wwe Kurt Angle vs. John Cena Battle Rap

Pump the Sponcors

Hello and good day to all you interweb surfers. I recently stumbled upon something that revolutionized the way i will intake enorgy. One of DRJ Racings many prestigious sponcors is 180 enorgy. As I am a junkie of these extreme sports supplements that have no proven health benefit and only make you dependent on their over doses of caffeine and B12 to stay awake I always enjoy a refreshing 180 every chance I get. Sadly the caloric intake is more then I should consume on a frequent basis. Friday night however threw me a change up. Sugar Free 18o and Low Carb 180 Blue with Acai.

Sugar Free 180
Taste: Very similar to regular 180 but with a hint of aspartame.
Calories: 5 per serving/10 per can.
Can Graphics: pretty sick with the upside down label
Energy Drink story: N/A (what the EF)

Low Calorie 180 Blue
Taste: It tastes like blue and not in a bad way
Calories: 15 per serving/ 30 per can
Can Graphics: A little more chill then then the sugar free still pretty extreme
Energy Drink Story: again no story don't they understand this is the reason I repurchase a majority of energy drinks?

To bring this Coach Casey Ryback taste test to a festering head these new beverages are going to be staples in my nutrition regiment for the rest of the season. They Best part is i scored them on sale for $1.47 at schnucks. "Inexpensive and great tasting?" you may ask in amazement. As gold medalist and WWF super star Kurt Angle would say "It's true. It's true."

Many Thanks

My hand is feeling much better and I have been able to keep the bandage off for almost 24hrs. A lot of friends have offered me a lot of help during this aweful start to a season. For this I am very thankful. I cannot stress how lucky I am that my friends and the mountain bike community here in Missouri is so rad. Thank you all for offering me frames, giving me deals, letting me vent, helping me get parts, and dealing with me when my mood is no where near pleasant. With out your help I would have hung up the jersey for good.

I should have my new secret MTB weapon up and running by saturday and will put a full post with pics up. Till then keep the rubber side down and let me know if i can do anything for you.

Carnage in Herman

Warm-up

I wish the title of this post referred to me to me crushing the cat 4 time trial and then repeating with the road race. But, it does not.

This was the first time trial I had ever done and even though I did not scorch the earth like Levi my time of 25:33 was good enough to place me 11th on the ten mile coarse.

The road race started out nicely with sunny 70 degree weather and then went way south for me from there on out. I completely blew up on the second KOM climb and got dropped. I am not sure how much of this had to do with back to back races but I blame it on lack of training and abundance of junk foood. I was determined to hang in there but soon lost sight of the pack. It was now about finishing. I started working with another rider with the hopes we would be able to pick off some of the other stragglers. We sighted one and started to reel him in. We were pulling each other along at 25mph just about to catch rider X. He came around me to take his turn pulling, I caught his slipstream with too much heat, took off like a rocket, and rubbed his rear wheel. One four letter word later and I was telling him to keep going I would be fine. Note the definition of fine here is how females use it when you ask them whats wrong.I ended up with some road rash, a dented frame (suspecting that it is now unsafe to ride), and wounded pride from getting dropped then crashing because of a rookie mistake. On the bright side I did not cause him to crash and I did get sympathy from the female medic that doused me in alcohol.

"Why do we fall? so we can get back up"

Hope everyone enjoyed their Summer like Sunday better then I did.

bored ride

Crit racing is a rush. The intensity is a 10 for the entire race and you fight to hold lines catch breaks and snatch primes right out from underneath the $5000 road bike of the guy next to you. The sense of power one feels when the blow past a group at full sprint has to be what Zeus feels when he hurls lightning bolts. Friday night i made the choice not to race Saturday. I was feeling very tired, I was stressed, I was uncertain to weather I would be able to handle my bike safely with my wrist, and the all powerful nail in the racing coffin cash is on the endangered species list in my life. So I slept for 13 hours, got up at 11 ate and suited up for a ride. I did not really feel like pushing myself and with the heavy winds, random bullet like rain drops, and struggling 40 degree temps. I was forced to retire after only 37 miles with a 16.7 average. I then ate an entire pizza and went into work for an unscheduled shift. A pretty mild way to spend my day off. Oh well I'll melt my face next weekend at the Tour Of Hermann, enjoy the pics!

Can you tell what intersection this is?

Aright which dirty scoundrel knows what you can find this?

Typical NORBA race conditions

wahcheeta

I blow stress out of my system when I ride. Maybe that is why I break so many bike parts. 60 miles will blow out more then stress. It can eat your soul if you are not careful. The Ouachita Challenge was epic for me. My goal was to finish. I have been having trouble juggling work schedauls with races and broken bikes which has left me with little or no time to just ride. Well everything came together for me despite the whirrel wind of stress that blew in on Friday. Let me begin at the beginning...

I blew my fork out and toasted my brakes at Rim Wrecker. Monday I spent searching for a new fork. I am a little skepitcle about riding a reba after blowing one out twice. I settled on a Marzocchi Marathon Corsa world Cup and got it order on Tuesday and shipped 3 day air from UPS. I ordered in some sweet Avid Juicy 7's to replace the 5 year old Deore's I was trusting my life with.

Friday found me sitting at the shop waiting for brown with my bike completely disassembled. The UPS truck drove past. I waited...and waited...and waited...then called Marzocchi got a tracking number and located my fork in Des Moines Iowa. I called UPS and was told that if the fork was shipped on Tuesday night 3 day air meant it would not be delivered till Saturday and since they do not deliver on Saturday I wouldn't get it till Monday. Morel of the story UPS sucks because if you do the math there are 3 days between Tuesday and Friday.

I bumbed a fork (A pretty sweet Fox F100) off of Matt AKA Casey Ryback and started throwing my bike together at 5pm. I put her all together and couldn't get the rear Der dialed. Add more stress and I was starting to lose my cool in a major don't-think-I-am-going-to-go kind of way. Enter Drew AKA Sparky a former Co-worker, friend, and Mechanic extrodinare at Ghisallo. Drew ran home and brought me up a set of Sram X.9 shifters and a X.7 Derailleur. 830ish and Airin is in working order and sporting a wicked XTR/XT/X9/X7 drivetrain and running off of friendship so pure that you would have to dilute it under normal cercumstances.

Saturday I drove down with the Seagal boys and their Single Speeds of Supiority and checked in. I got a ACE bandage for my wrist which I had some how sprained and ignored hoping that it would cease to exist if I neglected it. Now it hurt too bad to keep out of my thoughts.

Sunday morning came with awesome weather. At one point I saw God smiling on all 150 riders lining up to put themselves through pain Arkansas style. I kept asking people if they were ready to get awesome as our roll out start moved down the fire road toward the womble trail. Suddenly we were in single track heaven. The womble was in pristine condition. We climbed and descended and hit the pavement. I was feeling great and after chatting some more hooked up with my new found friends for a 25mph pace line to get to the single track faster. This ended up being mistake. I blew up heading up Blowout Mountain which is pretty much pinch flat hell. I was sucking down any energy gel, power bar, fresh fruit, cytomax ect. I could get at the rest stops and was caught during a bindge by Marc and Brad from Team Seagel at the last rest area, 14miles and one mountain from the finish. I started up Big brushy and was forced to walk. I couldn't do this well either and kicked my rear derailleur, bending the hanger and limitting me from using the last cog (something I realized after jamming the chain between the hub and cassette twice). Mud was keeping my front Derailleur from shifting into the granny and I was forced to walk or grind. I did both and traded places with a few riders on the way to the top. Once there the down hill melted my face and gave me new life. I hit the road and again hooked up with another rider and we paced each other. I dropped him later. It was sweet considering how crappy I felt. I big ringed it all the way back on the roads as I drained the last of my cytomax. I crossed the finish line at 5:35 and some change good enough to land me 36th overall. I finished with my soul intact and a pretty muddy smile.

Awesome trip awesome company and one awesome race!