7th place BABY!!!

So i fianlly had a good race. Actually i think i finally had a race on a course that suited me. This past Sunday Sara and I headed up to the top of Fort Mountain, which is only about 18 miles from Ellijay, a local race....WOO-HOO!! Until a few weeks ago i had never ridden at Ft. Mt., It's not that far from here, but there are other (more fun) trails closer to town, plus they charge to ride on the trails (on top of a charge for parking) The course was about 6 miles in length and had a profile like a V. The first half was all downhill with one slight climb, very rocky and lots of switchbacks, the second half was just as rocky, but all up hill. There was also one set of 5 switchbacks that were so steep i ran up them each time.
The race started on a paved road with a 1/2 mile climb before we headed into the woods, knowing that i would not be the fastest heading down the hill, i started off in the second row. When we hit the woods i was in about 11th or 12th out of 14. I managed to hold that sad spot throughout the down hill, I may have lost one spot, but i was trying to go fast darn it...I just don't like pain!!! Then the fun began, the climb. Not sure what it is about climbing, maybe it's the suffering, but i've always been able to do it, i may not be the fastest, but i rarely get passed going uphill. I started catching people on the climb, my heart was racing, i think it was still going fast from the excitement of the start. Even though the trail was very rocky, it was pretty wide, and you could pick your way through to pass. I was able to move myself up into 7th spot on the climb and pretty much hang there the rest of the race. There was one guy that kept passing me on the downhill, but i always managed to pull away on the climb and keep my spot.

I'm happy with the result, I think i'm getting a bit quicker on the technical stuff....we'll see. I need to start ramping up the distance to get ready for the SM100 in Sept. Have you Sent in your entry yet???

Suspend the rest...But let Hamilton race, he's already been punished

Whether you admit you did it or you don't, if you serve your sentence, you shouldn't be punished again. Does anyone else think it is completely unfair to suspend Tyler Hamilton??? Last year the WADA blow hard said if it was true about Hamilton, that he would be banned for life. What the....?!? Am i missing something? They found him guilty of doping and suspended him for two years, now they figure out who helped him and boom! your gone. I really don't care if he races again or not, but that should be left up to the teams to determine if he is good enough to race. We can only assume he is clean now, and what ever happened before he was punished is in the past. But i guess there is no Double jeopardy in cycling. Cyclist don't need rights.

On the bright side...we can at leas.t confirm that he is guilty and that he doesn't have a vanishing twin...or maybe it was the twin that did it....kind of like that movie "the prestige"

Double Squishy

I bought a new bike. An Ironhorse Azure Expert. This one i plan to keep for a while. I was looking for something with the DW link suspension or similar (like the Giant anthem). This was up for sale on the performance website and after a price match and a coupon the deal was done. It's not super light, but it rides very nice, and the suspension seems to work as advertised. The timing was great too since my Giant NRS decided to destroy a bearing in the rear suspension during my last race.

Nice place, but we had to pass....we wanted 50 bathrooms.

Sara and I did a little house hunting the other weekend. We found this little place, it's quite a drive from Ellijay, but it seemed nice enough. Heck, they have mountain bike trails. We had to pass tho, we were looking for a few more bathrooms (we both have tiny tanks you know) and there wasn't a garage...what the...did they build this thing before cars or what.

Tour de Georia TT start

Here is a link to all my pics: http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=8KYuWLZs2YjI

At My Age, I'm Just Happy That I Can Move the Day After.

I made the trek out to Athens, GA on sunday for the second race of the Georgia Mountian bike series. Normally i wouldn't travel to that god forsaken part of the country since it the home of the University(sic) of Georgia. I am thankful for the recirculate button on my AC in the car so i didn't have to smell the stench that rises up from that place. The race was about 20 minutes south of town at the Heritage Park. It would have been a really fun course in the dry, but with the rain and the large number of roots, it wasn't much fun. I realized after slipping and sliding over many, many, many roots, hitting a few trees, and going ass over elbows into a creek embankment,(in the first half lap) that i had the wrong tires, too much pressure and not enough skill to make it around this course without killing myself. I had serious thoughts about bailing, but i finished the first lap and stuck it out for the next two. I let a bunch of air out of my tires and the trail started to dry out a little as the ride (notice i'm not calling it a race since i was soooo far back) wore on so it started to get better. I finished 13 out of 18 (14 finishers, i think i loaned my CO2 can to the guy that finished behind me...this close to DFL)
I've realized that i need to just focus on my skills and do whatever it takes to make me more comfortable. If that means running a heavy front tire with a huge footprint, so be it. I will probably turn faster laps with it rather than a 300 gram lighter tire. I'm afraid it may be too late in life to sharpen the skills....we'll see. I've been mountain biking a lot more and i still hope that i can finish the mtn. 100 in 9 hours or so this year.

BTW: no serious wounds, a few scrapes, lumps and bruises. nothing that my childrens tylenol won't fix.

STEEL IS REAL BABY!!!

So in case you were ever wondering where I got my e-mail address....here it is. This is PAPA. Papa was my first car. My dad drove it back out to California after my grandfather (Papa) passed away. Papa bought the truck new and i'm hoping to keep it in the family for many years to come. When i turned 16 i started driving it. At that time it had the stock 352 c.i. V8 with a 2bbl carb and a set of desert dueler off road tires on steel wheels. I still managed to turn the rear tires into slicks within a year. We built a 390 with a 4bbl carb, headers and a mild cam to put in the truck. We then pulled the motor, interior, bumpers and grills and had him painted. The original color was desert tan and following a quote from Papa "it could be cat shit brown for all i care as long as it works" (at least my dad claims that as the actual quote) we stuck with a tan color. It is actually close to an 88 ford light chestnut beige. We had the grill and bumpers chromed (they were white) and bought some wheels and some new tires. (I had to buy the tires...what the???? it's not my fault 70% of the weight is on the front wheels) We haven't really played with Papa in a few years, but now that i am in Georgia one of my projects is to freshen it up and drive it on a regular basis. I'm looking forward to cruising in a vehicle that gets 10mpg with $3.00/gallon gas. I'm thinking i need some dropped front I-beams, put the rear axle on top of the leaf springs and tuck some 20's in the wheel wells. Rollin' Hard, Old Style.