The Great Wabash Trace Adventure.

To summarize, (in case you don't want to read the many paragraphs which will surely follow) riding in the cold was just fine, stops were chilly, only one minor mechanical issue, I almost froze to death overnight, overall it was a fun weekend.

The plans: about a month ago, Bob jokingly posted (or mentioned during a ride, I can't remember) that we should do a huge bike trip to Kearney and back.  Some plans were made, overnight stays were scheduled, families were informed of absenses, and training was supposed to start.  Well, being that was a little over a month ago, neither Bob nor I were ready to ride 180 miles each day of a weekend.  And, being the original plan was to do that this last weekend, I'm glad we changed our plans.  Bob did clear that weekend, and I had nothing else going, so we decided to try something else.  

We came up with the grand idea to ride from Omaha, to the Wabash Trace, ride to the end, camp over night, then come home the next day.  Bob found that camping in Coin, just 5 miles from the trail's end, was available, along with a bar/grill that would be open most of the day.  10am to 2am to be precise.  So we again made arrangements with families, but then had to figure out bike setups.  The Kearney trip was going to be on the road with an overnight stay at a person's house.  This trip involved camping.  I had gear and bike rack, Bob had family camping gear and no bike rack.  So with enough donations from friends/family, we got Bob's bike fitted with a rack and panniers, and my bike setup also.  Brady and Bryan both generously offered me sleeping bags since I don't have one.  I took Brady up on his offer and he also had a nice Moutain Hardwear tent which, as you'll read later, I really should have accepted.  I was busy most of the week prior to the trip, except for Friday, and that's when Bryan was going to be out of town.  Oh, and I also didn't want Redemske cooties from his sleeping bag.  Just kidding Bryan.

So the morning of the adventure arrived, and I was all set to go.  I was right on time, ready to hit the Keystone at 8:30 and meet Bob along the way so we could head across the bridge to be at the trailhead by 10am.  See, Bob posted a meeting time and place just in case others wanted to join.  Well, I get a call from Bob at 8:30 saying he's still getting ready and just needs to eat something.  I was just fine with that because I wanted to get some coffee to start the day off right.  Coffee was injected, met the Bob on the trail and off we went.  We decided to take the easy route to avoid traffic and hit all the trails to get to the Wabash.  This involved some extra mileage since it wasn't a direct route.  This made us just miss the meeting time at the trail head.....by an hour.  Oh well, I don't think anyone else was crazy enough to join our excursion.  

We were on the trail and on our way.  2 things of note so far: 1. riding in the cold was fine since we were both layered properly.  Stops, like for food at Mineola since it was lunch time, did result in very chilly restarts, but were soon forgotten within a half hour.  2. riding with camping gear/extra winter weight clothing SUCKS!!  The Wabash is rails to trails route.  Being so meant that there were no steep hills.  But basically, you were either going uphill or downhill at 1 or 2%.  FOR MILES.   So you're lugging what was once a 25 pound bike, now 55 pounds most of which is in the rear, up these slow steady false flats for an hour at a time.  Needless to say, our average speed was not what I'm used to.   10mph was about it for uphills and 12, maybe 13mph for the "downhills."  

Since we were not riding very fast, we got to Coin at 4:30pm.  We had originally planned on getting to the end of the trail to hit the Missouri State line on the first day(another 5 miles past Coin), but decided we had better setup our camping stuff first and do that trip the next morning.  After we visited the Golden Coin Bar/Grill to change into dry warm clothes, we set up camp.  Bob had a brand new tent that seemed pretty decent, whereas I had my trusty one man minimalist tent.  Very similar to this tent, great for summer, not so smart at 27 degrees.  This thing is nice and light, but I sorely regreted not having another 3 pounds of windblock overnight.  I tied down the vestibule as best I could, but by the middle of the night, I was ferr-rreeeezing.  The wind was very strong and snuck right in to my sleeping place.  If I had not used Brady's mummy sleeping bag that was rated down to 20 degrees F(Thanks Brady!!!), I might have gone the way of Peter's post.  The worst part about the camping experience, aside from waking up at least 7 times, was my first dream.  We were entirely too tired to stay awake at the diner by 9pm.  So we attempted to go to bed right then.  My mind was not having it.  My body was tired, but my mind focused too much on the wind and cold.  So, when I did figure out how to curl up in a mummy sleeping bag to gain some warmth, I drifted off to sleep.  All of a sudden, I'm riding down the trail and it's sunny and 70 degrees.  Then 20 minutes later, I'm in Omaha, where the sun's blazing, and I'm hanging out with Bob and some of my other friends.  I then realize that something doesn't seem right.  I start asking around why our ride home went by so fast.  I couldn't even remember riding back through Council Bluffs.  *Snort* I wake up and the wind's still howling and I'm freezing again.  This was going to be a long night.

Finally, it was light out when I awoke for the 8th time.  Time to get back on it.  I bundled up with basically every peice of clothing I had since it was probably around 27 degrees.  I had packed a tupperware full of cereal and dried milk for breakfast.  That went down fast.  I packed up my stuff, and helped Bob get his stuff done too.  We headed South to Blanchard, the official end of the trail.  We rode through town (3 blocks) and crossed the Missouri State line, just to say we hit 3 states in one day.  We were both sore and not very awake.  Our average again was a measly 10-12 mph.  If my Garmin GPS device is somewhat accurate (which it sometimes isn't since some downhills were showing up as 4% uphills) then getting from Council Bluffs to Coin is mostly uphill.   So our ride home felt like downhill a majority of the time.  Which was very welcome.  We stopped at Shenandoah for brunch.  The restaurant was the Train Depot or something like that?  Very good food and reasonably priced compared to the 11$ dinner at Coin the night before.  About 3pm, it got warm out.  The sun had been shining all day (another very welcome situation), and so we peeled off some layers.  One hour later, the layers all went back on since the cold came back fast.  By this point, after finding out that the Mineola Steakhouse was closed on Sundays, we decided to eat at the BBQ place at the Wabash trailhead in Coucil Bluffs.  We figured it would be an hour to ride from there to cross the river if we took the trails again.  Bob was having his wife meet him by the Quest Center since he lives by Lake Cunningham and had no rear light to help in the 5:30pm darkness.  I decided to trudge on home after I parted ways with my Great Adventure compadre.  

I have some afterthoughts to bring up, but I'm too tired from this write-up.  I may or may not post more later.  That's just how I roll.

Break out your wool britches.

This weekend, Bob and I are going on a wee adventure.  And it's gonna be cold.  Crazy cold.  Remember all those posts on Brady and Scott's blogs about Amfib tights and such.  We'll all my cold weather gear's getting broken out for this weekend.  High's of mid 40s with lows in the upper 20s?!?  Yeesh.  I was going to rent a 3 season sleeping bag for the weekend, but maybe I need to consider doing a winter weight one?  That might be hard to carry on the bike though.  I guess we'll see.

The Bob has a Plan

Make sure to check out Bob's blog about weekend after this one. It'll be some great fun. We also might have some extra gear or rental places in mind that will allow the less gear havin people to join in.

This weekend: I'm on call Saturday morn. Would love to do an afternoon ride if anyone is interested. It's supposed to get up to 70!!!

Sunday, no plans, but if I do go, I'd like to be done early. So the normal meeting time/place would be fine by me. Or we could meet somewhere else, whateva.

Change to an oldie but goodie.

If you don't remember the old Waassssssuuuuup commercials from the super bowl a few (more than a few apparently) years ago, then this update will jog your memory and hopefully, uh, give you hope.  Watch to the end.

Ok, Mister 11 to Downtown MAT bus driver.

If you have ever headed east bound on Leavenworth in the 7am to 9am hours between Saddlecreek and 42nd street, you'd know that there is supposed to be no parking along that section.  I'd like to think this was an early attempt to allow cyclists some passage, though it's more likely that it just allows more space for heavy traffic flow.  Regardless, this section has proved to be great most the times and annoying other times.  

It's great when the weather is nice and people move all the way over so I basically have my own bike lane for 5 blocks or so.   However, when it gets rainy, or when large vehicle drivers use the right lane, it get's annoying.  Last week when it rained for a month (at least that's what it felt like), I was on my way into work when this person came way too close to me so they could avoid spray from the cars in the left lane.  Does that make sense?  Risk running over a guy on a bike instead of getting your car sprayed?

Then this morning, it was perfectly fine out, weather-wise, but again along that section, a MAT bus (specifically a 2002 version, number 11 to Downtown, that hit 42nd and Leavenworth at about 7:15am) came way too close to me as I was in the "parking" lane.  Had there been a parked car there, he would have been running over it.  Yes, that's a large vehicle, but I'd think he'd fit in the right lane without needing to spill over into the "parking" lane.  But he did anyway.  This has also happened with school buses and large delivery trucks.  Hopefully, the plan is to paint some bike lanes along this route so people will know that I'm SUPPOSED to be there and will give me some room.  But that is probably more wishful thinking. 

Anyone want to ride this weekend?

My big bro is in the hospital again, so we won't be doing any b-day stuff for him on Saturday.  I'm not sure how much I'll be able to visit him there and after the crazy week I've had, I think I need a couple good bike rides.

I'm up for suggestions for either days.  Yes Sunday will be windy and 40 degrees, but if it's SUNNY that's all I care about.  This weather is really getting to me.

My commute to work this AM

After a "wee excursion" of 105 miles on Sunday, my 2.5 mile ride into work this morning was almost unbearable.  I was quite sad.  If this is the case now, then 3 weekends from now, when I'm supposed to be starting the 2nd half of 360 miles, it will be much, much worse.  

So maybe we jumped the gun on the whole Omaha to Kearney and back trip.  If I had another month or so to train for it, I think my body could build up tolerances enough to make it.  By the end of the ride yesterday, my legs were just kinda tired, but my bum, hands and feet were not doing well at all.  My hands were getting tingly from my nerves/muscles wearing down.  Shifting was very difficult by the end.  Then, there was one point where I was a few blocks from home waiting at a stop light.  It turned green and I stood to pedal, but when I sat down again, I almost yelped out loud.  My rear did not want to be on a saddle anymore.  I was beyond ready to be done.

The ride itself, up till the end, was great.  Bryan had a good report of the ride (the Sunday one, not the pepper spray threatened one), but I had wanted to put in more miles for 2 reasons.  One, I wanted to see what a century felt like since I was going to be doing a couple 180 mile days in a few weeks.  Two, I had a Challenge on the www.plus3network.com website where I would win a pair of SRAM socks if I was one of the first 300 people to get 300 miles in.  I wanted those socks and I wasn't going to waste any time getting them.  So 105 miles had to be done.  One thing Bryan did forget to mention was a fun little climb we did in the middle of the ride.  After you head North from Pacific Junction and cross hwy 34, there's a road that heads straight up into the bluffs to someone's house.  The road is gravel for the flat part, but then is nicely paved when the grade increases.  My Garmin read 17% at one point.  Granted, the whole climb was probably a block long, it was still STEEP but fun.

Riding back to Bryan's house was aided by a very welcome tailwind.  We got there and I was feeling ok with 75 miles.  I needed another 30 to reach my goal, and it was about 12 miles from Bryan's to my place.  So I headed NorthWest toward Elk City.  That of course, meant more headwind for the ride home, but I was ok with that.  After mile 70, it's generally about just surviving anyway.  So I headed out, turned around and was impressed that the wind didn't seem that bad.  I think it had shifted to a more SSW wind by that point, so anytime I was heading East, I was getting a little bit of help.  But again, by the time I was a couple miles from home, I was definitely feeling it.

So that really raises questions about the likelyhood of the big trip in 3 weeks.  I'm thinking we should train for it over the winter and make it a big spring fling.  Something to start the season off with a big bang.  Plus then, maybe more people will be willing to join us?  Maybe?

Tour de Trainer

With the announcement of the 2009 Le tour de France next week I thought it would be fun to incorporate that into my mundane trainer training.

For me to set and on a trainer for more that about 5 seconds is a major accomplishment. So in a attempt to add a little excitement to an other wise boring task I came up with "Tour de Trainer"

What is this you may ask? Simple! Every week you will ride a stage of the 2009 Le tour de France.

21ish stages with a prologue (or not) and 2 rest days. When the route is announced on Wednesday then we will have the total mileage.

The idea is,

Ride one stage a week 21 stages, 21 weeks. Divide them up however you want. If the weather is suitable for riding outside DO IT! We are not keeping score.

If you miss a day, you can make it up somewhere during the week or not, again we are not keeping score.

The point of this is at the start of nice weather you will have a head start on next years riding.

For those who do not need any encouragement, good for you. For the rest of us... Its a thought!

Peace and grease.

Grump

Tonight's ride had a little bit of everything.

From, "I almost died," to "I am Superman," my Thursday evening adventure was quite...uh...adventurous.  I left work at 4:30pm with a desination of taco's in Mineola.  One of the first situations of note was a guy standing beside his stalled car at a red light on Leavenworth.  All the traffic was using the left lane to get around him, but I just slowly passed on his right.  While waiting for the light to turn green, the guy asked me if I had a cigarette he could bum.(?) I said, "Sorry, sure don't," and he mentioned that he ran out of gas.  So that was interesting.

I crossed the trusty BK Bridge, and then made my way across the very flat town of Council Bluffs.  Funny, with bluffs in the name, you'd figure it would resemble Omaha.  I took this route out to Mineola, just so I could get in some more miles and also see what that climb toward Glenwood looks like on an elevation graph.  That climb's not as bad as I thought it would be.  I think it maxed out at a grade of 6 or 7 percent.  On the Barrus road I took toward Mineola, there was a couple of 8% grades.  My one, "I almost died" moment happened near the top of one of those hills.  I was struggling to get to the top and noticed a couple cars coming up behind me.  I had forgotten this road had no shoulder, so I tried to hustle on up just in case a car was coming over in the opposite direction.  Well, there was in fact a car coming over in the opposite direction and I was hoping the cars behind me would wait.  My hope was in vain as Mr. big huge red truck flies by me doing at least 40mph with inches to spare so he could squeeze in between me and the oncoming car.  This happened about a mile out of Mineola and I thought for sure that was where he was heading.  I thought to myself what I would do if I came into contact with him and/or his truck.  I had thoughts of keying or letting all the air out of his tires, but I kept my evil Munson side at bay.  Then I thought a good thing to do would be to approach the guy and ask him very nicely for an apology.  Basically, "Sir, you came really close to running me over. It sure would be nice to have an apology for that."  I roll into town and there are 3 red trucks near the taco house.  I see an older couple just entering the place after they had walked from a red trucks direction.  I thought long and hard about stopping, and sincerely demanding an apology from the guy, but I decided to avoid the whole thing all together.  I didn't even stop for a taco.  If you can believe that.  Would you guys have done anything about it?

So with that in my past, I headed North-ish on the trail very surprised not to see many people.  It was now about 6pm and since it got dark at 6:45, I'd figure people would be at least starting the ride.  It was only about half way back to the trailhead that a lot of people were seen.  The next situation of interest was a group of 3 guys who were trying to fix a bike.  I asked if they had everything they needed and they replied, "Not really."  I took a look at the upside down bike that was in need of help and found that the rear derailleur had somehow got bent over into his spokes.  He might have got a stick caught in there while he was shifting to an easier gear or something.  I gave the derailleur a couple of tweaks, but the hanger, which was the worst bent part, was actually a very solid bolted on peice of metal.  It's hard to explain.  But anyway, right as I was about to give up on getting that thing straightened, a couple passerbys asked if we had everything we needed.  I said, "We could use a crescent wrench."  Little had I known, that was about the only tool these guys had brought.  So I fitted the wrench to the derailleur hanger and torqued just a little bit.  Somehow, the whole darn thing came out nearly perfectly straight.  They pedaled it and it worked great on the middle cog it was shifted to.  They asked if he should try shifting out of that gear and I recommended that he just use the front shifter to go to big,middle, or small chainring.  They were quite grateful and said I saved them from a huge headache of needing someone to come pick them up and such.  I was quite happy after that.  That was my superman moment.  Nothing makes me happier than hearing someone say, "Oh you just saved the day," or "What would we do without you."  I get that a lot at my job and it's usually after I just turned the power on the PC that, for some reason, "wasn't working at all." Getting paid to be peoples' hero, however little the disaster averted is, makes it all worth while.

Last item of note was running into Mark and Anne.  They asked if I wanted to join, but I had the woman cooking dinner, so I was on a mission not to be too late home.  Wish I could have joined you guys.  Next time fo sho.

I took a couple of pics on the way home with my camera phone.  One of them was too large to send, which was of some turning leaves.  Very Fall like.

So here are a couple pics from the return trip:

Here's the trail with some leaves turning.

Here's Omaha's downtown skyline from next to Harrahs

Here's the BK Bridge with lights.

And that's it for me kiddies.  I have 104-ish miles to make my 300 mile SRAM Road Challenge happen and get me some socks.  I will accomplish that on Sunday.  Who's with me??  Bryan, my guess is that 100 just doesn't make sense for you at this point in training.  But I'd be happy to put in a few hours with you then top off my total solo if need be.  I'm on call on Saturday, so there's no Shabbosie goodness for me.  Should we say 7:30am at Crane on Sunday??  Anyone? Anyone?

To my Plus3Network buddies.

Hey guys, I goofed and put the .org version up.  If you are trying to load up your Garmin device, make sure to use www.plus3network.com.  I will update the blog to make things go better.

I double dog dare ya!!!

So, like Bob has mentioned on his blog, he and I will be taking a little jaunt out to Kearney from Omaha.  And then ride back again the next day.  This will be happening on the 8th and 9th of November with details to follow once times get finalized and such.

I'm seriously freaking out, man!!!  I have done a 130 mile ride and a 144 mile ride before, but both were at the height of my biking fitness.  Let's just say I'm not quite at that level anymore.

To all those who have the means, I'm double dog daring you to join us for a weekend of more than a couple turns of the bicycle cranks.  The destination in Kearney is free, but can hold, at most, 4 of us.  So claim one of the 2 remaining spots while there's one available!

I know most of the comments/replys are going to be "Are you $%^# insane?!?!?" But seriously, join us if you can.  It'll be a good time.  I promise.  There will be no pain, just pure joy.  Seriously.  I promise.

125 miles = one quarter.

I tweaked my blog a wee bit.  I used to have a training schedule under "Progress Report" on the right side.  I have replaced that with my profile for a great new site, the Plus 3 Network.  This site lets you log your miles, by hand or by uploading your GPS device, to count toward donating to certain charities.  You pick a sponsor, such as Trek, who will donate money on your behalf to the charities they work with.  If you go under the "Causes + Sponsors" tab, you'll see what I'm talking about.

EDIT: Whoops, I figured out you can't do much on that site unless you're a member.  So now my link on the side just has the homepage since my profile is only viewable to members.  But you can still click on the Sponsors + Causes tab if you want to look into it

I have been looking for a reason to ride, and now I have one.  So many times, I've bailed out on a solo ride during the week because I wasn't motivated.  Now, I have a reason to get out there and put in some wicked miles.  There is some fine print with the donation rate though.  If you enter your miles by hand, each mile only qualifies for $0.0025.  One quarter penny per mile or one single penny per 4 miles.  I did a 60 mile ride with Bob on Saturday and did another solo 64 mile ride on Sunday(I'll talk more about those later).  All that effort (especially with the wind!!) equals a massive quarter.  Now if I had a GPS device, like this one, each mile would equal $0.02.  2 pennies per mile.  So my weekend would have netted me $2.50!!  That's a huge difference.  Now my goal is to donate to as many of those charities as possible.  So I ordered a GPS device like the one I linked to before.  It's gonna be awesome.  The way I figure it(hey, stop shaking your head at me...) is that the money I spent on the device will kind of be like me donating that money to those charities.  But I get a cool device and really, really good motivation to ride.  Plus there's little goals with rewards to achieve.  I'm hoping to be one of the first 300 people to make 300 miles so I can get a pair of socks.  There's other goals too, but I'll tackle them when I get the time.

So that's the new direction I'm taking.  I'm going to ride my bootay off for charity.  Hopefully this website will take off and a bunch of people will join.  Maybe more charities and sponsors will find this website useful.  Any of you that read my blog and have a GPS device should really consider signing up.  It's an easy way to donate to some worthy causes.

Now on to the rides.  Saturday: I met with Bob at 8:30am at Crane Coffee.  We both had our heavy commuters, so going was slow.  Bob had yet to venture over the Bob Kerry bridge, so we went that route.  He used his handy dandy camera to take a video of our ride over the bridge.  We took the trails SouthEast until we got to the Wabash Trace trailhead.  We were trying to figure out a way back and decided to pretty much go the same way, but stop at the Riverside Grill for lunch.  I highly recommend the place.  The food was quite good, service was great, and the price was about medium.  Would've been nice to spend less, but I rarely do lunch on a ride, so it was nice change of pace.  After we got back over the BK bridge, we headed North to hwy 36 so we could mosey back toward Bob's place.  He lives out by Lake Cunningham, which is a easy shot toward the trail.  Ooh!! When we were riding along 72nd, we saw a B2 Stealth Bomber making some rounds.  That was purdy sweet.  My guess is that Bob will eventually put the whole ride experience up on his blog if he hasn't already.  Oops, I typed too soon.  It's on there.  So that was Saturday.  60 miles with lots of wind for a total of 5 hours!!!  Yeah, that's how mellow it was.

Sunday: I woke up and was weary of 2 things.  1, the wind was about the same as yesterday AT 7am with ominous looking radars of rain, and B, scheduled ride buddy Bryan had just done an absolutely insane running race the day before.  But it was just about time to head to Crane, so I suited up, put on a little sunblock since I had gotten sunburned the day before, and was just about ready to roll.  Then Bryan calls to dash my dreams of witnessing the mighty Blue Rocket's return to glory.  I will eventually see him ride the stunning machine I helped him recreate, but it will not be it's uh....2nd maiden voyage.  (Enough guilt laid on there yet, Bryan?)  So the ride itself, aside from the wind, was great.  All those ominous clouds stayed to the NorthWest and the temp was a nice comfy 70-ish degrees.  I did the old standby of taking Bellevue blvd to cross the Bellevue bridge and climb the bluffs to reach Glennwood before looping around and coming back on that glorious flat tailwind section.  For some reason, I averaged 18mph by myself.  I'M POOPED!!  But I can now say after every ride, "It was for a good cause."  I'm well on my way (A whole quarter!!) towards donating $25.00 to the Rails to Trails Conservacy.  It's going to be an awesome time.

Ride suggestions?

I'm up for putting in some miles this weekend since all I've done during the week is ride to and from work.  Yeesh.  But it's been a crazy week, so that doesn't help.

Saturday: Taking requests now.. Please leave comments.

Sunday: I'm gonna leave the start/finish locations and timing up to Bryan since we have a deal worked out for some tendered services.  Again, comments are welcome.

One benefit from the $700 B bailout plan!!

If you read the MTBOmaha blog at all you'll have seen this.  I thank MOD for bringing it to my attention.  I'm going to bug my workplace about this possibility.  

Here's the copied post:

Bike commuter benefits is now USA law

President Bush signed the Bicycle Commuter Benefits Act into law today.Congressman Blumenauer of Oregon included a bike commuter benefit provision in the $700 billion Wall Street bailout package that passed both houses of Congress this week.“We are delighted that the bicycle commuter benefits act has passed after a lengthy and persistent campaign spearheaded by Congressman Blumenauer (D-OR),” said League President Andy Clarke. “Bicycle commuters will now be extended similar benefits to people who take transit and drive to work – it’s an equitable and sensible incentive to encourage greater energy independence, improve air quality and health, and even help tackle climate change. Thanks to everyone who has helped reach this milestone, especially Walter Finch and Mele Williams, our government relations staff over the years who have worked tirelessly with Congressman Blumenauer, Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) and many others in Congress.”The benefit allows employers to reimburse bike commuters up to $20 per month tax free for expenses related to their commute by bike. Bke commuters who receive other commuter benefits, such as a transit pass, are not eligible for further reimbursement.

SEC. 211. TRANSPORTATION FRINGE BENEFIT TO BICYCLE COMMUTERS.

(a) In General- Paragraph (1) of section 132(f) is amended by adding at the end the following: ‘(D) Any qualified bicycle commuting reimbursement.’

.(b) Limitation on Exclusion- Paragraph (2) of section 132(f) is amended by striking ‘and’ at the end of subparagraph (A), by striking the period at the end of subparagraph (B) and inserting ‘, and’, and by adding at the end the following new subparagraph: ‘(C) the applicable annual limitation in the case of any qualified bicycle commuting reimbursement.’

.(c) Definitions- Paragraph (5) of section 132(f) is amended by adding at the end the following:
‘
(F) DEFINITIONS RELATED TO BICYCLE COMMUTING REIMBURSEMENT-

‘(i) QUALIFIED BICYCLE COMMUTING REIMBURSEMENT- The term ‘qualified bicycle commuting reimbursement’ means, with respect to any calendar year, any employer reimbursement during the 15-month period beginning with the first day of such calendar year for reasonable expenses incurred by the employee during such calendar year for the purchase of a bicycle and bicycle improvements, repair, and storage, if such bicycle is regularly used for travel between the employee’s residence and place of employment.

‘(ii) APPLICABLE ANNUAL LIMITATION- The term ‘applicable annual limitation’ means, with respect to any employee for any calendar year, the product of $20 multiplied by the number of qualified bicycle commuting months during such year.‘

(iii) QUALIFIED BICYCLE COMMUTING MONTH- The term ‘qualified bicycle commuting month’ means, with respect to any employee, any month during which such employee--

‘(I) regularly uses the bicycle for a substantial portion of the travel between the employee’s residence and place of employment, and

‘(II) does not receive any benefit described in subparagraph (A), (B), or (C) of paragraph (1).’.

(d) Constructive Receipt of Benefit- Paragraph (4) of section 132(f) is amended by inserting ‘(other than a qualified bicycle commuting reimbursement)’ after ‘qualified transportation fringe’.

(e) Effective Date- The amendments made by this section shall apply to taxable years beginning after December 31, 2008.

Shabbos + 1

Sunday, bloody Sunday.

Meet: Crane Coffee at 78th and Cass

Time: 7:30am

Pace: Slow since we'll have non-fast bikes

Distance and route: TBD

Good?  Post responses if that's cool.

Why am I working right now????

73 degrees, sunny, no wind.  It's 1:30 now and I got another 3 hours to go.  Grrr.  Plus I told my dad I'd help out with a PC problem right after I get off work.  So there goes my riding on probably the best day of the year.  Seriously, could you ask for more perfect weather conditions?

So I haven't posted in a while.  I also haven't been riding much for a while.  I get about 3 rides in a week.  Yeesh.  The rides are fun as can be, but I'm definitely losing fitness.  I guess it's no biggie since the road season is done.  When I did try cyclocross a few years back, it was quite depressing.  I was always either dfl or in the bottom 3.  Getting lapped multiple times by the leader is never fun.  But the ride itself was ok.  So I'm just gonna ride fun terrain and call it good.

My last 2 rides were last Sunday and yesterday.  On Sunday, my dad and I rode from Carter Lake up to Ft. Calhoun for some lunch, and then back.  It was quite nice out, but we found that the wind, which was supposed to be Northish, switched to the south to give us a little harder time on the way home.  It was still a great ride though.  When we got back to downtown, we rode over the new Bob Kerry bridge.  Of course, since it was the first day it was open, it was swamped.  We rode at a walkers pace most of the time.  It was funny, because there was a trio of mtb-ers that rode past, dinging bells and announcing, "On your Left," and expected people to move over for them.  Many of the walkers also thought it was funny.  Yes, eventually that will be the norm to have faster moving people announcing their presence when passing, but when you have groups of 30 people moving in opposite directions, there's no reason to expect that they should get out of your way.  It's openning day!  Take in the sights and ride slower!  And that's all I gotta say bout that.

Yesterday, I left work, headed downtown, and crossed the BK bridge again to ride on some of the Council Bluffs trails I haven't ridden before.   I took the trail South all the way to Lake Manawa.  I wanted to see what the trip would take to get to the Wabash Trace.  That would be a long ride in the works: leave work, head over to the Wabash, and ride as far as the daylight would allow.  Which right now, is not much, but at least I have some more options for next year.

This weekend: I'm officiating the Omaha CX race on Saturday.  Cyclocross is a great spectator sport.  Cause you know.  It's always fun watching people pummel themselves.  Sunday, I might be helping Bryan put together his bike if it makes it to his shop in time.  If not, we will probably be doing a slow Shabbos + 1 ride.  I shall post more details when things get figured out.

Need a McCoffee?

Michelle brought home a stack of coupons (PRONOUNCED COO-PONS!!!) that someone dropped off at her work for McDonalds Cafe dealie. They make mochas, cappucinnos(sp?) and such. The coupons are: buy a mocha or whatever and get a free sammich. The stuff's pretty good, but the coupons only last till 9/25 and only work at the 84th and Grover Micki-Ds. So if anyone wants one, let me know. Cause I'm not eating that much Mc-Cholesterol over the next 5 days.

We should ride bikes this weekend

I know some folks are running in the Corporate Cup 10K on Sunday, which is entertaining but ultimately features far fewer crashes than the cycling version.

But I'm not. Mike's not (right?).

So let's ride bikes. Let's pick a time and place and try to avoid the downtown horde. It's gonna be slow -- I'll be on the Bianchi. Ugh.

EDIT: This is the 300th post here. Shomer Shabbos!

Shabbos+1: The Fall Century

Bike Masters has a planned Fall Century Ride ride this Sunday. While I'd like to go the full distance, time will permit about four hours. So join me for a spirited metric century or for the Bike Master's group's full American standard.

Plan to Meet
Where: Bike Masters
When: Sunday, September 14th at 7:45 AM

Alternative: meet earlier (7:00 AM) for coffee at Crane's on 76th and Cass and then catch up to the Bike Master's ride.

Crazy Idea.

I'm one of the officials for the NE State Road race tomorrow.  I had this crazy idea of riding my bike down to Branched Oak tonight, camping for cheap overnight, doing the race duties, then riding home after the race is over.  The reason for this, and ultimately the reason it's not happening, is the Husker football game in Lincoln at 11:30am.  I don't know if I've experienced traveling on the interstate on a game day, but I've heard lots of horror stories.  Granted, I'll be at Branched Oak by 8am, but I've heard people will be migrating toward Lincoln all morning also.  

The reason I'm not going to ride down is the journey home.  The race, and the game, will probably end around 2-3pm.  So that means, even though I'm riding along highways, there'll be a ton of traffic out there also trying to avoid the I-80 congestion.  I'm comfy riding in city traffic with drivers getting to work, but I'm not comfy riding on a highway (no matter how wide the shoulder is) with cars traveling at 50-60 mph containing possibly intoxicated operators.  So for safety's sake, I'm joining the car crowd.  Another reason to not like the Huskers - but that's just my own opinion.

Solo sloggin.

So since I've been under the weather, or under the allergens, whichever, I didn't want to hammer it with the organized group rides on Wednesday.  I decided to leave from work at 4:30 and ride as much as I could before it got dark.  With clouds on the horizon, that time would be about 8:10 or so.  I researched some routes and couldn't decide between a gravel ride or a road ride.  Granted, it would take me a while to get to the gravel roads, so it'd be half and half any way.  I decided to stick to the pavement.  I figured I could ride the Wed night Trek Store group ride in reverse, but that would only be about 2-ish hours.  I was going to make my choice once I got to Ft. Calhoun either to turn home or keep going.  I got there in about an hour.  So off to Blair I went.

I couldn't remember how far Blair was from Ft. Calhoun, but a friendly sign let me know only 9 miles.  Good enough.  Then I started thinking, if I'm keeping a 20mph average (which I wasn't anyway but dreaming I was) that would only give me maybe 3 hours for the ride.  Oh well, I could always tack on that jolly cimb just North of Blair.  

That 9 miles started to wear on me.  So by the time I got to the official turn around spot of the ride, I was ready to head home anyway.  My route home was hwy 133.  I hadn't been on this road for quite some time and the last time was probably on an un-busy weekend morning.  At this point, it was 5:30pm and all the live-in-Blair-work-in-Omaha crowd was all coming at me.  Since there were few cars going my direction to disrupt the air being pushed by the oncoming cars, I got a slight headwind. This, along with the mighty hills of hwy 133 plus the fact that I was running out of steam,  really took it's toll on me.  By the time I was to the Keystone trailhead, I was more cooked than when I had gone on tough group rides.  I guess shooting for the 20mph average on a solo ride was not the wisest choice.

What I had forgotten about training was the hurty leg period.  This is the time of year where the meat of training begins.  After you've taken some time off of the intensity of the racing season, you've maybe picked up some cross training, and ride when the weather permits over the winter.  If you can stand to labor through hours in the gym of weight training and hop on the trainer consistently for 3-hour rides to nowhere, you'll be way ahead of everyone else.  Then, from late February to early April you're cramming all the toughest rides in that you can so you'll be ready for the race season.  This includes centuries done with fast guys to work on sustained hard efforts, really intense intervals to open up your high-end aerobic system, and the start of racing if it's around.  This is the hurty leg period.  You're always tired, on the verge of getting sick, and your legs are in a constant state of soreness - hurty legs.

The problem is, I'm at that point right now, and I have quite a few months to go for the next road race season, unless I want to hop into some cross races.  Which is entirely possible with my new all-rounder bike.  But, we'll see about that.

Well that hurt a little.

Brady and I met up for a Labor day ride. After a quick cup of joe, we headed downtown then on to the Bellevue Blvd loop. We were hoping to save money by crossing the river at the South Omaha Bridge, but it is still under construction. So we rode through Bellevue with a destination of Glennwood, IA. After we made polite conversation with the bridge trolls(ok, that was mean, they were nice old ladies), we started to hit it hard on the highway in Iowa. We had a cross wind so we took turns on the front. Brady must have been feeling great because his pulls were always a little longer and a little faster than mine. His strength also became apparent on that climb toward Glennwood. I tried to keep pace, but I fell off a couple times. Then, either he'd sit up, or I'd recover a little only for me to pull through and go red-lining again. Not smart.

We crested the climb and maintained a quickish pace into Glennwood. I realized, at 1.5 hours into the ride, that I had only drank about half a bottle's worth of water. Oops. I didn't feel dehydrated. In fact, aside from running out of oomph on the climb, I was feeling pretty good. At the Glennwood convenient store stop, I downed a coke, a Nutrigrain bar, and some of Brady's Nut Roll then we were off. Word of warning to anyone doing the Glennwood loop; the road heading South West out of town is under construction. The bridge is gone, and the side road that we usually take to get to Pacific Junction, was heavily quartered off. Brady and I cyclocrossed our way around all the construction and were off again. I was all for taking it easy with the tailwind, but Brady was feeling his steel-cut oats apparently. We eventually got back to the Bellevue Bridge after some really hard work. We bipped over to the Keystone trail via 370 to 25th st. Another word of warning: they recently redid that bridge on 25th st which is good, but they completely blocked any sort direct path to the trail. So you have to stop, get off your bike, hop a guardrail, then get on the trail. I feel like emailing someone about this because it's horribly inconvenient to cyclists to have the route blocked, but more importantly it also takes away an entry point for emergency and maintenance vehicles onto the trail. Not cool.

Anyway, after the ride, I was feeling the effects of not hydrating properly. My legs started cramping up...BAD. I took a mini-nap and when I got up and walked down the stairs, I almost fell over. My muscles actually seemed to seize up. And this was even after drinking a tall glass of chocolate milk and eating cottage cheese and apple sauce. I guess since I hadn't really worked my legs in 4 days, they weren't ready for the hammer session. Oh well.

With regard to the cold I had, I'm questioning if it was a cold or some really bad allergies. On Friday, it felt like a real cold since I could barely wake up in the morning and slept most of the day after leaving work early. But now I'm sneezing a bunch and experiencing Bryan's symptoms of needing to blow my nose a bunch. So maybe I am growing into some allergies? I sure hope not, but it's entirely possible. I think I will lay off the intensity for a while anyway just to see if this stuff will go away.

Ugh...I hab a code...

It's not that bad, but I'm definitely not riding much anytime soon. Which is great timing considering a 3-day weekend is on deck. I'm on call Saturday morning so that will give me some lounge around the house time. But Sunday and Monday would be nice to put in some miles. We'll see how I feel. If this cold goes like others I've had recently, I'll be in bed for a few days.

Bob had mentioned that, for Saturday, he would like to start an early AM, like 5:30 or 6, ride that would loop somewhere, then meet up with the Bike Masters group ride. Then Bryan started to give me instructions for a ride he was doing, but I cut him short by saying I was on call. So, sorry guys. I would love to be a part of some great rides this weekend, but it looks like I'll be in bed most of the time. Hope you guys have fun!

Aaaaah, Shabbos + 1 defined.

Start time 6:30am on a Sunday when the town's not yet awake. Streets are bare so riding around is nice and quiet. Pace is easy; hills are taken at talking speed. As in, you can still muster a conversation when going up a rather steep grade. And that's what Shabbos + 1 is all about, conversation while on the bike. Or off the bike. Sometimes the goal of the ride is to get to a coffee shop, sit down and chat for half hour- fourty five minutes, then mosey on home. When you get home, you still wish you could be out there riding the rest of the day like you just were. Good conversation, easy pace, riding bikes, loving life, good times. That's Shabbos + 1 defined.

Shabbos, Shabbos +1

Shabbos: The aforementioned Mountain Goat ride at Bike Masters. 8:30, kind of quick, but without stopping every 20 minutes with the rest of the group.

Shabbos +1: 6:30 at Crane, with a relaxed pace to get the gunk out from the Mountain Goat ride.

OK? OK.

I've made a huge mistake.

That's what I kept telling myself when I discovered that the Bianchi I bought off of Craigslist from a nice guy was just not cutting it. The frame was a little big - top tube on my race machine is 56cm and this was 58. And it's a little heavy - like 10 pounds heavier than my race machine. Now, combine the weight with the "comfortable steel ride" (read: flexy) and I had a good bike for all day slow rides, not any sort of spirited group rides. I wanted a bike that could do most everything. The first fastish ride where the bike really failed me was a gravel road ride. I figured the flex wouldn't matter as much since gravel gives more than pavement. Well I show up to this ride out of shape anyway and it became very clear right away that the title of this post was quite true.

Fast forward to a couple weeks ago and I was in the shop and re-re-re-browsing the bike selection. I studied this one bike very carefully and decided it would make a good all arounder. It's geometry, very much UNlike the Bianchi, was similar to my road race machine. So I asked one of the employees to check to see if I would qualify for the 12 month same as cash Trek card. I've made some progress on my credit debt, so I know my FICO score was coming up. Well I qualified and decided to pull the trigger.

I dinked around with it and put road bars, bar-end shifters, cyclo-cross v-brakes, standard road gearing on and had a good all-rounder bike. I could slap on some very large tires (44C is what I've tried so far) and do some great gravel road rides. Or, like tonights Wednesday night road ride, just run it with some stiff efficient tires/wheels and hang with the group. Which is exactly what I did tonight.

I showed up to the group ride on my Gary Fisher Wingra fully expecting to fall off after the 2nd or 3rd fast section. I stayed comfortably competitive the whole ride. We had a strong group, but were missing some of the really fast guys, such as Shim, Kent (who just happened to get 18th at the Leadville 100 mtb race recently), Steve Jarrett, and a couple other usual suspects. But we had a steady strong group which I could actually hang with. It felt great to be up there again. And when I stomped on my pedals, UNlike my Bianchi, the bike transferred my power to the pavement.

So needless to say, after feeling great the whole ride, I'm floating on a cloud of good-judgement/excitement. I haven't actually weighed the bike, but I figure it's around 20-22 pounds. If I would swap out the current setup with my bestest lightest stuff, I think I could get it down to 19 pounds. Now if I wanted to fork over more mullah, I could change out the cromoly fork for a carbon one and have a truly competitive race machine. I'd probably go with a fork that had disc brake mounts and be able to run full discs for my winter time commutes/rides when rim brakes get kinda scary.

This weekend I'm planning on practicing biking with my new toy on the ride mentioned at the end of this post. Rundown: Shabbos (that means Saturday), 8:30am, leave from Bike Masters, ride up to Ft. Calhoun then back with some good hills and a spirited tempo. Show up for some pain and a little fun. Sunday is still up in the air and then Monday is my b-day. Wish I could take the day off and celebrate, but it's also d-day at my work since it's the first day of classes and I'm in high demand. No hang-overs for me.

Edit: Oh yeah, I should add to this already long post with a weekend report.
Saturday's Tranquility Tire Tantrum mtb race: This was only my 3rd off-road ride in like 3 months, so I wasn't expecting much. The gun went off and I was left in the dust (literally since the trail was bone dry) at first. I kept my steady pace and followed some very experienced wheels (Thanks Samsam and Showen!) so I wouldn't blow myself up too soon. It proved to be a wise tactic as by my 3rd and final lap, I was ready to be done. I had a good cushion ahead and behind me till Samsam made a rally the last half of the lap. I gave it everything I had and just held him off by maybe 20 seconds. Talking to the first 2 across the line, they thought I might have made 3rd. WHAT?!?! That would have been crazy, but alas, there was another guy who was ahead of me by a mere 4 minutes. The top 2 beat me by 8 minutes. Sheesh, guess I need to ride my mtb more.
Sundays Omaha Corporate Cycling Challenge: The plan was to go fast from the gun and we did. It was Bob, Brady, Shim, me and 10 or so other guys who kept a steady 23mph average pace all the way out to Ft. Calhoun. After that turnaround point, Bob, Brady and I toned it down and had a more Shabbos + 1 like ride home. All around a great weekend of riding.

On a more serious note, I got a text from Sean K saying he would have joined, but his Grandmother had just passed away. Sean, I'm sorry for your loss and my thoughts are with you.

Places/times for this weekend.

I will be racing the Single speed category at the Tranquility Tire Tantrum this Saturday. Hopefully I will not die. This will be my 3rd off-road ride in 6 months and I forgot how easy it is to start running into trees when you're tired, but still riding. I like trees and all, I just don't want to have any high-speed hugging sessions with them during the race.

On Sunday, for the Corporate Cycling Challenge, I say us guys who are going to attempt an up-tempo ride should meet near the front of the pack before the start. All the usual suspects will be there including Shim, uh... other fast guys... yeah. I can't think of who else will attend right off hand, but you will probably see some familiar faces if you are within the top 50 people at the line-up. Which I highly recommend. Otherwise, if you start at the back, it'll be a half hour before you actually get out of downtown. Either that or you'll be crashed. Or both. So see ya'll at the line for some pain train fun!

Just plugging away.

Not much new. I've been riding when I can, keeping up kinda with my schedule. Or not.

On Sunday, instead of a long ride, I did a short run. A little run called the Raven's Nest 5K. This is a trail run with many hills, sand pits, and much pain. Last year I did this run and placed 15th overall. Being it was my first running race ever, I was ecstatic. I ran it in 26:26. I have no idea what a fastish paved 5K is like, but the hills and such made it really interesting. This year, however, I was considerably slower. My time was 40 seconds longer and, being that most runners who also did the race last year had faster times, the course was shorter. Last year I hung with the main fast group for quite a while. This year, I was off the pace almost right away. I could just feel that my aerobic system is untrained. Ugh. But that's what I'm working on. So hopefully next year's race will be better.

I did a mountain bike ride on Friday after not touching that bike for a few months. It was a blast, but it too beats you up compared to just road riding. I'll be doing the Traquility mtb race this next weekend, so that should be fun. Then the next day is the Omaha Corporate Cycling Challenge. 42 miles with just a wee group of a couple thousand people. Should be fun. Can't decide if I want to hammer it with the fasties at the front, or wade around with the rec riders. Any input from my fellow bloggers as to how we should handle this? Spirited ride, or mellow Shabbos-ie tempo?

My B.O. is like the Borg

I sweat a lot. I wear some sort of bandana thing under my helmet. Otherwise I'd be crying on every ride above 70 degrees from sweat drenching my eyes.
Now where my sweatiness really becomes a problem, is under my armpits. As some of you may know, but don't readily admit in front of me, I get funky. Not the good kind of James Brown funky(RIP), but the bad kind of "I need to back away from this person" kind. Only a few of my really good friends have felt comfortable enough to tell me, "Jeez Mike, you stink." This usually happened during really long drives in a car where there was no escape.

I think I was the first kid in grade school to develop "body odors." I distinctly (HA!) remember a time in 5th grade where the teacher talked solemnly to us about growing up and how we "change." Little had I known, but I guess some of my fellow classmates told our teacher that I was stinky. So she very fairly told all of us that we need to talk to our parents about body odor. So that was the beginning for me.

I started off by using the strongest stuff available since I eventually figured out that not many others smelled as bad as me. On to the Extra strength antiperspirant deodorant. This stuff instantly made me smell like, well, whatever fragrance was labeled. Shower Mist, Cool Rain, Morning Dewdrops, etc were some of my choices of masking agent. At first, everything was fine. Eventually though, the bacteria under my pits "assimilated" the product I was using and within an hour of application, I was funky again. So I switched to the ever growing brands available. I had good luck with Old Spice for a while. Month or 2 later, YOU HAVE BEEN ASSIMILATED. Then I figured out that the too strong antiperspirant was possibly making my Borglike funk bacteria into superspores. They could handle anything I threw at them since they had beaten down the best.

This led me to switch to non-antiperspirant deodorant. At first it was difficult. I had to go into hiding and/or not exert myself at all. The hot and humid summers here in Nebraska were always a death sentence for me. But then the super mega B.O. lost a worthy adversary, so it got weaker. I also switched to the wonderful smelling - hippie made Tom's Natural of Maine Woodspice deodorant. I loved the non-fake smell of Woodspice since it made me smell like trees instead of Jr. High.

Alas, my armpit bacteria assimilated the hippie goodness of this new product also. So, I thought about going a completely different route. I used Gold Bond's Extra strength Triple Action Medicated powder. Whew! This stuff did the trick. I put it on before my commute into work, and even though it was a balmy 70 degrees with high humidity, my armpits remained under Gold Bonds control. I HAD DEFEATED THE B.O.rg!!

That is until recently. Now, like before, I apply the good smelly stuff, and within an hour or 2, I'm back to bad smelly again. I may try to switch to non-extra strength to see if I can weaken the B.O.rg's stranglehold on my "pit's of despair," but I'm not holding my breath. Others will just have to hold their nose.


Shabbos ride anyone?

Ah, Shabbos +1 goodness.

Rolled out with Bryan and Bob this morning at 6:30am. Bob decided to run the single speed with a 52x20, so I joined his fun by keeping it in my 53x19 most of the ride. It's interesting how I felt fresh aerobically the whole ride by overgearing it. The only time I was breathing hard was on the climbs, but that happens anytime you stand to grind up a hill. I almost want a single speed again, however, I don't need anymore bikes and doing it on the cheap will result in a heavy bike that I don't want to ride. I've learned from my Bianchi commuter experience and will never travel down that road again. By the way, anyone want to purchase a couple year old, nicely maintained Bianchi Castro Valley, size 58? It's an awesome commuter, but not built for speed and nimbleness. It's made to handle all types of weather to get to work, which is exactly how I've been using it. I've made some mods, of course. It's got a shorter stem since the bike's biggish for me; which is the main reason I'm selling it. Okay, okay, okay, enough of my spamming.

I went for a run Friday afternoon and I'm comfortable with being prepared for the Raven's Nest 5K race next weekend. I'm not expecting big things, but I'm not going to keel over and die either, so that's a plus. This week of training was drastically different from last week. But I am now recovered and ready to steadily increase the time on the bike instead of going full bore. 10 hours is much more realistic than 15 at this point of my fitness.

One funny thing about riding more recently is that I've seen Spence a couple times on the trail. After our easy (but just enough of a workout) ride this morning, I saw the Spence pain train heading out on the trail as I was going home. Spence of course motioned to me that I should turn around and join them. I apologized and said I was just finishing up. Don't know how much they could have understood, being we were traveling in opposite directions rather quickly. So now I know that he hits the trail somewhere between 9am and 10am on the weekends. With the temp already upper 80's at 9am, I was glad to be done with the ride, and I pittied them for just heading out. Especially with how hard they were about to go. But eventually, I will be joining the pain train so I too can put the hurt on others. So look out! (In 6 months, that is...)

Great idea? Bad idea.

Ever since my first week back on the training bus (which included a 90 mile ride, 2 fast paced, long group rides, and a couple "recovery" rides), I think my body went into full recovery mode this week. I remember reading a couple places (ok, basically every training book out there) that you're only supposed to increase your training volume by 10%-15%. Well let's run the numbers. An average week for me, pre-training: Commute every day, 6 miles, 30 minutes tops; A couple group rides, 40-ish miles, 2-3 hours. So I was averaging at most 100 miles a week with a time of 8 hours. If I was lucky. So then I decide, "Hey, how about a week of 260 miles and 15 hours.!" Now, I'm no mathemetician (apparently not an english major either), but that training week had to be at least a little more than a 10%-15% increase.

I always wondered what would happen if you jumped leaps and bounds in the volume of your training. I had always been careful when I first got into racing, but still wondered. Well now I know. Every day this week around 3pm I would get crazy sleepy. Like no motivation to do anything. The nights I went straight home, that was it. I lounged on the couch all evening. I guess that's why it's damaging to your training if you increase volume by a bunch. Your body can't take it, so it takes it out of you.

New plan: after I recover this week, I'm going to ease back into it. Unfortunately, that probably means no competitive group rides for me. My body just can't take the intensity yet. I need to treat my training as if I've just come off the October recovery period after the racing season. So that means steady paced rides, low intensity, and GRADUAL increases in volume. I'll be up for some Shabbos (+1) rides, but only if they're fun/easy group rides.

Speaking of which. Shabbos ride anyone? 6:30am at Crane? 2, maybe 3 hours of easy riding? Anyone? Anyone?

Still sleepy, feeling better.

I realized yesterday, when the radar looked like some evil storms were heading our way from Blair, that I should do a quick run instead of a ride where I could be stranded way out there. Also, I'm doing the Raven's Nest 5k on August 10th, so I should probably be in some sort of running shape by then. I rode home from work, changed into the running gear, then headed out. Of course the evil looking clouds that had been on the radar turned out to be nothing, but I needed the run anyway.

I ran a couple times 2 weeks ago and only once last week so I didn't know how I was going to feel. Those runs were no so great. I have been putting in time on the bike so I should be more aerobically fit. Which is exactly what happened. I could just run without struggling. It was great that I didn't have to suck wind just to make a mile. I think I'm getting my lungs back from cycling. That was the only reason I got 15th overall at Raven's nest last year. I had been training on the bike most of the season. This year, not so much. But now I have a plan, and am sorta sticking to it. I will be more fit. Oh yes, I will.

O' Brother where Art Thou?

Two funny things in one article!!
from : The World Herald
It's an article about an attorney in Nebraska suing to block a casino in Iowa:

"... Bruning on Friday defended his lawsuit. He said the geographical oddity of Carter Lake - sandwiched between downtown Omaha and Omaha's Eppley Airfield - makes his case more complicated than simple state boundaries."

Not that that's too funny other than the phrase "geographical oddity" being lifted from 'O Brother where art thou'.

The real funny part was this line about the actions of the Ponca Tribe to get some tribal land approved for development:

"Bruning and Miller contend that the tribe deceived the government to get the land placed into trust."

Those Indians! Always tricking the government!

Anyway - what's that got to do with anything? Nothing. Other than the Coen's made the Big Lebowski and tomorrow is shabbos +1. Let me know if anyone is up for anything. I know it's late notice, but I'll check later and see. Ok. Thanks. Buy.

I have been in the pain cave...

And I hope to muster up a flashlight.

I rode to the Bike Masters Wed night Group ride and felt pretty good. I recovered well from the 90 mile ride on Sunday. Funny thing, my legs never felt sore after that ride. The only thing was the back of my neck. It's still hurting right now. I guess I built up some good neck muscles when I was putting in many hours a week on the bike. And since, for the past year, I've basically only been commuting the whopping 6 mile round trip most days and occasionally getting a 3-ish hour ride in, those various long distance muscles have faded. Guess I gotta build them back up.

So the ride: The group looked to be pretty solid, but the legendary fasties weren't there. No Spence, Brackenbury, Ellis, or various others. So I had some high hopes for myself. At first Bryan and I pushed the pace a bit up some climbs. That felt good. Then we kept the pace high for a majority of the ride out. I started to fall off after a failed sprint with no goal. Bryan took that one even though we didn't know where we were sprinting to. I just gave up after a few seconds while he kept going = he won. After that, about 45 minutes into the group ride, I was pretty toasted. There weren't any bad hills after that, but we still had to turn around and ride into the 15-20mph headwind. All the way back. Then I had to ride home into that same headwind. Ugh.

After we turned around the group was together. For about a mile. Then Bryan picks up the pace and was pretty much just gone. The rest of us crawled home in various groups trying to rotate and work together to share some of the wind burden. Eventually, when we hit some good climbs, I was off on my own. I just couldn't stay with anyone anymore. So I putzed back to the shop and eventually JP caught up with me. He's got some wicked clunky sound going on with his bike so we checked it over at the shop. My bike is noisy too, but I just haven't really cleaned or relubed any part of it for most of the year. Oops.

After I refilled the bottles it was time for the slog home into the headwind. I had motivation along Fort St with traffic, but as soon as I hit the trail, I could barely maintain 13mph, even when I was shielded from the wind. I stopped by Chipotle for some awesome recovery food and called it a night. Again, I'm not sore today, other than the neck muscles. So that's a good sign. I just need to train those otherwise unused muscles to take multiple riding days again. Then I have to work on my upper end aerobic engine by doing group rides and steady climb intervals. Then, over the winter, I will hit the gym, do some gravel road rides, and rebuild my strength again. So I have about 6 months to muster up a flashlight for this pain cave. Better get musterin'.

An Epicly Epic ride.

Well it was epic for my current fitness level. I guess I shouldn't even say that. My body just isn't used to the miles. My aerobic system was ok, my muscles made it till about the last 10 miles or so. But today if feels like someone took away my neck muscles. I can barely hold up my head. See I've been riding my Bianchi just for commuting for a couple months now. It has way more of an upright position than my lightweight racey Lemond. But I needed all the help I could get to last the 90 hilly miles on tap. So by then end of the ride, after my neck muscles got more of a workout than they ever had, I was more than a little sore. Harlan, the finish town, had a nice massage tent setup. So I got a good working over for 15 minutes with a focus on my neck. So that was nice. But today, I'm still feeling it. Time for some vitamin I - as in Ibuprofin.

So the ride itself was quite fun. Bryan rode 10 miles from his place to get to mine, then we headed downtown after dropping off a couple bags of change-of-clothes at my parents place. We ventured over the 480 bridge pretty uneventfully. The shoulder was just one bike width, so we single filed it, but there was barely any traffic at 6:30am on Sunday. The shoulder was also very rocky/glassy. But we made it across without incident. After moseying through downtown Council Bluffs, we headed North on the very fun Old Lincoln Highway towards Missouri Valley to join the first day of RAGBRAI. This road is not as hilly as I remember. We were taking it rather easy so maybe that was the reason. There were plenty of hills, though, once we got onto the RAGBRAI course. We met up with Matt Pavlovich with a great group of friends that had their own little motif going. It was the running of the bulls deal where one bigger guy was painted red and had these huge bull horns attached to his helmet. The rest of the people in the group wore white garments and had red saches on. They were basically imitating this. Quite hilarious. Also along the ride were many different bike-boom-boxes. Some were little seatpacks, others were full-on trailers, but everyone got to listen to music ranging from C & C Music Factory to Johnny Cash. Again, good times. The many different costumes and bikes kept the otherwise boring Iowa backdrop interesting. There were many a cornfield we passed while riding up and down hills. There was only a couple flat sections. It was funny because as soon as there was about a mile or so of flatness, pace lines would pick up and motor through. But these broke down with any hills since congestion of slower riders made it dangerous.

It was quite an experience, but I'm not sure I'd want to do the whole week of RAGBRAI. I'd have to be trained for it, that's for sure, but after about the 4th or 5th day, I think I'd be pretty tired of pork chops and goofy dressed people. Not that those things are bad, but moderation is always good.

So that lovely/painful 90 mile ride started a new training schedule. This next month is just a break in period so I'm only doing 10-14 hour weeks. That's not hard to do when you start a week with a 5 hour ride. Today is an off day, minus the commute, then Tuesday and Thursday I'll do an hour easy each, Wedsnesday will be a couple hours on the Wed night group ride, Friday will be another off day, then Saturday will be 2-3 hours of whatever. I'm not really assigning intensity yet. I'll go hard when I feel like it, but mainly I just need to build up my aerobic base and get my body used to riding lots again. Also, riding more will hopefully get me back down into the 150s lb range. I'm publishing my training log here. I'll update it hopefully after most rides. This published log will keep me motivated and accountable to all who read it. So if you check on it and there's a few days missing, remind me to either keep training, or to update my rides.

Sunday is the beginning of the end.

I'm tired of wasting away. My quads and calves are thinning down and my waistline is growing. I'm kinda scared about the 80-90 mile ride this Sunday because I haven't ridden that long for at least 6 months. The longest ride in recent memory was riding over to Lake Manawa, doing TT intervals a couple times, then riding home. The total riding time was about 3.5 hours and I was a big wet spaghetti noodle the rest of the day. So this Sunday will be interesting. I hope Bryan will be patient as I can some drifting off the back on a few hills in my future.

But that will be it. That ride will mark the start to a new life for me. Michelle is driving now so I have no commitments after work. I can put in some good training after work to eventually get back to my former...um...form. I am mapping out a training regiment that will involve upping my aerobic rides for the last part of the summer so I can handle 90 mile rides easy. Then, over the winter, I will work on strength and dropping weight. I'm not sure if I can be in tip top shape by the beginning of next race season, but I think I'll be close fairly competitive form.

I thought about the money situation and realized it's possible to make money while racing. You just have to plan better to save money on traveling, eating, etc. and/or finish in the top 5. If I get back to my former strength (or maybe even stronger) I know I can be up there. I've learned from Bryan that you don't have to spend money on the latest and greatest stuff to get strong. It's the training that matters, not the equipment. Granted, when it comes to TT's, aero stuff always helps, but I can hopefully borrow equipment to shave away seconds. I just have to train so my motor isn't holding me back.

So this is it. I am making a declaration that next summer will be my return to racing. I really miss it. I miss the feeling of putting others in the hurt lockers when on an attack. I miss the weekends spent putting in 4-6 hour rides so the intense long races don't hurt that much. I really miss riding my bike.

If anyone wants to go on easy or hard training rides, let me know. There'll only be a couple times a year where I'll have to work late for a month, but other than that, I should be on the road most days by 5pm. It will be fun.

My ears are on fire.

Or...I have ear cancer. Sunday I worked the wheel pit for my officiating duty at the Babcook memorial crit downtown. I put on sunscreen most places, but forgot my ears, temples, and backs of my arms. So those places got pretty red. "Backs of your arms??" you say? I slathered on the screen on the already kinda burnt tops of my arms (forearms, hands), however, did not think that I would be crossing my arms behind me for a few hours out in the sun. Which is exactly what I did. Therefore, the backs of my arms, which never get any sun exposure, got a little burnt. I wore a hat most of the day so that's why my ears and temples got burnt.

So enough skin cancer talk. The Omaha cycling weekend was fun but labor intensive. This was my first official race being an...um...official. I did a couple practice crits early in the season, but they were not, officially official. On Saturday, I was out at Mt Michael (216th and North of Maple) by 7:45am for the time trial. That race went ok with only a few communication issues. All was said and done by about noon so I had an hour to eat and get down to Papillion for the afternoon crits. I was a tad late, but all was still getting setup when I arrived. The different crits went well, but scoring(keeping track of who's 1st through last in the race) was difficult/stressful. These sets of races were all done by 9pm. So that was a long day.

Then Sunday I got wheelpit duty. I was just fine with that since scoring is not so fun, but it involved me standing in the sun most of the day. Hence the sun burn opener. This race also went most of the day. There by 8am, leaving by 5pm. After this weekend, I have a whole new respect for organizers, officials, and volunteers. They make races happen, otherwise it'd just be a bunch of glorified group rides. If you've never scored a race (or have ever protested a result) I'd suggest trying it once. Cause keeping track of 20-40 people going by 25-50 times at different intervals is no easy task.

As an official, I'm supposed to stay neutral, so I just want to congratulate all of the racers who came out gave it their all and (hopefully) had a good time. I do however want to mention that, on Saturday night, it was fun watching Alex Boyd hold his own against 4 other breakaway companions who were all from the same team. I've been in a similar situation before where it's you alone against 3 or so others conspiring to drop you. In my situation, I got dropped. Alex did not. In fact he won the race. Quite impressive, sir. My hat's off to you. There were many other amazing feats of strength throughout the weekend, so congratulations to all who participated. Thanks for keeping racing in Nebraska alive and well.

Warning: Political Content ahead.

Here's another good reason to vote for Obama in November. Having a presidential candidate who's already talking to the bike industry is a great start. Granted, if (hopefully when) he gets elected, bike lanes won't just pop up over night. But if he can get the wheel rolling, so to speak, then I believe change for the better can happen.

Also, here's a bike that I would love to ride someday, just to see how weird it is. Talk about an ultimate grocery getter.

Rough couple of weeks

So I'm officially back from my 2 week vacation. I was actually back on Thursday afternoon. I was definitely not back in cycling shape though, let alone any other shape. Here's the skinny(or should I say squirty?).

Sunday the 22nd, my dad and I were off to Pennsylvania. First stop, South Bend, Indiana for a stay over at a hotel. We didn't have to be to Pittsburgh till afternoon on Monday, so we got up and took a ride around the Notre Dame Campus. Purdy cool. Many of the really old buildings were under construction as was the football field, so our ride was mainly just a pass through. We pack back up, and head off for P-burgh. Clark, my little bro who lives there and was hosting us, had a ton of old stuff at the parents house that we transported to him. After all that was unloaded, the vehicle had plenty of room for our stuff and bikes. The next day we headed out to Philadelphia to catch the 2nd part of the first day of the Tour of PA. The crit was fast and exciting. I talked with Pool a little and called it a day. The next couple days we stayed with some relatives and followed the race across the state at various points. Basically we would get to a spot (usually a sprint spot or KOM) watch them go by, then take a different route to get to the next spot. This was really difficult because the whole state is a tangled spiderweb of highways and interstates that really doesn't make much sense. Usually when we got to our next spot, they were just coming in. It was really cool to see a rolling enclosure in action. You'd have oncoming traffic that got pulled over by the cops, the race would go by, the caravan would go by, then the long line of vehicles trapped behind the race would creep by slowly. So that was a fun experience. Unfortunately, it was not in the cards for Pool or his team to achieve great glory. They did really well for the first half, but strong teams and a goof with traffic into Pittsburgh robbed them of coming out on top. Pool has a good race report on his website.

So after the race, my dad and I hung out with my little brother again. We went cave dwelling, fancy house touring, and we ate some great food. Well, it all tasted great, but apparently one of the many dishes had it out for me. On Tuesday, the 1st, we started to make our way back West. The plan was to stop along the way at various trails and ride our bikes often. Well my dad did, but I did a lot of reading while in a bathroom. I highly recommend NOT getting food poisoning. Ever. Only being able to eat 2 bites of any dish, then feeling full to point of bursting (almost literally) for most of the day was not a great way to travel across the country. We got back on Thursday and I was still not well after 2 days of heavy bathroom time. Friday, I spent some time at Michelle's mom's place since they always do a great 4th celebration. Again, not much food and that night was particularly unpleasant. So Saturday and Sunday I really did nothing but drink as much fluids as I could stomach and rested hardcore.

Today, Monday, I'm feeling better stomach-wise, but am way behind in strength and condition. The ride into work today was probably my worst ride ever. Worse than the -9 degree weather this winter. Worse than even the easiest rides back when I was training hard 20 hours a week. So, needless to say, it's going to be a while before I'm ready to do some intense training rides with you guys. I'm all for easy recovery rides, if anyone is interested, but that's about it. I'm thinking 2 hours tops for a while.

This weekend is the Omaha Race weekend and I'll be one of the officials, so you guys better be on your best behavior. Then the next weekend is the Cornhusker State Games TT where I will also be officiating. So it may be a month before I'm in for some Shabbos goodness. Sigh....

Easy Sunday. Easy Monday. Easy ...

We'll I've decided to get back in the saddle again. I'm a cowboy - On a steel horse I ride. So tomorrow, I'm going to start earlyish (6:30-7:00) and most likely head south on the trail for a while.

Monday - I'm taking the day off and going to try to meet up with the U.P. lunch ride group (if it does not rain). The U.P. lunch ride is way more than I have the fitness for right now, but I need some humiliation for my fat-ass. It starts typically around 11:45 and goes for about 45 minutes. Meet me at the HQ and I'll ride with you for a few minutes until I mercilessly ride away off the back.

Ride more.

Saturday Bike Masters ride at 8:30 in the a.m. Gonna be probably 50 miles, pretty mellow. Just looking for smooth hours in the saddle. Come one, come all, etc.

Celebrate your independence ... from work

Here's a preliminary plan:

Shabbos -1, 6:30 a.m. from Bike Masters. Gonna be back by 10 or 10:30. Uptempo, but never angry, pace.

As of now, I am in control here

Due to a terrifying line of succession, with Mike out of town I am the boss of you, MITMON readers. I checked with Al Haig and he said I'm pretty much free to do whatever I want. It's an awesome, yet solemn, responsibility.

Here's some info to help ease the transition:
1. I propose a Shabbos (Saturday) ride.
2. The time of the ride shall be 6:15 a.m., at Bike Masters or another suitable spot.
3. The pace of the ride shall be race-pace or faster. Probably faster considering we were doing 14 mph at one point in Norfolk. That was pretty fookin' ridiculous.
4. The route of the ride shall be determined later, and most likely based upon wind.
5. Again, the pace of the ride will be fast. Possibly throw-up fast.
6. The length of the ride shall be 3 hours, no more. JP has to be home by 9:30 because his wife has to work and is therefore leaving the kids with him. I would think that at ages 6 and 4, the kids can be by themselves for a few hours. If Jack can do it, why can't they?
7. Think about joining us if you want to go fast. With a gap in Nebraska racing -- or even Iowa racing -- getting more nasty high-speed work in is a good idea.
8. Leave questions or concerns in the comments.

Some interesting events.

Things are gonna be busy this week in prep for my 2 week vacation to Pennsylvania. I leave this Sunday for the East to watch Aaron Pool race in the Tour of PA, visit some relatives, and bike around with my dad. I will be back on the 5th of July. So I may be ready for a Shabbos +1 on the 6th if I've wound down enough. We'll see. Plans can be put up here and hopefully I'll get a chance to check them while out of town.

Monday was a great/horrible day for the woman. Michelle never had a drivers license. Her parents never got around to teaching her and she got along just fine on the bus and with rides from friends. Well on Monday, after a few months of great lessons from my (now retired) dad, she passed the drivers exam and can drive where ever she wants now. No more waiting on the bus. The bus is a great way to save money instead of having a car, but not really convenient. At one point, she was living in mid-town and working out west. She had to take a bus downtown to catch another bus that would head out west. It was an hour and a half trip each way, everyday. Basically, more time than it takes to drive to Lincoln. EVERY DAY. She went mildly bonkers after a couple years of that. Now she works closer to home, so the bus ride wasn't as bad, but still, the need for her to be able to drive became more evident. And since I'll be gone for 2 weeks, she'll be able to get to the store, go out, and generally have more freedom than she's ever had in the past. Good times ahead for her. The horrible part of that day was that she went into the dentists to get a couple wisdom teeth pulled. Way to have a rollercoaster start to the week.

In friends news, Bryan's search for a new job landed him in the same building. He is now working as a tech-geek writer and WORKING DAYS!! I can't imagine the strain of working the shift he's been on for a while, 4(ish)pm - 1(ish)pm. I gripe and complain about working 11am - 8pm for a month at a time, but that's not cutting into a normal sleep schedule. I'm guessing now that he can get proper recovery, he'll be able to really up the intensity of his training. Plus being able to join the Wed. group rides always boosts performance. Congratulations Bryan. Other friend Brady is unwinding from a tough battle in a half-Iron Man down in Kansas. Brady has proved he is one tough cookie when it comes to being on the rivet. Congrats man, for a job well done. Fred, welcome back to blog world. Hopefully we'll get in more early morning rides on the weekend. But not for a few weeks. Catatarian of the year award goes to Bob for rescuing a little bundle of fur from certain automotive doom. Thank you sir, on behalf of all cat people everywhere.

Am I lazy? Yes I am.

bryan said...

a Shabbos +1 proposal:

Sunday, 6:30 a.m. at Crane. I'm planning on 5ish hours, so we'd be back by 11 or 11:30 at the latest. Mike Munson has to be back by 11:30. My wife would prefer that, too.

Speed: It's tough to hammer for 5 hours. Let's call it spirited, but never fast.

I concur with Bryan.

Speaking of riding for fun...

Shabbos ride anyone? We could resurrect the way early (anti-Peter) ride and get a few hours in before the heat and wind get bad.

Post your ride times/routes/suggestions/ideas/philosophies.

My type of cycling hero.

This guy knows how to ride. For fun and for life. That's the way it should be.

Various stuff.

The weekend came and went and I got in an hour ride with the woman. That's it. Otherwise it was on call duty, clean, work on bikes, projects, and avoid tornadoes.

Brady invited me on an early early ride Saturday morn, but I didn't get the message till late. Plus I would have had to turn back after about 45 minutes to be home so I could sit around for my on-call duty. Sucks. In a few months our on call is going to stretch out to once every 6 weeks instead of once every 4. That'll be nice. However this is going to come with other shift changes that'll see me doing the late shift (11am to 8pm) 4 times a year instead of 3. It's all kinds of weird, but we'll see how it pans out.

Bryan had a great weekend at Norfolk. Way to go, buddy! I sure wish I could have been there to race and watch others race, but seriously, I gotta keep chipping away at my debt load. $4 a gallon gas and lack of training motivation has all but taken me out of racing this year.

Aaron Pool is taking up my slack of team representation by doing really well at a UCI stage race in Spain(?). He had multiple top tens, wore the best young riders jersey for a day and says he felt strong in all aspects of his racing. In just a couple weeks, he and a few teammates are flying this way to do the Tour of Pennsylvania. My dad and I are heading out that way for a nice vacation of following the race, visiting family, and riding some rails-to-trails. Fun times!

I mentioned before that I worked on bikes and started a project. Well here's the details, if anyone wants to know, which I'm sure you do, oh yes you do. Actually, don't feel bad about not reading from here on. Topic is dinking with bikes and working with wood, that's it.

So on the bike front, I've successfully stayed away from doing a big purchase. If I think about it, I've made at least one pretty big purchase if not a couple, every year for the past 4 years. It's either been a whole bike, a wheelset, or a bunch of parts. This year, I've bought a couple small items to keep the bikes going, but that's it. And my debt load reflects this. I'm making huge gains on it, and it feels great. So anyway. What I have done to quell my need to get new stuff is continuously change old stuff. I have a bike that my parents got me in 10th grade, so about 14 years ago. This bike was made right when "hybrids" first came onto the scene. It's more of an off-road hybrid since it has 26" tires. It's definitely not aggressive trail riding worthy. I have recently used random parts to make it into a cruiser/fun ride bike that I use on outings with the woman. It has a nice upright position and a big cushy saddle. Very anti-racer like!

The Bianchi commuter I bought last year has also gotten some changes. The stock wheels it came with are heavy, especially with the front hub being a generator. Since the days are so long, I don't really need a generator light, so I swapped out the wheels for lighter training ones. I have my Ree-Lights on these, just to cover any early day/evening rides. I also changed out the rear derailleur and cogset to a mtb setup. The stock was 12-27 on the rear with a single 42th chainring up front. Since this bike is a beast (28lbs with heavy wheels, 26lbs with light ones), I needed something easier than a 42x27 to get me up the hills. Now I have an 11-34 on the back so I could conceivably climb some mountains. I may need that for my Pennsylvania trip since there are some mountains over there. Another little thing I'm quite proud I figured out was my fender setup. If you have fenders on your bike and you ride in the wet, you know that having the fenders fairly close to the tires really helps ward off tire spray. So on the rear fender, there are 3 mounting points usually: a cross brace right next to the bottom bracket, a cross brace near the brakes, and the 2 metal rod thingies that attach to the rear drop-outs near the rear wheel axle. It's easy to adjust 2 of the 3 mounting points. The bottom bracket brace is not so easy. I've heard of people using spacers and longer bolts to move the front of the rear-tire fender closer so it can protect the chain from getting tire spray. When I was going through my parts for a long bolt, I found one of those inner-tube valve stem nuts and got a great idea. I took an old innertube, cut out the valve stem and got a couple more of those valve nuts. I secured the valve stem to the fender, added another stem nut, ran it through the frame's cross brace, then added a final valve stem nut. So now, I can loosen a couple of those nuts (by hand, which is nice since it's a very tight space in there) and adjust the fender for when I might use larger tires. At this point if you still have any idea what I'm talking about, congratulations, you are as big of a bike-wrench-nerd as I am. If not, I might post pics later to show what the heck even I'm talking about.

Edit: here's the pics of said fender greatness:

You can see how it's a valve stem.

Here you can almost see the part that used to be part of the tube.

And here you can see the ginormous pie-plate like rear cogset. Also note how close the fender is to the tire. No spray on my chain now!


On the wood work side, our place has a great/horrible skylight right above our bed. It's great for lighting, but horrible when it rains. The thing acts like a drum for every rain drop and we sleep right under it. It's no fun being woken up by a snare solo at 3am. So my parents were kind enough to give me some spare pieces of wood to create a sort of sound deadening baffle. I started work on that yesterday and will hopefully finish it soon since the rest of the week looks like lots of random storms are coming.

So that's what's going on in my neighborhood. What's happening in your neck of the woods?

And talk about the weather.

Something happens and I'm head over heals,
I never find out, till I'm head over heals.

If you know the song, you're singing it in your head right now. Tears for Fears. The Big Chair. One of my all time favoritist albums.

So anyway, talk about the weather. It's been just crazy. Storms every evening. Rain. Overflowing rivers. The mtb crowd is suffering withdrawal since there hasn't been a dry trail around for a couple weeks. Remember the big weather news like 3 years ago was DROUGHT!!! The Drought of the Century, blah, blah, blah... Not much of that going on now. Good ol' global warming is kicking in so polar ice caps can melt to provide the world with water to fix the droughts. That's my theory. Even though I only know 1 semesters worth of Earth science, I'm sticking to my ideas.

Good luck to those peeps heading up to NorfoLLk. I'm outo shape and broke so I canno make the trip. That road race is really tough and the crit is super fun. Hopefully the weather will kinda cooperate for you guys up there. Most of the really bad stuff has been lingering around Omaha and to the South, so Norfollk should be good.

I'm on call again on Saturday morning and will probably do a bike ride with the woman in the afternoon if the wind/rain/tornadic activity does not blow up. I will, however, be up for a ride either Sunday Morning or afternoon if those staying in the big O want to join in. Leave a message at the beep, or rather comment.