Wild Flower Rush, Crested Butte, Colo.

Great race, many wrecks, one of which included one of my buddies (Dean from RMR)...Dean and I (I was behind him) were descending the super fast and loose fire road on the front side of CB (before you hit the single track) so I see Dean put his left foot out to aid balance and suddenly he shoots, back first, into the trees, I brake and yell "are you ok?". Dean replies "yep", but I had a feeling he might be in bad shape and having no "official" medical training, I cruise down the course and find a marshal, I say "you've got to send a 4-wheeler up the course as a dude is in need of med-attention". After the race I learn that Dean blacked-out twice and the medics put him in a 'shock-chamber' to avoid further damage when they brought him down the mountain. After the race I found Dean, he was in decent shape and couldn't say 'no' to a beer.

Another crash at CB included me. First lap, gnarly-baby powder single on the front side, I wash and bail, and ended up with badly bruised ribs. No worries, I went to the doctor on this one to get x-rays. I finished the race, after contemplating a dnf (did not finish) numerous times during the final two laps, oh well, it's all good.

Peace,
B

Nobody Says It Better

Than the Godfather himself, James Brown. You know the commercial "Discover your music with your iPod", or something like that. So, I'm out for a ride and hear this random song, I haven't laughed that hard in a long time. Nothing against the Godfather, but zoinks. I most certainly did discover my music. Here he is, the Godfather:

I got soul and I'm super bad
I got soul, huh, and I'm super bad, huh!
I jump back, I wanna kiss myself!
I've got soul, huh, and I'm super bad, HEY!
I said I'm super bad
Ha! what it's all about, gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme
Gimme, gimme, gimme, YEEAAH! AACCKK!
Uh, come on
[Instrumental]
AAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYEEEEEEEEEEE!
Super bad uh! come on dance it, come on
Super bad, jab, good Lord! super bad
Mercy, huh! let me hear ya, super bad.

My Subar

Got to get a plug in for my Subar. Yep, I said Subar and not Subaru, some how or another, the 'u' fell off my dang car. It's all good though as the lack of a 'u' saves me roughly two grams off curb weight, which, if you think about it, ultimately saves me mileage, e.g. less weight, yeah! Makes me think of the i.e. versus e.g. debate in Get Shorty, jeez that is one of the best movies out there. Anywho, that's my super rad Yeti on the right (drivers side) and Kenny's fairly rad Yeti on the left (passenger side), I say fairly rad because he put a white saddle on the poor thing, white saddle, sounds pretty 'Italian' to me.

Peace,
B

Oye'. A weekend in Chicago with Kevin and Colin, good times. We hit a few pubs Friday night leading up to the Cubs versus Tigers on Saturday. Started the day off at Murphys before we headed into Wrigley. Wow, Wrigley is awesome. The Cubs got smoked but we had a great time. Sunday - I was back in CO catching up on six days without riding a bicycle (oops). Crested Butte is this weekend, should be interesting as I feel 'over' rested, but whatever, got to live your life and have some fun from time to time. Makes me think of this:
"You only live once, but if you work it right, once is enough" - Joe Louis

Peace,
B

Chalk Creek Stampede - Nathrop, CO

(That's me in top middle, grey t-shirt, black hat, looking uber rad) Word Wookiees and family. How we doing? Thought I'd share my reflection of last week's race.

Saturday - This was the full on XC race, four laps of roughly seven miles, it was hot, dang hot. I was in second and feeling bueno until the beginning of the fourth lap - I cramped, lost second, struggled along in third and managed to not completely fall apart - 3rd place and a podium, which felt good after my miserable showing at Angel Fire that resulted in a 8th place finish.


Sunday - STXC, hot again, dang hot. I was way sore and not all that keen on exploding for 25-minutes. Side bar --- Have you read Ultra Marathon Man? If you haven't, I suggest you do as it's a quick read and reiterates how much potential is in the body. One of the things I took away from this book, is that the author (Dean Karnazes), munches chocolate covered espresso beans when he needs a big spurt of energy, I'll get back to this in a moment. So we file into the start shoot for the STXC, roughly 25-dudes set to hammer out 3-5 minutes laps on a dusty kitty-litter course. The gun goes off, and I settle into 7/8 which was part of my plan. A few laps into it, a few of the lead dudes blew up and faded into the pack. So now I'm in 4/5th and the pace is really picking up, next thing I know, with a quick glance back, the entire field is gone --- it's just us up front. I'm buddies with all the guys I'm riding with but me and one of them (who got second) and I made a secret plan to drop the other riders with three laps to go and then work together on the second to last lap to make sure it was just us, then hammer each other on the final lap. So the four of us ride through the start/finish shoot with what we thought was 'three-to-go', I'm not sure if anyone else noticed but we had two laps left instead of three! I thought to myself "Let er' rip", I then held up my index finger and pinky indicating two-laps to go to my accomplis who was sitting in third (I was in second)…so we drop the hammer, or at this point, it felt more like one of those little kid style hollow plastic hammers as my legs were getting super heavy. We head up the climb, I look back, no one was there, just me. So I'm off to solo the final lap and eventually take the victory. Kudos to fellow COMotion racer, Bubba, who snagged third, pretty darn sweet for a climbing/descending specialist that hammered all of us at Angel Fire.

Back to the chocolate covered espresso bean - I highly suggest the consumption of them prior to a STXC race.

Peace,
B