Brandon is packing up his Times and on his way to CrossVegas tonight. Go big, Brandon! I am going to take over his clinic tonight so if interested, swing on by.

Meet at Boulder Cycle Sport in No Boulder at 5:45 and we'll head somewhere to get our 'cross on for an hour. We'll do some core basics and give y'all some drills to go home and work on.

Mike delivered his custom Whole Shot to Christine and it came out like buttah.The custom decals will match their team kits beautifully.

God we are 35 A's. This sequence is hilarious. It is the most polite start to a race, ever. I don't think I've ever remained seated for the start of a race....thus the determination to not win the hole shot Saturday. Ha! J-Rad's wife (I think) shot this sequence. Hilarious....

See Jared's photostream HERE....

The rain cometh down this AM. Rare early morning thunder and lightning storms woke us up. We had two kids and the cat crawl in to take cover.

Yesterday saw me finish up some unfinished business before the deep sleeps and rest begins this week. The bones ached from Saaturday's debacle part deux. Incalculable suffering but I had to finish. The work is definitely in. Now, I just need to let it bake.

Today's rain had me visit an old friend: The Rollers. I need to revisit those things every now and again. Peaceful and super controlled. Never burns too many matches if you don't want it to. I recommend not taking pictures while rolling though. As you can see, my shit is about to roll off! Ha!

I am such a galactic wuss when I hear stories like this. I am in disbelief that a man can go from this:

To 4th place behind Swiss national champ Christian Huele, US national champ Ryan Trebon and genetic freak Barry Wicks on his first race back sine mangling his body earlier this year.

That man is Andy Jacques-Maynes and he did this at the UCI Star Crossed event last night in Seattle. An absolutely sick accomplishment and I will never scribe dribble again (OK maybe a little) after hearing stories like this.

I NEED to get video of this race.

Week 2 under the belt. The goal for today was cleanliness and honestly I can't say I achieved that. We'll get to that though.

The weather is high-desert fall epic-ness. Gorgeous. Today's race was in Colorado Springs. Home of the OTC, huge SUV's and lots of God and gun stuff going on. Driving 220 miles round trip will have to be re-considered for racing for 45 minutes.

Let's talk about the race shall we? First, my approach this year at large is totally different than year's past. It's all about this steady progression. A song that crescendos rather than fizzles. Imagine that, when my Type A personality says that I need to be go-go-going all the time, biking, work....whatever. Today my plan was to be tranquil (isn't that a term over used these days by dopers? "I'm tranquil about the fact that my A sample was non-negative..." Sorry, but that was the only word I could think of. ) So the whole line of thinking is of a ramp-up through January instead of blowing shit up early...and then have a lovely and fairly quick ramp down come December.

So, at the core of it all today was supposed to be 'cleanliness'. In other words trying to have a technically perfect race and regardless of placing, get that under my belt. Be smooth. Flow. Last week sucked so I just wanted to ease into things and really focus on form.

Oh, the race. Sorry.

5,4,3,2,1 Go! We're off and literally I sit up after the first 50 feet and wave my boy J-rad through. I do NOT want the hole shot today. F'd up, huh? I just want to race and place and be clean. No desire to try and rule the roost. Steady burn, nothing crazy. That is how convinced I am of the need to just roll clean and feeling complete.

I settle into the first 3 in lap 1....in fact rolling slow intentionally. Save it. I'm not feeling punchy today at all but continue to try and settle in. Lap 3 or 4 of like 7 and...wham! Hit the deck running down this dodgy run 'down' which does a 180 then back up and over a barrier over fairly well pot holed ground. Hidden boulder underneath grass. Roll the ankle and all. Awesome! Totally F up my leg (again....over the same week old cuts) and bend a lever. Swish...swish...swish. 3 maybe 4 guys over take me. OK, sort out the lever, get rolling. I'm ready to punch it and bridge back...

Nothing. No go. Nada.

You know what it feels like when there is a hollowness? When spinning is about all that can be done but the circles you're spinning are not pulling on pedals and creating power? That was about it. Nothingness.

Another guy passes. Then another...and another. D'oh! Again, nothingness. Bloody, again, I put the tail between the legs, roll in and finish 12th.

Complete? Yes? Clean? F_ _ _ no.

OK, switch subjects to a more abstract level. Why do I write this? Frankly why do I write any of this dribble. It ain't ego as I try to live life like the proverbial chocolate brown lab with his tail wagging constantly. I've won races before so I 'get' that and my intent here is not a boo f-ing hoo, woe is me thing. F_ _ _ it, it's bike racing and I love it. It's more like a textual shout into a digital abyss. I am compelled to tell it like it is at this period in my life and I am equally compelled to put my leg back over my bike...every ride...every race...until I line up in Mol in January and look up and say "I f-ing did this, man." It's crazy focus like I've never had before and my wife can see this....and it is intense....and weird...and present in our lives....and will not come back again as sand is pouring through that hourglass.

So I've got to grab it. Talk about it. Live it. Suffer immensely for it.

The counter balance of my mind is firing synapses at a zillion times a second these days. Those synapses are of guilt and odd feelings of remorse. It's weird. I can't explain it. I'm so lucky. I could spit...or cry...or whatever. But I see the scarifies my wife and children make (without the latter even knowing how they sacrifice for me).

Power taps. Weight loss. Think at really intense speeds. Dream about it.

Ha! Week two! You morter forkers will unsubscribe your RSS feeds by November listening to this! Sorry for the temporary mind loss. It's clearly the Chimay I just downed thinking about today. It has an effect on my fingers when near a key board.

OK, the digital scream is capital D done.

Thank you. I hope you come back!

On to RAD stuff.

STEVE! You did it man!!! Great work and I am immensely proud of you. Great effort out there today, homie. I got no pics of you! Sorry! I chalk it all up to my clinics. HA! I should have used some of those lessons today.

BOUPS!! You ALSO did it man! Here comes your ACA Pro 1-2 upgrade beeatch! You would have won on your old Yeti. You would have won on your New Belgium Klunker.

SQUIRES BROS! Huge. Thanks so much for the feeds today and laughs when I was suffering. You're helping me keep it real.

Some pics from today.

Before the unraveling.

Rolling.

J-rad. Suffered through a bad knee. Nice work kid.

Rolling more

Jonny and Bobby

Steed de Jonny

"I love it when the heiny burp gets caught in my chamois "

Boups and Lane.

Ry Red Bulling up.

Compton in the house.

Boups in charge.

Chief Referees from the ACA.

Boups barrier-ing.

Starting putting in a huge gap on lap 2

Ry gettin' 'er done.

And that's what Boups and I had last night building out his new Yeti CX frame. What made it even more geekdified was the near LIFE size projection TV on which he had the '06 Koksijde jamming in Surround Sound. Dope. Boups had some fine Belgie Ales flowing and I dipped my toe into one but played saint.

The Yeti frame looks pretty nicely built. These are off-shored apparently but the quality looked pretty spot on.....which I'd expect for a Yeti. It looks like they are dialing in their cross game and the geometry and characteristics of the frame were clearly matured since their initial few frames FTW built (at least I think I heard FTW built the first few one-offs.)

The shouldering 'cut out' is now becoming in-vogue by frame manufacturers (see Specialized, Scott and Salsa 08's ) and Yeti's is pronounced. I shouldered Boups' and it feels pretty good but the rider may feel the pronounced bevel if you use around the head tube porting styles. It feel pretty solid though.
Boups is going to rock this bike.

...or so Timmy said this past weekend and made me chuckle. So true. While I like my arrows, this 'Indian' needs to ride fast! Anyhoo, I had to dial in the 'A-arrow' after last weekend's debacle. Some cool bits....

Threw on some Ksyrium's and finally went for the DA 10 upgrade after many many years running DA9.

Went back to Challenge Griffo 32's with the 07/08 tread pattern.

Check this out: Ultegra lever. What's missing?

My main man Brandon gave me his modified levers for single ring applications. Shift lever has been removed and new bits milled inside for preventing lever movement. Sweet.

This has been the view I see most training days. My shadow and I are intimate with the climbs and suffering. So much of my training has been solo this year. Part good part bad. I love mixing it up with my team mates but I have this tendency to want to throw down. Often. Ha! So learning how to ramp up, achieve goals and taper (e.g. REAL recovery) has been my take-away for 07. Logical to most of you but I have been for time ad infinitum all about the go-go-go and my heart speaks to my head more often than my body can get a chance to.
The spins around Boulder in early mornings are epic. Right now things are changing. You can see the Aspens just starting to get golden. Little cold pockets of air that sit there in ambush as you come into a corner and go from warm to cold. All signals of cross season. Yum.

The contusions are healing up famously, but the ribs are still reminding me. Sleep on the back or left side is about it....but the sleep comes heavy and deep. Really looking forward to Saturday and mixing it up with the boys. The goals are yet to come but cleanliness is what I am striving for. Too many rookie moves last weekend that is all about the discipline I need to re-enforce with myself. Each one is a subtraction, not an addition to the goals being built.

Life is good. Cross on.

One word: HUGE. I had no backpack today....so no camera to take pictures of what was the largest group yet. In all sincerity, 50 people....maybe more. Immense. The GOOD news is the Wed AM World Cup ride is more or less legitimized. Hard work by people like Kat with the Parks and Rec crew have enabled us to use some land such as the beautiful North Boulder Park. That is SOLID. It helps to legitimize the plight of the 'crosser here in town. A species certainly not in danger but growing rapidly.

So today, broken shoe. No biggee as it's an old Dragon, but made it a wee bit dodgy on the dismounts. The ironic part is it FORCED me to stick to my plan of ramping up into the 20 minute training race in a way that allows me to work on some strategies of using my power more wisely. It worked well. I decided to take a back seat today and not win the hole shot (easy to do and super fun actually, but hard to maintain) and settle in and tun up the power gracefully. I liked how my ride went and I grooved well with the plan. Again, smiles, even with all my aches and pains present. They seemed to fade away a which was good. I only did one session of the workout and went to focus on some other things with T which was so well needed. The numbers are still there but unlocking them will be my challenge.

Last night was Boulder Cycle Sport's closed door Team Night. HUGE thanks to the BCS crew for their support of the teams they sponsor. The closed door affair gave us s-i-c-k deal son all the equipment and supplies which keep us going fast. I'm going to be rocking some Ksyrium SL and ES's for a while with Challenge Griffo's and reserve the Dugasts for the right courses. I ran them last year and was mostly satisfied but had some issues with the tread pattern on wet grass (e.g. Interlocken). I'll roll these on the mostly shit dirt crit courses we have around here and reserve the Dugasts for the right time. I still have to re-glue the rolled tubular. I've got time...