Just forget about the 3 inches of rain on Friday and the storm earlier in the week.

We’re mudders!  Our mudders were mudders!! We come from a long line of mudders and promote only the same.  Hell,  my shoes have been wet since November, and thats just how I do’s it.    Channo,  can  I get an AMEN??!!

Welcome back old friend. Its been a while, too long, much too long to enjoy a sweet ride  in  the piney woods of  Rocky Hill Ranch in Smithville,  Texas!!  One big loop is all the elixir you need, dont need no multi-lap formats, we’re going out and back, see you in a bit, have a cold tall dog waiting for me. Man I like this trail but wish I could still get a 1/2 lb cheeseburger, jalapeno and all when Im done! Paul, cant you start running this place again?!

With such excellent weather we  decide to meet up at Lances station and punch our tickets to Crunk City!!.      11am, not a bad start, we just have an hour or so to go and just want to get a lil preride in before we get too deep in the tall dogs and all the other business of the day. After all, Godfather and OMW Hall of  Famer  “Ready” Rob Remlinger will be making his presence known since this is his home course. Is that any good?!! Id love to have Rocky Hill in my back yard!! Looks like a fat ass double cheeseburger (or multiple double stacks ) from Wendys is the hole filler along with copious adult beverages and we are east bound and down! All crunked up when we get there and barely make it past the check in folks. Hey Lance just give them a wad of bills, they will work it out. Or will they? Can anyone count around herrrrr? 

Lets see, best spot for camping?  close to the action, right off the starting area, room to roam around and be loud. Yeah, we got it!!   Pop up in full effect, canopy upright, jammin cooler that goes to 11, blowing it up!!  Dont let me forget the new OMW Racing bike rack that Sean so graciously developed! Holds all our pigs!! I guess we should think about a preride sometime soon.  You know its down right wet, dont you? I mean its not clumpy mud, but its a bit nasty and gnarly in places, mostly just WET! There are a couple creek crossings and they all have water in em. Ok more like 108 creek crossings,  all with varying degrees of dampness.  No worries and we’re taking it all in.  9 mile cut off?? Not on a tummy of tall dogs n such!! We re gonna keep going. Keep going all the way around, 21 miles! What happened to those bail out markers???? Oh well, its in the bag now, wheres my koozie???

Dinner at Robs Back Door Cafe in Smithville.  Janet and the girls hooked us up!!! Pizza, with the Shiner bock crust, shrimp, crawfish, chicken, salad, all so very delicious, Even Eduardo said so in English and he’s not so good with English. Head on back to camp and get our drink on, carbo loading for the big day ahead.   One by one they all fall down. Next think you know its Dan, Lance, and Channo holding the fort.  Same as usual yo!! So were all 3 fighting it,  waiting for the other to call it when we get the call…  Josh is bout to leave Austin to come represent on Sunday!! Its 10:00 at night!! He wont be here til 11pm!! Guess we better refresh and reload, which we  do.  Josh makes it right on time and its not long and we re all out for the night. Dreams of piney trails and fat chuck, WHAT?

And now an excerp from Channo:  

“Now I’m sure most folks were cringing as the thunder began a deep, heavy roll on Friday, raining out their weekend parade…but no, not I. I was grinning ear to ear…No, not those of us known as The Band of Merry Mudders. Mudders are in hog heaven come race day after a nice heavy T-storm has had its way with the land; blowing through and leaving in its wake some of mother nature’s own homemade soup- It’ll cure what ails ya!!

…now if only we could manage to work in a few creek crossings…”

 Sunday morn comes early and Josh is first to go at 9:30, so theres time to change his tube out, wait youre not supposed to see the tube bubble out of the side wall, right? Oh and BTW, Cat 3 goes off at 9am, not 9:30, Einstein, your group is staging!! “Moments  Notice” Bailey manages to buy a tire, fix the flat, jockey up to the line, and he’s gone. May the force be with you young Jedi.  The rest of us dont go til 10:30, but its good and muggy now! you can feel the moisture coming up off the ground.  Its gonna be hot and humid today.  We still still got Eduardo, Tom,  Rob,  Lance,  Shannon,  and Dan to represent. With all the rain the organizers have had to reroute the start to bypass  “Greys way”  and its stickity ickity clay mess,  and head straight up the jeep road to Fat Chucks Revenge.  Thats a good 3/4 of a mile with 2 fairly steep and stubburn type climbs just to get past Fat Chucks. I saw my share of guys already blown up at this point and we’re not to the single track yet. The course is wet but thankfully not “wheels wont roll” muddy. So we are able to get around essentially unscathed but wet.  Some new trail is fun to crush and some old familiar ones as well. Overall a great 21 mile jaunt thru the piney woods.

 And OMW Racing was fast today!! Well most of us at least.

 Eduardo takes the win AGAIN!!! Blows the field away, I think he caught most the singlespeeders. Shannon gets the podium with a 3rd place finish.  Tom pulls down 4th to solidify his good standing in the overall.  Dan doesnt shine today and manages only 17th on the day. Josh gets 21st.   Rob brings home 13th in the SS  group as well.  Lance flats twice and makes the call to walk it in for points….  from 10 miles out!! Are you Sh!#ing me?! He got his points though bitches!! AND  a slap on the butt as Dan passed him on the trail! MMMM the sweet nectar of 12 tall dogs coming my way from that catch!!  Wheres my rabbit?!!

Another great weekend of riding our bikes all over this great state of Texas!! Better check the overall standings, looks like we have 5 guys in the top 10 (make that top 6,  WYB!!). We are off to the TMBRA Texas State Championship finale, The Mellow Johnnys Classic . This one  is  out at Lance Armstrongs  Juan Pelota Ranch in Dripping Springs, Tx.  and is gonna be played out on Memorial day weekend. It just happens to be by our favorite swimming hole at the Hickman Hideout, so we’re gonna have our own  zip code once again!!

We hope to see everyone at The Mellow Johnny’s Classic in Dripping Springs, Tx. , Memorial Day Weekend,  when we will put it all on the line and collect our hardware for the 2010 TMBRA Series Overall Standings, then back to  my place for the OMW fiesta!!

OMW BITCHES!!!

to be continued…..bitches!

Other possible titles for the 2010 trip out to Cold Spring  include:

U can’t get there from here.

Who’s leading this expedition anyway??

Well, MY GPS says…

Wrong turn at Albuquerque.

Where’s the bridge? Has anyone seen that confounded bridge?!

What Bridge?

How many has Lance had, anyway??

Point Blank range.

Well, you get the picture.  So anyway, we need to get to our plush A-frame accommodations out on the shores of  Lake Livingston for our race in Cold Spring. Man, it sure would be great if there were a fast yet scenic route (root) which could lead  us to the promised land… Well, I happen to know these guys…and they’re fairly reliable guys… Anyway, I know these guys who swear up and down there’s a bridge that crosses that huge mutha of a lake…

So, it’s Saturday morning and we’re departing in even later than usual fashion due to “Crazy Rabbit” Eduardo repeatedly running down the wrong damn rabbit hole. Trust me, when i say i know there’s many possible pitfalls to be had in our English to Spanglish translations (ESpanglations). (Example: “No Claudia, I said Peanuts not Penis…”)

Call me crazy, but how you end up on 2222 and then 6th street when you’re looking for MLK would certainly seem beyond a simple translation issue…I mean, we’re talking NUMBERS  verses  LETTERS  here, aren’t we?? 

But I digress…

So, we’ve gotten off to a bit of a late start, but it’s nothing that a little peddle mashing won’t fix, right? Well, maybe if you know where the hell you’re going… are we supposed to take 290 or 71?… YES!?!…well, there’s obviously dissension in the ranks, as an embattled convo similiar to “Who’s on first?” ensues when somebody in another vehicle dares question Lance’s navigational aptitude in regards to taking 290… I’ll say this, he may not always know where he’s going, but he’s sure in a hurry to get there… So a couple highly inefficient stops, ”ooops, turn around” and other misc. wrong turns later, and we find ourselves with Lance again leading the caravan with his typical “I’m getting there in a hurry” mentality….followed shortly thereafter by an impromptu screeching pull over and a “Who the hell is leading this thing, anyway?”…U just gotta love Tom’s style as he seizes the day and non-verbally establishes his leadership role as he Squawks out a sharper U turn than you would think a mini-van is capable of, all the while his GPS is smoking amid all the abrupt starts, stops, 270 degree turns and whatnot…alarming beeps and blurbs… F’ing GPS’s…Carpe Diem, Tom. Carpe Diem. F that F’ing bridge, we’re going to Cold Spring before this day is done!!  Man, that mini-van really handles- that thing corners like it’s on rails…Step on it, y’all! He’s gittin’ away!!

I’ll let someone else fill in any blanks that I’ve left out of the story (Wayne, you Ol’ Mutha Scratcher, you!), as I’ve only got time to spin one more yarn here and I’ve just gotta tell it- I feel as though I owe it to the readers…Yep, you guessed it- another Lance crash!!…Seems like it wouldn’t be a real race weekend without one.  So forgive me as i fast forward the action to our pre-ride activities:

Lance has already been chirping about wanting to do a second lap, which Dan and I quickly squash with a harmonious “I’m only doing one lap, nice and easy…but you’re more than welcome to seconds, young buck” . Lance is NOT very happy with us. What the heck’s he been taking, anyway?! 

So, here we are on a nice peaceful team pre-ride through the SMRCFNA. Nice and peaceful except that Lance is all amp’ed up and running up my backside. He is NOT satisfied with this pace. Not in the least.  All i can hear from behind me, aside from his tire rubbing mine, is “Oh, come Onnnnnn!!!!”….”Really!?”…. and then, there it is….we all knew it was coming…he gets out a  “Yaaaaa MULE!”.

Oh, hell…Yaaaa Mule strikes again…promptly followed by the sounds of Lance’s bike sliding out and his front wheel crumpling like that first post ride 16 ounce can being thrown down…with FEELING!!  Now, Lance crushes a lot. We all know this…but, it’s usually a good thing when Lance CRUSHES. Well, not so much this time…to quote Lee Corso, “Not so fast my friend!!”

Although he was behind me, I imagine it went down like something akin to a slow motion crash test dummy video, complete with a close-up of Lance subsequently being interrupted mid-”Yaaa Mule” with an “Ohhhhh @#$$ !!, as he yet again forgot that it is best to ride with the rubber side down…

Let that be a lesson to you kids…as OMW would hate to foster any bad form in the youths of today…riding form or otherwise. Right Lance?

BTW, er’ybody wants to know- were there any “Pretty ‘lil cables” sightings out on the race course? Perhaps Dan will be kind enough to bless us with a race results update. Dan?

Another great weekend of MTB Racing in the great state of  Texas!! OMW-racing puts 7 on the line and comes away with one podium, 2 top 5’s, and 2 more in the top 10!!  Eduardo brings home 3rd, Lance and Tom both nail down 5th places, Shannon gets  6th, Dan 8th, Josh 12th, and Maguire finishes, i mean he actually finished the race and got 35th. Almost in the points DasBoot!! Keep up the good work. And great jobs guys!!     2 more races to go for the TMBRA Texas State Championship Overall  placings.

Well that’s all for now.  Good luck out at Smithville everyone. OMW, Bitches!!

Channo con Saliva

Note- The Race #4 post for the St. Jo, Tx. race isnt missing. We didnt go.  Its hard enough to make it to the minimum 6 of the 8 races for the TMBRA Series overall standings, so we knew at least one would have to give and St. Jo was it. Its pretty far for us and im not all that fond of it. With that said and the DORBA guys rolling their eyes its on to Glen Rose, Tx.  and Solvaca Ranch for TMBRA Series Race #5.

None of us have ever ridden out at Solvaca Ranch but have heard some good things about this venue so we are anxious to get on the trail. Since we re racing in North Texas this weekend we decide to meet at Dan’s place for the take off Saturday morning.  Its only Dan, Lance, Eduardo, and Tom on this trip.  Why not,  all 4 of us are top 10’s right now and gotta stand our ground. There’s some fast guys out there looking to get our places. We manage to roll out about 30-45 minutes late which is about par for the season but at least we re on the road. Tom’s driving with his wife, Leslie, and daughter Reese til we get to the ranch, then she is off to see some friends. That leaves the rest of us in the Green Manalishi with Bam Bam behind the wheel.

Lance and I do our best to keep Eduardo included in the conversations, and the beer drinking, but with spotty results as our spanish is pretty bad. He’s a trooper and deals with us and the spanglish and even has a few tall dogs with us which he usually waits on. Now we re excited, we got Eduardo buzzed and, well, we are doing alright ourselves.  Checklist- case of tall dogs, ice, Ipod jams, ya thats about it, for now. Got our heads together and we are taking the scenic route. ALWAYS take the scenic route. Channo would be so proud!

We get to Solvaca Ranch and Tom is already there and has us a spot for the pop up camper for the weekend. Great spot Tom, close but just far enough. We are gonna put the rolling cooler jams on 11 you know! After we get settled and get our registration packets we prep up for a preride.  This course has few hills, only short punchy ones but nothing too hard or too long. We cruise it at a good pace, its gonna be fast. The wind is blowing constantly and gives a bit of trouble out in the huge open field we have to criss cross each lap. shouldnt be too bad though.  There is about 6 creek crossings and each one is full of water.  Hey, we love the slop, and it looks like there will be some on race day.

Thank goodness for an 11am start! we get to sleep in, which Lance and I need, and take our time hydrating and carbing up for our race. Toms up early and has the cooler jams going. Can I get Black Betty at 11?!! Time to toe the line. Toms off first with the SS’ers, then Eduardo, Lance, then Me. Beautiful day for a ride! Sun is shining and temp is about 75-80. Now that the Cat 1’s have been over the course they have made the water crossings somewhat boggy, a bit tricky in places, and nasty wet up the exit side. Now thats some fun mountian biking!! Did I hear someone crying about getting their feet wet ?? What is wrong with these people?? My shoes have been wet since November!! so OMW Bitches, coming through!

Toms steals the show with a 4th place finish but got complacent in the last 1/2 mile and gave up 3rd place. He wasnt very happy and I feel bad for his competitors next go round. Dont get complacent on the trail, yo! Dan pulls down 6th, Lance gets 12th, not his best day either, watch for him to read and crush very soon. First he reads, then he crushes!! Eduardo leads his group out for 14 miles or so,  only to flat with a couple miles to go and walks it in for 17th. He has to get some points to stay in the top 3 overall, and does. He’s a bit unhappy with that, for Eduardo its all bad unless you win. I feel bad for his opponents also at the next race. Thats one crazy rabbit and now he’s pissed.

Another successful weekend of racing down. We have competed thru race # 5 with 3 races to go. Coldspring next weekend, then Smithville, then the finale at Lance Armstrong’s  ranch in Dripping Springs.  Overall results are out and OMW Racing has 5 in the top 10 overall. Is that any good??  We’ll see you in Coldspring,Tx.  next where we’ll be staying in the A-frame cottages on Lake Livingston. Wayne you old muther scratcher how the hell are you!?

OMW Bitches!!

What a beautiful weekend for racing!! Here we are in our own back yard. This weekends race is at beautiful Pace Bend Park on Lake Travis.  Sponsored by Bicycle Sport Shop and presented by the Austin Ridge Riders. You literally park right on the shores of the lake.  Since we are only a 30 minute drive from  the venue we decide to get an early start on Saturday and go get a preride in to test the mettle of the trail. And a nice one it is. Plenty of  fast sections with a slew of technical, rocky sections to keep you honest.  Theres already quite a few people out to preride so we roll in and don our OMW kits and the word is now out.  We’re gonna have some fun tomorrow!!

Since this is as close to home as we get this spring season, we decide this will be our OMW family weekend. Jason arrived with his daughter Alexis on Saturday and they camped out on the flats right by the water for the weekend.  The rest of us showed up early sunday morning. Toms wife Leslie and their daughter Reese are here, Lances wife Sonny and their son Dean are here, and my wife Mindy and sister in law Janis have all come out to cheer us on. Sonny has made up some shirts and now her, Dean, Leslie, and Reese are all sporting OMW-RACING t-shirts. They all look great. Hey, mountain biking is part style you know, and we look good!!

Cat 1/pros go off first which buys us a little time before our Cat 2 and Cat 3 starts.  Just enough time to knock back a few tall dogs, for hydration purposes of course. Cat 2’s are off at 11am. Of course Tom is off first with the SS group, then Eduardo, Lance, Shannon, Eddie, then me.  Did I mention it was a great weekend for racing and that we came to represent? The start/finish line was in the middle of the expo  area so when we barrell thru after each lap its for the people! Let me hear you people, OMW!!!  I had a pretty good ride and was able to pull a couple racers back on the second lap. Coming into the final mile or so I knew it was pretty flat and fast and I had 3 guys in front of me. I knew they werent in my group but we were stomping it good and setting a fast pace. Before we busted out of the singletrack I had already kicked it big ring and was pacing the guys. When  we hit the pavement I went for it and passed all of them and pipped the last guy at the line. Again, they werent in my group but it was for show for the people, they come to see us race so lets race. Get on that line!! Big fun on race day! It was a good thing too, my competitor was only 27 seconds back!

Great results for the team today. Eduardo wins again, stomping the competition, thats two in a row!! Dan gets his best finish of the season with a 4th place, Tom and Shannon both get 5th place in their groups, Lance comes in 12th, Eddie 34th, and Jason brings it home in 45th.

We wont be at the St. Jo, Tx. race #4, but plan to make up for lost time at race #5 in Glen Rose, Tx. Noones been to that venue and we cant wait to make it our own. Stay tuned for the next installment of  madness  of OMW Racing.

OMW bitches!!