Friday, February 27, 2009

Trash Talkin

This weeks Mike vs Jenny weight loss challenge took on a whole new twist
of competitiveness. In the past the weekly winner would get something
trivial for their prize such as being the one to choose the Friday night
DVD but this week the stakes got even larger.

On Saturday mornings we do the dreaded weekly house cleaning and the
worst part of the routine is mopping the floors. Jenny and I hate it so
much we usually do the mopping together. So this week the winner gets
out of their mopping duties.

I know this doesn't sound like much but the thought of getting out of
mopping has brought out the competitiveness in both of us. In fact, the
trash talking at our house has been kicked up to the level of the fellas
playing street ball.

"I'm gonna lose so much weight I'm going to have to run around in the
shower just to get wet"

"You mopping skills are so bad I'll probably have to come down and
supervise while you mop ALL BY YOURSELF"

And the list goes on and on.

Jenny even went so far as to threaten to make me a cake on Thursday
morning and leave it for me to eat. Lucky for me she didn't follow
through.

This new motivation actually helped in my cycling because I started
doing intervals again on the trainer this week. Not much fun but very
effective when you get out on the road and have to deal with rollers.

Well, this morning was the weigh in of truth and I lost a pound. The
problem with that is Jenny also lost a pound so we tied.

We probably shouldn't do a double or nothing because I might resort to
the sugar free jello diet like the fat cyclist.

That wouldn't be pretty.

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

The Worlds Best Pancakes

A couple of weeks ago I posted a list of “You know you’re a cyclist when…” which included

You know you’re a cyclist when you mentally log every meal as "good fuel" or "bad fuel"

Today I’m going to share with you a secret recipe for some of the best pre ride fuel known to man.

Whole Wheat Banana Pancakes!!!

These are so good they could fuel an entire ride over the Alpe d'Huez and back without even breaking a sweat.

Rumor has it that Chris Carmichael used these pancakes as a secret weapon in training Lance Armstrong and the UCI currently has these pancakes under investigation as a performance enhancing substance. Coincidence? I don’t think so!

This recipe will take you about 15 minutes to assemble but it’s worth the work.

Ingredients you’ll need.
2.5 cups of Whole Wheat Flour (no, this isn’t bleached white flour it’s coarse whole wheat. We are weird so we grind our own but you should be able to find this at the grocery store. The coarser the better.)
2 cups of Milk
1 Egg
1 tsp Baking Soda
1 tsp Baking Powder
1 tsp Salt
2 Tbsp Vegetable Oil or Apple Sauce if you’re ultra healthy
2 Tbsp Molasses or Honey (Molasses is way better but Honey will also work)
2 Bananas (new or old and freckled, it doesn’t matter)
1 Tbsp Cinnamon

Next get out two medium size bowls. One for the wet ingredients and another for the dry ones.

Put the Whole Wheat, Baking Soda, Baking Powder and Salt into one of the bowls. Once you have all of the ingredients in there stir it up with a whisk. Trust me you’ll want to do this. Clumps of Baking Soda in a pancake don’t taste very good.


Action Photo of the Salt Addition

Getting out the clumps

Now, add the wet ingredients to the other bowl in this order. Milk, Egg, Oil, and Molasses. If you add the ingredients in this order the Molasses won’t stick to your tablespoon because it just had oil in it.

Once you have all of the wet ingredients in the bowl mix them up really good with a whisk. Be sure to scrape the bottom of the bowl good because the molasses tends to collect down there like it’s afraid of the sun.

Another action photo - high whisk cadence is important


Now, pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredient bowl and mix it up.


You’re just about there except for the bananas.

Peel the bananas and place them on a plate. By the way, Jenny just informed me that unpeeling a banana is not what I thought it was. Who knew, I guess if you were to unpeel a banana you would have to put the peels back on then duct tape it back together. I suppose unpeel ranks up there with unthaw and irregardless. Good thing I didn't put that in this post.


Now take a fork and mash the bananas up until they are the consistency of slime. Don't worry though it's a good slime. Once you’ve got a good pile of banana slime on your plate add the cinnamon to it and stir it into the banana slime. At this point it won’t look very good but it does wonders for the pancakes.



Now slide your banana/cinnamon slime off of the plate into your pancake batter and mix it up really good.

You’re ready to cook the best pancakes in the world just like you would any other pancake. I cook them at 350 degrees on an electric skillet.




This recipe will make 12 - 4 inch pancakes.

If you get industrious and make these before people get up at your house they will wonder downstairs and ask you what smells like banana bread. These pancakes smell incredible and taste just as good.

Here are a couple of variations in eating them.

Traditional: Topped with butter and maple syrup. This is good any time and I’m sure this is how your grandmother would have served them.

Ultra Healthy: Topped with applesauce. Still tastes pretty darn good and cuts the calories way down over the syrup route.

Maple Bar: Topped with peanut butter and syrup. This doesn’t sound very good but when peanut butter and maple syrup are mixed together they give your pancakes a maple bar flavor. This is so good you’ll be hooked for life after one bite.

These pancakes really rock and rank up there with PB&Js as the best cycling food ever. You should give them a try when you have some time before a ride. I also make them on Sunday mornings while the family is getting ready for church. For some reason I have an incredible urge to go for a bike ride every Sunday while I’m at church. I’m sure it’s the pancakes.



If you end up trying these pancakes leave me a message and let me know how they worked out.

Enjoy.

Monday, February 23, 2009

Best Ride of the Year (So Far)



Here's my recipe for the best day of cycling in 2009 so far.

Change sunglass lenses from amber to charcoal
Take off back fender
Leave thermal underwear in their drawer
Wear just a t-shirt under a light jacket
Bake at 55 degrees under clear blue skies until legs are burned to a crisp

This time of year riding in the sun without even a hint of rain is quite the anomaly but that is what I got to do last Friday and it was great.

Since Jenny had commitments in the afternoon I headed out for a solo ride around Granite Falls. This is a great rural ride with plenty of hills and not near enough descents. Funny how it always works out that way. The conditions were so great that I let out a couple of “Wooooooo-Whooooos” just for good measure on my ride. I just couldn't control myself.

About 20 miles into the ride I was passed by another cyclist which at the time really startled me because I was the only person around for miles and deep in cycling thought when he passed me. I hate to be passed so I attempted to at least catch up with but my legs just wouldn’t obey (I’m working on that). To make matters worse about 5 miles after he passed me he passed me again. No he didn't lap me, he stopped to fill up his water bottles at a park on the side of the road and I noticed him as I rode passed the park so I knew he was going to pass me again. I felt a lot like the lone breakaway rider sensing defeat as the peloton bears down on you. He was so much faster than me I knew he was going to pass me again. So, I had to just wait for the imminent pass to happen. At least he gave me a nod of approval as made his move.

Toward the end of my ride I started to run out of gas. Luckily, I had a gel in my seat wedge so once I sucked it down I was good to go for the rest of the ride. Gels work like magic and if you have the right flavor they are also magically delicious. I had a strawberry which isn’t my favorite bit it did the trick. I haven’t bonked on a ride in a long time. It’s amazing what you forget when you haven’t done a training ride in a while. I guess that’s why they call them training rides.


Animals Spotted
Cows
Sheep
Squires
Coyotes
Dogs
Cats
Horses

None of them chased me!!!

Miles Ridden: 42
Elevation Gain: 1782 feet

Thursday, February 19, 2009

The Power to Ignore


Take a look at the picture above and try to guess what is going on. From the looks of it you might think that any one of the following situations is taking place to my daughter.

Bracing for an earthquake
Migraine headache and double earache
Trying to block out her siblings while they attempt to serenade her to sleep
Practicing the duck and cover maneuver in case of a nuclear attack

Any one of those choices would have been a pretty good guess but you would have still been wrong. Here’s the scenario in the picture.

Our house has enough bedrooms for each of our kids to have their own room which they enjoy but when it comes to bedtime they just can’t stand sleeping alone. Maybe that means that they actually like each other or I guess it could have something to do with the boogie man. The jury is still out on that one. They sleep in each others rooms so much my older daughter keeps a mattress under her bed so she can pull it out for her siblings. A couple of weeks ago my daughters spent the night together and as my older daughter has to get up a lot earlier than my younger one she set her alarm and turned it up really loud.

When the alarm when off my older daughter smacked it around until it quit making noise and headed off to take a shower. Little did she know that she had only hit the snooze button and that the blaring alarm would go off again in 8 minutes. After the 8 minutes of peace and quiet my younger daughter was startled awake by the alarm. At this point she had two options.

1. She could have reached up and turned the alarm off.
2. She could have just ignored the alarm and tried to sleep through it.

Being the youngest child in a family of 6 she did what came natural to her. She curled up in a ball, covered her ears, and ignored the alarm. She wasn’t able to go back to sleep because it was too loud but she did a pretty good job of ignoring it.

At the time, I was working downstairs and I could hear the alarm all the way down there. I thought for sure someone would turn it off but it went on and on. After several minutes of listening to the blaring alarm the picture above is what we saw.

It still makes me laugh that my youngest daughter could somehow ignore the alarm clock for all that time curled up in a ball. I guess being the youngest child gives you great powers of ignoring things that are bothering you.

She’s got some skills!!!!

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Tour of California - Rain Advice

This week is the Tour of California bike race. Bike racing is by far my favorite sport to watch on TV. Johan Bruyneel described it best when he compared bike racing to a multi day rolling chess match. It certainly is a chess match but this week there has been an added element of difficulty with all of the intense rain that the riders have had to endure. Who would have thought that rain would be a huge factor of the Tour of California.

As someone who tolerates rain 9 months out of the year I have some advice for Lance, Levi, Thor, Mark, and Floyd on how to read the weather forecasts and what all of the different rain variations really mean. I’ve also added some possible racing tactics just for fun.

Drizzle
This is a term for a very light, fine rain. Not really enough to get you very wet but just enough to be really annoying after hours in the saddle. Racing tactic advice, convince your cycling foes in the peleton that the drizzle collecting on their bikes is adding needless weight and the only way to shed this weight is to stop and squeegee their bikes off. When they stop to squeegee make a run for it.

Showers
This is your normal run of the mill rain but it comes and goes in spurts. This rain usually lasts for half an hour or so. Racing tactic advice, sneak up behind your rival teams and tie knots in the sleeves of their rain jackets. When the rain hits and the riders put on their rain jackets you can make a surprise attack. Although pro cyclist can ride incredibly well without hands the surprise of not being able to put their jackets on all the way should gain you at least 30 seconds on your rivals.

Rain
In contrast to showers, rain is steadier and normally falls constantly for hours on end. Racing tactic advice, since no racer would ever have a fender on his bike it’s important to position yourself in front of your chief rival and spray him in the face with rain water. While employing this tactic the racer should seek out as many muddy puddles as possible thus adding dirt freckles to his rivals face. It’s just the right thing to do and it will make for an unforgettable interview after the race.

Well, that basically sums up the different types of rain that the riders will encounter on the Tour of California. I’m confident that if these race tactics are employed your team will not only win but it will be a tour that will be talked about for years to come.

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Some Times You Just Get Lucky

Last Sunday morning before breakfast I wandered out the front door and snapped this picture from our driveway of the sunrise. Honestly, I didn't alter this picture with Photoshop and it really didn't look this great in real life. I think I just got lucky. I wish this happened more often.


Sunday, February 15, 2009

A Great Valentines Day

Yesterday morning Jenny surprised me with the Worlds Best Cake for Valentines day. If you haven't had this cake before you really shouldn't try it because no other cake will ever compare to it once you've tried its yummy goodness. You'll be ruined for life. Once I started eating it I couldn't stop. Today the only thing left in the pan are some crumbs and I'm really tempted to start on them next.

We also went for a bike ride later in the afternoon. It was one of the best Valentine Days ever.

I would have needed to ride a double century to work off all of the cake I ate during the day.

I'm thinking that Jenny is going to clean up in the Mike vs Jenny weekly weight loss challenge. That was a shroud move Jenny. I'm just hoping Mama Mia isn't involved in the prize winnings.

Thursday, February 12, 2009

You Know You're a Cyclist - Part II

Some people are hard on watches so they need a new one at least once a year. Jenny for instance can destroy a watch in the space of 9 months without even trying. From the looks of some of her watches you would think she was a heavy equipment operator or she dealt with nuclear waste in her line of work. In her case, I think they’re called children.

On the other hand I can I wear a watch for usually 5 years or more. For some reason watches are pretty safe around me except for one component. Just like clockwork (no pun intended) after 6 months the small loop that fastens the ends of the watch bands together breaks. I hate it when this happens because this means that the small end of the watch band hangs free and gets caught on things.

To fix this problem I usually find a small rubber band and slip it over the end of my watch as a replacement for the original watch band loop. In the past I’ve gotten pretty creative with my watch band loops. Some of my favorites have been:

1. The rubber band that comes wrapped around broccoli
2. My daughters brightly colored elastic hair bands
3. A group of super small rubber bands that the kids use on their braces

For years Jenny had cringed at the sight of these colorful watch band loops but being the patient wife that she is has tolerated it very well.

The other day I was changing the rubber bands on my watch at work because I keep a bag of them at my desk. A co-worker started showing me his solution for the same problem and I was more than impressed with his solution. He cut up an old bike tire inner tube into small rings and then attached them to his watch band. Since bike inner tubes are black his solution blended in perfectly on his watch.

The next day when I came to work there were three of these tube sections lying on my desk. This was like getting an early birthday present. I immediately took off my brace rubber bands and put on my new bike inner tube ring. I have to say, it blends in so well with the rest of my watch you can’t even tell it’s there. It’s like watch band camouflage.

Here’s a picture of the of the bike inner tube section


Here’s a picture of the bike inner tube in its camouflaged state.



So I guess I have one more thing to add to my “You Know You’re a Cyclist When….” List:
You wear used bike parts in everyday life and like it.



Wednesday, February 11, 2009

You Know You're a Cyclist When....

Where I work we have an incentive program where if someone does something extraordinary you can write up a thank you card and give it to them. This entitles them a trip to the goodie box. The goodie box is similar to the goodie box they have at the dentist office for kids who don’t cry except instead of super balls and cheap rings they have things like free movie tickets and laser pointers.

The other day an Office Assistant was showing us some of the new items that she was adding to the goodie box. One of the items was a luggage scale which basically was a scale with two hooks on it. One of my co-workers who is a mountain biker said “I don’t think I would ever use that to weigh my luggage but I would definitely use that to weigh my bikes.” I thought that was a great idea and when I agreed with him I got the look of disbelief from all the rest of my co-workers like “What? You would use it for the same thing? What planet are you guys from?” Whatever, they just don’t understand what it’s like being a goofy cyclist.

This got me to thinking that there really should be a list of “You know you’re a cyclist when…” on the internet that I could relate to. My first search produced more hits than I could ever read. Here is a list of my favorites including some that I added.

You Know You’re a Cyclist When….
  • You can give instantaneous directions to any corner in the city, but only for those using bike paths and public transportation.
  • You keep deodorant and baby wipes at the office.
  • You are polite to most everyone, you blush at some rap songs, but you swear like a drunken sailor when a grandma in an SUV cuts you off. (That’s for you Lizzylou)
  • Although you speak only English, you're perfectly capable of pronouncing several words in Italian and French
  • When someone asks for advice on buying a bike, you either: a) ask, "How many thousands do you want to spend?" b) assail them with so many questions about intended use, riding style and the like, that you make buying a bicycle sound like rocket science and unintentionally put them off the idea.
  • When that same person reacts by saying, "It's only a bicycle," your jaw drops and your eyes bug out, and you're only half kidding.
  • A car goes by with two members of the opposite sex carrying two bikes. Later, you can't recall their hair color or what make car, but you can ID the bikes' make, model and color.
  • You have 3 bikes and you absolutely need more.
  • You sometimes wish you had a longer commute to work, just so you could ride more.
  • You ride 50 miles, one way, with a twenty in your pocket and if you actually buy something, you consider leaving the change because of the weight.
  • You consider the color of the bikes hanging from your ceiling when selecting home decor.
  • You missed more than two family events this summer due to scheduling conflicts with bike rides.
  • Another cyclist asks you for the location of the nearest bike shop and you fix their bike on the spot.
  • When actually driving, you stop at a red light and since no pedestrians are in the crosswalk you start to drive right through before you realize you are NOT on a bike, and slam on the brakes.
  • You know the location of all the major potholes between your home and office.
  • You can't think of the last time you saw any of your friends who don't bike.
  • Any one of your bikes is worth more than your car.
  • You choose an apartment/house solely on the basis of whether or not it is flat enough to ride into and how close the good roads/trails are.
  • Your bike rack is worth more than your car.
  • The first thing you ask when you regain consciousness is "How's my bike".
  • You actually move farther from work so your bike commute will be longer.
  • You mentally log every meal as "good fuel" or "bad fuel".
  • Your learn you have X money left over after paying bills and the first thing you do is reach for the nearest bicycling catalog.
  • You dream of winning the lottery, and the first thing you think of is "how many/which bikes can that money buy?"
  • You can tell your significant other with a straight face that it’s too hot to mow the lawn then take off and ride a century.
  • Someone in a car asks for directions and you accidentally give them a route that includes motor vehicle barriers, or a route that bypasses all freeways/busy roads
  • You buy a car based on whether or not a bike will fit in the trunk/back
  • You pull up hard on the steering wheel trying to jump your car over a pot-hole.
  • You know the distance of every point of interest within 20 miles of your house as well as the location of every pot-hole along the way.
  • You refuse to buy a couch because that patch of wall space is taken up by your bikes.
  • You have more up-to-date knowledge of bike specs and gear than the staff at your local shop, the reps in your community and the editors at national magazines.
  • You have a killer set of bodybuilder quads and a pair of angel hair pasta thin arms.
  • You think about each hill as a cyclist, even when you are driving in a car.
  • You calculate distances between cities by how long it would take you by bike. ( 21 bike days from St. Petersburg to St. Louis)
  • You know how many miles you rode last night, last week, last year.
  • You don’t find it over sharing to tell people you just met how many miles you rode last night, last week, last year.
  • You have a Biker’s Tan. (bottom 2 /3 of your legs, lower 1/2 your arms, and two little circles on the tops of your hands)
  • You get sad when your Biker’s Tan fades.
  • You have far too many photos of yourself on or around your bicycle next to signs at the top of mountain passes, Welcome To So and So State, National Park entrances, starting lines of bike rides, historic sites, and in front of bicycle shops.
  • You’ve lost sleep over the trailer vs pannier debate - of course you own both.
  • You can’t bring yourself to recycle any magazine remotely related to cycling.
  • You’ve given your bike a nickname.
  • You’ve used that nickname out loud -- in mixed company -- and felt no shame or embarrassment.
  • You lift your butt off the car seat as you go over potholes, railroad tracks and speed bumps.
  • You turn the air vents of your car to blow directly into your face and imagine you are on a bike ride.
  • You have enough funny/scary animals chasing me stories to close a bar of rowdy Irishmen or outlast a windbag uncle at the family reunion. (note: No windbag uncle? Hmm, could be you)
  • You know the other definition of Critical Mass.
  • You are an expert at spotting thunderstorms, tornadoes, windstorms, marauding cattle and ice cream stands from a distance.
  • You have been caught in a thunderstorm while still in the saddle blinking away water and grinning all the way home.
  • You check your helmet mirror for what’s behind you even when you are off the bike and not wearing it.
  • You hate headwinds, hills and trucks parked on the shoulder of any descent.
  • You forget, much like a woman after childbirth, all the pain, headwinds humidity and hills within days of a long ride, and start dreaming about the next.
  • You can say "My bicycle has been stolen!" in six different languages.
  • You wave to drivers with bike racks.
  • You have convinced yourself and others that protein bars are tasty.
  • You have tested your hypothermic limits and found that they can be expanded with pedal speed, layering and hot cocoa.
  • You agree with the statement; "If everything feels in control, you just aren’t going fast enough."
  • You’ve set your alarm for 3 in the morning to watch a live mountain stage of the Tour de France and you actual do it.
  • You try to talk with you hands just to be like Bob Roll
I'm sure this list is far from complete. Feel free to add to it if you can think of others.

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Photography

Every time I go for a bike ride one of the essential items that I put in my jersey pocket is a small camera. I do this because I always come across something amazing to take a picture of while I’m riding. If you’re a cyclist you already know that at the speed of a bike you see things that you would never notice while driving a car. It’s an amazing phenomenon.

I’ve always wanted to take amazingly awesome pictures that inflict shock and awe on others but I’ve always fallen short. Here is the scenario that I run into. I’m out for a ride early on a Saturday morning on some deserted road and as I round a corner I spot some amazing scenery or something interesting that would make a great picture. I pull out my camera and snap a few pictures and go on my way. When I get home I always have grandiose expectations of how my pictures will turn out. 9 times out of 10 I’m disappointed with my pictures once I see them in full size on the computer because they don’t have the bright vivid colors of the original scene that I envisioned that they would have.

The other day I was reading through a blog that Jenny stumbled across (www.thepioneerwoman.com) that talked about how to make some simple adjustments to your photos using Photoshop Elements in order to bring out the vivid colors of your photos. After doing some research I found that Adobe offers a free trial of their software for 30 days so I downloaded Photoshop Elements to give it a test drive.

To be honest this software isn’t super user friendly but after doing some reading Jenny and I figured out how to spruce up our pictures with just a few clicks of the mouse. Just by making some simple changes with this software our pictures look a lot more like the original scene.

Here’s a before and after example of some Idaho cows that I took a picture of last summer. The after picture looks a lot more like the real setting in actual life. If Photoshop Elements can do this for Idaho cows I’m thinking it will do wonders for almost any picture. By the way, these cows only live 15 miles away from where the movie Napoleon Dynamite was filmed so they are practically famous.

Before
After

Now that I look at these pictures on the web you really can't see much of a difference but believe me when they are bigger the edited one looks a lot nicer. As you can tell, I’m sold on this software. I don’t think I’ll ever be a world class photographer but hopefully my pictures will be a lot more respectable. I’m seriously considering buying this software package.

Monday, February 9, 2009

The Art of Negotiations

On Saturday night my youngest daughter lost a tooth (actually she yanked it out) while we were watching TV. Even though her gums were bleeding she was pretty happy about the prospect of loosing a tooth because she loves visits from the tooth fairy. Before she went to bed she got a zip lock bag and put her tooth in it for safe keeping under her pillow and off to bed she went.

Little did we know that she also wrote a note of negotiation asking for a raise in tooth compensation that she included with her tooth. Luckily, I’m good friends with the tooth fairy and she shared the note with us. Below is her negotiation letter.



The tooth fairy also shared with us the note that she wrote in reply to my daughters note. Here it is.


My daughter usually gets 1.50 per tooth from the tooth fairy so she actually netted out an additional 50 cents from her letter.

I was very impressed with her letter. She used the classic high ball technique of negotiating with a perfect line of justification. She asked for a 1333% increase in tooth compensation and got a 33% increase. For a cute little girl she drives a hard bargain.

I guess all of those arguments with her older siblings through the years have fine tuned her negotiation skills. Looks like she’s got a fine future ahead of her. I’m thinking the next time I buy a used car or ask for a raise at work I’m going to bring her along to negotiate for me.

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Chili Cook Off and Junk Yard Wars

Question: What do you get when you combine 25 guys in a gym with the task of consuming 10 pots of chili and building flying contraptions out of a pile of junk?
Answer: A lot of fun, a big mess, and not as much gas as you would think

Last Saturday night a group of guys from our church got together for the 5th annual chili cook off and junkyard wars.

The first task of the evening was consuming the chili that everyone brought. I didn’t count them but there were 10 to 12 large pots of chili that ranged from burn your face off smoking hot to mild and very flavorful. I used the strategy of filling my bowl with multiple chili samples strategically placed in different section of the bowl. In order to sample all of the chilies I ended up having 3 bowls of chili. The mark of a good chili cook off is the level of gut ache you’ve got when it’s over. This years offering didn’t disappoint as I had a world class gut ache when it was all said and done.

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly!

The next phase of the night was the junk yard wars. This year’s assignment was to build a flying device with a wing span between 5 and 8 feet wide. The other part of the assignment was that this flying device couldn’t be launched by hand but rather some type of launching device. This was all to be built from a pile of junk. To be fair the junk pile included pieces of foam, wood, bungee cords, saran wrap, and PVC pipe.

We were then divided into 3 groups. My group consisted of 2 engineers, 2 mechanics, a CAD specialist, a planner, and an FBI agent. Our group ended up developing an airplane that that looked a lot like a kiddie airplane. We decided to launch it with a giant rubber band using a long table as the launching pad. We were able to build our offering fairly quick and to everyone’s surprise it actually flew. After some fine tuning it flew the length of the entire gym with no problem.


My Teams Flying Machine

This thing actually flew


Can It Get Any More Complex Than This?

The other teams built completely different styles of planes from ours. One was very complex with an air foil type wing wrapped with saran wrap. The other plane looked a lot like something the Wright Brothers would have developed.

Test Flight Gone Bad



After over a little more than an hour everyone was finished with their amazing flying machines so we were ready for the fly off. Since we built the planes too good we had to move from the gym to the parking lot so the gym wouldn’t be damaged. Each team got 3 launches and it turned out that they all flew the same distance. Of course our plane broke twice upon landing but it wasn’t anything that couldn’t be fixed with some magical duct tape.




After all was said and done it was a great event. When the night was over my stomach was killing me from the chili and my stomach muscles were sore from laughing so hard. I’d say it was a perfect combination. It was hilarious to see giant planes being launched by some type of rubber band off of a table or stack of tables.

I’m actually looking forward to next year’s competition. I’m just hoping it doesn’t include explosives.