road rash

actually from gravel
i descend better buzzed... but even endrunculated i can't corner at 15 degrees off horizontal on gravel. as a friend said, "thank god the mustache was unharmed"

1 flat stomach rule: BACON AND RAISINS

I observe with great pleasure that the bulk of B & R visitors no longer come here searching for the Copperopolis race; instead most of you googled "bacon and raisins," and you're getting your just deserts as you read this. It's not like you got here because you only had an unusual meat/fruit combination in your fridge and you needed a recipe; you can't possibly look for bacon and raisins and not want this shit. It's like that crummy armpit-smelling vegan place downtown that's actually the weed spot, and you order a steak and the guy brings you a bag. You ask for meat and fruit, this is what you get:



Goodnight and good luck.

bacon punk'd

It's been a big bummer all round at Team BREDSkwad Top Secret Headquarters this past week. Baby done left me (temporarily), transpo to the race bailed on me (I was so set for a mid pack place too), and it rained over the weekend. I want a refund.
On the other hand, things are looking up. A list, for your perusal:
1. The long-dormant Carnival of Hate, once the most poorly attended ride on the East Coast, is rumbling in its lair, preparing to emerge as the California Carnival of Distaste (hate is strongly discouraged on the Left Coast, so we're starting small-time).
2. It's birthday season again, and there's only one vaccine: beer rides. Fortunately I hit the local Cycling Nutrition Boutique (Rite-Aid) and grabbed multitudinous cans of Bugles Lube:

3. Just when you thought he couldn't contribute more to our society, it turns out that Michael Jackson, who is basically the only reason anyone moves to California, not only had all the freshest moves beaten into him before I was born, but also holds a honest-to-goodness United States patent! Merciful heavens but it makes you feel small. Bonus points if you figure out the patent from watching the video it was used in:

Now get lost.

endrunkulated / Cat's Hill Crit 2009 / Whysp

Fuck and all. It has been a hell of a day. Had to wake up early because "Epic" Alex Anderson was down with long rides, and if that dude says long rides is how it is, Team BREDSkwad rolls long rides. So I woke up fucking early for a Saturday, and ate beef jerky for breakfast (no joke, Epic won't even don his super suit or butter his shamWOW for anything less that 4 hours, I double-dose on protein just to email him). Anyways I'd eat beef jerky for breakfast most days. 6 hours and 11,000 feet of climbing later, and I've got yet another brutal sunburn while I come calling to every fucking apparelier on Pacific Avenue, like all I want is some shoes, brah. Shoes ain't made for such fat and flipperish feet as mine, so while Kit-Kat rolls home in new-car-smellin kicks, I got the same shit with the rounded out soles (from walking as a duck walks) and the broken parts where the fat foot bends to accomodate the fat toes. What have I done, I wonder, in some previous life.
Anyways I start drinking early this evening, around 5, because at 9 is the WHYSP show, and I got to get juiced in case that is a bust. (I know the dude and he knows ceramic Mavic rims, so it seemed like a safe bet, but you never know.) We roll in The Crepe Place and it is chummed waters for obsolete styles of eyeglasses and facial hair, which when combined yield a dude who looked like a young Unabomber [it was nice to meet you Daniel (I think this is your name) and Michelle-- why do you hang with a dude who looks like he has two years of food in his basement?] Anyways nothing blew up except the bathroom after I guzzled something called a Beefalo on Rye, which was seven(!) dollars and served in an upside-down conical stemmed James Bond glass which of course made me feel like a high roller. Thank God I put that fucker on credit, drinks like that are the reason the banks are collapsing.
About 11 and the Whysping ain't in full effect no more, so I finish the Beefalo and we go Back to the Shadow from which We Came, stopping along the way to RING THE BELL (dong), picking up a pair of cronchy beef tacos (delicious), nachos with tub of squeezy cheeze (delicious), and a small Pessi (not as good as Cocola). And here I am at 500% of my normal drunkenness, writing a letter to my favorite people in the world -- you. Now go the fuck to bed.

I will see you on the 23% grade at Cat's Hill.

Called it

Don't act like I don't tell you how it is; if I say I'm gonna get shelled from a big race, that's how it's going down. So when I said I was gonna get shelled from Sea Otter, I was pretty much duty-bound to deliver for you, the precious readers of the Bacon and the Raisins. For three laps, I was up front on the climbs, hurting dudes, pushing McDonald's numbers out of my gigantic Tamagatchi screen. Four laps in, I can see dudes are hurting-- they're stringing out on the climb and not all of them are catching back on through the famous corkscrew. I'm thinking I've got it all plucked and stuffed, because the run-in to the finish is so smooth, so slow-- a dude with much booty could drop a nasty sprint through there. But then I remembered that I gave my word to get shelled, so hey pronto I dropped my chain on the steepest part of the climb.

What a douche. Fire your mechanic. I tuned it up the night after, better late than never etc., and that motherfucker shifts telekinetically now. Which would have been nice...
A week off, then more mid-pack finishes! I will update you with every detail of training, and tell you the same thing three times about Theo Bos.

Sea Otter Circuit

Oh yeah, you know I drive Google traffic by mentioning big races, which I later get shelled from. This weekend I am getting shelled from the famous Sea Otter-- except instead of doing any of the interesting shit at SO like dual slalom or stealing carbon wheels from the expo, I'm doing... a circuit race. All the mindless repetition of a crit, but with longer, more painful laps. Why did I sign up? Because at BREDSkwad, you gotta be in it to lose it. In any case it is supposed to be a buttery course, perfectly banked for the race cars but not some crappy NASCAR oval. 300 ft of climbing per 2-mile lap-- does that favor a big fatty, like me? Possibly. Lots of short-hill races are won by fatties every year, although I suspect that they are more like "musclies", which sounds like a disease your kids would die of 150 years ago. Whatever that means, boombatties to the line, bitch, I'm lining up.

Now I just have to decide whether to drink beer for breakfast the morning of, or the morning after...

Copperopolis race report / tha skunkfuck

Copperopolis was a dark day for the BREDSkwad, but I can comfort myself with knowing that I called it before hand. While packing, I distinctly told my lovely assistant, "Either I'm going to crush this race -- or I'm going to get my shit kicked in like never before."
Well there's no doubt when you make a call like that what's going to happen. C-Awfulis is 3x21 miles for the fours, 1300 feet of climbing per lap and it's almost all in the first five miles. Of course, being fours everyone thinks they're going to break away on the first lap, so the pace up the hills is pretty brisk. The climb is kind of a stairstep of ramps and flats, so the surging is as bad as in a crit. Here's the hindsight pro tip: warm the fuck up. I didn't and I got totally skunkfucked by dudes who hammered their guts out up the hill, only to earn the distinction of being dropped 30 seconds after me. As I told Aaron and Rob on the way up, much of racing the fours and fives seems to consist of asking "Why?" although there is never a good answer. What caaan you do? Go hit the hills more, I guess. The race highlight was a dude from BBC (I think) who blew off the back not long after I did on the climb. We had a little chat, something like:

BR: It sucks being fat.
BBC: I'm 160 (he was like 6 foot)
BR: Then why aren't you up there?
BBC: Let's just say, if this was a time trial, I'd blah blah blah
BR:

Sometimes I think I will never learn to stop talking to people in races.

In related news, Levi was DQ'd from C-Awfulis for centerline (good job ref, you are truly important and we respect you), but I bailed after lap 2.
BREDSkwad: 0
Astana: 0