Hanging out, ready to sing some Blues

Friday, September 5, 2008

Meet... The An1mal

(ed. note, I call him Lug)

This is Fred.


Fred recommends not racing in sleeves, as they just rip off anyway.

He is a recent convert to the CycleDumb Training program. I'm proud to say his newfound blatant disregard for proper rest, prerace nutrition, and appropriate arrival time to races has led to both a PR in the John Bryan Fast Laps series, and a 3rd place finish in the Clydesdale Division in the OH State Mt. Bike Championships. Yes, my friends, Fred understands that the best warm-up stems from the adrenaline-soaked panic of being late to a race, or even perhaps the sprint from the bushes as the promoter says GO.

Getting back to his third place finish.... during the course of the race (and while leading, I might add), Fred broke a few teeth off his brand-new cassette and snapped a chain. Fortunately, Fred always carries a premeasured brand-new spare chain, as apparently he snaps chains quite a bit... Unfortunately, when this second chain subsequently snapped (after regaining the lead), his derailleur also ate sh*t and Fred was forced to singlespeed. It didn't take long for his chain to jump up to a higher cog, though, and then the bottom bracket froze completely. Fortunately Fred also subscribes to the CD motto of "Never, Ever, Ever Quit," so he pedalled with all his might, and actually didn't finish all that far behind first place. At the finish, there was not a female there that could turn Fred's cranks over.


Fred enjoys the fruits of his labor, but I'm sure he wouldn't mind some cold hard cash to help replace his entire drive train and BB.

I guess Fred is known as "The Animal" for a reason. You may have also heard him referred to as "The Tree Killer" in certain circles, too. Fred's next race is the International Clydesdale XC Championship in KY on Sept. 28th. Best of luck, Fred!!! gunnar offers up these words of advice: "Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail."

Rest assured, Fred is not just all brawn and no brain. Heck no, we here at CD Training won't stand for just dumb jocks. We try to just be dumb when it comes to, uh, cycling.

Fred is also the brain behind this project:

http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=12876 which currently resides in the lobby of the Air Force Museum at Wright-Patterson AFB in Dayton, OH.


Fred recommends sending somebody to go register for you when you are running late.
Maybe Team Bi-atch needs to get one of these...

3 comments:

crs said...

Not it!!!! I am not in charge of finding or creating a little person to register us, no way no how.

Good work Fred. I am glad Cycling Dumb is helping. Perhaps you can drop everything next season and join the "Da Tour" with us.

gunnar said...

Well I have some reservations,

The boy breaks about five times as many things as you Chris.
I for one am NOT going to be in charge of all that maintaining.
He's more like a bull on RedBull in a china shop.
Course now if we could get him to harness that power in a more graceful manner... he'd probably give Clydesdales around the US reason to worry.

We're going to the Pet store NOW Bunny!

lug said...

crs - I highly recommend just borrowing one.

Hey "Shogren #2" (http://www.cyclingnews.com/mtb/?id=2008/aug08/sm100_08), good thing you live so far away or I'd probably pester you more to fix my ride.

Although you can add axle and chainring to my 'winnings', much exaggeration above.

Cross season starts for us this weekend so I'll be sure to hit the long ride home on Friday (good thing the assistants want to race or I'd probably be stuck doing something useful instead of playing in the mud).

thanks for the tips,

- lugnut (graceful spinner IS my middle name) hammer-head-brother-in-training
(and proud new owner of a Park derailleur alignment gauge)


Note to sponsors: accelerated component testing available here.

Maybe even if you dress me up, people will quit saying "aren't you going to race?" when I line up at the starting line in my crappy old t-shirts.