The most recent occurances, including an encounter with a bear

Sorry for the late post here, but things have been busy over here in Massachusetts. For one, I had my first MTB race of the year at Hop Brook Dam (and my first race at this venue). When I entered the race I had mostly been training on the road bike, so I was excited to hit some dirt, however road bike training does not always directly transfer to the mountain bike, so it was going to be interesting. We ended up with great weather, and I also ended up with the #1 plate, so that was a good sign. As soon as the race went off, I jumped to 3rd of 4th wheel, and when we got the the entrace to single track, disaster hit, the loop was not clearly marked and some rider including myself made a wrong turn. Mass hysteria insued and next thing I knew I was ducking under mulitiple rows of tape and running up a hill to catch back up to the group! I caught back on and got to work. However I was pretty tired after all this early excitement and fell back a few positions, but was able to keep about 4 guys in sight. By the time I was on my second of four laps I had caught these dudes and was duking it out wheel to wheel. At this point I noticed a clunk in my bike, and was not sure what was going on. I started to look down at my rear suspension to see if anything was loose, but I could not see anything. At this point I came to the conclusion that my rear shock had died (this was a very fair assumption considering I am already on my third shock!) Long story short, I was bobbing around like a pogo stick, and my seat would kick me in the butt whenever I had to use my brakes down hills. I accepted this fate, dropped these dudes I was riding with, and came across the finish line in 7th out of ~20 guys.

I am happy with this result, it is a good start to the MTB season and I now that I am hitting the dirt more I think my results should only improve. I would like to thank my friend Melissa for her help with bottles at this race, and for taking the cool before and after pictures as seen below (notice the awesome Competitive Edge jersey!!!).



On other notes PowerBar really came through, and supplied me with tons of the best sports nutrition products around. Below is a snapshot of all my energy food, it will take me a little while to go though all of it, but I am trying out lots of new products and I am very excited about that!


Caroline also came to visit me since my last blog post. We had a great weekend, with an awesome 18 mile bike ride on the road [no bike pictures here, but check out the one below ;)], as well as a great cook out with some of my polymer science buddies. Below is a great shot of us at the BBQ (notice the fohawk, haha, I decided to change it up a bit)!


Lastly on my bike ride yesterday I came across a rather large animal during one of my hill intervals. I noticed something moving in the woods, it was very large, black, and had four legs. If you are thinking a Massachusetts Black Bear you would be right on. This bear and I had a stare down, about 20 feet from one another, until I flexed my muscles and he went running into the woods. This is only the second time I have come accross a bear on my bike, the first being up north when I was on a ride with my Dad and my friend Kevin. Along those lines, I have noticed many interesting animals over the past few weeks, some eagles and hawks, a vulture with a chipmunk in his mouth, and now a bear, of the great outdoors!