Nonsense: A History...In Brief

In describing one's own history what boundaries should be established to capture a reader's attention? Too detailed a narrative could quite possibly yield many yawns and a severe lack of interest from a pair of tired eyes. Therefore, I will keep this autobiographical scripture brief, including only key pieces of information that will directly affect future articles. I feel any information contained in the first 16 years of my existence is irrelevant, leaving my 17th year of life as my starting post. This 17th year was clearly the most cycling influenced.

Spencer, WV is a small farming community with little in the ways of the real world, but has been dubbed "a good place to raise the kids". Within this township lives a man by the name of Steve Garrett. Steve opened the door to the realm of mountain biking to me when I was 17 and I have been hooked ever since. It was the summer of 2002 when Steve and his girlfriend, Karen Phegley, took me under their wings to nurse me into respectable mountain biking condition. We rode very often, trail or road, whatever fancied our fancy. Under Steve's prodding I slowly began to hone essential mountain biking skills.

That summer of 2002 I tagged along with Steve and Karen entering a handful of WVMBA points series races to help further immerse myself into the grassroots culture of riding. Three races into the season I found myself sitting in the woods near Morgantown, WV staring at my very own right patella saying the word, "fuck" repeatedly. Yes, I had indeed biffed hard. It was the Henry Clay 30K Mountain Bike Race. My “fucks” were not the end result of pain signals being transmitted to my brain, but the conscious thought that the gaping hole in my right leg would keep me off of any bike for a significant amount of time.

Fuck. Bummer dude.

Sometime in August I healed. I helped Steve pull honey for a week and then we ventured to ride the WV scenic highway on road bikes. It would be my first ride of any sort since the Henry Clay disaster. After 66 miles of continuous road cycling, walking was not a trick I had up my sleeve. My legs were comparable to the spaghetti I had eaten the night before, but, damn, it was good to be riding again. Steve, Karen, and I went on to conduct many riding expeditions throughout the fall of 2002 and after a mellow winter things picked back up in the spring of 2003.

Juggling between sleeping through my senior year, road cycling, and mountain biking I was whipped into decent riding shape and was prepared to endure a full WVMBA season. Completing a full WVMBA season was, of course, impossible as I had signed my youth away to the Army 7 days after graduating from high school. I squeezed in 10 races prior to my June 10th report date at Fort Jackson, SC. Racing during the spring of 2003 was a great experience as I was able to ride all over the great state of WV and meet plenty of the rad people that hung out on the scene. My short racing career ended with the Appalachian Classic in Calhoun County, WV and shortly after the race my long golden locks of hair were snipped from my white boy dome at a post race party.

Riding faded from my life for the next two years while I adjusted to my new Army life.

After serving in South Carolina, Texas, and Korea I was implanted in Georgia. Aaahhh...Georgia. The Peach State. After approximately two years of being off of a bike, I was thrown a life buoy in the form of Andy Jordan's Bike Warehouse located in my new hometown of Augusta.

Augusta. Two words. Masters and ghetto. Don't waste your energy denying it.

I purchased a Giant Trance 3, my first bike, from Andy, Drew, and Nate of the Warehouse. The full suspension was quite delicious gulping up obstacles that my previously borrowed hardtail could not. Yet, during the spring and summer of 2005 my aluminum horse was not ridden to its fullest capacity, because of "love".

I was foolish, she wasn't meant to be, and then I deployed to Afghanistan. It was August of 2005.

My 8 month tour on Bagram Airfield actually helped resuscitate my passion for riding. I missed it. I yearned for it. I had been letting my Trance pony down! On April 15th, 2006, after 20 some odd hours of air travel I finally returned to wonderful Disgusta, GA.

Insert humidity here...

I had left my Trance in Steve's bike barn back in WV. 10 days after my return I collected my ride and it was on.

I have now reached the present and the end of this verse...

Nonsense: Spam, Spam, Spam, And Spam

Apparently I am a heinous ass of a spam blogger. The blogger.com team recently informed me, via email, that my blog had been locked, because it met certain criteria that hinted it was a spam of a blog. I think MONTY PYTHON did a skit on spam once.

Wench: "We have eggs, spam, spam, spam, ham, and spam."

I am neither Mr. Clease, nor Mr. Graham. I could never be so clever.

It is true, though, that I have not published a post for 14 days. This is due to two things.

1.) I am currently in Afghanistan and I don't have loads of free time.

2.) I am writing everything down in my wonderful Moleskine notebooks (Dearest Dani) and intend to publish my writings as posts in one fell swoop.

Until then, sit down and enjoy some spam.