Reading material....



This came in the mail today. It has lots of pictures, so I should be alright.....

Ride safe.

Peace out, yo!

So, there I was....

It was about 4 this afternoon and I was just finishing a meeting with our HR director. I was leaving his office and walking past the Receptionist's desk to check my mail box when she took a call on her phone. She got quite excited and just a little loud with the person on the other end. I had the impression that something bad had happened when she said she'd try to get hold of someone. Whomever she was talking to seemed to have had an accident and it appeared to have happened in our south parking lot. Great. She hung up the phone and turned around and saw me there so she told me that she thought someone might be playing a joke on her. She said that Jarded had just called and that he said he had fallen in the parking lot and had broken his leg. Jared has been known to joke around once in awhile but this sounded out of character even for him so I suggested that we go take a look. We walked through the plant to the south entrance and what do you suppose we saw? Yup, Jared sitting in the middle of the parking lot. I grabbed one of our young supervisors and headed out the door. When we got to him he said "I heard it crack when I fell". Sweet! Did a cursory check and then we helped him up and back into the buildng. I took a quick look and decided that he was probably right, he appeared to have broken his leg just above the left ankle. I told him that it was a good thing he'd lost a bunch of weight or Emily and I wouldn't have been able to bring him back inside. I rounded up transportation to run him down to the hospital, which is about a mile away, and have it looked at. Yup, it's broken. Fractured tibia.

Anyway, I was planning to post about our weather tonight and must've got sidetracked. I'm glad that he had a cell phone with him and could call into the office. It was just below zero and the wind was out of the NNW at 33 gusting to 40. Yes Baby, it was cold outside! When I got up at 5 this morning it was 40F outside. When I left for work at 6 it was 31. By 11 this morning it was 2 above and at 4 this afternoon it was 2 below. Freakin' cold. When I left the plant at 6 this evening, I thought I'd freeze to death walking across the parking lot to my truck. I'M READY FOR WARMER WEATHER!!!!!!!! This winter has been BROOTAL and I'm ready or a change. Now.

I went up to Kat's place last night after work to try on the new jerseys for next year. I want to thank her for laughing with me, rather than at me, when I tried the first one on. :) It was good! She offered to take a picture for the blog. I politely declined.... I definitely have some work to do!

That's about it for now.

Ride safe.

Peace out, yo!

Stolen....

Baby Rhea, Queen of Cross....

....from Jackal's blog.... I just had to do it. She's already an adrenaline junkie. Oh yeah! Good times ahead!

Ride safe.

Peace out, yo!

A bit cool....

Waterloo had a new record low temp yesterday. -29 at the airport. It was much warmer than that when I left for work at 6 a.m. It was up to -23 by then. -9 this morning but it's supposed to hit the mid 20s tomorrow and up over 30 on Sunday. Highs in the 40s on Monday, with rain, then it gets colder again. Not cold cold, mind you. Mid 20s cold. That isn't so bad.

I got home from work last night and was getting ready to sit down to Judy's yummy spaghetti when the phone rang. It was Jackal's next younger brother, Eric. He had a problem. It seems that he'd sent his oldest son to the basement to put bread in the freezer but the fact that there was "snow" in there caused him concern so, being the good son that he is, he told his dad. Well, Eric went down to check it out and sure enough, there was "snow" in the freezer. The right thing to do was to scrape it out so that's what he did. Hmmmm........ He pushed the freezer backward into the water meter as he was scraping and broke the meter free from the main. Not good. Readlyn is 25 miles away, it's cold outside, and the roads are crap...... I wasn't too excited but plumbers are expensive and I didn't have anything better to do so Judy and I headed north. Poor Eric. Yeah, we got it fixed in short order but when I looked at the shelves along the wall opposite the freezer I nearly cried. He is a collector of "Mini Truckin'" magazine and had about 20 years worth of them on that shelf. They were in pristine condition. He's like Jackal in that regard. Anal. He said when the meter broke off it was like a thunderstorm in the basement. He actually took it better than I did. I had a nice collection of "Winning" magazines from the mid 80s through about 1990. Yeah, well, Judy threw them away a few years back. You can imagine the way I felt about that. LeMond winning the tour, Hampsten the Giro.... 7 Eleven in Europe. Oh yeah. Well, life goes on and we get past those things. It's all good, right?

That's it for now.

Ride safe.

Peace out, yo!

Labor Day....

Yeah, it's a long way off yet.

Stopped down to see The Thin Man after work today and picked up a new set of red HUDZ for the C50. Sweet! They weren't all that difficult to put on. Brent said I'd have to tug hard to get the old ones off and he was right. The second was easier than the first. The new ones slipped right on.... Pictures soon. Thanks, Brent!

I mentioned to The Thin Man that G-Ted had said that Team Stoopid needs to get together again this year and do another race together. That's the allusion to Labor Day at the top of this post. He said "duh". 24 hours of 7 Oaks. Labor Day weekend. Defending our title. The Thin Man is in. Brother of Jackal is in. G-Ted?

Personally, I thought the course was brootal. Especially on rigid singlespeeds. I crashed twice. Thought I'd died and gone to hell. I swear that there was about 10,000 feet of climbing with a couple of near vertical decents and no flat areas on that 7 mile course.

So, Labor Day 2008. Rigid singles. Team Stoopid. More Guinness this year. Smaller front chainring. Platform pedals. Another midnight ride on the chairlift. A new tee shirt. Whaddya think, G-Ted? Are you all about it?

When I left the shop Royce was painting the walls with a 2" brush. I told Brent he should get him a bigger one. Brent looked at me like I was crazy and said "why"? Royce asked if he could use a roller. The Thin Man said "no".

It's going to look good when it's done.... :)

OK. That's it for now.

Ride safe.

Peace out, yo!

Woohoo!!!!


It was 5 degrees above zero when I left for work this morning. Above zero! Sounds like we'll get a little warmer in a couple of days. Up into the 20s. How 'bout them apples? It's also snowing just a bit. Perhaps I'll be able to get the skis out this week. That would be good.

Getting some time in on the trainer in the basement. It's not so bad, other than being horribly boring. At least I can work up a sweat. It's all good.

That's all for now.

Ride safe.

Peace out, yo!

Cold.....


It's a little chilly outside this morning. I'm not sure I even want to go out to the mailbox....

Ride safe.

Peace out, yo!

Bank Thermometer pics....

Cedar Falls, 13 Mar 07
Moab, Utah 22 Jun 07

It was warmer there....

Tired....

Remember last summer? I do.

The forecast has snow in it. Plenty of snow. XC skiing snow. Oh yeah, and cold temps. The high is forecast to be -1F on Saturday. I can hardly wait.

Sorry, no bank thermometer pics. Soon.

Ride safe.

Peace out, yo!

Kerkove last summer. It was much warmer....

Sweet!

5 p.m. and it's 9F outside. Windchill is minus 5. (It was 20F when I came to work this morning....) I'll be riding in the basement this evening, for sure. Call me a pussy.......

Fat Albert.... I don't think you'll see any bank shots tonight. Is it true that you've been riding the rollers in your unheated garage? You are hard, dude!

Ride safe.

Peace out, yo!

Dog days....

The Queen of Cross and Jackal watch football....
High flange hubs....

Snow everywhere....

There is just enough snow out there to make everything crappy. It's somewhere between almost rideable and downright dangerous. Nothing that one can ski on.... Too icy. I've been riding the trainer in the basement an hour at a time. Today was good. I pushed a big gear for an hour and kept the heart rate up while listening to Billy Idol. Tomorrow will be spinning at 120 bpm. It's all good!

Lunch with the family today at Toad's. Emily and Darcy were working the north side and Nick was working the south. BLT and chips. Yummmmm.......

That poor old junker MTB has been chained up out front for a couple weeks. The rear wheel looks like a pretzel....

The Queen of Cross is gaining personality everyday. She's a hoot. Darcy asked if she was picking on Grandpa today. Rhea shook her head "yes" and smiled. Too funny.

Time for a walk/jog outside.

Ride safe.

Peace out, yo!

Cross crank....

New crankset....

When I bought the Colnago CX bike it was equipped with 170 mm crank arms and a 39/53 chainring combo. (Why?) I swapped that out today for a new set of cranks that have 172.5 mm arms and 38/46 chainrings. Much better! I also installed an FSA Gossamer compact derailleur to move the chain back and forth between the rings. The 105 derailleur that came with the bike doesn't work very well with that small combo and the chainstay got in the way. Jackal graciously stopped by and fine tuned the new front derailleur so that it shifts as smooth as a newborn baby's ass. Slicker than snot on a doorknob. It works great! I spent an hour with it on the trainer this afternoon listening to Guns n' Roses.... Pretty good workout.

The weather has been much warmer this weekend, but with that warmer air comes fog. Thick, damp, fog. That isn't all that cool! I had planned to do a gravel grinder with Fat Albert and Super Saul yesterday but other issues kept me home. Sounds like they had a good ride. Kathleen and John and crew went on a road ride yesterday that looked like fun. Sounds like it ended up being a long one!

G-Ted and I worked out a deal for a set of Kreitlers with a "Killer Headwind" fan that he had laying around. I'm about ready to try them out but I think I'd better have Jackal standing by when I do, just in case.... (No, I'm definitely not ready for roller racing or for the HOP. That will take some time :)) Thanks Ted!!!!!

That's it for now, I think.

Ride safe.

Peace out, yo!

Friday night....

Don't ya just hate it when you're tired but can't go to sleep?

Ride safe.

Peace out, yo!

Tis' the season....


I think I'm averaging about 20 calls a day from candidates looking for my support at the caucus' tonight. I don't even answer it. You know what pisses me off about it? The county sells the voter registration rolls to these people, giving them my "unlisted" phone number.

Ride safe.

Peace out, yo!

Favorite....


I took a lot of pictures last year and this is my favorite from racing.... Jackal running the barriers in Newton. Oh yeah! Clickie on the pic and check out the facial expression. Pretty intense.... If I remember correctly, that was the Master's race, his second race of the day.

Ride safe.

Peace out, yo!

HAPPY NEW YEAR....

Happy New Year....
The Queen of Cross wishes you a happy new year.....

I said.... HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

2007 was good. I think we all had lots of fun and good times. Moab was a blast, Team STOOPID was a GREAT group having a great time. CX with all of our friends and family was a definite highlight. Following our friends road racing all over the state was a blast! All the group rides, the busted water bottles, the barbs exchanged. All of you folks here in the Land of Blog.... The friends I've met and those whom I haven't met yet. 2007 was great. What else can I say? 2008 will be even better!

Perhaps I'll do a photo dump of my favorite pics of '07? I know my favorite cycling pic, the rest are all tied for a close second.... Family pic? That's a bit more difficult. We'll see.

A sincere "thank you" to all of you here in the Land of Blog for your comments and friendship throughout the year. Also to everyone in the cycling community here in Iowa who somehow touched our lives throughout the year. It was all positive. You know who you are...... There are a lot of you! :)

Thanks to Judy for not following through on her threats to kill me if I brought another bike home. I'd be dead several times over....

Team Stoopid.... It was a blast. The whiskey was good, the beer was good, the camaraderie was excellent. (I'd like to know who's bright idea it was to do that race on rigid singlespeeds ;) That person needs to have his head examined!)

Congrats to Jackal on his racing season. Ya done good, brother......

Congrats to all our friends from Bike Tech Racing..... What a year!

Fat Albert secretly likes the color pink. Trust me....

I wish all of you the very best in 2008.

Ride safe.

Peace out, yo!