Kaptain Katsu

GearFest and John Bryan

2011-10-02T22:12:00.001-04:00

Three races in two days...

Boy is that rough.

I drove up to Columbus with Mike Friday evening to his sister's place so we can cut down on our morning drive. I was racing Single Speed both days so my race is pretty early at 10:15a. Man getting up early sucks. I am used to getting up late and racing at 2pm or so. Mike's race is two races later so having him tag along gave him time to warm up and ride the course.

Saturday was a new venue at the GearFest outdoor festival. 40's and drizzling did not make for a warm morning but it is cyclocross and you just have to deal with it. The course was fairly flat with lots of twisty stuff. The slick mud made cornering difficult so I popped on the Rhinos and most of my traction concerns disappeared.

I got the holeshot and motored on. I led the first lap and by the second lap, I got caught by the Trek Store Cinci guy. I let him pull me around the flat sections until he took a turn rather wide and I cut in and did a perfect block pass. I let the rest of the lap until he passed me later on and I decided to take it easy and sit on. During this time, I realized how poor a bike handler he was and I was much better in the slick turns. I knew if I led in the technical sections I can easily make it to the finish and win.

So last lap, I made sure I was in front on the last half of the lap. About 1/3 of a lap to go, there is a bunnyhopable log, though neither of us bunnyhopped it. I went over it clean and shortly after, He passed me. Big mental mistake. From there it was game over because he was riding pretty dirty and purposely blocking. Nearing the end, there was one spot where I could ride dirty and take a turn wide and take him out, but I played clean and thus could not pass and was first loser.

Back to Columbus for the night until we got up the next day for John Bryan.

John Bryan is one of my favorite courses. It is deceivingly hard, getting progressively harder each lap. This year's course layout eliminated the road start, had lots of up and down. I especially liked in the second half of the course, you shoot down the entire park, hitting a bit of single track as well.

The single speed race had some new faces and my new nemesis was not present. Again I got the hole shot and led the first lap. Rudy Sroka caught up to me and put some time on me on the up and down off camber section right after the finish line. I knew he had an advantage there because of his fatter 29'er tires. I was able to catch back up and rode with him to the bottom of the course. Rudy was able to bunny hop the log barriers and again put time on me. I was able to catch back up and passed him on the uphill drag. Back to the up/down section he put time on me and from there I had to chase hard but eventually gave up since I had second in the bag and I was racing the Elite race later on.

Not a whole lot to say about the Elite race. I started in the back and had to make up a lot of ground. I certainly felt the efforts of Saturday and the SS race earlier in the day. By the second lap, I started to feel good and started to pass people. Then I ran out of gas and started going backwards. I also noticed I was not shifting my bike as often as I should. Since I have been predominately riding and racing single speed, I was pushing large gears over stuff I should have shifted.

Mike did well this weekend too. A second on Saturday and third on Sunday. Both days were marred by dropping his chain which we hope we can remedy with a chainguard. Well that is if he decides to race again. Mike said on Sunday that several people came up to him and called him a sandbagger and disrespected him in his face. I'm all for having light heckling, calling out sandbaggers, but only while they are racing. I don't see what there is to gain from pulling people aside and disrespecting them in their face. People say they like cross because it is more chill and less Roadie Rage, but it seems like the sandbagger ridicule is starting to get out of hand.

Next week is Gun Club and I haven't decided if I am racing yet. I probably should since my racing days are slightly limited due to other weekend commitments.

It's been too long

2011-08-19T09:01:00.000-04:00

It's been way too long since I last updated this blog. Almost a year. I am going to try to keep up with updating this cross season.

Anyway, I finally graduated and received my undergraduate degree in Computer Science with a minor in business. It has been an epic journey but I got it done, more or less to please my parents. Has my CS degree gotten me the $50K+ dream job that everyone told me about when I was in High School? Nope, not at all. If I could do it over again, I would have gone to a tech school and learned to become an electrician, plumber or some other trade job that makes money by fixing or making things. Ok, rant over...

I've have some new bikes and new products coming in for cross season so I'll be doing reviews of cool stuff as I get them in hand. Look for an e.13 XCX-ST-CX (lots of letters) chainguide, TRP CX 8.4 brakes, All-City Nature Boy Zona Limited Edition Frame and a few others in the coming weeks.

I'm also going to be attending Interbike this year and managed to get an entry into the Wheelers and Dealers Cross Vegas race so keep an eye on this blog for the latest in cool bike products.

Also don't forget weekly race updates on how I'm doing (or sucking)

Cheers

Cap City, UCI3, Homecoming Redskins

2010-10-18T22:39:00.000-04:00

I'm slacking again! Its been a while since my last update with was Kings Cross so I'm just gonna throw down some stuff as I remember it.

After Kings CX, my next race wasn't for 2 weeks. I decided to do the Cap City race at Big Run. It was hot on Saturday and then cold and Rainy on Sunday. Summer then to cross weather overnight. A really nice course and which I liked when it was muddier. It dried as my race went on and I couldn't two wheel drift as much on the off camber stuff. I couldn't really get things going so I kinda just rode the race for training.

I had lost serious motivation to train somewhere in the year and a few weeks ago, I sorta decided to just ride, go race and have fun. Not really training means my performance has suffered but all is good. Much rather have fun than dig a deeper hole.

UCI3 was next and this race weekend is always a blast. I stayed with Zach again and did all three days in the Cat 2/3 category. I was originally registered for UCI Elite but with my lack of form and motivation, I decided against it. So from a 2nd or 3rd row start (I was the 3rd person to register for elites), I went to the back of 100 guys. Not the place you want to start but I was really just racing for training and experience.

Friday's course was at Dovou again but a totally different course. Hard, dry, dusty and bumpy. I had my best result of the weekend here at 27th. Not bad for starting in the back. I actually liked this course because it was wide open and required more skill than the other two days. I was able to get around a lot of people through the off camber stuff and power away on the straights. However, the course was rough and shredded up my tires.

Saturday was a very similar course to last year at Sunset park. With more people and a tighter course, I really didn't have too high of hopes. We got rolling and I really couldn't open anything up for two laps. Many of the corners only had one ridable line and it was always too slow to get off and run. FAIL!

Sunday at Harbin park was a better passing course but again starting behind a million people didn't help. Again very similar course. Since it was dry and dusty, I decided to ride my Dugast Rhinos which hooked up a lot better in the corners. However on the last lap, on the section of the course where there is a huge G-Out, I flatted my rear. SUCK! I was already past the pit and I just had to ride back in to the finish. All the people I passed in the last two laps passed me back. Oh well. Luckily back home, a little Stans saved the tire.

The better part of the weekend was helping out Andys and Kirk help Jeremy Powers and Kaitlin Antonneau. Its fun working and helping out, especially when they appreciate the work you are doing.

Now this past weekend was the mayhem known as OU Homecoming. For the past 3 or 4 years, Isaiah and I have had not so great experiences. I won't elaborate any further. However this year, went without a hitch and was enjoyable. We rode 3 hours on Friday, got drunk at night, woke up and rode two hours on Saturday and then got drunk again. We found Greg on Saturday and went up to a Swim team house party and rocked out until the OSU game was over. You should have seen Greg when the Buckeyes lost. It was like the world was ending for him.

On Sunday, my brother and I drove out to Washington DC to watch the Redskins play the Colts. Yeah I guess I could go to Indy which is considerably closer, but I have Season tickets to the Skins so I'll drive the extra hours. We left Athens around 10:30, got to DC around 5:30. Parked my car, checked out our sleeping arrangements at Zach's brother's place (THANKS again! I'll call you to thank you soon), then hopped on the Metro to the stadium. This was my first NFL game so it was an experience.

As you would expect, the Metro got more and more crowded as the train got closer to the stadium. The Metro station is about a mile from the stadium so a quick 20 minute walk among thousand of other fans was pretty cool. As we walked, we passed by all the parking and everyone already drunk from tailgating.

I think we got there about an hour before kick off so we bought our overpriced stadium food, which was actually pretty large portion, and found our seats. I skipped the $8 beers since I had already consumed plenty of it the past two days. Our seats are up in the upper bowl endzone. Pretty nosebleed on paper, but you can actually see the whole field and its a good view. There is also a huge jumbo screen on the other endzone so you can see everything.

It was a very good game but unfortunately the Redskins lost by a field goal. The season is still early and we are still only 3 and 3. Plenty of season left to get going. At least we are doing a lot better than then 1-4 Cowboys.

Once McNabb missed the 4th and 10 throw in the 2 minute warning, it was time to get up and go. A mad dash back to the metro station so we can get back. Lucky for us, we were able to get a seat rather than standing and on our way back. We got to Eric's place and crashed for a few hours. I went to bed at 1am and the alarm went off at 4:30. My brother had to catch a 6am flight back to Dallas from Reagan International. The airport was only about 20 minutes away so we were out the door by around 4:45, got to the car and dropped him off at the terminal around 5:15.

Lucky for him he got to fly as his flight was only about 2:30-3hrs with a 30 minute drive from the airport. I had to drive 6-7 hours back to Athens. I find that driving up to 4 hours is manageable and not too much of a chore, but once past that, I really don't care for it. Especially when running on low sleep all weekend. I have to say, DC is awake and kicking at 5am in the morning. Luckily I was going out of the city and really didn't have to deal with traffic except for the 270 495 split. For some reason, the 495 exit was shut down by police.

On the way to DC, we stopped twice. On my way home, I had to stop 3 times with a short nap at a rest station. I made it back to Athens around noon, just in time for my 1pm class.

Next weekend I'm on the road again, heading down to Louisville for the USGP. Since I didn't want to fight through 130+ guys in the 2/3 field, and didn't want to get crushed in the 60+ Elite field, I'm signed up in the less than 10 Single Speed field. Although we start right behind the 2/3 field, I have a lot greater chance of climbing up on that podium!

Kings Cross

2010-09-22T00:05:00.000-04:00

Well the first cross weekend has come and gone and simply put, I need to put some work in.

I did fairly well on Saturday with a 16th place finish, but Sunday was abysmal. I was completely torn up from the day before and couldn't put anything down. Second to last lap, I saw eventual winner Josh Johnson coming up fast. Not wanting to get lapped, I turned on the jets and tried to beat him to the line. Unfortunately in cross, you can't just go fast cause you have to corner. I wiped out in one corner and had to quickly scramble to get up and start going again.

Off weekend then probably doing the first cap city race in two weeks

much needed Update

2010-08-26T07:30:00.000-04:00

So its been a while since I've last updated this blog. To sum it up briefly, not a lot has happened.

I continued racing till about the end of July and then after the Columbus Criterium, I took two weeks off the bike. This two week break was much needed for a physical and most importantly, mental break. During this time, I refound my love for video games starting with Starcraft 2. In fact, my computer wasn't really adequate to play so I upgraded my equipment!

Also during that time, I helped my brother move to Dallas, TX. We drove out on a Friday in on stretch. This was the first time I was in a car for more than 14 hours (my previous record was driving to Daytona). With stops it took us about 18 hours. We left Athens at 12:50pm EDT and arrived at 6am CDT. Awesome, way ahead of schedule since his rental office didn't open till 10am.

Dallas is a cool town and definitely would like to spend some more time than the two days I was there. Lucky for me, plane tickets aren't all too expensive and I can make it down there when I have some time.

After that break, it was time to get back on the bike. I got a new 2011 Giant TCX with Sram Rival I've been rocking. Its pretty sweet and has some new design features from last year. Slight geo revisions and BB90. Giant claims 5% BB stiffness over last years and I definitely feel it. The slightly soft BB wasn't a huge deal (or noticeable) when racing cross since I'm running tires as low as 15psi, but training on the road its definitely a plus.

The season starts up in about a month and I'm totally excited.

Zanesville Criterium

2010-07-05T13:57:00.000-04:00

It's been a few weeks since I last updated but not much has really gone on. After Mont Pleasant, I haven't raced. I did however racked up a lot of miles and hours. Record high of almost 67 hours, nearly 1100 miles for the month of June. Not too shabby. In all honesty, racing keeps my hours/miles in check. In that time span, I did get bitten by a dog during a training ride and was put on antibiotics. That knocked me out for a week. While I could somewhat do the power, it was very miserable. Once I was off of it, I got back into some decent form.

So on Saturday, headed to Zanesville for the Yellow Ribbon criterium. A nice fast 6 corner course. The corners flowed well and you didn't have to use brakes. The earlier fields had good turnout but once again, the 1/2/3 field was a little lacking. I seriously think Ohio should start either A: combined 1/2/3 with no separate 3 field, or B: make it 2/3 (and screw the 1's), especially for these smaller races.

Anyway some 12 of us started and we got to business fairly quickly. In a few laps, the winning break of Shawn Adams, Brent Martin and one other guy rolled off the front. Andys was also in there but was dropped out of it. I saw the move go and was sitting 2nd or 3rd wheel and really thought about trying to go and make it across. But it was that situation of do I put all my eggs in one basket and try to make it? or just wait and see. The gap was growing and I knew if I didn't make it across, I might be spit out the back. I decided to just sit and wait.

Our group chased and held steady for a while, some 15-20 seconds. John made a dig and could almost taste it, but just didn't have that extra bit to make it across. The thought did come across my mind to bridge up to John and get the two of us across but the gap wasn't large enough. I probably would have just brought the whole field back together. So I played the teammate card and sat in and waited. John eventually came back in.

Laps later, we were at a point where we were not going to catch the 3 off the front. John rolled away again at around 6 to go and it was a waiting game. Matson and another guy were 1-2 and I was third wheel. The 2nd guy wouldn't pull through and we went 2 or so laps around with Matson driving the field. 4 to go Burns jumped to get up to John and then just kept going. He had a gap and into the headwind section, I attacked to bridge up to Burns.

We both got clear and worked hard to make sure the field would not catch us. Going into the last lap, we were pretty much clear as long as we didn't play too much cat and mouse. Burns attacked into the last corner and that was pretty much it. I chased but he beat me by about a bike length.

5th place. Not too bad and I've finished 5th in all the crits I've finished. Hopefully I can change that to a better result in the coming weeks.

Tour of the Valley is next up and will be a major beat down. Lots of heavy hitters and my goal of the weekend is to survive.

le Tour de Mont Pleasant

2010-06-14T01:00:00.000-04:00

What a shitty weekend. Some days you just can't get results and I am at peace with that, but we had everything that could go wrong, go wrong.

We left Friday and went up to Lancing for the night. Easy 1 hour drive to the race in the morning. The crit was a fairly standard 6 corner crit with a headwind on the S/F stretch. The back stretch went from 4 wide to one lane with shitty pavement. I kept getting gapped out in those two corners. Anyway, this was the worse possible course to tail gun and that was what I was doing. Since I was tail gunning, I was worked and when it slowed down ever so slightly, I was too gassed to try to make a move. Anyway, long story short, I finally got gapped out in turn 6 for the last time and couldn't get back on. I lasted about 25 minutes.

Rick came off not too long after and we watched the race from the sidelines. What really sucked was the race slowed down after I had gotten popped, which it always seems to do. Isaiah and Burns finished but not in the money.

Sunday was a long 106 mile road race. Nice and flat with some rollers. We had a really big field so things were either going to be super hard, or I'll just get sucked along. We started out slow and then things started to pick up. I was a little more active in this race compared to Frankenmuth as I was moving around making sure I was near the front. Two weeks ago, I just camped out in the back.

The race all and all, was pretty boring. There was some bad roads in sections and sketchy feed zones but to sum it up, it was boring. We averaged over 25 mph so finished in 4 hours and change.

The real excitement was at the finish. About 2.4Km to go, some guy decides on the straight away to chop my wheel and ripped out 4 of my spokes out of my Reynolds. I thought for sure I was going to go down but by some miracle I was able to keep it up with a completely floppy wheel. While I was trying to recover, the douche who destroyed my wheel bounces into Isaiah and takes him out. Isaiah almost saves it but in the process takes out Rick and some other guy. Yeah, this is happening right in front of me while I am recovering from my issue. So I'm thinking sweet I saved it... Oh no I'm going to T-bone Isaiah. By some miracle again, I miss the crash and limp toward the finish line with the wheel banging off my fork leg.

I think my wheel is ok, I just need to relace the wheel. However, Rick and Isaiah were not so lucky. Rick's Calfee is in two pieces. The down tube snapped in half right about the bottle cage and the top tube pulled out of the head lug.Seems like the head lug cracked in half and allowed the top tube to come out cleanly.

Isaiah crumpled up his front Edge wheel and also broke the rear. Front shifter got rashed up and probably will need new bars. There is also a crack in the DS seatstay. Add to that, two broken helmets and good thing they were wearing them.

So yeah, race was going well until the crash by some idiot who couldn't hold his line. It all happened so quickly I don't even know who caused the whole mess. One thing is for sure, it's better we didn't know because there might have been some flaring tempers in the parking lot.

It's time for some sleep now.

Mohican 100

2010-06-06T11:13:00.000-04:00

Another Mohican 100 in the books. It was a very muddy and miserable one, a total 180 from last year.

I was actually pretty close to not going this year. My plan is to do Tour de Mount Pleasant next week so I didn't want to do Mohican because I feared it would just blow me out for that race. However, I was convinced my Glen and Greg to do it anyway. I did however wussed out and switched to the 100K.

I traveled up with Greg and we stayed with his Uncle in his new 36' trailer. This thing was awesome! Total luxury. It rain most of Friday and Saturday morning so I was glad I had a roof over my head. I was awakened by a strong storm at around 4am and thought this wasn't good and fell back asleep for another hour.

We had a nice early 7am start and managed to get to the line early enough to get a second row start. The start goes through town and up this super steep climb out of town. We then made a left on a chip/seal road and into the woods.

With all the rain the area had been getting, it was a total mud fest. there was not a single dry or semi dry section of single track. Everything was either muddy, muddier, or under water. I was very happy whenever we hit road sections.

There are some wicked unrideable sections in the course. It is probably unrideable when it is dry, and definitely unrideable in the current condition. I did a lot of hike-a-bike and my stiff soled Mavic shoes aren't cut out to do a lot of walking. The carbon heal cup had started to rub on my inner heals and blistered (and popped.) It got to a point where I could not walk anymore so I had to take off my left shoe to walk. At this point, I was half way between checkpoint 2 and 3. I really considered quitting at this point. I soldiered on to checkpoint 3 since it was mostly road.

I got to checkpoint 3 and I got some bandaids to cover the popped blisters. I figured it was only a little bit longer so I pressed on to the finish. Mostly road then heads back on for 5 miles of single track. When I hit the single track section, a nice storm had rolled through. That trail section is dark as it is on a sunny day, it was pretty much pitch black with that storm. I had really lost motivation at that point to push forward and kill the wet single track so I just pedaled along to just get through it. I was tired and wet and didn't want to crash and ruin my self for next weekend.

I finally left the trail and headed to the finish. They took out the brutal finishing climb so it was an easy stroll around the camp ground to the finish.

I finished in 8:09 and change. Way slower than last year if you extrapolated out to a 100mile time, but the conditions were less than ideal.

Total damage for the weekend was pretty high. I pretty much need to rebuild my bike. I need new shifter cables, probably a new chain (it is brand new but 60 miles through mud probably destroyed it), new brake pads (fronts are almost completely gone, I don't think I could have lasted the 100 mile), maybe rotors, possibly a bottom bracket, maybe a cassette. I also did take a spill and broke my helmet so add that to the list. No worries it was a rather slow speed spill, just hit the helmet at the right spot on a branch.

Now its time to recover for this upcoming weekend for Tour de Mount Pleasant, 70 minute crit and 106 mile road race

Bike Lexington Criterium

2010-06-01T09:19:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I made the trip down to Lexington, KY to get a third race in on the weekend. Easy but long drive down there.

A sweet course, a 6 corner L-shaped course. You go down the S/F stretch, make a left 90 up a small hill, then another left 90 and continues up. Half way on that stretch, you start to decent. Another 90 left then a 90 right from a wide 4 lane to a single lane alley. Shoot down this alley and make a 90 left then a quick 90 left into the S/F stretch.

Texas Roadhouse brought 4 or 5 guys (can't exactly remember) to the crit and pretty much dominated the whole race. They kept things in check and they made a few attempts on their own to get away. But it was Roadhouse vs everyone else so the field kept them in check.

I figured out where I can pass and where I was having trouble and pretty much stayed out of trouble. Going into the final few laps, Roadhouse went to the front and set up for the finish. Last lap I made a few passes and put myself in good position for the sprint.

The sprint started right as we got onto the S/F, some 3-400m away from the line so I stayed tucked in as long as I could and beat 6th place by a hair to be last in the money. Roadhouse went 1-2 but I'm sure I made more money then them if you consider the splits.

Good weekend of results and I'm pleased with my form. Good think is, I am still building.

Tour de Frankenmuth - Newmark Criterium

2010-05-30T21:34:00.000-04:00

2 races down, one to go. Here's a recap of this memorial day weekend thus far.

I traveled up to Frankenmuth, MI with Andys to do the Tour de Frankenmuth. A flat 80 mile road race. We departed Delaware on Friday and made our drive. All smooth until we hit about Ann Arbor. Traffic slowed and the slowed even more. We had planned on getting food in Flint, but we saw an Olive Garden so we figured we would eat and hopefully the traffic would clear a bit.

We got off the highway to be greeted by a round-a-bout. We did a few circles in that round-a-bout and then we figured out how to get across the highway. Then we hit another round-a-bout, which was connected to ANOTHER round-a-bout (think a figure-8). That was one of the most confusing traffic patterns we have ever seen and probably violated several traffic laws getting through it. It was so incredibly awesome/stupid/dangerous, we took a video on the way back.

We ate dinner and headed back on the road making it into Frankenmuth with plenty of daylight to spare. We readied our equipment for the next day and retired to the hotel. We were sharing a room with Andys' parents. However they seem to like to sleep in a meat locker and the thermostat was set to 60 (we found this out in the morning).

Morning came and we had an early start, 8am roll out. It was some 50 of us and some heavy hitters in the Pro/1/2 field. We did 5 laps of the course. The first lap was pretty mellow. Nothing too fast, no real hard attacks. Come second lap, the gloves came off and it got very fast. Attacks kept going until 5 rolled away. This break would last until the 4th lap. There was one section of the course with a stiff crosswind which guttered the whole field.

The 3rd and 4th lap was pretty much more of the same. Attacks would go to try to bridge up to the break and eventually we inched closer and closer to the break until we absorbed them on the 4th lap. It mellowed out a bit then it started all over again (surprise there.) On the fifth and final lap, another group of 5 went away and the main group scrambled to catch up. Finally a group of four went off and then Andys made the all or nothing attempt to be the last one on the group. He made it on and wound up 9th.

Now with a break of 5 gone and a chase of 5 away also, the main group slowed and was readying for the field sprint. There were two more spots left in the money for the field. Coming into the finish, I moved my way to the front to avoid any groups from getting away. The finish goes up a slight grade and makes a 90 degree left and the sprint is downhill so positioning is key. Keeping myself near the front, I escaped with a small group going into the sprint and wound up 7th or so, overall 17th.

We averaged 26mph for 80 miles. It was an incredibly fast race. We showered up, got some food, collected Burns' money and back into the car to Ohio. I stayed with Andys Saturday night.

Today, in separate cars, we headed down to Newmark. It was about 1:45 from his house, a nice change from the drive to Frankenmuth. Newmark is a pretty wide open crit done on roads in an office park. Flat with wide turns and a nice wind on the backside. 2/3 race and 50 minutes, not too bad except it was 90 degrees out. I was worried a little on how my legs will feel after 80 miles the day before and being my first crit of the year.

We got the race rolling and it seemed pretty much like a piece of cake compared to the race the day before. Speeds weren't all that fast since on Saturday, there were many times I was going flat out, spinning out my 12, hanging on for dear life. There were many attacks and attempts to get a break away going but all of them came back to the group. There was plenty of representation from various teams which made it hard to get away.

I started to pack it up and get ready for the field sprint but then an opportunity presented itself and a few of us rolled away with only a few laps to go. I think we got away with 6-8 laps to go and we were all working very hard to get it to stick. We had a few people who were just along for the ride and were not pulling through. If we had just one more person who did not pull through, the break would have ended. I worked so hard at one point, I almost dropped myself out of the break (oops!) But the lap cards went down and the group was not going to catch us.

It was eight of us going into the sprint and I chose the wrong wheel to sit on. When the sprint wound up, my wheel faded and forced me to jump to another. Luckily I was able to recover a bit and gain two more spots to settle in for 5th.

Not too shabby so far, a 17th and 5th. Tomorrow I will head down to Lexington, KY for another crit. Hank should be there and will be able to watch and cheer him on.

Cone Azalia

2010-05-09T21:58:00.002-04:00

Flat less than 5 miles in. Game over, end of race.

Georgetown Road Race

2010-05-02T22:18:00.000-04:00

Today was a soaker. It rained all race but luckily it was warm. I woke up this morning to the sound of heavy rain and knew off the bat I would be racing in the rain. Isaiah the weatherman, who stopped for the night after coming back from Speed Week, said I'll be dry during the race. Well that didn't happen.

Yesterday, Jason called to see if I was going to the race. I said I would if he was and so we decided to go. However, this morning he bailed. It was pouring rain and I understood, but he said he didn't feel well. But he did give me gas money/entry fee since he was the reason I decided to go. It was a nice gesture. So if you ever bail on a ride, be nice and offer some gas money.

Surprise! Low turnout. It poured rain on the drive over, it poured rain while we registered and changed, and it poured rain at the start. The low turnout made us combine the 1/2/3 and 3 fields but I didn't mind, more places to hide. We were set to do 5 laps and 60 miles.

We got rolling and in the first lap several attacks went. Finally a group of three got away and I stayed away till the end. Wasn't a huge deal for me since only one guy from our field was in the move. In the 2nd lap, one guy had a spectacular crash on a downhill that sweeped to the left. From what I heard, he was too far in the gutter, and just ate it. I saw his bike tumble around and then he just popped right up. However, his bike wasn't so lucky. One guy who was close to the crash said he felt pieces of bike hit him.

I think one or two small groups got away toward the end but I was content with sitting in the field. It turned out all the 1/2/3's were in the main group except for the one guy off the front. Looking at the results, we shed most of them. It really became a race between Burns and O'Brien. O'Brien was basically glued to Burns' wheel the whole time. O'Brien is 1st overall and Burns 3rd, with 2nd place absent. They weren't really interested in anything but themselves so it worked to my advantage.

So after 2:30 of rather boring, wet racing, we came down to the field sprint. I really wasn't interested in getting involved so I stayed in the back. Rolled through for 14th overall but 4th in Cat 1/2/3.

Next weekend will be a good one. Race at the Lakes on Saturday, then going up to Michigan for Cone Azalia on Sunday

Vandervorts Corner

2010-04-19T21:17:00.000-04:00

Sunday I raced my first road race of the year. Vandervorts Corner is always a good race. Mostly flat with one power hill. Mike, Jason and I piled in my car and headed off to the race.

The weather was in the low 60's and some wind. Luckily the wind wasn't as hard as it has been in the years past. I suited up and toed the line for the Pro/1/2/3 race.This was my first P/1/2/3 race and while I was slightly nervous, my form had been pretty good so I wasn't too worried.

We finally got rolling for 64 miles and 8 laps. Pretty much off the gun, one guy went off the front and we never saw him again. There were a few other solo attacks throughout the race. Burns has gone off the front to chase the lone leader but a few laps later we had reeled him in. He was with us for part of a lap, then he took off again. With a few laps to go, our group had slowly, one-by-one, whittled into two groups. Unfortunately I was in the second group. We all worked together to bring the two groups back together but we still had a few off the front and gone. I believe we were sprinting for 4th at this time.

I was feeling pretty good, but then out of the blue, my right leg cramped and completely locked up. I tired everything possible to get the leg going again, but to no avail. The group rode away. Luckily, I was on a slight downhill and was able to coast down while my leg was locked. I thought I was going to end up just falling over once I got to the bottom. Then I was able to get going again and had the tough task of trying to get back into the group. They were pretty far away but still in sight. I pounded away and the gap closed when the group wasn't doing anything and then got bigger when it got fast.

Half way through the last lap, I knew there was no way I could catch back up. But I still motored on so it didn't look as bad when I rolled in DFL.

Overall I felt like I had a good race. At no point did I really feel completely tapped out and suffering. I was able to respond to all the attacks. However, the cramped leg really did hurt me. I was hoping I would be able to do well in the field sprint but just wasn't there.

Next week, I'm off to Tennessee to do the Cohutta 100. This week's training will be fairly light so I can rest up for the 100 miles.

6 Hours of Warrior Creek

2010-04-04T22:02:00.000-04:00

I kicked off the 2010 race season with the 6 hours of Warrior Creek. Yes this is an endurance mountain bike race. I have decided to take a slightly different approach for 2010, compared to 2009. I found during cross season, that I need to improve on my bike handling skills. While I would rate my bike handling skills as above average, I still have room to improve. So I decided to do a bunch of mountain bike races this year.

6 hours of Warrior Creek was sort of a last minute addition to my schedule. My first big race I had planned was Cohutta 100, which is coming up in 3 weeks. Back when I registered, I hardly had any hours on the bike. Since a bunch of people I knew were going, I thought it would be a good race to get the endurance legs (and ass) into shape.

Friday morning I headed over to Jackson to meet up with Jon and Justin. We packed up Justin's truck and headed down to Wilkesboro, NC. The drive was 5 hours. We had gotten a camp site, set up camp, and headed out to pre-ride the course. It was blazing hot on Friday, to the point where you were just drenched in your sweat just standing there. The ride out to the course was longer than we thought and luckily we did it the day before, not the day of. We hit the trail and only pre-rode the first two miles. Our other friends Joe and Thad had already ridden the course earlier in the day and said it was pretty much the same throughout the whole course. So instead of riding the whole thing, we decided we had enough and to not sweat to death, headed back to the campsite.

After we had gotten cleaned up, we headed out to dinner with Joe, Joe's son, Thad, and one other person. After dinner, we headed back to the campsite and tried to start a fire. The firewood we had purchased was fresh and didn't burn well.

The next morning we got packed up and ready to head to the race. One of our neighbor campers needed a ride to the race since her husband had already gone off to get coveted pit space. We totally lucked out as we got primo pit space in the pit loop.

Now finally to the race. I managed to squeeze myself into the third row, but it really didn't help me too much. I had no warm up and I just couldn't muscle up the strength to stay in the front group. Since I haven't been practicing my mass start CX starts, I fumbled with my pedals a bit and got gapped out at the start.

My first lap was pretty fast. Lots of people on the course, lots of bottle necks (including maybe me), it was just crazy. I crashed once and twenty people passed me. Suck! I definitely felt the training in the legs as they didn't feel very fresh. Now I finally made it to the finish and I quickly refilled my camelbak, ate some food and headed back onto the course. Laps 2 and 3 were quite horrible. I progressively felt worse and many times I thought about quitting. Thad had passed me on the third lap and soon after Jon. After I finished my third lap, I seriously considered quitting. At that time, Joe came in and left so I figured I couldn't let my whole party finish ahead of me so I went out for another lap.

Now I didn't expect to finish within the last lap time cut on my fourth lap, so I figured I would just go out and ride it. I experimented with my food a little and started eating GUs on mile 4 and 8. Before, I was just waiting till I completed the lap to eat. This was the ticket. By just popping GUs every 4 miles, I was able to keep my energy topped off. I felt better than I did on the previous 3 laps. Now I came into the finish and thought I was done. I glanced at my watch and had made the time cut. Shoot! I had to do another lap.

I rolled back to the car and thought about just quitting. I had my mind set the whole 4th lap that I was done. However Thad and Justin, who had packed it up, guilted me into going out again. So off I went for my 5th and final lap. I followed the same eating routine and felt good till the last 2 miles where I started to feel my legs cramping. I thought to myself not now and pushed on. At one point, I passed a slower rider, only to pull off the trail soon after as my legs locked up (and I passed him again later)

I finished 33rd out of 104 Open Solo Men. Not too bad. Afterwards there was a big after race party. Another night at the campsite and we headed back Sunday morning. Waking up sunday was pretty rough. Every part of my body is sore.

This week, I will do my first road race at Hueston Woods. I will see how the legs will fair in the Cat1/2/3 race.

Binge Training

2010-02-24T22:52:00.000-05:00

Well as you all know, this winter has been pretty brutal. I haven't been really motivated to pound out hours on the trainer so training time has been pretty low. 5:30 the previous week, and 6:30 the week before.

So this past weekend, there was no snow on the ground and was decently warm. I was able to get two solid days of riding.

Saturday, I took back roads out to Lake Hope, rode the race loop, and then took different back roads back into town. It was a bit chilly at 35 but with a jacket it wasn't too bad once I got going. I didn't go particularly fast and but got a solid 4:50 in at 73 miles. The last 30 minutes was rough, as I had bonked and had no more food. I also have to climb a huge hill to get home so it wasn't fun.

Sunday I headed out toward Wilkesville and did the 2nd and 3rd loops of the Wilkesville race loop, going up Hawk Station. Afterwards, I headed south on 143 to 692 and to 681 back to old 33 and into town. I realized I was running out of daylight after getting back on 143. I had about 30 miles to go, with less than 2 hours of light. So no more JRA, I had to do hard tempo back home. I was able to make it home with about 10 minutes to spare before it got too dark to see without lights. 5:30 and 92 miles.

Both rides, I rode solo. Kinda sucks but you gotta do what you gotta do. Sunday I wised up and took my iPod. All you iPod haters while riding can suck it. When you go ride hours on end by yourself, in back roads, with no scenery, you gotta have something to keep you company.

February Update

2010-02-15T17:14:00.000-05:00

It's been a while, but not much as gone on in the past month after I stopped racing. Ohio is having its worst winter weather since I can remember so I have not been riding too much. There were a few days when the weather was decent and got some hours in, but mostly its been in the pain cave.

I honestly have not trained as much as I had planned originally in December, but I feel that is ok. I raced 50 races last year, and raced cross from September to December. I can use the mental and physical break. But I do need to get it into gear sooner than later, as my first major race, Cohutta 100, is coming up quick in two months. Although I will treat it more as training, I still need to get hours in on the saddle, and lots of it.

Besides training (or lack thereof), I've been pretty busy with school, organizing a race, and getting my wheel business afloat. School, is pretty much self explanatory. I'm actually trying to graduate right now so I'm taking school semi-serious. It kinda sucks because the classes are hard and I actually have to study. No more sitting through class, half asleep, then passing the class.

Next is the race I'm putting on. I'm promoting the OU collegiate race. It was kind of sprung upon me so I've been scrambling getting things done. Permit application is a week from Friday so I need to get preliminary things sorted out by then. Putting on a race is a PITA. Doing a preliminary budget, the break even point is pretty high and worries me a little. Unfortunately, we are capped by the conference on how much we can charge entry fee so it makes things tight. Luckily I do not need to pay out prizes, if we did, it would be impossible.

Now my wheel business. I've had this idea for while and has sort of been running underground for a while. But now I want to make it big. The gist of it is, a custom wheel house like wheelbuilder.com. I don't intend to turn into a major player overnight but would like to slowly grow and have some sort of presence in the market. I've been building wheels for years now and want to share my skills to everyone out there.

Thats it for now. Hopefully next time I can write about riding bikes.

2010 Cyclocross Sponsor Proposal

2010-02-06T11:07:00.000-05:00

Been hard at work planning for my 2010-2011 cyclocross season. I have an expanded UCI schedule and I will need your support to make things as smooth as possible.

Check out my 2010 Cyclocross Sponsor Proposal

UCI Cyclocross Schedule!

2010-01-14T22:31:00.000-05:00

A tentative UCI cyclocross schedule was released today. So I looked through and picked out the races I might want to go to. 13 races! Maybe I should add or subtract one. Busy Busy, I guess I need to start training so I don't make a fool of myself. I still need to squeeze Cap City and OVCX into the mix.

September 22nd Cross Vegas, Las Vegas, NV

September 25th USGP Planet Bike Cup, Sun Prairie, WI

September 26th USGP Planet Bike Cup, Sun Prairie, WI

October 3rd Kingsport Cyclocross Cup, Kingsport, TN

October 8th Darkhorse Cyclo Stampede International CX, Covington, KY

October 9th Java Johnny's Lionhearts International CX, Middletown, OH

October 10th Bio Wheels / United Dairy Farmers Harbin Park International, Cincinnati, OH

October 23rd USGP Derby City Cup, Louisville, KY

October 24th USGP Derby City Cup, Louisville, KY

November 20th North Carolina Grand Prix, Hendersonville, NC

November 21st North Carolina Grand Prix, Hendersonville, NC

November 26th Carousel Volkswagon Jingle Cross Rock p/b Scheels, Iowa City, IA

November 27th Carousel Volkswagon Jingle Cross Rock p/b Scheels, Iowa City, IA

It's cold

2010-01-05T22:30:00.000-05:00

I don't think its been above freezing for a few weeks now. Ok maybe one day but all the other days have been super cold and miserable.

School's back in full swing and have to deal with that mess again. Hopefully I will graduate in the winter next year and then I can try to figure out what to do with my life. The engineering college just opened up a new building and so far it's been nice. We'll soon see where the contractors cut corners as we tear into this building, finding every flaw and costing the university more money.

As far as riding, I've been hitting the trails on the mountain bike. Its way too cold to ride on the roads. The wind just kills you. In the woods, you go slower and the wind is blocked so I stay way warmer. I actually start to sweat if I don't keep up with unzipping my jacket. While I may stay warm, my camelbak doesn't. The bladder will stay liquid, but the hose will freeze up. Well this is good and bad. If it completely freezes, then I'm screwed. But it keeps me drinking periodically, sucking out the slush, keeping me hydrated. Many of us don't drink enough in the winter.

Since my 2010 plan is to race more mountain bike, I've been trying to get the bike dialed in. Trying to get the suspension pressures setup right, saddle choice and fit. I'm also trying to get the bike a little lighter. Tentatively planned is a new wheelset with Stan's Alpine rims and American Classic hubs, Hope Race X2 brakes, KCNC seatpost, Dura Ace or XTR front derailleur and a few other bits.

I converted my XT cranks to a double choosing a 40t and 26t combo. 40's in the middle position and 26 on the granny. This allows me to also use a medium cage rear derailleur (swap my XTR cage to carbon medium). Do I miss the 22? Not really. I find the 22-34 (and whatever is between that and 26-34) is way too low and it's probably faster to run. 44-11 is often way too tall and you never really hit that gear on the trail. Once I get some more cash flow, I'll swap out the cranks to Truvativ Noir to shed some weight.

I should get back into some heavy training next week or the week after. I was told this cold spell could last till March so I'm not in any rush to get training. Since my main focus is cyclocross, I can afford to get back into racing a little later.

Stay warm everyone.

Parts For Sale

2009-12-28T13:16:00.002-05:00

Did Santa not get you what you wanted? Or do you have Hanukkah/Christmas/Kwanzaa/New Years money burning a hole in your wallet? Well check out the stuff I have for sale. I gotta pay some bills and buy books for school.

Alpha Q CX-20 fork: SOLD!

This fork was on my main bike last year. I bought new bikes and can't use this wonderful fork. Typical minor scratches and also two sections of clear that came off. I had those clear stickers on the fork so my SKS Raceblades wouldn't scratch up the paint, but when I pealed them off, it took the paint with it. 23cm of steerer, also lawyer tabs are filed off. $250. Sorry the picture is upside down, blogger screwed it up SOLD!

Chris King 1 1/8" Threadless NoThreadSet 2007 edition Pretty and Strong Pink. Was used on the fork above. $90 On ebay!!!!

Crankbrothers Candy SL Black: SOLD

Was used on my spare bike, saw little use. Had a minor spring issue and sent back to CB for a rebuild. So new springs. Throwing in some used cleats (still good) to get you going. $60 or trade for some similar condition Shimano M540's. SOLD

Speedplay Zero Stainless pedals, white SOLD!!!

I bought these for a second road bike, but I don't have a second road bike. Used a few times, no cleats $125 SOLD!!!

Ultegra 6600 rear derailleur

Scratched up but otherwise fine $40

New but previously Glued Vittoria XG 290 tpi 700x32 tubular tires

sat on pit wheels, never rode them $100 for the pair. On Ebay!!!

Used Challenge Fango 700x34 tubulars

Rode them once or twice. Like new condition. Aquasealed, $125 for pair

Used Vittoria XG 290 tpi 700x32 tubular tires

Used primarily last season for 10 races last year and on my spare bike this year. Maybe rode it once or twice this year. Plenty of tread left. $65 for pair

Used Challenge Fango 700x32 tubular tires

Used this year for about 14 races. Rear center is looking worn but has some life left, front looks pretty good, aquasealed. $55 for pair Pending

Carbon fiber coat hanger

You know you want it $30

Prices do not include shipping

Happy Holidays!

2009-12-26T19:13:00.000-05:00

Happy Holidays! I hope everyone is enjoying time with family and friends. It is time to reflect back on the year and thank all of those people that has helped you this past year.

Thanks to my parents for supporting me in good and bad times, my brother, John and Max at Cycle Path for their support, giving me work and letting me pursue my bike racing dream, isaiah and his mom providing me with a bed in Columbus, Tim Jackson at Masi Bikes, Bob Bellamy my sales rep, all my friends out there and of course, all the super fans staying after their race and cheering me on.

Lets all hope 2010 will be another great year.

2010 Schedule and Results

2009-12-25T11:44:00.031-05:00

April 3rd 6 hours of Warrior Creek 33rd/104 (Solo Open Men)
April 18th Vandervorts Corner (OSRS) 22nd (1/2/3)
April 24th Cohutta 100 DNS (sick)
May 2nd Georgetown (OSRS) 4th (1/2/3)
May 9th Cone Azalia DNF (P/1/2)
May 16th Wilkesville to Wilkesville 4th (1/2)
May 23rd St. Leon 16th (1/2/3)
May 29th Tour de Frankenmuth 18th (P/1/2)
May 30th Newmark Criterium 5th (2/3)
May 31st Bike Lexington Criterium 5th (1/2/3)
June 5th Mohican 100K 49th/116 (8:08.75, 87 DNFs, 20 DNSs)
June 12th le Tour de Mont Pleasant DNF (P/1/2)
June 13th le Tour de Mont Pleasant 54th (crash last K) (P/1/2)
July 3rd Yellow Ribbon Criterium 5th (1/2/3)
July 9-11th Tour of the Valley (Pro/1/2)
TT:
RR:
Crit:
July 17th Troy Classic State Crit DNF
July 18th Tour de Burg DNF
August 1st Columbus Crit DNF
September 18th Kings CX, Mason, OH
September 19th Kings CX (OVCX #1), Mason, OH
October 3rd Cap City Cross Big Run
October 8th Darkhorse Cyclo Stampede International CX, Covington, KY
October 9th Java Johnny's Lionhearts International CX, Middletown, OH
October 10th Bio Wheels / United Dairy Farmers Harbin Park International, Cincinnati, OH
October 23rd USGP Derby City Cup, Louisville, KY
October 24th USGP Derby City Cup, Louisville, KY
October 31st Cap City Cross Uncle Steve's
November 28th John Bryan State Park (OVCX #13/Ohio State Champs) Yellow Springs, OH
December 4th Cap City Cross Smith Farms
December 12th Lobdell
January 15th Kingsport Cyclocross Cup, Kingsport, TN

Cap City Cross Finale

2009-12-19T21:17:00.000-05:00

Cross is finally over and now I can take a break and get some mental rest. I wish I could keep going hard and racing but I can't and don't feel like it. Next season, I will do less racing in the beginning of the year so I can keep racing cross till February (yes there are rumors of later big national races after Nationals.)

Snow came through Ohio and left us a nice 1-2" of snow. The race was up in Granville at Infirmary Mound again. The race was fairly similar to the first race with one change. We rode into some single track and had to go up a brutal run-up.

Pre-riding is less important in a snowy race because the course changes so much after people race on it. I took a quick spin on the course and was able to dial in a good pressure, low. There was one tricky spot on the course where it was kinda possible to ride. So I practiced that section for a while.

The race started and I had a nice start and was up front. Matt Weeks and John Proppe went off the front and it was Bruce, me and Garth chasing. Garth passed both of us and I tried to get on his wheel but Bruce was between me and there wasn't a good place to pass. In the next lap I passed Bruce and never looked back. Rolled in for 4th.

The course had turned into a huge slop fest during our race. Because of this, the race was shortened to try to limit the damage done to the grounds. It was a mix of hard packed snow, thick mud and thin greasy mud scattered along the course. With my mud tires, I was able to bomb through the muddy sections with ease. They didn't do so bad in the snow either.

This race was a good end to a great season. I wish I could go to the awards at Tip Top tomorrow but driving another 3 hours (round trip) just doesn't seem appealing to me. Sorry Andy, Cap City and everyone else.

Feeling burnt

2009-12-15T22:03:00.000-05:00

It's looking like its time to hang up the cleats for a while. The long season has taken a toll on me mentally and I'm finding it's harder and harder to go out and pound myself into the ground doing intervals. 50 races in the books and I'm cooked.

Today I pretty much quit before I left the house. I got in a warm up and a 5min VO2 blowout then onto my main set of 4x15. Well I got to about 8min of the first set before I decided I didn't want to do the workout. Though instead of just heading straight home, I went the long way hitting some rough gravel roads. And I was riding on regular Kenda C2C 23's. Good thing I know a thing or two about riding a bike.

I'm gonna wrap up the season with Cap City on Saturday and depending on how I feel, I may go up to Akron to do the Winter Series. But at this point, I'm leaning more on no, sorry Shawn. I've had my share of driving this season and don't feel like sitting in the car for another 6 hours.

I'll take a break till the beginning of the year, hit up Eddie's Southern Cross and get training for 2010. I'm probably going to focus a little more on mountain biking and have a crack at Tour of Ohio. My plan for Cross is OVCX series with a bunch of UCI races mixed in. Besides the 5 UCI races in the OVCX (UCI3, USGP), I plan on doing Cross Vegas, USGP Madison and possibly Jingle Cross. No dropping down to 2/3 in 2010, full on UCI Elite.

OVCX Wrapup

2009-12-08T10:57:00.002-05:00

The OVCX season is finally over and I had a fantastic season. Better than what I had imagined before the season started. Last year, I finished 15th in the Cat3's. This year, 6th in Elites. That is quite a jump and really happy with my performance.

Last year, I started out fresh with no cyclocross experience. My only real bike handling experience was with recreational mountain biking and 1 or 2 mountain bike races. I could only imagine what it would be out there racing. I was finishing DFL or close to it most of the season until it finally clicked and I pulled off some decent results in the last few races. At this point I was hooked. I was able to weasel a Cat 2 upgrade and decided to dedicate my 2009 season strictly for cyclocross. I would still race road but place less emphasis on it, take a break mid summer and build back up for cyclocross.

Race conditions this year was quite different from last year. The beginning of the season was very wet, then dried up for November and didn't really get cold until the last two races. In fact, it was so wet and muddy, I ended up having to buy mud tires and boy do they make a difference. I've developed quite a quiver of tires now and really know what works for the conditions. There is no substitute for experience in tire choice.

I attended every single race in the OVCX series except for one in Bloomington, IN. I wish i had gone to support Ryan Knapp and Andy Messer's race but the drive was long and it was homecoming. Nearly every single one of those races, I drove by myself. Unfortunately, it's the way it goes when no one else really is interested in cyclocross in my town. I've put just over 5000 miles driving this cross season (with a few more races coming up.) Thats a lot of time behind the wheel.

All the races were awesome. Great courses and all well run. There were some scoring issues early on, but I think it was expected. Huge fields made it hard for the refs to score the race. These kinks were worked out later and will obviously be worked on for expected field increases for 2010.

The one main problem I had this year was starts and consistency. My starts did improve as the season went on but had a few off days were I started front row and just shot out the back. In cross the first lap, unfortunately, is the most important lap in the race. My performances were never really consistent. The second day, I would usually do poorly. I would like to be able for next year to put in equally good rides Saturday and Sunday. And finally, improve the motor. I have really good handling skills that keep me competitive on technical courses, but on wide open courses, I simply lack the horsepower to compete. This upcoming road season, my goal is simple, work on the FTP. If I am able to bring up that threshold, I feel I can be up there in the top 5-top 10 every weekend.

OVCX Finale Storm the Greens

2009-12-06T22:04:00.000-05:00

The OVCX season has finally ended and we said good bye to the River Road Country Club. This race was the final cross race to be held at this facility as the city of Lousiville is turning it into a dog park (boo). I had an excellent and successful season, exceeding my pre-season expectations. A wrap up post on OVCX season will follow in a few days.

Louisville is a 4 hour drive and with the race starting a bit earlier due to the post-race party, I had to leave pretty early. My car was packed from yesterday so it was a matter of just putting my bikes on the roof and hitting the road. I woke up, drank some coffee and ate my typical breakfast then I went out to the garage to load the bikes. I hit the opener and then i heard a loud snap and the door didn't open. Turned out I broke the coil spring on the garage door. I guess its nearly 10 years old and it was 12 degrees out so it wasn't too much of a surprise.

I arrived at the course just after 11. I grabbed my number and roamed around the course while the 3's were racing. I snapped a few pictures and suited up for some pre-ride. The course was super slick from a combination of frozen ground and greasy top layer of mud. Front Fango was no go so I popped on the XM and hooked up tons better. My rear Fango is pretty worn so it pretty much functions as a file tread.

Front row start but I wasn't able to utilize it. I need to work on starts for next year. But no worries, I had great legs and was able to motor through the traffic and put myself into the top 10. I worked a little too hard in the beginning and faded slightly. I was unable to catch the wheel of the nice group racing for top 10. After a few laps, I was able to turn it on again and got in a good pace. No one caught me and I kept the gap to the group ahead in check. Maybe if I had one person to work with, I could have gotten back on but no such luck. I settled in for 12th place.

Afterwards, there was a end of season party complete with raffle, pizza, awards, etc. I ended up 6th place overall in the OVCX Elite Men's class! It was a great season and I look forward to racing OVCX in 2010.

Now on the way home, I saw an interesting accident. There were several cars pulled over, one a truck with a trailer and behind it, a BMW with a crushed hood. There were people out on the shoulder with a buck. So now the question is, did the BMW hit a buck, or did the buck bounce out of the trailer and hit the BMW? Regardless, must have sucked for owner of the BMW.

I have a week off from racing since I'm not going to Bend, OR for Nationals, so a week of hard training. Last Cap City race is on the 19th and first Winter Trofee race the day after.

498
10240

Cap City Cross Smith Farms

2009-12-05T18:33:00.000-05:00

An exciting day up at Smith Farms for Cap City Cross. I trained pretty hard this week so I wasn't entirely sure how my legs were going to go. My legs felt good yesterday on my openers ride but that's not always a good litmus test for how the legs go 45 minutes into the cross race.

The race was a short drive as it was just inside of 270 and 33. I packed up my car in the morning and was out the door by 10. I woke up to snow so I was a bit worried about the roads since no one seems to know how to drive in snow. Another issue was I had my needing replacement summer tires which suck in snow even brand new.

I arrived pretty early so I got registered took a quick pre-ride in my street clothes and hung around and took some pictures of the C race. I lost track of time and tried to suit up to get on the course but was just too late. I was however able to get a few laps in prior to my race. The course was pretty straight forward with nothing too tricky.

I had a second row start which I wasn't used to but it didn't prove to be a disadvantage. Gamm fell asleep on the line and missed the GO and I was able to get by him. I found myself 3rd wheel behind Matt Weeks and Shawn Adams. I knew I wasn't in the right place and if I tried to keep up, I would blow up to the point of no return. When I got gapped out, I chose not to try to chase back on. Unfortunately, I ended up in no-man's land and just kept the pressure on the pedals waiting for the chase group. John Proppe and Gamm came by and I was unable to grab the wheel. Then Garth and Andy Hague caught up and I settled into their group.

A few laps went by and Gamm was off his bike fixing his wheel. He popped his rear wheel out and had to reset it. As soon as he got back on, he just flied past all of us. John eventually came back to our group so we had a nice four man group of me, Garth, Andy and John. The four of us rode together for several laps and Andy was the first to come off. We chugged along for another few laps and two to go, John attacked and Garth chased. He then went off course on a turn into the tape and I was alone to close the gap up to John. Luckily we were heading into the twisty section where I could make up some ground. I caught back on it was down to the wire.

The finish consisted of a short downhill into two turns, a set of double barriers, a 90 degree turn, then around a small barn to the finish. In the previous laps, I always got gapped out on the barriers and I was having some troubles getting into my pedals. So I knew I had to lead into the barriers and be the first to the turn before the barn to have any chance.

I let John pull me through half of the last lap and then I attacked into a barrier/runup on the backside of the course. He must have bobbled on the barrier because I had a huge gap into the twisty turny section. He eventually caught up since I held a little back to prevent myself from blowing up before the finish. I led into the barriers and beat him to the corner. I came around the barn and sprinted it in for a nice 4th place finish.

Now its time for me to rest up and an early morning drive to Louisville. Lately, my legs haven't showed up on the second day so hopefully they do tomorrow. I don't feel too tired or sore so I hope I can turn it on for another day.

147
9742

John Bryan OVCX Cap City Ohio State Championships

2009-11-29T20:01:00.001-05:00

Pretty much one word can sum up my ride today, SUCK. I had planned out my entire cross season for the state champs and well, I choked on this one. In reality, I probably put too much pressure on myself for this one race. I was checking out who was registered for the race, checking out results on crossresults.com for people I didn't really know, etc. I gotta take it as it comes and I just had a bad day. Nothing I can really do about that. Enough with the bitching and here's the story.

The day started off on the wrong foot. My iPhone alarm didn't go off and I woke up at 7:20. I was suppose to pick up Daniel at 7:30! I scrambled and loaded my bikes, filled my Stanley bottle with luke-warm coffee, grabbed some food and nuked up some oatmeal. Luckily Dan just lives down the street and I picked him up and we were on the road by around 7:45. Being a beginner cross racer, he's only got one bike and a bag of clothes instead of me having way too much stuff.

We made good time and arrived at John Bryan State Park around 9:45. Plenty of time for Dan to register and warm up. I decided to lounge around and set up camp. In the mean while, my friend Zach rolled in and we chatted and such.

A bit of a summary while I waited to race. Glen and Kyle won the Tandem division with 3 total contestants. 6 crazy dudes doing a cross race on a tandem. Kyle's gonna wear out that state champ jersey. Robert Sroka took the holeshot and never looked back in his win in his junior division. I don't think he did so bad in the Cat3's either. A battle between Chewning and Markstein in the Cat3's for Ohio. Markstein suffered an unfortunate dropped chain that dropped him to second. Rodkey won the overall (no surprise there.)

And Dan Brown. He started in the very back and made his way to 4th place. 3rd place in the state! And with FLAT PEDALS!!! Flat pedals and back row start!. Lets get him on some clipless pedals and see what he can do.

Now my race. With the combination of a good overall position and being the first to register for the race, I had number 8, good for front row start. Last week I missed my pedal and shot straight out the back but this time, I was able to clip in and be around top 10 going into the grass. Unfortunately, I forgot to start my Garmin so I missed all the data for the road start section. I maintained my position for the first few turns of technical stuff then I crossed wheels, I tried to recover and popped out of my pedals. (Pedals are being sent back for warranty tomorrow.) That one bobble cost me 10 spots. At this point, I was panicing in my head and tried to gain back/maintain spots. But that really didn't work and I just kept bleeding positions.

I got settled in with Kyle, Andy, Moy and Nevitt and rod with them for a while. Chris attacked and got a hold of Hubble and they were gone. A few laps later, Garth came flying by with Moy in tow. I thought Kyle would get on their wheel but he was on the verge of blowing up. I missed that train and just rode it out till the end. Nate and Andy ended up passing me in the closing laps but at that point I really didn't care. My legs hurt, my back hurt and I was ready to go home. This course was all about power with a little bit of bike handling skills. I came out with a lot of bike handling skills with no legs today and it really showed.

On a lighter note, TJ did a great job with this race. The course was great and things went without a hitch. Gatch did a fine job announcing.

Anyway after cooling off a bit, its just a race. There are many more races to come and there is no reason to be too disappointed. I'm only 23 (24 cross age) so I have many years ahead to get stronger and faster. I have to tell myself this time to time when I get beat by other fast young (and older) guys.

A few more races left in the season. Next week I'll probably go do the Cap City race and then head down to Louisville for the OVCX final. Week after that, its National Championships in Bend, which I'm not going unless someone is willing to foot the bill. I could travel to the north atlantic to do Ice Weasels or Beer Cross, but I'll stay at home and maybe try to whip up an informal Athens Cyclocross Championships to pad my ego. Then its the Cap City Final on the 19th and I'll probably go do the first NE Ohio Winter series race on the 20th. Then in 2010, I'll kick it off with the 2nd Winter race, Southern Cross on Jan 9th and Cross-a-nooga the 10th. I think that should be enough racing.

263 miles on the car
9595

2009 Holiday Wishlist

2009-11-27T00:00:00.052-05:00

It's that time again! Its holiday shopping season! I know that the holiday's are for giving, but how are you to give if you don't know what they want. To make the ever hard decision what to get your favorite bike racer, I've simplified it for you.

The car:
My Matrix is sweet, gets good mileage, good size interior, pretty much maintenance free. It's prefect for 2 guys going cross racing or 3 road/crit racing. However, the tiny 4 banger doesn't have much umph on the highway and its a little cramped when you have lots of guys in there. Something bigger like a newer Matrix or Venza. Or a turbo/supercharger kit so I can cruise the highways better.

The computer:
Macs are hot right now. I've been a life long Mac user but unfortunately, I've been Mac-less for the past year. three options here, 13" MacBook Pro, 27" iMac w/ Intel i7, or Mac Mini

Who doesn't want the hottest group out there? Dura Ace Di2 please... 2 groups please, the B bike's gotta have Di2 too, I mean look at Niels Albert... He's got 6 Di2 bikes!

Tires, tires, tires.
2 pairs of Dugast Typhoons 700x32 or
2 pairs of FMB SSC 700x32

1 pair of Dugast Typhoons 700x34 or
1 pair of FMB SSC 700x34

2 pairs of Dugast Rhino 700x32
1 pair of FMB SSC Sprints 700x32
(Shit that's $1500 of tires!)

Cold hard cash. Bike racing is expensive. Entry fees, gas, hotels, replacement parts, food, it all adds up.

My road shoes are falling apart. I could use some new yellow Mavic Zxellium shoes or Specialized S-Works shoes

A new gear/duffle bag. Traveling every week has worn out my bag and needs to be retired. Something to carry a weekend's worth of clothes and bike gear.

One of those fancy hitch racks that hold your bike by the tire. I could probably save some gas by moving my bikes from the roof to the back of the car. Those Thule T2's, Saris Thelma's, Saris Cycleon-Pro's look pretty nice. (1 1/4")

OVCX Indianapolis Double Weekend

2009-11-22T22:15:00.000-05:00

Another long double weekend, this time in Indianapolis. Two 16th place finishes, twice I was one out of the money.

Saturday's race was at Southeastway Park, about 15-20 minutes southeast of Indy. I drove out in the morning to arrive around 1pm. The course had a few wide open sections, a huge nasty run-up, and half the course was twisty windy stuff. I guess the promoters had to make do with what they had. I actually favor more technical courses since I am able to offset my lower threshold power with my bike handling skills. I'm also pretty good with the punchy stuff, able to sprint multiple times out of corners.

The course was fairly dry except for the turns. There wasn't much mud, but the ground was slick. During the pre-ride, I switched to the Vittoria XM in the front and it seemed to work out well. XM up front and Fango in the rear. I did sacrifice some speed with the XM, but it gave me more corner grip, which was overall faster. Rhinos probably would have been the hot tire to have, but it'll have to wait till next year.

Front row start and a decent start had me up in the front group for a while. It got me settled in a good spot where I just kept the pedals turning hard to maintain a good position. Eventually another rider caught up to me and we were battling it out till the end. I led into the sprint and handily beat him. In pure disappointment, I had ended up 16th. If I had known, I would have rode harder as the 15th place guy was slowly coming back to me. I would have caught him for sure if we had one more lap and we kept going at the same pace.

I packed up and headed over to Chad Birdman's house. I got cleaned up and later on we went out to celebrate his sister's birthday at Benihana, a Japanese Steakhouse. Very, very, very good food. The steak I had pretty much melted in my mouth. It was expensive, but well worth it. I never have a problem paying premium for good things.

Sunday's race wasn't till 3pm so I pretty much had all morning to just chill. I slept in till about 10 and just bummed around, watched TV and played with Chupa (Chad and Whitney's chihuahua). Brookside park was a quick drive so I left at noon. I raced there last year so I was fairly familiar with the course and very little had changed.

I had another front row start but I completely blew that one. I missed my pedal at the start and just shot out the back. The first quarter of the course is not very pack friendly so the farther up front you are, the better. My usual plan of attack is to get a good start, then drift back to where I will finish up. But today, I ended up in the back, suck! Brookside is also a very roadie style course. Lots of straight aways and it definitely helps to either have help and draft, or have lots of horsepower. Unfortunately, I didn't have either (Santa, I just want 30-50 watts FTP this year.)

I found myself battling it out again with the same guy as yesterday, I believe his name is Cory. We were together for the last few laps. We eventually got lapped but I wasn't too disappointed about that. I definitely felt I was stronger than he was but in the end, a mechanical failure put the end to me. My left pedal locked out and I couldn't clip in. I had to stop and fix it and the gap opened up. I tried my hardest to try to get back on but there was not enough room. The real bummer was I could have been 15th and made some gas money.

Next week is the Ohio State championships at John Bryan State park. This is the race I have been training for and hopefully all goes well. Thanks to Chad and Whitney for letting me stay at their house this weekend!

533
9332

Tire Alert Tubular Tire Repair

2009-11-18T22:00:00.000-05:00

Everyone hates flats, especially when it is a tubular tire. Even worse when its brand new and only ridden for a few rides. Well that is exactly what happened to me. In my second race, I flatted a brand new Challenge Grifo XS. Stan's was no match for the hole in this tube.

So here comes Ron at Tire Alert. Ron rips apart the tire, takes out the old tube, removes any debris that caused the flat and sews in a brand new tube. After exchanging some emails with Ron, I decided to send my tire to him to get fixed up. I inquired about latex tubes since it is not an option on his website and he told me he is not equipped to install latex tubes. He said that latex tubes require a special cloth liner which he cannot do.

Anyway, I opted for a 48mm long, lightweight, removable core tube. I sent away the tire on a Friday and received the new tube a week from Monday. Pretty good turnaround time. The tire returned with a new tube and new basetape. The basetape used is not as thick as the original Challenge basetape but should be fine. There is also a bigger bulge from the stitching but shouldn't be a problem.

Basetape with one coat of glue

For $25, I got a pretty much brand new tire. Oh yes, the $25 includes return shipping. So if I factor in the initial shipping cost, I got my tire repaired for $30, way cheaper than a new tire.

So if you have a nice tubular that has a bad tube, I highly recommend giving Ron at Tire Alert a call and get your tubular tire repaired.

4.5 stars
Pros: Cheap repair, options on tubes, new basetape, all inclusive price
Cons: No latex tube option

www.tirealert.com

Infirmary Mound

2009-11-15T21:54:00.000-05:00

Today's race was pretty close, at Infirmary Mound Park in Granville. A welcome change from being in the car forever. Instead of sleeping in, I left the house earlier than usual since Daniel, my teammate, was racing today. I left the house a little bit before 10, gassed up and on my way. I got to the park around 11:30, plenty of time to mingle, watch and warm up.

One word can sum up the course, fast. The course was very dry and flowed very well, and did I say it was fast. You would rip through corners so fast it felt like a crit. I actually had to use the brakes a few time since I would go into the corners way too hot if I didn't.

I was top 5 in Cap City so I got a front row start. I got a really good start again and the front group put a sizable gap on the rest of the field. After about half a lap, I was jettisoned from the lead group. A few people passed me and by a rough count, I was sitting around 10th place. This was my best start and middle section of the race. Unfortunately, disaster struck. I took a u-turn way too fast and the pavement dropped into grass and I rolled my tire. The tire got jammed into the brake and I couldn't roll it back on. I panicked and just shouldered the bike and started to run. However it was a long way to the pit. I came to my senses and let some air out of the tire and popped the tire back on. But now I had a long downhill on a tire with about 10psi and about to come off. I took the downhill gingerly and made my way to the pit to pick up my spare.

However, the spare bike was not without any problems. I am pretty sure that I put in the same amount of air in the tires but it felt a lot lower. It could be because they are different tires and different manufacturers. It took me a lap or two to really get a hang of it and be able to rail the corners. To make things even worse, a few laps later, my right pedal refused to clip in. I really didn't know if it was the pedal, the cleat, or I busted the shoe. But one thing is for sure, its pretty impossible to ride with a Crank Brother's Candy that doesn't clip in. At that point, I really didn't care anymore. I only had 2 laps to go (I got lapped) so I just rode at a moderate pace and finished up.

I guess my equipment finally caught up to me and gave me some troubles. I have been pretty lucky so far except for blowing up a brand new Grifo XS in my second race (which is coming back retubed.)

This week is a taper week so not much training. I will also have to glue some tires, and I thought I was done. Double weekend in Indy next weekend!

203
8799

Promotion Cross

2009-11-08T20:13:00.001-05:00

OVCX headed over to Lexington, KY this week for the Promotion Cross. The weather was a huge 180 from what it has been lately. Upper 60's/low 70's and dry. It was also quite different from last year where it was cold and windy.

I left the house at 8:30 in the morning and after the 3:30 drive, I arrived at the course. I was able to get a few warm up laps in and found it quite different that what I have been used to. The course was dry, hard and bumpy, no two wheel drifting through the corners this week.

I began with a front row start and with a really good start on the uphill pavement, I found myself in the top 6-7. I looked back and we had a nice gap to the next group. My glory in the front group was short lived as Mitchell Kersting and Rob Kendall were hitting it hard at the front, one-two in the series standings. I found myself in no-man's land and pretty soon some fast back row starters passed me.

Shortly after, I found myself in a group with Chris Nevitt, Ryan Gamm and one other guy. This was a solid group to be in and hung on for a while. I must have gone way too hard at the start and soon found myself gapped out and and riding by myself.

Now it was time to get in a good pace and gut it out to the end. I was hoping to recover a little and be able to push harder but that never came. I got passed by a few people but at about half way, I had found my place. The fast dry course was surprisingly hard on equipment and several people had rolled tires. Mike Kennedy looked like he rolled a tire, Gamm rolled a tire, a Calistoga guy rolled a tire. There were certainly many places on the course where there was hard, fast cornering and I made sure I didn't over cook those corners and risk rolling my tires. Not that I don't have faith in my glue jobs, you just never know what can happen.

I rolled in at 13th, both satisfying and disappointing at the same time. I am slowly improving but have not had my breakout race. I did not feel super hot today and know I can ride harder, but it did not materialize. It could have been the hotter weather and I do seem to ride better when it is colder. It could also have been the spicy foods I ate yesterday. Regardless, I am waiting to break the top 10 in an OVCX race.

Next week is a combined Cap City, OVCX race in Granville. It will be a nice break from driving 400+ miles. I also hope some of my teammates can make it out to race.

437

8596

2010 Vittoria XM 320tpi tubular review

2009-11-04T12:00:00.002-05:00

Note: I was not paid to do this review, nor did I receive these tires for free for review. I paid with my own money to purchase these tires.

Vittoria is typically not the first name you turn to for cyclocross tires. Most riders will turn to Dugast, FMB, Challenge and Tufo. Vittoria's tread patterns are on par with other offerings but their slick silver/grey rubber and not so supple casings left much to desire.

But that has changed. Vittoria has really stepped up their game this year with the new 320 tpi casing and new black rubber. This is not the first time I have rode Vittoria's new casing. I rode their Corsa Evo CX II during the road season and it was one of the best road tubulars I have ridden. I could only imagine back in the summer what this casing could do for a cyclocross tubular.

The easiest way to tell if a tire is the new 320 tpi casing is by looking at the valve stem. The 48mm red anodized valve stems quickly tell you that its the new casing. I do have mixed feelings about this new valve stem system. The aluminum stem unscrews from the base of the tube. Supposedly, Vittoria is supposed to release longer valve stems to accommodate deeper rims. For the time being, you are to remove the red stem, screw the extender into the tube and screw the red stem into the extender. There are a few downsides to this stem. The valve itself is non-removable. If you break off the nut, then you are screwed. You have to get a new stem and you might have to rip off the tire. Second, since you can't remove the core, how are you to inject stan's if you get a small puncture?

The first thing I noticed when pulling these new tires out of the shipping box is how supple the casing was. No stiff casing that held its shape. The casing is more supple than a standard Challenge tire and from what I have heard, on par with a Dugast. The new rubber is also a highlight. The new rubber is black and very sticky.

After your typical stretch and layers of glue, it was finally time to mount the tires. There really is nothing harder to mount than cyclocross tubulars. Often high end handmade tubulars are hard to get straight. This new XM was as easy as mounting a road tubular. The tires were easy to stretch over on the rim and they went on straight the first time! What? It went on straight the first time? Yup, try that with a Dugast.

I mounted the front as shown above and reversed in the rear for added forward grip. I emailed Vittoria regarding rotating direction and they told me there should be a rotation arrow, which there isn't. Sorry its still a little dirty from this weekend.

It isn't a Vittoria without the 1 foot long tire hot stamp.

Now how does it ride? I had the pleasure of taking it out on two muddy races this past weekend. The first race had about a 1/3 of a lap of mud and the other 2/3 lap ranging from dry to tacky. In a pre-ride, I had both XM's mounted. This tire grips and grips in the mud. You simply can just ride though stuff like it was dry. However once I left the muddy section, I instantly noticed that I was working harder than I should. The lack of a center ridge makes the tire pretty slow on drier ground. I compromised and ran a XM in the rear and Challenge Fango up front.

Sunday's race was a bit muddier. After sliding all over the place with Fango's I threw on the XM's for a test spin. The tires did what they were designed to do and gave me the confidence and grip around the course. I was able to take muddy corners at good speeds, climb up muddy hills and descend with confidence. But once again, on dry sections, I noticed I had to work a little harder. The tread design is more oriented slide through the corners rather than giving absolute cornering grip. Some people may not like this feeling and may be unnerving for beginner riders.

To wrap up, the new Vittoria XM is a great new tire. The advancements of Vittoria's casing and rubber compound puts them back into the game. I'm sure the other two tires in Vittoria's line with the new casing and rubber will preform just as well in their respective uses. The XM tread design is great, especially when it is muddy. However it is strictly a mud tire. It doesn't do so well when it is dry. Another concern is the treads are rather thin and add in the soft rubber, it may wear quick. I would avoid warming up on the road or trainer with this tire.

4.5 out of 5 stars

Price ~$100

Pros: New 320tpi Supple Casing, new sticky rubber, great tread for mud, new valve design

Cons: Rolls slow in dry conditions limiting use other than mud, thin treads may wear quick, new valve design

Cap City Uncle Steve's, OVCX Gun Club Cross

2009-11-01T21:38:00.004-05:00

Photo Frans Tan via Facebook
Another weekend of excellent cross racing. This season has been pretty much a total opposite of last season. Out of the 12 races I have done, 7 have been muddy. This is in sharp contrast to 1 muddy race last year. Heavy rains Saturday morning made the courses nice and muddy.

Saturday was the Cap City race at Uncle Steve's in Marysville. Last year, this race was hot, dry and super bumpy. Many people left with bloody, blistered hands and many people this year brought their mountain bikes to try to tame the untameable property of Uncle Steve's. Well the heavy rains did soften up the ground a little bit but still bumpy in some sections.

During my pre-ride, I swapped between my Fangos and my new Vittoria XM. Half the course was fairly dry and the other half wet and muddy. The Fangos did not give me much forward grip in the rear and was spinning out. So I gave the new XMs a try. They hooked up nicely but I noticed on drier sections the tires rolled slow. So for a good compromise, I ran the Fango up front and XM rear.

I had a great start and was in the front group with Matt Weeks, Garth Prosser, Dan Campbell, and Phil Noble. About the second lap I had come off the the group, Matt took off and Garth, dan and Phil battled it out. Ryan Gamm had made his return to racing and I was towing him around for a while. Later on, Gamm attacked me and never looked back. He eventually caught up to Phil and passed him. At around 45 minutes, I was in no man's land with Phil pretty far up the course (but still in view) and no one behind me. So I decided to slow it down a little to try to save up for Sunday. However, this unknown guy had started to creep up on me. So no biggie, I slowed down a little bit too much so I turned it up a notch. With two to go, he really started charging. I had to really turn it back on to hold him off. So much for saving for the next day. He never caught me and I rolled in for 6th, my season best.

I opted to not return to Athens to simply avoid the mess of Halloween and went over to Isaiah's place. I quickly took a shower and we headed over to Qdoba with his girlfriend for dinner. There was a Krispy Kreme next door and upon leaving, the HOT NOW light had turned on. I said we must go there and we did. I had never eaten a hot out of the fryer donut and I have to say it is simply the best donut. It just melts in your mouth. We returned to his place, watched the World Series and went to bed.

I woke up the next morning sore to the core. Pretty much every muscle in my body hurt. Luckily I didn't race until 3:3o so I had plenty of time to get loose, warm up, etc. I left Columbus just before noon and arrived at the race around 1:30. I quicky pre-rode part of the course right before the Elite Masters went off and found that the course was pretty bad. There were two unrideable muddy hills, one forced dismount and run muddy hill and another hill where you could make it up about half the time. This was a real power course. I opted to ride both XMs today since there was a lot of mud. However I probably could have done what I did on Saturday since the course did dry up a little bit as the race progressed.

I had a second row start and had a pretty good start. I was probably in the top 10 for the first lap. But soon after I just blew up and shot out the back. I settled down a bit and motored on. I felt like quitting several times but kept at it. About half way, I creeped up to the next guy on course. I was able to pass and gap him when the course turned muddy. I looked back later on and he was pretty distant. Then half a lap, one lap later, out of the blue he sprinted past me. But no worries, we were going into the muddy section and I just past him back. Soon after he pulled the pin and withdrew. Unfortunately, he withdrew from the past spot in the money.

I kept going at a good tempo. The course was super hard so you really couldn't ride it easy. Soon I saw Chris and used him as my target and motivation. I would gain a little and then lose a little. Two laps to go, I was getting dangerously close to getting lapped. Not wanting this to happen, I picked it up a little. Luckily I was able to cross the finish about 30 seconds in front of the winner and got to do my bonus lap. I wasn't going to catch Chris so I just rode the course pretty easy to finish it up.

DFL 14th place and in the Money! Made $20. I really felt flat and thought i had a pretty bad day. But however looking at the data, I rode harder than I did on Saturday. How is it that I felt like a rock star on sat and put out less power than when I felt horrible today? Next week is only one race so I guess I will find out if I can really ride harder at an OVCX race fresh. Or maybe it's mental?

410

8159

USGP Day 2

2009-10-25T22:49:00.003-04:00

Not much to say today, I had a horrible race. I had the same number as yesterday so started way back. I had a really good start, probably in the top 15. I held it for a while then started to go backwards. The legs never really turned on and my back was killing me from yesterday. I had taken some ibuprofen before the race and was waiting for it to kick in. Unfortunately, it never did so I had a sore back and couldn't really put down the power. I thought the course was super slow. The ground was moist to be soft enough to just rob all speed. Anyway, ended up 51st.

Rest week coming up so I'll take it easy and recover some and then its Uncle Steve's and Gun Club next weekend.

miles driven: 580

7749

USGP Day 1

2009-10-24T22:09:00.001-04:00

Day one of the USGP Derby City Cup has come to a close. It was a great
day of racing and watching the pros race.

A 10:15 start time ment an early wake up. Adam's place is about 20
minutes from the venue so we planned to leave around 7:40 so we could
get there at 8 to get a few laps on the course.

We got to the course at around 8:15, took the bikes off the roof and
headed on the course. Cat4 men started at 8:30 so we quickly took a
lap. The course had dried out a little bit compared to Friday when I
prerode the course.

Afterwards we went and got our fancy RFID chips and started to warm
up. It seemed to get colder as the minutes past but soon the trainer
had me pretty toasty.

Staging time came along and it was time to freeze standing waiting to
go. My number was 252 and they started at 200. And someone else said
they pulled the top 10 in the series and put them in front. Great a
mid pack start position with 100 guys.

We got rolling and it was a fight to simply not get taken out. I was
able to make it through without crashing, getting crashed, or getting
stuck behind a crash. I rode pretty hard in the first lap to pass as
many people as possible at every moment possible.

I got in a good tempo and started picking off guys that had gone too
hard and blown up. I was at one point close to getting into the front
big group but it was a tall task working alone versus a big group.

I slowed up a bit in the last two laps since there was pretty much no
one ahead of me. I kept the pressure on the pedals so no one would
catch me from behind.

I was able to get a solid 19th place. Sure I would have liked a top 10
but considering my start position, I'm pretty happy. We get new
numbers tomorrow so hopefully we get reshuffled to start in finish
order. Otherwise, I will have to be more agressive in the start to get
up into the front group for a shot at the top 10.

On the other hand We went over to Jackie's parents house and had a
fabulous dinner. I can bet that no one else ate quite as nice as we did.

I'm hoping for some good legs tomorrow

Katsu Tanda

Sent from my iPhone

USGP Preride

2009-10-23T21:36:00.001-04:00

I arrived today in Louisville, KY under sunny and blue skys. I had
driven through four hours of rain so nice weather was a welcome change.

When I rolled into the park, there were plenty of people there riding
the course. The Cannondale and Kona trailers were already there though
I did not see any of the riders.

The course is pretty similar to last years course so any one that has
done this race last year should have a good feel for it. There are
some tricky changes in there but should make for exciting racing.

The one thing that was a factor is the sticky mud. Not sure if the
course will dry a little but my bike picked up a lot of mud. My tires
especially packed up on the sides. I may take a bike swap halfway
through if I pickup lots of mud so I can cut down 5 pounds. The mud is
very ridable and isn't super slick, it just sticks. I may have to run
to the store and get spray cooking oil or a can of petrolium jelly to
get less stickage.

I am staying with Adam and Jackie this weekend and they are not too
far from the course. We'll be up early so we can get a preride in
tomorrow before the 4's race.

Report and pictures tomorrow.

Katsu Tanda

Sent from my iPhone

USGP This Weekend

2009-10-22T09:54:00.002-04:00

The USGP in Louisville is coming up this weekend. I have not had the ideal training leading up to this weekend but hopefully I can do well. I blew off training last Saturday (I had the C2H6O flu), didn't feel well on Tuesday, but yesterday I had a good day on the bike.

Reports on the races as they happen

Cincinnati UCI3 Weekend

2009-10-11T22:16:00.003-04:00

This weekend was the Cincinnati UCI3 Weekend, featuring three UCI C2 races in the Cincinnati area. It was a great weekend of fun, hard cross racing. Zach was kind enough to offer his mom's place to stay. Host housing always rocks.

Friday was the Cyclo-Stampede presented by Dark Horse Racing at Devou Park in Covington, KY. This was a brand new venue for the series. I decided to take the plunge and do the UCI race since it started at 5:30pm. I knew I had no chance at this race but gave it ago anyway. To make things worse, it had rained all night and most of the day, making the course a huge slip and slide. Not the best race to make my UCI debut. Most of the course was off camber and covered in mud. There were sections of mud that was 4-6" deep and you just had to run. Think the USGP in New Jersey last year.

One of Zach's teammates offered to man the pit for me and boy did he do some work for me. I was taking a bike every half lap. This race boiled down to who had the biggest balls to just bomb down the slippery off camber slopes. No tire really helped and you probably could have just rode file treads and done just as good as a Dugast Rhino. Someone told me that Jeremy Powers would simply go as fast as he could down the hills, then when he either crashed or had to get off, he would start running. Anyway, I was glad to get lapped and get out of that muddy mess and brought up the rear at 32nd place (however there were several dnfs)

I hope the race does come back next year because we certainly tore up the grounds. The grounds keeper is going to have to till the whole area, smooth it out and spread seed over 3K of ground. That is going to have to suck. Through word of mouth, I heard that the park was about to back out of the race because it was going to get torn up but the Mayor simply said the race is going to happen and they can do whatever they want!

Afterwards, we were invited to a Burrito party at a house nearby the course. Chad and his wife were generous hosts and provided beer and make-your-own burritos! Chad actually graduated from OU so he was giving me some cheers out on the muddy course.

Saturday's race was the Java Johnny's - Lionhearts presented by Queen City Wheels in Middletown, OH. I came to my senses and did the 2/3 race. A third row start and a great sprint off the line got me in really good position. I felt really good during the entire race and was able to get a solid 18th place. I didn't find that out till Sunday but it was a solid ride none the less. In the Pro race, J-Pow got a huge lead from the get go and rode solo the entire race. He was also pleasing the crowd by bunny hopping over the barriers.

Sunday was Harbin Park presented by Biowheels and United Dairy Farmers. This was by far the hardest course. Ok, Friday was super hard because of the conditions but if it were dry or slightly muddy, it was probably the easiest course. Same third row start but I didn't get as great a start as Saturday. The course bottle necked pretty quickly and then we bombed down a hill into a mud pit. I veered off course and lost a whole bunch of spots. I lost the top twenty with my little off course excursion. Then to make things worse, the course bottle necked again when the course made a right hand turn onto a hill side. Lots of people hopped off and ran it. Then a long uphill straight into an uphill sand pit. After the sand pit, I rode like a mad man trying to make back as many spots as I could. Wound up 36th. Not the result I was looking for but it was still a good race. But I did beat everyone that would give me shit if they had beat me so all is good.

I am currently undecided what to do next weekend. OVCX #6 is in Bloomington, IN but its a long haul to get there. A 6 hour drive for one race. Or I can do the Bike Authority race in Willoughby, OH but that's a 4 hour drive. Or I can stay at home and go drinking because its Homecoming weekend.

Miles: 470
YTD: 7169

Ouch! Cross hurts!

2009-10-05T08:49:00.004-04:00

A whole lot of hurt this weekend racing. Another two day weekend with Cap City #1 on Saturday at the Alum Creek beach, and OVCX #2 at Fisherman's Park in Louisville, KY.

The Cap City race was windy, wet and muddy. A quarter of the lap was wet and slick. The Reynolds did their job that day helping me cut through the mud pretty easily. Andy decided to make us do a Le Mans start, making us run to our bikes for the start. I pretty much lost the race there. I had lots of room to cover but I was able to make contact pretty quickly. But as soon as I made contact, there was a bottle neck and we all had to stop. Well, we all bunched up, I was in the back and it just accordioned out. From there it was a hard solo effort for the next 50 minutes. I did slowly pick off people as the race went on. I was in the hunt for a Panther/RGF rider for the last few laps. He was always 10-15 seconds in front of me and I slowly reeled him in. With 2 to go, I caught a sight of Matt Weeks, the eventual winner fast approaching from the rear. Not wanting to get lapped, I turned on the jets. In the process I caught and rode past the Panther rider and even almost caught the 10th place rider. I settled in for 11th and was pretty happy with that. If I had a better start, I would have placed a lot higher.

Sunday I drove down to Louisville for OVCX #2 at Fisherman's Park. They screwd up the start order and did the top 5, then reverse order of registration! So I started in the back row. I stayed in contact until one downhill with lots of ruts. I had to go wide and came off the group. This could have been avoided if I pre-rode the course. To sum up the course, it was HARD. There was rarely a flat stretch of ground. A lot of the course was off camber, up hill, down hill, head wind, etc. The pain was turned up to 11. I motored along and started to feel better at around 20 minutes. I reeled in some riders and had my sights on three more just ahead. One of the guys dropped out while I started to fade in the last two laps and never caught the other two. Ryan Knapp also came out to race and simply dominated the race. He put in a sizable gap in the first few laps and just cruised to the finish. He lapped me at 3 to go.

I certainly did not feel like I had super legs on Sunday. Felt pretty flat through most of the race but I'm happy I kept at it and finished the race. I finished last but 6-7 others didn't make it to the end. 18th place.

The drive home was worse than the race itself. I felt like a horse kicked me in the stomach. Then I got chills, hot/cold, cold sweats. It got so bad that I had to stop driving and I pulled off on the side of the highway because I couldn't see straight. A few minutes later I hopped back in, went to the first gas station, used the bathroom and took an hour grimacing in pain/nap. I finally made it home at 11pm.

My fitness is coming along. I wished I would have done a bit better but I did lose about a week of training when I went to Interbike. It was not unexpected that I would race a little flat. This weekend is three days of racing. I'm going to get utterly destroyed at the UCI race on Friday and then the weekend I'll race 2/3 and try to finish near the top.

Miles; 600

YTD 6699

Kings CX

2009-09-21T07:15:00.005-04:00

Kings CX has come and gone. It was a great weekend of cyclocross and my first taste of two back to back hard races. Few will argue that cyclocross is the hardest thing you can do on a bike and boy do I feel it this morning.

The race was located at an old golf course in Mason, OH. A great course, great layout, and best of all, great promoters. A good course can be made bad if the people running the race don't care about the racers. In addition to the racing, there was a cool raffle with really nice prizes, which I didn't win.

Day 1

Saturday's race the course was run clockwise, one double barrier, one triple log barriers, a run up with a barrier to force you to get off, and a sand pit. The day was hot, dry and fast. I had pre-registered early so I got a front row start, not that it helped me too much. I did not get off the line as quick as I would liked and got shuffled to the back. About 20 minutes in, I flatted my brand new Grifo XS! I only had two races on it. Luckily the pit was pretty close and rode the flat rear tire to the pit and picked up my spare. I finished the race on the spare and rolled in for 14th.

I tried to revive my Grifo XS with Stans but the hole was too big and could not seal the hole. All I got was a stream of stans out of the side wall. Unfortunately that is part of racing.

Day 2
Rain and mud were the words of the day. On my drive over, it was raining really hard. By the time I arrived, the rain had slowed but still drizzling. The Cat 3's raced in super slick and muddy conditions. I quickly changed and headed out on the course when the 3's race finished. I did a slow preride on the slick course and kept stopping to let more air out of my tires. At one part of the course, the bike slipped out and I banged my knee on the top tube. This was not a good thing to do an hour before the race. I gingerly rode the rest of the course, sprayed down the bike and hopped on the trainer to hopefully get the knee feeling better.

The rain had stopped, the course drying and another front row start. Again, I did not utilize my front row start and got shuffled to the back again. I couldn't get the legs going at the begining but slowly they started to come around and I started to catch up to groups ahead of me. I battled it out with a few guys for most of the race, including Scotty. I would catch up to him in the corners but he would gas it on the straights and pull away from me. In the end I got 17th place. 2 out of the money and also 9th over the weekend, another 2 out of the money.

Afterwards, I was destoryed. The worst part of a cross race, is the after the cross race. My stomach felt like someone ran over it with a truck.

I'm leaving for Interbike tomorrow and won't be racing until the 3rd and 4th. I'm taking my bike so I can get some rides in and possibly do my workouts.

Miles: 650

YTD: 6099

Heath Cross

2009-09-13T09:26:00.002-04:00

Yesterday was my first cross race of the season. My expectations were not high, I just wanted to go out and get a race under my legs. You never want to be winning races at the beginning of the season because you will simply burn out before December.

With a 4:30pm start (more on that later), I had all morning to do nothing. I went over to the shop and got all my things together and headed back home. I noticed there was a ship notice from Quarq in the email box so my powermeter might come in that day or on Monday. I ran over to the Farmer's market to get some lunch and relaxed for a bit. Then John called me and said my CinQo came in!

I packed up the rest of my things, loaded my spare bike (with no crank) and headed back to the shop. I had to swap over my crank on my A bike to the B bike and install the CinQo. With integrated BB's, the process is very simple.

I opened the box and in there contained my CinQo with new rings (46/38) and to my surprise they also sent me a water bottle, some extra magnets and the new BB mount Magnet holder! Quarq is a class company. They really take care of you. I didn't even ask to have the unit shipped back by a certain date but they Express mailed it to me anyway.

So the CinQo went on, and I had to set up my B bike. Not something to be doing right before the race but had no option. Set the seat height and setback and swapped a stem. Loaded back up and left about 5 minutes behind schedule. The drive was pretty easy and got there about 50 minutes prior to start.

That is if they didn't move up the start time to 4:00pm. All I had time for was to register, suit up, and put on some tires. My warm up consisted of riding to the start line. I would have liked to at least ride the course once but there was no time. Having not raced cross for a year, I put way too much pressure in my tires.

We started the race and got going. Flier said 60 minutes and we all decided to do 45, in reality we did around 55. The course was really nice. Mostly grass, one section of paved path and lots of gravel path. I ate it in once of the gravel sections and had one of those crashes where it seemed like you kept on crashing forever. Nothing major, just a dinged up knee and bashed in shifters. I was able to bang the shifters back into position while riding and kept on going.

I ended up getting lapped on the last lap but I was ok with that. I had no warm up, I crashed and it was my first race. I just needed to get that effort in. However, my Garmin 310XT really sucks. I pretty much have useless data because of all the Data drops. Garmin connect says I averaged 280 watts, while Training Peaks says I averaged 180 watts. I'm going to say I averaged more on the 280 than 180w but I am completely unsure. I may have to just ditch the 310XT and just use it for running. It's just great that I have a $300 dud of a Garmin.

Afterwards, I headed over to Columbus to get some dinner with Isaiah. There was an Ohio State game in town so everywhere but downtown was busy. Lucky for us since we didn't have to wait for a table. I also rode Isaiah's new Honda RC51, a 1000cc V-Twin Superbike. That thing scared the crap out of me. I rode down the street, popped it into second and hit the gas. I was probably doing 90 instantly. The road just instantly blurred and you get tunnel vision. Oh and nothing beats the sound of a V-Twin.

So next week I have two races coming up and hopefully I get a better result. But the season is still long and there is no use winning races this early. My target race is States so if all goes well, I should be flying by then.

Miles: 215

YTD:5449

Long Street Tour + Training

2009-09-09T07:50:00.003-04:00

This past Saturday, I went up to Columbus to do the Long Street race. Its always a good time with a good crowd. This race where I claimed my first win. The course is nice with 5 turns and a u-turn.

I packed up and headed out the door at 8am, filled up the tank and on my way. I really lucked out on the driving because it was an OSU football weekend and luckily did not run into traffic there or back.

The prize list was big, paying $600 for the win, paying 20 deep. Less than 20 were preregistered so I thought it was going to be easy money. However, that was what a lot of other people were thinking, close to 40 toed the line. We were set to do 60 minutes plus 5 laps.

During the race, I sat in at my favorite place in the race, near the back. It's not really ideal but I don't have to fight to keep position, which you really had to do in this race up front. At the front, you couldn't sit in or you would find yourself in the back. I did get lazy a few times and got gapped out in the corners forcing me to chase a little but I wised up at the end. 5 to go I made sure I was up front. The last two laps were the fastest and I was in good position to finish. However some guy decided to sit up in the last corner and I had to slow down. I lost a chance at a good result but still ended up in the money at 18th place. Good for $10.

After the race, I headed over to Front Runner, a running store. I needed to pick up a new pair of running shoes for my cyclocross training. I've never been fitted for running shoes and only recently did I know there were different types of shoes for different types of feet. All the employees at Front Runner are runners so they knew what to look for. I tired out many shoes to fit my feet and walking/running style and came to a decision. I highly recommend stopping there if you need new kicks.

So now I'm in full cyclocross mode. I sent in my Quarq CinQo in to get my 46 and 38 rings installed and calibrated. Doing workouts specific to CX and getting ready for my first race this Saturday. My first double weekend is next week on the 19th and 20th then a few days off while I hit the Vegas Strip.

Miles this race:200

YTD: 5234

Garrett Wonders Memorial Criterium

2009-08-10T08:07:00.002-04:00

Saturday was the Garrett Wonders Memorial Criterium up in Westerville. A great local crit for a great cause. Garrett Wonders was hit and killed on a training ride and this race is held in his name. I believe all proceeds of this race go toward his foundation.

It was another early morning, I had to leave the house at 6:30am to make the 9am start. I thought I was running on time but ended up leaving 10 minutes late. On top of that, I had to fill up my nearly empty tank. I arrived at 8:15 which wasn't great but better than arriving 30 minutes to the race. Turns out they were running behind.

Instead of taking advantage of the extra time, I socialized and was put back into the same situation of not having much time. I suited up and set up my bike. Took a quick spin and lined up to race. It had rained right before our race. It had stopped raining but the pavement was still wet. Wasn't the ideal situation.

The gun went off and we all started racing. The last few crits I have done, I felt great and hoping for a good result this time. I stayed up toward the front and was in good position. That was until the end of lap 4 going into the last corner. At the apex of the corner, my front wheel just slipped out and I was on the ground sliding two lanes on the still wet pavement. I must have hit the painted crosswalk line. Looking back at the data, I was going into the corner at about 30mph. Luckily (or unfortunately depending on how you look at it) I did not take anyone out. My bike was fine except for the shifter being bashed inward.

After my free lap, I was back in the group but about 2 laps later a crash happened in front of me in that same corner. I was thinking "Oh shit, I'm going to crash again." Luckily the guy I was going to T-bone had slid just enough to the left that a gap opened up where I could sneak though. But that was enough damage done as the field had sped away. In hind sight, I should have gone down and taken a free lap. I chased and chased and chased until I felt I would not be able to make it back.

Another unfortunate DNF at this race. The 4 times I have done this race, I only finished once. And still, I think I finished off the back on the one race I did finish.

But racing isn't all about just the race, it's also about hanging out with your buds. I hung around and watched the 1/2/3 race and cheered Isaiah on. He didn't get a great result but yesterday (Sunday) he took the win so it all worked out for him.

Afterwards we hit up City Barbecue for a nice post-race meal.

My road racing is pretty much over now. I will probably do a crit on September 5th but after that it is all about cyclocross.

Miles: 185

YTD: 5034

Wheels!

2009-08-06T22:34:00.002-04:00

My new wheels have come in straight from the factory!!! To be more specific, my living room. I've been building wheels for some time now but I am now branching out and take a plunge into the world of commercial custom wheelbuilding. What can I offer that all those other custom wheelbuilders offer? Well to be honest, not much more than the other guy can. We are all going to have similar build qualities, prices and weights considering most of us buy our supplies from the same people. However, I am your LOCAL custom wheelbuilder, you race with me, you know me.

Anyway, to the good stuff. Pictured below is the newest of my builds. The rim is a KinLin TB-25. KinLin is the company behind many other rebranded rims, most notably IRD. If you haven't figured it out, TB stands for tubular and 25 is the depth in millimeters. Hole count for this build is 20.

The hub is a new one which you may not have heard about. It is from a company named Alchemy Bicycle Works. Alchemy is a custom wheel parts wholesaler as well as a manufacturer of two hubs, the Front ELF (Extra Light Front) and the Rear ORC. The ELF hub weighs a scant 64g but one of the toughest and stiffest hub out there. The flanges are put out as far as possible, any wider and the flanges and spokes would hit the inside of the fork leg! On top of that, it uses a large 6900 ceramic bearing. Its light, but also strong.

Spokes are pretty standard affair, Wheelsmith DB14 spokes with their Aluminum nipples (purple anodized of course). I typically only recommend aluminum nipples on front and rear non-drive side road wheels. Brass on the drive sides and all around for mountain bike wheels. I could have built these wheels with nicer Sapim CX-Rays or DT Swiss Aerolites but considering I am using these wheels for Cyclocross, the added cost for marginal aerodynamics wasn't worth it. Also its a lot cheaper to replace spokes should I ever break one.

The wheel is laced radially, trued, stressed and tensioned. The weight comes in at 600g. That is 45g less than a Mavic Ksyrium SL front wheel and at substantial cost savings! 20 holes sound a little sketch for cyclocross? Last year I ran the same build except with DT Swiss 240s hubs and they were rock solid. I did not have to touch the spoke wrench to the wheel all season. They will be back in action this year.

Also coming soon is an EDGE composites 1.68 wheelset laced to Alchemy ELF and ORC hubs for my sponsored rider. How about a EDGE 45mm clincher that weighs less than 1300g!? Exciting things are happening and stay tuned

Back to Riding - Lake Hope MTB Race

2009-08-03T00:17:00.003-04:00

I took the last 9 days completely off the bike and decided to get back in the swing of things by going out and doing a mountain bike race. The race was at Lake Hope, just 40 minutes away.

I rolled out of my house around 11am and when I was about 10 minutes from Lake Hope, I remembered that I forgot my helmet! I could have turned around and went home to go pick it up, but that would have left me less than 30 minutes to register, suit up and warm up. So I decided to keep going to the parking lot and see if anyone might have an extra. Luckily the guy I was following to the race had an extra helmet and saved the day.

I had done this race before two years ago and did the expert class. That was not the best race I've had since I got lost warming up and missed the start. This year I didn't stray far from the start. I decided to do sport since I didn't really feel like racing for 3 hours. Cross races are onlty an hour so Sport would offer a similar effort.

At the start I was able to stay up front and actually be the first one into the woods. However I put myself into the red zone and would pay dearly for it later. I was pretty much pegged to the max the first 20-30 minutes and I didn't need a HRM to tell me that. My legs felt awesome but 9 days of no cardio work did some major detraining on the lungs. To make things worse, my contact had shifted and I could barely see out of my right eye. So I pulled off and let the others behind me pass so I can rub my eye and hope I could see again.

I was still pegged to the max eventhough I let off the throttle. I slowely got into a nice rhythm and started passing people that had passed me before. I was cruising until I hit a fallen tree. It was one of those duck down and you can make it fallen trees but my visor blocked it. I heard and felt a big thump, I blacked out for a second and then the pain came on. I pulled off to make sure I was still alive. Luckily I just hit the top of my head and didn't go face first into that tree. After that hit I was a little disoriented. I lost the nice groove I was in and struggled to get going again. But sure enough, I started feeling good again and picked up speed and was big ringing the trail. That was until I hit a lot of traffic.

I was able to get around a huge group and then it was the big super steep climb to the finish. Everyone I saw was pushing their bikes. I motored on and dumped down to the granny (the only time) and spun my way up the climb. The finishing stretch is on road so I motored on. I almost caught the guy in front of me but the finishing chute was about 5 feet wide. No way to pass.

I think I finished up 11th in Sport Senior (19-34)

Miles driven 50

YTD 4849

2009 Masi Gran Criterium Review part 1

2009-07-28T12:00:00.000-04:00

I've been riding a 2009 Masi Gran Criterium for a few months now. Tim Jackson, the brand manager of Masi Bikes, set me up with this sweet ride back in May. If you do not know, Tim Jackson is the man behind the bike sponsorship of Kenda Pro Cycling p/b Spinergy. He has set up the team with sweet full carbon Masi 3VC's. Instead of getting the same bike as the Pro's ride, I opted for a lower model, but this by no means is lower quality.

Here's the basics, Baby blue paint, aluminum frame w/ carbon rear end, full Sram Rival, MSRP of $2,175, ready to race. I can just end this review right here but I will go further.

The heart of any bike is the frame. The Masi Gran Criterium is an aluminum front triangle coupled to carbon stays. This combination gives you a nice stiff frame for excellent power transfer, yet gives you some comfort over full aluminum. The aluminum tubes are shaped to provide compliance and stiffness over standard round tubes. Frame weight comes in around 1300g, not super light like the carbon wonder frames but light enough. The carbon rear end probably adds a few grams over straight aluminum but the ride quality out weighs the weight. The fork is a carbon bladed, aluminum crown and steerer combination. The fork weighs in around 750g! This is probably the one thing you might want to upgrade and save 1/2-1lb. But at this price point, all bikes will have a heavy carbon/aluminum fork.

Sram Rival group. Enough said! Unlike other companies, Masi puts on the whole 8 peice group. Yes that includes the cranks and brakes. It's really amazing how much of an impact Sram has made in just a few short years. It is simply because they have put out a quality product that cheap, light and most importantly, works well. For as well as Rival works, its hard to spend the extra dollars to get Force or even Red.

The spec'ed wheels are Ritchey Pro DS. They feature 30mm aluminum rims laced to Ritchey hubs with bladed spokes. A real work horse wheelset. They are not partiularly light but work excellent for a training wheelset but still be raced. I particularly do not care what wheelsets come with my bikes since I have a pair of racing wheels. More and more companies are down specing wheels to provide better components, a better price point or both. I totally agree with trend this since if you are racing, most likely you will have a nice set of wheels or aspire to purchase one.

Bar, stem, seatpost and saddle are pretty standard. Ritchey Pro Bars and stem, Masi branded saddle and Masi branded full carbon seatpost. These things are the first things that come off my bike since I have my own preferences.

Now specs are nice but how does it ride? The handling of this bike is spot on. It handles corners very well, keeps the bike going straight when you stand up and sprint, and won't beat you up on those long rides. This bike has a slightly longer top tube than most bikes in its respective size so its great for those longer torsoed riders. The head tube is also a tad longer. The included headset does have a tall cap so you may want to pick up a new headset with a shorter top cap in Cane Creek IS standard.

Typically any bike review will say it is the best bike ever. Then what's the point of ever reading a bike review if every bike is the best? Masi did their best to provide an excellent bike with an excellent parts package at a very competitive price. They did however had to throw in an aluminum crown/steerer fork, which brings the price down but increases the weight. But I do not think this is a deal breaker since most bikes in this price range have similar carbon leg, aluminum crown/steerer forks.

At $2,175, you get a race ready bike that won't break the bank. The aluminum frame will provide you with a stiff chassis that can deal with the occasional crash that may otherwise destroy the carbon counterpart. The Rival group gives you 90% of the top of the line Red group but at significant price savings. If you are looking for a budget racer, a second crit machine, or even as your main rig (as I have), this is a bike to keep on your short list.

Off the bike

2009-07-25T10:54:00.004-04:00

Well its time I took a little break from riding. I'm starting to ride real strong but I need to start thinking about my real season which starts in a short 7 weeks. My plan is to be completely off the bike until August 3rd or later. Shortly after I will start riding again along with some running.

In the meantime, I will be busy with other things. I need to get cracking on the Team Athens 2010 sponsorship proposal, build up my new cross bike, build a few wheels, glue up lots of tires, build some cross barriers, etc.

Oh if anyone wants to sponsor a Cat 2 Cyclocross rider, please let me know. I would be more than happy to represent your company and give good feedback. I've got grouppo and wheels locked up, need frame/fork, tires(tubular), chains, and anything else.

Thanks!

Miamisburg Crit

2009-07-20T22:20:00.002-04:00

Sunday John, Ben and I rolled out to Miamisburg, OH for the state crit. Another early morning as we had to practically drive across the state.

Miamisburg is a cool little town and the course was pretty awesome. Really smooth except for one short section of brick. It wasn't too technical and luckily only one crash (that I know of). I guess the two guys on a break pulled off a stupid move and just ran into each other.

We were running a little late so my warm up consisted of riding up and down a street for about 15 minutes. It turned out it was plenty though.

The first few laps were pretty fast but soon it started to slow down. Guys would try to get away but it always came back. Coming into crunch time, things did start to pick up again.

Coming into the last lap, Greg Flecher and I got a gap going. I figured we can have a go at it and see if the two of us can make it to the end. It was pretty much a suicide move and we held off until the last corner. I got absorbed back into the pack and tried to rest for a few seconds before I had to sprint to save positions after I pretty much blew myself up. I ended up 16th. Not too bad and definitely better than going straight out the back. If Greg and I had one more person with us, we possibly could have stayed away.

Tour of the Valley

2009-07-12T22:16:00.002-04:00

The Tour of the Valley is now complete. I had a great time spending some quality racing time with my buds Isaiah, M@ Records, Josh Halvax and Chester (Andys). Great test of fitness and good tuneup for crit champs coming up next Sunday.

I left Athens Thursday evening after work. We met up at a hotel in Kent, which was about 30 minutes from the first stage. The first stage was a 5.6 mile time trial in the morning. We rolled out in the morning and arrived at Mastropietro Winery around 7:30. We all got registered and signed in for the stage. I started at 9:11 so I had plenty of time to get ready.

The TT was fairly flat. I figured I could hold 300w for the course which I estimated would take no more than 15 minutes. However that did not go to plan. I simply could not put out the power and only managed to put out 255w. Poo since I did not even put out my threshold and I was pegged at 180bpm. My time was 13 minutes and something and was good enough for 3rd or 4th to last.

Stage 2:

Stage 2 was a nice crit in Canfield. Pretty straight forward crit with a 180 right before the start finish. You basically had to be 2nd or 3rd wheel coming out of the 180 in order to win. My crit was 60 minutes and the first 30, I had no legs. I was in the danger zone of tail gunning and people were opening gaps as they were coming off. I had to close those gaps and was then gassed and couldn't move up. Half way through I got a second wind and was able to move up near the middle and later finished mid pack.

Stage 3:

An epic road race consisting of 33 miles of nasty rollers and two big hills. I think this course should be next year's state road race. Andys rated this course second hardest next to the Lake Hope course. Anyway, I tried to stay active and sat up front in the begining of the race. I ended up taking some turns up front which wasn't my plan and hurt me later on. On the first big climb a rider two up dropped his chain. This in turn caused the rider in front of me to crash. I pretty much came to a complete stop. I went from the front and then out the back. I had to dig real deep to catch back on. A few miles later we hit the next big climb. Not as steep as the first one but a lot longer at 3K. I was near the front so I figured I'll just keep my own tempo and drift back. Pretty soon many passed me and when I looked back, there was only a handful of people behind me. At the top a few of us formed a group and tried to chase back on. The main group was in sight across the rollers but soon disappeared. I was completely gassed at this point and got dropped out of my chase group. I decided to call it a day and save it for sunday. Another group caught up to me and we worked together to just get back to the finish.

Stage 4:

A nice flat crit, love these. My goal of the day was to stay up front and finish out strong. The course was in downtown Youngstown. The course was really nice but the pavement was horrible. Many pot holes around man hole covers and many places had ripples in the pavement. The course really beat you up. For the first 3/4 of the race, I did my job and stayed up at the front of the race. It was a lot easier than tail gunning like a normally do. However later on, my left hop started to act up and it soon became painful to pedal hard. I started to drift back into the pack. 2 to go I made my move and regained most of the positions I had lost and then finally on the last lap I was able to finish in the top 20. Coming into the last turn, a guy that was in the break had crashed and many people had to slow down to avoid the guy laid out in the middle of the road. I definintely lost a few positions because of that.

Overall, I felt good and it was good to know I have the fitness to be competitive. An easy week of training and I should be ready to tear it up at State Crit champs on Sunday.

Miles: 532

YTD: 4799

Training update

2009-07-06T09:00:00.001-04:00

Well after I got smashed at Hyde Park and Grandview, I just kept on riding.

Monday did about 2 hours tempo, sitting behind John on his TT bike. There is no draft behind him and makes for good training.

Tuesday we did out TT race/practice. Only a few showed up but was a good time. I had a piss poor time but should be expected with dead legs. After a few minutes of rest, I went out and did another 20 minutes flat out. 30 minutes, rest, 20 minutes.

Wednesday was worlds. Plan was to just sit in but we got going pretty quick and found myself in the rotation. I got dropped on a hill coming back in, but it was expected since I was maxed out 5 minutes prior to hitting the hill. I looked down and saw 180 bpm and the attack went. Legs had no response. After that, I regrouped with two others who got dropped and tried to work with them for a while. However one guy was completely cooked and the other wasn't completely useless but wasn't going fast enough to gain time. So I took off and did a 25 minute time trial to the end.

Thursday I took off but didn't really help much.

Friday Zach came over from Chi-town so we went out on a ride to his Grandparent's house. He rode up to his grandparent's farm and rode a little bit more, while John and I had to ride back into Athens. It was one of those rides where I felt horrible in the beginning, then an hour later I started to feel like the legs were going to come around, then the legs start to feel horrible again. Ended up with around 5 hours and 80 miles. I haven't done that kind of distance in a while, so it was good in the end. The Tour of the Valley Road race is 66, so it'll be good for that.

Saturday I rode with my brother. We did a 30 mile loop which we normally do for worlds. Lots of rollers, two moderate climbs and chip and seal all the way so you can never really feel good on it, a real hard man's course. But going slow its not too bad, just your typical Athens ride. But anyway, my reletively untrained brother was kicking my ass. I was struggling to ride, meaning my legs were super tired. My IF was around .6, but it certainly felt a lot harder than that. Later my brother told me it was too easy!

Sunday I did nothing. Felt good but I was also pretty bored.

Today I will probably take another day off to rest the legs. I am doing Tour of the Valley this weekend so I want to have good legs for that. 6 mile ITT, 60 min crit, 66 mile road race and a final 60 min crit. Those hour efforts will be great training for cross season. I'll ride tueday and wednesday, drive up Thursday and its racing Friday-Sunday!

What's wrong with this picture?

2009-06-30T15:02:00.001-04:00

Find what's wrong, win a prize.

Hyde Park + Grandview

2009-06-28T22:20:00.001-04:00

A big weekend of suck! I DNFed both days. A quick look at the data says that my normalized power was 25-30 watts above my Threshold! I couldn't hold that too long.

I guess I need to do some work.

I've got three more weeks of racing then I'm quitting and gearing up for cross season.

Miles: 391
YTD: 4267

State Road Race

2009-06-28T22:19:00.001-04:00

Well the State Road race didn't go that well. The shortened course equaled more time up the hill with less time to recover. I lasted 4 laps.

Miles 290
YTD: 3876

Tour of Ohio

2009-06-22T21:53:00.002-04:00

This past week, I was doing neutral support for all the boys competing in Tour of Ohio. The promoter, Tym, called me up early in the year to see if I wanted to do the support. I had originally planned on racing it myself, but the money offer was too good to pass up.

I really lucked out during the whole race. I had to do minimal wheel changes. Wheel changes are especially hard doing it yourself. Usually I would not be driving and sitting in the back seat and pop out to do a change. But this week, I had to pull off, grab a wheel, make sure the car was out of gear (I stalled it once), look back to make sure my door doesn't get ripped off, then finally change the wheel.

Lots of driving! With 4 road stages, I spent most of the days sitting behind the wheel. Transfers to stages were not too bad except for the last day up near Toledo. I spent approximately 25 hours driving and racked up 1040 miles in 6 days!

I did manage to get out and ride during the week. I was also able to do half days at work. It was a good pay day at week's end.

Hyde Park and Grandview is the weekend so doing some training early this week and resting up for the weekend!

Gambier Crit

2009-06-07T23:55:00.003-04:00

I traveled up to Gambier today with John to do Tym's ABR State Crit.

A simple 4 turn crit, one side going down a hill, and the other side going up. I thought it was going to be pancake flat the hill wasn't as bad as it looked.

John went first in the Master's race and looked pretty comfortable the whole race. He pulled off a nice W!

I followed soon after. We had a piss-poor field of only 5 guys. Might as well make the most of it though. The other 4 guys were not so motivated to go hard so I hit a nice hard tempo going up the hill and often sprinting up at the top to the start finish. I guess our race was so boring, Don pulled out a $5 and put up a prime. The other guys were saying why should they get all fired up for 5 bux and we should all split it 5 ways.

Anyway I gunned it at the top of the hill to grab the prime (which I never collected since I paid reduced entry fee, a nice gesture) and kept on going. I wanted to see if I could distance myself and get away. No such luck so I sat back into our field of now 4.

I tried several time to push it hard and try to drop another person but it didn't happen. At least one of the guys looked like he was in the serious hurt zone but never came off.

At the end, I was getting a little paranoid that someone might jump me. I had shown all my cards to the others but none of them have. I expected someone to attack me in the closing laps but no one ever did. So coming around on the last lap, I decided to jump a little earlier than I did in the previous laps to hopefully catch them off guard. I also got stuck in the little ring and one guy came around me and held it to the end. I was the first to lose.

I know I shouldn't dwell on it too long, but I pretty much had that race in the bag. But a simple tactical mistake cost me the race. I should have stuck to my original plan of jumping up near the top of the hill, cutting inside on the turn and sweeping out and ride in for the win. But it just didn't work out that way.

But my power has gone up considerably since the last time I raced in Atlanta. So I'm really happy with that. I guess doing a 100 mile mountain bike does wonders to your power.

I should be ready for the USAC Ohio State Road race at Ceasar's creek next week. The following week I'm working Neutral Support for Tour of Ohio. It looks like I will be able to still ride during the week, before or after the stages so I'll definitely make the most of it and probably do lots of intervals. Two weeks later, its Hyde Park and Grandview.

Miles 223
YTD: 3586

Mohican 100

2009-05-31T21:03:00.005-04:00

Photo Mark Farmer

Well I did it and completed my first 100 mile mountain bike race! Add to that, this was only my third ever mountain bike race. What possessed me to do such torture? Well earlier in the year, Hank found out he was doing Leadville 100. So I told him lets do Mohican 100 for training so I registered. Also with cyclocross as my primary goal for the year, I decided early on that I will branch out more in the begning of the year and do things I normally wouldn't do. In the end, Hank ended up not being able to do the Mohican so I was flying solo.

Having blown a whole bunch of money last weekend doing the Tour of Atlanta and having to do this by myself, I really didn't want to spend the money to get a hotel room. So I had two options, drive up in the morning leaving Athens at 3am, or driving up the night before and sleeping in the car. I chose the latter. I worked the whole day and went out to dinner. I had originally planned on grabbing some food and eating in the car but I figured if I left too early, it would still be light out and thus I wouldn't be able to sleep. Anyway my departure time quickly got later and later. After dinner I packed and showered and headed off to get gas and some food/drinks. While I was pumping gas, I realized that I forgot my gloves! That would have been a serious mistake considering my ring finger and pinky on my left hand are still numb. So I drove back home to pick up my gloves costing me around 20 minutes. I arrived in Loudonville around 12-12:30, found a place to park and rolled out the sleeping bag. I have just enough room with the back seats folded down and front seat folded forward to sleep in the car. It was a little toasty in went I went to sleep and I thought about cracking open the windows but I decided against it. Good call since I woke up freezing cold.

I was up around 5:15, way before my set alarm. Rather than try to fall asleep again for 30 minutes, I decided to head to Radar's Restaurant for breakfast. I chose the buffet but certainly did not eat my money's worth. I was still a little full from dinner. After breakfast I headed over to Mohican Adventures where the race headquarters was located. I picked up my number and drop bags. A tube, coke and some food in Bag #1 for Station #2, two cokes, a tube and more food for Station #3 (I came through that twice), and a coke for Station #5.

I had to make a last minute bathroom stop so I did not get suited up as quickly as I would have liked. I kitted up with plenty of Beljum Budder and quickly rode my way to the start line, about a mile away. I met up with a bunch of stragglers and we made it to the start with 3 minutes to spare, perfect timing!

The race started promptly at 7am and we rolled out of town. There was a $200 city limit prime so the Pro's hit it hard. The ride out was about 3 miles to the trail head. I took it easy on the road and many people passed me but I had 100 miles to do that day. We hit the trail and it instantly became congested and slow. we rolled through some single track then came to this huge unridable hill, one of many in the day. Maybe if you had no traffic in front of you could you have ridden up some of these hills but it was definintely climbing up a wall. It was even hard to walk up these hills. After the short section of trail and riding through some camp grounds, we ended back at Mohican Adventures then rode to another trail head onto the trails of the Mohican State Forest. On of my friends, Bruce was at the trail head heckling and yelled at me "Tinker Juerez is only 9 minutes ahead of you!" We rode about 20 miles of really nice single track.

2 hours in, I arrived at Aid Station #1. I foolishly did not eat anything prior so I scarfed down some gels and PB&J. Back onto the trails and then we hit some road ways and back onto trails, but this time on private lands.

Aid Station #2 was at someone's house. Not sure where since directions to the station was not listed. I drank my coke stashed in my drop bag and ate some food. We were still on trails on our way to Aid station #3. On the way there, I crashed. I got my front wheel stuck between two rocks and went over the bars. Luckily the guys behind me were not going super fast and were able to stop and not run me over. Banged up my shoulder but I was fine. I stood around for a few minutes to catch my breath and continued on. We got out of the trails and hit the roads. It was a mixure of paved and fire roads. We dipped back into some trails to Station #3.

I arrived at Aid Station #3 with a large group. I ate a few gels but did not eat enough as I found out later. I would be arriving back at Station #3 after I did the 100 miler's loop. The ride to Station #4 was very long. It seemed to take forever. About half was some private trails and the other half roads. There was this one long wooded gravel road that took forever. It was the same thing for miles. The scenery hardly changed. I was definitely hurting for food and was running low on energy. I felt good to about 100K, then pretty dead at 110K. I felt the bonk coming and I ate all the gels I had on me and some oatmeal cream pie.

I came into Aid #4 at around 8 hours, the winners had already finished the race at this point. I was definitely running on fumes at this point. I had tried to beat the bonk by eating as much as I can when I started to feel low but it was too late. I ate and loaded up with extra gels. I was told 8 miles back to Station #3 (A lie) So I motored on. My granny saw lots of use at this time. I even had to get off and walk a hill I normally would have been able to ride.

Back at #3, I did not feel much better. I ate more gels and loaded up, it was about 16 miles to the finish. Half way to the last Aid station, I was feeling a bit better. The worst of the race was over and just had to tough out some road. By this point, I was having trouble sitting in the saddle, pedaling made it worse. I found myself pedaling out of the saddle a lot, something not increadibly efficient with a full suspension mountain bike.

When I arrived at station #5, it was literally just down the road from the finish but I had to ride more trail to get there. I filled up with some water and went out to finish the race. I was back into the nice single track and then finally popped out of the trail by the Mohican Adventures. I thought I was finally done! But nope, there was a 2 mile section I still had to ride, including another one of those unrideable hills.

Then I finally finished 97th @ 11:38.24, 4:47.58 back from the winner Jeremiah Bishop. Total ride time on the computer read 10:40, estimated TSS of 800! Luckily I did not suffer any mechanicals or flat tires and just one crash. I did have some less than optimal shifting which I'll swap out the cable and housing. I noticed the poor shifting on my last ride but neglected to take care of it. Actually I lied, I did have one minor mechanical. In the last 3 miles, I shifted to my top cog and it over shifted into the spokes. Then the chain proceeded to somehow drop below the stupid anti-mess up your spokes drop pins shimano puts on their XT cassettes. Luckily I was able to force the chain out of their. Lucky for me since I had lost the tire lever/8mm spanner/spoke wrench needed to use the chain tool on the Park IB-3 multitool. It's wierd because I cannot get the bike to overshift in the stand and 99% of the time. But I guess with high torque and right amount of wheel flex, it pops off over the top.

That race was hard, but a whole new type of hard. It is not Crit hard, not road race hard, not cyclocross hard, century riding hard, nor is it mountain bike race hard. Unless you are a Pro, its more a race against yourself, seeing if you can make the distance. The efforts were not that hard (I was shooting for riding at 80%) but its just long.

I do feel I can shave off a few hours the next time I do a 100 mile race since I now know what it feels like. Definitely with better energy management and not doing a stage race a week before. I feel great satisfaction that I completed this race. No I won't drop riding the road and cyclocross for endurance mountain bike racing but its something I would like to continue doing in the future.

Miles:340
Miles YTD 3363

Tour of Atlanta Recap

2009-05-31T20:04:00.003-04:00

Drive down:
I drove up to Columbus to hitch a ride with Andys, Mark (D'Balle), Bruce and Isaiah. We drove down in Andys' big van and trailer. The drive down was a pretty uneventful but easy drive. We stopped at a hotel on the way down in Northern Georgia since it was getting late. The next morning we completed the drive and checked into our home for a few days, a Residence Inn.

The great part about the hotel was we didn't have to drive at all to get to the stages, except for the last stage. Two queens, a pull out bed and a kitchen for 5 guys. It wasn't so expensive either.

Stage 1:
An out and back 2k TT. In my opinion, it was a pretty worthless stage. Unless you were doing the Pro-am, there was nothing at stake here. Only the Pro-am had an Omnium. I guess you were going for 3 deep day money. I borrowed Isaiah's Zipp 808's and man those things are fast. You literally cannot take your hands off the bars if it is windy because you will just get blown over. I did not take this too seriously and got 24th place.

Stage 2:
A two turn hotdog crit on the same course as the TT. Out was a slighly downhill section with a tailwind and back was obiviouly the opposite. Many tried to get away in this race but all the moves eventually came back. There was one move that almost could have stayed away if there was one or two more people in that break. In the end, a solo attack went off 2 or 3 laps to go and stayed away till the end. In the field sprint, I was sitting behind D'Balle and we pretty much went from the back to the front. Except someone decided to sit up with 50 m to go! D'Balle got sandwiched between two other guys and was bumping shoulders and it was amazing they didn't go down! 21st place.

Stage 3:
Stage 3 was a 1.5-2 mile circuit course. This was the least favorite of my course. From the start finish you made a right and went up a false flat, then a flat right turn, then you shot down this long downhill and made a right on a one lane turn off ramp with lots of painted lines. Then you gradually climbed back up the elevation you lost on the down hill. This course did not have much flow to it and I thought it was very tough. It also didn't help that I was still trying to find some legs. I mainly tail gunned it the whole way and managed mid-pack 26th.

Stage 4:
Same course but the finish line was moved 200m from the uphill to the false flat. Same direction as well. In the first quarter of the race, rain started to fall. This was not a course you wanted to race in the rain. New pavement and lots of painted lines made it very dangerous. When the rain started, I saw D'Balle pull the ripcord and went from the front all the way to the back. I stuck to it and pulled off 19th.

Stage 5:
Another circuit race but this one flowed a lot better. Down a slight down hill, left turn to some flat road, one little kicker, back down then into a left turn at speed. An uphill to the the last turn and 200m to the finish. I had great legs for this race and spent most of my time tucked in the pack. I found the good lines around the corners was pretty comfortable. It was also very easy to move up. The last few laps the paced picked up and I moved my way to the front to stay out of any trouble that may come from sitting in the back. Coming into the last turn I positioned myself well in the top 15-20. About 100m to the top of the hill things really took off as people were sprinting to be the first to the turn. I was able to slip past many people before the turn. After the turn it was a dash to the finish line but most people were already gassed from the climb. I did not gain or lose any spots after the turn and managed a top 10, 8th place!

Stage 6:
Same course but run in the opposite direction. Going this way, the course felt a lot like Stage 3/4's course. Didn't flow too well. There was a nasty weather storm coming our way according to the radar so the officials told us we could see 1 to go at any point in time. We got off to racing. Half way into the race, the sky looked so dark that it was for sure going to rain but it never did. A break went up the road and each lap the gap got larger and no one wanted to do anything about it. I made a last ditch effort to try to bridge across (a 30 sec gap). Aaron was on my wheel and he did not work with me since his teammate was up the road. In fact we probably could have made it across together. 16th place.

Stage 7:
A 20 mile road race loop up near Cumming, GA. With a 9am start time, we had to get up early, check out and roll out way up there. Luckily we packed the trailer the night before. 3's were to do 3 laps. It was very hot and humid to the point where you were soaking wet in 30 minutes. The course was very tough with the whole back side climbing the whole time. Then at the end there was a nasty steep climb. The first time around I came off the climb with a bunch of other guys but we were able to chase back onto the group. The second time around I didn't fair as well. I thought about chasing back on but it would have been a long chase. I decide to call it quits and went to mingle at the finish line. At the finish line, there were tons of people that had already quit, quite a number from the P/1/2 field so I didn't feel so back quitting. I was still scored as 41st. We all changed and headed back home to Columbus.

On our way home, we decided to go up 129, which was a huge mistake. This road went through the mountains. It was not a very fast drive pulling a trailer. But once out of the mountains the drive went quicker. We arrived in Columbus around midnight and I still had to make the drive back to Athens. I dropped off Isaiah at his house and headed home, arriving at around 2am.

The whole weekend was a very good time. It is nice every once in a while to get out of town and race with a whole different crew. It was also nice to forget about everything else and just eat sleep and race my bike. Also the weather was unreal. Not amazing unreal but a total crapshoot on what will happen. The radar will show a system coming our way but it wouldn't rain and vice versa. I had a really good time and some good results too.

Miles: 180 (about 1200 total in the van)
2009 miles: 3023

Georgia Cup Tour of Atlanta

2009-05-26T11:17:00.003-04:00

Have lots to write but don't have the time right now. Will update with juicy details.

Anyway, here are my results from the weekend.

Stage 1 2k TT: 24th 2:18
Stage 2 2 turn crit (TT course) 21st
Stage 3 Circuit course: 26th
Stage 4 Circuit course: 19th
Stage 5 Circuit course: 8th
Stage 6 Circuit course: 16th
Stage 7 Road course 65miles: 41st

MTB Racing 2, KT 0

2009-05-17T19:40:00.003-04:00

I gave mountain bike racing another go today, this being my second race ever. There was nothing on the road scene nearby so I decided to go up to The Wilds to do the OMBC race there. The drive wasn't too bad and I got there in about an hour and a half. I got there pretty early so I had plenty of time to register, suit up and get a warm up.

Race time rolled around 1pm and we all lined up. The start was a fast downhill driveway then a sharp right onto the trail. Good, I could get the holeshot and be the first on the trail. However that did not go to plan as my chain skipped and I almost racked myself on the top tube. I didn't go down but I lost the group and i had to chase, and I never caught on. I was caught by several of the fast Sport men early but I had to do twice the milage so I let them pass. Half way in, I started to run into traffic (beginners did a shortened loop than dumped back into the main loop) and more Sport men started to catch on. I did my best to keep motoring on but it was pretty hard.

The trails were super hard. Lots of roots so you could not get a good rhythm going. Along with a few really steep sections where you had to run up with the bike. I came around to the finish and thought about quitting but I went out for my second lap. I was hurting a little nutrition wise since I had lost one GU. Well I didn't lose it but I tore the tab but it did not open the packet. It really showed as my first lap time was 1:34 with the start and running into traffic and I ran 1:45 the second lap.

I'm sure the winner was in the 2 hour range. I definitely felt I have the strength to be up there but my bike handling skills are lacking. But its not surprising since this was my second time on the mtb this month. I think I might have rode some mtb in January. Without those skills you can't keep your speed which definitely hurts you.

Anyway its time to recover and its Tour of Atlanta next week!

Milage: 145
Total 2009 Miles: 2843

TT Tuesday, New Bike

2009-05-12T21:09:00.003-04:00

Well I definitely could have gone harder today if I was fresh. Almost 18 hours last week so I was in less than optimal condition to go 100% None the less, I toed up at the line and gave it a go.

The course is out and back with two hills on it. Well the second hill leads up to the turn around so you only have to climb that once. I was running an 11-21 so I had to kick it off into the little ring to keep my watts in check. Overall I felt I paced myself well but could have done a bit better. I often saw I was not doing many watts on the back side of rollers.

Also I got a new bike today thanks to Tim Jackson at Masi Bikes. A shiny new Gran Criterium showed up at the shop this morning and I spent all day building it up. Rides nice, looks sharp and its fast!

17.63 lbs with a powermeter, 32 hole rims and aluminum/carbon fork. If I switch to race wheels (which I don't have right now), swap the fork to all carbon, and cut the Thomson seatpost, I can probably get the weight down to low to mid 16. I can also swap out my brakes to Feather brakes like my Kenda boys and save around 80g.

A Week off from Racing

2009-05-10T20:16:00.002-04:00

Didn't race this weekend. I had to work on Saturday which ment I had to skip the final Ohio Spring Race Series race in Germantown. Tym did have a race today but I decided to do a super long ride instead.

I met John and Steven at Peden at 11:05am this morning to go do our epic "Black Widow" ride. I was 5 minutes late to my own ride as usual. 100 miles, 10,000+ feet of climbing 'nough said. The Black Widow is an extended version of our Rim of the World ride. It adds a 35 mile loop of leg busting hills. Steven cut short and just did the Rim of the World while John and I continued on to do our 100 miles.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/5192255

I have to say, John did about 90% of the work on this ride. I never fair too well on rides over 60 miles so I just sat on. John on the other hand was having a really good day and was ripping my legs off.

Five and a half hours later, we rolled back into town except we had to climb through the last hilly section. The road is called Scatter Ridge, but it has been appropriately been nicknamed "Shattered Ridge." Scatter Ridge did me in and I cracked at 95 miles. It sucks because you shoot down into a valley (Strouds run) then you have to climb out of it. Thankfully it is a long gradual climb out, not the super steep stuff on Scatter Ridge.

John and I then parted ways, he has a short down hill to his house while I still had 5 miles home, which includes a 400 foot climb.

I had a good week of training though, 100 mile rides bookended the week. A good 17:40, 298 miles, 11,100kJ and a good 1100 TSS.

Depending on how I feel tomorrow, I'll probably do around 60 miles. Doing a TT on Tuesday and Worlds on Wednesday. Then take it easy for a few days. I haven't totally decided what I'm doing on the weekend but I think I am going to do a mountain bike race on Sunday. Tym has a race friday and Saturday, but I do not think my body can handle doing a 30-40 mile mtb race after racing hard the two days prior.

2009 Zipp OVCX Schedule!

2009-05-09T00:36:00.003-04:00

The new 2009 Zipp OVCX schedule has been released! I have to say I am very excited with the expanded schedule.

This year I will be racing Pro/1/2 so it will be a hard grueling season. Cyclocross is my main focus for the year so late June, early July I will stop racing road and crits, take a few weeks off, and build for the cross season. Last year was my first year racing cross and once I got the hang of it, I was flying. Hopefully I will be able to do that this year.

2009 Zipp OVCX Cyclocross Tour:

September 20: CycleSport Cyclocross - Landen, Ohio

October 4: Tour de Louisville – Louisville, Kentucky

Cincinnati International Cyclocross Festival
October 9: Darkhorse Cyclo-Stampede - Covington, KY (UCI)
October 10: Java Johnny's - Middletown, OH (UCI)
October 11: BioWheels/United Dairy Farmers Harbin Park - Fairfield, OH (UCI)

October 18: DRT Consulting Cross - Bloomington, IN

USGP Weekend
October 24: Papa John's Derby City USGP #1 - Louisville, KY (UCI)
October 25: Papa John's Derby City USGP #2 - Louisville, KY(UCI)

November 1: Gun Club Cyclocross - Cincinnati, OH

November 8: Promotion Cross - Lexington, KY

November 15: Infirmary Mound/Cap City Cross - Columbus, OH

Indy Weekend
November 21: Southeastway Cross – Indianapolis, Indiana
November 22: Brookside Cross Cup / IN State Championships – Indianapolis, Indiana

November 29: John Bryan State Park / Ohio State Champs - Yellow Springs, OH

Zipp OVCX Finale
December 6 Storm the Greens / Kentucky State Champs - Louisville, KY

Bad Luck

2009-05-03T20:47:00.003-04:00

I don't seem to have much luck these past few weeks. DNF both days last weekend and I also DNFed today. I didn't ride too much this week, a combination of fatigue and lack of motivation.

Another lame excuse is I didn't have my Quarq CinQo since it was back at Spearfish, SD to get some work done. However, they did a fantastic job fixing it. Mieke sent me a Fedex 2day return label so I sent it in on Monday. Repairs done, then overnighted it back to me and I had it back on the bike on Friday! The CinQo itself was working fine, it just wasn't fitted exactly right on the crank which gave me some bad ring wobble. This caused me to have less than desireable shift quality and I was often throwing chains. Regardless, it was refitted and now its working fine. A+ on customer service.

Anyway back to today's race. I was driving solo since Stoner bailed on me last minute. I got a text message at 8:06 am that he wasn't going (planned on leaving at 8:45). Come on, bailing the morning of is one thing, but sending me a text message instead of a phone call?

I've never raced this course before and there was a nice 2 minute hill leading up to the start finish. I am always worried about hills since climbing is not my forte but it turned out not to be so bad the 2 times I went up it. I felt pretty good during my race but on the 3rd lap I started to get an upset stomach. The 4's field some how managed to catch us and rode away and my stomach felt worse and worse. Comeing back to the hill, I let the group ride away and I took my time up the hill. Once at the top, told the official I was out then quickly headed down to the parking lot headed straight for the Port-a-John. Saturday's dinner was wrecking havoc and I won't go into further details.

I changed and sat around in the car for a while but realized it'll be a while before anyone finished so I just decided to drive home.

The past few weeks have been a little disappointing but I'm sure it'll turn around. I mean look at last year, all season was one big disappointment and then at the end of the year, I pulled off several top 10's and 20's during cross season.

Miles on the car: 285

YTD: 2698

MWCCC Regionals Road Race

2009-04-26T06:59:00.002-04:00

Yesterday was a brutal day. It was 90 degrees and I had to do 80 miles of one of the hardest race courses I have ever done. I mean, its just plain hard just riding it and now I have to race it. To make things worse, the long 7 mile gradual downhill had a stiff headwind so there was no place to go easy.

Anyway I completed 40 of the 80 miles. I don't think half our field finished. I got popped on the second lap when someone attacked and just couldn't hold the wheel. Instead of turning around like I saw most people do, I just pedalled along and finished my second lap. The B group caught up to me but I let them go past. I could have sat it with them but it probably would have ended with a DQ or fine since the B group ended up catching the A's. Not to mention some dude was all hot about me not mixing in with them.

I thought about doing one more lap to get some miles in but I decided against that as I got closer to the finish. It was super hot and would have just depleted me even further for today's race.

Today is more suited for me, flat. We'll see how the winds are, hopefully its not gutter to gutter racing.

Miles on the Matrix: 48
Total 2009: 2413

Vandervorts Corner OSRS #3

2009-04-19T20:04:00.002-04:00

The Vandervorts Corner race is a race I have not had a lot of success with. The first year I did it, I crashed out, second year I DNF'ed, third year I did not have fitness and came in dangling. I hoped to change that this time around.

I left my house at 8:30 in the morning, filled up gas and was on my way. I was solo today so it was a boring drive with the music cranked way up. The drive was a little over 2 hours. I arrived around 10:45 so I had plenty of time to get ready. The conditions were windy and a bit nippy.

We were set to do 7 laps, around 56 miles. As always, the wind made things very difficult. The first 3 laps were blistering fast. Ok we only averaged 23 and change but the speed is a little skewed if you factor in the headwind section where you were doing 14-16mph at 300+ watts. Every lap we were sheding off several riders. Laps were in around 20 minutes for the 8 mile loop.

On the forth lap, the group split up and once again, I missed the split. The lead group gained a little bit of time and the rest of the group sat around doing very little. About a lap later, another split happened and I once again missed it. I really don't know what I was thinking but I guess that is how it rolls. I rolled in with our group to finish up our race.

Afterwards, a huge group of us headed to Max and Erma's up the road on I-71. Nothing feels better than a nice big meal with a bunch of your racing buddies.

Next week is going to be brutal. 80 miles of the Lake Hope loop for Collegiate Regionals on Saturday, then the Gettysburg race on Sunday.

Mileage: 277
Mileage 2009: 2365

Another Day in the rain

2009-04-14T20:00:00.003-04:00

Another training day in the rain. I headed out the door shortly after 7am. It was not raining at that time. About 15 minutes later, it started raining. It continued raining for the next three hours. the last 15 mintues, it finally let up.

I have a new appreciation for riding in the rain. It's very peaceful, just you, the bike, the road and of course the rain (and associated things like wind and cold). I love the look people give you as they drive by.

When riding in the rain, everything else seems much better. You are in this miserable state of cold and wet and everything you think about just seems so nice and motivates you to ride harder so you can get your training over with.

Also it's quite amazing how awesome fenders are. Despite riding through a rain storm, I stayed fairly dry. I did not get the swimming in your chamois feeling you get when you get caught out in the rain by surprise.

Fenders are a lifesaver

2009-04-13T19:31:00.001-04:00

Today I went out on this cold and rainy day. I felt really good yesterday (sunday) so I decided to do the Rim of the World ride last night. That was before I checked the weather. I was so set on doing the ride, I simply didn't care if it rained.

I planned on leaving at 2p but it was raining really hard and I was not too motivated to go ride 4 hours in the rain. It soon let up to a light drizzle so I headed out the door. About 15 minutes later, the rain completely stopped and soon I was getting really hot in my plastic rain cape.

About an hour into the ride, the rain had come back. I put the rain cape back on and it rained for the next two hours, Awesome! The rain was off and on at times but it was never long enough to take off the rain cape. And at this point I had gotten a little cold so I needed as much warmth as I could get.

It was finally good to see sunshine at around hour 3. I also had a slight tail wind so it made the ride home a little easier.

I ended with 4 hours and change, not too fast but solo I find it acceptable. In the late summer, John, Rick and I did this ride in 3 hours and change but we were really fit. My intensity factor was only 0.778 so I definitely could have gone harder. However, I have a tendency to bonk on longer rides so I took it easy in the beginning, especially since I was riding solo. But I found the secret to riding longer hours, Oatmeal Cream Pies! I've changed my during ride eating habits, making sure I am eating plenty so I can make it through the ride.

Deer Creek Race

2009-04-12T11:29:00.005-04:00

I sucked yesterday. The wind was horrible. I got popped two laps to go. It was a wrong place at the wrong time sort of deal. Makes it even worse with the 30mph winds. I chased but ultimately the field got away.

I motored on for a lap solo and got caught by the 4's field and took a free ride on the back to finish up the race. Man was I scared sitting in the back of that 4's field.

There is always next week.

Milage: 180

Total Milage 2009: 2088

Hueston Woods Race!

2009-04-05T20:32:00.003-04:00

It felt good to finally go out and race. Weather was perfect today and the rain storm held off. Ben picked me up at my house at 7am and we were off to the races. This will probably be the longer of the drives so its good to get it out of the way early.

When we arrived, I met up with the Kenda crew, Marco, Renke-saurus rex, Birdman and Cougar hunter. It was good seeing those guys again.

Anyway, since I wrote a race report for the team blog, here's that pasted. But be sure to check out my team's website, http://www.teamathenscycling.com

Ben and I raced today at Hueston Woods for the first race in the Ohio Spring Race Series. Ben arrived at my house at around 7 am and we were off to go race. The course was on a road that went around a lake. The 8 mile loop consisted of average pavement, rolling terrain, and two little climbs that made the legs sting.

We arrived with plenty of time to spare, registered, put on our costumes and did a quick warm up. The scheduled distance was 6 laps. Since this was the first USAC race in Ohio, people were quick to attack and try to get away. None of these attacks stuck until around the 3rd lap, around 6-7 guys got away. Thinking that this would just come back, I did nothing and sat in. About half a lap later, one guy made the attempt to solo to the break and Ben quickly jumped on his wheel and both of them made it though. At that point, the break count was around 11. From then, the field slowed down. Most of the big teams had members represented in the break and did not do any work. Since I had Ben up the road, I too did nothing.

Coming into the final lap, I saw Ben just up the road. Ben had gotten caught off guard and was dropped from the break. At this point, the break was so far up the road, no one was motivated to chase at all. We passed the women's field, but then we were quickly caught by them because we were going so slow.

Coming into the field sprint, half the field had called it quits and the other half was willing to go for it. The finish consisted of a down hill then a slight rise, then flattened out for 200-300 meters, then pitched up again for about 300 meters to the finish. I sneaked my way to the front and soon someone attacked. I quickly got on his wheel and let him tow me closer to the line. I then sprinted 300m to go. There were two danglers from the break ahead and I caught one but not the other. I finished 12th while Ben rolled in with the field.

It definitely felt good to go out there and race again. Next week its off to Deer Creek for me while Ben heads east to Morgantown, WV for a race there.

Clothing Finally!

2009-04-01T21:51:00.002-04:00

Our Team clothing order finally arrived today, 2 days ahead of Fedex's schedule!

I spent an hour sorting and checking our order, ended up only missing two jerseys which are being produced as I speak.

Anyway, here are the real pictures

Wrecked on the Bike Path

2009-03-28T21:03:00.005-04:00

I'm such a Cat NONE! I wrecked on the bike path! I guess it was not totally my fault but still I went down.

So I was cruising on the bike path to get home after a killer ride. I was grabbing some food and all of a sudden this douche bag sprinted passed me and got in front of me. No big deal, he's trying to pull for me. Then all of a sudden he sits up! Not being anywhere prepared for this, we crossed wheels and I hit the ground.

I wasn't too badly scraped up, but I tore my favorite pair of fleece bib knickers! My handlebars got caught up in this guy's rear wheel so I carefully untangled it. Then this guy who wrecked me totally chewed me out how I was riding dangerously! He did a quick spin of his rear wheel to see if it was damaged and he completely blew it. His wheel was completely trashed and he started yelling and screaming how I owed him a new wheel and it was completely my fault! Wait a minute, he sat up in front of me and caused me to wreck. The guy didn't even go down. And look at me, bar tape all torn up, bloody leg, torn knickers, shift lever twisted, chain derailed.

So this dude picked up some rebar that happened to be laying on the trail and started going after me. Luckily I have super ninja skills and made him run away.

What an asshole.

Quarq CinQo

2009-03-17T00:44:00.003-04:00

It's finally here! I dreamed of being able to afford crank based power and now I have it! Not that I really could afford it, had to spend money that was supposed to be saved/invested but it's an investment in my cycling and fitness right?

Only really took it around the block since I had other pressing matters at hand. Data lags a little bit but I guess that is the Garmin's fault, not as instantaneous like the Powertap. I definitly noticed a difference in Q and shifting is not as good as the Campy crank I had on there. Bling Campy Record Crank or Power? I choose power.

Why did I choose the Sram version over the FSA or Rotor? Well because Sram has one bottom bracket. FSA has a billion different bottom brackets. I wanted to be able to pop off the crank and put in on the second bike if and when I needed to. Like switching to a TT bike or cross bike. Also the Sram cranks were the cheapest (can't get WS on the Rotors)

Oh by the way, Campy Record Ultra Torque crank for sale. Need to somewhat offset the cost of the CinQo

Flux-tastic!

2009-03-16T23:38:00.000-04:00

Time to soak in the tub to get rid of the flux

2009-03-14T21:31:00.001-04:00

2009-03-14T21:30:00.001-04:00

2009-03-14T21:28:00.000-04:00

Work in progress

2009-03-14T21:26:00.000-04:00

Technology Makes Us Stupid

2009-03-12T23:52:00.002-04:00

So how many phone numbers do you know off the top of your head?

Me? Home, mom's cell, brother's cell, dad's office, the bike shop, and of course my number (being slowely replaced by business cards). That's a whopping 6 phone numbers (obviously not including 911, 411, 0, etc). I asked Hank at work yesterday and he came up with 4.

I remember back in the day when cell phones were a super luxury and only rich people had them and I knew everyone of my friend's phone number off the top of my head. It was awesome, like your huge cell phone address book but instant and implanted in your brain.

Yes our fancy iPhones, Blackberrys, HTC's, Treos, Winblows Mobile phones make us cool and "connected" but its really amazing how dependent we are on these things. Even your plain jane cell phone has all your contacts in it and you can't contact people without it. Hell, you can even communicate with someone without even talking to them now.

The other day, my iPhone battery died. I seriously considered going home to pick up the charger. Sad...

So how many phone numbers do you know?

Garmin 705 and Wednesday Worlds

2009-03-11T21:46:00.002-04:00

The Garmin 705 arrived today and that's half the equation for power. Waiting on the Cranks to get back from Quarq. The crank arm I sent to them arrived there today, so day or two to get it set up, then a 3 day trip via UPS. Should be on Power Monday or Tuesday. Very excited.

We also started up Wednesday Worlds here in Athens. A little cold today and very windy, but we had a decent crew of Carrie, Brad, Curt, John and I. Adam and Hank also showed up but did not partake in the hammerfest portion, they just came out to ride and catch us on the way back in.

This ride was my first really intense ride of the year. A good test of the legs to see if winter training really paid off. I was still a little tired from the previous week's training so I decided not to overdo myself (well we all start off saying that).

The course was Old US33. Ever since they built the new highway, this road has very low traffic and the road conditions are very good. A few flat sections, rollers and a few steeper/longer hills to mix it up. I launched a first attack on a small riser to see how my legs were feeling and to scope out the rest of the crew. I quickly drifted back into the pack on the downhill since I'm no super breakaway specialist and TT for 30 miles solo.Thats when John attacked into Shade and that was the last I saw of him. I waited a little bit too long to try to bridge up to him. I basically tried two solo bridge attempts but finally decided to just forget about it and have more fun in the group.

Coming back in, I attacked a few times but someone was always hard at work to pull me back in. We caught up to Hank and Adam and they joined up adding some fresh legs. As we got closer into town, the attacks came on heavy and once only a few miles to go, the pace really slowed down and the cat and mouse games started. Adam eventually launched a hard attack that splintered the group. I covered and counter attacked and continued on the gradual hill that lead to the city limits. Hank and Curt bridged on and again, I was leading trying to make sure to keep those guys in check. About 500m, Hank attacked and while I responded, I couldn't bring him back in (remember he had fresh legs) . I rolled in shortly after he did. I probably attacked one too many times earlier that cost me at the end. If I had the CinQo, I could definitly look back at the power numbers.

I definitely felt good. My legs felt great and had a lot of snap and power. However I feel I am lacking power for longer durations, especially after I attack.

You know as I was writing this, I was wondering why am I writing in such detail on a training ride. I should really go out and race! Mid-Ohio is this Saturday. I'll see how the legs are feeling Friday and decide then if I want to go.

Quarq Cinqo Saturn

2009-03-06T21:28:00.003-05:00

I dropped the big bucks today to buy a Quarq Cinqo Saturn today. This is probably one of the few times I did not hesitate to drop over $1K to buy something.

Ranked #1 in the State

2009-03-04T22:48:00.004-05:00

That's right! I'm ranked number 1 in the state for Cat2's in Ohio in cyclocross!

Back Home

2009-03-02T21:07:00.002-05:00

I finally got home Sunday around 9:30p. We had to drive through a wicked winter storm through North Carolina, Virginia and parts of WV. Todd and I saw so many cars on the side of the road.

Anyway, I'm super worn out and need a few days to recover. I slept in and skipped class (oops, that's 4 days in a row) but I wouldn't have really been too productive even if I did go. I have to take a make up exam tomorrow for the exam I skipped during camp and also getting my body fixed up with a massage.

I'll finish up a report on camp later

Day 3

2009-02-28T02:20:00.001-05:00

Day three consisted of much of the same, wrenching. No new bikes to
build hut lots of adjustments and such. I managed to get fit and I
have to say Wobblenaught fit is pretty awesome.

After my fit if was pretty much cutting forks and doing minor
adjustments.

He team went ona team bonding activity of flag football while we
stayed back to work. I wish I could haveplayed butwe got a lot done
with no one coming to for help.

Katsu Tanda

Sent from my iPhone

Day1 recap

2009-02-26T08:12:00.001-05:00

Day 1 has come and gone and it is now the begining of day two.

The day pretty much consisted of me and Tennyson just building bikes.
I first unloaded the trailer with Mario and Jaime the built bikes till
1am ( with lunch and dinner inbetween) As bikes were built, guys were
getting fit. I don't think I have ever built that many bikes from
parts ever. My hands are certainly raw.

Today consists of pretty much the same. Most of the bikes are done so
it's finish up the few left and possibly hang parts on the TT bikes. I
believe we are also going to Hicapie to take some photos as well.

I hope there is sometime for me to get fit, either today or sometime
later this week.

Katsu Tanda

Sent from my iPhone

Team camp day 1

2009-02-25T08:28:00.001-05:00

I'm here in beautiful Greenville, SC for the first day of Kenda Pro
Cycling p/b Spinergy team camp. We arrived late last night to the
Westin Hotel. Super nice hotel. Probably a bit much for training camp
but I'm not complaining. Today will consist of more people rolling in,
bike fits, and BIKE BUILDS! I'll probably be building bikes all day.
Hopefully I can get out for a ride (doubt it) but I can probably hit
the fitness center or ride the trainer/rollers.

I'll post photos as I can.

Katsu Tanda

Sent from my iPhone

Update + Kenda Team Camp

2009-02-22T20:39:00.002-05:00

Another week has come and gone. I got in 12 hours and 172 miles of riding in 3 days of riding this week (8 hours this weekend). Not spectacular but I'll take it for February.

Saturday was a really nice day to ride but today was horrible, cold and windy.

On another note, I'll be heading down to Greenville, SC Tuesday or Wednesday for Kenda Pro Cycling presented by Spinergy, Travelers Insurance Training Camp presented by L.H. Thomson. That's a mouthful. Team camp is probably the only one time everyone is together and is a really important time. Things get passed out, pictures taken, and most importantly, team bonding. Oh stick in some riding as well. While you probably have read on Cyclingnews or other news outlet, many big teams have multiple training camps, one for media/distribution of goods/pictures and one for actual training. Well, ours is a mix of the two, more centered around the former.

This is my second year with the team and camp is in a different location from last year. I believe the last few years camp was in Macon, GA, where the L.H. Thomson factory is located. This year we'll be in Greenville, SC where team sponsor Hincapie Sportswear is located.

It should be a great time, meeting all the new people and sponsors. However its not all fun and games, as I think I'll have to build a bunch of bikes.

Mohican 100?

2009-02-18T21:18:00.002-05:00

I'm trying to decide if I want to do the Mohican 100 this year. Yup 100miles on a mountain bike. Sounds like torture and it is torture.

I would sign up today but the entry fee is $130! Trying to determine if spending ~$250 on a weekend is worth it to get my ass kicked.

Shimano Custom Fit Shoes

2009-02-17T21:06:00.002-05:00

I called my Shimano Rep today to see the viability of becoming a Custom Fit Dealer. Shimano makes some awesome shoes and yes I will wear Shimano shoes on a full Campy bike.

Last year when I called my rep, he told me I need to buy 10 12 pairs of R300 or R210's. In that deal, we get the custom fit vacu-oven. Cool, 12 pairs of $350 shoes.

So I called today to see my options, since I really want to get a pair of R310's and possibly M310's for cross. Since I'm running a team now, I could also offer the shoes to the team guys at great prices.

So the number? 24 pairs of custom fit shoes! I honestly don't think we sell 24 pairs of shoes at the shop, let alone $350 shoes. I then asked if we could just buy the oven and buy ones of shoes. Sorry no. Damn this really sucks. My rep said Shimano's justification was they now offer a wider range of custom fit shoes, especially in a lower price point.

So can I EP shoes for myself? Yes! But what good does me getting some sweet shoes do when I can't get them for my customers? I don't think Shimano offers a non-custom fit carbon soled shoe anymore. I know for sure the only two carbon soled mountain bike shoes are custom fit only.

It's a real bummer that small shops can't help out their customers anymore. If our shop was in Columbus with lots of shops around, we could deal around and have other guys pool in for a purchase. Do that every year until we all have our own ovens. But since we are located in a small town, that is not an option (and it would probably be frowned upon by Shimano)

Sunday Ride

2009-02-15T20:26:00.002-05:00

I was amazed today to find 12 people at the ride today(13 including me)! I think it was Me, Rick, Ryan, Jason, Carrie, Brad, Curt, Erin, Joe, Dan, James (who showed up in just a jersey and shorts), guy on a tri bike, and Guy on a green Calfee.

We did one of the Wednesday worlds loops that we had done in the past. Pretty mellow for the most part, a few attacks here and there. Ended up with 35 miles and 2 hours. I would have liked to add another hour but no one else wanted to.

Form is coming along nicely considering I am still recovering from sickness. I have decent power but the top end is a little lacking. I also suffer a little bit when the efforts get longer. All is good though, I now know what to plug into the CT for this week.

Team shit to take care of tomorrow (sending back test clothes, putting in our order), sending my mill motor off for repair and then hitting the Mountain bike trails and get a good 2-3 hours in. I also plan on building my bike this week so I can get it out to paint and hopefully have it ready for Kenda Training camp.

2009 Team Athens Kit Final!

2009-02-14T09:22:00.001-05:00

Finally got back our updated proof and its final. Its going into production on Monday!

Major paper jam

2009-02-11T08:22:00.000-05:00

I've never seen a printer jam up so badly. My printer decided to feed
23 sheets of paper!

Busy Week

2009-02-07T16:18:00.005-05:00

Well its been a pretty busy week for me. Dealing with school, the team and training is a lot of work. The past week's training took its toll on my body so I ended up off the bike Monday-Thursday.

Monday-Wednesday consisted of me trying to finish a programming project. Its really not smart to try to learn a new language (Ruby) and do a project at the same time. Regardless I was able to finish the project in time and it actually works! Though I have to admit, its not the cleanest or most efficient code I've written, including some no-no's like excessive use of global variables (I cut a few out by submission time)

On the Team Athens front, John and I were busy trying to get the artwork out to Champion Systems (ok more John working on the art). There were a few last minute sponsor communications I had to deal with, which led to some headaches but it was all completed. The Jersey is looking good and I am really happy with it. Props to John for working hard on it and thanks to our sponsors, Cycle Path, KT Prototype, Champion Hosts, Ritchey, GU, Polar, FLUID, Aeras/Evolve, Kenda. Also thanks to my personal sponsors Livewire Energy, Beljum Budder and Caddis Sports.

Domains...

2009-01-30T13:03:00.001-05:00

My arsenal of domain names is slowly growing...

Southern Cross Part 2 / Cross-a-Nooga

2009-01-26T08:40:00.003-05:00

The crew got up around 7am and we quickly packed and headed out the door. I maybe got 2-3 hours of shitty sleep. Breakfast was eaten over at a Hardee's across the street. After our feed, we drove out to Mulberry Gap. It was a little ways from our Ellijay but we finally made it. Really nice looking place.

We parked the car and headed up for registration. Pretty soon, it started raining. It kept raining for a good 15-30 minutes into the race. We suited up and setup our bikes. I decided to race on tubulars. Yes after Eddie and Namrita told us several times NOT to ride tubulars, I went ahead against their advice. I dropped off a spare set of wheels for the supplies drop and strapped on a spare tub for the road. We had a pre-race meeting at 9:30 and rollout was set for 10am.

At 10 or thereabouts, we were off racing. The race started off with a short little cross course which included a stream crossing, bridge crossing and run ups, then off onto the gravel road section. I was in the lead group through the cross section and then somehow got gapped out on the gravel road section. I was in a no mans land between the lead and the chase group. I simply pedaled along the rollers until pretty soon I got taken in by the chasers.

The chase group had every solo rider's dream, a tandem! The Andy and Cara Applegate tandem pulled us along with a few others doing pulls. We hit the road section and were able to pick up speed. There were really only a few of us doing work and when it was my turn to work, I happily went to the front. However, I seemed to pull through a little too hard, especially on the rollers and no one seemed to want to keep pace. In hindsight, I should have just sucked wheel in the back. The lead group became visible now and again and it looked like they were not going so hard. We caught up to them about a mile to the big climb.

Once we all hit the climb, the group completely shattered. For a lot of people, the race became a ride. The climb was a 12 mile dirt/gravel road climb with about an average of 5%, getting steeper toward the top. The bottom third of the climb was reletively dry and easy to navigate. I just kept pace and kept thoughs legs moving. Hank and Adam caught up to me on the dry section and rode away. As I climbed higher, the conditions worsened. There was a section where the fog was so bad you couldn't see too far ahead of you. The ground turned into hardpack into soupy peanut butter mud. Luckily, there wasn't too much clay content to clog up everything.

So I kept climbing, and climbing, and climbing. I reached the drop zone and stopped for a brief moment to grab the extra bottle I stashed in my wheelbag. Eddie said the drop zone would be located about 9 miles from the start of the climb. So I had 3 more miles to go! Well those 3 miles had to be the longest 3 miles in my life. This was the section that sucked the most. The grades were the steepest and the condtions were the worst. Now the road did not have a constant up hill grade. You would come to a short downhill or flat section that you thought was the top, but the hill just disappointed and gave you more climbing.

I finally made it (although there were some sections I had to walk up) and hit the downhill. The downhill sucked just as much as the climb. My body was a complete wreck, I was out of food, and my bike was not setup to bomb downhills. My tricepts, hands and neck would start to cramp as I made my way down the hill. Normally I would be able to go down long downhills barely touching the brakes but I'll have to say I wore down my pads a lot on this downhill.

I made it to the bottom and Southern Cross did not disappoint on the hurt. There was still quite a ways back to Mulberry Gap with a few climbs. I slowly made my way back to the property to hit the cross section again. I was greated by the mother of all run ups. It was pretty much a wall. Impossible to ride up and even pretty hard to walk, I mean crawl up without a bike. After that monster it was all pretty much downhill from there.

I managed to finish 26th in 3 hours 50 minutes. That was quite possibly the hardest race I have ever done. Afterwards we ate some chili and drank some beer. I'll definitely comeback next year, but with an easier gear.

We headed back to the Budget Inn, cleaned up and rested. For dinner we went to Colonel Poole's BBQ which was just down the street from us. We later had a 4th meal at Royal Waffle King.

The next day we hit up the Cross-A-Nooga cross race. It was on our way home so Hank and I suited up again. My body was completely wrecked at this point and I didn't know how competitive I would be. Hank's mom came up to watch from Birmingham. When the time came around, we lined up and off we were off. I was sitting third wheel for about half a lap until my body completly shut down. I had no long sustainable power. I was still able to sprint out of corners and had the short term power but the legs were running on empty for the longer stuff. I made do and kept racing till the end. The lead group of 3 (including Hank) was fast approaching in the last few laps so I mustered up some motivation to not get lapped and turned up the intensity. I finished with my legs and back hurting and ready to go home.

The drive back was your typical drive but we found out something interesting in Knoxville. We stopped for gas and found you can get Fat Tire in Knoxville. Hank and Adam bought a few (they only had 22oz bottles) but I passed. I'm not too big of a fan of Amber and brown Ales. We stopped for dinner at Bajios in Lexingtion and were back in Athens around 10:30p.

This was one of my most favorite weekend trips in a while. Results were not what I had hoped for but at the end of the day, I'm not getting paid to pedal my bike so I should maximize my fun.

Oh by the way, I kept piling on the hurt and went on a 3hr mtb ride on Monday.

Miles this trip: 1128
Miles for 2009 : 1908

Southern Cross Part 1

2009-01-24T03:18:00.003-05:00

Ok so its 3am in the morning and I'm sitting here wide awake. I can't sleep. It's not that I'm getting pre-race jitters, I'm just hopped on caffeine from the drive down. It really sucks.

We got out of town at around 2:45p. Driving is pretty much driving and I've gotten pretty numb to long hours behind the wheel. I'm going to be doing a lot of it again driving with Kenda so I better get used to it now. We made it to Lexington, KY around 5:45 so we stopped by the Calisotoga for dinner. Filled up on gas and started driving again. We stopped again just south of Knoxville and made a food/caffeine/gas stop. We really didn't need the gas but filled up while it was cheap and might as well since we had stopped anyway. We arrived at the Budget Inn at around 11:45.

We all unpacked and got ready for bed. I quickly put down two coats of glue onto the spare tubular (which I hope I don't have to use) and hit the bed. Well I laid there for about an hour and couldn't fall asleep. Ok no big deal, I'll listen to Ultimate Cyclist which usually helps me to sleep. There were some portions where I fell out of consciousness but I woke up at the end. Damn. So I laid around for another hour and looked at the clock. 3am and wide awake. This really sucks.

I guess I'll make the best of my insomnia and put a new chain on the bike and do some stretches. I'm definitely heading to the doctor's office this week and getting prescribed some Ambien. I hate to result to this but like one of my riders said its really important to get sleep when you really need it. I can't travel, not sleep and feel like shit in the morning.

North Carolina Weekend

2009-01-22T19:37:00.004-05:00

I've been really busy this past week and haven't had time to report on my expedition to North Carolina.

I headed down to North Carolina pretty soon after my last class of the day. I grabbed some stuff at the shop, filled up the tank, grabbed some lunch and I was on my way. A pretty uneventful drive down. I arrived at my Host's house at around 6:30p. My hosts were super nice and we talked about a lot about bike racing. He was in fact the promoter of the race I was doing the next day.

I got up the next morning and it was cold. 10 degrees on my car's thermometer in the morning. I left early to help out Andy with the course and race. I got to the race about 4 hours early. There was really nothing to do since the course was all set up so sat in my car and listened to The Ultimate Cyclist. It was soon time to warm up so I suited up and hit the trainer. The weather had warmed up a little. It was soon time to race so I lined up and we were off.

I had a typical start, not the greatest but enough to keep me mid pack. About two laps in, I started to really fade. My lower back kept getting tighter and tighter. Whenever I really started putting the power down, my back would start to seize and in turn didn't let me pedal. I kept going for about another lap but soon disappeared off the course. I was really disappointed, I had driven all this way only to pull out of the race.

Afterwards, I helped tear down the course and it was back on the road to Greensboro to my next host house. Again, my hosts were super nice. They were actually going out to dinner with some friends so I had the whole house to myself. I showered, watched a movie and headed to bed. I slept till about 10a and found myself an Ihop. Unlimited pancakes deal!

The course was a few miles outside of town so after breakfast I headed out that direction. I made a quick stop to get some ibuprofen so relieve some of my back pain. I got to the race, signed in and suited up. I took a different warm-up approach this time and just went out and rode the roads.

I got a better start this time but not as great as I hoped. Also the whole start stretch was uphill so it really sapped the juice out of your legs once you hit the grass. My back was still bothering me but not as much as the day before. The pain was at least bearable. This course had 5 sections where you had to dismount and run. There was a woodchip playground area where the woodchips were enclosed in a big box. So the course cut two of the corners . I guess if you had bunny hopping skills, you could have done it w/o dismounting. Second was a nice sandpit with a 180. Almost everyone got off and ran that section. Third was a set of stairs, fourth a hillside with a log barrier and fifth a set of double barriers. I really liked this course and would have really enjoyed it more if I had a healthy back. I ended up getting lapped by Richard Sachs/RGM rider Jon Hamblen (also rides for Team Mountain Khakis on the road) but I finished the race.

Shortly after the race, I repacked my car and headed home. I came home to about 3-5" of snow.

Southern Cross and Cross-a-Nooga this weekend!

Miles Driven in 2009: 780

Going Down South

2009-01-15T18:40:00.002-05:00

Its time to get out of this freezing cold and go down south. I'm leaving tomorrow for Charlotte, NC to enjoy some warmer weather (if you can really call 40f warm). I'm doing the North Carolina Winter Cyclocross races on Saturday and Sunday. Yup, I'm going to get destroyed by Jon Hamblen.

I was able to get some host housing by some fine folks down there and will make this solo trip a little easier on the wallet. It's really great that some people are willing to let total strangers come in and stay at their homes. I really appreciate their support.

Also next weekend, the CX crew (hank and adam) are heading down to Northern Georgia to hit up Southern Cross. On the way back home, we are also hitting up Cross-a-Nooga to get some more racing action.

2009 Schedule/Results

2009-01-08T22:39:00.034-05:00

2009 Final Results

January 17th North Carolina Winter Cyclocross #4 Charlotte, NC DNF
January 18th North Carolina Winter Cyclocross #5 Greensboro, NC 7th
January 24th Southern Cross Ellijay, GA 26th
January 25th Cross-A-Nooga #2 East Ridge, TN 5th
April 5th OSRC Hueston Woods 12th
April 11th OSRC Deer Creek 30th
April 19th OSRC Vandervorts Corner 17th
April 25th OSU Regionals *Collegiate DNF
April 26th OSRC Gettysburg DNF
May 3rd OSRC Spring Valley DNF
May 17 OMBC The Wilds MTB Race 8th
May 21-25st Georgia Cup Tour of Atlanta

Stage 1 ITT: 24th

Stage 2 Crit: 21st

Stage 3 Circuit: 26th

Stage 4 Circuit: 19th

Stage 5 Circuit: 8th

Stage 6 Circuit: 16th

Stage 7 Road: 41st

May 30th Mohican 100 97th @ 11:38.24

June 7th ABR Criterium State Championships 2nd

June 14th Ohio State Road Race DNF
June 27th Hyde Park Blast DNF
June 28th Tour de Grandview Columbus, OH DNF

July 10-12 Tour of the Valley

Stage 1: 16th

Stage 2 Crit: 23rd

Stage 3 RR: 38

Stage 4 Crit: 16th
July 19th Miamisburg (Ohio State Crit Championships) 16th
August 2nd OMBC Lake Hope 11th
August 8th Garrett Wonders DNF
September 5th Long Street Tour 18th

CROSS!
September 12 Heath Cross Heath, OH 8th

September 19th King CX Landen, OH 14th

September 20th Kings CX Landen, OH 17th

October 3rd Alum Creek Beach 11th
October 4th Tour de Louisville 18th

October 9th Darkhorse Cyclo-Stampede Burlington, KY 32nd*UCI
October 10th Lionhearts International CX Middletown, OH 2/3 19th*UCI
October 11th BioWheels/UDF Harbin Park Cincinnati, OH 2/3 36th*UCI

October 24th USGP Louisville #3 Louisville, KY 2/3 19th*UCI
October 25th USGP Louisville #4 Louisville, KY 2/3 51st *UCI

October 31st Uncle Steves Halloween Party 6th

November 1st Gun Club Cross Cincinnati, OH 14th

November 8th Promotion Cross Lexington, KY 13th

November 15th Infirmary Mound Columbus, OH 20th

November 21st Southeastway Cross Indy 16th

November 22nd Brookside Cross/IN State Champs 16th

November 29th John Bryan Ohio State Champs Yellow Springs, OH 21st
December 5th Smith Farms 4th

December 6th Storm the Greens KY State Champs 12th

December 19th Infirmary Mound #2 4th

6th Overall in OVCX Elite Men

5th Overall in Cap City Cross Elite Men

Stats:
Total Races 51
Road: 24
Mountain: 3
Cross: 24