Rage Against the Punchbowl

Well, this was an interesting weekend for me. Did the bike racing thing on Saturday up at Devil's Punchbowl - that was an interesting $80 training ride. Yeah, it was a hard effort on the day, basically a 2.5 hour, 48 mile solo TT for me. The big dogs dropped my weak ass in the 35+ race in the first 12 minutes or so. A quick review of the SRM file showed a 6 ish minute effort at 5 W/kg that cracked me - not such a good day for me, it looks like.

I rode hard tempo for the remainder of the day, seein' as how I drove 100 miles for the pleasure of gettin' my ass handed to me - I had to get some bike ridin' in! I didn't seem to slow down too much from lap to lap, maybe a minute or two fade per lap.

lap 1 was 48:30 ish
lap 2 was 49:30 ish
lap 3 was 51:00 ish

That punchbowl course is pretty darn hard - though, I think the Tour de Malaga race in Wenatchee, WA is more of a pure climbers race. I sucked on that course, too, though! LOL!


caught a few guys on the last lap, and one of them started attacking me in the last couple k... couldn't quite figure that one out!?!

anyway, good hard day in the saddle, and glad I made the trip. Maybe next year I'll do it again.

Sunday was something I'd been looking forward to for quite some time - the Coachella music festival in Indio.

I'm a huge Rage Against the Machine fan and when it was announced they were reuniting at the Coachella music festival, me and a few guys from work committed to venturing out to the desert.

Funny thing, as we were just leaving my house, we rolled up on Floyd Landis at a stop light - he was texting someone on his phone. We said hi, and he was into it when my buddy's wife asked to snap a cameraphone pic. He put on a big smile.

Anyway, at Coachella, I "posted up" about 60 ft just to the left of center stage two acts before Rage was set to come on. Crowded House played and that was comfortable - no "real" invasion of my personal space so to speak... then the crush began as Manu Chao hit the stage:

http://www.myspace.com/officialmanuchao

Holy crap - I've gone to a few big arena concerts in my day and done the stand in front of the stage thing, but this was pretty unbelievable. I kind of just relaxed as the crush began, glad I'm a six footer, as I could get fresh air... I felt really sorry for the shorter folk, who #1 couldn't see crap, and had to essentially, "breath off of someones neck".

Really bad stankage wafting in that sea of humanity for 1 hour as Manu Chao did their set. Then the REAL CRUSH began - holy crap - I found the best thing for me to do was to stand on my tippy toes and elevate a bit in the human sardine bin up their. I was literally levitating in the crowd, it was that tight...

I kept telling myself to relax - usually I don't do so well in tight spaces - but the relaxing thing worked real good. I just kept telling myself that it would ease up a bit when Rage came on as the crowd would inevitably push forward...

Remember when I said I was 60 ft from the stage awhile back? Well, the ten minutes before Rage came on were some pretty long minutes, never really feared for my life, but perhaps I should have! People were getting lifted out of the steel railed enclosure in front of the stage behind me at a pretty constant rate - and as they were being pulled out from behind, I quickly found myself pinned up against the rear of the enclosure 100ft or so from the stage. That was a bit of work there, pinned up against that SOB - kept havin' to squirm a bit to get enough space to breath - today, my pointy hip bones are kinda hurtin' as I found the best way to keep position and still be able to breath was to turn sideways and let my hip rest up against the railing/fence. Ahhh, that was a comfortable spot.

So, 7 years of waiting, and 2.5 hours of work led to this memorable moment I won't forget:



I've never experienced anything quite like it - pretty crazy to have 60,000 people in unison jumping up and down. I didn't even really have to do anything, it was kind of like floating... Pretty crazy.

But that damn rail - I had to "tap out". Gettin' out of that sardine can wasn't an easy feat - had to time it just right as the crowd surged forward and spin around and fall over the railing.

I was pretty sure I was going to read about someone dying at that show in this morning's newspaper, but it turned out to be a safe affair. Rage put on an awesome show - super tight - as if they never stopped playing together - really good sound. A night to remember for the show and the work involved to see "Testify" up close and personal.

So, which was the harder effort?? "Posting up" in Rage Against the Machine sea of humanity, or the Devil's Punchbowl?

The supercomputer says that the Punchbowl effort was more taxing - my hips disagree though!