My roommate, we’ll call him Joe, has this annoyingly bad habit of scheduling his arrival flights for late in evening. For example, last month when Joe flew home to Washington for his dad’s retirement party, he scheduled his return flight into Ontario for 11:30 PM. And he expects me or Josh, or another one of his unfortunate friends to be curbside no matter the time. This wouldn’t bother me as much if Joe was flying in from another part of the country, but he’s coming in from the same time zone. There’s no reason why I, or anyone other than an airport shuttle, should have to pick him up at that hour. Tonight he wants me to pick him up at 10:45. Usually at 10:45 I’m halfway through a second episode of Seinfeld or I’m already asleep. I’m thinking about leaving him hanging.

The more and more I think about it, the more it annoys me. Not only does one of us have to pick him up late time and time again, that means that someone on the other end in Washington is repeatedly taking him to airport during primetime hours. I’m thinking I should rent a van tonight and fill it with everyone that has ever had to take or pick Joe up from the airport. When we pull up to the curb to pick him up tonight, we’ll let him in the van but instead of driving him home, we’ll have an intervention. This has to stop.

U.S. Cup Santa Barbara

After the Big Bear round of the U.S. Cup West Series was canceled due to too much snow on the ground, the Santa Barbara Bike Festival at Elings Park was scheduled to take the place of the high altitude event. I’d much rather race in the mountain town of Big Bear, but Santa Barbara isn’t such a bad place. Of all the “urban” cross country race courses in Southern Californian, I think the one at Elings Park is the best. It’s got a few good climbs and a lot of descent singletrack. Come to think of it, it’s probably got more singletrack per 5-mile lap than the Big Bear course does.

The Santa Barbara race marked my first on the new Superfly and the bike did not disappoint. It’s a rocket ship – that’s for sure. The only things that kept me from making the podium was my lack of fitness, my poor fork tuning abilities, and the few guys that finished in front of me. I can’t claim to have won the “Old Pro Class” or “Daddy Division” this time either because Tinker came out and torched us all from the moment Larry Long said “Go” on the Team Big Bear P.A. system. But, I made the top 10 and considering I haven’t raced a mountain bike since March, I’m cool with that. The next couple of months are packed with good races, so it’s time to do some catching up.

Sedona

I’ve never had a race season start this late for me, but on the bright side all the free time has given me more time to just ride my bike and not worry about getting from this race to that race. On Memorial Day weekend Trish and I took a trip to Sedona to do a little riding. Neither one of us had ever been, but we’d heard how good the riding was. The place did not disappoint. I don’t think I’ve ever ridden a better trail system on the west coast. Most of it singletrack, the trails were as technical and as fun as they come in the southwest.


Miles and miles of ups and downs, rock drop-offs and step-ups, and switchbacks a plenty. I rode the Ferrous 1x9 with 1.75 XDX tires front and rear because I was too lazy before we left to put on wider tires. Once I saw how rocky the trails were I was worried about tearing open a tire, but in three days of riding the tires held up great. I was impressed and it gave me a bit more faith in the skinny and lighter tire setup.

Meanwhile, back at Cyclery USA, Steve and Eddie were building my new Superfly. After a few hiccups the thing finally got put together and should be race ready by the US Cup race this weekend in Santa Barbara. The question is, will I be ready?