ChickenRIde Kauai

P1017195, originally uploaded by st975j.

Ian and I on ChickenRide Kauai

He Won the Sprint, so I bought the snow cones.

RUN IN WITH THE LAW

The first chicken ride of 2009 had a interesting beginning. Its start location was altered due to a case of smallpox or something traveling through the Tawse household. A group of six headed out into a shortened route and stiff headwind. We encountered a "too close for comfort" drive by from a irate driver. BOS had an argument that one will never win causing a visit from one of Pleasantdales finest. Please ask him for full details. The Chicken season has begun.

Christian Wins Paris Nice stage (1st Chickenride of the year)

2009 ChickenRide starts March 11th

We will Start at 5:30 pm at the ChickenCoop!

Looking forward to a another great season!!

ChickenMaster

Dirty Chicken III

Very brief here - last tune up ride before Chequamegon, usual suspects were present for a slightly moist roll through palos. A few slippery spots and Alex was less aggressive on the the log jams, he doesn't like green stuff on the logs. just under 2 hrs, 17 miles, and a good time was had by all!!

Dirty Chicken Part II

With most of the SRAM crew out of town, Alex, King, MTB Matt, Matt C and Smott met at the ghost town mall and headed out for some dirty fun. great ride for all, so fun fast sections, personally i felt mush better and was able to carry a tad bit more speed this week.
Rolled back down Willow Springs rd in near darkness, ended up with 2 hrs, 19 miles

Tune in next week for final Chimme Changa prep

Dirty Chicken

A good size crew of the usual suspects met at the Ghosttown mall for some good ol dirty fun on the MTB.
Tawse, King, Feltz, Bos, JP, Dixon, Matt C, Big Matt, MTB Matt, Smott, Alex, - did i miss anyone?
we had a good crowd and good ride on the trails. We met up with Lisa out there, and did the usual suspects of loops. Smooooott was dying and threw in the towel to head back on the road. He later discovered that the disc brakes on borrowed wheels were rubbing badly - DOH!

Garmin time and distance had a solid 1:45 in the dirt for about 18miles

Lenny's Ride

Carol was welcomed into the Chickenride with open arms as always, and we thank her for coming out to ride with us. It was a great day, lovely weather, and very nice to pedal along and laugh at all the funny stories about Lenny. Tawse brought out Lenny's bike and it was nice to see it rolling down frontage road again. I'm not going to cloud up the post with many words, other than i still miss Lenny every day. Thanks to all that shared their stories.

OZ

A fathers Day ride to remember!

There were only three of us on this past Sundays fathers day adventure (Tawse, Mtb. Matt and Myself). 50 knot tail winds, Horizontal Rain, Flying debris, Fallen Branches and Sheets of water cascading down 55th street. Thats right 55th Street. It was a b-line to Park Lane for Shelter, Coffee and Dry clothes.

 

Needless to Say Scott's 808's were a handful and my 404's were not much better in gale force conditions. Great entertainment. These just a couple of photos from this past sundays ride. 

A beautiful day...

Items to note from todays ride - a BEAUTIFUL day for a bike ride, Lisa need a plumber cause those pipes are gonna burst!!, Zellman's Astana Rig, Ritzler's brain Freeze, and a Dixon was on the ride!


This week was without a pro, but a pro bike was present, so Michael Zellman gets the honors as pro of the week

your Rig? Astana isues 62cm Trek with full SRAM Red.

Least favorite piece of cycling equipment? riding gloves

Favorite video game? Pitfall (good throwback call Z)

Favorite Chamois cream? Brave Soldier ( we thing big Z likes the Grit!)

Late May edition and new feature

Well here in Chicago we are finally getting ready for some decent spring time temps, now that we can see June in a few more days, we expect to be able to shed our longsleeves soon.... we hope!

NEW FEATURE:
CHICKENRIDE PRO OF THE WEEK INTERVIEW:
Smott has taken it upon himself to come up with some unique questions for the pros that frequent the Chicken. Not the boring stuff like ' what kind of training regime do you like ' or ' whats your favorite race east of the Mississippi ' but the good stuff, the important stuff to racing.
Since this is my feature, i conduct brief interviews and let the pros know that some answers may be modified or completely fabricated in order to have a more interesting feature.

This weeks feature is Mark Santurbane - who rides for the California Giant Strawberries team.
Marks rig is a Specialized sporting Mavic hoops, SRAM Red shifters and Derrs, Dura Ace SRM, and some TRP stoppers. Mark is a small guy, so he uses a small guy seat as well.
Mark was pretty cool, had some good laughs, and was fine with my disclaimer of answers may be altered or completely fabricated. I know he works for SRAM, but i didnt catch what division he was in, but he did discuss his upcoming trip to Taiwan and his distaste for the lack of decent riding there.
Favorite Chamois cream? Assos
Favorite Post race outfit? hoodie and sweats ( especially after chickenrides that finish around dark and the temps drop 15 degrees)
Favorite video game? do i have to pick one?
Did you like the Chickenride? what Chickenride ( yes you may acknowledge it) - oh yeah, all except stopping in BFE to change a flat tire on 4 attempts for 20 minutes ( Matt - it wasnt your fault!)


Hopefully there will be more interviews to follow.
Back to the ride.. The rollout was wind assisted which lent itself to some good chatting, and a pretty quick approach to the Romeoville gallop to the line. Ritzler and Bos launched it with Smott and King in tow. Bos took a Lion's pull and the Smoooott jumped to nab the prize. Ritzler later commented about being rode off Smoots wheel, but thats all that fat kid can do is sprint for 200m. This week featured the first extra time adventure to the Bluff rd. It was full speed ahead in the rollers, and your author was nowhere to be seen for any commentary of how it shook out. I do know that Matt with the Zipp 808's flatted, so i stopped with him, and a few others returned quickly. We learned after blowing off the tire 2 times with gas that it was going to be a dainty job. Ritzler demonstrated his off road capabilities by climbing and descending in grass to a nifty pee break location as seen in the snaps above.
After 20 minutes and 3 additional tries, we got enough air into the wheel to keep him rolling. Note to those that need the Lou Malnaties Deep Dish wheels - buy tubes with valve stems like 100m long! lol!
it was getting cool and we knew we were chasing darkness on the roll in, as as mentioned the roll out was tailwind, the ride home was not too polite. Your author was into the hurt locker early and did his best at faking it and hiding to survive. He launched a few attacks off the back, but managed to get back in despite his efforts to get dropped.
Skinny Todd launched up Wolf Rd hill, but the group was fast in tow this time. your author was nowhere to be seen, but i believe i heard that a Feltz took the V.
JP and the SRAM car delivered our bags to the LaGrange Bucks, as we had to alter our usual stop due to the WS Bucks closing at only 8pm. King and Ritzler went City of Chicago style and blocked off a parking spot for them, i suggested the traditional folding chair, but they pointed out that out in the Burbs, there may not be enough respect for the chair.

all in all a good day and good laughs tonight

Bone Ride 2008

W
ednesday May 21 started EARLY. Lyle showed up at Smoootts at 0-Dark-45 am and we rolled over to the Chicken coop. From the western Burbs we had Smott, Bos, Lyle, Dave C, King, Tawse, Pete, and a special visit from Andy Caron. King drove the big Sequioa with about $40K of gear on top, Smooooott drove the Big Diesel with gear inside. We headed north into the land of cheese, with a McGriddle stop and coffee filling / emptying visit as well. We arrived at Tom Schulers house and unloaded, and met up with the rest of the SRAM contigent - Todd, Feltz, McKenney, Zellman, and Macedon were all present. It was a tad chilly on rollout, but not too bad at all. Very sunny and a light west / northwest wind was blowing. I certainly hung out in the wheels, and stayed out of the wind. Traditionally the ride is broken into 4 groups pretty quickly, but this year it seemed to get back together quickly, not sure if that was due to the wind or not. No major issues on the way up, i believe it was just 1 flat for McKenney and Bos, and the rest was clear sailing. Arriving in Madison, Andy was checking time and told us we had to hurry if we were hoping to enjoy our early roll out to help digestion on the way home. Everyone made quick work of some vittles from Subway, and we scurried to find Big Ed, change some gear out, refill bottles and pockets for the return flight. Macedon fell victim to a flat just as we were leaving town, but he was back with us in no time. Everyone was seeming to settle into place, and the cross tail wind was very welcomed on the trip back. Everyone seemed to go through their own little spots of difficulties, but the BP at 200km came up pretty quickly. There was a quick break to refill bottles again and chug down one last coke for the final 30 miles or so. We had been caught about 15 miles outside of the BP stop, but many of the guys that caught us peeled off at a bike shop on the route that cut them off about 20 miles left to go for us. I think we were all happy to not have the pace whipped up too much, and kept it together into town for a successful Bone. Our Bone virgins Todd, Lyle, and Pete all survived with flying colors, and there was never anyone in much difficulty that we had to nurse.
I would say that the conditions were almost perfect for the ride, and one of the better trips we have had in the last few years.
Thanks to ED - sag driver extrodinaire and all around good guy
Thanks to SRAM and all the effort they put into help make our rides successful

It was a rainy AM, but skies cleared up for a quality afternoon ride.
the usual suspects were on hand with a special guest appearance by Mr Alex Wassman, and Dixon's car ( no Dixon). It was quite mellow rolling out, noone was jumpy for the frontage road sprint, and Feltz eeeked out the V at appx 21 mph. Smooot launched the patented Tawse attack into extra time since he was busy coaching baseball, that whipped things up pretty well into a still west wind. The roll back was quick but organized, and saw King and JP roll off the front on the madison hill never to be seen again. Ritzler and Smoooot helped coach Jeff onto the back of the group, and determined life would be easier if we could teach him how to take a hand sling. The group came closes to reeling in the escapees just before madison hill, but they got green and the group got red. The ensuing roll up and spring was quick, i believe Mr Herr was the benefactor of a sweet leadout. We got wet the last 5 min of the day which made a tough choice at the 'Bucks for hot or cold beverages.

5-13-08 author edit - attached are some snaps of King's New Bike Power. Note the sweet hoops and carbon seat rails - this ride screams fast and comfy

also Wassman was around for a now you see me now you don't as he peeled off REALLY early and returned solo to the city for some secret training

Sunday May 4th

Good time had by all.

Lenny rides with us!

Thanks to Tawse for coming up with some awesome stickers so that we can have Lenny ride with us all. The picture doesn't do the sticker justice, i will try to get a better picture of it.

Chicken was great yesterday, good to have the head rooster back in the swing of things.

CHICKENRIDE!!!

We all made it through a long winter to convene at the Chicken Coop for our annual parade lap to celebrate the coming of spring. A great turnout and decent temps made for a cordial ride. King and I were able to poach the Barca-loungers at the Bucks post ride, and it was very nice to catch up with everyone.
We look forward to next week and see if a larger turnout will show up for the ride.