Podium!

I finally won something! I entered Fatty's "Design Kenny's Tattoo" Contest (see here, my "entry" was in the comments section where I go by "Spiff") on a whim. Apparently Fatty liked my tattoo idea so much, he decided it was worthy of a tube of Dave Zabriskie's chamois cream, DZNuts. Whooo! Chamois cream! Yeah... *sigh* I would have much preferred to have won the Ibis Silk road bike in one of Fatty's earlier contests.

End of Summer Success

I go back to school on Monday. It hasn't been the summer I'd expected it to be. Frankly, I'd expected it to be more bike riding and playing and less paper writing and textbook reading. But it's been good nonetheless - I mean, can I really complain here? I've just gone eight weeks without having to wear shoes! So, although I didn't ride the Wilderness 101 or work at Spokes or even race Wednesday's at Wakefield, I am proud of is this:

Rockin' the skinnies at Schaeffer

So long, summer 2008!

Pitt to DC: Brief Debrief

(Full details of our Pittsburgh to DC ride can be found here.)

Well, our bike trip went off without a hitch! Of course, I think we would all agree that my thorough, exhaustive, and painfully detailed bike preparation is the reason. Let me catalog the mechanical issues - I hesitate to call them "problems" - we had on the trip:

• One (1) flat: Cali's front tire flatted out on our way from Hancock, MD to Harper's Ferry because of a nasty little rock shard that wormed its way into the tired tread. Really, it's hard to fault anyone for this flat. It was fate, really, and you can't blame anyone - least of all the bike prep guy - for fate.
  
• One (1) crippled bike computer: In the homestretch, just after passing Great Falls, a rabid, foaming-at-the-mouth turtle - which looked shockingly like this - launched itself at Cali's front wheel and managed to eat the sensor from her bike computer. OK, it was actually a stick, but it was a evil, stinking sewer stick for sure and I'm pretty sure evil, stinking sewer sticks are also covered under the "fate clause" mentioned above.
  
• One (1) lost bolt: While unloading at home, I discovered that I'd lost one of the bolts connecting my rack to the bike. It was still attached in Harper's Ferry, so I must have lost it that last day. I'm blaming the rabid turtle or the Communists. And since this really wasn't an "issue" or a "problem" or even "something worth mentioning," it also doesn't count against my bike prep skills.
  

So, by my count, we had a total of zero (0) minor mechanical inconveniences over five days and a combined 700 mi. of cycling. Let's just declare me "the World's Greatest Bike and Bike-Related Preparation Guy in the Whole Wide World, Who Also Happens to Be Extremely Good Looking in Spandex" and call it good.

Good. I'm glad we got that settled.