Riverwest 24

Yesterday I got back from Riverwest 24 and I'm super toasted. Last week's travel and sickness combined with a 24 Hour alleycat has gotten to me so I'll keep this brief.

Once more the RW24 proved itself to be a magical time that resembles nothing else that I know of. It's a singular point of unity, beauty, and pride in one's community that is hard to comprehend if you've never been. In short, it was very special.

This year I was on a team with Mark$ter, Tina, Natalie from Fast Folks in Austin, and Sarah Murder from S.F.. As a team, we rode very well and likely finished around 10th place or so (it is believed that we are owed 6 more bonus laps), I accomplished both of my personal goals, and had a ton of fun as always with the MKE peeps (who better get their asses up here for the ACC's).

My first goal was to drop my team off safely in the lead at the end of my first set of laps (about 25 miles or so). Last year we started in 170th or so place and the riders are launched in two's, so I had a good amount of distance to make up and was only able to put us in 3rd. This year we started 61st and I was able to overtake the first place on my fourth lap. It's important to me that I go down and represent Bike Jerks, MPLS, and All-City well with a display of power and obviously I was quite pleased with the result. My other personal goal was to ride a fixed century (on the installment plan) and I was happy to hit 20 laps, although I was disappointed to learn that the lap mileage wasn't what I thought it was so I came up a bit short.

Anyway, it was the normal drunken debauchery in Milwaukee, it was great to see friends from all over the country, and a huge thanks to my teammates and hosts.

Here are some of my favorite photos from the weekend:


Mark


for the first set I broke out the pink onesie as tradition dictates


Wayne and the Zero Squad boys went for style this year, cooler and leather arm chair on board


Kopish and Russell


Jakob


Patsy on a bender, w/ the Housepig


we always park out front of this dude's house. he partied like crazy. one minute he's asleep, then he's smoking a cig and pounding a beer, then he's asleep again.




Natalie stoked


Ms. Murder


Tina busted up her moneymaker


Chris Graham of Bastardized Meat Grinders...Having Explosions, had to improvise after wrecking their race bike, in the Team A category. (in Team A everyone rides the same bike)


the ladies at the finish


two of my favorites, Wayne and Amy

See more images in RW24 2011 album on my Flickr