Brownie Crits Return

It's March. Daylight savings, if you haven't already slid over a bead on the abacus today, starts in 13 days. That means the glorious return of Tuesday/Thursday worlds, Brownie Crits, and hours of sunshine after work are right around the corner.
And, what the hell, while we've got decent weather, why not have a brownie crit this week. From child prodigy and perennial dominator, Danny Flow:

"Ohill. Friday. 5:30 PM."
That's paraphrased, of course, because again, the kid has a lexicon that has grown taller than he is, and you can hardly understand what he's talking about. So I dumbed it down to your level, whoever you may be.

I did not, however, monkey with this picture in any way (but someday I will.) This really is a picture of Danny after a spectacular, tire-explosive DNF at the Pantani ride.

Again, that's 5:30 PM, Friday, at the gate at OHill, for the Blue Ridge Cyclery Racing Brownie Crit. Danny went on to expound the many citations of gravity in pre-1930s existentialism, but I zoned out, only to return when he mentioned something about riding to Ohill from the shop around 5 on Friday. So if you'd like to park over thattaway and hang onto Flow's wheel on the way to the crit (sort of like a crit appetizer) please feel free to try.

Speaking of Pantani ride pictures, they're coming. Something about my hotmail sized inbox (very small) and my wife's badass 10 meg photo emails haven't jived so far, but we're working on it.

And, on the subject of clearing things up:
1) No kidding, Miami has a pretty great bike scene.
2) Friend of the Program, Captain America is racing the Hurrican 300 this weekend. Scattered details can be found over here.
3) It's a two-fer and the sun is shining. So I'm going riding. Ken Tank will have to wait for Lodi details until next time.

Before I go though, I had some requests from afar for the Pantani Ride course map and queue sheet.







Thy will be done.
Rally.

This just in...

Even Florida kicks ass.

gator brap!


The old FSR with a dual-crown judy. An interesting bike choice for a basket


a little rally down the alligator-infested canal trails of the everglades


Aside from the nearly constant threat of attack from dangerous, semi-wild peacocks, that place is allllllllllriiiiiiiight.

Three-fer nothin.

It's three-fer-Thursday on a drizzling, gray one. Nevermind the fact that I can't rally today due to bill-paying logistical constraints (work.) But three people have, indeed, turned up here at the rancho. Jbird, Erico Moortani, and the mighty Geoff Keenanstrong (fresh off his power training winter in Oregon), all showed up and did what people do when they show up here - rallied on trails that I loosely maintain and then banged on my window to see if I could join them. So I'll call that something, if not something truly worth reporting.

What is truly worth reporting, however: a Nolanpalooza top ten finish.
Indeed, the big man hopped aboard his big man onespeed and educated the good people of Fontana on mashing and corner skidding the way they teach 'em at BRS. The Icycle got done, kids.

and no, I don't mean that weird thing they do on a hockey rink every winter in Toronto.

I mean legit, singletrack in the wintertime. This ICYCLE.

Nolanpalooza takes 10th in SS at the Icycle.

In case you clicked that link and checked it out and read "night downhill race" and wondered if that was a typo, it's not. It is, however, an option that needs explored in a more detailed investigation, and I hereby commit to that.

Another thing I commit to: a brownie crit.
From our boy Danny Flow via text, because that's how kids communicate these days, "impromptu brownie crit tomorrow afternoon/evening? Or must we wait until Friday?"
Can I first start by saying how proud I am that Danny is just throwing around words like "impromptu" via text? Kid's got mad skills, on and off the bike. I can hardly wait until he turns 18 so I can start photoshopping pictures of him for this blog to cut him down to size without fear of kiddie-exploitation laws or whatever.

But back to my point - Brownie Crits. I failed in every way this week to actually get one off the ground. Next week - count on it. Details to follow.

Moving on, the mighty Captain America from right down the road is rumored to be off to race the Transflorida mtb race next week. You read that right TRANS FLORIDA. Like, across it. So I set about researching that action, jackson, because the rumor also included a loose description of alligator-infested river crossings, and given Markley's status as a man of the hardest kind of metal, I feared for those gators' safety. Though it would be nice to know that Markley would have something to eat if he were to run out of copenhagen and krispy kremes.

Anyway, so after an inordinate amount of wasted time researching the subject, this is all I've got on Transflorida. Lackluster. However, browse on over a page or two, just past The Naked Indian Ride and The Cross Florida Individual Time Trial, and you'll find yourself at something that does, in fact, seem to be happening in Florida next week that is right up Captain America's counterculture, masochistic alley. The Hurrican 300.

So it's possible that The Captain is doing that next week, but at this point I'm just perpetuating a rumor that was pretty dubious when it got to me in the first place. Again, stay tuned, and I'll try to provide some clarity.

Last but not least, a moment inside the mind of KenTank at this very moment.

"mmmm. look at these incisors. it's like someone overfed a lab rat with rocks. mmmm. pull that one, gooood. I bet that hurts. wow that's bleeding an awful lot. I wonder if Dave is riding Lodi with me. I should ride sherando again this spring. suction. wow that is a lot of bleeding..."

Yeah, you're thinking what I'm thinking. It's time to get the man some clarity on our proposed duo partnership before he has to start cauterizing some arteries. Again, stay tuned.


Gravel on Sunday, sports fans. You know the drill.

You gotta get up to get down.

Two-fer Tuesday on the trainer?

It's two-fer Tuesday in the land of the pines, and well, well, well - what have we here?

Kev29er wants to pull the plug on our night ride. Straight from the mailbag:

From: Kev29er

To: BRC and CHAM

Cold, damp and miserable here. Trainer is sounding better and better. Need to establish some training baselines anyway. Go ahead...think less of me.

Let's take this whining one element at a time before I think less of you.
Cold - well, it's 32. Not exactly cold, but conveniently just cold enough to hold that little dusting we got last night to the leaves nice and tight.
Damp - we got precisely 3/1000ths of an inch of snow. So, no, not exactly damp. And keep in mind this assessment of dampness is coming from the guy who got 2nd out of 60 singlespeeder in a foot of snotcycle snow.
Miserable - well, if you consider beautiful, manicured, leafblown singletrack surrounded by a picturesque dusting of snow to be miserable, I guess it's miserable.



and i also guess you're getting soft.


Pulling the other direction, however, I'm looking at a hunger strike from my guy, Bender. As most of you know, Bender likes nothing better than a rally fast enough to melt your socks. His favorite people in the world? Uncle CHAM and Uncle Kev29er, who show up the moment before said rallying happens. In any case, he's refusing to eat until the trail is skidded and scorched properly, and he's refusing to negotiate on the matter. He's like the Ghandi of rallying. Non-violent protest, but he makes his point.

There's a similarity here, but it goes far deeper than the long muzzle and funny ears. It's in the soul.


Basically, what I'm saying is that Kev29er is starving my dog.
Come on, man. Do what's right.

and you KNOW what's right.

Moving on, let's check in with the Ramseys, who have recently invested in not one, not two, but three new fun-making machines:
From the Missus Ramsey: "we haven't done much standing still since we got the new rides. BTW, the little guy rode right up the DFU yesterday like it wasn't even there. I might have been prouder of him for that than when he learned to walk."

the blurry picture is for proper effect. blurry is fast.

I didn't actually learn to ride the DFU until I was in my thirties. So clearly, this kid is developing at an alarming pace. I've been calling Jasper to win a Brownie crit for about two years now. Feel free to try to prove me wrong on that. But you can't take this kid.

That's the facts on a Tuesday, Jack. From my vantage point, things are happening.

Make history.

Up, up, and outside.

10 years of full moons

Muuuuunday here at the Rancho Relaxo after a glorious start to the week. The Real Marco Pantani, Erico Moortani, the recently dubbed Mark McVoeckler, and I got out for a gravel/pavement mix on Sunday at 11. It's been a while since a 5 hour training ride on a Sunday was that much fun.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/69361662?sms_ss=facebook&at_xt=4d61ce044f0611a4%2C0
data courtesy of Erico Moortani. and by courtesy, I mean I stole it from his facebook page. and yes, a 4:07 ride time DOES indeed round up to 5 hours.

It's 72 degrees again today, and it's staying light until 7 PM. Someone holler brownie crit this week and pick a place and a day. I'll bring the brownies.

And a few words about night riding. Because it occurred to me a few nights ago while out on a full-moon night ride with my dad that this year is my 10th year seriously riding mountain bikes. I rallied around these same trails as a kid some, I guess - but back then we just called it "riding in the woods" instead of mountain biking. And we were pretty bad at it. So I can't really count those years, but after a hiatus from cycling between the ages of, say, 15 and 22, I got back in the saddle and haven't stopped.

I mention this because, at times, we sort of forget as cyclists that what we do - when we dress up in lycra and pedal $5000 carbon-aluminum hunks around the local skinny track in the dark - is a tad unusual.

When you do something for long enough, however unusual it may be, you stop asking yourself why you do it - you just do it because it makes you happy. In that departure from self-analysis, you also lose track of your ability to justify what you're doing to other people. And so you're a little surprised when the guy out spotlighting deer at almost midnight stops and asks you just what the hell you're doing because he thinks you're the weird one. In the grand scheme of things, you are.

I take pride in that. So the following night I linked up with CHAM, and despite the perfect conditions, I extended my streak of night rides at BRS that include a good crash to 4. Happy times.

Don't forget to celebrate your weirdness a little. Although I don't know if we'll have any better full moonage that what we've had already this year.

Full Moon dates 2011
Year	Month	Day	Time	Day of week
2011	Jan	19	21:21	Wed
2011	Feb	18	8:36	Fri
2011	Mar	19	18:10	Sat
2011	Apr	18	02:44	Mon
2011	May	17	11:09	Tue
2011	Jun	15	20:14	Wed
2011	Jul	15	06:40	Fri
2011	Aug	13	18:57	Sat
2011	Sep	12	09:27	Mon
2011	Oct	12	02:06	Wed
2011	Nov	10	20:16	Thu
2011	Dec	10	14:36	Sat

Will test more.
up, up, and out.

Pantani Ride Pictures:Forthcoming

Pantani Ride Pictures: Forthcoming. I can't just throw a bunch of blurry smut up on the internet and hope that people can appreciate the experience.

The Rooster on the other hand:

I'd give some kind of photo credit here, but tasteful photography being what it is, I imagine the "artist" might very well appreciate laying low on the matter. Plus, per the copyright, it would appear that The Rooster owns this action, jackson. Or maybe vice versa.

Anyway, for a smattering of photos from the nasty steepness that is Brokenback mtn, surf on over to Roosterville for a taste of hypoxia And check back every now and then as The Rooster amps up to the production of his own annual disorg-event in April.

Moving on, it's Three Fer Thursday and the mercury is making a beeline for 70 degrees today. That's right the 70's. If Disco ever rallied, call me John Travolta - because I am about to boogie. Of particular interest on this sunny, warm, three-fer of a day: you've got a full moon to work with, which pretty much negates any excuse you might have not to overtain your fatpants off and try to fit back into your skinnies before Hilbert.

Make it happen.

And from the mailbag, the real strongman of The Pantani Ride this year appears to have taken some lessons for how to get up something really tall really quickly, even when it's really crappy outside:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2FQqHF8x5I

In addition to performance enhancing drugs, you've also got to have heart to kill it in a stage like that. And that tiny bike looks familiar to me:

And from my bro at BRC:

Friday at 6pm- Tire changing and chain care class. Beginner focused on the basics of getting home after a mechanical involving a chain or a flat tire.
Sunday 11am at Broadus Wood- Gravel Road Ride. Dave will be leading this one as I am working at Pegasus. Rumor has it that he has a big route on tap, but shorter distances can be made off of it as well.

Two very different events, but that rumor is correct. A big one. 11 AM from Broadus Wood. Those not desiring something so big will likely form a safety in numbers alternative ride. But I've been looking at some maps and thinking about some possibilities. Those owning a compass are encouraged to bring it.

Until then, it's 70 degrees with sunshine, moonshine, and hopefully some soulshine. Have yourself a moment.

You may now resume trying to drink that image of The Rooster permanently out of your brain.

Pantani 2011 in the books

Well, the Pantani ride came and went with no real harm done. To be accurate - it didn't happen without carnage. Some torn up tires. Some roadside ditch vomiting. My knee is a little swollen. Normal stuff. But Metro did, in fact, finally turn up back here Pantani Ride HQ after 6 or 7 hours of deep, introspective hallucinations on Brokenback and Wyatt mountains. So, unless you know someone else who is still missing (and if you do, the time to say so has passed and your silence henceforth is appreciated) it goes down as a clean event in my book.

Some personal highlights in no particular order:
Drawing up some pre-race announcements that I wanted to make sure everyone heard, putting them in my pants for safekeeping, and never seeing them again.
Being gifted the holeshot of a neutral, 50-person mass start because it's my party and I live here.
Surrendering said holeshot to a heavily armed Altius team.
Getting smoked by Zach Bradshaw and company for the better part of the next 45 miles.
Post-ride libations, mudbogging, storytelling, and other such shenanigans. To quote the almighty rooster himself, "I didn't know roads got that steep."

Some data for those who dig that sort of thing:
Kev29er

To follow, I'll post up some pictures of you talented, sexy folks here soon, all taken by my talented, sexy wife. But for right now, what's done is done. Thanks for playing along for another year and making this non-event what it really deserves to be. Though Pantani would have probably big-ringed all of that nasty steepness in his day, I still think we did him justice.

It's 65 degrees in February and the person you love wishes you'd stop blogging and go for a stroll. Or maybe that's just me.

Out.