D-Day

Daddy/Daughter date day and Surly Darkness Day.  No, they were not one in the same.

Annie was gone over MEA weekend so it was daddy/daughter weekend.  There was no daycare for Thursday and Friday so I either had to find a babysitter or take the days off.  Thursday morning Aunt Aimee had her til noon and then I was off work for the weekend.  Friday was adventure day as we headed to Angry Catfish for coffee, Trader Joe's for groceries and a stop at Penn Cycle to drop off cookies for the guys.

Cappuccino for dad and breakfast for Peanut

having salad just like dad

Today was Darkness Day at Surly which keeps getting busier every year.  It started as the only way to get The Darkness but now it is not quite as exclusive since one week later you can get a bottle at the liquour store. The first 2 years I attended I was able to show up on Saturday morning around 9 am and still was within sight of the brewery.  I bought my max of 6 750ml bottles and was off to the afternoon cyclocross race. It has now grown to giving out 1500 wrist bands and this year Matt, Nate and I camped overnight to get our spot and the racing was off the list for the day.

after tents are down and the line is compacted

after getting our wrist band and time slot we headed back
to make breakfast and share beers with other beer geeks

The gates open at 11 am and the food trucks are open for business and the live death metal starts blasting.  We had the 1:30 time slot so we headed across hwy. 100 to Caribou to thaw out and relax for awhile.  The 3 of us headed in around 12:30 to get a beer and have some food before getting our Darkness.

Omar and Todd
the masterminds of Surly and Darkness Day

We were out of there by 1:30 and on our way home from my 5th Darkness Day.

Ft. Collins USGP

Ft. Collins weekend came and went pretty quickly.  It was great to see many friends from CO that I have not seen in a few years.  The races went pretty well with a 9th on Sat. and 14th on Sun.   

I had host housing with Chris, who worked at the local Trek dealer.  It was great staying with a local and hanging out with other like minded people.  He was also only 3 blocks from an friend I met while living in Durango.  

The weather on Saturday was rainy and cool so the course was a bit slick.  It was a mud tire kinda day but not muddy enough to require bike changes in the 35+ race.  The elite race was a whole different track.  It was dried up and the tires stuck like velcro.  It was my second race of the day and I rode around for 30 minutes, eventually pulling out before getting lapped.  The Elite race is more of a bonus workout than anything. 

The weather on Sunday was completely different.  It was sunny and 65 and the course was getting dry and loose.  I felt pretty good after the double effort on Saturday but only managed a 14th.  I was pretty smashed after and decided to bail on the elite race.  I had a beer and hung out at the truck til it was time to work the pit for Bjorn in the elite race.  

Jeff and Sam, the bartenders/truck drivers
3 kegs of New Belgium

The Collective has become the afterparty sponsor of the USGP so we had 3 kegs of New Belgium to serve up for anyone that stopped by.  Beers were drank, truck was packed up and the weekend was over.  I spent Sunday night in Denver with my uncle before flying home early Monday morning in time to make it to work.

Teammates: Matt, Katie, Mark

Sunday night sushi with candied crickets from Japan for dessert

Thanks to Jeremy Cook for the race photos.

Slow this train down!

The blogging has taken a back seat since the first round of the USGP's but now that I have some time with my feet up, I figured I could write something up.  I am in the Denver airport waiting for my ride up to Ft. Collins for rounds 3 and 4 of the USGP series.  I should have a 2nd row call up in the 35+ race so I will hopefully see the front end this weekend.  The Elite races are more of a bonus as they start 2 hours after the master's racing.  Maybe I can pick up some dollar bill hand ups to pay for dinner.

The train of life has been rolling pretty fast lately. The weekends have been full with local racing, relocating the service course and finding a renter for the old one.  The stress has been eased as we had a 2 year lease signed on our townhome last night.

New house

Metal CX podium-2nd

The local racing has been going as well as it can with the 3 on 1 battle I have most races.

Yea, maybe when things slow down a bit I will
get this room put together

Pain cave-with daylight fading this will be where
most of the work gets done

Thankfully the rest of the team clothing showed up before I rolled out for the airport.  With CX being such an equipment heavy sport because of the fall/winter weather it is good to have plenty of extra clothing.  Thanks Trek

On a muddy weekend, all of this clothing plus more
could be all used up plus the 20 pairs varying types of gloves

bath time in the new tub

 I guess I should probably start finding my way out of here.  I guess the trains are not running correctly and they have to run them manually?  Fred Flintstone style?  I am not sure what that means.
It sure is nice not traveling with bikes as mine made the trip out with Bjorn Selander and his Fiance.  Trek has full support out here for us again which if it turns out to be muddy it will be quite nice to have someone in the pit washing bikes.
Thanks to my wonderful family and my sponsors for these bike racing adventures.