Class Day #1

Today was the first day of classes, and all I had on my schedule was design. The typical first day for that involves the professors introducing themselves followed by us writing down the order we would prefer to have them in. Then we go get coffee while they figure out who has which professor. Then they put the lists up and we go introduce ourselves to them, hear a little about what we're going to be doing through the semester, and then we're done.

Anyway, I got my first choice professor, and it is going to be a great semester! The first couple weeks we're working on some projects that we are going to take out and put on display at a festival in Marfa! After that no one knows. But Jack (my professor) said that "as long as we can go there with this [field trip release form] signed and not go to jail, [he's] up for [anything we come up with]."

What've I been up to?

You may ask. You may not. But I'm going to tell you either way. Deal with it.
Riding wise, I went out to City Park a couple times last week to get ready for the Emma's Revenge race last weekend. I hadn't ever been out to that trail before, and while it was as technical as everyone says, it was pretty fun too. Something different.

The race itself was kinda different too... Unlike most trails there were a lot of places that you just can't go fast on, and blah blah blah it made staying focused on the race one of the hardest things. I was going back and forth with one guy for the first half of the race or so, but unfortunately he ripped his derailure off and had to drop out. I ended up winning the under 30 class, and got 8th overall. (I wash I had known all the big boys had signed up for 30-39... Oh well.)
I have some pictures on my phone, but it isn't letting them leave at the moment...

Other than that, I had to wipe out Windows on my computer and when I put it back on the 'theme' I had been using wasn't there. It turned out I just hadn't reinstalled my video driver yet, but before I figured that out I decided that I might as well just use a custom theme. You know, how hard could that be?
Well, after the third Windows re-install I figured out what I had been doing wrong and now it is pretty simple. Four days later I think I'm done with it!

Back to Austin

But before we get to that, I raced the Singlespeed class at the first DORBA race last weekend!
I had no idea what to expect, so I started off just following the leaders. I went into the woods in third, and after a couple miles me and second passed the leader. That was the last time I saw anyone on bike until I flatted with 4ish miles to go and didn't have everything I needed to fix it...
But, I can say I most likely would have gotten second by looking at the time splits, and I missed out on a ribbon (OMG), so it isn't that big of a deal. I really need to quit getting flats though...

I like this picture:

Courtesy of Mom

Then a couple days later, I'm back in the ATX. Me and Joseph and my Dad built our bike rack, and it's awesome. But I'm not going to post any pictures so you have to come visit if you want to see it. DO IT. (You know you want to!)

Other than that, I went and rode yesterday and today (and dragged Joseph along today) and it is hot. Wait, I don't think you caught that...
IT.
IS.
HOT.
Much better.

More to come soonish. I promise!

Post #325

Or, a little bit of everything.

I haven't been riding too much since nationals, but it's starting to pick up again. There is a DORBA race this weekend before I head back to Austin for the fall semester and I'm going to give racing singlespeed a shot. I rode the course yesterday and it seemed pretty good. At a pretty easy pace anyway. We'll see how the race goes, might be interesting.

A week or two ago I took a trip to Austin to help Joseph move into our apartment. It took a couple trips to get his junk over, and then we made a Home Depot / IKEA run, and on top of our 55" TV from Craigslist, have just about everything we're going to need:

Living room set up


Better shot of the rug


Table #1


Table #2 (we still need red/white checkerboard tablecloths...)


Trash can of awesome



Me and the AJ have been putting some more work into the '57 too, and the front end is starting to come along:


Maybe it'll be finished sometime in the next couple years...

Sol Vista: MTB Nationals '09

Last night I figured out what I was going to write about the race, and then made the mistake of gong to bed instead of actually writing it. Thus, I don't remember, so I'll just make it up as I go. Sound good? Good.

Going into the race I felt more confident than I had the last couple years; I had a (much) better Texas season, and had been training pretty hard. I actually lined up on the front row instead of at the back, and was sitting mid pack-ish off up the start hill. When the race finally got to singletrack for the first time, like 3.5 miles in, I was around 10th, and could see all the way up to 3rd (turns out 1st and 2nd got DQd for cutting the course...).
Everyone spreadd out over time, but I was still top 10 starting the second lap. This time it got harder to tell where I was as the leaders from other classes started coming by, but I stayed around the same, maybe passing some people in my class and maybe getting passed by others.
Then the third lap hit. Maybe I didn't drink enough early in the race, maybe I didn't eat enough breakfast, who knows, but I did not have anything to finish off the race. The third lap was about two miles shorter than the first two, and my lap time was almost the same... I felt so bad that I didn't even care who passed me, I just wanted to make it to the finish.

I ended up 14th, less than 5 minutes out of 9th...
I felt bad for losing four or more spots so late in the race, but I had given it everything I had (my legs are still sore almost a week later) and I'm still happy with the way the first 2/3 of the race went down. I know a little more about what I need to work on for training, and learned some more about nutrition. We'll see what next year brings.

Filler

Nationals recap coming soon.

Have a teaser picture:

Back to Granby

We made it up to Granby earlier today. We were a little early to check into the hotel, so even though we weren't riding a trip up to the resort ensued. We watched the downhillers hit some jumps and talked to everyone we knew that had already ridden the course. I still don't know what to expect when we ride tomorrow. Well, except that the start goes up an annoying steep hill. Perfect.

Yup

Got some good riding in in Austin. And I think Wheel is ready to move to Austin and go to UT... Anywho, we hit up two kinda hilly, really hot days. My legs were feeling it at first, but by the end I guess they had gotten used to the short steep Austin climbs again because I was feeling good by time we left on Tuesday.
We hit up the snow cone place right by my apartment too. Somehow I had never been there before, but I will be back. Pretty much the best snow cone I've ever had!

Anywho, I'm just about finished packing to head back to Colorado in the morning. It'll be nice to get back to somewhere where it less than 100 degrees again. I'm also ready to get back and see the course, which they completely changed since the first time I was there. From the sounds of it, I think it'll suit me more than the original course. We will see.

Fireworks and Stuff

The last few days haven't been too eventful, just working in the morning, riding in the afternoon, and chillin' with my people at night.
Yesterday though, for the Fourth we continued tradition and went up to Lake Lavon to blow stuff up again! As per always, it was a good time.
Tomorrow me and Wheel are going to make a trip to Austin to get some (hilly) riding in to finish out the low altitude hard part of training. Take a couple days off after that, and then I'll be back in Colorado by the weekend!

Texas is hot

Well, the day after the last post we ended up spending closer to 5 hours on the bike. It was some of the best riding on the trip though. The Rim Trail is always fun, and after that we hit the road to Lanedo, which is paved for about 5 miles, dirt for about 6, and all slightly uphill. That was followed by about another 45 minutes of singletrack climbing up to "four corners" and from there it was rolling jeep road to Sunnyside. Sunnyside started out as rolling bench cut in the side of a probably 60 degree or more hill, then turned into fast singletrack down the side of a less steep section, and finally into very technical switchbacks the rest of the way into Aspen. I'll just say I'm glad I had disc brakes.

We gladly took Monday off, did an easy ride across Cross Mountain and Government Tuesday, and hit up one last Aspen Cycling Club road race Wednesday evening before heading home.

The race was from Basalt up past Ruedi Reservoir and back, a total trip of just under 50 miles. My legs were still dead from the weekend, and I got shelled off the back after a couple attacks on the biggest climb of the race. Eventually I fell into a group of about 8 and we stuck together until the biggest hill on the return trip where we lost a few people. At one point we saw another group up the road, but we were never able to catch up. I ended up 16th, which wasn't great, but considering the riding we had done the couple days before the race, I'll take it.

Thursday we took the bikes to be shipped to Dallas and then jumped on a plane ourselves. A few hours later we made it home. Now I just have to get used to this whole thing where the temperature is like 3000 degrees. Although, the presence of Oxygen in the air is making up for it a little.
I'm taking a few days off right now, while the bikes get here here and whatnot, then it'll be right back to it until the 7th, when me and the parentals are heading back up to Granby for the race!