Simple things

Curse the projects that sound simple. When working with an old house nothing is simple. Nothing is ever straight and true, so doing anything changes from a simple replacement to full on custom work. 

Luckily, I'm somewhat handy. The downside for me personally, I will forever be fixated on the things that aren't quite right instead of being pleased with the finished project. 

BUT, in tackling the hanging of a door (sounds simple, right) in our new bathroom I have gotten one step closer to getting the bike haven fully functional. 

So the door. Of course the dimensions of the doorway called for me to have to cut the door down a bit. But not in an even way. The width of the doorway at the top, bottom, and middle ALL differed. Perfect. I also had to chisel in new spots on the door and frame for the hinges since the precut slots on the door didn't line up with the frame - but that wasn't so bad at all. Once I had the door cut and hung it was on to the long and frustrating job of sanding and trimming the door, the frame, the door more, now the top of the frame all to get it to shut tight. 

In the end we got it hung and I installed the strike plate to catch the ball that had been preinstalled in the door. I'm guessing it is one half of a set of French doors - we got it at a little antique shop on NoDa. 

Annie did an awesome job of painting it and she picked out the hardware. It reminds me of a British phone booth. 

And it matches nicely with our washer and dryer. 

Now that the door was out of the bike room it was time for me to start organizing. Which also means our sunroom can finally be decluttered and used!  First thing was to move the red locker thing down there. It doesn't fit where I had hoped, so it will likely end up as under workbench storage. 

But that is generally where it will be. I put up my set of Pedro's Allen wrenches for easy access AND a paper towel holder!  Yeah, it's far from complete, but it's gotten slightly closer. 

Yikes

So winter is here, and that makes sense. Yesterday I was home sick. Not "home sick," I was he ill. 

The change in the seasons always kicks my ass. And what a change it's been. On Sunday it was gorgeous out, felt like it was in the 70s!  This morning it was 27 degrees as I started up the pterodactyl. 

No one needs a temp swing like that!  

And with that I'm done.  I'm tired, and not 100%. Plus, don't have much bike related stuff to talk about - this weekend was home project central. Well, I'll talk about that tomorrow as it is partially bike related. 

Sweet!?

While at lunch duty yesterday (you know, to keep a food fight from breaking out...) I saw a kid eating a plate of pizza rolls. I thought to myself: "I haven't had pizza rolls in a long time, I think I should get on that."  So that's what I did. Pizza rolls for dinner. 

As I was laying out my pizza rolls in the most organized and logical of fashions on the cookie tray I found myself a bit befuddled. Where does this one go?

I had five rows of eight, right?  Let me count again. Yeah. Each row has eight. I have five rows. Five times eight is forty, right?  But that can't be right, I still have a pizza roll in my hand...  Logic was stumping me until I came to the slow realization that I had hit the pizza roll jackpot!

Quality control had failed in my favor by giving me a bonus pizza roll!  Normally when quality control screws up someone ends up finding a severed thumb or something. Me?  I get an extra delicious pizza roll!

Of course I posted about it, so this may be old news to some of you.  I got a wide range of responses. Most people shared my excitement. Some questioned "who even counts their pizza rolls?"

I thought I'd take this to the next level and share the fact that I beat the system, with the system. I posted on Totino's Facebook page: 41 pizza rolls. Quality control fail is my win! (With the above picture)

I received a prompt, and somewhat strange response from Totino's. 

Hi Michael,

I'm sorry to hear you were unintentionally shorted on the # of pizza rolls in the Totino's Pizza Rolls package you purchased. You can be assured that our quality team will be made aware of your experience. Please help me prevent this from happening in the future by providing the following information if it's still available.

• Product UPC

• Better If Used By code date

• Was the package properly sealed?

I'd like to send you coupons so that you can enjoy a couple of packages of Totino's Pizza Rolls on us. Will you message us with your mailing address? If so, please send us all of the information requested in one private message. I look forward to hearing back from you.

Thank you,

Fred

I do like the offer for free pizza rolls, buuuuut I wasn't shorted pizza rolls, I was psyched I got ONE extra.... unless they have 45 packs and in which case they thought I was shorted 4?  But in any case I have to ask - was my picture and SHORT statement too hard to dicypher? Is counting not the only issue at Tostino's headquarters, are there also issues with their literacy skills?

I may have uncovered a hornets nest of issues. 

Bottom line, after my confusion I was psyched to have scored A free pizza roll. Unfortunately for me, my conscious doesn't allow me to take advantage of Fred's misunderstanding of my post and scoring bags of free pizza rolls. Call me a sucker, but I don't want to live off of ill acquired pizza rolls.  Plus, the statement "You can be assured that our quality team will be made aware of your experience" sounds a bit ominous...  Don't fire anyone Fred, it'll be alright. 

Nice

Got an email yesterday from the Brunswick Brawl. 

In my book, just plan kindness goes a long way, so getting an email like this locks in my return next year. It was a fun race and I was already excited about returning next year to see if I could improve my performance but I'll just say it now: I'm racing the Brunswick Brawl next year.

Now a thank you email doesn't seem earth shattering, but I would have to say that typically I don't receive an email (even if it is a mass email) after the vast majority of my races. But it is the fact that they took that extra step that counts. 

For the most part I find that mountain bikers are helpful, friendly people on the trails. I hope that this translates to our everyday lives as well. A simple "how are you?" on the trail is a sign of courtesy and commradary, no matter who the trail user is that you come across. But let's take that "how are you?" elsewhere. A simple "how are you?" or just "hi" and a smile to a stranger on the street, or in you isle at the grocery store, can honestly go a long way. 

You never know the type of day someone is having, or all the crap in their lives they are dealing with, and a simple and small gesture of kindness can go a long way to remind people that there is good in others. Think about it, most of the time (I will admit, sometimes people are creepy) when a stranger smiles you tend to instinctively react with a smile and you feel just a little stir of energy waking you up. 

As Annie would say: it's nice to be nice. 

End of Year Party: Part 2

After the riding came the fun and games.

Annie and I set up our chairs and watched as people pulled a log with their bike, tossed some Huffys, and raced around on adult tricycles.  I thought about tossing the bike for a few seconds and then figured that with my luck I'd tweak a muscle in my neck or pull my back throwing it so I decided against it.  I was about to do the log pull with the Glow Worm when I saw someone completely stall out on their singlespeed... so nope for that.  Irish Luke, however, did give the pull a shot.  

It wasn't just a straight out pull.  You had to go out and around a cone and come back.  Navigating the turn so you didn't knock the cone over was a bit tricky.

watching for clearance 

Pure determination as he gets back to the finish line.  Luke crushed it, leaving me with no desire to get up there.  

TheMutt was organizing the coed tricycle relays and was embroiled in a little family competition.  TheMutt was racing with Little Miss Sunshine as his teammate and found himself stacked up against Lunchbox.  It was a close come from behind win - but ultimately Dad knows best.

Little Miss Sunshine trying to get started again after the ditch in the course

 Lunchbox had the lead going into his leg of the race but TheMutt pedaled furiously to gain some ground.  Out of the ditch the race really heated up.

TheMutt was catching up, Lunchbox tries to put it down to stay head

 Lunchbox started weaving, in an apparent attempt to prevent TheMutt from drafting him...

TheMutt looking back to ensure his victory

see that tongue hanging, I think he almost died!

 In the end it was all smiles!

After his victory, TheMutt was looking for a couple more coed teams for the tricycle races when Annie surprised me by volunteering us.  Annie's foot wear for the event was, let's say, more "fashion" minded than riding friendly, but she jumped out there without a worry.  

Annie took the first leg of the race.  The hard part about riding the tricycle was that the cranks were directly connected to the front wheel - so if the wheel is turning, so are the cranks.  If your feet came off the pedals going down the hill into the ditch area (thanks Lunchbox for the ravine climb section!) it was hard to get them back on and keep your momentum - I found that out the hard way.

When it came to my turn I had quite the gap to make up, and I hit the course pedaling my ass off.  I lost my footing as I hit the gravity cavity section (see how the dip in the course gets bigger and bigger each time it is mentioned??) and had a hard time getting back on the pedals... basically I had to start from a complete stop which ended my chances of catching up - it looked like I might as I started off pretty fast.  But it was fun!  You couldn't take yourself too serious on that thing, and that is what it's all about - FUN!

photo credit: Danielle

Then it was time for the main event... the bike derby!

If you don't know what a bike derby is... well, it's basically a bunch of people riding around in a circle trying not to put their foot down.  The only rule - you couldn't take your hands off your handle bars (you know, to push over your competition).  - Derby photo credit: Annie

TheMutt mc'd the event, telling the crowd to step in closer as riders went down.

Dicky started sizing me up 

So I leaned into him, and he gave up, for now.

Then Irish Luke stepped up.  He started putting on the squeeze

I reminded him who had given him a beer and was able to sneak out behind him.

Just in time to avoid Tom Tom's exit from the rodeo

In the end it came down to Dicky and Irish Luke.  It was a solid battle, but ultimate Dicky took home the inaugural Derby Belt. 

After the derby we got our grub on.  The food was gooood.  Annie and I hung out for the raffle, and the woman in front of us won no less than 6 times - for real!  After that we had to take off - so we missed out on the band.  Seriously people, this is not an event to miss out on - I expect to see you there next year.

End of Year Party: Part 1

The Year End Party was Sunday, and it was great!!  An awesome amalgamation of the Tarheel Trailblazers and out sister club, the Dirt Divas.  So much awesome awesomeness happened that I am preemptively splitting this post into two.  Part 1 - the trails, Part 2 -  the events/party.

Before I get to far into this thing I must say that Annie attended the event with me.  Her assessment of the situation - great time!!  My brother, who did not attend, was feeling kinda left out as he said - "even for a non rider it sounds like that would be a fun event just to check out all the crazy challenges you guys were doing."  You know what?  He is right.  So even for you non-riding friends of riders (or even just a curious citizen) I STRONGLY recommend you get your butt out for the party next year, you won't regret it!!

Ok, to the trails.  So I've never ridden out at Anne Close Springs Greenway before.  The name itself is misleading.  It's not a greenway - they are legit trails, so set your mind at ease.  The "close" part isn't that far off.  It wasn't hard to get to at all... plus, I got to fill up in South Carolina on the way home so I saved about $76.03*.

As we were readying to hit the trails a number of groups were breaking out, beginners, intermediates, and the faster mustaches riders.  I apparently fell into the fold with the faster riders.  And it was a quick pace off the start.  It had me spinning out on the Glow Worm (which made it through the ride seemingly out - slow leak in the rear tire, prolly need new sealant...) as we rode down a dirt road to the trail.  The trails were NICE and the pace was fun... that is until we hit some old road and went up a hill.  For some reason I decided being up in the front of the pack was good for me and I kept pace all the way to the top.  Ooops, we missed a turn.  Back down the hill - this time I pulled up the rear.  I'd about blown myself up maintaining some sort of race pace off the start so I settled in to have some fun.

These trails have everything: roots, climbs, twisty stuff, about 12+ bridges (with about 8 coming within a half mile span) including a sweet suspension bridge, and.... drum roll please - TWO WAY TRAFFIC!!  I've gotten so used to one way trails riding around the Charlotte area that it was strange but exhilarating to hit some two way trails again.  That might sound a bit weird, but for me it brought back memories of riding back up north.  And towards then end, when I was riding alone, it had a very "state forest" type of feel to it as I wasn't quite sure where the heck I was going!!  (except for the fact that the trails had markers, with those little cell phone squiggly boxes that bring you to websites when you scan them.  I didn't stop to scan them, I don't think I have an app for that, but if they actually bring up a map showing your location then that is THE BEST THING EVER THAT SHOULD BE ON EVERY TRAIL!)  Anyway, people did MUCH better with the two way traffic then I would have imagined - since most of the riders were from the one way Charlotte trails.  Of course, there were a few frightened people, but I did my best to move over and encourage them to keep coming - which most did happily.

So why was I riding alone at the end?  After the downhill back to the correct turn the group kept the pace up.  I had two riders behind me and as we were getting dropped by the group, I found that I was dropping them... I didn't think I had the legs/lungs to catch back up and hang on to the group so I settled in at my own pace.  Soon I came up on two random riders that I was happy to trail for a bit.  Then we hit up with a group of Dirt Divas - at which point Good Guy Greg (the sweeper) caught up so I regrouped with him and head off ahead of the Dirt Divas.  Soon I was out ahead all alone and came to an intersection without any clue as to where to go, so I waited.  We hooked back up and G3 gave me a run through of the trails ahead and we were off.  We hit some climbing so I again opened up a gap.  I came to an intersection and wasn't sure which way to go, but I was enjoying the trails so I didn't really care - I just went.  I eventually figured out how to get back, I was out for about an hour at this point and I didn't want to leave Annie all by her lonesome for too long.

When I got back it was time to get changed, crack and beer, and see what kind of fun was going on.  You'll have to wait until tomorrow to hear about that stuff from me - but I'm sure someone else out there in the internerds will be talking about it today - I'm looking at you TheMutt and Dicky.


*rough estimation based on the numbers my fingers struck on my keyboard 

BYE

Yeah I'm late with anything related to the Backyard Experience.  I'm sure you've already read the recap from TheMutt earlier this week, and probably Dicky's too...  So I'll keep the words to a minimum and let the pictures do the story telling.

The day started off with a beer in the woods.

Our first waffle zone was missed as the racers took a wrong turn... we still had fun.  

It's alright, because we regrouped and spread the joy.  Some people enjoyed the waffles... look at him snap for that waffle!!

Them waffles were good!!  Riders enjoyed delicious treats along the way

PERFECT!!

YUM!!

But some people didn't like them for some reason...

Looking scared

And dodging the gifts of waffles showered upon them.

Others even put in pre-orders with special instructions - "I want to be covered in waffles!"  You better believe that request was obliged!

Waffles from every angle!

A good time had by all

Oh, you can't get covered in one pass by... our hard working waffle tossers got her again when the trail can back by.

Even giving her helmet a little waffle love!

Then there were others... they ate so many waffles they just had to sit down to enjoy the last few bites.  Even the bikes got waffles!!

And then, things got weird...

Come by next year for the waffles... or the bike race... or both?