A different bike.

I have been doing a ton of cross training to strengthen my knee.

This doesn't count but it's still fun:

I've also been running, swimming, climbing and doing something called "slack lining" which is kind of like walking a loose tightrope (?!?!?!) and I think that it has been really, really good for all the little stabilizing muscles and connective tissue in my knee.
I'll try to keep posting up once in a rare while just to keep this thing alive until I am back in full swing with my training and racing. More to come.....

What the shit, I can't access your damn blog!

Trying to kick a "field goal" through Johns arms and into the recessed lighting fixture. Several items were failures and can be seen behind John, including a helmet and 2 flip-flops. Alex is taking off his shoe to try that and Mary is going to get more stuff.

This is a letter (with the same title) that I wrote to my friend John D. After I wrote it I started thinking that other people should read it as well. As much as MTBers look down on "roadies" as basically a bunch of lycra clad nazi fun police, they (MTBers) can be just as bad. It's just hard to take some people seriously when they take themselves so effing seriously. 

While I was writing this, the word "hater" came to mind and I almost had to abort myself.

If I ever speak or write any of the following words except to rail against their very existence please remind me to abort myself immediately: Hater, H8ter, Broseph, Chillax/Chillaxin', Redonkulous.

Thank you, here is the letter I wrote:

"It's all in the title man! Other than that how's life?
I posted some hilarious (I think) Ohio vids on my blog, one of the few posts I've done in awhile.
Except for that my life is just pretty much rolling on, with my general hatred for humanity increasing every time I get in a car and drive anywhere.
Society is becoming crippled by douche bags and I'm pretty sure the only way to save us is to raise the legal age of abortion to about 83.
I see a lot of people driving every day that need to be aborted.
I guess it's just that the further we get into the "future" the more the movie Idiocracy seems like a documentary. Indeed, mankind is getting "stupider at a frightening rate."
Shit, I guess I am just prematurely bitter. I am only 28, if I don't strike it rich and move to my own private island by 30 I'm pretty sure my disposition in my late 20's will seem downright fuckin' chipper by comparison.
Hahah, sometimes it's just good to vent!
Say "hi" to Mary for me, and just remember that no matter how much crap people give you for not riding, riding the wrong bike, doing the wrong kind of riding, competing in the wrong kind of races and any other snobbish bullshit, that they are all acting like ROADIES and they suck! Just promise you won't backslide into morbid obesity like the majority of our fucking country, because I will recommend you for immediate abortion along with every fat family buying happy meals for their fat kids at Mickey D's.
If I hear one more person bitching that fast food made them fat I'm pretty sure I'll have to close my head in a door just to take my mind off of it.
Abort them all.
Wow, epic rant. I hope you found it entertaining and not a huge bummer!
Anyway, if you ever want to take a vacation and you don't mind staying with a prematurely old and bitter man we could do some sweet soul riding on local trails and I will provide free room and board.
Later,
-Lyle"

Now here are a few pictures that make it a little clearer where the fun is in mountain bike racing.

"Hey, let's see what they do if we post the results all the way at the top where they can't see, hahahahah!" Alex doesn't disappoint.

Pre/post race Yoga practice:

Super aggresive training session where we all bent our chainrings because of our massive wattage (confirmed by our super scienztific computers to be in excess of 40,000 watts, or roughly the same wattage used to power a Boeing 747 for takeoff).

A USA Cycling official showing us the correct form and stance for Karate chopping an opponent in mid-race combat.

A picture we took where almost nobody's face was visible. It was taken in this fashion on purpose to draw the viewers attention to the creepy holiday figurines atop the cabinets. It's a statement about our disillusionment with reality and how we focus on things being the way we want them to be instead the way they are, because penguins don't really wear clothes and if they actually needed them to keep warm a mere scarf wouldn't suffice to sheild their bodies from the unyielding cold. We did it on purpose.

Ohio, I have nothing against you but this is hilarious!

Hittin' and missin'

I've been having fun riding and racing again! Right now the racing is the most intensity I've been working with, but I think after easing into it with just that for a while I will be able to start training again.
I got a book by Andy Pruitt and he recommends using NSAIDS so I've been using those when needed to combat inflation in my knee... between that and just not riding too intensely I've been more or less okay, knock wood!
Anyway, Brooke and I have a camera again so I should be able to get my flickr accound up again and start posting pics which are really the basis of my posts.
More coming I guess... my off and on posting is better than none for now, and I'm just happy to be riding again!

Frustrating...

Another long day spent working and no time to ride... I'm worried it's going to take some radical restructuring in my life to get back into racing shape and then get better than I was.
In a couple weeks I'm gonna go to Colorado and see a doc to sort out my knee once and for all.
It would really make training and racing more fun if I didn't have that problem to worry about.

Lots of work, lots of rain... more riding please.

The title says it all. Hopefully I'll get to ride tomorrow night and if I'm lucky maybe it'll stop raining!

Hahahah

This is funny (thanks John)!



I just got back from a 2 week trip to Mexico, backpacking in the Copper Canyons. I'll get around to writing a little blurb soon.

Building up a SWEET MTB right now, just need to put the brakes on an it'll be rollin'

'nuther ride

I rode again and I was disappointed to find that I was not noticably faster than I was on my last ride.