Tuesday, September 21, 2010

A break from Winter

So, obviously I haven't written in a few weeks, and unfortunately, a lot has happened since then. I kept meaning to write about the races that I have done since then, but never really felt like it. So, before I get into the meat of this post, I'll give a quick recap of the three races you missed.

1. Leverich Canyon Crank Up:

I actually hate this course. It is so steep going up and so steep going down, and since those are the only two things you do on this course, there is never a moment of relaxation. The first lap was so bad for me, that I actually walked a section. And did my awesome manual derailleur move when my front would not work (get off the bike and manually put my chain on the small chain ring). After the first lap, I started feeling better, but still ended up getting last place finisher. It also rained and stormed and hailed at one point during the race, and I got so hypothermic that I started thinking some really weird things (like the loudness of my breaks was making the thunder louder).
This race also started the in-house challenge: The CAF Bozeman chapter has three guys in it and we have a weekly race challenge and the loser has to do something weird or stupid that is decided on before-hand. I lost and had to deliver a heart-shaped Jello mold to our neighbors that we had never met before.
8 Hours of Labor:
This race was kind of fun, but mostly disastrous. I was doing really well the first lap, leading the pack, when all of the sudden I had to stop for cows. They did not want to budge, so by the time they finally got out of the way, I had lost my lead on second and third. Then came the big cow shit piles. I ended up getting cow shit in my nose. That makes for some pretty bad racing when you can't get that smell (or the shit) out of your nose. Then on the second lap I took a wrong turn and got lost. Then once I got back on track I flatted. After my break and Trevor's laps, I went back out with new optimism. Unfortunately, it's Montana. And racing in Montana just wouldn't be the same for me if I didn't get hailed on at one point. So I did. Then on this same set of laps I got another flat. When I came in for that lap, I decided I was going to be done before anything else bad happened.

By the way, the CAF weekly challenge was whoever had the fastest first two laps, which is why I was going so fast in the beginning. The challenge was neutralized, though, due to cow stampede and me getting lost.

3. WERKS XC:

Finally a good day to race in Montana. I felt pretty junky my first lap, probably due to lack of sleep all week due to first week of school partying, but I recovered and it ended up being a great day and a really fun race.

Now for the really fun part. The collegiate race that was planned for this weekend was canceled, so the original plan was to finally have a weekend with no racing. But the weather on Friday turned for the worse (big surprise). So at 9 pm, some friends and I decided we couldn't handle the weather any more and chose to go to Utah instead. We ended up getting in at 5 am, with a 7 am race start for a 12 Hour race. The race was at Sundance resort; here is a picture of the sun rising up on the mountain:
Even though the sun was coming up on the mountains, it was still dark at the start line, with Zach taking the first two laps:
Since, we did not sleep at all the night before the race, any of our time off the bike was spent trying to sleep under the truck and the tarp. Its actually pretty amazing how comfortable concrete is when you are really tired.
The race was really awesome. The course was so much fun, with a lot of awesome singletrack and no really big hills. The Maples were starting to change, so the first couple laps when the sun was rising, the trail was pink with the sun coming through the red leaves. This trip was exactly what I needed after riding in wet, cold weather for the past few weeks. I am actually averaging once a week for getting hailed on during bike rides. But it was sunny and warm and the leaves were starting to change and the trail was awesome. I was happy.

Then after sleeping for 12 hours, we went for a fun ride outside of Salt Lake City. We shuttled, so the ride was almost completely downhill. Once again, the trail was sweet and the leaves were changing. The aspens were all turning yellow, and they smelled so good. Once again, I was happy. This was the most fun I have had since I was back in Michigan in May.

This weekend is the Bangtail Ballbuster, the race weekend I am hosting. It includes a point-to-point XC, about a 15 minute downhill Super D, and a short track XC.

Friday, August 27, 2010

Lummis


Wednesday, Jason Lummis of the Bell's Beer MTB team was hit by a driver who never stopped. He is currently in the ICU at Michigan. Keep him and his family in your thoughts.

The police are looking for a FORD F250, F-350, or EXCURSION with a BROKEN PASSENGER SIDE MIRROR. PLEASE BE ON THE LOOKOUT. Especially in the DEXTER-PINCKNEY AREA. Anyone with information about the crash or the driver of the vehicle that stuck Lummis should call the Washtenaw County Sheriff's Department tip line at 734-973-7711.

Updates on his condition will be posted on the Bell's MTB Team facebook page

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Bangtail Blast, Smashing Glass, and a drink with Neptune

This past Saturday was a really good day.

It started with a MTB ride with some GAS/Intrinsik Architecture guys on the Bangtail Divide Trail No. 504. This is the trail that I will be hosting the MSU race on next month. Because of this, I have ridden a lot of the trail at different times for route planning, but Saturday was the first time I got to ride the whole thing this year- and it was just as much fun as I remember it. The beginning and the end of this trail are about 7 miles apart from each other on paved road, so unless you have a shuttle car, you have to ride a little on the road, and we started on this part on Saturday. The MTB ride starts up the Stone Creek switchbacks, which makes for about a 45-50 minute pure climb. Most of the rest of the ride is along the ridge, and we had a tailwind for this section, so it was very fast. The ride ends with about a 20 minute pure downhill that is so much fun. Riding the trail got me very excited for the race next month- it is going to be epic. Below is an elevation profile for the course. The whole ride, including the road portion, took us 3 hours and 1 minute. The race for the A's is probably going to be about 2 hours.

After the ride, I had lunch at MacKenzie River Pizza with Rich and Lizzie, who were stopping through Bozeman on their road trip across the country. They actually spent a good amount of time in Canada and now they are (roughly) on their way back to Ann Arbor.

Then came time for a job that my friends and I had not been looking forward to for a long time. Bozeman does not recycle glass, and the nearest place to recycle it is in Livingston, a town about 30 minutes away (they don't actually recycle it either, they crush it and reuse it in roads and other projects). So we filled up the bed of my truck with all the glass we had been saving for the past few months and started driving.
None of us really knew what to expect, but I think we were thinking the recycling center was just going to have a big dumpster for all the glass. It turns out it was an area of pavement blocked off by cement road barriers (stacked two high and probably 3 long). It looked like most people simply backed into the area and brushed all the glass off their truck, which we were about to do as well. Then Tyson threw one of the bottles into the back of the pit and it shattered, and we realized how much fun this task was going to be. We threw each piece of glass in one by one (except when we wanted to try doubling or tripling up). At one point another guy came and dropped off his glass rather gently and gave us a weird look. We got especially excited with bottles such as Pendelton, which is really thick glass. I am pretty excited for when we get to return our glass again. The only disappointing part was thinking that all this glass probably could have been worth about $150 in Michigan.

On the way out of Livingston, Brad spotted a hole in the wall on a side alley called Neptune's Brewery. I had never heard of it, and it sounded excited so I turned around and we checked it out. It turned out being the best beer I have had in Montana. They had 11 beers on tap, and all the ones that I tasted were absolutely amazing. They also sold one of the coolest growlers I have ever seen, so naturally, I had to get one of those and fill it up. I filled it with an amazing Chimay. I wish I had a picture of the growler to show, but maybe I will post one soon just to show it off because it is so cool.

The day ended with some grilling over at 422 N. Fourth and a bonfire. Oh yeah, did I mention I had originally planned on going into work for about 10 hours after my bike ride. I am glad I got distracted.

Sunday, August 15, 2010

Lone Peak Revenge XC

It was a cold, rainy, October day...in August. I woke up in Bozeman and it was raining and 40 degrees F outside, but weather.com had promised that there would not be any rain in Big Sky. As Trevor, Lydia, Christine, and I were driving down, this turned out to be partially true, and stayed partially true all the way through the race. There was a good amount of sun, but it also was drizzling, depending on which side of the mountain you were on.

It actually turned out to be a perfect temperature for a bike race. I had to wear knee and arm warmers while warming up, but during the race, it was not too hot, and everyone raced in shorts and a jersey. Minus a bunch of mud, the conditions were perfect (and actually the mud made it kind of fun- the downhill was very reminiscent of riding out east).

As for the race, it started with me getting the hole shot, but I am pretty sure that is just because nobody else wanted it. I soon got passed by three of the top four, but then I had a pretty good gap on everyone else behind me. Then another couple miles into the first lap, Louis and Lydia passed me. Louis decided the best place to pass me was through a mud puddle- he tried to bunny hop it, but ended up landing right in it and making about a 5 foot wake, that splashed me entirely. With the exception of a little leapfrogging on the second lap, I maintained 5th place in the Men's class for the entire race (6th overall since Lydia beat me- Lydia is competing at the World Cup and at World Championships in the next few weeks, so I am ok with it).

I felt so much better than I expected to feel, since all week my legs were still sore from the hike up to Granite. And a couple parts of the course were redone since last year to make it so much more fun that it was last year. This year I was able to stay in the middle ring the whole race (as opposed to last year, when I spent a decent amount of time walking because some of the sections were so steep).

Overall, it was a very fun race. I have not felt this good and have not had as much fun during a race since Iceman last November. I hope that this is a sign that I am returning to form (faster than expected) and that I can keep improving. My knee was bugging me a little on the last lap, but I am happy about that because it has been hurting a lot since the hike, because all the boulder hopping just destroyed it last week.

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Granite Peak

As promised, here is a post about Al's, Andrew's, Brad's and my trip up to the highest point in Montana.

At one point during the trip, we figured out that apparently this was my idea. I think it is one of my not as sane ideas in my life. Overall, the hike was ok, but the 7 hours hiking over boulders the second day really left a bad taste for all of us.

The hike started out with a nice gradual climb up to Mystic Lake, shown below.

Then after the lake, we began a pretty steep climb on a trail that had 28 switchbacks. On this section of trail, we gained about 2000 feet of elevation to get us up near the Froze-to-Death Plateau. Below is a picture of what most of our hiking looked like once we got onto the plateau. At this point, there ceases to be an actual trail (you just walk in the general direction of the Peak). It is roughly marked my cairns (rocks piled on each other). The only problem is, most of the time, the fog (or I should say cloud, since we were actually up in the clouds) was so dense that we had no idea where the cairns were, thus our hike across the plateau took a lot longer than planned.
Eventually we got to a point where the sun was starting to go down and we needed to set up camp. So we tried to find the smoothest spots possible, which involved moving a lot of rocks (and in the end just sleeping around the rocks underneath the tent). Before we went to sleep, the clouds around us cleared for a little bit, and we were able to see some peaks across the way sticking out of the clouds. So, we slept above the clouds for the night.
Here is a picture from our campsite the next morning. Luckily, our second day was already turning out to be much nicer (at least in the beginning).
So we kept hiking across the plateau, and along the way ran into a lot of goats. The goats came very close to us, as the one the picture below is only about 3 feet away from me. They also kept us up all night digging at the rocks for some reason right outside of out tents. I was tempted to spray one with bear spray because he would not go away.
Then was time for climbing the actual peak. Most of this time, I was more scared than I have ever been. I was more scared on this climb than I was when I was climbing over Panda, the bull. The first major scary part was what is called the snow bridge. It is a section of snow over a saddle that is about 20 feet long and only about 3 feet wide. And the snow drops off right away, so falling would results in about a 1000 foot slide to death. I went across basically scooting on my butt.
Then, after the snow bridge, the entire rest of the climb involved scaling up rock faces that are really high and very vertical. It was pretty unnerving for me, since I have absolutely zero rock climbing experience in my life.
Eventually, about 200 feet short of the summit, we all decided it was getting way too scary for us and we decided to turn around. Here is a nice Michigan Cycling picture of us as high as we got.
Then came the way down. We decided we wanted to explore a different way down and not take the plateau back. When we looked out at the next ~3 miles of what we had to do, for some reason we didn't register the fact that there appeared to be absolutely no trail across the boulder field that extended further than we could see. I thought that there would be a trail once we got a little lower. There wasn't. The picture below shows much of what we spent about 7 hours hiking over. Sometime the rocks were really loose, so we had to be careful not to start rockslides (which we were not always successful at). Sometimes the boulders were the size of cars and trucks and were also difficult to find a way around.
Finally, we found our way to a river, which led us back to a very primitive trail. Here is a good picture of a waterfall along the river.
Like I said, overall, I want to say that I enjoyed this hike. But the second half of the second day was just miserable for all of us. Brad is still having trouble walking because the bouldering put humongous blisters on his feet. And it started storming and downpouring on us when we were still trying to get out. And we had to hike the last three miles in complete darkness. So, if I was to ever do this again (I'm still telling myself I will never do it again), I will make sure to stay away from the way we went the second day.

Sunday, August 8, 2010

July Report

July is by far the best cycling month I have had since I have moved to Montana. It started out great, with the first month that I made it through the first week without taking any time off. The knee brace has really been helping my knee, and I have been starting to wean myself off of it (though a recent backpacking trip may have set me back a little with the rehab).

I ended July with 6 days off, 40.35 total hours on the bike, 514.3 miles ridden, and 1 race. I spent 23.65 of the 40.35 hours on the MTB, so it is nice to finally have the ratio back in the favor of mountain biking, though there is probably only a little over a month of good mountain bike riding left here in Montana.

Through July, I have already taken 87 days off, which is 41% of the year. Hopefully I can finish out the year with numbers like July so that I can not take more than 50% of the year off. It is true that a lot of the time off is due to the knee injury, but a lot of it is not.

It should be easier to keep this pace going, since right now my racing schedule looks like I will have a race all but three weekends starting this weekend going until Iceman. Also, as I mentioned before, I should have a more structured training plan once I start talking to a cycling coach.

That's it for now. Look forward to a post in the next couple days about Al's and Andrew's trip here from Michigan and our adventure up to Granite Peak (the highest point in MT, 12,799 ft).

Sunday, July 25, 2010

Bohart Bash and other stuff

Yesterday was the Bohart Bash- a 25 mile race that is pretty different than most races in the area because it is a little more of a rolling course. This race usually has one of the bigger turnouts for a MTB race in Montana, and there were 10 people racing in the Pro/Cat. 1 field. I got 9th (and the 10th place guy didn't finish). Overall, though, it was a great race, mainly because it is the first race I have done this year with any pain in my knee. It was also a really fun course and a really fun event. I actually got lapped by the 1st and 2nd place guys, but I don't feel so bad because they just got 12th and 27th at MTB nationals last weekend in the Pro field. Thanks to Molly for the water bottle hand-offs on a pretty hot day.

As for the other stuff, most of my rides lately have been trying to scout out a good venue for a Super D course for the MSU mountain bike weekend this fall. This has involved a lot of riding up fire roads and abandoned logging roads and dirt roads (and sometimes trail) and then coming down sometimes super sketchy stuff. I actually even had a pretty good crash on Friday night going down a trail that some DHers that I passed said is "really sick." It isn't too bad of a gig, but I am looking forward to finding a good spot so I can just go back to normal riding.

Also on Friday night, on the same trail that I crashed on, I saw a moose. At first glance, and my first thought was "what is a cow doing all the way out here." But then I saw that it was a lot bigger than a cow. It was actually a cow moose. Sorry that I don't have a picture, but she was only about 50 feet away, so I wanted to get away as soon as possible.

I do have pictures, though, of a pretty sweet spot at the top of this same trail called Fairy Lake. It is a place up in the Northern Bridgers you can access by car. The pictures obviously don't really do it justice, but it is one of most stunning places I have ever seen. Also in the pictures, you can see that there is still a little bit of snow left. I actually rode by a few big piles of snow on my ride today. So, there is still a pretty good amount of snow left at the end of July, and these places aren't actually that high (about 7500-8000 feet).

Here is a picture from the next ridge over. You can see the lake in the left center part of the picture. The pointy peak is Sacajawea Peak, which is the tallest point in the Bridgers, and you can actually hike to it.

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Back to life (on a bike) (again)

I know it has been a while. And I know I used this title at the end of last year (minus the "again"), but hopefully this time it is for real.

Mainly I have not updated my blog because there has not been much to talk about (Besides 24 Hours of Boyne and my whole trip back to Michigan, which I meant to write about but never got around to it). Back in April, my right knee started hurting anytime I would ride, so I took some time off in April and the beginning of May so that I could hopefully ride in Michigan. I rode pretty easy for the first part of my trip in Michigan, and I was able to enjoy a lot of Michigan trails (I got my money's worth out of an annual state parks pass while I was back). The first weekend I was there, I raced the Brighton stage race. The first day was a wreck because I had not slept in three days because of an eventful drive back ($900 car troubles), and Sunday I dropped out because I was again doing pretty bad and I did not want to hurt my knee just to get last (by a long shot).

So, like I said, most of the rest of the trip I spent going on really fun mountain bike rides, trying to hit all the trails I would normally be riding in Michigan over the summer. Then came 24 Hours of Boyne. Team Sofa King Fast is the reigning champion, and I wanted to do my part to continue the tradition (see Mike's blog for a post about the race...it was very good). The first two laps were pain free for my knee, but after that, it was all down hill (for the knee, not the course). The pain got progressively worse over the course of the race, and by my last lap, even a Tylenol-600 could not ease the pain. It actually hurt to walk for the next week or so.

So, when I got back to Montana, I went to the doctor to get it checked out. Of course, since I had not ridden on it in over a week, it was feeling better and the doctor could not get any symptoms out of me with that analysis. And with the X-Ray on hand, he said my knee checks out fine. This was good news and bad news. Good news because it must not be anything serious, bad news because I still do not know why it hurts to ride my bike. He said to start physical therapy and come back if it is not better in a couple months.

I started physical therapy, and at about the same time, dug out of the closet a knee brace I bought a few years back when my knee was bothering me because my saddle was too far back. I put it on and went for a ride and voila- no pain. I have been using the knee brace since then and have been able to ride consistently without it hurting. I am still doing physical therapy so that hopefully I can get out of the brace soon, because it is really hot and I am starting to get a pretty bad tanline on the one leg.

With that said, I am finally starting to feel comfortable about the prospect of racing seriously again. I have been riding much more consistently now. So hopefully I can regain some of the form I have lost over the past year (I also am still getting acclimated to winter lasting through June). My next race is going to be in a week and half- the Bohart Bash.

Since I haven't mentioned it yet, I joined a racing team this year, and will be sporting the colors of the Gallatin Alpine Sports (GAS)/Intrinsik Architecture Racing team this year. There is a link to the team website on the right. Those colors are orange and white. It is a little weird for me to wear something other than a Block M after exclusively racing for Michigan for so long, but I am actually starting to like it. At 24 Hours of Boyne, Mike did not recognize me when I was there to hand off because I was wearing the GAS/Intrinsik jersey, so I think it will take a little getting used to for everybody.

Finally, I am going to be moving into a house with a couple guys in a couple weeks, which means I will be saving a lot of money on rent. Right now the plan is to use some of that money to finally go the route of being a coached rider. I feel like it will help me get past the plateau I am on (or at least was on before the knee trouble), and hopefully it will prevent more injuries due to biking.

That's all for now. Sorry for such a long post with no pictures. I promise pictures next time.

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Seattle

This past weekend, I went with the Montana State Cycling team to race a circuit race and TTT at WWU and a criterium at UW. The weekend started out nice enough, with nice weather upon departure, and figuring out how many bikes I can get in my truck. You can see from the picture that we got five bikes in the bed and four on the hitch rack. The value of the bikes was about three times the value of my car.

Other than a lot of wind, the first part of the drive was pretty uneventful. Then two miles from the Idaho border, on top of Lookout Pass, my tire blew out. The picture says it all with this one. Well, not all of it. When we got the jack and spare tire out, we realized that the spare was riddled with holes and cracks because of serious dry rot. Oh, and the jack was too short, and the tire iron is too big. Luckily, the flat occurred right in front of a rest stop, because none of us had service. So we used the payphone to call for a tow truck, which took us to the nearest city with a tire service place, which was 40 minutes away. In the end, we made it to Seattle with only about a 2.5 hour delay.


The race on Saturday was a 6 lap, 50 mile circuit race. I got dropped halfway through, so I did a sweet solo break off the back for the last half of the race. I ended up pulling my calf during the race, so when I tried to race the TTT later that day, I made it about a mile before getting dropped by the team. I ended up not racing Sunday because my calf was hurting so bad.

But the weekend wasn't over yet. On the way back, down the mountain passes, my truck started making a weird noise whenever I was coasting. So that worried me all the way back to Bozeman. But we did make it.

Now its snowing for the rest of this week.

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Spring Breaks

Plural Spring Breaks.

The spring breaks started with Steve, his brother Greg, and sister-in-law Jen coming out for a skiing trip. Unfortunately for them, it hadn't snowed here for three weeks before they came and it was unusually warm in Montana. So snow conditions were sub-par for what they came for. We still enjoyed the skiing, a couple days at Bridger Bowl and a couple days at Big Sky. We did some really fun runs including down the Schlesman's lift at Bridger and off of Lone Peak at Big Sky (which both were about 40 minute runs). Here is a picture of Steve and me on Lone Peak- 11,166 ft high.

We had some fun times not skiing, too. I took the three of them Western dancing. Steve didn't do any dancing, but Greg and Jen gave it a try. We also soaked a little in the Norris Hot Springs, and they spent a little time in Yellowstone when I had to be in school. Here is a picture of us enjoying a very odd lunch one of the days we were at Bridger. I think we had PB&J, yogurt, left-over pizza, which all went very well with a couple tall boys of PBR.

For my own spring break, I was planning on working, but it turned out that I had nothing to do in lab, so I kept up with the previous four years tradition of spring break and rode a lot. I ended up doing 335 miles over the week, including one century, which my legs were definitely not ready for.

I also went for a couple hikes. The unusually warm weather has melted a lot of the snow, especially on the southern facing slopes, so it made for some relatively dry hikes. Here is a picture of a river on one of the hikes I went on.


Well that's about it. I had two very good spring breaks and I had a lot of fun with Steve and Greg and Jen.

Race season is about to start. I think I am racing this weekend in Seattle, so look forward to hearing about that.

Sunday, February 14, 2010

The Ridge

Today on the way up the lift in the morning, Katie asked me how many times I've been skiing now. I said today was my 12th time (ever). Little did I know 45 minutes later I will have rented an avalanche beacon and hiking up the ridge. I told Matt while we were hiking it was only my 12th time ever skiing and he said he would take it into consideration when deciding where we would ski off the top of the mountain.

I was nervous on the way up, but it turned out to be an awesome hike up and a really fun time going down, too. We went up twice, which means I actually only did 3 runs in the 4.5 hours I was up at Bridger today (the runs are a little longer from the top, and hiking took a little while). This turns out to be a much better workout than just riding the lift up every time, and hence much more fun for me.

Here are some pictures from the top. It was a little cloudy today, so you couldn't see the Crazy's until later in the day, but enjoy.


Here is a link to the trail map at Bridger Bowl. We started climbing from the top of the Bridger lift. From the top of the hike, we hiked more right the first run, then left the second run. http://www.bridgerbowl.com/images/wwwtrail_map.pdf

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Exciting Last Week

This last week has been a pretty exciting one.

Let's start with last Thursday. I've probably already told this story to anyone that will listen to me, but if you haven't heard it, it is a good one. I was riding my bike down the road, minding my own business when I felt something knock my helmet and then I saw an open pudding cup fall on the ground next to me. My riding style has tamed a lot over the past few years, so I don't really ride really far out in the road or anything. But getting something thrown at me didn't really make me happy. So I chased them down. But they got away. Unluckily for them, though, I went to University of Michigan and know how to read- license plates are particularly easy. Also unluckily for them, the Bozeman Police Department doesn't usually have anything to do. So when I filed a police report, I got a phone call later that night with the cop telling me he tracked down the pudding thrower. It turned out he was a minor and didn't want to get in trouble, so he "was willing to apologize to me and maybe do something for me." But I said no and he got a ticket for disorderly conduct.

It was a pretty sweet outcome. Hopefully that's one less person now who thinks it is funny to mess with cyclists on the road.

Then it finally started snowing on Friday again. We had been without snow and cold weather for a couple weeks, so skiing wasn't very good (but bike riding was, so that was cool). Saturday skiing was pretty good. I thought it was awesome that there was powder up to my knees in some spots, but then on Sunday, at the beginning of the day, there was powder up to my chest in some spots. It was like skiing a fluffy cloud. It was an awesome experience.

Last night I made it to the gym and lifted weights for the first time in probably 3 years. I am still able to walk right now, but I assume as it gets past the 24 hour mark, it is going to be pretty silly to watch me try. Lifting isn't anything I have done seriously since I started biking, but I think I am at a point where doing endurance lifting would be useful. We'll see.

Well it is still snowing, so this weekend should be good for skiing too. I'll only get to ski Sunday, but I think the forecast is calling for snow on Saturday, so that should be good.

Thursday, January 21, 2010

New Truck and Bull Riding

When I was back in Michigan, I finally took the plunge and bought a vehicle. It is a 2002 Chevy S10. 4WD and 4-door. It runs great and already made it all the way out here to Montana. That was a nice 28 hour drive with no sleep. I made good use of the 4WD through most of Illinois and Wisconsin, where I was kept under 50 mph the whole way because a snow storm.

The only problem is now about half of my very funny jokes are obsolete.

Also while I was in Michigan, I rode my first bull. A real, live bull. I went with Sheldon and we each paid $25 for one ride (we both thought we would get more than one ride for this much money, but it was still worth it). Below is a picture of Panda, the bull that I rode.

I lasted 1.19 seconds and bull riding is much, much harder than it looks on TV. I was so scared as I was climbing over the gate to actually get on the bull, but it was probably one of the most fun things I have ever done. Despite shaking almost uncontrollably after I fell off, I wanted to get right back on and try again. The only damage I suffered was a little bruise on my shin where I fell, but I think if I had been wearing chaps, that would have not been a problem.

In other news, training has been going well. I have only taken one day off since getting back in Montana, and the weather has been pretty decent lately, so I have been able to get outside to ride a fair amount. I went for a nice 60 mile ride the other day (my longest ride since being in MT), and I am a little out of shape. The hills tore me up, but other than that and the strong headwind from the south, it was a great ride. I've been skiing a little, too, but because of the mild weather lately, we haven't had any new snow and the warm temperatures have been turning the snow on the mountain pretty icy, so that hasn't been as much fun lately.

Friday, January 1, 2010

2009

The numbers for 2009 are dismal. In a year where I should have expanded on my training since I finally made the leap to Elite/Pro, I had my worst year in recent history.

I only rode 4515 miles and worked out 352 hours. Unfortunately, this works out to be less than one hour a day, which is way below par. Time spent on the MTB was still about the same as time on the road bike, though, so that is one good aspect of my training for the year.

With my ridiculously long hiatus from biking these past couple months, I took 33 more days off than last year, putting me to 137. That number has to go down.

My race count was half of what it was the previous year, with only 14. My only race win came with the Sofa King Fast team victory at Boyne. Finally, the year only included one century, when I usually do three or four.

Despite all this, I achieved my cycling goals for the year. My mission this year was to help Kelly develop into a better mountain biker and it happened. Kelly won the Sport Women 24 and under State Championship and she did very well at Iceman. So, yeah, it was a good year. Congrats to Kelly on her first full year of competition and good job with all the hard work.

The transition to Montana was hard and adapting is still a work in progress. But in order to start improving again and to get back to and beyond my competition level of 2008, I have to stop making excuses and get back to work.

I will make a picture collage soon of some of my favorite 2009 memories, but probably not until I get back to Montana, because I will probably use photoshop to make it. Happy 2010 everybody.