Did Somebody Say Challenge?

Actually, it is Challenges. With a silent S.

Although everything was only recently settled, we have actually been at it for a while. Happily, it seems as if we have ourselves a couple of close races. Here is how things look after Wednesday:


If anyone is interested in evaluating the draft itself, here is the draft order with the number of points earned so far:

The Victors

Vic 0
Chris H 25
Jonny G 67
Brad 31
Adam 57
Josh 31
Tomek 15
Johnny S 25
Ian 16
Luke 0
Unger 0
Thomas 0


The JPs

JP 40
Kevin 63
Craig 20
Mike G 0
Bill 21
Dallas 27
Jonny B 0
Chris D 0
Darryl 0
Penner 6
Larry 26
Matt 19


As for the 2010 FGBC - RRR FGD Challenge, the FGBC won April by a score of 210 - 63. After the first inning, The Dark Side leads 1 - 0.



But RRR currently leads the second inning: 76 - 22. It looks like we might be heading toward a tie.

Thursday Anticipation: Late Edition

The days are flying by right now. How is a guy supposed to keep up? It is not easy. But we do our best.

1) Two more weeks

It has been said before that the FGBC does not have its temporal sensibilities governed by something so formal as seasons. That is not quite right. A better way to put it is that we have slightly different way of organizing the flow of time. Tuesday nights are pretty important. But our season always begins good and proper with the Spring Ride. In other words, it begins in just over 14 days with the annual A & W breakfast at Deacon's Corner on the way out to the Spring Ride.



2) Brandon

The pre-season has been going on for a while now. If you need to get some racing in before the sweetest weekend of the year, it sounds like Brandon will be a good option. More info here.



3) Back 40


Once the season is safely under way, we can turn our attention to other things. Such as the Back 40. Always a good time, even if a slightly crampy one. Pre-registration is open until May 15. Sign up now and you get a t-shirt. Details here.

Vicarious Breakaway

"Born and raised in Pineola, his mama believed in the Pentecost. She got the preacher to say some words so his soul wouldn't get lost." Whenever I happen upon the name of Jerome Pineau, I always start singing that Lucinda Williams song to myself. Four common letters and a subliminal connection is made. It's a long way from Pineau to Pineola, however. And luckily for Jerome, his experience over in Italy today was much happier than the one Lucinda sings about. He won the stage, the best of a breakaway group that managed the rare feat of surviving all the way to the end. This was good news for Jonny N. He was the only person to pick Pineau from the list of stage hunters. And he was rewarded for doing so with the 150 points that comes along with the stage win. Combined with 70 points from Graeme Brown, the Burger Cat champ totalled 220 points to grab the stage win. That gives five different winners in the five stages that have taken place so far. We like it when the happiness is spread around like that. Such a happy group we are, despite our fondness for the dark. Jonah remains hot. He got points from Farrar, Bonnet, and Weylandt, good enough to finish second with 195 points. And Chris O rounded out the podium with a 165 point day. Those who have been paying attention will know that Chris always picks at least one Japanese rider, if possible. This time around, it is Yukiya Arashiro. Arashiro was also in the breakaway today. He went for the win, but didn't make it. He held on to finish third, though. So Chris's loyalty was rewarded.

In the overall race, Jonah's lead continues to grow. It has now crept over the 100 point mark, but just barely. Adam remains in second place, 102 points back of Jonah. But Jonny N has moved into third. He is just one point ahead of Olli. Matt has dropped down to fifth overall, 45 points back of third place.

Full results and standings here.

Vicarious TTT

Matt wins, ahead of Chris D and Miriam. Jonah continues to lead, and even extended it a bit. Adam remains in second overall, but Matt bumps Olli out of the top three.

Full results and standings here.

TNR Report

A stellar evening. The ride was sweet. The post-ride gathering even sweeter. We headed north to meet up with the NK chapter to escort the President back to the klubhaus. He made it without incident, despite passing the chain link fence in which he once got tangled up. The Secretary, however, was less fortunate. He got tangled up with a large branch and had to stop to restore his chain to its rightful place. Still, this was a minor inconvenience and did nothing to dampen the high spirits that were on display.

Upon arrival at the klubhaus, where Bill was waiting for us, we pretty much filled up the table. A final push to overtake the Taverners before the Spring Ride. More importantly, however, there was a palpable sense of nervous excitement in the air as the appointed hour for picking of teams for the 2010 Playground Challenge drew nigh. We began by scrapping the earlier decision that Brad the Impaler and President Penner would serve as captains. A random draw to pick captains seemed more fitting. And besides, the President was a nervous wreck. One can only handle so much responsibility. So we let him off the hook and drew randomly. Vic and JP emerged as the chosen two. This was followed by a brief discussion whereby the criteria for admission to the playground were clarified. Some names were stroked from the original list. Others were added. In the end, everyone was satisfied that the talent pool was just right.

Vic won the coin toss and proceeded to pick with the confidence of an experienced leader. JP was less confident, and had to ask on numerous occasions who some of the people on the list were. But his first pick, KK, was on hand to help him out. A competent assistant captain goes a long way. At the end of the evening, the line in the sand was drawn. This is how it looks:

On one side:

Vic
Chris H
Jonny G
Brad
Adam
Josh
Tomek
Johnny S
Ian
Luke
Unger
Thomas

On the other side:

JP
Kevin
Craig
Mike G
Bill
Dallas
Jonny B
Chris D
Darryl
Penner
Larry
Matt

Two even teams of twelve. Let the hostilities commence.

Photos:

TNR

Maybe it will stop raining. Maybe.

And maybe President Penner will show up so that we can draw some lines in the sand.

My place at 9:30 pm.

Stage 3

Here is how Jonah picks his teams. I read through the list and he invariably zeroes in on one name and shouts it out. Sometimes with an explanation, sometimes not. This time, he seemed pretty certain about Evans. He hadn't recalled having him before, so figured he should give him a chance. Especially since his favourite rider, Boonen, is not available. He picks Boonen every time, in part because it reminds him of a good weekend he once had in Boone, NC in the fall of 2008--hiking, spelunking, and watching me race cyclocross. He is also partial to riders whose names remind him of explosive devices. Or guns. For example, Bonnet was chosen because he "sounds like bomb." Rohregger somehow reminded him of a gun, though I can't remember why. Nor can I remember why he picked Weylandt. My guess is that he was somehow intrigued by the difficulty I had in pronouncing Wouter. But whatever the reason, it proved to be a good choice. It got him 150 points today. And with Gerdemann and Rohregger chipping in another 130 between them, he ended with 280 points on the day. Good enough to win the stage and take over the overall lead. Jonah is six years old. Cousin Adam was just 5 points back. Second on the day and second overall now too. Queen Val demonstrated that the King and the Prince of vicarious racing aren't the only talented ones in the family. She finished in third place today and moved into the top 10 overall, just ahead of King Andy. Olli sits in third overall.

That was a crazy stage. The GC contenders are all over the place. Looks good for Vino and Nibali so far. Not so good for just about everybody else.

Full results and standings here.

We Have Results

Olli and Paul won the first two stages. But Charlie leads the overall race. It's very close though, with the top three spots separated by just 20 points. Stage 3 is on right now, so this will all change soon.

Full results and standings here.

Leading by Example

That's what Brad the Impaler is doing. He submitted his team for the 2010 FGBC Giro d'Italia Pool in a timely fashion. The President? Not so much. Nice.

No teams from Halberto, David S, and Paddy. That's a first for each of them, I believe. A changing of the guard in vicarious racing land. And some other big time Challenge participants passed on the opportunity to contribute to their team's efforts. No Fraggle, Charlene, or Larry? We were led to believe that Michelle and Artur were going to make their vicarious racing debuts. They did not. But Josh G did. And so did Queen Val. Welcome aboard. Jonny N is back in the pool. That is nice. He looks so hot in those pink speedos.

Teams here. Look them over.

It will take a little while to get everything else set up. Be patient.

2010 FGBC Giro d'Italia Pool

The FGBC Low Stakes Gambling HQ is pleased to announce the official launch of the 2010 FGBC Giro d'Italia Pool. We will stick with the same system that we typically employ for the vicarious grand tours. It seems to work well. And yes, this will count toward the Challenge. Both versions. So don't let your team(s) down by failing to submit an entry.

Rules:

1. Pick a team of nine riders from this list. Pay very close attention to the different categories and the criteria governing your selection or riders. Note also that TT guys and climbers kind of count as one combined category, from which you have to pick one from each list. This little bit of information management is especially important this time around, as I will be in Toronto and likely unable to send back screwed up teams for second or third chances. Funny how it always seems to be the same people--cough . . . Fraggle . . . cough. It really isn't that hard. Just read the instructions carefully. And then follow them.

Note that if any rider appears in the wild card list who is also listed in another category, that is a mistake. Mistakes happen. Especially when one is rushed. But you are responsible for spotting them and making sure you don't multiply them. Don't try and beat the system. The system doesn't like that and will find a way to penalize you. Here is the rule: special categories trump wild cards, always.

2. Send your team here before 9 am on Saturday.

3. Any rider who is disqualified from the race forfeits all his points. But only if he's caught during the race. Take your chances.

4. Entry is free and open to all. Feel free to invite others.

5. Points will be awarded as follows:

Individual stages:

150
125
100
90
80
75
70
65
60
55
50
45
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5

For the TTT (is there a TTT this time around? I haven't checked), each rider who finishes with the team will be credited 25% of the points earned by the team for the stage.

Final GC:

600
500
400
350
300
275
250
225
200
175
150
135
120
105
90
75
60
45
30
15

Final Points Classification:

120
90
60
40
20

Final Mountains Classification:

120
90
60
40
20

I think that is all. Any questions?

Thursday Anticipation

1) The Spring Ride is just three weeks away:



2) The 2010 FGBC Giro d'Italia Pool, however, is just hours away.


Rider list coming soon.

TNR Report

We rode. It was wet. And cold. Cold we can deal with. But wet and cold is a combination that the FGBC does not endorse. So the ride was a short one. Upon arrival at the klubhaus, we did not receive the hero's welcome we felt we deserved. On the contrary, we were cussed out by some drunk guy on the patio who objected to the fact that we rode our bikes in the rain. We kept our mouths shut. The gloves stayed on. If this is what the early crowd is like, we'll stick to our regular schedule from now on.

Once we got settled, we entertained ourselves for at least an hour rehearsing stories of the President's misfortunes. We also considered the legal intricacies of the poosher's recent vehicular encounter. The FGBC's legal counsel seemed to think he might have a chance. "One person's wrong does not make another's right," is how he put it. And then he went on to spew a bunch of big multisyllabic terms like "contributory negligence." We also spent some time weighing the relative merits of Uma Thurman's curiously sexy nose against Sandra Bullock's rather more straight ahead beauty. Brad Pitt's torso--especially in its Fight Club incarnation--came up for serious consideration as well. We were informed that we are behind a group of cricket players called The Taverners in The Book. They currently have us beat by about $200. But then we were also informed that they are there three times a week. So really, we're kicking their buts. That is appropriate. We also thought it appropriate that we are involved in a competition with a team of crickiteers. Slo-pitch and hockey are so 1990's. We only wish we had known about this earlier.

But the biggest news of the evening is that we have a Challenge. Actually, we have two.

One will more or less follow the classic formula. Except the scoring will be month by month. The winning team for each month scores one point. There are eight months. Which means it could end up in a tie. That would be super sweet. And it would no doubt make for a thrilling windup event. After April, the FGBC leads 1-0.

The other Challenge will be slightly different. It will employ the same basic scoring system as last year. But the makeup of teams has changed radically. Echoing the Apostle Paul, there is no longer FGBC nor RRR for this one. Rather, it's all one big happy pool of riders. Until it gets divided up again into visciously warring factions. Hearkening back to the playgrounds of our youth, we have appointed two captains: Brad the Impaler and President Penner. They will take turns choosing riders until there is nobody left. The beauty of this is that the teams will have the same number of riders. Actually, the beauty will be in watching the draft take place. And it will all happen live on the FGBC blog, starting sometime in the next day or two. The Impaler won the coin toss. He will choose first.

Everyone seemed happy with this decision. It didn't even have to go to a vote. The decision was unanimously approved. And as soon as it was, The Impaler and the Secretary immediately went after each other with the trash talk. This will be especially fun to watch if they should happen to end up on the same team.


The tunes were dialed in. Until about 12:30 am, when they got dialed out. KK left his credit card behind. We took care of it. Anybody need to order anything?

Yes, we are riding

Even though it is miserable outside. It might be a short ride though. Maybe as short as straight to the klubhaus. We have plenty to talk about. So it wouldn't be the end of the world if we showed up earlier than usual.

Poosher Down

He was vehicularly pooshed from his bike yesterday on his way home from work. He's okay. The bike isn't. It sounds like it's all Morgan's fault.

TNR

Tuesday? Already? We will ride.

9:30 pm at my place.

Challenge?

If we were to stick with the original formula, as some behind the scenes RRRers seem to prefer, after the first four events it would look like this:


Fortunately for them, nothing has been settled yet. We might give it another try at the klubhaus on Tuesday. Then again, it might make the most sense to let the Challenge remain a good memory and move on to other things. Change, it's not your enemy. If you want a voice and a vote, if it should come to that, you know where to find us.

It's been said before...but

Dallas is awesome.

nuff said.

The race was wet and cold and super fun. I was up with the front group until the rock garden. um...wet rocks suck. Apparently so do I when i try to ride over them. Moments earlier i witnessed Josh G. find himself awkwardly embracing the earth. At this point I realized that today was for serious...so when I approached the rock garden with caution, I quickly found that this technique did not work well. On the bike, off the bike, on the bike, off the bike...I sucked.

Post rock garden, things did improve, that is, until a brake pad fell off the rear of my bike. This slowed some of the downhill single track sections for me. The two laps of front brakes alone felt slow. they were.

I ran into Dallas on my second lap. His new niner is super special. We rode and chatted for a bit in the twisty stuff. He told jokes of me moving up to expert with him. That guy is funny. He did (in his own Dallas way) motivate me to press on. So I did. Not catching anyone. Not getting caught. biking is hard...and super fun.

oh yah, KK beat me again. I had 6th and he 4th. nice one.

King Andy, Life Bike Coach

In case you missed it, our man Andy got some much deserved props in today's WFP. Page D9. We love you Andy.

Now, back to the raging discussion below. I love it when the comments go hyper. We have always maintained that talking about bikes and stuff is often better than riding them.

Thursday Anticipation: Special Friday Edition

Sometimes we like to observe Thursday on Friday. That makes Saturday Friday. And by the time the whole thing gets sorted out, we get a long weekend out of the deal. I could use a long weekend right now.

1) There is racing on tap. The sweetest jersey in the world will be there. As for how many, that is not clear.


For the roadies, there is also an ITT in BHP.


2) Mother's Day is for stage racing.



3) Dallas's favourite race starts in one week. Which means vicarious racing is about to return. Look for more information on the 2010 FGBC Giro d'Italia Pool, coming soon.

4) But most importantly, the Spring Ride is only 4 weeks away. The Weasel is preparing for his annual expression of camaradarie with the FGBC. Bill, Paul, KK, and I checked out the accommodations on Wednesday. It is going to be awesome.

Bruxelles Photos

Courtesy of the Cricket.