Melting Point... 92 degrees...

Dad came over again on Monday to help with the kids. Man am I glad he did come over. He helped keep things "together".

I had a bbq to get to in the evening at the in-laws. The plan was to get over there between 5:30 and 6:00. Mimi calls and says that is too late and she has to leave early. OK, no problem, I can do this. I wake a sweaty Jeb up, he is none to happy about it. He's clinging to me and won't let me put him down or give him to Grandpa. So, here I am trying to gather things to go over to the in-laws with Jeb hanging on to me, not fun but do-able. He finally chills out a bit and I load up the Jeep, I remember that the air conditioner is broken and put the windows down... oh crap, there go those darn "sun shades", sucked into the inside of the door... OK, there is only minor damage. Get jeb into the car, apparently he is having some issues with his hat, again he is not happy. OK, now Sophie in the car, crap why is her head leaning so far forward? Now Sophie starts crying, Jeb's whining about something and won't let me buckle him in. Did I mention it is 90 something degrees? OK, everyone is in, if I start moving they'll calm down, they did. So, I'm cruising down the road and Jeb apparently doesn't like to wind from the open windows. He just couldn't grasp the fact that the air conditioner is broken. I look over at Sophie and she is sitting in the sun, damn sun shade got a little tweaked, and her head is leaning too much. Here I am driving the kids to buba and pappy's and poor Sophie is getting cooked in the sun. Yeah, I was speeding on the way there.

Get there and unload, I was cooking and had to unload the burgers and stuff. Aw crap, forgot the frickin' rolls! Jeb wants watermelon, cut watermelon, out to the porch where buba, mimi, pete and pappy are hanging out. What? close the door? I have to go back in and get the rest of the stuff ready. Glance down at Sophie and her head is leaning again... No really I'm going back inside... clean up watermelon... BEER! I need BEER!

Things got better from there, I guess the beer helped...

Boiling Point... 84 degrees...

Kristen is back to work on weekends, leaving me by myself with the kids. Which she does almost everyday. So, I should have no problem right? I've actually been doing ok, thanks to the re-enforcements. My parents were here on Saturday and my Dad helped out yesterday and is coming over this morning.

So, Dad leaves yesterday while the kids are napping. No problem, I even made dinner before Kristen got home. This is where the problem started. You see, Kristen has not wanted to turn the air conditioner on yet, and our thermostat read 84, normally this would be bearable, but I think it started to affect the kids. Sophie started being fussy, kitchen was hot from cooking, Jeb started getting wound up. Jeb was having a hard time going to bed, he was crying at the littlest thing, like if I turned the light off instead of him. Needless to say, I turned the air conditioner on! All in all it was a pretty rough evening, and Kristen is back at work today!

Right now things are quiet, dad's not here yet, Sophie is sleeping and Jeb is watching TV... Calm before the storm?

Guy's MTB Race

I woke up and decided I should go to the race because it will likely be my last weekend racing for a while, Kristen starts working on weekends Memorial Day weekend. (Sophie is still not taking a bottle, so next weekend is going to be fun!)

Got to the race, registered all was well. I figured I'd stop by Howard's Bike Line tent to see if I could borrow a spoke wrench and a stand. Howard was my old boss when I was working at Newark Bike Line back in the day. I had noticed last week that my wheel seemed to have lost some of its tension. I figured I'd add some more tension to the wheel and what do I discover, but a spoke that is complete out of its nipple, YIKES! I'm surprised the wheel still fit through the frame. If you've never tried to get a spoke threaded back onto its nipple without taking the tire off, let me tell you that it is a big pain in the ass. Nothing like some pre-race stress! I guess it is typical for me these days.

At the start I kind of "sat" in the front half of the pack. The course was pretty fun. There was one pretty steep technical downhill and some yo-yo decides it is a good place to pass. Needless to say we tangled up a bit, yeah, I was not giving him any room on purpose. In fact, I was kind of pushing him off the trail, (I rode with the Ty Domi of cross for many years!). After telling the guy how dumb he was I let him in line. So, after the race Mr Incognito tells me he passed someone in the same place. No, I didn't tell Mr Incognito he was dumb, have you seen the guns on him?

Spent much of the race cruising with the same few guys. At one point Fort James comes blowing by me! He was rolling, you could say he was the ROLLMASTR!


After doing most of the 2nd lap with the same group I decided I was a little faster through the technical stuff (read not uphill). So, I launched a vicious attack into the woods. OK, more like I rolled by a few of the guys I was with, but I was no ROLLMASTR.

I was really riding well for the next 3/4 of a lap. I even caught Sean, a friend of Blaz and Jay's, and he started a minute or two ahead of me. The next 1/4 of a lap I spent fighting off cramps in my quads! Man that hurt, my right leg is still a little sore from the cramps. Maybe I should start stretching? It was also this time that Sean caught and passed me on one of the climbs. Oh well. I finished 19th out of 29 finishers, I think another 10 did not finish. Pretty good for not riding all week?

Saturday.

We had a busy Saturday on top of it. We went to a neighbor's first birthday party. The party was at 4:00. Everyone, except me laid down to take a nap around 1:30. I decided I'd paint the downstairs hall, plenty of time I thought. Next thing I knew I heard Jeb up and I quickly put the stuff anyway. I knew I didn't have time for him to "learn" how to paint. Turns out it was about 3:30... oh crap, half an hour to get everyone ready! Yep, we were an hour late, and the house is right around the corner.

Kristen's sister Amy came over around 6:30 and we went to the Q-Mart carnival. Jeb rode the giant slide, the cars, the helicopters, the rocket ships (twice), and the catepiller. Then we decided to go into the Q-mart for a stroll, Amy's never been in. Jeb and I did the slot cars again. We ended up making it to "last call" at the Q-Mart. If you knew the Q-mart you'd probably be impressed. It actually wasn't as bad as I thought it'd be. Oh yeah, Amy said she was getting sick, more on that later.

So, I went to bed without going over my bike to make sure everything was in working order, I did clean it though. I actually thought I wasn't even going to go to the race when I went to bed.

ZERO LAPS...

Again. This week I completed zero laps of the crit, as a matter of fact I did not ride at all this week. Way to go! That's a great way to build on what you had going! Oh well. At least the crit was cancelled and I didn't just blow it off. There was quite a downpour at the velodrome Thursday night. I did get a credit for next week.

Mom called the other night, after reading my blog. She says, "I was reading your blog and that picture, what is on your face in that picture?" Nevermind the dude with the ink and holes in his ears. "Oh, you mean my beard?" I forgot that she had not seen me with my beard. I guess it might be a bit of a shock seeing your son with a full beard... but I'm living "Icognito"...

I finish the "Villa Incognito" audiobook today. Tom Robbins books are a lot of fun, even if they are a little on the dirty side. I wonder if Paul calls his house Villa Incognito?

Pla-bonga! Pla-bonga!

I'm going to race the Guy's race on Sunday. I really should clean my bike off before the race. The cool thing is I get to keep my number on the bike. (I think in the MASS you keep your number?)

Granogue

I actually raced my mountain bike! I hadn't done a mtb race since July.
I had planned on racing as long as it wasn't raining, and the forecast called for rain in the afternoon. At least that's what weather.com said when I went to bed. As I come to the end of the blue route and merge onto 95, I see the dark cloud ahead! Probably right of Granogue, I can't tell you how close I came to turning around. I got there with about 15 minutes to register, change and get my bike ready. One would think that after racing bikes for over 10 years I'd have figured out that you should get to races EARLY! Needless to say I "forgot" a few things, I didn't have my short sleeve Secret Henry's Team jersey in my bag, I had to wear my long sleeve, I forgot my co2, which I wasn't really concerned about because if I flatted I'd just walk to the finish and I'd DNF. I got to the staging area and noticed I did not have my waterbottles! That's when I saw Paul and he was kind enough to give me two of his bottles, he saved me a trip back to the car. Paul also suggested I take a Hammer Gel, damn good thinking. Thank you Paul! So, the only photo evidence that I was there is this picture taken by Dennis, Paul and I are in the background, I'm the one eating the Hammer Gel.

I lined up for the start, at the back of course due to my lack of fitness, I didn't want to get in anybody's way. (I'd regret this later) So, about 100 yards off the line some guy flats and a crash ensues and a gap forms. I decided I'd try and close the gap. I was surprised how easily I made it across, must be the training crit paying off.

We finally made it into the woods and this is where I started to get frustrated. You see, I'm racing sport class because I lack fitness, but I still managed to keep some of my skills. I spent the entire first lap stuck behind people that couldn't ride a lot of sections on the course. At this point I decided I'd kind of cruise the rest of the way. Got to the top of a climb from the pond, I think, I had no idea where I was the entire race, more on that later. So, at the top of this climb I decide to stop and take off my hat. There is a group of people here and two girls taking pictures. So, they start cheering for "Darren" and girl 1 says "Check out that hot guy behind Darren." Girl 2 was taking video of Darren and she said that when girl 1 said that, she panned to the hot guy. I found that very amusing, I spent the next few sections chuckling about it. More of the "stop, get off the bike, walk over obstacle", until I saw Fitzy. I stopped and talked to him for a bit as people went by. At this point I really couldn't give a hoot about my place in the race. I actually thought I'd stop after the first lap.

Finished the first lap and decided I'd ride down the hill and go to the car. Then I remembered a section that you could get air and figured I'd hit it then decide. Well when I got there, I heard a bunch of people yelling "Droopy". Ah, an audience, so I hit the jump and tweaked it out and got an ovation. I figured I'd do the same thing on the jump right after, but I wasn't as graceful. In fact I did an endo and almost frickin lost it... so much for being smooth. I think this gave me my second wind as I actually started passing people and riding more of the sections, probably because I had more room. Rode for a while and got to Fitzy's "Beer Stop", I had two, as some people passed. This is the part that I wished I knew where I was on the course because the Beer Stop was right at the bottom of the climb to the finish. Let's just say the climb SUCKED! I did out sprint some guy that passed me on the climb, I almost hurled though. I ended up 23rd out of 31 finishers, with a time of 1:54:07 and 18:45 off of the winner.

I was pleased enough with my performance that I actually want to race again! Next race is Guy's, maybe I can get there. Last time I raced there I think I broke my finger.

Thanks to fatmarc and everyone that worked so hard to put on an awesome race!

ZERO LAPS...

...I bailed on the crit last night. My excuses, they are many, I will spare you the details... I know I'm a loser.

Spent my lunch hour yesterday checking out the videos on the Diablo Freeride Park website. I hope to get up there sometime this summer. Anyone care to join me for some downhill fun?

It does not look like it is suppose to rain tomorrow morning. So, I think I'm heading down to Granogue to do my first mountain bike race since Fair Hill last summer.

Wissahickon

Saturday afternoon, I met up with Brent to do a loop of Wissahickon park in Philly. I forgot how tough that place is. We started to ride up "belles mill" and a ranger was there taking names and giving out wrist bands, that they put on our bikes. They also wanted a small donation, but neither of us had any money. We told them we'd check out the website and the guy even gave me his card. There were a couple of cool new sections since the last time I was there. I had a good time chasing Brent around the park. He crushed me! That makes twice this week that I got crushed on a ride!

After stopping at the grocery store, I came home for our Anniversary dinner. I made some poterhouse steaks, grilled asparagus, and grilled sweet potato wedges, a ceasar's salad and a bottle a Ravenswood Zinfandel. Everything was fantastic! The wine was especially good, we ended up finishing the bottle. Which is very much out of the ordinary for us lately.

I told Kris early that I would stay up and watch a movie with her. Something I very rarely do. It was probably a combination of riding with Brent and the half a bottle of wine but I could barely keep my eyes open. We ended up watching Man on Fire(?) with Denzel Washington, boy it was pretty brutal lots of gory stuff. That dude was not messing around. He ended up killing like half of Mexico. I liked the movie, I even made it through the entire thing without falling asleep. At the end of the movie Kris says, "So, what happened?" She fell asleep! geesh!

TWENTY AND A HALF LAPS...

...or maybe it was nineteen and a half, or twenty-one and a half... I couldn't see straight let alone do the complex arithmetic needed to calculate (subtraction) how many laps I did. I think it was 19.5 because I don't remember seeing single digit laps to go. I ended up lasting 50:46. Pretty good, but I don't think many of the big guns where there. Next week I'll try to get into single digit laps to go.

The family came up to "watch" me race. The crit takes place in a pretty nice park and I always noticed quite a few little ones running around in the gigantic sand box. So, Kris brought up the kids. It was cool to see them there. Although, once I was racing I had enough trouble seeing the person in front of me let alone my family on the sideline. Apparently, every time they rang the bell for a sprint lap Jeb would go running towards the course yelling, "Daddy racing bikes!", or something like that. Then I'm sure he'd run back to the sand box and continue playing.

I'm pooped, I need to go to bed...

Hookey Day...

About once a year Derek, Cheff and myself get together and "call out" of work to do something fun, don't worry mom, we took vacation days.

This time we decided to recreate the first hookey day with a mountain bike ride from Derek's house. This year we had a rookie on our hookey day, Derek's brother-from-another-mother. Who just moved from Hoboken to High Bridge, quite a change. We met up at Derek's house Sunday night for some Play Station. Derek set up the projector and screen, it was pretty frickin cool!

We had planned on using my "multi-tap" so we could play 4 at a time, but apparently my multi-tap doesn't work with the new style PS2. Oh well. The new Medal of Honor dual player game rocks! You get to sneek around and shoot eachother! Yeah, I sucked at it. It was my first time playing. Turns out the Rookie is an expert at the game and kicked all of our asses! Little did he know that we'd get him back on the ride the next day!

and we're off...

Here we are ready to go.

I knew I would forget something. Turns out I forgot my shorts. I had to borrow a pair of Derek's shorts. I can't remember the last time I rode in shorts and boxers? Maybe in High School.

We had to climb up and over the mountain to get down to Stephen's. It is pretty much road or paved path the entire way. So, it wasn't as big a deal as it could have been. It was still a tough climb! We're cruising down the other side, trying to hit top speed. I was just kind of coasting not really letting it hang out and they got quite a ways ahead of me. Next thing I know there is a tight right hand 90 degree turn, and I'm going way too fast! Overcooked the turn and had to thread my way between a huge rock and a rather large tree into the woods. It could have been really ugly. I don't even like thinking about how close it was.

So, we are riding in Stephen's and Cheff says to Derek, "Isn't this where you flatted last time?"

Yep, he flatted about 2 seconds after Cheff makes his comment. Pretty strange...

Made it to the lake...

I don't think we could have ridden a much more direct route to Alamuchy. I was actaully a little surprised we made so "quickly". Last time we did this ride it seemed like it took forever to get up to Alamuchy.

There was a fun little downhill to the lake and I got this picture of Derek. He apparently was trying to wave and almost lost it. Maybe big guys shouldn't wave or fly?
The lake
We hung out next the lake for a while.

Apparently I had something stuck in my teeth all morning and Cheff finally told me here at the lake. Derek said, "Oh yeah, I noticed that a while ago. I just didn't want to tell you." Rookie chimes in, "I thought you just had really bad teeth. I didn't want to say anything either." Thanks guys!

ROOTS...

Tough Guy Award Goes to...

THE ROOKIE!

You see, he had a laundry list of excuses but he didn't use any of them!
-"I can't remember the last time I rode this bike.
-I forgot my shoes and I'm using Derek's "pontoons" that are 3 sizes too big.
-My seat post is fused into the frame and the dang seat is way too low.
-My saddle is loose and it keeps pointing "up".
-I'm riding a rigid bike.
-I didn't have any breakfast, I couldn't eat my breakfast burrito because...
-Can you see the size of the blisters on my hands?
-I'm a musician."
Seriously, the guy is tough as nails. Those "rose-colored" glasses must really keep the spirits up!

and Back to the House.

On the final leg we decided we'd skip the Hot Dog cart, good thing because it wasn't there, and Derek would run to the grocery store to grab some steaks for the grill. Well we got home and this is what Derek decided to do:

Actually he only laid there for a half an hour, OK, more like 10 minutes tops. Thanks for going to get the steaks! Of course, Cheffery cooked the steaks and boy were they good!
I think we ended up with 4.5 hours "chamios time". I think we probably rode for about 3.5-4 hour though. Which will probably be my long ride of the year. Unless Jeff and I actually do the century we keep talking about...

It was a great day! Can't wait for the next "hookey day"!

Oh yeah, Derek and I had to move the cars around on Sunday night. FYI, Cheff's jeep doesn't get great traction on leaves, especially when you're trying to drive up a 10' bank!