Go ahead. Pick a fight against cancer on Sunday, July 12 at the LIVESTRONG Challenge—7:30 a.m., San Jose’s Center for Performing Arts. The LIVESTRONG CHALLENGE is the Lance Armstrong Foundation’s signature fundraising event inspired by hope, courage and the perseverance of Lance and the nearly 12 million Americans affected by cancer. Choose to walk, run, ride or support the individuals standing together to fight cancer. For more information on donating, volunteering or registering to walk, run or ride, visit www.livestrongchallenge.org.

alright this is just a place holder, but we had a good race.

The race is tomorrow, even though I did the pre-ride a few weeks ago with Fluffee and Puff, I wanted to reaquaint myself with the trail again. I’ve learned in years of riding that with a little weathering, the trail does change.

UB and our other Teammate, Michael B. left for the pre-ride. By the way, this was the first time I’ve ridden with UB in a long while since his move up north. Both UB and MB didn’t want to ride the whole course so we set out for just finishing at the top of Hurl Hill.

The course was very fast and I enjoyed the pay-off from all the riding that we had been doing. My heart was racing, however I felt calm. The only sketchy part that I felt was the confidence I had in the tires. You see, before this ride, I just put on some new rubber, same tread pattern as what I had on there before, but for some reason they didn’t give me the confidence in them. It felt like it was all over the place - not good.

Anyways, when I got back to the campsite, I let some air out of the tires and prayed that this would help out.

I originally wanted to get out and ride today at a decent time. However I had so much happen to me during the course of the day, that this was going to be questionable. I didn’t get home until about 5:30, and once I did, I didn’t want to do much of anything except for sitting on the couch and relaxing.

On the other hand, I knew that the race was coming up on the weekend and I knew that if I didn’t get out and ride, I would probably regret it. At 6, I just grabbed all of my cycling gear and head out, out to St. Joe’s.

I went up and did the laps. I actually felt better after the ride, and had my head cleared up to be able to function again. I was definitely glad I was able to get out and do it.

Well, I’ve got my Board of Director’s meeting tonight, so I don’t know how much time I will have. However I must ride. So today, even though I’m working from home, I got out and rode a few laps out at St. Joe’s.

Just doing my usual laps, actually I only did one since I was pressed for time. While out there, I noticed the rangers were out there in force doing a few things to “widen” the fire trail and smoothen it out if you can believe that. Uggg, and they say us mountain bikers do damage to the trails.

Well with two friends injured in two days, I’m on my own today for the lunch time ride. I need to sneak in as much riding as I can before the race, so that is what I’m doing now. Nothing fancy, I just want to get out on the trail and get some miles down. I rode the typical loop that I do at lunch, riding out from the office here into the Arastradero preserve. I didn’t even stop to play at the punch bowl. I did see a couple of snakes on the trail however.

One snake was peering through the tall grass as I rode by, the other was pancaked on the road. These were the non-poisonous variety, so I wasn’t too worried. In hindsight however, even if they were the poisonous type, I’m not sure what I could do, except ride faster.

Okay, its a few weeks after the fact and I need to log a few rides to back track. I’ve been pretty busy preparing for the race, now that it’s over, I’m going to put back down what I’ve been doing.

This morning, I helped Fluffee work on his bike a little, installing a new cassette and a new crankset. After doing so, we went down to Stiles Ranch and Santa Teresa Park. It was a nice day to be riding out there, just a little on the warm side, but with a slight breeze it didn’t feel too bad.

Normally, I’d ride this trail on the Nomad, but with the 24HOA happening next weekend, I thought it would be more appropriate to ride the bike that I’m going to be using in the race. It was a blast to ride the technicals.

However we did suffer one casualty, Fluffee had an endo coming down Rocky Ridge. Bloodied knee and a dented helmet we rode back out together.

Fun ride (probably not so much for Fluffee though)

Here it is another week later, and getting ready for a lunch time ride with my co-worker. This is his second time out on the mountain bike. I’m still doing my intervals trying to get my heart condition improved. We were riding the normal loop, however this time, I introduced Arturo to the Horse shoe loop. Unfortunately however he still had an issue mastering his braking skills. Ended up grabbing too much brake and went over the handlebars.

This wasn’t good, ended up sprangning his wrist and had to baby it on the way back, we had to cut the ride short.

I thought I would finally contribute a trip report, complete with photos, of the trails that are close to our home here in Oregon. I’ll start first with the Calloway Creek trail. We are so fortunate since we can access the trail right from our backyard. The trail is open from April 15 through the end of October. It’s a 2.5 mile loop with a spur leading up to Cronemiller Lake, the OSU Forestry Cabin, and the Logging Sports Arena. From there you can head off on forest roads that will connect you to other trails in the area such as Dan’s Trail and Horse Trail.. I rode the Calloway Creek trail yesterday, camera in hand. Since it’s fairly short, I rode the loop forwards and backwards, crossing the Calloway Connector several times, since it is the only true singletrack on the trail. I covered about 8 miles in all. I did search for Grinders open garage door and a cold beer on the way home, but gave up after about 1/2 hour. The photos are posted on Facebook at the link below. Enjoy your summer everyone.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=16062&id=1663743187&l=0b5ed7119e

Rich Taylor

Tonight I rode up to the Grandview restaurant. I met up with Mr.O about 2/3’s of the way up Corothers. He had some work to do, so he completed his ride at Mt. Hamilton Road.

From there, I started doing some interval riding, fluctuating my heart rate between 155 and 180 bpm.

It felt good at the top, I hope this type of riding actually helps me improve. For the record, we’re only a little over a week before the race.