TAC'D OUT

Blues Day

2011-10-07T07:43:00.000-07:00

Well, that's the theme here at the office this morning. Applesauce is listening to some good ol' hoochie coochie man. As I was warned, the past few weeks have been full on pinned. I'm so glad to (mostly) put that behind me.

Dano spear headed another Ally Cat that's going off tonight. If you happen to see this today, come on down to the 828 and join in. Five buck cover and entertainment that's priceless.

I spent most of last weekend helping out the college cycling team crush at Mars Hills. It was a long weekend but pretty fun. There was some good results across the board. It's funny, seems like I should start racing again just because that will make me quit talking smack on people....haha.

I hope I'm still trying to catch up on sleep from the weekend as my motivation is pretty low, any bike I have is not that appealing to me. Hopefully it will come around.

Funny, who thought that a full time job is actually full time? I love working at CTS but it's a little different than going to class and just kickin' it for the rest of the day.

Seems like I'm getting writer's block worse and worse, I used to be able to just go off on something and spend a whole blog about it. Haha, it's transformed into more of a stream of thoughts, none of it really good. I could talk about bikes or work or things that happened to me today but do people really like reading that? I guess I do since I do it all the time. I swear I spend more time thinking about the audience that reads (or could read) my blog than actually writing anything useful.

Two more thoughts before I leave for another long period. Andy sighted the McRib. Be warned.

Beach House

2011-09-08T10:40:00.000-07:00

Jjjjusttt kickin it! Hanging out in Panama City in a sick beach house. Wish I was on va ka instead of working but just being here is pretty cool. I'm in Florida for a Carmichael Training Camp for the Ironman Panama City. Looks like a pretty cool course, went out and drove the running course this morning and found a suitable place for a field test. Something where we can take the athletes out and test them to get a baseline measurement of fitness.

The athletes don't get here until mid day tomorrow and it will be full on from there. Three days of intense training to help these people prepare for the Ironman.

But anyway, I'm getting some good hang out time at the house. And some thinking time too. I know I'll sound like a broken record that's been drinking some kool aid but different sports are interesting. Different sets of challenges.

Also been thinking about next year...

That's all for now I guess. Apparently I do this a lot but I mostly wrote this post to add this movie. If James Stewart ever needs a second job I think he could be a mail man cause he's hauling it.

http://motocross.transworld.net/1000115432/news/james-stewarts-new-ride/

10-4
T

Turning Leaves

2011-08-22T06:29:00.000-07:00

Hello all,

So as usual, I said I was going to write sooner rather than later. Anyway, here I am. Let's start with a quick recap. The coffee is still working through my veins so I'll probably have more than normal typos.

Since I last wrote, I have worked at the bike shop, applied for several jobs, attempted riding my bike again, met new and interesting people and finally ended up where I am now. Now is working at CTS trying to avoid going to the Bakery too much.

I've actually started riding my bike again, so that has improved my mood tremendously.

Some people have said that all I do is write a few words and then add a movie to excuse me from saying anything else but this one was too good to pass up. I think Matt Hunter and I should hang out, I think we'd get along just fine.

This past weekend was spent taking care of the Brevard College Cycling team at their first race. I think they did very well considering the first race back into school. Some solid results from all members of the team, including that Smiling Guy and our ladies.

I'm still trying to catch up from the (probably overestimated) ten hours of sleep I got over the weekend, but it's all good as long as results come out of it. My activities during the race included: complementing Brad on all the weight he has lost, filling H2O bottles, pushing bikes to the top of the slalom hill, teaching the finer points of cornering, pushing more bikes to the top, calling out Peter for terrible coaching, pushing more bikes, teaching the kiddos how to chop vegetables and how to take out the trash, swimming in the condo pool, and talking to lots and lots of people. All was enjoyable and made for a satisfying two days.

The week? Hmmm nothing too much going on this week, just working and figuring out how to save money so I can buy more stuff. Probably going to hangout at the Hendo Apple festival this weekend so if you have nothing to do come on over and chill. Next week will be pretty busy, I'm working till Wednesday before going to Florida for a few days for a CTS camp then it's back up to BVD for another CTS climbing camp. Two days off and it's helping out with the downhill national championships. That will be a very good time. Another long weekend of assisting my friends and athletes but I'm pretty confident that this one will really pay off. It better...or some people will be pushing their own bikes up the hill if you know what I mean.

Few more days to chilax and then it's back on it for the Pisgah Stage Race, sorry guys no racing for me, but lots of working and volunteer time. And thennn.....it's break time. Well until my plans change which will definitely happen. Seems like I need some personal va ka.

Anyway, I should probably get back to looking like I'm actually working instead of pursing the internets. Hope all is well and I do have some secret plans in the works that I'll come out soon about....

Keep things TAC'ed out,

Slowing Down to Go Fast

2011-05-30T15:07:00.000-07:00

Sometimes you have to.

The past few weeks have been pinned but good. I've been trying to write another post but lately I haven't had the motivation to. After some prodding from other writers though I have reluctantly placed my fingers on the keys.

Right now, I'm hanging with some good friends listening and smelling bacon cook. Bacon is amazing. Just saying. If you don't believe me: http://www.mybadpad.com/fun-stuff/the-baconcyclopedia-the-ultimate-bacon-reference-of-baconic-proportions.

Try that on for size.

A few weekends ago I had the pleasure of competing at the 24Hours of Burn. Not my favorite race but there were some good times had by all I think. Outlandish oufits, fast laps, yogurt, laughter, frustration, and some BBQ rounded out the weekend.

Out of our three co-ed teams. Wes D's got the top spot. Dano, C-Banner, Erika and Aaron all enjoyed the ride. My awesome team of KB, Derek, Kym Schoph-kpojonoin-kia, and Michael pulled off a third, just a few "impossible" seconds behind second and the Goolia, Tamer, Bergemark and somebody who started the round of beer before the race started swung into fourth just behind us.

I managed to horribly lose a bet for the fastest lap. Missed out for the fastest by two seconds (probably my sneeze at the start) and had to make some dinner. In other words, got schooled.

I also had the great idea of doing three back-to-back night laps during the midnight hours. That's all I'm going to say about that...

Hmmm....I'm thinking I should get back to the stuff I actually sat down to type. So I'm out, but (I know I say this every time ) I think I'll do another post soon. Once you see a voluntary post, it will be about the time that West Wing starts it's eighth season.

Keep it TAC'ed.

Midday Musings

2011-05-04T08:40:00.000-07:00

Apparently I need to stay on top of my blogging. Things have been pretty crazy the past few weeks. I'm in the process of graduating college. Notice I said in the process of, haven't finished yet.

I finished up my internship at Carmichael Training Systems and I applied for a job as a cycling coach. Pretty fun stuff, I spent three days last week in Colorado Springs as part of the interviewing process.

Glad to have that behind me I've turned my attention to finishing school and hangout seshes. Things have been good, I've finally been able get out on the bike a time or two and there might be a possibility that I come out of retirement this weekend. So if you're in the 828 you should swing by...

I really should add some sweet pics to this post but I'm typing on my iPod which is proving to be more than difficult than it looks. And I just lost the Internet soo yeah.

Morning Coffee

2011-03-04T07:00:00.000-08:00

Hello all,

I woke up early today. Well, early for me...but that's beside the point. As I write this I am perfectly content; listening to the 'nectar on itunes, sipping some coffee, and catching up on all my websites.

Should I be doing other things? Yeah probably, but I want to not do anything for the morning. At least. Since there's not a whole lot going on other than going to school, working, and slipping in the occasional ride it's been hard to find topics to write about. I could tell you about the awesome ride I had last night, but other than changing my underwear several times during I didn't do a whole lot. The other people there, yeah that was some good stuff but I would be writing about them and not me. Is that or is that not the point of blog? To glorify yourself or to inform others of your habits?

Anyway, I need to keep it simple, sorry. Even my brain is not woken up for deep intellectual convo. Umm..just real quick before I forget; if anyone out there just wants to give me stuff that would be awesome. Like a DH bike, a moto, or even some more Nikes that would be sweet. So yeah if you feel like going out and buying me a moto, I wouldn't complain very much. Just thought I'd throw that into the pile.

I could go into my summer plans, but that's still a grey area. And even if you ask me nicely it does not mean that I know of anything or that plans have changed. Another fyi. But I guess you still can.

Basically I'm just wishing to be out of school and moving on to something else, whatever that will be. I'm trying to figure out plans for the summer at least and hopefully a little after that, but right now I'm just working hard and playing harder. Hmmm...I guess you could just skip down to this paragraph and you wouldn't have had to read everything above it. Oh well.

I'll leave you with some juice though. The first is a sick movie about ripping up some downhills on XC bikes, the best type of riding. Man they should just make a sport for that; oh wait they do....

A Day on Specialized S-Works Enduros - More Mountain Bike Videos

I was going through some old pictures the other day and I found this gem. Next time at least attempt to contain your sarcasm...

Wideways

2011-02-15T12:08:00.000-08:00

Well,

I’ve been busy. Cut me some slack. Not that busy though, I’ve been finding time to actually ride my bike for a change so that’s good. I suppose. It’s pretty much been full on since the start of school and I’ve finally caught up to the pace of my work. I haven’t really been able to take it easy but now I’m accustomed to this new level of stresses. Or stressie? I dunno. Maybe someone should help me out with that.
Anyway, I got a new bike. It’s awesome just fyi. Like I had to say that. Got some new sponsors too, I plan on repping them out on the trails.

But away from the boring stuff. I’m interning up here in Aville. It’s been hard and busy but tons of fun. I should probably be working on training programs but I’ve actually been really productive today so I feel like I have justified a break.
Other than getting into specifics there’s not a whole lot going on. I watched an awesome play over the weekend and met a ton of cool new peeps.

I’ve got a few more days of school and some office hours to hold and then it’s a week off for spring break. Well sort of, I’ll probably be working a bunch then too. Hopefully not. Sorry this post is pretty boring, I need to send some pictures or movies along with it. Ah never mind.

I have been thinking about figuring out a certain combination with my eatery. I was thinking about some type of bread that combined coffee and hot spices. Almost like a Mocha Swirl with chili pepper or something. A bread that gives you the jitters while kicking you in the teeth. That or a pesto baguette with meat in it. Wheew, making myself hungry.

Anyway hopefully someone can help me out with that.

In the mean time, keep things TAC’ed, Uhmerica.
T

Whoops

2010-12-09T12:13:00.000-08:00

So I lied. I was going to write another post sooner than now. What are you going to do? Hmmm? Just stop reading? That's cool with me.

What have I been doing the meantime? Oh not a whole lot, just rediscovering the loves of my life. Yes, I said loves with an "s". What could these be? No not friends from Winston or new shoes, St Marie. Hockey and Formula One. Well, more car racing in general, instead of F1 but I really, really want to fly up to Montreal in June. Seems like a much more manlier ways to spend my time, instead of shopping for some more skin tight road cycle shorts.

In other words, I'm happily enjoying my retirement and making the most of it.

I've been sitting on this stuff for a while so have at it.

T. Cowie says everything is OK.

Linkage:

I would probably kill cute baby animals for these....

Wonders

2010-10-31T19:39:00.001-07:00

Well, I'm a bit late in my latest blog but thanks to the wonders of the internet I can post as if it were yesterday. Literally. I'm posting this on the 31st of October. Whoops, I guess I shouldn't be telling you that.

Anyways,I was going to do this post because I had too many movie stocked up from the past few weeks so I had to get rid of them. Most are pretty sweet and I think you'll enjoy.

Also I never did a proper shout out after nationals so here goes.Shout outs: CB!-slalom track, Herndon- teaching me skills, Wes D-everything, Dan, Justin, Tina for listening to me complain and trying to keep me inline, the Bennetts for taking pictures, my parents for doing the things that they do to keep me around, the sister for buying me clothes, Thad for driving us to races and putting up with all of us for hours on end. And probably a ton more people that I'm forgetting. I'm writing this in like five seconds because I need to post these movies.

Lata,
TCR

Oh yeah, expect another wayyy cooler post coming very soon with some big news.

More Mountain Biking Videos

In-n-Out

2010-10-22T12:23:00.001-07:00

Well, that was pretty much how the week went. We flew over to Cali, wrapped up a championship, and flew back. Not a bad way to spend your fall break. It's been pretty busy getting back into the swing of things. I had internet at my house for like a day and then it peaced out on me.

Nationals went pretty good. I grabbed a few podiums, pulled off the individual omnium, and helped the team win another national championship. Pretty sweet way to wrap up my collegiate mountain bike career.

Anyways, I just wanted to do a quick update and give some shout outs. I just saw that the GA Cross series had a stacked C field. It's been like 40 riders at ever single race just in that class. Pretty freaking awesome.

I'm working on a full nationals report that should be coming soon, of course it's a whole lot easier to say that than to actually do it.

I leave you with a quick link to a shout out about me. Big thanks goes out to one of the Kasiers of Brevard.

TAC'ed out all the time.

http://www.homeinbrevard.com/Blog/?p=61

Turning Leaves

2010-10-12T06:50:00.000-07:00

The leaves are falling and my time is running down at Brevard. Or at least that's what I'm trying to think. I still have another semester to go and I'm just barely half way done with this one.

I only have a few minutes before class so this will be short. About to pack up and head out to Cali again for the national champs. I'm pretty stoked about going but I'm not really looking forward to racing. Everybody has been asking about if I'm going to go for the win or not. Truth is, I don't really care. Win or lose I'll be spending my fall break in Cali. Pretty awesome.

Anyways, I don't have internet at my house so it's making writting blogs a little more difficult but I should be able to update once I'm out there.

Keep that dial rev'ed out. I gotta go to class.

TC

Oh and this is awesome.

Between Tape

2010-08-27T08:22:00.000-07:00

Hello,

It's been awhile as usual, pretty much slammed since school started. Classes are good, but it's hard to concentrate with only a year left. But I know you never post up before the finish so I should be good for a little bit longer.

Racing is going good, the team is getting along pretty well. We have about 50/50 new and old members and out of the new guys it's almost 50/50 transfer and freshmen. A interesting combo. Seems like everything is going good. The first race at ETSU was obviously the first big test for the gang. Everything went well, everybody got some good solid results, just what we want from the first race. I managed to pull off the "W" in the cross country and a fourth in the short track. Don't know how but I'll take it.

The collegiate season is pretty short this year, with just four local races and nationals. So we had a off weekend after ETSU. I squeezed in some hangout time with several different people and it turned out to be a good weekend. Not much ridding but at least I still have some teeth, right KB?

This past weekend was the Lee's McRae race. Probably my all time fav track. If I was to build a T Cowie signature course, LMC would be it. Leading up to the race was pretty busy and stressful but I just have fun on my bike so I was grinning from ear to ear on that descent. Pulled off a second in the XC and a second in the short track. But our two relativity new riders Morgan and Nate Dog posted up in both events. Puts me to shame haha. Big props to them.

Plans for the up coming weeks? Right now, it's the Pisgah Mountain Bike Stage Race in Brevard. The collegiate team is busy marking the course and working rest stops the whole week, it's hard work and it's cool to see the other side of racing. The Sycamore Cycles boys are holding it down in first overall with three days to go. Pretty sweet to pull it off in your hometown.

Anyways, I'll be glad when this week is over. Next weekend is the Clemson collegiate race, not my favorite race but it's close and they have a pretty sick short track course. Then it's straight to Conyers for the conference championships. A weekend to chillax and it's off to the West Coast again.

Pretty soon it will be all over and I can just hang the bike up for a long time.

It's been a long day already and a long week for me so I'm needing a laugh and I'm assuming you do to. Enjoy.

Jump for show, corner for dough.
TC

Movie Medley

2010-08-19T11:34:00.000-07:00

So yeah, this one is a pretty short since I'm off to old college life again. This will be the last time I'm off, pretty weird, it really goes by too fast. Pretty soon I'll have to break down and find a real job, bummer.

Anyway, here's a link for my facebook album of the rest of the pictures of the vacation. Also, some footage of number 7 rearranging some berms, even more clips of my all time favorite race the Air Downhill, and a "sic" rider giving some lessons in scrubs.

All I can say is I'm ready to do some homework.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2048968&id=1116960092&l=d3c692d6e7

GT Webisode #1: Crankworx with Mick and Kevin - More Mountain Bike Videos

Well, I was poking around looking for more blog material the other day and I stumbled across this picture. He looks SO upset I just had to include it. Must have been those big shoes......

Let me hear the ping....
T

Vacation Time

2010-08-16T18:24:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm back. I had fun. Errrr...what else?

Hahaha, nah it was good times. It all started with a small hiccup at the airport where I missed my flight. Not my fault mind you, my ticket was printed wrong and it took too long to sort it out. The next flight was booked so after hanging out at the ATL airport for the better part of my Saturday I drove home, slept for a few hours, drove back and hopped on a plane.

Got into Seattle around lunch and the sis and dad and I drove up to some gnarly pass where the water went in between some rocks. Pretty cool, hadn't unpacked my camera so no pics. Got into B-ham that night and ate at a really good Mexican restaurant. They had some amazing salsa. Tuesday we hit some Galbraith, it was some pretty sick ridding. A ton of drop offs and jumps everywhere. I finally found a pretty long downhill run following a ridge line which was pretty rad. It was so good to just get out and hold it wide open for a while.

After we got back and got changed up, Tash and I went shopping and I picked up some fresh Nikes. You'll just have to see them, hahaha. For b-fast we picked up a bacon doughnut. It was amazing needless to say.

Now for the bummer, in the interest of time and the fact that we could only watch the kids meal instead of the Big Macs we decided to skip Whistler and Crankworks. Just eh...FYI, it takes a long time to drive across the country and didn't want to be pressed for time. Instead we drove up to check out Mount Baker. Pretty freaking sick dude. Definitely impressed.

The trail leading to the top. Those of you who know how much I like walking can understand why we didn't take it.

Here is a picture of the mountain but it was acting a little shy and never came out from the cloud cover.

Coming off the mountain we swung off the road to check out some massive trees and a waterfall. Once again I was pretty impressed, you know how the saying goes....here ya go.

The time in Bellingham was too short but me and the old man had crafted a route back that would hit some of the primer riding spots in the country. First stop was Deer Valley in Park City. Been a few years (four) since I was there last and it didn't work out so well for me. Broke my chain twice, crashed and DNF'd and picked up my first set of stitches. The trails were still pretty good and I think I found the place where I ate it, rode it this time. Dad was having a blast but we had to pack it up after a lap and roll on. Here's a picture from the highest point on the XC course.

Then it was like a ton of hours of driving. Dunno, just sat down the entire day. Finally made it to Moab, Utah. Once again, not my favorite riding place, but I couldn't get rid of the smile on my face. Tons of fun and focusing.

Making sure to stay hydrated during these long road rides was super important, luckily I had some Dr. P.

The super interesting scenery on the way to Moab, don't fall asleep.

After a easy two hours of play time we hit the road again, well not literally but you know...Couple few hours later we found ourselves in Vail, Colorado. Quick side note, the base (like where the cars are parked) is at 8,500 feet. I think the highest we climbed was around 9,000 or 9,500. Ouch. The trails were pretty fun and more technical than I thought they were going to be. The maps weren't the best and we were getting hungry so we pinned it down the mountain.

Everything else was pretty boring from Denver on so no more pics. And mom broke my car so we had to cut off riding at Bump and Anniston, and some stuff in Arkansas. Oh well, still a pretty swell trip. I had to get a picture with Colorado in it to prove that I was there so here it is.

So that's it. I'm working on uploading the rest of the pictures to the book and adding a link. But in the meantime take a look at some of the stuff we missed. And it looks like we missed a lot. And I even added a theme song too.

So that's it folks, I'll add some more soon.

Keep that throttle TAC'd out.

So Long

2010-08-03T17:12:00.001-07:00

Well I wasn't going to write another before I left but I needed something to do so I added some more. The last week of camp is over and I'm pretty happy about it, it's a bummer because it was a good time in between all the bad times and crazy kids

I've still got a few more hours before I leave for the ATL and the plane that is waiting there. I still haven't finished packing yet. Probably should get on that.

I'm fumbling with stuff to write about, but I'll have something soon. There's a double meaning to that one, but you won't be able to figure it out.

Anyways, before I start making more of a fool than I already am I'm signing off. But I'm leaving you with some amazing movies. The first one is the definition of super pumped. The second is so incredibly exciting I just had to go out and buy a leaf blower. Thank you buddy, it was all you.

How to Buy a Leaf Blower -- powered by eHow.com

Summa Time Healing

2010-07-11T16:25:00.000-07:00

Hahahahaha. I'm having fun. Just thinking about life. I've got some good ideas going, we'll see how they plan out though.

I'm so mellowed out right now, it was a good day. I worked on some projects around the house and built some more jumps. In case I forget to write a blog before this weekend (which I probably will) I was typing one out tonight. I was going to save it for a surprise but I can't wait.

Saturday night I'm flying out to Washington state to hang with the sister for a few days. I'm meeting up with Dad and we're driving up to Crankworks for a few days too. Then it's a long drive back with plenty of riding along the way. Yes, I said Crankworks. Did I mention that I'm awesome?

So yeah, just wanted to throw that out there. Haha, have fun on the east coast suckers!!

I'm going to be tac'ed out for the next few weeks. Keep it real 'merica!

Oh yeah, I added some picture from my accident. They were taken three for four days after it happened, once I was able to walk around a bit. I'm healing up just fine, I haven't really ridden since but don't worry I still got it, haha!

Check out that sponsor repping! Damn I'm good.

Lazy Sunday Part 2

2010-06-21T16:46:00.001-07:00

So it's been pretty slow and stready down in the south. I wanted to point out how lazy I've been by not even thinking of a better title for this post. What have I been doing since the last post? Working at camp, working at home, and lots of hanging out.

I did actually go shopping with Mom the other day. You will probably make fun of me for saying this but I don't really know what to do if I'm not riding my bike every single day. This is the first summer where I haven't been traveling every weekend to races. Strange. Anyways it was fun spending some time goofing off in Atlanta.

I guess before I go futher, I should give ya an update on my face and everything. Face is healing up good, some scaring but nothing too bad. I finally look some what normal and another week or so I'll be back to normal-ish. The elbow is pretty good too, I can't really open any spagetti jars but I can live with that. The problem with crashing on your face (well, one of the problems) is it takes a little while to actually feel good enough to go out and ride, i. e. rest and recover. My great idea of crashing just before the most important races of the season kind of screwed up my plans. I took almost a week and a half off the bike and with the time I missed from work and some other issues dictated my plans for the rest of the season.

I'm pretty much taking the rest of the season off. Skipping nationals and just doing some local races. It's a bit of a bummer but you've got to play with the cards you have instead of seaking some under the table (not like I ever do that, hehehe).

In other news, I'd ask somebody to come down here and race me on my downhill track but I know everybody in Brevard is just too scared. I put some more dirt on a few of the jumps and smoothed out some other places. Looks good. It's not 100% finished, but when is anything?

So since this was a semi-depressing post and my attention span drifted to motocross videos on youtube I'll cut out. But I left you with some good vids. First one you probably won't be able to find anywhere else but it's two riders ripping it up on some Stumpjumpers and the second is another good rider hitting some lines at Schaldaming, one of my favortie DH tracks. Enjoy.

Later 'merica.

Brendan Fairclough and Curtis Keene in Santa Cruz from Taylor Sage on Vimeo.

Lazy Sunday

2010-06-20T07:28:00.000-07:00

I might have used that title before...hmmm. Don't know. Oh well what does it matter. It's turning out to be one of those days. Last week has been pretty slow. I've mostly been chilaxing at the house waiting for my injuries to heal up. It's been pretty slow going but I finally got the stitches out of my face yesterday. It feels SO much better you have no idea. Hopefully within a few days I'll be able to eat normally and do other normal things people do with their mouths, like talk. And smile.

Anyway, back to Saturday. I mean Sunday. Getting my days mixed up. It's the summer time isn't that supposed to happen? Looks like I'm going shopping with the parents since I can't really ride yet. My computer is sort of dying too so I'm typing this whole thing out on my touch which is a real pain by the way. But heavens no! I can't let my loyal three people who occiationly read my blog down. I miss my computers spell check and I'm sure you guys do too by this point.

There was something else I was going to say but I can't remember what it was. Well I'll have to end it there I guess. Just doing work and finding projects around the house to work on. Nothing special just regular here. I would add some movies or something at this point but I can't really do that without my computer so I'll just tell ya to go check out the Yeti cycles page. There's a feature about a trip the guys took to California and my boy Gwin is litterally completely sideways on an xc bike. Wow.

Yeah he does that on the reg.
T

Injuries

2010-06-14T10:03:00.000-07:00

Well, I might as well give everyone an updated on my weekend. It was planned out to be a low key, chilaxing weekend with a whole lot of nothing going on. Saturday fit the bill. A long roadie ride in the morning followed by some hanging out at Northstar Bikes. Then I came home and finished painting my room. Some productivity, let me tell you.

Sunday was shaping up to be more of the same. I tried to go for another roadie ride but I ended up ripping out two of my valves from the tubes. Pretty pissed about driving all the way out to the gaps and not being able to ride I drove back home and picked up the mountain bike to go hit some lines at Bull Mountain.

Ride started good but near the end of the trail I hit a section with some root ledges. Ummm....yeah, I can't really remember what happened but I think I tried to drop the ledges and got my front wheel stuck in a hole. Next thing I know I was back at my car with blood everywhere. Put the bike on the roof and drove to the ER. Yay!

I landed on my face again, but only got 9 stitches in it this time. There's a bad cut on my left elbow that got 14 stitches and some smaller stuff here and there. I also got another CT scan and some X-rays but they turned out good. I think the final total of stitches was around 28. Ow. I feel like I got run over by a truck. Still no broken bones.

Anyway, enough of the details. I feel pretty good about the wreck if I can. I'm pretty beat up but I don't think it will put me down for too long. And I'm totally going back and hitting that section again.

So yeah, just figured I should let everybody know that my face is a little messed up again so you can make fun of me. Hahaha. Later 'merica.

Bama

2010-06-07T16:05:00.000-07:00

Monday after racing is always fun. Sometimes you feel good, sometimes bad. Today was one of the not so great. The race at Bump and Grind went pretty good, I was able to squeak in a third which I'm pretty happy about. Although Thomas and Woodall dropped me hardcore on the climb and I was suffering for the rest of the race. Good times though. The reason I'm not having such a great Monday is that near the end of the first lap I decided to take a bridge crossing a little too fast. Came off it and managed to get away with a bum shoulder and a wicked cramp in my calf.

But enough complaining, I'm happy to hang the bike up for a weekend and chilax with some friends. I'm pretty happy about not being on the road for another week. Maybe I can finally finish painting my room or something. Highly unlikely though, I'm having wayyy too much fun enjoying my summer vacation.

Well, uh yeah. I finally went downstairs and grabbed my camera so enjoy. Keep it TAC'ed everybody. Enjoy the summa.

The gang hanging at the 24 Hours of Burn.

Spied this guy at the Offenburg race in Germany. He was part of the Japanese national team and he was wearing a Cample's Soup T-shirt! Euro fashion at its finest. Awesome! If someone can tell me were I can get one I'll throw a sick T. Cowie prize pack together for ya.

T-Nasty showing off his super sick rock pile and he's infamous dance moves at Bump and Grind.

Almost forgot! Huge props to Dan the P. Ennis for nabbing his first pro win, Grubby learned some tips from the man from Florida. Like a super sick scrub over the last double at Ft Bill. Never mind me explaining it, watch it.

Back Home

2010-06-01T17:43:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm back. You could figure that out from the title. I've been home for a day and a half and I'm already back to being busy. First day of work went good, pulling the same job as last summer with a day camp in Gainesville. Pretty fun and real easy work. Relatively.

Anyway, quick recap from the last post. I raced Offenburg and got lapped three laps in. A bit of a bummer since I raced for an hour total. I guess you'll have that when your racing the very best in the world.

Slowly made my way from Releigh to Winston to Brevard where I hung out with a really old friend for a few days. Had some great rides hanging out with our "guns" out. I don't think I ever stopped smiling for the whole ride. The one and only KOP talked me into doing the 24 Hours of Burn that weekend too. Probably not the best rest week I could have had but it was good to show off the local sponsors and throw down with some other good teams. Even though we didn't win, I taught the team of roadies a lesson. It will be a while before they forget the cocky guy who passed them with full baggies and goggles.

I took some pictures, but I can't manage to expend that many watts to go down stairs and get my camera so they'll have to wait for another blog.

The next course? Probably Bump and Grinding some parts this weekend in Alabama and then it's a weekend off before Massanutten in Virginia. Then I'm off to Wisconsin to hit a national race and see if any of the training I'm doing is paying off. Dan P. knows what type of training I'm doing haha. Not really, I'll tell you who does though. A little bit of "pinning it with some flordia sprinkles". Good times trying to figure out what I'm saying with that one.

I might even have to offer up another prize. Let me know in the props section.

Quick shout out to the five people that read my blog and who get bummed out that I haven't included them in my "bros" section. You put me up on yours and I'll return the favor. Tit for tat brosuf.

Anyway, it's getting close to the parents bedtime which means it's mine too. There's really nothing to do after the 'rents go to bed.

Later America, good night and good luck.
T

Pre-Riding

2010-05-22T08:48:00.000-07:00

More chillage. Got up pretty early this morning and headed ova to Offenburg for our last race over here. It's World Cup number three. Wow, I'm so cracked right now. One more day and I'm heading home. It's been awesome but I need a break.

But on to the more interesting stuff. The course is alright, I was hoping it was a little faster but the downhills are steep and you pretty much have to crawl down them but the climbs are not that bad just short and moderately steep. Everything was covered in a slimy coating of mud which made things just a little sketchy. Just like home though haha.

I'm starting in the back again, yay. I guess moving up a hundred spots in Houffalize didn't make a difference because I'm four spots back in my call up, 226. Just put the head down and do work I guess. Simple enough.

After the race, we're packing up and rolling back to Oberrie and packing up the bikes and all our stuff. Some people are taking the train to Frankfurt Sunday night but me and T-Money are leaving Monday morning. I can't wait for that $200 charge on my bike. Ow. I hate airports, they stress me out. At least Frankfurt international has some very attractive attendants, so while my wallet is being lightened I'll have some eye candy. Makes everything ok right? Haha.

So yeah, I had nothing to do so I just killed like 15 minutes typing out this post that like five people might read and that really doesn't say anything. But hey I'm happy because that means I'm 15 minutes closer to dinna. Which is in 45 minutes now. Sorry, but it's a really, really big event of the day.

So if you not doing anything tomorrow and want to watch the Offenburg World Cup tune into freecaster and watch it all go down. But your probably not going to see us because we'll be at the back and they only show the winners. Haha; "if you ain't first, you're last".

Here's an alright movie of the race. Shows the start loop and the last climb and part of "dual speed" and the "snake pit". Also makes things look wayyy easier than they are. Those climbs and descents are much steeper than they look.

So I'm out America. Probably be back after the race though. Keep it pinned, I'll be back soon.

The Heubacher

2010-05-18T08:29:00.000-07:00

Sorry, sorry. I'm taking forever. But hey give me a break. I was pretty busy this past week. I mean I just hangout and ride my bike. Busy life eh?

Nah, actually it's been pretty pinned. I had a birthday, I raced, and I came with a Euro bug. Thursday I woke up and was feeling pretty crappy so I ended up sleeping most of the day and most of Friday too. But I was feeling much better Saturday when we drove up to Heubach for a race. I raced "Bike the Rock" last year and it was pretty rad. Basic design, climb for about 10 minutes roll on top for 2 or 3 and then a rough, rutted out descent back to the finish. It was also just a U23 race so it was a little smaller field than usual, but not any slower because I think the guy who won would have got top 5 in Pro. I got a decent call up but was too timid at the start and got shuffled back. That was cool with me since I was just trying to finish the race and not drop out.

Slowly started moving up since I was still feel good. I was having so much fun on the descent. I love course with a big climb followed by a sick downhill. I can totally get my head around the idea of "the faster I climb, the faster I can get to the descent". Anything else is kind of lame.

Anyway, I moved up a few places and almost caught the group that T-Money was in. Couldn't do it though so I rolled in for 40th or something. I finished and I was still on the lead lap so I was stoked about that. My last lap was my second fastest lap so it's always good when that happens.

What next? Well we're half way through our last week here. Just more chillage at the house for a few more days and then it's off to Offenburg on Saturday for some pre-riding at Offenburg, the last race. This is another World Cup so check out freecaster and watch it live. I might be able to post the link.

Yeah, not much happening here. Although I'm so stoked to be over here, I'm going to be happy to be heading home. We're flying out on Monday so I'll be back in the US of A that night. A few days hanging out here and there and it's back home to start working and get in some good training and some other secret projects.

I added a movie from the first downhill/4X World Cup. The opening bit is pretty cool. There's a reason cool people have cool nicknames and you'll find out why Mick Hannah is know as "Sick Mick". Pretty rad.

Adding some pictures from my ride too. Taken on my ride today to the roof of Germany, the Feilburg.

Here's some presse from the Heubach race too.

And for those of you who are not endowed with the wonders of Facebook. Here's the link for that.

Halfway

2010-05-10T00:19:00.000-07:00

Heyyyy ya’ll.
Never said that before. I never use ya’ll. Well, now I did. Europe is starting to do strange things to me. I’m starting to think about flat bars and carbon bits littering my bike. Ahhh!!!! Not good, I need to be back in the south.

Another weekend down, another race in the books. Saturday was a Swiss Power Cup, or a Swiss national race. In other words, just as fast as a World Cup but with less people. Sweet! For those of you in the know, Julien Absalon, Nino Schuter, Christophe Sauser, and Florien Vogel were some of the guys in attendance. My legs started hurting just looking at the names.

To make it that much better, about 70% of the race is on pavement. Pavement=pinned. Got an alright start but made a big mistake and ended up on the wrong side of the barriers and had to slow down and duck under the tape. Got back going without a problem but I lost contact with the group I was in. I tried to bridge on the climb and couldn’t do it but some guys caught up on the next pavement section. They were going a little too slow, so I tried to bridge again and spent the rest of the race stuck in the middle of nowhere between groups.

I almost got lapped by Absalon but I totally out sprinted him at the finish and made it out for the last lap. I ended up catching some more riders on that last lap but screwed up the sprint finish and had to settle for second out of three.
Pretty good race, you have to have most things go your way at these Euro races and it just hasn’t clicked yet, but I can feel it coming (I hope that is).

Sunday was another race we did last year. It was small and local last year but like 40 people showed up this year. They changed the course and took out the longest descent and put in a little girl downhill with some super, super lame logs you had to jump over. It was raining but that didn’t really help out much. Not trying to sound like a broken record but the legs were gassed and I just couldn’t get on to the lead group again so I settled for a top 20. I was top 5 last year ha-ha. Ow.

Looks like a good week coming up. We’re planning on going to Freiburg or someplace else either today or tomorrow to break up the routine. Then on Saturday we’re driving up to Heubach to do a German national race. Fun course with a sustained downhill full of ruts and berms just what T. Cowie ordered. Plus we’re racing the U23 class instead of the elite class. That just means there will be less people not that it will be any easier. The top U23 guys are getting top 5s in the elite races, so yeah really not that much slower.

Things are going good, looks like another day of rain and cold weather. I’m used to it though, thank you east coast. Makes everybody unhappy but not me. Just hang it out a little more and get loose. It’s slowly starting to wear on me, just being wayyy far away from home but before I know it I’ll be back and keeping that throttle pinned on some Pisgah trails. I can’t wait.

Please don’t float away Amurica, I don’t know if the planes can make it.
T

P. S.
I’ll post presse from the race as it comes in. And yes “press” is meant to be spelled European. Thank you St. Marie.

P. S. S.
For those of you who are interested in the ‘stache. It’s coming along quite nicely, not as sketchy as the old one. Pictures to come eventually.

Houffa, puffa.

2010-05-03T09:48:00.000-07:00

I was doing a lot of that. That’s fo sho. Where am I? Oh yeah Germany. I guess I’ll start with the race. I’m still trying to catch up a little bit. We finally made it to Germany and our new home for the next three weeks. Pretty rad place we’ve got here. Big props to USAC. Anyway to the race. We rolled out at 2:30 on Sunday. Headed down to the course about 1 with T-Money. As soon as we got there the sky opened up and started spilling some water out on the track. It had been raining off and on for the past day or so getting the track pretty slick. Not really muddy and not really wet it was a tossup for tires. Most of the US guys settled for some aggressive tires but not full on spikes. I ran my trusted Sauserwinds. Hooked up good and made for some interesting passes haha. Since it was raining before the start I hung out at the tent and warmed up pretty close to the start of the race. Tad made an interesting point. It takes the UCI 15 minutes to call up 250 riders and it takes the races in the US twice that time to call up 60 riders.

So yeah the race starts up a short but steep climb that was used in LBL. Still had Andy and Franks names painted all over the road. After you finished puking your brains out at the top of the climb there was a rolling descent that fell into a steep, steep Euro drop. I was going to show up Nino and boot a root off a tree but there was about 10,000 riders running down the hill in front of me. When we hit the road I literally had to stand and wait for a good 2 or 3 minutes waiting for people to run down the next Euro drop. The rest of the course was some short down hills sprinkled with punchy climbs. Umm…yeah like no flat so it was pretty much full gas, crawl down following some terrible Euro dude and then full gas on the next open part to try and get around them. Felt like I was starting to move up until the 3 or fourth lap when things finally started to sort out and there was less people on course. Hung with Travis for a bit before we both got pulled at the end of the fourth lap.

Felt pretty good during the race but I kept on making small amateur mistakes that kept adding up. Felt like I was doing my first mountain bike race in years. Oh well, I’ve got a few more before I leave.

Anyway I need to post some pictures for you. I’ve got a bit of an easy day tomorrow so I was going to snap some images of the new place we’re staying at. Pretty sick rig. We live on a farm in a really nice hostel/bed and breakfast/hotel type thing. The best part is they have a spout for gassy water (the only water they drink over here). It’s on the back wall, you just roll up and out comes gassy. Awesome!!!

Wow there’s a bunch of stuff I’m leaving out. I need to write another blog since I’m struggling on this one. The people call me…

Forgive me, press from the race.

Link 1

Link 2

Also for those of you without facebook. Here's the link to my album.

Post party

2010-05-02T08:02:00.001-07:00

Don't have a ton of time to write but he race went alrigh got pulled with two to go. Pretty muddy action made for some interesting t. Cowie moves but nothing too special. Some uci photo guy took some pictures of me so be on the look out for that.

Anyway I gotta run peace. Next time I'll update will probably be back in Germany. Late.

Houffa Day

2010-05-02T07:48:00.001-07:00

Finally on euro time. I think. Woke up at six instead of two so I
guess that's good. Rained off and on all morning. We've got some time
before the race so were just hanging out and chilling. Had a good
lunch and got pumped on some good old Uhmerican country music. Can't
wait to lay down the law with some Euro dudes.

You can tell when there's slow moments because I write blogs. Haha.
Anyways I'll probably write another one after. Watch it on freecaster.
I think it comes on at like eight thirty or something. Keep it pinned.

2010-04-30T08:24:00.001-07:00

http://www.citizen-times.com/article/20100430/OUTDOORS/304300025

Start number

2010-04-30T04:03:00.001-07:00

Yeah that's out of 250. Meaning that I'll getbto race for like half an hour. I'm not even taking extra bottles. If the image link is still not working it's 222.

Houffalize

2010-04-30T03:53:00.001-07:00

Got in the belgium today. Pretty good place a little hillier than
Germany. We have a pretty cool set up outside of town it's about 20
minutes into houffalize and about 40 back since it's all uphill on the
way out. No Internet at the place were staying at so I'm writing this
on Wednesday At least I think it's Wednesday I'm definetly still on
American time.

Rode the course today. Good world cup course I guess. All up or down
with like zero flat. Some little fun spots on the downhill but nothing
too special.

So yeah racing in few days so just hanging out and some short rides on
the plan. Hopefully head back into town soon so I can post this one
too. Took some pictures but can't really upload them yet so you'll
have to wait I'm sure you guys are pretty bummed out about that.

Hope everything is going swell back in the us of a. Going to see if I
can get the throttle suck wide on Sunday. Sorry Rimmer the start is on
pavement so I can't pull a trademark if you know what I mean.

Lata,
T

In Flight

2010-04-29T08:14:00.001-07:00

So I'm in Washington, but when you read this i'll probably be some
place else. Don't really know where though. I'm wayyy to cheap to payb
for the over priced Internet at the airport so I'm writng this while
waiting for the flight.

Typing on my touch kind of sucks so if I have some errors forgive me.
Or not as like half of the three people who read my blog love to do.
Quick recap on the trip. Left school yesterday afternoon And drove to
Winston Salem to hit it up with T-Money and a night of madness. Haha
not really just some good times packing bikes and catching up on gossip.

Went for a quick ride this morning around town. Saw some pretty rad
houses some people winston are high rolling. Packed up the bikes and
headed over to RDU for a quick puddle skip over to Washington. We fly
out at ten and get into Germany at around lunch tomorrow.

Then it's straight to Belgium for the first race where I'm hoping to
find some Internet and post this one. It's also really hard to find a
dang outlet for my phone on airports too. FYI. Dude they'd better have
some food for me as soon as I sit down because I'm starving.

Oh well America, I gonna miss you guys, keep it pinned all the way so
it's TAC'd out.

Late, T. Cowie's out.

Bad Dreams

2010-04-24T08:44:00.000-07:00

So last night I had a really bad dream. I was in Europe and I found out that I had forgotten all of my tires/clothes/equipment back home. Not good. Then I woke up. Hahaha. Good times eh?

How are things going for ya 'merica? Looks to be a pretty nice day out at least for a little while longer. Oh well, if it rains that just means that no body will be out on the trails except me that is.

One last weekend in the states means a fully wide open weekend. I just took a final yesterday and I have another one tomorrow night with the rest on Monday. Yay! And people wonder why I'm not racing this weekend. The nice thing is I don't have class on Monday. I'm done dude. I'm out. But fitting in my weekly hang out time is going to be tough.

It just started to rain in B-town so that's my cue to go ride. As Chinese Dinna Man shows us, you can go just as fast in the wet as in the dry.

Pretty lame post but I'll add some pictures that have been sitting around on my computer.

Keep it tac'd 'merica.

Stretching Out

2010-04-20T07:39:00.001-07:00

Today is good not great but good. Woke up wayyy too early today still means I'm worrying about stuff haha. Oh well that's life as they say.

I didn't write much about Tsali at all really namely because I'm trying to forget about it. The way the weekend went for me, was like this: I woke up, I had a good breakfast, I drove to the Tsali race. Then there's this big blank spot where I don't remember anything and the next thing I know I was back home. Crazy huh?

What really happened? I went out a little too hard and blew up hard
core. Good times.

A week off and full of hanging out and working on home work. Yay! Not. Then it was back to road racing for the conference finals at Mars Hill. Road race went pretty good, it was a very selective course and guys started popping off early. Made the "front group" of about ten and we tired to pull back the four minute lead the break got. Didn't work and I got popped off the group on the last climb and rolled in for seventh. Not too shabby. The crit went a little better. We tired to set up
Killer for the win but I screwed up and miss read lap cards and was at the back of the bunch for the final sprint. He still ended up using his wild animal powers to get fourth so big props to him.

So one more week of hanging out and doing work before I ship out across the pond. Hopefully no volcanoes explode while I'm flying over them. That would be awesome. Also check out the KFC south park some people might learn some life lessons from that...

And if Dungey can stay upright he'll take it but Stewarts still got
the title.

Have a good day 'merica I'm gonna miss you.

Long Week, Long Road

2010-04-06T08:44:00.000-07:00

Well, you know sometimes nothing ever goes right. Yeah that happened to me last week. It sucked let me tell you. But I shouldn't complain I guess, although that's kind of what blogs are for.

I'll skip to the more exciting stuff. I started racing, finally it seemed like forever since I've been training since ********* (sorry can't tell you that bit). First race was a collegiate road race down in my home state. This time it didn't rain however. I felt good all weekend but it was one of those things where you're like: "Oh, this pace isn't bad I should open it up a little." And then as soon as you start going hard it's like: "Oops shouldn't have done that." Good times. I finished somewhere in the top 20 the first day and managed to get in the lead break the second day. Mr. My Shoes Are Too Big split the group and spit me out the back. Still finished somewhere in the top 15.

Nice weekend off in between collegiate races. Hung out with a CTS camp in Brevard and got in some good training miles. Colin you still owe me a burrito...

Last weekend was another race in Furman. Hard course on Saturday with some steep rollers and a bunch of wind. Got in a small break with another dude about an hour in dropped him 45 minutes later and spent about an hour off the front in a solo break. So yeah, you could say that my legs hurt after that. The crit the next day went alright. The course was flat and technical but not really to my liking. I started to give 'er in a few corners but started to get a little sideways so I backed off and acted like a little girl for the rest of the race. Made the break again and finished in the top 10?

Now it's a few hard days of training before the SERC race at Tsali. The first big test of the season. Can't wait. The throttle is sticking a little bit but hopefully it will get completely stuck this Sunday. We'll see.

In the previous post I mentioned our good friends to the north. Well they just added another gold medal to the charts.

Over and out 'merica.
By the way the cookies burned too.
T

Dethroned

2010-03-03T09:56:00.000-08:00

This year is not starting out good. I've had two defeats and the season hasn't even started yet. First I lost to Mrs. Squirrel for not getting a post up and then I lost my title of Plank Champion last night to some burley mountain man from Minnesota. Congrats to the Elk Killer.

I don't like getting beat, so I guess I just need to go more work. Simple eh? Speaking of simple, how bout that Northern Country teaching some people how they do the Olympics. Never won a Gold medal at a home games and then taking home the most golds? Yeah that's right, turn down the funk and turn up the good.

It's been snow, snow, and more snow here in North Kack. We got like 5 and a half inches yesterday. It sucked. The trails are still covered and will be for another two weeks or so. Looks like I'm going home this weekend for spring break. My trails at the house need some loving, but I don't think I'll be able to get out since I'm getting some tooths pulled on Saturday. Yay. Not.

I like having extra teeth, they help me eat all my candy.

First race is two weeks away and I can't wait. It's funny to think that my race season always start pretty much half way through March but it always seems so far away. In the mean time I've been trying to get my throttle stuck WFO. I think it worked. Not sure yet, we'll have to see at that first race.

In other news, I've had thoughts on changing my blog title for something that describes me a little better than "How do you spell America?" Something more...er....fitting. Share your thoughts.

Even though BMXers are still little tight pants wearing girls, Mike Day can make a days work of a BMX track. Check out that manual at the end. That's pretty cereal.

Mike Day Test Shoot from Clay Porter on Vimeo.

Late Race

2010-02-09T05:45:00.000-08:00

Well, I had my first race this year. It's not what you think though. I was racing the female Squirrel to be the first to post a new blog. I lost, by a pretty good bit actually.

Oh well, first thing's first. Except that I don't know what the first thing is. How about I do a movie since I already have that. Minnaar knows how to ride some moto. Maybe that's why he's one of the best in the World? You tell me.

Let me start out by doing some sponsor stuff. Last time I told you that I was about to announce some new sponsors but I kind of forgot to post a blog in time. So here you go. I'm proud to announce....no never mind that's wayyy too corny. Twin Six has jumped on the wagon, or bike rather for another year. For a while I was skeptical about representing them again since it's it doesn't really fit my "image" but they are coming out some some super sick stuff this time around and I'm stoked to run it again. Clothes that fit, feel good, and good rad are what Twin Six delivers. So yeah, I'm pretty happy about them coming back.

To go with some new clothes and accessories, I need some extra items to complete my "look". Just so happens that Smith Optics decided to help me out. I've always been a fan of their sunglasses and goggles and now I can finally run them. Because in the words of Smith Sponsored athlete, Aaron Gwin, "you gotta look good". I'll been running their clothes, race glasses, and goggles at select events. Pretty happy about that one too.

The last one is a current sponsor, but I wanted to give a shout out because they have really stepped it up this year. Thanks Industry Nine for all your support. And to all my other sponsors thanks again. I'll be doing a post just for my support crew very soon so watch out! Haha. It might jump out at ya.

The last part of my post is about some racing. I've spent the past week or so trying ot finalize my racing for the rest of the year. And the biggest news is that I'm taking off in April to race some World Cups in Europe.

So finally, here is my complete 2010 racing calendar. Enjoy.

2010 Races
March
GA Tech-March 13-14
Hobby Park-March 21
Furman-March 27-28

April
SERC Tsali-April 11
Conference Championships-April 17-18

May
World Cup #2 Houffalise-May 1-2
Swiss Racer Bikes Cup, Solothurn, Switzerland-May 8-9
Bundesliga Race-May 15-16
World Cup #3-Offenburg-May 22-23
Mellow Johnny's (Texas)-May 29

June
Bump and Grind-June 6
Subaru Cup Wisconsin-June 26

July
World Cup Champrey Switzerland July 24-25
World Cup Val di Sol Italy July 31-August 1

August
SERC Fontana August 7-8
World Cup Windham-August 28-29

September
World Champs Mont St. Anne-August 31-September 5 (U23 race-on Sept 3?)

October
Collegiate Nationals Truckee, CA-October 16-17

Later nerds, I have to try and get my proffs to excuse me for two weeks from school.
T

Baking and Riding

2010-01-27T17:17:00.000-08:00

Art History: Sounds like a great class right? Wrong!

I'm actually writing this out by hand while I'm in class. I'm so bored I took out some paper and started hand writing a blog. The best part is that it actually looks like I'm being studious and taking notes when really I'm not on task. Hehe. Sneaky, sneaky.

So what's been up with me? A ton of stuff actually. I've got a bunch of funny stories that I won't tell to protect the innocent. A word of advice to those of you out there. Say you're a baker and and you bake some cookies and some brownies and you can only fit one of them at a time into the oven. But you try and fit both of them in there and things get a little crammed and things can go up in flames. So, do what Baker Bill says and decide which one you want to bake before you put them in there. Bad things will happen.

To make a long story short, I was baking brownies and then decided to cook some cookies and the brownies burned. But I've still got some awesome cookies. Yay!

Now for something completely different, I've gotten a little closer to nailing down all my sponsors for 2010. It's kind of amusing that everyone else will have new bikes and equipment before I even have all of my sponsors on board. I had a random sponsor email me today and it looks like I'll probably hook it up again. They are returning from last year but they've stepped it up a bit and I'll see if I can do the same on my side. I'll announce them and another one before too long.

So yeah, can't really say much stuff about it yet but I should have a full list of sponsors and 2010 races by my next blog post. Basically I'll be hitting some off-dirt racing with the collegiate team for a few races for March, April and May with a mix of MTB racing thrown in. Then it could be a big trip "someplace" right before school gets out and then some closer, local stuff for the first part of the summer. I'll be going back home for the summer since its relatively cheap to live with the parents. A mid-season break in June-ish/July-ish and then a ramp up for another big "trip" in August and hopefully qualify for Worlds at Mont St. Anne, Quebec.

I was hoping I'd found some good movies to put in at the end of this post but apparently I didn't so I'll leave you with a parody on the popular FML website. If you haven't heard of either you should definitely check both of them out.

Well, I've got a ******** tonight in *********. So you should totally come hangout. HAHA.
Later 'merica.

http://mylifeisaverage.com/

A1

2010-01-02T14:50:00.001-08:00

No. No not that A1. Come on St Marie. Silly boy.

I'm talking about A1 as in Anaheim One. Or the official start to the 2010 supercross season. Where have you guys been? Living under a rock. Probably. At least you don't live in the middle of nowhere like my parents. I finally rode out to service yesterday and had my phone ringing for like ten minutes. So yeah, sorry about that.

Well the primary purpose of this post was to post some movies, for you people into motos, so you could get ready for the big night on Saturday. Not a lot of stuff has been happening other than me just searching for moto movies on youtube.

Ummm..Chaput came over yesterday and we did downhill runs for like an hour. It was pretty sweet scoping out some new lines and ideas for my course. Good times had; hanging out and riding as always.

I had a pretty good time here at home over break. The parents didn't get too annoying although I still have a few more days with them and I got in a ton of riding. Oh wait shouldn't have said that. Umm... never mind, no not really any riding at all. Hehe. I almost finished painting my room, made some amazing coffee (found a new fav in Sumatran), hung out with some people in town, and went to bed at 10:30 on New Years. So yeah, successful break from school and the normal routine.

I don't want to keep you from your precious working time or relaxing time too much longer so I'm signing off Amurica. Remember that it all goes down at 10 on ESPN. Enjoy.

Somebody's been doing a little bit of work. Check those triple, triples.

I couldn't have said it better myself.

Another Obligatory New Years Post

2009-12-21T19:16:00.001-08:00

Howdy folks,
Been awhile, well not really but I need some small talk to start this post. Hope alls well with everybody around, since it's all good with me.

So I went up to the 828 for the last few days to ride around a bit on those wonderful roads. I ended up picking wrong weekend to go up since it's was just above freezing the whole time. Awesome. I had some miserable rides but got in some good training.

I actually locked myself out of my house which was fun too. But not really. I finally got in after spending a few days in Hendersonville. So yeah, a word to those who haven't done that before, don't do it. It's bad.

Ummm...yeah the only reason I'm posting this is because I have some more movies for you guys to watch. Oh yeah, I've got to say some stuff about what I'm doing next year. Good question. Plan A=win stuff. Plan B=have fun. Plan C=uhhh...hopefully I don't get to Plan C.

Uhmerica, have a good 2010.

Oh yeah, the second movie is mostly the Bromont downhill track. Pretty cool seeing it in the fall with the leaves and stuff.

John Lefrancois Promo 2009 from Vincent Allard on Vimeo.

Goodies

2009-12-18T06:05:00.000-08:00

Morning everybody!

How's it all going? Things are cold and slightly wet down here in north, northern Georgia. Since I guess Thomaston is North Georgia? Who knew??

Things are rolling along pretty swell, I've been hanging out at the house for almost a week since I got out of school. Been working on some projects here and there. I was going to rent a bobcat and fix up the road but it turns out that it's going to be a bit too expensive, maybe over the summer though. Haven't ruled it out yet. I've also been painting my room, just white right now but it's a good change from the turquoise color it was. Maybe add some decorations or something. Maybe a national champion jersey or two on the walls...haha.

I might have been riding and such, not really sure how much I can say considering that anyone and I do mean anyone can read this blog. Let's say I'm doing some super secret training.

Looks like I'll be up in North Kack next week. Well, I'll take that back since it IS next week. I'll probably be up there on Tuesday or Wednesday ready to ride. I've almost got my races for next year finished up. Still waiting to hear back on dates and stuff so I probably won't announce the entire thing for a little bit longer. I'm also waiting to hear back from some sponsors and people, but that probably won't happen until closer to February or something. Hopefully mid-January but I know that's not going to happen.

So yeah, just been hanging out and doing some small jobs around the house and maybe riding once or twice a week. It's been good and relaxing so far. Not a super interesting post but that's why I added some stuff.

For the past couple of weeks I've been gathering up some good movies, pictures and sites that you guys might like. Enjoy them all.

Some funny comics, movies etc. from those Brits.

Don't really see the point with this because....

...this guy is going to take it again. Do WORK!

And last but not least, this is my boy: Dan the P. Ennis.

Later Amurica.

No More Straight Lining

2009-11-13T06:34:00.000-08:00

I really like this quote: "Riding down the trail I am having so much fun I don’t want the trail to end, so I get sideways as much as possible so that I can make the ride last as long as it can." Said by one of the more skilled riders out there. You will probably never, ever guess who it is. So I might have to do another contest. Perhaps. And no St. Marie, it is not Sam Hill.

Well, that's what this season is. Getting sideways. Trying new things and finding new lines. It's been a pinned past couple of weeks and I haven't found a chill weekend until now. Pretty stoked about it but it's almost over.

Been hearing stuff back from some sponsors, some good and some bad. It's ok though, I'm happy that I'm actually hearing back from them. I picked up a really good deal yesterday but I can't follow through with it because of some other stuff. Bummer, but it's nice to know that people like me.

Went to the Orange Peel the other night to go watch Lucero in concert. It was a good time and I need to go back very soon. Still pretty happy about doing a whole lot of nothing but that day of starting everything back up is quickly approaching. Instead of hanging out late and eating some good candy, the days will be taken up with long rides and endless workouts. It's long and boring, but I love it.

I finally saw the parents in a few months yesterday so that was pretty cool. I'm not really sure if I'm going home for break but I should be back for Christmas. I've got a bunch of projects to work on though. First thing includes putting the new washer on top of the dryer. Anyone who has seen me lift anything heavier than my bike should come on down and make fun of me. It should be awesome. Then I need to finally finish up my room and re-do the driveway. That last one I'm pretty happy about, because that means that I can rent a bobcat for the weekend and add some huge jumps to my downhill track. So that's an open invitation to anyone who wants to help out with that over X-mas.

Anyway, I had an open 20 minutes so I added some stuff to my blog. Hope you enjoyed.

Get sideways 'merica.
T

Weekend off?

2009-10-30T06:53:00.000-07:00

That's what I thought at least. I've been busy since that "off weekend" at the Swank. Long story short, the Swank filled up and I missed my chance to race. At the same time I managed to come down with some wimpy sickness. Nothing major, just a sore throat and stuffy nose for a week. Still can't get rid of the cough though, that sucks. Unfortunately (this is where a sarcasm font would come in handy)that bit of sickness wiped off the rest of fitness I had left over from nationals. It's pretty funny how much you slow down from just a few days off the bike. Too much.

Willmurr and Timmy both had some sick rides and held it down for me instead. Big props to them, as well as the King doing what he does best throwing down and trying to fight off the toughest competitor of them all, age.

And yes, I totally forgot to post the pictures from Cali like I said I was going to. My b. This is going to be a short post because I can't really say anything about my plans for next year. I've got some stuff planned, but I can't really tell anyone about it until it's finalized, you know.

In the meantime, I should probably do another shout out to Wes D. He has helped me out a ton ever since I met him and he keeps helping me. So this video is kind of for him. It's amazing, kind of like what this guy is to free running, the KOP is to free riding.

Haha, awesome. Now on to the pictures.

The Crew

The Crib

Sick pictures

Sleep tight 'merica.

End of the Hard Part? Maybe...

2009-10-24T15:54:00.000-07:00

Well, if you have been keeping up with anyone else's blog, then you probably already know about the whole story of the Brevard Team winning the National Championships for Division II. Which is not that far behind Division I, but no body will recognize that.

Here's a picture if you don't believe me.

As far as my personal races went it wasn't so great. Coming off winning both the short track and cross country last year, I knew that I couldn't improve without winning them again. In short the cross country went great until the second to last lap. I had been marking my efforts because of the altitude and it was working great up to the point where I blew to pieces with one to go. I slowly slipped back to 5th place. I was pretty disappointed, but all I could do was put my feet up and rest for the short track. It went a little better but once again I attacked too early and blew up with three laps to go. I ended up 2nd on the day. Both of those results were good in their own right and I'm not trying to be a sour puss but it's a far cry from first.

I also raced four cross in hopes of helping out the team with points and improving my standings in the individual omnium. That didn't go so well either, I quailed 30th and made it through the first round before being bumped out in the second round.

Thanks to our girls, we were able to hang on to the overall team title. After some crashes and good results in the downhill we pulled off the overall title. It was pretty cool to watch our brand new team (only 4 years old) take the win.

Now for the gripe. Someone told me a few days ago that I complain too much. So I'm going to try to cut it out, but that's kind of what blogs are for eh? Anyway, I'm getting very frustrated with life in general mostly because I can't say anything. I try to keep this blog as clean as I can because I (hope) that somebody is reading it and.... never mind.

So what am I doing for the rest of the season? Great question. I guess that I have to do the Swank since it's practically in my backyard and it will give the KOP an excellent opportunity to beat me on his home turf. And then he can make fun of me for another year, which will make him very happy. So if you have nothing to do on November the 8th come on down to the Cove Creek Campground to watch it all go down. I'm still tossing around the idea of racing cross this fall but I really need to get a job too so we'll see what happens. Speaking of which I thinking of going home soon to build some more trails and hang with the fam, so if you want to come hang out feel free to swing by. But be warned, you'll be put to work building jumps and berms to complete my new downhill track.

Since I've deprived you of pictures all year long, watch for a blog post containing only pictures from California. Pretty sick. I'm still working on finding all the good ones.

And since this is my last official post of the racing year I'd like to send a thank you out to everybody for the support. And I'll probably forget someone, so I'm going to go ahead and apologize for it. Can you really expect my college aged, sleep deprived brain to remember everything? Just don't tell my parents that I forgot I had a test last week. Hehe. Oops.

The KOP
Chris Herndon
Coach Thad
Pinnett
Chaput
Tamer
Momma and Poppa Squirrel
Dan Ennis
Jeff from I9
Dr. Chandler
Donnie
TEAM Mom
Nate
All the guys from Cane Creek
Miss Heaton
Bracken Mountain Bakery
Charmichael Training Systems
Brevard College
Sycamore Cycles
Gu Sports
all other sponsors of the Sycamore Cycles and Brevard College Cycling Teams

and my biggest sponsors

My Parents

Over and out America, I will not forget that picture post.

2009-10-15T18:17:00.001-07:00

Checked out the course today not too bad tacky and flowy with some techy sections i race at 12 tomorrow 828 represent!

Roundabout

2009-10-11T20:44:00.000-07:00

So, I happened to look up just where at the race I'm going to in a few days is located. Turns out it's at the Northstar Ski resort in Truckee California. It's oh, like 30 minutes from Reno or something and about an hour from Sacramento. It's also about three hours from San Fransisco. San Fran is where I raced in my first ever "national". It was actually about an hour from downtown in Sonoma. It was a crappy course, wicked hot, and my race fell apart. I finished like 11th. Good result, but not what I wanted. Now three hours away and a lot more experienced I hope to pull it off.

Those first few years when I started getting really serious into mountain bike racing were the best because I kept on discovering new things. Although I will never say that I know everything, I do know that I have learned a library full of facts, techniques, and tricks about racing.

When I started out racing I never thought that I would make it to where I am today. Not saying that I'm a superstar or anything but I've had a successful career so far. I was just thinking about all the people that have helped me along the way. Last year was awesome after I pulled off two national championships. I've had a ton of close calls and I was able to pull it off last fall.

Now here is the bigger question, can I repeat? We'll see, I've been taking the past couple of days easy but you can never know what will happen. It will be a hard race since everyone will be looking at me. It's one thing to win a race straight up but a completely different thing when it's all on your shoulders. I super stoked about traveling to Cali but at the same time I've had a long season and I will be happy to be back and finished. I was telling a guy at lunch the other day. It really doesn't matter what happens in the race, I just love racing my bike. That's true until the race starts. I'm a racer so I want to win everything. But once it's all done I can sit back and be satisfied. This is sounding sooo corny, but if I win another national title I'm doing it for you guys. It's my way of saying thanks.

Hopefully my throttle will get stuck...
T

P. S.
Put this one down on the X-mas list.

Warheads?

2009-10-04T15:22:00.000-07:00

Yep, sweet and sour. That's how it went down this weekend in the dirty, dirty south. For the final collegiate race in the normal season (that is, not counting nationals)I added a little bit of spice to the flavor of the weekend by rolling up with full on golf gear. If I do say so myself I was looking pretty fly. However, no podium groupies by the end of the day....bummer.

The short track was a little behind but it's all good with collegiate racing. It was a bitter fight down to the end with Zach and I barely squeaked by with the W. I took some time off and went to town with the 'rents and had some pizza with a mushroom that knows how to chill out.

Came back for some slalom action in the afternoon. The track was a little better than years past. Still pretty awkward. Whatever, if your fast you can win anywhere, any time, any conditions. Don't believe me? Check it hater. Quallied 8th so not too shabby but had a few rough runs to the round of 8 where I met up with Danny and rolled it so he could save himself.

XC was the final event of the season. I moved up one spot in the overall after Perley didn't show up to race on Saturday. I held it down for the first bit of the race but four weeks on the road were catching up quickly. Zach and I had another battle for most of the race before I crashed and got gapped. I was riding pretty crappy so I just shut it down and rode it in to get my 2nd spot.

The team didn't have any amazing rides but we did enough work to get the team allocations for nationals. That means we get to take everybody we want to. Sick.

To those of you who are not making the trip to nationals. I'm going to miss you. Even though we had a huge team and I wasn't super stoked on the idea, I bummed that we can't take the entire team to Cali and race. It was awesome hanging out and I hope we can do more of that when the seasons over and everybody's done riding.

On to that, we finally have a weekend off and I need it. I'm looking forward to some quality chillage and riding and eating some amazing food. We're leaving North Kack on Wednesday and the first race over there is the XC, my favorite. I'll be updating the blog and letting everybody know how things are rolling. It looks like it won't be too cold but we shall see eh? Ah, whatever. If it gets too cold my Canadian genes will kick in and I'll be immune to it. So nice having super powers that other normal people don't. I guess that's why they call me the Captain.

I'll probably skip out on some home work to write another blog this weekend. I'll even add some cool facts about Cali and where we're racing at. Cool huh?

Instead of having sweet movies of nats, I found some off of Dirt Mag. And even a movie of the Clemson race this weekend. Albeit the dual and downhill. You can even see some 828 riders. Sickness.

So go get that microwave going or if you're like Sportlegs then use the oven and watch some quality movies.

Nevermind

2009-09-28T20:28:00.001-07:00

Yeah forget all that stuff I said about winning everything. I'll never be able to beat this guy. I'm going to stop trying...now. Watch the whole thing, it gets better.

The Coolest Guy in the World - The most popular videos are a click away

Summation

2009-09-28T19:44:00.000-07:00

I'm combining all of my previous posts into one. Kind of, not really. I'm just combining two of the titles into one.

First off the race, well let's go back to "Win Some Lose Some". That's what it was. I was a little uptight before the short track so sorry to those of you who I might have upset. I was feeling a little pressure from the home crowd and everything. That was one race I could not screw up. Well the cross country was a different story but we'll get to that. The short track was awesome, it was soppy, I was on not my bike, and I did pretty good.

Thanks for all of those who came out despite the rain and mud to watch us. I'll just say it was nice to have a little bit of fun on the last lap. Thanks again.

I could have gone a little easier in the short track to save myself for the XC but I decided that I'm going to stop racing like that. I stand by what I said at the start of the season: I want to win every race. I'm over all the bs that goes with racing, if you're fast you can win any track, any day, any conditions. I'm not saying that I can do that because I can't win every single time I race, but I'm going to start trying.

The XC was on the side of the "lose some" statement. I probably gave too much away in the short track and the short end of it was that I cracked. There's a few more things I did wrong but I'm not going to say those because someone might be reading. Haha.

We've been racing for three straight weeks and I'm getting a little tired. Saturday is the start of conference championships. It's going to be a pretty big weekend considering we're only a few points behind Warren Wilson for the team title. I might have to press the gas a bit more.

The other part of my title is what I did today. I was a little over riding my bike for a day so what to do? Go for a hike. Yeah it was kind of strange walking on trails that I'm usually going twice as fast down. It took me almost an hour to hike Daniel's Ridge. It was good times. Just me, my lunch, and my camera. I can't do anything that doesn't involve bikes so I admit that I did walk Daniel's so I could check out some new lines. Whatever, dare I say it? It was kind of fun in a different way.

So for you nature/artsy/female people out there that read my blog I have some outdoors pictures.

Later America, I've probably got some kind of school work to do.

Oh yeah if your in the area, I would check out the conference race at Clemson this weekend. I might be rolling out some "special" bits for the finals. Props to my sponsors, they rule.

Doing Things Differently

2009-09-23T20:18:00.000-07:00

Well, um...let me start off by saying that I hope my parents don't read this one. I'm definitely not studying for this huge test tomorrow and instead, stealing music off the internet and playing on Facebook and other such bad things that they should not know about.

Now, granted the Saint and I studied for like two hours this morning and I've probably done another hour by myself in the last three hours I've been "studying". So give me a little bit of credit will ya?

So yeah I was getting a little bored so I decided to write a quick post. I've been thinking of a special "event" this weekend. I'm sure you guys can guess what it's going to be but I'll try to leave it a surprise. It's something to wear.

Dude I'm going to have some wicked back problems when I get older. It's going to be awesome, I'm much more worried about slouching around and looking cool instead of sitting up straight. Bummer, whatever. I'll just take that devil may care attitude of "the youth" these days. Right?

I'm hurting for some more music too. I added like 50 new songs in the last day or so but none of them are that good. They were more for those people that I hang out with that want to hear that song. Not pleasurable for me but if it makes other people happy then so be it. Ya falla?

Hey for those of you who are tripping because I'm going off on some strange thoughts, you can just return yourself to the top of the page and read the description of my blog. This is what it says (and I quote): "This is where Tristan Cowie, aka Captain America, aka Pink Booties, aka Special T, aka Trash Can dumps his thoughts and mountain bike race reports on the world." So there.

Awesome! I just found some more Destiny Child music. Sick!
Gotta go bras, I need to commit more felonies. Oh yeah, to all of those who read my blog and have one of their one, you should up date...I'm getting bored.

I'm going to give you some ideas for my secret. But don't take it that far, remember I've worn it before.

I miss Tim Horton's.
T

Win Some, Lose Some

2009-09-21T20:30:00.000-07:00

That was my motto by the end of the weekend.

This Sunday's past, was the Dual Conference race hosted by App State. Pretty stoked about racing since it is probably the two strongest conferences in the nation matching up. The XC was pretty sweet, there was like 50 guys lined up, too bad it wasn't a SERC race could have won some good cash. Haha, just kidding biking racing is not about making money, something that you should really learn if you have not.

Back on track, I did fairly good. Well I placed where I wanted to place in the XC if you can figure that out by going off my previous post. The slalom went good too, I kind of forgot my baggies up at the condo so I had to make do with a baggie T and some lyrica shorts. Looked awesome. Qualied and finished 13th. So some good efforts there too.

Downhill was cancelled because of rain and fog but they still held the short track in this big grass field. It was amazing and I got my butt kicked which sucked and pissed me off immensely. But you'll have that with crappy weather and what not. I was pretty bummed about missing out on another win but I won the man's race and not the little side show that they call short track.

This weekend is our home race in Brevard. Not super stoked about it right now considering that it's been raining for a week straight. Looks like I'm racing Downhill this weekend so I went out and hike the track in the rain and found some sweet sneak lines. I might even hit the World Cup line. Probably not though. I'm not a huge fan of jumping where I can't see the landing. And I'm not really good at jumping...yet.

Well sorry, I was trying to make this post a little more interesting but I'm literally falling asleep. I'm hoping to take some sick pictures tomorrow. We shall see eh?

Oh and by the way, if some one want to be really nice to me (great idea for a birthday present)they could get this on a shirt for me. I would rock it to bed.
Don't sink America.

Hammer Time

2009-09-17T17:55:00.000-07:00

Well, the last couple of posts were not quite myself as you may have noticed. Times were getting a little rough but everything is fixed when times are going good.

I've been talking a boat load of smack. And it was easy to do because I wasn't racing. So when I finally got a chance to back it up I was pretty nervous. The short track didn't go the best, I know who my opponents are and kept a tight leash on them. Zach got away a little from me but I tried to keep the cards close to the chest. As not previously announced, and as a surprise I'm going for the omnium at the collegiate national champs. For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, it's your overall placing in all four events at nats. Cross country, short track, dual slalom and downhill.

What I'm getting at is that I raced DS at LMC. It didn't go too bad, I quailed 6th out of a ton of people but since the slalom got moved to Sunday morning because it got too dark I pulled the plug. I still ended up 9th??? Not too shabby for my first ever race. I kept on looking for a climb in the middle of course because I left my granny gear on but I guess they didn't put one in.

I quit the slalom to rest up for the XC. T-Walker told me since I was quitting the DS I had to win the XC. I was pretty bummed over how I was feeling in the short track but that race is for the little boys. The cross country is the one where the men come from. Got a good start and filtered into the single track second wheel. Made a few mistakes before breaking my chain on the second steep climb. Pretty bummed on that because it took me forever to fix it. Everyone in the A and a few guys in the B field passed me. That sucked. I figured it would be a good idea to fix everything up and stay in for some good training. I started chasing. I kept on getting time checks to the leaders at three minutes. Really long way away. To my disbelief I caught Zach in second place with one lap to go. I pulled out 30 or 40 seconds on the last decent and tried to hold him off on the last climb. But about 100 feet from the finish I saw Brad from LMC running with a flat.

Now pause for a second. I have nothing against Brad or anyone on the Lee's McRae team but for the past two years I have been worked over by most of their riders since they have like 100 guys and we have like 4. And all my guys are fast. So I going to tell you that it felt so good to give a little back to those guys. I just put my head down and held it to the line. Winning racing and crushing souls is what I do for a living, not bad for a Sunday afternoon.

I'm tired of all this team tactics and bs racing. This weekend is a dual conference race between the South East and Mid Atlantic. Let the strongest man win the race. I'm not fooling around anymore. Let's find out who the men are.

Quick shout out to all my bros on the team. All of you guys and girls made me proud. We are the only team that will whip your butt and be your best friends doing it. I added a sweet movie about the World Cup finals in Austria. You can do what ever you want, but I'm putting my money on Sammy and Brendog. They are looking pretty fast. That drift that Sam made over the knuckle made H1N1 sick.

Good night America. Enjoy yourselves.

P. S.
No you can't touch me...

World's View

2009-09-02T13:21:00.000-07:00

Just sending out a quick message to any of the top downhillers who read my blog.
Sam and Brendog are definitely ordering Chinese on Sunday.

Just saying.

Can't Get None

2009-08-28T19:55:00.000-07:00

So the last post was a little aggro. To say the least. I'll try not to be that harsh again. It's just been a rough going for the first week of school. Everything is different and hard to figure out. Dude life is hard to figure out.

Oh well, this weekend is our first collegiate race. It's up in the East Tennessee at ETSU. Hopefully good times. I'm not going to be racing though, just taking this weekend off to get some more good training in the legs. My first race will hopefully be the race at Lees McRae two weekends from now.

Anyway to make for sounding so conceded last time I'm going to post some pretty sweet pictures of stuff I "stumbled upon". The first two are kind of how I feel right now and the last hasn't been seen in a while but it's needs to be spread around. That's Dan P. Ennis, one of the few people that I have to bow to.

This caption is: "Death by paper football".

School Sessh

2009-08-19T06:28:00.000-07:00

I'm back, well back in person and back in school. It's awesome. Both really. And both not.

Last weekend I spent the days enjoying some sweet entertainment in Boone NC. It was an awesome time. I did some DH runs at Hawksnest Resort and rode like three hours around the mountains. It was a pretty good time.

Then when I got back to school everything just hit the fan. It sucks. I just seem to be hitting road block after road block. And it's not getting any better. Why can't I just show up to school and sign in and that's it. Why all the bs stuff? Arrr. I'm pissed.

We have our first race this weekend and honestly I'm not really sure if I'm racing or not because the wonderful "doctor's office" in Brevard has deemed me not healthy enough to race. I'll tell you who's unhealthy, all those football players who cannot walk down the street without loosing their breath.

I'm done. I'm sooo tired of being nice to people that really piss me off. What good does it do to be nice to certain "people" when I know there is going to be no benefit for me. I'm not going to get anything out of it.

I'm pissed, and I'm done, and I need to go ride but I can't since it's raining.

Anyway, enjoy the movie since it's about people who are the best in world because they don't sit around like certain "athletes" I know.
T

Big Money

2009-08-13T08:20:00.000-07:00

Wow, I just totaled up my trip to that northern 51st state. It was not cheap, but when is good fun and great trips cheap? I mean until the candy prices come down, I'm stuck with paying for my enjoyment instead of getting free stuff.

In case you didn't see that, that was a plug to any candy company for sponsorship...just leave me a comment.

Haha, anyway. I was gone for a while, long enough to do laundry three times. Which is a long time for me. I dropped you off after I finished up at Bromont. We drove down to Ludlow (awesome name for a town by the way) to stay with Ethan Gilmore and the crew for a few days. As T-Nasty figured out we could never find all necessary items (internet, TV and Phone Service) for chilaxing. Only two, every time we drove into town everybody would be talking on the phone from the time we got there to the time we left. Must have been pretty entertaining for the locals.

Ethan showed us some good riding in the next town and took us on a brutal recovery ride where I bonked and complained the whole time. Wednesday T-Nasty and I drove down to that snowy mountain. The boys of the Dirty South let me stay at their condo for a few days while we stocked up on chillage, where once again we couldn't get phone service or internet. But we did get TV. Sickness.

The course was pretty fun, they went back to the old start loop of going up the gravel and coming down the trail. But they did cut out half of the climbing and descending on the rest of the course. Bummer that we didn't have that fun decent but I didn't really miss the climbing.

I started pretty good, and was sitting top 25?? when my cleats came loose. Like that ever happens. Quick backtrack, earlier in the week I switched shoes because I damaged my race pair. And it turns out that I didn't remember to check the cleats before my race. So a big bummer that it happened, but you can bet money that I'll never forget to check my cleats.

So I finished 33rd, not bad out of like 70 something starters so I at least brought home some glory. Not much though.

What now? Nothing much, I finally got home Tuesday night and I've been trying to finish stuff up before I go back to school. I've been taking a much needed break off the bike for the past couple of days.

I might do some cool stuff, like a downhill race or even go to the beach. I don't think I've ever been to the beach during the summer so this should be a cool experience. I'm also doing some tire testing too, I figured if I'm going to be repping Specialized tires I should probably ride all of them so I can half way know what I'm talking about. So next time you see me so you ask me how much I know about tires...haha.

In the mean time, start making plans to come to the Brevard Collegiate race to cheer us on and I might be doing another "Kool Aid" man deal.....we'll see.

When are they going to move Tim Horton's down here?

Cows, Syurp, and Green Mountains Part 2

2009-08-04T14:48:00.000-07:00

I was about to write a blog this morning but I opted for watching the videos from the Bromont World Cup race. Nothing great, just some DH stuff, you know down my alley not usually for the general public.

Blah, blah, blah. On to the race. It went pretty well, considering that I got called up second to last out of an 120 rider field. I left our house/barn thing about 2.5 hours before the start and by the time I made it over to the course I just had some light sprinkles of rain but by the time our 2:30 rolled around it was a full on pouring, pinned rain storm. Awesome.

Raining actually made the course better since it washed off all the mud from the previous races and cleaned everything up. I had my Storms on so I could pretty much ride everything out there without too much trouble but some parts were still probably faster to run. Had a bit of a rough start trying to get moved up in the pack and probably only pulled back 10 spots or so. I was suffering pretty bad on the climb but my skillz were tons better than the Euros so I could pull back stuff in the woods.

To make a long story short, I lasted four laps before getting pulled with two to go. Somehow or somewhere I passed most of the Americans in our group (Travis still swears that he was in the middle of trail and I rode right over him) and finished up 71st. Ethan was the only one from our group that made it one more lap. It was pretty cool to see that we were all right there together and it just depends on what day someone is feeling good. I was pretty glad that I got pulled since I'm pretty sure my bike was about to quit working as well.

Monday was a late start and a three hour drive down to Ludlow, Vermont punctuated by gas stops, me getting lost once or twice (the only time I've gotten lost the whole trip!), me hitting on a cute gas station attendant, and some wicked good ice cream. I am staying in Ludlow for one more night before Travis and I are driving over to West Dover and getting a condo for the rest of the week.

It's been a really fun trip so far but I'm a bit bummed that I've been on the road all alone. Although I have friends at all these races it's not the same as my 828 buddies. I can't wait for the collegiate season where I'll be ready to pin it again.

I'm working on my picture taking skillz too. Hopefully these are a little better. I think they look cool.

Mount Broh-man

2009-08-03T19:31:00.000-07:00

Sup 'merica. How are things going down there? It's pretty good fun up here. Well except for the internet. I finally, after four days of trying was able to get something other than Google and Facebook. For some reason those are the two that worked. Don't ask me.

Anyhow, it's been fun chillaxing in K-Bec for the past couple of days. The course is alright, the past three times I rode it I felt like a little girl on her first prom date. I was all over the place! It's been raining off and on for the past few days so that's making the slow, technical sections even sketchier. There is however, a section on an old dual slalom track and you know I'm "givin 'er" Dan P. I finally was able to clean all of them today, albeit it was not very pretty. Sorry Old Man, I know that it's fast to roll stuff but I'm not caring that much about going fast. Since I'm going to get schooled by the best in the world I figure I'd just let it hang out a little more and hopefully you guys back home can see what happens on Freecaster.

I start at 2:30 but I doubt I'll even be in the camera at the start since I'll be at the very back. My number is 116 so I know that there is at least 115 people in my race and all of them are going to be starting in front of me. Awesome. So since I was feeling a bit girlie I mounted up some Specialized spikes (Storms)and I'm sure they'll hook up since my boy Scrub "Sam" Hill rode them to a win last weekend at Mont St. Anne. What he didn't tell the reporters was that I told him what tires to use.

The rest of vacation? Um...not really sure yet. I'm probably going to hit the national race at Mount Snow since it looks like they might have changed the course back to the better, old one. We'll see. After that it's just me taking my time coming home and riding a ton. And yes, to all those who are worried about me being "in shape" for the collegiate season should not worry no moe. I'll be in pretty good shape ready to run it wide and let it slide.

Later America, if it weren't for Tim Horton's I'd be back.

The Land of Cows, Cheese, and Maple Syurp

2009-07-29T10:27:00.000-07:00

Howdy folks,

Finally after like a 11 hour day of traveling, I got into Rickter Pound State Park or something like that last night. That's where the parents were spending their time in VT before I got there. Woke up this morning and we drove up a few towns to Cabot to tour a cheese factory and eat some really good cheddar. Anyway, I found a place (the local library) to catch up on email and blog writing. I was looking for some good pictures but it's all mostly driving stuff and not very interesting.

Anyway, nothing much new going on here. Just been hanging out and having fun.

And I still haven't had a shower since I left home. Awesome.

Good Morning Mondays

2009-07-20T04:07:00.000-07:00

Got up and had some time before work to add some cool stuff to the blog. Enjoy.
I'll write some more about the race this afternoon or something.

Created by Recipe Star

One Last Weekend

2009-07-18T16:29:00.001-07:00

So, I have finally returned to racing. Well it feels like it's been a while. Drove up to the new Falling Waters race today and checked out the course. Also managed to get lost and drive around in Gilmer County. Awesome. Found some good roads to ride and some not so good and didn't really find a race until the very end.

Interesting course, straight up a future subdivision road and straight down right beside the road in the woods. Not much to it. The climb is pretty uncomfortable and the top part is pretty slow, but the decent is quite scary. I really wish I had some type of computer on my mountain bike because I'm pretty sure I'm going to hit a new top speed tomorrow. Super, super fast. My brakes decided to stop working when I tried braking for the hairpin corner but I manged to keep it up right for a few more feet.

Anyway, didn't get any pictures today but I'll try and get some tomorrow. Just doing the race for some good training before my big northern trip and hopefully not killing myself either.

Careful of the clown fish.

Oh and my new sport.

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

2009-07-16T03:39:00.000-07:00

Mannn, how come Sam Hill gets to land sideways and I can't, Wes D???

More quality footage.

FYI

2009-07-13T03:28:00.000-07:00

If you didn't know this about me already.

Appreciation and My New Love

2009-06-30T18:22:00.000-07:00

Well, Mrs. Squirrel is right. I need to stop taking this whole bike game thing seriously. So I helped teach other kids about the success, or not, of bike racing for a week. It was fun, I want to do it again.

On to more pressing matters. I went to Brevard last weekend, I had a ton of fun on and Fruday and Saturday but not so much on Sunday because I ended up getting in a teenage girl pissy mood because I had to drive back home. I watched some fireworks, they were cool. I haven't seen fireworks in like ten years.

On to the rest of the projected year. I'm still deciding to go to Anniston this weekend because I really need to sit back and train and stuff and attempt to get faster. I will be going to the GSC race at Carter's Lake the following weekend, sorry to those who are skipping out on nationals. Then I finish up a few more days at work before heading off to North Kack for much needed hang out time. Then it's off to someplace else that I don't really want to publish in the open just yet. I'm sure most of you know it already. Then it's off to some more races before getting ready for the collegiate season.

Then it's some more secret plans for the school year that I'm not saying because I haven't quite finalized just yet.
Sounds like fun, eh?

In the meantime, I've discovered a new thing that it's completely not (but at the same time it completely is) associated with cycling. Just on a random feeling the other night I decided to look up used coffee books on Amazon.com. Three hours and thirty dollars later, I am a new owner of four books on coffee and beer and whiskey. Awesome huh?

I want to start growing my own trees but Mom suggested against that because it would probably not work very well so I probably shouldn't spend too much money on it. I AM, however, going to start roasting my own beans just as soon as I can distinguish different tastes and stuff. I want to be a true "cupper". A fleeting image flashed across my mind as I clicked my mouse button; a physical therapy center combined with a coffee shop, just what Brevard needs. Cupper Cowie's Coffee.

Anyway, I was just writing to let you guys know that there is more that interests me than big pieces of metal and rubber. Now it's plants too.

I've got to go to sleep to get ready for a big day of work tomorrow. I leave you with a vid of the king of doing work. From his younger years.

Good Night America.
P. S.
It would be cool if I did that in the north though....imagine the ring: Candian Cupper Cowie's Coffee. Or in the winter it could be: Cool Candian Cupper Cowie's Coffee. Or it could be... never mind.

More than cowbell needed

2009-06-25T06:44:00.000-07:00

Well, I’m not really sure when I can post this because I’m without internet for a while. I’m working a USA Cycling Camp in North Carolina this week and the place we are staying at doesn’t have any access which is a major bummer. I can’t even find out who won the World Cup this weekend…hint, hint.

Did the Cowbell Challenge yesterday. Alright course, not really my type though. Pretty hot, but I don’t think it really affected me. I was doing good, sitting in for a lap and then made some mistakes and got gapped and couldn’t catch back on in the really fast field sections. It sucked because I could see the lead group just up the road but couldn’t nail it down. Oh well, rolled in for 6th just off the podium and just out of the money too. Again.

I guess I shouldn’t be complaining too much because even though it was a bad day I still was in the mix but it’s not really where I should be you know.

So yeah, just chilaxing in North Kack for the week and doing a bunch of riding. Pretty sweet huh? I doubt I’m going to do the SERC race at Raccoon Mtn. so the next race is Anniston probably. Didn’t take any pictures this weekend either, so bummed about that too. Crappy weekend.

Bumping Around the South

2009-06-01T18:53:00.001-07:00

So I had somebody tell me I had a New Zealand-ish accent today. That's never happened before.

I didn't really know I sounded New Zealand but whatever, that's cool. Sorry it's been awhile since I last checked in. Not much has happened, or maybe I've been too busy to write anything. Anyway, uh....what has happened? Oh yeah, I did the Bump and Grind Race in Bama town.

It went ok, the start was pretty intense, right up there with a Euro start as 70-something dudes tried to cram into the same two-inch wide single track.

I was still feeling Germany a bit and I really needed a rest. I was making a ton of mistakes and hitting sections super sloppy. But I hung on to finish up 21st which was a pretty good result for how I was feeling.

So I found some cool footage of race and even a split second of me at the call ups.

Here is another picture from the pre-ride, sorry Thad you didn't make the cut I guess.

Next on the calendar is another week of chilling at the house while painting my room. I hope, if everything goes as planned. And then it's off to North Kack for the next Kenda Cup and a week of helping out developing riders at the USA Cycling Camp. Then it might be the next SERC race at Raccoon Mtn. I don't know about that because I didn't really enjoy the course last year and it might be good to save a little bit of money. We'll see.

I leave you with a great site that my pal Dot Com lead me to. It's pretty funny.

2009-05-30T21:23:00.001-07:00

Chilling at the Squrriel nest in bama. Course looks good. About 50/50 pavement and trail. Not too hot. Hoping for a top 20?? Maybe? I dont race until 3. Later.

Welcome to the USA!

2009-05-26T06:37:00.000-07:00

Sorry folks, I didn't mean to keep you in suspense. I made it back. But you might have already known that from my Brevard post. That is if you read the Brevard website.

So, it took forever but I finally made back into the US of A. Pretty happy not to struggle with ordering food or finding the bathroom or other simple tasks. I made a mental note to improve my language skills and stop being so ignorant. A big eye opener as I figured it would be. So that's good, I don't know about me but the parents get really excited when I start talking intellectually.

I also will say; that even though I couldn't really understand any of what they were saying, the Frankfurt Airport has some of the most attractive airline representatives that I have ever encountered. Germans are smart, use the most attractive people you can find for customer service. So when they charge you 300 Euro for your bike, you bat your eyes at them instead of the price. FYI and a fun, interesting side note for you travelers.

Saturday was the hill climb, wait I can't even remember if I did a report on that. OH ya, I did. My B. So Sunday we drove up to someplace where I don't remember the name. Hang on, Solingen Germany, that's it. So we drove up, kitted up, and headed out for a lap. It was a pretty fun course, nothing too steep, which I like. And a downhill start. They started the U23 riders with the Pros but they separated the classes for awards. E-tan and I sunk up to the front after we got called up at the back. I got a good start in about 5th and sat in on the descent. Some pro guy just launched off the front and the 2nd place guy started chasing him so that left me with Ethan and some other dude who we thought was a U23. The three of us rode together for most of the race until the other guy attacked and dropped us. We started chasing and Ethan ended up dropping me and another two pros passed me. To make a long story short, the guy who we thought was a U23 guy was actually a Pro so Ethan won it and I got second. Pretty rad.

Mitch was pretty bummed because he just missed out on a podium in 4th for the second time. But he probably made the most amount of money from his 4th at the hill climb. Trevor and Colin both had good races too. Stephen crashed and was bummed and Kevin was burnt out and happy to be going back to the states.

So what am I doing now? Just chilling at the house in Ga trying nail down everything I need to do before summer starts. I can't really tell you my plans for the rest of summer because I'm going to have to start doing secret training. But I will be at the Bump and Grind this weekend hopefully running it wide open. For you 828 residents I am coming up there next weekend and I'm bringing some presents too. So keep your eyes open.

I add some pictures too since I can finally up load them in a reasonable amount of time. Late, T.

Busy packing bikes after a long day.

Chilling at the airport and trading stories.

Podium shot.

Apparently they don't use pants in Germany.

Road to Up

2009-05-23T12:55:00.000-07:00

Yeah ok, hill climbs suck. A ton. I don't really like them, well time trials might be better than mass start hill climbs but neither are really much fun.

Probably the worst race so far over here, got a good start and jumped on the back of the leaders and then got popped on a super super steep climb right off the start. Got back on before we hit the gravel. 11.5K climb, 2K on pavement, rest on gravel roads. And then they accelerated just as I got on. Slipped back through the groups until I rode with Stephen and Trevor. We tried to attack another dude since we had three vs. one but didn't really work as we were pegged. Well I think Stephen got him in the end. Mitch was pinned and got 4th and a ton of money. They said they were going to mail it to him. Awesome, sucks fo you. I finished just outside the top 20. Bum-er.

Tomorrow is really early get up to drive up to the race. Don't know much about the course but it's probably pretty flat and about 4 or 5K long. We do like 6 laps. So a fairly short race. It's pretty early in the day (1:20 start time) so we should have plenty of time to pack up and check out Frankfurt. Hopefully.

Well, it's been sweet over here, but I want to get back and start hanging out again. Or not as I have different plans....secret plans.

I'll write some more as soon as I can. Later Uh-merica.

The Start of the End

2009-05-21T12:15:00.001-07:00

So here it is. The last weekend over in Germany. It's been pretty freaking sweet and only three weeks long. Well not even that either. Oh well, this weekend is going to be pinned. Saturday is a late start with a hill climb at 3 this afternoon. It's about an hour away and it's a mass start race. Awesome. I want to do better in Sunday's Bundlesgia race. After the race today we drive back and pack up and clean the rooms. Sunday we're out of here at 6:30 and driving four hours to the Bundlesgia race. That is another afternoon race at 3 or 4 tomorrow. Then we are staying up at the race and packing the bikes before getting up and shuttling to the airport on Monday. Hopefully nothing goes bad and I'll be back home around 12 Monday night. Sick. And then the real world comes back. Bummer.

It's been some awesome times over here. The riding's pretty good, the guys are awesome to hang out with, and the racing is insanely hard. Although I'm going to miss it, it will be nice to be back. It's not the same as going to a camp in the states or something, you are freaking lonely over here. It's just a bunch of people who don't speak English or very little.

Haha, I'm just thinking about tomorrow. About 24 hours from now my boys will be just about back from the 12 hours of Tsali. A super big race for the team and I'm missing it. Not cool, but I'm sure they'll pick up the ropes and throw down for me.

Anyway, not a very interesting post so I guess I'll have to add some pictures. Haha. I'll probably be able to write another one tonight and tell you how the race went today but unless I can get some internet at the airport or hotel the next time I write will be back in Uh-merica. That is if the plane doesn't run out of fuel.

Later nerds,
T

Oh yeah more press, scroll to the very last line.

Midnight Musings

2009-05-19T14:45:00.000-07:00

Sup folks of course I forgot to post pictures again. I really don't like to because the internet sucks here so it takes forever to get anything up. I might rememember to do it tomorrow though.

In the meantime, I found some interesting stuff to watch. Sick vid of Bubba triple, triple, triple at the best place to ride in downtown ATL. And a interesting news story brought to you by KKK-wood. Thanks bro.

2009-05-18T12:51:00.000-07:00

Dudeeeesss
I found some good stuff here. It's the results from the race we did on Sunday so you can make sure I'm not making stuff up.

Oh yeah I did say I was going to post some pictures but I forgot. Probably tomorrow then but I'm going to take some more first. And if you guys haven't noticed I added the other guy's blogs on the side so check them out. They're awesomeness in a bag, or on the web, or floating in cyber-space or...whatever.

Send IT!!!

2009-05-18T10:19:00.000-07:00

Homies, I'm kind of liking this whole time change thing. I can wait until after lunch time to write my blogs because I know none of you are going to be up at 3 in the morning checking your email. How do I know this? There's absolutely nothing to do after we get up except sit on facebook waiting patiently for someone to get on. And I know you won't be online unless you're studying and doing homework or you're one of the those people who tries to talk to people at 3 in the morning completely wasted. I know who you are...

I thought I could talk about the race, but I'm pretty much flat wore out. IF you want to read about the race in depth, check out the post I did for the Brevard Website. It took me forever by the way. I'll even give you the link so you don't have to go search for it.

To make the story short, I pretty much rode the same pace the whole race. Didn't feel good and didn't really feel bad either. Just the same speed. Got a bad start and first lap and missed the "move". I ended up 23rd but if I was like 2 minutes faster then I probably would have been in a big group. And then I could have got a possible 12th place. I guess, I hope. No, that's all theoretical. But the chance was there.

The course was pretty lame, total euro. Crazy start, long gradual climb that pitched up hard for a while and some really muddy spots at the top. The downhill was pretty lame, the DH'ers used the same course and made it really choppy. It was pretty freaking rough in some places, some big wheel size holes and stuff. Nothing really that bad about it, mostly one line with some places where you needed to enter with a little less speed or enter it wider. Pretty tame. After pre-riding and scaring the daylights out of me on my dry tires (Fast Tracks), our mechanic changed over to my Sauser Winds, which was probably the best tire for that course. They were hooking up. So, props to Specialized for making that sick tire that I could run. Worked great.

We found a good Italian food place after the race and hung out for a while eating and trading stories. It was pretty cool and we had some sweet ice cream two times after that.

I went for a ride witH Jimmy, Joey, and Mitch this morning. We rode down to Freiburg and checked out some stuff. I forgot my camera so I'll probably go back some time this week.

This weekend is going to be pretty pinned. We have a local hill climb on Saturday and then an XC race in the north on Sunday. We think it's a afternoon race so we'll probably leave Sunday morning and drive up. I think it's like 4 hours away. Not really sure where it is though. Then after the race we have to pack our bikes and bags before we drive down to the airport in Frankfurt and I get on a plane and go home. I'm still sorting through pictures and stuff, so I'll probably post something this afternoon some time or tomorrow because I'll probably forget today. Oh well.

I'm going to leave you with some sweet vids.

The first Trevor found of the race that we did. It's from 2007 though. Similar course but there's some new stuff that I never saw.

The second one is pure awesome. Great song, great riders, great racing. They were lucky I didn't race downhill on Sunday.

Free Music Fridays

2009-05-15T07:34:00.000-07:00

Today is a great day. Not really sure if it is yet but I’ll find out. I figured I needed a little bit of Ice Cube to get me going. Today is Friday. It is also laundry day too. I really, really need to do some. “I’ve been wearing the same dirty underpants for three days now”. Ha-ha, just kidding.

Since the weather over here is still deciding whether it wants to rain or not, I’m still trying to decide whether I want to ride or not. We are passing the time by “sharing” our music with one another. I have some pictures I could up load but it takes forever. I might start it now and hopefully when I come back from my ride they will be up. Perhaps.

Well, uh….what have I been doing? We rode to the top of some mountain the other day. About an hour or so climb and a 20ish minute decent. It was pretty cool at the top because we got back into the snow line. The decent was pretty fun, but it was really steep so you really had to stay on the ball and chill on the straight bits to make the hairpins.

I found out a little bit about the race on Sunday. It’s in Northern Germany. You can get on the website here. The English is terrific. At this race there is an actual class for the Under 23 riders. Pretty cool because we don’t have to race the super, super world cup guys that would lap us. Come to think of it, the fastest U23s are probably just as fast as the Elites so I’m probably still going to get lapped. Hooray!

The kicker is that there are 104 U23 registered. One hundred four!!! That’s freaking nuts! The biggest race I’ve done in the states had like 100 guys of all ages in there. This race has over a hundred in ONE class. Not cool guys. There are more Under 23 riders than in the elite (pro) class. Easy race? NOT!

It’s hard to explain how hard these Euro races are. In the states, the courses are usually long (8-10miles per-lap) and hard. In Europe the courses are short and relatively easy (1-3miles per-lap). Although the total distance is about the same (it depends on terrain but it will be around a 2 hour race) the Euro races have twice as many laps. You’d think that the “easier” courses would be “easier” but that’s usually not the case since you can go so much faster and carry more speed.

Anyway, we’re meeting a German team at 9 tomorrow and driving three hours up to the race and going for pre-rides and chilling at the hotel tomorrow. I think we race at like 9 something tomorrow which is like 3 in American time. I don’t think I’m going to bring my computer so I’ll write a report on Monday when we get back.

Don’t float away America, someday I’m coming back.

Moving day

2009-05-13T23:50:00.000-07:00

Yo, sup. I told you I'd be back. Today the U23 guys left to go to Luxembourg and do some road racing. So, Kevin and I had to move our junk from our sweet room to the room vacated by the U23 guys. This required me to give up my alpha male room and I was not very happy about that. Oh well, I now live in a tiny room with three beds. And no counter tops or shelf space. Bummer. I'll take some more sweet pics soon though.

Before I forget, I need to give Brevard College props for putting me up on the website for the whole thing about going to Germany. I'm going to start writing blogs for the Athletic site too so you can read those too, but it's pretty much going to be the same and you'll get pictures over here. But they're trying and they need props.

Also found some more info on the development camp. Pretty sick. And USA Cycling did an article too, but it's the same article.

Rob woke us up when he left so we've been up since like 6:45. Made some coffee and started the marathon hangout on computers. There's really not that much stuff to do here, other than ride your bike which is what we are supposed to do. I think we are planning a trip next week to France since we are only like a few hours away. That would be sweet, since I at least know basic conversation terms in French than German. Ok, Mom, you were right this time. It probably would have been nice to bring a travelers guide to German on this trip because really no one except Joey, the mechanic, knows German.

I will be happy to be back someplace where people speak American. And I don't have to struggle to complete simple tasks like going to the bath room, ordering food, ordering plain water instead of gas water.

We just finished planning our dinner so I will probably go back to watching the Giro.
Later nerds.

No lie

2009-05-13T01:22:00.000-07:00

Yo, I found the race we did on Cyclingnews.

Check it out.

Windmills, bakery, and racing

2009-05-12T07:23:00.000-07:00

C'est la vie. Howdy folks, I'm back from being busy sitting on my butt. It's been awesome.

Let me start with Sunday's race. It was really, really short. Under 10min laps. It went straight up this super steep climb and a gradual downhill before climbing again and a really fast loose downhill to some grass back to the start. It was really short, did I say that before?

Anyway, we had to do 10 laps for about 20K total. It was a much smaller field than the Swiss race but still there were 30 guys in our race. We rode from our hostel to the race and then back home after it was over. It took about an hour of easy spinning to get down there. So we raced 2 hours on Saturday, rode Sunday morning for half an hour, rode down to the race, raced for an hour, and rode back. Pretty long week end. I'm a little tired of riding my bike.

The race went good, I figured most of the guys would be gassed by the super steep climb so I sat back and chilled until the top where I could make up time. Didn't really work because the Euros were thinking the same thing. Anyway, Tad drove the front for a few laps and it got whittled down pretty quick, I rode in 3rd for most of the race before blowing big time on the last couple of laps. Rob passed me and caught 2nd and I ended up sprinting a dude for 5th. Pretty sick, I didn't get on the podium but I still got paid some Euros. Sickness!

Monday we rode with Rob on this super long ride where we climbed for at least an hour. It was pretty cool but probably not the best thing for after a race. I took some pictures at the top when we hit the snow line.

Today, we rode some more trails and rode up to these three wind turbines and hiked up to the top of a tower and then rode some pretty sweet, steep trails down. I took some pictures at the top. After we were done riding I walked around town and took some more pictures of Kirchzarten.

Tonight, Mark and his wife, who are staying outside Kirchzarten are going to cook us dinner. We are going to go up there and hang out for a bit and probably play some soccer with his kids. Sounds like some good times.

Later Ameica, I'll be back soon.

This is one of the bakeries in town by the way. It's good, but not as good as BMB.

Hello!

2009-05-08T06:51:00.000-07:00

So, I'm back. I was able to get connected to the internet last night but didn't really have time to do much as it was pretty late and I had been up for like...uh...several hours. I did post the blogs about my exciting time in the airport. It was awesome. And some pictures, the pics took wayyy longer than normal to post so I might not be able to do a bunch. We'll see.

I tried to sleep a bit on the plane, it was really nice that I didn't have anyone sitting next to me but I was planning on staying up as late as I could and then sleeping and waking up on the "German" time. It kind of worked out. I woke up this morning at 5 but that might have been because of the thunderstorm we had last night.

Anyway, yesterday was the first race. I got 35th out of 75 or so starters. I was the 4th American and 11th?? U23 rider. Not bad for the first race. Of course Nino and Florian Vogel beat me by 20 minuets. But Nino got third at the Olympics last year.

I spent most of the race stuck in a big group of like 10 guys with Tad Elliot, Rob Squire, and Mitch Hoke. All the Euros wanted us to work since we had 4 guys but Tad and Rob kept trying to break it up. Eventually they did and gapped me and Mitch. We rode 8 of 9 laps after the leaders lapped us about half way around our last one.

Tad was the only one from the US that didn't get lapped, he got like 27th or something so big props to him.

The course was about 60 or 70% pavement with a short but really rooty and slick as hot butter climb. The decent was pretty fun, some cool places were you could make up so time and my big o'27 inch bars were doing the work for me.

The climb was pretty steep with some snot covered roots, I didn't get any pictures but I'm hoping to go out and some today. Oh yeah, I forgot again we are racing today too. Not really sure how long or how big the race is but there's one in the next town (Freiburg). I heard something about 10 laps and 20K so hopefully pretty short because the legs are a bit pissed at me for racing twice.

The race itself was pretty cool, there was a huge expo with tons of companies and bike and free stuff. It was like twice the size of a US race. Kevin put the race into a good perspective. In terms of prestige in wining the race and the size of fields it's like a Mountain States Cup (Mid-west race series-small fields, small purse, etc.). But in regards to who shows up to these "small" races it's more like a ProXTC race in the states (a national level race).

Anyway, there's a ton of stuff I'm missing like the food we have and the places we've eaten out at. I'll probably have to do another post tonight after the race. Whatever happens in the race, I'm stoked because I'm in Europe and above all I'm racing my bike and that's all that matters.

Peace out America...I miss you...a little bit....not much.

P.S.
Pretty funny, near the end of the race some Swiss chick was cheering me on and I'm certain that she was saying: "Time for a change, time for a change."

German Pictures

2009-05-08T03:22:00.000-07:00

My room in the hostel/condo thing.

Our kitchen. There are three suites on our floor and each place has two rooms. A bed room and a kitchen/living room.

Airport, non-internet, and food

2009-05-07T12:42:00.000-07:00

May 6
12:17 pm (ATL airport)

Well, it’s not even 12 o’clock yet and I’m pissed. In addition to my ticket, over priced water, and baggage charges the freaking internet is another expense at the airport. Oh well, at least I have two movies I can watch, but Stars and Bars will get boring after the second time probably.

I’m stuck, the whole plan was that I could watch some Family Guy on Hulu, download some new releases from iTunes and steal movies from my parent’s Netflix account. Not happening anymore. Sucks in a very major way.

So, right now I’m just hanging out in the ATL waiting for my first flight. It’s supposed to come in at some time, I have no idea when but I’m posed to leave at 1:15. Then it’s a short 2 hour one to the home of the gangsters. From there it’s a 5 hour layover before the big 9 hour flight to Germany. I’ll probably be walking back and forth in that tunnel a TON, right Chaput? You know what I’m talking about.
I will say that I was pretty stoked that I didn’t get charged at all for the bike. Which was sickkk. But I am going to be charged for intent. Go rot in some cave airline people. I’m adding you to the People I Don’t Really Like At All List. Along with dentists, doctors, and college text book publishers.

I am extremely bored if you haven’t guessed and this is the shortest part of my journey. Not good. I was a bit bummed to be leaving the 828 yesterday. That lasted until about halfway home when I remember all the food at my house. Haha, just kidding. Nah, there are some good people up there and I’m going to miss seeing them around. Some are leaving Brevard for good, some are going home, and some are staying there. I’ll be seeing you folks soon, after I you know, come back and everything.
T-Walker called me a little bit ago and said that my blog might be on the Brevard College webpage. That’s pretty cool, I guess I’d better not say anything bad about the College now. Not that I do haha.

This is going to be kind of interesting because I don’t really know when I’m going to be posting these entries. So I guess I should include dates and such.

I’ll let you guys go for a bit, this laptop is frying my legs and I should probably go back to wondering what type of driver I am….

May 6
5:05 home time

Chicago Airport

Ok…I officially hate airports. They suck. I still cannot get on the internet and I have no movies to help take up some time. I could go find one…that is an idea I just thought of. I might explore that possibility after I’m finished writing this post. Atlanta had a better deal too with the internet I wish I had gotten some there.
I finally got some food too, Quizzno’s, I was right next to a Mickey D’s but I wasn’t really feeling it so I went with a sub. Turns out it was like 8 bucks for a six inch sub, rip off. Then I found a nice deserted terminal where I sat down to enjoy my sandwich. I was invaded by a family of non-Americans. (They were nice people I’m sure who didn’t speak American (English), but they didn’t have control over their kids who started jumping on my stuff and crawling around my nice previously deserted area.) Whatever. I should have stayed American all the way and eaten my 5 dollar Big Mac.
Well, I’m still sitting here. Only three more hours to my flight. I walked around a bit when I got here and ended up getting lost a little bit and then finding my way to the right terminal. I’d better find some internet when I get to Germany or I’m going to be pissed.

I had a pretty nice flight over to IL. I sat next to this talkative fat guy who sat on the outside. He was pretty nice, especially when I almost put on head on his shoulder when I fell asleep. Can you say “awkward”?

The weather has been wired. It started raining in Atlanta and stopped when right before I left. It was clear and sunny in Chicago but it’s just started to rain now. We’ll see how the weather is in that other country.

New path to Butter

2009-04-30T15:22:00.000-07:00

I just finished another long ride in the beautiful mountains of North Kack. Life is rough ain't it? (Wow, even though I'm southern it took me five tries to spell that right-must be the Canadian in me). Anyway, I rode up to Butter Gap today and hung out a bit. Found that new trail that P. Ennis told me about and rode it, a bit steep and sketchy but I made it down.

Last weekend was fun and very um...interesting. After driving down to Yargo and pre-riding the course (which I didn't like very much) we drove over to Athens to experience what the Athens Twilight weekend is. The race was pretty cool but it was a pretty boring race for the most part so I spent the evening standing and hanging out the usual.

Stayed in Commerce that night and got up at 6 after going to bed at 2 to drive down to Yargo. I figured the race would either go really good or really bad. After the typical shennagans at the start, we stayed together for the first lap before Robert and Ryan attacked on the main climb. We still had a huge group half way around that first lap, so I hopped on the front and drove it for bit and that seemed to pop some guys off.

Robert got back on the front and slowed it down a bit for the second lap and I was needing it badly. On the last lap Thomas and Ryan attacked again and got a gap while Seth, Robert, and myself. Robert got popped and it was down to Seth and myself. I pulled out a pass on the very last climb but he defended it very well and shut me down. I backed off and let him take the last spot on the podium.

Big props to Seth for hanging with the front on Sunday. He just keeps on getting fast every time I race him. It's funny, I'm 19 but I'm worrying about the young guys coming up and racing me. It's a hard life at the top, haha.

It's been pretty pinned for the last week, trying to get everything switched before I leave for Germany. Yeah, I'm pretty excited but it's not really going to set in until I get everything finished for school. Wheew. It's been a long week and it's going to be a even longer next few days.

I'm sure I should be studying for something so I'm going to check out. But I'll leave you with a freaking AWESOME movie about Bubba. Everybody need to tune into Speed tonight at 10 (ET) for the final supercross race in Vegas. If you want to hang out with cool people and such come on over and chill. Room 17.

Hundreth

2009-04-25T07:11:00.000-07:00

Wow this will be number one hundred. Kind of cool, definitely not something to write home about which is why I'm writing these some what non-existent people who read my blog.

Anyway, it's taken me a while to write all those posts but I figured that it would take me longer than what it has. Weird.

So I almost forgot to tell everyone about my trip. Yeah I said that I was going to Germany in May. Well, I have to go now because we bought the tickets last night. I'm going to be flying into Frankfurt Germany on May 6th. We're driving down to Kirchzarten, Germany after we get there. Kirchzarten is in the Alps right here. Supa sick. The weather looks decent for the moment, not as nice as back home but close. I'll be there for about three weeks coming back on the 25th. We're doing three races there, two "Swiss Biker Cups" and one smaller race on the last weekend. I'm pretty stoked about it and I just need to finish some projects for school and I'll be ready to peace out and head on.

Right now, I'm chilling in GA waiting for the time to slip by. I'm meeting some people in Winder where we are riding and then heading over to Athens to watch the the Twilight Crit race downtown. Sunday, the gang is racing the SERC race in Winder at Fort Yargo and coming back to Brevard that night. Everything's awesome and yeah....not much else going on. I figured that I might use this weekend to get caught up with everything because next week is going to be straight pinned. Anyway, later nerds.

Sun, Rain, Tornados and Fightin Words

2009-04-20T16:34:00.000-07:00

Yo, I'm back. For the moment.

Let's see where I did I leave off. Oh yeah, it was just before the conference champs in B-Town. They went good, bad and ok depending on who you ask. In the road race we manged to continue the season long theme of missing the break and chasing. We missed it and then soft pedaled for like the rest of the race. Interesting points during the three hours we rode around the land of the water falls included St. Marie and I goofing off in front of Talent (who was driving the wheel truck) and then getting ridden into the gutter in the next cross wind. I imagine that Talent was laughing extremely hard at this point as we pretty much were performing Bike Racing 101 rule of what not. I tried to set up Marshal on the run into town but the legs said no I got popped off my group rolling in at 24th.

The crit went a little better but not by much. I missed the break again and spent the rest of the race chasing. This is where I have to go on my little rant.

I'm not going to mention any names because the people I'm talking about know who they are. Let me just say, that you: **** ***** and you: *********** and you: ******* are just making life harder for yourselves. I consider you guys all my friends but after this weekend I'm reconsidering. As for you: ******* I'm not really sure what I think of you. I left the door open for you and I still have a little bit of respect but not much anymore. All of you folks better wish that you are graduating this spring because mountain bike season is going to suck. For you that is, not for me. I don't like it when people don't cooperate with me. And you must be satisfied with second place because that's all your going to get this fall.

Sorry about that, I just had to bring the rain down on some poor souls. After the break lapped us I figured what the hell, might as well put on a good show for the home crowd. I attacked with one to go and soloed to an 8th with the Saint right behind me in a very impressive 9th in his first true crit.

Now it's time for the props and thanks. Props go out to Joh and Jami for their first and seconds over the weekend, Parker for "parking" that road race with a 2nd, Wells for staying in the road race and team time trial, Mrs. Punky for holding out against 100s of little Lee's McRae racers, St. Maire for the impressive crit racing, the Manimal for cracking the whip on the hollow, and Batman and Robin for some great results in the sticky C Men field.

A super big thanks goes out all those people who helped out this weekend. The Saint Mariesss, the Wellszszszs, the Tellmans, the Hartleys, KB for handing us water, Coach Walker for doing WORK, the sister, DE and DC for setting up signs and the course, Chris J for driving the van, Talent for driving, Eddie for driving and standing, and everybody else for helping us ride in circles for multiple hours.

James Stewart wants to thank you too, so he threw a massive whip to show his appreciation.

Gagets

2009-04-15T20:13:00.000-07:00

Yo, so it's been a little bit since my last post. Once again, I figured I might slow down a bit and make each post a little bit more interesting. This hasn't really happened yet, but I have had more stuff to write about.

If you happened to see my last post you know that I have posted a blog from my phone. I was a little worried that I might have to switch to Twitter for instant posts but now I don't have too. I am very content. I'll probably use it mostly for updating race results on the fly with having to jump on the computer which will be nice. So you can stop making fun of me now.

Um...what else, the past weekend was Easter which I forgot about. Not the easter part but the whole bit about not having school on Monday. Would have been a good weekend to go home if I was prepared. Whoops. Yeah this shows the quality of Brevard College students. Instead of having Good Friday off like everybody else, we have our Good Friday on Monday not like everyone else. Dumb. But whatever, I'm not complaining too much because I got out of school for a day. It was real nice.

Wow, I just wasted most of that paragraph talking about school, not good. Instead of going to school I rode, big surprise right?

Did some testing on Saturday, found out how slow I was; practiced some skillz in the afternoon. Rode on Sunday with the Tamer, and that Punky kid as well as my better half, no not my wife duh. The sister. And Monday was raining all day so I went for a ride anyway and slid around a lot. I need some spikes if it continues to rain this much. I built some new super scary, super sketchy lines on Upper Sycamore. You probably won't be able to find them because I totally sprinkled leaves over them. Haha.

...Um...schools coming to a close soon, well like four?? weeks. And I have a ton of stuff to do before that happens. I did get selected for this whole like U23 development camp in Germany that starts the first week in May and goes until the end of May. And with that means I have to do more work to get everything ready to go before the end of the semester.

That's all that's been really happening. We have the collegiate road race conference champs this weekend in the local 828. If your in the area and don't know about the race you should totally come by and check it out. It's awesome. Sunday we are having the crit race downtown. We will hopefully represent and do lots of work.

I leave you with some inspiring movies about the people who know how to do work. Way better than anyone else does.

One and Two.

2009-04-14T18:46:00.001-07:00

Dude im writting a blog from my phone its awesome. I love living in the 21st century.

Free Thoughts

2009-04-09T19:38:00.000-07:00

So I've been taking the last couple of days off from writing. I need a break from doing blogs every other day. I've just been working on projects that deal with school and not with school at the same time. I've been thinking a lot too. Pretty much about everything. I'm trying to think of a way to make this blog more interesting. That's part of the reason that I might be cutting back on the number of posts. Instead of doing a post for every race, I might switch it up so that more races are grouped together and there's other less boring stuff in there.

We'll see. Blogging is a very interesting, very unique way of communication in this century. If any one ever is interested you can go back and read my old, old posts and see the changes I've had to make in my writing style. It's not easy writing these posts as I realize more and more that anyone can read it.

Some interesting notes, just some of what has been going through my head in the past few weeks.

Tsali went well, not great again, but just right. I ended up 4th out of a huge 30+ plus field. I forgot to take pictures because I was running around trying to hand out flyer's for Mrs. Squirrel so sorry about that but I'm sure that the able can find some on facebook. I might have played my tactics a little off but with every race I learn something new.

Someone once told me that eventually I will hit a plateau and stop improving. I don't think that will ever happen. I have so many goals that I will never, ever run out of things to do. That's the beauty of our sport isn't it? You can always go faster, always improve, always ride a little farther in the same time. That's what I've been learning to enjoy lately, I figure that this time I'm in college is the only time in my life that I will have time to do the things I want to do...so why waste it? It doesn't matter what the weather, the problems, the success, the frustrations; I'm doing what I love and I couldn't be happier.

Keep it pinned
T

Shout Out

2009-04-04T06:59:00.000-07:00

I just finished reading K-bombs blog and I'm pretty sure that if he ever came down to the 828 to hang out he would "fit" right in.

So I'm sending a shout out out. Dear Geoff if you ever need a place to stay and hang out you can come hang out in my dorm room or my shed. Both are super comfortable (although I haven't actually slept in the shed yet) and only 15min away from the trails. So come on down from that cold, wet place they call BC and chilax.

Also, let me say that there's one more spot at the Red House Inn in B-Town, great place to stay for the Collegiate Conference Race. Hint, hint...
T

2009-03-31T07:55:00.001-07:00

Need a job?

Try being a spy

Attack of the Birds

2009-03-30T18:18:00.001-07:00

Wow, so much has been packed into the day. Who'd have thunk it was a Monday? It all started with me going or not going to class. Haha just kidding, I went to all of my classes today. Well, that took up my time till 3 o'clock or so.

Chaput hit me up for a nice recovery ride. We rode out to Rosman but got attacked by like a hundred birds. Chaput got nailed in the shoulder while I missed one that hit my back. We were JRAing and these birds freaking dive bombed us.

After we got in some quality hang out time at the shop we rode back to BC and enjoyed a pleasant meal at the caf. After that I wanted to ride the mtb around so Chaput met up with Chedda T, P. Enis, and that really tall guy and started making some ruts and berms. I came over and we rode to the top of Ross Hall where we scoped some sick free riding lines. To make a long story about me um..."testing" the foam pit we convered the leaf pile to a makeshift foam pit and perfected our three-sixes.

Then we skipped out on our fire drill to hang out at Ingles to read magazines. We are intellectual and smrt.

Anyway, we learned a very important lesson last week. Next time don't take 50 cookies from the caf without thinking about the consequences. No, not that we go in trouble, more the fact of we are soooo sick and tired of cookies. I'm pretty sure I will kill myself if I eat another.

Big News

2009-03-28T19:28:00.000-07:00

So yeah, see if you can guess the tune...

Aww dang, get your hammers ready it's about to go down (shorty, yeah)
Everybody in the place hit the freaking porch (shorty, yeah)
But stay on your hobbit toes
We running this, let's go

I'm livin in a shed (I'm in a shed)
I'm livin in a shed (I'm in a shed)
Everybody look at me 'cause I'm livin in a shed (living in the shed)
I'm living in a shed (I'm in a shed)
I'm living in a shed
Take a good hard look at my awesome shed (shed, yeah)

I'm in a shed you mothers take a look at me
Straight hammering nails in Timmay's yard
Busting out boards, wind whipping my tin roof
You can't stop me cause I'm living in a shed

Take a picture, trick (trick)
I'm in a shed, Mitch (Mitch)
We drinking Timmay's beer and eating his food,
Cause it's so sick (sick)
I got my bike on the wall
And my bed on the floor
I'm sleeping on the floor, you inside
Straight chillin with AC

I'm riding on my bike, doing flips and tricks
The mud's flying, getting everybody all dirty
But this ain't Moto, this is real as it gets
I'm in a shed, mothertrucker, don't you ever forget

I'm in a shed and
It's going slow and
I got a outdoor theme
I'm the king of the world
In a shed like Langston Hughes
If you're in the yard,
Then you're sure not me-oh

Get up, this shed is REAL!

Screw houses, I'm in a shed
Screw power lines, I use batteries,
I'm my shed by my self (yeah)
There's no noise in my shed

Hey ma, if you could see me now (see me now)
Arms spread wide on my pallet porch (pallet porch)
Gonna fly this shed to the moon somehow (moon somehow)
Like Dan Ennis, anything is possible

Yeah, never thought I'd be in a shed
It's a big green yard (yeah)
It's the garden of Eden
Look at me, oh (all hands in my shed)

Never thought I'd see the day
When a big shed was coming my way
Believe me when I say
I'm sleeping in a shed

I'm in a shed
I'm in a shed
Everybody look at me 'cause I'm livin in a shed (woah)
I'm in a shed
I'm in a shed
Take a good hard look at my mothatruckin' shed (sha-sha-shorty, shorty, yeah)

Can't wait
T

This DJ went to Hobby Park.

2009-03-24T08:06:00.000-07:00

Finally it was the first mountain race of the season. After two long days of helping with the Banff Mountain Film Festival, (thanks to all who came out by the way) we drove over to Salem-Winston to go race some fat tire bikes.

We didn’t have to get up too early in the morning, at 6:30 and we left around 7ish. The drive was nice and we just made it to the race to watch the first racers hitting the course. KB killed it in his first sport race and ended up with a good 4th place. Mrs. Squirrel started another new job in addition to her teaching outdoors to kids; she taught the rest of the field how to race and ended up with a first place.

Everybody else raced the 12 o’clock race. It was a huge field, probably like 25 guys or so and about 10 Pros. So you could say that it was fairly stacked. Pretty much everybody except the flat state boys were racing this relatively “small” race. To make a short story shorter, I followed wheels for the first lap before crashing at the start of the second. Pendry caught me after I got up and I followed him for the rest of the lap before he had some trouble with his wheel and stopped. I kept on seeing whee Seth Kemp on my tail for the rest of the lap so I kept the pressure on and tried to bridge to the leaders Robert Marion and Travis Liverman. It was a short race of about 18 miles so I basically ran out of ground but when I started chasing I figured I wasn’t going to catch them anyway.

The King got like 7th, P-man got 13th or something and the Saint was just behind him. Steve and Timmay and Wells all had decent races but nothing great. In the end it was a good way to start the season and figure out stuff I need to work on.
So I put up some pictures, they are on the blog below this one so like check ‘em out. If you feel like it. I might add some more too, but I didn’t really get any riding pictures because I’m still trying to figure out a way to race and take pictures of myself while I race. Kind of difficult if you know what I mean.

Anyway, keep it pinned, listen to this guy called Warren G and don’t fall in the Rosie, that’s bad.

2009-03-22T19:09:00.000-07:00

Just got back from Hobby Park. The race was ok, nothing great except for Julia's 3rd and Jenna's 1st and K-Wood's 2nd. A good solid start to the season.

Here's some pictures from the racing scene.

I'll do a write up tomorrow.
Where ever you are, run it wide open.
T

Early Morning

2009-03-19T05:35:00.000-07:00

So, there I was just sleeping peacefully. I was bothering nothing and no one. And the dump trucks decided to finish filling in the gym's old pool. They are making it another weight room after filling the pool. For some ungodly reason they wanted to do it at 7:30 in the morning. I know what you people are thinking, oh 7:30 isn't early but for me it is. Kind of.

Anyway, whatever. It got me up and writing a blog so that hopefully makes you guys happy. I was specifically going to write this blog about something but I kind of forgot so I'll just wing it for a bit and I might remember.

A good thing that happened this week: I found my old Rage Against the Machine CD in my car. I was soooo stoked. Almost stoked to the point that I skipped riding to listen in. Ha! Just kidding. I did skip some ice cream at lunch to listen to it though.

I'm trying not to complain, but this pretty much is. I'm really starting to get tired of the cold early mornings. I get up and it's just cold enough to ware pants but by mid day I need to ware shorts. Anyway, not a big deal but it is kind of annoying. Before you know it, I'll be complaining about the hot weather. That's the fault of the human race isn't it? I mean we are never satisfied, that can be a good thing and also a bad one. That was you daily psychology lesson from T. Cowie.

Speaking of which I'm about to go to psy class. And I'm super stoked about it because I really don't have to do anything, I just sit in class playing on my computer. Parents, you were totally not supposed to read that last bit.

Well since this was a pretty lame post (although I might add more later today) I need to find something that will make it better. I'll be back in a bit.

Here are some vintage pictures back from when I was super cereal. You might have seen them before, perhaps not. Anyway enjoy.

More Rain

2009-03-16T20:12:00.000-07:00

So, another weekend of racing has gone by. It was raining again, both days in fact. I'm pretty sure I drank my body weight in water both days. Along with all that water, I probably drank bits of road kill, oil, gasoline, manure, little rocks, and who knows what else. I hope I don't catch some horrible disease from road racing. Wait, that might be a good thing. Haha, just kidding Marshal.

Anyway, Saturday wend pretty bad, we missed the early break again, then like 2 or 3 laps before the finish we brought back the break and then we(well I, since I was in the perfect spot)missed the second break. In the bunch sprint I got like somewhere in the top ten and the Saint was just behind me.

After trying to dry out my clothes and chilling at the hotel we went out to eat at this sketchy Caribbean restaurant, but it actually turned out to be really good. And they had fried PB and J sandwiches. I love living in the South sometimes. Anyway props to Park for picking a good eatery place. After eating we hung out at the hotel and watched six episodes of Pimp My Ride....way, way too much. This was kind of how it looked except wayyy better and more powdered sugar...just the way I like it. And not soap like this is.

Sunday started at 6 when I walked over to the local IHOP and dug in. It was awesome because I love IHOP and I had some chocolate pancakes. However, the coffee sucks so I had to drink like 5 cups before I got the shakes. It rained the entire morning and I didn't even bother putting on extra clothes because they would be soaken in like five seconds just like Mike's gram cracker.

We missed the break again, surprise, surprise. The break went on like the first lap so we half chased, half rode really slow, half tried to not run into the back of the dude in front. It was pretty much just like this picture

Anyway, I somehow jumped on Craig from Furman and we traded off for the rest of the race. We ended up catching the break and I got dropped but ended up second. That's how road racing is, one day your off the back and the next your off the front. Weird. I hate road racing.

So, instead of road racing I might just show up to Hobby Park this weekend. Or I might go do five hours of base to get ready for nationals.

Here are some pictures from the race and the drive back since I was bored.

Another

2009-03-12T09:23:00.000-07:00

So, I never really got around to writing a blog for the race so I'll move on to the next one. I pretty much told the story in the first one.
Although this time I will actually post some pictures.

I've just been chilaxing in GA with the Manamial. Nothing too interesting happing, we did the Reality Bikes Worlds ride last night, good ride with some fast guys. I think the Manamial got the KOM sprint and I got third in the final sprint so we pulled our weight. Probably never go back for a while since racing started and everything. It was a good time and we had some good fun.

Me and the guy from PA have been riding and working on some serious hang out time in the GA. Saturday morning we are driving down to the ATL to go race. The Manamial has been killing me on some hilly rides around the county.

I've been trying to work on my "plans" for the summer. No, I don't have a set schedule of races this season so I'm just going with the flow and picking some good races and trying to run it wide at those few.

For sure, I'm going the 12Hrs of Tsali, Bump, the SERC race at Tsali, and the first Kenda Cup race at Ducktown. Then I'm not really sure, just see if I have enough money to go to each race.

Anyway, I'm watching Marshal talk to some people over Skype and it's totally distracting me so I'm going to cut out. I'll see if I can type a more interesting blog tomorrow. Now for what you've been waiting for PICTURES!!!

Well good night everybody I'm signing off. Time to go do work!
Do a couple of these before bed time:

Later nerds!

Talladega Days (Racing in South Kack)

2009-03-10T08:14:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm trying to pack, work on my bike, write a blog, pack, go ride, and hang out today. So I don't have a whole lot of time to write. But I won't leave you guys in the dark any longer.

The road race on Saturday was good, for the first ten minutes that is. Marshal broke a spoke about that much into the race so I gave him my wheel and got dropped. I rode to the feed and hung out with T-had for a bit and then did another lap to get some extra training in.

The Team Time Trial went better than the first one, we worked together better and I think we posted a decent time, not great but better than getting smoked in the first TTT.

The crit was on Sunday in Greenville at a car race track. It was fun too, but not very selective and it showed with not very many people getting dropped and a big sprint at the end. I put in a digger with 3 or 4 to go and held it until the last lap and finished in the top back half of the bunch.

Nothing exciting but nothing too bad. I think everybody got in some good training and we'll be ready to come back out and fight this weekend in Georgia Tech. Two road races back to back. I'm not really sure what everybody is complaining about, the guys in the Tour do twice as long for three weeks back to back. But we'll see what happens.

I'll probably post some pictures tonight once I get home and everything.
Late

Nothing

2009-03-04T19:16:00.000-08:00

I'm sure that you non moto people are getting tired of my pictures and movies but I found one that was too good to pass up. How does he clean that triple? I don't know.

Snow?/Georgia?/March?

2009-03-03T08:46:00.000-08:00

Dude man dude,
Awesome time this weekend. The B-Boys competed in our first road race this year. No not these B-Boys. Us, duh.

The TTT went great. That is the Team Time Trial for those of you who don’t know. We got third. Yay! Out of three. Oh my! We done good. Nah it was cool, I think we started a little too fast out of the gate but we got it under control pretty quick so that was good. After the TTT we just went back and started the hang out time at the Cowie house hold.

The good times didn’t stop there, the next day we woke to 30 degree weather and pouring rain. AWEsome!! It was super cold at the start and things kicked into gear very fast. The Saint and I covered move after move with the Manamial hitting out a few times. At the end of the first lap me and the Tamer got popped on the last climb and tried chasing but once the break got into gear they straight checked out. The remnants of the peloton formed together and we rode another lap back to the feed. T-had was there and as we were pulling the plug (it had started really raining at this point) the Manamial rolls up in a car we find out that we broke his wheel trying to follow an attack. So I think we did pretty good for the first race, we definitely left some doors open and neither the Saint or I were there when Marshal needed a wheel but we’ll work on it.

Anyway, on to the trip back. So we had a truck, a van, and a trailer. Throw in some snow on top of that. Maybe a little rain too. Just to spice things up. We start the three hour drive back and it starts snowing/sleeting/raining on us. Everything is good until the snow starts packing up on Chaput's windshield. We call Coach and we pull over and scrape everything off and conveniently we stopped at a Starbucks (I wonder who thought of that) so we also had to get some coffee.

We get going again and then like not even a mile down the road Chaput’s driver’s wiper checks out and I find Chaput sitting in my lap trying to look out the passenger’s side widow. So we call Thad again and he comes back and picks us up in the van and then we spend the next four hours of travel time packed in the back seat. Good times, as always.

So to make the story a little bit better, yesterday we had to go down and pick up Chaput’s truck because he got a call from the 5-0. Nothing super exciting happened but we almost died several times, ate a ton of candy, went muddin and almost destroyed my rim on a pot hole on the way back.

It's a good thing we're still mountain bikers.

So it’s been a long weekend. And it’s going to be an even longer week. Dude you know, I totally forgot that this weekend is the start of spring break. Wow, that came up fast. Anyway, if anyone wants to come down to GA and hang out just holla at me.

T

Oh yeah, did I mention that I totally called that nasty weather this weekend?
Thanks, I already knew I was amazing.

Cloudy with a chance of domination

2009-02-27T08:34:00.001-08:00

So, I was just finished with my med term examination when I happened to spy a certain green skin suit in the computer lab. He so politely reminded me that I needed to post another blog namely because the Saint had the most recent. (Well Pinnet posted last night but his was all pictures so that doesn't really count.)

Here goes, in just a few hours the RDS from Brevard is traveling down South, not to this place unfortunately

but more like this:

Eh, it's not that bad usually. This might be better.

Anyway, we're going down for a weekend of racing and riding and tons of hanging out in the North area of the GA. More specifically, my house. And Chaput's too. According to Squirrel time we should get there by 6 tonight so if anyone want to come party make sure you go to the Chaputs as we will have the master Squirrel at my house. Saturday morning looks to be nice with a 100% chance of rain and 50 degree weather with a enjoyable Team Time Trial at 9. Then everybody packs into the van and rushes back to the house where we can get some quality hang out time in.

Sunday will be even better with a 60% chance of snow along with some 40 degree weather. Us Brevardians ain't scared about a 60 mile road race in those conditions either. So uh...please don't come to the race because it will more than likely suck to stand in the rain and/or snow for four hours. Or if you do bring a gun. For me first.

During the projected 12 hours of hang out time tomorrow I'll probably be able to update and post how the races went. We've got to be back by 6 because I'd rather be riding has a soccer game. I'd rather be doing other things too.

Anyway, keep it pinned and remember if you hate riding your bike over the weekend we are hating it more.
Later nerdz,
T

2009-02-24T08:35:00.000-08:00

So like awesome news: BMB is getting a website with sick pictures of awesome foods and such. Travel over to Mrs. Denise's blog and check it out.

Just about as pinned as this picture is...

OH and I forgot. I have some good news, but I'm going to wait a little longer sorry.
In the meantime....enjoy

Super Cross Saturday

2009-02-21T16:27:00.000-08:00

Sup everybody, I'm just chilling at the house trying to find stuff to do. The Supercross doesn't start until 9:30 so I'm watching You Tube movies in the meantime. I found a good one of the number 7 playing around with some friends. The best part by far is when Stewart looks over while he's full throttle through the whoops. Supasick. It's around 3:10 in the movie.

What have I been doing while in GA? Uh...nothing really, I got up, had some nice eggs and pancakes, built some trails and then rode them in. Then I took a shower and cleaned the house. And then I got bored.

So I decided to write a blog. And then I got even more bored. So uh...you have fun.