Until the Snow Ends

Hey! So I turned 30 and rode bikes with some people. Then we drank alcohol and ate chips. THEN I WOKE UP BONKING. Then I raced Grafton Ponds and it didn't work at all! I tried to stay in the race for "High Cascades 100 training" but my growing level of ravenous hunger and increasing saddle sore discomfort made the training dubious at best. So I quit. Then Thom put a camera in my face. Watch more videos on Big Bikes Media & cyclingdirt The course was actually really good, especially if you had the legs to get off your damn saddle for the lumpy sections. Which of course I did not. Next year!

I signed up for the High Cascades 100 a long time ago, because bad ideas are better when you're financially invested. The winning time there last year was 8.5 hours, so I figure I will be riding over 10 hours in Bend on July 21st. Obviously, then, I needed to do the Pat's Peak 6 Hour race as preparation, to confirm my theory that racing a mountain bike for over 3 hours is horrible, and that I am going to hate everything about cycling well before the hundredth mile of High Cascades. The remarkable thing about the race was how I *never* rode very hard, and yet after 4 hours of riding NOT HARD I felt TERRIBLE. Lap one was chill, lap two was chill, lap three was chill, lap four was EXTRA CHILL and yet by lap five my whole body ached. What? Meanwhile, some totally predictable things (Cary starting faster than me, holding a threatening gap, and then breaking his bike) and totally unpredictable (Pete Smith and THE WILCOX suffering) had happened, and somehow I rode into th...