Time to get the tiller

Wanting to play in the yard now that my first little turn "turned" out fun. I'm up to my neck in ground cover and bittersweet though, so the shovel is not cutting it. I'm going with the earth eater tiller to get the ground right. Feel free to join me.

Getting the itch to dig

All this fall weather and soft ground makes me want to dig. But is it worth it to make a little play area at my own house? If I had a couple buds who lived nearby we could have an awesome little pump track. Any takers out there?

Lunchtime HiJinx

For 3-4 days a week, I go to the Mountains to Sea Trail to do a little "play" at lunch. I work right next to the Parkway and it's a good 20-25 minutes of monkeying around in the woods. I started doing it back in the spring when I read about a guy in Men's Health who trained athletes in South America to use their bodies they way they were meant to.

It's called MovNat http://movnat.com/ and you can google it, YouTube it or whatever. The great thing is that you can do the movements anywhere, anytime. It's great for me because the foundation is to NOT have a structure. Just find things to climb, crawl under, jump and sprint. The guy's name is LeCorre and the videos don't do it justice. I'd recommend reading the Men's Health article more than any other on him because it gives you a better grasp of the concept.

So today I spent 20 minutes "playing". I started by jogging down the trail for a second, then trying to climb a pretty big tree with really deep grooved bark. It was hard to hold onto..more of a bear hug. But it leans a little, so you can hook onto it. I realized I could use my feet on both sides to inch up it and man did it work me. Suddenly I was 9 feet or so up and just hopped down and sprinted down the trail.

I charge up a steep little incline and grab this big, flat, triangular rock that I leave laying off the side of trail and do a squat then launch it in front of me like a 2 handed shotput a bunch of times. Then get on the ground and do crab walks and switch into a spiderman crawl. Hop up. Grab the big rock over my head and walk with it about 40 yards and go back. Chuck it off the trail.

Next is my favorite...a skinny, angled tree that I can hang on for chin ups, pull ups, hang upside down on no handed, even jump off of. Then climb onto a 6 foot high angled boulder on the side of the trail and do offset push ups to help my balance. Jump to the ground. Jog up the trail back to the entrance, climb two tall skinny trees (one with a great limb to hang on) and drop from about 10 feet to the ground.

Stretch. Eat a sandwich. Work.

Cassidy, 5 yrs old, stomped the VA Creeper Trail!

That's right. Saturday, we went with a large group from our church, Trinity of Fairview, and drove 2 hours to do the VA Creeper Trail. Apparently it's pretty long, as in epicly long, and we did the most trafficed section. It runs from Whitetop to Damascus and finishes out in the town right behind all the bike shops. http://www.adventuredamascus.com/CREEPER.HTM

You pay $11.00 for a shuttle to the top and are unsupported for 18 miles on a converted railroad bed. It's such a gradual grade that you don't ever use your brakes. Ryane pulled Charisma in a buggy behind her and took off at her own pace. I followed Cassidy and cheered her on.

Event highlights include Cassidy slipping off her bike and Ryane running into her with the wheel of the buggy, Cassidy doing tricks with daddy and wrecking, Charisma being relaxed, stopping at the river and eating lunch on these fantastic little docks and incredible scenery the whole way.

Just go do it. It beats a lame cruise on the parkway in a car any day! Any bike can do it.

Up the mountain at 7:30am!!

Now that our 5 year old, Cassidy, is getting up at 6:30am every morning for school, it makes it simpler to be on the bike for a trail ride before work. But, boy did mother nature have a say in it. I hit a private gravel road near the house and did a quick 40 minute ride this morning on the DH bike. Climbing on a 40lb bike standing up for 20+ minutes wakes you up!

Hardest part was the last 100 yards uphill to the blazer. DH tires and tubes into a 15+ mile an hour head wind. Had a blast...now to wake up again after the caffeine has run it's course. Don't forget to look up at that crystal blue sky today. It's amazing.

Caveman Mechanics Institute

So I backed into my own DH bike, had to jack my Blazer up to get it out and figure out what was bent. One spare handlebar, one direct mount stem swapped out for a Thomson that was going on anyway...and swapping a upper crown on my fork out for a spare old parts fork.

Only problem was that apparently for a week now, I've not realized I swapped out the upper crown, but didn't really. I got confused and had just slid the same one back on. I'd been banging my noggin trying to figure out what was bent still. I brought the bike in the house to look under the bright lights and noticed what I thought was the old one was way too clean to have come off a bike. So now....I want to ride.

7am it is!

End Game.

This has been a week full of highs and lows. Starting last weekend, I raced the last reace of the Triple Crown www.triplecrowndh.com guilt free while the girls were with the grandparents getting spoiled and the wife studied in peace for tests.

I did great in practice, although I don't think I won practice in the slightest. I ran a decent qualifying run and came in 10th, dropping 7 seconds off my race 1 time, which had been my first race of the year and on a borrowed bike at that time.

I had a clean, smooth run taking all the biggest, fastest lines on course and was home free. Except my front wheel slid on the last 5 feet of slick and my front wheel went straight between the last 2 trees on course. It went in like a quarter slot, but I couldn't figure out how to pull the bike out b/c the wheel turned at an angle to the ground. After a long time, I got it. But I just gave up and hucked the last step down and coasted home mad as snot. But I got over it since being back on the DH bike is wonderful.

But then Monday, the very next day, I backed my Blazer into it and messed a bunch of parts up. Most are just damaged, not destroyed and the bike is OK. But I had to jack my truck up to get it out from under the rear bumper. My rear tire spun against the down tube and ate the sticker right off!!!