Nice....

"John McCain wants to take on the Old Boys network. The Old Boys Network!? In the McCain campaign, that's called 'a staff meeting'"

-Barack Obama 9-17-08

No Faking the 40

I have heard it said that there is no faking it in the Cheq 40. Unfortunately after 7 weeks of 1 or 2 days a week at most on the bike, faking it was all I had. Early this season I had a goal of a top fifty, (which is ridiculous considering I have never seen this race) but I knew my reality going into it was that I was just going to ride it out.

I chose a 36x17 and staged my bike around midfield at 8:30. I was really hungry waiting for the race to start after having had a rushed breakfast earlier. I tried to eat the hippy snack out of the registration bag, but it was pretty awful. Like a turd-rolled-in-birdseed-entire-family-laughing-for 5-minutes-at-how-awful-it-was awful. Starting hungry was a perfect way to top off my already low expectations.

The start was less frenzied and scary than I expected. I was actually able to relax and move up carefully through the field. About 10 miles in I started feeling good and would shoot past quite a few racers on every climb. At mile 30 however, everything seized up and that party was over. After that I was staggering up hills dragging my bike behind me. I was passed by legions of pie plates, primal jerseys, and Euro pro kits. I was pathetic. Racing is so much more fun when you have the miles in. When I rolled in the finish the clock said 4:24 and I hung my head. I found out a few minutes later my finish was like 3:04. Phew! Still, it was a full 40 minutes slower than I feel I should have been had my fitness progressed this year as planned.

After having a little meat orgy under the tent at the finish, we were out of there. I know we have had it pretty good with racing weather this year, but the rain was a real buzzkill. There were waves in our campsite back at the KOA, so we cut our trip short and headed home.

The Cheq experience was huge for me. It was truly memorable and epic. I can honestly say it has refreshed my passion for racing bikes, which I sorely needed. Still being new to this, I think I had gotten a little too WORS-centric and just burned myself out with the trainer hours. Staring at the power meter and the carpet for 150 hours before the racing ever starts doesn't leave you with many matches to burn. I'll get it figured out by the time I'm 45.

Charlie Gibson's Palin interview exclusive!

This chick is a train wreck. I love the bit about "perhaps" invading Russia. We are doomed if Americans are stupid enough to vote for these war crazed asshats.

What do Generals know...

about victory?

Not much I guess. Unfortunately there are no risks taken when subscribing to a strategery of empty words. The Seinfeld approach. A campaign about nothing (but lies), risks nothing (but maybe having to look for new fresh lies).

PalinMcBush takes the Bait

Obama has successfully baited John McCain into showing us what he is really made of, and the results are disgusting.

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/09/mccains-integri.html

Obama has manipulated the manipulators. Unfortunately this brilliance is lost on most voters.

If the happily manipulated voting public wakes up in time, it will be attributed to this growing contrast of character that Andrew paints. When you can't possibly make an informed decision anymore based on heavily obscured and debated voting records or past deeds, watch and listen to how these two men run their campaigns. The juxtaposition is startling. The choice is clear.

It just keeps getting better

http://thepage.time.com/2008/09/03/murphy-noonan-unplugged/

Meet Loretta

I'm pretty stoked to introduce Loretta as the newest member of our family. Loretta is a 72' VW Westfalia. She just took me all the way from Iowa City in supreme style (and she told me it was OK to call her LoLo). We bought it from a guy named Pete. Pete bought it from an elderly couple that had owned the van for almost 30 years. The wife (Loretta) was suffering advanced stages of Alzheimer's. Throughout the drawn out and emotional transfer of ownership to Pete, Loretta would exclaim, "We have a van just like that!" We hope to offer it the same kind of love and care that they did, and I think our relationship is off to a good start. The Hypocrite Wagon and the 12' Deathbox are soon to go.

I have been without an air-cooled presence in my life since I sold the 67' Karmann Ghia in 2002. Old Volksies gave me a profound appreciation for smart and simple engineering at a young age. I have since maintained an interrupted and varied (but not always monogamous) series of relationships with vintage VWs. I have even had a few water pumpers sprinkled in there. This is our first camper. She has a refrigerator that is capable of keeping beer cold. I have tools and a natural understanding of all things mechanical. It should be perfect symbiosis.

George and Jesus

On behalf of President Bush, thank you for your correspondence.
We appreciate
hearing your views and welcome your suggestions.
Due to the large volume of
e-mail received, the White House cannot respond to every message.
Thank you
again for taking the time to write.

You're welcome! Jesus never takes the time to write back either. I don't think either one of them can type.

Word

BSNYC, on the virtues of keeping it cheap and simple.

"No group has tapped into this wisdom more successfully than singlespeed mountain bikers. The singlespeed mountain biker revels in the fact that he’s accomplished the same thing as the geared rider, and he lives for that moment when someone is impressed by his ability to keep up while using a derailleur-less drivetrain. Of course, the truth is that on a lot of terrain a singlespeed mountain bike isn’t much of a handicap. In fact, often it’s an advantage. When confronted with a steep grade on a singlespeed mountain bike, you either have to stomp up it really fast, or you have to run it. Meanwhile, the geared rider will downshift eternally until he’s spinning a tiny gear so violently he simply falls over. It’s kind of like clothing. It might seem like you’re at a disadvantage if you’ve only got one pair of pants, but the fact is when it’s time to leave the house you just throw on your pants and leave. On the other hand, if you’ve got too many pants, you’ll need time to decide which ones to wear, then you’ll need to find a matching shirt, then you realize the shirt that goes with those pants is dirty, and you don't have any clean pants to match the clean shirt, and before you know it you’re 40 minutes late. Still, the singlespeed is perceived as a handicap, thus allowing the singlespeed mountain biker to stay up late doing bong hits, show up at the race the following morning, finish 15 minutes down on the guy riding the geared full-suspension bike who’s trained really hard, and still look like the toughest guy out there. (A notion that’s only reinforced after the race when he pulls on his one and only pair of grease-stained pants.)"

22.5 hours of 9 mile

Victory, (and apparently the ability to construct intelligible sentences) has evaded us. We do, however, have a firm hold on dead fucking last. 24 hour racing is hard. 22 hours in I was hating it and figured it was a really stupid idea. Now I can't stop thinking about next year; like what I/we did wrong (a bunch of stuff) and how do I/we do it right next time (I don't know yet). Huge props to all those guys that killed it all day and all night. Thanks to Ryan, Wendy, and Sheri for all of the help. Also, big thanks to Rick Walls for giving up his NR Moab when Pete's battery was snagged from the charge bar.

What a completely original experience it was.