From Rocket Launcher to Hipppie

Summer has been pretty sweet so far. I have been racing my bike a decent amount. Some jackass at the Concord criterium crashed me. We had 5 laps to go, my heart was pumping, and my legs were feeling awesome, I was in great position and feeling strong. We came around a tight corner with ledges on both sides, I was on the outside with about a foot between me and the ledge, this crazy dude came flying up from nowhere and in a feeble attempt tries squeezing himself between me and the curb. He wrapped his drop bars around mine, slammed into the curb and went down hard and took me with him. I landed on top of him with my bike flying into the air. I was soooooooooo pissed at this guy. Now I'm usually a very easy going chill kinda dude, and the only other time I can remember flipping out on someone was when this punk kid stole my brand new mtnbike off my front porch. I found him, flipped out on him and dumped a bag of skittles on his head. Anyways, I started screaming at this guy, I saw red, this guy just ruined this race for me. He walked away from me at a more than brisk pace, dragging behind him his mangled bike. I ripped my bike up to hop back on only to realize my derailer had been ripped right off my frame. I picked up a bale of hay and threw it into the street in a fit of rage. Some guy said "hey that's not cool" I looked him straight in the eye, and guess what I said.............. I said..... "yeah you're right" and picked the hay up and put it back where it belonged, took my shoes off, cause I hate walking with cleats and I walked barefoot back to my car, carrying my bicycle with me. Shit happens in bike racing and I know that it is no use getting pissed off over it, but that's really hard to do when you're in the moment and something like that happens. I cooled down quickly from it and licked my wounds and watched the rest of the fields finish their races. After that race I did pretty well though, I took 4th place at the Beverly criterium, 2nd place at the Salem criterium (congrats to Tom Kroot for taking the W), and 6th at the Capital Region road race. I have been feeling pretty strong on the bike and in the category 4 field and I have had some really good finishes, so I put in for my category 3 upgrade and got DENIED!
I put in for the upgrade right before a camping trip with my new job and after everyone went to sleep, I checked my email on my phone and saw that email from usa cycling and my heart dropped when I opened it and saw that I was denied. I thought for sure I was going to get my upgrade. Oh well, that's how life works. I have a couple races left this year and hopefully I can smash it and get some more points.

On other fronts, I have an amazing new beard and I need to give photo credit to Dagan who shot this beautiful candid of me in deep thought at the annual Berkshire Bike and Board customer appreciation party. It was a ton of fun, catered by Craig and it seemed like the entire Berkshire cycling community was out that night. Such an awesome crew of so many diverse people that share one thing in common, the love of cycling!

I spent the weekend in Burlington doing my residency for the independent degree program I started. I met all of my professors and some other really chill IDP students. I really like Burlington college. It's a small private school and they cater very well to non traditional students like myself that have lives outside of school. On the down side, it's a TON of work. I have 24 books to read this semester and over 140 pages of writing to do. I'm taking 2 foundational courses on psychology with one professor, and 3 classes with another professor. They are Shamanism, intro to Transpersonal Psychology and Ecopsychology. I am so stoked to be learning about this stuff, but we will see how I do with planning all my own coursework, reading and researching everything on my own.



Here's a picture of me with a rocket launcher when I was in the military. I weighed about 185 in this picture, I was a LOT bigger than I am now. Hahahahaha