7000 mile check-up

There comes a time in the life of every bike when it needs a little work. That time has come for my Trek 1500. Last Saturday while riding a century with friends, Mark P. noticed little wobble in my rear wheel. It wasn't enough for me to notice on the bike but after closer inspection my rear rim was cracked. Off the the LBS for me, I dropped my ride off and told Rich to give it the once over to see if anything else needed some attention. I ended up with new front and back brakes, a new chain, a straightening of my slightly bent derailleur and of course a new rear wheel. Hey what do you know I almost have a new bike again. Hopefully it's good for another 7000 miles or so now.

Big Oil Wins

If this isn't enough to piss you off a little bit, well, then you might just be Dick Chaney. Only 4 flippin days profit is all it's going to cost them, just doesn't seem quite fair to me.

Wii Fit

One of these showed up at our doorstep yesterday. The Mrs. and the kids hooked it all up and we were ready to play after the T-ball game last night. Aerobics, strength training, balance training and yoga are all included with your own virtual trainer. Was it fun? Oh Yeah! Was I a little stiff and sore this morning, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't. I tried some of the strength training, yoga and a couple balance games and apparently worked some muscle groups that cycling does not. Is it the silver bullet to weight loss and 6 pack abs, probably not but it is a whole lot better than sitting on the couch. Oh, I forgot to mention my Wii Fit age is 55, I guess I need a bit more training.

Century Saturday

My first century of the year, it was really unplanned and a whole lot of fun.

I left Vermillion solo at 8:00 A.M. with plans to meet up with Cycling Cathy at Dalesburg church, a small church about 14 miles from Vermillion. This went according to our plans and Cycling Cathy and I arrived minutes a part and took off from there. Our plans were to ride towards Beresford and meet up with Mark P., Kwen S., Chad P. and Andy who were meeting in Beresford. Cycling Cathy and I rode and rode and next thing you know we are 5 miles from Beresford. We decided to stop at the top of a hill and wait for the other group. We didn't wait long as they were busy climbing said hill. We all departed for Vermillion which is where we had planned to have lunch and a pit stop.

We rolled into Vermillion and headed to the Coffee Shop Gallery where we meet up with Angie and Ed F. Ed's timing was off a bit today and he had ridden all the way from Burbank to Beresford and back without meeting us on the road. We ordered food and sat down for a nice lunch. We asked another customer at the cafe to take our picture, he took our picture and asked where we had been and where we were going. We told him our route and next thing you know he was running home to gear up and ride with us.

We rolled out of Vermillion minus Qwen S. but plus Angie and Ken (our new recruit) and headed to our next stop which was Gayville. At this point I mentioned to Cycling Cathy we just as well polish off a century. She was up for the idea so off our group went.

We got to Gayville and this is where Angie, Ken, and Ed F. (who easily bagged a big century+ day) decided they had had enough and headed back to Vermillion and Cycling Cathy and I plotted out how many miles we had to continue to complete our century before turning around and heading back to Vermillion. We were now down to Mark P., Chad P., Andy, Cycling Cathy and myself.

We rode 9 miles out of Gayville towards Yankton when Cycling Cathy and I turned around and headed back to Vermillion. Mark P., Andy and Chad P. headed onwards to Lewis and Clark campground where Mark P. and Andy would be camping overnight. Chad P. was going to ride them to their camp site and head back to Alcester to complete his 130+ mile ride.

Cycling Cathy and I headed back to Vermillion with thoughts of Summer Shandy running through our minds. We made it back to Vermillion and headed to my house where Charlie(Cycling Cathy's cool hubby) would be meeting us to give Cycling Cathy a ride back home, after an ice cold Summer Shandy of course.

I was a great ride with great company the whole way. We changed our routes and changed our plans often during the ride trying to adapt on the fly to wind and heat, which made for a fun interesting ride.

Cycling Cathy thanks for the company and your great attitude, I will ride a century with you any day of the week.

Later

TGIF

I don't know about anyone else but I'm sure glad it's Friday. I always hate coming back to work after a week long vacation, it always seems like there is a weeks worth of work that needs to be done. I finally feel like I'm caught up at work, now its time to try to catch up on some biking.

I did get a nice 30 mile ride in Tues night and had good intentions of another 30 last night. The 30 miler last night quickly became somewhere around a 12 to 14 mile ride. I took off about 4:30 P.M. and noticed a few rain clouds in the west. Not enough to worry me, a little rain has never bothered me while riding. Once I was about 5 miles out the little rain became a lot. I kept riding though the temp was nice, there was no wind and I couldn't get any wetter. I reached Mulberry Point outside of Vermillion and rode back in the rain the whole way. I had intentions to ride out to Clay County park and just casually ride around Vermillion but then the lightening started. I don't mind riding in the rain but riding in lightening is not my idea of good safe fun. So I bagged the rest of my ride.

Anyways I'm planning on doing some riding tomorrow the route is still a little up in the air but I plan to meet up with some other local rollers and hope to get around 60 miles or so in.

Have a good weekend!

Later

Disney 2008 a few pictures.

My two favorite girls.


The Bubble girls at the wedding.

Indiana Jones stunt show.

Mr. T. being Goofy

Story Time

Ms. K. getting Stitch's autograph.

Mr. T. & Ms K. in front of the castle.

Don't feed the gators!

The gators were actually scared of this group.

Viking invaders in Norway in Epcot.

I enjoyed the wine at dinner

Goofy showed up a breakfast.

I'm Baaack!!

It's been a while, but I've returned from Disney in one piece, which I hope the same for the TDK riders as I've hear it has been a challenging week. Any way I will post more on Disney later as I'm still to tired to make this to long I will give a brief summary of our trip back, THE TRIP FROM HELL!!

We left Disney at 12:10 P.M. eastern time and should have been home and in bed by 10:30 or 11:00 P.M. central time, NOT. The trip from Orlando to Dallas was not a problem, everything on time and in order that is when everything went down hill.

We arrived in Dallas on time and were supposed to leave Dallas for Omaha at 5:30 P.M. and arrive in Omaha about 7:30 P.M. Well we were delayed until 6:40 P.M. for some reason but got in the air about 6:50 or so. We got in made right? NOT. We got to Omaha on time but T-storms were raging through out the area. We circled Omaha for 45 minutes and they decided to re-route us to Kansas City. We got to Kansas City took on fuel and headed back to Omaha, as the T-storms were supposed to be gone. Where do these guys get their weather from, anyone who has lived in the Midwest knows when a large line of T-storms sets up across the entire Midwest knows they are there for quite a while.

Any way off to Omaha we were by means of flying around Wichita, KS and trying to circle around the storms. It was the scariest plane ride I've ever been on. Up, down, side to side it all sucked. We hit ground it Omaha about 11:30 or so and me and my bro in law head to get the cars while our kids and Mrs. pickup up the luggage. No problem right? NOT!

I get to the Prius and the car is DEAD!! This is an electric car if you don't know so jumping it is a little more tricky. So we set out to jump an electric car in pouring rain standing in about an inch and 1/2 of rain water. I was a little nervous. We got the car started and finally headed home, we pulled in the garage about 3:10 A.M. and by the time we got the kiddos in bed and bags out of the car I hit the bed about 4:00 A.M. Needless to say the 7:00 A.M. alarm for work came to soon.

We are home, we are tired, but we had a great time I will post pictures summary of the trip hopefully this weekend.

Later

Off the Grid

I'm checking out for a week or so as I'm off for vacation. I'm sure you will all go through withdrawals not seeing any new garbage posted here. The next day and a half will be spent mowing, packing, wrapping up things at work and preparing to leave.

To all you TDK riders, here is wishing you mild temps, tailwinds and cold beer on the tour. Ride safe and have fun. I will be thinking of you all and expect detailed blog postings about the ride.

As for me no biking for at least a week and a half, I will instead be occupied with weddings, my extremely excited smiling children and Disney characters.

Later