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Wes Cheney
Wes Cheney has been hooked on biking ever since his parents strapped him into a baby seat on the back of his momma's bike. By the age of nine Wes was fogging film with his first camera and had written the definitive biography of his dead hamsters, Cinnamon, Nutmeg and Ginger. After three semesters of college Wes dropped out, traded in the knobbies & flats on his first mountain bike for slicks and drops, and liquidated his trust fund to ride across Europe, much to the consternation of his parents. Upon arriving home he signed up with the Navy in order to finance his return to college. A resident of Navytown, USA, (Norfolk, Virginia) for ten years now, Wes returned home to the Green Mountains during the 1,200 kilometer Boston-Montreal-Boston bike ride this past summer, and now plans to ride the Shenandoah 100 later this year.FriendlyBiker
until the Shenandoah 100!
The best of Wes Cheney's photographs can be seen on his website: WesCheney.com
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August 16th 2007
I'm starting a new blog to concentrate on my photography, Foto By Wes. So check it out for more fun stuff!... read more
August 6th 2007
I don't have time for the full story on our trip up to Pennsylvania to cover the Wilderness 101 this past weekend, but let's just say that it was brutally fun. Liz & I didn't get out of town until almost midnight, and we pulled up to the starting while the race organizer, Chris, was on the P.A. announcing, "Ten minutes! Ten minutes till the start folks! Let's get up to the line!" I'm working up a story on tandem mountain bike racing, and we were lucky enough to be able to see not one, but two tandem teams in action at the Wilderness 101. Rob and Sarah Lichtenwalner were out there, as well as Vicki and Mark Schow. I also got a chance to photograph Tinker Juarez, probably the most iconic guy in mountain biking ... read more
Scrapes & Scratches, But No Crashes
Published: July 24th 2007North America » United States » Virginia » George Washington Nat. Forest
July 24th 2007
We were halfway up Hankey Mountain, and I was gaining on Liz as she mashed up the hill in her granny gear. I, on the other hand, was in walking gear; pushing my singlespeed Gary Fisher Rig up the mountain. As I squeezed my helmet against my head with one hand, and watched the sweat drip out of my helmet pads, I remembered what one singlespeed blogger had posted, “I ride singlespeed because I like walking uphill.” Liz & I had committed to pre-riding as much of the Shenandoah 100 as we could in one weekend. But what with jobs and families, we couldn’t leave until early, early Saturday morning. By 4:30 A.M. we ... read more
Wes Cheney Wins the Tour de Cure!
Published: March 25th 2007North America » United States » Virginia » Norfolk
March 25th 2007
OK, maybe I can't actually win the Tour de Cure, since it's not a race, but I will be riding in it next month. For the second year in a row several of my coworkers put together a team to ride in the American Diabetes Association Tour de Cure. While last year I couldn't make it since I was already planning on riding 400 kilometers the same weekend, this year they made me an offer I couldn't refuse, "Wes, do you think you could design a team jersey? We're giving one away to each rider." Now my drawer may be overstuffed with bike jerseys, but I'll always take another one. (Hey, I wear them so often that they're practically disposable.) But I'd never had the opportunity to actually design my own jersey, although I'd marred ... read more
The Shenandoah 100- The Challenge
Published: February 8th 2007North America » United States » Virginia » Norfolk
February 8th 2007
Yesterday while out on our regular Wednesday night ride, Liz gave me a warning- "Wes, you do not want to do the Shenandoah 100 on a singlespeed. Get yourself a bike with gears! Heck, we'll find you a bike with gears!!" Carol was there to witness it. Fair enough, Liz, the gauntlet has been thrown. Or should I say the bike glove? There's something absurd about riding an off-road century, and there's something even more absurd about riding a singlespeed. It therefore borders on the idiotic to ride an off-road century on a singlespeed. But then it was idiotic to even consider riding from Boston to Montreal and back in less than four days. So what the heck? Why not? Oh, and Liz, you can collect your glove anytime... countdown=2007090211 text=until the Shenandoa... read more
Fire Road Tested, or How I Spent My Super Bowl Sunday
Published: February 7th 2007North America » United States » Virginia » Harrisonburg
February 6th 2007
“How cold is it?” a kid asked his riding buddy, a thermometer the size of an oversized lollipop pinned to the back of his schoolbag, “Forty.” “What?? It’s colder than that!” “Dude, it says forty. Course, it said forty in the valley, too. It’s been saying forty all day long.” Another voice chimed in, commenting in cold irony, “I think your thermometer's frozen.” It was definitely colder than forty degrees fahrenheit. I had left my bike computer with thermometer at home on my touring bike, but having grown up in Northern Vermont, I could safely say that it was not only cold, but wicked cold by the time that we hit the ridgeline and the wind hit us. And wicked cold is a lot closer to Zero than it is forty. I had been itching to ... read more
September 20th 2006
So it’s been over a month now since I finished BMB, and I still don’t have any desire to finish assembling my bike. I hung the pieces up and returned the bike box to the club, but after 750 miles in that saddle, I have no overwhelming urge to get it back together & get back on. Plus, I really, really need to do a complete overhaul, and I’ve got so many freelance jobs going on right now that I just don’t have the time. But today is one of those overcast, drizzly fall days, and it sure would be nice to have a functioning bike with fenders so that I could take Abby for a ride in her trailer without spraying her with mud. Speaking of mud, a bunch of us went out last week ... read more
How's It Feel To Be Done?
Published: September 4th 2006North America » United States » Virginia » Norfolk
September 4th 2006
“How’s it feel to be done?” my mom asked. “Done?” In the eighteen years I had known of BMB, and during the nearly two years of preparation I had never really thought of being “Done” with it. I had read webpages and books on long-distance riding, prepared my body and bike for the rigors of riding through the night, night after night. I’d ridden out before the weekday dawn on training rides. I had slipped into my cubicle at work with a little smile on my face as I traded my biking cleats for the office shoes kept stashed under the desk, thinking, “I rode forty miles this morning, and dang! I feel good.” I had cursed myself as I made just one more online order for biking gear, “Darn it honey, this is the last ... read more
Rider Number Forty, Please Come In
Published: July 28th 2006North America » United States » Virginia » Norfolk
July 28th 2006
So after 900 miles of qualifying rides, months of preparation and years of dreaming, I finally received my acceptance package from the organizers of the Boston-Boston-Montreal 750-mile brevet, addressed to “Rider #40, Wes Cheney.” Rider Number Forty. I don’t think that an hour goes by without my mind straying to BMB. Easily a quarter of front of the refrigerator is now devoted to BMB; from a training chart to the elevation profile of the ride, a checklist for my dad following in the support RV, and a list of my checkpoint time goals. Rider Number Forty. It’s a nice, round number. Since it’s an even number, my wife Jenn likes it. I received a number card for my bike and helmet, as well as a set of stickers for my support vehicle, my parent’s new RV. ... read more
June 6th 2006
Somewhere around mile 280 I muttered, “To hell with this,” and kicked it into turbo. I’d already been riding over 28 hours, and I was determined to meet my goal of finishing all 375 miles in less than 36 hours. It seemed like a ludicrous goal, but don’t get in the way of an endorphin junkie. And I was an endorphin junkie on a bender. “Mind over matter,” I counseled myself, “You’ve been averaging 15.1 miles per hour so far. Keep it up for another 5 hours and you’ve got it made. 75 miles to the finish, you can cover that in 5 hours at 15 mph and finish within 36 hours. So I grinned to myself in sheer idiocy, firmly fixed the gorgeous smile of my baby daughter Abigayle in my mind and tucked into ... read more
Tot: 0.137s; Tpl: 0.007s; cc: 8; qc: 79; dbt: 0.0432s; 1; s:apollo w:www (50.28.60.10); sld: 1; ; mem: 6.6mb
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