Forgot....

To mention that Zach told Nick we would not pick him up from the airport unless he had grown a moustache. Can you see it??

Fat Camp Day 1

We picked up Nick on the way back from Fort Huachuca Saturday night. He is spending his spring break out here with us while we are on ours.

We started out Sunday with breakfast at the lake followed by a quick walk for the doodle. It was the first time we've seen these birds. Zach thought they were loons. There was one in the water and he'd dive down and stay under for what seemed like minutes. We had to walk right under this tree.

After that we packed up and headed over to Granite Mountain.

Based on his appearance, Zach and I were not expecting much of Nick. I was thinking we'd ride 347 (which is gradual, but rolling, climbing the entire way) from the Williamson Valley Trailhead then turn around and head back down. We ended up doing 347 to 348 and over to Mint Wash via 352. Rode thru Cayuse and up 349. Back to Cayuse up 346 and finally headed back down 347 to the car. I'm thinking we did around 15.5 miles. Not too bad for a kid from Illinois who's been riding once a week. And he's totally got the technical skills. Downhill, uphill. He was clearing everything. He'd just slow down a little (sometimes alot) on the climbs. To be honest, he was descending down stuff it took me a year to muster up the courage to do and he was climbing technical stuff that I still sometimes don't make. Brat.

At the top of 347, getting ready for our ride down.


We finished the day at the Brew Pub and Coyote Joes, but not before Nick cleared out with the neti pot.

Fort Huachuca

The 4th MBAA race was held at the army base, Fort Huachuca, in Sierra Vista, AZ (which is pretty close to Tombstone). We weren't super psyched to drive the 4.5 hours it was going to take us, but I needed to get this one in. Zach, the doodle and I got down there around 5pm Friday night. On the way I called my cousin Jim who has been stationed there for the last 5 months. Turns out he's on leave and out of town for a few weeks before moving on to his next assignment. Bummer.

We both squeezed in a preride of the black loop which we would each being doing 3 of the following day, followed by 1 red loop. I was glad we made it there in time. It was a pretty tough course and the preride allowed us to scope out the good lines. Lots of climbing and lots of rocks.

Race day temps were perfect. There was a little overcast and it was probably in the 60s. I ended up in first finishing in 2 hours and 6 minutes. The 29er climbed like a champ and made the scary descents super fun. Spring finished up in second, but had to cruise right after the race. She had Zach and I cracking up on Friday night.

Post race.



Here's the top 5 pro men. Man, these guys are fast. The Schultz bros, Tim Allen, Stefan Widmer, and TJ Woodruff.

Fat boy slim

In the house

I REALLY love my bike

Here it is. The latest addition to the family. Thank you Misty and the team at Vassago. This is the reason why flatting at Estrella was such a bummer. It was my first race on my new Optimus Ti.

I've only had it for about 2 weeks and it's morphed quite a bit already. We (I mean Zach) just swapped everything over from my last year's race bike. I originally had Zach's velocity's but just went out for a ride on MY new wheelset (I deserve new stuff too, right?). I can not believe I rode these handlebars all last season!!??? That's what I call "Zach style."

Here's what it looks like now. I'm still not sure where I want the stem. Might try further down.

I've been waiting

for the day to come. IT'S FINALLY GONE!!!

Picture this....

I used to go to these kinds of clubs in my youth and dance to this

Julian Jumpin Perez was the BOMB. Amazing what you can find on YouTube