TONIGHT'S RIDE FORECAST: 69 DEGREES OF AWESOME

Before I start droning on (the way I do about tubular tires) I'd like to apologize for not providing an update, or a proper cancellation of last night's practice. I was sequestered in an office for 9 hours straight, without food, water, sunlight, or more importantly internet access. I almost died! So sorry about that, I'll bring a sharp spoon with me next time and escape and let you know what's happening.

Nice looking road, but hey wait, where you all going?

Tonight's ride will roll at 6 our of Townsend. You'll probably need lights for the last 30 minutes or so, but if you don't have lights you can probably limp in with a "well lit friend." This doesn't apply to leaving the Honey Creek, however, at 11 with a "well lit friend," which happened on Tuesday.

A big and handsome crew getting ready to roll. Let's chat a little, okay?

Tuesday's ride was a big one, with a diverse bunch of skillz and training programs. Some were damn near professional, and some, like uh, me, we're draggin' it. While it didn't seem to stay together there were enough people to make decent groups so everybody rolled together - in one way or another.

New faces, like Matt, and the ladies posing a little before the roll out.

The Dave and Tom show. On wheels no less. These guys are fast. That's Tom Link with his back to you, Dave H, getting ready to run over me. Yeah, run over me, drop me and call me dead.

Tandem, man on man fun. Good thing BK Dave is so tall or you'd be able to see those horns.

More tandem. This is the romantic shot. Like it? I love it. I'm making glossy 8 X 10s and sticking them to the ceiling of the garage. Yeah I'm sticking them with tubular glue, wise-ass.

Here's another road-beauty shot. The road, the night, the group not stopping at the stop sign and riding away ... me getting my ass dropped. Uh-oh, how many more miles is it back to the lot and the Honey Creek.

Another Crazy Bastard Hecklemania quiz. Which heckle was not heard on Tuesday Night's ride.

a) Are you guys riding the same bike or are you just glad to see each other?

b) Do they know each other or are they married?

c) Hey you're an alcoholic, aren't you?

d) I wants all you bitches to pass your dollars up for a tip!

The answer:

d) This was overheard in Polish Hall on Pulaski Days last weekend.

Munson Night Race Video and Tuesday Night Ride Info

Here's a nice little video of the Munson Park Night Race, on Saturday Night, that one the East Side gang put together yesterday. It's very well done, I think. As you can see the racing started in the daylight and moved into the shiny, wet, dark of night as the races progressed throughout the evening.

I heard one of the race directors, at the Caledonia race next day, say that he heard that conditions at this race (Munson Park) were "just awful!" As you can see conditions were actually "JUST AWESOME!" Almost everything I hear about East Side races, from West Michigan people who never go to them, is pretty much 100% wrong. Even the weather reports. Why is that? Can anyone explain that to me? You can just slip an envelope with the answer under the blog back door.

If you look hard enough (and I don't know why you would), you can see Laura (Cupcake) Amy and Jeff Haney (Slayer), and your shy narrator standing around cheering, heckling, and eventually racing all our asses off as the night wore on. You'll even see the infamous Crazy Bastard "Heckle-Horn" in the very last shot.

Tonight we're planning (by popular demand) to roll at 6 pm out of Townsend. See you all there, all of you that are going there. I need a nice little spin to clear the legs out before the battle begins again next weekend - so if you all want to go up the road without me, go for it, I'm with you in spirit, just not in body. Just leave me a beer or two at the Honey Creek.

If you're interested in all the racing that went on this weekend, from East to West, check out the last two posts that went up in the last two days, over the weekend. Yeah, we've been busy.

Light'em if you got'em.

Tuesday night roll out. We're sticking to the 6pm go time for now. With a 7:17pm sunset you'll need one of those things above for the last half hour or so. Put a blinkie on the rear to so we can keep track of you when you go off the front.

Looking a few days out, we've got the RW Colorburst tour this Saturday. http://www.lmb.org/rapidwheels/Colorburst/colorburst.htm There is a dirt road option in addition to the normal paved road routes. I'm leading out a group for the 62 mile dirt road ride that leaves at 8:30am from the main lodge in Fallasburg Park. We use the same SAG stops as the paved routes for our stopping and refueling points. If you'd rather only roll about 35 miles, you can ride with us from Fallasburg to Townsend, then shoot back to Fallasburg after that. No local race this weekend or anything over on the east side of the state. Weather is looking good so this might be a good option for anyone interested.

Later

RACING FOR MUD AND LOOKING FOR FREE BEER

Night racing is slick. Finally making it to the top of the hill at Munson Park Saturday Night, priceless.

With one race less than 14 hours behind me, I was still excited to try my hand at another, so I repacked the Grandpa Van and headed to the KISSCROSS race in Caledonia on Sunday. Imagine my dismay and disappointment when I rolled into the lot and saw this sign (below). I'd been away from the KISSCROSS scene for so long I didn't realize it had turned into a motorcycle club. Since I didn't have a motorcycle with me, I threw my bike back in the GV, and started wandering around to find out if the rumors of FREE BEER, were true.

Still not sure about what kind of Motorcycle Club I was dealing with (I didn't see any motorcycles around), I did find some changes had occurred since my last visit to a KC race in Caledonia. There was now a professional heckler wandering around the park providing non-stop humorous disparagement of any shortcomings or manifestations of runaway ego one might have. Not hard to guess I stayed as far away from her as I could get!

If you were riding deep-dish carbon wheels in the C race, and had a gap of over a minute, you, and everyone else would hear about it here.

Kim, Wendy, and Jim enjoying some sunshine. Jim is also enjoying some Jim Beam in that cup, but hey he doesn't have a ride on Sunday so give him a break.

The more I explored the park, the more it became apparent that this might not be a motorcycle race after all. I started seeing old friends - people usually associated with bikes and cyclocross wandering around.

Bart and Monica. Our Canadian friends from the south. Figure that one out.

Soon I started seeing more and more cyclocross friends with cyclocross bikes. I knew I had made a mistake, but it was too late for me to race as I have a bank vault time lock on the GV which won't allow me to unlock it for 4 hours between 10 and 2 on Sunday. Yeah, I was screwed.

Kougar with her new whip - the Stinky Pinky! Beautiful bike - and nice pose too, Kougar.

Nice bike, not so nice pose - BK Dave gives us a Quasimodo look. Scary Dave, scary.

Yeah, I'm good lookin', and I'm a great bike racer too. See you back at the team van later? There's a picture of me on the side of it. Just ask for Gil Escargot.

You thought only Euro-trash pros rolled with Campy Super Record 11 on their cross bikes?Think again. Nate Williams was super-euro, super-evil, and super-cool all at the same time. How does he do it?

Mike VanHouten enters the Bog of Slog - reluctantly, perhaps? You be the judge.

Suddenly, while still looking around for FREE BEER, a cyclocross race (sort of) broke out and people were yelling and screaming, and throwing themselves on the ground and flopping around on the muddy bank like landed trout. There was a Bog of Slog, which was actually a creek crossing (since I hadn't brought waders it would have been impossible for me to do this section anyway) a long run-up with people stopping to vomit at the top, a rooted roller coaster section where people crashed broke their bikes in little pieces, flatted their tires and then wandered around the woods looking for medical assistance, and all sorts of other fun stuff.

Steve Kunneth shows Mad Bike Skillz by poppin a wheelie out of the Bog.

Running, riding, swimming, it was certainly an adventure!

At some point in the action it became what I called a mud-hole-o-mayhem and I had to just turn away in horror.

CD (aka Bram V) giving me a good Belgyie-style scowl. Each beer represents a completed lap.

The latest in HUP fashion, and also a secret recognition code: Flemish Sockage.

Some of the HUP fashionistas even raced in those sweet socks. Yeah that's an Ethiopian Bastard leg. Need some arm warmers for those sticks?

Eventually I did find some FREE BEER and it was very, very good. There were also FREE BRATS, which were also excellent. Finally, relaxing, and spending time with old friends, and a few FREE BEERS, I could sit down and really enjoy the most entertaining part of the race - the heckling.

Here's the first of our heckling contests. We'll have some prizes, but I don't know what they'll be. I'll let you know when I get a sponsor. I'm thinking a throat lozenge, like Riccola might be a good one.

So here's the first quiz:

Which heckle was not heard at Sunday's race:

(a) YOU'RE GETTING BEATEN BY A GIRL!

(b) HEY WINNER OF THE C RACE, HOW DOES IT FEEL NOW?

(c) WHERE'S MY BITCHES AT?

(d) YOU'RE SMILING, YOU'RE NOT TRYING! YOU'RE SMILING! TRY HARDER!

Answer: "Where's my bitches at?" This was heard on Friday in a Polish Beer Hall during Pulaski Days and is not a professional cyclocross heckle.

GREAT PUMPKIN CHAMPIONSHIP AND MUNSON NIGHT RACE

Yesterday was indeed a Championship Saturday. Not only did a bunch of Bastards slay the Tailwind Night Race at Munson Park, some of us were also lucky enough to be their for the Great Pumpkin Weigh-Off (the second annual) where a WORLD RECORD WAS SET! I'm just proud to say that Cupcak (aka Laura M) and I were lucky enough to stumble across this World Setting event on our way to the race - which was located just this side of Hell. And by Hell I mean pretty close to both Canada and Ohio.

Here's the World Record winning pumpkin, grown by a Mr. Ken Sweet. And Sweet it is! This monster weighed in at 1,735 pounds! Cupcake loved this pumpkin and was seen here dreaming about how many Pumpkin Cupcakes this baby would make.

Here's Laura consoling the pumpkins that didn't make the podium on Saturday. Perhaps if they had used more performance enhancing drugs ... there were 50 pumpkins competing, coming from all over Michigan.

Not only were there humongous pumpkins all over the place, there were also huge-ass watermelons. It was like being in the land of the giants, let me tell you.

There was even some pretty fancy pumpkin carving. These guys were so good they didn't even go inside the pumpkin. On the left you can see a small child offering a sacrifice to this monster in hopes that it won't eat her family in the night. BOOOOOOO!

On to the race - though it was difficult after the all the buzz and excitement of the Great Pumpkin Weigh-In (second annual) Here's the first race going of while there was still daylight. A big bunch of Cat 4 men followed directly by ...

A pensive, yet ready to go Amy H (aka Muejer de Machete, Wife of Slayer). Amy was right there for the win until some mid race bobbles, but came back to step on the podium once again. Great ride Amy!

Everybody was rocking some hardware last night. Here's Laura (aka Cupcake) taking home her first Elite Women Podium! By the time her race rolled around it was dark, raining, with a strong wind blowing across the course. Yeah it was a real cyclocross race and cupcake hammered it from beginning to end. In a post race interview she said, "This is the greatest day of my life. First I get to see (and caress) the world's largest pumpkin, and then I get my first Elite Podium. It doesn't get any better than this!"

Here's a dark and murky shot of Laura's podium.

Biggest win of the day, not counting the World Record Pumpkin, was Jeff Haney, (aka Slayer, aka Machete) who took the whole shot and ran away from a super strong 45+ field and to take the win by riding in first place from the gun to the end of the race. It was quite a performance and Jeff put huge time into some of the best riders in the nation.
Here's Jeff on the top step. Killer performance by the Slayer. He's now leading the Series over there by a good margin with two wins and third.

For the Bastards we had a racer in almost ever race (there are 4 races with numerous waves in each race) except for the Elite Men's Race - Tom Burke was a no-show. Everybody wanted to know where he was - they also wanted to know where McKenzie W was as well. Hopefully she'll be there to show them some of the big power she's got, soon.

As for my race, I was happy with it, rolling in somewhere in the middle after another slow start caused by slow riders that couldn't get out of their own way. I'd move up, crash, move up, get run into the barriers, and so on. The strange part of racing Cat 3 (Killer Bs) is finding myself racing around college boys. Yikes!

Anyway, looks like there may be another race in two hours. Better get ready, I guess ...

GONE RACING - BE BACK LATER

Wheeeee!

It's not going to be as dry, light or warm as this was - but today definately feels more like 'cross weather.

Headed over for a little racing under the lights tonight at Munson Park, in Monroe. If I'm not too whipped I may stop for a little racing or at least, some heckling, tomorrow at the Caledonia thingie-dingie. Good luck to everyone racing this weekend, be safe, and have fun wherever you race or ride.

ALL YOU HATERS CAN SUCK MY STANS TUBELESS TIRES

My dear friend Marshall, letting me know what he thinks of today's blog-o-sphere journalism. The ball of fire over his head is a "glowering hate orb."

I can't think of a more appropriate appropriation of Bike Snob's AYHSMB than ALL YOU HATERS SUCK MY STANS TUBELESS TIRES. On last night's epic ride (epic due to numerous mechanical incidents and extreme darkness) I was once again hating on tubeless tires. The nerve-wracking explosion of the tires and the length of time it takes to remount and roll (quicker if you give up on the tubeless idea and go straight to tubes) makes them inappropriate for road rides, in my twisted opinion. I think we're going to have some kind of fuzzy rules that will never be enforced as far as what kind of tires and bikes you can rock on this ride from now on. The number one rule is this: if you have a decent cross bike, ride it and give up on trying to impress us with your Monster Bike with balloon tires and a single 27 ring up front, or other two wheel abomination.

In the words of the Frenchman (Aka Mike K), spoken just last night, "if you're going to bring an abortion like that to this ride, what do you expect?"

Can't we all just get along. If we're wearing the same kit we can. HUPsters congregating and making plans - for what kind of beer they'll be drinking later is my guess.

It was big ride last night, in part due to the promise of free beer, pizza, and demo lights provided by Light in Motion and Speed Merchants. Lights, beer, pizza (should have been fried asian carp) are the essential food groups of Crazy Bastard lifestyle.

Bissell Missiles. Some of my own team members huddling up before the rollout. Lots of red and white flying up the road last night.

A Rapid Wheelmen gathering before the storm. And the dark of Night.

One of several Farm Team members that joined in the fun last night. Shari, the best looking of the Farm Team, here.

My rejuvenated Kona, that had more problems last night than in the last 3 years. Bad, Kona, bad Kona! Behave!

Despite a number of flats and mechanicals, it was another great night for a ride. The Light and Motion thing was a gas, with lots of pizza and few beers and a lot of bumping around in the dark, which is always fun. Thanks to George, Kim, Kate - the good folks at Speed Merchants, for bringin' it. I would have had photos of the event but my camera had a mechanical issue (the battery died) that I assume was caused by Marshall "glowering" at it so intensely.

As far as the Light and Motion equipment, that stuff was fabulous. While I already have a pretty good light, I was so impressed with the new technology I decided to go all out and buy some new gear, for the new year.

Yeah, pretty sweet, huh? Wished you had one? If you were at the ride last night, and you want a discount (20%) on L&M products at Speed Merchants check them out. Quick before they see this!