Three Words

new-team-van

partyphotobloggin'

This is half of the rock band IndoChina with accompaniment from an orangutan in a sweater.

This is why your parents didn't want you to drink alcohol when you were young. Because you might get naked with nothing but a speedo and a singlespeed champions belt covering your pale, malnourished body in front of a bunch of co-workers you don't know. And that would kick ass.

Ping pong looks a little uncomfortable on the guitar with a naked monkey behind him...

DT

Humungus for Governor

If I lived in California, I would give him my vote.

http://www.inch.com/~william/humungus.html

DT

the finally finished with finals post

Been a long time coming, but it's done for another term. That was a rough one.
Pretty sure I'm ready to be done now.
Yep, pretty sure.
Too bad I'll never be done. I'll be done with this degree pretty soon, but then it's on to the bachelors (after a nice break), and then maybe a masters if I'm not dead before I get my B.S.

Updates: Mr. TooVanilla Burrito Cozy Shack Cats Pomegranates Skerrit scored a second at the Masters Natz cross race yesterday.Pro race finished 30 seconds ago. Trebon pulled off the big V to become a double national champ. XC and CX. Nice.

Updates: Scored 4 free tickets to see the Faint and Ratatat a couple of weeks ago. That rocked my socks off.

Updates: I'm considering making my own christmas presents this year. Maybe newspaper hats or ceramic ash trays or something. I can't hold money long enough to buy gifts with it. It all finds its way into my stomach somehow. Here's a sample of my food intake one day last week after lifting, riding and schooling: 1 turkey sandwich, 3 cups of coffee, 1 whole roasted chicken, 1 peanut butter and jelly sandwich, half of a large pepperoni pizza, half gallon of milk and 6 or so cookies. and a partridge in a pear tree.

Updates: Can't go to Burnaby due to overlapping EMT certification tests... drag.

Updates: My new phone is smaller than yours.

Updates: The BG holiday party is tommorow. Free food...mmm.. scavengertron ACTIVATE.

Photobloggin (now with 80% less racing)

Slater and Tall Mike at the USGP Portland. Crossin. Cross Dressin. Drankin.









Hot Tubbin at the run-up.





















New team car. Big enough for 3 climbers and the team cat.













Man?
Woman?
Weako?
Neanderthal?
Orangutan in a woman's sweater?









Winter. It's cold out there.

the dude abides...

Indoor tracks are why I need to make a lot of money. I could see myself driving the 6 hours each way to train and race pretty frequently in the rainy months if I had the cash. Rumor has it some people are getting serious about building a top-class indoor velodrome in Portland. That would kick ass and I'd do what I could to help make it happen, but for now all we've got is 6 hours to Burnaby or 15 hours to LA.

So to Burnaby we went.

All I've done since Nationals is lift weights and ride to school, so that first 200 was a bit of a shock. Enough of a shock to send me crouching over the toilets for a few minutes. Apparently Gatorade does not change color after being in your stomach for a while.

For those of you that have never been up to the most densely populated frozen tundra in southwestern Canada, the track in Burnaby's pretty sweet. Sweet because it's not outside (it's in a giant balloon), it's made of two different kinds of wood (pine and plywood (and duct tape)), and it's short, sketchy and kinda slippery. This is what I look like on it.



Did you know that I'm fast enough to wear white gloves? I couldn't pull off the white gloves at a cross race (like some real fast people) but fortunately sprints and kierins are much shorter than cross races. Fewer chances live up to my slowness potential.

I lost pretty consistently to the Canadians, but all in all I had a good time. Those guys are great fun to race with, they're not afraid to chuck out the elbows, and they almost usually keep thier clothes on most of the time. Rumor has it the January SixDay they're hosting is going to have madisons, sprints, messenger races (or "courier races" as they say in French Canadian), a beer garden, a petting zoo and a ferris wheel. Be there.

Quote of the weekend from Keith Bruneau, "I'm almost a whole you older than you..."

The Basil Wars

Ever played football? Think you're good in large crowds? Like kicking double-wide strollers? If yes then come on down, come one, come all to the Portland Farmer's Market. I like the FM, but I hate all the other people who like it too. Maybe not all of them, but at least the ones who get in my way. Which is most of them.

So the rain is back, school's in full swing and track season is over. Time to skip the border to our Northern brothers and head to the Big White Worm, Burnaby Velodrome. Nothing says "off season" like more racing and a 200m duct-taped half-plywood half-board track inside a giant balloon. Someone should put that on a greeting card.
November 11th and 12th. Be there or be lame. yeah.

I think my dad has the brain fever. Or maybe the black lung. Not sure. Bummer either way. He missed a great time at the last cross race which included watching everyone fall, every lap in the same corner, the Solomonster demolishing the single speeds in a single speedo (and falling in the tricky corner), a couple of legitimately nasty and unfortunate crashes, dousing Walrod with beer during the A race (3 times), feeding Walrod beer during the A race, and competely psychologically cracking Walrod by handing him an empty beer bottle during the A race (oh the dissapointment).

See you next week at Flying M, and you better be wearing a costume.

DT

tired

So Nationals if over. Again. If I never had to go back to LA ever ever again, I'd be psyched. The place is a landfill. The track is cool, the surroundings are not so cool.

Speaking of Nationals, the kilo was awful. It was probably the worst one ever. Ever. Each time I do a kilo, it's always the worst one ever. However, I think this one actually was the worst, because I went considerably slower than last year. That's the story of the kilo.
Still ended up 3rd in the U23 class. Probably helps that no one wants to do the kilo anymore, now that it's not an Olympic event, and because it sucks.

Sprints were fun, but not as good as I hoped. I gambled wrong on a smallish gear and rode an 11.3 instead of... faster than an 11.3. Which is what I wanted. THE ULTIMATE 200M DESIRE EQUATION: D=T*.97 where D= the time you want and T= the time you get. Got through my first round without too much trouble, then had to race Adam Duvendeck, the top qualifier. That was trouble. Tried to jump him early and disrupt as much as I could, but that guy's too smart and too fast. All I heard as I was chasing after him through the final corner was Jame Carney screaming "GO LUKE PERRY!!"

Beat Lakatosh in the reps, which felt good, but it was for second. Plus I'm pretty sure he sat up. Baby steps i suppose

Duvendeck fought the power with Giddeon Massie for the gold and went down swingin. Big G wasn't taking home another second place, he brought forth the fury and grabbed the big V.

Endurance stuff was ruled by Tiaa Cref, predictably enough. The big upset was Dave McCook winning the scratch race out of a bunch sprint after Jame chased every single Blue Man Group down. That guy rode like ten men. Ten very small, angry men.

Props to Mikkel and Steveo for both riding a solid scratch.

Sounds funny. Solid scratch.

Most importantly, mega-props to my parents, who made the whole trip happen with major financial support, 30-some hours of driving and lots of moral support. They really believe in me (for some reason) and that helps tremendously when there's no big dollar pro deal anywhere on the horizon, just more medals from different places, and maybe a free bike or two...


DT

results

4th in the 250. (3rd U23) Time standard was 18.69, I rode 19.12. Not too happy with the time, but I'll take the result.

Sometimes I don't understand how these events work. Not sure if they're organized or improvised. For instance: the 250 is intended to be a qualifier for the national team. If you can beat the time standard, you're in. If not, too bad. It was specifically described as a talent pool qualifier and NOT a championship event.

As we're warming up, the announcer says that the 250 is in fact a championship event as of riiiight NOW. How does that work? How can you have an event that is NOT a championship event when people have a chance to register for it, then as the first guy is rolling up to the line and registration is closed, THEN you announce there's a jersey on the line? Whaa? So if a jersey's on the line, is there a U23 jersey as well? "oh, well no." Why not? "Um, I dont know, ask that guy over there" So why not, guy over there? "oh um, well, you see... LOOK A UNICORN!" *guy runs away*

8th in the kierin. sketchy and faaast. mega fast. so fast it deserves 3 a's and no capitalization. Couple of wierd calls too. McLaughry was relegated for a hook that I had no complaints about, but another dude was just warned for punting Zac off his bike.

Kierin awards are right after 250 awards, so I stand around to watch and hear another official try to explain to the top place U23 rider why there are no U23 jerseys for the kierin. "Oh, it's because we only do espoir awards for the timed events." That's odd. There was no award for the timed 250, yet there was a jersey for the first espoir in the scratch race (mikkel bosson got that one by the way... way to go buddy). You know, the non-timed mass-start definitely not time-trial scratch race.

I guess sometimes you just have be on the right side of the coin toss.

Kilo is tonight.

Welcome To Purgatory, Population 10 Million

We've arrived in L.A. Sunday night after 16 hours of driving, one muddy rain storm, a packet of jerky, 2 cokes, 4 tanks of gas, a bag of trail mix and a half gallon of water. Poor Abers took a break Sunday night in Sacramento (5 hours from LA), only to get stuck behind 4 accidents the next morning. Took him 11 hours to make the final leg of the trip. Bummer.

In 2 days I've been nearly hit 3 times driving around this southern California wasteland. Our hotel is a little over a mile from the track, but I won't ride to it. No way. Not going outside with those automotive idiots out there. Too many small people in big Hummers slurping frappucinos, talking on cell phones and powering down In 'n Out burgers while flying along at 80 miles an hour on side streets. Last year our hotel was a similar distance from the track, and Norrene still managed to get smacked by a station wagon on her ride to the velodrome.

Drove to the track yesterday to reaquaint myself with the ADT wood bowl. That track's pretty cool. Very wierd rolling up on a track that's steeper than Alpenrose and three times slicker. Those boards are crazy smooth, but not grippy.

Still feeling the affects of a lingering head-cold, but I have the technology. I have the medication. I have an up to date banned substances list and I'm taking just about everything that's not on it. Couldn't find "intravenous injectin of Cozy Shack," so I'm safe. Gotta clear myself out by tommorow morning at 7. Go time.

Good Luck at Nationals, Me

I dedicate this video to myself. Hopefully I'll come back from LA in one piece and with all my teeth this time. Go me.


Get this video and more at MySpace.com

holy crap

Word on the street is that McMuscles threw down a 10.68 at the Springs and Massie did a 10.2something. Alfred is MIA.

Nationals in C-Springs next year would rule. That track is mega-fast. Funny that an outdoor concrete track is faster than our indoor board track... I guess altitude and a perfect 333 makes up for a lot.

Awesome.

DT

The Blue-Man Bruiser

Check out the dude it the blue. He pulls an extreme move I'm calling the "hurricane Katrina."

stunning

So I was riding home the other day, ripping down Sandy on the fixie, and I start to catch up to this other dude, also riding home on a fixie. I'd mention at this point that it's broad daylight. We're going at a pretty good clip, I'm probably 20 feet behind him, we roll up to this intersection, the light's green (very green) and a black car rolls out in front of us, crossing Sandy against his red light. Adrenaline spikes and it looks for sure like this guy is going to ride straight through the car's passenger window, until he pulls the most amazing brakeless powerslide right-turn onto the cross street.

Black car stops (while still on Sandy) right in front of me. So I pull a sweet sliding stop and we both wait as the tinted window rolls down.

So this dude's going to apologize right? You know, cause that's what you do when you almost maim or kill 2 people by not just blowing, but blatantly rolling through a stop light. Right?

This guy starts yelling at us. For being reckless. Because we're riding on the street and not the sidewalk. And not paying attention. Really, man? Are you serious?

It bummed me almost all the way home, until I rolled by Doug Fir and saw the 40 bikes parked out front. Rode by Shanghai and Berbati's and saw the 40 bikes parked out there, the pile of bikes outside of Dante's and the mega-pile of commuter bikes chained up outside Powells. That just made me think that the idiots can't win. We outnumber them (at least in my small corner of the world). And we look better in shorts.

DT

The New Giver Stick

Say it with me now. Off the sick-ter scale.

The Edge

I bet something happened in the Vuelta today. Not sure what, because I haven't been paying attention, but I can guess. Today it was hot. Really hot. It's hot in Spain this time of year, and today was no exception. It was also hilly, because Spain is also not flat. Some guy would have attacked out of the parking lot, because I hear the Spanish are into siestas, and they would have wanted to get things over with by 3ish or so. Another guy played it smart and did not attack out of the parking lot, he attacked later in the race and won. He's probably not the guy you expected to win either, but he's got heart, and maybe something a little extra in the bottles...

I got the competetive edge this morning by staying at Stumptown for an extra cup of coffee before I hit the track. I hear hydration's important, and coffee's mostly water.

Couple hours of efforts later and I'm ready for a nap, just in time to rush to work. Sounds like coffee time.

Photobloggin'

Andy Smalls. Rennaissance Man.


Ramming speed in Raetehi, NZ


Staredown Championships '06.


New team van. Just needs a black paint job.


Breakfast of champions

DT

Coffee Time

As summer winds down, life at the bike shop gets wierd. Managers get tense as profits fall, staff gets restless as the shop stays empty regardless of the sunny weather. Most of the people who make it through the doors these days are either "just looking" or in for a tube and some energy gels. Neko Case is singing about stars again. Clouds are hanging around too long in the morning. Solomon thinks Summer is dying. I need to get to the beach this summer before it's dead.

Watched some poor woman case it on her motorcycle in front of the shop yesterday. Big, bright red jeep is stopped at a light, she's not paying too much attention, careens toward the jeep and turns to see it, smacks on the brakes at the last minute (which sends her right hand off the bar), she executes a frantic rodeo impression for a split second and finally gets bucked to the ground. Fortunately this all happens at about 20 mph, so she doesn't look too bad, but is a living example of why you shouldn't ride your motorcycle in a t-shirt, velour sweatpants, Teva sandals and no gloves... Fire is on scene immediately and has her on a long backboard before you can say "where's AMR?" Ambulance arrives a solid 20 minutes later. A good natured homeless guy tries to direct traffic on Sandy around the giant Portland Fire rig, but the police shoo him away at his most glorious citizen-in-charge moment.

Dick Speers' back in the mother country and Tuckerman's headed back on Saturday, so we had a little send-off last night. All was good untill he found my phone and began calling everyone in alphabetical order. Including my Dad. At 1 in the morning. Lucky for Tuckerman he didn't pick up.

Not a single person has walked into the shop in the last 2 hours and 13 minutes. I wonder what Ping-Pong's doing right now?

DT

Ruckus

So that friday night crit was pretty intense. There's a series of pretty sketch corners in that course (actually the whole thing is all sketch corners), so Dave and I set up at a place where we could see the two sketch-est. The first was a downhill 90degree super-rough peice of road, the second was an uphill-but-sharper-than-it-looks little beauty.
So the gun goes off, the Yamaha R1 lead bike rolls through and the first thing I see is Tuckerman completely sideways throught that first downhill left, layed out corning on pure luck and some pretty good tires. He miraculoudly survives and charges up the hill so hard he passes the lead motor on the inside in our second corner. I didn't see the final one before the straight, but I'm told the motor came back around him and Tuckie passed him one more time on the inside through the last corner. Good stuff. After that, I saw a lot of orange guys in the hurt box for the rest of the night. Made me not sad to be sitting in the beergarden. Other highlight of the evening was watching Mark Blackwelder fly ass-first into the downhill corner, blow up his rear wheel on the curb, do a header into the art museum, get up like nothing happened and sprint up the hill with his bike (in his road shoes... full sprint) to the pit. I'm not gonna lie. I was impressed.

Let me say this one first: I love the state crit in Gresham. Fun, wierd course, yet easy enough that I can still do something. I don't tend do so well on "challenging" or "hard" courses. I get tired. I like flat, and the state crit is very flat.
The sun was out, birds were chirping, all the guys were all on board with the plan to keep everything together, the bike was shining and I was feeling pretty good. The first 57 minutes went exactly as planned. If anyone went away, Richard, Kirk, Logan, Aaron or Steven was either sitting on the back of them, or chasing like a banshee. I hung out in the top quarter all day. Supervising. It was kick ass. THEN. The last 15 laps started to get a bit hectic. The pace started heating up, people started getting nervous and I found Shannon's wheel and stuck to it like glue. I figured it was a good place to be, but so did everyone else. Had to pull some serious eyes-closed elbows-out ninja moves to stay behind those chiseled calves. Faster and faster we went, Mr. Vanilla and I made our way through the field to about 10th with 5 to go, meanwhile Mikkel and his Dr. Seuss cronies went to the front. Coming around the final corner with three to go, we were hauling ass. The front group had pretty well worked itself out, we were going too fast and taking up the whole road, so those in the back didn't have much chance to safely sneak around by this point. Anyway. Going into this corner, I'm planted pretty well, Mr. V and I are on the inside line and I see some genius in blue and white go flying up next to the sidewalk on the inside at mach 10 trying to make up 50 places in one corner. Most bike racers know that you can't go inside on a corner at that speed without ending up on your face (something you usually figure very early on), but this guy didn't, and not surprisingly, he ended up on his face. Unfortunately, he decked himself maybe 2 people in front of Shannon, who executed a perfect forward double-axle front flip that should have landed him gold at the X-Games. I avoided everything by pure luck, including Mr. Skerrit's rear wheel, which was inches from taking my head off. Meanwhile the front group rolls away up the straight...
I ended doing the mad sprint to get back to the group, then not doing a very mad sprint to win. Ended up seventh, but with all of my skin intact.

DT

rockin the park blocks

According to WillyWeek readers, the BG is cooler than iced coffee. Once again, we've been voted Best Bike Shop in WW's yearly Best Of issue. Boo-ya.

Another big winner was Molly, who won the award for Best Transgender, All-Vegan Bike Shop Owner. Big ups.

I singlehandedly won the award for Best Commuter Racer this morning when I beat the 14 bus up Sandy through traffic all the way from 12th to 53rd. On a fixie. Uphill. Big ups to me.

Pretty sure I'm gonna win the Best Beer Garden Heckler award at the Portland Crit this Friday (as long as Tuckerman's racing). If you think you can challenge, or maybe just want to watch a master at work (by master I mean me), while watching some dorks ride around the Park Blocks, come on down to the Art Museum around 6. We'll rock out.

On a more cinematic note, if you haven't seen An Inconvenient Truth yet, you should. Seems that Al Gore has kept himself pretty busy since the 2000 election debacle. If you are trapped in your house or have no access to a movie theater you could also check out thier website, which is pretty hot, in a fact-ey kinda way.

Did you know they serve Tots at the Side Street watering hole? Discovered that little jem at Solomon's retirement party. Tater Tots. I know. Awesome.

I missed PIR this week, which made me sad. I'll get to do the State Crit Champs this year for the first time in 3 or 4 years, which will make up for it. Till then, I'm praying for a field sprint again... Just have to figure out how to fill Skerrit's tires with cement.

DT