More Cowbell

On Saturday at Madison, my man Anderson had on a "More Cowbell" t-shirt from SNL with Will Farrell and Christopher Walken. We didn't have enough cowbell to win on Saturday, but this skit is hilarious!

From the island of E'ville,

The Enmark

trent, trent, trent

now if you are all gonna make comments and references about chicks on bikes, and trails and races and such, ya gotta give some examples. I mean c'mon, its not that hard to poach some lovelies from the daily distractions on Pez.

Stop......Hammer Time!

The Hammer has arrived!

Jingle Hammer and I went to Soulard in St. Louis yesterday. He was a bit nervous over a 10 corner crit and you could tell from watching him pre-race that he had the jitters. After completely goofing the start, he got his head in it, moved up and then showed the Budweiser world what the Hammer was all about.

He bridged alone to the break of 5 before 4 more guys came across, then drove it for the remainder of the race. We talked about a couple of things that he might have done to skew the results more in his favor, but it was an unbelievable performance. In the end he was 8th and is no doubt, the real deal.

From the island of E'ville,

The Enmark (Stay Puff)

Hidin'

I talked to T-Rent on Thursday about racing at the Regatta in Madison on Saturday. It seems that the 317 has flared to full force and he now has a sinus infection that is preventing him from racing. That and a broken crank set, so he is going to keep hidin' in Indy. Much like the Cubs, he is working on coining the phrase, "maybe next year".

Dave Anderson and I represented the Mob and went to Madison for the 3's race. We ended up missing the break of two, chasing the break, not bringing the break back and then lighting the field sprint for 3rd. I had to do an almost full lap lead out, but it was enough to shred the field. Dave easily won the field sprint for 3rd and one guy was able to sit on his wheel for the lead out. I rolled across in 5th.

Surprisingly, immediately after the race, I was interrogated by local law enforcement officials. It seems Grumpy Bill is originally from Madison and they are still looking for him on some out standing "issues". I thought that the doper had it rough, but this is persistence. I of course refused to provide any information and they were resolved to staking out the course next year in hopes to capture the elusive Stoner.

Normally, I would make fun of the doper here, but I have to send a thank you to him this week. Last Sunday, I got stung by a bee or wasp or something midway through our ride. As we kept rolling, my arm got very tight and swelled up. He helped me get to his place, get some ice on it and then rode with me to my drive way to make sure that I did not get any worse, have a reaction, etc. Then, on the Wednesday night ride, I managed to start to bonk midway through the group ride, after he and I flogged each other on the way to the ride for an hour. He hooked me up with some power gel and then a coke on the way home. I expect him to get me on "the stuff" anytime, especially after he hears that I missed the break at Madison. Anyway, Barker gets a free pass this week.

Finally, G-Man and Whitlock raced in Cincy this past weekend. According to Joe, The SS Nazi (Spees) lost his wheel for a lead out, so Joe sat up and rolled in. According to the G-Man, Joe almost rode him off of his bike twice. My guess is that Joe popped during the lead out and dumped a drag chute out and everyone carrying any speed almost flattened him. G-Man swears that the bike spike is not far off and Joe swears that he is about to die after every race, so I am not sure where either really stands. I will get with the SS and try to find out what took place.

I am headed to St. Louis this morning with the Jingle Hammer for Soulard. I will report on that in the coming days.

From the island of E'Ville,

The Enmark (aka Stay Puff)

Big Dummy

The 4th of July was a special event this year. The "Big Dummy" aka Whitlock made his presence felt on the island of E'ville. I haven't had the pleasure of riding with Joe since I kicked the crap out of him in Dayton back in early May. I was looking forward to getting on the road with the man, the myth and the legend who has tormented so many fields in his day.

He made his way down on the 4th and we were able to sneak out that afternoon. I have been doing some job shifting and visiting with family, so I had not touched my bike for 10 days. Needless to say, Joe made quick work of destroying me in my sad state. The worst part was after about half an hour, I had two flats, so we had to head back to my house to get additional tubes to continue. On top of that excuse, it was about 400 degrees here and I was not liking the heat. In the end, we did not beat the impending storm and ended up getting pummeled by rain for the last 3 miles. We got a couple of hours in and Joe got to tell me how much I sucked and that he can pummel me without training.

Thursday we ended up getting out for 4 hours. To my disappointment, Joe did not end up in the fetal position, which was the goal I had set for myself upon leaving, but he did have multiple meltdowns. The best part of the day was the fit he threw when the next Mountain Dew stop was 3 miles away and he did not think that he could make it that far. On top of that, was when he went to the counter at the stop, in his sad and delirious state, he had picked up diet dew. He could have been killed had the diet toxins touched his stomach. He narrowly avoided a catastrophe of epic proportion.

While riding with Joe, I was delightfully versed on why he cannot train with the G-Man. I will leave that discussion for another article. Needless to say, turning 40 has only made Joe grumpy. I can only assume that the AARP comments were not well received, nor were the grandpa Simpson references.

One thing we did learn from Joe's visit is that his daughter Liv is planning on becoming a nudist. While at the McDonald's play ground, she removed her shirt and dawned her chest for everyone. When we got to the play ground prior to seeing fireworks on another stop, she saw the fire pole and promptly started removing clothing. Joe hopes that she decides to run off to a nudist colony full of lesbians (and that he can tag along), but more than likely she will end up a stripper. Take a look at the attached pics, we can't decide if her stripper name should be nutmeg or paprika. I can't wait to see how this one turns out. She is a female Joe, challenging everything. Paybacks are hell and his parents might be getting more than even.

From the island of E'ville,

The Enmark