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Found this on the velonews photo contest page. What a great shot.

Kenosh Crit seals dissappointing Superweek

Kenosha is always one of my favorite crits and this year i was hoping to do well. A goal I had for this years superweek was to show myself that i can be competitive at the Cat 3 level during superweek. After withdrawing from the Proving Grounds race with back spasms and then feeling good but wasting too much energy at Evanston I really wanted to shoot for a top 10 at Kenosha.

Seeing that I have been the only abd cat 3 at all of superweek i figured I would have to conserve as much energy thru out the race to put myslef in a good position for the final. The pace didn't seem near as high as evanston was and for the most part i did a pretty good job of not doing much. A few times i found myself at the front when i didn't want to and ended up pulling back a break or two but overall i was feeling pretty good.

The race had seemed pretty smooth with no mishaps. Turn 1 was nice and smooth since it had been repaired since last year. For the most part i was taking the inside of turn 1. Every time i would check the inside behind me to see if anybody was trying to bomb the corner and then go thru it.

What happened next is just my best recollection of it. Everything happened so fast that I don't exactly know but I was pretty sure i had the line into the inside of turn 1 when all of a sudden i got bumped and was going down. I never saw it coming. I don't remember crossing a wheel. Nothing. All i know is i was going down. I remember being down on the pavement and judging by the marks on my back and having my head bounce off the pavement a few times i got hit by a rider or 2.

After the the storm was over i was actually surprised it wasn't worse. I guess i expected to really get plowed into while down on the pavement but that didn't seem to happen. I picked myself and my bike up and moved over to the side of the road. Looking down at my leg i had road rash all over and also on my elbow. I actually contemplated trying to jump back in until someone handed my the rear strap of my helmet. That is when i became aware of the sensation on the back of my head.

I made my way over to the first aid station. The good news was that i was able to move everything and knew nothing was torn, separated, or broken. On the way to the station i was asked if i was ok and i said i thought so but thought i had a cut on the back of my head. That was followed by a "duuuude!" comment so i figured it was a doosey.

The tally was 2 staples in the back of my head, road rash on my right leg, thigh, and elbow. I'll spare you pictures.

All in all i came out very fortunate. Not so lucky was Ed Amstutz of team xxx. It was pretty obvious that he broke his collar bone. I have not heard officially what his injuries were but it didn't seem good. It's really unfortunate since he was 2nd overall for superweek.

I don't want to be bitter about this but from talking to people who saw this go down it seems i was more or less just taken out with the person causing the accident talking smack about it later. All i can say is that your actions took out a very good rider in Ed. All for 1 lame position in a turn in the middle of the field. Stupid.

I've never claimed to be the worlds best bike handler but I don't think i did anything wrong. If it's shown to me that i did then fine but i really don't think that is the case. Still i feel really bad that someone like Ed sustained an injury like he did.

Evanston Northwestern Healthcare Grand Prix of Cycling

First off, kudos to everyone involved in putting on this race. I knew that the location of downtown Evanston would be fun but the organizers did a great job of running this race. There were tons of people and the atmosphere was great. This will definitely be on my calandar in the coming years.

Well after barely being able to get around on Thursday the back started to relax on friday and saturday. Sunday morning i woke up with some stiffness but mowing the lawn seemed to help loosen it up so i made the decision to race. We packed the van and loaded up the kids and grandparents and made our way to evanston.

They had us all park in a parking garage which was kind of fun but weird. There was plenty of room so you could take up a couple of spaces. One for your car and one for your bike. I ran down and registered and then went back to the van to change and warm up. The weird part was because you were in a parking garage you didn't see too many other cyclist except those right around you.

After warming up my back felt really good. There was no tightness or pain so i was really encouraged. I put on my jersey and went to grab my cycling gloves and then realized i had 2 left hand gloves and no right so i went sans gloves. I then made my way to the start finish which meant i got to do something that i always wanted to do as a kid but would get in trouble for. Ride the bike in a parking garage.

The evanston course is a .9 mile loop with 6 turns. After the start it features 4 quick turns in succession and in talking with some friends before the race it seemed a great course for a breakaway to stick. The thought being you get a great jump before the first turn and just hammer thru the rest of the turns and you are out of sight. Watching the 40+ race before ours it seemed true since a break of 6 or 7 riders stayed off the front and won.

Our race was 45 laps or 40 miles. Our plan was to try to put something together with somewhere in the low 30's to go. The only problem was that the speed of the field was too fast. From the start there was breakaway attempt after attempt but nothing stuck. Even when the big teams in the race were well represented in the break the pace of the field never dropped too much.

For most of the race i tried to stay in the front half of the field and was pretty successful. Probably about half way thru i started feeling my back. It was getting tired. With maybe 12 laps to go i found myself on the front when a move went. I went with it but again it didn't stick. Now it seem pretty clear that it was going to be a field sprint. I remember working my way back towards the front with about 6 to go but then i slipped back and after that i couldn't move up more than a couple of spots. My back was hurting more and more and when that happens you loose a lot of your power when you have to accelerate out of the corners.

So it was i found myself towards the back of the field on the last lap. Coming out of the last turn I tried to sprint and gained a few spots by the finish line. Considering my day on wed. i'm happy with how the race went. I'm taking today off the bike to nurse the back a little and then will try to resume training this week for friday's race in Kenosha.

When it was over we had covered 40 miles in just 1 hour and 27 minutes. That's an average speed of 27mph. I think that is the fasted crit i've raced so far.

Here are a couple of vids from our race.

See you next time.

07.18.07 - Proving Grounds Cat 3

The above video is one I shot of the final sprint of my race. Long story short is back on tuesday morning i woke up with a little twinge in my back. Wednesday morning it was almost gone but as it got closer to race time it started getting tighter and tighter. The race started with me hoping that riding would loosen the back up. Unfortunately that wasn't the case. I survived 3 laps of six, but on the fourth lap i couldn't stand up anymore on the climbs. I had no way to get any power onto the pedals. By the time i came around to the start finish area i barely could get up the hill so I dropped out 2/3 of the way thru. This was pretty disappointing since i was really planning on doing well for this race. Now i'm just hoping that the drugs do their job and my back is good enough for sundays crit in evanston.

Ready for Proving Grounds

Well my first targeted race is just a couple days away. We now get to see where i'm really at with my fitness.

A couple of weeks ago my family went camping up by the Proving Grounds course and I got out and rode a couple of laps. I brought my camera and ended up taking 94 pictures. You can see them here if you'd like.

Busted

There's a section of road along the Fox River, apporiately called River Rd., where i've wondered if i could actually get somebody busted for speeding. The speed limit used to be 25 and then 35 but this year they've made the whole stretch of road 25mph. Depending on the wind, you can get up to 25 without a whole lot of effort. Now if I'm riding at 25-30 mph if someone is going to pass me they can easily get up to 40mph which means if the timing is right a member of algonquin's finest is going to pull them over.

Last thursday my friend Tim and I were riding down River Rd. We weren't hammering really hard or anything but we were going at a pretty good pace when a mini van passed us. We thought nothing of it until around the corner coming the other way was the aformentioned Algonquin's finest. He abrubtly slowed down and proceeded to make a uturn right in the middle of this 2 lane rd. In the process we had to come to a complete stop since he was blocking the whole rd.

After we passed the pulled over minivan i turned to tim and said, "I think we had something to do with that." I'm not gloating or anything but it was just a little bit funny.