Beaten with Sticks

You know those cheap remote control cars from big box stores that distant relatives give to your kids at Christmas time? The ones that only have a range of like 5 feet and as soon as you squeeze the throttle it wildly skitters across the tiles, tires spinning out and bouncing off of the baseboards. Then the controller is out of radio range in 2 seconds.

"Sorry dude, this is clearly not an inside toy, or an anywhere toy for that matter."

I have felt lately like one of those cars when riding singletrack, all throttle but no range or control.

Blue Mound last weekend was a great way to cap off a weeks worth of crashing my bike. I've been pretty frustrated off road and it resulted in taking 3 days off all bikes and sulking. I felt better last night like I am ready to crash into stuff again. Anyone have a medium-ish SS 29er frame that they need to trade for something smaller? I fear I have been cramming myself into my Kona. On the range issue I may have been a bit conservative in planning my training volume, I could stand for way more mileage/hours(making time for it is something else).

The best laid plans......

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If the weather is nice when I pick up Rowan in the afternoon he is usually in the playground. I like to walk up slowly so that I can watch him interact with his friends for a few moments without knowing yet that his Dad is there. The other day him and two of his friends were riding the tricycles. They have this huge figure 8 race track out there that they can attack each other on....., I mean ride leisurely on while smelling the flowers. When I walked up I saw his two friends tangled up, trying to wrestle their bikes apart. Rowan was barreling down on them at a high rate of speed with his feet in the air having spun out his fixie tricycle. What made this scene most choice was Rowan hollering "Rider down! Rider down!" as he dumped into the grass just before t-boning his tangled buddies. I laughed for five minutes, then corrected him. "You need them to clear out Rowan, try 'Rider Back!' next time."

Escape!

I plan on kicking down the walls of my cubicle at 3:00 and hauling oates to Blue Mound State Park. We have 3 days worth of trail riding, beer drinking, and family lounging planned. Before the beer drinking starts though, I think I'm going to try the time trail tomorrow morning. I have gotten to know that climb well over this past winter/spring, so I should be able to hammer this one pretty good. 28 minutes sounds extreme, but everyone gots to have goals right?

Need something to do the weekend? Come on out and ride. We are at site #59 and rides will be leaving at random intervals all weekend. Bring beer, chairs, and maybe a first aid kit if your bike skills are off. Blue Mound will bite you if you aren't paying attention.

Baffling

I had an interesting lunch today with some of our X-ray Diffraction customers that are visiting us in Madison for some training. These guys will be using our instruments aboard an international geological research vessel. Their work includes endeavors such as drilling and running analysis on the underwater crater left from the asteroid believed to have wiped out the dinosaurs. Very cool stuff if you are into science, the pursuit of truth, and such things.

Our discussion was all over the place, and our guests displayed unique insight into a variety of fascinating topics that were woven through the fabrics of science, society and humanity in general. Before long the conversation turned to the economics of oil and gas prices. If anyone does, these gentlemen have their fingers right on the pulse of the stark geological facts concerning peak oil production. One of them was actually the diffraction scientist aboard an oil platform at a previous job. However, when I used the phrase "peak oil" in conversation, I may as well have said: "Great Googly-Moogly!" The consensus among them was that the blood being spilled over high gas prices was strictly on the hands of both the EPA for shutting down refineries that were out of compliance, and the oil companies for failing to invest in a dated and crumbling infrastructure. I suggested that it wouldn't be good business for oil companies to pay for modern and expensive equipment that won't be in operation for long enough for them to see any return. It is our relationship with oil that is becoming dated and crumbling. One of our guests replies: "No, they are just greedy bastards."

Perhaps, but greedy bastards know where they have to spend money in order to continue making it. Just like the president of the United States in a bad Jerry Bruckheimer film doesn't want the people to know that they will all die soon at the hands of aliens or whatever, big oil won't scare their employees with startling tales of irretrievable remnants of oil. Our refusal to accept the coming end of an energy era will ultimately make the transition all the more painful. Nobody gives a fuck.

I was baffled by their obtuseness on the subject when juxtaposed against their knowledge of most everything else. Even with unfettered access to applicable facts, people will look the other way when facing the reality of the coming situation. Baffling.

600 milligrams

That's how much ibuprofen I just consumed. I slammed my body into some trees today while trying to lay it on too thick. Once pretty violently, enough to shake me up a bit and lose a bunch of time. I went from 15mph to zero in half a second and my left lower leg took the hit. I did have my best start yet though. After my crash I started losing it and Jerry was able to catch me and walk away for good in the singletrack after the last set of climbs. I'm happy with how I dealt with adversity and am pretty stoked about the race. I did forget to eat again and that didn't help my already shaky final lap. This course at Lake Geneva is the cat's ass and a super gnarly dirt roller coaster. Loved it. The Racing Ralph 2.4s were brilliant, even if 15psi up front may have been a bit squirmy late in the race. Quite possible though that it was me that was getting squirmy. 4th again, and moved up a couple more spots in the Comp field. Big thanks to the Chainsmokers injured reserve for the handups, company, and encouragement.

Sheri took up the slack again and brought home 2nd in her age group and 5th of a large Cit women's field. She was taking them to church!

I think I'll give that a try before the season is up.

Rowan followed Russell's lead and napped through his race. He did however clean the paved hill behind the building heading into the venue. He was standing and grunting, pushing that gear. I was a proud Daddy.

Rock Crawling

Sheri and I worked diligently at our jobs all day long, for we both exercise pure devotion to our employers. Then we went mountain biking! Blue Mound was open today, and it reminded us quickly how wimpy an upper body gets from lonely winter miles. It always seems to take a few trips out there just to be able to clean all the areas you had perfected the previous fall. We fell some, some of us more than others. Sheri waited until just after this shot was taken to bail.
I had to show her how to do it right by bailing for the camera.

Suffering

I met a Monk about 10 years ago that summed up for me in a few words what the path to enlightenment is. He said all you have to do is remove suffering from your life, and defined this suffering as "the feeling of the difference between the way things are and the way you would like them to be." I liked that. It makes sense to me and now I reference it all the time (and find ways to introduce new forms of suffering into my life).

I would say, then, that Hillary has long strayed from the path to enlightenment. This contest isn't over only because she really, really, really, really, wants to be president. And isn't that enough? She has become as dismissive of reality as a Bush cabinet member. I read a comment somewhere on politico that put it like this:

“Hillary has become the town-drunk who refuses to leave the bar at 4 am, and ends up getting beaten up by the cops.”

True. So why do her friends keep feeding her Vodka Tonics? Oh that's right, she is spending her own money now.

Bumpin' and Jumpin'

2008 is going to be a good year for racing. I think we learned quite a bit from last year and this weekend of racing was much more fun and relaxing than our 07' experiences. Not being committed to set-up and break down the races helps quite a bit, but I think it was mostly the preparation. Preparation of not only the family camping stuff, but having the miles in to know you should have your best race.

Managing my race. I ended up racing Comp SS again and it was a very full class, going off with perhaps the biggest comp age group as well. It was clear from the start that to try and stay with Jerry would be a mistake, he was just silly fast. So I played it conservative (probably too much), and felt good the whole race. I may have been able to squeeze out a few more minutes by allowing myself to hurt more, since I felt ready for another lap at the finish. 4th place felt at home as 2007 had me there quite often, but I was further up in the Comp field than I ever was last year. Even though I dropped a hand up and my tire choice felt too big and slow, I'm generally happy with how I managed my effort. This was the first time in any of my Comp races that I felt like I was in the race, and that makes it twice as fun as suffering in no man's land. I feel better about moving to Expert now so will probably maybe perhaps upgrade for Geneva. I have no delusions of winning anything, that isn't why I show up. I just want to push harder, for longer, and find that next race to be able to hang with.

Sheri was pumped with her race and took 2nd in her age group. I think she was the only single speed in Citizen, and was in the middle of her overall. I have her hooked for sure. Rowan though the doggies were much cooler than the bikes but he had a good race and was only girl'd once. Saturday evening Rowan and I went for a hike and found a "coonasaurus" bone, but we figured only Mom was qualified to identify the species. We drank probably twice as much beer than was prudent on Saturday night and stayed up too late listening to colorful banter from the much loved muddy cuppers. But hey, it was fun.

More images here from the new family photog.

Secret Training

So go read ClusterFuck Nation. I don't know about you, but I like a nice guilt shower before pulling my camper to a WORS race. One day all we will have is the local cross race at the park. Start hording those tubulars now while we can still make them, and go racing up north while we can still afford it. See you at Iola.

The public appears aggressively clueless about the peak oil story. They do not accept any threats to the motoring regime. The news media is surely not helping sort things out. I saw a remarkable display of ignorance on CNN last week when the new resident idiot-maniac Glenn Beck hosted Teamster Union boss James Hoffa and they agreed that the oil companies were to blame for high fuel prices. To put it as plainly as possible, Beck doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about, and it's disgraceful that CNN gives free reign to this moron to misinform the public. It's perhaps equally amazing that Hoffa doesn't know we have entered a permanent global oil crisis based on demand having outrun supply. These two idiots think that if Exxon-Mobil built a new refinery down in Louisiana, everything would be fine, diesel fuel would go back down to 99 cents a gallon, and it would be Christmas every morning.