yes more 6HWC but also the Ghost of Brownie and some rogue hoes

I guess apparently there is something wrong with blogger, my last two posts have been posted as one giant freaking paragraph and that's not the way I originally constructed them. I've tried several things to remedy the situation but nothing seems to help so far. There has always been some sort of spacing issue with blogger especially when it comes to posting photos. You never really know if there will be spaces between your text and the photos uploaded. I usually put at least 2 spaces between each and sometimes I get none, 2, 3 or 6, I guess it all just depends on what kind of mood blogger is in that particular day. Do I still have more to talk about from the 6HWC? Why yes I do, have you heard enough about it? Of course you haven't! When I learned that this year the after party/awards/swag give away was going to be at the Warrior Creek campground and we didn't have to drive down the road I was pumped. What I didn't think about was the fact that alcohol is not allowed so there would be no free beer served with the post race meal. I didn't say there were no post race beverages consumed or there were no last lap beer hand-ups and I'm pretty sure no one almost spilled their beer hand up on one of the race organizers. There just wasn't a Boone Brewing beer truck there this year. I have to say having the post race festivities in the same location of the race was indeed nice but the lack of free libation did suck but I'm still on the fence as to which was better. The post race meal was still the best I have ever had at ANY race I've attended, BBQ pork, chicken, beans, slaw, pasta & cornbread, it was awesome. The swag give away was also one of the best I've ever seen, for 3 years in a row I've walked away with swag. Not the cheap crap you get in a swag bag for registering, stuff you can actually use. I hate swag bags that are nothing but advertisements for crap I'll never use. This year I walked away with a Bell Slant helmet and I actually got to pick my size, very nice indeed! I have to hand it to the BMCC folks they put on one of the best races, if you've missed this one or chose to do the Knobscorcher for some reason, wise up folks and put the 6HWC on your calendar for next year. I can tell you from personal experience, this race out ranks the SERC crap any day. If your a Facebox friend of mine you may have noticed the pics of Brownie I posted the other day upon it's final completion. The parts have been in for a while I was just finally able to go and picked them up Monday. Speaking of "Brownie" a buddy of mine came up with what I think is an excellent name for the new ride, "The Ghost of Brownie". With all the white going on I think the name fits it well. I think now that it's finally finished it looks better and more complete, the white grips are definitely something that's going to bug me, especially when it comes to getting them dirty but they should clean up easily. I went ahead and replaced the black seat with a white one I had in my bin of old seats and I think the white one looks much better. Probably one of my favorite additions is the Topeak Alien head blinky. Short post today, I've got a date with a rogue hoe up at Bays Mountain, we're going to build some trail together.

a little air guitar, air piano, dancing and of course smack talk

I'm running a bit behind as far as packing goes for this weekend. I've been working 12 hr shifts and most of my time after work has been spent tinkering with my bikes and camera equipment. Melinda unfortunately pulled a muscle in her back last night working out. I think she got a little carried away lifting weights. I came home to find her laid out on the living room floor with ice packs and pain reliever. She's pretty bummed out about being on the injured list this weekend, we were hoping to get down early Friday to take advantage of the Niner demo day put on by Luna Cycles. I'm not sure if she will be riding but hopefully she'll be in a lot better shape by Friday. Yesterday on the Facebox, Chris left me a message, something to the effect of, "Was I going down to Wilkesboro this weekend to race or shoot a freaking movie?" My reply, something along the lines of making sure at one point during the race I would point the camera behind me and as long as he could keep me in his sights on the trail he might just make it into the "movie". If he is unable to do so I'll get a shot of him with the Flip cam as he crosses the line, well that is if the line at the beer wagon is not too long. Good luck Mr. Dillow, I'm glad you didn't pansy out like so many of the others we know. I stated earlier in the week I was going to give the Conti Mountain King a shot this weekend at Warrior Creek but for some reason it didn't hold it's air all weekend. I think it was contributed to the rim strip getting a bit out of whack and since it's officially up for sale and I'll be swapping it out for a new set of Bontrager 29-4's. I went ahead and put the old ACX back on, it's still in good enough shape to last a bit longer.

Earlier this week I mentioned the plan "B" we resorted to on Sat night while camping near Dupont. Rather that sit out side in the cold rain with no campfire Melinda and I converted the ECO into the party zone for a couple of hours.

Although the dance floor was a bit small for one person alone, Fat Tony did not let that stop him from getting down and cutting a rug.

Then he proceeded to entertain us with his air guitar skillz or should I say beer bottle guitar skillz.

Really long guitar solo.

Once things calmed down I played a soothing air piano piece to soften the mood for Andy. The new beard is started to look really good in my opinion.

the world's most expensive bottle opener

I don't really have anything exciting to talk about. I spent the last two days sitting in a hospital room watching reruns of Friends and flipping through my latest copy of DirtRag for the 20th time. Before you start worrying, everything is ok, Melinda was the one who had the procedure and it was planned. She had her Tonsils & Adnoids removed and a really interesting procedure on her nose called a Septoplasty. No she didn't get the MJ special to help her hit the high notes. It was a procedure to help her breathe better at night. I feel real sorry for her as she has been in alot of pain, the meds they sent her home with are so strong that when she asks me a question she usually falls asleep before I can finish answering her. When this happens I usually end up hearing the same question again an hour later.

Once I got everything situated at the house and hauled all the trash I've been collecting in my basement down to the curb I got the green light to head out to the trails with the dogs and burn off some pent up energy. We had gotten about 30 minutes worth of rain earlier in the afternoon but as dry as it's been I wasn't too worried about wet trails.

Once I got into the woods my suspicions were confirmed, the dry ground had sucked up every drop of rain leaving the trails in perfect shape for a nice trail run. I was kind of surprised when I had a problem with getting the dogs to stay with me. Usually when they've been cooped up in the house for a few days all they want to do is run but yesterday they were more interested in putting their nose to the ground and checking out every inch of the trail. All was going good until I managed to step on a rock just right. I positioned my foot on it just in the right spot so that when I put my weight in it, it rolled to the outside and all I heard was a pop. Not a crack signaling a break but a pop loud enough to hear and give me that nice queasy feeling that makes you think you could blow chunks at any minute.

I immediately ended my run, turned around and limped back to the truck. A majority of the time if I continue to walk right after turn my ankle I manage to skip alot of the soreness and swelling. After a couple of minutes it felt pretty good but not good enough to continue running and I still had a slight limp. I knew once I sat down and allowed it to rest things might turn for the worse and I was right. That evening as I wound down I layed down in the floor with an ice pack. An hour later when I got up I could barely walk on it, just great. I downed a few ibuprofen grabbed another ice pack and went to bed hoping for a better tomorrow.

Surprisingly when I woke up it felt alot better but I'm still limping a bit. I'm working the next three days so my weekend was already a loss and hopefully that will be all I'll need to fully heal and be back at it by Monday.

Tuesday while in Johnson City I gave my old buddy the Local Cult Hero a shout and asked him if he had 2 Yakima Bow Down's in stock. He said he had one and could order me another. I had been looking around online but the best deal I could find was $161 per rack and I needed two. I really didn't want to spend $300 + on kayak racks but the cheaper version didn't fold down out of the way or have a nifty bottle opener on it. I've noticed alot of manufacturers have really jumped on the bottle opener band wagon in the last 2 years. You can find them on bikes, trailer hitches, belt buckles and now roof racks. I will admit I frequently forget mine at home when we head out on a camping trip so the two I have on the Karate Monkey's chain tensioners have saved many of my friends from dying of thirst.

I asked the L.C.H. if I bought 2 racks could he cut me a deal and he did leaving me with no choice but to go ahead and pull the trigger. Now I'll never have to worry about not being able to open a frosty beverage if by some crazy chance we're out in the wild and I have forgotten my trusty BO-2 and I picked the Mamasita over the Monkey.

I received an email from the fine folks who put the 6 Hours of Warrior's Creek the other day with a fancy little link to a web page containing all the lap times and other info regarding who won and who got their ass handed to them. I knew where I was going to stand in that regards. I started off the race in the back of the pack not really wanting to get in the mix my first lap out especially since my head really wasn't in the game. I figured if I stayed back and kept my pace at a respectable speed I'd have more gas in the tank closer to the end and be able to continue when most were calling it a day. At the time I didn't think I would be one of the first to pull the plug.

Needless to say I decided not to view the results and remind myself of how poor my performance was. Today I finally ventured over to the BMCC's website but only to see if I could find any race pics of myself on my one measly lap. Of the 431 photos post up on the web I could not find one single shot of me flying sideways through one of the many banked turns.

I could have sworn I saw multiple photographers out on the trail but I guess I was either in a worse mental state than originally thought and hallucinating or the photographers deleted all the pics of racers who bailed after 1 measly lap thinking that if we didn't care enough to put forth the effort of at least 2 laps then we definitely wouldn't take the time to looks for our race pics much less buy one.

After being disappointed by not being able to find a photos of myself I decided to look at the race stats anyway. I knew I was probably not the only one who bailed after 1 lap and I thought to myself may just maybe I was the fastest 1 lap lowly rider. Last year I think I counted at least 4 or 5 folks who pulled the plug early and wasted $40 on entry fees. As I browsed through the solo open men category I reached the bottom only to find only one other person in my category had finished only 1 lap and he managed to finish ahead of me. DAMN! Not to let this get me down I clicked on the Overall results, scrolled to the bottom of the big 1's and learned that I finished 3rd overall out of 5 racers!

That's a podium spot even if it's for the poorest showing of the race.