changes

check out my blog on www.mtbracenews.com

yaaa

i've been in californai for the last 2 weeks training and racing on the bike.  so far i've hit fontana pro XCT and the sage brush safari which is part of the us cup series.  both races were rad.  The courses of each race were new to me and i definitly approve.  

Now and for the next 2 weeks i'll be living at the olympic training center in chula vista, california.  I like it here. despite not being exactly like home it has pretty much everything i could ask for which is nice. best of all the cafeteria food is great!  

today i raced the sagebrush safari and placed 4th. my first professional podium!!!!! i'm happy with this result and expecially with the course.  the single track at the sagebrush safari was a lot of funt with berms, jumps, and high speed.  i now have a weekly blog post on the website www.mtbracenews.com  its updated every wednesday so check it out.  or else.

Rob Out

st george

I was at the desert rampage last week for the first intermountain cup. I've been really enjoying going down to st george for warm weather riding.  the first day we got there( thursday afternoon) we did goulds, jem, and hurrican rim trail.  This is the most fun trail i've done this year. part of the excitement was due to the fact that i had never ridden it before and those drops came as a surprise.  It was great.  

Another reason it was so much fun was that i got a new bike to ride.  just as we were about to leave my house in sandy and head to st george, the UPS man showed up with an 08 specialized marathon for me to ride until the 09 gets in.  what a great bike.  the geometry is a bit different from my anthem which i like, i think it handles better this way.  another aspect that compliments the handling is the BRAaaaaiiiiinnnn.  it keeps everything rigid in the berms so its faster.   the fox f80 fork is really neat too because it incorporates the brain tech.  I must admit that i'm a big fan of the brain.  once you have it dialed in nothing is faster.  I can't wait to see the 09 stuff.  the dual control shifters were another thing that took a little getting used too.  there not as good as grip shift but i do like them more than pods so it is the way to go in the way of shimanamanamo.  

The race ended up being pretty good.  I was a little toasted from the day before but was strong enough to keep a good pace up the climbs.  the course was ok.  The climbing sections were a lot of fun and good but the descents were lame, with trails like bear claw and zen so close i would have thought a better downhill was possible.  all in all a good course though.

mitch and i decided to go big before going home sunday mornning and cast our lot with the famous 3 fingers of death.  after some red bull rampage we hit goulds, jem, and hurrican rim one last time before heading home. a great weekend!

I got home to a snow storm and then a few days of being sick.  UGH i hate being sick, sitting at home doign nothing all day is not one of my favorite past times.  luckily that passed by thursday and then weather was nice so this weekend has turned out to be pretty good.  

on track for de tour/ new bingham store

It seems that every time i log onto cyclingnew, velonews or mtbracingnews i see that another pro tour guy is out for a while due to a crash.  In addition, the tour of california took out a few pro contenders as well.  At this rate, i plan to be riding for a pro tour team by the time the grand tours role around.  There simply won't be any more protour guys left.  I also think its funny that pro upgrades are based on pack experience so you won't take everyone down. Bull plop! leipheimer, vandevelde, they're all taking themselves out along with the rest of the pack.  If i can ride my bike without falling down i think my pack skills are pretty legit compared to some of the pro tour guys.  

Aside from joking around, i'm headed down to st. george tomorrow for the weekend.  I plan to do the intermountain cup down there which should be a lot of fun.  I'm a bit dissapointed that i won't be bringning my road bike down with my sweet new SRM but i guesss mountain biking is just about the greatest thing ever so it's all good.  The weather is calling for rain on the day of the race so that hsould be pretty gnarly hopefully the mud doesn't turn to clay like i experienced 2 weekends ago.  

IF YOU AREN'T GOING TO BE IN ST. GEORGE THIS WEEKEND GO CHECK OUT THE NEW BINGHAM CYCLERY STORE  ACROSS THE STREET FROM PIONEER PARK(NORTH SIDE) IT IS GOING TO BE RAD, RAD TO THE MAX.   I went down there yesterday to see what all of the hype was about and i wasn't dissapointed.  its just too bad that other salt lake shops are going to have to compete with this one.  

Go check it out, it'll be worth it!

Treasure

sweet road bike, addict r3

This is the best road bike i have ever ridden.  Super stiff, extremely light, and it just plain looks good. However, i have yet to ride the Specialized tarmac sl2 so this is the best bike i have ridden up until now.  I think i'll be changing my mind in the next few weeks.  

national championship winning rig....mostly
New team gear!!!!!!
uploaded the pictures on my camera and found some of my gorgeous bicycles as well as my new team gear from the U23 National team.  The new gear is sweet.  The jerseys, jackets, bibs, vests, shoecovers, are all nike which is by far my favorite cycling gear.  Not only are they hooking it up but their stuff works really well too.  Now i have the proper dress to go riding in the utah winters which i'm really excited for.  

I've been riding outside for the past week which has been sweet.  its nice to get outside again.  although it looks like the weather is taking a turn for the worst.  No worries because i'll be heading down to st. george again this weekend for the first intermountain cup race.  I'll be on a specialized but not my 09 race bike.  My giant is sidelined at the moment due to a crack and some mroe developing cracks in the rear triangle, the new 2009 epics aren't in yet, so i'll be reppin an older epic.  it'll be an s-works but probably pretty haggered. 

The first US cup was this weekend but i didn't realize it until the thursday night before the race which left me little options.  It would have been fun to go and race but my bike was iffy due to the rear triangle and trying to pack up and go in 6 hours would just be too much so i sat this one out.  congrats to sam J on the second place.  Looking at the results indicates that none of the "big" players went to this race which is a relief in that i didn' tmiss anything real important. 

My first national race will be fontana proXCT tour at the end of march.  I can hardly wait to see what i can do with the big boys in the pro class.  I think that all of the big names are going to treat the fontana race as the season opener.  Although with the new national series i bet some people are still trying to figure out which races count for what.  i believe the us cup is different from the PROXCT tour.  however, i think that both of these races are slated for the same weekend in march.  Do the two series intersect? scheduling conflict? or will there be two races?  nobody knows for sure.  this is my worst written blog by far and  i apologize but i've been really busy with tests and work for school so...

Rob out

St. George

 I got back from St. George last night doing some quality riding.  Mitch and I got down there as the light was fading on thursday and just had time to turn one bear claw poppy in.  Although a little bumpy from being ridden when it was wet, the riding was sweet!  It felt really good to get on my mountain bike again, truthfully I would have been having fun anywhere on the mtb bike.  

Friday we met up with some buddies and shredded green valley area before jumping on the road bikes, a very good day of riding and fairly long as well.  

The University of Utah guys came down as part of the training camp so I rode with them the next two days which were two really scenic road rides.  We rode around gunlock and snow canyon and up to the town of pine valley which was one of the nicest parts of riding down there.  The next day we decided to ride to zion national park and ride through the park but, they wanted to charge us $12 a head i had already ridden through the toll, i know not to stop when people yell at you, we ended up turning around, those park ladies ruined our entire day.

It was a good weekend to turn in some easy base miles OUTSIDE.  The weather was warm, i was only wearing a bib, undershirt, and sometimes arm warmers and a vest to keep warm and i never had any problems.  Getting out and ridign outside really beats the rollers but i'm to big of a wuss to ride out in the cold so its back to the rollers untill the next trip south, which shouldn't be in more than two weeks. 

Drugssssss

drugs in sports has come up a lot in the last couple of weeks.  From a-rod to valverde, it seems like the shit is hitting the fan for these superstars.  Valverde faces a potential 2 year ban and a rod faces ummm... what is it again? oh yeah a warning, if he gets caught again-15 day suspension.   I don't understand why cycling gets a bad rep from doping and yet it is by far the most advanced sport in the way of doping control-besides being infinitly cooler in every way.  Football along with other american "super" sports have very poor doping programs and atheletes are found to be dirty just as often!  Baseball and football are even more suspicious than cycling.  For instance, it is more plausible for a cyclist to be flying up a climb or have a awesome day than for most of the NFL players to be 6'5'' 350 pounds.  In my mind there is no question that a large majority of football players are using some sort of performance enhancing substance.  Why shouldn't they?? aside from being unethical and cheating, there is very little to no punishment if they should get caught.  When people like a-rod are getting 100 million dollar contracts steroids start sounding like a good idea.  

Sometimes drug use isn't that big of a deal.  Michael Phelps for example.  what the hell?!?!  He is the greatest swimmer in the world was an national hero but now since this picture has come up everyone is quick to drag his name through the dirt.  He is not only the best in the world but the best that has ever lived- I think that is grounds for a little celebration.

That's enough ranting for one blog.