just riding along: Muncie weekend 1

This weekend was my annual Hajj North to the Muncie Endurathon half Iron Man triathlon. As I have been for many years, I remain the official mechanic of the Muncie Endurathon (beware of imitators). The weekend started a bummer, as I was caught in traffic for over a hour so a bunch of hootchies could shake it at a No Doubt reunion gig @ Verizon music center. I travelled ~10miles in ~1hr20min. I arrived to Muncie very late, very sweaty and very irritated. But there was work to be done. I had to first go to the hotel of my good friend Matt Steinmetz to fix all the crap wrong w/ his bike. There was no way after being delayed over an hour that I was going to make it to the expo (where I usually get paid, get a sweet "staff" t-shirt, get a pass to make me look official, etc), so I called my other good friend and race director Myrick to let him know I wouldn't make it. No big deal, we'll catch up in the morning.
I finally got to my friends Luther and Jayne's house ~10:30, which if I didn't have to get up before 4:30 wouldn't have seemed late, but I have to be at the race site at 5am. So we watched the Tour de France coverage, had a beer then I hit the hay.
Race morning, I grabbed my coffee and headed out to the race at ~4:40am to get there by 5. I usually have people waiting for me to get there, but I was slow early this year. I picked up later though. Out of all the routine stuff I normally have to deal with, one guy had stripped most of the spline teeth off of his left (Dura-ace 7700) crank arm form riding it loose for way too long. This was my most bizarre repair for 2009. I got him going, though I can't say I'm 100% confident that his left arm stayed attached for the whole 56miles. One of my fears is that it didstay attached, and he won't get it replaced first thing when he gets home, despite my specifically telling him that "even if it this stays 100% perfect for you ride today, you NEED to get this replace as soon as you get home." He'll probably be complacent w/ it until he powers up a hill somewhere and it re-breaks on him.
So race-day weather turned out to be terrible. It absolutly poured rain for probably 5 minutes about ten different times over probably 4 hours with steady rain between each downpour. It was a mess. And with each front of downpour came ~30mph winds. It was nasty. There were some solid times laid down regardless, but it was very bad weather.
After getting back to Luther and Jayne's, chilling out, showering, etc. I spent the evening catching up w/ old friends, eating and having a couple beers and watching Le Tour. It was good fun. We even went to a downtown Muncie bar for a brew. So many laughs.
I wanted to get rides in Saturday and Sunday, but the rain pretty much shut me down for Saturday. So Sunday I went out and busted one of my all time favorite rides: Hagerstown. Hagerstown is ~20miles south of Muncie and is very unique for the area because it has these two roads, Lacy and Dalton, that have a huge ridge running between them with 5 roads switching back over it. They are challenging climbs, but proceeded and followed by 20miles of frying-pan-flat roads from and to Muncie. I only did 2 of the 5 "switchbacks" because I wanted to get back to Bloomington in the early afternoon, but it was a great ride and I'm glad I thought to do it. I really miss that ride. Since it's always windy on the flat roads there, Hagerstown means 20miles of hammering the wind, attacking some hills, then 20miles of hammering the wind. That'll make you fast if you do it right.
Anyway, this is too terribly long, so here are some pics from the weekend: