Cycling in Winnesota.

This weekend me and my dad loaded up the Super Duty and headed to Philips for the Dirtfighter classic. I managed to get in a decent warm-up with Chadly, Chase, and John and made sure to ingest plenty of fluids pre-race. I lined up to the start next to chase and we were both totally pumped. I ended up sitting back about 10 riders for the start of the mile or so of road leadout. When we hit the dirt I got on the front until we hit the first singletrack. I got knocked down by another rider and had to run up the hill. I ended up tagging a rock with my foot, not my pedal, and my big toe on my left foot is all black. The rest of the race panned out to be pretty normal. I fell back a ways on the first two laps. I passed chase walking his bike alongside the trail. I saw John hanging out trailside in his chamois cheering all of us on. The third lap I sped things up a bit realizing that I was riding way to slowly, and the fourth lap I picked it up quit a bit more. I ended up with another age class award and a little piece of mind. It feels good to finally come out of the awful rut that I've been experiencing lately, though my results this weekend were far form spectacular.

THis upcoming weekend I'll be heading down to do 24-9 with Paul, Curt, and Mike. I just bought everything I could possibly need from the shop and am pretty much ready to roll. I'm sure it won't be as exciting when I have to wake up at 3:00am to go ride my bike, but thats just how it goes. Anyway good luck to all the other racers!

Yesterday was one hell of a crazy day. Chase took in a customers bike at the shop and as payment he brought Chase and I a six pack of pabst blue ribbon. Not to mention a drunk came in and I fixed his tire for him, no charge, had to get him outta there cause I was getting drunk just from the smell. After a long day at work Chad and Chase worked on Mark's bike while I sipped away at a PBR. Mark ended up with no front brake and a friction shifter in the front.

When I got home from work I was totally pumped to ride. I listened to ridin' dirty no less than 10 times. I threw my light on my bike, tuned up my dads bike and took off for the park. We had a pretty good turn out. Some Rice Lake boys showed up, Gerry Wright, Russ Trip, Sovas, Ron, my dad, and Mark. We were all ready to ride. We took off through the park at about 9:30, Ron showed up late, just givin' you shit Ron. We ended up doing the time trial course. I lead the train, making periodical stops so that everyone could catch up. When we got to the pit we all turned off our lights and hid. CHad jumped out of the bushes and tried, unsuccessfully, to scare Russ. CHase rode ahead and waited behind a tree. He yelled at me and jumped out into the trail and I screamed like a little girl. It was pretty funny. CHase led through the last section of singletrack, which is good cause I would have missed that same turn I missed in the TT. when we hit the fence line the RL boys took off. CHase and I decided to chase them down and it ended up as a sprint to the end.

AFter the ride was over we played bike games. They were alot of fun, we probably spent more time screwing around then riding. We finished the ride off with the fastest five, which was totally sweet at night!

I ended up tagging my eggbeaters on a rock and totally bent the shit out of the drive side one.

No more than a few days ago I had a wort removed from my ankle. A few hours after it was frozen it blistered into a semispherical water blister about the diameter of a nickel. I carefully, and painlessly, removed the surrounding skin and was that ever a mistake. It is now a black void above my left ankle, and the kicker is it hurts more to walk than to ride my bike.

I did intervals tonight. A full set of 5 minute on 2 minutes off intervals, and then I quit 2 into the second set. THe last interval was INSANE! I couldn't possibly in my wildest dreams push the pedals over harder, and after I finished I got a sideache, I know your probably thinking wtf, so bad that I almost started to cry. the ankle didn't slow me down at all.

Anyway in closing I'll leave you with this. Hincapie is going to rock the shit out of tomorrow's TT, and Watch out for the Boonenman in stage 8! McEWen has gotta get frickin' tired someday here.

The race started out on a dusty fireroad leadout. I sat 3rd wheel behind John Beck and Mitch Gantz up until the singletrack they started gapping me and a rider pulled around and I followed his wheel as we closed the gap. I was winding through the trees of the singletrack when all of a sudden I got slammed to the ground. i got back up and was passed by a whole crew of riders, out of lack of caring I didn't cut any of them off to get back in, after that I just couldn't get back into it. I ended up quitting the race, with a nasty cut on my hand as a lame excuse. Truth is it was just not my day, but I still wish I wouldn't have quit. When I claimed that it was just too hot out there i think that Ron said it best when he said, "join the club." Everybody had a hard day out there, for most a harder day than mine. Congratulations to Johnny Beck for an awesome ride! Thanks to Chad, Chase, TJ, Mark, and John for letting me hang with you dudes this weekend. I should've just sucked it up like that dude from "Hills Have EYEs." He totally hucked all over those inbreds.

Just to let all of the people that read my blog, which probably isn't many, know I'm hosting a night ride on Monday July 10th at Spooner city park. We will be meeting in the parking lot of the elementary school, same spot as the time trials, at 9:00 pm sharp. Everyone that has a light should bring one. We will do 1-2 laps through the time trial course and do the fastest five through town afterward, so bring taillights. Anyway hope to see everyone there!