The Tsunami Rides: Riding 33 miles on the Le Tour de Bayou with a 9 and 12 year old.

The Irish Tsunami rides!

I have become the king of the forced family outing (FFO).  On September 20th we participated in an event in Alexandria, Louisiana to support a historical site called the Kent Plantation House.  As usual ride strategy/preparation included:1. Ride as much as we can:  This was almost nil except for the fact that the kids to endless laps through the neighborhood.  Me not so much though we would only be going 30ish miles at about 10 mph.  I am good.

2. Get a good set of tires: Yeah, I got new tires for the Hotter N' Hell Hundred, but somehow they ended up on the Chick's bike.  For me it is the same set of Gatorskins I have been using for years; I bought these for the 40th running of RAGBRAI.  They have have at least 1500 miles on them and they are probably going to need to replaced soon.

3. Drink a bunch of water: I did a lousy job of hydrating for the several days before the ride.  While it is hard to stay hydrated in Louisiana, I drink more water here than say.....Iowa.

4. Shove my jersey pockets as full of calories as possible:  Check.  Though I love Pearson's Salted Nut Rolls they are not an easy to find Item in Central Louisiana.  The next best thing are the cherry pie Lara Bars.  The kids love them too.   

The difference was that it wasn't just me, I had a 9 year old and a 12 year old with me.   This is the longest distance I have ridden with them and there are many lessons learned.  But as for the Le Tour de Bayou it was a perfect for this experiment since there were no hills and they had SAG support at every 10 miles.

On a different note no FFO would be complete without an adventure.  In this case my "Tough and unforgiving" wife who is also incredibly cheap got us a hotel room for $47.  The Army has sent me to some rough places.  This was rough.  We smelled like cheap hotel and cigarette smoke for the entire day.  Everything we brought in the room smelled horrible which meant that my Suburban smelled horrible.  It smelled so bad I couldn't sleep as the pillow odor kept me awake.  FFO, heck yeah.

The SAG stops were well spaced.  The last one was at a nice road side rest stop that had a great hospitality center and rocking chairs.  The Boy Scouts were running it and passing out Coca Cola.  I told Diga to keep drinking as much as he wanted.  This confused him because I don't let him drink it ever.  The Chick doesn't drink soda so she had an apple.  She didn't approve of photo ops.

One of the things I enjoy the most as we move is seeing new things.  At one point we found ourselves riding through beautiful cotton fields.  It was fun seeing cotton balls drifting across the road.

  

Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to live in one place for my whole life.  Then I get to experience new places with my family and I know that I would long for that too.   

A very tired Chick after 33 miles.  I didn't get a picture of Diga because there was a free bouncy house with slide.  He dropped the bike and sprinted to run and jump.  The boy is a machine!

At the end of the ride the Chick realized that chocolate milk is amazing post ride.  We also got a Louisiana special, Spicy Cajun Crawtators.  That is right crawfish flavored chips.  Delicious.

In the future I am going to capture some thoughts on longer rides with kids.

Thanksgiving Success: Beef Jerky, Rootbeer, and trophies

While most people sit down to watch football on Thanksgiving, Digga and I took a quick trip down to Kansas City to participate in a friendly cyclocross race.  It started out rough, which I will get to in a moment, but on the way home I bought Digga a piece of beef jerky and a root beer (with sugar).

He said to me "Dad, this is the greatest Thanksgiving ever."  I asked him to explain and he said "I won a trophy, I got beef jerky and a root beer, and I got to spend time with you."  How can you argue with that?

So here is how it went down, Digga and I go to a tuesday night cyclocross practice in Leavenworth, KS.  One of the guys asked if we were doing this event.  I hadn't heard of it so I looked it up and it took some digging since it was an unsanctioned event.  As it turns out, there is a nice park along the Kansas River that is home to a cyclocross training course.

It was chilly, high teens/low twenties depending on the breeze but not a deal killer at all.  I told Digga that I wanted him to leave his pajama bottoms on under his wind pants so that he would have a little extra layering.  He informed me that this would not be acceptable.  Appearently no self respecting dude wears pjs under his pants.  I brought them just in case and off we went.

Finding the location was not hard but it was deceiving and I always worry about getting lost in the middle of nowhere along a river (I watched the deliverance at a very young age and it has pretty much scarred me for life).  Funny thing is that as I left I noticed he had spray painted arrows at the intersections....whatever.

Upon arrival, Digga jumped on his bike and began riding through fields while I got my stuff ready.  I grabbed my stuff out of the back of the Suburban and shut the tailgate at which point I heard a familiar "beep-beep."  I looked around and noticed that I had the only Chevy in the lot and instantly grabbed each door handle with desperation.  My car, which is designed to not lock with the keys in it turned on me.  The lady in the car next to me offered some wire hangers but cars these days don't really do that well, everything is rounded so you can't get a wire around anything.  Of course someone had to ask "you have on-star right?"  Come on man.....I am too cheap for that crap.

So I borrowed a phone and called my wife.  In the mean time I had what was needed to race.  The lady that let me use her phone warned against it...it was cold and what would I do after I got hot and sweaty and stopped in the cold.

My response was simple and from the heart.  I said "Ma'am, I am an idiot.  Because of this, I have to be stronger than the rest, it is an evolutionary trait."  She laughed, though I don't think she took it seriously.  I am dead serious.

I went to put on my biking shoes and bam, they were in the car.  So I angrily walked over to the course with Digga.  In the end it worked out because some of the obstacles and run ups would have made it impossible for the boy.  So I ran around to cheer and support.  Here is a run down in photos.

Digga at the Start, he showed no signs of intimidation around all of the adults.

                 I think it is fun to see his little bike and body crank away amongst the crowd.

I was probably shouting for him to change gears.  This is something I cannot get across to my kids.

I don't care who you are, this is a painful event.  He makes it look effortless even with small wheels and scrawny legs!

To say the run ups were a challenge was an understatement.  I carried his bike and he is jumping back on!

He makes it look easy!

He got second in the youth category.  There was one other kid in his early teens who got first.  Vance was stoked (I didn't tell him he was the only other kid).  Besides, I doubt there were many kids his age getting up at 0630 to go race cyclocross in the freezing cold.

By that time my darling wife showed up with the keys.  I was glad she didn't get lost, that may have made her grouchy.  At that point I was able to grab my shoes and hustle down for the relay.  Digga and I were going to rock it!  As you look at these photos I ask that you don't judge, I look nowhere as suave and debonaire as Digga.  In fact I look pretty pathetic.

About half way through, I had snot pouring out of my nose.  Stay Classy KC!

These photos don't do the run ups justice.  

I am terrible at mounting the bike.

As memory serves, that log was about twice that size.  I thought the camera was supposed to add to the size.  Again, no grace on my part.

Coming in for the handoff.

Our mouths are gaping open, his is joy while mine is pain.  Keep in mind, this was my first lap and he had already finished the first race.

I quickly ran over to meet Digga at the first obstacle, these drops were steep and loose so I helped him a little.  

At the end of the day we walked a way with the P award.  As in we came, we raced, and we lost....I have never been so happy to receive a participation award!  Digga summed it all up, Thanksgiving was a success; trophies, beef jerky, root beer (with sugar), and spending time together!  It doesn't get better than that.