi

Obama chips away at yet another idiotic policy

Hopefully this is the beginning of the end of a decades old exercise in stupidity.

Obama to allow travel, money transfers to Cuba

By JENNIFER LOVEN – 4 hours ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama directed his administration Monday to allow unlimited travel and money transfers by Cuban Americans to family in Cuba, and to take other steps to ease U.S. restrictions on the island, a senior administration official told The Associated Press.

The formal announcement was being made at the White House Monday afternoon, during presidential spokesman Robert Gibbs' daily briefing with reporters. The official spoke on condition of anonymity so as not to upstage the president's announcement.

With the changes, Obama aims to create new space for the Cuban people in their quest for political freedom and a democratic government, in part by making them less dependent on the Castro regime, the official said.

Oops

LOON WATCH: Right-wing bets against U.S. in pirate standoff



How does that crow taste? Maybe a little Tabasco will help.

Congrats to Boonen on #3

I have known about, read about and followed the results of The Paris-Roubaix race for years. Yesterday was the first time I sat down and watched coverage of this classic cycling event on TV.

One word: Insane!

This isn't a race where the peloton cruises down the road all day swallowing up the occasional breakaway. Paris Roubaix is brutal madness. The racers are absolutely hammering down narrow, muddy, cobblestone roads that would make you slow down in your SUV. There were bikes and bodies flying everywhere. This race is nicknamed "The Hell of the North" for good reason.

A couple of pics from years past:
Hincapie wearing the road. I wonder how much of that mud is pigshit.


Yes, that's Bobke in the ditch!

Yesterday Tom Boonen simply powered away from the field in an impressive win. I am sure the folks at Specialized are licking their chops about the ad campaign they are about to unleash.

Finally got a ride in

I managed to kick off my five day weekend with an all day long splitting headache on Friday. Because of the icepick like pain in my noggin, I decided to abandon my plans to take the Enduro out for a spin before taking it over to Q's place to replace a very worn out headset. I guess I can be happy when a part like that lasts for eight years, it only connects the fork to the bike-nothing major.

So around 8 I headed over to Q's tool filled garage and we started our little project (ie-excuse to have a few beers). The install went nice and smooth and the old warhorse now has a nice new Cane Creek headset. Funny thing-after a couple of beers the headache was gone.

Today was another nice Minnesota spring day so I went tooling around St Louis Park, Hopkins and Minnetonka enjoying the sunshine while cursing my lack of stamina caused by a winters worth of hibernation...err...beer drinking.



Took the hounds out for a walk but kept it short because Surly got the old snip snip on Thursday. He seems to be doing fine. It probably hasn't sunk in yet ;)

Italian ArtCrank?

Pic from an artist's show in the Forteza in Montalcino. All of the paintings were cycling related.

Back

Got back from Italy late Friday after about 22 hours of travel. We went from views like this:



To views like this that greeted us this morning:



To say it is a bit of a letdown would be an understatement. I was hoping to get in a bike ride today. I don't think that is going to happen. Soon? Maybe? Please?