No, No, No, NO!

2011, you were a good season.  2012, I expect you to be even better.  To do this, I have to make a few sacrifices.  For example, I'm not training or racing again until after finals week.  Of course this is when my friends all say things like "Hey, I'm going to go on this sweet 80 mile endurance ride tomorrow.  Want to join?" Or "We're going to go do this mountain bike trail that you really want to do!"  Or my favorite, "there's a cross race tomorrow at the Velopark that's going to be all muddy and they'll give you free beer and waffles!"  I'm finding the phrase "Thanks, but I'm not allowed to have fun right now" to be very useful.

Speaking of waffles and things I'm not supposed to do, I am dieting right now.  Some people would believe that I lose weight while I'm riding my bike on a regular basis, but they'd be wrong.  When I ride, I feel really good about myself and the calories that I've burned.  I also realize that if I want to ride again tomorrow and the day after that, I need to fuel myself.  I really enjoy fueling myself.  Many strips of bacon are consumed and many trips to Betos are taken.  I tend to overdo it and gain a few pounds over the course of the season.  From now until about mid-February is the time that I drop that weight and as much as I can so that I can eat my brains out for the eight months after that.  Without further ado, my Ingenious Weight Loss Miracle Plan (tm):

1. Find a really awesome food that you really like to eat.  For me, there are a lot.  Most of them are cheese.
2. Weigh yourself when you wake up in the morning.  I like to eat breakfast, rapidly lose the weight gained from that (I'm talking about pooping here), then weigh myself.  That's just how I do things.
3. Do your every day thing.  Way to do that stuff that you do!
4. Weigh yourself when you go to bed.
5. If you weigh less than you did this morning, way to go!  Keep on living your life!
6. If you weigh more, don't eat any more of that food that you really like.

For me, most of the foods that I really like fall squarely in the "don't eat" category of the Paleo Diet.  For those of you that don't know, the Paleo Diet consists only of foods that our cavemen ancestors could find and eat.  This is mostly meat, fruit, vegetables, and nuts.  While these foods are awesome, I really like cheese.  And bread.  And pasta.  And Nutella.

Another recent development in my life is that I rented my car out to a friend.  My reasoning for this is that I don't really need a car, but I do enjoy having money.  I thought that I'd share some of my observations on being carless:

• My friends are cool.  They let me sit in their cars and drive to bike races.
• There are times that cars (or at least a bike trailer) are needed.  I'm talking to you Propane Tank.
• WinCo by bike is awesome.  First of all, you can park right next to the front door.  Second, you start planning your purchases less by price and more by what will fit in your backpack.  Third and best, I can totally out-green the ladies that bring their own grocery bags.  I always knock the self-satisfaction right out of them when I set my backpack with my helmet clipped to it opposite of them in the bagging area.
• I spend less money.  Obviously on the car related stuff, but there's more since it takes more effort to get to places that take money in exchange for stuff.  WinCo is right on my way home from work, so it's pretty easy, but making a trip to Target or Wal-Mart requires some time and planning.
• Drive-Thrus that won't serve bikes are really annoying.  MY MONEY WORKS JUST AS WELL AS THE FATTY IN THE CAR!

The last thing on my list of things is that I was temporarily without a computer.  I was doing my usual activities of playing FreeCell on my couch when I decided that it was time to go to the bathroom.  I stood up and began walking towards the bathroom when I felt the power cord across my foot.  The laptop got pulled onto the floor.  I tried turning it back on and it told me that it could not find the operating system.  My guys is that it went out the Window (get it?).  Whatever it was, it was not awesome.  Being computerless is not a good way to live.  Some things cannot be easily done with a smartphone.  Have you ever tried creating complex spreadsheets on a phone?  It's possible but terrible.  So I called Lenovo and asked for assistance.  The guy told me to punch some numbers into the Googles and download the first result onto a USB drive.  So I did that, then plugged that into my computer.  Then magic happened.  My computer came to life just like I had left it, including my 1965 game FreeCell winning streak.

See!

Give to BSU Cycling or I'll be Smarter than Usual

Over the past 3 weekends, I've become a bit of a crowd favorite in the local cyclocross scene.  In the first weekend of the Waffle Cross Series, it rained a lot.  This made for a muddy Sunday race, which made me really bad at staying upright.  After about a half a lap, I realized that people were just going to go faster than me.  I decided to work on my skills and try to ride everything as quickly as I could until I fell over.  There was an off camber corner right behind the announcer's table and registration tent that I fell over nearly every lap (nailed it the last time though).  After entertaining all the nearby spectators for the entire race, the promoters named the corner after me.  Here's the end result:

The next weekend was much sunnier, but that still didn't stop me from entertaining.  Here's my recipe for ridiculousness:

• Gold Shorts

• High Speed Barricades

End Result:

You're welcome.

I'm still waiting for some good photos (I'll post them as they come in) from this weekend but since it was Halloween, I stepped the costume up a notch.

You get the idea

Also, I fell in the creek crossing.

The whole reason I'm telling these stories is this: I'm tired of doing it for free.  So here's the deal:

If you (the general public) donates $500 or more to BSU Cycling in the month of November, I'll do Kringle Kross on December 18th (last year's high was 41 degrees) in nothing but the gold shorts.  Since I am Brian Parker, there's a pretty good chance of me doing something stupid.  Not a fan of the gold shorts?  The highest bidder picks the costume!  Speedo?  Sure!  Borat man-thong?  Of course!  Bikini?  Definitely!  Gorilla suit?  You bet!  My only requirement is that it doesn't lead to me being thrown in jail.  Beyond that, get creative and support Boise State Cycling!

I'm trying to simplify this process, but Club Sports doesn't really like it when I modernize systems.  In the meantime, do the following to donate:

• Make check payable to "BSU Foundation"
• Enclose check with a note indicating that the check is a gift to Boise State Cycling Club
• Mail the note to the following address:

Boise State University Foundation

1910 University Drive

Boise, Idaho 83725-1030

• It is important to use the 9-digit zip code
• Foundation will automatically mail back a receipt indicating that the contribution is tax-deductible
• Send me an email to brianparker@u.boisestate.edu with some sort of proof of the amount you donated and your costume idea.  I'll let you know if you've been outbid and tell you to step your game up!  The highest total donor (not individual donation) will be the winner, so you can bid your way to the top.

Help us race bikes and help me make a fool of myself!

I'm Becoming a Jedi

I went to Moscow this weekend.  I did the following:

• Raced cyclocross bikes
• Ate gyros
• Watched Star Wars
• Raced cyclocross bikes again

The combination of these items has led me to one conclusion: I need to step up my training if I'm going to join the ranks of the Jedi Knights.  Eating gyros really has nothing to do with Star Wars, but they were pretty awesome.  The rest of the trip has me wanting to get my midi-chlorian count checked.  Here's how it went down:

The first race was out at the Fountain's Ranch.  By ranch, I mean there's a dude that lives in a shed in the middle of a cross course/gravel airstrip.  By dude, I mean a one-geared freak of nature.  The Fountain Brothers both ride SS cross bikes, and ride them significantly faster than everybody else.  They also occasionally show up at road races and are still faster than everybody, on a single speed cross bike.  Consider them Han Solo and Chewbacca (I have no idea which brother would be Chewy and which one Han in this analogy).  The Millenium Falcon may not look like much without a derailleur, but they were definitely doing the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs.  This course was almost all dirt and rode like a short track mountain bike course.  It had a nice little pump track section, a bunch of flowy lines, some stairs, and a bunch of general coolness.  We started the race, and I figured out pretty quickly that most of the people there were faster than me on this course.  The Force was not with me.  However, my generally good shape made me very annoying to the people that got stuck behind me.  I would be slow and sketchy through the technical parts, then go flying down the sections where they could actually pass me.  For a viewing of how the course should actually be done, check out my teammate Nick Bell (2nd Place) working on his Jedi Jump.  Also flashing some Jedi Jumping skills was the collegiate winner, Brian Morra, in UI's school paper:

In conclusion, I got lapped by the crew of the Millennium Falcon and didn't do anything remotely Star Wars-y in the process.  On the plus side, an excellent picture of my junk emerged out of the race:

In the photographer's defense, my skinsuit points straight at them.

After the race, I got some Mikey's Gyros in my belly, then went and watched The Phantom Menace at Morra's.  I'm pretty sure I could podrace after watching it.  I may have picked up some skills from watching that, or Sunday's course may have just been way better for my crit-racing-idiot skill-set.  Whatever it was, I did a lot better the second day.  I finished 2nd in the collegiate race behind Morra once again.  I nearly won this time though.  It wasn't because of my capabilities or even Morra falling apart at the end.  It was close purely because Brian pinch flatted with about 1/4 of a lap to go, but was far enough ahead that he could run the rest of the course and still finish about 30 yards ahead of me.

The Force is strong in this one

And this is why I went for a night ride yesterday and turned off my light from time to time.  It's like the part where Luke is blindfolded and fighting the floating ball with the lightsaber.  Soon I will be able to shoot a laser beam into the hole in the side of the Death Star.

Thanks to Idaho Vandal Cycling for showing me a good time this weekend, and thanks to Wookieepedia for helping me spell all these words.

P.S. For more excellent crotch shots, check out Follett's Mountain Sports' Facebook page.

New Silliness

I gave my bike back this week.  That was pretty lame.  Arnold will be missed until I get another brand new beast in the spring.  There has been some definite non-lameness recently though.

Unlame Activity #1: Harvest Moon


I wanted to get one last race in on the Fuji before I had to give it back.  So I ventured south to Ogden, UT for the Harvest Moon Criterium.  This was my first real race since upgrading to a Cat. 2 and in a couple months in general, so I was curious how my form was.  Other than a few chases early, I was pleasantly surprised.  I put my momentum from the back of the pack to good use early and got off the front for a couple laps, got caught, tried again, did another lap and a half solo, then got caught again.  This apparently caught the attention of FFKR and Canyon Cycles, the two big teams at the race.  From that point on, every time I attacked, 3-5 of those dudes would be on my wheel, prompting the rest of the pack to chase us all down.  I was going to have to do something big to actually get away.  So I attacked on five or six straight laps towards the end.  Nothing happened.  I cruised in with the pack for 15th place.  For being my first race with the big kids, I was pretty happy with the effort.

Unlame Activity #2: Downtown SLC


It's a little more walking than in Boise, but there's a good amount of quality bars in Salt Lake.  On a related note, I sat on top of an ice box and ate a Slim Jim outside a Maverick station.

Unlame Activity #3: Riding in SLC


The day after the race and other activities, we went for a good little hangover ride.  We were staying with Chris Stuart and his fiance, Ami.  Chris was one of the guys that helped me get into bike racing.  It was cool to see those guys again, and cool that I could hang with Stu now that I have been racing all year and he's been on his couch all year.  We went up Emigration Canyon and started up Big Mountain until we decided that it was too big to handle in our conditions.  The ride was super scenic and not Idaho sagebrush.

Unlame Activity #4: Cyclocross


Like I said, I gave my bike away on Friday.  You might think that would mean no more bike racing for Brian this year, but you'd be wrong.  I'm done road racing for a while, but this weekend was the opening weekend for the local CX series.  For those of you not in the know, cross is the Reese's Peanut Butter Cups of the cycling world.

"Hey, you got knobby tires on my road bike!"

"Hey, you got drop bars on my mountain bike!"

It really is an odd activity.  We ride on grass, dirt, sand, mud, asphalt and whatever else the promoters decide to throw at us.  They put tape up so we end up weaving through a really small area, then they put barricades up so that we either have to get off and run with our bikes or bunny-hop them.  It is a sport that could only be invented by drunken Belgians.  If this still doesn't make sense (it shouldn't), watch Chris's video for a visual aid:

The craziness of it all makes for some excellent spectating.  Since we weave around like rats in a maze, you can find a central location and see most of the race.  All of my readers should get out and watch some cross.  I'm talking to both of you (hi, Mom!).  Grab yourself a cowbell, a 6-pack, and a costume.  Fans are expected to heckle and hand beers to riders.  You'll probably get to see something like this:

That man is talking to somebody in China

And with a little luck, this:

So I got myself a cross bike, and threw down some racing this weekend.  I got called up as a first timer to SICX, since my only previous cross racing experience has been on Chris's converted touring bike (aptly named "The Brick") or that time I got my foot stuck in the front wheel of my mountain bike.  I am a noob at cross, but I'm in good shape.  Since it's tough to pass people and everybody spreads out quickly, your finish position +/-3 is determined by the first corner.  It was chaos for the first 30 seconds of the race.  I nearly got pushed into a tree.  After the opening sprint, things don't get any easier.  You go really hard all the time, and try to stay upright.  Saturday's course only featured one barricade as opposed to the usual two, so I only had to get off the bike once and that was purely out of fear of bunny hopping into people.  After 40 minutes, I thought to myself "Self, I've never been this tired in my life!"  Instead off taking a nap in the grass, I rode for another 20 minutes.  At one point, I took a feed from Kai of what I assumed was Red Bull or some sort of golden, foamy sports drink in a bike bottle.  After slugging that down I realized it was a beer, at which point I learned is only delicious when you're expecting it.  Moral of the story: handups are out of original cans or bottles.  So I hurt and drank, and I think finished 4th in the 3s.  I really have no idea though.

I may have engaged in some extracurricular activities Saturday night, which seems to have affected my performance on Sunday.  They also got the 2nd barricade out, forcing me to dismount and remount my bike every lap.  While I have no idea what I'm doing as far as technique is concerned, I'm relatively athletic compared to most cyclists, so I cleared the boards pretty quickly.  I think I sweated the last PBR out at around 45 minutes in, and found a rhythm.  By then I was way back and had been lapped by Richard Feldman, multiple Masters TT World Champ, cyclocross beast, and the subject of a suspiciously well maintained Wikipedia page (thank you to Sam Johnson/Krogg for pointing that out).  I may have a new game for the rest of the season called "Don't Get Lapped By Feldman."

Now you all know why the last couple of weeks have not sucked.  Next up, actually learn some technique, go to Moscow, throw down with those kids.

Blog-Worthy Poutine

I'm back!  It's been a while since I updated this, but I'm a busy man.  While I was doing stuff not involving blogging, the Cycle Learning Center opened, I raced up Bogus (one hour, three minutes), and classes started up.  All of this was cool and all, but it took something special to bring me back to the blog: poutine.

For those of you that don't know what poutine is, let me change your life.  Take some fries, add some cheese curds, cover in gravy.  It's a Canadian standard and therefore a staple of the Sub-Canadian-Ski-Bum diet.  America really needs to adopt this, or Canada needs to invade.  As long as poutine becomes more widely available, I'll be happy.

Poutine does not need a reason to be eaten.  We happened to have one though.  My friend, Mark, got his hands on some Irish aged white cheddar.  It was amazingly sharp and flaky.  There is nothing quite like super-sharp cheddar.  We decided to utilize this in some really high quality poutine.

We had cheese, now we needed fries and gravy.  We decided that gravy is gravy, and got some canned stuff.  Glass can, not tin, because we're gentlemen.  Fries were a different story.  After discussing what sort of potato should be used and how to properly fry them, we realized we needed professional assistance.  Being in Idaho, we have a wealth of potato expertise at our disposal.  Our best resource was the Boise Fry Company.  Only the best would suffice for this project.  We got ourselves two orders of The Bourgeois.  Those are the ones fried in duck fat.

Unfortunately, man cannot survive solely on poutine.  We needed meat.  In keeping with the traditional Canadian ski lodge fair, we made smokies.  Smokies are sausages sliced lengthwise, grilled, and served on either toast or buns with cheese.  Canada is sounding better by the minute, isn't it?  Some buns from Boise Fry Co. nicely held 3 halves of Basque chorizo and the awesome cheese.

It's like American food, but northerner

Mark, Colton, and I ate like Sub-Canadian royalty last night.  I suggest you find yourself some fixin's and make some poutine and smokies.

What a Week!

The last 7 days have been crazy. Here's a few things that happened to me:

1. I went uphill faster than most people.

Now that the Tuesday Night Crits are over, Boise's unofficial World Championships are the Tuesday Night Half Bogus. There's no entry fee, numbers, officials, or an actual start time. People show up around 6:00, chat in the shade for a while, then go climb the hill. Normally, a half-Bogus is not my kind of hill. It's a long, gradual half hour of pain. But, I'm riding stronger than usual right now and everybody else is tired of racing. The combination of those two things led to me coming in 2nd behind Sam Johnson. He is a professional who is both on good form and not tired of racing, so he went way faster than everybody.

2. We started moving into the Cycle Learning Center.

There's about to be a bike shop on campus! We're buying stuff like crazy and starting to arrange stuff in the shop. It's going to be super cool! The Grand Opening is August 23rd from 11:00-1:00, so be there.

3. I hit a goat.

Saturday was the State Championship Road Race. I wanted to do well in this so that I could get my upgrade to Cat. 2 and do two crits on Sunday. I felt good and was climbing pretty well all day, then the goats came. Apparently, to prove that this was the Idaho State Championship and not some yuppie, urban state, the one of the citizens of Sagebrushland (the area of nothingness between Emmett and Middleton) decided to take his tribe of goats down the race course. By the way, tribe is the collective name for goats. My first thought upon seeing this was "please be fainting goats!" Despite how funny that would have been, Jethro the Goat Herder left them at home. I navigated 45 of his 50 favorite goats with no problem, then I hit goat #46. He got spooked and ran in front of me. Luckily, I had slowed down to dodge the rest of the tribe and unclipped and was fine. When I put my foot down, I accidentally caught the startled goat between my leg and bike. Since my bike rarely the cleanest in the peloton, there is now a goat running around Sagebrushland with a 53 tooth, Ultegra chainring branded on it.

4. I got a flat tire.

It's common knowledge that goatheads cause flat tires. What most people never learn is that the entire goat can take out a tube. I hit a goat in the belly, then got a flat a few miles later. Until I see a counterexample, I'm going to stick to my theory that the goat caused the flat. As far as I know, there is a perfect correlation between hitting goats and getting flats. Like the Chicago Cubs, the Curse of the Billy Goat extended to my whole team. Charles double-flatted about 100 yards before I did. The wheel car was back dealing with him, leaving me with no wheels. The official's car went up to the field and got Nate to come back with his front wheel. We swapped out and I went to chase. Nate and Charles believed that there weren't any wheels in the car, so they swapped tubes out on the course then rode back to the start. The flat happened about two miles before the major climb of the race where everybody went really fast, so I never caught back on.

5. I went to Costco.

It was awesome. My parents got me a lot of food. Yay for food!

6. I won a race.

Unlike the Chicago Cubs, we won a championship in less than 102 years. However, Team Bobs-Bicycles.com will likely never win a World Series. Sunday was the State Championship Criterium. It was a course with a bunch of corners and no long straightaways and I felt good about a break taking it. So I attacked early, and stayed within bridging distance for a couple laps. Nobody bridged, and I went back. Then some people attacked and everybody followed and I got shuffled. I worked my way back up toward the front and found that I had some momentum and decided to just let it roll and went off the front by myself again. Again, I rode solo but kept the gap close enough to entice somebody to come across. Sean O'Shea was the man to do it. He came up and we were gone. He was a Masters racer and I was a 3, so as long as we stayed away we were both State Champions. We worked together, then I sprinted at the end and he didn't. I threw my hands up and it was fun. I thought about asking for the upgrade between races and going again, but I'd had enough fun for the day. The team handled things okay without me, finishing 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 6th, 8th, and 9th. There were 12 starters, 5 of them weren't Bob's racers.

Cascade

First: congrats to Cadel Evans. Never before has anyone looked so much like a shaved pug and still won the Tour.

They're twins.

Anyways, this weekend was Cascade. It's 3 days, 4 stages, and a lot of pain. The first day was a 70 mile road race with a 10k climb at the end. I learned about 5 miles too late that I couldn't shift up into the 53 tooth ring. Well, I could pull on the cable at the down tube, then hold it up with the shifter, but I couldn't keep it there for very long. So I just did the whole stage in the small ring. I decided to Clif Bar it up at about mile 60. Then the road turned up mid-chew and I lost a bunch of spots while gasping for air while chewing. I was still at the back of the pack on at the bottom of the climb. Then I was off the back of the climb. I chased the rest of the way up the hill and came in a couple minutes down.

The time trial was hard. TTs are always hard, but this one is hard and uphill. I was mediocre as usual, but I did have some excitement. I was nearly kicked out of the race by this guy.

Now for the good part. The crit course there is a long, slightly downhill straightaway through the start finish, two corners that are really close together, a long, slightly uphill straightaway, and a bottleneck down to one lane coming into two corners that are really close together. This was the hardest crit I did last year. When I say I "did" it, I really mean I "started." We only raced for a half an hour, so it was really fast. I tried being faster than everybody else a few times and went off the front. Nothing ever got away, so I stopped trying after about 15 minutes. I got shuffled a little coming into the last lap and wound up about 30 riders back. I waited until the backside and powered past about 20 guys through there. Then I went really hairball into corner 3 and moved up a few more spots. I came out of corner 4 5th wheel, perfectly positioned for the sprint. I knew I couldn't hold the field off for all three blocks to the line, so I waited a little. I was still the first one to jump. That worked for a while. For 250 of the last 300 yards, there was nothing between me and the line. A guy came around me with about 50 to go and just put in a better sprint than me. I tried but couldn't quite catch him. I wound up in 2nd place.

That's beer you're seeing. Typically, cash is given for doing well at races. I tend to take that cash and buy beer, so this saves a trip to the store.

Stage 4 is the Awbrey Butte Circuit. It's like racing dump loops, which I enjoy doing. It's a bunch of short, steep climbs then a sprint for the line. I liked my odds on that course. We were the only field that didn't get the whole road, so I had to work really hard at staying at the front. That didn't always work, and I had to move up in the corners and hills. Somebody yelled at me for moving up in the corner. I apparently "did the same sh*t in the crit." The same sh*t all the way to the bank! I didn't really care and just kept doing it. I didn't ever actually see who was yelling at me. I would have been intentionally sketchy around him if I had. I moved up a lot on the Archie Briggs climb every lap, so that was a complete reversal of last year. I made it with the lead group over Archie Briggs on the last lap, and was scheming for the sprint. I wanted to make another crazy maneuver in the final roundabout and get a gap between me and the rest of the field. Back in reality, there were cars parked on the descent. We got all slowed down and I got confused and moved to the back of the pack. Had I known about the cars, I would have attacked over the top of the climb and gone crazy through the cars. But I didn't, and just wound up shuffled. I finished in the pack. When I got back to the car, Josh had drank all of my remaining podium beers. He made Ben drive him home. We're an elite cycling team like that.

It says so on the trailer.

Painting Bikes

We got the rental fleet in this week for the . It's a whole bunch of cruisers, but not just any cruisers. These are University of Miami cruisers. You might be asking why Boise State got a bunch of Miami Hurricane-themed bikes. It's a long and confusing story that I'm not even sure of the details, but suffice it to say that we got a deal on them. We can't be checking out UM bikes to BSU students, so we're painting them. Here's where you come in. I'm going to show you some paint schemes that I poorly Photoshopped over the bike and I want your opinion and/or ideas. Leave a comment at the bottom of this and I'll randomly pick somebody to win a prize. If you're a BSU student/faculty/staff, you'll win a free day on one of these beasts. If you're not, I don't really know what you'll win but I promise it will have an equal or greater value than 1 High Five From Brian. Here's the designs:

Let me know what you think!

4th of July

I was in Hailey this morning.  Now I am in my hammock.  I can see the occasional firework through the tree in front of me, but I just don't really feel the need to get up and move.  My hammock is awesome.  Bike people out there: get a hammock.  They're awesome to nap in, you can travel with it and it gets your feet up.  But anyway, back to Hailey.  For those of you who don't know, the Hailey 4th of July crit is held every year after the parade and what appears to be a cowboy fighting a bunch of Indians.  With that as the prelude, the race has to be a good time.  It is too.  The citizens of the Wood River Valley put up a ton of money so there's a prime lap for at least $100 about every other lap.  I thought I saw a firework doing something crazy, but it was just an airplane.  It's got to be nerve wracking to be a pilot taking off at 2230 on the 4th of July.  There's a lot going on there.   Back to the crit.  They announced at the start line that there wouldn't be a prime on lap 1.  Oooh...the top quarter of a green circle!  After lap 1, it was game on.  Sure enough, laps two and three had big money in them.  I wasn't quite ready to be racing at that point so I drifted to the back pretty quickly.  It appears that the plane is just making laps around the fireworks.  I bet he feels like a WWI fighter pilot right now.  According to Ben Monahan, the fighter jets from that era had some sort of timer to keep the machine gun from shooting off the propeller.  So I fought my way back up to the front of the race where I would actually be useful.  The race was a lot easier from the front, but I still had to work pretty hard to stay there since they were constantly giving away money to whoever was at the very front as we crossed the S/F line.  Fireworks are over.  There was a lot of noise for the Grand Finale, but I couldn't see it.  BrianFact: the 5th of July is the busiest day for animal shelters because all the dogs freak out at fireworks.  So after a while I tried getting up the road in a move, and I succeeded.  Remi from Exergy and I contested a prime (more accurately, I sprinted and Remi sped up a little to take it).  I looked back and we had a two corner lead.  Remi sat up shortly after he won his money, and I had to try to figure out what he was thinking as quickly as I could.  My conclusion was that he wasn't going to pull because he is a pro and I am a 3 which makes me an idiot that will work my brains out so he can jump me later and win more money and be off the front and I'd just be left really tired.  But I wanted that break to work, so I was torn between being an idiot and hoping that wasn't what was going on or sitting up and making him do some work.  I decided to take a medium pull for a half a lap then see how he reacted.  When I looked back at him, he said "are you going to work?"  Then I swore at him and said no.  So we got caught pretty quickly.  I still don't really understand Remi's thinking on this one.  We could have just gone, taken a bunch of money, and he would have blown by me at the line.  He's a professional sprinter.  Even if he is out of shape, he should be able to crush me in a sprint.  So we got caught.  A few laps later, there was another prime.  Remi and Josh Berry from RealCyclist.com (the non-Exergy pro in the race) took off.  A corner later I went off after them.  I saw them as I rounded corner 4.  I could tell that they had no idea that I was there and were playing games with each other.  I had another choice to make: do I get on there wheel and hope that they'll work with me to get up the road or do I blow by them and take the money.  At this point I was a little wary of trusting Remi to work with me, and I've got bills to pay.  If they wanted to work with me, they could get on my wheel.  Somebody else is shooting fireworks now, and the road's really busy.  I'm guessing people went up on the Governor's Hill to watch.  So I went flying by Remi and Berry while they were focused on each other.  I won $100!  I was up the road by myself now.  I knew I couldn't hold the field off solo with that many prime laps.  I made up another on the spot plan: I would go hard enough to stay ahead on the peloton for a few laps, but stay within sight of them.  With a little luck somebody would bridge across and we'd be gone.  Nobody came across, and I went back into the field.  A few laps later, 3 Bob's riders got up the road with 1 of the Exergy gingers.  That made me happy, but it also meant that I had work to do.  If anybody tried bridging, I had to ride their wheel up there.  I wasn't going to do any work, but I couldn't let the Bob's to others ratio change.  So I covered moves, then apparently the ginger wouldn't work, and the move came back.  Then Remi, Berry, Hoene and some others went up the road.  Not ideal to have Berry and Remi up there, but we'll take it.  I covered more moves, Berry jumped everybody on a $500 prime and went on to nearly lap the field.  Remi stayed away too, and everybody else got caught.  The neighbors appear to be lighting off fireworks directly under their deck.  This should be fun.  I finished about 10th in the field sprint, and I think 2nd in the 3's behind my teammate Charles, so that's pretty awesome.  They might owe us money for that, but they didn't have results posted when I left.  Hopefully they'll be online.  They weren't last year, but I can hope.  I might have to email the promoter for them.  I don't really care too much about the money since I made back my entry fee and then some for riding fast for a lap, but I need the upgrade points so that I can stop racing for upgrade points for a little while.  I really hate racing for points.  My preferred style is to either win or come in dead last because I did something to try and win and it backfired.  Unfortunately, I now have to race to get a top 5 in a large field so that I'll get a couple points.  There are no points awarded for being in a break for 100 miles only to get caught or for sneaking past two pros for a prime or for covering moves for your teammates in the break.  I don't really know what a better solution would be, but I just really hate racing for points.  I just previewed this and "prime lap" came up as an Ad-Word.  What could that be an ad for?  There's still people driving down the road!  What is going on?  My feet are going numb.  I'm going to bed.

Win a T-Shirt!

I didn't race my bike this weekend, so that was weird.  Instead, I went up to Spokane to play Hoopfest with the traditional team.  For those of you not in the know, that would be Andrea, Spring, Alex, and myself.

Andrea chose our uniforms.  Alex opted for the mansierre.

Hoopfest is insane.  It's the world's largest 3 on 3 basketball tournament, with roughly 28,000 players this year.  Obviously not everybody plays in the same bracket.  It's divided into 16 team brackets.  This is where the strategy starts.  It's all about strategy.  The goal is to get into the bracket that will give you the best shot of winning a t-shirt.  They determine the brackets based on two things: the height of your tallest player, and your ability level.  As a result, I am listed every year as 5'7".  I've never actually played a team that was honest about their height though.  Spring decided that we'd actually played basketball before this time, and I was a little worried for a while that we would be playing on Center Court.  We got there and found that we were in the same bracket as several of the teams we played last year.  We got 2nd place last year and won a t-shirt.

We lost our first game because there was one guy that was ridiculously good.  We play games to either 25 minutes or 20 points, whichever comes first and I believe he scored 17 of the 20.  Now for more strategy.  The brackets are true double elimination, so if you lose the first game you have to win 7 straight to get back to the championships and win a t-shirt.  A simpler route to t-shirtdom is to just lose the 2nd game and go to the consolation bracket.  You only have to win two games then to become the Loser Kings.  So we went into the second game with every intention of losing.  We would play hard until we got within two points of taking the lead, then we would stall, make bad passes and generally help the other team out.  Alex scored to bring us within one and we had to play overtime.  We didn't shoot at all in the overtime, and every time the other team shot, we would stand there and let them rebound.  They didn't get the strategy of losing apparently since they were diving for loose balls and actually trying.  They managed to beat us, much to our relief.

The first consolation game was pretty easy.  I think they genuinely tried to win the first two games and failed.  We weren't playing particularly well, but we still won.  We were one game away from a t-shirt!  The team we would be playing wasn't very good, but they were wide.  Our court monitor made everybody shake hands before games and everybody was way too nice for the first three games.  It didn't feel like the usual hoopfest, where games tend to resemble a street fight with a hoop in the background.  Then I came down with an offensive rebound, secured the ball, and turned to look for an outlet.  This is where the tone of the game changed.  As I turned, my elbow connected with a player's nose.  I don't have an actual photo, so here's a visual approximation:

He was sure that I did it on purpose and was the biggest jerk in the world.  He yelled at me as he walked off the court.  Let me note right now that I didn't just turn around and take the easy basket that I had every right to take.  I made sure he was alright and we checked it back in.  They started playing a little rougher after that.  Here's some more Hoopfest strategy!  Fouls are called by the player that is fouled, so there is a line to toe. If you call too much, the other team tends to get angry and start "actually fouling."  This is how Andrea got kicked out of a game a few years back and my dad nearly got thrown all the way out of Hoopfest.  If you call too little, the other team tends to take advantage and plays rough.  It's a delicate balance that we managed to keep for the first three games.  We apparently missed our target in this game.  They started beating up on us and using all their size.  I was able to use my bike riding legs to hold my own in the post, but they would still grab at me and weren't afraid to push me over.  At one point, one of their players and I fought over a ball, and I called a foul because he tackled me.  Here's a visual of that player:

He jumped in my face and said "I'm not afraid of you!"  Good work, Captain Courage!  I'm 160 pounds, I'm wearing a women's shirt, and I shave my legs.  Most middle school girls could beat me up.  I couldn't back down though, so I puffed up my chest and held my ground.  Had he actually used his ogre-ness, I probably would have run away crying.  I went and shot my free throw, missed, and went back to brawling under the hoop.  Shrek would go on to body slam me and sit on me, as well as tackling Alex and threatening to elbow the girls.  The game went into overtime, they nearly won off of cheap fouls, but they couldn't make a free throw because they weren't very good at shooting.  I wound up hitting a two pointer off the backboard to end the game and WE WON A T-SHIRT!

LOSER KINGS 2011!

The guy that I elbowed told me that he would buy us t-shirts because he was very rich and I was too mean to him.  A few minutes later, he came up to us and reminded us that he was in fact very rich and that it would be "different next year" if we played again.  I think that means that he was going to steal our eggs and we would have to slingshot ourselves at his poorly made shelters.

Balancing Act

I'm going to skip over the first stages and get to the interesting stuff for the sake of me not boring you/me not going on a tirade over what constitutes a "real mechanical."  Suffice it to say that the first couple days hadn't gone as well as planned, and left me with a good deal of rage to get me through Stage 4.  The team hadn't done as well as we'd have liked, so we decided to take a chance today and hopefully do something big.  On the 102 mile, 7,000+ vertical last stage, there was ample opportunity for big.  The plan was to get in the early move with at least two of us.  I decided that the end of the neutral rollout was sufficiently early, and rolled away.  I was off for about 10 seconds before I glanced back and saw blue and white coming across to me.  It was Ben and an Audi rider.  Excelllent...

They came across and one of them looked back and said "there's 3 more coming."  So I look back and see a couple jerseys and another Bob's kit coming at me.  We got the whole team in the break!  PARTY TIME!  EXCELLENT!

We were rolling now.  It was a 6 man break with a big task ahead of us.  We had to hold off the field for the next 85 miles, then climb Dooley.  This would definitely qualify as big if we pulled it off.  After about 15 miles, the Audi guy looked over at us and said something about feeling terrible, and drifted off.  The break was down to 5 hardmen.  So we rolled for another 15 when I heard a "psssssssss."  One of the other guys had flatted.  4 hardmen.  We kept going, and were doing quite well for a long time.  We got the gap up to about 6:20 at one point.  I found out after the race that the peloton was told 10:00 and they started working harder. Thanks again officials!  Anyways... we made it over the first three climbs with a three minute gap.  This was where things got a little tricky.  Ben was our GC hope, so I didn't want him driving the break.  Would the three of us be strong enough to keep the gap up without him?  What if the Non-Bob noticed Ben sitting on and decided to sit on as well?  Then it would just be Steve and me and he was looking strong so he could win if he didn't work.  What if Ben cracks on the climb?  Steve and I weren't in any condition to fight on the climb, so I determined the last question was irrelevant.  I decided that if the other guy was pulling, Ben could choose to pull if he wanted.  I started pulling as hard as I could on the pre-Dooley flats.  The Non-Bob would tell me to slow up as I was gapping my teammates.  Ben told me at that point that he wasn't feeling good.  Not excellent.  I sent him to the back of the break and told him not to pull through again.  At about mile 85, the Non-Bob threw my reading of him all out of whack when he said to me "I'm going to back off a bit."  3 Bob's hardmen.  Steve and I drove it to the bottom of Dooley and sent Ben off the front with some cheers and a 3 and a half minute gap.  I was confident that Ben would fight his brains out and hold off the field.  My personal victory would be to stay upright on the climb.  I had done my duty and just wanted to get done with the stage.  I wasn't riding very fast, but Elliot from team Look! Save A Life went by me like he was riding a motorcycle.  That dude is a freak.  He started racing this year and has dominated every big stage race he's been in.  I looked over at him and managed to mumble "dammit Elliot" at him.  He responded with a cheery "Come on Brian, let's go!"  He was going to catch Steve and Ben and our break was going to be in vein.  Ben really needed to fight and stay on Elliot's wheel.  I kept pushing up the hill.  Several riders passed me and congratulated the team for riding a great race and putting everybody up against the ropes for 90 miles.  Eventually, I found a girl that was riding at the right pace for me and went the rest of the way up with her.   I crossed the line and immediately asked what happened ahead of me.  Ben's dad gave the news that Ben had been caught by 13 riders.  Disappointing, but we had taken a risk and it nearly worked to perfection.  I feel like having an entire team coming to the base of the hill alone might be a first in Elkhorn history.  We did everything we could to win the race and some days it's not in the cards, but we still had to give it our best.

P.S.  The fields at Elkhorn were way smaller than last year.  It was just as cool of a race as last year, and will be just as cool again next year, so everybody should do it.

Photoshopping

It's been pretty slow around the office lately, so I've been teaching myself Photoshop.  Once you learn to use it, it's an amazing piece of software.  It allows me to be artistic without having to have any actual dexterity.  I thought I'd show off some of the projects that I've been screwing around with.

Selective coloring, motion blur.  Could easily be a poster, we'd just have to change the tagline!

My idea for a team trailer.  It's based off of Exergy's (there's is better, but they've got pros on the job).  I thought the sponsor patterning was pretty cool.

Pretty simple, but I thought it was cool.  Note the Bronco Head pattern in the sleeves, side panels, and pockets.

Actual Work!  I made the clouds in Photoshop.  I'm pretty excited for this place to open because it's going to be cool.

I've decided that it's time for Bob's to have a redesign, so I put a few of those together...

It looks a little weird here, but I think it would look cool on the bike.

Pretty similar to the current design, but better.

Something different, I think it has potential.

Lucky to Have My Nipples

It was the Mutual of Enumclaw Stage Race this weekend.  For those of you not in the know, Enumclaw is in Western Washington where it apparently consistently drizzles rain all the time.  I'll get to why this is a bad thing in a bit.

The first stage was a 10K TT.  It was fast, flat, and it hurt.  There's really not much for me to talk about here.  Finished in 26th place about a minute and a half back.

Now for the exciting part of the story.  The crit is an 8 corner, figure 8 pattern course.  For some reason, Enumclaw thinks that the Men's 3 race should be the showcase event, so we were last up.  It had been raining intermittently for hours by then, it was getting cold and dark.  This would eventually spell disaster for me.  I'm not really sure how, but I had managed to not do a rainy crit in the entire collegiate season.  Having raced in dry weather for the past year means that I forgot how to corner on greasy pavement.  Some jerk caught me holding on to the barricade at the start, so I had to go off with a foot on the ground like everybody else and didn't get a very good position.  I spent a few laps working up to the front.  Once I got up there, I got in a move that I knew was doomed, but I sat on the back of it and got ready to counter it as we neared getting caught.  We were only a few corners from me gloriously escaping off the front of the race when I found myself riding my bike horizontally.  Lucky for me, Wheels in Focus was hanging in the corner capturing my fish-like motions for the world to see:

Step 1: Feet!

Step 2: Flop.  Note bonus points for the face!

Step 3: Wheelface!

Step 4: Seriously, Wheelface!

Step 5: You all really were hoping to see a picture of that dude running over my face, weren't you? 

How did I do that?

So I went to the pit and got back in the race.  I went back in at the back of the pack, so I spent a few more laps working my way back up.  Then I got to the front again.  Then I crashed again.  Amara wasn't around for that one.  So I went back to the pit and joked with the mechanics for a couple laps and jumped back in at the back of the field.  I worked back up to the front and slowly worked back to the back because of my lack of cornering confidence.  I finished in the pack and managed to not lose any time in the crit.

The road race was my big hope for the weekend.  If I could get in the move, I could easily gain back a minute and a half and potentially win.  I was told that a move had the best chance of going in the first lap on the climb, so I positioned myself to do just that.  I attacked as we crested the hill and everybody chased me.  Then I tried it again on the flats at the top.  Didn't work, so I sat in and waited for the hill to come again.  We got to the bottom of the hill and I started drilling it hoping to force a selection.  The race leader was on my wheel at the time and started shouting at me.  "Your wheel's not in the dropout!"  That was bad, so I stopped.  He was a cool guy and slowed the race down for me and I easily jumped back in, but my plan was ruined.  We went over the hill as a group, again.  A guy went off the front on the next lap and I didn't think anything of it because there were several large teams there that could easily bring him back.  That was apparently stupid of me to think.  We cruised easily around the course as he gained time through the flats, then we went really hard up the hill, then we went easy again.  The pattern reoccurred every lap until the finish, with nobody willing to do any work to bring the solo move in.  I tried bridging up, but they would chase me back then sit up again.  I don't know why.  He won by 4:15 and we had a big group sprint.  I wound up 14th on the day and on GC.  A little bit of a letdown, but it still gets me some upgrade points and more experience.

Best of Collegiate Nationals

Best Feeder:
Mesa State
The dude was wearing jorts, one of the MSU magenta jerseys, and a helmet circa 1990.  Enough said.

College-est kits:
3 way tie between Cal, Clemson, and UWP
Look at these things:

Clemson's Mossy Oak Skinsuit. It's hard to see because it's camouflaged

Cal's tie-dye skinsuit

University of Wisconsin-Platteville.  Note the fake denim shorts

Coolest Folks:
University of Montana
Obviously, I didn't talk to every team there, but nobody else drove me around all weekend.  Also, nobody else had the team motto of "UM Cycling: D*cks like Jesus."  On top of that, they brought home two top tens for the NWCCC.

Best Airport Nonsense:
2 way tie between the sign after security that said "RECOMBOBULATION AREA" and the guy at the Quizno's kiosk's voice.  It sounded like Joe Pesci meets The Waterboy.

Craziest Person in Wisconsin:
The lady who sat next to me on the bus from Madison to Milwaukee.  She had two brightly colored purses, was listening to an actual walkman, and had a sheet of paper with names all over it.  She would occasionally write a new name on her sheet.  It was weird.

This is not the bus lady

Most Intense Moment:

Some things are better left uncaptioned...

Nationals Criterium

After yesterday's day of sleep, I was feeling pretty ready to throw down.  Since I was carless, I just made the 15 minute ride over to the course.  We did the same ridiculous callups as on Friday (conference champions, then randomly calling schools up in waves), except the mic went out so Boise State got shouted up to the line.  I did a move out of Kai's playbook and lined up along the barrier so that I could start clipped in with a hand on the barrier.  That was good because things were hot from the gate.  A lot of early attacks came and went.  I tried following Steve Fisher a couple of times.  Nothing came of them other than hopefully a couple cool pictures.  I managed to stay up near the front for almost the entire race, trying to go with moves whenever I felt that they were good ones to go with.  At one point, the pack came around the final corner and a few of us accelerated away from the rest.  I tried pulling hard over the short finish line hill hoping that the four of us could get up the road.  I looked back and there was nobody behind me. Whoops.  I stayed off the front for the next lap, got caught and sucked into the middle of the peloton.  That's when the big move went up the road.  Whoops.

So I sat in the pack for the rest of the race and waited for my time to attack.  With five to go, Fisher got on the front and buried himself to bring the break in for his teammate, Ian Crane.  That was an incredible effort.  You wouldn't think that a tiny little body like that would be able to hammer that hard for that long.  He brought the move back with two laps to go.  My plan was to attack on the bell lap at the slight hill on the backside.  Mesa State had taken over the front and was crushing though.  I'm sure this entirely was to prevent me from executing the plan.  I mean they had to be plotting against me.  I did finish 10th in the NWCCC after all.  Anyways, it was all I could do to move up a few spots over the hill coming into the final corner.  I took off shortly after the corner for the final sprint.  Passed a few, got passed by a few.  Finished 23rd, pretty good weekend!

Rest Day

My big plans to go explore the farmer's market and eat cheese fell through primarily due to my laziness.  I got up, ate two plates of breakfast downstairs, then came back upstairs.  I screwed around for a while on the internet, did a little homework, and took a nap.  Then I got woken up by the maid who thought we were leaving today.  I did a little more homework after that, screwed around on the internet again, and fell asleep again.  When I woke up, my roommate had left, and I was confused.  Once I figured out that he'd gone across the street for food, I did more homework.  Once I got tired of explaining higher birth rates in lesser developed countries, I decided it was time to ride.  So me and Joe headed out with no real plan other than to spin for an hour or so.  We managed to wind up at the UW campus.  It is huge!  We got to one end of it, cruised through the middle, then saw a sign that said "UW Campus Ahead."  We turned off and rode by the Capitol Building then worked our way back to the hotel.  Here's some pictures:

Joe rides for Yahoo in the regular season, Sacramento State collegiately

Not too bad of a photo considering the fact that I was riding while shooting

Also, I uploaded my Garmin file from yesterday.  Check out the Day O' Pain.  The Crit's tomorrow.  Hopefully I can put a little hurt into the guys who rode the TTT today.

Nationals Road Race

That was really, really hard.  The race started with the sketchiest part of the race, a "neutral" downhill with a possible stop at the bottom.  It was at the bottom of the hill that I realized nobody was coming up and yelling at people for crossing the centerline.  That was exciting to me.  My excitement may have ended my disguise as a cunning veteran, at least for those who didn't see me staring at the Marian bus in amazement.  Or seen the taxi drop me off at the entrance to the park (big thanks to the Naval Academy for driving me up the hill).

The overly drawn-out callups had me placed in the middle of the pack.  My nervous descending hadn't changed things much, but I quickly slid my way up to the front of the race.  I surfed the moves for about half a lap and managed to stay near the front.  Then the climb came.  I didn't think things were going too badly until I got through the feed zone, glanced behind me and just saw a moto.  I saw everybody on the long decent off the feed zone climb.  There were a lot more people in that race than in an NWCCC race.  By the bottom of the hill I was almost back to the front.  I made it back at the front a couple miles later.  More move surfing, then the climb again.  I was a little more focused this time around and managed to get over it mid-pack.  I still bombed the decent and made it back to the front of the race by the bottom of the hill.  Things seemed to calm down a little for the rollers on that lap.  Then the climb came again.  I really don't like that climb.  It's much too long and much too steep.  I was with the pack until about 30 yards before the turn to the decent.  I started to gap a little but didn't worry about it too much.  I had gained big spots on the decent the last two laps and assumed I could just do it again.  I was wrong.  They crushed the decent that time.

I caught on with 2 guys from the West Point team.  The military was helping me out all over the place.  One of them only stayed with for about half a lap (what about not leaving a man behind?).  I worked with the other for a while until we saw something wonderful: a pack.  We thanked and congratulated each other as we approached what we thought was a splinter of the D2 race.  Then we got a little closer and realized that it was all a mirage.  It was a bunch of D1 riders.  We asked them how far the D2 pack was up the road.  "A long ways."  That's a letdown.  We continued on ahead of them to the climb.  I fought for a while to hang with the Army rider.  Then I fought for a while to keep pedaling.  I finally made it over the climb and on to the last lap.  I was solo now.  Kind of.  The D1 pack had caught me again.  I wasn't allowed to work with them, so I rode on one side of the road while they rode the other.  They would pass me, then I would pass them, and we played that game for a while.  They finally got away from me on one of the last rollers before the final climb.  Did I mention that I don't like the length or steepness of that climb?  I really didn't like it the fifth time around.  Once I got through the feed zone, it was time to climb the road that we descended at the start of the race.  That was even steeper!  It was all I could do to keep upright at times.  A rider told me afterward that he had literally gotten off the bike and walked up the hill.  I came up behind a D1 rider paperboying up the hill.  I was gaining on him slowly, then I saw the photographer.  I had to catch him quickly in order to have a cool profile pic!  So I did and gimped my way over the last 100 yards to the finish.  44th.  I'd like to know how many 3s finished ahead of me.

Big thanks to UM for driving me around today after the race.  They're super cool and had a super cool van.  Seriously, Bob's needs one of these.  6 racks inside, sound system, GPS, very nice.

Tomorrow is the Team Time Trial.  Since I am a one man wolf pack, I'm thinking its beer and cheese ride day.  The cabbies keep telling me about the farmers market with all the cheese samples.  I think that sounds like a lovely mid-ride stop.

Airplanes!

A few observations about my day of travel to Madison for Nationals:

1. My bag holds a floor pump.  Good news.
2. There's birds in the BOI terminal.  They're pretty friendly too.
3. Southwest should consider not putting two flights to Phoenix in the same gate one right after another.  I nearly boarded the wrong plane.
4. I understand that UI is the sponsor of airport wifi, but stop redirecting me to their homepage.  DON'T YOU KNOW WHO I AM?
5. I think I just saw Lebowski.  He was abiding.
6. Tamale in the Phoenix airport.  Good stuff for now, might come back to bite me once I'm trapped in a sealed cabin for a few hours.
7. Hertz is terrible.
8. The bus driver is a cool guy.
9. The taxi guy is also super cool.

A Letter to Hertz

Dear Hertz:

            My name is Brian Parker.  I recently flew into to Milwaukee, Wisconsin with the intention of renting a car from you in order to complete my journey from Boise, Idaho to Madison in order to compete in the 2011 USA Cycling Collegiate Road National Championships.  Despite several attempts through various methods, I was unable to give you any money to rent a car.  I tried really hard.  Your representatives did not.  They were very knowledgeable about the bus that runs to Madison.  It’s almost as if they’ve had to give that information out on more than one occasion.

            I am very displeased with the level of service that I received from your company.  Not only have you lost my business for life, you’ve probably lost most of the Idaho cycling community’s.  As a 21 year old college student about to graduate with a business degree as well as being a frequent traveler due to cycling, I am not a customer you want to lose.  Additionally, I am the only collegiate cyclist competing in Nationals this year and therefore am being watched very closely back home.  I am going to copy this letter to my blog, as well as post my experience at your counter on several social networks so that everybody back home knows what to expect from you.

            When I spend money on anything, whether it be a rental car or a gallon of milk from the grocery store, I expect the company that I am paying to treat me well and do everything in their power to provide me with the service that I want.  That did not happen.  I tried giving them my debit card, which they could not take.  The reason was some sort of vague inability to “authorize” it.  I don’t know what that means.  There were several variations attempted to get the debit card “authorized.”  I called my bank and was told that there was no reason that this should be happening or that there had even been an attempt to get anything done with the card.  I later used said debit card to purchase the bus ticket with no problem.  After that inexplicable debacle, I told them that I could call my mother and put it on her card.  At this point I was told that this could be done but I’d be charged an extra driver’s fee along with the underage driver’s fee.  The fact that your representatives were trying to charge me more because they couldn’t help me just blows my mind.  Every time an attempt to give you money failed, your representatives would respond with something along the lines of “there’s nothing we can do.  The bus is outside.”  I had to offer up solutions such as calling my mother.  Then, to top of this whole magical experience, once I got my mother on the line and they discovered that she was not in Wisconsin, I was told that you can’t take credit cards over the phone.  If my mother was somewhere close enough that she could just swing by and take care of things, why on Earth would I need a rental car so badly?

            Your actions have put an opportunity for me to compete for a National Championship in jeopardy.  I was rather excited to find that you offered a discount to USA Cycling Members, but suddenly 15% off doesn’t seem worth it.  I look forward to seeing how you handle this situation and earn back my business.  Remember, Idaho is watching.

Sincerely,

Brian Parker