THANKS!! The US visit Readers Digest version

Yes, you saw a Pink Elephant!

Believe it or not, I started writing this post on Feb. 12th. then, somehow, forgot about finishing it.

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We, finally, made it home. Amazing how long it takes to get here when your plane turns around 1/2 way to it's destination (Amsterdam) and then you have to do it all over again. Apparently, we had some sort of engine problem and instead of risking a water landing, they opted to head back over land.

No sooner did we deplane in Detroit and we got back on another plane to do the trip again. We hit Amsterdam and had to race through the airport to get on our rescheduled flight to Munich. When we arrived in Munich, we found that 1/2 of our bags had vanished. However, they were delivered tonight.

Four the troubles, we received flight discounts and vouchers for other flights. For the lost luggage, we got 25 Euros. Bizarre traveling when you're me. I seem to be the proverbial Black Cat & Lucky 13 rolled in to one where plane travel is concerned.

I managed to get most of the parts to complete both bicycles with the exception of a headset & stem for the Black Sheep & the rims/spokes for same. While on our vacation, I got an email from Doug at Curtlo that my old bike was done being repaired and he wanted to know what color to paint it. I decided to stick with the same Green but changed to Red stickers. Everyone knows how much that I love Christmas... it's great Grinch colors.

At Chelly's...mmmm Mexican food!

Another at Chelly's

We really want to say thanks to everyone that came out to our Seattle gathering, ate Mexican food with us, hit 75th Street Brewery, let us send things to their houses, ordered stuff for us, put us up or any of a long list of other things. THANKS!! It really made our first trip back home special. You get the picture. In general.... thanks to everyone!

Home of the Great Satan...Starbucks!

It was good to see family & friends wherever we went. I think that number of people that showed up at the 'gatherings' in both places was a bit overwhelming for us. In Seattle, we got a surprise when Ted & Vivion (my step-dad & his fantastic, blushing bride) showed up after having driven all the way from Northern California.

Here's a link to the few pics that we took. Sad that we only got the few you'll see here. I've no excuse really. We're just bad. U.S. Visit Photos

SS World's '07 & basically nothing about us.

Those of you bike fanatics out there... check it out... info. is FINALLY beginning to flow regarding SS World's in Scotland for '07.


SS World's '07 info.

Don't know if any of you have checked out my new pics... but I added a pic of a potential tat idea that I've been attempting to talk to the tat dude about for days. Fri. he wasn't in. He was supposed to be in on Sat. but wasn't after all. Today is Sunday and almost no one works here on Sunday. Tomorrow I'm going to try again. Here it is...


Oh... got the word that my bike is done at Black Sheep. Unfortunately, my check that was sent 2 weeks ago out of South Dakota has either failed to show up in Colorado or it got tossed as Junk Mail. In any case, at the very best, we'll pass in mid-air as it's flying here to meet me and we're heading to the States for the visit. It'll make the 10 days in over there feel really long as I really, really want to put this bike together and ride.

Check out this guy and Friend him if you're a MySpace'er. He's pissed and he seems to have a right to be... Fighting Corruption or at his other site Stolen Underground

I'm sure that there's more, but I can't remember it at my age. Maybe I need a drink. Oh... here you go... two new bike companies. Sweet stuff on both of 'em.

Exhibit's A & B) Mary - somehow affiliated with Siren Bikes

Then, check out...Siren Bicycles

Exhibit C)
Singular Bicycles
Those that attended or paid close attention to SS World's '06 pics, might recognize this beauty..

It's coming up quickly

This morning! Fun, fun, fun!

Last night (not my image)

I suppose, I could be talking about the snow, but, I'm not. Our visit to the States is the primary topic. We've been living in Germany for about 1.5 years now. This will be our first return visit in that time. The culture shock alone ought to be enough to wear us out, let alone all the family & friend visits on top of the 'jet-lag'.

A couple of important things...

We'll be having some sort of a get-together in Seattle & in K.C. so we can see as many people as possible at one time.

In Seattle; the plan hasn't formally gelled, but I think that I'd plan on Sat. night Feb. 3rd; somewhere in the city.

In Kansas City; Since we had to make a decision on nights to do our Chelly's/75th Street evening, I've decided to do it Friday night Feb. 9th. I figure we'll hit Chelly's 6-ish and then progress to 75th Street Brewery from there.

So, Girls & Boys... schedule those baby-sitters and we'll see you one place or the other. Right?

Now... quick new update.

For those that hadn't seen the previous update of last week; I have a new job. I'm an English teacher! Isn't that a terrifying thought? I'm working for a relatively new Language school here in town called ModoLingo

As you can see... it's snowing. It's been doing so for a couple of days straight now. Kera's not happy about it.... I'm thrilled. Of course, I love snow & cold weather (yes, I'm a bit of a nut). That's most of the reason that you love me... Right?

I've taught my first class and might be substituting tonight as well. I'm waiting on the call to say yes/no.





Kera's been sewing her little fingers off lately. Check out the above pics.

We also just took possession of a new toy; the new iPod Shuffle.... Thanks sis!



It ought to be great for those long hours in the saddle. In fact, used it while doing an hour on the rollers this morning. Helped a lot in making the time go by. The sound on this little guy is amazing. The battery lasts about 12 hours and it holds up to something like 250 songs. Wow! Isn't technology fantastic?

Well, I'm off to go sign up for another Deutsche class and play in the snow on the bike. Woohoo!

News and stuff

Bike III, originally uploaded by [skelly].

First... I've been given the pleasure of being featured on two different sites recently. Very strange. Here they are.Bikeliker & Gwadzilla Blog, I was up on Jan. 12 '07. To the Americans, it'll look like Dec. 12.

Let's see, where are we? A couple of weeks till we visit the States. This Sunday Kera has a meeting at a ski resort outside of Innsbruck (not sure what they'll do given the near total lack of snow this winter). Um, got a new job! Also, my new Black Sheep bike ought to be heading this way soon. Phew!

So, to elaborate on a couple of things. The new job... I'm an English teacher. I'll be working freelance, teaching Business English and General English for a relatively new Language school here in München. Good luck reading the site, but here it is... Modolingo. I'd been trying to get a job at one of the multitude of schools here in town but hadn't heard a thing from any of them.

I found the ad on an Ex-Pat forum and with Kera's goading, I carried my happy ass down to the school to drop off the cover letter & resume. As I walked in the door, there were two ladies talking and I presented my resume & told them why I was there. One of the ladies told me to sit down and that she'd be right with me (oh, didn't expect that). Anyway, she interviewed me and told me to get my work permits in order and I'd have a job.

Tomorrow, I start training and on Monday, I start teaching a class, mid-day, twice a week. From what my new boss told me, I'll quite likely be quite busy before too long. She has idea of various other classes that I could do (i.e. English language mountain bike classes, wine tastings & other things). I'll take it day by day and see what happens.


Should look a lot like this one above...

Like I said, the new Black Sheep bike should be on the way soon. I can hardly wait! Hard to believe that I've been without my own mountain bike since October. That's the longest time I've been without at least one mountain bike in the stable in 15 or so years that I've been mountain biking.

Last week Kera and I were on the way to a party with our spin class colleagues when I took a tumble on my city bike fixie. Normally, I wear shoes for my clipless pedals every time that I get on my bike. Instead, I'd just found an old pair of Converse high tops in a box. I had those on and when I caught the ende of the bike lane, my bike slid down the edge and down I went.

As I lay there I did a quick mental/physical examination and could tell that my knee and lower leg hurt quite a bit. In fact, my knee felt like I'd hit the 'funny bone'. Kind of dead, but mobile. I wasn't bleeding anywhere so off we went to the party. The next morning I awoke to no swelling but a fair amount of pain from bruising and almost a week later, it's waning, but still a constant reminder of what concrete and bike crashes can do.

Lastly, Kera's been sewing a lot more. Now, it's small purse/messenger bag things. Quite cool and quite useful. The toughest part is finding outdoor fabrics in Europe. Very strange since Gore-Tex is from here, there multiple Cordura plants here, etc. However, finding the stuff online, especially in Germany, is nearly impossible. I'll post pics as things develop.

So... for now, Ciao!

It's winter... kinda

HAPPY NEW YEAR girls & boys!! We spent Christmas doing fondue with our friends Sara & Christian and then New Years with our other friends Susanna & Matthias. Above are a few pics of the crazy midnight fireworks!!

What that generally means for us is that we go to spin class, ride the trainer or rollers & Kera gets in "PROJECT" mode. Thus, in the past few weeks, er, months, she's finished a couple of quilts, tote-bags, grocery bags & more.

So, here's the evidence.










I couldn't even begin to explain to you how labor intensive the autumn colored quilt is. If you've never seen her other quilts, this at least give you an idea of the depth that she'll go to. She says that the "foldy" thing is out of her system now though.

In a few weeks, we're off to the States for our first return visit since coming moving here in Oct. of 2005. We're both getting excited to see lots of family & friends that we've, obviously, not seen much of in awhile. We're (maybe I should say Kera) is planning out our time as much as possible. She's much better at it than I. In any case, we're off to Seattle first and then Kansas City (girls first).

What else? Um, I was supposed to go do a bike race today, but with my 'rain phobia' I decided that it was not to be. Instead, we headed to our regular Saturday morning spin class and then we've been home cleaning house and relaxing since. Oh, it's a holiday here so EVERYTHING is closed. Even most restaurants & coffee shops.

So.... we'll see some of you guys pretty soon!

Tuscany.... Wow!

As it turns out, Tuscany is one of the most beautiful parts of the world that I've ever laid eyes on. Honestly, I have no idea why I took to it the way that I did. In any case, I think that I probably annoyed everyone else by constantly making comments about how beautiful I thought everything was.


Radda in Chianti info.

Photo links -
Verona/Florence/Lucca
Bagni di Lucca/Modena etc.
Florence

Driving in Italy.. let me rephrase that. Driving in Italy south of Bozen/Bolzano is like nothing that I've ever experienced. Road markings seem to have little or no meaning & stoplights are somewhat of an 'optional' thing. At times, we'd be sitting at a stoplight 5 or 6 cars wide and within a couple hundred yards, we'd be back in to two lanes. After a couple of days though, you kind of develop a 6th sense about where and what is happening. It's quite strange. Definitely not Germany any longer.

Verona... the world seems to think that Verona & Venice are the greatest things since sliced bread. Verona was o.k. and Venice was... an old city that's currently decaying at a mad rate. Florence (Italians call it Firenze) is one of my favorite Italian cities. It's only surpassed by
Lucca, a smalled walled city west of Florence on the way to Piza. What an amazingly beautiful city! Lucca sits just at the base of the mountains in a valley. It's quite hard to describe what I found so cool about it, but I know that Kera really liked it as well. I also bought a new pair of specs in Lucca as well.



What else? Oh, you'll see a number of photos from a small town called Bagni di Lucca. My mother, who never asks for anything, asked me to see if we could go there to check out the area. She loves the figurines from a company called Fontanini and they're made in this region. We found the factory and went in to what we thought was a store but was, in fact, the rep. showroom. The lady was very nice and let us take a few photos before we left.

On Teri & Tony's last night we hit the 6 Day track races. Here's the link -
6 Day Races



Other things... I've been sending out resumes to some of the various language schools here in town and have heard nothing in return. I've also been doing a fair amount of work for Vincenzo, the Baron that owns Castello di Roncade (where we stayed with Nikki & Aaron). Last Sunday I worked the wine fair all day and then Kera came to help in the early evening. It was quite an exercise of the Deutsch skills as well as a learning experience.

This past week, I've been helping Vincenzo do deliveries and generally meeting the local customers. Not sure what or if anything will come of it, but it keeps me out of the bars and whorehouses (so to speak)!

We both got new glasses in the last week. Kera's are really cool, but I have no pics of them, yet. Mine... well, here they are.




With all the spare time, I've been riding & running a fair amount. Saturday morning, we went to spin class with our favorite trainer. An hour of hard work that left us pretty much spent. It definitely makes getting through winter riding o.k. Sunday & today I went for a run.

Fall.. it's here!

Yes, I know, it's been awhile since the last post...AGAIN! Seems to be a reoccurring theme.

Random news. You can see by the pics that it's definitely leaf peeping season. Also, for those of us in Europe, it's the day to change your clocks. We woke this morning to rain & Grey skies. We also couldn't figure out why my computer was an hour different than my watch. Hmm, now we know. That means it'll be at least an hour before I can get Pretzel's to mate with our breakfast of Weisswurst & Bretzen (Pretzel's). It's really good... trust me! A traditional Bavarian breakfast constitutes Weisswurst, Bretzen (Pretzel's) & a Weissbier (Wheat Beer).

The last couple of weekends we've hit the Alps on the mountain bikes. Two weeks ago with went with our friends Suzanna & Matthias. This past weekend we found our way by ourselves. The Alps are normally beautiful, this is even more the case in the Fall.










In any case. It's definitely fall here in Germany. I suppose it's the same almost everywhere in the Northern Hemisphere. Well, since I wrote that, it's turned to winter. That's just in a couple of days. Yesterday... 75 F. Today it dropped to a high of 45 F and tomorrow, well, let's say it' supposed to be friggin' cold. Below freezing and a chance of snow. Guess I'd better get that snowboard ready. Thanks Robert!



This week, I pulled the trigger on a new bike. Of course, as life would have it I broke my old bike, last week. It wasn't supposed to overlap like that. Hell, it's my own fault as Kera told me to get a new bike way back in May when Dee & Don were here and I did the race in Garda. Yes, sometimes it actually takes awhile for me to make a decision like this. In any case, here's a pic very similar to what the new bike will look like.



Here's a pic of the crack on the old bike. By the way, it's going back to the builder for either repair (which I've been told might well be impossible). In any case, I might end up with a new frame out of the deal when it all settles out in the end. I think I've made the decision that the reborn Curtlo will be my race bike (with gears and a shock. Will wonders never cease! The new Black Sheep will pretty much be a dedicated SS for most of it's life. Hurray!

Our friends Nikki & Aaron came and went. While they were here we did a number of things including hitting Salzburg, Northern Italy, Venice, Garda and more. It was great to see them as they're fantastic friends, but even more so, they're the one's that introduced Kera and me. Ahhh, isn't that cute? Here's pics from that adventure. Nikki & Aaron pics

On Friday, we have repeat offender's Teri & Tony arriving. We're going to spend a week of being bums in Tuscany. The plan is to eat, drink and relax for a full week. I think we'll be hitting vineyards, the Vespa museum and other museums and sights in the area. We'll probably even have to make a jaunt over to the ocean for a day. We'll make it up as we go along.

I've been riding a bunch lately and have taken a bunch of pics while doing it. Check 'em out here... pics

Lastly, I've been sending out resumes to language schools and haven't gotten any bites... yet. I've also been mulling over the idea of starting a small business. We'll see if that idea pans out. Wish me luck either way.

Till next time... Ciao!

München 24 Hour race debacle...on my part

München 24 Hour race pics

Well, the 24 hour race didn't go anything like I'd planned. Quite honestly, for me, it sucked! My body & mind just weren't cooperating in any way, shape or form. At about 3 hours I started cramping badly. Then, I started having a constant urge to pee, no real idea what caused that. From there it actually went downhill.

I'd do a lap or two and then have to sit and recover for a 1/2 hour or so. Eventually, at about 9:00 p.m. I decided that I'd had enough, at least for awhile. Kera and I walked over to our friend Mathais' tent and had a beer with him. It was at that point that I realized that I was happier not continue any further.

Oh, not to mention that I was getting quite bored with the course as well. The course was right at 7 km long and to me, seemed to be unrelenting. It was either steep uphills or flat. Most of the flat parts of the course were on pavement or grass. Which on a single-speed means that you end up spinning your ass off.

I suppose, in my defense, I've had bad allergic-like sinus problems for a couple of weeks and then my brother came to town and I haven't had the time to train properly for most of the last month. Not the best reasons/excuses, but it's all that I've got.

Oh well, in the end, I did 115.1 + km's (71.5 miles) in about 5.5 hours with an average speed of 20.4 km (12.7 mph). That added up to 17 laps according to the folks who scored it. Given that 100 solo racers started and I ended up 71st after just 5.5 hours, I can't be too upset with myself, other than that I did quit a race. Another 24 in the future and I'll conquer the 24 hour beast.
Promoters first pics

The 'official' photos for the race aren't up on Sportograf yet. Seems that they took a whopping 30,000 pics of the 1500+ racers. Ouch! No wonder they're not all up yet.

I'll spare you.. But.. here's an update.

Life's been keeping on in spite of my lack of updates. Obviously, it's been quite awhile since my last report. In fact, I've actually started to update a couple of times without ever completing anything.

Since I'm so far behind, I'll have to make it as short as I can otherwise, you guys will get worn out & BORED before I'm finished. Kera keeps telling me to put together a collage of pictures, but I have a hard time narrowing it down. Thus, you guys get stuck with gobs of pics to wade through instead.

As previously posted, we hit Stockholm a few weeks ago for the Single-Speed World Championships. On that same Sunday, we celebrated our first anniversary. Hurray! Things are great! Kera still speaks to me and occationally finds me fit listen to and worthy to hang out with. Ha! Actually, I kinda figure I'm about the luckiest guy around. My last post had the links to those pics. I'll spare you that.


Somewhere along the way, I went to Zürich with Kera for a couple of days. This time the weather was sunny and clear as well as warm. I walked the city for nearly 8 hours and founds some really cool areas. As you can tell, I took quite a few pics along the way as well.
Zürich second trip pics


Since then, we've had my brother (Bret) come in for a little over a week. While he was here we did the Mike's Bike Tour of München & the tour of Neuschwanstein that I do for work. Bret and I also did a trip to Venice, Italy as you can see here. We also hit Oktoberfest which proved to be "interesting" but very fun. Score one for the old folks. Here are those pics... Oktoberfest pics

....And the rest of Bret's vacation photos are below...
Venice Pics Set 1
Venice Pics Set 2
Bret on the Mike's Bike Tour München
Bret at Neuschwanstein

As you can see... we took most of Bret's vacation photos for him.


I don't know if I mentioned it anywhere before, but awhile back, Kera went Paragliding one day while on a day off. Here are her pictures.

Kera paragliding

Lastly, we'll be visiting the States in February. We're going to Seattle first, then Kansas City. The dates we'll be over there are Feb. 2-11. See you then!

O.K., see, I can make it short when I need to. Tellin' the story with photos folks.

Until next time.. Ciao!

SS World's report

Last weekend we went to Stockholm Sweden for the SingleSpeed World Championships

Here's a link to our pics from the weekend
Kera's and my pics



Lot's more at HappyMTB.org if the site ever comes back up. I think it crashed when eveyone got home and started downloading pics.
In any case, Stockholm was very cool. We wish that'd we'd realized how cool the city was as we'd have stayed a couple of more days. Very much a combo of Amsterdam & Munich with a large underground scene. Seems that almost everyone has tats (young and old). Might be the sea faring culture or something. I'm not sure.

The vibe at the event was good. The only downer that I can think of came in the form of liquor laws similar to Kansas City. You had to be within a tiny area if you were carrying a beer or drink. Unfortunately, that area was full of people eating dinner at tables. Essentially, that meant that you had to dodge wait staff all night or stand inside where no one was.

As far as the actual event went, that was cool. After one of the promoters removed a huge viper (snake) from the course we laid our bikes down in the grass and began to wait for a signal of "all clear" from out on the course. Suddenly, we were off. Up the ski hill we ran, picked up our bikes and then all the way to the top of the hill. Around a corner and down a sketchy gravel hill. After that, it was about 90% singletrack and 10% gravel/dirt road.

Almost immediately, people began to stack up at the singletrack. Hurl Everstone (former Surly guy) passed me in the rocks and grass and I stuck to his wheel. We got to the one hike-bike section on the course, maybe 20' of vertical rock and off I went. On the rest of the course, I just kept passing people in the technical stuff.

About 4km in to the race I came upon the beer stop. Just a couple of people there so I had to stop. Couldn't make the guy feel lonely you know. Downed a beer after chatting a minute and off I went. Just a fabulous course. Lot's of roots, rocks and nicely done singletrack. I honestly think that I probably didn't quit smiling the whole time.

I managed to get lost twice on different parts of the course and both times ended up at the same intersection. How strange is that? Then I'd see one of the guys that I just had passed and would hop on the course and go again.

The first lap ended with me pretty much by myself. In to the singletrack I went with no stack up's and then another stop at the beer area. Must've been 40+ people out in the woods drinking beer. The Shonky gang affiliated with Singletrack Magazine were hanging out. A couple of guys pouring beer over the heads of those not willing or able to stop for a beer.

In the end, some guy with a Porn 'Stache from Norway won. He got the tattoo as you can see.




We picked up Kera's new bike from Curtis Inglis of Inglis & Retrotec who had drug it all the way from California for Kera. I ended up staying up until 2:00 a.m. the morning before the race putting together both our bikes in the hallway of the hostel.

Other than that, I suppose my job is about done. I, at the most, have two more days of work. After that, i'll have to look for something new. Wish me luck.

Guess I'll have plenty of time to train for the 24 hour race. Turns out that they almost doubled the course length. It's right at 7 km and it should be a good SS course. Solo people get their own pit area away from the teams and crowds. That might be good.
Here's a link to the Course Map & the Profile

I'll leave you with a couple of final pics from the SS World's...