Has it really been that long?

Preface: This is going to be different, more foul mouthed, more raw/honest. If you're offended easily, I'm glad you came to check in on the blog, but from here on out, things are going to be different, this is your warning to turn back. -Chris

I have re-written this post about 10 times in the last month or so.  Trying to figure out what the next evolution would be. If you've been paying attention / checking in on the page you'll have noticed some of the layout has been changing to reflect the current state. In this post, I'm going to go over my thoughts on the next "phase" of this blog and just talk about some stuff that I've been wrestling with.

First off, I look back on my old posts and see that there are some quality technical posts sparsely strewn into an otherwise mediocre attempt of an ok athlete to hype up middling results. While the blame for that is definitely on me, I'll say that the culture of Age Grouper Hype Men (and Women) definitely rewards (can you call whoring yourself out for a discounted kit a "reward?" I suppose we all want to be a part of something.) us for making something out of nothing.  "Check me out bro, I just won overall at the YMCA Tri A Tri, next stop Kona! #Zuut #WATEINC #CerveloJ5x²" Yes, I was that fucktwit. (*by the way, in the new iteration of the blog where I am more "honest" and real, I cuss. Liberally. Just like real life.) Look, if you like part of the culture that goes along with these teams, I have no beef with it. And really, is there ever a feeling that compares to that first time, after sending in thirty applications to age group teams, figuring out creative ways to tell the company their product changed your life, (Seriously bro, Snowman Jizz flavored Goo changed my fucking training! Sponsor me!) that you finally get that confirmation email that you've been accepted to the team. It's on par with the first time you got tongue, or smoked that cowboy killer behind the school gym... amirite?

First rule of Goo, tell all your friends about Goo, Brah! We got cheap kits to sell!

Ok, I'm starting to get off track. That was basically my long roundabout way of saying I'm sorry for all the shitty filler shill posts throughout the years.  I'll expand on that a little more later in this post, but for the most part, I'm happy with most of the how-to's, and maybe a few of the reviews, but really it is the posts like my struggle with OTS and DNF'ing my first race where I was closest to my honest self that I see a spark of pride at what I wrote. I want to write more about what things are really like, or at least what they are like to me.

Now I'm going to take one quick aside'ish and talk about banner ads and adsense in general, the bloggers starter kit of selling out. MONETIZE that bitch! Look, if you're a small size blog like this one (all time hits 150k, 1k last month, most of those probably bots or a wayward search from Pornhub) don't become that sellout for the big time. In 3 years time of having that stupid targeted banner ad on this page I tallied up an impressive $23.35. If that's not worth annoying the shit out of any real person that might have found the blog by accident I don't know what is. Moral of the above couple of paragraphs... shilling is stupid and I'm not doing any more of it.

That said, let's tackle the reviews portion of this blog.
I want to read back through all of them and tell you that I was wholly honest about my reviews up until this point. To put it diplomatically, I'll say I was in general pretty honest to point out what I saw as flaws but overall I was definitely more or less positive on anything I reviewed. One of the most popular posts OF ALL TIME on this blog is on Osymetric Chainrings, and a follow up on it. It was positive enough that Osymetric USA had a link to the review for a few years (maybe still? I dunno) and while I linked to TomA's much more scientific review of them (Look, if you come to this blog for good data like that, I will fail you. Go check out Tom or some other smart guy's blog) I basically ended it saying "I think they feel good and power seems to be up."
Of course power is up asshole. You've been training. If it's going down there is a problem. (and that doesn't even touch on the issues of Osy's and power meters, but I did touch on that in the post itself)
So I'm sorry if you bought placebo products on my suggestion. I wanted to be a sick ass reviewer, and figured the best way to do that was not to piss off the product creator by saying their shit sucked.
My one consolidation to you is that from now on, if I post a review of a product, it's going to be one of two things
1.) Something I really believe in
2.) A total piece of shit I'm going to bash!

Overall it's not that bad. 8/10 

On to a more positive note... I look back and I'm overall pretty happy with my How-To section. I think most of them are filled with more "a,b,c,d" and less bullshit. I hope to continue those, as I think some mediocre pictures off my phone and some explanation together can on occasion help people out. Now that I'm focused on Track, maybe even more so, as track cycling is a small subset without the kind of overwhelming Q&A that comes in Triathlon or road cycling/TT circles. So, I guess that's something to look forward to. Or skip.


So my view for the future of this blog is something a bit more realistic. I'm still going to have rambling posts about nothing and about racing in general, but they're going to be honest posts of a former triathlete trying to figure out track racing, Or whatever the hell else I end up doing. If something scares the shit out of me (Real talk, learning how to Madison is scary as shit.) No more puff pieces talking about how great thou art by finishing 1 out 1 in my division. (thou? thy? I? I art doesn't sound as good) 

That's my vision for the blog going forward. Hopefully you'll stick around as the motherfuckin' saga continues. If not, I'm sorry to see you go, but I just don't want to write trash any longer. (Well, it's still going to be trash, but honest trash. That's better, right?)

-Chris