WHAT IS GOING ON?!?!
We headed to Charleston for a nice weekend and make good time getting there. We had dinner with Dave and Liza and hung out at the house. Dave showed me his new exhaust system on his motorcycle and put together the best looking bike on Trek's project one website. So, Saturday Dave was going to meet me at the bagel shop and ride his motorcycle over to the group ride since he had to work. Then the fun began. We had to wait on Nathan for 15-20 minutes since his new puppy decided to get the squirts. We rolled out of the post office and 500 meters down the rode was a cop with the lights on. Dave went by him and he followed him. Thinking he was after a big truck in front of Dave he pulled over for the officer to pass. No, he pulled over and gave Dave a ticket. Nathan, myself and one other guy are late and hauling ass to get there when my stomach started killing me and did not stop till Sunday. We met the group and all is well? No, We get to HWY 17 to cross and Davis Lee and others get hit with pennies and Scott has a glass bottle shattered off the back of his helmet. Everybody is ok and said we should call it a day and go drink beer. We keep rolling and I am feeling pretty good and about 2-2.5 hrs in we are in a double pace line talking when in a flash everybody scatters I look forward never hitting the brakes and get hit by a car that did not stop at the stop sign. Thank goodness I stopped the car so no one else could get hurt. The lady was so upset and all the guys took care of me. My bike and body where ok accept for the road rash and a trashed rear tire so we pressed on. I made back to the house, got cleaned up, had lunch with Dave and went to the beach. Watched football that night and hit the group ride Sunday and beach then headed home.
I should be ready for Greenville now since I have all the crashing behind me. Will see !? I hope !!!

Heading to Charleston this weekend. The family wants to hit the beach one more time before it gets to cold. I will take advantage of the Charleston crew and the high speed work outs they will provide. We are looking forward to seeing the new Trek store and spending time with the Hall's. Shawn got his first report card yesterday with all A's and has picture day today. Looks like we will have to treat him this weekend for the good work.

12 Hours of Dausett was suppose to be all about fun and no pressure on ourselves, just go and have a good time.....Yeah right! Dave started with the lemans style start and got fifth place going into the woods. We did two lap rotations which was about an hour and a half. I set the fastest lap time for the two man team division on my first time out. Both of us had a rough second set, I was cramping bad. We used our heads recovered from it and went back to work. At the 6 hour mark we continued from there on to put time on second place for the rest of the race. We ended up winning by over 20 minutes. I have been told that the kid in the kenda jersey was a national champ and the guy in the red was an expert class. I never had and problems the whole race accept for the fear on being taken out by a deer. They had some crazy ones that liked to run in front of me. We finally packed up and headed to Dennys and back to Dave's sister in laws house around 2am. This was a great experience and one of the best supported races I have ever been to. The park and trails where excellent and the weather could not have been more perfect. Kellie and Shawn had a great time and I don't know how many miles Shawn put on his bike. Thanks to my partner and family for an awesome first endurance mountain bike race!!!!!

Last week went as I expected at the Asheville Grand prix. I held on to the main field for 23rd. Having been sick for the prior 2 weeks I can't complain. My attention has also been focus on a bigger competition this weekend. 12 hours of Dausett in Georgia mountain bike race. I will be in the 2 man team division with Dave who is riding single speed. Now the whole idea is to go and have fun??? That is what we keep saying but we also have been trash talking. This will be my second MTB race so I was going for the expedience a training..........until Dave said he was running a single speed. Now I feel that I will have to step even more and not mess up. The pressure comes from me being a beginner and him being a pro. How's that for a mix? Either way we will win and have fun.
I also found out this week that I have an opportunity to join a team for 2009 who will help tremendously. We are still working out the details but it sounds like a go and I am more motivated than ever and plan on having the best season ever in 2009.
Shawn may participate in the 12 minutes of Dausett this weekend. He has been doing well in school and we have open house tonight. I have taken him to the cub scout meeting for the last two weeks and thought he would join but said last night he did not want to. We will keep trying to get him to join since it is a good program that he could learn a lot from.
Need to get back to work but should have a story to tell after this weekend.

The big 8th birthday for Shawn was pretty good. He was wished happy b- day over the intercom at school and came home to a decorated house with presents and a big chocolate chip cookie cake. We took him out to dinner and went to the fair. It rained on and off but we where able to get some rides in and check out everything. I think he enjoyed the bumper cars the best and got an upset stomach on the swing ride and the rotating whatever that he and I rode. We won't be doing that again ! He got to pet a bunch of animals and tried his luck at a water shooting game which he got 2nd. In all I think we all had a good time.

Back at it again this past weekend. Went to Knoxville TN for the Oakridge omnium Saturday. The 68 mile road race was combined 1,2,3's. First of three laps got separated from the leed group on on of the climbs but limited the damage on the back side (52 mph) and when I hit the rollers picked up four cat 3 riders and talked them into working. We held a smooth pace line for 8 - 10 miles and when we came up on the cars pointed to my rear wheel and put it on the white line and got us back to the group. Lap two the cramps came in and from there the suffer began. I was able to survive though and was proud to be in the group since it had some of the best pro 1 riders from TN. The sprint was on a side road and as the pace ramped up I was feeling ok. I started to move and boom we passed the line. I never did see it till 50 meters, oh well I still got 8th in the cat 3's not to bad for getting over being sick.
Sunday's crit I did the masters 30-40 which there were only 4 people in the race that were not on a TN team. That made for a frustrating race for me since all they do is attack each other and chase everybody down. Knowing it would be a mass sprint I just rode around in circles. I was getting into good positioning going into turn 3 on the final lap when Mr. Honda took a hail mary and shoved his big rearend in font of me without any finesse at all. He also had the worst bike handling skills in the group so coming into turn 4 I did not feel to secure about going under him and had to wait a second before I attacked. I was able to get up to 13th by the line and to my surprise got 2nd in the 40+. The 2nd got me half my money back so that wasn't to bad.
Saturday night we got to go out to dinner for our birthdays which was nice and spent the night with Steve and Jennifer. Shawn got to get a couple of hours of riding in and talked mom into 7 games of Yahtzee during my road race. This week will be Shawn's birthday so mom and I have to get busy.

I am officially 40 now. Just another day I guess. Kellie and Shawn took me out to dinner last night and gave me some cool presents. I got some bike parts and a sweet Lights in Motion light just in time for the fall. This birthday was a rough one though since I started getting sick Tuesday morning and the worst of it was yesterday. Poor Kellie was sick all weekend but still put together a great party. I haven't been this sick in a long time.
We are heading to Knoxville this weekend for Steve's b-day and the Oakridge omnium. I plan to race but that will be determined by my health. If not this weekend we have the Asheville grand prix, GA cup, 12hrs of Dauset, Greenville crits, and cross season to come. Looks like I might get a break in Dec. or Jan.
Shawn is doing placement testing this week and seems to be doing well. He is getting adjusted to the 3rd grade pretty good.
Hope to be heading to Chaleston at the end of the month for a moving party for Dave and Liza that should be a good time. For now it's back to work and see if I can ride a bike this evening.

Kellie got me. Dave and Liza came up as planned and Dave and I got a solid 4 hr MTB ride in on Saturday which gave the girls time to prepare for a supprise birthday party. He took me on a epic ride out of Mills River almost to the back door of Pisgah Inn. To bad we forgot the camera it was a pretty day. We climbed around 4000-5000 ft we suspect. Dave got to see a bear and I got to work on my outstanding offroad techniqal riding abilities. Okay the truth......I held on for dear life. We miss calculated our timing though partly due to the trail conditions being quite rough. We were to be back at 5:30 but did not get to the car till 5:45. Thank goodness the gang understood. Dave was instructed to drive back and I was to blindfold myself upon nearing the house. This was the first for being blindfolded, but as I was lead to the back yard I was greeted with the surprise of a party and friends.
Kellie and Liza out did themselves!! We enjoyed the evening and called it a night. Kenny and his family came over from Knoxville and they stayed the night as well as Dave and Liza. Liza prepare an awesome breakfast dish for us the next morning and the plan was to ride but a rain set in. We decided to stay dry and everyone gathered up and headed home.
Kellie and I took the rest of the day to regroup and I got a big 45 min. ride in. This weekend was certainly a good time.
Looks like we will be in Knoxville this weekend celebrating again for mine, Steve's and Shawn's birthday and a bike race. I will also have to get ready for the 12 hrs of Dauset coming up in a few weeks which I am looking forward to trying. For now I just need to recover from the weekend, us old people have to rest you know.