Back in Georgia
I am. Last weekend we were up in Ohio for a coaching clinic. That was cool,
we were treated well, I learned a fair bit – like how to change cassettes and
set up PowerTaps. There’s probably something else to be told, but nothing is
as cool as what happened on the way home:

So, Sunday evening
we started the long, long drive back to GA, but Jacob decided, and I breathed
a ginormous sigh of relief, that we would stop in Spencer, West Virginia (Back
Home for Jacob) for the evening. We were rolling on southward, Jacob got off
the highway pretty early on in WV and we were roaring toward Spencer…one sign
read like 20 miles. I was getting excited. The drive was almost over, and I
won’t lie, I like everything about Jacob’s house, family, area.

AND THEN…

Disaster strikes.

Bridge out, road
closed, no way around. This was bad. The Come Apart Meter was already about
to explode after a long weekend of testing and talking and generally being nice
and polite, and then just miles from Eden, the road is blllllocked.

Now, the only other
recourse was to apparently drive ALL the way back on the tiny road to the highway
from whence we had come, drive down the highway for a long long while, and THEN
get back on a tiny WV road to hopefully get to Spencer by next Summer sometime.

Jacob was having
NONE of it, so, like any mad mad would do, he took the first available turn
in a desperate attempt at saving the day.

So we drove up
this here little road. It was pretty small, but no smaller than all of the other
roads. There were trailers here and there, and even some real houses – all cool.
Then the pavement ended and the gravel began – again, nothing out of the ordinary
– something liek 41% of the roads in WV are unpaved. We continued onward, through
many different forks in the road. At one point we came across a desolate church
with two horses roaming through the graveyard. It was, um, Sleepy Hollow-like.

Well, since we’re
talking about WV, Sleepy Holler.

So at this point,
I turn to Jacob and say: "Do you think this is going to dead end?"

He’s like, oh definitely,
but we’re just going to keep going out of principle.

Cool, I had nothing
else better to do.

Then the road just
started to really get sheisty – I’m talking boulder sized rocks, grass growing
in the middle and absolutely no sign of life. At some point we came across an
opening in the trees and way far down below (I mean WAY down below), there were
some lights. Interesting.

Right about that
time, the road went down real quick like, so we went down down down down. As
the road levelled off, to my right I saw a small foot bridge. Hmmm, interesting.
And then like two seconds later, we come to a definite dead end – a river.

The river was at
least 30 yards long, and it didn’t look shallow. On the radio, Hank Williams,
Jr. comes on and starts to tell me how a Country Boy Will Survive. With that,
Jacob put it in reverse, got a good running start, and we tore right the hell
through that river. I swear to GOD we were about two inches away from not making
it through, but we did. It was the coolest thing ever.

Wait, it gets cooler.

So we pull back
out on the main road and we see a road block sign – we look over and that was
the same bridge out that we had run into BEFORE doing our grand adventure, except
for one thing: we were on the other side of the river now.

We had crossed
that sumbitch.

Coolest thing pretty
much ever.

Check out my eBay
store boys and
girls.

That’s all for
now. Happy Thanksgiving.

It feels like I
just got back from West Virginia, and once again it’s time to go for a long,
long drive. Jacob and I are leaving for Cleveland, Ohio in the morning to do
a two-day coaching clinic. Jacob will be the coach, and I’ll be the, um, assistant.
Whatever, it’ll be cool I guess – it’s looking to be some hard work, but fun
and interesting, not to mention the chance to go to a city I’ve never been to,
to learn more about coaching and the coaching process. Seems like a cool plan
to me…

We’re stopping
somewhere in Virginia to ride on the way up to Ohio. Apparently, it’s going
to be colder than the North Pole, so I went through my boxes of stuff and pulled
out the ice cold riding attire. Riding in the cold, so hot right now.

Speaking of cold…it
hasn’t been cold at all here in Georgia the past few days. It was mid 70’s just
two days ago, and if I wasn’t told otherwise, I’d swear it hit 80 that day.

Speaking of the
past few days…three things:

New bike, lifting,
and working.

New bike: I got
Jacob’s old CSK, which Jacob built up for me and got all set up nice and beautiful-like.
The bike is fricking unbelievable, smaller than the Bianchi, but perfectly fit,
quick, agile, stiff, comfy, christ, it feels perfect. CSK – hot hot hot.

Lifting – started
lifting on Monday – one set of 15 reps over a lot of different exercises, and
then a run… I could barely walk yesterday, and then this morning, right when
I thought I was doing ok, and could manage walking without my knees buckling
– we lifted again, and now I’m back to Square One. Ow. Lifting is cool. I think
it’ll be by far the most painful thing I do all winter, not to mention the hardest.
That’s a good thing – I can get tougher AND stronger. Sounds good to me…if
that’s how it works out…and that’s how it WILL work out…I think…no really…this
train of thought is stupid.

Working – Jacob
and I painted and re-routed/cleaned the Dowd’s garage. That was a pretty cool
project. 13 hours later, the garage is nice and new looking with a fresh paint
job, the door into the house is freshly painted, there’s new outdoor carpet
on the garage steps and along one wall of the garage. The garage has been cleaned
out of old junk, re-organized, and just in general looks DAMN good. That was
a pretty cool project, and I’m mildly pleased with it, even happier that Jacob
didn’t assassinate me for being so slow and retarded most of the time. I don’t
move very quickly for the most part. I need to work on that.

Seriously, I’m
always late, always always always – even if only by a couple of minutes. So
I’m working on it. I’ve done pretty ok this week – definitely better than the
past, um, 22 years of my life.

Check out my interview
with Paul Sherwen on PEZ – it’s pretty cool. Paul was a really nice guy to talk
to and an incredible treasure trove of stories and commentary. I could have
talked to him for ages and ages.

I actually have
a few more interviews that I’m working on for PEZ
over the next month or two: Nicole Cooke, Trent Wilson, Magnus Backstedt, Bobby
Julich, Bruno Risi, Ivan Dominguez… I think that’s everybody, pretty cool,
huh? I just wrote to them all through their respective websites (except for
Ivan), asking for an interview – and they actually wrote back. I wrote to at
least 20 more, but those other people decided they didn’t want to write me back.
Whatever, that’s cool. I want to interview Jan Ullrich dammit.

Alright, that’s
it for me. Off to Ohio early tomorrow morning. I get to get up at 545 in the
a.m. to drive back to Athens to get ready for an 8 a.m. depart. Good fun, only
12 hours to Cleveland.

So the trip to West Virginia
was pretty much the coolest thing since…ever. I guess we were there exactly
one week and got in oh so close to 30 hours in five days of training. That’s
pretty cool. Not to mention the fact that it was arguably the hardest five days
of training in my entire, lengthy (ha), career. Career? I guess I can’t use
that word, I think you have to actually be fast first to say that, just like
I can’t ‘retire’ from cycling, it would be more like, um, quitting. Lance Armstrong
retires.

Anyways…there was definitely
something good to be taken away from it all – I got better as the training went
along. That’s probably the first time that’s ever happened to me. On the last
day, I felt 10 times better than I did the first day. Maybe it was just lucky,
but I’d like to think I got like 1200 times faster in five days. Or maybe not.

West Virginia…only the
most beautiful country I’ve seen in a long while. And yes, it is a different
country. It might be within the confines of the USA, but I’m surprised there
isn’t a border control, different currency, and a whole new government. There’s
definitely a different language. No really, it’s just awesome. I can’t even
attempt to try and explain it, but hopefully I’ll get some pics up soon to show
it. Even that won’t do it justice. I loved it. Jacob’s family was super super
nice to feed this cow of a human being (me)… Mrs. Fetty made me a happy happy
boy everyday when we came home to some sort of sweet treat. I mean seriously,
it was like Heaven. Nah, I don’t want to sound all sweet and nice and stuff,
but it was awesome, and I can’t wait to get back there and get me some more
deer.

Yeah, we got two deer. We
got meat baby! The skinning/butchering of two deer was probably the most sobering
experience I’ve had in a long while, but Jacob’s dad made it good fun.

Now I’m home again…working…and
not training. Last week was the end of season training camp, and this week is
the week off between seasons. I’m building up ‘my’ ‘new’ bike – a sweet CSK.
First off, it’s not ‘mine’ yet, as I still have to get Jacob 200 dollars, and
the bike is only ‘new’ in the sense that I’ve never ridden it before, but Jacob
has. The Bianchi is going to be sold, and hopefully I can get enough to pay
for that as well as the CSK. If not, I’ll cry.

The CSK has thebikegame.com
stickers all over it. thebikegame.com – stickers – so hot right now.

I guess that’s about it…I’m
looking forward to getting back to training, two or three days off and I’m already
getting itchy for more riding. I’ll probably get more than my fill of riding
in the coming four months.

Question for next season
– to Cuba or not??? Mr. Papp has contacted me about Cuba… I’d love to go,
I’ve got a serious bone to pick with the race, and there’s a possibility for
probably a SMOKING story as well. Then there’s the fact that I’ll probably get
completely worked over in some way at the race. It’s a tough decision. As it
stands, unless I get some kind of funding to make the trip free, I don’t think
I’ll go. I got burned last year trying to make it work, and I won’t get burned
financially. Can’t do that.

We’ll see.

Fettytraining.com good stuff
– treats you right, trains you hard, and at an oh so reasonable price. I mean,
obviously, for coaching, I like to think I’m worthy, but who am I kidding, Jacob
has me beat with like 5000 years more experience, and he’s tough as shit, I’m
kinda tough like pudding, working on firming up though!