Pong'd

The AVC is only a couple of weeks away, and I feel very slow right now. Like not Cat. 4 slow, but definitely not nearly national-level fast. Which is slow. I think. I dont know. Rode a 12.01 at sprint night last week, which was a perfect example. All day, all I was thinking was "must go sub 12... sub 12... sub 12." I was visualizing and aligning my chi and keeping my positive ying balanced with my negative yang and when it came down to it, I missed it by 2 hundredths of a second. Bummer.

I kept thinking about it all weekend, and when I finally got back to the gym on Monday I went way beyond what I have been doing lately, which made walking around for the rest of the day a bit tough. Also made PIR a bit harder than it should be. PIR was pretty classic. Super windy, small-ish field and a single inhumanly strong pro in the field equals big splits and probably a solo or small group finish. And it did. Tuckerman, Ping-Pong and yours truly rode the entire race battling for last wheel. The only exceptions were the hot-spots before the break got clear and the final, in which cases I did the last half-lap blast around the field to get in position for the long tailwind sprint. This final was good fun. Three guys were away, but we wanted our money's worth, so I found Richard's wheel with a lap to go and got a pretty sweet ride in. Dude's got a great motor, and everything was going perfect untill we got to about 400 meters to go, I saw a bunch of shadows jumping around on both sides, but instead of doing the smart thing and hopping on somebody and popping them at the line, I dropped into the 11 and went from waaaay too far out. I held it, but barely. I saw stars. Went cross-eyed. Lost all function. Cramped big-time. It was hard.

I recovered the next day by lifting like a madman and trying to race Tabor. Makes sense, eh? Went Mano-uh-Mano with the Pong on the big Volcano. Long story short, I cracked hard after 10 laps or so and while riding by myself some friendly spectators at the top corner handed me the March 1987 Playboy to keep me motivated. Apparently while I was riding around staring at 20 year old pictures of naughty bits, one of Tabor's hippie longboard skater chicks did a pretty impressive digger into non-soft pavement. She was carving some sweet turns heading directly at a cross-eyed pack of bike racers, when she suddenly realized the magnitude of bummer she was about to enter by nailing 20 bike racers head-on, so she swerved out of the way and put a foot down at 30 miles an hour. I hear she didn't handle it so well. Everyone seemed to have thier own story about the aftermath, but all agreed she was unconcious, bleeding and not looking so good. Medics were on hand before you could say "what the.." and off she went to Emanual. Big drag for sure, but proof that common sense is not something we're all born with.

DT

Ninja Skills

Tests and exams are all done for the term, so as soon as I get my card in the mail I'll be a certified EMT. Boo-ya.

So hot. Can't put together real sentences. Weather calls for 104 degrees today, it's 93 right now. I don't dig. Nothing like a high-rise apartment with no A/C to really brighten your day. Im so hot I almost considered going to the mall just for the air conditioning. ALMOST. Went to the gym for a second time today instead. Yesterday was hot as blazes as well, so after the sun went down I decided to go for a stroll. Council crest sounded like a fine idea, wind blowing, no clouds, city views...

I pulled up to the final turnoff up to the hill and was greeted by roadblock signs and cars in the middle of the street. But these didn't look like police or city cars. No no. These were clearly high school rigs. Lowered civics and mom's Jeep Liberty, guarded by two overgrown lunks in baseball hats and pink polo shirts. So I changed course. Parked around the block and elected to walk the rest of the way up the hill to see what was going on. Some kind of party maybe? Human sacrifice? Rampant drug use? I picked the trail I've walked up before so I could stay in the dark (you know, just in case). I rounded the corner and made my way to the upper loop, the water tower and the big red flashing lights. No party. No sacrifice. Just 7 or 8 piles of wriggling boardshorts and more pink polo shirts on the grass. Each pair maybe 10 feet from the next. Stacked like some hilarious makeout conga-line. Guess I had approached so quietly no one even knew I was there.

*This is akward*

I head back down the hill like some wierd conqueror. Ninja skills at work. 2 More couples made thier way up through the trees and tromped right by, not even 5 feet from where I was standing. I guess I can pass for a very short, sickly tree if it's dark enough.

Pretty dissapointing if you ask me. High schoolers are so boring these days, even we were more creative than that. I was hoping for at least a group of people with a bonfire and a couple of racks of PBR. I mean really, if you're going to take over council crest for the night, you should at least do something worthwile. Maybe a little human bowling? Time-warp outdoor dance party? Smack-talk smack-down? Anything?

By the way. It's hot.

DT

Just thought you should know...

SO there I was, knee deep at PIR when one of my teammates (who's strong like an ox) gets dropped from the break and comes back to the field. Meanwhile Molly Cameron is whining something about how the break is gone boo hooo.I think to myself. Hey, That group must be sailing. They're probably givin'er as hard as possible... wait... then I see some dude dressed in a stretched out purple kit come flying back to the group from the break like his brakes are dragging, or his tires are flat, or his frame is broken, or his pedals are siezed or maybe he's not very fast or something and check it out. It's Ping Pong. That guy is so slow I could probably outclimb him. Uphill. On a BIKE. Yeah. I know. That's pretty slow.

So we keep rollin along, some of us actually doing some work instead of doing the old "eehhh it's hard, we should just go home... i could be at stumptown not updating my blog right now...." like someone else who shall remain nameless. For anonymity's sake we'll call that person Molly Cameron.

In other news, the tour's about to start. I think Ullrich's gonna go into the mountains leading Savoldelli by a couple of tics, then out of nowhere Lance jumps out of the Disco team car foaming at the mouth and tackles Basso while screaming "IM THE MANNN!! IM THE MANN!!"

Rider Sues Bike Shop, GT Bicycles for Failed Quick Release

from Bicycle Retailer and Industry News:

"MAY 26, 2006 -- SANTA FE, NM (BRAIN)—Archibald Sproul, a Santa Fe contractor is suing Rob and Charlie's, a local bicycle shop, and GT Bicycles who made the bike he purchased more than 10 years ago, for injuries he sustained when his quick-release failed and his front wheel came off.

The lawsuit, filed on May 18 at the First Judicial District Court Santa Fe, New Mexico, includes as defendants GT Bicycles, Pacific Cycle and frame maker Ishiwata. The damages sought by Sproul are unspecified and no court date has been set at this time.

The suit claims that the defendants are at fault for manufacturing and selling Sproul a GT All-Terra mountain bike without warning him of the dangers of a quick-release hub and implying that the bike was safe for its intended use. Sproul claims the quick-release eventually failed, causing the front wheel to fall off and causing Sproul extensive injuries."



Awesome.

Apparently this is coming from a lawyer who has a history of frivolous QR lawsuits (of all the wierd niches to get into).
I love that some people refuse to take responsibility for themselves. How evil. How slimy.

p.s. Anybody want free coffee? Eh? eh? Just show up at the Bike Gallery at 5329 SE Sandy at 6pm on Mondays and ride with us to Tully's. We'll buy. Good deal. Do it.

DT

I'm through it Harry...

Finals are done. Holy crap that was a proccess. Two and a half weeks of hair-pulling and teeth-gnashing.

Had an interesting one last night. The 150 question final in my EMT class was a bit of a hard one for everyone including my instructor. He's a great guy, and looked like he wanted to jump up and tell us all the answers to the test because he'd want us all to do great, but of course he had to sit and pretend to grade papers. Fidget, fidget. People finish sporadically and wander into the hall for "the wait" and the first words out of everyone's mouth is 'beer.' After the results come in and everyone predictably does better than they thought, we all make our way to the nearby college watering hole to wind down with a few games of pool and speculation about who in class would make the worst EMT. We envite our instructor, but he laughs it off and turns us down on principle as a teacher. He says it loud enough so the administrators in the building can hear him clearly.

Two games in, he charges through the door of the bar. I don't think I've ever had a teacher that I could sit down and chat with about completely non-school related things, so it was pretty cool to hang out for a while before throwing out the old "i've gotta get to work in the morning, bla bla bla" escape route.

All things considered, it's great to be done for a few precious months.

See you at PIR.

DT

New Format, Old Story (i would've won if...)

So it's official. The new format for sprint night kicks ass. In the past it's been seeded by 200m times, fastest races slowest, second fastest races second slowest and on down the rest. By that method if you're on the bottom of the tree, you're guaranteed to lose your first couple races, and if you're on the top of the tree it's not much of a challenge to get through those first rounds. This week they did a new one. 4 groups split into 4 riders based on 200m times, and each person in thier bracket races every other person in the bracket whether they lose thier rounds or win them. The person with the most number of wins at the end of the night takes it. The cool thing is it gives you more chances to race with people that are closer to your speed, so it's a better workout and better fun for all.

Our group was solid. Zac Copeland, Steven McMuscles, Tim Luther and I. Once again, I'm the skinny guy (by a lot). I think all four of us are getting more and more comfortable racing each other, so each race made me sit back and think a bit about what I was doing. I also thought about how crazy ripped Zac Copeland is. The dude's about as tall but as heavy as a Volkswagen bug, and it's clearly not cozy-shack and beer. That guy's like a little bucket of muscles. Fast twitch muscles. He jumped pretty hard on the backside, I made the mistake of trying to come around too early in the wind, corrected, shut down and turned the giver switch back on out of the last corner to draw even with him... but it wasn't quite enough. All accounts said he had it by a couple of inches. If only I would have gone faster. Then I could win. Other two rides ended well. I think what little road endurance I have left plays in my favor by the 3rd round, makes up for the skinniness a little.

HeatherV came back strong and beat Craig Sinnanian. I congradulated Craig on his race by yelling "YOU JUST GOT BEAT BY A GIRL." Motivational speaking has always been one of my strengths.

DT

so tired....

My apartment is a chaotic mess. The kitchen looks like a war zone. Textbooks, worksheets and notebooks full of illegible scrawl are on every surface in that place. I haven't had a spare minute to clean in weeks. My schedules are getting worse and worse as the final two weeks of school creep closer.
Yesterday for example, went like this: 5:30am wake up head to the gym, back by 7:30, grab some food and out the door by 8 to ride to work, spend the day at the shop working until 5pm (trying unsuccesfully to study at lunchbreaks and whenever it's slow), then head straight to class which starts at 6, try to remember everything I've learned all term so I can pass my 4 hours of practical finals, head home at 10 and finally get back through my door at 10:30 or 11 where I pass out and probably forget to do some homework for some other class.

Whoo.

On the 17th it will be all over. Finally. Going to have to change a few things when I go back next fall, this schedule will not work again (it's barely working this time).

Sprint night tonight, Ballard tommorow (oh crap). I'm at least happy to be heading to ballard, it's good to be racing (not that what I will be doing can be considered racing).

Drove to Hood River last week to check out the Mt. Hood Classic crit. Tuckerman decided not to pre-ride the course and then try to take the first hairpin turn a solid 15 mph faster than everyone else... and crashed. That just made him angry so he tried to take off a couple times to catch Greg Henderson and his coattail-riders, but no such luck. Hendi smashed all in his path to take the win, Kirk almost got his front wheel chopped off in the sprint, Adam missed a prime by the skin of his teeth and Richard and I successfully hassled a Canadian dude.

Magic.

DT

When did hospital billing departments and insurance companies become so horribly unpleasant? Was it right around the time that they refused to talk to each other? I was under the impression that I had handled the whole hospital vs. insurance vs. physician's billing vs. insurance thing pretty well until out of the blue I recieved a final notice yesterday. I crossed all the T's dotted all the I's and sent everybody everything they needed and yet somehow I'm on the brink of being at the mercy of some bloodsucking collection agency? And all this for three excruciatingly painful hours waiting in a room for 2 chest x-rays and a doctor who says "yup, you're pretty busted up, and no you can't have any pain meds, but here's a perscription, good luck finding your own..." at eleven o'clock at night on a Sunday. Somehow I don't see the returns...

Sounds like Tuckerman is trying to ride his own guts out at Hood. That guy's going crazy fast. And Kirk, our newest guy hauls off and throws down a second place on a tough sprinter's stage. That's what we call rockin the casbah. Made me a little sad to be here at work hearing about sprint finishes, just wish I could have been out there to do the afterburner leadout. Just need to make it two more weeks, then schools out and my schedule takes a turn for the better.

Look out if you're riding the crit at Hood tonight, somewhere near one of the more sketchy corners you might get heckled by a pack of BG employees pouring beer down thier throats and on the course. There's a caravan leaving from the Hollywood store around 5pm if anyone's up for a evening of bike spectating and a bit of mt bike riding tommorow.

Picture of the day comes to us from Cyclingnews and Carl Decker, who doesn't care what you think of his showercap.

Weinercannon

There's nothing quite like a rainy, early morning at a bike shop. Nothing happens for what seems like forever, all you can do is stock tubes, sweep, maybe organize a calf-off and listen to some music. Solomon and I drew the early shift this morning, so the day started the way most rainy mornings do around here.

The Bet.

What time to we get the first customer. Store opens at 8. I say 9:10, Sworas says 8:43.30. An upstanding young gentleman strides in at 8:42 to purchase a tube for his BMX bike. Here's the question though... He arrivedcloser to Solomon's time, but actually paid closer to my time. So who wins?

I say me.

For those of you keeping track of my school life (namely the ones financing it), yesterday was a pretty good one. Our EMS class ran a mass casualty incident, which was sweet. 7 cars all mangled together, 9 victims also mangled together, 8 ems crews arriving at different times and I get chosen to direct the whole mess. What a trip. I froze for a few seconds after we arrived, just stared at the other medic on my crew trying to comprehend what the hell I was supposed to do while 9 proctors stared right back at me... I snapped out of it, got things rolling and everything went smoothly from then on. After it was all over it was quite the feeling to be able to accomplish something bigger than writing some essay or selling a pair of armwarmers(even if it was all pretend).

I'll leave you with this image.
Matt Slaven (the shop's inventory manager and probable calf-off champion) lived in Nebraska for a while, and apparently one of his fondest memories is of the hockey game breaks. The players all file off into the locker rooms and a big dude appears in the middle of the ice with his trusty assistant, a mystery bucket and what looks like a home-made cannon. He then starts randomly firing hot-dogs (wrapped in foil)into the crowd on semi-automatic while his assistant reloads the wienercannon.
Huge fat guy shootin weiners into the drunken hockey crowd.

So There I Was, Givin'er

Evan Elken is kinda fast. Seriously.

Here's how the sprint at Swan Island went.

1 lap to go and it's some random dude, Crazy Cardio Carl, then Dirty Dave, then myself, with everyone else on my wheel. Drag. Everyone I wanted to be in plain sight with one lap to go is now behind me, where my eyes are not. Half lap to go, Carl's gone, Daves giviner all he's got and BAM he's got no more. As he blows he simultaneously wheezes something that sounded like "ghgaamaa" but turns out he said ADAM which is short for Curry, who happens to be RIPPING up the left side at about 80 miles an hour. I pull some massive acceleration out of pure nothingness to get on the wheel behind Curry(after punting some dude out of the way (such is life)) and I think "life is sweet." I've just gone from swamped and finishing 20th to being inches from grabbing the golden ticket. Curry finishes his heroic pull, turns right, I start the final push to get around big tall guy from the Wine Team and just as I pull halfway up to him and run completely out of jet power, and out of the corner of my eye I see this orange UFO go bbbrrwwaaAAAA!!! up the outside and demolish both of us by about 4 bike lengths. Woah.

The rest of the race was uneventful for me. I was lazy and hung out in the middle the whole time. The Gallery team were all over every break on the road, trying to get something started. They must have missed Tuckerman.

In other news, I'll be a certified EMT in 4 short weeks, so watch where you fall and break your hip from now on, chances are I'll be out to lunch.

DT

Gleukos at the Gallery

Come and get it. Lemon, orange and punch in powder form, so it's easy to mix any way you like. 15 Measly dollars will get you enough to make 2 gallons of sports drink. You know you want some. Do it now.

I Declare Myself Healed

So take that, you stupid rib. Showed you.

Happy mothers day to my mother. And to the team mother as well. And to any other mothers reading this. Big ups.

Friday night was my first race back, and it wasn't as embarrassing as I had predicted. 200m time was still relatively slow and Steven McMuscles pretty much walked around me with a full lap to go, but at least I didn't end up last. And my chest didn't rip apart. That's good too. Oh and you know what else is good? I got a killer sunburn while doing a 5-hour track workout on sunday. boo-yah. Sunburns mean sun. And sun is good.

So how about that Aaron Tuckerman eh? I've been keeping a lazy eye on the results from the Joe Martin nrc stage race, and I keep seeing that angsty little guy up in the top 15. Who spiked his PBR before he took off? 6th on the first hilly road stage, lead group finish on the flatish sprint finish road stage, 13th in the TT, and 14th in the crit for a grand total of 12th overall. Damn. Not bad for a field full of the best domestic pro teams in the country. What a angry guy. He's like one of those little tiny birds that look like thier made of paper clips and tree bark, but then you walk by and they dive bomb and peck you freakin eyes out... But uglier.

Rest of the boys were up thier fighting it out as well, Kirk, Logan, Richard, you guys get gold stars for just going to Arkansas in the first place, let alone racing your asses off in that godforsaken place.

Good luck at Tri-Peaks you poor suckers.

So it's official. I'm pretty much the slow guy on the team then. I'm cool with that. I still have until October to prove my worth. Just have to keep my eyes open (while driving) and keep working to get back to pre-rib form and beyond.
DT

I Didn't Know I Had That Much In My Stomach (and other recent quotes)...

Now that I'm feeling healed enough to giver' a little bit on the bike, I'm realizing how slow I am. 5 Weeks off the bike doesn't do much for your sprint as it turns out. Or your endurance. Or your anything. I've been riding off and on since my accident, but I've carefully avoided any efforts. Now that I'm confident that I can jump a few times without ripping my ribcage apart, I've started to get back into the good stuff.

Rode out to the track last Sunday to do a little workout with Brian and the crew. No worries right? What could possibly go wrong? This is where Brian says "haaay!" He says "HAY we should do some sprints!" Sure, why not?

First ride is against Casey Deck, who has just done about 5 hard flying lap efforts, is wheezing a little bit and looks pretty beat. I on the other hand have been riding in my granny gear for twenty minutes, so I think "no problem." We wind it up, come around for the final lap and suddenly I felt like I broke a shifter cable in my legs. Normally with about 200 to go I'd turn on the go-jets and run it home, but here it seemed like I'm stuck on cruising speed while casey lopes right past me. My heart rate, however has no problem jacking all the way up to the sky, and after doing a 13 second 200m I feel dangerously close to passing out.


Same thing happens against Beardsley the senior a few times. I'm doubled over gasping on the infield in between sets. Everyone else seems to be fine. Maybe 3 or 4 sprints into the day I start feeling "it." Very calmly, I put my sandals on, grab some water, walk up to the parking lot and loose my clif bar breakfast in some of the most violent spasming heaves of all time. I manage to cover most of the upper parking lot in bile. What an accomplishment.

Not surprisingly, I feel a bit better after that and finally take doug in the very last race... but barely... and with some very questionable tactics.

I was really looking forward to taking things up a few levels this year, but looks like I'm starting off by taking a few giant steps back. Looks to be a long and difficult summer, so steer clear of me after a few hard efforts.

DT

Welcome To The Club

Sounds like the Willamette Classic was pretty much a disaster for the Rubicon/kiwi contingent. Tuckie crashed, richard crashed, adam crashed. We even lost people without crashing. Rough weekend. I on the other hand, watched some TV, hung out at the coffee shop next to my place and basked in the sun, went to the track, rode until it hurt and basked in the sun some more. So I guess Willamette wasn't a complete disaster, it went pretty well for me.

As a result, Richard's joining me on the team sick list. Sounds like he got punted off his bike in a sprint and spent the next couple days coughing blood. He came out for the yeah yeah yeahs at the roseland, apparently he's in the broken rib club now. Drag.

Speaking of the Yeahs, they took the stage late enough to let the crowd get anxious and liquored up, then proceeded to blow everyone's mind to little quivering peices. They were ON it, Karen O was slamming about the stage like she was on fire, the crowd was amping, Nick Zinner the guitarist was throwing down these crazy guitar solos from space even though he looked like he shouldn't be strong enough to hold his guitar up, tuckie was heckling random people like a true champ, everyone was into it.

Euro-pro sidenote: Horner kicks ass. Pulls the big victory in Romandie, takes the mello yello jersey and looks like he's having an epileptic seizure during his celebration. What a rock star.

Headline of The Day

From CNN (again)

"Naked carpenter: I wanted to stay clean"

OAKLAND, California (AP) -- A carpenter who keeps his clothes clean by working in the nude was arrested after a client returned home early and found him building bookcases in the buff.

Percy Honniball, 50, was charged with misdemeanor indecent exposure this week for the October incident.

He told officers he stripped before crawling under the client's house to do electrical work because he didn't want to soil his clothes, police said.

Honniball said Thursday that working in the nude gave him a better range of motion and that a skilled craftsman can work clothing -- and injury -- free.

Put Me In, Coach

You know what's stupid? Not racing.

I hate hearing about what happened in this or that race, knowing that I could have been there and would have had a killer time..

Oh well, at least I'm riding again. Still no lifting any time soon. Baby steps.

Check out Thursday's front page at CNN.com. Killer picture of a bike filling up its tires at a gas station, accompanied by an article about the skyrocketing price of gas...

p.s. My personal quote of the day for today has been "I'm more into revenge than justice..."

DT

i'm goin' harry....

The crushing pain's over, so tommorow's the first ride. We'll shoot for two hours, see how it goes. Not doing anything for a couple weeks has been driving me slowly insane. Thought I was going to come unglued yesterday when I got caught in traffic for 5 whole minutes... things are getting desperate.

Any longer period of rest tends to turn me into a bit of a lunatic...

Anyway. Ipod situation is solved. The new black 30g video is quite nice.

Supposed to be mid-60s and sunny all week... maybe i should take thursday off...

DT

meanwhile in france...

Pretty amazing how much time you have when work is slow and you can't ride or lift. It's really kicking up the blogging to the next level. Don't worry though, gimme 4 more weeks and I'll go back to updating every month or so.

Meanwhile...

Anyone been paying attention to what's going down in Frenchy-ville? That country has some seriosly liberal labor laws (say that ten times drunk), and thier system works pretty well. Poor bastards tried to pass a law allowing employers to fire employees under 26 within two years of thier hire date without cause, making the ex-employee inelligible for any kind of unemployment support.

Students and socialists had an absolute fit. Pretests everywhere, riots in the streets, general mayhem all over the place and all aimed at killing that one law. Seemed for a while kinda futile. Students vs. government.

But they won. Forced the government to overturn the law.

I'm not saying it's right or wrong. Just interesting.

Indymedia article
NY Times article
MSNBC article

DT

Kicking ass vicariously

Since I'm all laid up eating ice cream and feeling sorry for myself instead of riding for the next 6 weeks, I've decided to start racing vicariously through all my teammates. I'm starting with Sea Otter, where we did a pretty tough course with a bunch of pros, and I kicked ass. Here's one shot of me kicking ass:
Yeah, it was pretty tough, I was rocking pretty hard at the front, but I didn't stop there. Oh no. I took a break for a minute as you can see so I could give everybody else a rest, but really I was just letting everyone slip into a false sense of security. Check it out, this Health Net dude is wondering where I am. Wondering if he can relax or not.


I'm on pretty kill form and I've dropped some extra poundage from last year, so I decided to giver a little on the hill a couple times. You can see here that I'm not really breathing that hard as I string everybody out and split the field into little whimpering groups. Phill Ligget would have said something like "he's looking cool as a cucumber here," and then he'd be all like "he's really putting them in a spot of bother now!" I'm pretty sure I was in my 12.

I beat Gord Fraser in the finish, but I was out of the money. Nobody was there to give me a prize for rocking that hard.. but i know i rocked it and thats all that counts...

DT

all photos from www.steephill.tv.

meds (an update)

Vicodin is pretty rough stuff. Flexerall (some crazy muscle relaxer/sedative) ditto. Not sure how people can get addicted to this stuff and still function. It's like I've been on a two second delay for the last few days, I'll think about doing something like picking up a watter bottle to take a drink, the muscle command will lose a few details in translation, then two seconds later I'll watch myself knock the bottle off the counter onto a computer keyboard at work. Thank god for public transport. Likewise, everything I said in those first few days afterward fell about 20 yards short of making any sense at all. I'd think of something, the sentence would rattle around in my neck for a few seconds and come out as some slurred idiot rambling. Somehow dealt with those unpleasant jackals from the insurance companies within the first 48 hours while in a waking coma.

Friday was my first completely unmedicated day (ran out of vicodin... muscle relaxers scare me) and yeah, chest hurts, back hurts, head hurts, but it was manageable. Nightime sucked a big one though. Seems to be no way at all to avoid resting on or compressing or stretching that rib. That one stupid rib.

Feeling a bit manic without the ability to ride or lift.

Had dinner with my parents and watched Big George take a big dive at Paris-Roubaix today. Felt good to get out of my highrise box apartment (as cool as it is) and hang out in a big house with a few spazzy dogs. Nothing funnier than watching my previously submissive smaller female collie-dog mount and try to hump our much bigger young male collie. She's awesome.

Sounds like Tuckerman had a pretty sweet ride at Sea Otter and ended up 20th. Results are here. Good thing too, cause I told norrene beforehand that if he didn't beat Gord Fraser I was going to kick him off the team and send him home, so I guess he can stay.

Picked up the new Placebo disc "Meds" today in the spirit of the occasion. Pretty good stuff. Mostly about drugs, believe it or not. Solid album, it'll take a few more listens to see if it's as good as the last one, but signs are good.

DT

Mullet Haiku (extended version)

Shampoo stings my eyes,
I will never feel that twice:
slick hair smells like gas.

O! Squirrel brother,
Your tail, my hair. We are one.
Yet I must eat you.

I liked that foreign
legion movie so much, I
grew me one them hats.

Brown edged tank top sticks
to my white clumpy armpits
Somehow I get laid.

Flowing down the back
helps to keep mind closed, hate
released by short top

My hair is slammin
like Stone Cold. Can I get a Hell
yeah? Hell yeah. Hell yeah.

This super cool hair
and a bucket of chicken:
What more could I want?

my slick snakeskin boots
my silk shirt with rooster prints
always colored jeans

Lynnrd Skynnrd didn't
win no spelling bees. Who cares?
They rock the trailer.

Razor set to one.
Do front and sides and then stop
Reaffirm my style.

Metallica is
for first graders. Nothing rocks
harder than Winger.

Dogs urinate where
they so choose. And so do I.
Red and blue lights flash.

Teen runaway, I
hate my dad. Yet I am one.
Fly, thunderbird, fly.

Ponytails are for wimps.
But if you let that hair loose,
you are my brother.

New white tank top tucks
neatly into tight black jeans:
redneck romeo.

Short like your schooling.
Long like your prison sentence.
The penal haircut.

Bald on the top and
long on the back. Behold my
glorious skullet.

My mullet and me
like to climb up a tree. We're
the best friends that could be.

Dad likes my mullet.
The nurse calls it a critter
carpet. My head breeds.

One day I will dip
and race cars. Until then I
ride my bike, chew gum.

With long hair in place
how else can I rebel? Hand
me the bong uncle.

Under the Christmas
tree: tight black jeans and a comb.
I've been extra good!

Short for dad. Long for
the daughter mom always wanted.
Everyone's happy.

Jacked Up. again.

Not much to say about this one. My truck happens to be out of commission, so I drove Jenny's car to the race on Sunday. It was a road race, flat, exposed, crazy crosswinds, and a big break that we almost caught on the final lap. I was pretty cooked. Hitched a ride in the team van back to Vantucky, picked up Jenny's car, went to save a friend stranded at the bus station and gave her a ride back to Willsonville. Must have dozed off for the half a second it took to aim the car straight at a center divider on I-5 north. I jerked back to conciousness on impact.

Managed to escape with a broken first rib, a banged up knee (steering columns are hard) and a sore everything else. No airbags were involved, so I took the brunt of the 60mph impact with my chest.


How's that for accuracy? Couldn't have hit the divider more on the driver's side unless I had opened the door and jumped out at it. Awesome testament to the safety of the honda civic. And seatbelts. The fact that the car sustained this much damage without transfering too much of it to yours truly is quite astounding.

So the only question now is how much will it cost to repair the divider (yes, it's very damaged, and yes I'll have to pay for it). As for now, I'm taking painkillers, muscle relaxer/sedatives and a few days to recover. The doctor says 6 weeks for the rib, but I think he's full of shit. I'll give it a couple. 4 max.

DT

the man. again.

Midnight. Finally home. Full day today; lifted early, rode with Curry and Solomon up the cemetery, ate heroic amounts of biscuits and gravy, went to work and stayed there until a mere 20 minutes ago. Stupid sale, can't set itself up for some reason.

The city is inexplicably dark tonight. Sky is clear, no fog in sight, it's just wierdly dark outside my window.

The iPod died today. One minute I was adding the new Editors album and the next thing I knew the damn thing had no songs and was completely unreadable by my computer. Pretty sure they install these little devils with a self-destruct timer that bombs the shit out of it's own internals after enough expensive new versions come out. Another classic example of The Man trying to get my money. Trying to get me down.

Damn the Man.

A few new kiwis are in town. Met Richard at Fresh Pot this weekend. Haven't been able to get an impression yet, although rumor has it he doesn't drink coffee. Suspicious. Curry has returned a bit bigger but off the sauce for the next few months. Can't actually tell he's any bigger, but he claims to be a good 7kg's over weight. I give him a couple months and he'll be destroying some careers again this summer. Tuckerman on the other hand came over a few kgs underweight. That skinny little freak. Dude looks like he's stuck in some ancient potato famine. I feel like taking him to McD's and supersizing his goofy ass. Maybe the two g-units will just even each other out. We'll see.

First race this weekend. Dead flat. If a break goes away and a orange dude doesn't win it everyone's fired. I'll cover the field.

DT

ahh, erg.

This is a modern torture device.

The thing is so stable, so rock solid that nothing moves but the cranks trying to turn that 80 lb. flywheel. The fancy pully system behind the flywheel means that Brian can sit back there and choose how hard he thinks I should go. For some reason we always seem to disagree on that one. I can't see the wattage output from the SRM, I have no control over the resistance, all I can do is try not to let the pedals grind to an embarrassing stop. Guess what the garbage can next to the bars is for?

Massive effort tonight.

8 kilos full bore.

Underestimated the wattage on the first two and went through so much awful pain I nearly didn't make it to the end of the efforts.

Headaches started immediately after the first set.

Started losing vision after the third.

I think my heart is sore.

I need a cookie.

DT

Cops and Kiwis

So yesterday one of our mechanics rolls out the door of his apartment on his bike (in the rain) on his way to work. He slows at a stopsign, looks both ways, sees that the sleepy residential street is as empty as Wal-Mart during a Nascar final, and casually rolls through to his right, straight into a cop squatting on a BMW with a cup of coffee in his hand. From 10 feet away the cop yells into his megaphone PULL OVER RIGHT NOW!! The motorcop hands him a $242 ticket for disobeying a traffic control device. Drag.

You're doing the environment a service and saving yourself from credit card debt AND avoiding contributing to the terrifying state of oil in the world, just minding your own business, riding perfectly safely, and someone wants to ding you for it anyway. WTF. Saying that a person on a bike needs to put his foot down at every stop is like saying a car needs to turn it's engine off and put it's parking brake on at every stop. Some of us live on about that much money after the bills are paid every month. What are we supposed to do then?

On a completely unrelated note, Tuckerman landed at PDX after his 24 hours of travel limbo last night. The Godfrey's cat Digger will be so pleased. Tuckie's ramping up for a big St Paddy's day, followed by a huge season of racing, with a large number of Muchas Gracias burritos peppered in between.

mmm... burritos.

DT

Sun's Out

It's early. Cold. Frosty. But sunny.

Solomon wants to go ride, I want to drink coffee. That bastard. Guess we'll meet at Stumptown.

Guess the Veloshop got jacked up a couple nights ago, some idiots smashed one of the huge plate glass windows. Molly may have terrible grammar, but at least she runs a pretty killer shop, so you should go buy some sweet track stuff from her.

I guess Portland's pretty spoiled on the killer bike shop front. Between the Gallery, River Shitty, Cycle-Path, Veloshop and Bike Central, if you can't find what you're looking for around here, you are a freak and what you're looking for is probably really lame.

Oh and hey, when did Floyd Landis become the man?

And why is he wearing those glasses?

DT

Post Race Hypothetical Wrap-Up / Pirate Crit Series

First Bannana Belt of the year was last weekend. Here's how it would have gone if I had been there instead of here (at the shop).

I would have slept as long as possible, and therefore I'd get a pretty late start. On the drive I'd probably listen to NPR for a while to wake myself up, then I'd transition over to something more aggro like Raw Power by Iggy Pop or maybe even some old Dropkick Murpheys. I'd show up about a half-hour before race time and sit in the car until everyone starts to line up.

The start sounded pretty hard, with a couple guys going blocks from the parking lot. I'd laugh at them from the back of the group and joke around with Skerrit or whoever else is around back there. After the neutral zone break comes back, I'd probably be amused at how much bling-bling is rolling around in my field. The opera of screaming break pads on new carbon wheels would make me smile on every little roller. I usually try to take it (really) easy for these races as to avoid the embarrassment of getting dropped in a easy road race, but I think yesterday I would have gone after the first sprint like in my usual spring fashion. About 500m before the line, while sitting around 3rd to last I'd change my mind and decide to go for it, fly around the field in the gutter and miss winning it by about an inch. I would have done this twice and spent the rest of the day hurting and thinking I should have done a few training rides this winter longer than 3 hours.

I think I would have finished about 8th.

After that I would've hung out in the parking lot for a while with a few friends and talked about how I didn't win because "I didn't really care" and "it's just a training race" instead of just admitting that I'm weak and I don't like it when it's cold.


Speaking of racing, cold and sprinting, who's up for a wednesday night training crit series? Anybody? I'm thinking maybe a couple of different courses, no categories, kinda like fight club for bike racers and any other hooligans who want to show up.

I'm down, are you?

DT


Check out my sweet new custom track bike

Virtual Magic Mountain

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6869399616004720005

Olympic Bummer

http://www.nbcolympics.com/wgal/5121495/detail.html?call=wgal

City Made of Cookies

http://www.nicecupofteaandasitdown.com/theWife/biscuitcity/

New Strategy; Bagpipes

New Strategy for complete national and local domination.

Travelling personal babpipe band.

They follow me to races, march into the infield and start playing battle songs while I warm up.

Went to Kells Irish Pub for a Guinness and some fish+chips with a few friends the other night. Place was packed to the walls, people everywhere. The air had that electric Saturday night tension that makes every second seem like the one just before everything breaks loose.
The Irish band on stage finishes up a raucous set and wanders to the bar. Things quiet down momentarily. Just as people start to get restless a low drone starts... you know... droning. No one knows where it's coming from, few even know what the sound is until the snare drums start pounding. Seems far away but it's getting louder and louder. Louder and louder until a bagpipe band walks straight past your table in full kilt-kit playing as loud as bagpipes, snares and bass drums can play.

I'm not even Irish and for some reason this sound made me want to stand up and fight everyone in the room. Everyone. Right then. If that stuff brings out the anger while I'm sitting at a table with Jenny and a few other girls, imagine how amped I'd get while warming up... That would open the door to "the room" and push me right through.

Plus, can you imagine how crazy that would look to the other guy? How insane would I look?

Anybody know a good bagpiper?

HA! JACKED UP!

So at superweek last year I was trying to survive 2 hour crits, going so hard I dislocated and unhinged my jaw to facilitate better airflow into my pathetic, kiddy-balloon style lungs, and out of knowhere this dude in the Uraguay-an national team kit (which I recognized from geting jacked around by two different Uraguay guys at the AVC a couple years ago) rides up the curb on the inside and bunnyhops back into the street and gives me a full body-check which sends me into Dave McCook, who gets pissed, starts yelling and body-checks me right back into the curb. I stayed upright with some magical powers and by closing my eyes and thinking of how retarded it would be to crash in the middle of the field with 30 minutes to go, surrounded by a hundred guys who are all faster than me.

Anyway. The Uraguanian ends making an absolute KILLING by winning every prime over 10 dollars for 5 races straight by riding 200 meters in front of the field for lap after lap after lap. Stories run rampant about his vicious and idiotic riding style and terrible personal hygiene.

Then USACYCLING.ORG drops the megabomb:


"COLORADO SPRINGS (February 16, 2006)

USADA sanctions Uruguayan rider

The United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) announced today that Alvaro Tardaguila of Montevideo, Uruguay, an athlete in the sport of cycling, has accepted a two-year suspension after his sample tested positive for the prohibited substance recombinant human erythropoietin (EPO) and an anabolic agent.

Tardaguila’s two-year suspension begins on October 17, 2005, the day he received credit for serving a voluntary suspension. He is disqualified from the Downer Avenue Bike Race held in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and all subsequent events. USADA handled this case of a Uruguayan athlete as directed under the UCI rules since Mr. Tardaguila tested positive at an event in the United States

Bikeless Post

Today I'm not talking about anything related to bikes. I'm all in a tizzy about The Great Danish Cartoon Fiasco. This whole thing is getting way out of hand. Here's the timeline:

Danish cartoonist draws a frame of a dude with a turban, a bomb and the word Mohammed written on him.

Muslims get pissed.

Everybody freaks out.

An Israeli newspaper reprints the cartoon in an article explaining the outrage.

An Arab newspaper reacts, creating a contest calling for reader submissions of offensive anti-jew holocaust comics.

The same Israeli newspaper reacts to the reaction, calling for ITS readers to send in thier own offensive anti-jew holocaust comics, saying (I'm paraphrasing but I swear I'm not making this up) "when it comes to jew-bashing, no one will beat us at our own game."

Today (from opb.org) "In the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar, cleric Maulana Yousef Qureshi said he had personally offered to pay a bounty of 500,000 rupees ($8,400) to anyone who killed a Danish cartoonist, and two of his congregation put up additional rewards of $1 million and one million rupees plus a car."

Holy crap. Over million bucks plus a car for the assasination of a cartoonist? Are you kidding? Is this for real? Are we that evil? WTF?

DT

Hey Yo New Guys, What's Up?

Season's coming faster than i care to think. I think Tuckie that skinny wanker is showing up in mid-March. Scotty'll be over as soon as it stops raining (so july or august?) and I don't know about the rest. Looks like the team's taking shape for another year. People from all over the place will be fighting the power in orange. Bring it. More kiwis, an east-coast yank and portlander by way of... some other places. So to Ian, Kirk, Logan and Richard: welcome to the crew. Also Steven Beardsley and Heather V will be joining me on the track this year. Boo-ya.

Today's crash brought to us by steep tracks and toe-clips.

Seahawks, Rectangles and Malaysian Crashes; a Recap

Today's Crash Of the Day courtesy of racing in January and the Tour of Malaysia.

Saw a bunch of bands for free last night. Most impressive was The Rectangles. Kind of like Cars songs played by a combination of every early 80s english punk band ever. Singer was the nerdiest ever, looked like he had just crawled out of a stormtrooper costume. He was spazzy to match. So uncoordinated he fell off the stage twice. Tried to climb on top of his keyboard (which was perched on top of a rickety two-leg key stand). Thought he was going to swan-dive into the crowd at any moment, but he ended up staying up for an entire song as the 9 keys he was standing on droned on and on and on... classic.

Not normally a huge football fan, but go Seahawks. It's 2:10 and we're watching pregame on the bigscreen shop TV...

Wierd. Never know who's gonna walk into the shop at Jay's side sometimes. Congressman Earl Blumenauer's wandering around in spandex checking out accessories for the pair of Trek Portlands (his and hers?) he's about to purchase... He looks skinnier than he does on the news. Nice guy though. Funny seeing people like that out of thier element. Maybe in a neon windbreaker instead of a red power tie. Makes my life interesting.

Pregame shows crack me up. What are these guys saying that hasn't been said for the past 2 weeks every day on espn or in any sportsbar in the country?

How 'bout that sun eh? eh? Wonder what Ping-Pong's doing right now.

URGENT NEWS ANNOUNCEMENT:

SAUL RAISIN WINS THIRD STAGE AT MALAYSIA
What an animal. US U23 (u24 now?) slays em' on the big stage. Awesome.

Two Ways To Hate Yourself

Way #1: Lactic/Analactic/Vo2 Threshold Testing.

Went to the always impressive Nike campus yesterday to spend some quality time in the top-secret super-shwank athlete testing facility. It was like walking into a Austin Powers scene. Huge electronic locked doors with giant "RESTRICTED AREA" signs on them. Lots of brushed aluminum and diamond plate steel all over the place, huge rooms with cameras everywhere, the odd human skeleton model here and there, and lots of prosthetic feet laying around. That was probably what struck me the most about the facility. The feet. Everywhere.

The testing itself was brutal. My shiny new bike was set up on an electonically controlled trainer that measures power output in the form of watts. The idea is, the rider goes through a load period of 4 minutes at a certain wattage, at the end of which you get a rest of 30 seconds to a minute while the lab people draw blood and analyze it to determine how much lactic acid is circulating in your body. Then it's back up to load, with another 4 minutes at 40 more watts than the previous load. Over and over. If that's not bad enough, you're doing the entire process with your nose blocked off and a mouthpeice jammed in your face so they can record how much CO2 you're expelling and how much O2 you're taking in with every breath and how often and bla bla bla. You get to repeat the load over and over and over with increasing resistance until you collapse or throw in the towel.

We started at 150 watts, made it to a full load at 330, a sustained heart rate of 210, white and red spots in front of my eyes, a splitting headache, loss of motor skills, and an inability to communicate.

I have only hurt that bad once on a bike (new zealand, tour de vinyards, takaka). I wanted to spit the mouthpeice out, I tried, I couldn't.

I won't get the official results unil later today, but at one point on my final effort I overheard one of the lab techs (sorry guys I'm not so good with names) mutter "holy shit" under her breath as she watched my breathing and lactic rates. Hopefully that's good shit...


Way #2: Listen to Bill O'Rielly

Honest, it was a mistake. I was just flipping through radio channels looking for a traffic report and I heard an irate old man screaming about (i swear I'm not making this up) Muslims all deserve the stereotype of terrorist extremist because "all of the 9/11 hijackers were followers of the Koran." A soldier back from Iraq tried to argue for reason and (surprise!) O'Rielly attacked him.

ACTUAL QUOTE: from the blowhard about religious extremeism. "I think I know what I'm talking about, I wrote a book on the subject."

ugh...

GP d'Ouverture La Marseillaise, France

trees hurt.
DT

Looks like Walker Texas Ranger the grunter guy won't be returning stateside next summer. Looking to stay in NZ, finish his degree and stop being a slave to the bike. Smart guy.

So looks like I'll need a new madison partner this year. Hopefully Scotty gets in town before June 12th or whatever it is. I'm not too into doing a 6 day by myself... Maybe convince some of the Canadians to come down and do the endurance 6 day AND the sprinters 6 day. That'd be a good time. Talk about killer training...
DT

from BikePortland.org

"Cyclist sues TriMet

Long time bike advocate and current city employee Randy Albright (seen here at a June Critical Mass ride) has filed a lawsuit against TriMet seeking damages of over $48,000. The suit, which was filed last Friday, details an incident which occured on the Hawthorne Bridge back in January 2004.

I recently met with Randy to get his side of the story:

On the morning of January 22, 2004 he had just entered the west end of the Hawthorne Bridge heading into downtown when he noticed the bike lane was full of gravel debris. The roads had just thawed from an ice storm and despite several attempts to get maintenance crews to clean out the bike lane, it remained unusable. Because of this dangerous situation, Randy was forced to ride just to the right of the main traffic lane.

A few minutes later a TriMet bus came up from behind and buzzed him “less than a foot” from his handlebars. This was much too close for comfort in Randy’s mind. A few minutes later Randy caught up to the bus near a stop (still on the bridge) and proceeded to walk his bike directly in front of the driver’s window, yelling and screaming at the driver (for anyone that knows Randy, this is not hard to imagine). Before long, the other traffic continued on, but Randy remained in front of the bus, causing a delay.

[*Note, the bus was standing-room-only full at this time.]

This delay apparently upset the driver and one passenger in particular because suddenly the bus door opened and a man stormed out. He approached Randy and instantly began hitting him. The first punch broke Randy’s lip open (later needing stitches) and eventually this “John Doe” wrestled Randy over to the sidewalk (see photos).

After the incident, John Doe walked right back on the bus, the door closed, and the bus continued on into town. According to timestamps on the images made from TriMet video, the entire incident took less than one minute .

Randy and his lawyer feel TriMet is responsible because the driver:

Failed to operate his bus safely.
Allowed John Doe to leave the bus at an unapproved stop.
Allowed John Doe to return to the bus after committing a criminal assault and battery.
Failed to call the police after witnessing a criminal assault and battery.
Failed to call for medical assistance.
Facilitated assault and battery by a patron.
Randy has met with TriMet and reviewed video of the incident (that’s where these photos came from). Despite being cooperative with Randy’s requests for information, TriMet claims that John Doe is responsible for the incident and they have not assumed any responsibility so far.

In the background of all this is the fact that many cyclists have had run-ins with TriMet busses. Just glancing at my close call submissions, I found five of them involved a TriMet bus (here they are 1, 2, 3, 4, 5).

That being said, I’m not so sure Randy handled this right. Did he really have to make a big scene and get all irate with the driver? Would he have had more luck by just taking down the bus number and going through the proper channels? My heart says I can’t blame him for getting upset, but I wonder what would have happened if cooler heads prevailed…and so does Randy. At one point in our meeting, he said sheepishly, “I don’t hate TriMet or anything…after all, I take the MAX to Zoobomb!”.

But regardless of Randy’s outburst, there’s simply no justification for a TriMet driver allowing a passenger to beat someone up and then leave them without any more respect than roadkill. And what’s up with this psycho passenger? That guy needs to relax and stop assaulting people he doesn’t even know. Too bad no one knows who he is because I’d love to hear his side of the story.

Perhaps the judge will make TriMet begin a new cyclist safety training program. If something like that comes out of this we all win, because regardless of how it turns out I think there’s a real need for cyclists and TriMet to work together to share the road. They’re the heaviest road user and we’re the lightest, it’s a recipe for disaster. "

ALT="http://bikeportland.org/wp-content/images/Albright_web4.jpg">
ALT="http://bikeportland.org/wp-content/images/albright_man_1.jpg">

January at the shop

Mega slow. Not a person in sight. We opened the store and didn't see a single soul for an hour and a half. Pretty impressive for a popular bike shop.

What we're listening to right now:
Deerhoof

What we're watching (at home):
Lost (yeah i know, it's addictive)
House (jerks are funny)
The Man With The Screaming Brain
Napoleon Dynamite

Top 5 Portland Burrito Joints:
Cha Cha Cha
Ole Ole
Rafael's (they deliver.. boo yah)
Azteca/Mazatlan
Manzana's

Now we're listening to:
Pavement

BURNABY

Was cool.
Racing indoors is way beter than training in the rain and sludge.

Damn those cannucks are fast. Always fun to race with Bruneau and Chater and the gang, those guys can really drive thier bikes. Highlights are as follows:

I didn't actually take out any Canadians with mind power, but it seemed like I did when one fell off his bike and landed at my feet while I was watching Dave's kierin round. Dude track surfed for a good 30 meters before coming to a stop right in front of me. Just looked down and went "you okay?" He was fine, the bike not so much. Looked like that $5000 corima was going to need a little duct tape.

I didn't save Dave's life, but I saved my new teammate Steven's. He came underneath me on the apron in a kierin and I was about to launch him into next week until I saw how orange he was. All good, the officials didn't dig it too much, and informed him that the apron isn't a cool way to go unless you want to get relegated. All in all he rode well against a pretty stacked field all weekend.

I drank about a case of Gleukos.

Pretty humbling weekend in all. Lungs felt great but the legs felt small and weak. Rode a pretty crap time in the 200, only good enough for 4th in the sprints, 5th in the kierin, and although I finished both races, I still managed to f*# up the sprint in both long scratch races.

Dave wore his PBR shirt during our Olympic sprint. Awesemely poetic.

Matt Chader won everything. The dude's been eating his Wheaties. He slays all in the sprints and kierin, then goes on to make everyone look like amatuers in the long scratches and the points race. He either has the best endurance of any sprint guy or the best sprint of any endurance guy. Or he's not realy a man, he's a robot that looks like a man and says "hoose" instead of "house" Thought it might be the Tim Horton's coffee, but I saw him at Starbucks the morning of the second day (I almost tripped over Bruneau's tree-trunk-like leg walking through the door. That guy's hard to miss), so I guess he must train or something.

People in Seattle don't know how to drive. I-5 was closed in 2 spots along the way. Damn rain is tough to drive in, and it's so uncommon in Seattle.... fortunately Steve's new video ipod and a few Ben Stiler movies kept the long-ass drive tolerable.

Must go to the gym... i'm feeling weak just thinking about it.

DT

WTF?

Yo blogspot, what's up?

Missing 3 posts for some reason... All that work for nothing. WTF?
DT

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....

"Cyclist dies in crash at end of Portland race"

from msnbc.com:

PORTLAND, Ore. - A cyclist died when he crashed headfirst near the finish line during a road race at Portland International Raceway on Tuesday night.

The 29-year-old cyclist from Milwaukie, whose name was withheld pending family notification, was 300 yards from finishing the 40-mile race when he lost control of his bike, said Lt. Allen Oswalt, a spokesman for Portland Fire and Rescue.

The cyclist slammed headfirst into a steel post filled with concrete.

“He was wearing a helmet, but it didn’t do much at 30 mph,” Oswalt said.

Oswalt said the cyclist suffered “huge head trauma” and died at the scene.

Race organizer Jeff Mitchem said the cyclist, who had several years of racing experience, was in a pack sprinting toward the finish line when he tried to pass on a straightaway and veered off course.

“As soon as he hit it, the sound was such that we knew it was serious,” said Mitchem, who also participated in the race sanctioned by the Oregon Bicycle Racing Association.

Portland International Raceway is designed for auto racing, and the cyclist hit a support for a fence that keeps cars from the crowd, Mitchem said.

Mitchem said medical personnel treated the cyclist within seconds, but there was no chance to save him.

© 2005 The Associated Press.

No Bank, But Hey...

I've figured a few things out in these days of stupid heat, pro envy and killer crits. Sticking around local races can get your confidence up and is good for morale, but big races like this put the big picture in perspective. It's safe to say that I'm in a pretty small group of top sprinters (road and track) in the Portland area, but thrown into a big-time race like this I fall into a big group of average joes who fight just to finish, let alone go for any placings or money.

Seems the biggest struggle so far has been with failure to commit to anything (university, racing, career). I'm not getting to where I want to be in cycling by continuing on the present course. SO. It's time to go. Time to do it. Give it a go. I'm not giving up on the rest of my life, just scaling a few things back. Take fewer classes for a couple years, concentrate on training in the winter instead of trying to juggle 3 ambitions at once. As for the rest of the season, I may not be winning any pro events, but a nice new jersey from track nationals would be a great motivator... DT

Superweek, Airline Sardines, Pimp Glasses and the Jase Chase

So I'm signing in at one of those snazzy new "self-service" kiosks at PDX and a little screen pops up to ask me if I want to upgrade to "economy plus" for an extra 25 bucks. This is where the next 6 hours goes very wrong. I know th eextra 25 bucks will buy me legroom, wider seats and maybe a night's rest, but no. I'm poor. I'll be fine.

Then as the clock struck 11:30pm I squeezed in between two 300 pound sacks of body odor and hair for a less than restfull night.

"It's okay" I think. "I'll just crank up the A/C and get some shut eye."
You know how on most planes you reach up and twist the little ventilation nipple above your head and that cool, dry air rushes out? Not today. When the head stewardess came by to inform us that the AC wasn't working properly, but we should be 5 minutes ahead of schedule, I died a little inside. There I sat in a pool of sweat, 90 degrees, pressed on both sides by hairy, sweaty flesh, knees pressed up into my chest, staring straight ahead watching some awful Lindsay Lohan movie and some bad sitcom reruns with no volume, for four hours.

Enough whining. On to Chicago.
Scotty and I arrive around 4:57am. We have 36 hours to race time. Damn it's early after a sleepless night. Mikkel picks us up at the airport, we chuck the bikes into the van and off we go to nowhere in particular. We have all of Friday. "Should we find a motel and crash? Go to the course? Get some food?"
"Downtown" I say. "Just head straight for those buildings."

Chicago is a big place. It's real big. The Portland skyline wouldn't make it halfway up to the top of the buildings here. Looking up at the Smith Tower and all the enormous skyscrapers downtown is like driving around through a canyon all concrete and glass. And holy crap is it dirty. Trash everywhere. And it's big, by the way. We have a day to kill, so we decide to kill it wandering around town. We bludgeon time shopping for things we'd never buy, we sit in cafes sipping water, and search for the Ultimate Pimp Glasses. These glasses will be huge, gaudy, and the number one secret to surviving the week. Hours go by and finally, there they are.
They're big, they're white, they're extreme, and they are 16 dollars. They make Scotty into some kind of alien rock star, sitting in a lawn chair in the back of a seatless van, packed with bikes and wheels.

Driving down some random city road at one point, imagine my surprise to see a beach covered in bikinis and swimmers. Awesome. That is one big lake.

So after a day of cruising, we retired to a South Chicago Super 8 motel and rocked out to Beverly for the first stage. Damn it sucked. We're talking a one mile circuit through a very old, leafy neighborhood. Packed into the circuit are about eight hundred and ten corners and a crappy false flat/hill. After about 10 of 60 laps I end up watching from the sidelines as Scotty's brother Big Jase racks up a cool grand int field primes. Some Aussie guy wins.

DAY 2
We are the only white people in South Chicago. Just thought I should add that.
The second day's crit is a good 4 hours north of Chicago, so it's back into the van and back out on the road to Menasha, Wisconsin. This one starts out much better as I dive-bomb through the first hairpin leading the field, then spend the rest of the race fighting to avoid getting dropped. 40 laps later I have a heart-attack on the bike and loose my grip on the field, doomed to watch again. Some other Aussie guy wins and Scott rides like a man and ends up around 30th or so, gets some cash and we get on our way.

DAY 3
Another tough day for me, another couple dead presidents for Scotty. We're back at the host house a half-hour west of Milwaukie, and tommorow's a day off. DT

An Open Letter To...

... To the guy riding his "chopper" up and down main street today:
What is your deal? Are you socially retarded, or do you really believe that beautiful women will hear the ear-splitting howl of your whatever cubic-inch engine and throw themselves at you, frothing with desire? Do you think this makes you cool like the guys from Easy Rider? You're not cruising down some lonely highway, enjoying the freedom of the road and the air on your receding hairline, you're blasting up the street, turning around, blasting back up the street, turning around, and doing it all over again. Over and over. Back and forth. The best part? You're wearing EAR PLUGS! WHAT?!!?! Are you for real? I mean, yeah it makes sense, because you're grenading around on the loudest bike on the planet, but that's what mufflers are for. If you're concerned about your own hearing but not about my eardrums bursting every time you rip by, then you are a serious dick.
Is this what a midlife crisis looks like in the era of Orange Country Choppers and that Biker Build-Off show? I thought you guys just buy Camaros and cruise around past High Schools looking awesome? Good job Discovery Channel, way to wreck my eardrums.

...To the guy walking down main street with a ten foot surfboard:
You are so my favorite person right now. This is either a righteous fashion statement saying "yeah, I don't give a rat's ass that I'm on a mountain 2,000 miles from the ocean, I've got seawater in my veins and this is my magic carpet," or this guy's a stoner who found the thing in his brother's basement and just had the amazing idea of chopping the fin off, strapping his feet to it and hurtling down a mountain. Like SURFING ON SNOW. It's stoner ingenuity at it's finest and he'd probably make a fortune if some other cat hadn't had the same brilliant idea like 20 years ago.

...To Chuck Palahniuk:
Haunted's a wicked book. One of your finest. Good work.

...To USA Cycling:
Maybe somewhere at sea level next year? That'd be cool. DT

Park City I Hate You

and your little dog too...

That crit was tough like bark and crazy like the Jacksons. Good lawd that sucked the big one from the very first lap. Last year the course was flat, huge and dangerous. This year it was hilly, huge and dangerous. I thought it would be sweet because it was in the same area, but they basically took last year's 3 corner course and moved it halfway up a mountainside. Just look at the numbers: 120 starters, 15 finishers. The top ten was almost a carbon copy of last years road race. Skinny little dudes who normally hate crits were the only ones that made it past the first half. Of the 15 that finished, probably 13 were pros.

It was hurt city: population me.

Anyway. Walker grunted it out for an hour before loosing it, the 12 TIAA CREF dudes controlled the day's events and Tyler Farrar almost jumped off his bike and strangled half the aforementioned team. Seriously, they played him like a fiddle. He missed the two man break of the day, and everytime he'd make a move there would be 4 powder blue jerseys on his ass refusing to do squat. Sucks to be him, and it's a bit of a negative way to race, but big farrRRAAAR was the strongest unit in the race, so they weren't about to hand him any favors. I wouldn't pull him around either...

Next up... the long drive home, some big training, then off to Stuipidweek.

Ballard...and Days 1 through 4 of the Six

Here's Ballard:
Four corners, drenched in rain, ice-like bricks in one corner, dry slicks on my wheels and 80 people who all want thier chunk of a few grand in prize money. BANG the gun goes and I'm third into the first corner, which is a damn good thing because all around me is CHAOS. Guys are hitting the deck like nobody's business, easy corners are becoming completely impossible, every single corner in the first five laps claims skin and carbon.
Aaron jams it at the front and escapes with a few punks. I have lost vision and most motor control trying to stay on Kenny "G Money J Lo" Willians and Russel "I Hate You" Stevensen. These jerks are on the edge of control and pushing me way past my max effort, so I blow to pieces and curse the name of Ballard and the Seattle metro maybe 20 minutes into the race.

Aaron ends up crashing cause he's a f$@king mountain biker, but he still laps the field which is pretty heavy. He gets a gut point for that one. Maybe.
Scotty survives by utilizing the brilliant strategy of being behind every single crash and sprinting to get back up to the dwindling field. This may seem impractical, but it works for him.

Meanwhile at the six day, every day is run under threat of heavy rain, 3 days of which rain out completely. Scotty gets one gut point for riding the first 30 minute madison by himself. Walker and I call truce and just follow wheels, but other teams aren't so nice and not nearly as cool, but Scott hangs tough and even scores a point in the final sprint. The following few days are a big ugly battle between the kiwi team of Scotty and Adam and the orange team of yours truly and Walker the Stalker. The pink/fred meyer team puts up a valiant effort, but can't quite work out the sprints. Walker and I win every madison and every night overall, but due to an unfortunate error in the points race (namely, not starting it ontime), we lose 15 laps and the overall. Whatever. Still came out with a few hundred bucks at local bike shops and a few days of good hard training leading up to.....


.... U23 Road Nationals.
12 hours of driving usually isn't too bad, but when it's at night and your route is the wasteland that is Eastern Oregon and Idaho, things get boring. After a good sleep on a uber-comfy couch, daybreak in Park City means wandering about town, searching for mexican food and the host hotel.
Damn this place is average.
Kind of reminds me of Vegas minus the strippers and neon. Too much money floating around, too many facades on buildings to make everything seem "natural" and "ski lodge-ish." Concrete slap-up construction covered in a plastic/wood veranda to make the local Albertsons seem like it belongs. The fact that the town is completely dead certainly doesn't help its image. Must be what most ski-towns look like in late-june. Just bare-bones staff in cafe's and pizza shops. Just enough cops to cover race duties and parking lots. Seems like most houses here sit empty untill the snow comes back and the executive accountants and retirees stop by for a weekend soiree. Places that would sell for 150k in Portland flash For Sale signs that trumpet costs reduced to 600 thousand. Crazy cost of living, but still pretty cool to take the chair lift that starts in the middle of town up to the top of the 2002 winter olympic ski slopes that overlook the town.

Crit is tommorow at 10am in front of the lavish Deer Valley Resort. 60k of sun and fun. DT

An Apology, an Update and So Much More....

If the tall blond-ish girl from the Mt. Hood circuit race feed zone is listening, I'm sorry for puking on you.

Honestly. I didn't mean it, I wasn't aiming for you, I just happened to be looking at you, trying to grab a bottle when my stomach detonated after 3 climbs and a couple hours of ouch. Not sure if it was the dehydration, or the redbull or a wicked combination of the two, but whatever the cause, I'm sorry.

To punish myself for not riding through it and finishing the stage, I lined up for Tabor this week. If you've never ridden the Mt. Tabor circuit race before, I'll give you a track-rider's perspective of the weekly event.

When you arrive at Mt. Tabor park on the SE side of town, it's gorgeous, leafy chaos. Winding roads, a killer view of the city, ancient trees, hippies smoking grass on the course, dogs everyewhere, skateboarders, mt. bikers, curious residents, laborador walkers in comfortable shoes, bike racers, punters and hecklers all mixing in a typically Portlandese way to make another wednesday summer evening in the Big P. Line up in the start shute and crawl immediately and quietly into the hurt box. It's uphill, it's downhill, it's uphill again over and over for 15 laps. Some residents and racers in earlier categories recognize the evening beer-drinking ambiance and crack open while we're on the course, so the heckling gets better the farther you make it.

Tuckerman spent at least half the race riding in the gravel, in the gutter, in the grass and generally off the road just to f*@k with people. Little freak surprised no one when he throws down a big sprint up the gutter to win the evening's glory. F*@king mountain bikers... DT