It is three, I think.

some visiting with the folks and celebrated my sister's boys' birthdays, which happen to lie on April 6 and 7. I got to give Parker his first bike (sorta) which made me a happy uncle and Pearson kept us very entertained as he enjoyed birthday numero uno by diving headfirst into a bright red iced hunk of cake.

Momma Kuhn pulled out the stops for these kids and made the cake to beat all cakes and make a couple young boys awfully happy. Well, I guess Pearson won't remember it, but Parker was enthralled. The cake was a train. Not a train in icing on the cake, but a freakin' train. Actually it was two cakes since mom can't play favorites. Each was 5 cars long. Each car was a piece of cake about the size of a brick. Each car was a different color. The engine had a marshmallow smokestack with curly candles for smoke and in the engineer's seat was a photo of one of the boys with a chocolate bar roof and chocolate supports. A blue "log" car hauled a load of Tootsie Rolls and another car carried "coal" in the form of dark chocolate Raisinettes. The wheels were either chocolate or vanilla Oreos or rolled black licorice. The tracks were those wafer sugar cookies alternating between chocolate and vanilla too. The train couplers were pieces of red licorice. My favorite though was the circus car with a graham cracker roof iced in green and decorated in M&Ms supported by pretzel sticks forming the cage to hold the Animal Cracker beasties. Damn!!!

Parker was amazed. Mom asked Parker which car he wanted and of course the engine was the first choice. Mom then asked Parker which car she could eat. Parker said "Pearson's."

Anyone notice in my previous post that I'm the biggest I've been since high school...I just can't figure out why...

On a completely different note, but something I think I mentioned before, I really like seeing people I've not seen in a long time at these things.

Pete Ray, and old friend from my Team Harrisburg days was back out to race his bike after a long time away. It turns out he'd been to the farm in the intervening years when he treated Howdy after he'd fallen from his tree stand a few years ago and busted up his back. Small world I guess.

Mike Peters of the recent editions of the Harrisburg Criterium stopped in and was one of those who I didn't get to visit with at all. It was nice to see him come out in support of his road buds on the Faulkner Honda racing team. Another FHer in attendance was my old PA Pension Planners teammate (or as VeganRob refered to us, Team FunnyPants) John Cameron and his ever increasing in size family...John and Jen are expecting their second in October. Small world again I guess.

My old bud Chris Kuhl paid a visit too and even tried a lap or two of the course. I'm lucky enough to run into Chris a few times a year, most recently in Arizona, and he also volunteered some time to help set up the course a few days earlier so while I do get to see him its not often enough.

Of course all yinzers and bubsers were super sweet to see again and here's to hoping there's a lot more of seeing you all this summer.

One race down. Rocktober, the Stage Race, and Iron Cross to go.

Relay Weekend - 1 down, three (or is it four?) to go

That was a busy freakin' weekend. The relay, I thought, was freakin' sweet. Not perfect. But sweet. Of course, I may be slightly biased.

I've said it before, but I do love seeing people I've not seen in a very long time come out to these things. Unfortunately I never get much of chance to talk with anyone and when I do take a few moments I'm usually pulled away before we get much of a chance to catch up. If you happen to be someone I started to talk with and then suddenly veered away when my attention was diverted by some shiny object over your shoulder or off in the distance I apologize. Hopefully I'll get to catch up with at an event I don't have to run. If I can actually get to one of those.

I'm planning to make some appearances at On the Rocks at French Creek and over at Faticus's Granogue and in general be around a bit more than I have been in a few years. I'm also hoping more racing helps to rid me of this ever expanding growth around my mid-section. I'm thinking of buying the right's to Faticus's blog or at least leasing the name...though I hope not to keep it too long. I too like cookies far too much as well.

Still contemplating Cohutta. The very kind folks down that way gave me a special exemption since I actually pulled a top 10 from somewhere very deep in my nether regions last spring at their event. They said, "top 10? hells yea, come on back." I hate to disappoint and turn that top 10 into a top 50% as I'm figuring I may do since I've not ridden longer than an hour or two just a few times this winter. Ah heck, as Ry said, its not like I'll stay here and ride for 8 hours that day so I probably should go. 12 hours down, 8 hours of racing, 12 hours back. Sounds like a good weekend, no?

Spent some time doing some other stuff this weekend too as we squeezed in

Okay, I'm way late for work and shouldn't be writing this right now. More later.

Need Team Racer

I've a plea from a couple guys looking for a couple racers for the relay this weekend. Contact me if you are interested in racing or know someone else who is and I'll put you in touch with them.

Also we're up to something like 260 riders!! Holy crap.

Just finished up press releases to a bunch of local to the race media and now its time for bed so I can get a little sleep to be ready for all y'all. Its unlikely any of the news crews will show, but what the heck might as well give it a whirl and maybe you'll be lucky enough to get a few seconds of fame crashing your brains out on the new way fast log (if I keep it in there).

Relay Update

Please check over on our visitpadotcommtbteam blog - you can get to this easily through highspeedcycling.com - for the latest on the US Open Relay this coming weekend. Things are pretty much set and we're looking forward to your arrival.