Wednesday, October 31, 2007

I have a new girlfriend.


She's a red head, she's fast and has nice wheels. When I ask her to go, her only response is "how fast and how far." I think I love her! Sorry I haven't posted in a while, I've been getting to know her better...
B-Horn


Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Cross rocks "part trois"

Our local Samurai is a rubber burnin' lactic acid buildin' blue collar workin' never say die crosser...Sunday's race he bridged, then pulled and attacked...multiple times...Gardie and I thought it was the nads...

Anyway he writes some really detailed stuff about cross within his most recent post found here-http://slc-samurai.blogspot.com/2007/10/thing-about-cross-aka-cx-part-ii.htmlhttp://slc-samurai.blogspot.com/2007/10/thing-about-cross-aka-cx-part-ii.html and if thats not enough go back a bit to his 24 Hours of Moab commentary, the Nose Dive, WTH!

Enjoy, and of course as hardcore cross-dude Team Rico would say,"just go cross!"

B-Horn

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Cross rocks "part deux"

We have a new rider in town Mother Theresa from Mass-a-choo-setts. I think she shared some really impressive insights to why different people do cross and why its cool. So check out her blog at http://www.newbieontheblock.blogspot.com or in the Nest its located under Mass Appeal.

I think MT brings some good stuff to the table so lets eat! This is how the Hornet sees cross from an outsiders viewpoint.

The young juniors- these guys are fun. Bottom line they get separated, go hard and generally like the cool attention they get over the speakers. Every lap each one will look over, some will send a one handed point and others provide the "look-no-hands-ma" classic pose. It get's better after the race with the raffle, that's where the bike skills really come in handy. But, the best part is to interview the pups on mic regarding the tough spots on the course, it's worth it to make a few minutes early to the venue, just to hear this crack analysis.

The Men's C's and Women's B's- you have every kind of rider here. Fast ones in great shape, brand new to the technicalities of cross, and the vice versa crowd, as well as every kind of rider inbetween. This makes these races pretty interesting because placings are up in the air for a lot of postions, especially being that there are lots of groups. Sometimes you will see racers good too hard at first and pop, or more often than not, bridge groups each lap from almost nowhere. If you are in the Mens C's Please make sure you check in early, and if you are a new registrant, please, please come over to the announcing booth so we can match your name with your number. Last week the powerful Men's C's Not Listed Squad dominated, kicked tail, and garnered one-half of the top spots! We really want to yell your name loudly over the airways, so help us out.

Junior's 15-18- wow this is like watching whippets chase tennis balls in Central Park. No fear, fast and are willing to go down in corners at anytime, but usually don't. The trend this year seems to be Mitch Peterson look and ride alikes.

Masters 35+ B's- once again a different type of race. This race will sometimes have a cluster of 3-5 riders in the very front for the majority of the race only to break off at the end, or one by ones at the front end with small groups chasing. Often times with mechanicals, crashes and lead or postition changes, because a good number of racers have a chance... and are burying it. We really try to give insight to lead changes here.

Singlespeed- what the what? Like cyclocross isn't hard enough, lets give them one, uno freekin' gear. Hunh? Whatever. Problem is most of these guys are like thoroughbreds running the Preakness. Warp speeders who generally go pretty solo. So really its a TT in the cold and mud... with one gear! What next boys and girls singlespeed unicycles...backwards...in the dark!

Masters 35+A's- ditto on the 35+ B's, but a bit faster with a few more team tactics. These are savvy experienced cross riders who are going to play a chess game out on the course... the only problem is, most of the time they are redlining while they are trying to think. These guys don't go down much, but when they do... its hard.

Mens and womens A's- Simply three groups- fast, seriously fast and sick fast with superhuman bike skills. Generally, one gets the hole shot and blows up the field the rest chase sometimes in small groups. This results in a few changes from the start, especially near the end... but other times the top 5 can be separated by 5 to 30 seconds or more from lap one throughout.

More fun! Yeah, be Stevechops Lewis, the e-Flynn, Mike Pratini or the rest who decide to do more than one race, usually back to back. It's hard to pull off two top tens, but it is done.

The bottom line is cross is a riot, a real cool thing to bring the fam and friends to. Some racers will kill themselves to win, others will do so just to see what they can do, yet some work hard and smile more, 'cause they're just having a ball. While everyone is cheering, slamming cow bells or just delerious post-race, but most of the time with a grin (just watch Miss Julie, Hardwood or Team Rico) race and you'll know what I mean. Stevechops will even give you high fives mid race.

Lastly, again...please read Mother T's Oct 21st and 22nd blog entries, for the reasons why she digs the local cross-ings... I could have written my thoughts, but why when she articulates it so well.

Peace out,

B-Horn

Monday, October 22, 2007

Cyclo- Cross is mucho funno!

Announced Cross for the second time yesterday, the first was with the Marek... and yesterday with G-Love. Both days were a gas.

Working with Marek is like being on an ESPN7 cyclocross set. He has all of the sayings of an A-list broadcaster. Aka "cool as the other side of the pillow" sort of stuff, and he runs around like Sandy Perrins on crack... let alone the creative names he comes up with for certain parts of the course. I needed his help, my first race at RMR was the men's C's, which if I self graded my performance on a scale of 1-10, I would venture to guess that I was pretty close to a minus 14. But, after that it came together a bit better and was a BLAST!

G-Love (aka Luscious Jackson) is simply legendary at the task. Before, during and after races a ton of people come by to say hi and check in with the man. Yesterday, was a double whammy because we are both from the Boston area and big Sox fans (how else do you think I got the gig) so we, (ok, I) talked Sox trash throughout the race. I really look forward toward working with Gardie again, he made it really enjoyable.

Saw T-Mac at the UCA awards fest, and he announced on Saturday, so man, we have the Big Dawg of the Tour de Utah rolling out the commentary, sweet. So I guess what I'm sayin' is I'm a pretty lucky guy....go figure, those three are like Ramirez, Ortiz and Lowell, sorry I digress...11-2...sorry, three straight...whoops!

Matt Ohran, Jon Gallagher and the crew really do a great job with the setting up the courses, general organization, officiating and scoring, basically the whole enchilada. And lastly, all the sponsors donating a lot of time, support and cool stuff. If you have some spawn that want to play cross, bring 'em out, Canyon Bicycles of Draper will set em up on a loaner cross bike to see if Cross is for them, if it's not they don't supply violins, sorry.

Note from the Nest- Bob Walker went down at the barrier section yesterday, where he broke his leg... Dr. Kris was right there attending to him... and yeah he rode his bike to the car! Best wishes Bobchops for a speedy recovery, everyone will miss you man!

I am really impressed with the whole show, thanks for letting me be part of it. My goal now is to screw up less and less each race, I know- big aspirations. Anyway, up next, comments about Cross at the RMR on 10/13 and Wheeler on 10/21...

Out,

B-Horn

Tuesday, October 2, 2007

Put the telemarketers out to pasture!

Again some great info from Sean "the cell-mate" Hoover...

REMINDER...12 days from today, all cell phone numbers are being released to telemarketing companies and you will start to receive sales calls........YOU WILL BE CHARGED FOR THESE CALLS. To prevent this, call the following number from your cell phone: 888-382-1222 . (You must call on the phone that you want registered- this will not work from another number) It is the National DO NOT CALL list. It will only take a minute of your time.. It blocks your number for five (5) years.

Help others by passing this on to friends and the family members you actually like (sorry I added that part) It only takes about 20 seconds, (or the time it takes for Hardwood to down a Kiev-again I took liberty)

Thanks Sean, and if you let 10 friends know about this you will have good Karma for the rest of the year!

B-Horn