giro

Contador won the Giro by over 5 minutes and with total style and grace.  I know that people who care about such things are going to be extremely irritated seeing as how nobody seems to like Contador much, but after his showing in the Giro I just don't see it.  The guy did what he needed to do to secure a win and then played it safe, stepped aside,  and let other people take some stage wins.  Anyway, check out some of the 45 switchbacks half of which were gravel on stage 20.

 

flicker

Thought these were worth posting.

Mountain Biking Patagonia


Trans Andes Challenge from Team Jamis on Vimeo.

And the Rapha male modeling, amateur philosophy, expensive taste, fancy camera, pastel afficianado, graphic deisghn and cycling club put out a 17 minute edit of road riding the US.


Rapha Continental – The Movie from RAPHA on Vimeo.

early summer

It's almost summertime in America.  That means road trips, pizza farms, bike rides, and camp fires.

dischord

When I was a teenager I fell in love with 80's hardcore. I think a lot of it had to do with the huge influence those bands had on the Eau Claire hardcore scene, which I admired so much being a kid in rural Wisconsin.  Eventually I got my hands on "American Hardcore" by Steven Blush and it became my bible for years afterwards. In the back of the book there was a discography of all of the most important releases of the 1980s and it became my mission to hunt them down.  One of the first things I got my hormonal teenage paws on was Minor Threat's Complete Discography. I must have been 14 or 15 and was totally blown away by what I heard.  And by the fact that these were kids that recorded this stuff when they were not much older than me. Ian MacKaye became an instant idol and Dischord has remained on of my favorite record labels since. I've been listening to a lot of Dischord stuff lately and it's funny how when you follow a certain label you can trace your own trip through adolescence(Void, Minor Threat, Government Issue, SOA) onward(Fugazi, Rites of Spring, Evens, Beauty Pill)  along with their roster, and how certain bands and people are so important to shaping your sense of identity and personal aesthetic.  All that being said, this is really just a long winded way of saying here's some music that I enjoy and some footage of Ian MacKaye working at a Hagen Das.

fmly

Jen moved in the other day and brought a new housemate with.  His name is Mysterio, yes after THAT Mysetrio. Jen named him, don't blame me.

fan club

I'm firmly of the belief that you will never find anyone who 100% complies with your belief system.  Most the time you even end up disagreeing with yourself on things.  There is this part the "The Monkey Wrench Gang" where our protagonists argue about the ecological downsides of using a chainsaw to cut down billboards along the interstate at which point they decide "forget it, our duty is to destroy billboards." I like that because at a certain point you just have to bite the bullet and realize you are just here to do what you can with the resources given to you.  I like this video because besides all the artsy fartsy prosaic junk it kind of embodies that idea.

It also reminds me of what a unifying force drinking some beer and having fun can be. Plus I'm just a sucker for this sort of contemporary Americana stuff.

all the way up, all the way down

 Summer means going places you've never been before.

valleycat

More Valleycat photos are starting to surface, and some of the insanity of that event is starting to shine through. This photo is easily one of my favorites of them all.

Seriously, if you weren't there you missed out.

tuesday

 Rode out on Lowes Creek  south to Strum.  Gorgeous day in a beautiful state.

recovery

 It's been two days since the Valleycat and I still feel like my body is recovering.  Don't be mistaken however, thats a good thing.  Thursday night I got out of work at 4 headed home and started my four day weekend off cracking a Shlitz and then heading down to the Cn'H  for 2-for-1 burgers.  The Court-n-House is kind of a Thursday night tradition, and since they started selling veggie burgers I can finally join in the fun. Besides Thursdays it is also just probably one of my favorite bars ever, good beer, grill open all night, good staff, and only a couple blocks away. But I digress.

We filled up and split for the ride.  It was a surprisingly small crew for a pre-Valleycat ride, but tons of fun none the less. Hit up the mini-golf course did some more rideing and ended up at the top of the world where we were company to a couple of groups of different people before Sam and Matt met up with us. 

 Much fun was had, but at some point we decided to split and head back to bike house for some more beers. 

The rest of the night was kind of a blur.

 Friday I went out to Northwest for a bit of riding to try and work off some of the pizza and beer from the night before and to kill time before the Spag feed at Derek's. A group of us met up at Bike and Sport and rode around town for a bit before ending up at Dereks where we were treated to Spaghetti, Garlic Bread, and homemade sauce.  Total ridiculous carbo-loading accompanied by another couple cases of beer.

A few of us cut out and headed down to Sam and Matt's to chill there for a bit and talk to some people who were in town for the occasion. We only stayed out for a bit longer then crashed pretty hard. I can't help but note how awesome it is to know that there are little pockets of people around the city that were getting together and eating together, and hanging out, and having fun all weekend just because of this race. That brings us to race day.

                                  

Saturday was not an ideal day for a bike race. It was chilly, drizzly, and windy all day. But judging by the turnout and peoples attitudes most of them didn't get the memo.  Everyone was in a really good mood and just seemed happy to be there.  Two overflowing tables of prizes probably helped the situation quite a bit. 

   

 Jake, Sam and I had talked a bit about riding together prior to the race. So after registering we met up and spent some serious time actually planning the route. Routing is not my strong point. I'm pretty directionally challenged and every single alleycat I've tried to route myself I usually end up putting in way more effort than I should have. But with a few bad misses I actually wanted to do well this year and we sat down and put some thought into it.

The race group ended up being me, Jake, Sam, and his cousin.  There was a ride out to Red Flint and the obligatory Le Mans start and we were off.  Dan picked us up and tailed us for the first half the race.  Through most of the first half we stayed pretty tight but the last few long stretches started to pull the group apart and Dan dropped on the sprint to the last stop at Hendrikson Hill.  I was starting to feel a bit of fatigue and just dropped my head and rode as hard as I could to close the gap on the group, but by the time I looked up near campus Jake and Sam had disappeared. Sam's cousin (sorry I forgot your name) was there and said they headed right at the intersection which I knew was the wrong way so we just kept riding. We got to the hill and slammed down it rear wheel locked up pretty much the whole distance.

I kind of panicked for a minute because I kept expecting to see the checkpoint person right ahead of me but it wasn't until the bottom of the hill I saw him perched in the woods. We got our manifests stamped, waited for the other two guys for a minute and agreed to just keep going ahead with the race solo. Lucky for us we only had one more stop.  Through the last part of the race I didn't see a whole lot of racers out so I figured we were either doing pretty well, or doing pretty bad. Fortunately once we got to Centennial  the checkpoint person said we were in 5th and 6th. I knew we didn't stand a chance on catching the rest of the group because they passed us on our way out, but we agreed to just give it hell on the way out anyway.  I felt kind of bad for dropping an out of towner one stop away from home but I just rode it in.

I guess I got 5th overall which I'm very happy with. I know Sam and Jake could have easily gotten in before me, but I guess they never found the hill, which was a pretty common story that day. Coupled with the weather and some pretty crafty checkpoints I think there were quite a few DNF's which makes me even happier to place 5th out of 86, especially considering some of the talent that finished 1-4. Definitely a pretty brutal race this year, definitely tons of fun.

 Then the real good stuff started. Everybody crammed in the Pavilion for the after party and started into the kegs. Mandatory race story telling, 45 pizzas, three kegs of beer tons of prizes.

 Broken bikes

 Several more cases of beer drank and sprayed all over, and a totally insane dance party put the park to sleep .  Afterwards we picked up and a bunch of us headed back to the Court n'House. After a couple baskets of fries this is where I checked out for the night and headed home. Sunday was a total relax day.  I spent a couple hours at Northwest and from there my body just kind of shut down and I was in bed by 10.

I am not even going to attempt to express the epic proportions of this weekend. If you live in or near Eau Claire, never ever ever miss a Valleycat. Thanks so much to everyone who came out on a kind of crummy day with huge smiles on their faces and made the best of it. I live for this stuff.

TCB

North of Ten is taking care of business!


Osiris Shoes - Ryan Nyquist & Arik Elstran in Milwaukee from Osiris BMX on Vimeo.

Unbelievable!

ride safe

Ride safe everyday, especially when you show up to the Valleycat on Saturday.  Crashes happen to everyone, even pros. 

Between Cavendish's whining in stage two and this guy getting killed in stage three, it's shaping up to be a pretty interesting Giro.

On a lighter note, look at these fun Paris-Roubaix photos from this year on the Steephill site

TNR AND VALLEYCAT! COME TO BOTH! BRING ALL OF YOUR FRIENDS TO THE VALLEYCAT!

suns

 Went for a backroads ride and ended up in Rock Falls. Ate an apple, watched the falls, and headed to the trail at Carryville.

 Which is apparently in some very serious disrepair requiring a stream crossing about 6 miles from EC.

That's all. The weather is great, go ride a bike.

9 days

VALLEYCAT 5 IN JUST 9 DAYS!  GET READY!

tuesday

Kid Dynamite
Comadre
Her Space Holiday