On the long side of Time..

Well, here in the frozen tundra of Chi-Town, we have made it past the winter Solstice, which occurred saturday the 22nd. The shortest day of the year means that we do have daylight from 11:27am till 1:52pm in the day time, or at least it seems that way. Just the other day i went to lunch and it was getting dark when we were walking back to the office. Hopefully the days of growing daylight will smile on us to get a few outdoor rides in, but with the temp in the teens, and windchills below zero - im staying on my cozy trainer for now.

Fat kid - out.

STC indoor Bike Practice

Sunday is calling for Warm, but rainy. If its dry i suggest an outdoor ride. If its wet, STC will be open and hosting Bike Practice at 8am.
Come one, come all.

Get moving

I needed a fresh face for Lenny at the top of the page.
Tomorrow will mark 4 months since we laid our friend to rest, and i have to admit, i think about him every day. Every day he makes me laugh about somethin. Today i missed getting the phone call about how T-Mobile is dropping sponsorship, and what trick new part just came out that we both need to get this off season.
I thought a lot of the hours we spent next to each other either on the road or on the trainer.
Its that time of year here that Chicago ends up being a pretty nasty place to ride your bike anywhere but the trainer; and its thanks to Lenny that we both suffered through countless sessions on the trainer together.
Tonight i drug the trainer out, locked down the road rig to it, and pedaled for 30 minutes.
Nothing special, just 30 minutes.
Not a singe pedal stroke went by that i wasn't missing him next to me joking and laughing, mostly because he left me his cyclops training block with the 3 different riser positions, and i figured i might as well use it.
Tomorrow i plan on getting another 45 minutes in before work. and the day after, and the day after.
It will be my own little honor to Leonard, to keep him fresh in our hearts and minds.

Happy Turkey

The usual suspects gathered in the woods for the Annual Turkey ride down at the willow springs woods. We did have some unusual suspects and a guest appearance by Christian Vandevelde.
It was fun to ride with CVV again, the guy is 1st class and funny as can be. He got style points for riding his new Felt cross rig - but threw away some of those points by riding road shoes and pedals, and then endo-ing into a mud puddle in front of me.
We got in 2 hours in the dirt. It was a little sloppy, but a blast.
The temp was pretty chilly, but the big snow flakes in the air made a pretty picture.

I'm typing this now, because i am one of the unlucky ones to have to work today. Blah. Isn't that what i went to college for?

Well this weekend does mark the opening of the 2008 season, and for all you youngsters at home - its time to break out the winter gear and start piling on the hours.

Fat Kid - OUT

LIQUIDATION SALE

Here at STC we are getting ready for the '08 campaign and that means we gotta make room!
Upper management says that this winter STC needs to be more organized and more streamlined...
Let our loss be your gain!

2005 Giant TCR Comp Carbon - Size Small– Dura Ace 10sp, except for cranks – DA 9 sp style. 172.5mm cranks – 39/53 rings. Deda Newton Bars and Stem – 12cm stem, 42cm bars c-c. 31.8 OS clamp size. Mavic Classics Elite wheels, 32sp. Its on Ebay for 1800, for friends 1600 complete.

2002 Schwinn Moab MTB – 17” size. This was the wifes MTB, never really rode it. Its got shimano 8 sp trigger shifters, and shimano components. Disc brakes F and R. Rock Shock front suspension. For friends - $100

2006 Mavic Ksyrium Equipe wheels – 20sp Front – Radial, 24 sp Rear – 2 cross. Velox rim strip, used 1 year, MAYBE 2000 miles. Friend Price - $150

Cant remember the year, but it’s a 52cm Jake the Snake Cross bike. It’s a Mix of shimano parts. Ultegra Rear derr, 9 sp. Dura Ace 9 sp shifters, Tektro top mount in line cross brakes, Avid shorty Canti’s, Spinergy Spox wheels and Hutchinson cross Tires. This bike has always been too big for me. It fits like a 54 or 55cm road bike would. 53.3 cm top tube.

Friends - $500

I have pics if you need them, call me or email with questions

Rich

708-284-3262

rjsmott@gmail.com

ride in.. ride out...

So i couldn't pass up the opportunity to enjoy some 50 degree weather in mid November. I packed my gear this am and pedaled into work. I think its the first time in a month, since the entire family was sick for what seemed an eternity. It was nice, brisk in the am, but they were touting high 50's late afternoon. They were also calling for high winds. Well, the wind was delivered as promised, but the temps were barely around 50 when i left to head home. It was motivation to ride faster.
I love the nite rider lights, they are tons better than some of the older lighting systems i have seen. I enjoy nite riding, but im much more comfy when its on a path, or at least out of traffic. The new route home is better than Ogden ave, but still gotta be alert no matter how dressed up like a Christmas tree me and the bike are.

All good... perhaps this will be the start of a new streak..
its about that time to start the 2008 campaign.

Cluck Cluck

Hilly pictures are in, i need to get them loaded in and get a link up for all of you to enjoy.
We have some winners this year and the added plus of NO pics of Nate's pecker.

cheers!

Old Skooooool...

For anyone who has raced a bike, and for those that have recently picked up the sport, its worth your time to go through all these segments and go though time with Superweek.

Teams: Saturn, LA Sherrif, Coors Light, Shaklee, Turin
Names: Wasko, Matush, Gaggioli, Ventura, Carney, Colletta, Wust, Mionski

Old skool indeed.... this was the glory days of Superweek, but i will say i like it better now, because Otto pays prize money the day you win it, not 3 years later like the good ol days.
Check out the trispokes, oakley sub zeros, and some sweet foam helmet covers

Segment 4 has a display of jerseys that is a great throwback to the day that racing had 20 teams show up with 10 guys each!

Go here to check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YX1mJd4YGLo

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!

racin with the fam...

it as a BBBBBBeautiful day for a bike race.
Its hard to resist a race thats 15 minutes from home
Sarah was oncall, but the course was like 5 min from the hospital, so we figured we had a green light on that one. The Lombard Crit for the fall fling is essentially an oval in an industrial park. It was windy, so i used my best common sense and stayed the hell out of the wind! Needless to say i was doing a lot of inside to outside, back to inside moves, all on the up and up. It was a 1/2/3 field, with some decent horsepower, but i would have to say, for a 1/2/3 race with NO turns, it was sketchy at times. I hung out, a few times gritted my teeth for dear life, but survived and was especially happy to see the break finally get clear. Took the bell and decided that was as good as a finish, with 4 guys up the road and 4 between the field, there was no reason to ride the sprint ( especially because i was gassed!) so i swung off on the backside and rolled in to hear Carter cheer for daddy. It was a sunny day with temps in the low 80's, not too shabby for the day before October!

Chimmie Changa

It was a few weeks back, but i wanted to do a quick write up about Chequamegon Fat Tire festival this year, over the weekend of September 14, 15, and 16. Its an end of the year favorite, and definitely one that Lenny was always up for. I certainly missed him on the golf course friday afternoon and on the trail saturday. That being said the 1st annual Lenny Parisi Northwoods Open was held with a small turnout of 4 in 40 degre temps. It even sleeted on us for a while, thanx Leonard! The ride was much less stressful for me, i started dead last and rode my own pace to a casual 3:44 and change for the 40miles of off road fun. Thanx to Ron Ritzler and the SRAM crew for getting me in literally 3 minutes before the number pickup cutoff at 10pm. Thanx to Gatto for providing the presidential travel vehicle - the plush suburban. Seeing that i am less than graceful on an of road machine, i was very pleased to have the use of the Haro full suspension rig. For me its about not going too hard too soon, an pacing myself until about the halfway mark, and then ya gotta make it at least 5 more miles before you can start making deals with yourself. Fortunately i had Lenny's spirit with me and i made it through it all, and even had enough energy to stand up in the shower this year!

here are a few pics from the event - Brendan George of Alberto's and of course the Chaba was there too. the website hasn't posted any pictures of me, i was probably too far behind!

Sweeeeeeeet!

so this post has nothing to do with cycling, but everything to do with speed.
Sarah and i went out to see Wicked over the weekend ( i highly recommend it if its playing near you) for our 5 year anniversary. I must have picked the right parking garage, because after the show.. just on the other side from where we were parked were these beauties. There was a bently, rolls, lambo, and ferrari. not a bad selection for the valets in the area.
Just thought i would share it with you all. And yes, i was thinking Gone in 60 seconds style, wondering if i could pull a ferris bueller and joyride the ferrari around chi town.

rage and serenity

B-Rad would be proud of me. friday night rolling home from work i had a discussion with a driver on the road. i say discussion not argument because we had the same point, and i had not grabbed for my beat stick in the backpack. this douchebag (my new alternative to the F bomb) blows past me in the access lane on ogden doing at least 60. i know this as i had a nice tailwind and was doing in the neighborhood of 50kph when this guy inches away blows past me faster than Michael Vick's hommies rolled over on him to cop a plea. for those that do not know ogden - there are 3 lanes that rol on the main road, and about a lane and a half on the inside of a median for whatever reason. now there are separate stoplights for the main road and the access road. this douchbag blows right past me, and thru the red light. it was red for a sold 30 seconds more before i got there to have it green. he finally gets stopped at the next one because there is a green for cross traffic. I roll up to him and simply say hey, you may wanna leave more room when you are blasting past people on bikes. He says the road is for cars and not bikes. At this point i simply agree and say yes - cars should be on the road - AND obey the sped limit within reason AND not blow red lights. He claims to be going with traffic and the light was green. whatever. see - no arguement. the light dropped green and i parked myself smack in the center of the lane rolling still at appx 30mph. he finally blew past me on the mainroad flipping me something calling me something else. i could tell by the faux designer glasses and backwards hat in his late 90's 5 series german sedan that he was clearly a nut smooch, probably on his way to get a hundred dollar handjob off cicero somewhere. so i let it go. the rest of my ride home was fine, and i even saw the above pack of deer just outside the forest preserve to remind me there is a hideout from all metal morons in the world.

fat kid - OUT

chicken....

its a lousy picture, but there was a train of green king keyser jerseys. a small group rolled out and with darkness creeping in we choose an abridged route. lyle, lisa, king, tawse, and i enjoyed a good ride and post ride chatter. cheers!

Cat 5!

I fell victim to the classic cat 5 marks...

Clearly it has been many days since i last was able to commute into work. Riding home last night i fell over at a stop light, hurt the pride, and got a sweet tattoo from the chain rings.

I guess every now and then ya gotta take that can't clip out tumble and ding the pride to remember we are all human. The good news is that i did get my commute streak started again - monday and today!! woo hoo!