I know I am completely slacking on updating this blog, but at the end of each day my choices are sleep, stretch, or make more travel plans... :)

Here is a very quick update since my last post.

The last post showed my April 28th swollen elbow. May 11th I learned that in that same wreck I had also fractured my L1 vertebrae and ended up a swollen L5 disk in my back. I was ignoring the pain and had raced twice, but on May 10th it was so bad that I could not lay down or pick anything up. Because I couldn't do anything else I did a blog post, so something good came of it, then the Dr. said the worst thing I could do was sit. Umm, I am about to get on an airplane to Europe...

My schedule was way too cool to let that get in the way for long, a couple days on LorTab to sleep, a week of max dose Advil, lots of ice, acupuncture, chiropractor, massage, oils and some very easy road riding on the full-suspension before:

- May 22th World Cup Race #2 Dalby Forest, England

- May 29th World Cup Race #3 Offenburg, Germany

- June 11th SRAM Skills Clinic at Beti Bike Bash Denver, CO

- June 12th Beti Bike Bash XC race Denver, CO

- June 13-15th Fun trip to Salida, CO to ride with Scott Morris

- June 18th MTB Skills Clinic for a NMRoadRiders Santa Fe, NM

- June 19th Road Race (raced W 1/2/3 and won !?!) Los Alamos, NM

- June 25th ProXCT #5 Morris, WI

- July 2nd World Cup #4 Mont-Sainte-Anne Quebec, Canada

I am now in Windham, NY for World Cup #5 July 9th

Next up is:

- July 16th USA XC Nationals in Sun Valley, UT

- July 23rd ProXCT #7 (Final Series Race) Missoula, MT

- July 30th Tagging along on Todd's work trip to Germany

- Aug 13/14th World Cup #6 Czech Republic

- Aug 20/21st World Cup #7 Italy (Final Series Race)

- ?Sept 3/4th World Championship Race SUI?

Todd has only been able to attend the World Cup races so I am very grateful to folks who have offered to feed me at the National Series races! After Germany Todd bee-lined it to AZ for a month of work, we met up again in Canada. Pre-riding these courses and exploring other trails with him is a lot of fun.


Here are a couple race photos courtesy of Canadian Superfan Louis Simard who presented me with a cute pink USB drive full of hi-res photos after the Canadian World Cup. I love Superfans. A Superfan kid now has my Osprey water bottle. He met me at the finish line and while he did not speak English he was able to say "May I have your bottle?".

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 photos courtesy of Canadian Superfan Louis Simard

Started 49th, finished 36th in Canada, it is hard to pass even a couple racers at this level, everyone is so fast and everything matters, tire/fork pressure, skills, etc. I love World Cup courses. So far all but the USA course have A/B lines around awesome technical features. The drop into the series of photos above was one of those options. This entire line was the A route, but the initial drop in and 90 degree turn while sliding on a wet muddy rock (not pictured) was the part that would make some consider the slower B line.