Time for another "warm" trip

About parked it here and left it!

Concrete and stop lights

Oh yeah, don't forget all the people!  The last couple days were good rides though.  Day one I made Michelle chase me around South West Florida and if she keeps up with that watch out girls!  It was nice to be able to set my rev limiter in my L2 zone and have here just sit in my draft.  So the rides:

On Saturday we rode north up to Captiva.  It was a good ride with the only elevation change was the causeways.  It was nice though cause Michelle's parents drove up to meet us for lunch so it made a nice break at the halfway point.  All said and done it was 80 miles and just a bit over 4hrs.  Here is our route:

Also some shots along the way:

Today we decided to go the other way and head south towards Marco Island and ended up with a bit over 60 miles and 3 hrs.  Not as nice of a ride due to all the concrete and stop lights, but still no studded tires, fat bikes, snowmobile suits and snow drifts over my head!  Here was our route today that also included a coffee stop at Fit and Fuel, some panther crossings, and two flat tires.  Doing our part to clean up the roads I guess.

Right now I think our ride tomorrow will consist of a spin to the coffee shop and some hydrating with barley water on the boat!  Hope everyone is doing well at home!

Dodged it......

Made it out of town before the snow hit!!  Had a little issue driving down to the airport on Tuesday, but nothing that was going to slow the truck down just the plane that was supposed to get us to Detroit!  We did end up getting to Detroit after sitting in the airport with me in line to try and re-book and Michelle on the phone trying to find options.  Nothing to be found so we just took our flight when it finally went.  We ended up making it to Detroit 30 minutes after our flight to Florida left!  Looks like a night in the airport.  Luckily I was Michelle and not Phillips.  Back when Mike and I were travelling it would of meant sleeping on the airport benches, with Michelle it means a night at the Westin at the airport.  They both are experiences, but now a days I prefer the later!  In  the end it did not matter a lot cause we got out early on Wednesday and made to Florida by 10:30am.  After some lunch it was bike build time and a nice 60 mile ride along the coast in 80 degree weather!  Awesome!

On Thursday Michelle and I did the same ride and then I continued to get almost 70 miles in while I looked for a good coffee place.  In the end, no coffee place found but Shitbucks!  Oh yeah, also we dealt with 2 flats.  One was some Polish guy walking and I felt bad and fixed it for him, then no good dead goes unpunished!  I flatted after that.  Luckily for me Michelle put a new tube in my seat pack before I left again.

Our Thursday route:

Pancake flat!! The only KOM found was the causeway going into Ft Myers!  After the ride Michelle went golfing with her mom, which my A.D.H.D is only capable of about 3 holes so I always choose to stay home! Which was fine for me, this was my recovery!

Today we finally found a coffee shop that was not Shitbucks and it was pretty good.  It must be associated with the bike shop cause they had a fit studio that Scott probably wishes he had:

Including the Sworks Venge hanging in the upper right of the photo.

So today is an off day so looks like a bit of chilling.  Michelle and I went Xmas shopping this morning.  The MX3000 that I installed down her like 8 years ago is on its last leg so I tried to get Best Buy to sell me one at cost so but they would not.  So instead Precision Cell and Sound is going to next day me one so that I can install it tomorrow.  Thanks Jasen and Nate!

I hope everyone is enjoying the dig out back home!

More weather!

So there is another wet, slushy forecast scheduled for the weekend!  Looks like I will be doing an alternate workout? Does this count?

Enough Already!

Not good, it only took one snow storm this year!!

Blah!

Waking up to this:

Not only sucks A LOT, but also means it is time to equip the cross bike for the winter!

I HATE winter!!

The Twin CIties

That would be Denzer/Leeland in the Krayer's eyes.

So this past weekend I volunteered to head south to the Denzer area and help Ryan pimp their farm house.  He is currently in the middle of ripping his living room apart and I told him we should go ahead and wire it for surround.  I think that gave him extra motivation, or he made Lisa mad and she took frustration out on the walls to get all the plaster off before I got there so I was not a part of the destruction crew.  Not gonna lie, may be a bit disappointed about that! 

So I showed up around 9:00 on Saturday morning, completely caffeinated with a truck load of tools and cable.  We got right to it and had the wiring done in no time and most of the insulation.  Things went so well that based on the amount of work we had completed and the fact it was pretty foggy that day we started drinking at 2:30 cause we thought it had to be like 5 o'clock!  Might of been a poor decision on our part cause Michelle ended up with some catch up to do when she got there after her Volleyball tournament.

Here is a shot of the center speaker, then the TV location will be in front of the box at the bottom of the pic, and if you look close you can see where we ran some wires out to the front porch for Ryan and Lisa's elder years of porch swing sitt'n!

So with us making so much progress, we had to come up with a way to celebrate!!  Hmmm, how to celebrate Dener style??  Shoot guns of course!  So after a little practice Michelle and I were ready to try out our skills.  Michelle First:

No she did not shoot the chicken behind her!  That would of gotten us kicked out of town!

Then it was my turn, notice the sweet hat I scored!

We had so much fun that we are going down that way again this weekend!!  Cant wait!

On the bike front, I have started rolling a bit and have actually done a couple days in a row now!  Watch out, the 2013 base training might be starting soon.  I have to though, my first race of the year is not far off from some peoples Park Racing World Championships in Louisville.  More to come on that.

Yeah!

So bring me my new Epic :-)

Coming up for air!

To say the last few weeks have been busy would be a huge understatement.  So much that Thanksgiving is already here!  Before I know it I might need to start riding a bike again?  I have ridden a couple times since Sheboygan but definitely not enough to help this graffiti artist prove his point:

On the bike front, I have put my hands on what the Adventure 212 team will be racing next year since the Hostel Shoppe just received their XX1 equipped Sworks Epic.  XX1 is the answer for sure.  I thought 2 x 10 was nice, 1 x 11 is the answer.  The front drivetrain area is so clean, lack of shifter, deraileaur, and cables running down the bike!  Then throw in the brain with no lock outs and cables required for that either!  Good thing the Trek guys will keep Jagwire in business with the six cables running off the handlebars! Thanks Specialized and SRAM!

Next up, a trip out west.  Unfortunately without a bike!

Role Model

I officially brought in the off season this past weekend by doing everything non related to cycling.  I did still manage 5 hrs in the car on Saturday though to make it feel like I was going to a race.  

So the weekend:  Started out on Friday night with Timster, Eric and I playing Role Models to Eric's 9 yr old son!  I probably started things bad by going to the game store and buying every game marked "M" for mature. My thinking was Sam at 9 is just as mature as us after a couple beers so he will be fine.  Now the beer.  We went with a typical RK theme and did it in the can!  Yup!  A little Oskar Blues G'Night, some Young's Double Chocolate Stout, and some Barney Flats IPA.  Then to top that off dinner consisted of 2 Hot N Ready Little Caesar pizzas!  Wow!  What a fun night.  The highlight was when the UFC fighting game came out, which is way out side our norm for gaming, but was very comical as none of us could sit still why we beat the crap out of each other!  Pretty funny!  

On Saturday I had to make a trip to Appleton to get the last touch panel for finishing Elan version 2.0 up.  I got home put that in and worked on some programming before loading the truck up and heading south to Madison to hang with the Frazier's for the evening.  We ended up not doing much on Saturday except for drinking Bryan's beer in his fridge!  

On Sunday Bryan and I did ride the cross bikes for a bit.  It was a pretty short ride as we rode from his house in Cottage Grove over to Cambridge to grab coffee and carrot cake at Camrock Cafe and Sport.  With all the beverages already enjoyed during the weekend we passed on their extensive beer selection and went for the coffee.  After the ride we headed into town and finished off the weekend with a burger, fries and an Ale Asylum Madtown Nutbrown at the Harmony Bar and Grill!  As if that was not enough we finished off the weekend of gluttony with a piece of pie from Monty's Blue Plate Diner.  MMmmmmm!  Fat season is starting out well!  

Feeling Safer

I guess I will hold off on that underground shelter for a bit, this guy has our back?

That is it.....

What a perfect way to say good bye to the 2012 season!  Thanks to my Adventure 212 teammates for another awesome year!!

Openers

Last night I worked on my openers for tonights evening hanging with the team.  I DO not want to get dropped!!  Cheers!

Happy as a pig in mud...

I wish that was the case.  I had serious doubts of racing this past weekend cause I could not get over how much work was going to be required to get the bike back in sellable shape.  Either way I chose to race and opted to skip the warm up due to the sideways rain.  I actually just set in the truck till about 10 min to go and literally rolled up to the start shoot just as Don started the call ups.  I really wish I could of had a dummy stand at the line for me, cause between call up and the all to familar Don "goooooooo"  I about froze to d - death. 

When we did take off, it was interesting cause I think just about everyone around me slipped a pedal and I felt as if I had the whole left side of the course to myself.  After the start I found myself settled in the lead group and felt really comfortable.  Maybe there is something to this no warm up thing, I know there is a lot of research out there that can support that theory!

So after the sprint point and we entered the mud, I reallized that I nailed the bike set up and found myself yo-yoing with Nathan for most of the first lap.  He would hammer the flats and I would just stick in my 100 miler pace and use the extra traction of the Specialzed 29 x 1.9 ground controls to bring him back in the more tech areas.  Unfotunately, I knew it could not last since I drank more beers in the past 2 weeks than I put hours on the bike.  Yeah the hours on the bike were not even close thanks to my birthday thrown in there. I am not complaining, but everyone concreted my addictions cause all I got was beer, chocolate, and coffee for my birthday!  Mmmmmm!  Oh yeah and a hangover!

So back to racing bikes.  I just rode my pace all day, walked the hills, yup walked!  In the end it was good enough for another 8th place. 

 



 

At least we are smiling.  After this pic we learned that they shut the hoses off on us so no one could wash of.  Tools!  So off to creek we went to freeze some more while trying to get the mud off. 

 

So with with the end of the WORS scene I have officially entered into fulll on fat season.  Which means I get to eat and drink and put on a few pounds so I do not get sick over the winter.  I have an issue of getting too light when base miles hit so I need to enter that phase with a few extra pounds or I will end up around 135 pounds and sick. 

 

I also get to start when of the better parts of the season, the bike riding just for the fun of it time.  I usually grab my cross bike for this but it was in much need of an overhaul after putting it away last winter and doing nothing with it.  It was so bad that the cable caps were frozen into the frame stops.  After some TLC I was able to get it up and going and it did not even require any electronic shifting!  Adnan thinks that a cross bike cannot shift without electronics.  I call BS on that and most shifting issues are caused by improperly setting up your equipment.  Case in point this weekend, SRAM XX and full length cable runs on the Specialized Epic, the right chainlube, and Michelle and I were able to use every gear on the bike the entire race, Michelle even had the small ring when she needed it.   

 

With the cross bike built up I decided to play Green Circle Warrior yesterday and enjoy the warmer part of the day before the rains hit again.

 

 

 

 

I think there is another GC ride in the near future with the team coming into town for the WORS banquet.  We usually go to the banquet then ride from our house on Sunday, stop for coffee, and Big D and I will usually have a dozen close calls and maybe one take down do to our ADHD taking over.  Either way it is a blast and involves a coffee stop and around 4hrs on the bike. 

 

Other than that, just working to get the MTB bikes all cleaned up and readdy to sell.  I will have a medium Sworks Epic and a large Sworks Epic forsale to make room for the new bikes so let me know if you are interested. 

 

Now get back to work!



Slippery when wet....

So the team arrived in Shevagas to tons of rain on the ground with more in the forecast.  So instead of preriding today we decided to polish off like 4 bags of Sunchips, a bag of candy and whatever else we could find. Then the guilt set in and we ended up having to terrorize the bike routes of Sheboygan since the course was closed to preride.  Sorry B. Matter,  pretty sure we took all of the Strava segments in town!  On top of that we had a couple angry motorists yell at us,  figured they must of gotten the email that their KOM was just defeated!  Now we are back in the condo at the Blue Harbor awaiting the feast of the evening.  Can't wait!  Go Team Baked Goods!