Thursday, March 11, 2010

beached


Um I think I just decided that I'm gonna have to find some somewhere to live where there is some sort of beach/bike fusion and lots of warm weather... Like a beach-side shack in Baja or something with endless dirt roads and cow trails and a taco stand about 2 miles from me. Oh and maybe some other modern comforts like the printing press, interweb and TV, oh oh oh and an endless supply of good coffee... but yea other than that I think I would be good.

So I left Durango tuesday with Mitch Hoke and we proceeded to drive though a full on blinding snow storm in AZ. We spend a good two hours asking how this could happen is a state so well known for overly tan old people. Who would have guessed... the doughnut I had that morning kept a smile on my face though as we drove at 20 mph behind police escorted snowplows. Thats the sweet part about traveling with a clown like mitch... he keeps me humble. The kid is so talented and realizes how sweet this lifestyle is, so he makes sure to have fun and loosen up. Tight wads suck. We ate some fruit while chatting with the California border inspector too. I convinced him the two apples we were eating were the only fruit I had in the car... but those oranges in my jacket were probably from california anyways right? God I am a rebel... Getting pumped on bringing citrus into california. Shortly thereafter we pulled off the freeway and rode our bikes on some dirt road that ran back into the freeway... we decided to do some overland riding and ended up just getting cactus in our shins, and these ones were deluxe with the barbs on the ends of the spines... made for some creative language when we pulled them out. We ended our little 12 hr drive by nearly running out of gas in the Navajo desert and then getting lost in the nuttiest little village I have ever seen. It was perched up in the mountains just east of LA, and it was straight out of Disneyland. Crestline, CA. All the roads looped back on themselves and nothing made sense. It was silly. We were trying to find Trevor Downings house with Mitch's Garmin, and we just kept looping around into weird little side streets precariously perched on the near vertical hillsides (this debacle caused some emotional scarring and really ruined a healthy relationship between Mitch and his GPS). And the whole town of about 8,000 people just lives literally at the top of this peak with homes and roads cut into the hillside. We ended up calling trevor for his service as an escort (no not that kind). Just really an exhausting trip. I was shelled yesterday from it.

We ripped a couple laps on the Bonelli race course yesterday before coming down which was good. Its pretty low key, not so technical, pretty short punch climbs and really just short and fast. It will be a good time undoubtedly. I am looking forward to getting this racing thing going for real! Legs were a little tired, but I have been training a lot (some epic 6 hr rides in the rain back in Durnago) and so really I am just hoping to recoup over the next couple weeks and then rip it hard in Fontucky. I think most importantly was that once we got done there we drove down to San Clemente (where I am right now) and met up with Lydia. She is pumped to see familiar faces and its so good to see her too. Went for another beautiful, green ride with her, and then wrecked a really good burrito and some chips. She took us to some dive-ey mexican place, so it had to be good, and they really came through. I know it was good because all this morning by stomach was still pretty pissed off about the whole thing. Sweet!
So today Mitch and I just lounged and took some bad photos of us in all the free shwag that LT gets from her internship at Bike Mag and then cruised down to the beach. She is three block away and it was just brilliant. Oh my god. I can't get over it. I won't describe the euphoria because it wont to it any good. Then bike ride, which is weird 'round here cause one moment its riding though grassy hillsides and literally no less than two minutes later it's strip malls and over stuccoed homes, which ended with a picture perfect setting on top of a cliff overlooking the beach and ocean. Hmmm what was that about taco's and the ocean and liking the biking thing? Tomorrow its back up to the venue to start getting my head back on straight... today was too good to be true.

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