Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Busted

Anyone out there ever use a Thudbuster seatpost? Gimmic product or as good as claimed? There's loads of reviews on MTBR, but ones like the guy who claims he trashed his knees using this concern me. Didn't have my finger on the order button or anything, but looks intriguing enough to collect info.

Diet

I guess you could say I'm on a bike racing diet these days as in I do way less of it. Football and other factors have rendered training effectively non-existent and life in general means I'll be at least 3 weeks race free. I did go see the Leadville movie which convinced me that my name will be in the bucket when they do the lottery for next year. I left thinking "Now that's my kind of stupid." We'll see how that pans out.

Honestly, there's not a hell of a lot else going on. Wow I become a (more) boring person when I'm not active...

Friday, October 23, 2009

Grand Master


Yes, I know, blatant ripoff of a post-style used by the one-geared-wonder, but whatever.

So on top of all the random crap I have listed over there -------------------------->, I've been known to play some cards. No, not like cleaning up on the WPT or anything. Actually it's mostly old-folks games like rummy and cribbage... Hey, I learned from my Gram... what's it to you? She'll gladly take your money if you want to challenge her. Anywho, every year we have a charity cribbage tournament at work. Buy in is $10 and all the money goes to charity. Winner gets nothing more than bragging rights and a big frickin target on them for next year. Well I'm proud to say I'm the new wearer of the target. That's right, I'm the cribbage grand master (like how I finally tied that back in?). At least I podiumed at something this fall...

Monday, October 19, 2009

Yah, I "raced"

After an early morning youth football game/mudfest yesterday, I had to fly down to the MRC cross race since I had promised to be there to help however I could. Foolishly, I put a bike in the truck figuring that I'd jump in a race if I got there in time. Wouldn't you know it I was just in time to jump in the Master's race. Summary: Start which reflected my level of preparation for the race, had fun dodging the flying mud balls, won a couple races within the race, needed just one more lap to catch the fast-fading Gewilli, but ran out of runway. He was saved by the fact that I spotted him almost literally a half lap while I was napping early on. Best race within the race win: Guy I've been battling with lets me by on the downhill in the field so he can tuck in on the long straight into the wind. I tuck way down and drill it, peek back at the log and I've got 5 seconds. How's that draft treating you now buddy? Anywho... I was filthy when I finished and kept it upright the whole way... t'was a good day.

Saturday my best bud got married. He's a little OCD and his head didn't explode... t'was also a good day. That'll about do it for now. More riveting commentary later.

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

The yard sale continues

1+ year old Surly Cross-Check, 62cm. Many upgrades. $600 obo. If there's interest I can provide full details.

Hope to see lots of folks at Wrentham this week.

Monday, October 12, 2009

Redesign

This site was long overdue for a redesign so here you have it. Links had to be updated/added/deleted and I needed to spice things up. Who better to go to for some spice than the fine folks over at Double Hop. Anyone who can make me almost look like a qualified bike racer twice in one season has clearly got some talent. Give them a visit and look for your own talent to shine through. More updates are pending so hopefully I'll get to them soon.

Sunday, October 11, 2009

And that was my pit bike

Yesterday's picture was of the rear wheel from my pit bike, but more on that in a bit...

Despite nailing the registration hole shot, my sucktastic season to date and the inability to go to Glawstah meant that I was first guy called to the 4th row Saturday in Providence. I hit the start hard and got what I'll call an acceptable start especially for me. First lap was great... racing angry, banging elbows, blowing by 6 guys going up the stairs, fighting for every spot. I finally felt like I was in the race. Lap 2, more of the same... gauging where I was to the leaders, seeing that I was reeling in teammates, starting to settle in a bit. I figure I had moved up to about 30th or so and was still going in the right direction and then...

For anyone who knows what seems to be the typical Providence course, you ride a short section of pavement down by a pond, then take a right turn onto the grass/dirt to go up a short little hill and around a tree. As I hit the dirt and went to hit it up the hill, I was peddling air... dammit, chain off. But wait, I've got a chain guard and a third eye that's literally about 2mm away from the chain ring... how the falafel is my chain now under the third eye and sitting on the bottom bracket? Now before you jump to the obvious that the thing is at the wrong height, a number of bad experiences last year and some quality time with a mechanic have me 99.9% sure that it's in a safe spot to do what it does. Somehow though, I pulled a Houdini and dropped it down there. Of course that also means that I now have to kill the paint job on my frame while I twist the thing back out of the way to get the chain out. About 20-25 lost spots later, I have it back on, but now I'm basically asking to drop it again.

Coming up the road to see 3 to go, I had to decide if I wanted to roll the dice or grab the Surly out of the pits. The ANT is sooooooooooooo much better that I rolled right by pit 1 and tried to get some fire back. Of course this meant that about a minute later I dropped my chain again. Ok, to the pits it is. Not being pro, I'm in there fumbling bikes on and off the rack myself and dropping further back, basically putting myself out of any respectable contention and losing interest fast. But I soldiered on because it was a nice day and a nice course and maybe I could get a beer handup. About half a lap later on one of the many short steep uphills, I felt an unmistakeable pop from the rear end and looked down to see the rear wheel wobbling like parade watcher in Southie on St. Patty's day. Later I discovered that what I figured was an ordinary broken spoke was a broken hub (see yesterday's picture). Nice, my massive watts had pulled the damn thing apart. Did I mention I was about 30 seconds past pit 1 when this happened? Ok... any sense of motivation pretty much gone now... but hey, it will be fun to try and not get lapped.

I hacked around half a lap on wobble wheel and picked up the ANT again, figuring a chance of chain drops was at least less dangerous than a wheel which was coming apart. My lone goal now was to not get lapped (and maybe find that beer), but I was honestly hoping I didn't have to work too hard for it. Fast forward to the bell and they don't whistle me off so now it's just a parade. I made sure to wrap up DFL on the lead lap and then as I came onto the pavement I dropped down 2 or 3 gears and put in a all out sprint up the road like I was going for the win which garnered some sympathy cheers from the crowd at least. Did I mention I did have another chain drop in there somewhere? Yah, it was pretty much irrelevant and not unexpected.

So let's review... 3 dropped chains, one destroyed hub, 2 bike changes, zero beers. Yah, it was about as fun as it sounds. Got to hang for a while afterwards, chill with the guys, and heckle the fast people. It was a nice enough day to salvage some sense of fun...

Saturday, October 10, 2009

Friday, October 09, 2009

Drink the Kool-Aid

If you race cross, you must have tubulars. Don't ask questions, just believe it. Fortunately for you, I can help you out. You're welcome.

Sorry folks... should have drank it quicker.

Thursday, October 08, 2009

Too many thoughts, too little time

Too much going on in my head right now to get it all down without taking a Gewilli-esque blog dump all over this place. Disney was awesome. Work is a mess. I'll skip that bike racer thing. Updates pending on my very stale other site that will involve terms like structural engineer and architect. I'll link up vaca pics when they are available. Back to the mess...

Thursday, October 01, 2009

Remember that softball thing?

Last night we capped off what has to be the longest softball season ever conceived. We are now the B-division champs. Yay. Yours truly was 3 for 3 last night with one RBI (I think it was only 1). I still am not a softball/bat sports player, but it was pretty fun. It also gave me more motivation to work on that upper body strength thing I threw out a while back there. We'll just skip the status on how that's going...

And now that we're the champions, I'm going to Disney World! No really... in a comical bit of convenient timing, we're leaving later today for Disney. The kids have no idea they're going. We're even sending them to school for the morning to keep the secret rolling. Stay tuned to You Tube for surprised child reaction video...