New Saddle

I rode Spring Thaw a couple of weekends ago. Notice "I rode" not "I raced". I've decided I'm not a mountain bike racer. I just ride the Cat 3 course and enjoy myself. My stock answer when asked how my race went was "Uneventful". One high point of the day was that I won a new saddle in the raffle. Check out how good it looks on my cross bike. It's perfect. Thank you Amy, and whoever donated it.
Last weekend I rode a loosely organized ride in the Illinois Valley near Cave Junction. The people who own the local bike shop in Crescent City have a cabin near O'Brien and invite friends to come ride and have a barbecue afterward. We had a good time but my young Chinese friend crashed on a downhill about five miles into the ride. He was pretty banged up and got taken to the hospital in Grants Pass. He did a face plant into the gravel shoulder at about 45 mph. He's okay but his face is pretty scraped up.
Next weekend is Return on the Jedi. I'm taking my trailer again and spending the weekend. I'm racing short track on Saturday with my single speed and "riding" cross country on Sunday. I again opted not to race the Super D Saturday afternoon. I'll just kick back with a glass of wine to prepare for Sunday morning.

Pork BBQ

I cooked some pork barbecue yesterday, and took pictures.
I injected the meat with a mixture of apple juice, brown sugar and salt at about 6:00 a.m.






Started the coals at about 7:00 a.m.







Applied a mustard moisturizer,







a seasoning rub,







and placed into the cooker at about 8:00 a.m.







Initial temperatures, 248° in the cooker, 41° meat internal temp.







It's going to be a long day. I need to be comfortable. The coffee cup later became a bottle of beer and eventually, a glass of wine.






The final product at 7:00 p.m.







There were some intermediate steps that I didn't photograph. After about 3 hours, internal temp 130°, I sprayed the meat with apple juice and continued to cook. After about another 3 hours, internal temp 160° I double wrapped the meat in foil after pouring on a wrapping mixture of butter, honey, brown sugar, yellow mustard and water. Then back into the cooker for another 2 1/2 hours to internal temp 192°. Then wrapped in plastic wrap, insulated with beach towels and placed in a cooler to rest for about an hour. Then unwrapped, lightly coated with the seasoning rub and back into the cooker for about 30 minutes. Then drizzled with bbq sauce and into the cooker for another 20 minutes. This is from my favorite cookbook, Serious Barbecue by Adam Perry Lang.

Oh, it was delicious.

I'm Back

I decided that, since I get irritated when other people don't post to their blogs, I need to post to mine. I doubt that anybody cares. Does anybody read this?
My last post was after the nationals in December. Since then I raced a road race, Cherry Pie, and a TT series, three races in Medford. I got dropped about a third of the way through the road race, way better than last time, and Vern kicked my ass in the TT. Both were fun though.
The big news is that I built a new cross bike. Most of it is used stuff off ebay. The shifters and derailleurs are off my road bike. I upgraded it to 10 speed. I haven't ridden the new bike on any kind of cross terrain but it feels really good on the gravel roads I ride on. BB30 really feels solid. Old Blue will now become my B bike in the pits.






Dura Ace 7900 on the road bike.


















I'm having trouble getting motivated to race mountain bikes. I didn't do Horning's and I'm not doing Mudslinger this weekend. I signed up for Spring Thaw and I'm doing Return on the Jedi for sure. Those may be my only races until STXC starts.