oh cyrstal ball, oh crystal ball.....

tell me what the future holds in store. unless you haven't heard, american ailines has decided to pull out their hub here in st. louis. that is about 90% of our business here in st. louis. working as a regional airline we are at the mercy of the mainline, american. with them moving all these flights up to chicago, it doesn't leave us with much work here in st. louis. we've already been notified that we will either shut down our operation here in st. louis or possibly maintain a smaller version of our current operation to do maintenance. that hinges on our other mainlines(cont, usair, delta, frontier, midwest) bringing in a few more flights. either way, we will more then likely still have layoffs. i'd like to say i'd be safe being one of two supervisors, but i'm not counting on anything. going strictly on seniority i'm right on the bubble. if i had to relocate, i've been told milwaukee, kansas city, columbus, oh, or possibly back to indianapolis may all be open to relocation. denver might even be another possibility since we bought frontier airlines. it's only a matter of time before we start opening maintenance positions there. I would think we would bring in more of a presence with frontier to to give southwest a run for their money, that's just my opinion. ain a market like st. louis how could you not bring them in. another low cost carrier here is just what we need. My goal however is to stay here in st. louis and not have to worry about any of that. taking a layoff right now is certainly not in the cards for me.

i just got a new cross bike a couple weeks ago and have since have decided to sell it. as much as i want to keep it i can't justify several uses when i've got all this going on with my job. i also got a new trek madone 5.2. it's got all ultegra sl that i'm getting ready to strip and sell. i'll be putting on all my campy stuff. i tried the ultegra, but i just can't get comfortable with it. something about that cable sticking out of the shifter and the way it shifts, preference i guess.

Castlewood XC race....

I hadn't planned on racing this weekend until somebody mentioned the race at Castlewood this Saturday. I thought about taking off the next couple weeks after Gateway and then start concentrating on Cross. In fact I was going to skip the first cross race in Alton, but then the CW race won out.

I rode part of the course on Friday just to get acquainted with the dirt again. It didn't help much as I really didn't have a great day resultwise. First, I thought I'd do the expert race, but with the later start I just decided to go with marathon race which started two hours earlier. I didn't get off to a very good start. On the first lap I rode the wheels of Mitch and Jeremy until getting a rear flat about midway through. I got it changed pretty quick and then got back in the race. During the second lap I thought my front tire was going flat so I took the rooty and rocky sections with caution. When I got to the feed area I dismounted and filled up both tires with co2. I rode lap three without any problems, but then at the end of lap four I came up to some other racers and they took a wrong turn where somebody tore down the markers. Myself and a couple other riders followed before we realized it. Some riders kept going, but myself and two other riders turned around. That propably cost me about another five minutes or so, not that it mattered. On the fifth lap my lower back was killing me and my knees were starting to hurt, so by the end of that lap I called it quits.

I only road 10 miles off road yesterday and today I woke up a little sore, I can't wait for tomorrow morning......which comes in about six hours.

All in all I had a good time. It was my kind of course with lots of climbs and technical stuff, but I certainly need to ride more dirt to be competitive. It was a good time and saw some old faces I hadn't seen in a while, noot a bad way to spend a Saturday.

Now ready for cross!!!

After years of racing mt. bikes and roadbikes, and even bmx when I was a young lad, I'm ready to try my hand at a little cyclocross. I'm looking forward to it, but first gotta get through this little race called the Gateway Cup.

Sedali/Otterville carnage...

What had hoped to be some good prep prior to this weekend of races ended up backfiring. I thrashed my legs out at the TNW's doing both the A and B races and then was going to rest up for Sedalia. Well, all went well until Friday, when I brought my husky, Skates, to my parents house while I rewired my dads 55 Chevy pickup truck. Well, just like any husky, they love to get away and are escape artists. My mom put him on his leash and tied him in the garage. I then hear a noise and look over and see his little tail running off. I end up having to chase him down at a full sprint, then stopping, then sprinting again. I finally chased him down to a lake which he decided to have a little fun in. I saw it as an opportunity to grab him so I jumped in after him. I was able to grab him and I ended up putting him around the back of my head and carried him home. After a shower I started to work on the truck again. An hour later I hear the phrase, "skates got away again". I dropped what I was doing and chased him down again and this time had a little help from my niece and nephew. Not a fun time, and definetly not pleased to be running before the weekend.

Saturday rolls around and Brian picks me up for our trip to Sedalia. We have Denny, Brian, myself, and Ron, who I didn't think would be there in Saturdays race. It's a six turn course much like Soulard. The roads were rough and had a lot of potholes, but once we raced it didn't seem like it made much of a difference, it was everybody else that made the difference. The race was full throttle from the start. Plenty of accelerations which could be expected for this kind of course. My legs felt ok considering the day before. Denny took some massive pulls at the front for a while until he went down by himself going too hot into a corner. Thankfully he didn't take anybody out. Nice strawberry on his hip and ruined bibs. He was able to get back in the race. I then decided to attack and got a pretty good gap. another guy joined me for a lap and then I was on my own for another. I burned out and integrated back in the pack. a couple laps later a guy goes down in the middle of the straightaway, apparently he broke his chain while trying to go out on attack from the field. He took out my teammate Ron, who snapped his stem right in half. I was a couple bikelengths behind and a guy fell in front of me. I rode over his tire like it was a little ramp and jumped over it. I thought I had gotten a flat so I went to the wheelpit for a tire change. Apparently Brian also was involved and had to bunnyhop the sidewalk to avoid it. He didn't make it and ended up over his bars. At about five to go I Denny took his brother to the front for two laps. I decided it was better to let me lead and save Denny to bring Brian to the finish so I overtook Denny and told him to get my wheel. I guess I went to fast and he lost my wheel. Brian was able to hold my wheel and I was able to go hard for another two laps, but I started to tire and I was back in the pack until one to go. I then go into turn one and some guy on the inside trying to divebomb the turn crashed and took us all out. I had nowhere to go and went over the bars at about 25mph. I ended up being tangled up in a bike and needed help out of it. I had blood all over my arm and my race was done. Brian and Denny both finished with Brian taking fifth. I ended up in the emergency room with stitches in my elbow.

Sundays race wasn't much better for us. Ron ended up with a flat early on the second lap. I fought to keep cramps at bay the whole second lap and Jeff got in an ill-fated break. I almost went down again when there was a big pile-up of guys going up one of the short steep climbs. It looked like someone dropped a chain and came to a complete stop. I saw one guy go over the handlebars which was seemed kind of hard to do on that grade, but he did. As I took to the outside and thought I was around it it felt like someone just grabbed onto my back wheel and tried to pull me down. Well, I got around and was back into the group. I didn't get to the front in time and before I knew it the second to last turn up the hill was already in sight. Here's where it gets scary. As we made the right turn up the little climb I see out of the corner of my eye, actually, I got full view of Brian going wide and smacking a moving car at full speed. I saw him do a superman through the air, but saw him move after landing. Denny, was right in front and yelled "that was your brother". We ended up both riding up to the finish and then made our way back. He was shaken up but he was alright all things considered. His bike was totalled, but all he had was a bruised knee. He was also my ride home. I offered to drive, but he insisted on driving himself. I'd normally say hockey players are tough, but he was pretty tough after hitting a car and walking away from it. I ended up finishing 19th. I wasn't in good position to make a good run to the finsih, but I was happy with the race overall.

This certainly was not one of the better weekends for Dogfish. One totaled bike, one broken stem, a dent in my top tube, four stitches, flatting out of a race, a bruised knee, and a skinned up ass pretty much sums up our weekend.