Cat needs a good home....

So our cat is in need of a good home. It meows a lot, and I mean a lot, if it is moving it is meowing. It sheds and is very attention demanding. This is where my new pet comes in. We have devided to name him Melk, after the town he was discovered in, Melk, Austria. He lays around a lot, does not eat, and I do not have to clean up after him! Sweet.

I am not sure what breed of dog he is though??

Anyway, we are in Austria today and I noticed that it is 4:30 am at home and 11:30 AM here. I am 2 lattes in and about to have lunch on the boat. We are on our way to Vienna tonight where Michelle and I are going out on the town and will be seeing a concert. Should be fun. Here's Michelle enjoying our daily ritual. She thought today that we should start taking pictures at each of our coffee stops.

Sorry that there has not been much about cycling on here lately. I am in that decision point on weather to just retire and move on with life or continue plugging forward. Nothing to rush yet, still have another week of floating to figure it out. This weekend the team will have Mikey, Darrin, and Scott in Franklin. Good luck to all. After that we will have TJ, Mikey, and maybe myself up at the Ore to Shore. I have not done this race since like 2002 and it has the honor of being the only race that I have ever broken anything, besides bike parts. Back then I got taken out by a tandem, which I feel do not belong in the preferred start area, and broke my wrist.

Well I hope all is good back home!

Austria bound, intervention needed.....

So our last night in Germany was spent at a local restaurant. If you are looking to get free alcohol just sit at the bar of a restaurant. They have lines on the beer glasses that require the beer to be poured at this line and then must have a head on it from there to the top of the glass. The problem is if the waitress/waiter does not pick it up in time then it is no longer accepatble to serve. This is where the sitting at the bar comes in, they will give it away before pouring it out! Sweet!!

This morning Michelle and I hiked up this path for about 30 minutes to an old abbey. It was straight up but it was pretty cool at the top.

We then hit this singletrack descent with numerous switchbacks that had me thinking about shredding on the MTB. It has been 2 weeks since I last touched a bike!! That is a good thing though cause besides this cold I have, I have been struggling with a pain in the right side of my chest for about a week that feels like I have broken ribs or something!

Today on our walk around Passau I found the secret German training ground. I guess Sabine Spitz has been seen her on numerous ocassions during her youth! I guess the goal is the last one left wins:

Also I found a sneak peek of an upcoming bike. This was my favorite and I have called it the Euro response to 29ers! Notice the belt drive!

It is now 11:30 in the morning and I am 2 lattes in. I am lovign the european culture. It is completelly acceptable to have ice cream, beer, or coffee at any time of the day! Speaking of, time for my 3rd latte!! Jitters out!

I'm on a boat......

That is for boss man that keeps me fast throughout the year! If you have not seen it, make sure that you are not somewhere that inappropriate language is unacceptable and look for , I'm on a boat, youtube!

Other than that, lattes and beer are still my daily diet! I am losing count on the total number of these Also loosing count on the beer as well. We have now boarded the boat and have been cruising through Germany. Our room is pretty nice, what ya think?

There is also a sauna, or steam cooker depending how warm it gets!

They also gave us a pet. I like this one better than the cat at home. It is quiet, does not move unless I move it, and when I get hungry its eyes are made of chocolate!! Also I am not sure why Michelle picked the upper dack, we barely fit under the bridges and I am wating for the captain to have too much wine at dinner and give us a moon roof! Some fo the bridges are so close they take the chairs off from the upper deck and all the rails down!!

Today we also found our first bike shop. Had some nice Belgium bikes with 26" hardtails everywhere. I think I know why though, the Germans ride cobbles on a daily bases so they are used to getting bounced around. There are bikes everywhere and they are out commuting to where they need to go rain or shine! Awesome! So today I also found my favorite bike sign, bike free!

Also while at the bike shop we found some design ideas for next years jersey. If you are interested in joining the team to get one of these hot kits let me know!!

Kind of looks like a garbage bag. Other than that lots of walking, no riding, although we are thinking about it for tomorrow. We are in Austria tomorrow and only like 30K from the alps I guess. Unfortunatelly I caught a cold so I will have to wait and see. Hope everyone is enjoying home!!

'Cross the pond

Remind me to never contest World Cups. One I do not feel like getting lapped by the entire field, but I would go crazy if I had to make that plane more than once in a great while. By hour 4 If they would of opened the door and said anyone who wants out may jump now, I would of been pushing to be first in line!!

Anyway we are in Prague (Praha) today. Went out walking about taday and have traded my usual water bottle in for a beer at every stop. We started with the castle today and walked by one of over 100 churches in the city. The only cool one was the 15th century one with the astronomical clock:

I never did figure out how to read it, but I really didn't care by then after doing a planned tour with a bunch of people with an average age of 60! On a BIG plus though, Europe rocks if you are a coffee lover. There is a Cafe on every corner and 5 more between the corners. Before I left I was upto 2 lattes a day, but by my return the plane ride home is going to feel like an intervention!! Maybe if I split one up into three 1 oz containers, then put it in a 1 quart zip lock bag I can put it in my carry on to stop the caffeine headache withdraw!!

On another note for today, Michelle thinks she won a free vacation from travelocity for finiding the travelling gnome today:

I notice he also has a beer in his hand! I am getting thirsty!

WTP.......

What training plan? I have put my Sworks away and pulled out MY new 2010 Sworks. Do not tell the specialized guys that I am leaking pictures but here is a look at MY new 2010 Sworks if my mental condition continues:

Notice the use of the DA crankset without the big ring and the XO rear derailleur. It looks even cooler with panniers on it as I am doing my 20 miles commute to work. If there is anything I am fast at it is commuting, I am thinking I am one of the fastest commuters in Portage County!! Gotta be good at something.

Besides commuting I have been really busy doing graphics design work for some touchpanels in a house that I have been working on. It was good that I uploaded them yesterday and almost all my program logic worked, that almost never happens. On the racing front, we have a partial team headed to Kewauskum tomorrow and TJ is out at the National Championships. I am going to make thecall in the morning. If I wake up and feel like going for a drive then maybe I will show up and ride my bike. The team will have Mikey, Darrin, and Chris Denny for sure though. So to all those racing this weekend, good luck and maybe I will see you there. If not we leave on Wednesday for Europe and some nice relaxation and de-training while floating down the Danube river on a big boat.

The Colonels' Recipe.......

Fried that is! That would be the way I feel and I have never felt this way about riding a bike! The keeper of all things training says I have it pretty bad and was laughing at me when I told him I was leading the Levi Trow 100 this weekend and after lap 5 of 8 I decided to just go home?? I felt fine, was racing fine, still had good legs, a couple of bike issues, but I just didn't want to ride anymore???

Next up on my training plan, a 2 week river cruise in Europe. I had all intentions of taking a bike, but not now. I am just going to become a tourist and walk around eating good food, drinking good beer, and maybe if my ADD allows I might be lazy.

On the team front, we now have the state SS champion on our team, Darrin Braun took control of the race from the start and never looked back except to make sure he was out of sight!! Nice work to the newcomer on the team and there are a lot of good podium places that will be occupied by him in the future!!

BC Bike Race Stage 7

Done! Now I am ready to hand in my learning permit and maybe get my license back?? The last few days have gone well and I now understand the flow/lack of flow of the trails. If I could get a rewind I think things could of been better. It has been a hard battle and it was interesting watching the rev limiter get lower and lower each day! Today was no exception with the max HR only in the 160's. On a plus note I might of done enough to move into 6th place. I was only 7 minutes out and I might of put that time in?? I have not seen the results for the day, but the worst case scenario would have me staying in 8th.

I must also give a shout out to Obsession Bikes for hooking me up this morning. I set on my bike to warm up and blew most of the oil out of the rear shock! They had one on their trailer and in 15 minutes I was good to go and ready to hit the trail! Speaking of the trail, it was straight up out of the start gate, with about 5 minutes of hike a bike. The overall climb took about 45 minutes. We then had a series of ups and downs and before the last climb of the day we ripped down this trail called Tunnel vision. At the start of the descent there was this 15 ft slide down this rock face that had the old pucker factor at a max. After that it was one last climb up a road stretch that finished with a hike a bike up some stairs and then we just flew down Blackcomb for about 2 K's to the finish of 7 days of on eof the hardest bike races I have ever done. Now I am exhausted, am hungry about every 15 minutes, bruised and scratched from head to toe, and confused on when my next race will be and what it will be.

For the rest of the team, good luck this weekend in Eau Claire!!

BC Bike Race/Ride/Lessons/Oh my....... another drop off!

Well, well! Michelle and I have made it to Whistler. That means no tents tonight, no community shower trailer, no mass feedings, no snoring neighbors in tents that are 2 ft apart, I think you get the picture! This weeks racing..... Starting back at stage 2, ended all hopes of any GC contention when not 20 K in I was following Trebon and a block of tree, yes tree, flew up and took out my rear deraileaur. Took the hanger right off, through the deraileur into the spokes pulled out two spokes on my rear wheel, and broke all the housing off of the frame mounts. The old hanger was wedged onto the deraileur so bad I had to stand on the deraileur and reef on it with my multi tool as hard as I could to get it off. I then had to take the electrical tape that was holding my tube to the frame and tape my houseing back onto the bike. Needless to say the remaining 50 K I had a pretty ill shifting bike and was stuck behind all the slower people on trails that were fresh cut, tight, rooted, loose, and just made for a frustrtating day!

Day 3, good trails to ride. We made our way further north on the island and found ourselves riding some fast flowing singletrack similar to Wausau! It was good. I was patient and actually rode with Katerina and Catherine for the first part of the ride. When the trail headed north I bridge to the next group and settled in. With about 15 K to go I took off on another ascent and ended up blowing the course, which is very common considing you are riding the most tech stuff I have ever seen and trying to find ribbons that are hung in trees sometimes 10 ft up??? Not good when you are blind in one eye??? Needles to say I went about a mile down the trail before noticing and lost a bunch of time again.

Day 4, I would much rather forget. Loose trails that I think were just freshly cut with a DR chipper. The only other traffic that I think the trails saw before I got to them was the lead moto and the guys in front of me! Don't get me wrong some of it was good. Today was the day I was also determined to make back some time so I went with the lead group and settled in for the day. Everything fell apart when we were descending a loose gravel road section at about 60kph and I over cooked a corner going off the side of the road and landing in a creek bed full of large shale rocks. There I laid taking inventory and watching myself bleed from everywhere. I jammed my finger, cut my right knee wide open, and my left shin. The pain of the finger made it hard to grip the bar and I lost a ton of time agian pushing my bike through the rough stuff! And I mean rough stuff. Us in the midwest have never seen conditions like this! Every trail has multiple dropoffs, bridges 10 sometimes 15 ft in the air, and descents that you ride with the saddle plastered in your chest! If there is anything that I am taking away from this it is tech skills! Long overdue for me! So back to the stage. I ended up finishing and so mentally depleted that I could of packed it in and gone home! I ended in the medic tent that night with them wanting me to go to the ER for stitches. I refused since one was my knee and there is no way to ride with stitches in the knee. Oh yeah and I forgot to mention that this day started with a 4:30 am wake up call, 2 ferry rides(that were awesome), and 2 bus trips!

Day 5, curve ball! They put in just an awesome day to be a bike rider and made me thank myself for not giving in! The day started with some nice singletrack climbing and followed by a 45 minutes descent all the way to the ferry terminal. Everyone crossed the line with smiles from ear to ear and all wishing we could go back up the hill!

Day 6. Today we rode the Test of Metal Course in Squamish with some extra K's thrown into the mix. Lets just say I want to move. This trail system was just awesome! We had 5000 ft of climbing today followed by some killer tech, but not too tech in my book singletrack! Today was also my best day for sure by finishing in just a tad over 3 hrs. It ended up good enough to be 5th on the day. On the downside of today I blew out my rear shock, which is not good with what tomorrows ride sounds like. Whistler, sounds like some more North Shore riding. They are calling for 30K tomorrow(short day, suck) that has only about 500 meters of climbing but supposedly some wicked rock face descents! More to come on this...

Sorry for the long post, but had to catch up on the race. I am bruised and can hardly walk. I am beyond being sore and am wondering how the tour riders due this for 3 weeks! To go with the bruises I have cuts everywhere due to the nature of the trails and all the brush that you are plowing through. The finish line is not far off though now!!