I Heart Headwinds

Just under five hours of ride time.

Welcome to Elmwood, NE.

We're All In

Per G-Ted on the TI blog:

"... we wanted to err to the side of having the lottery than not, but........it looks as though we do not have to have the lottery! Yes, that means you all got in. We are still processesing the roster info at this time and we will have it posted up as soon as we possibly can. Stay tuned and congratulations."

Game On.

Trick Question

Perhaps by winning the lottery?

I sent only one postcard. Mistake? We shall see.

Paddy says if his name is pulled, he's coming. Can you win your own preem? If so, I suspect he'll share.

CreepyFriendly sent a card. MW sent something early. (I never know what blog to link to with MW.)

Who else has applied? Anyone else just through out one card?

Knowing my luck, there are 101 cards and I am the runt dalmation who'll get left at the side of the road.

Tagged.

I was wondering if this would work its way to me and Syd has apparently taken care of it. Six interesting things about the Snob that most people don't know (but yet I am willing to blog about.)

1. One of my degrees is in Creative Writing, but while I often think of things to write about, I rarely write. For a short period of time, I sent submissions to McSweeney's. After getting a few efforts to their "Open Letters" section glowingly reviewed but rejected, I sent a submission to the "Letters" section and they took it and only made one major edit. (If you do a find on page for 'Cronin,' you can see it.) I haven't submitted anything else anywhere since.

2. I suffer from a ridiculous duality of both not caring what people think and occassionally taking things far to personally, even if it's pointless. For example, if someone were to say behind my back, "Don't talk to him. He's the enemy." You will have likely just earned yourself an enemy who's happy to assume that role for you, even if I don't really know you in the first place and you may have been joking anyway.

3. I am adopted and my biological mother is currently in an aslyum.

4. The two fictional movie characters I identify with most are both played by Matt Damon, which creeps me out a little.

5. I am a hypocrite when it comes to forgiveness. I believe that most people lack the strength to truly forgive and I have a hard time forgiving them for that.

6. When I lived in Chicago, I would occassionally hustle people on DePaul's campus by playing them in basketball for money. One of the standout lines from those days was some guy on the sidelines yelling out, "He Dan Marjele'd (sp?) that MotherFucker!! He Dan Marjele'd that MotherFucker!!" after a little 5'9" white kid went up over a much taller guy for the score and game ender.

There are lots of people I would love to know more about, but I am not going to tag them. The way this is going, it will happen anyway.

Large Ass Tree

This is the large tree in the family Snob's new front yard.
The weekend's stats look something like this:
Hours on Bike: 7
Boxes Moved: Not Enough.
Projects Found: Too Many

"Hell No, I'm Not Stopping" - Endurance Cyclist of the Year

Craig Gordon - Wrecked himself at "Worlds" to bring down the reigning king, Mr. Chris Eatough.

Mark Hendershot - To quote Joe P yet again, "old, bold, lewd and tattooed."

Dave Harris - Killed it at the KTR. Got folks riled up regarding 26 vs. 29. Check out his 2006 Visualized.

Nat Ross - If he's in it, he's in the top five. His CyclingNews journal tells the story.

Harlan Price - Won the National Ultra Endurace Series. 20th at the Ruta. Rocks the IF and hangs with Elk.

Matt Wills - Never met a long ride he didn't like. Kanza finisher. G-Ted Death Ride aristocrat. Local Ruler.

Lynda Wallenfels - My recommendation is to visit Lynda's blog and look down the left side. You'll notice a lot of this: 1st, 1st, 1st....

Rich Dillen - Viking on parade. TR SS. "Worlds" Victory. Nominations in every category.

Engima Code One-Eight-Seven

I've been mildly obsessed lately with finding artwork for the new crib. What you see on the right in the one item I have already picked up. I am considering trying to get in touch with AOMIII or Steve Smith. I've got the perfect wall to try to fill in.

Rode for just short of four hours today. I believe when I left the windchill was sitting around 20, but aside from my feet, I felt good. Saw PC early in the ride and KW near the end. Perfect timing. One made me happy to be out and the other motivated to finish thiings up as planned. Now, if I can actually get to sleep at night things will be golden.

One pixellated Paddy post-card has hit the mail. I haven't felt very clever lately.

"You Can Feel Anything You Wanna Feel...

... And call it real."

Everything falls under the category of "in-process." New house, restructured gig, and trying to prepare for 07 in 06.

So, of course, the best way to mull things over is to stay up very late, listening to Sebadoh, Firehose, and Iggy & the Stooges.

There's also sitting on a trainer and discovering your left leg has arguably the worst pedal stroke on the planet.

"I can't complain though I racked up in chains. I can't complain."

Brillant, eh?

The Genius of Jeff and Mark is apparent yet again. MW, can I get a leadout? Send your Postcards to the Edge by the 15th.

How about Founder's Ale at the halfway point for Joe?

"Take the Damn Thing Already" - Photo of the Year

Blogger made me work for it, but here are the photos chosen for 'Photo of the Year.'

A.

B.

C.

"Take the Damn Thing Already" - Photo of the Year (Cont.)

D.

E.

F.

G.

H.

I.

J.

Mrs Snob Said...

"I saw a black Christmas tree and thought of you."

Still Not Warm

How's this for a rookie mistake?

I went out intending to log a bit over 3hrs at a nice snail-like pace. It would help if I would have checked the weather. A brisk 50 degree temp dropped to 40 in an hour and I was completely unprepared. Add a northwind with a little pace to it and I was hurting. My hands and feet were going numb and I had that wonderful feeling in my chest you get when the cold cuts right through your clothes and attacks your core.

Complete and utter genius. It's only five days until December. Why should it be cold?

"One Fucking Gear" - Single Speeder of the Year

Dave Nice. Proved you cannot keep a good man down. Stolen gear during the the GDR and just keep riding and smiling.

Dan Jansen. Rocked the SS category in the Ultra 100 Series and famously hit 30+ no handed on the SS. (into a headwind, uphill both ways).

Jesse LaLonde. Graves Disease? Fuck it. He came strong anyway. Stars and Bars of the team variety at 9Mile. Super Fan for his bros. (and I didn't even mention the BKB.)

Your Mom. Face it. She rocked that Schwinn in her day.

Rich Dillen. "Worlds" Victory. TransRockies on just One. Great Ultra100 results. Manly yes, but I like him too. Will he unleash his Karl Rove (I am sure that's too harsh) tactics to win the Blogger election away from Danielle? It worked for Race Face TR vote.

Paddy Humenny. The only Canadian on the list (I think) and he wants to move. I guess Dallas is a shoe-in for the Canadian prize next year. Keeps killing his blog, but have you ever noticed the number of positive comments he throws out to people? Solid.

Mark LaLonde. The Darkness. A is for Action. Marko is just a mother fuckin' badass. You'd latch on to his wheel, but you can't. Stars and Bars. Results for 06 you wish you had.

Matt Wills. Long rides, short rides, you name it he brings it and makes it fun. Committed to Rigid? Check. Rocking the pink SS? Check. One of Lincoln's Finest.

CX Sunday

Strange day today. The long road start put the three one gears at or near the back from the start so it was ketchup. Had a blast though and that's the beauty of cross. Mix it up. Both days were of the "lose ground on the road and gain it back off" variety. It's not like I am contending for anything so I just tried to peg it as hard as I could, ride smoothly and see what happened.

Flew the BKB kit today. Went Balls Deep. It's all good.

Nebraska Cross Saturday

And so it begins...



Where is everyone? (Jackie Robinson's Number!!)

If there were audio for this moment, you would hear me yelling gibberish.


Horns? YES!


MOD, what's up with that foot?

The Money Tree

See, it does grow on trees.


MOD is getting paid.



Coaching Lesson Number One
"I say Gents. Good Show!!"

"Shut up and Type" - Blogger of the Year

Read this in your best starlet voice: "The Nominations for 'Blogger of the Year ' are:

Eddie O'dea. He probably deserves my vote since he put his hand in the middle of my back to get me going at 9 Mile when I blew all of my speed coming into that gravel climb.

FatMarc. Funny. Self-Deprecating. Fast.

Danielle Musto. To quote Joe: "Funny, lots of good stories and pictures, and she wins the overall from time to time at endurance events."

Paddy Humenny. Killed his blog just in time for the awards. How appropriate.

Endurosnob. That guy's an asshole.

Jason Sager. If getting completely screwed over by USA Cycling wins you this. He should win in a landslide. He's also hysterical.

CVO - Lincoln's Founding Blog Father. As Cornbread said, the most influential man in Nebraska Cycling. (He's also cool as hell.)

Guitar Ted. Sheldon Brown of the Midwest. If Jeff Kerkove is Mr.24, Mark may be Mr.29.

Jesse LaLonde. Creepy Friendly. Single Speed Nazi. Founder of the BKB. Rockstar.

Rich Dillen. Could this be the beginning of a Bad Idea Racing awards sweep?

Let the voting begin.

The Future of Fun

I just stole that title off of 'Today on MSN," so how weak am I?

Planning to remove the Cheddar and be betta in 2007? Marc's starting a little service to assist. Where are the F-bombs? Maybe that comes during the rides with your coach.

Speaking of Wild MOFO's, Sam's was scheduled to get the wrist checked today. Ah, the itch of deadskin.

Paddy's blog is dead again. What's new?

Got an out-of-the-blue email from an old friend today. We worked together at the Bicycle Garage of Indianapolis and had some good times together, including qualifying for the USARA 24hr National Championships in his first race. Now the man works for Giant, based on his email address, and somehow "caught rumor of this blog the other day called endurosnob and I knew it could only be one person." Is that bad or good?

It is nice to know that this thing has at least one practical use. Good to hear from you, Scott.

Voting starts tomorrow. No Diabold. No Ernst & Young.

I do have a Sharpie and I am not afraid to use it.

Crash

Word on the street is that the blog is crashing people's browsers. Sorry folks. MonkeyGirl is on the case though, so hopefully it gets sorted out quickly.

Thanks to the folks who nominated for the Awards. We'll kick off the voting next week along with some ridiculous crap I made up on my own.