New bike; sort of. Nice....

2nd edit: I added a new picture. Changes include carbon seatpost, Selle Italia SLR saddle(just for you Liam), and I flipped the stem to give me a little more roadie position. She weighs a svelte 20 lbs. even. We still gotta work on that triple crank and cut the steerer down.

1st edit: OK, I'm gonna edit this post. It was way too long and boring. So basically, I've been riding a Trek for the past year that didn't really fit. Now that I'm riding for a Specialized shop, I need to be representing! So Kyle gave me a great deal on a 2006 S-Works Tarmac e5 frame that fits me a lot better. We stripped my old frame and put all my old parts on the new frame. I hope to upgrade over time to put more worthy components on this awesome frame. But as is, the frame rides great and fits way better than my old bike. :)

Road Rash-In this case, hurting is bad.

More race reports to come, but I thought I'd add this short little tidbit for today. I had my first road bike wreck last night. I was on a fast group ride, and we were getting to the end, so we were reaching terminal velocity through this neighborhood with several speed bumps. I'd been just going over them, but I was getting tired and my wrist was hurting bad, so I decided to go around the last one. Mistake. I got a little too far to the side, and wound up over in the gutter area of the street on the smooth concrete. I hit a wet spot while cranking on the bike, and my wheels just came right out from under me. So I went sliding on my belly across the asphalt. Ouch. Try rolling out of a car going 27 mph, you'll know how it felt. Damage: a couple spots of road rash to the left elbow, a huge raw spot on the front of my left hip (think softball size), a nice cut on top of my left knee that still won't quit bleeding, and another spot of road rash to the lower left knee. A few scratches to the bike, but nothing major. We'll live to ride another day. Tomorrow's Sugar Cycles Shop Ride, to be specific. :) I hope to do some good work up front tomorrow and maybe try a few jumps off the front.

Tapatio Springs

Ok, I promised more posts, so here's the rundown from my first race of this year's TMBRA Spring TX State Championship series at Tapatio Springs Resort on March 4th. But first, a little lead-in is in order. I hadn't been riding much, just two or three times a month, just for fun going out to Memorial Park and playing around. I'd met a group of riders out there a couple times a few months before, turns out one of them was part of a new bike shop starting up in Sugar Land. He was the unofficial Captain of the mountain bike team, and after riding with me a couple of times, he asked if I was interested in being on their team. I said, "sure, why not." So we had exchanged numbers, and then I didn't see or hear from him for a while. So I get a text message on a Tuesday asking if I was still interested in being on their team. I said yes, and so he replies that there's a team meeting tomorrow night. So I met them the next night after going riding and falling and beating myself up good, and that's when I find out there's a race that Saturday. I hadn't been planning on doing it, but I can't back out now. So Raine and Cottton and I gather our camping stuff and head out Saturday morning to Boerne, TX, a bit north of San Antonio. I preride with the team Saturday, and take another nasty fall. Ouch. I had a good time on the preride, but we didn't go too fast, so I had no clue what to expect the next day. So the next morning it's cold and windy, and I line up with the Sport class. The next two hours were pure pain. The course suited my talents, being nice and technical with some fast downhills, but didn't suit my fitness level with a lot of climbing. There were two huge climbs that really hurt me. I rode the first one both laps, and rode the second climb the first lap but walked it the second. I was pretty destroyed afterwards, but finished 18th out of 27 starters, so I guess that's not bad after not really working on being in shape. From then on, I was committed to the rest of the series, and knew I would basically be racing my way into shape.


I think this is near the start. This was a fun little rocky area
that I had fun riding, even though I was already blowed up. I'm not sure how that guy wound up behind me, though. He must have been SLOW.















This is the second of the two big climbs. You can tell I'm hurting BAD here. This was the first lap, since I'm actually on my bike. This picture pretty much sums up my race: pain and suffering.









Stay tuned for the next race report, the STORM Hill Country Challenge in Comfort, TX.

Edit: The rest of the spring series sucked, I never finished higher than 12th. So I never blogged it and I'm not going back to do it now... I did manage to race enough to finish 10th overall, for which I got a little picture frame and a T-shirt.

"Sorry..."

Ok, so I haven't posted in a looong time. But I plan to get in the groove soon. Meanwhile, we've been living in our new house for a month or so now, and we love it! It's nice to have our own place, finally, after being married for over two years and living in a little tiny apartment/duplex. And I love having a big garage, that's awesome. I'll put up some pictures of the finished house soon.

I also need to catch up on my spring race season. I didn't do fantastic by any means, with my best finishes being a pair of 12th places. I never could get into the top ten like I wanted to, I just couldn't get my act together. Every race something stupid happened, like absolutely dead legs off the start, or racing half a lap with nothing to drink, or standing on the side of the trail for five minutes puking my guts out right in the middle of the race. Oh well, I had a ton of fun traveling and hanging out with Raine and all my racing buddies over the weekends. And I even managed to make enough races to finish 10th overall on the season. I'll put up some pictures and a race report for all the races soon.

So if you've found yourself here reading this, thanks. I'll start posting more regularly, and try to keep up to date with the fall mountain bike series coming up, as well as several big endurance rides I plan to do, including the South TX Death Ride and the Hotter 'n' Hell Hundred.