tiny victories

Hey, just like that & it’s almost CX season again! These past few months have seen some exciting developments in life, and I - being a habitual list-maker - will convey these developments as bulleted points!

-I joined Cambridge Bicycle / Igleheart Frames, initially only for their road team, but now have full-on committed to sticking with them for CX. While my heart is a little heavy and I feel a sense of guilt over leaving Geekhouse before starting, I feel that it is the appropriate decision. I have no love lost for Marty, I think he is an incredible man & very talented framebuilder whose bike I’d have loved to get muddy, but my reasoning is as follows (oh shit, a list in a list)

• This will be only my second full season of cyclocross & I’ve upgraded to UCI Elite. While Joshua of GH has a fuck-ton of experience racing, the team lost Jeff Bramhall & David Wilcox, two people who would probably get bashful if I refered to them as kinda sorta CX mentors from whom I learned more about the sport than I expected to in one short season. Meanwhile, Cambridge / Igleheart fields a huge CX group, among whom I am not going to be the only UCI Elite racer. McKittrick has a wealth of knowledge & experience, and - judging by my experiences with various members of the team during road season - they are committed to growth & optimizing performance by all means necessary.
• CB / IF is providing a huge amount of support, sponsorship-wise, for its Elite team that I feel is unrivaled by most cycling teams in the area.

• The friendships I’ve formed with my teammates are inspiring & strong; I relate to most of the riders in terms of shared-experience — We’re a bunch of tattooed ex-messengers & punks. The thought of not racing with my very close friends made me sad.

I mean, I could go on & on, but it would reach the point of feeling like justification. It was a hard decision in terms of disappointing Marty & co, but also an easy decision in terms of finding the best fit.

-I know that I said in this very blog that I wasn’t going to take road season very seriously. That didn’t happen. I’ve had a strong season, won a stage race, podiumed a few other races, and accomplished the goals I set for myself by halfway through the season. So I set new, ridiculous goals & hope to meet them by the end of the Green Mountain Stage Race, which will be my last road race of the year.

-Ampere toured Europe, where we played on a boat in Budapest with Steve Von Till from Neurosis. How’s that for absurd? It was a great tour & it really put things into perspective for me: I’ve been making it a point to put way more time aside for non-bicycle-racing friends. It’s important, they’re important to me, and it’s been fun.

-On the Ampere tip, we also just finished recording our LP, which was starting to feel a bit like Chinese Democracy. Except it doesn’t suck. I’m really proud of it; Proud of my bandmates for writing the best music we’ve released to date, and proud of myself for the lyrical content. It’ll be out by the end of the year (we still have to mix it & master it, as well as create the artwork & accompanying booklet) and it will be on No Idea Records.

-I moved to Somerville, Union Sq, and love it. Bloc 11 is great coffee and my street is so quiet. Hardwood floors!

Anyway, I’m looking forward to adding to the list. I have a number of race reports from road season up at the Cambridge Bicycle / Igleheart Frames website, and you can expect that for CX season I will be putting them here as well. Before then, though, I will be posting some of the lyrics from the new LP. Yeah, I told you I was proud of them!

Until then, get some sleep!!