It has begun again, but not any easier

Posted on by April 19, 2018

The Wednesday night XC races have started up again and boy those things hurt. I ended up winning, but didn’t feel great while doing it. I think Bruce, who usually wins and does well, wasn’t feeling all that great. Man that guy can climb.

Wyatt did great great, getting second in the 9-14 class. I think he said had a over the head crash and his main competition got a flat, but I think he is having fun. Which at 10 years old, is the most important thing.

Rory’s crash

Posted on by April 4, 2018

So the other day we did a family ride at Loyston. I passed Rory in a corner as he was just goofing off. At the bottom of the hill I could hear Meghann asking him if he was alright. I rode back up to find him wadded up against a tree. Towards the bottom of the hill he had lost control and hit a pretty big tree. He said his wrist hurt and he had a massive knot on his forehead. He arm seemed fine and he even rode his bike back out. But after a few days we noticed he was carrying it funny and it was still pretty swollen. After some X-rays he does indeed have a small fracture. Should heal up just fine with little effort, but the doctor has suggested to cast it since kids typically don’t keep splints on.

The guitar

Posted on by April 2, 2018

I have always wanted to play the guitar. I love guitar rock and with few exceptions most of my favorite songs are so because of the guitar parts. Listening to David Gilmour’s guitar effects me at a level where it feels like raw emotion. Like saying something profound without picking the wrong words. Anyway, a couple Christmas’s ago Rory got an electric guitar and never really took to it. Wyatt started taking lessons and eventually saved up to get his own full size Stratocaster. Its a beautiful guitar. I plucked around on it and Meghann kept encouraging me to sit down and learn. I joked by saying I’d wait until my next injury kept me off the bike. Well breaking my fret hand was fittingly ironic.

Anyway, as Wyatt got more and more into it I decided it was time for me to give it a try. I initially had decidedI was going to get acoustic, but had probed a Craigslist ad for a good priced 2006 Epiphone Les Paul. I have always like the way they look. Perhaps playing one would help me be as good as Jimmy Page, but probably not.

I took Wyatt to try out the guitar because I only knew a few riffs and I didn’t want to embarrass myself in front of this guy. I really didn’t have any intention to buy the guitar, but when the sunlight hit that finish and I held it in my hand…. the decision was made. Something about it made a connection and I have always heard that guitar’s pick their owners.


I have played my guitar through Wyatt’s Fender Frontman 25r and a borrowed Fender Princeton 65r, but never was all that happy with how my guitar sounded. It played great, but never sounded that great. So after an exhausting search I picked up a Laney CUB 10. Its a 10watt, all tube amp with a 10″ speaker. It took one power chord to know this was the amp. It sounds incredible at pretty much any setting, but where it really makes my guitar sound like the classic rock I love is with the gain cranked up. Its hard to quantify how it sounds, but once you hear it… you’l know.

Catching up…

Posted on by April 2, 2018

Back in January I crashed at Windrock and broke two metacarpals. Well, to call it a crash is a bit overkill. It was kind of greasy as would be expect for January at the Rock and I was on my second run down Snakerock. I got a little off line and out of time going through the fat rock garden before the powerline cut. I got pushed to the left and into a rock wall. My fingers got caught against the rock and pulled off the bars. I fell off the bike, but hoped right back up and restarted. It quickly became apparent that something wasn’t right. Holding my body weight up off the bars was really getting high. I started to let other by me as I limped down the rest if the hill. By the time I got to the bottom I knew it was broken.

I had grand plans to lay waste to the enduro field this year and was starting to ramp up my training. I really had the goal of winning an overall stage this year. TTC was my best bet, given my skillset, and it was 8 weeks out from injury. The denial was funny now looking back on it. I was in the hard cast for 2 weeks followed by a splint for another 3. The doc said I was lucky in that most of the hand injuries require surgery to get everything realigned. Which is funny because I rode down the some of the gnarliest mountain biking trails in the country with 2 broken hand bones and it still had good alignment. Something was in my favor.

To stave off the madness I tried my feet at running. Needless-to-say, once I was able to ride again, I haven’t run again. Hate that I spent $40 on running shoes.

At 5 weeks the doc said everything was good for a return to biking. However I couldn’t see a visual difference between the 2 week and 5 week X-rays. I guess that is why he is the doctor. His advice was to slowly ramp up over the next 3 weeks avoiding any major crashes or impacts to the hand.

Now at 9 weeks, I have returned to full force riding whatever I want. DH, DJ, etc. I would say that my confidence to take larger risks while DJing is still reduced. It just seems more likely to stick a hand out during a crash.