Moved in

I am now moved into my new room in 2527 W. High. It's pretty sweet. Classes start tomorrow and I have Physics first. It should definitely be interesting. Moved in yesterday and went out to Rillo's (a fancy restruant) where I had the single best cut of meat I have ever had. It was friking amazing. I almost died when I ate it. The room as seen from the webcam on my compy:


It's pretty nice. In other news, one of my cycles that starts with a V should be arriving at a place sometime this week. This makes me happy. The Vassago, though, has to be postponed due to the lack of availability of the sweet Orange color that I want. They have black in stock, which is nice too, but I figured that since Don bought a green bike, and Brett has a shiny silver one, I need an orange one to round out our insanity. It will be soon though...

Clone Wars made me cry inside

Just got back from seeing the new Star Wars flick, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, and let me tell you, I am crying inside. All the acting and dialogue was very un-Star-Wars-y. All of it, from Asoka's cute little quips (my new word for the week apparently) to Yoda's normal Yoda-talk. It just wasn't right. The worst part, by far, was the animation. I will try to remain calm about this. I HAVE SEEN BETTER ANIMATION OUT OF FOUR YEAR OLD VIDEO GAMES!!! Obi-Wan's beard looked like it was made of lego blocks! Come on animators, you have to be able to do better than that! Ugh. This is far and away the worst Star Wars movie yet. Yes it was cute, yes it had funny moments, yes it mildly entertained me, but it was not what I was looking for in a Star Wars movie. I will even go as far as saying that it was worse then Episode I, which is pretty bad in and of itself. If you want to be mildly entertained and have $10 lying around that you're not really intent on using for anything important, then by all means go. If you want to watch a proper Star Wars film, pop in a DVD of Return of the Jedi and be happy. Or even Revenge of the Sith. Hell even Attack of the Clones would work! Ugh. I'm going to cry myself to sleep now... inside that is.

Hematite

Have to open some of these entries up with a little geology quip... so there you go. My geology quip for the month of august. I also know that I will have to define most of my quips so here you go: Hematite Fe2O3, comes in specular (a shiny silver color, extremely friable, whole sample extremely weakly magnetic, powder strongly magnetic), as well as a dark red variety called "red ochre" (dark red or brown, almost imperceptibly magnetic). End nerd-out moment for the day...

To explain my nerdiness... I raced the Iron Hill Challenge last weekend (see... iron...). It was a 4 hr Endurance race. The last of the MASS Endurance series it was, and a good race I needed to put out. I had 4hrs to put as much time on my rival Anthony as I could to get as many points and finish as high as possible. I knew the race was going to be fast, and I knew it would have a lot of long flatish big ring sections. This would not suit my riding style all that much. Not enough climbing at all. I put out my best effort though. The race started and I shifted to the front of the pack as Hebe and Lichtenrob went off to do their race leading thing. They did that very well. I hit my rhythem pretty well. My first 4 laps were under 30min, and went by fast. My last 4 were just over 30min. My climbing speed dropped after than because I was powering through the flats and false flats so much. The downhills were super fun though... that made up for the big ring challenge pain...

I ended with 8 laps. That was respectable and about what I expected to get. It just wasn't enough. Anthony pulled out 9 laps (I think... final results aren't out yet). Combined with last weeks 3hr tour of far northern PA, I dropped back th 5th in the final event (well...I'm not doing the 24hr solo at 7 springs). I suppose I can accept that.

Now I must go back to the olympics, or star wars; whatever I ws watching on the boob tube. I move back into school on Saturday. Yeah for back to the grind. Next event is what should proove to be the funness... the Shenandoah Mountain 100. A big party. Should be super fun. I'm focusing on being fully recovered by then so I have about a week and a half.

Cycles that Start With V

It's that time of year again. Time to start thinking about next year. I still have 4 more MTB races (Iron Hill 4hr tomorrow, Shenandoah 100 in two weeks, Terror of Teaberry two weeks later, and Bear Creek two weeks after that) to fly through, but I am starting to think about my next adventure. I'm going to attempt a full season of cyclocross this winter. I'm on a team, which shall remain nameless until further notice. I'm getting a cross bike. It is from a manufacturer that starts with a V. It will also remain nameless (unless you guess that is).

The second adventure in store for this winter is my temporary revocation (is that a word???) of my citizenship in Gearsland and my perminant revocation of my citizenship in Small-Wheels-Land. To make a long story short, to buy the aforementioned cross bike I need to sell my Intense, which has been oh so good to me, at the end of the racing season. I will need a mtb for the winter. Easiest, cheapest, and best solution: 29er singlespeed. From another manufacturer that starts with a V. This one even has a classic literary connection. I will soon be aquiring a Vassago Jabberwocky. It's steel, it's rigid, it only has one gear, and it makes me super excited for riding this winter. Thus begins my quest to relearn how to ride a bike in preperation for next season where it looks like I'll be riding some form of 29er hardtail (with gears). So that's fun...

In other news, this is the last day of my job/internship with the PennDOT Materials and Testing Lab, Concrete/Petrographics Section. I'm torn with how to feel about this. On one hand, I'm free of obligations to the state and getting up early. On the other hand, I loose a source of income which has supported me all summer, even with my racing addiction. On the third hand (huh?) it means I have to go back to school soon, which poses a whole other set of problems. Ah well, a bunch of us went out for a few beers at the Appalachian Brewing Company (which is right down the street) after work yesterday, so I had a nice little send off, nothing too ridiculous though. I am ready to be out of here though; this is not a job I will probably be coming back too, not my kind of geology, and not enough of it at that. It was fun though...

I suppose I should go see if I actually have any work left to do today...

Screw ATV's

Friday morning. My normal drive to work. My normal traffic on I-81. The normal sun in my face. My normal bumper buried in a white van in front of me. Damn. Fender bender... my fender is bent. as is my radiator making my car undrivable. The radiator leaks dammit. Parents came and picked me up from work and took me to God's Country. Yes, it's a race and no I'm not dead. It's a marathon (50 miles) way up in Potter County, PA. We checked into our cabin around 8 that night, ate and went to bed. Next morning I went out for my race. It as going very well. I was riding in the top 10 overall (6th for a while, then 8th, then 9th) until I had a major derailleurment. I was cresting a road climb and the [poor] course markings told me to head through a gate to my right. There were 6 guys on ATV's coming through and the fourth one stopped and waved me through. I went through, thanked him and continued on my merry way down the road. About 20 min later I came to an intersection with no markings. There was a road heading off of the one I was on at a really steep angle. I paused for a minute, then went straight, figuring that no markings meant continue on. I went about a mile up the road and still saw no markings. I turned around and headed back to the intersection. After a quick check for missed markings. There were none. I turned around and headed back in the same direction. About a mile later I ran into another Bean's rider, Mark Backastow, riding back towards me. Problem. He was lost, which meant that I was lost. We decided to head back to the intersection and check out the other road, figuring that it had to be the right way. We rode about 5 miles down that road to no avail. On our way back we ran into one of the ski patrol guys on an atv. He said we were way off course. We had missed a turn back at the gate. We headed back to the gate and found the singletrack we were supposed to descend two hours ago. When I had come through the gate two hours ago, there were three atv's blocking the trail. Damn. Damn. Double Damn. Triple Damn. We dropped down Pepper's Trail and came out at Aid 2. We refuled and finished the race. It took us about 6.5hrs. It should have been about 4.5. Mark should have gotten 6th. I should have been about 9th. Damn.

The good news is that I was very far ahead of everyone behind me, and rode strongly for the entire 6.5hrs that I was out there. My legs felt really good, and all the miles I have put on have been doing something. I am happy about that, although sad about the fact that I have probably dropped back a bunch of places in the MASS Endurance standings. I was 3rd, and needed to finish ahead of the 4th place guy in the next two races to hold that place. I was in a position to put a lot of time on him at God's Country. Now I have to basically win at Iron Hill next week to get my podium back. I'm going to go for it. Hopefully I can get on the podium. and redeem something. I need to ride smart and fast... and that is exactly what I will do. All for now...

Explorationalisms

Did a little bit of riding this weekend, ya know. like 6hrs of a 'cross exploratorium on saturday w/ Zach and some YBR folks. Started from the YMCA and rode to Boiling Springs met up w/ Mike Laub and Janis Morris, YBR folks left, then some trail at Whiskey Springs, then some of the All-purpose Trail down to Meeshow. Did some Ridge road where we met a slithering rattling friend and came down Cold Spring. First rattlesnake I had ever seen and it was a beauty. About 3.5ft long and chillin in the sun on Ridge Rd. Zach was on his 'cross bike and I had my Spider. We blew by a car coming down Cold Spring which is always a great feeling. Then I struggled to hold Janis's wheel as Mike dragged us back to Boiling Springs in his biggest gear. Following even cross bikes on the fully MTB s hard, especially after riding 4.5 hours or so. Mike and Janis cut out in Boiling Springs and Zach and I did some more All-purpose Trail back to Carlisle. In typical Zach and I doing a long training ride fashion, it rained as we were heading down the trail. A good rain though. All in all a good long day on the bike.

Today brought more exploration in good old Meeshow from Brett's house. Rode out Ride to Shippensburg Rd, then back on some moto singletrack. The trail was cool but could use a lot of cleanup to remove the sticks, logs, branches, and derailleur-killers which lurked in the laurel. The trail dumped us out onto some road and in search of another trail we went all the way down the hollow. Eventually found a trail, which looked promising until Don ripped a few spokes out of his wheel and sent them through the rim tape flatting his tire. We did some repair work and headed out of the hollow. We ended up climbing up Hogshead road until we hit ridge and back to Brett's. About 3.5 hours total. My legs hurt, but I enjoyed myself.