I had to share

I just had to share a photo of my little darling. This was taken at nap time yesterday. Yes, that is what I am talking about.

Gravel? What Gravel?

The weekend started on Thursday at 5pm. The first thing I did that evening was drive over to the police training course and did some crit racing. I felt stronger this week than last time and could hang on a little while longer with the faster guys. Not sure if everyone was going slower or if I truly was going faster. Ty is a regular fixture at these events and he is a good training partner. I would love to be at his level some day in the future. I have to admit that I do have some days where I get some what discouraged, but never enough to keep me away from riding. Obviously when you ride with guys who are stornger and faster than you, you will only improve. The frustrating part is that while you improve so do they. Needless to say, I feel like I am always chasing that carrot dangling in front of me on a stick, almost with in reach but never close enough to grab. I also notice that because of this effect I find it difficult to gauge my progress.

Friday my little family and I drove to Lawrence to pick up my nephew to have him over for the weekend. I was really excited about the plans I had for him and I to ride part of the Katy trail. He and I went to my sponsor bike shop Volker and we picked up some necessary supplies for a trip of this nature. Spare tubes, comfortable saddle for his bike and bottle cages for my CX bike. The plans were to drive out to Rocheport's trail head, park there and ride as far east as the kiddo could handle. Keep in mind he is only 9 going on 10, and riding a bmx style bike. For those of you who do not know what the Katy trail is, here is a little background. This was at one point a railroad line called the MKT line. MKT stands for Missouri Kansas Texas. In 1986 the line was discontinued and the state of Missouri decided to at some point after that turn it into a glorious 225 mile gravel trail that stretches from St. Charles, Mo. to Clinton, Mo. There are many trail heads a long the way with many businesses serving the trial travellers. This weekend was Memorial day weekend and Rocheport was hopping with business. Live music, outside patio eating, and so many cyclist that you couldn't help but get excited about riding your bike. All kinds of bikes can be seen on the trail from road bikes to recumbent, with all kinds of trailer attachments. The trailers were filled with anything from children, dogs, coolers, camping equipment, radios, I mean you name it and it was there to be seen. The "gravel" trail, and I use that term loosely was almost as smooth as paved road. I live in Missouri and I have seen bumpier paved roads. I saw no potholes in the 6 mile stretch that we road and it had rain the day before and saw no puddles either. I will ride the entire trail one day. All 225 miles and I will do it over a long weekend(3 days) and camping in a tent along the way. If you are interested in joining me on this adventure please let me know. The more the merrier. Not sure about other states but this is a great asset we have here in Missouri and we should take advantage of it fully.

Monday morning I rode out to the bike shop and met up with a few teammates for a 2 hour ride. when it was all said and done I had put in about 40 miles. I had been feeling guilty about not doing my usual Saturday morning ride but after the way Lucy kept Kate and I up all night Friday, I was in no condition to even try to keep up with the guys. It is hard enough with a full nights sleep.  have to say that I do understand now why Britton is not always chipper in the mornings.

My Niece and Nephew enjoying the fireworks

Monday night we wrapped the weekend up with a trip out to Community America park to watch the T-Bones play baseball. I don't watch sports on t.v. much, but i will go to a baseball game any day. Great fun, great food, great company, and fireworks.

Tuesday Has Nothing on Thursday

Thursday night I drove up to the Pleasant Valley police academy, no I am not changing careers. A fellow cyclist from team "In-A-Tub" is a police officer and was given permission to open up the training course for our use. That's right, we get to race on a closed course where they train the officers to powerslide and other cool stuff. The course is like regular city streets being two lanes wide, many turns, and an actual blinking red traffic signal. If all that wasn't enough to make this the best venue, it is also free. Imagine nice pavement, no traffic to worry about, and no cost to you. We had a good turn out, around 20 riders of all skill levels. We also all start the race off together and try to hang on for as long as you can until eventually you find yourself in a smaller group racing against 2 or 3 other people. We did 3 different races on three different routes for a total of close to 2 hours of racing. The races are open to whomever would like to come and join so please plan to attend and invite a friend or two, but make sure that the people you invite are cool because I would hate to see this go away. Start time is 6:15pm. It is a perfect training tool and gauge on how well you are doing, as I found out. If you do decide to show up, make sure you go to the bathroom before you leave home, nowhere out there for you to go. Once you arrive go around the back of the facility to the left of the building, you will see a parking lot on the side. Park there. The address is  6885 NE Pleasant Valley Road Kansas City, MO 64119. This link shows the front view of the buildinghttp://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&q=pleasant+valley+police+academy&ie=UTF8&ll=39.212039,-94.404144&spn=0,0.88028&t=h&z=10&layer=c&cbll=39.216589,-94.49975&panoid=PHIuvB9teflOJXBLXrRwbQ&cbp=12,141.79,,0,16.85

Saturday morning most of the guys were in St.louis racing Tour de Grove. A few of us showed for our weekly ride, I think 6. I suggested we try and get 50 miles in and everyone else was willing. We headed north over the Heart of America bridge. Up to Parvin road and west through Briarcliff on to 9 into Parkville and continued west on NW River rd for several miles past Waldron and that is where my sense of direction goes a little screwy. I know when it was all said and done I got about 48 miles in. Lots of rollers out there. Up and down, up and down.Things seen on the side of the road were anything from a dead snake to some highschool cheerleaders begging me to get my bicycle washed. Cool and Windy day but over all lots of fun. I need to put in more milage like that. My legs felt it for the rest of the day.

Where Did It Go!

Logged on this afternoon and learned that my last post with Lucy's picture is gone. I did not erase it and the link is still showing up on my Facebook page but when I click on it, it says the post does not exist. I look on my stats and it is not showing up there either. I am very dissappointed with Blogger right now.

Goo-Goo Ga-Ga

Easter Sunday my wife and I were in bed when her water broke. My first thought was "I am going to have an Easter baby". By 9:30am we were at the hospital filling out paperwork. No contractions as of yet. The following 30 hours are a bit of a blur. I do know that neither of us had any sleep, and that after waiting for over 28 hours for her to fully dilate and 2 hours of pushing, she had a C-section. My wife is a superhero. I have complete respect for her. She endured an amount of pain that I know I can never imagine. Our baby was born April 25th 2011 at 1:01pm and weighed a whopping 9lbs 9 3/4 oz.. Needless to say I have been a bit busy and have not had the opportunity to update my blog. I have had the chance to sneak away and get some riding in but my mind has always been on my wife and baby. I am in love.......

The above picture is of baby Lucy cracking a smile and I think it also sums up my last couple of weeks well.  

Sharing is Caring

I was on my bike last night doing my normal Monday night McCoy's ride, having a good time when from a car going the opposite direction came some angry words. I couldn't quite make out the complete sentence,  but I did hear "GET OFF........". I am going to assume  that he was saying something to the effect of us riding on the street. This is nothing new, this happens to every cyclist at least once in their life. My first thought is, "you @ss-hole, don't you know I have the right to ride on the street" and "the sideWALK is for WALKING". In this day and age of everything going green and gas prices hovering around $4.00 a gallon you would think there would be less people who react like this, but there is and they simply don't know that the road is to be shared, and they feel compelled to clue us in on traffic laws of which they have concocted in their ideal driving Utopia. These are the people who you need to watch out for when riding your bike. They are the ones who will go out of their way to make sure you understand that riding your bicycle on the street is not acceptable. The ones that see red and react before thinking things through. Of course as a cyclist we have a responsibility to behave and follow the traffic laws like everyone else. We must also share the road with motorists. I have seen plenty of cyclists setting a bad example. Pushing their way into traffic or riding two abreast with too wide a birth. Sharing the road is only becoming more and more common these days and whether you are a motorist or a cyclist, do everyone a favor and read up on the rules of the road.

Here is a link to some road rules for cyclists http://www.be-safe.org/css_com/bicycle/rules.html

Keep It Moving

Last weekend was spent moving. I took Friday off from work and my sister-in-law was in town to help. Kate is less than four weeks away from having the baby and her carrying things is not a good idea. We have moved to a part of town called "the historic northeast". The homes around here are older Victorian era homes. The surrounding areas are not the most desirable to live but this small pocket of a neighborhood is really awesome. We are renting a carriage house behind a large home. The main house was built in the 1890s and the carriage house was built in 1908. It is a really neat space and the best part is we have use of the fenced in yard for Sadie our dog. Sadie loves running off leash. We aren't completely finished with moving, we still have some stuff left in the old apartment but we have a couple of more weeks to get it all moved. I have to say that I woke up every day this weekend expecting to be sore from lifting and carrying things and it never came to be. I think cycling has saved my life. The new place is one block from cliff drive and I know that will become my new training ground. It has long flats and snake turn climbs. Plus I have moved further away from my routine training rides so I will be getting more miles in from the extra commute.

My training this last week has been less than desired but the time that I was able to dedicate to it was well used. Tuesday night Mark and I met another team mate Venasa in her neck of the woods(the west side) and we rode up every incline we could find. She has a routine that she does and wanted to share it with us and boy it was a doozie. It was one of those workouts where you feel like you have accomplished something.

This is Mark celebrating after finishing the workout

The view from up here is well worth the ride up.

Thursday night was fun too. I remember doing this ride for the first time August 2009. I had done a 12 mile ride the Monday before it and thought, "12 miles felt easy, heck I can do more". It was 98 degrees that evening and I was riding with the slower group(I didn't think they were all that slow). I was not only dropped hard but managed to get lost. My ride that night had a few extra lonely miles added on. I was telling Mark that story last night and he said that he was surprised that I decided to do the ride again. I told him that I had spent $800.00 on a new bike and was afraid of what my wife would say if I let the bike sit and collect dust. If she only knew how much my bike now costs. It is fun to see how much improvement I have made even in the last few months. It pays to continue to ride your bike in the winter.