My Season So Far, Part 1

Well, I figured I should post up some bloggification on my race season so far. I'll devide it into two parts, to make it easier to read.

Murray State, er, Hayward, WI

While most of the team traveled a long ways South to Kentucky, I instead held out for the last bits of winter, and headed North. Hayward, WI is home to the American Birkebeiner, the largest cross country ski race in North America with over 7,500 participants. I got up there midday Thursday, and had a couple of days to actually get back to the feel of skiing on snow before the race.

The race itself is a 50K, which is a bit more than a standard running marathon. With no ski specific training to speak of for two months leading up to the event, I was mainly hoping to finish coherent enough to enjoy some brats (the greatest part of Wisconsin) after the race.

Starting off flat, the race soon kicks uphill with a 5K climbing section known as The Powerlines. I was mainly trying not to blow up at this point, but in looking down at my watch at the 10K point, I saw I was on pace for 3 hours, which would be a great result. The next 30K were kind of a blur, and at 40K I was still roughly on pace. However, my legs decided to be a bit uncooperative, and the last 10K were a grind, with 7K of climbing (including an infamous hill full of hecklers) and 2K across a lake into a headwind.

The best part of the race is that it finishes on the streets of Downtown Hayward. Everyone comes out to cheer, and it really gives you a boost of energy (that, along with the shot of Jager I grabbed from a spectator at the beginning of the lake). I finished in a respectable time, got my stuff, and went to find some brats. Fortunately, an enterprising group had set up a brat stand directly across from the changing area, so I didn't have to wait long.

But I didn't forget about the team, and rocked the whole way in my purple polka dots:

I even got a few "Go Northwestern!"s, which I think was more due to my hat.

Lindsey Wilson

So after my journey to the Northwoods, I was excited to get back on my bike and actually get out bike racing. The next race was Lindsey Wilson, and with the Blue Raider Omnium competition, I was hoping for a good result.

Saturday started off with a 10K TT, which I was confident in. However, my race was basically over before it began, as I was unable to get my left foot clipped in at the start. Since I was fumbling with this, rather than making sure I was in the proper gear, I lost even more time trying to push a large gear from the start. I did get my right foot clipped in, but still couldn't get my left. Given a choice of spending a lot of time getting it in or continuing on without full use of my power, I opted for the later, hoping that the time penalties would be less severe.

Will and Scott, on there aero machines, eventually passed me, which was expected. At this point, I was cursing USAC for there incredibly stupid ban on aero equipment for non-A riders. At least let us have clip on aero bars! They are cheap, and make it a heck of a lot safer when trying to get into an aero position on a road bike [/rant].

I wound up 10/18, which I was upset with. Upset mainly at myself, for not properly lubing my Speedplay cleats and causing myself to lose time. Let that be a lesson kids: Always do the routine bike maintenance!

The road race was next, and cautious of another cleat episode, I made sure I was clipped on on the left well before the start. However, as overzealous as the D's pack was to get going, we nearly forgot to let the Women's A follow car through. This resulted in my being towards the back of the pack at the start, definitely not a good place to be. I had to wait until the first big climb to work my way to the main pack, which I was only able to catch the back of thanks to the yellow line rule. Fortunately, the pack wasn't accelerating too much, so I didn't have to do a lot of needless yo-yoing.

Things were looking good, until a small rise before the final climb. In a moment of inattentiveness, I came off the back of the pack, and watched as a 5m gap turned into 10m, which turned into 20. I knew my chances of winning were done, but I still wanted to do a good final climb, which I managed to, even passing the Women's A follow car ahead of me. At the top of the climb, I saw what I thought were two NU riders just ahead of me (it turned out to be Taylor and a Butler rider), and I went into attack mode to try and catch them before the line.

Ka-chunk!

Rats, my gears jammed up upon doing this. Fortunately, I was able to right my wrong before anyone else caught me, but I ended up having to solo in to the finish.

Now throughly out of the omnium, I wanted to use the Sunday crit as a training ride, mainly since I hate crits. The course suited me fairly well, with its one short steep climb. However, I didn't quite have the gusto to stay with the main group, but Red Beard and I got together just behind them, eating up anyone shot out of the back of the pack like a pair of hungry alligators. I would pass RB on the climb, and lead through the next 2 corners, where he would take over on the backstretch. I thought I had him in the final sprint, until I looked and saw him on my wheel. I let up, letting him place ahead of me due to all the hard work he had done.

Overall, a good weekend was had at the Dreamland Motel. I think I'm finally over the incredible smallness of the rooms.

Look for Part 2 coming soon!

Southern Illinois University Team Time Trial

We had fun. Bottom line. Will was happy that his dream for the past four years was finally coming true. He wanted to have a big team with dedicated riders who were putting team aspirations over personal priorities. He wanted a team of good friends who had fun. We had fun making ourselves look funny, and not taking anything too seriously. I wanted to wear my KONA jersey for the TTT, but I had to take it off, and deal with just riding on my mountain bike.

Wait, mountain bike?! TTT? What was I thinking?! Lets backtrack a little. Last Tuesday on spring break, before our morning ride, Nick noticed a crack in my seat stay on my road bike. A crack, that upon further examination, enlarged when flexed. I decided that even though I had probably ridden it for at least the day before, I didn't want to ride it that day. Just the day before, I had put my mountain bike together, enhancing the flat pedals with some longer 2mm pegs for better traction, and a new super heavy-duty rear tire. So, I decided to put the road bike away, and ride the mountain bike. I put in 45 miles on the mountain bike that day, keeping pace with some of my teammates. I rode Wednesday and Thursday on my mountain bike as well, and then we got some slicks to put on for the races on the weekend. But I put my bike on the back of a car with hot unfiltered exhaust, and the front tire had a melted hole straight through the tire and tube when we pulled into the hotel on Friday night. I had to throw out the melted front tire, and then swap out the rear slick to the front wheel, and then mount up my least knobby mountain bike tire for the rear. UGH.

So, Saturday morning, I was riding around on my mountain bike, with my Carhartts and Kona jersey on, looking like I was just having fun, but really getting used to the new feel of my mountain bike. When we lined up for the TTT, people asked us if I was really riding it in the race. I was. We weren't going for the win. We were going for fun, and for points.

Will, Tommy and I lined up for the start, and watched our other A team and our Womens A ride off. A Lindenwood team rode off, we waited a minute, and then rolled out slowly. Will led us most of the way for our 14 mile time trial, and the team behind us didn't catch us til a mile and half. The Marian team caught us a little later. We had a nice time, going along around 15mph or so, went up the long hill, and then around the turn around, where we noticed another Lindenwood A team on our tail. They passed us at the top of the hill, but we kept pace with them on the downhill and the flat following the bottom of the hill. I was spinning really fast, with my 44:12 gearing. According to Tommmy, we hit 36.5; much faster than I expected. We had some nice conversation on the return trip, slowed for a flatted-out Lindenwood rider, who was fine, and kept on for the finish. We rode across the finish three abreast, which was fun, and although we were last, it had only been about 45 mins, which was faster than we had thought it might have been.

"That was what I wanted us to be like. And thats what we were like. It was awesome. " ~ Will Nowak, President

Southern Illinois University Criterium - Mens D

I had only had one banana to eat for breakfast; I had meant to eat more, but I hadn't had time. As a result, I was not feeling particularly strong. After all, I was still riding the mountain bike(explanation to follow in a subsequent post), and I had decided to keep my gearing to two gears: middle or big ring in the front, and my 12 tooth sprocket in the back. It made things simpler, and I could still spin fast enough to get up the hills, and that way it made shifting simpler. At the start, a bunch of riders mentioned that I had the upper hand today, with my better gripping tires.

We had strategized to have repeated attacks off the front, and Tommy shot off the front from the start. Tommy held the lead for the first lap, which broke the field up very quickly. I was not so quick out of the gates. I took a few pedal strokes to clip in, and I wasn't feeling strong. I held on to the back of the pack. Nick attacked next, and led the field for pretty much the whole rest of the race. Joe kept his place in third position. Occasionally I would get up in the top 8 riders, but I usually would get passed on the finishing stretch. Later in the race, I wasn't feeling like I had the upper hand. I entertained thoughts of dropping off the back so far I got lapped, and then placed. My glasses fogged up several times, often so bad that I had to look over the tops to see. I took the opportunity during one stretch on the finish when I was off the back to take my glasses off and wipe the insides with my glove. That cleared up my view for a while; it continued to fog a bit, but not as bad. As a result of the fogging, the rain, and the fact that the officials moved the clock, I had no idea how long into the race we were.

I knew I had no chance for the primes anyway, so I pretty much waited until I heard the bell ring for the third time, and then punched it on the back downhill stretch, spinning fast, but the field wasn't going too fast. I got into second position, and the guy in front of me took the uphill corner too fast, and went off into the grass. I was pretty sure it was the last lap, but I wasn't actually convinced. I also was prettty sure that a break had been made at some point, so I wasn't actually in first place. I didn't think I could maintain my lead on the field, since I was not feeling my best, and it was probably the last lap. However, I held on, and placed fourth! Even after I crossed the finish line, I still wasn't sure we were done, but no one was passing me, so I kept going and slowed down for the cool down lap, where I talked with Joe about our race, and met up with Nick, who had apparently crashed with two laps to go, off the front. He was reasonably angry about crashing and not winning.

We rolled back to our spectating team, who were very congratulatory for our efforts. I was talking with Axie, who asked me if I was just toying with the D field, by staying at the back for most of the race. I was not, I was actually pretty tired. I guess I got my second legs with about 6 mins to go. As Axie and I turned around, a GVSU B girl barreled into me and my front wheel. She fell to the ground, and I checked to make sure she and her bike were ok. It was then that I noticed the crash had caused my front wheel to "potato chip". That's kind of like taco-ing, but less severe. Either way, it was un-ridable. I remembered that someone had mentioned to me Saturday that some of my spokes were a little loose. So! Now I'm in the market for a new mountain bike front wheel, a new Trek frame(explanation to follow in a subsequent post), a new road crank, a front mountain bike fork, and most of a new component group. Yay!

Oh yeah, and it was raining for the whole race.

Rhythm

In all sports timing is important. In skiing it's all about timing your turns through the gates. Cycling is more than that. It's about rhythm, the rhythm of the race and the rhythm of your ride. When in a group ride these two are always in sync, complementing each other. Individuals shift around in the pack but all have the same goal of completing the designated route safely and efficiently. Racing changes everything. Each person is riding to their own rhythm creating the chaotic rhythm of the race. The winner is the one who can feel both and bring them create a harmony for themselves.

Sometimes the rhythm is for you and sometimes it is against you. Saturday it was against me. Three laps was all the D's race was. Lap one was a dull and simple flow with everyone just feeling out the course. Lap two on the courses kicker is where I knew I would no longer be racing. While standing up to move up in the pack, I strangely found myself moving backwards. My rear wheel was spinning out, low on pressure. Battling just to finish, I lost, losing all pressure about halfway through the third lap and have to wait for a ride back. Morale, if you feel yourself losing air and your tire starts to washout in gentle turns then pull out, don't gamble risking a crash or damage.

A team time trial simplifies the rhythm game. Now it is just you and your team complementing each other. The better this works, the better the result. Dane and I worked together and got 4th for the D's. The A team struggled a bit more to find a rhythm but we pushed as hard as we could but came 1 second short of beating IIT.

Sunday I was pumped! My rhythm was going to be the race rhythm. 50 feet from the start was a 180° turn and I was determined to be the first one through it. The whistle blows, I shot off, low and behold there's someone on my outside doing the exact same thing. Going in hot and tight, I slide out, stand up and laugh, just laugh as the pack rides around me. Walking back to the start I just laugh and relax. Once back in I let my rhythm go and feel into the races rhythm, moving back up to the front. Once there I launched an attack to try and restore my rhythm again but after a lap or two I just wasn't able to keep away. More laps passed and I just rode with the races rhythm. It was great to hear the coaching from my teammates even if it didn't always seem to make sense. When the rider before my jumped for the second prem he gave me themperfect leadout to secure some points. After falling back into the rhythm of the race, our laps were nearly over so I clicked back to my own rhythm, battling up towards the front. Third wheel going into the sprint were my instructions and I was battling LWC for this position when I lost feel for the race rhythm. An attack came up the other side. I jumped to chase, just as we came into the 180°. Hot I exited wide, nearly in the grass and was gaped from the new lead group. In such a short time I went from racing for 1st to 7th, at least I got that and more points for the team. 3 weeks into the season and I have learned so much, hopefully next time I'm in my first field sprint.

Proof Scott has better timing (that's me passing in the background):

Winds of thunder, kisses from the fair lady of peanut butter and a boy who couldn't possibly be nutter: Depauw race weekend.

The Crowning of a Rain King

They know the whines of engines revving, the tortures of wheels slipping and the danger of things flipping. For them, life is a constant terror.

But as rain falls, they fidget. Men have no place racing on slick rubber when wind and water dominate, they think. No two fears are the same. And the fear of death ushered by rain and crashing is a particularly powerful one. A fear that can render the stoic soft, they agree.

But they are wrong: One of them is unfazed. In what becomes one of his greatest wins, Michael Schumacher moves forward from sixth to first. Despite the rain and his finicky car, he wins—by over a minute in a race usually decided by thousandths of a second.

Now, Schumi is back from retirement. And so is Gregory Christian.

The Return of a Legend

In a race defined by rain and the feeble souls of frightened “men,” Greg earned a title that only Schumi owns: Regenkönig (rain king). Known for his TT prowess, Greg races for Team Panther and Michigan State. And Saturday, the Rain King proved his legs have become nothing but stronger in his brief absence from collegiate cycling.

But just as Schumi’s victory required context, so too does Greg’s—this weekend was no ordinary one.

Stage Setting

To start, Mama Bear (Hannah/NU) had been angered. (They say all is fear in love and war. They are right...) The entire conference felt her weather changing wrath as clouds descended and temperatures dropped. Not even the Sea Otter (Axie/NU) could penetrate the haze and calm her hate. I was a wanted man with little chance of survival.

Under these conditions, I was set to declare my eternal admiration for the conference goddess: Sinead Miller. As much as I adore her, I fear her. Beauty and strength are something, but omnipotence is frightful; the dangers of a vengeful god are numerous. Just ask Job.

I, therefore, risked death as I unfurled my poster—I was disturbing the start of Sinead’s coffee shop spin. Mercifully, she greets me with a smile. She does not strike me down with pestilence or plague, but gifts me the courage to race.

So I line up only to see the Sinead-scarred remnants of the Women’s A field crash and Clara (NU) win the field sprint. Yes, it was practically a victory. But a near-victory marred by the blood and banged wrist of our Sea Otter.

Road Racing or Abitibi Redux

There is little time for sympathy; my race beings. Naturally, conditions turn from nasty to Third World. The laps are fast, my glasses are covered in gunk and my body is soaking. Longfellow (Will/NU) and I fight to make breaks, but he suffers a bayonet blow to the knee and I have food threatening to emerge from both bodily orifices. In the face of such calamities, we resign ourselves to the pack.

Yet, we remain vigilant. Spider-Monkey (Ben Damhoff/UW Platteville) is looking strong. Marian remains dangerous. Lindenwold has the power from down under and up North. Kip, well, no one rides harder than Kip... So yes, we are thinking, but we aren’t thinking about the right man.

On the final lap, the Rain King attacks. He dangles just meters off the front of the pack. But who is there to chase? He crosses the line in victory. In the sprint, I brake for 8th place OA.

(For want of space, I will skip the TTT. But I will say this: Our team showed perseverance and several riders showed their potential.)

Critification

Having witnessed the strength of the Red Baron Rain King and the love of the Black Widow (Sinead), the crit was an exciting but dangerous prospect. Especially, considering it was to be held in a parking lot with a 180 turn. But fear is no match for my fidelity; I began my preparations.

The course required adornment. At each turn and at other key locations, I marked the course with chalk. My writings were simple and reserved: “Sinead, raise arms in victory salute here!” “Lapped the field five times? Time for a tea party?” “How many dreams do you intend to crush today?” and the classic, “Mow them down, chew them up and spit them up!”

Naturally, she prevailed— this despite taking time for a tea party and a short nap. But Sea Otter went down hard, Mama Bear showed signs of rage and my race was soon set to begin.

On the line, the Hyena-Komodo Dragon (Alder Martz/LWC) saw my wanton eyes and called over Sinead. In a moment of terror and bungled saythings, I handed over my green cookie. It read: Kiss Me.

Well, she did.

Frankly, the rest of the day was a wild blur, a reverie. When men are touched by the gods, little can they be blamed for daydreaming.

Until next weekend,

Rosie

(P.S. The rumbling [near synonym] winds of hill country have little to fear. Things are never as they appear—they are there only to deceive. For what purpose? This you should know.)

Skiing and Art of Bicycle Maintenance (but mostly skiing)

I was unfortunately unable to race last weekend because I was doing some extreme skiing in Colorado with my brother (secret altitude training plan). But beyond the low oxygen exercise, I found an interesting parallel between cycling and ski equipment on which I will elaborate below. First, a bit of intro. My brother Jon works on classified weapons systems at Sandia National Lab in Albuquerque, NM, so I flew into ABQ on Friday night (I love Southwest, ski bag an suitcase checked for free!). Jon is an insane skier. We used to be relatively similar skill levels, but since I moved to the Chi and he’s out west he's gained a significant advantage. Nonetheless, when he needs a ski partner to go into the deep backcountry he still calls me. This time, our destination was Silverton Mountain, an expert only park where you have to reserve a guide and do avalanche training, then hike off a lift for 30min to 2hrs to access some of the most extreme terrain you can find without a helicopter. They mince no words with their logo:

In advance of our Sunday date with Silverton, we drove up to Durango early Saturday to do a bit of warm up skiing. I was looking forward to getting Jon into some terrain parks because I brought my twin tip freestyle skis, which, like my bikes, I set up and tune myself (relevant later). We had sunny and warm spring conditions, so there was great visibility at the top:

Jon vetoed the terrain parks as they were packed with some really unskilled teenagers, so we spent most of our time in the trees hitting semi-natural features like down trees, lean-tos, and drifts:

I have some really funny follow-cam video as well, but needless to say my brother and I are lacking in the cinematography department. Anyway, the day finished without incident and we drove 1.5hrs north to our hotel in Silverton.

Steep and deep runs call for special powder skis that are significantly fatter than my Rossi’s, so the first thing I had to do at Silverton was rent skis and have them fit to my boots (my brother and most of the other people had their own powder skis). We were divided up into 8 person groups and given a guide. Predictably, Jon elected for one of the more challenging groups, so we were going to be doing a lot of hiking. The conditions were wicked as we took the lift up to the start of our first hike. 40+ mph winds and heavy snow made for whiteout conditions. Our first hike was the longest, a 2 hour sufferfest to summit the mountain. Later in the day I was able to get a clear shot of the ascent:

Here’s Jon making it up a steep section after we shimmied around a rock outcropping:

I was somewhat nonplussed at the top:

We waited a little while for a break in the storm and started heading down the back side of the mountain where we encountered a steep bowl above a line of cliffs. There were several chutes to pass the rocks, so the guide went down first to show us the line. I was the first to follow and as I started down the bowl the wind kicked up and cut down the visibility. I continued to approach what I thought was one of the chutes, but as I was executing an unremarkable jump turn my right ski popped off for no apparent reason. I tried to stay up and stop my momentum, but the 50%+ grade was too much to for a single edge to hold. I pitched down the slope head first with my left ski still attached, and unfortunately found that I was approaching a rock outcrop instead of the chute. I lost my second ski as I slid onto the top section of the rocks, allowing me to rotate my legs out in front of me in advance of the drop. As I tried to stop myself I only succeeded in banging my knee against the top of the next section and falling about 10 or 15 feet into some mercifully deep snow. I was totally juiced on adrenaline and frantically crawled out of the person shaped depression that I had made. To add insult to injury, I knew that at least one of my skis was on the rocks above, so I wasn’t going to get any assistance retrieving it. As I scaled back up the rocks, Jon looked up at the cliff and got a picture of me crawling back up. It’s difficult to see in the photo, but free climbing in ski boots is not advisable:

Once I made it to the bottom, I quickly found out why my ski had released so unexpectedly. Apparently they had neglected to adjust the binding tension on the right ski, so instead of an 11/12, it was set to 7/12. While I was annoyed at this discovery, I admittedly should have checked the tension before heading up on the mountain. The whole episode was a teachable moment. Having a ski pop off is usually a harmless occurrence, but in this case, the location of this malfunction greatly magnified the impact of losing a ski. In that way, it was a lot like bike maintenance. If something goes wrong on a training ride and you crash, the consequences are usually mild. Conversely, going down in the middle of a pack during a race can have significantly more severe ramifications (as Tommy's broken seatstay and my chainring scar can attest). This is a great reason to get into doing a lot of your own mechanic work. Regardless of how much you trust a shop, there's no substitute for knowing that you tightened all the bolts yourself. Then, you can race without reservations and know that the bike can handle whatever you throw at it.

Anyway, the rest of the day saw better weather and I overcame the knee pain to do some pretty sweet skiing:

Once you get to the bottom, you get to do a sketchy creek crossing and eventually end up at the sketchy bar:

So, when I got back I chilled out on the training for a few days, but used the time to build up a new bike for this weekend:

And that's what I like to call...serious business.

My room reeks of 2.5wt SRAM suspension oil.

What is biking all about for me?
Winning. Being faster than everyone in my field. Winning. Basking in the glory of the top step of the podium. Snagging those primes. Winning...

...At least, that is what I would have told you a week ago. Throughout winter, the only thing I dreamed of while spinning away on my bright green trainer was winning sprints for the finish. All I wanted, obviously, was to win. However, a combination of my laziness (avoiding the trainer like it was a rabid nosferatu all winter break) and my Hincapie-esque bad luck (forced off the bike for 6 weeks by a knee injury and two severe crashes) left me in rather poor shape for the start of racing season. I didn't know this yet at the first race at Murray State since I got crashed out only 2.5 miles into the first race, ending up with a cracked frame and a fractured pride. I felt great those first 2.5 miles though, and that inflated my confidence to epic proportions.

One week and a beautiful new 2010 Tarmac later, I was back in the game. My foolish confidence had persevered to the Lindsey Wilson race weekend and I was ready to kill Saturday morning.
At the start line I felt like I had never been more ready for anything in my life. The sun was shining, we were lined up at the very front, and my new steed was faster than a 426 hemi. Conditions were perfect. The official said "go!" and we were off. Everything was going well until the first hill whereupon I blew up like a thermonuclear device. My lungs suddenly imploded and my quads spontaneously combusted. I got passed left and right. I was a paraplegic tortoise in a field of Alberto Contadors. When I finally rolled across the line I was dead last. Joe was reclining in a chair with his legs resting on his bike.

At this point I was pretty severely emotionally (and physically) crushed. I had never been so disappointed in myself. I had let my new bike down, as well as the team. I shouldn't have been racing a on Tarmac for NU. I should have been racing a on Walmart-special for IIT. Sunday's crit was almost just as bad. I spent the next few days bogged down in procrastinated school work and haunted by the disastrously shameful results of the previous weekend. Needless to say, those few days were pretty terrible.

After my final Wednesday afternoon, something caught my attention. It was my recently purchased Yeti AS-R SLc frame that had been sitting untouched in my room for weeks. She is a real beauty. One, of the last batch of AS-R frames to be built in the US, and in unusual, unexplained colors. This rare team-turquoise stunner from Golden, CO makes my Specialized bikes seem like soul-less, manufactured whores.
My school-work was done for the week, so I decided to spend the time to build her up. I ran out of time Wednesday evening and saved the fork rebuild for the next morning. The entire process took 2-3 hours and involved lots of unique-smelling fluids, much of which was inevitably spilled onto my carpet. During this process I remembered this time last year when I was building my first bike, an inexpensive Rockhopper. I remembered the joys of learning how to build a bike, the pride I felt when I had completed it, and most importantly, how I felt riding it aimlessly around town. The bike was heavier than an aircraft carrier and rolled slower than a rectangular wheel, but I was happy.

Now this was greatly confusing. I now have most, if not all, of my dream-bikes and am many times faster and stronger but I'm most unhappy. Makes no sense!!! I put the confusion aside and walked under ominous clouds to tech for history class. When I came out the strangely heavy front doors, the sun was out and it felt very much like spring so I decided to take the Yeti out for a little spin to get her dialed in. I wore jeans and a cotton T-shirt instead of race-worthy kit, just like I did last year. After getting the fork and shock pressures about right and the saddle adjusted, I kept riding even though I had no water and was only prepared to ride 15 minutes or so. I rode around aimlessly, just like I did the previous spring. Pop off this curb, go down that little hill... I just rode for fun. The sun was shining upon me again, but this time I wasn't thinking about beating anyone to the finish. After an hour or two, I stopped at an empty section of the lakefill thirsty and exhausted and realized that I was, unbelievably, once again happy. Suddenly, all my troubles seemed so far away. I felt nothing like I did yesterday.
I sat there in the sun bathing in the bliss of peaceful happiness. I remembered why I started biking in the first place, many many moons ago... to escape from the stress of school and be happy. Sitting there in mud-splattered jeans, I resolved to never lose myself to obsessing with winning again. Today, if you ask me what biking is all about for me, I'd answer simply, "To be happy."