Get Rich Schemes

College + Bike Racing + Not much working + gas for the swagger-wagon + eating some food = low funds

Here are (some of) my plans on how to be rolling in money by age... 37

1) Get paid to ride/race my bike

• This is pretty straightforward

2) Coffee Shop

• I like coffee. I will have a coffee shop that incorporates me not doing very much work but reaping all the benefits of it. Some key features of this shop will be that it serves coffee, but also a great experience! Hooray! And a slide from the second story to the first, and also a graffiti wall.

3) Burrito Joint

• "Wrap Music". This burrito joint is already my pride and joy and it is not even created yet. With a name like that (trademarked fyi) (my idea) the consumer knows absolutely what they are getting. A unique, fresh, and beat funky burrito.

• Key features- Ignoring all the labor to get the most delicious ingredients, Wrap Music will be everything that your taste buds desire based on the CARE that my employees will put into the burrito. Without sharing too much information (for obvious infringement reasons), a stand out feature will be a pre-wrap trip to the salsa bar so your favorite salsas are INSIDE the burrito!

• Sampling of some Menu Items-
• Mackle"more" Guac
• Dyme Definitely ordering that burrito
• Ludacrispy quesadillas
• A Tribe Called Questioning what to get? Try this one!
• 50 Cent tacos (is that cheating my game?)
• Nicki Minaj. no reason

Unfortunately, I will not be able to sell-

4) Best selling, prize winning Author

• This is quite the story. To summarize, I have pulled on the figurative thread that unraveled the TRUE story behind all of the Lance Armstrong allegations. Without spoiling it for my future readers, I will expose how LA won all those bicycle tournaments in his career. To draw you in, I'll say that the secret lies within the yellow rubber bracelets. Buy the book.

• I'm no doctor or scholar. Or author. Or scientist.  But if my theory turns out to be incorrect and it actually isn't how LA won the TDF, I should win an award for preventing the kid from this picture from doping in the future by exposing what I like to call the "Bracelet Affair"

$6,000 dollar wheels. This kid has pressure to dope

• To validate this novel, I will have Bike Snob NYC write the preface, and have LA himself write the epilogue. Neither will know what the book is about before writing. Each chapter won't be called a chapter, but will be a stage of the TDF. The cover will be VERY similar to It's Not About the Bike, except my face will be on the cover and I will be holding yellow bracelets to my eyes like spectacles. 

• Proof
• Besides clear cut scientific proof, I will have support from doctors. Regardless if my theory is incorrect or not, the quotes taken from professionals will be made to work for my argument- Example: "there is no way that This actually could work!"-Dr so and so, or-  "you must be crazy if you Believe this!"-Professor of something at somewhere. 

• And just for legal reasons I'll make sure to put in the fine print somewhere that this potentially could be fictional.

5) Secret

• HA! You wish I'd tell you the make mega bank scheme
• Let's just say it involves real estate, and that my team has already been assembled. Sorry!

 There is lots of thinking while driving to bike races. Sleep on it.

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Tour Tour of Walla Walla

Walla squared is one of the bigger races in Washington. We went there and raced the bicycles. Racing happened, winning happened, losing happened, and snickers were eaten. Here is the weekends top 5-

5) Dogs 

Dans wife Holly and their Great Dane named Moose

Our Hosts monster dog Murphy

4) Hosts

What should I get you guys at the store? Ok I'll get twice that much

3) Wind
Walla Walla is very exposed to wind. When it decides to get windy, it gets very windy-

Not this type of wind:

But this kind:

Holy hell Bill Paxton in Twister was this weekend windy. Saturdays crit was a vortex of wind that made tactics mentally confusing, and Sundays road race was equivalent to 

 

Approximately 10 miles into the 91 mile race things got ballistic on a cross-tailwind climb. After wrestling the bike on the preceding descent to stay upright, there were ~14 of us left in the front group. I had a moment with many terryifying thoughts of having to do 80 more miles in the wind, all out, with only 13 other guys to shelter from the wind, but luckily the race came back together somewhat. Here is a cool video I found from the race.

2.5) Crit 
David, Steve and I made the other bike racers look silly in the first 1/2 lap of the crit. We clipped in and pedaled hard, and apparently the three of us were all quite giddy with the fact that we were far ahead of everybody so soon into the race.

photo from wheelsinfocus.com

2) Colin vs Ian showdown
The real race happened around 10th in the GC. Who cares about the top 9 spots, the most intriguing battle happened for the 10th and 11th spots. Colin and I finished in the same group in the first road race, then Colin smashed me in the time trial by a whopping 2.6 seconds.

13- 41 GIBSON, Colin Lake WA Velo 20:41.55 @ 52.13

14- 23 CRANE, Ian Hagens Berman 20:44.15 @ 54.73

Then came the crit. I knew I had to win a time bonus to pass Colin in the GC. 3 seconds were available to win per prime. I had sweaty palms. I talked some trash before the race. I schemed. I sprinted. I won the first time bonus prime. Booyah!

10- 23 CRANE, Ian USA Hagens Berman 3:50:31 @ 02:02

                                       11-  41 GIBSON, Colin USA Lake WA Velo     "          " 

Tied on GC going into the final stage! I ended up beating Colin the last day and getting some time, but only because I was angry at him for lying to me before the time trial. He flatted his wheel during warmup, and I graciously gave him one of mine that I wasn't using. With the premise being that if he was about to beat me, he sat up. Seems like he didn't....

The real gains came from Colins aero position.

1) Sunday
Kennett says it the best. He was off the front all race, mostly alone. Then BOOM

"Shit was going down back in the field at this point, with Phil, Lang, Spencer, Chris, Ian, and Dan all going ape shit and attacking like spider monkeys with terribly itchy ticks.  They were going nuts.  I’m glad I was up the road riding easy threshold in the wind by myself, because the watts I would have had to do holding onto wheels and following the HB surges would have been much more painful. As I climbed the longer tailwind climb and the wheel and lead cars came around me (signifying my gap was under a minute) I began looking back in fear at the approaching field.  They were gaining time on me at an alarming rate.  Especially two riders in black.  Shit, they were going to catch me before the top of the climb!  I grimaced and sped up.  I looked back again, did a double take and realized the two riders with the large gap to the field were Dan and Chris, the very two riders we were trying to have bridge to me all freaking day.  And they were alone.  And this was the last lap!"

Venneth Peterson 

Stomped. I finished up 8th gc. We had 5 guys in the top 12 on GC, a stage win, and the team GC. 

Veni Vidi Vici.

The guys, minus Lang and Chris

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An Ode to Go-Fast Juice

Oh Trader Joes sparkling water, why'd you fool me bro?
Your price seduced me, and your flavor teased me so
Wild Berry I thought, you'd make me go mighty fast
I went wrong, buying plastic, should've bought shiny glass

Never fooled by go-fast juice, never once in suspense
But I thought with my wallet, tried to save 40 cents
Instead of buying go-REALLY fast juice, I bought a small pretender
Should have packed San Pellegrino, now this I will always remember

Instead of being run, by the Juice that powers me the best
I was fooled by fancy colors, my habits were reset
I bought Trader Joes brand, and for this,
I regret
Had I bought the San Pelly, I would've lost a second less

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Redlands, Redlands, Redlands, Redlands

NRC race #1 is DONE. The Redlands Bicycle Classic finished up yesterday evening and it was certainly a great start to the NRC season. The start list featured 207 men, which is astronomical. The field was deep, with Fransisco Mancebo taking the overall win. Cycling fans may know this name as a former best young rider at the Tour De France,  two times on the podium at the Vuelta a Espana, and a fourth at the Tour De France. I was going to list some other big name riders who raced but I realized I didn't know how to spell Venneth's name. Oh, also Alexi Grewal raced. But like Sam said (aka Krogg)-

"KROGG CATCH AND PASS FAMOUS CAVEMAN IN RACE TODAY! ALEXI GREWAL, WINNER GOLD MEDAL IN OLYMPICS, KROGG SMASH!!" - Sam J twitter 

I also beat Alexi. So by my skills with logic, I could have won the 1984 Olympic RR, regardless of the fact that Alexi is like 60 now.

The problem with a 207 rider field is that one small pack fodder like myself doesn't get many photos taken of him, and when you don't have a personal photographer following your team around (wingerstudios.com), there aren't many photos.

This race was HARD. Here are some things I need to work on, in no particular order.

• Climbing
• Descending
• Eating
• Drinking
• Pedaling a bigger gear faster
• Sprinting
• Not crashing
• Going faster for hours on end

Now writing that list may make it seem like I probably should pick up a different sport, but since I didn't win, there are always vertical gains to be made.

Stage 1: Prologue TT

 
The prologue... Was it worth it to ride the TT bike? The course was slightly uphill for a couple K and then really steep up for the last K and a half. It was hard, I drooled, almost threw up, coughed, went fast in some sections, slow in some others, caught a guy, didn't get caught, and finished directly midpack. Which happened to be in the triple digits, which at first glance was underwhelming, but since my goal was midpack, 104th out of 207 just about succeeds in that perfectly. It was HOT! If you've ever done a trainer workout while cooking a pizza, with your head in the oven, that is about how it felt. But maybe more realistic if instead of pizza, you were cooking tires and garbage, because that is what the smoggy LA air feels like.

Spencer and I warmed up staring at a wall. That's real

Stage 2: 120 Mile Beaumont Road Race

Beaumont was B-E-A-U-hot. 100 degrees on the pavement. Since I knew front row starting position was going to be incredibly critical for such a long 120 mile race, I made sure to line up near the front. Here is the only picture I've been able to find with me in it.

Start of the RR. Not the obvious HB guy, that is Phil. Look a little closer....

I was sure lucky I staged near the front, because since I had never even ridden my bike 120 miles, let alone race it, I wanted PLENTY of time to sink backwards in the pack. Sarcasm aside, I was a bit nervous about having a bad start spot due to the fact that 200+ guys were still in the race, and I wanted to have the least cortisol inducing race as possible. Unfortunately, that didn't work out so well, as less then 5k into the race, when we were going 35+mph downhill, several guys crashed infront of me. I ALMOST saved it, but landed promptly on my butt and slid for quite sometime. I would post a picture I took of my road rash, but I don't really want pictures of my a$$ on the internet, so use your imagination. I got up, chased back on, and raced the next 117 miles with ripped shorts and my ass hanging out. I got some pretty funny sunburn from the rip in the shorts. I got dropped on the last climb maybe 10k from the finish and lost about 4 minutes.

Stage 3:Downtown Criterium

Post crit

The crit was fast. And very dirty. I don't really know what the front of the race looked like, because it was usually one street infront of me, but I did successfully tailgun. I was having some serious body issues from my sudden sitdown at 35mph in the previous stage, and I was just trying to fake it and make it. I succeeded. Also, Tela came and watched!

Stage 4: Sunset Circuit Race

Sunset was brutal. This stage was impossible to fake and make. This video is almost unrelated to anything, except it is of a burger that was being grilled for Lang to eat. Every drop of grease followed by flame burst is what the race felt like for the first 10 minutes, then the huge explosion of flame was me trying to keep up with Mancebo up the climb. I already talked about all the turns on Sunset but what I had no idea about was the entrance into the loop itself. We did two laps on the crit course and then went up a long wide gradual climb to the loop, where that in itself was really difficult. Then we turned, and started climbing some more. It was fast. I was lucky to be in a pretty big group for most of the race, somewhere around 20 riders. We would pick up stragglers, and drop some guys, but we stayed at 20 for most of the race. The race was 12 laps of 6 miles. To not get time cut, you had to do 4 laps without getting lapped. My group completed 8 laps and got pulled at the start of our 9th.

I ended up finishing 109th in GC. Which when compared to people who finished, it is quite a horrible result, but out of the people who started, it is still just about midpack. I was happy to finish given my polar bear attack at the Beaumont circuit race, and I think that I had some serious gains from the weekend, both mental and physical.

But enough of this bike race talk! Check out what we do when we're not racing!

Host house business

Parrish was struggling riding his rollers

Texting Lang probably

Princess/Prom Queen Kennett

Cinema in a host house

Dinner, I thought it was funny because we were all sitting at the table using our various electronic things.

Well, back to school and Bellingham weather.

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