Burnaby Plans

Next Sunday I'm off to Vancouver for the Burnaby 6-day. As has been the case through most of this season, I've had trouble pinning down a partner. It's happened this way in Portland, T-Town (twice), LA, Forest City, and to a lesser extent the planning to go to Europe. That it happened for Burnaby shouldn't have been much of a surprise.

At First Luke Winger and I were going to ride. But he skipped town and went to Argentina. Can't really blame him there. Then a string of others, Cody O'Reilly, Kenny Williams, Vince DeJong, David Byer, and others. Everyone either already had a partner or wasn't able to go.

Finally the race organizer, Jeremy, decided to pair me with a pretty powerful local rider. He has a fair collection of credentials, to put it mildly. A medal from Canadian elite nationals, and a master's world championship in the points race. I may not have ever met him before, but he was clearly a very capable rider.

Then another change. Things have shifted again, and now I'm partnered with Brad Huff.

If this is any indication, Burnaby is going to be awesome.

He's damn fast. I'm going to need to step it up for this one. Especially after seeing the start list. This is going to rock.

Cracked

The Sunday Skibby Spectacular was well attended this week, with about 8 people meeting at the Stone Arch Bridge and heading out along the Cedar Lake Trail. Skibby was in attendance preaching hate and epicness as expected, the Cullens were hammering the pace, Big Dave brought his promised doughnuts, and Homme even came out to do some on site investigation for BTDC. It didn't last long though, as a few miles into it my left crank arm cracked and started wobbling all over the place.

A bit crippled, I skittered one-footed across the ice and back to downtown, with Big Dave coming along to offer a hand and a ride when we returned to the bridge. I think he was also interested in having a good laugh, as the crank fell off completely before we made it to Washington Ave. and spent the remainder of the ride dangling from the pedal still attached to my foot. He even took a few pictures to document it all.

At least I was riding fixed. That made it a little easier.

It's generally a good idea to have the crank arm/pedal attached to both your foot AND the bike. One and not the other doesn't do you much good.


You should be on my bike, not my desk. Then again, you also should have a giant crack running through you.

I guess this is what I get for riding a clapped out piece of junk cobbled together with as many free parts as I could scrounge up. It was a good run, and now my right leg will be super strong.

As for the rest of the riders, I have no recourse except to assume that they will be found in a frozen, huddled mass sometime in March. Or maybe they'll make it back for coffee. Stay tuned to Jimmer's blog to find out for sure.

Come All Ye Faithful

The Sunday Skibby Spectacular (formerly the Stone Arch 318 Ride) will be departing at 9:30 again this week from the downtown side of the Stone Arch Bridge. Join in to hear the preachings of El Presidente on the importance of embracing the hate and learning the true meaning of "epic."

Some may call it a bike ride. I call it a religion. Converts welcome.

You!

If you weren't making me faster, I'd throw you in the river.

The Complete Package

Bring it on, Burnaby.

318 Ride

The Sunday morning ride is growing. Balmy temps (relatively) bolstered our numbers, with 7 of us starting out at the Stone Arch Bridge and meeting up with another 5 en route to Hopkins. Not too bad for a ride in the middle of December. I wasn't even the only singlespeed this week.

Ray came along today, and apparently he and I made the ride real. I guess that means that until we got there it had been fake. Ray also found the slippery spot on the railroad tracks near the Hopkins depot. He was polite enough to be warning others about the dangers of slick tracks at the time he went down. What a guy.

Full recovery!

This was Ray when he found out that today's ride was tantamount to exercise.

Who else is going to join us next week? Ray says he'll be back. Quite a vote of confidence, despite his dissatisfaction with the choice of post-ride coffee shop.

Who's Sandbox?

I hear that after his beating at the Loon State party last week, Don with be changing his blog from donimator.blogspot.com to donimated.blogspot.com

Hi there

You two are looking good together...

...and you'll probably look even better with two of these joining you.

The Fix is In

Or at least our kits are. They already look fast.

Get used to the back of this kit. You'll be seeing a lot of it.

With addition of my Speedfix clothes, I'm now up to a skinsuit for every day of the week. Ridiculous? Yes. Awesome? Definitely. I should probably ride in only skinsuits from now on.

Cane Creek also came up big yet again, with a set of Endurance 85 wheels that I'll be using in Burnaby this winter along with a new 110 headset. They looks pretty sweet. They even have blue hubs this time.

On yesterday's single-digit ride with Big Dave, Der Kruser, and El Presidente there were rumors that a certain sprinter from St. Cloud would be showing up at the next Cold Sprints, in full Speedfix regalia, to show everyone how you really go fast on a bike. And of course to crash the Grumpy's/LGR party. Can't let them win every month...

There have also been sightings of the new MCF Prez is sporting a Speedfix cap. Our political ties run deep.

Back on Track

Photo from www.cyclingnews.com

Things are looking good right now. Mike Friedman wins the scratch race in Beijing, and Mini-Phinney clocks a 4:24.36 qualifier and a 4:26.35 final in the pursuit to take 4th, only 1.03 seconds behind Wiggins' winning time.

Now we just need to get Blaine going this fast.

This is why Minnesota has an off season

My commuter is named Victor. He was in a sorry state this morning. Snow up to the hubs doesn't do much to encourage training. It's almost as depressing as needing to ride rollers.

Where did I go wrong?

After a while on the road, I ended up back in Minneapolis. I walked outside this morning to find my bike buried up the hubs in snow.

Adrian, on the other hand, ended up in Nice.

He goes on training rides in Monaco.

Palm trees, riding in shorts, and sunshine.

If I can stay in shape this month, I could wind up racing in sunny. . . Vancouver. How did I get this end of the deal?!

Moving On

In their ongoing attempt to eschew journalistic credibility, Bikethrow.com and Super-Rookie* have let the cat (or cats) out of the bag, but not without first kicking it around a bit, painting it a different color, and generally confusing the hell out of it.

So with that in mind, here's how things are really going to go down in the next few months:

1. Despite what you may have heard on BTDC, there will be no Tasmanian Xmas Carnivals for me. I do plan on racing the Burnaby 6-day in Vancouver over New Years though. Super-Rookie will be excited to learn that his favorite ex-hobo, Svein Tuft, should be there.

2. Following that, I will be going to sherpa school in Patagonia. 3 months of walking and paddling around one of the wildest places on Earth, the MCF blogosphere not withstanding.

3. When I get back in April, I plan to move out to Colorado Springs to race and train with some of the Cody Racing guys, but just what the team structure will be is unknown. I might even get to stay with Speedfix out there. We'll see.

So there you have it.

*I can't vouch for Homme's journalistic standards. He may well be a mere cog in the mass-media machine Super-Rookie is endeavoring to build.

Cat 1

I just received what may be the most meaningless yet affirming upgrade in cycling: I moved from category 2 on the track to category 1.

This is a little like a 20th birthday. It's neat, but it doesn't really change anything.

Schooled

About a month ago Adrian and I found ourselves stumbling around the Schipol Airport in Amsterdam. A few hours later and we were unwillingly thrown into a race at Alkmaar.

We got rocked. We chalked most of it up to jet lag and inexperience with the Euro racing style. Then yesterday I found this. Jens Mouris is the local who got paired up with Tom Murray that night. Tom later said that all through the madison Jens was going to the front and hammering the pace, then telling Tom that he had to go faster. I guess that's what you do when you win World Cups by taking two laps on the field.

Mouris and Schep on their way to winning the madison at the Sydney World Cup this weekend.

The really crazy thing? Tom and Jens didn't win that race. The Australian duo did. Then they went on to crush everyone at the Dortmund Talent Cup.

The Aussies, Miles Oldman and Leigh Howard, on their way to winning the madison at Alkmaar. I think one of them is still a junior, and the other is only 18 or 19. Oh yeah, and they have something like 6 junior world championships between them.

I'd venture a guess that we got blown out that night for far more significant reasons than sleep deprivation.