My name is...

The first post is always the hardest. Why am I here? Is this worth reading? What's the point of it all in 200 words or less. I can keep your attention for a couple of paragraphs, right?

Here's the nutshell (the posts will be funny later, I promise). I've been riding mountain bikes for 11 years. I'm also a bike mechanic, mountain bike coach, engineer (day job), a human projectile into all sorts of objects--trees, rocks, other people riding bikes, various branches of law enforcement--and I have this silly thing for endurance racing, particularly the epic, off-road, multi-stage sort.

This fall I managed to convince my good friend Eric, a rather speedy plasma physicist out of MIT and a recovering roadie, to be my partner for a yet to be determined stage race in the summer of 2009. After puttering around on the interwebs a bit trying to decide which race to do, we noticed that the internet was fun and resolved to spend more time with it by writing about MTB endurance racing and all surrounding things (gear, training, personal stories of Eric faceplanting every week as we hone his tech skills) in the magical land of blogosphere.

From now until the end of sumer '09, and possibly longer if anyone is still reading, Eric and I will chronicle our preparation for and racing of [insert stage race here] and muse regularly about all things mountain bike. I'd like to hope that we will provide an objective and practical look at mountain bikes and endurance racing, but who knows? We might just make a mess...

As an added wild-card, if you have a MTB-related question you want answered or something you want us to cover, hit the email link on the right and let us know. As an engineer and a physicist, we can sometimes get our heads buried in the geek sand. Having to pull them out and answer the outlook "you have mail" ring once in a while keeps us moderately in-touch with the outside world and makes us feel loved.

Game. On.