Ship

I painted this on my tablet PC. It's about the most artistic thing I've ever done. (Click for larger)

I am all that is man.

So I left class a little bit early today to race down to the Tour of Missouri, a high profile bicycle race that includes Olympic riders, Tour de France riders, etc. I missed the finish by a few minutes, which was a bit disappointing, but Alex and I still had a chance to walk around and look at some of the various bike vendors and merchandise kiosks they had up for the race.

One of the kiosks was sponsored by some Missouri Beef association, had some trainers set up, and you could get on and ride as hard as you could to see what your maximum power output per pound of body weight was. The hourly winner was supposed to get a T-shirt, and the daily winner was supposed to get $200 worth of beef products (steak, jerky, etc).

At this point, one of the spectators / drunken participants in the contest saw me with my Hapkeyer hat, rolled up jeans, and fixed gear, and the heckling began. "Did you deliver the mail yet, bike messenger?!....Show me your trackstand!!....We've gotta ringer here!!!"

Anyway, after having ridden 40 miles Saturday, I still figured I'd give it a go. My first try, I put out 1102 watts of power (for a power/weight ratio of 6.89 watts/lb). For comparison, a horsepower is 746 watts (with a power/weight ratio for .62 watts/lb (assuming a 1200 lb "light riding" horse [wikipedia])).

My 1102 watts set the hourly record in terms of absolute power output (independent of body size), and also the daily record for power/weight ratio (some other guy had put out 1210 watts earlier, but he must have been a bigger guy, as his ratio was only 4.4 watts/lb).

However, the people putting on the contest had apparently determined that the power/weight calculation was too difficult early in the day, and so were no longer calculating this ratio.... so I didn't get the $200 of beef (those bastards). But I did get a quick-dry wicking T-shirt that says "BEEF. It's what's for dinner" on it. And it did make me feel like a monster.

Rockin.

This weekend...

...I rode 40 miles on a fixed gear
...I lost feeling in my junk (see above for reason)
...I resolved to get a new saddle (see above for reason)
...I was loaned a new saddle for free ninety nine
...I fished
...I camped
...I ran some trails
...I jumped from rock to rock across creeks
...I got sunburned
...I got attacked by fire ants
...I didn't get a mountain bike, but have now fully resolved to. SS of some sort for the fall is the goal.

For some reason, I'm tired.