Update on Some Stuff

Its been quite a while since my last update so I'm going to give a brief overview of my latest doings...

Some time ago I raced at the junior state crit championships, and came out with my first legit dub of the season. I was, and still am, pretty pumped about it. I ordered my jersey and have since worn it on a couple of race rides and whatnot.


The next weekend was the Dunlap tt, which doubles as the junior tt state championships. I had no expectations of winning racing against Charlie Avis, but I hoped to put out a decent enough time so as to not be embarrassed and possibly end up on the podium.... Lets just say I was, and still am, very embarrassed about my time. I think it might have even been slower than last year.



Shortly thereafter all motivation went out the window.

The following weeks were a blur of not wanting to ride my bike, back pain, and breathing problems. It was a downward spiral that I didn't see myself coming out of any time soon.

My recovery began when I started doing extra core work and stretching before and after rides which had an immediate impact on back pain that was so bad it was killing my riding. This pain reduction, and the fact that I started thinking seriously about cascade and nationals, renewed my motivation and got me training seriously again.

Last weekend I raced at neveda city and it was awesome. Lance Armstrong showed up and brought 30,000 people with him. I made it about two laps with the group before I exploded on the hill, but it was still great. Even riding solo around the course the noise from the crowd was deafening. Very cool experience.


All of this leads up to today when I raced the Benicia crit. I had high expectations coming into the race after a solid week of training and feeling good. I was going to try for breaks early then see what I could do in the sprint at the end. From the gun I knew that neither of those things were going to happen. My goal quickly changed to just finishing the race. It was so hot that I used up both of my bottles in the first half of the race, and I had that all too familiar feeling of being constantly out of breath to the point where my stomach hurts. I blew up about three quarters of the way through and got dropped coming out of a corner. It was bad.

I don't know why I still can't breathe, isn't allergy season supposed to be over or at least close to it? I really don't think that I've lost that much fitness since a month ago to make me this crappy... I don' t think I've lost any fitness at all actually. It's pretty frustrating though to be taking all of this medicine thats supposed to make my breathing normal everyday and feeling like it doesn't do anything.

Well there you have it. That's what I've been doing for the last month or so. Thanks for reading.

Track Racin

Went down to the track yesterday to do some wednesday night racing. It was my first time going down on wednesday and only the second time I'd ever raced on the track. A bunch of people had told me that I'd be fine racing the A's but I decided to do the B's due to major lack of experience and not wanting to look like an idiot.

It was alot of fun and a big learning experience. I had no Idea how to race a miss and out, other than what I've learned from pro cycling manager, and my strategy for the points race was basically just ride at the front and try to win every sprint. Apparently I won the points race according to this which I'm pretty happy about, but In the scratch and miss and out it didn't go so well. I ended up sixth in the scratch race after setting up tenth wheel with one to go (I forgot that it wasn't like a crit and the laps were only 300 meters), and I got knocked out about halfway through the miss and out because I wasn't paying enough attention to how small the field had actually gotten.

Greg and Russ also came down and kicked some butt in the A's. Greg won the A's scratch race and was second in the omnium.

Hope to do it again soon

Weakocalipse

Been feelin pretty slow lately and my tt time tonight showed it... not too happy about it.

maybe its my asthma from allergies and whatnot, but I dunno.

I'm takin a couple weeks off from racing to try and get going again. Hopefully it works out.

The Mooney Express

I've been riding with Phil Mooney quite a bit lately. Its been painful to say the least, but I think its also been really good for me. Apart from the fact that he's helped me renew my love for the tt bike, he's really taught me how to suffer...

Maybe I'll be able to ride a tt soon.

Guttered

You know that feeling you get when its single file in the gutter and you can't move up? The one where all you can do is hope that the guys in front of you can hold the wheel and keep the gaps from opening. I think its called helplessness...

All weekend at Madera I felt pretty guttered. After a bad ride in the hillclimb, a busted off pedal in the time trial, and a broken spoke in the crit I almost wanted to cut my losses for the weekend and go home.

I started the road race on sunday with my mind already deep in the paincave. The first three laps were pretty mellow, but my legs were heavy and slow and I came close to losing contact a couple of times. The fourth time through the rough section of the course Bissel went to the front and lined it out in the crosswind. At this point I was three wheels from the back, in the gutter, and feeling helpless once again. I looked up a couple seconds later, saw gaps opening all over the place, and realized that this was why I love racing bikes. I stopped feeling sorry for myself and started racing for the first time all day. By the end of the rough section I had made my way all the way up to the lead group that had been whittled down to about thirty five.

On the fifth and final lap I felt better than I had all weekend. I rode towards the front the last time through the rough section, but wasn't fast enough up the last rollers and ended up towards the back of the lead group in twenty fourth. I was the only one to finish in the lead group from DBC due to multiple flats, and one crash causing dropout failure (hope your feeling alright charlie).

My ride wasn't a spectacular one by any means, but I'm very happy with it. I'm also glad that I was able to get my head out of the cave and actually have something to show from my weekend.

Congrats to Chris who destroyed it in the crit and finished 3rd behind Keith Miller and Ben Jacques-Maynes, and the Viper who took sixth in the tt.

Weekend Off

No racing for me this weekend. After a long string of races weekend after weekend I'm taking a little break, and I don't think it could have come at a better time. In the two weeks leading up to Merco I was pretty slack in the training department due to the bad weather and the black plague that's been going around. So this week I put in some quality hours and I'm plannin on using the weekend off to try and get a little faster goin uphill. Next week I'll do some major tt bike ridin before going down to Madera for the weekend.... So basically I've devoted these two weeks to lessening the embarrassment at Madera. Its a good thing too seeing as how the pre reg list gets more and more intimidating every day.

Also, I've added a followers thing to my sidebar down towards the bottom and I would like to have at least two or three followers so I don't look like a total jenkster. So if you read this thing every so often feel free to become a follower.

See you at the infamous Ben Hur hillclimb time trial!

Bike Racin'

Due to popular demand I've decided I'll write a little somethin' about my latest shenanigans...

Multiple weeks ago, I'm not sure how many, I raced at a little race I like to call cal aggie. It went quite well with Cody "Tapinator" Tapley takin' the dub in the juniors race after some excellent teamwork by the boys, and Chris "KGB" Stastny Fabianing his way to his first pro/1/2 dub after some more excellent teamwork by a different set of boys. It was great fun to say the least. Sweet pics found here

A week later we tried our luck at the CPC, or as normal folk say it, the cherry pie crit. I was lookin to take home a pie at the least, and be first across the line at best. The juniors race went downhill fast after Tapley and Robby both crashed within the last five laps, and I decided it would be a good idea to lead out the uphill sprint from about 300 meters. It didn't end well for me finishing in fourth, one place out of the pies, but Torrey pulled it together with a third place in the 15-16 race. After waiting around all day (juniors was the first race of the day and pro/1/2 was the last) I suited up and prepared for another shot at a pie. The race was hard and had me, and a couple other guys on the team in the cave by the end, but again the Staz pulled out a result finishing in seventh, and getting a nice sixty bucks to divide up among the team. No pie, but still a decent day of racing, and more fun.

After making some mistakes in the juniors at the CPC and still ending up close to the top spot I figured that it was time to end the dry spell and get a dub, but at the junior crit in davis the specialized boys had other plans. The field wasn't too big, but it included three strong specialized guys, and Ian Boswell of Hot Tubes. I worked my butt off the whole race without much help from anybody, except for Daniel Farinha, to keep the specialized boys at bay, and was pretty successful if I do say so myself. With two to go it was all together, and Charlie Avis of specialized attacked. I hesitated, but then remembered that I was the only one in the race not on specialized, except Daniel Farinha, that was willing to do any work at all. So I jumped and bridged to Charlie, catching him just before the start/finish with one to go.

At this point I was stuck between a rock and a hard place with Charlie sitting up in front of me, and a field with two very fast, somewhat fresh sprinters about two seconds behind me. I thought about it for about half a second and decided that I could either attack Charlie right then and try to gap him and solo the last lap or take the weenie way out, like too many do, and sit up to hope for what at best would have been third place in the sprint. I raced for the win like my good brother taught me and attacked Charlie as the bell was ringing. I got about a bike length gap on him and I immediately knew that it wouldn't be enough. As the lap went on the gap stayed about the same, maybe growing to two bike lengths at one point, but coming around the last corner he caught me and it was over. He started coming around me with about seventy five meters to go, and I fought it the whole way, but didn't have enough and lost it.

Getting lit up

Pretty epic defeat... I was mad about it, but the specialized guys raced a good race. So did Daniel Farinha. The morale of the story is that work gets results, the first four finishers in the race, Charlie, Me, Farinha, and Peter worked our butts off.... that's all I'm gonna say

There you go readers cough cough Chris cough there are my bike racin' shenanigans