Our first trip to Austin, Texas has been a great one overall. I feel like we have been down here for an eternity but its only been four days. Four really good days of riding, relaxing, eating well, and working on the tan. Oh yeah, and we did a mtb race at Lance Armstrong's ranch. This was a national but it felt like a local race and it just so happened to be in Lance's backyard. He lives in a pretty modest house, a very very nice modest house with an insane property surrounding it. I mean he owns everything as far as you can see. I'm sure he just escapes there after travelling and is the perfect place for getting away from it all. Unfortunately he is in Europe racing so I didn't get to meet him but did meet alot of his associates and everyone was really cool. Going to his bike shop in Austin is an experience in itself with pretty much everything you can think of in a bike shop which is also a shrine to Lance and his race history. I was able to get my shimano shoes heat molded which was something I have been wanting to do. Such a difference.
So for the racing. First though, what is something that everyone loves but would never want to own? A rental car. I love rental cars and we always get corollas. Corollas cannot be killed no matter what you do and they get great mileage. So we drove to the race in the corolla and got there with plenty of time for aleksandra to get warmed up. And warm it was. It must of been close to 95 degrees when the women went off. She had a front row call up which really made me proud to see her up there with all the top girls. The women's race pretty much stayed the same with Aleksandra finishing in Magic 7th place. She always said it would be cool to get 7th here. Lance would of been proud. She did awesome considering the heat is not her friend and Texas is a bit different then the racing we are used to. If you want to check out Aleksandra's post race interview on Cyclingdirt click here.
After cheering her on and finding out she had a great result, part of the pressure was off of me. I had to get myseld organized which seems impossible without Aleksandra's help but I did it and made it to the starting line for a beating. I pay money for punishing myself, something I could never figure out. The gun went off and I had it in my head that I just want to finish. I've had a poor couple of past weeks and what I needed was a solid national finish no matter what place. One thing led to another and at the start of the 4th lap I was in 16th place, holy crap. I then went on and passed 2 guys and then another that had a flat. Wow I was in 13th place and I felt great considering the heat. I made it to the second feed zone and as I was getting a feed from Dusty (thank you by the way) my rear hub blew apart. I mean blew apart so it was unusable. I was walking and walking for 3.5 mikes. Pretty frustrating because this result would of been my best yet but my american classic hub was wanting none of that. Oh well I try not to worry about these minor setbacks because I had a great weekend and there are bigger things in the world to worry about like what I'm going to do to that rental car on the way to the airport tomorrow morning. I have an goofy interview as well click here .
see you on the new SMBA trail
mike and aleksandra
So for the racing. First though, what is something that everyone loves but would never want to own? A rental car. I love rental cars and we always get corollas. Corollas cannot be killed no matter what you do and they get great mileage. So we drove to the race in the corolla and got there with plenty of time for aleksandra to get warmed up. And warm it was. It must of been close to 95 degrees when the women went off. She had a front row call up which really made me proud to see her up there with all the top girls. The women's race pretty much stayed the same with Aleksandra finishing in Magic 7th place. She always said it would be cool to get 7th here. Lance would of been proud. She did awesome considering the heat is not her friend and Texas is a bit different then the racing we are used to. If you want to check out Aleksandra's post race interview on Cyclingdirt click here.
After cheering her on and finding out she had a great result, part of the pressure was off of me. I had to get myseld organized which seems impossible without Aleksandra's help but I did it and made it to the starting line for a beating. I pay money for punishing myself, something I could never figure out. The gun went off and I had it in my head that I just want to finish. I've had a poor couple of past weeks and what I needed was a solid national finish no matter what place. One thing led to another and at the start of the 4th lap I was in 16th place, holy crap. I then went on and passed 2 guys and then another that had a flat. Wow I was in 13th place and I felt great considering the heat. I made it to the second feed zone and as I was getting a feed from Dusty (thank you by the way) my rear hub blew apart. I mean blew apart so it was unusable. I was walking and walking for 3.5 mikes. Pretty frustrating because this result would of been my best yet but my american classic hub was wanting none of that. Oh well I try not to worry about these minor setbacks because I had a great weekend and there are bigger things in the world to worry about like what I'm going to do to that rental car on the way to the airport tomorrow morning. I have an goofy interview as well click here .
see you on the new SMBA trail
mike and aleksandra
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