Ya sure, Minnesota, don't ya know

After about a four year hiatus from Minnesota, my home state, I’ve finally come back to ride in yet another race, the Nature Valley Grand Prix. The race was by far the low point of the trip. Seeing all of my old friends after all these years, catching up and reminiscing made my post-race feelings disappear. Coming back to Minnesota was like walking through a time warp. All my friends are still there, still as tight as ever, doing all the same fun shit. My time in Minnesota was short, and I have a tendency when in these situations to try to pack in as many activities with as many people as possible. Luckily for me, my friend Tom was able to organize a party on Sunday night, with all my closest friends that I grew up with. It was just like the good ol’ days, minus the hackysac. We also got together one last time on Tuesday night before I left at Jeremy’s house. We had the crazy idea to do some night urban assault. So between four of us we had a Big Hit (DH bike), a tricked out Schwinn Homegrown XC from mountain biking's heyday, a low-end MTB, and a 35 lb dirtjumper… it was quite the selection of awkward bikes. We switched bikes throughout the ride, because each one was uniquely fun to ride. I haven’t gone urban assault in years; I forgot how much fun it was. You can basically turn anything in sick singletrack. I wish I had more time to spend with my bros; I would’ve loved to go ride some of the real MN singletrack that I spent all my early days shredding as a youngster.

I fulfilled a typical Minnesotan summer tradition by heading up to Alex’s cabin a couple hours north of the cities, which is on a beautiful lake. We drove up Monday morning. We canoed the around the lake, fished, dug for worms, played dominoes, and ate some fried walleye. Mainly, spending time up at her cabin was incredibly relaxing. I need a hell of a lot more time than only a couple of extra days to spend in MN, but these two days were incredibly refreshing for me. A break from the racing/training boat, albeit a small one, was greatly needed. I can’t think of a better way to recharge the CNS than by chillin’ at the cabin and getting crazy with great friends.

As I write this, I’m listening to the music of one of my very close friends from HS, Dom Bazzett, he threw a couple of his CDs my way, and I’m totally impressed. He’s always been an extremely gifted musician/artist. It’s really cool to see how much his ability has progressed. Him and I used to rock out and record music back in the day, I was no musician, Dom and I just had a love for music, and we still do. I’ve been away from home for so long, I don’t know if I’ve ever felt such powerful nostalgia, it’s a strange emotion. It feels like there’s a magnetic force that wants to keep me here.

I'm back at the team house in Westport, CT now sitting on the side of a busy road borrowing free wi-fi from some unsuspecting neighbor. Wes bought an X-Box to pass the time and he and Shriver have been glued to the thing playing Madden Football since I arrived. I think I'll try to avoid getting sucked into playing the new toy. It looks like it takes a long time and a lot of patience to figure out, there's about 20 different buttons on controller... a lot has changed since Nintendo, with only two buttons. The riding around is really beautiful, the roads are real narrow, barely any traffic, and every house is a mansion. I can only imagine what the singletrack is like.

I still have a couple months of racing ahead of me, which consists mainly of stage races; Fitzburg, Cascade, and Toona. I need to make it through these… hopefully more than just make it through them, and then it’s back to my real home, Boulder.