Deer!

I saw three deer on today's ride.

I have now seen eight deer so far this fall.

Seven of those deer were alive. Deer season can't come soon enough.

Bubba #4 Creve Coeur

Today's course was by far the coolest course I have ridden. As you can see from the photo below, it featured a flyover. I'm first down the ramp in this photo.



As you can see,we had to dismount our bikes on one side, climb the stairs, hop on our bikes on the top, and roll down the ramp. Way cool. Not only that but the course also featured two sand pits. Here is a picture of the second one. It was tough to get through because you had to turn slighlty to your right as you passed through it. You can see a rider on the deck who wrecked before even entering the sand.



Which, by the way, were the hardest part of the course. The guys who put this Bubba Series together definitley outdid themselves with this course. It was amazing! I felt good and finished 8th on the day. I might have been able to move up a spot if I didn't have so much trouble making it through the sand. I went down at least 2 times in the sand alone. Needless to say, I'm sore today. I can't wait until next week. Maybe we'll even have some rain this week to get things nice and muddy. I'll probably start doing my "rain dance" in a few days. Keep your fingers crossed.

Bubba # 3 Faust Park

I got off to a good start and had what felt like good legs. Unfortunately I didn't bring my bike handling skills with me. I went down in a relatively easy corner after coming out of the woods. I probably took a bad line to start, causing me to correct too much. I don't know the order of what happened next, but I either rolled the front tubular causing me to wreck, or my front wheel washed out and the front tire rolled when I went down. Regardless, I fell. When I got up to check my bike I didn't even know the front tire had rolled. I first realized that my rear tire had rolled off the rim. Bummer. While fixing it I found that my chain had fallen off. Double bummer. Then when I went to hop on my bike I about went over the bars as the bike came to an abrupt stop. Why? Oh yeah, the front tire was off and wouldn't roll through the front brake. Triple bummer. After fixing it I hopped on the bike and took off. The result of the crash? I dropped from 5th spot back to 15th or 16th. Over the remainder of the race I proceeded to move up through the field, eventually making it up to 12th place, which is where I finished. Oh well.

The course was awesome! I absolutely love Faust Park. To make things better Jessie and my parents were there to watch the race. Before the race we even had the opportunity to stroll through the Butterfly House and show my parents where Jessie and I got engaged. It was a pretty good day. Here I am leading some guys through the trees. It's a pretty good picture. Enjoy.



Later in the race I even managed to shoulder check the tree I am going around. My shoulder still hurts today. I wish I could handle my bike better :)