On Saturday I took a belt test for my 2nd black stripe. I suffered a horrible, awful piece of bloody gnar (a.k.a. a pulled groin muscle) on a school backpacking trip last week, and didn't think I would be able to test. However, once I had warmed up and stretched it, I felt able to complete the test. I felt some pain on a few kicks, especially retreating kicks like badchagi and reverse narabon. The 360 spinning hook kick board break at the end was difficult but I got it on my fourth attempt. I'll hopefully be able to get a vid that a friend shot up here soon.
Today I did the season's second cyclocross event in Butte. I got a decent start, with the kid who wound up in second drafting off me on the asphalt path at the start, through the winding section and over the barriers. On the second asphalt section, I attacked and got a gap, which I built on for the rest of the race. After the secondary asphalt, a technical descent gave way to a relatively lengthy yet rideable run up. After another technical section, a sand pit was the only thing that stood in between me and the next lap. In practice, I flipped over my handlebars going into it. I didn't realize the damage to my bike until twenty minutes before the race. My front deraileur was stubbornly not allowing me to get off my big chain ring. A friend's dad did some quick repairs, and managed to force the chain to stay on the middle ring. It worked for the time being and I rode my semi-singlespeed bike to victory! There are so many photos of both events that I am including them in another post also going out tonight!
I was luckily able to start on the first row and went off fast in a low gear, which gave me momentum for the first climb and allowed me to open a small gap on the run up. I then flew through the course until the technical single track which I hit in too high a gear and had to slow up. Two other kids from a Helena team tried to chase me down halfway through the race but I held on and got the win!
After the race we drove to an undisclosed hunting location to try for Blue and Ruffed Grouse. We flushed one into a thicket and went down to try and scare it out. we went down to the thicket and it flushed towards me, but disappeared into some trees so the shot was withheld. We later heard a shot and discovered that other hunters had shot the same bird.
