Next up is my team Trek VW jersey that is signed by Chris Eatough, who is by far my favorite mountain biker, I felt like a kid when I went up to Chris and asked him for his autograph. It was our first trip (Mark, Tim, and myself) to the Lumberjack 100, there are a ton of memories on this trip alone (what happens at Lumberjack stays at Lumberjack!!!). Starting with the all night drive and traveling through the tail end of a massive storm that hit the race site and left an unimaginable 11 inches of rain. We had to take a detour and still had to drive through water across the road in several places. I remember thinking that we just drove all this way and they are going to cancel this race, to my surprise other than the 200 yds of flooded area we were racing on an almost dry course. Many sections the rain made it faster due to the sandy soil base. After the race we went to the post race festivities and I took along my Trek VW jersey in hopes that I could get Chris to sign it. It's kind of funny because sitting across from Chris was Jeff Schalk (the race winner who also raced for Trek VW) and I bypassed him to ask Chris for his autograph. It may have been nothing but I do remember him kind of looking at me funny, I'm sure he was thinking "Hey, I won this race", but then again Chris is a 6 time World Champion. Do you like the custom made frame? Tim made that for me, he did an awesome job.
This is a a few pictures from Cruise The Blues, this particular year I raced as a team with my Dad, this was his first experience of this kind and we had a lot of fun. He told me later that early on his first lap he was thinking "What did I get myself into?". He rode great and we had a blast and walked away with a 2nd place team finish. I had another 2nd place medal from a solo race the year before so I hung on the frame as well. The year before was a fun trip too, only Mark and I went out West to race that year. We drove out the night before in my truck and I have fork mounts in the bed of the truck, I had laid my front wheel under my bike and even had the thought that I hope my tire doesn't for some reason hit my chain ring....guess what? I did!!! We got up race day morning to the front wheel of my bike flat due to a sidewall cut compliments of my chain ring, I pumped it full of air and tried to get it to seal and it was fine until I put pressure on it. It was entertaining to say the least because it would spray out as if it had a pulse, it would shoot out a foot our so every few seconds (pretty cool to watch). That was the year that Mark took a header onto a big rock and busted open his chin but that wasn't the end of the race for him, he went on to overtake the 4th place rider on the last lap and found himself in the money on the podium. After the awards we packed up and headed to the hospital so he could get some stitches, that is after he harassed the doctor a little bit. We waited a long time in the ER for the doc, turns out he was mowing his grass!!! The doc came in with street clothes on and sandals and had a ring around his ankles from dirt, Mark asked him if he had been racing his bike too!!!
This last pic is from the 2009 Lumberjack 100, I did a little detailed finish work with my finishers patch, it looks great on the wall.
So many riding experiences with friends, I have only mentioned a few here. Of course a couple more that stick out in my mind happened early this year in Oklahoma, there was 8 of us (I think) that drove most of the night and we arrived at the hotel around 4 a.m. We had canceled one of the rooms since we were going to arrive so late and 4 of us slept in the van in the hotel parking lot. Jan came out the next morning and being the silly guy he is looks in the van window and says "Is that a condom?", it was hilarious. Then we had Lake Denny right at the back door of the van!!! Speaking of Denny, his maiden trip on "The Kevinator" will stick in my mind as well. I was off to the side (on the Sally route which changed from the time I was there before, the arrows painted on the rock took you off a 3-4 ft drop...I don't think so) and was watching Denny start the drop in and as he was going through he started bouncing a little bit and then disappeared behind the massive rocks that make this awesome hill. I watched below the rock but he didn't emerge. Turns out he actually had to lay it down and ended up cutting his tire (we had a great view up there while he changed that flat). I have a lot of respect for him because he tried to ride it, that's more than I can say for me!!! And the really cool thing is that there are a ton more still to happen.
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