Hey summer, slow down!!

   Holy moly! Time seems to be flying by at warp speed--is it really the end of June already? Being busy is good in some ways, but sure as heck doesn't let me "waste" time writing pointless blog posts any more. Life is generally pretty awesome back up on the north shore of Tahoe, living just steps from the lake, riding a bike to work every day and taking the dog to the beach just about every night. I figure I've gotten more hours on the bike than in the past 3(!!) summers already, although I managed to miss the first race I had signed up for in June due to a combination of a crazy work deadline and slight tweak to the knee. A huge bummer, and it leaves me feeling that I still need to prove to myself that I can do a dang bike race if I want to!

   The knee/hip/everything else problems are still working themselves out slowly, with about an hour or so of stretches and exercises before work every morning plus as much foam roller as I can stand. Nothing feels perfect but it's not bad enough to stop me from riding...usually. There have been a handful of random mishaps like a sprained ankle, neck, knee and lower back tweaks, all spaced out about 2 weeks apart and one right when the previous is finally feeling healed. It felt like about 3 months of that annoying business. Must be just getting old and clumsy or something.

   The dirt bike was supposed to be a winter toy for those weekends when the snow isn't great, put away for most of the summer in favor of a mountain bike, but the more I figure out my new moto the more awesome it gets and it's becoming a real dilemma what to ride in between working on projects around the house. Add to that the plethora of OHV trails behind my house and the indecision only increases. We've found some really awesome new singletrack to explore and can get to places after work that would never happen on a 2-hour mountain bike pedal. It's a blast, I can't argue with myself on that at all!

   Yeah, I do really want to do some enduro MTB racing, and I miss the awesome people I've met racing bikes in the past. Still love the silence and light-ness of being on a mountain bike. But dang, I've got a pretty hardcore dirt bike addiction going right now! The speed and focus of riding a downhill bike but ALL the time, not just going down hills. The challenge of finding things that I think for sure I can't get up, but then with some struggling I can eventually get at least my bike up it even if I'm not riding it at the moment... occasionally, I even get through the harder technical bits while actually ON the motorcycle, now that deserves an extra beer at the end of the ride!
 

Spring in the desert just might be my favorite! So many wildflowers!

   So there was the short version of the last 3 or 4 months. What's next? Scheduling is looking like a mess this summer with a couple of weddings interfering with two big races I'd wanted to do at Northstar and Mammoth, and the rest of the California Enduro Series being just plain sold out. What the heck! Guess I'll have to take up motorcycle racing in the desert this fall... I can't imagine those being sold out at all. If I manage to do some mountain bike racing at all this summer I will definitely be posting about the momentous occasion, as well as any other awesome adventures that I can get into now that I'm not completely falling apart any more. Let's hope things keep going that way because I am having entirely too much fun with life again!