The Boots

If you thought I looked awesome in my Dwight glasses (Previous Post), wait until you see me in these babies...
Now I just need to get a sweet hat and a bigger belt buckle to complete the outfit...

More Montana

Sorry I haven't posted anything in a while, it has been busy here between school, biking, and fun.

This post is going to be full of pictures. Most of them will be of my apartment. And I guess this post won't have much to do with biking. Here is a picture view of my apartment:
Living RoomLiving Room 2

KitchenDining Area with no tableBedroomBedroom 2And Hannah made the trip to Montana, too

So I don't actually spend too much time there, but it is a pretty good spot. It feels a lot better since I got stuff up on the walls, and when I got a coffee table and bookshelf. I was pretty happy when I got those, because now the only items left in a box is stuff that goes on my desk. I also just got satellite TV, so now I have Big Ten Network and Fox Sports Detroit. I am quite excited about that. I got to watch the Michigan football game last weekend, and now I will still get to watch some of the volleyball and hockey games. And of course softball in the spring.

A lot more of my time is spent at the Chemistry Building on campus. I don't have any pictures right now, but maybe I will do that soon, because it is a pretty cool building. I tried to get another picture of the sunset out of my office, it looks pretty cool, but the picture still doesn't do it justice.

Along the same line with sunsets, here is the reflection of the sunset on the clouds outside of my apartment one night.
The road riding is pretty good around here. There aren't anywhere near as many roads here as in Michigan, so the amount of different rides is pretty limited, but I can ride flat if I want to and I can climb if I want to. My favorite road ride here is up Hyalite Canyon. It is about an 8.5 mile climb that goes alongside Hyalite Creek up near the top of the mountain. The paved road actually stops short at the reservoir. I took a lot of pictures to try to make a panorama, but the panorama didn't look to great, so here are two of the pictures from the top of the climb. The whole route along the river is amazing, too.

On campus, there is a duck pond that is actually heated during the winter, so the ducks stay year around. There are a lot of ducks there, as you can see below. The first time we went to feed the ducks, they were pretty nice and stayed in the water, but they are getting more aggressive each time we go. Now they have been walking right into Amanda's lap and biting us to get our attention.

Last week, I drove to Billings with Amanda to get her a kitten (she actually scoped it out on the internet to find the perfect kitten). Here is a picture of Wendy. She is an awesome little kitten and I never realized I liked kittens so much. Although, I am missing a lot of skin from my hands and arm. It will be nice when she is de-clawed.
I just started doing some research work in the lab this week, but for now I will be on "rotation" type work. Of course, this will just mean I will be learning skills I don't already have, and most of my work for the near future will be to grow proteins. School is going well, graduate level courses are better than undergraduate level classes. To earn my keep, I am teaching general chemistry labs. It is pretty time consuming, with three three hour labs a week plus at least three hours to grade 60 lab reports a week. Tonight I proctored an exam for Gen Chem and it was pretty fun being on the other end for once.

Last night, I went to some country dancing lessons and learned some basic steps of jitterbug dancing. It was pretty awesome. But I also learned that my belt buckle is way too small. And I need some cowboy boots and sweet cowboy hat. I think there will be more to come with that in future posts- hopefully with a picture of a super sweet cowboy outfit.

I think that is all I have for now. Saturday I will be putting on a collegiate MTB race, so look forward to a post about that. And maybe some chem building pictures and more cool pictures of Montana while we still have good weather.

Leverich Canyon Crank Up

On Saturday, I raced again here in Montana at a trail called Leverich Canyon that is just a couple miles south of Bozeman. The trail was 6 miles per lap with 1000 feet of climbing per lap. I did four laps. Here is the elevation profile they had listed on the website:
The race was really hard and to be honest, I am really starting to get sick of climbing and descending so much. They are usually equally as painful when they are sustained for so long. I find myself wishing for the downhill when I am going uphill and wishing for the uphill when I am going downhill. Its not too often I can say to myself "man, this is fun." But I guess I better get used to it...

I ended up getting fourth place out of eight riders in the Pro/Cat. 1 field. I am pretty happy with the result considering I am still new to the whole climbing forever then descending forever thing. I was talking to the guy who won the past two weekends and he said I chose the hardest two races in MT to start out on. So I guess that is encouraging.

In other news, Congratulations to Kelly for being the 2009 MI State Champion for her age class!! Kelly raced at Stony Creek on Sunday to finish the Tailwind State Championship series and she clinched her win and the free Iceman entry! She is giving Team BCB something to be proud of.
Congrats Kelly!!

Montana

Here I am. In Bozeman, MT.

It is a little different than Michigan, much higher up and much less people. There are only about 37000 people here in Bozeman. The biggest city in Montana is 110,000, not much bigger than The Big House on football Saturdays.

But the mountains are great and the mountain biking is pretty good, too. I raced this past weekend at Big Sky Resort (the tallest Ski resort in the country, according to Mike). It was pretty brutal. I heard someone say it was 900 feet of climbing per 5 mile lap. And it seemed to all be concentrated in about 2 of the 5 miles. It was very steep and I was using my W-gear a lot. I surprised myself with 4th out of 6, and I was actually sitting in 3rd for the entire first three laps. But three laps was too much climbing for me and 4 was way too much. I forgot to mention that the start line was at 7800 feet, which is 3000 feet higher than where I live in Bozeman at 4800 feet.

I have mostly gotten used to the elevation. I still get a little winded walking up stairs, but biking has helped speed the process, I think.

School has gone well so far. Classes don't actually start until next Monday, but all of last week I had proficiency exams. I had to pass 3 out of 6 offered, and I passed 4, so I have completed that requirement. That will make life easier than if I had had to retake them throughout the year.

While I was studying in my office, I was usually distracted by the great sunset view I have at night:The picture doesn't really do it justice. You can kind of see the mountains in the background. Those mountains are actually pretty far away. Here is a picture of the Bridgers, which are much closer:You can see in the picture that there is a Block M on the side of the mountain. This is the "M" hiking trail. So I can actually look out my window from my apartment and see a really big block M, which makes it seem a little more like home.

There is a lot of hiking and biking and much else to do around here. Plus school. I am pretty sure once school starts, life will be pretty hectic. But I think I will enjoy that more than having too much free time, which I have had to cope with the past few days.

I will report more soon, and hopefully get some better and more pictures up once my camera arrives from Michigan.

Feel free to call or e-mail me anytime, any contact with Michigan is quite welcome as I am dealing with homesickness...

Stony Creek TT

This weekend I said my farewell to Robert Linden and the Tailwind circuit in my last race in Michigan for a while and my last Tailwind race probably for a long time.

I had hopes of making it on the podium for my exit, but midway through the race I remembered that endurance sports require a little more planning than a couple weeks in advance to get results. So, it was the usual deal where people pass me and I don't pass anyone back. Christian Tanguy started 3.5 minutes after me and passed me 8 miles in (out of 13). He ended up finishing with the winning time of 46 minutes, 6 minutes up on me.

The course was actually pretty tough with some challenging stream crossings and mud bogs at the end, where I actually dabbed three times, which really frustrated me. I ended up in 10th place out of 12, so I am still not getting DFL, which makes me happy enough.

Here is yet another stolen (but pretty cool) picture from Andrea Tucker:
Kelly broke her winning streak with a second place finish, but she had a great race and actually fared better than I did through the stream crossing near the end. And no bee stings this weekend, so all is well. She is still producing the best results for Team BCB and is improving like crazy.

Even though I didn't win, I was the only racer to track stand during my 30 second countdown on the line, so at least I am able to look cool while being slow. That is, after all, the most important part of bike racing- looking cool.

Big M XC

This past weekend, Kelly, Cory, and I went up to Manistee National Forest to race Big M.

We left around 11 on Saturday and drove the four hours up and over, with a little stop at Taco Bell on the way. Then we set up camp and pre-rode the trail. The trail was a six mile loop of pretty wide open trail. There was really only one technical descent. Since it was pre-ride pace, I didn't really notice the long gradual hill that lasted for about a mile and half halfway through the trail. I would the next day.

After the pre-ride, we walked around the town of Manistee and realized that there really isn't anything to do there. But we had a good dinner followed by good ice cream at House of Flavors. Sleeping on the ground was interesting. I always said I would never want to do that for a race, but it actually worked out really well, and $5 for the night is a pretty good deal.

The race was really, really, really fast. At least it was as long as I was able to hold on to the leaders, which was about 4.5 miles. When I was riding with the choo-choo train, we were cruising at 22-24 on the flats and about 18 up the long gradual hill that was much more noticeable this time. When we got to some steeper climbs and I wasn't able to keep up the crazy pace anymore, I fell off. Within ten seconds, they were out of my sight. That is how fast they were going.

Since I was pushing myself a little harder than I should have been, I blew up and about 5 more guys passed me. I held this position for the rest of the race (with the exception of passing Christian when he was on the side of the trail with a flat tire on the second lap and the subsequent pass-back with a mile left in the race). I ended up 14th out of 17.

Overall, I had a lot of fun, and I am feeling a little faster. With some training this fall at altitude, maybe I can make up for all these low placings with a good finish at Iceman in November.

Kelly fought through a bee sting on her eye in the first couple miles to finish and still beat her 14 y/o competitor. So she is still sitting on top of the Tailwind USAC series in her age/class. She's pretty tough for fighting through it all, a fight which her body objected to afterward, which required Benadryl to fix.

Cory had a large group to go up against in the Expert 19-29 category, where he placed 8th.

Sorry for no pictures.

Stony Creek Marathon XC

Sunday I did one of my favorite races of the year. At least it was one of my favorites before this year. This year I'm not in as good of shape, so it took me 40 minutes longer than last year. Granted the fastest time was also 22 minutes slower, but 40 minutes is about one whole lap of my last year's times.

After fighting myself throughout the whole race, I did finish and actually didn't get last. I was 12 out of 14 finishers and 18 starters. I was on the bike for 4 hours and 54 minutes.

There isn't too much to report, just the same old suffering (perhaps more this year). I had planned, during lap four, that this would actually be a "quitting biking for a while" post (I had the whole post already written up in my head), but obviously I am addicted to hurting myself for hours on end, so that won't be happening.

On a very positive note, Kelly has continued her winning ways, making her 4 for 4 on the season. She toughed out her longest race or ride by 17 miles in good fashion, finishing 42 miles in 4 hours 24 minutes. She was the third place sport woman out of 8. If she keeps this up, she will win a free entry to Iceman this November.

Here is a picture of me appearing to go fast...I love that pictures can never tell what place I'm in.