It's been a long time since i updated so here's the cliff notes. In october I completed a study at Gatorade that was a great experience. It was hard but i gained a lot of info about myself and it was very interesting. It's looking like i'm going to be doing another one starting in Jan. so hopefully that can help fund some new upgrades to the bike.
Speaking of bikes I have been very blessed by a couple of people who gave me a mountain bike. First i was given an old cignal bike that was heavy but was rideable. I knew it was small for me and after riding it a while it was pretty clear that it wasn't going to be a bike i could really ride well on. Enter friend #2 who one day gives me an old Cannondale SM500 frame that's in great condition and after a couple of weeks of wrenching i have this.
I've been loving it and it adds such a nice alternative to just riding the rollers or the trainer in the basement. I've done a couple of fun snow rides and then today rode what was basically a cross practice at a park near my house using different obstacles as cross barriers. Today's ride also featured a ride of the dirt road that runs up the river valley from River Rd. It's full of ruts and a couple of turns and ever since i first found the road and drove it i wanted to ride it if i ever had a mountain bike. Problem was the 60 degree temps the other day didn't do much to this road as it was more like running up a bobsled run with a bike then an actual ride.
I've started weight training but have taken a break since i'm on a break from work and the gym is at work. I've yet to get an ice skateing session in yet and hopefully will be able to start that up next week.
In a world of doping cyclists, pro athletes going to jail, and governors who think they can do whatever they want this story is such a breath of fresh air.
I came of for a new use for the Park SPA-2 pin spanner last night. It's great for removing a light bulb that has been shattered but the tip of the bulb is still in the socket.
Ok. I made a big mistake today. I took my son Ryon and his bike, and myself with my wife's schwinn hybrid and went back to Carpenter Park and rode a few laps of the course. I never should have done that cause i think i'm hooked. I've never ridden cross before and actually before last years Carpenter Park race i had never even been to one. now i'm really gonna have to figure out how to get a cross bike together.
A lot has been happening since i've last posted. Mainly i've been doing a study at Gatorade every Monday that is pretty intense. I raced the Fall Fling time trial and other than Gatorade just been riding easy every couple of days.
Yesterday i took my dad and my kids to the Carpenter Park Cyclocross race. We had fun watching the 30+, 40+, and 50+ races as well as some of the Cat3 and women's race. The pics are below. enjoy.
I have arrived in vegas. The first two days will have me wearing my audio engineer hat as i will be touring some of the major theaters here. Tonight starts with the cirque show Love. Wed. And Thursday will be interbike!!!
So a lot has been happening lately. After the body shut down at Downers Grove i took a good couple of weeks off. I still rode but every ride was a recovery ride and i skipped days at a time. it was refreshing and just as i put a little training plan together to make a stab at the Fall Fling, Gatorade called.
I've been doing studies for a couple years now and finally got called for a cycling study. Long story short last week was a really busy week. In the span of 4 days i had a vo2max test, Lactate Threshold test, as well as a stress test. The study is very demanding physically but also a lot of fun. As a result i've totally scrapped my training plans and am just concentrating on this study as it will take me thru the end of october. Because of the requirements of this study i can't exercise at all on sundays (i go in every monday) so the fall fling crits are out. There's still a slight chance that i could do the time trial on the 4th. If it works out for me to do it it would make me happy cause i should have some great form from this stuff.
Also next week i go to Vegas!!!! It's gonna be an awesome trip. I get to see some great shows as well as attend Interbike (thanks Gatorade), the cycling industry trade show. I will definately be writing a post about the trip and have tons of pics of all the latest gear. i will only be there for 1 day of interbike but i will also get to go watch cross-vegas so that will be fun.
I know i'm late with this report but it's a lot easier to write a report quickly when you have a great race but when you suck it up it's not as fun so i'll make this short. After Elk Grove i was so fired up because of how good i felt. That following week was real busy at work featuring several days of 4:15am alarms and long nights. After that we spent 3 nights in galena which was a blast but i of course brought the bike and woke up early so i could get some riding in before the family woke up. Though i tried to take it easy there isn't more than a 1/4 mile of flat road around galena so it was lots of hills. By 9pm every night i was wasted.
I was back home Wednesday and tried to take it easy thurs and friday. The legs were feeling better by sat. so i was hoping to have another great race like i did at elk grove. Well from the start it wasn't good. I got lined up on the 3rd or 4th row which in itself was fine except for the fact i was all the way against the barriers on the right and directly behind the crosswalk where there were still a ton of riders on the sidewalk waiting to get on. I think everybody thought they would have us roll up to the line before starting but no. The whistle blew immediately followed by a chorus of "we're starting already?" I had another horrible clip in and by the time i was entering turn 1 the leaders were going into turn 2.
So i thought to myself, not ideal but i'll just have to work to move up a little each lap and work my way towards the front. I can do this...not so much. it became clear to me that i was destined to be riding the back half of the field for the race. Try as i might i couldn't do anything. About half way thru the race my back started tightening up and i got a side stitch. I haven't had one of those since high school! Almost got dropped off the back but then with about 5 laps to go finally started feeling a little better.
With 3 to go coming into turn 8 somebody a couple of riders ahead of me went into the haybales. The rider in front of me started to brake hard and go wide as well and i thought i was going to go down. Somehow i stayed up and ended up doing a track stand with i think Ben Demong from abd laying on the ground right in front of me looking up at me. I somehow was able to inch around his head and squeeze between him and another rider that was flying thru the corner from behind and got going again. Now i was way off the back and I remember thinking to myself at least i have an excuse for such a bad race now. I ended up 72nd.
I was glad i had to work on sunday cause i felt horrible. i would have been even more useless on sunday. I've taken this whole week really easy and will also do the same next week. At this time of year i have to be careful. Too much stress on the body/back and it shuts down. I'm gonna try and recoup and make a little push for the fall fling tt and maybe a crit. It would be fun to somehow bookend the season with a tt win.
Wow! Alot has happend in the week leading up to this race. If you want to just read about the actual race skip down to the actual race report. But to hear the rest of the story keep reading.
As i said in my last post the week started with me finding a crack in my trusty ol cannondale caad4 frame on monday. i still haven't had time to process this loss and a memorial post will come but i was scrambling. I've learned the hard way that something always seems to happen when i preregister so i usually don't but of course i was already registered for the Masters 3/4 race. By wed. night, thanks to Tom Sena, I was able to borrow a Felt so i could at least ride but there was no way i was going to race that bike for fear of crashing it. I would have ridden the whole race 50 feet off the back.
So after calling all the shops i knew, sending out emails to the team and anyone else i knew, I was able to aquire an 06 Madone 5.2 frame for a very nice price (thanks Karl!). Because i trusted who it came from i bought it sight unseen. I was told it wasn't ridden very much but when it was delivered to my house Sat it looked brand new. beautiful.
Early sat. morning i had stripped the Cannondale frame. After lunch i went to the pool with the family. Then about 3pm i was able to start building the Trek. At about 4pm i went to mount the brakes and found that the nuts i had to mount them with were to short for the front and the rear brakes. I started calling all the trek dealers i could think of and not until i called Village Cyclesport did i get the answer i was hoping for. I talked to Brian and he said they had the bolts and that they closed in 45min. I threw the brakes and the frame in the trunk of my car and made the 45min trip in 30 min. once inside Brian helped me get the right nuts and i was back in the car on my way to church to meet my family that i had abandonded so quickly.
After getting home from church and putting kids to bed i resumed assembling the bike. This included "borrowing" the front deralier from the borrowed Felt since mine was a clamp on and i needed a braze on. At around 11:30pm i called it a night. I had the bike together and had ridden it up and down the block a few times (another complete story in itself since it involved a neighbors call to 911 and 4 police cars on our street) to make sure that everything was ok and decided to go to bed.
The following morning was actually quite normal for a race morning. Got up, ate, packed, and headed out.
The Actual Race Report
We came into this race pretty confident. Tim had placed 2nd last week at Chicago and we were again going to have a pretty decent number of riders in this race. Personally i was ready to try something. In almost every race this year i've been on the front and responded to an attack and then once i'm in it i've held back cause i wanted to save myself. I went in to this race thinking that if i go, i'm gonna give it everything. We had plenty of other teammates to respond if i failed.
So the race starts and right away there's a prime. While i didn't contend for the prime i stayed at the front and kept myself in a great position where i could see tim easily grab the prime. Sometime on the next lap or 2 Andy Powel took a flyer. After 1 or 2 more primes were called i found tim and told him, that after the next prime i was gonna give it a go. So now they call the $100 prime and the pace picks up. I keep my place towards the front of the field and just follow wheels. Staying towards the front but trying not to spend too much energy. As soon as we come up to the line i nail it. There were probably 5 or 6 guys who had fought for the prime that i had to go around but after that i was off.
My intent was to catch the field napping right after a prime since usually everyone takes it easy for a bit after the prime sprint. That plan was good for about 5 seconds until they announced that this was going to be another prime lap. Actually when i heard this i wasn't too happy. My intention was to go for the win or at least make the other teams work, not the prime. I figured that attacking right after a prime would give me a bit of an advantage while the field recovered and tried to figure out where i went. So much for that.
Even so i still was able to get quite a sizeable gap. I didn't hear how much the prime was for but as i completed the lap i knew i won it and kept going. As i came back by the start finish i heard the announcer say $200 and a smile crossed my face.
Finishing lap 2 of my breakaway there were 2 laps remaining in the race. In my head i was saying "ok, i'm half way there. 2 laps down, 2 to go." But the field had woken up and were closing in. I saw that a couple guys were trying to bridge but they didn't have that much of a lead over the field and sure enough after almost 2 1/2 laps on my own, i was caught. But again the beauty of having a great strong team is that as soon as i was caught, Kevin blasted up the left side and attacked.
As i drifted back thru the field i wanted to make sure and finish with the main group. For the last lap and a half the conversation in my head was, "yeah you can move up, no you're shot." On the last lap I was near the back of the field but as we came thru turn 2, the only right turn, i shot up the left side and before the next turn made it to the front. I started to get excited about being able to say i placed and did a solo break but as everybody ramped it up for the final 500m i found that i had nothing left. As i came up on 200m to go i heard the race announcer saying "Project 5" and i knew tim had won. I clapped and pumped my fist as i crossed the line in 52nd place. 52nd never felt so good.
I can't think of a race where i've had more fun or a race where a team has done such a great job. It's been fun watching the videos cause in every one of them you hear the announcer say, "Project 5."
It was awesome to be able to race in grant park again. I don't think there's been a race down there since the late 80's. Project 5 had 8 of us in the 3's field and it was such a blast to race with such a full team. I can't remember the last time i was in a race and every time i turned to look for a teammate i saw one.
I pretty much tried to stay at the front for most of the race. Covered some moves, tried a move or two of my own but nothing was getting away. Our priority was to get Tim in good position so he could start his sprint from 5th or 6th place instead of 20 or 30 back. With about 6 laps to go I asked tim to let me know when he wanted to move up. Before he even was able to respond he saw an opening and took it and left me there sitting mid pack. I rode out the rest of the race in the middle and on the last lap saw that tim was in a good spot and took it easy. You just had the feeling there was going to be a crash and sure enough in the last turn a whole bunch of guys went down. It was kind of in 2 waves. First some went down on the inside and slid to the middle. Then there seemed to be a second or 2 when you thought it was done and then a bunch of other guys went into the barriers on the outside of the turn. I was able to come to almost a complete stop and weave my way thru the carnage and softpedaled into the finish. Tim ended up 2nd so we are all happy with how the race went.
The reason i'm so thankful is not because i survived the crash but because monday night i found a crack in my frame. Right above the derailer hanger there's a crack that travels all around the frame. i had been trying to solve a creaking issue for a couple of days and after an easy recovery ride last night i found it. Big bummer.
Since i'm not one of the guys who has 3 road bikes, a mountian bike, and a cross bike, i'm SOL right now. I'm scrambling to try and put something together before this weekend. Wish me luck. Anybody have a 60cm frame?
So i just had a full week off the bike. i went up to the U.P. to a summer camp with my son. it was an incredible time but was a little hard not being able to ride or watch the tour. we had no cell phones, no internet, and no tv.
i did get to ride a little since the camp had hydro bikes. very fun. next year i'll have to bring my pedals, shoes, saddle and seatpost. they also had a climbing tower that i ran up and down to stretch the legs. now it's the chicago crit tomorrow. should be a blast. i can't wait.
mini race report I raced at bensenville yesterday and it didn't go so well. The heat combined with my ability to always get gapped out of turn 3 combined to get me dropped after 40min so i pulled out. pretty disappointing since that was my only superweek race this year.
tour defrance commentary After waking up and seeing the news of ricco's expulsion from the tour it became apparent to me why they decided to have no time bonus's at the tour this year. It sure makes it easier to reshuffle the standing without having to recalculate time bonuses. i wouldn't expect to see time bonuses back for quite some time.
Get well Jim! Jim Scott, the same Jim Scott who so kindly lent me a wheel at Wood Dale, was injured on tuesday but thankfully he's going to be ok. Get well soon buddy. Congrats on 3rd!!! For SW to say that there wasn't anybody within 20' of you is insane. The same thing happened at the finish of the 30+ race on wed. they had removed the barriers so the rider was able to keep upright. I won't even get started on the saftey issues that seem to always come up during superweek every year. maybe that'll be another post sometime.
So it just happens that i will be in vegas during the week of interbike. So does anybody have any way that i can get in to the show and especially the 3 day bike race? I'm just trying to weasel my way in somehow. If you have a way just leave a comment.
My race day almost didn't even happen. I've been having some rear wheel trouble and decided not to bring my rear race wheel instead opting for my mavic open pro wheels. After arriving and registering and getting suited up i went out to warmup on the other course that is in this business park. I hadn't been riding for more than 10 minutes when ping, there went a spoke in my rear wheel. I had no spare and had that sinking feeling. I yelled at tim and told him and we headed back to the car to try and find one of our teammates to see if i could bum a wheel. Enter jim scott from apache. he so generously offered me a wheel and we got it all setup with 10 minutes to spare. i guess the stress of that made for a good warmup. So the rest of this report is brought to you by Jim Scott of apache. Thank you jim.
Our plan was to have me try to get into a move during the race and if that didn't stick then i would work as hard as i could to get tim in a good spot for the sprint. I was feeling pretty good and wanted to put some hard efforts in so i stayed near the front and tried to keep an eye on the attacks that went off and eventually placed myself in a couple. I did get in a move sometime between the 2nd 1/4 of the race but that didn't last very long and as soon as we were brought back Tim jumped into a little break and so i sat back and tried to recover. With the heat my heartrate was in the 180's but after a lap or 2 sitting in i got it back down to the 160's. I was still feeling really good when a couple riders attacked and i heard tim yell for me to go so i bridged up to the 2. We rode a couple of laps together and 1 or 2 more guys bridged up to us. Then they called a prime of a box of powergels that i ended up winning but that seemed to kill off the rest of my break partners. I ended up doing another lap or so on my own hoping someone would bridge up to me cause i still had some life in me but didn't want to try the suicide solo break.
Eventually i was caught and i sat in for a couple of laps, trying to find tim but i couldn't find him. as we passed the start/finish i saw him jumping back in after a mechanical. Eventually we got back together and we started working our way back to the front where we stayed for rest of the race. With 2 to go David Reyes from ABD attacked hard and i had the itch to try and go with him but decided against it in favor of keeping tim at the front of the field on the final lap. Everything was good until turn 3 on the last lap. Right in the middle of the turn was where i got swarmed by the field and i lost about 20 places in about 1.5 seconds. When i saw tim up ahead of me i just turned of and softpedaled to the finish. i didn't realize until today when i saw the pictures that David made it thru the last turn before getting caught. What a gutsy effort and it makes me wish i had joined him.
It wasn't the result i wanted but i felt really good about the race i had. I did everything I set out to do and still felt really good even though i put in some hard efforts. i was also able to play the team role and to me that's as much fun as trying to win it yourself.
I've been loving it and it adds such a nice alternative to just riding the rollers or the trainer in the basement. I've done a couple of fun snow rides and then today rode what was basically a cross practice at a park near my house using different obstacles as cross barriers. Today's ride also featured a ride of the dirt road that runs up the river valley from River Rd. It's full of ruts and a couple of turns and ever since i first found the road and drove it i wanted to ride it if i ever had a mountain bike. Problem was the 60 degree temps the other day didn't do much to this road as it was more like running up a bobsled run with a bike then an actual ride.
