Donut Ride

I may start calling our morning rides the donut ride because of all the cops in cars with Bikes on the backs of them.

Todays special anti-dopers (average joe) ride report: Today was not your average ride. Here is your cast of players. Dodgeballer, Jeep, Flyin Bryan, Flyer Shirer, Thomas the Train, Russ-tic, Coondoggy, AntiBill, Lester the bike Molester, Parks and Recreation, Dobi Brother 2(younger), Metro-VDubinski, Chainlink, and our newest yet long time friend to the bunch Briggs and Stratton.

So the ride started with everyone rolling it easy but intensified as the roll got rolling. Briggs and Stratton has decided to take the place of The Count on the am rides and make sure the pace stays high. Well we hit the BH hill and the flying started in earnest. The climb was brisk. We wound our way around to loving and up we went. The Helium boys moved the front Briggs and Stratton showed just how much fun it is for an old o-lineman to act like he only weights 130lbs. Anyway the first set of hills did not force to much seperation, but Jeep made sure they were hard. Especially considering the cop parked at the stop sign causing some foot tapping on the pavement. Coming into the smooth side for lap two Flyin Bryan cranked a bit on the volumn knob and wandered up the road a ways. Next thing we knew we were doing some single filing with a goal in sight. At the catch point it was back together again heading across mocking ("yah") bird (dumb and dumber). Anyhow we hit the BH hill second go around and this time Flyin Bryan decided to do some 4 wheelin and hit the front coming around the corner. Nifty piece of work I might add. Anyway to the hills for lap 2 and loving was a bit of a setup. We came into the lakeshore hill and Metro-Vdubinski started a bit of a rocket launch up the left, and I gaver a nice "up up" as Flyin Bryan jumped on his wheel only to accelerate even more and basically catch me in no mans land. With the rare hope that somehow the donuts had worn off and the cop was gone I kept the pace rolling down to the lake. No winners for me today as the bacon was still smoldering. Anyhow we all got back together and about that point Dodgeballer and Flyin Bryan were off the front the slightest little bit. Flyer Shirer had decided to bring his bat and ball back to the group and rejoin the kids at the playground. It looked like the gap was opening, so I went to the front to try and help, only to get shelled like I had just finished a MTB race on Sunday. So I have no idea who won, but however did good job, and congrats on all that. Honorable mentions today are Dodgeballer, Brando, Flyin Bryan, Briggs and Stratton, and T the T for keeping the pace high and us boys behind safe in the draft.

Keep it rubber down and see you all on Thursday. That is unless Thomas the Train continues to run down walkers!!

The Ides of...... well winter

So it is time to get slowly back into the swing of things. Today was a good ride. We had what appeared to me to be a worthy new comer (however danger as a nickname might be coming). We had the same old guard in full swing, and most importantly we had the real Thomas the train back!! The only worthy info to report is the fact that we all rode in a nice pace line for the entire ride and the ride came down to a rather hard, yet civil sprint. I will throw in one personal note about the fact that I had a fantastic ride three saturdays ago taking pulls for the entire south loop with tom and have been on a limited ride schedule with a head cold and work distracting me ever since. Today my nose was running like a faucet and I was running out of glove space by the end. Lets get re-aquainted. The Dobi brothers are back on the bike. Thomas the train is rolling down the tracks. Parks and Recreation is still running from the age now that his son is starting to show signs of real promise. Russtic is back in the grove. Matt was out in force. Les is holding off on any new bike parts as the economic stimulous is not on his desk yet. Katy has been doing her perfect pushups again and is flying. Fred is still working with his band and riding in the way dark. Jordan is complaining about his shoulder again. Crozzy is now riding in the day and riding way to well from what I hear. Blur Baker is jogging in cycling shoes using his cranks as heavy hands. Flyer Shirer is using his fishing pole/swimming simulator to work out indoors and stealthy. All seams right in this world though so lets us have a great year!!

My torture test and Parks Success

Below my comments I have attached the email from Parks talking about how well Danny and he did at cross nationals. Now that I have two boys of my own I am starting to understand how cool it is that Parks pulls the trigger on a cross bike, wondering if Danny is going to like cross or even do it at all, only to find that the first race out Danny wips his old pops rear, a few short months later they are heading to Nationals. I can only immagine how cool it is to share something you are passionate about with your kids. Good job to both of you.

Now on to the good stuff. I have been considering the Excruciation Exam around the austin area for training recently but I am not totally pumped about the driving, and the fact that a lot of the ride is on the road/dirt road so I have a proposal to throw out there. The Saturday after the new year I suggest this. Meet at the starbucks at the Katy trail and knox at 8:30. Ride to OCNP and do two laps. Ride from OCNP to Boulder and do two laps. Ride home. The big challenge is having someone with a car/signifigant other who is willing to drive a bit of aid in and around this for us. I would even offer my truck as a support vehicle for someone else to drive if that would be an enticing offer. So ponder this all and let me know what you all think.

On to the great things happening with the Parks family.

It was in the 20s in the morning and the course was frozen and fast, they allowed you to pre ride at 8a till 9a. by the time I rode on Thursday it was 2 inches of greasy sloppy mud. The tires we have been using just don't cut it in the mud. The tires the real guys were using were narrower but had sharper spikyer knobs. The course had a lot of off camber turns and the hill was a little bigger than Flag pole, the speeds were slower because of the mud and more nasty obsticals that nobody could ride. Our Flag pole course had more and tighter turns.

Danny raced Friday in about the same or worse mud. The winners all used two ( some had three) bikes that alternated each lap, while the mechanic power washed the mud out of the gears and brakes, then switched bikes the next lap. Danny's race was 30 mins, but if it had been any longer the bike would not have made it. It only had one working gear for the sprint. Danny did great, the mud didn't bother him and he was passing guys all the way to the end.

Tuesday but kindof Monday

Well as many of you are aware today is really kind of a Monday or maybe a Monday afternoon as yesterday was a quasi holiday. I worked the morning Rode the MTB at lunch and then smoked ribs all afternoon which is to say the pump was primed and my legs were excited to get out of bed. Today's ride started in the dark dark as the sun was being lazy and was obscured by low clouds to boot. For that reason the first lap was a little on the steady side if you will. Well Blur B. started to wind it up up the bath house hill and wound up in this suspended state slightly off the front. Thomas the Train was not his usual self today. The Count must have tried to kill him again recently. Well anyway I took a swing up to Blur in an attempt to work with him and see if we might be able to slip away a bit and instead I brought the whole bunch to him. About that time Crozzy showed up late along with JeeP. We all know that Crozzy was flying as evidenced by the recent Thursday night show and JeeP is out on the MTB tearing faces off recently so those are two additions to the bunch for sure. Well after sitting in and relaxing a bit I noticed crozzy was easing up the road a bit in what appeared to simply be an effort to do some work. As I was watching the situation Russ-tic jumped across the gap and then Flyer Shirer. I started to see the gap increasing and I was thinking to myself, "Hey that might be the group to go with" So off I went to catch a ride. We went up the bathhouse hill with a rather large gap and off to the races we went. Well until we hit the stop sign at the spillway. We got stopped by a car and the group closed up on us. We shot out on the road and all of the sudden a car got between us and the group so we started to pour it on again. On Loving and Westshore we all climbed as well as we could together after Russ-tic bald spotted his tires doing some drift racing. At the top of Westshore Judge Roy Doooby caught up to us and shot by. Well needless to say our group of 4 became 5 and we never saw the rest of the bunch. Coming into the sprint I noticed Flyer Shirer was working to grab Russ-tic's wheel and I was cooked anyway so I got Judge Roy on my wheel and took a stab at it only to see Crozzy ripping by in a blaze of furry. He won.

Honorable mentioned today goes out to Crozzy's Scott. He will be giving back his ski poles today and putting some miles in on the Cross Bike. Also honorable mention today goes out to my bowels for not having a complete meltdown. I was so worked staying in the break that I almost pooped myself a couple of separate times. Good Times though. On an administrative note the Blog will be continueing to take some time to refresh and reboot for next year. Stay posted for updates of the cross racing series though.

Sink the Sub

Here is my report:

BS here taking a stab at the Tuesday Edition September 12, 2008 Edition of Morning Madness, as Rick was sick.

I can mostly comment from my perspective in the back of the pack. First, Tom did a lot of work at the front. Second, the pace was not too hard. Third, Herrick was there. Fourth, who is the Puerto Rican guy that jumped on, took a pull, and then blew up? Herrick seemed to know him, and was quite perturbed at our matching the pace.

I left the back of the back only twice, but for good reason, and with purpose in mind. The first time was to pull folks up to Tom, who just wouldn’t slow down for any reason whatsoever. Automaton Tom.

The second time I went to the front was to bestow the coup de grace in a Fabian Cancellara manner. I took off hard for the last minute. I got a good gap, but then Tom caught me, and won the sprint. Russ E. also came up and passed me. No one else was anywhere near. I averaged about 560 watts for that minute. Hope it hurt everyone real good!

I thought I blew the pack apart, but it’s my understanding that someone didn’t jump when I took off. But, that is not what I saw in my rear-view

Dodgeball

So today's efforts were made interesting by ourselves and others in soo many ways. We started our usual roll out down the smooth side when a lady with a extenda-killyourdog-leash let her small dog go after a rather large dog. Cool! Then..... We were rolling just fine with the Tabinator, Matt and Flyer Shirer decided to make sure this was a ride to remember. the Tabinator was not so much launching attacks as cranking the pace up to 30 and holding it there till everyone screamed uncle. FS kept launching attacks as some form of bike Yoga...or yoyo. What got funny though is after one of FS's intervals it appears that the tabinator was a little bugged and he pinned it and almost dropped FS. Anyhow the ride was good and quality up to the final lap when our ambassadorship really took a hit. The lady we forced into the barricade at the bath house could be consider happy customer number 1, then the cop we went head on into at 30 on the bike path might be our 2nd taker of the fun, our third happy recipient of the bronze shammy has to be the old lady we swarmed on westshore, and our MVP for patience is also the volvo we ran the stop sign in front of to get back on. But the sprint did happen and Flyer Shirer took the prize. So I will have video up tonight to take a look at and incriminate ourselves!!