Back Country!

I have had this urge to go snowboarding at the local mountain, the only catch is that there are no lifts out there. Finally got a chance to hit the hill, the Jeep was a rockstar again and got me up to the hill with absolutly no issues, and I was out before the plows and sanders! I found a pack last night that I could strap my board to packed a lunch and some warm clothes for the way down. Hiked my way up C-7000 planning my route down got my way up there and dropped in. Hitting parts of Mt. Molly trail but mostly just the road down but always looking out for where to go the next time. The top to about the half way point was great! Fresh snow and nice and steep but about a mile away from the car the raod was just not steep enough to get any speed.... hummm mabey I need some AT ski's??? Anyway here are some picks for the trip.

I Love SNOW!!

Snow Rocks!! Went boarding yesterday, it was awesome!! 6 inches of fresh powder at the start of the day and 4 more fell while we were there! It was amazing! We had to be a little careful because of the low coverage, but I never hit anything.... to hard. But Crystal Mountain was great, no lift lines all day, fresh powder all day. What more can I say? I went with Ris and Peter, Pete being my partner in crime at school this year we got each other through the year. So Pete hasn't been snowboarding all that much but he hung in there I think I pushed riss and pete until they were completly smoked and couldn't sit on the lift without falling off! Perfect! But they both hung in there it was pretty cold and snowed all day, not to mention its a lot harder to ride or ski in fresh powder than it is in the groomers. I got up to the top a couple of times but it really wasn't worth it, the coverage was just not good enough I tried it and I hit more rocks up there than anywhere else. So I just enjoyed the freshness down below! Anyway that's whats up with me and whats on my mind. Oh and check this out! This is my new board, haven't ridden it yet, waiting for some better coverage, but it sure looks sweet!

School

So what has my life been like for the past couple of months.........School, School, School, School, School, School, School, School,School, School, School, School, School, School, School, School, School, School!!!!!!!

Oh man, Late nights, early mornings, 50 page lab reports tough tests, (today the entire school was shut down my professor thought..... perfect day for a test....) Things have been nuts!!! I am never home and I have done pretty much nothing but school. Now don't get me wrong I am enjoying it its just hard, at least it is on interesting stuff.

Oh yeah like 5 weeks ago Ris and I went hiking..... here is rad pic of where we were.

POST!!!

Wow, I can't belive they've still kept my account active, I havn't written in so long. So if anyone is still trying to read this and wondering what I have been up to here it goes.

Work this summer was crazy, way to many hours for way to little dollars but it was a great experience. As for bike racing....... ummmm what bike racing? I didn't race all summer! Now I am in school at Saint Martins University. I am taking Soil Mechanics, Fluids Mechanics, Transportation Engineering and Structural Analysis. With the first 4 all having labs! doesn't that sound like fun? Actually it's been really good really interesting but still really difficult.

Bike Racing!!!

It's Cross season!!! I still haven't been able to ride at all! but I've raced twice. I did the Rad Racing GP of Cyclocross, that was cool. I decided to race at the last second and got Derek to bring out his single speed for me and raced that class. It was a awsome race I was in second almost all race before two laps to go I took the lead but never got a very big gap comming into the finish I lost the sprint, oh well it was a great race.

I also raced this last Saturday in my first cat. 1/2 race of the year. Finished up somewhere around 10th so I guess not to bad but I was just diein becasue there were so many times I was so close to a group of guys and just couldn't bridge, so I just picked up the guy's that blew-up in the end. Still Crosstoberfest is a great race with a great course.

Oh yeah and I've been doing a lot of hiking latly it's been awsome! Ris and I have gone out to the rainforest and Rainer I think we are going back to Rainer this weekend. We are alos planning a backpacking trip. I'll keep you informed on that. Here are some picks from the forest.

2 MONTHS!!!

Two months since a post! Can i be serious! Yeah I am that serious and I am that lame. So what has happened in the past two months in my life? Well a whole lotta school. During the month of
April I was finshing up 12 credits from St. Martins University but then I had to start a fresh 15 at SPSCC so that was 27 credits at one time!! Not to mention the midterms all happend to fall during the same week! yeah that was a little crazy. But I got B's in all my SMU courses and I jsut finished up my last final for the spring quarter at SPSCC so far I know that I have 1 A and 1 B and I am just waiting on the grade from the final I took today. I am thinking a A- or a B+ we'll see either way I'll be happy. So that is the story at school. Oh yeah I got into Saint Martins for the 2008 school year looking forward to more engineering courses that should be really nice.

So about racing, Not much! unfortunetly. just too much school, not enough time to ride. I have go out to a couple of races but no finishes to brag about. But now its summer I can get on the bike more and I can get out to more races.

Other than that I have just been working a lot on school. Now its summer and I can do a better job at updating this thing. Late.

Luke

NMBS #1

I am down here in So. Cal racing in my first big race of the year, the first stop on the National Mountain Bike Series schedule down here in Fontana. It has been a pretty awesome trip. Matt picked me up from the airport on thursday and its been fun to hang out with that guy again, he actually drove down with Eric who was racing on the road just up the street in San Dimas which worked out awesome because he had a hotel room right up the street from both of our races. Thanks to Eric for letting us crash on the floor. 

    We pre-road the course on thursday and got see Gary and Maria two of the coolest, nicest people on the planet and they just so happen to make the best grips on the planet! I have been using them for about 3 years now and its just something I don't even have to think about anymore they are my grips and I use nothing else. Not to mention they came out with a new color this year, its a awesome lime green which took off at the race and looks awesome! Not to mention will match my new bike perfectly! Also Gary made this personal water bottle had off stand. Its genius! Spring loaded light weight and easy to pack you can have a bottle feed where ever you go with out having to ask some untrustworthy stranger to to it for you, and it works great, I used it my race and it was way easier than trying to find the hand with your bottle in it. I'll get pictures of both of them up as soon as I get home.

   Oh and how bout a race report... the races went pretty good, not great, to two good solid efforts and this is definetly the best I have felt in march in a long time, I was in the exact middle of the long Cross Country at 25th only 5 min down of the top ten. In the Short Track I had a really good race for how I felt before the race.. I felt really bad before the race but then made the group which was racing for 5th of 6th place then some bad luck hit and a rider crashed in front of me and I lost contact with the group and couldn't get back. Oh well I think I ended up aroud 12th or so. Well I have typing long enough I'll give more of an update later. Late.

Luke

24 Hours in the Old Pueblo

Hey its racin season again and that means that I am going to get the blog up and running again. First race of the year was a doozy! A 24 hour race down near Tucson, Arizona. Nice, Sunny and Warm three things that you would expect form the Arizona dessert right? Wrong, how about rain, snow and COLD!! Wow, we arrived at the race site (24 hour town) after an awsome rally trip up the super muddy slick 10 mile dirt road to get there and we were greeted with temps in the 30's and a snow rain mix. After setting up the ping pong table we went to the dedication dinner for Richard Cunninham who was a really cool guy. Finally after a couple of games of ping pong we hit the sack for a very very cold night. The next morning was cold and drizzly but it was nice that it was race day. The race started at noon which by that time the weather actually became alright. The first Lap was CRAZY!! about 600 peolpe dressed up in crazy bike gear running a over a 1/4 mile to their bikes then all those people trying to funnel into the cactus lined singletrack. A super man crash and a few cactus spines later the first lap was done and the race was on. There were a lot of ups and downs over the 24 hours good laps bad laps but like usual the team in the lead as day light hits usually wins and we were leading and we won, wow that sounded a lot easier than it was the team we beat was ahead by 28 min at one point and we ended up winning by just over 15 min. I was so tried after the race i don't even remember the flight home because I was asleep before they went over their saftey speaches. Oh man I have so many more stoires but thats all for now Check out the pix of us rallying the rental car on the nasty muddy roads. Late.

Luke