NY wrapup

The last few days of the conference are a blur. Listening do a dozen leading Canadian energy concerns touting their merits each day, Henry Groppe at lunch, dining at some ancient steakhouse (with huge meats and great wines that the maffioso made famous), drinking until 1am at the Whiskey Blue, a dozen more energy company presentations, Brad Wall thep Premier of Saskachewan at lunch, tour and dinner at the United Nations, then running up a massive bar tab at the Four Seasons hotel lounge all went by in a flash. Funny what several dozen people and $15 drinks can do. Visa didn't decline so I guess we're good.

What I do remember is the clients that listed close to some financing strategies for a tough market, a few M&A idea pitches that seemed to have traction, Brad Wall's speech and a subsequent conversation we had after (I'm not much of a politico, but I can say I'm a fan of him and his approach), and of course after the 40 corporate presentations, which ones stood out in my mind as the investment ideas to hone in on. I'm obviously rather cruddy as this part as I decided 5-6 years ago to part with my Petrobank shares in the $1.50-ish range... now that it's in the $50 range I'm officially a dumbass. Doesn't take too many "30-baggers" to help the bottom line out!

The Waldorf=Astoria is very polite to me with my bike. Almost surprising. "Let me get that door for you sir/nice day for a ride/where are you going/wonderful way to see the city/etc."

The UN building is neat in terms of history. It's also about the quality of an underfunded inner city public school that was built in the 70's. I guess they have more pressing budget issues than renovations at a Manhattan cost, but it was surprising.

The first 3 days of riding saw me lose a pound or two, and now I've layered back on. Spain will undoubtedly peel it back, I just need to survive London first. My legs feel good after the three hard days of riding, the sitting around has been killing me.

Rest Day

Today I traded in the breeze of pedalling for the talk of barrels and dollars. It felt good resting, if you can call going to bed at 1am and waking up at 7 rest. The fresh baked salty pretzels and mustard at the 2:15 break sure helped. I did a bunch of work on the MacBook Air, I'm really liking it.

Also, from the link over on the right, I put up a few pictures rom the last few days. Nothing earthshattering, but I can't make time to edit them into my blog posts, so check them out on Flickr.

Tuesday in NY

I spent a bunch of time reading A Significant Other last night, the story of Victor Hugo Pena in the role of a domestique for Lance in 2003. The story is interesting so far, but the writer spends a lot of time interjecting with things he wants to say rather than telling the story. I'll keep plugging away at the book.

I had a hard time sleeping, and stayed up rather late. When morning rolled around I dragged myself out of bed for a bagel, coffee, and a juice.

After doing about 90 mins or work on the computer, it was time to roll. People in the Waldorf aren't bike haters. They ask where I'm going, is that my bike or a rental, etc. Employees hold doors open and say "have fun". It's nice not to be nagged.

Sun was shining and it was super nice out. Did the regular "dodge the traffic" on 49th over to the Hudson River. Along the Hudson, by the city docks, moving vans were being unloaded for what looked like a film shoot to me. I came around a corner and there's two guys, one pushing a tall couch on wheels, and the other with a tall desk on wheels. I came up pretty fast and slammed on the brakes. Instead of saying "slow down buddy" or the typical Calgary response, guy says "we're just setting up the obstacle course here to keep you on your toes". I had some coke flavoured Cliff Blocks before I left, which have caffeine and are making me feel good.

I pedal north and the sun feels warm on my back. My legs feel a lot better than yesterday, the sushi dinner worked it's magic. I do feel tired inside, but for now the Watts are coming easy. I know I'll peter out part way into the ride as I've pushed the last two days, but I want a good workout. I figure I'll try to find external motivation. I climb up over the GW bridge, and again I'm amazed with this thing. 2 decks of 8 lanes bumper to bumper. Like twice the Deerfoot suspended 20 stories above the river.

As I near the New Jersey side, a guy rockets past me on the sidewalk. I'm riding slow on the bridge, for me the time to pick it up is on the open road. He's riding a nice Isaac carbon bike with an SRM. He's got full team kit on from a local shop or team and is around my age, likely minus a year or two. I speed up and tail him until the bike lane gets wide enough to double.

Erik: "Nice bike"

Dude: "Yeah."

Ok, that's a little shorter than I expected. We're going up a little incline, and I sense dude wants to drop me to ride alone, as we're up to 450W.

Erik: "It's great riding weather, what do you do for work that let's you get out on a Tuesday afternoon?"

Dude: "I just leave."

Ok, I can respect that. Just leaves. Not much of a conversationalist.

Erik: "How far are you planning on going?"

Dude: "State line."

So I'm realizing that we aren't going to ride in company and have a nice little cycling chat. I don't actually remember exactly where the state line falls where it's back into NY. What I do know is my legs feel good, the coke flavoured Cliff Blocks had a lot of uppers in them, and I was looking for some motivation to get a good workout in, despite being tired. I think the trinity just formed. Last try on the chat...

Erik: "What kind of pace you doing today, are you watching your Watts?"

Dude: "Time trial practice to the state line."

Freeze frame... rewind 5 seconds. Did I see something hit the pavement back there? Yup, I think the gauntlet was thrown down ; )

I say "ok" and leave it at that. I take a swig of water, shift up a gear, and pick up the pace. Dude winds it up too. We crest a false flat so I shift up again and slowly start winding that gear up. Dude does the same. Now it's obvious that we've got a little game going here, cause there's no mistaking this for some casual riding. We're "engaged".

A modest downhill starts, and I'm not letting the Watts drop at all. He ducks in behind and I've decided I've got enough in me to hold this for a while. We're riding north, so I can see the shadow dude casts. I can also hear the breathing. I promise myself I'm not going to look back. We're doing rollers, and I'm doing what I've been doing for the last 2 days - pushing hard on the way up, and hoping I recover on the backside. After what seems like an awfully long time, I'm alone. I try to keep the pace up until Piermont, then I slow down and roll right through. I pass Nyack as well and go through north Nyack, where the realtor of choice is no longer Re/Max but instead Sotheby's. I snap a few shots of houses, mostly the ones with empty lawns as those are the ones you can actually see - but the defining charicteristic is that they're on lots that are probably close to 10 acres, have rock or iron fences, and the houses are probably 8,000 sq. ft.

I turn around at the end of the road, a state park on the shores of the Hudson. Nice spot with a mountain right behind. As I make my way back a lady passes me in a Porsche with a big black dog hanging his head out the back. I'm feeling tired and stop in for a mocha and a snack, but it doesn't do much to give me energy, I'm spent. My goal was to drive myself to feeling spent, and now I'm here, in perfect time to sit through three days of conference and shift gears to client entertainment, 5 course meals, and wine budgets.

I plod home slowly in the eveing sun, knowing I'll just make it back in time before the sun sets. The hills I was charging for the last few days I can only ride at 75% of the prior intensity and even that feels like a challenge.

The wind is blowing on the GW bridge, and is a direct headwind as I ride south on the Hudson River park paths. I don't care as the slower I go means the longer I'll be out before showering and packing up my bike.

Tonight I'm off to replace some spent calories at Insiem, an undoubtedly expensive Italian place on Broadway. I'd be just as happy with cheap carbs and another day in the wind, but I know a few days of rest will do the legs and body good.

Monday in NY

I managed to wake up a little earlier, and went for breakfast at a place that had the little maroon tarp entrance outside, typical NY... thought I might see Seinfeld and crew inside. Had some greasy eggs and a bagel. The lady in a fur coat next to me said my potatoes need some ketchup and passed over the Heinz, not exactly what I pictured she'd say.

Tony Hawk was featured in the entreprenuer section of USA Today. He's 40ish now, has a pretty big business going, has made millions, and still skates every day. The headquarter office warehouse had to have the roof raised 10 feet to make room for the air he'd pull on the halfpipe. The article said that among US teenagers, his name is more recognizable than Michael Jordan, and anyone in baseball or football too. His quote at the end was "all I want to be remembered as is a skater". I've always been a fan.

After this I watched a little morning TV that was basically an Idol type show where dance troupes from around the country attempted to do Michael Jackson justice by doing Thriller video remakes. Entertaining to say the least, including side bits where they show hours of moonwalk practice. What it really shows is that MJ is nearly untouchable.

Once some show on MTV about an Italian guy looking for amore in America with 15 American girls came on (That's Amore!), I got dressed for riding. Total trash. As I was walking out the door they were wrestling in a vat of spaghetti.

I crossed the GW Bridge and was doing my intervals along the road. They were obviously harder today, but were coming along fine none the less. As I fatigued I visited the ocean/earth/atmoshphere science campus of Columbia University, Tallman Mountain state park, and the town of Piermont where I had a delicious mocha. Piermont has a creek running through it and is quaint. The entire town looks like Norm Abrhams of This Old House went door to door for the last 30 years plying his trade. I stopped at a fairly large bike shop and asked what the riding was like north of town and if I could cross at the next bridge. Next bridge with bike crossing was 20 miles further, which during the summer might have been do-able. I wasn't willing to be out that long when it's just a degree or two above zero. I rode north a bit to take in the scenery, then re-traced my route home. The mocha had me fired up again and I was pushing good Watts until the GW bridge. All in it was another 4 hours, with 17 efforts at or above the 400W range. I'd say 10 were 45 seconds to a minute, 4 were 1-2 minutes (2 min at 421W was longest), and the rest were 35 seconds or so. Legs are tired.

Tonight I stopped by a bakery/deli for a bean salad, then went for sushi. Both have been better recovery foods for me in the past than Mexican, so we'll see how I feel tomorrow.

Sunday in New York

With the time zone change and the daylight savings change, my body is a little confused on issues of time. I got in late-ish and went to bed at 1am when all was said and done. But it wasn't the "spring forward" 1, it was the regular 1. Breakfast came to the room at "the new 8", and I was out like a light. I ate and went back to bed, slept in till 11. I don't know if I was really needeing sleep or what, but it felt great.

After that it was 2 more phone interviews, and a little discovery channel while I got ready to ride.

I didn't bother with a map, I can find my way around well enough by now. It was windy but nice, and I started with a trip on either Madison Avenue or Avenue of the Americas up to Central Park. I love riding in New York, you can feel in minutes that this place is busy, courteous, always on the go, full of history and culture, and that the world is a better place with New York doing it's thing. Faces in Calgary are pretty homogenous. Here there's people from 20 different countries on every street corner. It seemed very New York-ish that only 4 blocks from my hotel I came to a stop light where on my left was a Rolls Royce and on my right was one of those pedal trike things with a guy selling flowers, ice cream and pretzels. The remainder of the vehicles were of course yellow cabs and delivery vans.

Did the loop around Central Park and saw the populace out enjoying the day, so many people seem to get along so well doing so many activities. There's bike lanes, walking lanes and rollerblading lanes. But nobody uses them! Everyone just does their own thing and they look out for people. Most of the signs say "please yield" and "be courteous" and so forth. Sure beats directive rules like being pulled over at home by the RCMP for riding two abrest. I cut west toward the Hudson. I was off a little on the streets to get myself efficiently to the path along the river, but I wasn't really aiming for the fastest route.

From there I was pushed by a tailwind up toward the George Washington bridge. That was the first 500W+ climb of the day, it's steep.

Crossed the bridge and started riding north towards Nyack. Depending on who you're talking to, it's sometimes confusing if they're saying Nyack or New York. Accents can run thick here.

The road was beautiful, temps were nice. Only issue on the road was twigs and bark in the bike lane - pretty foreign at home, but considering the road is half canopied by trees, it goes with the territory.

I wasn't keen to stare at my Powertap, but I pushed hard on every hill.

All in it was a great cycling day, and I don't think I'm alone in that opinion. It was cold and rainy yesterday, so there were lots of riders out. What's lots? My best honest guess is that I saw a thousand riders. I was leaving town at the time a lot were returning, and there's 12mm people in NY. A thousand would be 50 groups of 20. I'm sure I saw at least 25 groups of 20, a handful of larger groups, and then 1's and 2's and 3's and 10's galore. Wow.

I did make it to Nyack, which is small and quaint. I'm not sure what really goes on there, but they seem to make hay on the weekends selling antiques to ladies with long fingernails in BMWs/Rovers/Volvos/Benzs/Audis/Saabs/Lexus'/etc. There's a log ot big mansions along the parkway to get there, and it seemed fitting that one of the first modern glass buildings in town was a plastic surgery clinic.

Some of the best intervals of the day were during the last 10 minutes of riding. I exited the paths at 52nd street and started cutting east across town. At the first light an elderly Chinese guy on a 50cc scooter pulled up next to me. We drag raced to the next light, no match for me! Problem was, scooters don't fatigue. We did the same thing for 12 more blocks until park avenue, at each light he'd pull up and say "very good, very good" in thickly accented English (the r's weren't working well). The hardest was the 3 block stretches without lights where he could slowly keep winding the little engine up. We'd be the first off the line at any light (little vehicles just go around the sides to be the first at lights), and pedestrians finishing crossing on the other side would watch and point to their friends, too funny.

My stomach was empty before this started, but my mind was off it enough that by the time I got back I was nearly bonking.

After showering I walked 3 blocks to find a restaurant. I passed 11 I think. Some mom and pop looking Italian place tugged at me, but I resisted walking into the first opportunity. I was even closer to an "American-Japanese Beef Art House", but out of the corner of my eye I spotted... Mexican. The guacamole came to the table with 4 flavours and crushed chilis to spice it. The 3 ceviche appetizer might have well been the first three stairs to heaven. I had giant shrimp encrusted with chipotle sauce and flakes. Chipotle and I tend to get along well together.

All in I did 4 hours of riding. Looks like a lot of calories burned. I spent about 15 minutes above 400W in a dozen pieces, which is the ass backwards math trying to capture "going hard on hills" - the whole interval thing. Rest of it I tried to do sections of 300W and also tried not to drop below about 240W unless I was coasting or such.

The MacBook Air is proving to be a great travel companion.

Kicking off NY, The Plan

I finished packing this morning and hurried to the airport, only to find my flight had been delayed by 2 hours. Geez, I should have done the Cabin ride this morning with the gang.

Checkin and security lineups were relatively short, which was nice. Going through security, both the people before and after me were carrying laptops as well (little odd for Saturday flights I thought). The MacBook Air, like many Apple products before it, drew lots of attention. Pulling it out got the "wow, cool, is that the new one?", which progressed to "can I feel it, how much does it weigh, do you like using it, is it fast enough, what about no optical drive, yada yada.". This must be how Ferrari owners feel, and why they buy them in the first place - attention.

What can one do during an airport wait? I should have installed Civilization or Warcraft on my MacBook Air. Instead it was spent draining my blackberry batteries - 3 student phone interviews plus a half an hour with our architect. At least it's productive downtime.

Every now and then my heart rate picks up and my legs twitch. A skeptical doctor might read more into it, but I think it's more like a dog chasing squirrels in its dreams... subconsciously I'm chasing bike buddies up imaginary hills.

On the flight I managed to finish my recent book, Lone Survivor. The story is of a US Navy SEAL who makes it back, but the messages concern a lot more. The two most easily identified are that warfare is warfare and shouldn't be confused with politics, and secondly America sees right and wrong and chooses a side. American's are patriots on a much different scale than what we can muster.

Canada backs up that chosen side when it counts, but doesn't march itself out to take the heat in the same fashion. Popular opinion might have it that we'd rather keep two sides from shooting each other and work out the problems at hand.

"The Plan" to improve riding form

Guys like me have plans, lists, spreadsheets and the like around a lot. I actually don't keep a cycling plan in arithmetic detail, but I do know when it's time to trim down, ride longer, ride harder, or rest. I should arrive in time to put my bike together tonight. After that it's time to work towards my goals for Sunday-Tuesday, of which I'll have to do some degree of work, but it won't be much of the days.
1. Enjoy and find new experiences in the big apple!
2. Ride hard for 3 days. It's going to be cold and windy. New York 5 degrees C is that damp Atlantic cold. Not cycling weather? Forget that. I like cold, and I like headwind. I say bring it.

This is my chance to "build up" for the riding Spain will offer. I'm aiming for 3 days at 4.5 hours, and I've got fairly ambitious sets of intervals planned withing those hours to make them count. It's basically chasing imaginary Jon/Shawn/Craig up the hills at high watts, in between laying down the "normal Erik" tempo. We'll see what I can deliver before shutdown. My recollection from the past is that just being nearer to (at!) sea level means I'm going to be able to punish myself.
3. Pending successful completion of #2, the three days of conference (sedentary, but not exactly "rest") with calories galore should help me recover well for the weekend.

There's a few variables during the rest of the trip, but we'll cross that bridge once I see how the start turns out.

We circled for a half hour before landing, winds were terrible on the way in.

I'm thinking about doing a little walk for some grub tonight, but I'll put together the bike first. I might prefer waking up a little hungry for that first New York bagel tomorrow.

Friday Nights my style

Some people like to grab a few drinks, get dolled up Saturday Night Fever style, and see what the night brings them.

I had a great Friday night this week that's a few degrees differnet from the above. Met Jon, Shawn and Craig for some riding at 4:30. We hammered Sideshow and Scenic Acres until it was confirmed that I as the slowest one present. We rode some tecnhical downhills and watched the sun set. We cleaned some steep uphill sections that many riders never can clean, which shows trail conditions are good and we're each fit enough to deliver the high wattage 30 second climbs, and I will add here the tidbit that I certainly didn't granny ring them ; )

I feel very comfortable with the geometry of the Scalpel which is great, I'm just riding it naturally and feeling at home. It feels so fast to ride, like a 'cross bike with suspension.

We had fun. In generic terms we're uniform in fitness and technical capability, enough so that it's a great riding group.

After that it was a few phone interviews as we're currently hiring, dinner with Tori, packing, and a little shopping trip to MEC, where I picked up the Pangea 40 backpack. I had look at 4 stores and probably 20 backpacks before this one found it's way into my life, and so far it's sweet. I was using an older one (I think from grade 5 actually), and somehow I'd lost a MEC one along the way, but it was more outdoors oriented and less travel oriented (ie. One big cavern to stuff things into rather than organized space).