Spectating

I wasn't sure how I was going to feel about not racing that much this year. If the first race of the season is anything to go by, I'm going to love it. It was refreshing to go to a venue and just enjoy it. Days 2 and 3 of my Monterey adventure included demoing the Specialized fleet and I now have my Christmas list complete. If anyone needs ideas I want a small Era and a 48" Ruby please. I had too much fun if thats possible riding the Era around the XC course..... twice. The demo bike area closed at 5pm and I was racing to get the bike back, and I was only 20 minutes late. In 3 days I managed to squeeze in 14 hours of riding. I raced back home Saturday night and got back just in time to squeeze in 3 quick hours of sleep before heading off to work.

The highlight of the weekend was watching the short track event. The Specialized crew dominated the event taking 1st (Todd Wells) and 2nd (Burry Stander). Far more fun for me was watching Conrad suffer a little... usually he's making me suffer. Out of a 150 riders he made the top 15. In the morning he was overheard asking, "How do you race a short track". It was good to see the triathlete hanging with the xc guys. I was really impressed. 

Todd Wells and Burry Stander leading the short track with no competition in sight.
Post race hanging out with my old house mate Tom Skiles.

Conrad suffering just a little.

One of my super fun road rides along 17 mile drive. The fog was intense that morning, but .5 mile inland it was brilliant blue skies.
Just outside Monterey.
Not sure what these guys were selling at the expo.
This guy could barely walk...
Happy demo day!

I was actually pretty stoked to not be racing this week. It was great to just enjoy biking for biking and have no other purpose in mind. If every day could be like this....... :)