“The greater the suffering, the greater the pleasure. That is nature’s payback to riders for the homage they pay her by suffering. Velvet pillows, safari parks, sunglasses; people have become woolly mice. They still have bodies that can walk for five days and four nights through a desert of snow, without food, but they accept praise for having taken a one-hour bicycle ride. ‘Good for you’. Instead of expressing their gratitude for the rain by getting wet, people walk around with umbrellas. Nature is an old lady with few friends these days, and those who wish to make use of her charms, she rewards passionately.”

Quote from Tim Krabbe's book - The Rider.

Guys, I am attahcing the profiles for the two options for Sunday...actually there is not much difference between the two, as both have a single very-long climb and then they are pretty flat for the rest of the courses (with some shorter climbs). Riderhowe, Ridercrespo - and Dug (hopefully he earns his rider prefix this weekend) should have no problem with the 130k. On the biggie - we should have some good success being quick to rotate pulls - 30sec-45sec from that second up on - really need to stay tight on the big climb...3,300m of climbing which is exactly the same as gimondi - from the profiles it optically doesnt feel like it. We should think about riding the second hill on sat. afternoon just to see - as all them local muppets have it dialed in.

Pressure is on riders, we are in austria - remembering the morbish race in may - they aint the most friendly bunch! And with none of the ranch ladies nor ranch toddlers coming - we wont have much of a cheering section. We got Ridercrespo's "i'm selling my bike" mind set, no Ridernoshow for the flats, and RiderChichi's dont bring that razor any closer to my macho argentine legs or else - hairpants. We got issues.

Windsor Results - Gauntlet Throwin'

Results are in for the Windsor Triathlon, 750m swim / 30km bike / 5.5km run!

Out of 175 male competitors in sprint distance:

Riderwurzel comes in 10th place overall, 7th ranked bike split, 4th place senior mens category.

Riderturbo notches up 13th overall with a 6th ranked bike split and 6th place senior mens category.

Full results:
http://www.humanrace.co.uk/results07/w07sprint.html

Special shotz out to our homie Bolder in Boulder -- Riderturbo's beautiful home town -- for representin' The Ranch with the team kit layout in a ghetto fabolous blog post!

sooooooooooooooon

Create yours at BlingyBlob.com!

Windsor Tri 2007 - Ranch Rules

KABOOM!!!

The Ranch exploded onto the scene Sunday for the Windsor Triathlon.

Riderwurzel, Riderturbo and Ridermama hit the 3.45am alarm button to make the 6am start. The strong currents of the Windsor swim have claimed victims in the past: 750 meters of ice cold intimidation with the first 500m swimming upcurrent to the yellow buoy before turning downstream for the last 250m.

The Ranch answered the challenge and would not be denied. Riderwurzel came out of wave 1 in a smooth 17.30 with Riderturbo putting in a personal event best of 15.30 (unofficial).

Snappy transitions led the Ranch to do what it does best: put the POWER down on the bike.

After two lightning 30km time trials encompassing one large loop through the rolling countryside, the Ranch high stepped it onto the 5km run.

Circling beautiful Windsor castle with the Union Jack flag flying high atop celebrating the Queens birthday, the Ranch declared turf-war with other riding and tri clubs, tag teaming with Ranch jerseys and establishing a forceful presence among would-be pretenders. Both riders took no guff, quick stepping with machine gun cadence and savouring the pain like the flavor of the month.

Ridermama, Riderbaby and Ranch team dog Jake formed a boisterous cheering section that was the envy of teams and spectators alike. Riderwurzel felt a bit rough after teaching a tough spinning class Saturday, but still established who was boss. Riderturbo got up in peoples faces and showed others that, regardless of time, place or rank, the RANCH IS NUMBER ONE.

The RIDERS extend a warm THANK YOU to all who donated to Leukaemia Research in support of their efforts for this charity ride. Your generosity DOES make a difference.

Newsflash! Unofficial timing indicates that both Riderwurzel and Riderturbo may have broken into top 10 rankings! Stay tuned for official confirmation...