bear

So, winghaven kinda sucked. It was really wet and was pretty much like an ice rink. It was actually kinda funny watching all of the crashes in each corner because no one was seriously hurt and we were riding at like 15mph so it was ridiculous how many people went down. I got gapped off of the pack on a huge crash in the roundabout just before the finish line on the first lap. After watching keaton go down on the roundabout after the finish, i found myself in a chase group with mike heff. Our group didnt seem to be compelled to catch back on, instead they just wanted to ride the same pace as the pack, about 30 seconds back. I tried to jump a few times but i couldnt quite make it more than halfway each time. We caught them on our 3rd lap right before the downhill. Then after the downhill going through the roundabout before the finishline, some idiot decides to try and pass me on the inside. He slid out and the guy on my outside slid out too, but it was the moron on the inside who clipped my wheel and took me down. It wasnt my tires at all or my braking. I didint skid or slide once the whole race, and my courchevels worked perfectly. Today and wednesday I rode around dusk when its not so hot, and i rode my super close to home "lap" rides, where I ride various laps as many times as I want to. Sugar creek has gotten reallly nice now, because of the daugherty ferry bridge bieng knocked down there is no traffic on daugherty ferry and about half of the traffic that was on sugar creek. Right now I am watching the NEW EPISODE OF MAN VS. WILD!!!!. Bear is a pimp and he just parasailed to the top of everest, if you dont believe me, read his blog, I believe its linked. Riding long this weekend, high ridge/covered bridge, and out to ellisville. Austin says 4 hours but....

dog.

some of you know my dog, echo. this is what he looked like:

This is what he looked like when i came home yesterday:

doob

So I raced Iowa, and Tulsa Tough. They were both good races that were well organized. I like the races up in Iowa, specifically the snake cause its awesome and badass.

That photo is from ethan, the kid behind me, but I find it particularly badass. The before, and during, our race up the snake and down the backside made it even more tricky and epic as usual. I raced jrs everyday and 4s the last 2 days, I think that I shouldhave done 4s at the snake also but I didnt for some reason. I was pretty tired on the way home and collapsed for a while when I got home, but hey, its summer. I drove down to Tulsa with my dad and watched the crashfest of a 3s race on friday and then watched the rest of the races. In the rain, pretty epic. I raced 4's on sat and finished in the middle of the group. I raced 4's on sunday, one of the toughest crit courses I've ever done, and I pulled out cause I didnt make the front group, my fault because I wasnt riding in the front and I didnt wanna hit the corner first on the first lap, and mentally I only wanted to do the jrs race. Judging from the front group of about 8 that was leading, I feel like I couldve and shouldve been there, and that I couldve done well in the sprint. I did jrs too, and ended up 9th. It was a tough race. It was fun, on friday before I left I rode with perry, the girl from nerinx, and had a good time. I might end up riding the ms150 with a group of nerinx girls and some guys from my school but we'll see where that goes. One thing I didnt like about the races this weekend and in Iowa is how they run them, by laps instead of time plus laps. On the snake its understandable. In tulsa they would start with 60 minutes, for example, as our racing time and then take our average lap time and then tell us how many laps we would do, so it seems to me like a lot of calculating for not really any purpose. On saturday we wernt even told about the laps and I didnt really know where we were until 1 to go when my computor said 53 minutes and we were supposed to do 60. oh well.