Smash that bottle of champagne on this boat, but not too hard because I want to drink that champagne later

Since everybody else has one of these it seems only natural that the fine dining club get one as well. As we're all headed out to Philly tomorrow to eat cheesesteaks and maybe ride bicycles, if there's time, it feels worth it to recap the first three weekends before I pollute the internet with more crap.



Weekend 1 - Rutgers/Princeton: Don't care, wasn't there. MOVING ON.



Weekend 2 - Grant's Tomb: We got lost in "The City". UVM was kind enough to let us follow them as they drove around in circles, eventually chancing upon the parking area for the race. For the record, Grant has a very large tomb but is probably too dead to appreciate it. I marvelled at it as I rode past, a blur of orange and black in the ever dominant Intro class. Other people rode bikes, too, I guess. When they were done, we rolled through downtown, grabbing some excellent pizza and a couple beers from a place that had a closet-sized bathroom. We moved over to Central Park, where Jake chased after anything that moved faster than he did. He looked like a dog with cataracts. In Harlem, some hood woman cursed at us. Upon returning to the course, a man almost got run over by the A racers because he had a difficult time following verbal instructions; unrelated, the port-a-potties were tending towards biohazard. After consulting an ipod touch on where to eat, we left and ended up going to a classy Italian place located somewhere in the swamps of Jersey. The staff seemed overjoyed to see a bunch of scruffy, filthy college kids come in and were kind enough to seat us behind a wall, in case any mob hits happened to be on schedule that day.



Stevens: What a dirty course. It would've been pretty bomb had the streets not been pockmarked like some obscenely acne-ridden basement dweller's face, wrought with cavernous holes capable of swallowing racers whole. I thought it would be cool to try that new fangled "drift racing" and ended up eating pavement. My teammates did not have such immediate meetings with the ground, but the races still ended up not going their way(s). We drowned our depression in beer, ate large burritos and got lost in the concrete, Blade Runner-esque landscape of north Jersey. We eventually escaped, but not before getting some guy to pump our gas for us.



Weekend 3 - Delaware: Took the Molester Van down to Delaware. Amanda's bike dropped off the back and was saved only by the various accoutrement she had left on her handlebars. When we got to the motel, Amanda consoled herself by making friends with the nice old lady behind the counter. The next morning, we ate breakfast with a girls' soccer team. I felt kinda dirty when I found out they were high schoolers, but not too dirty. The race was a great little course and I lost in a sprint. When the pack passed one of the B girls, I requested that she call me; she was not pleased. My teammates did rather well, and to celebrate we killed our Limited Edition Genesee Bock Beer and proceeded to go grab some other, higher-quality beer from some other spot. We drank some of that, too. We followed Northeastern to the Iron Hill Brewpub, where we fine dined and drank more beer. A nap was forthcoming. We watched some 3 Fast 3 Furious and Dodgeball, ordered, ate some calzones (Danger Zone) before we all crashed because hey, big day the next day.



Time Trial weather report: very cold. Jake wore the ridiculously shaped TT helmet. I went second in the intro heat and passed a couple of B girls. What's up, ladies? Zach also wore the ridiculously shaped TT helmet. Jesse wore not only the ridiculously shaped TT helmet but also my gloves, and despite wearing them for at least a minute and half less than I did, he managed to sweat in them a good deal more. The crit was much warmer but with a nasty little turn that made mountain riders very happy but other, more grounded people very worried. A couple of kids thought that if they were going to crash, this would be the place to do it, so they did. I ended up not winning this race. Zach did, though. We watched the rest of the races with a mix of subdued awe and burning shame. "Train harder" would be the chicken scratch on my notepad, if I had had a notepad and taken notes on it. After the B racers left, we took advantage of the down time to make our escape, weaving through lycra clad college kids and surreptitiously giving the finger to kids we didn't like. We ended up at a grocery store not fit to lick the mud off of Wegman's' shoes and I eventually held everyone up by going to a deli and picking up some fine dining while gas was pumped into the Molester Van.



The Molester Van is making a repeat performance this week and this time I'm bringing candy in case we run into any high school soccer teams.