Looking Back to the Future

I just got the whole Flickr thing going. Whilst doing so, I ran across DT's race pics from 12 Hours of Lodi Farm from 2006. Two DCMTB/City Bikes teams got first and second in the sport three man as well as Expert and Clydesdale and Solo Singlespeed podiums. That race isn't too far away now. It's not THAT hard, but it's never easy.

Lodi in 2006 was a significant race in my career (if you can call it that) racing bikes. I finally got some reasonable training under my belt for the first time since 1997-8 when I raced a LOT and actually got on the podium in a few races. I got 5th in the Cool Mtn Bike Race in Cool, CA. No kidding. The town of Cool, CA. My bro Jerry used to work there and I drove up for a Valentine's Day race in 1998.

On the right is Kent after an early-morning lap, me with the 2nd place check and my better half, changing for a dawn lap - all from Lodi last year. Thanks for the pics, DmofoT.

I'm gettin' old. 1998 was the year that I moved back to the DC area and I won the singlespeed class of the Wednesdays at Wakefield. That was the year that we had to fight (read: ask) for an actual class for the singlespeeders. We were all calling each other to make sure that we'd have 5 so we could have an actual class. I also raced the singlespeed for my first and fastest lap at the 1999 24 Hours of Canaan. That was my first foray into the 24 hour thing and last year a group of us got third in Expert! By the way, if you are ever interested in how creative and wrong mountain bikers are, check out the pics and team names from 2006. I've said it before: if you've taken a few years off from the WV Granny Gear races, the course at Big Bear is worthy. It's a lot of fun and less annoying that the fall-line climb up through the resort.

For 2007, I'm trying to race a large number of the Granny Gear 24 Hour Series with the City Bikes folks AS WELL AS a few DH races AND the SM100 AND maybe even going back out to the Wednesdays at Wakefield races. AND I'm working on the Patapsco Jump Trail stuff AND a few other double-secret MTB projects. It's only January, I haven't met any new people, I haven't been assigned any new projects and I don't think anything major is going on with the house... But I'm already busy with high expectations. Here's hoping.

This makes me think that I am afraid of failing. I know that it's important to reach high and try to do things that aren't easy and I hope that I'm doing that every year. Every day, really. I hope that everyone else in the world has the same courage, more of it, actually. Please know that I wish more courage upon myself and for the rest of the world as well. Tomorrow will be a better day.