OK, so my lust for white Sidi's runs deep. That's obvious. But I think the whiteness is going to play itself out eventually. So what's next? We've had discussions on this here blog about florescents coming back, red making it's way to the fore, even Mavic with their new shoe line and it's patented yellow making it REALLY easy to spot. Hell, I even though Orange was coming into range when Specialized launched their shoe line some time ago.

But I think I got it: The Sidi Vernice in patent leather BLACK. Retain the white appointments to that thing and ka-BLING: *the* next generation Sidi Dragon and trend setting shoe styling. C'mon Sidi! Deliver me that sexy goodness!

OK, I'm going to ride my bike and rehabilitate from this shoe fetish.

UPDATE!

Ho-lee-crap. I didn' think Sidi woudld respond to me this quickly....kiding. BUT my Sidi aradar picked up THESE today at the Monte Pasche:

Note what our man Francesco Ginanni is sporting. The EXACT shoes I'm talking' about!

Nice Sidi. I take a 46.5.

 

 

Photo ©: Sirotti/www.sirotti.it

De SuperPrestige mit Kärcher...er ah, Landbouwkredit. Check out this little ditty on Vimeo. My fave: The drunk foolios laying in the mud. Or maybe the Flemish James Brown. Dunno. But either way, Belgians party. Or, they just blow out the tubes on any given Sunday. Sound familiar?

Enjoy...

Superprestige overzicht 2008-2009 from jef cleemput on Vimeo.

Well, after 2 years and 900+ posts, 225,000+ visitors and nearly 500,000 page views, it was time to 'upgrade' to new pastures. And so, I welcome you to the NEW Mud and Cowbells!

The whole change was inspired as I needed a blogging environment which allowed me greater flexibility in layout, significantly easier content publishing in addition to offering a wider variety of features for my readers to enjoy. This site will grow in features over time, but hopefully, already, you've seen some of them!

Some things to highlight for you: 

a) Bookmark the domain http://www.mudandcowbells.com going forward. That's all you need to get to M&C! the mudandcowbells.blogspot.com site will remain, albeit stagnant, so ensure you book mark this new, simpler URL.

b) Note the new features! There is a new Forum feature, a section dedicated to Sponsors to learn about products and other new features which will come on line over time.

I thank you ALL who have read my rants over the years and hope this new site makes it even easier and more fun to get all 'crossy.

My best,

Greg

Our friends over at OnSight Media...who bring you many of those great videos you watch on VeloNews TV while on your 'lunch break', have finished the 2008 Colorado State Cyclocross Championship video and is now on Comcast CET!

Check out this link here for CET's schedule for March (search for 'cyclocross') and set your DVR's! Also, scope out OnSights blog post on their release of the video to CET. They nicely laid out the times for us:

 

 

March 1 - 12:30pm
March 2 - 5:30pm
March 5 - 6:00pm
March 8 - 7:00pm
March 9 - 8:30am
March 10 - 8:30am
March 12 - 7:00am
March 13 - 9:30pm
March 15 - 9:30am
March 18 - 6:00pm
March 19 - 7:00pm
March 24 - 8:30pm
March 26 - 6:00pm
March 28 - 12:00pm
March 29 - 9:00am

7 more months until 'cross....

Photo by yours truly.

 

I'm not sure at what point I realized that I had a big ride in the morning. While I was on stage, several cocktails into the evening wailing out Elton John's Rocket Man at Boulder's dive karaoke bar....or watching my wife while on said stage in said bar getting cornered by a gaggle of....well let's just say some ladies playing for the other team. Hilarious.

But it was obviously time to go home....

When my eyes cracked open at 7:30AM....and I surveyed the body for any physical damage...then ensure the evening was 'awesome' by finding my wallet and CrackBerry (those things just tend to get lost on epic evenings...)...I knew I had to hi tail it to get to Amante and meet the crew there. Kiss goodby and car packed, I flew to the meet up point (Amante) and saw that we had a crew...a massive crew....of super fun, super fast dudes.....
Today was going to hurt.

The destination were some of the beautiful county built trails up in Larimer County. Trails like Horsetooth and Devil's backbone would be on the Agenda. It was my first time there but we had some dudes in the mix today who own those trails and would show us a great ride. And yes, it would be epic.

The trail systems are insane in Larimer. Well marked and super well engineered. Very flowy. One section was brutally harsh...traversing a massive multiple mile rock field which rattled the fillings out of our teeth. All else was sick singletrack with miner bits of fire road and pavement to hook stuff up.
It was clear the previous night took a lot of wind out of the sails. I needed to absolutely just be within myself on the massive climbs. Nothing to prove, no goals whatsoever other than burning the hangover out of me....but in this part of the year, just to be fit without being near that scary edge of sickness-fitness.
The Trek Team boys were drilling it hard. Great bunch of dudes with obvious talent. They love the mountain bike. That brings me joy to see.
By mid way through, we split....the young single guys (and Batey) going on for another couple of hours, and Longman, Matty Opp, Birthday Boy Bobby, Boups and I still had another hour or more of technical riding ahead of us. So we split the crew and went our ways.
All said and done, we got back to the car in roughly 4:50 ride time covering lots of extremely technical and cherry ground. I'll be sure to be back. The trail system is a keeper.

More of the day's digital celluloid. Full set found here.