Good to be back

For the past six months I have been recovering from a major knee injury which put quite a dent in my bike season. I did it doing this:

No regrets though. Skiing is the winter equivalent to mountain biking. For rehab I was on my road bike a lot... Ever started base in June?

Luke and Ryan at Quantified Performance also played a huge part in getting me back faster than expected.

The time away from racing gave me an opportunity to do other things this summer. Dylan Stucki and I went on the road with Continental Tires for a week of selling rubber at Ride the Rockies. My sales pitch for tires consisted mainly of direct application and real life examples:

We got to ride the route and meet cool people. It was also sweet driving around in the Conti Sprinter Van.

Black on black! Just like I take my coffee!

After Ride the Rockies, it was back to "regular" work. I was missing riding on the dirt, but at least I still get to work in the dirt!

Finally the day came when I was allowed to ride mountain bikes. It was made sweeter due to the fact that my first ride of the year was on a brand new Trek Fuel EX 9.9!!!

24 pounds of carbon, steel and sex appeal!

This bike is awesome! I knew that descending would be fast on a 5 inch bike, but what blew me away the first few rides was how well it climbed!

The view from the top of Animas Mountain.

The rock-slide on the other side of the valley always reminds me of my days on Devo when Chad would ride us to the top of the cliffs road and let us push rocks off the cliff. Good times!

Do something fun outside!

Grady