Here I am doing an LA Times crossword puzzle calendar. I think the LA Times is second only to New York Times in reputability, difficulty, and enjoyment. Let’s work one of these answers out, shall we?

3 Down - Four letter word with the clue, “Inside info”…?

Okay let’s work it out. It starts with a P. Hmmm, not much help.

Well,  ”Letter-shaped hardware” is UBOLT, so we’re up to P-O-blank-blank. Still nothing.

Next, “Flirtatious looks” is GOOGOOEYES, so we now have P-O-O-blank. Weird. There aren’t many words you can spell with those three letters starting the word.

Lastly, “Kent’s alter ego” is obviously SUPERMAN leaving us with POOP! POOP?! Seriously? Inside info is POOP?!

Turns out that’s the correct answer; given this is a calendar, all the answers are on the following page. I’ve certainly never seen POOP in a crossword puzzle. This is a first.

I gotta jet; my second cup of coffee is making me have to “inside info”…

Very well done to Tommy Tommy for figuring out TKOM. However a slightly more difficult test is to figure out what TKNLKOM means. The answer is at the bottom.

So Brasstown was yesterday and it went just as expected besides unscrambling the top 3. Holy smokes that High Road guy put together an impressive ride! Beating Levi on an HC climb? Thats simply loco! I just have no idea what its like to climb at that level, but imagine that its accurate to describe it as painful. My hope was to be in the day’s early move, swallow up some KOM points to clinch the jersey. I was in a pretty promising move with just about every team represented except Slipstream. So SS was full bore on the front pulling us back; plus when the Astana rider dropped back to the peloton to help chase us back I had a pretty sure feeling that we were soon going to be caught. Yup.

Soon after that a group of 7 slipped away and then it was big rollers before the consecutive cat 1, cat 2, cat HC climbs. Apparently yesterday took more out of me than I though because once Tommy D attacked on the first climb I was soon going backwards. Which leads me to the answer of today’s quiz…

Answer: Ted King No Longer King Of The Mountain

It was pretty cool having my name on the back of my jersey, especially since it said KING on a KOM jersey. However after talking to Rory about it, we decided that before the next big tour we’re going to change our last name to “Awesome” because that’d look very original and stylish on a jersey.

Lastly, but still very important, the poorly lit picture above is Pete who is the big rig driver of our RV throughout the week. He, along with a whole slew of other people, have been awesome and so helpful to the BISSELL team throughout the tour. They do the thankless jobs that no one notices but are mandatory and make our jobs as riders much simpler. So a very sincere thank you to the staff who have made this week a success!

Bu’bye.

$4 for the genius who can figure out what TKOM means…

photo.jpg

Originally uploaded by iamtedking

…and clearly Robbie is having a superb time.

Speaking of baseball, how ’bout them Red Sox?! Best record in baseball
at 13-7! Sure it’s only 3 weeks into an obscenely long season, but I’m
thinking of October.

Unfortunately my single hot dog at the game was one too many because
around 1am that night - technically the next morning - I was rudely
woken to my stomach telling my legs to hurriedly carry me to the
bathroom, because HERE COMES THAT HOT DOG! Yuuuup, food poisoning.
With the Tour of Georgia on the horizon at that point, I was
concerned. However, after sleeping the remainder of the night
aggressively tossing and turning, I was soon on an upward trajectory
feeling better by the hour. Alas, one 24 hour bug later, I was feeling
fine again. Phew.

Catching up to speed, Mayo very generously donated her time to drive
me to the start town of Tybee Island. (Thanks darling.) It was a
pleasant enough 5 hour drive and sure beats the alternative of two
layovers to fly Asheville to Savannah. She returned to NC this morning
so now with the morning spin out of the way, I’m now laying on my back
in awe with how utterly lazy the life of a professional cyclist is
while at stage races. Our chief concern - besides racing - is to exert
ourselves as minimally as possible. I think I’ve spent 95% of my
waking hours staring somewhere between the ceiling and the TV.
Motivation also seems to disappear; instead of doing something mildly
productive like read a book, I generally end up testing the durability
of the Channel-Up button. I think I’ve scanned through the entire
channel selection 328 times since last night. Although I just stumbled
onto Napolean Dynamite… hilarious.

In any event, that all changes tomorrow st 10:30am… race time!

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BLINDING!

Originally uploaded by iamtedking

Divert your eyes! E-gads Aaron your shoes are blinding! Hollogram
rainbowy colors on the new Sidis, ladies and gents. I think they
retail for like 7g’s so only people like PT can pull these bad boys
off. Only two words can describe these shoes: sa-weet.

Redlands just finished up yesterday with a healthy dose of the black
lung for half the team. The new circuit race course on Friday seemed
to take most people by surprise with one quarter of the peloton OTL
and only one quarter in the front group. Well, the FRONT front group
contained six strong dudes - Burke included - and then the main
peloton was the aforementioned one quarter.

Then Sunset is always a doozy and this year didn’t disappoint. It was
a crashed marred race with a whole bunch of people content to ride
around oblivious to the 150 other racers. Uuugh. Omer was the
unfortunate victim of a crash a mere 5 miles in that broke his
collarbone and left Burke and Jeremy scrambling to catch back on.
Thankfully Burke made it and impressively rode to a third place
overall for the weekend. Jeremy just got some hard man training in by
time trialing with Richard for the remaining 90 miles.

My race was prematurely finished when residents of Sunset loop were
watering their desert lawns, thereby causing a small stream to pass
along an off camber uphill turn, thereby causing a nasty slide by the
rider directly in front of me at 50k/h. Cause and effect. Everything
was hunky dory with me running him over until I got mower down from
behind by the 80 people needing to make the turn as well. Someone
apparetly landed on my head because my helmet broke and my head hurts.
Oh well, no broken bones for me so I’ll now stop complaining.

Heal up Omer!

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