Season in Review , 2011 , part tres

I can't believe that all of you got on airplanes and flew to all those top Mexican food joints that I told you about. Shocking! Prefiero que Ud dame un burrito de Longboard Louies. Ahora!
 

Anyways, it's been pretty nice to reflect back on the season a bit and think about what I've learned as a cyclist. It has been really exciting to learn something at every race I've gone to this year, and I'm looking forward to using some of that knowledge in races to come. However, I am going to choose not to bore you with things I've learned about positioning, nutrition, tactics, recovery, and people-watching. Instead, I'd like to share some things that I STILL have absolutely no idea how to do. I've had lots of chances to figure these out this season, but instead I am still mostly incapable. 

FIRST-
I have literally no idea where my handlebars are supposed to go in the Pika Pak. When packing the bike, I have to take the handlebars off of the stem, and have them hanging by the cables and housing. But then where do they go! It takes me way too long to solve the puzzle that is handlebar placement. You'd think that after packing and unpacking my bike 30 times this year I'd recognize where the ONE spot is that the handlebars fit comfortable, but Nay.

NONE of those work! I swear that TSA undid my bars and pulled off my tires for these pictures. WTF, right! Here is the winner, in case you were confused.

SECOND-
Something that I have struggled with all year has been how to operate automatic sinks in airports. I dislike touching sink handles, especially in airports, so it's nice that things are automatic. However, I am apparently too unaware of the location of my hands because I can never get those suckers to turn on when I want them to. No matter how many magic fingers, Kung-fu hands, baseball signs, dance moves, pizza making, massages, clapping, snapping, or pounding I do, I can't make the sinks turn on when I want them to. Usually, the first one I get right away. But thanks to water saving technology, the water shuts off before I even finish soaping up the hands, which leads me hand-dancing trying to re-convince the water to turn back on. How do I do this? Is there some sort of 100-level course that I can take that will make me not look like I am having a seizure in the bathroom everytime that I use the sink?

Seriously though, this is what I look like trying to operate the sinks.

THIRD-
Finally, something that really has gotten me all season is the hydration situation. It's important to keep hydrated when flying, but TSA restricts me from bringing my bomb water (LOL THAT MEANS TWO THINGS LOL) onto the plane. So I have to come to the airport with an empty bottle, and fill it up, like, 20 percent before things start to pour out. How do you fill up a nalgene in a water fountain!?!??!!? Impossible. It's like the game where you have a bucket of water, but it has a huge hole in the bottom of the bucket. Water goes everywhereeee. So I don't know how to do that. And I always go thirsty because most airports are water fountain only. BUT THERE ARE TWO HEROES! Simply on water bottle ease, I really appreciate the Chicago and Philadelphia airports because they have wonderful water bottle fountains. Thank you Baby Geniuses.

This is my sad-face when I try and fill up my water bottle. But it doesn't work :( :(

 Solution One! Thank you Philly!

And solution two! Check out my genuine happy-face! Pure joy.

And since you all have read this far.... my favorite race of the year..... was..... a tie..... between

Univest GP (The road race) and Tulsa Tough Day 3 (Cry Baby Hill). And I got dropped at Tulsa!

And FINALLY!

My favorite airport person of 2011.

With a close second being-

Foreign Currency Exchange. Please chuckle now

So that wraps up the 2011 road season in review. I am definitely still going to be posting regularly throughout the off-season, because I don't like doing homework and it is way more fun to write for this then English classes. My next post will be about me not (??) biking for a couple days in the "offseason".

Is it March 2012 yet? Let's race road bikes.

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