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Updates on Bromont and the adventures of the last few days coming soon. One word, though...RAIN. :(

4x Practice Canceled...

The track is a muddy mess, so they canceled practice yesterday. The sun has been out for about 30 seconds now, so hopefully it'll keep drying things out, as there was a nasty rumor that they might cancel it all together. That would suck, as this silly hotel is gonna end up costing me more than my rent for the month!!! :( Keep your fingers crossed for sunshine!!

MSA

Buhly and I made it up to MSA courtesy of her speedy pick up and driving at the Burlington airport. It was pretty funny, at one point she pointed out how fast she was going, and I said, "But you're going 10 under the limit"...Duh, we were in Canada and the speed limit is 100 km/hr, so by going 90 mph, she was actually going almost 40 km/hr over the limit here. haha

Quebec is a lovely place with lots of rivers and waterfalls. Unfortunately it's PISSING rain here which clearly makes everything nice and green, but it makes for crappy bike riding. The 4x track, besides not being done yet, is a disaster...SO muddy! Our practice might get cancelled today in an attempt to salvage the track for a bit longer. I'll post some pics a little later. The track is totally different from last year with lots of rocks and some HUGE jumps at the bottom. It should be fun, not matter what, but if it keeps raining, it'll be a shit show for sure!

The Start of 4X

The Gnar Rollers that are Soupy in the Middle

These Don't Look Nearly As Big as the Really Are!

I'm off to find Joanna, as the rumor is that she broke her arm and looks like she got in a fight. Apparently she crashed while riding on Tuesday. Boooooooooooo!!!! Mid season is no time to get hurt on a training ride. Send her speedy healing thoughts!

Jo Jo's Broken Wrist :(

And We Wonder Why There Are Problems!

Okay, well it seems that the voting rules were unclear to me before. Apparently, you have to have gone to World Championships in the last 10 years or have placed in the 50% of the Pro field at National Champs in the last two years to be able to vote for the MTB Athlete Nominees. Don't get me started on why this is obviously a bad and an elitist way to do this. So, sorry if I sent any of you on a wild goose chase trying to vote on the USA Cycling webpage!!!

Photo Shoot with Seth

I got to spend the day with an amazing photographer, Seth Hughes, yesterday. Seth wanted to add some MTBing images to his diverse outdoor action sports portfolio, and I agreed to give it my all to be his subject. We headed up to Sol Vista to get some shots in. It's a pretty scenic place up there, so we didn't have too much trouble finding a good background! :)

Here is a link the photos that Seth took yesterday. The moral of the story for me was that my serious face looks like a pissed off face, as I don't spend too much of my time being too serious! (I'm not sure, but hopefully that's not a bad thing!) Also, taking your helmet on and off doesn't do much for your hair! haha

Also, Seth and his girlfriend Andrea did a 6 month walkabout in India and Southeast Asia, and of course he had his camera along for the trip...Check out the album, but be warned there is a HORRID snake partway through the slideshow, but it's so good, it's worth it!!

USA Cycling Elections

I am currently running for a mountain biking Trustee position with USA Cycling. There are three of us running for the Trustee positions, and I believe we'll all get nominated, however the one of us that receives the most votes will also be elected to serve on the USA Cycling Board of Directors.

I feel like the state of mountain bike racing, especially gravity racing, here in the US is in quite a state of disrepair. Something needs to change, and I'm really hoping that I get elected to the Board of Directors so I can help to change things.

The little write up that I had to do for the election website is below. If you've got an annual USA Cycling license, please go to their website, log in to your online account, and VOTE FOR ME! :)

Thanks!!!
___________________________________________________________________

Hi, my name is Neven Steinmetz, and I’m interested in becoming the new Gravity NORBA Trustee with USA Cycling. I have been racing gravity events since 2003, having turned Pro in 2006. Throughout this time, I have been involved with bike racing in many different aspects from a sport level racer, to a professional world cup racer, to a race promoter. I have participated in races in many locations throughout the US and Europe, seeing first hand how different promoters, communities, and racers embrace our sport. I think there is a huge potential for the advancement of gravity racing on many different levels here in the US, from a riders standpoint as well as from the standpoints of sponsors and spectators.

When I’m not racing bikes, I am pursuing my PhD in Tissue Engineering. I’m attempting to use stem cells from bone marrow to develop a therapy to generate new cartilage and bone for people with osteoarthritis and damaged joints. I can only hope that none of you will actually need therapy like this when you are done racing and riding, a long, long time in the future!!

I am very excited about the possibility of representing the gravity community as a voice with our licensing governing body. The gravity community as a whole has been growing significantly in the last 5 years with many new people of all ages starting to ride and race. I feel that I would be a very good representative for voicing our accolades as well as our concerns with the state of gravity mountain biking in the US. I know that I am not alone when I say that I have had several periods of frustration with different aspects of our sport/racing over the past several years, and I want to be able to help the sport take a step in a positive direction for everyone who enjoys the gravity side of mountain biking! This sport has so much to offer everyone involved, so we need to make sure that the future of the sport is open-minded and beneficial for everyone from the Junior Beginner to the fastest Pro on the circuit!

I am very passionate about riding and racing bikes and love helping new people get into this amazing sport. I will represent the gravity community and its best interests the best that I can for the next four years!

Happy Riding!! ☺

WARNING: Full Fledged Rant

So, I am not sure why it is so hard to find a good dentist! Ughhhhhh!!! I mean I really hate the dentist, and my experience today didn't make it any better. I have only found one dentist that I really liked, and of course my new insurance doesn't work there.

Today I had to have 3 cavities filled that I had been putting off for way too long. The best way that I can describe the dentist who did the fillings today was sloppy and inconsiderate! First off while he was in the middle of doing whatever the hell it was he was doing in my mouth, he dropped several of his utensils straight on my face without even so much as a, "Oh, I'm sorry." I guess he thought the Novocaine extended across my whole face and that my eyes didn't work anymore to see him bumbling around. Then I got up to use the bathroom mid adventure and realized that it looked like I had frosting all over my face and glasses. Nice.

Once the Dr. was done with his part, the technician lady started working on making my teeth feel "normal" again. She got about 10 minutes into it and started getting really annoyed every time I would tell her that they weren't back to normal yet. It required a lot of grinding, terrible noise, and horrible smell to achieve "normal", and she made me feel like I was being a whiny little brat for continuing to tell her that they weren't "normal". WTF?!?!? They're my teeth, you stupid witch, and it's your damn job to fix them!

Oh and then the Dr. popped in and mentioned that b/c of the nature of where the cavity was, some of the grinding had resulted in hitting my gums with the torture devices and that I as probably going to be pretty sore later on when the lovely numbing wore off...I guess this was an after thought for him, but seriously, I doubt the cavity was below the gums, in fact, I'm pretty sure they were on top. I'm guessing he is just a sucky careless idiot who shouldn't be entrusted with torture devices of that kind!!!

Needless to say...I wont' be going back there anytime soon! Sorry for the rant, I just can't believe how bad most dentists suck at their jobs!!

DH Girls Slumber Party + Phil

Team Effort to Get Phil's Test Done

Jess had been wanting to have a slumber party movie night for a long time, so last night Jess, Melissa, Caroline, and I decided to get some wine and watch Juno. Caroline showed up in the sweetest sleeping bag ever, it has arms, legs, and a hood!! We made it about 7 minutes into the movie before we started chatting too much to even bother watching it anymore! It was a good effort, though.

Round midnight, Caroline realized she was supposed to help Phil with his online midterm for his Nutrition class. Instead of blowing him off, she invited him over to the slumber party so we could all help him with his exam! Caroline and Jess had taken the class last semester, so they were big helps. I've never taken the class and had a couple of glasses of wine before Phil got there, so...don't think I was that much help. Anyway, he got it done and probably got a pretty good grade as well!

Just trying to crank through school stuff this week trying to get ready for the World Cups in Canada. I leave next Tuesday, so I've got tons to do before then!

Snowmass Quick Update

Sorry no pictures from the weekend, I was riding bikes all day every day it seemed, so no complaints here!! Just a quick update...I finished 2nd behind Melissa in 4x. Can't feel too bad about 2nd when the World Champ takes the win!! :) I felt pretty good on the track and hit almost everything I wanted to. It felt good to be back on my DJer. I just got her built up on Monday, and she's mint! I think the boys results were Ross Milan, Petr Hanak, Jon Watt, Erik Nelson, and Blake Carney.

They had a 65% new track for DH this year, and it was fun, fun, fun with a lot of scary mixed in for good measure. The part that made it scary was that it was flat out, high speed, with loose off-camber turns. Turns out, I used my brakes WAY too much!! haha Melissa killed it for the win. I ended up in 6th. The Yeti boys were ON FIRE today. Aaron Gwin took the win with Justin Leov and Sam Blenkinsop in 2nd and 3rd.

This was a UCI Cat 1 race which was cool that Bigfoot Productions made a huge effort to help the US guys have an opportunity to get some much coveted UCI points. Huge Props go out to them for their effort to be forward thinking in trying to advance gravity racing here in the US! Thanks you guys!!!

Laughter is the Best Medicine

I don't know why I always forget this, but anytime I'm feeling a bit shitty, usually a good dose of laughter makes things a whole lot better. Tonight it was courtesy of a little game called Apples to Apples plus some hooligan DHers: Jo Jo, Jess, Kevin, KB, Amy, and Cam. Holy crap, I haven't laughed that hard for that long in a really long time! I'm pretty lucky to have freaking hilarious friends!

Women's DH at the World Cups

Since I don't do DH at the World Cups, this isn't something that I've really mentioned on my blog. The UCI has changed the # of women who qualify for the finals from 30 to 20. They (the UCI) have said that their reasoning for this was that many of the guys had complained that there were too many slow girls on the track during practice. Well, this may or may not be the case, but their "solution" doesn't solve the "problem" at all. There is no practice in between qualifying and racing on race day, so the only thing that their "solution" does is have over a 1/3 of the field not end up getting to race. While many of the guys out there will say, "oh well, over half of the guys field doesn't get to race either..." That's true, however, in a sport that doesn't have that many girls participating in the first place, I don't think they should discourage the few that do spend lots of $$ to make it to the races with the hopes of actually getting to race!

Anyway, my friend Joanna has developed an online petition that you can sign in support of reinstating the 30 girls qualify rather than 20. Please go to the site and give it your e-autograph! Thanks, it's free and it only takes about 30 seconds!

OTB World's Update

Not a bad hotel room deck view!!

Well, it's been a bit over a week now that I've been back from the MTB World Championships in Italy. Wow, it is such a beautiful place, but it seems like I say that about just about all the places I've been lucky enough to visit to ride my bike at! :) This one was certainly no exception.

Two of Italy's musts...PIZZA

And Gelato!!

Once I finally got my bike and bag from the dumb airlines on Thursday, 3 hours before practice started, I had TONS of fun riding the 4x track. Some people didn't like it much, but I thought it was great. Apparently I really need to work on my cornering skills, though, as I had a slow qualifying run for no good reason at all other than I was riding like an idiot in the corners! At least this is something I can work on! Maybe I can hit up Melissa for some lessons! :)

4x track from the Gondola

Me and Jo Jo standing IN the last big double...huge!

Fee, Jo Jo, and me

I'll let you figure out for yourselves why this is funny!

This nice river split the pit areas in two

Since DH and 4x were inconveniently on the same day, we got to celebrate in fine fashion on Saturday night instead of having to wait till Sunday! In typical fashion, we were all a little bit late in getting our party pants on, so we had to cram a lot of fun into not very long. We got to hang out with a super cool couple from Oz, the Huntingtons, Sarcha and Randy! They were so much fun to spend the evening with. Sarcha and I decided to have a little dance party with ourselves and the Euro boys. Good fun for sure! Also, Fee borrowed some random bike lying around and proceeded to give us all lessons in parking lot tricks!

Fee showing off her p-lot tricks

Pauls eyes were either closed (2 shots) or clearly wide open here! Gave up after 3. :)

Jo Jo, Melissa (WOLRD FREAKING CHAMPION) and Me :)

Later on in the evening after many faint of heart had already retired for the evening, Rando stole a case of Red Bull which ended in Jo Jo about getting arrested and Fee clocking an Italian cop in the head. I'm pretty sure watching Fee land one on the grumpy cop and not get in trouble for it might have been the highlight of my evening, at least one of them!

Sunday was spent catching up on sleep and getting ready to head home early Monday morning. Boooooooo!!!! :( In the end my World's experience was a pretty darn good one, even though the airlines tried to ruin it and I didn't ride as fast as I would have liked! There are plenty more races this year to work on that, though! :)