Merry Christmas

All the best to everyone.

Season of Suck is Over

I pulled the plug weeks (months even) ago so attending the Ice Weasels race was purely about Colin and Thom being good guys and all the nonsense that ensues on Nationals weekend at non-Nationals races. Enter the ridiculous outfit displayed in Saturday's post. The schedule only allowed for me to take a beating in the 1/2/3 race so I figured I'd at least try to make Colin laugh so hard that he ate it on a snowy corner while he lapped me. Oh, and did I mention I had a playing card taped to my fork so I had motor noises? Appropriately, my highlights from the race were not so much about racing: 2 cupcake feeds, some girl at the top of the runup saying "Oh, here comes Speedo", Bauer stuffing a dollar bill in the back of my shorts... you know... the good stuff. I put in a token effort each time down the start straight and even bothered to pass a guy on the final lap along there. I had enough fun that it didn't feel like it was even close to an hour. Thanks to the IBC crew for putting this one on.

Ice Weasels

As expected, the 1/2/3 field at Ice Weasels had a party at the back... full report tomorrow:


photo courtesy of Doublehop

Here's hoping

I just watched the video of the Nats course preview over at CX Mag. All I can say is that I hope the course sucks way way less than it looks from the video. I can't wait for the hard hitting review from Solo and G. Don't have to worry about either of them holding back if it's a piece of crap.

Father knows best?

I've been trying to coach my oldest a bit to improve his hitting for baseball. He's a good hitter at the level he's playing at, but he's just got too much going on in his swing for it to work against good pitching. He basically looks like Gary Sheffield at the plate right now. I've been trying to get him to quiet everything down and only make the motions he needs to. Every time I give him advice, I get the classic eye roll and associated "Dad you're a pain in the ass" look.

Last night at the baseball clinic one of the coaches was working with him on his swing while hitting off a tee. Afterwards I asked him if the coach told him anything helpful. He proceeded to demonstrate how the guy taught him to just slide his foot rather than pick it up and take a big step so that he stayed on balance and what to do with his head and shoulders to keep them on the ball. Sure sounded an awful lot like what I had been telling him... I guess coach isn't a pain in the ass. Then again coach isn't going to tell him to pick up his laundry and brush his teeth.

Credit for the Good Guys

Forgot to post up my justification why the Crank Brothers folks deserve some of your hard earned cycling dollars... well some of us earn it... others just sell t-shirts.

I've been an Eggbeaters guy for a few years now. I never could get Shimano pedals to a tension I liked. I was either stuck in them or popping out. Not a good recipe when you're a hack mountain biker and supposed cross racer. So I tried Eggbeaters... and I was hooked. Fast forward 2.5 cross seasons, 2 editions of 24 Hours of Great Glen (one in a major mud slog), and 3 full seasons of mountain biking. Sadly my precious pedals had loosened up to the point that I was popping out of them a lot. I figured there was no way they were still warranteed, but figured maybe the CB dudes would want to see how they wore out... so I dropped them a line. I got the pretty standard "Send them in and we'll evaluate." Maybe 2 weeks later I get an email saying they had checked them out and they need new springs and a rebuild kit for the seals and bearings. Cost to me: $20. For both I asked? Yes, for both. So about 10 days later I got back a like-new set of pedals with new springs, bearings, seals, grease, and nice and shiny for $20. Those parts wearing out: unfortunate. Crank Bros hooking me up: frickin awesome.

Hello, INS... there's this Candian kid I'd like you to look into

Declaring myself healed from my recent calf woes, I decided it was ok to hit the double at Sterling this weekend. I'll cut to the chase and say that the head start they gave this kid was just enough to allow him to (barely) lap me both days thus ending my race (probably mercifully) a lap early. Overall I felt like I rode my bike well, but maybe that's because it's easier to corner at low speeds. I simply just have no power or fitness right now and that's a bad combination. I've also discovered (or more like it was pointed out to me) that I need to take a couple links out of my chain to keep it from bouncing off the way it seems to every race. Ah well... both courses were super fun and you can't beat the Sterling venue. To add to the glory of the weekend, my oldest made a full lap of the course with me in between races. It's fun to see youthful recklessness on display even in a kid who's pretty conservative. He never thought twice about ripping down the off-camber into the stairs full gas with no brakes. His racing age is 10 next year... maybe there's a cub juniors race upcoming...

Long freaking day

Oldest was picked up from school yesterday with a fever of 103.5. Today he got to the point that he was crying from the pain in his right side. After 5 hours in the ER tonight, diagnosis: pneumonia. Let's hope the script we got does quick work on this bugger...

Knock on something...

I'm on day 5 of the comeback plan and all signs are good. Today was the real test since I went for a short run which was the source of the problem originally. The 3 hours of mountain biking over the weekend were a good test too. If I can prevent myself from doing anything stupid, Sterling should be a go. Yay. Oh, and if I'm about to get lapped by anyone, throw some tacks in front of me so I can claim mechanical...

Sports Parenting

Since I don't ride my bike right now, but parenting never takes a break, lets visit that topic for a second. More and more all the time I'm finding out how hard it is to strike a balance on how hard to push the boys on certain things. Most of our kids activities are sports-related so let's go with that. On the one hand, I refuse to be the beauty pagent mom. I said this to my wife the other day and she got it immediately. There's some useless TV show on MTV or some other crap channel about people dressing their 3 year olds up like little toy dolls and parading them around the country to beauty pagents. These people are dumping 10's of thousands of dollars on coaches and outfits and makeup and all this other bullshit for a 3 year old who is crying that they don't want to do it and doesn't have 2 minutes to sit and play with a ball. If I ever become that parent, shoot me. On the other end of the spectrum you've got the "obesity epidemic" and the generation of professional video game players. Now I remember being a Super Mario shark at one point in my life, but it was typically to unwind from the 3 hours of pond skating. If I ever give in to my boys' preference for watching TV and playing Wii, shoot me for that too. But in between those two is a pretty big frickin range. Do I bring my kid to the AAU tryout because he's got genuine talent even though he says he's not sure if he wants to? Do I let them hone their NHL 2K10 skills for a couple months since they just came off 3 months of football? I'm not sure that I have or will ever have the perfect answer. Maybe I hire the professional beauty coach and tell them they're fired the first time my kid cries. Who knows... it's as much about creating opportunities and preventing the "Man, I wish I had..." as it is letting them be kids and just grow up when it's time to grow up and not when I say they should. Remind me why I signed up for this gig?

CX Nats Bike Transport

If you're heading to Nationals this year and want to take advantage of a sweet hookup on getting your bike there, go to this link. I don't know what airline fees are these days, but what I do know is that Ron's not going to unpack your bike to make sure it's not a bomb, slam everything back into the case wrong, and then jump on the box to close it. Having your bike show up at the race venue and then back near your house afterwards is pro. And you want to be pro like this guy. Admit it... you do.

If you don't know how to get in touch with Ron let me know and I can hook you up with the digits...