231: Bad Economics

Bad Economics:

½ priced Nachos at local college bar: $5
Adding chicken for a little extra kick: $1
Two glasses of water with lemon: $0
Parking for 1 hour: $.75
Tip for the very nice, but not so cute waitress: $3

Total expense for dinner: $9.75

Dinner Economics= Success.

Parking Ticket because of slow service due to lots of college kids liking ½ priced nachos: $15

Total Cost of Dinner: $24.75

Dinner Economics= FAIL.

With the trails kinda being crap this week, Dennisbike, La La, Jebalicous and I headed out for a little urban ride around the university and the greater center of the universe. We got in a little over an hour and had a great time. Sometimes carving the mountain bike around concrete corners can result in unexpected smiles. While I'll admit I was pretty tired and not stoked about an urban ride heading out, very quickly a perma-grim was plastered to my face as we noodled our way around the center of the universe.

One stop was in Brian's office/lab.

later we hit this sweet bank.

then some dude tried to pick me up.

err.. I threw myself at him?

it was a pretty outstanding evening.

respect

fatmarc

230.5: Update

hypothetically speaking.

Taking the advise and philosophy of the commenters on post, I contacted the promoter this morning. The promoter contacted me back with in minutes.

The puncher DID NOT register for the race, but was entered by the promoter to cover an entry from last season. The promoter will be removing him form the race today.

I have pulled down my previous post. I wasn't sure what to do, but pretty much unanimously folks felt I should act, I did.

In the end, I am somewhat relieved that the puncher didn't register, and that he isn't deviously trying to slip into races. This restores my faith....

my apologies to the puncher for assuming the worst in this situation.

thanks again, Matt, E-town, Soupie, Jim, and Bilson for your speedy input.

respect
fm

229: DEVO

This weekend Zach, my C3-Sollay.com cross teammate, brought to town the Fast Forward Racing Productions Junior Development Team for a little training camp hosted by the Bohnson/Webber Clan.

I have already long been impressed with the level head, and vision that Zach brings to the table. The way he pulled the team together, and frankly having these camps has served the team well two fold. First the riders are getting some great training in, second from a team building standpoint, tucking everyone together in one house, eating, sleeping, goofing off together is pretty incredible.It's times like these when I truly admire Zach and think to myself, man for a 19 year old kid, he's really got a grasp on things. Then he buys fireworks and I am reminded that as much as he gets it, he's still got some jackass in him. Which is probably why I love him.

With Jake helping to steer the ship, and the cast they have assembled, it's going to be pretty impressive to watch what these guys can do this year...

Although ideally the plan was to have some really good moutain bike rides this weekend, the warm weather made the trails mush. Anyone riding any of the trail systems in our Delaware area this weekend was the devil, and truly a selfish. But I digress.

Rotten, Jan, Bilson, Monkey and I were privileged enough to be invited to tag along and ride with the FFRP team this weekend. It was pretty awesome. The turkey point loop is one of my favorites, and it's always great to have a team of junior riders to push me over the hills when I am cracking, or trying to climb in general.

Tom drove sag wagon, let me tellyou it didn't suck to be struggling up a climb and have him pull up along side of you and hand you a freshly baked cookie. "here, you look like you need to eat, here's a cookie..." I can't climb, but in a climbing and cookie eating contest, I might be the horse to bet on...

Following the ride we all chilled out at the Bohnson/Webber clan enjoyed some vegetarian chili and a nice sandwich. We talked a lot of smack. Perhaps funniest of all was when all the kids gathered around the computer and used the internerd for what it was truly intended: looking at porn. Okay not really, the kids were sharing powertap files, and seeing who had the biggest output from the morning ride. These guys are totally into it.

I understand Auer is planning the same camp of C3-Sollay just before cross. You know the entire C3 cross team, there's only 40 of us, under one roof. What could go wrong?

Saturday night I met up with Sam, Elk, Buddy, Liz and Robert at Go Vertical in Philly. It was a lot of fun. Good climbing for sure. Great company, and awesome dinner. I want to get back up there and climb again very soon.

Sunday we loaded up the car with old frames and other wonderful product to sell and headed for the Westminster Stop, Swap and Save.

I had never been to a swap meet before, and it was a very interesting time. I did not manage to sell my Spot or my Fisher frame, but Crazy Fatmarc is slashing prices, if you have an interest, I'm ready to make a deal. It was great seeing my teammates Norman and Kennedy who I hadn't seen in a little while.Following the swap meet we had a really mellow ride with our C3-Sollay teammates around a nice loop. It was fun.

Despite the mellow paced ride, the highlight of the day for me was getting my sweet pimpy new road shoes and having Auer have them molded to my feet! That experience was a little weird, I won't lie, I'm not sure I loved it, but I do love the shoes! Pimpalicious...

It was a fun weekend. Monkey and crammed in as much fun as we could into two days. Now I need to go back to work so I can recover.

thanks for reading.

respect

fatmarc

228: eighteen

Today is the eighteenth anniversary of the first time Monkey and I went on a date.

In the morning of our first date we went to the university and bought books, and then went to McDonald's where I only had enough money to get myself a burger, and didn't get her anything. (I was super smooth).

Later that night we went to see Awakenings with Robert Deniro and Robin Williams. Not the best first date movie, but what the hell. For the record I did pick up that tab. I didn't see the book purchase as part of the date. You live, you learn.

This fall will be our 10th wedding anniversary. We actually celebrate our dating anniversary more than our wedding if that makes any sense. Actually who cares, it works for us...

It hasn't always been easy. We have worked very hard at our relationship over the years. Diane is my best friend in the world, and I am incredibly lucky to have her in my life. We grew through a lot together: rotten apartments, Ramon noodles, yellow enveloped electric bills and bad haircuts. Wouldn't trade a moment of it for anything.

I'm gonna defer to Norman Cook this morning.

"we've come a long, long way together, through the hard times and the good, I have to celebrate you baby, I have to praise you like I should..."

love you monkey.

respect
fm

227: thanks for the love man...

So lets pretend for a second that some Jackass race promoter told you that if you could wear the cow wristband that they required for entry into the staging area at their race for a year, he would give you free entry to the next year's race, could you do it?

Well, James C of Landenberg, Pa is right on track to making this mission a success. Here is an updated photo of James's cow wrist band.

Only Three Month's to go!

You know I have to say I’m having a pretty good week in the blogworld.

I enjoy blogs, I love sharing the stories of the adventures or non adventures I get to stumble through, almost as much as I love reading other folks tell their stories and share their experiences.

I have enjoyed writing this blog also as a means to capture things that happen in my life. It’s fun sometimes to look back a year or two and see where my head was, or what I was thinking about.

Part of my character is that I love to tell stories and share experiences. The blog model has been a great forum for me.

In the past couple of weeks I have gotten a couple of really nice emails from folks I don’t know complimenting the blog, saying things like fatmarc.com is motivating and inspirational. My jaw kinda hit the ground.

I started my blog so I could stop spamming my teammates and friends on our email listserves with ride reports and other jackassery we got into. Gwadzilla was my gateway drug dealer.

The blog was a much better platform for me to share stories. I found other ways to spam my friends, (like questions of the week for instance. )

For a while my blog served as a platform for sponsorship. I’ll admit, I didn’t really like when it went that way. In fact it almost killed the blog for me. When folks commented that teams only wanted me because of the blog, I felt kinda sick to my stomach.

But I changed it. It is what I want it to be, and now I get to blog when I feel like I have something to say, or not say.

I recognize that my focus has evolved from single speeds, and endurance racing to an obsessive focus on cross. In doing so I pretty much alienated my audience: Frankly, I haven’t paid all that much attention to the volume that the blog gets anymore. That was nice to know when I tried to leverage it for sponsors. As I mentioned that almost killed it for me.

I enjoy writing fatmarc, and at some level it allows my parents and in laws , who I don’t see enough of to have a window of what is going on in my life. I felt like if folks out there are still enjoying what I put out that was pretty cool too, if no one is reading, well I enjoy writing it...

It is something that makes me happy and allows me in some sick, sad way to express myself.

I guess it's the adult version of the skate zine's Mike Brevoort and I put out as kids (Damn the Defiant and Jabberwocky) For the record I always though Jabberwocky would be a great name for a bike team.

My intent has been to be funny, share a sliver of my life, and to have a chance to tell stories.

Telling stories is essential to who I am, and one of the things I get out of cycling. It just seems a ride is always an adventure, and races always create 100 stories for a 100 different people. I love that part of the game.

I am also lucky to be surounded by a lot of really funny people who are great story tellers. Peaches, who does not have a blog, might be the best. I swear I want to write a book with that guy some day. But there I go digressing again.

James and Jill both had very kind words about the blog, and I appreciate them taking the time to drop me a line.

I am humbled.

Thanks for reading and letting me share my experiences.

respect
fm

No Duponts were hurt in the creation of this blog.

226: that dutch bitch!

That sentiment and many more colorful ones came spewing out as members of the DCCoD huddled in Jan's living room watched the women's pro championship unfold.

Clearly we are all homers and were cheering for Katie, but any of us would have been okay with watching Hanka take the win. At least she raced to win. Vos, well Vos raced a great race. She sat in and took the sprint. Essentially Vos made Hanka and Katie do all the work, and never saw the front until she hit the finish line. Dutch Bitch.

Incredibly exciting race, with a totally heartbreaking finish. Of course we are all very proud of KC, and the race was by far the most exciting of the weekend.

Perhaps the best footage of the weekend was the podium where it looked like Hanka and KC were gonna take Vos around back to the woodshed and teach her some manners.

At the finish I was so shook up for a second, I had to put down my high life and my donut.

again, a hell of a race, lots of fun to watch.

Saturday, went on a ride with these guys.

I should say that really I watched them climb away from me all day as I was just awful Saturday morning. Don't know if it was because it was my first ride on the roadbike outside in like 6 months, or if I was just tired, or damn... I was rode horribly. Luckily, I had a great group of folks with me, and I still had a lot of fun. (thanks Meatball, Hardy,Buddy the keg breaker, Jan, Bilson, and KidChris)

Thank god I don't have to be fast until September

Great Job Katie!

respect

fm

225: Granogue MTB is May 3, 2009

This is the race bible. Let me know what you think:

And so it has been written, and re-written:

The Escape from Granogue Race is dedicated to the loving memory of our dear friend Andrew Mein. Andrew was a founder of the Wooden Wheels Mountain bike team, a stalwart in the cycling community, a loving husband, a superb trials rider, capable of amazing flatulence, a terrible bass player, an incredible mechanic, and a very good friend.

Andrew was stuck by a car and killed in 1998 while commuting home from work on his favorite bike at the time, a steel fixed gear road bike. Andrew was a hipster 10 years before hipsters knew they were hipsters.

This race is put on not in his memory, but as a celebration of his life, and his vision of mountain bike racing. Andrew believed in fierce and fair competition, and having a great time doing it. Andrew was known for saying, " always be an ambassador for the sport" and for bringing many new racers into the game. Andrew was a fan of punk rock and the community and grass roots nature that came with it. Please join us in this celebration.

Unsportsmanlike conduct will not be tolerated. Volunteer abuse will not be tolerated. This race is a celebration of dear friend, anyone behaving in a manner that rains on our parade or is in direct conflict with the event will be escorted from the estate by Mr. T and the big Russian Guy from Rocky V. Seriously.

Registration opens at 7:00 and will close 30 minutes prior to the start of each race as follows:
Enduro 7:00 to 8:15
Sport 7:00-8:30
Expert and Elite 9:00-10:30
Beginner 11:00-12:30

Kid's race reg anytime before 10:00.Kids race will begin shortly after 10:00. This race is free, but all riders must register at Granogue. Top three finishers will be subject to WADA drug testing.

Gambling on the kids race is not permitted.

Anyone with the cow bracelet from last year still intact needs to contact me prior to pre-reg closing for their free entry into this year's event.

For the record I did not come up with the "Escape from Granogue Name" and I hate it. Anyone who can come up with a better name that we can use in 2010 will receive a complimentary entry for 2010, and your name highlighted in next year's race bible.

Important Rules:

NO PRE-RIDING of the course. This event is held on a private estate. We are grateful that the Dupont's allow us to hold our event. Please do not abuse their hospitality by pre-riding these trails. If you are caught Pre-riding you will be banned from the event. Even if a cousin's brother's sister in law told you it was okay to ride on the estate, you will still be banned if caught riding the course. No we aren't trying to be dicks, but anyone riding the estate in the month prior to the event is automatically associated with our race. Any increased traffic on the estate jeopardizes our event. This celebration is important to us. Please don't jeopardize the future of this event by selfishly poaching the trail system at Granogue and pre-riding.

Bring water. It will be warm on race day. Come prepared. It may be so warm that you might consider swimming in the pond. Please do not. Aside from being disqualified from the race, and escorted from the estate by Dog the Bounty Hunter, all the ponds have an electric field over them, breaking that electrical barrier will result in instant electrocution and you'll likely die.

Seriously the Duponts are really into science and stuff, they have that kind of stuff going on.

Possible Benefit Ride on Sat before the race. Keep returning for updates! Got to work some things out.

NO ALCOHOL ON THE ESTATE. We are a dry race. Please do not bring alcohol onto the estate. This will jeopardize the future of our event. If you are caught imbibing alcohol at the race you will be disqualified. Again, this celebration is very important to us, but help us to keep the event alive and thriving for years to come.

Race registration is $30 via bikereg.com. Juniors race for $10 and the kids race if free.There is a $10 late fee for day of registration. $30+$10= $40.

I can hear you now behind the keyboard of your computer:" $40 !! $$40!! What are you guys trying to get rich? $40 for day of mountain bike registration? I remember when you could buy milk for $1, comic books were a nickel and race entries were $15"

The answer is: yes, we are trying to get rich. In case you haven't noticed promoting bicycle races is incredibly lucrative and secretly paying for Tom, Lauri and my secret vacation home in the south of France. Not really. The house is in Fiji.

Save yourself $10, and make our lives easier go ahead and pre-reg. You know you're coming, you know this is a great race, just do it. Pre Reg. All the cool kids are.

THIS IS A RAIN OR SHINE EVENT.

REFUNDS: There are no refunds within two weeks of the event. No exceptions.

You can email me, and I will tell you, "I'm sorry we don't offer refunds."

Exception: there are no exceptions. I just said that.

The course is a classic Northern Delaware mountain bike course. It contains many steep difficult climbs, many technical sections containing roots, rocks, logs, the occasional odd object that may cause a puncture, field climbs, a nasty fire road known as "the koppenberg", undulating terrain, a tunnel and many challenging obstacles I cannot possibly explain here. Please come prepared, and always apply the golden rule of mountain biking, "when in doubt, dismount"

Awards:

Top 3 riders in each beginner class will receive a super sweet MASS medal. We will also have a fun raffle for all beginner riders following their race.

Top 5 riders in the sport, enduro and expert classes will receive a super sweet plaque for their efforts.

Elite Women and Men will compete for COLD HARD CASH.
Pay out schedule as per MASS series Rules.

Elite 40+ women compete for the same cash purse but receive separate points for MASS scoring.

L-Web is a 40+ elite woman, but refuses to race the masters class because she is bad ass.

Beginner Juniors 12 and under will do 1 lap on a shorter course
Beginners will do a 2 laps on a shorter lap
Sports will do 2 full 7 mile laps
Expert and Elites will do 3 full 7 miles laps
Enduros will do as many laps as those sick, sad fools can squeeze into 4 hours.


Because I know you will ask: the beginner loop is 5 miles or so. Trust me it will be long enough and hard enough. If it's not, you probably should be in sport you dirty sandbagger.


We have some nifty prizes and a great course to race on. That being said none of our prizes are worth getting hurt over or taking any additional risks to win.

Sure Lance Armstrong is not taking a salary this year, buy Johan Bruneel is not waiting for you at the finish line with a super sweet contract. The guy near the finish with an accent is Jan.
Trust me, he doesn't have a contract for you.

You might be too sexy for your shirt, but let's have a fun day at the race. Oh and If anyone pulls a Baker, and you know punches anyone, we will press charges to the full extent of the law, and you'll be banned from all Granogue events for life.


This event is put on by not one person, or one program but a community of people who wish to honor a good friend and cherish the opportunity and responsibility to give back to the sport that has given us all so much. Members of the following organizations help to make this event happen: Wooden Wheels, the Secret Henry's Team, Twin-Six, First State Velo Sport, the Delaware Cyclocross Coalition of Delaware, C3-Sollay.com, Buddy and the Keg Breakers, Visit Pa.com, my family, a few bike liners, Fast Forward Race Productions, and Velo Amis.

We are also extremely proud to be working with the HERA Women's Cancer Foundation as a fundraiser, information center and raffle. Please support them, as they celebrate with us.

Directions to the event:Directions:

Best bet is to use a map program:
2900 Montchanin Road, Wilmington, DE 19807

From Rt. 52 to Center Meeting Road. Right on Rt. 100 then 0.2 miles on left.
From Rt. 202 to Smith's Bridge Rd. then left on Rt. 100 and 0.2 miles on left.

Everything I have said above maybe 100% true, maybe not.

After all of that, if you still have questions please email:
fatmarc@bikecentric.com

Thank you for joining us on this great day.

respect.
Fatmarc Vanderbacon, Tom and LA LA
www.fatmarc.com

224: passing the time

This is my MP3 player:

It was a gift from my wife for Christmas 5 years ago or so.
It has been one of my most valuable training partners over the past 5 years.
Countless hours in the basement on the rollers or trainer seemed to go by so much faster listening to my MP3 player.

Intervals at my secret training spot, warm ups prior to a race, stealing a moment to myself during an endurance relay all made better by the music in this wonderful machine.

On the hybrid pedal tour riding from Portland to Salt Lake with 12 perfect strangers, the MP3 player was sometimes my only connection to home.

On Road Trips from Florida to Rhode Island, From New Jersey to Kentucky, my MP3 player has helped to count out the miles.

On a daily basis it fills my office with wonderful music.

I haven’t always been gentle with my MP3 player. I crashed hard on it 3 times. Probably dropped it off my desk 20 times. I’ve thrown it into my bag. It’s spent days in a plastic baggy in the pocket of a dirty jersey.

Recently while running on the treadmill at 33, I launched it across the room, and if not for
a passer by's Matrix like reflexes, I might have taken her out.

Currently I have over 1800 songs on my MP3 player.

I was saddened when two weeks ago I realized the battery was no longer holding a change for the 5-8 hours it used to. After last weekend’s mountain bike ride where I scrubbed it against a tree while cutting a corner too tightly I lost the ability to make any musical selections.

Yup, my MP3 player has been stuck on random shuffle for the last week

Good news is that I like almost all the music on my MP3 player, and hearing the Cardigans cover Black Sabbath is a gem, as well as anything from Jay-Z/the Beatles Grey album.

The downside is the Axel Foley Theme and some bad Bon Jovi song seem to repeat way too much.

How the hell did those get on my MP3 player anyway?

After 5 years, and lots of use, I know the end is near for my MP3 player, it will be a sad day when I have to replace it, but I have to say it’s been a good time adding songs, and using for miles of smiles.

Be safe out there folks.

respect
m

223: message in a bottle

With the recent up roar over Mr. Armstrong’s bottom bracket message:

I thought it would be interesting to check some of my friends bikes, just to see if they had any
special or motivating messages for 2009.

First was L-Web,
That was nice. Jebalicous and Meghan must really appreciate that.

Speaking of ole Jebalicous, wonder what words of wisdom live on his bottom bracket:

Perhaps that’s the key to being fast: not seeing where you are going.

Next was one of my closest friends, and Reunion Tour teammate Buddy the Keg Breaker:

Followers of Buddy’s know he is rapidly learning the art of home brew, and frankly I look forward to sampling some soon.

Monkey’s message was pretty simple:

Gotta love monkey luv.

Zach and Jake shared a message: That’s Fast Forward Race Productions for those of you that didn’t know…

Breyla-la had perhaps a message that anyone that’s had an injury can understand:
And as for me, will when I flipped over my sexy, sexy black Niner single track ripping machine I
Found this: Well, if the shoe fits… (BTW the second sexy was a little over the top, and really for Blair.)

I had two pretty great mountian bike rides this weekend, with some pretty great folks.

Saturday had a nice group show up at the place and we headed out for almost 3 hours of Fairhill. Dennisbike, Kurtee, Rotten, Slik Rick, Keith (bobby's boy), Meatball, Buddy the keg breaker, Jan, Bad Andy, (i)Paul and myself. I apologize if I lived up to my moniker above. I was worried about the cold and pretty much went up every climb I could find in the first hour. My goal was to try and stay warm. It was a bad choice of trails that ended up flogging all of us. It was a fun ride, but I could have chosen a better loop, and controlled the pace a little better. As promised in the email about the ride, "I will be shattered when we get home." Manual dexterity and regular motor functions are just returning now. This was a pretty super group.

Sunday we met another nice group over at Middlerun and WhiteClay and did a nice 2 hour ride. Harlow, Shawn, JHIII, Bilson, L-Web, John T, Buddy the keg breaker, Jan, Matt (from out of town) , Fort James, Monkey and I. Monkey and Buddy did a much better job leading the group and keeping everyone together. We had a masterful ride.

Lessons learned this day: If you wash Monkey's bike before the ride, and it's below freezing outside, make sure to dry her cables or else her derailleur will freeze.

All in all a pretty wonderful weekend and I am happily enjoying a high life following a pretty nice nap.

respect
fm

223: splish splash

Last night I rushed home. A snow ride was in the making. I was super stoked to get out.

I finally get home, and rush into the house to kit up and grab my gear.

Monkey exclaims as I walk in the door, “we have a major issue here!” I charge into the kitchen to see soap suds pouring out of our dishwasher.

“What the hell!?” I ask in disbelief. Laughing I ask, “what soap did you use?”
Monkey, clearly a little more stressed, “ the cascade dishwasher soap, I used the dishwasher soap…”

I run up stairs to grab some towels. “are you sure?” I ask.

“Yes, she says” “I know what I used!”

Poking just a bit I comment, “ you know, I’ve never had any trouble with the dishwasher like that…”

A little more defensively, “yes, I used the dishwasher soap!!”

Sympathetically I offer this, “perhaps someone used the wrong soap over the weekend and
the residue caused this small avalanche of suds..”

At this point we have just about every towel we can find in the house on the floor. The suds are finally contained.

Diane offers this, “ you know, I did use a lot of soap on the measuring cup that we stored the bacon grease in.” she continued, “it’s possible I didn’t rinse it all off, or off at all…”

“it only takes a little.” I explain…

we both laugh. After a quick peck on the cheek, I head up the road to meet Jan for a quick ride through snowy single track.

We whisked along the frozen banks of the Christina river. The trail is considerably more raw than Middlerun or Fairhill, but very fun.

This is a trail I rode as a ten year old kid and my huffy bmx bike. As a young adult when I started mountain biking it was the staple of my riding menu.

With so many amazing places to ride here in the center of the universe, this short 5 mile out and back trail gets very little of my attention now a days.

I enjoyed flowing through the corners, and reminisced just a little about how much this trail has changed. There a few sections that in the past I might have dared to try and ride, but as an older wiser man, I know discretion is the better part of valor.

We used to be able to do one length of the trail in under 20 minutes. Tonight it’s over an hour by the time we complete the out and back. Despite the bright white snow on the trail, traction is not an issue this night. The dusting of snow does however offer some unexpected drifts through corners, and obscures some obstacles on the parcours. One of those dips grabs my front wheel and launches me over my bars.

We laugh about it as I comment, “guess my timing isn’t back just yet” I’ve got some dirt on my shoulder can you brush it off for me?

I hope to get back to this little section a joy again soon. Tonight was a magical journey…

Respect
fm