Meet Virginia

Mud kills bikes. But I'd kill to race bikes in mud. We raced at Pipestem this weekend. Pipestem had mud. So I killed it. First XC of the season is in the books. So is the first brake pads, chain, and cable replacement.

I was excited for this past weekend to come. Besides breaking my 5 and half month XC dry spell, I got to head back to my old stomping grounds in Blacksburg, VA for a little while. I love Virginia. Matt and I stayed with my old Tech racing buddy Steven Gordon (thanks Steve) on Thursday and Friday nights, cooked lots of pasta and took the standard tour through the Pandapas trails. Made me miss it even more. Someday I'll go back. For good.

Saturday morning, after watching the heart-warming feature film Iron Will we packed up and rolled over to Pipestem State Park for a pratice lap of the course and looked for a place sleep. We tried to weasle our way into the campground on the premises but got shut down by the park rangers. Instead, we found a cozy spot in a Walmart parking lot and set up the cots amonst the bagged mulch in the Lawn and Garden area and retired for the night. I love Virginia.

Sunday morning we woke up to pouring rain. Lots of it. We drove back up to the race and headed inside the lodge to kill 5 hours with some hardcore loitering. As race time gets closer we work our way to a conference room to kit up while chatting it up with some senior citizens who were there for a line dancing convention. Weird. Severly underdressed for the unexpected conditions and smelling of IcyHot, we put in a solid 10 min warm-up and headed to the start. The race was 3 laps + 1 long start climb. The orginal plan was to hang out and play it cool for the first lap or so, and get a feel of what it feels like to race again. What I got a feel for was what it feels like to hammer off the front of the group right from the gun. For two laps I dangled about 20 or 30 seconds ahead of Matt and another guy, but finally got some legs on the last lap, felt comfortable and got out of sight of everyone and put time into second place. The legs felt great all day, just dont quite have my race lungs back yet. Even better: Matt has finally rid his body of last years demons to put in a solid race for third. And Lester got a new girlfriend. I love Virginia. Word.

I wonder why bikes are so expensive...

iFixed

It works! My iPod which iGot about a year and a half ago stopped working suddenly last summer. The fools at the Apple Store looked at it and said that it was toast but they might be able to give me a discounted price on a new one since it wasn't that old to begin with. iTold him that iWould just hang on to it for a little while and think about it. That was almost a year ago and its been sitting on my desk since then. This morning iTook the innitiative to try to fix it by tearing into its guts. iGot it all apart but didn't see anything glaringly wrong with it so iPut back together, plugged it in to charge, updated the software and Kabaam!!, the tunes started flowing. Boy am iGlad iDidn't listen to those guys.

Before-After-

Next up on Mr. FixIt day is the Mazda, which needs new plugs and wires. There will be pics if iHave time.

Later.

The Big Apple

I had two options for Spring Break this year. Option #1 was to tag along with Brandon on his adventure to Georgia or save some dough, stay home and get a bit of rest. Not being one to to turn down a good nap, I packed up the leg warmers and booties instead of shorts and tanning oil and drove back home for the week. All was not lost though. Much good riding was to be had. Thursday was the first ride in shorts of the year. Turned out 102 miles around Berks and Bucks Counties.

Yesterday was another good ride. Matt and I took a tour of NYC on mountain bikes. Having never really been exposed to city street life, I was looking forward to it. We left early to miss traffic and were parked by 8am, on the bikes at 9. With no real plan of attack for the day, we zig zagged all over the city hitting all the major sites at one point or another. Statue of Liberty, WTC, Times Square, Yankee Stadium, Wall Street, and my personal favorite: downtown Harlem and the Bronx. I like weaving in and out of traffic too. Its crazy, but somehow, you never feel in danger. Red lights quickly became merely yield signs and the buses priceless drafting partners. The game of the day became apparent as soon as he entered the city. Within 5 minutes we passed 3 Starbucks. I got pictures in front everyone that we saw, and we weren't even looking that hard, nor did we get a chance to hit the first three that we saw. My guess: there's over 50 of the dang stores in the city. Every last one of them full too. Who is drinking that much coffee? The one thing that we planned on checking out that day turned out to be a letdown. The Highland Park Mountain Bike trails that had a race last spring, the one that Harlan smashed up. They weren't quite what we expected. They seem like they would make a pretty good circuit race, but keep in mind, they're mountain bike trails in the middle of Harlem...

The sun rises on our new home for the day

The classic picture that they put in math books and stuff Central Park shenanigans
If you have the newest issue of VeloNews handy, flip to page 81 and check out Kyle's appearance. You can see me too, but you better have your glasses handy as well. I'm about 4 pixels big in bright orange just behind Jurekovik's head.

The rest of the week will still be low key, just a good amount of riding and sleeping. Thursday I'm going to take a recovery day and head up to Pocono's with Jake. It'll be a chance to get the kayaks out on the water and shoot some guns. Funness.