8/30/06
That's more my pace. The last couple of weeks have been good to me. I did some bikin'. We have Bay City Cycles jerseys coming down the pipeline. Email me if you want more details. Pre-Fat last weekend. I had a pretty decent race. 4th singlespeed and 29th overall. I would be bitter about just missing the money for the podium, but the guys who beat me are all pretty darn strong, so I guess no worries. I managed to lose both waterbottles before I even got a drink. Never lost a bottle out of these cages before. Strange stuff. I looked down about 4 miles in looking to grab a drink, and there was nothing there. I thought somebody stole them. Well, with aid stations and a bit of water in the camelback I was fine. Copper Harbor Fat Tire Fest this weekend. Sweet action! Abbreviated shout outs from this weekend: Jesrin-Sick boy!. Chapin-nice ride'n. Margaret-takin home the hardware. Brandon-strong race. Kelly-No race so you get an anti-shout out, or should I call you Tom.... Craig-Thanks for the hook ups. That's enough of that. Gotta be up early to finally get back on the wagon and ride to work tomorrow. Out.

8/15/06
Twice in one week. I better pace myself. Two happenings of note. Mark your calendar, check with your spouse, get pumped. October 21 is time to get muddy, more soon. October 1 is the second annual Brothers Rimm century. Email for more details.

8/13/06
Control your excitement, I'm updating again and it has only been a week and a half! Last weekend we had a most excellent time at the Firehouse 50 doing the four man time trial with Dennis Liphart, Claire Morud and John Sauer. We didn't push too hard and had a good time. I ran into Ahren Rogers after the race. I see one of his frames in my future. Steel and lugs, the man knows the way to my heart. I came to a conclusion today while reading the Salsa catalog: Sheep are smarter than scientists. Now some people may chalk this one up to God, evolution, or something of the sort, but I'm going to give credit where credit is due and give some love to the sheep(no, not like in Montana). I don't own much wool clothing, mostly because it is pretty pricey these days, but my limited experience backs up the word on the street that it is more temperature flexible, smells better, tastes better, makes you more attractive to the opposite sex, and the like, than synthetics. We've got scientists all over the world who can't figure out how to make a better fiber than a bunch of sheep. Plus, sheep are a renewable resource. My conclusion from all of this, we need to raise more sheep so that merino wool clothing is cheaper. So all you sheep out there reading this, start making little lambs. I had a great weekend up at Ore to Shore. It was kind of a last minute decision spurred on by Kelly and Margaret, and I'm glad that they talked me into it. We left Friday after work, dropped their dogs at the kennel in Saxon and their car in Montreal. After picking up some yummy KFC and ice cream in Ironwood, we powered through to Marquette, rolling in at like 11:45 or something like that. I got a pretty solid nights sleep and was alive awake alert enthusiastic when I got up at 6:30 on Saturday morning. The sad thing is that 6:30 is "sleeping in" for me these days. I downed a couple of muffins and a bananna for breakfast before wandering outside and running into Scott Chapin and and quizzing him on gear choice for the rig. I had been waffling since Wednesday when I decided to do the race and continued up until about 15 minutes before the start. Should I go with a hard gear and be set for the flats, road sections and general downhill grade towards the end, or gear for the rolling bits? A bit of knee pain on Friday and Saturday morning kind of sealed the deal and I went easy, meaning a 32x18, or a 2:1 in 26" wheel terms. Kelly and I powered up to the start fueled by Fugazi after discovering that my 10 Minutes Down cd was warped. Public service announcement: Make sure you cds are being held totally flat if you're planning on leaving them in a super hot car. After our arrival, I managed to flatten out the CD enough to make it flat, and we got suitably pumped up. After a picking up the packet and a non-warmup (seriously, its 50 miles) I went over and wished 24-9 partner in crime Matt Muraski good luck. At the word GO! we were off. About 20 yards in just as I was getting the legs spun up, some folks went down hard on my right. I was mighty glad to not be behind them. The rollout really wasn't half-bad from a singlespeed point of view. There were a few turns here and there which kept speeds from getting ridiculously high, so I didn't lose 50 billion spots. I sucked some wheels and hit the dirt in a decent spot. After we hit the dirt, we hit some climbs, which everyone had been talking up big time "unrideable!". So I was off the bike early to get ready to run. They didn't turn out to be half bad. After a couple of these climbs, we hit a nice downhill sweeper to the right. I got pushed out of my line into some other guy about the same time that he pushed into someone on his left. Everyone kept their cool and rode it out. Solid. Just before the first aid station I came up on Kelly and Michelle Flanagan-Haag. Then we hit some major sand, and I blew past a ton of people. 29er power baby! That and growing up riding the Bayfield penninsula. If there's one thing we know, its riding sand. About this time I realized that my seatpost was slipping, so I pulled over for a quick adjustment and cranked up the quick release a bunch. After getting it dialed, I started the process of catching all of the people that had gone past me during my little stop. The next few laps were pretty uneventful, and I was still passing people pretty steadily. I managed to catch back up to Kelly, and we rode pretty close to each other for the rest of the race. We hit misery hill and I'm pretty glad that there was no room to run it or I probably would have tried, which would have hurt. Spinning more like a fool through the road section I actually picked up a few spots. Figure that one out. I spent much of the race trading spots with Greg Hintz who was also on a singlespeed and we worked together for part of the road section before I had a momentary lapse in concentration and lost his wheel towards the end. Going through the second half of the course I was still picking people off pretty steadily and feeling pretty good. About 18 miles out or so, some guy needed a pump, so stopped and gave him mine and resumed the "chasing that pack you were just riding with" game, which kept me occupied for the next 10 miles or so. I was worried that with my rather light gearing choice, I would get blown away in the last 10 miles, but especially with the soft conditions, this fear turned out to be unwarranted, as I passed way more people than passed me. Greg caught me just as we hit Kirby's hill and we ran it hard and passed a few people. We rode together for a bit before he powered away from me. The last few miles went by pretty quickly as I tried to keep spinning and keep my speed up. The monster sandy downhill offered another opportunity to fly past some folks as I got the big front wheel planing on top of the sand and just cruised. When we popped out of the woods, I tried to jump on with a couple of geared riders, but my legs were just about to cramp, so I had to let them go and just spun it in by myself and didn't lose any spots in the process. At the finish, I pulled my chip off on the fly and just kept spinning. The legs felt pretty bad and I wanted to keep them moving. After a 10 minute warm down, I headed to the finish and caught up with the boys. The ride was good for 3:12, 125th overall and 9th in the singlespeed class. After getting me put in the singlespeed class where I was supposed to be, Kelly, Chapin, Benny and I headed back to the motel on our bikes, which led to much grumbling by those boys, but for me was a much needed continued warm down. We showered, got the cars, assembled the crew and headed down to the Vierling pub and restaurant for some most excellent lunch (at like 3 in the afternoon). I had a bit of stout and a killer cajun whitefish sandwich. Tasty. Following our lunch, we pretty heaed back to our hotel sat around and watched "The Drug Years" on VH1. Following a bit more lounging, we headed out for "supper" and some beer at about 8. After watching the Packers have a miserable first quarter, we hit the sack. Up less than early on Sunday morning, I took Kelly and Margaret on a senic tour of Negaunee (searching for a full on bakery and coffee shop) before returning to Cruisin' coffee for some righteous coffee and muffins. Coffee in hand and the mellow sounds of the Dropkick Murphys on the stereo, we hit the road and made sweet time back to Montreal where I dropped them at their car and busted back to Ashland solo. The shout out list is long this week, and I'll try not to miss anyone, but my apologies if I miss you. Jesrin Gaier, studly in 7th place. Daddy Gaier, way to kick my butt. Chapin-"I crashed twice and still got 17th" and the man bought us beer with his prize money. Matt Muraski-way to fly the pom pom squad flag. Mike Haag-studly on the singlespeed! Michelle-Wicked fast! Julie Meyer-Way to rock the long race! Tom Meyer-Umm, you almost don't get a shout out for doing the short race, but you actually read this, so you're excused. Terry Tansey-I hope I'm that fast at 50. Aaron Swanson-Ashland boy represent! Suzy Sanders,not bad for your second race! Last, and probably most importantly, Kelly and Margaret McKnight for putting up with yours truly and sharing their motel room. Oh, and you both rode super fast too. Wow, long winded, now its almost my bedtime. Seeley PreFat is next on my dance card, preceded by a couple of weeks of solid training. Out.

8/1/06
Howdy. So the lack of updates lately is totally explained by riding the bike a lot. The last few weekends went pretty well. At Bay Days I pulled down a pretty solid double with 2nd in the mountain bike race and 5th in the 10k run. Not shabby for a guy who's run like 10 times all summer. After that I had a weekend off and then this past weekend was 24 Hours of 9 Mile. The event also played host to the national championships this year, so there were a lot of fast people in attendance. They had to call the event after 19 hours because of severe weather, but it was fun while it lasted. Things went well for my team, bringing home the 3rd place in the sport class. Our whole team was really solid. Props go out the Lalonde bros, representin' the 715 and bringing home the national title with the help of ettmayer and matter. Mike Haag was a beast turning in 9 laps in the solo race and his wife and other Mamas burned up the coed open class for Terry Tansey's birthday. Sweet! That's all for now, folks. Out.