NEWS FLASH

Greetings! A lot has happened since the last post. I would like to start by giving a shout out to our team sponsors for this next summer. Their are so many cool sponsors that I could not do them justice at this time, so I have made a list of them to your right, and linked their logo's to their web sites. Please take the time to check them out If you are in need, please visit them and take advantage of there awesome businesses.

Next, I got the cross bike back and have been putting on some good miles on it. It is such a pleasure to be back on it. It is truly a hot rod! The Trek XO1 is the weapon of choice to rack up the big winter miles. It can handle BIG miles with minimal maintenance and repair.

The HiFi should be back in my hands an day! I spoke to Matt Brown down at High Gear and he said that they will have no problem replacing the wheel under warranty. Bontrager is awesome! They are so quick to replace anything that seems to go wrong, and that does not happen very often.

This past weekend I went to Lendsborg Ks, with team mates Jim Cummins, Garret Seacat and Tim Mohn for the Coronado Challenge. It was a really fun race. It is centered around this old castle that was build by Coronado himself when he came up this way from Mexico looking for gold. I can't say enough about how wonderful the people were that put on this race. They put a lot of effort into it, and it showed. It was extremely well organized.

I would also like to thank Matt Brown down at High Gear for lending me a rear wheel so that I could go to the race. If it were not for him I would have missed out on all of the fun. Matt is truly a great guy, and such a pleasure to race for. He always goes out of his way to make sure that we are all well taken care of, no matter what it takes. It is comforting to know that Matt is in your corner!

As for the race itself, it got off to a rough start. From the beginning, I ran into quite a bit of difficulty through out the first lap. Since I had not been in a race for a little while I thought that I would hang back a little and not mix it up right away. After all, it was to be a four hour race. This would prove to be a crucial mistake. About 500 yards into the race, there was a group of us that were shoulder to shoulder. All of the sudden, some guy rubbed wheels with me, and the two of us, and about five others went down.

After getting up I attempted to get going as quickly as possible. As I started to peddle away, my bike shifted down into the small ring in the front. I did not think much of it at first, but I could not get it to shift up to a larger ring.

As I began to climb, I tryed to check over my bike to see what was going on. About the time I got to the top of the first climb, I figured out that the housing and cable for the front derailleur blew out. I spent the remainder of the first lap in the small ring, and the bike kept shifting itself off of the small ring, so I had to stop 5-6 times to put my chain back on.

When I got back to the pit area, I found a screw driver, and adjusted the front derailleur so that I could ride in the middle ring for the remainder of the day, until I could get the bike back to the shop to have a new cable put on.

By time the repair was done my race was pretty much over, so I decided to just turn the day into a fun four hour trail ride. For the rest of the day, I backed off of the pace just a little and enjoyed the ride.

As the day went on, a few of the hills got a little tough, and I was wishing for that small ring, but it was still fun, and the legs got a really good workout. When it was all said and done, I am not sure exactly what place I finished in, but it was some where in the middle of the pack. I would like to congratulate my teammate Garret Seacat though. He rode tough, and put in a good showing, ending the day in 5th place in the open men division.

Well, this is a lot of 411 for today. I will let you go, and check back soon to see the latest happenings! Until then, check our our sponsor links. These company's are really cool.

Peace out!

Like a captain without a ship!

So much has happened, it is had to know where to start. I will keep it short and simple for this post. Geico insurance is pretty cool. They took care of me, and paid off quickly to fix the bike from the accident.

On November 1, Matt Garret, Tim, Chris, Jed and myself went for a long afternoon training ride north of town. Rode gravel, rails to trails, toured an abandoned missile silo, gravel and more rails to trails. I then blew up my rear derailleur at about 45-47 miles into the ride, had to turn the bike into a single speed and ride into a 30 mile headwind on some pretty good hills.

The cross bike went into the shop the next week for repairs so it is the mountain bike for a while. Rode that bike two days, got sick with the flu and did not ride for 2 days, rode trails the next two days, just to have my rear rim explode on Saturday afternoon.

Took the mountain bike into the shop today, and am now running this week!!!!!!!!! What a life. Broke 2 bikes and had the flu all in six days. Who Say's I have a boring life?

The good news, Matt Brown is the man! He said that he should have both bikes to me by the end of the week. The rear wheel of the mountain bike will be repaired under warranty. Lets pray that things will turn around and the bad luck is over. I heard that they travel in three's, and by my count this was the third disaster.

I will be heading up north a little ways with some of the guys on Sunday for a little recon for the next dirty kanza. Check back to see if I survive! Until next time, keep cool!

Peace out,
Mike