The Wenzlick Flyer

The Joys of Homeownership

2010-02-23T12:31:00.000-08:00

So hey, if you haven't heard I've been looking for a house. I found one and accepted an offer a couple of days ago. Thus far the process has been about what I expected (nothing too complicated). I've been building my credit for the last 4 years or so and I got preapproved without any trouble. Today I'm going in for the next steps of the mortgage process, so we'll see how complex thats gets to be.

The house I'm trying to get is a 1930's cape cod in Allouez. The street it's on is shared with other historic era homes of which I'm sure will look beautiful in summer. The lot is a nice size for being in the city 50' * 180'. It has a decent yard behind the detached garage. The last owners updated everything that needed to be. The water heater, forced air unit, central air, Roof, and siding are no more than three years old. They actually renovated the upstairs and raised the roof a couple feet to make a huge master bedroom. It has a master bath, two walk in closets, and a balcony off the back. All the widows in the haouse are new as well :).

I'm so excited to make it my home, Ashlyn and I have so many cool ideas and aspirations with this house. All I can say, is that it's going to be one of the coolest rebuilt 1930's alloez homes. Well I'm off to sign my name 50 more times.

A long time again

2009-12-11T07:12:00.000-08:00

So, yes it's been a long time once again. Facebook kinda took over my life and time, and have just been incredibly busy. Went to Georgia, Alabama, and Florida over the last couple months and work has been consistent when I'm home.

I worked over the weekend last week and I'll be working this weekend as well 8 hours a day. Next week they're letting us work for 10hours a day from Mon to Sat. Kinda crazy if you ask me. They had these shut down periods this year, so to make up for it they're giving everyone left over time and a lot of it. So it kinda didn't save the company money in my eyes. Whatever it's good for me.

After hearing about the first time home buyer extension to April I got to thinking about buying a house. I've looked at one so far and want to see probably 5 more. I went through my finacnes over and over and I think I can swing it. I'm looking at it as yeah I may be poor for a while, but with interest rates and a tax credit, I'll be saving a lot of money in the long run. I'm gonna add my over time to a nice down payment I got going, should be able to pay 10 to 20% down by the time I decide to buy.

So yeah I'm happy with the over time, but not with how much of my time it will take up. I want to go skiing bad. Don't know if Refo is grromed or not, but would think so. Need to pick up new boots as I destroyed one of mine on a little crash last year :P.

My life has been very busy, but very enjoyable with Ashlyn now in the picture. We're doing quite well. Talking about houses and stuff. Some things are making things complicated and stressful for us, but unfortunatly it's things we can't control :(. We're helping each other out though and we'll make it through together. Things are definetly very entertaining to some degree and the experiances I've had at work will help us through (Can't be no push over in my job :)). can't wait for the New years ride, I think this will be the fifth year and my fifth year as well. Remember any conditions..........We're riding, thats the appeal :)

It's been a long time

2009-10-02T15:07:00.000-07:00

Oh my my my, I have been a busy boy. This has been one of the longests weeks I've ever had. Switching to second shift has definitely been a tough mental challenge, but I thinks I'm handling it ok. I miss biking sooo much. I have about four and a half hours in the morning before work to do what ever. For this week at least I havent had time to bike. Get up and go spend time with Ashlyn. I'm not really complaining, because I wanted to spend that time with her, Just wish I had more time to bike.

I am doing the WORS Race this weekend (YAY!!!!). I don't know how I'll do, a but I don't really care (just want to get out there). Sometimes in the past I've gone weeks without riding and I do awsome at races afterward. It should be a good weekend.

All I can say is that I'm so thankful to have my job. A lot of luck and maybe a hint of hard work got me where I am. I KNOW I don't realize how lucky I am. That being said I still can't wait to get back on days :). See you all this weekend!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Nice Weekend and Great Success

2009-09-01T07:35:00.000-07:00

So I started out my Saturday morning at 5 am to go into work for 6am. I worked an uneventful shift for 5 hours and earned some extra cash along the way. I got home and started packing up the Jeep for the weekend. I was pretty much ready to go and I realized I forgot to pack the damaged pole for my tent. Look for it can't find it, so I head out to Gander Mountain and Plan on heading to the race. On the way remember I forgot the Cooler, Ugh!!!!!. So I purchase my new tent and the money I made that morning is spent :(. Oh well, it turned out to be a very nice tent.

I finally arrive at the camp at about 2:30 and its cruddy out. I hung out with the guys under the Specialized easy up for a while and just wandered around. In a break in the rain I started to set up the tent. I did it by my self, which sucked a little in the rain but overall ok.

Ashlyn arrived at around 6:30, set up her stuff in the tent and headed back to town for El Azteca. WE got back and hung out in the tent. the rain eventually stopped. I think we popped out at 10:30 and it was very pleasant out. Got to bed at around midnight and woke up at 2:30 to my myself pretty cold. Ashlyn stepped out and said it was very clear out. Overall I got 4 hours sleep and she got 2.

Luckily our task for the day was course marshalling, so we could relax. The breeze was cool all day, but the sun was warm. Kept my jacket and hat on all day. We had to get back to pick up camp and get Ashlyn to work, so we had a little adventure getting off the course while the race was still going. I waited for a break in the racers and mashed the gas on the jeep. Everyone was going at a good clip. I actually had some racers drafting off my jeep for a short time till I pulled off the race course. So that went as planned luckily and we got out of there in time.

So we both had a great weekend, and I'm very happy for all who made it happen with out any seriuos problems.

Cheers!!!!!

Been a while

2009-08-21T06:28:00.000-07:00

Well after spending a week and a half in Alabama, I figured it was time to get back on the bicycle. I went to Refo on Sunday for a good lap to get back into the groove (48'30"). I felt pretty good about that lap time. My goal was under 48, but didn't feel like killing myself. To continue my transition back I went to the Bike Hub ride last night. It was a pretty small turnout initially with Schindle, Mark, and I. Eventually we had eight show up. The first fifteen miles were pretty rough, because the group split in half quite a few times. I'd always end up being the bridge between groups, as I really didn't have the lungs back yet to stay on. We stayed together for a while, but two guys just had to mash it up front and break us apart. The rain did luckily stay away and weatherwise it was very pleasant, although be it a little windy.

Otherwise got Ashlyn a Motorcycle helmet and we've been going for a couple rides. We tried the BMW first and the R6 after. The R6 was definitely a lot more work for both of us, but still fun. I havent had a passager on a motor cycle very much in the past, so I'm still getting used to it. Making good headway with it though and Ashlyn seems to be enjoying it.

Good ol Alterra

2009-08-04T16:36:00.000-07:00

I'd really consider the results of last weekend as quite successfull. I'm back in 4th place overall, so a call up was in order. I'm really glad I had it too. I practiced the start 4 or 5 times, and the results were great. I had an awsome start(top 5 at the top of the hill). Shifting worked really well luckily. I remeber shifting up at least 3 times before the top of the hill. I was also very lucky at the start as well. At the first corner two or three guys crashed. It was the first time I had ever seen bikes and people in the air. It looked very nasty and just missed them myself. So I got a good position into the single track and held my position pretty well. Had to get used to the singletrack (Did crash once first lap).I felt pretty good on the switch backs. Icouldn't have gone much faster because of traffic, but I was steadily passing people.

Andy W busted a spoke that morning. Tried to find a wheel, but I didn't see him get one. So second lap half way through, I hear some smart comments from behind and to my surprise there he was. I led him for a while and we were going good.We caught up with traffic and didn't have much trouble. I did go to pass a guy on the right, and then he moved to the right and I was stuck. Andy took the advantage and flew by. Eventually I got back to Andy, and passed several more groups of people. Right before the switchbacks we went to pass and I hooked handlebars and took someone out. So I stopped made sure he was ok because it was my fault. I was still standing after the crash and proceeded to catch Andy again. He was within reach on the switchbacks, but there was too much traffic. So that second crash gave him the thirty second lead. I really tip my hat to him thoigh for quick tactics.

So after some risky and dirty racing I ended up 7th about 30seconds behind Andy. Really I did enjoy the race. Yes, some of the traffic sucked, but I consider myself one of the lucky ones.

EAA AirVenture

2009-08-01T07:30:00.000-07:00

I had a pretty sweet week last week. After yet another successful checkout of a machine last week, I had two awesome days at EAA. I went on Thursday with Ashlyn who I've been seeing for a week and a half now. We looked at all the cool stuff and watched the whole air show and demonstrations. I evan got to do a test drive of a ford fiesta, since ford is a major EAA Sponsor. One of the main attractions of the show was two Mustange GT500's and two airplanes racing from opposite ends of the runway. It really was pretty sweet, and boy those GT500's sound awsome.

Check out the Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ON_2o7TpwXo

On Friday I went with my Dad two look at all the vendors and exibits. I like looking at all the new tech and gadgetry. I finally got to see my dream airplane, that has been in development for a number of years. It's called the Icon A5. An anphibious aircraft with internal landing gear. It looks like it would be a blast. The wings fold up and you can trailer it. Oh yeah me want, maybe I'll split the coast of a used one with my dad someday.

I'm sure that most of you have heard of the Airbus A380. I got to see it take off and leave for France yesterday. It really is a big freak'n airplane. It looks kind of normal in the air, but up close the engines are bigger than a semi cab. Cool slow speed demonstrations and very fast take off.

Check out the video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yw5bAqvRDpE

So tommorro is the Alterra Coffee Bean Classic. Planning on being their, did manage to preregister. Only rode last Sunday, so we'll see how I do.

A bit of fun in the dark ages

2009-07-28T17:38:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday I went down to the Bristol Renaissance Fair in Kenosha. Wow what a place. So much to do including Comedy, magicians, and Jousting of course. This place is really like disney world quality. The premises is heavily wooded and built to look like a renaissance city. The jousters had really top notch horsemanship.

Up nort last week

2009-07-17T14:37:00.000-07:00

It's been busy this last week for me. I didn't start going back to sleep earlier from last week and that bit me in the but. I had two nights this week where I got home and slept till supper(not good). I also had two good ride though. Had a group of five roll out wednesday. Kelly had his helmet cam, and had the opportunity to catch two crashes from me and Brent(Don't know if he got them). I just made a stupid mistake of hitting a big stump at an apex. Brent slid out at high speed right in front of me( a good 3 second crash). It really is sandy and dusty out a the camp. I had my knobby tires on and I was sliding a lot.

Also had a good ride at the Hub. We had a fast ride of 19.6mph average for me. The wind was a little rough, but we had some strong lead riders. Really some of the riders were too strong because we broke apart in the wind along a long strait section(I was in the lead group though).

Here's a couple of shots from vaca last week.
Tradition for the family is to stop at dog n suds in tomahawk.
Off roading fun with gasoline along power transmission lines. I took some of the other "kids" along for this joyride. Only one hard smack to the head for my copilot Aaron.
Went biking with dad.

Thanks for the photo Christine

2009-07-06T20:04:00.001-07:00

Firecracker start~!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That was soo fast and fun

2009-07-06T19:27:00.000-07:00

Over to Eau Claire I went with Mr. Borst after taking a year off from the firecracker. I remeber it being a fun race, but with my increased speed this year it was a blast. I really got to put out a awsome word for the people who maintain and put on the firecracker. Everyone I talked to had a blast and loved the course. Unfortunatly we had a couple of casualties. Steel ran head on into someone going backwards on the course and got several stitches in the hand. I really feel horrible for him. Shawn alos took a hard hit of which I don't know all the details, but sounded like he was ok.

I really gave it my all. The start could have gone a little better for me, but I got where I should have been. I ended up 9th about 4 minutes behind first in age. 5th to 8th, I think were about 10 seconds apart, but about two minutes if front of me. I think back and feel I could have gone a little harder in the single track, but it would have been on the ragged edge of control for me. I was sick of crashing this year like many of us. Again a really awsome race and fun time with the guys and girl.

Refo Ramble Recon

2009-07-03T07:16:00.001-07:00

Last Wednesday for the group ride out at the camp, we were looking over new routes for the ramble race. Jeff Austin was there to show and suggest possible new routes for the race. From what I've seen so far it'll be a very nice balance of single to double track. Of course this is still a marathon style format (about 24miles for sport), so we want too keep it fast. We're thinking about adding our version of the equilizer. I managed to get up the suggested hill, but it's very sandy. Another idea was for a hill almost impossible to ride, which would probably have to be ran up.

So that was Recon number one, with a few more I'm sure. We had a great turnout with about 14 people. So everyone keep trying to make it out. I'll be heading up nort next wed to sun, so I won't be able to make it.

Scary Motorcycle ride

2009-06-28T18:59:00.000-07:00

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

2009-06-27T08:06:00.000-07:00

Gold Levers Pretty. Adjustable reach

Nice warm ride

2009-06-25T06:56:00.001-07:00

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

2009-06-21T16:08:00.000-07:00

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

2009-06-18T19:48:00.000-07:00

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

2009-06-13T12:05:00.000-07:00

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

2009-06-11T18:42:00.000-07:00

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

2009-06-08T15:38:00.000-07:00

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

2009-06-01T12:49:00.000-07:00

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

Good times

2009-05-26T18:06:00.000-07:00

Had a nice Memorial Day. Met up with Andy for the first time in quite a while, and went to the camp. We had two very nice laps (about 54 and 50 min). Of course we had to size each other up for this weekend. It should be an interesting race For Scott, Andy, and I, becuase we'll be racing directly against each other. We'll have to see if I can keep up my good finishes against those two. Andy performed very well for his first time on the mountain bike this year. I can definitly tell he had been doing something all spring. He'll know if I'm behind him with how loud my hubs are (thats just the intimidation factor).

Had a nice Saturday

2009-05-23T17:08:00.000-07:00

Oh what a day, in a good way. I woke up at 8 and didn't get out of bed until around 10. I really haven't ridden at all this past week, but I did ride to work about 3.8 miles each way on friday. So I went for a very good loop at the camp around 1. I talked to a couple people who were just out for a fun ride, but training was on my mind. A better loop for me at Refo is around 50 min and up till today my record for the year was about 51min 30sec. Well today I smashed that record with a 47min 45sec. So basically I was in aw of this acheivement. I was pushing it really hard but I felt good at the same time. I got home, took a shower and relaxed for a while.

Oh there's a really shiny thing in my drive way now. 2.5hours of washing, polishing, and then waxing. I don't have a power buffer, so it's old fashioned by hand. Got to thank my dad for helping me with it. I try to do this twice a year at least. It's so shiny!!!!

12 hours of stumpfarm

2009-05-21T17:30:00.000-07:00

I know it's a little late to talk about the 12 hour at refo, but I feel like it anyway. What an excellent race, I really had a blast. I wasn't too fast off the start because, I didn't want to step on anyone or get stepped on, so I waited for most of the people to get to there bikes. I slammed it down the strait and passed as many people as I could before the single track. I settled into a great groove and I stuck with two ladies and a guy on a single speeder for a majority of the race. Lancer and I finished our third laps at the same time and both decided to go for the fourth lap. Lancer left me in the dust and I was hurting a lot. I wanted to get off the course soo bad. Fortunatly Scott cought me and gave m e the determineation to finish. We had a good old fashioned sprint between our selves, and Scott beat me out. That was the longest continuos ride I've ever done on the Mountain bike and I tell you at Iola with Refo under my belt I felt awsome.
Kudos to Mark the Chiropracter for coming out us as well. See you all at Rhinelander and lets camp it up.

It's about time

2009-05-17T16:05:00.000-07:00

What a nice first race. We had a great turnout of most of the usual team and a couple newer faces. I'd say we had at least 12. The course was great, classic Iola with a few sand traps. This was probably the best I have ever felt post race. I really though I could have done another lap. I think that its partly because of all the long distance riding I've dome this spring. The lap just flew by and all of a sudden it was time to cross the finish. My time was around a hour 18 minutes(4 minute improvement from two years ago). So finally the big news, I got my very first medal from racing in sport for three years(4th place out of 23) yay!!!Me Schindle Aaron Lanser

Last ditch effort to train for Refo

2009-05-05T19:43:00.000-07:00

Well I got out to the camp today finally. I did two laps, the first 51minutes, and the second 54. I wasn't too impressed with those times, but considering how little riding I've done recently, not bad. This was actually the first time I was able to do complete green loops. It took some getting used to being bumped and bashed around after doing so much road training. I got a good start on the calices on my hands. The second lap it hurt quite alot. Other than that, the legs feel great and I didn't hit any tree's, for which I'm surprised.

Plan for the rest of the week, Do one lap tomorrow with the group and two on Thursday. Should be doing the 6 hour with Randy B on Saturday.

I'll be writing up on the Electric car soon. I just don't feel like typing for a half hour right now. In the mean time check out the video I put together.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-mpSEVrsqg

Busy week

2009-04-30T13:13:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to leave a quick note. I rode yesterday at the camp on the short loop (I forgot my riding shoes!!!). I didn't want to just go home, so at least I did something, right? Had a blast at Road America with the car, came in first place for the third year in a row with the robot, and going to WIR this Friday and Saturday with the electric car. Sorry I couldn't make it out to help at the trails.

My God, I think we got it

2009-04-24T19:06:00.001-07:00

Today was the last day we had to get the car prepared for Road America this coming Sunday and Monday. Everything got buttoned up, the body installed and a larger sproket in place after our not so stellar performance on Wednesdays test run. so we brough her out to our private test track and began running, looking good along the way. Eventually our driver stops at the other end of the track and starts to get out (not good!!!!). We added an internal hub tranny to the mix this year and the cable housing had wrapped a good 4 or 5 times around the axle. So we disaembled the wheel to see if we could salvage it (no such luck).

I went back to the weld shop and made a call to Jeff at JB. I had almost no hopes of finding the fairly rair hub tranny. It just so happened Jeff had bought a spare complete wheel and shifter years back. Oh my god this is amazing I thought, 5:30 Friday night and within an hour we had a brand new wheel for a hell of a deal. So we installe it in about an hour and took it out for some very satifying laps. All I can say is thanks to Jeff and JB Cycle. Wothout the wheel our months of work would have been down the drain for our premeir race.
Tomorrow I have a robot competition to attend all day so you all have fun with whatever type of riding you end up doing.

Pace Line

2009-04-20T04:57:00.001-07:00

I had a very nice weekend for the most part. My machine was successfully accepted by the customer at work and I managed to get out a little early on Friday. Saturday was one of the busier days I've had recently. Summer is getting slowly closer and my schedule like most of yours is getting busy.

Saturdays ride started off like any other. I felt good and determined to be at the front and push my self that little bit more. I had plenty of aggression to get out from the previous week at work. I showed up and there was a very disappointing showing of the Titletown crew. I believe there were only six of us that showed and the rest were others from the newvelo site. Before we headed out I tried to warn the others that extra layers would not be needed, some listened.

So we rolled out with a nice easy pace, I was itching to get going with an unusual amount of energy. We got to the hills at thornberry and our field began to show how we would split up. We regouped and decided to let the faster group go, which included myself, Shawn, and Mark. It didn't take long for me to figure out that our group meant business. We had a paceline going for a good 15 miles cruising at about 22mph. It was fun and gave me something to think about along the way. The first time I attacked no one followed, I don't know why? I hadn't really intended for anyone to follow anyway,just a little Wenzlick flyer to keep my energy in control. The second time I attacked was with a tail wind. We had just turned onto a new road and the tail wind felt awsome. I cruised at 25 for a little while with no effort, and then the numbers began to climb. I started to push past 30, passing the main group and then I started to push. I was going at around 34mph and could sense no one was behind ,but I looked and there they all were stuck to my draft. Three of them passed me as I started to lose energy, and I tried with all my might to hitch on. So that went on for a couple miles maybe two or three, and it was probably the most fun couple miles I ever had on a road bike.

On the way back toward thornberry we were doing about 22 and I started to die. Shawn and I were trying to hang onto the back of the group and I barely did. Overall for me it was one of the most enjoyable rides I have done. I don't know what happened with me this year, but I feel a lot stronger. We'll just have to see if I can translate the Road to the Mountain.

Other notes, went to Shawn's place for a little while to celebrate the big forty. There were no black balloons to be seen and rightly so. All of the finely aged fellas on our team are a big example of how I want to be when I'm just a little bit older. I hope I can keep it up!
I spent around 10 hours working on the car over the weekend and it's alive! Rain severly hampered our testing plans, but hopfully this wednesday night we'll be able to run it more.

Electrathon Car Body

2009-04-16T18:16:00.000-07:00

Pepe A friend of Russ, my welding instructor donated the material and helped cover our car body on Tuesday. Pepe is a surgeon and one of his hobbies is building airplanes, so he donated the same stuff you use to cover airframes with, for our body. The fabric is called Dacron, it's super light and strong and shrinks when heat is applied. It doesn't look like much now, but the current paint plan is a dark silver base coat with metalic orange stripes going down the sides and up the middle.
The first drive of the car is this sunday, so prey for the rain to stay away till monday please. I've had a super busy week with work and it's been super hard to get to the school to do the wiring that I've voluteered to do. I have to go in on saturday after a partial team ride(try to get 25miles in ).

New Wheels

2009-04-14T08:42:00.001-07:00

I got my new Crank Brothers Cobalt Wheels on my bike last night and they look awesome. Istalled the new S-works slk tires (with tubes for now) and my old rotors. Took it out for a little test ride after I put them on. Of course they feel a lot faster (because I spent money and they're shiny), but really they do feel like they roll faster. I can't wait to try them on the trail. Now I need to get a blue water bottle cage to complete the look.

Couple new faces on the ride and great weather

2009-04-11T12:11:00.000-07:00

Had another great turnout today. probably started with around twelve or so in the parking lot. I was not feeling in top form today so I was toward the back of the group today. I know that we did catch one or two other groups along the way, so probably had about the same number as last week. We evan had a couple new guys that saw our ride out on the newvelo site. Our group split ways again doing probably 25, 35, and more.

We did have one little incident that luckily resulted in no bodily harm. We had a sudden turn and Matt Lanser got hooked together to another bike while braking. Matt had a broken spoke but could ride on without any trouble. Really no ones fault, the turn came up fast and no one in the back was prepared.

After the bike ride I got a call from a buddy Mark to go out on the motorcycle. We met up at the train museum and proceeded to leave. However Marks bike died as we were about to pull away. His car was just a block or so away, so we jumped it. We then proceeded out to thornberry to open the throttle a little. We got up to FF and again the bike dies. So I haul ass back to my house to get the jeep, jump him and follow him back. Not the greatest ride, but at least we tried.

Nice weekend of riding

2009-04-05T12:02:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we had one of the biggest turnouts for spring training that I had ever been apart of. 18 brave souls hit the road in the balmy 35degree temps in the beginning and ending around mid 40's.
It sounds like there was a nice selection of lengths with a 30, 40, and 60 mile routes. I did the 30 miles and it felt good after 12 days off the bike.
After the ride, I immediately got in the shower and went to NWTC to see what had been done with the Electrathon car. We added a front bumper of sorts as a support for the body and a crumple zone. Also a new place for the battery was added. This year we're going with Lithium Polymer batteries as apposed to our lead acid car batteries. The batteries are our "party trick" for the year. Last year the two car batteries weighed in at 67lbs, the LIPO battery weighs 12lbs. Some of the electrical changes are at the edge of there capabilities, so I'm hoping that we don't toast anything. The batteries are $1300 a piece so I hope that they work.
Today, I woke up didn't see any snow, went down to look at the temp (35) looks good to me. Went out to Henisrah and three other of the boys showed up for a MTB ride. This was the first time on the MTB seriously since Iceman. We toured around for a couple of loops and I called it quites after three(feet were frozen). It started to snow pretty good at about 9:30, it made me feel even better seeing it.

The Economy has hit me as it has for many of you

2009-03-27T18:11:00.001-07:00

Well I figured that it may happen at some point over the next year layoff and furloughs. Some of you may have seen PCMC had a story in the paper regarding this. Only thing I know as of now is 4 weeks of layoff spread over the next six months. If it stays at that It really shouldn't be that bad. I hae to wait and see what the Union has to say before I really know what will actually happen. The layoffs are supposed to be company wide (engineering, service, assembly, sales), so it's seems very fair to me. It's still very early in this development, so theres really no info for better or worse. The only thing that I worry about is what is beyond just these four weeks. For example a buddy of mine was supposed to be layed off for two weeks or so, but the company suddenly said they were closing all together. Now I don't think that PCMC is going to close anytime soon, but it just shows how fast things can get bad.

So we'll see what happens. I'm going to just keep on biking. I have a good 6 months of money saved not including unemployment, so I should be good. Otherwise I hope htat we can have a good ride on saturday.

Great Weekend of Riding

2009-03-22T18:12:00.000-07:00

After yesterdays surprise snow fall we did get a ride in the afternoon. I was expecting to do maybe 20 to 30 miles as to not kill myself for Sunday morning. However this did not happen to be Mr. Gantz plan. We got on a seemingly monstrous 50miles in over three hours, with an impressive average of 17mph. What a great ride. I wasn't prepared at all, but I must have still had something left in me, and the peer pressure to keep going helps to.

We headed out on Packerland and went east along the river to wrightstown. In wrightstown we just happened to run into two of the performa boys and Aaron Sikora. We then proceeded east till we were about perpendicular with scrays hill. The we headed north to hit up scrays hill. On the way out east we went toward a road called Green leaf I think, which was proceede by one of the most awsome climbs I've ever done. It had to be a good half mile of climbing, of which a qauter was the real climb. I just stayed at 13mph all the way up standing on the pedals. So after scrays hill we came back through depere then onto broadway.

Today we had another nice ride. I tried to take it easy, but I still had some fun. We did a nice 25 mile loop around thornberry and accross 29.

So a great weekend. I felt awsome,and it really puts me in higher spirits for the upcoming season. I did decide to go for the Crank Brother Cobalts. I can't wait to get them,because I like shiny things.

Nice Weather we're having

2009-03-18T07:23:00.000-07:00

It's been a pretty good week for me so far. I've been doing my first machine power up. this include pulling all the fuses and powering them up one at a time. I also get to wear all of the sexy arc flash gear, so I don't burst into flames if I do something stupid. Today I'm learning how to lad the programs and set a the electronics up.

I've also had a week of riding. Yesterday Mark Schindle and I met up for the 5:30 ride. We were the only ones that made it, but we had a good ride. We headed out around Thornberry and I got in 21.5 miles. There were 4 or 5 stretches were the breeze helped us along at about 25 to 30 mph( It was fast and fun). Monday I also got out for a solo ride of 10 miles. I had a good average of 17mph.

So I'm hoping the weather is fairly decent this weekend, so we can all get together for some more great early training. I really want to get on the Mountain bike though. Road riding is entertaining to me for only so long.

Lastly to those who made it out for the ride last Sunday, I had to go to oshkosh and help my sister move. Just by chance I did see you all on the frontage road along 41 on my way down.

Weekend Ride

2009-03-14T13:19:00.000-07:00

It started out pretty cold (26), but it warmed up fairly quick. I was comfortable for the whole ride. We had a great turnout of 10 riders. Unfortunatly someone had a flat less than a mile out and turned back. We went out to Seymour, pretty much straight out and back. I ended up getting a great 34miles in with an average of 16mph. I did bonk on the way back, but Randy B waited up for me and we caught back up. The ride was definitly a little more intense than I was expecting. We had a few newer faces, so I didn't know what to expect.

I'm thinking about getting a set of those new Crank brothers Cobalt Wheels. I really like the bling factor and they're a half pound lighter than my current wheels. I'll be making a decision real soon, just want to make sure that it won't hurt my saving too much in the forseeable future. They would look awsome on my procaliber

New Resident

2009-03-07T18:24:00.000-08:00

We have a new resident in our backyard. I've only seen ine or two owls in my life so it was really cool to see one right in my backyard. It's a very pretty bird and quite large too. Other than this I don't have to much news. I've just been doing w ork steadily. I am getting very anxious to do something fitness like. I've pretty much been a couch patatoe for the last week. I decided not to go for the iceman this year. What I really would like to do is some endurance race like 24/9 and the reforestation camp. that being said if anyone needs a team member for one of these races keep me in mind. I've wanted to do one for several years now, but never had the oppertunity.

New Computer is Rockin

2009-02-27T20:40:00.000-08:00

Well I got back from my trip last Sunday night at 9pm ad I had a big black box waiting for me at home. The Computer, I can finally open it. It works great, plays games awsome. I still havent had a real chance to do any multitasking yet, but I'm sure that it will do fine. Of course I had to get some bling on it. It has three led fans and a 12" neon tube in the bottom. Enjoy some pics. I'll see you all march fourth. It was a bummer that someone had to wreck registration for everyone this past evening. oh well try again next time.

What a Week!

2009-02-20T17:41:00.000-08:00

I think that this last week has been one of the most demanding ever on my part. I'll have put in around 100 or so hours of labor. I've been working on the same machine asa the last time I was here in New york. Check out the pick of all of the parts. They're for dust control. Each one takes a lot of prep and multiply that by 350. 150 assemblies with 5 sub-assemblies. Lots of stuff. I started to go insane with the repetitiveness of all of it. All that keeps me going is that awesome paycheck at the end of it.

On the exercise front, I've done a little swimming but the pool is quite small. The work is actually very tiring, but probably not very athletic. I'm not getting my heart rate up or anything.

Well I should be home sunday night, and boy will I be ready to get home. I have to report in on Monday for an hour to work, but I'll take the rest of the day off. My computer came in on Tuesday, so I want to play with it!!!!!

See you all back in GB

Attemped Ride and another trip to NY

2009-02-12T11:49:00.000-08:00

Next week I'm off to New York again. Same place, same machine. The work will be long and repetitive, but it should make the time go by quick. The last time I was there everyone was great. The locals are very kind and really it felt the same as Wisconsin. It has definitely been nice going on a couple of tese trips latley. The extra cash is really nice and this time round I'll be saving most of it. The work has been simple so far, but its really nice not having to stress out on my first couple trip expeiriance. I'm going with the same two guys I had before. They're great guys, but I don't know if I can ever get enough sleep working with them. We're in the car at 5:00am and back at the hotel at 7:00 or 8:00. Now doing that for five days in a row really takes it out of me. I'm young, so I know that I shouldn't complain. All I have to do to get through it is think about the check (that works good).

This last tuesday I attemped to go out for a road ride. The weather was favorable, but windy. The only thing that I failed to take into account was that the roads in neihborhoods still had a lot of slush and ice on them. My usual route out of town was completely blocked. I chickened out after some close encounters with cars and came home. I got a whole two miles. I guess I'll just have to get ready to ski again hopefully. On that note, I had crashed the last time I went out on our saturday group ski. My boot got really messed up and I havent tried real hard yet to fix it. The metal bar at the front was bent sidewase when my ski popped off. I havent given up on it yet.

So we'll see when I have more time to write. I'll be awake, working, then sleeping for most of next week. (Computer should be here on tuesday and I won't be here :(

2nd Road Ride of the year

2009-02-07T12:37:00.000-08:00

With the warm weather Shawn thought why not hit the road. What a great idea, I would love that. It turned out to be a great ride. Not too cold at all. Going out we had a slight head wind, but the way back was a little more with the wind. WE made sure to try and not to drop anyone, and I wiuld say we were quite successful. I pulled some attacks off the back, and it felt real good. Mark and I had a good little sprint battle up a hill. We had about 10 guys initially, and then we spllit half way with some of the guys with a little more left went an extra ten miles or so. Five of us came back on packerland.

I was definitly tired once I got back, my legs were burning real good was we got back to the parking lot. It was about a 28 mile ride for me, excelent for an early season ride.

New Computer Monitor

2009-02-03T15:26:00.000-08:00

My new computers stuff began to arive yesterday. I got a Logitec gaming mouse (very nice), and today the Asus 24" Monitor came in. The pic really doesn't do it justice. The web browser is huge and the screen is wide enough to probably have two applications side by side. I took the pic with my TV because I will also hook up my tv as a screen (42" LCD) "awsome". I'll probably burn my eyeballs out though. So now I just have to wait until the CPU comes in, I freakin can't wait. Should be built on the 12th, but then I have to wait for shipping. ugh

A good weekend for skiing

2009-02-02T05:20:00.000-08:00

Since it was such a nice weekend I went skiing with a couple of the guys. Both Saturday and Sunday were great conditions. Both days the snow was particularly fast. Sunday we went on the Oaks, which was all fine and good, but I had my first two actual ski crashes. The two large downhills on the oaks I was trying to snowplow, but ended up doing a face plant on both attemps. Hmm I guess maybe I should practice on some smaller hill. The first crash was actually quite gracefull if I say so myself ( If a crash can be graceful). The second however was a little more crash like. went down and lost a ski, twisted that ankle a little and smacked the thumb. I don't know if bindings are supposed to release at a certain point, but the metal bar on my boot ended up bending to one side. Luckily I did managed to barely clip in and got out without too much hassle. So now I have to try and repair my boot. I am a little achy this morning, but nothing at all serious. It's good to be young thats all I can say.

2009-01-29T18:16:00.001-08:00

Well it's a little disapointing. I accepted Steves invitation to go to Arizona (not Texas), but when Steve called Ryan he found out that he never actually asked if we could stay with him and Cole at the house. So the owner of the house said no and Steve and I don't want to spend the extra money for a hotel. Really it's no big deal to me, of course I a little disapointed, but I don't mind saving some money.

Possible trip and the Computer

2009-01-29T05:43:00.001-08:00

Well I decided to get that computer I was talking about. I can't wait, but it will be about 3 weeks till I get it. I got a sweet 24" Asus Screen from new egg and the computer is being built by cyberpowerpc. I just hope that the computer game market stays alive long enough for me to use it. All the big name companies have been having so many layoffs just like everyone else has.

Specs:
Processor-Intel Core i7 940 2.93Ghz (stock)
Ram- 6GB DDR3
Graphics- 2* Nvidea Geforce GTX 285 w/1GB memory running in SLI
Motherboard- Asus P6T Intel X58 Chipset
Hard Drive 1- 150GB 10000rpm velociraptor
Hard Drive 2- 1TB 7200rpm
Disk Drives- 2* LG 20* DVD +-rw and CD
OS- Vista 64bit (hope that it works ok)
"Liquide Cooling of course

Steve B gave me a call last night. It looks like I'll be going with him to see Ryan B down in texas next month. All it will cost is about $400 to ship the bikes and for plane tickets down. Otherwise the place Ryan is staying at has room for us to stay and a car availible. Theres supposed to be some great desert riding. I've made it a personal goal for my self to invest in a lot of travel over the next couple years. I've been stuck in Wisconsin for way too long. I hope things work out, but you never know. I wish some of the other guys could make it too, but it is coming up pretty fast(Feb 18).

After all that I'm going to have to stop spending so much money, I've been trying to save up for a down payment on a house. I'm not in a hurry, but I'm thinking int the next year about seriously looking around.

Time for a Computer

2009-01-28T09:37:00.000-08:00

Some may or may not believe this , but I've never actually owned my own desktop. I think that that may change. I looking at getting a custom built monster of a computerI like Gaming a lot and I 'm going to be running Autodesk Inventor and Autocad. I'm going a bit overboard in hopes that it will not become obsolete quite as fast, but we all know next week there will be something twice as fast. eventually I'd like to do dual monitors for running multiple applications at once. Sweet stuff. Of course I havent forgotten about the bike. I've been detailing the epic and I'll have it all rebuilt for a spare race bike. I haven't pulled the trigger on the computer yet, but I'm pretty sure that it will happen.

Hoping to do some skiing this weekend, but work may interfere. I don't have to work, but they really need the help, They've been offering up 10 hour Saturdays for the last month and a half. It's good money, but I want to ski. I'll for sure go on Sunday.

Pics from New York

2009-01-27T07:28:00.001-08:00

This is unfortunately all I can show you from my trip to new york last week. No machine pics aloud. Above is the view leaving Green Bay and below is the Hudson River behind the plant I was at.

My First Blog

2009-01-27T06:24:00.000-08:00

This is the first blog that I've started. I don't really know if I'll stay with it or not. I've been pretty busy with graduating college and starting my new job, so I though that this may be a good way to document it a little.

I just went on my first service job that involved a significant amount of travel. I headed out to Fort Edwards New York to do work on a machine out there. The machine makes tissue that gets put into a tissue box. this machine was very large and I had about 5 things to change of 150+ parts of the machine. I had every intention of doing some athletics every night but of course the pool was closed for renovations for my entire stay. Really the work I was doing kept me plenty in shape. By the end of the week I had to be very careful lifting, becuase my arms hurt real good. The days were long, but I think I handled them well. It was my first 80+ hour week and it really let me know if I could handle it. I got back on Saturday and I literally slept for about 19 hours till Sunday morning.

Cheers