Greenville!

Damn it's been forever since i've been on this shiznit! Whats up with that?! So i havent touched a bike in about 6 months, big deal! Dont shank me for not riding a bike. Now that i'm serious about school, I find no time for riding. I'll pick it up again sooner or later. Maybe when the weather is nice, I'll get out riding and possibly attend a race or two while I'm still in town. I should be moving to Greenville NC in june to attend ECU and to finish my biology degree and try to get in medical school(EEK!). I'm getting a pimped out apartment in a gated community with mah lady so i'm stoked about that. I've finally decided that I would go full steam ahead with this medical degree and put cycling to the side. I figured that I would rather be a successful and educated medical man with a lot of money to buy Gucci bikes all the time instead of being a cycling bum and racing-just not my cup of joe any mo'. Im not quitting cycling though, Just taking a break for more important things in life. In Greenville, i'll be around a more challenging racing scene as well so i'll be checking that out after I move down there and possibly join the cycling club/team at ECU. I know i've been a stranger, but I definitely miss riding with everyone. I'll Catch up with you all sometime, I hope. Might have a "peacing out" party...

Chipotle Alert!

There is a correction that I need to make regarding my last post. According to my sister-in-lawlessness(the gf's sister!), Chipotle is coming to Virginia Beach Town Center!

Chipotle:

Opening June 20th, I, Steven Locklear, pledge that I will be a frequent and loyal customer to my beloved Chipotle, even if I have to ride my bike there. Oh, how wonderful it will be to have the convenience of a savory, big, mouth-watering Chicken burrito in my tummy with just a hop and a skip away. And to wash it down with a delicious beer, even better. Thank you Chipotle, it's about damn f'n time you get your arse on the ball and set up shop close by!

Sincerely,
Manimal

Camping!!

Ok, so it's time for a new post! I just haven't been getting the same love and excitement from blogger.com like I once use to. Anyway, I haven't been doing much racing because the cost of gas has made me poor; I'm a homebody that rides a bike to wherever I need to go. The last race I did was the Kelly Cup in Baltimore and it was a really exciting race for me. It was my first time doing the race and I'll be back next year. While I was there, with the support of the girlfriend, I found myself wishing for more time because I got there about 15 minutes before the start and they almost gave my number away to someone else! I also ran into my good ol' Fiordifrutta buddies from the Tour of Virginia last year, so it was cool to see them again. The race came and went, and I stayed in D.C for 2 more days just to mingle around the streets and visit the museums with Betsy. All-in-all, I was around the Alexandria/D.C area for 3 days and all we ate was Chipotle! I thought I would be sick to my stomach, but Chipotle never lets me down and it was delicious time after time. It was a grand time, I must say; however, we went camping at Crabtree Falls off the parkway in Tyro, Virginia, and that was even more exciting. On the way there, more Chipotle! Camping was camping. Just did some hiking and fishing, drinking beer by the fire, and roasting marshmallows for smores. On the way home from camping, Another Chipotle stop. since there isn't a Chipotle around locally, I wanted to make sure that there was enough Chipootle in my system to last me a year. I'm done here. I hope everyone is doing well and riding a lot.

Farmer Steve!

With the rising food prices, I have decided to start my own organic garden. It started off as an idea and next thing you know, I bought seeds and now I have baby herbs, fruits, and veggies. Here soon, I'll be saying "screw you grocery store!" Thats not all! I got so excited about this big idea of growing a garden, I even started to build my own greenhouse. Hot stuff! Its in the works, but in a few days, it'll be finished and ready to fill up-hope it works out well, or I'll be starving in a few months.

One serious weekend of racing. 4/19, 4/20

The Tour de Beach on Saturday was a great day for a race; sunny, warm, Richmond Pro Cycling to rip your legs off. When I first started this blog, I remember I was just an overdeveloped cat 5 without enough competition and was moving up categories as fast as I could. Well, now it's a year later, I've got what I've been waiting for-competition to make me wheeze and push hard. Ok, it's not that bad, but racing now is definitely conditioning me to become a stronger cyclist. For the race on Saturday, I placed 8th. To me, I think that's a very respectable finish.

Sunday was the Casey Crit and the weather took a complete 180 degree turn on everyone. Rain and thunder is never included on my list of enjoyable things to do, but you make the best of it, I suppose. I don't mind riding in the rain, I actually enjoy it a lot, but when it comes to races and being around crazy "roadies" with no bike handling skills, I tend to worry about my well-being a little bit. Just a little! I also want to give credit to my girlfriend, Betsy, who stayed out there the whole time for both of my races. Talk about a keeper! As I was preparing for my first race, she mentioned that she had an umbrella in her trunk. I go to the truck to get it and this thing was bright green and super tiny. I don't even think it would cover up a chihuahua, honestly. Mitch hunt was parked next to me when I whipped that thing out. I'm sure that I had him rolling for a good 5 minutes. Embarrassing! Needless to say, I was going to be soaking wet anyway from racing, so I just got rid of that umbrella, quick! Moving on! My first race, I got a 4th place finish in a 4 man break-a-way. The last lap, no one wanted to do any work, so I decided to pull everyone through to the finish line and lose a good placing on the sprint. 4th is better than getting caught and finishing up in the pack somewhere. An hour later was my next race, the 1,2, 3 race. By this time, I'm dead from the previous day and the race I had just finished. Again, Richmond Pro Cycling made an appearance. With about 25 laps to go, my tired legs were giving out on me. Little cramps every time I got out of the saddle for accelerations. I placed 18th in that race and was ready to get the heck out of there.

I went out for some tropical smoothie after my first race, and as soon as I got back, there was a bad crash on the last lap of the womens race. I'm sure everyone has heard about it...I just hope BJ will take it easy and not pull off a Tyler Hamilton. Hope you get well soon.

Uptown Greenville Crit

What a weekend to start off the first and second race of my season! Greenville is the city of the pirates! ARG! The East Carolina University Pirates, and there is never a dull moment when I visit that amazing place. This year my friend Matt traveled up with me to cheer me on and we both stayed at my friend Mary's house. when we arrived at Mary's, some of her friends were already drunk and this was around noon. Ha, thats college at ECU for ya. Her friend Gabe was stoked about a bike race and wanted to go cheer me on, and that he did. he showed up with an entourage of friends and every lap the field passed, he yelled at the top of his lungs, "Steven is number one!!." he even took the extra step and made a sign in which the photographer at the race took a picture of them and put it up on the website. At the end of the race, i went over to all of my drunk friends/fans and I had seen little cups laying all around them. oh wonderful, they even brought jello shots to the race. lovely! the race went alright for me, there was a break-a-way that was caught with 2 laps to go and I gave everyone the jump start to catch them, as Bender said. I never got the official results so I don't know my exact placing, but it was somewhere around 15th. weather was rainy and there were no crashes, so i'd say it was a good race. I can tell that my performance isn't up to par yet, so here in a month or so when i get a few races in my legs, the manimal shall appear and light up the racing excitement. Right after the Saturday race, we went back to Mary's house and not even 30 minutes later, my #1 fan, Gabe, had puked and passed out on the floor. time check, 4:00pm. 3 hours later, that dude is wide awake and back to being crazy. my hero! ha. the sunday race was, again, cold and nasty weather, but a little more dry. another break-a-way happened and ended up lapping the field. no one wanted to work at all to catch it and I had brought the field so close at times but i gave up on trying and just sat in the field. there was about 6 guys or so in the break-a-way and i got first in the field, so i'm guessing i got around 7-10 place. not exactly sure how many guys were in the break. oh well. I had fun, and I'm just focusing on getting my racing legs back into shape. now that I'll be racing, there will be more blog entries!


Thats everyone, and, of course, Gabe with the sign. From left to right: Josh, Gabe, Claire, Jim, Mary, and Matt.


Gabe, passed out after the race.

Thanksgiving...how thankful I am!

First off, I just want to thank everyone for helping me out and being there for me on this crazy day! Yes, I was whacked broadside by a motorcycle at the entrance of northwest river park. Thankfully, everyone is alright. I bounced right up after being hit and only suffered some minor road rash. I'm a bit heart broken and disappointed because my bike(my BABY) is in worse shape than me. I've seen roadie on roadie crashes worse than my encounter with a motorcycle. To be honest, I expected better battle scars! Nothing is broken and I'm still breathing, so I'm stoked! I'm just wondering how many lives I have left?! And Laura...I TOTALLY got hit on purpose just so I could take off my clothes for ya-you know how I roll!
Thanks again guys! I hope you all enjoyed your thanksgiving. Ride tomorrow anyone?

Hey little girl..want some candy???

So the latest news reveals Lance and Ashley Olson getting up close and personal on Halloween. Not only can Lance survive cancer, win the tour 7 consecutive times, and run the Boston marathon, but he landed himself an Olson twin-AMAZING! Here is an article from the New York Post: Ashley Olsen has a new, older man. The 21-year-old twin showed up to the Rose Bar at the Gramercy Park Hotel Monday night with Tory Burch's ex, Lance Armstrong, 36. Our bar spy said, "They came together with a group of friends. Ashley drank red wine, sat on his lap and they were making out all night. They left together around 2 a.m." Seriously, can lance be any more pimp???
Not only were they making out, but Ashley has started to wear Lance's Livestrong band....around her waist! I'm just wondering how he confronted her, or a possible pick-up line he used. any ideas? Maybe you don't need one when you've won the tour 7 times...

YEE-HAW

It is time! She's all done and ready to be ridden hard! My favorite thing are the orange zip ties stolen from Ironcross. I knew I was putting orange tape on the bike so I snagged a few. I'll see everyone out on the cross rides.

Tah-Dah!

Apparently, I've had a cross bike for almost a year?? Sorry everyone, I've been lying the whole time about my bike or the date on my camera is jacked up. So the cross bike is coming along great and just needs a few more touches. I need a cable stop thingy-majig for the seat post collar and the cable hanger for the steerer tube. A few snips and some dippity do-da's here and there and it will be done! Darn thing is a tank though. I guess that means I can navigate through anything....we'll see!

I have a fetish problem...

Check it out! The new cross bike is in and NOT ready for action yet...waiting on parts. Sweet! It took forever for the bike to get here. DHL guarantees shipping from 1-6 days and it's been 8! Could I get my money back for that mess, if they can't meet their own guarantees?? Fetish Cycles is the name-check them out...they always have great stuff on sale and they're not "bo-bo" products either. I've seen new carbon wheels for 500 bucks, disc wheels, cross frames that were 500 and now are 150. hot stuff...I know a few people are out there looking for a cross frame-get it while it's hot! Now I am ready for some cross action!

Ironcross race weekend

Last year I did this race on a mountain bike and I told myself there is no way that I will do it on a mountain bike again. This year I ordered a cyclocross frame before the race and, of course with my luck, I never got it in time for the race. I guess I'm going into this race with a mountain bike, again! Last year when I did the race, I was out of shape and felt like poo. This year, feeling much better on the bike, I felt like I would do better in the race. So in the race, I ate it in that "one corner." Everyone knows that one...flying downhill and I slipped out and almost flew off the mountain side. Wonderful! Then dealing with a loose handlebar grip that slipped a lot...pain in the butt. Come to find out, I did worse than last year! How does that happen??? It beats me, but there are more races to come and it was still a fun time doing Ironcross. Unlike last year, I got to the hostel early the night before the race and thought I would get a good night's sleep. Well, I was wrong. Next year I'll be sure to bring a good supply of breathe right strips and ear plugs to dampen out the heavy breathing, loud snoring, and late night bladder reliefs. I hate calling people out on these things, but you all know who you are! So basically, the race wasn't all that pleasant for me, however, the best part of the weekend was getting to spend time with my friend Cindy and her friend Jenn. They took a road trip to see me and to hang out with the tripower crew. We all went out to dinner at the deer lodge which put a hefty-size hole in my pocket but that awesome steak and sauteed mushrooms was well worth it. For Cindy and Jenn...definitely not mountaineers! Cindy, being off her bike for a good while because of her injury, was out of breath walking down the gravel road to the race course, was followed by a swarm of flying bugs, and believes that the top of the forest is called "the roof." One of these days, I'll get her making fires from sticks. In the meantime, stayed tuned for the new cyclocross bike.

Blood-shot eyes because of cross fever

Here it is 5AM in the morning on saturday september 29, and i've been up ALL night, and I mean ALLLL night, waiting for a damn auction to end on ebay for my new cross bike. YEE HAW! On top of that, i'll get one hour of sleep and go to the saturday morning morning morning morning MORNING ride that leaves Conte's bike shop. I believe it's all worth it because GOODMORNING ladies and gentlemen, there is a Wal-Mart special on cross bikes and I got myself one! It's about time eh? I believe it's time to get my tired arse in bed or else i'll just go insane from sleep deprivation. Kepp an eye out for me on the morning ride now...I think i just might be a bit squirly and grumpy. Happy trails!

It's time to crack down on cross!

I believe that I will be getting a cross bike here in the near future-hopefully before Ironcross. Since i've just been riding a lot and not working, I have to spend my greenbacks wisely, no more toys, just food and gas. I usually ride instead of drive now-it's better for the world. I am no longer classified under pimp status; however, I still have cycling in my blood. So what the heck, I can sacrafice the food for a while. I'll just stock up on roman noodles and PB&J! Cross season is here and i'm ready for it! Well, besides the bike; that's on its way!

Cycling Revival

The road gets pretty boring after a while and the season is over anyway; it's time for mountain biking and cyclocross. Hoping on a mountain bike always seems to bring the fun back into riding for me, so on wednesday night from east coast bikes, rob, steve munk and I headed out to ipswitch(my first time riding there), and it was a blast. Back in Norfolk, we hit up a parking garage and just cruised around town. Around harbor park where the parking lots are, I decided to ride though there....parking blocks everywhere! I had my light so I thought I would be alright and just ride inbetween them and be on my way. well, someone moved the last parking block on me and it came up pretty fast; I almost lost it. The 29er just went over it and my bottle flew off my mike....not me.