Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Clever title goes here...

Hopefully everyone had a good memorial day weekend. Ours was good. Saturday consisted of doing a whole lot of nothing. We decided to drive to St. Louis on Sunday morning, Micah and Sara, Darby, and Thomas and his girl were in town for Dziewa's wedding and staying at the Kippenbergers house. Good excuse to break out one of my many TI bikes and ride with old friends. Well, we got on the highway, and of course it started raining on us, and it rained pretty much the entire way into the city, just stopping right before we got to the K's house. Nice. Not to mention, everyone and their brother was driving like shit in the inclement weather. Well, we got there, and settled in and had brunch and got caught up on everyones goings on. Finally it cleared off enough for us to ride, we drove out and parked at Ghisalo and rode some great roads for a couple of hours. Finished up the ride, and headed back to the K's for dinner. It was getting late, so we ate pretty quick, and Alicia, Dillon, and I packed it in and started home. About 15 minutes into our supposed sub 2 hour car ride, it started pouring. Hard. I pulled off the road in Wentzville to get some gas and let the storm pass. I consulted the Jesus Phone and it told me that there were t-storms from Columbia to StL, all on I-70. So, either we spend the night in Wentzville, or I drive in the rain. Dillon was asleep by then, so I decided to hop back on the hwy and move along, how bad could it be? Really fucking bad!!! I was able to go about 20mph. My bike was on the roof and getting abused. People were pulling off of the road, and parking on the shoulder, or just stopping in the middle of the hwy. It was literally raining sideways. Well, about this time I started to notice that my car was really rocking and being buffeted by the wind. It was dark. So, I am thinking tornado. Alicia was freaking, and I am trying to decide mentally whether I should just pull off the road and find a ditch and cover Dillon and Alicia, or keep going, or what. I finally found an overpass and got as much under that as I could without bumping the car in front of me. It was crazy watching the people that were still trying to drive almost hit each other. I am serious when I say visibility was zero. Honestly, I can't believe there was not a tornado, the wind was blowing so hard. So we waited for a bit, and of course Dillon woke up and started freaking out. So, Alicia was trying to keep him calm, and I was trying to keep her calm. Finally I decided it was time to go, and we got back on the road. We drove in and out of strong storms for another hour before finally coming to the end of it. All in all, I have to say that I am glad to be alive. I really thought something bad was going to happen. I was still shaking and wound up with adrenaline when we got home. Sunday was much less eventful. I was going to ride, but it was supposed to rain all day. It didn't happen. So, we just hung out, got groceries, and tried to relax.

I raced my bike last weekend in St. Joe. I did shitty. And, I tried to get in a fight with this tall skinny guy from Kansas. I guess I just have a bad attitude or something. He was going slow, so I passed him in a field. He got back on my wheel and started bumping my back tire. No big deal, just annoying and rude. Then he passed me, and started hitting his brakes for no reason. I called him on it, and of course he got mouthy. It took every bit of self control that I had to not tell him to get off his bike right there. So, I eventually passed him again, and kept it that way. Some nice guy I am, huh? There are a ton of new trails there, if you ever head up that way you should check them out. There is probably over 40 miles total of single track in that town, all well groomed, hard packed dirt.


The fat bike bully in action, hard charging to a stellar 10th place in the expert class!

Thursday, May 22, 2008

i guess I can update this thing...

Or not.

Wednesday, May 07, 2008

Riding bikes!

I have been riding a little bit lately. Yay! So, I am making good use of at least 3 of the bikes I have. I turned the karate monkey into a 1x8, and it rocks. I spent about 3.5 hours off road with Jasen on Sunday, we rode Cosmo, Grindstone, and Rockbridge. The trails were great, a little wet in spots, but for the most part in good shape. The KM performed great, and I was comfortable for the entire day on the rigid bike. I am trying to decide if I want to use it for the race in St. Joseph next weekend, or if I want to ride the Rush. I hit up Cosmo for a couple of laps on Monday, and rode the Rush. It is amazing how different the 2 bikes are. The rush just rails, and is super confident due to all of the travel. But, the Surly climbs better, and really rolls when you get it up to speed. Decisions...

Last night I rolled out to the Tuesday night race for the second time this season with Kersha. Good times! I actually felt pretty good, and made a few half assed moves and made the selection towards the end. Tracey hit the gas with a couple of miles to go, and I tried to go with and got about 2/3 of the way to him but gassed myself pretty hard. I did manage to grab onto Butthead and Brinkers wheels when they came by and we rolled it home.

What else...not a lot really. I am getting ready to do a big ebay sell off of stuff, I'll post a link here.

Friday, May 02, 2008

NIght ride

I went for my first night time mountain bike ride in 8 years the other night out at Cosmo with Jasen Matayas. I forgot how much different the trails are in the dark. I scored a Cygolite Li-ion powered LED system for my bike, so I thought I would give it a try. Needless to say, my lap times around the race course are way slower in the dark. I can't imagine riding those trails at night without knowing them. I am super familiar with the trail system there, and I struggled in a lot of spots.

Plans are in the works for a weekly ride out there with lights, come out if you want.

On another note, I am registered for the Berryman Epic 60 mile mtb race in the Fall. Good times.