X-Bar + Summer Plans

After almost two weeks...

I originally hadn't planned on racing X-Bar, but when I ended up doing good in the series, those plans got all messed up. I had to drive out to the race Saturday night, because I had an awesome final earlier that day, but it had rained that day, so I probably wouldn't have gotten a pre-ride in anyway.
Because of the rain the course was shortened too, but they upped the laps, making the race about the same distance. For whatever reason though, it was nice to have the shorter course.
By Sunday the trail was mostly dry, but there were a couple places where water was still seeping out the side of hills that made for some interesting climbs. Still wasn't bad though. My class was small, and between the conditions and everyone being a little tired from the long season (I assume / I know I was at least) we actually stayed mostly together for the entire first (of four) laps. It started to split up a little after that though, and by half way through the race, me and Matthew had a couple minutes on everyone else. I followed him around for the third lap, and on the last lap started planning out where to get in front to hopefully get one last W for the season.
I went to make my move towards the end of a long jeep road section with about 2.5 miles of mostly singletrack to the finish. I stood up, and my rear tire went flat...
I grabbed my CO2, hoping that I wouldn't have to change a tube and would be able to catch back up. And of course, my inflater didn't work. I started hiking down the trail, hoping I was far enough of the other guys to somehow still finish in the money, but that didn't work out so good either. Oh well, it was a good race while it lasted.

Luckily, I had my overall result for the season locked up before the race, so flatting out didn't make any difference there. I had no intention of it happening going into the season, but somehow I ended up winning the series! Thanks to Chris, Eric, Matthew, and everyone else for a great race season, I hadn't had that much fun racing in quite a while!

Pics or it didn't happen!


___________________________

Anywho, now that the season is over, and I've taken 1.5ish weeks off, it's time to start getting ready for the National Championships in July!

I got back on the bike for the Tuesday Night Crits this week, and considering the time off I had a pretty good race. Followed that up with a singlespeed ride yesterday... But this weekend is when the real fun starts:
On Sunday, I'm flying to Colorado with Will and family to train at altitude and in the same area Nationals will be for the entire month of June. It'll mostly be riding, but we will be hitting up a few races while we're up there, mostly the local Aspen Cycling Club series and the National Series race at Sand Creek. I've heard rumors that I'll get to race against Lance in a couple weeks!

Well, that seems like more than enough writing for now, I'll make an attempt at updating pretty often while I'm up in the 970! Check the Twitter as well, I'll actually be making use of it too!

Yeah So...

I haven't posted anything about X Bar yet. I will sometime next week. Fo' reelz.

As for now, I'm taking an off-week after the TMBRA season and before heading off to Colorado for some training for the National Championships in July. More about that next time too.

Good luck to everyone racing the State Crit this weekend! I may come out to watch - see what comes up.

Dinner Time

Since I blogged about the time I made shark steak, I figured the salmon steak I had a bit ago deserved a post as well!

It was good!

In other news, I'm almost completely not sick any more! Still coughing on occasion, but that's it. I've gotten a little riding in this week, and so far I haven't felt 100% yet, but I'm getting closer. Hopefully by time X-Bar rolls around on Sunday I'll be good. I am ready to take my end of the season break though... I'm ready to be done with school for the semester too. Only a couple more days!

Camera Phone Fun Time

So, I keep taking pictures on my phone of (usually) things that make me laugh, with the intention of posting them so everyone else can laugh too. Somewhere along the way though, that ends up not happening.
However, with nothing else to do, I finally managed to get all the pictures to my computer, and now they are making it to a blog post! Enjoy! (Click on them and a bigger version will open up, if you're having problems seeing the details.)

Tired of the same old, boring, beige car? Nothing some bright-colored circle-shaped magnets can't fix! Your car won't look stupid at all!


Parking like a pro.


You know you're in the middle of nowhere when:


Can we get some of these for our apartment next year?!? PLEASE!!!


Parking like a pro, take two.


"Yeah, mom, I got my helmet."
"I'm 35, mom, you don't tell me when to be home for dinner."


I want that!


...

Life with No Classes (And a Cold)

Save "class" yesterday, I've pretty much spent the last two days sitting around at home, and while it has been kind of boring, I'm getting so much stuff done it isn't even funny. And I'm not talking "clean the kitchen" stuff either, although I actually did that. Then left Jeff a note telling him not to get it dirty.

No, I'm doing things like listening to the Fratellis EP that I've had for 18 months without ever listening to, figuring out how to solve my new 4x4 Rubik's Cube, talking to people that aren't in the School of Architecture! It's so awesome!

Currently, I'm actually drinking coffee that was actually brewed in the coffee maker in my kitchen! I can't even remember the last time that happened! Don't ask me why I'm drinking coffee at 10:00 at night though, because I don't even know. It just sounded good. It's some random brand that I bought because it was in a cool bag (and because it was a little more expensive than most of the others, which obviously means its higher quality). Judging by the way this post is going, it is good stuff.

I was on The Facebook earlier, well, I'm pretty much always on, but you know what I mean, and I saw something saying "stay close to Mom - connect with Mom this Mother's Day by inviting her to [The] Facebook." My Mom already has The Facebook, which means she's seeing this too. Does this mean my Grandma is going to be on The Facebook by the end of the weekend?

I recommend this video. It is pretty much the best thing since fried chicken skin.

Alright, that's it for the day. I have a sweet post planned for tomorrow, so be sure to keep refreshing the page all day so you can see it as soon as it's up! Peace Outside!

Lake Lake

I actually remember when this race was! Last weekend I made the trip to the booming metropolis of Coldspring, Texas - they have a stoplight now! - for some mountain bike racing action.

After the broken frame incident at Comfort, it was taken back to Bike Mart, and (thanks Jim!) they got all my parts-s and pieces moved over to a non-broken bike. Basically everything was exactly the same as it was before, save the color of the frame. You'll get to see it in a minute.

I prerode on Saturday an felt pretty good, especially considering this has been my worst race of every season since it was added to the schedule however many years ago. Then it was off to visit the Grandparents, who just so happen to live in Coldspring, and later get some sleep.

Sunday morning came along with some not friendly looking black clouds, and when they finally let loose some time after breakfast, the day suddenly got a bit more interesting. Luckily it stopped raining before the start of my race, so I didn't have to stand around in the rain waiting to go. Unfortunately, it didn't rain any more after that, so by the end of the first lap the mud was already starting to thicken up an make riding through it more and more tiring...

Back from the slight topic detour, this race was also a stop for the GT Golden Bike Series, and the winner from Sea Otter had signed up for my class.


Pretty much everyone thought he didn't stand a chance on the course that would be so different than what he was used to, and had narrowed the contenders down to about five other people, one of which was, of course, Mr. Sandbag Johnson...

Off the start, I jumped in behind Chris, since he usually maintains a pace that works good for me, but this time (maybe because he had a pretty well chance at the Gold Bike too), he was going a tad faster than I wanted to, so I backed off some. Next thing I know, Gold Bike passes me. Again, I figure that if I keep my slightly slower steady pace, I'll catch him again later, and let him chase down Chris.
The rest of that lap was pretty uneventful, with the two leaders only getting about 20 seconds up on me. The second lap (of four this time) started off pretty good too, but somewhere near the end, I very suddenly felt really not good. I backed off some and waited for a second wind, but it never came.
A lot of people passed me on the third lap, but I stayed close enough that I did have a chance at getting them again. Except that I kept feeling worse and worse the further I went. I managed to finish the race (in last yay!), but it was not very pretty at all.

Turns out I had a bunch of sand / mud stuck in my brake lever and it wouldn't release all the way... So, that sounds like a pretty good excuse if nothing else. I didn't have my Racing Jackets on either, and everyone tells me they are what make me fast, so I guess I'll throw that into the circle of excuses too.

Gold Bike did manage to surprise everyone and win again!

And uhh, oh yeah! Even though my race was very not bueno, finishing did lock up 1st overall in the series for me! Yay! Now I have no reason to not move up in the fall! Yay?

I have some sort of sinus infection going on now too, so this is is pretty much going to be an off week for me. Next week would be too, but since I'll be going to X-Bar for the overall awards, I might as well race while I'm there. Then some more time off, then training for nationals starts!

You can tell how awesome I'm feeling in this one...


This is a little better... Must have been earlier in the race.


Pretty good view of the new bike:

Pictures courtesy of Karmabiker

UT Race Weekend

Studio is "done" for the semester, only minor things here and there to do, like taking pictures of all my work, and then finding somewhere to put it for the summer. (The review went good, thanks for asking.) Thus, I have pretty much nothing to do for the next week, so I can finally get this thing caught up!

Anywho, some number of weekends ago (I lost count in the end of the semester rush - I didn't even realize it was a new month until today...) was the final collegiate road race of the year. Seeing ass this was the home race, and I had kind of skipped out on most of the other collegiate racing this season, and that there wasn't a mountain bike race to attend, I figured I owed it to the team to actually participate in all of the events.

Early-ish Saturday was a road race that was supposed to be ~65 miles. Except someone can't seem to do math and it ended up really being around 75. For the four out of sixteen people that finished it, anyway. Yes, I was one of the quitters... I rode two out of six laps and decided fighting the 35 mile an hour winds by myself was just not quite as much fun as it seems like it would be...

After that great success, we had to sit around eat lunch for a couple hours, and "get ready" for the Team Time Trial. After some discussion and math, we concluded that it didn't matter what place we finished, and none of us were that interested in trying to win anyway, but as long as we were there, we might as well participate. Pictures will probably say more than words about this one... Compare:

UT


MSU


Yeah. We had the slowest time. Our C team almost caught us.

And then, there was a crit on Sunday!
It wasn't anything special. I got pulled like half way through.

Thats it for this one. I'll type up a Lake Lake report sometime tomorrow-ish.

Alright

Final review is Wednesday morning, meaning other than racing this weekend, I will not have time to do anything except studio. Primarily since I am racing this weekend.
The UT race post is going to have to wait until after that. So is the post from this weekend coming up. Sometime after Wednesday morning. Hopefully you can wait.

Until then, here's a new and improved look at my project:


Be back in a couple days! (With a Gold Bike?)