No, not really. I'm just bitter.
It's been quite a while since I've written anything all up in here, so after about a month, I feel it's about time.
Last time I wrote was in May sometime, and since then, I have graduated from high school! Hooray! A bowl, a bowl, I found a bowl! Good for me!
So that's exciting. If you get that reference, good for you too! Otherwise, just pretend you get it. Anyway, after I got out of high school forever, nothing of really any importance happened for a while. Mostly, I just rode my bike for a while everyday, and spent the rest of the day sitting around on the couch in a semi-catatonic state like the jaded, friendless misanthrope that I am.
But suddenly! there was a bike race. It was in Colorado Springs. So I headed out to there from here and raced the race. The course was super fun; there were a couple nice fast sections, as well as a fairly lengthy technical section. I pre-rode the course four times. On one of the pre-rides, I was cruisin' it with Bryce, and right before the technical section, I thought he just misshifted and fell over like an idiot. So I laughed. But then I found out that he had actually broken his middle chain ring in half as well as sheared off all the chainring bolts. So I laughed even harder. Then we rode the rest of the course, and he was on the most hilarious looking 1x9 ever conceived. Later that day there was short track, but since I'm lazy, I didn't do it. I just watched in horror and awe embarrassment as Bryce got beat by a 14-year-old.
THEN. The next day, I woke up stupid early (by my standards) to go and try to watch the Junior X (now known as "Cat 1") girls race. Unfortunately, my breakfast went long, so I only got to see the second lap and the finish. If only Alicia were a crazy fast descender, she would've killed it since she can climb like nobodies business. Even I am jealous of her ability to pedal up hills.
Then later, there was the "Cat 1" 15-18 men's race, where Bryce once again got beat by the same kid from the short track. Again, I had to laugh, but this time it was at the race organizers since they obviously had their brains and the scrotum switched around. Everyone who was a "Cat 1" man went off at the same time, so there were about 120 people bottle-necking into a single track off a road. It was disgusting.
Much much later, there was the pro race. Which I was a part of. There was a call-up, which was totally useless, because there was a "rolling start" to the actual start, where we actually started, and during the confusion, I worked my way through the crowd to right behind Adam Craig. He has a similar name to mine. Sweet. So I had a good start, and I took advantage of it by doing the entire first lap in my big chainring. I was also excited to be the only pro rider to ride a certain rock mess. Then there was another lap, and then on the third lap, Kevin caught me, and I was like "aw, shit." and then he rode away and I was sad. But the third lap was the only lap where I was able to ride everything! Even the terrible rocks, and about 5 minutes into the decent, I caught Kevin, and I was happy again. Kevin was like "Whaaaat!? How you descend so fast?" but I didn't get to answer him because we went up hill again and he pulled away. I was sad once more. Then I crashed, which was more embarrassing than anything else. But i got up, and kept descending like a crazy person, and only finished about 40 seconds behind Kevin, which was about two places.
This is me. Lookin' at you.
That's how technical it was! On the brakes climbing? What? Yeah.
After that race, I went to a bike camp down there in Colorado Springs. The riding itself was fun, but the whole camp was full of people who should really go jump off something high onto something sharp. Except for a very few exceptions. In fact, there was this one guy, who just had this look about him that said "Yeah. I know you know I'm totally the best." I really hoped that I had a look that said "It is taking every ounce of willpower that I have to not punch you in the face right now." But other than the people, like I said, the riding was a fun time. I think we rode for 27 hours in that week-ish. On the last day, we rode Palmer Park, which was by far the most fun I've had on a bike since I was 14 hopping around in a parking lot.
This is ALL the cool kids in the park.
Some people actually went for an easy ride during this. I honestly can't even imagine a world in which that would have been a better idea than riding the park. Seriously, it was just stupid fun. I had a big goofy smile on my face the whole time. It's really hard to describe it. Just go there and ride it. Then you'll know.
After this camp, there was a race in Crested Butte! So I went.
I didn't pre-ride because I'm lazy, and on race day there was a bunch of stupid, stupid, annoying rain. Also the course had been almost entirely re-routed, so I didn't know what i was getting into. The rain made it mostly unridable, and, this is where the frictionless tyre comes in, I got ABSOLUTELY ZERO FUCKING TRACTION on the specialized tyre I was running. In fact, on one climb, it looked like a slick because it doesn't shear mud. At all. Ever. It collects it like a freakin' kleptomaniac or something.
I crashed on the first lap into an embankment at about 30, and was more-or-less fine, just a little winded. Then I finished the second lap (of three) and then dropped out because I wasn't about to risk crashing again to get last.
There was a rock section that was seriously like an ice rink, and since it was freshly cut single track, it was all off-camber. So I walked most of it. Not because I was afraid, but because if I rode, I washed out into the trees on the downhill side of the trail until I couldn't ride anymore. It was faster to walk. Cleaner, too.
So yeah, I dropped out.
Speaking of things that sucked, that start was awful. With all 80-ish of us pros, we bottle-necked into a singletrack something awful. It was so bad, there was more on-brakes-climbing! Not the technical fun kind either.
Seriously. Stuck behind Russle. He's not in this picture. That's me and Kevin.
I was not amused, as you can understand. But there were many 3's to be had, obviously!
Over the next two days, me and Cody rode some trails that DIDN'T suck in NOT rain. That was actually a pretty fun time, I must say. We rode the 401 trail, which is pretty much a mandatory ride if you're in Crested Butte. Do it!
Then I went to Durango and registered for college classes. Yeah. It's... Not as fun as it sounds. But I had some really good cream soda at some brewery in town! Then I went home. Now I'm here. Nothing really new since that....
Well actually that's a lie. I'm racing the Firecracker 50 solo this year in the pro division since nobody would do it with me as a team. It's gonna be hard. I'll probably be totally fucked over for nationals, which is two weeks later. But I don't know if I'll be able to recover in that time since I'm slow and young and weak and inexperienced. That last one is entirely due to USACycling, which can SUCK MY FUCKING BALLS. They are truly unacceptable. Fuck.
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