Ketchup.

It has been a while since our last post and a lot has happened. This post will be an attempt at catching up, so it will be a lot of pictures and a few results.

First the team bikes came in nice and early for the cross season to start.

here it is in parts

and here it is all built up. (thanks to my lovely wife for modeling with it)

Then we had a crazy hurricane that produced a little bit of flooding: (these are actually pictures of the week after the hurricane when it rained a little bit more and the river decided to spill over again right after they cleaned up the schuykill banks)

This flooding lead right into the nittany race weekend, which last year was a dust bowl that left every last MAC series racer wheezing for two months afterwards. This year, thanks to irene, we had mud and more mud.

The C's went off first with Anthony flying the flag: check out Anthony SKorochod's cycling captured for some pics of that race and Meisha's race. This is Anthony after the race:

This is anthony even later in the day

Like lipstick on a pig...

This is Meisha aftr the race: (no lipstick on this pig)

Then the lady's went off and every body looked pretty good:

there was Michelle and Linda:

and Angie

and Nathalie

Michelle killed it both days and is sitting pretty in the top 5 of the mac series. (front row callup)

Here's some action shots of Linda (she ain't afraid of no recalled fork):

Dan raced the elite masters race and looked good:

Then again Dan always looks good

Gerry raced the elite mens race for the first time and did great, finishing midpack in a field that included some international stars and J-pow

Here's Gerry getting pinned up:

Some action shots of Gerry:

Then it was almost night time and they decided to have the 2/3/4 rce:

team BT had a great showing:

Mike Miller of the Loam Rangers (or should I say, the Loam Ranger) also participated in his first cross race and killed it.

And we were all left with the beautiful memories of mudand getting clean: cue tommy boy

A short camping trip with the tandem.

About a month ago my wife Jen, and myself went on vacation to the Netherlands to visit my family. We had a fantastic time and one of the biggest surprises to come out of it was an incredibly generous gift from my Aunt and uncle Anke and Reinier.

They gave us money towards purchasing a tandem. As tandem riders themselves they thought that Jen and I could benefit from the "Marriage counseling" that is riding a tandem. With the conversion from Euros to dollars we were able to by one hell of a two-person bike.

Jen found a great deal on craigslist and we quickly got to work logging miles on the tandem almost every day. Usually we do a park loop or two and in the few Weeks that we have owned the tandem I have twice taken Jen out on the hill ride (amazingly we are still married), but we still didn't have any longer rides logged in yet. That was until one of our newest ladies team members, Michelle Lee, had the great idea to go camping. She wanted to go out to French creek state park which is close enough to the city that we could do it by bike. This idea was perfect We could leave right after work on Friday and ride the 50 miles out there and hopefully be at the campsite by sundown or a little after. This was the route we decided to take

Mostly out on the bike path up until Phoenixeville and then up to the park. Nice and simple.

Here we are about to head out from the trellis on West River drive.

Well we made it to the whole foods in Phoenixeville just as they closed at 8 and had to beg our way into their pantry so that we would have something to eat when we got to the campsite. After securing our dinner to the bikes we plotted the rest of our course and headed out as the sun was starting to disappear

After this we didn't get many more shots because it was too dark. We made it to the campsite at around 10 pm and Michelle and Mike made a delicious pasta dinner that had us all filling our bellies with plenty of carbs. We crashed soon after dinner and I hadn't slept that good at a campsite in a long time. Morning came and we were able to take some pictures of our site:

Gratuitous bike shot

Chef Michael after preparing a great breakfast of bacon and eggs

Hungry campers eating said breakfast

Afterwards we packed up and headed out for a scenic ride back.

Michelle had plotted a wonderful route that took us through some of the most beautiful country that Pennsylvania has on offer.

We stopped in Phoenixville for a great little lunch and some beer before heading back into Philly on the bike path.

It was a blast of a weekend and it was only half over at that point. I have to say I was incredibly impressed with my wife, who is not as crazy about bikes like the rest of us are but she still did really well in pushing me along up all the climbs. Thanks again to Anke and Reinier for the wonderful gift that is the tandem.

from a Gentleman's Race to the Gentleman's Club; how to take years off your life in 24 hours.

First off don't foregt about the historic riverton crit this weekend, click on the link or see the last post for details

So back in May we had the pleasure of doing the 2011 Rapha gentleman's race. We were given the chance to invite another team and so we decided that in the spirit of the race (which usually ends in a lot of drinking) we would invite the Ciclismo boys to the show (they are the only other team drinking in the parking lot with us after every race). This turned out to be a good decision when we found ourselves drunk in the hotel pool the night before the race playing grab ass (actually it was just Craig LeBair grabbing everyone else’s ass).

Needless to say with more people drunk in the hotel pool we looked a little less sad with our weird tan lines and oddly shaped bodies.

That was the night before…

A little back story: We had figured out who was going to race and had the team all set until the week before captain Jack Drummond, in what I hope is not developing into a pattern, broke his hand trying to race his mountainbike at the Belmont. Luckily for us we had a ringer for a replacement in Jon Goulet. Jon is new to the team this year and is luckily a cat 5. I say luckily because;

#1 he has no business being a cat 5

and #2 each team in the race gets a handicap based on the categories of their respective riders.

So the team now consisted of :

Anthony So

Brendan McGrath

Mikey Green

Geraldo Adasavage

Jon Goulet

And myself

So thanks to Goulet we got an early start time putting us in a position to do well in the race. We had 7 teams starting ahead of us and a lot of faster teams starting after us. As we set out Gerry thought it would be a good idea to get our first flat tire out of the way early and punctured within the first two miles. After that we started to bring back all the teams ahead of us, mostly because they had made wrong turns or crashed or couldn’t ride their bikes because of broken spokes or something. Note to all 4 of you who might read this and plan on doing this race, we had 2 separate GPSs and it came in very handy to confirm what one said against the other, so almost no wrong turns in 135 miles. One of the complaints we all had of the race was the lack of places to refuel along the way. At one point we stopped to ask some people for water at what turned out to be some sort of detox clinic. The employee there was kind enough to take our water bottles and fill them up for us, which we were glad for after hearing the screaming emanating from inside the clinic. I am not sure where it was but it definitely looked like this place:

By the halfway point we had caught all teams except for the 52 Vincents tandem team and kept thinking that they had made a wrong turn or something (because there was no way they were faster than us) until we were continually reminded by their tire tracks that they were still ahead of us. These observations were further confirmed when we got into the checkpoint at mile 88 and found out they were an hour ahead of us even though they started only 45 min ahead of us. Hats off to them, they were killing it out there. No worries though, we were still in second place on the road. After the checkpoint we had the unfortunate luck of having the camera crew join us to take our pictures. Up until this point we had only experienced a few trouble spots and only had to push teammates up a few hills, for the most part though we were keeping together nicely at a swift but sustainable pace. However, the camera has magical powers and when you point that thing at anybody they start to ride faster and begin to drop their teammates without breaking a sweat (this might be why pros ride so fast). At mile 95 and were introduced to first of many categorized climbs that came after already riding 100 miles of “rolling “ hills. Then with about 25 miles left we were caught by the Moots team who were looking much fresher than us. Team BH/Garneau caught up to us next after we were having "some" trouble on a climb. Turns out they had a guy on their tem who had crashed and broken his collarbone but still wanted to finish (if I were judging this competition team BH would have won the toughest lot of the bunch). Unfortunately for them they had to finally stop to get treatment for their broken teammate, probably a wise decision but they were so close to finishing. The only other team to catch us was the bicycling magazine team that was made up of a bunch of really fast ringers. They came by and we exchanged some pleasantries before they continued on to the fastest time of the day, stopping the clock at 8 hours and 55 minutes. We came in at just over 10 hours, a really long day in the saddle for everyone.

Thankfully there was cold beer to be had when we arrived and I ate what may have been the two most delicious hotdogs of my life. We waited a while until our teammate Dan Langlois (who rides on the Rapha Continental team) came in and put an impressive display of sprinting prowess on in the velodrome to beat the Kapplemuur team who came in at the same time. Upon closer inspection it looked like Dan had crashed at some point and was a little torn up. Apparently Dan had gone down on a gravel patch while descending but made it through with only a few minor abrasions.

We hung out for a while afterward but had to get back to the city where we were expected at Andy’s bachelor party.

So just to set things straight, our team raced 135 miles, then drove back to Philly to party until the wee hours of the morning to see that a teammate had a good farewell to the single life.

Our original captain Jack had a bunch of 5-hour energy waiting to bring us back to life. Many thanks to Jack for keeping us astute enough to enjoy the “gentleman’s club”.

So yadda yadda yadda…crash bang boom. (description of events are left out to protect all who were there from ever having to relive them)

The night ended with Anthony and myself getting some pizza at 3am from Lorenzo's on south st. (normally really bad pizza, but that night it tasted like I was eating a piece of Jesus).

Not sure how many years my life was shortened that day but it was definitely worth it. Can't wait to do it again next year.

Photos courtesy of Matt Harris and Jason Cole

Historic riverton Criterium

Historic Riverton Criterium

Sunday, June 12, 2011

HELD UNDER USA CYCLING PERMIT 939

RACE HELD RAIN OR SHINE

SPONSORED BY: Bicycle Therapy

Riverton, NJ

CATEGORY	DISTANCE	START TIME	PRIZES/PLACES	ENTRY FEE	FIELD LIMIT
CAT 4	25 miles	1:00pm	500/ 10 places	$30	75
MASTERS* 35+	30 miles	To follow	700/12places	$30	75
Kids	Sprint/1 lap	To follow	Medals/Ribbons	N/A	25
1/2/3	35 miles	To follow	1500/ 15 places	$30	75

*No Cat 5 Men or Cat 4 Women

Women may enter 35+, and/or 1/2/3 (must be cat 3 or higher)

As a first year event we are limiting categories. We hope to make this an annual event and increase category groups.

Pre-registration via www.bikereg.com.

Course: 1 mile, 8 turn, technical flat course through the center of Riverton, NJ (est. 1851).

Directions: From points South take Rt. 130 North to Riverton Rd. Make left (must turn right at small jug handle to cross 130) and go directly into the center of town (2 mi). From points North take Rt. 130 South to Riverton Rd. Make right and go directly into the center of town. Look for signs for parking.

Registration: Christ Episcopal Church, corner of 4^th St and Main St.

Parking: CVS, and Riverton Riverline parking lots located on Broad St. Please look for signs.

More info can be obtained at:

www.bicycletherapy.com

Facebook: Historic Riverton Criterium

Attention: This is a first year race; we are trying to make it an annual event. Please respect the community; keep off residential property, use discretion when changing, use port-o-john, discard all trash. Help make the inaugural Historic Riverton Criterium a success!