It is hard to find a better place to be then Northern California in early fall. I came here directly from Las Vegas after a couple fun nights along side team manager Ty Kady. I find it interesting how you get really excited about going to Vegas but then after 1 or 2 days you want to leave. I flew into Santa Rosa Airport, and was picked up by my American Godfather Roger Bartels, the self proclaimed “fastest dentist on earth.” Along with 5-6 other guys we drove to the Golden Gate Bridge, parked the cars and rode our bikes across the bridge in howling fog, and continued past fisherman’s Warf to our final destination a San Francisco, Giants game. The Giants lost in the 9th inning but it was a great night.

In the last week I have done some killer, and I mean killer Mountain Bike rides. The trails are really dry, but it doesn’t seem to matter when you have a solid group of guys that can ride single track really fast. It has been great having a guy like Levi Leipheimer show us the local trails. Everybody in the area is really fit right now as people are getting ready for Levi’s 100 mile Kings Ridge Gran Fondo coming up this Saturday. I can’t remember the last time I did 100 miles, but it is going to be a great day riding a bike along with 3500 other riders.

I hope I don’t bonk!

Max “The Mountie” Plaxton