Spot-lighting a friend...Dave Holmes!

I just had to steal this photo off my friend's blog....shout out to Dave Holmes, a member of Fisher's 29'er team. Dave, even though you had a couple slower races, you still rock! You have to have a few bad ones to really appreciate the good ones. Plus, you kicked ASS at Cohutta and many other races!

Anyway, you are the ONLY one who can say you did 5 laps on Sunday in that painful heat! And, you did them all on your RIG. Spinning down Old Edgemore on one gear is NEVER fun (I did it at 12 hour last year too), and the first part of the race course was insane with all that killer climbing (which I had to push up). Anyway, good luck the rest of the summer. Smap and I are always there if you need us!

Cheers!

Haw Ridge Mountain bike race

Haw Ridge Race photos of friends: Jen Smelser, Abby Chandler, Alan Carnell, Bill Turner

Yesterday, our bike shop's club (Knox Velo) put on a race at my favorite place, Haw Ridge.

Smap and I helped the race director (John Rhyne) on Saturday and Sunday. Yesterday was a very long day especially because I ended up racing in the middle of it all. I had a pretty good race considering the fact I was the only gal out there on a single speed. The first part of the race was racing up Old Edgemore into Soccer. Having only one gear made this tough. Then the course followed Soccer up to the Ridge trail. This was one long hike a bike part of the race. This was intentionally put into the course to break it all up though. I didn't mind too much. I still was able to get 3rd overall in W's Sport and first in my age bracket ;).....I was the only one in my age bracket and there were only six women in sport ;) . It was a good time though. For most of the race, I was with one of my BFFs Jen Smelser. She decided last minute to ride her gears. I think I would have sucked major butt if I had riden my gears because the last time I rode gears out at the ridge, I was getting ready for the 12 hour. I only rode gears because one gal on my 12 hour team insisted on me trying to race gears because she thought I would be so much faster...nope. I ended up racing my single speed and having faster lap times than she did on every lap. I just hate to shift!

So, that was our weekend....at the RIDGE almost 100% off the time. No complaints at all because my dog was there, my husband, good friends, and a lot of laughs. My dad even came out on Father's Day to cheer on his oldest daughter (blobby photo of me racing yesterday in my new Gary Fisher kit).

Sundown in the City...Citizen Cope

Last night was a great night in Knoxville! Smap met (he now commutes to work 2 days a week) me at the old Bi-Lo in Bearden to ride downtown to see Citizen Cope (one of my favorite artists) play on Market Square. It was a BLAST! I would have liked to have been closer to the stage, but in order to be up close I would have had to be packed in with no breathing room with all the people. This was the second time we have seen Cope. He has great sound and is pretty nice to look at too. :-)

Smap and I met up with our friends Chuck, Peggy, Tim Buxton, Mebby and her daughter, Peter and Hillary, Jay and Jen, and then some. I could not have asked for a better night. If only Knoxville had Sundowns year round.

Yesterday was a nice day to not work. I got up and took my favorite pup to Admiral park to swim before it got way too hot for him. There is a nice short walking trail on the park which goes along the shore that I took Eeps down. Unfortunately there is a large amount of broken class close to the water, so we had to turn around. I don't know why people have to ruin places by being so inconsiderate with littering, etc. Admiral park has quite a bit of litter due to the Frisbee golf course located here. A lot of teenagers hang out here and refuse to place their garbage in the waste cans located throughout the property. I have taken a large garbage bag in the past to pick up litter as we play the course. I can't stand litter. When I worked out at Dagger, I use to tell people that Roane County could possibly be the prettiest town in TN except for all the dang litter. I won't even get started on people throwing it out of their cars in busy intersections! Horrible.

This upcoming weekend will be a busy one! Our bike club (Knox Velo) is hosting a pretty big mountain bike race at Haw Ridge. Smap and I volunteered to help out most of the day tomorrow for registration and then for the race on Sunday. Too bad the race is on Dad's Day. Hopefully my dad won't mind putting off a greenway ride till later on in the afternoon...

I found a new way to do self portraits....within the Element. I really get bored sometimes...

Finally, here is my Rig I got for my birthday back in April. A lot of the parts are from my previous Rig. I love the G2 geometry on this thing...and the yummy new Fox shock! Too bad my Chris King headset did not fit this bike....it goes with the pink hubs and peddals and saddle, etc... Pretty cool! Reminds me of a cupcake for some reason. I know, I am random.

Later! Got to ride, swim and work!

Finally a good ride

I got up this morning early with Smap. I immediately went to Tim and Lindsay's to get the dog sitting duties out of the way. Their pups were so happy to see Ippon and me. We hung with them for a while until they were bored with us.

We came back and I got on my road bike for a perfect 40+ mile ride. Well, not exactly perfect...when I had my bike in the little ring, it was not wanting to stay in any gear except the easiest or hardest in the back, so I pretty much did a lot of climbing in my big ring today. It was good though! The air temp was not roasting yet, and the air was not completely filled with humidity.
I wish I had taken my camera so badly because I saw a lot of cool shots I could have taken. I rode all the way out to the dam in Lenoir City. There is a steep grave yard hill leading over to the dam, which has a huge grave yard field at the top. I got up to the top and thought I heard music. As I got to the bottom of the hill, the music grew louder and louder, but I could not see anyone in the grave yard field. Finally, as I approached the next hill leading up to the dam, I saw a lone bag piper playing near a freshly dug grave. Soon I saw a caravan of funeral folk heading the way. It was pretty cool seeing and hearing the guy play. It is a beautiful sounding instrument.

Anyway, as I got to the end of my ride it started getting a little bit hotter. I have been suffering this summer with the intense humidity and heat already. My asthma just doesn't do well with it. I was really glad to get a good ride in this morning and still feel like I can actually ride well at a nice fast pace. Recently I have been sucking on the bike because I have just been riding when it has been too hot. Now, if I can just get out to Haw Ridge to ride my single speed!

Cheers!

Swiss Family Apking

Our secret deck in the woods over looking the water!

Smap, Ippon and I drove up to our beautiful property on Norris yesterday. Our good friends Chuck and Peggy rode up via waverunner. Smap and I have had this property now for @ 5 years. Just in the last couple of years we have built this killer deck overlooking the cove.

Prior to having our deck, we would just sit behind the big tree in the area where the deck is now standing. The property is so steep, so we would race up to the one flat spot to sit.

**Here is the Grant family (above)...predeck....this is an old shot I decided to pull out of our files.**

Building this moster of a deck was a tough job. Smap and Chuck lugged the bags of concrete down (a tough hike...Chuck says he only carried 2 of the 80 lb bags). Anyway, just hiking up and down to where we have to park is hard enough without carrying anything at all.

Smap and Chuck finally decided on a deck plan (Chuck is a top architect and second in command at Michael Brady...an architect firm here in K-town), so we began getting the wood down one fall. We had a large assembly line at hand to throw the huge planks of wood down the side of the land to where we were building our deck. Chuck, Peg, their daughter Nicole, Skinny D, Monte, Tim and Lindsay were all at hand to help with the arduous and dangerous task of getting the wood safely down. It was worth it though because we now have the perfect place to hang overlooking a beautiful cove up on Lake Norris. The water this year is breathtaking for its clarity and pureness. Ippon loves to just walk down and swim around the cove.

These rocks are on part of our trail down to our deck. It is a fun STEEP hike.

Smap decided the deck needed some places to hold beers, so he came up with the ingenious idea of using old bottle cages and bottles to sit your beer bottles in. He also uses old beer bottles as citronella candles.

I am attempting to show the trail and the landscape as I hike down to the deck here...Happy Dog enjoying his water...

Enough for now. Time to ride!

Around the house this hot morning...

I meant to post this several days ago, but had it as a draft and just couldn't get time to post it.





If you look really hard you can see Smap's solar panels in the top middle of the roof in the shot below. I think I have mentioned before that Smap has our kitchen TV hooked up to it. One of these days hopefully we'll build an earthship somewhere (not in our present neighborhood)! One of our far out future goals...

Lucky for me, I work when I want to work this summer. I am trying to keep my work schedule to a minumum (15-20 hours) this summer because last summer the only thing I remember doing with all my time was working at the bike shop. Not going to happen this summer!

Smap is able to ride his bike to work now, which is great! He is going to try to ride one way a day saving him about 15 miles on his tank a day. He rode home yesterday and back to work again this morning. I am glad for him because he has been wanting to commute for so long. I wish I had a photo of him this morning leaving on his commuter....next time.

Ippon and I got in a walk at 7 this morning after Smap left. It was already getting super hot. It is funny how in the winter all I can think about is it being summer. When summer gets here, I am cussing the heat and humidity. I can't ride like I want to because I can't breath...blasted asthma! Ippon is in the house as I take some shots. He just got through walking and decided it was too hot already at 8 am to come back outside. He is just a little bit spoiled. I told him we would go to grandma's (my mom's house) to swim a little later today. He is excited about that.

Here is the really cool cactus that Skinny D gave us! He and Tim brought it over the other night. The thing is a monster! I need to think of a cool name to give him. We placed him on our front stoop for the ample amount of sunshine we get on this south facing side of our house. He'll be a lot of fun to watch as he continues to grow up and out!

Fun with colors... Smap and I have a colorful house....purple dining room, red pool room, yellow den and hallway (I'm going to carry the yellow into the kitchen when we get around to it). Here is one of our guest bedrooms...lime green and brown! LOVE IT... When I am not teaching, working at CBC, riding, reading, or whatever, I love doing my little interior design thing. After my junior year in college, I lived with my sister pretty much until I got married. My sister has always been in charge of decor and furniture/home accesory arrangement...she is really good at it, so I never minded letting her be creative. Well, now that I have my own home (with Smap of course), I finally get to dabble in interior design. Below and above is the most recent room Smap has painted. We're still waiting on our blinds, but otherwise it is a pretty cozy room. I like mixing antiques with contemporary items (shown above). And of course, I LOVE art. The picture below is fuzzy, but is a shot of Smap sitting in a classroom at Farragut High (he was in summer school one summer) with Ronald Reagan. Reagan was in town and had heard about some kids giving up their summer to get their last year of English out of the way. Yeah right. Smap and his friends were in there because they were grounded and the only way they could get out of the house during the summer was to attend summer school. Pretty funny that he got to sit next to ole' Reagan himself. I like the story that goes along with his photo.

This shot above is Smap's water catchment thingy majiggy... He has like 10 of these water barrels he got for a song, so he is going to start collecting lots-o-water...just another thing he is doing to make us more green.

Some more shots...

This is the kind of a Monday I don't mind having. I get up with my husband, eat oatmeal and drink coffee, hang out until Smap leaves, then start my day off doing what ever the hell I want to do! Smap did give me a big chore to do today though....spray off our screened-in porch. It is pretty nasty with all the pollen and such. Fine by me though. It is better than being at school! Plus, I get to see my beautiful dog all day long!

I am going through some more photos here...I found a good file I will save for next month, but here are some more from the last month or so...

Here I am on my birthday I think....documenting my aging process. Below is a shot from my birthday dinner at my Dad's farm....pictured is Rudy (one of the llamas), Dad (in the T hat), Chuck, Joyce, and Peggy. Chuck and Peggy are two of our best friends. We always find different things to celebrate with them. We had a good time that night.

Well, that is all I have for today. Blogger is experiencing some technical difficulties and I don't have the patience to wait. I have some chores and riding to do.

Until next time, peace out.