Detective Flintlock goes to work....

It was Wednesday..........11am. The hint of Fall was in the air as another beautiful day of sunny skies, birds singing, and me longing to be out on a trail or road enjoying the afternoon cycling slipped slowly by.

At 11:12am, one of my AMT students suddenly came into the office with terrible news:

Someone has ran into and destroyed my bike rack!! W.T.F.??!!!!

Notice the paint scrapings inside the rack on the end? Good as DNA....

The student ellaborated further to say he and another AMT student witnessed the crime, the person that hit my bike rack had hauled ass away from the scene, and they'd given chase to catch the individual. Unfortunately, they were unsuccessful but did manage to catch a partial license plate "ABK" and a good description of the vehicle and driver. So, my detective work began at that time:

11:15 - Call MGTC security.
11:20 - Get partial tag "ABK" and vehicle description of late ‘80s “maroon van” from 2 student witnesses.
11:22 - Call Warner Robins Popo.
11:30 - Find out which students in C-Building, next to my parked truck, were let out at 11am.
11:32 - Welding students were the only ones released at that time.
11:40 - Find welding instructor and got names of all students attending that morning.
11:45 - Do “report thing” with WR Popo.
12:05 - Circumvented "system" to find vehicles registered with MGTC with tag numbers of welding students that have “ABK” as first 3 in tag.
12:10 - And then there was one........
12:15 – Use system correctly and found out this student/perp has a 2pm Mathematics class.

I think we found a scent trail! Release the Hound!!!

12:15 – 1:54 ~ Truly didn’t think perp would be stupid enough to drive the vehicle back on MGTC Campus! ~
1:54pm – Proven wrong that perp would use logic.......,but stupid is as stupid does……..with the van showing damage of course.

Did someone say, "BINGO??!!!"
2:10pm – WR Popo and MGTC Security get student out of class to talk. Smell of hops and barly detected on student’s/perp's breath.
2:15pm – Perp admits to hitting my stuff. WR Popo very happy now.
2:15 - 2:18 - I do an "internal" Happy Dance!
2:18pm – Perp’s vehicle searched and an open container is found with hops and barly beverage remaining.
2:20pm – Perp arrested for 1)leaving the scene of an accident, 2) failure to report accident, 3) open container, 4) possession of banned substance on State property, 5) UNDERAGE DRINKING since he is only 19, and 6) insurance may not be valid --> now I’m REALLY pissed off!!

Although this kid could have simply stopped and tried to resolve the "accident" when it happened, he chose to take his chances of not getting caught. Now he has more to worry about than me wanting my bike rack replaced. Several people I work with have advised me to go easy on the kid as "we've all made mistakes." Yeah.........well, tough shit. I've made mistakes and live with the consequences each day and my conscience serves as a living hell at times reminding me that you only get one life to get it right. You can't always be right. It is then that you should and need to ask forgiveness from whomever you chose whether it be a higher power of your choosing or the person(s) you did wrong. He asked for none. He will receive none from me. Maybe the judge will see it that way as well.

The remainder of the day consisted of calling The Bike Store and ordering another $400+ Saris Cycle On bike rack to replace the recently departed one and meeting friends at Thomson Trails to ride the stress away. After a few adult beverages and great conversation among friends, the day was put to rest.

All the cool cats....

Yesterday was a welcome change in the weather for Central Georgia and could not have been better for mountain biking. Low 60's to start and barely mid-80's when we left. I got 3 laps in for a good day on the bike. The lower back was tweaked the last lap and I just couldn't push as hard as I'd liked, but that is the price I'm paying for doing trail maintenance instead of riding like I need to be doing. Still, the goal is to have fun and continue building up for November training rides with the guys in Macon.

Since the 12 Hours of Dauset is Sept. 22, a few of us decided to head up and pre-ride the race course. I don't have an exact count, but all the cool cats from our area were there enjoying the perfect riding conditions:

Kat was up early and ready to roll.

Dave Sexton was spicing things up with some outstanding riding.

Surprisingly, Flipper did not show off his invisible ramp jumps, log crossings, or aerial ballet.

Mark Duffus even rolled out of bed for the early Sunday morning ride.

BK was his usual cooooool self (except for the severe pain he inflicted on me the 3rd lap).

This was me at the "end" of BK's punishment session, aka lap 3:

This was Diana before her coffee:

Thank God for coffee!!!

There were too many people at Dauset yesterday to give faces to, but Central Georgia and OMBA will be well represented this coming weekend. We should have a very large gang of some great folks with a HUGE pit area as usual. We'll be chillin' and having a grand time once again.....

Got to keep the Yang up

This weekend was a good example of the balance of life.

I woke up late Saturday morning even though I intended to do an 80 mile solo ride starting at 7am to continue building my base mileage back up before November. It felt good to catch an hour extra sleep, but I had a plan and needed to stick to it. I was so late that the 8am crowd was long-gone by the time I was ready to roll out from the PWC at 9am. The decision was whether I should go the same route as the 8am group and try to catch them, or do my own thing wondering the backroads. I chose to wander the roads. I took off toward Marshalville on 127, turned South to do the 80+ mile route I figured would be challenging, but then I got to 224 and decided to actually try to catch the 8am group. I had really good legs and figured "what the hell", might as well push'em to the failing point. That group was traveling a bit slower than me, but they became a rabbit I needed to catch. They had headed straight out 224 to Montezuma and should be well on their way to Byromville before I would even see them.

Instead of carefully watching my heart-rate monitor that has enslaved me, I rode how I felt and turned the Ipod up a notch to drown-out the wheezing coming from my lungs and the fire burning in my legs.

After reaching Montezuma and turning SE, I was shocked to see the group only 1/2 mile up the road. It was 10am. They were traveling a LOT slower than I thought, but I had also put out the hardest effort I've been capable of since March. I rode with them for about 10 miles and we crept along. Funny how the legs will start hurting after a hard effort when you slow down to nearly a crawl, 12mph at the most with this group, but I knew the signs of what was happening and needed to continue pushing harder than 12mph before my legs shut down. On a few of the "gently rolling farmland" hills, the group was falling off ~ or to be honest, I wasn't slowing down ~ so I began easing the pace back up to continue my solo effort. I should have been more social and said good-day to the group, and it was very rude of me not to, but I just put my head down and rode on. I stopped only once in Unadilla to grab some water and a pop tart since I didn't bring any gels. Amazing the energy you get from junk food. I headed straight back in on 41 and the effort began showing when I reached Henderson, so I backed off the last 6 miles or so. I finished with a 20.7 mph average and was very happy with that. The legs are coming around quicker than expected.

Sunday was a bit different. I got up around 5am to get ready to go Auto-Cross race in Cecil, Ga. It was almost 2 hours of driving in the Miata, then a rush to go through tech/inspect, walk the course, and drive like I stole it for 3 runs. There were some of the fastest cars I've ever seen at this event, and they were sticking to the pavement like glue..........well, not all of them. I managed to do a BK imitation going through the timing lights backwards in the first session of 3 runs, but I put down a respectable time nonetheless. This course was giving the "expert drivers" a challenge, and I was having one helluva a time picking up my next reference points all day long. There were 2 slaloms and I was hitting the rev limiter in 3rd gear on the second slalom. This was a very fast course. I upped the tire pressures for the second session of 3 runs and it balanced the car better for the higher speeds. Still, I managed to do another BK imitation on the last run, which was going to be my fastest of the day I thought. There was no warning when the tires gave up grip on this course, so having fast hands didn't do much for me. And, everyone that was running fast were on Kumho Ecsta V710 tires. Everyone. Oh-well. I had a great time racing, but it was the trip back that made me nervous. There were GSP everywhere and a lot of county mounties in Tifton giving autographs to anyone qualified.

The leason for the weekend: Life is good..........

Zoom.........Zoom!

I love those days when it feels like you have no chain on the bike. It feels as if you could mash the damn pedals right off the bike. Thursday night's ride was one of those days when I pushed as hard as I could without blowing up, staying right on that edge of completely destroying lungs and legs, and yet it felt like I left something out there when the ride was over. I can feel the suffering today, but man was last night's ride great!

It was amazing that only a few riders showed for last night's ride given that it was perfect weather: not hot at all, relatively low humidity, and no wind to speak of. Eddie Hudspeth has been frequenting our Thursday night rides when he is not racing the following weekend, and it was great to have him along with us. About 4 miles into the ride when we were tooling along at 18 mph, Eddie decided to ease up the pace a bit. He promptly got a 1/4 mile lead on the pack, and lets just say he held it there until he was ready for us to catch him. And try to catch him we did!

I sat in for the most part until reaching halfway up the Haneyville climb, and feeling warmed-up enough to go I grabbed two gears and pushed pretty hard up the remainder of the hill. I figured Eddie would see me coming and hold up a bit for me to join him. Not a chance. Although I'd gapped the rest of the pack by a few hundred yards, Eddie kept the gap at about 300-400 yards for the next 11 miles as I dug deep to gain ground on him and was pushing 25-28 mph the entire time. I know he could have left me further behind if he wanted, but it was the mental game of me knowing that he wanted to keep the same gap on me while making me work hard to stay away from the 3 riders chasing to catch me. Now that was fun! And painful! The 2 Chips and Pat finally closed on me just as we reached the cow and goat farms in Elko, so I eased up to save some energy for when they would purposely blow by me. Unfortunately, Pat blew up as they caught me but I joined the 2 Chips and we started working together. One of the Chips still needs to work on his paceline efforts so he 1) doesn't blow up pushing too hard, and 2) puts out enough effort to pass the person pulling off the front. He's getting better, but right now its pretty fustrating riding behind him in a paceline. He'll get there, however, I'm sure.

When we made it halfway through the Gilbert loop, I was getting tired but not willing to give up the chase. Eddie finally decided he was tired of riding solo and mercifully let us join him before hitting Elko road again. One of the Chips dropped off to ride home in Perry, so it was just Eddie and Chip with me on the way in. Eddie wanted to catch a few people in front of us, so we started rotating 30 seconds on the front. The last person Eddie wanted to catch was Flipper, and I was given the order to lead the way. Now THAT hurt!! Flipper apparently knew we wanted to catch him, but I managed to put down a 26mph chase effort and finally caught him about 1/2 mile later. And, at that time I sat up and just spun my legs the remaining 3.5 miles back to the parking lot.

I finished with a 21.3 mph average, and even though some of that was rotating with others I felt this was the hardest effort I've put out since knee surgery. Damn did it feel good!! Eddie said it was a great ride and enjoyed himself. He'll be back next week, and the games will be played again for sure.

I've missed the completely exhausted feeling I get after putting out everything I have on a ride. I couldn't even stay up to eat supper. I don't even remember my head hitting the pillow.......

Hot......Wet......& Sticky

Just how hot did it feel at the 13 Hours of Santos race this past weekend?

That's all I got to say 'bout that.

It was a great weekend to be among friends doing what we love to do. We kicked the rooster in the ass Saturday morning, picked up Flipper, met Dave and Carrie along the way to I-75, and headed south to Cordelle for some Cracker Barrel grub. Shortly after arrival at the Barrel, BK, John, Brett and Donna, Mark, Ronnie, and Nancy joined us.

After filling our bellies, we began the long 4-hour journey to Belleville, Fla. and Santos Trails. Traffic wasn't too bad and we made pretty good time. After arriving and setting up the trailer, we headed out for a group recon of the course.

During the ride, we find out the greatest news of the day: John Brown is not part of the course.

I was very happy to learn that tid-bit since I fell nearly 10 times last year on that short 1/2 mile of hell. After the 3-S turn, we enjoyed a lasagna dinner and I set up the laptop, projector, and screen for everyone to watch "Roam." I think it was a cool movie even though its mostly down-hill bikers and trials riding.

Race day came early and I was feeling very tense for no apparent reason. I wasn't worried about racing, the heat, or anything in particular, but for some reason my anxiety level was through the roof. I finally relaxed Monday night after returning home. For race day, however, it was great to have some awesome people around to make for a fun event.

BK and Dave kicking back before the fury.

Mark and Ronnie figuring out camera wiring. Guess which one is the engineer.

Le Mans starts are always fun if you don't run well.

Mother Nature worked up a wonderful liquid sunshine display with all the lights and sounds to accompany the extravaganza, and wouldn't you know it that Diana and Nancy would be out on the trail during the show collecting soil samples.

Nancy always smiles when she's riding.

Diana made sure a blood sacrifice was made to appease the cycling gods at Santos. She looks a little pissed about it too.

Not to be left out, Flipper decided to try and save the forest from the lightening on-slaught and hugged a tree to keep it from being scared during such trying times. He seems happy about his new ear piercing.....and I'm glad to announce he is doing very well since foot surgery a few short weeks ago.

The race was called after several inches of rain, a few trees were reported down on the trail, and lots of lightening making the area seem like a polaroid convention. Everyone cleaned up, showered, and decided to go hunt red meat for super.

The trip back was uneventful except the 30+ law enforcement we spotted along the way. We grabbed some java in Tifton to stay awake, and eased back into town to end a wonderful weekend.

It was a great weekend to be among friends doing what we love to do most. A great weekend indeed...