Oh (French) Canada

There are certain times in life that you just have to sit back, smile, and say, “This is it”.
Wow, one sentence into this blog and I’ve already said the “life” word. Normally this implies that the following writing will be chalk full of spacy philosophical ideas I have no idea the meaning, with me banking the entire popular comprehension of the blog in only the false hope that someone else might understand more than I do. Let’s try to avoid that this time around.


Instead, it might be a refreshing change of pace to focus on the here and now. That’s all I really mean when I talk about sitting back and saying “this is it”. This is my second season living the life, traveling the circuit of a mountain bike racer, and it seems as though I’ve been walking a tight rope this entire time. I’ve been balancing the woes of defeat with the highs of success, the fears of my own insecurity with the expectations I place on my shoulders, and most of all I’ve been listening to the angel on one side fight off the devil on the other who will not shut up about eating ice cream. I haven’t given in yet, though with my work being about a five second bike ride from the Big Dipper (the local scoop shop) my restraints are wearing thin. When you begin to live a tug of war of personal desire against physical results life can tend to get sucked into a whirl wind of focus where the here and now seem to be displaced by the there and the someday. That’s how I was living until I came to Canada.
Like in most great stories of mental refreshment it takes an extended trip to the wilderness to find one’s self. Something about the deep isolation, the struggle for survival, and the mental vulnerability creates an environment that just exudes euphoric epiphany. I’m not sure if it’s the beautiful three story mansion USA Cycling has put us up in

 

or the fact that I’m surrounded by some of my best biker buds in the world,

but this Into the Wild scenario just doesn’t feel like quite the best analogy. Though after last weekend’s race at Mont Tremblant it seems the “struggle for survival” might be fairly accurate.
I remember like it was last weekend- the dark storm clouds unloading their liquid mass with the vigor of a squirrel after drinking an entire 7eleven big gulp. Oh how it rained and oh how the mud was made. And where there’s mud soon to follow is the ruts, the pot holes, the “why the heck did I where white socks” feeling (although this doesn’t really sink in until the next day when you’re pulling you’re race clothes out of the washer).

The sun was just peeking out from the haze, though it was quick to cover its eyes, as if it was afraid to witness of the carnage about to unfurl. We racers took to the line in nervous anticipation. After the shortest and longest moments of my life the gun sounded. That’s as far back as my memory goes. Remember in X-Men how Wolverine doesn’t remember anything from his past life except for brief snippets of pain and shock. Yeah, that’s a bit like what I’m going through. The only difference is that while Wolverine had his memory taken from him, or chose to lose it, or something like that (don’t hate me X-Men fans, but it’s been a while), I find it hard to remember what happened in the race because for 99 percent of it there was either A) too much mud in my face to have any idea what was going on around me, or B) my eyes were closed shut in sheer terror. Either way, the only thing I remember clearly is a voice following me around screaming “Don’t you die! Not here, Not now!” Looking back, I think it was me. I also remember with every rooted, rutted, drop my shorts becoming a bit more wet… Because of the rain, I’m sure.

That said, Mont Tremblant procured a certain feeling that few races can match. The kind of feeling that only comes from leaning back, jutting your elbows out, and slipping and sliding away from one’s comfort zone. The kind of feeling that comes when you cross the finish line and look into your competitors eyes and all savage competition melts away, leaving everyone with the common disbelief, “We made it. I’m still here… Where’s my ‘I survived Mont Tremblant’ tee shirt!”
So that leaves me here, sunk deep into the way to plush couch of our way to plush Canadian chateau

thinking about how I’ve changed. I’m not sure if I’m just getting older, wiser, or if my life flashed before my eyes a bit too many times on Tremblant, either way I realized one thing very important. There’s no telling what the future might hold, for any of us. We could be living normal one day and the next, well, things could change. That’s why it seems silly to me to worry so much about where I might end up, especially when the fun part is enjoying what’s happening on the way.
That’s one of the many lessons I’ve learned during my time in Canada. Another is that when speaking to a French Canadian, just because you say something in a French accent does not mean they will understand you any better. Learned that one the hard way…


Thank you so much to everyone who helped me get here, with huge shout outs to my family, USA Cycling, and viewers like you. Thank you.

  

Finding the Nature on Californiacation

Ok, first things first I should probably get through the cliché, yet mandatory, portion of my blog where I apologize for it turning into such a long time between posts. Truth is, lots has happened to me that would have been worth writing about, and it’s not like I’ve been too busy to post. The problem is  that I was lazy, and sitting down to write about myself or my thoughts when I could otherwise do something of much greater importance like watching Netflix or checking Facebook just seemed like a much better alternative. That is until I got on the road again, started traveling around for the sport I love, and figured that, “Hey, This is a pretty cool life. I better start writing some of it down”.

My spring started a bit early this year. It was a particularly snowy day on the east slope of the divide. You know the movie poster for The Day After Tomorrow and in the foreground you see the flame of the statue of liberty all but concealed beneath an apocalyptic layer of snow and ice. Yeah, it was one of those days. Anyway, my dad and I were sitting around when, either out of the blue or out of desperation, my dad decided a trip to Saint George, Utah was the solution. 783 miles, 11 hours and 25 minutes later we were carving up the desert. The snow was a ways off.

Our time in paradise couldn’t have gone much better and by the end I was only a little tired (and sunburned).

It was hard to muster much enthusiasm for returning to the cold white north, but lucky for me I had a light at the end of my snow tunnel; the bright shining light of SoCal. I’ve written about SoCal before (and yes, I realize that calling southern California “SoCal” is one of the dorkiest things a non-Californian like myself can do, but hey, it rolls off the tongue) and every time I’m down here it’s the same thing. Yeah it’s nice. Yeah, the weather is perfect. And for all those wondering, yes, California girls are undeniable, but in the past when I’ve been down here it just seems… busy. Too busy for me.

I’m at home in Montana where the roads are beautifully desolate and where the mountains are obscured only by the highest clouds, not low lying smog. Where strip malls are an occasional and optional sight, not a way of life stretching from LA to Monterey. I’m used to a place where the pines tickle me as I blossom though the foliage down the trail; a cool breeze making my eyes water though my palms still sweat, embracing my handlebars for all they’re worth. Look ahead. Dive right. Twist your hips. Pull up on the front- the back will follow. The intricate dance of the bike and biker. The dirt, soft and black, crumbles away in a controlled madness. That’s all the outdoor world is, controlled madness. Nature may watch, fix, and nurture, but never organize. Perhaps that’s what has made me uncomfortable in the past with California. The lack of spontaneity; the overwhelming appearance of predicable patterns was throwing off my balance. The absence of nature was causing me to lose my connection with madness. But perhaps I just wasn’t looking deep enough.

I’ve been down in California for exactly one week now, and in that time I’ve found the nature. I’ve been on my bike and I’ve heard the birds sing; I’ve smelled the flowers, cocooning for the night, release they’re final fragrant breath. I’ve sucked the dirt in my lungs and I’ve baked in the sun and I’ve stood at the top of mountain lookouts and seen the ocean. I am finally at home in California. I have finally realized that beneath the hustle and bustle of the concrete jungles here and all over the world, if you can just dig deep enough you’ll always find nature buried beneath.

Like always, I couldn’t be here, exploring the world and diving into these new adventures without the overwhelming support of my friends and family. I hope everybody back home can start burning down the trails really soon. Thanks for reading.

P.S. I'll have many more pictures next week of Saint George, of California, and hopefully of the sun shining back home.

What Were Your Favorite Five Minutes?

So I ran into my third grade teacher the other day while I was out grabbing a bite to eat. We got chatting about all my adventures over the summer and she asked me a question that I had to think quite a bit about. What were your favorite five minutes of the summer? Hmm… I got to thinking and, well, I honestly couldn’t remember a single five minutes that stuck out during the whole summer. It seemed like I was always looking forward so much to the next thing coming up and the adventure that was in the future, that I forgot to keep my eyes focused on the present.

When I raced the Missoula Pro XCT my head was already in Europe, when I was in Europe I was already consumed by nationals, and at Nationals the name of the game was Vermont and Mont Saint Ann. It seemed that as I became more and more upset with the way my racing was going, and I looked deeper and deeper for an answer, I found comfort in the hope that everything would get back to normal “next time”. That I would figure it all out “next time”. It made for a very on the move way of thinking.

Now, looking forward to new stories and experiences is almost never a bad thing, that is until you look so far to the future that you forget to look around at where you are at the moment and smell the flowers. That’s just the attitude I tried to bring into my final race of the season, the Mont Saint Ann World Cup.

My escape of always looking to the next race and next weekend finally ran out in Quebec. There was nothing more to see on the horizon, there was just this one last race in this one last place and there was nothing more to hide behind. This realization finally caused me to stop and look at where I was at. I was racing my bike for the United States National Team in a World Cup. I didn’t know where this sport would take me and how far I could get, I had had some soaring highs this season along with plenty of crushing lows, but for now, right now, I was so satisfied with what was happening in this moment.

In the end I guess my favorite five minutes could have been condensed to my favorite five seconds or even expanded to my favorite five days. During that time I had accomplished a goal and was soaking in the feeling that comes with it. A feeling, I suppose, that makes it all worth it. That gives you the strength to get out the door every day and make it better than the day before. 

 

 Now, I have pictures of our awesome trip to Quebec!                  

 

It turns out that when you put five seventeen year olds in a condo, great meals can be made. This was our Burrito Night!  

The river where we went to ice our legs... I still have goose bumps. 

It turns out that over the whole world, nothing beats a little Helena single track.

Livin' the Dream

The bags are packed for yet another adventure with the BMC Mountain Bike Development team, and this trip should be one of the best yet! After a short, but sweet stay at home for the last week I'm off again to the land of blueberries, maple syrup, and of course mountain bike racing- Vermont.  Over the past five weeks I've traveled to Europe, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania and have raced every weekend from the first week of June till the last week of July. I know, I know... That's the dream. I'm literally living the dream from when I first thought of making it in the mountain bike world. I'm traveling the world, racing the best bikes (BMC), seeing the most beautiful places, and racing the highest level of competition in the sport, but after so long I begin to miss the land where I learned to appreciate the very sport that has taken me so far away. Montana. To be specific Helena, Montana. And now, after more experiences than most get in a life time, I was ready to settle down and just relax at home for a while...  Well, that was fun for about a day or so, but with the flights still in my legs I was back to the grind stone, doing a little fine polishing for the last push of the season. Several long rides and interval sessions later I'm here, my bags packed and my excitement for these last few races at a all time high. First comes the last team event of the season, the Catamount Classic in Vermont. The course looks epic and so does the competition planning on being there. It should be a great race with hopefully a stop at the Ben and Jerry's ice cream factory... We'll see!  Next will be possibly the biggest race of my career so far, the Mont St. Ann World Cup. I can't begin to describe how much it means to me to be selected for this national team event, and I think the key word for my first world cup will be learn, learn, learn... That and stoked, stoked, stoked. So yes, it was a while away from home, away from my parents, my dog, my trails, but soon, sooner that I'd like to think, school's going to be back in session, trails will get snowed in, and I'll be remembering this time fondly. I'll be remembering living the dream and never wanting to wake up. Thanks for reading and as always, thank you to all the people that have helped me get here. 

Confessions of European Racing

I didn't really have any idea how I would feel leaving Europe. It's been my dream to race here since I started biking years ago, yet I've heard all the horror stories of "euro fever". Getting so home sick and lonely that you begin to lose the ability to even function while across the pond. I supose that might be the case for some people, and perhaps my stay was still short enough to be considered a vacation, but I honestly can't relate. The past two weeks I've spent racing, training, eating, sleeping, and breathing Europe has been one of the most enjoyable times of my life.  The amount fun I had is only matched by the amout I learned. Aside from the obvious things such as Europeans thinking that Visa credit cards are evil, and the fact that it costs 0.75 euros to enter a "public" rest room/ toileten, I feel like I'm coming back to the states with a new understating and respect for racing and, for that matter, riding a bike. I wrote about coming over here with a new perspective. A perspective of just having fun in every race without worrying about the results. However, it's hard not to feel slightly hypocritical once you get thrown into that first race.  Let's put it this way. Your out there having possibly the best race of your life. You feel like you could destroy any field in the world, nobody can match your speed, your power, your... Wait was that a euro kid on aluminum 26er' that just flew by... Oh there's another one... Another, another, where do they keep coming from!  You catch my drift. It's hard to be out puting down an effort that should spell pain cave for all your competition and all that happens is you go cross eyed watching them pedal away. But at that moment you must remember why you subjected yourself to this pain in the first place. To learn. It's the little victories that begin to mean so much in every race you do.  When I started to get nervous about a race coming up I would simply just think about what I would need to do to make this a good day. An effort where at the end of the day I can look back on and be proud of. Before this trip that would have meant winning. No exceptions. But now I feel like the one and only true thing that I can control in my racing, that I can depend on, is going as hard as I can. If I go through a race and put everything I have into every single pedal stroke, if I finish a race and I can't talk or have to put my head into my hands then it was a very good race.  So, I guess I think the most important thing that I learned during my stay in the motherland was just something my dear, not-so-old dad's been telling me a while. You can't contol your competition, you can only control how you race them. I didn't really know how I would feel leaving Europe. Would I feel defeated, sad, unmotivated? That's what they say. It's in Europe where you really can figure out if mountain bike racing is for something you want to do, and you know, I supose if the coffee stays this good and the racing stays this hard, I think I could see myself coming back hopefully very soon.

Perspective

Perspective is key. Perspective is truly what creates the good, the bad, and the ordinary in our lives. To understand it is to live, but to master it is to live happily. I'm finding there to be no better place to find a new perspective than sitting thousands of feet in the air starring out at the clouds. I've never seen clouds like this; at least never outside of an airplane. These clouds are tall,it's like a city of white fluff up here, and while I was staring down on this sight, this new perspective of the sky, I began to imagine the perspective I want to adopt to my racing.   Taking off out of the Helena Regional Airport this morning is the perfect time to review my perspective as I'll be needing some pretty soon here. In a little more than twenty four hours I'll have landed in Brussels, Belgium for the US Cycling Mountain Bike Race Camp. This is undoubtedly a flight I've dreamt about making my whole career, but now that it comes around I find myself feeling a bit differently inside than I imagined.  I'll be the first to admit that this season, while being more fun than I could have hoped for, has left a bit to be desired. I feel I'm in a prime position to do something big. Soon. But I just haven't been able to put the pieces together yet. Whether I'm struggling with fatigue, or bad luck it's those adversities that have driven me down.  So where does that leave me in Europe? Well, it's a matter of perspective. I could let those problems drag me down and leave me truly as a loser, or I could control my own destiny. I could turn that devastation into my motivation. Mountain biking is what I want to do, for now and forever. I've said it many times aloud and written it many more times in this blog, but that feeling I get when the dirt's just perfect, the air is clear and crisp,and my blood runs fast through my veins; it's enough for me to forget the pain that comes along with that feeling. It's what I want to do, and I've got a long time to see it though, so that's what makes the right perspective so important. In Europe I'll be racing for the little victories. To ride a lap clean, get a good start, heck, to not get lapped. Those are things I can think about through the race and things that in the end of the day I can feel good about achieving, whether I finished first of fiftieth.  So as I watch these clouds from a new view, and as I go some place that will be very foreign I can always rely on these simple constants. A screaming in my legs, a click of a shift, the grip of my tires (hopefully), and the beating- almost combusting of my heart. These are the things I can always count on, but it seems for them to stay constant my perspective must change. It's going to be a long ride to my dreams and I believe that it begins with a Belgian waffle...