Snow

After a week of cold weather and snow, it finally cleared and today ended up being very sunny. The forcast said 35 degrees as a high, but it was 28 when we drove to the mountain. It's usually 5 degrees colder in the forest. Anyway, it was good because it wasn't windy and we were able to stay on trails - nothing too fast. Here's some pictures.Gasline that goes through the forest - recently made wider for another pipe
3 Bridges trail

Plans for 09, and probably 10

I really don't wanna stay at home for these, especially since I missed last years and these next two years would be my last at USA Cycling juniors. But my dad and I have decided that since the elevation for nationals is 7,000 something, it would be way too unfair and I shouldn't race. That elevation really takes energy out of you, and there is a reason why Harlan and Eatough said they stayed away from the marathon nationals in Breckenridge. I doubt I'd find a healthy solution that is good enough to race with, but if I do, I still may consider. As of now though, next year's nationals and possibly the year after's are definitely races I won't go to, even though I wanna race them without the elevation handycap. It makes no sense to beat myself up way too much, racing with 10 - 15% of my energy not there. If I traveled that far to race, I'd wanna have some fast results, and right now we don't think that can happen with the elevation.

New Suprize

On Saturday, we went into the Bicycle Shop to get my dad's wheel trued. I didn't know that he had been planning on getting me a Cannondale F29 for Christmas, and I didn't know why a size medium had been rolled out of the warehouse. And then I realized it wasn't one of my dad's new toys. He told me that it was left over from 08 (which is great because they stopped making them in the raw aluminum) and that he didn't want to wait until Christmas because I wouldn't get to ride it much. We took it down to the basement where we swapped the wheels for a pair of my dad's extra Stan's Arches with a King hub, swapped the bar for a FSA carbon (I think another of my dad's extras), and got everything set up. It has X9 with the SL fork, and weighs about 24.3 lbs with those wheels. We got it at a really good price, because you see the SL forks on ebay for just a few hundred less. I rode it around the driveway and it felt a lot different than hopping on my dad's. Snappy and fast. Today I went for a ride with the owner of our shop and some others. That bike climbs like a rocket on the fireroads. If you try to power up short climbs, the wheels just won't turn though. Staying in a smart gear is important. It felt really smooth in the rocks when I had momentum, but if I hit a pedal or something, it was hard to get going again. Turns better than I thought. I think I'll race it next year. Possibly Granogue and the summer Fair Hill. Probably more. The ride went really well, considering I'm just getting over the flu and how bad I felt last Sunday. At one point I got a little dizzy, but that was only after racing Erik Scott up a climb. It's not a good idea to do that because he needs to be the first to the top of every climb. At the end of the ride, we saw a porcupine climbing a tree. My dad commented on how good of a climber it was. Erik immediatly claimed he was a better climber and tried to race the porcupine up the tree. He just really likes to climb.Erik the Porcupine

Wanted to, But Didn't

Today we were supposed to go down to Michaux and ride the Maximus 25 mile course. With some exceptions like riding Fender both ways. Anyway, I fell at the end of a night ride on Friday and bruised my hand. It swelled up really big; it's still swollen but I could've ridden today. The real reason why I'm not riding is because last night, I got really sick. All of the sudden the only thing I could do was lie down. Even walking made me more sick. I barely got any sleep last night and threw up a total of 13 times in 10 hours. It was so bad that when I went to the bathroom for water, I threw that up 30 seconds later. I don't know what I have or how I got it. If no one at school is sick, I probably got it from my Camelbak. We were going to stop by Mountainside Ski and Sports on the way back to get new bindings for my skis. I DNF almost every race last year because I ejected out of junior bindings. Chris from Mountainside watched me race and he said that I skied too agressivly for the junior bindings. May go back and try to ride in a week or two.