Point; Counterpoint

A subtly packaged shipment showed up on the doorstep this afternoon. It was like christmas, and I got excited. Oh gooshies! Let me get some scissors...

Inside was the new Tesla 5 by Lupine Lighting Systems, plus a bunch of extras.
I could hear my old delapidated Niterider already sulking in its drawer. I felt almost guilty. How could I move on so quickly to something newer and better, pretending that it had never even existed. For years we had been nocturnal buddies. He would provide me with enough light to ride my bike through the gnarliest terrain and in return I would provide him with a steady but still adequate flow of ventalation to keep his delicate little internals from overheating. It was the perfect relationship. I needed some justification, so I sat down with each to hear their arguments.

The Niterider was up first, (it's got seniority)

"Hey Moab, how's it goin?"

"Not too bad, chief. We should hang out sometime, it's been a while."
"Alright, will do. Down to business now. This new Lupine just showed up, but we've had so many good rides together, I don't know if I want to give you up. Any thoughts?"

"Well, to be honest with you, I'm just a big, dumb, heavy, outdated peice of crap."

"Wow, your kinda hard on yourself, don't you think?"

"Yeah, maybe I am. I mean I do put out a solid 500 lumens and my burn times are pretty awesome."

"Yeah but, now that you mention it, you do break all the time. Your cables break, and your connections go bad on a regular basis. In fact, I've sent you back so many times, nothing about you is original. Come to think of it, you pretty much suck."

Then it was the Lupine's turn.

"Yo Tesla, how was the trip?"

"Not bad buddy, so you wanna here about how awesome-"

"Actually, you don't have to, the last guy just dug himself a pretty big hole. You got the job."

"Oh, so you don't want to hear about my 700 lumen output and 3, 9, and 24 hour burn times?"

"Nah, it's cool."

"Well what about how I weigh less than half as much as that other guy, and I'm only about half the size too, but I'm still brighter than he is?"

"No seriously, now your just embarrasing him."

The proof is in the pudding. The selling point is in this little guy. Up to 1.5 hours of light on this little helmet-mountable gem.

A sincere thank you to Todd and Bill at Gretna Bikes and everyone at Lupine.

I'll get the hang of it one of these days

Cycling Videos on CyclingDirt

Never look at the camera

Except during a real interveiw. Yeah, I know now.

From the Windham XC on Saturday.

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I was happy with my race but not so much with my finish. I had feeling pretty beat down after the last few weeks so per my coach (ok, my best friend), I took the entire week leading up to Windham off, and it seemed to pay off. My legs were alot better than they had been the previous week and they were able to put inside the top 25, right where I know I am capable of being. That felt good. With so much traveling in the last few months, my body's got a weird vibe. Most years, around this time, I've done so much riding and racing that I'm ready for the season to be done. But with so many high-key races lately, I haven't been doing a whole lot of riding, let alone training, during the week at all. Come to think of it, the last time I really "trained" was clear back in the begining of July and not much then either. So my mind is still ready to go; but my body is sabatoging that. Lets move on the Sunday.

As per my sweet interview, Matt and I drove home to hit French Creek the next morning. (That should actually read, 'I drove Matt home, whilst he SLEPT in the passanger seat', but that's neither here nor there) I was in my bed by a very respectable 11:30 that night considering a 2pm start time that afternoon. Long story short; I got 2nd, again, for the third year in a row. That stings a little, but at least it was to my other bff, who I hadn't seen since April. So it was cool.

The only race picture from the last two weekends. Towards the end of the lap at Bromont. I had just made a handful of nice moves around the guys right behind me.

Canada

In a grocery store parking lot-
I'm finally home, at least for a few days, until I leave again for Mt Snow on Thursday. The Canadian World Cups went well, well at least one did. Mount Saint Anne was a disaster. I made it up to Quebec in time to get in two pratice laps on Saturday afternoon. The course was just about what I expected from a World Cup venue. Fast, steep, and technical. It rained most of the day on Friday so everything had a nice coating of grease on it too. After dialing most of the lines, I cruised down the road to the national team condo and layed low for the afternoon.

It only took me a few minutes Sunday morning after I woke up to realize that my mind was a mess. My head felt sort of foggy or cloudy, and I wasn't feeling very focused, but most telling was the lack of nerves. I did my normal pre-race thing, but the switch inside my head never flipped into race mode. Fast forward to 10 minutes after the gun goes off. We've all walked single file into the singletrack, and the inital adrenaline is fading into real pain. I feel ok. I look back. The sweep moto is 20 feet off my wheel. I'm last. Dead f'ing last, and I'm going as hard as I can. How about some karma. My bib number was 125. Besides being 3 digits and getting me a last row starting spot, that was the first number I ever pinned on my bike 9 years ago as a first timer. Seems like it bestowed the same phsyical ability I had back then too. I never got into a rhythm all day. My tire choice didn't help. A set of worn out Crossmarks were less than ideal for the slopfest the course had turned into. Frustration just kept piling on. I stayed off the back, and was pulled after 3 of 6 laps. Welcome to the World Cup.

How about something positive and optimistic. Bromont.

I always race better later in a big block of racing. I think it's a mental thing. Bromont was race number 3 in a 5 week block of national and international events, so I was starting to expect some better results. That combined with week void of anything but recovery was mentally stimulating. I like being alone and being able to do my own thing. I took Friday to go into Montreal for the afternoon and walk the city, watch street performers, and eat ice cream.

I took a bit more liking to the Bromont course. It was a little more traditional for a ski resort course with a climb/descend profile. In response to the awful time I had keeping my bike upright the week prior, I swapped tires and got some real rim meat that hooked up great in the super chunk peanut butter. The course started drying out quickly during the week but the weather forecast was looking ify for the weekend with rain possible during race time. It would be one extreme or the other. I was doing my rain dance all week.

Around 12 noon, just as I jumped on the bike for the one hour spin over to the venue, I got my wish. It started raining hard. By the time I made it to the USA pit, I was soaked and my shoes were heavy with water. Then it started raining harder, and it stayed that way for the entire duration of the race. The start felt like deja vu. Dead last as we all started walking up the narrow double track switchbacks to the top of the mountain until the course started heading down. The descent was where I made it happen. Railing all the technical shortcut lines, I cruised past 5 or 6 guys each lap followed by one or two each time up the climb. Hung in there for 4 of the 6 laps before getting pulled in 74th place with a huge smile on my face. I had managed to make up about 30 or 40 spots from the start.

So for now its back at home until Thursday. Then up to Mt Snow with the experience and a quick transfer back home for the Neshaminy xc on Sunday. Then repeat the following week with Windham and French Creek for the ultimate double double weekends. I finally got a new battery for my computer, which means its a laptop again. Not a desktop.

Who would have ever thought I'd be where I am right now? The UCI World Cup circuit. I've only ever seen pictures of it. Competing on the largest stage of the sport feels surreal, but in the same respect it is inspiring. In the last 2 months I've plunged head first into the world of professional mountain bike racing. That's not to say that I have become any more "professional" than before all this happened, but it has motivated me to try and make the switch, and bridge the big gap between being pro and being a professional.

Lets get down to the racing bit. My motive behind all this crazy racing lately boils down to UCI points. 2 or 3 years ago, the UCI mandated that all athletes have at least 20 points to qualify for the World Cup events. These points, especially in the US, are hard to come by for younger, developing riders, so USA Cycling offers spots on the National Team for these riders to get into WC races without having enough points. That is how I got where I am now. Next year I will not be a U23 anymore, which means there will be no more foot in the door, and I'll need my own points next time. So far its working. As long as I finish this weekend in Bromont I will just make the cut with 21 points, and be free to race WC in 2010.

This crazy block of racing started two weekends ago with the US National Championships in Granby, CO. With a starting altitude of 8200ft, my expectations going in were relatively low. For a while, I considered not going at all, but who doesn't show up to the biggest one day event of the year? In the interest of my financial well being, I opted for the skid in/skid out approach for the weekend with the option of racing the night XC at Marsh Creek, Michaux, or both in hopes of making my wachovia statements a little less embarrassing. The latter would not materialize. Less than 48 hours after flying in, I was back on a flight the Philly with a nice little satisfactory 7th place result in my pocket. I landed back home by 4:30 on Saturday afternoon, with plenty of time to make the 11pm start time in Marsh Creek. I started getting excited because eveything was going so smoothly, which should have made me realized something wouldn't go so smoothly. I made my way through the terminal and down to baggage claim and in a few minutes it cranked up and started spitting bags out onto the belt. I watched and waited as the number of bags and people dwindled until it was just me and the baggage claim. Then the carousel stopped and the lights shut off. I wouldn't get my bike until the next morning, just in the nick of time to not make either race. Perfect.

With that, I am going to take a nap. I'll tell you the story of my first world cup race tomorrow.