What else??

Arrrrgh.... What's going on???? Just when I thought things couldn't get any worse this week, I lose my brand new digital camera. I am totally bumming about that one. Somehow, it fell out of either my pocket, or my backpack on the plane or at my gate while I was flying home today. I am really glad I didn't go to Vegas this weekend instead. Well, unless I luck out, and my camera shows up in lost and found, I probably won't be posting any pictures on here for a little while, until I sell enough stuff on ebay to make me feel justified in buying a new one. The thing is, I need a digital camera in order to sell on ebay... well, I'll figure something out.

Bad Luck and Mount Snow

This week, my luck could have been a bit better. All of the misfortune began early Thursday morning, the day that I departed for Vermont. I should’ve set my alarm 10 minutes earlier. Because of this small mistake, my whole morning turned to disaster. I was supposed to catch the bus at 6:30 am to make it to the airport leaving me with about 2 hours to spare. I just missed the bus though, so I had to catch the next one at 7:30. I thought this would be ok; I’d just have to rush when I got the airport. I also realized that I hadn’t pick up my new student ID and bus pass that I pay for with my student fees, so I had some time and decided to go up to campus to try to get those. It was obviously way too early for anyone to be working the ID card office, so I got shut down there. I then decide to call some people, and the only one up that early was my physical/massage therapist Eric. He loaned me his bus pass. Great, I thought. When I tried to get on the bus, the driver decided to closely examine my ID and Eric’s bus pass… BUSTED!! He confiscated my both of them, and I still had to pay the $10 bus fee. When I arrived at the airport I had to make up a story that Eric was an old man and that it would be hard for him to make it to the bus station to reclaim his ID. It worked, and I got it back… That was a relief; I thought my troubles were over…. Nope. When I tried to check my bags in, I was told that I was too late (I was still 40 minutes away from departure). The check-in lady told me that I could take all my bags as carry-on, so I tried to do that. Bad idea. As a cyclist, I carry a lot of things with me that security considers weapons. Before I made it through security, I was told that I could only have two carry-on bags. So then I had to try to combine all of my belongings into two bags… I did it, but those bags were so full they were about to explode. Going through security, I had to empty out all of my stuff. They confiscated my Crank Brothers multi-tool, the pocket knife I keep on my keychain, and the most threatening to them, my CO2 cartridge. The CO2 cartridge was the final cause of my missing the flight. Because of the CO2, I had to be escorted to a room and wait for about 10 minutes while they filled out paperwork, and I had to sign a few documents. Now I’m on record as a person who has brought weapons into the airport, and probably a suspected terrorist. Next I had to go back and change my flight. I was very nearly screwed. The Lady at check in told me that since I booked my flight through Hotwire.com, I would have to pay $300 to change my flight. I gave her some of the most intense puppy-dog eyes I’ve ever had to, anymore and there would be tears coming down my face. So, she felt sorry for me, pulled some strings, and allowed me to change my flight, but for $100. That still sucked, but I wouldn’t have even gone if I had to pay $300. Well, I was able to change to a flight that still put me in Albany at the same time as before.

On to the race recaps. I felt amazing in the XC. Finishing up lap two of the XC I was sitting around 15th place and feeling great. Unfortunately, my rear tire flatted. I tried to fill it with my C02, hoping that my Stan’s would seal, but that was a waste of time, and my C02. I then had to wait of for someone to toss me a C02, and eventually I got one. I put in a tube and got it going again, but I had easily lost about 10 minutes by then. After all this, I was out for blood, and still felt crazy fast. I was passing people back left and right, and eventually moved back up to around the top 25 by the end of the last lap, and then the second flat happened. Again, I had to beg racers to hook me up with a tube and C02. I finally got the goods, and fixed it, but lost about another 6-8 minutes in the whole process. I felt the best that I have felt all year, but good fortune was not on my side. At least I got the feeling back that I’ve been missing all season and I think I’ll be kicking ass for the rest of the year. No one else from Colorado had exceptional finishes… the east coast is a different world than the west. Ross Schnell was up there with me, but he also double flatted, Hagman was riding strong, but bonked hard on the last lap, and Ranno (Diesel) broke his chain (what’s new).

The STXC went alright, I got 19th, Cody (my teammate) got 15th, and Shriver (My other teammate) got 12th, his best STXC finish.

Tomorrow, I’m flying back and getting back into the swing of school… not to pumped about that. I am looking forward to racing Keystone next weekend, and hopefully can be riding at the same level that I had this weekend.

Until next time.

School and racing

Going to school and racing bikes is a stressful combination. I've been pretty worked this week from the first week of school, and have not been riding much, except for back and forth to school, I'm all of a sudden feeling like ten times busier than I was this summer.

Tomorrow I'm getting up early to catch my flight out to Mt. Snow. It's gonna be a long day of traveling, but it will also be a good oppurtunity for me to get caught up in school (yep, I'm already behind and it's only the third day).

I looks like We've finally put togther a full team for the Global 24 hour race in Granby, CO. Our team is going to be Cody Peterson, Eric Ransom, Georgia Gould, and me. I'm very excited about this team, all these people are really strong, and I think we have a good shot at winning. Again, We are looking for support people, and we will pay around $100 for your help. Also, leave me some advice on 24 hour racing if you have any. I'll try to keep you updated from the road.

Snowmass...

Another weekend of racing before I head out to Mount Snow. The competition was thick this weekend... which is nothing new for a local race in Colorado. The fun took place in Snowmass, CO today on a hard course with lots of climbing and some rough singletrack decents that required use my entire body. The race started with Walker Fergusen killing it from the start with Brian Smith, Nick Ranno, Schnell, Hagman and I chasing. Ranno rode really strong pulling away from all of us for second, Schnell held onto third, HAgman flatted, and I came in fourth. I felt ok, but far from great... oh well though, fourth is pretty good for feeling shitty. Hopefully I can get myself togther for Mt. Snow and bust out a good result. Well, now I'm debating whether I should go out and enjoy the Boulder night life on the last night of summer before school starts... I'm tired and I should recover for Mt. Snow, but I'm also single now, so I should bust out of my shell and have some fun damnit. Well... Hopefully Ranno doesn't puss out, cause I'm game!!
Here's some pics from the race. The top one (from left to right) Cory Collier (probably drinking), Ross Schnell (eating Watermelon), Brian Smith (getting psyched), Me (picking my nose). Below pictures: Me, racing. The pro field lining up for the start. I think in this picture at the time Ranno was rocking out to the Metalica that was playing in the background, I was looking at Walker's hairy legs, and Doug Ryden was thinking about something funny.
Until next time....

Flaggstaff Tuesday!!

Today I did a TT up FLagstaff, one of the best climbs ever. It's about a 25ish minute climb and I ussually do this once a week as my hard ride. I felt okay going up it today, but my time was about a minute slower than my record... I wasn't really expecting to break any records today though. My time was pretty average. I felt awesome on the descent though.

The big news right now for me is that I'm flying out to Vermont next week for the Norba Finals at Mt. Snow. I hope to do really well out there. Most of my best results have been at lower elevation, and I love east coast singletrack, so I'm pretty excited about this one. However, school starts next week also... I'm all of a sudden not feeling ready to go back to school, to much other stuff happening in my life right now. But, that's how it always is, and then I adjust.

In other news, I am tenetively planning on doing the Kona Global 24 hour race in Granby, CO (near Winter Park) on Sept. 10th. I was going to be on a team with Nick Martin and Tristen Shouten on the Trek team for that, but instead Cody Peterson and Matt Shriver, my 3D teammates are pretty sure they want to do it, so we are trying to organize. We are definitely going to have a race on our hands with teams as strong as these two. We are also looking for a girl to ride for us. Teams are supposed to have 3 guys and one girl. If anyone has any experience racing 24 hour races, any advice/info/etc. would be greatly apreciated, as I am a rookie. We are also looking for people to support us at the race, and we will be paying our support people.

Well, it's time to be productive.

Here are a couple of race pics from the Angel Fire World Cup. I didn't have any race pics on here yet, so I thought I'd add some. Yeah, really, that's me rocking my 3D!!

Racing as usual

I set my alarm early for today at 6:30 because I was going to go race the ACA state championship MTB race at Keystone. Keystone's only about 1.5 hours away from Boulder, so I decided to skip preriding and just chill at home and sleep in my own bed on friday. When I woke up it was raining and dreary, and I was considering bagging it and just staying down here like a weak little pussy. Well, I took my chances and it was beautiful up there. On my way I stopped for some coffee that later led to a near disaster in my pants and some evasive manuevers in my car to make a sudden stop at the nearest shitter. Nothing like getting jacked on coffee and losing a few pounds from it to make you feel like racing. I was able to to get a pretty good warm up in, and was checking out the competition. Mainly a bunch of ACA roadies and the Austrailian junior and U23 national team. The race started out well for me. I dropped everyone right away and built up to a 2 minute lead on 2nd place. I held onto my lead for almost the entire race, but ended up losing a water bottle and was not able to eat anything which lead to me bonking. Jonathon Baker (fast roadie guy thats been tough to beat all year in all disciplines) caught me at the top of the climb on the last lab which resulted the race coming down to a dual downhill race to the finish. He got ahead of me in the singletrack and I was never able to pass him. I ended up coming in second. After the race I headed straight to my favorite Burrito joint in Boulder, Illegal Pete's. If you don't know this already, Burritos are the shit!! They are the best food for recovery out there... Just ask Tommy D, he writes about them in every journal entry he lists. But sorry Tom, the Durango burritos that you speak so highly of are crap compared to what we have here in Boulder. Well that's all for tonight. I forgot to put the battery in my camera today, so no new pictures. But don't you worry, there will be many to come soon. Thanks for reading.

This is my Dean from last year. I posted this picture cause I'm trying to figure out how to post pics. The bike is currently for sale. I'm asking $2999. This was a sweet ride... it's a little hard to part with. 

My first post

Hey anyone??? This is my first post to the blogspot, so I don't really no what the hell I'm doing yet. Soon, this site will be badass though. Props to my hommie Nick Martin for turning me onto this and Ebay of course, the struggling pro cyclist's way of making a salary.