"You can overplan these things."

Wow.

Just yesterday I was writing about the second half of 2009, and now I'm already planning 2010. If you look to the right you'll see I added the 2010 "SEASON" to the sidebar. That's because there's one race I've absolutely wanted to do next year since I heard about it a coupla months ago, The Trans-Sylvania Mountain Bike Epic.

Not only did they use they ever popular term "Trans" they even went so far as to include that rarely used descriptive word in mountain biking, "Epic". If only they coulda called it The EXTREME Trans-Sylvania Mountain Bike Epic or The Awesome Trans-Sylvania Mountain Bike Epic of Death... maybe that woulda been over the top.

Why am I excited about this race when I haven't even put the sure to be equally spectacular Pisgah Mountain Bike Stage Race behind me yet? That's a dumb question. Here's another stage race that I can drive to on the East coast in an area I've done very little riding in, even when I lived in neighboring Ohio. This means car camping and bringing everything I could possibly need in my Element without any arguments at the check in counter at the airport, excess luggage fees, bike fees, rental cars, transfers, CO2 pilferers, expensive hotels... you name it. All the usual hassles of stage racing are gone, and in return I get seven days of riding the rocky trails of central PA.

I had been waiting for the registration information to come out before I got too excited. Being that some stage races are over $2,000 for a week's worth of racing promoters Mike Kuhn and Ray Adams had some room to move to stay under that price. Well, the information is up, and I'm pleased to say they are well below the $2,000 mark by more than $1,000. And how 'bout them dates? Memorial Day weekend means I only need four days off work to pull it off. Four days of vacation for seven days of racing??? Unprecedented.

So yes, I'm stoked. Now we have two stage races on the East coast of the US and A.

Hopefully tomorrow I'll get back to talking about the present and quit babbling about the quite uncertain future. All these plans I've discussed over the last two days are based on the assumption that there still will be an earth with a society based population that can support events of such magnitude. If everything goes to shit I just plan on heading to the mountains to live in my bunker filled with canned tuna, peaches, ammunition, and soft core porn.

MOOTS gets a mention on CNN.com, but nothing about me? Whatever.