Lobster

Over the weekend, we enjoyed some fresh lobster from Maine. Our neighbors ordered it, it was caught on Friday, shipped overnight, and we enjoyed it on Saturday. Steamed it in the neighbors back yard. Good stuff!

BIrffday Ride

Twas a birthday ride for our fearless leader, Art and the weather was chilly! It was bar far the coldest day of the fall so far, at right about 43 degrees for the start. Nearly everyone was in long sleeves and tights. The rider turnout was really small too, no more than 15 or so (instead of the usual 40). And to make things worse, the wind was howling. Fortunately, that jacket I got on sale a few weeks back is windproof, so I was comfortable. As snug as a bug in a rug.....reminds me of the new CD I got this week: The Pride Of Cleveland. 11 cool songs from early 1980s. Sweet. 

Off To The Races...

Went to the big race Saturday night in Concord (Charlotte). We have a neighbor and his son who enjoy going to the local track races. They are from Brazil and have never been to a Nascar race before. So we invited them to come along and enjoy a race with us. Ian is friends with the boy so that worked out well. 

We threw our bikes on the truck and were off to the race early Saturday AM. We got to the track by 11:00 AM and found our usual parking spot along Speedway Blvd. Then we unloaded the bikes and road over to the airport to say hello to my friend Steve. He always takes us on a golfcart tour of the airport, shows us some interesting aviation tidbits.  We then went to the race shop/ store for Roush Fenway Racing and showed the newbies around. They have some cool things in there but the most interesting is a mangled race car from the 2004 Arca race in Daytona. Right next to the car is a big-screen TV showing the video of the crash taking place that mangled the car. It flipped over so many times, you'd be amazed the driver survived at all let alone walking away with no major injuries.

The race was good for a number of reasons. First, the weather was about perfect: cool and breezy. Second, we were sitting in the first row between turns 1 and 2. The action was really close. Jessica Simpson gave a little concert pre-race which we missed. She sang the national anthem as well and she did a pretty good job with that, considering the acoustics suck and that's a difficult song to sing. There was a nice flyover by a C17. During the race, there were a number of different drivers who lead and right up until the last 25 or so laps, it was anybody's race. (Jeff Burton edged out Casey Kahne for the win). Alas one disappointing note was that our main man, #22 Caterpillar Toyota, Dave Blaney had a terrible night. The car sucked. The team just hasn't been able to put it together consistently this year. Very frustrating! 

We got to see some action too, as Junior's tire exploded right in front of us and he slammed the wall just to out right. Later, Montoya slammed the wall right in front of us. I don't know if the TV showed this but later in the race Denny Hamlin was sideways in turn 1, hit the wall in front of us and somehow managed to keep moving along without wrecking. Amazing. He must have had flashbacks of his wreck the week before at Talladega. BTW, Blaney drove Hamlin's car in the Nationwide race Friday night; finished 17th. The Brazilians were amused by the druken exploits of the fans and frankly so was I. Its like 50% racing and 50% people watching!

The good news is that on Sunday we stopped by Blaney's race shop and had lunch with him and the family. He and his wife Lisa had a nice spread for us. Even his parents were in for the weekend. Got to chat with some other hard core Blaniacs, a few of whom I have met before at other races. Dave is kind of down about the way the season has played out. He's still unsure about next year but hoping for the best. I am too. On to Martinsville!

I'm not with him!!!

Had to ride solo on Saturday (some people will just cancel at the last minute). But it was nice and warm, breezy and 70's. The shorts were on and things were going great, except for my nagging left knee pain, so I was comfortably cruising. Next thing I know, this guy passes me on his bike. The guy doesn't say "hello, on your left, look out fat loser" nothing, not a wave or a grunt or a look back to say "catch me if you can".  Before the guy gets more than 50 feet away, here come two riders up the hill in the opposite direction. He snubs them. I overcompensate by waving hysterically, not wanting them to think I had anything to do with unfriendly guy. At this point I actually want to yell out to let these guys know that i'm not with this guy at all, in no way, shape or capacity am I linked to this guy. He's snob guy and I'm friendly guy. I' a friend to cyclists and animals alike. Did I mention there was a rooster out by the lake that day? He was cock a doodle doing like it was sunup (it was 1:00 PM). Once past the lake, here comes unfriendly guy #2, zips out of the woods on his MOUNTAIN bike, passes me on a slight uphill grade and turns into the county park entrance road. OK, so he passes fat guy with a bad knee on a short uphill! So what? I finished the 30 mile loop. Did he ride 30 miles Saturday?? Probably not! Did he have a sore knee? Nope! Has he overweight by 25 pounds(minimum) no way, Jose! So take that, snobby bike riders!

Crash!

The wind was howling yesterday with 20mph winds, gusting even higher. Heading north over Jordan Lake was really a chore, but after we turned west off the lake the tailwind quickly increased our pace. This is where the boys usually pick up the pace anyhow.
A couple of idiots were fooling around and one ended up swerving. He caught the wheel of the guy behind him (and directly in front of me!). That poor guy did his best to stay upright, giving me a second or two to swerve left to the centerline. In the end he did go down , falling right. Unfortunately, my man Bill, bike mechanic extrordinaire, had no place to go but right over the guy now on the ground in front of him. Bill rolled over the guy and went down hard on his left shoulder and head. He was really pissed about the whole thing, as he should be. He was riding a brand new bike, a custom-made steel Kirk that he waited over a year for. Bill doesn't ride with cheap hardware either. He told the guy who caused the crash that he was looking at $800 minimum to repair this brand new bike(and I assume thats without any labor cost). Another ride gone bad. BTW, the first guy to go down just ended up with a little road rash. Bill thinks he may have cracked a couple of ribs.

Eclipse

Did you see that eclipse last night? Ian and I went out to check it out about 11:00 last night. It was a really cool purplish-red color with a crescent of white along the bottom edge. Brilliant. I was going to take a picture, but I knew I couldn't do it justice with a little tiny picture. If only we could have seen the exploding satellite being shot by that missile!

Representin'

In the lingo of the hood, this past weekend, the Matthews was representin'. Allow me to explain:
Our Bible study group decided to have a weekend get together at the beach. It would be a guy's only weekend, a time for bonding, worship, fellowship and.....COMPETITION! Now you may realize that I was not at all comfortable with that last part. I'm the Un-sportsman if there ever was one! No skills, no interest. It was suggested that we bring along a few of the older boys, and this included Ian. As it turned out we had 16 people there, 12 men and 4 teenagers. Greg has a huge house at Holden Beach and we rolled in there Friday evening, just in time for a fabulous barbecue chicken dinner. Good praise and worship session after the meal: we really have a great bunch of guys.
Saturday AM we drew lots for teams: Ian and I ended up on what I felt would surely be the "losers" team. The events would be 2 men on each team run together, relay style. The second group of guys couldn't begin until BOTH of the previous guys crossed the finish line. The run was an out and back run on the beach which totalled 1-1.5 miles, per the estimate of the runners in our midst. Ian and I were the 3rd pair in our group to run. By the time our team got back to the finish line, the competition's 3rd pair was already on their way out. We were already 100 yards behind before we started. Ian was confident we could catch them however, so off we went. Before I realized what was going on, we were in a full sprint down the beach. About half way to the turn around point, we were closing in on the other team. We caught them at the 3/4 mark. Ian was saying "lets pass them" while I was more like "let's hang just behind them for a while and prevent a heart attack". That strategy paid off, because at the turn around point, the other pair slowed down even more, while we kept up a brisk jog. About 3/4 way to the finish line, I was ready to puke, but the cheers of the team provided an extra burst of strength (as intended no doubt) and we finished our leg more than a minute ahead of the other team. With that lead, our last pair of guys headed out and handily won the relay for our team. So the Matthews' leg went from 100 yards behind to more than a minute ahead: we had won this race for our team!
Next up was a 2 man kayak race. Most of the guys had little or no experience in a kayak. I sugested that Ian and I race in the last leg, as I suspected we could make up a deficit if it were needed. It really wasn't needed: we started our last leg of the race with a good lead over the other team. We were half way back from the turn around point when we passed the competition on their way out to the turn around. Several people asked us "how did you get that thing to go so straight?" Another victory for our team.
The next event was a 2.5 mile out and back bike race (on montain bikes). Once again, Ian and I easily created a huge lead over the opposing team that handed the competitors their third consecutive loss!
Next came a basketball game and a volleyball game capped off with a beach flag football game. I wanted to sit on the deck and rest after the bike race, but I wasn't allowed. Our team lost the first two ball games but won the football game and the overall sports competition. Ian was so psyched that he secretly called his mother to tell her about our sports domination. I could not have asked for a better day for us. Did I mention that Ian was not thrilled to go on this weekend in the first place? Those guys really showed him some love and I think he summed up the weekend as "awesome".
Although I wouldn't change the weekend for all the world, I don't think I have ever been this sore in my life. My quads, my shoulders, my lower back, the soles of my feet (from all that sand time). I'm too old for this!!! We have already decided we need to do this again, but I'm going to try and figure out what we can do BESIDES sports. Any ideas???