January 2007 arrived and I really hadn't been riding since the 2006 track season ended in August and I didn't end up starting to do any indoor training until February. With the end of winter / spring time trials coming up, I decided to see about getting a bike setup for time trialing rather than continually putting on and taking off aero bars on my Ti road bike (as I had noticed that the cable casings were beginning to get cut). I went to Performance Bicycles in Redmond and picked on clearance a Fuji Aloha 1.0 "time trial" bike. Indoor training went well enough and by mid May, while I hadn't really been doing much outdoor cycling, I had done 4 time trials and the Mutual of Enumclaw omnium race. I was looking forward to the 2007 track season, which began on May 24th but during the Race 501 class at Cycle University, I got clipped by another cyclist and x-rays the next morning indicated that I may have broken my right elbow (thankfully that was not the case from follow-up x-rays two weeks later). This did interrupt my cycling plans for the summer. Every several weeks I'd try my right wrist and elbow to see if I could ride my bike. This included a painful bike commute to work and Cascade's Flying Wheels 25 mile ride. While I could ride and try to avoid as many bumps as possible to not cause my wrist pain, I found that I really couldn't squeeze the right brake - which I normally depend on for braking. This caused me to walk DOWN the hills on the 25 mile route. I survived the ride but began to wonder how I was going to get through the 2007 STP ride that my uncle and I were registered for. Two weeks after Flying Wheels, I decided to give my wrist and elbow another go and do the Cascade Training Series 100 mile ride there and back to Flaming Geyser State Park. The 100 mile ride started out "on the wrong foot" as I signed up for the 16-18 mph group and FORGOT that Cascade groups DO NOT ride at the listed speed but actually much faster. While I thought that I could ride at 16-18 mph, I didn't think that I would survive a ride at 19-22+ mph. The ride started out by going up to the Burke-Gilman trail and riding at close to 20 mph. I did what I could to keep up but eventually the 16-18 mph split - but the pace was still around 20 mph. I did do a turn or two on the front but as the group approached the Flaming Geyser State Park entrance, I got dropped as my legs were getting drained. The ride leader was ready to almost as soon as I managed to finish eating a Clif bar and finishing the Coke I got from the machine. My legs were still a bit tired but I got back on my bike and headed out with the group. It wasn't long before I got dropped again. I got picked up by some other riders and rode with them for a while before I had to stop and rest. I took the Interurban trail back to Tukwila and as I got to Rainier Ave I found that I had gotten ahead of all of the groups doing the ride but eventually was passed by the "orange" group. I kept riding and stopped at the SR-520 / Montlake bus stop and caught the bus home. Since I was able to ride over 100 miles without any pain from my wrist, I thought that I might be able to survive STP. My uncle came up to Washington in mid July and on July 14 we started out from UW at 4:20am to do the 2007 STP in two days. At first the ride was going ok and I was surprised that I was able to accelerate up the 2nd half of "The Hill" out of Puyallup and my uncle was only a minute or two behind me. As we got to the midway point in Centralia, my uncle was getting tired and needed to rest for a while before we could continue on towards the baggage pickup and hotel in Kelso, WA. As the hours passed and we were still miles from Kelso, my uncle decided that we should split up in Napavine (about 35 miles from Kelso) and that I should ride on as fast I could and get to Kelso BEFORE 7pm (the designated "closing" time of the baggage pickup site). I may have burned out my legs by pushing my pace as much as I could but I did get to the baggage pickup site at 6:01pm. After getting the bags, I waited for my uncle - who said that he would call me at 7pm with how far he still had to ride. Well, my uncle managed to make it to the pickup site at 6:51pm - but admitted he may have pushed it too hard. Day 2 of STP (something I had never done before since I only had done or tried to do STP in one day before) started out ok but my uncle was sore. I kept managing to ride away from him and then stop and wait for him to catch up. This continued all the way to the finish line in Portland where we each collected our "Finisher" patches and began preparing for the bus ride back to Seattle. Towards the end of September, my parents came visit me and on the 29th we drove down to Nike's world headquarters in Beaverton, OR for packet pickup for the next day's LIVESTRONG Challenge Portland event. After watching me do the 40 mile ride in 2006, my parents decided to register and do the 5K Run/Walk while I was out this year doing the 40 mile ride (for the 3rd year in a row). Unlike the last two years, 2007 brought wind and rain to the event. On one hand, I made good clothing decisions for doing a rainy ride. On the other hand, my clothing choices weren't the best and I ended up getting a bit drenched and miserable and couldn't wait for the ride to be over at some points. This feeling did go away to some degree as I got closer to the finish line back at Nike - especially after a three man group containing Chris Carmichael (who I had met at packet pickup the day before) slowed and rode with me for several miles while Chris and I talked about my experience working with CTS, what rides and races I do in the Pacific Northwest, and what I do outside of cycling. All in all it was an interesting event but I don't know if I'll be signing up for the event again in 2008 (I'll just have to see what's going on and how it would fit into my schedule).