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.