and number two, it's nobody we know

jacob and i drove to baton rouge, la bright and early yesterday morning to recreate at the velodrome facility over there. we actually arrived a little early so we had some time to eat some fried chicken and go for a quick spin around the area. it was pretty nice. we came back as jacob wanted to make a gearing change and run a fourteen tooth cog instead of the sixteen or seventeen he had on his wheel already. we made adjustments, watched some six year old and eight year old class bmx races that were going as well and then the attendant showed up at let us in.

about ten minutes later was when i gained a hole new respect for people who race, or ride, track on a regular basis. it takes a lot of physical stamina to keep up a continuous cadence to maintain a speed high enough to stick to the angles of the velodrome.

the baton rouge track is smaller than the one in trexlertown, pa. i think. it looked smaller anyway. it also looked considerably steeper as well. it was a little intimidating at first, but once you got low into the drops you could actually really fly around that thing.

it really makes me re-evaluate my view on nascar. sort of. for the longest time i always considered nascar to be quite boring. i mean really, you go fast and turn left. well, you do the same at the velodrome. i know you don't reach speeds nearing the 200mph mark and nothing catches on fire when you crash on a veldrome, but still, the principles are about the same. my new viewpoint is that i dislike the fans of nascar. i know, its a huge and probably very inappropriate generalization, but still it is true, for the most part. imagine if track racing became as popular as nascar. then think about the impact it would have just getting more people riding bikes. i've done a little research and bicycles are a little more affordable than a race car. everyone would want to go fast on bikes. then where would the world be?

anyway, just thinking out loud.

on our way back to pen-suck-cola we stopped in gautier to refill the car and get some food. i forget the name of the place we stopped, but they had po-boys. i got b-b-q beef. and it was well worth the five dollars i had to fork over to get it.

all in all it was good trip to a good place and on occasions like that it makes me hate pensacola even more than i usually do. i'm glad to be going out of town again this coming weekend too.

the only bad thing is that i wish shea's work schedule was different and i could drag her along with me. damn it.