The Heck of the North is next Saturday!!!

Hey Sports Fans: I have ridden many aspects of the Heck course over the last few weeks and itz gonna be a fantastic race with beautiful scenery, including a full-on brilliant color show as the leaves change over in anticipation of winter!!! I counted over 20 guyz that could potentially win it...so the field is very competitive as well...Thanking Jeremy Kershaw and all the others for taking this on!!!!

To begin a new....

What started out as a hopeful spring, feeling great and racing well in the Spring and early Summer Gravel Classics...the fact of the matter is that really since the end of the Trans-Wisconsin (TW) in June, I have been languishing in self loathing...and thus not surprisingly my racing has been pathetic, my training erratic and uninspired, and my overall commitment to living a wholesome and healthy lifestyle has waned significantly...I suppose I could blame my lack of motivation on the dent the TW put into my motor for it really did involve an effort that was beyond anything I have ever done before on a bicycle...the profound exhaustion I felt post TW rivals that of how I felt as a young man post McKinley and Logan Expeditions...Yet all that is simple excuse making and itz not worth nothin' and it don't mean nothin'! BUT on this coming MONDAY all is going to change!!! Monday, September 13th marks my start date at beginning to build a NEW & Improved Self!!! I am going to get back to the basics: Long and hard rides at least twice a week, calculated and varied training six dayz a week, eating right with definitive limits on beer consumption (with the goal being to lose 15 lbs by December 1st and hit 160 lbs by the Arrowhead), talking to off-spring, and a bunch of other positive reformations...After all I still have a few good years left in this old body...and in the short term I have a lot to look forward to including: October's Heck of the North, the Tuscobia 150 miler in December, maybe Lance's Iowa race in early January, and the magical Arrowhead 135 in late January...Farther out, I am planning to recapture HONOR lost at the Classic Trans-Iowa and to perhaps contend for a top finish in the rumored inaugural Trans-Minnesota, and a repeat effort in the Trans-Wisconsin....And in the not-so-distant future, I am completely committed to completing both the Great Divide and the Alaskan Invitational...so look for a changed man...come Monday :) ....I'm pumped....Monday is the day....

When HONOR is lost...

Sheepishly, on Sunday past, in the cover of a metaphorical fog, an embarrassed, physically and mentally defeated DBD duo made a hasty northern departure to put as many miles betwixt them and Seven Oaks for once again Iowa had proved to be more than enough challenge for these wayward and misguided cyclists. In other words, they got their butts kicked!!! More to follow...and it will not be pretty...

Hey Iowa!!!! Here WE come....

The Big Buff and I are heading fer Iowa...Seven Oaks to be exact for the 24 hours suffer-fest!!! If you're there and looking fer me; I'll be the forlorn fat old guy on the borrowed bike with the look of panic and desperation in his eyes... :) NOTE: Look for Buffington to impress......