The perimeter is secure

Steve McQueen the baddest of all Bad in the Great Escape

I finally have had enough of the dogs plotting their version of the Great Escape. The tunneling was put to an end by a trip to Race Brothers to purchase an electric fence. Now before all you PETA members start emailing me I removed the capacitor so now it only puts out the slightest of voltage. I figure a few days of Lucky & Lacy getting a buzz & I'll be able to unplug the fence & just leave it up for them as a subtle reminder their is no escape from Stalag Dunsmuir.

They act all innocent when your watching.

When your not though they are working on Tom, Dick, & Harry. This is Harry.
Amber & Top working on the perimeter
Lucky working on Tom.

Control Central.

This week's thank you's

Since I'm now technically handicapped a lot of people have been stepping up to help out. So not to forget I'll try & thank everyone on the spot & on a weekly basis. This past week basically has sucked. Lots of pain & boredom. But I'm healing quickly, most of my road rash & bruises are gone. This weekend hurt not going to State RR since I was on form & the course was a good one for me. But as Amber keeps telling me I always have next season. Believe me I'm already plotting & scheming. On to the thanks:

Amber for putting up with me & being my personal nurse. But most of all putting up with me since as she keeps telling me I have that caged animal look in my eyes.
My mom Linda she came & stayed a few days & was a HUGE help. With Amber not being at full force & a 3 week old baby I'm not sure she could have handled me without my mom's help.

My father-in-law Rick aka Top for coming over & mowing my yard which had gotten out of control.

Danielle my sister-in-law for sitting with Mia while I was @ the ER.

Dammit Debbie for coming over & cleaning our house even though she wasn't asked.

ICC for hauling my bike to Sunshine to figure out the damage & somehow getting them to put it on the priority list.

Shane for getting me out of the house with Cardinals tickets. Mucho, Mucho apriaciado. Top went with & caught a slingshot shirt. Good game & great seats. Thanks again Shane.To my brother in law Eric & my nieces Nina & Ashton for the Bicycle Air Bag, smart asses!
To all those that called & emailed thanks for your thoughts.

Too those who went to State this weekend & won jerseys to keep OCC alive, I've felt a little lonely this season.

Mia wanted everyone to see her Duckies

Being on the mend is boring

The Felt faired a lot better than I did. Sunshine actually put it @ the head of the list for me.

Yesterday was a long day of Dr. visits. Started with my primary care Dr. She was pissed @ the service I got in the ER. She had to do some more wound cleaning. She also tracked down the Ortho specialist & got me in to see him immediately. He said I had a separated shoulder & a broken clavicle. He also said some gibberish about staying off the bike for 6-8 weeks. I think he was talking to Amber, because there is no way I'm staying off it that long. Good news is I can go back to work in a few weeks so don't have to worry about going broke.

My mom has been a huge help coming up & helping out with me & Mia. More Mia than me. I'm a pretty independent person & like to do things on my own. Its pretty hard for me to ask for help. I'm doing as much as I can but somethings are impossible with one hand. Amber has been very patient with me waiting until I give up to come & help. I will say being one handed & stuck @ the mercy of people driving me is getting boring already. In 2 days I've already watched more tv than I would normally watch in a month. Caught up on all the TLC & Discovery Channel shows I like to watch. I guess movies are next. Anyone have the CSC video they'd like to loan me?

Something pretty to look @ before carnage pics. Amber went red again. I likey!
This is a bruise! its located on my hip

My ankle to a big hit on the ground, still really swollen.

I think the worst part is the sling has to go over the top of all this road rash.

You can see my collarbone sticking up, the Dr. says thats permanent.

It Had To Happen Sometime

Just a quick post to let everyone know I'm fine. Last night I hit a dog while riding. Went over the bars around 23mph hitiing my head & breaking my left collarbone. Heads fine though, harder than my helmet. If you need a reason to wear a helmet I'll let you see mine! I have a 1cm displacement right @ the end of my collarbone. Dogs(2) , one bit me 3x after crashing, are being put to sleep this AM. Bike is trashed & of course I had my Kysrium's on, the first time I've trained on them this year.

Big Phish!

Check out the size of the monster fish my Brother-In-Law Eric recently caught with a piece of cheese & his fishing rod. Being a Conservation Agent he let it go.

Tulsa Tough Day 3

Day 3 was freaking hard! Put it this way people were being pulled in the first lap. I think less than 30 people finished without being pulled. The guy who won the first two days got pulled 20 minutes into the race. So it was fast & hard. I rode pretty hard @ or near the front trying to avoid gaps on the steep climb & stay out of trouble on the nasty descent into the finishing straight. I felt good till about 15 minutes to go when the heat started wearing on me. I managed to sit in enough to recover some & still take 11th in the field sprint. Not too bad a weekend 17, 29. 11th. I did about as good as a confirmed non sprinter can do. The team didn't do so well this weekend though.

I've died & gone to heaven! Neutral support had about 20 pairs of 404's. Of course not a flat for me all weekend.

The start of the Big Boys. Farasy & Greek waiting for the Ready, Set, Your pulled!

The hill. Melissa told me she really loved it & it was great for training.

Tulsa Tough Day 2

Yesterday didn't quite go as planned. Was sitting about where I needed to be to finish in the top 20 in the last lap. Some wank curbed it & crashed in front of me & I got caught behind so rolled across the line in 29th. I did a lot of work, probably too much. Got in lots of breaks. Singly handedly brought back a break by sitting on the front for 2 laps pulling it back. Bridged up to a break with 6 to go that I thought was going to stick, but we got caught with 2 to go. The break didn't stick for a reason but I'm not going to name the 3 guys names but lets just say they thought they needed a free ride to the line. Two of them where on the same team & neither ended up finishing in the top 30, serves them right. The same guy who won Friday night repeated again followed in 2nd by Holloran. Hmmm, Tulsa Tough Sandbagger Fest? Farasy had a great day finishing in 32 in the P1/2.

Amber & I killed off some time earlier in the day by going to the aquarium. Kind of small but they have to start somewhere. The main attraction being the shark tunnel. They also have the State Record Gar in captivity. Its over 7 feet long. It looks like a tree with very sharp teeth. If I knew that thing was swimming about I'd never get in the water.

Mia wasn't too impressed with the sharks

The OK State Record Gar is 1.5 feet longer than me!

The Dunsmuir's sure do like Aquarium gift shops for photo ops.

The Pace Car

Quick note if your not using Firefox start using it. Amber's Aunt & Uncle have IE & Firefox but IE is their default browser. After an hour of pure frustration trying to get this uploaded I discovered they had Firefox & 15 min later viola! I run it @ home & I highly recommend it.

Tulsa Tough Friday Night Lights

Didn't have a chance to post last night so here is a quick update on Tulsa Tough. Did alright ended up 17th(87 starters, 57 finished) in the field sprint, there is some heat here. I did manage to win a $20 prime. Have a nice rasberry on my shoulder from avoiding a wreck & having some dude flip over his handlebars & pile drive me on my right side. Not sure how I stayed up but found a bike wide gap & shot through it. Fitness is better than I thought. Got in 3 or 4 breaks, 1 solo. Don't have the snap yet so hopefully by Sunday it'll be in my legs. When I was warming up I got interviewed by the local news. Amber's Aunt Reba taped it for me. I'll try & get it uploaded when I get back to town.

Farasy finished! He's the mystery rider in 61st place. He got gapped with 2 laps to go when there was a huge pile up in the P1/2 race. But he did stay in the middle of the group until then. The big boys raced under the lights which was pretty cool. Reported avg speed for 75min crit 27.7 mph! I think the in the 3's we only avg about 25mph.

Here's some pics of the bigs, Amber will be @ the race tonight so maybe I can get some of me.

Oh to be young

Wednesday night had a tremendous turn out with 9 guys making the spectacle(not sure what it means but seems to make Jimmy happy). OG was on hand to once again rub in the fact that he has 404's & I don't. Plus he seems to be frying my brain & my heart rate monitor with that high output wireless rear computer. He did offer me the 404's as a loaner for the weekend, but I turned him down graciously since I wanted to not worry about breaking them in Tulsa. I'll have enough going on not to have to soft peddle the corners & risk loosing 16 minutes in a crit. EPO made an appearance fresh from his Colorado tour. Coach Ken, Joey B(the only OCC under 50 who races as much as I do, good guy), The Penn State JR, some random Belgium guy, JW, & the Hulk with anger o plenty. It took about 15 min for the Hulk to start talking about a WWF Smackdown cage match, "Snap into a skinny biker dude!" Luckily it wasn't me, I had on a sleeveless jersey & I think he was a little intimidated by the Gun Show.

Wanting easy miles I quickly joined forces with JR & showed him the bail out loop to get him back in time to catch his ride home. I'll say once he gets a little stronger on the climbs he'll be pretty good. I looked backed on a 40+mph descent & he was glued to my wheel, something that can't be said for most guys twice his age. I was a little impressed. Skip seems to have been as well, so he's batting 3 for 3(I get 2 votes since I swing a heavier bat than Skip).

Friday I head to Tulsa for my first races in 5 weeks. Seems strange after the spring campaign I put in to finally be racing again. Amber & Mia are going to accompany me for the weekend since her Aunt Reba has graciously gave us the use of their house for the weekend. Less driving & no hotel bill, YEAH! The website says the race course will be a WIFI zone so I'll see if I can get Amber to do a little play by play semi live ala Cyclingnews. This will be Mia's first time to see her Daddy race & hopefully I won't let her down. Though she will be saddened her dad will be rolling on inferior wheels.

One year of mindless dribble

That's right yesterday was my one year anniversary of boring you all senseless with my ramblings. That's 255 posts for an avg of 4.9 a week? Man that seems like a lot but I have posted a lot of pics that were separate entries so not as bad as it sounds.

I hope everyone managed to thank a vet this past weekend. Mia thanks her Top for all his years of service & I shook the bubble head's hand that works for me. Made his night, said it was the first time he'd ever been thanked on Memorial Day. I always try & thank @ least one Vet. Remember they do a thankless job.

Friday night I think I had a rare Cycling Skip sighting. To confirm it wasn't a hoax 1) I hadn't been drinking, 2) I wasn't in a dark basement, 3) I had sunglasses on to avoid the glare from the pasty whites, 4) I was hidden in my Skip blind on the Greenways @ Galloway Station, 5) The Greenways are were wild Skips do get released each Spring from their basement lairs. So beware on the Greenways!

The rest of the weekend was pretty uneventful. Lots of time spent with Mia & Amber. I did manage to get in a 3 hour ride with JJ & Norton on Sat & a 4 hour ride on Sun with Jason W & the OG(say with a hint of jealousy in your voice since he has 404's & I don't!) Be warned if you show up to a ride were the both of us are present expect the pace to be hot while I prove to him that 404's only make me fast. Though they have seemed to increase his speed so I might have to rethink that idea. Especially now that I know a damn Hippo can sprint faster than me.

To upgrade or not to upgrade

That is the question. Once again I'm posing a decision to my readers. This time I might actually follow your advice unlike the visor decision. Depending on how you read the "rules" of the USCF upgrade guidelines I have btwn 10 & 47 points toward my upgrade to cat 2's; 25 min, 60 auto unless your from Arkansas or Ryan Holloran then its unlimited. Everyone gets 1 vote except Jim & Cale who get 2 since it will be their butts I'll be whooping if I cat up. Ultimately its Mike Weiss who decides if I cat up or not. He has turned me down once already. He does have a random method of issuing upgrades.

This weekend makes 5 weeks since I last raced. My legs are tired though from hard training & the start of commuting to work. I ended up taking yesterday off from bike practice since I had to stay @ work till 11am for an IT meeting. Way past my bedtime.

Me & my daddy are a team

Nap time

It has been a busy week so far. Monday Mia got her first trip to the Doctor. Tuesday Amber got her staples out & is recovering very nicely. Though I think a little boredom is starting to creep in since she can't drive yet. I guess you can only watch so much Dr. Phil. Tuesday also saw me return to work.

Since I no longer have to worry about rushing Amber to labor & delivery I've started riding my bike to work again. Should save me about $30/wk in gas & tack on about 80 extra miles a week to my mileage. Not sure if that will be a good thing or not. So far my legs haven't suffered to much after 2 back to back hard practices followed by a ride to work. Coming home in the AM is rough after working all night then having to peddle home with already dead legs. The Springfield Farms hill seems like Everest then. I am using my MTB so have the granny if needed. My Jet light's bulb died on me though so I'm having to uses my headlamp to ride in @ night which is no big deal.

I'm glad I paid the $20 for the Internet coverage of the Giro. Its been pretty cool to watch each stage as Basso is killing everyone. Though I was a little disappointed this AM when they stopped the stage before the dirt road. That was the main factor in me getting the coverage so I could watch that spectacle. I've not been impressed with how Discovery has been riding. My boy Salvodelli has been left alone a lot on the climbs. Since he's not a pure climber he needs some help which he's not getting. Not the same team of old. The commentators keep talking about the Great White Hype Danielson & how Discovery is going to launch him into GC contention. Not sure what race they have been watching but the first person dropped each climb is Danielson. Kind of hard to move up on GC when your getting beat by sprinters on the climbs(Bettini).

Been a few days since I posted any pics of the kid so figured I'd better get on the ball.

All dressed up for a quick nap before eating again.
Amber snapped these while I was enjoying a nap with Mia.