dork tricks

wamy zamy

In case you didn't hear/notice west central Wisconsin was hit with a storm that dropped around 5" of wet snow and slush last night.  This has resulted in the entire city being crippled with power outages and stuck cars.  This morning their is freezing rain, slush, and 20mph winds.  I saw a dozen stuck or plowed in cars this morning, it took me an extra 5 minutes to get to work.

From EC Velo on Facebook.

third half

 Saturday I managed to pull myself out of bed at a decent hour and got some house chores taken care of when I got a call inviting me to go bowling.  I can't remember the last time I went bowling so I jumped at the chance to go try it out again.  Whenever I get to try something new their is always this part of me that thinks "I'm going to be a total natural at this and I'm so good and have so much fun this becomes my passion. I can't wait to try this thing out!"  Then after bout half an hour I realize that that has never been true and I really need to stop setting myself up for failure.  What I'm getting at here is that their is a reason I haven't bowled in so long and I was reminded of it on Saturday, I'm terrible at it.

 I did have a lot of fun though and afterwards Magyar and I dicked around on our bikes for a good half hour before I headed home to relax and get ready for another show.  Jen and I layed around before heading over to the WUEC Showcase. To check out the good people in Adelyn Rose, Zoo Animal, and Daredevil Christopher Wright.  I was really stoked about all the bands and it was really nice to see some friends really nail their craft.  I sometimes forget how talented some of the people I've had the pleasure to meet are, and this was a nice reminder. I'm sure their will be a ton of pictures up at Peer Validated in no time if you are really interested in checking them out.  Even if your not you should still be reading Peer Validated, so check it out.

 Sunday Jen and I headed out to my dads to go tap trees for maple syrup.  This is something We've been doing as long as I can remember and it's something I look forward too every year.  This year we went out a lot earlier than years past dud to the warm weather and tapped the same trees we have been tapping for probably a dozen years.

 We tap on this property about 5 miles out past my dads house at the end of a beat up old road that's impassible by car during the muddy spring. It's a really pretty area surrounded by picturesque Wisconsin scenes; farms, cows, rolling fields, trees, gravel roads, that kind of stuff, and I was a little disappointed in the grey weather but still took the chance to play around in the woods with the family dog.

 So that was my weekend. Get out and have fun, their is a storm brewing.

first half

 I'm still dealing with the effects of reality rushing back after a really action packed weekend.  Thursday night Magyar and I hit up some tree forts, went to a secret cave, and rode some bikes off of some ledges.  Somewhere during the night my lock went MIA and I turned in early before anything else could happen.  

 Friday night Jen and I hit up happy hour with some folks before heading over to Nate's Dungeon to check out the I O, Defenstrator, Morality Crisis, Orwell show. It's been some time since I've been to Nate's and this show definitely didn't disappoint.  Like a lot of people going to random house shows was a big part of my adolescence and I feel like that impact was compounded by living so far away from any sort of live music.  When I finally could make it to shows I had no option but to go totally ape shit over whatever band was playing and I still feel that way a lot to this day.  I only caught a couple sets before splitting, but I was totally blown away and I highly recommend checking out the bands.      

After a couple sets Jen and I rode over to Matthews to hang out with some fine folks and eat some fine food in celebration of Andy 1's weekend in town and the WUEC Music Showcase the following day.  Had a blast, rolled home and passed out.

Valleycat VI

May 12, more details TBA, mark you calendar.  See you then.

tool

Makes me want to ride more just knowing it will ruin this guys day.

click

 I recently updated my Flickr page with a bazillion more never before seen photos, and I even took the time to create some loosley constructed "sets".  Check out more soothing imagery like these here at said Flickr page.

skills

Danny MacAskill, Daniel Dehrs, and Martin Soderstrom putting every other cyclist in the world to shame.

Sunday

 Sunday was an impromptu ice race.  A large highly competitive field showed up and made it one of the most hotly contested races I've seen to date.

It was a really fun way to spend an amazing Sunday in February long after we would normally have organized an ice race. In the fray I didn't get much in the way of photos, but there are oodles on the EC Velo facebook page, check em out here if you know whats good for you.

blinganchi

Got $14,000 burning a hole in your pocket and just dying for a new ugly city bike.  Bianchi and Gucci got you covered.  I'll take three. 

Frostbike 2

 A few more quick shots from Frostbike.

 Big Dummy trailer hitch

Frostbike

 Saturday was Frostbike 2012 at QBP in Minneapolis and Magyar, Derek, Ryan, and myself all headed up to drool over all the new bike goodies for 2012 and get free powerbars.  I managed to pull myself out of bed and get over to Dereks at 7 for morning refreshments.  

 We got into Murderappolis threw away the empties and emptied the tank before heading in and meeting up with EC transplant and QBP I.T. man Joe for a bit and heading to scratch and dent.

On the way to scratch and dent Salsa had a S&S coupled fargo and this ridiculous full suspension fat bike on display.  Aside from these prototypes Salsa didn't have anything new on display, but the hype around a full suspension fat bike seemed to be big enough for them to not have to bring much else.  

 After a bit of shopping we started checking out displays.  This is my first Frostbike and I was more than a little excited.  It was everything I could have hoped for.  An entire day of eyecandy and a chance to actually play with the stuff you normally just get to look at on the internet. It's not every day you get to ride a Campagnolo carbon frame with Super Record EPS on it.  

 Or my personal favorite of the day, a Pugsly with Bionx electric assist.  The fastest, most fun fat bike I've ever had the pleasure of riding.

 I'm no journalist, so if you are looking for super detailed coverage of all of the displays and new goodies you are barking up the wrong tree, but suffice it to say their was some very cool stuff a lot of which involved converting everything mechanical to hydraulics...  

And there was some not so cool stuff that lets you pretend you are riding a bike when you are actually just sitting on one in your living room...  

 After a while Magyar and I grabbed some food and headed outside for lunch and some test riding.  We headed back in for round two and checked out the rest of the displays before we were rounded up by Ryan who was ready to hit the road.  We still had beer left so Magyar and I grabbed some cans and hit the single track around QBP with some borrowed Mukluks before heading in one last time to make sure we didnt miss anything and share our libations.

 More beer drinking, more stationary bike riding, and a few high fives later we hit the road.

So that was my Frostbike 2012 experience.  It was an awesome time and by the time I got home I was totally wiped out and hit the sack.  Like I said, I barely scratched the surface of the products shown considering pretty much every major vendor you can think of was there with very cool new stuff.  If you want a little more details check out the QBP Youtube channel for more info or just keep an eye on the new QBP catalog.  Big thanks to Eau Claire's top shop Bike and Sport for bringing me along to this, can't wait for next year.

thursday

Bikes, bridges, beers, and all you can eat bacon by the basket.

FGFS

If their were ever an argument against fixed gear free style I feel like this would be it.  Far more impressive than any fixed gear free style video I've ever seen and it's all on a cruiser.

 I feel like I've been a bad dad to this blog lately with the lack of posts, but to be fair the past couple weekends have been so packed that I feel like I've barely had the time to decompress from one before the other begins.  This is not a complaint mind you, just an observation.  I feel like their are very few February's that seem to go as well as this one so it is quite the relief.  Anyway Thursday ended up being one of the laziest TNR's on record.  Meaning that it ended up being 4 of us walking to Scott's house to drink beer, eat pizza, and watch Hobo with a Shotgun.  That happens sometimes I guess.  

 Saturday Magyar and I headed to Menomonie for the St. Valentines Day Hustle ice race.  This is the fourth annual running of the race on Lake Menomin and it was a really fun time. It was a cold windy day but we were pleasantly surprised to see a good pack of racers on all sorts of bikes had made it out with smiles on their faces.

 Despite being aware of this race and intending to go over a month in advance I still only managed to get one tire studded, and failed to get it on the bike by launch time, so I was stuck riding the regular commuter.  We go going and I managed to get in the front 5 or so until the 4th checkpoint when we were told we needed to go back across the lake to grab a beer. Knowing all to well that all race organizers throughout history are bold faced liars who's goal in life is to make racers work harder than they want too I figured I could climb off the lake and find a gas station/liquor store in enough time to come back and pick up a position.  I was wrong. I ended up adding a ton of time to my race, and handed my manifest in DFL.

We went in and got warmed up when AG2 showed up fresh from the ride in from Eau Claire.  Awards happened, and I managed to snag a prize for DFL finish and we hung around for a bit longer eating some food and grabbing some coffee before hitting the road.

Overall awesome time. Glad we finally made it out for one of these.  It's not every day you get to dodge ice-fishing tip ups and snowmobiles while racing your bike. Sunday was laundry and gun shooting day out at my dads house.

Awesome weekend, can't wait for Friday.