The perfect day today.

Spent the night at ESU with the girl.

Slept in.

Lunch- The best sandwich in the world at the best cafe in the world with the best girlfriend in the world.

4 hour road ride down to the training crit and back.  Finished the last two hours in the dark. 

Pepperoni pizza for dinner.

Something good to blog about.

Boom

The obligatory bike breakdown...

My trip to the west coast landed me with the last little bit of sponsor product for the season, so I'll get this over with.

My race bike this year is sweet.  Really sweet.  Scott hooked me up big time, and I'm lucky enough to have an event-only rig for 2010.  The Spark RC frame is identical to last years, save for the BB30 bottom bracket and updates graphics.  I love the way it climbs, and it just floats over everything on the descents.  It rides just as good as it looks.  I love it.  And I'm not just saying that.

As soon as I made on the ground in Monterey, I hoofed it straight to the X-Fusion booth were they handed me matching 2011 Velvet fork and O2 shock to mount up.  Initial impression, really really good.  They've got a good thing going.  I was surprised how keyed up they were on tuning the squish for each person.  They must have re-tuned 20 forks or shocks everyday for riders.  So far, my setup feels awesome, just dialing in some of the fine tune adjustments and dialing in air pressure for the rocks back home here. Plus, the graphics are painted on.  So...no more peeling decal stickers!  I hope the second fork and shock show up soon.

And the rubber...Schwalbe.  The first time I've ridden them extensively.  Most noticeable...super supple casing.  Went with high volume 2.25's all the way around.  Rocket Ron, Nobby Nic, Racing Ralph, and Smart Sam.  Even rolling on 25c Durano's on the road bike.  Bigger seems to be better, or at least cushy, very cushy.

The fillers:
Full Sram XX kit
Ritchey WCS wheels, with bling white DT Swiss hubs
Crankbrothers Candys 4ti
ESI grips
And the same old saddle...

It really is as cool as it looks.

Check out the new SCOTT RC Mountain Bike Team blog, new for this year.  Look for race updates, pics, sponsor stuff, and other generally cool things.

In Monterey, Cali for the Sea Otter Classic.  After the Fontana fiasco, I pulled off some last minute plans to make it to here.  The guys at X-fusion were kind enough to give me a bed to sleep in for the weekend.  That and some sweet new suspension to rage on.  Fresh out of the box, the 2011 Velvet weighs in at 3.2lbs, on par with any other top end fork.  Raged it on the new Pro XC loop, which turns out to be nothing more than a cross course disguised as a mountain bike course, and was .  Can't remember the last time I raced on a course that, directly after an XC event and without any changes to the course, could host a legitimate cross race.  It took a whole lap and half before I was bored of it and redirected my attention to the 20 mile loop of proper singletrack.  I sorta can't help but feel ripped off. 

Funny story...
Rode downtown looking for food this afternoon, with a keen eye for a burrito joint.  Instead came across the Breakfast Anytime Cafe and ordered a stack of blueberry pancakes.  The whole place was run by (nice) hispanics and the one waiting on me starting asking me about my bike, sitting just a few feet away from me.  The usual:  do you race? yes.  is it light? pick it up.  expensive? more than you can imagine.  He tells me about his friend who races (what he meant to say was commutes) across town every day.  He walks into the kitchen yelling my order plus something else in spanish and next thing I know, five of them come walking out and start touching and picking up my bike all asking the same questions again.  Once they were satisfied (about 15 minutes later), they went back to work, and I back to my cakes.

I guess you had to be there...

 What else...

Last weekend was the first local XC in the Mid Atlantic area at Fair Hill.  Awesome race between Brandon and I culminating in an adrenaline fueled last lap.  The first two loops we worked together and separated ourselves from the rest of the field, cracked jokes, and had a generally good time riding our bikes hard.  Lap 3 we figured we should start racing since it was actually a bike race, and started throwing down on each other.  Got around him with 2 or 3 miles left and tried to key in on laying it down anywhere I thought he might be able to get back around.  Figures that the one spot I didn't think he had a shot at was the one he gave it a go at.  The hard downshifts gave away his attack but I was not ready for it.  He started coming around quick and I responded as best I could trying as hard as I could to keep it clean and elbow-free as it funneled back down between the trees.  Held onto it and edged out the sprint for the win and some lunch money for the day.  Looks like I get to keep my car for another month.  Never been this fit so early in the season, now I'll most likely start to do some hard riding and really ramp it up for the year.

Short track tomorrow at 3pm.
I wish Jen was here though.