Been awhile.....

It's been awhile since I've posted. Between 60+ hour work weeks, people staying at our place, etc. I just haven't found or much less, made time to write a blog. Sorry 'bout that.

So, what's been up in our world? Well, a little of this and a little of that. Last weekend we went to the Cook's Ball on Sunday morning (think 5:30 a.m.), then went to have coffee about 10:30 and then off to the airport to hook up for a late lunch with our friend Wayman who we know from Kansas City (even though he lives in Barcelona).

We then took a nap which was followed by wandering through some of the many galleries that were open last weekend. From there we hit the street fair close to our house. We ate a hamburger at a BBQ that had a sign posted stating that they are members of the Kansas City BBQ Association. Strange!

We attended the Cook's Ball in as close to traditional Bavarian Tracht (clothing) as possible. Kera was much closer in her attempt than I. In part because I chose to wear my UtiliKilt and logging boots. I managed to get a few peculiar reactions. The Men tended to smile and nod whereas the older women looked at me agast! One older guy sitting next to us asked me if I was wearing hose and was actually complimentary when he found that I was a cyclist and actually shaved my legs.

Kera went to London for a couple of days at the beginning of the week. I managed to entertain myself by hanging out with a few of the other guides a bit. Thursday night we had our Mike's Bike Tour's "Isar party" on an island in the middle of the Isar river. Mike spent a butt load of money and it seemed as though everyone had a great time. More pics here, but it's in Deutsch (look for Fotogalerie). As you can tell, any excuse for a party in Munich.

I've been leading a bunch of my own tours down at the castle. They've been a mix of High School classes and families. Overall, they've been pretty great. One school group really stands out. They were from Golden Sierra High School in northern California. Just a bunch of really cool kids with equally as cool adults that were accompanying them.

My quest for the perfect bike continues as does my constant stupidty in regards to racing. I'm now "officially" signed up for two more races this summer. Race 1 is the Single-Speed World Championships in Stockholm and race number 2 is the 24 hour race here in Munich in which I'm racing solo. Ugh! Sadly, my job has taken so much time away from my 'normal' days that I don't ride much anymore. Therefore, I'm losing conditioning by the day in spite of a couple of attempts at riding during the week with 1 hour runs thrown in here and there.

Guess I'll be ramping up the morning and evening training schedule through Sept. when the 24 hour race takes place.Here's the aerial map and the profile. Just click on 'em for the big view. I went out for a run earlier and ran to the Olympia park to do the course. My run covered the whole course in approx. 15 minutes. It helps me understand how last years winner did something like 95 laps!


Construction on the tents for Oktoberfest began a couple of weeks ago. Even though Oktoberfest doesn't begin till mid-Sept., they're hard at work on the site. Here are some pics. If you can see the pics, you'll see that the buildings end up looking like permenant structures more than actual tents.

Lastly... check this out Bike video.