The devil made me do it....

I had a rough night last night, but not as rough as the COMO CYCO dog.  Little Jens decided to develop a case of the "screaming mimis" as my grandmother used to call volatile, blow-out diarrhea.

(The cover of this old novel is actually fairly representative of what went down last night - note the agitation in the dog (Little Jens), the fear of the man (me) and just replace the woman with said "mimis" and you've got the picture.)

After a long night involving little sleep, but many trips outside, I awoke this morning utterly exhausted.  Oddly, Little Jens was wagging his tail, ready to go.  I just needed coffee, so swung by Starbucks on my way into work.  I ordered one big-ass (I refuse to use the word "venti") latte and a cinammon chip scone.  When the cashier rung it up on the machine, my heart skipped a beat at what I saw.

$6.66.  The number of the beast.

Now, I'm not an overtly religious type of person.  I'm not even sure I believe in hell in the classic biblical sense of flames and cloven-hooved devils and the like.  I tend to believe we have the ability to create our own little hells right here on earth with sufficient wickedness so as not to need any place below.  Take Six Flags or Disneyworld.  I defy you to come up with anything scarier than a 7 foot Goofy coming at you smelling of elephant ears.  But nevertheless, having a 666 pop up unexpectedly is still a little creepy....maybe not as creepy as seeing it on your kid's scalp like in the movie the Omen.....but still.

And speaking of biblical references to the unholy, if you've not done so, check out the latest installment from COMO's own ProPam, winner of the Tour of Hermann women's open road race, who also just won the Tour de Hills road race in Harrison, Arkansas on Saturday by way of a solo attack in a freaking hail storm in the first third of the 58 mile race that saw about 3000 feet of climbing.  This is required reading, kids.  And speaking of COMO cyclists kicking some ass, after you're done reading that post - read the one from our own Lieutenant Dan who won Le Tour de Tick MTB race on Sunday despite flatting on the first lap. 

I was reminded of "cycling hell" the other day when I was doing a bit of shopping on ebay UK (the only place to buy really good crumpets in bulk) and stumbled upon this.

Heads up - there are only 9 left as of this morning, and going for $8.50.  I've already purchased two for me.  This is going to be sweet with my new tattoo.

Tour of Hermann part II: Bodies left behind.

Today, of course, is April 20, or in numeric terms, 4/20.  For many of you, this means that you are reading this post from home, having already called in sick so that you may spend the day with your bong, immersed in the scent of patchouli and the flavor of brownies.  If so, please let me know if your altered sense of reality actually makes reading this blog any better.  And if you are holed up in your crib, with blankets covering the windows, I hope that you are listening to some sweet tunes.  I am reminded of music today as the GEEC I recovered our camera and are reviewing the photos from Sunday's epic Tour of Hermann.  It was during the early morning, pre-race period that the quiet little burg of Hermann was filled with some rather amazingly bad music eminating from the BigShark trailer.  The GEEC was convinced it was Metallica, and eerily was actually singing along.  The surreal setting was then enhanced by seeing the Women's 3/4 pace car, complete with V for Vendetta mask hanging from the rear view mirror.  I couldn't help but notice a CD case on the dashboard though....

Using some CSI-like photoenhancing techniques, I was able to invert this photo taken by the GEEC and zoom in on the CD case.

If you look closely, you can see that this is in fact the album 'Endgame' by Megadeth.

The album cover depicts a long line of mindless people, dressed in prison-style jumpsuits, packed together in a single lane as they make their way forward, toward some bright light.  Notice, if you will, that the folks in back are incapable of advancing foward, and must wait their turn.  This, as it turns out, is an important lesson in cycling, especially (and hypothetically) if you are racing in the Cat 4/5 group which is, oh, say 70 strong.  Because as sure as Track #6 on "Endgame" is called "Bodies Left Behind" there may be a hypothetical massive crash and pile up approximately 67 seconds after the pace car signals the start of the race.  And as though half the field is on a bicycle without training wheels for the very first time and watching the pace car leave is akin to having your dad let go of the saddle, hypothetically, the natural reaction of most is to simply fall over like a bunch of fainting goats.  And everyone behind the hypothetical carnage watches the lead group ride on and open up an immediate gap as they scale the first hill unencumbered.  Bodies left behind, indeed.  Lesson learned.  Stay in front.

At any rate, I hope the commotion of the bike race and Megadeth blaring across the peaceful hamlet of Hermann was not too disrupting to the kind people there.  Some citizens put up warning signs that they, or their gardens' inhabitants, were not to be disturbed.

Unfortunately, the gnomes were disturbed, and one apparently emerged and tackled a BigShark cyclist, pinned him down and started trying to rip his leg off with her breasts.

The GEEC and I didn't stick around to see how this turned out, because the gnome shot us the stink-eye right after this photo was taken and we feared we'd be next.  I hope the cyclist is ok.  But if he did end up losing his leg - he should not lose hope.  As an amputee, he can still be a porn star, or even a shitty driver.

CCPB/GEEC

Tour of Hermann and The Bitter Cost of Vanity

The GEEC and I couldn't help but head to Hermann yesterday to take in the Tour of Hermann Stage 3 road race, as by my estimation, there were quite a few COMO cyclists competing and we were eager to see the throw down.  I will have a more complete report of some observations later in the week and apologize for the delay in reporting - but the GEEC had the arduous task of being on camera duty and temporarily misplaced the camera in between the consumption of maibocks and hefeweizens on the loading dock of the Tin Mill Brewery.  I'm pretty sure the bartender recovered it for us, however, and is sending it our way presently.  Hope she didn't look at photos #24 though 45, however.......ANYWAY.  You've likely already heard, but COMO should be proud of our kids.  Check it:

The best finish of the day was in the Women's Open competition where Pam Hinton took 1st place with a time of 3 hours and 12 minutes.  Then the Men's PRO 1/2,  saw two COMO cyclists finish in the top 10.  Daniel Miller finished highest (barely missing a podium finish) with 4th place, and Dave Henderson took 6th after he competed the previous day taking 3rd in the time trial, and 4th in the crit.  The PRO 1/2 event also saw Ethan Froese finish a strong 12th (after finishing 9th in the crit the day before) and Lawrence Simonson take 15th despite a hard crash in one of the final corners.   In the 40+ category, Tracy Smith took 7th place, and in the 50+, Ron Sapp snagged 6th.  In the Cat 4/5, CBC rider Colin Mayhan took 6th.  Congrats guys!  Honestly, I got tired just watching them.

In other, far less interesting news, Mark Cavendish is opening up a bit in cyclingnews about his recent struggles.

"It might not be this year but I know I can get back, and then no-one will remember this...."

Of course, many of Cavs problems this season involved some dental work he had completed which resulted in subsequent infections.  He spoke about this as well.

When did non-Paraguayan people start travelling to Paraguay to have dental work done?  Has dentistry in the UK finally declined that much?  Maybe so...

After the most recent backlash I suffered at the hands of amputee porn-stars and some readers of last Friday's post, the last thing I want to do is offend a bunch of Paraguayan (or British) Orthodontists, so am not blaming them per se.....but it's still a little weird.  He continued on about his dental issues.

"If I could turn back time, I would stick with my teeth [laughs], I am not normally vain but that was the one thing that got me," he said.

Yes - the typically quiet, and non-vain Cavendish seems to have learned a powerful lesson regarding the cost of vanity.  At any rate - Cavs is getting reorganized regarding his game plan for the rest of this season and beyond:

"Long term, I want to expand my thing."

First the teeth, now the "thing"....I wonder how long the setback from that will be?