Tim Racette

Well, we’ve made our migration to Colorado for the summer. As I sit here on this May the 21st and look out the window, there are about 8″ of snow on the ground that fell last night… so, I guess it’s not quite summer yet.

A lot of house projects happened this spring. I finished the front and back yard which involved spreading rock and adding a brick apron along the edges of the driveway. Finally got my kitchen (base) trim finished, will do the crown molding in the fall along with the backsplash and live edge shelf that we’re going to finish and stain.

Our orange tree is doing super well and is surprisingly bustling with fruit so we should have full blown oranges come next fall.

I finished the MBAA season strong with wins at White Tanks and Prescott and won the series overall for the 2nd time. May was pretty busy with races. I tried my hand at gravel racing with the Chino Grinder and placed 4th. It was a really, really fun day (albeit 115 miles), but the riding company was good and the pace not too terrible (until the end :).

The Epic Rides Whiskey Off Road and Grand Junction Off Road events were my big two for the spring. Whiskey had some rider traffic issues that put a bit of a sour end to what started as a good ride, I finished 11th.

The Grand Junction trails are the most technical and fun anywhere. I had a really strong race and finished 4th.

Lots of summer trips planned including a few of the Big Mountain Enduro races and then Mountain Bike Nationals right here in Winter Park, CO before heading back to Arizona. Until then…

There’s something magical about the desert in the winter time, especially after a good rain (which we’ve had plenty of this year). The flowers pop, the mountainside is covered in bright green grass, not what you’d expect in Arizona, and snow!

We had a massive winter system come through AZ this past week that dumped record snow up north in places like Flagstaff, something like 36 inches in 24-hrs. The snow made it all the way down as low as Scottsdale which is pretty rare to see, let alone have inches of standing snow for a few days.

At the end of January I did a big two week block of training, one of my favorite two weeks of the year where I map out new (and some old fun) routes to explore by bike. This year I went to all 6 major dams in the area including 4 on the Salt River Canyon where Arizona gets it’s drinking water. Some new higher tech gates prevent you from getting quite as close as in years past, but I was able to walk out onto the spillway of Horseshoe Dam because water wasn’t flowing.

Race wise, I knocked off Estrella and Havasu, races 2 and 3 in the MBAA series. It’s fun to be able to jump into some early season low pressure races with good competition to prime the engine for the bigger races to come. Next up is Cactus Cup in March, then the big races start in April with the Whiskey Off-Road.

This is the time of year for visitors. Ryan and Cole stayed the weekend to race Estrella. Evie’s mom Connie came out to escape the cold of South Dakota and our friends Chloe and Rose stayed with us for a training camp they were doing here in the valley. Then my sister and brother in-law paid us a visit. We had a great time hiking, playing Top Golf, and enjoying the sunshine.

Another overdue update coming up. Let’s see, In October my dad and I hike the Black Canyon of the Gunnison, it’s about a 2000′ descent down to the river and really, really steep. The weather was perfect and the park was empty. Then, we spent the next two weeks remodeling the kitchen.

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Prior to our hiking trip, I got things prepped and painted, took out a pantry so that we could install more cupboards and counter space. Cabinets were set to be delivered and countertop installer was on standby. All in all things worked out great. We had a few issues with some of the cabinets going missing, but they showed up just in time to finish the job.

Evie wanted a farmhouse sink which involved opening up the wall and lowering the drain. We also got a Delta touch faucet and put in an over the range exhaust hood. New cabinets, flooring, swapped out a bedroom window, can lights in the garage, new water heater, we packed a lot into just a few weeks and had a great time.

I still have to finish up the trim, but it’s quite a transformation.

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After a couple week break from the kitchen I went ahead and finished the circle patio in the back yard. The last piece before we add the rock to fill things in. Evie picked out the patio furniture on Wayfair and now our backyard is nearly complete!

We spent Thanksgiving in Colorado Springs and the weather was mild. When we got back to Arizona, with the weather near perfect it was time to shift gears and start riding again. I love this time of year because of the ability to go on long exploration rides and call it base training. I found a cool geocache on one of my rides to the highest point in Scottsdale.

Christmas we spent in Antioch, the weather wasn’t too bad. We also had great luck with flights on Allegiant yet again as they started flying right into Milwaukee from Mesa which makes things super easy. After Christmas Evie’s parents and our nieces and nephews came for a visit. They had a blast riding bikes and learning about the desert. We took them to the McCormick-Stillman Railroad Park in Scottsdale, the model train exhibit was out of this world.

Last weekend kicked off the first race of the MBAA series and my first race of the year, McDowell Meltdown. We had a record turnout of 984 racers and a lot of horsepower in the elite fields. I jumped in the marathon race between helping run the event which makes for a long, but super fun and rewarding day. Always great to see so many familiar faces and catch up with good friends.

A few more random pictures. Until next time…

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