First things first. Pro champs weekend went off without a hitch. Not only did I get a chance to meet some great sponsors in Andy Woolard of Barkley, spend some time with my awesome teammates and my new family here in Greenville, everyone at Hincapie Sportswear, but I got a chance to chat with George for the first time since he got back from Europe. It was a tough day in the saddle for him, and in the end the Garmin onslaught got the best of him. I guess that is the power of numbers.
This weekend on the other hand was a more "painful" enjoyment when it came to bike racing. I got a chance saturday to head up to Chattanooga to train with my coach Kym, who rides with Vantaggio/Specialized Womens Mountain Bike team, and her husband Mark. After a day of entertaining them with "developing" mountain bike skills, we headed to Nashville for the Loc 4 Challege mountain bike race. For those of you skeptics saying, ahhh mountain biking, how fun. It can't be that hard. Right? I snarl at you for you being a complete and utter fool. It was the most difficult thing I have ever done. I never thought 14-16 miles could hurt so much. In the end I went from heading into the first single track in third place to being last by the end of the last lap. How fun. Sure come right by. It's all good. I'm not demoralized or anything. In the end, my fitness kicked in and I was able to work my way back into the top half and finish a respectable 7th place. Not a bad day for only having ridden a mountain bike three or four times this year in my opinion. Not to mention I got to crash once and I witnessed what happens when someone snaps a steerer tube in a mountain bike race. Lets just say, it's so much worse than just getting some road rash.
On a semi-bike related note, if you get a chance check my updated links here on the blog. I got some time tonight to get up a link to Kym's team blog for the Vantaggio/Specialized Professional Womens Mountain Bike team, as well as a link to one of the nicest and most personable sponsor relations people I have ever met, Andy Woolard who works for our co-title sponsor Barkley. Finally I thought I would show Scotty and the guys at Hincapie/Coca Cola the respect the deserve. So check it out and if you get a chance take a look at their pages. If it weren't for these people, I wouldn't be where I am as a racer, and wouldn't be going in the amazing direction I am going today. To all of you, thanks for a great season!
Time to start looking at more off road fun. I just spent the past half hour registering for a endurance mountain bike rage (Black Bear Rampage), three UCI cyclocross races (Ohio UCI Cyclocross Festival in October) as well as this weekends cross race in the motherland of Ohio. I think that's enough run on sentances for one day! Look for some more updates this week.
Until Later
-Dee-
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1 comment:
Thanks for the shout-out, Dave. Nice recount of the MTB event - I don't even know what would have happened to me out there.
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