Ouch!

Jak and I ride rather regularly with our friends Chris and Joe, who in normal life are Captains Myers and Patterson of the MP Brigade. While we would not normally advertise hanging around MP's (Military Police), they are wicked cool and fun to hang around with. After many attempts, they finally got us to go to a race with them this weekend down at Hohenfels. This area is normally known in the military community as an area in which to conduct miserable training (MSG Surratt sank a tank there), but the terrain is perfect for Mountain Biking. Considering it was the USAREUR championships this weekend, we really could not pass up the invite to ride. Kind of like Jak cannot pass up the chance to criticize my grammar and spelling as I write this. Anyway, long story short, we went down and Jak, Joe and I raced. Chris was out with a pulled back, though we are sure this is just a symptom of him being old and a West Pointer (Sarcasm). The course was a 3.5 mile lap that went down some awesome single track, went up a God-awful climb, wend down an even more awesome single track featuring a giant hole (more on that later) than took a long fire road climb to the start area. In the women's race, Jak did 5 laps of that and managed to fall into the giant hole only once! Despite the short detour to the center of the Earth, Jak took home the win in the Open Women category by a comfortable margin. In the men's race, I started off with the leaders before realizing that the leader was a 19 year old German prodigy on a 16 pound bike who apparently does nothing but train and inject EPO. Soon after that realization, my legs exploded, spraying the surrounding area with shrapnel and killing many of my opponents. Not really, my legs did explode and propel me back to the middle of the pack. By lap 3 my legs had come back to me, and by lap 5 I was back up higher in the rankings, crossing the line just in time for the German Prodigy to lap me for a second time as he won. This lapping coincided with my finishing my water and Nutri Grain as a hard bonk set in, leaving me to complete the remaining two laps with visions of Coke and Sugar Plums dancing in my head. Don't ask me where the Sugar Plums came from, or even what a Sugar Plum is, I was just really hungry. Though my body was now against me, I managed to finish with a respectable 3rd Place in the Men's Open, though many of the Master's smoked me. It was a great time, and Joe rode an amazing race to get 5th in the Masters, smoking me as well in the process. Much fun was had by all, and we retired to Grafenwoehr to consume large quantities of Mexican Food.
On Sunday, Operation Home Brew reached its second critical phase as we racked the beer into the secondary fermenter. We sampled a little and it tastes good, even though it has another week until bottling, and another week after that until normal drinking. At the risk of courting disaster, I think we may have a pretty good beer on our hands.
Throughout all of this, Aaron Burr was having a rare attack of well-behavedness. We are required by law and his threats of continuing cuteness to add this picture.