for my dad

so my dad told me over Christmas that i don't keep my blog up to date enough...so here you go dad, this one's for you!

Christmas was wonderful, as it always is. crystal and i had to run around from place to place like we do every year, and that includes making it to 5 Christmas' and still we missed going to one on crystal's dad's side of the family. it's great having both of our families in the same town so we can see them all each time we go home, but we also feel like everyone is getting just a little bit of our time as well. so it's always hard to decide how and where we are going to spend our time in parsons.

on the gift side of things, my mom and dad got me an awesome tool package for one of my gifts and it's a craftsman cordless drill, trim saw, flashlight and dust buster vacuum. super sweet, i'd been looking at buying one of these for a while but just couldn't justify the purchase because my old boss (a contractor) had all these tools i could borrow. but now i don't work for him anymore and this was a perfect gift. thanks dad! being a craftsman member through sears is definitely a sweet deal!

in other news matt and steph, marv, charlie, wiggins, jed, tom, myself and anyone else who happens to stumble in have been hard at work on the new shop. we've managed to tear down all the old drop ceiling and expose the even "older" (but completely beautiful) original metal tile ceiling. we're going to try and get it painted on saturday and we can't wait to see how it turns out. also we tore out all the old shelving that was there for all the shoes and that took us over a week to disassemble everything and either pull the nails to keep the lumber or throw it out because it wasn't salvageable. big time thank you to everyone that is throwing in their helping hand, we certainly wouldn't be this far along without you, and i just hope that everything keeps going as smoothly as it has been.

well crystal has already headed to the bedroom to rest her head, so i'm going to follow. somehow we fell across an open wireless network so we watched "prep & landing" on hulu tonight. it was totally awesome, you should check it out if you have an extra 25 minutes or so. on the riding side of things not much is happening right now, and i seriously need to hit the trainer, but i'm so bored of being inside just in general that it just doesn't sound like much fun. i hope you all had a wonderful Christmas. see you soon.
-bobby

ouachita...

so i'm over here at garret's house stealing his internet at 2:30 in the morning. it's all for you ouachita...it's crazy that we're up at a ridiculous hour just to register for a race that we know is going to make us suffer. oh what love for mountain biking we have.

beautiful snow ruins beautiful evening

last night matthew brown, his nephew and i were going to have the time of our lives at a concert in lawrence. we were going to see underoath, august burns red and emery, all phenomenal bands, but in particular we were there to see underoath. i've seen this band a handful of times, and i am sure that i've never been as pumped to see them as i was yesterday. but of course as all of you can see where this is going, the show was partially canceled. underoath has a separate van and trailer that hauls their gear and it got in a terrible wreck the day before yesterday. the driver is reportedly in good shape, but in consequence underoath and emery both had to cancel the show in omaha 2 days ago and the show in lawrence last night. emery and underoath were both snowed in in iowa yesterday with all the roads and highways closed off. it looks as if the show is still on in tulsa tonight, and yes i would love to go, but its quite the drive. so as i said earlier it was "partially canceled" and that meant that august burns red left before the big snow storm moved in up there and made it down for the show. but we weren't pumped on seeing them and a few local bands so matt and i decided not to go to the show.

instead matt put some miles in on the trainer and i made enchiladas with my beautiful wife. i want to start cooking a lot more these days and try to start getting creative with it. i supposed i'll go home and set up me and the wife's trainers as well so we can start putting some base miles down for the winter. in the mean time, you all should check out some of underoath's tunes because they're phenomenal.

new ride

this is the 2010 Fisher X-Cal that i will be representin with this race season. like i mentioned before, i'll be stripping all the parts and rebuilding the entire bike besides the fork. march can't get here fast enough, thats when she'll be here. also here is the crank i'm throwin on this bad boy.

nothing like a little color coordination. so it definitely is spitting snow and ice this morning, so there will for sure be no riding in this weather today. everyone stay warm and get some hot chocolate today. i'm off to feed my dog zoey.

-bobby

this new venture

hello everyone, this is my shiny new blog. i shall be updating quite frequently about the 2010 mtb race season that our Trek/Fisher High Gear team will be competing in this coming year and also throwing out some random thoughts of my own once in a while. matthew brown at High Gear here in Emporia has asked me to be apart of the team for this season and i couldn't be more pumped. i'm selling my felt comp 29er as of right now so if you know anyone who might be interested hit me up. my new ride will be the 2010 Fisher X-Cal, fully upgraded. can't wait for it to get here.

this weekend my wife crystal, our friend jed and i went and hit up the local trails at camp alexander and got 3 laps in. the warmer weather thawed the ground and it was a bit slippery in a few places, but rippin fast in others. i obviously want to avoid the trainer for as long as possible, but when it feels like 16 degrees outside it almost sounds nice. speaking of weather i think we're supposed to get around 2 inches by tomorrow so crystal and i will probably be making snow men instead of hitting the trails. speaking of the trails there have been a select few guys keeping it in top form since the cRamp alexander race this summer and i just want to give a big thanks to those guys because without them the trails wouldn't be nearly as nice as they are now.

matt and steph at the bike shop are getting ready for the big move to the new store in march. i started working for them last friday and will be in the shop from 5-7 every night this week except for wednesday. we'll start rennovation on the new place the 16th of this month, and i can't wait to see it all come together.

i'll have things up about the new sponsors for the 2010 season soon. also more updates about training and what not. until then matt and his newphew donovan and i are going to see underoath, august burns red and emery this wednesday night in lawrence. can't wait for that as well. hope you all are doing well.