It's the crap, crappiest season of all!

Happy Christmas jingles notwithstanding, I've really had a hard time with winter this year. There has been snow on the ground pretty much non-stop for the past 6 weeks, and it's been pretty cold too (although not quite as cold as it was last year). Anyway, here is a little update regarding my thoughts on the season...

First, as a disclaimer, I HATE WINTER. Pretty much everything that I have to say in this post is tainted by that fact.

Second, I am well aware that people in other parts of the country have it much worse than me (even my friends in the Boone area). While I feel bad for them, they really don't have much relevance to my situation. It's their own faults for living there. I just don't expect Brevard to be one of those places.

Sliding around on snow isn't normal, but on meth (winter) it is.

Anyway, like I said, there has been snow on the ground for the past 6 weeks. There has been a little bit of mountain biking during that time, but not at all for the past 2.5 weeks. For the first week the most recent snow was on the ground, Julia and I tried our hands (or leg/feet areas) at XC skiing. Fun stuff. Kinda threw me off coming off of DH skis, since turning and stopping is pretty much impossible on them. Still, it's a good workout.

Julia demonstrating proper technique

Today, I had the idea to go out early in the AM to ride my MTB before the ground thawed and got all slickery. Good plan. Except for this stuff...

The slippery, icy result of hundreds of hikers making tracks

It was really slow going on North Slope, which I suppose is my own fault for riding a trail that I knew would be bad. Thrift and Sycamore were both totally ridable, and despite a bit of sleet starting to come down, remained grippy.

Finally, I want to review a couple of products. First, my new gloves. Julia got these for me for my birthday, and I have to say, they are AWESOME. If anyone has hands that get cold, these are worth the money, I'm sure. Way warmer than the Specialized gloves, the only fault I have found with them is that they are too warm for most riding (25 degrees this morning, and my hands were still sweating). Good stuff.

Descente something-or-other gloves

And finally, my bike. I've never owned a stumpy before, and I have to say, it's baller. I'm gonna do a bit of a more detailed review sometime in the future, but for now, suffice it to say, I've got it dialed, and it just keeps asking for more speed. Every time I got off the snow today, I got to remember how much fun Pisgah is. I'm looking forward to a riding filled spring and summer...

Also, I had a video for you of Michael and I building a bridge, but I can't seem to get it off of my Lucifer-possessed phone (Droid Incredible stupidphone). I'm gonna keep working it, cause it was an epic day. It's not often that you get to cut down trees in the rain when it's below freezing to build a bridge with your bare hands. Man things.

Hendo!!!

I'm working at the Hendersonville Sycamore Cycles today, all by myself, and so far am having a blast. (As a side note, if you haven't been down here, it's definitely worth coming to visit; the shop is awesome.) Anyway, I don't have any repairs to do, have no bikes to build, and no one else working to keep me company. Don't let that make you think that I'm bored though. Not in the least. So far today, I have learned many, many things. Such as:

I'm pretty sure the people in Hendersonville are crazier and/or more country than the people in Brevard. Granted, I'm basing this on the 3 people who have come in today so far, but I feel like a 100% incidence of Lady Gaga levels of crazy is a pretty good predictor.

The first guy to come in was a crazy, homeless-looking dude, who talked to me for an hour about being hit by a car, his awesome giant comfort bike with all kinds of racks and finders, and visiting his 380lb estranged wife and kicking her current boyfriend out of the house while leaving his girlfriend at home. This man had no teeth, and was swearing up and down that he would be getting $40,000 in a settlement for getting hit by a car. He also wanted 2.5in DH tires on his townie bike.

He looked shockingly like this, sans amphibian hell-bent on death

The next awesome customer interaction was when a pair ofguys (who in fairness, I've seen in the Brevard store before) came in looking for some bikes. From them, I found out that, if you have an automatic defibrillator implanted in your chest, you aren't supposed to rock climb or mountain bike for fear that landing on your chest would cause lethal loads of electricity to accidentally go coursing through your body, killing you instantly. This gentlemen's theory (mind you, completely untested except in the recesses of his mind) was that, by wearing some form of chest protection, this risk could be greatly reduced and mountain biking would be OK.

An additional bit of information gathered from these two fine customers included the fact that a "gravity" bike is apparently a normal bike that you buy off the floor, take home, cut in half with a hacksaw before riding it, and then "stretch," making it at least 2 feet longer. I'm not sure what is gravity related about this, but I'm definitely trying it with my DH bike.

Finally, at least 7 times during the 30 minutes they were in here, one of them would look at a road bike, cross bike, or anything with the bars lower than the saddle, and say, "I would ride this, but, the belly" while patting the belly affectionately.

I'll also mention that neither of these two had teeth either.

Finally, Old Man Marshal came in for a visit. He stormed in the door, hair brushed and going crazy, talking before he even had the door open. He was also eating a handful of nuts, talking with his mouth wide open, and doing his best food sprinkler impression. Not to be graphic or anything, but the nuts seriously made him look like he had a mouthful of powdered doughnuts. I had to wipe the counter off when he left.

Off for more fun in Hendo.

Hi

The picture in the header of my blog is annoying me...I like the picture itself, but I can't figure out how to make it smaller. At the moment, it's kinda like, "BAM! I'M IN YOUR FACE WITH A HUGE FACE." Also, I feel that the title represents the lifestyle that most amature athletes lead...no real reason for putting massive numbers of hours in on the bike, just kinda doing it because there's something not quite right in the head.

Anyhoo, riding is good, gym time is good, and even though I haven't done it much recently, running is good. I've pushed myself harder than ever in the gym, and ended up with about an extra 10lb of muscle. We'll have to see if that's a good thing or not...hopefully I'll avoid hurting my shoulder so much.

There is a threat of snow on Monday, so I'm gonna get out on the MTB as much as possible this weekend to store up some awesome.

Merry Christmas!

It's Christmas!!!! Yay! And, it's a white one too! Which I guess is OK if it gets really warm really quickly. This snow hanging around isn't so great.

I got to go for a ride this morning as it started snowing with my bro, which was pretty awesome since it had just barely started snowing and it was like riding in a lite version of a winter wonderland! The drive back wasn't so awesome since, 100 yards from my house, I slid out of a turn and into a bridge. I was pretty sure I'd messed something up pretty good, but when I got home, there was no damage to the body. Nice, but the steering/tire alignment is all messed up now. Oh well.

Hope you all had a good Christmas. It's been one to remember. Whiteness like this doesn't come often on the baby Jesus's birthday!

2011

Alright people...I know what you're thinking, "two blogs in two days? What is going on here?"

Right. Well, one of my goals for 2011 is to write about my life. Not so much for your benefit (although I appreciate the few of you who check in from time to time), but to keep myself on track.

I do have some new goals and new experiences for this next year. Other than hoping I can get a real job shortly after the year starts, I also will be moving out of my house the first week of January. Both of these things are signs that I'm growing up, and shouldn't be taken lightly.

I also have goals. Which I am going to post here so that I can't hide them if they don't go well.

First, I am going to win the SERC overall. I don't expect this goal to be terribly hard, since really all it takes to complete it is to show up to all or most of the races. It does, however, lead me to my next two goals...

I want to win some races. It's been a while since I've done this, and being consistently fast over the course of the year is probably the best way to pull it off.

I want to move up to pro after the season is finished. Again, I've been an expert/cat 1 for a very long time, and I know that I'm capable of racing at a higher level. Will I ever be a top pro? Not a chance. But I can be faster than I am.

To reach these goals, I have a couple of things that I know I need to do...

1. train consistently, recover properly, and do the work that I get assigned.

2. lose some weight. At the moment, I am about 10-15lb over weight, and this needs to change, and quickly.

3. improve my mental game. I've kinda tended to be a mental basket case when it comes to racing, which has led to a lot of DNFs, bad races, and self-defeat. No more. My mental improvements and increased ability to focus are going to be some of the biggest things to take me where I want to go.

Anyway, just letting you know.

Also, it snowed today. That kinda sucks. because I have a new bike on the way and won't be able to ride it.

Goodbye College

Hi guys and girls. I'm just letting everyone know that I'm done with school. Like done for good with Brevard College. I've been there since fall of '07, and have done 7 semesters, 6 race seasons, 6 national championship appearances, 2 national championship victories, and probably (just a guess) 60 or 70 race starts. Awesome. Its been a good time BC...thanks for the experience, and for the degree. Hopefully the people next season will be able to keep up the awesome, and maybe spread a bit of success to the road side of things.

For real though, the college racing experience was easily one of the best times I've had in life so far. Thanks Thad for getting me to come and for all the support! Good friends, lots of free racing, and an awesome purpose to my training and effort. I loved the feeling that my race results actually mattered, and having other people depending on me doing my job. I definitely didn't see as much improvement as I would have liked, and was nowhere near as fast as a lot of other really talented people that I raced with, but I had a blast.

So then, what now? I was briefly tempted to stop racing, and just ride my bike for the fun of it, since I know how much I'm gonna miss having the team thing going on. At the same time, I know how competitive I am, and how much I need a competitive outlet. Racing fits that nicely. At this point, I know I'm gonna race, and am working on figuring out what my goals for 2011 and beyond will be. I don't want to pull a T Cowie, but I may be looking at something big and new, just not ready to spill the beans yet.

Also, since I don't have school to worry about any more, I'm gonna try to blog. Yep.

ORAMM and After

Well, I raced ORAMM about a week and a half ago, and despite how I felt for the last 2 hours of the race, I actually enjoyed myself. I mean, there were a lot of gravel road miles, and it got really hot, but still, there was something very satisfying about actually finishing. I felt awesome for the first 3 or so hours, and then faded pretty hard after that: over heating worse than I ever have before. I ended up 26th out of 400 starters, which I'm totally pumped with. Even if Old Man Balls did beat me. I was rocking some BALLER white shoes though...

Since then, I've been working and riding a lot, which is pretty much what I do during the summer. There has been a lot more going on than I've ever had before, working at the shop, interning at CTS in Asheville, riding as much as I can, and hanging out with the GF whenever possible.

I'm now sitting at a house where I am dog-sitting 3 cute dogs, one of them a super cute puppy (although an EXTREMELY mischievous one. Seriously, she is like a magician of getting in trouble.) I'm attempting to watch a movie, but the DVD player is the weak link in an otherwise very nice home entertainment center (52in LCD TV, HD everything, XBox, etc). The DVD player straight up doesn't work worth anything though.

Also, I seem to have hurt myself once again riding my bicycle thingy. My shoulder is moving in places that it really shouldn't, and doesn't seem to be connected as tightly as usual. So yeah, we'll see how that plays out here in the next few days.

Hopefully I'll still be able to race this weekend, but it seems doubtful at this point. If racing doesn't work out, it looks like I'll be hanging out with the Hoo since neither of us are working on Sunday. Looking forward to the possible day off...