MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Traditional Santa on a bike

German Santa on a mail bike for those in Germany

Well, as usual, I’m a day late (or so) and a dollar/Euro short. MERRY CHRISTMAS to much of the world and a belated Fröliche Weihnachten to our friends here in Europe (particularly those in German speaking countries).

For my family back in the States…. I’ve got presents for many of you, but I actually haven’t finished shopping so you’ll be getting many of your Christmas presents as quasi Presidents Day presents or something to that affect. Many apologies to you for that.

We’re on a 5 day break here in Germany. For those that I haven’t mentioned this to before, the 24th is the big day for everyone here. Stores are only open till about noon and then the world shuts down for about 3 full days. For those of us from North America, it can be pretty much a yearly shock to the system as we’re so used to almost 24/7 shopping. In this part of the world though, you’ve got to stock up on groceries for the 5 days (and somehow fit it into a tiny European refrigerator and nearly non-existent freezer) and wait it out. On Saturday, the stores will be open, but they’ll still be cleaned out from Wednesday mornings craziness. Then, they’ll close for Sunday and be open for a couple of days only to close again for New Years.

This cycle repeats itself for the next few weeks. Ah…life in the most Catholic part of Germany! Granted, it’s not all bad in that we get more holidays than any other part of Germany and in turn, we get time off to go do the things that we love to do (i.e. cycling, hiking, traveling, snowshoeing and the like). In fact, this time last year, we were just beginning our 3.5 week trip around Vietnam. Seems like only yesterday or maybe the week before.

Kiss-Kiss

It's a lot of work....

Today we took our brand new snowshoes and poles down to Lenggries and Brauneck for a day of playing around in the snow. Our location in town puts us close to a train station that goes directly out of town toward the mountains. It’s called the BOB (Bayerische Oberland Bahn). The best part is that it generally goes very close to where we want to be anyway so we don’t have to drive or worry about traffic. Pretty awesome! Here’s a link to the photos.

Brauneck from the base.

Lenggries Valley from on Brauneck

We’ll be going back out on the weekend as there should be a bunch more snow in the mountains and it’s getting colder so it ought to stick around awhile too. The thought is to maybe head down either a bit closer to Innsbruck or Salzburg and get higher up in elevation. Don’t worry… more photos to come when we go.

Lastly and maybe most importantly, I know that I’m really a shit when it comes to communicating with friends and family back home. Having said that, believe me, I think of you very often. You’ll just have to trust me on that one. I figure that if I haven’t learned to pick up the phone at age 46, it’s probably not going to be something I start doing anytime soon. In any case, I love you guys and miss you.

Kera’s far better at that sort of communication but I know that she misses friends and family back home as well.

One last time…. MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR!

SiS race report and other things… naturally!

So, we went to SiS (Schlaflos im Sattel) last weekend. I’m glad we did. It was great to see friends from throughout the world there. This little (only 400+ participants) is one of the best events this side of the Atlantic. Phaty, Keili and crew do a fantastic job and are to be commended for their efforts. THANKS GANG! What is also commendable is the efforts of the local people. They come out, volunteer, work hard, make food, serve drinks, etc. for 3+ days. I’m sure that they make a bunch of money from all of us, but it wouldn’t be the event that it is without the participation of the people of Weidenthal.

Here are a few photos from the event. Many more here and here.

This ball was about 6′ tall and had fake snow falling inside.

Toilet out of order. That’s bad at a bike event!

Marty rocking a lap in partion BWR gear.

Me (sleeping whilst standing…I think).

My teammate Matthias coming in at the end of the race.

Another of Matthias

A beautiful singlespeed Gary Fisher Superfly

That’s me there with all the colors on the lead-out lap.

Our friend David….always smiling

There’s a lot of love going on (actually, it was after bike jousting).

Tattoos and piercings everywhere

Even belt-drive fixies could be found

Also, a Ti Independent Fabrication singlespeed it belongs to Ken who is really nice and fast… bastard!

Yup… clueless me before the start.

Marty hitting the Start/Finish at some point during the night.

Busted! Got to love the Dopers Suck socks I bought from Ken.

A great shot of Ed that I stole from Keili’s photos. Thanks Keili.

______________________________

So…. after all those pics, it’s probably time to write just a bit. We hit town on Friday, went for a ride with Ken and then had fun chatting with everyone we know and having a few drinks. We woke the next morning to a beautiful day, had breakfast, ate some lunch, chatted some more and then did a lap of the course. We watched a bit of the singlespeed race, watched the jousting, took lots of photos and generally relaxed.

The race started just before 21:00 and I did the first two laps. I felt surprisingly good. During the first lap I, somehow, caught up with Marty and tailed him up the long climb to the top of the mountain. It was really great to have teammates in like uniforms for a change. Most of the races that I go to I don’t really know anyone and it’s good to have people you know around. Anyway, I cranked out a couple of first laps and then Matthias went out. After that, Armin and then Christian. While they were out I had a shot of really good Scotch and some food up at the refreshment booth and headed back for a nap. I awoke about 2:00 after what amounted to an hours sleep and then waited. No one had awoken me and I didn’t know that Christian had already done his two laps and then he rolled around after a break with food. He dropped the food and off he went for a third lap. Way to go man!

Then I hit the trail again and cranked out my fastest lap of the night. By then, there was a beautiful tracked worked in to even the most difficult parts of the course. Sadly, most of the way through my 3rd lap I ran across the ambulance picking up their second victim of the night. He’d fallen and broken his pelvis (OUCH!!!). The first had hurt himself but not too badly (Phaty informed me that both hurt guys have said that they’ll be back again next year). Luckily, the worst injuries I received amounted to sore muscles and a small rash from Stinging Nettles wrapping around my arm on the previous days fun ride.

Another couple of comments. This race has to have a large majority of the 29′ers and singlespeeds from Germany if not the middle part of Europe in general. If you’ve got the time, cruise through a lot of the photos. There are some beauties there. Thanks again to everyone that had something to do with this race. It’s the best!

My little Dinotte light performed well as did all my various Ergon products (BC2 pack, grips and gloves). I’ve mentioned it before and will again. I love Ergon! My Black Sheep is, finally, starting to act the way that I’ve always wanted it to. I might have been the week we spent together in Italy. Who knows? Anyway, if/when I get my seatpost I’ll have a complete bike after nearly two years of waiting. Is it time to get a new one yet?

This is a little pic of said seatpost if/when it ever comes.

A little home news. I’m applying for another job at the school doing the same job as I attempted to get the last time but at the school that I teach in nearly daily. Wish me luck. At 46 I suppose it’s time that I attempt to grow up and have a ‘real’ job.

O.K., now that I’ve worn out your eyes and brain…. I’m signing off.

FYI – Ken… still working on the tagged Blog.

Paybacks are hell!

First, if you’re at work… you may want to wait till you get home to listen to these.

I’ve never watched Jimmy Kimmell and until the following antics, I had no idea what he looked like or what his schtick was. Apparently, at the end of each episode, he says that he was supposed to have Matt Damon on the show but that there’s no time.

As it turns out the comedian Sarah Silverman and he have been a couple for awhile and she and Matt got together for this little piece of fun.

First there was this….

Then there was Jimmy’s response.

Granted, I’m a guy and I still like “fart humor” but this actually made me laugh outloud. It’s nice to see something done like this in the spirit of “good clean (it’s a matter of opinion) fun”. By that I mean that they’re having fun and they’re not hurting anyone.

I hope that you get a kick out of it too.