Apologies for the quiet time here in blogland. We’ll get to the reasons why in a little bit. But first, some congratulations are in order:

The hair farmer (Chris Sheppard) and his trusty sidekick (Seamus McGrath) put the wood to everyone in the final two stages of the BC Bike Race, taking the overall victory with a total time of 18 hours, 27 minutes and 31 seconds. The duo had dueled for the entire week with the Kona boys – Barry Wicks and Chris Sneddon – and only really gapped them out on the final two stages, finishing the seven day race with about a 17 minute cushion. What makes us happy, aside from the fact that Shep is the best tile guy/husband of April Lawyer/former World Cup XC racer/resident of Bend, Oregon/soon to be massage therapist in the world, he put the wood to the BC Bike Race aboard a carbon fiber Blur XC. Apparently they work pretty well. Click herefor the final recap from the BC folks.

However, as solid proof that a great bike won’t win races by itself, as well as the reason it’s been so quiet here on the blog, witness my awesome performance  at the Breck Epic. Yep, that’s right. Putting last place in the solo men category in a solid headlock. Proving once and for all that a nice new carbon fiber race bike doesn’t do a damn thing to get a broken down loser anywhere near fit enough to survive this kind of carnage. Note to self: Don’t spend the entire month of June working on a house instead of riding a bike and think you’ll be alright come race week. Secondly, might be a good idea to pick a smaller goal as the jump-start back into lots of riding than this, a six day race at 10,000 feet above sea level.

Point taken. Made it through four stages, over the hump of the “big” day, only to sunburn myself so badly at the end of said “big” stage that I now look like some sort of crimson oompah-loompah, all red skin and bleached hair, and yet another fun case of mild heat stroke. Which is how I am writing this instead of getting beaten the rest of the way down today. Sucks to be a fat albino. Whatever. It sure is/was a beautiful way to suffer:

High alpine singletrack, and lots of it. Seriously, this might be the most singletrack heavy race I've ever seen, and there's SIX days of it!

Somewhere over 12'000' up there. Fortunately you can't hear anyone wheezing desperately in this picture. That's the beauty of photos. They are silent...

If you click on this pic, you'll see some tiny specks way below the snow. They are riders, on a slice of trail about 8 inches wide. Going about 40 miles an hour screaming down a mountain where the air is so thin that it doesn't slow you down one bit. Awesome.

Sometimes, it pays to know when to quit. I went into the race with no solid expectations. Sensing that day four would beat me down, I packed a beer. Sitting up above treeline, in a field of wildflowers, just watching the view, that alone was a victory enough. OF course, that was before I got burned to a crisp. Oh well...

We came in as a sponsor for this race partly because the guy who founded it, Mikc McCormack, has a voodoo doll that he uses to influence me in my sleep. But also because he has a vision for racing that is right where we want to see XC races go. Namely, big, backcountry epics that involve bags of climbing, a sense of real adventure, and enough technical riding to make sane people a little bit scared. The same kind of vision that explains why we’ve been involved with Downieville for so long. Big races, in big country. Anyway, for a first year race, the Breck Epic is writing itself a good legacy. The quality of the riding has been through the roof. At the pointy end of the race, Jeremiah Bishop and Travis Brown have been throwing down a nail-biter. The food, the aid stations, the smooth running of everything, and the generally easygoing loquacious sadism that McCormack emanates are going to assure a bright future. If you didn’t know about it this year, you will next year. And if this kind of suffering is your bag (you know who you are), then better start planning now.

As for me, well, the race broke my ass off. But in a good way. Going in, I knew I was woefully unfit for this, and the race just helped define exactly how far I’ve slumped from the mediocrity I used to be comfortable with. But even though I was sucking royally, I was having fun. Super punishing climbs gave way to majestic views which inevitably led to ripping some of the finest singletrack I’ve ever ridden. Too bad I went and cooked myself as much as I did yesterday. My wonderwhiteness combined with spf70 sunscreen usually gives me a 4 hour window of survival. Yesterday took me 6 hours, 6 minutes. In the few hours following the finish my skin went from pink to glowing red. The headache and fever came on the heels of that. Good think this isn’t my first rodeo. So it goes – DNF.

At least now I can finish writing the catalog copy before Hermel (our art director) flies out here to beat me silly for being so late…