Back to Business

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

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

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


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

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

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

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