So long, Facebook!

I don't miss it one bit. Opening Safari and seeing Facebook as my home page, scrolling through pages of postings. Some interesting, some not, some thought provoking and some enraging. Then there are the memes. And don't get me started about the articles or videos with headlines that read something like, "... and you won't believe what happened next!" You're right, I can't believe it. I can't believe I wasted my time looking at that.

So much time wasted on nonsense that doesn't make me any smarter or for the better. I get my news from NPR, not from a friend of a friend who shared a link to their wall. I am reinvigorating my will and my urge to write. Not one or two sentences for a status update. It's time to return to story telling, which is a dying art.

If I coaxed you from your twitter feed to click on my blog, it is my goal to make it worth your time. Maybe you'll find it interesting. Maybe you will come back. Maybe you will share it with someone else.

And just to make it worth it for you to have read this, here is a picture of a puppy.

I'm over here now.

I live in the desert. I am married. My first born is on its way. I work in a bike shop. I have 120 dogs. Yes, 120 dogs. Some of you may know my story. For those who do not, there is an entire archive of my blog postings to get yourselves caught up. It has been over 3 years since that chapter in my life had come to a close and in many ways the next chapter can be seen as an entirely new story.

Here is the tale of how I got here. Welcome to Dirt-Merchant 2.0.

Tour of the Gila

Photo dump. Words to come. I know I say that a lot, but this time I really mean it. There is much to say for this incredible experience. Stay tuned!



My family for the week, Team Diadora-Pasta Zara. L to R: Eleonora Patuzzo (ITA), Amber Pierce (AUT), Rachel Neylan (AUS), Mara Abbott (USA), Claudia Haeusler (GER), and Manel Lacambra (SPA).

Mara Abbott wins the first stage of the tour!

Mara wins the polka dot (or polka leap) climbers jersey and is Queen of the Mountain.

Mara wins 2nd overall in the GC.

The girls on the "Vomit Comet" from Silver City to Albequerque.

Eleonora Patuzzo sprints for 3rd place in Stage 4's criterium race in downtown Silver City.

The shop where I spent a few late nights preparing for the next day of racing.

Unloading the van and preparing the team car for the caravan.

My view from the backseat.

Just in case, though fortunately I didn't have to leave the car once.

Our hosts' house overlooked Wind Canyon and Silver City. Not a bad place to be while washing the bikes.

Pretty maids all in a row. Ready to "kill the bitches... in the middle of the face!"

The start of Stage 5.

The photo I waited all week for: The team and their mechanick.

The view from my office

Photo dump. Words to follow...

South Sister and the alpen glow from the sunrise.

South Sister's reflection in the windows of the pro shop.

We're special.

Our boss, Sparky, not feeling it.

Sunrise lift and Mt. Bachelor's summit on a bluebird day.

Corduroy.

Stallion, in danger of being dog-napped by me.

Oregon Trail of Dreams sled dog tours, owned and operated by world class mushers, Jerry and Rachael Scdoris.

Happy New Year

Laura and Matt, climbing Burma Rd.

The view from the top of the Burma climb. Too bad the camera can't capture emotion.

A fun, bench cut out-and-back that traversed a ridge. Awesome.

The setting sun and the Deschutes River make the backdrop for the end of an amazing ride.

I did my first mountain bike ride of the year yesterday. The place is called Smith Rock and is a popular rock climbing spot, but the trails around it are pretty sick, too. I brought my camera, but was too busy being blown away by what I was seeing to stop and take many photos. Here are just a few.

Fruits of your Labors

Snowshoeing through Virginia Meisner Sno-park.

My workshop, where the magic happens.

These last two weeks have been a lesson in simplicity. This type of lifestyle is definitely one I can get used to. We all do our part and we help each other out in many ways. I am so thankful. Rather than piping oil or gas in to heat our home, there is a fireplace that we constantly tend to. We chop the wood ourselves. We go out in the snow to restock the wood pile on the deck.

I have been tightening my belt and my pockets are shallow, but that does not mean that fun can't be had. I have not driven my van since I got here. Instead, every errand and every trip has been by bicycle. There is a great feeling of satisfaction getting where you need to go under your own power.

There are many adventures to be had in the snow. Rather than buy lift tickets to get a ride up the mountain, we climbed up ourselves with snowshoes strapped to our feet, snowboards in hand. Every next agonizing step was welcomed because that was just one more foot of descending on the return trip to the bottom. I have never ridden powder, nor have I ever ventured into the back country where the lines made are your own. As we hiked up, I was giddy with suspense as I mind-shredded my way through the trees that we walked by.

Once at the top, the landscape transformed to a harsh, wind-blown, vastness. The views we drank in were that much more awesome because we had arrived there by ourselves, with no help save for the encouragement and the excitement shared by our friends. I was nervous to begin the descent, having not ridden a snowboard in two years, and that was on grainy east-coast slop. We started down, and it took a few attempts to learn how to trim the board so that it planed over the snow, rather than plowed through it. Once I got that down, front leg boned out, weight on the back foot, I began to float and carve my way through the trees, yelping and yipping the whole way down. When I reached the bottom, I amazingly emerged from the woods right where our car was parked. I literally rode right to it. High fives all around and talk of the experience filled the car the whole ride home. It was the most amazing thing I have ever done.

I was surprised also by how good I felt. Nearly every day has held an adventure, whether it has been a snowshoe trek through the woods, or commuting around town on the bikes. There has really been no time to rest, except for the night. I am pleased by my level of fitness and will happily watch as I only become more fit. I even attended my first yoga class today.

It has been amazing so far and I love the satisfaction of the resulting payoff of so much hard work and collaboration when like-minded people work towards a common goal. The best things in life are free.

CX Nats

My athlete, out near the front

It has been an intense weekend as well as the few days leading up to the Cyclo-cross National Championships in Bend, OR. I arrived here in town only two days after completing the Bill Woodul Race Mechanics Clinic in Colorado Springs and now it was my chance to put everything I learned to use while taking on the role of being Laura Winberry's mechanic.

To sum up my first few days simply would be to say that it has been a whirlwind of introductions with some old, but many more new acquaintances. I'm at a place where someone can plug me in to the social pipeline! It's been difficult to remember so many names and even more difficult seeing those same people again and not remembering who they are, but I am getting better at that every day.

One introduction was more important than any other, and that was with Laura's race bike. It was paramount that every single part of that bike was checked over and tuned perfectly. Some issues are easy to pick out and remedy while others are more subjective, like brake lever feel and tire pressure. She understands her bike and can communicate well what she's experiencing, which then makes my job so much easier. We walked the course on Thursday and discussed the good lines and tire choice. I felt so pro! Working with Laura in a professional athlete/mechanic relationship has been a pleasure. We did a pre-ride on Friday just to get a feel, although the weather would change the course considerably by Sunday.

Applying much of what I learned at the clinic has helped me to provide the support necessary to make sure she had a positive experience on the bike and that her focus could be precisely on her own performance separate from the bike. One area where my education was most useful was minutes before call ups when Laura approached me in the pits after her warm up with a loose cleat. Naturally, an inability to safely get her foot in and out of the pedals could have dashed any chance she had at a solid performance. I kept a level head and didn't reveal the severity of our situation. So while she went to have embrocation applied to her legs, I used my legs to run around like a maniac trying to find some thread lock, teflon tape, or new cleat hardware. The guys from Shimano stepped up (no pun intended) and gave me new hardware for her cleats.

I thankfully found her in the Hutch's tent under the care of Marcel Russenberger and Paul Curley. I replaced the hardware and she made it to the starting line on time. I then returned to the pits where I stood at the ready on each half lap with a pit bike, though she had no need for it. I only yelled words of encouragement as she passed each time, which is a pretty important job in itself.

I got to talking with a few of the other mechanics in the pit. The guy next to me had an athlete also in the top 30 who was ahead of Laura. We waited for our riders to emerge from behind the ridge, and then we saw them together, side by side as Laura took the impossible line on a steep drop and made an incredible pass on the inside of the sharp right hander and then back up that same ridge into a swooping left and back down past pit lane! I was screaming my head off at this point! It was the greatest pass I had ever seen and she made it stick. After they passed, the mechanic turned to me and calmly said, "That was my girl she just passed." and I did one of those raised eyebrows "ah hah" faces, when in my mind I was saying, "FUCK YEAH!!! IN BOTH OF YOUR FACES!!!"

Laura went on to a great finish, succeeding in meeting her self-set goals, and told me afterwards that her bike was awesome. I have a deeply vested interest in her success and I see her potential, so I am ecstatic that I have her trust and was able to play such a vital role. We both put in our maximum efforts and we together produced a solid result. And to think this is only the beginning. By the way, her cleats held.

Oh and of course I got in on a little of that racing action, too. My race was on Saturday with the Masters 30-34 Men. It was cold, windy, snowing in the morning then changed to rain, and muddy, muddy, muddy! I started in the last row and finished almost last, but I felt great and had a blast out there. I cannot put into words how much I love the fact that the fans will cheer just as loud for the guys battling for last place as they do for the battle for the lead. The smell of brats on the grill and the beat of the marching bands' drums were even more fuel for the fire. I truly loved the experience.

There's me, 273, wishing a meteor would strike the Earth to end my suffering on lap 1.

This is that same drop where Laura made that amazing pass. Even I didn't take the inside line! Crazy!