Matt Stegall

I need to get this thing up and running again

noreply@blogger.com (Matt) — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 13:11:00 +0000

Facebook killed many personal blogs and this one is no different. Even though I didn't use it as much I would have liked to, I need to get it up and running again. Even a few posts a year will leave my kids with a journal of their lives growing up that will be much better than just pictures alone.

I'll put together a 2010 year in review post shortly.

Happy Birthday Spencer!

noreply@blogger.com (Matt) — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 02:20:00 +0000

Hard to believe it's been seven years since we loaded up this little girl and brought her home. Seven going on sixteen.

Her first trip to the beach, floating in the pool.

Fast forward seven years....getting her ears pierced for her birthday.

All you new parents out there - I know you hear it all the time, but it's true. They grow up too fast...enjoy every minute of it. Happy Birthday Spence.

Sponsor wanted!

noreply@blogger.com (Matt) — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 11:56:00 +0000

Below average mountain bike racer seeks philanthropic individual or organization to sponsor dream ride.

Sponsorship will entail entry fee ($1900 plus tax) to to the Transrockies Stage Race, an epic seven day race starting in Fernie, British Colombia Canada and rolling through awesome scenery at around 40 miles a day.

I don't see my self enjoying this ride too much on a single speed, so a new bike will be included in the package. I'm pretty reasonable here...the 2010 Specialized Epic Comp ($2800 plus tax) would be sufficient.

These are the biggies, but I'll probably need another $2000 or so to cover plane tickets, transfers to Fernie, food and other incidentals.

What do you, the sponsor, receive in return for your $8k? I'll use your name a lot both in person and here on the interweb, wear a jersey with your name/logo and/or do just about anything you want. I also promise to get in good enough shape as not to embarrass either of us.

I eagerly await your proposal.

Matt Stegall

Vacation

noreply@blogger.com (Matt) — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 16:52:00 +0000

Another wonderful vacation is in the books for the Stegall family and unlike the others over the last 15 years, we actually did something new. Our trip was to my Aunt and Uncle's (Susie and Carl) vacation house on the Machodoc river near it's confluence with the Potomac.

No TV, no internet and no cell phone service. After a short period of withdrawals I found out that you can actually not only survive without constant communication, it's actually quite nice. Also nice was the unseasonably cool breezy weather and low humidity. The whole week couldn't have been better.

View Larger Map

The house and it's view of the river.

Carl and Susie were great hosts and kept us busy with outdoor activities. I also gained a couple pounds from all of the good food. The kids had lots of new experiences and never once ask about a tv or computer. Boats, kayaking, wildlife, swimming, dock jumping and just running around kept everyone busy and worn out.

Carl's a really serious kayaker and we spent some time in their boats. A few miles of paddling gave me new respect for distance kayaking. Crossing a big body of water with a side or head wind is a serious workout.

Whitney coming back from a long paddle in the fast boat.

Wildlife was everywhere. Big pirds of prey feeding and even some mid-air battles including two Osprey and mature Bald Eagle going at it.

A mom Osprey was busy all week coming and going feeding her young in the nest right next to the dock.

Bad picture of a Bad Eagle. Tried our best to get him to fly for a better picture, be he didn't seem interested.

Feeding the resident swans and their young. These things were HUGE.

Sitting there having a beer when this fox just popped out of the reeds in the river. Swimming? Looked pretty mangy all wet.

Spent some time in the boat which was always instant sleep for Molly and Will.

Captain Carl and Captain Susie.

Trip to Sharks Tooth Island. Just a bit of looking yielded a whole zip lock bag of sharks teeth for everyone except me. I was horrible at it. The kids thought it was the coolest.

Lots of time just sitting on the dock, swimming and watching the kids play.

Lots dock jumping. Molly had strict form as witnessed here.

Cooling the watermelon. The melon ending up being a fun water toy for the kids.

Croquet.

Will showing promise with the solid wrap. No University of Tennessee shoulder tackles here.

Celebrating the 4th of July watching fireworks and roasting smores over a bonfire.

Gorgeous sunsets most every night.

Big adventure

noreply@blogger.com (Matt) — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 10:30:00 +0000

A couple posts ago I mentioned the looong rides I did while the family was at the beach. I did a quick write up of the first ride, Black Mountain, but left out the REALLY big one, my overnight "adventure" ride. I have a complete fascination with races like the Tour Divide Race. No support, just you and the bike for 16+ hours per day, eat a bit, crawl into a bivy sack and then wake up and do it all over again. Read about a typical day for Great Divide racer here.

Sound fun? Not really, but what it does have is adventure which, for the most part, has really been sucked out of modern life. I was heel bent on heading out to roam around some big mountains, suffer and if I got lost, it would be icing on the cake.

In theory my route was simple and there was really no hope of getting lost, but I knew it would provide a bit of suffering. I added the adventure part by throwing in my typical poor planning.

A rainy forecast made me decide start my ride a day early. There were a few problems with this new plan. I was at work, it was 2:00 pm and I still had to run home, gather my stuff, get the dog, drive to Oak Ridge, drop the dog off at the in-laws and then start pedaling. By the time I knocked all of this out, I was finally unloading my bike and rolling from my car at 5:00 pm (poor planning example #1). One of the last things I remember when locking my car was looking at my light set and thinking "Nah, surely I won't need 'em. I have at least 3 and half hours of daylight left" (poor planning example #2).

I rode down West Outer Drive wide open, standing up on the climbs knowing that I had very little time to spare. Outer Drive led to the descent down Key Springs Road and then through the back roads leading to Dutch Valley. From there it was onto Walden Ridge Road for the first gravel climb of the evening. Cresting the top I passed the old gated road that leads to the now closed Walden Ridge trails.

Heading up the bottom of Walden Ridge Road before it turns to gravel.

The gate at the gap cresting Walden Ridge.

The decent down the back side of Walden led directly into the longest climb of the day. 3+ miles up Mt. Larry. The "top" of Mt. Larry only meant turning onto a much steeper gravel road into the Coal Creek Mining Area. I was glad to be turning off the asphalt, but knew that I had better keep the pace high, it was getting late fast and I still had a lot of riding left. I settled into a hard pace up the climb when my rear tire blew out. Damn. The repair wouldn't take long but it would use what little cushion I might have for making camp by dark.

The climb up Mt. Larry is steep!

Turning onto Coal Creek property.

After a couple miles of steep rollers (and an Elk sighting) I made the coal seam which meant I could throw it in the big ring and really get a move on. I flew across Windrock and I started to feel pretty good about my race with the sunset.

View from the coal seam road.

I made it across Windrock very quickly was rewarded with the cool, shaded and super fast descent down the back side of Windrock. The trail had eroded quite a bit since the winter which made it much less gravel, more dirt and lots of small rocks and ruts. Unfortunately, the fun didn't last very long and I was back on Hwy 116 rolling towards the last climb of the day. The low sun made me anxious to pick up the pace which led to twinges of leg cramps. I slowed waaaay down, but the cramps came anyway. I did a pretty good job of fending them off, but eventually I had to dismount and walk them out.

After a couple miles of alternating between walking and soft pedaling, I finally crested Graves Gap where the dirt road urns off to head into Frozen Head State Forest. I was elated. I still had good light and the only thing between me and the campground was six miles of downhill, right?

Well, that's where the poor planning thing really messed me up. I have looked at Tom Dunnigan's map of Frozen Head map (hand drawn, no topo lines) no less than a hundred times and always assumed the connection between 116 and the six mile downhill was a fairly flat and short deal. I was very wrong. The road was pretty steep and seemed to climb forever. I kept cresting the next rise only to see the road continue upward. My earlier elation turned to frustration and from there quickly went to concern. The cramping had gotten REALLY bad, I was out of water, I kept questioning if I was on the right road and the sun was leaving me.

I waited till things turned black and stopped to dig out a small flashlight I had tucked away. I was still climbing, so holding the light was easy. Once I finally crested the top (after two miles of climbing!) and started down the rocky downhill, my light system wasn't so easy to manage. My speed was reduced to a crawl and what should have taken 10 minutes probably took close to an hour.

I rolled into the campground at about 10:15 and grabbed the first camp site I passed. I had originally intended to pass through the camp ground and look for a back country site, but at this hour I just wanted to set up camp, clean up and try to get some food in me. My system was kinda whacked out from the effort and I had to force dinner down. Not long after that I crashed into the tent.

Waking up kinda ended the adventure for me. All that lay ahead of me was a crappy road ride on the shoulder of the highway and I was tired, dehydrated and didn't eat enough the night before. After choking down some breakfast, I packed up my gear and ht the road.

Snapped a few pics of camp before rolling out.

The ride home was just as boring as I thought it might be. It was also longer and harder then I thought it would be. My GPS died before completing the loop, but I ended up with close to 80 miles and LOTS of climbing. I mean lots.

Next time I'll schedule things a bit better, take better food, leave more time for relaxing and find a riding partner. Still a good time and I learned a bit about myself.

Link to interactive version of map.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/6831297

2009 Isle of Mann TT

noreply@blogger.com (Matt) — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 10:30:00 +0000

Double click to pop this out for the larger wider version.

Enjoy.

Scout puts up with A LOT of crap from our kids

noreply@blogger.com (Matt) — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 02:21:00 +0000

Our poor dog after being "dressed up" by Molly.

Black Mountain

noreply@blogger.com (Matt) — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 10:50:00 +0000

"My goal is to start posting at least once a week, so hopefully I'll be adding some words and pictures soon."

Well, that was over two months ago and while I could come up with all kinds of excuses, they would all sound pretty lousy, so I'll just move on.

Whitney and the kids just came back from a full week at the beach. They had a great time and it was pretty nice for me as well. Only went on two bike rides while they were gone, but those two rides had me on the bike for around eleven hours, put me on some new trails and I felt lost on each. I'm pretty burnt out on my local MTB spots. Don't get me wrong, we have some great places to ride here in Knoxville but after close to twenty years riding around these same places, I'm excited to see some new terrain and have a bit of adventure in my rides.

First up was Black Mountain. If you click the link, you'll see Tom's decription uses terms like "a maze of jeep trails" and "good luck", both very appropriate. The trails were very rough, steep and had lots of intersections. So many intersections that I fianally gave up on trying to keep track of where I had turned or finding my way back. I figured if I kept at it I would have to pop out on a improved road at some point.

One of many, many creek crossings. In fact, there were some sections where the creek and the trail became one for several hundred yards at a time.

Well I was right, but it took a long time, lots of dead ends and when I finally did hit the highway I had no idea which one or which way I needed to ride. I just started ride and after a mile or so, ran into a couple college kids using the roadside facilities. They didn't know the name of the highway, but they did say they were headed to Crossville which meant it had to be Hwy 68. Looking at the map earlier I knew I needed to look for Cox Valley Rd. and it would put me at the base of the mountain to climb back to may car. Easy enough.

Well, it would have been easy enough has some redneck not stolen the sign to Cox Valley Rd. I discovered this by arriving on Crossville, which I knew was miles beyond where I needed to turn. A friendly convienience store clerk told me what to watch for to make my turn. So after tacking on some extra miles I was finally headed back. The bad news is that I was feeling pretty tired and still had a very steep and long climb up Black Mounatin to my car.

Spotted this guy on the way up. Barely bigger than a quarter.

This momma spider was enourmous and carrying a few hundred of the next generation of creepy huge spiders on it's back.

Catchin' up

noreply@blogger.com (Matt) — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 00:49:00 +0000

Catching up is a theme here, huh? Always behind and always some lame excuse as to why I can't spend a few minutes updating my blog. This time I'm going with lots of family sickness and deciding to spend less time looking at my computer while at home. Yep, those are my current excuses.

The sick part was rough. Everyone besides Molly had the full blown flu, mine and Whitney's turned into pneumonia (Whitney's worse than mine). The icing on the cake is the discovery that Whitney will need surgery in the very near future. Good times.

The "less time on a computer" thing is the result of thinking that I have probably wasted a LOT of time constantly checking various message boards, websites, my email, etc. and it really has become a needless distraction and to be honest, a pretty hard habit to break.

The good news is that there is always some cool stuff going on. Molly and Will's birthday, planning a family vacation and day light savings time.

Molly showing off her princess cake.

Will spitting on, err...I mean blowing out his candles on his dinosaur cake.

Will cleaning up.

New big wheel!

To say Molly was excited about her High School Musical video would an understatement.

The family vacation will be heading to my aunt and uncle's (Susie and Carl) place on the Potomac in June. We are really excited about doing something new, spending time with my extended family and enjoying a kid friendly beach. Susie and Carl are great hosts and we can't thank them enough for sharing their weekend home with us.

Daylight savings time just makes life better. Longer days, warmer weather, green vegetation and being outside more (especially after the most dismal winter in recent memory). Hopefully the longer days will allow me to sneak in an extra ride during the week after the kids head to bed. Three weeks off the bike was too much and I'm anxious to get back on track. I even had to back out on my buddy Brian for the PMBAR which was a real bummer. PMBAR was what motivated me through my 20 degree rides this winter, but I'm afraid that missing that much riding 6 weeks before what could be a 10 hour mountainbike race might leave me holding up my partner.

My goal is to start posting at least once a week, so hopefully I'll be adding some words and pictures soon.

Kickin' off March...

noreply@blogger.com (Matt) — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 21:36:00 +0000

...with more crappy weather!

My first ride of March was a tough one. Tough to get started, tough to stay out in and tough to recover from. I have never done a road ride in worse conditions. I experienced all forms of precipitation in the two hours I was out...rain, sleet and snow, all at a balmy 34 degrees. Epic conditions and I actually enjoyed it on some level.

A week ago I did the final race in the local cyclocross series. The finale was held at the Worlds Fair park. It was an awesome mix of concrete, off camber grass sections, stairs and tight corners which seemed like it was designed just for me. The slick tires (I wasn't spending $100.00 for cross tires) held me back in the mud, but not enough to matter and it made it more fun sliding around the course.

The morning of the race I decided my fitness needed more than a thirty minute race for a workout and riding to and from the race would be a great way to add some miles. The plan was to have a gentle spin (10 miles away?) to the race site as a nice warm up, but fate had other plans.

This is where your chain belongs...

...not here.

My gentle spin to the park was interrupted by "click...click...click...POW". The sound of my chain breaking. I picked the chain up and rode my bike skate board style for a mile or so before coming to the realization that this would put me at the park a few hours after the race. I called my good buddy Bob Davies (all around good guy and team mate for racing this year) who interrupted heading out to lunch with his wife to come rescue me with a master link and chain tool. Big thanks, Bob. All this put me behind, so my gentle warm up turned into a leg searing sprint to make sure I didn't miss registration.

Turns out the sprint wasn't needed as, like most races, it went off a bit late and I had plenty of time to register, chill out and catch up with some peeps I had not seen lately. I caught lots of flak with questions like "are you riding that?", "did you bring some other tires" and just general "you're doing it wrong". Good times.

The single speed class went off 30 seconds before the Cat 4's, so I had a great motivator to pedal hard and keep the real racers at bay. It lasted for a couple laps before the fast guys laid it on me, but I was happy to be able to stay away from most of the field.

Ended up third and only 20 seconds back of second place in the singlespeed class and my time would have put me in seventh in the much larger (and more competitive) Cat 4's. Overall pretty happy with the results considering most of these guys are "real" racers that put in some serious miles.

A couple pics from the race featuring my new super stylin' Bike Zoo jersey.

Photo credit to this guy, Endurance Dave.

A huge head wind and very tired legs made for a brutal ride home. Brutal.

Pisgah

noreply@blogger.com (Matt) — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 02:00:00 +0000

Sunday morning I met a good sized group of folks to head over and enjoy the big climbs and big descents of Pisgah National Forest in North Carolina. It was my first trip to the area in years and I had never been to the Fish Hatchery area that our guide was taking us to.

Half of our group stopped for Starbucks leaving K-Town and paid dearly... twice. Once at Starbucks for five dollar flavored water and then again by getting stuck behind a wreck on the interstate for almost two hours. It was a real bummer as I as really looking forward to riding with some of those guys.

Heading over the Smokies.

Regrouping on the way up the first climb.

Unfortunately, I didn't really take many pictures. The length and fun factor of the big mountain descents wasn't really conducive to picture taking, but we had a great time. The gravel ride climbs weren't very exciting, but Pisgahs downhills are fabulous with lots of rocks, roots and fast singletrack. Good times.

Next trip will be more on my terms. By "my terms" I mean a ridiculously early start time to give me more time on the trails. Driving five+ hours to ride for three is bad math.

Even better than my Pisgah trip was celebrating my kids birthdays. We had a combo party for all three and everyone had a great time.

Spencer on the big slide

Molly doing it her own way.

Spencer playing air hockey.

Spencer and her BFF's.

Headed to hell in hand basket.

noreply@blogger.com (Matt) — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 02:22:00 +0000

"The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'"
- Ronald Reagan

Couldn't have found a more appropriate quote for the situation our Congress has us into right now. After scaring the living hell out of us for a year to get themselves in the White House (Bush didnt exactly help), the Dems are now leveraging the countries financial worries to pass the most ridiculous, wasteful legislation this country has ever seen.

Like President Obama's chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel said "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste". No worries here, they are taking full advantage to bundle all of their wasteful projects into the stimulus bill and making the country believe we have no other choice, less we watch our country fall apart.

An excerpt from John Kerry's speech the other day.

"A tax cut is non-targeted. If you put a tax cut into the hands of either a business of an individual today, there is no guarantee they're gonna invest their money. There's no guarantee they're gonna invest their money in the United States. They're free to go to invest anywhere that they want, if they choose to invest... The fact is, none of those people are guaranteed to invest that money in any of the new projects that we are... So government, yes government, has the ability to make a decision that the private sector won't necessarily make today."

In other words, we simpletons wouldn't know what to do with our own money and luckily we have the government to spend it for us! What a blue blood jackass.

What's the answer? A painful, but quick cleaning of the weak banks and companies that sold their future. The strong will remain and we will all come out ahead. Subsidizing companies that acted like fools will only extend the problem and delay our road to a real recovery.

Oh yea, I've been playing with my kids and riding my bike some lately. More on that next post.

Climbing

noreply@blogger.com (Matt) — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 13:48:00 +0000

Spent another Sunday morning on the Foothills Pkwy. This time I brought gears and did both sides for a total of 35ish miles. Two hours with 75% of it spent climbing.

Not the most fun, but this is where I need to be if I want to be strong in the spring. The fun will be next Sunday riding around the big mountains in Pisgah, NC.

A little too much.

noreply@blogger.com (Matt) — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 11:43:00 +0000

I had a little "too much" Sunday. Climbed Foothills Pkwy to the observation tower at Look Rock. The too much part came when I chose to do it on my singlespeed road bike. Had to stand up nearly the whole way up. Good times, in a sadistic kinda way.

Hoped to get started before sunrise, but couldn't seem to get out of the house in time. Clear and crisp on the way up.

Once I finally reached the tower, the fog in the valley was lifting/burning off. Sun too high and too much haze for a nice photo, but you get the idea.

Cold, cold and more cold.

noreply@blogger.com (Matt) — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 11:53:00 +0000

"A little too much is just enough for me" - James Agee

I love the quote above. I'd also love to say I ran across it while reading great literary works, but I didn't. It's posted on the wall in a bar we stop at on our weekly Greenway ride.

I love "too much". Not too much drinking which is the context in the bar poster, but too much in general. Biting off more than I can chew is always my goal and it's lead to some great times and spectacular failures. Those spectacular failures always make you better.

Back to the title of the post. Cold.

So much for global warming, this is the coldest winter we have had in many years. The alarmists will have to find something else to scare us with....oh wait, they found it...the economy.

In past years, a winter this cold and wet would have left me without any bike riding, but the Greenway has given me the chance to log some serious miles despite the conditions. Logging the miles is secondary to the good times and new friends I've made with my new downtown rides. Haven't been on the mountain bike in two months and haven't even missed it (yet) as the Greenway offers a cool combination of a leg burning workout and a few ours of social time. Good stuff.

Hopefully all this riding will allow me to do some big events this year that will be "a little too much". Checking the calander now.

Still going

noreply@blogger.com (Matt) — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 11:02:00 +0000

Lots and lots of rain this winter, so that means lots and lots of Greenway rides. Lots of Greenway rides means more socializing, beer stops and good times.

The greenway rides always include a trip by the local skatepark. The kids at the park are really impressed with us old guys, our tight fitting lycra clothing and dorky bikes.

Pub stop.

Henley street bridge as seen from the Greenway. Click for big.

Catch up number 3

noreply@blogger.com (Matt) — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 03:23:00 +0000

January trip to the Zoo. This pic is not a fair representation of our kids normal behavior.

Spencer helping Molly see a rattlesnake. Again, this level of sibling cooperation is rare in the Stegall houshold.

The new Stegall kid exhibit.

Catch up time part 2

noreply@blogger.com (Matt) — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 03:11:00 +0000

Spencer is growing up.

Turned 6!

Whitney keeping the party under control and really wanting me to
put the camera down.

First lost tooth!

Catch up time.

noreply@blogger.com (Matt) — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 03:07:00 +0000

Spencer and her friend Lilly Kate.

Molly at Halloween

Bike riding.

Will found my old skool Syncros cycling cap.

Leaner nations bike, walk, use mass transit - MSNBC Wire Services

noreply@blogger.com (Matt) — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 01:00:00 +0000

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28235890/

Matt

Busy

noreply@blogger.com (Matt) — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 22:12:00 +0000

New tasks at work and home have really cut into my goof-off on the internet time which in turn has left my blog postless for a few weeks (ok, months). Lots of stuff to write about, but no time to do it.

Spencer is a full-on school kid now. I take her every morning and it's one of the best times of the day for me. It's kinda sad that sitting in traffic every morning for thirty minutes is one of the highlights of my day, but we just don't get a lot of time to talk one on one time throughout a normal day.

We have all heard this a million times, but I can't believe how fast time with your kids goes by. Seems like just a few months ago I was bringing her home from the hospital.

A great trip to the beach in the last of October. The weather was great. 75-78 every day and coming off the summer, the ocean was still fairly warm. The trip was chock full of catastrophes (two kids with stomach flu, a blow out on the way there and a trip to the ER for me) and we still had a great time.

Molly cornering a butterfly.

Jeff Murray action shot! My buddy Jeff and his family were staying a few miles down the road and came upto hang out a couple days.

Great views from our deck.

Overdo

noreply@blogger.com (Matt) — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 00:31:00 +0000

Ok, long post here. I'm way past due and need to spend a few minutes getting this caught up. Below are all the reasons I haven't been posting...

Will has his first bike!

Spencer started Kindergarten! A picture from her orientation.

Trips to the Zoo.

Whitney went to the beach with the a friend and all the kids (five little ones).

With the house to myself it was a great time to catch up on home projects. I didn't. Instead I packed up

and did a few bike rides that I never get to do.

The first was a cool road ride on Hwy129. A world famous destination for motorcycles and

sports cars. 318 curves in 11 miles cutting through the mountains between TN and NC. A big thanks you to the guys who sit up there and take pictures all day. I'll stole a few.

The next ride was a HUGE ride the locals call the Heinous Loop. 63 miles and approx. 8,000 feet of climbing crossing in and out of the Great Smoky Mountain National Park with three really big climbs. It's not just the hardest ride I've done in years, it is probably the longest ride I've ever done, 4 hours and 55 minutes total time with few stops. It was hard but a whole lot easier than I expected. I've gotten much better at managing my effort and keeping fueled during long rides. Glad to have it under my belt, but I doubt I'll be doing it on a regular basis.

Greenway rides. I used to spend every Wednesday with an underlying anxiety that it might rain and ruin my Wednesday night mountain bike ride and social gathering. Now I secretly hope it will pour so the muddy trails will force us to hit the weatherproof Greenway. It's less riding and more social with a beer stop or two mixed in. Always a good time.

Racin'

noreply@blogger.com (Matt) — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 02:00:00 +0000

Did my first cross country race in three or four years. I learned (or was reminded of) a few things.

Racing really hurts.
Before entering a race one should consider actually training.
Racing really hurts.
Carbo loading the night before is great, but not when the carbs are in the form of too much Mexican food and beer.
Racing really hurts.
Don't wear baggies and a t-shirt when racing in 90 degree weather.

The baggies and t-shirt were kind of a "I don't really race bikes and I'm not taking this too serious" statement, just in case I came in last place. Looking around the starting grid I was thinking last place would suit me well. Everyone was 15+ younger than me, a whole lot skinnier and didn't look as though they had been partaking in too much Mexican beer. I offered to arm wrestle the guy next to me (buck twenty, soakin' wet) for a ten minute head start. He politely laughed at my bad joke, but declined.

Luckily the race promoter made a start line decision to send us single speeders off a few minutes before the much larger Sport class. At least I felt a bit better knowing I would have a clear track for most if not all of my race.

The gun went off and it was the usual blast down the road trying to beat everyone else to the single track. I laid back knowing that it was a pretty long race and I had better save my legs if I was too have anything left in the second hour. Losing sight of the two leaders on the first climb was the best thing that could have happened for me. I relaxed a bit, settled into my own pace and once we hit the first big descent I was surprised to be back on their wheel. Their pace in the single track was just a bit slower than I would have liked, but this was good as it let me stay fresh enough to stay with them on the shorter climbs.

Heading towards some of my favorite trails rider #2 started to drop back just a bit on a climb. Watching the leader pull away motivated me to ride over my head on the climb, knowing I could recover in the tight fast stuff and still put some time on rider #3. The leader and I settled into a really fast pace. He offered to let me around several times, but I know from past experience I'm much better to let someone else set the pace. Given the lead I will always ride way too hard and blow up. Always.

We ended up trading the lead a couple times through the rest of the lap, but I knew that I needed to drop back a bit. I could do one of two things, keep the leaders pace (with no hope of actually winning), implode somewhere on lap two and be lucky to finish or slow it down and hold what was likely to be second place. Being old and wise, I opted for the latter. This is big deal for me. I used to subscribe to the "win big or fail big" philosophy and spent many races shaking or cramping on the side of the trail.

To keep a long story from being longer - I finished second about two minutes off the eventual winner. He told me after the race that he was last years Jr. State Champ and was in the points lead for this years Single Speed Jersey. All in all I was couldn't be much happier considering my part time bike rider status. I hope to fair pretty well in a couple other races this year. Maybe I should start training...

A couple pics from the race.

Wow

noreply@blogger.com (Matt) — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 01:37:00 +0000

I won't post too much political stuff here, but I'm so blown away by the actions of our nations leaders on the subject of oil that I can't help but share my thoughts.

Nancy Pelosi, third in line for our Presidency, has been calling for the release of 70 million barrels from our nations Strategic Oil Reserve. That's right, all it will take is Bush choking on a pretzel and another Cheney heart attack and this genius could be calling the shots of the most powerful country in the world.

"Matt", you say, "How in the world could you be against a plan to lower oil prices!?!?". Fair question until you find out that we import 12 million barrels a day and the current consumption rate is around 20 million barrels a day. So the best plan our nations leaders can come up with is to deplete 10% of our nations oil reserve set aside for defense and emergencies, to save ourselves six days worth of imported oil!

What makes this all even scarier is the fact that this plan almost became a reality with a House vote of 268-157 last week! Almost two-thirds of the vote was in favor of this doomed plan. Hard to believe, even for Washington.

Ok, it's off my chest and I promise not to do that too often.

Swimming!

noreply@blogger.com (Matt) — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 01:53:00 +0000

Spencer and Molly have been taking swim lessons and have both made huge strides. Spencer had already become a pretty decent swimmer, but the lessons have been a huge confidence booster. She's started diving, trying flips and heads straight to the deep end of any new pool to see if she can touch the bottom. Pretty good for five! Molly isn't quite there yet, but holding her own for a three year old. Armed with her swim vest she jumps in and isn't afraid to head off into the deeper stuff.

The swim teacher brought a waterproof camera the other day and snapped some cool underwater shots.

Spencer on the bottom of the pool!

Molly with classic "holding my breath" face.

Molly showing off her "Dolphin" style of swimming.