Boring Update #3 in a row.

Our ride today turned into my ride as soon as I woke up. Last night Scott told me he needed a little rest and this morning Mike was throwing up and for some reason didn't feel like riding? I didn't let it get my spirits down though, and departed Greeley at approximately 9:45am heading due west. I stayed right on HWY 34 all the way up to Estes Park where I headed straight to the Mountain Home Cafe for a cup of coffee and a plate of banana pancakes. The pancakes were every bit as good as last time, and they kept refilling my coffee cup until I finally had to tell the lady to stop. A couple of the waitresses (older strange mountain folk) hung around my booth and talked to me about everything from riding bikes, to one of their "different" daughters that makes all her own clothes but looks like a bum, and rides a bike everywhere with a huge duffel bag over her shoulder, to teaching school, and we even touched a lot on what it's like living in a mountain town. I think I could dig living in one of those wierd little nooks of the world someday. The people are definitely different, and sometimes borderline creepy, but I like it. I headed home through Glen Haven, which my waitress had given me the complete road reports for, down to which corners are sandy, where it might be wet, and where the ice had just melted. The descent was great, I always love bombing down that road. The sand made it a little hair raising at times, even forcing me to unclip a foot once, but I still managed to nail a 90kph straightaway. I made it home 40 minutes faster than it took me to get there, not surprising considering I descended 3000' rather than climbing it, but there was a headwind going down the Big Thompson Canyon. I think there ALWAYS is though?

The past few days have started to take it out of me, but it feels great to be getting some serious miles in. I think I've decided the Tour of the Gila is going to be my first goal for the season so that's what has been motivating the long hours. If nothing else, 5 hard days of racing should catapult me into the summer with some descent form? I'm off the warm up my couch for a while before Grey's Anatomy and then an early bedtime.

I just realized this is the 125th boring update in a row, not 3rd.

Is it wierd that I feel like I'm taking a break only riding 4 hours tomorrow? Nick knows what I'm talking about.

G-FL-K-G-LS-M-J-W-SL-G

Today I completed the Northern Colorado semi-classic known as the Greeley-Feed Lots-Kersey-Greeley-La Salle-Milliken-Johnstown-Windsor-Seeley Lake-Greeley. It was a nice ride, but I decided not to eat the last 50 miles which resulted in me beating on the door of the Breadboard until they let me in to raid the kitchen. Luckily my good friend Mike was ready and waiting with 275 blackened chicken breasts. I made it home, and enjoyed a day old cinnamon roll or two, ok, it was two. Now it's nap time, which just may turn into bed time. Thanks for reading. Tomorrow is another long day, I'll try to get some pictures up after our ride tomorrow.

Blah.

All day has just felt like BLAGGHHHH! I managed to get a solid 4 hours on my bike this morning, but then class and my Earth Sciences seminar was a daze, and I helped my good friend Mike move a dresser tonight and after a beer or two, I feel like I'm moving in slow slow motion. I got all my riding clothes clean, so I should be ready for the weekend. If I could only get that kit back from Nick. I'm gonna get to bed so I can get up and do something productive in the morning. You guessed it, I'll be riding my bike once again. Damn I'm exciting.

Tour of California.

We have cycling coverage on mainstream cable! Pretty freekin cool if you ask me. Now, for my prediction. I think Tommy D is gonna pull it off, although after today, George would be a safe bet too. I'm just going with Tommy D, cause I always have to root for him. Here is a quick run down of why I'm not sure if I want to be a Tommy D fan anymore. Don't get me wrong, I'll probably always cheer for him, but this is all a little disapointing to me...


First I should show why I liked him to begin with...






But then this happened.






I guess I just hoped to get a little more out of him. If it's not Tom winning California, I hope it's George or Bobby J, but I'll still be cheering for Tom, even after all that has happened.

It Snowed Again.

This is getting old already. My training this week has gone down the toilet because I'm too big of a baby to ride in the snow and can stomach the idea of riding my trainer. I guess I should be grateful for the weekend we just had and Tuesday's 60 degree temps, but right now I'm looking at the glass half empty. I think I'm going to attempt some NES powered trainer time. I just need to decide if I should go with Super Mario Bros. or Contra. I think I'll start with the first and see how it goes.

(Continued)

Well I managed to squeeze an hour out of my trainer. If I get another in tonight I won't be doing too bad, right? The Nintendo lasted a half hour before I gave up. I either have to rest my hands on the side of my wrists and try to hold the remote between them, or go full aero, lay on my elbows and hold the remote out in front of me. Maybe it'll work better if I put my TT stuff on my bike? The other problem is that whenever I get to a point in the game that takes any concentration, my cadence drops to about 50. Maybe I'll practice more tonight and see if I can figure it out a little better. P.S. I went with Super Mario Bros. Not a bad choice, but maybe a different game would work better? Also I almost forgot to congratulate my wonderful Aunt B for 8 months without a job jump. You sure are growing up right in front of our eyes!

I love/hate Colorado.

Yesterday it was over 60 degrees and I got in 3 hours wearing shorts and arm warmers. I was hot the whole time and loving it. I don't think there are many people who can say they got a tan on Valentines Day. I felt great though after taking a little rest day on Monday after way too big of a day on Sunday. I had great expectations for the week, but it was spitting snow by the end of the evening. Today was freezing, and flurrying all day and now we have at least an inch of snow so we'll see how the week of training ends up. Maybe it's time to blow the dust off my trainer and log in some quality time with it.

I've been so in to the Olympis lately. I just watched the men's mogul competition, I was really hoping Jeremy Bloom could've pulled off a medal, but oh well. Short track speed skating is up so I'd better go tune in. I hear there is going to be a Yankton reunion here in Greeley this weekend so if anyone feels like joining, you're more than welcome. That's all for now.

Yesterday's Ride.

So. Yesterday I set a new personal record with Scott. 200 kilometers, 4,000+ feet of climbing in 7:18 minutes. The day started out awesome with some breaking news in my personal life, followed by a delicious breakfast.

I knew that to last the distance, I was going to need more than this, so just an hour into our ride we swung through a gas station for a cheese muffin. I developed a love for gas station cheese muffins on a ride last year, and have yet to lose the desire to eat one every time I see one. Sunday was no different.

After this short stop it was off to Estes Park. We climbed up HWY 34, past Drake and on to Estes.

50 miles into our ride, we stopped for what was supposed to be a cup of coffee and a pastry, but turned into the most amazing Banana Pancakes I've ever experienced.

They truly were an experience, and they were so dense I couldn't put down any more food for the next 50 miles. We made our way up HWY 36 then down into Lyons and back home on HWY 66 to CR 17, up the Russian, and in on 10th St. Fueled only on sugar water and a goo pack, the last 75 miles of our journey turned into an endorphin fueled carnival which included, but was not limited to, a runaway bike ramp through a ditch, the fake striking of several boxes of matches, several giggle-fests, two uphill sprints, plenty of singing, and even a little Wayne's World "camera one, camera two."

I turned over 200k a half block from my apartment, took a tubbie/shower, then watched a little olympic action before finishing a plate of Fajitas from the Rio. We then moved the party to Kari's waterbed and watched more Olympics and Grey's Anatomy with her, Scott, and my new lady-friend Aimee.

Today I was exhausted, but I made it to class. I even rode my bike there so I could take it to the power wash afterwards. I got it all cleaned and lubed for tomorrow, and I think I'm going to sit around for the rest of the night and watch more olympics. The girls are snowboarding right now, that would be cool if they could pull of as good of results as the guys did last night.

BIG DAY on the bike, and I have a girlfriend!

First UNC group ride of the year.

Saturday morning marked the first group ride of the year for the UNC Cycling team. I think this will become a regular thing. We meet at the Roubaix Bicycle company at 10am, then head out for an easy hour to hour and a half spin before coffee at my apartment. We had 9 riders in attendance this Saturday and hopefully that number continues to grow as the season approaches. We had a great ride, a little cold, but fun for everyone I think? I think I got to ride with everyone and talk to everyone, then coffee and doughnuts, how could it be a bad day? To make things even better I managed to get in another 2 and a half hours in the afternoon. I rode a little dirt down by Lasalle that I hadn't visited for at least a year, which I've already returned to since Saturday.

Sunday was supposed to be THE man-up ride of the year, but I turned into a wuss with the wind blowing and myself feeling a little blown from the day before. For those of you interested, I think it may go off next Sunday and the route goes as follows. Greeley to Estes Park via HWY 34 (not Glen Haven), Estes to Longmont, Longmont to Greeley. It should measure out to around 200k with somewhere between 3000' and 4000' of climbing. I think we'll be departing early from Scott's house, if you're interested, let me know.

Today was another gorgous day. I got to ride in knee warmers which hasn't happened since probably October. I got in a solid 2.5 hours today, with Scott. Some of it was a little beyond base pace, but we were trying to get me to class on time. I think tomorrow is going to be more of the same, except my ride will be sandwiched between classes starting at 9:30am and not ending till 8:30pm. Oh well, those days are unavoidable I guess, and it'll be even harder once those hours start to increase. I also got the second layer of glue on Scott's rims and tires for him this afternoon. I'm happy to glue them for him, but I think the fumes are starting to get to me. I'll be happy when they are done tomorrow and he can take them back to his place.

Here are a few things I've learned in the past months.

#1 It's amazing how many people actually read this crap.

#2 Secrets make people feel important.

#3 "Wedding Crashers" hasn't gotten old after watching it 10 times in a couple weeks.

#4 "Grey's Anatomy" is awesome.

#5 Skate skiing is fun, but you feel like you got kicked in the ass the next day, on both sides.

#6 Maps don't excite most people the way they excite me.

#7 I'm glad my parents don't run for office so I'm still allowed to waste my (and your) time writing crap on here.

#8 Sometimes you have to hit the bottom before you can start working your way back up.

#9 Nothing compares to the simple pleasure of a bike ride. (John F. Kennedy helped me with that one)

#10 There are daily earthquakes in the midwest.

#11 Ice Skating rocks my socks!

#12 The new "Mr. GWHS" is nowhere near as good as last year's.

#13 I haven't yet grown to love football.

#14 Class is way easier, and less nerve-wracking, when you go consistently.

#15 Hip-Hop? There's so many things you could say about hip-hop.

Thanks for reading, hope to see you at the ride Saturday.

Bike Review #3

Alright folks, it's time for my review of my new Cannondale Caad 8 road bike. I've only ridden this thing a few times, but thus far I have no complaints. It's definitely stiffer than what I'm used to which is a good and bad thing. This is an all aluminum frame, with a carbon fork that has a carbon steerer. It came stock with an FSA integrated headset.

I'm running all my old components on this bike right now. I've got my old old Ultegra crank and bottom bracket, although I'm hoping to have a new Dura-Ace 10 crank before race season. I'm running a Dura-Ace 9sp rear derailleur that I got from Scott after he crashed and "ruined" it, Ultegra 9sp front derailleur with the controversial clamp, a Sram PC-99 hollowpin chain, Ultegra 11-23 cassette, and Speedplay X1 pedals. I got the pedals second hand for 80 bucks, so I think there must be something special about them since they aren't worth a penny over 50 bucks.

The wheelset is a pair of Ultegra hubs laced to Mavic Open Pros with Wheelsmith double butted spokes. I bought this wheelset this fall after I built a new one for Scott, and he no longer needed these. The rear rim was toast, but luckily Scott (being the good friend that he is) threw in an extra hoop that came off of his Power-Tap wheel. I laced it onto this hub and it's been rockin' ever since. I run Specialized Armadillo tires because nothing can beat them in these Greeley goatheads. I think I've gotten one flat on these tires because of a thorn, and they've lasted a couple thousand miles so far.

I've got a Selle Italia SLR saddle on top of a Cannondale Wind seatpost. I'm actually the first owner of the saddle, although the seatpost is secondhand from Scott. Evidently it wasn't long enough when he bought his Giant? In the bottom of this picture you can also see my Ultegra rear brake.

This last shot shows my Dura-Ace 9sp shifters (which I hear they quit making, so get your hands on a pair now if you can), my Ritchey Pro 44cm handlebar, my borrowed Felt 110mm stem, and Ultegra front brake. This shot also does a fine job of the red cables that I've grown to love. Don't worry, I actually put new housing on this bike when I built it up.

Like I said, I've only ridden this bike a few times, but I enjoyed every minute of the 2 and a half hours I spent on it today. Scott and I rode a bunch of dirt, and I could definitely tell I didn't have my flexy old Trek underneath me, but I think I really like it overall. I'm still trying to figure out if I like the lengh, or if I should go another 10mm longer. Only time will tell I guess. On our dirt adventures today, we found something you don't see everyday along the road.

I also tried to re-create moment from years past. It didn't work out as well, but it never will.

Here is a parting shot from the road. This is what it looks like in action, we'll have to wait a couple months to see if I have the motor to make it go fast.

Getting lazy.

I realize I haven't updated in a while. Kind've a busy week, but I got sick on top of it which made the motivation for this kind of stuff drop. The dinner party on Monday night was a hit. The food turned out good, and everyone else brought awesome stuff, and I think we all ended up having a good time. I know I did, probably enough for everyone. The rest of the week was kinda same old same old, school and work, although I did get my bike put together so I've finally made my maiden voyages on my new Cannondale CAAD 8. I'll try to get a bike review together by the end of this week? This weekend has been crazy so far. More cross-country skiing class. After a 6am wake up this morning and 4 solid hours of skate skiing, I'm worked, but I'd better rest up to do it all again tomorrow. I'd never skated before today, but I think I kinda got the hang of it. We had a lesson in the morning and had this bloke named Peter teach us the ropes. I call him a bloke because he was from the U.K. and used almost every awesome "English" term I can think of. I tried to ski with my new friend Rochelle in the afternoon, I'd skiied with her last weekend and managed to keep up, but today I got the crap kicked out of me. I could hang on the flats, she wouldn't use her poles and I'd be giving it all I had, but then on all the climbs it was as if I was going backwards. Finally we split and I took the easy route back to the lodge. I managed not to have to drive Little Timmy this weekend. Not sure if I'd mentioned him earlier, but he's quite the guy. I think it's time to hit up a little Tylenol Cold PM and hit the sack early. Maybe I'll wake up feeling like a million bucks? That would be quite the contrast to this morning. This week brings more class, and hopefully some steady riding. I'll try to maybe get some pictures from a ride since it has been a while, and I need to show off the new bike. Hope you're all having awesome weekends.

Helluva weekend.

Whew, I'm glad the weekend is over, I need a break. This reminds me of cross season when you sit around on Sunday night, totally worked, wondering when you're going to get that break you were waiting for the weekend for. Anyway, last semester I would have just taken Monday off, but not with this current attendance streak.

Saturday morning I was up at 6 to go cross country skiing for my PE class. I thought it was going to be a joke, we'd stand around all morning, then ski in a few circles in the afternoon. No way, I got into the lesson group with other kids that knew how to ski, including a couple ex-racers (well only one of the could actually ski like she had raced). We took off with our crazy old lady instructor who was actually really cool and very nice, but she tore my legs off for two and a half hours straight. At about the hour 45 mark, she goes, oh boy, we're going to need to make tracks if we want to finish this "tour" in 45 minutes. It turned out to be a lot of fun, and after an extended lunch break, I headed back out with the ex-racer girl for a relaxing 1 hour loop. We had a lot of fun and a nice conversation as we slowly made our way around the Eldora Nordic Center. The down side to the trip was the drive there and back with "Little Timmy."

I knew it would be a long drive when Little Timmy couldn't get the seat belt around his belly. Rochelle, the skier, and I were treated to some amazing tales of Timmy's 65mph bike rides, 2.5 million ducks in a flock, and how he knocked out a psych degree in a year.

Saturday night we watched Cinderella Man at Kari's house with her, Scott, and her roomate Aimee. The movie was really good, good enough to keep me awake after a 6am wake up, and the hardest workout I'd had year-to-date.

Sunday morning came too soon once again, but 3 hours later than Saturday. I got up at 9 to "get my stuff ready" for a Century with a few fellow crazy's. It turns out I had 2 flats, zero tubes, and no way to get my pump onto my bike. I ended up patching and using a cross TR tube in the front wheel, taping the pump on, and driving to Scott's with my finger's crossed that someone had a tube for me. Luckily Nick did, and I think he owed me one maybe? Anyway, the way I felt after skiing the day before, and after scoping out the company, I was hoping to get 50 miles instead of 100. Scott, Nick, Mikeal, Nicky, and her teammate Aimee Vasse (two time Mt. Washington hill climb champ).





I had a lot of fun riding with everyone, sitting in was awesome, but at about mile 60, the inevitable happened. I cracked harder than Humpity Dumpity on our way back in on 10th street. Luckily everyone started to flat and Scott rescued me with some peanut butter cups and a coke from a gas station right there. I hung it up after 63 miles and headed over to Kari's for the end of the Bronco's game. I'm a HUGE football fan, so you can imagine my disapointment when they lost. The night turned out to be a lot of fun, but I'm hurting this morning. I found a couple new muscles cross country skiing, and the bike ride didn't help them out at all, so I'm feeling a little sore and grumpy this morning. Hopefully an easy spin with Scott before class will help things a little.

Tonight is my pheasant dinner party. Cross your fingers I can figure out how to make it. Right now I'm feeling a little grilled peanut butter sandwiches, I've got that recipe down.

The attendance streak lives on.

9 days now, would have been 10, but Martin Luther King stole a day of learning from me. Last night I went out way too big again to celebrate the two week mark. Luckily class didn't start till 2:30 this afternoon. I've been living the typical college kid life the past couple weeks, and not to say it isn't fun and all, but I think it's time to turn things around. This Sunday I got roped into a century which could get really ugly. If there is an upside to it, I know I won't be blown from a hard week of training. I just hope I can survive, I'm seriously considering a double chamois. It looks like I'll be riding my mountain bike again since my road bike is still sans front derailleur clamp. I was gonna try and pull off a fixed gear with my Surly frame, but I just realized I need to tape the bars on it, and I'll have no way of getting any bar tape before Sunday as I will be cross country skiing all day tomorrow. Maybe I'll ride my blue fixed gear? Anyway, if you couldn't tell, I'm a pretty boring guy, deciding what bike to ride will be the highlight of my week. You knew that you wouldn't find any excitement here though, it does say "Boring" right in the title. A few of you loyal readers may not have noticed that I've been supplying you with infrequent boring updates for an entire year now. I hope you've all enjoyed the past year, it's had it's ups and downs, but I'm glad you all got to come along for the ride with me.

It's time to go clean out my car since I get to drive 3 strangers around tomorrow. I don't think they'll appreciate the trainer, Tufo tires, or electric skillet in the back seat. I don't even know what's in the trunk, I'd better get on that and get to bed early. Thanks for stopping by, and if any of you have any questions about "instinct," I've recently learned that Scott Wenzel is an expert on the subject.

Who knows what they were doing a year ago today? I do, I was sliding down 28th Ave. on my left ass cheek pretending that my iPod was a PDA.

Perfect attendance.

7 days strong, and that's saying a lot considering what I've been putting up with. Scott mentioned my oceanography homework, and thought he'd make fun of me a little, well, he doesn't have to teach that sits next to me in lab what contour lines on a map are, what they mean, how to read them, how to interpret them, and how to make a cross section using them. Although parts of the ocean floor are indeed flatter than a billiards table, there are a lot of freaking bumps between Cape Cod, and Cap Blanc, and she needed to know "what I got" for every single contour line the entire way across the Atlantic. Overall Oceanography is alright, but right now it's just a lot of confusing, dull, data, that I have to try to make sense of. If anyone want's to relate the Bathymetry, Regions, Heat Emissions, and Gravity Anomalies, across the ocean, please, fill me in. Anyway, here is some bathymetric data for you. Feel free to make a cross section if you wish.


P.S. Sorry this is so boring, I was told to update and this is what I'm up to.

P.P.S. Sorry for being so negative, I'm just already feeling the annoying kids in my classes migrating towards me. I have a cross country ski trip on Saturday, and some LARGE, sweatpants wearing, sweaty, non-traditional student will be riding with me. He wasn't happy with our meeting point because, "he couldn't park his truck there, his tools will get stolen." First off, why am I driving him if he has a truck? Second, is he really going to argue with me about this when I'm driving him? Third, he argued with the teacher about what route we should take, so I'm sure he'll want to tell me how to get to Eldora once we're on the road. Just how I want to start my Saturday at 7am. Wow, lot's of negativity.

More Old Cyclocross Photos.

Here is a Kodak Gallery album of the cyclocross season. It was supposed to end at the state championships, that's why it's called, "The road to Xilinx," but as you may or may not know, I crapped out a week early and didn't race states. Here are the pictures though.

Old Cyclocross Photos

Scott showed me a site with a TON of awesome CX pictures. Here are a few of the highlights. I guess the site sponsors Rocky Mounts, so they take a lot of pics of us? Anyway, they have a ton of awesome pictures, check them out here.

Bike Review #2

Tonight I've decided to do a little write up on my mountain bike. Although this isn't the way it's set up to race on, it's the way I've been riding it lately. See for yourself. Note the flat front tire from yesterday's goathead battle. The goatheads won, they always do.

The frame is a Giant hybrid with an aluminum front triangle and carbon seat and chain stays. Giant has discontinued this frame, but I can't figure out for the life of me why they would have. It was very affordable, and rides as nicely as anything I've touched. I couldn't believe the difference the carbon stays made after the first time I rode it, but I absolutely love the way it feels and the handling couldn't be better. Currently it's set up with 700c road wheels, which makes training on it this time of the year possible. I'm not sure that I could get in long consistent hours on the trail, but this way I can just ride it around Greeley and get more and more used to the way it rides, and get my body used to riding on it.

I once had a full XTR drivetrain, but when I got this frame I had to get a new front derailleur and I decided to go with an XT (mostly because I had a race the next day and that's all that was available, but also because I didn't want to throw down 75 bucks for a part I might use once or twice in a race. For those of you who know how I ride, I usually climb in my big ring, and spin it out on the flats and decents.) Right now for winter training I've also fitted the bike with an FSA compact road crankset. This allows me to push a little bigger gear since I'm mostly riding it on pavement and flat gravel. I'm running a Sram PC-69 chain on this bike. I run Sram chains and cassettes on all my geared bikes. This cassette happens to be an 11-32. You can also see the recycled bar tape on the chain stay. I took this off Scott's bike last spring, and I think the blue looks alright, although it shows grease from the chain really bad.

Up front I'm rollin' with a 2003 Rock Shox SID World Cup in the "Rollin' Green" color. The fork has a carbon crown and steerer as well as a remote lock out. I'm not the biggest Rock Shox fan in the world, but as long as you keep it well maintained it works great and weighs in at just under 2.6 lbs. The problem is you have to constantly rebuild it to keep it maintained. It's in need of an overhaul right now after a rough summer and short racing season this fall. This picture also shows the Avid BB5 mechanical disc brakes. I went with the mechanical brakes because I couldn't afford new XTR shifter levers, although to all of you out there, if you want disc brakes, you want hydraulic, trust me. These things are a pain to keep running right, and require constant adjustment. Oh well, the price was better than I could believe, and they allow me to run the 700c wheels since the rim no longer has to line up with a brake. I'm running Kenda Kaliente tires on this bike, which I've heard great things about, but had bad luck with yesterday. I don't think I can blame that on the tire too much though, I'm quite certain I would have flatted a steel belted radial with as many goatheads as I had sticking out of my tire.

Here is a picture of the cockpit. I've got the XTR dual control shifter/levers, which I like quite a bit, although I still think hydraulic would've been the way to go. You can also see my remote lock-out (locked out in the particular shot), my cut off bar-ends, and the Deda bar-tape that I use in place of grips. I like the bar-tape #1 because I love bar tape, #2 because I like the grips to be thinner than a regular rubber grip, and #3 because the tape doesn't slide around the way grips do. This shot also shows my old Schwinn Homegrown top cap that I decided I'd keep with me so I never forget Pumpkin.

Under my rear lies a San Marco Aspide saddle and Thomson Elite seatpost. No complaints with either, although I'd rather have an SLR saddle. Unfortunately I've broken two SLR's riding them off road, and after riding two laps of a cyclocross race on the seat rails of one, I decided they just aren't tough enough. The Aspide has held up well, but just doesn't feel as nice on my sitting bones.

The crank is a 34-50, but was custom drilled so I could throw a 22t little ring on it if I felt compelled to do so. Getting this thing on was kind've a challenge, and I'm not so sure it's really too Kosher the way it is. I ended up using a Dura-Ace triple bottom bracket, but had to put a spacer on the drive side so the chainrings would clear the chainstay. It works and hasn't loosened itself yet so I guess I'll just run it?

As you can tell, this thing is a speed machine the way it's set up. Here it is in action. Full Donkey Tuck down 4th street. The Donkey Tuck is twice as good on the MTB since the top tube is so much lower than my road bike. I must warn you though, I hit a manhole about 2 seconds after this shot was taken, and the top tube isn't what you want to be sitting on when hitting hard bumps, especially if the fork is locked out.

I think that concludes my write up. If I've left any questions un-answered, feel free to ask. Right now there is some movie on about the candyman and I can feel myself getting dumber as I listen to it. I'd better go find something better to waste the rest of my night on. Hope you all have a great Martin Luther King Day. I'm part way through Alex Haley's "Malcolm X," maybe I'll read a little more of it tomorrow just to show my spirit of the day.

Quite the day.

Today was supposed to be a shock to the system. We were gonna ride as long as we could, shooting for 4 hours, with the goal of getting me back into shape in a day. That's not quite the way it turned out, but it did turn out to be an adventure and a half. I left my house at noon and didn't be back until after 5pm. I don't think I got much over 2 hours ride time though. First I waited for Nick to get dressed, then we had espresso shots at Scott's. Once we finally got riding, the action began. It all started with an amazing, blind, track standing, behind the back bottle toss from me to Scott. Read more about on Scott's site.. We continued on, only to watch an old man smash his Buick into a speed bump directly next to me, then Nick flatted at a stop light not 20 minutes after bragging about how he NEVER gets flat tires. We picked up Mark for a wild, drugged out ride, then continued onto some dirt. I found one of my favorites. A Greeley style irrigation canal road.

This was awesome until it turned into flat fest 2006.

We headed back into IBike to get more tubes with full intentions of heading back out for more riding. But... the BreadBoard was giving away day olds, so... we ended up eating a ton, then heading back to Kari's for more eating.

I did manage to get my bike stuck in the sand after a short bathroom break. I have a movie of me pulling it out. It's pretty good. Let me know if you'd like to see it.


Tonight Scott, Kari, and I went to a UNC hockey game with a couple of Kari's roomates and sorority sisters. UNC won, and Scott and I managed to make ourselves look like idiots. I did manage to score Scott a job at the Rio before the game but after no less than 2 Rio margs. Today wasn't really a shock to the system, but it was a lot of fun. No bike review this update, but I'm feeling a review of my mountain bike coming on very soon. Yeah, time for you all to get excited about it.