getting ready for natz

Man! Mountain bikes sure do break a lot!! I feel like I have to go to the bike shop every week to get something new adjusted or fixed. First it was my disk breaks which are now all good. Then it was the hub cones on my wheels and they are not messed up again!! I think I have gotten at least 5 flat tires in the past 2 months on the bike and just today my bottom bracket needed to be replaced because one side of the bearings were shot!!! I also had to have my fork rebuilt 3 weeks ago because oil kept leaking out of it!!! Well hopefully after today my bike is fixed and doesn't break at nationals on Friday or Saturday. Aside from all the bike fixing training was pretty well this weekend. Friday I did sprints on my road ride, saturday I did a 3 hour super hilly road ride with Greg and Today I fixed my bike for an hour and then rode both of our local mountain bike trails pretty fast. Monday and Tuesday I am gonna recovery. Wednesday we are gonna drive and Thursday pre ride the XC course. I am really gunning for a top 10 finish in the Short track and then my season is basically over unless I decide to do a little cyclocross. I think I might do Jingle cross because it is a fun course and there is a ton of money but I am finding it hard to train a lot with school. the next update will be from Banner Elk, NC and will hopefully be about how I did well at natz!

RegionalZ!

Purdue hosted the MWCCC Mountain bike Regionals this weekend and it was a blast. Pretty tiring but still awesome. We had our XC on our campus trail that is about 5 miles long and there was lots of close racing action. I was riding in 3rd about half way through the 4th lap when I ran over either a spoke or one of our little metal flags and it jammed into my derailleur jamming it and bending my hanger. so needless to say I had to take my derailleur and chain off the bike even to get it to roll. I was kind of mad but the bike shop got it fixed except that my chain was skipping like crazy while warming up for the STXC so I borrowed Travis's wheel. STXC was on Slater hill which is right on our campus and was awesome course that we designed. It had a 1.5 foot drop off and several fun downhill turns. I got 3rd and was pretty happy with it. I did the dual slalom too which switched back through a bunch of trees. it was exciting and I even got into the top 8. In my first race I did this crazy move to cut my opponent from Mizzou off. I think we bumped about 5 times in one run but I got it and then got eliminated by Weston who won in the next round. Setting up the courses and taking them down was a bit of work but the Purdue club is big and well organized so we got it done relatively fast. Thanks to everyone who came out and raced or helped out with the races.

Getting better

This past weekend I raced at Butler's mountain bike races. It went well I got 4th in the XC and 2nd in the STXC and I managed not to get hurt or crash in the downhill race. I have got to say that North Vernon is an awesome XC course lots of 1 minute-2 minute climbs and fun downhills without too much dangerous stuff. I really had fun in the cross country and it is one of the few XC races where i didn't blow up on the last lap. The Purdue Regionals race that we are hosting is this weekend and should be a blast! Also school is really tough right now I had my last of my first set of tests this morning and it went OK. I also have a huge paper due next wednesday that I have just barely got started on. i am pretty excited to get done with school in May this year.

Lindsey Wilson!!

This year's mtb season started off pretty well. I placed 2nd in the short track at Lindsey Wilson. My lungs hurt like crazy but at least I was able to breath well which usually isn't the case. I sucked in the dual slalom and should probably stop trying to do it since I seem to get worse at jumping every year. then I got a flat 3 miles into the XC race and had to quit. That was pretty frustrating but it happens. Mad props to Dallas Fowler for kicking butt both days this weekend.
School is getting pretty stressful now too. I have lots of lab reports and papers to write which are time consuming and sometimes frustrating. So I decided to forgo going to the races in michigan this weekend so that I could hopefully get ahead on all of the work and race at butler without as much stress. I am still planning on going to nationals and I hope I can get in good enough shape to get a top 10 short track finish there!

MTB season

After a weekend off of racing I am ready to start mountain biking. I plan on doing the next 4 weekends of racing and I think that our purdue team will qualify for nationals. I finally got my bike working pretty well except that the front disk brake keeps squeeling like crazy which is annoying. Adjusting hydralic disk brakes is really a pain in the but and makes me wish I still had mechanical brakes. I have been riding the 2 trails hear near purdue a few times and I think I am getting my skills back. We will see this weekend and Lindsey Wilson. It ought to be exciting and I hear they have an all new dual slalom course instead of a monster 4X course.

Last crits of the year

Saturday and Sunday this past weekend were my last road bike races of the year. They were NRC crits in Grand Rapids and Ann Arbor Michigan. Saturday went well and I placed 11th but I feel like I could have done better if I hadn't hesistated with 400m to go and had attacked. That's racing I guess. The course was awesome and had a bunch of long brick sections. Sunday's race was on a brutal course that had 2 small climbs per lab and rail road tracks. it was a fun course but I blew myself up at the beginning and my breathing got really bad. I got dropped but didn't get pulled so I jumped back in the field and actually felt a ton better. I attacked and got a prime and still finished 21st!! The money went 25 deep yet I was the last finisher. I have never been in a race where that happened before! I am taking a break from racing this weekend and then I am gonna do 4 weekends of college mountain biking in a row so that I can go to nationals with the Purdue team.

first week of school

mixing school and training isn't so bad during the first week of school. I was able to ride a lot but I think it is gonna get a lot tougher to do that once school gets going. I finally got out on my mountain bike for the first time since march and I am definitely need to practice a bit more before the first races. I did the West Lafayette Road race on Sunday and helped Boris organize it too. It kind of sucks doing a race with only 15 guys in it. I messed up the sprint between the 6 guys left the end and got 5th place so I won my entry fee back. It was hot and despite the fact that the race was here I forgot to bring gatorade which would have helped me to not suck at the end. Oh well it was just for training anyway. I am excited to get the road season done with next week and do some mtbing which should be a bit more relaxing. Mad props to my teammate Ben Renkema on winning the Giro Di Via Italia in Windsor Canada this weekend and to Greg Christian on winning the michigan hill climbing championship!