Monday, May 30, 2011

Married

May 7, 2011, Houston, TX.


The two of us and our families convened in Houston for our wedding. We didn't think it would feel like much more than a family reunion and group dinner, but it was more fun than we ever imagined it could be. It is now the weekend to top. Needless to say, we were so fortunate to have been able to share the weekend with our fabulous family.

Here are some pics of the fun:

Check out Anthony's mom's boyfriend in the straw hat. His outfit made my day. He had birks, gold toed socks, a grateful dead tie, the hat and topped it all off with a USA-Cycling patch pinned to his jacket. I like to imagine that he's stifling a giggle about some inside joke in this shot.


Our officiant, Ron Ramey, did a great job.


My side of the family post-ceremony.


Trying to help Uncle Greg tie his tie while my maid of honor, aka the Best Woman, looks on fearful that the veil she worked so hard to attach to my head, will move.

The finished tie project. Not bad.



The gangster Best Woman and Man.



My brother and I before the ceremony.


Our hotel goody bags with chocolate covered almonds and pecans, thanks to Cyndi at Bicycle Paper Designs.


For anyone looking for wedding vendors in Houston, we lucked out and were able to work with a crew of fantastic folks. We had a small get together of 27 of us and wanted an intimate and relaxing vibe. Along the way, we learned that planning even a small wedding requires such a degree of attention to detail that numerous times we questioned why the heck we were having a wedding instead of eloping. We are not the type of couple you would call wedding savvy and we needed all the help we could get to make the weekend event feel fun, relaxed and laid back (and not cost an arm and a leg). In the end, I can speak for both of us and say that we were so glad we did what we did, the way we did it. The following list of folks helped make it possible:

First and foremost, we loved our photographer, Holly Hoyt (who's pictured below with Anthony). She helped us from the beginning by answering a very random email I sent her inquiring about wedding venues in Houston. Not being familiar with TX at all, we had no clue where to start when planning a wedding from Tennessee. I saw a thumbnail picture that directed me to her website, liked her photos, and figured she'd been to more weddings in Houston than I had, so I emailed her with questions about cool places to get hitched in TX. That was the start of a great connection. She took some amazing photos of our weekend and made all our guests feel involved. Somehow, I think she was able to learn everyone's name in the first hour. Everyone commented about how much they liked her and by the end of the weekend, it really felt like she was a part of the Hawken/Angevine wedding family.

You can check her out at these sites:

Our wedding planner for day-of help was Kelly Balfour of Eventology. The peace of mind we had from having her take care of all the little details was great. She brought her own personal crystal toasting flutes for us and upon short notice, the day before, she even found and purchased a photo mat for all our guests to sign.

Our wedding pastor was Ron Ramey: http://www.weddingpastor.com/

Lori Holley did our flowers and took lots of time helping us figure out what we wanted: www.specialarrangements.net/ She made finding the right flowers to flow from casual backyard wedding to our dinner at the very modern, chic Bistro Alex seem effortless.

Melody Kelley at Harmony Strings provided music and helped us pick pieces we liked. They were able to play LZ's Stairway to Heaven and The Turtles' Happy Together songs and when our ceremony was over, they stayed and played while we snapped group photos.

The folks at Bicycle Paper Designs made our invitations, itinerary cards, place cards, and labels for our bags of candy. Cyndi always took lots of time to make sure every order was perfect down to every comma.

Hotel Sorella was where everyone stayed and the on-site Bistro Alex is where we ate after the ceremony. Being a bit picky about food, we figured it'd be some generic, fancy, but edible food and we were wrong. It was really, tasty fare. The pastry chef made us a strawberry short cake type wedding cake that was a nice end to the meal. We were happily surprised at how good the meal and service ended up being.

Transportation to and from the hotel and airport was via, AFC transport at www.afchouston.com/ They did a great job getting everyone shuttled in and out of town and were very easy to work with from afar.

Transportation to and from our rehearsal dinner and ceremony was arranged via Annette at the Original Trolley Company. Annette's professional and prompt approach, and the excellent drivers made this a streamlined issue. Our limo driver had to back out of a, long, serpentine, skinny gravel driveway and didn't bat an eye.

We had a good Friday day night meal here: Cyclone Anaya's.

A few of us (including Anthony for his first massage ever) got massages and pedicures at a spa next to the hotel: www.lifetimefitness.com/lifespa/

Our wedding venue, Vargo's, with charmingly loud peacocks and pretty lush green grounds made us feel like we weren't in a big city sprawl: www.vargosonline.com/

All in all, it was a good weekend and we emerged the happy, newly wed, Mr. and Mrs. Angevine.


Racing recap: Serc's Tsali and Spartanburg 2011

Better late than never. After skipping the long drive to FL for the first SERC race, Tsali's race was my season opener. The pre-ride was nice, breezy and there was a slight chill in the air. There was a TT Saturday that did about a 4 mile loop.


Although the inevitable standing and waiting around to start had everyone's legs feeling unwarmedup, the loop was a fun one. There were just enough flat sections to make it really hard with the gearing I chose-- note to self, 32-22 is too short for Tsali. But, I did gain lots of high cadence work from the experience. There were only 3 ladies in the sport category TT, Heather Davis, Jane Hodess and myself, but the 3 of us dutifully locked in our bonus points. Thanks to all the support from our sponsors, (thank you Trek, US Stove and Vantaggio etc!!!), we stayed in a nice cabin not far from the race course. After a good dinner with everyone and after each and every bike was cleaned by the diligent and oh so sweet team director, Mark Fasczewski, we slept, got up, ate bfast, packed up and headed out in the chilly 40 degree weather.



There was a good crowd for the Expert/Pro women, but only 6-7 Sport/cat 2 women at the starting line. The start up the gravel road was quick and I hopped into 4th position going into the woods. Spinning like crazy, I kept thinking, man, I should have brought a taller gear. The Tsali course is like a road race-- very fun, very fast, lots of flat sections good for the big ring (and not as good for my 32-22). There are 3-4 steep climbs that punctuate the fast sections. On the climbs I could reel in the women in 2nd and 3rd to seeing distance and get a hint of perhaps catching them. After running into Catherine and Amanda on the trail after they both had had mechanical issues that ended their race prematurely, I was grateful to have a ride that was free of any major issues. I spun as quickly as I could on the flat sections, pushed on the climbs, but ultimately ended up right where I started, with a 4th place finish. It was a very fun race and a good reminder that gear selection is going to be a challenge in all future races.

My bike felt amazing (thank you, thank you thank you to everyone connected to my Superfly-- Trek/Gary Fisher, Mike T, Kym F, HBC etc.) This was the 3rd time I'd ever ridden it and man is it light and responsive. It weighs in at just over 19# and I'm going to have to get used to how light it is-- even little rocks and roots lift it off the ground. It is such a solid ride-- I just have to get my fitness on par with the badassness of the bike.

Here are some shots of Kym and Shannon:


After the race, I had a nice warm down chatting with Heather D. and ended the weekend looking forward to the next race. The great end to my fun weekend was a delicious bison/beef/sausage burger made by Anthony on the charcoal grill, waiting for me when I got home!



Moving on to Spartanburg, SC's SERC race. This one was the Stumpjump and had a great turn out! Thanks again to team sponsorship funds, we got hooked up with a hotel room for the night before. I prerode with Catherine and Anina and surprise, surprise, this course was filled with flat, flowy ribbons of trail that swoop this way and that under a very pretty canopy of some sort of trees that let you know you are definitely in South Carolina (I don't know my plant types/names in case that's not obvious). It is a really nice trail system, very picturesque at times, with some nice tight, rooty sections near the end of the course. In contrast to Tsali, this weekend had a stout line up of over 15 sport women. As soon as the course got to the flatter sections, I lost most of the first 5-6 girls. Another hard, life lesson about gear selection. At the end of lap 1, I caught up to Jane H. and was able to pass her on some of the gradual climbing back to the start area. Once we hit the steep descent prior to entering the woods, I could hear her on my wheel again. She's a strong racer and a good descender and once we got in the woods to the darn, flat parts, she put it in her big ring and left me in the dust. I pushed up any climb Icould and ended up going past one of the top racers whose chain broke. She was on the side of the trail doing a quick and dirty fix when I passed by, and thus I ended up 5th instead of 6th.

Expert/Pro Podium:


Anina and Catherine both had good races as well in the Big-Girl category and I drove home happy with a hard effort, but contemplating my future gear choices. Much to my delight, I was, again, greeted at home with a yummy dinner on the porch by my personal chef, Antoine, aka my fiance, Tony.

US Stove Company Rocks



The newest title sponsor for the team I am lucky enough to race with is U.S. Stove. I never knew much about the company until recently. As a team, a week ago, we got the opportunity to tour the one store that sells directly to the public-- the U.S. Stove Factory Direct store on Rossville Blvd in Chattanooga. In a nutshell, the company has been around for over 100 years. It's currently operated out of South Pittsburg, TN. All their products are locally made in the US. They build and sell wood and pellet stoves, furnaces, gas heaters and more. In general, all the products are backed by lifetime or really long warranties. The things they sell are investment pieces that are built to last.

U.S. stove company is also a dealer for other U.S. made products from other companies they endorse. The product lines include things like gas grills, log sets, gas stoves and fireplace inserts (with nifty things like a remote control that can be up to 30 feet away from the gas heater, that can be set to keep your home a certain temp, ie in case the power goes out at night, when the house cools, at the set temperature, the gas fireplace will turn on and you'll wake up to a dark house that is toasty warm!). My favorite cooking related item they offer is the Primo ceramic charcoal grill. You can check it out at this link and start salivating over all the future meals you can enjoy in such a sturdy apparatus. To continue with the theme of buying nationally made goods, it's the only U.S. made ceramic grill.

As a racer, the U.S. Stove-bike team match seems like a perfect one. Bike racing, staying warm after cold rides, and eating good food after long workouts go hand in hand. To top it all off, the company's giving a discount to "friends of the team". Soon there will be a Paypal-esque code you can enter for the discount. Stay tuned.

The company can be explored at the following places:

SS chainrings, cogs, and chains, oh my

This is long overdue. In learning about riding a bike with one gear, I've come to see that it can take some effort to uncover useful information about the different options in terms of cogs and chainrings. When googling phrases like, "what are options for SS chainrings?", lots of biking forum threads and links to retailers cover the screen. Some retailer links are helpful, most are not. Some threads are informative, but at least for me, it took a long time to wade through all of the anecdotal commentary and tangents to finally find practical advice and info. I'm still learning about all sorts of different aspects and issues related to a one-gear ride (as evidenced by my recent insight regarding the utterly basic fact that a 1/8" cogs & chains are different than a 3/32" cogs and chains, especially when it comes to trading out cogs--thank you Dan W for facilitating my comical lightbulb moment!).

So, along the way, I've run into two companies that I've found to have quality products and excellent customer service-- Endless Bikes and Homebrewed Components. I've got products from both places and I'm really grateful for both of them, so here's my plug:

I love the KickAss cog from EB. Its brushed silver, flying saucer appearance is instantly recognizable. In addition to liking the cog, Shanna Powell has always made me feel like I'm right there in Asheville when I place my order. Any questions you have are answered very quickly. The cog arrives lovingly wrapped in the comic section of the newspaper or some other sort of personalized shipping paper. It arrives fast. Shanna even offered to bring my a cog to a race in order to get it to me faster.

I also love the cog and chainring I currently have on my bike, brought to me by HBC. The HBC cogs and chainrings are light, come in aluminum or titanium, and also come in a spectrum of color options. Like EB-company, it's a small company that makes products locally. Dan Wilcox, the maestro behind it all, spent a LOT of time helping me figure out my components. Having a m985 crank on my current race bike limited the chainring options b/c of the 88 bcd. Dan had recently machined one for a friend of his and happily made one for me too. I opted for a red ring and cog and he processed it twice to make the color really robust. Throughout building the Superfly up, Dan was so helpful with prompt advice and tips. He was very conscientious when it came to making sure all my questions were thoroughly answered, and once I placed my order, it arrived at quickly.

Thank you Dan and Shanna!