Stan’s Obligatory Blog

Today, Lucinda and I went down to Carson to the new velodrome to see the bicycle races. It was the last day of the Elite National Championships. I had heard about this because Gilby of Ugly Bike fame had qualified and was going to be there. I had taken Lucinda to see a bicycle race once before, and she had liked it. So I thought she might enjoy this event.

We got there just after noon. The first race was in progress. We watched two heats of the women’s scratch race, followed by the men’s and women’s team sprint, the keirin, and the big Madison. The races were all fun to watch. I used to race track a bit in the Old Days, but I felt especially old in that the keirin and team sprint are events that didn’t even exist when I was racing.

We got to see Gilby race twice in the keirin. The second photo is a bit blurry, but it shows her ‘race face’. As an aside, it was hard to get good pictures there. Being indoors, there wasn’t really enough light to get good action photos.

After her races were over, Gilby came up into stands and we got to visit for a bit. That was nice, even if Masi Guy never showed up.

The last two races were the Madison and the final of the women’s scratch race. The Madison is always a fun event to watch, even if it’s not always clear what’s going on. Just watching the riders doing their exchanges is always a show. I noticed that they were all doing hand throws. Back when I raced, almost nobody did that. It was considered an ‘exotic’ technique in those days.

The last race was the women’s scratch race final, and it was a good race. There were several breakaways that almost were able stay away. And the woman who won led out the sprint. Normally, the person who leads out the sprint gets passed at the end, but she was so strong that she held them all off. It was impressive.

Overall, it was a fun day.

Route map

In honor of nothing in particular, Vikki and I did a second lunchtime bike ride today. We did the same route as on Tuesday. It was a pleasant enough day, and it was a pleasant ride, except for the jerk in the blue pickup (CA license 7B21502) who harassed us on Temple City Blvd. So if you see him, he’s a jerk.

The last part of the ride was across Sierra Madre and Pasadena, back to the office. By then, we’d just about forgotten about the jerk. So it was a nice ride after all.

19 miles at lunch, 27 for the day.
cycling

Found this today. This is one of the funniest things I’ve seen in a long time. And thanks to Trisha for the pointer to this:

http://www.catsthatlooklikehitler.com

Route map

This week we did the lunchtime ride on Tuesday instead of Wednesday. The route was the flat one out to Monrovia and back.

We headed out east on San Pasqual, and then took California around the bend into Temple City Blvd. Left on Camino Real, and then left again on 5th St in Arcadia.

5th St is a nice quiet street, mainly because it doesn’t go through. It stops at the railroad tracks. But there is a little pedestrian tunnel under the tracks, so we just rode through that and continued on into Monrovia.

The last part of the ride was up the hill to Grand View and then back across Sierra Madre. There were a couple of deer on the street there, but they ran away before I could get a good picture. Then we headed down the hill and back to the office.

It was a very nice ride, and there were no killer hills this time.

19 miles at lunch, 28 for the day.
cycling

Saturday night, we got an evening out. The place where Lucinda used to take gymnastics offers a “Parents’ Night Out” every once in a while. They open up the gym for the kids to play in, and we get a few hours out.

So, being documentary geeks, we went to see “Jesus Camp“. This was very entertaining and kind of disturbing at the same time. While Pastor Becky Fischer seems like a very nice person, her idea that Christians should arm themselves and be prepared to die for their beliefs just because Muslims do it sounds more like a prescription for endless war than anything else.

A lot of the movie was actually really funny, although not necessarily because the people in it were intending to be funny. But the audience seemed to find some parts hilarious. And there were a few Christian families there. I wonder how they felt to have the audience laughing at them.

Today, we had another afternoon out, so we went over to West L.A. and the Nuart Theater to see “American Hardcore“, which told the story of punk rock from about 1980 to 1986. It was also very amusing. There were lots of old punks in the audience. The people who were involved in that scene are mostly about 40 now, and it’s interesting to see how everyone grew up.

It seems in many ways that the kids in “American Hardcore” and “Jesus Camp” were all just trying to deal with adolescent angst in their own ways. I had fantasies of somehow plugging the two groups together. That would be a larf.