tour de Seward

julie showed me around the town a bit. we rode by ben's family biz, the hughes bros. factory.

Seward's fixed gear club

here i am with ben and julie. julie is from Seward, and goes home often on the weekends. i called her up when i pulled into town and she rode down to the square with her dad ben. ben's into bikes too and is a pretty cool guy. he's the one responsible for getting julie into fixed gearing.

the horse has been broken

44x16 all the way. sydney has tamed her new horse.

Seward

seemed like we did the 25-30 miles pretty fast, and in no time we were in Nebraska's "4th of July City".

under-geared

more crazy distortion going on in the spokes. i was running a 42x17 gear. it was fine on the hills, but i certainly was spinning out on the flats and thus there were moments where i had a hard time keeping up with sydney.

flying

sydney flying along.

44x16

syd's gear choice was about right. she rocked it at a pretty good clip all the way out. (dig the spoke distortion in these pics)

sydney's new bike

sydney on her gorgeous new Waterford.

ss & fixed gear'in it

sydney had the same plans turns out, her partner bailed out so we ended up riding out to Seward together. i decided to do it on a single speed, and she went fixed.

4th of july

decided to ride to Seward for the 4th at the last minute. CVO and the boys had left some hours earlier... which was way too early for me anyways.

the alps

slowly making our way back north to Lincoln. almost home... cruising through the Denton alps.

czech buildings

checking out the town. this building appears to be czech.

buffet

just about finished fueling up...

czech czech czech

uh...they certainly like to remind you that you're in the czech capital of the usa.

Hotel Wilber

thankfully the Hotel Wilber was open, and they had a breakfast/lunch buffet going on so, we lucked out. sydney lucked out too cause if i hadn't gotten some food i'd have been even more pissy than i was before. ok, i did make the mistake of eating some pretty old granola bars in the morning in my rush to get out on the ride, and i ended up puking them up bit between Bennett and Adams (25 mi east of Wilber), and i did start to feel better after that, but just wanted to go back to Lincoln and crash. i had NO intention of turning the day into a 85+ mile marathon. but... i'm glad i went. gets my lazy ass in sort of good shape i guess, so thanks to my riding partner syd.

sunday ride...

got up thinking i was just gonna do 40 miles maybe at the very most. but ended up taking the LONG way to Wilber(Nebraska's Czech capital). it's a nice small town. i had stopped there a few weeks back during BRAN with sydney. when we pulled in... nothing much seemed open. i was dead... needed food.

extended test ride

giallo

the G.U.S.S. ______ ultimate single speed. the G is suppost to stand for either 'giallo' (italian for yellow) or 'gene's' (single speed legend guy up in MN who spec'd some mtn bikes for Bianchi) according to nate @ mwc.

basic b

while i was out taking the G.U.S.S. for a little test spin up pulls basic b on his oldschool Wicked Fat Chance. he's a basic punkrock/biker/barista guy who is pretty cool and knows alot of people, especially the scenesters downtown. he didn't care for the yellow and actually thought it was pretty damn ugly.

hmmm...

hmmmm.... looky what MWC got in today. but do i need yet another Bianchi 26" wheeled offroad single speed? the GUSS would make three (i already have a BUSS and a DISS)! .. someone stop me.

alps

at the turn around point in the alps (series of hills on the hwy south of Denton). we had a tailwind so it was big ring time all the way back to Lincoln.

federico and dana

couldn't sleep very well last night... and still i woke up at 7am... so what do i do? go for a ride ofcourse. on my way out to do the Denton loop i ran into two guys, federico (in the black/red jersey) and dana. i used to ride with federico way back in the day, and dana i've known for a few years just from around town. he bought a LeMond road bike 5 years ago and has really gotten into riding in the last few years. it was good to run into them, we road southwest... out through Denton, did some of the alps and turned back.

where to next?

regrouping near the cooper YMCA, trying to decide where we'd go next. we ended up continuing south to pine lake road, and then over and through the southpointe mall-burbia madness, and eventually back north up past hwy 2. we stopped for some drinks at a tiny south Lincoln dive called the Grapevine. all in all a really nice evening with some cool people.

two cool chicks

maggie on the left, and meggan enjoying the ride.

A street

erin and shannon about to cross A street.

children's zoo

passing under the walkway at the children's zoo. that's fixed gear erin over my right shoulder. nothing more brazen than a chick riding a fixed gear with no brakes, in cowboy boots.

heading south

a bit of funky distortion in this pic.

maggie's friday night ride

i was down at yiayia's for a slice of pizza friday evening and ran into a group of people gathering for maggie's group ride. maggie (of veggie wrap fame), a few of her employees, and a few friends go out on a nice casual ride once a week. i just happened to run into them so they invited me along.

emily

thanks for the call emily, it's been a while. was nice to get some miles in with ya.

evening spin

hooked up with my good friend emily tonight. i used to ride alot with her a while back, but we don't get out on the road as much these days. she can be fast when she wants to be, but we were both feeling really lazy, so we just went for a quick evening spin out to Denton and back.

julie's fixed

caught up with my friend julie on her nishiki fixed gear... pretty sweet. she's had it a few months now and loves it. the brooks women's B-17 is a nice touch.

sunburned

i'm now sorry for teasing sydney about her fanatical use of sunscreen. i think most of my burn happened on day 2, on the 100 miler. that day started out with a t-storm and riding in the rain, so i didn't think to put any on. later in the afternoon it was hot and sunny, and well.. as you can see i have quite the 'reverse racoon' mask thing going on. it just got darker and darker through the rest of the week, even though i did borrow sunscreen from sydney every day from then on. i even bought some 'after burn' aloe vera gel in Cambridge on day 3, and applied it twice a day since. it has helped (no pain) but i'm sure my face and ears will start to peel soon.

BRAN 2006 in the books

we did it. just over 500 miles, with some long days of mostly hot weather and some hellacious headwinds. but overall a good time. thanks to my friend sydney for setting a good pace through most of it.

two tired horses

the bikes got the job done. sydney's rb-1 and my pacer performed well. aside from a few flats, no mechanicals.

last day

crossing the platte, heading north to springfield.

breakfast in Geneva

fueling up before hitting the road to Tecumseh.

Minden to Geneva

a minute after i took this pic i dropped my phone. i cringed as it hit the road and skidded. i figured it was dead for sure, but no... it still lives. so pics continue, props to sony ericsson.

sue and sydney

decor

sue, & her IF, checking out the landscaping decor in Holstein

another day begins

we headed out of Minden @ 8am. the highpoint of our stay had been checking out the Minden Opera House the evening before.

dan

another shot of dan & his romulus

romulus

Cambridge to Minden, 70mi... we did it in 4 hours flat, thanks once again to sydney's horse power. on the way we slowed down to snap a pic of what we think is the prettiest bike on BRAN, a riv romulus. owner's name is dan, a nice guy.

black cat

today is 6-6-06. . . but in no way does that mean this cute kitty will bring me bad luck. right?

where do we eat?

sydney and i went downtown to find some dinner. we could always find some good grub at some bar or mom & pop place in every town, and Cambridge was no exception. one of the fun parts of BRAN is being able to explore these small towns and meet people. we're having a great time... thanks syd for convincing me to come on this little journey ;)

oddities

among many odd things one can see @ the cambridge museum is a stuffed 2-headed calf and a dwarf one . they also had a few vintage bicycles, one being a tandem which was parked out front. they said we could, so sydney and i couldn't resist taking it for a spin.

downtown cambridge