angst

Long day at the office.





How much angst can you take?

wolverine faces

wisco

Some friends are on a tour of Wisconsin's famed beer and cheese regions (the entire state) and living it up.  Worth a peak to see some of the finer things in life. Wisconsin Barns, Beers, and Cheese.

vaca

Thursday night ride tonight, then heading up north to go camping the rest of thee weekend. T.G.I.T.

food

 It's that time of year again when you can go to the farmers market and get a ridiculous amount of food for next to nothing.  As a result I've found myself wanting to cook and eat every hour of every day. This was my dinner a couple nights ago all left to simmer as a curry for about an hour dished up over rice with cloves which was turned into fried rice later.

 Tonight's tempeh reubens.

 Some oldies. Grilled portabellas, morning star, wine, salad, and steak and chicken for those so inclined.

 Home made nachos with black beans, corn, tomatos, peppers, cheese, and more

Seriously, go to your local farmers market and take advantage of the bounty before the shit hits the fan and the cold weather rolls in.

acc

Saturday was the All City Championships in Minneapolis.  I got up early to do some work stuff, but wrapped that up around noon ate some lunch and headed to Magyars. He had already gone through and mapped the announced checkpoints and despite the fact that we knew their would be surprises the race looked like it might be a bit shorter than we had imagined.  Anyway we hopped in the car and met up with Andy in Anoka, all three of us piled in and got downtown and got our stuff together.

At One on One we met up with my friend Justin who was fresh back from a cross country tour he finished up just that week, then we went to register which raised a whole bunch of questions when a second manifest wasn't handed out.  Then with about half an hour before start time they finally handed out manifests.  Suffice it to say that the manifest stretched out our initial mileage two fold and involved a ton of back and forth, 4 pick ups to be completed in order and drops, a crosstown hustle with a sealed manifest, and another few checkpoints.  I was totally dumbfounded so I just let Mags do the routing and waited for the start.  Le Mans style start sent everyone scrambling and then we hit the road.

Justin zipped up and rode with, which was awesome to have another person with some sense of direction along, seeing as how I was just pointed in a direction and went. Andy dropped off and it ended up just being us three. The rest of the race is a blur. Normally I am a pretty law abiding cyclist. Their really isn't enough of a rush or traffic to necessitate being lawless in a city like Eau Claire.  That said I love racing alleycats because all of that goes out the window.  Their is nothing like riding with confident strong riders through any and every obstacle imaginable.  Words can't describe the feeling you get doing a race like this, you just need to do it.  Anyway, by race end I was getting pretty spent, and Mags and Justin were still just killing it, we rolled into Peacock Groove after about three hours and around 40 some miles we ended up coming in 50somethingth.  Which I am totally happy with for a couple out of towners who lost half an hour in routing, and stopped for a beer during the race. For convenience sake we both brought fixed gears, which I think might not be the plan next time.

We grabbed some beers and hung around the Twin City Framebuilders Cooperative for a bit checking out toally awesome bikes before running over to Pizza Luce for a couple slices. 

Again, the rest of the night is kind of a blur. Andy got there and we all drank a bunch of free Surly, looked at bikes, and after much effort got a shirtless dance party started.  Found out lots of people in Minneapolis are a little more reserved in their dancing and shirt wearing than us Wisconsin folk. But all that aside we met a ton of very cool, very nice, very fun people who showed us some big city bike riding hospitality. 

We got back to Andy's around 2am and with no beer to be had we all hit the sack hard.  Got up had a mega breakfast and headed back home.  Totally awesome weekend and can't wait to do it again. Mega thanks to all the neat people we met, come to our next race and we will repay the favor.

cat power

This little lady moved in a while ago and never got her moment in the spotlight. Her name is Rocky and she is likes dreadlocks, quiet nights at home, girl time, and watching the computer. Yes this means I have 3 cats, yes I know that means I'm a cat person now. Yes, she's worth it.

media

After fighting with Vimeo I finally it the bullet and just uploaded every little thing I've ever tried making to Youtube.  The quality is actually a lot better for my crappy point and shoot stuff on Youtube, but you have to deal with the fact that Youtube is kind of a wasteland of some of the most ridiculous stuff on the internet. Anyway, I also uploaded this which was supposed to be uploaded a month ago. Whoops!

non-emergency

good

Just too damn good

5

Five days until the Vuelta. More here

Saturday

Got up early yesterday, ate a big breakfast of faken and eggs, and went on a ride with Derek and Magyar.  We set off for Menomonie, but ended up at Rock Falls Raceway to watch some drag racing. 

 From there we rode in to Durand, got some snacks and a few beers, answered a personal ad, and headed down to the river. Rode back into town on the trail the whole way, around 70 miles and a perfect way to spend a Saturday afternoon.

scallywags

 A few years ago I was hanging out with my friend Justin in Minneapolis when he moved in with a bunch of the Scallywag's guys.  He showed me this neat coffee mug he had made with a brake lever handle.  I thought it was the coolest ever.  Well it looks as though the Scallywags folks have gotten serious about making them and they look great.

I drink far to much coffee, so this was especially exciting for me to see.  Support these dudes and pick one up

  

work

This is too cool. "The only work I do is riding my bike"

ACC

I've missed this race for one reason or another for the past couple of years. This year I am making a formal commitment to it.  Should be a blast. More info here. Get off work, lets convoy up and ride (party) till we drop.

memoirs from the secret spot

 Again, I have no idea where the time has gone the past week or so.  Took some time today to sleep in and go for a little bike ride and relax.  More later.

tricks

It's no secret that I think fixed gear freestyle is totally idiotic.  For the most part it is stupid looking tricks on stupid looking bikes with little to no style.  But all that said this is pretty impressive.

from the vault

 I have no idea where the past week has gone, so here are some old pictures to look at until the past catches up to now.