American cross-country mountain bike racer Adam Craig has his sights set on the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. That means for the next few months he will be battling it out on the World Cup and National Mountain Bike Series with his fellow Americans for a slot on the U.S. team. In between races, Craig skis, kayaks and is the rally car co-driver for his Giant teammate Carl Decker. VeloNews.com is along for the ride. —Editor

It’s amazing how much more tiring riding fast is than riding slow. So, with this little tidbit in mind, THIS week would be a great one to go on a huge sweet mountain bike ride, do some intervals and crash my face off. Not LAST week, when I rode fast enough to get real tired and had another (fairly important) race coming up … Ah, live and learn (again)…

I guess the genesis of the problem for me is the fact that I hold exploring and finding sweet new trails in awesome locales in a bit higher regard than chasing a bunch of dudes around a city park. I like chasing a bunch of dudes, racing is what I do. But proper Woods Riding is what I will do for the rest of my life. Better practice up now while I’m racing so I’m ready when the rest of time comes around …

To all those who support this racing effort, I’m sorry. I do love it. Which is why I do it. Those days like last Sunday in Germany will keep me coming back for years to come. Wednesday of this week in the Sierra de Guadarrama north of Madrid will keep me coming back for the rest of my days.

I took off with a jersey full of food and a map, the obvious route being up over the (snowy) crest at 2200 meters and down the headwaters of some river drainage, which I envisioned as beautiful river grade singletrack all the way to the valley. Obviously. Three hours later I was hiking through a small snowfield to gain the crest. Perfect. Except I’d had my map plucked from my pocket whilst descending cow-trail singletrack off the previous Puerto de Morcuera … And couldn’t tell what drainage I wanted. I picked one and committed. One k of scree slope descending later I ran into some guy who was hiking. I spoke my broken Spanish and he replied in triple speed … I got the gist of it though. I was on the wrong ridge and this trail ended in a cliff.

Back to the top … I gave up on the ultimate drainage when I saw an obviously class AA singletrack heading down another ridge. It was mint. Four hours in and I was an hour or so from home, with a tailwind. Sweet. If only my ultra supportive, ultra awesome team support weren’t concerned for me … Tom was just leaving Mira Flores to look for me when I rolled into town, saving me the heinous grunt up to the house … Not a bad day.

If only I’d recovered from that day instead of climbing up the Morcuera Pass again the next day to check out another cow trail. It ended in a fireroad decscent, which I wasn’t that into, so I was looking for more trails when I ended up sliding down the road on my side at an alarming rate of speed. Turns out ancient roads have rocks on them. Who knew … Guess I should look where I AM going instead of where I WANT to go … Possible metaphor for life? Anywho, riding a bunch and crashing pretty much sorted out being really tired for the rest of the week … Shocking.

Good thing the race in Madrid’s Casa de Campo is notoriously easy. You just roll around for a couple hours in about the position you started (for me this was eighth, awesome) and then you’re done. If only …

About a dozen really steep climbs need to be surmounted per lap, and we did seven. The descents are just short and pedally enough that you never really recover, regardless of how many times you hit the handful of perfect hip jumps for your own personal entertainment. If it weren’t for these (really awesome) jumps this day would have been a total loss for me. Thirty-first place almost five minutes down is a tough pill to swallow (or force feed yourself) after being in the lead group the week before … But man, those jumps were fun. The hands-down best one started from a G’d out right turn and floated over a knoll into a G’d out left. It was great. My race tactics all revolved around getting in front of whoever I wanted to show the jump, or letting them catch up. Did I mention it was great … If only I’d been riding fast everywhere else.

Anyway, we’ve got Ollie for that. Beckinsale was solid today in 19th, if he’d only gotten around Todd in 18th I’d still be second in the USA Olympic team chase with 54 points to Todd’s 51, I think. Good thing two guys go, and I’ve got some time to get in proper shape …

Thanks for reading, we’ll check back in after whatever random European racing happens in the next three weeks before the world cup resumes in Andorra on May 31.

Here’s a pic of the start. It sure is nice to be on the front row. Playing Where’s Waldo with start photos is never a good sign …

There sure were lots of people in the park on a sunny Sunday afternoon. They seemed pretty into the bike race, too …