This weekend was the Teva Mountain Games down in Vail.  It was pretty fun.  There were soo many different events from dog jumping to biking.  I had a pretty bad race.  Im still sick and when our race started it was raining hard and then the rain turned into hail so it was really cold.  I did one lap and stopped because I didnt want to get any sicker than I already was.  LAter on was the pro and semi pro race which was sweet.  The best part was that Floyd Landis was there and got totally dominated.  Here's an awsome photo of Alex Howard droping Floyd in the feed zone.

YEAHHHHHHHHHHH HOWARD!!!!. haha Floyd got dropped by the whole pro field and caught by the majority of the semi pro field.  It was defintally a disapointing performance considering he won last years tour.  Here is a picture of Miles in the feed zone.

Here is a picture of greg

After the race we hung out and went to a sweet concert and went to bed.  pretty sweet.  Well hopefully I get better really soon.  Im going down to Park City this Thursday and staying there untill the Deer Valley NORBA National.  I need to have a very strong result at that race if I want to have a shot at making the junior worlds team.  wish me luck. adios

So this weekend was the Iron Horse which was pretty sweet.  I had mixed feeling about how well I would do due to the fact that I was still sick with a cold but it went ok.  The road race on Saturday could have gone better but oh well. My time last year was almost 15 minutes faster than this year and I crashed in the valley.  There was this stupid sign in the middle of the road that directed bikes and cars into different lanes and someone in front of me didnt see it untill the last second and swerved to miss it cutting a whole bunch of people off.  I was the only person who actually went down and luckly I didnt hurt my self too bad.  I just got a little road rash on my butt.  After the crash, with the help of Alex who dropped back to help me, I rejoined the group.  Then when we hit shalona someone started drilling it super hard and i drifted back a ways.  From that point on I just wanted to finish.  I didnt push it super hard because I was afraid that I would make my cold worse so I eventually made it to Silverton with a time of about 2:44.  Not bad but defintally not the time I wanted.  After the race we went back to Durango and chilled out and went and watcched a movie.

On sunday I raced the criterium which went pretty well.  It started out pretty fast but the group stayed together for the whole race.  It was a pretty smoothe group but there were some sketchy times.  At one point my friend Grady slid out on some paint and went down really hard.  He got some bad road rash but took his free lap and joined back in the group.

The race ended in a big field sprint and I just finished with the pack.  Im just happy I survived.  Heres a picture of one of the corners during the crit and a cool bike from the cruiser crit.

Well that pretty much wraps up the Iron Horse.  My Next race is the Teva Mountain Games.  Hopefully I will do well. 

So I havent written a blog in like forever so here it goes.  So far the season has gone pretty good.  It started off with the Nova Desert Classic down in Pheonix.  This race was harrrrd.  We had to do a total of four laps and about 1.5 laps in I smashed my rear derailleur on a rock.  At first I thought I had bent it into the spokes but when I stopped and looked more closely at it I had actually bent the cage.  So I finished with a roached derailleur that made my bike skip and jam up but what ever.  I was still a fun race and I still had a good time.  below is a picture from the cross country.

You might notice that Im not rocking my healthfx jersey.  Thats because I just recently got on this Junior Development team called DEVO not to be confused with Durango Devo.  Im going to ride for DEVO for all the big national races but Im still going to ride for Healthfx at all the local events like the Iron Horse, group rides, ect. 

The coolest event at the NOVA Desert Classic was the pro mens short track.  It was held at night and was super cool to watch.  check out the picture.

Pretty sweet huh?  After Nova I went down to Sea Otter.  Sea Otter is sweeeeeet.  There are soooooo many people and events and stuff. And the xc course is really cool even though its 40 miles long with lots of climbing.  After Sea Otter I did a road race in Grand Junction where I got 3rd in the cat 3 men so I was pretty stoked.  My next race ater that was the NORBA National down in Fontana.  this race was really weird.  The course wasin the middle of of a huge city.  At the top of the climb you look out and all you can see is suburbs.  There are also some burnt out cars and grafitti scattered aloing the course.  It was defintally an odd spot to hold a National mountain bike race.  My next race after that was the Chalk Creek Stampede in Nathrop.  I love this race.  Its a pretty flat course with some really windy ssections.  I ended up winning by almost 5 minutes which was sweet because I beat some people that had been beating me at the races earlier in the season.  Well thats been my season so far.  I have a cold right now and with the Iron Horse only a couple days away I can only hope that this sickness disappears.  Oh yeah I want a bike like this one. 

So this weekend was the mountain bike national championships in Sonoma California which went really well for me.  After the Deer Valley NORBA National in Utah we packed up and headed to Sonoma.  When we got there it was like we entered a whole new world.  First of all the race was held at a race car track so we pull in on thursday to pre ride and its prolly 100 degrees and theres all theses crazy race cars everywhere speeding around.  Super odd thing to see at a mountain bike race.  And to make matters even worse the cross country course was by far the lamest course EVER!  It wasn't even mountain biking.  It started out on a road climb and then turned into hard packed dirt road.  The loop was seven miles and most of it was on some type of road and the small amount of single track in the course wasn't smooth or fun at all.  It was straight up torture and was sooooooo rough.  I was sooo relieved to get to our campsite at the crazy KOA.  When I say crazy i mean CRAZY!!!  Even weirder than the race track.  Seriously a milion RV's and and about a billion yelling, screaming, crying kids.  At one point this little punk 8 year old on his little bike rolls up and starts talkin trash to me and Evan and Tad.  He straight up started throwing rocks at us and even tried to steal Evans downhill bike.  And one of the weirdest things that happened at the KOA was out of no where this limo pulls up into the parking lot.  Who takes a limo to a KOA?

So we watched some racing on Friday and on Saturday I raced.  I was super stoked that I raced early in the morning at 8 cuz im not a huge fan of racing in the heat.  So me and the rest of the Jr Expert 15-16  field rolled up to the line.  It was the perfect tempature and it was actually kinda foggy.  Right off the start me and this Trek VW kid Brandon Lee were off the front and we put a pretty big gap on the rest of the field.  for the first 2 laps or our 3 lap race we worked together and shared pulls to increase our gap.

By the 3rd lap we had a large gap on the field and we started slowing down trying to conserve energy for te finish.  I was going to try to attack on the second feed zone climb which was on this steep dirt road but when we got there I thought that we were still too far out on the course.  We stayed together for almost the entire last lap until almost the very end before we entered the race track.  I finally attacked on this small climb maybe 2 minutes from the finish.  I was able to hold him off till the end but I only won by maybe10 seconds.  It was by far one of the closest races I've ever been in.  After the race I just chilled and cooled down and went to the awards where I recieved my second start and stripes jersey.

On Sunday was my short track race.  It was a sweet course that was about a mile each lap.  It defintally wasn't very short.  I was super stoked for the race and was hoping for a good result but it didn't help that I was called up almost dead last to the line.  I started 3rd row back and up the first climb I was in about 25th place and dead last.  I though hat it was all over cuz of my bad start but I kept pushin hard and about half way through I was sitting in about 9th place.  There was a lead pack of riders and our little chase group of about 4.  At one point we came super close to catching the lead pack but then they pulled away.  By the end I ended up getting an 8th place which was ok considering my horrible start.

Well so that wraps up another exciting weekend of racing.  Im super stoked to have won another national championship.  Well im gonna go cuz im tried.  Peace

Ben

So I havent done one of theses blog things in a while and Im kinda bored right now so Im gonna write one.  So pretty much I just finished up a brutal weekend of racing down in Deer Valley.  This weekend was the NORBA National #4 race in Deer Valley and it was super tough.  It all started out on Saturday with the cross country race which was I think the hardest race I have ever done. No joke.  So me and the rest of the junior expers field rolled up to the start line thinking that we were only doin three laps of the 7 mile lap course, but the NORBA dude out of no where said we were doing four laps.  I thought to my self  "holy smokes im toast".  The race started out really good and I had the hole shot out of the start and up the first climb.  I felt strong the first lap and was sitting in about 10th place and not too far behind the leaders.  By the second lap I was about the some spot and I was still feeling good.  Everything was goin real good for me and on the third lap I gained a couple positions and closed the gap on some more riders. 

At the start of the 4th lap I felt pretty strong and was able to catch some more but around half way through the lap I could feel some cramps coming on.  I tried to spin them out and work through them but they were getting worse and all the sudden both legs cramped soooooooo bad.  I couldnt ride so I got off my bike and tried to work them out.  They eventully subsided so I got on my bike and kept riding but if I made any sudden weird movements or stood up they would lock up.  So as of this point I was still sitting good in 7th place but i couldnt push it hard or else I would pay the price.  My goal was just to finish in 7th.  Some how I caught up to the kid in 6th place and was close on his tail coming down the last decent into the finish, but around the last corner before the pavement and finish line I tried to sprint past him.  BAD IDEA!  Everything locked up and i almost fell off my bike.  Here is a sweet picture of the cramp.

It may look like Im smiling and goofin around but trust me Im not.  so thats what went down in the cross country.  I ended up getting 7th in Junior Expert 18 and under which I was stoked about because it was a national race.  I still cant believe that they made us do four laps.  The semi pros only did 3 and the only other catagory that did 4 was pro.  It doesn't even make sense.

The next day (sunday) was the short track which went really good.  I ended up getting 5th place and a podium spot so I was super stoked.  It was just another typical short track which consisted of 20 minutes of pure suffering.  below is a picture of me on the climb in the short track and the Junior Expert short track podium.

Well this weekend is over and the sufferin had ended for a while.  Right now im in a little ghetto hotel in the middle of nevada with my family on our way to Sonoma for the National Championships.  We went to this casino cuz we were bored and uhhhhhh the people in the casoino were uhhhh let me just say that they made me feel really good about myself.  well im tired and need some sleep so I'll keep you updated on what goes down in Sonoma.  Wish me luck! 

Oh boy my first blog along with my first race of the season.  I just returned from the Nova Desert Classic down in Arizona.  What a relief to excape this cold weather and ride in the warm desert.  It was an exciting weekend and a good way to start the season.  We drove down on Thursday and on Friday we watched the Marathon.  It looked pretty brutal as it always does.  For me this race consisted of three events.  The first event was the TT.  Unfortunately I was under the impressoin that I was the only Junior Expert racing because it only showed me on the start list.  Well I guess there was another junior who had just registered before the race.  Its hard to get motivated to go 100 percent when you think that you are the only one in your catagory so he ended up winning the TT.

The next event was the Super D later on that day.  Usually Super D races are suppose to consist of mostly downhill with a few small climbs.  That was not the case at nova.  This Super D had almost the same amount of climbing if not more climbing than the TT.  It was pretty fast and since we started in 15 second intervals I thought thought that it was going to get all bottled up but suprisingly it didn't.  my only competition started 15 seconds in front of me but I stayed on his wheel the whole time and ended up beating him by around 10 seconds.  Despite this win he was still leading the GC by about one minute.  My third and most important event was the cross country on the next day.  This was one of the tought races I've done.  It consisted of three 11 mile loops with only small climbs.  it was really hot and Im used to races with long sustained climbs with a pretty long decent to rest on.  The Nova xc course had few spots to rest and no long climbs.  They started us with the semi pros which was fun.  I went pretty easy the first lap to save energy but on the second lap I went out hard and put about a minute on the other junior.  The third lap was the toughest and I had absolutly no energy by the end but I pust another minute on second place.  Since I won the xc by around 2 minutes I also won the overall.  I was happy but I wish that there would have been more Juniors.  I remember in the past even before Nova was a NORBA national, the Junior Expert field was almost 30 deep.  Alot has changed.  Overall it was a spectuclar weekend of racing.  It got me even more stoked for the upcoming season and events to come.

Oh ya we saw a fat rattle snake curled up under our car which was exciting. 

I couldnt figure out how to put pictures in my blog but i have a picture of the snake along with race photos under my section of pictures so check them out.  well im tired so im gonna go hit the sack. peace