Funny things indeed over the past weekend with the Griffociraptors, kids, Thomas, and the oh so unwashed masses. Top five of the funniest in a long line of happy, funny moments throughout the weekend:

Honorable Mention number two: Barely making the train for Felton upon leaving the Boardwalk on Saturday. I had to take the kid for one last leak as there are no bathrooms on the train. As the train is blowing it's whistle, I tell the little boy that it is imperative that we stop at the concession stand to buy two of those mondo beers they sell. He says we'll miss the train. I say Mr. Griffiths will be super happy we took the chance. Safely back on board, the beer handed to Mr. Griffiths did indeed have it's desired result.

Honorable Mention number one: Picking up some local Santa Cruz rag and reading one of those man on the street bits. The question was who would you be if you could be one person. One bullish looking doo rag wearing woman replied Dick Cheney so she could perform a murder suicide thing for world peace.

Number 5: With my daughter between my legs and nearing the drop on the log ride on Saturday, she pushed against me and dug into my thighs with her fingernails something awful for the ride down the waterfall. Scared that I over terrified her, she jumps out of the log to declare that Mr. Griffiths was right about the upcoming waterfall and whether we can immediately do it again.

Number 4: On the bumper cars with the boy, I spin around to see him coming at me full throttle with the biggest smile on his face. I reved her up equal to the collision. We both bounced off into separate directions.

Number 3: Waiting for the girl, who was riding with mom on the Haunted House ride. Again, not sure if it's solid parenting to be terrifying the girl so, but who said parenting isn't a work in progress? So out she comes with a deathgrip on mama, and her blanket pulled perfectly over her head. Mama reported that as soon as she went through the swinging doors, she hid safely under her blanket until I was there to assure her that all was okay at the end of the ride.

Number 2: Griff and I did some loop that left from Felton and went down to Santa Cruz on Hwy 9. We rode past the University and then on some road that brought us back to Felton. Griff did the ride the day before but decided to turn around as he wasn't sure that the road we were on was the right one. After showing me where he turned around, we arrived at a sign that said, "Felton this way 3 miles." Griff needed only to go about 500 more yards the day before. Instead, he panicked, turned around, and spent a lot more time on the bike than what his plan called for.

Number 1: At the ranger show on Friday night learning all sorts of things about decomposers, a little boy returned to the audience after performing a skit. He was sitting right in front of us. My wife said to me, "his grandparents must be really proud." With that the lady turns around and says, "actually, we're his parents, but we get that a lot." My wife sat in silence mortified as I sat wiggling with suppressed laughter. To my wife's credit, the lady must have looked 60, but I'm usually the one to utter such comments due to my foot in mouth disease.

These are only the highlights as not a moment wasn't filled with something excellent. Hope you are well and that this week brings you joy like no other.

Johnny GoFast

Black Thursday with Landis being implicated. One can only hope that this is all a horrible mistake. Maybe his effort on that stage made his body produce some statistical anomalies. But like I always half jokingly say, they're all doped. I just stuck my head in the sand on this one due to his courageous ride. Beer my ass. Anyway, I'm done with that...for now. Onto something lighter shall we?

So I'm headed to the Santa Cruz Mountains (Felton to be specific) to camp and hang out this weekend. It's an annual thing where we ride Thomas the Tank Engine on Friday and then ride the train to the Boardwalk on Saturday to hang with the unwashed masses. The ride on Saturday is awesome as we snake our way down to the ocean through the redwoods. As we near the beach, we actually pass some authentic hobos. I think they call them crackheads now, but I tell my kids that they are the real deal. Griff brings his little ones with him along with his MILF, and I'll have my wife with me as well. It really is one of the better weekends of the year. By the way, I'll be on the Red Rocket and Griff will be on his TarSchmak if you bloggers in the area are interested. If there is a good local ride on Sat morning/Friday night, we'd be interested.

So this morning I'm riding into work and it becomes obvious that I left 15 seconds too late. I just barely missed every single light and had to stop a lot. It's weird how some mornings work out that way. Anyway, I was starting to get annoyed, but then my attitude totally changed. I started hammering off the line at every light that stopped me simulating the surge needed during the cross season. There's a lot of time to be made up by getting back up to speed after the remount or loose/tricky corner and I started to smile at my good fortune this morning. The Deity of your choice throw you lemons, so you mix up a batch of lemonade, right? With the vacation day tomorrow, I was four for four this week on riding to work. Nine days in a row for those of you at home keeping score. Hope you are well and talk to you soon.

Johnny GoFast

So I'm just riding along (JRA) today at lunchtime thinking good thoughts about the upcoming cyclocross season as I crank out some tempo on my way back to the rock pile at lunchtime. How great would it be if all my work paid off and out of nowhere I show up for the first race at Candlestick and I shoot off the line and have the same speed as Coates? Keep doing the work because you never know, goes my head as I bang out more tempo. There's a lot of people between you in the 20 somethings and Coates at the front of the group. Certainly I'll be faster if I keep doing the work, I certainly can catch somebody in front of me goes my brain some more. And then whoa, what is that, holy crap, she's hot. Coming out of one of those local community pools is this complete and total milf. I stare as best I can through smudged glasses and sweaty and uncorrected eyes. Hell, from where I was, maybe she wasn't much to look at, but given the conditions and the 25mph, she looked good enough. And then the Karma police showed up, or the deity of your choice or whoever it is who governs all things fair in this world and evens them out through kindness, or punishment, or luck. As it would be, right smack in front of me, coming out of the same community swimming pool parking lot is none other than a Cosco Truck (a real one not a toy one). Anyway, he sees me but is committed to moving out into the roadway, and I've got to do something, so I ease into the brakes. It becomes clear that my deity is not going to take me out on this occassion, just wants to send a shot across my bow. But it's going to be close. Compounding the situation is the fact that the tires on my rocket are brand new. Like last night brand new, and I don't want to screw them up so early into their career. So I keep easing and he keeps moving out into the road and I tuck in behind him safe from another fall. So I go on pedalling talking to my deity and running through this outburst on his part. He tells me it's not nice to ogle. That it's degrading and letcherous, unbecoming and unfaithful. Unfaithful, I say? C'mon, I love my wife, you know that. Despite the fact that she forgets my birthday, our anniversary and to have sex with me, there is nobody on the planet that is more suited for me and I would never do anything to jeopordize that. Hell, I think she's a milf. Just because I see a milf, doesn't mean that I'm going to act on that, hell I'm just a guy with a semblance of a sex drive. And then blam, same truck further on down the road decides it's going to turn with no blinker. I'd like to think that somewhere in the darkest recesses of my brain, I had my eye on this guy, but I can't be certain. I was still banging out some impressive tempo, so I must have been moving up on him as we approached the next intersection. Distracted by my deity, I never anticipated the move and again I'm into the brakes. This time it's a little closer. Close enough that I can read some of the wording on the truck, "...at Cosco we're so committed to keeping our prices low, that we pay our drivers shit. I wouldn't be surprised if the truck your following isn't being operated by a monkey." Makes sense to me, and I immediately concede the point. Hope you are well and have nothing but the purest of thoughts rumbling through your noggin'.


Johnny GoFast

(I think I'll set this to country music)

Up ahead in the distance,
Just a slivering chance,
Dreams of a yellow jersey,
Lure him out there to dance.

All the mortals they cheer him,
An inspirational hand.
Nobody believes in him,
Or his breakaway plan.

The pedals they turnover,
Like they’ve never done before.
Nobody on his wheel,
Time to even the score.

He became a legend that day,
Though he’s not golden yet.
The courage he poured forth,
He will never regret.

Some men shrink when they’re standing,
That close to the abyss.
We can all learn something,
From the dreamer (this is getting changed to doper) Landis.


Did anyone else find themselves pedalling a little faster yesterday? What a great day. To top it off, I had my first cyclecross dream of the season last night. I was out on a training ride with Steve Ouzounian when we happened onto a race being put on by the Clif Bar team. Some Velo Bela's were there as well as some Luna Chic's, but I don't remember too many other people. The field was really thin, but I was first into the first corner where I promptly dug my front wheel into a mud bog. Made for a great ride into the rock pile this morning. By the way, I was five for five on the commute to work this week. This war isn't because of me. Have a great weekend.

Johnny GoFast

17-Feb
Wk 13
135 min
30 miles
Road
2,3,4 heart rate zones
156 average
50 cadence
On Bike Strength Workout

8 x 3 min on/6min off MTI's on Diablo. Holy Shit!!! It was snowing below the Junction. Kept going because I thought it was hail and would stop. Later I noticed snow flakes--and then it started to dump. Coming down I got cold like I've never been cold. Couldn't stop shivering once back at work. Started to feel human again by 4pm or so. The workout itself was good. No problemo hitting interval targets. Couldn't do more than two standing intervals due to the slickness of the roads. Stayed seated and still accomplished finishing the workout despite the conditions.

Due to the heat, I looked back in my journal for something inspiring. This is a blurb that I had in there from a workout I did in February. I basically got caught in a snow storm up on Diablo one day at lunchtime. Decending, I thought my entire upper body was going to go numb and I'd let go of the bars. I would stop periodically to shake my arms alive. It took me forever to get down and then forever to get across the flats and back to my office. Luckily, my brother was in the parking lot when I arrive. He helped me get my bike into the car for me as I couldn't stop shivering. I think I shook for another two hours before my body finally warmed up. God I hated that day. I'll take the heat over that, no question. Hope you are well. Notice a lot of traffic out there regarding Floyd Landis. Did he do something?

Thanks for making this website the most popular non-read site in blog land.
Johnny GoFast

Okay people, let's go over this one more time. If your arm is not at least as twice as big as your wrist, YOU HAVE NO BUSINESS GETTING A TATTOO AROUND YOUR BICEPT!! If that isn't a law in Denmark, it should be. I mean come on, shouldn't that look be completely saved for the 'roided out gym freak and the white trash Concord mom? That's about all I have to say about the tour.

My ride up Diablo last night went better than projected in my post. I was saved by a coworker named Court. He's new to the cycling world having received an extremely old Allez from my brother. I believe this Allez was first purchased by none other than Griff, who sold it to Justin Coursey, who sold it to Mike Dunsford, who sold it back to Griff who sold it to my brother who loaned it to Todd Slattengren, who gave it back to my brother who has now loaned it to Court. I think I have that right. Not sure how the bike changing hands so many times effected the economy, but I'm sure somewhere a fledgling econ major could figure it out. Anyhow, Court is not in cycling shape and to my horror, suffered something awful up the hill. Finally, fearing for his life, I begged him to turn around. He suffered on only relenting about 10 minutes later than he should have. I felt like I had thrown him to the wolves certain that he would be giving the bike back sometime soon. Imagine my smile when he walked into my office this morning and asked if we could try again on Friday evening. Some rocks are hard to split and there is some inspiration in that for all of us.

Johnny GoFast

Tomorrow morning's headline to read: "Local Boy Rushed to Hospital in Complete Dillerium".

Local Pegasuraus rider Johnny GoFast was found on death's door last night as he attempted to summit Mount Diablo. Apparently the blazing heat overcame him as he neared the Junction at the 2000 foot level of the mountain. Park Ranger Carl Nielsen, a fellow Pegasuraus teammate, was the first on the scene shortly before 6pm. "There was an unusual amount of vultures circling in one area. I was in my post looking for fires and racoons and other things that rangers do on the mountain, when I noticed the unusual avian activity. I decided I'd better take a look and was startled to find Johnny lying in the gutter muttering something about the cool waters of the Truckee river." Recently returned from the cool environs of the Sierra Nevada where GoFast actively rode his bike, boated with his family, and fished every evening on the Truckee river, it would appear that GoFast has not fully made the adaptation to the incessantly hot local weather. Nielsen is credited with saving GoFast's life as he was able to get him to the Lindsey Wildlife Museum just before closing. "Normally we work with animals that are rescued from the Open Space in Walnut Creek and from the State Park on Mt. Diablo," said Vernon Raptor of the museum. "But Carl said that Johnny is a real animal, as one would have to be to ride in this heat." According to Raptor, Johnny was given an IV to replenish his fluids and was bedded down next to a rescued bobcat where he was sleeping comfortably when we went to post. He is expected to make a full recovery. Johnny GoFast and his family request that all donations be made to him directly.

Anyway, hope you are well.

Johnny WiltFast

Holy buckets, it's as hot as an oven out there. Sitting here at work after a two week layoff in the mountains and things are going surprisingly well. I'm actually fired up about some projects I have before me. But enough about that, I don't want to get carried away about what I have to do daily to do the things I really like to do. What? Must be off caffeine again as I'm not making sense.

Anyway, I was sitting here a little before lunchtime wondering if I really wanted to go work out. So I got this brilliant idea to flip a coin. If it came up heads, I'd go and stuff a burrito in my hole, if it came up tails, I'd go and workout. I flipped a quarter exactly once, and it came up heads. Woohoo, burrito here I come. But then I stopped and I asked myself one little question, "is Griff your bitch or not?" Well when it comes to CycleCross, he most definitely is, and the only way to keep him in my rearview mirror is to do the work. So despite winning the flip, I elected to kick and off to the gym I went. Running mind you. God I hate running. Later I'll will post an audio soundbite of people laughing at my shuffling running style. Threw some serious iron around in the gym. At one point, one of the 'roid freaks sneered in my direction as I blasted out eight reps on the bench press at 135lbs. Yeah, serious stuff to be sure. Cross is going to be full throttle this year, and I'm going to be ready. Until then stay cool. Unless your Griff, then stay BITCH!

Johnny GoFast

Hey Gang-

Sorry for the delay in posting. Been on vacation in the Truckee Land Area with the family. I managed to get out on a few rides, mostly on the dirt. The single track and the attitude in the Truckee is spot on when it comes to the knobbied two wheeler. Some of my favorite rides like the Rim Trail and Hole in the Ground have been neglected this trip as we have not gone off the Tahoe Donner compound. I've owned my cabin up there for seven years now, and the trail network has only improved. When I first started riding up there, it was very uninspirational stuff (aka fireroad up and fireroad down). Now it's all sorts of single track that flat out rips. I also managed to get out on the road bike with the Griffociraptor. Boy took the pipe to me on the climb to Sugar Bowl, but I'm in base mode.

Got my boy out behind the boat in the innertube. His smile was a wide as the lake and as bright as the sun. Makes me grin just thinking about it. He has all the signals down and generally holds his thumb in the upright position until his mother screams at me to slow down. He also likes to continually go around in circles.

Jury duty tomorrow, and assuming I don't gauge my eyes out or end up on an OJ Simpson like trial, I'll be back up there tomorrow night. Hopefully I will post a bit more from my mountain top retreat. Hope you are well.

Johnny VacationFast