Thursday, July 30, 2009

28 miles tomorrow and I hit 500 in July

kind of took a little rest today, soft pedaling my full suspension bike around lawrence, 1) because i am able to ride it for the first time since november and 2) body needs the rest.

ate a ton of food last night and toda finally, should be feeling prime tomorrow to go finish it off. i'm thinking a nice 30 on the SS tomorrow riding the paved trail system around lawrence in the morning before i go back to KC. check back for more. there will be a special prize if I hit 500 so watch for the post.

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

...

totally just realized I didn't post here what the ride today was...the typical 20 miles from my house to jccc, worked from 8-2 then rode from jccc to lawrence for another 40...thats right, knocked 60 today, 100 the past 2 days. my boy dylan medlock from lawrence rode out and met me around the halfway point to choad me back to lawrence. he rides a very nice, full carbon specialized tarmac, and I was on my fuji SS (42-16) commuter, with the rack and saddlebags loaded with 2 days worth of clothes/tools/loafers/bike lock/extra water/etc for myn stay here in ltown.

i am planning on doing a 110 mile ride with dylan in the next couple weeks or so. route is from lawrence up through leavenworth, parkville, riverside, kck, linwood and back to lawrence. I'm trying to figure out the gearing I want to use, although I'm thinking maybe the 42-16 will probably be the prime gearing for 110 miles. The pace won't be that brutal, like it was today. There were times today that Dylan and I both agreed I had to be spinning at least 2x the rpm that he was in his big ring. Literally, I hadn't spun like that for around 10-15 miles, ever. We hammered the section from Spoon Creek road, down 143rd past the couty line to 22oo rd north into Eudora. I told him I needed my aero bars on if I was gonna do that shit again :)

i really need to figure out how i'm gonna get out these last 42...

458 down, 42 to go

Today I kicked a huge chunk out of the way, making my goal of 500 miles this month seem very, very doable over the next 2 days. 42 miles Thursday and Friday...still not for sure how I'm gonna finish these last few off...

full suspension is done and getting picked up and urban ridden in ltown tomorrow, hella

peace!

new plan

Rode to work this morning, 2o miles there, but am gonna make a slight detour plan, because I'm out of money and food :/ After I get off work at 2:00 today I'm gonna ride out to Lawrence from JCCC to get full suspension and some food loving. Tomorrow I'm gonna have to make up what ever the difference is going to be...(part of blog where I stop writing to figure mileage)...looks like it'll be around 37 more miles from JCCC to Lawrence which will be 57 for today. Leaves me with 45 more to spin on thursday and Friday and I'll hit 500. ooooo, yea!!

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

398 down, 102 to go.

After I get off work and spin home, I'll need to complete another 102 miles. Here's my plan since the rain jacked the trails...

July 29, Wednesday--40 miles, Home to JCCC/Back (62 miles still needed)
July 30, Thursday--45 miles, Home to Lawrence to pick up my full-suspension bike (17 miles still needed)
July 31, Friday--Go out and finish off the 17 miles with probably a nice 20 mile or so spin.

Hopefully my legs and the weather will cooperate.

peace!

Sunday, July 26, 2009

356 down, 144 to go.

356 miles as of July 26, need 144 more to hit 500. Should get 40 Tuesday, 40 Wednesday commuting to work and back...that will leave me needing 64 more to do on Monday, Thursday and Friday. Looks like I'll do a few nightly spins to finish it up.

I will hit 500.

peace!

Friday, July 24, 2009

out west :)

i'm in l-town right now. got to ride swope the past 3 days, awesome :) gonna hit some river trail tonight to rip some nice, smooth, untechy single track. this is the trail where I learned to ride and I consider it "home", so it'll be nice to go out and rip on the rigid. the river trail is SS 29r heaven.

tomorrow, my seester is having a suprise party for my brothers 22nd bday. so i'm gonna head to topeka for the weekend, try to ride the trails there, and hopefully do the sunflower state games if I can find $25 somewhere...

get out and ride right now. weather for July in kansas is perfect, road or MTB. no excuses.

i'm gonna bust my ass next week and make damn sure I hit 500 miles for July. sitting at 335 as of July 23.

peace!

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

rain :(

so of course when I post something about hitting 500 miles for the month, the rain starts, and still has not stopped, since yesterday :(

had a killa 20 mile ride home in the pouring rain last night from JCCC to back home...f-ing sucked, but the bag stayed dry thanks to stealing a few trash bags from the break room here at JCCC. me on the other hand, i was completely and thoroughly soaked.

so i'm stuck at 308 miles right now, hopefully i can squeeze in a cross-style ride tonight with some earthriders since taco tuesday is a wash, for 20ish miles, then hit up the JCCC/back 40 miles tomorrow.

I got a B in my spanish class this summer, fuck ya! no more classes for 5 weeks!!! riding like crazy will now commence :) hit me up if you wanna ride. i'll be working 8-6 on Mondays and Wednesdays only starting next week, until the end of August when i start up at UMKC.

peace!!!

Monday, July 20, 2009

500 miles in july?

just added up my mileage for july and i'm at 308 miles right now...500 is looking very doable.

longest ride ever

saturday was the farmhouse classic gravel grinder century ride, hosted by Joe of cycle city for his birthday bash. free breakfast, fully-stocked SAG station at the halfway point and free barbeque/food/beer after finishing = AWESOME DAY!!! huge ups to Joe, his family and everyone who helped put the ride together, great time, great eats/drinks, great people. absolutely killer smoked chicken wings, pulled pork and corn on the cob; ice cold american canned goodness; wow, i really wish i could do it every day :)

now ride details...the morning started with a tad over 7 mile trek to teammate Marcus Skala's house in Prairie Village, where we met up with ChrisGo Thomas and headed north. Ate some dank egg/sausage casserole, drank some oj, pounded a couple homemade bluebery muffins and the ride took off at around 9:15 am. we were going basically from lathrop, MO to easton, MO by way of gravel back roads. I was the only crazy ass on a single speed, so ups to me. decided to gear at 40-16, and by the end, that was just about the right call. the 100-miler guys took off at a blazing pace from the start while us 63 milers hung back a little. It was generally a rolling, flat ride except for the middle 10 miles going there and back, which had a couple killer steep hills with fresh, loose gravel. I finished at the halfway point with the 2 lead guys on the 63 mile route. I saw them about 5 miles from Easton and made it my goal to catch them. well, i had to spin my ass off, but i caught marcus and another guy about halfway through town and rolled into the SAG with them.

at the SAG there were a couple 100 mile guys still hanging. i pounded water, some cytomax, 4 gels, a pack of powerade gel bits, some trail mix and a nutter butter before stocking up for the return ride, hahahaha. i got the nickname C-store on the way back, as my jersey was loaded with crap for the journey back to the farm. filled a bottle with cytomax, still had 1 gatorade i hadn't cracked, re-filled 2 water bottles, took 4 gels, another package of powerade gel bits and 3 packages of nutter butter cookies. i goddamn near went through everything on the way back too.

got back to the farm--63.4 miles, 4 hours 2 minutes, 15.3 MPH average.

gorged on beer and food, got a ride back to the crib with ChrisGo, who btw has some killa pics in Urban Velo right now, napped for little bit, woke up and rode to popeyes where i gorged on more food. absolutely awesome day.

sunday, elize (the roomie) and I went to this dannnnnnk thai/chinese place in westport...best asian food I'd ever had...she watched in amazement as I downed three large plates of the dankest chicken, steak, veggies, rice, noodles and whatever else was in front of me. probably in took 4000 calories in that meal, no lie :)

this morning I woke up for my ride into JCCC. I finally got the rear rack replaced by my boys at the RECYCLERY in lawrence but had some major mechanicals before taking off and during the ride. had a sidewall tear and tried to switch tires out, but for the life of me could not get the tire off the other rim from my the steel SS roadie. So i patched the tire the best I could, threw a new tube in and hoped for the best. ride was going good for the first 3 miles or so then i heard a nassssty grinding above my ipod. chain tensoner bolt had come loose and needed a fixing, plus the seat was at Elize chill-ride height, not Brett-commuting to JCCC height. took a few minutes to fix those issues and hammered to get here. got from the crib to jccc in under an hour, a new best by over 15 minutes.

i think i'm getting in a little better shape finally. my back muscles and legs feel great :)

peace!!!!!

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

rest

currently wrapping up a 4 day rest from pedaling, which has worked out, cause it's been wet out recently. man, my legs feel a lot better today after the few days off.

tomorrow is the Thursday Swope ride, I'll be shooting for around 35 miles and then Saturday is the Farmhouse Classic Gravel Grinder, 62 or 100 miles of good times in northwest MO, that I'll be attending with some of my COLAVITA/PARISI teammates. 62 miles on my Single speed, this will be my longest ride EVER. gotten to 56 one time, and was dead for 2 days, after riding a SS roadie. we'll see how 62 on the SS MTB will do me.

peace!

Friday, July 10, 2009

thursday's at swope

great turnout last night! lots of people on the trails and cars in the lot. really cool. big ups to nate who rode in with me from the plaza. looks like it'll be at least us two riding in every week, hopefully more will join soon.

henceforth we will be leaving the trolley track trail head at brookside/volker at 5:15 pm to arrive at the swope trail head by 6 pm. gives us more daylight at the trails to have a bigger group.

anyway, nate and i started up the blue, got onto the newly officially opened phase 2, and met Phil Scherer and Joe Folse, who were headed the opposite direction. We bs'd for a minute and I convinced them to jump[ on out tail and ride with us through phase two and back down the orange. did one lap and nate was ready for some food, btw, he was on flat pedals, crazzzzzy. I forget those exist sometimes.

we cruised down swope pwky down to brush creek for the ride home. after riding through grass and goose shit for what seemed like forever, nate made the good call of getting us back on the road. 21 miles all said and done by the time i got back home.

right now i'm at jccc using some internets cause mine's not hooked up in the new place yet. rode here too, yay for another 40 miles.

tomorrow is bikes and brews and landahl. mountain biking at landahl, barbeque and beer? not much better than that in kansas city.

peace!!!

Sunday, July 5, 2009

tour of lawrence

watched some Tour of Lawrence yesterday. It was the downtown crit, pretty cool stuff, didn't get to see anyone bite it though. roadie racing is so wankish really, those fellas are afraid to make a move it seems. just sit in the pack and try to sprint at the end, dumb. hahaha, but anyway, enough of me bashing the roadies, I like doing it, just aggressively :)

i will give the dudes cred though on being in insane shape. Cat 4s averaged 25 MPH, 3s probably around 28 and Pros were around 32 I heard. Dudes were flying around the mile loop downtown. Really cool to watch at home.

big ups to my TEAM COLAVITA/PARISI teammates Eric Stull (3rd in Cat 4), Britton K (3rd in Cat 3) and Matt P (4th in Cat 3) for their performances downtown yesterday. I missed the end of the 4s race while having a beer at free state, mmmmmm, sorry Eric! I was really impressed with Britton and Matt though. They started at the dead end of the pack of around 50 riders and slowly but surely gained positions until with 2 laps to go, they were in the break pack, where they held on for 3rd and 4th. VERY smart racers, good job fellas.

Federer is about to beat Roddick, it's 7-6 in the 5th set advantage Fed. I don't know why I'm putting anything about it, but it is badass. I hope he pulls it out, 15 majors in tennis is an insane accomplishment. i'm an equal opportunity sports enthusiast, so sue me.

peace!

Saturday, July 4, 2009

busy

moving, schooling, riding, training, drinking, partying, city life-ing.

this week has been nuts. lots of miles, lots of liquor, lots of tests, lots of not enough sleep. i'm in lawrence right now getting ready to go watch to tour of lawrence. no bike with me so I'll be running/hiking everywhere this weekend. not too bad if the rain holds off until i can get back to shelter.

thursday night swope ride was a little disappointing. hopefully there weren't as many people as there normally will be because of the holiday weekend. i know a lot of people dipped out early this week from work. there were still probably 8 or so others I saw, Travis Donn and Travis Stephens blazing ridick fast laps, Phil Scherer and Ben McCall did a lap with Pete Barth and then me. Also saw a guy on a sick Moots set-up and a couple others parked in the lot, but didn't see on the trail.

night laps at swope are the shit by the way. peace!