Fall time = Fun time!

First day of fall and 29 degrees!? Yep that's why we live in the Okanagan, can't get enough of this place.

Well MTB season and has now transformed into Cyclo-Cross season. My other love in the sport of two wheeled pedal bikes..next comes the adult trikes. I took little rest time after my trip home from Worlds, but it turned out to just be a 'get over the jet-lag and learn to mount and dismount my CX bike again'. I had a unreal package show in the mail from my team Rocky Mountain Bicycles www.bikes.com and in there was this:

We on the Factory RMB team are luckily enough to have the best sponsors in the world with Shimano drivetrain and wheelshttp://www.shimano.com/, Easton cockpit(because you need something good to grab-a-hold ofhttp://www.eastoncycling.com/en-us/road/) and Maxxis tires to keep me uphttp://www.maxxis.com/ and of course Fi'zi:k saddles to get my special place safe.http://www.fizik.it/

I made the decision for 1st CX race of the year to be Starcrossed, and Rapha-Focus GP, two UCI C2 races. Definitely the right decision as I surprised myself with a 9th on Day 1 and not quite as stellar 13th on Day 2. I was beyond pleased with the weekend, as I now know with some real training I can be right up there. Fox Racing Shox, one of our other wicked sponsors, put up a nice race report: http://www.foxracingshox.com/news.php?m=bike&id=1271&ref=newspageThe highlight of the weekend was taking the holeshot in Starcrossed ahead of Bart Wellens, Rob Peeters, Ryan Trebon, Jon Page, Todd Wells etc...! And if you watch the video you can see I almost didn't make the first turn!: http://wn.com/2011_Starcrossed_CX__Full_Race_Recap__Part_1 I had a little bit of an explosion after that and it took me a while to recovery and fall back in the field and then caught the 2nd wind and rode back in for 9th. I've gotten close to mastering my 2nd stomach, where I can really push the human food eating limits. So now I just need to apply some of that to racing.

Decided to take 'cross a little more seriously this year, so I have booked for the Fort Collins USGP on Oct 8th-9th. Exciting, as it seems to be the most MTB style course according to Mr Kabush. Just need to find some way to deal with breathing up in the sky. And now its internet official according to Evan Mcneely http://www.evanmcneely.blogspot.com/ we have decided to grow mullets and moustaches for 'cross Nationals, so look out for a Moustache/Mullet attack from Evan2, that is Evan Squared incase you didn't didn't get it..

I've enjoyed getting back to work at, the bestest place in the world, The Bike Barn. One of my great supporters that is gracious enough to give me a job when I am at home. We have a great crew at the shop, we even have them aussie's around to keep it light. We are currently planning our Movember ideas.. We also have also have a big deal triathlete, Jeff Symonds, you may have head of him. He just got 3rd at Ironman 70.3 Worlds. World Championship medal is alright I guess...http://jeffsymonds.blogspot.com/

Right now I am thinking back on all the Tim Bits I had today, I had a good 4 day streak there of no sweets but caved badly today. Now I'm eating a massive salad to try and make myself feel well balanced on all levels. Tomorrow is our first local CX race, which is part of Catharine Pendral's BC Interior 'Cross series. We have a ton of local's coming out and some great people that have put together a great course with what they had to work with. And on Sunday is a race we are trying to get everyone in town behind, The Test of Humanity, a great way to help support and raise awareness for Canadian Humanitarian efforts in Ethiopia. In its first year there is 188 entries, going to be a fun exciting day.

Other than that life is rad, weather's good and its almost time for me to start thinking about sunny weather in January/Febuary for some pedaling.

Here's a couple cool shots from Starcrossed:

Evan out.