Down in There

I've officially crawled in.

Our strangely warm December is over.  Cyclo Ross Nats has come and gone.  Winter has finally hit Charlotte... in that less than severe but still annoying way that it does.  Much time is spent wandering all about the house collecting the appropriate garb for the conditions every morning.  Outside is free, but apparently not all the clothing and time spent getting ready to go out into it is.

Time = money

Speaking of time and timeliness...

Looking forward to looking forward to things.  Two races that WILL sell out quickly will be opening up their registrations in the next few days.  The Pisgah Mountain Bike Adventure Race registration comes online this Friday at HIGH NOON.

I'm already in by default due to the King of Pisgah (which I'll probably fail to complete... again) with Watts as my partner.

He looked all aloof when I proposed, but I offered to buy him a new flannel shirt that he could ironically button all the way up over his head.  He gave in.

The other guaranteed sellout is the 6 Hours of Warrior Creek.

I'm teaming up with Nick "Dip 'n Spray" Barlow in the Single Speed Duo class.

That should keep things all nice and Faster Mustachy.  It also almost guarantees that at least one of us will have a hangover on the day of the race.  Not the best plan, but we like the odds.  Something something underdogs.

Registration for the 6 Hours of Warrior Creek opens at 9:00AM on Saturday.

Keep in mind, both of these races sell out in minutes (although any period of time can be measured in minutes if you can count that high or have enough decimal places).  I've been to every PMBAR since 2004 and every single one of the 6 Hours of Warrior Creek races for a good reason, which is pretty much the same reason people crawl all over each other to get into them.  Totally different events that do an incredible job all over the spectrum of what makes a race worth going to.

Despite the fact that both of my partners for each of these events have a propensity to wear skinny jeans and Vans when they leave the house (on days other than Halloween), I'm looking forward to seeing just how good (or bad) we might do.

I've still got to figure out what to do about The Icycle.  I've been known to make a fair number of poor life decisions there.  Ditch fights, broken ribs (multiple times), lost phones and keys, stolen cars (mine), morning drinking, practice runs in pajama pants... this:

and this:

If the drinking aspect were an event, I feel like I'm just a few years away from a Lifetime Achievement Award.

But it's not.  So, go and race XC and do what I do and give up on any idea of staying in an upright condition for the rigid night downhill or focus solely on sobriety and just race the DH or forgo all racing and focus on my specialty?