September 2004

Durango

It’s August 25th and I’m in beee-autifuuul Durango, Colorado. Both Rando and I flew out a few days early to get some fun riding in with Elke and whoever else we found along the way. The day we flew in we did a fun XC ride at Test track and about half way through Myles Rockwell came up behind me and we had an extra riding partner. We rode till’ dark and it was awesome.

The next day was gonna be a sweet 2 ½ hour single track XC ride down Kennebec Pass. Elke had told Rando and I it was about a ½ hour ride downhill, then a 45 min. climb out from the creek, and then another 30-40 min. ride downhill to the car. Rando and I were definitely up for it. So we take off from the truck where we got dropped off at the top (thank gawd) and within 15 min. Elke front flats. No biggie. I wait and she puts a new tube in. About 2 minutes later I hear…PTTSSSSSS!! Ahhh shit, she pinch flatted the new tube. It was then that we realized that only Rando and Elke had grabbed an extra tube. I was the idiot that forgot to grab one. So since Rando was riding like a madman in front of us he didn’t even know Elke had a flat. I ended up riding down about ten minutes till’ I found him and then we rode another 20 minutes back to EZ-E (Elke). As we are riding up I feel my headset getting really really lose and we are still only like 20 minutes into this ride. I ask Elke for the little allen key handy tool and she looks at me like, “ummm I didn’t grab it I thought you did.” Ahhh man what next. Well, the only good thing about that was I realized it wasn’t my headset. It was the quick release. Yeah, one more jump off a rock and my front wheel would’ve taken off without me.

So I tightened it up and off we went. HA!! Yeah right. I swear not 5 minutes later after Elke told us all we had to ride a bit more cautiously as not to get another flat what happens. Yup, I rear flatted. We stop and luckily Elke finds four patches in her patch kit and we start changing it. As I am on my two hundredth pump Rando hears something. He looks over and Elke front tire is flat again. Oh my gawd you’ve got to be kidding. By now it’s getting to be a bit funny especially since all we had was a bit of oatmeal and a bar that morning and it’s now 3:00 p.m and we’ve only ridden our bikes for 30 minutes in the last hour. So we fix both flats and are now riding like a bunch of freaking’ grandmas to make sure we don’t flat again on the rocky bits.

We’ve now been riding (since the last flat) about an hour. We make a right turn to cross over the wooden bridge and start the climb when Rando stops to make sure we’re all still there. We stop a second have a bit of a laugh and just as we are going to take off again Elke says, “hey you guys come here you gotta see this”. We go back as she’s pointing at her front wheel and see a huge bubble coming out of the tire. Meanwhile she’s laughing cause’ it’s cool looking and Rando jumps off his bike like his pants are on fire and start letting the air out before it pops. Elke and I are busting up AND I’m sure the fact that we hadn’t eaten in hours is starting to factor into the absolute chaos of what’s going on.

Believe it or not we sat on that goddamn bridge for an hour. Rando was playing Magyver and trying everything in the book to fix the flat. We had no more tubes, no more patch kits, and by now were cutting tubes in half with Rando’s teeth and tying them on each end to stuff in the tire. Then trying to pump it up all while putting the GU packet in the sidewall of the tire. I rationed the last bar I had between all of us while Elke was telling us, “If I end up having to walk out of here back to the car it’s going to be dark before I get there and you’ll have to come find me.” I mean holy crap we should’ve been back to the truck by 4:30 and it was now 5:00 and we still have an hour and a half to go.

Rando made an executive decision that Elke was going to have to ride on the rim to get back to the car. So she did. And I’ll tell you what. Rando and I didn’t have to wait too long for her when we’d stop. Girl can still kick some ass even without a tire. She was scaring the shit out of the wildlife though sounding like a freakin’ garage sale the whole time, but at least she made it. We were only about 15 more minutes away from the truck when I rear flatted one more time just for good measure. We ended up back at the truck at 6:30 pm and didn’t speak the entire car ride because we needed food so bad. First stop…the closest gas station that sold Krispy Kreme’s. Once we all started to feel normal again we picked up some mexi food and finally made it back to the house. This was one of those rides you’ll never forget. No matter how tired or hungry I get I will always be game for another epic. You just might have to give me a month or so to convince myself.

The next day we all needed to take it easy. It was another awesome day and Rando and I decided to ride into town to the rec. center to shoot some hoops. It took about an hour or so to get to the rec. center where the sign on the door read…”Closed from August 23rd to August 29th.” Wouldn’t you know it. So instead we just rode into town got some food and waiting for Elke to pick us up. That night Elke had a bar-b-que with my old coach Rick Crawford, his three kids, Shonny V., John Kemp from Devo, two of his XC boys, a couple more XC boys from town, and myself. Elke whipped up some Mojitos and by my third one I was feeling pretty damn good. I slept well that night.

This morning was pretty casual and Elke ended up bringing Rando and I up to the mountain a little early since she was gonna have a houseful in the days to come. When we got there we helped Tom finish setting up the rig and then relaxed a bit. I tried to go on a “easy spin” that only lasted about 25 minutes because I couldn’t find anywhere flat to ride and Rando went on his own little fishing adventure. He ended up walking one hour each way to this little creek and unfortunately didn’t catch anything. But it didn’t matter because he had fun. So now it’s almost midnight and I feel like I accomplished something by finally writing my one journal a month. Till’ next time. Hopefully that’ll be tomorrow.

So the race weekend went pretty good. I finished up second in the Mtn.X and in a last minute decision signed up for the Super D and finished third behind Chrissy Redden and another XC honch. The weather was awesome and besides I always love going to D-town. The whole team did awesome too, which is always a plus. Adam ended up with a second in XC and a second in the short track once again behind Geoff Kabush. Dustin finished up with a fifth for the day in DH and third place overall. And my homie Rando finished with a sixth for the day in DH and sixth overall. He’s got this thing with six’s lately. Oh well.

I want to make sure and say THANK YOU to a few people that have really made a difference in the team. Thanks to Frank “Frankie Boy” Trotter, Tom, Elke “EZE”, Steve, and to everyone at Giant for giving us all the opportunity to race and do the very best we can every weekend. To all of our awesome sponsors: Pearl Izumi, Manitou, Race Face, Hayes, Michelin, Sun Rims, Maxim, Easton, Shimano, Sigma Sport, Chopper at Smith, Giro, ODI, E-Thirteen, Troy, Greg, and Mike at Troy Lee Designs. I hope I didn’t forget anybody and if so I’m really sorry.

And also a thank you to my Mom for always believing in me, to Polly for just being awesome, to my family for always being so supportive, to all my friends for not forgetting about me when I’m gone, and to Peter Carlisle and the entire Octagon crew for always doing such a tremendous job. I hope to be part of your family soon.

So now I’m off to the World Championships and World Cup finals and am looking forward to it.

Till’ next time