So my lady-mate and I have been giving some serious thought to leaving behind this wonderful land of Williamsburg, which means that my VA racing career might well end by June. So, in order to experience as many pancake-flat sprint-fests as possible, I've decided to attempt every race possible within the next three months. I'm going to have to miss the Sunny Hutchins, but I think I can swing ten or eleven crits within that time. Now if I can swing top 10 each time, I'll be a 3 before I move west. I'm not sure if that's a good or bad idea-- I got the feeling that racing out west is a level above what we get here. Whatevahmang-- you only live once.
Anyways, fool school is in session March 9, at Snowball #2-- I was so stoked about Dave E's finish that I decided to bail on Camp Hilbert to race the road.
In fact, I'm so down on dirt riding right now I'm selling my bike. Local buyers get to skip the eBay hassle.
Bike shop guys get the deal, which means when they sell their shit you get the deal. And their shit is taken care of. Just sayin'.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Monday, February 25, 2008
Snowball Crit results
Just a quick one to shout out to Dave Erickson, who dodged squirrels with the grace of a kung-fu master to nab 4th in the first race of the season:
B Race - Cat 3 / 4
4th - David Erickson - JRVS/Casey Auto Group
5th - Frank Deal - JRVS/Casey Auto Group
Also props to Frank Deal, obviously, and Cam Holland, 5th in the A race.
Way to go, Dave, 4th out of a field of 56 is no slouch. Better than my Sunday, which involved a ramp at Freedom and a head-first, piledriver style landing. Might be time for a new mountain bike, if only because I'm an inch shorter than I was.
Check out other blogs' narratives and pictures here, and here, and here.
This is the best results list I was able to find so far:
C Race - Cat 5, Jrs and Women 55 Racers
1st - David Hughes - Tripower
2nd - Kyle O'Brien - All About Bikes Racing
3rd - David Treece - Virginia Beach Velo
4th - Jayson Cisak - All About Bikes Racing
5th - Lucus Harville - Seigler Sports
6th - Elliot Craddock - Seigler Sports
7th - Brian Markley - UVA
8th - ?
9th - Josh Hains - Eastern Mobile Cycling Team
10th - Stephen Radcliffe - Team Nature's Path
B Race - Cat 3 / 4 56 Racers Primes - John Kamenick / Robert Netsch / Jim Bender
1st - Jeff Brandon - HPC
2nd - Jim Bender - LeBleu / Nature's Pearl
3rd - Phillip Johnson - ?
4th - David Erickson - JRVS/Casey Auto Group
5th - Frank Deal - JRVS/Casey Auto Group
6th - ? - All About Bikes Rider
7th - Bob Grimwood - Eastern Mobile Cycling Team
8th - Chris Dinsmore - Tripower
9th - James Parrott - All About Bikes Racing
10th - Jerry Burkett - Eastern Mobile Cycling Team
11th - Brian Ralston
12th - ? Nature's Path Rider
13th - John Kamenick - Evolution
14th - Terry Lovell - LeBleu / Nature's Pearl
15th - ?
16th - Rick Hutcherson - Virginia Beach Velo
17th - Robert Netsch - GS Kitty Hawk / KHCC
18th - Amos Swogger - All About Bikes Racing
19th - George Scheel - Fat Frogs Racing
20th - Chris Ceniccola - Fat Frogs Racing
A Race - Cat 1/2/351 Racers Primes - Bill Collins / Kevin Horvath / Bill Collins
1st - Micheal Stoop - Time Pro Racing
2nd - Tony Hall - Carytown Bicycles
3rd - Jeff Brandon - HPC
4th - Gene Fowler - LeBlue / Nature's Pearl
5th - Cam Holland - JRVS / Casy Auto Group
Man, now I won't be able to sleep, thinking about racing...
B Race - Cat 3 / 4
4th - David Erickson - JRVS/Casey Auto Group
5th - Frank Deal - JRVS/Casey Auto Group
Also props to Frank Deal, obviously, and Cam Holland, 5th in the A race.
Way to go, Dave, 4th out of a field of 56 is no slouch. Better than my Sunday, which involved a ramp at Freedom and a head-first, piledriver style landing. Might be time for a new mountain bike, if only because I'm an inch shorter than I was.
Check out other blogs' narratives and pictures here, and here, and here.
This is the best results list I was able to find so far:
C Race - Cat 5, Jrs and Women 55 Racers
1st - David Hughes - Tripower
2nd - Kyle O'Brien - All About Bikes Racing
3rd - David Treece - Virginia Beach Velo
4th - Jayson Cisak - All About Bikes Racing
5th - Lucus Harville - Seigler Sports
6th - Elliot Craddock - Seigler Sports
7th - Brian Markley - UVA
8th - ?
9th - Josh Hains - Eastern Mobile Cycling Team
10th - Stephen Radcliffe - Team Nature's Path
B Race - Cat 3 / 4 56 Racers Primes - John Kamenick / Robert Netsch / Jim Bender
1st - Jeff Brandon - HPC
2nd - Jim Bender - LeBleu / Nature's Pearl
3rd - Phillip Johnson - ?
4th - David Erickson - JRVS/Casey Auto Group
5th - Frank Deal - JRVS/Casey Auto Group
6th - ? - All About Bikes Rider
7th - Bob Grimwood - Eastern Mobile Cycling Team
8th - Chris Dinsmore - Tripower
9th - James Parrott - All About Bikes Racing
10th - Jerry Burkett - Eastern Mobile Cycling Team
11th - Brian Ralston
12th - ? Nature's Path Rider
13th - John Kamenick - Evolution
14th - Terry Lovell - LeBleu / Nature's Pearl
15th - ?
16th - Rick Hutcherson - Virginia Beach Velo
17th - Robert Netsch - GS Kitty Hawk / KHCC
18th - Amos Swogger - All About Bikes Racing
19th - George Scheel - Fat Frogs Racing
20th - Chris Ceniccola - Fat Frogs Racing
A Race - Cat 1/2/351 Racers Primes - Bill Collins / Kevin Horvath / Bill Collins
1st - Micheal Stoop - Time Pro Racing
2nd - Tony Hall - Carytown Bicycles
3rd - Jeff Brandon - HPC
4th - Gene Fowler - LeBlue / Nature's Pearl
5th - Cam Holland - JRVS / Casy Auto Group
Man, now I won't be able to sleep, thinking about racing...
Saturday, February 23, 2008
For those about to rock
Let's all gather round and say a prayer for those unfortunate few who have, through some misfortune or misunderstanding, actually paid money to race the 2008 VA Beach Sportsplex Death Derby, also known as the Snowball crit.
I'm getting nervous just thinking about all the mayhem and carnage that's bound to go down tomorrow, as every Tom, Dick, and Harry with $30 and a bike blows his load over the world's most tiny-time crit. In fact, Snowball is probably a vital part of race season around here, like the way barn owls die off when there are too few mice. This is all part of nature's way-- keeping the buttmunch population down with broken collarbones, so that those less squirrelly may race unhindered.
For those about to rock (the pavement, with their faces): We Salute You!
I'm getting nervous just thinking about all the mayhem and carnage that's bound to go down tomorrow, as every Tom, Dick, and Harry with $30 and a bike blows his load over the world's most tiny-time crit. In fact, Snowball is probably a vital part of race season around here, like the way barn owls die off when there are too few mice. This is all part of nature's way-- keeping the buttmunch population down with broken collarbones, so that those less squirrelly may race unhindered.
For those about to rock (the pavement, with their faces): We Salute You!
Monday, February 18, 2008
No-one likes a Buttmunch
Golly gee has it been a while since I wrote at you folks! Top ten callers who give a shit win 650B tubes.
Let's begin from the beginning aka last Sunday morning. Reg'lar old Sunday ride, of course, with the exception of po'tentious headwinds, howlin' gales speakin' the secret language of Godhead hissing, "You should have stayed in bed." Yeah, no shit. During the windiest stretch my co-author suffered a puncture and the Mad Emperor Justinian chose this opportunity to launch one of his patented, 40-mile fruitless breakaways, accompanied by Dave Erickson. "Here we go again," we said, weary travelers on the winding roads of Justinology-- the secret and forbidden study of thighs greater than 46 inches in circumference. We spent the next hour delving into the hidden wonders of his Imperial Quadriception, and the fruits of our labors? We caught them on Riverview, so at least we could fucking relax, no more Cam all hounding my ass for 800 watts, yeeeeah right. Some of us are IV's, thanks. I guess there's not much of an excuse because Dave is a four too... Final score: Williamsburg in the form of Mr. N-B and myself one-twos the sprint. Kind of a weak sprint, about 1050 watts. Average for the ride was 209 over 3.5 hours.
The rest of the week was distressingly lacking in luster, due to not riding much. I guess we can call it a rest week, which will also help resolve, with crystal clarity, the centuries old mystery of this year's "rest winter," and may well come to shed light on predictions of a "rest summer" coming up.
The following Saturday night was mayhem as Robert and Sharon celebrated their new house with about eight hundred and twelve people. Not only did I get drunk and swear I would ride Sunday, I even slurred out the Winston Churchill quote about always doing what you say you're going to do when you're drunk, which of course was a terrible, terrible thing. I even told Barry Taylor that I was "DRAWING THE LINE IN THE SAND RIGHT NOW, OH YEAH!" Come Sunday morning, as I stumbled from bed to choke down my runny eggs, I realized that I couldn't stop stumbling, so I took three Endurolytes and went to sleep. Come 8:30, Caitlin woke me up, and the pivotal dialogue was something like this:
C: Are you gonna ride?
S: I don't feel good.
C: You drew the line in the sand.
S: I'm gonna have to eat my words.
C: There were a lot of them.
S: ... Can you give me a ride out there?
When I started down Fenton Mill to find the group, I was still weaving, but with a little help from some questionable friends I soon sweated out the wide sea of whiskey churning in my guts. In fact I was even feeling pretty good, mostly because the ride was moving pretty slow, although in conversation I still took a good three seconds to register what I heard before responding. Unfortunately, while we were cruising, a desperate posse broke away, including an interloper from the Virginia Beach BikeBeat-- the notable Rick Young, who has a history of beating hard on the innocent AKA me. Also present among the crowd of rowdies treatin' us rough was S. Simet, well known to crit suckaz as a rapidly disappearing ass, and PASCAL, who is a sentient computer sent down from 3sports to stone cold crush fools. They plug the waist toggles of his Assos Fugujack into the ports in the Crosslock seatpost joint on his BMC, and whisper into his auditory sensors: "ACTIVATE PROGRAM PASCAL. ACTIVATE PROGRAM DESTROY CHUMPS." And then, we are fucked.
It took some pretty brutal pulling, not that I did any heroic share of that-- most of that was left to folks like Steve J., who was reported to be doing 380 watts for several minutes down Newman. This, for us poor Tidewater souls, is hella power.
Unfortunately for the weaker links among the pursuit, when we hit KOA hill, Cam (who is the boss) told a minor fib, in suggesting that it would be best if we held it together on the hill, which was possibly predicated upon a different "us" for him than for, well, us. Turns out the "us" he had in mind was about half of us, because he booked it with Justin and Steve J. The Good Doctor Doug and I limped home looking sour and sad, but at least we can claim top ten-- whatever the hell that's good for. Average power for the ride was 217 over 3.5 hours. I plugged that into Allen and Coggan's chart, where it ranked me as "Buttmunch." Great.
The only consolation? Race season is almost here, and, if I try hard enough, there might be someone out there foolish enough for even me to school.
Let's begin from the beginning aka last Sunday morning. Reg'lar old Sunday ride, of course, with the exception of po'tentious headwinds, howlin' gales speakin' the secret language of Godhead hissing, "You should have stayed in bed." Yeah, no shit. During the windiest stretch my co-author suffered a puncture and the Mad Emperor Justinian chose this opportunity to launch one of his patented, 40-mile fruitless breakaways, accompanied by Dave Erickson. "Here we go again," we said, weary travelers on the winding roads of Justinology-- the secret and forbidden study of thighs greater than 46 inches in circumference. We spent the next hour delving into the hidden wonders of his Imperial Quadriception, and the fruits of our labors? We caught them on Riverview, so at least we could fucking relax, no more Cam all hounding my ass for 800 watts, yeeeeah right. Some of us are IV's, thanks. I guess there's not much of an excuse because Dave is a four too... Final score: Williamsburg in the form of Mr. N-B and myself one-twos the sprint. Kind of a weak sprint, about 1050 watts. Average for the ride was 209 over 3.5 hours.
The rest of the week was distressingly lacking in luster, due to not riding much. I guess we can call it a rest week, which will also help resolve, with crystal clarity, the centuries old mystery of this year's "rest winter," and may well come to shed light on predictions of a "rest summer" coming up.
The following Saturday night was mayhem as Robert and Sharon celebrated their new house with about eight hundred and twelve people. Not only did I get drunk and swear I would ride Sunday, I even slurred out the Winston Churchill quote about always doing what you say you're going to do when you're drunk, which of course was a terrible, terrible thing. I even told Barry Taylor that I was "DRAWING THE LINE IN THE SAND RIGHT NOW, OH YEAH!" Come Sunday morning, as I stumbled from bed to choke down my runny eggs, I realized that I couldn't stop stumbling, so I took three Endurolytes and went to sleep. Come 8:30, Caitlin woke me up, and the pivotal dialogue was something like this:
C: Are you gonna ride?
S: I don't feel good.
C: You drew the line in the sand.
S: I'm gonna have to eat my words.
C: There were a lot of them.
S: ... Can you give me a ride out there?
When I started down Fenton Mill to find the group, I was still weaving, but with a little help from some questionable friends I soon sweated out the wide sea of whiskey churning in my guts. In fact I was even feeling pretty good, mostly because the ride was moving pretty slow, although in conversation I still took a good three seconds to register what I heard before responding. Unfortunately, while we were cruising, a desperate posse broke away, including an interloper from the Virginia Beach BikeBeat-- the notable Rick Young, who has a history of beating hard on the innocent AKA me. Also present among the crowd of rowdies treatin' us rough was S. Simet, well known to crit suckaz as a rapidly disappearing ass, and PASCAL, who is a sentient computer sent down from 3sports to stone cold crush fools. They plug the waist toggles of his Assos Fugujack into the ports in the Crosslock seatpost joint on his BMC, and whisper into his auditory sensors: "ACTIVATE PROGRAM PASCAL. ACTIVATE PROGRAM DESTROY CHUMPS." And then, we are fucked.
It took some pretty brutal pulling, not that I did any heroic share of that-- most of that was left to folks like Steve J., who was reported to be doing 380 watts for several minutes down Newman. This, for us poor Tidewater souls, is hella power.
Unfortunately for the weaker links among the pursuit, when we hit KOA hill, Cam (who is the boss) told a minor fib, in suggesting that it would be best if we held it together on the hill, which was possibly predicated upon a different "us" for him than for, well, us. Turns out the "us" he had in mind was about half of us, because he booked it with Justin and Steve J. The Good Doctor Doug and I limped home looking sour and sad, but at least we can claim top ten-- whatever the hell that's good for. Average power for the ride was 217 over 3.5 hours. I plugged that into Allen and Coggan's chart, where it ranked me as "Buttmunch." Great.
The only consolation? Race season is almost here, and, if I try hard enough, there might be someone out there foolish enough for even me to school.
Saturday, February 9, 2008
CHKN 471: Advanced Poultry Genitalia Studies (Spring Semester only)
Damn but if the A.M. Mayhem ride didn't come down to a sprint despite numerous efforts by several parties to make it not so. Mr. N-B pointed out that it was, in fact, excellent practice for the skittery March crits, because right as we came into sprinting distance, I got stacked behind some questionable sprint talent and had to roll through the sand and shit on the side of the road. Unfortunately 6-foot tall Miles P. ruined my shot, because he was out to the right and I mistook him for N-B out of the corner of my eye, when in fact the dastard was right behind me. I had to Cuss him, as he came around. Going to spend the next two weeks in deep meditation, mind intensely focused on the Diamond Vajra of 1400 watts. Upon reaching the ninth level of purity of consciousness, I will awaken with the 100 Thighs of Boonen-Ra.
In other news, I have broken down on my two-egg pre-ride diet. I can't look another plate of yellow snot in the eye again for at least a week or so. Damn but it just gets nappy after four or five days in a row to plop down in your bibshorts to a plate of yellow mush that has come from a chicken's vagina. Might have to fall back on almonds, just for the sake of my self-esteem. Where do almonds come from, anyways? Maybe polecats shit them out and migratory workers of Norwegian stock roam the hills of the Dakotas, coming to know individual polecats through their brown, ovoid autoshitographies. Is that possible? Or maybe almonds are vine-based, let's try it out: "Tik-Tik was strangled by a sentient almond vine." Feasible.
Protein good, chicken vadge bad.
In other news, I have broken down on my two-egg pre-ride diet. I can't look another plate of yellow snot in the eye again for at least a week or so. Damn but it just gets nappy after four or five days in a row to plop down in your bibshorts to a plate of yellow mush that has come from a chicken's vagina. Might have to fall back on almonds, just for the sake of my self-esteem. Where do almonds come from, anyways? Maybe polecats shit them out and migratory workers of Norwegian stock roam the hills of the Dakotas, coming to know individual polecats through their brown, ovoid autoshitographies. Is that possible? Or maybe almonds are vine-based, let's try it out: "Tik-Tik was strangled by a sentient almond vine." Feasible.
Protein good, chicken vadge bad.
Thursday, February 7, 2008
Bangin week
Off to a roaring start this week: woke up at 6:43AM Monday after no kind of sleep at all, ripped from slumba' by the beep of a text message on the wife's phone, all from her 12-year old friend, all totally a chain-text. What the fuck. I mean everyone else figured out chainmail like 8 and a half years ago, what is her problem. Ridiculous. So I was rocking a monstrous headache all day, until a prescription-strength nap took that shit out. Nighttime number 2 happened between 10 and 3. Fool me I even tried to ride after that, no dice of course, oh wait muscle relaxant means just that. Spent the rest of the week getting hammered, not the fun kind, of course the kind where THA BROOS JUICE reaches out his wide and steady hand and totally crushes your shit, graah I am Bruce my bike is steel and all that.
Tuesday night woke up terrified, loins clammy because of dreams of bears, but as soon as I was able to recognize the right angles of the room, I realized what was up: THE SNOWBALL CRIT. Oh shitt but I started freaking out, totally making the elbows-out sprint motion as I fell asleep. Now I can't stop thinking about the podunckest race in the whole wide world. Oh damn but won't sprintin' season get here.
Even got my mountain bike mojo back between tha Bruce poundings, due to my ride partner / secretary / boss. Of course talking about THA WYFE, who has made huge claims to win Camp Hilbert this year what now suckaz.
Too bad her bike is totally half her body weight. Whayyeva, makes you trongah.
Have to start getting her to work on the piggyback squats, better hillclimb plus freakin' treetrunk roommate puts all the waterbottles up top the kitchen cabinets
Tuesday night woke up terrified, loins clammy because of dreams of bears, but as soon as I was able to recognize the right angles of the room, I realized what was up: THE SNOWBALL CRIT. Oh shitt but I started freaking out, totally making the elbows-out sprint motion as I fell asleep. Now I can't stop thinking about the podunckest race in the whole wide world. Oh damn but won't sprintin' season get here.
Even got my mountain bike mojo back between tha Bruce poundings, due to my ride partner / secretary / boss. Of course talking about THA WYFE, who has made huge claims to win Camp Hilbert this year what now suckaz.
Too bad her bike is totally half her body weight. Whayyeva, makes you trongah.
Have to start getting her to work on the piggyback squats, better hillclimb plus freakin' treetrunk roommate puts all the waterbottles up top the kitchen cabinets
Saturday, February 2, 2008
Well, I managed to sneak into the registry for the Jeff Cup this year, which is a little nerve-wracking because now I have to do it. I'm too cheap to bail on the entry fee, so I've pretty much got no choice but to step up to the plate and race the damn thing. The only consolation I've found so far is that most of the top ten from last year have upgraded. That got me thinking about my license status (mainly that I haven't renewed yet), but it also led me to look up my race record over at USA Cycling. It's kind of depressing, because it shows that I've been a Cat 4 since July, but I guess my excuse is just gonna have to be that there weren't any races left. However, there's plans in the works to do a hell of a lot more racing this year. This is mostly to satisfy my dark master Mike May, who has sworn to me that if I don't complete every single PLT time trial, the cops won't find me but they will find my "upon a star" socks, with my feet still in them.
That alone has me scared shitless, so I'm not lacking for motivation. Unfortunately, I am kind of relying on my so-called sprint to help me out this season, which may or may not be wise. I can truffle shuffle pretty quick when the need arises, but I usually get to the sprint line either a) totally gassed due to carrying twenty pounds extra, or b) thirty-nine seconds after everyone else did. Many's the time where I've viewed the sprint from two hundred yards back, and thought to myself, "Damn, that sprint looked weak. I could have crushed that bitch!" Confidence is key.
Maybe the answer is to revert to my race strategy from last year, which was to carry a bongo bat to every race, find the guys in my race with the biggest calves, and bongo the shit out of them when they took their pre-race poo. Actually, on the subject, the pre-race poo is pretty much the extent of my race strategy. I always make sure to get my poo in way before anyone has shown up at the course, because if you wait until right before the 5 race, it's guaranteed that all the 37-year olds will blow up the Port-o-let with their nervous Clif-bar dribble. Besides, don't they know that they should be eating a pound and a half of fatty bacon the morning of? If they ate like I did, they'd have to hit the john before they even left the house.
Damn if it don't always come back to being a fatty. I just wish they would have downhill road races, I would fuck that up faster than an 18-pack of Zebra Cakes.
Stay tuned to find out if I get my ass handed to me on the Sunday ride.
That alone has me scared shitless, so I'm not lacking for motivation. Unfortunately, I am kind of relying on my so-called sprint to help me out this season, which may or may not be wise. I can truffle shuffle pretty quick when the need arises, but I usually get to the sprint line either a) totally gassed due to carrying twenty pounds extra, or b) thirty-nine seconds after everyone else did. Many's the time where I've viewed the sprint from two hundred yards back, and thought to myself, "Damn, that sprint looked weak. I could have crushed that bitch!" Confidence is key.
Maybe the answer is to revert to my race strategy from last year, which was to carry a bongo bat to every race, find the guys in my race with the biggest calves, and bongo the shit out of them when they took their pre-race poo. Actually, on the subject, the pre-race poo is pretty much the extent of my race strategy. I always make sure to get my poo in way before anyone has shown up at the course, because if you wait until right before the 5 race, it's guaranteed that all the 37-year olds will blow up the Port-o-let with their nervous Clif-bar dribble. Besides, don't they know that they should be eating a pound and a half of fatty bacon the morning of? If they ate like I did, they'd have to hit the john before they even left the house.
Damn if it don't always come back to being a fatty. I just wish they would have downhill road races, I would fuck that up faster than an 18-pack of Zebra Cakes.
Stay tuned to find out if I get my ass handed to me on the Sunday ride.
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