East Meets West

Good day to all you jerks out there. This past weekend has brought another awesorme turn of events for your Doctor friend. Many of you may already be familiar with our New East Coast Syndicate, which is comprised of a gentleman named C-Dubbs and several of his compatriots. Those of you intertube savvy enough to have followed our blorg in the comments section of Robort's blorg, which eventually morphed into the jenkem cycles page, will possibly feel that you already know too much about Mr. Dubbs. I am going to tell you more anyway.

Dubbs, Top Chef, and Griffin travelled all the way from New York City to come get some Sedona, and get some they did. They managed to do some cross country epic type riding, some super techy all mountain slickrock style riding, and even a little downhill. They stayed at a sweet little townhouse style resort called the Red Agave, and if you evar find yourself out this way I would suggest that you stay there. There was a trail head literally 20ft from the back door of their cabin.  On top of that the place had a pool, a bonfire pit, and they provide smores ingredients. My fragile mind was blown. Here is a pic of Top Chef and Griffin perfecting their toasted open face samoan sandwich technique.

Knowing that these jerks were going to be up to no good, Mrs. Doctor and I hopped into the Jeep and pointed it towards Sedona via Mingus Mtn and Jerome. The road up and back down Mingus is incredibly narrow, twisty, and very scenic. There is a lot of exposure, particularly when you start descending into Jerome, which is an old mining town turned tourist trap positioned precariously on the back side of mingus at about 6,000 feet. (The road over Mingus tops out at a little over 7,000 feet.) Here is a pic taken through the very dirty windsheild of the Jeep.

and here's one from above:

Once safely down the back side of Mingus, we were only about a half hour from our destination, and the formal christening of the East-West alliance. It is interesting to note that I only know Mr. Dubbs from teh intertubes, we have never met in person. Seagal soldiers NicoToscani and Gino Fellino did some riding and some drinking with Mr Dubbs at the Mohican 100 two years ago and began premliminary negotiations, in the chinese, to spread the Seagal philosophy nation, possibly even world wide. During our meeting Dubbs made the observation that we are similar to the Hell's Angels in that we now have full on chapters, or at least fellow members in several states. World domination is certainly near.

We arrived to find Mr Dubbs and Top Chef drinking some hoppy brews out on the patio of the cabin, known as Moctezuma's Castle. We sat and joined them and found them to be swell fellows. We were soon joined by Griffin and his cousin from Phoenix when they returned from the store with more IPAs and some pretty amazing steaks. Top Chef proceeded to show us how he got that name, the steaks were amazing. Watching them make dinner was pretty entertaining as well, these guys are pretty jovial and animated, real Seagal style jerks all the way. Just look at 'em:

After a Top Chef steak dinner, blueberry pie, and a few IPAs, a dialouge broke out, in the chinese of course. The dialect I was speaking was a little less consice than any of us was used to, but still got the point across. We then headed to the bonfire pit for some toasted open face samoan sandwiches. It was great to meet jerks such as these, fine examples of Superior Attitude, Superior State of Mind. Hopefully I will be able to do some riding next time they make it out to the wester-regions, And hopefully some of you other jerks make it out this way. Bitches.

Toscani is a total jerk!

Greetings Jerks. Yesterday marked the end of Nicorn Toscani's southwest vacation, and late in the afternoon he boarded a shuttle bound for the airport and ultimately St Louis. We spent many days enjoying breakfast beers, chinamen, Sedona, getting the jeep stuck in the snow on a 60 degree day, and other jerk-like behaviors. My broken collar bone slowed me down a little bit, but I feel that Toscani still got to see some good shit.

We began by going to Hugo's for some porn shack style mexican food (Much more amazing than it sounds.) followed by a visit to the most amazing liquor store evar. This netted us many green canned IPAs as well as some other fine canned hoppy brews that Dale made. Multiple trips were made to the local brew pub for some amazing food to fuel Toscani's Sedona ride. This is a secret picture of a Team Seagal race prep drill the day before the race:

If we get the jeep out, we go to Sedona tommorrow

  Once our superior attitudes had been tested and proven we were ready to proceed to the magical land of Sedona, a mere hour and a half drive on paved, snow and ice free roads. We arrived to early to a race for the first time in our racing careers. We were like an hour early. Those of you who have met us at the trail head realize what an amazing accomplishment this is, especially since we had to get up at 4:30 in the a.m. We found several like minded jerks in the parking lot, including Jeff and Nancy from Scottsdale, AZ. Jeff is the guy on the shuttle ride in Durango with the titanium huffy with the zebra striped fork. I cut my hand and had to get stitches on that ride, and then I see them at another ride and I have a broken collar bone. They must think that I am severly accident prone. Maybe I am. The start time rolled around and Toscani took off to ride some of this:

and this:

Given my current condition I opted for the 4 hour hike instead of the 8 hour bike ride. I made it up to the top of the Damfino saddle, the picture immediately above is what you descend on the Damfino trail. I got there just before the first group of racers wich can be seen here trying to find the trail to the top:

  The second group of racers to pass through stopped atop the saddle and enjoyed the view and visited with my chinese friend and I for a little bit. These gentlemen seemed to be brimming with superior attitude, and when they continued on they were definitely in a superior state of mind. They continued down the Damfino trail and were soon so far down from my position that this was the best pic I could get of their descent:

 

  If you zoom in you will see them making their way down, partially obscured by trees.  It was around this time that I recieved a telephone call from none other than Jerkward Toscani. He had gotten lost at some point and was waiting, PBR in hand, at the Bike and Bean which is where the race finished. He still managed to crush out 45 miles or so of rigid B29er slickrock Sedona riding. When he called I was still a good two hour hike from the car, so I snapped a couple more photos and made my way back down the slickrock mesa, which was treacherous enough on foot let alone a bike. Sedona has some amazing views. Here a couple more pics in parting. Hopefully they inspire some of you other jerks to come out and get some Sedona, it is really an amazing place.

S-Works testing

Greetings jerks! As mentioned in my previous post, I recently travelled to CA to visit Specialized HQ. They have an amazing facility with huge locker rooms, individual soap dispensing showers, and a huge cage full of 2010 Sworks bikes for the classes to demo. I rode an S works roubaix with DA tubless wheels (fucking sweeeeet) a Tarmac sl3 with electronic DA (awesome bike, liked it a lot better than the roubaix) and on the last day, the ride I had been waiting for all week, 2010 Sworks epic with xx brakes and crank, xo 9spd rear. This is their world cup level race bike, the same steed upon which Breslin will be going really fast this season. In spite of the tiny wheels, this bike felt like it fit me, something other high end 26 inch rides like the trek fuel ex have failed to do. The 2x9 drive train makes a lot of sense if you don't want to drop the massive coin for the xx cassette. Really a sweet riding bike. We were on a section of the Sea Otter trail right by the Laguna Seca raceway. I was in the lead group after the first major climb and we were just getting into the descent when things got hairy. The trail had a very sandy consistency to it, and they had had a lot of rain in the previous days. This led to the formation of a very large sinkhole that was not visible untill you were in it basically. Two of the specialized guys almost went down, which I did not see or I may have come out better. I came over a little riser and into the hole. It swallowed the front end of the bike and sent me flying. My roomate for the class was behind me and saw the whole thing. According to him I did two full front flips before landing on my shoulder and head. The sworks helmet I was demoing took the impact and then shot up into the air.

In true Team Seagal fashion, I stood up and dusted myself off saying " I don't have a concussion it's ok, let's keep going" I then bent to pick up my sun glasses and couldn't reach my arm to the ground. One of the other students used to be an LPN and realized immediately what I had done. He took a look inside my jersey, saw the break and sat me down and made a sling for me. I only know these things from my classmates telling me that night after I got back from the ER. I had no recollection of talking to anyone or trying to keep going or anything. The ER doctor asked if I had hit my head to which I relied "No" The specialized guy who was with me immediately chimed in " yeah you did bro" The medic at Laguna Seca had asked me what month it was and I really couldn't tell her. weird feeling.

So basically I broke my left clavicle completely, and the muscles titghtening around the shoulder displaced it fair ammount, meaning that it will likely have to be pinned back together. The good news is that Worker's comp is going to cover it all, and my boss is being pretty cool about it. This of course puts a significant damper on my upcoming race season since I will be off the bike for the next 6 to 8 weeks. Toscani is still going to do the Sedona race, which means  he will be in town tommorrow. While my injury changes things, he is still a tremendous jerk and I am sure we will still find plenty of ways to entertain ourselves. This will also render me unable to ride with C-dubbs the weekend following the Sedona race, but I am certain we will get together with our mutual chinese friend for a drink or two.

I will post pics of my xrays as soon as I can get them onto the computer, until then, stay hard!

PS. The bike was ok other than a broken xx brake and a cracked handlebar.

Multiple Upperdeckers

Greetings! Many amazing things are going to be happening to your Doctor in March, which we will get to soon, but first let's discuss something amazing that happened in February. I arrived home from work one day to discover a package on my doorstep. As I opened it, I immediately realized that is was from Team Seagal Headquarters, specifically the Team Trail Monster division. Many things were included in this package, most of them classified. One that I am at liberty to speak of: UpperDecker Shit Brown Ale. Carefully vacuum sealed inside the package were two of these:

  That's right, two bombers of delicious home made shit brown ale. These two  bottles came with instructions to let them ferment, like a fine jenkem, until mid February, which I did. When the time came to crack into one of these amazing brews, I invited my chinese friend to come sit with me and share an ale. Upon cracking the bottle a nutty alcohol tinged aroma greeted my giant flaring nostrils. Having previously experienced the TTM crafsmanship, I knew that this would be good, and it was good. The balance of malty and hoppy flavors was perfect, and the finish was nice and smooth. By the time the bottle was empty, my chinese friend and I were feeling pretty silly, unable to commit to cracking the second one until a couple of days later. We found the second bomber to be equally impressive. Nice work TSTTM!!

In other news Nicorn Toscani, pro hybrid hill climber and total jerk, will be visiting me in about a week or so. We are going to travel to Sedona midway through his stay and take part in a sort of underground 60 mile race. Very Non-Race-esque, no entry fee, no t-shirt, but it looks like an amazing loop. It will be interesting to see how I do, I recently got back from Oklahoma where my mom gave me a wicked cold. I mean debilitating, feverish, can't breathe, and more importantly can't ride my bike on top of the time off going to OK. I am starting to feel a slight bit better today, which is good because I leave this afternoon to go to San Jose for a Specialized class. It starts tomorrow morning and includes two road rides and one FS mountain ride. Hopefully I am feeling even better tomorrow. At least I get to spread disease in the meantime. That's it for now jerks.  Oh, anyone who did the death by hills ride is a total badass.