Pizza Barn Plus

With a name like that, how could you not want to eat there? If you're ever in Scottsville, Mi I would highly recommend it. The pizza and ice cream are fantastic! You can even get a milkshake with 2 straws there. That must have been the meal that put me over the top for The Lumberjack as I was able to manage another 7th place finish in that race as well. Lots of riders that looked like Zombie's on this course. Best part about the race being over was we got to go back to the Pizza Barn Plus again! Mmmm. Another great weekend with part of the Team and really looking forward to this weekend and having the whole team together.

I actually drove the car home from the shop Monday night. I really need to get some video of that car, it sounds wicked and seems to pile on speed pretty fast.

WOW

I guess upgrading from IE6 opens up a whole new world wide web for me. Last post was before the season even started and here it is June already. 3 NUE races in the books and 2 of them I managed to end up in the Top 10, who woulda' thunk that? I never would have thought that 7+ hours of racing could go by so fast. 1 more to go and then it's back to the WORS family again and a whole different kind of hurting.

On the home front, the car is in the shop getting finished up, the chickens are getting big and the coop is almost done. I need to finish that up this weekend so the chicks have someplace to live besides in the basement. We have 10 kittens The Girls have tamed and they are almost ready to leave Denzer. If you need any let me know, delivery can be arranged!

Airport Time

   My easy flight from Rockford to Phoenix was anything but. Apparently Allegiant Air saves money on fares by doing less maintenance to their equipment!! It did allow me to spend a romantic evening by myself in a hotel room in Rockford and waste a day of vacation though. Seems like a good deal, right?
   Anyway, once I arrived in AZ it got better for sure. Good riding, better company and great food.

   Got the rear seats reupholstered yesterday, should get them in today. I can almost smell the tire smoke...

Balmy outside

and overdressed for the weekend for sure. Beats frigid and frozen anyday, though. Hung out in Amherst for the weekend and it didn't suck at all. I provided Saturday night's entertainment by showing everyone how not to put their bikes together. Why put something together once when you can do it 3 or 4 times??? After it was all put together (Much to Chris' amazement) we put it on the scale and it was 21 lbs 2 oz. Not to shabby for a full suspension 29'r. That's a mere .72 lbs per inch!

Sunday turned into a deathmarch. It was an awful quiet last 30 minutes or so. Out of water for what seemed like 6 hours and dreaming of the pizza awaiting us made time stand still. And I was feeling good compared to Myles. Not sure how he managed to make it through both rides smiling but he did. Must be all the excercise his thumbs get from texting.....

I guess

   Mother Nature thought it was time for me to wash my bike. I would have rather she did it while I wasn't on it although I think the bike was ok with it. Even with the rain it was the most comfortable temperature I've ridden in so far this year. I'll take the rain over snow for sure.
   The interior is almost complete in the car. Waiting on a few little pieces and it will be ready for seats. The warm weather is feeding the I wanna' drive my cars bug!

Tough to Top this!

What a weekend! Started it out right Friday night when I stopped by the shop. I was discussing suspension stuff with Jim and next thing I know we're doing full throttle beat laps down the road behind the shop in This Car!!!! 3 days later and I still grin remembering the repeatedsessions of  full throttle wheel spin in third gear in a car that cost more to build than I make in about 5 years! I think that's my one time of getting to ride in a car like that,thanks Jim and Mike! It won best of show at the biggest car show in North America as well as in Pomona just recently. The car needs to be seen to be truly appreciated. Followed that up later with a spectacular fish fry at St. Lukes in Plain. Mmmm.
   Saturday had me dropping The Girls off at The Fraziers and then riding home from Cottage Grove. Bryan got me to Lodi and then I meandered home from there. Then it was off to the annual Wild Game Feed one of the Doctor's at St. Clare Hospital puts on every year. That's always a good night and it kicks off the silly season of food events in our area every year. The chili suppers and smelt feeds are starting this coming weekend and we can hit one every weekend in Feb until early March. I'm pretty sure if I stop riding I will rapidly become RK+.
   Sunday had us in Waukesha at The Braun's crib for Darrin's last big ride before the Life Changer shows up. We had almost the whole 212 carnival act in attendance and it was a good performance today fo sho. Mrs. Braun was in full life creation mode yet and had quite the arm rest going. I know she's going to miss that feature. Thanks to The Braun's for hosting and feeding us up! We'll be back after the neighborhood recovers from the shock and awe that was in effect today. Maybe Chris will let Michelle ride her new road bike next time...

Payback?

   Last week Nariz (Bryan) was not having a good day when we rode together and I was having an exceptional sort of day. My feeling of how great a day it was was offset by Nariz's tunnel vision and focus on the road surface 3 ft in front of his wheel. I'm pretty sure that if you look at his calendar there is a red circle around today's date. He spent countless hours honing his fitness, plotting how he was going to come and destroy me today. Well, nice job. It worked. Thanks for that.
   It's February this next week. Almost time for silly season. The Smelt Feed in North Freedom on the 25th, Chili in Leland on the next week, chili in Blackhawk somewhere in there and I heard a rumor of a Smelt Feed in Sauk soon too. I should be racing at D+'s weight this year.

Watch that step!

The most treacherous part of the weekend turned out to be the basement steps. First time I've fallen in a while and I don't like it much. The cold air was as good as any ice pack on Sunday, and by the end of the ride my jacket was pretty much a sheet of ice anyway. It helped me keep from thinking about how much my arm hurt from falling down the steps, I suppose.
     Been spending most nights working on the car lately. I ripped all the wiring out and started over again. It looks much nicer, at least to me. It's almost February already! Hopefully be driving it soon.

OK then

They, who in this case are Google, decided to make changes to blogger so I wasn't able to post using internet explorer 7 anymore. I finally tried it on Lisa's machine and it apparently works. Thankfully this will bring me off the bottom of the blog roll for little while.
   Went to the bike swap yesterday to sell and not buy anything. Accomplished both objectives. The first thing that I sold was a used 9 spd cassette. The most interesting item I sold was my number 69 bib number from Chequamegon 2 years ago!!!! Enjoy that, funny guy that bought it.

Well Hello again!

     Where you been? The "Off" time was wild around here. Finished, I say Finished up quite a few jobs that have been needin' doin' for quite a while. We cut down a huge tree in front of our house (with minimal damage done!), cut a lot of firewood, tore the pantry apart and put it almost all back together. I put a new master cylinder in the plow truck today and now I'm ready for the impending snow. Somewhere in there we started riding bicycles again, too. Today was so nice on the bike. No reason to not be riding, sun was shining and it was just me and the fast girl I live with. We both were really happy with our newest bicycle related purchases, the Louis Garneau 0 degree winter cycling shoes. Scott recommended them and they do not dissapoint!! Thanks a bunch, Scott! Those shoes are going to make winter riding much, much more gooder.
   There's talk of riding The Kettles tomorrow if they're open. Not having house projects is a wonderful thing.

Dark O'Clock comes early

It's getting harder to get everything in before dark these days. If you can't read the PowerTap display the workout isn't really happening, right? Seems like it still hurts though.

Got the car started last weekend. Put the touch starter in this week and it is sweet!!! I'll get a video up of it soon. Hopefully the exhaust goes on next week and I can get it home. We'll see. If I learned anything in this process it's that everything takes way longer than I thought it should!

Reforestation Recap

What a fun race! I had so much fun ripping the super fast singletrack yesterday. It was good to be back towards the front again. Crazy finish with the lappers and spectators but still one of the best races around. The Dark Helmet from Title Town Brewery the night before must have put some Ludicrous Speed into my system.

Green Bay

Here we come. Looking forward to some high speed racing fun this weekend. This race was the first place I ever got a Top 3 in WORS Elite. We had recently returned from 2 weeks in Italy and I had a lot of miles in me at that point. I chased down people I had no business running down and surprised myself with that finish. What a day. Notice I wasn't at top form on the podium pose. Sweet hair, though.

Jeezaloo

It's almost time for Ore to Shore!! Summer seems to have just started and WHAM!! the Fall Classics season is almost on us.Hopefully I can come close to the result I had there last year, it made all that suffering worthwhile. I wonder if we're riding through that canal again this year?

Why stop at 2 Mustangs

When you can own 3?

So last weekend was pretty awesome. The race course was perfect as was the weather. Results for me weren't exactly what I was hoping for but it was another great 212 gathering which is just as good! Lisa did her first PRO race and that was fun to watch. The short track was a spectators dream as we could see half the track from 1 spot. The attacks were vicious and plentiful and watching them I could tell I would've gotten pulled in about 8 minutes or less of the 30 minute ordeal.

So not only did we get another car last night, Kylie fell off the monkey bars and broke her arm just below her elbow. Both bones broke so she did a really good job. Lisa was gagging when she saw it! She said Kylie's arm looked like a lightning bolt. Nasty. So she'll have a cast on for the next 4-6 weeks if all goes well. Longer if they have to do surgery next week if the 2 bones fuse together.

I guess Summer is over.

                                        Seemed short this year. I didn't even get to drive our car.

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!!!!