I dont know... I might even go to bed bath and beyond...

So a few years ago I found myself cleaning out a dead guy's house for some money. Some money being the few thousand dollars that I needed to travel around for cross season and into the winter when I started cabbing. I wrote a bit about it here. It was basically cleaning up an entire guy's life.

Anyway, I found lots of stuff new in package that got returned. This left me with a $250 shopping spree at bed bath and beyond. This happened last night. Amy and I went and planned out what we wanted. It was all free. I still couldnt buy anything. Usually I think that I am too cheap to buy stuff, but this stuff was all FREE and I still didnt want anything.

I walked away with a coffee maker, 10 forks, bath towels and a shelf for the bathroom that isnt going to fit and will be returned and readded to the balance on the original receipt. Oh and little things to put on the new (free) couch legs to stop the floors from being scratched. (More on the floors later)

It is amazing that there is an entire box store filled with things that I did not want, even for free, and laughed at when I saw. Included in these items was an entire section dedicated to back scrubbers, another section dedicated to masks to shield your eyes while you sleep, and finally a staircase to help small dogs up onto a couch.

The world is at a point that people have a couch so big that their expensive dog that was bred in a way so it cant jump high, needs stairs to get onto the couch, and people are willing to shell out a bunch of money (1/4 a day's wage?) to get the dog on top of it. This is normal.

So I was at Toys R Us Today.

I was shopping for a gender neutral, educational, toy for my 5 year old cousin. Boring. I ended up buying her tinker toys. Yeah seriously. I almost just bought her a slinky, but I had to spend like 30 bucks. Then I saw the best thing ever:



computrainer for 5 year olds. Awesome.

2008 is over. 504 miles of racing AT THE OVAL.

-------- cyclocross ---------17 races = 17 hours = 200++ car hours-----------
1)MAC #1 PSU 14th (UCI)
2)MAC #2 Charm City 3rd
3)MABRA #1 Lilypons 4th
4)MABRA #2 BCA 8th
5)MOM Grove City 1st
6)Iron Cross Lite 3rd
7)USGP #1 41st (UCI) lapped
8)USGP #2 27th (uci) NOT LAPPED
9)WVMBA Marilla 2nd
10)MAC#4 Beacon 11th
11)MAC#5 HPCX 13th (UCI)
12)USGP#3 dnf quit suck
13)USGP#4 37th (UCI)
14)Superior Cross 1st
15)Taccino Cross 3rd
16)Murrysville Cross 1st




17)Mac#9? Capital Cross 8th (UCI)
----- road races --- 860 miles------------
steel city showdown 12th 25 miles
kirkwood field 53 miles
Mingo 1 1st 37 miles
mingo 2 3rd 37 miles
Mt joy field 50 miles
Mingo 3 5th 37 miles
Race at the lake field 22 miles
RATL field 22 miles
Turkey hill 17th 80 miles
Wilkesville to wilkesville 1st 67 miles
union grove field 51 miles
Pmvc ITT 2nd 5 miles
Tour of ohio prolog dnf
Tour of Ohio day 1 35th 70 miles
Tour of Ohio day 2 dnf flat
Tour of Ohio day 3 Dnf crit
tour of ohio day 4 26 32 miles
UPMC Team Time Trial 1st 20 miles
Fort Cherry RR 6th 56 miles
Kinzua Classic 1st 62 miles
Cheyney RR 15thish 62 miles
Giro di coppi 17thish 72 miles






----------offroad races----459 miles---- all on mtb except iron cross-------------
wvmba big bear 12th (flat) 20 miles
Greenbrier 5th 20 miles
wvmba lost creek 5th 20 miles
mohican 100 15th 100 miles
wvmba moes 4th 20 miles
wilderness 101 11th 100 miles
Shennendoah 42nd 100 miles (30 minute mechanical)
Roaring run 3rd 17 miles
Iron cross 5th 62 miles





--------------oval races------------------------------ 504 miles
4.9.08 15 miles
4.16.08 20 mi
4.23.08 20 mi
4.30.08 20 mi
5.7.08 20 mi
5.14.08 20 mi
5.21.08 22 mi
5.28.08 22 mi
6.4.08 25 mi
6.11.08 25 mi
6.25.08 27 mi
7.1.08 17 mi
7.2.08 27
7.9.08 22 mi
7.16.08 25 mi
7.23.08 25 mi
7.30.08 25 mi
8.6.08 25 mmi
8.13.08 22 mi
8.20.08 23 mi
9.3.08 20 mi
9.10.08 17 mi
-----------------------TOTALS-------------------------------------
Miles raced = 1823 + 17 hours of cross
Days Raced = 70
Hours ridden in the 52 week 2008 season = 920.7 (hours ridden=trained/raced/recovered/spun/trainered... all time on bike)

UCI points were given away this weekend.

Points. Yes, like two. The season long cross goal, as low as it might have been, has been achieved. A top 10 in a UCI race. UCI points. After getting 11th at Reston 2 years in a row, I finally managed to get 9th. Very anti climactic.

I once went to a stage race alone. I bummed a car. Got a hotel. Raced the race. Drove home. It was depressing. The car had a tape player, and I had a Youth of Today tape that I listened to on repeat for like four days. That was not fun bike racing.

Bike racing should be a social thing. Cyclocross is a really social thing, which makes it one of the best forms a bike racing. There have been people all season standing on the other side of the tape yelling at me. They yell at the ohter racers too I am sure, but by the third lap, Im usually alone, working my way backwards, and they are yelling at me. This is awesome.

Now I have friends, some of whom are teammates, that I can bum rides from. I am lucky enough to have friends and acquaintances to stay with. Some acquaintances have morphed into friends, communication increases, bonds grow, friends become better friends. Awesome.

People stick around a few hours after their races to watch the depressingly small elite men's field. Freaking Gorski pitted for me when I flatted with a lap to go. His race was over for 2 hours and he had a 4 hour drive home. Do I expect it, no. Would I do it for him, totally. And so it goes. He does something for me, I do something for somebody else, that person does it for somebody else. I guess that is a community. Cyclocross totally has it. When I first raced cross FOUR YEARS AGO (time flies!)... I had heard people talk about the cross community. I read Fatmarc's blog about it. I hadnt experienced it though. Its there. Its awesome.

One other thing that I will also note as an example is a guy named Sean Gallagher. He is what I am talking about I think. He is a bike racer. He is fast. We battle each other. He has bad starts (I think)... I have bad everything after the starts. So he always passes me. Every time he does he says "come on lets go"... HE ENCOURAGES ME WHILE HE IS COMPETING AGAINST ME! That is awesome. Then he rides away from me. Yesterday after the race I was like "alright man... see you next year." It felt like the last day of school knowing that the summer was coming and you werent going to see or talk to people that you didnt go out of your way to do so. But I know they will be there next year and we will start up right where we left off.

Cyclocross.

A few quotes from the weekend:

"How many spots can you lose??!?!?!" As he heckled me from the sidelines.

"Is this Interpol?" Says the 11 year old girl about JOY DIVISION. UGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.





Next post = "the i finally kept track of all riding and racing for a whole year and am going to post the numbers" post. Should be very exciting stuff.

Rainy monday after thanksgiving in Pittsburgh.

I cant wait to commute into town. People are going to be miserable today.

Awesome weekend though.

-Dirty Dozen. 146 people there. Hopefully it cheered the Chew man up some after his surgery. He has been off the bike for over a month now. I am sure it is hurting him. Hopefully this was a happy day to see something that he created turn into such a monster.

-Having the out of towners there. Colin, Miniturn, Turner (is he an out of towner?)

-Local cyclocross race. Team Freddie Fu put on a great muddy, cold, wet, rainy, cross race only 35 minutes from home. Awesome course. Awesome super fans. Awesome times. Awesome (and one super cute) officials. Well done race.

-Meeting somebody for the first time and having him tell me that he likes the blog. Super rad.

-Manager at Panera gave us FREE hot chocolate after the race. This is not machine stuff, this is foamed milk and all. Oh yes.

-Pulling up and seeing 3 Somali women trying to move a couch in the rain. All husbands were working. Helping them. Ok actually moving the thing 90% by myself. Having one of them say "steevo strong." Oh YES!!!!

-Getting home, showering, washing bike, doing laundry, listening to an entire Joy Division album all before I would usually get home from far races.

-Possible weekend Highlight: Helped Babik move an entertainment stand to his car. I start walking home and he yells that he needs help with one more thing. I walk in, ask what. He says filing cabinet. I picked it up and carry it to the car solo. Better hit the gym sprinter. SPAGHETTI ARMS!