This Makes Me Smile

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i24IKWqfTGc

Aftermath of a White Christmas

Yesterday I went for a snowy bike ride and today I went for a snowy run, and I was tickled to follow my own tire tracks down the trail.

Maybe the only cool thing about lingering snow is that it works almost as a census taker. In town you call tell who doesn't drive very often by the sheets of snow on their cars; some people have pristine yards, proof that they either don't have children (or a sense of child-like wonder) or that their children were too preoccupied with new Christmas video games to bother with sleds and snow pants.

In the woods you notice that for some reason Upper and Lower Sycamore are the most heavily traveled trails; that lots of people are trying out their shiny new hiking poles or xc skis; that there's some fascinating carcass or excrement down below Mountains-to-Sea that has all the dogs investigating; that only one person has been dumb enough to ride Grassy and she was running a Captain in the front and a Sauserwind in the back. Best of all, you see evidence that families make full use of the forest--and each tiny set of bootprints trudging behind grown-up size steps, with paw prints dancing in and out among the human, is a little love letter to Pisgah.

Photos Found

So here's the best cx race ever, in Unicoi, TN. Some of these are messed up because the camera was on a weird setting.

I was having a blast. If these were bigger than thumbnails you could actually tell.

The setting was very pretty. If you squint you might almost think we were in Colorado or something...ish.

Before and after. The Era has about ten extra pounds of grass/mud weight.

This was before T Cowie stopped having fun.

And that's all I got. Mad photo-documentation skills? Check.

oops

the days and weeks continue their inexorable march and i have failed to document them. after each race or "race" i attend, i delay blogging in the hopes that i will come across a photo or two to adorn an otherwise stark entry...and every time my search fails. the world wide web does not deign to acknowledge my existence.

and so a month has passed.

in that month i poached a couple of tiny cross races to make money while skirting anything challenging for the most part...except for hendo. my first ever uci race and LORDIE was i outclassed. i stayed strong the whole time and didn't piddle around moping about my poor performance, so that's something. fighting tooth and nail for 19th place is a new and humbling experience. plus, uci races require FOUR NUMBERS, UGH, so needless to say i'll be avoiding them in the future.

i would like to get into cyclocross shape, but suddenly it's december and the season seems to have passed me by. now i'm getting a bit amped about next season, despite all my protestations about "retirement" and such nonsense. i just bought a sram XX crank for my sweet baby dinosaur and am close to puking with excitement about it--nicest component i've ever owned, sexysexy industry nines aside.

have you ever seen anything so beautiful? i mean, besides my bike.

of course, st marie heard about my purchase and upped the ante by ordering a couple of new carbon xc bikes and a dh bike, so......dick move.

what, you're still talking about that? here's proof that i actually did the shut-in, although my face is lying. it says: 'i am taking a merry jaunt in the woods,' while my brain says: 'i can't feel my left leg and this was the worst idea you've ever had. i hate you. i'm going to sleep now.' pic by paul christopher.

cross in tennessee. there are better pictures hiding somewhere and i'll post them, but for now believe that it was veryvery muddy and veryvery fun. not pictured: me slipping and sliding around on a full suspension, grinning from ear to ear. also not pictured: t cowie eating it in a race that consisted of him, himself, and he.

sorry.

i am also all a-tingle about next year because (and understand that my plans are entirely fluid and liable to change) so far scheduled:

santa cruz in january, to visit my cousin and ride as much mtb as possible

saint pete in march, to hang out with caitlin and do silly florida things like drink wine on the beach at night...in 70 degree weather...

crete in june (and maybe london beforehand), to play archaeologist with some of my favorite bc professors.

more proof that i am deferring 'life' in order to live.