I don't have to take the ACT again!

Because I scored a 36 (out of 36, if you didn't know)! No word yet on the writing part of that, I suppose reading millions of essays nationwide could take a while.

I'm Back

Well, it turns out that people actually read this thing, so I'd better keep going. A lot has happened since March. I got my SAT score, 2250. Woo-Hoo!! I've also been doing a lot of bike practice, mostly working on not crashing. So far I've had two this year, most recently flipping over a six-foot drop and landing flat on my back with my bike about five feet away. Probably my most exciting wreck yet. I landed in a nice squishy pile of leaves, so no big injuries.

Racing this weekend went pretty well at RATL #1. Tons of guys showed up since the weather was so nice, at least 30 for cat IV. Representing Rainbow Inks were Ted, Steve, Rich, Andrew, Doug, Nate, Ben, and myself. There were also a bunch of guys from Spin, Stark, and Snakebite. Drew was there too. We started off pretty easy but the pace picked up fast. Every lap, Spin sent a guy up the road. If he stayed there long enough, they would send another to work with him. If they stayed away for too long I would bridge up, but as soon as I got there, they would just let the field catch us. That happened about four times in the first six or seven laps. by then I was pretty much sick of bridging, so I just hung in the pack for a while. A few times I found myself way too far back and had to move up. At around four to go, Ben came up to me and asked if I was feeling good. I was, so we made a plan to shoot me off the front with about half a lap to go. Doug got in on it too, and with two to go we got together mid-pack. Doug took us to the front through the headwind and halfway up the hill. Ben finished off the hill and took me over the top. Four guys came around us goind down to the parking lot and I followed them. I took the lead coming out of the parking lot and got a gap. I rode as hard as I could and had a good gap going starting up the hill. Unfortunately, the pack sped up enough for me to get passed by one guy in the sprint. So yeah, good race and even better teamwork guys!

Arnold Classic

Ok, so today was the Arnold Classic down in Columbus. A good race overall, despite some trouble with registration (to be expected with any Tym Tyler race, I know it was promoted by Fat Rabbit Racing but Tym was definitely running the show). Dad and I got to the site at about 8:00 with the race scheduled to start at nine. We stood in line for fifty minutes before finally getting a number, and I still wasn't fully kitted up. So at about 8:50 I run to the car to finish getting ready and get my number on, all of that good stuff. By the time I'm ready, it's five after nine. Fortunately, the race was postponed by ten minutes be cause of all the trouble and I didn't miss the start. But I still didn't get a warmup and had only seen about a quarter of the course. At the line were Drew Bercaw, Robert Sroka, a few guys from Dayton, and the big guns Team Turner Logistics from somewhere in Kentucky. I knew the race would be fast from the start and strategized a bit with Drew to take turns attacking, possibly throwing the Turner guys off guard. That didn't work. They sprinted from the gun, and while Drew got close, he didn't quite make the break of me and two of the Turner guys. They still had three guys in the field, so I ended up doing pretty much all of the work for the eight or so laps to the finish. Occasionally one of them would try to get away, but he never did. The other guy (Cory, I think) just sat in the whole time. By the time the finish came around 20 minutes later, we had lapped almost all of the field and passed the 4/5s who started a minute or so before us. At the finish I was leading through the last corner, but Cory came around and won by about a length. Overall, I think the race went pretty well, but it would be nice to have a good junior team to ride with around here.

Semi-Pro was pretty good Friday night. Of course, with Will Ferrell in the starring role it had to be. Some parts were a bit predictable, but still funny.

Post Number One

I guess we have a lot of catching up to do, better get started. I'm Russ. I've been racing my bike for about three years now, I play drums in the school band, I like to read (if you have any suggestions, feel free to leave a comment), I like to cook, and I especially like hanging out with my friends.

This week was exam week in school. Today I only had to take two tests, so I got out at 10:00. Then I went to the band room to clean out the drum closet with some friends (we're going to start repainting it over spring break), it was a fair bit more work than I thought it would be. We took some ammonia and scrubbed the walls. By the way, don't mix that stuff with bleach or you'll kill yourself. Unfortunately, not everybody knows this and it's not something you want to learn the hard way. Anyways, back to the story. There was writing all over the walls, mostly from us. It's amazing how permanent a regular #2 pencil is, especially once it's had time to settle into the paint a bit. So the scrubbing took about an hour. Then we patched most of the holes in the walls. Some were from accidents, but we definitely put most of them there on purpose, especially the three in the brick wall. Those took some work. Anyways, today wasn't all work. Before we started cleaning, we played a few games of marbles. After cleaning, I kicked the sack (hacky sack, that is) for a while with Derek. Also, Kate (graduated last year) came to visit for a bit. Tonight I'm going to see Semi-Pro with a few people for Alex's b-day, it looks pretty good. Review to come later, probably Sunday after the Arnold (yes, Schwarzenegger, for all you non-racers) Classic. Link here and here for more.