Storm the Beach

Here's a quick post:
It was slow and sandy, lots of off-the-bike trudging, but I still got 2nd. Racing is fun! :)

Bakersfield Race

Well, now that Lyle mentioned my blog on his, I'd better update. The racing in Bakersfield this weekend was really fun! I got to hang out with pretty much the whole Team Bearclaw.
(I know, I know, ladies, you're jealous, but try to keep your fainting to a minimum.)

(This one's my favorite Bearclaw:)

Watching the pro women's race was awesome! Carolyn Popovic made winning by minutes look so easy! She put on quite an impressive show in the last two laps, pulling ahead of Coryn in the beginning of the 2nd to last lap and steadily increasing the gap until she was 1-2 minutes ahead as she crossed the finish line. Wow! (By the way, for any of you who don't know it, Carolyn is the nicest racer on the circuit.)

The Elite men's race was pretty fun to watch too. I got the dollars flowing out to the racers at Sunday's race.I can't think of a better way to spend a few bucks. Us spectators should do that more often in our local races!

In my race I got 3rd. It was fun! The girls ahead of me easily dropped me but I was able to hold off the girl behind who was hot on my heels for the whole race.

I officially started a daily bicycle commute to work last week. Luckily the weather has been strangely hot so riding at 6:30 in the morning and again at 6:30 at night has been so far, bearable. Hopefully I will have the discipline to keep it up since it will be my only form of winter training. And I'm definitely late in starting that up. It's 2 hours each way so maybe that'll be enough to get me up into the Expert category for the mountain bike season next summer. :)

Thanksgiving

I forgot to put this up last week. This is kinda like what my Thanksgiving was like. I got to see my dog, ride horses and hang out with friends.

Dog Sitting!!!

Send 'em my way...I can't resist!

The men in underwear, I mean, not the puppies. (hah hah)

In other news, I had fun "photographizing" today. No racing for me this weekend.

Whirlwind

That's what Sunday's race was for me. I wasn't going to race because I was going to be working all day. But then, as a fluke, I didn't have anything to do at work for a few hours. It was perfect timing. I had just enought time to race home, grab my bike, drive the 30 minutes to the race, get my number pinned on and turn the pedals for a few minutes before my start. (Thanks to Jesse and John for getting me going!)

Then there was the race:

As soon as I finished my last lap of the race, I got back in my car, stopped at a friend's house for a shower on the way back to work, and was at work 3 hours after I left.

I didn't even know how I placed.

I've asked myself several times why I did it. There's no prize money in my catagory. I'm not in contention for series leader. The actual fact of pushing your body that hard for 40 minutes of strenuous work is just painful. I really had absolutely nothing to gain from it. So what the hell? Are we bike racers just a little bit crazy? Anyone? Bueller?

Speaking of Women...

anyone into cheerleaders? Or are they too skinny to be sexy? You decide.

My Monthly Update (heh, heh, I know it should be Daily)

Sorry to have left everyone hanging about the "new girl in town", but unfortunately she was gone almost as soon as she got here. Luckily I have her bike as collateral. I'll let you guys know (Alex, JMcK) when she gets back on the condition that you guys jump right on it/her (ha ha). Oh, check out the previous blog-I was able to add a picture of her. Because blogs are meant to be a completely honest, truthful, and fully complete account of life right?

In cycling news, I went for my first "worthy" ride yesterday in a long time. I've been working a lot and kinda let my post-race-season break turn into a mega slack fest. So finally I did a ride longer than 1 1/2 hrs of "easy and fun". Not that I rode hard, which I definitely didn't, but at least it was for 5 hours. I headed up to the top of GMR from my house, and back.I had to ignore the "forest closed" signs due to the fire danger, but I knew that in the current condition I'm in, I wouldn't be able to pedal fast enough to generate sparks flying off the back of my wheels and light a new forest fire. Although that would've been pretty cool. (Not the fire.)

So today, my knees are creaking like they have arthritis. I probably should've eased into the longer rides instead of shocking my legs. Oh, well, they'll get over it. And they better get used to it!

On another note, pretty soon I'll have the complete women's kit for the Subie Fisher team! For those of you who don't know, it's pink, yellow, brown, and awesome. I got the jersey from Jon a few months ago, and now he will be mailing me the shorts. (By the way, this kit is completely exclusive since they didn't make any for sale, only a few were made for the 3 or 4 team pros. I really hope I don't look like a poser!)

Heather sure knows how to wear it!

Oh, Boo-ooys...

Guess what I just found! Blond hair, about 5' 2" and knows a person not by their name but what bike they ride. Sound interesting? Thought so. So all you bachelors out there who love their bikes as much or maybe more than they love the ladies, listen up. She's single. But probably not for long, considering mountain biking is her life and I've personally never met a chick who rides who is not already attached. They're few and far between. This particular one races pro so chances are she can keep up with you.

I'll leave it at that. Those who are worthy already know how to contact me.

P.S. Here's her picture:

An Attempt at Redemption

I know it's pretty unspeakable how lax I've been at keeping this blog up to date. So, here's a quick post to try to redeem myself to any slight degree. It might have never happened except then I found out people actually READ my blog. (Brian, thanks for the nudge.)

I'm not even going to try to bring you up to date from the last blog because since then, we raced in North Carolina, then came home briefly for a race in Altadena, then Colorado, then came home again only to turn around and head out for the Strawberry Music Festival in Yosemite. We're finally home for a civilized amount of time. I think we don't even have to go out of town until the holidays. Yay! (Don't get me wrong--this summer has been awesome!) Since pictures tell a pretty good story, I'm just going to dump a bunch in the blog to save on words.

Here goes:


I know funny pictures and story is way more interesting to some of you than clouds and trees, but since this is MY blog, and I happened to find the scenery amazing in Colorado, that's what you're gettin'.
Snowmass Village, Colorado:








A little end of season fun:






Fruita:






Cherry Lake (just last weekend):


I can't guarantee new posts right away unless something interesting happens and I'm inspired. That's my disclaimer.

The Bishop Pad

Between Vermont and North Carolina we stayed with Jeremiah and Erin for a few days. They gave us such awesome hospitality!

There was barbequing:

And tandem riding:
(That was a first for both Erin and I)

They took us on some fun trails. Apparently this trail is rideable:
I guess it is if you're JB, one of the best technical riders in the country!

Lyle found the perfect glasses to go with his styling new bag:

But most importantly, we learned of Jeremiah's secret between-race training routine. Some may seriously doubt my integrity in leaking this information into the public eye, but it's too priceless to keep it under wraps:So that's how he builds up his fast-twitch muscle fibers! I believe coaches all over the world will start prescribing bunny chasing to their athletes the second I hit "publish" on this blog entry. We'll see, but this may revolutionize the world of cycling training. Especially since he used this exact technique just days prior to winning the Sugar Mountain National Mountain Bike Race!!! (Way to go, Jeremiah!)

The Naked Crit

I'd heard about the "Naked Crit" from Lyle before but it's hard to really believe it until you see it. Well, I witnessed it and can vouch for the fact that people actually get naked and race thier bikes that way. They don't even seem to mind that they have an uncomfortable bike seat up their crotch. Who knows, maybe it's more comfortable that way. I didn't test the method out so I really can't say.

I had to moderate and edit the pictures so as not to embarrass/incriminate too many people. However, there was a pretty good turn out. Maybe about 15 entrants.


Most of the girls there were from the Velo Bella team. Thier team manager was there and told me I should come to the dark side. Hmmm...

It was an after-dark, unofficial, unabashed race around a gravel parking lot. And I can only assume there was confidence-boosting assistance in the way of alchohol. But there was prize money! Maybe that's the way to go. We don't have crap in the way of prize money in CA races. (Meaning exactly zero.) So I guess there's definitely something to be said for bootleg races. I don't know exactly how much but it looks like quite a wad in the "referee's" hand.
The "Wieeener":

If anyone objects to their picture being posted, let me know and I'll delete it. But it's hard to believe anyone would care since they all specifically opted to strip down and ride around in front of a crowd of at least 100 people, with lots of cameras flashing and car headlights blazing.