Shenanigans at Killington

It's 1pm on Thursday afternoon and I am completely burnt out from this past week. Driving up to Killington Friday night to race Sat, Sun, and Mon then rushing home Monday night to pass out and wake up to take a group of 11 men on a 3 day therapeutic camping trip has left me worthless on this perfectly beautiful afternoon. So I will write this blog in a relieved daze from my couch with the window open.

           Let's start with Killington Mountain Stage Race. It was my second ever stage race and first 3 day race. I met up with my buddies Krystian, Luciano, Dan, Brad, Braedin, and Uri up in Killington, we rented a 2 bedroom condo to fit all 7 of us for the long weekend. The first day of racing was a 72 mile circuit race. On the 2nd lap the pack was descending a mountain at around 45mph and all of a sudden a big group of people were crashing in front of me and I knew right away I could do nothing about this because I was in the middle of the pack and the crash was happening directly in front of me. So I grabbed both breaks as hard as I could and braced myself, sure enough I slammed right into somebody, went over my bars and landed right on top of Hot Tubes rider Curtis White, then someone crashed on top of me and drove their front wheel into my lower abdomen, right where I had a hernia operation about 3 years ago. Everything happened so fast and as soon as we all came to a stop I jumped up, grabbed my bike, put my chain back on, realized my bike was ok and hopped on. I was the only rider in that crash to get up and immediately start chasing the pack down. The group was about 100 yards away and I knew I had my work cut out for me to chase them back. My heart-rate sky-rocketed and my legs were burning so badly I just could not clear the lactic acid from them. I rode so hard that I saw stars and got tunnel vision. It took me about 20 minutes of going as hard as I could to catch back onto the group and when I finally caught the back I proceeded to throw up all over myself. It felt so good to know I was in contention again. We rocked a couple more laps of very agressive riding and I made the right move at the end and was in the clear for the sprint, so I went for it and took 3rd in the field sprint grabbing some upgrade points for the weekend!!!

                 The second day was an 11 mile time trial and I have only done a handfull of practice time trials and this would only be my second official one. I am borrowing a bike from a local guy Peter Greer, here in the Berkshires and the bike is a bit small for me with an integrated seat-post so I didn't have the option of making the post higher. So I took things into my own hands and got creative. I took an extra saddle I had lying around and duct taped it to the original saddle. Now this looks ridiculous but is very effective and it made the bike a perfect fit for my long femurs. I took 24th in the Time Trial and I was content with my time of 26:50 for the 11 miles.

              The third day was a brutal 62 mile road race through the mountains of central Vt. The race started on a 25 mile descent over some of the worst condition roads I have raced on. People's bottles were flying out and it was just very sketchy riding. After the long descent there was a brutal climb up this steep hill and I ended up in a group of about 25 guys for the rest of the race. About 5 miles before the final climb to the top of Killington the larger group we had dropped caught us and all 80 of us were together for the start of the giant climb. This climb was super brutal, I have never raced up something so steep before. Picture the steepest part of the north side of Greylock and make that 5 miles long, it was horrible. I don't think I have suffered that much on a bike ever (I say this about every race). Anyways, I ended up in 21st place in this race which got me 20th place overall for the GC.

          I learned a lot about how I race this past weekend and I know I have a lot to work on. But hey, anything worth doing is worth doing right, same goes with anything in life.
        So this weekend was a total success, I am happy I didn't get horribly hurt in that high speed crash and I wish a speedy recovery to the 7 or so dudes who were taken to the hospital and sustained injuries.
     My next big race is the Fitchburg Longsjo Classic!!!! Hometown race. This will be my first time doing the Longsjo and should be a really fun weekend. The whole family will be there watching and hopefully my fitness will be peaking and I can do really well at this one!
       I just spent the last 3 days on the mountain with an amazing group of men in early recovery. We had some musicians and all of them really wanted to be there which made for a really great trip. I was able to teach them some nature therapy stuff and get them out having direct experiences in nature, I love my job and my co-worker Jeremy Lombard rocks as well.

      That's all for now!!! See ya'll soon!!!!!

It's pouring outside on this beautiful Berkshire morning, any time it's raining and I don't feel like riding bikes I become productive. In this case my productivity is taking the form of blogging. The semester just ended and I've been insane busy writing papers for weeks straight. I finally have some time to breathe in the morning, enjoy some french press coffee, and reflect on where my life has gone in the last few months since my previous blog. 

               School has been crazy this semester, I just finished up over 100 pages of writing. I have been racing bikes and training like a mad man this season! I have been racing every weekend since mid March and becoming consistently faster and stronger. I took 2nd place at the Wayne Elliot memorial race when Dan Ouellette made a super hard hard move on the last lap when everyone was tired (including me) I jumped up, sprinted as hard as I could and followed him, we stayed away on a long straight away, took a hard right into a long climb and just took turns on the front hammering as hard as we could. It felt amazing to see the group behind us getting smaller and smaller. I was so excited when I realized we broke away, I was yelling YES YES!!! Dan yelled at me to calm down and I did. We caught 2 guys who had broken away and we worked together till the end where Dan took me in the sprint, but I took the other 2 guys and rolled away with 2nd place and some cash in my pocket. It felt good to make money doing something I love!!! 

              Since Wayne Elliot I have done a handful of other really fun and painful sufferfests of races. I did my first stage race ever up in Vt. at the Tour of the Dragons and finished 15th overall and snagged a couple upgrade points. I was content with this finish but I know I can finish stronger in a long stage race. I have another coming up this weekend in Killington Vt. It's a 3 day stage race. I will blog about that next week. 

             I am being featured in a documentary called "A Small Good Thing" directed by Academy Award winning Pamela Boll. She approached me a few months ago and when I heard from her I was very skeptical. After doing some research I found out Pam won an Academy award for the movie "Born Into Brothels" so this was no joke. After meeting with Pam, Kerthy, and Paula I knew right away I wanted to be a part of this project. All three of them are amazing people who are really trying to tell peoples stories and shine a light on the things this country needs more of. Anyways we have done a few filming sessions and Pam and her crew are legit! I thought it was going to be her and maybe one other person working on it. The morning of filming at my place she rolls up with 3 vehicles and an entire crew rolls out!!! It was insane, huge cameras and sound and lighting equipment! They have been following me around riding bikes and filmed me dancing with my family at a powwow. This summer they're flying me and the crew to Alaska to film me, my uncle and grandfather in ceremony and my uncle is teaching me the traditional way of brain-tanning hides. I have been trying to get out there for the last few years and now I have my chance!! Awesome stuff. 

                That's all for now, I will be updating my blog this summer until classes start up again and I have no time!!!!! As usual I am super grateful for the people in my life and for living a simple life of bike riding and community! 

Heres a link to an article that Mary Arata wrote for Nashoba Publishing about the powwow this past weekend. http://www.nashobapublishing.com/ci_20676126/iraq-war-veteran-fitchburg-native-filmed-at-devens

Oh and on another note I chopped all my hair off. I hadn't cut it in a year and a half and it was about 14 inches long!!!! The dirty hippie look has (somewhat) disappeared.

Espana

I am bringing the blogging action back!!! My last post was in August 2011. I have plenty of reason to get back to it now! I left Tuesday night and drove back to Fitchburg and got there around 7pm, I checked my email and Jeremy had sent me an email telling me he broke his shifter in the world cup in France that day. So unless I brought a sram shifter with me to Granada I would be S.O.L. and have to buy a brand new shifter at around $100. So I called every person I could in the Fitchburg area and NOONE had an extra sram shifter. I finally called Al Donahue in East Hampton and he hooked me up! I had to drive a few extra hours to get the shifter though. So the mission was successful and I left for Spain the next morning. It took me about 36 hours of traveling to get to Granada. My flight from Boston to Philly was horrible, we got on the plane and had a wind delay and then after we landed there was no terminal to park in and then when we finally found one, there was a luggage cart stuck in front of it. So I had to run to my next terminal which was of course on the other side of the airport, like a mile away. I made it just in time to be the last person to board the plane. When I landed in Madrid, I learned my brother had missed his flight in Brussels and I had to sit in the Madrid airport for 5.5 hours waiting for him. So I tried to sleep and nothing happened. He finally showed up with these 2 huge bike bags and we had to drag all of our luggage to the shuttle which dropped us off in downtown Madrid and we continued to drag all our crap into the train terminal which took us to the bus station. It was a lot of work and we were finally south bound on the bus. It was so good to catch up with him and hear all about his Euro racing adventures.

After a 5.5 hour bus ride we

finally arrived in Granada. The bus ride from Madrid was long and when we left, the landscape was not that beautiful, and the further south we drove, the more epic the landscape turned. Field after open field of hilly olive tree orchards, beautiful mountain ranges that seemed to grow with each hill we passed.

My friend from the Berkshires was waiting for us at the bus station and helped us get a taxi and brought us to his friends place near downtown Granada, I am staying with Christina and her boyfriend in one apartment and Jeremy is staying with this guy names Jonas right across the hall, we both have our own bedrooms and we are totally hooked up.

We had a nice pasta dinner with our hosts and got to know them a bit and joked around all evening with good food and drinks and I passed out and ended up sleeping for 13 hours!!!! I was soooooo tired and Jeremy came and knocked on my door at noon and told me to get my ass out of bed. We chilled and made coffee and breakfast and got our bikes all put together and ready to go. We couldn't wait to hit the road and ride these epic, epic roads around Granada. Marc came and got us and we hit the countryside for a nice 2 hour easy spin. I can't even descride how beautiful the landscape here is. In the backdrop is the Sierra Nevada mountain range, with peaks around 10,000 feet and every other direction you look are beautiful mountains. The roads , once you get out of town are small and wind through olive tree fields, there are people on bicycles everywhere, and after one ride in the countryside I can see why there are so many cyclists. A group of roadies were with us leaving town for the first 30 minutes of our ride, and they didn't speak a word of English. It was pretty awesome.

After our ride, we headed into downtown to meet up with some friends. Barcelona was playing Madrid in a soccer match, so we headed into a local bar for drinks and tapas to watch the game. It was totally crazy, Spanish people LOVE soccer, the whole bar erupted with cheering and screaming when Madrid scored a touchdown :-).

Anyways, I'm being long winded. It's Thursday now and we just got back from an amazing 4 hour ride through the bost beautiful scenery. I am so tired and will write more later!

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

Home Sweet Home

Ok, so I know it's been a few months since I blogged last and soooo much has happened since returning from Asia.
I took a month off from the internet while I was in Indonesia and doing my yoga teacher training. It was the greatest thing ever! Not being connected and being in one of the most beautiful places in the world was so refreshing, and spiritually rejuvenating.
Ok, so where to start.... So much has happened since I've been back. I just finished my last 3 classes at BCC and graduated with my Associates degree. I start at Burlington College in Vermont on Aug 12th. I will be studying Trans-personal Psychology with a concentration in Native American and Eco-Psychology. I am so stoked to be studying something I can apply directly to my life, and hell, a BA is a BA it's not going to matter what I get it in!!
I started racing bikes again after a 2 year hiatus from racing. I lost all of my upgrade points and I'm starting all over as a cat 4. Bike touring does NOT make you any faster. It is the best way to travel in a foreign country but you don't get any intensity. So my first race I finished in the top 20 which was awesome, it was a super hilly road race and it was a "rust breaker" for me. I finished 5th in a crit, and then I did the Tour of the Hilltowns and ended up lying in the river around mile 50 because my legs locked up. I have never cramped so bad in my life and the river was the best idea I've ever had. I saw riders flying by, looking at me in the river in envy. Hhahaha, I still finished the race but felt totally drained after. It was sooo hot out that day.

It feels really good to be back in the states and have a home base for riding and living. The first time I walked into the grocery store I was totally overwhelmed though. I didn't realize we have 5 million different kinds of yogurt on the shelves. I really miss the sense of community there was in Asia everywhere you went. People live their lives outside and at markets and sure, we have farmers markets but everything is still super expensive and elitist.

Anyways, I am so glad to be home and I have 2 weeks off before I start school!!!! Time to catch up with friends, spend time with family and ride my bike!!!!

But with all of the amazing times, life goes on and there is sorrow. Auntie Lynn and Al both passed away this past month. They were both amazing people. Auntie Lynn was one of the most spontaneous and randomly funny people I knew, she always lit the room up when she walked in, I am so grateful for spending time with her after I got back. Al was also a great dude, he told me all sorts of funny stories about my dad and was always smiling.
I have been thinking a lot about impermanence lately and realize anything can happen and I must live my life to best of my ability every day and try and live every day as it were my last.


Highlights of the last few months,

Grand Fundo!!!!
Swimming in the Green River
Riding bikes with my brother
Hiking barefoot with good friends
Canoeing to islands
Dirt hill climbs
Eve of Destrucion
New motorcycle
Shaving my insane Jesus beard
Yoga
Hammock on the porch
Berkshire summer evenings
Super Hero Parties

To all my friends, and family,
I love you all dearly and I am grateful and thankful for you in my life. You are the reasons I keep doing what I am doing. I wish you all happiness, ease and non-suffering.

Cameron Highlands

This place is absolute heaven to me!!!

This past week I haven't been able to ride at all, the roads in Kuala Lumpur and Ipoh were strewn with crazy traffic that doesn't give a damn about cyclists.

I stayed with a couchsurfer in KL and in Ipoh, they were my first couchsurfing experiences and I couldn't have asked for a better experience. I think it is one of the best ways to

travel. Joslyn was my first host in KL and she picked me up from the train station, brought me to her place and then showed me the best local spots to eat. The second night we went to a Hoobastank concert in downtown KL. It was sooooo much fun, I danced all night long with locals, they loved dancing with the tall mahtsahlay (white guy) with the big crazy hair. Then I headed to Ipoh a town at the base of the

Cameron highlands and my hosts name was Wen, she also took me to all the awesome local spots and treated me to a chinese dish called thunder tea rice, it was amazing!!! It was 5 bowls of food, desert, and a sweet potato drink all for 10 ringgits, which is just over 3 USD. She brought me around to all these chinese temples built into the sides of caves. Ipoh and KL were both cool towns and they have such an interesting mix of people.

I am now in a little mountain town called Tanah Ratah in the Cameron

Highlands and this place is sooooo amazing. I LOVE it here, when I got off the bus and stepped outside it was like 15 degrees cooler. I had to walk into town and buy this super cheesy looking sweater for 6 ringgit cause I was cold!!!! I havent been cold in months!!! Usually by 11 the heat is unbearable.

I went on the most epic ride today past all these tea plantations, strawberry plantations and bee farms. The mountains are about 7,000 feet high and I am right in the middle of them. I rode out to this tea plantation and had a cup of tea and a piece of chocolate cake and then climbed up the mountain to this little view point and did some yoga all by myself, I didn't see anyone else the entire time I was up there.

After some yoga, I got some delicious Indian food then set back on the road for a 10km climb back to town. I could spend a month here and never get bored, theres tons of hiking trails and super cheap amazing food.

I just signed up for a yoga teacher training in Bali starting on the 24th. I was randomly thinking of how cool it would be to take my YTT over here and I googled courses in Bali and 4 days after I fly there one starts and the founder and teacher has a studio and does trainings in North Adams as well!!!! Its called Frog Lotus Yoga and I will be a certified yoga teacher through Yoga Alliance when I get back to the states!!!!

Malaysia

I have been slacking in the blog department, it's been over a week since my last update. Krabi was the most amazing place. I stayed at this huge hostel with dorms and I met an amazing group of friends that I will never forget. We had all kinds of adventures, from island hopping to jungle fresh water swimming and bouldering and rock climbing on the beach.

My friend Tammy also met me in Krabi and we finished up shooting and editing our video application for the Amazing Race.

I took off from Krabi yesterday and

spent the day traveling and I am now in Subang Jaya, a suburb of the huge Malaysian city Kuala Lumpur. I flew from Krabi to KL and had to

take an hour bus ride to the city center and then take a train to where my couchsurfing host picked me up. I have never seen anything like the train I had to get on. It was like packing a million sardines into a tiny little can, I didn't know you could fit so many people in one tiny space. It didn't help that it was 104 degrees and humid outside, so there was a definite tinge to the air. Anyways I made it here safe and sound and Joslyn my couchsurfing host is so awesome!!! I have my own room to stay in and she took me out last night and showed me some cool touristy sights and then took me for the best meal I have yet in SE Asia!!!! I ordered wayyyy to much food and ended up eating the rest of it for breakfast today.

This place is so much different than anywhere I have been in SE Asia, it is very modern and clean. I saw a Malaysian woman at an international supermarket buying a bag of cool ranch doritos!!! hahahahaha, I was in a shopping mall that was 6 stories high and

they had a big slide you could slide down from the 6th floor, sooooo awesome!!! Theres a big mixture of people here, Indian, Malay, Thai, and Chinese so there is every type of food you can dream of, all for super cheap. Oh man I died and went to heaven, I have been eating all day today. It's also a really rich country so they have all sorts of imported foods 2, so I got a grapefruit from Florida today hahahaha they're my favorite though. Tomorrow night were going to a free concert in downtown KL and then I will catch a bus Saturday to Ipoh and then slowly make my way to the Cameron Highlands for some epic riding, strawberry and tea plantations.