Goin' back to Philly

Just got back from an awesome weekend in Philly. Long story short, Philly is better than Boston. I have many reasons for this statement, but I'll limit my explanation to four letters: BYOB. Philly has plenty of 'em, and it's always fun to find a great place and have an awesome dinner on the cheap. This past Sunday we discovered an excellent Greek place called Effie's on 11th and Pine. I was lucky enough to have the company of two ECCC veterans; Caitlin Thompson (the real brains behind the ECCC, pictured above) and my former teammate and cycling life-coach Adam Leman from Drexel. We walked into the place with an entourage of 9, and instantly clogged the "waiting" area, which was a 10' x 8' room that contained 4 small tables, a cash register, and the....uh, kitchen. SMALL. However, after a few minutes of dodging the wait staff, we were taken away to a private dining area which seemed like a converted stable room with independant heating and music. How sweet is that? Three bottles of wine later, Caitlin told me how lame my blog is while Adam and I complained about the disjointed schedule for the upcoming Rutgers / Princeton opener. ITT at Rutgers, then a crit at Princeton? Really? Later, a few of us wound up at a natical themed bar called "Misconduct." Really?

More importantly, the weekend was the end of our last "build" period of our training schedule. My legs are wrecked. Saturday I decided to do some cross-training by running around a park for an hour, and Sunday I went out for a hilly ride with Adam. I could barely keep up with him on the infamous Philly rollers as my legs felt absolutely swollen. We thanked God that Joe Kopena wasn't with us, as we fondly remembered how much he loves to ride casually for a few hours only to bury himself up hills to embarras us at the top. However, he was busy "UNH-proofing" the house for some visitors later that night. I hope nobody was harmed.

Finally, I decided to warranty my Cannondale frame. The "cosmetic" cracks around the top and down tubes are unacceptable for such a high-quality frame. I've owned 3 Cannondales now (2 deceased thanks to a car and an Army rider), and I'm starting to doubt their quality control. Thankfully, my brother is lending me his sweet Bianchi carbon frame in the meantime. However, I forgot how much of a pain it is to build up a bike in a day- brake bolts need to be swapped, housing doesn't fit neatly, and the front mech is a narrower diameter...bummer. $35 at Landry's solved most of my problems this morning, but I'm sure more issues will come up. Who needs brakes anyway? Either way, like Andy Schleck would do for his older brother Frank, Collin has surrendered his machine for the taller, better-looking older brother. Thanks.