I'm all over the place

Allow me to set the scene:I am riding parallel to a busy road, so I find myself on a bike path. Very few patrons in sight; in fact, I haven't seen anyone for a good five minutes. I am approaching what is obviously an elderly lady, who is very well kitted-up on a fancy European bike complete with Euro-stylish riding clothes. That is, she looks both smart and ridiculous.I slow considerably and upon noticing that she is resplendent with a helmet mirror, I spend a fair amount of time behind her so that she'll observe that I'm there. I even make some noises and shift and so forth so that she'll really notice me. I then slowly come back up to speed and approach to her left to initiate the pass. I'm now decently close to her and call out, "On your left".It was around about this time that I immediately recognized that she had NO idea I was ever there. She absolutely freaks out, clearly nearly has a heart attack, and cries "Great Jiminy Cricket!" ...which just might go down as the best curse word ever. When I'm scared out of my wits I tend towards uttering four-letter words; apparently the elderly crowd in this town happen to be considerable fans of Pinocchio.Oh and best yet, as she was crying out to Mr. Cricket, she also pulled one of these moves (that is, the awesome shimmying that takes place at 0:13). Thank goodness she stayed upright.I apologized and she proceeded to scream that "...young man, I am a 75 year old woman! How dare you frighten me like that!" No harm, no crash, no heart attack, no foul. That's what I always say.(End of scene. Exit right. Look at trees in the town in which I was just visiting.)The off-season adventures continue to chug along in high gear. I was easily convinced to go to Interbike for the unveiling of the Cannondale Pro Cycling team. This is enormous news and no better place to tell the world than in SinCity. So that was excellent. Rather than making Vegas a mere 12 hour adventure, I also opted for my first attempts at CrossVegas. My optimism ran high since I had just completed two UCI races the previous weekend, thereby completing 66.667% of my cross season in just two day, and therefore my cross skills were adept and honed. I also still had 10 UCI points from the fall of 2011 at my disposal for an awesome start position.Wrong. I found out that at a stacked race like CrossVegas - where the beer, credibility, and ego run high - 10 UCI points plants you prominently in row 6. Out of 10.From Vegas to Boston Criterium. Reaaaaady, and go!I present unto you Boston's TD Bank Mayor's Cup Criterium. I haven't raced a criterium since I did this one two years ago. So much like the stop-start of a cross race, this isn't my bag. But it's oooooh so much fun. If every criterium were run as smoothly and well as this, if every race took place in a major metropolitan city, if every race were thoroughly endorsed by it's mayor and therefore were able to be run prominently through it's central city streets, then cycling would gain an enormous foothold in America and everything would be perfect. If only...So while we wait for that utopia, we graciously accept this amazing race in the meantime.And then onto more adventures like 2 days in the Rocky MountainsFollowed by a wedding this Friday evening for two great friends, either watch GP Gloucester or attend this once in a lifetime (or once per year, I'm guessing) event on Saturday, and then defend my title in the Vermont 50 marathon mountain bike race on Sunday.And lest we forget, we are now down to just three weeks and three days until the Krempels King of the Road Challenge. We're thrilled to announce that Cannondale has generously upped the ante and will give away Cannondale EVO 2 complete with SRAM Red to folks who surpass the $5k mark in fund-raising. So that's massive. So I encourage you to sign up today and start towards that goal (you have until November 30 to reach that mark, so bonus 1 month+10 days).And if you can't make it to NH then you can always participate in the very generous opening of your wallet and helping me reach my goal. A sincere please and thank you.