the expansion of crespo

This blog serves a number of purposes - it updates, it recounts, it forecasts, and motivates. Not sure in which box we put this post - however give the present state of play with onetime strong sprinter - ridercrespo's ever expanding girth - we felt it time to discuss such in a more public forum. Crespo we all know is a very successful investment banker at a large american bank, he enjoys snowboarding, kite surfing, collecting sneakers, and talking about stuff. Never a weakling on the bike - this blog recounted his defeat of both easy-e and the riderchichi in last years eton triathalon. However, as crespo's large guarantee rolled off at the end of this year - it seems to have rolled on somewhere between his knees and chest . As Andy Capp used to sneak away for pints - Crespo - has been caught sneaking around the tacoria - shoveling in their offerings the same way a 13 year year old used to smoke butts behind the shed. Given Crespo's warm and sensitive ways - we at the ranch feel we should create a help group - giving crespo all the support required. We have asked his beautiful and thin wife to begin by throwing out crepo's stash of alfajores and allow him moments like the one pictured with the riderzinni to be more than fleeting.

Dreilander 2008

Here we go again, a year on and another dreilander. This is becoming one the classics for the LondonRanch... This year the partecipation was lower than last year.. The peleton reached Pfunds (same old Traube) in two different lots ... actually three. Thursday night RiderCali and RiderZinni arrived in Pfunds to find the hotel closed and had no other alternative than sleeping in the car untill the Traube bunch showed up at 7AM to open the door.. In classic Austrian hospitality they told us that we had to wait till 8 to get ou room and in the meantime we could get breakfast.. stuff yourself bloody foreigner and wait till 8... the plan was clear.. let's get some sleep and let's attack the Stelvio later on... So on day one we ended up riding for around six hours covering more than 120km with more than 2,400m of climbing... one thing was clear.. we overdid.. what was supposed to be a nice ride turned out to be a tough day... but it was worth it... the day was great, sunny, hot.. the Stelvio was just amazing.. and we both agreed that that was the best way to climb the Stelvio.. not on a race day... Saturday was rest day.. the day before the race RiderZinni and RiderCali decided to go for the short course as they had already done enough damage on day one. Saturday leisure time plus a little spin... again weather amazing.. went to see the lake just off Nauders then the rest of the Ranch arrived... Che.... RiderEasy was there, RiderHowe and RiderSpeedo and pumped up and ready to go for a spin... As usual we managed to lose RiderEasy after three minutes into the ride and RiderHowe, RiderZinni and RiderCali went for a 20km spin in Pfunds ... This is their Regents Park....Then RiderStemCell appeared just in time for dinner...The dinner conversation got a bit heavy to the point that guests around us started leaving the tables in disgust... RiderCali started to publicise some of his tastes and health problems and started thinking of his girlfriend whereabouts ... ect... Race day was very warm... even at 5 am the temperature was very high... the race was as usual very well organised.. The finishing times were higher than last year for most of us and i guess the road closures + high temperature didn't help... Overall a great w/e... RiderCali and RiderZinni rode for 270km on the w/e plus climbed 5.3/5.4km...

Terrone no more

The RiderZinni has turned a new leaf. Kinda like that kid in school who one day shows up in class with a new look which transforms him from stripey shirt, spiderman lunch box guy to joe skateboard punk - and all of his stuff from that point come straight from the pages of Skater magazine - so has the riderZinni. Checking first his new lid - a LAS squalo - which in italian means shark - has all the sleekness and performance of an unmistakably european helmet. Given his last effort earned him the nickname bubble boy - the LAS is much more appropriate for the Zinni. However, what really this post is about - is the last of the holdouts has given up the fight - yup - quite possibly the harriest rider i know - has risked all the mocking and ridicule which awaits him in his southern italian village - and allowed his wife to turn back time and return his legs to that silky smooth toddler stage with the aid of the new gillete fusion and a craftsman cordless weed wacker . While the contrast of Zinni's monkey boy matting on chest, back and shoulder with his shiny new legs - provides the average 3 year old with a "what is wrong with the picture" game - We at the ranch applaud and endorse the smooth and improved riderZinni.

triberg - 180k - 3500m

Only 2 members of the ranch made the trek to the heart of the black forest for the triberg 180k radmarathon. The town ran a professional race the day before where high road dominated the local favorites gerolsteiner. Relatively small field for such a hot bed of cycling - ridercali and pitts lined up in the drizzle amongst 236 mostly local germans - swiss - and austrians. Talking with guys before - during and after - it became apparent that a lot of the riders were using the race as a tune up before the drilander - as were we. The event was well organised with well spaced and thoughtful feed stations. The first climb starts after about 30k which we rolled to in the leading group. There was definately a hint of "gorillas in the mist" as we climbed into the clouds with visability no better than 10m ahead - so riders would sort of fade in and out like the headless horseman in a scooby doo cartoon. Kandel is an 11k climb through ancient forest into tall pines. Rider easy-e and i rode it in another race (surm - 230k 4000m) a couple years ago - and it is sneaky hard - partly because you are never quite sure whre you are on the climb as there is dense forest all the way up. With all the humidity in the air the oxygen content couldnt have been better nor fresher. The descent was a cold one - with the field spreading post climb. The two ranchers settled into a group of about 10 for the second climb which had some sections of 12%. Again the field thinned and rolling in the flats there was maybe 6 of us with one poor bugger doing most of the pulling. When we hit km110 there was actually just ridercali and myself laboring up a short but consistent 11% climb when two riders from a well known team just outside of frankfurt caught us - hesitated - and decided 4 is better than 2 - and we settled into the next 70k together. Both marcel and jurgen had very "live legs" and the 3 three of us were forced to live through more pain when jurgen was dictating the pace.
Cramping was the theme from km150-60 where i jammed every bit of liquid into my gullet - and lived to grab a litre of coke at the final feed station. Calner and i polished it off between ourselves - with the result of me getting a second lease on life and calner getting a serious bout of nausia. Summitting the final climb at km167 we coasted down to the finish with calner pulling up for the old man pitts to cross together. Number 67 and 68 out of 236 - no grease, strong field. Sitting down to post race musings - baby anouk gave her own verdict below.

u really think frankfurt sucks?

Finding myself spending more and more time in our frankfurt office - i often get the response "poor you" "isnt that the most boring town in europe". Maybe they are referring to the club scene - which i cant comment on - maybe they are referring to the bar scene - which i cant comment on. But what i can say - is if you are a rider - the kind of rider which gets a bit jumpy if his legs are idle for more than a couple days - then frankfurt is your place. I can take a subway from the middle of frankfurt a mere 100m from our offices - and be dumped 25 minutes later at the foot of a 45 minute climb in the middle of the forest. On that exposure you get very little traffic - a ton of mountain bike guys zipping up groomed single track - and perfect blacktop for the roadie. The climb tops out on the summitt of the felberg - which is the highest point in the taunus. Thus the riderpitts knocks off 2 climbs and is home in bed by ten - you tell me - who is playing for second place.

Three weeks to Nauders ....

.. only three weeks to go to Nauders.... morale is low and fitness level is low... horrible back pain but all in all spirit is high ... no riding this w/e for me as I will be away but I will be riding in the Peak Districts next w/e .. I am really looking forward to climb the Stelvio .. not sure why.. it will be tough... very tough .... http://www.wired.cz/cyklo/images/Swiss/Stelvio.jpg
I kind of like this blog stuff...

Chiltern 100 ... a ranch rider was there... (click on the title...)

The start wasn't great with rain pouring down... We started at 08:30 and for the first half hour the rain didn't stop... then it finally stopped and it didn't rain till the end... This course is challenging and I know the Chilterns are not the Alps but the number of hills that you need to climb really kill you... I didn't count them but i guess you are talking of at least 15/20... most of them similar to "la subida de la muerte...." I missed the first food station (it sems like everyone else did as well) and we all arrived at the second (and final station) starving and w/o water... Stopped for five/ten minutes to get some food on and drink some water and move on.... then the disaster happens... near Turville in a tiny little country road I had two cars in front of me and another care coming on the opposite direction... The two idiots decided to stop and I was flying down ... tried to stop but the gravel didn't help and I crashed.... It took a bit to recover then got myself together again and rode till the end... It has never happen to me before ... it was painful and I still had 30 miles to go ... so I joined another peleton and I even managed to chip in a sprint in the final 3miles of the course and pulled the peleton to the end... All in all a good course but I think more challenging than the Prosecco race.. I think the ranch should be there next year in full... See you in Nauders...........