George of the Jungle and me

had  a little bit in common on Saturday. I was at the WEMS race and totally had a "watch out for that tree!!" moment, just like in the song. Much like George, I smoked it pretty hard. Just shy of seeing stars, I shook it off and carried on. Chris and Michelle took the wins for the 6 hr race while Lisa and I gathered up the 1st losers spots. A good day for riding and a big thanks to the Pedal Moraine Team for putting on the event and dishing out plenty of unwanted encouragement to go faster and ride more.
    Monday was the annual Meat's Memorable Memorial Day Ride event which was followed up by lots of beer, brats, burgers, cake, more dessert and then a service call from work. Crap. Oh well, at least it was double time.

The wheels and tires are on but the car needs some weight in it to get it to settle where it will sit decent. The rear wheels fill up the wheel wells pretty nice and it'll only get better when it's lower!

Missouri 5 uh-oh

    I almost got to find out what it was like to be in a Southern jail! Luckily, the Officer ended up being from Minnesota and after some football banter and a lot of in car help I was free to go with a citation for "being a Packer Fan!" I'll take that! Lots of memories made during the drive back. Not all of them good, some are burned into our noses and others would be better to be forgotten!
   So I ended up 8th in the race. I'm pretty happy with that as I went in with no expectations. Finishing that dang race was a win in itself.
   Annual pilgramage to Rhinelander this weekend. Hopefully my legs made the trip back from Arkansas...

You never want

  To answer the phone and hear your Wife say "We're ok but I'm in the emergency  room." Especially when I you live in Wisco and your currently just south of St. Louis. Kelsey came up to Lisa and said she had a headache and her stomach hurt, then dropped to the floor quit breathing and turned blue. She came to after what I'm sure felt like hours to Lisa, the ambulance was on it's way and they were off to the Hospital. They didn't find anything wrong, really. So on Monday she get's to have a CT Scan and more tests. Scary stuff for us. Thanks to Grampa for picking them up and bringing them home.
   So, while Lisa was dealing with all that, I was down doing the NUE race in Arkansas. The events at home were weighing on me a bit but I let it rip as best I could. It was pretty wicked. We had 3 people with flats on our 7 mile pre-race! The race outlook changed a bit after that. Today, Chris flatted 5 times (yep, 5), Scott twice and Michelle, Sara, Lee and I somehow managed to avoid the seemingly inevitable and finished without any. I had to use a pump at a checkpoint but that was it. The course was wicked, lots of rocks, 3 deep creek crossings ( Lee took a swim at one of them), lots of mudholes and did I mention rocks? There were some really fun sections, very little doubletrack and a lot of rocks. I went through 10 bottles of heed plus most of my camel back, 5 flasks of Hammer Gel, 3 bars, 2 pbj's and a bunch of Sport Legs and Endurolytes. The gastric distress is at an all time high tonight. They were really slow on the results so we left before they were posted. I guess I was somewhere around 10th, give or take.
   Thank you Chris and Michelle for putting up with me and for bringing me along on the trip!

I heart The Kettles

It's hard to beat that place. Thank you to all the folks that build that marvelous trail system! One of the best places I've ever ridden. Darrin, thanks for the ride. Hit rim on a rock for the first time on carbon wheels. OK so far! Smell that? Mother's Day brunch coming up!!!!

Dang you Chris.

I'd never even heard of someones earholes getting cold before. You bring it up and then bam! Last night on my ride, my earholes got cold. Almost 39 years and never had CES until now. Thanks.

WORS family reunion

It's like going back home. The first race is always a great day regardless of results as we get to see a lot of friends we haven't seen for a few months. Iola is a great course and it was perfect even after all the rain we got. Pretty good day for The Team, the ladies showed us how it's supposed to be done and Mike and Darrin held up their own. The same can't be said for me yet but I'll come around. It's good to have one race in the legs and know I can at least still finish! The new S-Works Epics are amazing and worked perfectly all day. It's nice to finish up a race and not have wicked back pain.
     On another note, who would have thought the wind would ever be a factor at Iola? Jeezaloo it was wicked in some spots. As if the climbing wasn't enough to deal with. The temperature was another wonderment. I knew it was a little on the cool side when I saw some kid with his back tag pinned to his winter jacket!!!