New Bontrager Evolve Saddle!

It is purdy!! Will let you know more later!

-S
Sent on the Now Network� from my Sprint® BlackBerry

Chocolate Milk Bliss

Any race that has chocolate milk and water at the finish line for you is alright in my book!
Sent on the Now Network� from my Sprint® BlackBerry

In the finish chute

2 hour 13 minutes. Wow, what a hard course that was. Big climb to open that left everyone with lactate legs by the last 4 miles.

Jenny had the usual mental push moments, but rallied and came out strong in the end.
-S
Sent on the Now Network� from my Sprint® BlackBerry

Climbing strong

On da climb!!
Sent on the Now Network� from my Sprint® BlackBerry

Race Face!!

Sent on the Now Network� from my Sprint® BlackBerry

NORD

Good luck to the BFR crew taking it to the mean streets of Richmond this weekend for Duathlon Nats. Will Eric Moore, coming off of FORD victory, be able to hold off Geoff Keenan and Scott Ramsey in the NORD? Will Brock Darden manage to keep the bike upright, in one piece, and moving forward, or will sheer power output kill the deal for him again? Who else is showing up down there? Will torrential rains wash away the whole scene? Who knows - the only thing certain in that race is lots of pain. Duathlons are hard.

Speaking of pain...

"Has anyone seen my Moots?"

Bike Parking only

Sent on the Now Network� from my Sprint® BlackBerry

Ugali

Cooking Ugali with the Kenyans. Ugali is Swahili for "run like hell tomorrow."

Despite the carbs, and despite how cool it was to watch these two take turns attacking a stronger runner in the 8K, they couldn't pull off the win. Still, the sprint finish was amazing to watch, and 2nd and 3rd makes for a nice podium. Congrats Paul and Henry.

Also, big up, mad congrats to BFR racer, Eric Moore, for taking down the FORD today. Get to the front and stay there - not a bad strategy.

FORD victory!

Congratulations to Eric Moore for the overall win at the Fredericksburg Off-Road Duathlon Saturday April 17. BFR showed up in good numbers with Brock Darden, Jenny Whedbee, Eric, and myself rolling in for the start in great weather conditions at the course. The initial run was flat for about a mile before singletrack and then a riverside portion before heading into transition after a fairly long 2.9 miles. Eric led the run, and Brock was close to the leaders before a snapped chain took him out (Brock, I think you've got your mechanical glitches done for the season and you'll have a good race next time). I was a few minutes back on the run and felt good on the bike and only gave up one overall spot on the run when a younger age-grouper flew past on the final straight.

Eric was a few minutes up on second, and Jenny won her age group. I had a second in my age group, so it was a good day all around.

Peace.

The People of Colorado Vs. The Bad Apple

In 2003, I lived in Boulder, CO and I was poor. But I was into racing mountain bikes.

How does a poor bike racer get a bike when he's not fast enough to get a sponsorship? Unfortunately, the answer is craigslist. (for those of you who have heard the van story, this misguided craigslist experience actually precedes the Van craigslist experience.)

For a few months before Christmas that year, I'd been keeping an eye on all the classifieds, ready to pounce on the cheapest, nicest thing I could find over the winter. And I found an advertisement on craigslist, really liked the price, and I knew the bike was cool, so I bought it from a guy in Boulder for way less than it was worth. He claimed he had back problems, forcing the sale. It troubled me – despite the fact that the guy fit the bike, he seemed sketchy on a few different levels. But I ignored my gut feeling; I used cash, bought the bike, and was on my way.

The bike was fantastic. Super fast – rode great, etc. But it ate away at me, stupid conscience, that someone, somewhere was missing it.

So, after much debate, I decided to try to find out. In the end, it didn’t take much looking - sure enough, it was stolen and listed in a database of stolen bikes that I found online (www.nationalbikeregistry.com). So I called the database who put the owner in touch with me.

Strangely, the original owner (college guy) didn’t really want it back at first. He was grateful to have found the bike, but he’d already made an insurance claim and was shopping for new bikes. So basically, his insurance claim (if discovered) was void and he’d have to give the money back. So he doesn't really want it back – I keep the bike, case closed, right?

No indeed. I got some legal counsel from a friend, and because I reported the bike as "found" with the National Bike Registry, there was an official report - possibly available to police, insurance, etc. Which brought about all kinds of possibilities for insurance fraud, becoming someone's puppy in prison, etc.

The original owner of the bike thought about that, and after a while he decided in good conscience to take the situation to the Police. In the end he was really appreciative – getting his original bike back, doing the right thing, etc. He actually didn’t have enough money to buy a new bike anyway after paying the insurance deductible, so it was good for him to go the legal route.

As for me, I was out $500 unless the cops could find the perpetrator. Which was doubtful. Which made me think hard about the choice I made - buying the bike might have been a mistake, but was I obliged to dig for the truth about its origin?

My roommate at the time, a man of questionable moral fiber, was blown away by the whole situation. He told me: if you dig up the past all you get is dirty.
“You made the choice to start with,” he said when I was trying to decide if I should find out if the bike was stolen, “there’s no point in doing the right thing now.”

I wholeheartedly disagreed, and I still do. It’s not often that life lets you make a mistake and then lingers around to give you the opportunity to man up about it and be honest and come clean. And while you can’t control the whole world, or even parts of the world, you CAN control little parts of the world for little windows of time. That’s Free Will, and outside of our personal sense of right and wrong, acting upon that sense is perhaps the only thing that makes us who we are. In whatever corner of the world I control, theft ain’t cool.

My sense of righteousness was eventually rewarded...sort of. In the Spring of 2004, The Bad Apple, a local dirtbag, drug addict, and bike thief (and the guy who'd sold me the stolen bike) was arrested in a blaze of glory. Having been too drunk to effectively mace the cop who was conducting the sting to arrest him, he had fled on foot, and was thoroughly beaten down by some of Denver's finest. Sweet.

Then the legal process started.

I'll try to keep this brief: The Bad Apple was arrested, posted bail, skipped town, was caught, brought up on other charges, incarcerated, released on work-bond, re-incarcerated for other crimes, did some hard time, and...eventually I lost track. I did, however, update my address with the Colorado judicial system every time I moved on the off chance that, eventually, this guy would be released from prison and sent back to work. A part of his restitution, as I understood it, was to pay his victims for the damages he'd caused. Unfortunately, it was quite a lot of damage. And I was pretty far down the list. But who knows?

On Monday this week, 7 years after the crime was committed, I got something in the mail from The Colorado Judicial System. The Bad Apple (whom I've chosen to leave nameless here on the off chance that he is trying to start his life again on the up and up) is apparently out of prison and back to work. And The People of Colorado vs The Bad Apple seems to have it's own bank account by which it's sending out restitution checks to his victims based upon his current earnings minus his living expenses.

The physical manifestation of our legal system's success: a check for $11.34. I'd take a picture of it and post it here, but it's got his name on it, and again, I don't want to throw the poor sack under the bus if he's finally trying to do the right thing. More to follow? Who knows. Finances aside, it doesn't really matter.

Happy Friday, good people of the world. Keep riding. Your karmic investments will be returned to you, but the equation isn't necessarily enacted all at once.

Hilbert

Okay Hilbert.. that was a dirty trick. I'm not entirely sure what you did, but the GI issue wasn't fun. I still rocked and felt strong, even though the 7th and last lap. Be prepared, May is coming quickly, and you're allll mine, buddy!

-j

p.s. Now that you've had a taste of The Piv, are you trembling? Oh, there's more where that came from, you better believe it!

Camp Hilbert

Okay Hilbert. I know you and I don't have a good history. There was the day with 3 flat tires on a single lap. There was that episode with the bonk at hour 3 (and the subsequent two+ hours of suffering). There was the day on the single speed, yeah, that kinda hurt. There was that horrible suffering of the attempt at going fast enough to place in sport. There was the day with the flat on the start line.. that was funny, sort of.

This year, I'm bringing THE PIVOT for it's first run at you. You've probably never met anything quite like it. It's red. It plush. It's rock solid. It's an enduro machine. It's fast. Hell, it's so fast I can't keep up with it sometimes. The Niner is coming for moral support, to spectate the Piv's dominance, and a possible backup. So don't think you can put a well-placed stick in a derailleur on the opening lap and get away with anything.

Every wheel I own has fresh Stan's. Even wheels I'm not bringing to the race. I have enough food and water packed to feed a small army for a short war, or a large army for a very short war. I double checked that I brought my shoes, helmet, chamois cream, gloves, arm/leg warmers, shorts, jersey. Heck, even the iPod is ready to rock your world; a 5 hour mix of HateBreed, Nine Inch Nails, Disturbed, and Patsy Cline (You heard me!)

Hilbert, tomorrow is war. Bring your A-game, mine is packed.

Art

Pretty cool. I can't figure if it is 'art for' or 'art with function'.
Bike Rack?
Bench with out the back and seat area on it?
Pretty cool though. I really like the touch of the oversived cassette with chain rings in the top middle attached to the Trek 820.

The wings made of fork legs is cool also.
Sent on the Now Network� from my Sprint® BlackBerry

Found in NC!!

Sent on the Now Network� from my Sprint® BlackBerry

6WC and Green's Lick

It was great to see a bunch of the crew at Warrior Creek! Definitely a strong showing. Also, Scott and I just had a great ride at Bent Creek! Rode about 15 miles on the Bent Creek trails to include Green's Lick and the Explorer Loop. We followed it up with a family bbq at the house. It was awesome to see some of the old gang.

Lessons Learned

Any car ride with D-Whit will feel much longer than it actually is.
Sent on the Now Network� from my Sprint® BlackBerry

Dwhit DZirkle as a Podium Girl

Sent on the Now Network� from my Sprint® BlackBerry

The outcome

If the Burn 24 hour has been renamed by Jason to the 24 hours of Berms. Then I dub the Warrior Creek 6 hour as 6 hours of super berms! Wow, what an awesome, awesome course.
Results:
Duo women: Jenny and Ellen- 8th place
Solo Women: Jenny Whedbee- 13th place.
Solo Men: Shawn Tevendale 4th (5th overall)
Jay Catlet 21st
Scott Ramsey 27th place.
Danny O. 50-60's we think.
Nolan Lavoie 72nd place.


Whit was here, he annoyed Jay out of the pit and then chased him for a lap, and through his general annoyance kept our pit times pretty short. He rode part of a lap with me. It actually was nice to have him helping.

At the end, he served as a podium girl, sort of.
Sent on the Now Network� from my Sprint® BlackBerry

BFR and WBR pit zone.

Sweet.
Game on in less than an hour.

Sent on the Now Network� from my Sprint® BlackBerry

Nolan Spotting?!?!

We found this guy down here.


Sent on the Now Network� from my Sprint® BlackBerry

Dinner Time

The drive down has been interesting to say the least. The course is awesome. The company....well, let's just say I think I deserve hazard pay for this one.
Sent on the Now Network� from my Sprint® BlackBerry