TwoJeez

As usual I haven’t updated my blog in a terribly long time. It’s been a busy year so far. Between racing, work and random side work, I’ve been very busy. Unlike this time last year though, it’s a good kind of busy. Work hasn’t been interfering with my riding as much, and I’ve had a good start to my racing season. I upgraded to a Cat 4 this year and have already gotten 5 points towards a 3 upgrade. That’s a pretty big improvement on last year.

I’ve been doing a ton of poster/side work this year. The majority of the posters have been for the bike team’s fund raising events but I also had an opportunity to participate in the CREHAITIVE RE/VISION Poster show to benefit victims of the earthquake in Haiti. I’m also working on an identity package for my moms catering company and an iphone application for Fat Heads.

I realized that my site is linked on the Steeltown Anthem website and thought it would only be right to get some more current work posted for any stray surfers that happen to stumble my way.

I’ll be entering some work in the Steeltown Stock poster show that being hosted by Steeltown Anthem at C-SPACE COLLECTIVE. I haven’t decided what to put in the show yet, but I should have that figured out within a week. Stay tuned for more details!

Despite my efforts, I’ve fallen pretty far behind on this whole blogging thing. Which doesn’t really mean much to anyone other than myself so I don’t feel particularly bad about it. That being said, I actually have some new stuff to post so I figured that the time I’m spending sitting around at my moms house for the holidays is a perfect time to offer an update. The last part of the year has been filled with some fun projects and some great successes that will come to fruition in 2010. So, lets recap…

Geoff Roast
My most recent poster was a great project. The wife of everyones favorite Fat Heads manager commissioned me to do the invitation for said managers surprise birthday party. She wanted to do a Roast style party and I thought it would be appropriately obnoxious to do a caricature of Geoff. Anyone who knows him knows that he is quite a character so I had a lot to work with.

Iron City Bikes
I also recently decided to finally help out Bob with the bike shops website. With the help of Jacob’s web hosting skills and a little bit of love from Wordpress we were able to get the site up and running in just a few days. There’s still a bit of work to be done with it but they are just happy to have an updated site to help drive business. Take a look here.

Iron City Bikes Racing
I’ve also been hard at work trying to finalize all of the sponsorship contracts and jersey order for the 2010 season. Our latest sponsor deal to be worked out is with Magic Hat Brewery. They’ve come on board as our main beer sponsor/provider. We’ll be getting beer from them throughout the year to use in our fundraising events to help generate revenue.

Snowed In Black and Gold Sprints
Speaking of the race team and fund raising, the team and I are hard at work organizing our first event of the season. We’re going to be throwing another roller racing party at Over The Bar in January. I’m working on finalizing the poster for the event that will be printed by Commonwealth Press next week. There will be more information on the team site soon.  Here’s a little sneak peak of the poster:

I have some other projects brewing in the new year and maybe I’ll try and post updates about them. Keep an eye out for the printing of the Snowed In posters in the next week or two.

It’s been almost six weeks since my knee fracture and I’m proud/excited/cautiously-optimistic to announce my gradual return to the two wheeled mode of transport that I’ve been missing through the first part of this summer. I had my first follow up appointment with my sports medicine doctor last Thursday and the prognosis was good. After reviewing a few new x-rays, it appears that everything is healing properly and my therapy is helping to get me back on the road much sooner then I expected. Considering that the first question my doctor asked me was: “Are you back on the road yet?”, I figured that it might be time to give it a try.

As soon as my Physical Therapist put me on a stationary bike I’ve been testing myself to see how much pedalling I could do without inflicting any additional damage. Starting with short 15-20 minute casual spinning sessions and gradually building up to full speed 30-40 minute rides on the rollers, I thought I should start to venture out and start to build back some of the strength that I’ve lost throughout the healing process. I quickly discovered that I have a long way to go before I return to my previous form. On Sunday I decided to venture out for a casual 5-mile ride on the paved trail down the hill from my house. I knew that getting down the hill would be the easiest part of the outing, but I wasn’t really sure how I would fare on the way back up.  Continue Reading »

It’s been just over two weeks since I broke my kneecap. In that time I’ve discovered a few things about having broken bones and I’ll say that none of them are very enjoyable. This particular fracture is pretty minor in terms of the damage you can do to yourself when breaking major appendages. Unfortunately, it still leads to inconveniences in the normal daily activities that are so easy to take for granted. For example, putting on socks or walking a few blocks to the next bar. And don’t get me started on the topic of public transit…

Easily the most annoying aspect of my limited mobility is not being able to ride my bike. For a cyclist, especially one living in Pittsburgh, this is probably the worst time of year to be off the bike. Not only has the weather been great for riding, but this Thursday brings the start of the Bicycle Film Fest to the City of Champions. The upcoming holiday weekend also brings a number of other cycling related events including another installment of Black and Gold Sprints at OTB and a Bike Polo Tournament.

This Saturday also marks the start of the 96th Tour De France with the prologue time trial in Monaco. While I have started physical therapy—and have already noticed steady improvement—I don’t think that I’ll be back in riding form before the end of the Tour. I make this connection because one of my favorite things to do during the Tour is to go on long training rides that end at a bar to enjoy the replay of the days stage. There’s something to be said for the feeling of riding vicariously through the efforts of the best riders in the world. There is always a certain fire in your legs when you get back on the bike after watching an epic stage play out on the roads of France. This almost always leads to impromptu sprints down Carson Street on the way home.

Hopefully I’ll be able to harness some of that fire to put towards my rehab efforts. As I said, I’ve started on my road to rehab at the UPMC Sports Medicine facility in the South Side. So far things have been going well. I’ve mainly been working on range-of-motion and strengthening exercises that I can do with minimal impact or pressure applied to my knee. I was very pleased yesterday when my therapist asked how I would feel about trying the stationary bike. I was pleasantly surprised that I was able to pedal (very slowly) with minimal discomfort. My knee felt a little tight, but not really painful. Lame though it may have been, those ten minutes on the bike were a big moral booster in terms of getting myself back to normal. If my knee continutes to cooperate maybe I’ll be able to ride to a bar stool to enjoy the Tour’s cruise into Paris.

The weekly criterium series started at the Washington Blvd. Oval last Tuesday. Due to crappy weather/work, I didn’t make it. This Tuesday, the weather wasn’t much better, but i decided that I need to get my first race of the season over with.Normally, I would ride to the oval, but my new computer arrived on Tuesday, a Dell Mini 9 (which i’m typing on now.) I spent most of the day hacking it to run OS X, needless to say I didn’t get much work done. Turned out to be a pretty cool fully functioning mini mac! For anyone who is interested, check out www.mydellmini.com for a TON of information on how to get OS X up and running.

Anyways, due to my new toy, i had quite a bit of extra baggage with me, so i called Jon, who had his work van to see if he was going to the race. I convinced him that he should go, despite the weather and i met up with him in the Strip district to get a ride out to the oval. For whatever reason, Im never very enthusiastic about going to race on Tuesdays. That usually changes by the time i get to the track, and definitely changes by the time the race is over. I guess it’s just nerves. Continue Reading »

My first waking thought on this Sunday morning was “Wait, the Moose doesn’t open till 4:00, I wonder if Dave knows that?” I got out of bed and went to the trusty interweb where discovered that Dave had indeed realized this reality and had moved the starting location to Thick Bikes. Since registration was at 12, and the race started at 1, this was a much more suitable starting location. It was what some would consider a perfect afternoon for a mountain bike alleycat. Mid-20’s, light snow and just enough puddles to make things messy. As always, Dave devised an excellent race course that traversed the local trail systems through both Schenley and Frick parks. Continue Reading »

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

The Hot Metal Bridge bike/pedestrian crossing opening ceremony was today at noon. The new crossing, which utilizes the original refurbished Hot Metal Bridge, links the Eliza Furnace Trail (or, “The Jail Trail”) on the downtown side of the river to the Southside Trail via a bridge over 2nd Ave. Mayor Luke Ravenstal was on hand to do the ribbon cutting, as well as close to 200 cyclist, pedestrians, and rollerbladers. Bridge Entrance
Continue Reading »

Saturday, August 25, 2007With temperatures reaching into the high 80’s, with 90+% humidity, this years Tour De Yinz began as the polar opposite of last year’s race. Held in November 2006, the inagural TDY featured pouring rain with temperatures of around 40°. Race participants were clearly pleased about the updated conditions.Pre-race Continue Reading »

Thirteen people came out for the Tour De Yinz Prologue. New to this years tour, the Prologue was a 5.5 mile Time Trial from Hot Metal Street to the end of the Southside trail and back. Saturday provided the racers with a beautiful day in the mid 70’s with very little wind. Continue Reading »

The date was Friday, July 13, 2007. Yes, Friday the 13th. What started as a normal happy hour at the Smiling Moose quickly turned into a ridiculous dick measuring contest. Joe “Papa Joe” Heckman, infamous retired Triangle Bike messenger was being encouraged by Pete, the door man, to show that he still had the skill/speed to beat any of the messengers currently working in a race across town. Of course, I am not a bike messenger and never have been. That being said, I’m not really sure how i got involved in the whole thing, but there I was signing a written contract to race Joe.The race: from the Smiling Moose to the N. Craig St. Beer distributor, buy a 30 pack of Pabst, and return to the Moose. The catch: doing this on original Triangle basket bikes. If you’ve never seen one of these bikes, they are certainly something to behold. Weighing in at a modest 45lbs, they are basically single speed steel mtn bikes with a coaster break and a large basket on the front. Not exactly ‘race-ready’ machines, but are brilliant for carrying large loads while messengering. The bet: the first person to return to the Moose with their 30 pack wins. If I win, Joe will pay me $300. (Pretty strong incentive to enter a race!) If Joes wins, he will shave my head bald on the stage of the Moose. Continue Reading »