Contest

Winter training is tough. in the early days I posted a plethora of ways you can stay motivated in the winter, including Strip-ervals, Beer climbs, Cycling magazine Lance intervals, amongst many more. In lieu of that, many people head to spin classes, which I've just never been able to understand, in my eyes spinning classes just suck.

In case those options don't do it for you, no worries!  Earlier this spring I posted a review of the Hawaii Rides Trilogy.  Now, out of the kindness of my furry little heart, I'm giving it away.  Here's your chance to virtually ride the Hawaiian Islands to some very cool scenery with the grimacing man. A $75 value, free to you if you win my very subjective contest.  This is probably one of the best indoor training DVDs I've seen produced. It's just different, and not a bunch of people sitting on indoor trainers riding to hokey music while close-ups of their cassette clusters are shown.

Anyway, so how about a contest to "raffle" this out to someone? It will be a mix of bike triva, music trivia, unrelated things, and totally subjective questions which have no right answer. Unfortunately, unless you are some sort of Rainman-iac genius you'll need to do a little Google work to come up with some of the answers, I apologize in advance for this. With my 3+-100 or so reader base you have a great chance of winning and getting hooked up with the cool schwag. Get the answers to bikelemming@gmail.com (or post the answers on your blog and send the Lemming a link) by Wednesday, March 3 and we'll decide a winner!


1) There are a few bike movies out there. Name as many as you can. Which is your favorite and why?

2) True or Fale, this phrase is really in a Kid Rock song, "My name's Kid Rock and I'm a Capricorn"?

3) In BikeSnobNYC's fictional interview of Lawrence Orbach, how did Lawrence execute his historic Five Boro Bike Tour win?

4) Belt out a clever caption for the picture below...  I'll add these responses to a later blog...

5) Essay question: If there were one ride that the Lemming should absolutely, positively do this year, what would it be and why?

6) What city is the Lemming's biggest reader-base?
a) Singapore
b) Seattle
c) Portland
d) Pottawattamie

7) True or false, bike_lemming is my Twitter account and I hate derailleurs.

8) When Dangerous Hicks performed his "Beer Cans of Death" stunt bike jump, what brand of beer cans did he successfully clear? Were they 12oz. or tall boys?

9) What is your level of indoor-trainerness experience?
a) I have to replace parts on my indoor trainer all the time, just last week I wore through the spindle, which I bought the week before.
b) I supplement my electrical bill with all of the watts I generate.
c) I find myself motivated to get on the trainer, a minute goes by, but it feels like an hour, so I stop, thorougly defeated.
d) I set up my bike on the trainer, but really I use it to hang clothes on, I'm tired of getting grease on my clothes.
e) What? You can ride indoors?
f) Other

10) If you win, are you willing to send Cycling Fusion an email letting them know you won it through this contest and give them a thanks?  Possibly even writing your own clever review for their product?

Looking back at this, my ability to write contest quizzes is even worse than my ability to blog coherently.  I wager that the contest will be a battle of attrition, with many entrants bowing out due to boredom and a throwing up of the hands "WTF" moments...  Get the answers to bikelemming@gmail.com (or post the answers on your blog and send the Lemming a link) by Wednesday, March 3,  we'll decide a winner, and someone will find the Hawaii Rides Trilogy showing up at their doorstep!

Happy to announce my first ever giveaway

Here at the lemming I'm happy to announce my first ever giveaway. My posting has been more than a little sporadic this winter due to my hibernation/prison time as Stevil calls it. Because of that I'm going to announce it today, post it next Wednesday, and then give people a week to get answers back to me.

Since the Lemming reader-base is about 3 readers, give or take a couple hundred, your chances of winnning are pretty good. Without revealing too much, I can say that the prize is something I've reviewed in the past and worth about $75. I don't believe in hanging on to the schwag I've been asked to review, it gives more publicity if I "raffle" it out. Or it could just be that I really don't "indoor train", regardless it will be your gain.

So stay tuned and check back next Wednesday (it will take me that long to write some questions) for the contest!

Seeing my shadow

Today I awoke from my long winter's blogging slumber, or as Stevil likes to call it, got computer time for good behavior. Whether I'll stay awake to continue blogging or head back to my long winter hiatus really depends solely on if I see my shadow or somehow find some motivation.

Running around to a few blogs around the internet I'm disappointed to see all the people disappointed that the Leadville 100 organizers were disappointed they had to reject their applications, even with the $15 application fee.  It's very disappointing.  If anything I was hoping my assumed role of Mr. Miyagi would convince people that despite the Grand Poobah of cycling Lance making a Leadville movie, there are still other cool races out there.  Leadville is a cool race, but it's not the end-all, be-all.  Oh well, Mr. Miyagi can't be all business all the time either.

My real reason for waking was that my music player happened upon some music I hadn't heard in awhile and I had to wonder where are they now.

Sure the voice is a little whiny, and it's not exactly intense, but the guitar is great and it's one of the better pieces of music to come out of the dismal 80s.  The 80s were dismal for music, for cars, for hairstyles, for fashion, and for just about everything.  Drivin' and Cryin' was the shot of lightning in the dark cloud we call the 80s.

The Innocent - Drivin' and Cryin'

Around the Block Again - Drivin' and Cryin'

And that's about it. I apologize if you were looking for something enlightening and bike-related. Until I fully awaken from my long winter slubber I will not have the capacity to enlist those services. Drop a comment and let me know how your long winter is going.