Update

>Tonight i can start taking my sling off to sleep

>I still have 2 more weeks until I go back to the doctor and don't have to wear the sling anymore

>I have a lot of movement back in my arm and I can do some things with both hands

>I'm still riding the trainer and my legs feel like they did in the spring

>Bad thing is that it's only been 2 weeks and I'm going crazy from not riding

:-(

so today starts off my trainer-bike workouts. it'll give me something to do, but everything is so boring. the days feel like they're in slow motion, and i'm not even waking up until 10. we're thinking full physical recovery for the fall races, and i'm sure confidence will be back. i don't know how long it's gonna be till i feel comfortable drafting behind other riders again. oh and now i have an excuse for not doing the w101 besides "my dad won't let me."

dark hollow

since i couldn't race, i spent the day walking around the course and taking pictures. i was really dissapointed at myself because cameron dodge was there. i rarely have any compitition at the michaux races, and they are my style of course. good news is that he'll be at the teaberry race in the fall. terror of teaberry's course is perfect; rocks, roots, tight singletrack, and climbing all in 25 miles. should be good. i'm feeling so much better now and i'll be able to do 4 more races before the season ends -- laurel classic, terror of teaberry, bear creek, and the iron cross.

Fair Hill

I think the gods of the Mid-Atlantic races decided that I've had too much fun, and that my good luck had to stop. Today was an awsome day. I was both physically and mentally ready to finally win one of these things. I got hydrated and decided that since it was a fast course and not too technical, I would try drinking from water bottles. It was a good idea. I definitly felt the difference. Last night, while looking over my bike, I noticed that the saddle height was an inch too low, and it would have stolen some of my energy the next day. So I fixed that and went on to do other things, when I accidentally squeezed the brake lever while the weel was not attatched to the frame. I called up my "mechanic" to ask him to walk me through the process of resetting the break pads. He's not really my mechanic; I'm not lucky enough to have one, he's just one of the shop employees and my friend who likes to tune up my bike when I take it in. I had some experience with mechanical breaks, so I sort of knew how everything fit together. They're actually really simple and you don't need any tools other than a pair of needle-nosed plyers.

The race started off with me and Cameron immediatly pulling away from the rest of the field. I wasn't starting too fast, because I knew there would be 22 miles to catch him and I could see that he was struggling already. I'd let him go on the climbs (saving my energy) and catch him on the downhills. I planned to do this until he got tired, then I would make my move. However, I got stuck behind others, and while I tried to pass, I had a bad fall that twisted my handlebars. I was now a minute back. I pushed really hard to catch him, and I knew my legs were finally back. I finally caught sight of him for about 10 seconds. I was coming on him fast, and with 13 miles left I knew I would win. At the rate I was closing on him, I would have passed him at mach 3, hopefully destroying his confidence. And I should have, but the gods of MASS didn't want me to. Shortly afterward, I heard a CRACK, almost like a whip, and my chain skimmed my leg as it slingshotted off into the forest. It pulled the X-O derraileur with it, stripping the threads and bending the hanger. But it was still attatched to the cable, and I fought hard to rip it off. Finally it was done, but I had dropped back to fourth. I ran 3 miles to the next aid station, "gravitying it" on the downhills, pumping the trail as much as I could to generate speed. As I was running, my dad passed me and told me to DNF. DNF, SCREW THAT.I hate DNFing, so I ran until I found Jacob's dad on the side of the road, waiting to be taken back to the finish. He fell and bent his front wheel. Lucky for me, his bike was unrideable and he offered up his chain. I pulled a few links out and singlespeeded it back to the finish. I would have one, and should have one that day, but I ended up coming in last; 8th out of 8 juniors. Stuff like that happens. I lost over 40 minutes trying to get my bike to pedal, but I finished. And grabbed some points, even if it was only 10 of them.

New Jerseys

So our MBR team has decided that our old jerseys were too "busy" with all of the stripes. One of the employees at the local bike shop helped design the last one, so we contacted him again to see if we could do another one. The jersey is pretty much the same (it still has MBR's M logo and such) but with less stripes and different colors. We encorporated more black into this one, and although Lois Garnaeu's "Canada Blue" is the main color, black is dominant. We switched up the font for MBR to make it like a "retro" but not really. It's more like a fast retro. And we got shorts and a long sleeve jersey this time to go with it. So it looks like I'll be pulling up to the Fair Hill start line rocking new colors. Too bad my socks don't match anymore, and I figured out my dad's master plan of buying blue bikes even though he doesn't really like blue bikes.

This morning I decided to celebrate by cutting the sleeves off of one of my old jerseys. It had two big holes in the back and one smaller one under the sleeve. It was getting old so I took a knife to it.

The Curse of Dark Hollow

Is coming up. I can't wait. The Michaux races are the ones that I look forward to by far the most and it's where racing started for me. The courses are what all race courses should be like. Mountain biking should be about mountain biking. Sure, I know that not many places in PA can hold such a race, but it's still nice to dream about the possibilities. Last year's Terror of Teaberry and this year's Michaux Maximus were in my opinion the definition of a perfect course: starts off not too technical (so that you can get passed everyone without being held up in the rocks) and the trails keep getting better and better until the end. Unfortunatly, Teaberry was very different from what was advertised; 10 turned to 13, 25 turned to 32, and 50 turned to 46. Like I've said, I just can't wait and I'm counting down the days until one of the best weekends so far; Friday Mount Snow, then Dark Hollow on Sunday. I hear that Mount Snow is pretty technical, so it should be a good day. I really enjoy courses that seem to be as much about bike handling as leg strength (and I don't mean tight turns, but lots of big, oddly shaped rocks and roots), and feel that it should be a good weekend as far as performance goes. It'd be good for me to pull all of it together at Fair Hill to give me one last confidence boost for Nationals. Should be good...

Stoopid 50 Pictures

took me a while to find them but here they are...

15 mph moto paced start


Chicken Peter Trail (the first time)
mile 7ish


Again on Chicken Peter (still the first time)


Pigpile Trail - mile 30 or 35

Beautiful Trail - mile 42ish

Marysville

The Marysville festival / weekend / race / thing was great. Although I felt really strong going into the weekend, I made some bad mistakes that probably kept me from winning. But no excuses because the best person won, and mountain biking is a hard sport. I've found out that it's not about having good luck, but about not having any bad luck.

It all started off great. I had absolutly no confidence going into this, because my last good race was Granogue, which was a month ago (the Stoopid doesn't count cause no one else was there). But the Night TT went really well. Not really, cause I had 3 falls that took a while to recover from. Falling at night is hard cause it takes you a while to realize where you are. My legs felt great, and was red-lining 200 bpm the whole race, maxing out at 212. I probably should have had more practice at night riding; this was the second time I had ever ridden at night, and the first time this year. It was a really fun course, and definitly a race that I will do again next year. I didn't really race the whole thing, just started kinda fast and rode the rest as a warm up for tomorrow. After I fell twice I didn't really feel like pinning it anymore, so I just let Gunnar go instead of chasing him. But it was really fun.

I didn't have the best of sleep last night; I had put my bag inside my tent and elevated my feet up on it so that I could remove any lactate from my legs (although I didn't feel any, it was probably there). But in the bag was my water for tomorows XC race. Somehow it leaked out, spilling water over all of my racing clothes. I got up in the middle of the night to find a puddle of water all over my side of the tent. But it was in a tent, so in my opinion, it was better than my own bed (I have no idea why I am so twisted to believe that, but I am).

On Saturday, I made the biggest and possibly the most stupid mistake I had ever made in a race since I was 10. Today was another nutrition mistake. We got up at 7:30 to pack up our stuff and carry it back to the car. I had a good race breakfast of pancakes and was ready to go. But the problem was that I didn't have any water that morning and didn't have anything to eat since then. MISTAKE. I was really dehydrated going into the race, and athough my legs felt great, I didn't have it in me to race as intensly as I needed to. I bonked really bad about half way through the first lap.

The race started off great. I didn't feel bad at the start, and tried a slightly different race strategy (sorry, I can't say what it is cause I'm not sure who's reading this). I don't know if it would have worked because I bonked so bad, but I felt good. Gunnar was leading mostly the whole race, and I tried to stay on his wheel, which was hard because of having to pass so many people. There were a few times where I should have jumped on him and taken the lead, but I don't know why I didn't. I got stuck behind a train of people on some singletrack that you couldn't pass on, and lost Gunnar. I was getting splits from some of the racers' parents telling me that I was about a minute back. But then, I forgot I was on my hardtail. There was one particularly big log crossing that I bombed into, and it sent me flying into the thornbushes. I went to get back on the bike, doing that thing where you run along side the bike and jump on the seat, but missed and landed one the top tube. OUCH. I kept seeing riders in black helmets, orange and black bikes, and BikeSport jerseys, thinking they were Gunnar. So I gave it my all to catch them, it wasted my energy. Then I bonked. On the second lap, I passed one of my riding partners (who was pre-riding). I asked him if he had any goo, and it worked out perfectly, because he rode back to his car, and met me at the only road intersection. I got a handoff of cola flavored goo (normally I wouldn't touch it, but I was so hungry that it didn't matter). It was enough to get me to the finish, but not enough to get me 2nd. Gunner was 1st, Jacob 2nd, and I was 3rd. I know that Jacob is a really good 13 year old, but the fact that he beat me is messing with my head.

7/2/08

The Iron Cross is still months away, but I'm already excited at it's possibilities. Today, while in the garage, we found these old 26x1.25 slicks. They have flat protection and the sidewalls look pretty good. The idea for the Iron cross this year was that I would just pump up my tires to 50 or 60 psi, and ride the Taurine, since I do not have a crossbike. But after finding these, I'm just gonna run them tubeless on my Stans wheels. They're gonna be fast on the pavement, and if it's dry, shouldn't be too bad on the trails. Both mountain bikes are in the shop, cause I'm switching the spider on the Taurine for a 4-bolt triple. Then I'm switching the cranksets so that the aluminum one is on the Rush and the carbon one is on the Taurine. The carbon one is heavier, but I'm doing it because the aluminum will hold up to rocks better. It's too hard to go easy on the road, so I didn't ride today. Instead I took my dogs up for a hike with my mom on some of the trails by the parking lot. I brought a small packsaw and was able to cut back some branches as well as build up log ramps on a fallen log, making it rideable. Tomorrow I'm going night riding for the first this year. I'd better get a ride in before the night tt. Gonna ride with my mom on the "beginner ride," save the ride as a course on my Garmin, and ride it again at night, hopefully without getting lost.