PRONOTPRO REPORT #8

Brendan was at full on race-weight in Wenatchee I guess.

Kyle's been real good about getting onto podiums this month.

A detail of Ross's bike. There's a full gallery of it built in the 'photography' section of the site.

Ross riding his SSCX through the woods at UBC. Unfortunately I had to take him to get some stitches right after this.

Dave's Whishart, I shot this for work, and also because it's sweet. It say's CRITERIUM on the top tube.

What is happening during race season. Sometimes I don't even know. One weekend I'm heading to California for training camp, the next weekend it's Provincials and I'm in a mad scramble to find a guest ride spot for Tour de Beauce. I looked at my calendar this week and realized Nationals is a month away, and before I know it we'll be in Bend racing Cascades.

There's been a lot of racing since coming back from California. And while personally I came up a bit short on my ambitions, I've had a great month of team racing. Working for my teammate Kyle in a few races, including helping him win an overall at Race the Ridge. But the Twilight Crit in Tour de Bloom was definitely the highlight of my month. My entire team rode out of their skin in the last eight laps, with ambition to place Michael high in the sprint and organized enough that we had seven guys in a row. I pictured UHC's 'Blue Train' from Superweek two years ago, but swapped it out with Red and high fives from the Vancouver friends racing down there. I'm trying not to dwell on not putting together my personal goals and revel in the ability to race with a bunch of really good dudes this year, especially dudes that are genuinely amazingly supportive teammates in racing and off the bike. That's all I have to say about that.

[o] Erin

[o] Erin

Outside of bikes, I went camping for the first time in probably close to five years, or more. I joined Erin and a 15(?) others at Golden Ears after doing the road race leg of Race the Ridge, hiked 4km into the spot to sleep on the ground before hiking that 4k back out to race the Crit. It was actually amazing. It's difficult to find the time to hang out with friends outside of work and training and even if I only got a few hours tired as hell on a rocky beach it goes a long way for your mental health. I snuck in another mental health moment this Monday when I picked up the board and hung out at Leeside for an hour. A little goes a long way.

I'm constantly trying to reassess how I can fit more creative bits in my day to day life. But it's like camping and skateboarding, outside of bikes the time is hard to come by. It's sometimes a source of stress in my life actually. I feel like I'm being pulled apart between two, three or four different things I want to be entirely part of my life. Racing and cycling obviously. Photography. Drawing. Skateboarding. I even think more and more about night classes for some skills I want to refresh in the fall, but I don't know how to fit everything in between all the sacrifices you make for bike racing. Most of the time I don't even know when to clean my house.

I made this poster in between times. Erin and Tree are putting on a sweet fun alleycat.

For now, I'm going to focus the next few weeks on prep for trying to get a spot for Beauce and figuring out how to finance my plane ticket to Nationals. As much as I'm stressing myself out about not having enough time for everything, the only way I'll start to fit it in is by actually doing at least some of the things.