Wrapping up 2015

This was a crazy year for me. To not be too long winded...here's the jist.

After being hit by a car there was a ton of rehab and the shoulder finally feels good. I don't have to think about it for 95% of the tasks I do.

I did basically fall off the map as I moved from Bloomfield to Denville and that was an insane undertaking. Not only did I have to move all of my and my wife's belongings, but once we did make the move it was a few months of nonstop fixes, updates, and improvements to make life normal in the new house.

I did some racing here and there with the Wilderness 101 being the scariest race of my life. Since the move I rode close to 3 hours in the month during/after the move and left me woefully unprepared for the race. I got to the line and prepared to curl up into a ball on the first climb and weep for hours. Somehow I actually rode my bike, got up the big hills, broke my chain, converted it to a singlespeed, rode the last 30 miles wishing for gears and actually had a good time and decent result for what could have been a disaster.

The next notable race was the Shenandoah 100. This has been my nemesis and I was still unprepared for this one but at least I had a few weeks of solid rides under my belt for this. Unfortunately I knew I would need to take it easy to finish this one and it hit hard mid race. I remember going over the climb between aid 3 and 4 and just wanting to ride back to the start and end the misery. But I couldn't... I kept on - had an ok day - and finished up almost walking the final climb and being thankful that the last race of my mtb season was over.

Inconsistency was the name of this season.

I tried to get my mind wrapped around CX but I had more issues with this. My first practice I rolled a tubular. Tried a race and then rolled another. Tried the new Mariposa tape and that stuff is garbage. Gave up on tubulars. I used my backup bike for a bit with all kinds of shifting issues and got fed up with that. To tell the truth I was just having more fun riding my mountain bike then trying to get myself in shape to try and not throw up for an hour.

With the CX urge fading I did the next best thing. Get on my FAT BIKE! I have resisted the trend for a long time but I see what people are boasting about...somewhat. I still stand by the fact that snow riding sucks. Unless the trails are groomed. But for dirt riding the fat bike is a blast. With that I did some CX racing on my fat bike since it was much less of a headache and actually a lot of fun to race.

I competed in Hippo CX and Westwood CX on my fat bike and went 1st and 2nd respectively. What a great way to cap off the season.

For the off season I'm enjoying being fat. Weight wise - not bike choice. But with all this nice weather I'm starting to get a good game plan as to what is coming up for next season. Looks like a pretty diverse season with some fat bike, mtb, and cx races starting to fill up the calendar.