Batons, Brothers, Bikes, Bakery, Breakfast, Bummer

I was trying to think of one word that would represent the entire weekend. I couldn't think of just one so I used a bunch.

Batons. Batons represent the 12 Hours of Tsali. Sycamore Cycles put together no less than four teams to throw down in their respective classes. The team with the most amount of laps won the race, but you were not allowed to go out until your team mate had come in and handed you the baton.


Brothers. The best part about the weekend was hanging with all my pals from Brevard. Less than a week had gone by and I already started missing everybody, so it was nice to get a solid 12 hours of hang out time in. Pretty happy about that.


Bikes. Ah, if we had all been runners instead of bikers. There are soo many less things to go wrong when you run. Although we had a few more mechanical problems than the winning team, I don't think we would have been able to come out on top.


Bakery. Besides the fact that I had a ton of friends to hang out with, the Braken Mountain Bakery had stocked us with more cinnamon rolls than I could eat (that's alot of good food if you've never seen me eat), Jimy (with one m) brought a grocery bag full of candy, Jockey came packing with some Red Bulls, I brewed some awful coffee but everybody seemed to like it at least a little bit, and of course there were plenty of Dr. Peppers around.



Breakfast. After the race, we had two meals. First we drove to Silva and ate at a jam packed Huddle House (mind you it was 1:00 in the morning). Then the Tash and I drove back to Brevard and stayed at the Squirrel house with Jenna and Thad (don't mess with Thad or Jenna, they will fight you) . Jenna also made some AWESOME waffles. We got in that night at 3:30 and went straight to sleep. Tash and I woke up at 12 noon and by the time we had breakfast and rode a little bit it was time to leave Brevard again. That brings us to the last word.


Bummer. Despite all the awesome things during the trip the end result didn't happen quite right. Sycamore brought four teams and two got second place (in the open money and all women classes). Close, but not close enough. My team had a very close race with the KHS/Kenda team. It was nail biting time as we held a four to six minuet gap the entire race. In a race as long as 12 hours, six minuets is nothing. There was a little bit of pressure on everybody because I was on the winning KHS team last year and we were there to pull off the upset. I was super impressed with the rest of the guys on my team, even though we couldn't pull back any time they kept on going out and pushing to the limit to close it down. I'm pretty sure all of our times were within a minuet of the our fastest laps.


In the end; I had an awesome time, got in some good training, filled out my hang out time, ate some really good food, almost pulled off the upset, set the fastest time, and got shown up by the determined bros on my team as well as everybody else in the Sycamore camp.



So, I finally got the pictures off my camera from my last weekend at Brevard. There's nothing too exciting, just a bunch of nature stuff for the chicks. I've got much less important things to do but they still have to get done.



T


P. S.
You can check out some good pictures of the race taken by none other than, Punky Brewster.
If you would check out the other links I have posted and prop me if none of them work. I hate going to websites and nothing works. It's hard for me because I'm usually signed into facebook and stuff so I can't see . Much appreciated bras.

Here's some pictures of the dorm too. Since our suite mates left before I did, Timmy and I had some fun taking showers with my bike.

Back to Business

Ok, I'm back.
It took a little longer than I expected but whatever.

I left you with some promises that I would tell what happened in Maryland and Ducktown. I don't really want to talk about either but I did promise. I will keep it short.

In MD everything was great. Had a good pre-ride, had some good food for breakfast, and stayed with some really nice people (props to Tim's parents for letting us stay). But everything started on the first day, the second lap of my pre-ride I ripped my rear tire on the very last decent. I walked back to the van and we packed up and drove back to the house. Later that night, I put on a new tire but I had some trouble sealing it. Since we didn't race until 3 the next day, I worked on it the whole day. Went out for my warm up and it went pretty much flat. Awesome. I went back to the van pumped it up and rode to the start line. We had to sit on the start for a while because we had to get a ton of instructions. About 30 seconds before the start I lean over to Squirrel and said: "Dude, my tire is completely flat." I turned back to the start and we were off. As you can probably guess I had to put a tube in the tire about 5 minuets into the lap. So, after I got passed by the entire Semi-Pro field I had to chase for the rest of the race. I still ended up 8th out of 15 (and only one or two dnfs) so I was pretty stoked about that.


Ducktown turned out even worse. I didn't have the best week before for the race. So, over the weekend I had to play catch up. I met up with long lost sister and we drove up the in-laws place. Hers, not mine. (I mean I guess that's what you would call them, sister's boyfriend's parents).

Anyway, thanks to the Padgett's for putting up with the Cowie clan for a few nights. We had some AWESOME waffles at their house and it was fun to chill and talk with them for a while.

It seems like whenever you get a flat or mechanical it's when you don't really want it. But whenever you want a mechanical, you never get it. During the warm up and such I felt terrible. I got a good start but got popped on the first climb. Andy caught up to me and I rode with him to the top of the decent when my rear tire felt flat. I stopped and put in a CO2 and rode down the trail. When I got to the bottom of the decent the tire was just about as flat. Since I used one of my CO2 on the decent I didn't have enough air to make the tube hard. Since it was on the first lap I pulled the plug. The Saint was also not having a good day and he caught up to me on the pavement. We both rode together for a lap and I practiced doing whips and tables.
Sucks.

Now, I'm hanging out at the house getting ready for the 12 Hrs of Tsali. And unpacking from school and finding a job and doing projects around the house and trying to get out of my parents hair. I did take some pictures of my last ride in Pisgah but I'm not sure where my camera is so those will have to wait a bit. I also haven't been able to find my parent's pictures of Ducktown. I'm going to find those right now so I'm outta here.

Blah

Got a nasty taste in my mouth. Most likely it came from the beer and milk combo I just drank.
Ah! Just kidding.

This will be another short one.

The bad taste comes from my result today, flatted on the first lap and after using both my CO2s to fill up the tire I couldn't get it hard enough (that's what she said-Ed.) I eventually pulled out of the race. Blah.

I promise that I will give you the whole story from Greenbrier and Ducktown. Right now I have to finish some home work for school. Actually there is a ton of stuff to do and not very much time to do it. I have a week left of school and in that time I need to study, eat, sleep, have fun, accept aid, write papers, study some more, and most important ride.

Anyway, I'm signing off.
Late


P. S. Sorry but my camera did darn run out of batteries, so no pictures from the race. My parentals were there so maybe they got some good ones.

P. P. S. Thanks to everybody who offered to give me tools and stuff during the race, you guys are real bros. I'll remember that.