Now What?

Well this might come to a surprise to some of you, but not me.

Been there, heard the bullshit, then didn't hear bullshit for months.  

It's amazing how it's easy to blame others, but there was a race not long ago, right?  

The Parks just decided this week to give the red light?  My ass!  Wake up!  Blow smoke up someone else's ass!

Thanks Zieg.

Famous words from some song:

"Check yourself before you wreck yourself!"

Shaking the Cobwebs Loose

Well, a few days later after my melon graced the ground at Louivull the senses are coming back.  Not only that but the headaches are gone.

The way to find out, go mountain biking.  Yep that's right hit the trails to see how the body and brain function together as one.  A single dap on Rim Job, not bad, wasn't killin it but still haven't hit the trails in age's and still felt really good.  

Maybe it's time to take this is a little more serious.  After feeling comfortable at the start USGP, I'm hoping this will carry over to this weekend's preview.  

Check  back this weekend to see pics of the Nationals Preview course.

Its For Junk

Louivull

The course is held on an old golf course right off the river and not far from downtown.  Very nice little park for sure.

Straight to the meat....
Had a great warm up in the hotel room. Which happened to be right across from the race. So sweet!!

Talked to a UCI official earlier in the morning to find out that we weren't going to get a hot lap. Hmmm, so what to do....Poach the course. Yep that's right...on to the course I went right after the start/finish paved start I go. Sweet off camber turn into a tight left, down a long fast grass straight away in front of the expo area, double barrier's, under the Green Monster Flyover, transition to pavement to grass off camber corner downhill. Uphill turn left hard around pine tree, drop into a hard packed sandpit with a sweet lip at the end. Down towards the back straight away after a little sidewalk transition. Hit the back straight away on cart path to mud/grass tight switch backs which then transitions into one hard packed sand pit to grass to a 20ft sand pit that was about crank deep. Right after that I yelled at by a UCI official to get off the course.

Oh well I would see the rest during the race. Just to give you all a hint I did hit the course a good pace, but I was still in the small ring rolling through it. I wanted to get a looksee then hit the throttle a little bit.

So they make the call to staging area for Masters 35+. The UCI official standing a the opening for only one cyclist to pass through at a time. Another official comes through and starts to make sure the numbers are on right, people are there, and the whole bit.

 Next call ups...first Will Black, second Phil Noble, third some 3x Master Crit Champion and so on and so forth for the front row. Second row are the Ohio Valley top eight. Third row registrants in order ....ME! Look behind me 2 more rows of guys.

Starting official gives his spiel. He steps to the side gives a thirty second warning then proceeds to shoot the starting pistol.

Holy shit hits the fan...I'm not losing spots,yet, but I'm not gaining. Then all of the sudden the outside opens up and I make a move to that side I can see the front but I'm not in the front end of it that's for sure. The transition from pavement to grass goes smooth then the cart path in the middle cause's some to lose momentum. I move up a couple of spots then the first right hand hits and I'm on the inside not bad positioning. Then the off camber and some guys make crazy moves on the downslope and I lose some spots as I dive down into the left hander. I can still see the front guys pulling away, but I'm holding steady. Making it through the hard packed sand pit moving up a couple of positions I transition to the deep sand pit.

What comes next is great. At this time I haven't got out of the big ring and we were full gas into the sand pit almost through the it someone decides to stop right at the lip. At this point I have two choices 1. Hit him at full steam 2. Try my luck and go around him. Well I chose number 2... My front wheel burrows itself into the sand, coming to a complete stop. The problem was that the rest of my body wanted to keep forward momentum going and boy did it. If you can think of a catapult shooting a flaming ball of shit towards a castle, well that was me. A flaming ball of shit expecting I was heading towards the ground at mach speed, clipped in and with hands on the hoods.

My Giro covered melon is what brought my body to complete stop on the grass. Yep totally shoot me the hell out of the sand pit onto the ground. All I remember is that I hear is CRACK as my melon smacks the ground, then to add insult to injury my bike comes down on my limp body on the ground. I roll over holding my noggen, while my bike is laying out in the middle of the course. Several people run over grab my bike and pull it out of the way. A UCI official runs over to see if I need medical assistance. I tell him I'm fine but have a really bad headache. His reply is that "I'm not surprised because that was really ugly."

I sat there a couple of minutes while the pain subsided and I got my bearings. Check my helmet..no cracks, check the body only a small flesh wound. Off I go to find the boss. My day done I go across the street and clean up. The boss does an assessment of me and declares "You're Fine!" Then goes on to add "Have you thought about changing hobbies?" Wow! At that moment I really considered it.

We go check out Louivull after watching the pro's and ran into two miles of this....

At night this was something to see.  Cars were lined up both ways just looking at all of the decorations.  What's funny is that they said they don't do Christmas as good as this.

New Non UCI Cyclocross Callup Rules.

1) First row is reserved for cyclists who have blogs in which they refer to themselves as "pro" bike racers. Yes they are posting from their day jobs as bike mechanics and computer geeks, but because they get lapped by Ryan Trebon twice a year they are now "pro." The front row is for these fine people.

2) Depth of wheels. The next row is reserved for those man enough to rock the 60mm rims, the trispokes, the disc wheels (seen it),( the Rev-x's dont count due to the extreme risk factor and social suicide of riding them) etc. Obviously if you are willing to put 3000 dollar wheels on the line, you are training harder than the most euro cross racers.

3) Smell. This is easy enough. The more liniment you rub all over your body, the more euro you look, and the faster you will go. You can be smelled from the last row by the official with the whistle. Move up.

4) Skinsuit to temperature ratio: The more inappropriate your skinsuit is for the weather, the further up you go. Long sleeves with a feed zone in the race because it is so hot? Move up. Shorts in KC in December. Move up. There is usually a direct correlation between the liniment and skinsuit rule.

5) Style off the bike. Can you be mistaken for (what people think) a not at work bike messenger (looks like) when you are not racing? Visible tattoos and piercings? Cycling caps and Chrome bags? Again, the final call ups are for you.

Tie breakers go straight to the hottness of the girlfriend which you brought to the race to cheer/pickup your jacket from the start grid.


Compound any of these for a guaranteed front row start.

And Now For Something Completely Different

Sage Advice

This comes from a buddy at work...

"Don't race like old people phuck!"

That's the plan. 

 But here is something interesting.  Saturdays race is very lopsided.   It's really early in the season to see these names, but this will give me an idea of what I will be facing at Nationals.

Sunday's race looks like to be the biggest field I will see this season.  Boy, it's early too.

Sven is a Machine

Thank You Sir, May I Have Another....

That is an arse beating by Heeman, and DS. Boy I'm sucking arse. Oh yea, I almost got mikemike at the line. DAMN IT!!!

YEAH for me: No mechanicals!!

To top it off Heeman had a flat at the start then worked his way for 5 freaking laps to catch and pass my arse as I set the anchor down for some odd reason.

Great grass start for Heeman and I, while the others enjoyed pavement. It really scares me that Heeman had a flat (HE ALSO SAID HE TOOK A POO) because he followed my lead at the start and we were in the top 5 when we hit the grass. I would lay money he would have stayed there in that group if not for that incident.

Heeman 2 crusty 0

Redemption maybe coming soon if I can get some more clean rides/races.

Here are some shoots Early in the race, I'm near people.

Note:  This isn't his A bike

karl's jr having to much fun
Oh yes, fluid dynamic motion demonstrated by karl's jr
Look of a killa

Heeman tearing it up

Is karl's jr showing his belly?  Is he pregnant? 

Heeman taking victims..one by one

Can anyone see the anchor?

Not So Much Here....But Here

Sven is not a machine. If so his bleeds like us. Hhmmm?

Beer of the Week

Avondcross

Grand Prix HPT was a phenomenal  course.  It was laid out in and around the Heartland Park Dirt Oval course.  All under lights, our race started at 7:30pm.  So swweeeettttt!!!!!

The course had everything, expect a long start/finish area.  Maybe 100ft total then right to a slight righthand off camber to a left hander to pavement.  Fifty feet of pavement then bang, straight to dirt right hander.  This put you on the Dirt Oval course from corner to corner, then a tight left hander took you to the bottom of the dirt oval and back around to the infield.  Inside the infield we had a double barrier with plenty of grass corners.  Then we went onto the backside of the dirt oval and ran the back straight till they had interesting dismount unto pallets to get out of the oval then a weird transition to the grass out back of the grandstands.  Behind the stadium we had a little uphill to gravel/pavement straightaway till we hit a set of wooden steps at speed.(Very fun)  After the steps we turned right(180) then left (180) to the finish line.

The only problem I had was this....

Yep, I shattered it in three places.  I didn't change bikes because I was actually running in the top three when it happened.  Then I started noticing that in some parts of the course that it was moving up and down.  After I noticed this I wasn't really motivated to try and switch bikes because I was still sitting in sixth.   I lost some places being conservative in the infield but I could make it up on the dirt oval parts.  I did get to do some NASCAR racing with an old buddy of mine.  JJ, showed up without telling me and I noticed him on the start line.  

About the start line.  I pulled my best Doug Plumer.  From the very last person in staging area to the front row.  Gotta love it!!

So as I notice JJ, we start to rap a little and try to catch up before the race starts.  Wish each other good luck then bang.  The whistle goes off.  I got a bad start and was like 5th or so going into the first turn on grass.  Made up some places on the entrance of the dirt oval.  Sitting third and held that until we entered the infield.  Then bang, some dude from Cycle City ate shit, right in front of me.  I almost ran over his head.  Right after that came the barriers and BANG I hear a pop from some where, I didn't get a smooth landing but I know I'm know I'm not a FAT ARSE!  The saddle didn't really start moving yet but it slowly started working itself fore and aft.

 At this time is when all bets were off and the gloves should have been put on. Some dude from 360 racing checked the F out, and that is no joke.  Right after we got through the infield Chris Tilford on his single speed comes screaming by and SKC, Renaissance kid try to jump on his wheel.  Now things start getting interesting I'm holding my spot really well then at lap 3 I start to feel my early effort of starting to hard.  I sit in and ride tempo and I start to get caught by some fellows. Now I'm sitting in 8th or 9th and trying to minimize damage.  That is until I see JJ fixing his chain on the grass and suddenly some kid tries to pass me on the uphill section leading into the steps.  Well this is where NASCAR mentality takes over.  As we go into the steps I swing from right to left to throw him off his line and pinch him into the long way around the obstacle.  It works but at that time JJ comes to my inside...swwweeeettt.  JJ and I haven't raced against each other in so long I can't remember it's probably been 3 years.  So the fun was one.  On the dirt track I made up the distance to him and closed it down right before the turn down to the bottom of the track.  Then I let him have the old "Hip Check" to the bars to tell him I loved him, tough love baby!  

After that I was starting to pick off the guys that got me while I was being conservative.  It was really fun to be able to start picking off guys after so many laps.   Laps 5-7 I started to feel a real groove but still had to stay light on the saddle due to the fact I didn't want to go to the hospital and have them cut off my mwi kit   while removing shrapnel from my carbon rails.  Try to explain that one to the Dr.  "I was JRA and all of the sudden my arse felt this pain?!"

At the end I pulled a sweet wheelie.  Which did get some hollers from those surrounding the finish line area.

So I have learned one thing from my experiment with cool ass parts.  Be crusty and stick with what you know works.  I will have one of these on the Orb from here on out.

Interestingly enough Bondo and I ran into Zig and he paid for our entry fees for the race.  He even offered to pay for Sundays race, but I didn't go due to the boyz had a rough landing and knocked the air out of me.  This was after I broke the saddle.  The bike jumped up as I was going for the leap of faith and boom...boys meet arione, arione meet boys.  Ouch!

I did get some interesting comments from the crowd on mwi kit.  

#1 That sure is a fancy looking kit.

#2 Go plaid boy go.

#3 I really like your kit, it is very nice looking.

Swwweeeetttt.

BTW, Heeman has thrown down the challenge again.  I will give him credit in the fact that he is getting fast, but it will be age before ugly.  He might even get a little NASCAR shove from someone he doesn't know!  I have started to spread the love already this year.   With only doing one race!!

Thoughts from the Swapmeet

Interestingly I enjoy watching others dig through my old parts... for some reason it's very intriguing to me to see if others will appreciate the parts the way I did.

Many a person showed up at the Octigina swap meet this year. 

It's quite a diverse group that shows up for this sale of excess and unwanted parts.  Those that race and have bits for sale, those that have old stuff looking to unload, then the uninformed, uneducated person who wants bike parts for some unknown reason.

Example #1

Gentleman grabs my tubular set of Zipp's (LA Sheriff era) and spins them.  First the front... forward then backward, then forward then backward.  But the second time he turns his head closes his eyes.  Effectively bringing out his Jedi powers to detect something wrong with the hubs... I guess?  He repeats the same procedure with the real wheel, exactly.  

After done shutting down his powers and returning to Earth he asks "How Much?"  

My response "$100"  

"So what tires will fit on these?"  he asks.

"Any tubular" my return.

"Does that mean one of those tires you glue?" he asks.

"Yes" I respond.

Then the bomb is dropped... "So how do I turn them into clinchers?"

"You can't!"  That was it end of sale.  I saw disappointment in his face.  

The funny thing he wasn't the only one to ask that question.  One other fine fellow did the same thing without doing the Jedi mind power test though.

One other fellow always grabs my goat.  For the past 3 years I have had a set of new MTB bars I've been trying to sell.  So for the past three years this fellow comes over, picks up the bars and says "Boy those are light, how much."  I tell him the price and he says "Ok"  then sets them down and walks off.  WTF, I'm amazed because one they are new, and I'm selling them cheap.  Oh well, maybe I will get to bring them next year and I can go through the same process with him.  Although I might actually deny him the ability to pick them up next year though.

Tapering or is that Tampering

Well the plan is there for a taper but I'm thinking I'm more tampering with fitness than actually building it.  

The bikes are ready, the mind is ready, but the legs not sure. 

 The back well that is the question.  After doing six repeats of dismounts/mounts, then a good quality stair run on Monday the back seems to not want to lighten up.  Yoga did some good for tonight but tomorrow will be a new day.

All I know is the yesterday's beer of the week was absolutely awesome.

CCCP #4

Well the biggest crew showed up for the last of the Crusty CycloCross Program editions.  A couple new victims showed up, Sheabutter, little c, mikemike. 

little c in deep thought

karl's jr explaining to Sheabutter how he warms up his saddle for the leap of faith

mikemike telling little c always were a condom on your head when you go out

As usual all things started out good....then, well it went to shit, fast.

The first lap was a hot lap then....

mikemike double flatted

Then pouted as he started fixing his flats(Oh yea the rest of us kept riding)

Then Tulip decides to flat.

mikemike showing how to unfold a tube for proper installation 

mikemike showing how to unfold a tube for proper installation 

mikemike showing how to unfold a tube for proper installation

Now the real race starts....

All the while the rest of us... well we rode

Sheabutter and karl's jr are riding really strong... so look out at the next race fellows.

Shout out to heeman 3rd place in Masters 30+!  Good job!  

Just make sure you ride that good when you come down here!  My A game will be dialed by then.  I promise!!!

Beer of the Week

my wife inc in da house

It's quite amazing how many people stopped us and told us how neat, cool, interesting, and eye catching our kits our kits were at the Planet Bike JP MadCross.

Here is some evidence of how much attention we garnered. 

Hopefully the next shoot will be from the podium from one of us.

Random Shoots of MadCross

May I Grab Some Excuses From Your Big Bag, Bitches?

I'm going to throw out some lame ass excuses for my absolutely shitty weekend of racing in Wisconsin.

Lame Ass Excuse #1 

 I got fuckin lost on the way there and had to get a handicap room for my punk ass

Lame Ass Excuse #2

I got a fuckin flat 43 miles from Milwaukee....I changed it in less than 30 minutes.

Lame Ass Excuse #3

The fuckin tire store didn't have my exact tire in the Milwaukee region.  Thanks that set me back a few hundred bucks to get four new tires. Oh yea, the emasculator helped me out..... immensely. 

Lame Ass Excuse #4

Some jackass thought it would be funny to sell me a headset that wasn't compatible with my Orb...4 hrs on my feet sweating the details of fixing the POS was sweet!!

Lame Ass Excuse #5

Picture is worth a thousand words!!!

Lame Excuse #6

I wasn't feeling the new Orb so much...to much pressure in the tires...course was to dry....I was suckin major ass...Bike switch in pits....I FALL DOWN!!!  That happens when you turn off the switch.

Lame Excuse #7

I was doing really well Sunday but.....

All I can say if it wasn't the good friends...Heeman, my wife inc corporate sponsor, paulski, dr. giggles, mo, and mo's parents I would have wanted to commit hairy karrie.  So to but it simply I'm ready to race now.  I hope to have excised the gremlins.

Random thoughts or comments...

If you put your head on it you own it!

You should just get a skirt to go with those tires!

Have you ever seen a Klien Air Head?  Yea???

You guys try this? How about this?  Why not try this?

Why do they call you Crusty?  If you ask another question you will find out!

Turn off the switch.

I'm here to save lives!!

Why aren't you racing today?....I couldn't make it out of bed today......Oh yea but you didn't race till 2:45.

Here is some celluloid dump

CCCP #3

Yep I'm behind on posts so here we go!

Tulip did his best Ulli into the trees with the "Oh shit no brakes routine"  although he did not go over the bars he did make it interesting later with a good digger on the dirt curve.

karl's jr was killing it during practice until the root grabbed his foot.

Unfortunately karl's jr pics won't load up.

I felt like shit due to the excursion the boss and I had at the Flying Saucer.  Yep, the new hang out.  Looking forward to planning a crazy night on the singles with drinking and riding coming soon.