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This week I'm stoked to share my first individually-authored published article.  (My first article was co-authored...kinda)  I was given the assignment to write on mountain biking.  Mountain biking is definitely one of my greatest passions in life, ironically since I broke my neck almost six years ago I haven't owned my own mountain bike since. 

I started training for mountain bike racing, without knowing it, when I was ten years old.  I received my first mountain bike for my birthday and quickly set about to make use of it in the foothills.  I rode my bike as often as I could, I quickly fell in love with the equipment and the experience of pedaling through the mountains on a variety of surfaces surrounding my home, then around Utah including the Slickrock of Moab, and eventually all around the Western United States.  I began racing when I was about twenty.  I fell in love with the competitive, yet supportive community of racing.  

I climbed the rope of the Intermountain Cup Series, starting when the circuit was only about five or six races deep.  Now the circuit has over a dozen races through-out all of Utah and into Wyoming.  After breaking my neck in a race at Brianhead resort in 2004, I began a slow recovery immediately, even before having a single-level fusion of my cervical 5 and 6 vertebrae.  While Bally's gym was still in business in my neighborhood I was training on the indoor bikes to keep my motivation and attitude inline.  I knew I didn't want to let this accident get me down.  I would walk into the gym with my neck brace on and would get some funny looks at first but then I started getting a lot of smiles, people were realizing that I was fighting to keep my fitness level and they started to believe I could.  I couldn't do a whole lot with my upper body but I would workout on the stationary bike, spinning for an hour at a time, trying to keep my leg muscles strong.

I started a 6 week series of rehabilitation at a local clinic.  We did a number of stretches, range of motion tests and practice, heat therapy and electro-pulse therapy.  After training on proper exercises and graduating from the rehab center I took back to the gym and set about to get my life back in order.  I took a solid three years to feel strong again.  Re-gaining the muscles in my neck was difficult.  I compare it to holding a new-born's head up when you move first carry them.  It was nearly the same thing, except I had the advantage of having about 25% of my strength to begin with.  Getting up to 85% would take a year and the other 15% another two years.  Along the way I'd have random neck pain which added a whole new meaning to the expression "pain in then neck."  Whoever coined that phrase must have really known what that meant.  

With mountain biking out of the picture for a couple years I turned to a new sport, one I figured would be a little more forgiving yet still highly challenging.  My good friend Jeff Larsen called one day and asked if I wanted to race the Spudman with him, "the what?" I asked.  The Spudman, it's is an olympic length triathlon in Idaho, he explained.  "But don't worry about the swim, it's down-river!"  That sounded pretty good to me, so I borrowed my neighbors road bike and signed up for the event.  We had a couple days to get our stuff organized and learn the new style of biking.  After seeing my neighbor and childhood idol Jared Parker riding his bike around I always knew I wanted to try it for myself, but I was a hard-core mountain biking fan and was convinced it would only be a secondary love.  We hopped on our road bikes, new to Jeff as well, for the first time in Idaho along the long flat potato fields outside my friends parents home in Burley.  I began pedaling and quickly, to my surprise, fell in love with the smooth and fast feel of this new machine.  I couldn't believe how quickly I could get up to speed and how effortless is was in comparison to the grind of mountain biking up a steep, loose trail in the woods.  I knew right a way I wanted bike of my own.  After finishing in the 30-40% of men racing I felt pretty good about my first triathlon, this would come be the first in many to come.  

Shortly after finishing the Spudman race I purchased a Cervello Soloist road bike from the Sports Den in Salt Lake City.  I began training on it and have now finished 16 triathlons to date and a small number of road races as a side plate.  It's been a blast to learn the new sport, however I have to admit every year about March, the snow begins to melt and I get a urge from within my soul to get back on a mountain bike.  Last summer, my friend Meagan Thornton did me a huge favor and helped me act on my urge to ride again.  She organized a bike ride in Park City on the Flying Dog trail.  I can't explain how exciting the experience was for me, from sliding on the heavy Shimano SPD shoes, wearing the mountain biking clothing, and whole bit, I was like a little boy in the candy shop all over again.  The feeling of the full suspension bike, her dad kindly let me borrow, flexing under me as I shifted through seemingly endless number of gears and the hard dirt grinding under the knobby tires brought back invigorating feelings of racing through past trails, up steep climbing, over bridges, logs and pipes and even through the hot desert and punishing slickrock.  A boatload of senses hit me head-on and reminded me of where my true cycling passions resided.  We exhausted ourselves on the 23-mile trail and celebrated with a yummy meal afterwards.  I officially got the bug back.  The irony of it is, even with a previously broken neck I was much more comfortable on the mountain bike than I've even been on my road bike, not to take away how much I enjoy the road, but with full suspension and a more upright body position I didn't have pain in my neck at anytime of our ride.  I've been saving up since that day to purchase a mountain bike, with almost enough cash now I will hopefully be able to afford getting back into one of my ultimately favored hobbies this summer.  

I hope you've enjoyed my story and if you get a chance check out the biking article too!  You can read the article full size here.  Thanks, Jon