Fall construction

This weekend marks the start of construction for the upcoming winter season at STC.
I have organized the fleet of cycles, and i am trying to put more storage together to keep stuff up of the floor. STC doubles as the play area for the boys 98% of the time, so its my new imposed goal to make STC functional for bikes and boys. I havent been able to persuade upper management for a full coffee bar, but things are in the works to see some good traffic this fall.
I will send out the blanket invite now: all are invited to participate. Bring a trainer and a towel and your rig. Times are to be determined, but im leaning toward 7 or 8 am on saturday and probably 8 am sundays as well.
I do need to upgrade a few pieces f stability control for my trainer, since im pimping out the new eco friendly monster bike as well.

Here at STC, we have big trucks, monster bikes, and well... small junk according to upper management.

Hilly...

Well another year of the Hilly Hundred has come and gone, and i can honestly say that this one will go in the top 10 Hilly's. Enmark and i were pretty critical early on, a few of the regulars we're not going to make it down, and i was especially bummed out making the trip down without Lenny. For years i had tried to convince him to come down, and it sounded like this year he was on board with the trip. The weather forecast improved every day we looked at it, ending up chilly saturday morning, and nice in the afternoon, with sunday starting out nice and ending BEAUTIFUL! We had a good sized crew, good laughs, good chats, good fun. Not as many hand slings this year, but Barker and Hill get the "who is slinging who" award. I handed out a few t-shirts as prizes - Garland was to receive the Cougar Hunter shirt, but his pro contract came in early and he made the trip out west. He called us to let us know he missed us, we told him to hurry up and get on a plane! T-Rent was the early saturday contender for the "your retarded" shirt, but Enmark posted up a late ride chop in a corner of the hotel parking lot on Spencer, and i awarded it to him. That was short lived - after a meal with some beers, a stogie, and additional drinks, and late night taco bell, Trent reclaimed the "your retarded" prize by not only missing sunday breakfast, but passing on the entire ride due to it coming out of both ends of him.
I honored Lenny not making the trip by busting out a can of silly string for the bean blossom descent out of morgan monroe. I was able to blast most of the crew, but especially got Spencer with some really awesome cling on silly string pieces. That was some funny stuff.
I won the " how did you stay on your bike" award after blasting a pothole i never saw, getting the front wheel up off the ground and turned 90 degrees with no hands on the bars. Somehow i miraculously got my hand on it and got it straight before disaster hit. Barker and Hill both crapped their pants, and i never knew what happened until they told me.
A good time was had by all, i gotta give Credit to the G man for making me bust open some $2 bills from the bank - they were a HIT!
Good news is i am working on getting rooms reserved for next year already, so we are not hosed with triple expensive rooms in a dumpy joint.

Missing the good stuff...

Its that time of the year in the midwest when it starts getting light later and later, and gets dark earlier and earlier. I gotta thank the guys that decided to push back the time change by a few weeks in spring and fall, so we get to hang on to the last few bits of daylight for a few extra weeks now. It seems that we lose like 5 minutes a day.
I have decided that it is time to quit commuting on the road bike, and dust off (literally) the cross hog and get her ready for the task. Its more comfy to roll on, and im not as worried about the glass and road crap on the bomber tires.
I kitted it up with the lights and have been on it twice this week now for the commute.
I gotta say it - i LOVE my cross bike, but i want my SRAM back!!!
The Pumpkin (the cross hog) sports some older 9 sp Dura Ace, and i gotta say, DA is NOT where its at, especially the 9 sp stuff. I miss my SRAM Force!!! that IS where its at!!!
Now we all know im loyal to my SRAMies, and i have nothing but GREAT things to say about the Force, but even if i didn't know those guys, i need to spread the word that after a season on Force, the old DA just feels crappy. And to think for years it was the mainstay in my race rigs. Now its a 3rd class citizen, it feels more like an old Shimano Sante group.. ya the ones with the bad two tone paint and biopace? remember that travesty??

I gotta call up the boys and put my order in for some Force or Rival to bring the Pumpkin up to par with the rest of my fleet.

Moral of the story - if your not on SRAM, your NOT where its at!

@%&#ing ?\$!< shoes

well. my alarm went off right on time, i got up, checked the weather to find that at 630am it was already 71 degrees, a perfect morning for a ride. especially considering its october i was happy, so i grabbed my helmet and shades, my road ID tag, pulled on some shorts, filled my bottles, loaded the truck and off i went.
got about 2 blocks from the WS starbucks and realized what any astute reader knows already... i forgot my shoes. Stooooooooopid. Called Tawse, he had shoes, but no extra pedals and cleats. the guys were riding with the tower dorks, so there was no tme to wait for me to make a roundtrip home and back with kicks.
my 'friends' were gracious enough to point out funny things like 'no room in that big truck for shoes??' funny guys.. no really they are. funny like the time a former teammate made fun of me for having such a big bag of gear when traveling to a race. when it started raining he asked if i had a spare rain cape. i told him i had 2 spares in my big bag, but i didnt feel like riding back to the car to get it; i was warm and dry in my rain cape.
note to self - - take your shoes with ya dummy.
i will be riding to group rides in the future and packing my gear the nite before from now on.

october chicken

could this be the first chickenride ever in october??
Fred, King and I set out for a late season edition of the Chicken.
We need to check with the worthy keeper of the annals, but we think this is the first chickenride ever held in october. We kitted up with lights and kept the route simple and ended up close to home in the neighborhoods by the time the lights were really needed. Since i'm not in the habit of carrying a high speed digital camera on my rides, the cameraphone will have to do. The pics are lousy, but you get the point.
Thanx King for a great route!
see ya next week

The countdown begins....

Its time for the T-Rent to rev up his of season game. For most, the season is over, or has been over for sometime. For a select few the end of season "didyaseeme" will occur at Hilly, but for us its a time to tell new stories, old stories, and even make up stories, and to end the year with the Official Slow Race of the Year. (Hilly Hundred) This is a time of chugging Mickeys at the start and watching our friends pack fried chicken into their jersey pockets at the rest stop. Hopefully T-Rent has not stopped the bike training, and has stepped up his game for his beer training. Time will tell, but the countdown is on... T minus 10 days!