Happy Thanksgiving!

Whether it's spent with family or friends, always take the time to give thanks for everything good in our lives.

So that's what a Double Cross day feels like....

I did a local cross race today at Bruceton Mills. It's a tough little course but a fun one. I got the brainy idea of doing the Lancaster Dutch Wonderland race yesterday and then do a double today. Lancaster was a dud. My teammate Jeff and I got there with about enough time to get a warm-up or registering and running over to the pits with the spare bike. It took me a few laps to get going since the temperature was in the low 20s. I finally was able to be taking some big digs by the last lap, but it was too little too late. It was a fun course and I did get a good workout, but damn, when it's this cold, I really need at least 45 minutes of good warm-up time. I goofed around again Sunday morning and got to the race with about 15 minutes to spare. I spent the first 2 laps warming up, then raced with another rider up at the front in the B group race. I did a dumb move and nearly slid the bike out on a turn and wound up with a gap. I closed it, but really didn't want to have to do an effort like that and when I got jumped the next time up the hill, I was a bit cold to respond. From there, I put it into cruise control after trying to catch up for a lap and then settled for second. Already the second race was in my mind. When I got there, I might have had the mind on the race, but after a lap, the body wasn't. I was already thinking, I did what? This was going to suck. I battled back to 8th and 9th place after dumping the bike on a turn early on but at the 35 minute point, I finally cracked. I'd made a move that pushed me into 9th and I came right up onto the 8th place rider, then the hill to the finish line hit and POW. It was not the loud firey type explosion, but it did throw me back. I was able to keep my concentration together to realize I still had about 25 seconds on 11th and I wasn't going to lose another spot. I came up to the line a couple laps later and at 54 minutes I asked hopefully, 'Last lap?' Nope, two to go. JR, the race official was joking with the promoter that when I was done, I probably wasn't going to know who I was. He wasn't far off. I did recover enough to put a big enough effort to get into 9th place and then held on to stay 5 seconds ahead of the rider who was chasing for the whole race. My time was right about 1:10:00 for this race. Combined with the 53:00 minute time of the other and I'd spent over 2 hours on the course. I did come home with over $100 bucks worth of schwag as prizes and a trophy, but it felt like the longest 75 minute drive I ever took to get home. I don't think I even felt this bad after Iron Cross and that was a 5 hour effort with a 3 hour drive home. Hopefully there'll be a payoff in my late season form. Right now, I'm just going to eat something small and go to bed. I'll save the whining for tomorrow.

Dumb consumers

I was driving into work today(yes, I'm stamping down a massive carbon footprint and proud of it) and I heard one of the goofiest commercials on the radio. It was for a gas card. If you buy a drink at a GetGo in my area, you get 1 cent off per gallon of gas. The commercial had the moron who, was of course, a guy, asking the girl who was telling about him about the promotion, 'so you drink 3 cups of coffee a day, that's 3 cents off, right.' 'Yes and that builds up everytime. I got 15 cents per gallon off last week.' He goes on and says 'So what do I get if I get 2 cups of coffee, 2 Pepsis and a fountain drink?' Of course the answer is 5 cents off per gallon. My reply to that though would be 'Hmmmm, hypertension and diabetes?' I guess I woke up in a grumpy mood today.

Bailout

Well, I'm adding my two cents worth into the multi-trillion dollar bailout that's going on in the country. Currently the Big Three automakers and the UAW are on the hot seat for asking for a bailout. I would say, let them go into chapter 11 and get out from under their union contracts that pay workers who don't work anymore. It would also start having realistic rules for the employees and pay them a normal salary. On top of that, the management shouldn't be able to pull massive salaries and bonuses. WTF, bonuses? Man, if they get millions of dollars for plowing a corporation into the ground, I can do that for far less. Let me make just $1 mil for a year and I could slam the companies into the ground just as well as the current management of any of the car companies. I wouldn't even take a bonus and I'd drive myself to work! Some government officials have mentioned that the government would get a piece of the companies then. That's pretty much what is happening in the banking and insurance industry. Next up, energy companies! Get ready to assume the position. This 'bailout' is amounting to nothing short of the nationalization of the major corporations in this country. It is accelerating out of control currently. President-elect Obama could earn a ton of respect from this conservative by stepping up and saying 'No, we're not going to do this anymore. We're going to let the companies re-organize and become competitive properly, not by taking money out of public coffers.' At this point, even though he says 'there is only 1 president at a time', he should use some of his influence as the President-Elect to stop the massive pillaging of this country. There I go again, expecting someone in government to do the right thing. Velkum to ze Federal Socialist States of Amerika.

GP Day 2

Today went alot better than the first day. I blew myself apart after the 3rd lap today. I was actually racing with the group for a while today. I tailed off with some riders and stayed with them and even came back to a group. I began to pop about 2/3rds of the way through the 3rd lap but saw Feldman again coming up. I was able to summon up enough effort not to get caught and earned my right to suffer the fourth lap. by the mid point of the lap I'd gotten a couple beer hand-offs and received a 20 second penalty for dropping it when handing one back. I'd also started to get called 'Diamond Dave'(David Lee Roth for everyone on the young side reading this) because of my hair. I've just been too lazy to get it cut. It does get hard to keep the mind of the matter when it doesn't matter how slow you do the last lap. I'd done a few things differently than the first day. One was, I ran a bit more. I was really hoping that we'd be racing in the rain or that it would be wet enough that the course was a good soupy mud. That sort of stuff I can ride in, but peanut butter is another story. Through the long stretches for as long as I could keep the bike on the shoulder, I was running against the tape on the left side of the course and stretching it out so I was on somewhat solid ground. At each of the stakes, I would push it over as if I were hitting the flags on a ski slalom run. I was able to make up alot of ground on people who were slogging it up the right hand side with their bikes on the ground. Thanks a bunch to the C3 pit crew, especially Beth Mason on Saturday. Wade Hess was a big help on the Sunday and I was able to trade off bikes every half lap. I'll make sure to have some beers for everyone at the next race. I guess this will be a prelude as to what Portland will be like. I've never been on the west coast for a cross race where it hasn't been a rainy mess. To my friends out there, I'm known as a rain maker. They could be having great weather to the point of my arrival, but within a day or two, it winds up going all to hell. With my legs finally beginning to start going, I might be able to have a decent race out there. I've got 2 weekends of local races where I'll be able to work on the race form without the wear and tear of being in the car for a dozen or more hours over the weekend, so it might actually be relaxing. I'm sure it will be a tiring kind of relaxing though. Only about a month to go for the big one though.

Trenton - the mud hole

The first of the USGP races in Trenton proved interesting. I can definitely ride in the slick mud better than a lot of riders. I started in the next to last row and by the end of the lap, I'd worked my way up to the front half of the race. I was able to anticipate the bumblef**k moves riders were making and was able to adjust so that I didn't get caught up in them. Past that, I was able to find some of the lines that let me get around easier than what most people were dealing with. I held there for another half lap but wore myself fighting the heavy mud in the long field stretches. Into the third lap, I blew completely. The course wound up drying out and it was just a bit too much for me. I'm really hoping tomorrow sees rain coming through the area. If it's wet mud, I can definitely hold my position better and not blow up. It just took way too much effort today and once again, my lack of fitness took it's toll. Each race though, I've been able to hang in with the group a bit further. Tomorrow could be interesting as it's raining right now.

I must be getting old

I was getting ready for work today and I finally noticed my arm was bruised from my elbow to halfway up the arm towards the hand. The scrapes I got from the wreck healed pretty fast but the bruises have taken a bit more. At least it isn't one of those nasty green bruises I'd gotten from some of my other wrecks.