009: thanks in advance

As any long time reader of Fatmarc.com already knows, the cycling community is very important to me. I’ll go a step further to say, that I feel like if you are a bike racer, you have an obligation to give back to the sport. You see community only works when bike racers contribute. Maybe not everyone has the capacity to promote a race, but certainly everyone has the ability to volunteer and support a local event. For me, if you race, and you take from the community and you never give back in any fashion, that makes you a vampire. I freaking hate vampires. Yes, Even the pretty cuddly ones, I just hate them.

Oh, I know the old excuses, I have a family, I pay my entry fee, I work 50 hours a week, I don’t have time… So do I, so does everyone on the list below. I don’t care . I don’t excuse you. If you don’t give back, all I see is a vampire.

How many people have given up their training time? How many people sacrificed their race to support an event? How many people gave up time with their families to make the race you competed in this past weekend happen?

I also have theory, that once someone takes a look on the other side of the window, once someone promotes or helps promote a race, they’ll have a little more patience with promoters and officials when maybe, just maybe things don’t go their way.

Most promoters are doing this for the love to the sport, and certainly not to make any money. Because God knows race promoters are making tons of coin putting on races. Maybe if you volunteer, or look behind the curtain, it might keep you from getting in my face after you flatted on my course, blaming me for your flat. Maybe you won’t want to firebomb the scorers house or boycott the MASS/MABRA/MAC series because the results were a little messed up, but certainly resolved. Folks, we’re amateur racers, if we don’t work together, the sport dies. We all lose.

If you can’t help with our event, cool. But find a place to pitch in, or we all lose.

Before we dive into the weekend, I’ll comment that Granogue is a special race. This is not just because it is promoted by my friends and I. This is not just because it is in honor of a fallen Dear Friend. This is because we are not one team, but a community coming together to make this race happen. Below is a list of everyone who has given up their time to make this weekend happen. And I want to thank them all. Certainly I will forget someone, email me and I will add you to the list, but this is my best stake in the ground. Thanks to everyone, and I look forward to seeing you this weekend.

And Thanks to all the racers that get “it” and have a great time. You are the reason we get all fired up to run this event every year.

Thank you for your support.


Randy Bergy: FFRP/C3
Paul Incognito: Secret Henry's team
Lisa Vible: Secret Henry's team
Tim Dowling: FSVS
Charlie Fitzgerald: First State Velo Sport
Dave Troop: First State Velo Sport
Lauri Webber: Secret Henry’s Team
Tom McDaniel: Secret Henry’s Team
Buddy Briggs: Secret Henry’s team
Mark Sanford: Bike Line
Jeff Bahnson: Fast Forward Racing Productions/Van Dessel
Diane Vettori : C3 Twenty 20 Cycling Co.
James Ambagis: Secret Henry’s team
Samantha Lockwood: Hera Ovarian Cancer Foundation
Mark Elssasor: Independent Fabrications
Steve and Karen Rombach: Secret Henry’s team
Ann Rock: Sturdy Girls Cycles
Mark Wise: First State Velo Sport
Amy Wise: First State Velo Sport
Terry Doordon:
Gunnar Bergy: Fast Forward Racing Productions
Kyle Miller: Fast Forward Racing Productions
Kurt Mikeska: Secret Henry’s Team
John Cleary: Secret Henry’s Team
Dan Ryan: First State Velo Sport
Wes Schempf: C3 Twenty 20 Cycling Co.
Slick Rick the Ruler: Secret Henry’s Team
Alyssa Chaplin
Mike Gavigan: Brandywine Cyclery
Dennis Smith: Bike Line Dennisbike.com
Ben Anemone: First State Velo Sport/ Secret Henry’s Team
John Williams: Bike Line
Chris Chapman: Bike Line
Amy Breyla: Bike Line/ C3 Twenty 20 Cycling Co.
Mark “Fuzzy” Nickerson
Jake Davidson: Fast Forward Racing Productions
Matt Doyle: Secret Henry’s Team
Jay Cimini: Secret Henry’s Team
Rob Collins: Secret Henry’s Team
Nick Kruczynski and Family: Secret Henry’s Team
Bill O’Keefe: C3 Twenty 20 Cycling Co.
Sam the Hammer: C3 Twenty 20 Cycling Co.
Shawn Dowling: C3 Twenty 20 Cycling Co.
Bill Speg: First State Velo Sport
Oliver Yeh: First State Velo Sport
Dennis Dischler: Wooden Wheels
Rob Thomas: Henry’s Colorado Branch
Mike CZ: First State Velo Sport
Jamie Mack: First State Velo Sport
Elizabeth Harlow: C3 Twenty 20 Cycling Co.
Andrew Hogg: Secret Henry’s Team
Senator Dave: First State Velo Sport
Brian Bahnson:

I am honored to work with all of you.

viva la community.

respect
fatmarc

008: Harvey

A fellow I work with walked in to my office the other day and started a conversation with me.

He asked me, “Fatmarc, we’ve been working together for a little bit and you have all these pictures and calendars of bike racing in your office, I gotta ask, have you ever won one?”

Without thinking, I replied, “ 7 times. I have won 7 bike races.”

He followed up, “ how many races have you done?”

I replied, “ over the course of 19 years, probably 350ish individual races; maybe another 45 or so team relays; I think we’ve won 10 or 11 of the team relays…”

He said, “ wow " he pauses, "7 wins out of 400 tries?”

I followed up, “Hell, my best race ever, I came in 3rd."
Not knowing when to shut up, I follow up,

"I don’t really win races… each of those wins were totally freaking awesome, the truth is I’m not a champion, that’s not my role, not my job, not really what I bring to a team, not what I love about racing. For me it’s the preparation, the hard work, the life style, that’s the part that I can’t say is always fun but I enjoy…what's got me hook.”

I continued, “ not that I would be sad if I won a ton of races this year…”

We laughed that strained work relationship laugh.

He picked up his file and started out of my office. He looked back at me, offering a “hmmm” and turned and walked away…

I can only conject, what he was thinking when he offered that hmmm:

“freakin’ loser”, “take up a different sport dude”, “he just likes to shave his legs…”

Maybe I said too much. I need a brain filter...
I have not felt super motivated this week. Coming out of Baker’s I had a pretty solid week of riding under the belt, and this week, with Granogue quickly approaching, I admit I haven’t had the get up and go that I have enjoyed recently.

The race is coming together nicely. To the 251 of you that have registered as of this afternoon, thanks for supporting our race. Thank you for supporting the fight against ovarian cancer. Perhaps, most importantly thank you celebrating the memory of Andrew. Reg Closes Thursday at 11:00pm

I think that’s it kids.

hope to see you this weekend.

Respect
fatmarc

episode 007: random phone pictures

This shot is for Riley and Layla... I think Janner took it...


A nice evening shot:
Dan McDermott:
Flamingos are migrating back to Granogue:
Breyla-la and Monkey...
Love this shot of Kelly and Hailey. Yup, I used it before, but I still love it..
nieces and nephews: Connorman will be doing the kids race a Granogue Next week! Jake, not photoed will be there too...

I'm totally seeding both my nephews doing the race in the front row... Promoter Discretion, as ole Auer would say...
greatest sandwich ever? Thanks for the recommendation Kimmy...
Monkey and Cow...
Monkey getting hydrated after our ride Friday night... Fairhill was awesome...
I missed riding with monkey, I'm so happy to be doing riding with her again...
Chicks dig the sweatervest.. . My halo is full on in this shot...
tauntaun chilling in the back of the toaster...
I rode my bike this weekend. It was fun. I got slapped around a lot. I'm good at that...
Granogue next weekend. it's going to be awesome. You should register here.

thanks for reading...

respect.
fatmarc

episode 006: Granogue

Friends of Granogue!

Do you remember what fun last year was? Struggling in the muck and the mire, pushing through the ankle deep mud as the rain pelted us all? Was it a bike race or a bike pushing race? Horizontal climbing skills were at a premium.

A day where a number of expert/elite finishing times were longer than some of the enduro times.

A day where I helped one competitor to the front of the bike wash line, so she could clean her bike and get back into the race.

A day where two of our region’s best mountain bike racers told me that we shouldn’t shorten the race, only to come back a few minutes later after the start, and tell me they gave me bad advice.

While we at Velo Amis pride ourselves in putting on a great event, a challenging and dare we say epic race, we always pride ourselves in putting on fun events. And, while I consider myself a bit of a mudder, there was not too much fun going on last year during our Mud-fest. Thanks for sticking with us.

For 2010 we have put in a request for sunshine and warm weather with Mother Nature, and our hopes are high that she will come through. While none of us over at Velo Amis are going to be joining Mensa anytime soon, we have developed some alternate courses in the event of a rain event. No, it won’t be as awesome as our normal course, but it will allow for some good racing, and will keep the lap times under an hour. We have also perfected an anti rain dance, that we hope will lead to a dry, fast and fun day of racing. (like I said, nobody here is joining Mensa anytime soon)

In addition for 2010 we have added a number of events:

Saturday May 1, 2010 will have a 7 mile running race in the morning, followed by our Granogue Tours for Joyce allowing folks a chance to pre-ride the course, or non racers to have access to these private trails for one day, and closing out our day will be our first annual Time Trial for Joyce. The Time Trail Course will be about a 3rd of a lap of the big course, and will be a great chance to get the legs open before Sunday’s big event.

Sunday May 2, 2010 will be our full slate of MASS enduro and cross country racing…

Registration for all of the bike events can be found here.


And while you are there, why not buy a couple of raffle tickets and help out the Hera Foundation? Their tickets can be found here.

Registration for the Run events can be found here.

As a reminder this race in not but on by one team, but by a community and would not be possible without the support of riders from First State Velo Sport, Bike Line, C3: twenty 20 cycles, The Secret Henry’s team, Wooden Wheels, and the DCCofD.

We’d also like to thank our local sponsors: Henry’s Bikes, Garrison’s Cyclery, Brandywine Cyclery, Bike Line, Wooden Wheels, Trail Runner Sports, and Mill Creek Medical Associates

We also have a pretty sweet webpage, you can check it out here.

Thanks and we look forward to seeing you in a couple of weeks.

Best to you.

respect.
Fatmarc
Tom “papa smurf”
Buddy the Keg Breaker
L-Web

episode 005: beer or icecream- my baker's report

Does it make sense to plan your entire spring around a silly mountain bike team relay event?

no.

probably not.

well maybe. Let me explain...

For me Mountain Bike team relay racing is at the core of what I enjoy about mountainbike racing.

One of my first races I ever competed in was the 1993 24 hours of Canaan at the Timberline Lodge in West by God Virgina. This was when there was no solo or duo, it was all teams. Four and Five person teams, battling it out for 24hrs. Additionally, This was one of the events to do, it was the first, and the biggest, and a must do every year. Think 500 teams, selling out big. Think names like Gunnar, Ruther, Landis, Stamsted big... Sure we were beginners, what did we know... But I was hooked, and this style of racing was hardwired into my bike racing character.

My favorite mtb racing experiences have always centered around this style of team racing. It's one of the things I love about the sport. These experiences have taught me a number of lessons. The are:

1. Failure to prepare is preparing to fail.
2. Treat each lap as it's own race.
3. ABC- Always be conserving off the bike.
4. Race with people you love.

That last one is the most important. For me it makes the experience, it makes these team races special. I'd tell you that I know I'll put myself deeper in the hurt locker more for the people I race with, than I ever would for myself. And when I have those dark thoughts, those dark moments during these events, it's the thoughts of those people that help me HTFU and keep driving.

Having done a few with people I didn't know, and having someone bail in the middle of the race, or give up on the team, or poison the campsite, is well... horrible

For me xc racing is kinda of empty now a days. I just doesn't hold the lure, or the love for me. Compared to what I get from one of these relays, they just aren't as interesting or fulfilling.

So I'm a crosser and a mtb relay guy, what can I say... yeah, it's lame...
This weekend I was fortunate enough to be surrounded a number of my wonderful C3:Twenty 20 teammates (Sven, Melanie, Harlow, Shawn D, Matt B, Kennedy, Meatball, Bill Father of the Hammer, Sam the Hammer, Sweet Johny, Auer, Breyla-la, Tom McKay who I refuse to call t-mack) as well as having Norman and Hardy come out for support. The Delaware crew was also well represented with DLB from team DRT, Michigan Matt from Henry's, Blair from Canada, Hattie from Bike Line and DCCoCers Mark the Shark and Benny the Jewlar. We were also joined by Mayhew, Tille, and Rusty. I always appreciate having on site coaching!

Our line up for the weekend had me join two people I hold in great esteem, in Kim and Wes (see rule number 4) . Our team was formed at the MAC prom, and I'll admit I targeted my teammates when they were perhaps a little inebriated. "13 hours, it will be fun!?"

So if you see me coming at the next MAC prom, run.. Run Away... Who can say no to Fatmarc after a couple of beers? It was pretty much a perfect strategy from where I was sitting.

To make this long story short- Wes, Kim and I won the 3 man open class at the Baker's Dozen.
We made a plan, we worked our plan, and things all came together for us.

Plan was simple: jump on it early, do three full rotations, then look up, see how things looked, see how we felt, make any adjustments that were needed, and go again.

After 3 rotations, we had an 18 minute lead. We all felt good, so we stuck to our guns. In the end we had 22 laps, with Wes pulling down 8, Me pulling down 7, and Kim pulling down 7.

Once we got a lap on second place, we rode a little more conservatively, and focused on recovering, not cracking, crashing or having a mechanical. We accomplished all of the above, and walked away with a little green for our efforts. (that was a nice surprise!)

the course looked like this:


you'll notice this was my fastest lap of the weekend 29:47... I was pretty proud of that, especially after that 41 minute implosion the final lap at Fairhill last week. (Really I don't suck, I promise) My lap times went from the sub 30 as my fastest to my final lap a night lap of 34:24.
Wes was running times a little faster than mine on the single speed, while I never came out of my big ring. I shutter to think what he would have done on that course with gears.

I also always felt like he was saving something in case something went wrong, like he always had something else in the tank, as demonstrated when he offered to take my last lap for me. I appreciated the offer, but happily did my 7th lap... He must have been worried after I dropped a couple of "I love you mans" on him once it got dark.
Kim was running very steady 40-45 minute laps. Her bike handling and racing skills really shined. She is methodical in her approach, and the mental toughness she brought to the table was unifying focus for all of us.

On the drive home Kim and I were sharing stories from the race. She asked me, " Did you know we were going to win? Cause I really had no idea what to expect..." I responded, " I felt like we were prepared, had a team that gets on well and we are all strong starters so we should be in thick of things. Crazy stuff can happen in a long race like this, I felt like we'd be in the hunt, but nothing was a given. Wes, I conject, knew were were going to win. You could see it in his eyes this morning..."
It was a pretty outstanding weekend, and maybe it's silly to focus your spring season on a mountainbike relay race, but I'll live with it.

Thanks again to my great teammates from the weekend, Wes and Kim and to all the DCCoDers and C3-twenty20 cycles who helped make this weekend great.

Sharket and Shark.
Wiser gave me the finger every time he saw me during the race. I asked why, he said, "It's your fault I'm here, freaking mountain biking..." I also comment that the Shark made fun of my pre-race bacon, which might have had a little cooler water contamination, but the shark sure didn't turn it away. All the boys in the school yard want fatmarc's bacon... Shark did a great job in the solo class turning 17 laps...

thanks for reading.

respect.
a pretty destroyed Fatmarc
(champion of the obscure)

episode 004: will you be my friend?

Okay, I enjoy facebook. Great way to network with fellow cyclists, and even keep touch with some family that still talks to me. From time to time I even take a chance to pimp the ole fatmarc.com cycling blog from time to time.

what I really love is the hot chicks that want to friend me.

I get one or two a week. Only instead of fitting my normal friend request profile : bike racer, 10-15 friends in common, someone I know, interweb know.. it goes like this:

No common friends.
Picture with pouty lips and exposed cleavage.
Nothing imaginable in common with me. you know something like this:

I never enjoyed denying hot chicks so much.

Lady readers of Fatmarc.com, do you get a male version of this on facebook? Probably not, I guess women are far too smart to fall for the random hot person seeking to friend me for no possible reason trick.

good ride tonight. Maybe a little more than coach wanted me to do, but I felt like pushing myself just a little. Got some good efforts in and jumped in on one of the local rides for a bit. Yeah, I was the terror of the B ride tonight folks! Douchey, yeah but I did get my efforts in...

Baker's Saturday... One of my favorite events. This will be my fourth time. I did this in '07 with Combsie and Monkey, '08 with Slick Rick and Monkey, '09 with Buddy the Keg Breaker and Peaches. This year I'm teamed up with Kim and Wes. I expect I will be going much better than last weekend, and I'm looking to have some fun. You know I have a pretty good hour, after that the wheels tend to fall off... Bakers is just 5-6 short cross races right?

hope to see you there...

thanks for reading...

respect
fatmarc

episode 003: slapped around

At completely the last second I decided to do the Fairhill cross country race as a training ride.

The day started off good enough, as Diane and I rode down to the venue.

I got a solid start, I find that cross starts are way faster than mtb starts, unfortunately my mtb finishes are not so fast. My first lap and really a half, I felt like I was in the thick of things, and then I started to ball up a bit. As I rolled into the final lap I found a nasty spot of bother... Who am I kidding ? I cracked, and died out there... My back started balling up and I went backwards... Like from 10thish back to I'm guessing 25th... That last lap was so bad that frankly after I finished Diane told me she was worried that I had pulled out and ridden home without her.

I smiled and commented "Nope, the last lap was just that bad." Truth is I'll admit I'm not as disappointed as I would normally be, I had a really weird week, wanted to get over 3 hours on the bike today, and some race intensity. Well race intensity for 2 out of 3 laps was pretty good.

I'll do better next week at the Bakers. That's the focus of my spring season, that's the race I've had circled on my calendar since January.

Riding home from the race, Diane and I goofed around a bit and had a smile. It really was a fun day, and some good riding...

My teammate Ryan Hardy had about the best weekend ever. Yesterday he soloed off the front for the 3 final laps to take a win at his road race yesterday, followed up by a 5th place at Fairhill today... Not too shabby...


I feel like God must have had a hand in his weekend...

Congrats to Slick Rick Da Ruler on a great ride this weekend as well... Talk about coming back to the game in a big way!

thanks for reading...

respect.
fatmarc

episode 002 : goons

BTW... no one got that I always have bad facial hair, so when I showed up to the bad facial hair contest cleanly shaved, I was totally being ironic. totally.

I spent the last couple of days in DC for a conference for work. The conference was very good. I learned a lot. Coming off of a good weekend of riding, I was looking forward to riding with Wes, and Hardy on a local group ride lovingly called the goon ride.

Essentially, I got my doors blown off. I will admit, I was a little terrified plowing through traffic through Rockcreek Park. The ride was super fast, and I was sitting in playing it smart. Near the front but not doing any work. Keeping my nose out of the wind. We got to the first big climb, which had a couple of switch backs. I looked around and there was 20 or so folks around me, so I felt pretty good about my chances to get over the top. I was wrong.

Two corners later, I looked and everyone was gone. There was me, some green kit dude, a harley dude, and Hardy. 40 minutes in and I was dropped. Shit, I suck.

Wes waited for us as we put together a nice 3 man rotation at around 25ish to head home. Oh, I got to do the climb up by the Mormon Church, which hurt badly too.
That climb was cool to me because, when I was kid going to visit my grandmother in Bethesda, my brothers and I would have a competition to see who could see the "castle" first. It was a sign that we were almost at Grandma's house. It was pretty awesome to ride by there, brought back some good memories.

Finally, we finished up and we got to hang out with our new teammate Arley for a bit and shoot the shit.

That was fun night, and a way to level out the ego a bit. Wow. I'm really not that fast.

I hope I get another chance to try and finish the goon ride some time.

In the above picture I am pinching Auer's ass.


Thanks to Regan, Savanna and Wes for taking me in for the past couple of days.

respect
fm

MASS Relay pictures stolen from singlespeeder.smugmug.com

episode 001: weirdness

I wonder when Dennisbike took up photography if he ever thought he'd be stuffed in an office at a Clog Factory taking pictures of Employees and their kids with the Easter Bunny?
well, there he was. Thanks for the help Dennis...
...
Diane and I were talking about wheels. I said maybe this fall we'd keep our eyes out for a deal on some nice carbon wheels that we could share for the cross season. She got a funny look on her face. I proceeded to comment that I could read her mind.

She says, "what !?" I replied in a really bad fake Diane voice, "we'll get some carbon wheels alright, but there no way your fatass is gonna beat the hell out of my wheels..." She laughed out loud, and replied, "first, I don't talk like a tranny, second it wasn't exactly like that..."

...
Talked to Tom late Friday night. "hey man, watch you doing?" Tom replied, "nothing" I asked him, "wanna go to a mtb race with me tomorrow?" Tom replied, "sure". " Meet me at Wawa, I'll drive" , I offered. "no way dude, I'd driving..." was Tom's retort. He picked me up with the crafter the next morning. Tom was kind enough to let me drive home after the race... Super Sweet... Thanks for the ride Tom!
...
Mass Relay was this weekend. One of my favorite events ever. I was nestled into a sweet little community with the Fast Forward Kids, Dirty Girls, Secret Henry's team and my own team C3: Twenty 20 Cycles. We had a great time hanging, and heckling each other...
...

I love Buddy the Keg Breaker. Seriously one of my favorite people in the world. I love racing with the guy too. He's got three laps into his legs. Strong laps. Looks a the clock and realizes that if he turns he's fastest lap of the day for his final lap, he'll get L-Web out right at the buzzer.

L-Web has since put on street clothes. Buddy drinks a beer, and says, "looks like there's a bike race going on..." He proceeds to throw down his fastest lap of the day, and came just 20 seconds short of forcing L-Web into another lap. L-Web did have to kit up again...
....
I was teamed with Auer, Tom McKay, and Joe Lilibridge. Four hours, short laps, fast exchanges, lot of tight racing... Outstanding...

...
Lap One:
For some reason I ended up running the Lemans start.... I mean Auer is a runner, but I ended up running. Makes no sense at all. I tried to do my best to stay near the front. I watched Eric Easterby, who I coached in wrestling (talk about feeling old) and was an excellent xc runner in High School blow right by me. Finally got to the bike. I was hurting. But moving up...

Halfway through the lap, I found myself in a pretty nice group with Mike Laub, Slick Rick and Benny the Jewlar. The course opened up and I attacked, got a good gap and rode it in to pass off to my teammate Auer, who all the while heckled me. Mckay would say to me later, "you did a nice job with that run, but it's pretty obvious you aren't a runner..."
Lap Two:
Amazing how much better my legs feel when I don't have to run for 3 minutes before the lap. Flowed well. Felt great. Superfun.
Lap Three:
My fastest lap, felt like the bike had no chain. I was dancing on the pedals and the lap flew by. Problem is for the first time ever in one of these team relay races, I missed my exchange. Joe came in, I didn't see him, and he was stuck in the transition area for 1 minute. UGH!! I fought back as hard as I could, but know we lost at least one spot to the Mountain Sport Guys. Rookie mistake on my part, this will appear to be my slowest lap, it was actually my fastest..
Lap Four:
Legs felt good, but starting to feel the effects of 3 all out efforts. Again, I was flying carving up the single track, felt great. Really happy with my efforts today...

Hit the last section of trail, which was pretty long, and I got held up by another slower rider.

Held up is probably not the right term, mugged is more like it. Despite me announcing I was coming, that I was coming hot, asking nicely repeatedly to pass, the dude refused to let me through. "really!?" "really!?" Worse off the guy is a dude I know and is from my hometown. Here he was totally cock blocking me on the last tight section. The trail finally opened up and I jumped around him.

To say I was pissed might be an understatement. I hate unsportsmanlike behavior. I always pass courteously, always let folks know, politely, where I am, when I'm coming. I let people pass who are clearly faster pass me like a knife through butter (just ask the matt miller experience and Adam Driscoll)

I'll admit I've taken dudes to the tape, I've blocked for a teammate in the break, I held someone up for a quick second if we were racing close, but this dude was the Berlin wall, for an entire 2-3 minute section of trail. Racing is Racing, but refusing to let someone pass is totally bush league. Totally unsportsmanlike.

Thanks to my teammates who had to endure my not so sunny outlook afterwards... thanks for talking me down a little... the dude to his credit came up to me a the portolets and apologized...

And we did what 40 year old men do to resolve an issue... we hugged it out.

all ends well...
...
In the end after a few excel sortings of the results C3:tiny little robots sent to destroy was the 8th fastest team. In the points race we got killed. The event is a weighted event based on your category, with each lap given a point value for your class. Additional points can be earned by finding the bonus Easter eggs that were hidden on the course. Our team is all experts, and we didn't find any Easter eggs.
More importantly, we all got 4 laps in, plus that damn little hurtful run I did...

Sam the hammer's team was (sam, bad andy, meatball and kennedy) was 4th fastest...

BTW... thanks for coming in at 4:04 Joe, had it been 4:01, you know how long I left you standing in the transition, I would have felt really awful... I already likely cost us the 7th ... UGH such a rookie mistake...
...
Rode with Kid Chris this weekend too. He is home from Greensville, SC for the Holiday. We were chatting about life, and riding. Chris comments, "I'm working a lot, I feel like I hardly get to ride anymore." I was a little concerned and asked, "how much are you getting a week?" Chris replies, "only 12-15 hours a week." I turned back and looked at Chris offering this, "Fxck You Buddy, Eff you..." He Laughed.
...
what a great day
thanks for reading.

respect.
fatmarc