RM59

RM59? For those young enough not to know, it's the nickname for Robbie Miranda, bmx legend and now Sheriff in CA somewhere. Also, he grew up in Woodbridge just down the road from me in VA. When I first got back into riding again at Uni in about 96/97, I bought a Props video and made everyone watch it in the common room in my hall. Robbie's trails are on there and on saturday I got to ride them! Legend......ary! OK, so they are not the trails Robbie rode, they are undoubtedly smaller and a lot of the locals didn't even know who RM59 was, but the point is I got to ride there. It's like riding Sheep Hills in CA, the scene is synonymous with Robbie's name and that makes it pretty darn cool to me. Good thing is I also hit everything as well. OK, those of you that rode trails with me in England know that a) I'm crap at trails and b) they obviously weren't all that big. I'm guessing nothing more than 20ft and nothing over about 6 or 7ft high, but it was fun and great for my confidence and learning new skills. Still, it pissed it down after an hour and that was the end of the session, but it left me on a high all weekend.

So I've been putting the hours in on the bike over the last week, rode everyday since last mondays weights session and to be honest I'm fooked now, my legs are like jelly.

I hit gate practice friday night out at Severn, in Maryland. Rode with some of the Felt team (Matt Kelty and Austin Loebbe) and my good buddie Chris Agard. Chris is in my class and let me say this he rips, flats or clips, he will kill anybody down the first straight. He was on Kelty's backwheel most of the night. Kelty is 19 and A pro, Chris is 34 and has a family! He has trained super hard this winter and its showing, I was a couple of bike lengths behind all the time, even if I had my disco slippers on it wouldn't have made any difference. Props due for sure. We had a good session and Matt almost tripled the third straight. Bubba Harris is the only person to have done it so far, but I think Matt will get it before the summer is done. I managed to jump out of the step-up and into the rollers. Something I have been wanting to do for a while. It's not a big gap at all, just very tricky. Also, got the bump jumps down on the last straight, hit them all. Damn it feels good.

Saturday did some work at Woodbridge track ready for the national in a few weeks. Northern Monkey and family will be here for that one so it should be a fun weekend. Nothing to scare you Rich, just learn to pedal manual this week :)

Sunday went out to Winchester to help the guys with their track rebuild. This place is coming on a treat and I reckon if they could get it properly surfaced it would be the best track in VA. It's got some big jumps, some technical jumps, it's long and suits power riders and tech riders. Wait that's a proper bmx track, whats going on! They are getting the start hill and first and last berm paved this week. Have to give a shout to Kevin Lochner and Jason Morgan for the effort these guys have made as well as Chad Powers for helping them on the initial rebuild, its looking good.

OK, so I've been doing a bucket load of riding, so there has to be a catch. The wife has been really good about letting me get in a lot of riding and training. She knows I had a poop winter with a bad knee and cold weather, so I've been very lucky. Normally I only ride one day at the weekend so we can do stuff together the other, but she has been super cool the last few weeks. I think she has a secret plan though. It's her 30th soon, I think I am going to get a "well I let you ride all the time so I want something sparkly for my birthday" kind of comment. She probably deserves it and is very patient with me seeing as I am a muppet most of the time. I guess the Harley will have to wait until after her 30th then!