Wax it Stewie

Here's to Team Beer. For realz. The short story. Team Beer gets sponsored by Wax On, they throw the Wax on / Wax off competition and Stewie straight up represents for the Gruündel. I'm sure the details of that night are gonna be well documented, so I'll just say. Rad. Mostly, rad racing in Portland where shit like this goes down. Perhaps the rest of the teams that took part now have a much more intimate relationship with their own grundels, that can't be bad right? All I can say is that with the ability to enjoy suffering like that we need Stew to race wayyyy more races, although, that might slow down the frame building even more so on second thought get in the shop. So here's to team Beer. I snaked a picture from Brujo as I was far too busy drinking and laughing to take any of my own. And of course a giant werd up to Dave Roth who brought home the victory for HUP. Can you believe it, HUP won. Really. Dave, you are amazing.

For more retina scaring action you can check out Brujo's pics here, be warned, you might never be the same...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/brujo/sets/72157623835577322/

Silence

Usually my 10 mile mini training commute is quite unworthy of any mention whatsoever. Today however, it was worthy of one of my very rare entries here. You see, there was roughly a 25 mph tailwind for me the whole way. While it's super rad to go fast, right, it's even cooler to ride all friggin stealth. Seriously, most of the ride was silent. So cool. Fast, Quiet, and wet as hell, what fun. That's all. The next news will be of racing for sure...

Bring on 2ö1ö

Okay, yeah, so updating blogs and sites isn't really our bag. You know, what's better sitting in front of a computer, which we all seem to do too much already, or racing? So, now that cross season has ended for the Gründel just maybe we'll actually do some updating. Maybe...

A weekend of racing and a new hatred for the SRAM chain

Saturday saw the OBRA Championships down in Salem. Clayton and I headed down for the fun. Clayton rocked the C race to a 6th place looking really strong for sure. He spent the whole race in no mans land just behind the lead group of guys in a headwind that would knock you over if you weren't careful. Solid. Then, just in time for the B race the rain came. At least the wind died down, but it made for a very wet affair. Worked out well for me and I snagged a spot on the podium, hard work for sure and quite a battle with the Portland Velo boys. Now a few beers and on to Sunday...

All lined up and ready to rock the B race at Cross Crusade number 7 and luck was not on my side. The call up had me sitting nicely in row two on a course I knew I would love. No real climbs, 3 run ups and miles of mud, what could be better? Fifteen seconds to go, bring it on, stoked. Racers ready, oh yeah. Go, snap, not moving, wtf, oh, stupid chain. That sums it up. At least I had a spare bike there for the WCSSCX so I yell to Clayton, get that SS to the pit as I start the jog. I get to the pit and mount the trusty Voodoo. Um, what was I thinking when I put this gear on, good god. That hurt. 32x13, bad idea. That about sums that up. And then, on to the WCSSCX race. I pull out the short shorts and throw on the Grundel formal kit and have, well, a lot of fun. Hamer and I hung out in the back for a while then he decided to call it a day, um, crap, I guess I'd better race then. With Brian so far up the road krushing it at the front I suppose I'll just try to make some friends out here. For some reason no one was really into chatting, odd. I even had someone throw down for a full on sprint finish for what must have been like, 100th place or something, really? Um, it's yours...

Hats of to the designers of that madness, short cut, nuff said. All in all, a fun day of racing out there. The Grundellegion saw the return, straight off the IR, our very own V-Power bringing home some glory in the womens race. Welcome back Lid. Saweet. All in all a day of a few mishaps, some strong racing by the boys, and perfect cross weather. Now on to the recovering from racing two races with gearing that should only be used by Magnus Ver Magnusson. Bring on Barlow.

Photo by Stephen Fitzgerald

Gründelbarriers and Oh so much fün

So really, when the idea hit us to rock the Halloween weekend as the Gründelbarriers who knew it would be that much fun. Really though, the fun started Friday night during some seriously awesome cross weather. Hanging with our great friends from Team Beer proved to be nothing short of wicked good times. I'm pretty sure wind and rain actually make it better. And then, well, racing, really? It seemed so far from a good idea to race on Saturday, but we went for it, and had a blast doing so. That course was fun. A couple of top 10s for us even, who knew. And well, that leads us to the rest. If you were there you've got your own awesome stories, and if you weren't, well, you should have been. I'm willing to bet that all the Gründel have some bruises from the barrier throwdown but it sure was fun. Perhaps the best and most fitting end to the fun was the Lana/Ambeer ass slapping followed by a french maid dustdown. They knew we were dirty. A big thanks to all y'all that were out there in Astoria for one heck of an awesome weekend of racing and mayhem. I have a feeling this weekend will be no different as a few of us prove to the world we're rad singlespeeders...

Alpenrose

Oh the joy. Just a little over a day from now we'll be racing the Cross Crusade. Rumor is Dan is gonna webcast it just in case you can't make it. I'll go ahead and embed it here. Stöked.

Rapha Gentleman's Race and other news

Okay, yeah, this is way overdue, there's just been so much going on with Cross season getting going and all. But yeah. We so raced the RGR. Man what a good time. 140 miles and only 1 flat, not too bad. No lights for us this year as we finished 13th of the 23 teams. Other than that, the usual awesomeness that the Rapha boys bring. Just another reason why bikes and Portland go oh so well together. These pics are courtesy of the ever awesome Holty, perhaps when our pictures actually get looked at from this day I'll post something more insightful, but for now, we raced, we had a blast, we finished. More later.


The following week I was the lone Grundel out in Hood River for our season opener. The highlight was certainly the superman diving over Team O's Patrick Gerke after his roadie ass ate it heading into the barriers with me on his wheel. Ouch. Still not sure exactly what happened, but I flew kind of far. Fün. Knee still hurts a bit, but I ended up finishing in front of Pat so I suppose it worked out fine in the end. He would have taken me for sure...

And finally, last week was the blind date at the dairy opener. Wednesday is usually our weekly ride so why not race instead? I found myself in a battle for 2nd place with 2 Ironcladers. In the end Trevor got me and I got Drew. What fun. I will say though my legs are still shredded which should make Barlow tomorrow a bit tough. I didn't know hamstrings could feel like this unless you played football, that's why I don't play football. That and my complete lack of skills. Larry did some serious krushing of his own in the singlespeed race and Stoli and Clayton were in the mix as well. Cross is üpon us.