Jay Richards

The hot tub heater cut out the other day and there was a small leak. The water check valve was toast, literally. There was a small crack on the metal plate the seats the blower and igniter side of things. The crack was allowing heat to escape and the water check valve has a piece of plastic in it (go figure, inches away from 1000 degree temps) and that had melted, causing the leak. There are a bunch of safety checks on that heater so the thing shuts down when something like that goes bad. Luckily we had a replacement one when we bought whole new heater to replace the coil pack or "burner" instead of just the part because the parts on that thing are just about the same as buying a whole new unit. That didn't solve the problem so long story short, we basically rebuilt a new heater today with parts from three different heaters, using the best parts from all three. Got everything put back together and it worked!! Was afraid we would have to buy a new heater which runs around 2k.
I didn't think it would be possible for more trees to come down after the hurricane like winds in early May, but more have. Jake blew out some of the singletrack this week that wasn't used in the May race and I rode it early this morning and there are so many trees down it tires me out thinking about it. Mowing, riding and working in the woods this week has been interesting with all the rain. Its been more mowing then anything with the 5" of rain and tropicalike conditions. However, the riding has been good and the course from the May race is in great shape and just working on keeping that clean for now. Jake rode the other night all the time it was raining. He was solid black when he got done. Said he had a blast. I said that was good he went out. If you don't train in it, you won't know how to race in it. Some guys see a rain cloud a 100 miles away and they won't ride. I'm like Irina Kalentyeva, WC winner last weekend, bring on the rain. Seems like less and less mud races compared to the 90's. Remember Welch and chances are Laddies will be wet. Anyways...
The new mower cuts nicely on the trails. Nifty place to hold the chainsaw as well. I think I need to shave my legs. Tonight Jon had baseball practice with a practice game so I was going to ride in the beautiful weather for a few hours and catch the last hour of baseball. Well, I didn't make it more than 2 miles out of the west side of DL and....KaBoom...my tire/rim got Zigsed.

Guess these Bontrager rims have a shelf life.Exact same thing happened to me as it did to Zigs on that Resort ride last year. It was crazy. Cars stopped, joggers took cover. It was loud. So I rode for maybe 7 min and walked back through DL for 25. Dogs are barking right now. Must be that blue moon all the goofy stuff that happened today.