Georgia, Nashville, Georgia, Memphis, Georgia...

Leading the charge up Texaco Hill
during the 2012 Dirty Kanza 200 gravel
road race in Emporia, KS (on the left)

My first encounter with a

timber rattler, glad I got the

drop and struck first

Recently I've been bouncing back and forth between Georgia and Memphis as I go through yet another school and also try to get time with family on the weekends. I've still managed to enter some races though and the trails out here in Georgia and just across the border into South Carolina are awesome. So far I've managed to enter three Category 1 mountain bike races. The Legend of Stanky Creek in Memphis, the Georgia State Championship Series in Helen, GA, and the Sizzler in Greensboro, NC. Including the Dirty Kanza 200 gravel grinder and two marathon XC races in Kansas earlier this year my racing season has been all over the map!

Getting schooled in the fine art of
running by Eric, looks like his
running form is shaping up nicely

Most of my training rides have been in the awesome Fork Area Trail System (FATS) just across the Savanna river into South Carolina. It features six sweet professionally built trails that span over 25 miles and flow like no other. There's also some great riding up at Modoc (aka Stevens Creek) and Wine-Turkey Creek, but I can honestly tell you that I'm anxious to get home to Memphis and start pushing down the Strava times on my local trails there. Next up I'm planning on doing my first ever 12 hour XC mountain bike race, hopefully on a new Salsa Spearfish. That should dampen the grueling mileage a little...I hope. It'll be back home at Stanky Creek, which should be good since I achieved my highest Cat 1 finish there to date.

Getting ready to ride with Heather

on the Wolf River blue trail

Also, there's a BMX course near us in Memphis and, as you can see, Eric is getting into the swing of things. Hopefully he'll be up for some BMX training when I get home so we can hit the races on Saturday at Shelby Farms! Heather's also getting in some riding and we recently took on the blue trail (aka WRT North) at the Wolf River Trail system just east of Memphis at Shelby Farms. Now we need to get the girls out there on their bikes and this might just turn into a family affair yet!