Bike Rampin'

This weekend at Clinton Lake

You talk about a Great weekend for riding, almost 50 degrees. My bud, Jeff Smikahl and I went up to Clinton lake to ride a few hours, it was great! I hadn't been there for a few years. Here I'm getting ready to hit the red trail, it's a rock garden, tough to get a rhythm going, but we managed it. We found the Skills park, I didn't even know they had one, It was a blast until I found out I wasn't that skilled! Lol

JP Shores wasn't with us for the ride, but when at least 2 of us 3 get together for a ride, somebody is gonna get bloody! On my 3 time over the teeter toter I thought it would be a good idea to try and pull a wheelie off of it and lost my balance going over the teeter. My helmet is all out of whack! Need to adjust the straps! LOL, I look like I'm a little out of it, I had a huge hole in my upper lip and I thought I had broken my Oakleys.


I bled all over my bike

Jeff Smikahl after cleaning the teeter totor set, He completed it like a pro!

More skills park stuff, I must say whoever built this stuff did a great job! I just wish we would have had more time to play, I will definitely be back.

My daily driver

Well a couple of weeks ago I finally completed the domestication project of my old 99 Stumpjumper. This is now my daily driver to classes and work, or whatever. Its complete with Bontrager fenders, luggage rack, flare2 tail light, light and motion seca 700 headlight, 2 lighted reflectors for the wheels, tom slick tires, a thudbuster seatpost just because I had it, and Jandd paniers. I'm gonna get a trunk for it later. This is the same bike I won the Cat 2 race at Neosho back in April when my top fuel was down with a broken rear drop-out. I do love this old bike, but hopefully I won't have to bring it out of retirement again!

This summer at XC Mtb. Nationals

I Finally got a picture of my National XC race in Colorado this Summer. I finished 10th in the Cat 2's. Team mate JP Shores made the trip also, and he placed 15th, I think. It seems like so
long ago. I miss those warm days! This race was unseasonably warm for the mountains in Colorado, at the time I was hoping for cooler weather that day. The ground was really dry and the air was thin! They started us on a 18% climb that seemed like it went on forever. I led up the climb but when we hit the highest altitude, I couldn't breath worth a darn. My lungs were burning pretty bad. I had to back off and it took me nearly the rest of the race to recover. Very disappointing, but I guess I did ok for a flat lander. Next time I won't take off so hard from the beginning. On the pre-ride I was able to ride a section with Todd Wells, he's a good dude. We chatted a little about Lance, you know small talk. LOL, then he won the national title on Saturday. He's a bad ass what's he up to this year? Two national titles? What I would give to be that talented.

training in the cold tips from Planet of the Mapes and the Jens Factor

To enlarge the Jens Factor image click on the image and then zoom it in. Jens is one tough cookie, check out his factor for how to dress for the cold.

Ok, It's officially cold as heck for riding! I'm riding a century tomorrow and its supposed to be 10 degrees when I kick it off! Holy smokes batman! Anyway, it's intimidating to start but if you dress properly it's not that horrible once you get going, at least that's what I tell myself. Tomorrow I will wear knee warmers with two pairs of tights, one long sleeve jersey with a cycling coat, two layers of shoe covers with chemical foot warmer in the shoe. I will where a pearl izumi ear warmer and a balaclava face mask and my oakley Jawbones to cover my eyes, the more you can cover the better! I will wear ski grade gloves with chemical hand warmers. To keep your bottles from freezing up I will have bottles in my pocket to rotate every half hour or so with the bottles in the cage, having bottles in your pockets will keep from freezing due to body heat.

Performance

Check this out! Danny Macaskill

http://www.redbull.co.uk/cs/Satellite/en_UK/Video/danny-macaskill-way-back-home-riding-clip-021242926492302

Well, 2010 has been very interesting for me both on the bike and off. I will elaborate on this later, but for now the big anouncement is my 2010 team Shores Sports has merged with Team Ethos to make one heck of an outstanding core of racers for 2011! This merger has me so inspired that I have uped the ante on my training, I'm being very strict with myself and I'm doing things I have never done before to train. Invision some of the Rocky movies and you may have some insight on my workload. Anyway, I'm super stoked about 2011 and can't wait to see all you on the trails.

Training ride, about 50 miles in and heading home when to our surprise we see this tornado drop a couple miles in front of us, I took this pic. with my cell phone while riding. You can see my group leaving me! I figured its not that often you can get a picture like this while on a bike so I took the suffer fest to bridge back with them. It was very tough because at this point everyone was ready to get home.

Here is my helmet after my wreck at the Tour de lizard on sept 11, 2010. I was chasing JP Brocket for the win in the marathon class when I had a mishap on the third lap. It was my first marathon race so I was taking a pretty easy pace until this lap when I started to make my move. JP was ahead of me, not sure how much, but I was giving it my all to try and bridge. I lost focus on a pretty technical downhill section with a tight right hand bend and a rooted drop about half way down. I was too far forward when I went over the rooted drop and went over the bars. I remember seeing a large rock that I was going to collide head first with when I tucked my head and let the helmet take it. It trashed my helmet and left a large bump on my forehead. I bruised both shoulders, tore my jersey and fractured my knee cap. After a bit of cursing I remounted and continued through the third lap and completed another lap to finish five minutes behind JP. Two weeks later I went to the doctor because my knee was still swollen and he drew off 15 ML of blood and xrayed my knee. Told me that my knee was fractured and that most people don't even want to walk in this condition, but he said it was clean fracture and that I could continue to ride as long as I could bare the pain. I left the Dr's office and went on a 40 mile road ride. LOL.

tour de lizard crash

didn't know it, but I have a fractured patella (knee cap). I kept racing for approx 12 miles like this.

another day in in a rain soaked saddle!

Well, its now only 1 month away from nationals. And I can't stop training now. Rain, HOT, Then Rain some more. What can I say? Just got to keep putting time in on the saddle.

I was happy with my result at The Womble Classic, 40 of us Cat. 2's lined up to kill it on the outlaw trail. The Ouachita trails have a history behind them, over 200 miles of trail. Once upon a time they were a passage trail for outlaws and horse theifs to hide out. Now us crazy XC mountain bikers are riding them on our aluminum, Carbon, and steel horses! Anyway, I had a rough start. I felt strong from the gun but in the first 3 miles of the 21 mile course I spent alot of time laying on the ground. Nearly 2 weeks now and my ribs still hurt! LOL, anyway I finally settled down and managed to catch all the Cat 2's of every age and won the race to qualify for Nationals in Colorado July 15th. So it looks like teamate JP, maybe Jason Douglas and I will be traveling in July to represent Shores Sports for a Cat 2 National Title! I can't wait! If the thin air doesn't kill me I think I can do well but we will see.

JDoug and JP competed in the Missouri state championships, and did very well, both qualified for Natl's and off we go. Team Shores Sports!!!!!!