Friday, December 22nd, 2006
In public all you guys make fun of my phone, but in private you all ask me about my cool phone and privately lust after its total coolness.
Right now Cingular is offering the Treo 680 phone, a thinner and lighter version of the Treo 650 that I have, for free if you are a new subscriber to Cingular or $50 if you already have a Cingular account.
T-Mobile is not currently supporting Treo phones. I use an unlocked Cingular Treo 650 with my T-Mobile service and it works just fine. As I have stated before, I think GSM phones for cyclists are the way to go because you can pull your SIM card and stick it in a cheaper phone to carry with you when you ride. That’s what I do. Cingular and T-Mobile are the only carriers in the US offering GSM service.
Anyway, for those who want the option of updating their blog with text or photos while they are on the go, the Treo phone is a great way to go.
You can check out everything I use with my phone right here.
Posted by Smithers at 11:42 pm in Electronical | Permalink | No Comments »
Friday, December 22nd, 2006
Since NickelNuts got me all sentimental for the good ole days, I thought I would share some Donimator stories as well.
The year was 1998, the place was Killington Vermont. Actually, it started out in Boston.
It was the first year of the Birchwood team, which back then was GIS with the stylish pink jerseys. We had developed a fairly strong Category 3 team with myself, Ped, Flooder, Seth and the Donimator. Seth had been going out to Vermont for a couple of years to participate in the Killington Stage Race and he talked the rest of us into going out there that year.
Ped and Bobo drove out while Flooder, the Donimator and I flew to Boston and then rented a car. All three of us had those Trico IronCase bike boxes plus, for whatever reason, the Donimator decided to bring an extra set of wheels. We had rented a Jeep Grand Cherokee and, if you have any experience with those wonderful vehicles, you know they don’t have a ton of room in the back due to the fact that the spare tire is stored inside the vehicle. Flooder stood back and let the Donimator and I try and squeeze everything in. I thought I had it all figured out but I could not get the back liftgate closed. The Donimator finally took over the whole thing once I started trying to kick the liftgate shut and, using his superior intellect, got everything in and the door closed. Everything fit just fine except for Flooder, who had to sit on the floor of the vehicle behind the passenger seat. It was a four hour drive and I think I heard him whimper back there a couple of times.
The Donimator grabbed the keys and insisted on driving.
I have never been so frightened as a passenger in my whole life. It wasn’t that the Donimator was a crazy driver, he just spent almost the whole time in conversation looking directly at me sitting in the passenger seat rather than looking at the road. There were numerous times that we almost stacked it into a car in front of us or nearly missed a turn on the winding mountain roads. Somehow we got to Killington in one piece. There we met Ped and Bobo and Lady Di, one of our female team mates who was out in Boston visiting her dear mother.
The first two stages of the race were fairly uneventful for the Donimator. A climbing time trial opened the race and we all sucked. A circuit road race for stage 2 was no real problem for anyone.
Stage 3 would take us over the much feared Brandon Gap. This was a big climb and for non-climbers like myself, Ped and the Donimator it was going to mean a long day ahead. The most important thing to do before starting a long hard road race is to use the toilet. The Donimator was intent on clearing everything out of his system and he stayed in the toilet so long that he missed the start of the race. It was only by a few minutes and he was able to chase back on without problem.
The Donimator was worried about not being able to carry enough liquid refreshment with him during the long race so he carried a CamelBack hydration system. For those who are unaware of a CamelBack, it’s a big bladder filled with water that you strap onto your back. A tube then runs from the bottom of the bladder to your shirt collar and allows you to drink whenever you want. Some might question the idea of carrying a pound or two of extra water on what might have been the hardest climbing stage of the whole race (maybe my whole life), especially since we had Lady Di positioned at the base of the climb to give us all hand ups. But the Donimator does what the Donimator does. At one point the Donimator was slightly ahead of Ped and I in the pack. He did not know that we were just behind him so Ped yelled out “Hey, who’s that guy with the faggy pink jersey and the gay-ass CamelBack?” The Donimator, who was in the midst of a conversation with some poor slob next to him, bolted upright, turned around and said “Who the hell said that!?” As he turned to look back he also began to suddenly steer his bike dramatically to the left and bumped into a couple of riders next to him. These two guys freaked out and started yelling at the Donimator, who then yelled back and told these two guys to shut the hell up. Meanwhile Ped and I were laughing hysterically behind. When the Donimator saw that it was us he made a smirk and then resumed his conversation with the poor slob.
Later in the race all three of us would be totally dropped on the Brandon Gap climb, Donimator the most dropped. He ended up riding to the finish with the Masters 50+ peloton despite being asked by the officials not to ride with that group.
That day the Donimator wore non-bib shorts and, during the course of the race, his cycling jersey rode up a bit creating a gap of skin between his shorts and jersey. The sun beat down on that patch of skin and created an upside moon crescent of sun burn on his lower back/upper ass. We asked the Donimator to wear bib shorts for the rest of the week.
The next day was the Burlington Criterium. This was a straight up crit and a fairly flat course that would be perfect for a sprint powerhouse like the Donimator. We agreed before hand that we would all ride for him and try and set him up for the sprint finish. Everything was going according to plan and with about 7 laps to go the team moved towards the front to take control. Then, with about 5 laps to go, the Donimator attacked the field off the front. He stayed out there for a good hundred meters before being reeling back in by the pack. He did not see the front again for the rest of the race. Afterwards we asked the Donimator what the hell he was doing screwing up our entire race strategy and his answer was “I don’t know.”
The best part of the entire weekend was when the Donimator was grilling Ped about his girlfriend, who just happened to be Flooder’s ex-girlfriend, while Flooder was sitting in the same room. A short time later Ped cornered the Donimator and begged him to stop asking questions about his girlfriend because it made him really uncomfortable around Flooder. The Donimator did not know that Ped’s girlfriend was Flooder’s ex-girlfriend. It was so funny that I almost shit the bed because I was laughing so hard. The Donimator was embarrassed and felt really bad, for about 5 minutes. Then the Donimator started referring to Lady Di as our “team screw.”
The Donimator last chance to redeem himself was the final road race. He decided to make a bold all-or-nothing move to go off the front early in the race and try and gain some real time on the group. So, a few kilometers in, the Donimator attacked for all he was worth, got a gap and kept it. Unfortunately, as opposed to the past road courses, the early part of the race was on very open roads so, even though the Donimator had some distance, he was always within sight. So the group just let him hang out there like they knew exactly what they were doing. Apparently they knew exactly what they were doing because about 5 kilometers after the Donimator made his move the road started going up, and the Donimator started coming back. He was caught in the first kilometer of the climb and was spit out the back of the pack within 500 meters. As I passed him by I saw that he was deep in the hurt locker, puffing and panting and struggling to recover. “Sorry the Donimator” was all I could say as I went by him. He was dropped from the group in the first 6 miles of the race and rode alone for the rest of the day.
I think he had a really good time in Killington though. We all did, despite all being fairly big guys and having no business being at a climbing race like that.
That evening we drove back to Boston to catch our flight the next morning. We found a cheap hotel in Boston that we made even cheaper by taking a room with only one bed, at the insistence of the Donimator. The Donimator wanted to go out and party but Flooder and I were wiped out from the race so we went to sleep (hole to hole). The Donimator went out and found the Cheers Bar and bought me a souvenir sweatshirt before he came back and crashed on the floor of the hotel room. I think he used that Cheers Bar sweatshirt as his pillow. The Donimator only needs about a hour of sleep because that’s about all he got. He woke up the happiest and most refreshed of us all.
The end.
Posted by Smithers at 10:41 am in Local Cycling | Permalink | No Comments »
