It’s round one of the cyclocross races. I would have to say all in all I was pretty happy to be back in the swing of things…having a nice schedule…work, ride, sleep…repeat. I started my new job working at a bike shopping wrenching bikes. So my life right now pretty much consists of bicycles. Anyways back to the racing. I started the trip off with my drive to Hamilton; I ended up staying the night in Hamilton on Thursday. A few of us went out for some sushi that night at “Joya Sushi,” it was damn tasty!!! Friday we officially kicked off road trip #1… I call it the Neil, Tara and Kyle show, pretty much the next few months I will be with them. We had a nice easy drive to Davisburg, Michigan, where we would be racing and sleeping. The three of us would be staying in host housing, if you’re not to sure what that is, pretty much people let u stay in there house for free (in a nut shell). The family we were staying with was amazing; they had a two and half year old son named Trevor who was absolutely hilarious. The little guy could speak both Spanish and English fluently and on the side he was learning French. He will be getting mad ladies when he grows up!!!

So Saturday was my first UCI race, let the fun begin…I had a long wait for the actual start of my race because I arrived at the venue around 9 am to watch and help out for Tara and Neil’s race. My race did not start till 3pm…lots of sitting! Tara had a sweet race…easily and I mean easily walking away from the field to capture the gold medal. Neil’s race was a little more interesting. We kind of switched roles, Coach was racing, and racer was yelling…only encouraging things…Neil had a cool race fighting off 3rd, 4th and 5th to take 2nd place. He was clearly a better bike handler then most of the racers. Then my race came…I was nervous…did not know what to expect. All I knew is I needed to ride hard…so that’s what I did, they blew the whistle, I put my head down and drove the pedals around. For my first race I was happy to cross the line in 15th place overall, while doing that I captured 3rd in the Under 23 category…not to shabby. No complaints here!

Day 2, once again Tara won, Neil battle it out and got second. Both were fun races to watch. It’s always fun to see people push the envelope…you can pin point when they push there limits. My race was going to be harder for me in my mind only because now I had goals and one of them was to beat this kid named tucker. He beat me by 5seconds the day before; I was out for some blood! When they said go I didn’t look back I danced all over the pedals fighting for every position… I ended up getting in to a sweet 5 man train… we hauled around the course. As the last lap approached I ran out of steam my stomach began to cramp, I was done. I crossed the line in 17th, not bad! Soon after the race finished I realized I had won the under 23, yeah I couldn’t believe it but it did happen.

The weekend came to an end with Tara getting the double win, Neil getting double silver and with me capturing a 3rd and 1st. lets just say it was a good drive home!!!

Life’s a Garden DIG it!