holy crap

The winners average speed in the Team Time Trial / Tour De France today was 50.34kph…or as us Americans understand it 31.28mph. That’s just sick man. SICK!

Nigel and duskriding SGW

First off, you need to know that Nigel Sylvester’s Gatorade BMX demo session will be at Mama’s in Buford tomorrow at 5pm. You need to be there. I will be there. I’m going to be a smartass and ride my fixed gear there. Big ups to Mystic Negro for the heads up on the tour appearance. He knows everything about whats happening with BMX in Georgia…

Secondly, I had a blast of a ride tonight at SGW. The deal was, I got there waaaaay late, so I was determined to sneak in a ride before it got too dark. I mean, I could have just kept riding because I have lights, but I wouldn’t have wanted to be at the far end of the trail and have my batteries wear out. That would suck. So basically, the whole ride there was sort of this -hurry up, rush rush- kind of feeling. I ended up getting my fastest avg speed on the fixed gear yet at SGW. To be fair though, I only went out to the portion that drags down the avg once during the ride, after that I kept to the portions that are prettyt flat. Still, I really enjoyed this ride. Plus now I know that I can sneak in a decent ride waaaaay later than I had thought previously, so the window of opp to ride is now open a bit more.

I’m so glad I gave the fixed gear a try at SGW.

Solo Mass

I always remember that it is Critical Mass about 40 mins before the thing I supposed to start, and I live over an hour from the start, so usually I end upmissing all the fun. Today, when I finally realized it was a Mass day, I decided I woould just head over to Suwanee Greenway (SGW) and hold a mass of one.

The thing that made this ride a little interesting, was that just before I hit the trail, I took a couple of big belts of Makers Mark from my flask. The booze, combined with not being able to see due to a broken contact lens, should have made for an interesting ride. It actually was…to a point.

The booze did nothing to me. I prolly sweated it out within the first two miles.

On the upside, the trail was practically empty for some reason, whch meant I could stay in my rythym and not lean on the Incredibell too much. Overall, it worked out pretty well…I added a little over 2.5 miles t the distance I have done the last few times, and if the booze had me do anything, it had me keep going. Less rest stops on this ride than last time.

Funny, the stats are actually slower though…I guess since there was a bit more uphill with the added sections, that was bound to happen.

I’m starting to get more confident on the fixed gear on the tight switchback sections, both up and down. This time around I was out of the saddle quite a bit, but only on the steepest sections. I wanted to get them DONE, not grind them out forever.

I’m pretty glad I went, but SGW is starting to get reeeeaaaal boring already. I might have to start going at night around here somewhere off the main drags.

I am extremely pleased that this post has nothing about wrecking. Yay fo no wrecks(so far). Hope the Mass was fun. I am so late to the game on the whole CM thing…

Photocat Race pics

Photo Cat! Alley Cat Race and Photo Shoot!
7 photographers at 7 checkpoints captured the hot, sweaty and fast Atlanta bike scene!

I wasn’t in the race because I was drunkface elsewhere, but you really should head over to THIS LINK and check out the snaps. Looks like everyone had a great time!

Man I wish I actually lived ITP…

okay so, the pre-party

As I said yesterday, I was only able to make it to the pre-party portion of the bike polo/alleycat weekender that is happening in Atlanta right now. We arrived at the venue about 10ish…it was pretty cool that you could actually bring your bike in instead of having to lock up on the street. On the downside, we couldn’t figure out where any tricks n skids and such would be happening because there wasn’t a parking lot or anything, just a busy city street on a friday night…

The place was actually pretty nice. Seems like normally it would be gallery space upstairs where the bikes were parked, but there were only a few pieces of sculpture on disply, no paintings or drawings or anything. Downstairs there were a zillion tvs showing Mash while a dj spun old school jammies. It was pretty tame inside, but the air conditioning ruled.

Eventually someone announced that there would be sprints upstairs so everyone sort of headed that way. Outside the main entertainment was this guy in the light blue shirt holding up the giant cardboard mustache…

He was a confident drunk, and the crwod loved him for it. He shouted and hollered and generally caused havoc teeter tottering right on the edge of danger. It was like at any moment he could go from screaming confident drunk to “you wanna fucking fight?” drunk…

Eventually some sprints did start, and mustache guy heckled all competitors loudly.

The whole thing was very loose and unorganized. Once again, at the time I kept feeling like I wished it was more organized, but later when I look back on it, I think if it were more organized it would lose some of its soul. I guess since I have to drive 50 miles to atlanta to come to any bikey things, I want to really see sopme action, but it always seems like a way more casual kind of thing than I envision when I am planning my trek.

There were two tall bikes there, which were amusing…

I dunno what the Richmond Cutthroats are but that dudes “colors” are bad ass. I’m curious what would happen if he sort of accidentally ran into some Hells Angels or Outlaws or other motorcycle club, and they started giving him shit about his vest. “You’re wearing “colors” for a BICYCLE gang? LOLS”.

there were a lot of nice rides on the scene. My pic for bike of the night was this jammity jam:

Here are the highlights:

>mountain bike sprocket gaurd by Thirteen
>those new fat oversized Velocity wheels with fat trick riding tires/reflective sidewall
>tubular BMX-esque forks
>clear plastic platform pedals

We also saw some dood on a blue Volume running green tubular cro-mo BMX cranks which was pretty slick.

After a while the jam just seemed to have no momentum so we headed out. Maybe there was a tricks session that got way deep after we bailed, I dunno. If there was please let me know and post some pics.

The most fun I had all nite was the ride from East Lake or Kirkwood or whatever Graham’s neighborhood is called to the venue and back

Flask

I never go for the race, I go for the beer

Tonight is the start of a weekend of fun for bikey folks…The Atlanta Misummer Invitational 3on3 Bike Polo Tourney and Alleycat. Unfortunately I will miss most of this event, but I am hoping to make it to the Pre-Party tonight at  The Bureau. From what I can see online, this place may not even be called The Bureau anymore, it may be called 327. Anyway, we’ll just ride down edgewood until we see bikey people and then we’ll know we are there.

I’m going specifically because there is supposed to be “tricks n skids”, footdown, djs, etc…which is my kind of jammy jam. I don’t think it will be like an organized tricks and skids contest, maybe more like a loose session, which is fine. I’m hoping to get some good pics…it’ll be interesting to see how much more advanced the heavy hitters are at tricks than last time I was at a session, which was way over a year ago.

You should try to hit up at least some of this event this weekend.  If you see me on the oldschool blue Peugeot with the yellow wheels, say hello…

weekend wrap up

okay man, I hit the Greenway twice this weekend on the fixed. a little over 15 miles total. Not much but its a pretty good start. My thighs are killing me. I think it is from the places where I have to put backpressure on the pedals for speed control. This is the third time that I have had the fixed out at SGW, and I am starting to get more confident with it. My max speed is up 2mph from the first ride. Also, as I get more comfortable with the fixed on that path, I am more conscious of how fast I am going…today there was a nice big open portion with no people on the path so instead of just pulsing along, I kind of dug in a bit in order to try and get the numbers up. That was pretty fun.

SGW wetness

Just a short ride at Suwanee Greenway today. The path was waaaaay more wet from the brief rain than I thought it would be. I’m sketched out about riding the wooden/boardwalk sectioins when they are wet because they are crazy slippery, and I have already ate it bigtime on the boards once…destroying an MP3 player in the process.

Hooking up the incredi-bell was helpful in getting the cattle out of the way on the path. I actually rode more of the path than I did last time, but I still haven’t gone all the way to the furthest point.

stats not worth mentioning….

ATL Midsummer Invitational

yeah you need to check this out…you need to go here to get the whole scoop