Art O’Connor

The other sites have been keeping me pretty busy so sory for the lack of posts here.

Last week the Outdoor Retailer rolled into town. Former 801 racer/yeller current King of Vermont, Andrew Brewer came in and hooked Rachel and me up with some passes to see the latest and greatest stuff. I bought a really sweet helmet mounted camera for cheap. Rachel won the same one in a drawing, lucky. Anyway I am looking forward to getting some sweet singletrack and snow biking footage with them. Rachel also scored som kick ass snowshoes that she put to good use by winning another race on them last weekend. I went out to Midway with her to watch her race and rode my MTB back to her condo after, MTB on the road is not super fun but a ride is a ride. Sunday Rachel and I did an awesome snow ride. I brought along the camera and thought I had it turned on…. so I guess the snow biking footage will have to wait.

Maybe later I will put up some pics of my new girlfriend. Her name is Lucy. She super cute, has a cold nose, and likes to chase stuff. Plus she and Rachel get along great as well. Lucky.

Here in Utah the separation of church and state is non existant. The LDS Chusrch or as it’s members here call it “The Church” ignored the constitution yet again and “weighed” in on a proposal to remove malt beverages like Smirnoff Ice and Mikes Hard Lemonade from grocery stores. Presumably for the children. I don’t really care where they sell that stuff. I just find it funny that when I read the comments local paper I see letter after letter how the rest of the country is bigotted agains Mormon’s every time Mitt “Flip” Romney doesn’t win a caucus.. What a bunch of crap. People don’t vote for him A.) he is as described by U.S Representative Barney Frank “The real Romney is clearly an extraordinarily ambitious man with no perceivable political principle whatsover. He is the most intellectually dishonest human being in the history of politics.” and B.) The LDS Church “weighing” in on every political decision shows who would be calling the shots if that twit were to ever get elected.

That said Mitt could announce that he had cloned Hitler to be his running mate, club harp seals at the Superbowl halftime show, declare war on China and still win Utah.

BTW, the forum is now live at The Church Of The Big Ring. Go forth and multiply.

What is it that drives someone to go and do something they know, not think, know will hurt like hell. That is what was running through my head as i flailed around for 10k at Soldier Hollow this weekend.

I got there early to take some pictures of the collegiate race. It is really hard to describe how fast the elite skiers go. To five you an idea they ski 20k in about an hour. That’s average of about 12.4mph on a course that is far from flat. That is faster than even Bart Mang goes on his MTB in the summer. I ended up with some good shots that I will put up when I can get the gallery up and running again. One ended up as the header for my new site VO2Connection. This site is very much a work in progress and not ready for prime time but check it out and let me know what you think. Take the survey, no pop ups I promise.

Oh yeah the race. It was a time trial format which for me was good as it made it hard to tell how bad I was getting beat. That is unless you know anything at all about skate skiing in which case a quick glance would tell you everything you need to know about where I would place. DrX started right in front of me and with him racing with a govenor on his big engine I figure I might have a carrot to chase for a while. In this case a while was about 2 minutes, that is how long it took him to turn his 15 second head start into a speck on the horizon dissappearing faster than America’s middle class. So much for that. In the end I got 7th (last) in my age group and turned a time slower than the 10k I ran this summer. I think my friend Abby’s spot on the Salomon Factory Team is safe for the moment.

It is funny how all guys who are fast on bikes are also fast on ski’s. Gardie, Hageman, Humbert, Davis, the results board looked like a bike race. One note about the results. I crossed the finish line and my name and placing was instantly up on the scoreboard. A far cry from the road racing scene where it take hours to get the results done and days to get them online.

Gotta say it was a lot more fun than I was expecting and I will be doing more for sure. While I was on the recieving end of a can of whoop ass Rachel was in Park City at a snowshoe race opening one. Despite having no fitness and being morbidly obese (according to her) she pulled of the win and qualified for the national championships to be held at Snow Basin in March.

Sunday I hooked up with DrX and we hit the Shoreline Trail on our Mt. Bikes. Holy crap what a blast! We started from the City Creek side and a few slips and slides aside were able to ride the climb up to the top of Bobled. From there it got a little more hike a bikey as the foot traffic was a lot less and there was less of a path. As we got closer to Dry Creek the path got better and we were able to ride more. It you are in need of some skill work I highly recommend getting out in the snow. After a few sessions in the white stuff you will be flowing like the Husla. Yaa!

The Secret, The “Law”of Attraction, panacea for the Oprah book club readers, whatever. I am a big believer in the power of positive thought and being accountable for your actions. Like most fads and cultural phenom’s there are some people who take it too far and don’t really ask the obvious questons. If the “Law” of attraction were really a law then all anybody would ever have to do is just think about something really hard and it would magically appear. Want a new Ferrari? Just ask for it. Wanna be rich? Just ask for it. Good hell who really belives this crap? For the record I did read The Secret and I did watch the movie. They use Andrew Carnegie as an example in The Secret a lot as an example of someone who knew how to use it. They fail to mention that he was known for working 18 hour days and his fortune was built as a war profiteer, stock market manipulation, crushing unions(look up The Homestead Strike), all with the help of a cadre of crooked senators and congressman that he bribed with cash and stocks. His Secret was hard work, near slave labor, and bribery.

This brings us to David Schirmer the “Investment Trainer” that is quoted in the book and is featured in the movie. This blow hard has attracted his wealth by literally stealing from vapid investors. He promises huge returns to his investors, so far he has returned a nice round number to his investors, 0. His Secret, rob ‘em blind.

The message believe in yourself and be positive, that is a good message. Go out and do it. The Secret is not a law but a starting point. The universe is not stagnant, your future is not set. The fact is things happen that are beyond our control. Does anyone really belive that the estimated 9-11 million Jews killed during the Holocaust attracted Hitler? Did the 75 million people who died from the Black Plague attract that?

Don’t follow anything blindly. Ask questions, have some common sense.

Doped to the gills super theif Marion Jones got exactly what all thieves should get. A nice stay in prison. That is about the best doping news I have heard all year.

No amount of performance enhancing drugs could possible save me from the beat down I am sure to get tomorrow up at Soldier Hollow. I have accepted Hageman’s invitation to come “race” in The Utah Winter Games 10k. I am pretty confident as Soldier Hollow has been good to me in the past with wins in the TUNA Biathlon, a ‘cross race and a few podiums in the Intermountain Cup. Yeah should be good. Like Custer said at Little Bighorn, “What Indians?”

If you (like me) have ever wondered how The Husla gets all the girls, its skills like this:

After talking about it for months, I am in the process of launching 2 new web sites. TheChurchOfTheBigRing.com and VO2Connection.com. They were both up for a brief period yesterday with virtually no content. I spent like 7 hours on the VO2 site only to wake up this morning to find that my hosting company had deleted my database. Still trying to sort that out, early indication is it is probably something that I did. Crap. So I am back to square one. I am trying to do this myself as much as possible and I am on the steep part of the learning curve and making lots of mistakes. The good news is I am actually learning and hopefully I can get the hang of it without having to hire a team of programmers in Sri Lanka.

Hopefully my regular readers have made it over to WallStreetFighter and gotten a taste of Shane’s sense of humor. Well in addition to being responsible for the largest traffic day ever on this site he too has launched another site. Go check out EliteFeet. In a short time he has done a really good job of making an informative and fun site. EliteFeet is what I hope VO2Connection will be like (for cycling, nordic skiing and tri’s) if I can ever figure out Joomla.

Other than a few laps at the final ‘Cross race (who flats in the snow?) I have not ridden since Nationals. What I have been doing is swimming, skate skiing and running on a daily basis. So far it goes like this. In the pool and running Rachel kicks my ass. Yup beat by a girl, a fast super hot one but still. Skating I have the advantage (for now). So basically I get to feel like a man one out of three workouts. I am sooo close to buying a jacked up truck and growing a mullet.

Oh yeah, Michael Ball is a douche.

Skate skiing 2 days in a row. That has hapenned like never for me. I have been skating (poorly) since ‘91. I have never really had a lesson I just try to copy people. The result is my form is pretty bad and I get my ass kicked by old ladies. Well yesterday Abby was giving Rachel some pointers and I figured out one of the many things I am doing wrong. Sweet. I am still slow but getting more efficient. That is one of the things I love/hate about this sport. Even after 16 years I am still learning.

I got a pair of black Doc Martens and if you have ever had them you know they are mega painfull until they get broken in bit soo sweet when they are. Anyway I have discovered that the break in goes must fast if you wear really thick socks. So there ya go, more useless info.

- Cross Nats: Kick ass weather, fun (in a sick way) course, El Gato rippin’ the sweet lines, Tim Johnson’s can of whoop ass, Bart Mang and Ali G stomping the “real” pro’s, and a Top 10 for me. Pretty sweet.

- Stuart O’Grady: The poster boy for HTFU pulled of a big one at Paris Roubaix (the only French race that matters) winning like a real hardman, solo.

- Return of Sly and Indohran: Husla finally got off the couch and back on a bike this year. He was back to his old spot on the podium, it had been a long time. Hopefully more of the same this year. After years of alleged sightings that are as credible as Mitt Romney, Indohran finally ended the talk of his death. Fastest Masters lap at 24 Hours of Moab, Top 10 stage at La Ruta, ‘cross podiums. Damn I guess El Chupacabra is the only mythical creature left in Utah.

- ‘Cross Chicks: I remember when we were lucky to get 1 girl to show up at cross race in the 801, a big field was 3. This year we had both an A and B flight. Holy muddy panties Batman! The scenery at Utah cross just got a lot better.

- More dopers busted: I know I sound like a broken record when it come to the cheating whores who dope but, it is nice to see so many get run off. Clean it up guys.

- Local Hero’s: The Pro’s get all the press but the real hero’s in this sport are the guy/gals you never hear about. The Ali G’s, DrX’s and Bart Mang’s that take the time to teach the newbies. The 250lb Clydesdale guy who shows up every week knowing he will never win anything and does it with a smile. There a million stories but the people who are my hero’s are the ones who do it because they get to not because they have to.

- Rachel

- Katie Compton: Talk about ride it like ya stole it. Every race I have seen her in this year she has just killed it. In Louisville I think she was the fastest of any racer male or female in the sandpit. When she is on she is untouchable. My prediction, rainbow.

- Mona Vie/Cannondale: For making a has been/never was feel like a racer again. I am so stoked to be racing in the dirt again and for the challenge of Xterra with the support of these amazing companies. 2008 The Train is gonna roll.

I look out for my boys.