Anyways, I rode the MTB again. It was a humid day, it still is. I have grip shifts on the bike and several times during the ride I could not shift, even with gloves… the sweat would not evaporate. I was drenched and riding without a helmet ( I know dumb), just kept the water dripping like crazy.

I found myself pushing quite hard today. The legs felt good so i pushed them. Had a little problem with breathing. Not sure if it is the heavy work at altitude, but I felt like I had an asthma attack. Took 5 minutes to go away, but it was strange. BTW, tomorrow I will go again ad try to take a pic. It was a beautiful ride.

I cruised around and found some roads that led me into others i had never ridden and all of the sudden I start to descent. I knew I had to come up, so I was happy I would be climbing, but I wasnt sure how long this road would be. I turned around after I descended almost 700ft. It was pretty steep and muddy.

Really curious to see how the mountain bike riding will translate to the road. I hope well cause tat is the whole point of pounding out the miles on the heavy thing.

numbers for todays ride were: 3050ft of climbing, 2:34 hours riding and i think 26 miles… not sure. cant remember.

Rode for about 2.5 hours. Basically the same deal. Up and down this 0.5 miles hill on the mountain bike. I think I got close to 4000ft of climbing in that time, which is pretty good, i think. Not good enough, but decent.

I used a HR monitor and progressed my HR levels until it hit 185 on the last climb. Started at 130. And then when i got back, honestly, I was home and getting ready for shower, it starts to rain and it rained for 12 hours straight. it wasn’t crazy much for here, but still, 2 inches of rain is a bit of water.

Now on the Ball. What is going on? I would actually hate to see them go. How is Bahati going to show up at Ontario now? I mean, the circus left town and it sucks. I honestly hope Rock stays, its too good not to go.

Anyway, season is about to get started and i feel like I have done kinda what i had to do. I am going to start by doing Imperial, which is an ABSOLUTE GREAT RACE. I am not joking, the vegetable primes are really good. A teammate won one for me last year, I could not do it on my own. Loser.

Then its VOS. i need to get the nod from the boss, but I think it will be OK. And from there on we will see.

I gotta say that the TREK is a great bike. It climbs and rolls very nicely. The only “douchi” thing about my ride today was to ride without a helmet. The one I left here is all moldy and there is no way I am using that, but at the same time I cannot stay home and sit on the ass.

Todays ride was actually a little bit more of a cross country one. I have been doing repetitive hill climbs, but today I mixed it up a bit. A little bit of mud, lots of sun, overall great one.

Ended up with 28 miles in 2:40 ride. There was quite a bit of climbing. I have my garmin but it only registered 20 miles and 2400ft of climbing. It was more than that, trust me. My legs are feeling it right now.

We’ll see how it goes tomorrow. Supposed to meet people for some riding… I need to find them, nothing planned. I am hoping for some serious suffering as if I had been in the US I would be doing swamis… so I am ready.

Uploading 200kb photos is taking me about 5 minutes and i honestly don’t think my ADD can handle that.

I promise to write some reports on my mountain bike trips. The trails are endless and the climbing has been brutal. Average speeds are in the single digits and I am suffering. Yesterday I almost ate shit. I am riding the motocross paths and they have very deep gravel sections, maybe 4-5 inches deep, so even going downhill, pretty steep downhill sections, it is causing me to come to a complete stop and when i do manage to ride it out it is always going sideways… quite a trip. So I am going downhill laughing at myself and just waiting to eat the big one.

On the trail yesterday I had to get some racing in and represent the US. It was fun to ride away from the supposed big shots over here. I think there is some fear of wrecking your equipment, so they ride a it more conservative. You break your XT shifter over here and you are out $300 easily. I have seen guys selling their MARTHA brakes for $1000 and that is a bargain.

Today I have two things on my schedule. DENTIST and another trip to the trails, flatter this time around. I dont wat to go to the dentist, I hate the efer…. So, a little word of advice, brush your teeth when you are young and don’t break them skateboarding, eating hard bread and snowboarding… great advice, take it!

Left San Diego with some little hick-ups (suitcase busted open 45 minutes before I had to leave) and the cab company knew better and sent me a regular cab instead of the “RESERVED” van, so that i could put my bike in there…. idiots…

In the check in the lady was very nice and *suggested* that I moved 4 lbs out of the bike box and put it in the other suitcases. The tip saved me $350 according to her. Great woman and that goes to show that all it takes is a bit of a nice person to handle your stuff. If it were any under person I would have probably been given the bill, no questions asked.

So bike box was checked in til Guarulhos. Flight was a nightmare, always is. Sitting still for 9 hours but unable to sleep. My patience meter exploded 2 hours into the flight and then every other 20 minutes… Oh well…. Left SD at 11 am got home at 12pm the next day.

First Ride

Did my first harder ride today. The mountains here are caked with iron core, actually the WHOLE freaking mountain is a piece of iron (imagine what kind of crap goes down when there is a lighting storm… where to run). I will take some pictures and send some google coordinates, pretty amazing stuff.

Back to the ride. I hit the motocross single tracks. Pretty knarly stuff. Some really loose iron dust, other, huge pebbles and the occasional packed dust. It was nice, but the climbing was a bit too much. I handled 9.96 miles in 67 minutes. The bike felt pretty good and handling those climbs and descents took some work. I will take the pics this weekend.

Weekend

My sister is going to the US – horrible timing.. I come to visit and she leaves, oh well. I plan on riding early and go ride with some dudes from around here. I think I will get my a$$ kicked, but oh well…