Then sliced, seasoned and ready for round two: face down over hot coals...

My Potatoes - First baked on the Egg slowly for an hour w/a hint of Pecan smoke...

More action: Salmon Teriyaki & Asparagus. Potatoes getting ready for round two...

Action shot: Potatoes starting their journey @ 375... Gr8 night to BBQ in the ATX!

Fat Chuck's Revenge 3/7/09

This was the last race in the TMBRA endurance series...and what a way to finish.

The course was tougher than I had expected. The race was held in Smithville at Rocky Hill Ranch which is a very familiar place for me. Typically, race laps are ridden in a counter-clockwise direction...but for this race they changed the course and laps were ridden clockwise. This added a lot of climbing over the 100K distance.

I rode as hard as I could. I probably went out a little faster than I would have liked to, but my efforts paid off because I finished the race in 4th place, and came in 3rd overall in the points series. Not too bad for my first round of real races!

I learned a lot in this series and I'm already looking forward to these races again next year.

Mas O Menos 2/14/09

What a blast we had in Terlingua, TX during the fourth endurance event in the TMBRA series! The weather was perfect, (in the 80's), and there was little wind...which made camping a bit easier than years before so I'm told.



The area is beautiful and the course was amazing. It was a mixture of open desert single track and one long jeep road climb known as Tres Cuevas. (3600ft!)

We camped out on Friday night before the race and Saturday night after the race.



My race was 100K (62.5 miles), so I had to complete two laps around the course.

Believe me when I say that I had to dig deep on the second lap - especially on the climb.

Despite a crash on the 1st lap...I finished the race in great time. I came in 10th place in my class out of 70 starters in a time of 5hr 18min 56sec, and I was less than a half hour behind the fastest finisher in my group. The icing on the cake for me was receiving a check for $50 for all the suffering. Not bad!!



Can't wait for this race again next year!!

Miles of Dis-Comfort Marathon 1/24/09

This was the third endurance event in the TMBRA series...and like all of the others, it was named very appropriately. The race was held at Flat Rock Ranch, which is just outside of Comfort, TX. (South of Fredericksburg in the Texas Hill Country.)

FRR is a cattle ranch that has been owned by a single family for over 100 years. Several years ago, one of the owners hired a company to come in and cut single track trail throughout the ranch.



The race consisted of two laps around the ranch, and it was just over 52 miles in length. The trails are split into a lower and an upper loop and there was a lot of climbing. There are several peaks in the ranch that are around 2000ft high. The views are incredible...

There was a neutral feed/drop zone right in the middle by the start/finish line. I kept a cooler in the feed zone with bottles of HEED mix and the food that I typically like to eat: fig newtons and bananas.

It was cold to start and it was also windy. The temps came up later in the day - and all in all it was a great temperature to race.

I ended up coming in 9th place in this event. I was 45 minutes behind the fastest guy in my class. I was shooting for a 5-hour time...and I actually finished in 5hr03min. It was a great day...and I can't wait to ride out there again!