Oats, Shit and Wet Cabbage

For some reason I find British humor so much funnier than our stateside version. One of my absolute favs is Ricky Gervais. If you have never seen the original "Office" but you watch the american version, then you are doing yourself a huge injustice. Several years after "The Office" he did a 2 season show called "Extras." The premise is that he is an aspiring actor who bides his time getting gigs as an extra on movies sets. Each episode has a big name star as the guest who is in the movies that he and his female friend are an extra on. The big name star is playing her or himself but is either a huge a-hole or just plain crazy. The best episode stars Clive Owen who is starring in a movie as Lord Byron. This clip is the funniest thing I have ever seen, Bit and I must have watched this 15 times in a row. The woman playing the prostitute is Maggie, Ricky Gervais' best friend in the show. Enjoy.

Six Hours in the Saddle

This last Sunday Travis Donn, Cameron Chambers and myself drove down to Oklahoma City to compete in a 6 hour mountain bike race. Andy Chasteen (OKC local) had informed of us this race and invited the group down to crash at his place on Saturday night and race Sunday morning.

I had been dreading this race all week, because i really didn't think I was in shape for 6 hours of racing. The only other race I had competed in was last August at Landahl, which was a six hour race as well. At Landahl I had rode decent but my arms and hands were blown out after 4 hours, and the last 2 were hellacious. Up until May this year I have only done a couple of 2 hour rides, so I was excepting to suffer for the whole 6 hours.

We arrived at Andy's hip downtown loft around 11 p.m. and quickly found a sleeping space on the living room floor. Andy was hosting 3 triathaletes from Brazil and Sweden who were in town for a big money competition. Early morning found us stuffing our faces and departing south to the Clear Bay trails on Thunderbird Lake. 

The trails are a sandy maze through rolling hills of oak and poison ivy. There are a handful of decent climbs, very few rocks, and lots of bermed corners. Because of recent storms the race promoter had spent 6 hours the previous day chainsawing fallen trees and rerouting ne trail to avoid muddy sections. He warned us of several trees that he just wasn't able to get to and several long muddy sections. The tree turned out to be nothing and the mud was pretty benign as well.

After a lemans start the small field of riders sprinted into the woods. The first lap the corners were super loose. I had ran hard to get towards the front of the group and pushed my first lap a little faster than I normally would. By the second Lap Andy passed me looking strong. One of my goals was to keep up with him and try to beat him. Andy is an enduro beast, although he had voiced concern about not realy mtb riding over the last 3 weeks. One look at the size of his legs and most people would ask the court reporter to retract that last statement from the record. 

By the third lap, the loose sand had been pushed up into berms on all of the corners and things were fast. I had settled into a nice steady pace and was just concentrating on eating and drinking. Every once and awhile I would get a glimpse of Andy on a adjacent section of trail. I would look at my watch and see how long it took me to reach that location. It was always around 2 minutes. Lap 5 was the half way point, Cameron lapped me and asked me to "get on my space craft and hoover" as he blew by. Confused by his statement I plodded on. I ran out of water and rode one dry lap leaving my camelback to be refilled by Travis. 

Finishing lap 7, I came into our transition area to see Andy getting ready to head out. I refilled on water, slammed several sport beans then left hell bent on catching Andy. Travis and Cameron were racing as a team and by then had a commanding lead of 20 minutes on their closest competitors. Suprisingly my arms and hands were feeling pretty good. My legs were having some cramps occasionally that would go away after several minutes of easy riding. I caught Andy on a climb and kept pace with him for a while, the next climb he let me pass. Both Sean and Travis had told me that when you pass someone make a gap and push it. That is what i did for the next lap and a half. The cramps became much worse, I passed another singlespeed rider and pushed it even harder.  Travis caught me on the final lap and paced me for several climbs till my legs exploded. Finally I crossed the finish line, and was relieved that it was over, yet suprised at how well I had felt. Thanks to the Swope Trails, climbing and general riding everywhere else seems much easier. Like I said Swope Trails are "the shit."

I ended up finishing 2nd in the singlespeed division with Andy right on my tail in 4th.  It was a even better day for Travis and Cameron, they crushed all of the competition coming in 1st overall. Travis manned up and raced in CAT 1 and pulled some impressive lap times way to go bro. Also Cameron got the fastest lap of the day which earned him a little extra cash.  

Andy's friend Nicki took some photos of the race you can check them out here.  She was crouched in the woods towards the end of the 6.6 mile loop shooting. I can only imagine that she was covered in ticks and posion ivy by the end of the day. Thanks Nicki for providing the photos.

We all had a great time. Thanks to Andy for pushing me above and beyond my mental limitations, if he had not been racing I would have surely put forth a pathetic effort. Andy and I are already plotting our next enduro bike event. Did someone say 12 hour race?

The Grass Is Always Greener...

Each year I have 1 enviromental New Years Resolution. In 2007, it was to stop using a gasoline powered lawnmower. I had read numerous carbon footprint statements about these stinky loud machines that we all use to keep our yards nicely manicured. After doing  much online research, I finally settled on the a Scotts' Reel mower. Yes, like the kind that you "reely" have to push to 

make it cut your grass. I have a small yard so it isn't that big of deal, you just need to follow a few simple rules:

#1- keep the blades sharp

#2- make 2-3 passes to get an even cut

#3- cut your grass often

#4- cut your grass more often

#5- did I mention that you need to cut your grass more than normal

As you might have guessed, I haven't been following some of the "Rules" lately. Having neglected my back yard the grass was way to tall to use the human powered mower. I ended up having to cut it down half way with my electric trimmer then borrow Jeremy's new electric mower. So from now on I will be more diligent about keeping up with the rules.

Some other things aside from composting and reel mowers that I have been doing for my yard to keep with my "greener side" of life, is no chemicals. I never have and never will put any chemicals in my yard or garden. 2 years ago I found a little device that massacres weeds and dandylions. It is called the Weedhound , this thing rocks. I got my mom one for her birthday last year and she spent 45 minutes in the yard poppin weeds, it is totally addictive. 

Thats it for today, I am off to enjoy the spring weather.

Slackin

Yeah, lately I have been slacking in regards to posting on the blogosphere, so here are some updates.

Most importantly Bit got accepted into pharmacy school at UMKC, yeahhhhh! Starting in August she will be a full time student in a professional program for a whopping 5 years, sucks to be her! But this is what she really feels is her calling so here we go. BTW, there were over 600 applicants for only 100 positions. 

I have been riding some now that the trails have been a little drier. Swope is getting closer to completion, and that place just rocks, there is a trail building day scheduled for both Sat and Sun this weekend. Again if you have not ridden at swope and you feel like getting a killer workout in, check it out at swope trails. 

Finally, I started composting last year and was stupid enough to put it next to my house. So all winter we had mice coming in to enjoy the heat. So I am in the process of building a fence in my back yard to have an 8' strip of yard isolated for a big compost bin and a shed for yard tools etc..

Here is a photo of the posts after being poured.

Free Time

It is some what of a routine for Jer, Travis and myself to meet mid-morning on a weekday for a hot sweet cup of latted mochachino carmel macchiato americano at one of the fine midtown coffee shops. We generally spend a ridiculous amount of time and money chewing the fat and avoiding something more productive. Why do we do this? Cause we can! 

4 weeks ago I joined Jer and Randy Braley at my favorite place, The Filling Station. Randy was expressing his wish/goal to make photography his full time gig, so that he would have more flexibility and free time with his life. While sipping my mocha at 10:23 a.m. on a Tuesday I deeply exhaled and broke the news to Randy, free time is highly overrated. Going to the park on a weekday is not very enjoyable when you are the only person there to enjoy the trees budding, and the flowers blossoming. If you were to go mountain biking by yourself at noon on a Wednesday you would not see another rider on the trails. Sounds nice doesn't it? Not really, what happens when you taco your wheel going through a rock garden, knock all of your teeth out and lose consciousness only to be dragged off by coyotes. Those things just don't happen in the evenings and on the weekends when the trails are clogged with cubicle workers. Climbing in Arkansas during the week is horrible. For instance, last week Jeremy and I climbed Tues-Thurs at Sams. We only saw one other group of 2, it gets pretty lonely sharing all of that perfect sandstone with nobody.

So for those of you who have always wondered what it would be like to have weekdays free. It is very highly overrated. Keep your desk job kid!

The wind is not my friend

There is an old saying which goes, "May the sun shine warm upon your face and the wind be at your back." I would imagine that this comes from sailing. But it applies to many other things in life, mainly bicycling. This morning I joined Travis and Jamie for a road ride out to Olathe and back. The mileage total was somewhere around 47, but it felt more like 90. The wind was constantly at odds with us, changing direction every time we took a turn. Travis was charging down the road with myself and Jamie trying to keep up. Drafting seemed utterly useless because of the winds angle. By mile 35 I was fully bonking. Luckily Jamie wanted to stop at coffee shop, and with some borrowed money I filled up on a double shot espresso and a cream cheese muffin. The first several miles after the coffee I felt fresh, but quickly the buzz wore off and I was tired and in need of a toilet. So telling someone "may the sun shine warm upon your face and the wind be at your back," is much nicer than saying "break a leg." Particularly if referring to cycling. 

And please don't honk at bicyclists to let them know you are coming. You would have to be deaf not to hear a car driving down the road while riding your bicycle. And if the cyclist is deaf, he or she won't hear it anyway. Peace.

Arkansas DMZ

Just returned from a glorious 3 days in Arkansas with Jer and the mutts.  Having heard about the damage from the recent ice storm, I finally got to see the flotsam and jetsam first hand. One word- Awesome. I know that alot of people would not see it as "awesome." But the raw power of nature is always impressive to me. The combination of cold, hot, and moisture at a certain elevation range yielded what must have been 2-3 inches of ice. Which was obviously to much for the decidous and evergreen trees to handle. I would guess that 70-80 % of the mature trees were broken at 2/3 height and missing most of their major branches. Any tree that was near a bluff line or on a steep hill side were completely uprooted. The only trees that seemed completely unaffected were the samll saplings, young and green they are able to bend all the way to the ground without snapping.

The picture doesn't do much justice, but this is the trail between the Throne and Chickenhead Wall.

Tuesday we met Jer's friend Ben Rodda in Harrison and went cragging at Sams Throne for the day, just cruising on the classics and marveling at the weather. That evening we met up with Cole Fennel and his buddy Chris. Cole is in the process of writing a guide book for Arkansas Climbing. Yeah, I know that Boston Mountain Press just released a guide book last fall for Northern Arkansas, but just you wait. Full color, pictures of the cliff with color coded lines denoting trad or sport. The parts that he had completed looked quite impressive. If you have ever seen the new guide book to Indian Creek or Red River Gorge then you know what to expect. 

Wednesday morning we got a very late start leaving the campsite around 10. Jer, Cole, Chris, myself, 4 large backpacks, and three 50 lb dogs all squeezed into my Pontiac Vibe and screamed down 15 miles of twisty, hillybilly inhabited dirt roads to Stack Rock. I first visited Stack Rock last fall and had an inkling that it might be my new favorite crag in Arkansas. Incredible rock (even for Arkansas), remoteness, stellar views of the boston mountains, and you have it all to yourself. Stack Rock is for sure my favorite crag. Can't wait to go back.

puppies crammed in the back of the car

Remember how I said that we got a late start. Well that turned out to be a blessing. I finished my last route 5 minutes after the sun had dipped below the horizon. My arms had been cramping on the last 3 routes. So I was very thankful that we hadn't got a earlier start. Cole gave us the full tour which included lots o steep climbing, big moves and big whips. We hiked out in the dark, arrived back at Sams Throne around 9:30 and commenced dinner.

jeremy's artsy photo of some vibrant pine needles with me uglying the backdrop

Thursday morning we got moving early, broke camp before the forcasted rain arrived and headed down to get some action photos for Cole's new guide. We warmed up and cooled down on Dead Dog, by the time all of us had climbed it the rain was upon us. Which was fine since my fingers were raw and it hurt to crimp on anything. 

Can't wait to go back down to those ancient mountains and get my next lesson on perfect Atoka sandstone.