TNR Report

The Secretary was the first to show up. And he didn't have any work to do on his bike. Wierd.

The ride took us to CMU to check out the basic elements that will be included in the course for Menno Cross. Everyone agreed that it will be awesome. We will entirely circle the building this year. There will be gravel, pavement, stones, and lots of grass. And, of course, the bunker. Three times per lap. The course will be fast and will have plenty of banked, sweeping turns that will put a smile on your face.

We also paid a brief visit to Sanctoral Cycle and tried to figure out what to do with the stash of crappy old bikes that have accumulated there.

Over at the klubhaus, the Cricket tried to explain to us how he got to be so fast. It took a few tries, but we think we have it all figured out. We will find out on Saturday whether any of us are able to put his tips to good use. We also tried to figure out how to handicap races to account for some rather wide disparities in our respective weights. Does anyone know where we might find a 70 lb lead vest for Craig? Cousin Bill showed off his resurrected and re-welded Mongoose. This led to a discussion of proper bar end positioning. It is a tricky business. There was also some discussion about the many different strategies for picking vicarious racing teams. It seems most employ Vic's approach of going with the best sounding names. Graham, however, elected to choose riders with the longest names. Melissa's strategy of googling photos of all the riders received nods of approval, but it was deemed to be too time consuming. Jonny G revealed that he found a picture of Hanka Kupfernagel that led him to feel slightly uncomfortable about his decision to pick her for his squad. I chose her because she got me thinking about former Bomber QB John Hufnagel and how much better he was than any of the sad sacks that have been trotted out on the field this season. At some point, the conversation turned to the upcoming Hold Steady show. Which led to an exploration of the use and abuse of criteria for music awards. This led some to reminisce about memorable expereiences at the Royal Albert, the Collective Cabaret, and Les Rendesvous, among other classic clubs. Which led us to a place these meandering conversations always seem to reach at one point or another, namely Penner and the story about how he fell asleep one time at a Sloan show. It was agreed that the Impaler has a long way to go if he is to be compared to Penner. All the while, we were entertained by some guy sitting behind us who was enthusiastically singing along to the particularly dreadful tunes that were playing on the hi fi. Apparently, he has been known to throw in a little air guitar every now and then too. Awesome.

No action photos of the ride tonight. We were having too much fun riding the course. But we do have this one of the Secretary modelling the latest headwear offereing from Charlene. It seems she recently struck gold at the Altona MCC thriftstore. Old suits make for sweet caps. Look for more of her fine handiwork at the race on Saturday.