whirled tour-fire roads, floyd and schwag

This past Tuesday was one of those days when work was akin to beating my head against the wall. I wasnt getting anywhere or making a dent and it felt really great when I stopped. thats when the call from Coach Tolson came.
feel like riding some fire roads today?
are there random vehicles on the Cherokee Trails???!?
you bet, tiger.

We loaded up the cross bikes, neither of which had seen any action in quite a while. Mine since Barry-Roubaix(details available @ http://www.xxcmag.com/) and Curtis' bike hadnt been out since cross. it was like running across an old friend, comfortable and instant fun. I sometimes forget how much I love to mix up the terrain.

A quick jaunt to indiana found us riding a mix of country roads and seriously climby fire roads. If we could have added some cobble stones we would have something epic. We may have to find some. Possibly a century filled with all kinds of riding. Pick your weapon BRX style? Stay tuned.

As you make your way around the loop that Curtis had plotted, you have a fast flowing country road course with 2 sections of sweet gravel goodness in the middle. Its a beautiful part of Southern Indiana. With the rains we've had the climbing was tough due to loose, slippery and steep conditions. How do you not love the constantly changing challenges? It was so good we rode it twice for a 40 mile ride that cleared my head, found my sanity and got me ready to head for the west coast.

I had a fast trip to nor cal that had me off the bike(stupid work!!) , but thanks to http://www.mapmyrun.com/, I found a great 6.5 mile loop to run around the Stanford campus. The smart folks there have beautiful surroundings with amazing architecture and even a rodin sculpture display.( i thought godzilla had destroyed all of rodins work but that could have been the charcoal series that mothra had on exhibit) Its impressive and hard to visit that part of California and not consider moving! This was furthered by an old friend who grabbed me from work and brought me to his casa for dinner, red wine, guitar playing, and the absolute best "stairway to freebird" ever played on a ukelele. I think Im going to pre-load with that before every cross country flight.


my real treat was waiting for me when I arrived home(no not the domestic goddes...I mean yes but not in this context).
What I found was the commision that the papist and i recieved from our work for xxc, you guessed it. t-shirts and stickers. How did they know that we are all sticker-whores? I feel so cheap and yet so fulfilled.




I do love the motto "sometimes fun hurts pretty fucking bad". It reminds me of the quote tallgirl dropped on me the other day, "There is nothing better than finishing something you were really stupid to start in the first place". It sounds so familiar, but maybe its just the getting called stupid part. No matter, it really seems to sum up where I've been lately. epic ridiculocities that just keep escalating.

That brings us to Floyd. Thank you for announcing that you cheated. Later we'll hear about the wetness of rain and the darkness of night. I didnt get his efforts to take Lance down with him until the email chain came out. It appears that sour grapes were the motivator. His greatest crime may just be thats hes so damn obvious. Who knows. I thought Adam Myerson's perspective was intriguing. His point was more that Floyd didnt want to be the scapegoat for something that they all do, rather than his outright innocence. Thats reasonable, but I dont have the experience to really get to a place where that makes sense. Adam's a pro racer, his input has a little(pronounced -"ton") more credibility than most of what you hear. read his thoughts here

see what you think.

i have 3 words.

short. track. racing.

this Wednesday come party and race, or the other way around. we're pretty easy, just give us 10 bucks first.

we'll be your scapegoats. just pay the man, first. before you ride.