Every once in a while you get an itch and it just needs scratching. It might be your first century, your first fully loaded bike tour, an ultra distance ride, a night ride, whatever. Sometimes you don’t even know you have this itch until someone else tells you about it. This is what just happened to me.

Thanks to my buddy Tom W on Saturday, May 23 I will show up at Tom's house and do the 100 miles to nowhere ride for charity:

http://www.fatcyclist.com/2009/04/23/register-now-for-the-100-miles-of-nowhere/

We will do this event on rollers but you - because I know you want to do this - could do it on a trainer or any (really) small outdoor circuit you that you like.

Tom has graciously opened up his house (or very large deck if the weather is nice) if one or two of you want to join us and if there is more interest we might see about an outdoor venue like the Marymoor Velodrome infield, etc.

Cost is only $75 ($50 of which goes directly to charity). What's that you say, I get to PAY to endure this torture...? YES! Isn't that the way it usually works? Plus, no fund raising - just pay and ride and get your schwag.

So c'mon, check the box and think of all the stories you will have to tell your children once that skin graft on your taint finally heals up.

Let me know if you want in.

Martin "Yes, I am going to regret this but WTF..." Criminale

"I believe Tyler… was doped to the gills." No doubt.

Remember when it was cool to support Tyler Hamilton? All those evil Euros were saucing it up and getting away with it because they were part of some good old boys club (along with lots of doctors and half of Spain it appears) and our squeaky clean kid with the cutesy dog was riding his heart out on foreign soil. For USA no less. Well what f'ing ever.

My new favorite blog said it really well so I won't plagiarize too much here but I am REALLY bummed that this situation is making us (read: cycling fans) into such cynics. Rider gets caught, rider - of course - denies everything, B sample comes back and guess what, it's positive too…

Call me naive but I still must want to have heroes that I can live vicariously through.

I suppose my failing is that with all the doping news surrounding cycling I had some notion that it was helping. Lord knows that all the major sports in America are hopelessly mired in drugs and will probably never rise above. Football, baseball, golf (WTF?!), give it up.

Because I like to ride and race and am bike crazy (and don't want to come down from my high) I now choose to live in a dream world when I read about professional results. And every few days I zap myself with one of those neuralizers from Men In Black just for good measure.

Oh yeah, remember that domain for all the Mr. Hamilton fans?

http://ibelievetyler.com/

Hahahaha…

This post was inspired by David Rebellin who today did something that is simply incredible. Not only did he win Fleche Wallonne (a brutal, one-day cycling classic) but in so doing he earned a hat trick and proved that at 37 he is in no way down for the count.

Then, as the mind so often does, mine began to wonder and I started thinking about all the different levels there are in any sport. In cycling you've got your local talent, your national talent, your domestic pro, your continental (meaning European) pro, your quality domestique and finally the few guys that can actually think about winning a race.

Occasionally an athlete comes along that simply defies this scale or progression.

"There are few sports people who have competed that, no matter how great the introduction, it is still a disservice to their career. Eddy Merckx is one such athlete."

Other than 1971, 1972 was arguably THE year that epitomized his career. In this year he won - among many others - the following races:

• Milan-Sanremo
• Fleche Wallonne
• Liege-Bastogne-Liege
• Tour de France
• Giro d'Italia
• Giro d'Lombardia

And if that was not enough, proving that he could carry his form all the way from April through September; Eddy Merckx, 27-years-old at the time, laid down 49.431 kilometers over an hour (on a normal bike) in a record which stood for just under 12 years until Francesco Moser came along and broke it riding what could only be called a bike from another universe that sported cow horn bars and dual disk wheels. That was in October.

ASIDE - in 1997 the UCI banned (read: revoked) records that had been set on bikes with 'technological advantages' over those used in 1972. This meant that under the new rules Merckx's record stood until 1993 when it was broken for the second time by the incredible Graeme Obree. Besides, in 1999 Moser admitted to having doped specifically to get that hour record…

Merckx won his last major classic at the age of 30 and retired at the age of 32. THIRTY TWO. Since he won his first major race at the age of 20, this means he amassed all his victories in the span of one decade.

Most other cyclists are happy to cement their career with ONE major classic win or ONE grand tour stage victory. Eddy won no less than 11 grand tours accumulating dozens of stage victories in the process, loads of lesser tours and of course more one-day classics than any other rider of his era or any that came before or after.

Superlatives fail me.

Nice…!

Ever had to support the friend or family relative that simply can't look up anything on their own? Or just wanted to show your friends the neato Google trick, hack or Easter egg of the day? Well now you can, visually!

http://lmgtfy.com/

Here's how.

• Go the above URL.
• Type in your search criteria. Hypothetically, and just as an example, let's say you typed in "martin criminale ramrod".
• Click the Google Search button.
• Copy the link that is generated and then email it to the person of your choosing.

Done! And you can test it by just pasting the link in the address bar of your web browser. God do I love the Internet. And shit like this, it's like Google for dummies or something; brilliant.

ASIDE - if by chance you used my suggested search criteria you will see that the Redmond Cycling Club's 15 years of RAMROD is the first link and lo and behold, Martin and Rick still have the record for the fastest time on this ride over the original 156 mile course. Can you believe it…?

You know when you get a new phone and you never were able to copy all your data (contacts, pictures, text messages, etc.) to your computer and so you 1) lose a ton of shit and 2) have to re-enter your entire address book…? Oh yeah, I've been there.

Microsoft Exchange solves a big part of this problem because all your contacts, appointments, calendar, etc. are on the server but you still have to worry about your files and texts. What do you do?

Well if you are running Windows Mobil on your phone (and if you have a Windows Live account) you can install My Phone from Microsoft. As of today it's still in Beta but I signed up, installed it and after performing my first sync everything seems to be working.

It's free, you get 200 MB of storage space and you can view ALL your stuff in a browser. You can download and delete files via the web, archive them to the web so they don't get deleted the next time you sync and you can even upload files which will then be copied to your phone the next time you perform a sync.

Now, losing your phone is hit on the wallet but hopefully nothing else. Nice.

Nice. And no, this is not a drinking club.

We all imagine we want the chance to hit it (meaning exercise) during lunch or right after work but there are a million excuses. Not enough time, the drive takes too long, I have no idea what to do, who to do it with, etc. Well here is one less reason not to do something:

http://thursdaynightafterburners.com/

A friend told me about this group during spin class this morning and it looks great. Every Thursday at 5:45 they meet and at a pre-determined location (see the web site for all the details) and power hike a trail or peak.

All you need is a day pack, a light (you are starting at 5:45 after all!) and the appropriate footwear and clothing for the conditions. I'm sure some water, food and a camera wouldn't hurt either. :)

Having people to do stuff with and who show up regularly is half the battle in my experience, now get to hiking and stop procrastinating.

Me? I'm going for a bike ride.