Jay Richards

Monday it rained most of the day. Kids got a little stir crazy so in the afternoon they went out and hit the Kids Comp course. Jonell told them to wear dark clothes or they couldn't go out. Jens rode down the big Toot hill when it was wet. I missed out on the fun, getting caught up on some inside stuff I have been putting off since it has been so nice outside.

Last night we hit the Rollag group road ride again. Another perfect night for riding and some great, fast riding. Jake is figuring out where the sprints are now so he road a bit smarter and was second to Rollag.


Today we finished brushing and blowing out the singletrack. Jake and I did all of it ourselves this year. We had a foreign worker come the end of June but he only lasted one day. His name was Fucho and he was from Poland. One day working on the new singletrack to the west did him in. He thought he would just leave so he started walking down the Goat Ranch road and Jonell happened to be coming down. He was jumping up and down, waving his hands yelling "where is the bus" "where is the bus stop, I need to catch plane Fargo." His plane was leaving in 45 min.and Fargo airport is at least a hour away. He was walking east and Fargo is west. Jonell came back, saw my dad and he went and picked him up. Twice he tried to leave. We were not supposed to let him go which is kinda crazy because how do you do that without doing something you don't want to do. Long story short, he did the proper papers and I guess he is working in NY at a grocery store, making $1000 a week. Scott went back home a few weeks ago and Peter had some issues so the grass is a bit longer than usual in some places but we have saved gas, money, and Jake and I have been taking care of it. Anyways, we rode a few laps tonight and the track was perfect. Riding easy, kinda hard here and there, we did each sport/expert lap around 40 min. My hot lap, which I did last week has been around 33 min and Jake around 35+.The rain from Monday tacked everything nicely and no dust or loose stuff. We did some pulaski work as well on one of the drops down to Bullhead lake and it rides much cleaner now. We'll blow the whole course out again on Wed or Thurs of race week, cut a few more trees, some touch up brushing but otherwise things are looking great.




I have been cutting out a fair number of trees which is making sections faster. Bit too fast in some spots. This downhill rides much better now with a tree out from the left and more room to rail it. There is still one rock you have to make sure you don't hit otherwise you will be swimming.

Jonell put up a hummingbird feeder this week and I really like watching those things. One will come in, feed then another comes in and chases it away and they fight and then a third and fourth sneak in and feed while the other ones chase each other. Today there were three feeding at the same time and I have never seen that before. I guess when we lived up in the mountains in MT we did but that was because we had a 8" dump of snow the middle of June and they were freezing, hovering around feeder trying to survive. Lots of birds died that day, poor things. I told the next batch we should mix things up and instead of sugar water, we should try a energy drink or something with more complex carbs. Right now they get a shot, fly around like crazy on a sugar high, crash, come in for a boost then do it all over again. Maybe they could pace things out if they took shots of Heed instead or something.