she's a beaut mate

Taken me a couple of months to squirrel away the pennies and build her up, but at last the new Clayborn is ready to ride... well apart from some DMR Chain Tugs that are in the post I hope..

At home right now with a lousy cold and sore throat. Tomorrow is a fun day of Red Team Proposal reviews.. what a joy and how much am I going to concentrate knowing my new bike is in the basement wanting to be ridden??

Long time no speak

Well, it appears to have been an age since I last updated. My parents have come and gone, I've still not built the new bike, it's bloody freezing, and I have been up my own arse writing two proposals, although today they come to a stop for a short while which is nice.

So Mum and Dad came. It was a fantastic couple of weeks, but over too soon. Still, I did get some time off to spend with them. We hit up Mount Vernon, in VA, George Washington's home. Well worth a visit, very interesting and in a beautiful setting. We had a great day, but it was probably below 0c outside, so it was a bit nipply.

The good thing about having Dad here is he can't sit still, which means odd jobs get done round the house. This time round he; painted the kitchen, put new skirting board around the kitchen to stop cats climbing into the walls and cupboards, raked the garden, installed new taps in the bathroom, fixed my leaking sunroof on green gerty (the envoy) and a host of other things as well. Lovely.

Thanksgiving was fun. It was the first time for Mum and Dad, and 27 Laurences, McNevins, Deux's, Miles and other families certainly made an entertaining day. It was good, the weather was nice and we finished the evening off with a bonfire outside which ended a great day. Of course there is always a 'but' with the Thanksgiving, and in my case it's another 10lb! Well, not just Thanksgiving, but I am 205lb, well I was last Friday anyway. Feel free to call me 'fat knacker' or 'fat bastard' when you see me. I have deliberately cut back on usual fare this week to lose a few pounds, its helped, but 205lb!!

So my training has to start in earnest now. I have been procrastinating and have not been motivated, mostly cos of hours working, but it has to start otherwise I'll throw the good results from Woodward in Sept. This week I've taken it light on the squats, although having now not done them for so long, light probably also meant maximum too! oh dear. I had a good 45 mins on the road bike on the turbo trainer to get a sweat up and my legs spinning again, and then squats last night. I need a routine, like I had last yr and early this yr, once I have that going again I'll be fine. Still, my legs feel weak, and I have no lung capacity whatsoever. If I race at the Christmas Classic I may well puke in THE helmet. I might sit in the stands and watch the pro's I think..

Some good news, Matt 'Bo' Allen is coming over to stay in March hopefully. He is hitting up the ABA/UCI race in DeSoto, TX, also the USAC Cycling Champs weekend (like our British Champs) and then is driving across country and will hopefully stop with us. Looking forward to that already. Aaron Shrosbree is coming too, so should be fun. I might well fly out and race with them.

If you happen to be in Florida at all check out the new St Pete Bmx track, (www.stpetebmx.com) looks fooking awesome, and I plan on racing there in Jan, if I don't go to Vegas with the family.

C is in LA this weekend visiting friends. I had a weekend of riding planned, but the weather may make a mess of that. Still, if no BMX, I should get out on the road bike for an hour or two each day, better than nothing. I do hate her not being here, I am not very good at being apart from her I've learned. I thought having the house and time to myself might be fun, but in fact it's an empty box, well except for the cats, so I guess I just love my wife very much.. a good thing then! :)

nothin' new

Quiet weekend for the Hopkinson household. We, well by we I mean 'I', did very little. Saturday I cleaned the house in preparation for mum and dad coming tonight, whilst C was throwing a 'baby shower' for Mo. That went well and everybody had a good time by all accounts. Of course C was stressing about it all, what's new?, but it went off without a hitch. Saturday evening we headed over to Mo and James for a few beers with a bunch of their friends from NY and out of towners. We head a great evening, Kimi was thoroughly pissed and was funnier than ever, and as soon as the Champagne bottle opened my wife's louder, more belligerent, alter ego joined the party too. Thanks James! One sip of Champagne and it's like Jekyll and Hyde, still she did fall asleep in an instant when we got home.

Sunday we headed to the Irish pub for breakfast. In theory it was a great idea - a full Irish with all the trimmings - black and white pudding, tomatoes etc - but they let me down. The bacon was tasteless, only one banger and about 7 baked beans. We won't be going there again.

Sunday afternoon consisted of quality napping, watching the movie Sin City - great movie, I love the visual affects, and the fact that some incredibly hot women wear very little for about 2hours. Truly marvellous. Bean slept all afternoon with all 3 cats so she was perfectly happy. I could have made a purr-fect joke there but I restrained myself.

I hit the weights in the evening and got a bit carried away on the squats. I normally to 1 light warm up set, and then three heavy (for me) sets. I ended up doing 6 sets. I'm surprised my knees even move today. I've changed my squats a little, I put my bench behind my arse now, as my knees can't go past about 90 degrees with any significant weight on the bar. Good thing, is my leg curls are increasing in weight on my bad hamstring, but I still can't curl very much. Once they feel good again, I'll start doing dead-lifts once more. I ought to consider doing up body. I don't want to be fast and fat!!! Got to look buff for the wife.. or bmx moms! I only said consider, so I'll procrastinate for a few more months..

The new Clayborn cruiser frame should be here this afternoon, looking forward to that. Put the One up for sale, almost complete bike for about $300. It'll pay for the Clayborn and then some I guess.

My team idea is starting to take shape. I have made some good contacts and got some people interested in supporting me. I'd like to do something to help other kids out, get them to races, help with fees or kit or something. I love riding for Groove Merchants, Jamie is awesome, but I think so much more could be done, and I'd love to be able to get enough support that I can do something for those less fortunate than myself. We'll see, it may work out, it may not, but no harm in trying right..

Mum and dad here soon, very excited. Sod work this week.

$300. Tires also to go with wheels. Get in touch if interested.

new forks and bars..

Sex is on Fire

not my sex, but if you're a King from Leon (somewhere in France?) apparently your sex is! Still, bloody good record and I have purchased their new album from iTunes, as well as The Music's Strength in Numbers, their first album in 4 yrs. A great band. However, being new to KoL, I also realize how far behind my music collection is, and also my taste. There's me looking at Dire Straits and Genesis, and there are all these new bands to check out. Sutty, help me out here, recommend me some sounds please?

This past weekend, we were Boston bound for Crappo and Dave's wedding. It was an excellent time and I got to meet some of Beans friends from Uni as well including Megan Glaser, who had me in stitches the entire weekend! She was awesome. Also got to hang out with Jamie Nugget too which is always a treat. The wedding was great, went off without a hitch, although Crappo's younger brother decided to go for dinner with friends rather than attend her rehearsal dinner. Tosser. He also didn't want to come to the wedding cos she voted democrat. Complete tosser, and dumb ass wife too. I think he had to write L and R on her shoes so she could put them on properly. Sorry, Crappo. However, other than that, both Megan (Crappo) and Dave have a great family, although it's definitely a mine field trying to negotiate who has been married to who. However, Dave has a great brother, Josh - a teacher in Japan, who gave a great speech. He was a great guy and rides a Yamaha V-Max. You need big nuts to ride one of those. Also, Dave's dad owned several Vincents, and other classic English motorcycles. For the uneducated, a Vincent is about the equivalent of an E-Type Jag or Aston Martin DB5. Art on two wheels. My wonderful wife also gave an excellent speech. She never fails to amaze. I know I piss her off a good deal by being a muppet, but I am very lucky. She bought a tear to my eye and certainly had Crappo and Dave in tears. One other thing must mention Jenna's boobs. holy shite. how they stayed in her dress all night I'll never know. I think they were in a different State to the rest of her body. awesome.

Sunday we hooked up with Ross and Biz, had lunch and did a little walking and sight seeing, then headed home. A great weekend for sure.

Note to self. Don't try and use Jamie as an ally to buy a new car. She knows too much about cars and said the one I wanted was boring. I wasn't really onto a winner, but that blew my argument completely. damn.

Monday was work and more time at ManTech, I think they should be paying my salary at the moment. Tuesday was Veterans Day, so we unofficially had the day off. I did some work stuff in the morning, and seeing nobody was responding to emails, I headed to Severn and rode with the guys. Finally got a nice, consistent, line in the rhythm section. Pick up over the roller, jump little step, jump off backside roller to next roller, jump table, double, then manual onto the step up and bump jump the little double. Sweet.

Also got a nice pic of me in BMXToday, NBL's magazine, from Woodward National last month.

Got to hit the weights tonight, everybody seems to be stepping up and I seem to be doing nothing... again! Still last week, I hit 240lb (110kg) for 10 on the squats, after 3 sets of 20 at 190lb, so not too bad. I have been trying to avoid killing my knees and also working my weak hamstring too. As soon as the weather gets cold, my legs start to hurt. I need to move to Florida.

Mum and Dad are here on Monday, I can't wait. However, I have just been hit with several major proposals. Bollox.

Nice one my son, nice one

So we have an African-American President elect, bout fooking time too.

Am so happy he won. I really hope this will make a difference, that he won't just be a figurehead, but will be as important as Kennedy, Washington and the other great American presidents. And thank goodness we have got rid of Chief MonkeyBollox and Muppet 'Dubbya' Bush.. I can't find another way to describe the man.

I spent election night with C's company down in DC. It was wild. People were going mad, the streets were full of people running around, cars honking horns, people hugging, it was darn cool and I am very glad I was there thanks to the wife.

It will be interesting to see how the next 4 yrs plays out, it certainly can't be any worse for sure, and I think Obama is strong enough to be his own man and make the difference. I really am quite excited.

Now, if we can get him to endorse a bmx track in every major conurbation, built by Hudu, then it will be a right result..

Off to Boston tomorrow for a wedding. Should be fun. Am expecting at least one drunken fight or argument, and I am sharing a room with my wife and two other chicks. Boobs everywhere. Lovely jubbly.. :)

Call Norris, I've just set a world record!

According to my trip computer on my road bike during my 15m loop I hit a top speed of 79.2mph on Friday night! I'd like to believe that I am fast but that's pushing it. However, one point to note, the computer was spot on for my averages and for distance, so maybe I did really hit 79.2mph and maybe I am just fast as fook, so I am going to give Norris McWhirter a call and get my self on Record Breakers with Roy Castle and his trumpet..

Other things, hit ABA Severn after its rebuild. It's gone from being a fun play track, to "oops I've just left a nugget in my pants" crazy scary track. The first two straights are the same, but after the second corner a steep double, an even steeper and short table (like a spine almost) into a step, followed by a rhythm section that would be at home on most euro tracks, steep and deep! Scaring the poop out of people, which is perfect cos all the locals don't have a clue how to ride anything else. It consists of a steep roller, step up with roller on backside, roller, table, 3 three rollers, step up/step down. The last jump is shady, just not finished properly, but I guess it will settle in. It is mad. I've crashed in it a couple of times and I love it. This is the first time I have ridden a track since living here that made me really think and really pushed my ability. Needless to say local rippers had it dialled, Troy Farmer and Josh Grimes made it look easy. I am not so keen on the third straight, I can't hit it fast. The take off on the double was really shady and after a 'moment' I decided to play it easy and just float over it. Once it has wintered thought it will be awesome. At last Severn has stepped it up big time. I'd say tougher than most NBL tracks I've been to now. Great fun.

So as you can guess all I did was ride this weekend. Bean hit her bosses party on Saturday night. I didn't go which caused a minor war, but I wasn't feeling it. Sunday her allergies were really bad again and she spent most of the day in bed. Not sure what is causing this, but I think its being inside with the cats more on the weekend. It rarely happens during the week because she is not around them enough. We are going to have to start vacuuming the cats for their dander.

It's election day tomorrow if you didn't know. And if you had been trying to hide under a rock to avoid it all, don't worry McCain had a plan to get under that rock with you. He's a feckin geriatric and should be in a home under supervision, not running for presidency. Which leads me nicely to my conspiracy theory about the US anyway. How can a country so powerful allow people like George Dubbya and now potentially McCain run the country?? I want Obama to win desperately, but he's too much of his own man, how will 'they' control him. Call me Fox Mulder if you like..

a little cruiser action from Woodward..

long time coming..

.. my blog update that is, not my sex life!

Well I suppose 2 weeks isn't really that long in the grand scheme, but apparently people have been waiting for my update. Well my wife has, and now I have mentioned sex in the first line, I'll be in trouble when I get home.

Where have I been I hear you ask? I'd like to say exploring new climes, venturing into the unknown, rocking the bmx, but nothing so exciting. In fact I have been stuck in a conference room for 2 weeks straight working with our partner on $130m and $6.6bn project. Yep, $6.6bn. I can't imagine what that would like in quarters (25c pieces mum), but I bet it would take some patience to stack it in nice little piles. We are coming to the end of the draft sections so I am back in the office and catching up on stuff. I have had time to update at home, but truth is the last few weeks have been pretty intense, and even though I have been working regular hours I have been blown away mentally by the time I get home. TV, dinner and bed has been the limit.

Random things to update on then.

First off, shout to my buddy John Paul Pfeiffer for his results at the South Carolina national a couple of weeks ago. JP took 4 from 4 in 26-34x and 30-34cr, not bad for an old fella.. :) John and I hit the 35-40 class after Christmas, damn I'm getting old.

I raced the VA state champs and came away with State No.1. Kind of cool. Sadly the guys in my class didn't show, well only 2 others, and it was pretty lame on a shite track. Sorry Richmond. The weather didn't help, but it really is piss poor. Still I hear Tom Ritz is coming in to rebuild and the people at Richmond are really committed to developing the place and facilities so that's super cool. Behind the track is a set of trails that would have DC Blog Icon wetting his pants. It's such a contradiction - poop track, unreal trails. I hit some of them, but the main line was feckin' ridiculous.

I started running again, and then stopped. I was totally into it but on my third night out, I got cramped up real bad, stopped, slipped on wet leaves and pulled my hamstring. Took me an hour to walk home. Fook that. Either I am buying a treadmill or I'll start the running again when I finally knock bmxing on the head when I'm 50 or something. So I've been tentatively trying to stretch it out as this weekend looks good for riding. I've chucked the road bike on the turbo trainer and am doing 45 mins a night on that, some spinning, some sprints, some high resistance just so my legs keep moving.

Here's a thought I had the other day. No matter what I'd like to believe, I don't really train, and when I do, very rarely do I kill myself. I do ride a lot however, almost daily when its warm. So the question is how can I still snap and stay with somebody that can squat 500lb for fun and guys that train their arses off? How is that physically possible? If I don't have the same strength as them, how can I ride with them? I can't figure this out, it shouldn't be possible should it? of course sprinting on a track is not the same as pumping out squats, although uses the same muscles but I don't understand the mechanics of it all the same.

Warlock had his Kuwaraha nicked. Bastards. String them up by the knackers I say.

The ABA and NBL schedules are out, and what a load of shite they are. Not sure how much racing I'll be doing over the next yr. Nothing at all local, except Christmas Classic and Woodbridge, after that I have to saddle the horse and trek into the wilderness to ride my bike. Pissed off about that, and one more nail in my coffin of motivation. If I had the skills I'd just ride trails, wear tight jeans and change my name to Daisy.

Got some great photos of Charlie, from my bro last night. He's a great looking little kid, hate missing him growing up. I don't know him at all and he doesn't know me. Also some cute pics of Bobbin Eames too. Thankfully she looks like her mum so will be fine. I hope we have a little girl too. 2010 is the yr according to the wife. I'm already giving my 'boys' a pep talk..

little bleeder

Nope, we haven't got one on the way, I just managed to pump what felt like half a gallon of blood from a 1 inch wide gash on my leg yesterday! Over shot the big doubles to flat bottom, foot blew off the pedal and spun round in to my shin. I had a dirty set of Shimano DX's buried in my leg and when I pulled it out, blood went every where, including up my arm! How it got up there I don't know. Freaky thing is, no pain whatsoever, just lots of bleeding. A bit of gaffer tape and I carried on riding for another 30mins but I must have done something to my hamstring too as that went very tight and is extremely sore this morning.

So, what a beautiful weekend, temps in the high 70's and low 80's all weekend. Gorgeous. Saturday we headed to Rockville to help Ma and Pa Laurence move into their new abode, about 500yrds away. Cheaper rent I guess. We had a fun day actually, although I am glad it wasn't done in the middle of summer as I was getting a bit of a sweat on. I am a sweaty bugger for sure. Hormones or something!! It was good to catch up with them after their latest European odyssey. We also took the couches for an outing, well they needed the fresh air. We borrowed Ben's awesome Lincoln Mark LT pick-up and took our old sofa to be sent up to Hannover on the moving truck, but when we had done that, we realised there was no way we were going to be able to get the new sofa into our house. It was just to big to get through the back door or down the stairs. So our old sofa is back in the basement again.

Saturday night we went to a restaurant called Crisfield in downtown Silver Spring. Been open since 1945. The decor looked like it was from an old battleship circa 1945 as well. It's a fish restaurant, that is supposedly famous with the locals. We thought it would be cheap and fun. Apparently not cheap, and not all that good either. I'm in rush to go back soon. Still it delayed C having to go to Outback with me for another week. I've been here over 2 yrs now and still not been there, it will happen. NMKY has a plan to cross the USA in a camper for his 40th, mine will be to go to Outback and wallow in kitsch and tackiness to my hearts content. I had a bad case of the farts on the way home too.

Sunday I headed to Southern Maryland track. I've not been there before. In a lovely part of MD and in a great, well managed park, with houses dating back to the 1660's, kind of cool. Also it was next door to Budds Creak Motocross track, home of the 2007 or 08 Moto des Nations I think.
The track was great fun, first two straights were so long. I would say probably longer than P'boro's first two straights, you were blowing by the time you got to the second corner. The second straight was awesome fun. Three progressively longer doubles, with a long triple into the corner. Sadly the only way to get the speed to jump the triples was manual and tap through the first three doubles, jumping them was not giving me any momentum all, backsides were too shallow. But for an ABA track this was pretty aggresive, nothing like Preston back home, but really good fun. Apparently I am only the second person to jump the triples too. Had a great day out with Bruce, Jason and their kids. Cody and Little Jason are fun, they spend more time ragging each other than riding which is great to watch. I got the win in a rather broad age range of 14x to 35x! good for the legs if nothing else. Will be heading back for sure.

Dropped some new black S&M Race Forks and Chrome S&M Slam XLTS's on my bike over the weekend. It looks awesome, really stoked with it. I am thinking maybe a chrome .38 Special for next yr?

On the subject of Chromo, NMKY go or it, either one rocks..

Yesterday was Columbus day, after Sir Christopher of course. Not sur what he, founded America, who knows? But I had a semi day off. Our building was closed, so I did some adminny stuff at home in the moring, some jobs for C around the house and yard, and met my mate Chris in the evening to ride and promptly spurted blood on Severn BMX track. Sweet.

It could be all my fault..

..since I left England, the weather has been poop, no summers and since I have lived in America the economy has fallen apart! Coincidence? Makes you wonder doesn't it. I am in touch with some pretty important spiritual vibes, so who knows?

This week has been good, not so hectic as the last few weeks and I am getting stuff done in preparation for a couple of large projects we are going to be competing for. Fingers crossed we are successful with them.

I see a French man won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Why? All the French do is strike, shut the whole country down when they go on holiday and their boss is married to some ex-model who has lost the plot and wants to be a pop star. That aside, I actually like Sarkozy, seems to be on point with most things. Anyway, they say French is supposed to be the language of romance - so 'tres bon' to Le Clezio. Personally I'm quite happy reading Beano or BMXWorld but there you go.

Went to gate practice last night. Not too bad an evening, it's getting dark and we have no floodlights at Woodbridge, so only got about 90mins in. I am feeling very unfit though. I haven't really trained since Woodward last month and it showed last night. I still had some good first straight pull, staying with the youngsters and A pro's comfortably, but I wasn't able to hit all the gates hard. Sucked. I need to pick it up again. I think it's about time I started running and got some lung capacity back.

The wife has not been well this week. She has had a lousy cold and actually took Wednesday off work, which is a miracle. I think the boys enjoyed her being home all day too. She is much better today though. On another train of thought, the wife stepped up her modelling career. Anything Sarkozy and Carla Bruni can do, so can the Hopkinson's. Today she was 'a hand stealing a wallet' in a campaign picture for her company. Awesome. It's not quite the front cover of Glamour magazine, or even soft porn, but we'll take the royalty checks. We do get royalty checks don't we pooper?

Got some new S&M forks and bars coming this week from my sponsor. I actually prefer the Odyssey stuff I run now, but S&M are helping the bike shop team out so that's cool. I'm thinking of putting on the new Alienation rims too. They are about 8oz lighter than Rhyno lites overall, big difference on my heavy-ish chromoly bike and they look awesome too.

ta' ra chuck..

can't think of a title

Nope, no brain power today at all. Not that I am overly endowed with brain power at the best of times, but today I am running on fumes.. no gas in the tank at all.

Bean is not feeling to chipper, not sure what's up with her. She said she felt post natal or something earlier. I am quite sure we don't have a child so it must be something else! Sum ting wong! Still makes me laugh.

Anyway, I didn't get to spend a whole of time with my good lady this weekend. She worked Saturday and I was out all day yesterday. I really don't like weekends like that, even if I'm just around her to annoy the crap out of her, that's enough for me.

My weekend started a little early. I buggered off early Friday afternoon, grabbed the S&M and went to Severn to ride. I had hoped the race would be one, but the club is going through some turmoil with "he said" "she said" BS, which is sad. Hopefully it will be resolved as low and behold some of the people there have actually started to speak to me. I know I'm an arse, but I'm not an unpleasant arse am I? I had plenty of fun trying to do a bubba scrub over the big doubles. Whatever possessed me to try this I don't know, but once I bonked my front wheel on the lip of the landing whilst I still had the bike lying down I quickly stopped. That could have been very messy for sure. My gates are rapidly improving on the ABA start sequence, so much so that I was pulling and staying with my buddy Chris Agard from the lights, quite an achievement believe me. Chris squats 500lb for fun. I squat 200lb in sheer protest. I've put my Shimano DX platforms back on and with the Vans it feels like I am clipped, my feet don't budge at all. My first straights were on point so I was happy. I guess several cans of Abbot Ale can do that for you.

Saturday the wife worked, whilst I toured DC on foot. It has been a long time since I have been down town, in fact when NMKY was here in April. I enjoyed the walk. Went to the White House, had a nose around and was highly amused by some 60+ dude, slightly overweight pretending he was CIA and scouting around the lawns. Absolute pratt. For a start he had a hat on logo'd CIA. So that meant he wasn't. Then he was trying to do Thai Chee ( is that how you spell it?) and worse he was getting in people's business. What is it with Americans? I don't understand their level of patriotism at all, it's like an obsessional football fan. It's great on the one hand, and I do wish the English took more pride in their country for sure, but it's so over top here. It strikes me as faux patriotism in a lot of instances. Why is there a need to shout about it? If you are civic minded and want to contribute, well done my friend, but don't go on about it, do it and move on. And the whole thing of being a Veteran. Now that is tosh. Sorry, you are not a vet until some dip shit with an agenda has shot at you. Pushing paper around an airbase in Arizona does not put you in the same category as fighter pilot who has had missiles up his chuff, or some poor squaddie stuck in a cave on the side of a hill in Afghanistan whilst Taliban Tom takes pot shots at him. Can't agree with that all. You might be contributing to the war effort but are you putting your life on the line? I wonder if it was like this pre 9/11? Maybe it's just the culture here and one more thing for me to adjust to. Maybe it's just because England is so different and we lived through the 'troubles' and the fall out of the IRA that I don't grasp it. English cynicism, American optimism I guess. I'm guessing optimism is the right approach, but hard to change your ways.

Saturday night we went to Maneqin Pis, a Belgian restaurant up the road with Rachel, C's good friend, and her parents. We had a great evening. They are awesome people, really warm and friendly, and C was really happy to catch up with Rachel too. They also remembered Matt Allen from our wedding, I think he made an impression there. Now, if he was loaded he might be in with a shout! Everybody has mussels, supposedly a fav, but I went with the trout. Now I do enjoy a good trout on a saturday night after a few beers. :)

After that we went back to Rachels to watch the Wisconsin somethings take on the Ohio Brewsters, whatever, I have no idea, but college football is more fun to watch than NFL for sure. Still a bunch of girls in leggings and a helmet though. haha

Sunday I spent the day in Hagerstown. It was the MD state champs and I was doing a clinic. The race was a small affair, with only 17 motos, but somehow managed to take 3 hours to run. Good fun, except for the mountainbiker who ate sh1t over the triples. he walked away but will be sore today. My clinic started at 4.15 and we ran for about 3 hours. It was great, really good turn out, 31 kids in the end I think and I think they all enjoyed it. Certainly the parents were happy and we made $300 for the club which is great. I also had more people than the Stileman clinic. Maybe I can go into business. I love doing it though and the Hagertown BMX crew are a real cool family. Totally dedicated to the kids and keeping them out of trouble. Hats off to Brian, Diane, Chad and everybody else there. Nice to see something positive and genuine. Well after a bloody long day, I got home about 8.30 and passed out on the sofa. Bean had been gardening, and we now have pansies all over the place and fresh dirt for the squirrels to forage in. lovely

Happy Birthday Mum

only a day late! Hope you had a nice day, miss you.

Check out sponsor www.groovemerchants.net yours truly being a tit, but I love Jamies coaching advice for the upcoming clinic we are running on sunday. Made me chuckle.

Happy Anniversary Pooper

We've been married 2 yrs today. And we are still married. Hurrah.

Can't believe it's been 2 years, it has really flown by. It's been the happiest two years though. I can safely say I love my wife more than ever. Obviously there are moments when we want to throw large objects at each other, like Chewy, but we have had a great 2 years and so hopefully we will have many more to come. I love you Bean.

What's changed in two years here?

• I've had 2 new jobs
• We've bought a house
• Got another cat. Gatsby rules, I love him.
• We've bought 2 cars - black betty (the Subaru) and green gerty (the Envoy).
• My brother knocked his bird up and they now have little Charlie.
• I can't get my bird knocked up!! She's not having it.
• I've bought and sold a motorcross bike
• I've had 3 new bikes - Proper Proclaimer; S&M .38 Special and Masi Road Bike
• I'm growing hair where I don't want it and losing it where I need it.
• I've developed a fetish for beer.

Surely I've achieved more than this in the last 2 years, but then again maybe not. When I came here I thought life would be different, new culture, new things to do, fact is it might well offer that but you have to live. So you do exactly what you did before which is work 40-50hours a week, spend time with the family, ride the bike. Same shit, different country. Although now I do have my wife to share all the mundane with as well as all the fun, and for that I am truly grateful. She is pretty wonderful to me and I wouldn't change any of it.. well apart from trying to get her knocked up. ;)

Woodward Camp

This Friday, after a pretty hectic work week, I headed up into Pennsylvania to Camp Woodward for the first round of the 2008/09 NBL National Series. Firstly it is situated in Bald Eagle State Forest, it is stunning scenery. A mountain bike and a few days to explore would be better, but the drive alone was worth the trip. Plenty of Amish in their buggies, antique stores and a town named Liverpool. Named for Liverpool, England - their words! No mention of the 'fab four' but it did look like the 'bizzies' (cops) had been chased out of town. Damn was it run down. It's just part of US11 Highway now, a super busy trucking route full of Adult novelty shops - i didn't find anything novel - and a sad, dilapidated town by the river.

So Woodward. Jumping Jehoshaphat, this place is unreal. It was like being 14 again. Big Dirt, Little Dirt, Cloud 9, Lot 8, all the places you see in the video games and I am there. Only get this, between $20-35 to ride each one, separately. Feck off! Dirt is free for a start. I , along with a bunch of others, paid $750 for 2 nights in a log cabin with one shower, one toilet and no heating! Damned if I am going to give them more money, that was disgusting. However, the place is unreal. On my list of riders watched, Bestwick, Steve McCann, Kagy, Dhers and some young Aussie called Andrew. This kid will be the real deal, 12 ft high backflips over the spine? He hits the same the same speed as Day does down the first straight in Beijing! Kid was super cool, and I spent a while talking to him and reminding him of rugby scores. He called me a 'whinging pom' - all good stuff indeed. Also some young shredder on a 12" pulling double whips out of the half pipe. He needed a bigger bike and had a super pushy dad, story of the weekend that. But another time. Well now actually. The 35x (read that how you will) who was about 100lb overweight, stiff as feck shouting at his 5yr old twins for not winning because they had gates 1 and 2 in the final. Piss off you fat bastard. I don't want to name and shame him, but he was bang out of order and making my blood boil! Lose some weight lard arse and set an example your kids can follow!

First comment on Woodward weekend has to be the awesome people from Hagerstown BMX who put me, or put up with me, all weekend. Diane Hullinger totally spoiled me and I got to meet some fantastic people, who really made the weekend for me. Hagerstown BMX has a great family vibe to it, 'roots' as Uncle B would say, wonderful people and I was very fortunate to spend time with them. I'm looking forward to going back next week and doing a clinic for their riders, least I can do after all they did for me this weekend.

So my weekend went very well. I rode flats for the first time in a while and felt so much better. I was disappointed with only a few riders in 30-34 cruiser, but good quality including Nat # 1, John Paul Pfeifer and Mike Hummel. We had some great racing and John was clearly fastest on saturday. He had a great first straight and it was enough to keep him clear of Mike and I. I pulled hard on the last straight but it was not near enough, 2nd place.

Sunday, I was determined to do a little better, and I was fortunate enough to do that. I got a great gate next to John, and managed to get my wheel in front in the tight first corner. I knew i had the track speed after that but I could hear the commentators comments all the time, so I knew it was going to be close. Third straight and I ballsed up the last jump and John came through on the inside, a little bit of bar banging and we dragged raced the last straight and somehow I came out on top. Great race, and not often I beat JP. On another note Mike Hummell and his wife had a little boy, Garrett, just after the Grands, congratulations to them both. Mike is a cool guy, only rides chromoly and flats..

All that's left of the Supercross track at Woodward...

quicky

First, love to fellow blogger DC, he was also feeling left out on the love front - love to my fellow flat peddler, sometime clipper, always player..

So quick update.
Great weekend just gone, scorching hot, very sun burnt, made pro-am final including beating a couple of A pro's in my semi at Woodbridge. Didnt have a good final though, 9 laps in 2 hours was too much. Loved racing the cruiser again, and looking forward to hitting first national this weekend on it.

Saturday night we met up with a bunch of C's old school friends. Dinner at Sonoma, always a treat, and then back to their hotel to chill out. Great evening, really enjoyed myself if a little tired. C loved it and was really excited to see all her friends again.

Sunday, stupidly hot, so we hit up the movies and saw "Burn After Reading" - Brad Pitt, Clooney, Frances Dormund, John Malcovich, excellent movie, along the lines of Fargo.

Crazy crazy at work for both of us, a little stressed I think. Just got shit loads to do and so has C. She is working later and later and I miss her being at home. What are you going to do!

We have Jacey and Amit staying with us whilst their house is being completed. It's cool I have to admit. Amit is loving the cats, even though he is allergic to them.

Hoping I might hit gate practice tonight and bed in the new Profile wheels courtesy of http://www.powersbikeshop.com/ Chad made me some nice wheels with a titanium driver! bling! Not actually lighter than my old worn out SINZ wheels tho.

oh, get your hands on Meantime London Porter. An excellent ale, or porter I guess, great stuff indeed.

cheers

It's a baby Smurf

Well I have to say this bought a tear to my eye this morning. My oldest and one of my closest buds had a little baby boy, Joel Ellis, with his wife on Tuesday. They sent some pics today. It made my day. Smurf will be a great dad. I know he has always wanted a family. I am really really pleased for them both. Great people, little Joel will be in great hands for sure.

Apparently my darling wife, and now my best bud NMKY, are feeling unloved and left out as I have not mentioned them recently.

Wife, I love you always and in so many ways both legally and illegally..

NMKY, I love you in as many ways a metrosexual man can...

Is that good enough for the both of you?

Had my anuual review yesterday, I am still in a job which is great news. I also had a healthy little pay increase and stock options added to my package. I am extremely grateful, especially in the tough economic climate here right now, I didn't really expect anything. I work for some good people who look after their staff very well. I am quite lucky I guess and shan't take this for granted.

Still leaning towards the Clayborn cruiser. Rebuilt bottom bracket again last night, one last effort, otherwise I'll be buying some DXR's to go with the Clayborn as well... muchos $, but what are you going to do..?

Wet and Windy

..and that's just my bottom! Actually I have had a bad case of flatulence the last few days, don't know what's been wrong with my arse but I've been trumping like a good 'un.

So Friday night, I left work a little early and headed up to Winchester to ride with my buddie Jason. It was a gorgeous late summer evening, warm enough for shorts and a t still. I got there super early for sum reason so had plenty of time to warm up and fix the bike again. The One is tired, the wheels are in their death throws, or the bottom bracket but that's brand new, either way something sounds like a bag of bolts in a washing machine. A rebuild again tonight. It was a cruiser evening for sure, about 7 of us on cruisers all riding and getting some good gates in. I have to say mine were on point. I've not been on a random gate with a cruiser, but apparently they work ok. I had a good first straight going and made myself work. Only bad point of the night was Chad 'sublime' Powers half link snapping on about his 4th gate. He made a bit of a mess of himself sliding on the tarmac. Shame, cos we normally have fun riding together, he is smooth for sure. Bruce was looking good once we had his gates sorted. Sad point of the evening, newbie, novice, idiot, whatever you want to call him Ryan has decided to clip-in. Yes, after 3 months of racing he feels he needs! get the feck out of here. He's not slow, but has little skill yet and is totally out of control. He's also turned into a gobby little shite which he wasn't last time I was up there a few months back. Sad, I quite liked the kid. Still, I was a gobby little shite at 15, and am still at 34 so what do I know.

Saturday, it rained, and rained and rained some more. It actually started on my way back from Winchester Friday night, which reminds me of the two fat kids complaining about getting medium fries when they ordered large. I wanted to shout order a lettuce instead, but apparently a couple of other kids in the queue thought the same as me, to which said chubby kids scurried out of Wendies rather embarrassed. So, with all the rain we decided doing 'bugger all' was an excellent plan. We napped, we went out for lunch, walked around a terrible mall, and then went home for another nap. Quality. After the nap, we had a sandwich and went for Ice Cream. Apparently when you buy Ice Cream in the States you also come home with another pair of Vans shoes. Well that's what happened to me. On sale for $32! Rude not too sir! I know we watched a movie but I can't for the life of me remember what it was, but it was funny..

Sunday we tidied the house a little and played with the cats a lot. Gatsby is starting to settle down and leave Chewy alone. He has his moments still, normally on a work night, but he is soo cool, I love him. He does sleep on my back which is slightly odd and has a habit of biting my chin, equally odd and somewhat annoying too. In the afternoon I rode Severn again on the safety cycle. It was riding awesome after all the rain. I manualled from corner to corner the third straight, never done that on a cruiser before. I love that bike, I wish I could get another one, maybe I'll have to get Mum and Dad to bring me one over in November. If not I'll be ordering the Clayborn, or maybe a GHP Cruiser as that looks really nice. Chad just rang and has my wheels on the way, Profile sent a titanium driver by mistake and only charged me a couple of $'s extra, compared to the $50 it should be. Black hubs, chrome rims, should be sweet and go with anything I buy. Maybe the wife will want them for her anniversary present, she could do with some new cruiser wheels...

36th!

What the feck? I dropped from 12th going into the Grands to 36th overall, bloody crap. The worst thing is, my points are actually high enough to take me to 18th I think even without Grands points, but because I didn't do the grands I get nothing. So the guy who is 35th actually has about 600 points and I have 1530! No Grands, no national ranking. So a whole host of guys slower than me, are ranked higher becuase they turned up. Bollox. Of course that's the way it's always been, so i knew it was coming and is the same for everyone, but still a little depressing..

Off to ride the safety cylce with my buds in Winchester, VA and maybe have a sherbet or two.

Storms hitting this weekend, so I'm holing up in the sack and resting..

Congrats Bill Young 26-34x #1

Not too much has happened since my last post I do believe. Well, things have changed in the BMX world. Stumpy took the Elite Men Title with a win at the Grands, after winning the Pro Spectacular Friday night. Becerine took second and J-Rich 3rd. I heard the Top5 are all over 30, no imagine if they went Vet Pro? Dale Holmes looked good for the vet pro title but I heard he crashed or something in the main. Kenth Fallen took the overall, he's about 4 yrs younger than Dale too. Looks like I missed a good Grands, my mate Jason Morgan grabbed 2nd in 41+ Novice overall and Chad 'sublime' Powers took a great 3rd in 25-29 Cruiser, good on yer mate.

My class was won by Bill Young, congrats to the man, from an inside gate, with Pat Parker taking second. Pat was on it all weekend, but got gate 8 in the final and held high in the first corner. http://www.go211.com/videos/9036/ Still those 2 are in a class of their own in 26-34x. Wonder if Pat will go Vet Pro, although not sure he is 30 yet? I'm dieing to know where I ended up overall. Be great if I could have stayed in the Top 20, but I think with 104 riders and nearly 40 riders at the Grands in my class and all their points double, not likely. Check out www.go211.com for Grands coverage.

I rode sunday and monday on the safety cycle. I am really enjoying riding the cruiser and after I ride I don't get any problems with my wrist, which I am still getting on the 20". Got a bad case of throttle grip on the 20" too, I think it's the humidity but the new S&M grips I have put on will not stick to the bars, waste of $10 and $15 for nice ali end caps too! I will get some more ODI Ruffian Lock-Ons like on my cruiser, they are lovely. Tonight I need to hit the weights, not done upper body for about 5 days and my legs are aching from all the riding this weekend. Weights tonight and maybe ABA gates tomorrow night. Still having problems with the headset coming loose, it will not squash down. I am sure it's the stem. I have tried every combination of parts I have, the old stuff works fine, but I want the new, shorter stem on and it won't lock down. I guess new forks with a built in headlock will be the next purchase.

Last week was pretty quiet at work, I really don't like it like that, nor the fact I am in the office on my own. Still tomorrow I am interviewing somebody for an Office Admin/Jnr Bus Dev role and Josh will be back shortly from secondment so things should liven up. It's difficult to be motivated working on your own, and I need to be constantly enthused to get the best from myself. Things are starting to pick up again now though, which is good. I have been at IGI a Yr this week, tempest fugit and all that, but for the most part it has been great, and I have to say I do work for a good bunch of people, that I respect and are respectful. That's no bad thing in the money grabbing society we live in.

down the hatch..

'frog in a puff'

So the first running of BMX at the Olympics happened this last week.. and my predictions were pretty good. Of course I wanted Shanaeze Reade to win, but it was never going to happen. She doesn't know how to ride with her head. All the talent and power is no good if you can't control it. I am not slamming Shinny, and her do or die attitude was awesome, very un-british of course, but said she came for Gold and nothing else. I just wish someone would tell her to turn it down a notch, there was no need to canethe crap out of every lap, nobody, Ann-Caroline aside, is close to her. And why nobody was helping her with her cornering is beyond me. British Cycling's lack of interest I think, get it out of the way and get her into the velodrome. She is a star though and whatever bike she ends up on in the future, I hope she blows everybody away. Liam Phillips had a good ride in the mens, ok he got moto'd and people are bitching about it on the 'net, but who's to say Kelvin would have done different and with the likes of Allier, Dewilde, Prokop and others going out first round, it wasn't a bad effort. Strombergs won and apart from one quarter bobble, he didn't look like losing. Only Mike Day had the ability to take it too him, and he got 2nd, so the best 2 riders were up there. I am gutted for Graves (an Aussie no less), I really like that guy, he's an awesome rider and for Sifosi Nhlapo, he deserved better, but he went for it and nobody remembers second place so why not.

I've been getting back out on the bike, the safety cycle (cruiser) a little. My hand is wrapped up with a brace and supports and actually feels ok. I just can't ride with gloves on with all the strapping which feels a but weird, but it's been good to ride. Had a good session with Chris and everybody at Severn yesterday afternoon, apart from one massive over shoot on the big doubles, all was good and my hand is starting to ease up. I've put a 58mm stem on instead of the 65mm i was running before, huge difference, can manual as well as I can on my 20" now. And some new DXR brakes so I can stop. For some reason the XT's wouldn't work at all.

I desperately need some new cruiser wheels, the hub on the back is shady and making all sorts of noises. I've rebuilt it several times now, they were just cheap wheels and are now over 3 yrs old so i can't complain, they've had a tough time for sure. Still straight tho.

Friday night was Abbey 'funbags' Greenburg's leaving do. She is eloping or something and off round the world. We had a good send off for her, although why we ended up in some euro style club bar I don't know. I couldn't hear a bloody thing. My hearing is going like my mums I think. I am going to miss her funbags though, they had a mind of their own and were all over the place. marvellous.

Saturday, after a nice lie in ;) we went tv shopping and purchased a Samsung 40" LCD HD tv, or something like that. The wife was insistent on 40", i tell her size isn't everything often, but she didn't seem to want to listen so the 40" tv looks like a feckin cinema screen in the basement. 37" would have been ok, but I am really excited anyway. We watched Bank Job last night to get the wide-screen effect. TV was lovely, but i doubt they are going to win an Oscar for the acting. Still Saffron Burrows is a little treacle.

Saturday night we hit an english pub near our old place in DC, called the Commonwealth I think. Had great english food, fish, chips and mushy peas, but we were bloody raped on the bar tab. $108 for about 8 drinks was disgusting and it wasn't like they were serving stuff that is rare over here. I was drinking cider, eric and bep on some ale and C on the wine. Next time I'll have a few sherbets before I go. But the food was excellent and we'll go again for sure, even had 'toad in the hole' although they called it 'frog in a puff'' ?? Seriously.

Today I start my new training program. Chris has written me a training program to help deal with all my injuries so I can still work out and start to get back in shape after a shitty few months. My knee is still odd though, so not sure how the weights will work on my legs, but most of the exercises are non-load bearing or very light weight for the next 3 or 4 weeks.

I've got the first of my permanent residency interviews this thursday, just biometrics and fingerprints i think. I've already done this, but for some reason I have to do it again. Still, the amount of money this is costing me i want to waste their time and get some value.

Work is quiet today, wonder how long that will last? I've designed some new brochures using MS Publisher. All good fun and I enjoy doing that stuff. I'll upload what I've done.

Cheers

Amish Country

What a great weekend... and not a bike in sight. Lovely. As mentioned earlier it was father-in-laws 65th so we spent the weekend as entire family, all 10 of us.. and somehow we managed to come through unscathed and happy. We set off early Saturday morning to the Farm, where after much discussion about gas prices and where we should buy fuel, we headed out to Lancaster, PA. Just down the road from where we got married actually. The weather was perfect, mid 80's and no humidity and clear blue skies. We booked into the little hotel and hit the buffet lunch, not bad for $11 and then headed to the Hoover family. The Hoovers are Amish or Mennonite, I can't remember, or possibly neither, but certainly live a very humble life compared to the excess and trappings we rely so much on. They have 12 children, ranging from about 23 to 40 or so. Very quiet and kind, and traditionally dressed, they are wonderful people. I felt really humble and quiet embarrassed at times the way I lead my life, and the so called apparent need I have for fancy clothes, bikes, money, computers, tv's whatever. They have none of this, and not through lack of money, but through religious choice they believe in equality and therefore by all having the same there is no greed, envy, desire. What a wonderful way to live. I think we could all learn a lesson in humility and happiness from them.

We planned on staying for an hour, but we were there for about 3 or 4 hours. They farm tobacco which obviously they sell on, as well as other produce. The tobacco process is incredibly labor intensive and when they don't use machines to harvest it either, it is amazing how much they accomplish. Can you imagine cropping the 'ears' on 84,000 tobacco plants by hand? Talk about Repetitive Strain Injury! What was awesome tho, was as word spread that we had arrived the kids all started coming in from the fields on their bikes and horse and buggies. It was such a cool sight to see. Their yard full of bikes and buggies definitely made you feel like you had stepped back in time, yet we were only a few hours from DC. Quite surreal. They make wonderful furniture and paintings and leather work so we purchased a few things for the house. I think Bean and I would be happy being Mennonites, they ride bikes - great for me, and read a lot - great for Bean. However, they work damn hard - not so good for me. I have to say I am really glad we went there, made me appreciate what I have so much, but also made me realise that actually I don't need the latest and greatest to be happy. Sadly, I live very much in that world so how long this realization will last I don't know.

Saturday evening was finished off with a cold Guinness and a great burger at a little restaurant, where Sean got the whole palce to sing Happy Birthday to Ben. Sean has a gift with people for sure. He was talking with the Hoovers as though he had known them all his life. I'm sure he'd be best buds with the Pope after 10 minutes. I think Papa Laurence had a great birthday and he seemed really happy, even if Christa did lose the plot because Beckie paid for dinner.

After some Olympic viewing and a few more vino's we hit the sack. Sunday was another hot and nice day. We played some crazy golf, I got very crazy and finished last, and somehow my wife finished second. This is twice now she has impressed me with sporting talents, the tennis and crazy golf! The rest of the day was antique shopping and eating ice cream.

So we had a great weekend in all, great to be with all the family. The kids seemed to really enjoy themselves and we got a little sun.

Frustratingly my hands are still hurting quite a bit. I am convinced I have broken a bone in my left hand. I have full movement in both, just very painful at times. I ought to get them checked out. At the moment I am starting to get fed up of all the aches and pains. It's been one thing after another since May/June, first my knees, now my hands. I haven't been able to train properly for about 3 months. My body just feels like crap. I think I may use my hands as an excuse not to go to the Grands. I am not fit enough to race, and when I am not feeling fit I know my head won't be in the right place to race hard, just like Pottstown last week. Plus, I have my Citizenship application that starts on same day of Grands, so I really ought to deal with that first. I am pissed that I won't get a good ranking. but with all the nationals done I finished 12 out of 104 in 26-34x so that's a pretty good accomplishment I think. I have to set myself some goals for the new season starting Sept 21st. That will be my target, give myself some recovery time and then plan properly, with a structured training program for 35-39x.

Maybe a road ride or tennis tonight I think.

Couple of pics from Winchester State Race

Matt Kelty (red), Leroy Moses (white, blue), both A Pro, and myself. I know they were probably not trying all that hard, but still feels good being next to the young guns - even if it was only for a straight!

ProAm Final. I'm in 3. This was about as close I got to the 'kids'. Good fun tho.

Scott, Ryan, Me and Rob in the Pro Am motos.

Good photo from Mr Larsen again

Aidan Peiser RIP

What a crap start to the day, although nothing compared to what Aidan's family must be going through right now. I received an email this morning from Marc saying that Aidan had been killed on Wednesday night. No details yet, but possibly a car accident. Aidan, like his brother, was just a great guy to be around, never stressed at races, always happy and loved our little sport for what it was. Sadly, he has left behind a wife and 2 very young children. I am gutted, absolutely gutted. RIP mate.

I came across this pic this morning, whilst surfing the news! This is what drunk driving does to the innocent. They should feckin hang the bastard.. 1 dead and 10 severely injured.

Gatsby and remains of Profile seat!

A few pics of Gatsby and my destroyed Profile seat after my crash this weekend. Idiot boy that I am. Oh, the wife has gone to buy tennis rackets. If anybody is in Silver Spring and wants a giggle, come and watch the two most uncoordinated people ever try and play tennis!

tough weekend

A tough weekend, perceeded by a tough week - I should never have gone near my bike! I felt tired and not wanting to ride on Friday as I headed up to Pottstown National. I wasn't too keen n going, but I had not raced a national in months and thought the laps would do me good. How wrong could I be. The track did not suit me at all, a super short first straight with a shady jump in the middle and a table into the first corner, a steep and too short second straight meant everbody was over shooting stuff, a great rythym section and a short and steep last straight. I couldn't get any speed or any flow and even dropping down to a 43-16t didn't really help. My problem was the gate, it was so flat I really struggled to balance. This is usually my strong point but I got slaughtered all day. I crashed in pactice Friday and should have gone home then, it was an omen! Saturday after some mediocre motos (4-2-2) I had a good inside lane for the semi, only to slide off the gate as it dropped. Dead last. Somehow, I think in blind rage, I made it to second going into the second corner and thats where my race stopped. 5 200lb guys on kids bike on a track wide enough for 2 something had to give. Straight over the bars I went, taking down another guy (mike hummell i think) and my race was done. I have no idea how I crashed, what caused it, if I caused it, just one minute I was upright and the next I was lieing in the corner being run over. Needless to say the concrete berm won this battle. My bike is a mess, paint all off the top tube, new pedals and grips torn to pieces and worst of all my $65 Profile Carbon seat totally destroyed. My jersey is shredded, my back has some nice scrapes, my elbow is a lovely shade of blue and both wrists are pretty swollen as is my knee! Shoulda stayed at home and played with Gatsby. Weekend was a right off, not only did I lose my hotel money, but now I have to replace all the new parts I just put on the bike for the Grands, assuming I can ride. I feel flat, pissed off and totally not into bmx. I'll be ok by tomorrow but right now my face looks like it's been slapped by a wet fish. I'm a grumpy bugger today.

The good news is, Gatsby seems to be settled in well with Joey and Chewy. There are still some hisses and fights, but when I got in on Saturday night both Gatsby and Chewy were asleep on the sofa together so all is well. He certainly is treating our place like his home already, and seeing the wife and I only bought a house so we could have more animals so he should. Although a baby would be nice at some point wifey, just a little one..

After a busy week at work last week, looks like I have the same this week. Which is a good thing, stops me wallowing in self pity for being a complete novice on my bike at the weekend. I shall take this week off the bmx and get out on the road bike to keep my legs moving.
The weather is beautiful right now, low to mid 80's, no humidity, and blue skies = perfect. Although it does feel odd for a DC August to be like this, last yr it was in the 90's and 100's.

It was father-in-laws 65th yesterday, so next weekend we are having a mini family vacation somewhere in PA. Should be fun and will keep me off the bmx a little longer so that should help with the recovery if nothing else.

Maybe I might just take my cruiser to the Grands, if it's rebuilt in time!

The Great Gatsby

Gatsby arrived Friday night. Poor little thing managed to puke in his cage and on himself on the way over. Still, I love him already. He's a real deep orange, with leopard like spots and big round eyes that make him look Korean or something. So far so good. We've had a few little spats with Joey and Chewy, right now he has taken to humping Chewy. Chewy needs to use his 17lb and put him in his place and all will be good. Although I have a sneaking suspicion he will end up the dominant cat, our two are too laid back to care. We also found out he doesn't like milk this morning just as we were leaving at 7.30 his brekkie came straight back up again! Nice.

The wife and I pretty much didn't move all weekend, we just stayed in and played with the cats. I think they liked having us around all weekend. Also it was good to spend an entire weekend with the wife, I love her lots. Sometimes we are so busy we just take things for granted, so it was good to just be together and potter around for a few days.

Saturday night we went out with Sarah, Christine's good friend from Woodley Park, and her new boyfriend. Great guy, so much nicer than the previous obnoxious little tit she dated before. Hopefully we'll get to hang out with them a whole lot more.

Sunday hit up Severn BMX. I am feeling rather angry about this, as 3 week before the national they are feckin' up all the jumps. They just have no common sense at all. They spent all their time turning the first jump, about 8ft wide at most, into a trail style jump. At the bottom of the start hill, with 8 riders hitting it! For fooks sake, it's ridiculous. Needless to say there was numerous crashes. You can't have a jump with no backside at the fastest point of the track and when the riders are closest together. However, in doing this, they totally neglected rebuilding and surfacing the rapidly deteriorating 6 pack, which would have been time, effort and money well spent. And, to make matters worse there is no concept of finishing off the jump. They just roll over it a couple of times on a quad bike and think that's it. So one good down pour, the dirt washes off and the ruts are exaggerated. I won't be at the national, but if I was an ABA racer and travelled any sort of distance I would be pretty pissed. That said it doesn't strike me as all that different from the standard of the majority tracks here - shite. Still I have Pottstown national this weekend, and whilst no big jumps, it is super smooth and full of tech fun stuff. I am looking forward to it. OK, rant over, and sorry to those people who do put the effort in, with limited resources, building tracks. I know it's not easy.

I have a super busy week this week. A couple of new projects are close to kicking off, so I have a ton of data calls to prepare for, I best go prepare then instead of sounding off.

My Dad is 21 and 40yrs today. Happy birthday pop, love you.

tire(d)issues

The American spelling for Tyre is Tire! So I thought I'd have a little play on words and use tired to discuss tired legs and a tyre problems!

This weekend was a double header State race at Winchester, VA track. It's a tough track, not technical, but physically demanding, long and extremely bumpy. So after blowing a tube on my road bike last week and repairing it Friday night I decide to head out for a short ride to make sure all was working. An hour later and some hill climbs I get home feeling beat. This was rather stupid considering I know how tough Winchester track is. Also, riding the road bike a day before a race does my leg speed no good at all, as I found out first moto. I enjoyed the road ride, but not the night before a race is the lesson learned here.

Thankfully the weather was on the cool side up in Winchester. Last yr it was close to 100f, this weekend it was only in the low 80's which was a nice relief to be honest from the humidity of the last few weeks. Practice was ok, although my gates were shocking, too long away from NBL gate practice I guess. I managed to bump jump out of the second straight triple which was cool - manual the first roller and then hop off the second one from my back wheel down the back side of the jump. I got it down and did it in all my races. There was only 5 of us in class, but Scott Morrison was there who is usually a little faster than me so it was going to be good fun. However, I think I left my racing shoes at home, because to be honest I couldn't get motivated to ride all day and rode pretty crap. So much so that I ended up 5th after deciding I had had enough half way down the first straight in my final and sitting down.

I made the Pro Am final however and decided to give it one final effort. I had a good couple of motos picking up a 5th, 3rd and 2nd, even holeshotting one with Matt Kelty in (although my mates said he was just rolling!! damn!!) and Leroy Moses. So I summoned an almighty effort coming out of the gate, the kid next to me slammed my bars, I went wonky and twisted my tire/tyre out of shape! Pretty much the end of my race, by the time I got myself in a straight line I was about 5 bikes behind. I caught up to 6th, but then just simply blew up down the third straight and ended up last. My legs wouldn't even pedal and I thought I was going to pass out to be honest. I picked up a new tire off Chad and headed home to the In-Laws feeling pretty pissed off and tired.

I drove the 2 hours up into PA to Ben's brother's house, who was having a family BBQ and get together. My wife was well on her way, Jessie and Aunt Kathy were already pissed and the rest of the family was following suit. I ended up designated driver seeing as I arrived late, so was allowed one warm Yeungling beer and lots of pop to keep me going. We had a great evening. We don't see so much of the whole Laurence family, but we always have a good time, and seeing we are all close in age, it's good fun.

Sunday was spent lying in bed, at Dunkin Donuts, and house hunting, well looking at least. You'd be amazed at the size of house for $270k you can get in Hanover, you'd be like royalty. It really does make me think twice about all the money we spent for ours, but then I'd be working at Walmart and Christine would be a career receptionist somewhere. It's not conducive to the $$'s for sure.

This week we are getting Gatsby, our cat adoption. C is freaking a little, but I think they will be fine, and I would rather we take the cat than put him in a home. I am looking forward to it. I think he will be fine with our two. They are pretty laid back and I don't think it will be long before they get on.

Tonight, final coat of paint on the new door frame, new tire on the bike and early night I think.

Hot weekend

It's been hot here, well into the high 90's and high humidity. Not pleasent to do anything in, so I kind of hid in the house most of the weekend. Friday night I did nothing more than mow the laws, kills weeds and watch TV. I have to say though, that lately if I sit still I seem to find a beer in my hand. This is worrying, a) because I'll become a fat bastard, but b) I seem to be enjoying it too much and want to drink regularly. I think this might be a result of the heat and a cold beer just feels good, but I don't need a couple of pints a night like I have been doing this last week. I'm an alchy!

Saturday, we hit the hardware store, paint and things. Bean has been doing a great job of painting the kitchen, she has done it all her self and is rightly proud of her efforts so far. Nice one. Saturday afternoon, after naps, I headed to Severn for an hours riding. It was 94f. I ended up riding from 4 to 8pm. Had an awesome session. Got the clips dialled in and felt much better on them. Manualled the whole third straight, all 7 jumps clipped in, flat out and was getting the bnump jumps dialled in, so am much happier. Bad thing is, I am still struggling with my knee, it feels like a trapped nerve in the top of my knee, it starting to get bloody painful and I really don't know what's causing it. No weights again then this week, just sprints and some road rides.
Saturday night Amit and Jacey came over, so the day finished off well with Amit's stories of screwing over sales people. Very amusing.

Sunday, we slept late and then went to the Diner for brekkie. I think it's starting to become a habit, but it's a nice one and we have fun. We bought some curtain poles and a few other bits and bobs from Crate and Barrel and headed home to paintin and DIY. Although we did squeeze in another nap as we had been up for about 3 hours at this point. After painting the door I headed out for a road ride. I was beat to be honest and my 12mile loop took me 2 mins longer than normal. I guess I was suffering from the heat and riding the day before. I am trying to work hard on the climbs still though, if nothing else. I have been reading a good magazine that had some useful tips to help with climbing. They paid off a little I felt. It's so weird when you know how to ride a bmx well, you think a road bike is piss easy, apparently not at all. How you hold your ankle when climbing is a big issue. Seriously. I tried the technique and until my legs gave up I think it was actually working. I think for the most part fitness is the key, so more saddle time, but that can wait until after the Grands as leg speed and strength is what I need now, that and quitting my new found alcohol problem!

Gate practice wednesday and this coming weekend the State double header at Winchester. I want to go up to 44-16t, but then it's the ProAm and i'd like to make a final or two again as it was fun last time, so maybe I'll stay with the 41-15t. Decisions, decisions...

Door

Interesting title. We are having a new door fitted today. I don't envy the chippy being outside putting it in for us, its 95f today. Door looks good though, I'll post a pic to keep mother happy later on. Not sure how exciting that it is for my several readers, but nonetheless it's the first major bit of DIY to our house.

Speaking of DIY, the NMKY is having his garden landscaped, lets just hope it's all chippings or something so Mrs Monkey doesn't have to hold the baby AND mow the lawn. Rich did his bike ride at the weekend and it appears it was fairly uneventful, but fun. Good on ya. I think I would die doing 60 miles, although I am determined to cycle from Hanover to home this summer and that's close to 60 miles if not more I think. I'll wait 'til it's cooled off a bit though first.

last night I went to Severn. They have made some changes, three rollers around the first corner, seems to be ok I guess and they are going to alter the rhythm section a bit, which is good cos its pretty washed out now. I rode clips for the first time in months, and I have to say I hate them. They are faster, but I am not smoother in them. I am just going to persevere and work on it, but it's not bmx, it's plain gay. Why do guys my age, who aren't chasing vet pro dreams need clips. Seriously, whats the point? We grew up on flat pedals, why do we need disco slippers now! I think when I turn 35x after christmas I will be back on flats.

I forgot..

... my unofficial, legal, wedding anniversary yesterday! Oops. Well, things have been so hectic it never even crossed my mind, not even once so I can make up an excuse. Good thing is so did the wife pretty much. She bought me some turquoise underwear to go with the myriad other colours she likes to buy me. She wasn't piss@d but if I'd forgotten the real one, my nuts would have been on the pillow next to me in the morning.

We had a good weekend. C had Friday off and pottered around the house and went and saw friend and things. Saturday I rode all day in 95f heat. Had a great session at the track, won 30+ open and then we hit the trails for a while. Had a good time and this time I rode more sensibly rather than pretending I was Brian Foster or somebody. Got a nice redneck sunburn to my arms as well, just need the beat up old pick-up truck now and I'll be hanging with the boys, chewing tobaccy and shooting possums before you know it.

Saturday night we went for Dinner at Sonoma with jacey and amit, abbey and adina. Was a fun evening and good to catch up with everybody again. Sunday morning we hit the diner and ate too much. We are really bad. We spent the rest of the day decorating, putting up pictures, curtains and other things. It was too hot too go outside. Sunday night Bean went and caught up with an old skool friend courtesy of Facebook. It wasn't all that by all accounts, so I don't think she is too bothered about seeing her again. Just talked about herself the entire night. I hit the weights Sunday evening. Back doing deadlifts, as these aren't causing my knees any problems like squats where. I guess the squats will give me a bit more explosive power, but there is no point in hurting myself doing them. I am starting off light on the lifts and doing them quick, just touching the floor with the weight and then straight back up again.

Last night I did 12 miles on the road bike. I don't want to do massive distances, just work hard on the hills and spin on the flat. My legs are sore today. I am trying to push super hard on the hills as best I can to make up for not being able to hit the weights hard lately. My brother would laugh at me as he flies up hills on his road bike without braking a sweat, where as I look like the 15yr old who just got caught stealing Playboy... hot and sweaty, with a far away look in my eyes! Still, I am determined to make the most of the bike and I am really enjoying it. I have to fix a puncture for bean tonight as she got a flatty, same problem every time, spoke into the tube. I have more rim tape on there than Halfords sells, its feckin stupid. I have even filed down the spoke heads. It's always the same spoke to. So I'll fix that tonight and swap my gear back to 44-16t for Winchester and set up my new clips too. Maybe hit gates or a local race tomorrow night.

Off to MacDonald's for a protein shake...