bigfoot lives in my backyard...

Saturday beckons. Cross is here.

I’m like a kid before Christmas morning.

I gotta be honest here. I made the mistake of looking at the pre-reg list for the Master’s 1/2/3 class.

the Chunky Monkey Dessert... My favorite.

It’s a murder’s row folks. Frankly, might be the deepest, most talented cross race I have ever entered.

Initially, I was intimidated.

Me, I’m just some dude. There are some real deal mother fuckers in that class.

I love cross. I work hard at it. I take pride in my work. I spread the gospel.

I’m gonna go bull durham on you here.

“I want to go out and ride my bike hard, and do my best. We’ll let the chips fall where they might.”

And I mean it.

Time Trial went well last week. I was considerably better than the time I thought I would run.

I’ve set some aggressive goals for myself this season. I tend to do that.
At the heart of it all, I want to feel good on the bike. I want to race my nemeses and victims.

Points or no points I want to walk away from this year, feeling better about the season than I did last year.

Pumpkin Muffin. Growing my muffin top everyday.

Where initially, I felt intimidated, I have to admit I’m kind of  excited to throw myself into the mosh pit that will be the master’s race Saturday.

It’s going to be a great year…

Granogue Cross- voted America's toughest cross race by cyclingnews...

congrats to the DCCofD and Velo Amis...
Respect
fm

God Damn Hipster and his fixed gear jalopy crashed our mellow spin out.

Granogue Cross Registration Opens Friday

Brothers and Sisters,


Granogue Cross is 10/16 and 10/17. We offer two days of UCI racing, and an event that is regularly considered one of the best in the country.

Registration will open at 9:00am on Friday, September 10.

Last year we sold out the masters 2/3/4 event, the cat 4, as well as the 2/3/4.

Elite Master’s race was damn close to selling out as well.

Start Protocol:
UCI Races- all riders must pre-reg…
Call Ups based on :
UCI Points
MAC Points
Order of Registration

Non-UCI races w/ exception of CAT4 men.
Must pre-reg for call up
MAC Points
Order of Registration
Day of (if not sold out) scrum

CAT4 Men
Order of Reg
Day of (if not sold out) scrum

Thank you for your continued support of our races, we look forward to seeing you on October 16/17.

registration can be found here.

respect.
fatmarc
Velo Amis

Safety Dance

Time Travel went well today. Had a ton of fun, and my time was a little stronger than expected.

Partnered with K-man, the two man tt was even faster, and lots of fun.
Thanks for dancing with me  K-man.

The hot tub time machine is nestled away for winter hibernation. only went time traveling once this year.

Today reminded me how much I enjoy it. In the future will, have to do so more...

The ball starts in 6 days... I love to dance...

respect
fatmarc

haters be, well... hating

Three of the most interesting men in the world.

If BMC offers the Time Machine as their TT bike,

I give you my TT bike: The Hot Tub Time Machine:

I lent Monkey my wheels for about a month or so.

She gave them back to me on Monday.

I was putting them on my bike before our ride Tuesday morning.

I immediately notice the back wheel was out of true. After a closer inspection I realized there was broken spoke.

FM, in a playful and loving tone: "hey, what's up with breaking a spoke on my wheel there buddy? What are you doing smashing into curbs?"

Monk,  deadly serious: "I didn't do it, don't know what you are talking about."

FM, puzzled: "seriously? you've been using the wheels for a month, I just put them on my bike and there's a broken spoke, you broke it. Not a big deal, we'll get it fixed."

Monk, still serious : " not me man, what would I have hit?"

FM, realizing I'm not going to win here : " okay, you had the wheels for a month, I just rode it to the mailbox and back, I realized pretty quickly something was wrong. Now if you didn't break the spoke who did? the Garden gnome?"

Monk, with a smile: "Must have been a gnome. For sure a spoke breaking gnome."

FM, smiling back: "god damn gnomes."

Spoke Breaking Gnome.

respect.
fatmarc

modest ambitions

photo by cxhairs.com

1. Top 20 in the MAC (Masters 123)

2. Maryland 40+ State Medal
3. Not get skunked in NJ
4. Stay Healthy
5. Help Team Earn MAC Championship

I am a dumpling eating machine sent from the future to eat the past...

The night before cross camp, and I was like a kid before Christmas morning...

back in the day, when there was a series of Iron Hill Mountainbike races in the fall, I can remember bouncing around with similar excitement.

had one of these hoping to coax the sleep, to no avail...

just in time for cross, our wawa re-opened. Bigger and badder...

Jeff and Gunar followed in tow...



The camp had a Big crowd, excited folks. We spent time with each group and broke down cross tech skills and shared some stories. By far my favorite part was our off camber work.

We covered a lot of ground and everyone got a lot of work in. It was a good day.

I pulled a wheelie and landed on my back.

smooth like Keith Stone.

the coaching staff.


JPOW dropped his phone.

I gave it back to him.

Thanks to Mayhew, Tille and Rusty for having me out. I was stoked to get to help out.

If Batman was running for Sheriff of my town, I'd vote for him.

Just saying.

respect.
fatmarc

Black is the color of my true love's tape...

gotta mix it up a little this year...

Black like my kit.

Black like my soul.
Black like my heart. (ask our PR guy)


Man, I just try to be a nice guy. To do the right thing. Perhaps I am misunderstood?

I love Great Valley.

The Bucknell Guys were digging really deep into the suitcase of courage.

Literally.

Saw Kelly at Great Valley.

had a nice conversation with Kelly.

K "how you feeling."
FM "pretty good I think"
K "me too."
FM "I'm working hard, my numbers are high, but I'm not sure I'm  fast ..."
K "yup, know exactly what you mean"
K "you see the masters race for Nittany"
FM "yup, it's a fucking murderer row, and still 15 days until race..."
K "you think we should have had the masters points go deeper ? "
FM "fuck yeah we should have..."

Kelly and I took off the front of the group for the first three laps until we cracked ourselves good. Shit only 27 more laps/miles to go right? Ugh. No, one said we were smart, but that was fun.


Coaching at Camp this weekend. I'm like the Washington Generals to the Harlem Globe Trotters.
That Powers Sucka is going down... Going to be super fun. totally stoked...

respect
fm

wet grass, kick ass

trying to clean wet grass off of a cross bike is like fighting a hydra.
each time I think I've got it all off, I look and find yet another clump...

grass from 3 counties, and 2 states have been cleaned off our bikes this week...

a cyclocross meeting, or perhaps just wet grass discussions over coffee and eggs...

the boys in the hood...

We pulled up to a stop light with the boys in the back seat. The car next to us had a young couple,
who were doing some heavy duty petting waiting for the light to change. Ah, young love. I can remember
stealing kisses from Monkey at stop lights like it was last week... oh yeah it was...

Back to our young lovers. I pulled the car up so the boys could see the young couple making out, and I
told them to wave and yell hello. The boys happily abide. Poor young couple, the young man gave a small wave back, face a red as a tomato, as we pulled away. The young lady never looked over at us.


Monkey and I laughed loudly. The boys asked, "why are you laughing?" thankfully oblivious to what just went down.  By the by, the boys are our nephews, we didn't steal them from the mall or anything weird like that...


respect.
fatmarc

well, there was this...

Pulling into the venue in Gorham, New Hampshire, Regina one of the race directors says to us with great bravado, "this will be the best 24hr race you ever do!"

Truth is the kind folks at the 24hrs of Great Glenn make a pretty damn convincing argument.

We raced in the 5 person co-ed class. Race was very competitive. Hardest fought 6th place I think I have ever been so proud to claim. Dick spot from the podium, but this weekend was a victory all the way around.

Buddy, Jeb, L-Web and Monk all had their best laps as their last lap.

Tom and Brian worked their asses off to make sure we stayed the line.

I am fortunate to be surrounded by some very amazing people.

This could have been the best 24hr race I ever rode.

So I have that going for me.

met Colin, the genius behind this.

hug with the hup, hup buttercup guys too...

respect.
fatmarc

037: later skater

1.Never cheat.
2.Be a part of something bigger than yourself.
3.Work hard and with purpose.
4.Don’t waste love/energy on unimportant things or blatantly selffish people.
5.Don’t tear other people down; build them up.
6.Don’t whine or complain.
7.No excuses.