making the most of it

productive days tuesday and wednesday hunting morels and 45 minutes of trout fishing this morning contributed to a tasty lunch and is taking the sting out of not being able to ride. shoulder is definitely healing to the point that i'll probably be on pavement and gravels again soon and just need to get the last bit of pain gone and range of motion back and i should be riding trails again.

placed on the 10-day DL

bad crash on the trails immediately following "i don't think this is a good idea" led to falling headfirst for what seemed like three stories into a ravine full of downed trees and landing squarely on my shoulder has me out of commission. phone call from the doctor just confirmed x-rays negative/normal so nothing torn or damaged but still lacking most of my range of motion with significant pain when not using the arm and worse when i try to use it. doctor's guess is 10ish days off the bike with lots of ice and range of motion exercises. legitimately could be worse and was planning on taking a couple of weeks off the bike after the royal 162 this saturday. timeframe has obviously been moved up but disappointed there's no way i can do the race.

royal 162

so, the last 2 weeks can be boiled down to this: finish transiowa riding 33+ hours, bartend 98 hours, race the time trials somewhere in between. i'm tired and legitimately considered skipping next weekend, but i'm not that smart. i have a week to get "ready" for a the royal 162, which is a 162 mile gravel race for those that could care less about the gravel scene. i don't even know what getting ready means. the miles are there. i think i just want to sleep more and work less. might ride my bike a little this week also. then i think i'm going to lock my bikes away for a month and not allow myself to ride.

transiowa video

youtube limitations forced me to split the video into 4 parts so follow the links below to watch it in order. this was definitely meant to be a bit of a scrapbook for me but figured there might be a couple people interested in what its like to go through one of these things.

DISCLAIMER: i swear. a lot. especially during transiowa. don't let your kids watch it if that bothers you.

CLICK HERE FOR PART 1

CLICK HERE FOR PART 2

CLICK HERE FOR PART 3

CLICK HERE FOR PART 4

time trials recap...

here's my time trials recap as best i can remember...there might even be a few pictures as evidence. some of what i remember might not be entirely accurate...

chad wilson needed facial reconstruction surgery after somehow running headlong into a tree in death valley.

dave lunz is temporarily paralyzed after the greatest choke slam ever.

brad wicks required 30 stitches in his forehead although we're not actually sure he ever hit his head.

jesse reyerson required skin grafting on his face after messing with the unicorn and getting the horn.

jeff o'gara needed his arm amputated after having it broken in so many places that saving it was no longer a viable option.

i chased a woman with my beef stick.

i have a perfect handprint bruised into my ass. you can count jeff's individual pygmy fingers.

i demonstrated the proper way to eat unicorn meat.

gus white (shaun white's redneck cousin) is my other brother from another mother.

at least 5 people took beer hand-ups, the best being pat who slammed half my sam adams imperial white which is 10.3% alcohol.

oh...and some people raced. trevor kicked everybody's ass. nicole killed the women's race. evan hartig has grown 3 feet and should be feared in the years to come. i took 8th overall and am not disappointed at all considering how my body still feels following transiowa.

a few pics of my race. lots of pics of localish riders getting posted on the bike decorah blog.

because i'm tired

i don't have much of a postrace write-up. and because i'm having trouble wrapping my head around this year's transiowa or putting it into words. i do have a pretty cool video that i'm almost done putting together that should be posted here soon. for now, relax, recover and check back often cause i know you're dying from the suspense.

another transiowa in the books...

and thankfully another one finished. 322.8 miles (race miles...no idea how many we actually rode) in 33 hours and 11 minutes. absolutely brutal. never felt worse during a transiowa than i did from miles 30-50, which is a horrible way to start a 300+ mile race. took a video camera this year instead of stills so working on patching the videos together. not very high quality but more of a scrapbook for me anyway. might do a full write-up like i have in the past but struggling with motivation. after spending such an extended amount of time swinging like a pendulum between despair and elation its hard to feel normal emotions or to stay focused on anything. body feels pretty good. some numbness in the hands and might have done something to my achilles but we'll see in a few days. hopefully have something left in the legs for the time trials this weekend.
THANK YOU!!! barely seems to cut it, but that's all i've got right now. the lincoln/omaha crew are some of the best people you'll ever be lucky enough to meet. the friendship, support, hotel room floor, determination, riding ability...these men and women have this stuff down. congrats to the first ever women's finisher and last minute roommate janna vavra, also to the man of the weekend and overall winner dennis grelk, and most importantly to cornbread for continuing to roll to the end through diversity and to my fellow single speed champion aaron gammel. couldn't have done it without you guys.