GNCC

Super-pumped at the GNCC right now on Monday night. Strolling through the pits and looking at all the new teams, bikes and numbers, and thinking of all the guys who are looking strong and sharp and ready, you just can't help but get fired up. It's just like Anaheim 1, really, where you forget just how many contenders there are until you see them all together at once.

That includes Travis, of course, and he was happy-go-lucky as usual. But Travis, and everyone, was in for a shocker today when they hit the practice track. The track has more tree roots and palmettos (basically giant dead tree branches that are really like riding over roots). It will be a much more technical track than the typical Florida sand race--Travis said he did more Supermans out here today than he did riding freestyle.

I could go on and on with who looks good, Knight, Kanney, Raines, Thad DuVall, then you have the Suzuki boys here too. I can’t wait.

I was so pumped that I decided to go riding myself. My summer manfriend Tim brought two bikes, and he was dumb enough to let me ride one even though I was surely going to crash. It took about 3 minutes on the sand to be completely exhausted. Does this even make sense? How can you get THAT tired THAT quickly?

Well, I figured something out. Just a minor adjustment, changing my stance and griping the tank more with my knees, and suddenly I was riding with my legs instead of my arms and there was a huge difference. I got some good riding in, and then Tim and I hooked up and did some battle for a lap. He stalled and I passed him, then I stalled and he passed me back (the entire track was basically lined in tree roots and it was tough). Just as we were approaching the final woods section before heading out to the open stuff, I washed the front end on a root and went down. The roots smashed the pipe so bad that it ripped right out of the cylinder. I then cruised back to the pits on the loudest bike in the facility. But the bashed up bike wasn’t mine! Yes!