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Saturday: Sat next to a super cute baby on the plane.
Sunday: Did some racing. A 'cross race on real green grass- like they are supposed to be.
Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday: Like eleven hours of mountain biking. I don't care what people say, mountain biking on the east coast is 10 time better than the west.
Thursday: Eating
Friday: Chilling
Saturday: Dirty Dozen. The weather was awesome. The DD route is awesome. Double flatting at the start was about more excitement than I can handle for one day. Steevo was real cool about telling me which way to go as we were racing up the hills. Congratulations to him for another win.
Sunday: Flying. Coughing like a smoker the whole plane ride from DD effort. This made the person next to me happy.

Car ride conversation on the way to the airport with the parents:

Me- "Can we stop at a Qdoba? I want a burrito for when I'm sitting at the gate."
Mom- "You know, there is a reason we left at the time we did. Missing your flight because of a burrito wouldn't be good. Isn't there something in the airport" ... or something like that.
Me- "I don't want to take that risk. I'm craving a burrito, and I'm super tired and sore and now cranky from racing up steep hills all day yesterday."
Papa Morrison gets off the highway and we get burrito-ed up.
Me at airport to security lady before x-ray thing- "This thing in the side pocket is a burrito."
Airport Security guy looking at the screen- "BAG CHECK."
Airport Security lady goes through my entire backpack, messing up the *perfect* packing job, and ends it with "Oh, I guess I just needed to verify this was a burrito".

Even better, there was a Qdoba like 100 feet from my gate. I made a super mess eating my burrito. It's hard to keep it all together.

My season is now over, and this makes me happy.

It's Time.

It's time to:

• Be done riding bikes for the year
• Do other fun things

Snow was coming towards Boulder, and wasn't feeling a long ride in the cold slippery snow, so I recruited my friend Tess to go hiking.

Woahy am I sore today. Sad.

Boulder Cup

The Boulder Cup was supposed to be at some school, but it got moved to the Boulder Reservoir because of the 2 feet of snow that Boulder got last Wednesday. Two feet of snow plus Friday being 50 degrees, Saturday being 50, and Sunday 70 = super muddy course, right? Wrong. I put an easier gear for the SS expecting mud, but the course had NO mud. I lost track of time, arrived at the start super later, crawled through the junior field to get to the SS field, and lined up last. Luckily everyone went one way and I was able to sneak around the outside to get second wheel.

On the second lap I took a corner too hot, laid the bike down, lost a couple of places, but was able to get back to second place by the end. 99.99% percent sure I was second. The guy that won was standing right after the finish line and confirmed I got second SS. Cool. We sat around for a while waiting for either podium announcements or for results to be posted, but nothing was happening and everyone was hungry so we left to go get some food. We came back about a hour later, checked results, and saw that I was listed as fifth. A guy with the last name MorriseY was listed as second. Truth be told, I wasn't too worried about it and didn't want to deal with trying to get it fixed. I didn't know the names of anyone who I finished around, podium and prizes were already done, and there was no way I was going to be able to find the guy that finished third who I battled with for most of the race.

Watching the UCI race was awesome. We had a most rowdy-ious group with a sand corner to our own.

A few pictures:

Thank you Deidre for: Driving me, mixing my bottles, cleaning up after me, driving to feed me and generally being there to listen to me whine.

CUCycling homie Brady killing it

CUCycling homie Chris Hurst also killed it.

Bryce

Bike Racing is Cool

Wake up. Pack backpack. Leave for the Boulder Res on 'cross bike. Get caught in snowstorm. Freeze. Get to race venue 45 minutes later. Sit in heated bathroom for half an hour. Register. Bathroom for another fifteen minutes. Go find Chris. Sit in Chris's car with the heat blasting for an hour and a half. Start race. A third of the course is on the beach. Lots of running. Leg warmers falling down = super annoying. Winning SS! Flat. Yell for Chris to get a wheel. Get a wheel. Lose 4 places. Get 2 back. Blow up super bad chasing. Finish. Sit in car. Chipotle. Shower. Bed.

Yes!

Bicycle Governing Bodies-1 Sam-0

"So tell me Sam, what's up?"

Today, I had to buy another license to race my bike. "Any one day ACA [not Pgh ACA, the OTHER ACA they always talk about] license holders are required to line up in the back of the start" Awesome. I was grumps.


"What's even better?"

It's not USAC, so no 'cross races here (since everything is ACA) will count towards an upgrade for USAC. Awesome.

"What's even better than that?"

They asked me what category USAC I was (to convert over to their system), so I just sent my whole license in, letting them figure out where they should put me. Apparently I'm a two in their system, even though I'm a 3 on my real license.

"But Sam, I know you're the whiniest person ever, but this is like a free upgrade! What gives?"

Boulder 'cross is coming up. I was really looking forward to getting beat bad. Exciting right? Wait, it's not USAC, it's ACA/UCI. There is no place for 1/2 ACA licensed riders to go except UCI, and I'm not buying an UCI license for two races. In addition, I'm not 35 or older, so there goes the masters' races. I guess I'm pulling my cables out and going SS.

"Sam, maybe you should just break your bank for an UCI license"
No.

Finding a USAC Mtn race near Pittsburgh = Super hard
Finding a USAC 'cross race near Pittsburgh = Super easy
Finding a USAC Mtn race near Boulder = Super Easy
Finding a USAC 'cross race near Boulder = Super hard

Huh?

Ouch

Missing some parts

Yeah

I missed a few weeks of posting. It's ok.

I raced my bike a whole bunch. Did pretty good. Had a really good time. Short track is basically zero fun. Cross country is really fun. Collegiate racing is fun.

Time for 'cross.