http://www.blackbearcycling.com/
Results

My Photos:
http://gtluke.smugmug.com/biking/777215

TeamNoTights rider Utah Joe takes second place in CAT2 Male 30 to 34

Full album of entire vacation

http://gtluke.smugmug.com/Vacation/679755

SUCCESS!!!!.

Saturday afternoon Steve and I left for Vegas with our bicycle’s packed in luggage, not oversized.

This was the trial fit:

http://gtluke.smugmug.com/photos/435296175_awuYJ-L.jpg

It’s a 25″x27″x10″ double wall cardboard box my buddy had made for me (max luggage size is 62 linear inches), bike fits real easy in there. Disassembly is about 15 minutes, assembly the same. I’m stunned how easy mountain bikes come apart and goes back together.

Well the trip was pretty easy. We checked in our luggage but had to drop them at the oversized booth, even though they weren’t oversized. Not sure what that’s about. Carry on was uneventful too. I had taken all my shifting and brakes on my carry on along with my lights and pedals. The guy asked what it was after seeing the shoes in the x-ray but didn’t even open the bag. Then he said some lady tried to take a case full of raw chicken legs on a flight once, ha. Flight was fine, anxiety waiting as our luggage came out into the carousel. It came, and we made our way to the rental.

National car is AWESOME as an emerald member. Walked right out into the lot and selected whatever car it is I wanted. There was a mustang there but we made the wise choice of the kia micro minivan thingy. We loaded up all our crap into our car, showed the lady at the exit my info and drove off. Cheapest rates I could find too out of everyone. Super awesome.

We checked into our motel room at the Wild Wild West. It sucked balls. Small room, unattractive, and NO INTERNET. We called our booking agent the next morning (cheaptickets.com) and they arranged a refund for the remaining days. One night was fine there. We spent a few hours the next day trying to figure out wher eto stay. We settled on the Best Western Mardi Gras. We drove pas the other Best Western locations only to find them in the most ghetto ghetto’s on earth. Seriously ther were a hundred homeless people just laying in the street! These were up near old Vegas.

We got some lunch at Bonita’s and it was great! I got a taco/tamale/enchilada platter. Everything ruled.

Wechecked into our hotel and started unboxing and assembling the bikes.

Layed out with my creative padding.

All the parts

Assembly

Looks like a bike again

It’s taking extra long to do this since I decided to remove all the controls and take them on the plane with me. I wanted to minimize the value of my luggage just in case.

Almost done

Done!

After test riding the bikes, we headed out to old Vegas since we never saw that before.

The covered street was damn cool. The hourly movie shoe things on the roof was awesome.

There is a collection/museum of the famous neon signs down there too. Really cool

We headed back for bed after this. I have some possible cool HDR images to add to the post if they come out well, I’m still processing the images from today first though.

Some of the Marty’s and Montclair riders I know were competing in this biathlon so I went up to join them and take some pictures. Some competitors had some awesome costumes and it was a great day full of comradery and excitement. And tons and tons of free food and prizes!

Great event, I really enjoyed it even though I was only a spectator.

Click the pic for the rest of my pictures, Somewhere in the middle of the pages I switched from holding the camera horizontal to vertical. this is about the time when I started seeing people come through on 2nd laps. If you were very fast, go back some images or a page or two, if you were trailing your first lap may be vertical.

Little Red Riding Hood

Another day out in the forest, this time in Peekskill NY at the famous Blue Mountain mountain bike park

Click the picture to enter the main photo gallery

http://gtluke.smugmug.com/photos/387920844_VomUe-M-1.jpg

Here’s a link to the race map saved on my server:

2008ChainStretcherRaceMap

Here’s a link to the Results saved on my server:

2008ChainStretcherResults

Visit Nate’s photo gallery for the images, I gave all my pictures to him so they are all centrally located.

http://nathancrisman.smugmug.com/Sports/528840

http://nathancrisman.smugmug.com/Sports/528840

http://gtluke.smugmug.com/gallery/5908968_pE9Hv

Here’s a picture of my buddy Utah who placed 4th. I’m almost positive he has the fastest lap times of anyone not wearing tights.