A HAPPY BIRTHDAY INDEED.......................

Saturday was Meg's 16 birthday and she spent it doing laps at 24/9. Murphykate's ma even baked her a chocolate birthday cake. Only problem for the girls was they were "base camped" with the soon-to-be Clydesdale champions...TEAM SMUT PEDDLER (as Marko dubbed us) and that cake lasted about as long as a fart in a tornado.....Thanks Gretchen.


The girls raced really well and more importantly they had a blast. My team had a good race too, but I was just so pumped up to see the juniors having such a great time. Huge props to Sammy, Murphykate, Sarah, Meg, Nate, Mitch, Miles, Theo, and how about Travis Brunner??...a 24hr solo and the kid is what??14 yrs old. What a monster..
Every kid I knew out there looked like they were having the time of their life.


I got this thing thrown to me at the start of the awards....Tried it on....it really wasn't my color, and I thought it made my ass look big, and I had no top or shoes to go with it, so I gave it away immediately.

YOU'VE GOT MAIL.........................

WHAT GOES AROUND...................


I think Jamie has the same haircut as when she was 7. It looks even nicer with a full compliment of teeth.

These gals took 2nd place in the 6 hr duo at the WEMS race yesterday at Crystal Ridge and came pretty close to winning.......if you consider 2 minutes in a 60 mile race close.
Should be good practice for the upcoming WORS race.

NAPOLEAN BLOWN-APART...............

My bike is broken...I had a bad race Sunday......My hot rod has a radiator leak........

I think it's a good time to take it easy for a bit. Not quite as easy as him, him, or him, but easy nevertheless. It's safe to say I will be plenty rested for this. See if it helps.

HEATSTROKE 78........

Meg and I headed to Burlington with Cooooooop and his much better half to do the the Heatstroke 100. Another first for the Wolf's, but Coop and Anne were seasoned veterans. A large group headed out with a variety of mileage plans which included 43, 74, and 100 mile routes. We bargined for 74 miles, but somehow missed a cut-off and found ourselves in a group with Torgler, Rockstar, Josh Barrett, and Kyle who were doing the 100. The look on Meg's face was hillarious when Donny K. told her she was on the 100 mile route. Fortunately, Danny and Buran missed the same turn and the 4 of us were able to get back on the 74 course with only a few extra miles.

Thanks-a-million from Meg to Danny for not only riding with, but also coaching and giving pointers the entire ride. She hung in really well for close to 60 miles and spent the last hour or so in and out of the hurt locker. Almost 79 miles was probably a bit much for her given the temps, but certainly not child abuse like her grandmother seems to suggest. It was her longest ride to date by 15 miles or so.

Danny has been one of many (you all know who you are and your help is greatly appreciated) over the last couple years who have taken Meg "under their wing" so-to-speak and worked with her on the fundementals of cycling as well as bike racing. Your help has played a big part in her development over the last 3 years.

CRAPPY BIKE RIDE PHOTOS........................................

Here, here, and maybe here too ( I know he was snapping pics.)

For the record, I had nooo problem hanging with the 5 elite racers in attendance. I am seriously considering an upgrade.

SLACKER AT THE FAMILY REUNION.....................RHINELANDER

Livin' large on Sunday when she should have been giving her and her a hand with a few Minnesota girls in Eau Claire.



Jack was working on his game though.....




The bulk of the organizing and cooking for the reunion was done by my cousin Amy and her boyfriend Terry. They are always super hosts and they are part of the local group of MTB'ers that are putting on the Smokin' Spoke race. They are both pretty good riders, but have not tried racing as of yet even though our family as well as the local Rhinelander WORS racers have been putting on the pressure. Terry is just a big old clyde(what's not to like?) and Amy could be racing at the sport level after a short time. So....If you see them volunteering at the Rhinelander race, tell them to "get in the game"and assure them it's not as painful as you are making it look.




Cousin Tyler's band provided some rock and roll.



It was a good weekend.

MORE PHILLIPS................CLICK ON EM'








Top 5 in one shot....now that's efficiency.

CBR TRAINING................................

Sunday, after putting the "Tool Shed" in the "Hurt Locker" on a MTB ride, Andrea put in a little training for the July 4th crappy bike ride. Check out the newest little gem I snagged from the Tosa dump.
Yep...That's a Huffy Escape...3 speed. It's in great shape. Just a little soap and water, lube the chain, fill the tires..and bingo.

REAR-ENDED.....................

So I hit the drive through at Starbucks this morning for a large dark coffee. While in line, I accidentally rear-end the guy in the car ahead of me....SHIT.
The guy gets out of his car and he's a frickin' dwarf.
He walks to the back of the car shaking his head and looking at his rear bumper......"Ya' know, I'm not happy".....
I said..."Well...which one are you then???"

DON'T MESS WITH BUBBA.........................

CIRCA 1993.........................................

Meg and I kinda had a trailer trash thing goin' back then. I mean the wife-beater, the half-a-mullet, and that getup on Meg.... My gosh....I'd like to tell you we were headed to a costume party, but I don't remember that being the case.

I'm sooo embarrassed I just had to post it.

PHATHER'S DAY AT FILLIPS...........................

Having kids that love the same sport as you do makes it easy to get a free pass to go racing even on Fathers Day. Now, we support our creepy little tax write-off's in all their activities (some of those earlier squeeky violin concerts of Meg's were particularly painfull), but I admit I have lucked out with the cycling thing. No complaints.

Meg, on the other hand, was doing a little complaining..... This was our maiden voyage at Phillips and the first 10 minutes of the pre-ride had her barking about the lack of technical singletrack. But 2 times around the lap portion of the course put a smile on her face and confidence in her pocket. On the way back in she says"I don't want to jinx myself, but I think I can do pretty good tomorrow"

And good she did taking the overall win of 20 or so women including some of her best competition.

From whinning to winning....She's hillarious.

Jamie made the move to elite to race with the "bigshots". She was pretty nervous and had realistic expectations. At times she looked very good, and there were times later in the race when she looked pretty smoked. I think she did pretty well and she should improve when she gets used to the extra lap and overall speed of the race.

Then I came home Sunday to Andrea presenting me with this "Monster Wok on Steroids". This thing is SUUUUWEEEET!!!

Now,I just need to make the time to have a few get-togethers.

It was indeed, a happy Fathers Day.

PHILLIPS....................

Here's a few photos while you're waiting for me to post something clever and witty.

HMMMMMM...................WHAT TO DO..........

Let's see... I could stand in front of this for 2 hours tonight or head over to the beatdown.

PURE NEGLECT................................

At first glance you may say, "That's the Rusty Tool Shed and The People's Toyota"...Naaah...just a picture I got off the web to symbolize how I've been neglecting this blog.

Again....I'm sorry.

I, however, have not been neglecting the section of the Menomonee River known as The Bubba trails (They're not mine, but my dogs have marked them as their own). I've opened them up and done a few short re-routes bypassing low land junk that refuses to dry up to higher ground. I have more improvements in mind but I encourage everyone to ride them...even offer some improvment opinions so I can publicly ridicule them. O.K. maybe just privately.

I've been battling some kind of upper respiratory crap for about the last 3 weeks which I am blaming all my poor riding/racing on. I'm over it now and hope to have a good race in Phillips on Sunday.

For some reason, we have never raced at Phillips in 5 years doing WORS. Conflicting schedules and the long drive may have had something to do with it , but we're giving it a go this year.

CONGRATULATIONS ANDREA..........


Confirmation Sunday for Andrea. A big day for a girl of 13. I felt very proud....and very old.


This weekend also had Julie Wolf logging her longest bike ride to date. 26miles.......WOOO-HOOOOOOO.....

CHILLIN' MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND............................




Spent Sunday at Frank's beach house in Oostburg. Look familiar Sheboyganeer's?? Yes..It's on the route of your winter beach ride. I am going to join you guys next winter for one for sure. Maybe drag Russell and Coop with me. I understand breakfast is an added bonus on this ride so I probably won't need to twist any arms.

Anyway, Frank is a high-falootin' corporate attorney for a multi-national company based in St Louis. He works down there but gets to spend about 3 days a week at his beach house here. Having access to a corporate jet makes this type of living possible. When I grow up, I want to be Frank. Frankly, Frank does not act very grown up though. This fire on the beach wound up getting a bit out of hand due to his pyro-tendancies. He has also perfected the art of drinking scotch while jet-skiing.
But you know Bubba had everything under control.

SATURDAY........WEMS..........

Some pics from the first WEMS race.
Props to Brittany and crew for a very well done event and good times. Congrats to Meg, Ron and the other winners.
There was poison ivy everywhere. I glad I kept him at home. He usually waits until July or August before giving me a good case of it.

SO MUCH FOR MY DIET......................

What's with all the frickin' gnats?? I think I've eaten 6 pounds of 'em in the last week.

I had a pretty good race at Lake Geneva Sunday. I killed the singletrack, and the climbs killed me. So we were even.

I did the Wednesday night races at Crystal Ridge. I had a pretty good start, but before I had the chance to blow up I took a wrong turn and did about 3 minutes of extra credit on my first lap. It was a good ride all-in-all.

With all the dumping going on over there, some new re-routes have been done to compensate. It is a work in progress, but the new stuff all seems pretty nifty.

Pressed for time, and rain threatening, I decided to blow off the beatdown last night. I noticed this guy had a ride posted for the Tosa trails billed as a "moderate pace-tempo" ride. Bender was there as well as a few second level fast guys. Let's just say that their easy ride is my Super-Bowl......and I lost. After about 1:45 of that nonsense I had the equivelent of 3 sport races in 5 days. I feel pretty good. My new "nice bike from Gunnar" is a champ........I am not.

I'm hoping to do a 3 hour solo at the WEMS race Saturday. I think I need to get used to riding for 3 hours because that's about how long I'll be out there if I decide to move up to Comp.

Congrats to COOOOOOOOOOOP. My sympathies to Anne.

CALL 'EM BIGSHOTS.............................................

BUT NONE OF 'EM ARE REALLY THAT BIG.