Loved the Specialized 29er Epic. Andy pimped my ride between thrashings. Note my new race kit for 2009. Made by Luma.- more later.

Christoph won comfortably. Todd had a flat, I gave him my CO2 and he finished 6th- which allowed him to win the Omnium-(Short Track and XC combined) Great for Todd, Specialized and the 29er. Lene finished 2nd in the XC and won the ladies’ Omnium. A great start for the season. Burry had a head cold from the previous day and saved it for this coming weeks World Cup in Germany.

I had a close sprint finish with Jeremiah Bishop for 7th.  A lot of fun.  Quite surprised at my results. (16th in short track and 8th in XC)

I was stoked to be “randomly selected” for UCI drug testing. (Photos below) The 180bs triathlete tearing it up at XC? Of course he needs testing!

More stories shortly.

Looking forward to a good  XTERRA season.

Here are some slides: Go to flickr.com to see the pictures titles.
Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

Bobby Behan, car fanatic and Specialized Factory Racing team manager with Mike Sinyards’ Mini Cooper Works.

Todd Wells won today’s Sea Otter Short Track on his new Specialized 29er hard tail (20lbs)- Burry Stander got 2nd, Lene Byberg got 2nd in the ladies and Sam Hill won the Down Hill.

In the short trak the guys dominated, turned the screws and about halfway into the race, Susi, Burry and Todd had broken away, but Susi burped a tire and the other two painted the podium red. Quite a day for Specialized and I was really proud to be part of the team.

I really enjoyed my 2nd short track (the other was 5 years ago and had about 25 riders!) and was in about 13th place out of 130 starters when our little group got pulled off the course with 1 lap to go. Once I caught my breath though, it felt like someone poured gasoline into my lungs! With a bit more sprint and AT training I’ll be able to hang in and hopefully get to do a few more of these races.

Burry (in the green Oakleys) & Todd pre-riding the XC course. The leg and arm warmers are not so much for the bite in the air as the bite in the Poison Oak!

Frank checking tire pressure, Chris and Mike coming back from checking out the rocks, and me snacking on a peanutbutterbanana

This was the 2nd and last day of tire testing. We also looked into trail side tire fixing:

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Specialized tire specialist Frank Stacey and I talking tires at the Stellenbosch testing in January 09.

Photo by Gary Perkin.

I have been incredibly busy since my arrival in the US 2 weeks ago. Moved to Reno NV from Bend OR, did 3 days’ tire testing with Specialized and I bought a car. (yes, the legendary Red Rocket fizzled and died, now I have a 95 Toyota Previa- I like last centuries’ cars)

Of course there is training too.

And the 112 unread emails! As I plowed through most of them this morning I bumped into this great video for our Specialized Tire testing camp in Stellenbosch, South Africa earlier this ye

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