"Yesterday you were an only child, now your ghosts have gone away."

- Billy Joel, Don't Ask Me Why

So there we were, chilling and watching TV around 11:00pm on Friday night (July 3rd), when my wife calmly said, "ouch". When I asked what was wrong, she said that she thought the baby had kicked her - turns out, it was not so much a kick as it was water breakage. Full blown panic ensued, culminating in a 90mph drive to the hospital and intense contractions before we even made it to the delivery room. No time to sweat the details or get the mother-in-law there in time to watch Elise; homegirl sat on my lap next to the bed through the entire delivery and sucked her thumb. I'm sure she'll be discussing that particular trauma in therapy in the coming years, but we had more pressing concerns at the time.

Anyway, it ended up being a good thing that I got us to the hospital quickly, as Josie Anne Ruggery was born a mere 82 minutes after that first "ouch", just 22 minutes after midnight on the 4th of July. There were lots of "little firecracker" jokes from the nursing staff, but the funniest (at least to my sick sense of humor) was when Andrea and I were discussing having a daughter that was "Born on the Forth of July", just like the Oliver Stone flick of the same name, and she said, "That's just great, now she's going to have to go fight in 'Nam."

So, I spent that night and the next two in the hospital with Andrea and Josie, eating leftover sh!tty hospital food (if you go to Westmoreland Hospital yourself sometime, I recommend the chicken parm - and tell the chef I sent you) and basically not riding. I didn't complain (much) though, since I wanted to keep the wagons circled and hang with the newest addition to the family anyway. I will say this though, if you were lucky enough to ride and/or race on the 4th when it was brilliant sunshine and a perfect 75 degrees out, I may have secretly wished death upon you as I was enclosed in that fifth floor, climate controlled hospital room all day. Nothing personal.

Now that we're all home and settled in, I've since managed to sneak out once or twice to train and even raced a time or two. In fact, just yesterday was the Renfrew Ras, a new road race in Butler Co. that was put on by Ed Johnson (Turner's dad). The race was awesome - in addition to being very well supported and professionally organized, the course was gnarly. Each 8.5 mile lap included a long descent, some rolling roads, a "significant" climb with a KOM every lap (or as I like to call it, a Steev-O-M), and some more rolling roads across the top to the finish.

Being 38, I didn't make the cut for the 42 mile Masters 40+ race (Damn you, youthful exuberance ... DAMN YOU!!!), so I had to sack up for the 85 mile cat 1-3 race. The field was small at just over 20+ riders, mostly due to a conflicting race date with the Tour of the Valley in OH and probably partly due to the limited number of racers willing to suffer through a hillier 85 mile RR. Despite the low turnout, there were some fast out-of-town guys there and a bunch of PA Elite Velo guys, so it wasn't too bad.

In the aforementioned Masters race, Fu guys Jason and Brian got up the road with former Fu guy (and now Speedgoat MTB guy) Gerry. I imagine that Brian was torn between his long-term man crush (also known as a "bro"mance) with Gerry and his team loyalties to Jason, but this was battle for the victory and sides had to be chosen. Gerry did his part to even the odds by attacking every lap on the climb and repeatedly dropping Brian, who repeatedly put himself in the pain cave and chased back on as Jason sat on Gerry and waited for him. When Jason was in college, I think he majored in "Wheelsucking" with a minor in "Not Working in Breaks", so I doubt he found such a tactical situation problematic. Anyway, it came down to a three-up sprint, and Jason took the win with Gerry second and Brian third.

By the time the cat 1-3 race went off at 1:15, it was hot as balls. I think I drank a total of five 24oz. bottles throughout the almost four hour race (thanks for the feed Denny D!), and I was still cramping at the end. I also think I plowed through five gels and two granola bars too, which reminds me of a something I wanted to complain about - littering in races. My thoughts on this are as follows:

- This is NOT Europe, where forest elves apparently sneak out of the woods and pick up the massive amounts of bottles, gel wrappers and assorted trash that a pro peloton deposits as it rolls by in full Euro-snobbery mode.

- This is Western PA, where rednecks already see cyclists on the road as an object of derision. If one of those same rednecks finds race trash in his front yard after the race, maybe he'll complain to the township council. Maybe the township council will listen. Maybe Ed Johnson won't be allowed to put his race on next year. Anyone else see the connection?

- Stuffing an empty GU wrapper in your jersey pocket versus throwing it in someone's yard will not lose the race for you. Most of the guys I saw throwing sh!t got dropped. I finished in the front group with a jersey pocket full of empty wrappers, and I dropped all of my empty bottles in the same spot (it was a multi-lap race, duh!) where I could scoop them up after the race.

- Don't be a dick!

That's it, I'm off my soapbox. Anyway, the race ended up with a front group that had been whittled down to nine guys and came into the finish together. I felt like I had good position coming up the last little kicker hill to the finish, but some guy from Team Latitude (out of Annapolis, MD) caught me napping and gapped me quickly in the sprint, taking the win. I hung on for second, (which is a little bittersweet, but I'll live), and Steevo took third (and the KOM).

So that's it for the race report. If you want to see some pictures of that guy owning me in the sprint (or just check out some of Fred Jordan's usual outstanding photography of the race), please click here.

"[Kenny has just reached level 60 on the PSP game]
Kenny: [muffled] Yes!
[He dances around in jubilation]
Kenny: [muffled] Woohoo! I did it! I reached level s...
[He is run over by a truck]
Truck driver: [Playing his PSP while driving] Oh yeah! Level 4, SWEET!"
- From South Park (1997)

I firmly believe that having an understanding spouse is one of the keys to a happy, successful marriage. Of course, I've only been married for going on three years now, so it's entirely possible that I don't know what the hell I'm talking about. If you, dear reader, have been married longer, perhaps you are scoffing at my ignorance this very moment. Perhaps you will revel in my misery a few years from now, as I crash and burn in the mire of divorce and child custody issues, proving your omniscience. Wow - who knew you were such a hater?

I digress. The point is that, if you want to be a competitive racer, you have to make some (a lot) of sacrifices from time to time, and some of those sacrifices will leave your family with the short end of the stick. If your spouse isn't willing to bend (sometimes more than you even have a right to ask her to), you are not long for the sport...

Wednesday AM - My wife finds out that she is at 3cm (and yes, I am actually discussing my wife's cervix on the Internet). She makes her next appointment for the following Tuesday, and the nurse cheerily tells her "...if you make it through the weekend without having the baby!". Considering her due date is not for another three weeks, the nursery is not painted, the crib is not assembled, etc., we are suitably rattled.

Wednesday PM - I go to the crit anyway. In my defense, it was supposed to be the "P" course, and I love that course. It ends up being cancelled anyway due to torrential rains, lightning and widespread flooding of biblical proportions. I think we should have raced anyway and not been pussies, but that's just one man's opinion (kidding).

Friday - The wife starts having contractions. We're not sure if they are Braxton-Hicks contractions (fancy term for "fake") or the real deal. We wait, and no baby shows up, so we assume the former.

Saturday - More contractions. We drive to Altoona for a wedding anyway (they have delivery rooms there too, right?). My wife sits there sweating and periodically wincing in pain, but she hangs tough. Although I'm not yet sure if I'll be going or not, I know that the Ft. Cherry Road Race is tomorrow, so I carbo load with copious amounts of deep fried chicken, spare ribs, heavy mayonnaise-laden potato salad and lots of cookies. After I ate all that sh!t, I grieved like a teenage girl with an eating disorder, but it was too late.

Sunday - My wife and I go our separate ways. She stays in Altoona for a Father's Day picnic at her sister's house, and I drive halfway across the state to the race. I'm sure my in laws totally think I rule for being such an understanding husband, but I am the Chief of this Teepee, and I remain undeterred in my selfishness. As a small concession to social convention, I race with my cell phone in my jersey pocket in case BR2 (Baby Ruggery 2) decides to crash the party mid-race, and I have to leave. My teammates and I joke about what I would do if I was in the lead break when I got "The Baby Call".

An Hour Later on Sunday - I am in the lead break praying that I don't get that call. John Rowley and some strong kid from up north (Nate Larson, I think?) were up the road, and Mike Friedman (as in Pro Tour Mike Friedman) rocketed out of the field. I got his wheel, and we bridged to them. Mike later said that he was doing 700 watts at first and then gradually backed it down to just above 400 until we were across. It was like drafting a motorcycle. I took one token pull that nearly broke me, and the rest of the time I tunnel-visioned on about a 5" diameter patch of pavement and PowerTap rear hub, praying for survival.

When we caught, I pulled alongside him and sheepishly apologized for not doing more work to help us get across. I'm not sure, but I think he might have been breathing through his nose with his mouth closed at that point - unreal. I would have loved to seen what the difference in our heart rates was right then - I would have been like Kenny at 192, and he would have been the truck driver that ran me over at a cool, calm and collected 115 or so...

Anyway, Mike did the stand-up Pro guy thing and worked with us to keep our break away, then dropped off to let the mortals fight it out amongst ourselves with about two laps to go. Once we were on our own, it was like we were pedalling tricycles instead of road bikes - I think we were all equally shattered from the effort in the break.

Coming into the finish, John and I had a little bit of cat-and-mouse going, and Nate attacked when he saw that he had a little gap over us. I went across to it, and I planned on sitting on him the whole way up the climb until just before the turn to the finish. My legs had other plans however, and I started violently cramping about halfway up the climb. The only way to stop it was to stand up, and to stand up meant attacking, so I lit it up waaaay earlier than I wanted.

Luckily, I got the gap and held on for the win, which I was pretty stoked on. Even luckier, I narrowly avoided eating sh!t crossing the finish line when I took my hands off the bars to try and zip up my jersey (to make for a pretty photo for Dr. Fu) - now THAT would have sucked. Plus, I'm pretty sure my jersey was already mostly zipped up at that point (I can't say I was thinking all that clearly just then). Let's just hope that Fred Jordan shows mercy and edits out any evidence of finish line douchebaggery on my part.

So there you have it. I talked to the wife after the race, and BR2 was still circling the runway in a holding pattern for the time being, so I dodged that bullet. Now the question remains, what would I have done if I HAD gotten the call in the middle of that break? The world will never know...

"Lori Snyder swallows."
- Unknown author

I can neither confirm nor deny that Lori Snyder's personal repertoire includes that little trick. For the record, I have no personal knowledge (carnal or otherwise) of the matter. In fact, I don't even know Lori Snyder. Obviously, some explanation is required...

A week or so ago, I was in the motherland (Altoona) for Mother's Day. Lest you think that I'm that considerate of a son, I'm not. Not exactly anyway. I did spend some quality time with my Mom, give her flowers in person, and thus score major brownie points. But, you know that I'm a selfish person by nature, and I universally approach all situations in life with the same basic attitude: "How does this affect Joe Ruggery?" With that in mind, there was an ulterior motive in my good son niceties - riding sweet, sweet roads.

If you, like most of the unwashed cycling masses, have only experienced 'Toona through the tour of the same name, you are missing out. Yes, I know that it's a big race, and Blue Knob is pretty epic, but the organizers are bound by traffic constraints and the relative ease of using the same courses year in and year out when deciding which roads to use. But being a (former) local, I have intimate knowledge of a select, private stash of Altoona roads that probably only see a 700x23 tire patch a few times each year. This hard-earned knowledge came to me as a teenager, in the way that such enlightenment often comes to kids in small towns with nothing better to do - as a complete accident while looking for out-of-the-way party spots.

You want to ride some flat roads? How about a five or ten mile stretch from Sinking Valley to Tyrone, along the bottom of an old rock quarry, now mostly wooded with 100+ foot limestone cliffs on either side. Fast mountain descents? Try the twisty, technical 60mph drop off of Wopsononock Mountain. Feel like climbing? Look no further than the six mile climb up Tipton Road. My favorite climb ever, Tipton Road is smooth asphalt and rises at maybe a 4-5% grade through a beautiful central Pennsylvania forest. The rhododendron is so thick in some spots that it actually encroaches on the berms. About halfway up, you pass scenic Tipton Reservoir and it's stepped-rock spillway, which creates a man-made waterfall.

It was this very road that I was riding on Mother's Day, about three hours into a century. I was totally feeling it, spinning a steady tempo, rocking it out of the saddle on the switchbacks and just drinking in the scenery. I was almost at the top, and I came across one of those wooden "public hunting" state game lands signs. It was then that I noticed that someone had taken a can of electric blue spray paint and tagged the sign with "LORI SNYDER SWALLOWS" in literally two foot high letters.

And just like that, I was shocked back into reality. What kind of a douchebag does that? Here is this beautiful, lightly travelled mountain road to be enjoyed by cyclists everywhere, and someone inflicts a scar upon it like that. I tell you, it's tantamount to painting a Hitler moustache and pirate eye patch on George Washington's face on Mount Rushmore.

But, the absolute worst part of the whole thing, something that is just unconscionable on the part of the vandal ... he totally forgot to include her phone number!!!

Sgt. Dignam: "This is unbelievable. Who put the f**kin' cameras in this place?"
Police Camera Tech: "Who the f**k are you?"
Sgt. Dignam: "I'm the guy that does his job. You must be the other guy."
- From The Departed (2006)

Being on a road team isn't always about achieving your personal bike racing glory or kicking it with hot trophy girls (not that trophy girls exist in amateur racing, but you get the point anyway). Sometimes it means slaving away in the trenches so someone else has the chance to win; other times you might need to (gasp!) give up a training day to fulfill some sponsorship obligations ... Sunday was such a day.

We (Fu) had committed to marshaling the wheelchair athletes at the Pittsburgh marathon. At first the whole team was on board, but a few ended up finding a way to shade out:

1.) Brian - Despite being all gung-ho to help out at first, he ended up bailing due to a conflict with his son's baptism. If it seems impossible that someone could forget what date his son is supposed to be baptised, then you've never experienced the enigma that is Brian Wieczorek. Think Dustin Hoffman in Rainman - a person that can spill a box of toothpicks on the floor and count them in seconds but is incapable of fundamental social tasks - and you're on the right track.

2.) Jason - Jason didn't really have an excuse other than the fact that it's all about Jason all the time. He moderately deflected some of the blame on Fred when I called him on his bullsh!t, and then he just never called me back. I can't wait to sacrifice half of my races this year just so I can lead him out...

3.) Nick - Ah, Nick. Nick actually did go, but the manner in which he did it smacked of douchebaggery and thus deserves mention. The timeline was as follows:
5:00 A.M. - The time that Nick was to pick me up at my house (we were supposed to be in the strip for the pre-race meeting at 6)
5:05 A.M. - I'm in my driveway eating a peanut butter and honey sandwich ... no Nick. I decide to call and make sure he's en route, and his phone goes straight to voice mail. Concerned, I leave a message like, "Hey dude, just making sure you're on your way...".
5:15 A.M. - ... still no Nick. I leave a more pressing message, "We're going to be late now jackass; call me back."
5:20 A.M. - I call him again as I'm driving my truck to his house (in my cycling shoes and full kit), "Dude, WHAT THE F**K????!!!!???"

I get to his house to find that he was still sound asleep, having slept through his alarm clock and all three (3) of my increasingly more frantic phone calls. His dad got his Rip Van Winkle ass out of bed, and I drove us to the race.

Anyway, the crew ended up being me, Nick, Fred, Mike and even Sheldon Ingram from Channel 4. Fred got him (Sheldon) a kit that he somehow managed to stretch over all of those muscles (he's a pretty big dude) - props to him for helping out.

They started the race at 7:15 sharpish, and since we didn't really have a game plan, I just latched onto the first guy out of the gate. That guy ended up being Dr. Rory Cooper, a professor of physical medicine and rehabilitation at Pitt. In addition to being a blazing fast wheelchair athlete (he ended up winning the marathon Eddy Merckx-style, as in "no one else in the photo"), he also has been featured on a special Cheerios box and has a pretty amazing story (hit while cycling, I'm sure you can relate to that) that you can check out by clicking here.

So, it ended up being a really cool experience, and I was glad to have participated. You can check out some of the photos below...


Pic 1: Here's one of the start. We put Mike next to Sheldon since he's the skinniest one out of all of us, and we wanted to accentuate Sheldon's guns.

Pic 2: Here's Dr. Cooper at full gas, somewhere near the Aviary, I think.

Pic 3: Winning the Pittsburgh Marathon. This had to be an awesome feeling for him - the crowd at the finish line was going BALLISTIC!!!

Pic 4: This is me cheesing with the winner. I was hoping to soak up some of that elusive fast-guy vibe through osmosis (I don't think it works that way, but it was worth a shot).

"I cherish the memory of a question my grandson asked me the other day. He said, 'Grandpa, were you a hero in the war?' Grandpa said, 'No ... but I served in a company of heroes."
- Major Richard Winters, Band of Brothers (2001)

This past week has been a lesson in perspective. Truthfully, I can't remember where I was at 7:05 AM last Saturday. I think I was awake - I might have been eating breakfast or downstairs working on a bike. But I know where I wasn't. I, like you, have only seen that on TV or read about it in the paper. None of us that are on the outside looking in will truly know the visceral fear of being there, or fully understand the anguish of the aftermath for the families and friends of the fallen officers.

Since it happened, life has gone on. I, like a lot of you, raced my bike on Sunday, the day after the shooting. It seemed like pretty serious business at the time, and that seems stupid now. I hate to burst anyone's bubble (including my own), but bike racing doesn't really matter in the greater scheme of things. Even within the bike racing scene, the significance of any given race is dubious: Sunday's race was only one of forty or fifty races I'll do this year. But still, I worried about how my form was, and I even argued with a teammate afterwards about not sticking to the game plan for the sprint. Afterwards, I thought about the officers' families and what they were going through at that same time, barely 24 hours after the tragedy, and I felt foolish.

Even this week at work, I paid little attention to it. I think my biggest concern this week was our fingerprint machine running out of cards (kinda like your office copier running out of paper) - pretty important stuff, to be sure. Periodically though, someone would mention something about the shooting, and we would commiserate and share our outrage about it. Stories, true or untrue, came to light about how the shooter expressed regret that he wasn't able to kill more officers or about how he made the conscious decision to surrender and live so that he could write a book in prison. As a police officer, you feel the pain of those stories more acutely - it's like someone gloating after murdering one of your family members.

But the reality is this - Richard Poplawski (and I hate to even add to his legacy by typing his name here) is NOT a hero that stood up against the Zionist government that came to his doorstep last Saturday to oppress him, infringe upon his right to bear arms, or any of that bullshit. There was no higher purpose to his act as he would like us to believe. He is just a 22-year-old kid from Pittsburgh that lived at home with his mom, not a martyr for any anti-establishment movement. He came home early that morning, probably drunk, as 22-year-olds are apt to do, and got into an argument with his mom over the family dog pissing in the house. That is what set the momentum of that terrible day in motion, nothing more.

He remains an insignificant speck, and his name will not ring out through the annals of history: John Hinkley, Jr., O.J. Simpson, Timothy McVey... Do you remember the name of the shooter that killed those police officers in Oakland, California not even a month ago? Right ... and neither do I. Richard Poplawski is still just as small and unimportant as he was before he ambushed and murdered three police officers that were coming to help his mother try and get her asshole 22-year-old son under control.

The only thing that IS real in all of this is the pain that that the fallen officers' family and friends are suffering right now. No one can take that away, but you can help:

You can sign a petition to Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen Zappala, Jr. requesting that he pursue capital murder charges against Poplawski by clicking here.

You can donate to the Pittsburgh Fallen Heroes Fund through the Pittsburgh P.D. Fraternal Order of Police by clicking here.

You can purchase a memorial T-shirt for $15, the proceeds of which will go directly to the victim's families:

The T-shirts can be sourced from the following Pittsburgh P.D. contacts:

Headquarters – Pat Moffatt 412-401-3271 / Steve Hitchings 412-628-1348 / Tom Leheny 412-292-3278 / Tim Nutter 412-401-3271 / Sgt. Westwood and Sgt. Griffin 412-323-7164
Zone One – Tina Davidson 412-951-3471 or at the Zone 412-323-7201
Zone Two – Sgt. Robert Miller at the Zone 412-255-2827
Zone Three – John Stofesky 412-512-2403 or at the Zone 412-488-8326
Zone Four – Don Berry at the Zone 412-422-6520
Zone Five – Dave Sisak 412-607-3710 or at the Zone 412-665-3605
Zone Six – Tim Causey 412-519-5647 or at the Zone 412-937-3051

Other locations will be at Criminal Court with Teresa Sugar / Allegheny County Police Headquarters Sgt. Andrew Schurman 412-298-7898 and the Allegheny County Sheriff’s Office

If you don't feel comfortable contacting any of the above numbers, I would be happy to get a shirt for you; just drop me an e-mail and let me know.

And last but not least, please keep the family members of the fallen officers in your prayers.