new alt bars

I found some new fun alt bars tonight. I'm actually quite happy with my Mary bars, despite all the talk of them failing on riders lately. (thanks for the confidence Thad).

These bars looks stout and comfy. $85 or a bit more if you want a custom paint job (yea, for your bars...) 4130 steel bars... supposedly less flexy than Mary bars (didn't know Mary bars were flexy) and yet still nice and compliant. hmmm not flexy in a bad way, yet flexy in a good way. interesting.

Groovy Cycle Works - Luv Handles bar

Dan will love this one....

Stupid drive award today goes to a lady in a black Volvo in Belle Meade. So I'm riding down Belle Meade Blvd towards Harding, from the entrance to Percy Warner Park. This section happens to be slightly downhill so I'm cruising at 32 mph. Then a black Volvo drives up next to me, sorta close but not life threatening. Ok, nothing odd yet. Well, then when she is about a bike's length in front of me, she puts her right blinker on and puts on the brakes. Nice, now I have to put on the brakes and slow down and let this lady turn right. Not the worse thing in the world, but come on. Was it worth passing me going 5 mph faster than I'm going, to then just put the brakes on and turn right in front of me?? Guess she couldn't wait to get somewhere...

what is this, work?

I'd sum up last week with one word.... work. Which actually was a good thing. January has been quite slow in Greg's little studio world so it was fun to get back to work. Feast or famine they say.... no work, then three tracking sessions, three days in a row, at different studios. It could of been a lot worse though as I was able to duck out of the first one early to go setup for day 2 at a different studio. Day 2 went great and I was able to meet a new engineer and producer which will hopefully be new clients. I was also lucky that Day 3 was back in the same studio as Day 1 and we were able to keep all of our mics and gear setup. I worked with an old friend Day 1 and Day 3 which was a lot of fun and made the days very easy.

I got a last minute phone call to record vocals Thursday night which I jumped on. Had to cancel the tap room trip, but I needed the work and it was also first engineering, which is what I'm working to do more of. I showed up early and got the lay of the land from the engineer, another old friend. The band still had 1 song to track so I jumped in and took over so my friend could leave and pick up his son from day care. We worked for an hour or so and finishing tracking the last song. The clients decided they were too tired to start vocals that night and wanted to just come in the morning and do them. Bad news for Greg as my work night just got a lot shorter, but I was able to come home and spend some quality time with Beth.

I put my nose to the grind with Google work this week and did as much as I could Thurs through Sunday. I took myself off the bike for the week due to a "new saddle injury", so I decided to just do as much work as I could to keep my mind off not turning the pedals. The crew went out for a long gravel grinder ride saturday morning, and I gotta say I was jealous. Recovery is recovery though, and it's hard to do it if you don't stop what caused the injury. I made tentative plans to try and ride Hamilton Creek in the early morning on Saturday before the trail thawed. I woke up at 6:30 and checked the temps and they were already at 32, so I bailed and just fell back asleep. Beth and I enjoyed a nice evening in Sat. night and got some drinks, made pasta, and played Guitar Hero III for a few hours.

On Sunday morning, Beth and I went to church which was really nice. A younger guy (our age) did the sermon this week and had a great one. It was a great way to end a long week of work. Friday was Beth's sister's birthday but she wasn't able to celebrate it until Sunday. We went to the country club for dinner (pasta bar! mmmm) and went back to the in-laws house for presents. It was a nice relaxing night to end a nice day and a great week.

Winter has arrived

This weekend was the next cyclocross races at Chickasaw Trace. A few guys from the Yazoo crew decided to ride down to the races and do some heckling and beer drinking. Being short on cash right now, I opted out of racing. No extra money for my UCI license so it would of been $30 for a 30 minute race. I decided to just ride down with the boys and enjoy the day and hopefully ride back. I didn't know the mileage we were looking at to get down there, so I was slightly apprehensive about being able to ride back. I generally do better if I don't know what I'm in for, so I kept my mouth shut and went with the flow.

Thad decided we should depart from Leipers Fork and not the farm to cut out a long, boring 8 mile stretch. We met up early and got our last minute bike adjustments and warm clothes situated and packed up the trucks. I was borrowing a setback seatpost from Grant to try on my crosscheck. Thad helped me do a quick plumb bob check of saddle position and hoped in the truck and headed out. It was already cold, real cold, and the latest forecast said it was just going to get colder. Highs of 31 in the morning (when we were leaving) with the temps dropping to the mid 20s later in the day.

We parked in an elementary school lot and quickly got on the road. I forgot to adjust my leg warmers and within a mile I was fighting to keep them up. Ok, this sucks, I'm already off the back of the ride and I can't stop fiddling with my clothes. We take a quick pit stop where I can get adjusted and take a few things off as it's getting hot as we get warmed up. Now I'm just trying to settle in and keep up. You'd think riding with some singlespeeders on the road would be easy, well not with the Yazoo guys, especially when two of them are rocking road/commuting gearing. Then we hit Theta hill, not that I knew what it was when I was on it. I quickly gear up and end up in my easiest gear and the hill keeps getting steeper. I make it over the first hip and it levels a bit, enough to give me a break. Oh, but then it just gets steeper again. I start thinking, I can get off and walk.... nauh that would suck..... why? I do it all the time in the woods on my SS..... nope I can make it..... man this is hard. I check out my computer and I'm actually not going all that slow, (less than walking speed) so I stick with it and muster the strength. Finally, I make it to the top without wussing out and walking.... yea that feels good. I pedal back up and get back in the group. We ride for a bit together and chat before stopping to decide on the route. We decide to take the fastest way to make sure Mike gets to Chickasaw in time for the SS race.

We arrived at the race with plenty of time for registration and a preride. I did a slow preride of the course with my chrome bag still on. It was cool to get the feel of it all on my crosscheck. I'll admit that I was glad to not be racing though as the course looked hard, and long. I followed the group down to the starting line to get some pictures. There was a good turnout but they still lumped the SSers with the CX4 class. After the racers started, Grant and I found a place for our bikes and bags and commenced with the beer drinking and cheering. We had a prime spot to see the racers go by three times before heading out into the air field.

30 minutes later they were done and back to the cabin. Thad did great and finished 1st in the SS class and Mike finished 4th. We passed out beers and talked with the racers for a while. There ended up being a big scoring snafu which was worked out after a lot of deliberation. After a lot of fun chats, it was time to get back on the road if we wanted to beat the sunset.

I realized after riding a few miles that I still had my camera in my front pocket. I pulled it out and snapped some fun 'on the bike' shots. Mike had his chain derail during a sprint with Thad and barely dismounted without crashing. I missed the action as I was off the back but I rode up to offer support, not that Mike needed it. I took this time to pack my camera away and rest my legs. Thad decided to take us on the gravel road that we skipped on the way down. Supposedly we rode it the easy direction though it was still a long, winding climb and muddy in spots. No where near as bad as Theta hill, but I still felt accomplished when I made it to the top.

I rode off the back for a while after the gravel road. I generally could see the guys all the time and they stopped for all the turns. We took a right turn at the same gas station we had stopped at the beginning of the day for me to fix my leg warmers. At this point I knew I only had about 2 miles left. I lost sight of the guys after a bit and kept on truckin. I saw a small football stadium in the distance on the left and started getting excited that I was almost done. When I rode up closer, it didn't look familiar and I didn't see Thad's truck or any of the guys. I decided to just keep on riding. I start riding into the townish part of Leipers Fork and think, "Did we ride through here before?" As I'm riding through I convince myself that we did ride through here and I'm going the right way. After about a mile I ride by this dead skunk on the side of the road. Ok, now I remember passing this skunk on the way to the school, while riding with Thad, in his truck. Now I know I've obviously ridden too far so I stop at the next big street and call Thad. He of course answers "Where are you?" It took a few minutes, but they pulled up and picked me up. Cell phones are nice.... very nice.

When we got back to the farm the temperature was 23. The guys decided to go hit up Sportsman's Lodge and I cruised back home to have some dinner and coffee with Beth. What a fun day of riding and a new experience for me. I'm never excited to ride my mountain bikes on the road so I've haven't done long road rides in decades. You get a feeling of empowerment when you ride your bike a long distance, especially a distance that you would normally drive. It's especially satisfying when you have a destination. When you ride somewhere to actually get somewhere and not just to enjoy spinning the wheels.
If you want to view all my pics from the day click HERE.

Marco...... Polo

Manondale shows off the Russian Hat
Originally uploaded by Chewieez

Polo was back on this week. It felt like I hadn't played in months! It was a chilly night but we played some great games!

We decided playing 4 on 3 was the best idea so no one had to sit out in the cold. I think the teams were a bit lopsided at first, but we switched players and the last couple games were more even. Thad brought his new official ball, which doesn't hold air. We broke it in and scuffed it up. A new ball means new style of play and a new dynamic. Our usual field hockey ball with the water inside was immediately frozen.

Overall good times, good beer and no fights.

oh and Thad's got a new pimp polo mallet, which means I get to use his old pvc mallet which is the perfect length. win win....