July 26th, 2009

Surprise! Mud!

One broken shoe, three crashes, a rear brake that still doesn’t work, and more fucking mud. Races at ski resorts are always very interesting: ride up, ride down, repeat. I like to climb — I excel in life at the tasks that require going uphill,  pushing against the grain, swimming upstream. Whatever you want to call it, I seemingly make my life more diffucult on purpose. I rarely allow myself the pleasure of easing off the brakes and letting go. My mountain biking style depicts this exactly. Today I gained time going up, and lost all of it going down. A working brake would’ve helped a little. Having the lever go to the bar when descending a mile of steep, muddy rocks may even enstil a bit more confidence. Maybe.

I’m not complainig. I had fun… and was 8/9th place into the last lap but suffered chain suck on certain climbs which forced me to run (with my broken shoe). And then I was thrown over the handlebars several times on the final descent. But unlike those prissy professional riders, I refused to DNF due to a technical.

I could use some more fight in me though. I’ve lost a bit of my competitive aggression after moving up to expert class.