Exciting News!!!!

No, I didn't just sign with discovery, and no, I didn't propose to Alex. But, I DID just buy a plane ticket to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico and will be down there for about 2.5 weeks touring on my bike. I'm leaving next Tuesday (Dec. 19) and coming back Jan 6. I'm incredibly stoked, it should be quite an adventure. I'm going with Jung, Grinch, and Rolf. I'll be carrying all of my gear in a BOB trailer and we'll be camping most nights with the occational hotel stay, especially in the bigger cities. We haven't decided on a route yet, but I think we'll probably end up riding up the coast to Mazatlan. From there, I have no clue.


Grinch and Jung (Dirty Sanchez). I'll be rolling around Mexico with these two (and Rolf, not in picture)


I'll also be a college graduate (finally) at 10:00 pm sat. night when my last final ends. Oh boy.... I wonder what it'll be like out there in the real world... Well, I gotta get back to the studying... I have two finals on saturday, and I've got alot of time to put in if I want to do well. No riding for me this week... I'm gonna be blown out by satuday night, but then its over!

On another note: Sager, Cale, and Jimi... I can't believe what happened to you guys, USA Cycling definitly has their head up their ass on this one. Banning guys who are obviously clean, and likely letting many of the real dopers slip through their fingers. They need to develop a better system for punishing the cheaters instead of the innocent guys who are just out there because they love racing thier bikes. I'm sorry that you guys have to go through this bullshit. How unfair!

Nothin' much

Hmmmm.... what is going on with me lately.... I have not been doing a whole lot... nothing exciting at least. I've been busy as hell with school... it's just non-stop... and with o-chem you can never study enough, there's alway more to do in preparation for the exam that you start studying for about 2 weeks in adavance.



I've been spending a lot of time with my new puppy too, Ali and I have started obedience courses at the humane society, and that's a lot of fun. It's an obedience course for new puppy owners, so our puppy gets to play with a bunch of other puppies.... awwwwwww shucks, it's just the cutest thing ever.

I've been doing a lot of trail running and hitting the weightroom, since I'm still unable to ride outdoors due to my shoulder surgery. I've ridden indoors a few times, but you know how that is.... I'm just trying to stay as active as possible.

Next week is Thanksgiving break, and I've got the whole week off, so Ali and I are driving up to Mineesota, our home state, to visit the families, mainly hers since mine lives in Oregon now. I'm really looking forward to seeng all my highschool friends that I barely ever get to see. Hope fully it snows a ton too so that I can bust out the XC skis and skate around on all my old training grounds.

I'm bummed I couldn't make it to Moab this year for B-mans B-day ride, but I gotta follow the doc's orders and stay off my arm for a while. Anyways, the white rim isn't going anywhere. I'm still excited to hear stories.... anyone wander off into desert this year?

Doggy-style

This past week has been tough. I got surgery on Tuesday of last week (Oct. 17), which took a lot out of me. I was pretty doped up for a couple days after the surgery on oxycodeine (percocet), which really sucked, I didn't like the stuff at all. I felt absolutely worthless when I was on it and couldn't accomplish anything when there a lot to be accomplished. The next day after surgery, my girlfriend and I decided to drive out to Nebraska to see a Shiba Inu dog breeder. This is a breed that we've been talking about getting for a while now, and we finally found a good breeder that wasn't too far away. So, we ended up getting a 3 month old puppy, who we named Mika (The New Moon in Japanese).

I'm really happy with the decision to get a dog, she's awesome, and probably the cutest puppy I've ever seen. Other than that, all I've been doing is cramming for the O-chem exam that I took last night, memorizing mechanisms, for about a week straight. I didn't get out much this week... kind of a bummer. It's been snowing a lot for this time of the year though, so me and my honey were able to get out for a little xc skiing in North Boulder Park last weekend, even though I was only 4 days post-op and still in a sling. Ali and I gearing up for some Nor-dorkin'!

Tonight, I think I'll reemerse myself into the social network and attend the annual post-collegiate nats party. Unfortunatly, this year I don't have a national title to celebrate, but it'd probably still be a good idea to keep the champagne away from me, or run if you see any in my hands. Oh yeah, it's also the first night of Halloween partying, so I'll be rocking a costume!

Happy Halloween!

Under the Knife

All the fun I was having ended abruptly on the 10:10 ned ride I spoke about in my last blog entry.

I was ripping down the "Elk Poop" trail when I hit a loose rock that caused my 2-year old blown out noodley SID to go out of control, catapulting me towrds the ground, landing directly on the back of my bad shoulder (one that I've had surgery on once before). It completey dislocated and was out for about five minutes before I was able to put it back in by laying on my back and pushing it with my other arm. It's been about a week and a half since it happend and it's still really sore, stiff and unstable. In a few days, however, It's going to be in a sling and completely immobile. I'm getting surgery on Tuesday. I've been through this once before so I know how the entire reocvery/rehab process goes. It shouldn't be too bad, and I don't think it'll hurt my fitness too much. The benefits of having a solid shoulder are going to heavily outwiegh the disadvantages of missing a week or two of aerobic activity and living with a weak shoulder. I think I should be able to be on the trainer in a week though, which will mainly be used for maintianing some sanity. Since my accident, I've been riding the road bike a ton, and riding pretty hard... I might even go so far as to say that I've been training. the reason for this is that I know I'm going to lose some fitness after the surgery, so I'm trying to increase my fitness a little bit, or at least enter surgery at a high level of fitness to minimize my losses due to detraining.

Since the crash, The Cat and I have been playing and eating grass together. YUM!

Meow

Alright, enough about that, I've also been super busy in school lately. O-chem is getting harder all the time. I'm already volunteering about 4 hours a week at the PT clinic on campus, but I'm going to start voluteering at one or two other places around town to pick up some more hours. I'm also still without a team for next year. I haven't really been pursuing this too much lately, mainly becasue I've been strapped with school, but I'm going to put a bigger effort into that soon. I do have one potential team to ride for that I've been talking too, and I'm really hoping that one will work out, I'm crossing my fingers. My girlfriend, Alex, has been waiting for the last two months for her MCAT scores, and they're suposed to be available today... so I've also got my fingers crossed for her.

Too busy having fun

Oh, If only I could blog while riding. Once I start pedaling, my mind starts racing… thinking about everything. This week was pretty rough; I had three exams on Thursday. So for about four days leading up to the exam, I studied… and didn’t do much else. It felt great to be done though… not that I’m ever really done… I’ve still got plenty more on my plate.

Yesterday the Grinch and I ran (hammered) up to the Royal arch at Chetaqua.

My legs kinda hurt today, so I decided to go ride up sunshine canyon through Gold Hill to the peak to peak, over to Ward, down Left Hand canyon, and up over Lee Hill. I was hammering for most of the ride; I just can’t ride easy anymore... riding easy is just boring.

The leaves are absolutely beautiful right now! If you haven’t been up there yet, get into the mountains before its too late, this shit only lasts for a few weeks, and it’ll be over soon. The leaves in Boulder are starting to peak too, so getting up to high vantage point to overlook the town, is pretty damn sweet too… I highly recommend doing that too.

My Girlfriend is in Portland for a few days for her friend’s wedding. Miss you baby.

Tomorrow I’m catching the 10:10 to Ned. Hope it’s epic (but not too epic). Last weekend, Grinch and I went up there and got totally lost… surrounded by Gross Reservoir… w/out enough food and water. The ride ended up being a little over six hours… not what I intended on doing. We did find a bunch of new trails though, so I’d say it was worth it.

I felt like having a White Russian tonight, but I didn’t have any Kalaua. So, I mixed vodka with milk (1:1), and added a little sugar, vanilla extract, and Ice… it was pretty darn good.

Oh yeah, I went to the Boulder cyclocross race at the research park today (to watch), and decided that I really want to do that. I need to get a cross bike though…. I will have cross bike, oh yes, it will be mine.

Dusting off the camera

Here are some pictures to stuff I've been up to lately.


This is the podium of the Global 24 hour race that I teamed up with Trek for. Yup, that's me wearing a Trek jersey. Kona got second, and gave us a battle, when we were originally expecting to have an easy race on hands... It forced us to actually race our bikes... which was good... it made it way more fun.

Had to celebrate with some tequila shots... out of plastic cups!!


After too much sex, drugs, rock and roll and inactivity, Ali and I decided to head up into the mountains to try climb a peak. We got way to late of a start to sumjit anything. It was super windy and cold immedietly after we made it above timber line, so we got as high as we could until are fingers and toes were complelty umb and then ran back down to the shelter of the tres a quickly as possible.


I think this is abou the highest point before we turned around. Pretty, huh?

Updating the blog

A month and a half has passed w/out blogging.... sooo sorry. No, really I am. Well if I wrote about everything I've done in that time, it'd take me all day. So I'll just try to summerize really quick (in 10 minutes) before my next class starts. Well that reminds me of one thing that's happened. School started, Ochem is hard, and my otherclasses are okay. is that too vague? I've done a hell of a lot of MTBing, some racing, and most recently I teamed up with Trek/VW to do the Global 24 hour race again up in Granby, CO. We won, and took home a nice paycheck and some good hard memories. My Girlfriend moved in with me, and it's going amazingly well so far. We have the occasional spats, but we're pretty good at straighting that crap out. For the most part, everything is going peachy, except I'm super stressed because of school and lots of other things. Especially what the hell I'm going to do next season. Fro the past severl years, I've always had some sort of plan for the comiing year (always racing on a team). But this coming year, after much soul-searching, my focus is shifiting. So I'm trying to come up with some sort of plan for my future... that doesn't put cycling as the number one priority. Right now, I'm seriuosly considering going into physical therapy, chiropractic, or osteopathic school. But I still want cycling to to be a main focus of my life, I just don't think I will have the ultimate goal of becoming a cycling God anymore. I still plan to race very competitive next year, and wil still be on the sponsor/team search too. But, I'll be racing mainly MTB, and just a little road. Well, I'd love to expand on this topic a bit more in depth, but I gotta go to class!!

MTBing and Boulder

Ahhhhhhhh, cool, crisp early morning Boulder mountain air. It's so nice to finally be waking up here again. I've been here for almost a week now. However, it's still not totally permanent, I can't move into my new place until Aug. 7, and I'll be heading down to Durango today to pick up my car (Crawdad's been storing it for the season for me). Since I've been here, I've been riding my mountain bike everyday exploring new trails and trying to make every ride into an epic. I had to take yesterday off though, because I was just riding too much... it's hard to miss a day though, it's just too much fun. I was a little afraid that I would completely suck at riding my MTB after not riding it for about eight months, but after my third ride, I felt fully comfortable again and was shredding the trails as fast and as confident as ever. I'm really excited to be in D-town for the next few days to really hone my tech skills on some of my favorite trails. I think I'll start out with the Gulch, then I think I'll probably do an epic of some sort (either cascade creek or Kennebec pass), and then probably another epic. I think I'll probably be pretty shot after those; I'll probably head back to Boulder.

My team did great at Toona with Frank Pipp winning a stage and taking 7th in GC! Shriver also had a good ride just cracking the top 20 in GC. It was hard for me to check results and not be there. The team heads into what is being called "crit season", which is kinda funny to me because it seems like this entire season has been mainly crits. But I guess there are a couple of big money crits with purses around $125,000, so there's a lot on the line... and then there's the US Pro Crit. I'm glad Frank is riding so well, I think he's got a good shot at raking in some cash. It'd be nice to be out there with the team to help our sprinters do well, but I've got to start school here soon, so my racing season is pretty much over.

Anyway, that's all I have time for today, I have to finish getting ready to go to Durango. I'm sorry about the lack of posts lately... I'm not even sure if anyone checks this blog any more since I've been so slow at updating. I'll try to get back on the blogging program though. Thanks for still checking it.

Crashed Out

I should be in Bend, OR right now, but I'm back in Portland. I was forced to abandon the Cascade Classic at about 10 km from the finish of Friday's stage. I crashed at around 35 mph and landed on a fery unforgiving road surface that took some large core samples out of my knee and elbow. I had to get my knee stitched up, and now I'm not able to bend my knee much or ride for about a week. The timing is pretty bad since the Tour de Toona starts in about a week. I probably won't be able to ride in this race now, so I think I'll end up just heading back to Boulder.

I'm already feeling really antsy from being inactive for a couple days... injury sucks. The weather in Portand is beautiful right now, so I've been trying to spend as much time outside side as possible. Yesterday, My girlfriend Alex and I spent the entire day at the park. She studied for the MCAT and I finished reading Miracle in the Andes, which was really good.

Short update

Raced Fitchburg, watching the Tour, flying to Portland today.

Done.

Rainy Days

Well, now I know why Wes bought the XBOX. This last weekend, the team left Matt and I the house to ourselves while they went to do the Rochester Crit and another Crit on Sunday. No TV or internet, usually easy sources of entertainment, left us scratching our heads to find other ways to keep from going nuts. It rained the entire day, which didn’t help at all. We still managed to get out and ride for a solid two hours in the pouring rain. That wasn’t that bad actually; it doesn’t get cold here when it rains like it does in Colorado.

Matt and I kept ourselves entertained by driving to Norwalk and shopping the local Wally-world. That place was a madhouse, every corner you turn, someone would be there with there shopping cart, oblivious to your presence, completely prepared to slam it into your shins. After Matt and I finished shopping, we were both cracked and bonked we drove home and watched Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark. We’ve got the entire trilogy here; I’m sure I watch the next two movies soon.

The riding here is pretty damn sweet. I still miss the long climbs of Colorado, but there is definitely no shortage of hard climbs here… most of the time you’re either going up or down, and when you’re riding with Frank, you’re punching it up every single climb.

Yesterday I did a V02max test, and I had some pretty high numbers. I was obviously a little worried before the test that I would score low numbers and have it mess with my head. But, I was higher than I expected, so that’s great for my confidence going into Fitzburg.

In less than a week I’ll be flying back out to Portland to see my lovely girlfriend. I’ll be spending a little over two weeks out there and will also be racing the Cascade classic. My team’s not doing it, so I’ll be racing solo. It looks like a good race for me, so I’m looking forward to it.

Ya sure, Minnesota, don't ya know

After about a four year hiatus from Minnesota, my home state, I’ve finally come back to ride in yet another race, the Nature Valley Grand Prix. The race was by far the low point of the trip. Seeing all of my old friends after all these years, catching up and reminiscing made my post-race feelings disappear. Coming back to Minnesota was like walking through a time warp. All my friends are still there, still as tight as ever, doing all the same fun shit. My time in Minnesota was short, and I have a tendency when in these situations to try to pack in as many activities with as many people as possible. Luckily for me, my friend Tom was able to organize a party on Sunday night, with all my closest friends that I grew up with. It was just like the good ol’ days, minus the hackysac. We also got together one last time on Tuesday night before I left at Jeremy’s house. We had the crazy idea to do some night urban assault. So between four of us we had a Big Hit (DH bike), a tricked out Schwinn Homegrown XC from mountain biking's heyday, a low-end MTB, and a 35 lb dirtjumper… it was quite the selection of awkward bikes. We switched bikes throughout the ride, because each one was uniquely fun to ride. I haven’t gone urban assault in years; I forgot how much fun it was. You can basically turn anything in sick singletrack. I wish I had more time to spend with my bros; I would’ve loved to go ride some of the real MN singletrack that I spent all my early days shredding as a youngster.

I fulfilled a typical Minnesotan summer tradition by heading up to Alex’s cabin a couple hours north of the cities, which is on a beautiful lake. We drove up Monday morning. We canoed the around the lake, fished, dug for worms, played dominoes, and ate some fried walleye. Mainly, spending time up at her cabin was incredibly relaxing. I need a hell of a lot more time than only a couple of extra days to spend in MN, but these two days were incredibly refreshing for me. A break from the racing/training boat, albeit a small one, was greatly needed. I can’t think of a better way to recharge the CNS than by chillin’ at the cabin and getting crazy with great friends.

As I write this, I’m listening to the music of one of my very close friends from HS, Dom Bazzett, he threw a couple of his CDs my way, and I’m totally impressed. He’s always been an extremely gifted musician/artist. It’s really cool to see how much his ability has progressed. Him and I used to rock out and record music back in the day, I was no musician, Dom and I just had a love for music, and we still do. I’ve been away from home for so long, I don’t know if I’ve ever felt such powerful nostalgia, it’s a strange emotion. It feels like there’s a magnetic force that wants to keep me here.

I'm back at the team house in Westport, CT now sitting on the side of a busy road borrowing free wi-fi from some unsuspecting neighbor. Wes bought an X-Box to pass the time and he and Shriver have been glued to the thing playing Madden Football since I arrived. I think I'll try to avoid getting sucked into playing the new toy. It looks like it takes a long time and a lot of patience to figure out, there's about 20 different buttons on controller... a lot has changed since Nintendo, with only two buttons. The riding around is really beautiful, the roads are real narrow, barely any traffic, and every house is a mansion. I can only imagine what the singletrack is like.

I still have a couple months of racing ahead of me, which consists mainly of stage races; Fitzburg, Cascade, and Toona. I need to make it through these… hopefully more than just make it through them, and then it’s back to my real home, Boulder.

Philly week is over!!

These have been the hardest races of the year by far. Ever since my crash at CSC, I haven’t been feeling 100%, so that just made these races even more demanding. Reading, PA was the second race of the Triple Crown series in Philly, and it was my first race back after crashing at CSC. During the race, I was constantly thinking about crashing again, which is possibly the worst thing to have in your head when you’re racing road, so I was pretty timid most of the race. My lack of aggression put me a little too far back in the field on the last lap when I should have been fighting to stay at the front. Because of this, I was back with some of the weaker riders that were opening gaps when the pace was lifted. I wasn’t able to close the gap, so I just rode in with a chase group.

The final race in Philly was amazing. I couldn’t believe what a huge production it was. Coming from a mountain bike background, where the only spectators are either your friends who race in a different category, your girlfriend, or your parents, the amount of spectators at Philly completely blew me away. Climbing up Manyuk almost made you deaf from the loud screaming drunken fans. Dustin made the early break, which took a lot of pressure off our team and made the pace chill out for a while. I abandoned the race about halfway through due to a flat and the slowest wheel change ever at the bottom of Manyuk. The guy who changed my wheel either mangled my rear derailleur while he was violently trying to force the new wheel into my dropouts, or simply the cassette that was on the new wheel just wasn’t compatible with my components, because the shifting was way off. Just about every gear skipped, sending my knees into the handlebars a few times while ascending the Manyuk wall. Dustin small breakaway group stayed away for most of the race. With Dustin being the strongest climber in the group, he won almost every KOM point of the entire race, and in the end was the KOM winner. Frank Pipp was our best finisher in 14th place.

Tomorrow I’ll be flying up to Minnesota to the Nature Valley Grand Prix. I’m looking forward to this race. After a pretty shaky week at Philly, I think that my body and mind will be a little more relaxed at Nature Valley and I predict I’ll feel a lot better. I’m also really excited to see all my friends that I grew up with… I haven’t seen any of them in a few years. My girlfriend is also coming up there, so I’ll get to spend some time with her and meet her folks.

Today, my teammates and I are without bikes, so we’re forced to find other things to do with our time. Well, Guptil and I have been online for about the last three hours, which is nothing new for most pro cyclists… I wonder what pro cyclists did to kill time before wireless internet? We’ll probably go check out a matinee movie later… you gotta love rest days.

Crash and Burn

After seeing so many crashes this year at just about every race, I knew that it was inevitable that my time would eventually come. My team has already lost a couple riders this year from crashes which have thinned our team down to only 9 available riders going into Philly. My form has been pretty decent lately, so I ended up being slated on the rosters for every race leading up to and during Philly week.

Yesterday was the CSC Invitational crit, which was a race that I was originally going to sit out. I started the race feeling a little fried from all the traveling and racing we've been doing, along with two nights in a row of bad sleep. I felt ok in the race, but probably the worst that I've felt since I've been out here. The race was extremely fast from the gun. I started in the very back once again, so it took me a few laps to get near the front. I rode somewhere in the top third of the field for the whole time I was in the race, but found it extremely difficult to move up since the field was totally strung out for about 90% of the race. The pace let up enough only a few times to move up to the front. At some point in the middle of the race around the final corner (corner 5) the field was pushed a little to far to the outside which caused a rider about four guys up from me to slam into the barriers. My teammate Wes slammed into him, blowing his bike to pieces; I was then pushed into the barriers. It happened so fast that I don't exactly remember how it happened, but I went face first into the barrier and put a deep gash in my chin, that's now got 18 stitches in it, and I also chipped my tooth.

I got to spend the next few hours in the hospital, mostly in the waiting room, in the company of all the other cyclists that went down in the multitude of crashes. For a flat crit, with only five corners, I can't believe how sketchy it was (especially corner five and the metal barriers!!). Even more unbelievable, only 25 guys finished from the original 150 that started! I pretty glad to be done with crits for a while, and doing road races and stages races instead. Other than my messed up face, the rest of me is ok, just slightly sore.

Wes and I made it up to Lancaster that night, and the neighbors of our host family were having a big ol' BBQ. We were over there immediately after stepping out of the car eating burgers and cookies, drinking some brews and mingling with the locals.

Wes's competitive side came out in full force when he took on a bunch of eight-year olds in tug-of-war... they kicked his ass.

I'm going to sit out Lancaster today and rest up all week so that I'm fresh for Reading on Thursday, and Philly on Saturday. I'm a little bummed that I'll miss it, but I think it's for the best.

On the East Coast

I've been out on the east coast for only a week now and I'm about to hop in the team van again to drive to my fourth home in Arlington, VA. Travelling has been a major theme of the last week. It started out on a really bad note with me and teamates flight from Farmington, NM to Philly.... I'm not going to explain what happened, all I'll say is that it sucked. We started racing immedieatly the next day with BikeJam in Baltimore, MD. This was a fun crit in a park in the ghetto. The whole team rode strong and Alejandro took 3rd. A couple days later we raced the Tour of Somerville in Somerville, NJ. This was by far the hottest I've ever been in a bike race. I was feeling heatstroke overwhelming me as the race went on... I had the chills, goosebumbs, and felt like I was going to pass out and hurl for much of the race. After this race the we went to our new team house, that we won't be living in for a few weeks, in Westport, CT. This is a beautiful area. I think every house has got to be worth over a million.

Right now I'm in Richmond, VA for the CAPTECH Classic crit that I raced last night. That was probably the hardest crit of the year, or maybe second hardest next to the Joe Martin Crit. We had to do fifty laps and each lap had a big climb and some fast downhill corners, and it was at night. I felt great on the climb, but I sucked on the corners and kept letting gaps open which would cause me to chase hard every lap to close them down. Only about 30 guys finished, and I wasn't one of them. However, I stuck it out longer than most of the field (about 3/4 of the race), and felt good.... I just need to figure out how to corner faster.

It looks like I'll be doing all three Philly races now, which I'm really excited about. Lancaster is the first of three and starts on Sunday. My form is pretty good right now, and I think it'll keep getting better as the season rolls on. The rest of the team seems to be riding well too, so hopefully we'll be able to pull off some good results in these upcoming races.

D-town

For the last week I've been kicking it in Durango at my Teammate Andy Guptil's house. Durango is beautiful right now, it's incredibly green, and the weather's been great. It took me a while to feel recovered from the Joe Martin Stage Race. I think racing at sea level, and then coming to a high elevevtion adds a day or two onto your recovery time. I ended up spending the first half of the week resting. Thursday I finally felt ready to open the legs up again so I did about 25 minutes of LT up to the top of Coal Bank Pass, which is around 10,500 feet. It's crazy how much harder it is to do intensity up there. Later that night I went down to Pagosa and soaked in the hot springs. That was great for the legs.

I didn't hit the training again until this weekend when Guptil, Shriver, Phil Zijack and I decided to ride from Durango to Silverton and back both saturday and Sunday. We were about five miles short of Silverton on Saturday due to some bad weather rolling in, but we made it on Sunday. Both days had around 10,000 feet of climbing, were just shy of 100 miles, and much of the ride was above 9,000 feet. We held a steady tempo the entire ride, so by the end we were all feeling pretty worked. Guptil had a BBQ at his place sunday night, so to top off a perfect weekend, I grilled up a fat half-pound elk burger with sautied onions and mushrooms, avacado, cheese, lettuce, tomato, and plenty of ketchup. Yum.

Me, Phil, and Andy restocking the fuel supplies at Needles Store.

We met up with some Locals at the top of Molas Pass at 10,900 feet

Sweet Home Arkansas

Since I haven’t posted in over a week, this post is going to be way too long. I’m writing it while sitting in the passenger seat while Guptil is taking a pull at the wheel on our Drive back from Fayetteville, Arkansas. So fill up you coffee cup with some bean juice or some yerba mate because this one’ll take while.

The last time I blogged, I was in the middle of the Tour de Gila preparing to race stage four, the crit, with thoughts of stage five rattling around in the back of my mind. I felt great in the crit, so I decided to try to get into a break. I tried to a couple of times; my first attempt was when I saw Mike Dietrich from Sierra-Nevada go up the road. I jumped on that but it didn’t stick. I made another attempt when Jon Tarkinton from Vitamin Cottage attacked; I knew that was a good wheel to follow due to his recent dominance in the Front Range races and reputation as a strong crit tactician. We were able to escape from the group with a couple of TIAA-Cref guys and a couple Successful Living guys. It was good to be up in the break, and I really wanted it to stick so I was driving it probably a bit too hard. The Cref and Successful Living guys were barely taking any pulls, which was a little frustrating. We were out there for most of the race and caught with about eight laps to go. Rashaan Bahati from Cref took the W from Gord who celebrated a little too early.

Before and after the race I got together with the infamous Dr. Frank, the chiropractor of the best pros in Durango. He’s becoming widely known in the world for his research and development of SRA (Spinal Reflex Analysis). The technique that he’s developed is amazing. After the crit, my body was worked, but after Dr. Frank worked on me, I felt like I hadn’t even raced at all. Check his website at http://www.spinalreflex.com/.

The final stage of the Gila was epic. We had about four major climbs to total about 10,000 feet of climbing in about 100 miles. Coming into the first climb, the field had about 100 guys in it. By the time we got over the top the field had already thinned down to about 40 guys. The second climb was the same road, only the other direction and slightly steeper. Once again this split the field in half and only about 20 of us were left. There was one more long and steep climb and this caused about five more guys to pop. We were about 80 miles into the race by this point and the legs were really screaming. I made it over this climb with the lead group, but I finally cracked with about 8 miles to go on the final rollers to the finish. I still managed a decent result and moved way up in GC. Our team made out really well with Colby taking 4th, Guptil 14th, and me in 18th in GC.

After Gila, I spent a couple days in Durango unwinding, then made the 15 hour journey out to Arkansas, my birthplace. We had a solid team at the Joe Martin stage race. It was great to see my teammates, mechanic, and director again. I got to experience having a suanier for the first time, which made recovery so much better. You can’t beat gettin’ a massage after every stage. And Janis made a mean PB and banana sandwich.

The racing in Arkansas was actually pretty damn hard. I don’t know what the promoter was thinking, but he decided to combine the Pros and 1s with 2s, which made for a field of about 215 guys… Way too big! So riding near the front was really important, to avoid gaps and crashes. The pace wasn’t too hard until the one major climb of the course. Unfortunately for me, I was taken out in a crash at the base of the climb when the two guys in front of me locked bars. By the time I got up and on the spare bike I had lost too much time and wasn’t able to catch back up by the top of the climb. At that point, there was no way I was going to be able to catch the group on my own. I caught a small chase group, and then was swept up by a large chase group. I was pretty frustrated with the group because no one was willing to work, and the group was large enough that we could’ve possibly caught up if everyone would’ve taken pulls. So I lost a lot of time in the first stage, which knocked me way out of GC.

The next day was a double day; road race in the morning and TT in the evening. The road race felt little harder then the previous day, but maybe that was just because my legs were just a little more trashed. The TT went alright, but I felt like I could’ve gone a lot harder. The Crit was the final day, and was the hardest crit I’ve ever done. It had a lot of high speed corners, wind, and a steep climb that absolutely punished the legs every lap.

The team ended up doing really well again with four of us in the top forty in GC, with Colby as the top rider in 5th.

I'm back on the road now returning to D-town for the next week and a half. The next block of races will start on the east coast with Captech, Bikejam, and Summerville leading into Philly week. Then I’m off to Minnesota for the Nature Valley Grand Prix, then back to east coast for the Saturn Rochester Crit, then Fitzburg stage race, then possibly Cascade. For the next week and a half I’m going to recharge the batteries a little in Durango and should be ready to hit all these races with good form.

Gila update

Internet is hard to come by in these parts. I've mainly been poaching it, along with free continental breakfast from the other nearby hotels.

It's day four of the Gila, and the Crit is later today. The last few days have gone pretty good for our team, we're currently sitting in second in the team standings. I've been feeling pretty good everday so far. Tomorrow's the hardest day with the stage being 105 miles with about 10,000 feet of climbing, so the GC should get pretty shaken up.

Yesterday, our team suffered a major loss. Ryan Blickem crashed within the final kilometers and broke his femur. This morning my team and I went down to the hospital to give him some company and he was smiling and in high spirits. It looks like he'll have a lot of rehab ahead of him, but I'm sure that he'll get through it and return to 100% soon enough.

Back on the Road

As usual, it's been a while since my last post. I've been back in Boulder for the last few weeks, and loving life. I'm completely addicted to Boulder; I love everything about the place. I stayed with one of my DH friends from Collegiate racing, and it was a killer situation. It was actually with her family, and her mom made some delicious dinners and desserts!!

Right now, I'm waiting around for the start of the TT at the Tour of the Gila. It's doesn't start until 4:30, so I just gotta chill all day. I've had a little bit of a sore throat for the last couple days, but I think it's just allergies... not gonna let it bother me. We've got a really good team out here, basically all of our climbers are here, which is fitting since this race has more climbing than probably any other stage race in the US. I'm finally feeling good on the climbs again, due to all the climbing I've been doing while in Boulder. To check out the race and results, the website is Tourofthegila.com. After Gila, I'll be doing the Joe Martin Stage Race, then possibly Tri-Peak, then off to the East Coast for a few weeks of racing. Yeah Baby
!!

Changes

For the last week, my body has been slowly adapting to the altitude and training load that I’ve been serving it. The epic ride to Estes last weekend left me feeling tired for most of the week. It wasn’t until this weekend that I started feeling the me of old reemerging. Sunday was by far the highest quality day of training that I’ve had this season. I did a TT up Flagstaff, and then did another 30-40 minutes of LT up Four Mile Canyon and over to Sunshine Canyon. After that, I went home, took a nap and then went out and did a 5 pm Stazio Crit. Today, I’m definitely feeling pretty worked, but I expect more adaptation to occur, and I will continue to whack myself for another week in preparation for the Gila in a few weeks.

I’ve also been taking care of all the structural issues that have popped up this year while I’ve been in town. I saw my chiropractor, Dr. Reichlin (TIAA-Cref team Chiropractor, and chiropractor to many top pros), a couple times. He straightened me out and got my motor neurons firing again using a cold laser. I also went to get a bike fit today from Chris Soden at Pro Peloton. This guy is good; he fits a bunch of the top local pros. We made some pretty major changes to my bike and my cleats and found that my posture is horrible. So now I feel very strange on the bike. I hope to adapt to the new setup after a few rides. More than anything, getting the fit and talking to Chris was a huge reminder of how important stretching and a strong core are.

While I’ve been unable to find any sign of form this year, I can honestly say that since I’ve been back to boulder I feel stronger than I’ve been all season. Taking a break and getting some quality training in has screwed my head back on straight. I can clearly see my goals and objectives now, and have the knowledge and motivation to accomplish these. I know that I made a lot of rookie mistakes this year, and that if I would have had the knowledge and experience that I have now, I’d be a hell of a lot stronger right now. Unfortunately, that’s not how it works. My job now is to correct for all those mistakes I’ve made and try to cultivate my form to new heights while there’s still time. There’s still a lot of racing left this season, and I plan to be coming up soon. I also have this new experience and knowledge to carry with me into next season which will prove to be very useful.

Right now, my teammates are probably all feeling their nerves begin to set in as the first stage of the Tour of Georgia will begin tomorrow. Good luck guys!

Recharging

I haven’t written on my blog for a while, and if you have the patience to read this long-ass post, you’ll kind of get an idea of why (that and the patchy internet access of the past few weeks). I was in Oregon for the last two weeks and I’m now back in Boulder- my home, my sanctuary, and my training grounds. I've had a turbulent start to my racing season. With a string of lackluster results, and a living situation that dissolved my accustomed access to privacy, reality, and life outside of cycling, I left Oxnard feeling lost and mildly depressed. However, I am very enthusiastic about my plans for the coming weeks that will bring me back to a high level of mental strength and happiness with my racing sure to follow.

One thing that I seem to lose sight of at some point in the season every year is that my main limiter is my mind. If I'm racing slowly, it’s because I’m mentally cooked. I’ve come to the realization, as I do every season at some time when I hit a low point, that I'm capable of racing at a very high level, but when I’m not fully mentally committed, I will perform suboptimally. Basically I need let my mind engage, to man-up, not be a pussy, and ride my ass off. That’s what I love to do, and I have to remember that. Sometimes, in order to remember this, I need to take a break. I think that when I or any athlete gets into a funk, we have a hard time reflecting on why, other than that there’s something physically wrong with us, which is a very negative thing to dwell on. Sometimes it’s important to step back from the bike for a period of time and submerse yourself in and around things, other than cycling, that make you happy. It’s this time away from cycling and competition that makes you realize how much it means to you, and how much its absence leaves a void in your person. I miss all the wonderful emotions that cycling and racing evokes and remember why it is so important to me, and how I can really tackle the rest of the season.

I went to stay with my parents in Grants Pass for a couple weeks. That was relaxing. My parents eat as healthy as even the most new age co-op shopping Boulderite, which is exactly my style. And it’s just nice to be with people who love you unconditionally. Yep, Oregon was a good break. A 180-degree change from racing and living in a house with 7 or more cyclists that gave me the break I needed to recharge my mental batteries.

Right now, I’m hungry to train and race again. I’ve been fantasizing about hammering up Flagstaff Road (I know, its sick) and trying to beat my record of 24:50. Yesterday I did an epic road ride up in the mountains with some good friends. It was one of those days where you feel like you could just keep going and never stop. I kind of acted on those feelings, because I was out for eight hours, and the ride time was about seven. Luckily, I still got home in time to make it to happy hour at the Mountain Sun and had my favorite post epic ride meal of beer and a Junk burger. I don’t think I could have been more satisfied.

My next big race will be the Tour de Gila so training in Boulder for the next few weeks couldn’t be more perfect to prepare me for the big climbs and the altitude that I’ll be up against. I’ll be back on form in time to do my job at Gila and ready to hammer the rest of the season.

Redlands Prologue

Prologues are hard. The Prologue stage of Redlands was today... and the pH of my entire body felt like it hit an all time low. I started way too hard and by the time I got to the two walls before the finish, my muscles were fully saturated in lactic acid and unable to produce the kind of power and spark that they felt during my openers the day before. The last time I was in this great of oxygen debt was during the uphill bobsled TT at the Deer Valley Norba last year... I gotta learn how to pace myself better.

I'm not too worried about how I finished though... Sunday’s circuit will be the true test and GC will likely change quite a bit.

Anthony had far and away the best ride today coming in 12th, and I know he'll perform strong in the circuit.

Tomorrow is a 9 corner crit that's supposed to be really hard and fast. It doesn't start until 3:30, so I got a long day ahead of me.

For the second weekend in a row, the host housing is spectacular. The house is beautiful, huge, spacious, hot tub, swimming pool, two dogs, lots of TV’s, a huge pantry of food, you name it.

Feelin' Good, Feelin' Motivated

Alright, last weekend, I wasn't feeling too hot. But after a few days of hard rest I'm feeling ready to push my body to the limits this weekend at the Redlands NRC. I did a couple openers today and felt good.

Redlands starts off with a slight uphill TT... but it looks like it'll favor more of a strong time trialist rather than a strong climber. On Saturday is a crit, and Sunday is supposed to be a hard road race. So far this year, the road races haven't been hard enough to create a selection. I'll try my hardest to make it into that final selection. This race looks like it suits me much more than everything else I've done this year, it should be fun.

The big news right now is that our team made it into the Tour of Georgia, the second largest stage race in the country. That's huge for us as only about half of the US Pro teams get invited. I really hope to be selected for the team that's going... it would be such an amazing experience for me. I think I'm going to have to prove that I should be there this weekend at Redlands.

A few teammates and I went to see V for Vendetta last night. Futuristic sci-fi with a 1984ish plot and some badass fight-scenes... I liked it.

Taking a break soon

I'm in the town of Visalia, CA now awaiting the 3 o'clock start of the crit, gettin'/maintaining my buzz at one the local internet cafes. Yesterday my team and I raced a 30K TT. The course was pretty good... a decent hill at the beginning and end with a few rollers in between. I felt like total ass. As Coach Crawford would put it, my CNS is cooked... I need a break. I still have one race left next weekend, Redlands, so I plan on resting super hard all week in hopes of recharging my mind and body enough to ride with motivation and at the level of fitness that I should be at right now.

After three months of being on the road with the team, I came to the realization that it's time for a break. The day after Redlands I'll be flying up to Portland to see a friend of mine from High School, and then I'll head down to Grants Pass, OR to stay with my folks for about a week. Then I'm heading back to my home town Boulder, CO and will be there for possibly a few weeks.

In Oregon, I'll unwind... get my mind off racing and just relax. Once I get to Boulder, I'll wind it up again in hopes of being on top mental and physical form by the end of April. For me, Boulder is the absolute best training environment, and I think it'll be key in bringing me to high mental and physical levels again.

Back to the Beach

I'm back in Oxnard and once again the house is packed. I'm shacked up again in the garage, which is fine with me, I actually like sleeping in there.

I finished out the weekend with a fun crit on Sunday in the Central Valley stage race. The course had a 180 degree turn on the same street... so each lap the entire field came to almost a complete stop, then it was a full on sprint once we made it around the turn. The field stayed pretty much strung out for the entire race, and the pace was high the whole time. It made it very hard to move up though. I finished in the pack, but I felt really good and comfortable during the race, I think I've got some form coming on, and with that a bit more confidence.

I'm hoping to do the San Dimas stage race this weekend, but I didn't register early enough before the race reached it's field limit. My team director is working on it, but I kinda doubt I'll get in. If not, I think there's some local races I might be able to do. Right now though, I just want to keep racing as much as possible.

Fresno baby!!

Lots has happened since my last post… McLane last weekend… windy gutter-fest. I double flatted, so that ended my day.

Since then I’ve been in Fresno for the week where I’m currently racing the Central Valley Classic Stage race. There was originally supposed to be an epic hill climb TT similar to Flagstaff road in Boulder (a little longer) on Friday, but that got cancelled because of a big snowstorm that dumped all over the mountain. Instead we did a 16 mile flat TT. I didn’t post a good time, but Blickem, our TT superstar was eighth. Today was pretty miserable, 120 flat miles in 40 degree rainy weather. I finished. Tomorrow is the crit… hopefully it doesn’t’ rain… that could be a bit hairy.

My parents are coming to visit tonight and watch the crit tomorrow, and we’re gonna have a good ol’ family reunion with my grandma, aunt, and cousins who all live in Fresno.

That’s all I got time for today… no internet at house so I gotta go to the café and only have so much time to surf porn.

Lata!

McLane

It's only a couple of days until the McLane Pacific crit and road race up in Merced, CA. This will be my first NRC of the season. I'm chomping at the bit right now... I need to race... no more training!! This race is supposed to be pretty flat and is known for being sketchy and finishing with a field sprint... not really my ideal race, but it's still a race, and the field will be packed with fast teams and riders.

Afterwards, my team will be having a team camp up in Fresno. The camp will lead up to the next NRC, Central Valley, which looks like it has an uphill TT. I hope to do well in this event... I have no idea how well I'm climbing right now... but I have a feeling I'll do okay. I'm slowly feeling some form come on lately sa I've been begining to do some real intensity in the last couple weeks.

Watching Enter the Dragon right now... Bruce Lee is one bad ass MoFo.

Tickling the VO2

The Tour of California finished about forty miles from my house today, so Wes and I rode there to check it out. I'm finally starting to do some LT (hard) workouts. So on the way, I hammered up the Mulholland Hwy, one of the many canyons that splits off of the Pacific Coast Hwy. The finish of the race was in the town of Thousand Oaks at the Amgen headquarters. I was completely blown away by the number of spectators that showed up for the finish. There were hundreds. It kinda sucked, because I wasn't even able to see the race there were so many people in my way.

I didn't hang out at the race for very long and made my way back to the PCH so that I could hit up one more climb. While I've been living in California, I've been putting this climb off (Deer Creek Road) until I started LT... Today my time finally came. The climb was awesome, incredibly steep for about 12-15 minutes. I pinned it for about 10 minutes, tickling the VO2 a little, but that's all I had since I was around five hours into my ride... and I'm not too used to the lactic acid yet.

When I got to the top I took a picture of myself with the ocean in the background... I figure there's rarely a picture of me up here, so you can print it out and stick it to the ceiling above your bed... or put it in your garage and throw darts at it... it's up to you.

Tomorrow I'll be doing another local crit in Ontario (east LA). There's $1000 purse for pro 1/2, so hopefully I can get my hands on some of that.

It's supposed to rain on Monday and Tuesday... Bummer. I haven't seen rain in probably like 4 or 5 months... I'm actually a little excited, I hope it storms hard!

In my last post I was talking about old friends contacting me... well another friend of mine from Jr. High e-mailed me yesterday... Dan Wold!! Wow, that was a major surprise. I haven't spoken to him in like six or more years. He's actually the one who got me into mountain biking. He and I used to bomb our Trek 820s down some sick, crazy shit!! We beat the shit out of those things.

Daily Routine

Well, since I’ve begun my pseudo road trip/adventure, my lifestyle has changed quite a bit. Yes, I love it, but it is so incredibly different than what I’m used to. My life before was a constantly busy… and I had multiple things (school, girlfriend, social life) in my life other than cycling that were close to equally as important. Now, I eat, sleep, breathe and live cycling… and there’s not a whole lot else but that. Typical day: wake up, drink water, coffee, shit, eat, chamois, ride, shower, eat, stretch/therapy, relax, bed. I’m still trying to adapt to this new lifestyle, but I gotta say, I think I kinda miss being stressed out all the time from school… it took my mind off all the other little stressors associated with racing.

I spoke to a friend of mine from high school the other day that I haven't heard from in a few years. Outa the blue she called me while I was at Valley of the Sun. I love it when old friends make contact after so many years… nostalgia’s a great feeling. We’ve been talking a bit still since then too on this new website I signed up for called myspace.com.

I haven’t spoken to my Boulder hommies in a while… hope all is well and it’s not snowing too much up there.

Everyone should be watching the Tour of California tonight and the next few nights on ESPN2. This is the biggest cycling event in the US that I remember ever occurring… so check it out!!!

Bike racing on TV!!

The final stage of Valley of the Sun went great for my team. We took the majority of the primes and Wes took third. I actually won a $100 prime due to some amazing teamwork. On the final prime lap, three of us were on the front just pinning it and the third guy back (Eneas) let a gap open between Dustin and I so we rode away from the field and took it.

Blickem still held onto his third place in GC... so all in all it was a very succesful first race for the team.

Since the race, I've started my recovery week, so I haven't been doing a whole lot of riding. We met our team mechanic (Eric Jellum) out at the race and were greeted with all of our new GT bikes, including the TT bikes. The bikes are awesome, I can't wait to race on them. Every day since we've gotten back to Oxnard, Jellum's been working from sunrise to sunset getting all the bikes and everything else dialed and ready to race. It's a new concept having someone else work on my bike after being my own mechanic for so many years... it's gonna be nice.

Stage two of the Tour of California is on ESPN tonight... I'm psyched! I tried to go the whole day without hearing the outcome, but that's pretty much impossible when your in a house of seven cyclists. It's a little tough to watch and read the coverage of the race, knowing how close my team was to being in it... suposedly we were on the bubble with another team... but they got it. I heard that the entire Mexican national team dropped out today... hmmmm, now that was a good choice by whoever was selecting teams for that race.

Alright, back to Olympic figure skating.

Racin'!!

I'm back in the hotel room again watching the Olympics... this time with a couple of races in my legs, and a fat burrito in my belly.

The TT yesterday didn't go too well, but I didn't really expect a result without any real TT equipment. My teammate Ryan Blickem got third, 40 seconds down from the winner. Today was the road race, it was a pretty flat course with a small 3% grade climb near the finish. A couple guys got off the front early in the race and opened up a five minute gap with no teams really making an effort to chase it down. By the last lap, their lead was down to only a few minutes, so my team and I got on the front and crushed the pace until we pretty much popped ourselves. We finally caught the break by the finish line, but we were late by a few seconds and one of the two guys in the break ended up taking the win. There were no changes in GC, and Blickem kept his third place position.

Tomorrow's the crit, which looks to be a bit technical, so that should be pretty fun. After that, we'll be driving into the night back to Oxnard.

Waiting patiently

I'm back in Arizona, anticipating the start of the time trial of Valley of the Sun. I start around 3:30, so I'm just sitting around in the hotel room watching tv and surfing the net right now. Not my favorite way to spend the day, it's too bad that we can't just race early and get it over with.

I threw on the aerobars this morning, that's the extent of my TT equipment right now. Hopefully I'll be able to use a TT bike at some point this season. I'm looking forward to racing though, especially the Road Race tomorrow.

It looks like there's a fairly strong field. I think our team has a good chance to do well. We have the defending champion, Ryan Blickem, who will likely be our GC guy. And, Alejandro Acton, our top sprinter, will likely do well in the Road Race and crit.

California Climbing

After a couple days of bad legs, they finally came around today. I did another big ride, up into the mountains of Cali. I think the route I did was actually part of one of the stages of the Tour of California... Only the other direction. There were some spectacular views today, but I didn't carry my camera for lack of jersey pocket space. I climbed for probably about two and a half hours on this road and climbed about 5100 feet. The weather was beautiful, as ussual, mid-70s and sunny. I got incredibly dehydrated because there was nowhere to fill up water the entire time. Luckily I ran into this weekend warrior with his aerobar equipped bike who was carrying a gallon of water in his backpack. He gave me about 16 ounces, which was enough to get me about 40 miles back to the nearest gas station.

My current home is slowly filling up with more and more teammates. Alejandro Acton, the Argentinean sprinter just showed up a couple days ago. He doesn't speak very much English, so I've been trying to brush up on my Spanish. I took 3 semesters of Spanish at CU, but I've never had a real opportunity to actually use it outside the classroom.

In the last week my team has decided to send a crew out to the Valley of the Sun stage race in phoenix, AZ. The race starts on Friday with a time trial. I think Saturday is a road race and Sunday is a crit. This will be a good tune-up for Vuelta Sonora, which will start a week later. Wow, I can't believe that the race season is already starting... Crazy!

Stuff that breaks sucks.

The posts have been scarce lately.... and I have many excuses for that, the main excuse being that my laptop is broken. I woke up a few days ago and it wouldn't start... damn that sucks! Well, I spent an entire day trying to figure out how to fix the darn thing, and I eventually found a somewhat invasive fix that entails pulling the hard-drive out and hooking it up to another computer to get my personal files off. After that, I'll format and reinstall windows. What a bitch! Oh well, I actually kinda enjoy doing that kind of stuff, so alright!

Today I went out with the Hulk (teammate Dan Greenfield) and busted out about four hours of tempo. The ride totaled 6:45 and 126 miles. I'm in the transition phase of training right now, so every other day I'm essentially going long and hard.

Dan and I both ran into some mechanical problems along the way today. He had a couple flats, and my derailleur cable broke when we were in Santa Monica... which was pretty far from Oxnard (where we're staying). We searched around for awhile and decided that a coffee shop would be a good place to ask for directions to the nearest shop. The first person I saw as we approached the coffee shop looked kinda like a cyclist... you know, skinny, strange tan lines, bike t-shirt. We got to talking and I knew I recognized him from somewhere, and then it stuck me that he was David Zabriske from CSC, and it was. I thought that was pretty bizarre that of all the normal people we could have asked for directions in that town we bumped into one of the best American bike racers in the world. After that we found the shop and the guy working was super cool and hooked us up with a free cable and some energy food. After that whole fiasco, we got back on our way and pinned it for the rest of the ride. The roads are amazing here... the climbs are spectacular.

The owner of our team has been out here for the past few days and decided that it was time to purchase the new team vehicle. We got an Audi A6... Damn that car moves!! I've never driven a fast car in my life until this one... even compared to Old Reliable.

Well I hope I fix my computer by tomorrow, I'll try to get some more pics up when I do that.

Happy rides!

California Love

I'm in California now, and I love it! I can't believe that I've spent so much of my life without the ocean.... it's so incredibly beautiful. And what's even better, is that right up next to the ocean there are some pretty large mountains. The house that my team is staying is great... it's about a block from the beach and about five miles from the PCH and the mountains.

The scenery is spectacular here. Today I rode down the PCH (Pacific Coast Highway or Hwy 1). The road follows right alongside the coast, it's very pretty, a nice shoulder, and not too much traffic. I turned off the PCH pretty early to head up into the hills... amazing roads!


The first thing I did when I arrived last night was go to the beach and take off my shoes to walk barefoot in the sand and the ocean water.

We tried to get a picture of the sunset, but I think we were about 20 minutes late.
My Beach and my neighborhood.

The ocean and mountains.... What else could you ask for?

Strawberry fields

To the beach!

I went through that whole process of packing up all my bags again tonight. Fortunately, this time around wasn't nearly as painful as when I left Boulder. This time I don't have 75 things to eBay, an extra bike, and a car. I sent my car back with my coach, Rick Crawford, so that I can just travel with the team van and won't be burdened with my own gas guzzler. My teammates and I will be leaving Tucson at 7 am. Our destination: the beach. Our next house is in Oxnard, CA and is right on the beach... I can't wait! I'll be staying there for about two months, with a couple weeks in March somewhere else racing.

Here's a link to a satellite image of where we're staying:

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=140+Los+Angeles+Avenue,+Oxnard,+CA&t=k&ll=34.149144,-119.216343&spn=0.002189,0.006738&t=k

Is lying on the beach a good way to recover from a hard ride? I don't know, but I think I'm going to find out. I'm not sure if it'll be quite as warm as it's been in Tucson, but it'll still be way warmer than what I'm used to in Colorado.

Today was officially the last day of my rest week. I spent it off the bike and about four hours of it at the book store trying to find the perfect book. I just finished 1984, which was really good. I have the "Da Vinci Code" right now, but I just haven't felt the desire to read it, even though it’s so incredibly popular. Instead I bought the first book of Stephen King's "The Dark Tower" series called "Gunslinger". I've always been a science fiction and fantasy dork, and I like Stephen King, so I think it should be good. This kind of book is good for bedtime reading because it puts me to sleep and give me cool dreams. I also bought more of an intellectual read, titled “The Fabric of the Cosmos” by Brian Greene. I figure since I’m not in school for awhile, I’d better keep my mind in shape and read something that’ll make me think and learn a little.
a

Century w/45 miles on dirt + 7 flats = EPIC

The end of my rest week is approaching, and I’m not sure if I‘m quite ready for it to end.
I spent the first few days sleeping, getting caught up on stuff, and watching old people play golf in our back yard. Yeah, we live on a freakin’ golf course!!!


I was starting to feel fully rested by about Wednesday, but then yesterday, I couldn’t resist the temptation to join my teammates for an epic. I’m not sure if I can even call it an epic though, because compared to a lot of the rides that I’ve been doing this year, it’s just like any other day. The thing that did make it epic however, was the 45 miles of dirt/jeep roads that we rode. Now if I were to take the ol’ MTB out there on these roads, it would’ve been a piece of cake. But 120 psi and 700x23 tires, made the downhills sketchy and fun… I got that high speed dirt lovers on the edge of your chamios fix that I’ve been craving from all the asphalt I’ve been on lately. Yes, my MTB friends, as I was shredding those dirt roads on my road bike, I felt a bit nostalgic and was dearly missing my mountain bike.

I guess this “es un muy popular” place to cross the border. My Canadian teammate Dustin en route through a hot smuggling route for illegal immigrants.

Not only did those skinny tires make the descents hairy, they also pinch flatted on just about every rock they hit. I think we totaled about 7 flats between the four of us. Wes took the prize for the most with four, and Dustin was the only one not to pinch a tube. All those flats caused quite the delay and put us pretty behind schedule. So once we finally hit the pavement again, about 50 miles from home, we got into formation and rode in a paceline (TTT style) full-on. I felt like I was back with my collegiate mates killing it during TTT practice. It also showed me how strong the rest of these guys are. We haven’t really gone out and hammered together yet until yesterday, and all three of these guys (Frank Pipp, Wes Hartman, and Dustin MacBurnie) have got some horsepower… that’s pretty damn motivational for me.

Today we put on a clinic for TargeTraining. We basically rode slow with some weekend warriors and talked training and racing, and tried to share our knowledge. We’ll do another one tomorrow… it’ll be fun.

I’m only in Tucson for a few more days, and then I’m off to Oxnard, CA for some more training to get ready for the first race at the end of February in Sonora, Mexico.

Cheers.

Base is done, let's eat pie.

I finished my last day of base today. Like I had planned in my last post, I rode up Mt. Lemon which I consider to be the best ride in Tucson. I was a little off in my estimate of mileage and elevation gain, it’s more like a 25 mile climb and about 5000 feet of elevation gain… still huge. Before I started up the climb, I rode down on the flats for about 2 hours.

From Tucson, Mt. Lemon looms in the distance.

By the time I got to the base of the climb, my water bottle was only half full… big mistake. I got about halfway up the climb and was completely out of water. I was already feeling the dehydration draining my power and boosting my heart rate. The only place to get water was the café at the top of the mountain. I got the café and downed a couple bottles of water. To celebrate successfully making it through the hardest and by far the highest volume month of base in my life, I bought some of the famous pie that the café is well known for. One slice of pie cost $6.50… it was worth every penny. What’s pie without a little joe to wash it down?

Well, after all that pie and coffee I was recharged and ready for more, the only thing about that was that I now had about 25 miles of descending and it was cold up there. I made it down without getting too cold, and felt like I was ripping the descents. The more I ride that decent, the faster I go, and the more fun it gets. The views are spectacular up there too; I actually stopped on the way down to try to get a shot of the best part of the decent. This section of the road skirts across a ridge which drops off on both sides, it's pretty amazing.

Out and Back

Hell yeah, another huge day in the bag. I peddled my bike another 125 miles today for six hours. I was pretty much on the gas the whole time. The music selection of the day: ambient beats, haven’t listened to those in a while. I started it off with some AIR and then changed it up to some Café del Mar. It turned out to be excellent desert riding music. DJ Niko (Gould) may disagree, but he is the Master of Beats and a damn good DJ. I heard his latest album last week and holy shit I’m impressed!! DJ Niko will spin all night and still race your legs off the next day.

Today’s route was another out and back. I rode up Oracle road a little beyond Mammoth and flipped it. I’ve only got one more day of base left tomorrow; I think I’ll finish this phase with the best ride in Tucson, Mt. Lemon. This ride climbs about 6500 feet in about 35 miles. It’s a pretty gradual climb and is incredibly beautiful. The scenery is constantly changing as you climb. I’ll try to bring my camera this time, and get some eye candy up for you. I haven’t been bringing it lately because I’ve only got so much room in my jersey pockets, and I have a tough time stopping when I’ve got it pinned. But since tomorrow’s my final day of base I will try to take some pictures.

Well that’s all for now… time to stretch.

Desert Solitude

The last ride that I wrote about put me into more of a deficit than I had expected and I could barely ride my bike the next day. I still ended up putting in about 4 hours, but 2 or none at all probably would have been the better move. I ended up going out that night with the intention of having dinner and checking out the night life a little, and to come home by midnight at the latest. It didn’t end up working out that way though and I was out until 2 am. With my poor levels and lack of sleep, I decided that a day off was needed. I was able to get caught up with everything off the bike (ebay, packing MTB, etc.)

I rode alone out to kitt peak and back today… it was 128 miles total. I think this is the furthest I’ve ever ridden in my life. On the way home I past about 50 stopped cars on the main road (Ajo road). At the front of this traffic jam there was a bunch of cop cars an ambulance and a helicopter. An 80-something year old man hit a cyclist. His story was that the cyclist just out of nowhere, pulled out onto the road in front of him. I have a feeling that this is a bullcrap, and that the old man swerved into the shoulder. Hopefully the cyclist comes out ok, and the old guy that hit him will have to pay dearly. I had to sit there for a while until the cops let me by so I ended up getting home late and had to ride through Tucson at night… that’s a bit scary… lots of fast cars.

Well, I’m tired and I gotta go to bed so I can do it again tomorrow.

Good night.

Puttin' in the miles

Oh man, am I tired. My volume is incredibly high right now. I’m supposed to do a 36 hour week this week… that means 6 hours a day for six days… I’ve already taken my rest day. I rode alone today and logged in 126 miles. Sometime around hour 5.5 I started thinking about how different my daily life is from your average Joe, Dick, or Jane. While I’m struggling to pin my HR at 145 BPM for 6 hours, the majority of the population probably won’t even touch this during the day. I don’t really think most people understand how much training, hard work and dedication goes into this sport… especially when I get either honked at or buzzed by about 10 cars a day. I think I started losing my mind a little too towards the end when I caught myself pointing out glass in the shoulder even though I wasn’t riding with anyone. Well, I’ve only got four more days of base, then I start my rest week, then I get to begin transition.

I’m already starting to think about my first race coming up. I’m scheduled to do Vuelta Sonora which is at the end of February/beginning of March down in Mexico. This race should be pretty sweet… I think its 6 or 7 days long. It’ll be a good way to kick the season off and to bring on some form. I can’t wait to start racing again!

Tonight, I’d love to be able to sit on the couch and watch mindless television all night, but I just sold my MTB so I gotta make sure that it’s all dialed, and then pack it up.

Time to motivate and try to be productive.

My new job

I’m back. It’s been hard to motivate to write on the blog these last couple weeks, my life has been all about readjustment. I’m finally feeling readjusted enough to share my thoughts. I’m living a completely new lifestyle now, where all that really matters to me is training and racing… I absolutely love it. I don’t really have to think or worry about anything else… except of course the 70+ things I posted on ebay. About those… half of them went up for auction and finished last week and the other half are up for auction right now. I made a butt load of money, but, I also spent a ton of time (my entire rest day) packaging that stuff up and I’ve made a lot of trips to the post office.

I gotta tell you, my life is awesome down here. The weather is beautiful (sunny and mid-70s everyday) and I’m just riding a ton and spending time with my new teammates. The team is awesome, I feel so lucky that I’m on this team. I know for a fact that we’re going to be a very strong presence at all the NRCs this season. A lot of the guys on the team don’t have the experience of a lot of the other pro team, but with the level of management, and coaching that this team has, our success is inevitable. Now that I’m not in school, my training load is massive, 5 to 6 hours a day. I'm usually pretty famished at the end of these rides and head straight for the kitchen with the rest of my riding partners to consume an enormous amount of calories.

Well, that’s all for now, people want to go to bed and I don’t want to keep them up by banging on the keyboard. I’ll try to be a little more consistent with my posts from now on.