THE BLOG

Nebo, Graduation, Washington, and Jaajuh.

2011-06-21T18:46:00.000-07:00

I'm in Georgia right now for Nationals and the heat just feels great. Since the beginning of June I've done the Mt Joy RR where I finished 16th and the Mt Nebo RR where I finished 16th. Mt Nebo was a great race though. It was a really hard course and pretty much ran as a race of attrition. I stayed as far forward as I could and went as hard as I could when I needed to, but in the end I was slow up the finishing hill and finished where I did.

Nathan has been home also, to spend some time in the warmth before we came down here. I graduated high school and we went out to a really cool new restaurant called Mala Tang Sichuan Hot Pot.

This past weekend I did Washington County which was also a great race. I didn't do super good in the prologue, finishing 38th. In the RR, unfortunately I flatted on the first lap, got a bad wheel change for a wheel that only had three cooperative gears for me, and then missed the next turn. I got to within 45 seconds off the field, but after two laps of hard chase I just conformed to riding the rest mellow. It was a pretty course though and a nice place to ride so I didn't mind.

Day 2 went pretty well for me. I rode the time trial on my heavy powertap training wheel, since the timing didn't work out to borrow the TT wheels from Nathan. I put in a good effort though and finished 31st. An extra 30 seconds, which I could have gained from a disc wheel and even more if I had the front tri-spoke too, would have put me in the top twenty riders.

Feeling still pretty fresh from taking the RR easy, I went into the crit looking to put in my hardest ride of the weekend. I rode in the top five to ten riders for the whole race, following some attacks. With three to go, there was a lull and I hesitated to attack immediately so I got swarmed and ended up at the back of the pack. It was too late to move up and I was starting to lose steam so I played it safe and finished at the back of the depleted field for 25th place.

Oxford Road Race and Crit Season

2011-05-30T18:29:00.000-07:00

I didn't write about last weekend but I can give a little summary here. I raced on Saturday at a road race in Pennsylvania. I felt good throughout the race and with 2 laps remaining of a 6.5 mile circuit, the pack was whittled down to only 20 of the 55 starters. Unfortunately, I crashed with two to go and my bike was too messed up to continue. I didn't get injured though so I was fine to do a big ride the next day. I went to Kelly Acres for the first time in a while and did a good ride with Steven, Shane, and David.

As for this weekend, I have heard some people calling this part of the season "crit season," so I'm calling this weekend my crit season. I did BikeJam on Saturday, doing the Juniors in the morning and the 3/4 a little later. The Juniors was fun, being my first time this season doing a local jrs race, but in the 3/4 I felt like I rode a little too conservatively.

Today I did my favorite crit, the Tour of Somerville. The juniors race is short at only 15 miles, but there are always good riders and it is fast. I followed a few moves in the first few laps until Justin got away in a breakaway for several laps. I followed a move across when the gap began to shrink and then countered but was brought back. With six laps to go I countered a big attack during a small lull and got away in a four person breakaway. The race was beginning to slow down, so I was able to stay away until about 2.5 laps to go. We were caught just before the third corner and by the fourth corner I had attacked again, thinking that maybe they would let me go. I was going over 30 miles an hour down the long, wide finishing avenue and a Hot Tubes rider bridged across to me and went flying by. I couldn't get on his wheel and was pretty quickly reabsorbed, so I just sat in and gave it one last burst on the last lap to lead out Justin/Andy. I pulled off at about 250 or 300 meters left and went just slow enough to finish exactly last place. Justin and Andy did great finishing 4th and 13th. Steven was 3rd to Baranoski and Semian.

Bike Racing Hurts my Legs

2011-05-10T04:24:00.000-07:00

(justin gets 3rd place in the sprint)

This weekend I did some hard racing, 2.5 hrs north of DC on Saturday and 2.5 hrs south on Sunday. Turkey Hill was Saturday in Lancaster. David said that the course was harder than he expected, but I thought it was easier than I expected. It was super hard, but I expected it to be ludicrously hard. The feed zone was right after a hard right corner and I don't know who was attacking out of that corner or what my problem was but I screwed up all my feeds and only had the two small bottles that I started with plus a third of a water bottle that David gave me near the end of the race. I got pretty dehydrated and just sat in trying to survive and avoid cramps. David was killing it though and attacking a lot near the end of the race. On the last lap he followed a good move of two other riders and they stayed off the front. The other riders thought they had made it for sure with 1 km left to go, but the gap was still small, so David rode on the front leading up to the sprint to make sure they wouldn't get caught and he finished 3rd. I coasted in at the back of what remained of 100 starters to finish 27th.

While Saturday was a notoriously hard course, Sunday I did Jeff Cup, which I guess is a notoriously easy road race course. HPC for Jeff Cup was me, Justin, Patrick, and a masters rider, Michael Myers. The pace was pretty mellow for most of the race. Michael was in some good attacks in the middle of the race and so I just rode near the front trying to thwart chase efforts. At the bottom of the false flat coming up to the line for 1 to go, Abate started attacking but it wasn't super hard so once the pace relaxed after less than a minute I rolled off the front and started riding hard. Two other riders bridged up to me and we had a good last lap breakaway going. Coming up the hill, for the first time I didn't feel ashamed to ride past Ben King because I was off the front making it happen. Then they neutralized us which was a bunch of baloney. The motoref said we had a 30" gap at the corner though and they would give us that again once we started back up. The 123 field passed us and then they let us go again after about 5 minutes total of being stopped. It was definitely a buzz kill to stop like that and probably was harder on the break than the pack, but we rode hard for the rest of the lap. Most of the lap after that one small hill is downhill, so it was hard for me being a small rider and also on junior gears. The other guys started to lose hope and get disorganized when all we really had to do was ride as hard as possible and we would have made it. They gave up when we stopped being out of sight and our gap was "only" 14 seconds. I think we could have made it but we got caught with 1.5 miles left and I just sat up and went right out the back to finish 41st. Justin used his sprint to finish 3rd!

So HPC got two 3rd places this weekend, with only small teams at both races. I think once we get all of us together and can really work the team tactics, we will have a win under our belts.

2011-05-02T19:19:00.000-07:00

This past weekend I did the Tour de Ephrata. The road race was a good course that was technical and windy with a small hill. The first few laps were relaxed. The easiest part of the course was the hill, the flatter more technical sections were difficult in a few places. HPC's team strategy as devised by David and I was to stay near the front and conserve energy, but mark moves by Tony Abate. It was hard to keep positioning with the narrow roads, and, despite following him around constantly, I was out of position when he finally did form a three person attack. Once I pushed my way back to the front I attacked relentlessly for a few miles and tried to bridge across but I was well marked by two District Velocity riders. David attacked on the hill, bringing down the gap again. On the last lap, I had plenty of energy left but was caught out at the back unable to move up. David attacked on the hill again and brought back the breakaway. The field split, or at least the people right in front of me couldn't keep up and they took up the whole road, so I had to wait until they moved out of the way and then I jumped across the gap to stay in contact. Unfortunately there is a long enough and fast enough descent after the climb that David's attack was good for little more than bringing back the breakaway. We were both out of position for the crosswind sprint but pushed our way through to an inconsequential 22nd and 24th.

The time trial was good. I rode hard and thought I had a strong time of 25:15, only 9 seconds behind David on a pretty climby time trial, but it was only good for 22nd place. David rode to 19th and collected our only gc points of the weekend. Shane killed it in the cat 4 race with 25:30 and got 2nd! Jacob also killed it and rode a 25:44 to finish 6th place.

Then we drove to the crit and hung out for what felt like forever before my race at 3:30. Shane was on fire in the cat 4 race taking every preme, and Jacob did well in the field sprint to finish 6th. My crit was disappointing though. I missed Tony Abate's early attack and rode hard near the front, putting in a lot of attacks to try and bridge across since the field was going pretty slow. Then all of a sudden about halfway through the race I came back from an attack and went straight out the back. I thought I had overdone it with the attacking and worn myself out, but once I had exited the course I realized my brake was full on rubbing and probably had been for a few laps. I had perhaps taken to the crit a little too casually and my rear quick release on the wheel wasn't tightened enough and I remember the wheel skipping a few times, which probably either knocked the wheel out of line or hit the brake and twisted it to start rubbing. David was riding strong but didn't get in good positioning towards the end and so there was no result, only fun. I was a little embarrassed to have exited the crit like that, but it was my first crit of the season and I was loving the rush of it while it lasted, because it was a fun and fast course.

Battenkill, the Dolan Double, and Team Camp

2011-04-25T18:34:00.000-07:00

After a few race cancellations, Battenkill ended up being only my 2nd race of the year, which is not optimal, but my training was good leading up to it. The level of the juniors field had increased from last year, with 110 total riders, including several French-Canadian teams and American juniors from all over the country. I rode the course on Saturday with my teamies, and remembered how beautiful the countryside is there; plus, the course is a really fun one. HPC/List had David, Justin, Shane, and I racing. We were small in numbers but strong and had a solid plan to check up on each other throughout the race, get to the front before each dirt section or decisive climb, and save energy to follow late-race moves. Things get more complicated on the road though. The race was hard because even when the pace was relaxed (actually, even more when the pace was relaxed) there was a constant struggle for position with people pushing and shoving, completely ignoring the yellow line rule, and even riding through dirt and front yards to move up the side of the pack. We didn't have the best communication coming into the first big climb and Justin drilled it on the downhill to keep good position, while I lost position, so as a result Justin and I both ended up having to chase back on with Michael Reidenbach after the climb because it split up a lot. The group was back together after a few kilometers and more and more riders caught back up as we headed towards the first feedzone. The pace was moderate with a few attacks until the longest climb of the course that comes at about the 50 kilometer point (halfway). The pace was crazy up this climb and I suffered bad to crest the climb with the second group. David was in a small front group/breakaway while Justin was in the second group that I had just barely tagged onto the back of. Just after the crest I flatted. I continued to ride the flat as it leaked, because I was on tubulars, and tried to keep the group in sight. The wheel van ended up being about 10 or 15 minutes behind, so my race was over at that point. I ended up riding to the finish with Shane who flatted 8 miles in. I felt great during the race, and next year I can have a real go at it. David cramped near the end and finished 14th, while Justin rode hard to drop the second group and finish 16th.

Next weekend after that I did Carl Dolan. I attacked a handful of times in the 3/4, basically whenever I was lucky enough to get to the front but it is hard to stay away more than a lap in that race. I did the 1/2/3 race which was also not super fast, except that I started to cramp halfway through. Other than that it was easy except that I almost got dropped every lap on the downhill because I was super spun out. It is a bad course, but racing is fun for me and over 60 miles of crit style racing is good training at least.

This past week we did a spring training camp in Chris Gould's house, right near the page valley RR course. The weather was great and the riding was great. We did some awesome climbing and previewed the sweet Shenandoah time trial course, did a 20km TT. It was fun to hang with my teamies as always. Now Justin is off to Gila this week, and David and I are targeting Ephrata this weekend.

2011-03-21T17:21:00.000-07:00

Welcome back to the season. I had my first race last Saturday near Germantown. It was a short circuit in a park with a small hill near the finish and a little bit of wind coming off the lake. I didn't know how I would feel in the first race of the season so I just took it easy and rode conservatively. I tried to stay in the front 10-15 riders in case there were splits, because the Masters race that I watched right before my race seemed to blow apart into a few different groups. The cat 3 race wasn't as active and the pace felt pretty manageable. With around five laps to go the race slowed down considerably and three riders got off the front. I attacked with one lap left but that was unsuccessful so I just came in around 25th at the finish. It seems like the group whittled down to about 35 people at the end.

After the race, I rode home for a little extra training and got about 4 hours in total. The race was fun and not too hard, a good way to ease into the season. The serious stuff starts with Battenkill in a few weeks. Looking further ahead I've got Nationals in Augusta, Georgia, at the end of June and perhaps a UCI stage race in July. It's a big season planned, but what I'm really excited about right now is graduating high school in June. I'm gonna put off college for a year after that until 2012, and just pursue some personal interests next year.

Pro Cyclocrosser

2010-09-19T19:02:00.000-07:00

As Nathan plans his switch to Mountain bike, I have begun my career as a cyclocrosser. And what an amazing debut it was! I almost set a new course record in the opening segments of the first lap, moving as high as 6th place at one point. Then I got passed and battled it out for fourth to last. Then third to last. Then second to last. Then I was in last for a little and then I moved up to second to last again. Then I fell on my face and broke my bike. I was also sick but mainly I was a puss that didn't want to ride hard. I haven't ridden hard in a while. If you see me going incredibly slow offroad on a cyclocross bike anytime soon, don't judge me because I'm just doing it for fun.

Three things I learned this season

2010-08-28T12:53:00.000-07:00

There's no reason to lose sleep over bike racing

Doing intervals is a whole different thing than racing and it only prepares you physically

You can't win on accident and you can only win if you believe that you will

Tour of the Catskills

2010-08-02T05:11:00.000-07:00

Last night my mom and I we were up all night driving home from Tour of the Catskills after the really hard final stage. The race started out with a short uphill prologue. I did it on my road bike with an aero helmet and tri-spoke front wheel. We got there really early when there was nothing set up yet and parked two miles away in a grocery store parking lot. My time was at 12:05:30 and the technical guide said you had to be at the start 15 minutes before, so I had to get off the trainer 25 minutes before, because I had to have 5 minutes to get my final things ready and 5 minutes to ride there. But by the time I started I was completely cold and it felt like I hadn't warmed up at all. I went really hard but it was such a short effort that my legs didn't really open up until the last minute. My time was 8:58 up the 2.2 mile climb for 9th place. David's time was about 25 seconds faster and Justin got second place with 7:48.

I was excited for Saturday's big road race and I hadn't gotten to see any of the course but Justin and David told me all about it. The promoter decided to start the Juniors race with the Masters 50+, which at first I was frustrated with but learned to ignore it. The race started pretty fast up a long gradual climb on this highway and there were a lot of attacks. I was bridging across to one when I hit a huge hole and one of my bottles flew out only about five miles into the race. That was the beginning of a somewhat disastrous race for me. We descended from that climb and turned left into the woods where two riders went off the front. Then several masters riders attacked and one of the juniors riders followed them, now about 15 miles into the 52 mile race. Then Justin bridged across to them and then I attacked and bridged across to the break. For some reason I thought I was in a crit or something, so as soon as I made it across I attacked the break and tried to bridge across to the leading two riders. In about two minutes the break caught me at the base of a steep roller. I sat on the back of the break but got slightly gapped off over the top of a roller a few minutes later. I chased from a few seconds behind for a couple miles with some OLD FART on my wheel who wouldn't help me. It was hard though because we were going over these endless rollers and the break kept slaying it up the hills and then they would slay it down the hill too. I saw Justin just sitting on the back of the break, which was smart, I don't know why I attacked and got myself dropped. After wasting energy chasing for a couple miles with the gap to the break increasing, I looked behind to see if there was anyone else coming across. I didn't see anyone but the break was leaving me in their dust and I was just wasting a ton of energy at this point so I decided to go back to the pack and eat some GELS. Instead I got caught by a small chase group with the Juniors yellow jersey who probably attacked because Justin was second on GC. A few seconds behind us I saw David on the front of the pack bringing it back together. Then there were some counter attacks up the next steep hill and I was pretty tired I thought that I might go straight out the back of the now much smaller pack but I suffered a ton through this section because there were no chances for recovery because we would go uphill for 30-60 seconds and then go downhill for like 5 seconds. After like 30 minutes of barely making it over the top of each roller we finally got to a bigger descent and I took a drink and ate something. Unfortunately I realized that I hadn't been eating or drinking this whole time and I remembered that I only had one bottle which was now about empty. I had no idea where on the course we were or where the big climb was then we turned left and rode like a mile and got to this super steep hill and at first I was freaking out and really nervous and everyone was passing me but about halfway up the climb I found my confidence and went really hard over the top. I realized that this was the big climb of the day because David said that it starts out really steep and then rolls along for the rest of the three miles. Then there was a false flat for a while and the pack was breaking up a lot. I began to feel really bad and about halfway up the climb I blew up probably because I wasn't eating and drinking. Then I just rode really hard and went really slow for a while until two other juniors caught me. Somewhere on the climb I thought I needed to spit but instead a big mouthful of barf came flying out of my mouth. Then we descended and went up some hills and went down some hills and then we came to this big descent. My rear race wheel has this problem with the hub that is supposed to be a common problem with old Ksyriums. Whenever I was going really fast downhill during the race it would start squealing and pushing the chain around and off the derailleur and stuff. Nathan said that it is because the freewheel is sticking so it pushes the chain around but doesn't have enough force to push your legs around like a fixed gear. So this started happening on this descent and by now it was starting to really annoy me and then I hit a hole and the chain got all bent up and twisted. I stopped for ten or fifteen minutes getting my hands all greasy trying to untangle it but I couldn't. Even when I took it to the Sram mechanic after the race, he had no idea how to fix it and we had to put a new chain on. Since the chain was all knotted up you couldn't ride it at all and I was now ten miles away from the finish. I waved at one of the Sram cars when they went by but they didn't stop for me. So there was no way I could have finished the race so I got a ride back to the start. I was so mad because I was just wondering what is wrong with my luck especially because last time I came to New York to race my chain broke too. If my chain hadn't broken I think I would have been about 8th place. David got third place and moved into third GC, and Justin ended up in 6th place after blowing up on the climb after he was in the break about 4 minutes ahead of the field for most of the race.

Nathan told me to protest with the officials and see if they would let me start the next stage if they just put me last in gc by a large margin. The next morning we talked to them and they decided to let me race. That was great because the final stage was really hard and I really wanted to race. We went up the devil's kitchen climb which is this stupid road that goes for like 2.5 miles at about 400%. Nathan said it was the hardest climb that he had ever seen. The race started with a 3 miles KOM climb that we went pretty fast up. I was actually hurting on this climb because I really needed to pee. Fortunately I just peed in my pants on the descent. Justin attacked over the top of the climb to take the maximum KOM points since he was leading the KOM competition. There were some attacks and other stuff (including my epic bike handlez to ride under someone's arm who was giving someone a bottle during the feed zone) for a while but after wasting so much energy yesterday I had promised myself that I wouldn't attack at all until the climb, since that climb was more than enough to decided the race. We hit the climb and the pack was only about 20 people left by then (starting with 45 masters and 13 juniors). I was feeling good and had been eating and drinking really well throughout the race. Fortunately I had put on a 27 tooth for the climb but I still had to mash up it. For a while I was about fifth place on the road (juniors) up the climb but halfway up it I was caught and passed by two others. I couldn't keep up with them and they dropped me a few hundred meters (several minutes) later. The climb was that steep. Everyone was riding on their own and you could hear everyone breathing really hard. I had to go as hard as I could just to make it over the climb. A lot of people walked some sections. Some parts I thought I was gonna fall over, which I guess was a return to my roots of going ridiculously slow uphill. I had driven the climb but I had no idea at any point how far up the climb I was and when I saw the KOM banner I was shocked. I thought I would be going up that climb for a few more days at least.

After the climb I took a look down the road. There was no one in sight. I looked behind me and there was no one there either. It was a lonely final ten miles back into town because no one was near me. I hoped that I could catch some sort of a group in front of me and sprint for top five on the stage but I never saw anyone. So I just rode my brains out, or whatever was left of them after that climb, until the finish. I think I finished 7th place, a few minutes behind Justin who said he blew up on the climb and finished 6th. David finished fourth to keep his third place on GC. I was so happy to finish an epic road race like this having given it my all and not had any mechanicals and to just have that feeling of satisfaction. It was a great day for me.

2010-07-12T04:25:00.000-07:00

On Saturday I raced at the Hagerstown crit in Hagerstown, which is a race that I liked last year. Nathan said though that they had returned to the old course from two years ago, which I had never raced on. He said it was flat with four corners and that it was harder than it sounds. I found that the course actually was pretty hard because it had a long finishing straight that was slightly uphill and two difficult corners: the first one and the second one. I did a few laps going fast when I warmed up on the course and thought that you could pedal through all of the corners except the second one but everyone went slower in the first corner during the race than I expected so the small hill after that corner was a hard acceleration that made me pretty tired by the end of the race.

The roads were completely dry and the pace felt slow to me but I got worn out by the end of the first ten or twelve laps because I got stuck behind three crashes during that time where I had to come to a full stop and then chase back on. That was a huge bummer because each time it was a hard effort to catch back up and then I had to spend a lot of energy trying to get back to the front and in good position. After all that stress and the hard chase my legs felt really bad and I was putting more effort into trying to get back to the front than just recovering and I thought that I might get dropped. The rest of the race was pretty hard for me and then on the second corner with two laps left there was a bad crash in front of me and I tried to chase back on but the pace was getting pretty fast with just one lap left I guess so I just got 40th or something like that.

Yesterday I raced in Richmond in Bryan Park. The race was pretty disorganized and the 915 juniors race started closer to 10. Unfortunately the juniors race was just five people too. My legs felt pretty bad because it was a short race and I didn't warm up. I would have warmed up but I never knew when the race was gonna start so I didn't want to leave sight of the start line. I tried to attack several times but my acceleration was like slow motion because my legs weren't great. I had one really well timed attacked where I got about a ten second gap for a whole lap by countering a series of hard attacks from the other riders but they eventually chased me down. Its hard to attack when there's only five people because its such a small group of people that every attack is immediately chased down as hard as possible.

Later in the day when the temperature was starting to rise I raced the 3/4 race with Justin and Shane. The first half of the race was easy and I wanted to attack but my legs were feeling pretty bad. I think the tough day I had at Hagerstown with all the crashes made me more tired than I expected. The second half of the race was easy also but it started to get pretty hot. I didn't put much energy into attacking because no attacks were staying off the front because this team Nature's Path would have all 20 of their riders near the front most of the time and immediately jump on every attack as if they were riding for Mark Cavendish in the field sprint. The course was narrow and the race wasn't fast so there was a big fight for positioning and it took a lot of energy to stay near the front. With two laps to go I was riding behind Chris Mcmillan and he just started coasting in front of me but there were riders on my right and left so I couldn't move so I just got shuffled straight to the back. With one lap to go I wanted to attack and maybe catch people by surprise but I was way at the back and the roads were too narrow and bumpy to move up in time. On the bumpy uphill section I peeked around and saw Justin riding near the front on Jose Nunez wheel, who is a good sprinter from Mabra. This gave me new encouragement and I made a big effort to ride straight from the back to front in about ten seconds on the left side. I got on Justin's wheel and we were gradually moving farther up towards the front where team Nature's Path had about four different lead out trains swerving all over the road. Jose pushed his way into one of the lines in fifth position so Justin got stuck out in the wind and I tried to come around him but now it was too late and we were almost at the last corner so neither of us got anything in the sprint.

Bicycle Racing

2010-06-05T15:35:00.000-07:00

Tour of Somerville is a great race that means a lot to me because that was a benchmark for Nathan when he was 16 three years ago and I was 13. When I saw him racing with the field there I dreamed that someday I might be that good. Last year I did it and got caught out in some gaps that formed after a crash 3 laps into the race but I probably would have been dropped anyway. This year I had the same great determination and I had a great race. It was my best race this season by far, I had so much fun.

I got a good warmup and then sat at the gate right by the line for 15 minutes so I could get a front row spot since the race starts very fast. I got a front row spot, but I was nervous and missed my pedal twice and was soon at the back of the pack. The race was around 60 juniors total, and at least 15 get dropped on the first lap so I knew I had to move up and I was able to. Kevin McGuire attacked, then Ben Salibra bridged across to him, then the other danger riders started going across to this break one by one, Jesse Keough, Juan Carmona, and some other dudes until it was some of the best riders in the race off the front ten to twelve total by five laps in and so I thought maybe I could be clever and slip into this group and just sit on. It was strung out through the .6 mile finishing straight but the pace slowed down just before the main bulk of spectators came into view. I immediately attacked and went really fast and I caught up to the break but I looked back and Zach Noonan was on my wheel along with the rest of the pack. Then I was feeling pretty tired. The race was fast. so fast. The race was only 15 miles but we did it in only a little over 30 minutes. I kept good position but wasn't bold enough to follow any more attacks, although it didn't seem like any of them were going anywhere.

The last lap was hectic and I played it very well. There were constant attacks and the group was splitting apart, there were a couple of people off the front alone and in groups of two, but I rode near the front and followed an attack that formed a ten person split in the pack on the last lap. I thought I could get top 15 if I could keep up with this group, but although I played it aggressive and followed the right wheels I wasn't strong enough because when it came to the rediculously long sprint I sprinted as hard as I could and still apparently got passed by every single person who was still in the front group. I finished 33rd though, and apparently it is better than my brother ever did at Somerville. I counted it up to send in with my upgrade, and there were 10 cat 2s in this race, including 3 national team members. It is cool that 10 out of the 33 people in the pack were cat 2s, I think that is a testament to how hard the race was.

I kicked off my cat 3 racing career today doing a junior time trial. I felt really good and got 30:37, 45 seconds faster than last year. I had some difficulties though because last night I did not sleep well, because after being asleep for a little I woke up to go to the bathroom and hit my toe and cut it open and messed up the toe nail which got bruised really badly. The rest of the night it hurt too much and I couldn't fall asleep so I didn't really sleep the night before the time trial. Fortunately I was able to get it in the shoe in a way that it didn't hurt that much. I got 2nd place still which is funny because I have gotten 2nd in the last three time trials I have done (Church Creek, Deep Blue, and Church Creek) although all to different people (Andy, Justin, and Steven). Maybe someday I will win a race again.

2010-06-04T12:34:00.001-07:00

WOAH see you at Nationals AND the Cat 3 races!!

EDIT

2010-05-17T14:32:00.000-07:00

Apparently the official starting field of Fawn Grove-Roubaix was 42 riders, which is a little bigger than I thought. 17/42 is not bad because I was the second rider to flat and flatted at the very beginning of the first gravel section two miles into the race. I will hold my head up about this 17th place

Season in Review

2010-05-16T17:06:00.001-07:00

Wolfpack: DNF didn't dress warm enough

Vint Hill: 25th I rode aggressive but the race finished in a downhill sprint and I didn't do that well

Jeff Cup: 51st I got the stomach flu the week before the race and lost 8 lbs but I suffered through this one and got 51 out of 125

Battenkill: DNF My chain went in spokes 50 km in and then I chased for 20 km then my chain broke

Carl Dolan: Pack Finish I rode aggressive but got spun out in the downhill and didn't get position for the sprint

Jason Gundel: DNS I got a cold the week before the race from riding in the rain and getting chilled.

Bunny Hop Jrs: 15th I felt bad from not getting to ride the day before since I took the SAT so I finished at the back of the first group after just sitting in the race

Bunny Hop Cat 4: Pack Finish I felt a lot better than in the morning race and attacked a lot, definitely too much though and lost positioning when the pack got wide with the pace getting so slow in the last few laps

Fort Ritchie: DNF I rode a great race in this really hard crit, but there was a crash that happened right in front of me that I couldn't avoid with 10 laps to go and it wrecked my bike.

Deep Blue Time Trial: 2nd They messed up the course by sending half the 15-18s to do a 6mile course and half of the 15-18s to do the 12mile. I didn't feel that good from my crash the day before and got 2nd by like 10 seconds

Poolesville RR: 33rd The first 15 riders missed a hard right turn and since I was on the left I couldn't turn through them so I burnt all my matches chasing on for a lap, but I caught back on after a hard chase and rode well the last two laps but had nothing left when it blew apart in the last couple miles. 33 out of 75

Fawn Grove Roubaix: 17th I flatted on the first gravel section 2 miles into the race but the wheel van was already a minute behind from having to change a couple wheels already, then it took a while to change the wheel and I lost a total of 1.5 minutes before I got rolling. Giving up isn't what I do so I just rode the whole race all out alone but passed a ton of people and finished 17th out of 35.

By the rules of probability that don't seem to apply to cycling having all these bad races clumped together would lower the probability of having further bad luck for the rest of the season. Oh well. My break will come soon.

All this bad luck has made me tough though. For example today after flatting 5 minutes into the race I rode all out for an hour and a half to finish the race. I sprinted up every hill and never eased off. If nothing else it was a good training day. I deserve a better result and it is coming soon.

2010-05-02T18:16:00.001-07:00

This weekend I did the SAT saturday- I felt good about it but it is s00000 long. I don't know why it has to take from 745 to 115, over 5 hours. I don't think it needs to have 6 different reading sections, because the type of questions on the reading section is all the same, its just repetitive. The scale of the test is unnecessary- my mom said that when she took it, it was 3hrs, why they have to almost double that now I don't know because I don't think it makes the test more accurate. So I didn't get to ride on Saturday because I was whipped from the sat and on Sunday morning when I did the jrs race at bunny hop I felt really bad because I didn't open up on saturday which I almost always do. I had a hard day tuesday, wednesday, thursday, took friday off and then had to take saturday off so in the morning I was feeling really bad. I tried to attack but I couldn't accelerate well my legs just didn't feel snappy. The only time I attacked I was off the front like three laps and then two artemis riders bridged across to me which was a good situation for them, but unfortunately they don't know that and an artemis rider did the work to chase us down from the group chasing behind. The rest of the race I sat in and got dropped on the last lap when steven attacked. I went home, had lunch, took ice bath and then came back for the afternoon cat 4 race.

I felt great in the cat 4 race! I think I just needed the hard effort in the morning to open up because now my legs felt a lot better. It isn't a hard course but I was ready to play it aggressive and was in the top 10 and attacking a lot the first 1/2 of the race. There were a lot of big groups that I thought would stay away that I bridged across to, but the problem was that people would just keep bridging across until the whole pack got there. After the halfway point Nate Hakken and another rider went off the front for 5 laps and were looking good with a big gap. I took advantage of a fast prime lap to attack and bridge across to them with two people coming with me. The two riders off the front were tired when we got to them so we just went through them, but unfortunately my two companions weren't working very well together and we got brought back after 1 or 2 laps. Good for me, the first 1/2 of the race had been fast and usually strung out so I could move up and down well, but in the last third of the race after I got brought back from bridging to the break with nate hakken in it, the race slowed down a lot and the bunch got really wide for the last under 10 laps. I lost my position in all the swarming and was in no position for the sprint, so just a pack finish. But I am happy with my good legs and think that I will have more to show on the harder courses coming up: the technical Fort Ritchie crit next Saturday, Poolesville RR :) the saturday after that, and Fawngrove Roubaix!!!! the day after poolesville. I don't know why but I love the courses with gravel sections. It makes me feel like I really deserve it if I do well because it is usually harder. I think I can do well at those two back to back hard road races: Poolesville and Fawn Grove Roubaix because I did so well at Battenkill. This year I can do a lot better on climbs. I got really lean for Battenkil- at Wolfpack in February I weighed 143 lbs, but I weighed 135 for Battenkil. Right now I weigh 137 lbs, but hopefully by nationals I will be around 134 lbs or maybe 133 if my power is still good. My power was still good all the time when I weighed 135 lbs, in fact it was higher than it had ever been. The week after battenkill I set a new 5' record of 277w and did 234w for 26', which makes me feel like I could do 240w for 20'. My best previous 20' effort was 225, so this is way better than that. 240 for 20' would also be near 4 w/kg. To be exact it is 3.934 w/kg which gets me psyched because Bradley's max 20' is 3.911 w/kg and I always ask him about his w/kg whenever I set a new power record, but I have never been higher, but now I am which means... the climbing showdown is on now that he is home!

Presenting:

2010-04-27T05:39:00.000-07:00

THE ULTIMATE TIME TRIAL SMACKDOWN

Where?: Deep Blue Time Trial

When?: Daytime

Why?: alpha male assertion

Who?:

BIG R8ndy Mount

versus

LITTLE Avery Sup Wilson

versus

DAVID "BIG DAVID" BROOKES

Who will win????

Avery Wilson will.

2010-04-18T18:22:00.000-07:00

Solid weekend here of office parks. Friday night I made a last minute decision to do the chantilly criterium, and with a pending ride there from the mounts but my dad was nice enough to get up early and get me there. I didn't register for the 4 race becasue it was full since I just decided to do the race last minute. I just wanted to do the jrs race, hopefully get a good result and ease off my upgrade burden by a few points. I am feeling really strong lately and I hadn't done a local jrs race yet this year, so I was expecting I would just drop everyone. unfortunately the jrs here don't attack they just ride around slow and chase down every attack from anyone else but don't attack themselves. I attacked from the line, but the chain fell into the little ring because I was in the easiest cog, so then I got it back in the big ring and attacked again. I got brought back, but people know that if they are chasing they will only have to go hard like 30 seconds if they go hard enough to just get there, but then maybe they are tired, so I countered myself several times over. It was frustrating, most of the race was like this. David was attacking sometimes, too, but overall the race was boring except that I made it really hard for myself. It was really stupid, but if I wasn't attacking no one else would have and then we would have ridden around easy the whole race and then gone hard the last lap and I hate that bs so I tried relentlessly to get away, but I couldn't. It was getting close though because each time they were getting a little less responsive and I could stay away for longer. There was one time where Justin attacked and then I countered him and was off the front for longer than I had been able to before and it looked like they were sitting up and had finally gotten tired but then Barry bridged across to me and brought the whole field with him. Fortunately David countered me and I was like typical flawless David, davids gone and he was for a little but I guess not. The last lap I was on Barry's wheel, but when someone took a flyer and the pace went up Barry got dropped and I had to close a gap during the sprint to finish about 10th and sort of dissapointing, I felt like the strongest guy there but I missed an easy 5 upgrade points, and I will be kicking myself if I even miss the upgrade by one point before nationals. The race was frustrating but I should have expected it to unfold that way because the course was featureless and had only two gentle corners, plus the race was only 10 miles, so about 25 minutes. A 25 minute race?? sort of rediculous. Justin won with an early sprint before the last corner to take everyone by surprise. Good job, and andy got 2nd. Fortunately artemis got their boring race ending in a field sprint by chasing down all of my moves, but it was stupid because then they all just blew their legs for the finish and my team did really well. The ideal scenario was that me and Jake King, fellow man of hardness, would lap the field but it was not to be.

Today was better... not the course but my racing perhaps. It was the Carl Dolan race, an ingenious circuit of 2 miles, 75% downhill with a small hill, and one widening and gentle corner. I have read people's blogs about when they first upgrade to cat 3, how much smoother it is than cat 4 races, but I was surprised that the cat 3 race seemed just as bad. Maybe worse because everyone overestimates their skill even more now that their license says 3. People still yelled at me and even though their was only one gentle corner on the course, if you were out of the top 15, you were slamming on your brakes. I felt good. The pace was not fast. Obviously it is an easy course to sit in on, but I felt really comfortable, although I expected just to be racing for survival in this race. But in fact I was aggressive and followed a couple moves, as well as bridging across to a few moves even though it was real windy. My proudest moment of the race was with 6 to go when they rang a prime lap bell, about halfway through the race. A little after the finish line, Tony Abate took a flyer and was just dangling off the front by a few seconds with no one really chasing. I had one of those moments where you are like hey I could do that, and then without really thinking I attacked and was just flying. I flew past tony in a couple seconds and was just gone. I looked back and I had caught the field off gaurd. I was motoring on the slight downhill, in my fourteen, spinning fast, probably doing like 30-35 m/h. I looked behind me and it looked like this team with magenta stripes was organizing a chase with like 3 people on the front. I told myself to not look back until I crossed the line after winning the prime, because sometimes I look back too much because I am nervous, but each time you look back you take your focus off pedalling and you stick your head out into the wind and causes a little more drag. I was absolutely motoring, I railed through the turn, put in a hard sprint out of it and I must have been going near 40 m/h on that stretch because I was totally spun out, and I know I can spin jr gears up to like 37 m/h. I lost a couple seconds on this stretch to the senior gear mashers back in the pack bearing down on me but I spun as fast as I could and when I hit the hill with 400 meters to go I still had a few seconds. Then they opened up the sprint and flew past me with 200 meters to go. They had the widest road available of most races in Mabra, and could see me up there for a couple minutes, but somehow Mike May still managed to almost crash into me when he came up on me going for the prime. He swerved into the gutter to get around me yelling something as if he was so angry about getting botched in the carl dolan prime. Oh well. I sat in for a few laps. Realized I had bad positioning, then tried to move up, then got spun out in the downhill coming into the sprint, and finished near the back with all the other jrs because they couldn't pedal. Great weekend for feeling good about bad results. Not really.
Time to buckle down and win some cat 4 races!! especially now that I know I am strong enough to animate a cat 3 race. Next week: Jason Gundel crit!
They don't have the really sweet technical downtown course that they had a few years ago, but the new course is still hard. It isn't technical but it has a steep hill and bad road surfaces that make it selective enough. It's David's favorite crit, last year there he was top 5 in the race in which only 10 or 15 people finished because so many got dropped. Hopefully we can both land a top 5. I have to race smart though.
Oh yeah good news I meant to say earlier. I have still been sleeping well before races. No more nervousness. I just tell myself I don't care about the race and I know I'm gonna crush it and then my mind can drift off into other things I can sleep like a baby.

2010-04-13T09:39:00.000-07:00

Battenkill finally came after so many months of anticipation and now it is gone. How do I begin to recap?

The week leading up was full of nervousness but I tried to keep calm and I think keeping my mind off the race was the best thing possible, because I had already done all the preparation all I needed to do was race!... the fun part. But unfortunately the week leading up was filled with balancing packing and bike preparation with a bombardment of homework, and keep up with my training of course! Because of the snow and the approaching exams, I am getting a lot of homework. I tried to still get the right amount of sleep and not get stressed out over my conflicting obligations... this is the most important part of jrs is balancing homework. I got my baller new wheels but the ebay guy was a dush with shipping them and waited like a week so I didn't get them until the Friday 8 days before battenkill. I also needed to find time to get my bike to a mechanic because it was still in the messed up winter mode where everything on my bike breaks every week. Bernard susan's friend worked on it on monday morning and had it back when I was home from school by the afternoon! He put on new GORE CABLES which are the bomb and retorqued the bottom bracket and fixed the hubs on the wheels I had just bought. Thanks a lot! and he said it was his vacation too! The wheels needed a lot of work to get glued, they are ksyrium tubulars from like 2006 or 2007, but the same person who took a week to ship my wheels used tubular tape or something that was all over the rim and impossible to get off. Fortunately he gave me a good deal on the wheels for only 300dollars! Bernard didn't even want to get the stuff off because it is such a pain in the ass, but he told me exactly how to do it and told me how he glues the wheels which he is really good at. I took his instructions to heart and try do exactly what he told me, he said that removal of the tape would take 2.5 hours per wheel and hurt my forearms a lot... I had a big task ahead. So those 5 days before the race I was busy getting everything ready. I was constantly doing something, Monday afternoon I spent about 3 hours trying to finish the first wheel as soon as Bernard left, then did my homework, went to the gym, and collapsed in bed afterwards. I woke up the next morning, at breakfast while I finished homework, then went down to the garage to get in 30 minutes to finish cleaning the rim of that stuff, put down the first layer of glue, then ran off to school, realized I didn't have a lock for my bike, so I turned around and couldn't find it, so I improvised a lock with a locker lock and some wire, and made it just in time to be 10 minutes late to school. Tuesday afternoon I got home and went out for a ride, some stopped-start sprints "powerstarts", felt okay, then got home and started the gluing process for the rear wheel which was now fully clean. While the layers dried for 4-6 hours like bernard said, I worked on cleaning the other rim off and was able to finish this one in under 2.5 hours with acetone and now knowing what I was doing a little better. I lucked out and had early release on Thursday so I had enough time to glue the front wheel, now clean, starting it then going out for a ride, and finishing when I got back. By the time I got back the rear wheel had gotten its 24 hours to dry and I was ready to test it to make sure it was good. I railed it around some north arlington corners and did some sprints to test the wheel and it felt great. I pushed it in different places around the tire and it didn't budge and seemed like I did a good job centering it too. I also put new bottle cages that we had lying around, that were steel and there was no way a bottle was gonna get out of those badboys because my regular ones are really bad and I would lost all my bottles in the first 5 miles. Also thursday I bought a new chain and put it on friday morning. Thursday night I just did 1 hr 170w, with an opener ride planned for friday.
Friday we left for battenkill and drove up and did the packet pickup. We drove the whole course and I got to ride the last 25km which was extremely helpful to see the course and also to get a feel for the dirt and also to test out my equipment. Everything felt amazing. The shifting was great thanks to Bernard, the wheels were really stiff but were super durable in any potholes I hit, and the tubulars weren't falling off, so I must have gotten something right with those! Holy cow though was the race hard. I had seen every picture and youtube video there was of battenkill, but when we drove it, it was harder than I could have expected. Then when I got out to ride it, I realized it was even harder when you got out from behind the windshield and actually pedalled it. I got to ride the endless up and down dirt that you always see pictures of called Meeting House Road, as well as the final climb, about 1.5 kilometers, rediculously steep dirt, then a descent to town and windswept flat roads along the river leading to the finish. That is one thing I hadn't thought about before, cambridge ny is really WINDY!!! There was just wind blowing hard in every direction. As an article that susan sent me about preparing for battenkill said, when you aren't going up the dirt climbs, you are riding through windswept farms, so basically I think the point is to plan on not recovering ever. It was extremely helpful to see the roads and the course, as this is probably the most important course of the whole season to preview. Thanks dad for driving 7 hours and then following me around into the night driving the car when I rode the course! My dad was great at this race!
Although the week was busy, I think I was able to keep calm and the busyness was enough to keep my head out of the race. By 10pm on Friday I was sound asleep, whereas the night before most hard road races last season I would be up all night stressing about the race. I heard that Tom Danielson has this problem, and so this year I am really focusing on getting my mind right the week before a big race. I can train all I want but if I can't sleep I'm only gonna be at half my best. I woke up by 7am and conveniently there was a breakfast buffet downstairs in my hotel. Once at the race I didn't need to visit registration because I had saved time by doing packet pickup on friday afternoon, where you get your number and timing chip. I had about 2.5 hours to go through my whole pre-race routine, which allowed me to not have to rush and not miss any details. It was a cold morning, with menacing clouds and strong gusts, and I know that people don't warm up for road races, but I like coming to the line warm and I don't feel like opening up a little takes anything out of my race. So I rode about 30' with 5' tempo just until my legs felt loose and ready for the start. I arrived at the line 15 minutes ahead of time, handed my jacket to my dad when they said 2 minutes to the start, and put on my wind vest over my numbers.
There were 55 people lining up, a lot of cat 2 jrs and many strong cat 3s. The first 5km are on this mellow, wide paved road, route 372. I kept good positioning because I know a left turn onto the narrow road with the covered bridge was coming up. A Young Medalist rider attacked after 1km (neutral rollout) and there was a hot race in the crosswinds that started about 1km out from the important left turn. I held my position here as the field got pretty strung out and I moved into top ten. It was an amazing feeling to pass through the covered bridge, sort of a realization that after all my hard work I had really made it to battenkill, because after looking at photos of this race and researching it so much, I realized I was finally the one in the famous picture emerging from the covered bridge. After the bridge is a steep hill and then a hard right turn onto the first dirt section. It's downhill and rolling, but the hardpacked dirt is riddle with potholes. In the midst of the group, which was far from obeying the yellow line rule, I couldn't see anything coming, there was little room to move so if a long line of potholes was coming you just had to bunny hop it or hope for the best. I smashed through the deep holes and the wheels were great, they never waivered from perfectly true and my bottles were firmly in their cages. It sounded like a war though with flat tires sounding like gunshots and the waterbottles flying out of cages and rolling all over the road. After that, there is some tough asphalt climbing, with various steep pitches, stairstepping for a total of 5km. This climb had me worried for its length, although it wasn't constantly steep. We got to the climb and I felt like I was just floating, I was up front, could see people attacking and grimacing that I knew were cat 2s, and I felt like I was just floating up the climbs. Damn it hurt when I had to say no to seconds on my mom's baked pasta so many times after hard training rides coming into this race but I realize now it hurt a lot less than the pain that I would have had to go through with 5 pounds extra over these climbs. I had researched my competitor's thoroughly and found about 3 or 4 that I called moderate threats because I thought they were about the same ability as me, and 5 people that I called major threats because in previous seasons they had always been better than me. These 5 were: thomas wrona (some north carolina team that is blue and black), rutyard peterson (priority health), alexey vermeulen (priority health), curtis white (he changed teams for this year and is now on CLNoonan, so it is good I looked him up or I wouldn't have recognized him), and the biggest competitor, Marcus Smith (Specialized Jrs Team, my age and a cat 2). Alexey Vermeulen didn't show up to the race so this put the count at 4 people. I took after studying what these guys looked like, memorizing them like I was studying for a test, and I made sure to ride near them in the pack so that I didn't lose track of my competitors in the midst of a large 17-18 crowd. Another rider that I wanted to keep an eye on is Zach Bender, my long time New Jersey arch-nemesis. I call him my arch nemesis because we have always been on a similar level when I race against him up north in tri-state races.
After the steep paved collection of hills came the first major dirt climb and perhaps the steepest single one of the race, a rediculous 20+% dirt climb up Juniper Swamp road that you would not believe when you come around the corner towards it. I expected the race to blow apart on this climb. I crested the hill as hard as I could and saw the race split up into a zillion groups of 3-4 riders. The winds were blowing strong as I jumped across from one group to the next eventually making it to a chase group of 4 riders, including myself. Just up the road was Zach Bender, whom, being my arch nemesis, I had to catch. I went to the front and chased until I caught him and with a few riders that had followed my move, formed a 3 person chase group. We caught others to form a 5 person group by the next climb. For reference, the big dirt climb was at about 20 kilometers when I began my chase. The next climb was open and windswept, though if I wasn't in the hardest race I have ever done, I would have noted that it was the prettiest scene I had ever seen on the east coast. This climb went from 28km to 35km, with a slight downhill and then uphill false flat totalling 2km in the middle. Again I felt like I was climbing just as well or better than anyone in my group which was a feeling I haven't really experienced before, but I realized that today I was feeling amazing and had really achieved the big performance peak that I had trained so hard for. Near the bottom of the climb was the first feedzone, where one of my chase companions decided to lay down the gauntlet and attack. I hadn't drunken that much yet and still had one big bottle full so I didn't take the feed, although it did remind me to have a gel afterwards and drink some more. In this race where nutrition was so important, that single gel would be the only food I would remember to eat during the whole race and same with the one bottle I had drunken by then. On the false flat in the middle of the climb I took off my vest as it was heating up. Zach Bender attacked on the descent after the climb, prolly because me and him were the only ones in the group that were pulling through hard enough. I was the only one that could follow him although he did gap me for a little because he was breaking the yellow line rule and I didn't want to get disqualified, which cost me a couple minutes of chasing after the descent. Now 35 km into the race, we began 7 or 8 kilometers of rolling terrain, which meant ridiculously windy and open farm roads. Zach and I were now on our own in the chase, when we past through the town of Salem, a road gaurd said that we were 1.5-2 minutes down on the lead group. With the amount of people that got dropped on the early climbs, and the amount of people that we had just rolled right past and through, I estimated that the front group was mostly 17-18 riders at this point and only about 20 people, down from the 39 17-18 riders at the start supplemented by 16 15-16 riders. This a hard race and you never give up because anyone can flat, crash, or blow up so we just continued for 8 more kilometers with our heads down into the wind, until suddenly we began to see a group of riders in the distance.
I assumed it was a different field like womens or masters or something that the jrs had overtaken, but as we drew closer, I realized that it was our field. I couldn't believe it. This was the biggest thing I had ever done in my cycling. After chasing for 25 kilometers, about 45 minutes, with just one other rider to share the work and vicious winds blowing me all over the road, I was now in contact with the front group of the highest caliber race I had ever done, but oh my god it was probably the hardest riding I had ever done too, to accomplish this, but there was something special in my head that day. As we zipped through a few last cars following the leaders and tagged onto the back, I looked around to see cat 2s like Ben Salibra and Zack Noonan, red in the face and hurting, people that I had only seen from the sidelines at races from fitchburg. Nathan will laugh because this guys are small time compared to him, but I have to realized I'm not at that level, and from my perspective I was a little starstruck. Soon about 4 Young Medalists riders went to the front to set a super fast tempo on the far right gutter, with the wind blowing hard from left to to right. This way, no way could catch a side-draft and echelon. I was on the back and just doing whatever the person in front of me was doing, I couldn't draft by being at the back and forced to the far right side of the ride and oh my god was I suffering. Young Medalists must have been planning something because there was a hard super steep 2 kilometer asphalt climb coming up. I had been able to take note of two other 15-16 riders that were still in the main group-- Thomas Wrona and Marcus Smith, also Zach Bender and myself. I wasn't sure where Curtis White and Rutyard Peterson were.
We made a hard left onto the turn and I braced myself for suffering as the climb revealed itself before me. The climb began with a hard tempo and I began shifting into lower cogs, but all of a sudden the rear wheel locked up and I skidded to a stop. I was off my bike in a flash and found that the chain had passed the easiest gear and gone into the spokes, now caught in the tight passage between the cassette and the wheel. The wheel van was at my side but I didn't need a wheel. The chain was jammed and it took me a full minute to get the fixed and back in gear. Off a bike, 1 minute is so little time to accomplish anything, but if you lose a minute during the hardest part of a bike race, you probably won't catch back on. This is why it seemed so miraculous that I made it back to the front group after they had been out of sight for 45 minutes. Never give up, and it really payed off in this race... well until my bike cost me a minute at the worst possible moment. All that work the week before the race to get my bike working perfectly, 15 or more hours of driving to and from the race, 6 months of training and 6 months of dreaming about this day daily, and it can come down to something so miniscule. But I guess I asked for it, because that is perhaps what attracts me to these races with rediculously hard courses and conditions, that anything can happen, a crash a flat or just blowing up, but if through a combination of luck, precision, and pixy dust you can get everything right and win it is the most rewarding feeling possible in this sport. This is an important thing in my cycling career so far, as I have had to work so hard to be successful in it compared to many others. Some people start racing and after 2 races, they are winning every weekend, but after so many wins it just doesn't seem that special to them anymore. To me a win is unique and rare and my wins at small jrs races such as Jrs Day Out, Bunny Hop, and Turkey Day are still some of my most cherished moments in cycling, although a rider like Steven Kendall has won dozens of these jrs races and adding another to his list is maybe just a joke to him at this point. 5th place at the Tour of Battenkill and a small medal, painted in the color of something valuable would have been the greatest feeling to me after the hardest 45 kilometers of racing I have ever done and the hardest winter of training I have ever done, so many 4 hour days riding to computrainer slaying myself with a big interval workout, only to ride home alone for an hour in the cold, and so many late nights on the trainer, with Jan Ullrich on the television convincing me to trust the process of this rediculous sport.
Once the chain was on, there was only one choice, which was to chase, meaning ride as hard as I can, likely alone for the next 50 kilometers, in hopes of securing my certain top 5 finish. For 20 kilometers I rode alone all out, flying past dropped riders from other fields, cheered on by the kind citizens of middle of nowhere farmville. I approached a small hill just after passing through Greenwhich and all off a sudden I wasn't going anywhere. My race was over, the chain had broken, snapping in the middle of one of the links. I think that the chain was damaged when it went into the spokes, and for some reason took 20 kilometers to figure out what it wanted to do. I stood on the road for a half an hour, wanting to cry but I was too tired, defeated and with my broken chain in my hand trying to flag down the wheel vans of other fields to get a ride back to Cambridge. All the wheel vans past me because I guess they were full. A media motorcycle screeched to a halt just a few feet past me and an excited photographer spent a few minutes snapping shots of my miserable look. I ignored him because I just wanted to curl up into a ball and disappear. Eventually a nice lady stopped and gave me a ride to the next feedzone, only a few miles away, where my dad had been waiting for 45 minutes for me to come through.
The results of my race were: Marcus Smith 1st, Thomas Wrona 2nd, Curtis White 3rd, Rutyard Peterson 4th, and Zach Bender 5th, there were a few more finishers, but only about 8 of my the 15-16 age group's 16 starters made it to the finish. It was unfortunate because the last 25km were the ones that I had ridden, and lay just a few miles past where my chain broke. Meeting house rd and the final climb were great for me. I was confident that I could dominate in the sprint over anyone that came to the line with me. All winter I had been practicing over-length sprints at the end of long rides when you are completely tired. I read about it in Mark Cavendish's book, who was very inspiring to me to learn how bad he was to start, as I had assumed that all the protour riders were the ones who had been the extremely talented wonder childs of their state. These are 30 second sprints of about 300-350 meters, too far out to open up the sprint in a race, because you always die after about 15 seconds, but you have to force yourself to keep sprinting and spinning that gear as fast as possible. I tried to have a second burst of speed for the last 5 seconds, not something that you save energy for, but something you just have to find in yourself. And every time I throttled towards a meaningless street sign, I thought about the finish at Battenkill, coming to the finish completely empty, leaving everything and more out on the road.
The race wasn't a failure, and it sure does make me hungry to come back and unleash in the 17-18 race next year.

2010-03-29T06:50:00.000-07:00

DON'T PUT THIS ON GAMJAMS. INSTEAD, GET A LIFE.

This week was difficult. Starting with Monday I had a terrible day. I ride my bike to school and it was raining hard so I was soaked the rest of the day. I left a notebook at home so I had to ride home during lunch and get it and come back. Now I was covered in dirt and soaked for the rest of the day. Then finally the school day was over. Then I was up all night barfing and pooping diarrhea until my stomach was empty and I was feeling so dehydrated and weak I could barely stand. I had to stay home from school during the final week before spring break where we were slammed with final homework assignments and I was working from morning to night on Wednesday trying to catch up on everything but I could barely think that hard let alone walk without my head spinning and vision going black for a couple seconds. I was trying to drink a lot of water with electrolyte mixes in it since my stomach had been totally emptied. All that my stomach could handle were mellow foods like matzos bread and yogurt. On Wednesday I ate something weird for dinner and my stomach was really hurting again and I thought I was gonna start barfing again but fortunately I didn't it just hurt really bad. On Thursday I went to school, and just walking around that much from class to class made me super exhausted. Then afterschool I attempted a ride. I was gonna do like 1.5 hrs z2, but my heart was really high so I had to knock it down to like low zone 2, and after the first hour I was completely cracked and I just rode super slow back home. Friday I just took as a chill day to try and recover from getting super cracked on thursday from my epic 1.5 hrs. I still couldn't eat that much exciting food and I got full really easily because my stomach had shrunk I guess from being totally emptied. For example on friday we went to sushi for dinner and I had 4 pieces of a roll and I was stuffed but then it hurt my stomach because it was probably too fancy of a roll for my stomach to handle. I had lost 8 pounds over Monday night, Tuesday, and Wednesday, and with my stomach being fragile and easily filled up on thursday and friday I still hadn't been able to gain it back so I was feeling pretty weak by the time the weekend came around. I wasn't sure if I was ready to race and to be honest I was really doubting myself based on the way I felt and that I only got to ride once this week and felt horrible on that ride, but I decided to be optimistic and give it a try.

On Saturday we drove to Charlottesville and I rode the course as always. I rode with the Brookes and we did 3 laps or a little less than 2 hours. We just rode zone 2 and I felt okay, but it was definitely not even very comfortable. We did a couple hard efforts. We did like 2 sprints and David beat me by like a bike length each time which perhaps I should have taken as a sign that I was feeling bad because usually his max watts are a lot lower than me, although they were slightly uphill sprints so maybe david just macked the w/kg advantage. Then we did a hard effort up the hill after the first corner on our third lap. I was on David's wheel until the final part where it flattens out where he dropped me. Since I felt okay going hard this is when I decided for certain that I was racing. I got a shit sleep because I was nervous about we were watching this video of Nate at redlands but usually I like to completely forget about cycling the night before and just watch a comedy movie so that I can sleep well which I was doing but then my dad brought in the laptop on full blast redlands volume so I got all excited about that and then I barely slept because I was stressing about my own race tomorrow and being sick and how I would feel. I was just racing on my crappy training tires and wheels (heavy powertap rear wheel).

The race started out slowly... mainly because there was a neutral start (funny joke). I had a good warmup but then I needed to pee before the race and I needed to pee really bad the whole race and I couldn't focus that well but I tried to not think about it. I get nervous before races so I always need to pee like 5 times but this race I only peed twice beforehand so I still had to pee really bad. There were some people who attacked in the first two laps but all of them later got dropped or spent the rest of the race at the back. I knew I had to keep good positioning everytime before the big hill after the first turn. The first two laps I kept good top 20 positioning everytime before that hill for the first two laps. Also after a lap and a half it started raining, although not that hard but it always feels harder when you're racing. It was windy in many places too. Sometime after the second time up the big hill and the third time I ate a gel and lost my good positioning. I was at the back now, I needed to pee super bad, and it was raining horribly but I really wanted to make it to the finish this year. The huge cat 4 field took up the whole road and I just couldn't move up, everytime I tried people yelled at me or cut me off. It was really stressful. Coming into the big hill for the third time I knew I had to move up because I couldn't start the hill from last wheel because those last ten or 15 riders where probably gonna have to come to a near stop in the corner and then were gonna get dropped anyway. I jammed it up the grass somewhere and started the hill like 15th to last. I slammed on my brakes and had to go really slow around the corner and then I had to sprint up the first half of the hill to get back up to the lead group. I crested near the back and had to suffer a lot to make it up the hill. The rest of the lap was frustrating because I couldn't get around the field that stretched curb to curb and this guy at the back with me kept yelling at me that the way I stood up and moved my bike back and forth violated usa cycling rules. I didn't say anything but it was stupid because there was no one behind us and he had the whole road to avoid my dangerous riding technique since we were at the back. Then he said that he was gonna "tell the ref" which to me was hilarious because there is no rule against not looking like a fred when you get out of the saddle and also if he went back to the moto ref to "report me" then he would not be able to chase back on and would get dropped which would be hella rofl. The fourth time up the big hill I started dead last, had to come to a stop in the corner, and had to go extremely hard just to crest the hill in contact with the pack. The rest of the of the lap I still had hope to move up and take the sprint with good position because my legs felt pretty good but there was no chance. When we came around the last corner I was last wheel again and the acceleration was super hard out of it. I sprinted out of it as hard as I could but I got put like 20 meters out of the draft and I got drop. To tell you how many people got dropped: I finished 51st out of 125 starters despite riding the last mile super easy.

2010-03-21T19:04:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I did the Vint Hill Classic criterium where I got 5th in the cat 4 race last year in a long break. The race was a lot bigger this season with like 75 or 80 people at the start. A lot of people crashed or almost crashed and weren't riding very well. I attacked four times total on my own and tried to go in some other small breaks. There were no lasting attacks, because the big field and wide open, featureless course made for the regular boring cat 4 crit. I felt good when I attacked and was able to keep up a good lead on my own. I had more of an impact on the race dynamics than I did this time last year. Last year I was just starting out cat 4 races and just trying to finish. One person who is really strong and I can't believe is only a cat 4 still is Peter Warner. I was sure he could just drop everyone if he wanted too, I have seen his time trial times and he is super fast, but instead he sat in most of the time and got 3rd in the sprint. I was hoping I could get off the front with him like I did last year and get a good result but instead he usually chased me down when I attacked. The race was pretty fast, I don't like to talk speed but the average was 25.5 m/h, which thank god for BRILF.NET I can see the cat 3 powerfile, and the average speed of the cat 3 race, for the same amount of time, was also 25.5 m/h. This gives me a good feeling that, at least in crits, I could probably keep up in a cat 3 race already, because I want to upgrade soon. I have one half of the points and I think I can be pretty prominent in the cat 4 races to upgrade in time for nationals. Also I hit a new max watts in the race of 904 watts, which who really cares. I barely broke 800 all winter, but I guess the adrenaline of racing helps with short efforts. In the long straight after the first corner with 2 laps to go or maybe 3 but I think 2 laps to go, a little attack was just caught and the field slowed down and billowed wider, I was in the top 5 riders so I countered immediately and swung over to the far right side of the road so no one could get on my wheel as easily, I don't know why though because one of my complaints after the race was that no one came with me when I attacked each time, and basically took it to the gutter like a total hardman except it was fair skys and 70 degrees with no epic crosswinds to be guttered for. In hindsight I was really nervous and was looking back way too much, I should have check about 10 seconds in to make sure I had gone somewhere and wasn't just dangling, but I was check under my armpit every couple seconds. I had a big gap though, because the people near the front were tired at the end of the race and from just chasing down an attack and the pack was sitting up. I got a huge gap and thought to myself as I went through the next corner that maybe this is that moment when I solo off to that beautiful day that ever racer deserves eventually after the kind of hard work that I do. I should have just focused and stopped looking back, but sure enough I was distracted and caught before the final corner that leads into one lap to go. I think I was a little bit awestricken to be in that decisive of a position with 2 laps to go, as I have never had the strength to sieze the chance for a victory in a cat 4 race except at this race last year but that time I was off the front with only 5 riders and was gauranteed at least 5th so I had all the time to think, and perhaps my lack of focus on the last lap there also resulted in my poor performance in the finale. See, the whole race I had just been testing how I felt in the pack and throwing in a couple attacks just to gauge myself coming into this new season of how I compared to cat 4s now, and this attack was just another mindless attempt to show off or have a little fun, until a few seconds later when I realized that it was under 2 laps to go, and this attack could be for the win. Next race, I will come into it knowing that I can do attacks like these solo so close to the finish, and hopefully will be able to contain my excitement and give my full attention to the effort. The race didn't go my way, and I wanted to get some extra training in so I headed out for a ride afterwards, nothing big just a little over an hour total, good zone 2.

Today I did a fun group ride with some friends. It was a 3.5 hours total time and mostly zone 2 with some sprints and attacks throughout. Next weekend is Jeff Cup road race on saturday. Now this course, I got dropped on the final lap last year (my FIRST cat 4 race and I really did ride my heart out so many times going up that one big hill to stay with the pack, it was a good race), hopefully though the course will be more selective than the vint hill criterium and I can make something happen. Even if my attempts to go off the front are unsuccessful, I'm not counting myself out of field sprints either. I don't have a lot of max watts, but I am confident in my chances of just getting good positioning and being in the right place based on the last lap of yesterday's race. After my bs Fabian Cancellara movie with 4k, 2 laps, to go I got right back into the top 15 and started thinking about the sprint, and what a big chance I had just wasted off the front. With 1 lap to go, on that straight after the first corner, I realized I was in the middle and not the side like I should be. The middle goes backwards and the side gives you a chance to fight for position as people come around the sides. With the whole road filled there was nowhere to go, but in the next straight I crushed it up the gutter in time to dodge the curb that comes out and narrows the road. I studied the race and decided that the outside was a good place to be for the last corner because everyone stayed at the left side of the road each time we went over that hill, but with enough room to move up and I didn't want to slow down too much on the inside because of people getting chopped and the road narrowing. I had to bridge a gap in the wind a little when the group was split before the last corner by someone's derailleur falling off. Then I came ballering around the final corner and a rider was going backwards and really slow right in front of me so I hit my brakes really hard and swerved around him and lost a lot of spots but jammed it up the hill and made up some more spots. Then I jammed it down the hill and made up like 20 spots and finished 25th out of 80. Really exciting and nervewracking finale with people crashing and blowing up and their bikes braking. It was a scary first race, but a good feeling to start the season so strong, and rewarding after the sort of suffering I went through this winter.

2010-03-15T15:37:00.000-07:00

What is always frowning but always happy?

A boxer puppy

Memoir post

2010-03-07T17:27:00.000-08:00

This is a memoir about the picture that I put up. You may have seen that I now have a new huge picture of me from the Hagerstown Criterium last year. It's even bigger than the last picture which was like 2 years old now so I got a new one. Hagerstown was a good race for me although in many ways it wasn't good, but I try to focus little improvements in each race. The course was really technical and my grandfather came to watch. I brought a trainer but I didn't feel that good and wasn't feeling that confident which I shouldn't have done so I just warmed up on the roads nearby and maybe didn't get as good of a warmup as I should have if I wanted to make the most of each race. Then it started pouring and they postponed the race for 30 minutes. A lot of people left and I just sat in the car. The ideal situation would be that I would have a little awning and I could put my trainer under it and just spin for 30 minutes to keep my legs open with a coat on and leg warmers to stay at the right temperature and there was a place where I could have done that but I just sat in the car instead and my warmup ended up going to waste and just taking energy out of my legs and I know that everyone else was under the same circumstances but why not gain every advantage possible especially in a cat 4 race where people are inexperienced and its easy to gain a lot through details because no one focuses on them because they don't know about racing. Then the race started and I knew people were gonna be timid to start hard and just see what other people were doing and also were gonna be scared around corners. I started out hard from the start line and so did only one other person. I wasn't attacking but just trying to be near the front and Jeff Trinh was behind me and this other guy was in front of me. Then the bike rack rider in front of me started going really fast and he dropped everyone and I was stuck in the middle. Every corner I got a little closer to his wheel but I couldn't quite get there as the rain continued to fall and he was going faster on straight aways. For three laps I was just a couple seconds behind him. I saw the Kendalls and my brother Nathan and my grandfather PopPop and I went extremely hard and then a rider on my team named Sigberto bridged across to me and said something. Then he came past me in an all out sprint and I couldn't get on his wheel, so I continued to be about 2 seconds off the back of Sigberto and the bikerack rider, tearing myself apart, and then I caught them and sat on for like 2 laps. I couldn't see the pack behind us so I think we had a good gap. Unfortunately the bike rack rider crashed in one of the corners when he was on the front of our group. Me and sigberto barely avoided him and then we got caught by the pack. Sigberto took a free lap along with the bike rack rider. I'm not sure if it was legal for him to take a free lap since he didn't actually crash but I thought about taking a free lap, but I was afraid that they would penalize me and not let me rejoin the race, although I guess I should have gone with Sigberto to try but I couldn't think when I was going that hard. I tried to rejoin the pack as they came flying by us since we had to come to a near stop. Then I was at the back and realized that there were only like 15 people left in the race. I was barely hanging on, tired from going all out for the first 20 minutes of the race and all the stress of the corners, the rain, and the crash. People kept getting dropped in front of me so I had to keep bridging back up to the pack. I tried to move up through one corner but I hit a slick manhole totally leaned over and almost crashed. My wheel skipped and then I had a gap to make up to the pack. I couldn't chase back on so I dropped out. As always, bittersweet, but its okay because I know I train hard and I always think I have a good chance of winning my next race. Also during the 3 laps at the end that I was in the pack and not off the front, there was a prime that David sprinted for but he thought they were ending the race early, so he thought he won the race but unfortunately it was just a prime.

2010-03-07T13:02:00.000-08:00

Is it the season or not? I did one race already at wolfpack and I felt super strong. I only did the sunday road race, which ended up being quite hilly. I trained so hard this winter, I'm pretty sure if I did the winter over again I couldn't have trained any harder. With all the snow though and school all day, and homework, I had been riding completely inside for like a month and a half since Tucson, and before that I was riding mostly inside. The weather was nice at wolfpack but still like 40 degrees and I wasn't dressed warm enough because I wasn't used to riding outside. A ton of people got dropped and there were like 20 people left by the third lap. Also, since I hadn't had to turn my front wheel or move my bike while riding in a while I felt really bad riding in the pack and kept moving up and then losing position and having to move back up. I got dropped on the first lap just from being at the back on a descent where I was spun out and I had to make up about a 20 second gap chasing back on and all these fat cat 4 noobs who don't train were in my way. The race started at like 4pm and so it was getting colder as the race went on and I soon realized I should have worn a jacket overtop but I warmed up on the trainer where you get really hot and I felt dressed okay. I started to get really cold. Also whenever I had to go hard the air felt super cold in my lungs and stung like crazy. Eventually I got really bad stitches in my side on the third lap out of four laps and I didn't even finish. The race was a bummer for big David too because his handlebars slipped when he hit a pothole. The race had potholes all over.

A week later I rode outside on saturday and confirmed that I suck at riding outside right now. I did 20" intervals with 20" rest, which is a super hard effort and it was unbelievable between every interval I was coughing up mucous and my lungs stung horribly and after the intervals I did like another 1.5 hrs z2 and after that just riding zone 2 hurt my lungs. No wonder wolfpack hurt so much if I couldn't use my anaerobic without all that pain. So I have been trying to ride outside more and get my body used to riding outside and get my handling skills back. This weekend was brutal. Yesterday I rode my bike for 4 hours total (rode 1 hour each way to ct and back) with 5x10' intervals at computrainer. 50' total of intensity of 4 hours total, if you live anywhere within 50 miles of arlington you might have heard me whimpering when I got home. Today I rode 3.5 hours on the towpath (gravel bike path next to potomac and canal). Good z2 tempo 170-180watts, 2 hours out, 1.5 hours back. My bike looked like crap when I got back so I spent about 2 minutes hosing it off and all the dirt and mud was instantly gone since it didn't have time to dry up that much. Then I just dried it off and lubed the chain, good as new. It might seem weird that I am riding so long but I am trying to get ready for Battenkil Road Race which is 100 kilometers and lots of gravel and hills so it takes about 3 hours for the winners of the juniors to complete usually. I had a lot of volume in the fall, but when I was trapped inside riding everyday for over a month with the snow and dark, I never got to ride more than 2 hours.

2010-02-08T14:13:00.000-08:00

2010-02-07T17:44:00.001-08:00

I'm over the cold and last thursday I was ready to get back to training. Snow is no excuse for not riding, that's why you buy a trainer. Fortunately for me some people don't understand that and are slacking off in their training right now. Fortunately for me I have a a good frame of mind for indoor training this year, and haven't been stumped by weather once. Indoor training has been key for me this offseason, and with increased homework demands and unpredictable weather, the basement has been where I've done the majority of my training this winter. I stayed hungry for the season all through the fall and winter, I feel like I never lost the enthusiasm that you keep through the season. As the season draws closer, my excitement isn't increasing, because it's already been maxed out since October when I set my goals.

As for Soot she is just being a baller as usual and is so cute. She started her first ever heat, a couple more of those, a few passed medical tests, and she will begin her career as a mommy, because of our co-ownership with the breeder. For now though, we have to be careful with her, and also she wears this cute diaper so that she doesn't drip everywhere.

2010-02-02T16:41:00.000-08:00

Helmet
Winter Hat
Cycling Cap
Sunglasses
Arm Warmers
Long Sleeve Base Layer
Long Sleeve Jersey
Wind Vest
Wool Gloves
Craft Winter Gloves
Bib Shorts
Leg Warmers
Bib Shorts... second pair
Wool Socks
Tall Socks
Shoes
Booties

That is everything I had to wear to ride today. I have been sick since last Thursday and have only been able to ride once (it was a 30' easy spin indoors) and before that I have been 100% inside for a couple weeks now, except for the hour that I ride to CT on Saturdays. My training was going really good though. I was doing the gym on monday (plus 20' spin afterwards), rollers or trainer on tuesdday, a hard interval workout indoors on wednesday, gym on thursday plus a spin, friday completely off, a hard interval workout at CT on Saturday (3.5-4hours total because I ride there 1 hour each way), and then a lot of TT work on Sunday at CT tt class. Basically I was training super hard, only 10-12 hours total per week, but a very very hard 10-12. And it was going great, I was building up fatigue, but maintaining motivation and didn't have any days where I totally crapped myself on the workout. I was making great progress on the tt bike, at the sunday class we usually do about 50-60 minutes total of time trial work with really short rests... I think Susan is trying to build us up doing 1x60' on the trainer by the end of the class (last time we did 20' on/5' low z2 rest/15' on/3' rest/15' on and done). My during the week workouts were going well, I was doing a lot of 5' and 7.5' efforts on my road bike, along with some speed work and rpm stuff. I can cruise control 250-260 watts and am good for about 5x5' intervals. But that's when I knew something was up. 6 Days ago, January 27, 2010, 8:00pm, my basement, on the trainer, I am sad to say... I experienced a TrainerFAIL reminiscent of Mike May or TheWrobb. The workout was 5x5' at 260w's and I had my tunes going, watched a little Jan domination at Luz Ardinen circa 2003. I made it through 3 intervals barely averaging 250watts and then I was died. At first I had thinks that teh Jan had pwnzd me too hard and I crawled upstairs, but the next day I was the come down with za terrible sniffles and body aching and throat ouchy.

Now 5 days later and I am starting to turn upwards towards feeling better. I needed two things though: I wanted so bad to ride and I wanted so bad to ride outside. I decided to just do 45' super easy 130w even though it was the snowz outside (see list at top...) but I got a flat ten minutes in, but I changed it in about 180 seconds (sounds faster if you use units of seconds) and shortened the ride a little (35' total...), but I was so happy to be outside and riding. 5 Days without riding, and only a few weeks of riding inside, but that was enough to make be happy to be outside riding regardless of the ice/rain mix and za flat tires.

2010-01-24T14:11:00.001-08:00

2010-01-12T09:28:00.000-08:00

On new years I flew home from tucson with Andy and then had a mellow week. Since I hadn't been on my tt bike for almost 2 weeks I decided I would do tt bike all week. I took the time to make some adjustments to my position. I have consistently ridden my tt bike 1-2 times a week every single week (except for tucson and maybe two other weeks that I just slipped on that) since september and still get 4 days a week on my road bike. When I first built the bike I set it up way too aggressive and my power was bad so I made it a little more relaxed but adjusted my body so it was still very aerodynamic. I have gotten really comfortable in that position, so I decided to make it a little more aggressive again and hope that gradually my power will come back up in that position, hopefully pretty quick because I already feel good in it.

Getting to train in Tucson for a week was fun and it was much warmer. It was about 60-65 degrees every day in the high. There was ice past mile 20 or 21 on mt. Lemmon so we only went to 20, but I felt great all the way up and it felt like it went by really quick. I remember feeling like maybe I could even do it a second time but I probably couldn't. It is so nice to go up Mt. Lemmon because you can go for hours without having to coast for even a split second, sort of like riding inside, but it is much more fun and interesting.

We did a lot of riding in tucson. I was there for 6 days and we rode 22 hours total which is a lot for me. I have been having really good training this year season though. I have had my goals set in my mind since october and have had to do a lot of riding inside. Since I ride inside on all the weekdays, about 75% of my training this winter has been inside, but it has been going well I think. I have been getting like 10 to 12 hrs a week every week. but on weekdays I rarely ride more than an hour (1.5hrs max) because I am inside.

2010-01-08T04:51:00.001-08:00

ttposit

2010-01-07T19:52:00.001-08:00

2009-12-23T06:03:00.001-08:00

I'm going to tucson again on saturday I can't wait.

I think I am back 100% now this week finally. I got a really bad stomach sickness about two weeks ago. All in one night I threw up 4 times and diarrheaed 5 times and my stomach was completely empty. I couldnt drink anything or eat anything pretty much that whole next day. My body had barely any water in it so I could barely move. My whole body and head ached just lying down. If I tried to stand up and walk I would lose my vision and fall over and my head would hurt really bad for the next ten minutes. I felt really bad for a whole week. I of course couldn't train at all but I started building up my strength by the end of the week by doing some walks. Then I was able to ride for the first time the next monday (1 week from the start) and I just did 40 min at 160w (low z2) and it felt pretty hard. The next day I did an hour at 150 and was starting to feel better. then wednesday, next day, I went to gold's gym where I got a membership to for my birthday last year and I have been using it for all my gym workouts but technically I am not old enough to go in on my own until May this year but don't tell anyone. I had to reduce the weights from what I normally do but then the next day I just had a short speedwork wko indoors on trainer about 1h total. Then we had all the snow, so I saturday all I did was a 1.5 hour hike with my gradnfather's dog Buddy the Lab. It was definitely a lot of work going through the park in the deep snow, but at least I could walk buddy off lead, because when he was on the lead I had to run to keep up with him, because he is a big guy and he just pulls you all the way. Sunday I went for a 1hr hike in the now 2feet of snow in the park with Buddy and then got on the trainer for an hour of intervals that night. Then goldsgym monday, a legspeed pyramid last night on the rollers and I think I'm finally back all the way.

One thing though I got fix my stupid cleats! When I replaced my cleats last time, sometime during the early season 2()()9, I kept the old screws from the old right cleat maybe because I lost the other ones I forget. But the screws are worn down so you can't get them all the way tight so they slip into this weird position that I just noticed recently and its been really hurting my hip and causing a lot of pain all season but it has made me tough for when I finally get it fixed and don't have to deal with it.

I'm excited for Tucson though, this will be my third time out there and I like it there because it is nice to have a getaway in the middle of the winter when you have been staring at the fan during your workouts because your stuck inside because of the snow!!!! Tucson is like 75 degrees right now, but I heard that it might rain when I am out there but that's alright because it is just much better riding out there no matter what. The first time when I went, two years ago, I was 13. There is this mountain Mt Lemmon which you can ride up 27 miles uphill and I really wanted to make it and I did. And it was after many hard consecutive days of getting my ass kicked too because I was out there with Nathan and Steven Black and I had a really hard first day when we did like 4 hrs and my asthma was giving me trouble because I was sick too that whole week. I was so tired by the time that we were doing the ride to mt lemmon that I felt more cracked after the first hour than I probably had ever been before, because I was just 13 then and hadn't done that many long rides yet. But that was just before we got to the mountain. Once we were at the mountain there was no way I was not going to make it all the way up even if it took me all day, and it did. My mom was in the rental car, driving up it and she would catch up to me and ask if I needed anything and then stop to look around. She rode up to mile 7 earlier in the day and then came back to drive the car in case I needed anything. I was the last rider of our group of course so it was a lonely ride sometimes. But I kept going all the way up that mountain for the whole 3.5 hrs that it took me to ride it. I made it to the top where there is a ski resort and stopped at a shop where they sell pie. I got my pie and then got a ride all the way down the mountain and back home by my mom because I was so tired and it is a long descent back down 27 miles I would probably fall asleep and ride off the side of the mountain if I tried to go down.

So I have a lot of memories of tucson even though I've only gone there twice before, but I have done a lot of growing up there.

d0000000g

2009-12-20T18:00:00.001-08:00

I can almost smell it

2009-12-07T18:03:00.000-08:00

It's only 2.5 months until my season starts in February at Wolfpack and I can't wait. I know I'm gonna be good next season, because I've already done a ton of hard work over the last two months and the hardest work is yet to come through December and January. Then really crush it through Feb and March and...

BOOM!!!

BATTENKILL DOMINATION by April.

Crank it down in May, pausing to celebrate my birthday and recover, tune it back up and...

BOOM!!!

NATIONALS DOMINATION by June.

Then keep up the good riding and enjoy the season :)

"my season at a glance"

Riding

2009-11-29T12:37:00.000-08:00

Today I did a 2500kilojoule ride
and Getting ready for Battenkill

Espresso Ride

2009-11-15T10:04:00.000-08:00

The espresso ride is the dean and deluca ride that a lot of ncvc riders do on sunday. Today was my third time doing it and it is a pretty fun group ride except for some parts where we stop too much.

The beginning isn't the best part because there are way too many people of different abilities all in the same group and they try and make like a 50 person paceline on Macarthur blvd., so I just sit at the back usually.

Then we turn off Macarthur, sometimes at Goldsboro and sometimes at Persimmon tree. Today we went on goldsboro and all these people who know they are gonna get dropped in like 10 minutes like to try and crush it so I just ride at the back or middle to stay out of the way. Eventually we make a right turn onto a residential street where there is a big sprint. Then people go crazy for about a mile and then we stop.

Then we just go around not too fast on some roads for a while which is a good time to chill relax and chat with Ben Mingo or David. To me the ride starts when we make the right hand turn onto Glen Mill Rd. where there is a hill that splits up the group followed by some rolling hills, then a hard right. I moved up into better position here and then after the hard right I saw Sigberto off the front just a little and then a guy on the team that used to be the Nissan team who has a baller bike. I decided to attack here because there is a long hill shortly afterwards, I went flying by everyone and it was cool but then everyone started yelling at me from behind and I do not know why but I will assume that they couldn't handle my supreme macking. Then at the top of the long hill it gets steep and everyone caught me and I had to go pretty hard over the top to stay in the front group.

The next good part of the ride is after we make a left and usually the group is smaller by now which is always more fun because we just do some fast pacelining without all the chaos of the beginning part. Then there is a hard right onto S. Glen (I think) and then a left into some more residential areas. This part is cool because the roads are a little narrower in the residential area and there is a fun rolling downhill with some good curves and Mark Klein was crushing it there today and me and David were near the front just behind Sigberto I think and then there is a big hill where there is a sprint and I opened up the sprint pretty early but then my wheel was wobbling all over the place and it wouldn't stay in one gear so I got passed by most of the group. On the downhill section that followed I tried to make up some ground and was able to make it back to the front chasing group but my bike was still not shifting well and I could feel the wheel wobbling like crazy. When the road came to a junction with river rd., I stopped and noticed that my quick release had become completely undone!!!! I am happy it was not worse than just losing the opportunity to win the sprint.

River rd is pretty chill until we go through the traffic light and then up that steep hill. I was near the front over that and then Mark Klein and Bill Leucke were crushing it and David was just behind me on my wheel. By falls road, me and David and Mark Klein and Bill Leucke and the rider from the team that used to be the Nissan team got off the front and we couldn't see anyone else behind us. The pace was pretty fast on Falls and I had to sit out a lot of pulls, but then we made the hard right down into the Park. The descent was no fun because there were lots of leaves and more potholes than usual. I got totally crushed up the climb right from the start, so I just rode my own pace up it trying to keep steady power and then absolutely slayed it in the last 200 meters where it goes around the curves after the downhill and then has one last steep part. I looked at the powerfile and my time up it was about 4'20" but I think I have done it faster before because I'm usually pretty tired by this point in the ride. After that we waited for the rest of the group, and since there were so many people we decided to split the group up into 2 groups, since everyone else was behind us anyway.

Our group ended up with the people who had gotten off the front as well as all the people who had gotten dropped early on and taken a short cut to meet back up with the ride as well as some good masters. We go on Clara Barton for a little and then switch back onto Macarthur blvd a few miles later. This part of the ride is okay but I don't like being all together with the group again because then everyone tries to make a massive paceline and it always is a terrible paceline so again I just sit at the back on this part and stay out of the chaos. Unfortunately there's always someone who sees me doing this and decides that they need to teach me what a paceline is because I don't know.

Then once we're on Macarthur blvd again, we start ramping up the pace for the prestigious city line sprint. Unfortunately today there was none of that and we rode pretty easy until the base of the hill at the end of Macarthur where Peter Lindeman attacked and David crushed it onto his wheel and I tried to come across but it didn't work out like I hoped so some people passed me over the top of the hill but then I just slayed it on the false flat uphill afterwards and made it back to the front of the group and pawnxed the downhill but some people caught me so maybe I ended up at 5th. Then we return to Dean and Deluca where I refill my bottles and then ride home and thats the end.

learning about cuba

2009-11-10T14:00:00.000-08:00

SPICOLI WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING

hahahahahahahahahahahahahah

2009-11-07T07:18:00.000-08:00

2009-10-28T19:01:00.000-07:00

Already I'm doing tuesday wednesday and thursday workouts indoors. But monday I usually get outside just because I'm riding for so short. And saturday and Sunday I've been getting out and having a blast doing some great workouts outdoors.

battenkill roubaix

2009-10-06T05:06:00.000-07:00

battenkill roubaix

I just heard that they have a really big jrs race (50ppl last year)

-65mi

-lots of gravel

-steep gravel climbs

they have a separate 15-16 category so I want to try and win next year

Season

2009-09-27T18:55:00.000-07:00

looking back

-I flatted out of Poolesville

-had fun

-first full season of senior races (proly like 40-50 races total) and still doing jrs t00

-didn't win any races (even though I really wanted to win yesterday)

-completed my final season on the bike that I have learned everything I know about bike racing on so far (since I was 12)

looking forward

-long winter of training

-back in school

-getting stronger

-listening to Elton John Pandora over and over on my rollers, watching tour of flanders 2008 for the 351st time until I become a machine

-brand new BIKE!!!! Cannondale caad9 (I don't actually own it)

-l00ks fr3sh and pr0x

2009-09-04T08:23:00.000-07:00

http://linc.zenfolio.com/gundel-claymont2009/h9a96aa1#h9a96aa1

Nathan

2009-08-26T13:01:00.000-07:00

http://www.photostockplus.com/home.php?user_id=53479&tmpl=30&event=315710&action=viewphoto&album_id=315710&rank=152&pcount=45

2009-08-24T12:09:00.001-07:00

The wind does not effect the Jan.

The Jan effects the wind.

The Jan has farted

540#3

2009-08-11T18:52:00.001-07:00

rockin that jrs

calm before the storm

chillin

making the move

pulling off after a monster pull r0f1

tired and ending up 5th

Epic

2009-06-02T08:18:00.000-07:00

KOPPENBERG

BOSBERG

MUUR VAN GERAARDSBERGEN/MUUR KAPELMUUR/MUUR DE GRAMONT

VERSUS...

AVERY WILSON

THE SHOWDOWN BEGINS APRIL 7TH, 2015. wHo WiLL eM3Rge AS THE v1Ct0R??

IDKMYBFFJILL?