Hi. By the hits here, a lot of people are very interested in how Dale Stetina is doing. I went out for a long-ish MTB ride here in Steamboat, out of cell range, and when I got back my phone and email was slammed with encouraging messages and calls from newspapers, tv and radio stations, asking about Dale. I’ve been in contact with Wayne Stetina pretty much all day and he has been handling most of the media stuff. Wayne is very good at compartmentalizing things in times of craziness it seems. He just sent me a link to a twitter account that will be doing updates often. This will be the best way for the family to give out current information that they feel is appropriate. Click here for the link to Dale’s twitter account. Wishing the best for all involved.

Dale at the ’77 National Road Champhionships.

This isn’t 100% for sure, but probably. If all goes as scheduled, I’m going to see the doctor on Wednesday and then have my thumb fixed on Thursday. It’s not something that I’m looking forward to. I’ve been sort of in denial, but that isn’t something that behooves a good outcome for this. I guess a thumb injury has a much higher chance of success the quicker it gets repaired. I think that the injury builds up scaring and that is harder to reattach than fresh, acute injury. I have a hard time believing that my thumb injury is acute, but that is what the MRI says, I guess. Maybe if anyone can understand the mumbo-jumbo below, let me know what you think.

We didn’t get to ride much yesterday. Spent most of the day doing core work. Lifting and moving wood. We had an all day, all night, all day fire going. Dennis had a lot of old wood laying around. Downed trees, un-splittable knots, etc. There is something about the smell of a wood fire close to fall. We all sat out there most of the night and just sat.

Today I think we are going up to Bayfield County up by Lake Superior. I’m not sure exactly what we are doing there. Picking some apples for sure. Maybe sea kayaking or canoeing in Lake Superior? The Porcupine Mountains? I’m not exactly sure. Any ideas? Seems like a good idea to take my mind off of more serious things.

I thought Sven Nys was going to win last night. I wasn’t sure he was going to smear everyone like he did. I guess he’s just that much better. He’s won both the races he’s done this year in the US, Cross Vegas and the World Championships. I think he came over here quite a while ago and raced in the Northwest, but I’m not positive about that. He was doing some of those after the Tour de France start $$$ races, so he had some form. And the course in Las Vegas doesn’t even suit his incredible technical skills.

Okay, I think I’ll go ride some. It is in the 60’s and muggy here. There is a cold front moving through, so the temperature is going to drop like a rock later.

Click to enlarge.

The fire was pretty hot.

This is a bottle that was in the coals for about 3 minutes.

Trudi was making s’mores.

We did a neighborhood tour and Hawkeye was hot.

I fell on a slick root riding down to swim in the lake. Obviously my chainring caught my calf. I have this exact “tatoo” under my hair by getting ran over in a Gant Challenge race back in the 80’s.

This is my friend George’s secret hid away out in the woods. It’s underground. He sneaks off in the middle of the afternoon to take naps and get some alone time from his kids.