Merry Christmas and A Happy New Year!

Man, Christmas is come and past, and it was awesome. I got to ride (I was going to blog about it, but didn't, I'll include some pictures in this one) which was cool because it was snowy and I rode my cross bike up 215 and off some little side roads. It was pretty sweet. I also got a shiny new helmet too from the girlfriend, which is super awesome.

Since then, I've gotten to ride my road bike a lot, as well as going down to Clemson for some XC and DH action since there is still way too much snow for mountain biking here. I felt much more comfortable on the Clemson DH than I did during the collegiate race, but I'm not any faster, so I guess I still have some work to do on my skillz. Sweet.

(you don't see Tally look like this very often)

Tomorrow is the annual Carolina Crusher road ride, where people who got a bit rowdy the night before get to ride off their hangovers and get their blood pumping pure again. This year will feature a somewhat altered course to avoid all the snow that is still lingering around. Should be fun.

Oh yeah. Merry Christmas to me...

Snow Day

Well, like you may have noticed in my last post, it snowed last week. Unfortunately for those of us who like to ride our bikes, the snow is still here. I think that one of the main reasons that this area is awesome is because of the fact that one can ride year-round without too much trouble, and since for the last 10 years there hasn't been any significant snowfall, we have gotten really spoiled in thinking this. I mean, most places where there are mountains have to deal with large amounts of snow during the winter, and I guess we are fortunate here to have the elevation but not the real winter. That being said, it isn't actually all that bad of a deal to have 10 years of riding and only 2 weeks of snow preventing rides.

Anyway, the snow has meant that the 1:45 minutes that I've spent on the bike in the past 4 days has been on the trainer. Part of the blame for that lies with a large amount of work the week before Christmas, but still, I was hoping for some night riding to work on my ninja skills. Instead I worked on my ballet-footing skills on a run this morning with the Hoo (or the Who if you are thinking Christmasy thoughts about Whoville).

Being at the shop has only been so stimulating, and I have found myself thinking a lot about this next year, the races I'm going to do, my goals for the year, and what bike I'm going to ride. I am waiting on the Epic to become available, but the thought of a 29er HT has crossed my mind more than once... I don't think I want the 29er Epic (it's pretty heavy), but I'm not sure if I want a HT either. Actually, I can't believe that I'm even thinking about this at all. It's almost like I WANT to go join the circus. Weird. I should go read my own review of the 29er I rode a while back and see what I said then.

Later.

A New Year! (almost)

I am well aware of how long it's been since I've blogged...and I'm sorry about that. I kinda got tired of the whole thing after collegiate nationals, and haven't really had anything to write about since then. Since nationals (where I once again failed to live up to my expectations and big words, despite having a great season up to that point) I have done 1/2 of a cross race, and a whole bunch of mountain biking. I'm loving my Enduro, and have been trying all kinds of stuff that I never would have done on my Epic. It's pretty sweet. I'm sure I'll talk about that in a later post.

It snowed significantly all day yesterday, and combined with getting my wisdom teeth out the day before, meant that I hadn't ridden in 2 days and was going slightly stir crazy. So I kitted up in my super warm clothes (all pretty good looking, if I do say so myself), and went out in the snow. After riding through town and getting wet on all the stupid roads (not to mention getting splashed by tons of cars with slush) I made it up to the forest where there was significantly less traffic.

I passed a group of rednecks attempting to get their truck out of the ditch, and rode on past the horse stables, where I saw Will to the Murr drive over a rather large downed tree and slid

around a bit coming past me. I kept riding past the tree that turned him around, and finally made it up to Looking glass. It was pretty sweet going somewhere that no one else could go for the day, and I felt very explorerish.

A comment on riding in the snow...it's very hard. Kinda like riding in mud during an earthquake on a bike that doesn't like you very much. Seriously though, its way less predictable than mud, not to mention colder.

I'm getting my next season together at the moment, so be looking for the outline for that. I'm hoping to mix it up a bit, and redefine some goals that I've had for a while. Hopefully should be good.

A Request...

I know it's been forever since I've blogged, and I'm sorry for that. I know there are 6 of you who are sometimes vaguely interested in what I have to say, but I haven't been keeping you in touch with my life at all. I do promise to come back at some point (probably when I have something interesting to say).

For now, I am breaking my silence to make a request on them world wide internets... I really want Bracken Mountain to come out with their special edition brownies again for this weekend. That would be amazing, and I feel totally fitting with my winter regimen of eating way too much sugar. Baker Bill, I will even come pick out the special M&Ms for the top if you need me to...

So yeah, peppermint brownies. They're the jam. That is all. For now.