The cops are coming for me

Had a weird occurrence this morning at work that necessitated calling the police. A guy stopped in roughly 7:15 to work and said his car broke down on our street. Not a big deal, but then he asked to use our restroom as well as the phone. Again, not a big deal. Really, nothing other than the guy being a bit nervous about everything really stood out until about a half hour after he left.

I stopped in to the restroom and noticed someone (assuming he did it) attempted to flush a handful of paper towels down the toilet. Not wishing to repeat my stint as janitor I donned a rubber glove and fished them out tossed them in the trash. There I noted something odd in the trash can. Someone had tossed a red negligee and empty (mood altering) medication bottle in the trash. Add in that the sopping mess of paper towels appeared to have some sort of red stain on them, the general attitude of the guy, and the fact that his story switched around several times before he just vanished, and we decided it was best to call the cops after talking to a couple co-workers about the weirdness.

so now the cops are coming for me, yippee!

My shit stinks

What a title. How about this for a rant. My shit stinks. Your shit stinks. Hell, all of us from the biggest greasiest trucker to the most dainty of women and babies can fill the air with paint peeling stench from time to time. It's nature. Apparently, a number of people are offended by the smell of nature. If they weren't we wouldn't have a billion different scented sprays, cover ups, and various other air fresheners.

But please, I implore you, don't fucking plug in some damned airwick coat the room in damned perfume room "deodorizer" because you had to expel the remnants of last nights cheap beer, bean, and taco laden fest. Now we not only have to deal with the smell of fresh feces, but it's coated in a sickly sweet oil that covers you as you emerge from the 4 x 8 closet they call a bathroom here at work. I'm not opposed to a quick shot of febreeze or some of the other less noxious fumigation techniques, but damn that other stuff makes the baby Jesus cry!

So take this as my public service announcement for the day. If you take a dump, it's going to stink. We all do it and know it stinks. There's no need for you to try to sugar coat it and in turn make the rest of us retch becuase of the even worse foul smell you've unleashed. Drop the bomb, wipe, flush, and leave the fan on. Thankyouverymuch.

Ice Ice Baby

No pictures from last night considering all my attention was focused on staying upright. Cam's warning that Denman's was a sheet of ice under the snow was certainly true. It's not quite as bad yet as some of the crap we hit last year, but with today's forecast for ice and sleet, I'm sure it will get that way quick. The nice snow pack looked really inviting as I turned in to start the trail, but pretty quickly it was apparent that careful pedal strokes and a puckered ass were going to be required to keep things on the up and up.

I passed on pretty much all the logs, but did manage to make it up all the little ups that it looked like a few other people had spun out on. I did leave my impression in one snow bank as I hit a bit of off camber and both wheels took off in a separate direction from where I wanted to go. I think I could have just about ridden without a seat last night and set on the post I was so tensed up. Right about halfway through I ran into Conlon coming the other way and we made a collective decision to get out on the black label. We didn't even bother riding back out and just hiked straight over to the levee trail.

Funny, the black label was in way better shape than the offroad stuff. We road through WDM and out into Clive Greenbelt before turning back. Who else should we see crazy enough to be out, but Cam. Stopped and talked for a few minutes with him and then headed back to the truck. Just over an hour of riding in, but at least I'm still out there. I'm hoping the studded tires show up before the weekend and I can get out and test them.

I quickly succumbed to the debate on studded tires yesterday after remembering the number of times I went down and how I was pretty lucky to not have seriously damaged myself in the process. Figuring the cost of regular tires, studs aren't that much more and I'll probably get at least 2-3 seasons out of the higher end set that I went with. Pretty cheap in comparison to breaking or spraining pretty much anything. I'll let you all know how it goes.

Cheap stuff for sale!

We all like stuff. Cheap stuff even better. Chances are if you're following this blog you like bike stuff too so here is my attempt to divest myself of various items I've collected in a short period of time and have either replaced with newer stuff or decided I really didn't need.

Buckshots for sale blog

I'll keep adding stuff on a regular basis as I've got a bunch that I'd like to get rid of and would rather it go locally.

To stud or not to stud

That is the question. As I shot out my ride reminder this morning and looked forward to some fun times on snow covered goodness that we know as Denman's, I was bitch slapped by a cold hard fact (thanks Cam). Our 2" of new powdery goodness belies the fact that there is icy hard death waiting underneath it. OK, so maybe death is a bit dramatic, but after falling numerous times, you might wish you were dead.

So, with the rest of the season looking to get no better (just see tomorrow's forecast if you don't believe me) in regards to ice covered trails, it's time to seriously evaluate going studded. Doing a quick search it looks like the best option for riding singletrack is going to be the Nokian Gazza Extreme 294. How could you possibly go wrong with a name like that? Hell, it sounds like you should be able to ride up the side of a glacier (or at the very least Hillside) with nary a care in the world and a hooker draped across your lap. What, a hooker, you say? Hey, we can all have dreams, right?!

So, are studs overkill and should I just suck it up or will the last season of ice and what appears to be another coming this year make studs the choice of even the manliest of men (Squirrel not included cuz that guy's got mad ninja bike balance skillz yo)? Just for a quick recap, I had a number of mishaps last year due to ice. Thankfully no broken bones, but damn did I fall a lot.

I'm not a computer guy

Not that I'm complaining mind you, but sometimes it might be helpful in this computer driven world. Actually, I'm not afraid to dig in and give things a try, but often that leads to things like your hard drive being reformatted and all the spectacular issues that go right along with it.

That being said, our laptop mysteriously seized up a month back. I tried rebooting a few times and kept getting kicked right back out of windows for some unknown error. Finally, it stopped long enough that I could read the error message and google it using our home computer. Well, I figured out what needed to be done and proceeded to start messing with various systems on the laptop. I'm sure you can see what's coming. Yup, the damn thing said fuckit and went into and endless loop of rebooting itself and going nowhere.

Fast forward to last night and I was determined that either I was going to get it fixed or have to break down and pay someone to get it up and running again. I managed to get into the recovery console, ran check disk which fixed some problem (don't ask me what), and bam I was back to a point where the machine would at least boot up. Now I was back to the original problem. I rebooted and somehow the damn thing worked itself out. Fuck if I know what I did or didn't do, but now it was running. So I bust out virus scans and spyware scans and get medieval on it's ass. A few hours later and the thing is humming along normally (for now).

I have no clue what I did. I know I fixed it somehow or at least allowed it to fix itself, but damn, I wish it was a little more than dumb luck. Oh well, tis the season of Christmas miracles and I'll chalk this one up.

Gifting etiquette?

In the past week I've had a couple odd experiences with gift giving. First off I broke a cardinal rule and bought my wife a household appliance for Christmas. Actually, I'm not even sure you can consider these appliances anymore as I can't think of too many things around our house that have actually been subjected to it's purpose. I bought her a sewing machine. Yup, I still have my balls fully attached too, thankyouverymuch. Actually, it was a good purchase considering how much she's gotten into sewing and crafting over the past year or two and her old machine was a hand-me-down from her aunt that left her in fits more often than not.

The etiquette part comes in how I gave it to her. I had it delivered to my work so I could surprise her with it. Well, after a few more late night rants against her old machine, I could tell she really could use it sooner rather than later. So, I brought it home while she was out late one night and left it with a bow on it setting on her sewing table. She is/was very appreciative, but said that she'd have rather me given it to her in person rather than leaving it for her to find. Hmm, maybe I missed out on a BJ of gratitude or something?! Ahh well, I figure it was best to give it to her when I could since it would be several days before I could have wrapped it up and personally gifted it. Did I commit a present faux-pas by just leaving it for her?

The second etiquette question I had came over the weekend. The boys at Rassy's have treated me well this year and I want to show a bit of appreciation (not mention replenish some stock) so I bought a case of 12 oz happiness and dropped it off in the shop fridge with a bow on it. That was a pretty simple decision. Now comes the question. While buying said case o beverage, I was/still am contemplating buying a couple 6ers for some certain friends. I know times are a bit tough right now for a number of people though so while I know the brews would always be appreciated, I worry about people feeling they need to give a reciprocal gift. So there's the conundrum, do you give a gift and hope the person doesn't feel the need to reciprocate or do you just avoid gifting all together?

We have a similar issue with our parents. A couple years back, Miranda and I decided it was getting a bit silly to try to get gifts for all of our family members and friends. So, we told all family that gifts were to be limited to just the kids and we wouldn't be exchanging with them unless they wanted to do a dinner or some other event to just enjoy the season together. Well, that worked fine for us, but we still receive gifts from our parents and while we greatly appreciate the gifts and thoughtfulness, we realize that it has to put them out financially to give the gifts they do. Kind of puts a damper on the spirit, but should it?

So there you go. What is the gifting etiquette? Should you just say screw it and buy/receive gifts without looking at anything beyond face value of the joy of giving or should you give it some introspection and possibly alter your gift giving habits?

Shameless self promotion

It's that time of the season. Time for shamelessly plugging our website in case you need some special gift for the naughty people on your list. The Possibilities Room is the place to go. As a bonus for reading my mind numbing site, type the word "blog" into the coupon code area and you'll score 15% off the order.

So, there you go. Be good by being naughty!

A couple milestones

At least milestones (most) are better than other types of stones. Of course there was that saying about those who live in glass houses shouldn't pass kidney stones or something like that, but anyway that's neither here nor there. I actually passed a couple cool milestones.

First off I hit over 150 posts on this blog. Damn. Of course most of it is just the usual drivel, but occasionally I seem to come up with something good. So I suggest going back and checking all 150+ posts just to see if you've missed any nuggets... Why the hell do I hear crickets all of a sudden?!

The second milestone was actually cooler than the first. What, you say how can I possibly top that? Well kiddies, gather round and let me tell you a tale. There once was a man from Nantucket, oh shit, can't do that one. Actually, I'll just skip to the good stuff. Since I'm an anally retentive type of guy and a number crunching fool to boot, I just have to keep track of all the various stats of my rides. Funny enough, I actually have been that less and less as I get further into riding just to ride. Sure, the stats are always interesting to gaze at every now and then when there's no paint to watch dry... Thanks in no small part to making an attempt on the coveted Cup O' Dirt and laps upon laps of Hillside, I cleared 100,000 feet of climbing this year.

So, does that translate into the ability to leap over tall buildings in a single bound, do I have quads the size of tree trunks, can I squat a dump truck? Hell no. I climb like a fucking turtle. Apparently this turtle just likes to climb. I actually did think it was pretty cool to see that I'd ridden the equivalent to almost 20 miles straight up though. I know it damn sure felt like it when I was huffing it through the beginner course at Boone, struggling to keep moving on the 4th lap of the Dirty Du, or pedalling into a headwind on the last gravel hundy attempt. I think one of my goals for next year is to see if I can break my climbing from this year.

So that brings me to a question. Do any of you set silly goals at the end of the year? Anything concrete specific or just things like get my ass on the bike more this year? I hope the upcoming year for me holds a few things:
1) Develop more mad skillz yo on the mountain bike. Now that I've got a bike worth developing some skillz on I should probably think about nutting up and becoming much less of a hack. If I don't I'll probably end up sawing through multiple logovers with my big ring while riding Denman's...
2) Climb more/climb like a goat. OK, so maybe the second part is overstating a bit, but I'd just like to climb better and faster than I do now. A little concentrated work and I think it'll happen. I know I can't really go much slower, so I've always got that to fall back on!
3) Ride more than I did this year. That shouldn't be too hard unless work really screws me over again. I started off strong the first part of last year, but the last 6 months held little to no mileage and didn't do much for me in the way of keeping my bike fitness up.
4) Race more. I'm eyeballing the IMBCS series pretty heavily as something I want to focus on doing next year. It should be a good time riding, scraping my face against trails, and keeping bears from eating me (I may be exaggerating a bit on the last point).

That's it in a nutshell from this nutcase.

Gettin' worked

Ahh, so much to do, so little time. I just figured out that I'm getting worked over in multiple ways. At least one of them is by my own doing, so I guess it's not all bad. I hit the trails Wednesday night for some snowy fun. Almost 20 miles in a couple hours was more than enough for this guy. At least I had some good company with Conlon, Govner, Jed, and Cam at various points. I did get to lay the only set of tracks through Rhythm which was pretty cool. Going down trying to cross an icy log in Squirrel's next- not so cool. Nothing hurt though, so I kept on trucking. Everything went pretty well until I rode the levee back to the shop. Damn, that was the final nail in the coffin as it was work pushing through even though there were a couple tracks all ready there.

Now for the really big worked over part. Work is going to suck for the next few months again. I was just breathing easy after my casino was done (they even opened up yesterday). My boss waffled a bit in handing out the next casino between myself and another co-worker. Well, she ended up being too busy so I got it handed to me roughly 2-3 weeks later that I should have. We're still putting together our shop drawings, but I all ready had to go to site to take measurements so we can start building things. What does this all mean?! Yup, I'm back to evenings and weekends at work for the foreseeable future. Color me less than excited.

Now for the question on whether or not I'll get worked over at the company Christmas party tonight. Typically our bonuses are handed out a day or two before Christmas, but with this being the official party, I'm wondering if they'll be handed out tonight. I'm guessing not, but it would be cool if they did. Here's hoping.

How hard..

Is it to make something that actually lasts if you use it for it's intended purpose? With the bit of snow we've gotten, I broke out the trusty shovel to hopefully avoid any lawsuits or attempts to break my own neck by shoveling off the deck leading to our back door. First thing I noted was the metal edge of the shovel was worn down to nothing. Really, that wouldn't be so bad, except that it's only worn out in the dead center of the shovel. The rest pretty much looks like new?! Add in that I purposely spent the money when I bought it to get a better shovel that included a heavy duty handle, etc, etc, and I was a bit pissed.

Why does every fucking thing in our society have to be disposable? Wow, I feel like I'm an old man bitching about things being different back in my day. But seriously, everything has planned obsolescence built into it anymore. Take my shovel. A bit heavy gauge steel and a little more quality control (in not making it wear out in one spot first) and I bet it would surely lasted 8-10 years or better. Nope, a couple years in and now I'm scouring stores for a suitable replacement. Sure I could go with an aluminum grain scoop, but it's not the shovel type I'm looking for. However, everything else is as cheap or more cheaply built as the current POS I've all ready got.

So, what am I planning to do about it? Well, as soon as I get a minute or two, I'll be breaking out the tools and replacing the cutting edge with something a bit more "hefty". Sure it won't look all nice and pretty like something I got from the store, but you can bet your ass it'll last a helluva lot longer. There's just a huge disconnect in our society that takes things being disposable as the only way to do business. I can only do so much personally and there's much more I could do, but dammit I'm lazy and like to bitch so I'll just take the cream off the top. However, there's way too many people that don't even do the easy things.

/Rant off

Fresh powder!

With snow in the forecast for yesterday, plans to ride were definitely in the air as well. I hooked up with Squirrel, Conlon, and Govner for some working out in the deep powder. I'd forgotten how much effort it takes to stay upright and moving forward in unbroken trail. Actually, I was riding 3rd wheel so I only plowed a small portion of trail compared to Squirrel and Conlon. Rollercoaster was a ball with the fresh stuff although I took it way slower than usual and had to walk the switchback. After that, we blasted off towards Denman's and hit the really deep stuff. The connector was 8-12" deep in spots and definitely the hardest work.

As we rolled up to Denman's we were accosted by Fuller and Kent who were obliged to take a partial lap through on the way home from work. Considering the snow had stopped falling less than 4 hours earlier and we were in the process of laying 6 tracks in the snow, I consider that pretty awesome for the heartiness of our local guys. All good things must end though and the rest of the boys rolled off about halfway through Denman's saying they'd had enough trail breaking. Squirrel did manage to take one shot of my copious amount of light before heading out though.



Looking ahead no tracks


Looking back at laying on a single set after the boys took off


After they rolled out, I kept on rolling and as I was stopping for pictures I saw another set of lights coming. Cam was out enjoying the snow as well. He rolled by and I jumped on his wheel while we rode the rest of the trail. That's probably the only time I'll ever be able to keep pace with him as we were just put putting along, but it was still a blast. We rode to the end of the levee on Dirty Express where he turned back for a reverse loop and I headed back to the truck. Almost 2 hours of playing in the snow. Definitely a recipe for good times!

Take a guess

Here are two movies I've seen in the last week:
This one

and

This one

We paid to see both movies. Guess which one I thought was more worth the money?

A list

Sometimes you find the most interesting things digging through your pockets. Take this innocuous looking list from Saturday morning. Nothing like a little grocery shopping and then running by to grab some lingerie as well! You guys ever come up with any strange lists? You know, something like motor oil, condoms, and a toothbrush? Feel free to post up some of your oddball lists.

As I made my 2nd run to the store last night for the final ingredient of our dinner (you think my wife would have verified she had everything before sending me the first time) I was contemplating something that was now missing from the store. It makes me feel old to start saying things like, "I remember when we used to have this or that." Shit, I guess I am getting old. So, crank up your reading glass prescription and keep reading. I remembered we used to have drive through service for our bags. The cashier would write the number of your cart on the back of the receipt and you'd head off to drive through the pick up line where some other minimum wage kid would begrudgingly load the bags into your car as you prayed they didn't decide to set gallons of milk on top of the bread or eggs. Now, unless your looking particularly decrepit, they anticipate you to haul that shit out yourself. I think they'd probably look at me like I had a 3rd eye if I requested it be hauled out to my truck now. Hell, just running through a self checkout is something that would have been completely foreign just a few years ago. I wonder whats next?

How I spent my winter vacation

Actually, I started out my Cranksgiving post as a recap of my week off, but decided that there was enough info there to stand alone. Hopefully you'll be able to digest several shorter posts a little easier than lasts weeks leftover bird.

A week ago Sunday (11/23) for those counting, I met up with the usual crew for breakfast and morning riding through the woods. We had a bonus in the fact that the manager for the Hy-Vee on Grand and Railroad wanted to reward our patronage with free breakfast including the coffee. Talk about an offer you can't refuse and one that was duly appreciated as well. After breakfast we headed off for our typical laps of Denman's, etc. I was pacing with Steve who was out for a hundy and I sure didn't feel like killing it. This time of year is about pacing and enjoying the ride. I was sure in the mood for that! A couple hours down and it was time to head to the farm to help out my parents.

Whilst I dearly love my parents, trying to accomplish any sort of helping them out seems to be a nearly impossible to get done quickly and efficiently. As such, I tend to feel a little guilty about not doing much for them. Today's plan of attack was setting the new kitchen counters I'd had my work build up. True to form, they were indeed a pain to put in due to various circumstances, but I persevered and in the end, they were happy with the finished product which was about all I could ask. Additionally, I figured I should come back down Monday and try to finish off a few other projects before they hosted Thanksgiving dinner in their almost completely renovated house. This turned out to be even more of a cluster copulation and I ended up bagging the day later than I wanted and with less done than I wanted. Ahh well.

Tuesday was me day. The weather was perfect for a morning ride. Just cold enough to freeze the trails until the day started to warm a bit. I rode for a solid 2 hours just feeling everything and taking the loop to task 2 full times before bagging it and heading home for a rewarding shower and then off to meet up for lunch with the family and a friend.



Funny thing about vacations is that I don't remember much if I'm just being lazy. That must have been the plan for Wednesday, nope wait, now I remember. I actually got something knocked off my list of chores. I got the leaves blown and bagged (and looking back) not a moment too soon.

Turkey day was something I was absolutely looking forward to. Funny, it wasn't necessarily seeing family or stuffing myself on good food, but actually spending the morning with 50+ buds riding Squirrels 9th Turkey Day ride.







Plenty of good times hanging out, stopping to watch people try the skinnies, and just general good times. The rest of the day went pretty well too with family, food, and more good cheer. Definitely a day to be thankful all I've got as a part of a pretty darn good life.

Friday morning I was back out early with Squirrel. I was determined to take advantage of every perfect riding day I could during my time off. I'm glad we got out Friday as it was another beautiful day and now things are a bit more "frosty".



We putted through all the haunts and just enjoyed the morning. He headed off and I took one more turn through Denman's, just not ready to head in yet. Squirrel had been busy earlier in the week, making some new skinnies, and reworking some of the older "toys" to make things a bit more beginner friendly. As such, I thought it might be a good time to get started working on some more skills and made sure I got a roll over the tractor tire. Damn that was fun.



We did make one stop to check out the "rock garden" idea off the new connector blacktop. Once J-11 is back in progress, this will be an option to riding the full trail. We scouted some lines and even spent a little time trying to make something ridable. Not quite there yet, but a couple mates and a few tools and we'll have something in no time flat as there is a pretty clean line that just needs some working over to make it ridable.



One more last thing and I'll let all you good people that managed to get this far, back to your lives. The first snow ride of the year was yesterday. Man, it was great. Fresh snow is something to be experienced, not just looked at from inside the confines of our comfy homes or rushed through on our way in from the cold. You've got to get out in it and play just like you were a kid again. Of course now we're playing on thousands of dollars of expensive equipment and being a little more cautious, but still, use the same principle. Several enjoyable hours were spent making fresh tracks Sunday morning with some good friends and good times.

Cranksgiving 2008

Ahh, the satisfaction of taking a well deserved vacation. I'm sure all 2 of you have noticed I even took a hike from doing any blog posting. I had lots of good ideas and even a few things to talk about, but dammit, I just didn't feel like taking time out of my relaxing to post up. Anyways...

As always, it's a fricking mad rush getting things ready to go before taking vacation and that Friday was no different. I was trying to be home by a certain time for some thing that I can't even remember now and things flew apart at work at the last minute so I was rushing to get everything done and ended up late. Doesn't seem to matter now, that's for sure. Saturday was Cranksgiving hosted by the PRC girls. In it's 2nd year of infancy it turned out to be another great event even with the weather changing to snow just before the start. As I knew I couldn't compete really for any major prizes, I went to have fun and came up with a devious plan. There's really only one spot you can purposely try to win if you're a not so fast rider- most $ spent. So, that's just what I did.

I managed to spend just over $110 on 12 items. Now how do you manage to do that when you're buying things like canned tuna and bags of pasta? Actually, it's pretty simple. There's no rule on how big an item you can buy, just a minimum size. So, wherever I could, I maximized the quantity of a single item such as a bigger can of tuna for instance. My 2nd option was to purposely buy higher priced items. This in itself can be optioned into 2 categories. Knowing where you can buy more expensive items ($10+ for shampoo at The Market) and figuring out a way to get one over on the competition by shopping at a different location ($48 for 1 lb of Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee at Zanzibars) are good things to go for. One final word to the wise is to go for the trailer option if you're planning this strategy as I don't think I could have fit everything into just a messenger bag.

There you go, for anyone wanting to pick up a golden crank next year, you too can buy your way to the front of the line. I won't be going that route again, so feel free to enjoy the fruits of my inventive labor. Actually, one of the most fun parts was hearing Kelli come up an tell us that there was some guy out there that had gone out to spend the most money. She was shocked by it. I really should have played along, but my bravado got the best of me and I boasted that I was indeed the idiot trying to outspend everyone else. All I can say it I hope the people really enjoy good coffee and some high end shampoo! I had a blast and will be back next year for sure.





Oh and my hats off to this kid. That's just hard core and he looked like he was having a ball out there with his dad.

Breakfast time

Breakfast time, originally uploaded by Buckshot77.

Mmmm orange ricotta pancakes for breakfast!

Lights out

That just about sums up last night in multiple ways. I finished mounting my new light set around 4, loaded up and headed to the shop to meet up with Sammy and anyone else that might show for a 5 o'clock ride. Ends up, it was just the two of us which was fine by me. Conlon was supposed to meet up with us somewhere on the trail, but we never did find him.

The supposed warm weather from yesterday afternoon must've only last a couple hours as it was windy and getting chilly by the time we hit the trail. At least back in the woods, the wind wasn't too bad. I was hoping for dry conditions yesterday, but the first part of the trail was definitely greasy to say the least. I actually felt a little bad being out on it, but then realized, I wouldn't be the only track so all I can do is help ride it back in once it does dry out a bit more. Actually, once we got past the first big log pile, it wasn't bad at all.

The new lights were awesome. For the first pass through I ran the bar mount and headlight both on 50% settings and had an excess of light since it was just getting to be dusk. From there, we opted for a loop through Rollercoaster as Sammy was single speeding it and not geared down for Hillside. I'm still pretty new to night riding so slow and steady was mostly the name of the game, but I had a good timing running the ups and downs through coaster even though the creek crossing bit me again.

Actually, just as we were headed up the pave trail almost to Ashworth pool, I had switched my lights to 100% on both just to see how much light I could put out. We ran into Kim and a couple other guys on their way out to gravel goodness. I believe their comment was something along the lines of, "I don't know how to describe the amount of light you're putting out!" Along with some good natured ribbing about thinking there was a train coming up the bike path. Good, that means the lights are doing their job!

After coaster, we rolled back for a reverse loop in Denman's. Then tragedy struck. Doing a logover I hadn't done previously, I cleared it, but heard a snap when the back tire hit the ground. My headlight mount cracked off and was now dangling by the battery. Well, doesn't that just suck.





The mount snapped at the screw holding it onto the rotational plate. Not a big deal, but a bit disappointing for a first time out. On the plus side, a new part is on its way all ready from Dinotte. Hopefully this will hold up or I'll need to find a different mounting method.

Once the big light was out of commission, I had just my headlamp to use. On high, it was plenty of light to move right along even in complete darkness. Even at 50% I could probably ride pretty comfortably and have plenty of light. I am going to play with some different lens combos once they come in to see if I can get it setup to have a little broader diffusion as it's really a high powered spot right now. We finished up the ride and headed back to the shop for a quick beer with the boys before heading home. After a hot shower, it was definitely lights out!

I see the light

And it's not a freight train. For the first time in MANY months, I can actually enjoy some down time at work. I'm being deliciously somewhat unproductive at work and enjoying most every second of it. My casino project is finally wrapping up to the point where I don't feel like I need to be at the contractor's beck and call every second of the day. Actually, as far as I'm concerned I'm 100% complete with the project, but I know that is never the case until several months down the road.

The good news is I can point to this job when asking my boss for money and show them how my hard work (and that of our shop) have paid pretty huge dividends. I won't get into actual specifics here, but lets just say, I have a pretty good leg to stand on when it comes to asking for a sizable bonus this year. Additionally, I might well hold the company record for having the biggest gross net on a job, built a very good foundation for future work with the contractor, and I get to celebrate the end of the job by taking the main guys I worked with out for steak and beer. Those are the things I love about my job. I love making big money for my employer, I love when they reward me with a great bonus (still hoping for that one), and I love being able to treat the guys on site that have as much influence on how the project finishes out as I do to a good time. It's a win-win for everyone.

I'm actually taking next week off. Other than a couple days around Labor Day, this will be the first vacation time for me in 6+ months. The last time I took any real time off was for the lingerie show in Vegas last April. I've got a big list of things to work on around the house, plus help my parents get some work done before Thanksgiving. Hopefully I can cross a few items off the list, spend some time with my girls, and maybe even get out on the bike a time or two. I can't wait.

Eating around

One of my more indulgent activities is to try new restaurants around town or when I'm out of town. Last night found Miranda and I with grandma watching the kidlet and ourselves with an open night so we opted for a walk on the wild side. OK, so maybe wild, is a bit of a stretch, but we did venture into the wilds of Beaverdale to check out a cozy little restaurant that had been recommended by a few different people. Chef's Kitchen was the name of the game for our evening meal.

It's a cozy little place tucked in along Beaver Ave. The dining room is pretty decently sized when considering the size of the building the restaurant is tucked into. There were a few diners all ready seated and enjoying their meals and we were able to snag the last booth. Considering it was a Tuesday night and relatively early for dinner, I can imagine they do a pretty fair business during the weekend rush. The menu had a wide variety of choices from pasta, chicken, steak, barbecue, etc. Considering I had been rallying to go out for barbecue, I was pretty happy to see that on the menu. I chose the ribs with a hot watermelon bbq sauce while Miranda chose a little more daintily and opted for the chicken special.

I ordered a beer with dinner and was pleasantly surprised by drafts being $2.50 a pop. Considering the costs some places are getting for drafts at $4+ now, it's always nice to see prices on beer a little more palatable. My salad and her soup were both quite tasty and we were looking forward to the rest of the meal. We weren't disappointed. A massive full slab of ribs soon graced the table in front of me and a nicely presented chicken breast was sitting opposite. We also opted for a side of their hash brown's which have to be seen (and tried) to be believed. The hash browns come in a patty about 8" in diameter and close to 2" thick perfectly golden on all sides. Amazingly it was cooked to perfection through and not the least bit greasy. Next time I'm sure we'll opt to add some additional toppings to spice things up a bit, but definitely was worth the order.

My dinner of ribs was definitely up there on quality of taste and portion size. The watermelon bbq sauce was a definite treat as well adding a bit of novelty plus actual great taste to the ribs which were served dry. I definitely overate and felt pretty stuffed by the end of the meal having washed it all down with a couple Sam Adams Winter Lager. Miranda said her meal was pretty tasty as well, though I was too busy enjoying mine to sample hers.

Pricing was excellent with us walking out for under $50 for dinner for two. Add in that they have a jar of homemade chocolate chip cookies free for the patrons sitting on the bar as you enter or leave and it topped off a great meal. We'll definitely put this one on our list of places to get back to.

Houston we have a problem

I went for broke this weekend on the bike. Tom was planning his next gravel ride for this Sunday and with the wife and kidlet out of town, I figured it would be a great time to get another ride in and one step closer to earning a half cup of dirt. As the saying goes, "the road to hell is paved with good intentions." We hit the Hy-Vee on Grand to meet up with a few others that were doing some mountain biking and rolled out at 7 to do a loop of Denman's before hitting the gravel.

Everything went pretty well at first. Sure there was a fair headwind as we opted to head west before working out way back with a tailwind. I felt pretty good for the most part and was even relatively comfortable on the new Selle An-atomica saddle I'd thrown on in some attempts to find long term comfort for the ride. I'd actually bought and mounted it on the tandem earlier this summer, but never got to ride it, so I figured it was now or never for a big test of it's supposed comfort.

We rolled in to DeSoto around 10:30 and I had about 40 miles on the clock with Tom about 13 miles more since he'd ridden in to Hy-Vee from home. We made a bit of an extended stop for food and drink and to re-calculate out plans. We ended up going with my suggestion which was to turn tail and take advantage of the blustery wind pushing us back from whence we came and then finding some areas closer to home to get remaining mileage.

After the stop, I felt pretty good and was still riding strong albeit with my left knee giving me some pain. It actually started hurting and feeling swollen a scant 20 miles in, but I'd been hitting it with ibuprofen along the way. Tom hit his mid-ride low and I pulled off the front. In an attempt to make up a few of the miles, I started turning back and doing loops up and down the rode while he was trudging along. This netted me 2 miles back of the 13 he had on me. As we approached Warren road, we made the decision for me to head south on Warren to get my additional miles needed to catch up while Tom would head to the Cumming tap for a bit of a respit.

As I headed out on my own, the wind seemed to have picked up even more and I was fighting the cross wind for the most part. I thought this would bode well heading due south and then coming back north, but I was sadly mistaken. Additionally, anyone who's ridden Warren road south of the Cumming Highway knows how hilly it is. I gained around 1000' of climb in a 10 mile out and back. As I turned back north, I knew I was in trouble. The wind was just as vicious from the north as it was from the west. I bucked it all the way to Cumming and hit the tap pretty well spent. I enjoyed a pint of Fat Tire as I let my cramping quads take a rest before we hit the bikes again.

Heading back out, I was bankrupt. I'd lost not only my energy, but also the desire to go much further. I tried convincing myself that if we were able to ride Denman's for the remaining miles, I'd be ok as I could just go slow and use my lights to finish out. It wasn't meant to be as the wind did nothing but thaw out the frozen soup from the morning and left us leaving a decent track through the dirty connector and deciding to avoid the rest of the trail so we wouldn't do any further damage. I bailed at this point and headed back to the truck. Barely able to crank over the pedals going up Railroad on the pavement even, I knew it was the right decision. I bagged it with a shade over 80 miles on the ticker.

Bonk is probably the best description for what happened. Looking back, I didn't eat nearly enough often enough. A couple sips of gel in the morning (I did eat a good breakfast though), some Gu2O drink mix, and a sandwich with chips and coke at DeSoto were my food up to that point and now I was 4+ hours after that stop. I think it was probably inevitable as my excitement level before the ride commenced was less than optimal and even though it picked up decently mid-ride, that was about as good as it got.

I don't think I'll be making the half cup o dirt this year even though I started out looking for a full cup. I'm not sure I'll even go out for one in December unless conditions are right. I'd like frozen ground, sunshine, and little to know wind thank you very much. Beyond that, I think I'll focus on riding a bit more locally, playing with some night rides now that I've got lights (more on that later), and probably try to get some indoor training started. I need to rebuild now rather than keep tearing things down which is what I felt this ride and my last hundy (Track and back) did to me.

Cranking up the internal dialogue

One of the few areas I think I'm a pretty regular joe is that I carry an ongoing internal dialogue as I go through my daily existence. I guess I haven't conducted any official poles to find out if I'm truly weird (in that respect), but I have a hunch that most of us have some sort of thought process that runs through our heads like ticker tape. Typically, I keep the volume on this voice turned down except when I'm by myself engaging in some type of activity that doesn't require much more thought process such as riding the bike or sitting in the hot tub and relaxing. Engaging in the second activity last night, I let the volume crank itself up to 11 and came up with the bright idea that I should keep record of some of this dialogue and share it with you fine people. Wait, hello, why am I hearing crickets...

Actually, my thought was that I keep myself pretty well closed off and the inner voice is really the only thing that speaks many volumes about myself since it has no qualms about voicing it's opinions, fears, hopes, and dreams. So, why not try to open up that inner voice and do more opinionating (is that even a word) to at least the small audience that reads my drivel here. On top of that, I realized that this blog is basically just a vehicle for writing down memories of my experiences and not really capturing my thoughts, feelings, and other happenings that may be going on in my life at the same time. Stay tuned for some insight coming soon. (Hint, you'll probably see at least one yet today)

Dirty Duathlon- Relay Report

Sunday was the 3rd installment of the Des Moines Dirty Duathlon. I’d heard about it last year, but not being a runner and not started into mountain biking yet, there really wasn’t any reason for me to participate. I’ll have to admit, the concept sounded a bit foreign. I mean who in their right mind would want to run, bike, and then run again through the woods, mud, muck, and everything else? Amazing what a year will do to change your mind. I couldn’t think of too many other places I wanted to be come a beautiful fall Sunday in Des Moines.

I teamed up with Heather Myer-Davis from Punkrock Cycling to take part in the relay. I may be a mountain biker now, but I’m still no runner. With the temps full on in the 70’s, it was just about perfect for a race. I showed up early enough to watch both the kids and beginners race through the course. Everything looked to be set on kill as far as the course being dialed in and fast. I helped Squirrel run through the woods and set up a couple Rassy banners before the start of the beginner race and got to see how well the CITA boys had prepped everything on Saturday. Shoot, they even blew the leaves off the trail!

Heather made a small confession before the run started. She'd never done the offroad trails at the Science Center before... I told she was in for a treat as they were all downhill, smooth as a baby's bottom, and would guarantee personal bests would be set all day long. OK, so maybe I didn't quite say that. Actually, I think it was more of a mirth filled chuckle followed by something along the lines of, "You're in for a treat." Soon enough the runners were off. I ran to the drop into Rollercoaster and cheered her on as she ran by, before heading back to get my bike ready.



Soon enough, runners started streaming in and then Heather was back. We tagged and I was off. Somehow, I even managed to execute a great running cyclocross mount onto my bike at the end of the transition area and was off to the uphill grind. The first climb out of transition was brutal, long, and on soft ground, before we cranked it back downhill and dropped into Rollercoaster. Soon enough I had my rhythm and was reeling in a few bikers. For the most part, everyone was really great about allowing passes and I got by a number of people without slowing myself or them down.

I had to keep reminding myself that I had 4 laps to do so try to keep my pace under control. When I got stuck in traffic, I made the best of it by gearing down and just spinning up the hills waiting for a chance to pass. This seemed to work well for me, but I was still working hard by the end of lap one. I did find a good strategy for passing though. For some reason, most people were using the pavement sections as either just another average pace section or for recovery. This was my opportunity to pass so I drilled it every time and hauled as much speed as I could to the next section of trail.

I blasted the creek crossing and switchbacks all 4 laps on Rollercoaster which brought a smile to my face.



Soon enough, the grind of 4 combined laps of Rollercoaster and Hillside was taking it's toll on me. I started grinding up the hills just about in granny gear and taking the downhills as my opportunity to recover as much as possible rather than bombing them.



I finished with 90 minutes showing on my bike computer and was happy to tag Heather for her second run. She was off and I think we finished right around 2 hours 18 minutes, but we couldn't find our tag number on the results right after the event so we have to wait until final results are posted. All in all, not too shabby for a couple amateurs just out to have a good time and work ourselves over as much as possible. Hopefully we'll get a chance to come back next year and see if we can do a bit better with some actual prep. Congrats to all those that competed in any of the categories!

Spooky Woods/Quarter Rage #4

What a weekend filled with riding, friends, and racing. Spooky woods was hyped to be the ride not to miss this year. I'm not much on the party ride/bagger scene, but the opportunity to dress in costume and head off through the woods to a big ass party was too tempting to resist. I've gotta say, it's been a while since I've had that much fun on a bike.

I started off at Rassy's a shade before 6 so I could pick up my newly straightened wheel after Tuesday's experience. After hanging around there for a bit, I loaded up my 6er of refreshments and rode them over to the firepit for safe keeping in the cooler. After hanging for just a bit, it was time to head back to my truck and get into costume for the ride leaving at 8.

What was my costume you ask? Well, I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you. Actually, I went as a bike ninja. Take some rear cogs, sew them on a sash and belt, custom fab your own nun-chucks from handlebar ends and bike chain, add a black balaclava, black hooded sweatshirt, black sweatpants, and black gloves gives you bike ninja. Now why did I just type all that out instead of posting a picture you ask?! Well, apparently it's forbidden to take a ninja's picture (that or I couldn't find any pics taken of me in costume).

We rode the long way to the pit and had a quick beer stop after little italy before we got there to let a downed rider brush himself off. Oh ya, that rider was me... Kent was in front of me going through the skinny trees and spun out for a second, leading me to stopping and rolling my ass down the little berm that you go up. No damage done other than laughing my ass off and brushing the dirt off the ninja costume. We finally wound our way to the pit and hung out enjoying some beer and chili. Squirrel surely made some damn good chili! Finally, the rest of the crowd arrived and we sounded off to well over 50 people partying in the middle of the woods on a perfect night.

As soon as we were sure the trail was clear, it was time to Rage. We lined up and headed off. I was 2nd man out just behind Griz. On a new bike with a borrowed light I was in for a treat. I felt pretty good and could actually see compared to last time with my craptacular AA powered headlamp. In all I turned in a time of 22:52 according to Squirrel. I think that time might be suspect and a full minute fast, but I won't argue with the man. In any case it put me in 3rd place for the nights festivities and dropped 5 minutes off my previous night rage time. Sweet!



The rest of the night was filled with mini-bike racing, more beer, and general good time shenanigans. How often do you get to see a guy in drag racing a mini bike?!



Steve kicked my ass while I got my butt handed to me by the bike itself.



I had a ball and can't wait for next year. Thanks to Squirrel, Justin, and all the others who put the effort into putting this thing together! Of course those of you that know me, know it wouldn't be me if that were all the carnage for the night. Nope, true to form, I ate shit hard leaving the party. They'd built a ramp up and over some logs for the mini-bike racing.



I think it was Tom who had the awesome idea that we should ride our big bikes up and over on the way out. Going up was easy. It's always the going down part that just screws me over. I missed the ramp on the back side of the logs which is always a recipe for lawn darting it straight to the ground. This time was no exception. I biffed it straight onto my head and gave everyone around a good chuckle. The bike executed a perfect 3 point landing upside down on the bars and seat. I didn't think I did much damage, but the next day, it was quite apparent.



Enjoy!

Today's post brought to you by the letter tree

OK, so tree isn't exactly a letter, but today's post is still sponsored by trees. I don't think trees get enough due, they provide shade, leaves to play in during the fall, lifesaving oxygen, and obstacles. Yes, obstacles. Of course the first rule of an obstacle is that you're supposed to avoid it. Hence, the name- Obstacle. Say it with me now...

Last night was another rendition of the taco ride. Yet, it wasn't exactly the taco ride as a group of us met and headed out early to make sure we had enough time to fully enjoy the awesome weather and our great trail system. Lou, Andy, Matt, and I headed out from the shop at 5. I was rolling on a new bike to test ride. Timing couldn't have been better as it gave me a chance to drop my battered front wheel off to have a new spoke put in, trued, and have the bearings cleaned and packed. The bearings were feeling a bit "crunchy" last time I checked.

As soon as we hit the trail, the race was on. Andy and Lou were attempting to drive each other into the dirt as Matt and I headed up the rear. We cruised at a pretty good clip through the woods and made it through unscathed. We stopped for a quick beer break provided by Matt in the form of MGD cans he was hauling on the pave trail above the exit to Denman's. The opening of the beer can must have been some type of signal as we were soon surrounded by a large group of additional riders. A few more minutes of shooting the breeze and it was time for a loop of Hillside and Rollercoaster. My climbing legs weren't quite with me, but I still made the best of it and enjoyed the workout.

Dusk was starting to settle in as we headed back for a reverse loop in Denman's. Lou, Matt, and Tom were in the lead as I worked on hanging on with them. We met a few more taco riders coming through Denmans forward so they turned back to follow us as well. Tom was gassed at this point so he let me by in attempt to close the gap that the other two opened up. I was railing the turns and hauling down the trail pretty good on the test steed. Definitely impressed thus far. Then came the moment.

Damn, now I was two for two. It wasn't a narrow gap or even a tricky part of the trail. I just hung my shoulder out too far and the tree leaned in just a bit. Trees don't move. They move you. I nailed my left shoulder on a small tree and blew off the bike to the right jamming my other arm and shoulder into the ground. I rolled around to assess my damages. Luckily no damage to the bike (whew) though the sudden stop did kill my little commuter headlight, my left shoulder definitely felt the impact along with the left hand, and the right shoulder was pretty jammed up feeling. Nothing to keep me from jumping back on so I waited for Tom (and his lights) to show back up and tooled the rest of the way back following him (and his light).

Back to the shop I rode before heading to Giff's to drown my pain with beer and tacos. I enjoyed some beers with the guys before heading off to Squirrel's to grab some parts for my costume. I hope to see the rest of you sometime this weekend either at Spooky Woods or the Dirty Du.

Bouncing baby boy

Well, at least it isn't the expensive kind (yet). Apparently I bounce well. Actually, let me rephrase that, I bounce better than Squirrel. I tried my damnedest to get out of work early enough to get at least an hour on the trails last night. Alas, the demons of work wouldn't let me get out of there until it was 5:45 by the time I hit the trail. Smart money was on hitting Denman's forward and backward and be done since I'm not running lights.

The trail really was in great shape. The leaf cover has somewhat filled and made the muddy spots less likely to coat you completely in goo. The rest of the trail was really leaf covered, but dry. In some spots there was literally a carpet of green leaves down that made for some awesome looking scenery. I was a bit too focused on putting down some good effort to stop and take pictures, but I definitely took a mental note of how cool it looked. However, along with the leaves, the wind from this weekend had put down a ton of sticks and in some places logs on the trail. Several people had moved some of the larger pieces and it appeared Squirrel might have all ready been down with the chainsaw to get most of the big pieces out of the way- Thanks Guys! The small sticks didn't really present any problem (or so I thought).

I made it through forward at a decent clip and just started the return when I ran into Brian's buddy, Corey. We stopped for a minute and exchanged a few words before heading on our respective directions. Just after the fire pit, I came to the log pile and hit it hard. Oops, a bit too hard. I've been trying to work out a plan to cross this obstacle as quickly as possible and also working on lifting my rear tire to keep it from popping up in the air so much. Well, I've done a couple wild nose wheelies all ready trying to get the timing right. Tonight was by far the closest I've come to totally eating it doing this. The rear end came up and I actually felt the shock fully compress before it rebounded just enough for me to get the back tire on the ground. That shook me up a bit for sure, but at least tragedy was avoided.

I hit the gas again and made a mental note that I was pretty lucky to get out of that without harm. Note- do not tempt fate or Bike Ninjas as they will come back to kick your ass. Just a few minutes later, I rounded a corner and bam, before I knew it I was over the bars and rolling on the ground. WTF?! Attack of the Bike Ninja! You know it's not good when you hit the ground hard and then roll over to see this:








Yup, score one for Bike Ninja attacks on Denman's. Consider yourselves warned. I have no clue how that big of a stick wedged itself so perfect into the spokes, but let me tell ya, it stopped me in a heartbeat. Luckily I was on dirt, only running about 10 mph (coming off a slow turn), and I bounce (better than Squirrel). Damn, it still hurt a bit, but no permanent damage. I bent one spoke and the wheel is slightly out of true, but other than that, I was able to ride out at a pretty good pace. The wheel is getting dropped at the shop tonight for the boys to play with. I'll be riding something "different" on the taco ride tonight. Can't wait to see you guys on the trail!

Rollercoaster

and no I'm not talking about our much loved and recently fought over trail at the Science Center. I'm just talking about day to day life and everything that goes into it. It seems everything these days is in a whirlwind- work, family, finances, weather, etc, etc. Let's break it down shall we?

Work: Just when you think you're on top, a wave of stuff comes smashing back over you. Take for instance this morning. I had one major thing on my desk to accomplish by days end and any various number of small side items. Along about 8 o'clock I get a call that one of my sub contractors doesn't seem to be fulfilling his obligations to meet deadlines on the jobsite and they want a meeting at 1 this afternoon to make sure I keep his butt in line. OK, so that throws a wrench into the day and now I'm scrambling to make sure all my ducks are in a row too. I decide that we should take over part of his work load and now I've got several large scale items on my desk, plus a phone call to fill up my day and then some.

Family: Actually, family has been pretty decent. Miranda and Corley were out of town a couple days last week and I was able to get the house cleaned. I also had a good steak dinner with Squirrel and his family on Friday night. It was nice to kick back and chill. Saturday was pretty busy as we hit the Science Center in the AM for some Halloween fun and then Night Eyes Saturday afternoon along with going out to eat that night. Sunday was pretty lazy though as Corley and I hung out in the house and watched the wind attempt to remove the shingles from everyone's houses.

Finances: I've been eyeing these pretty close as of late with all the ups and downs in the market plus the general piss poor shape of our economy. Things look pretty decent for us, but you can never make too sure. I even earmarked some money to possibly purchase a new mountain bike. Now, a week later, I've seen my quarterly IRA statement (down over 20% for the year), had our home equity line of credit shut down because they estimate my house is worth MUCH less (over $20K) than they told me 1 year ago, and I'm still wondering how our taxes, year end bonus, and sales for our business are going to shake out for the rest of the year. I hate credit card debt and luckily, we really don't carry any balances unless it benefits us with something like 0% financing and the like. This means we're just fine financially, but I like having the cushion of the line of credit for emergencies and/or to use as a slush fund in case something too good to resist should pop up (read new mountain bike). Funny thing is, I think this very thing happened to a number of other people who are probably a bit less responsible when it comes to spending and now they're up shit creek having no more access to easy cash. This leads to the current housing storm we're all hearing about and in turn drops my property value...

Weather: Wow, I can't believe the wild ass weather for fall. We go from torrential rains, to cold, to warm, to windstorms, to cold again in a week. Pretty wild. At least the winds helped speed the drying process for the center trails and word is they're about perfect for now. I'm looking forward to riding since it's been over a week now. I'm itching to get out and I have to practice up a bit for this weekend's Dirty Du. I've teamed up with Heather from PRC to ride the relay portion while she runs. I can't wait!

Autumn Flow

Hmm, what a difference a few days can make. From the hot spell Sunday afternoon to definite fall feelings yesterday and almost chilly today. Seeing the rain coming forth, I figured if I wanted to get any trail riding this week, I better make sure to get my ass out there yesterday. I can't say as I regret the decision! The weather was pretty much all you could ask for being just cool enough that arm warmers felt nice and you could still unzip the jersey to get plenty of airflow without being cold.

I parked at Ashworth pool and hit Rollercoaster on my first run through. The line is flowing faster and I'm hoping as the new section burns in it will continue to get better. After running there, I headed over dirty express to Denman's for a backwards loop. Just inside the entrance I ran into Steve checking out the handling of his new single speed Tricross on the trails. We both had no other plans than to enjoy the day so I turned around and we hit a forward loop together. He slowed a bit to walk most of the logs as I'd probably have done as well, but for the most part, the flow was just about right for fun and still being able to chat a bit.

We headed back to the science center where I lead a couple laps of Hillside. I am getting better at the trail flow up there, but still ran once route twice accidentally before finding the screaming drop I was looking for. I made sure to help Steve fully enjoy his gearing by hitting all the "good" climbs sans 1 or 2. Surprisingly, I felt pretty lively while climbing and riding last night. My legs had plenty of pep even though I kept myself pretty much in check all night and never ran that hard. I figured I'd be paying back Saturday's effort from Track and Back.

We looped through Rollercoaster again before parting ways. I did a reverse loop on coaster. It wasn't as fun as riding it forward, but still gave me some good work on hill climbing and was a good cool down for the day. I hit the parking lot right about 6:30 as dusk was starting to set in and ended basically a perfect afternoon. There were a lot of like minded people out enjoying the day right along with me which was great to see.

Track and Back

I learned a good lesson this weekend. You can only fake it for so long when it comes to endurance and training. I'm woefully out of shape when it comes to doing anything bike related that requires me to go for more than an hour or two at any type of reasonable pace. I need to spend some serious time if I want to get any level of bike fitness back for the next season. The plan is to kick my butt in gear and get to the gym along with buying a trainer and spending hours soaking the floor in my basement.

The morning was definitely a bit on the chilly side with temps hovering in the mid 30's when I rolled out of the house at 6. I thought the plan was to meet some others at Starbucks for some java before hitting the start of the ride. Nobody showed, so I sat and warmed up with a cup o joe and rolled to El Bait Shop around 7. The weather had turned quite a bit in that hour. It was now pretty much like riding in the shower with the amount of water vapor in the air.

My favorite part of the ride still has to be rolling through town with a police escort. It's great seeing a cop fly up to an intersection and block traffic for you. My friend Courtney and I were the early go getters and rolled clear to the start of the hills on Vandalia without seeing another rider. Grelk sliced by at that point in time cruising his streamliner. That was the last we'd see of him before we hit the turn at the racetrack. We held on to a pretty steady pace and made a quick stop at the Monroe aid station as our only stop on the way out. Somewhere around Reasoner the sun started to melt some of the fog cover off and we could see around us a bit. By this time, we'd hooked up with another rider from Iowa City and were rolling through a 3 person paceline. No real hammering, but we were upping the pace a bit now. I started to pop about 2 miles from the track and fell off the back as the other two rolled on.

We hit the track around 11 with just a shade under 18 mph average. Not bad for the amount of hills on the route. However, I looked back at last year's ride and I'd made the same jaunt a full mile per hour faster. This year they were a bit more prepared with food when we showed up. I was a bit disappointed that they only had water at the track though. After sucking down some lunch and giving the legs a quick break, I rolled a few laps at the track and headed back towards home. Courtney, The Rev, and I made up the return trio. The Rev pulled us all the way into Reasoner and I was getting slower and slower at that point. He made the executive decision to check out the bar and catch a bit of the game while we rolled on.

The roll home was pretty decent. The rolling hills took it out of me, but not quite as badly as I expected. We hit El Bait Shop around 3:15 in time for some beer and relaxation. I felt much better at this point than I did last year. Last year the last water stop wasn't set up so I was forced to trudge the last 15 miles on just a few sips of water in 90 degree temps. No worries this year as the stops were all staying put and the temps were much more agreeable. I downed my BBQ sandwich, two free beers, and added another on top before calling it good. I did win a new blinkie in the raffle so all was not lost. I rolled into home with 106 miles and 4700' of climb for the day. All in all, not too shabby.

Now here's where the training issue started to catch up to me. I've long contested that most anyone can ride a century, even a moderately hilly one like this. Having somewhere around 300 miles in the bank over the past 8 weeks, I was pretty sure I qualified as having no training for this ride and I made it in decent time with just under 6 hours ride time. However, I paid for it Saturday and Sunday after the ride. I think my body pretty much ate itself up to get me home. Though I really didn't feel that bad either day, I had absolutely zero energy. I bailed on riding Sunday morning and pretty much laid around most of the day yesterday. At least I proved my own theory...

CITA trailwork gets a thumbs up

Here's my thumbs up for the trail work day put on by CITA over the weekend. Saturday was cracked bright and early with me heading over to pick up a couple power buggies from Capital City Equipment. Now, allow me to hop on a high horse here, but I think the CITA guys are in serious need of some direction when it comes to what will and won't work in regards to power equipment. Having a little experience in such things, I thought this might be a bad idea. I wasn't disappointed. You see, power buggies are designed to haul heavy loads of concrete over flat compacted surfaces. What we were working on for the most part wouldn't remotely be considered flat or compacted. Hopefully nobody from the equipment company reads this, but we're damn lucky we didn't spend the better part of the day fishing a buggy out of the creek. We still put the buggy to use, but a 4 wheeler with trailer or small Bobcat would most likely have been a much better choice.

I showed up around 9 and dug straight in on getting things going along with the rest of the early risers. We quickly realized that additional tools and material would be needed so I headed off to Home Depot in search of some wood, wheelbarrows, and sledge hammers. With the plastic smoking and screaming, I got our supplies and made it back just in time for the work day to officially kick off at 1. I spent a good chunk of the afternoon ferrying broken concrete to the 3 different work areas on the trail and letting the manual labor hump it in from there to use as trail armor.

After I hauled pretty much all the concrete we could ever want, I pitched in and helped the crew at the entrance place armor. I've also had a bit of experience building stone/boulder retaining walls, so placing armor came as a pretty natural fit. It's heavy and tiring work, but all in all it went pretty well. That is, until about the last half hour when I slammed stone against stone and forgot to remove my thumb first! F'ing meow! That really stung. It's been quite some time since I've smashed my thumb that good. I retired from slinging stone at that point and directed the other two guys on how and where to place while I nursed my wounds. Stay tuned to the end of the post if you like gore...

All things were pretty much wrapped up by 5:30 and the remaining group walked all the new sections. Not too bad so far. I was pretty happy with most of the work and couldn't wait to give it a run. Not one to let being dog ass tired get in my way, I threw on my bibs and shoes for a trial run. I certainly didn't let it hang out, but I gave it a nice run through and enjoyed it except for one spot that just didn't feel right (more on that later).

Here are a few pics stolen from Justin and Squirrel of the day:
Attempting to get the buggy stuck (you don't see the 8+ guys it took to push it back out of this spot)

Morning break time

Armoring the trail (before my thumb got smashed)

Enjoying the fruits of our labor with a nature walk (and beer)

Andy says "Hey ya'll watch this"


That pretty much wrapped up my day as I was beat and headed for home. My day wasn't quite done yet though. As promised, here's your gore for the day:
Throbbing thumb wakes me up at quarter to 2 in the AM

Hmm, a swollen and mashed thumb and a drill bit, whatever could I have planned...

Tried to drill by hand first, but ended up breaking out the power tools

Ahhh sweet bloody relief


Sunday found me meeting the guys for our typical Sunday morning thrash through the woods. My thumb was still pretty damn tender so I assumed my racing heart rate would promote some serious throbbing. Luckily I was mostly wrong. We took our usual line through Denman's and I started working on my log crossing skills I'd been advised on by Pete and Lou. Amazingly enough they worked pretty well. I did have a few exciting moments as my timing was off which sent my rear wheel hurtling skywards while I tried to not go over the bars.

Most of the way through the first lap we met Tom who was out getting his dirty hundy in for the month. He couldn't have picked a much nicer day. We decided to double back and meet up with him for a loop through Hillside and Rollercoaster. The amazing morning temps held out and we worked up a healthy sweat. I even managed to stay upright with the exception of the damn creek crossing on rollercoaster.

Everyone else headed off to church and home after one lap, but I stuck through another trip through Denman's with Tom as it was such a nice morning out. Even a couple hours at work on a Sunday looming directly ahead couldn't darken such a sweet ride.

Posing with Tom at mile 38 of his hundy

Ragin weekend

Another great weekend. Life sure seems sweeter once you've gone through the crap! Friday night consisted of beer, racing at night, a bonfire, and good buds. Really, it's hard to beat such a combination. I headed over to Squirrel's place around 5:30 to drop off a birthday 6'er I'd picked up for him and then to tag along on the ride over to set up for Quarter Rage. Fuller showed up a few minutes later along with yet another Steve and we headed off towards Denman's.



We made a quick beer stop at QT since you can never have too much.




Actually we came close to having too much as we had more than we could keep on ice so that necessitated we toss them in our bags and commence to drinking as soon as we hit the firepit. As more people started showing up I took off on some recon as we were riding the trail in reverse. After the lights went out we lined up for our turn through the darkness.



I was off in 3rd position with a few fast riders lined up behind me. With this being my first night time offroad experience, I wasn't quite sure what to expect. I will say that a headlamp from Wal Mart and a commuter light really aren't conducive to making good time through pitch black singletrack. At one point, Andy blasted up behind me with his light casting a huge arc of light. My speeds instantly picked up 2-3 mph until he dropped me without so much as saying goodbye. I did make it through and had a fun time. Surprisingly I was only slower by about 4 minutes at night. I felt like I was crawling along most of the time as I easily could outrun the amount of light I had available. Afterwards we kicked it at the firepit for another hour before I headed out. Sounds like partying went on another 2-3 hours after I left.

Saturday I rolled out early in search.need of a haircut. Part of working so much lately meant that I'd put trimming the hair on the backburner by a good 3 weeks or so. I was way overdue! After getting my ears lowered a bit, we all headed over to Grandview College to enjoy some activities and tour the new building they were dedicating. As Miranda and I are both alums and I'd been the project manager for the millwork on the new building, it seemed fitting that we go check things out. Of course it didn't hurt that they had a bounce house and other activities for Corley to enjoy. We were going to hit lunch there, but damn, it was like $8.50 for hot dogs, burgers, and the typical associated fare. Sorry, we'll pass.

I headed off to work for the balance of the afternoon while the girls went back for lunch and nap time. We went to run some errands that night, but found Costco closed by the time we arrived. So, we opted for desert over at the mall and letting Corley run around a bit before we hiked back to the south side.

Sunday morning was absolutely perfect for riding. For those that missed the Sunday trail ride, you guys have no clue what you missed. Lou and I were the only takers and we hit the road around 7. First up was a loop through Denman's where Lou blazed out of site in no time flat. At least this time we had an agreement to meet back up on Hillside. I paced my way through and then we reconnected for some fast spins through Hillside. We took a spin through Rollercoaster where we both flubbed the water crossing and switchback. On the way back out we ran into another pack of guys getting ready to hit Hillside and decided to tag back on with them. Another full loop of those two trails and we decided on a final reverse loop in Denman's to finish out the morning.

Now here's one of the best parts in my mind. Lou being the gracious guy he is, put me out front and let me hit it for all I was worth. Obviously he really didn't have trouble keeping up with me, but knowing he was back there, led me to pushing everything pretty hard. I was running way too hot in a lot of corners, winged a couple trees, and just pushed hard all around. I made it to the final log heading out and managed a perfect over the bars dismount as I once again stuck the chain ring into the side. As I was trying for some comparison times, I mounted straight back up and hit it out to the bridge. In doing so, I apparently missed Lou's repeat of my stunning display of skills albeit he was on the big entrance log versus my piddly one.

The rest of Sunday was spent hanging with my baby girl while Miranda had to work. We headed down to the farm. Corley had fun checking out the various critters and bugs including this fuzzy caterpillar.



We finally headed home just in time for bed and another weekend was down the drain.

Hooky

Friday I played hooky for the first time in a while. It was just way too nice outside to be bothered with trivial things like work. Actually, I did work and only played hooky for a couple hours in the middle of the day. Miranda, Corley, and my mom were heading down to Howell's Tree Farm just west of Cumming to pick out some pumpkins and have a good time. I thought that sounded like a blast so unbeknownst to them, I decided to meet up.

Well, no good deed goes unpunished so I showed up at 10 and didn't know they had changed their plans the night before to meet at 10:30. Of course, with my wife's timing, that actually meant 10:45. So, I sat around and waited for almost 45 minutes. However, the day was beautiful, fall was in the air, and the sun was shining, so it wasn't exactly torturous.

We headed off to the kids play area first thing. There were tons of things to do for the kids:
A log to do balance beam routines


A big slide to go down


Plus they had a bunch of sings, a maze, teeter totter (I hadn't been on one in years), and a sand box filled with corn. Corley played to her hearts content and we were all pretty happy with the day.



We finally headed off in search of our pumpkins and picked out 3 in various sizes to take back home with us.



We headed back to town for lunch and I was still back in the office just after 1. What a great way to kill off a few hours in the middle of the day! Apparently I wasn't the only one thinking that as I actually ran into another guy from my office who'd taken the full day off. It also helped to temper Miranda's response a bit to me planning on hitting the Quarter Rage on Friday night.

I'm a better person

I'm not better than you or anyone else really for that matter. I'm just better than other versions of myself. I'm better when I get time to destress and decompress. I'm better when I ride my bike.

Now that I look back at things a bit. I'm wondering what I did before to give me the same kind of release. I know I spent hours and hours in my garage working on various cars, engines, and other tinkering projects. I think the shift of focus to those projects always helped to relieve some of the day to day tensions, but I don't think it did anything like biking does for me. It's a whole different ball game.

I've got to admit, I think I'm pretty lucky for happening into this lifestyle. While I'm not quite the extreme commuter or daily junkie that a lot of people are, it's definitely a part of my lifestyle now and not just a hobby or sport I choose to participate in. Riding with the guys last night, Pete mentioned how he had bad memories of last winter riding through 13" of snow and ice with Fuller and I. I can't help but think those were some of the fun times and not something that should be dreaded.

I'm excited for the next few months. I've got things wrapping up at work. I've got some time off coming sometime. I've got some chores that have been put off that should be getting completed. I'm just looking forward to being more of a participant in my life again. I can't wait. I hope the rest of you reading this blog get infected with some optimism and enthusiasm today. Enjoy it, revel in it, and feel good about it. We all deserve it!

All banged up and no place to go

At least that's what my knees are telling me this morning. I took off a bit early to make sure I got plenty of quality time on the bike last night. I hit one loop of Denman's before the taco ride. On the very first logover I ate dirt. I stuck my chain ring right into the log, rotated forward on it, and slammed my ass into the ground. Apparently I took the brunt of the impact on both knees though one shoulder is showing some signs of battle damage as well.

I got back on and tried to ride out the pain as I typically do. Nothing doing today so I settled for the fact that I'd be hurting for the ride and just enjoyed the scenery instead. The good news is there were no further incidents of eating it, at least for me... I finished up my loop and headed over to the shop to meet up with the rest of the group.

We only had 5 or 6 of us leave from the shop, but apparently there was a big group waiting somewhere in Denman's. Pete and Lou announced at the beginning they were resting and anyone wanting to go fast was welcome to head out in front. Ya right, their resting is flat out haulin ass for the mere mortals we are. As expected, they were moving along well with Fuller behind them and me sitting 4th wheel. I just about clipped Steve on the big log pile as he slowed more than I expected, but luckily we avoided a tangle. After that we swapped back and forth a bit before I slowly fell off the pace.

about 3/4 of the way through, we hit the other group enjoying beers and waiting for us. We shot the breeze a few minutes and then turned around to ride Denman's in revers and then head for tacos. I was happy I'd taken the time earlier to get a full loop in as we were now shorted some of the trail. The fast guys took off again while I just held steady. One of the guys I don't know too well apparently bit it on an optional log over and then had his bike run over by Pete causing a bigger pile up. Nobody hurt, but one set of handlebars was slightly bent up. No other incidents, but I did ride the log in reverse that threw me down earlier.

Off to Giff's for tacos and Olde Style we headed. It was pretty cool having a big pack of muddy, happy mountain bikers weaving through the streets just like we owned the place. Since I didn't have to ride back home, I opted for doubling up on both tacos and beer. I was happy as a pig in shit! It's hard to beat good friends, good riding, and good times. Thanks to all you guys that I get a chance to hang out with. Riding is good, but enjoying the company just adds to the pot.