WM Homecoming 2009

It has been way too long since I posted… I wrote one last week but never got it up so tonight I'm doing two when I really should be unpacking! This past weekend Madeleine and I went to Williamsburg for my 10 year Homecoming. It was a little crazy getting there but the trip was a lot of fun. Hadley was supposed to come too but she came down with an ear infection on Wednesday so she had some grandparent/daddy time this weekend. I'm sure Jim will post details of his race weekend soon.

Madeleine and I headed off to the airport on Thursday. Madeleine was really great getting through security (with the help of a M&M bribe). She was loving seeing all the planes. Our flight was delayed an hour so I took her to the end of the terminal where there was a lot of open space. Next thing you know she has tripped and bumped her head on the corner of a metal heater. Lesson Learned: don't let kids run in the airport. So instead of heading to Baltimore, we headed to the ER. A little glue and she was good to go. She told me she wanted to run again.

Friday morning we tried again and made it to Dulles via Chicago. Madeleine was very excited to go on two airplanes. So excited that the flight attendant had to carry my bags off the second plane so I could carry a screaming Madeleine who wanted more airplane. Tara met us at the airport and we headed down to Williamsburg to meet up with everyone else. It was so great to see all my friends from my freshman dorm!

We headed over to William and Mary on Saturday and walked around the tailgates running into some old friends. We made a lunch stop at Paul's Deli, a little different experience with kids in tow. Tara really wanted to hit the delis (W&M doesn't have bars) at night but I think the daytime was all I could handle. WM won the game and we enjoyed walking around campus. Saturday night was the actual reunion. The kiddos all stayed with Tara and Holly's moms. We appreciated having them watch the kids although Madeleine did manage to lock herself in one of the bedrooms!

Sunday we went to the bookstore and had lunch at the Cheese Shop, the best sandwich place ever! Everyone else who came for Homecoming also ate lunch at the Cheese Shop and went to the bookstore so it was a bit of a zoo. It was difficult getting there but I really enjoyed catching up with my friends and visiting William and Mary.

The group

At the Reunion Party... Holly made sure we had a good height order for the pic
Giving Abby a kiss
Walking around the campus
Madeleine and Abby
Sleeping on the airplane

Polite as a Princess

Update from last week that never got posted...

Madeleine has recently discovered princesses. She has a book "Polite as a Princess" with the Disney princesses saying all sort of polite things. This coupled with princess pull-ups has apparently inspired a princess craze. She also has become very polite. For instance, yesterday I asked her not to move the clothes I had on the table and she replied, "No Thank You." I figure at least she is polite when she tells me that she is not going to listen to me. She also has been cracking us up by insisting she needs to wear her fireman hat out and her sunglasses (usually not at the same time). Here are a few pics of her recent outfits!

Hadley is on the move! She is crawling and can get into trouble very quickly. The other day I turned around to get something out of her closet and when I turned back she was standing up at her activity table.

Burnin' at the Bluff VI

Mesa Cycles held their first 'Burnin' at the Bluff' 12 hour mountain bike race at Council Bluffs Lake in 2004. I wasn't racing bikes at the time, but recall reading and hearing about all the fun. I couldn't race Burnin' II as Erin and I had a wedding to attend that night, but we did take the kayaks down to watch and cheer and had a blast.

By 2006, I was racing for DRJ and teamed up with teammates BLM and Little Buddy (aka Mark B.) in the single speed class. We won, but only by something like 6 minutes. I was ready to repeat in 2007 but BLM had a series of mechanicals early in the race and decided he would rather drink beer than race. Not wanting to give up, I ended up doing his last lap and mine back-to-back and I think we took 3rd.

So last year, when it was clear BLM was out, I signed on with John D. and Brad B. of Cape G. Then Brad got hurt. John and I ended up racing our single speeds in what is supposed to be a 3 man class without Brad. The 2 of us each did 5 laps and took 2nd. Since Brad can ride an SS almost as fast as John, I have no doubt we would have kicked some butt if he hadn't busted himself up preriding the course.

John and I had so much fun racing together we had planned to team up again this year, until John decided he'd rather try Co-Ed for a change. Enter BLM. Having missed out last year and (I think) feeling lazy (or maybe just wanting a new bike?), Brenden bought himself a new Superfly SS so all we needed was a fast guy. I knew the Seagals and GORC boys would have strong teams, so we recruited Dan to make up for our slowness.

Mesa has always lucked out with perfect weather for this race and this year was no different. Even with 2.5" of rain on Thursday and Friday, the course was in unbelievable shape and Saturday was beautiful with a high around 60. I headed down Friday night after borrowing one of Frank's F350s and loading its 8' bed with firewood. Good thing Paul gave me grief and "encouraged" me to bring more than I had initially loaded. We needed almost every piece, even if some found them "wet" or "too big."

This race really is a good time and Council Bluffs has got to be the perfect venue. The campsites are great and we had 2 double sites for our gang.

Our teams included:

Wes, Bob, and Chris in Wicked Fast
Tom, John, and Ryan in Wicked Fast
Me, BLM, and Dan in SS
Paul, Thrasher, and Christine in Co-Ed
Scott in 6 hour

The Wicked Fast race was exactly that and it looked like Wes, Bob, and Chris would suffer their first loss in a few years. Entering the last lap, one team appeared to have it wrapped up until their lead guy suffered a series of mechanicals. CP passed him and the second place team to take the win by ~45 seconds. A bummer way to lose for sure, but it is mtb racing and that's all part of the game.

Meanwhile, Dan was only a few second behind first place SS after lap 1, but a flat on his second lap pushed us back and we never got much closer. And, of course, we had BLM, who proudly noted his "fastest lap this year was 6 minutes slower than his slowest lap" in years past. BLM, you better get in shape for 2010!

I wasn't as fast as I'd have liked, but stayed consistent as my first 2 laps were almost identical in time and my third good enough for the (unofficial) fastest SS night lap and one of the quicker night laps overall. Speaking of overall, congrats to the Seagal fellas for their first place SS win! With 45+/- teams overall, 3 SS teams in the top 10 (we were #9) is not bad!

Can't wait for next year!

Pre-race good times, clearly:



Little Buddy or Yeti?:



Grand Master Geezer or firewood salesman?:



Superflies!



Wes at the start:



Dan after Lap 1:



BLM being BLM:



GMG and "The Dick":

Silver Dollar City

Last weekend we packed up the Excursion with what seemed like our whole house and headed down to Table Rock Lake and Silver Dollar City. We left Friday afternoon and the plan was to do Silver Dollar City on Saturday and the Fish Hatchery on Sunday. I found a great condo for us that overlooked the lake with the added bonus of free paddle boats. Needless the say the weather had different plans. It rained, rained and rained some more on Saturday. We basically just ended up driving around most of the day although we did make it to the Fish Hatchery. Madeleine enjoyed feeding the fish and seeing the turtles and snakes. Unfortunately we have no pictures from this because I didn't want to bring the camera out in the rain. We made a quick visit to Silver Dollar City on Sunday. We had talked it up to Madeleine so much that on Saturday when we went places she kept saying this is not Silver Dollar City. It was a fun trip even though we didn't get the nice fall weekend I was hoping for... maybe next year.

Enjoying the lake Friday night... as soon as Madeleine saw the lake from our room she told me she needed to get her life jacket on. She was ready to go for a swim!

Hadley kept pulling her socks off and people kept telling us "our little boy" was about to lose his sock. Apparently the blue striped pants trumped the pink socks and flower jacket.

Madeleine's first amusement park ride... the hopping frogs... and hop they did.

The train that Madeleine was so excited to go on. She kept telling us she was going to Silver Dollar City and was going to ride the train and wave to the people.

You know you have had fun when you fall asleep while be carried before you even leave the park.

ANOTHER New Bike!

No, not mine... Madeleine's!

Last summer when we were in Jackson, we witnessed a friend's son (a little over 2) bomb down a hill on one of these and were impressed. Then this year Chad sent a video of Owen riding a real bike without training wheels... shortly after he just turned 3. We were sold.

Chad and Rose swore by the Strider so we ordered one up, letting Madeleine choose the color. She was very excited when I picked her up at school today and told her we had her bike. She was on it as soon as we got home, and though she definitely required Dad (or Mom's) help to keep her steady, had a good time for sure. I promised her we will add stickers tomorrow... most likely smiley faces and Elmo's. Carbon bars will have to wait for the next bike.

Tour of Missouri

Yesterday brought the first stage of the Tour of Missouri to St. Louis. For all you non-cyclists... no Jim did not ride in it. There are only a handful of other races outside of Europe that are the same level as this race. The best sprinter in the world right now (although definitely not the nicest) is here in Missouri this week riding along with many other top cyclists. I am very excited that we got to watch yesterday and keeping my fingers crossed that somehow this race is able to come back next year. Many of my favorites were riding yesterday although I was only able to pick out Big George and Levi as they sped by.

Thanks to Sean and Nicole, we had an excellent spot to watch as the riders came down a hill and made a quick right turn. Their hospitality was great and I know everyone had a really good time. There was a great DRJ turnout... in fact everyone was joking it was a better turnout then at their actual races.

Madeleine was excited to go to a bike race and when I told her she would need to say "Go George", she responded "No, I say Go Daddy". She rang her cowbell like a champ but I think was most impressed by the all the motorcycles.

We didn't get to see the end but unfortunately Christian Vandevelde, last year's champ and probably my second favorite, crashed and broke his hand. The race continues this week accross Missouri to Kansas City. Hopefully the politicans in Jeff City will realize what a great event this is for the whole state and work together to bring it back next year. Since I don't see any chance of that happening, I better hope a corporation will decide to sponsor it as Amgen has the Tour of California. I'm keeping my fingers crossed but sad that this was probably my last chance to see this type of racing in my home state. Guess we will have to plan a July trip to France!

Madeleine and Jim started off the day with a 23 mile bike ride. Baby Madeline also went along for the ride.

Madeleine in her USPS jersey... I have been waiting for her to wear this since before she was born... Thanks Jim and Patty!
Here comes the peleton
The whole family... hard to tell but Hadley is sporting a Tour of MO shirt from the first race

Ready to Ride!

One sick kid and then one sick wife meant no overnight trip for me this week, which left me with time to build the new bike. And it didn't take long. I had been acquiring parts over the last six months thinking I'd either upgrade the old Rig or buy a new frame. John at Cyclewerx hooked me up with some Race X Lite's on closeout last fall, Dwayne gave me a deal on the Juicy Ultimate's he took off his Superfly (in return for me ebaying the rest of his take-offs), and somewhere along the line I picked up a new set of XT cranks, King cog, and chain.

All the new parts I scored had been sitting in the basement since last fall, but I just couldn't get myself to put them on the Rig. After 4 seasons and 2115.0 miles, the Rig was tired. But, everything on that bike just kept on going... and going... and going and didn't seem to need replacing. So why waste the good stuff when those parts deserved a better home anyways? I tell people all the time, but I'm still quite amazed at how well everything held up on the Rig. I never once touched the stock hubs and the rear wheel was maybe trued twice. I had the same chain, cog, and chainring on the entire time (wow!), and the original BB7 brake pads are still in place (who are these people that wear out a set in a race?!?). Even the Reba held up beautifully, requiring only one change of oil and an upgrade to Enduro seals around the 1k mark. Still, it was time for a new ride.

Using the above mentioned new parts and the WCS stem/handlebar and Thomson post from the Rig, I had everything on the new bike last night minus the brakes. I dropped it off at Alpine Shop this afternoon for Chris to install those and cut the steerer tube and picked it up tonight after bedtime. Before I left, we put it on the scale. Dan told me over the weekend that his 2009 (with rigid fork) weighs in around 18 lbs. He even made me pick it up to see he wasn't bs'ing (even if he usually is). Still, Chris and I took guesses and I went conservative and said 23. My Rig stock was somewhere around 27 lbs and with my setup around 25.5. The Superfly weighed in on Alpine's scale at 21.5 lbs complete. Wow!

Not one to be one-upped, BLM was walking into Alpine as I was on my way out. He (and Chris too) couldn't let me be the only DRJ guy on the new SS so he ordered one up last week only hours after I did, but in some silly huge size of course. Brenden's should be built tomorrow and he seems to think I need to wait for him for the maiden voyage, in memory of old times I'm guessing. So the first ride will either be late tomorrow night at Lost Valley or Chubb Friday afternoon. Either way, I can't wait!