August 31, 2004

Bargh

To make a long story short, I bought new wheels for a good price, but got fucked over by bikenashbar on shipping. So far the wheels look pretty sweet. I say "look" because I haven't tested them out yet, but I will later today when I go on my second IBRC group ride. This ride is a fast one so hopefully I can stay with the pack. Anywho, here's a picture of the back wheel incase anyone is interested.

whl_rd_pro_ds_rear.jpg

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August 25, 2004

the more successful attempt

So from Franfort to Champaign is 105miles. Yea I rode my bike from "home" to school last saturday. I didn't really start at home, but I didn't want to deal with the metropolitan area so I had Dave drop me off just south of Tinley Park in Frankfort, IL. I cruised on down Rt. 45 the whole way. It runs parallel to I-57 most of the way, but unlike 57, it goes through Kankakee. The weather was nice, only a slight headwind this time :). I would have made the whole trip in about 7 hours, but I got a flat tire after 100miles. SInce I'd come that far already, I really didn't want to have to call for a ride. I wanted to finish under my own power so I rode, very slowly, on the flat the rest of the way. It really messed up my back tire and rim, but it gave me a good excuse to order some new parts (and I did!). The ride really wasn't that difficult except for the pain in my knees which was my fault for not adjusting my seat properly. Along the way, a homeless guy on a bike came up to me and asked me for some money. He said he'd ridden a little farther than I had today and thought maybe I could help him out. I kinda felt like making a bet with him, but it wasn't worth it so I gave him my spare change. Oh, if you spend seven hours out in the sun with no shade whatsoever, expect to get a crazyass farmers tan.

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August 17, 2004

on the inside

this is an excerpt taken from a link kordik posted in the political forum on boardix
It's an interesting look into the taliban mindset. . .

"Concerning the operations of the blessed Tuesday [9/11] … they are legally legitimate, because they are committed against a country at war with us, and the people in that country are combatants. Someone might say that it is the innocent, the elderly, the women, and the children who are victims, so how can these operations be legitimate according to sharia? And we say that the sanctity of women, children, and the elderly is not absolute. There are special cases … Muslims may respond in kind if infidels have targeted women and children and elderly Muslims, [or if] they are being invaded, [or if] the non-combatants are helping with the fight, whether in action, word, or any other type of assistance, [or if they] need to attack with heavy weapons, which do not differentiate between combatants and non-combatants …Now that we know that the operations were permissible from the Islamic point of view, we must answer or respond to those who prohibit the operations from the point of view of benefits or harms …

There are benefits … The operations have brought about the largest economic crisis that America has ever known. Material losses amount to one trillion dollars. America has lost about two thousand economic brains as a result of the operations. The stock exchange dropped drastically, and American consumer spending deteriorated. The dollar has dropped, the airlines have been crippled, the American globalization system, which was going to spoil the world, is gone …

Because of Saddam and the Baath Party, America punished a whole population. Thus its bombs and its embargo killed millions of Iraqi Muslims. And because of Osama bin Laden, America surrounded Afghans and bombed them, causing the death of tens of thousands of Muslims … God said to assault whoever assaults you, in a like manner … In killing Americans who are ordinarily off limits, Muslims should not exceed four million non-combatants, or render more than ten million of them homeless. We should avoid this, to make sure the penalty [that we are inflicting] is no more than reciprocal. God knows what is best."

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long time

Ok so I've been slacking off with the blog, shoot me. Not too much has happened, but there have been a couple of rides and some audio stuff to report. I rode with my dad and older brother down the old batavia-geneva route. Round trip it was about 50miles. Surprisingly my dad held up rather well, or at least after I switched bikes with him. He had a 20lbs case of tools attached to the back of his bike. I weighed his bike when we got back home and it was well over 50lbs. Mine was around 29lbs.
I pedaled in Fermilab and down rt. 25 this sunday. The ride was 30.9 miles and I averaged 16.5mph. Hopefully this saturday I'll make the chicago-champaign ride!

In the audio realm, I went to the q101 block party on friday, it KICKED ASS! Sponge was, eh. Local H was ok; I've seen them before. But PUSA was freakin awesome. I did some crowd surfing (for the first time) and was repeatedly dropped :) We (phil, corey, jared, dave, kman and myself) were right next to the pit, at the very edge. Who woulda thought there would be a pit at a PUSA concert? PUSA played 12 songs or so, most of which were from their first album. There was a guy from the army trying to recruit people to enlist by bribing them with a guitar signed by the Presidents, kinda funny I guess. "Chris Farley," the only man who lives in Chicago, gave corey a free ticket to the show. Overall, available beer, plenty of second hand funny smoke, and lots of attractive women, who like PUSA, makes for a kickass concert.

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August 2, 2004

ok so it's criterion

I always do that. Take a word and modify it slightly. I really don't mean to obfusticate my words (kinda an old joke in there that a few people may know about). Anyway, I talked to Robb (the bike guy at work) and he said "oh so you wanna go wreck your bike." Turns out there are usually a lot of crashes during the race. I'm still thinking about it though. . .

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August 1, 2004

the century at last

I went for a century again today and this time I was better prepared (hydrated). I was going to take my road bike out to elburn, but I couldn't find my Illinois maps so I just hit up the IPP with my MTB. I went to Aurora, then stopped at fermi lab and put in 20miles, then I went up to Elgin and then all the way back to Elmhurst and finally back home. Amazingly it wasn't until 90miles that I started to run out of gas, but by that point I had to go all the way.

Today's stats:

Total Distance: 100.4miles
Start: 6:50am
End: 2:30pm
avg speed (including food, stops and traffic): 13mph
fluids consumed: 60oz gatorade(sp?), 40oz water
food consumed: 4 granola bars

I saw a huge banner for "The Winfield Criterium" at the corner of county farm and geneva rd. I may look into entering just to get some experience.

I'm not going to post anything about the roadtrip that kordik, corey and I took cuz there's just too much stuff to remember and I doubt anyone is that interested anywho, but I may post some pictures. That's all for now.

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