HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME

Well, I made it yet another year, and actually celebrated all week back up in the Eagle Valley riding mega miles on the dirt and the road, yesterday with Nate from Yeti's Grind and John E. who got married last week. I've got vij from the ride but it's gonna have to wait as I'm off on the road in about two minutes to Longmont pick up sound equipment, then off to Colorado Springs to call my first National Championship race ever at the 24 Hour Mountain Bike Nationals. My life has gotten crazier the older I have gotten, and it's good, and I like it, and it was a blessing to be amongst friends and foliage this week in one heel of a beautiful place. 

VAIL

THE SEQUENCE OF EVENTS CAPTURED BY MOUNTAIN MOON PHOTOGRAPHY....XILINX DEBACLE

Along with Brian Patrick of Onsight Media and 303 Cycling, Annette of Mountain Moon Photography captured perfectly a moment I'm not soon to forget during this lifetime anyway. Here's the review of my "Joey's OK" moment from my own personal perspective, I'm sure you all have your own similar occurrences during your cycling careers, but the video and the pictures help tremendously remind what was going on in my head at each of these moments....

Let's start at the call up of the 55+ category at Xilinx, it's a great bunch of guys, and plenty are still extremely fit and fast, and it's an honor to line up against the likes of riders and friends (some new) like State and National Champion Gary Thacker and the rest of these elite athletes. Most of these guys do not know much about me as a rider, I know Gary a bit, and I remember rolling up to the inside of row one at call up next to him and Gary jokingly saying to be careful that he did not run me into the curb at the start. I wanted the hole shot to the dirt, but was not sure I could gain it against a pretty stacked field with names like Wade, Herwig and McGlaughlin in there. The charge up the start straight was clean, and I got away enough to keep it buried until the bunny hop to the dirt. I found myself at the front, with no idea who was behind. THE problem at this point was I came into the dirt hot and almost overcooked into the course tape. I was redlined on the straight into the right hander from the effort, pretty much cross eyed at that point, but psyched to be in control of the pace as we hit the log and the tree section on lap one. In my mind I knew a rider or two would go off the front on the pavement that followed, and my plan was to grab those wheels and hopefully be in the break early.

I had ridden the log a half dozen times prior to the race with no clearance issues, but when I came in a slightly different angle, and tight on the bike from being worked from the sprint at the start, I cased my chain ring and slightly pitched forward at a very poor time on the log which started the now well recorded sequence. I remember going over the front end and immediately thinking "you just blew it".......dickhead.

At this point I'm thankful for a fairly soft dirt landing, and the split second I had to get my hands out in front of me to help break the fall..

I'm already thinking about trying to get out of the way and back in the race, unaware of any injury issues...get the bike and get back in the game.

And then Bret Wade had the misfortune of being second wheel, and unable to avoid my carnage goes down as well....

Believe it or not I'm apologizing to Bret right here for fucking up his and my race, fortunately we were both able to remount and ride and complete the task at hand....Gary Thacker had the good fortune of space and leads out the rest of the field from here...

Shaken and very embarrassed I was able to remount quickly with a right shoulder stinger (re-aggravating an old shoulder injury) and a couple of slightly bruised ribs and continue the race. After assessing injuries up on the road and losing a few more places after the shock of the crash I was able to regroup during lap one, then get back to racing on lap two, thankfully.

And of course the remainder of the race there were no issues at the SOB of a log. So the moral of the story is this, it's Cyclocross, there is no crying in Cyclocross, eating dirt is part of this game, shaking it off is as well....and I love it.

CALMING THE VOCAL CHORDS....

With back to back 24 hour mountain bike events to announce the next two weekends, which include the 24 Hour National Championships in Colorado Springs and the 24 Hours of Moab (with Outerbike thrown in for good measure), it's time for some quiet for a few days, back in the old hood.

Last eve started with a busted spoke and a wobbler, no problem, here is the quick Elgee solution, and I was thankful for disc brakes, no truing necessary until I got back home...

The view from the climb up Abrams

Scrub Oaks turning orange, I think I take these same photos every year as ya just can't get tired of nature in all her glory...

Berry bushes and scrubbies, just below Aspen elevation, photo taken off of "Scratch"

Catwalk

It's on in the High Country, Vail should peak in the next three days, and it is spectacular right now.

The view from Blue Grouse, my fav.

More from Blue Grouse....this is big time bear country, make noise, especially if solo..

And then there was this at the top of Abrams on the descent, I got sucked into watching the sunset, with the Coyotes howling, and ended up riding down in the dark with no headlight, which was as good as it gets....

Repeat today until all the leaves drop...then it's time for a lot of noise on the mic....

XILINX, A GREAT DAY OF RACING AND EATING DIRT....

45+ Start at the log....

Burnsy gettin some love on the log, finished 13th out of 111 finishers, not to shabby.

And more piles

And the result of the piles...

These are always some of the most awkward barriers of the season to tackle, no momentum in, hard right hand turn up hill, and no room to get running through them.

Another victim from Pro Cycling, welcome to my club.

This guy is shitting his pants right now....

 Above, the problem child for some, myself and some of the men's open field included. you would think someone who has been riding and racing mountain bikes would have no problem with this six incher, but it bit me in the ass somehow on lap one when I cased my Chainring giuard on it. There is no crying in Cyclocross. Ya just get up and continue if you can.

'

ANATOMY OF A FUCK UP.....ELGEE EATS A SHIT SANDWHICH

Here is the vij from 303 Cycling. Basically, I sucked and crashed, but recovered for a pretty good day. Such a bonehead move....hole shot hero, to log jump zero....funner than a pig in a shit shower however.

CONTOUR ROAM TEST VIDEO....

Test run of the new Contour Roam camera, even easier to use than the original Contour. This from their new handlebar mount...

A CELEBRATION OF LIFESTYLE, MOUNTAIN PEDALER AND DUSTY BOOT STYLE

Every fall there is a celebration in Eagle. The Mountain Pedaler/Dusty Boot/Luigis mountain bike team throws it down whether or not they are the series champions, which of course this year they once again were, signified by the piece of shit gold painted wheel which hangs from the wall with the rest of the junk in the local bike shop. This is a large gathering hosted by John Shipp and Charlie Brown who both support cycling in the valley like it may disappear tomorrow, it's actually quite good to be a part of, and thanks for having me despite not being an official member of the team this year, I was too busy talking about the suffering all season to race.

A lot of food and drink was consumed.....

And then the ceremonial post party ride late night up the Boneyard, where riders are required to change bikes about every 1/4 mile until they have ridden every bike in the group, regardless of pedal type and size, this means small people on big bikes and big people on little bikes for the entire ride, with the wrong cleats for pedals, and all while pounding beer from the support vehicle which was driven this year by Peter Davis, still recovering from "the incident".

Drink it all up, then we can go back down the hill, and close the doors at the Mountain Pedaler in Eagle in the wee hours....damn good on ya mates. Mark Nelson won crash of the night awards, and it was the real deal.

 And of course there was more fall fly fishing during the day....on the Eagle.

 And there were big cheeseburger flies for the trout to eat, many.

MANY, MANY, MANY YEARS FROM NOW.....

When the good lord or whomever makes the decisions around this joint decides to take me from this earth, or bring me back, or whatever the hell happens to us, I will not be leaving a big pile of money to anyone or anything when it's over. I will however leave here a wealthy man. That's fishin.

And I did not catch one fucking fish, and it was perfect.

BIRTTTTHHHHHHDAY RIDE....

Yesterday was Tara Picklo's birthday, so we got a mini posse together and rode the Gran Traverse and descended the new Big Mamba trail at Vail, which is for lack of a better word, silly fun and really long.

Tara, Nate and Court at the summit, waited for me to granny gear my ass up there after burying myself all weekend on the cross bike. It was a painful assault on the Gran Traverse....

Tara in a blur on the SS, killed us.

part of the super flowy Big Mamba trail...a thousand burmed corners...

The day ended with food and drink and bowling, and a mild hangover.

I LIKE RACING CROSS....

I got to thinking this morning while taking my 10am shit, why are mothers so freaking paranoid about washing their kids hands, demanding they use that hand sanitizer fifteen times a day, and then not even giving a care about the same said kids, as well as themselves, sitting on the same fucking toilet seat that ten billion people have sat on while taking dumps. Is there something incredibly sanitary about a white toilet seat that makes it sparkly clean to sit on and kills the gnarliest amoeba in the world? Just wondering.

So with that said, I love to race my CX bike, and I do not get to do it all that often anymore because I actually enjoy talking about the suffering as much as participating, which keeps me behind the mic and off the pedals a lot now. But this weekend was free of calling the body blows on course, and I got to race three times. Sunday at Valmont was your basic gas, and despite being in the "easier" 55+ category now, National & State champ Gary Thacker lined it up with us, and was pissed about flatting in the earlier 45+ race, so he lined it up in his proper age category and flogged the shit out of all of us. Then there were Bill Herwig, Lauren McGlaughlin, and Bret Wade at the line as well. Think it's easy in the 55+, think again, but the cool thing was that we saw roughly 20 starters, which was awesome. The course was way fun, watch out Boulder Cup!

Sunday was Cross on the River in Buena Vista, and the numbers were pitifully small, which sucks, because it is a great place to suffer in circles for 45 minutes, and it was a perf day for a road trip to the hills, and the folks that came were cool, and we had fun, and all takers in my category showed up on mountain bikes, which gave me a bit of an advantage, and I won a river rock, which was cool, because I've never won a CX race before, and I'll take it, because now I've done that and will be happy getting flogged by the faster guys when they do show up again, which I'm sure will be this weekend at Xilinx, where I'll race again, and I am really excited to ride around in big circles again, and I can't wait to sit on as porta pottie that has had a billion other asses on it previous to mine, just to experience it. Awesome.

And this one has been floating around the Internet on Youtube for a couple of days now. Race CX, this could be you.....touche.

VALMONT CX IS GOOD SHIT MAYNARD

And John Klish should have on the back of his kit in the Cat 3's....

"kiss my ass goodbye", because it's been over 500 yards into the race the last two weeks, he lines it up in the Men's open field tomorrow in Buena Vista.