Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Slackline!

My new hobby. I really suck at it but I have fun doing it and I am getting better. Smuckers doesn't like slacklining at all and lets me know about it every chance she gets

Friday, November 5, 2010

Day 2


Day two of the great No Drive/No Drink event is finished. I'm beat, a really tough week at work has me eyeing the bed at 830 tonight.

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Ninety Days Sans Drink and Drive

Yes, that's right, the next ninety days with no motorized transport(driven by me) or adult beverage.
All commuting to and from work, grocery getting, etc. will be done strictly on two wheeled, human powered transport. Any time spent in a vehicle will be documented here, however I guarantee I will not be the one stepping on the gas pedal. I have two trips upcoming, holidays, that I will be spending considerable time in a vehicle. Can't be avoided as the distance is to great over a short amount of time given to make each trip. I've done 90 days without driving before but it has been quite some time since. Frankly, I've gone soft on my commitment to commuting, my Honda has made me weak.. Here comes 90 days of commuting bliss, screw you traffic!
The no drinking is just simply a by-product. It will be easier to commute each morning waking up rested and ready to ride. Plus with no calorie laden adult beverages, I stand to drop a few lb's. Win-Win.
Commuting via human power has always been important to me. When I worked in Rogers, 25 miles away, I wished I had a local job that I could bike to and from. Now I do. I still commute via bike about 60-70% of the time now, but that is just not good enough and I am out to not only get to work via bike but do the rest of my errands on bike as well.

Thursday, October 21, 2010

I Think I am in Love


Installed some new bits on the single speed today and they look amazing. Silver set-back Thomson Masterpiece seatpost, silver Thomson Elite X4 stem, and a Salsa 17 deg Al handlebar. Next up is a King headset and some lightweight rotors as well as a tubeless setup. I should be able to get this SS 29er under 20lbs without resorting to non-functioning light weight tires.

Sunday, October 3, 2010

A Beautiful Day and Good Training


First thing, today was perfect as weather conditions are concerned. Sunny, a light breeze, not a cloud and temps in the mid 60's. I can't ask for better weather.

Training is going smooth, spending plenty of time in all three disciplines. Rode Leatherwood today for 2.5 hours. If anyone locally is reading this, go ride Leatherwood. I've never seen this trail system in better shape than it was today. Completely dry. I'm planning to ride road tomorrow but I may make the trip back to ES because I had such a good ride today.

Monday, August 23, 2010

Today Was A Good Day

Yes it was. Got in late last night from LA, a successful trip to see my parents. The trip was fantastic, note to self: Get down there more often.
Woke early this morning, much coffee consumed and headed to Slaughter Pen. Met up with Max but didn't get to ride with him, next time my friend. Got in a solid 2 hours on the single speed. This may be the most fun to ride bike I have ever owned. Here are some pics
Can you spot the deer in this pic?
My new bike!


That's me having fun. I hope your Monday was as good as mine.

Monday, July 26, 2010

Another Satisfied Customer

Had an awesome experience at the bike shop on Saturday. I'll set the scene: It's late into my shift, about 3pm, and we are getting our normal late day rush. All associates were busy as I saw an older couple enter the shop and head straight to the component section. They looked normal enough as I headed over top greet them with a polite "Can I help you find anything?" Simple enough, right? I do this every Saturday with no problem. Here is how the rest of the conversation went:

Angry Customer: "Yeah, I'm looking for a "seat stem"(use your best grumpy, angry, old man voice)
Me: "A seat post?"
Angry Customer: "Yes"
Me: "Do you know what size you need?"
AC: (Now extremely angry) "If you tell me that .2 of a millimeter is going to make a difference, I'm outta here. I've been to two other shops today told me that."
Me: "Well actually..."
AC: "That's bullshit, just show me what you got."
Me: Sir, there are several sizes, 27.2, 26.6, 30.9, and so on, I doubt you would be able to eyeball the size. Do you have the old post?"
AC: (Wicked angry at this point) "If I had the old post, do you think I would be in here?"
Me: " Sorry, thought maybe just the clamp was broken."
AC: " Don't you have a book back there that tells you what size fits Huffy's"
Me: " Sorry but no. If you can bring the bike in---"

I stopped talking at this point as Super Angry Customer had turned his back to me and was storming out the door. This was unacceptable behavior in my opinion. Why would you come to a dedicated bike shop and completly not listen to what the staff had to say? I have worked another retail job that required knowledge of the product for sale and I was never treated this way. Apparently, talking to my coworkers, this is common practice in the bike industry. All was good though, AC probably continued to have a miserable day and I got to have a few good laughs re-telling the story.

Always interesting conversation and interactions at the bike shop.

Training news: Knee feels great, no pain at all. Going to go for a 3 mile run tomorrow morning, my first in about 3 weeks.

Monday, June 28, 2010

A Short Ride

Finally got out on a short road ride today. Got in about 38 miles in roughly 2 hours. This was a ride just to test out the knee, to see how it would react to a decent effort. I would say that the knee acted "ok"
After being on my feet all day at the bike shop on Saturday, Sunday my knee was swollen and painful. So, I laid around the house, saw a movie and spent quite a lot of time on the couch with an ice pack. Today the knee was still a bit swollen but feeling much better, so the ride was on.
No sharp pain throughout the ride just a dull ache towards the end. I could also tell my knee swelled a bit by the end of the ride. I stopped in at the bike shop on my ride, some of the guys remarked on how much larger my right knee is than my left. Yeah, I know I look like a freak.
On a positive note, I got my dog on a walk after the ride. No pain. Running might be an option soon. Fingers crossed.

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Not Good

I was off work early yesterday, early enough that I had time to drive to a trail for a little off-road biking. After some thought, I decided to save gas and ride a local trail. It's been a while since I have been to Kessler so I was amped to ride it, maybe a bit to amped.


Two minutes into my ride, I come to the first intersection. I hesitated, right or left? I decided right and let off my brakes, next thing I know I am going over the bars. It was a low speed crash but my right knee took the brunt of the fall.


After the fall, I immediately hike back to the car and headed home. The pain was intense and my knee grew to the size of an orange. This freaked me out so I decided to try and bend my knee. The bent knee caused a large amount of blood to flow from a nasty 3/4" long gash. For the next hour and a half it would not stop bleeding and swelling. Upon inspection from my sister, she decided to take me to the ED for Xrays to rule out any major damage


The ED visit wasn't horrible, about three hours of sitting watching TV while waiting for the MD.

Xrays were negative. That's good, the "Not Good" part is that I will not be racing this weekend, no telling when I will be able to run again or bike, etc. I just hope it heals soon.


Right now I am off work, good timing for my scheduled day off. I have knee splint/immobilizer on and even just standing up is painful. Work tomorrow may be out of the question. I'll close with a pic of my knee. It doesn't look like much, but I assure you that it's painful.

Monday, May 3, 2010

pics!
















Weather here went fom Winter to Summer to Early Spring and now Summer again.

Monday, March 1, 2010

Called Out



I got called out for not posting here for a very long time, kind of like how I got called out for not shaving when there were ample amounts of razors and cream to be used. Well, I'll post but I am still not shaving the beard.


It's still cold here in NWA. Yesterday I was in LA riding my bike in shorts and sleeves, I was loving the 60 degree temps with sun. Today I am back home to overcast and 40. I shouldn't complain because 40 is a lot warmer than what we have had for high's.


While visiting my folks, I did manage to get in back-to-back road rides. I haven't done that in a while. I mapped out a 34 mile route for Saturday, profile was flat as a pancake compared to NWA road rides. My ride was cut short, however, as I took a wrong turn and knocked off nearly 8 miles from the route. That was to bad as I cut off some of the best road on the route, fairly smooth and zero traffic. I mean zero traffic. I did the full 34 mile loop on Sunday and I still didn't see a single vehicle, coming or going, on Seven Pines rd. It felt good to get the two rides in and I actually felt better on the second day's ride.


The forecast for this week looks supreme, I'll definitely be putting in the miles on the road. Speaking of road, I got a new road bike. It is a demo Tarmac we had at the shop. The bike is in immaculate condition, it just didn't get used all that much. One thing I really like about it is that there aren't to many out there with this paint scheme. Here is a pic, yes it is purple.

Friday, January 29, 2010

Disaster Averted











The freezing rain stayed away for the most part, there was some ice accumulation but the power stayed on. As of right now the snow is falling, hard. About 3 inches so far with another three or more inches to come.

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

2010 Schedule

Been working on my 2010 schedule, it's pretty well dialed. 12 races so far with a few local 5k's thrown in for July. July looks really light having only one mtb race, I plan to supplement with road running races as they are abundant in the month of July.

Here are the MTB races I plan on racing, all in the AMBCS series:

May 30th Womble Classic
July 18th Eureka Springs Fat Tire Festival
Sept 19th Northwest Arkansas Championship
Nov. 7th Slaughter Pen
Nov. 21 Attila the Hun

One race from the Arkansas Marathon Series:

April 18 The Rock Epic 50 Miler

Side note: I would love to do more of the Marathon Series but the other two races sold out within hours of the opening registration time. You may have heard of them, The Ouachita Challenge and Syllamo's Revenge. Maybe a spot will open up. However, I doubt it.

One off-road duathlon:

Feb. 28th Du it in the Dirt

One on-road duathlon:

Apr 3rd Iron Pig Duathlon

Last but not least, at least four Xterra events:

May 1st Xterra Epic

June 12 Eureka Springs

June 26th Xterra Dawg Dayz

Aug 8th Xterra Iron Will

I hope for more Xterra races, my results will be the deciding factor.

That's all for now. Training picks up intensity late this week, just in time for a crazy winter storm to hit the area. Warnings are already being issued and the storm isn't supposed to hit until Thursday morning. Forecasts are calling for anything from 6-10 inches of snow to 3/4 of an inch of ice. Anything but ice, please! Last year's ice storm was devastating and NWA still shows signs of the damage. I've got my fingers crossed for snow, more the better if it keeps the ice away.

Will have links to races soon.

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

It's cold

Like most of the Nation, it is cold here in NWA. The coldest air of the season and close to breaking the records. I haven't been on a bike exactly a week. Today would have been good temp wise, but with ambient temps at 36-38 the trails were a brief sloppy mess before tonight's uber freeze. If I can stand the single digit temps on Friday, I plan to hit up some frozen singletrack at Lake Fayetteville.
Southern California is calling. Screw this uninhabitable weather, it's just not right.
Call it ironic, but I love snow. Most of all I love the crunch it makes under your shoe while running. I love being the first to lay tracks down a trail, like a pioneer discovering a new route. On the flip side, tracks in the snow reveal multiple biographies of previous adventures endured. I always try to be the first to lay tracks down after every snow, sometimes I succeed, but usually someone gets to the pristine, snow covered trail before me. I don't mind though, it makes me happy thinking how he or she had a blast cutting the first track through the trail.
New Responsibilities, I passed the RCIS test. The day I passed had to be close to the best day of my life. I'm grateful for my job and for the people who gave me the opportunity to advance to the position that I have today. I'm learning so much, every day I'm learning something new.
Should have some pics up by Sun.