Photo Update

Pics of our sweet mobile home in Arizona, courtesy of U-haul.

To each, his own...

Just some pics of a guy that Jen and I saw at the mall today. He was riding a full suspension department store bike with a full face helmet on a four lane highway. He was moving really slow and putting more effort into staying upright than into pedaling.

3 for 3(in DNF's)

This weekend was one of much anticipation and preparation. Originally, I was supposed to race the Chohutta 100 with Brandon but a last minute decision put me in Leesburg, VA for a 13 hour solo mountain bike race. I made the trip with a couple guys from the local shop as well as Jen who was going to pit for me. We decided to leave late Friday night and sleep in the car in hopes of getting a good spot in the pits. Arising Saturday morning, we found a gorgeous spring day. Temps near 80 and plenty of sunshine. A great day for both tanlines and racing. After setting up my table and showing Jen the in's and out's of endurance race pitting, I took a leisurely ride into the woods to check out the start. The course was cool, very fast but bumpy with very little climbing(I'd be surprised if there was more than 100 feet per 8 mile lap). Later on, it would be appropriately deemed as "the hardest, easiest course we'd ever raced". The start came around 11 and we all took of into the trail head. My start was perfect, I was sittin pretty in second right behind the man to beat, Steve Schwartz. After two laps of socializing, Steve and I found ourselves to be several minutes ahead of third and both figured we'd be able to take it all the way home. On the third lap Steve got a little gumpeous and put in a little attack which I ignored as it was only 2 o'clock in the afternoon and I was already feelin really good. The next lap wasn't so good. I lost about a minute on Steve but it felt like I just time trialed a lap. I started to worry, but tried another lap thinking that with a little food and water I'd be back on Steve's wheel. Another lap came and went but I felt no better. Actually, I was getting worse, I had a pain in my chest. It hurt to eat or drink anything. Now I really started to think I had a problem. I took a lengthy break between laps 5 and 6 and waited for Topher and try one more lap. Topher pulled in about 20 minutes later and we headed out again. For about a mile I thought the rest had taken care of my problems but then it hit again and I watched Topher drop me while I was at what felt like time trial pace. I limped through the rest of the lap and came face to face with a big decision: keep racing or sit it out. I took an honest look at the situation and whether or not I would regret stopping but I felt so bad that I was sure I wouldn't(which is true). It had only been 3 hours since the start of the race but I honestly felt like I had ridden 12 already. My chest still hurt and the only thing I comfortably ate that day was a popsicle.

So my third attempt at a 12 hour race was thwarted once again. I think that this was the worst one so far because of its mysteriousness. Lodi farm I had bad heart burn, and Ole Bull I got really cold and lost my brakes. But this time I haven't the slightest idea was went wrong other than I felt like cow shit(which ironically covered the entire farm that we raced on) Congrats to Topher and Keith who came home with 2nd and 3rd in the SS class not to mention some loot, to Matty B who finished his first solo endurance race, and to Jen for the pit. She did an awesome job, a little more experience and I think she'll be one of the best in the biz...

Steel is real...

For the time in two years I got a new bike. Sorta. Ok, actually just a new frame. A Jamis Dragon Team steel hardtail courtesy of the folks at South Mountain Cycles. Nothing fancy just a good ol' skinny tubed, steel hardtail. I swapped out all the parts on my Fuel and put them on the new frame. So far I've gotten three rides on it and I'm lovin it. It's quick stiff and feels pretty fast. It's not a superlight, actually its about the same weight as the old Fuel(but without the massive amount of play in the main pivot). Friday was also my first ride over 3 hours in almost a month. I left from Collegeville and took the Perk down to Wissahickon. I brisk tailwind put me in the city in under 90 minutes. I spent a little more than 2 hours cruising around the park and then fought a headwind the whole way back. All said and done, I logged 5.5 hours including some hard efforts on the way back to drop a roadie who had passed me while I was making a phone call on the fly. To this day no one's ever passed me and made it stick on the Perk trail. That shit don't fly.(Probably a childish remark but, hey, we all gotta hang on to something...)

I'm still waiting on the real new bike to come in. Again thanks to SMC I got short listed on the wait list for the next run of bikes. Until then I'll be putting lots of time in on the new Dragon.

Arizona and more...

It's been a while since my last post but I'm ready to update on whats been going on. Our trip out west turned out to be awesome. Ironiclly our cheapest and most bare-boned trip turned out to be the most fun we've taken to date. In fact, I think it was so much fun because we roughed it. The adventure did of course have its hitches. It only took about two hours for us to dominate our 14' Uhaul truck.(Which happened to be our mode of transportation as well as our new home). We spent a full 24 hours trying to get U-haul to pull their heads out of their asses and get us a new truck. What a hassle. After that the week went pretty smoothly with lots of good racing, camping, tanning, and laughs. The racing started on Friday afternoon with the Pro Time Trial. The hours leading up to the race where some of the most nerve-racking of my life. Every emotion went through my head that day; nervous, excited, hesitant, doubt, confidence, and a quite bit of nausea. I tried to put it all out of my head as I pushed off the start line and headed out on the 6 mile course. There's nothing in the world quite like a time trial. I ususally have a panic attack throughout the whole thing. You never know how your doing. Are you ahead...? or are you behind? Did you push a big enough gear up the last climb...? did you hit that line as smooth and you did in pratice...? Is my 30 second man catching me...or am I catchting mine...? With all theses things are running through your head, it makes for a very stressful 20 minutes. I crossed the line maxxed out and tasting blood in my throat, signs of a descent effort, but you never know. Twenty minutes later results were up...I scanned down the list and there I was, 34th. I can't say I expected to see my name in the top half of the field but I was more than happy with it. The other boys all had solid runs too, Brandon and Kyle clocked in at 49th and 50th respectively and Matteo mustered up a 37th despite a killer fast semi-pro field. Next up on Saturday was the SuperD and short track. I'll skip over the SuperD cause it was pretty worthless and go right to the short track.

I think this was time ever that NORBA had a cohessive, logical idea. They held the short track at night, in downtown Fountain Hills. It was really cool. The starting line was on the main drag of the city and then weaved through and old contruction lot. Although it wasn't one of the coolest courses they've designed, the atmoshere trumped it. The start of the Pro race was kinda hectic as 100 riders sprinted into a narrow hairpin turn at around 25 mph. Brandon, Kyle and myself were lucky enough to last for 6 minutes before the lead group caught us and we were pulled so we got to spectate for most of the race. Matt declined to race the short track and instead chose to quietly sit on a pile of dirt and eat pizza. Prolly not a bad choice after all.

Sunday came and it was time for the main event, a 40 mile cross country race. The start was again hectic but not so much for me. A last second drink of water from Matt's new fanny pack camelbak put me into the trail dead last. Seriously.(Minus the guy who flatted 10 feet off the line) My horrible start forced me into a conservative stategy for the rest of the day. I decided that picking off blown up guys would be my best bet and worked pretty well. I ended up sprinting for 54th spot, beating a legit Kona factory rider(he was really pissed), meaning a had passed almost 50 guys throughout the race. Sweet. Brandon dominated the XC with a 31st finish and Kyle ended up 62nd. It was a rough day. What was even rougher was that we had to pack everything up and be at the airport in less than 6 hours after we finished. It was a pain but we made it.

All in all, the trip was a blast. We were the talk of the race in our Uhaul, had good results in all our races, and had lots of fun doing it. Couldn't ask for more.