kidney

this is not my kidney, but rather the greatest kidney of all time, the original dogbowl where much of sports/lifestyle culture was born. without this place, there would be no snowboarding, no surf-related clothing/style, and alternative music would have ended with the beach boys.

my own kidneys are a different story. many years back, i was a vegetarian for 10-15 years or so. when you are a vegetarian, your pee is often basic, as opposed to acidic. thus, you are prone to urinary tract infections at times - which i indeed contracted. once you get one, or several - you are more likely to repeat. i am repeating. it hurts like all fooking hell, too. no wonder i have been dragging ass so bad !! the rhinelander WORS race is questionable - looks like i'll be doing hand-ups. we'll see.

what are we, animals ??

'kay then - i reckon ihave been riding and enjoying the sort of bike that doesn't have a kickstand for 30-sumthin years or so. and yet, up until gretchen nabbed this most Righteous bike rack this very week, i have been leaning those bikes on stuff over all those decades like a barbarian.

no more !!

the girl and i enjoyed a fine memorial day weekend ride today, and parked our weapons thusly like civilized aristocrats before and after. nice !!

so Pro it hurts

today i was fortunate to do some training with a bunch of guys like these here. this was unbelievably cool to do. it was just a glimpse into the world these guys live in, but still. . . . . . . i dunno what to say - this stuff is not like you see on teevee. these guys function at such a structured, intense, super-razor-sharp level of professionalism and physical performance in the face of a crazy-hell environment that it's just insane. it was really cool to do and be a little part of. they even gave me a huge ovation when i charged into the pepper-spray filled small cell "officer-down" scenario, got the guy, and gave a decent account of myself against the padded up "assailant" on the way back out. nice.

i ended up racing iola hooked up with russell. we found a nice groove for ourselves more-or-less from the start, and we stuck together for a fabulous ride. when you ride with russell, it is as if you are in the olympics, or the TdF. it is a constant wave of sound around the course, with cheers popping up on every remote corner and from behind every tree. oddly, in all our years as buddies, i don't think i ever rumbled around a whole race with my man russell like that, and it was long overdue.

MK did a pretty solid ride for being 2 weeks on the bike. maybe shoulda dropped her down a gear, considering . . . . . but a good day of effort and like the wems race last weekend - really better than expected. she is gonna stop the race-into-shape plan this week, and get some miles in on the road finally.

it looked like a great turnout at the race. i was pretty iffy up to friday on whether or not i was gonna be able to go at all. gretchen got me propped up and shooed me out the door, tho. of course once on the scene we had a blast - yukking it up with everybody from don ( who started the season flat on his back out cold whilst packing the WORS-trailer in the hi-speed wind ) to the rest of the characters in the dusty parking lot. next up we have the rhinelander race, where for completely unknown reasons i actually won last year. no chance in hell of that happening again but it is a fun course and great venue - possibly the best in WORS when ya think about it. at age 18 MK stands to find a little more in her legs with a kwik couple weeks of riding - me, not so much . . .. . . . . . . . .

getting some ink . . .

. . is always nice.

http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/article/20090511/GPG0101/905110502&referrer=FRONTPAGECAROUSEL

one that got away

so the 09 mtn bike season begins. my man rick W foolishly agreed to team up with me for the 6 hr duo at the stump farm. even more foolishly, after winning the coin toss at breakfast, he elected to let me start the race's first 2 laps. after we successfully fended off the threatening team of russell and the Thin White Dane with dire warnings of inclement weather, we figured we might have to race the thing. instead, i immediately put us down in time to the speeding c peariso, and some other dudes. rick carried the weight the rest of day, clawing back time only to let me give it back. drama unfolded as the peariso's graciously stepped out of the race to let us hacks battle it out - rick pounced and handed me the lead at around 4.5 hours. i promptly handed it back to the 2 dudes, when he made a sweet attack on my sorry ass on the flat gravel section where i had no answer, spun out on the SS. excellent move. we made them earn it at least, by staying on the gas and squeezing a last lap in with them. if rick woulda started we woulda won, but the 2nd place swag was better anyway.




MK laid her 18 y/o waiver signature down for the first time in the 3 hr. somehow, even tho she is 18, can vote, elect presidents and so forth, i appear to still be paying for bike races. not sure how she worked that out, but good-work-if-you-can-get-it. seein' as she has only been on the bike for 2 weeks after spending all of april away or catching up from the great college hunt, all bets were off. she did better than expected, tho - managing to stay on the gas and negative split laps 3 and 4 ( even if she missed the cut-off on lap 4 ). she clawed her way past some very fine competion to a hard fought 3rd. along the way she received generous pit support from anthony dombrowski, and a swift boot out onto the course for her mathematically-impossible-but-do-it-anyway-just-because 4 th lap from rick.

excellent time seeing many bike people again, after the long winter. the elusive one was confirmed outside his own area code, and joined many of the above, plus the cooooooops for a some wicked-excellent pizza after the race. rick and liz brought a superfine dessert, which we still have most of. russell shoulda been there ( and he never should have fallen for our wily "don't-come-its-raining-out tactic" ), but the season is early and he won't get fooled by that one again - besides if he had been there he and jerry would have won the sweet world-champ socks, and not me and rick - sux for the shedmaster. next up, iola - it's time to race mtn bikes. happy day.

manhattan project / wems race

here is a nice pictoral/metaphorical representation of the upcoming season-opener wems race. see that sketchy looking rocket on the launch pad there ?? that is me. see that steel and concrete and earth bunker ?? that is where i advise everybody to flee to, if you see me aboard my trusty drop-bar steed, ready to roll. only a fool would want to be in the same zip-coade as i am, once i start the season - the likelyhood of a catastrophic and spectacular explosion is very high indeed. can't say i didn't warn ya.

pulling back hard on the stick

blogging is weird when yer having a shitty week. are ya just supposed to keep on like normal, or blather on why this&that is sucking ?? dunno. but, i managed to get out of the flat-spin, and pull back on the stick before i hit the deck, so i reckon things are good. just got back from an annual convention at the dells. i bring the road bike for sure, because the roads in sauk county west of the dells are some of the sweetest around, IMHO. got in killer rides when i got to town, and at dawn every day. bonus, i camped at mirror lake and last nite i was the only guy in the whole place. double bonus, a kwik lap at standing rocks on the way home got me full on back into redemption-mode.

triple bonus. i skated this place for a little while sunday evening, and on monday had a chance to talk with the dreamland skatepark guy for a spell also, as i snuck back over there on the lunch break. he had just arrived from portland to do a little fix on the place. that was supercool to meet up with the guy like that at the park - just me&him there, and he wasn't in any big hurry or anything, so we talked about concrete skateparks over the past 30 years !! from the earliest junk-parks in the 70's ( did ya know there was one such park behind the roller-skate place near the shevagas race-venue ?? - i will wager it is still there, just buried under dirt ) to legends like marina del ray, and the turf ( also rumoured to still exist buried in sand and covered in a metal building in milwaukee - this is one of the best parks built during skating's 80's heyday and could hold it's own against any park up to today, constructed by the same guys that did new jersey's cherry hill park - do you know where it is ?? ) - to modern uberparks like louisville and black pearl in the caymans - and finally the modern little mini-super-parks like they have there in lake delton. it was awesome, and i think he was digging the unlikelyhood of finding a 49 y/o bald guy in the middle of bumfook WI to talk this stuff stuff with, too.

not gonna lie

it's been a bad week. highlight being today, with a nice fellow from the GB paper doing a photo shoot with MK at a couple locations, for an upcoming feature article on her. i'll link it up when done - i think it runs the 11th - it was fun.