watts up?

first id like to just take a moment to appreciate the awesomeness of this title, it took about one whole week to think up, and i thoroughly enjoy it. also as a bit of a psa everybody should try to use the word "watts" as often as possible in every day conversation outside of biking, for example, when talking about my chemistry final i might say: "i was really putting out some watts during that test last night".

now onto some boring stuff, not everything can be as awesome as talking about watts...i finished up the semester yesterday, done with finals! feels good to be done, im not gonna lie, it was tough semester for me what with missing two weeks to race in guatemala and whatnot. its ok im taking refuge for the time being in tucson trying to shake off the stress of the semester and one day in i think its already working! should be a good training block here as im going to be here for awhile, from now until at least january 9th. i might end up staying a little bit longer.

i am not taking classes semester...i got the opportunity to go race in europe with the national team for a big block in the spring and i wanted to take it. hopefully it will go well and justify taking the semester off from school...of course thats why im in tucson making watts right now. im very excited for it...even more excited for racing stateside with cal giant, the program looks great and looking forward to doing some of the races i havent done yet like mt. hood and tour de nez. of course the most exciting race all year is gonna have to be u23 nationals, going to be awesome going 1-2 with the one and only dangeruss brown....shizzle. as for tucson, weather is looking good, and most importantly im getting lean for the shootout, the only real day of bike riding tha tmatters! i also just got some valuable intel that some ballers are in town, so the shootout is going to be awesome! in case anyone had any doubt...I LIVE FOR THE SHOOTOUT!

now go out and make some watts!

updates

well its been a little while...i guess i was waiting for enough interesting stuff to happen to have something to write about. since i last wrote ive gone through the pursuit of a couple different sports. i ended my very non-lucrative career as a mtb'er, mainly due to a surplus of suckage. after that i thought i was a triathlete for a little bit. not wanting to end my season in mid september i decided to do a triathlon in mid october. so i trained for that for a bit, only to find out i was a road bike racer once again, that ended my career as a triathlete before it even started...too bad, it could've been great. like i said i had been kind of transitioning into the offseason when i got the opportunity to go race a 12 day stage race in guatemala, tour of guatemala, with the us national team. at the time my form was definitely not quite grand tour winning, and my daily ice cream consumption was bordering on dangerous...however i couldnt afford to pass the opportunity up. i got my train on pretty hard for two weeks then i headed south on an airplane. the race was hard. it was a lot of fun. doing a 12 day stage race at the end of october was definitely an experience. there was a lot of climbing, i had some good days some bad days, i was pretty sick most of the time down there with a cold but it wasn't bothering me too much. my teammate robbie was going pretty well and got a real solid 12th overall. the colombian teams were super good, the guy that one the overall is riding for geox pro tour team next year i think. now im back in boulder at school, im pretty behind in school but im trying to get back on terms with the work and taking a little break at the same time. im getting antsy though, i feel so lazy not riding. yesterday i did like a 6mile walk and that made me feel a little better about my lack of exertion, plus it's better than studying! im eager to get training again as it feels like most guys out here are starting to ramp it up and are getting underway getting fast for next year.

with regards for next year i'll be riding for a new team. i'll be riding for cal-giant cycling, calgiantcycling.com the two years with kelly has been awesome, but part of the transition i want to make is to living more out in boulder and getting more support to do bigger stage races. that is something cal giant provides. theres a lot of great guys onthe team and im really looking forward to learning from them. ill be leaving out in boulder through the summer, i'll be home for sure to do some east coast races and go to u23 nationals in augusta. also there seems to be some confusion on the internet, im not sure how me riding for cal giant got on gamjams as i really hadnt told many people...but to clear up any confusion they are an amateur team. they have a lot of support, and it is the most professionally run program i have been a part of, but they are not a uci team. hopefully though between them and hopefully racing with the national team in europe i can get to a lot of hard races, and maybe even be fast at one of them!

pro mountain biker

actually pretty far from pro mountain biker, more like maximum amateur hour mountain biker. but i did a couple mtb races recently, they were pretty fun, my technical skills were way worse than i figured they would be who would've guessed?! it was pretty easy to get into the mtb races, i stole my friend jesse's bike and my roomate sam who is a big timer mountain biker hooked me up with all the sweet mtber lingo. here is a picture of me getting dominated at a collegiate race.

my mtbing career has been pretty shortlived thus far, i found out pretty quick that im not the next julien absalon when i got girled pretty hard...the last mtb race we did, after the race i jumped on the road bike...which i caught major flack for from all these hard core downhillers who only cross train by gunning pbr's...and road to crested butte, which is pretty awesome. sam deidre and i (a.k.a team gold run minus anna) camped there for the night. here is a pretty sweet picture sam and i took at the campsite, to show how sweet crested butte is.
as for road biking, not much to report there...im contemplating a serious switch to the mtb for next year, thoughts? i think im done with road biking...not done with ice cream though, that i have just started.

rough patches and smooth patches

feels like its been mostly rough patches this year but i dont thinks thats really true, i guess i just mean to say it feels like that from where im looking right now as i write this...pretty melodramatic i suppose.

the season has been rolling along and its not that far from being over as i head back to school on august seventeenth. it feels like the season has gone by very fast, i guess it always does. since nationals ive done several races...fitchburg, hagerstown, capital crit, cascade, and most recently the tour of the catskills. nothings been great...i feel like ive used that term--wasn't great--a lot to describe my races this year, what does it take for me to describe a race as bad? can a bike race be bad?...knock on wood.

cascade was maybe the worst...purely in terms of frustration...worst because i think my form was the best...however perhaps all the cosmos were not aligned...but to all the spirits listening out there know that i accept it! when i showed up in oregon my bike was broken, with a pretty serious crack on the seatstay...not a great way to start the trip. i rode the whole race on my old trek which my mom overnighted out, it worked but wasnt great. the first real day of racing was perhaps the worst luck of the trip when my seat clamp broke a few miles in and i was in the cars trying to get it fixed pretty much from mile 0. later on in the stage after a big selection had been made i broke a spoke 5km from the base of the final climb. by the time i got back on i had no legs left to do a good ride. i lost a bunch of time that day and ended all hopes of doing well in the gc at all. the rest of the race was fine, nothing brilliant, some decent results and took some big gambles, especially on the last day coming up a bit short. however the results sheets dont have asterisks explaining what happened between the start and the finish...i gues thats what people have blogs for.

this past weekend i went up to ny for tour of the catskills it was pretty cool race with a biggish field. pretty hard climbing on the two road race days. some french guy won that i guess rode the tour de france in 08, but he only did the first five stages i think...so really hes no big deal. i felt decent, it was really nice being up in that part of ny, ive never been there and it was gorgeous also the weather was super refreshing not so hot as it has been down here this summer. couple good races on the calendar, ill be back in colorado soon but back soon after for univest i hope.

after writing this actually it doesnt seem so rough after all, perhaps bike racing will go on for myself, but who realy knows.

nationals

nationals is a very special event...there is really no other event i do all year where nearly everyone there is trying to be on their best form of the year. nationals also seems very odd...it seems very odd that you work so hard toward one day for nearly a whole year and that it is over so fast. two weeks ago the anticipation for nationals was high and expectations were huge, now it is all over so fast and everyone has to wait another twelve months for another crack at the champions jersey. some people leave happy some dissappointed and some indifferent, the way one day of racing seems to hold so much power is very special i think. with that said heres a quick rundown of how it went for me.

nothing really to say about the time trial, 21st, not good not bad i guess, i was 4th placed first year u23 i guess you could say thats decent...but i wouldnt. time trialing is a weird even, it puzzles me sometimes how someone i can outclimb can beat me in time trials...i feel like it should be the same thing...but i guess it is not, still a lot of area to improve. the guys who really rock the time trials always impress me, theyre so dialed in on the details.

crit...um yeah, its kind of a boring crit course, all flat four corners gave it a couple goes to get away but didnt want to burn too much gas with the road race the next day, had a decent go with 3 to go and made it about halfway across to bk but the a-train brought me back after a little more than a lap and bk went onto victory

the road race was ok. i felt pretty good but it didnt exactly play out how i had hoped. it was very tense the whole time as most people seemed nervous about a big early move going like it had the previous year. however that said the big teams never took control and the race did not get as hard as i wish it had as there was never a major selection taking place. early on i bridged to a 6 man move on the second lap thinking it might get established as the early move which the final selection would ride up to, however with the field still antsy we got brought back after about half a lap. after that time the race started heating up, i made sure to mark all the favorites over the top of the most selective climb every lap, a few times i thought we had the break established. the most promising was when i got away with summerhill and howes (both garmin), bk and kyer (both trek), and talansky...however i guess it was maybe just too many strong guys up the road because co operation was weak and it came back together quickly. shortly after that in the beginning of the fourth lap kevin started one of the best moves of the day. him and three others quickly got two minutes up the road, however with neither of majore teams represented it was back after a lap. shortly after it was brought back i started following a flurry of attacks until all of a sudden the field shut down and i was off with bk, a bissell guy, and jerome. we opened up a minute fairly quick, soon jerome was gone, then a while after the feedzone it was down to just me and bk as the bissell guy cracked. i guess this is where i lost the race...i hate to be the guy that sits on even if it means im going to get dropped...so i got dropped, pure stupidity, i insisted on forcing my body to working as much as bk and ended up getting dropped...that was the race i got brought back shortly after and rolled it in with the 35 or so guys left, getting popped with 5k to go. i was so close if i had been more willing to ride in a more conservative manner i surely could have gotten 2nd, but i guess thats what i get for pretending im better than i am. so all in all nationals was decent, but not exactly the results i was hoping for.

next up is onto fitchburg, i like this race and am hoping for a good ride, we'll see...i need to start getting some results if im going to consider this a successful season.

post #92

all packed up getting ready to head out to oregon this afternoon for the u23 nationals, kevin is the only teammate coming with but thats okay you only need two guys for a wrecking crew anyway!

tour of washington county was this weekend and it was a blast, i thought the prologue was real cool, once again nice job joe jefferson. i cant think of anything good to write so ill do a quick summary of the weekend....

prologue was solid, it was short just a bit over 10 minutes, all the teims were pretty close so didnt seem to have a huge role on gc, i did a decent ride so i was pretty pleased with that as i was looking at this weekend as a final check up on the form pre nationals. the road race and the next days tt i guess were the main gc deciders. the road race was pretty ballin, it was super hot which wasnt that ballin but it was what it was. pretty earlly there were a bunch of moves and eventually as one was kinda coming back and another going a group of 9 shuffled off the front and started to get a gap. in it was me, nortonian war machine, todd, and russ for kelly, then langley, joe d, barrie, and andy...ok turns out thats 8. with 4 of us in teh move none of the other guys wanted to do much which was fair. thankfully todd held back some to stay fresh from the tt, and russ helped out when he could but for most of the day it was me and rick just full gas on the front...i was suffering hard but it was worth it in the end...plus you can't give up so easily to getting beat up by an old man. eventually andy came out of the break and i think langley flatted out, so it was down to just us, joe d, and barrie. towards the end joe started coming thorugh some more and russ, and todd...todd got away on the last lap and joe dragged rick across while me and russ sat on barrie, barrie was kinda gassed so i jumped him and rode hte last lap alone. up front joe took the win, and rick and todd went 2, 3. i was 4th, russ 5th, then i think tim rugg, and barrie, then evan, jamie and kevin...not a bad day for us, except for getting nearly every place except 1st! tt was the next morning, thankfully todd did a great ride and moved into 1st also blair did an awesome ride for 3rd on the day, i was okay, nothing spectacular did i mention time trials shouldn't count as bike racing.... the crit was kind stressful since joe d was only 4sec back from todd but todd was riding pro tour and was never in trouble a biggish break got up the road with rick and kevin in it for us, rick and russ lapped up russ won the day, but important for us todd won the gc! also we had a bunch of guys top 10 and top 20 in the final gc!

it was a blast this weekend, the team rode great and it was a real fun to be apart of, but more importantly the level of racing all around was really good, it was really hard racing and not easy for any one to win any of the days, the level around here is really good which makes it a lot better for everyone!

post #91

this is my 91st post...i guess i havent written anything since tour of gila, so a quick little update

after gila i was back in boulder for a couple days before i went to wisconsin for collegiate nationals, the first day was the road race, then the crit, then the ttt. i was hoping for some nice weather but that didnt happen...in fact the road race had pretty nasty conditions, at least for a soft man like me! it was 40 and rainy, it was a good course though and i wanted to give it a go. i felt good for 75% of the race...but not the 25% that mattered. oh well, maybe i got too cold and didnt eat enough, or maybe i just was still hurting from crashing at gila and still being on anti-biotics, i was pretty dissapointed at the time but im past it now. the crit was a lot of fun, i was very aggressive but nothing stayed away, i guess i shouldve gone harder...the bittersweet part is i used up most of my energy trying to get away that i didnt have much left to set up our sprinter and i think he could've podiumed for sure if i had saved a little more gas, i felt pretty guilty about that, as he is one of my best friends. the ttt was okay, everyone gave it their best shot, but unfortunately the guys' legs were pretty empty and the best just wasnt good enough.

onto the next thing, came back home to arlington! and was finally feeling recoverd from gila, did poolesville...flatted...did bear mountain and had a good ride, in a good move for 25 miles or so but unfortunately the big axa team missed the move and brought it back on the last lap, jacob saved the day with 8th, and earned himself a trip to nature valley on the composite team!

since that weekend its been crits crits crits...did wilm and bike jam, they were ok, nothing noteworthy...except jamie getting 9th at wilmington, ballin pretty hard...did ricola twilight on that wednesday, aside from getting to the race 30' before the start and no warm up it was fun, started really fast and i was jumping gaps for awhile but then it cooled down...i pretty much tail gunned it the whole time which was embarassing, but unfortunately there wasn't much i could do about it, i was pretty on the rivet

didnt race at all memorial day weekend, had a really nice training block...next weekend was church creek, that sunday did a good ride in PA with blair, todd, jacob, kevin, and russ...it was nice lots of nice climbs...then this weekend did clarendon and crystal city, we did the 123 at clarendon, it was nothing special for me but evan won so that was sweet, also jamie got 3rd! at crystal city we did the big race, it was pretty good nothing too special, i was way in the front with 3 to go but was way too much of a pushover and gave up all the spots when people started fighting...eh, at least now "crit season" is over for a little while, doing washington county this weekend, should be fun...joe puts on such great races, we're lucky to have him, then right after that heading to oregon for u23

the form is good so im hoping all goes well, season has been a bit frustrating so far in terms of results, but im hoping from hear on out things will start looking up