Breezy October Ride

October 4, 2008 – 7:01 pm

Earlier in the week, Marty and I chatted with Kristi and Eric about doing the Beat the Train ride on Saturday morning.  Last night while watching a movie at Mikes, we came to our senses.  (I’ve never done the Beat the Train ride, but that’s mostly because it starts on Saturday mornings at 6AM from Fort Wayne.  To really get down there and be ready to ride @ 6AM, we’d have to be out of the house @ 5AM, and I think that makes it quite clear while we’ve never done the ride yet.

So, we convinced Krist and Eric to come over to our neck of the woods at a much more reasonable hour of 10AM for a ride around the steets and paths by our house.  Jon decided to join us too.

I obviously didnt realize Marty was going to take a picture.

I obviously didn't realize Marty was going to take a picture.

We hit the road a little after 10AM, and headed out toward Dodge Park via the Metro Parkway path.  Jon had recently met with someone regarding putting legit dirt trails into the park, so we explore the existing trails he had been scouting.  We rode under Van Dyke, and headed over toward the underpass beneth Hall Rd in Utica.  Kristi and Eric weren’t sure where we were leading them, so they were surprised we we came popped up heads up by Van Dyke.

Bridge over Clinton River by Hall Road in Utica.

Bridge over Clinton River by Hall Road in Utica.

We resisted the urge to get custard at Erma’s or grabe a burger and beer at the Shamrock, and headed back toward home.  Not many stops on the way back, and got back around 1:30PM.  Changed out clothes, and headed out for breakfast/lunch to fed the hungry bikers.

Great weather (started ~40, and was close to 60 when we ended) and had a great ride with friends.  About 32 miles when we finished up.  Perfect ride!

GPS tracks from my Garmin.

GPS tracks from my Garmin.

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September is over….FINALLY!

September 30, 2008 – 1:36 pm

At some point early in the month, I was thinking about how glad I would be to see October, because that would mean that I survived the end of September.

The week leading up the Addison Oaks Race was a blur of last minute activity, but in the end, everything came off PERFECTLY.  The race was well attended (333 racers) and the weather was perfect.   I couldn’t be happier about how the race turned out, and I we couldn’t have done it without the help of a WHOLE lot of volunteers.   It would have been a disater without those people who stepped up, and were willing and able to do whatever it took to make the race a success.

Racers starting off their race.

Racers starting off their race.

We were out at Addison Oaks from 7AM till 5PM.  About 10 minutes after the raffle was completed, and the final cleanup began, Marty and I got in our car and headed to Metro Airport to fly to Vegas for Interbike.

Interbike week was a combination of recovering from the prior week, going 10+ hours a day between the show and outdoor demo, and crashing in our room.  We didn’t get a chance to attend the CX race, the Crit, or really do ANY Vegas type stuff.  No partying, no gambling, no adult entertainment.  It was a week of bikes and crashing on the couch.

But, the good news is that by the time we got home on Saturday, we were actually pretty recovered from the last couple of weeks.  Got lots of cool swag, got to check out a lot of cool new bikes and cycling related stuff, and generally had a great week with perfect weather.

So, now it’s back to normal life… We, at least for 3 weeks, then we head off to AMSTERDAMN!

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LONG day finally over

September 22, 2008 – 1:51 am

Today, today was a very long day.

We starting out leaving the house a ~6:30AM to head to Addison Oaks for the CPS XC race that the Metro North chapter was holding.  Thanks to a bit of luck, great timing company and land manager, and a LOT of help from a ton of great volunteers, the race was a success, and we had 333 racers.  The chapter should do VERY well off this race, and should set a precident for great races in the coming years.

Then, at 5:00PM, pretty much as soon as the race was finished, and we started cleanup, Marty and I got int he truck and headed to Metro Airport to catch a plane to Vegas.  Couple of beers in the terminal, and we caught our flight.  A little over 4 hour flight, picking up the rental car, and heading to where we were staying, and we finally got in ~11PM (2AM Eastern Time).  So, now we’ve had a bite to each, and are winding down watching a little TV before we totall crash, as it’s heading toward 3AM.  21 hour day, not to shabby.

And not something I want to do very often, even as well as everything worked out.

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New seat for my meat

September 19, 2008 – 5:13 pm

Look what Marty found the other day at Macomb Cycle for me.

A exact replacement saddle for the one that I wrecked on my SS.

Unlike my old one, this one has straight rails.

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Fat Tire: Gift from the West

September 18, 2008 – 12:18 pm

Our friends Krisi and Erik have been vacationing out west that past couple of weeks.  Bouncing around and riding their bikes.  They are back in town, and were at our regular Wednesday night Stony Creek group ride.

While riding, Kristi told Marty that they had a present from out west for us, and “It’s Fat”  (Marty’s first guess was a puppy.  hehe)  About half way up the climb to the top of Mt Sheldon, it occured to her.  FAT TIRE!!

Six Pack of Fat Tire!

Six Pack of Fat Tire!

So, when we got back to the parking lot, Kristi gave us our gift.  A six pack of our very own!  It’s in our fridge right now, perfectly cooled to proper drinking temperature.

A HUGE thanks to Kristi and Erik for our WONDERFUL gift!

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Chrome is losing it’s shine

September 18, 2008 – 11:55 am

I’ve been using Chrom at work since it came out a few weeks ago (not using it at home because there isn’t an official Mac version yet)  While I’m pretty happy with the overall features and feel of Chrome, it’s alpha software quirks are bad enough that I’ve went mostly back to FF3 for now.

I’ve had a few times where Gmail has started to become hosed.  I’ll go to do something (open an email, do a serach, send a new email) and I’ll get the “Working….” notice, and then the “Still Working….” and it just sort of locks up.  I won’t be able to do anything, and even if I click away and give up on what I’m doing, it just never really recovers.  If I do a page refresh, I get the status bar as the page loads, and it hangs at about 98%, and never finishes.  If I try to shut Chrome down, I’ll get ONE Chrome process that windows cannot close (that’s one of my BIGGEST bitches about Windows.  Damnit, an application should NEVER be able to refuse to shut down when the OS tells it to.  Any OS that doesn’t have complete overall control of running apps is faulty)

What’s strange is I think that the hung Chrom process somehow hoses my access to Gmail,  because at that point, I won’t even be able to use Gmail in FF3.  Rebooting the whole computer is the only thing to bring everything back to normal.

As much as I love Chrome, this has happened about 4-5 times in total already, and that’s just a hiccup I can’t deal with at this point.  I’ll wait till the first update and give it another whirl from there.  And I’ll gladly give it a try on my Mac when the OSX version is released.

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The Sunday Ride

September 14, 2008 – 4:56 pm


The Sunday Ride

Originally uploaded by netgeek

Heading out for a quick Sunday AM ride before the ick from Ike hit us. Rode to check out the new Mijier (opening Wednesday the 17th!) and the park they created next to the development. Rode the closed bridge and the old golf course bridges over the swollen Clinton River. Rode up the Jimmmy Johns to grab lunch. Rain didn’t come for another 2-3 hours, could have rode more.

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Rain Delay

September 13, 2008 – 9:37 pm

It’s raining..

It’s been raining since we got up this morning, and it hasn’t stopped yet.

We were going to ride out bikes today, but it’s raining.  We went out to Addison Oaks to discuss the course for next weeks race, and we stood in the rain the whole time.

We’ve done nothing since coming home from Addison except sit on the couch and watch TV.

We’ve burned out on TV, and Marty is working on updating the look of her blog.  Don’t know what’s in store for tomorrow, but it looks like a whole bunch more of rain.

Yipee!  (ugh, the rain/humidity is making my keyboard sticky…arg)

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Not Happening

September 12, 2008 – 6:33 pm
I was really hoping to get out and ride this evening, but it doesn’t look like that’s going to be happening.  We’re are heading out the Addison Oaks in the morning for a quick meeting, and we’ve decided that unless it’s RAINING, we’ll be taking the bikes and trying to get at least a lap in.
Then again, they are calling for a lot of rain this weekend.. (and what EXACTLY does 100% chance of rain mean?  All day rain, or a guarantee of rain at some point?)
Doesnt look like riding weather, does it?

Doesn't look like riding weather, does it?

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Wipeout at Lakeshore

September 10, 2008 – 6:42 am

Since I was working on the west side today, Marty and I brought out bikes and headed out to the Tree Farm for the Tuesday night ride.

We were there early, so we headed out of a quick mini-prelap, Marty and Kim took off with Justin and Tina, and Mike and I did 1/2 of the trail at a fairly good clip.  Mike bit it on the first log pile, but no damage other then knocking his Garmin off the mount.

On the main lap, I was heading into the expert loop, and lost my front tire on a downhill rooty section.  Krug was right behind me, and went down also (root also took him out trying to go around my twisted wreckage)  I came right back up on my feet, but Krug took a good landing on his back, and knock the wind right out of him.  He was heading out, and I was ready to continue on, till Marty pointed out that something wasn’t right with my seat.

Bent and Twisted Saddle

Bent and Twisted Saddle

So, rather then suffer with one cheek hanging in the wind, I called it a night too.  It wasn’t really that bad to ride, but I don’t know if I would have enjoyed the ride that much trying to do the single track with it.

Luckily, I have a bunch of extra saddles in the basement.  But damn, I loved that saddle!

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