Comin' clean

It appears that the cat has indeed been let out of the bag. I did, in fact, resign from classes for the spring semester of 2007. As hesitant as I was to do so, looking back, I couldn't be happier about it. Instead of going to classes I've spent the last 2 months traveling the east coast searching for bigger and better things. My travels landed me in places like Harrisonburg, VA, Daytona Beach, FL, and even a large area in western North Carolina. Most of these adventures I spent camping in the back of my car. Sometimes with other people, but mostly by myself. I've spent the semester sleeping in til 11 or so, waking up , and heading out on a sweet ride, always some where new. And I couldn't be more proud of doing so.

The inspiration to take the semester off came to me around the end of December. I decided that I wanted to see what it was like to travel with my bike. To go to brand new places and check things out. Just me and my bike. And let me tell you, its really awesome. No schedules, no deadlines, no one to wait on or to wait on you. Just me and my bike all the time.

I've still got more plans to come as well. I'll be at home from now until we head out to Arizona, but after I get back I plan on doing more week-long camping trips in the Great Smokey Mountains of North Carolina and even a trip to Georgia for a couple days of epic mountain biking. Basically going wherever I feel like going that week. Cause you know what, I prolly wont be able to ever do it again.

The reality of it is that it wont last forever, or for long at all. I'll be starting classes again in the fall, this time at Shippensburg. But at least I got to experience, or am experiencing, what it feels like to live the life as a mountain biker. Something that most people won't have the time or oppurtunity to do.

A-A-R-O-N

Since the creation of man-kind, we as humans have struggled with the spelling of my name. Granted, it's not the most common name nor does it follow all of the phonetic rules of the English language, but come on, it's even in the Bible. I've seen just every spelling you could ever imagine. Or so I thought. Here's list of the most popular mis-spellings:

Aron
Erin
Arron
Aarron
Arin
Aaren
But today I saw the most bizzare spelling yet. After a full day's worth of riding I got a little hungry. So I ordered a pizza from the one and only Domino's. After downing the whole pie I happened to glance at the printed take-out label on the front of the box. Low and behold, right there in black and white was the most unbelievablly wrong attempt at my name ever...Earen. I was speechless, and kind of still am. So I'll end there...

A Sample of the Sweet Trails I've Been Exploring this Week.

The South African

Today was another super sweet day of trail riding. This time it was at Razorback MTB park in Reddick, Fl. It was again Chris and myself making the journey back across the state in search of more riding. We got to Reddick in a timely manner again today and got changed for todays epic encounter. We rolled to the trailhead and started the first 12 mile lap of the day. This place was another unexpected suprise in the way of Florida mountain biking. Some of the most technical singletrack I've seen. The trail has lots of really quick steep climbs and desents with lots of rocks and roots. A real back-breaker. It didnt take long for us to realized that next week's XC race is really going to be hard. We did two laps before we called it a day. Time logged: about 3 solid hours of cruisin' around. Not too shabby. We packed up and headed home where we ate at Outback. I then went home and gorged myself with a triple chocalate cake, courtesy of my grandmother.

An interesting note of the trip was part of the conversation between Chris and I. Apparently when I first started racing in the collegiate mountain bike series no one knew very much about me. It turned out that a rumor had spread throughout the conference that I was from South Africa and had come to America to race bicycles. I found it to be pretty funny.

Expect the Unexpected

Until now, I thought Florida was the worst place to ride a bike. No trails that I could find and the only roads around these parts were 4 lane highways with almost no shoulder. I almost gave up on riding in Daytona all together. This year however turned out to be much different. After asking around local bike shops and some big-time internet surfing I found two places to ride, both about an hour and a half away. Today's ride was in Santos Park, just south of Ocala. Being that it was Florida my expectations for this place was relatively low, i was picturing deep sand pits and palm leaves slapping me in the face. I couldnt be more wrong. My partner for today's adventure was West Virginian Chris Phillips. We headed out towards Ocala in the morning hoping to get in a full day's worth of riding. The first suprise was at the number of trails this place had. The trailhead map was full of twisty, windy trails that covered the park. We headed down the first trail and within 100 yards we hit a rock garden. Yeah, a rock garden in Florida. I almost didnt know what to do. We kept turning onto different trails and kept on being suprised as to how sweet these trails were. They were super technical, rocky, tight, twisty, and lots of quick, punchy climbs. It was awesome. Chris and I both agreed that the only place comparable to this was the 2004 NORBA National in Waco, TX. The rocks were limestone and looked like crumbled concrete, the dirt was soily and kinda sandy. Epic. We rode for about 4 hours barely touching the same trail twice.

These trails were definately NORBA National worthy, minus the major climbing. Which makes we wonder, who picks the locations for Nationals. The majority of the events on the National series are at ski resorts, which usually arent that cool. Take Sugar Mountain, NC. Totally worthless. Santos puts Sugar to shame no questions asked. As for the climbing; I think it would be sweet to have a National that didn't focus just on climbing and instead was more about technical skills, which is pretty much what mountain biking is about. Without technical stuff we'd be racing road bikes. I just think that NORBA completely overlooks world class trails in order to keep events and high class resorts that take racers money.

Once back to the car we changed and started home, despretely needing food. Once back in Daytona we stopped at the first available restaurant, Hooters. (it wasnt really a coincedence) We sat down and ordered our food. While we were waiting these three crackers came in and sat at the table next to us. Two of them were obviously motorcycles racers and the other appeared to be their mechanic. Turns out one of the guys was a pro motorcycle stunt rider. It also turned out that this tool bag carries around pictures of himself that he signs and hands out to people like he's some sort of superstar. All I could think about was Matt's talk on how Pro's are just normal people who work just as hard as everyone else and that this guy was a total poser.

Anyway, tomorrows agenda features another hour and a half drive. This time to Reddick where next week's race is. The goal is to put in a couple laps on the course and get a feel for it. Everyone says this place is just as sweet as Santos. I have a feeling the world class trails at Santos could be hard to beat...

Headed South

These freezing temperatures of southern Virginia are getting too much for me. Luckily Spring Break comes to town this Saturday and in celebration, I'm packing for Florida. The plan is to spend the week doing a bunch of sweet riding in excessive sunshine and heat. Hopefully this will help prepare me for the warmer temperatures that we'll be facing in Arizona, only 4 weeks away. But more importantly, it should jump-start the tan lines, which have faded severely since the end of last year. Florida will also be the location of the first race of the year. March 11th is the XC at Razorback in Reddick, the scene of the 12 hour race just a few weeks ago.(Which was totally dominated by Harlan and Rob) Should be a good race on a good course. Maybe even a good confidence booster for the big AZ...