Santa isn't real.

I am terribly sorry if you had small children that were in the room when you pulled my page up. But an over weight dude that lives with a bunch of elves at the North Pole, flies all over the world giving gifts to only the good children of the world does not exist in a tangible form. The spirit of this imaginary person does exist in the hearts of parents who once a year have to prove to their kids that they actually love them. It is not enough that all year long they sacrifice their hopes and dreams to work at jobs they hate, drive cars that are anything less then the GTO they dreamed of owning, and hemorrhage money for food, clothes, and other material items that will be discarded when the Johnson's kid get something newer. That said, I do live Christmas.

Not so much the people that embrace this horrible corporate image of bigger, better, brighter that we have been slowly forced into over the years. Its these people that really bumb me out. Even more than the kid who gets socks from grandma instead of a Wii. I deal These delinquents and their parents (who were delinquents as children themselves) at both of my jobs. I normally brush their behavior and ignorant questions off and go on about my business. However, today one customer brought in her attitude and ridiculous question and I just could not let it go. The conversation went as follows:
"Do you have bikes for a small child and what size would I need?"
As I tried to formulate the best answer i could for her as confused look was displayed on my face. Due in large part to the fact that the definition of a small a small child is relative and how am I supposed to know the right size for someone who is not present. Before I was able to answer she vomited up more information to help the obviously incompetent sales punk.
"She is about 37 inches"
Once again I am given information that is worth about as much as POGs. Her child could be anything from 34-40 inches tall which greatly changes the size of the bike. However, I resort to her tactics by giving her just as vague information back.
"It sounds like a 16inch wheeled bike or a 20inch might be what you are looking for but without actually sizing her I cannot tell you for certain. Different manufactures have different frames and sizes to help fit children as they grow." I smirked on the inside like Peewee Hermon before he was cuaght.
"Well how is Santa supposed to bring it to her if you have to size her?" She said it like Paris Hilton talks to the media.
I wanted to replay "I don't know maybe you shouldn't lie to you kid, lady." However, I settled with a slightly different answer.
"It not up to me to answer that question. It is a safety issue if the bike is not sized right. That is why we like to have the child present when it is purchased."
As she turns to leave she mumbles something that sounds like "Yeah. You and every other bike shop doesn't want to sell me a bike for Christmas."

It brought a tear to my eye as she climbed into a huge SUV and drove off into the cold in search of the perfect size bike for her daughter, who in all actuality, probably would rather have a Hanna Montana track suit or the Johan's brothers CD more than a bike. I wasn't crying because I felt bad that I couldn't help make this Christmas better then last year's (or better then the one here dad and step mom would give her) I was truly disgusted with the fact that this is what Christmas means to people. I am not going to go into what Christmas means to me because that is lame. Instead I am going to tell you to go the CX-mas unless you want to be weak sauce and run around complaining to sales people who really don't care about you or your kids. Because CX-mas is going to be a bunch of rad people who see Christmas for what it really is.

PS The first person to translate to what Nazi Santa is saying gets a six pack of your choice

I havent done jack....CUZ IM NOT GAY

First off I am sorry that I have not posted since October. I am sure that you all have missed Casey Ryback's duty updates. Basically I have been being a good student. You know staying up late studying and working hard on projects. This go getter attatude was left me with no time to ride and even less time to work out. My lack of fitness was made evident by the personal training session that I had. My personal trainer was was this little chick who was about 105lbs or pure steel toed boot. The summery of a 25min work out was a max HR of 190bpm and feeling like i had to puke 3 times. I loved it. So now with the new year about 21 days away It is time to start eating better (or not eating at all) and working out more. Next semester should give me more ride time so hopefully i will be able to see some of you more then i have. pe@ce

The BT Epic

Three short years ago I started racing hill bikes as a lowly pee-on in the beginner class. If you had asked me then to ride 55 miles my response would have been "Like in a week, dude?" yeah I talked like that it explains why I didn't have any friends. A lot has changed for me since then. I use the term dude sparingly and only in it literal sense (a hair on an elephants butt). Also I has taken to the masochistic ritual of racing endurance races. I raced three 50+ mile races this season and loved each and everyone of them. Most recently being the Berryman Trail Epic put on by the Springfield Cycling Club and they did one hell of a job.
The start of the race was at 830 and just a little below perfect temperature. The DRJ power house had a nice showing of riders (Wes, Chris, Jim, Tom, Scott, and myself). Everyone was stoked to be out there as we goofed around and acted like mountain bikers on the line. Around 8:30 some Dude, who had been telling us what to do, yelled go and everyone decided that was a good enough start for an all-day-in-the-saddle-race (Just the clarify all day to Chris Ploch is 4hours and 42min.) We fallowed the race car down a paved road and onto a gravel one then we were directed onto another gravel road which we climbed for about three miles. I was warming up and feeling like I had some gas so I stepped on it and entered the woods around 20th. Not to shabby for a fat kid who has not been ridding his bike. I was rocking out to my Race day 2 play list and managed to pass a few guys before the 10mile check point or as I call it the place of disaster. Heading into the check point we had to cross a creek which had a very sketchy bridge build over it that we had to walk. I did this then hopped back on the bike to ride the thirty feet to pick up my shinny yellow zip tie. Some how I managed to cut both side walls in this short stretch. I flipped the bike upside down and began to watch my place get closer and closer to the rear. I got a new tube in the front tire borrowed a floor pump and soon found out that as some random dude said "you've got problems" he almost had a punch in the face after his Einstein epiphany. The tube had a puncture so I began the process over again (with a tube that had a patch on it). I got the Gu packet in place and once again began inflating the tire. This time I had success! I check the back tire and the Stan's No Tube had worked by sealing the cut (or so I thought) so i inflated it, grabbed two cookies and hopped back on the bike. Up the road and just into the woods the rear tire was flat again. I reached for my third and final tube. It was a 26 I ride on 29s. Good thing rubber stretches or I would have been screwed and there would be a lot of bastard children running around. With the tire seated I hit it with the CO2 and actually looked like I knew what I was doing. That is until I flipped the wheel over and realized that there was a rock wedged in between the tire and the rim. I let out all of the precious air and then hit it with the CO2 again. I didn't have enough to inflate it fully so I bummed a mini pump one of the last racers that I had seen in the last 10min in topped it off before sending him on his merry way chock full of good karma. I packed up my trash and made a note that I had nothing left with which to fix flats. I had to ride uber clean! That said I put the bike back on the trail and realized the front tire was in fact flat again. What now? Well I believe the last two riders of the race where just getting ready to pass me and they gave me a 26inch tube and the use of their mini pump. I changed the tube (I was really good at this point) thanked them and head back to the check point to Catch a ride back to the cabins. HELL NO! I haven't DNF'ed all season I wasn't about to start now. I did go back to the check point to top off my tires with the floor pump and more cookies. Needless to say I was frustrated. But I took that frustration and threw it in the frying pan like butter when i grilling pancakes and melted it into sweet savory goodness.
My play list was still rocking so I set the pace fast enough to catch people. Which I started to do. I gained back about 10-12 places as I clawed my way up the climbs, ripped my way down descents, with a smattering of flossing in the flats. The trails where in amazing shape and the weather was perfect for a long fall ride. I was still grinning (my race grin is crusted drool around a gaping mouth) as I climbed up to the last check point, picked up my back zipp tie, and was told that I looked fresh. My guessing is that old boy told every racer that but it helped give me a boost as a pointed the bike down the 3 miles of grave road that we had climbed that morning. 6hours and 37min was the official time that I crossed the line. I was beat and just wanted a shower and some food.
This race is already on my calender for next season so I suggest that you make it a point to be there as well, otherwise you can be weak sauce for another winter.

Welcom to the Future!

As many of you know (and by many I mean 3 out of the 5 people who read my blog) at TC Man we grill for lunch almost everyday. As things have progressed and the common man has develorped grater control of fire we have branched out from pig lips and assholes. One of our greatest achievements was the chicken sausage braukito. The recommended way to prepare this delightful treat is to purchase Jalapeno chicken sausages from trader Joes wrapped in a whole grain tortilla with pepper jack cheese and Maull's Jalapeno BBQ sauce. Once this little bit O' heaven has parachuted into the cavern below your lungs and heart you can thank the lack of customer flow at our store for giving you this Nobel peace prize quality treat.
Another wonderful thing that the good old fire pit as sparked is us seeing how many times we can grill in one day (I believe the record is 3 in a 10hour day). Because of this we normally grill breakfast on Saturday mornings which normally brings the rather large (I am being nice) hair stylists out the back door to our stoop to drool and comment on how we eat so much yet are so thin (It call riding a bike aka exercise). Today we set out to let God guide us on our fiery journey through edible bliss it ended next to the Pillsbury section of the freezer of schnucks. BATTER BLASTER. It is an organic pancake mix in a nitrous oxide pressure can much like ready whip. Not only can you huff it but is make the pancakes that French royalty ate before they had their daily white flag raising. I am sitting here wishing it was breakfast all over again so I can enjoy the pure ecstasy of cramming handfuls of syrup covers chocolate chip pancakes into my mouth (Can you tell I was a fat kid). I urge you all to purchase this product and will be looking into getting them as a sponsor for the 2009 season.

Stars @ Blues 10/16/08

I was there. I witnessed this. The let down of missing the home opener was tough to swallow but worth the burnin'. My first game this season was the blues forth and third home. My seat was 4 rows from the top but I was in the house and that is all that mattered. Goose bumps infested my skin when Charles Glen began belting out "Oh when the Blues go marching in." and the blues delivered. Many stood on his head and every line scored. We taunted Turco which got in his head and allowed out team to score on him 5 times (ok so it might have been the back to back games with the traveling but still he did wasnt happy with the erie chant of TURCO...TURCO). Boyes have goals in all four games as does Tkachuk and Kayria has 9 points. We are hott and we are definently going to have an awesome season! Will you be a part of it?