Evel Dies

I can not believe what I am reading. Evel Knievel dies at 69!

Evel was one of my childhood hero's. We used to try and beat his jump records when I first started riding motorcycles. We would build some ramps and try to jump over cars and tractors. I remember on one jump I looked over while in the air and I was as high as the power lines. I was even planning on jumping a couple of my fathers semi-truck trailers. If they would have stayed in the yard long enough I would have :-) I guess I am lucky I didn't end up dead.

Wikipedia has good write-up of Robert Craig "Evel" Knievel, Jr. Some of the stuff he did early on in life is interested. I love when he used to take customers to the Yellowstone National Park to hunt. Evel was one crazy man. I guess that is why I used to idolize him. His official website www.evel....

Check out the photo of Evel with his bicycle. I bet you didn't know he also road bicycles.

Fun in the Sun

We just got back from a nice visit to Sunny Florida. It was great to see my Grandmother and Brother who both live in North Florida at our farm.


Christopher has a new favorite hobby - shooting AK 47's. My brother has a large collection of guns and Christopher was just drooling over all the guns.
Joey let us ride some of the motorcycles that he has. Christopher was styling on the CRF50 and I got to ride his XR650R and new YZF450. The trip to the sand track in Alabama was very fun for me. I am feeling at home again on a dirt bike after more than 15 years away. Even did a couple of doubles and was flying on the back big sandy whoop section.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving graphics hosted at MySpaceGraphicsandAnimations.com

Thanksgiving graphics hosted at MySpaceGraphicsandAnimations.com

Well I say 'Holy Shit!

Funny thing happened to me earlier this week. Well, it was not funny at the time....

I come home on Tuesday and start getting ready for a quick workout with Christopher. While I am waiting for him to get ready, I notice there are a couple of messages on the answer machine. First two are hang ups, then the third one took me by surprise.

"Mr Locke, this is Brian with the Missouri Department of Conservation. There is a serious matter we need to discuss along with the Kansas City Police Department. Can you please call us back..."

I went into freak mode. All kinds of things came across my mind. Did someone fall into the Missouri River during last weeks Riverside Cyclocross Festival and they just now found their body? Did we cause damage to the bank of the Missouri River? Are they calling about the shed that I had build which back a green way along Line Creek?

I call em' back and leave a message. After 2 hours I am so worried that I try again. Still no one available. A little after 7:00pm Brian finally calls me back. "Son, we need to discuss the incident" Again I'm thinking what incident? He goes on to say "We need you to come on down so we can talk about the carcass that was found in Hodge park". I am still thinking someone fell in the Missouri river, but it does not flow by Hodge Park. "There were remains found in a box that has your name all over it. What do you have to say about that?" Well I say "Holly Shit!".

I soon find out that someone had killed a deer in Hodge park. The guts and all were put in a box that had my name on it. Long story short, I go down and ID the box. Sure enough, the box was mine. It was a box used at the Riverside Cyclocross Festival and was put out in the trash. I tell the officer everything I know and they let me go. Lessened learned. Remove all labels from boxes before you discard them.

Olympic Training Center

Got to visit the Olympic Training Center this past week. Eric Struckhoff and I went out to Colorado Springs for a cycling summit. It was very cool to be among our Olympic athletes and stay at the Olympic Training Center.

Riverside Cyclocross Festival...Thank God it's Over.

What a weekend. I am just thank full it's over.

Friday I had a horrible migraine. I felt like tearing my head off. I ended up calling in sick and resting in the a.m. Tige Lamb came over in the afternoon to help me begin set-up for the Riverside Cyclocross. We ended up doing the majority of the stake pounding with the help of Gerard and Roger. Well, if you want to call it help, at times it was like 4 monkeys trying to put together a jig saw puzzle. Together we got R' done in about 5 hours. I am glad went out the day before because there would be no way we would have completed the work on race morning. After the course work I headed to the store to order a surprise birthday cake for Carolynn. November 3rd is her B-day and for the past 7 years a darn cyclo-cross race has gotten in the way of any form of proper celebration. I let Roger know that we need to do something for her and we started planning.

After a few hours sleep it was up at 4:00 am to head down to the course and finish everything up. Thankfully Heather and Dan Jordan was helping this weekend and along with Elliott, some of her MS 150 team and some Cow Town Cycling members we got everything ready by about 10:00 am. First race was not until 11:30 am so I decided to go ahead and race. Did not really feel up to it, but it sometimes eases my nerves to race during an event..... After a quick tune-up on Christopher's bike we were ready to go. I got the hole shot over Cameron Chambers and led for 2 corners :-). I most should not have went off so fast, but I always seem to do stupid stuff. Long story short I ended up 5th out of 11 single speeders. Not bad when you consider all the work I had done the 3 days prior to this event. Christopher had a great day and rode very strong. Even riding the sand pit just about every time. Heck, I only rode it once during my race. He was running the barriers like a pro.

Saturday night was to be relaxing and I was suppose to get some rest. Well it was not. I only got about 2 hours sleep. The rest of the night I kept getting up to pack things I had forgotten the previous day. Morning finally came and I got to the park to a disaster. Some wild animal had ran through all the tape we left up and I had to re-tape most of the course. I kept wondering were all the volunteers were. After about 3 hours some started to show. Better late than never I guess :-)....I again decided to race and ripped another hole shot from Cameron Chambers and Nat Woodman and the other 15 single speeders. I was very happy with the larger than normal field. With the course running backwards I lasted about 15 corners this time. Nat and Cameron went by me so fast on the first climb it was rather embarrassing. I settled in and had a good race and think my form is coming around. Heck, I even hit the barriers good for a change.