So,
Years later I've finally found the email address to un-lock my aging blog. It's amazing what cleaning up a desk and closet can uncover. In my limited wisdom I had written the information on a post-it. This was far easier than trying to get the security to relinquish the information despite having all the important stuff like mothers maiden name and all.
That said, I am not immediately ready to expound on a wine or bike subject just now. I'm so happy to get this back open as life has lead me many places to support a fair number of entries here now and it will be linked to other Velo Vino projects that are in the works.
CHEERS!
RD
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Monday, January 15, 2007
It's cold but I'm riding.
In true form I am riding to a wine luncheon held each year by a group of wine suppliers and distributors. It's the 10th year of this winter luncheon and we each bring really nice wines from our cellars and have a better than average lunch. The general request this year is to bring 1997 vintage wines as it's the 10th year of the gathering . I am bringing a 1997 Domaine Schlumberger Pinot Gris Vendage Tardive. I figure it will be one of only a few fruitier wines. Following this lunch I have an evening gathering of my cycling team involving a microbrew pizzeria. To facilitate my not gaining too much from the copious consumption and also not being able to do too much damage to my wallet and well sobriety.
There is a dusting of snow and temperature will drop into the low 20's high teens later, but I have outfitted a rig to manage it. The rig: 1990-91 Specialized Stumpjumper. It's all original with old style, top bar, 7 speed, thumb shifters. I have a narrow, 1.5 inch slick on the front and a 2.1 inch knobby on the rear. I have a seatpost attached rack to act as a rear fender to keep my rump dry. I found and am using for the first time cordura covers that slip over the handle bars, brakes and shifters. I hope these will keep the hands toasty. I'll let you know. The feet get sock liners, socks, sandwich bag over the toes, inside the shoes, then booties over the shoes to hopefully keep the toes dry. I will follow-up with a review of the set-up and clothing choices and well....wine choices and brews too.... I've decide this will be the official end to my off-season for riding.
There is a dusting of snow and temperature will drop into the low 20's high teens later, but I have outfitted a rig to manage it. The rig: 1990-91 Specialized Stumpjumper. It's all original with old style, top bar, 7 speed, thumb shifters. I have a narrow, 1.5 inch slick on the front and a 2.1 inch knobby on the rear. I have a seatpost attached rack to act as a rear fender to keep my rump dry. I found and am using for the first time cordura covers that slip over the handle bars, brakes and shifters. I hope these will keep the hands toasty. I'll let you know. The feet get sock liners, socks, sandwich bag over the toes, inside the shoes, then booties over the shoes to hopefully keep the toes dry. I will follow-up with a review of the set-up and clothing choices and well....wine choices and brews too.... I've decide this will be the official end to my off-season for riding.
Thursday, January 11, 2007
Alley Cats?
In an effort to act as I speak or at least put some up as I know I am unlikely to shut-up, I woke up early Sunday morning to join in a different kind of bike racing. Somehow I managed to remember that it was the time of year several of the bike messengers and some non-messengers take to the street to compete in "alley cat" races. The name is somewhat appropriate, it describes races over city streets with few rules and completely open to traffic and mayhem. Registration opened at 7am in some fine persons home and by 8am 86 riders had managed to surround the house with bikes and take in as much coffee and bananas as the host could supply. Most of these races are mass start events. Everyone on the line at once and the next one I do will be of that variety. This one was a nice way to get my feet wet. It was a time trial. Racers left every 30 seconds with their delivery manifest in hand. For the purpose of this race the manifest was an index card. There were two stops before returning to the start area. At each stop a signature was to be collect and then on to the next. The route between the stops was open to each rider to choose. The only rule really was that each rider was to work alone, not draft another racer to gain an advantage. The winning riders left one behind the other and finished together making several raise their eyebrows over their adherence to this understood rule, but the other understood rules are that there really aren't any rules. In the group of races were lots of nice bikes or all types. I choose to ride my old Pinerello turned into a fixie (no coasting) with hand brake though as I am not anywhere near skilled or crazy enough to hit the city streets without brakes. Fact is some cities are fining riders who don't have a brake. I want to say Seattle had some recent cases about that.... Anyway, I was happy enough with my routing and tried to dress in a way that showed I was there for fun and practicality so my obnoxious neon booties were the ticket. If someone hated them, no one was saying it. I actually got some honest compliments on the kit I threw out there so it's the one for the series. I managed to finish just above the middle of the field and that was more than good enuff for me. The activity got me riding on a Sunday morning I most likely would have stayed in bed on so I was happy with that. More on my alley cat exploits as I have them.
Cheers,
R
Cheers,
R
Thursday, January 4, 2007
Cross Training....
No! not talking about learning how to walk in heels and make-up tips, talking about enhancing your riding enjoyment and wine enjoyment by doing different activities and drinking different wines. I guess that could include heels and make-up, but not what I have to offer here.
Until now I've yet to post on the Velo topic side of this blog. When I first thought to write on the activities I like to do in the off-season to keep my knees and back from becoming too crunchy in the heavy season I thought that I do a similar thing which keeps my palate from falling apart into the heavier tasting season for wine trade people. Indeed there is such a thing as palate fatigue and most industry people will embellish when it comes to his/her prowess for tasting tens and even hundreds of wines with the ability to assess them fairly and competently. I too at times in the past bragged on my ability to taste such grand numbers of wines. The fact is that most folks and even the Superheros of wine have human limitations and will get different smells and tastes from the same wine when tasted as a first wine of a day versus a 20th or 110th wine of a day. In order to keep at the highest ability people will often say Sparkling Wine is good to freshen ones palate. I tend to agree with that some. I like to drink Sparkling Wine though just about anytime. Sparkling will bubble some tannin or grape skin off your tongue, but it will also reset the acid level in your mouth above where it was making the next wine or two consumed come of as flat or flabby because it seems to not have good acid. But I digress and should return to a post about cycling....
So off-season I have recently become reborn to the strong notion of cross-training. As a kid I had different seasons which shifted to different sports, Spring was baseball, Summer was tennis and cycling, Fall was soccer, Winter was Hockey, rinse repeat. I went through that progression 3 or 4 years until I started to get more serious about one sport or the other. The first sport to go was baseball. I really liked it but got put in a roll as catcher and with a coach who had no idea about what catching every batting practice the whole time through would do to a young persons knees or morale. It made me a better than average catcher, enough to get asked to play "Select League" in the summer but made me understand why the longevity of good catchers in the majors is often hard to find. So my spring was now open to something that made my knees happier and maybe saved me from many of the surgeries my friends have gone through for ACL and what not. Cycling for young competitors was strict on the gears that could be used in order to protect young knees as they grew from being over stressed. One season later Soccer was the next to go. The politics of getting in the game and not having a parent on the sideline to lobby for me turned that into a not so active activity. It was replaced by running cross country.
Enough with the past.... how does this fit NOW. What anyone can do now is key. I don't care if sometime in my past I could do what I can't now. That thinking is not so useful. Now I ride and don't run and finally have returned to skating. I'd like to get into swimming but have not developed any opportunities yet. Many of my peers in cycling come from running and triathlons with injuries from running. In fact running and cycling compliment each other some in leg speed and such, but do not help in strengthening the stabilizing muscles around the knees. Both activities are lateral motion and without good stretching and development of the horizontal motion muscles, the weakness pulls the muscles out of balance and lessens ones ability to stabilize oneself in case of a miss-step. After my first season of riding again more seriously I found my knees in pain more often then they ever had and at first chalked it up to being older. I was also not in very good shape unless you count round. Over that winter I resolved to find out about officiating youth hockey so I might skate and have a flexible schedule to do so. Too much travel for work kept me from joining a men's league of coaching. I missed the seminar to get in on it, but did get new skates and found some ice near the house and skated some to be ready for next year if I wanted to get back into skating. Come Spring I was riding much more than ever and joined a club and started racing on the bicycle again. To my wonderment I was not so crunchy in the knees. All season really I was in pretty good shape relative to my knees.
Long post too long for a blog later, try different things to help enhance what you already like. If you love Burgundies, try some New World Chileans just to see what you might be missing in your abilities to assess lush varietals from warm climates. Judging wine is like judging food or a dog show. The judge is not required to like Lima beans or Pugs, just has to have the ability to judge within the category fairly and without that dis-like coming thorough. For the record I like Pugs and Lima beans.
Cheers in the NEW YEAR and focus on what you can do now not what you did back in the day.
Until now I've yet to post on the Velo topic side of this blog. When I first thought to write on the activities I like to do in the off-season to keep my knees and back from becoming too crunchy in the heavy season I thought that I do a similar thing which keeps my palate from falling apart into the heavier tasting season for wine trade people. Indeed there is such a thing as palate fatigue and most industry people will embellish when it comes to his/her prowess for tasting tens and even hundreds of wines with the ability to assess them fairly and competently. I too at times in the past bragged on my ability to taste such grand numbers of wines. The fact is that most folks and even the Superheros of wine have human limitations and will get different smells and tastes from the same wine when tasted as a first wine of a day versus a 20th or 110th wine of a day. In order to keep at the highest ability people will often say Sparkling Wine is good to freshen ones palate. I tend to agree with that some. I like to drink Sparkling Wine though just about anytime. Sparkling will bubble some tannin or grape skin off your tongue, but it will also reset the acid level in your mouth above where it was making the next wine or two consumed come of as flat or flabby because it seems to not have good acid. But I digress and should return to a post about cycling....
So off-season I have recently become reborn to the strong notion of cross-training. As a kid I had different seasons which shifted to different sports, Spring was baseball, Summer was tennis and cycling, Fall was soccer, Winter was Hockey, rinse repeat. I went through that progression 3 or 4 years until I started to get more serious about one sport or the other. The first sport to go was baseball. I really liked it but got put in a roll as catcher and with a coach who had no idea about what catching every batting practice the whole time through would do to a young persons knees or morale. It made me a better than average catcher, enough to get asked to play "Select League" in the summer but made me understand why the longevity of good catchers in the majors is often hard to find. So my spring was now open to something that made my knees happier and maybe saved me from many of the surgeries my friends have gone through for ACL and what not. Cycling for young competitors was strict on the gears that could be used in order to protect young knees as they grew from being over stressed. One season later Soccer was the next to go. The politics of getting in the game and not having a parent on the sideline to lobby for me turned that into a not so active activity. It was replaced by running cross country.
Enough with the past.... how does this fit NOW. What anyone can do now is key. I don't care if sometime in my past I could do what I can't now. That thinking is not so useful. Now I ride and don't run and finally have returned to skating. I'd like to get into swimming but have not developed any opportunities yet. Many of my peers in cycling come from running and triathlons with injuries from running. In fact running and cycling compliment each other some in leg speed and such, but do not help in strengthening the stabilizing muscles around the knees. Both activities are lateral motion and without good stretching and development of the horizontal motion muscles, the weakness pulls the muscles out of balance and lessens ones ability to stabilize oneself in case of a miss-step. After my first season of riding again more seriously I found my knees in pain more often then they ever had and at first chalked it up to being older. I was also not in very good shape unless you count round. Over that winter I resolved to find out about officiating youth hockey so I might skate and have a flexible schedule to do so. Too much travel for work kept me from joining a men's league of coaching. I missed the seminar to get in on it, but did get new skates and found some ice near the house and skated some to be ready for next year if I wanted to get back into skating. Come Spring I was riding much more than ever and joined a club and started racing on the bicycle again. To my wonderment I was not so crunchy in the knees. All season really I was in pretty good shape relative to my knees.
Long post too long for a blog later, try different things to help enhance what you already like. If you love Burgundies, try some New World Chileans just to see what you might be missing in your abilities to assess lush varietals from warm climates. Judging wine is like judging food or a dog show. The judge is not required to like Lima beans or Pugs, just has to have the ability to judge within the category fairly and without that dis-like coming thorough. For the record I like Pugs and Lima beans.
Cheers in the NEW YEAR and focus on what you can do now not what you did back in the day.
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
Closure on Closures
On my recent trip to buy wine for a large party I am having I found myself with a cart full of almost every type of bottle closure available. The only exception was that I didn't have a plastic with cage closure on the sparkling wine. That is most likely where I tend to be a snob on the matter. I have yet to have a sparkling wine I would serve to friends that had a plastic closure.
So here is how I rate the different closures and why. First, the screw-cap or Stelvin closure is great for picnics or other occasions where you don't want to carry additional weight, although the wine in a box or bag cuts down on that as well. Of late there are more tolerable to nice wines available in the box option. Also the screw-cap is good for gatherings where you have lots of people and not too many who are proficient with a corkscrew. I have no problem with these closures for wines that will be consumed within days of purchase or months. I don't like the idea of screw-caps for wines I want to age in the cellar. There is no conclusion I have seen that indicates the caps can allow for gradual maturing of wine.
Next, synthetic or composite corks are fairly prevalent as well. They are less expensive and effective to prevent spoilage, but..... they tend to be more difficult to remove than other closures and also very often difficult to replace in the bottle when a wine is not finished in one sitting.
Lastly is the traditional cork until recent shortages the understood champion of wine closures. With wine production booming and consumption up in the New World, the demand for quality cork surpassed the supply. Through the 90's corks got shorter and had a higher tendency to have the infection that causes wine to be "corked". Many say a wine is corked if it's spoiled in any way, but that's not correct. A wine is "corked" if it has a wet cardboard arroma and the fruit starts to diminish as the bottle has been open over time. It has nothing to do with the cork leaking which causes oxidation. It does not have to do with the wine getting hot somewhere, thus baking the wine. The other closures remove cork failure issues, but do not solve to abuse of the wine with heat. Simply put, you can't un-bake something.
So here is how I rate the different closures and why. First, the screw-cap or Stelvin closure is great for picnics or other occasions where you don't want to carry additional weight, although the wine in a box or bag cuts down on that as well. Of late there are more tolerable to nice wines available in the box option. Also the screw-cap is good for gatherings where you have lots of people and not too many who are proficient with a corkscrew. I have no problem with these closures for wines that will be consumed within days of purchase or months. I don't like the idea of screw-caps for wines I want to age in the cellar. There is no conclusion I have seen that indicates the caps can allow for gradual maturing of wine.
Next, synthetic or composite corks are fairly prevalent as well. They are less expensive and effective to prevent spoilage, but..... they tend to be more difficult to remove than other closures and also very often difficult to replace in the bottle when a wine is not finished in one sitting.
Lastly is the traditional cork until recent shortages the understood champion of wine closures. With wine production booming and consumption up in the New World, the demand for quality cork surpassed the supply. Through the 90's corks got shorter and had a higher tendency to have the infection that causes wine to be "corked". Many say a wine is corked if it's spoiled in any way, but that's not correct. A wine is "corked" if it has a wet cardboard arroma and the fruit starts to diminish as the bottle has been open over time. It has nothing to do with the cork leaking which causes oxidation. It does not have to do with the wine getting hot somewhere, thus baking the wine. The other closures remove cork failure issues, but do not solve to abuse of the wine with heat. Simply put, you can't un-bake something.
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