Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Cool Team Picture

To bad Bike Zone isn't around anymore. I thought this was a cool picture. Thanks JB for capturing these memories for everyone.

Sunday, October 28, 2007

F*@K!!!!

Another flat today at the Bryan Park cross race. That's all I have to say about that.

I am going to replace my tires, any advice?

Saturday, October 27, 2007

Carving up the trail, Carving up a pumpkin!





Chimborazo cross in Richmond. Driving up I thought we would have cross weather, we did not. Another 80 degrees and sunny. At least there was some mud. Since this cross thing is new to me and I don't have that much time to train, I am very low stressed with racing. My expectations are just to have fun, and so far I have. Today's course looked challenging. I made it about 1 minute into the race when a little inattentiveness caused me to hit a curb and flat. No spare wheels. My race was over just as fast as it began. Then came Albe offering me the wheel off his bike. Although I was already a lap and a half behind, at least I got to ride the course and have fun. Thanks man, your my hero.

Picture by Albe. Thanks for wheel.

It is very good to see all my friends from the 757 at these races. Last year this stuff happened and I was in the dark. Its a whole different type of racing and I sense my skills are improving every week. I think its time to take it up a notch. Top ten in the B race is my goal by the end of the season. Now the pressure is on.

After I got home we decided to skip the planned Halloween party and stick around the house and carve some pumpkins. I got mad pumpkin carving skills. Caitlyn, my 5 year old, wanted the spider. Jenni, my wife wanted the ghost. I carved the spider and Jenni did the ghost. Who wins the contest?


Tomorrow, Bryan Park.

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Isn't she cute!

Madelyn with a booboo on her finger...or she just wants to be left alone.


Monday, October 22, 2007

The rest is over!

Five day rest break. My body needed it. Busy hard work at the FTC and then training on the bike. No workout from Monday to Friday. So Saturday came around I was ready to ride hard. Two flat tires prevented that. Time to replace those tires.

Then came Sunday. Cobblestone Cross. Great time. I got 17th in the B race. I know its out of the points, but I'm still learning at this stuff. Probably should have pushed a bigger gear through most of the course. But it was a lot of fun.


Thanks to Marc and Shawn for staying right on my ass the whole race to keep me going. And Chris for keeping me thinking I could catch you for the first 6 laps before you took off.

Then Monday night...Velocity training. Three teams represented...Jimmy where were you? Form night, not too hard but wait till next week.
Guys, did you get anything out of the training?Tickets to gun show available every Monday night. Still not too late to join us.

I now I leave you with this thought. Picture it...Hunt Club Pumpkin patch. American Red Cross Blood Mobile parked there taking blood donations. On the back the words "Give Life", on the side (not visible in the picture) are the words "for your health, for your life". Leaning against the side are two obese nurses smoking waiting for to take peoples blood donations. Is this a joke???

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Soulja Boy

I present to you my nephew. Yes, the boy is confused.


Sunday, October 14, 2007

Corkscrew Cross and Other Adventures

Did my first cross race this weekend on a cross bike. It was interesting. The course was not hard, or at least not compared with the Trashmore practices. Very bumpy and very dusty. As soon as the race started we hit an area of dirt that kicked into a huge cloud. I could hardly see the person right in front of me. It was pretty cool. I didn't start off too fast. Figured I would get comfortable and hope to start picking riders off one by one. Didn't quit work that way. It started to, but then all of sudden I hit a huge hole and both my brakes locked up. I kept the bike upright but I could not figure out way they were locked up and how the hell was I going to fix them. I figured it out. I was riding on my hoods when I hit the hole. The force caused my hoods to slide down on my bars. Because the cable splits at the top mounted levers, moving the hoods moves the brakes. So I forced the hoods back up, but I was unable to use them the rest of the race. As I fixed it and was ready to start back up again, I saw the group of people I was with coming over the barriers. I was now a full lap behind. So I took the rest of the race as just fun and experience.

Today I took the mountain bike out to New Quarter with my brother James. It was my first trip there. Nice trail, I had a good time.

Tomorrow starts my five day rest period. I have been tired lately from work and training. We aren't burning all next week so it seemed like a good week for me to rest. Looking forward to the cross race next weekend. I think I am doing the one on Sunday.

Hopefully I can get some pictures. I left my camera at home, but Tim let my wife use his. So as soon as I get some pics from the race I'll post them. JB was there taking a lot of pictures so I'm sure will see some good shots. Hope everyone else is having a blast at Ironcross.

Sunday, October 7, 2007

Switch to Mulch

Tim and I met up at Ipswich this morning for an easy cross ride. After about 45 minutes he asked me if I had ever ridden the mulch trail. I had not. So we jumped in the vehicles and headed over there. That is a nice trail. Good job who ever made it. It was a good ride. Humid out. I'm kind of looking forward to some cross riding when its cold out...when will that happen.

On another note, who is going to do Velocity with us. If you need info let me know. Email me and I will send you the information. We are looking to start the week of October 15, so we need to start making the final plans. Let me know.

Friday, October 5, 2007

Trashmore TT




I think everyone was a little tired on Thursday night. I know I was. We are doing our company in-service burns (fire companies come to the training center and show the chiefs they are proficient at firefighting). We will be doing it through November. This was day 2 and I am already beat. I'm hoping I'll just get use to being in the burn building everyday for 2 months and hopefully it won't effect my training too much.

Well it was a low turnout at Trashmore and JB thought it would be good to do TT intervals. He picked the course and we each did 2 intervals. That was enough for me. Jimmy D. won them, good job.

Most of my time was spent just riding in circles at the top of the hill. At least the view is nice.
All pictures were taken by Kevin Horvath. Some things that occurred that was not captured on film.
  1. Me making a grand entrance to the parking lot. A cop was on Edwin looking for speeders. Everyone said that he almost nabbed them, but he did get me. 43 in a 25. In my defense, I didn't know it was only 25, I thought it was at least 35. I pulled into the parking lot with blue lights behind me. By the time Kevin was getting his camera, the cop had already given me my quick "slow down" and was on his way.
  2. Crazy crashing on his own barriers. He was late and was the last to do the time trial. He looked like he was going fast, but missed the jump. His hand had missed his bike and it threw him off. It was funny, but only because he wasn't hurt.