Giro!!!!!!

I was at a mid-week crit series last night. Fun race, great training, and usually good for a laugh or two. Last night was no different. I took a few fliers, trying (in vein) to get away. At one point I attacked, got a good gap, and when I pulled off to see who was with me, I was unimpressed. I sat there looking at these two douche bags, and thinking to myself, "these two? really? I have to try and ride off the front with them?" Elitist, but I don't care. You know the second you see a guy if he can ride a break to the finish, and these guys couldn't. None the less, I put my head down and did pulls for 2 laps at 30-33mph. Them 26mph. The break didn't stick. Can you believe it? The sprint was another mess all together. Some nights it is OK, but more often than not it is a complete cluster F. Last night was bad. Guys were "sprinting" and not going any faster than the lead out. Cantwell won easily as slow, fat, turtles clogged up the front.
Fast forward to this morning, and the Giro live on Cycling.tv (a great website, by the way). I am watching Team High Road dismantle the top teams in the world in their lead out for Cavendish. They had 5 on the front with 1.5K to go and they are doing 38mph already. They hit the last turn 300m out and Cavendish still had two guys. As they exited the turn the lead guy pulled off. 250m to go now. Greipel is now slamming it toward the finish going silly fast. Cavendish gives a look back and see's no one can come around him or his teammate and gifts the stage to Greipel. Cavendish couuld have easily taken the stage, no doubt about it, but instead gave it to his teammate in a specatacular display of sportsmanship and teammatesmanship (is that a word?). Then I thought about my teammates and how well we have been working together lately, and how much we are learning. It's frustrating on one hand though, as we are not getting as many wins as I had hoped, but I feel it is starting to come together, and I think the second half of the season is going to be good. Glass now half full.


On a seperate note, to file under random shit, yesterday as I was driving down the street I saw a guy walking. No bg deal right? Until he decided to sprint full gas for 100m then shut down the engines back to a slow walk. Awesome.

What Happened?????

There are some weekends when no matter what you do, nothing good can come of your efforts. That was this weekend. You can count on it. At least once a year, you (and the team) will have a shocker, and bascially get nothing out of a really hard race, but fitness for the next weekend.

Let's run down a time line of yesterday's events, shall we:

Noon- get to the race course in Long Beach. Worst course ever. No scenic qualities what so ever, but they let us race, so it's ok.

1pm- getting ready. Got food, water, team kit...tires aired up.....wait. Problem. Thread showing where I have gone through the tread on my race wheels, and now I get to race on my training wheels. Let the good times start. Not a problem. No 11 today*.
*this turned out to be a problem when Neil Shirley and a teammate decided to do about 34pmh for 3 laps. F*^K!!!

1:45pm- Pre-game pee, and let's meet. Where is everyone? Scattered like feathers in the wind? Perfect.

2pm- Time to start. Oh, there's everyone. "hey guys the plan for today is.....what? We're starting? DAMN IT!!!!"
2:01pm. First attack launched. Brought Back.
replay 2:01 entry over and over again for the next 1 hr 40 min. Now I am tired.

3:40pm (it was a 100K crit, which is actually really fun)- A break of 7 gets some daylight in between themselves and the peleton. Great news, we aren't represented (insert sarcastic look here). Time to chase. Ok team let's line it up. Team? Hello? Oh, good Bones is here. Bones? Hello? He's done. Oh, good Cameron....STOP way to much, relax. Cam's gone. Ahhh George is here, nope guess not.

4:15pm- Break is gone for the day and is about to take spots 1-7. Time to get Tommy some points for the series. Tommy? DAMN IT!!!!!! To the front I go, hoping he finds me. He's on now.

4:16pm- Last turn (turn 280 of 280 that day), We are in 6th and 7th time to go. I punch it....I suck. Not a lot left. Tommy's got a little kick still. Oh watch out for Rahsaan....and he is....11th (4th in field sprint). Not bad. Plus he holds on to the points lead for the series.

4:29pm- riding back to the cars to do post race talk, "Hey Bones, where did you go after those 2-3 pulls you....OOH SHIT. Bones?!?!!?" Bones hits a parking block and falls down. The perfect end to the perfect race.

Hopefully things go better at Dana Point. Even with a shit day, I was still pretty stoked to have raced my bike yesterday, and I can feel my form coming back. I will be back in "Redlands" form soon, then its time to attack.

OUCH!!!! One week off the bike (business trip) and my legs go to complete crap. Did about 5.5 hours in the last two days, and neither ride was a good one. Hopefully the legs rebound a little for this weekend. Not too concerned, but none the less I hate to let the team down, when we are riding so well.

So some other notes of interest, I have added a few links on the right to a few sites I think are interesting.
If you get a chance, read some of the NY Bike Snobs stuff. Twisted? Yes. Funny? Also, yes.
Liz Hatch is another one to hit up. She's smart, funny, and not to hard on the eyes.
CBR. The best in local SoCal racing. These guys poor their heart into bike racing, and don't get enough back in my opinion. Give their races a try, you won't be disappointed.

Finally some random thoughts. Le Tour is a matter of weeks from now, and I for one am not all that excited about it. The field will be weak at best, and the problem I see is if they were to invite a certain team that has been excluded, I am not sure it would be a clead race. Contador just rode a 2nd place in a flat TT at the Giro yesterday, with a cracked elbow, and only a week of prep for the Giro. Something doesn't seem right to me. Levi looks good though, and I am convinced he a clean racer, but Alberto I have my concerns about.

Screw Europe, I like racing right here in SoCal. The land of industrial park crits, crashes, and home of the Elite National Road Race Championships this year.

Back on the Bike

What a screwed up couple of weeks I have just had. Let's get the biks stuff out of the way first. The last race I did was the masters 35+ (actual age 34, racing age- 35) as a helper for a teammate who was defending the state rr jersey. So I got up at an un-Godly hour to meet Pops as head up to good old Bakerfield. What a hole. No redeeming qualities visiually what-so-ever. We got to the s/f about 50 minutes before race start time. Got suited up, pinned, and ready to roll. The course was really good. We rolled out and attacks started after about 1/2k. The first 10k at uphill too. Not bad, just 2% but right out of the gates it sucked. A short desecent some flats through a valley and we hit "the climb". The climb was supposed to be a leg breaker. But it wasn't. I didn't even know I was on it for the first 1k. It is about 6k long at about 4%. With a little less than 1k to go I launched an attack. It worked. I took on guy with me and by the top we had a good gap, and by the bottom of the 8K descent we had 45 seconds. Through some valleys and rollers we got back to the s/f where I was hoping to get caught. Not in the cards. Maybe on the 2%. Nope. Maybe on the climb. Nope, we now had 1.55 on the group, with 17 miles to go and a 15mph head wind to contend with. Over the top and down we went in the Valley and rollers. We got within 2k of the finish line when we got caught. I reintergrated, and looked to see if our guy was still in the now tiny peleton. He was, but the chase must have hurt him a little as he had no kick at the end. I sprinted home in 10th, as out best placed finisher, and then got hte hell out of the B-Field.

Monday up at the crack again, and this time off to Cabo for a work conference my office runs down there. Yes I do have a real job. It's just like your job, lots of desk time, meetings, bs and all. But my real job is in the surf industry, where I was brought up. Before re-finding the bike a few years back, I was a hell of a surfer (I like to think i still am), and this industry is where I feel most comfortable. Why you ask? Because instead of a annual conference in Chicago or Denver we go to Cabo, and we have a great time. Some high lights ,or low lights, depending on how you look at them were/are:
-one friend drank pee.
-one friend ate cow poop.
-scored great waves almost every day
-did not drink to eccess and felt great at the end of the week.
-one friend broke his weiner (really).
-got stung by a jelly fish (no biggie, poop happens)
-had my crotch grabbed in one night 7 times....not as good as it sounds.
-saw some great looking women. Surf industry is the best looking industry (sorry bike geeks)

All in all a good week. And since it was Mexico, you know I didn't gain a pound. I was stoked to be home, even though the first 3 hour ride back was a tough one this morning. This weekend is Memorial Day weekend, which means I get a three day weekend and get to race on Monday. Right on. Hopefully my legs bounce back by then and I can finish the race and maybe help out. Until next time.

It was one of those nights

I get a lot more race days in my legs every season thanks to the fine folks at CBR, and their Tuesday night El Dorado park crit series. I get out for about 20 Eldo's a year, which usually puts me in the 60-70 race days a year range. Points are on offer and the top ten points getter's at the end of summer recieve a nice little check for their efforts. Currently we have the number one slot with Pops, and the number three spot with Drama. Drama was there last night, but not feeling it, which is becoming a problem for everyone, and Pops was off saving kittens from trees or whatever it is he does at that firehouse of his. The second place guy was not in attendance either, so I figured game on. I launched about 6 different attacks last night, and got a gap with two of them, but guys were chasing. Why can't people pay attention and just send one of their own to the front to cover breaks? Anyway, just as I launched my last effort to get away we got three to go. We had a good gap, but without one more strong guy the 4 of us weren't staying away, never the less we continued to push. With one to go we got caught, and I was able to reintergrate near the front. I pushed my way around, and got up to about 13th wheel or so out of the last turn. With that it was time to sprint. Eldo is strange. The last corner is 400m from the line and guys start their sprint from out there. They never hold it though, so it's all about sitting on their wheel until 200m to go. I hit the gas and got pinched off by some slow guys on the right, had to hit brakes, and re-accelerate around them, but still managed to get 6th. Not bad after being off the front for the last 3 laps. Could have gone top 3 without the brake tap.

This weekend is Bakerfield. My legs are coming around, but not enough to think I have a shot at the jersey in the pro12 race. Plus I leave for Cabo on Monday morning, so I will just be doing the masters race on Saturday. Bakerfield is like Cabo without the ocean. It is dirt, weeds, and ugly. The good news is the roads for the race are littered with potholes, cracks, and death ridges. I am sure there will be a number of people hit the deck out there. Hopefully the race goes our way and we can get a jersey out of it. We have a good crew going up for the masters race. Me, Goat, Pops, Johnny Boy, Vogt, and I think one other, but I am not sure.

As my Grandfather used to say....."Close the damn door."

See ya.

Some weekends you have it and some you don't. And then some weekends you are right there and get screwed out of it. I think that accurately describes my race yesterday. There was so much racing going on this weekend, and truth be told I would have much rather raced San Luis Rey yesterday, but Tommy has the lead in the Best All Around Racer (BAR) series, so we all showed up for a crit in Dominguez Hills. Same old course, same old people. CBR runs a top notch race. Always safe, and always fun, but when there is a road race the same day so close, its a bummer I had to miss it for this race.

As expected the field was small, about 50 or so. Things got started early, and I told Tommy to stay on my wheel so he would be in the move when it goes, because I sure as hell would be. Then after a flurry of attacks people got tired of chasing/bridging and we had ourselves a 13 man break. We had some strong men in there so soon we only had 9. The peleton kept the chase up for a while keeping us at 50 seconds for ever. But as the old saying goes, out of sight out of mind, and since then chased and chased and still couldn't see us, they gave up. We lapped them pretty fast after that. Once back in I told the boys to make sure it stays together. We rode well up until the last lap (which is the most important). I got pinched off Tommy's wheel, got behind the only guy to have a mechanical in the last turn and got a pathetic 7th. I was racing for a win against 9 guys, and couldn't bring it home. That is sad. Tommy was the first guy from the peleton across the line so he extended his lead, which was good.

Racing as a team is difficult at times, but we did a good job of it yesterday, right up until that last lap. Oh well. This weekend is the State Road Race Champs, and I won't be there. No shot at it for me anyway. The climb is a little too ling for this fat kid. Maybe next year they will go back to the old course where I will have a shot at it.

I am counting the days right now. May 12 I leave for Cabo for a week (for work). Yeah I know rough life. It's a good mid-season break. Once back we have a flurry of crits. What else would you expect in SoCal? Road Races?

The best part about yesterday was seeing the 4 guys sitting on the back of the break with their mouths open and tounges dragging as we hit the gas. Each one imploded and went backwards and then we would see them on the side of the course 10 minutes later. Pure gold to know you helped put that guys lights out for the day.

Until next time.

Back in the saddle again

It has been a while since I have written anything here, ok almost a year, but I will put some posts up frequently now.

Instead of a long drawn out re-cap of what I have been up to, and what I plan on doing in the near future I will just start posting new stuff. Pick up like I was never gone. If for no other reason than I just don't feel like rehashing all that has been going on. I will give a quick check list of some of the stuff that has happened since my last post.

- Won Roger's Cup (only to have it taken away on protest from an A$$hole). I will win it again next year. This time solo off the front on my own, so no one can complain about it.

- Finished Boulevard in the peleton. That was hard.

- Won the Merced road race, which made the drive home a little easier with the ROCK in the back of the UAV.

- SDSR sucked. Nuff said.

- Got to race Redlands this year. That sucked too, but I want to come back stronger and better for next year and finish that one.

I will be racing this weekend (and almost every weekend after), so stay tuned. I am sure there will be some good stuff.