So, It’s halloween time and I’m ready! hahah. This week I’m going to address some other things here outside of riding bikes, I will talk bikes, but first some things which make me laugh, they’re mess-ups, but funny ones. My way of using this entry will be to put these “mess-ups” out on my blog for the world to read and that way everyone can make fun of me and laugh with me over them. So a while back, after all valley fever sickness I was having and long before health net signed half the pro tour, I got thinking, “man it would be great to get back to school and finish off my degree.” That makes sense, I’m here racing in the United States, close to my school, why not. So I sign up for some classes, one is a criminal justice class (my major) and the other is a class in education, something I’m not very interested in and ironically, I hate a lot at this point, but it was a good fit in my schedule and my thought was everyone can become a better teacher in anything, not just school, so I signed up. Two classes…no big deal, I hate myself for it now, on Wednesday nights I go at 4 o’clock and look at 30 other people, probably in the same type of imaginary field picking flowers just like I am, I sit there wondering what Timmy J, Trebon and Wicks are doing at that moment. Then at 6:30 I pick up and head to the crim. justice class which is pretty interesting, I actually pay attention and enjoy the conversations that happens there. Well all this was great but came to a head recently when the teachers finally threw some tests together and I took them, I hate test taking, I hate recalling information word for word and I hate that stomach drop when you look at the test papers and realize this isn’t what you studied and your sqrewed. I can do decently on a test, but I didn’t on these ones, I actually read my brains out, skipped my ride on Wednesday to cram more and made 139 note cards in total and I still think I didn’t do so hot. So I had to take a step back and put a new outlook on school. It’s pretty simple, It’s the “do what you can, it’s not the end of the world stance.” So, this is where I tie it into riding, if you put to much on it, for instance “this has to work” it never will work out. If you go into it with a little more “whatever” attitude (for me) it seems to work better. The bottom line, I need to up my game on the school front. And it sucks I had to fail at it first before I could actually step back and look at it outside the box with a new attitude, but hey better late then never! On bike racing, and the reason your here. It went better last weekend with a second place on Sat. and a fifth place on Sun. I was stoked to get on the podium Sat. I really like the Granouge course and Sunday was less of my kind of course, but it was fun non-the less. This weekend is another race in south Jersey and its far away, I hope I can logistically make the trek down work out, but it’s still up in the air right now. I met up with some more funny guys down south that were screamin’ like Banchi’s enjoyin’ the racing Thanks Kevin and Mike for the pictures. Cross’ is what mtn. bikin used to be, a lot of cool people enjoying themselves at the races. I’ll post some results from the weekend and last weeks exams in my next post, seeya!

Last weekend were the first races in the verge new england cross’ series. I went back to Glouchestah’ and picked my legs up from the impound and off to Maine I went. Everything was the same minus the clowns, Timmy and Marky were the guys to beat. The course was completly different then when I raced it back in 2003, same venue, much better courses then I remembered from back in the day. Thanks to everyone putting on the racing this weekend, esp. John and Paul. If you wanted to read about those races, check them out on VeloNews. Speaking of VeloNews, I got a couple pages in there printed cycling journal this month with a little how-to picture on jumping some barriers. I did a little photoshoping this week, Trebon actually made it easy for me to make fun of him, because I didn’t need to crop any pictures, he’s so big, the bannana’s fit perfect. And I didn’t need to do anything in photoshop for this to be funny, I am wearing a little preview of what the people at Champion Systems are going to make up for us next year, the clothing is nice stuff and I’m looking forward to getting into some new kits! Some pretty funny guys whos names I still don’t remember take some good video, take a look:

The cross season is here and I had my first good crash, last week getting ready for the Vermont uci race I over-cooked it into a corner by my house, I ended up in the emergency room for a majority of the afternoon the day before the race, which was good prep for the race. I only thumped my head a little and I was wearing my helmet which helped prevent some serious injurys, but to be safe they hauled me off and I got checked out. I ended up racing in Vermont the next day to get that crash off my mind. I ended up getting third and I was happy with that since I had gotten several shots in the top of my legs and they hurt a lot the next day. Results from that here: This weekend the big races are in Glouchester,MA the first stop of the usgp of cyclo-cross, and I am hoping for some good legs and some luck at my first big cross’ races back in the United States. I’ll leave you with a little video from my man DV. If your having a bad day, like I was last weekend this should help, thanks for reading: