Hibernation

The season is drawing to a close. The Tour du Quebec has started with me not in it. Its amazing what happens when you dont check your emails for 2 days.

I came to PEI to let my mind relaxe. The unwind. To drink some beers and have some late nights with too much fun. So much fun that the bike must be forgotten the following day.

I'm finding lots of fun, and lots of good times here on the Red Dirt, but racing it seems is something that takes a little longer to dillute out of the blood. Constantly my mind is in racing mode. I find I cant go on 'rides' as they turn into 'training rides'. Training rides that dont lead to anything. I'm constantly on edge, keeping my sences keen and reflexes fast. I might not have the speed in the legs as a result of not racing lately, but I know it will come back fast.

Not only in cycling has this tenseness developed at the end of the year. I cant help but attack parts of my life. Even in casual conversation and mild daily goals I feel I must attack them without hessitation. I learned in a race, if you see the break go and you have the hole you must not hessitate to put the pedal down. No second thought or its gone. You cannot sit idly by and watch your destiny pass you.

This assertivness is what is driving my life. Whenever I have a slight urge to do something I feel I have to drop what I am doing and do it. I know if I procrastinate then the desire will leave and my task will not get done. I think I'm turning into a robot.

The Quest for Flow

The best part of riding bikes are the brief encounters riders have with 'flow'. Anyone who has experienced 'flow' on a bike knows it when the've experienced it. They are often the people on the group rides with the biggest smiles on their faces, and the riders who want to ride for longer than the rest..but only on that particular day.

Flow can be on both road and mountain bikes, although it seems to be most rewarding when on a MTB bike. The feeling of loose hands, relaxed legs, and crazy speeds. Flow is where the bike does the thinking and your simply along for the ride.

Long after I hang up my racing bike I think(I hope) I will ride as much as I do now. Not for training or building or fitness(maybe a bit of everything) but mainly for the quest to experience 'flow'. Once you've found it, it keeps you looking for more. Like a bad drug or a good girl.



I've been riding a little bit this week in hopes of finding my flow again. Although I haven't ridden the 'ol MTB much this year, I can feel the suppleness coming back but its still not there. I haven't ridden the trail where it felt like silk. Most of my rides I'm still powering through the roots, which isn't what I'm looking for.

The funny thing is.. finding flow is like trying to go to sleep. The instant you try hard to go to sleep is when your the furthest away from sleeping. The instant when your mind goes to something else and relaxes and you forget why your lying in bed. This is when sleep takes over. The body has a mind of its own, and one of the hardest parts of life that I'm learning is that sometimes you have to allow it to take over.

Brick by Brick

Life goes on. I've been on the Red Dirt for about a week now and I'm starting to get back into the swing of things. The body is still a little rusty internally and externally but I finished the meds yesterday so now I can allow myself to drink a little more beer each day in the hopes of feeling normal.

Riding has been going decent. The whole Guadeloupe trip gave me a glimpse of my own mortality and the realization that some things take more than a couple days to bounce back from. Maybe being late in the year I'm not recovering as fast as I did in the Spring, but the aches and pains still linger.

I'm still riding though, which has been a blast. The best part about coming home after months and months away is that its like going on a giant shopping spree. All of a sudden you have a ton of your favorite clothes that you forgot about, and in my case 4 other bikes that I haven't ridden since the previous December. I'm loving the fixxie cruz. Unfortunately I haven't been able to rip out the old Surly SS as I'm still pretty tender and that bike takes a lot out of you.

I went on a nice leisurely road ride last week. Of course being only a couple hours I thought I would be safe not taking a patch kit/Co2/tube. Wrong. I flatted only about 3km from home. Fortunately I rode the rim to the end of the road to Eric's parents house to use the phone......but no answer. Well, I pulled out the old MTB trick and stuffed the tire with grass and put the tire on as normal and I managed to get home....saving the tire and not having a skratch on the rim. Pretty skiddish though...

Last weekend Bruce, Eric and I went to the Woolley Bear Classic MTB race in New Brunswick. The field was...ok and Lamb and I found ourselves up front. The bad luck streak continued as I flatted 1km into the race and had to chase through the whole pack. Passing many U15 girls I finally made it back to the front of the group on the 4th lap, where Lamb promptly attacked like a mad man and put in a solid 3+minutes into me. I was toast. I managed to roll in second place though. You just cant give a guy like Lamb that much of a break. hah. There is no shame being beaten by the best.

Brookvale is this weekend and I'm thinking of sleeping in a tent there...just so I'm accustomed to the altitude...cant take any chances with a guy like Lamb.

Guadaloupe

Well folks, Its time for me to start posting on this thing again. I'm pretty amazed at just how many people read this friggin' thing. If I was smart I would use it as an incentive for sponsorship. I'll work on that in the fall.

So, Guadeloupe. The only internet that was available was $15 an hour, which was why I couldn't do any posts.

Honestly, Guadeloupe was probably the worst time of my life. It was horrible on many many different levels. I'm not going to get into it but here's the play by play. Then I will never speak of it again.

When we arrived at the Guadeloupe airport after a solid 30 hours of travel where 3 -of-the-4 flights were delayed, we were searched for drugs by French Customs. Not only a clothing search, but they ripped apart our bike bags and clothes bags and searched everything. From there they confiscated all kinds of drugs or medications we had. Things like Tylenol, Advil and even Vitamins were taken. This also included medications, which is pretty awful considering its a medication that people NEED and they are taking them from you.

It was good and bad because as a result Customs found a ton of drugs with other teams. Full on doping products such as Human Growth Hormone and even EPO which is serious buisness.

(Waiting for delayed planes)

Unfortunately for me I wasn't fully subject to this searching as my luggage was delayed for five days so I had to race 175km bike races in borrowed shorts and socks, then wash them in a hotel sink every night. (Thanks Luc for the shorts)

When we got to the hotel we didn't have any bottled water, and we werent going to drink the tap water so we did a solid 2 hour ride in 40 degree temps just sweating it out. in retrospect it wasn't a good idea but we needed to get all the crap out of our legs from the travel. The hotel was not about to give us any water either. This would set the stage for all week.

(After a couple days we got our water from the race organizer, the team went through 2 of these)

The team killed it in the Prologue. So much so that I think it went to our disadvantage. Garrett, the youngest guy on the team took 9th, and the White Jersey followed by Belli in 12th, and myself 0.4 of a second behind in 13th. Cam and Dustin rounded out in the top 18 as well. Basically we made a lot of money in the first day, and it drew way too much attention to the team. With 140 other racers...we were marked men.

(waiting, in Guadeloupe nothing EVER started on time. You would be hard pressed to find a clock anywhere on the whole island. Even the hotel rooms didnt have clocks.)

The next day was the longest of the race. 175km's with quite a few climbs toward the end which didn't seems to be on the race profile. Throw in 41degree temps and you have a hard day. We struggled along and our main man Cam got int he break placing himself super high in the General Classification. I took 34th, with my boy Andre right ahead. I was pretty stoked as I was 19th in the GC and second in line for the White Jersey. Bad luck happened to mark that day though.

From here the race for me is a blur. While racing the third stage(the sketchiest of the race I was told)I hit a pothole, resulting in a double flat, loosing control and hit the deck sliding into a ditch. I was so messed up as I got up. The medical staff was pulling me toward the ambulance where I had the realization if I got on that ambulance the race was over for me. So I got back on my bike with 2 new wheels and bent bars and rode for a good 30km trying to get back into the race. After some time I decided to pull out as my arm was throbbing and my whole left side was pretty much covered in blood. It was horrible.

From there I went to a sketchy South American hospital where no-one spoke English and I couldn't take any pain killers as they only offered me tap water. I got 4 stitches in my arm and a whole lot of bandages and swelling on in my knee and I was sent off for some recovery time. My race was over.

From here the race for the boys went really well. Unfortunately I cant really say much about it as I was spending time at the hotel. Cam got the Yellow Jersey, and held it for most of the race. The boys were doing really well. Its hard to sit around watching them on TV while its happening.

This is where more bad luck for me happened. The day after the hospital I got really sick. I was super tired and didn't get out of bed all day. I attributed it to food poisoning of some sort, and just hung out at the hotel. The next day I was a a little better so I figured I was over the worst of it. On and off for a few days I would get sick then get better. Finally after a hot shower my arm pretty much exploded with puss. It turned out that the whole arm wasn't swollen but was a GIANT infection. Basically the biggest pimple you've ever seen in your life.

From here I went to the hospital again overnight to get some of the infection drained and the stitches taken out. I was pumped with 2 bags of anti-biotic. 2 bags of painkillers, along with an IV. I didn't realize how serious the problem was until the doctor mentioned I might loose some of the movement in my arm for life. I waited overnight for a catscan the next morning where the doctors would see if they would have to operate. There was only 1 doctor in the whole region who could do the surgery but luckily the catscan came back decent, and the infection hadn't gotten into the bone. From here my life was just keeping my wound clean, taking 14 pills a day, and watching the boys on TV.

The other problem I had was that its very boring at a Caribbean Beach resort when you cant go in the sun, cant drink beer, can't go anywhere, and all of the TV is french. The only thing I did for about 4 days was watch CNN(only English station) and the Olympics, which is pretty self explanatory. Garrett(taken out of the race with bad luck) and I discovered these wonderful Ice Cream bars called Magnum's...which you can't get in Canada. Oh man they are good.

So the race went on. Cam lost the Yellow Jersey to the biggest doper in the sport. Honestly this guy makes me want to buy 7 pairs of "Doper's Sucks" socks to wear everyday. He basically stole a lot of money and prestige from the team. What a joke.

So the race came to a close. Cam finished second, but was by far the strongest guy in the race and turned a lot of heads. The boys rode great for him and we finished the race in pretty good spirits, although everyone was super tired after the 10 days of racing.

To top everything off from the worst week ever, I got BOTH sets of my wheels stolen from a locked bike room. $6000 worth of stuff was stolen from me. I have no insurance. From here I'm trying ot collect from home-owners but its not looking good.

(The prison for a week)

As I sit at home after a couple days of chilling out, I'm feeling pretty bitter about the whole thing but my body is doing well. I only have a couple days left of the meds and the arm and knee are a little rough but getting better.

There is a race this weekend on PEI. I'm hoping to scrape together my battered bike enough to race. We'll see how that goes.