Next Up - Getting my Picture on the cover Rolling Stone

Hey, I am now famous. Yeah, that is right, I am on YouTube (albeit a little fuzzy looking). Someone posted a video of various crashes from the race yesterday (actually all of them were at the first set of barriers) and I made the highlight reel - No, not one of my crashes, but I am the guy who carries someone elses bike over the barriers.

What my bike needs is more gold...

I'm looking forward to the next Lug Bros. family reunion in Tokyo, since I know now where to find cool bikes in abundance. Here are a few parts that I think would look sharp on my Buddi!

First Cyclocross Race

Today was the first cyclocross race of the season in Louisville. The race was at a new location, a county park in the far southeast corner of Jefferson County, called Fisherman's Park. The first picture is of the one paved section of the course. The course was far from my liking, as it was extremely bumpy and much more suited I thought to a mountain bike race than a cyclocross one, with lots of off-camber corners, tight switchbacks, and basically no road sections that would have worked to my strengths.

I decided to do the category 4 (lowest level) race as this was my first race of the season and I was not sure on my fitness and ability (I have only ridden my cross bike twice so far this year). There were probably about 4o people in my race, and like all cyclocross races, at the start we all rocketed off trying to get the hole-shot at the first corner. I was probably in around 12th place at this time and was able to move up a few spots before the first really tight 180-degree turn. However at this point everthing just kind of collapsed in on itself and the whole field came to a complete standstill while people made their way around the corner. Once around the corner, I started to try and move up in the field and that was pretty much the story for the rest of the race, me trying to catch as many people as I could.

I did wipe out twice in the race, the first time at the barriers, which was on an off-camber hill and placed at a 90-degree turn into a hill run-up (in other words a really difficult location, and another poor decision in course design in my opinion). The other time I bit the dust was on a turn where my front wheel just slid out from under me and I went down pretty hard. It twisted my stem about 30 degrees out of wack, and so I had to quickly try to straighten it out. I was not able to get it back to its exact position and so I finished the race with my handlebars at a slightly off-center angle, which made steering kind of difficult. At this point I had two other racers catching up to me, one passed me on the backside of the course, and the other drafted off of me til we had about a hal-mile to go, at which point he passed me at another dismount. I was able stay with him till the final hill when I put in a sprint that dropped him, but I was not able to catch the first guy that passed me. That sprint really took a lot more out of me than I thought it would, because as soon as I crossed the finish line I looked for the nearest place to drop my bike and lie down. For a second or two I felt like I was about to pass out, but luckily I didn't. I did not stick around for results, but I think that I ended up in the top ten, which was a decent result.

Kabuki & Bikes?

Um, not really sure what to make of this website I just found for some aftermarket XTR parts from Shimano. The parts are nice and shiny, but the website is great on its own, never thought of Kabuki inspiring bike parts.

http://www.shimano-yumeya.com/

Knobs and a Near Miss

Lately I have kind of gotten tired of riding the roads close to our house over and over again, so I decided to drive up to Memphis, IN, which is about 16 miles north of Utica to ride. The ride turned out to to be a little hillier than I had planned, as I ended up riding up to knobs and several smaller hills, but hey, it was still a fun, though really hot ride, and I got to ride on Whiskey Run Road (great name huh). Anyway, on my ride I had passed several spots that made me think about stopping and taking some pictures, but didn't, but I though that the cows were pretty funny, sitting and standing there looking at me like I was some sort of alien.

As for the near miss, after I took this picture, I started riding again, but only made it about 100 ft down the road when I heard this really strange sound, like a stick cracking. Actually, that is exactly what it was, a big branch came crashing down through the trees just about where I had been standing just a minute before. Needless to say that kind of freaked me out a little bit. But I guess I was just lucky today.

The second picture is of the final slopes of one of the knobs that I rode down (thankfully not up) today, yet again, it is a lot steeper than it looks in the picture, but it definitely is one around here than doesn't look like it belongs in Indiana.

I don't remember if I shared this with all you Lug Bros. out there, but I came across it this evening when I was looking through photos on my computer. It's a snapshot Henry sent me from Prague a few years back. And seeing as I watched American Pie tonight for the first time, this post is especially topical!

Once again I want to say thanks, Luke, for the photos you post. It's good to see a little of that late summer late afternoon midwestern sunshine.

Late Summer

Kate was ushering at Actor's Theater tonight with her mom, so I went for a longer ride this evening. The weather was amazing today, with a high round 80, and not a cloud in the sky.

I had originally wanted to do the club ride, but got to the meeting place late, so I ended up riding by myself. I rode past one of the buffalo farms that are starting to appear in the area and stopped to snap this picture of one enjoying the evening rays. I rode quite hard tonight, averaging around 33.5K an hour (about 21.5 mph), so it was nice to stop and take a short break. The second picture is of one of the fields just outside of Utica.

Home Coming

Utica celebrated its annual fall festival this weekend. This has to be one of the campiest little town festival around, but that is part of what makes it fun. Since I am part of the Utica Preservation Association, who puts on the festival, I end up running a couple of the events that are part of homecoming. I organize the 5K run/walk that set an all time record this year for low turn out of 16 runners. I should mention that Sandy medaledin her age group. This year I also got drafted to work at the Corn Toss tournament. For those who don't know what Corn Toss (or Corn Hole), it is a game that is cross between horse shoes and bean bags. You use bean bags (or corn bags) and toss them at boards with one hole cut in the center of it. You get points for getting a bag in the hole or on the board. Don't ask me why it is popular, it is just one of those southern midwest things.
The pictures are all from the parade. The first is of the local little league team that made it to the little league world series this year, they were the grand marshalls of the race. The second is obviously a therapy dog program. Next is the Knittingmobile from Grinny Possum the local knitting store (yes, they know Kate by name there, just like the local bike shop knows me by name). The last one is the Jeffersonville John Deere Antique Lawn Tractor Club and their wagon that seats something like 6 people.
After the 5k yesterday, I escaped and headed out for about a 30 mile ride, which was a nice break from working at the festival. Back on Thursday, I went out for a ride just a weather system was moving through, the only reason I mention it is cause there was a really strong east wind and my ride took me west, so for the first 10 miles of the ride I was able to scream along the roads at about 26 miles an hour, the problem of course was then I had to turn around and head home back into the wind and I was lucky to average 21 after that.
Today we went to John and Sandy's for brunch and rode home from their house. I was going to try and do a club ride that left from a park near their house, but no one else showed up, so I just headed out on my own on some roads that I used to ride alot, but probably have not been on for 3 or 4 years. It was a fine ride until about mile 20 when for some reason I just started to feel really poorly. I limped home and have just been taking it easy since then.