well honestly, what would YOU do ??

if yer trails lookeded like this on mar 15, at 8:00 in the morning - sun shining - temps so that all ya need to ski is a long sleeve jersey and a zephyrr vest ??




yeah, it's supposed to get up around the hi 40's later . . . . . . but ya know, hi -40's and road biking is alright. but that stuff you see right there is the shite, let me tell you. it skiis as good as it looks, and glides even faster. MK, gretchen, and i went for it for a couple hours - we got all summer to ride bikes !!

nicky slept in a bit. his rag-tag team took 5th at the big contest, he was stoking with that seein' as they had no idea what they were doing and all. gotta love the snowboarders, tho. 20 buck entry fee, and everybody brought home a huge bag of swag with sweet skullcandy earphones, wax, little tool thingies, and other stuff including a tee with this supercool pic of obama rockin it. want more juniors to race bikes ?? that is how ya do it. duh.

don't let go

if ya went out on the east side of milwaukee in the 80's, you saw robin pleur and the R&B cadets do this old song:

Hear that whistle, it's six o'clock
(Don't let go, don't let go)
Come on baby, it's time to rock
(Don't let go, don't let go)
I'm so happy to have you here
(Don't let go, don't let go)
Keeps me grinnin' from ear to ear
(Don't let go, don't let go)

Chorus
Ooh wee
This feeling's killing me
Oh shucks
I wouldn't stop for a million bucks
I love you so
Just hold me tight and don't let go
(Don't let go, don't let go)
Hold me tight and don't let go
(Don't let go, don't let go)

or maybe these guys, ya mighta heard their version:




anyway, i ain't lettin winter go quite yet. very very nice day at granite peak with another school chaparone trip on some super-fast and smooth power-tilled corn snow. i rode with MK all day, and that was fabulous - she has been riding since she was 7. no young girls rode then, and while you do see some girls out there nowadays, very few to none throw down with an old-school high speed power-and-flow style like she has. so long as the boards stay on the snow in general she will keep up with anybody and - look better doing it. it is funny to go on these school trips with her because in her school-life she is the nerdy smart-kid. then, as she rips by railing truns and ripping over ice or whatever is there as fast and strong and stylee as anybody on the hill, male or female, her classmates have no idea what to make of it. :) she had $6K waitin for her in an envelope to add to the scholarship fundage when we got home, so that's a pretty sweet day right there.

nicky got an offer to stay into the weekend with some other shredders for a big contest there today, and when we last saw him he had a pocket full of 20's, a free lift ticket, and a spot on the floor at a nearby waterpark resort so there is no telling where he is today.

i stayed on theme by leaving the bike at home today, and skiing some prime conditions at cherry hills instead. some guys were calling it the best of the year. . . . i dunno about that but it was pretty nice, and now they are grooming all over nearby fields and orchards just going wild wherever they feel like over 120 acres cross-country so it is actually pretty freaking cool.

i am evidently the dan quayle of singlespeeders

let me make this clear: i know cat 1's, i have ridden with cat 1's, some cat 1's are friends of mine.

I am no cat 1.


yet, according to my spiffy new WORS handbook, somehow in order to race the newly renamed comp SS class i am going to first convince usa cycling to issue my beyond sorry ass a cat 1 license. uhhhhhhhh, yeah. i have long thought usa cycling to be composed of largely incompetent yayhoo's ( don E excepted, naturally . . . ), but giving me a cat 1 license has got to be beyond even their level of ridiculousness. it is admittedly an odd habit i enjoy - rolling around at the tail end of the comp SS field, getting slaughtered like a goat at a low-rent devil-worship service in some abandoned stone quarry every race - but it works for me. what am i supposed to put on my race/license resume ???

" well, uhhh, most of the time . . . . . . OK some of the time . . . i can keep from getting lapped by jesse till the last lap or so" ????

somehow i think that's just not gonna cut it. dang.

elbow room

right then, that'll work. saturday afternoon, on a pretty dang nice day by dismal door cty springtime standards . . . . . . the biggest hill in the county is now a 4 lane wide traffic free bike path. pretty sweet !!

semi-classic trainin'

here we see the proper surroundings for spring training rides. bleak. grey. wet. mostly likely smelling of manure more often than not. that perfect temperature where comfort is not physically attainable - either you are sweating too much or are chilled to the bone - and ideally are both at once in various parts of your body.

MK and i introduced russell and jerry D to the fabulously miserable luxemburg-brussels-luxemburg ride in southern door last year. maybe we'll get em up here to do it again, who knows ?? it's kinda early for a full on classic like that, so MK and i are heading out on the semiclassic, camp monT-brussels-camp monT ride instead. southern door county is dotted by all kinds of towns with bleak euro names, and populated by belgians. wherever you are in WI in the springtime, southern door is bleaker, colder, more grey, and generally more miserable. door county tourism literature never once mentions the word "Springtime", with very good reason. of course, there is no better way/place to ride a bike, in mar/april, if you ask me.

as a bonus this year, they built the new hi-way around the famed "Brussels Hill" a monolithic climb that many old-timers in door county have never seen the other side of. so, this virtual mt ventoux now sits there, four lanes of perfect cement up one side and down the other and nary a car in sight. MK has been basking in glory lately, scoring prestigious academic accolades right and left. this week at school they didn't even have her go to class, instead she TAUGHT calculus and chemistry so the students could get something outta the classes while the subs chilled. pshaw. ain't nothing smart about riding repeats on the Brussels Hill in the wet cold bleakness for no good reason. it might even define the word Stupid, in fact. so, guess where we're going ??

which way to break ??

it's the time of year were XC skiing becomes like surfing. if you have a spot with good grooming ( at cherry hills it is one of the top two in WI ) in spring conditions can be beyond perfect. transitioned snow lending speed, and mild temps letting you dress like yer on a 50 degree bike ride. but, ya gotta drop everything and go just when it's right. wait too long, and it's mush and you wreck the trail with ruts like an idiot, go too soon and it's too hard and no fun.

today i was like a surf bum hitting the waves just as they blew in.

even so, after that video by the folks at rapha/embrocation-cycling-journal i watched with some of the best comapany imaginable at the "secret" post NAHMBS party at the hyatt i was longing for the road. fook skiing, i wanna ride.

www.embrocationcyclingjournal.com

you went to the NAHMBS and you WHAT ???

proving my staus as lamest bogger on earth, Mk and i forgot our camera are NAHMBS. so, just a few kwik hitters:

1. if you are a dad, it sux for you. my daughter not only accompanied me, and a raggedy ass band of pirates to the show, she rocked it so hard that the guys from reynolds tubing - the very people who INVENTED the stuff that made sweet handmade bicycles possible were so impressed with her knowledge and appreciation of their product they reached into their display of ultrafine tubings and gave her some. can your little girl do that ?? didn't think so.

2. downtown crits on loose pave in the heart of the surprisingly vibrant downtown indy was too fun to describe.

3. nipponese guys like my rivendell.

4. ellis cycles is the up&comer of the handmade industry, period.

5. do not spend more $ for a production bike than these guys charge for what they do, and had on display. hell on earth, indeed. this show rocked.

6. rapha cycling clothing and/or embrocation magazine showed a video of a half-dozen guys guys suffering thru the ToC route a few days before the event that was so beautiful it made you want to to ride yourself into the ground. watch for that magazine, out soon.

7. what a show.

8. OK, i stole a pic of MK and me from amy D, who is a person it is always nice to bump into at bike stuff for nigh on 25 years or so:



oddly, rick, the-other-tim, russell, me and the girl never did ask anybody to snap a pic of all of us - that was stupid.