Peterson's Sexy Cycling Adventure

The Trip Back East

2010-02-09T10:49:00.000-08:00

A while back I picked up my new TT in a little town in PA on Lake Erie called Erie. Everything went pretty smoothly except for the claimed free shuttle service from the airport to the hotel turned out to actually be a $30 cab ride. Anyways, I picked up the car and started the long trip home. By long I mean driving to the Chicago airport, then flying to Seattle for a week, and then returning to Chicago to finish the 2 day drive back to Salt Lake.

Despite the crazy blizzard, snow packed roads, and smashed cars along the side of the road all the way to Toledo, OH, the drive went smoothly until I got close to Chicago. Oddly this was when the snow cleared up and the roads dried off. I also must say that doing donuts, spinning 360s, and just drifting in general is a lot easier and more fun in a TT than it is in a A4. But I digress, Illinois, more specifically Chicago, did not go smoothly.

I have come to the realization that Ferris Bueller has been lying to me. This is a dramatic crushing realization and I feel as though my whole life has been a lie. When you can’t count on a high school kid who skips class, who can you count on? I say this because of my recent trip to Chicago. There is absolutely no way you could drive a Ferrari in Chicago. The roads there were absolutely terrible. It was far worse than driving on a dirt road. Every road was deteriorated to the point of almost being a dirt road and there were so many potholes that you couldn’t avoid them all. There was one section on the freeway where the road crew must have thought, “Hmm, we don’t have quite enough pavement to bring these two roads together. Oh well just leave it one foot short and dig out a trench between them. Nobody will notice.” I saw it and thought, “Oh shit. Bunny Hop Bunny Hop!!” Then Slam, I hit the trench so hard that the rear view mirror was showing me the shifter. Then on top of that, they have the audacity to charged me around $10 to drive on their shitty broken roads for one night. It was absolutely ridiculous. I do not understand the point of the toll roads. I thought that they charged people to drive on them in order to keep them in great shape, but apparently not.

Broken Collarbone and National Title

2009-11-10T21:38:00.000-08:00

I finally got my motivation to ride back after the MTB national disaster sometime around the beginning of September. I thought that with nationals being up at Tahoe, if I trained I might have a shot at winning the race and finally end the foreign stranglehold on the race. I was feeling pretty good going into nationals despite getting DQ'd at one of the collegiate races for a wrong turn, and finishing 6th at the RMCCC conference mud fest. I had a slight head cold, but other than having water poring out of my nose I was good. After leading the XC for most of the first lap, Rotem attacked me and I had nothing. I closed a little on the DH (which was probably the best DH I have done in a really long time) but he took off on the climbs and was gone. I finished 2nd. The Short Track went similarly except that I couldn't go down hill to save my life. I actually had about a 5 second gap going into the first DH, but I managed to blow out of both pedals and ended up standing over my top tube with the whole collegiate field bearing down on me. Rotem left towards the end of the race and I was able to pass a Lees McRay guy on the last lap to take 2nd again. Turns out that I needed to train for more than a month to beat the foreign muscle brought in by Fort Lewis. Next year. However, Nationals didn't end for me there. Because I won the Intermountain conference in four cross and because I was the sole member of the University of Utah's team (Rob and Dave were too busy being lazy) I was able to race the 4x and DH races thus qualifying me for the omnium.

I was able to finish in 44th place (points went 50 deep) in the 4x and then all that was left was the DH. I had had a good qualifying run that put me ahead of all the big contenders for the omnium and all I needed was a clean run down. The race started off great. I hit all of the lines that I wanted to and had a really fast run going. Then I came around a tree and there was a big boulder in my line. I swerved to avoid the rock and hit the next rock drop in a place I hadn't before. The ledge off the rock bucked my rear wheel up into the air and I landed very nose heavy. I almost saved it, hit some more rocks, almost saved that, hit more rocks, and then I was looking up at my tires. I landed on my head and shoulder pretty hard, spun around, grabbed my bike, and took off again. I started to notice that my left shoulder hurt everytime that I hit a bump, but I had to get down inside the top 50 to score a point. I went as fast as I could and my shoulder hurt more and more. Now there were shock waves being send down my arm every time I hit a rock. After crossing the line and getting a medical guy to look at it, I took the chairlift down. While I was at the bottom trying to decide if I should go to the hospital like the guy suggested or not, Abby called with the results. 50th. I had scored at least one point in every event and I was the All Around National Champion. Of course this meant that there was no way that I was going to go to the hospital. I had to put on the stars and stripes jersey for the first time. I had come so close so many times before and so many times I had been thwarted by illness or injury, but this time neither illness or injury was able to stop me. I had to put it on. It was the most painful yet satisfying thing I have ever done.

After I returned home my shoulder started to feel better and I thought that I had just torn some muscles, but when it didn't get better by the next week, I decided it was time for an X-Ray. Turns out that I broke my collarbone. It was very very close to needing surgery but fortunately the bottom part of the bone hung on by a sliver. Even so, off the bike for 4 weeks. Pretty much sums up my season this year. Able to train for a month, got sick, injured myself, had to take a month off. All and all, a pretty frustrating year. I'm hoping to be back for cross nationals and I am really pumped to get out and race again.

School and Geckos

2009-09-02T12:29:00.000-07:00

I know that you don't normally equate school with geckos, however in my case this year that is exactly what happened. Allow me to set the stage. The class is Foundations of Analysis, which for those of you who don't know, is a math class that proves calculus. I have yet to use any numbers and it seems to be more logic than anything else, and so far has been a pretty cool class. Anyways, its a college math class. One day, during the first week of school while I was waiting for the professor to arrive, I overheard a guy, who we will call Apu, talking about how he has the opportunity to go europe for a while so he was thinking about dropping all of his classes for the semester. This sounded like a good idea to me, in fact one that I have done in the past. Apu went on talking about what he was going to do there and other things, but there were smudges on my erasure that needed removing so I wasn't really paying attention. Then he said a word that perked my interest; that word was "gecko". I am and always have been a big fan of lizards, especially geckos. I really like their sticky feet. I wish that I could run up glass. I decided that the remaining smudges were just fine and I turned my attention back to the conversation. Turns out that Apu had recently bought a baby crested gecko and now that he was leaving the country had no way of keeping him. The guy he was directly talking to, who we will call Lisa, suggested that he try to sell it. Apu thought that this was a good idea, however he didn't think that he would have time to sell it and was thinking about just letting it go. Apu didn't want to do this as crested geckos cannot survive in snow. I interrupted them (don't you hate it when that random weird guy sitting behind you comments on you conversation?) and told Apu that if he didn't sell it, I would take it off his hands. I didn't particularly want a gecko right now as I also travel, but I also couldn't stand the thought of having a little gecko drying up or freezing. A week passed, I did some research on how to take care of crested geckos, nobody bought it, and I now own a very small, very cute, and very active baby gecko. It is a very cool little lizard and I am looking forward to watching it grow.

Waterskiing

2009-07-30T19:19:00.000-07:00

That is right, my tiny little T-Rex arms are receiving use despite their dramatic protests. I can't brush my teeth anymore and if a pen hits the ground it is staying there, however it is a lot of fun. It is just the thing to cool down from a nice 4 hour bike ride, however the weather up here in the UP is in the upper 60's and is poring rain. I mean today it was almost dryer in the lake than out of it. The Lake still felt much better than a hose shower and the wind calmed down and allowed me to run the slalom course on perfect glass. Rob is crushing the world cups, wish I could join him but it wasn't meant to be. Oh well I guess living on a lake waterskiing and riding some of the sweetest trails ever made isn't such a bad thing.

Law Issues

2009-06-26T23:48:00.000-07:00

As some of you know I have been having issues with the police and getting my car registered. The issue was that I had a shot exhaust sensor and therefore I had a check engine light that would come on from time to time. This didn't cause any problems with how the car runs, however due to safety regulations it wouldn't pass the state safety test. During the time between when my previous registration expired and when I could finally get it to pass I racked up some traffic tickets. One was on Valentines day when I was driving to the store to buy some flowers for my GF. Although irritating for me, I can understand where he was coming from. As a fat, balding, police officer with a mustache, I am sure he has spent many single awareness days at home with a bottle of scotch. Maybe putting soap in people's coffee. Anyways I told you that story to lead you into this one:

Back in early April I was dropping Sayoko off at her dorm after our date at 11:30ish on a Tuesday night. On my drive home I came to an intersection that had a no left turn sign. I needed to turn left so I turned right drove up the road a little ways and made a U turn. I drove on until I saw some flashing lights in my mirror. I pulled over confused as to what I did wrong. After having the spot light from the police cruiser shined on me for a good 5 min I was wondering if there had been a silver audi involved in a drug deal or gang shooting. I have no idea what she was doing. Finally the cop waddled out of her (Female cop, yeah I was screwed) car over to my window and proceeded to shine her flashlight directly into my eyes before asking, "Do you know why I pulled you over?" I answered, "No, I really don't know what I did wrong." She responded, "That sign back there said no l

eft turn." I said, "I know. That is why I didn't turn left." Cop, "Well by turning right and then making a U turn you effectively made a left turn. Therefore I am giving you a ticket for turning left because that is what you ended up doing." MTP, "Well then if you can't head west on this road, how am I supposed to get out of here?" Cop, "What you need to do is turn left into the hospital and use their circle thing (I believe she meant round-about) then turn right." MTP, "Isn't that still an effective left turn?" Cop "No. By doing what you did you block the road so that other cars can't pass." Now, by this time we had been sitting there for about 15 min and not one car other than ours could be seen. Furthermore, she had pulled me over on a road with no shoulder so we were stopped in the middle of the road. I didn't push this issue and realized that, like any cop, logic and reason far exceeded her

mental ability so it wasn't worth trying to persuade her.

The next day I went in and pled not guilty to the offense because I didn't turn left. They set up a pre trial date for me, however they didn't tell me that it was a pre trial. That date happened to be yesterday. I prepared my case and went in with the hopes of being able to show the judge why this was ridiculous. Turns out that all that happened was the DA offered people a deal and then they either took it or didn't. The DA never even told me what my deal was because she couldn't understand what it was that I did wrong. Therefore I pled not guilty for a second time and set up an actual court date for the middle of August. Now you would think that this process wouldn't take very long seeing as all I needed to do was say two words and get a court date set up. Unfortunately I was dealing with people paid per hour not per case and it took over 3.5 hours. Not only did this waste ~3:15 of my day, but the parking meters outside have a 2 hour limit, so I got another ticket. This pretty much su

ms up my experience with Utah traffic enforcement. Once they have you, there is no escape. I drove for 6 years without ever getting a ticket. Since February I have probably had 10. I'll let you know how the trial goes.

Life Update

2009-05-01T10:00:00.000-07:00

So as some of you may have heard or witnessed, it was above 75 degrees and very sunny at Sea Otter. Infact is was 96 in Salinas and over 100 on some of the climbs out on course. This was not a good thing for me coming from 34 degrees and sleet. I ended up suffering from heat exhaustion that was borderline heat stroke. I passed out and fell off my bike on one of the climbs. I was totally out of it and rode passed the medical people but fortunately Trevor stopped me and sent me to the medical crew. I had stopped sweating and wasn't functioning very well. The medics pored water over me and put ice packs inside my shorts. Then it was off to the ambulance for a nice ride over to the medical tent. I was feeling much better after an IV put 2 bags of saline solution in me. All and all it wasn't the best Sea Otter I have ever had.

School is taking up most of my time, however I still managed to perfect my skills of catching fish with my bare hands. I am all done with it next Wednesday. Less than a week of studying hard and writing papers and I will be free for the summer!!

Good Gossip for Utah Cyclists.

2009-04-16T15:28:00.000-07:00

This is a great blog. Check it out: http://utahcyclingtabloid.blogspot.com You got to love a blog that calls everybody out and gets the roadies all wadded up. haha

Training in SLC

2009-04-16T12:16:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I had a nice 3 hour ride planned. Nothing to hard, but a couple nice climbs just to keep it fun. However when I woke up and looked outside I realized that it was going to be exciting no matter what. There was about a fourth of an inch of snow in the grass and it was snowing hard. I went to class hoping that the snow would go away and it would be a good day to get in some miles before Sea Otter, but it just snowed harder. I put on my waterproof jacket and pants and went out.

There was only one man brave enough to join me on my crazy snow ride, Ali G. I met up with Ali at Contender and as we were heading out Reed said that we were crazy and Ali told him to HTFU. The ride really wasn't bad at all after my face went numb. The temperature outside averaged 35 degrees for the whole ride and it was snowin

g the whole time. This meant that the snow would melt as soon as it hit you or your bike, however the wind would quickly freeze it again. This caused our bikes to get covered in ice, my shoes and gloves to fill with water, and ice sheets to form on my glasses. Fortunately

I had Oakley's hydrophobic lens so it wasn't too bad. Ali wasn't so lucky. It was without doubt the worst conditions I have ever trained in and I don't think that it could have been any worse. If it had been colder we wouldn't have been wet, which would have been a lot warmer.

All and all it was a pretty good ride. I was able to get in my 3 hours and I am prepared for anything Sea Otter can dish out provided it isn't above 75 and sunny.

Chile

2009-03-20T18:41:00.000-07:00

That's right, I am in Chile. I am in a hotel about 6,000 ft above Santiago, Chile and am surrounded by 18-22 thousand foot peaks. I would show you pictures, but I forgot a camera and a picture really wouldn't capture how this place looks. I did ride my bike for a little over 4 hours today, but hang on, I am ahead of myself.

Let me start from Atlanta because it is where the story really begins. I was able to fly in first class from Atlanta to Chile and slept very well after gorging myself on ice cream sundays. After arriving I headed straight for the customs agent so that I could beat the mob and get out quickly. Little did I know that I was about to get slammed with another fee on top of the $300 bike charge. For those of you who have never been to Chile, apparently every American citizen has committed a crime against the Chilean government and therefore must pay $131 in a "reciprocity" fee before being allowed to enter the country. I was completely unaware that my birth was a crime against the people of Chile. At least they didn't charge me a late fee.

Back to the ride. I started the ride with tad and had the idea of just doing a kinda easy 2 hour ride. We started climbing up the road towards the ski resort that was at the end of the paved road. From there we road around a little bit and then headed out towards this place called Colorado. After climbing dirt road switchbacks for an hour, Tad said that it was time for him to turn around. I wanted to go to the top of the ridge and see what was on the other side. Well once I got to the ridge, it was so amazing that I had to go up to the next little peak. This continued on and on and I ended up climbing for 4 hours, went above sections of snow (it is the end of summer here) and got up to around 13000 ft before I ran out of water. To put this into perspective, imagine doing 4 snowbird widowmaker hillclimbs back to back and then have the top of the mountain be 7000 ft above you covered in glaciers. It was crazy and absolutely beautiful. I have never seen anything like it. I was above all plant life. No bushes, grass, or anything. I could see glacier covered peaks all around me and not one person. It was most definitely one of my top five rides of all time. Yes, I may have fried my legs for Sundays Continental Championships, but I have tomorrow to recover and it was worth it. I hope you all get in at least one epic ride this year. It will show those clowns at AIG what life is really about.

Update

2008-12-20T09:39:00.001-08:00

It has been a long time since I last posted. I have been busy writing papers and taking finals, but now the semester is over and I can give an update. Cross season is over and the snow has finally arrived. This cross season had its ups and downs, but considering the total lack of training and occasional illness, I think that all and all it was a good year. As you may recall I was called up last at the first four GP's, However I still managed to take the leaders jersey the last day in New Jersey, and race in it both days in Portland. The picture of me that went into velonews was not such a good picture, and some gay guys wrote about how ugly I am. I found this pretty entertaining. Why gay people are discusing my looks is beyond me, however I am honored to have reached the level where people hate me. As Katt Williams would say, "If there are any haters out there with no one to hate, feel free to hate on me." I do have one other thing to say though, if I am so ugly, why is she dating me?

I did lose the jersey in the end, but Nick was really fast and deserved it. I was sick and not training so I didn't expect to go very well. Nationals also reflected my lack of training and being both mentally and physically drained. I was able to scape together a 4th at collegiate, but I was really tired. I decided to turn down my offer to go race in Belgium this year because of being fried. I have some important MTB races in March and April and I decided that it would be best for me to ski now and refresh my mind in order to have a great MTB season. It was a really hard choice because I really enjoy racing cross in Belgium, but I needed the rest. There is about 6 inches of new snow in my yard and I am going skiing.

Last Place

2008-10-25T16:56:00.000-07:00

I am out in Kentucky for the first two GP races. The first race happened today under partly cloudy sky and the ground was dry. For the second year in a row I was called up dead last. I found out that UCI points reset every calender year with the first world cup. This made it so that the points that I gained last year were lost. So that meant that I went behind everybody with a UCI point. That was fine, but then the GP people are supposed to do a random call up for the people who have zero points. Now either I am the most unlucky guy on the planet, or they are doing the call up some other way. It must be written in the rules that Mitchell Peterson is always last. This meant that I was called up over 45 places behind the first U-23. By the end of the race I was able to move up to 20th and was 4th U-23. Hopefully I can talk them into not making me start last because I would rather not be stuck behind people all race, or maybe do something really crazy and put a climb in. OOh I know, I said it. Having a climb in a GP race would be as crazy as producing cross products for cross season, but seriously why can't we have a climb?

FIRE!!

2008-09-04T16:54:00.000-07:00

Today I rode the trail that burned down in the draper fire. It was really weird and actually pretty cool. You could see the trail so much easier, given that all of the plants have burned away. Interestingly the plants that were growing in the trail are totally fine, but both sides look like Mars only black and with the occasional black log sticking up into the air. It was really cool to ride through. I didn't have my camera with me so I can't show you just yet, but I will go back tomorrow with camera in hand. On a side note, I can't believe that cross is just two weeks away; that is crazy! I don't have all of the parts I need let alone have a built bike. Plus I am not in shape at all. I need to get on it.

2008-08-27T21:03:00.000-07:00

School

2008-08-27T08:31:00.000-07:00

Well, summer is over and I am back in school. In some ways it is good because now I have stuff to do all day, on the other hand it sucks because I have a lot of non-school stuff to do right now. My car is sitting up on blocks with the front bumper removed waiting for me to replace the timing belt, I need to get a house, and I would like to keep training but that isn't going to happen. Fortunately the racing season is over and I can just ride aroud through the trees and enjoy the raging forest fire that has engulfed my trails. On the plus side, my parents house is still standing so I have a place to live. Haha, this guy infront of me is playing Age of Empires (a computer game for those of you who are not nerds) I am in Psycology right now, but it is just introduction and because I took this class last semester I know it. I know, if you failed last time maybe you should pay attention, but I had an A going into the final. I skipped the final to go race the world cups in europe and since I am not a steroid ridden football player, I couldn't make it up; thus why I am taking it again. Yay school!

Healthy??

2008-08-21T15:19:00.001-07:00

Last Saturday I decided that I could handle a 45 minute effort, so I raced the Snowbird Hill Climb. I am glad that I did because I felt much better than I have in a long time. I love that climb and to have a race up it is just perfect for me. Sayoko is back in town for school, so she was there for extra motivation. I needed that to beat Norm. There is only one thing about that race that I really don't understand and that is the awards. This year the winner of the pro race got exactly the same thing as the winner of the cat. 5s. WTF? Oh well, Rob is happy. On a side note, if you know Cameron Hoffman could you please tell him to upgrade Rob Squire to a cat 3? It is crazy to make a kid who was 23rd at world championships, is the current US National Champion, and is ranked #1 in the nation race cat 5s. Even if it is on the mountain bike. It isn't fair to the other cat 5s, plus it is a waste of his time. OK I'm done ranting and am off topic. So because I felt better after Snowbird I decided to go on a five hour MTB ride to try and get myself back in shape for the Brianhead national. I felt dead after about an hour. I feel like I have finally won the battle against my illness, but now I have to heal my wounded and repair my infrastructure. I don't think that all the necessary repairs will be finished by Brianhead, however I should be back come cross season. Maybe I will go try and set a record up Clarks, that's right Bart. I'm coming.

Home at last

2008-08-05T14:12:00.001-07:00

I am finally home. It has taken a very long time, but finally I can breathe the fresh thin mountain air. I also was able to go by the doctors again and get a new round of antibiotics. I hope I will be healthy before ski season. I don't have a picture of my house not from the winter and I don't want to walk outside, so that is why my house is covered in snow.

2008-08-01T08:55:00.000-07:00

The Crazy Life

2008-07-15T11:59:00.000-07:00

It has been a long time since my last post and many things have happened in the adventure. For those of you who don't know, my attempt at a decent result in the world championships was foiled by a German kid who went down in front of me in a steep shoot. He slid out on a root and crashed into a big tree on the side of the shoot. I smashed into his bike and went over the bars superman style and hit the German in the face with my elbow sending him flying back into the tree. As I was sliding down the shoot on my back, I saw my bike go flying over me. Fortunately a spectator ran down and grabbed my bike out of the river for me. Unfortunately my seatpost was broken. I went into the pits and got it replaced, however it took about four minuets to fix and caused me to go from about 40th back to 120th which was last, and where I started due to a timing chip problem caused by the worlds mechanics. In addition to having to come from the back again, my saddle position wasn't correct and my mind was out of it so I ended up in 67th and was kinda frustrated.

After Italy I flew home and was there for about eight hours before I had to catch a flight for Vancouver, BC for the BC 7. I got there and was really jet lagged and tired for the start. Not really the way that I wanted to start with Tinker as my teammate. On the first stage I had problems. I flatted three times and only had one tube and a big air. Needless to say I lost a lot of time, however all was not lost because Bart and Sager won the stage and took the yellow. After stage three I got sick. I was already tired from having to race super hard for four hours everyday and the sickness did not help. I was really starting to doubt that I could finish. If Sayoko had not have shown up at the finish of stage six and been there for the final stage, I don't think that I would have finished. I was having serious problems sleeping and was coughing up a lung. It was without doubt the hardest thing that I have ever done. It was a good thing that the trails were so sweet; otherwise I would have gone insane. I really liked the race now that I look back at it, however I don't think that it is a good idea to be racing in Europe the week before the start.

After the race I spent a few days traveling around BC with Sayoko. It was really nice to just take it easy, go shopping, and eat at some really cool Japanese restaurants after spending a week racing hard and sleeping in a tent. I was also hoping that taking a few rest days would help me overcome my sickness, but it didn't. The sickness eventually turned into a sinus and ear infection; not a good thing to have with nationals only two weeks away.

I took it real easy the next week and started my anti-biotics. I decided that I needed to do a little intensity so that I wasn't totally flat for nationals, so I did the big cottonwood hill climb. I felt terrible, like I was going to die. I was coughing and couldn't breathe. I was able to hang in for dear life up to Solitude and then I put in one of the most pathetic attacks the world has ever seen. It was quickly bridged, however I was able to pull off a second place finish for the second year in a row. I hate second place.

The next day found me on yet another plane this time going to Vermont for MTB nationals. I really love racing in Vermont. I think that it has something to do with devo being based out of there. I spent a lot of time there as a junior and I know the course. As the race got closer I started feeling the effects of the anti-biotics. My snot wasn't so green and I was very tired. During the race I actually felt OK on the first two laps and was off the front. However by the end of the third lap I was totally dead. Tad caught me and eventually dropped me on the fourth lap. I finished second again. I hate finishing second.

I am now up in Quebec for the world cups and I am still sick. I am looking forward to being able to go home soon and get ready for school. If you are still reading this, I am truly amazed and I thank you for suffering through this with me.

2008-06-18T12:23:00.000-07:00

Today I slept. I have been missing sleep from the past four or five days, so I made up for it today. I slept for 12.5 hours, then the maids came in and woke me up, so I went down for breakfast. After breakfast I started to watch soccer on euro sport, which works better than ambien by the way, so I fell asleep until lunch. After lunch I went on yet another unbelievable ride. I just can't believe how amazing the riding is. You could easily do 14, 4 hour epic rides. Those of you who have never been to Italy think I am exaggerating, but those of you who have been here know that I am not. This place is absolutely amazing. The Gavia is close and I may hit that up on Saturday. It is hard to not go too long and blow my legs for Friday. My legs feel pretty good, so I am hopeful that I can have a good race. Maybe if I get some help from my super fans both here, home, and in Seattle, I can have a good result.

Val di non sole

2008-06-17T11:57:00.000-07:00

On Sunday morning I started my journey back to Europe for World Championships in Val di Sole, Italy. As I was walking to my seat on the flight to Munich I saw the fattest guy I have ever seen. I mean this guy was huge, easily pushing 400 lbs. The momentary laughter at the poor sucker who had to sit next to this guy died about the same time that I realized that I was that sucker; Rob laughed harder. I sat in the window seat and quickly put my armrest down in an attempted to protect my fragile personal bubble from his monstrous girth. The little armrest strained and creaked as it was overwhelmed and forced towards me. His seat belt, even with the extender extended to the max, was unable to contain him. The only thing that was finally able to reign in his width was the seat in front of him. I was curled up next to the side of the plane completely hidden from view for the next ten hours. It was a long flight.

I finally arrived in Val di Sole yesterday after a 6-hour bus ride from Munich. I have no idea as to why we flew into Munich. Both Milan and Venice are much closer, however this place is unreal. There are huge jugged peaks towering above on all sides, unfortunately they are currently covered in clouds. I rode up this amazing pass that was right here. 15 Switchbacks and two hours later, Schultz and I found ourselves in the base of a gigantic cirque, and in the driveway of this Italian rancher. He was pretty cool and talked to us a little bit and we responded in broken Italian and and hand gestures. There are some really big name passes, like stavia, that I will try to do on Saturday and Sunday. For now I am off to the pasticceria for some amazing Italian treats.

Sleepless in Seattle.

2008-06-09T19:41:00.000-07:00

I spent a couple of days in Seattle last week helping Trevor drive his new car back to his house. I happen to know a really good tour guide in the area and she agreed to show me around the city while I was there. It is not very often that I get to experience cities and countries the same way that most people do. Usually I am there to race and that is all that I do. Just hang out in the hotel resting and waiting for the race. Then I race and leave. I don't have much time to walk around and usually just spend my time at the grocery store or local bakery. Not that there is anything wrong with that, however it was nice to be able to see the sights and just wander around. I got to go up into the Space Needle and stroll down Pike Place Market eating all of the Turkish candies, Russian rolls, and French pastries that I could. We also went by the fish market, the first Starbucks, and walked out onto the pier. Fortunately Sayoko was with us so I didn't feel too much like a tourist, although Trevor's purchase of a snow globe didn't help the situation. After all was said and done I didn't get back to the house until 4 am, and finally fell asleep at 4:20 only to be woken up at 5 to start the 13 hour drive back home. Sleepless in Seattle. I do not recommend starting your road trip off with 40 min of sleep. It tends to cause problems, however I feel that it was a justified sacrifice. After about 10 power naps, 15 Red Bulls, 5 coffees, a bag of swedish fish, and a pound of skittles I was awake, alive, and at my house ready for my next adventure.

2 for 2

2008-05-31T18:38:00.000-07:00

So far during the time I have been back home training for worlds there have been two Intermountain Cup Races. I was able to pull off wins in both races. The first one wasn't a big surprise because it was held on the trails that I train on. They are literally a 10 min bike ride from my house; I know them. The second, however, was a bit of a surprise. There were fast pros there in Alex Grant and Bart G, and although the course was good for me with lots of climbing, I was tired from training hard all this past week. If it wasn't for a certain super fan in Seattle I don't think I could have won. Alex was coming up fast and it was all I could do to stay away. It looks like sly guessed the first two correct, but I am not sure what the deal was with the other three. He must be out of it, or got some bad information. I'm off to help Trevor drive his new car back.

May in Salt Lake

2008-05-24T10:11:00.000-07:00

I have to train hard for the next month because I have World Championships in Italy coming up soon. Yesterday I was supposed to go for a hard 4 hour ride up the cottonwood canyons. However because I am the quintessential slacker that I am, and because it was raining when I woke up, I didn't. Instead I looked at the snow report and saw that Snowbird had 14" of new snow. Skiing it was. It was amazingly good. I am not saying it was the best day skiing, but it was a good powder day. Very few people, as it was a week day in summer, and good snow. This meant that I could ski as fast as I could. I love skiing fast, the old ski racer in me comes out and it is just a rush you can't get anywhere else. Plus, there is nothing better than freshies to remove the pain of overheating the Saturday before. Every trip back up the lift I was thinking, "It is the 23rd of May. This is incredible. At this time last year I was picking daisies and frolicking in the wild flowers, craziness." Eventually it started to get warm and the snow thickened, so I went home.

By the time that I got home, the sun had come out and the roads had dried up. Perfect for a bike ride. I got my lazy ass in gear and got in my full ride. That is why I love living in Salt Lake. Drive for 15 minutes and am skiing knee deep powder, then in the afternoon head out for a 4 hour ride. The mountains are my playground.

Heat Wave and the Valley of Dust

2008-05-19T15:35:00.000-07:00

This past weekend was a race in Santa Ynes California. It was hot. Way too hot for a kid who got 14" of new snow the Monday before. When you go from training in thermal jackets and tights in order to prevent the onset of hypothermia, and then throw yourself into a race in 100 degree heat; you melt. A complete and total meltdown. I probably should have quit after lap one, but I never quit (even if it means giving myself pneumonia). On the plus side the beach was nice and the cold Californian ocean was a welcome relief. Since I am not flexible enough for yoga, all I needed was a pini colada and I would have been set.

Belgian Showers to Spain’s Flowers

2008-05-01T11:25:00.000-07:00

Because I am traveling alone and because I decided to go to Europe last minute, I pretty much didn't and don't have any set plans or places to stay. I figured that I could get a flight from Frankfurt to Madrid, however that didn't work out. Fortunately Sue was able to give me a ride to Brussels, which had flights to Madrid. Belgium, for those of you who don't know, isn't known for its sun or attractive girls, so I left the next day to Madrid. I had talked to a friend of Sager's and he had said that he would pick me up at the airport. I have a euro phone so I figured all would be well. After trying to wash off the fly I left the rain behind.

Upon arriving at the airport in Madrid, I discovered that my phone couldn't find service. This was bad seeing as how I had no idea where to go or who to look for. I told Sager's friend, Jose, to look for Ronald McDonald carrying a bike box. This worked well and he found me after about 15 min. Later I figured out that if I went in and selected the network manually, I could get the network in Spain that my Belgian carrier uses. I knew that the girls in Spain are nuts, but Bimbo sandwiches? Seriously. My dog would love this place (Pig legs).

Offenburg

2008-04-26T11:27:00.000-07:00

Despite not knowing any German, the location of the train station, or where the hotel was, I arrived with little trouble. It have been laughing a little bit about that and am still kinda amazed that I made it here. The course here is pretty sketchy. There are these drops that I can only compare to dropping cliffs on skis. It is really scary looking down these 45 foot death drops and knowing that you have to go down them, especially when you have not ridden off road at all this year with the exception of the NMBS races and Sea Otter. It isn't that they are particularly hard to ride. You basically just hang on and hope that the bike is under you at the bottom, however they are more frightening than a deranged ex-girlfriend. Having ridden them all 5 times now they are getting better, but I still am relieved every time I make it down alive. Here is a sick ride, the car is pretty cool too. I got lost for an hour and rode around the streets and this cool path. Race is tomorrow and I am called to the line #182. Fantastic.

Sea Otter Classic 2008

2008-04-21T22:49:00.000-07:00

As a general rule I try to avoid talking solely about how my race went and how it played out etc. However in this case, due to great demand, I am leaving the rule. I present The Sea Otter Classic, Pro Men XC 2008 through my eyes.

I rolled out the door of my hotel and into my red mustang rental car along with Brian and Sager with about two hours until start time. After shaving some weight off of the rental's tires, we arrived at purple parking #11. After the 15 min walk to our tent, we had about an hour until start time, so I got ready quickly and headed out for my warm up. I warmed up on the Laguna Seca raceway for a little bit and then heard last call to staging. I was standing at the back of the flock of sheep, when I heard my name called. I had been chosen, unfortunately nobody believed that this skinny kid who has a shocking resemblance to Ronald McDonald was being called up. Luckily for me Shep was standing there and told everybody to let me through. Front row call up. Very Nice.

The start of the race went backwards along the raceway for about half a mile. There is very little more frightening than a group of 100 amped mountain bikers all in a big group on the road. I didn't leave the top 5, and even led up the tailwind climb out of the raceway. Unfortunately 6'2 143lbs guys don't go down hill real fast and the leaders gaped me. I spent the middle 3/4 of the race with the Israeli national champion and the Costa Rican champion. On the start of the long dirt road climb with a head wind I took a min pull and could see the lead group of 7 about 45 sec. ahead. I asked for Rotem (Israel) to pull and he did, for 2 seconds. Then I pulled for another minute and he did the same pathetic 2 second pull. I told him to help me some more and for Costa Rica to help. Rotem said that he was doing all the work and told me to work, so I said, "Fine, I'll work" and attacked. I dropped them easily and was now on my own to catch the leaders. Fortunately the wind was a big deterrent for the leaders to work hard because nobody wanted to give the others a free ride. This allowed me to catch them, however it was not without a tremendous effort and lots of pain. It took the majority of the climb to do, but I came through to start my second lap in the lead group, so it was well worth it. Ohran saw me and couldn't believe it. When I grabbed my bottle from him he looked like he was in shock. I was in shock. I looked around and knew that I was most likely going to finish top ten. I was excited, then I realized that I was with the leader and all podium spots. I looked around the group of seven thinking, "OK, who can I beat? Can I get on the box?" My answer in my head was, "Nope, no way. What are you even doing up here in the first place?"

On the first decent Shep let a gap develop and I had to sprint around him and try to get back up to the group. I hit some sand funny and almost went down and Shep caught back up to me. Then we started the single track climb. I could see up the trail a little ways and saw Sid and Decker about 5 sec ahead of me and Trebon, Miguel, and Shultz about 10. Miguel attacked and was gone. I dropped Shep and thought, "wow, I am in sixth. This is huge." At the top of the single track I caught Decker and Sid. Sid attacked and I tried to jump on his wheel. I couldn't quite do it and he stayed about 30 sec in front of me the rest of the race. I did, however, drop Decker in the process. Now I am thinking, "Oh man, I could podium! I need to catch one more person so that I have a little more room to play with." I kept hammering and eventually I saw Trebon in front of me. I thought, I can catch him. I did catch him and passed him before the neutral feed zone on course. He sat on my wheel for a while and I asked him to pull, but all I got back was, "I'm tired Mitchell". Turns out he wasn't kidding. I dropped him when the road went up again and I could see that Sid had caught Sam and they were still about 30 sec. up. I went as hard as I could to try and close the gap, but it remained the same. Half way up the final climb I looked back and saw nobody. This was the best sight I have ever seen. I now knew that I was going to finish fourth and that nobody was going to catch me. I didn't know what to think, so I just kept hammering. I saw Sam attack towards the top of the climb and leave Sid; I kept hammering. I came across the line wanting to have both arms up, but felt it would be out of place since I didn't win, so I through up one arm. (I later heard that the announcer had said that I was Shep just before I did that and they thought that I was flipping them off).

I couldn't believe it. People were running up to me congratulating me, telling me when the podium was, taking my picture, it was crazy. I was getting texts and calls from people all across the nation. It is amazing how fast news travels. I still get a big grin on my face when I think, "I was 4th at Sea Otter." Now I have to hit the books hard for two more days and then I am off to Germany for WC #2.

Pizza is Better After a Walk

2008-04-13T07:53:00.000-07:00

Trevor's dad, Blake, was kind enough to drive me from the NMBS venue to my hotel near the airport. (I had to stay at the airport because I had a 4:30 am flight in order to get back home in time for classes) The stupid and I am pretty sure high check in guy told me that there was no food within walking distance and that I was just going to have to starve. This was not an option for me seeing as how I had just finished the cross country race earlier that day and had not eaten anything. Time to bust out the GPS. I found out that there was a Pizza Hut about 1.5 miles away. I figured that would be an easy walk. I didn't realize that it went straight through a pretty sketchy part of Tempe. The way down was fine, and although my legs burned I was feeling pretty good. By the time that I got my pizza the sun had set. This set up a pretty funny situation. A skinny white kid with a large stuffed crust pizza with a TomTom GPS on top in one hand, and replying to text messages with the other, walking past homeless people and sketchy dudes sitting at bus stops asking him for money, booze, tobacco, and weed. I guess that they figured that I must either be high or drunk to walk around at that time of night. I was in constant fear of being stabbed. I made it unscathed back to my hotel room, and I must say that that was the best pizza I have ever had. I highly recommend that people walk 3 miles before enjoying a pizza. It not only helps burn the calories, but it tastes much better too. However for legal reasons I have to say that I would avoid all sketchy areas as much as possible.

Phoenix NMBS Part 2

2008-04-10T17:20:00.000-07:00

Saturday I was tired. My legs felt a little worked and rightly so. I ate breakfast at the hotel, then I heard the luna girls talking about this amazing breakfast place, Flap Jacks, and I figured, eh I could eat. Ohran and I headed over to Flap Jacks to see what the noise was about, and it was amazing. They made this oven-baked pancake that was like a huge pop over(my grandma makes them). It was the best breakfast I have had in a really long time.

My dismal showing in the super gradual downhill with a headwind meant that I had a bad call up for the Short Track. This allowed me to practice moving up in the pack, and since it started on a downhill into a hike a bike, I was going to need all the cross skills I had. Running up a sandy hill in what are essentially full carbon road shoes with toe spikes, was an experience that I recommend to everybody. I had a decent start and was on Trevor's wheel. As we were running up the hill, some big guy who looked kinda like a fat white baboon stiff armed Trevor into a bush causing him to sprawl out onto his face while he was trying to get his bike away from him so that he didn't impale himself on his pedal. Despite the fact that this was quite amusing, I decided that we needed revenge on this out of control monkey. Fortunately baboons have problems with balancing on their bicycles. That combined with the help of the only tree within 500 miles, led to a nice ending to the baboons quest for victory. All in all it was a pretty good short track, top 20 in the pros and 2nd U-23.

I decided to race the Cross Country with a camel back in an attempt to avoid curling up under a tree drinking water for ten minuets after the first lap. This worked pretty well, however I still felt terrible. I felt bad all race and didn't think that I did that well, however I won (U-23) so I guess that I can't complain too much because everybody else had a longer day than me.

Phoenix NMBS Part 1

2008-04-05T08:28:00.000-07:00

I arrived at the phoenix airport a couple of nights ago with mixed feelings. My 21 overall and 2nd U-23 in Fontana gave my high hopes for a decent result, especially because Sammy J and Colin are in Venezuela for Pan Am games. However being the skinny climber that I am, the flat power no passing course that is Phoenix is just about the worst course you could design for me; and I am sure they know this.

After weaving my way through a group of skanky whores, I f

ound my bag and the exit of the terminal. Trevor picked me up in his dad's truck because his jeep died in Flagstaff on its way to Fontana. (May it rest in pieces.) I couldn't reach the members of my team that I was supposed to be staying with, but Trevor offered me a spot in his camp site. It w

as nice sleeping under the stars, however it was a little bit annoying to have to wake up every hour or so to roll onto a different ridge on the truck's bed liner to avoid serious internal bleeding. I did reach Matt the next day and I must say that I didn't even mind the four pillows trying to suffocate me because the bed was amazing.

Because this race doesn't matter for worlds selection, I am using it as preparation for the Offenburg (Germany) and Madrid world cups. Because of that, and the fact that it is 38 and raining at home, I figured that if would be a good idea to spin over to the course and ride another lap on the XC course before the super D later in the day. Well one lap turned into two and so on and so on until it was time for the race. By the end of the day I had been on my bike from 10 am until 5:30pm. Ok, I did take a hour break for lunch around 3. I may be fried for

Sundays race, but still pretty good training. Check out the new machine:

Helping Hells Angels

2008-03-25T23:10:00.000-07:00

Today I was riding up Little Cottonwood Canyon and had one of the most amusing things happen to me. A big fat hells angle biker dude pulled up on a new Harley to a stop sign on a road that was slightly off camber. Apparently he did not know how to adjust for this and ended up falling over. This was pretty funny by itself because there is nothing better than watching a fat guy with a Willey Nelson hair cut fall over and roll like an over-sized sausage down a hill, however there is more. I continued to ride toward the intersection that is now blocked by the downed Harley and the guy struggling to lift it back up. At this point I am laughing so hard that I can barely see. I was then struck by an idea. I rode up to the guy, dismounted from my 15 pound bicycle, and proceeded to pick his motorcycle up for him in my spandex and full carbon shoes. All that I needed was a cape and a pair of underwear over my shorts and I would have been super hero material. I can't think of anything moredestructive to a macho image than having to get a 6'2" 143 lbs cyclist pick your Harley up for you. Since I don't have a picture of it, here is a picture of me and you can imagine the rest.

New Cousins!

2008-03-24T20:08:00.000-07:00

Just got word from my Uncle that he just picked up my two new cousins. It may be a little bit early, but I think that they look like good cyclists. I can't wait to meet them; here are a couple of pictures.

Collegiate races

2008-03-20T10:46:00.000-07:00

Collegiate races are the best. There is no pressure and you get to just ride around with your friends. Plus after the race is over, or the night before for many, you can party it up with the the locals. Unfortunately for me I was talking with one of my friends in the middle of the pack when a large break decided to go. So I spent the rest of the race trying to pull them back with a little help from Colin, but that didn't work out too well and I ended up in 16th. Oh well it is all just training anyways. Here are some photos from the weekend: Chris's Mullet, Trevor Suffering, Me being fat and out of shape, pulling a break back in the crit.

Yeah, there is still snow here.

2008-02-26T16:15:00.000-08:00

Today was sunny, so I decided to go for a ride instead of skiing today. I need to try and get myself back into shape so that I am not DFL at all of the early season races. I felt better than I have in awhile today, but my usual two hour ride still takes three. The nice thing about riding in the winter is that you don't have to worry about getting enough sodium. You eat enough salt in spray and dust that you can order your fries without salt. It is always helpful on a climb to have some bastard in a diesel ford truck blast wet, salty, smelly smoke in your face. Unfortunately the salt dust makes me look even paler, if that is possible.

K-Force Light

2008-02-19T11:25:00.000-08:00

FSA sent me a new saddle. It is super light and looks pretty good. I wouldn't recommend doing a 24 hour race on it, but it should be sweet for a hour long cross race. Check it out. I also realized that I didn't post any pictures of my cross bike for the 2007-08 season, so here it is, the best looking aluminum cross bike ever. 15.7 lbs

Valley of the Sunburn

2008-02-17T19:57:00.000-08:00

This weekend officialy started off my 2008 season. Having ridden only 3 times all year my expectations were low going into the TT on Firday. I went harder than I had planned on and thought that I put in a decent time, however the 40th place it earned said otherwise. It is February.

I was a litle nervous about the 90 (OK 89) mile road race because the last time that I rode that long was early September. After getting shot down going for the first king of the mountain climb, I decided to just try and survive in the pack. My legs never cramped and although they had no top end what so ever, they could still last for 3:40. Suprising, and it is only February. After the first ten crahes in the first two laps everything settled down and in the end it came down to a sprint. Of course this is perfect for me since I am pretty much the worlds strongest man. Despite my lack of power I finished 26th and moved from a dismal 40th to a pathetic 27th in the GC. It is February.

I am currently stuck in a hotel near the airport because there are no seats on planes out of here. Hopefully I can get out early tomorrow so that I can go skiing before class resumes on Tuesday.

Snow

2008-01-21T20:17:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I decided that I needed to get my lazy ass in gear and go for a long ride. Today was supposed to be that day, however mother nature decided to dump 19 inches of snow on my house before I woke up. A change of plans was in order. Because the powers that be decided that I needed to continue my off season, I bagged the ride altogether and spent the day playing in the snow with my dog. This was a good call because it wore him out and decreased his drive to destroy everything that I own. The only casualty on the day was his feeding cup which I left on the table. Stupid dog.

Off Season

2008-01-20T09:27:00.000-08:00

After my return from Belgium I took a couple of weeks off and just skied. It was perfect timing because the snow was great and I had a little head cold left over from the USA house, so it was a welcome break. This is also the first semester of college where I have actually been in class every day for the first month, instead of jet setting around europe. It is amazing how easy class is when you don't start a month behind. Training starts in a couple of days and I am really excited to get back on the bike.