racesss

the past few weekends have begun the intensity and fun that is the cyclocross season, second only to Christmas in terms of fun, excitement and gifts

such as the new derailleur i will be purchasing this week as a result of a racing mishap.

The season so far has been going smoothly, making the selection, hanging in there and all that.  After bumping it up a level in the speed department i find myself facing a new arch nemesis in each race so far:  Cornering

whether it’s a lack of experience, something not clicking in my head or not having a pair

i seem to lose massive amounts of time and energy going in directions other than straight

figuring out how to defeat this enemy will hopefully allow me to take it to the next level, of what, i dont know but i think it will be good.   Fortunately this weekend my other arch nemesis Omega Red

was busy with Wolverine

Weight off of my shoulders.

In other news my seasonal tenure at the bike shop has come to a close for the year, now i will have plenty of time to do school work, blog and beg for change

it gets cold down here in the winter

blogging recession

just type in steve brule if you would like to see some hilarious videos ( i had to take it down because it will play every time the page loads, and i load it a lot, to keep the numbers up)

and cross racing

its fun

who needs health care?

thanks tim

cx training 2k9

Friday.  No work, no school.

Long ride?

No.

100% chance of rain at 2pm decreasing to 80% chance with thunderstorms by 6pm.

Stayed inside and killed Nazi Zombies for 7 hours.

it never rained.

FML.

my first pro race

lasted 3 minutes.

driving up the to the great Mennonite land of PA for the UCI Lion Cross and Charm Cross races, a wily group of four JV and former bloggers attempted to stake their fortunes in the first weekend of professional cyclocross racing in the US in 2009.

arriving at the race course on saturday 4.5 hours early to unleash Fawley on the unsuspecting 2/3/4 yankees, we anxiously awaited our start for the UCI race.  Lining up with about 50 pros we got started

diesel engines a must

No wonder they called it the War of Northern Aggression.  The start was a chaotic mess much akin to a Cat 4 Crit coming into the final corners of the race, people crashing, falling everywhere, looking like a bunch of idiots and throwing bows

scrappy

needless to say my inferior handling abilities and kind demeanor put me near the back and in a despartate bid to regain some placing before the train left the station I made a daring/silly move down the middle of the gnar root section

This is the actual root section- odd

notice everyone going left, i went right to get around the trash but ended up breaking a spoke and walking to the pits and dropping out.

ain't it the truth

Tim rolled his $200 tire and Flo held gamely only to be pulled with 2 laps to go.

To console ourselves we drove 3.5 hours back to Washington DC.

There we were greeted by our host and fan Bodge.  Dispensing drinks, he took us on a trip through the night scene of bourgeois DC.  Resplendent in our neon tank tops and skinny jeans, bathing suits and poor form we mingled with the rising stars of our nations capital.  Flo embarrassed himself, par for the course.

The next we drove through the slums of Baltimore to get Fawley to his race with barely enough time to spare.  He again crushed in the face of such adversity.

The UCI race started as fast if not faster, but everyone stayed upright and 60 minutes of riding a super sweet course and actually passing some people had me ending up 16th place overall, 2:33 down on the leaders.  Not bad for being sick for a week and taking a 3 week sabatical from bike riding

and it pours

driving back was ultimatley a blast and we racked up 1300 miles of driving in 2.5 days.  ProTour lifestyle.

I got back to find out that only one of my comp questions needed revising and i passed the other 2.  it turns out i may actually indeed be a real grad student.  Awesome

getting ready for the weekend

if only it were that easy

in keeping of my tradition of being the last to know about anything i give this to those who don’t already know

it’s a scary world

VT mtb

the first shots of the 09-10 ACCC season were fired this past weekend at the VT mountain bike races.

its on

to say that app dominated would be an understatement.

The short track under the lights was strangely reminiscent of the cross race last year in terms of terrain and difficulty, so indeed it was the cross course with two logs in the middle of it.  After a successful hole shot in world cup fashion, i grabbed the lead for the first couple of laps, only to be nagged on by some west virginia riders for going through an off-camber corner too slow

easy now

to which i replied ‘maybe you should be going faster on the other 90% of the course’  but not in such subtle/gentile  language.

after getting passed by  a host of wvu riders, ross and vt’s lone shot for mtb glory reid, i slummed in the back of the lead pack for a while.  with 3 laps to go i made a move up to second place, and going into the last lap i tried to pass reid, but he being very uncooperative tried to push me to the outside, to which i muscled him into the tape in front of his home crowd and rode away for the victory.

saving the world

in doing so i almost lapped tim.  i wouldn’t say cross season is over for him.

yet.

the next day i realized that i can’t mountain bike.  finishing 17 minutes down on ross’ asu victory in the cross country, my inability to corner or man up and huck was painfully realized. so i just rode around in the woods for 2 hours trying to find my way home

where we going?

some girl just farted really loud in the library.

what do you say to that?

i got yo back

bout that time

cross is here, whether or not its time to race is irrelevant.  the blogosphere has erupted in chatter, mostly white noise and petty threats about the season.  our good friend tim adds another line in the soap opera.  there wouldnt be much to make fun of if there wasn’t tim.  displaying an astounding lack of sense, he managed to get his hands on some tires that cost more than most entry level bikes and have a wait list longer than some models of ferrari’s

kudos for him, i’m somewhat jealous.  too bad he’s mounting them on some test pilot cheap carbon rims that will last about half the season before he wrecks them indistinguishably

fortunately for the high country we picked up a new local race promoter who will be hosting practice races every thursday until thanksgiving.  it will be an awesome time to race against all the locals and to remind flo why he should have stuck to hitting on middle school girls.  maybe it will attract some former stars from the commonwealth to show up and see what they got besides hot air and saggy shorts.  hmmm

third eye blind came out with their first albulm in forever. it rocks

so does 11th grade