killthedarkness: the judge, old style, and embrocation.

its not everyday your presented with such an opportunity as this. aom3 hooked up the seats for the judge mathis show in chicago. the aomtrain has such prestige, they actually call him to see if he can attend. how could i pass on an invite to enjoy the vip life.

thursday nov fifteen. night train, d-rail, archer, and myself load up for the trip. cracker barrel for breakfast. park n ride on the train. archer led us on brail, arriving at the studio right on time. the range of mathis fans is unparallelled. there was us, a bunch of old drunken ladies on a bday romp, the queen and princess, the shemale and her creepy little lapcat of a boyfriend, and so on. we saw six cases of which four were out of control. dont knock the judge until youve witnessed it first hand. one of the most bizarre and humorous events ive attended. the bar down the street let us down as theyd tapped the last keg of old style, resorting us to mgd. ill have some premium face time when the episodes air in five weeks. right on the isle on the right side facing the judge.

with the mathis spectacle done, focus switched to work, then racing. a day at the shop before jesse, aom, and myself packed up the van and headed up mpls. one am arrival at the sharps and off to bed. the next morning i got some coffee and bananna bread as archer pondered drinkin after the hunts and watching the football game with kevin. a little coaxing and were off to crystal for the mn state cx champs. aom rocked the massive 4s race. such focus. he passed on both water and high life. other than the uci races i did earlier in the season, this race was the most stacked. the race got off to a quick start with kurt refsnider getting the holeshot. we filed in line and a lap in it was d-money leading hareland, bergman, refsnider, pellis, jesse and myself. jesse, pellis and i rode the majority of the race together as the gaps slowly grew. the stair runup was brutal. i made a late dash for glory with a lap and a half to go, ending up 5 seconds down on hareland and a 5th place. superfans a plenty. thanks to the kwood/one on one/cykel garage crew, bbbb, hollywood cycles, and the rest of the superfans. a short lived trip lasting about fifteen hours. with the van loaded its back to madison to do it all over again.

i woke up to sore joints and legs. likely a leftover present from the stair runup the day prior. as race time grew closer, meghan and i loaded up the bikes and headed to sun prairie. years prior this had been the state champs. this is the race that can rival the mn races in terms of of superfannage. meghan found the rowdies and got down to business as i started warming up. the race seemed to be just as stacked as the mn race. brian was there, bergman and pellis came down from mpls, kurt refsnider, brian eppen came up from iowa city. off the line i got a good start, settling in to fifth behind brian, bergman, kurt, and eppen. pellis bridged up a few laps in. soon after eppen started fallin off. i bridged to matter, bergman and refsnider. a lap or 2 later i found myself dodging kurt as he hit the pavement. a hard effort brought the front two back. i went to the front for 3 or 4 laps befor matter got around. we got a small gap on bergman that held to the end. my one chance to take the win was foiled as brian caught me trying to sprint around him. he put in a hard effort to hold me off. the sprint was uncontended as brian took the win by a second. much better race than saturday. a great tuneup for the double uci weekend in iowa. after is was a trip the d-pow and j-pow's for a bit of food and tequila shots. thanks to bob brown, twin six, meghan, the bkb superfans and the pow's. photos by skinnyski and djohnnymac.