Rocky Hill 08

Yesterday we raced our final race of the fall series at Rocky Hill Ranch in Smithville, TX. Nicole finished 2nd and with $34 prize purse!! I got 10th out of 34. Overall it was a fun race with a little paparazzi action mixed in since Ol' Lance Armstrong decided to show up and dominate. One of the pros that raced against him Mitch said "he opened the most violent attack" he'd ever seen on a bike on the downhill jeep road ending the second lap, probably hitting 30-35 mph. Nice choice of words. It was very cool to see one of the world's greatest atheletes at a competition that was local and only about 400 people in attendance.

Here are some pics and videos:

Rocky Hill 08

Lance riding up the Wall:


Nicole Showing him how to do it right:

24 Hours of Rocky Hill

Nicole did a 24 hour race last weekend with 3 other female teammates. They won 1st place in their category. Nicole ended up doing 6 laps and their team did 19 laps total as a team in 24 hours. Each lap was about 1:20 average. I hung out and ran support. I also got in a night lap which was super fun. The Pearsons joined us and it was real fun. Here are some pictures and videos.

Rocky Hill 24 Hour 2008

Starting 'em young:



Random rider going up the "Wall" like a champ:

Palo Duro 2008

Man that place is purty! We got there Saturday about 2pm and left Sunday about 1pm. Good times. Here are the pics to prove it...

Palo Duro 08

Camp Eagle 08

Nicole and I finished our first race of the Fall Series last weekend at Camp Eagle. It was a very challenging course and fun at the same time. We got there on Saturday and pre-rode the course like we do everytime, and my fork "hydro-locked". It's a fancy way of saying it locked out and didn't work. So, the morning of the race, my gracious teammate Greg Parham let me borrow the fork off his extra bike and I was able to race and not waste the 6 hour drive each way. Camp Eagle is about 45 miles south of Junction, TX.

We both had a good race. I finished 7th and Nicole finished 4th. Here are some pictures. We brought our camera and took nary a photo. We were able to get other people's photos that were taken.

Picasaweb must've changed a little since the last time I used it. The best thing to do is click on the bottom right section where the logo is and then you can click on the name of the slideshow to view it larger.

Colorado Vacation

Nicole and I just returned from Ft.Collins/Denver vacation. We were hosted by Patrick and his fiancee Gina in Fort Collins for about 4 days, then we stayed with Lisa and Keegan in Denver and helped with their new restaurant, D bar. We had a great time and didn't want to come home.

The first day in the Fort, we went riding at an area that was burnt last year in a forest fire. The trail was really fun. We spent about 3.5-4 hours riding there. The next day we rode around the Horsetooth Resevoir. That was super fun and we got rained on a little. The third day was spent hiking up to Grey Rock a little north of the Fort. That was fun and hard work. 7.5 miles = 5 hours of hiking. We had to visit a few breweries after that. New Belgium Brewery (Fat Tire) and Odell. The last day we did what is called the town ride since we rode from Gina and Patrick's house. It made for good time! It was a balmy 80 degrees on the last day there. Whew! That was brutal for some of the locals. We ate some great Indian Food at Taj Mahal and went to Choice City Deli and Meat Market for some awesome soup and sandwiches twice... the best ever!!

After the Fort visit, we head down to Denver to help Lisa and Keegan with the 5 day old business they just opened. They are in a great location near downtown and if you're ever in Denver, you have to go. It was fun to help bus tables, take some orders and wash dishes. Man, they work too hard!!! I hope things smooth out for them and they can hire some people to ease their 13-16 hour days, 6 days a week.

Here are some photos. We didn't see any bears or mountain lions, so Nicole was dissappointed.

Colorado Vacation 2008

Double Lake 2008

Man, this was the easiest course ever, but one of the toughest races because of the high speeds. I held 3rd place for the 1st 2 laps, but couldn't maintain that pace and my legs were cramping bad, so I had to slow down dramatically and let them rest. I finished 5th which was fine.

Nicole had a great race. She was in 4th place most of the race and then at the last second, beat the girl in front of her by 1 second overall to get 3rd place. Go Nicole!! $41 - - Don't tell the IRS....

Double Lake 2008

Reimer's Ranch in Austin

This was a new race venue for us. It was fun and hard!! There were a lot of technical rocky climbs and some really fast smooth turns at the end. Nicole won 5th and a massive $14 purse. Billy and I did our usual mediocre finishes, but we had fun nevertheless. Thanks for looking!

Reimer's Ranch - Austin

Warda Race - '08

We went back to Warda for the Spring Series race this past weekend. We brought some friends with us. It was Nicole, David, Billy, Vonda, Billy, Stacy, her dog Max, Karl, and Danyel. It was Danyel's first ever MTB race and she had fun with no incidents. Billy and I finished in the lower 50% and still liked it. Nicole finished 2nd in the Expert Women's group for 30-39 year olds and won some $$.

The best part for me was surprising Nicole with a new bike at the race. I bought it from James Webb - our bike pusher/dealer. He brought Nicole's new Hei Hei and she was surprised. I think it is well deserved for 7 years of putting up with me. She also raced with clipless pedals for the 1st time and did well. Go Nicole!!

Warda '08

Waco Race 2008

Here are some little shots of us racing in Waco. Billy was there and getting back into racing...fun times had by all! We all finished in the last half of our category, but had a great time since the course had some really tough and long climbs - for Texas. I tried to even out my farmer's tan with a sleeveless jersey and noticed after the fact that I look like a homo (sorry to offend you D.B.). I'm going back to the sleeved version. No laughing!!!

Waco 2008

Denton SNOW!

It's snowing now in Denton. It looks like we've received 6-8inches so far. CRAZY!!! It was 80 on Saturday and now it's snowing. Go TEXAS weather!

Here are some pics and a video.

Snow!

First Race of Spring - Bar H

Nicole and I rode at Bar H this past weekend. The weather was nice and we had fun. Here are a few pictures. Nicole took a lot of me and we got a few from another photographer out there too.

Bar H '08

Warda 12 hour race

Here are some photos of our most recent mountain bike race. We rode the 12 hour race in Warda, TX. Nicole did a 2 woman team so they alternated and overall rode 17 laps in 12 hours. The course was about 7.3 miles for 1 lap. Nicole and her teammate Christiane (Team Peanut Butter and Nutella Mashed) finished 1st place with five laps more than the 2nd place team. Nice domination ladies!

I rode with 3 other dudes on a 4-man team and we each rode 5 laps for a total of 20 laps for the 12 hours. We finished 4th out of 20 teams in that category. It was really fun. The day was beautiful and I got to do some night riding for the 1st time. That was fun.

Here are some pics...

Warda 12 hour 2008

Misseri Trip

Here are a few pictures:

Missouri

Here is a video that Billy took of some turkeys. The others are too long to upload.