Right now I feel pretty bad- I guess this is what cycling withdrawal feels like. My cheeks are swollen to a point where several people have told me I resemble a chipmunk, and my mouth doesn't feel really good. It's hard to eat a full meal as my jaw has not yet fully regained function, and I can't chew with my molars. Hopefully I'll be able to ride before the end of this week, especially since my new mountain bike just came in:
It's a 2008 Giant Anthem 0, size 20" and it just became available from Giant a few days ago. It's got a mix of X.0, XT, Avid and RaceFace components with Fox suspension and CrossMax wheels. I can't wait to finally hit the trail. I haven't had a mountain bike all season, so this will be a nice change to the road and track riding I've been doing. Without pedals it weighs 24 pounds even, and it will probably weigh a little bit less once I exchange the stock riser bars for the flat bars I ordered. They should arrive sometime Friday in the QBP order at KLM.
I spent this weekend plus Friday night racing in the International 3-day at the Velodrome at Bloomer Park. It was really fun to compete against some of the faster track guys in North America, but I didn't do to well. My partner who I was supposed to ride with ended up unable to come at the last moment so I had to ride with another partner. I feel like I would have had to do a lot less chasing if I had my original partner. After 2 days of pretty much constantly chasing the pack I started off day 3 pretty tired. I ended up crashing (well, sort of) when a rider tried to go underneath my exchange and knocked me off the track. Two of the nipples in my rear 404 broke, so I'm going to have to get those replaced. I ended up DNFing after the crash, but luckily Team White had withdrawn on the first day so I didn't end up in dead last. Overall, I still had a fun time, and I did pretty well in the Miss-and-Outs where I was able to use my pack riding skills to my advantage. Next year should be really good.
Tomorrow I'm going to call up Cannondale about my SuperSix which I ordered at the end of June, but which still has not arrived. Hopefully I'll be able to sort it all out before Elk Grove.
Which brings me to my next dilemma - I can either race all 6 days of the six-day race at the velodrome, which goes from August 14th - 19th, or I can skip the last days and do the Criterium National Championships at Elk Grove. I guess it depends on how I'm feeling. I'm expecting to get my upgrade to 2's pretty soon, so I think it would be pretty harsh to make the National Championships my first race as a 2. On the other hand, I'm feeling pretty fast this time of the season, so I might be able to make a splash. We'll see.
I also need to get Collegiate Track Nationals sorted out. At the moment I don't have anyone to go with, and I really don't feel like flying out to San Diego all by myself. I also need to find a place to stay when I'm out there. I've had a few people offer up their places, but I'm still unsure if I'm even going to get to San Diego in the first place.
Well, I guess this is pretty decent for my first blog entry. I've been meaning to start one of these for a while as I've heard they work surprisingly well as training tools. Regardless, I've finally done it, and I look forward to giving everyone updates
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