winter double century...

Well, Chew had been bugging me for the last year to do a double with him, and the only time it seemed to work out training wise was in the winter when it doesnt matter if Im tired. Matt Eaton did one with him and he won the freaking milk race, so I figured that it couldnt hurt. 7 am and dark as hell we met at the oval and headed west. He honestly thought other people were going to show up the day before xmas eve, in the winter, in the dark on a day where the roads were wet to ride for 12 hours. No. Stubna showed up and did the first 2.5 hours with us on his fixed gear. Chew said it would be HEROIC if he did it all fixed, and seriously tried talking him into it.

4 hours later we met up with Chew's friends from the 80's or something, hess, briarcheck and delrazzo. They rode with us for about 40 minutes as we entered greene county. Meeting up with them gave me some respite from Danny, which at that point was pretty critical for my sanity. Stubna and I agreed that if I could make the 12 hours with Danny, I had the mental tenacity to do nearly anything.

First food stop was 90 miles in. Greene county is the joke of Pittsburgh as being the county that touches West Virginia and all this. I guess the people laughing at us while we drank and ate was payback. I only know 1 person who lives there, so I hope Bedillion isnt offended that I said that about greene county.

We hit the river and headed north toward the city, the sun was getting low and it was getting kind of chilly. We did an out and back on a paved bike trail that Chew had never been on before, despite it being 20 miles from his house. We got back to the oval with about 165 miles in and started doing our loops to finish the full 100. Bob Gotlieb, the only other person believed to have done a winter double in Pittsburgh said we will have an * by our mileage do to the loops at the oval and it not being on the road. He also got pulled over by the cops at mile 175, and told he couldnt ride anymore because the cop thought they were going to get killed. That was his first attempt.

The awesome Amy showed up and delivered hot chocolate, gas station cappuccino and bagels with peanut butter (my first peanut butter in 3 days!!!). She left us as pitch black set in and we finished out the last 35 or so laps. \

Chew's computer keeps track of total time, so he is constantly hurrying the stops to keep his average up. When he set the US 24 hour record (508 miles in 24 hours) he only stopped for 5 minutes total. I thought only stopping for 40 minutes over 12 hours was pretty good, but apparently not? I also learned that after 10 hours my computer stops keeping track of seconds, but only keeps track of hours/minutes.
Stats
202.76 miles
12:33 total time
11:42 ride time
17.37 riding average
I wish I had a powertap so I could see calories burned. Maybe around 6500 or so?

Oh, this is cool 1000 streaming mp3 albulms:
http://www.radio3net.ro/1001/?cx=home

Pizza Party for the Somali Refugee neighbors!

These kids are seriously the nicest most humble people to be around. They have been through so much crazy stuff in their short lives, but manage to always come through with smiles and happiness. This summer we really got to know them well, spending time watching them sing and dance in the street in front of our house. We took 11 of them to amy's parents for some pizza and hoidaying.

Conditioning

Conditioned like a dog. I was riding along the other day and a short school bus drove past. I didnt look up at the window, but I could tell there were kids inside moving around, trying to get my attention. I grumbled to myself about how even 5 year olds think its ok to screw with me as Im riding along. We hit a light and I look up. There is an adorable 5 year old girl with pigtails waving at me saying hello. ...

Oh and if Tehran can have a velodrom, maybe Pittsburgh can?
http://sport.guardian.co.uk/breakingnews/feedstory/0,,-6282422,00.html

you cant make dirt clean so we'll just lemon scent it

How much do you want something? Well I guess I was given an pretty good chance at
getting UCI points and I didnt take myself/cross seriously enough to have my spare
bike / wheels/ person in the pit. Whatever, its fun chasing for 7 laps right? It was fun and nice to have so many people cheer me on as I was 2 minutes behind the pack on the first lap, and honestly if they werent there I would have just ridden to the car and dropped out of my 2nd bike race ever (first being the crit at green mountain, my first cat 3 race and I hit a pothole, sprinted to recover and my legs just locked up.)Hebe, Gunnar, Ruggs, and Denny all made me laugh and kept my time trial rolling.. ... Oh well. It took like 3 laps to realize Gunnar was telling me to "DO IT FOR DANNY!!!" which I realized was the Chew.

I met tons of rad people this weekend. The team coppi super nice guys rode the course saturday and put us up for a night. Ken had this:


which I can say is the first nice "thing" I have wanted aside from bike stuff in probably a decade. SWEET.

The race was followed by homemade pierogies and bread at Peter of "crosstalk" fame's house. It was a sweet dinner. After talking about how I usually dont sleep in cars, I crashed for the last 2 hours of the trip while mayhew jammed to the jurassic 5.