I wonder if that school tried to secede.
Nice little town in PA.
Well, my winter vacation started with a trip to Albany, NY for a winter mountain bike race. I first stopped at an abandoned town in PA, where i viewed an underground coal fire (the smoke comes right up through the ground!) and slid backwards down a hill in my car.
Old Church
Smoke and Sinkholes!
I arrived in Schenectady, NY at a timely hour, but went to bed at about 1AM behind a storage container in a church parking lot. I put my sleeping bag on a borrowed tarp on about 2 feet of snow, and tried to snooze off, unfortunately the house behind the fence was awful noisy, and i woke up at 2:30 to shouting and dogs barking. How inconsiderate. i moved the operation back into the car, where i slept until 6:52 and went to eat a healthful breakfast at McDonald's.
A beautiful light snow was falling and i showed up at the race around 7:45. The race course was under too much snow to ride, so the race organizer decided to move it to a semi-plowed sidewalk around a lake in the central park. She also decided to combine all classes. I thought 'oh crap, 32x21 gearing is good for 10,000ft of climbing, not so great for the pancake flat course here.' But i was happy to be riding my bike instead of running it.
It was then also decided we would do 10 laps around this pond/lake. Even better, a 45 minute race! After last night, that is ok with me. So we got off without anything less than race organizer Heather cheering us. I was going surprisingly fast for the gearing, but wasn't how long i could hold 130+ rpms. I killed it on every little rise and made sure to pick the right lines. A hard charging individual kept getting close, and at one point passed me, but i dropped him and knew 2nd place was mine, assuming the other gentleman i was riding with didn't eat it into a snow bank.
So the last lap, he used his big gears and i came in second. The third place guy was cool, and it turns out is was his second day in America! He had just come from Turkey which explained his raced out Scott scale suitable for a UCI circuit. He and his buddies had come up from Manhattan and they created quite a scene. One man had a Turkish flag tied around himself like a cape, and some middle eastern dance music was blaring from their car! Every lap when we would pass they yelled and were so excited!
After awards, i packed up my stuff and prepared for the drive home, which according to Doppler, promised to be challenging, or annoying. From Albany to Utica, the driving was bad, then some clear, but when i closed in on Buffalo, things got gnarly, real fast. 20 FT visibility, the pictures don't do it justice, because cameras work better than eyes apparently and one fellow navigated via iPhone! Buffalo doesn't disappoint when i visit.
A few days later i went down to Fredonia, NY to ride with this guy, who is super stoked on 2009, then i got my soul crushed by man and dog on a massive 4 mile run.
So on that little melody i am getting ready for 2009. I yearn for a road bike, a low end one, and i was thinking about training just with PE, but i want a power meter again in a bad way, but for now, the Fila will be getting some slick road tires, maybe i will even use my heart rate monitor!
Goals for 2009:
1) go fast
New years resolutions
1) go fast
2) Be like Mike, i mean MARIO!
Is there anyone i would rather get a Christmas card from?
What a great message too.
Some dumb building, actually most things in Mario's shadow look dumb, including Zabel, and the Sun.
Some dumb building, actually most things in Mario's shadow look dumb, including Zabel, and the Sun.
The king better keep better track of his stuff, there is so much awesome on this list.
I guess when you are King Vitamin, you are probably borderline retarded, so i guess we'll give him a break.
