Hello, thanks for visiting my BLOG!
Gosh I feel so current now that I finally have my own blog! As the descriptions states this will mainly be a place for me to discuss past rides and races that I have been involved with. Living so close to the beautiful Pisgah National Forest I thought this would be a great place for people to keep track of my cycling adventures. While this blog will mostly focus on mountain bike rides and races I'll also be updating this with road rides, hikes, and other topics of personal interest such as my other passion in life, djing. Don't be surprised to see very random "party pics" as well. I want to keep this fun so it won't be all about training rides and racing.
Quick background about me... I recently moved from upstate New York to Asheville. I've been riding mountain bikes for just about three years now, "seriously." Of course I always rode as a kid but never to the extent that I do now. I have a background in motorized two wheeled vehicles and I used to race harescrambles as a teenager. I've always prefered woods riding of any kind which is part of the reason I was drawn towards mountain bikes. I moved to Asheville specifically for the riding. I love it. I work at the best local bike shop in town, BioWheels as a mechanic and as a front of the house employee as well. I'm also very excited to be part of the BioWheels racing program - 2007 is promising to be our best year yet as a team. I feel lucky to have found such a great organization.
My experience in racing is pretty limited as of now. I entered three races while still living in NY and did quite well on the sport level finishing in 2nd, 1st, and 5th - all podium finishes. I quickly learned that things were much more competitive here in the south east and realized that I needed to get much stronger if I still wanted to see the same results. I entered my first south east XC race back in March and finished 10th out of 22 riders, the pace was a lot faster than what I was used to seeing back north. I missed a lot of racing this past summer due to my last place of employment. There was little to no time off on weekends so that put a damper on many summer racing plans. Luckily the folks at BioWheels saved me from that place and I was quickly put on the 2006 co-ed team for the 24 hours of Pisgah! That was one of the best experiences I've ever had - I had never ridden with a team before so that part was totally new, it was also my first endurance style race and I was very nervous. With a LOT of help from my other teammates we managed a very close 1st place victory. I was just happy to be a part of that whole experience. That event comes highly recommended, total grass roots 24 hour racing right there. Next on the agenda was the 2006 Super Swank. I was feeling very confident on race day but the gruling 45+ mile Pisgah course proved to be too much for me that day. I placed 25th out of about 75 riders just missing my goal of top 20 by 20 minutes or so. I learned a lot and had fun, which is why I race to begin with!
I just got back from my first short track race out in Charlotte. That was also a blast even though I didn't get the desired results - I always try to learn from my experiences and apply that knowledge towards the next event. This was also the first time I had raced in the single speed category. I plan on racing as many single speed events as possible this season. It's interesting because the single speed class is usually an "open" class to any level rider so you can have semi-pro level guys racing sport level guys in the same category. Of course single speeders are generally all very strong but strong and fast are two very different things.
My goal this year is kind of simple, to race as much as financially possible. I feel like I need a solid year of racing to really learn, train, go faster, hurt more, etc... in order to be successful. I want to focus on endurance racing because that's where my real passion is but I plan on using traditional XC and other shorter types of racing as a type of training - I plan on being very involved with the local racing circuit.
Besides riding my other passion is music. I love electronic music. I probably won't get too involved with talking about that but I do want to mention it. I have been a dj for the last ten years, plume, my alter-ego simply comes from my life as a dj. It's a name a chose ten years ago and it's been my nick name as well. It's a song title from an alternative band from the 90s. You can research the meaning if you so choose.
I hope you'll enjoy reading about my adventures on my bike and in my life. Next post is the first race of the season... a very interesting experience to say the least.
