It seems like when the Tour de France is over, everyone starts thinking about cyclo-x. This year it is earlier for me. I got a call a couple months ago about helping with an instructional video about cross. It is a company that makes videos for all sorts of sports, mainly American sports.

I thought it was going to be a low budget type deal, but when I got the explanation, I was surprised. They were planning to use Sven Nys as the instructor. They had a personal connection with Sven. That was a couple months ago and now it seems that Sven doesn’t want to do the DVD in English. He doesn’t feel comfortable with that. I told them it would be pretty useless in Flemish.

So, flash forward to now and it seems they want me to do the whole thing. Author, instruct, examples, etc. We didn’t really get down to the specifics, the time frame, or the content of each video, but the project seems interesting enough.

I stopped by their office on the way back from Cable for a chat and tour of the facilities. It is pretty impressive. They sell 1000’s of different videos about nearly all aspects of sports. Swimming stroke, starts, turns. Same with baseball, basketball, football, etc. It was amazing.

Hopefully they’ll do videos on all aspects of the sport of cycling, not just cyclo-x. I can’t seem to get any pictures to load today, so you’ll just have to believe me that the place is really impressive.

It is something that I’ve never done, so I’m kind of excited about the project. I do have all the necessary skills and knowledge, so that part is easy. It is early, but it should be fun.

This season has been pretty much a bust for me. I went into shoulder surgery pretty naïve figuring when I was told 6 weeks, I’d be riding in 4 and good to go in 8. That wasn’t close to the case. It’s nearly 5 months now and I can barely lift my arm over my head some days and there are tons of motions that I just can’t do as of yet.

That being said, I’ve also thrown myself on the ground some more, chopped myself with a chainsaw and have done various other things that have made racing difficult.

Anyway, I need to get a focus on what I want to do competitively the next couple months. Right now it seems my best form, which isn’t anywhere near my “best form”, is for MTB riding. I seem to have okay power sitting, climbing and really enjoyed getting my skill set back riding singletrack a couple weeks ago.

The only problem with this is that my right thumb is still jacked from crashing. This gamekeepers thumb thing got a lot better the first week and now is just in a steady state of pain. I can ride on the road, but it bothers me a lot. I’m pretty positive that there isn’t much medically that can be done with it. I’ve screwed it up a few times and every time I go to the doctor, it is the same thing. Maybe a cortisone injection would help reduce the inflammation, I don’t know. I don’t think I can screw up the tendon anymore than it is, since it isn’t attached anyway.

So, if my thumb stays bad, that probably rules out cross for a bit. Plus, it’s way too hot in most places to race cyclo-x. Cyclocross is a winter sport, even though we’ve pushed it to late summer, early fall now. I really don’t like going cross races and have the temperature be in the 80’s or worse 90’s. It just doesn’t seem right.

I was planning on racing the Crusher in the Tushar a couple weeks ago in Utah. Gravel road racing with horrendous climbs sounds fun. But, I crashed in Madison at Elite Road Nationals and really wasn’t prepared to head half way across the country to compete.

I’m glad I missed that one anyway. I’m really not big on lining up with Levi Lepheimer for any reason. I’m not sure why exactly, but out of all the US guys that “went down” with Lance, he is the one guy that bugs me the most. Like I said, I’m not sure why. Maybe it is because he sort of did the Lance thing on Floyd and made up a bunch of lies about him. Or maybe it is because he went to Leadville and beat up on Dave Wiens. Or maybe because he jumped into a MTB race when he was officially suspended. I’m not sure exactly, but for some reason he seems the least remorseful about the whole deal and he current actions just back it up more. So, Levi setting the record doesn’t seem squat to me. About the same as his Leadville record.

I got diverted there. So, back to a schedule. I obviously need to race so more to get some form back. Next weekend there are some criterium choices. The is a good race up in Des Moines, the East Village Criterium. It’s around the Iowa Capitol Building and has a climb each lap. There is also Elk Grove, which is only 2 criteriums for the 1/2’s. Leadville is still in the back of my mind, but that might be a stretch.

What I really need is a nice hilly road race. Maybe I’ll spend some time on the computer this morning and scout one out.

Below is Levi’s post race interview. It is perfect, I’m hearing exactly what I wanted to hear about his race.