Take a bow, Terry Jones and your merry band of bigots, you sir have put Gainesville on the map.

You may not believe this, but Gainesville is actually a great place to live. Sarah and I have already met a bunch of friendly folks and we have discovered lots of cool things throughout this small city of 115,000 people. Sure, it can be a pain when the Gators are in town playing football, but it is kind of endearing watching an entire community stop to watch a football game for a few hours.

On the plus side, I have found out that the assistant fire chief for Gainesville is a guy named, Tim Hayes. He has been on the forefront of this entire boondoggle by denying the burning permits for the local hate group. This is great for two reasons: 1) I am sure he is a great at fighting fires and would choose to save me first if I was trapped inside of a burning building with others, and 2) it means that I won’t be the first name to pop up when Googled by angry parents from my school.

Mr. Hayes, you sir are a real American hero*!

*This may or may not be the real Assistant Fire Chief of Gainesville, Florida. I willing to bet, judging by the name that this is a close resemblance.

Prior to racing today I made a couple of small mistakes that added up to my dismal four-lap performance:

• Setting a lofty goal without enough pre-riding of the course. I was thinking that the course was pretty flat, but after my second lap I really started to notice all of the elevation gained.
• Not accepting the fact that it is awfully hot down here. I felt like I was breathing through a gauze bandage during the entire event. I lost 4 pounds in just over 4 hours of racing even though I was downing two bottles of Heed and water per lap.
• I was over geared. Second guessing my gearing prior to the race was a correct move, but I didn’t put a small enough ratio on the bike. This was a painful mistake.
• Thinking that four weeks of riding would be enough to get me through the event. I just didn’t have enough power in the legs today and this is 100% because I just started riding again. I was hoping to sneak by and find myself in the top ten. Ha.

Regardless of the outcome today I had fun rocking the Behind-Bars/LGR kit in sunny and muggy Central Florida. Big ups to Bikes and More for letting me stage out of their double-wide canopy. Once they get a team flag the gloves will be off.

I pre-rode the course on Saturday afternoon. It is roughly a 10mile lap with very limited technical sections. There is also about 2miles of Jeep road to finish off each lap. In my 85% effort on Saturday I finished a lap in 55min. I believe I am capable of doing a hot lap in 50min and my goal is to complete a total of 8laps over the course of the 8 hours. If I am able to keep transitions down and stay on pace for sub 1hour laps I should be able to squeeze in a last lap about 15minutes before the final gun goes off.

I don’t know what the competition is like, but judging from last years results an 8lap performance should get me around the top10 overall, which would be a great accomplishment in my first bicycle race since the 2010 Durand Road Race in April.

Many thanks to Bikes and More for allowing me to utilize your camp and support.

I know of a few other applications that are based for iPhone software. While these can tell you what your wattage is, they also cost money. So, I will take free and the ability to upload my maps to Google and Google Documents.

It is pretty cool and anyone else with an Android phone should give it a whirl. You get all kind of stats and it makes me think I am cool and every thing.

The first part of the road season starts in February and goes until May. The second part of the season starts in September and goes until the end of October. The mountain bike season starts in September and extends through March and the cyclocross season starts in November and ends in January.

This means that there is a lot of racing coming up and I plan to do a little road racing, some mountain bike racing and as much cyclocross racing as I can handle. The shop down the street appears to have an active team so commuting to races should not be a problem.

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I never thought I would take Minnesota Public Radio and the Bill Kling empire for granted. While I refuse to give money to that behemoth of an organization, it is a pretty good public radio station. In Gainesville, I am stuck with the local college affiliate of NPR and it is horrible.

The students they have reading the news are slow, confusing and tend to mumble a lot. In addition, the daily programing includes The Diane Reams Show, which may possibly be the worst radio program in the history of the medium.

This makes my drive fairly aggravating as I have to flip between the National Public Radio produced segments and my own cd’s that I have in the car. I love Morning Edition and Talk of the Nation, but the mini-segments on rescuing alligators from Lake Alice and the oft-repeated “market summary” immediately before Marketplace is ridiculous.

*I love MPR, but I have difficulty in buying their near constant shtick of incredible need for money when they own over 3 different arms of operation (American Public Media, Southern California Public Radio and Minnesota Public Radio) and their CEO is an established multi-millionaire. Plus, if I have to ever hear Mark Wheat talk about “football” and how Americans don’t understand “European football” I may puke on site.

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Bob Bradley is the coach of the US Mens National Team again. This is a good thing because I am from Minnesota and I like mediocre sports teams that perform just well enough to let me down in the end.

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There are many differences between living in Minnesota and Florida. Perhaps one of the most obvious is the insistence to celebrate the regional loss in the “War of Northern Aggression.” There is also the lack of quality beer choices at restaurants, dudes that want to look like Jimmy Buffet and tons of strip-malls.

The one that I noticed yesterday was the crazy amount of speed bumps all over town. I began to wonder why they have a ton of them as I tend to hit them at full speed since there are only a few “speed humps ahead” signs in the area.

I then realized it is because snow plows won’t rip them up if they came barreling down the street. I will take this trade any day of the week.

Made famous in numerous races throughout Belgium by a smart marketing department:

Thanks to Embrocation Cycling Journal for the tip.

One of the kids asked me if I have ever been “mud-bogging.” The entire class sounded shocked when I told them that I had no idea what they were talking about. Apparently, it is the fun thing to do, and after watching this video I think I may have to agree with them:

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I enjoy my commute into work. It takes me 30minutes to drive and it allows me to listen to NPR and get caught up on the news. What I do not enjoy about my commute is the fact that it takes a total of 1hour out of my day. Couple this with the 8-5pm day at school and you see where the frustration comes from.

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There is a twice weekly ride leaving from the world famous Gainesville Hippodrome. This ride is called, “The Hipp Ride.” I guess there is a lot of yelling and “tough guys”. Good thing I have have done a few Tuff Guy rides in Minneapolis.

I plan on making my debut on Thursday.

It is like a reinvention.

I am riding my bicycle again…when I have time.

I must admit, I am very surprised at how good the riding is out here. Tons of country roads with minimal cars. On today’s ride the group decided to go down “Zebra Road.” I soon learned why they gave it that name as a farmer decided some time ago to breed zebras, ostriches, antelopes and other crazy animals.

Sadly, I have no clue where this place is so I can not show Sarah.

Perhaps next week we will go on a safari again?