TOAD Stages 1,and 2.

Stage one of the TOAD was staged out of Blue Mound state park. It was beautiful, hilly, and hard, hard, hard. Here's a shot of the sweet finishing chute.

Naturally the race is slathered in dairy product promotions...
I got popped within the first 20 miles (swung the axe straight out of my hands....dammit Krogg!) My teammates Nick and Lang finished inside the top ten however! An awesome start to our race! Racing through Wisconsin's countryside on an overcast day.


The winner of the stage has to chug a glass of chocolate milk. Prizes were dished out by this bizarre prize troll.


Stage two was in Waterloo. Home of the great Trek bike factory.

Wisconsin traffic jam:
Lance is Loved in many ways out here:
Evidence of Wisconsin's dairy-rich history.
Naturally cheese tasting is available for the VIP's during the races.
My knees are still bothering me. Bottom scab: doing fine. Top scab: lookin' pretty puffy, itchy, and infected. Plus my tendons still hurt, and my range of motion sucks.
The final half hour of the crit was wet. Thankfully I'd been blown out the back of the race by then!
Sloppy!!
Strange exoskeleton bike I saw in the parking lot. I'm not sure if I'd trust one of these to carry me without exploding into a pile of carbon fiber toothpicks, but it sure looks cool, no?

Richland Center is the Place To BE!

Here's the lovely farmhouse we stayed at in between the NVGP and the TOAD (Tour of America's Dairyland). 
Here's the Barn. It's a pretty legit barn, no?!  It was inhabited by dozens of barn swallows who HATED it when I would go in there and look around. 

Amish live all over around here. I found that Wednesdays are an especially busy day for the Amish -- we sighted at least five wagons full (although we only were able to capture two on film). 

The Amish also like to sell chickens? Here's the local food store: 

Here's a few shots of Richland Center, in all its glory:

Aaaand finally, a shot or two of my broken handlebars (the string in there was the bladder that they use to press the carbon into the mold. I didn't know they left those in there...)

Nature Valley Wrap-Up

Stage 4, uptown Minneapolis crit. Here's the women staging.
Hennepin Ave. "If you see people with purple hair and shit, you'll know you're there."

We're kind of a big deal...

Hagens Berman groupie and road racer extraordinaire June Sayers. (and DS extraordinaire Joe Holmes)Hagens Berman groupie and track racer extraordinaire Terra James.

Hagens Berman groupie and track racer extraordinaire James Stangeland.
Where 90% of our food comes from:

I am not very impressed....
EATING CHIPOTLE AGAIN!!!! STUFF FACES!!!! YUM!!!!
GROINK SLURP MUNCH!!!!


Stage 6, Stillwater Crit. Women's staging.
Kristen Armstrong, being a badass. Kristen Armstrong winning her 4th NVGP

There is NOTHING FUNNY about seeing a grim reaper 3/4's of the way up Chillkoot hill!

Sweet tricks.

Ryan with Shimano: our best friend in the world.
Dave at the medical tent: our second best friend in the world.

AAAAAND IT'S A WRAP! NVGP 2009 IS IN THE BOOKS!!!

Somehow my blog turned two years old. This is my third year blogging about the NVGP -- remember when I wrote about knocking Ted King off his feet? Or those silly little "rules of Minnesota" (which still hold true I might add)? 

Happy very belated birthday, GliderBison. Welcome to the terrible two's. 

Krogg Review New Dura-Ace 7900

So Krogg smash bike into little bits on Thursday. Actually that slight exaggeration -- Krogg smash only his handlebars and shifters and pedals and shoes -- the rest of bike ok. However, Krogg unwilling to race bike with broken handlebars, so Krogg mope over to Shimano Neutral Support, 

and them very kindly offer Krogg this: 

Krogg pretty psyched, mainly because if Krogg smash this one, Krogg don't have to buy replacement parts! New bike look very pretty. See? 

At first Krogg worried he get in trouble for taking such fancy neutral bike because it say "Pro" on handlebars, and Krogg not actually pro. Then Krogg remember that english language pretty flexible system, and under expanded definition, sure, why not? Krogg plenty pro! Pro enough to pedal Shimano Neutral bike -- that's for damn sure!

Krogg try out new Dura-Ace 7900. It pretty sweet, but honestly, works like most other new fancy bike parts: very well. 

Krogg find that everything covered with words Dura-Ace. 
Nice mechanics equip Krogg with 11-26 cassette for tomorrow's crit -- Krogg have to climb 18% hill like twenty fucking times! Kick me in the woolly rhino groin! Krogg don't think magic cassette will help, but sure won't hurt! 

Fortunately, Krogg able to return borrowed bike without so much as scratch. Thank you Shimano. Krogg bought you 12 pack of beer to say thank you!!!

Now Don't Get Me Wrong....I HATE Twitter.

Twitter is stupid, especially if you don't have a smartphone (like me). However, I've just been given the keys to the HBcycling account at Twitter.com, and asked to update it. Seeing as how I blog plenty anyway, I guess I'll play the game and start tweetin' my little lungs out. I am supposed to keep my tweets "sponsor friendly," so you're still going to have to check in on my blog to get the good stuff. Like this.

Minnesota Nice

Look!! It's Floyd (and Floyd's body guard). 

They eat cottage cheese here -- just a big bowl of plain cottage cheese. The waitress recommended salt and pepper. 

Yum!

Oh gosh Minnesota is just so NICE!