Scary Motorcycle ride

As I'm sure most of you noticed, today was pretty windy. With gusts maxing out at 40mph unknown to me at the time, I decided to see how the new motorcycle handled highway driving. I went down to Oshkosh to celebrate my sisters sons birthday. So I took 41 down and the wind was horrible. I have never ridden in more violent wind. The mirrors on the bike kind of suck, and I was getting pushed a whole lane width by the wind. It really was quite scary. I took county roads home with less traffic, but It was still quite a ride. It was manageable but scary, and it definitly kept my speed down. Leaning 15 degrees to the side to counteract wind starts to feel weird after a while.

Functional bling

Gold Levers Pretty. Adjustable reach

Nice warm ride

Had a very fun ride last night at the camp. I think we ended up having around 10 show up in the heat. It was a couple degrees cooler at the camp. Really the sweat just stuck to you, the heat really wasn't a problem.

I tried out Kelly's 29er single speed. I had never ridden a single speed before, and it was quite fun. The bikes handling and geometry took some getting used too. The gear ratio seemed to work very well though. Otherwise the ride felt like a race. Four of us stayed together going at a really good clip.

Everyone should try to get out to the Wednesday rides. It's a really good time, although sometimes we'll hammer it out. Just make sure to communicate how you are feeling. We usually wait every couple sections.

An ok Suby Cup

Well after ariving a half hour before the start of the sport race, I did ok. My start was really bad. I probably wasted my last call up for the year. The start really left no time to spread the field out so I got caught behind a lot of slow people. Also I had a horrible time getting used to the rock gardens. I went over the handlebars in the first single track section. The strange thing is that the climbs really didn't bother me at all. I had plenty of power, but the mud sucked my tires down. I was very happy with 1 hour 20min (good for 11th).

I had a nice first ever motorcycle ride with my dad. It was pretty cool to be able to ride with the old man. We never had two motorcycles to ride together. Total I've ridden 200miles on the R6 since thursday, so not too bad considering it's not that comfortable. Really I think riding the road bicycle has helped with kind of a similar geometry. One worry though is the palm of my hand has been numb since thursday(no pain though).

No Regrets, just more Ambitions

I've been wanting to get a street bike since I first wanted a motorcycle. Well that day has come. The BMW has been safely training me for the last 4 years already, and now an addition to the collection a Yamaha R6. With the equivalent of 500 HP per ton it has more power than it should for the street. 17,000rpm redline of which I can't do right now with the break in periode. I've never been one to be real obnoxious on the street, but this bike just screams and I ony barely did 12'000 rpm once. SO now I just need to keep myself in line. Truely a gorgeous bike in orange, my faviorite color.

I'll see you all on saturday at Mt. Morris. I'm feeling great, right back where I should be.

Cheers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Nice to enjoy summer weather

Well I went to my first "Bar" last night. I think Randy B would approve Titletown Brewery. I went with my buddy Ben and we had there sampler of beer. Very cool, they give you a place matte where they set the nine types of beer with some info about each. Since I have no tolorance for alchohol I was tipsy after the first four. I didn't get drunk, but I felt really good. I definitly had to concentrate on walking.

Today I went out to the Morotcycle dealer along 41. I got a new visor for my helmet, and then I asked about demoing a bike. They said yeah sure what ever you want (sweet). I've never ridden any type of sport bike, and I've been thinking about getting one for a long time. So I took out a 2008 Yamaha R6. Wow, It felt so different, more so than switching from a MTB to a road bike. I wasn't evan sure I'd be able to ride it, thats how different it was. I won't evan say how fast I was going in third gear. So needless to say I want one. I really am quite scared of it though as I should be.


Now it's time to go to the Camp for a lap.

Good Ridin this week

I've really had a nice couple of rides this week. I took Monday and tuesday off and just slacked off after work. On Wednesday we had about 7 guys on the ride. Quite a few new faces including eric whos first race was Wausau. So we took it easy and stayed together for the most part. We ended up doing a complete loop and then backwards through the first section which I've only done once or twice before. It was nice to change it up a bit.

Tonight I went to the BikeHub ride and it was really great. We stayed together for the first ten miles or so, and the pace began to climb after that. We waited for everyone at stop signs which was ok. Really a great group of riders and very organized. I could definatly tell I hadn't been on the road bike for two months, but I still pulled a lot at the front. Definitly planning on making it a regular on my schedual. Nothing planned for the weekend otherwise. Just slack off and need to clean my cars and room, maybe head out to the camp.

Wausau Report and somthing special

It took me a while to recover from my injured knee from rhinelander, but I think it's just about back to normal. Since I've been doing so well this season I really had high expectations for Wausau. Unfortunatly though, on friday night I started going through the bike changing tires and such. I looked at the rear wheel and I never nothiced how bent up it got from my crash in Rhinelander. I brought it to JB and they didn't have time to fix it, so I just took it home thinking it would be ok for one more race. Once I examined it more I notice that I could turn one of the nipples by hand. I probably could have done a hack job of trueing it, but I really didn't want to make it worse.

So enough details, I ended up taking my dads stuntjumper. I thought the tires on it were fine which was a huge mistake. This bike feels like a tank compared to my ProCaliber. In warming up for the race, I noticed the bike just didn't roll at all. At that point I didn't expect much at all. So the race went horribly slow and I could barely go over fifteen, and mentally I just wasn't there. I ended up 17th with 1 hour 38 min (freaken horrible). In the end I should have brought my wheel in sooner, so oh well. I'll just have to do over 7 races to wipe this bad result out. The Procaliber will be out for Mount Morris, so beware, I'm planning on bringing out my Game face!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I think I'm going to try the BikeHub ride this Thursday and go to the camp Wednesday for the group ride.

I think that I've been racing long enough (7 season starts) to show these pictures. These are from my very first race in Kewaunee 2003. I weighed about 220lbs and was about 4" shorter. So seeing these and how the team and WORS has changed me for the better makes me feel pretty damn good. I weigh about 175lbs now, and I can vouch that its the best "diet program" in the world LOL!! Also if you notice I new nothing about equipment. My first ride was a Giant AC2. It weighs ride around 40lbs with 6" travel front and rear. Origionally I wanted to get into Downhilling, but quickly found out that it didn't exist here very much.

What an Amazing Race

Good old Rhinelander, it was my home town till I was two years old. I still remember the first year of racing there with the marathon suffer fest. After Iola I had some pretty high expectations for myself, and considering what happened during the race I am very pleased.

We had four guys from the flyers in the 19-24 wave (Andy, Scott, Ethan, and yours truly). I really didn't know what to expect from the other three, but I really wanted to beat all of the. I especially wanted to beat Andy after he beat me with no problem last year regularly. I shook hands with all the lead guys in the start shoot before Don said Gooo (I thought that that was very proper) I probably had the best start ever, as I was in the top ten of our wave for about two miles. While we were still on the gravel road, I noticed two guys hashing it out next to me. Both of them got closer and closer and before I knew it the guy to my left was pushing the wheels out from under me. So down I went. Made sure the Bike and I were still in working order, got up and went as quike as I could. I didn't evan look back to see who had hit me, all I remeber is seeing someone getting up. I feel very fortunate that it wasn't worse. I was ready to get run over by all the people behind me going full bore.

So Andy, Scott and Ethan are gone, and I'm on an adrenaline trip. I was more than a little mad, and I hammered through the field. I caught Scott about 3/4 through lap one and Ethan not too much later I think. Andy proved to be harder to catch and at this point I didn't think I had a chance. All of a sudden as it usually goes I see a flyer Jersey and I knew I had him. We exchanged our excuses and I passed him with about 3 miles to go. At that point I was starting to feel the affects of pushing so hard to catch up. I got on the logging road and couldn't go much over 15.The bridge area cam up soon after and I thought I saw Andy catching up. The roads coming back were brutal and again I couldn't go over 15mph. I pushed all the way to the finish and it turns out that the guy behind me was another flyer from a different age. I didn't recognize him, but thanked him for the extra motivation.

I went to the medics to get my knee cleaned, Shot the shit for a while and packed up for the long drive home. I went into work today and the leg didn't feel that great, so I took a half day off ( a definite perk of my job). Hoping I'll be in tip top shape for Wausua. Otherwise I was very impressed with how many Flyers Jerseys I saw in the finish. Now I just need to meet a couple more of you.

Cheers