This blog's been a wee bit quiet this year. I've been following the rule that if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. So here's a look back before I move on to what's coming next. I'm pretty sure that all the crap that was about to hit early in 2010 was purely the universe trying to achieve balance with the unparalleled beauty of my combover.

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It all started Christmas Eve. I know that's technically still 2009 but it was at the start of pre-season for 2010. Christmas morning I walked down to the car to find that Santa Claus had made this spectacular revision to the vanagon.

You can take my radio, but don't cut the wires asshole.

A week or two later I discovered that someone had obtained my debit card information and emptied my bank account.

I never liked that card.

Shortly after that I found this bit of luck as I rode past the vanagon on my way to work.

Okay, I'm a pussy.

Now all that is just life. Everyone has the world shit on them from time to time. The real bad news came when I got tested again. I was overtrained at the end of the 2009 cross season so I took December off to rest up. But after a month of solid training through January I was slower than after a month of sitting on my ass.

Testing Results

There's no use continuing to train myself into a hole so I sat on my ass for another month. At the end of February I was chomping at the bit to burn off some pent up aggression and entered the Ronde van Brisbeen. Low and behold five laps into the race I crashed and broke my clavicle.

Shoulders don't usually look like that.

Come. On. I'm trying really fuckin hard here but this is just bullshit. With a broken bone I was staring at another month off the bike at least. Thus I'd have one month of training out of the previous four months to kick off my 2010 season. My 2010 racing season was in serious jeopardy. Mountain biking in any form was out of the question until at least late summer. Road racing too. Training on the road is all I could hope for.

So I took a trip to Uruguay with Natalia where I temporarily adopted a stray dog.

I named him Fred.

Around that time there was talk of moving to Spain with Natalia. I always wanted to race in Europe and I was now staring at a perfect opportunity to move there to live and race, compounded by the fact that my 2010 race season was already in the shitter I jumped at the chance. Who wouldn't? So I shelved the turd formerly known as my 2010 season.

But alas, after planning and coming to terms with the job market there, in combination with my leftover 2009 racing debt, the financials of moving to Spain just weren't panning out. So I bit the bullet and got an apartment. After moving ten times in 2009 I finally had a place to call home.

I'll take it.

But this place was small, and I didn't own a bed. Since I fancy myself an amateur woodworker I decided to build a bed that I could store my bikes under. It was originally supposed to be just a quick, crappy loft that I'd whip up in a weekend. But I often get carried away with my projects, and this one was no exception. In short order I was figuring out ways to hide all the screws and bolts. The damn thing even has adjustable legs.

There goes my June.

There was still a notion that I would try to salvage what I could of the upcoming cross season but alas putting together an apartment from scratch is ten times harder than I thought it would be. I never thought much of a place to sit until I didn't have one.

Living out of the vanagon is not overrated.

At this point my 2010 racing season was hosed. I figured I'd live a little. I bought another surfboard since I sold my old one last year. But it was the most soul sucking blue I've ever seen. I had to jazz it up a bit or I'd end up on suicide watch for sure.

Brando

'I coulda had class, I coulda been a contender, I coulda been somebody, instead of a bum.' That sums it up pretty well.

The rest of 2010 was filled with random shenanigans and such.

Diego's short lived rap career.

Murphball at the Locust

Diego became one of the true masters of fetch.

Natalia's hair saw a rainbow of colors in 2010.

Riding with Lander in Tahoe. I know, I should stick to bikes.

You'll notice that the name of this site is StarvingCyclist not StarvingKirt. There were plenty of great things that happened this year but they didn't have anything to do with cycling.

That's it. Goodbye 2010, Hello 2011.

December 31, 2010