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.

Updated:No Hope for this one

Update: Hope had a new hubshell in the mail to me within 48 hours. No Questions asked. That is customer service.

Last night Noah and I got in a good 4 hour night ride from Traquility down to Swanson via the Papio and the Keystone trails.
We didn't have to fire up the lights until the latter half of the ride, and even then we rode by the moonlight on the paved sections. A quick stop at McD's so I could get something to drink, and indulge in a hot fudge sundae made for a perfect evening. Good times!

Then I found this today.

Sad times. I can honestly say that I have 10,000 miles on this hub as it was my gravel/CX wheel for 2 years. It has outlasted a surly cog and two different rims. I am told that Hope has great warranty service. Gonna find out.

a life not wasted

"Its tough being this awesome" Mel Apel

This weekend was supposed to be full of bike racing, but work kept me from sneakin up to Ponca and we got word that Crocodile Rock was rained out. So after screwing up a crop study saturday morning (its a long story) Al and I decided to head down to Manhappenin, KS for some shenanigans with the rest of the the flock.
Lil Meener (like lil kim but Persian) and two ton Tanner were in town, Waller had the Jet Ski in tow, the Apels were fresh from a wedding, and we all converged on City park for some grilling and slack lining. Then we drifted to the big ol' front porch of the brick house for more good times as a huge thunderstorm rolled through.
We all met up for brunch where Waller and I busted out blueberry pancakes, Bacon, and shrimp n' grits. We then proceeded to the river.

Now, the KS river is not what I would consider clean or even really something that I would consider safe from a water quality standpoint, but its the most fun to set up on the sand bar, cut the dogs loose, play with the Jet ski, and generally while away a hot KS afternoon.

The BGR Ladies livin la vida mal cabra


We call this game "river fetch".
Someone on the sandbar gives the 'friz a sling, and you must chase it down. It is much harder than it looks.


Team Fetch lets things get a little more crazy as the passenger is obliged to leap from a moving watercraft after the friz

Herr Apel takes off in hot pursuit.


Dog was happy as a pig in poop


Speaking of pigs in poop, Mel and Waller decided to investigate the qualities of a KS river mud wrap


Waller does not know that Brutus just peed upstream of him.


During a break in the action, Tanner explained how fork trail affects steering. Tanner splits his time between designing bikes and making things fly.


Waller busted out the wakeboard. This section of the river is a really great place for power water sports. Its fairly deep, with a well defined channel with a course sand bottom.
Waller run a older model 2 stroke jetski so if it sucks up any water in the event of a turn over it can just be blown out by cranking it a few times. I personally think that its the best investment that he has ever made.

Skiing or boarding is also really easy to learn on a river. You can start knee boarding directly off of the sandbar. Plus the water surface is a 100 times smoother that what you would find in just about any lake since there is no other water craft.

We can be awfully creative when it comes to having fun.