ANNOUNCING REPORT: Ice Weasels 2013

Yes, an announcing report. My absence from bike racing has been so long that I am now writing ANNOUNCING REPORTS. But, it’s about Ice Weasels, which is the greatest race ever so screw you.

SO. My involvement with the race started on Thursday night, when Colin and I ran errands (which included returning the crappy stakes I bought (in JD we trust)), and continued into Friday when I finalized the playlist and helped staple numbers. And Christin is allergic to dogs. Good thing I have two of them and I don’t vacuum regularly!

I did not put my nether regions on any of the numbers. Adulthood is stupid.

Also, Colin got stuck in the turnaround of my driveway (which, honestly, we both saw coming), but it was a great chance to remind him that he should probably own a Lancer Evolution.

Thankfully, the PA fit in Colin’s Fit (hahahahaha…get it???????) when we packed it up on Friday night, so Saturday morning we were out the door at 6:30 a.m.

It was cold. HOW COLD, YOU ASK? Cold enough that the lock to the gates at Grand View Farm was frozen. The property owner said he had to get the “master key”, which was obviously a pair of bolt cutters. OH, FARMER HUMOR! I should get on this, considering I have a barn. I will start referring to everything as the “master key”, which will certainly make for some silly bedroom antics!!!!

Anyway.

When we got there at 7, there was ALREADY A RACER THERE (Apparently he got his start time wrong, thankfully in the “too early” direction), and he was super friendly and actually helped set up. He was also riding some old road bike that may have been his dad’s (at one point), with downtube shifters and flat pedals, and I’m sure he probably beat some beginner men who were on $2,000 carbon dealies with Di2.

The gate got cut open, I got to setting up the sound system (and, most importantly, the generator so that the tent heater would work). I’d like to note that my arm is STILL (it is now Sunday evening) sore from pull-starting the generator.

Before all that “work”, though, I was the first person to poop in those portopotties. Have you ever put your butt on a portopotty seat when it’s 13º F out? Not pleasant. I was also wearing bib tights under my jeans, which required me to basically strip down to use the bathroom. GOOD THINKING, RYAN.

I thought it would be a good idea to pre-ride the course, so I borrowed Chris McKernan’s bike, which I managed to flat the rear tire of about 1/3 of the way through the course. Whoops!

The ground was totally frozen,  and sections of the course were that really fun frozen washboard business that happens on the side of a dirt hill. A significant portion of the course was off-camber (or, according to Tom, “the entire course is off-camber, except for that damn run-up”).

I never actually saw the run-up, but I heard (from the promoter, duh) that it was awesome and long and would probably be a great place to spectate from if it were not 500 meters away from the fire pit and beer tent.

So, things were set up, jams were pumping, and the racing started with Beginner men. Because Colin is a “cool dude”, he decided to give all the categories totally WACKY names (well, not that wacky. Just beginner/Killer B/Jedi), and since I’m really used to talking about categories/Elite fields, I kept saying the wrong thing and I felt like a big dummy. Odds are none of you noticed, but here I am, handing you my failures on a silver platter.

The business ends of all the races were pretty exciting to watch, and unlike past Weasel editions I could actually see what was happening on much of the course. Though, I didn’t have a useful start list (COLIN), so I did a lot of the following:
– See rider number(s) as they went through the barriers.
– Take gloves off (ugh) so I could find their number(s) on the spreadsheet on my computer.
– Hope that my fingers didn’t fall off in the short time that they were exposed.
However, worse things have happened and it wasn’t a big deal, I just want to start passing off blame for any mistakes I may have made.

I mentioned the fire pit before, and it was awesome, especially when the wireless mic was working correctly, as I would go stand there and announce/interview random people standing around.

SIDENOTE: I saw a lot of my friends, where by “saw” I mean “glanced at with my eyes but didn’t talk to or say ‘hi’ to, I’m sorry, I’ll see you later.” A lot of this happened at the fire pit, and I was there trying to stay warm and not super interested in casual conversation.

The Peter Goguen/Brendan Rhim battle for the win of the Jedi/Elite/Whatever race was exciting to watch, especially Peter’s aggressive inside line after the final barriers, and of course the fact that Brendan broke the rule of “Never take a Gogeun to the line.” Brendan broke that rule AND HE PAID DEARLY (he lost).

I also enjoyed making jokes about how Mike Rowell needed to win money so he could afford improvements to his cabin in Vermont.

If you post something of interest on the Internet, I will do my best to make it into a dumb joke while announcing.

Also, people, buy stock in Melissa Seib. Or pay her off to quit cycling forever, because she is on track to be crushing all of you in a short amount of time. I should also remember how to pronounce her name correctly, as her family members are probably tired of correcting me while I botch it on the PA (“seeb”? “sib”? I’ll get it.)

Mike Rowell crushed the singlespeed men’s race (HAHA MIKE NO PRIZE MONEY IN THIS ONE BUDDY), and Melissa Seib won the women’s race. Though there was an issue with A PRETENDER TO THE THRONE in the women’s race who won, but didn’t have a number on (!!!), so didn’t get scored, c’mon people you should know this by now.

Oh, the giraffe was there. Also, dildos. Of course, being the PROFESSIONAL THAT I AM, I did not know about the dildos until one was thrown at me at the end of the race. As far as I know, dildos are not super cheap (NOTE: do not check Amazon for dildo prices, because it will totally skew your Amazon browsing history, and then Amazon will always show you dildos until the end of time so when you’re at work and you check something on Amazon and your coworker is there they think you’re some sort of crazy dildo fiend), so I appreciate someone being dedicated enough to the joke to buy a pile o’ dildos.

Here is a nice rundown, and you can see me trying to eat a waffle while also announcing.

At the end of the day, it started snowing, the promoting party went into “WE GOTTA CLEAN UP THESE STAKES NOW” mode, and they went into garbage cans which now sit in the basement of my barn (you wanna rent stakes? Talk to me.) along with the barriers.

Then we burned the results.

http://burning-paper-cross-results.com

A stupid thing that Excel was doing and how I fixed it.

You probably don’t want to read this. But it’s here, on the off-chance that I forget how to fix it and some day stumble across the solution on my own blog.

I use Excel all day, every day, 24/7, because that is how businesses run.

Anyway, when I work from home it is real crashy. I thought it had to do with VPNs, but after reading the Internet and trying things, I discovered IT WAS NOT related to VPNs. It was related to monitors, or rather, the lack of my external monitor (please note this was not discovered in error logs, just by a lucky guess).

When I opened up the VBA editor on just my MacBook, the VBA editor would have a bunch of title bars and things off-screen. At work I have the VBA editor on my external monitor, and Excel itself on my MBP display. When the VBA editor went from big-ass monitor to not big-ass laptop display, it got funky with placement of title bars and windows and such.

Once in the VBA editor, I’d try to move things, or just try to deal with it and start writing things. After a few minutes, it would always crash with this error report:

Microsoft Error Reporting log version: 2.0
Error Signature:
Exception: EXC_BAD_ACCESS
Date/Time: 2013-12-06 16:41:17 +0000
Application Name: Microsoft Excel
Application Bundle ID: com.microsoft.Excel
Application Signature: XCEL
Application Version: 14.3.9.131030
Crashed Module Name: libobjc.A.dylib
Crashed Module Version: unknown
Crashed Module Offset: 0x00006d4b
Blame Module Name: MicrosoftComponentPlugin
Blame Module Version: 14.3.9.131030
Blame Module Offset: 0x00045370
Application LCID: 1033
Extra app info: Reg=en Loc=0x0409
Crashed thread: 0

SO. After some Googling and I had a feeling that it may have had to do with VBA being sad about the screen real estate. No one had this exact problem, but similar problems with Word.

I opened Excel, opened the VBA editor, and then quickly changed my screen resolution, which forced all VBA editor elements to actually be on-screen, instead of off in the ether.

AND THAT FIXED IT.

HOORAY NO ONE CARES!

A thing about pooping at work.

At work there is a bathroom right off of the locker room.

After I ride in, I go to the locker room with my things. I put my things in a locker, then I go to the bathroom and poop.

The toilet is maybe ten feet from the locker room and the shower, where I will be washing myself.

After I poop, I push the door between the bathroom and the locker room with my foot, without washing my hands. This is because merely two minutes after leaving the stall, I will be taking a shower, where I will wash my hands (and my entire body).

Sometimes there are people in the bathroom when I leave it, and they see me not washing my hands. I feel like they’re judging me as “Ryan Kelly the gross dude who takes dumps and then doesn’t wash his hands”. But washing my hands there would be like cleaning the door handle of my car right before I go to a carwash.

I think about this every morning in the stall, hoping there’s no one in the bathroom when I pass through so they don’t judge me as a gross dude. I also fear that one day I will lose it and explain this to a person standing in the bathroom and they will look at me and go “Um…okay… I didn’t really notice.” Or I’ll send a company-wide email about this.

Roller movie: Pacific Rim

(There might be spoilers in here, though I tried to avoid it. But are you really concerned about spoilers for this movie? It’s friggin’ GIANT ROBOTS FIGHTING MONSTERS, this isn’t The Sixth Sense.)

This isn’t going to be a movie review, just an alert that says “hey I watched this on the rollers and I didn’t want to quit riding after twenty minutes, here are some things about it”. Anyway.

I missed this movie when it was in theaters, because I am a cheapskate and because I would rather do something other than watch a movie in a theater. So, I guess I shouldn’t say I “missed” it – as that would imply that I tried to “catch” it.

I did watch it on a 13-inch laptop. I bet if you were riding rollers in a theater or in front of sizable display and weren’t watching a stream of questionable legality, it could look really awesome.

But that doesn’t really matter. I’m trying to distract my brain from how boring riding inside is, and a pixelated series of moving images works just fine.

So the movie? Perfect roller movie. Well, that is if you can do the following:

  • Forget anything and everything you know about science and inter-dimensional portals.
  • …including what the underground of a world-city like Hong Kong is like (hint: probably has a lot of infrastructure that would collapse for 100 feet under the weight of a mecha/kaiju fight)
  • Not be concerned about the likely millions of movie-people who died when the Jagers are “defending the city”
  • Try to call out what will happen next, because you’re probably right (as the movie is really formulaic), and you will feel good about yourself as a film expert
  • Probably some other things.

Despite going into this movie knowing that I should forget what science is, I did find myself screaming at the screen in two instances.

First, when the main character guy, Raleigh (how little was I actually paying attention to the characters? I just finished watching this movie, and had to look up the main character’s name on Wikipedia), declares that his robot is safe from an EMP because it’s not digital, it’s analog. And then says something about it being nuclear.

It didn’t make sense on so many levels that PERHAPS it escaped normal logic and makes sense on some other plane that I don’t know exists.

Yelling at the screen at this point, with my arms above my head, full of anger, also helped test my balance on the rollers.

The second time I screamed at the screen is when Raleigh’s fighty robot unleashed a sword mid-battle, which APPARENTLY Raleigh FORGOT EXISTED.

YOU MEAN TO SAY YOU’VE BEEN FIGHTING MONSTERS FOR YEARS IN THIS THING AND YOU DIDN’T KNOW IT HAD A SWORD?

There was a long period of yelling at that.

Actually, I’m glad I didn’t see it in the theaters, because I would have been screaming at the screen during both of those scenes.

As I think about it, there many are other elements of the movie that I laughed at the absurdity of, but let pass by. If I can believe that monster-destroying robots exist, I should be okay letting go of my understanding of how underwater nuclear blasts work.

So, despite these moments that broke me out of “the zone” (“the zone” is when I forgot I was riding the rollers inside a barn), this was a perfect roller movie. I only got off my bike once (halfway through to get more water), as opposed to a usual roller ride where I’d find excuses to stop, eventually giving up after thirty minutes. The time actually flew by – as my eyes were focused on the screen and not staring at my bike computer waiting for the seconds to tick by.

As a fan of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, I was pleasantly surprised that Charlie Day was in the movie (having no idea beforehand), though he is not very “Paddy’s Charlie”. There are moments, though, where his character’s enthusiastic verbal explosions made me think about burning trash to make stars.

I was generally engrossed in the movie, which is the goal of a roller movie. It also reminded me that movies about giant robots are generally awesome, so this might be something I explore further as the weather gets uglier.

Aaaaaanyway, this is a movie you should watch on the rollers or trainer or Noridctrack or whatever.

Tour de Awesome RECAP

DO YOU GUYS LIKE LOTS OF TEXT?????? OH MAN then this blog post is FOR YOU. Because I’ve had a busy 10 days.And I guess I’ll write about all of it in one blog post because screw you.

STAGE 1A:

The inaugural (and likely final, because oh man that was way too much awesome in too little time) Tour de Awesome kicked off with the Boston Mayor’s Cup, where I raced the 2/3 race, because I’m a mediocre bike racer and thus will languish as a Cat 2 until I quit racing.

It was a weird race, as expected, because it was a cat 2/3 race and there were no parents and thus there were no rules. As I hadn’t raced since Salem (two months ago?), I expected my legs to be sort of shitty – but they went above and beyond and were real shitty!

I found myself in some promising moves, especially early with Steve Francisco, teammate Andrew, that lanky-ass dude from Grinta and Josh Lehmann, but I felt like ass and was soon left behind. But haha joke was on THEM as they eventually came back, too, and I spent most of the rest of the race covering some things and hoping that Andrew/Ben/Landen could do something against the fifteen Green Line guys that were in the field.

But, my fever dream came true, and AJ Moran won, with teammates in 2nd and 3rd, so there was an all-Green Line podium. So that was that.

Thomson Riley crashed (again) and broke his fork (again).

I would post photos of me, but just picture me sitting in the field or dangling off the back of the group, and we’ll all save bandwidth.

The race was also a fun adventure in mass transit, as I rode from my house to the Haverhill commuter rail station, took the train to the race, raced, quickly jumped on the train to get home (missing out on using my BEER TICKETS), and then rode home.

STAGE 1B:

This was supposed to be me taking delivery of a Spy Hunter arcade cabinet but the dude I was getting from has been flaky. So, instead, I sat on the couch and watched episodes of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Not that epic, I know.

STAGE 2:

The next day, the 22nd was the new Hartford Crit (not to be confused with the old one, that went around Bushnell Park, and was sort of boring). This was an eight corner, 50-something lap affair in beautiful and devoid-of-spectators Downtown Hartford.

I’m pretty sure if you wanted to film a movie in Downtown Hartford, you could do it on a Sunday afternoon without any pedestrians absent-mindedly walking into your shot.

That criticism aside, the race and course were mostly awesome and everyone should do it next year.

Anywho, my legs felt slightly less shitty, which was good, considering that the race was roughly twice as long as the one I did the day before. The course had a Beanpot-esque number of manholes, man holes, potholes, cracks, storm drains and this weird grate thingy. It made racing feel a bit like a trench run, as you tried to follow wheels to stay out of the wind AND avoid various things that wanted to shove your seat up your butt.

There was also a WALL of wind that smacked you in the face as you took the final turn, which would make you go from feeling like a LASER ROBOT to a PILE OF USELESS CRAP in a matter of meters.

We got down to business, and Tim Mitchell, Ben Wolfe, Isaac Howe, some Hincapie dude and hungover Sam Rosenholtz got off the front (Sam later joined us back in the field).

Mike Chauner (swoon) was in the race, too, (I talked to him about a place to get coffee beforehand (swoon)), and he was sad that he wasn’t off the front, so he spent several laps just kicking all of us in the face trying to get away. He eventually got a gap, a CRCA guy (and, again, probably a few others (not me! nope, no way, screw that)) joined him in their adventures off the front.

CRCA put the brakes on and the Mitchell Party lapped us. Surprisingly, Tim and Ben didn’t go to the front and start slaying it to keep the next group from lapping us, so it was only a matter of time before we saw Chauner again.

Then the pace sort of went up? Maybe? I don’t know. I just was pretty dizzy from turning so much and was trying to avoid getting killed by the Bethel junior with the Air Attack.

I flatted, found a friend’s wheel in the pit, and then rode gingerly on the expensive wheel that I didn’t own for the last six laps.

And then I finished and had a cheeseburger and drove home.

I also tried to find a photo of me from this race where I didn’t look like a wreck, but I couldn’t. You’ll have to find them yourselves.

REST DAY 1:

I went to work.

#tourdeawesome rest day 1 is all about coffee and Tom Selleck clocks and making stupid PDFs.

A photo posted by @ryantkelly on

STAGE 3:

LET’S RIDE 150 OR SO MILES TO MAINE OKAY?

Sure why not. Day one of #300noton100, because Ted and Tim’s schedule is complicated so this is the ride that we figured out that we could.

We met at D Squared Java in downtown Exeter at 5:15 a.m. for a 6 a.m. roll out…which meant I got on the road with Seth at 4:15 from fantastic Heav’nly Donuts in Plaistow.

We got to D Squared and there were a ton of people (for a time when the coffee shop is not usually open. Thanks Dan and Paige for accommodating us!)

COFFEEEEEEEEEEE

A photo posted by @ryantkelly on

Drew unleashed some fantastic 300noton100-inspired mom jokes, I met new people (including Andy, who rolled deep and brought his support crew) and caught up with other people (including Travis, who would be joining us for the entire ride) and bragged about how boned Ted and Tim were because riding before the sun comes up is MY GAME.

We were also planning on riding by my office so I constantly threatened that we’d go in for an Excel challenge at which point they would FEAR ME.

Here is a shitty Instagram photo of us leaving Exeter in the darkness.

Early departure in Exeter. #300noton100

A photo posted by @ryantkelly on

It eventually became light, and as the sun rose over the Atlantic while we zipped up 1A my loins swelled with appreciation of the colossal beauty of nature. So of course I wasted moments of viewing it with my own eyes and attempted to capture it with a collection of rare-earth metals that were violently ripped out of the ground and processed in a smoke-belching factory.

Ted profile with ocean. #art #300noton100

A photo posted by @ryantkelly on

We continued rolling at a good pace, and then I finally had my FIRST RIDE OVER THE NEW BRIDGE!!!!!!!!

BRIDGES!!!!!

After we passed into Maine, the pace picked up because WE HAVE A FERRY TO CATCH and because the roads we were on were quite narrow, so it was wiser to be single file.

At one point my K-Edge Garmin mount rattled loose so I shouted up to Ted and Tim that was pulling over to fix it (or so I thought). After tightening it, I got on the bike and HIT IT to catch up with Ted and Tim.

LITTLE DID I KNOW that they did not hear me say “Hey guys I’m gonna go fix my bike, can you not go 27 mph for a few minutes here?”, so I was totally drilling it (with Andy on my wheel for a bit as he was catching back on after getting a tire change) for about 10 miles up 1A, through York, and along Shore Road to Ogunquit. I had an assist from the Duvine Mobile (with Andy yelling out the window that he was going to leave me behind) before I finally caught the group.

Aaaaand I was smoked. I guess that is how you learn to make sure that the engines of the ride know you want them to chill for a minute.

By that point a lot of the people that were riding with us pulled off, and we had a smaller group as we wound through York and onto the Eastern Trail somewhere in Kennebunk.

We pretty much took the Eastern Trail all the way from Kennebunk to South Portland, where there was the obvious stop at Scratch Baking Co for coffee and bagels and coffee and pizza. And picking up a group of fresh legs to help us navigate our way out of Portland and onward.

Picking up some fresh legs after Scratch, and a junior with an Air Attack. #300noton100

A photo posted by @ryantkelly on

More rolling, more happy pace, and then I started to have some sadness somewhere south of Bath.

I think my ten miles of chasing, and my general shittyness, made me tired. The real indicator of me being tired (aside from me becoming suddenly quiet) is when my pulls go from a respectable 7 minute/27 mph effort to a 5 minute/20 mph effort.

Then I had a Red Bull Powered By Tim Jimmy Jazz Johnson, and I felt A LOT BETTER for a while. Then I felt sad again. THEN I HAD ANOTHER RED BULL.

Then we were in the home stretch and cruising in the drizzly and overcast 50-degree world we found ourself in, and made it to the ferry in time. And then I drank a bunch of beers and ate a lot.

STAGE 4:

RETURN TRIP.

I woke up and didn’t feel like total ass (yay) and ate several Scratch bagels. Before, obviously, we ferried over and got coffee.

Day two coffee. #300noton100

A photo posted by @ryantkelly on

Rolling out was myself, Ted, Tim, Travis and Andy. Andy’s goal today was to join us for 100 miles – he did ~75 or so the day before, and wanted to get in enough miles to make a good story for any dates he had coming up in the near future.

Aside from a fantastic tail wind and an aggressive pace, the ride until Portland was uneventful (we went over bridges, that was awesome).

My primary goal for the ride was to stop at Duck Fat in Portland (ATTENTION OWNERS OF DUCK FAT: I am available for a personal sponsorship. Or a team sponsorship. Whatever.) and we DID and it was glorious. We had five plates of poutine, and I think I had one entirely to myself.

#poutinesohard

A photo posted by @ryantkelly on

After that, we rolled for .4 mile to another coffee shop. And THEN the pace returned to being real.

I spent time trying to tweet out our location to various interested parties, but Ted just kept changing the route as he saw fit so it was a bit challenging to keep people up with where we were.

REGARDLESS I totally won the sprint into New Hampshire, and entertained everyone with fun facts about Dover and UNH as we rode through.

We decided we’d (fittingly) end the ride on the Watsonburg, and as we approached it I waited for Tim to unleash his final “Screw you, Ryan” attack – but it didn’t come.

DAMNIT I totally missed an opportunity to blow his doors off and thus make myself feel better for like five minutes.

Then we got to Exeter Cycles and I took a poop before gathering my things and joining everyone plus Arlon and Greg for burritos at Las Olas.

When I got home there was no dog poop. It was a win!

REST DAY 2:

I worked from home a bit, and made the terrible mistake of laying around my house, which meant that my body was incredibly tight and sore for almost the entire day. Once I loosened up I stacked a cord of wood.

STAGE 5a:

Setting up the course for Gloucester!

I was responsible for painting the wavy start grid so you’re welcome, I guess.

I talked to Elle Anderson and then she won both days so, you know, if you want to win both days of Gloucester you should chat with me while I’m helping set up the course for the race on Friday.

STAGE 5b:

I went to Steve’s and took a shower and hung out.

Then I went to see Electric Six! Which I’ve wanted to do for like ten years! And they sucked! So I went home. That was disappointing.

STAGE 6:

Teammate Andrew Gardner planned this glorious bicycle ride up in Vermont. It was supposed to be six gaps, but then it got shortened to four gaps, and then it got shortened still while we were out on the road and realized that there was a keg at Andrew’s and, um, we wanted to drink it.

Before we decided to end the ride early, I had a mid-ride cheeseburger, deviled eggs and soda. Because off season.

Mid ride cheeseburger.

A photo posted by Andrew Gardner (@thingsagsees) on

But seriously, Lincoln Gap? Man my arms were killing me after humping my bike up that road. The foliage was beautiful, but it was difficult to see as my body’s main goal at that point was getting my bicycle up that damn hill. Then we went down the hill and it was all sorts of terrifying. I’d rather ride up it twice than ride up it and down it.

Then I went to Andrew’s and drank his beer and it was good.

Um, so, those are the things that I did last week. I’m sorry that this is not very awe-inspiring. I lack the skill to inspire awe.

Also I do not recommend doing a large number of awesome things in one week because you’ll be really tired.

TOUR DE AWESOME preview/300 not on 100

Though “when it rains, it pours” may be a lame saying, it pretty well describes the eight days of awesome/exhaustion I will be enjoying shortly. Things always seem to work out so that all of my awesome stuff happens in one week, instead of over the course of several months. Oh well.

IN FACT, I am sitting on a train right now en route to stage 1A of the TOUR DE AWESOME, which is also a sort of lame name for something but screw you guys.

Stage 1A (Saturday afternoon), of course, is the Boston Mayor’s cup. This is particularly fun because I’m in the 2/3 race, instead of the usual “big boy” Pro/1/2/3 or Pro/1/2 race. It’s fun because I won’t have random pros showing up to make my life miserable and OBVIOUSLY I AM GOING TO WIN.

It won’t be fun because everyone else thinks they’re going to win, and because Dean Phillips is somehow still a Cat 2 and will probably just ride away from everyone, as I know for a fact he can go 32 miles an hour on his own for 45 minutes.

Races that lack Pro/1 riders are interesting because the rest of us – who are 2s or 3s because we are “not good” – end up behaving like the Muppet Babies once Nanny is out of the room. Having the wattage enforcement of non-clowns is nice. However, it means that I am less likely to do well, but am also more likely to have some crazed 3 dive-bomb me in the last corner.

Stage 1B (Saturday evening), is (hopefully) the delivery of a SPY HUNTER ARCADE CABINET. However, my brother-in-law, who knows the guy, hasn’t gotten back to me. So Stage 1B might be me stacking a cord of wood on my porch.

Stage 2 (Sunday), is the CT Cycling Festival International Bicycle Race By The Civic Center In Hartford. They asked for a race resume if you wanted a call up, and I was more than happy to provide them with an updated one.

The course is eight corners, and it might rain, so yay. It’s also the LAST RACE OF 2013 HOOOOORAAAAAAAAYYYYY TIME TO DRINK RANCH DRESSING (j/k I’ve been drinking ranch dressing for months now).

Rest day 1 (Monday), sees me going to work on the scooter as I need to rest up for the next stages.

Stage 3 (Tuesday), is the FIRST DAY of the annual “Bicycle Ride With Ted And Tim”, aka 200on100, 200noton100. It’s a two day event. Exeter to Boothbay Harbor then back the next day.

You should come ride along with us for a while if you want. We are DEPARTING from D Squared Java in downtown Exeter at 6 a.m. Get there at 5:15 if you want to buy an espresso (you should. They’re opening early for us, and they have the best espresso). Then we’re going to blast up to Maine at about 50 miles an hour. More info is on 200on100.com.

Stage 4 (Wednesday), day two of 300 not on 100. This is the day that I’m going to be sad, as I’m pretty okay to bang out a 150+ mile ride…but less good at doing it again the next day. I learned this a few weeks ago after a 130 mile ride with my teammates – my commute to work the next day was not great.

Rest day 2 (Thursday), duh. I think I’m going to sleep all day and maybe fix the lawnmower if my parts come in. I will not be going to work.

Stage 5A (Friday morning/afternoon), I help set up the GP Gloucester for eight hours, aka I’ll be doing landscaping for eight hours.

Also I hope everyone realizes that I have at least three seperate chances to totally sabotage Tim Johnson’s race – the two days of riding and perhaps setting up booby traps on the course.

Stage 5B (Friday night), I go see Electric Six at the Middle East in Cambridge.

Stage 6 (Saturday), I have to be in Vermont by 8:30 a.m. to do a 6 Gaps ride. After going to a concert where I will dance my face off (#discolegs) that will probably end at 1 a.m.

I have rented a car for stages 5A – 6, as that is the only way that this adventure is going to work.

So. That is the Tour de Awesome. Bye. You’ll hear more.

#palbike

Here is a more thorough idea of what’s been going on with me and my road bike in the last two weeks.

At the Fidelity Investments Grand Prix of Beverly promoted by Twitter Paul With Kid Race Appearances By The MetLife – NorEast Team I decided to take an inside line on the start/finish along the fencing where sponsor banners were, in hopes of moving up while the field was strung out.

This, as it turns out, was a bad idea.

A Pedro’s banner blew out in front of me, my brain had enough time to see it and think “Oh, dear, there is no way this is going to work out well”, but not enough time to avoid it. The banner caught my bars, bringing me to the pavement at about 30 mph. Yep, not working out well!

My brother in boat shoes (and in chest hair and general virility) Evan Huff also wanted to hang out on the pavement. We were both sad, and sort of bloody.

Not smiling. Grimacing because there’s a lot of sweat in open wounds.

We got pit bikes and got back in the race. I only ended up lasting a few more laps, as I spent most of my time closing gaps around dudes who were blowing up. After doing that for a few laps, I was tired, and I got dropped, I was sad.

I collected my bike from the pit. It was a wreck. It looked like it had been crashed at 30. Weird. I really had no idea the extent of the damage because so many superficial things were messed up (bars/hoods/fork all wonky, wheels apparently out of true, etc). Evan’s bike was in a similar state, though it was clear that he had broken his fork (sad Evan).

Please note that he and I are formulating a theory about how this was Meg Bilodeau’s doing.

ANYWAY. I went home and dealt with my wounds, realized the cold I was on the brink of had become a full on cold, covered my left leg in Tegaderm and brought my bike to Exeter Cycles for a professional inspection. My cursory inspection indicated that the right shifter was done for, non-driveside crank arm was cracked and rear wheel was toast. But the frame seemed fine!

Mike at Exeter cycles took a look at it (after I dropped it off wearing my Tegaderm suit) and informed me that, nope, incorrect, frame was wrecked. Where “wrecked” means “rear triangle was bent by about 2cm, all wheels that go in rub on the chainstay, it’s done.”

So THIS MADE ME SAD. I chatted with the shop (and Cannondale), got some numbers on what a new frame (or a new bike) would cost. However, when I shared this information with Mr. Bank Account, he got really angry at me and there was some yelling. So it made sense for me to just race the remainder of the year (a few crits) on my cross bike.

If you have been reading this internet site for a while, you’ll remember that my cross bike is the only cross bike I’ve ever owned – a 2006 Cannondale frame currently built with a 105/Rival mix.

Cross bike, as seen in 201A in 2006.

So that was an idea. I chatted with Aaron about this, and how my primary driver was Mr. Bank Account and his desire for me to save up for a “roof” or something lame like that (tip: never buy a house, ever. All you’ll do is shovel money into it in hopes of preventing it from falling down).

That was the Monday after Beverly. I planned on racing my cross bike at the upcoming ENGVT Concord Criterium To Feed Jerry’s Savior Complex (after I got over my continuing cold, which I eventually gave to Amanda, so basically my house looked like a ballpit but with dirty tissues instead of balls (there were still balls, though, if you know what I mean (#balls))).

I went to bed at my regular Ryan Kelly Is Sick hour of 8:45, and when I woke up, I had an email from Aaron asking “How many dollars would you need to get a bike together?” I told him what the quote was from Exeter – the price for a new frame, replacement parts, etc. He said “Oh, great, well I have raised that much money for your bike.”

Wait what?

It appears that one of the advantages of going to bed early is that your friend can quickly execute a fundraiser to get you the money for a new road bike. And then you can wake up, and it’s all been pulled together.

And a secret pal covers the cost of the CAAD10 frame from Cannondale.

And an order was placed for a pair of Zipp 30s on your behalf from other pals, overnighted so they’ll be in in time for Concord.

WHOA. WHOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA. WHAAAAAAAAT.

WHAAAAAAAAAAAAT??!??!??!??!?!?!??!??!?!??!?!?!?

Yes. So, um, yeah.

More story now.

I put the Zipps on my cross bike. It felt…a bit better.

Add some #palwheels and it's a crit racing machine!

A photo posted by @ryantkelly on

But it was still an eight year old frame that I’ve only ridden in the winter for the last two years. So…yeah. Any nice wheels are sort of nullified by the crap frame they are on.

I got in the race. And raced for a while, while I hocked up green things and tried to get the front and felt like my bike was folding in half beneath me in every turn.

HOW IS THIS BIKE NOT FALLING APART BENEATH ME?!? (photo stolen from Facebook and taken by Nick Czerula)

Then I decided to try to chase back Keith Kelly and Adam Carr right when their move went…and then I blew up and did not finish the race. Due to a combination of lots of things.

But, I’ll tell you what, crit turnin’ on a crappy old cross bike is NOT FUN and I was looking forward to having a ROAD BIKE AGAIN.

Then Monday came, I talked to Exeter Cycles and my bike was in the process of being built! It would probably be done on Tuesday! But first I had to bring them my wheels and chainrings.

Of course I realized this after I took the scooter to work, so I had to scoot home, get wheels, scoot back to greater Exeter.

Two tubes = wheel backpack.

On Tuesday I got the call from Mike that my bike was FRIGGIN DONE. So I went there and got it. And Mike put a bottle cage on it.

New right shifter, new non-driveside crank, new frame, new wheels. Jon Page cassette because I continue to live dangerously/cheaply.

I took out it for a quick spin to make sure it fit right and I had a giant shit-eating grin on my face because holy shit have you ever ridden a CAAD10 after having not ridden a CAAD10? It makes you feel like you’re strapped to a rocket train that also has superfluous lasers attached to it.

And now it’s Wednesday and I’m going to race in Salem on a sweet-ass bike that is the physical embodiment of ALL OF YOUR LOVE FOR ME.

HAHAHA YOU IDIOTS WHO HEPLED ME OUT THIS MEANS YOU LOVE ME. And I appreciate it. I really do. Aaron said he wanted to help me out because I help out cycling. I do what I can, and anyone who is part of the scene of “amateur cyclists who are sort of okay but just want to race all the damn time” does what they can. Without doing little things to help cycling, I wouldn’t be able to race all the damn time. So by helping me out, you also FURTHER help out cycling in two ways:

  1. I will be able to keep racing and create “content”, I guess, and support events!
  2. I will not race my cross bike, and I will not kill the entire field when it folds in half in the last corner of some crit.

So, thank you to the following people for supporting me and other things:

  • Ryan Hubbs – I don’t know you. Maybe we met at cross worlds when I was drunk. But we have the same name so we’re bros.
  • Charles Fowler – Thanks for getting me thinking about how to solve this issue, and for joining me for roller sessions in my barn in the dead of winter. And random coffee shop commutes.
  • Peter Bell – PETER! Thanks for giving me the opportunity to race bikes and a reason to sit on the front endlessly, and you probably want me on a real bike so I don’t kill you.
  • Colin Reuter – Thanks for helping me out here, and in my career by answering my terrible and annoying programming questions.
  • Todd Rowell – One time you gave me a bit of a push after Constitution Hill at the Housatonic Hills road race and it literally kept me in the group.
  • Steve Hopengarten – Thanks for taking me mountain biking that time. I had fun until you made me ride over a big rock and break my chain.
  • Jason Fowler – Thanks for the socks that time!
  • Landen Wark-Acebo – Thank you for appreciating coffee with me, and for yelling at me when I’m doing dumb things during races.
  • Alex Cox – Thanks for being my bro and being one of the few people who enjoys absurd bike rides as much as I do.
  • Austin Roach – Thanks for showing me that maybe sometimes it’s okay to wear a bathing suit in public. I’m only sort of sorry about the things I said about your crocs, though.
  • Joel Eckman – Hi Joel. I don’t know you. Maybe I do. See also “cross worlds”.
  • Deb Amundo – Hi Deb. See Joel above.
  • Carlos Danger – dongs.
  • Russ Campbell – Thank you for being the Official Photographer Of Ryan Kelly’s Twitter Avatar, and for actually making me be excited to be a real grownup with a family.
  • Nick Czerula – Thank you for inspiring me to take photos of road-side trash.
  • Mike Hoover – Hi Mike. Did we meet at cross worlds?
  • Mike (and everyone) at Exeter Cycles – Seriously. If you live near this shop and aren’t a patron, you are doing yourself a huge disservice. They will do everything that they can to work with manufacturers to help out their customers. And holy crap can they tune a bike.
  • Anonymous Angels – thanks for the wheels and the frame!

Lastly, I’d like to thank all of your moms.

…because they all did swell jobs raising you all to be compassionate members of the cycling community.

I am going to go pound coffees because I race in three hours.

I love you all.

#palbike is a go. @ahubbe @chas_f

A photo posted by @ryantkelly on

Internet.

Things For Sale!

Yes, #palbike is a go!

#palbike is a go. @ahubbe @chas_f

A photo posted by @ryantkelly on

More on that later (as in tomorrow).

Anywho, I currently own the following things and would like to exchange them with you for money! If you’re thinking of building up a Di2 bike (with internal routing) this could be your lucky day.

  • 110mm Cannondale C1 stem – $20
  • Cannondale C1 seatpost (27.2 x 250mm) – $25
  • Di2 battery mount (SM-BMR1, short). Seen here (top of the picture). Basically the battery mount used if you have a frame set up for Di2 internal routing. – $50
  • Di2 internal junction box (SM-JC41). This guy. – $15
  • E-Tube wire (EW-SD50) – 1000mm and 700mm. I also have the doodads that you put around the wire to make it easier to run through your frame. – $15 each
  • Ultegra front derailleur (regular, non-robotic). 6700. Bolt-on. BRAND FRIGGIN’ NEW. – $25

Now, for things that are sort of broken.

  • SOLD. Rear Shimano Dura-Ace 7850 wheel (here). The rim is WRECKED. The hub is still GREAT. It does not come with a skewer. Maybe you can use the hub and build it up into something neat? I don’t know. Basically you’re buying a sweet hub, for little money. – $20
  • SOLD. 6770 right shifter. It is sad. The primary issue is that the part on the shifter body that holds in the axle (I guess you’d call it that?) that the brake lever pivots around is broken. What that means is that the brake lever sometimes pops out…so that’s a problem. If you’re a smart person, I bet you could fix this with some epoxy. ASIDE FROM THAT, it shifts JUST FINE. Everything else about it functions nicely. Another problem is that it has a bunch of road paint from Cabot St. in Beverly, MA on it. Here are some photos. – $50IMG_2584 IMG_2585
    Yes, our table is friggin sweet. We got it on clearance at Anthropologie. Most ladies who have seen it have had excitements in their bathing suit areas.

Those are the things I have for sale. If you want to buy any of them, email me (ryantkelly at gmail dot com), tweet a thing to me (@ryantkelly), see me at Salem tomorrow night, or just tweet about 32X enough times and it will show up in my saved search.

If you’re not a person I see regularly, I can ship, and we can figure that out. All money goes into paying for entry fees or purchasing a roof for my house.

The Exeter Classic

Hey, the Exeter Classic is a bike race! You should register for it!

You may notice that it’s the “Metallic Poutine Exeter Classic”. You may also recall that Metallic Poutine is my business where I sell headset bearing covers and tshirts.

This means that I’m the title sponsor, hooray!

The reason for this is that Ed Spuler, the promoter and my LONG-TIME FRIEND, sent out an email in late May that said “Oh, crap you guys, the sponsors we had lined up have bailed, and the race might not happen.” So then there was some talking, and I realized “Oh hey I have a business that could sponsor this, so maybe I can sell a lot more bearing covers and tshirts (seriously buy a tshirt)?”

So not only am I excited because I’m sponsoring a bike race, but the Exeter Classic has been a pretty important race in my bike racing life. I’ve volunteered at it every year since I knew it existed (2004) – except for last year when I was busy getting married – and it was the first Pro/1/2/3 race I ever did. I remember lining up at that race (2005) and thinking “OMG I’M IN A PRO RACE!!!!!!!!”. I think I got dropped. Or I had some mechanical. Either way I didn’t finish. The memory of starting was clearly stronger than the memory of not finishing.

PLUS the race supports a scholarship for students on the UNH cycling team, which is where I went to college, so, again, yay. You may have heard me screaming on Twitter about how great collegiate cycling is. This is the TRUTH, thus why I’m helping support collegiate cyclists who may some day graduate and start using Twitter and join me in shouting obscenities on the Internet.

This is the plan for 2013. But 2014, the race needs a sponsor! So if you have some funds that you can justify throwing at a bike race – and all the adoration from cyclists that comes with that, the association with a healthy lifestyle and the positive financial impact the race brings to downtown Exeter – from either your business or your personal bank account, let me know (ryantkelly at gmail).

Also register, or volunteer.