4luvandlife

i started this blog in december of last year in hopes of recording ideas and events that go into racing mountain bikes family style. a year into recording this madness and i can now take a moment to look back on some of this. i really like the fact that there is so much to learn. the bike, the fuel (nutrition), the course. there is always something to learn about these and more. i also learned that it does take time and money to do this. sometimes i do wonder if racing is the best use of time and money considering everything. for me it boils down to my boys seeing that you can live out the life you desire. i don't know if they will get into biking and/or racing but i do want them to see their parents dreaming and acting on that. there will almost always be an obstacle in the way. i started riding the earliest in the year ever for me this year. i felt the best i have ever felt on a bike in april/may. very early i started getting little annoyances like a knee pain, tennis el...

oh man. got back on the bike today. the second ride since September 25th. i know that because it was on the eve of the last race of the year that i was last riding. rode out to Theo Wirth to get on the single track and see how the new Specialized Fast Traks felt. a big Woo Hoo on those. rolling resistance is way down from the Kenda Blue Groove on the back. i was pretty conservative between the trail being covered in leaves and a minor flashback to my wipeout on every curve to the right. even with the slow going i am pretty sure the Fast Traks were a upgrade and will be sweet next year. wrist felt good today and i think cyclocross is a definate possibility now. today was beautiful and in the 60's. wearing shorts and a long sleeve jersey and i should have been in short sleeves.

a month into the wrist brake as of Friday. been on the bike once since to see how it felt. didn't feel great. the curiosity of cyclocross races has remained that, a curiosity. oh well, absence makes the heart grow fonder right? or does it make the heart wander. some wandering may not be a bad thing. B hooked us up with a dslr camera and would like to get out on some hikes and record the world.

wow. this is hard. racing is over for the season. mountain bike racing anyway. over the past few months i hadn't realized how habit forming consistant racing is. i feel like i am in some weird biking version of Trainspotting. i tell my wife that i'm ok. i don't really NEED to race this weekend. i can give it up anytime i want. truth is i can almost see the spiders on the wall. this sprained wrist and the continous rain the past few days has softened the blow of no riding for about a week and a half but now i am wondering ,"what now". i showed H my snowboard to see how much interest he has in getting on the slopes at 5 years old when it snows. got on utube to show him video of other 5 year olds ripping it up. he seemed interested enough but it's the ski goggles that he got stoked about. "when can we buy them?" he asked after we looked at some online. looking at some cyclocross races also. pretty foreign stuff to me but definately interes...

so the last race of the season was coming up last week. this spring and summer had been a lot of fun and i had compiled 1011 points over 8 races in the MNSCS series. I hadn't gotten credit for the dnf at Afton. i had reported it but didn't get the credit. i left it alone thinking that it was 2 points that wouldn't matter. well anyway, with 1 race left it was me at 1011 points and Paul C in first at 1012. does it get any better that? man was i excited. this is going to be great. i even got 2 sweet new tires when there was only 1 race left. Specialized Fast Traks S Works. i put them on and they squeeked on the garage floor like basketball shoes on the court. this had me pretty sure that the grip was going to be fun on the trail. after messing around with them to get them seated correctly they were riding great. the rolling resistance was way down from the Kenda Blue Groove that was on the back. that was a great tire and i will probably use it for a mud tire but it was heavy a...

the power of the mind. the importance of the attitude and all that. that is what the race on sunday has me thinking about right now. on my 4 hour drive home sunday i found myself wishing you could go to the bikeshop and buy a good race attitude. you would find it between the water bottles and training magazines/books. you could take it like a gel or chew it like energy chews. within 15 minutes you would feel like you could overtake any obstacle be it course related, weather, other riders... anything would be under the power of you attitudinal outlook. if i would have has this attitude gel on sunday at the Maplelag race i would have put it in my back jersey pocket before starting. i started the race feeling good. i started about third row because it is a stage race and quite a few guys got called up before me because they had been there for the two stage events the day before (a time trial and a crit). i was next to Paul C at the "go!!" and i kept him in site in hopes of worki...