Question

I've got a question for all 3 of you who read this blog...

Does drinking or not drinking coffee have any bearing on one's sexual orientation or tendencies?

I’ve heard different things from different people, but no real answers. Let me know what you think and perhaps I will come back with some well thought out arguments.

Notice that they are both gay AND drinking coffee...

On a different note, I am about to go on the Sycamore Cycles mountain bike group ride, and it is now thundering. I hope it doesn’t rain…

Stupid long Mount Snow

So, I pretty much slacked off a whole lot on the whole blogging thing, and I’m sorry about that. I missed the last like, 4 days of the trip, and unfortunately, that was pretty much when all of the action happened. I guess that also explains why I didn’t keep up with my stuff though… And now I've got nothing to do, so you get a very very long report of the last few days.
So yeah, Friday. I tried to chill as much as possible, and other than pre-riding the course once again, I accomplished this nicely. The course was just as hard as I remembered from the day before, only this time I felt a whole lot better on the downhills. I was hitting my lines really well, and felt smooth and fast. I wasn’t all that happy with my climbing, but I felt like I could keep it together. I’m honestly having a hard time remembering what happened on Friday, so I’m just going to skip over this day and move onto Saturday.
I was supposed to wake up at 5 to get my breakfast, but my phone died in the middle of the night. Yeah, we didn’t really have a whole lot of cell phone service and I kept having to keep my phone plugged in cause it died so fast. But whatever. The end result of this was my not getting woken up on time, and having to eat a smaller breakfast so that I didn’t hurl on the day’s first climb. So after we all got ready to go, we headed over to the course for a nice warm up and preparation session. Good times. I felt pretty good during warm ups, and got to the line nice and hot. I was standing on the line, listening to the announcer drone on about some unimportant details of the race, when I heard a slightly frustrated voice calling my name. It kinda sounded like “St. Marie” with an, uhh, slightly frustrated tone to it. I looked around to find Julia standing at the fence trying to wish me good luck. I was in the process of getting called up to the line, managed a hurried good luck back at her, and rolled up to the start. (Julia, sorry about almost missing that). I had a really good start, and ended up at the front of the race. I got passed by a couple of people, and rolled off the prologue loop in 3rd. I got passed by some more people on the next climb, but was still riding where I needed to be when my derailleur hanger suddenly and inexplicably ripped off. I stood there for a minute trying to grasp what had happened, and for a second couldn’t figure out what to do. I guess lactic acid poisoning of the brain can screw up anyone in a flash. Once I decided that there wasn’t anything I could do to fix my problem and that my race was over, I had to figure out how to get back down the mountain. I briefly considered riding straight back down, but I figured, “hey, I worked to get up here, I’m almost to the top, I’m in no rush to get anywhere, I think that I’ll walk the rest of the climb and hit the downhill.” So, that’s what I did. It was a lot farther to climb than I thought, and the fun part wasn’t as fun as I was hoping, but hey, I eventually got back and that’s what matters. I watched Julia and Pinnitt and Wells during their races, was impressed with a few results, and then watched Tasha during hers. Good stuff. The pro women were faster than the winners of my category. Let’s just leave it at that.
The next day was Sunday. Obviously. I was racing short track today along with Julia and Pinnett. Julia’s race was in the morning, and we drove over to support her in her efforts. She was doing super, riding strongly in a podium spot, when she had a massive catastrophic mechanical that knocked her out of the race. I guess that’s what she gets for riding a clapped out pro’s, ex Jockey, ex Old Man Balls bike. We went back to the house and I had to rebuild my bike from the day before. I got it done, had to lower my standards on perfection a little, and hoped that everything would work out for me during the race. After all, it’s only a 20 minute race, what could go wrong? Well, I started, felt really really really good, was on the second wheel and starting to settle in when something did. I was coming around for what I think was my 4th lap, sitting in, not even trying hard (that’s what I get for dropping out of my earlier race. Fresh legs.) when my chain dropped off and got tangled up somehow in the derailleur. I got it fixed, but by the time I got everything straightened out, I was so far off the back that it really didn’t matter any more. So, yet another DNF in that race. I’m pretty sure I could have won too. But hey, live and learn, eh? Monday was pretty much just driving. It is now a suppressed memory for me, so I am going to not talk about it. Yeah. My next race is this weekend at Fontana. I’m going to race short track, and I’m trying to decide if I want to race XC, SS, or nothing at all for the longer race. I’ll let you know how that goes. I’ve got pictures from the weekend on my facebook…

Mount Snow, Day 3

Mount Snow. You’d think that someplace with SNOW in the name would be pretty cool, but no, it’s actually rather toasty. After waiting around through the morning for the hottest part of the day, we went over to the race venue to help Tristan with his racing. Coach was responsible for the feed, and my bike was being parted out for the tech zone. I ended up watching the race from the feed/tech zone, and let me tell you, there are some intense people there. Much to the consternation of the racers, the people handing out the free small cups of water couldn’t throw their water on people, but rather taunted them with the promise of the impossible. Anyway, since my job was only required if something really bad happened for Tristan, I spent my time taking pictures. I got a lot of good ones, but can’t really upload them because our internet sucks. Pretty much entirely. But yeah, the race was exciting, I’ll let Tristan tell you about his race, but the winners had some good attacks and counter attacks going on. Good stuff. After the race, I came back to the house to get some rest and put my feet up. Lame. I’m amazed at how much laziness is required to be a bike racer. I mean, as a whole, the cycling community is pretty fit, but as you get higher up in the ranks, life has to slow down to the pace equivalent of someone fat and out of shape. So yeah, hanging out. Good times. I get to ride tomorrow…

Mount Snow, Day 2

Last year, the Mount Snow course was really hard. This year, it’s even harder. There were a lot of sections that were really hard when muddy, actually pretty unridable, and so the USA Cycling course designers were kind enough to replace them with even harder sections. Instead of riding on single track climbs, we now get to go straight up some insane walls. Good times. The descent is still really fun, although they cut out some good stuff on that too. It’s a 5 mile loop; with an amazing 1500 feet of vertical climb each lap. And half of that mileage is going down…
Anyway, I slept in to the amazing hour of 8:30, got some Lucky Charms, and proceeded to veg out in front of the TV. In spite of not having any good channels, I have a feeling that there will be a lot of vegging going on this week. Once we were done frying our brain cells, we went out to ride for a bit. We are supposed to be 3 miles from the course, but really are closer to 8, meaning that riding to the course is pretty much not going to happen. So yeah, not much to say about the pre ride other than describing the course, which I’ve already done, so I’ll just go ahead and stop talking about it. So yeah, at the moment, I’m watching some more TV, while Julia, Tasha (Jessica?), and Wells are at the store, Squirrel is out working on the computer, and Capitan America is getting ready for his race tomorrow. I’ve already sticked myself and stretched today, so I really have nothing to do until tomorrow. Good times.

Mount Snow, Day 1

Well, I wasted about 3 hours of my life today, even more so than if I had just ridden in the car for the 7 hours that I was supposed to. But no, the wasted 3 hours came in the form of it taking us 10 hours to make it the 7 hours from start to finish. But yeah, in any case, we spent a long time in the car. I think that we hit about 4 hardcore traffic jams, and that slowed us down a lot. During one of these, we tried to make a detour around the section of road that was jammed, but ended up just hitting another traffic jam one road over. That sucked. We ended up meeting up with the other car about 2 hours up the road in this airport-esque travel center after getting dropped big time for the second time on the trip.
After a very long time in the car, we finally made it to Mount Snow. It is pretty much just as cool as I remember it. We drove up to the course, but didn’t really see anything since we had to meet the other car at the store. After doing our shopping at the local Shaw’s grocery super center, we went up to the house… not bad. It’s a little out of the way, but it’s nice, and apparently there is a shortcut over to the course. Anyway, I made dinner while everyone was out riding, and now we are watching “I Survived a Japanese Game Show” after seeing a rousing episode of “Wipeout.” I highly recommend the Wipeout show, but the verdict is still out on the game show. So yeah, there obviously wasn’t much to write about today. We are going to ride the course tomorrow, and I’m pretty much looking forward to getting on the bike on some super fun stuff. Later.

Finally.

Pretty much my entire training year has been leading up to this week. National Championships in West Dover, VT. I went last year totally unprepared, and without a clue. This year, I know what to expect (mostly), and I have been preparing all year. That being said, I have very little confidence in my fitness level, and am pretty much hoping to pull off something unexpected.

Today was my final day of preparation, and I still feel like I have a lot to do. I worked on Julia's and my bikes for a couple of hours today, trying to dial everything in. I even put a granny gear on, just in case. Julia is running some awesome ADvantages, and I'm on Monorails. I do have my trusty Medusa's in case it's muddy, but I'm hoping that they won't be necessary. I've got all of my stuff packed up, and even got a custom kit done... let's just say that my non-physical self is ready.

I still have to ride tomorrow morning after breakfast with the fam, and hopefully I won't forget anything that I need. I'm stretching now, thinking through all that I've packed and what I still need to.

Anyway, It's time to stop rambling and start sleeping. I'm pumped, and totally ready to end the speculation. Let's get it started...

What my life is made of...

My life has a few things that I consider essential to the definition of it. These being (in no order other than as I thought of them...
Bikes
Racing
Fitness
Female company
Work
Sleep
Dr. Pepper
Subway
Battle between the sweet and the healthy
Driving
School
Knowing the plan
Sun
Summer
Music
Looking forward to the next great thing

That pretty much sums up my life at the moment. What also sums up my life at the moment is my extreme excitement about going to nationals. And although I am not overly confident in my current fitness level, I am looking forward to being able to get to travel and have fun with some racing thrown on top of it all. It is going to be a great trip. We are leaving on Monday, and I am going to try to write a blog about every day that I am gone, but I guess that will depend on my Internet connection capabilities.

What defines your life?

Work

So. I'm at work. And bored. No one has really come in today, and with the exception of Wes being here for a little bit earlier, I have been alone.
It was raining earlier, but it has turned into a really nice day, so I'm looking forward to getting out on a ride after work. That being said, I have a long time to wait. I'm hoping someone will come and hang out with me at the coolest shop on earth...

Anyone? Hello?

I guess I will go work on my bike some more, then get around to Punky Brewster's clapped out fork.

Wait, a stupid tourist is coming in. Great. Not who I was looking for, but I guess I should go help them...

Later.