Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Bonelli, Fontucky and the census

So I got a text message from my dad a couple days ago asking who was going to count me in the census. WTF? I guess I had just don't really have a home right now... save my subaru. I think I could get pretty used to living in Southern Cal though. Its a rough lifestyle... wake up, coffee, food, facebook and then maybe mitch talks me into a doughnut run. Then its on the bike... maybe followed up with a beach session, shower, nap and then maybe another dinnertime beach picnic. Or dinner then the beach at sunset. And it doesn't start snowing on you unexpectedly down there. Which is pretty stellar.
I'm a little bitter... I got back to Durango on Monday after 2 weeks of what I described above... it rivals for two of the best weeks of my life. It was totally surreal. I still can't believe it happened. I might dream about it tonight actually. Side note, being able to choose what I dream about would be pretty sweet... although I am not sure it could rival my life.
After spending the first few days in San Clemente with Lydia, we moved to Tad's hotel floor at Bonelli park. This was the first big race of the season, and things went better than I could have hoped. I was on the rivet the whole weekend, and raced into the top 20 both the XC and short track. Both races I got into good fast groups and we all just battled the whole time. These kinds of races are always the most fun. I hate getting lost in no-mans-land and pedaling away by myself. Anyways, I was pumped to open the season riding well... Tad suffered, Mitch killed it and then woke up after the XC with pneumonia. We drove to Santa Barbara after the racing action and Care Bear had to take Mitch to the ER at 10pm because he could hardly stand without loosing his breath. He just hurt.
So the rest of the week, I just hung out with Joey, Colin and a bunch of Colorado college kids... Like drunk Matt Beaton, DMB, and Kay Sherwood. It was surreal. Riding in the sun, swimming in the ocean, eating mexican food, grilling and drinking wine. It was a rough week for sure. Super cool to hang out with Joey (our old National Team mechanic) outside of racing. He and Sandhya, his girlfriend, are just such incredible people. So yea tough week... then down to San Clemente to hang out with another incredible person, Lydia, again. This was just Mitch, Colin and I, because all the other geeks we were hanging out with had to go back to school.
So Lydia then proceeded to show us an incredible time again... picnics on the beach... classy dinners with some family and friends, sweet bike rides, and Colin got to hang out with her roommates Chiwawa... who absolutely loved him. They were quite the couple.
Then to Fontana, CA... my all time favorite place. I get so sketched out every time I go down there. I don't know why, maybe I just don't do well in cities, but I get all nervous about stuff. The XC went mediocre... I started slowly because I thought it was going to be a hot sufferfest, and rode in about 30th for a while... then I missed my feed and slowed down even more, now I was racing at about 85% and just never really brought it back for the next 2 laps. On the final lap I was able to open things up, but I had already lost so much time on the people in front of me, things weren't going to come back. Travis Livermon and I battled some and he beat me to the line in a sprint. Ended up 25th and not super pumped. ST went similarly. I just was too cautious off the start and then proceeded to get stuck with people I should have been in front of. Moving out of groups was impossible because it was such a fast course nothing broke up and I finished in yes, 25th again. Piss.
So now I hang out in Durango... figure out how to drop out of school next spring again (although this time I gotta go to socal and talk Lydia and Mitch into being my roomies), and get ready to drive back out to Santa Barbara next tuesday. I take off for Guatemala on Thursday for Pan American Championships which will be baller. I got named to the team while I was in SB, and I am just super pumped. I need to figure out how to inflate a tire before I can go though. Oh and I got my new Felt Six LTD... which is a stupid sweet hard tail and it just absolutely rips. I love it. Its light and fast, kinda like the Rudy Project glasses I got too. They are deluxe and make me look really insect like. With the moustache I was rocking the past three weeks I looked gross... really petaphilic actually. Damn it was fun to hang out with Lydia, Joey and Mitch. I am surrounded by a lot of good people right now. Thanks to all of you.

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.