With Christmas over and New Years approaching I can now see the time inwhich I'll head to the dessert. All of my training now I feel is mostly maintenance until I can put in the big miles In Tucson. The gym is going well, I've been able to squat way more than I ever have before, with more reps and more sets. In other words my gym routine is better than ever. The trick is to keep the muscle bulk down.

The new training plan called for a good 3-4 hours of LSD. Rather than spending the numbing time on the trainer I decided to go for a speed hike. Well, you can tell your rusty when you go out for a 3 hour speed hike and forget food and water. No matter, I thought to myself and soldiered on. After about 2.5 hours I was getting pretty darn shaky and dark was approaching so I stumbled back to the car out of the woods practically passing out. Falling asleep on the drive home was a real threat, despite being 6pm.

The next day I had a few intervals to do up quickly on the trainer. They went great, and it was the first time I felt ...good....on the bike this year. As I unclipped from the couple hours hard, I noticed my leg was a little weak. It was then that I realized I was bonking again......this was a bad one. In the winter you dont realize where your fitness is, and seeing as how I was in the basement I didn't really bother eating food, since breakfast.

Anyway, so I hit the wall pretty hard and stumbled upstairs to drink a quick recovery shake and pass out on the couch. I did have to reload in order to dance later that night.

New Name

www.thefinegrind.blogspot.com is now www.ryantaylorcycling.com

If you have 'thefinegrind' bookmarked it will still redirect you to the new site.

Big things are happening folks. The Land Rover-Orbea team just signed a partnership/advertising deal with Bicycling magazine, the most widley read bike mag in North America. The details are kinda foggy to me right now, but the gist is that the team, along with yours truly might be featured in Bicycling magazine this year. Apparently the team is going to be followed throughout the season so readers can get a feel for the lifestyle of a bunch of poor bike racers in the US. Neato. Apparently I might get my own sport card....

Christmas is here. As I've been travelling more and more the past few years, and the idea of Christmas has changed for me. Most of the year I'm thousands of miles away from my roots here on old PEI, and the only way I can communicate with everyone is through this little electronic box.

Sure, when I get back to PEI in the fall, I usually see everyone, but as life gets busier and busier I(as most people do) slip into the lifestyle of not seeing family often, even though they are mere miles away. Christmas is the time where I realize I will soon be leaving again, and through the holiday, I'm given the opportunity to simply do nothing and hang out with these people. Its always a good reminder of where a person comes from, and for me, stabilises where I want to go in the upcoming year.

Of course with the holidays comes the New Years Day ride, which I've been doing for a good 6-7 years now. Honestly, I cant imagine a better way to break in the New Year than freezing my ass off riding a bike dressed in every piece of clothing I own while still drunk from the night before.


Of course the Potluck after is the best part of the event, as there is enough great food to kill a horse, and I get a chance to chat with the great cycling community on PEI.





With Christmas also comes time on the trainer....terrible terrible. When it gets cold, its time to head to the dessert.

10 000 hours

I've been thinking a lot lately about the idea of 10 000 hours. I heard that a person has to practice a skill for over 10 000 hours to be truly great at it. Depending on what it is, most sports have the idea that after 10 000 hours, you transcend and the movement becomes natural. Your body simply remembers the motions. You have molded your muscles and brain into one, and the movements become ingrained within you.

I heard a documentary on Jimmy Hendrix on CBC radio 2 the other day. They were interviewing Jimmy's army buddy who said that ANY free moment, Jimmy would be playing the guitar. As soon as he had 3 minutes away from a drill or exercise, he grabbed his guitar. This particular fellow said many times he would find Jimmy asleep at 3 am, with his guitar laid on his chest. He would then wake Jimmy up, and they would play music until the dawn.

Jimmy's buddy said he squeezed 30 years of guitar into 5 years. Most guitar experts don't know how to replicate the sounds Jimmy made on his guitar, even to this day.

Cycling, of course, soaked in tradition, has its 10 000 hours. The term wasn't 10 000 hours though, it was the 10 year mark. I was told as a kid, that once a cyclist reached 10 years of training, then it becomes so ingrained in them that they're body just remembers the motions. It remembers how to hold it endurance. It was then that cyclists become great.

Terry Tomlin, the local fast man in Atlantic Canada was an example of that. Terry is 40 years old now and skill kicks my ass in a lot of races.

You see old Pros in sports and a lot of them look as if they stopped their profession the day before. Old skiers walk as if they are skiing, they have the same hip movement. Cyclist legs don't seems to change, the veins and sinues are still there. Despite how most seem to have giant guts.

Its here that I am reminded of a Taoist Sage. Someone who dedicates his life to knowing the life forces of the world, and how to interact with them. In a way, practicing your 10 000 hours is like that. According to Mencius, "Being at one with the Tao, is like a great chef, he cooks and cooks, and cooks all day long. He cooks to the point that he doesn't realize hes cooking, he simply goes though the motions without thinking. He has flow."

Positively False

I just finished reading Positively False, the story of Floyd Landis's journey from a Mennonite, to a winner of the Tour de France...then...well you know.

The book is basically Floyd's autobiography, going from his childhood into the present day. I found the most remarkable transition of the book was his decision to leave his Mennonite community. He plays out his thought processes well, going from a teenager leaving everything he's known going into the mainstream and becoming a professional cyclist.

If you take a step back and realize how much of a life change this would be for Floyd, it adds a neat perspective into his mind. He told stories about how he use to ride his bike for like...6 hours at a time when he was 14 wearing sweatpants because his parents didn't want his to wear spandex. Ouch

In another story he talks about how he was at a National MTB race and his ride forgot him at the course the night before, so he slept on the ground rolled up in a banner in his cycling clothes, freezing. He then raced the next morning wearing the same thing. Ahh that sucks.

Floyd goes into detail about his time with USPS, which I found very interesting. Too often we get 'Lance's' point of view on everything and there is very little perspective from the rest of the team. Floyd paints a very different picture of what went on in the inner workings of the team that we wouldn't normally see(Not Drugs).

What I found the most interesting was Floyds training while riding with USPS and leading up to his eventual Tour de France Win*. From an athletes point of view it was fascinating as he explained the different training techniques he used, and how much he relied on his power meter, and what kind of recovery habits he had. I really liked these parts.

Of course the book goes into the Tour de France victory, and Floyd's thoughts during the race. When the eventual drug positive happened, the book shifts gears and goes into the legal trial and how Floyd fought the charge with his many lawyers.

It was the later part of the book that I found super boring. Leading up to the positive test, I enjoyed it, but when getting into the test procedures of everything and legal hearings I found my mind wandering.

I found it boring not because the topic wasn't interesting, but because someone who follows cycling a lot, I get bombarded with that specific case alllllllllllllllllllllllllllll the time. I just lost interest after awhile. I guess it is the point of the book though.

Other than that, the book was great. It was written in a very easy to read style, similar to Lance's books. I found the real gem of the book however, was the specifics to Floyd's training regime. It was these parts that set the book apart from the rest.

Cold Fingers

The snow is coming and going here on old PEI. Things are starting to happen, some faster than others. I've mainly been trying to make some money at the construction job, but the days that are suitable to work have been few and far between lately.

I've been spending a lot of time getting the sponsorship proposals out in the open. Some places look promising, but others do not. The economic woes of the past few weeks arent making things easy, that's for sure.

I've been going to the gym since November and its starting to drive me crazy. I feel like a rat in a cage there, but at the same time I only do it for a few months of the year and it seems to do some good, so stick it out. I think if Freud were alive he would love the gym. So many contradictions of human nature. That place is so primal, but at the same time has such an influence of societies culture. Remember, don't sweat to much, people are watching.

Its trainer season again folks! I've been setting up my little station in the basement, and its been going ok. My stash of movies is getting a good workout. Its crazy how much time one spends going no where at great expense with much pain.

I've been looking to buy the domain name either the thefinegrind.com or ryantaylor.com, but it turns out Ryan Taylor is also a model, a opera singer and a professional soccer player. Getting that set up is another project on the go. I heard some pretty big news that will effect the fine grind....fingers crossed it will work out.

I decided to skip the trainer workout and go for a solid hike with the lady friend today. It was good to get out to the mountain bike trails after the snow had fallen, and I think I'm going to try to make a habit of snowshoeing this year. It might keep me from going insane. The weather has been so crazy lately I might be riding one week and snowshoeing in powder the next.

LEGIT

http://www.velonews.com/article/85772/us-registered-continental-teams-for-2009

New Jerseys for 2009

....

Bruce convinced me to hop on the mountain bike for the first time since the Eligin 80. When I went to get the trusty MTB steed I noticed it still had the mud and the the flat I received in

Eligin, so I pulled out the old SS. Probably my favorite bike of all time anyway.

The chilly day proved to be refreshing for these lungs, as we pushed onward to both sides of the legendary Appin road. A mixture of land issues and being plain lazy left me only riding that trail a couple times this year, but it still holds a place in my heart.

To my surprise there had been quite a few new pieces added to the trail to link it all together and we ended up with a good 3 hour MTB ride, an hour of it being chatting though. This time of year, that's what I'm all about anyway.

While I was riding the quality last downhill, my mind drifted to thoughts of Quadeloupe. When staying overnight in the hospital there, I watched the paint peel from the walls and couldn't sleep from the drunken homeless Rastafarian who wouldn't stop screaming all night. I found that my mind drifted to the Appin Road decent. I thought to myself, ..'man after I make it out of this mess, I'm going to savor that damn trail.' Finally after a few months, I was able to enjoy its flow.