Friday, January 23, 2009

2007 Horribly Hilly Hundreds


Sean's home was our rendezvous for the HHH journey (near Madison, WI). Four of us (Sean, Chet, Chris, and Howie) took on a challenge to ride 200 KM (almost 125 miles) of HILLY ride with some insanely steep climbs. It was June of 2007.

Morning preparation (6am).

We were rookies there and couldn't figure out where to register and problems with Chris and Chet's bicycles came up (blown tire and broken spoke, respectively) delayed our start by one hour (some started that late too). We arrived first rest stop with ten miles short on our odometers and we figured out that we missed a loop at the beginning. Oh well we moved on and had to take about 5 miles short cut at the end due to time. We will never forget the unforgiving forever up hill along Blue Mounds Road and then unseen before "like a wall" uphill for the final stretch.

End of the ride...we barely survived the ride.

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Chet

Thursday, January 22, 2009

tom peep at another c4's blogs



photo submitted by tad g

last year, 8 c4ers had great time to learn how to ride the fixed gear bike on the track at velodrome in blaine, minnesota. the instructor (#1 photo) is front to led them in paceline and to show the rope how to ride safe, etc... you can see the big gap about 6 feet between instructor's rear wheel and alex's front wheel. once they felt comfortable to get familiar with pedaling then tried to close the gap slowly about 1 foot in order to have enough draft.

oh, yeah it is very dangerous but they love the rush thru vein to the heart. wait a minute, i was not there. oops, my bad i took lessons last two years ago in summer. this is not my story but take my words that velodrome would blow your mind! why? of course, 43 degrees on banking in turns!

if you love to see more photos than my words blab.... then i recommend you highly to tom peep at tad g blogs. of course, the pictures already spoke one thousand words than mine. oh, my god, tad includes the video in blog. you better check out his. thank tad for his photos & video! ;)

our thanks to kathryn (#2 photo) for being our excellent interpreter. she loves the triathlon. she also contribute her time to interpret for deafies who joined to race in the triathlon last summer.

our thanks to bob williams for allowing c4ers to have the opportunity to ride at the velodrome for our rich experience.

cuong aka buzz

our first riding to represent c4 in 2007


photo by jesse & chet

we really enjoyed our first riding to represent c4 at the 2007 minnesota ironman bike ride. chet, cuong, howie & jesse with c4 wool jersey went for the full century 100 mile route together. only three of us made it and one finished 3/4 century with good reason.

there were other three c4ers who went for the 65 mile route and the 30 mile route. jeff, daniel & alex (with his wife) did ride on their different route. that is why they were missing in photo. thank god they were not mia (missing in action), whew!

more pictures from cyclocross, velodrome & hhh come soon. it is too sin for me to spell this hhh to stand for... but i need to pray first for god's forgiveness before i take a breath in next blog.

cuong aka buzz

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

the highlight of our 3rd annual meeting



photos were submitted by tad g

last two years, we really enjoyed our riding to represent the c4 in our activities like road ride at the minnesota ironman bike ride, mountain bike at the minnesota off-road cyclist & to learn how to ride on track bike at the velodrome.

the highlight of our meeting at the breakfast restaurant, you can see alex with asl hands in blur "butterfly" movement on top photo #1, he discussed about suggesting c4 to have registered with usac. we all gave alex the green light.

this morning with good news, alex quoted, "A moment of glory and pride! Our club is officially registered with USAC! Check out the following link:"... (please click "link" to look for the crooked cog(s) cycling club on the usac list.) you bet several of us will race for real to represent c4 this year! our thanks to alex for taking a step in right path.

keep your eyes on this blog for more photos from ironman, velodrome & cyclocross race.

cuong aka buzz

the story behind the crooked cog(s) cycling club

photo by cuong aka buzz

what is crooked cog(s) cycling club? c4ers among us who live in twin cities, minnesota. we all are asl signers to led a full social life. we share our same passion in cycling like road ride, mountain bike, cyclocross, velodrome & triathlon.

why i brought up this portrait of sean virnig behind the rawland bike? if it was not for sean virnig, i would not be here to ride a bicycle. about three years ago, i had bad bicycle phobia due to the incident and end up to stay at the hospital for 41 days.

when sean heard about my incident, he had fundraising idea plan to discuss with madc to get me a new lemond bike. at that time, trudy suggs on behalf of madc did support his fundraising idea as green light.

however i've declined his kind offering because i've my full-time job back after my 41 days absence at work. (i was lucky cuz one staff at my company was fired for two weeks absence. but my wife did go thru the channel properly to keep my boss posted with letter from the hospital, whew!) more important, sean has shown me the way of unitying the deaf community to overcome my bicycle phobia than meet our eyes.

after i've been recovered back to normal health in few months, sean who is the one who gathered all asl signers together to start the c4. another thing, sean started his own rawland business. that is just my story behind the c4.

cuong aka buzz