Dopers Suck!!!

Sorry it has been a little while for a new blog entry, but that pretty much sums up how exciting life has been here in CO. Joanna has been out of town, I have been pretty much permantly placed in the Colorado River kayaking, becasue of the heat wave that mother nature firmaly has her hands around our necks. Don't get me wrong, I am not complaining at all!!! It is much more enjoyable in the river, and any thoughts of cycling need to be accomplished well before that morning cup of coffee. Anyway, there is an exciting weekend coming up down in Crested Butte. I have a race there this weekend, and we are going to take the camper over for a couple days. Joanna's mom is in town, and Monica (Joanna's Sister) is going to meet us in the Butte. Anyway, to pass some time, here is a really funny pic I found on another site. Pretty Entertaining!!!!! For those of you that don't know who is in the orange, that is Floyd Landis, the 2006 Tour de France Champion (Still under investigation for doping).

If it doesn't get any bigger, there is a guy in the black wearing a Dopers Suck t-shirt and wrist bands walking behind Floyd while he is being interviewed. The guy is sticking his tongue out at him, and the people in the back ground are laughing their asses off, including skiing legend Glen Plake (Purple Mohawk).

Anyway, a little humor on Monday morning. Stay Tuned their should be a good entry next week! Have a good week everyone!

Maiden Voyage!

We headed over to Vail, CO for the Teva Mtn games this weekend (www.tevamtngames.com). Instead of making the trip everyday, we took the new pop-up camper over. I know I know, you ask why did we buy a camper? Well, after doing butler math (usually good for buying things) we figured I have about 10 race weekends this summer, and at close to $500/wkend for hotel and food, we invested wisely (butler math again!!!). We bought a base model off-road pop-up. Check it out.

We are able to take the dogs with us now every time we go somewhere, they love camping too! Don't ask where we are suppose to sleep?

Maya likes to play in the mud wherever possible. Joanna and I are convinced she was destined to be a black or chocolate lab. She prefers the darker shade!

Anyway back to the Teva games. It is kinda like a carnival, they have rafting, kayaking, rock climbing, mtb racing, dog challenges (we didn't enter as you can see above our dogs are challenged enough!), trail running, etc.... They also have all the vendor tents set up, and they are giving out free schwag. Usually you have to do something to get they freebies! Here was my warm up for the mtn bike race. Good thing I didn't race till 1:00pm, I was just getting my shoulders loosened up!!

This happened to be at the Carhartt Tent. I really wanted one of their cool Nalgene water bottles, so I had to rope a bull first. Little did I know I had this hidden talent, FIRST TRY!!!! Got it!!!! SWEAR TO GOD!!!!

Well, the race was brutal. It started raining and hailing on us at the start line, which in turn made the first lap of the race pure SURVIVAL!!! This course is a typical mtn course, ALOT of climbing, tight rocky & rooty single track, and oh-yah more climbing. To add rain, sleet, hail, and snow on top of the rocks and roots, you get the picture. People were crashing everywhere, broken parts on bikes, flat tires. I made the executive decision to sit back off the lead and let things play out. This was just a fun race, no points being awarded, so no need to injure myself for the races that count. Non-the-less, competition was fierce, and the race was fun and I was covered head to toe in mud.

I was glad to be done, I got cleaned up, washed my bike down, and we headed back to the start line to watch the pro's start @ 4:00. Their was a field of more than 50 pros all battling it out for more than $17,000 in prizes. Their were some really big name guys that show up to this race. Guys like Ned Overend (52 yrs old and still kicking the young guys asses!) Ross Schnell (Factory Trek/Volkswagen), and the ever popular Floyd Landis. Yep, you heard me FLOYD LANDIS! The 2006 Tour de France Winner. This was his first race since the end of the tour last July, and the positive test for synthetic testosterone. This was not a NORBA sanctioned event, so he was able to race, as he is still under investigation for doping. Well, he raced with his new hip in him, and he was sporting the logo of Smith & Nephew. Smith & Nephew is one of my biggest competitors in the sports medicine field. Good thing he got his butt kicked. He took 38th place overall!!!! Maybe that hip isn't workin', I think Mitek might have one for him!

Looks like he has a little bot belly on him. He did just get out of 2 weeks of arbitration in California for his doping case, and wasn't able to ride.

Here is a pretty good article on Velo News about Mr. Landis http://www.velonews.com/race/mtn/articles/12355.0.html

Anyway, another fun weekend, we are trying to figure out were we want to go next weekend. I have a couple weeks off before my next race, Crested Butte June 22nd. Check back often, we'll be updating all the time!!!!!!!