Tucson, Arizona

I am in Arizona. My 12-year old brother Ira and I made the cross-country trip from TN, he is spending two weeks with me in Tucson. We have been mountain biking twice, toured the T-rex Museum and the Sonora Desert Museum. He has watched a lot of TV while I have been out on my road bike (he loves my DRV).

I have attended group rides with great riders and found perfect base mile routes to ride alone. Tucson is the most cycling friendly city ever, there are bike lanes on almost every road and the traffic is very courteous. The worst thing anyone has said to me from a car is "good one" when I went through a yellow light. They even have a bike lane on part of the interstate (I-10). Oh yeah, it doesn't rain here. The weather is picture perfect, sunny with highs in the high 60s/low 70s with no humidity (your clothes are dry even after a long ride). Last week I got in ~14 hours of on-the-bike training. Feels good to be taining again.

Gainesville College Race Clinic

The Gainesville College Race clinic was a success. Thank you to everyone who attended; I will be cheering for everyone at the race next weekend! We covered: · How to prepare for a race. What to do the month, week and day before a race. · How to race. Methods for pacing, passing, fueling, etc. · Q&A. Training and bike related questions. · Race Course Pre-Ride. A lap on the course and practice of items discussed. Feel free to email me with any questions.

2006 National Series/My 1st Pro Year is Over

The National Series is over, it was a crazy summer. We sold our house and bought a 40-foot Class A motor home.

The whole house sale/moving while working process took much more time and energy than I anticipated. Anyone who has seen our van can guess how full our house was! Of course training went out the window for a little while.

July 1st I took leave from Motorola in order to travel the second half of the series. Some races were good, others were really painful. I learned a lot my first year as a Pro and I really think next year will be great.

Support is crucial, Scott at Addictive made sure my bike was in perfect working order before I left. While on the road I blew two SID forks, one FOX RP3 rear shock and cracked a Titus frame. SRAM took care of me in Vermont, they let me demo a Reba for the Short Track. In Deer Valley, Anthony at FOX re-built my shock and contacted Titus for me. Titus was great, they two-day'd a new frame to Roaring Mouse Cycles in San Francisco for the Sonoma race. Sarah at Roaring Mouse Cycles did the frame swap free, even though they were backed up for the next two weeks, and they gave me a demo Titus racer-X to ride while they worked on my bike (thanks Chris!). Thank you to everyone for all of the help!

And of course thanks to Todd! He hauled all of my gear to both tech zones at every race and was ready to provide mechanical support as well as feed me. In Brian Head I was having a great race when I realized I had a flat. I had Stans in so I stopped, spun the wheel and added CO2 (BigAir), was able to ride ~5-minutes then was on a completely flat tire again (like riding on ice). I added air again knowing I just had to make it to the tech zone (another 5-minutes). In the tech zone Todd put on my spare wheel and I was able to finish 25th. I only lost three spots, I was pretty happy with that finish.

I took a week off and ate whatever I wanted, now back to training! Monday October 23, 2006 - 08:33pm

Our New Home

Our new home is awesome. The picture is of our camping spot in Brian Head, Utah; we did all of our training from this location. It was a few minutes from the Start/Finish line but far enough to have privacy. In Utah Front Room

Kitchen Dinning No Pictures of the bedroom or bathroom.

I think our motor home is Optimus Prime, back and undercover; it is a transformer for sure. Three slide outs, power awnings, power couch/dual-recliner/queen guest bed, pantries that come out of the woodwork and hold more than enough food, air conditioners that are also heaters (heat pumps). The stainless steel microwave is also an oven (you just type in 350 degrees or whatever and it is an oven), and a speed cooker (heat lamp easy-bake-oven for grown-ups), I use this feature for toast and cooking fish. The best feature is the dual-control sleep-number queen size master bed with feather top, down pillows and down comforter. I don't ever care to get up in the morning; just bring me my coffee (decaf of course), the Satellite/DVR remote and my laptop (with Verizon wireless internet). Oh yeah, the dishwasher and washer/dryer really make things easy. I love my home, and I can take it almost anywhere.