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Rehab!

Leaving the Team McPfluger headquarter in Swansboro, just half an hour north of Placerville engaging on a looong drive with the 33 feet toy hauler.

Almost 2 weeks and 2200 miles later, I got back to where I started :-)

Magnificent scenery on Rock Creek Road getting out of Swansboro.

Douglas’ boss, very kind guy and GP Racing owner Steve feels the suspension of the Gasser. Douglas threw some new rubbers on the spaniard and I would continue north and the pick Douglas up at the airport in Seattle the next day (friday).

Wine Farms!

Besides Hooker Creek I also saw signs for “Cool”, “Talent” and “Weed”.

So American :)

Approaching Mt. Shasta – really beautiful and after Mt. Shasta, the temperatures dropped severely.

Interesting thing about America is that you can overtake where ever you want. In Denmark you will get penalized for overtaking on the inside. Also interesting how semis seem to be going as fast as regular cars/trucks.

Driving a truck that needs to be refilled every 2 hours, I got this close a couple of times to running out of gas. The Toyota Tundra V8 5.8 liter truck has a tank capacity of 25 gallon.

2 years ago this guy invited me to Western France for his new event… The first ever Freestyle Trials competition. And he did it at the age of 22. Very cool event that got my show-biz going in Denmark. We stayed in touch on Facebook like with everybody else you meet on your way. But on friday evening, while being at the track (after being kicked out a few times) he all of a sudden shows up!!! Truly amazing and we were so happy to meet and hung out the rest of the weekend. He, Valentin Guyonett, is doing his internship with Bobcat – and in order to build a racetrack, you need a lot of Bobcats. So he finishing off his MBA with this company and has future plans for Woodstrokes – The Freestyle Competion. Awesome guy :-)

Douglas working hard to readjust the Rekluse Clutch, that I accidentally fried on the start at a Heat Race. Everett Endurocross was our first Endurocross together and Douglas is so patient with me, quick and creative. So happy to have him around and the fact that we are same age, makes everything even better. Love it. The bike was good but we came up with a bunch of adjustments for next weeks race in Idaho. New handlebar (more motocross style), harder springs back and front, new gas cable, gas housing, tyres (amazing soft Goldentyre 216X and mousses), front number plate (MX Style) and probably some more stuff I forgot.

I unfortunately don’t have any pictures of the racing from either Everett or Idaho. But this is from the afterparty in Boise, Idaho. A big barn with free pizza, snacks, beer and booze. Pretty sweet and it was great to go there and get to talk more casually with the riders.
The race in Boise went just as bad results-wise as Everett. I’ve gotten so used to conserving my energy and being good at long races for so many years, that I have a pretty hard time adjusting to the anaerobic and flat-out riding style Endurocross takes. Its amazingly hard. 5 minutes around an Endurocross track is harder than 3 hours around a normal danish Enduro track. Its brutal. I can hit most obstacles fairly good but then I tended to relax on the supercross parts of the track. I needed the break so badly! But I’m still chickening out on the toughest and most technical aspects of the tracks, like triple jumping and splatting logs, step down jumps off tractor tires and hitting logs and jumping as high and far as possible and land on flat ground. There is a lot to learn technically and hopefully we will build our own track some day and I will get to ride with REAL endurocross riders – hopefully with Cody Webb, who lives pretty close by. Besides needing to improve on the technical skills, I need to upper my corner speed and last but definitely not least… I need a very precise work-out programme to make me the best I can be. Theres a lot I need to do and thats fine. Im happy to have come all the way and gotten my feet wet. Its been a very steep learning curve for all of us and I was actually pretty excited to battle Max Gerston for the last place in Boise Idaho in our Semi Race. I ended up getting last, but I hung with him, and he is way more experienced than me. So that was a huge boost to me and the team. I finally charged the track and felt like I gave all I had. I can go on with all my lacks – all that matters is that we learned alot and we know what to do. Maybe even get a 4-stroke bike would be ideel. Seems that I am one of the very only riders on 2stroke machinery. Only Palmer Wallace (Wild Willy!!!) is one a 2 stroke of the pro riders, and he is not up with the leaders. Anyways, like I said, we learned a lot and I am generally just extremely thankful for being given the chance to experience this kind of unfamiliar racing and maybe continue into 2013 with a new plan and approach. Love Team McPfluger!

Yet another long drive. This time I had company of Douglas who elected to cancel his flight back to Sacramento Airport, so he could join me in the truck. Very nice! My back was very painful and I must admit that I was very close to throwing in the towel after I qualified for the evening programme and did my hot lap in Boise, Idaho. My right shoulder popped in the first practice in the morning, ribs in my left side hurt as well as my left shoulderblade (from the crash at Sapioga Endurocross a few weeks prior). My lower back tends to lock up between my pelvis and L-5 and has done so for many years. I felt it allready before leaving for this long trip and sitting in the truck was actually the worst part – aside from hitting obstacles on the bike, off course. So driving for a total of possibly pushing 48 hours was not fun. So we swapped between driving and chrashing the backseats of the truck. At least I did :-)

I woke up by noticing Douglas pulled over to refill the truck and realised we had reached Nevada and a lot of desert… And a casino :-) We tried to win Douglas’ 3 $ back but ended up losing 4 more!

The GPS led us onto Highway US95 and that initially sucked, because of the lack of Gas Stations and good roads. Nevertheless, we never ran out of gas and we got to see some beautiful areas along the way to Cali.

Arriving at the cabbin “Flødeskumshytten” (named by my danish friends Esben and Camilla) late sunday night, I eased around the place, unpacked and washed all my gear as well as the truck and camper. I figured a few days rest would be fine to get my soreness to go away but I realised by tuesday that I couldn’t exercise my lower back in to place – which was and still is the part of my body that gave me most concerns. So I called Michael up and asked for advice on good chiropractors. I have a lot of experience with bad chiropractors/physiotherapists/healers etc so I wanted to make sure he got me his best recommendations. And so he did. I packed up all my stuff and drove to Oakland to see Dr. Andrea Vicz in her satellite office. First questions asked are naturally: “So whats wrong with you?”… After going through my history of lower back issues, stuck pelvis/L-5, broken collarbone, popping-out shoulder, broken ribs/hurting shoulder blade and what I wanted to do with my body (Endurocross) she confidently told me she could take care of it all and have her partner (as well in civil as business relations) do my rehab. She did her chiropractics on me yesterday and today I felt the effect as I could get my socks on way easier than yesterday. So today I went to her city clinic and got another round of chiropractics as well as a special heat/cold treatment on a bench that bent underneath me. Seemed very effective and it was followed through with 3 different rehab exercises with Ted (her boyfriend and partner) to regain strength and mobility in my lower back and shoulders. My amazing Team McPfluger is helping me out with this too and I will be seeing Andrea and Ted 3 times a week for a month. No riding this weekend, only walking and laying down. Its still painful to just sit – so i will try not to do that too much. Its what they call a chronic damage that has just gotten worse and we need to take care of it – with or without endurocross, I need to get this fixed. It was definitely 2 very painful endurocross races and I just hope I can get better before Vegas and hopefully get to ride with Cody Webb next weekend at another new friend of mines track. His name is Harry and he also does the Endurocrosses.
And this picture was taken in downtown Oakland, very close to the clinic where I do my rehab.

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