aggressive-aggressive

Not much of a movie buff, but this seems to good to be true.  Most anticipated movie since Premium Rush.

TNR tonight!

Stupidbowl xv

Thursday night kicked off 3 days of debauching that  put me to bed by 9:30 yesterday and left me still begging for sleep and recovery today.  Thursday went about how one would expect, except for the miraculous return of Jake the Snake who live with this dog now and rode along for a quick jaunt before being scared away.  The ride was nice and toasty and ended with a few stops at some of Eau Claire's finest drinking establishments before a flat tire sent me home.    

Friday night Chris Z got into town from Madison for Stuporbowl XV weekend.  I went over to Mags place intending on spending a couple hours over there before getting some decent sleep.  Of course those ideas were much more rooted in fantasy than in reality and in no time flat a group of us emptied a case of Old Mil and set to turning Mags basement into an aquatic salon. 

 Afterwards we hit up the J and after a pitcher I hit the road knowing all to well where the night would end if I stayed out any later.  Saturday was the Stuporbowl and after a Twizzlers stop Magyar, Chris Z and myself hit the road to nurse our funovers on the highway.  We parked at Magyars brothers house where we planned on crashing and headed over to One on One.  We got there early enough to not have to deal with much of a line and plenty of time to plan the race.

 Of course we hadn't learned our lesson after 2 years of doing this race we still didn't bring a decent map and ended up choosing a final strategy of winging it.  Not long after Andy got a hold of us and said he was at One on One with a map.  We headed back over to meet up and Andy and I hung out while Magyar worked on a route.  By this point the hundreds of people who do this race flocked in an it was a site to behold.  Lots of people, lots off cool bikes, and lots of bikes that looked something like this.

 This is where things get hairy.  We rode out to the start point and I got a few more shots in and after that it was pretty much non stop riding for 3 hours.  Lots of getting turned around and lots of fun riding.  Andy was fresh from getting hit and was originally kind of reluctant to ride that hard but in the end we al hung tight rode hard and had a ton of fun.

 It was a really good experience getting a bunch of friends together that all live in other places and getting to spend the day on bikes together just having a blast.  This is probably what I look forward to most doing this race and I was not let down.  We grabbed some grub at the Triple Rock and headed back to home base to recover for a bit and get ready to check out the rest of the after race festivities at the Nomad.  I'm sure in the next week or so a lot of photos of those festivities are going to arise so in the mean time I will leave them to your imagination.

 We split from the Nomad and hit up a couple more places and ripping around town before closing down Grumpy's and rolling back to home base for the night.

 I went for a little walk to stretch my legs, reflect on the day, and recover a bit.  By the time I got back someone had got the idea to start a fire in the back yard. We found a super convenient fire pit and got to work.

Around 5am we ran finally bottomed out and hit the sack.  

Sunday I was in no shape to do much of anything other than drive home, take a shower, and go back to sleep so I did just that waking up just long enough to watch the Superbowl and return to bed.  So what I'm getting at is that this was an awesome weekend.  I got to hang out with awesome people, ride a bunch, eat a bunch, and see some people I haven't seen in a long time.  More than anything it got me more excited for this summer and a whole new year of bike adventures.  It's easy to get bogged down in the daily routine of commuting and weekends like this help remind you of why you ride your bike in the first place.  It's fun.  

Well anyway, more later, I've got a game to get to.  Adios

LeBron

Don't care about basketball, but it's good to see these mega-millionaire sports types defying stereotypes and getting out on bikes.

"Due to the Miami Marathon, traffic getting to AmericanAirlines Arena was brutal for today’s Heat-Bulls matinee. As reported by ABC during the telecast, LeBron James took the traffic into consideration and made alternate plans for his commute — specifically, he rode his bike."

Video here

Now if only they could do something about the consistently asinine smarmy commentary that these sports commentators always have.

coming soon

The 4th annual St. Valentines Day Hustle ice race is coming up on Feb. 11 in Menomonie.  This is another event that I have missed in years past, but will probably be making it to this year. It looks like a real hoot.  They don't have a flyer so here's a picture of Danezig with his shirt off from Volume One and the facebook info.

  More info here

The weekend prior is Stuporbowl and the week after is Frostbike so it looks like I'm going to be keeping busy.  See ya'll there!

recap

 Saturday was the Powder Keg snowshoe and snow bike race out at Lowes Creek.  Without realizing it until just now this also kicked off a 4 weekend long extravaganza of weekend bike things to do. But more on that in a bit.  

 I went out early to scope out the conditions and lends a hand where hands were needed.  I got to see a whole bunch of people running through the snow and huddle around a fire.  By the time the bike race started quite a few of the runners had cleared out.  I guess that is the risk you run organizing events in the dead of winter.  

 Oodles of people showed up to race and spectate the snow bike race which I was pleasantly surprised to see.  Unfortunately my camera died not long after the Le Mans start

 The group took off together, but by the first lap the skinny bikes had clearly fallen back and the ski trail had begun rutting up enough to make it a chore for everyone.  At this point I was running around the woods hooting and hollering so I don't have much play by play.  The race wrapped up and everyone went in to warm up.  The whole event was fun to go check out and big props to the organizers and racers.

The rest of my weekend was spent laying low and dressing up my cat in onsies I found in the laundry.

.

jams

T.G.I.F.





Popeye re-runs were a favorite of mine as a kid and I'm an absolute sucker for all the Uncle Tupelo offshoots.

Black Lips - "Raw Meat" from Urban Outfitters on Vimeo.

Dake

A while ago, well two years ago now, I posted a trailer for "Riding the Long White Cloud." A movie about skating and bike touring.  The whole things is available to watch now and it's pretty cool.  Check it out below.



Riding the Long White Cloud Part 1 from predatory bird on Vimeo.


Riding the Long White Cloud part 2 from predatory bird on Vimeo.