130.

22 degrees at 8am and 130 people showed up for Danny Chew's Dirty Dozen. A crew that included:
- 2 RAAM finishers (one was 6'8 and riding a "huffy" serotta! badass
- A guy who I used to play with when I was 3, our parents were best friends
- internet douchebags
- hipsters
- bike racers
- at least 2 10,000 dollar bikes
- 3 women!

And a lot of nice people. Nice people include but are not limited to:
- Barb Peterson, the woman who drives the support car. She does it year after year and is so nice. She has nothing to do with cycling, but just enjoys the event.
- Mark Powder, longtime ACA official takes a day and tries to decipher who is scoring points
- Mark Bold, he moto marshaled a non sanctioned event. It was awesome, he would block
some intersections and lead the group on his motorcycle.
- Ryan Mcdermitt's family was nice enough to drive along the event with our stuff in their car
- Billy Kanarek nicest guy ever, donates the pop, loves the event
- Trizilla drove support with water and pop
- Of course, Danny Chew, who hit the 1 million K mark ON the ride. good for him.
Obviously, all of these people make the event what it is.

This is in addition to all of the people who were just there cheering and having fun. I think shorly danny is going to need to charter a bus for people to watch.

Also, Chris Mayhew always gives me training guidance. Actually it is more of nontraining guidance because he tells me when I should rest rather than ride, calling me incorrigible when I try to ride on what should be a rest day. Chris also rode really well.

Saturday answered the question: who is most willing to take a non serious event the most seriously. Answer: me. Dr Stubna put fear into me for the last few months. Too bad he didnt have his powertap so he can compare last year's efforts to this year's.

Current ACA club champion, Jake Lifson FEARS THE DIRTY DOZEN. He has yet to finish it, and refused to start it this year. John Minturn has quit bike racing to become a cycling "enthusiast," which means he drives to races (the DD, the USGP's etc etc), to cheer and heckle. Colin has like laryngitis and finished, scoring points, and a healthy minturn couldnt sak up at all. Also, it was good to see how stoked Babik was breaking away and winning the last hill. All smiles.
Good times, good people.

it is 22 degrees outside.

how many people will show up to spend 5 hours with dan chew?
My guess is possibly 50. What a world.

The cross team.

So in case you missed the cycling news article, there is a new Cyclocross team out of Western PA. The Ed Krall Racing team has a near all star cast, with the headliner being Chris Horner. Also on the team are Megan Elliot,Stephan Kincaid, Bill Elliston and me (who? wtf? yeah exactly!)
Although the cross season is pretty short, and there have been only a few races together, it is pretty cool. Obviously riding with this class and level of racers is an honor and I got pretty lucky to be able to call myself a part of the team.
More info is at
www.edkrallracing.com

Also just want to say that the Fuji Pro cross bike has been awesome. The team site has some pictures of Geronimo's bling ride with the deep carbon wheels on it. Im not just saying this because it is the sponsor, it is seriously a really nice bike. I think they do something right by having very little advertising and offering a good product, it brings the price down. They retail for like 1700-1800 bucks, with ultegra and some Dura Ace with ritchey comp stuff. This ranks pretty high in my world of cost to function. Im considering buying one of the Fuji Mountain Bikes next year for some XC racing.

Yes, Ed will rub the sportsbalm on your legs for you if you bring it to him, just tell him Steevo sent you.

Kraynicks is still ruling.

So if you got your recent issue of Stars and Stripes you noticed a bit of Kraynicks podium action in the 20th annual tour de Tama.

"They included Lt. Cmdr. Sean Easley of Atsugi, who captured the Masters title in only his second appearance at the Tour de Tama, finishing in 36:01 to win by a margin of almost two minutes."

Article online.

awesome

January 1st. No more honest milk.

Has anybody seen this?

usa today story

the times

Basically on 1.1.08 you wont see "hormone free" or "rbgh free" or "pesticide free" on your milk anymore in PA. Because: "State officials say the labels are confusing and impossible to verify."


This all comes about from Dennis Wolff, Pennsylvania’s agriculture secretary, who is a... a... oh yeah a dairy farmer.


I hate 1984 metaphors, but come on.

bike racing fans exist in america.

So Sunday I am sitting at the SportsBalm tent selling some product for Ed while he is racing when a couple comes up to chat. They ask about the product and are obviously just there to watch the race. I put on my "meeting somebody's parents for the first time, pretend you aren't a loser" game. The woman asks me about bikes, saddles, riding, railtrails, racing, balm, the whole gamut. I give my honest opinion to her, and told her to find a local bike shop that she trusts and support it, because they are also full of advice, and this time of year might just be sitting on their hands waiting for some business.

What was awesome was that she said they drove like 45 minutes to get to the race just to watch. She then tells me that they drove up to watch Univest as well. They will be driving to the USGP next weekend too. They didnt know anybody racing, they didnt know much about cross, but they are just FANS of cycling. They seemed kind of suprised when I told them that I did Univest, and they asked if I was racing the Elite Men, and I laughed and gave my usual "Ill be in the race, yeah."...

Sure enough, every lap when I came by, they were there cheering for me. Real cycling fans. They spent their sunday afternoon driving to a bike race to watch it. Totally crazy. Ill look for them next weekend at the GP for sure.

what a dumpster outside brings.

What I learned is that you cannot have a dumpster out front and dudes working without neighborhood people stopping by. You have dudes looking for day labor, scrappers looking for metal, guys looking for antiques, etc.

At one point we had like 10 people in the house including:

Ron - Black Cowyboy scrapper. He lived across the street and would take things that we were going to throw away and sell them. He would pretend he was giving them to friends, as if we didnt know that people might want to buy a TV. Ron was around for a few days and helped out a good amount in exchange for junk and scrap. Ron always seemed to be a bit disoriented, getting turned around in the house and not remembering which way the stairs were. Ron almost causes crashes each time he pulls out of his driveway.

John - John is a 53 year old grandfather of 15. He has 1 eye and an eye patch. You think this might slow him down, but if you offer him 50 dollars to clean out the nastiest basement on earth, you will be amazed. The man knows how to stack stuff in a dumpster so there are no air gaps, and has apparently been in "the industry" for longer than I have been alive. That is either depressing or impressive. John put in two good days work, and if I owned a company doing this, I would hire him. Its sad to think that he is my dad's age and willing to work for daily cash pay.

Dennis - 50 something black dude with HUGE dreadlocks. He comes looking for scrap, but immediately finds some junk that he will flea market. We offer it to him at "a fair price," and when he is done he tries leaving without paying. He totally shorts us and acts like he is getting ripped off.

Little Man and Dave - Dave drives by and asks if we have scrap. I tell him yes, but there are 3 others looking for it, and the first to show up, gets it. He comes back 10 minutes later with "little man." Little man is a 40 something year old black midget. He is there to help haul scrap, but apparently cant carry too much. They work together and only take the big stuff. They take most of the stuff from the attic, but stop short of it all because they are tired from walking the stairs. After I walked the stairs like 500 times in a day, I wanted to ask if they were seriously that tired after 3 trips.

Super gay antique dude - This guy walks in and drops "I work for SO AND SO... you need to call us anytime you get place like this so we can check the antiques" I have never heard of the woman and was like "sure dude." At which point my brother remembers his future children's college fund and starts schmoozing with the guy. Apparently his job is to drive around and buy antiques for some billionaire, whose name my brother did recognize. The gay dude had super huge safety glasses on with prescription lenses. Not the army type, but the type you would wear if you were welding or something.

Tyrone - Tyrone lived behind me for a year with his now wife. They are a cool couple and we have a bunch of friends in common. Ty is a 3rd generation scrapper/junkman/fleamarkeer. Tyrone knows the going value of just about any junk, has books of names of artists that could be worth money, and also has a pickup truck. I gave him tons of stuff for 25 - 50% of what he will sell it for. It worked out well for both of us, because I was going to throw most of it away anyhow.

Tyrone's dad - 2nd generation junk guy that mostly deals in antiques now. He knew each piece of junk and how much it was worth, where it was made and how old it was. It was kind of like an antique roadshow of 100 dollar 50 year old furniture. He also knows a person that wants to buy each thing and each thing that he doesnt take. This brings in Charlie and Jimmy.

Charlie and Jimmy were a couple of dudes that we called on Tyrone's dad's recommendation. Jimmy was just paid help, and was totally drunk. Jimmy also knew Ron, the black cowboy, despite the fact that they are like 10 neighborhoods away from eachother. Charlie walked around looking at everything that I DIDNT want to sell to him. He kept asking about the mantles and fixtures, which were going to stay. They took an antique C curve rolltop desk for 30 bucks.

Awesome.

If you have a truck you make money. Where you been?

So last thursday my brother, the real estate mogul, and I sit down for breakfast before we plan to go mountain biking. He tells me about this house he is going to list. A man lived in it for 35 years and never threw anything away. It needed to be cleaned out because you couldnt see any walls or floors or anything, there was no way to see what type of condition it was in.
"the lawyer said it is going to cost ...."
"Ill do that for that price."

We skip mountain biking and check the place out. Maybe 2000 sq ft house TOTALLY FILLED with junk. We didnt know that the library had a mantle until we cleaned it out. There were paths around the main rooms and things stacked everywhere else.

Friday, Ed convinces me to leave for the USGP and skip out on all of life's responsibilities. Leech picks me up and we roll out. I annoy him on the way down making "business calls" about the permits/dumpsters/fees/applications involved in this. This is my first time and I am still trying to pick up on the jargon.

Saturday and Sunday were USGP. Read cycylingnews if you want to see that stuff. Oh, I was the LAST PERSON to get lapped. Totally bogus. If I hadnt crashed I probably wouldnt have. At least I didnt quit. Leech convinced me to pour rubbing alcohol in the cuts at night. That sucked. Ed Krall did offer to rub sports balm into my legs!

Monday, Justin and I start busting ass and fill up a 30 yard dumpster in about 18 hours. Click Here if you dont know how big 30 yards is. Its the biggest you can get residentially.

The past week left me throwing a man's life away. From what I can tell:
He went to school for journalism. I found the college newspaper articles that he had written. I found an archive of the years best college writing that he was in.

He made a career of the Military. I found all of his old flight jackets, hats, uniforms, etc. I found a certificate that he broke the sound barrier in the 70's, which I imagine was a big deal.

He worked writing for the local paper. I found a box of envelopes with 2 copies of every article he had written labeled with a dates and subjects. This was for a few years, but I think he had a military pension as well as this job.

He then made cross work puzzles for a living. He had at least 50 dictionaries of weird things. Geographical dictionaries, author dictionaries, slang dictionaries, language dictionaries. He had bookshelves filled with just dictionaries of weird origins. I also found boxes and boxes and boxes of crossword puzzle books FILLED. Every puzzle complete. Crazy.

He must have loved burning cd's. He had at least, no lie, 4 - 5000 cd's filled with MP3's. Every genre, any artist you can think of. The weird thing is that he had no decent stereo to play them all on. I think it was an OCD thing.

What do you do with this much stuff? I donated what I could, and the rest will end up in a fill. The man's family came and took a few things, but didnt want anything else.

I have always thought that if you leave something, you have lived a decent life. My brother's thrash metal band put out a few records that might keep them in people's minds for a few decades. As depressing as it is, it seems like all that this man left will be in a landfill in Monroville. All of his money and time spent on a household of stuff is just gone. It made me want to take his camping gear (tons of Titanium backpacking stuff) and just go into the woods for awhile and really think if spending the money I am going to make doing this on hardwood floors in my house is really worth it.