the what what:

frederick city alley cat, w/ checkpoints, contests, challenges, scavenger hunting, and rad urban cyclist prizes.

Where: meet at the big bell tower in baker park downtown frederick.  you know it.  MAP HERE
all the normal crap too: skid competion, track stand comp, rapping comp.

do we all know what an alley cat is?  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alleycat_races

the saturday after halloween, as in nov 7th.  meet at the baker park bell tower….

extra points for rad post halloween costumes.

other stuff:
bring a cell camera or a camera
a sharpie
tail light
beer bucks
messenger bag or basket
$6.66 entrance fee

Veronika and I will be driving from Prague to Copenhagen, then ferrying over to Sweden; will drive to Stockholm; then either drive or take a train either up Sweden or Finland, depending on which is more effective. It should be a kinda long drive but we are excited for some good scenery through the Czech Republic, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, and Finland. Our new diesel Hyundai wagon gets about 60mpg highway with a roof rack and plenty of trunk space, so we should be able to accommodate 3(+?) more inhabitants.

We can pick up stragglers at all major airports along the way: Prague(PRG), Berlin(BER, SXF, TXL, THF), Copenhagen(CPH, RKE), Stockholm(ARN, BMA, NYO, VST), Helsinki(HEM, HEL), Kittila(KTT)

The race is in Eastern European Time (EEST) at UTC+3. That’s 7hours ahead of the east coast, 10 ahead of AZ, and 1 ahead of most of mainland Europe and the western two fingers of north Europe.

170km north of the Arctic Circle it is daylight for months on end, so no need for lights and a COMPLETELY different experience on the 24 hour race. I am quite curious how it would feel to never get dark?! Plus the race is only 50eur and includes 24 hrs of sauna and camping.

Only 9 guys and 2 women in solo last year, so we are going to kick ass!!
(the women’s winner only got 108km! ha! Veronika has only done like 3 rides in the last year less than that!
She is gonna rip those Finns a new one! She did 156k at old pueblo last year and had been so sick for the previous 2 days that she didn’t eat anything and had to pull over to either puke or shit behind every other cactus! Even my pedestrian 182k last year would have got me 4th.)

Czech out another great video at http://www.av-lappi.com/levi24/24.html

And more images from last year at http://www.laplandfoto.com/store/gallery.php?gid=55

anyway, we have about 8cm (π”) of fresh snow in the city now, after a good snowfall all day yesterday. and it was -13 (8°F) when I rode home from work.

a nice bike ride home. 12psi seemed about right.

watch out for the little dogs, with the tripwire back to the old lady

snoop vase 2.jpg, originally uploaded by jamesjohnsonart.

A ride on saturday, the 20th!  or sunday… the 21st.  (apologies, I was obviously looking at the martian calendar… the first time). Ole Saint Nick will be in town, so we gotta get at least one ride in with him. I propose taking it easy: ie no mountain biking on road bikes. sub insane distance. maybe that ride that we were gunna do with the czechs but then didnt do. I can also do anytime during the week, but the 20 is a weekend day so………

Holla and lemme know what you’re thinking.  apologies for the earlier date confusion.

bicycle design is hosting a design competition. a good one. one to design a better human powered commuting machine. so, be it a commuter bike, freakcumbant, or trike…it’s probably gonna have wheels and pedals, and is definitely gonna have a person on or in it. or under it. or next to it. my point is this is wide open. a great opportunity to share some good ideas, ask some good questions, and possibly find some opportunities to make commuting better.

there are some legitimate judges, and if you’re not james–a legitimate prize.

strictly speaking, CAD isn’t required. do it.

Let’s start with some defining attributes of Tri-baggery:

-Wears underarmour in public

-Thinks the best underarmour color is white, because the wind can’t see the color white, and because the best tri glasses, shoes, frames and saddles come in white.  Therefore, the only thing the wind can see is your mirror practiced race pout!

-Visits a barber named Vance 3-4 times a week.  Possibly has haircut wind tunnel tested.

-Actually likes licking his heart rate monitor before strapping it on

-Thinks a 2 tooth difference between cassettes will make or break a race

-Thinks its normal to lick a power bar and apply it to a bike frame

-Thinks velcro isn’t just for shoes, but water bottles, seat bags, and top tube lunch boxes as well.

-Doesn’t think the top tube lunch box negates everything aero on the bike ever.

Tri-bags are invariably drawn toward chintziphenalia, including but not limited to white framed sunglasses, carbon fiber anything (preferably things that are actually lighter in aluminum, like cranks, stems, and handlebars), iron man branded anything (these gloves dont feel so good, and the gel padding weighs as much as my race wheels, but ooo, they say iron man), aero anything.  Can I interest you in these aero brake pads?  How much?  Well they will shave .023 micro seconds off a 100 km run, but if you combine them with aero bolts, aero suck straws, aero chains, and aero headsets, you get a combined total of 3,200 dollars I mean .12 seconds!  How can you say no?  I’ll print an extra copy of the receipt so you can accidentally drop in front your friends post race triple skim double whip protein coffee shake and they can pretend to be ahhhhhed but really  are schemeing to outspend you for the next race.

Tri-bags act like celebrities with one fan. Themselves.  And some guy named Tom on myspace.  They expect celebrity treatment, and refuse to do any sort of work on their bikes ever, because they are too busy training.  However they will sit and watch you clean, tune and sneer at their bike for 2 hours.  They will watch you fiddle with velcro water bottles, wipe sweaty drink spit from their top tubes (triathletes droll and seep spit sporatically in a show of superior sweatitude) and never apologize for the abject bio-hazardous condition of their bikes.  They will tell you blow by blow how the lack of white carbon aero chintzaphenalia on their bike lead to their rear-ward race placement.  They will blame any thing but their own lack of fitness.  You see, if the bike bits failed to achieve proper placement, they can justify more upgrades!  White mesh skin suit?  I’ll take two.  I need one to wear to Starbucks!

Disclaimer: there are plenty of normal folks who race tri.  I just havn’t met any!  If you do not fit above descriptions, ignore where applicable.  10 bucks says no tri-bags read this blog, which is too bad.

for you gear queers, get over to cyclofiend and check out the three bikes jim was nice nuff to put up.  mel’s atlantis, my 650b trek, and the xo-1.

looks like rolling hills, nothing too hard.  lots of dirt.  and i shortened it, due to popular demand.  only 71 miles!  that’s shorter than the distance my grandmother used to walk to get to school.   how about it nick?

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so we had a super good turn out for the scramble.  dave got points for driving the furthest to get here.  phil got points for riding a bike that would give a cory townie a run for its money (crappynesswise).  way to many people showed up on fixed gears and kicked ass on them.  joe, jay, john (sort of) jason and phil were all punished the roads with their insanity.  there were, if i recall, 9 flats, 4 of which happened to Rob and two of which happened to Damien.  Is that right?  Or were there more?  We made it home before blinky lights were needed, but not by too much.

Dave took pictures, which he hasnt posted on Flickr yet, so did John (same thing) but Joe has some up here.

I hope everyone had as good of a time as I did, pain aside.  That said, I rode the next day and felt 90 percent OK.

I want to not feel OK next time.  I want to be groveling on the side of the road.  To that end, I propose a mega monster ride for october.  That gives you almost two months to lay off the sauce and ride a bunch.  We could split the ride over two days, but where’s the suffering in that proposal?

I’m thinking sort of an expanded dirty sugar ferry ride, to include much more dirt and plenty of more excuses to get flats.  there would be no singletrack, but just alot of farm roads and potholes.  120 miles.  It’s totally doable.  We’d have to start early, and we’d definately end after dark.

here’s a link to the proposed ride route.  

Go ahead and call me crazy.  There will mad amounts of dirt.  Or you will be mad about the amount of dirt.  Check it against the dirt road database.  There is more dirt than pavement, almost. I’d say at least 40 solid miles of dirt.  Let’s say October 26th for now.   Image from last year’s Ferry Ride here.

Maybe someone knows someone’s yard we can sleep in down that way.