Breaking Stuff

I hate breaking stuff. I can't afford it. I spend enough money on brake pads, water bottles, cables, cleats, chain lube, and all that crap as it is. You know what sucks the most? Breaking wheels. Wheels aint cheap. Long story short, today I ripped the threads off my grass-track hub and totaled the thing, but I'm not even pissed.

Here's the long story long.

Grass track consists of a bunch of track racers who all get together on Saturdays to beat up on each other, improve handling skills and get a good workout. Standard equipment is 1 crappy bicycle (fixed gear, no brakes, drop bars and cross tires) 1 semi-smooth grass surface (soccer field, football field, etc.) 10 cones to mark the short 100m track, and a good rain jacket. Racing consists of kierins, scratch races, match sprints, drag races, madisons and such. Skills excercises are Gauntlets. Everyone rides together in a mini group, one person starts at the back and must make it to the front by going up the center of the group (who does not allow the rider to advance). All contact is legal. It's always rainy, so the surface is always soft with mud and grass, so crashing isn't a big deal. Points are awarded for ultraviolent maneuvers and killer saves. It's a good time.

Anyway.

During the last set of drag races this morning, I was 20 meters from the line, I wasn't gaining on Stephen fast enough and I thought to myself "oh shit, I'm gonna loose." This is where I gave it the hardest final kick ever and SNNAP!! no more resistance in the pedals, I fly forward and nearly take my wisdom teeth out with my stem. Managed not to crash, rolled to a stop, checked out the hub and started my victory dance... YES! That's right. Tore the threads apart. Granted it's the crappiest, cheapest hub Suzue makes (how strong can a 30 dollar hub be?) but it still kicks ass.

The Rib-Eye Killer

Christmas is a big deal around here, so I don't joke around when it comes to my pre-christmas preparations.

THE EVE
Everyone knows the importance of hydration, so in the days leading up to christmas I make sure to take in plenty of fluids. Fortunately coffee and beer are mostly made of water, so I don't actually have to change much in my daily routine in order to achieve this.
Despite the fact that I'm a sprinter, I'm not interested in becoming a big usesless overweight sprinter, so I go for a flat couple of hours on the bike path. You know, for the calories. Then it's up to the parents' house for food, a South Park holiday marathon and presents. Riding kilos has taught me the value of a good warm-up, so I hopped on the couch, turned on some bad christmas movie and got started off with 10 or 12 cookies, a pile of christmas fudge and a few drinks. This is where my dad discovers that it takes more than an hour to cook a 90 pound steak, so dinner gets a rain delay, and I get more cookies. Jump forward to the main event and it's a glorious occasion. I start off easy (as I usually do) with some baked potato and a little salad, and then wind it up to a big finish with so much steak I think I sprained my stomach. Good thing I did that spin yesterday.

THE DAY
Three words: Bacon, biscuits, gravy. Real gravy too, not that lame stuff that comes in a bag. Add more coffee to the recipe and you get a morning of goodness, followed by a whole day of stocking-stuffer candy. Pure magic.

Pre-Burnaby Predictions:
During the burnaby weekend events in a couple of weeks, 4 people will slide off the track all by themselves and blame thier tires ("those blue ones just don't grip as well..."), Beardsley will do a better kilo than he did at LA (or I'll probably have to punch him in the face) I will win the sprints in front of some other endurance guy who will show up and smoke all the other sprinters "just for training," Keith Bruneau will ride okay then go so hard he rips his cranks off in the olympic sprint and Dave will surprise everyone by winning the madison by himself after doing 3 months of secret roller workouts out of sheer boredom (no more kiwis in the house).

SO. Coming soon: THE BURNABY REPORT (or How I Saved Dave's Life and Crashed A Canadian With Mind Power)

FINALS ARE OVER

And you can file that one under BOO-YA.

Seriously. You can.

End of an era?

So the team's budget has tripled in the last couple of days. Apparently Orange is a cool color to be in, because a few companies seem to really dig us.

Here's why this is good and bad.

It's good because we'll get to travel more, and it will lighten the financial burden of said travel on us young impoverished athletes. This new situation forces us into one of responsibility for our results. We can't just write off a race if we're not having fun anymore because we know that at the end of the day, these companies don't want to pay for a loosing team. Therefore, we're gonna go harder and get faster (or else).

It sucks because of everything I said above. We're gonna have to act like professionals in public now, and that's no fun. We're not an overly adult group (despite what our ages might say). We like being loud, obnoxious retards, and we still will be, but now we have to make sure we're not wearing team stuff, and we have to make sure we're not acting like idiots in front of the wrong people (which could be anyone). See the dilemna? Results and pressure are good, but they can bring you down hard if you're not carefull and realistic.

Yin and Yang, bla bla bla. Good and bad, I know. It's still a little intimidating, but hey, I'm into it.

Guess I'll have to start training one of these days, eh?
DT

Scott Allen recovery update

For those of you who didn't know, Scotty ran into some medical issues a few weeks ago and had to be hospitalized. This isn't the first time Scott has had to hit the white sheets, but he's built tough, so he's coming back. This time he's pledged to get off the streets and stop slinging crack, he even plans to put out a record with Dre. We all wish him luck.

Scotty fresh out of the hospital

face

Anybody see the pics of the Sydney Thousand? Anybody else wondering what is on Rene Wolf's face? I know he's german and "euro" and all that, but it looks like he took one chin first into Ryan Bayley's significant posterior.

Gross.

http://www.cyclingnews.com/photos.php?id=photos/2005/nov05/sydney_thousand05/KU3L2028

burrito as a metaphor for life

'tis the season for life-affirming quotes, so here's my favorite. For those of you who aren't yet die-hard fans of TooVanillaForYou dot blogspot dot com:

Chestre Concordia said...
True story.
Think of it this way. There are two ends of every burrito, and even if you prefer one end, you'll still have to eat the other one sooner or later...

Really makes you think doesn't it? If it doesn't make you think, you are either really good at math and not very hungry, or you don't have as much time on your hands as some other people...
DT

Turkey

On the way to turkey dinner #3. or 4. not sure.

YES as the previous post implied I am in the CIA now, I'm a special agent in charge of going to foriegn countries and blowing shit up, they just don't know it yet. Nothing to do with the slow winter months, no more bke racing till spring and Anatomy and Physiology completely smashing my brains out. Yeah. It sucks.

GRASSTRACK. grasstrack is probably the coolest thing since those twisty caps on beer bottles. i think my helmet is 4 sizes bigger since I tried to headbutt my way through Abers' chest this morning. rock n roll.

More later, if anyone still reads this thing.

Chickens

Death Ray

http://www.solardeathray.com/

ZOMBIE

We Want To EAT YOU.


movie of the week. rent it, netflix it, do whatever you do.

We saw this dude at some real serious Italian parade. He didn�t seem to know anybody and was rarely playing his trumpet but the verdict was: This stumbling little Chinese Jerry Lewis with the ridiculous facial gestures is the whole reason we hate normal people.
 

In LA...

...I ate (on average) 2 burgers per day.

...I almost got hit by at least four cars per day (driving or riding).

...I decided that Portland NEEDS an indoor board track. NEEDS. This is not negotiable. It's the biggest load of crap that this amazing facility is located in LA. Come on. It never rains there. We need it way more, and we could get ass-loads of spectators to come out to races ("beer available!"), unlike the ADT center. Seriously, in a city of 4 million I expected more than 15 people to show up to watch the national championships.

...I decided to never move to LA.

...I rode the coolest track. ADT doesn't seem to be a world-class venue based on times on paper, but it feels like THE SHIT. It feels rediculously fast and automatically turns you into The Man.

...I drove through Compton (because the track is about 5 blocks away). Yeah, it really does suck there. No wonder Tupac was so pissed off.

... I posted a bunch of PRs but still wasn't super psyched with my times. Hopefully nationals will be in LA again next year so i can see what I can do after a season of track training.

...I got a bronze (kilo) and a fourth place medal (team sprint). They both look bronze.

... I Barely beat Steven Beardsley, who before nationals had the annoying habit of beating me in every kilo we did. Secretly, I filled his tires with cement, but don't tell him.

...I lost again to McLaughrey. Did a 11.5 at Victoria (outdoor concrete) a year ago, so the 11.6 wasn't what I was looking for, but oh well. I qualified. Last.

...I watched a lot of daytime TV. That whole in between session break can get crazy long, and Judge Judy doesn't help much.


More later. Maybe.
DT

So that was lame...

Seems like the habit of posting every couple of days has meant I'm posting more useless crap these days. Problem is, I tend to get pissed off about things, react to them and post them for the whole world to see. Not a great way to make friends, I know. So maybe once a month then, if that. This blog was created so friends and family could keep track of me as I travel around, not to be my personal gossip column, which it's steadily becoming.

Just one thing however. When I get pissed off and react to some action or something someone says, I usually write about it here. My name is on this site. People know who I am. I'm not trying to hide my identity under some loser "anonymous" tag. I love hearing different opinions (whether I agree with them or not), but the rash of anonymous comments I've been getting recently aren't even worth responding to, because the person writing isn't taking any responsibility for what they're saying, and chances are great that they'd never say anything similar in person. That's sad, and I just can't take it seriously. That's the thing I hate about the internet, when it becomes some faceless mud-slinging venue. I don't want my blog to be one of those. I'll make changes to it to avoid that if neccessary, but I would hope that people can be civil on thier own. That's my rant for the day.

Sprint Night and a Throwdown in the Dirty 'Couve

I finally got around to attending an actual match sprint night last week now that it's almost the end of the season. It was pretty rock. Walker showed up as well to fly the flag of endurance, and things got interesting right away. First round was an all-Rubicon battle with Walker and I both looking to advance into the next round. I jumped him when he wasn't looking from a lap and a half out, led out a damn long sprint and almost got beat on the line. Honestly, he came at me so fast in the last 5 pedalstrokes that I thought I was doomed for sure... It looked to be a long night.

One of the semis ended up being Mclaughery vs. Zac Copeland. That was quite the event. McLaughery tried to do the old 200m afterburner trick, but Copeland fought the power well and ended up riding Stephen all over the track, up to the rail, back to the apron, back up to the rail, around the block a few times and by the time they made it back to the finish, Zac barely held on for the win. Dude's got skills.

So the final was old school dude vs. young dude trained by old school dudes. ROCK. I've been waiting to race this cat for months and I certainly wasn't dissapointed. I pulled first, sat up on the backside and took a hard right turn uptrack right into his burly little frame to show him that I was up for any shenanigans he could throw at me. I turned so hard that just about anyone outside of Brian Abers would have had a few fillings knocked out, but Zac just flicked away and smiled at me. This guy sprints the best way; he's got a huge bag of tricks and he can use any of them. I knew this well enough to jump him long as soon as he gave me a little room, so I did with a lap to go, and made it stick. Wicked. I'll definitely have to rock a few more sprint nights before they're over this year...

VANCOUVER CRIT

Now that's a cool course. About a billion corners per lap, a little uphill drag that wrecks some people's rhythem and a super-short finish straight make for a killer course. Too bad only 30 or 40 people showed up for the 1/2s. The complete lack of prize money may have something to do with that... (Windows XP upgrade for Windows 95? What am I supposed to do with that? Can I buy food with it?) Anyway, it was a rough day for Orange to say the least. Not 20 laps into the race we're coming around a fast, downhill corner and SCCRRRASH Aaron goes down. Dammit. That looked like it hurt. A small group takes off just after that crisis, and fortunately Walker the Stalker's in it, so I can relax and follow counter-moves. However. Not 5 laps after Tuckie tastes asphalt, Scotty's sliding across the street in the SAME CORNER. What the f@#$! WTF! Seriously... this corner is eating our team alive.

Laps go by, the group laps the field with maybe 8 to go and Curry and I drift back to drag Walker up to the front of the field. We get separated somehow and end up with Adam and Walker cruising up through the inside, while I'm on the outside, just as Walker gets pinched, hits the deck and goes skidding across the pavement. Dammit. He gets back in, Scotty and I go to the front thinking everything is sweet, Scotty rips it up with 2 to go, I nail it on the front with a lap to go, pull off and see Walker right on Mikel, and everything looks good. Bummer thing is, because it was inside the last 8 laps, they didn't give Grunter the free lap, so he gets 6th instead of 1st or 2nd. Drag.

Before the race, Norrene told us how there were tons of sponsors at the race, so we shouldn't crash.... COINCIDENCE? probably not. DT

Remember the Minutemen? Those backwater hicks from Texas and New Mexico taking it upon themselves to protect America from those dastardly Latinos? Well. This is them. 

A Functioning Memeber of Society...

...maybe

I've been blissfully unemployed for over a year now, and I'm afraid to go back. But rent in that apartment next month won't pay itself, so it looks like the days of sleeping late and doing nothing but riding are coming to a close. Now I'll have to sleep late go to school, go to work, ride my bike and THEN do nothing. Drag.

So if you need some kind of wonderful Trek product in the next few months, drop by Hollywood Bike Gallery and say 'hey.' Or 'hi' or whatever.
DT

HEY! THAT'S ILLEGAL!

Apparently, in Boise Idaho, jumping from a tall stairway railing into the deep end of a pool can land you in jail.

But before I get to that, one gut point goes to Scotty for racing on a "maybe broken" hand. After pulling some intense, military-style manuevers in a friend's front yard, one of Scott's hands is now considerably bigger than the other one. It's just not right. Like if someone put breast implants in his palm and covered it all in bad mascara. Why anyone would do that is beyond me, but whatever the case, it's big, it's ugly and apparently it hurts. Trick is, he can't go to the doctor unless it's broken FOR SURE. And maybe it's not that bad...

By the way, Boise is a long damn way to go for a crit. There, I said it. Granted you can win big money if you have a great day, but if you don't then you're still 7 hours from home and down a hundred bucks or so. Which sucks.

So the pool thing. I didn't know it was illegal. I knew it was dangerous, but nearly everything worth doing in life is risky or dangerous in some way. And honestly, who puts stairs and a securely welded, iron railing with a level section about 6 feet above and 2 feet away from the deep end of a hotel swimming pool? Obviously people who want you to enjoy life, that's who. For some reason the current hotel proprietor doen't have any zest for living, because after Tuckerman and I had taken a few test jumps ('safety first' may not apply all the time, but 'safety at some point' sounds reasonable enough) before the backflips started, he comes barreling out of his fake-plant infested, badly wallpapered, heavily brochured front office just about to have a coronary.

"YOU CANT DO THAT! THAT'S ILLEGAL YOU KNOW!"
This is where we try not to loose it, dont laugh dont laugh....
"A KID JUMPED OFF THE ROOF AND IMPALED HIMSELF ON THE FENCE AND DIED LAST WEEK YOU KNOW!"
Okay wait. Obviously this guys a touch sensitive but wait. wait. If the kid was jumping of the roof of this two story building, that's a 20 foot drop and a good 8 feet laterally from the pool. Pretty safe to say that this kid was never destined to make it far in life. If he didn't have a real, actual death wish, his life span must have been shortened by genetics and a complete lack of judgement. Ever heard of the Darwin awards? To try this jump, he would easily be an honorable mention. Second of all. To hit the fence he would have had to jump out towards the pool, change direction in midair and go backwards a good 6 feet to get to the fence which is underneath the second floor walkway, or he would have had to sail a good 40 feet all the way to the other side of the enclosure... both of which are possible... if you are a bird...

PORTLAND AVC parts 1 and 3

For real this time.

SO the AVC didn't go as planned.

I didn't race very well, I wasn't really into it all that much and I didn't make much cash... That being said, it was fun.

KILOS HURT SO MUCH, THEY REALLY DONT MAKE ANY SENSE...
But I keep doing them nonetheless. This is what happens when people tell you that you're really good at something, even if you don't like it that much. Once again I rode a spectacular first 3 laps and a gawdawful last half lap to finish somewhere mid group. I've since retired from the kilo forever and ever, but I'll probably come out of retirement for Nationals just for kicks...

THE BIG SALUTE
SO my sprints this weekend were nothing spectatular (except for one wicked near-crash with Carl Boucher), but the final Repechage round was interesting. First off, let me say that the descision to run the sprints as 3 and 4 ups bummed me out. The descision was made most likely in respect to timing issues (meaning, the officials didn't want to sit there all night and run a million sprints... whatever, I probably wouldn't either), but as a racer, it's a drag. Sprints at World Cups and Nationals are all one on one, which makes for better spectating and better racing (I think), but either way, they're not here.

Long story short, the final rep ride is 4 people, as it usually is, but two of which are riders on the same team. One dude lives here, and one was paid cash money to come here and race in this team's kit for a few days instead of his national team garb. So the local boy attacks on the first lap and his rent-a-teamate goes to the front and sits there, allowing the local guy to walk into the finals without the slightest challenge. Say what you want about the responsibility of the chase going to the other two riders, but I wouldn't want to drag an Olympian to the line to let him outsprint me for the one final rep spot either. Every person I talked to who saw it happen said the same thing: It was a cheap way to win, and a bit of a bummer to watch. The huge victory celebration was particularly grating to some people, so when the rider finished last in the final, it was agreed that it would have been nice to see one of the faster riders in the final.

KIERINS ARE COOL
What more can I say.

There was more bumping, hooking, crashing and general madness in this year's AVC kierin that any other event that I've been a part of. Except for maybe last year when the motor ran out of gas in mid-race and Josh Kerkof nearly dove straight onto Mike Murray's back. That was funny. Anyway. Big time craziness in this year's edition, and it was so fun that I wasn't even all that bummed that I missed the final by about a tire's width. Favorite moment was easily from the final, when Josiah NG (crazy-fast Malaysian kierin specialist) is on the motor, starts leading it out at Warp 3 and Stephen Alfred decides that he's not going to take it anymore, blows everybody a kiss goodbye and crushes everyone in his path. It was impressive. He came from the back, halfway up the track and blew by everybody like they were standing still. Revenge is sweet...

You'd think the guy would be tired from such an effort, but hell no. As the evening comes to a close, he hauls off and demolished the flying lap record set a few years ago by Jeff "Iron Chef" Labauve. Every person in the packed stands was absolutely loosing thier mind the whole time, and barely got a break before Jenny Reid powered out a record time for the women's side. Unbefreakinleivable. The way everybody was loosing it you'd think the Cubs were winning the World Series the day after aliens had landed and declared president Bush "Idiot of the Universe"... It was intense...
DT

Portland AVC

Coming soon... really.... I promise....