Standing Start

Pretty cool

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ki2re9uILtc

Campus Bikes

In a back to school style guide ( a little late) I will tell you the top ways to get to class looking cooling cool.
In my time zigging and zagging between buildings, labs, and bars(slightly more zig zagiging after the bars), I have had a lot of time to ponder the transportation choices of the Purdue student population. So here is the best.

A walk past any graduate student housing complex’s bike rack will reveal a number of silver and red mountain bikes. The Mount Furies are especially popular amongst foreign graduate students, who, intent on dominating exams, obtaining citizenship and becoming enormously wealthy, care little of their material goods’ quality. For them, function is the highest priority, and if it is needed, if it works (marginally) and if it is the cheapest, then it will be bought. In this town a bus goes straight to Walmart. There, this particular Roadmaster can be bought for $63.73(including tax) and then left to die outside of Hawkins. This is only a subset of the bike population. Another fringe group rides fixies. These riders will be quick to show you they have no brakes ( or brains) and as Wikipedia says” A fixed-gear bicycle (fixed wheel bicycle) cannot coast — the pedals are always in motion when the bicycle is moving (and they are dumb.)” These 2 species make up the majority of the bike rack jungle on campus.

Later-

andy

Hockey Season

Fall is in the air and hockey season is in full swing.

I am from Minnesota for a couple of years, so I got to know the Wild and “The State of Hockey” pretty well having season tickets at the excel. I loved their third jerseys back then, and thought it a wise move when they made it their official home jersey after the RBK Edge invasion a couple seasons ago.

When I first saw this new and improved third, I don’t know that I liked it a whole lot. It seemed a little too amateurish, like something a pee wee or high school team would wear.

In thinking about it a bit more though, I realize that’s probably the whole point of the design. In Minnesota, hockey is played just as much as any city in Canada. High School hockey gets almost as much airtime as College Hockey, which is always competing with Wild hockey during the weekends. Also the concourse ot the excel energy center has a hockey jersey from every high school in Minnesota hanging on the wall, which goes with the whole theme.

I have reserved full judgement until I can see it up close or in person.

Overall though, it’s one of the best looking third jerseys out there today. It’s only a matter of time before it becomes their main home jersey

Colorado Madness

So as the summer was ending I rendezvoused with Brian(prez) and his friend Drew(Iron man) at the Denver international airport. I was welcomed to the most full Subaru I have ever seen, complete with 4 sleeping bags, a tent, 2 toolboxes, 47 rags,eight duffel bags, 4 wheels, and 5 gallons of whey protein for iron man. Just replace the truck with Brian's car and you get the idea. I squeezed in and we made our way to Mark Madness' house.

We make our way into the mountains and gain some altitude. Mark lives on the third floor and we proceeded to walk up the stairs. By the time we got to the top we were panting and felt like fat kids with asthma.

Our home for the next ten days would be at an elevation of over 10,000 feet. I was hoping that that along with my rampant epo use would combine for some super good blood that I could share when I got back to Indiana. (JK).


Day 1: Warm up hike.

Wake up for a warm up hike at dawn. 33 degrees F. Drive to Trail. Walk uphill. keep walking, walk more. You get the idea. Make it above treeline and decide to go swimming in the coldest water I have ever been in. It was at 11,500 and snow was melting into it. We hiked over a pass then decided to climb a mountain.

And then slide down on rock and snow for nearly an hour.

Our warm up turned into 7 hours of hiking and climbing and by the end Drew was whining like a girl and Brian could hardly move.

Day 2: We Met this dude named Steve and went riding. Steve is in his 40s and routinely says "word" at the end of phone calls.

Rode 17.5 miles, 4,500 ft elevation gain trail
3 hours

After the ride we went out and got some beers. If you are ever in Breck stop and get a pint or four at Breckenride Brewery.

Day 3: Flume Trails

Headed out early again, parked in Frisco and rode the bike path to Breck. We then rode the trails in town and generally had no idea where we where going ( A common theme for the whole week). We then rode up the ski hill a bit and took the peaks trail down about 1500 feet back into Frisco. It was some of the roughest, most tech. trails we rode and it lasted for about 9 miles.

4.5 hours and around 26 miles for another solid day.

Day 4: 14,000 feet

We left the Grays Peak Trail head (11,280 feet) at 6:50am. We walked on up trail for an hour. Then decided to take the ridge up to the summit, which involved some class 3. We climbed up one little section after another. Probably 700 feet from the top things got pretty sketchy. It was loose rock with high exposure. It may have been the most scared I have been in a while, and nearly urinated all over my self from shear terror. After the worst of the climb Drew and I came to the summit of Torreys Peak (14,267 feet)It was really great on the summit... mostly sunny and hardly a breeze. We sat around for a few minutes before heading over to Grays Peak (14,270 feet). Of course we had to go down to the saddle (13,707 feet) before hiking back up. All told it was pretty great experience. It took a total of 7 hours of climbing/hiking and I could definitely see myself climbing more 14ers in the future.

Day 5: Wheeler Pass

This is a trail that people do once a year just to do it.

More or less it involved a 2.5 hour 4,000 foot climb a 1 hour descent and a 1 hour cruise back. We spent half the climb riding for 50 feet and pushing the next 200 feet. over and over again. Serious lack of oxygen to the brain.

day six through eight coming soon.

New mountain bike wheel size

Who needs 26er, 29ers,or 69ers when you have a 4 inch front wheeled really hard tail.

True story

Tour de France convict edition

The real tour de france just started. It will bring a whole new meaning to, attacks, literally.

"It's a kind of escape for us, a chance to break away from the daily reality of prison,"

Improvement

It has now been exactly ( 2 weeks ago) 2 years from my first bike race

Here is the results comparison same course all three races( 5 mile loop).

2007
Citizen ( Cat. 3) field of 75

Overall 35th
Age 2nd
Laps 2
Time 53:14
Average Speed 11.3
Lap time 26.50


2008
Sport (cat. 2 b) field of 154

Overall 15th
Age 2nd
Laps 3
Time 1.07.42
Average Speed 13.4
Lap time 22.30

2009
Comp(cat. 2 A) field of 101

Overall 12th
Age 2nd
Laps 4
Time 1.19.44
Average Speed 15.26
Lap time 19.40





Pretty cool to look back and see improvement. Now I am a big fan of extrapolating, so if the trend continues, I will soon be averaging 30 mph on a xc course with lap times approuching 0.

In other news it seems I cut all my hair off more on that later.

later
-andy





2008
2009