Catch up

So I'll go all the way back to the Friday Night fish fry in Hillpoint. We experienced the Villa's fine cuisine and the plethora of Packer decor that was The Villa. Small town Wisconsin and fried food at it's finest. Saturday started out ok and I actually got more house projects on their way to done. I was just going up the steps to go on the ride I had set up when the phone rings. Never good when it's your weekend to be on call. So the ride left without me and I left for the American Family Childrens Hospital to help keep the kiddies comfortable. Back home a few hours later and still cranky from actually having to go on a call. So I went out and did 2x20's which proved to be a bad move as I find out the next day when the Pearisos showed up for the Brefixt ride. The Brefixt ride portion was ok, it was the 3 hours after with Chris and Spencer that became the problem.
So I'm definitely not the fastest guy around and I'm well aware of this fact. That being said, I got my ass handed to me on a "tempo" ride by both of those guys. It was the first time I'd been dropped on a road ride in a loooong time. It was awesome!!! Very motivating for me. So we followed the ride up with beer and pizza at La Rue Tavern. A great day.
Reforestation on Sunday. Should be awesome.

The flu

really sucks. Didn't get to race at River Falls due to better judgement. I probably could have showed up and dug my hole deeper, instead I stayed home and worked around the house and rested. It's amazing how much I can get done if I don't ride my bike. I really don't like not riding my bike, though. It is nice to be able to use the dishwasher without plugging it into an extension cord though.

O2S

What a great weekend. Amazingly enough I finished yet another race without a mechanical and I felt pretty good to boot! It had to be the chocolate rocks Michelle bought for me Friday on the way up. I had the pleasure of road tripping to the UP with her. Good thing she was there and paying attention to where we were going. I had no map and didn't even know how to get to Marquette. We got registered and met up with our respective people at our hotels at a reasonable hour so I actually got some sleep for once. Woke up and pounded the complimentary breakfast and headed to the start Saturday morning.
I really suck at race starts. I chased all the way to Ishpeming before I latched back on, passing a flatted TJ on the way. He fixed it and caught back up amazingly fast. Chris P. was on the front at this point after 3 weeks off the bike. Freak. The group was about 50 strong at this point. I managed to move up, somehow and got a huge boost when Marko went by. I latched on to him as long as I could. He got chainsuck, fixed it and then got taken out by another dude (not me for once). So I hit Misery Hill in 14th place or so. Holy crap! How does this happen? Where do all those people go? Over the top, I could see 2 guys 15 seconds in front of me. I decided to chase as hard as I could for 10 minutes and see what would happen. At 10 minutes I sat up and waited for the group behind. It had the guy with the Golden Bike in it and he was pretty strong. The group was pretty much letting him do all the work. I sat in to recover and took a few pulls but it was evident nobody else wanted to help. Bitches. I would put in a pull and pick up the pace but no one would pull through but they would all stay on. I could put in a harder effort and create a gap but with 25 miles to go I knew they could shut it down and drop me at the finish. So I waited and towards the end there are a few big sandy areas. These created some separation and my group was down to 4. So with 4 mi to go some guy who was never at the front (we'll call him smart) attacked and I couldn't go. With 2 mi to go another guy went. I chased him and he stayed 10 seconds or so up on me to the finish. I could see 9th place in front of me in the parking lot but couldn't close that gap for sure. I ended up 13th and pretty happy. Not as happy as Lisa, though. She sat in for the 1st 20 miles of the race, moving up the whole time but not killing herself. Then drilled it the last half and ended up in 5th place overall! Sweet cash and finish. It was funny because Bryan and Meat had both finished and I was commenting on how slow she was when I looked up and saw her in the finish chute. Then I looked at the results board and saw she was 5th. More crow please.
Got to hang with the 212 crew at the Bells Brewery after party. Had 1 too many, molested Chris P., annoyed everyone else and called it a night.
Got the invite on the way home Sunday to ride with the Team Pedal Moraine crew at the Reforestation Camp. Nice recovery ride. Yeah, right.
I also got to see Louis and Paco from GT again on Saturday. Nice guys. I was looking forward to riding with Louis and Jesse Bell on Sunday but some storms came through Saturday night and put a stop to that. All in all a really good weekend. Congrats to Mr. Matter on his win, the first jewel in the triple crown.

It's a start...

And a finish. Hooray for me. That was my main goal, just finishing. The trails at Crystal Ridge are great to ride and make for a true mountain bike race with a bunch of singletrack. Not a stellar showing on my part but it's nice to get more than 1 point for the series. Baby steps. Looking forward to the Ore to Shore this Saturday. Is this the year for someone to claim the triple crown? We've got a pretty big crew headed up there this year to play in the sand. It should be interesting.

That was nice.

The weekend, that is. Quite a few new roads on the trophy shelf on Saturday. We rode the back way to Richland Center the way I had scoped out and arrived at the Cenex for Pop-Tarts and Dr. Pepper in just over 2 hours. I didn't really have a plan for getting back. With no time restraints and beautiful weather we weren't in a hurry to be back. So we made a lap through R.C. and went past the Dirt Churnin' Nationals truck and tractor pull going on at the fairgrounds. We really wanted a T-shirt but were short on cash, being bikers and all. Hit up some great roads and towns like Little Willow, Hillpoint, Loganville and Ithaca. The best part of Ithaca was the Village Pump Tavern located in the front yard of the High School. I wonder if that is considered off campus?
Sunday was another Brefixt ride. We went to Loganville and ate at the Up Front Cafe. We got there at about 10:00. We didn't leave until Noon. It was soooooo slow. The group got pretty, shall we say, restless. The cook was only making 2 orders at a time. We had 12 people and there was another table with 8 people at it that ordered right before us. Holy crap. So in no certain order, 2 of us would get food. Then, 8 minutes or so later, 2 more would. WTF? So, at least it was good. Then a few of the group got in a hurry to get back and strung out the group which goes against everything the breakfast ride stands for. Brefixt Ride Rule #1: The ride is only as fast as the slowest person. Rule #2: If you can't follow rule #1, please don't come on our ride. It wrecks it for everyone. We don't want you on this ride, anyway. If you have time constraints, I'm sorry for you, go on your own ride. Thank you.
On that note, we'll hopefully see you on the next one. We won't be going to Loganville.

Much Like

3 week overdue milk, I left the last race with a sour taste in my mouth. After the super craptastic showing at the WORS Cup, I managed to last a full 45 seconds into the Sunburst Showdown before a flat ended any chance of a good showing. I fixed the flat and had a bad attitude. Then I decided to test the legs anyway. Surprisingly, I felt pretty darn good. I started after the second Comp wave and got to ride through most of the 2 waves in front of me before the second flat ended my day. I was less bitter after the second flat for some reason. I'm starting to resign to the fact that I'm going to have a 3 race mechanical/physical issue stretch every year. So now I have another 2 weeks to wait to test my abilities with the best in the midwest. O2S is coming up. Before I know it the Blockhouse Roll will be upon us. So much to look forward to. And then 'cross starts. When will my house get sided?
Nice job by Lisa to keep some honor for the Krayer's. Yeah, my wife is better than me. I'm ok with that. She's probably better than you, too.

More Filler

Well, this week wasn't as exciting as the last 2. Back to life as a Steamfitter in mountainless Wisconsin. I still haven't ridden my bike since the last stage of the Breck Epic. I did, however, manage to sleep. After 2 weeks of less than 4 hours of sleep each night it feels really nice to actually sleep. Last night I actually didn't feel like just laying around all night and got the bikes somewhat ready for the infamous Sunburst Showdown. It will be interesting to see how my legs respond to this wakeup call. Maybe they'll still be sleeping.
So they gave away some super cool stuff at the awards banquet and I ended up with some Ergon grips and backpack. I didn't win the Iodine wheels or Giro sunglasses or any Easton carbon bits. I did get the belt buckle reserved for finishers. It has BMF'er carved into the back of it. Dig it.
I still think of the stage that we went over French's Pass at least once a day. I really would like to do that again sometime. That was the best trail I've ridden and it topped my old best trail which had been Porcupine Rim Trail in Moab.