Crash test stories

New Blog

2008-04-24T09:24:00.001-05:00

I have a new blog!!! www.shortbusphotos.net

Busy

2007-05-10T19:19:00.000-05:00

So I have been really busy lately. My Step Brother, Sister and family are visiting from Texas and I have been running all over the state between work and chores. We went to the Kalahari on Tuesday Night and rode water slides all night. My nephew Jake had soooo much energy. We rode every ride in the park it was a blast. On the biking side of the world I have managed to hurt my knee again, this is getting a little ridiculous.So it is off the bike for a few days, guess it couldn't have happened at a better time. Finally at work I am building 620 WTMJ which is a pretty big projects. So BUSY BUSY.

Platteville MTB TT

2007-04-22T21:10:00.000-05:00

Yesterday marked the first Mountain Bike Race of the year. I have been reading blogs of all the west coast kids racing and have been jealous for quite some time. The trails have been muddy and racing was a while off. But a sunny 70+ degree day and some sweet single track knocked out that urge.

The course was a combination of single track and uhh single track. This tight fast course offered up some great climbs and some wicked descents. I took off 30 seconds behind Neil and ripped it the hole way. I felt good and the legs where there about a mile into the race I could see my first pickoff. Neil was just around the corner and I was push a good pace. I held this pace for most of the first lap and settled in a little for the second half of the first lap and first half of the second lap. I steadily picked off a rider here and there and got a good feel for the bike. About 3/4 of the way through the final lap I saw Carlos gaining on me and I decided to try to hang with his pace. It was slightly higher then mine but just enough to hurt pretty bad. I pogo ed off his blazing pace to the finish and then slammed a bunch of water. Neil was just ahead of me and congratulated me for beating him before I even got off my bike. What! your kidding right?

Well if Neil only would have known they screwed up the results and didn't mark me as finishing, I DNFed first time I ever DNFed after the race was over :)

Sexy Legs

2007-04-19T12:25:00.000-05:00

Last night marked the first real cyclist accomplishment of the season. I shaved my legs! the first time you shave is such a pain in the ass. I had to attack it in 3 steps.
1. Electric razors also known as pain machine. Talk about razor burn. Results of this-

2. Straight razor - ouch
3. Finally Nair.
I am one hairy Bastard but now I am baby smooth. Bring on the road rash.

First Race weekend MBM and Great Dane Crits

2007-04-16T17:42:00.000-05:00

So this weekend officially kicked off the season and I brought it in with style by punishing my body. Saturday was the Madison Basco Madison Spring classic. Much thanks to the Kitten factory for putting on this great event, that promised fun for the whole family.

Nine and I went out and scoped the course on Thursday which ended up playing largely in our favor. As we will soon see alley cats are half speed half strategy. We started out with Jesse Lalonde pulling off the pack from the get go and in a panick nine yell grab the fast wheel, so we sprint up to Jesse and he now has us marked and we are at the back of the pack, clever I think to myself. But Jason and I have a plan of our own, we fall way off the back and let the group ride away. We know that the best way to go is by the capitol and down the southwest trail.

Nine and I trade hard pulls past the capitol and down the southwest trail at speeds of 23-30mph the weekend warriors whiz by and I hear to cyclist say those guys need to start racing, I chuckle to myself if he only knew. Flying through red lights and and traffic a sense of confidence falls over us I think we are way ahead.

We hit the dirt and I start to pull at a pretty steady rate. I feel strong and confident that I can keep this pace for a long time. Jason and I trade pulls down the dirt road and start talking about where everyone is but there is no one in site. We make it all the way to Basco and hit the turn around this marks the first time we see another racer. Our pace seemed to drop as we hit the turn around I was pretty cooked hoping Jason had a hard pull in him I ask him to the front but he says he doesn't have much we fall off the pace. The talking and riding starts and a little strategy starts to come out then out of nowhere here comes Jesse hauling ass by himself. Damn! My next thought is ok lets work together but Jesse is not having that we takes some pulls and he sits in. Then we hit a down tree where it was neccesary to unclip. Jesse see's his opening and takes a pull then jumps the tree and takes off. I quickly unclip and start to chase but I look back and Jason is struggling with his road cleats. A moment of indescision rush through my head wait for Jason or chase the one of the main WORS guy I have always wanted to be as fast as. "If I can hang with Jesse here I can have some confidence going into the first WORS race but if I lose Jason I could be in no mans land and lose the race". Well as you can tell I waited to long and Jesse rode off but none the less I chase,and chase and chase some more. He gets a sizable gap and settles in. I keep the pace high and steadily chip away at it but I don't have much left in the legs. We hit the road and Jason finds a new energy and catch up to me. My first thought is lets get him but the roady in Jason is smarter then the mountain biker in me so we steadily chip away at his lead. We close just enough to keep an eye on him and hope he doesn't take our route home. We hit the bridge exit from the trail and he goes to the arboretum we are home free. We jump out of our saddles and attack like two giddy school kids fight for a snickers bar. 23 24 25 miles an hour I feel like I could push as hard as I wanted. We ride back to the park in a mad frenzy giddy as could be that we where home free.

We cross the finish line together in true alley cat spirit and Jason nobaly suceeds first to me saying I did most of the work and takes a second him self. Jesse finishes third and ex-teammate Ben Anderson takes forth. Thanks again to everyone involved and to Jesse for a great race.

Sunday I decided to do the great dane crit. This may have been a bad idea since I felt completly cooked from MBM but what the heck right. The race went off well and like all mountain bikers in road races I got bored and attacked too early. I ended up somewhere in the top 15 in a somewhat uneventful cat. 5 crit. Oh well good weekend all in all and a good workout.

Merry Christmas

2006-12-24T12:21:00.000-06:00

I am dreaming of a white Christmas. But mother nature has other things on her mind. Now that my Knee has fully healed and I am able to start exercising again I am thinking about the Noque 13 miles of cross country skiing. This is becoming a yearly tradition and I am always struggling to find snow. So for Christmas all I want is 2-3 inches of that fluffy white stuff.

My other Christmas present to myself is moving to Madison. I have been living in Janesville since I graduated college last year. I have hated my drive back and forth to work every day for quite some time and finally I will be moving to Madison, this will make it possible to ride my bike to work everyday and save me about 2 hours a day. YES freedom.

Well it is time for Christmas Vacation what a classic movie.

Knee Injury

2006-12-11T20:20:00.000-06:00

I have blown a tendon out in my knee. So its no training more sitting around reading etc.. I have started to look for a new apartment in Madison. At work I have been working on redesigning WTMJ's website. This has been a pretty fun and exciting project. We will be creating alot of new stuff for this site and I think it will really change a lot in the Local news internet website business but we will see. More to come.

The off-season

2006-12-06T21:49:00.000-06:00

Tis the season for-
Cross Country Skiing-
I totally scored a set of new fisher skate skis to help me through the winter blues. These bad boys will help me through the winter and keep me off the trainer everyday. Also every year I humiliate my self in the Noquemeanon ski marathon. Keeps me motivated.

Setting up your next season-
Looks like next years race schedule will be busy as usual goals need to figure that one out.

Crazy Shopping-
or I mean Christmas shopping. I am done and I think I got good gifts without submitting myself to an insane last minute shopping.

and now we know why they call it the beast

Cross Race went off Smoothly

2006-11-15T19:32:00.000-06:00

Neil and I have been putting together the Gibbs Lake cross race for the last year. There were many nail bitting moments when i was going can we get this thing off the ground? Of course out of me and Neil I am the worrier. But everything went off smoothly thanks to Mike Guiselmann of Rock county parks system and Jon Erikson. Thanks everyone who came out and played in the mud hopefully we can do it again next year.

Skynet has launched

2006-10-26T20:32:00.000-05:00

Ok so not really but after a long hard summer of work, Broadcast Interactive media has redesigned www.komotv.com So go check out all our hard work :)

Hawaii Photos

2006-10-19T19:59:00.000-05:00

So a few weeks back prior to a major earthquake hitting Hawaii. I had the oppurtunity to go to Hawaii for work. I am launching there new website KHON so I wented to train them on there new content managment system. In the mean time I got to ride up a mountain, go scuba diving and learn how to surf. All in all good fun.

Hawaii is home of:

Beautiful Sunsets

Hot babes with machine guns

The tour Defrance king of the mountain

Great views

Pearl Harbor

And Speed limits :)

So it ends

2006-10-09T21:09:00.000-05:00

Sheboygan has come and gone and so has another WORS season. The race was fast from the begining and I actually got to see something other then people flying by me for a while I did good my first two laps but was plagued by cramps as the race drew on. I really don't wish to reflect too much on it as I am now done with my first year of Elite. I am hoping that the old saying another year faster will help me next year! I am happy with my year overall. I trained really hard and learned a ton. I really pushed my training to a new level and my racing may have suffered due to this.

I am now focusing on a bag of goldfish crackers, some good movie watching, and some cross action. Last night it was X-men 3. It was a good movie overall but the ending wasn't the greatest. I have also been working on putting together the Gibbs lake cross race. Nov 11th is the date and I think we have one of the better courses in the series should be fun come check it out. I am also still building my cross bike which I will post more about soon...

Packing

2006-09-27T20:40:00.000-05:00

I am packing for a business trip to the Aloha state. Honolulu here I come. I even got work to rent me a bike instead of a car. Like that was hard to do. I am off to get laid :)

Rapids

2006-09-25T22:18:00.000-05:00

Another WORS season has blown by. It is weird to think that in just 2 weeks we are racing sheboygan already. Rapids was really fun this year. Great course conditions made this fast flowing single track a great ride. I actually was having a pretty good race until I hit a tree at 20 mph and bent my front wheel. The course flowed really well and you could carry major speed through all the corners. I heard the leaders were hitting 25 in parts of the course.

Holly had a great race. Duking it out with Christena Betz to take home 2nd place. It is pretty amazing to see the kind of form she is hold through this long season. I cracked after Ore to Shore and she seems to be getting faster every week. She is amazing.

Gibbs Lake Trail Maintenance

2006-09-23T20:26:00.000-05:00

Nov 11th Neil and I are putting on our first race ever. A cyclocross race at Gibbs lake. After a whole lot of messing around with the city we easily got into a county park just out side of town. Gibbs Lake is genreally reserved for horse trail but the county is very excited to host a cross race at the location. A scenic view and a large chunk of land will make for a great venue. The course is relatively flat and will offer a very fast lap to all racers. Tight switch backs looping through trees and interesting barrier placements will set this race apart from other courses on the circut.

Today we went out and filled in some ruts in the course and trimmed back the trees. I really think we have a great spot and hope everyone can make it out. I am personally super stoked for cross season and have been working on building up a Soma frame (more to come) so get your cross legs ready it is coming soon!!

42 teeth of fury

2006-09-20T21:11:00.000-05:00

This year has been a year of trial and error error error. So in that spirit I am switching the big ring of my bike to a 42, running a camel back, and trying new gel shots at this weekends race. I plan on going out in a bang or a burst which ever happens. I am rather excited with all the experiments and it will be completely worthless data with all the new variables but fun regardless....

Levis

2006-09-18T21:11:00.000-05:00

Yesterday Holly and I went up to Levis Trow for some of the most epic riding Wisco has to offer! I really love riding here and highly suggest a trip to everyone. There is some very challenging single track that is sure to keep you on your toes and the views from the top of the mound are fantastic. The ride was a 3 hour epic adventure it includes very narly downhills with roots and rocks point every which way and the kind of trails that look like the only line is the rough one. You can choose between riding just on the bottom of the mounds with a trail system that connects the two mounds together or riding up the mounds and playing on the top. Challenging climbs, rocks and bridges scatter the trails which are incredibly well kept up. I wish I had my camera to share this with every one but it is broken :( but on a positive note I did find a picture of this random guy riding at Levis mound-

I did however also pickup a new camera which I will be using more widely as I try to better entertain all you people who waste time at work like myself cruising for good blog posts. It is really small and should be easy to carry on rides. I also purchased a new Camelback which I plan on trying in a race. I really think I don't drink enough during races and I am hoping this will help. I am not quite sure how it will work with gatorade though. I guess we will see.

Been A While

2006-09-17T10:33:00.000-05:00

So it has been a really long time since I posted my last post. REALLY long. I am going to try to make more posts but this has been the busiest season I think I have ever had. It is funny how important everything become and you forget about what you really want to do. (also breaking my camera has sucked as well)So what have I been up to?

- My first year in Elite has been really hard. I don't know how many times I blew up letting it all hang out in the front of the pack and don't know how many time I have had it handed to me with any other strategy. I really am glad I moved up but WOW it is fast up here.

- Holly and I did O2S on a tandem which was great. However I don't reccomend riding 44 miles with a tacoed front wheel

- Work has been crazy. I finally graduated college and started working at Broadcast Interactvie Media. I have a great job building websites for television stations.

- I did Sea Otter. This is by far the coolest race ever!!! I highly recommend going at least once.

Today Holly and I are heading up to Levis Trow for some great epic riding in the mounds. I am really looking forward to the rock gardens and Beautiful views. It is nice to have a weekend off of racing and get to go ride some great single track!

for all you chequamegon people heres a little something-

I totally wish i was there! I think the view at the front is a little different though maybe a few more stars and purple dinosuars

Poured on

2006-05-24T20:56:00.000-05:00

Todays ride was one of those ride destined to not happen. I came home and had to mow the lawn. Then I hurried up and jumped on bike planning to cool down in the dark. I left my house and rode out the driveway. I got my first interval done and looked at the black sky coming down on me. Then I started my second interval early and it started to pour. It was like in Forest Gump we went through all types of rain sideways rain, rain coming up from the ground, ity bitty rain, rain that hurt, all of it. I finished up what was probably the worst interval I have ever done and rolled into the driveway. The lightining was closing and I thought I should call it a night. I went inside cleaned up grabbed something to eat and relaxed a little about 5 minutes later the sun came out and the birds were singing and I decided I can't win.

Mukewanego Crit

2006-05-24T09:47:00.000-05:00

The Rockcut Race was cancelled again:( The rain over the last few weeks has been horrible. I really hope that it clears up soon and we can all get back to having a life. But in the mean time Holly and I decided to have the craziest day of all time. Holly is moving on Saturday night and we both want to race. We can do all that right. So we decided to race the crit in Mukwanego (I am sure I am spelling that wrong) Jason was looking for a little help and I was looking for a good training race so I said I would kill my self for his cause.

Start the race. So truth be told I never road race. My goal for this year is to road race more often. Holly also never road races but I am convinced she could juggle fire while riding her bike so this should not be a problem. We bith did the cat 4/5 race. I jumped in the pack and we were off. I decided to lay low for a little while and let the pack get comfortable then half way through the race I went hard really hard pulling a group of 5 or 6 riders off the front with me. My goal was to make them suffeer as much as possible and break them with out breaking myself. I would attack every time it was my turn in the front ramping it up to 30 mph. While Jason sat in the pack and rested. After i couldn't handle any more I moved back into the pack and rested. Letting the pucking sensations disappear. I rolled closer to the front and Holly said in amazment are you lapping us. Funny I was just trying to hold on for dear life! So I rested and recovered after successfully blowing a large portion of the pack to peices, and prepared for another hard attack closer to the end of the race to put Jason in the position he needed to be in. I took a few more hard pulls to let people know I was serious and take the eye off Jason, then with 3 laps left Jason went hard. WHAT ARE YOU DOING? He faded and a guy counter attacked. This guy went hard and was successful where Jason failed. I jumped to the front of the pack made sure Jason was on and pulled hard. I closed the gap to about 500 feet and went into the draft. The pack let him get away again. Worse yet Jason was gone! GRRRR. So I hung in the pack dying and pushed up the final hill to take 15th.

The tank was empty! Holly did a great job of hanging for most of the race. After that we flew back to Madison and in a fury moved Holly in 2.5 hours. Stuff was flying everywhere!

Iola = Pain

2006-05-11T09:15:00.000-05:00

So the first WORS race of the year has come and gone and with it my first experience of the speed of the expert men! Those guys can move and I suppose as the year goes on i too will have to move.
This race was a big jump for me and I had no idea what to expect. I came into it thinking I need to not blow up and finish the extra lap strong. That seemed like a reasonable strategy. So I jumped in the pack nervous and clueless. then the start. I sat in the middle as planned and did not feel as if I was having any problem with this. I let the front guys get and away and figured I was a middle of the packer no biggy. Then everyone started passing me. I didn't have the legs on me to ramp it up any so I just try to stay smooth and have fun. I was feeling a little low on fuel so I popped a couple of clif blocks and my stomache instantly let me know this was a bad Idea. SO I suffered for the rest of the race and decided to situp and enjoy the course. Which was kind of nice. It is not often I get to leisurely ride a race course and I rather enjoyed it. I eventually broke my chain and had to quit but a day of nothing going right was a pretty good day all in all.

Sweet Tire and the Pains of Getting There

2006-05-03T22:29:00.000-05:00

Today was one of those days where you can't wait to go ride and then it all blows up in your face. I had a plan to go out to Camrock following work today so I bailed out a little early and flew to the course. The riding was great the weather was perfect and I felt awful!! I was sketchy on the bike and felt really out of wack. I rode for a while then I got to a down hill and I was sliding every where. My tires felt like I was riding on ice. I looked down and sure enough flat!

I tore a hole in my rear tire about the length of a nickel. No amount of stans will fill that so I packed up shop and rolled home. My plan was to throw on a new rear tire, a pair of sweet Maxxis Crossmarks, and go finish my ride in town. Enter the struggle! I could not for the life of me get the rear tire seated. I finally broke down and went to Farm and Fleet in full spandex mind you and bought an air compressor and some Armor All. This still took some major effort to work the tire onto the rim but it did work eventually.

But let me tell you it was all worth the trouble these tires are great! They are like fast glue! I can corner on rails and fly on the flats. Love them! I got in a great night ride and found some new tires that seem like they will be a really good find.

I also finished up the new header for the Michaels Cycles website this week check it out at www.michaelscycles.net

Been a while

2006-05-01T14:27:00.000-05:00

Hey all,

Its been quite some time since I updated my blog. Whoops, I have been really busy and just had to push something to the side. So heres whats been up with me.
I got a new job Hooray. After graduating college I actually got a job. I work for Broadcast Interactive Media as a web designer. Its a really good job and I love all the people I work with.

I got a new car. During a wicked snowstorm I hit a 16" fishing boat on I-90 crazy. Who has a boat on a highway during a snowstorm? So I got a 2001 VW Jetta I love it.

I went to Sea Otter--- BONK you don't want to bonk at Sea Otter trust me.

Hmm Anyone Hungover???

2006-01-02T18:38:00.000-06:00

So we have a traditional New Years day hangover ride every year. We all take off and nurse our headches and body cramps away with an easy ride that anyone can hang with. Atleast thats how it used to go! I think we may have started a new tradition this year called pound nails!

We took off from the evr famous Janesvegas bar Jumbos. Heading north into a 15 mile an hour headwind everything seemed calm. I was still kind of sore from my prior day tempo workout. Luckily I had refrained from an real alcohol consumption the night before and was enjoying what seemed to be a great ride. Then we naturally split into two groups. I led out Jim Peterson, Bill Livingston, Jeff Chesmore, and some roadie I didn't know. We were all on mountain bikes except for the roadie and part of me kept wondering when he was going to brag that he was faster because he is on a road bike.

We went out of town and I took a good hard pull to ramp things up to 17-18 miles an hour. I wanted to get peoples adreniline going and keep the group lively. What happened next was completlely unexpected. We turn out of the head wind and grouped up. I sat up a little and talked to Bill. Bill was really hung over. The night before we out out to the bar and he decided to consume his body weight in alcohol. To make matters worse he was mixing beer and hard alcohol all night. It go to a great point when he decided to show off his dance moves to Snows Informer. I don't remember the last time I laughed so hard, now I know why he makes a great gorrila. So anyways Bill was one hurtin unit. I move up towards the front of the group and take a short pull up a hill and then look back. "Opps where did Bill go?"

I fall back to find him and sure enough he says uhh go ahead I think I am going into town and calling it a day. Ok so I just have to wait a minute is Jim sprinting ohh crap. This point brought me to the point of extreme pain no one expects to see on a training ride the point that is probably better left for racing. But after being couped up on the trainer for the past month I was feeling spunky. I am going to gap them!

Jeff, Jim, and the roadie had a good mile gap on me and they were not slowing down for anyone. I pushed as hard as I could. Reaching the drool threshhold, you know the point where you lose all contorl of bodily fluids and drool starts spewing out of everywhere. I started to see the roadie fall of the back, ha some guy on a road bike getting dropped hard by some guys on mountain bikes glorious. I gap the roadie.

Roadie- Hey
Me- Hey those guys are really flyin huh.
Roadie- Yeah you could say that. Your not doin so bad your self.
Me- Yeah and they are in sight. Lets gettem.
Roadie- Yeah
Me- Grab My wheel
Roadie-
Uhhmm wait a minute I dropped the roadie while carrying out conversation oh well back to the hunt.

I hit it really hard rested up from talking with the roadie I spank it. I am closing fast now I attack a hill really hard and shorten the gap to about 150 yards. Jim looks back and sees me closing then throws out a huge counter attack laying down speeds of around 30-31 MPH wow.
I hold up my attack and wait for Jeff to take a pull and then attack hard closing the gap to about a hundred yards when I see them slow to a stop.

I pull up and we exchange glances of admiration everyone is impressed with the mid-winter fitness and we all know it is going to be a great year of bike racing.....

Riden outside YES

2005-12-23T19:47:00.000-06:00

It was actually warm enough outside today to ride out side 45 and sunny that is amazing. It has been one of the coldest month I can remember in quite some time. I have enjoyed all the snow with some great XC skiing and snowboarding but it is nice to get off the trainer for a while.

On another note I will have to say that I am the Dance Dance Revolution King. I beat Holly the other day by a landslide victory I think I ended up winning by 3 million points or some craziness like that. Through all the laughter and disbelief that I was actually doing this I smoked her. Anyone who wants to just bring it. Soon I will be the DDR champion and smoke this guy and take his ear warm crown next the world wahahaha!

Tempo from Hell

2005-12-22T14:46:00.000-06:00

I did a tempo workout the other day that was like ripping my legs off and beating myself over the head. I have been working with power this year and have seen some fast gains but every once in a while you hit a workout that is like pulling teeth. The difference with power is that if you feel bad or are tired you still put out the amount of power you are producing and that is it. Let me clarify, with heart rate if you feel bad then your heart rate is probably higher on its own. Probably because you are recovering from yesterdays workout or you are tired or sick etc etc. So with power it doesn't matter how you feel power is what it is.

So I had to do a tempo workout consisting of 2 20 min intervals normally when I do tempo my heart rate sit around 150-155. Not this time though. in order to put out the power I needed too my heart rate was rocketing up to an average of 177, and a max of 183 awful. To make things worse I was on the trainer, or the shrine of pain as I am now getting to know. This makes it ultimately harder to get yourself to push through this kind of pain. The only thing keeping me going was visions of the people I will be getting beaten by next year floating through my head and thinking that this interval was closing the gap to them. Silly huh.

It is amazing to see the pain that we put our selves through as bikers in order to get one step up on the other guy. I don't quite understand this complex but realize I have it. Its a great way to work through the stress of life and to see yourself in a positive way. I love the sense of accomplishment that come with being able to bust out an awful interval and the pride that comes with the results and rewards it reaps.

XC Skiing & Graduation

2005-12-18T21:31:00.000-06:00

The order of my post should say something about what I am thinking about. I graduated college yesterday. Or rather I got to walk across the stage and not get my diploma. I still have finals this week and have a class to take over Winterim before I am done. This made graduating a little anti-climatic. But it was nice to be able to do, and my family enjoyed the ceremony.

Not all was lost at the ceremony though. I was happy to see some of my favorite teachers in attendance including Brian Lucas and Jeff Herriot. Two of the best teachers I have ever had. If anypne out their is going to the University of Wisconsin Whitewater the two teachers are great teachers and great people. Also their was some pretty funny stuff that happened. While we were marching in the girl in front of me was paying no attention at all and walked right into a pole and nocking it over then tripping on it lol. Then when we got in I noticed that they had posted the wrong date on the slide they were projecting on the wall I guess I was graduating on May 17 2005 hmm. I wish it was May... After that my parent took me and Holly out to dinner at a really nice restaraunt in Madison the Mariner. I had Mahi Mahi that they had flown in from the carribean that day it was Amazing, then I spoiled myself with dessert key lime pie ohh yeah. I also got some great gifts. Holly gave me a kit to shave my legs, I have never been a leg shaving advocate, but Holly says I will get made fun of racing Elite with hairy legs. I think its funny that a guy would get made fun of for not shaving their legs, bikers are really a strange breed. Bill got me a breast cancer awarness raqutball racket, it is a wonderful shade of lue and pink. :)

Today me, neil, and Bill went cross country skiing out at Kettle Morraine. We were planning on going on an easy loop first because none of us a cross country skiers. Well that plan failed we ended up going the wrong way and taking a fairly difficult trail. Needless to say crahes were often and hillarious. I think Bill had some of the best crashes and he got stuck coming up a few hills. But in his defense I was quite impressed he did so well because he has never skiied before.

I am now nervous about the Noquemanon cross country ski race. It took us 2 hours to do 5.5 miles 12 mile is going to take forever. Looks like I have some work to do.

More Attention

2005-12-15T14:42:00.000-06:00

I have some web design work in progress but pimpin up the blog is on the todo list so hopefully soon you will all be able to see a much prettier blog. :) in the mean time check out my current web project WSUW 91.7 the Edge web site work in progress

Jobless

2005-12-15T14:29:00.000-06:00

So I am graduating college this weekend yeah. But I remain jobless booo. I really wanted to get a job being offered by Saris as their web communications specialist, but they had been interviewing some lady since October and ended up hiring her. I wish I could have gotten on the ball with that job a bit earlier but what are you going to do. I twas kind of weird though because they kind of gave me an interview on the phone even though they were not planning on hiring me. Then I got the typical can we keep your resume on file just in case. (I can almost hear my resume hitting the trash tear.)

So it is back to the job hunt I really wonder what I will be doing in two or three months kind of weird.

For any one who like Alternative rock I have found this great radio station out of the Netherlands Zeilsteen

Finals Yuck

2005-12-13T16:52:00.000-06:00

Its that time again finals. I really don't like finals and won't really miss them at all. To add to my dilema my sister and brother in-law are home from Texas this week with my Neice and Nephew. I love to play with my Nephew and he won't leave me alone. I wish I could just blow everyhting off and hang out with them but I have to graduate college sooner or later.

Speaking of which graduation ceremony is Saturday and my Marketing teahcer has decided to have our final on Sunday so much for celebrating I will spend my graduation day studying this makes me mad grrrr.

Not much biknig going on so i am just rambling about school.. Blah Blah...

Time to Post?

2005-12-08T16:08:00.000-06:00

I haven't updated this for a while but I hope to start keeping a better blog in a few weeks. I have been counting down the days until graduation yeah and have realized that I hate school :) So I can't wait to get out.

This weekend was the last race of the year me and Holly made our way down to Chitown for the Illnois Cyclocross championships.. This was by far the coldest race I have ever done it was pretty trippy seeing people sledding while your racing your bike. Holly had a great race finishing 6th in the womens A's and I placed 2nd in the Mens C's let the sand bagging remarks fly.

I have been keeping myself pretty busy as of late with some freelance web design for the University's radio station and trying to learn how to cross country ski (more to come).

Cyclocross Race

2005-10-23T20:50:00.000-05:00

Ok so I love the cyclocross end of story. However I have discovered 2 things 1 I can't race the NRS and expect to compete 2 I suck at cyclocross!

I had a great time regardless though. I like the thrill of jumping off the bike and tripping over all the obstacles and then jumping back on the bike well saying a little prayer lord please let me have children some day! FUN I may sound synical but it is really fun. (I am a biker so I have some insane qualities about me by nature.)

To put into perspective how not good I did in this race a friend of mine (with a cyclocross bike) crashed his bike during the race then got off went into the woods took a leak and still beat me. Hmm I got destroyed. Following the race I went to Whitewater to hang out at homecoming for the night. Jason and I decieded to tear down into our tighty whiteys and go for a ride more to come......

2005-10-18T14:54:00.000-05:00

New Powertap--

About a month ago I was feeling rather nerdy so I thought lets buy some new toys to play with and I spent a crap load of money on stuff I had wanted for quite some time. I am such a random shopper.. I will go months on end buying nothing then all of a sudden I will get bored and splurge on tons of new toys. So any ways I will be reviewing some of my new toys for a while.

My newest purchase I have been using is a powertap
I really like having a powertap personally! They are great training tools and they let you analyze your ride and see where you are using enrgy. I was previously using a Heart Rate monitor to train with and this seem to work great. You are able to see how hard you are working and do more focused training rides then you can with out. But the feed back from a pewer tap is way more useful.

Powertaps Let you

Analyze how long you are actually able to sustain a desired intesity. You can do this better because you are seeing how much power you are putting out. With an HR monitor you only see your HR which takes time to react to your body. Many times your HR will stay very high for a long period of time after an interval or give you a higher intesity factor then you are actually exerting because you may be fatigued powertaps don't lie
Ability to analyze all you efforts did you go out to hard and fade off? HR's dont tell you this info did you recover strong from that interval? How is you power output reacting to what you are doing. Many things can influence HR power never lies.
Ability to track a training plan and see if youo are overtraining. OK so this is more of a software feature but it is nice. Cycling Peaks software has a feature which calculate how hard an interval was based on your personal abilities. It then rates it and tells you how long it will take to recover from the intesity amazing!

So those are some really nice features which I am enjoying one thing I don't like is that I cannot dispaly enough things on the screen at once. I have my heart rate monitor on my bike as well so I can keep track of time, my bike looks like the cockpit of a plane its crazy!!

2005-10-12T21:29:00.000-05:00

The last post just shows my amazing use of the english language.. Upon reading it I realized how horribly written it was but decided to leave it to prove that I am incredibly busy lol..

2005-10-12T21:07:00.000-05:00

BUSY!!

School has started and life is crazy! I haven't been able to post in quite a while but between training, racing, work, and school a guy can't catch a break! So here is a broad oversight of the last few crazy weeks. I raced at Sheboygan this weekend and what a great event live music, great people, free socks, and a guy in a gorrilla suit!!
These crazy kids I tell ya. So Doug Bailey and my self ended up duking it out and I unfortunately bonked ouch running out of food is never a good deal! But live and learn. I am happy with this year of racing with it being only my third year I can't help but be excited to take 2nd in my age in the comp series. Looks like next year I will be trying my hand at elite and riding with the big boys. Also I during the citzen race I was standing 5 feet away from this poor soul who totally cased a jump it was painfully awesome!!

2005-10-03T13:32:00.000-05:00

Fall Color Festival

Fall Color Festival was this weekend and I thought I was experiment a little since this race was rather meaningless and I just wanted to have some fun. I personally don't hardly ever drink anything with caffiene in it so I tought hey lets try some coffee before the race and see what happens!! BAD IDEA!! So this brings up the question when is it ok to stop and pee during a race? I had to go so BAD and every time I hit a bump it thought it was going to squirt out... I got so involved with holding in my pee I crashed mutiple times not fun. So I will never drink coffee before a race ever again awful.

On that noe I also talked to Doug Bailey who made it a point to remind me that I had to finish third or better to beat him in the series. I can't wait to duke it out only three points seperate us and it all comes down to sheboygan. How exciting.

2005-09-28T18:42:00.000-05:00

Cars!!! ahaha what a hassle!

I was driving home from school last night following a truck carrying a bunch of junk car parts, when it hit a bump tossing rubish all over the road. I swerved to miss a big chunk of something but hit it anyway. Flat tire damn! I pulled off the road to fix the flat and Inoticed my car was leaking antifreeze like crazy. So shes in the shop :( I wish I didn't have to drive so far to go to school I would just ride my bike everywhere.

On a good note I got in a good workout this morning working on some high end sprints. The legs are starting to feel good again which is good news for fall color festival. Also a heated comp age group battle is raging between me and Doug Bailey only 2 points are seperating us by my count so let the best man win. Its so exciting!!!

Also I majorly overhauled the NRS following this weekends race. I have never seen so mmuch mud in hidden little places, I put on a new chain, brake pads, rotors, ordered new bearings for the front wheel, new wires, and cleaned the rear deralliure what a mess!! I have yet to pull the bottom bracket and I am kind of afraid to, who knows what is lurking in there.

New music also yeah! I am currently checking out a new Hip Hop album, I was off Hip Hop for a while but have slowly been getting back into it. So the new album that I am digging in a big way is Mos Def The New Danger I like to ride to it makes me feel all gangsta word.

Check it out here

2005-09-26T15:48:00.000-05:00

MUDFEST 2005

Kewaskum was awesome, what a great race. I really, really like racing in different conditions and this was one of the muddiest races I have ever done I had a blast. Neil Swanson was responsible for the rain if anyone wants to pit the blame, he was taunting weather forecasters all week by leaving the windows of his car open and saying "the weather people (politically correct blog here folks) know nothing its not going to rain". So we camped and it rained. Michaels Cycles had a great showing and I got third in my age yeah. That puts me and Doug Bailey into a heated battle for 2nd and 3rd. I can't wait to duke it out at sheboygan and see who can win it.

Back to the rain the NRS worked awesome and I only had chain suck a few times, I think that I owe that to the wonderful SRAM XO setup I love it. so enough about that heres some pictures.

2005-09-23T12:37:00.000-05:00

Their goes Neil.

Last Night I decided to go ride with the goup. It was a great night and I love night riding. There is just something about being out in the woods late at night excercising that is super refreshing.
The ride got off to a slow start and I was sitting in the group just itching to go, so I said psst. hey Neil how ya feeling to which he replied ok I guess. I don't really know what ok I guess means but I guess it meant I am going to drop you like a rock sucka. We took off and I led him out into some double track then neil took the lead and we stoked out a lap pretty fast. I was right on him coming into some rolling hills but he was able to really turn it up in the hills. I on the other hand am still struggling with how I am feeling on the bike. I hung on as long as I could then he decided to attack and I had no chance so I lost him. This put me out all by my lonesome so I cruised the park for a while by myself then caught up with the group and went out to the bar for some great Janesvegas slumming action. Always a good time.

So I am watching this show about spoiled sixteen year old kids. I wonder what their parents do because they definately are not raising their kids. These kids are spiled rotten and I would beat the living s out of them. If my kid ever calls me a dumb b.... after I just paid for a $180,000 birthday party for them they would never have another b-day. America is going to hell!

2005-09-22T09:24:00.000-05:00

Went for an hour long ride last night with some good sprint work. I haven't really been healthy in probably a week and a half, I have this awful lingering cold yuck!! So for quite a while now real intesity rides have been out of the question. The sprints I did last night felt terrible until the last one I did then something fianlly clicked and I felt good.

While out on the ride I saw quite an interesting group of people, now I am not really sure who goes to marksmanship competitions but I think I saw the most hicks gathered in one area I have ever seen. I even think I saw this guy!!! I think he is Neils long lost brother.

On that note Neil grew up on a farm far far away from the local blockbuster, so I have made it my mission in life to introduce him to the essential movies. So I am taking a poll what are your favorite movies? let me know that is if anyone reads this blog yet. Also any MTB racers out their who is racing what on the 1st, Blue mounds, Fall Color Fest, Blockhouse, Skinny Drunk bar crawl ohh the descisions.

2005-09-21T16:13:00.000-05:00

Ahh the world of bloggin. I guess it is about time I jump into the nerdy world of letting others hear about what I am doing (as if you care) so hello blog world. So what is my blog going to be about. Well everything I want to talk about (cue evil laugh). So Biking, Technology, Music, and how much I hate those ugly yard decorations old people seem to love, really who wants a million spinning sunflowers in their yard. So with that I say welcome to my blog.