on the road with john waller

On the way to laramie stay tuned for mobile updates as I abuse Wallers data plan.

When you know it was a good one

My long ride sauce has been pretty weak this summer......to be real honest its been totally nonexistent. In 08 and 09 I put in the kind of miles Corey and Troy put in. Saturdays were reserved for spending 8 hours sitting on my bike and Tuesdays meant I would pound out 65 miles of flinthill gravel then roll into Kites still kitted-up and filthy for a $3.50 "nightcap" (a pitcher of rotgut and diet coke) much to the chagrin of my cowboy and farming friends.
But with a the easy access to good singletrack in O, and job that is affecting my quality of life the long rides have fallen to the wayside.

This morning I decided it was time to go to the Church of the Big Ring. My plan was to ride from Waterloo to Tranquility, then to Jewell Park, then hit Swanson on the way back through, back to Tranquility, and then home, turning a lap at each location. I think that it was roughly 55 miles of gravel and rail trail and 22 miles of singletrack all in the heat of the day(I don't use a computer so who really knows).
On the ride back from Jewell and Swanson I had the take a break under one of the bridge as the wind out of the north and the heat were starting to wear on me. I was sitting there trying to perfect my "thousand yard stare" when Alex Sanchez rolls by, so I got to chat with Alex for a few minutes. He is always so positive and that definitely helped my moral.


I felt like my tan lines needed more definition.


On the way back from Jewell it was time for some A/C and sustenance. Yeah, rice and beans.
I was also pleased that I did this entire ride on 90 oz of water, peanuts, cashews, a burrito, and 64 oz of gatorade. I am notoriously (salt) crusty in the heat so I use the nuts for sodium replacement. Trying to get away from using so much gel, that stuff is going to give me diabetes.

Dashboard Burrito

If you never grew up in the Southeast you would not know the long history of video boating.

Dashboard Burrito launched the non-olympic career of Eric Jackson (plus you get to see him being arrested) and is to boating videos what borat was to hollywood.

Enjoy.

Makes me miss places like Goshen Pass, Devils Kitchen, and the Nolichucky. Sigh.

creepin 'round

So on Sunday I went creeping around Omaha. By that I mean I rode my bike slowly around the northern perimeter of omaha. I rolled by Mt. Michaels right as the state championship men's cat 4's

I love how you can be in the middle of farm country and still see the buildings in downtown.

and womens groups were finishing, and I have to say that there were a lot of folks out there braving it in the heat. It was a very sultry sunday afternoon, almost on par with what I would expect in the old country . As I was trucking along on my CX bike I got to cheer for the racers that were headed in the other direction, but I could see in the distance that there had been some carnage. As I rolled past said carnage, I heard the expression, "Stamper"!

Now make no mistake, "Stamper" is commonly used as a adjective, noun, and occasionally a expletive, so I felt it was my duty to investigate to assure that no one was taking my name in vain.

Upon further investigation, I found environmental economist and all around nice guy, Jeremy Cook, scraped up, bleeding, but in otherwise good spirits after some bumpin and grinding with the tarmac (Jeremy, we still need to do lunch. have your cell phone call my cell phone). Jeremy seemed to be in good shape and the officials were on hand so defered to the authorities. Then it was onward to the north. My primary objective was Dutch Hall Rd (DH). DH is a spectacular gravel specimen that runs east and west between the Platte and Missouri Rivers. Once I hit DH it was wide open through the rollers to Fort Calhoun.

Things went downhill though after I left my midway aid station at Ft. Calhoun. Not sure what went wrong, but I had some serious stomach cramps all the way back to the 'Loo. Gas Station hotdogs were the likely culprit.

Then this week it finally got hot. the kind of hot where you can "feel the sweat run down your butt crack" as my illustrious friend Morrison would phrase it.

I wish I could photoshop a tobacco field into this picture.

Up till now I have just been trying to not get a redneck, but this week has started the fight to not die of heat stroke while we are out in the field. The spectacular piece of head gear that I am wearing is a Kavu Chillba. Its styled after the conical hats worn by the Vietmanese, but is made of closed-cell foam so it keeps your noggin cool and your neck a "little" less red. It also makes great rainwear.

Sorry, Rafal. It was long hot day in the field (with a heat index of 112) and the can was mocking me from the back of the fridge.

Ya'll stay in the shade.

Roadie injustice

Seriously Omaha?

You are going to pay out more to the Cat 4 men races than for the Womens 1,2,3 races. And you all wonder why we don't have a lot of women in our sport, and no one ever CTFU.

Lame.

Rant off.

Tales of Lawrence

So a trip to Lawrence to watch the Tour of Lawrence crit on the 4th of July rapidly denigrated into a Bad Goat cheerleading session with lots of belly slaps (its the new cowbell).

Tilford was scowling at us.

Waller and I get all "party boy" on our favorite photographer/cultural affairs liason, Tom Krap.

This Feed zone was definitely not UCI legal.