.

Into the Energy Vortex

2010-10-25T15:50:00.001-06:00

After spending a week at utila getting my open water scuba diving certification I caught the boat back to the mainland before the hurricane hit the island! Scuba diving was an amazing experience. I had a very long travel to lake atitlan after this... Traveling by bus for about 24 hours. Lake atitlan is one of the most beautiful places I've ever been to. I spent the first night in panajachel and took a boat to San Pedro la laguna the next day. Definitely one of my favorite places on the trip so far.

Apparently lake atitlan is one of the three energy vortexes in the world which include the great pyramids and machu pichu. I think I'm now a believer in this after what happened yesterday. I was in San Pedro for about 2 hours when I heard someone call my name as I was walking down the street. I looked back, and there was my ex-girlfriend Kira! I was sooo shocked to see her... I still am. We went and had a beer and chatted a little. The evening was incredibly surreal. I also met up with another friend of mine here from when I was in xela. That's to be expected though when you're on the traveling circuit.

So what am I doing here? I'm actually taking more Spanish lessons. I found a very inexpensive school and housing...
I'm also beginning to feel a bit homesick and anxious to find a job when I return to the states... I'm feeling very poor (as in no money) right now. But dwelling on the future is bad for my health, so I'm going to try not to worry about it until it's time. Now, I will just enjoy the lake, my tacos, my capuchino, and my Spanish homework. Here are some pics from the lake and San Pedro:

Scuba diving

2010-10-20T16:36:00.001-06:00

when I posted last, I was in Flores debating where to go next. I wanted some place to chill for a few days at a good beach... With the possibility of trying scuba diving. My first destination was Livingston. Livingston can only be reached by boat as there are no roads into the town. Because of this I took the beautiful boat ride down the rio dulce to get there. Immediately after getting off the boat, I had about five different locals trying to lead me to some hotel so they receive commission. This place was completely different than everywhere else in Guatemala. There were some good places to eat, but other than that, there was not much to do. I decided that the next morning I would travel into honduras and over to the bay islands and learn to scuba dive. This is probably the cheapest and one of the best places to scuba in the world. Getting there required about 10 transfers in transportation, but I was still able to make it in just over one day. I've been here for about five days now, and after training for the last 3, I finally got to go out into the open water and scuba. AMAZING!!! I have two more dives tomorrow and two more on Friday. Today we descended to about 40 feet, tomorrow and the next day around 60 feet.

Welcome to paradise

2010-10-13T20:30:00.001-06:00

I've been able to see and experience some amazing things in the past few days. I arrived to coban a few nights ago and promptly left for lanquin and semuc champey the next morning. I got to semuc at about 11 and swam until the parked closed at 5. This place is probably the most magical place I've ever been to. Semuc is a series of crystal clear aqua-green pools with small cliffs and waterfalls to jump off. What makes it even more incredible is that I sits on top of a powerful river rushing underneath it.

The next day I took a tour of the b.... Caves. This was a very special tour because it required wading and swimming a kilometer deep while holding a candle as your light source. The cave is actually 11 km long. After this I went and explored the lanquin caves. The chambers were huge and home to hundreds of thousands of bats. I was at the cave at dusk, which is the best time to see all the bats flying out into the night.

The next morning I took the long trip up to Flores. I took a shuttle bus full of people from all over the world. None from the us. I also met many people at semuc and Tikal (where I was today) from all over the world.... But none from the us. I found that kind of odd. Anyway, I uad some time to walk around Flores last night, and I have to say that it is the most beautiful town I've been to yet... It's very nice here, but is also very touristy. Many very nice restaurants that are way out of my price range and some nice cafes.

Today I caught a shuttle at 6am to go to Tikal, probably the best place to see Mayan ruins anywhere. I'm glad I went early, the ruins were spectacular, and I had them all to myself. Crowds of people started pouring in around 10. I was at the park for 7 hours... If that gives you any idea of how big the place is. I'm not totally sure what I'm doing tomorrow yet. I think I'll probably go to livingston... A town that is supposed to be much different than the rest of guatemala and much more like Jamaica or other caribean places. Hope you enjoy the pictures.

The latest

2010-10-10T07:03:00.001-06:00

I finally found an oppurtunity to write about the latest news from my travel. Again so much has happened since I posted last. As I write this I'm taking a bus from guatemala city through the mountains to the town of Coban. The driver has slammed on his breaks a couple times now to dodge sink holes... Kinda scary. The views are incredible. Also as I write my good friend Kelly is crushing it in the 24 hours of Moab (24 hour national championship). Good luck bro!!

Last weekend was pretty epic.... My friend jessica and i rode about 90 miles from xela to the coastal town of tilapa and tilapita. It was a beautiful ride with probably a total of 10,000 feet of descending. We had got a late start though and had to ride the last 10 miles in the dark. I luckily had my headlamp with me and she had a small pen light... So we we could at least see and be seen. We got to tilapa chowed down some piscado and washed it down with some Gallo, guatemala's national beer. There happened to be a circus performing in town that night... I insisted that we had to go. It was one of the more bizarre things I've seen... And thankfully no animals were involved. The next morning we took a small boat for a 15 min ride to tilipita. There we spend the whole day lounging on the beach, swimming in the ocean and mingling with the locals (practicing our Spanish). The rooms in both tilapa and tilapita were both kind of gross... Cockroaches in both places. It was also extremely hot and humid... I was ready to head back to xela the next day. I decided to ride back, and Jessica took a chicken bus back. The ride back was HARD! Somewhere around 10,000 feet of climbing..... Continuous. I cracked pretty hard about 7 hours in and near the highest point of the climb, the town of Los Nubes. Which in Spanish means clouds. I think it is always cloudy and raining here. I didn't have much money left so I could only afford a couple of bananas and some bags of chips. I pressed onward only to make it about 5 miles from xela when it got dark. I was relieved to ride right into a herd of shuttle buses and coif one back to xela for about $0.50. that ride hurt me for the next few days.

By weds I felt recovered and woke up at 2am thurs to climb Santa Maria a 12,800 foot volcano that looms over xela. We started so early so hat we could see he sunrise from the top. We just made it with 5 minutes to spars and it was one of the most amazing sights I've ever witnessed. It wa also kind of strange to get to the top and see several cows also enjoying the view!

A couple days ago I made the decision to leave my school and begin my travels. I'm feeling comfortable enough with my Spanish now and I think he best thing for me now is to practice all that I've learned as much as I can.

I've got four more weeks to travel, learn Spanish and experience the world. My plan is to go to coban, semuc champey, Flores, Tikal, peurto barios, rio dulce. Hondurus, todos santos (for the day of the dead), lake atilon, and possibly try to fit in one more week of school. I'll try to keep updating as much as I can. Hasta luego!

Amazing ride

2010-09-29T18:53:00.001-06:00

Today I went on one of the coolest rides I've ever done. Here are some pics in the order of how the ride unfolded. First riding on some fantastic double and singletrack through the countryside. Crossing through beautiful towns on the way to zunil. In zunil we visited San Simon, a very famous saint that has roots in Mayan and catholic tradition. When visiting him, the tradition is to make donations of cigarettes an alcohol among other things. After San Simon we rode over to some hot spring/ geysers. Here we met a local farmer who carried at least 300 lbs of wood up a steep technical trail probably about 500 ft elevation gain.

mas fotos

2010-09-27T17:00:00.002-06:00

La carrera de bicicleta

2010-09-26T18:08:00.001-06:00

I raced today in a local mtb race. I had a tight battle with Edwin and Rico, two of the local pro racers. We all finished within a minute of each other! Edwin took the win, I was second, and Rico took third. Here are some pics:

I didn't fall into a volcano

2010-09-25T19:27:00.001-06:00

Sorry for the lack of posts this week. I had a good week... Made it to the hospital on the second attempt. The whole experience was a pretty interesting. The first attempt was unsuccessful due to a road block created by a protest of the farming communities against the energy companies. The hospital experience was very interesting... Things are quite a bit different here, yet very much the same.

I rode with Miguel and Sergio a couple times this week on some more fantastic trails... I'm so lucky to have met those guys. Getting in with the locals is better than any guide book you could ever buy. Sergio invited me over to his house for lunch and to meet his family... Every day that I've been here I've felt so welcomed. Everyone is so incredibly friendly here! I sat down with Sergio today and we came up with an itinerary for the rest of my trip. I've got a lot planned!

I went out dancing last night and I gotta say the people here are amazing... I've never seen such talent cutting a rug. It was mainly salsa, and I'm totally inspired now. I'm going to start taking lessons next week... Hopefully I can fit it in.

I'll be racing again tomorrow... Unfortunetly there's a hurricane blowing through right now, so I'll be racing in the rain. Sergio from The Bike House has been setting me up with riding gear since I've been here and I can't thank him enough. Muchas gracias!! I'll be wearing The Bike House team kit for the race. More good times to come and to share. Thanks for reading! Here are some pics from a ride up chicabal volcano, preride of tomorrows course, solobici's bike shop and sergio's Akitas... Five total! The puppies were adorable!

Yo amo la bicicleta

2010-09-18T23:08:00.001-06:00

I want to start this post out by paying homage to the bicycle. The places I've seen, the things I've been able to do in my life, and the amazing friends (cyclists and noncyclists) have all in some way been influenced by my love for the bike.

Today i entered my first mountain bike race in Guatemala. This was not any old race, it was a once in a lifetime experience (well actually I think I need to come back). Yesterday I found out about it and it sounded like something I couldn't miss.

So today I met up with my new cycling amigos at 7:30 am to catch a chicken bus to the finish of the race. The race finished in Momotenango and started in another town 40 km away. From Momotenango me and about 20 other riders squeezed into the back of a truck for the 40 km drive to the start. On the drive to the start was able to see some incredible scenery and see the Guatemalan countryside. This country is soooo incredibly beautiful.

After arriving at the start I looked around at all the other racers and was amazed by how many there were, how enthusiastic they were, and the bikes they were racing on!!!! My friend Miguel called these bikes "chicken bikes". They were about 10-20 years old, flat pedals and by most peoples standards, not race bikes. The start of the race was muy emocional! I started kinda far back which probably wasn't the best idea because the start was fast, downhill, and I had to maneuver my way around the chicken bikes... Many of which were very squirely.

This course had some serious climbing... And the racers in Guatemala are STRONG climbers. Living here I think you have no choice.

I wish I had pictures to share of the race... It was LOCO! We started with a long road climb that quickly shredded the field. There were a couple guys off the front and I was in a chase group with Miguel and Edwin. We were working together as much as we could, but mainly they were putting the hurt on me on the steep climbs. I popped off of those guys, and was caught by Fedrico "Rico". We rode together for a while and were attacking each other more than working together (it's a mtb race). My seat came loose and I had to stop so I lost Rico. I ended up fighting this problem for the rest of the race. I was sooo impressed with the level of these riders.

As I entered the town of momotenango, the hundreds of spectators lining the course made me feel like I was on the alpe duez in the tour. My friend Miguel ended up winning the race. Bueno trabajo! During the awards ceremony I was called up for my prize, una fumbra (a rug), and asked where I was from and how I liked the course. I said in nearly perfect Spanish to a crowd of several hundred guatemalans that the course was beautiful and that the cyclists from Guatemala are very very very strong!

I took about a hundred pictures today and some video, I wish I could put it all up. Here are some pics:

Some more pics from the ride a couple days ago

2010-09-17T11:00:00.002-06:00

Hoy es llova

2010-09-16T17:52:00.001-06:00

Today was pretty chill, it was raining on and off throughout the day so I studied in a cafe for most of the day. My first test is tomorrow... I don't feel ready. Learning Spanish es muy dificil! On Saturday I'll be climbing to the top of a local volcano with my classmates... Can't wait! Tonight I'm going to a yoga studio... It only costs $1.50!!!

Correction on my friends bike shop website, it's ciclismo-xela.com or thebikehouse.net

Buenas tardes

Post Created Sep 15, 2010 7:13:53 PM

2010-09-15T19:14:00.001-06:00

A few pics from the celebration last night. Today I went for a big mtb ride with sergio, the owner of the bike house cyclismo-xela.com. He guides mountain bike tours as well and took me a classmate of mine out to see some incredible waterfalls. I'll try to get pics from the ride up soon.

Post Created Sep 14, 2010 6:03:40 PM

2010-09-14T18:03:00.001-06:00

Here are some pictures from the last few days. I just got done riding with mi amigo nuevo. Fireworks are going off all night!!! It's going to be LOCO aqui en la noche!!!!

El Dia de la Indepencia

2010-09-14T10:46:00.004-06:00

I´ve been her for a couple days now and so much has happend! I´ve been taking classes for the past two days and Love it! Xela is sooo beautiful. My Spanish is pretty bad, but enough to get by. I only made it two days without a bike and broke down and rented a decent mountain bike for the week. I got to know the owner of the bike shop who is also a cyclist and he is going to take me out on the local mtb trails. Cycling is actually the most popular sport in Guartemala... cyclists are everywhere!!

Tomorrow is one of the most important days in central american history because it´s independence day. Apparently Xela is the main city to celebrate, so people from all over central america travel here for the celebration. Tonight there will be many festivities and fireworks. It should be a lot of fun.

I´ve been pretty short on time with all that is happening, so I havent had much time to update the blog. I´ll try to get some pics up soon. Thanks for reading.

I made it!!

2010-09-12T18:18:00.001-06:00

More to come soon!

SPACE

2010-09-11T14:27:00.002-06:00

Have you ever looked up at the stars, far removed from any city, and thought about what's out there? Or even more, wanting to go there. I recently had a great conversation with my friend Kelly on this topic. The conversation was actually very short, it consisted of only one word, "SPACE". But while staring at the stars at about 1am in the middle of Wyoming during a pit stop on our drive to ND, that single word summed up everything that could possibly have been said about what we saw. Staring at the sky above evoked such an immense curiosity about all things. The big question that always comes to mind in these situations is "what's out there?". I have a feeling that this is a natural human instinct... And I'm guessing this is why we've created religion and pursue science.

Well, I would give up anything to own the starship enterprise and be able to explore the far reaches of space, but I know that's a little far fetched. However, I've called earth home for just over 29 years now, and I have only seen a fraction of what I actually and realistically have the capability to experience. So what's holding me back? Money of course... But I've found ways overcome that obstacle for now. Other than that, nothing. There's no excuse for me to stay in my comfortable box.

I'm leaving today for Guatemala to partake in a four to five week Spanish immersion program in Quetzaltenango, AKA Xela (pronounced Shay-la). The excitement I have right now is insurmountable. With my recent graduation and success on the PANCE (board exam) I'm in a very good place in my life right now... Relief, satisfaction, happiness.

I know this is kind of cheesy, but I want to give thanks to friends and family that have supported me throughout all my adventures.

Thanks Mom and Pop a million times over for being the best parents anyone could ask for. Thank you for supporting all of my endeavors.

Thank you Lonna and Mike for taking me in and making my life soooo much easier during the rigorous last few months if PA school. Thank you for inspiring me to take this trip and and to do so many other things!

Thank you Kelly M. for being such a great friend and training partner despite me leaving you one month before 24 hours of Moab, leaving you to race the CB100 solo, and not joining you for the next mah-dah-hey In a day attempt.

Thank you Kelly S for all the great info on Guatemala!

Thanks to everyone else I left out, wish I had the time to give props to y'all.

I hope you enjoy reading my updates and looking at my pictures, and thanks for taking the time to check in on me!

Don't hate the player, hate the game.

2010-09-11T11:12:00.001-06:00

At the airport waiting for my flight to Guatemala city.

Psych 101

2010-01-23T00:22:00.003-07:00

I'm living in casper, wy now... taking care of a bunch of kids that are pretty messed up... it's sad. My roommate kicks ass though. His name is Lupe and he's a total ladies man. He's 47 and has several beuatiful girls (ages 25-35) that he's hanging out with... total hero. I haven't updated the blog in like 3 years, but I thought it'd be fun to throw a new update in now... cause damn... things have really changed a lot. I'm a lot different now... but still the same... you know? Biking is still fun, but I've only done it a few times in the last couple months... I hammered! I've been xc skiing a lot though. In three forks I would go to Bozeman a few days a week and ski at Bohart ranch... which was an awesome xc ski place. And here in casper, there is actually a great xc ski area that I've been going to a lot. So I'm actually in decent shape and plan to kick kelly magelky's ass and make him cry next time we play foot down. Thats all for now.

Josh

the last couple weeks

2007-07-19T00:41:00.000-06:00

Soo… here it goes.. the recap. Well, I went into the XC at Snowmass with no expectations. I’ve been crazy busy with work, school, PA school crapola, etc. So training has been on the back burner… but if you know me at all… I still manage to get out and ride; otherwise I might go insane and destroy things. So I’ve found that in order to maintain sanity…I must continue to ride (as well as race) and go out once or twice a week and do some drinkin’!! A few weeks ago, I raced the sunshine hill climb, then I went for a midday ride with my road team and took some team photos… then I decided to go out and do a night ride with a bunch of friends…. So essentially, I ended up riding up to Gold hill 3 times that day (about 11,000 feet of climbing total). I ended up catching a cold the next day... sore throat… but I still woke up and did a 4.5 hour Ned ride with Fuentes, Jung, and Monique…. Jung hurt his coccyx and had to cut it short… but we pressed onward to cover greatest amount of single-track possible. Had lots of fun the rest of the week… crashed in short track on weds the fourth, but saw some cool fireworks, then went to Redfish for some Reggae. Rode a new trail on Saturday around Estes in the forest that was up there with the best single-track ever. Then went out for Monique’s B-day … so that meant another late night. Recovered in time for short track... got into break (sorry for the roadie lingo) with West and Fuentes… the course was very hard to pass… so I sat in third the whole race, and that’s where I finished…. I was up all night thinking about how I coulda won… the next day at work was rough. I recovered from that in time for Snowmass, where I guess I felt pretty good… considering I finished pretty good. I got 3^rd which I was not expecting to happen. After racing the previous MSCs, I was beginning to think that a podium finish was impossible… the competition this year is outa hand!! But, I guess I’ve successfully raced myself into shape… which was my plan for the year. I felt good… I was able to move up a couple spots throughout the race and kept second place in site most of the time… never saw Jay though… he’s completely on another level this year. Well… I don’t think I recovered in time for Boulder Short Track which was this evening. I still got second, but West and Fuentes were missing… my hardest competitors. I was suffering hard tonight, but didn’t feel like I could go very fast… it was frustrating… I dug deep though to hang on to 2^nd place… which I nearly lost on the last lap. I was close to hurling after the race too… that’s never happened to me in the hundreds of races that I done in my life… crazy. Okey dokey peeps… time to go to bed, I got a long day of labor ahead of me tomorrow.

This is the Bikeparts.com/GoFast/Maverick team mascot

Gimme some SPEED!!!

2007-06-27T23:26:00.000-06:00

Can't sleep. Drank too much espresso and GoFast... Where's my Dale’s Pale Ale, or even better, an Old Chub when you need one... I gotta calm down. For a very long list of reasons, I'm a little jacked right now. As already stated, I had a lot of caffeine... but that's gotten to be a pretty standard post-work routine. How else am I gonna do everything?!?! I also pulled off my first win of the year, albeit it was Boulder Short Track, it still felt damn good to throw my hands up in the air as I crossed the line… and I beat the undefeated Mike West, who pulled me around the course for most of the race. The course kicked ass… there were big jumps… I got like 3 feet of air… it was sweet. The weekend was amazing. I spent four days in Crested Butte racing and riding. Friday – prerode; Saturday – raced; Saturday night drank and danced a lot; Sunday – epic; Monday – epic with two badass chicks. I’m getting a Subaru Forester tomorrow too!! I also took my GRE on Monday of last week and did great… man does that feel good. Still haven’t quit my job to try to make another attempt at being a pro bike racer… but I think about it multiple times a day… those thoughts can drive a man insane. I do know that the 9-5 thing is something I don’t want to do for too long… life is too much fun to spend indoors workin’ for the man. I’m also taking microbiology right now… so I’m spending about 3 hrs a night on that. Anyway, all is great, just crazy. And here are some pics from the weekend!!!

We're going to have mexican food and margaritas?!?! Stoked!!!!!

Mexican food and margaritas. Stoked.

I've got a good idea, lets drink lots and dance for hours.
Mo, Me, Jamie

Yeah GoFast!!

It's a monkey doing an impression of Jung
I wanna live there - from Saturday's ride.
Pretty

Wow, now that is impressive!
This is from the top of trail 403 - we're all captivated by the view.

Camped Sunday night
I showed Jamie and Mo one of my favorite epic rides ever. It was mucho fun.

"Rosebud"

I luv U Benson!!

Old Reliable - R.I.P. 1988-2007

2007-06-03T12:42:00.000-06:00

This was the last living photo taken of Old Reliable. I took this on Friday evening after I had found my camp site for the night outside of Vail. I was sooo proud that I scored this sweet little secluded campsite that I felt it necessary to take a picture of my car, with my Maverick (which is literally worth about 10 times what my car is worth).

I raced the Teva Mtn. Games this weekend, and put the smack down on Tour de France Champ, Floyd Landis, I don't care what his excuses are... it's still pretty cool. The race was incredibly hard. I think that when there's a lot of money on the line ($3000 for 1st), the pace is turned up a few notches. This was definitely the hardest start of the year for me. I wasn't feeling very strong, but I tried to suffer and still compete, and I ended up doing alright. I raced Angel Fire the weekend before, feeling about the same, maybe a tad stronger, but it was the same thing, I just suffered and tried not to get down on my self for not being up with the top guys... which is where I feel I should be. I'm definitely not at the same level that I've been in the past, and that's a tough pill to swallow, even though I know all the reasons why I'm not riding as fast as I know I can. I'm just hoping that suffering through these races (it's still early season for me) will give me some good fitness later this season.

Anyway, about my car, it broke down on the way home from Vail. The oil light came on and my engine basically shut down as I was descending down into Silver Plume/Georgetown. I was able to coast into silver plume. My phone was dying so I tried to find an outdoor outlet so that I could call for help. In Silver Plume there is only a General Store and a Garage. At about 10:00 I found a working outlet outside of the entrance to the Garage and plugged in my phone. About 5 seconds later, this guy who was about twice my size came through the entrance, staring silently at me, looking very pissed off. I tried to explain that my car broke down and I needed to charge my phone so that I could call for help. He didn't care what I had to say and claimed that I was "sneaking around, which was no different that being a thief". I tried to explain myself some more and justify that I wasn't a thief. This only aggravated him further at which point he started threatening to "pound me into the ground" and "kick my ass". I was getting pretty scared for my life at that point; I've never really been threatened like that before. I was able to back out of that situation without any harm being done, and made it back to my car. A few minutes later, the Jung showed up in his Ass-Finder with the Grinch and McCalmon. Those guys helped push my car back onto I-70 and I was able to roll down to Georgetown... where my car sits right now. I'm going back up there today with a good friend (with AAA) to get it towed back to Boulder. I may try to resurrect it, but there's a good chance it may end up at the junkyard.

Just in case you were wondering

2007-05-14T20:39:00.000-06:00

Yeah,i know, that last post was really short. I didn't have time to write anything, and I wanted to get that picture up... cause it's sweet. The race didn't go so well for me... I got a flat on the first lap... it was a slow leak so I wasted my CO2 thinking that my stans would seal. That didn't work, so I pulled my wheel off to fix it. It looked like the stans did its job so I just added the reamining CO2 I had. When I tried to put my wheel back on my bike I somehow knocked out my brake pad... which took me forever to put back in. I finally got going again probably about 15 min down from the leaders, but luckily, Jung had missed his start so I was able to ride with him. By the time I made it around for my second lap my tire had about 10 psi in it... so I decided I should just get a new wheel in the feed zone. To top off the string of bad luck, the cassette that was on the wheel I got was completely worn out and none of the gears work.... I finaly decided that it was time to throw in the towel. So I got my one DNF of the year out of the way, so this kind of thing shouldn't happen again. This being my first race of the year, gave me the standerd shck to the system and the head. Damn... racing is hard!! But I'm totally looking forward to racing next weekend.

On another note, my dog is leaving me to go out to NY with my EX. I'm a little sad about that... I love that dog, I'll miss it. I'll definitely be getting another one sometime when I'm a bit more settle down. I've finally got my new pad dialed... It's nice to finally have my own place.

Chalk Creek

2007-05-13T09:25:00.000-06:00

The dusty, rocky, downhill dirtroad start was dicey

Don't drink the water

2007-05-05T21:12:00.000-06:00

It feels strange blogging again after such a long hiatus. It wouldn’t surprise me if no one looks at it anymore, and those who don’t keep in touch probably think I’ve dropped off the face of the earth. I’ve been living the life of a weekend warrior. I don’t get to get out as much anymore to ride these days, but when I do I make the most of it. Saturdays and Sundays are designated for epic MTB rides. I got a Maverick a few weeks ago and it’s the greatest bike ever… period. I’m riding the techiest shit around, stuff that I would never ride before on my previous bikes, totally in control of my bike and without fear. It climbs great too. I also just moved into my own studio apartment… I’m stoked to finally have my own place. It’s just a few block away from work too. This week was pretty rough though. I’ve known for a while that I had parasites from Mexico, and this week they decided to wreak havoc on my intestines again… So I contacted my Doc and he hooked me up with a script for some heavy duty antibiotics that have made me drowsy and queasy all week. I was planning on doing the Buffalo Creek TT this week, but it got cancelled, which is probably a good thing since I’ve been sick and my living room is pile of rubble right now that needs to be put away. Alright, that’s enough crap about me for now… maybe since I broke the ice, I’ll start blogging more again… no promises.

Workin' for the Man.

2007-03-03T09:30:00.000-07:00

Check out the new team website at team.bikeparts.com!!!!!!!!! I also added a link to it on the side panel.

Wow... time flys when your working 9-5. I can't believe a whole month has already passed since my last blog. The hospital job is going pretty well... I wouldn't mind being able to ride my bike all day instead, but, I'm choosing this lifestyle instead for now. I've been super busy though... on top of working, I've been taking Genetics, studying for the GRE and still trying to train three or four days a week, with an hour of shoulder rehab every day too... pretty hectic. Time for a social life? Somehow I still manage to have a little room for this. Luckily, I've been able to get a lot of studying done at work.

I'm bummed because I came down with a cold yesterday, so I'm not going to be able to put the big miles in that I was looking forward too doing all week. Well that's all for now. I'm going to get as much HW done this weekend while I'm sick and try to get ahead.

New Job

2007-02-04T09:18:00.000-07:00

It's finally warming up!! The weather has been so crappy lately, I feel like I'm living up in Minnesota again... snow storms every few days and sub-20 degree highs. Well I've been able to stay pretty active considering the conditions. I've either been running or xc skiing everyday... not a whole lot of riding though. I'm finally going to get out for a ride today. The plan is to ride up Flagstaff and then cut over to coal creek canyon, then ride up over to ned... It will probably be pretty epic. I'm not really feeling too up to it right now, but it needs to be done.

My roommates, Shep and Alders, have been joining me for the col winter miles.

Group snow MTB ride, earlier this week.

My life is about to drastically change begining tomorrow... I'm going to start working a full-time 9-5 job. That's right, I got a job at Boulder Community Hospital as a Radiology Assistant... Who's RAD now Ross?!?... Ok, your still the RADest.

Oh yeah, I change the blog up a little... the look seriously needed to be updated.

It's time to chamois up people!!

Changes....

2007-01-28T09:07:00.000-07:00

Okay, now that I've left the previous post (Mexico) up for about three weeks (pretty typical), I hope that all of you have read it multiple times now... enough so that you feel as though you experienced the same trip as I had.

Anyway, crazy shit has been happening in my life since the return. I should have been keeping the blog updated while these were occuring... but oh well. Well, the night I got back from Mexico, I got food poisening or something from a burrito I ate at the Dallas airport... I felt like I was going to die for about three full days and nights... it was hell. After that cleared up, Ali and I decided to part ways. It wasn't working out and both of us knew it... so breaking up was the best option. I found a new place and moved out the very next day. I'm now living with Master Mechanic Shep, Brian Alders-Brian Alders, Sunshine, and few other guys I just met. There's a total of 7 people living here now (including myself).

I got settled quickly because now that I'm done with school, I have to deal with the harsh realities of making money, and following a career path. So I've been job searching relentlessly, looking for a job in a clinic or a hospital that specifically puts me in contact with a lot of patients and has me doing basic medical procedures (taking vitals, inserting IVs, etc). My goal is to get into Physician Assistant school in 2008, so I need about a full year of medical experience as a prereq to get in. I've had one interview as a Radiology Assistant, and the interview went really well, I think I have that job in the bag. I still have another interview in Denver... the job sounds great, but it's in Denver... I don't know if I can handle that kind of commute (by car or bike). I did get one job and quit already. I got a job as a dishwasher at a sorority of 60 girls... it sounded great at the time, I would get free breakfast, lunch and dinner everday and only had to work a couple nights a week... but I decided with a new full-time job, training, and taking Genetics ( a prereq for PA school), I'm gonna be spread pretty thin.

I've also been either riding or xc skiing almost everyday... the weather has completely sucked ass since I got back from Boulder. It's probaby good for me though... I'm spending more time doing important "life" things, like looking for a job.

Oh yeah... bike racing plans... I haven't said a word about that in long time. Well I decided that I don't want to do the road thing anymore a long time ago. I did decide that I do want to return to the dirt. Luckily, I didn't have to try to sell myself very much this year because I have teh connections with all my previous teammates from DEAN from a few years ago. So, I was lucky enough to get in contact with those guys at the right time and got set up riding with them. The main sponsors are Maverick, GoFast, and Bikeparts.com. I'm really excited about this team, its with a great group of racers. I'll be teamed up with Jesse Swift, Matt Unger, Brian Laiho... and a few other guys... It should be a blast!

Well, I'm going to go try and brave the cold again... not sure if I'm skiing or riding yet... will decide soon. Enjoy your Sunday!!

Mexico - the true story

2007-01-12T15:38:00.000-07:00

Day 1 – The Flight 12/19

It was an early morning. Alex and I were up until 2 am and woke up at 5 am the catch the bus to the airport. I’m surprised at how awake I’ve been all day considering that I got 3 hours of sleep last night.

As I’m writing this, I’m kinda freaking out. Jung and Grinch missed their flight this morning and I have no idea where they are or when they’ll arrive in Mexico. I’m starting to think of all the unknowns and trying not to dwell on them too much. First of all, I need to figure out where those guys are… but will I be able to do
that? What if the people working for my airline company don’t speak English? My Spanish sucks. I also have no Idea where the Airport is in relation to anything else in Puerto Vallarta… What if I ride through the ghetto and get mugged? I guess I can try to ask for directions, but what if no one speaks English. I made a stupid mistake of leaving my cell phone behind, thinking that I wouldn’t need it. I also forgot to write any important phone numbers down from its directory. So, the only phone numbers that that I still have memorized are my parents and my ex-girl-friends… I still haven’t memorized my current girlfriends (who needs to anyway, when your cell phone will do it for you). The Ex and parents won’t be a whole lot of help though, neither would the phone numbers of my traveling partners. This trip is so short notice, I’m leaving only 2 days after my last final and plans were made to come down here only a week ago… that didn’t leave me much time to prepare. I think all the other guys are in the same boat. Jung didn’t start packing until 10:30 pm last night (it took me a couple of days) which probably explains why he missed his flight.

This trip is already off to a crazy start with those guys missing their flights. I have a feeling that trip is going to be non-stop adventure.

Day 1 (continued) – Well I made it to Puerto Vallarta still not knowing where the hell Jung and Grinch were. I got completely hassled while going through customs. They were trying to get me to pay some sort of Mexican tax for bringing a bike into their country… I’m pretty sure they were just trying to scam another Gringo. That put a pretty bad taste into my mouth as my first experience of Mexico, so for the next few hours the stress and adrenaline were high as I had a feeling like all the Mexicans were out to take advantage of me. Building my bike was pretty stressful… I was getting the stare-down by every person that walked past me… I felt like they all wanted to steal my sweet bike and trailer… still feeling pretty uncomfortable. I started talking to more people at the airport, and that definitely helped me feel more comfortable. Well after I finally worked up the balls to leave the airport. I rode my trailer over a walking bridge across from the airport which was my first experience riding with the BOB. I think the guy at the bike shop was right, the American Classic wheels were probably a bad choice… the road bike in general was probably a bad choice. My wheels felt like wet noodles. I found an internet café on the other side of the bridge that had super cheap internet. I was there that I found an e-mail from Rolf (who is flying in separately tomorrow) saying that Jung and Grinch missed their flight and they were catching the later flight… phew. So now all I have to do is wait. So I hit up a little restaurant next door to the internet café for damn tasty tacos and had a few beers, which helped with the anxiety, and that’s what you’re supposed to do in Mexico right? Now I’m waiting at the airport again… I hope those guys make through customs without any hassles.

Day 2 - 12/20 – After the hectic day with the missed flights, I finally met up with Jung and Grinch at about 11 pm.

We build up bikes and trailers and rolled though Puerto Vallarta at night, and found a beach to camp at pretty quickly. We slept next to the bums and listened to Mariachi music all night… thank God for earplugs. Today we spent most of our time riding around looking for a wheel for Grinch’s BOB (he forgot his), and battery for my camera (I forgot mine). Grinch found his wheel, I couldn’t find my battery.

Rolf finally arrived; we built up his bike, and had to do some custumizing...

We finally got on the road, stopped for some tacos...

and rode to Sayulita...

This place is incredibly beautiful.

We decided to get a room so we could go out at night and not worry about all our stuff. We went out and got trashed on a bottle of Sauza and various drinks at the bars.

Day 3 – 12/21

This is so beautiful and the waves are amazing, so we decided to spend most of the day here. I clogged the toilet causing a major overflow of sewage into our room… no one told not to put toilet paper in the toilet (you’re supposed to throw it in the trash can). Our ability to work as a team was display magnificently as we worked in unison to clean up the retched toilet water. We then checked out and slipped out as silently as possible and headed down to the beach to catch some killer waves. I tried surfing for the first time... It was hard, and a little sketchy with the freshly repaired shoulder. After that we rode an entire 10 miles that evening and camped out on the beach of De Los Marcos.

Day 4 – 12/22

I finally got about 8-9 hours of sleep last night. That felt good… I haven’t slept that long in over a week. We were a bit more ambitious today. WE rode about 65 miles to San Blas.

When we arrived, it was getting dark and this friendly restaurant owner offered to let us camp next to his restaurant on the beach where it’d be a little safer. It seemed like a good idea, so we decided to stay. We ate dinner at his restaurant and I ordered pescado al Ajo. It’s an entire fish, and was probably one of the best tasting things ever.

After dinner we walked downtown (about 10 minutes), bought a .75 L of rum and coke and started the night off right.

Lot's of stray dogs everywhere in Mexico.

We also celebrated my graduation ceremony since I missed the real one to come down here.

We then walked around town and lots of people were out. We ended up at this 50s themed bar for a while and got to know the owner of the place. Next we walked over to the town fiesta where there were free drinks and a pretty decent punk/ska/regae band was playing (anything resembling rock begins to sound great when all you here is Mariachi everywhere you go).

Day 5 - 12/23

We finally got to bed around 2:00am last night and woke up at 8:00. The first thing we did was jump in the ocean… it was a great way to kick the hangover. Packing up our gear was miserable… there were these things called sandflys that were swarming us and they biting like crazy… it was driving all of us insane. It took us a while to finally get going on the bikes again.

We ate breakfast, and helped the restaraunt owners kid learn how to ride a bike...

We had coffee (first time in days) and bought some really good tortillas. We finally started pedaling and roads were really nice for a while. There were a few towns that we went through that were pretty rough though… lots of cobbles.

At some point in the day we had to make a decision on whether to take the coastal, and possibly dirt route and suffer through the sandflys, or take the potentially busier inland route. Rolf and I settled the disputeas any real men would - rock, paper, scissors. Rolf won, we'de ride the inland route.

Stopping to refill the bottles.

We got to Santiago and had lunch. We sat around for about an hour trying to figure out where we should go (there were a couple of options for making it to Mazatlan).

Jung asking directions from a local...

We finally decided to and took hwy 15. This was an extremely frightening experience. It would be like riding down Hwy 93 to Golden from Boulder without a shoulder, only 10 times sketchier. We were only on it for about 15 km though and finally made it to Ruiz where we got a hotel room.

There are a lot of festivities happening tonight due to Navidad, so we went out to check the night life out in rural Mexico.

Nothing too fun was going on for a bunch of young Gringos… but we did eat a ton of fantastic tacos.

Day 6 – 12/24

Today we weren’t sure if we could find and ride an unfinished toll-road that would take us north for about 100 miles without any traffic. We lucked out; the toll-road was right outside Ruiz. We had the longest bike path ever… all day, it was sweet.

Like idiots, we rode all day with our shirts off, so now we’re all roasted and red.

Stopping and parking in the middle of the road...

We had lunch in the middle of the road...

About 45 miles into the day we crossed paths with 3 other bike tourists who were heading south from Tucson.

They already had been on the road for 2 months. It was pretty cool to se see some like minded fools out there. They busted out some speakers and blasted some Bob Marley and we all tossed the Frisbee around a little before continuing onward.

Some sections of the road weren't finished, so we had to do some off-roadin' with the BOBs - Here's "roadie" Rolf showing us MTBers whats up.

The road didn’t go through any towns along the way, so we had to conserve our food and water. As night fall approached we finally passed a small town. All of us waited next to the rotting dog carcass, while Jung rode in to get some water and food.

While we were waiting we were getting eaten alive by sand flies. We decided that it’d be miserable to try to camp so we decided to ride for another 1-1.5 hours to Esquinopa. We had to do this in the dark, which wasn’t too bad since the road was closed to cars (there was still the occasional car, breakin’ tha law). This was a pretty cool experience, since among all of us, the only light we had was Jung’s camping headlamp and Rolfs red blinking taillight (unprepared).

We made it within 3 miles of Esquinopa where we decided to find a good (hidden) place to camp. There was a dirt road off to our left, so we hit it. We rode down that a little ways and pulled off into a mango grove. We ate dinner, set up camp, and went to bed.

Christmas Eve dinner...

Day 7 – 12/25

Sleep kinda sucked last night, and was cold, damp and the ground was really lumpy. Woke up Christmas morning, loaded up the BOBs and rode 3 miles to Esquinopa. We had x-mas breakfast at a little trucker’s restaurant on the outskirts of town. All of us had Huevos Rancheros (fried eggs, beans and sometimes rice). We then loaded up on food in town and met the to mountain biker in the area at the grocery store. We then began our final push to Mazatlan. We set a good pace the whole way, with one stop under a bridge, one of the few shady spots we could find.

We made it about 60 miles in four hours to Mazatlan where we got a hotel room...

then went to the beach...

That night we decided to splurge for Christmas dinner and went to a fancy restaurant.

Day 8 - 12/26

Jung and I went out on the town last night…it was kinda dead since it was Christmas day, hopefully it’ll be better tonight. I got up and was craving coffee, so I walked around for a while and struggle to find it… most people only drink the instant crap down here. I finally found a place and breakfast and coffee for $2. It was pretty greasy. I then got a pastry at the bakery to wash it down… the pastries are great down here. I’ve been consuming so much grease while I’ve been here… I’m expecting to gain a few pounds. After breakfast we took a boat out to an island for $8 each.

The island was really cool. I snorkeled for my first time and saw a bunch of exotic fishies. We also hiked to the top of the island, the view was spectacular.

The native tribes on the island will attack you if you're not careful...

After playing on the island for a few hours, we took a boat back and lounged around on the beach with all the rich white gringos staying in their all-inclusive beach side hotels. We were all pretty tired and bonking so we took a bus back to El Centro, where we were staying and made some killer burritos, then took about a 2-3 hour nap. After that we went for some shopping and internet and found some of the best street tacos yet. We’re heading out on the town again tonight… I think there should be a lot of people out this time.

Day 9 - 12/27

Last night was a lot of fun.

We started out at La Botera, the top strip club in town. We didn’t stay there long and caught a taxi to Oscars Bar.

Bang, Bang!!

Oscars was fun, there were a lot of people dancing, and there weren’t too many gringos.

Grinch and Rolf managed to get kicked out on separate occasions. I left with Rolf and we walked about 3 miles back to our hotel… ouch. I finally got to bed at 4:30 am. Jung stayed out, he was getting’ lucky with a local.

Today we had to decide how and where we were going to spend the rest of our trip. We went to the bus station and decided to take to 20 hour bus ride to Larzaro Cadenas which is pretty far south of Puerto Vallarta.

Taking up a parking spot at the bus station.

Our new plan is to ride north to Puerto Vallarta to catch our flight in time, and we’ll try to make to Manzanillo for new years.

Day 11 – 12/29

I’m 17 hours into the 20 hour bus ride. It went by pretty quickly. I slept (like shit) through the night, but froze my ass off. I’ll have to remember to bring warm clothes or my sleeping bag on the bus next time. Looking out the window there are a lot of banana and coconut groves.

We stopped at one of the best restuaraunts of the whole trip during the bus ride...

Hooray for coffee!!

The Bus ride ended up lasting about 23 hours. The ride was rough; I froze my ass off the entire time until 3pm when we finally got off. When we arrived in Larzaro Cardenas we quickly got onto the bikes and started pedaling. Our plan was to make it Playa Azul to camp for the night. We ended up stopping along the way to do laundry. It took us a while to convince them to do our laundry for the next day so we had to ride the final 5 km in the dark. We rode straight to the beach where there were a lot of people. We tried to find a place to camp that was secluded. WE finally found a spot and set up. WE did the usual swim in the ocean (which is pretty crazy at night), make a fire, and eat burritos.

Fuego, Fuego!!!

We all crashed out pretty early just to be woken up an hour or two later by a couple of guys with some big guns (I think they were AK-47s). Rolf was the first one to wake up, and greeted then as any typical Gringo with bad Spanish would “Hola. ?Como Estas?” (Hi. How are you? - informal). The scary men ended up being police and they told us that we should move somewhere more hidden because there were a lot of bad people in the area. After the cops left, we all got up and scouted the place out for a “really hidden” spot to camp. We finally found it, put our tents back up and passed out.

Day 12

We got to do some amazing riding today. We rode north on very beautiful roads, with the jungle to right and the ocean to our left.

The terrain was a lot hillier and tended to become hillier as we continued north. We ended the day at around 60 miles where we found a beautiful virgin beach.

We set up camp and hung up our wet clothes...

We swam...

made a fire...

and ate burritos…

then hit the sack.

Day 13

Today was a long 35 miles for everyone.

However, the riding was amazing...

We made it to Marujata and nobody wanted to leave.

We decided to stay here for the night, and tomorrow night for New Years Eve. This place is incredibly beautiful. By far the prettiest beach I’ve seen yet.

Pushing bikes through the sand is hard work...

Unfortunately I came down with a cold, so I feel like complete shit right now, which is a major bummer.

Day 14 – New Years Eve

Sick, on the beautiful beaches of Marujata. I think I’m going to do absolutely nothing today. I want to get rid of this cold quickly.

On a lighter note, there was a scorpian crawling over my tent today...

Day 15 – New Years Day 1/1/07

I spent all New Years eve with a horrible headache and sick, barely able to move. I went to bed at nine on New Years Eve… lame. But, I need to get better quick so I can make it back to Puerto Vallarta and not hold any of these other guys back.

We put in a big day today. I was still sick, but feeling way better, and the other guys were all tired and hung over, so that kinda evened it out a little. We ended up pushing to Tecoman (about 105km).

Found a cool bone along the way...

We stopped for ice cream bars, which soon became our favorite ride food to eat along the way. I think this girl wanted to marry Grinch... it must be the blue eyes...

While we were getting ice cream we met one of the local hardcores...

we invited him to put in some kilometers with us...

We decided to get a hotel room because we’d been camping for days and could all use a shower, bed and a good night sleep.

Day 16

We all slept great in the hotel so today we were all feeling strong and ambitious. We had a huge Huevos breakfast and hit the road. We rode another 120 km today and rolled through some beautiful towns.

Oops, we're just stupid Americans... we can't read spanish... our bad...

Manzanillo was one of the towns we passed...

We finally stopped in one of the best towns yet, Barra Navidad. Unfortunately we’re strapped for time so we don’t get to stay here long. I was able to spend a few hours at night checking out the local scene… I like this place a lot; it’s very unique compared to many of the other towns we’ve been to so far.

We set up camp on the beach yet again...

Day 17

Going big on breakfast again… it’s starting to become routine. The food here is so great though, you get tons of amazing food for $3-5 (lots of eggs, beans rice, coffee, fresh squeezed OJ… yummy).

Riding today started very slow. Ryan felt like shit, wasn’t sure if he was going to make it, Jung flatted, and other random stops were occurring…

It seemed like we weren’t moving anywhere. Everyone started becoming more motivated and we were able to set a steadier pace. At about 70 clicks, we had the option of sleeping there on the beach, and making it to P.V. in 2 more days (leaving us with very little time to get boxes and pack for our return flight), or we could continue pushing for a couple more hours so that we could roll into P.V. tomorrow night. After much deliberating and motivational speaking, we decided to keep going. We almost ended up sleeping in a mango grove again, but instead, we slept next to one. This wasn’t too bad of a campsite, except we saw multiple scorpions crawling around after we began setting up.

We took the risk of being spotted and built a campfire. This turned out to be very advantageous for us though because as we were sitting and eating the standard beans and tuna burritos, a farmer rolled up in his pickup truck and greeted us with two freshly vine ripened papayas that he had just picked. I think that it could have been the best tasting fruit I’ve ever had. It was a pretty entertaining night… constant laughter. We went to bed pretty early, as usual when camping. I couldn’t fall asleep for a long time… my mind was racing… thinking about my life and what I’m going to do when I get back. I was also thinking about how important this trip was for me to take. It reminded how important it is to live by the popular phrase which is thrown around so much, “step outside the box”. I only have one life to live, so I should never let petty excuses hold me back from experiencing something new. This trip was definitely me “stepping outside the box”. I have experienced so many new things on this trip, and I’m a whole lot wiser now because of it.

Day 18 – 1/4/07

Today was another long epic day, we spent about 12 hours chamiosed. It felt like we just rode endlessly.

As usual, there were plenty of stops...

The terrain was beautiful, as usual, and continually changed. The final 30 km was a long climb and a long decent. We stopped at the top of the climb at a restaurant for food… everyone was completely wasted from the long day.

Jung tried to fix a broken spoke, but all his spokes were too long...

At one point, Jung just couldn't handle anymore and collapsed on the side of the road...
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We continued on and stopped at Chico’s Paradise which is a tourist attraction restaurant, mainly for Gringos.

Behind the restaurant are some beautiful waterfalls and cliffs to jump off. We did some cliff jumping...

and then continued pedaling onward. In the last few kilometers before hitting Puerto Vallarta we bumped into this guy who had been touring for 6.5 months on a 200 lb. tandem filming a documentary. He’s riding a tandem because he is picking up random people as he moves along. His website is takeaseat.org.

After talking with him, we hammered and made it to P.V. just as the sun set. WOOHOO, WE MADE IT!!!

Day 19 - 1/5/07

All of us passed out early last night; we were all totally spent from the long day. This morning we woke up and headed over to the local grocer and loaded up on pastries… these have become a staple of my diet since I’ve come down here… I never eat this kind of shit in the states. After eating, we rode though horrendous traffic in P.V. for about a half hour in search of boxes. We found some good ones for me at Wal-Mart and continued to where everyone else’s boxes were stashed. When we got to place where Jung had stashed them, all were gone except Jung’s and had been used as the homeless peoples new homes. This led to about 3 hours of riding around town finding refrigerator and TV boxes and finding a good place to hide them near the airport.
Jung gave some kids a ride in his BOB...

After that we all passed out for a nap. I’ve been eating all day, can’t seem to quench the hunger.

Day 20 – 1/6/07 - The final day

Last night we walked around looking for dinner and the best street tacos yet, we all had about 5-8 each. These were made with pork, which was a little different than the typical steak tacos that we usually get.

We then pre-gamed in the room...

After wards we headed out to the clubs.

There were quite a few Gringos out this time, and lots of Gringo music… the drinks were super expensive too. I ordered a beer, and the bartender gave me two and asked for 90 pesos (9 dollars). She said it was 2 for one night, but who the hell pays 9 bucks for a beer. I stopped buying drinks after that. I went home at about 2:30, Jung and Rolf stayed out, and I guess Jung took the grenade for Rolf. This morning I felt like I was the first to wake up and had to rip everyone out of bed… Jung took the longest, about 45 minutes. We then ate breakfast at the restaurant next door. I ordered one of my favorites; Huevos con Chorizo, and 2 coffees… I was going to need those today. The day became more hectic as it went on, with packing our stuff, riding through crazy traffic for 45 minutes to our box hiding place, and carrying all of boxes to the airport strapped to the BOBs. At the airport we boxed everything up and checked in. We all got charged $50 for our bikes. I finally got everything checked in and can relax.

The trip was a huge success. We essentially rode from Larzaro Cardenas to Mazatlan which was around 750 miles. I stayed at an incredibly beautiful beach almost every night. And, I lived in a culture that is similar in many ways to the US, but there are so many amazing things about Mexico and its people that I would never had experienced or learned without seeing it the way I did. Bike touring allowed me to see and experience the culture and the landscape better than any other way. I think I’ve caught the bike touring bug too. I’m already thinking about the next place too explore.

Exciting News!!!!

2006-12-13T10:20:00.000-07:00

No, I didn't just sign with discovery, and no, I didn't propose to Alex. But, I DID just buy a plane ticket to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico and will be down there for about 2.5 weeks touring on my bike. I'm leaving next Tuesday (Dec. 19) and coming back Jan 6. I'm incredibly stoked, it should be quite an adventure. I'm going with Jung, Grinch, and Rolf. I'll be carrying all of my gear in a BOB trailer and we'll be camping most nights with the occational hotel stay, especially in the bigger cities. We haven't decided on a route yet, but I think we'll probably end up riding up the coast to Mazatlan. From there, I have no clue.

Grinch and Jung (Dirty Sanchez). I'll be rolling around Mexico with these two (and Rolf, not in picture)

I'll also be a college graduate (finally) at 10:00 pm sat. night when my last final ends. Oh boy.... I wonder what it'll be like out there in the real world... Well, I gotta get back to the studying... I have two finals on saturday, and I've got alot of time to put in if I want to do well. No riding for me this week... I'm gonna be blown out by satuday night, but then its over!

On another note: Sager, Cale, and Jimi... I can't believe what happened to you guys, USA Cycling definitly has their head up their ass on this one. Banning guys who are obviously clean, and likely letting many of the real dopers slip through their fingers. They need to develop a better system for punishing the cheaters instead of the innocent guys who are just out there because they love racing thier bikes. I'm sorry that you guys have to go through this bullshit. How unfair!

Nothin' much

2006-11-13T13:27:00.000-07:00

Hmmmm.... what is going on with me lately.... I have not been doing a whole lot... nothing exciting at least. I've been busy as hell with school... it's just non-stop... and with o-chem you can never study enough, there's alway more to do in preparation for the exam that you start studying for about 2 weeks in adavance.

I've been spending a lot of time with my new puppy too, Ali and I have started obedience courses at the humane society, and that's a lot of fun. It's an obedience course for new puppy owners, so our puppy gets to play with a bunch of other puppies.... awwwwwww shucks, it's just the cutest thing ever.

I've been doing a lot of trail running and hitting the weightroom, since I'm still unable to ride outdoors due to my shoulder surgery. I've ridden indoors a few times, but you know how that is.... I'm just trying to stay as active as possible.

Next week is Thanksgiving break, and I've got the whole week off, so Ali and I are driving up to Mineesota, our home state, to visit the families, mainly hers since mine lives in Oregon now. I'm really looking forward to seeng all my highschool friends that I barely ever get to see. Hope fully it snows a ton too so that I can bust out the XC skis and skate around on all my old training grounds.

I'm bummed I couldn't make it to Moab this year for B-mans B-day ride, but I gotta follow the doc's orders and stay off my arm for a while. Anyways, the white rim isn't going anywhere. I'm still excited to hear stories.... anyone wander off into desert this year?

Doggy-style

2006-10-27T12:42:00.000-06:00

This past week has been tough. I got surgery on Tuesday of last week (Oct. 17), which took a lot out of me. I was pretty doped up for a couple days after the surgery on oxycodeine (percocet), which really sucked, I didn't like the stuff at all. I felt absolutely worthless when I was on it and couldn't accomplish anything when there a lot to be accomplished. The next day after surgery, my girlfriend and I decided to drive out to Nebraska to see a Shiba Inu dog breeder. This is a breed that we've been talking about getting for a while now, and we finally found a good breeder that wasn't too far away. So, we ended up getting a 3 month old puppy, who we named Mika (The New Moon in Japanese).

I'm really happy with the decision to get a dog, she's awesome, and probably the cutest puppy I've ever seen. Other than that, all I've been doing is cramming for the O-chem exam that I took last night, memorizing mechanisms, for about a week straight. I didn't get out much this week... kind of a bummer. It's been snowing a lot for this time of the year though, so me and my honey were able to get out for a little xc skiing in North Boulder Park last weekend, even though I was only 4 days post-op and still in a sling. Ali and I gearing up for some Nor-dorkin'!

Tonight, I think I'll reemerse myself into the social network and attend the annual post-collegiate nats party. Unfortunatly, this year I don't have a national title to celebrate, but it'd probably still be a good idea to keep the champagne away from me, or run if you see any in my hands. Oh yeah, it's also the first night of Halloween partying, so I'll be rocking a costume!

Happy Halloween!

Under the Knife

2006-10-13T12:30:00.000-06:00

All the fun I was having ended abruptly on the 10:10 ned ride I spoke about in my last blog entry.

I was ripping down the "Elk Poop" trail when I hit a loose rock that caused my 2-year old blown out noodley SID to go out of control, catapulting me towrds the ground, landing directly on the back of my bad shoulder (one that I've had surgery on once before). It completey dislocated and was out for about five minutes before I was able to put it back in by laying on my back and pushing it with my other arm. It's been about a week and a half since it happend and it's still really sore, stiff and unstable. In a few days, however, It's going to be in a sling and completely immobile. I'm getting surgery on Tuesday. I've been through this once before so I know how the entire reocvery/rehab process goes. It shouldn't be too bad, and I don't think it'll hurt my fitness too much. The benefits of having a solid shoulder are going to heavily outwiegh the disadvantages of missing a week or two of aerobic activity and living with a weak shoulder. I think I should be able to be on the trainer in a week though, which will mainly be used for maintianing some sanity. Since my accident, I've been riding the road bike a ton, and riding pretty hard... I might even go so far as to say that I've been training. the reason for this is that I know I'm going to lose some fitness after the surgery, so I'm trying to increase my fitness a little bit, or at least enter surgery at a high level of fitness to minimize my losses due to detraining.

Since the crash, The Cat and I have been playing and eating grass together. YUM!

Meow

Alright, enough about that, I've also been super busy in school lately. O-chem is getting harder all the time. I'm already volunteering about 4 hours a week at the PT clinic on campus, but I'm going to start voluteering at one or two other places around town to pick up some more hours. I'm also still without a team for next year. I haven't really been pursuing this too much lately, mainly becasue I've been strapped with school, but I'm going to put a bigger effort into that soon. I do have one potential team to ride for that I've been talking too, and I'm really hoping that one will work out, I'm crossing my fingers. My girlfriend, Alex, has been waiting for the last two months for her MCAT scores, and they're suposed to be available today... so I've also got my fingers crossed for her.

Too busy having fun

2006-09-30T22:22:00.000-06:00

Oh, If only I could blog while riding. Once I start pedaling, my mind starts racing… thinking about everything. This week was pretty rough; I had three exams on Thursday. So for about four days leading up to the exam, I studied… and didn’t do much else. It felt great to be done though… not that I’m ever really done… I’ve still got plenty more on my plate.

Yesterday the Grinch and I ran (hammered) up to the Royal arch at Chetaqua.

My legs kinda hurt today, so I decided to go ride up sunshine canyon through Gold Hill to the peak to peak, over to Ward, down Left Hand canyon, and up over Lee Hill. I was hammering for most of the ride; I just can’t ride easy anymore... riding easy is just boring.

The leaves are absolutely beautiful right now! If you haven’t been up there yet, get into the mountains before its too late, this shit only lasts for a few weeks, and it’ll be over soon. The leaves in Boulder are starting to peak too, so getting up to high vantage point to overlook the town, is pretty damn sweet too… I highly recommend doing that too.

My Girlfriend is in Portland for a few days for her friend’s wedding. Miss you baby.

Tomorrow I’m catching the 10:10 to Ned. Hope it’s epic (but not too epic). Last weekend, Grinch and I went up there and got totally lost… surrounded by Gross Reservoir… w/out enough food and water. The ride ended up being a little over six hours… not what I intended on doing. We did find a bunch of new trails though, so I’d say it was worth it.

I felt like having a White Russian tonight, but I didn’t have any Kalaua. So, I mixed vodka with milk (1:1), and added a little sugar, vanilla extract, and Ice… it was pretty darn good.

Oh yeah, I went to the Boulder cyclocross race at the research park today (to watch), and decided that I really want to do that. I need to get a cross bike though…. I will have cross bike, oh yes, it will be mine.

Dusting off the camera

2006-09-21T19:56:00.000-06:00

Here are some pictures to stuff I've been up to lately.

This is the podium of the Global 24 hour race that I teamed up with Trek for. Yup, that's me wearing a Trek jersey. Kona got second, and gave us a battle, when we were originally expecting to have an easy race on hands... It forced us to actually race our bikes... which was good... it made it way more fun.

Had to celebrate with some tequila shots... out of plastic cups!!

After too much sex, drugs, rock and roll and inactivity, Ali and I decided to head up into the mountains to try climb a peak. We got way to late of a start to sumjit anything. It was super windy and cold immedietly after we made it above timber line, so we got as high as we could until are fingers and toes were complelty umb and then ran back down to the shelter of the tres a quickly as possible.

I think this is abou the highest point before we turned around. Pretty, huh?

Updating the blog

2006-09-19T10:43:00.000-06:00

A month and a half has passed w/out blogging.... sooo sorry. No, really I am. Well if I wrote about everything I've done in that time, it'd take me all day. So I'll just try to summerize really quick (in 10 minutes) before my next class starts. Well that reminds me of one thing that's happened. School started, Ochem is hard, and my otherclasses are okay. is that too vague? I've done a hell of a lot of MTBing, some racing, and most recently I teamed up with Trek/VW to do the Global 24 hour race again up in Granby, CO. We won, and took home a nice paycheck and some good hard memories. My Girlfriend moved in with me, and it's going amazingly well so far. We have the occasional spats, but we're pretty good at straighting that crap out. For the most part, everything is going peachy, except I'm super stressed because of school and lots of other things. Especially what the hell I'm going to do next season. Fro the past severl years, I've always had some sort of plan for the comiing year (always racing on a team). But this coming year, after much soul-searching, my focus is shifiting. So I'm trying to come up with some sort of plan for my future... that doesn't put cycling as the number one priority. Right now, I'm seriuosly considering going into physical therapy, chiropractic, or osteopathic school. But I still want cycling to to be a main focus of my life, I just don't think I will have the ultimate goal of becoming a cycling God anymore. I still plan to race very competitive next year, and wil still be on the sponsor/team search too. But, I'll be racing mainly MTB, and just a little road. Well, I'd love to expand on this topic a bit more in depth, but I gotta go to class!!

MTBing and Boulder

2006-08-01T08:00:00.000-06:00

Ahhhhhhhh, cool, crisp early morning Boulder mountain air. It's so nice to finally be waking up here again. I've been here for almost a week now. However, it's still not totally permanent, I can't move into my new place until Aug. 7, and I'll be heading down to Durango today to pick up my car (Crawdad's been storing it for the season for me). Since I've been here, I've been riding my mountain bike everyday exploring new trails and trying to make every ride into an epic. I had to take yesterday off though, because I was just riding too much... it's hard to miss a day though, it's just too much fun. I was a little afraid that I would completely suck at riding my MTB after not riding it for about eight months, but after my third ride, I felt fully comfortable again and was shredding the trails as fast and as confident as ever. I'm really excited to be in D-town for the next few days to really hone my tech skills on some of my favorite trails. I think I'll start out with the Gulch, then I think I'll probably do an epic of some sort (either cascade creek or Kennebec pass), and then probably another epic. I think I'll probably be pretty shot after those; I'll probably head back to Boulder.

My team did great at Toona with Frank Pipp winning a stage and taking 7th in GC! Shriver also had a good ride just cracking the top 20 in GC. It was hard for me to check results and not be there. The team heads into what is being called "crit season", which is kinda funny to me because it seems like this entire season has been mainly crits. But I guess there are a couple of big money crits with purses around $125,000, so there's a lot on the line... and then there's the US Pro Crit. I'm glad Frank is riding so well, I think he's got a good shot at raking in some cash. It'd be nice to be out there with the team to help our sprinters do well, but I've got to start school here soon, so my racing season is pretty much over.

Anyway, that's all I have time for today, I have to finish getting ready to go to Durango. I'm sorry about the lack of posts lately... I'm not even sure if anyone checks this blog any more since I've been so slow at updating. I'll try to get back on the blogging program though. Thanks for still checking it.

Crashed Out

2006-07-17T13:34:00.000-06:00

I should be in Bend, OR right now, but I'm back in Portland. I was forced to abandon the Cascade Classic at about 10 km from the finish of Friday's stage. I crashed at around 35 mph and landed on a fery unforgiving road surface that took some large core samples out of my knee and elbow. I had to get my knee stitched up, and now I'm not able to bend my knee much or ride for about a week. The timing is pretty bad since the Tour de Toona starts in about a week. I probably won't be able to ride in this race now, so I think I'll end up just heading back to Boulder.

I'm already feeling really antsy from being inactive for a couple days... injury sucks. The weather in Portand is beautiful right now, so I've been trying to spend as much time outside side as possible. Yesterday, My girlfriend Alex and I spent the entire day at the park. She studied for the MCAT and I finished reading Miracle in the Andes, which was really good.

Short update

2006-07-04T08:52:00.000-06:00

Raced Fitchburg, watching the Tour, flying to Portland today.

Done.

Rainy Days

2006-06-27T15:28:00.000-06:00

Well, now I know why Wes bought the XBOX. This last weekend, the team left Matt and I the house to ourselves while they went to do the Rochester Crit and another Crit on Sunday. No TV or internet, usually easy sources of entertainment, left us scratching our heads to find other ways to keep from going nuts. It rained the entire day, which didn’t help at all. We still managed to get out and ride for a solid two hours in the pouring rain. That wasn’t that bad actually; it doesn’t get cold here when it rains like it does in Colorado.

Matt and I kept ourselves entertained by driving to Norwalk and shopping the local Wally-world. That place was a madhouse, every corner you turn, someone would be there with there shopping cart, oblivious to your presence, completely prepared to slam it into your shins. After Matt and I finished shopping, we were both cracked and bonked we drove home and watched Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark. We’ve got the entire trilogy here; I’m sure I watch the next two movies soon.

The riding here is pretty damn sweet. I still miss the long climbs of Colorado, but there is definitely no shortage of hard climbs here… most of the time you’re either going up or down, and when you’re riding with Frank, you’re punching it up every single climb.

Yesterday I did a V02max test, and I had some pretty high numbers. I was obviously a little worried before the test that I would score low numbers and have it mess with my head. But, I was higher than I expected, so that’s great for my confidence going into Fitzburg.

In less than a week I’ll be flying back out to Portland to see my lovely girlfriend. I’ll be spending a little over two weeks out there and will also be racing the Cascade classic. My team’s not doing it, so I’ll be racing solo. It looks like a good race for me, so I’m looking forward to it.

Ya sure, Minnesota, don't ya know

2006-06-22T09:33:00.000-06:00

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.

Philly week is over!!

2006-06-12T09:29:00.000-06:00

These have been the hardest races of the year by far. Ever since my crash at CSC, I haven’t been feeling 100%, so that just made these races even more demanding. Reading, PA was the second race of the Triple Crown series in Philly, and it was my first race back after crashing at CSC. During the race, I was constantly thinking about crashing again, which is possibly the worst thing to have in your head when you’re racing road, so I was pretty timid most of the race. My lack of aggression put me a little too far back in the field on the last lap when I should have been fighting to stay at the front. Because of this, I was back with some of the weaker riders that were opening gaps when the pace was lifted. I wasn’t able to close the gap, so I just rode in with a chase group.

The final race in Philly was amazing. I couldn’t believe what a huge production it was. Coming from a mountain bike background, where the only spectators are either your friends who race in a different category, your girlfriend, or your parents, the amount of spectators at Philly completely blew me away. Climbing up Manyuk almost made you deaf from the loud screaming drunken fans. Dustin made the early break, which took a lot of pressure off our team and made the pace chill out for a while. I abandoned the race about halfway through due to a flat and the slowest wheel change ever at the bottom of Manyuk. The guy who changed my wheel either mangled my rear derailleur while he was violently trying to force the new wheel into my dropouts, or simply the cassette that was on the new wheel just wasn’t compatible with my components, because the shifting was way off. Just about every gear skipped, sending my knees into the handlebars a few times while ascending the Manyuk wall. Dustin small breakaway group stayed away for most of the race. With Dustin being the strongest climber in the group, he won almost every KOM point of the entire race, and in the end was the KOM winner. Frank Pipp was our best finisher in 14th place.

Tomorrow I’ll be flying up to Minnesota to the Nature Valley Grand Prix. I’m looking forward to this race. After a pretty shaky week at Philly, I think that my body and mind will be a little more relaxed at Nature Valley and I predict I’ll feel a lot better. I’m also really excited to see all my friends that I grew up with… I haven’t seen any of them in a few years. My girlfriend is also coming up there, so I’ll get to spend some time with her and meet her folks.

Today, my teammates and I are without bikes, so we’re forced to find other things to do with our time. Well, Guptil and I have been online for about the last three hours, which is nothing new for most pro cyclists… I wonder what pro cyclists did to kill time before wireless internet? We’ll probably go check out a matinee movie later… you gotta love rest days.

Crash and Burn

2006-06-04T09:37:00.000-06:00

After seeing so many crashes this year at just about every race, I knew that it was inevitable that my time would eventually come. My team has already lost a couple riders this year from crashes which have thinned our team down to only 9 available riders going into Philly. My form has been pretty decent lately, so I ended up being slated on the rosters for every race leading up to and during Philly week.

Yesterday was the CSC Invitational crit, which was a race that I was originally going to sit out. I started the race feeling a little fried from all the traveling and racing we've been doing, along with two nights in a row of bad sleep. I felt ok in the race, but probably the worst that I've felt since I've been out here. The race was extremely fast from the gun. I started in the very back once again, so it took me a few laps to get near the front. I rode somewhere in the top third of the field for the whole time I was in the race, but found it extremely difficult to move up since the field was totally strung out for about 90% of the race. The pace let up enough only a few times to move up to the front. At some point in the middle of the race around the final corner (corner 5) the field was pushed a little to far to the outside which caused a rider about four guys up from me to slam into the barriers. My teammate Wes slammed into him, blowing his bike to pieces; I was then pushed into the barriers. It happened so fast that I don't exactly remember how it happened, but I went face first into the barrier and put a deep gash in my chin, that's now got 18 stitches in it, and I also chipped my tooth.

I got to spend the next few hours in the hospital, mostly in the waiting room, in the company of all the other cyclists that went down in the multitude of crashes. For a flat crit, with only five corners, I can't believe how sketchy it was (especially corner five and the metal barriers!!). Even more unbelievable, only 25 guys finished from the original 150 that started! I pretty glad to be done with crits for a while, and doing road races and stages races instead. Other than my messed up face, the rest of me is ok, just slightly sore.

Wes and I made it up to Lancaster that night, and the neighbors of our host family were having a big ol' BBQ. We were over there immediately after stepping out of the car eating burgers and cookies, drinking some brews and mingling with the locals.

Wes's competitive side came out in full force when he took on a bunch of eight-year olds in tug-of-war... they kicked his ass.

I'm going to sit out Lancaster today and rest up all week so that I'm fresh for Reading on Thursday, and Philly on Saturday. I'm a little bummed that I'll miss it, but I think it's for the best.

On the East Coast

2006-06-02T06:34:00.000-06:00

I've been out on the east coast for only a week now and I'm about to hop in the team van again to drive to my fourth home in Arlington, VA. Travelling has been a major theme of the last week. It started out on a really bad note with me and teamates flight from Farmington, NM to Philly.... I'm not going to explain what happened, all I'll say is that it sucked. We started racing immedieatly the next day with BikeJam in Baltimore, MD. This was a fun crit in a park in the ghetto. The whole team rode strong and Alejandro took 3rd. A couple days later we raced the Tour of Somerville in Somerville, NJ. This was by far the hottest I've ever been in a bike race. I was feeling heatstroke overwhelming me as the race went on... I had the chills, goosebumbs, and felt like I was going to pass out and hurl for much of the race. After this race the we went to our new team house, that we won't be living in for a few weeks, in Westport, CT. This is a beautiful area. I think every house has got to be worth over a million.

Right now I'm in Richmond, VA for the CAPTECH Classic crit that I raced last night. That was probably the hardest crit of the year, or maybe second hardest next to the Joe Martin Crit. We had to do fifty laps and each lap had a big climb and some fast downhill corners, and it was at night. I felt great on the climb, but I sucked on the corners and kept letting gaps open which would cause me to chase hard every lap to close them down. Only about 30 guys finished, and I wasn't one of them. However, I stuck it out longer than most of the field (about 3/4 of the race), and felt good.... I just need to figure out how to corner faster.

It looks like I'll be doing all three Philly races now, which I'm really excited about. Lancaster is the first of three and starts on Sunday. My form is pretty good right now, and I think it'll keep getting better as the season rolls on. The rest of the team seems to be riding well too, so hopefully we'll be able to pull off some good results in these upcoming races.

D-town

2006-05-22T08:42:00.000-06:00

For the last week I've been kicking it in Durango at my Teammate Andy Guptil's house. Durango is beautiful right now, it's incredibly green, and the weather's been great. It took me a while to feel recovered from the Joe Martin Stage Race. I think racing at sea level, and then coming to a high elevevtion adds a day or two onto your recovery time. I ended up spending the first half of the week resting. Thursday I finally felt ready to open the legs up again so I did about 25 minutes of LT up to the top of Coal Bank Pass, which is around 10,500 feet. It's crazy how much harder it is to do intensity up there. Later that night I went down to Pagosa and soaked in the hot springs. That was great for the legs.

I didn't hit the training again until this weekend when Guptil, Shriver, Phil Zijack and I decided to ride from Durango to Silverton and back both saturday and Sunday. We were about five miles short of Silverton on Saturday due to some bad weather rolling in, but we made it on Sunday. Both days had around 10,000 feet of climbing, were just shy of 100 miles, and much of the ride was above 9,000 feet. We held a steady tempo the entire ride, so by the end we were all feeling pretty worked. Guptil had a BBQ at his place sunday night, so to top off a perfect weekend, I grilled up a fat half-pound elk burger with sautied onions and mushrooms, avacado, cheese, lettuce, tomato, and plenty of ketchup. Yum.

Me, Phil, and Andy restocking the fuel supplies at Needles Store.

We met up with some Locals at the top of Molas Pass at 10,900 feet

Sweet Home Arkansas

2006-05-15T22:15:00.000-06:00

Since I haven’t posted in over a week, this post is going to be way too long. I’m writing it while sitting in the passenger seat while Guptil is taking a pull at the wheel on our Drive back from Fayetteville, Arkansas. So fill up you coffee cup with some bean juice or some yerba mate because this one’ll take while.

The last time I blogged, I was in the middle of the Tour de Gila preparing to race stage four, the crit, with thoughts of stage five rattling around in the back of my mind. I felt great in the crit, so I decided to try to get into a break. I tried to a couple of times; my first attempt was when I saw Mike Dietrich from Sierra-Nevada go up the road. I jumped on that but it didn’t stick. I made another attempt when Jon Tarkinton from Vitamin Cottage attacked; I knew that was a good wheel to follow due to his recent dominance in the Front Range races and reputation as a strong crit tactician. We were able to escape from the group with a couple of TIAA-Cref guys and a couple Successful Living guys. It was good to be up in the break, and I really wanted it to stick so I was driving it probably a bit too hard. The Cref and Successful Living guys were barely taking any pulls, which was a little frustrating. We were out there for most of the race and caught with about eight laps to go. Rashaan Bahati from Cref took the W from Gord who celebrated a little too early.

Before and after the race I got together with the infamous Dr. Frank, the chiropractor of the best pros in Durango. He’s becoming widely known in the world for his research and development of SRA (Spinal Reflex Analysis). The technique that he’s developed is amazing. After the crit, my body was worked, but after Dr. Frank worked on me, I felt like I hadn’t even raced at all. Check his website at http://www.spinalreflex.com/.

The final stage of the Gila was epic. We had about four major climbs to total about 10,000 feet of climbing in about 100 miles. Coming into the first climb, the field had about 100 guys in it. By the time we got over the top the field had already thinned down to about 40 guys. The second climb was the same road, only the other direction and slightly steeper. Once again this split the field in half and only about 20 of us were left. There was one more long and steep climb and this caused about five more guys to pop. We were about 80 miles into the race by this point and the legs were really screaming. I made it over this climb with the lead group, but I finally cracked with about 8 miles to go on the final rollers to the finish. I still managed a decent result and moved way up in GC. Our team made out really well with Colby taking 4th, Guptil 14th, and me in 18th in GC.

After Gila, I spent a couple days in Durango unwinding, then made the 15 hour journey out to Arkansas, my birthplace. We had a solid team at the Joe Martin stage race. It was great to see my teammates, mechanic, and director again. I got to experience having a suanier for the first time, which made recovery so much better. You can’t beat gettin’ a massage after every stage. And Janis made a mean PB and banana sandwich.

The racing in Arkansas was actually pretty damn hard. I don’t know what the promoter was thinking, but he decided to combine the Pros and 1s with 2s, which made for a field of about 215 guys… Way too big! So riding near the front was really important, to avoid gaps and crashes. The pace wasn’t too hard until the one major climb of the course. Unfortunately for me, I was taken out in a crash at the base of the climb when the two guys in front of me locked bars. By the time I got up and on the spare bike I had lost too much time and wasn’t able to catch back up by the top of the climb. At that point, there was no way I was going to be able to catch the group on my own. I caught a small chase group, and then was swept up by a large chase group. I was pretty frustrated with the group because no one was willing to work, and the group was large enough that we could’ve possibly caught up if everyone would’ve taken pulls. So I lost a lot of time in the first stage, which knocked me way out of GC.

The next day was a double day; road race in the morning and TT in the evening. The road race felt little harder then the previous day, but maybe that was just because my legs were just a little more trashed. The TT went alright, but I felt like I could’ve gone a lot harder. The Crit was the final day, and was the hardest crit I’ve ever done. It had a lot of high speed corners, wind, and a steep climb that absolutely punished the legs every lap.

The team ended up doing really well again with four of us in the top forty in GC, with Colby as the top rider in 5th.

I'm back on the road now returning to D-town for the next week and a half. The next block of races will start on the east coast with Captech, Bikejam, and Summerville leading into Philly week. Then I’m off to Minnesota for the Nature Valley Grand Prix, then back to east coast for the Saturn Rochester Crit, then Fitzburg stage race, then possibly Cascade. For the next week and a half I’m going to recharge the batteries a little in Durango and should be ready to hit all these races with good form.

Gila update

2006-05-06T10:36:00.000-06:00

Internet is hard to come by in these parts. I've mainly been poaching it, along with free continental breakfast from the other nearby hotels.

It's day four of the Gila, and the Crit is later today. The last few days have gone pretty good for our team, we're currently sitting in second in the team standings. I've been feeling pretty good everday so far. Tomorrow's the hardest day with the stage being 105 miles with about 10,000 feet of climbing, so the GC should get pretty shaken up.

Yesterday, our team suffered a major loss. Ryan Blickem crashed within the final kilometers and broke his femur. This morning my team and I went down to the hospital to give him some company and he was smiling and in high spirits. It looks like he'll have a lot of rehab ahead of him, but I'm sure that he'll get through it and return to 100% soon enough.

Back on the Road

2006-05-03T12:44:00.000-06:00

As usual, it's been a while since my last post. I've been back in Boulder for the last few weeks, and loving life. I'm completely addicted to Boulder; I love everything about the place. I stayed with one of my DH friends from Collegiate racing, and it was a killer situation. It was actually with her family, and her mom made some delicious dinners and desserts!!

Right now, I'm waiting around for the start of the TT at the Tour of the Gila. It's doesn't start until 4:30, so I just gotta chill all day. I've had a little bit of a sore throat for the last couple days, but I think it's just allergies... not gonna let it bother me. We've got a really good team out here, basically all of our climbers are here, which is fitting since this race has more climbing than probably any other stage race in the US. I'm finally feeling good on the climbs again, due to all the climbing I've been doing while in Boulder. To check out the race and results, the website is Tourofthegila.com. After Gila, I'll be doing the Joe Martin Stage Race, then possibly Tri-Peak, then off to the East Coast for a few weeks of racing. Yeah Baby
!!

Changes

2006-04-17T21:51:00.000-06:00

For the last week, my body has been slowly adapting to the altitude and training load that I’ve been serving it. The epic ride to Estes last weekend left me feeling tired for most of the week. It wasn’t until this weekend that I started feeling the me of old reemerging. Sunday was by far the highest quality day of training that I’ve had this season. I did a TT up Flagstaff, and then did another 30-40 minutes of LT up Four Mile Canyon and over to Sunshine Canyon. After that, I went home, took a nap and then went out and did a 5 pm Stazio Crit. Today, I’m definitely feeling pretty worked, but I expect more adaptation to occur, and I will continue to whack myself for another week in preparation for the Gila in a few weeks.

I’ve also been taking care of all the structural issues that have popped up this year while I’ve been in town. I saw my chiropractor, Dr. Reichlin (TIAA-Cref team Chiropractor, and chiropractor to many top pros), a couple times. He straightened me out and got my motor neurons firing again using a cold laser. I also went to get a bike fit today from Chris Soden at Pro Peloton. This guy is good; he fits a bunch of the top local pros. We made some pretty major changes to my bike and my cleats and found that my posture is horrible. So now I feel very strange on the bike. I hope to adapt to the new setup after a few rides. More than anything, getting the fit and talking to Chris was a huge reminder of how important stretching and a strong core are.

While I’ve been unable to find any sign of form this year, I can honestly say that since I’ve been back to boulder I feel stronger than I’ve been all season. Taking a break and getting some quality training in has screwed my head back on straight. I can clearly see my goals and objectives now, and have the knowledge and motivation to accomplish these. I know that I made a lot of rookie mistakes this year, and that if I would have had the knowledge and experience that I have now, I’d be a hell of a lot stronger right now. Unfortunately, that’s not how it works. My job now is to correct for all those mistakes I’ve made and try to cultivate my form to new heights while there’s still time. There’s still a lot of racing left this season, and I plan to be coming up soon. I also have this new experience and knowledge to carry with me into next season which will prove to be very useful.

Right now, my teammates are probably all feeling their nerves begin to set in as the first stage of the Tour of Georgia will begin tomorrow. Good luck guys!

Recharging

2006-04-10T22:25:00.000-06:00

I haven’t written on my blog for a while, and if you have the patience to read this long-ass post, you’ll kind of get an idea of why (that and the patchy internet access of the past few weeks). I was in Oregon for the last two weeks and I’m now back in Boulder- my home, my sanctuary, and my training grounds. I've had a turbulent start to my racing season. With a string of lackluster results, and a living situation that dissolved my accustomed access to privacy, reality, and life outside of cycling, I left Oxnard feeling lost and mildly depressed. However, I am very enthusiastic about my plans for the coming weeks that will bring me back to a high level of mental strength and happiness with my racing sure to follow.

One thing that I seem to lose sight of at some point in the season every year is that my main limiter is my mind. If I'm racing slowly, it’s because I’m mentally cooked. I’ve come to the realization, as I do every season at some time when I hit a low point, that I'm capable of racing at a very high level, but when I’m not fully mentally committed, I will perform suboptimally. Basically I need let my mind engage, to man-up, not be a pussy, and ride my ass off. That’s what I love to do, and I have to remember that. Sometimes, in order to remember this, I need to take a break. I think that when I or any athlete gets into a funk, we have a hard time reflecting on why, other than that there’s something physically wrong with us, which is a very negative thing to dwell on. Sometimes it’s important to step back from the bike for a period of time and submerse yourself in and around things, other than cycling, that make you happy. It’s this time away from cycling and competition that makes you realize how much it means to you, and how much its absence leaves a void in your person. I miss all the wonderful emotions that cycling and racing evokes and remember why it is so important to me, and how I can really tackle the rest of the season.

I went to stay with my parents in Grants Pass for a couple weeks. That was relaxing. My parents eat as healthy as even the most new age co-op shopping Boulderite, which is exactly my style. And it’s just nice to be with people who love you unconditionally. Yep, Oregon was a good break. A 180-degree change from racing and living in a house with 7 or more cyclists that gave me the break I needed to recharge my mental batteries.

Right now, I’m hungry to train and race again. I’ve been fantasizing about hammering up Flagstaff Road (I know, its sick) and trying to beat my record of 24:50. Yesterday I did an epic road ride up in the mountains with some good friends. It was one of those days where you feel like you could just keep going and never stop. I kind of acted on those feelings, because I was out for eight hours, and the ride time was about seven. Luckily, I still got home in time to make it to happy hour at the Mountain Sun and had my favorite post epic ride meal of beer and a Junk burger. I don’t think I could have been more satisfied.

My next big race will be the Tour de Gila so training in Boulder for the next few weeks couldn’t be more perfect to prepare me for the big climbs and the altitude that I’ll be up against. I’ll be back on form in time to do my job at Gila and ready to hammer the rest of the season.

Redlands Prologue

2006-03-24T21:12:00.000-07:00

Prologues are hard. The Prologue stage of Redlands was today... and the pH of my entire body felt like it hit an all time low. I started way too hard and by the time I got to the two walls before the finish, my muscles were fully saturated in lactic acid and unable to produce the kind of power and spark that they felt during my openers the day before. The last time I was in this great of oxygen debt was during the uphill bobsled TT at the Deer Valley Norba last year... I gotta learn how to pace myself better.

I'm not too worried about how I finished though... Sunday’s circuit will be the true test and GC will likely change quite a bit.

Anthony had far and away the best ride today coming in 12th, and I know he'll perform strong in the circuit.

Tomorrow is a 9 corner crit that's supposed to be really hard and fast. It doesn't start until 3:30, so I got a long day ahead of me.

For the second weekend in a row, the host housing is spectacular. The house is beautiful, huge, spacious, hot tub, swimming pool, two dogs, lots of TV’s, a huge pantry of food, you name it.

Feelin' Good, Feelin' Motivated

2006-03-22T20:56:00.000-07:00

Alright, last weekend, I wasn't feeling too hot. But after a few days of hard rest I'm feeling ready to push my body to the limits this weekend at the Redlands NRC. I did a couple openers today and felt good.

Redlands starts off with a slight uphill TT... but it looks like it'll favor more of a strong time trialist rather than a strong climber. On Saturday is a crit, and Sunday is supposed to be a hard road race. So far this year, the road races haven't been hard enough to create a selection. I'll try my hardest to make it into that final selection. This race looks like it suits me much more than everything else I've done this year, it should be fun.

The big news right now is that our team made it into the Tour of Georgia, the second largest stage race in the country. That's huge for us as only about half of the US Pro teams get invited. I really hope to be selected for the team that's going... it would be such an amazing experience for me. I think I'm going to have to prove that I should be there this weekend at Redlands.

A few teammates and I went to see V for Vendetta last night. Futuristic sci-fi with a 1984ish plot and some badass fight-scenes... I liked it.

Taking a break soon

2006-03-19T12:37:00.000-07:00

I'm in the town of Visalia, CA now awaiting the 3 o'clock start of the crit, gettin'/maintaining my buzz at one the local internet cafes. Yesterday my team and I raced a 30K TT. The course was pretty good... a decent hill at the beginning and end with a few rollers in between. I felt like total ass. As Coach Crawford would put it, my CNS is cooked... I need a break. I still have one race left next weekend, Redlands, so I plan on resting super hard all week in hopes of recharging my mind and body enough to ride with motivation and at the level of fitness that I should be at right now.

After three months of being on the road with the team, I came to the realization that it's time for a break. The day after Redlands I'll be flying up to Portland to see a friend of mine from High School, and then I'll head down to Grants Pass, OR to stay with my folks for about a week. Then I'm heading back to my home town Boulder, CO and will be there for possibly a few weeks.

In Oregon, I'll unwind... get my mind off racing and just relax. Once I get to Boulder, I'll wind it up again in hopes of being on top mental and physical form by the end of April. For me, Boulder is the absolute best training environment, and I think it'll be key in bringing me to high mental and physical levels again.

Back to the Beach

2006-03-14T20:14:00.000-07:00

I'm back in Oxnard and once again the house is packed. I'm shacked up again in the garage, which is fine with me, I actually like sleeping in there.

I finished out the weekend with a fun crit on Sunday in the Central Valley stage race. The course had a 180 degree turn on the same street... so each lap the entire field came to almost a complete stop, then it was a full on sprint once we made it around the turn. The field stayed pretty much strung out for the entire race, and the pace was high the whole time. It made it very hard to move up though. I finished in the pack, but I felt really good and comfortable during the race, I think I've got some form coming on, and with that a bit more confidence.

I'm hoping to do the San Dimas stage race this weekend, but I didn't register early enough before the race reached it's field limit. My team director is working on it, but I kinda doubt I'll get in. If not, I think there's some local races I might be able to do. Right now though, I just want to keep racing as much as possible.

Fresno baby!!

2006-03-11T17:32:00.000-07:00

Lots has happened since my last post… McLane last weekend… windy gutter-fest. I double flatted, so that ended my day.

Since then I’ve been in Fresno for the week where I’m currently racing the Central Valley Classic Stage race. There was originally supposed to be an epic hill climb TT similar to Flagstaff road in Boulder (a little longer) on Friday, but that got cancelled because of a big snowstorm that dumped all over the mountain. Instead we did a 16 mile flat TT. I didn’t post a good time, but Blickem, our TT superstar was eighth. Today was pretty miserable, 120 flat miles in 40 degree rainy weather. I finished. Tomorrow is the crit… hopefully it doesn’t’ rain… that could be a bit hairy.

My parents are coming to visit tonight and watch the crit tomorrow, and we’re gonna have a good ol’ family reunion with my grandma, aunt, and cousins who all live in Fresno.

That’s all I got time for today… no internet at house so I gotta go to the café and only have so much time to surf porn.

Lata!

McLane

2006-03-02T21:27:00.000-07:00

It's only a couple of days until the McLane Pacific crit and road race up in Merced, CA. This will be my first NRC of the season. I'm chomping at the bit right now... I need to race... no more training!! This race is supposed to be pretty flat and is known for being sketchy and finishing with a field sprint... not really my ideal race, but it's still a race, and the field will be packed with fast teams and riders.

Afterwards, my team will be having a team camp up in Fresno. The camp will lead up to the next NRC, Central Valley, which looks like it has an uphill TT. I hope to do well in this event... I have no idea how well I'm climbing right now... but I have a feeling I'll do okay. I'm slowly feeling some form come on lately sa I've been begining to do some real intensity in the last couple weeks.

Watching Enter the Dragon right now... Bruce Lee is one bad ass MoFo.

Tickling the VO2

2006-02-25T21:57:00.000-07:00

The Tour of California finished about forty miles from my house today, so Wes and I rode there to check it out. I'm finally starting to do some LT (hard) workouts. So on the way, I hammered up the Mulholland Hwy, one of the many canyons that splits off of the Pacific Coast Hwy. The finish of the race was in the town of Thousand Oaks at the Amgen headquarters. I was completely blown away by the number of spectators that showed up for the finish. There were hundreds. It kinda sucked, because I wasn't even able to see the race there were so many people in my way.

I didn't hang out at the race for very long and made my way back to the PCH so that I could hit up one more climb. While I've been living in California, I've been putting this climb off (Deer Creek Road) until I started LT... Today my time finally came. The climb was awesome, incredibly steep for about 12-15 minutes. I pinned it for about 10 minutes, tickling the VO2 a little, but that's all I had since I was around five hours into my ride... and I'm not too used to the lactic acid yet.

When I got to the top I took a picture of myself with the ocean in the background... I figure there's rarely a picture of me up here, so you can print it out and stick it to the ceiling above your bed... or put it in your garage and throw darts at it... it's up to you.

Tomorrow I'll be doing another local crit in Ontario (east LA). There's $1000 purse for pro 1/2, so hopefully I can get my hands on some of that.

It's supposed to rain on Monday and Tuesday... Bummer. I haven't seen rain in probably like 4 or 5 months... I'm actually a little excited, I hope it storms hard!

In my last post I was talking about old friends contacting me... well another friend of mine from Jr. High e-mailed me yesterday... Dan Wold!! Wow, that was a major surprise. I haven't spoken to him in like six or more years. He's actually the one who got me into mountain biking. He and I used to bomb our Trek 820s down some sick, crazy shit!! We beat the shit out of those things.

Daily Routine

2006-02-23T22:57:00.000-07:00

Well, since I’ve begun my pseudo road trip/adventure, my lifestyle has changed quite a bit. Yes, I love it, but it is so incredibly different than what I’m used to. My life before was a constantly busy… and I had multiple things (school, girlfriend, social life) in my life other than cycling that were close to equally as important. Now, I eat, sleep, breathe and live cycling… and there’s not a whole lot else but that. Typical day: wake up, drink water, coffee, shit, eat, chamois, ride, shower, eat, stretch/therapy, relax, bed. I’m still trying to adapt to this new lifestyle, but I gotta say, I think I kinda miss being stressed out all the time from school… it took my mind off all the other little stressors associated with racing.

I spoke to a friend of mine from high school the other day that I haven't heard from in a few years. Outa the blue she called me while I was at Valley of the Sun. I love it when old friends make contact after so many years… nostalgia’s a great feeling. We’ve been talking a bit still since then too on this new website I signed up for called myspace.com.

I haven’t spoken to my Boulder hommies in a while… hope all is well and it’s not snowing too much up there.

Everyone should be watching the Tour of California tonight and the next few nights on ESPN2. This is the biggest cycling event in the US that I remember ever occurring… so check it out!!!

Bike racing on TV!!

2006-02-21T21:19:00.000-07:00

The final stage of Valley of the Sun went great for my team. We took the majority of the primes and Wes took third. I actually won a $100 prime due to some amazing teamwork. On the final prime lap, three of us were on the front just pinning it and the third guy back (Eneas) let a gap open between Dustin and I so we rode away from the field and took it.

Blickem still held onto his third place in GC... so all in all it was a very succesful first race for the team.

Since the race, I've started my recovery week, so I haven't been doing a whole lot of riding. We met our team mechanic (Eric Jellum) out at the race and were greeted with all of our new GT bikes, including the TT bikes. The bikes are awesome, I can't wait to race on them. Every day since we've gotten back to Oxnard, Jellum's been working from sunrise to sunset getting all the bikes and everything else dialed and ready to race. It's a new concept having someone else work on my bike after being my own mechanic for so many years... it's gonna be nice.

Stage two of the Tour of California is on ESPN tonight... I'm psyched! I tried to go the whole day without hearing the outcome, but that's pretty much impossible when your in a house of seven cyclists. It's a little tough to watch and read the coverage of the race, knowing how close my team was to being in it... suposedly we were on the bubble with another team... but they got it. I heard that the entire Mexican national team dropped out today... hmmmm, now that was a good choice by whoever was selecting teams for that race.

Alright, back to Olympic figure skating.

Racin'!!

2006-02-18T18:43:00.000-07:00

I'm back in the hotel room again watching the Olympics... this time with a couple of races in my legs, and a fat burrito in my belly.

The TT yesterday didn't go too well, but I didn't really expect a result without any real TT equipment. My teammate Ryan Blickem got third, 40 seconds down from the winner. Today was the road race, it was a pretty flat course with a small 3% grade climb near the finish. A couple guys got off the front early in the race and opened up a five minute gap with no teams really making an effort to chase it down. By the last lap, their lead was down to only a few minutes, so my team and I got on the front and crushed the pace until we pretty much popped ourselves. We finally caught the break by the finish line, but we were late by a few seconds and one of the two guys in the break ended up taking the win. There were no changes in GC, and Blickem kept his third place position.

Tomorrow's the crit, which looks to be a bit technical, so that should be pretty fun. After that, we'll be driving into the night back to Oxnard.

Waiting patiently

2006-02-17T10:46:00.000-07:00

I'm back in Arizona, anticipating the start of the time trial of Valley of the Sun. I start around 3:30, so I'm just sitting around in the hotel room watching tv and surfing the net right now. Not my favorite way to spend the day, it's too bad that we can't just race early and get it over with.

I threw on the aerobars this morning, that's the extent of my TT equipment right now. Hopefully I'll be able to use a TT bike at some point this season. I'm looking forward to racing though, especially the Road Race tomorrow.

It looks like there's a fairly strong field. I think our team has a good chance to do well. We have the defending champion, Ryan Blickem, who will likely be our GC guy. And, Alejandro Acton, our top sprinter, will likely do well in the Road Race and crit.

California Climbing

2006-02-12T21:05:00.000-07:00

After a couple days of bad legs, they finally came around today. I did another big ride, up into the mountains of Cali. I think the route I did was actually part of one of the stages of the Tour of California... Only the other direction. There were some spectacular views today, but I didn't carry my camera for lack of jersey pocket space. I climbed for probably about two and a half hours on this road and climbed about 5100 feet. The weather was beautiful, as ussual, mid-70s and sunny. I got incredibly dehydrated because there was nowhere to fill up water the entire time. Luckily I ran into this weekend warrior with his aerobar equipped bike who was carrying a gallon of water in his backpack. He gave me about 16 ounces, which was enough to get me about 40 miles back to the nearest gas station.

My current home is slowly filling up with more and more teammates. Alejandro Acton, the Argentinean sprinter just showed up a couple days ago. He doesn't speak very much English, so I've been trying to brush up on my Spanish. I took 3 semesters of Spanish at CU, but I've never had a real opportunity to actually use it outside the classroom.

In the last week my team has decided to send a crew out to the Valley of the Sun stage race in phoenix, AZ. The race starts on Friday with a time trial. I think Saturday is a road race and Sunday is a crit. This will be a good tune-up for Vuelta Sonora, which will start a week later. Wow, I can't believe that the race season is already starting... Crazy!

Stuff that breaks sucks.

2006-02-08T22:05:00.000-07:00

The posts have been scarce lately.... and I have many excuses for that, the main excuse being that my laptop is broken. I woke up a few days ago and it wouldn't start... damn that sucks! Well, I spent an entire day trying to figure out how to fix the darn thing, and I eventually found a somewhat invasive fix that entails pulling the hard-drive out and hooking it up to another computer to get my personal files off. After that, I'll format and reinstall windows. What a bitch! Oh well, I actually kinda enjoy doing that kind of stuff, so alright!

Today I went out with the Hulk (teammate Dan Greenfield) and busted out about four hours of tempo. The ride totaled 6:45 and 126 miles. I'm in the transition phase of training right now, so every other day I'm essentially going long and hard.

Dan and I both ran into some mechanical problems along the way today. He had a couple flats, and my derailleur cable broke when we were in Santa Monica... which was pretty far from Oxnard (where we're staying). We searched around for awhile and decided that a coffee shop would be a good place to ask for directions to the nearest shop. The first person I saw as we approached the coffee shop looked kinda like a cyclist... you know, skinny, strange tan lines, bike t-shirt. We got to talking and I knew I recognized him from somewhere, and then it stuck me that he was David Zabriske from CSC, and it was. I thought that was pretty bizarre that of all the normal people we could have asked for directions in that town we bumped into one of the best American bike racers in the world. After that we found the shop and the guy working was super cool and hooked us up with a free cable and some energy food. After that whole fiasco, we got back on our way and pinned it for the rest of the ride. The roads are amazing here... the climbs are spectacular.

The owner of our team has been out here for the past few days and decided that it was time to purchase the new team vehicle. We got an Audi A6... Damn that car moves!! I've never driven a fast car in my life until this one... even compared to Old Reliable.

Well I hope I fix my computer by tomorrow, I'll try to get some more pics up when I do that.

Happy rides!

California Love

2006-02-01T22:04:00.000-07:00

I'm in California now, and I love it! I can't believe that I've spent so much of my life without the ocean.... it's so incredibly beautiful. And what's even better, is that right up next to the ocean there are some pretty large mountains. The house that my team is staying is great... it's about a block from the beach and about five miles from the PCH and the mountains.

The scenery is spectacular here. Today I rode down the PCH (Pacific Coast Highway or Hwy 1). The road follows right alongside the coast, it's very pretty, a nice shoulder, and not too much traffic. I turned off the PCH pretty early to head up into the hills... amazing roads!

The first thing I did when I arrived last night was go to the beach and take off my shoes to walk barefoot in the sand and the ocean water.

We tried to get a picture of the sunset, but I think we were about 20 minutes late.
My Beach and my neighborhood.

The ocean and mountains.... What else could you ask for?

Strawberry fields

To the beach!

2006-01-30T20:02:00.000-07:00

I went through that whole process of packing up all my bags again tonight. Fortunately, this time around wasn't nearly as painful as when I left Boulder. This time I don't have 75 things to eBay, an extra bike, and a car. I sent my car back with my coach, Rick Crawford, so that I can just travel with the team van and won't be burdened with my own gas guzzler. My teammates and I will be leaving Tucson at 7 am. Our destination: the beach. Our next house is in Oxnard, CA and is right on the beach... I can't wait! I'll be staying there for about two months, with a couple weeks in March somewhere else racing.

Here's a link to a satellite image of where we're staying:

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=140+Los+Angeles+Avenue,+Oxnard,+CA&t=k&ll=34.149144,-119.216343&spn=0.002189,0.006738&t=k

Is lying on the beach a good way to recover from a hard ride? I don't know, but I think I'm going to find out. I'm not sure if it'll be quite as warm as it's been in Tucson, but it'll still be way warmer than what I'm used to in Colorado.

Today was officially the last day of my rest week. I spent it off the bike and about four hours of it at the book store trying to find the perfect book. I just finished 1984, which was really good. I have the "Da Vinci Code" right now, but I just haven't felt the desire to read it, even though it’s so incredibly popular. Instead I bought the first book of Stephen King's "The Dark Tower" series called "Gunslinger". I've always been a science fiction and fantasy dork, and I like Stephen King, so I think it should be good. This kind of book is good for bedtime reading because it puts me to sleep and give me cool dreams. I also bought more of an intellectual read, titled “The Fabric of the Cosmos” by Brian Greene. I figure since I’m not in school for awhile, I’d better keep my mind in shape and read something that’ll make me think and learn a little.
a

Century w/45 miles on dirt + 7 flats = EPIC

2006-01-28T16:43:00.000-07:00

The end of my rest week is approaching, and I’m not sure if I‘m quite ready for it to end.
I spent the first few days sleeping, getting caught up on stuff, and watching old people play golf in our back yard. Yeah, we live on a freakin’ golf course!!!

I was starting to feel fully rested by about Wednesday, but then yesterday, I couldn’t resist the temptation to join my teammates for an epic. I’m not sure if I can even call it an epic though, because compared to a lot of the rides that I’ve been doing this year, it’s just like any other day. The thing that did make it epic however, was the 45 miles of dirt/jeep roads that we rode. Now if I were to take the ol’ MTB out there on these roads, it would’ve been a piece of cake. But 120 psi and 700x23 tires, made the downhills sketchy and fun… I got that high speed dirt lovers on the edge of your chamios fix that I’ve been craving from all the asphalt I’ve been on lately. Yes, my MTB friends, as I was shredding those dirt roads on my road bike, I felt a bit nostalgic and was dearly missing my mountain bike.

I guess this “es un muy popular” place to cross the border. My Canadian teammate Dustin en route through a hot smuggling route for illegal immigrants.

Not only did those skinny tires make the descents hairy, they also pinch flatted on just about every rock they hit. I think we totaled about 7 flats between the four of us. Wes took the prize for the most with four, and Dustin was the only one not to pinch a tube. All those flats caused quite the delay and put us pretty behind schedule. So once we finally hit the pavement again, about 50 miles from home, we got into formation and rode in a paceline (TTT style) full-on. I felt like I was back with my collegiate mates killing it during TTT practice. It also showed me how strong the rest of these guys are. We haven’t really gone out and hammered together yet until yesterday, and all three of these guys (Frank Pipp, Wes Hartman, and Dustin MacBurnie) have got some horsepower… that’s pretty damn motivational for me.

Today we put on a clinic for TargeTraining. We basically rode slow with some weekend warriors and talked training and racing, and tried to share our knowledge. We’ll do another one tomorrow… it’ll be fun.

I’m only in Tucson for a few more days, and then I’m off to Oxnard, CA for some more training to get ready for the first race at the end of February in Sonora, Mexico.

Cheers.

Base is done, let's eat pie.

2006-01-23T19:42:00.000-07:00

I finished my last day of base today. Like I had planned in my last post, I rode up Mt. Lemon which I consider to be the best ride in Tucson. I was a little off in my estimate of mileage and elevation gain, it’s more like a 25 mile climb and about 5000 feet of elevation gain… still huge. Before I started up the climb, I rode down on the flats for about 2 hours.

From Tucson, Mt. Lemon looms in the distance.

By the time I got to the base of the climb, my water bottle was only half full… big mistake. I got about halfway up the climb and was completely out of water. I was already feeling the dehydration draining my power and boosting my heart rate. The only place to get water was the café at the top of the mountain. I got the café and downed a couple bottles of water. To celebrate successfully making it through the hardest and by far the highest volume month of base in my life, I bought some of the famous pie that the café is well known for. One slice of pie cost $6.50… it was worth every penny. What’s pie without a little joe to wash it down?

Well, after all that pie and coffee I was recharged and ready for more, the only thing about that was that I now had about 25 miles of descending and it was cold up there. I made it down without getting too cold, and felt like I was ripping the descents. The more I ride that decent, the faster I go, and the more fun it gets. The views are spectacular up there too; I actually stopped on the way down to try to get a shot of the best part of the decent. This section of the road skirts across a ridge which drops off on both sides, it's pretty amazing.

Out and Back

2006-01-22T19:26:00.000-07:00

Hell yeah, another huge day in the bag. I peddled my bike another 125 miles today for six hours. I was pretty much on the gas the whole time. The music selection of the day: ambient beats, haven’t listened to those in a while. I started it off with some AIR and then changed it up to some Café del Mar. It turned out to be excellent desert riding music. DJ Niko (Gould) may disagree, but he is the Master of Beats and a damn good DJ. I heard his latest album last week and holy shit I’m impressed!! DJ Niko will spin all night and still race your legs off the next day.

Today’s route was another out and back. I rode up Oracle road a little beyond Mammoth and flipped it. I’ve only got one more day of base left tomorrow; I think I’ll finish this phase with the best ride in Tucson, Mt. Lemon. This ride climbs about 6500 feet in about 35 miles. It’s a pretty gradual climb and is incredibly beautiful. The scenery is constantly changing as you climb. I’ll try to bring my camera this time, and get some eye candy up for you. I haven’t been bringing it lately because I’ve only got so much room in my jersey pockets, and I have a tough time stopping when I’ve got it pinned. But since tomorrow’s my final day of base I will try to take some pictures.

Well that’s all for now… time to stretch.

Desert Solitude

2006-01-21T22:05:00.000-07:00

The last ride that I wrote about put me into more of a deficit than I had expected and I could barely ride my bike the next day. I still ended up putting in about 4 hours, but 2 or none at all probably would have been the better move. I ended up going out that night with the intention of having dinner and checking out the night life a little, and to come home by midnight at the latest. It didn’t end up working out that way though and I was out until 2 am. With my poor levels and lack of sleep, I decided that a day off was needed. I was able to get caught up with everything off the bike (ebay, packing MTB, etc.)

I rode alone out to kitt peak and back today… it was 128 miles total. I think this is the furthest I’ve ever ridden in my life. On the way home I past about 50 stopped cars on the main road (Ajo road). At the front of this traffic jam there was a bunch of cop cars an ambulance and a helicopter. An 80-something year old man hit a cyclist. His story was that the cyclist just out of nowhere, pulled out onto the road in front of him. I have a feeling that this is a bullcrap, and that the old man swerved into the shoulder. Hopefully the cyclist comes out ok, and the old guy that hit him will have to pay dearly. I had to sit there for a while until the cops let me by so I ended up getting home late and had to ride through Tucson at night… that’s a bit scary… lots of fast cars.

Well, I’m tired and I gotta go to bed so I can do it again tomorrow.

Good night.

Puttin' in the miles

2006-01-18T17:37:00.000-07:00

Oh man, am I tired. My volume is incredibly high right now. I’m supposed to do a 36 hour week this week… that means 6 hours a day for six days… I’ve already taken my rest day. I rode alone today and logged in 126 miles. Sometime around hour 5.5 I started thinking about how different my daily life is from your average Joe, Dick, or Jane. While I’m struggling to pin my HR at 145 BPM for 6 hours, the majority of the population probably won’t even touch this during the day. I don’t really think most people understand how much training, hard work and dedication goes into this sport… especially when I get either honked at or buzzed by about 10 cars a day. I think I started losing my mind a little too towards the end when I caught myself pointing out glass in the shoulder even though I wasn’t riding with anyone. Well, I’ve only got four more days of base, then I start my rest week, then I get to begin transition.

I’m already starting to think about my first race coming up. I’m scheduled to do Vuelta Sonora which is at the end of February/beginning of March down in Mexico. This race should be pretty sweet… I think its 6 or 7 days long. It’ll be a good way to kick the season off and to bring on some form. I can’t wait to start racing again!

Tonight, I’d love to be able to sit on the couch and watch mindless television all night, but I just sold my MTB so I gotta make sure that it’s all dialed, and then pack it up.

Time to motivate and try to be productive.

My new job

2006-01-12T21:59:00.000-07:00

I’m back. It’s been hard to motivate to write on the blog these last couple weeks, my life has been all about readjustment. I’m finally feeling readjusted enough to share my thoughts. I’m living a completely new lifestyle now, where all that really matters to me is training and racing… I absolutely love it. I don’t really have to think or worry about anything else… except of course the 70+ things I posted on ebay. About those… half of them went up for auction and finished last week and the other half are up for auction right now. I made a butt load of money, but, I also spent a ton of time (my entire rest day) packaging that stuff up and I’ve made a lot of trips to the post office.

I gotta tell you, my life is awesome down here. The weather is beautiful (sunny and mid-70s everyday) and I’m just riding a ton and spending time with my new teammates. The team is awesome, I feel so lucky that I’m on this team. I know for a fact that we’re going to be a very strong presence at all the NRCs this season. A lot of the guys on the team don’t have the experience of a lot of the other pro team, but with the level of management, and coaching that this team has, our success is inevitable. Now that I’m not in school, my training load is massive, 5 to 6 hours a day. I'm usually pretty famished at the end of these rides and head straight for the kitchen with the rest of my riding partners to consume an enormous amount of calories.

Well, that’s all for now, people want to go to bed and I don’t want to keep them up by banging on the keyboard. I’ll try to be a little more consistent with my posts from now on.

NEW YEAR

2005-12-31T21:23:00.000-07:00

Whew… The car is packed, the apartment is clean, and I now have 74 things posted on ebay. Martini, I think I may have broken any ebay record you may have set for “most auctions posted at one time”. I put in a twelve hour day on Thursday doing nothing but ebay from about eight or nine in the morning until nine at night… work sucks. The trunk of my car is jam packed with all that junk (Yes, I have junk in my trunk) that I’m selling, in a few weeks it’ll be empty and I’ll be a rich man.

I’ve been off the back with my blogging lately, but moving out has totally consumed all of my time and energy. It feels good to finally be done.

So here’s a funny story… the other day I was riding with this guy (I won’t say who he was) but we came to an intersection where I always go straight, but he was used to turning left. He was on my outside, and totally turned left right into me. We both bounced off each other in opposite directions. It happened so fast that I don’t really even know what happened; I just remember getting hit and then being on ground with some light road rash. My bike got pretty mangled though, and I had to rebuild my rear powertap wheel with a new rim and spokes. And my leg warmers and booties got trashed. Oh well, that shit happens, especially when you ride alone a lot, you forget to tell the other guy which direction to go.

Last night I was going to go see a movie, but as I started riding down to the theater, I realized, that riding my bike was way more fun… I don’t really know what got into me, but I was listening to 311 and I just started hammering. I rode my commuter way out east, and then realized that it was much more exciting in the city so I rode back and did some urban assault around town for about an hour… I was sweet, I felt like a kid again shredding the streets of downtown Wayzata or Minneapolis. I then parked my bike and walked all over boulder, just checking stuff out. It was a really good way to spend one of my last nights here. I’m gonna miss this place.

Well, it’s New Years Eve… I think I might have one more wild night of some hell-raising. I mean why not? It’s my last night in Boulder, and it’s New Years. Let’s go nuts!!

Happy New Year!

Decisions, Decisions, Decisions.

2005-12-23T22:43:00.000-07:00

Yes, it has been several days since my last post. Basically, I've just been really tired from training a lot, and in the evenings I’ve been stretching and reading a book (1984) that I started last week. My biggest time commitment right now though is trying to sort through everything I own to decide what to throw away, and what to bring with. Too many decisions! I hate throwing stuff away, even though most of it is junk that's probably easily and cheaply replaceable. But, I've made a lot of progress with my sorting in the last few days, especially tonight. I think tonight was so productive because I went to buy a decaf coffee this evening, and the girl at Starbucks decided to give me a free Caramel macchiato too. I normally wouldn't drink a couple shots of espresso at that hour, but I couldn't turn down a free drink. It was delicious, pure sugar and fat with dose of caffeine. After my first sip, I was fully committed to gettin' stuff done.

This picture of my living room may look like just a bunch of crap pilled up everywhere, but there is some serious organization happening here... it's too complicated though, you wouldn't understand.

I also rented another indie flick tonight. It's called "Me and You and Everyone We Know." Not as messed up as the last movie I recommended (Tarnation), and not quite as powerful. It's quite a bit more on the lighter side... it’s funny. It was good, you should check it out.

So my departure date is coming soon. I plan to leave around the 1st of January, and will be heading down to Tucson for the month. I'll then go to Oxnard, CA for February and March.

I finally did something that I've been putting off for far too long. I shaved my legs. I'm no longer a normal dude anymore... which is what I was going for (normalcy) for about a month when I refrained from shaving, but since I started training again, it just didn't feel or look right. Every time I looked at them I was like "these look terrible, I'm a disgusting slob". Now don't get me wrong, I don't think that other people with hairy legs are slobs, it's a self-image thing. Well, while I was transforming the appearance of my legs into beauty, I decided to keep going and get rid of the chest hair as well. And then, I said, "who needs armpit hair, that's the most disgusting hair on the body," so away that went that too. Now, I'm hairless, except of course my wavy, thick, full head of hair, and the hair above my leg tan lines and below the waist.

BEFORE

AFTER

If you don’t hear from me for the next few days, have a Happy Christmas, a Merry Hanukah, and a Kick-Ass Kwanza!!

Gotta recover

2005-12-17T16:06:00.000-07:00

In the words of the Grinch, "Oh... so blown out." All thanks to Colby and others from the d-town crew. The last few days of riding finally caught up with me today. I'm to tired to do anything right now. I'm so glad I won't be having to deal with school after long days of training this year.

Okay, I know that was a pretty lame post, but that's all I got today... too many dead and starving brain cells.

Nap time.

Back in the Saddle Again

2005-12-16T08:44:00.000-07:00

That's right, the metal gods AC/DC can tell you what I'm talkin' about. Honestly though, it hurts real bad. My chode is just not used to that kind of torture yet. I rode with Colby and Mitch yesterday, and those guys worked me... I'm pretty sure they worked themselves too though. The pace seemed a bit hard for this time of year, and we rode for 5.5 hours. What a great way to start my first week of base. I was totally exhausted by the end, but luckily, Myles and Colby were having a holiday potluck dinner party that night. I was easily able to replenish all those burned calories... with a lot of empty calories on top of that.

Today, Colby and I are going out again to log in some more chamois time, today we've both agreed to ride a little easier though, and a little shorter.

Durango is a great place to take a vacation from Boulder. Right now I'm kinda on vacation. Since I just finished my last final, I need a few days to unwind. I've got about a hundred things to do back in Boulder, but I think I'll stay down here for a few more days and relax... which for me means riding my bike five hours a day.

I forget the name of this dog, but he's friends with Psylo... he slept through all the commotion.

This was some damn good cake... the frosting was the best part. The secret ingriedients were two sticks of butter and five cups of sugar.

Going the Distance.

2005-12-15T07:51:00.000-07:00

Old Reliable ('88 Plymouth Reliant), my car, lived up to her name and got me to Durango in one piece yesterday. I drove down here to meet Dr. LaCaze, who’s supposed to be the best muscle balance specialist in the country. He found a lot of imbalances with me, which I'm actually pretty excited to find out. Now I have a bunch of things I can improve on that I know will make me a stronger rider.

Unfortunately, I can only stay down here for a couple days. I need to get back to Boulder because I only have about 2 weeks to try to sell most of my stuff on e-bay, and to find somewhere to store the rest. Then I pack my car for life on the road.

Today, my new Targetraining teammate, Anthony Colby, and I are going to head out for about five hours. It's cold down here though... the guys who are riding big hours in the wintertime here are tough.

They also party a lot... or so I've heard. It sounds like someone I know is putting on a party every night for the next three nights. The first of which will be at the house I'm staying. I have no choice with the first, tonight should be fun. But, I'll probably head back to Boulder and skip the others though; I need to start getting a lot more serious about training now that I'm done with school and with some very big races looming in the near future.

Coffee, CoFFee, COFFEE!!!!!!

Done

2005-12-13T19:12:00.000-07:00

I thought I'd just document the fact that I'm totally stoked right now! I've been slacking on blogging the last few days because they have been the opposite of kick-ass, and I didn't want to write about stuff that sucks. I did actually get a lot of good riding in this weekend though and rode with a slew of fast pros, including Moniger, Baldwin, and about ten others. It was a new crowd, but one that I need to get used to.

I just finished my last final about 20 minutes ago... it was a bitch, it took 2.5 hours and was worth fifty percent of my grade... Damn that sucked. The first thing I did when I got home was pour myself a glass of vino... it feels good to be done. I think I did well though. I made this semester really tough by trying too hard, so now I think I'll get high grades in all of my classes. Yipee. Alright, time to fill up another, than I'm off to the stir for some happy hour martinis.

Snow riding and more of the same ol' BS

2005-12-08T22:15:00.000-07:00

It’s been three days since the snow storm covered boulder in 4 inches of white cold stuff and the temp still hasn’t gotten above freezing to melt it away. That didn’t stop the two most hardcore mountain bikers in the vicinity, Martini and Ranno (AKA Short Bus), and I from suiting up and hitting some sick snow packed trails. As usual I left my camera behind, but you can check out some sweet pics off of Martini’s blog at ridewithnickmartin.com. I don’t know how to link his name to his website yet, but I plan on learning HTML once I’m finished with school. Not only will I someday be able to link a person’s name to their websites, but I’ll be able to fulfill my dream of creating the best internet porn website ever!! Just kidding, I don’t look at porn…

So anyway, here I am back at the coffee shop studying like a good little boy, well actually, to be exact, I’m currently wasting time checking e-mail, facebook (new timewaster), and blogging. But I needed a break… my brain hurts. I’m paying the price for riding today now by having to stay up late studying, but it was worth it because that ride kicked ass, and I feel way better now because of it. Tomorrow is the kick-off of my finals, beginning with the hardest and most important one, Biomechanics.

Well, that’s all I have time to write tonight.

P.S. I’ll bring the pictures back soon… I have not been putting my amazing inherent photography skillz to work lately, but you’ll see… the pictures to come will blow your mind.

Coffee and exercise addictions

2005-12-06T20:18:00.000-07:00

Someone I know once told me that “coffee is the Devil”. I didn’t listen to him. I’m back on the coffee program… it’s a love-hate relationship. The sweet nectar of the gods, black gold, or bean juice, coffee has been successfully fueling my days for the past couple week. Today, however, I think I may have ODed. I woke up… barely, today was a tough one to get out of bed, but I had a presentation that was worth 50% of my grade to give at 8:00 am. I decided to go with the Mate to start the day off instead of coffee with plans of taking a nap later in the day. But as usual, as the day went on, the possibility of napping became less and less of a reality.

I got back from school pretty early and the snow was dumping. The Grinch had just gotten up and the aroma of his French press was pungent. I couldn’t resist, I gave into my addiction, and I fired up the grinder on my way to making a home brewed mocha (or cafe florintine). Tis the season for hot drinks, and cuddling with your girl by a fireplace. Unfortunately, I don't have a fireplace or a girl, but I do have hot chocolate. I bought some hot chocolate the other day, so why not mix it with my coffee. It was delicious, but I think it was a little overkill. I tried to hit the books after that, and my focus was all over the place… I just kept getting up to eat another bowl of cereal or write another e-mail, or clean something… this must be what it feels like to be on crack. I couldn’t handle the energy any longer, so I executed plan B, exercise.

Exercise was the key maneuver. It’s what I really needed to do today. I went running in the snow, probably one of my favorite things to do. It was pretty cold, probably around 8 degrees, but I didn’t get too cold; running keeps you warm. I did a much longer route than I had planned, but that’s the best way to do it… no plan. I ran over settlers park and up over Mount Senitas. It’s hard to explain the feelings and emotions experienced while snow running in the mountains by yourself while setting the trail on fresh snow. It’s so incredibly peaceful too. This is the only way to train when you can’t ride outside… trainers are a waste of time.

I totally forgot about an important review that I was supposed to go to at 5:00. I still tried to make it hoping that I could catch the last hour of it, but it only lasted an hour. Lucky for me, it was actually really fun riding over to campus tonight. Riding the bike in the snow is a blast… I’m outa control the whole time.

Now I’m back at the coffee shop trying to study more… blogging is a great way to take a break from HW.

OK time to get back to work.

Peace.

Nor-dork skiing and Cross-maniacs

2005-12-04T22:41:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, Cap’n Bob Productions (AKA Boulder Racing) put on the ACA state cyclocross race. I didn’t race, but I did spectate, which can sometimes be equally as fun and hard when the temp is around 25 with wind. This was the first cyclocross race I had ever been to in Colorado… I definitely want to race next year now. Those guys were hammering… it looked like pure suffering without recovery for an hour… Awesome! A lot of big dogs showed up for this one with JHK taking the dubs. Jonathon Baker also showed once again that he’s a fast mother f@$ker taking 2nd. And the third place guy was like fifteen years old… talk about talent. There were probably about seven TIAA-Cref guys in there too… they’re taking over Boulder! The competition in these parts is fierce! All the race did was get me psyched about racing again… it made me miss hammering really hard.

Well I did fill that “lactic acid” void today. Lynch and I drove into the mountains to Eldora for some skinny skiing. I used to race this all through HS, and skied every day of the week for 4 months a year… now I’m lucky to get out three times in a year. But, it’s just a lot easier to instead go for a ride usually in Boulder. I’m pretty worked right now, but the post XC ski high is always the best… so relaxed.

I worked my ass off yesterday doing HW and finished a big project, so I’m taking a day off from school today and just having a good time. School is just like training, you need rest days… sometimes I forget that, and just do HW everyday for too long and I get totally burnt out. But next week, finals begin, so I gotta be fresh before I start hitting the books hard. I can’t wait for it to be over and I can get rolling on my adventure. I’m already kinda starting to miss Boulder already, this town kicks ass. But, it’s also good to take a break from where you live; maybe I’ll find a new location that I like even better. I think I’ve already found a new guy to replace me here… his name is Bryan Smith and he rides for TIAA-Cref… pretty soon Boulder’s gonna have to start regulating the amount of those guys that keep immigrating here… “They took our jobs, dar de gar, dar!!!”

I tried something bold tonight, I sat down with a random chick at the coffee shop, struck up a conversation, and walked away with a phone number. She actually seems really cool, so I'm stoked! But the only thing is, I'm outa here in few weeks, but who cares, i can still have fun, who knows.

I just finished watching the most fucked-up (pardon my french) movie ever. It's called Tarnation. It's very good though... I've never seen anything like it, very original, highly recomended, but be prepared for craziness.

Well here's some pics from the cross race for y'all.

The Grinch and Dirty Sanchez

JHK = fast

The "Band" - I'm tellin' you, someday, there's gonna be cheerleaders.

Let's talk about TEETH and the FUTURE

2005-12-01T18:39:00.000-07:00

This morning was quite the adventure. I woke up around 7:00... I would have liked to have gotten an hour more, but once I'm up, I'm up. I sat around for a while, not eating or drinking, and then I suited up in my pro commuter gear and began my epic commute into the 27 degree Colorado morning air. I rode out to Lafayette, which took me about 45 minutes, and I kinda felt a little bonky the whole ride, but not nearly as bad as when I tried that juice fast, it was no big deal. I was just looking forward to eating later, which I inevitably knew was never really going to happen... just wishful thinking. After I got there I filled out a bunch of paperwork, saying that it was ok if I wake up retarded from all the anesthetics... sure, why not, that kind of thing never happens... or does it? They yanked out all four of my wisdom teeth, and now I have them in a little baggy, I'm thinking about making a really cool necklace out of them... maybe I'll use hemp. I woke up feeling great!! And, as the day went on, I'm still not feeling too shabby. But that's probably the percocet (drug) doing it's job, I'd probably be suffering pretty badly if I wasn't on anything right now. I'm also kinda on another juice/yogurt fast right now, not willingly though, and I'm not making fresh juice either (I should be though... that'd be healthy). I've just been drinking Odwalla smoothies all day... Those are damn good.

On another very exciting note (to me at least), I put up my apartment for rent on several classifieds and I plan on being HOMELESS for the next year!!!!!! Not really homeless though, I figure with all the host housing I'll have this year, it just seems like a waste of money to be spending $400 a month to rent a place I'll probably only be in for like 10% of the next 8 months. I'm really excited about this, not only will it save me a lot of money, it's gonna be a major adventure, I haven't had a great adventure in a long time and I think I'm pretty damn overdue. Sometimes I think that being really comfortable in one place is a bad thing, yet that is something that so many people strive for in there life... I guess it's called security. Well, sometimes security is a good feeling to have, but it's also kinda boring. This year will be far from boring... I can't wait to get it started.

Sorry there hasn't been any pictures lately... No I didn't lose another digital camera. I just haven't had much time at all lately, and it's not like taking pictures takes a long time, but my life has been pretty boring recently due to school taking up all my time. I also apologize to those who are squemish that had to see these yucky pictures. Soon school will be all over and I'll take lots of cool pictures for y'all. Also, I haven't been getting any comments lately, you should go ahead and leave me comment from time to time.

That's all.

In-class Blogging pt. 2

2005-11-30T14:18:00.000-07:00

Well I tried this once before, and it didn't work... Blogging in class. I know mom, I should be paying attention... but c'mon, it's my Geography class that CU is making me take because I guess my high school didn't offer it. Right now we are watching a film on why Walmart is bad. Well to sum up the film, walmart sucks, it's really bad for people all over the world.... but what are you gonna do? I don't really ever shop there, but sometimes I have no choice, like when I'm on the road... I'm always pretty blown away aby how big that place is. It takes me about a half hour to find a toothbrush.

Speaking of teeth, I get to have four of my wisdom teeth pulled tomorrow. I'm trying to get all of my health issues/surgeries out of the way while I'm still in my off-season. I tried to begin training this week, but school is just too overwhelming right now. I've only logged in about 4 hrs this week so far and will be lucky to get 3 more with my surgery. Next week is the last week of school with my first final on Friday and my last final on Monday (dec 13) night. The next day I gonna drive down to Durango to meet with some top-chiropractor/balance specialist. He's suposed to determine all of the muscle imbalances that I have in my body and set me up on a program to fix these imbalances.

In-class blogging

2005-11-28T14:36:00.000-07:00

New Team!!

2005-11-25T21:39:00.000-07:00

I’m very excited to say that I’ve been picked up by Targetraining. This is a professional road team that's being managed by Rick Crawford, and Tom Schuler. Check out the team website at http://www.targetraining.com/racing/index.html. This is going to be a new chapter in my life; actually, it will probably be more like a new book. I’ve decided to take this next semester off from school to focus all of my energy into racing and training. I’m going all in, 100%. I want to succeed at this sport more than anything else, and making it onto this team is a huge step in my progression towards that goal. I will begin officially training again on Monday, and begin building my fitness for the upcoming spring racing campaign which possibly will begin with the Tour of California in mid-February.

In my last post, I talked about starting a juice fast the next day (Tuesday). Well, I failed the juice fast. I lasted about twenty-four hours before I gave into the need for glucose in my brain and protein to nourish my disintegrating muscles. By about the 20th hour of fasting I came to many conclusions as to why fasting is a pointless endeavor for someone like me. The main reason that most people fast, at least the people I know, is for its detoxifying effect. Well, I thought a lot about this whole idea of detox and I believe that there are many other ways to detox the body without having to starve yourself. As a cyclist, I believe that every time I go out for a ride, I'm detoxifying my body. The harder or longer the ride, the greater the detoxification. When I was fasting, I felt very similar to how I feel towards the end of a 5-6 hour ride, depleted. I'm sure a lot of you have gone riding the next morning after a heavy night of drinking. You begin the ride feeling tired and sick... sure signs of the toxic levels of alcohol that still reside in your system. By the end of the ride, you feel great, as if you had never even taken 5 shots of tequila, had three margaritas, and few more drink that you'd forgotten about. That is proof, my friend, that exercise is the ultimate detox. It's just that exercise is so mainstream and it can't be advertised as an alternative treatment in the homeopathic alternative medicine circles that are so popular in Boulder. In conclusion, my study disproved my hypothesis that juice fasting is a great way to detoxify the body. Intestinal cleansing is another possible benefit of juice fasting. However, healthy, clean intestines can be maintained by eating diets that consist of raw foods and avoid refined sugars and flours. Intestinal cleansing can be done by ingesting psyllium husk, using enemas (I have yet to try this avenue), or drinking a ton of coffee the morning before a bike race.

I probably would have tried to last a full three days doing this, however, my friend from out of town was visiting, and I couldn’t turn down going out and having a good time while she was in town. So that’s what I did. I also went out on the road bike and hammered harder than I have in a long time. It just felt really good to go out there and ride at my limit for a couple hours. Unfortunately, I think I sent my body way out of balance with the fasting, then not fasting, then going out and eating rich foods and drinking, then riding my bike really hard, then eating more rich food on Thanksgiving. Now I have a cold, but I’m jumping on the alternative homeopathic Boulder bandwagon again and I spent about 20 bucks on Chinese medicine and some homeopathic medicine to try to kick this virus as fast as possible. I really do believe this stuff I’m taking works though; I feel pretty dang good right now.
Good night

Moab and Juicing

2005-11-21T21:09:00.000-07:00

Somewhere around 20 riders (most were pro MTBers) including myself made the pilgramage to the mountain bike mecca of Moab, Utah this past weekend. As part of Brian Smith's birthday celebration we rode the White Rim trail, which was around 105 miles. It took me about 11 hours to complete, which is not a fast time at all. I was not out there to set any records, but to enjoy it and take it all in. It was a fun, spiritual, painful, and revitalizing expereince. This ride will be recorded as the biggest and best epic that I've ever done. I'll definately be going back next year.

Tomorrow I will be continuing my recent theme this month by begining a juice fast. This means that all I will be consuming is freshly juiced juice and water for the next three days. I know, this sounds pretty crazy, and it probably is. But, I know a lot of people who have done it, and they all say great things about it. In many ways it makes a lot of sense to me. I imagine it will be pretty hard, but so are a lot of things. I think it will make me stronger. The third and final day will be Thanksgiving... so no turkey for me. I'll let you know how it goes.

I can run again!

2005-11-16T21:41:00.000-07:00

Damn I enjoy running... at least for like the first 15 minutes. Then I enter the pain cave... but it's still fun. I've been shelled with HW lately, and I finally finished writing a study on drafting in cycling that I've been working on all week. I have not gotten any exercise all week because of academia. But now that I'm finished, I can go out for a run. I was finally able to get out by about 8:00 tonight. It was dark so I decided to go for an urban run. I live about three blocks from peal street now so I headed that way... I took the longer route down the Boulder creek path to 13th street, I took that to the Pearl street mall. I usually just go trail running, but I realised that urban running is pretty fun too. It's kinda like urban assualt on the bike... Damn I havn't done that in a long time... I gotta give the DHers a shout out.

Tommorow is the last day before I leave for the Moab Epic... Gotta get ready.

Well that's all for now.

Ahhhhhh, The Off-Season

2005-11-14T08:53:00.000-07:00

I know, it's been like 2.5 weeks since my last post. Since then, much has happened. As you probably already know, I won collegiate MTB nationals for the second year in a row (XC and Omnium). The race was muddy and cold, which was expected.

Since Nationals, I have been on the off-season program... which consists of doing whatever the hell I feel like. If I had hair, I'd be "letting it down right now" , but since I don't, I'll just "grow out my leg hair", instead. Now, whenever I look down at my legs, I no longer feel like a cyclist, but just a normal dude, it's kinda wierd. For the first week, I did absolutly no exercise. I did a ton of homework to catch up from all that I missed at nationals, and have been trying hard to make up for lost party time during the season. Lynch and I have decided that we're Mexican's for many reasons, so now the only drink we consume is tequila... which always leads to a crazy night. I'm already feeling pretty much over all of that though, and starting to feel the riding/training bug coming back.

I'm also pretty much over running. I did a few hard days of running over the weekend, and my legs are destroyed. I don't know what I was thinking by doing such hard epic runs. I'm actually writing a research proposal that has to do with how damaging eccentric (lengthing muscle, from downhill running) exercise is to the muscles. Everytime I feel pain in my legs, I think about how all of my sarcomeres (contractile units in muslce fibers) have been ripped apart. At least in a few more days I'll be over this DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness), and will be reaping the benefits of the RPE (repeated bout effect). I will then be able to run way more without the soreness the next day.

Next weekend I'll be joining some friends for the biggest epic mountain bike ride I've ever done. In honor of Brian Smith's 30th birthday, we will be doing the White Rim trail with a little bit extra in Moab, UT. Why is this ride so epic? It's 120 miles of mountain biking... so somewhere around 12 hours of riding. Also the guys that are doing it are all fast pro mountain bikers, so it won't neccesarily be an easy pace. Yesterday was my first time wearing chamois' since collegiate nationals. I went out for about a 2 hour ride and by the end of it I was wasted. It kinda made me a little worried about next weekend... which will be like six times longer at a much higher pace. My guess is that many of the other guys on the ride will be in my same boat though, seeing that it is the off-season for most everyone except crossers. I'll be fine.

Well time to do some HW and start my week!!

Cheers to Monday!!

My new home

2005-10-25T18:42:00.000-06:00

Grinch and I finally found a new home after about two and a half weeks without running water while the filth and stinch in our house was growing out of control. We now live in the best location I could have possiblly asked for. I love it. The place isn't too big, but Lynch and I are easy going enough that I don't think it'll be a problem.

Here's a picture of my good friend Eric and I from collegiate nationals last year after the short track. From the forcast, it soounds like it's gonna be another mudfest. I actually jsut heard that they have 6 inches of fresh snow... Hell Yeah!!! That's gonna be fun!!

I've been taking it super easy lately in preparation for nationals and have been doing as much as I can to be physically and mentally prepared for this race. It looks like its been raining like crazy out there, which actaully makes me very happy. Most of my competition hates it when the ground gets wet, but being from Minnesota, where I did just as many mud races as dry races, I love it.

I'm flying out there early tomorrow morning so I probably won't update this until next week. But, you can try to keep up with results and stuff at either velonews.com, cyclingnews.com, or usacycling.org.

Here's a picture of my old shack, and a picture of my new living room (no furniture, only bikes.)

Ok, this is for real.

2005-10-18T08:44:00.000-06:00

First of all, I apologize to anyone who I care about that had to read that smut in my last post... sorry mom, pop, etc., It was a joke that had to do with the races at FLC this last weekend... I won't explain this any further on here because I don't really care about it anymore.

I've deleted it because it doesn't belong on here, but thanks for the respones!!

Now, back to the good ol' boring posts of old, where I write about my trips, racing, fun stuff I did, etc.... I'll try not to sound too cocky.

Last weekend Big D (Ranno) and I rolled down to do Durango for the collegiate conference final MTB races. Saturday was the short track, and sunday was the XC. I had a bad day in the STXC and pulled out. I was still pretty stoked with how the day turned out though, because the Diesel (Ranno) put it in a huge gear and powered away for the win. My day was on sunday in the cross country. I rode the first two laps with an FLC rider (I'll protect your anonymity) and felt comfortable at the pace he was setting. But by the third lap I pulled away. By the end of the third lap I was caught by another FLC rider who attempted to attack me quickly after catching me. I stuck his wheel, we exchanged some words, I faught hard to get back in front of him, and I eventually rode away to take the win.

With That being the final race in the rocky mountain conference, I now have a little less than two weeks to prepare for Nationals in Seven Springs, PA. You don't know how excited I am for this race... for many reasons.

I will try keep you updated with some more exciting news in the coming days that will surely uplift your spirits and make you a better, happier person.

Have a wonderful day.

Stinky

2005-10-09T13:07:00.000-06:00

This has been an interesting week. The water pump at our house decided to die, so we've been without water for about a week now. What does that mean? That means we can't wash dishes, so we have gigantically huge pile of dirty dishes rotting in the kitchen. We have to drive to the gas station to perform our morning rituals... And I always feel guilty and obligated to buy something that I don't need. And now we have to move into a new place. The timing is not the best for moving since I have muchas exams this week, and I'm also heading down to Durango for the final conference MTB race this coming weekend. I'll just pretend that I'm camping for a while... I love camping, it'll be fun!!

I had another good weekend, at least half of it. Friday night I went to see Mike Doughty (ex Soul Coughing singers new band) at the Fox Theater. It was a really good show... that guy rocks!! I was out pretty late, but I still got enough sleep for Sunday's beat down session. The XC course at Golden Gate park is more technical and rough than any xc course I've ever been on... I'm totally worked. I raced the TT in the moning and the XC a couple hours later. I won both races, the TT by only 6 seconds ahead of Ranno, and the XC I was ten or fifteen minutes ahead of 2nd. Luckily I walked away without any serious injuries, but I definitely had some close calls and one of my worst crashes of the season... I totally went over the bars and did a face plant into some lapped rider I was trying to pass and landed on my chest and belly. This was near the end of the race luckily, but for some reason it triggered my legs to cramp a couple minutes later on the final climb... This was very strange because I've never cramped (except for my lower back) in my entire life, so I had no idea what it felt like until then. I didn't know what was happening so I started punching my legs, and that actually seemed to help... I think. I walked away with a really cool trophy (picture) that the creative minds of the CU Cycling team built. This is a classic suspension fork, one of the first, probably around 15 years old. I wonder if I can ebay it??

Also, I am talking to a couple of pro road teams right now, and my prospects are looking really good. I'll talk more about soon hopefully, when I learn more details.

Golden Gate and Stuff

2005-10-06T21:16:00.000-06:00

I've been slammed this week with school. I was up til 1:30 am last night writing a paper and getting a presentation ready that I had to give at 8:00 am this morning. I'm pretty tired to say the least. I've got a couple of exams next week, which is also fall break week (we get thursday and friday off). I'm debating whether or not to go out tonight.. some friends of mine are having a joint Birthday Party, but it's freezing out right now, and riding from my house could be pretty painful.

Saturday is the CU home race at Golden Gate state park. I went up there last weekend to preride, and the course is sick. both pictures are from last sunday. There's going to be a TT in the morning and an XC in the afternoon, so it'll be a hard day. I'm also going to see Mike Doughty at the Fox Theatre on Friday night. It should be a good time. I'll let you know how it all goes in a few days.

My head hurts real bad!!

2005-10-01T08:52:00.000-06:00

By the looks of these pictures you can probably tell that I had a good time last night. Here's a classic Bama shot with his favorite brew, PBR. I can't decide whether he looks like a fighter pilot from Star Wars or Rick Moranis from Ghostbusters.

We got Collin good!! Duct tape is always a good weapon to have with you at a party.

Ranno gettin' shitty.

The Grinch (my roommate) diggin' for gold.

Collegiate Racing Rulez!!!

2005-09-27T21:21:00.000-06:00

That's me, then Matt Shriver (the current short track national champ), and some other FLC punk.

Last weekend was my first collegiate race of the season. I was reminded how much fun collegiate racing is. The trip started about 2 hours later than scheduled... pretty typical. We stopped at Qdoba, the best food from here to GJ on I-70, and damn that stuff works wonders. We rolled into GJ around 11:30 and stoped at the Mesa states coach's place where we were staying. I could not believe how many people we fit into his place. It was a 2-bedroom apartment, and we managed to fit 23 people in it. When everyone was in their bags, you couldn't even see the floor... we were packed in there like sardines... sleep was very minimal. However, that didn't seem to affect my racing this weekend. I crushed the short track... setting the entire pace and eventually riding every last man off my wheel.

The XC went pretty much the same way, I rode away from everyone very early in the race, and had about a one minute lead on 2nd place until I bent my front deraileur on a rock. I had to get off my bike numerous times to try to bend it back. I was eventually caught by Hagman, who I battled with until the very end were he outsprinted me to the final DH singletrack to the finish... he beat me by about five seconds. It was a little frustrating to feel like I had it in the bag at one point in the race, and to have mechanical issues take that away from me... but that's racing, and it happens to everyone. At least I know what I'm capable of. I was able to prove to myself and everyone else that I can win nationals again in October.

I won't be racing this coming weekend... instead, I'll be having a party at my place friday night, and I plan to do another epic ride in Nederland on Sunday. The next race for me will be the CU home race in a week and a half. That's about all that is exciting right now. Oh yeah, I ordered a new digital camera... so my site will get a little better once I start using that.

Epic Rides, Tests, Wine and Cheese

2005-09-21T18:08:00.000-06:00

So of course a lot has happened since the last time I posted, but I only have time and motivation to write about the best parts of the last four or five days. My weekend (Friday night) began with a bang accompied by Kelly and a little captain morgan... because of this my Saturday wasn't very eventful. But Sunday... Sunday was EPIC. I caught the 10:10 am bus up to Ned and rode until 6:30 pm. The majority of the time I was riding some of the most techy trails I've ridden in a while. I rode with some really good riders (Ariel and Botsy to name a couple), and they were on their cushy 4-6 inch travel Mavericks, while I was on my hard-tail. Because of this I tweaked my shoulder again a little. However, I think it'll hold up for another month and a half until collegiate nats. I was able to hang with these guys on most everything, except for the sections with the big drops. We stopped about five hours into the ride at a bar on the peak-to-peak highway for a couple of pitchers of beer, that was fun, but I was starting to get to the point of just wanting to go home and eat/shower/sleep/etc. After refueling, we shredded some more sick trails almost all the way back to Boulder. (Sorry to those who don't know the Boulder area at all, because you probably have no idea what I'm talking about).

Exams have begun!! I had one yesterday, and one today. The first exams of the first semester of the year are always the most stressful, but I think I did pretty good on them. I'm done with these for about a week, then I get to take some more... YES!!

This coming weekend I will be making my 2005 debut collegiate race in Grand Junction. I've been mainly resting since the 24 hour race (not any intensity or much riding for that matter), so I'm not really sure how I'll feel, but I'm feeling motivated and that's the most important thing. I'm mainly just not looking forward to the traveling, I need like a much longer break than a couple weeks to get me stoked on travelling again.

Tonight, Kelly and I will be acting like sofisticated mature adults and will be attending a wine and cheese party at Chris Jung's house. Wow, I can't believe I just put Chris Jung, sofisticated, and mature in the same sentence. Honestly, I don't know what the hell a wine and cheese party is supposed to be all about, I think it's just another excuse to booze it up... but hey, I like wine, and I like cheese, so why not put them together and pretend we're french!!

I'll try to keep y'all updated as cool and uncool things continue to happen in my life.

Glabal 24 hour champions!!

2005-09-16T12:23:00.000-06:00

Yep, we won the Global 24 race in Granby, CO last weekend. It was very close battle between us and Trek/VW. In the end we ended up winning by only 6 minutes. It was actaully really fun too... especially when looking back on it, seeing that it has almost been a week. I actually enjoyed myself the most at night. The course was, overall, pretty boring, but at night it turned ito some of the sickest, fastest singletrack I've ever ridden. Also, when I would pass people at night, I felt like I was going faster than I've ever ridden a bike. Everyone on the team kicked ass, Especially Georgia, who did four laps at night, and only two in the day.. and she also posted a couple lap times that were almost as fast if not faster than some of our guys slower times. We couldn't have won if it were not for her boyfriend, Dusty, either. That dude made my breaks in between laps much more bearable, and he totally kept up on everything, so we didn't need to really think or do anything. Not only did I walk away with a $4000 ($1000 a piece), I also left knowing how to suffer a little harder, and made freinds with some really great people. FOr how hard this was at the time, and for how much I wasn't enjoying it at the end, I think I'll definately try do another one someday, especially if there is a large purse... shit, maybe I'll even try doing a solo 24 sometime.

Keystone and sleep

2005-09-05T18:06:00.000-06:00

Hey y'all,

I haven't posted for a while due to being pissed off cause I lost my camera... but I've started to accept the fact that there's nothing I can do about it, and I'm just goning to get a new one, mainly cause I need it for Ebay.

I raced the Mountain states cup final in Keystone yesterday, and it went pretty good. I ended up third, I felt okay on the climbs, and really good on the decents (finally... it took me all season). All in all, I was pretty happy with it.

I think my string of bad luck finally came to an end because this last week has gone very very damn well. I haven't been getting barely any sleep lately though, so I'll have to try to get caught up before th 24 hour race this weekend.

Tomorrow I'm goin' night riding... I'm psyched!!

That's all for now. Good night.

What else??

2005-08-29T19:23:00.000-06:00

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

2005-08-28T20:25:00.000-06:00

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

2005-08-24T18:21:00.000-06:00

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...

2005-08-20T20:47:00.000-06:00

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!!

2005-08-16T14:08:00.000-06:00

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.