OVERDRIVE

Fall Update

2011-11-27T15:32:00.003-05:00

Well it seems that I've been quite M.I.A. lately...but with good reason. I've been insanely busy adjusting to/trying to keep up with grad school. It's been really fun though, I like it a lot and it definitely beats undergrad (in terms of the school part at least, haha). Cycling however, has been difficult with my busy schedule, but I still get out and ride at least once a week, which helps me keep my sanity. The AXiD girls are looking great so far, which is a good sign for the spring. Similarly, our BKB boys are also looking pretty well - right on track for our training trip this coming winter break.

IU's historic Royer Pool where Doc Counsilman and Hobie Billingsley built a dynasty. I'm fortunate to have the chance to teach class there twice a week!

As far as school goes, I think I'm passing all my classes and I'm in the process of writing up my thesis proposal, so I think I'm right on track for now. It's definitely fun. I'd post more about my thesis, but that's boring science stuff. However, I will say if anyone wants to be a subject, let me know! It'll probably be sometime next spring/summer.

Amy and I at Hesitation Point in Brown County State Park.

In other news, I think I've made progress in refining a good pizza recipe that Amy found online. The recipe is actually quite simple and pretty quick, which is nice. I'm sure there are fancier recipes that (might) taste better, but this one's pretty good! On paper it reads:

3/4 cup warm water
1 package (1/4 oz) quick rise yeast
2-3 cups all purpose flour
1/2 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbs olive oil
Pizza sauce (as much as you want)
Cheese
Other toppings

So...I actually like using a little less water and putting some beer and/or wine in there (whatever is on hand), and this last time I used spinach as a topping as well and it turned out quite well. Just mix it all up, knead it into a dough, and roll it out, put some pizza sauce/cheese/toppings on, and grill it (originally this recipe was for grilled pizza) or bake it in the oven! Here's the finished product from the last attempt:

Pizza topped with spinach and cheese. It was very tasty.

As you might have noticed, today is the last day of Thanksgiving Break (at least for IU). It's been a great holiday - relaxing for sure. I definitely did not get as much done as I had hoped, but that was pretty predictable. Tomorrow it's back to the insanity that is school, so I'm enjoying every last second of break. We had Thanksgiving out at Dogwood Springs yesterday and true to form, it was a blast and full of delicious food. I think I'm still digesting everything this afternoon...

The cabin out at Dogwood Springs.

These next few weeks are going to be insane with school and wrapping up the semester, then we're off on winter break! Hopefully I can catch up on some work over break. BKB will be leaving Bloomington on January 1st for our annual training trip, so that should be fun. I'm looking forward to putting the guys through the paces and challenging them on the trip. It'll be nice to get away for a little bit too. The likelihood of me updating this blog before the end of the semester is very slim...but possible. Sometimes I wonder if anyone even reads this anymore, but I guess in the end I don't really care if anyone does or not. It's just nice to put pen to paper (er...fingers to keyboard) and write something every now and then. And also it's nice to share some pictures. As you can tell by looking at the history of this blog, every year I've posted progressively less times... maybe that trend will stop next year! I think it'll be an exciting year, especially with the Scholars Inn Bakehouse team, which I will again be a part of. Anyway, better get back to work!

Nothing like a smooth beer in a mason jar.

Have you been riding much? -Actually...not really...

2011-09-25T11:07:00.002-04:00

As the title of this post suggests...I've been getting asked the question "have you been riding much" A LOT lately. And unusually enough - my answer has been "not really..." My cycling has taken somewhat of a back seat to my new graduate studies - don't get me wrong, I still love to ride and still do a couple times a week, but I'm just not up to the same frequency and duration as I normally am. And you know what? It's kind of nice. I'm sure I'll wish I was doing more riding here in a few weeks, and who knows, maybe I will be (I'm planning on it anyway). I'm still staying fit swimming and riding when I can.

One things that has been awesome though, is cooking! Amy and I just made some DELICIOUS homemade jambalaya last night (well, she did most of the work...but I helped a little!) and we could not get enough of it! I have the recipe (somewhere...) if anyone wants it!

Jambalaya a la Amy and me. Was AWESOME.

Anyway, I'm still staying involved in the cycling world what with coaching BKB and AXiD again and also with the Scholars Inn Bakehouse team - and I AM PLANNING ON RACING next year. BKB is looking awesome this year, I'm really excited to see what these guys can do. It's strange being a couple years removed from Little 500 now. I mean, I'm still in Bloomington and still cycling, still coaching, but this will be the second year since the last race I actually rode in. How strange...

Change is good though I suppose. It's good to see new riders coming up and it's good to see Jordan filling the role of IUSF Assistant Director/Little 500 Race Coordinator. I'm so glad that Jordan is still around Bloomington and so far I think he's doing an awesome job (of course, I'm quite biased).

While we're on the topic of food...

Since my last post, Amy and I visited Brian and Erin up in Chicago - what an awesome trip! We had a blast over the course of the weekend and we're so glad we got to see those two. We definitely made the most of our time with a jog up and down the Lakeshore Drive, visiting Millennium Park, and the Art Institute, hitting up a BYOB Italian joint, and getting a taste of the night life too! Brian and Erin were incredible hosts while we were up there - you'd be hard pressed to find better friends anywhere.

Farm family (Brian and me) and Thetas (Erin and Amy) in the big city at the bean in Chicago! You'd be hard pressed to find better friends than these. Photo courtesy of Erin Axley.

The future of this blog is uncertain - will I keep having time and motivation to occasionally update it? Will I update more regularly like I have done in past years? Or will this blog disappear? Who knows, but for now it's here to stay still. Maybe it'll turn into my food blog instead of my cycling blog...

Lately

2011-07-27T00:59:00.002-04:00

Well, I've finally noticed that it's been months since I last wrote on this blog. A lot has happened since the last time I posted, but nothing earth-shattering that I know of has happened. I've raced some more (Iowa, Ohio, Bloomington, etc.), with no significant results to speak of. The Bloomington Crit was a blast as always and I thoroughly enjoyed the race and post-race with lots of friends.

Heading up the hill in Grandview. Photo courtesy of Bruce Gowdy.

The Ohio weekend (Madeira, Hyde Park, Grandview) was awesome, and Atwell was riding like a monster as a newly upgraded Cat 2. I've lost quite a bit of fitness since collegiate season, as I was hit by a significant bout of laziness and being tired all the time. So, instead of riding my bike, I only rode a few times and thus got really out of shape (as evidenced by my terrible time at the Forest TT). I'm enjoying riding though, and I've been swimming a lot, which is also very nice. Swimming in the evenings after my rides makes me feel awesome and I enjoy doing it. It's very relaxing and good to just zone out and swim for a bit.

On the flat (and fast) part of the course at Hyde Park. Photo courtesy of Bruce Gowdy.

In other news, my old teammate and good friend Jordan Bailey has been selected to replace Pam Loebig as the IUSF Assistant Director/Little 500 Race Coordinator. Jordan is pushing to change the name of the position to simple "Race Commissioner" - very appropriate for him. I'm excited that JB will be in town for a couple more years, it should be fun.

Another shot from Grandview. Photo courtesy of Bruce Gowdy.

Obviously since I didn't get the position, I've got to do something else. I've decided to start my Master's in Exercise Physiology in the fall here at IU. I'm looking forward to starting grad school in the fall, it should be a blast. Hopefully I can get through it fairly quickly and get into a career!

Collegiate Nationals

2011-05-15T19:22:00.003-04:00

The 2011 USA Cycling Collegiate Road National Championships have come and gone and with it the school year at IU is over too. I've officially graduated from IU (although I missed commencement for Nationals), completing a B.S. in Biology with minors in Chemistry and Social Science and Medicine as well as a B.S. in Exercise Science with a minor in Coaching. See ya later, Undergraduate career! Anyway, back to the purpose of this post - Collegiate Nationals. The first race on the schedule was the road race, which covered a challenging 72 miles in Blue Mounds State Park just southwest of Madison, WI.

The scenery at Blue Mounds State Park (host of the road race) was beautiful. Photo from USA Cycling.

The race opened with a long descent and then the pack settled in for a relatively calm first lap. The run up to the feed zone (and the start of each circuit) was a long, challenging climb and shortly after the first time up it I jumped clear with a small group. We quickly came back following the descent and I somehow made it into the counter move with a University of Vermont rider. We quickly gained almost a minute on the pack and settled in.

Up front with the Marian University riders. Photo courtesy of Jamie Young.

Unfortunately for me, my mechanic (i.e. myself) neglected to install a chain watcher and my chain dropped on one of the climbs, and got stuck between my inner ring and frame. After wrenching it out, I chased back to the caravan and subsequently the pack, but fried my legs in the process. Instead of conserving and riding in the pack I went back to the front and proceeded to ride stupidly hard and dropped myself on the 4th of 5 circuits. Big fat D-N-F for the road race for me.

Off the front with Weston (Marian) right after the feed zone. Photo courtesy of Jeffrie Leibovitz.

Out of our 4 IU guys we only had one finish with the pack in the points, so that was slightly disappointing. On the women's side Melinda and Kristen both had stellar rides, both getting in the top 50. The following day was the TTT, a 19.2-mile affair on a rolling, but windy course. Our women slotted in 11th right as the men left the starting gate. We rolled in 8th place with a pretty smooth run. All in all not bad for us, although it would have been nice to sneak into the top 5 (we were 50+ seconds too slow for that).

IU Men's Team Time Trial. Photo courtesy of Casey Gibson/USA Cycling.

The last event of the weekend was the criterium, which we thought we had the best chance of doing well in, since we have a pro sprinter. I tried to get in some early moves, but nothing went, and Scott was up front as well. The winning move went when I was sitting ~70th wheel, however, and with the way my legs were feeling I had no choice but to watch it go. After some chasing efforts, I was toast and Eric failed to get up solo. With 3 laps to go I picked him up from mid-pack and took him to the front, dropping him off accidentally at 1st wheel. By tapping his brakes, Eric inadvertently made me take a solo flyer with 2 to go...which of course, failed. I wound up towards the back of the pack and Eric took 3rd in the field sprint, good for 7th.

Me during the criterium. Photo courtesy of Jeffrie Leibovitz.

Our team wound up 13th in the omnium, which we were satisfied with. It would've been nice to be higher, but given the hodge-podge nature of our team this year, it was probably a better result than some expected. Marian University (from our own MWCCC) dominated the overall with wins in both the Men's and Women's TTT as well as both the Men's and Women's crits. I knew there was a reason they kicked our butts so badly during the regular season... Anyway, it was a fun weekend of racing and I think everyone on our team who went enjoyed the company and the racing. I hope IU can have more success next year and wish the riders next year the best. Go Hoosiers!

Little 500 Wrap-Up

2011-04-22T20:22:00.002-04:00

It's hard to believe, but the Little 500 has come and gone yet again. This year brought excitement and heartbreak all together. First up we had the Women's race. The weather was predicted to be terrible, with mildly cold temperatures, rain, wind, and potential for thunderstorms and tornadoes. Luckily, the weather-people were wrong and it was just overcast and somewhat chilly, but not too bad. Scott and I were very excited for our girls and we felt they were the most prepared they had been for year. Likewise, the girls felt confident and were excited to show off their hard work.

The whole Alpha Xi Delta team, coaches, and mechanic. Photo courtesy of Kelsey Wright.

We started out the race great, riding up front in a good position and even trading a few pulls at the front. Steph was riding a great first set for us when disaster struck. A large pile-up in turn 3 took her down (video footage here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VwHzizf71I), luckily she was ok and the wreck was right in front of our pit, allowing us to react quickly. The field was blown up from that point on though, and a subsequent wreck involving our team took us down to 3 riders.

Clowning around a little before the Women's Race. Photo courtesy of Caitlin Coar

In the end we just ran out of steam and kept dropping places until the conclusion of the race. We were all sorely disappointed in the result and there's not much else to say. The girls did all that they could, but we just didn't execute our plan. Our team wound up 19th on the day, further down than any of us imagined we would finish.

Next up was the Men's race. Again, we went in very confident and excited. The guys were riding as strong as I've ever seen them and we felt our preparation had been the best out of the six years Black Key Bulls has existed. The weather was cold and it started to rain right when the parade laps were going on, but our guys were adequately dressed and prepared for the inclement weather. We rode a great first half of the race, staying out of wrecks and up front. At one point, we found ourselves (along with Phi Delta Theta) lapping the Cutters, Sigma Chi, Delta Tau Delta, and some other pre-race favorites, and we thought it was down to a two-team race.

Pre-race BKB team picture. Photo courtesy of Dion at VeloVivid Cycling Photography.

The other teams showed their strength by un-lapping themselves while us and Phi Delt kept the pace as high we could. In the end our guys were cooked from the effort and it was again "too much too soon" like last year, and we dropped to a disappointing 6th place. I'm very proud of how our guys rode and in the end we just ran out of "stuff."

I could not be more proud of have that name on the back of my shirt. Photo courtesy of Dion at VeloVivid Cycling Photography.

We did what we had to in order to put ourselves in a position to win (hammer with Phi Delt), but the cost of the effort was more than we anticipated and we just came up short. The guys are pretty disappointed, but the good news for us is that we will return a very strong team and they are hungry for a victory.

All in all, the Little 500 was just as mystical and exciting as it ever has been and I enjoyed every second of it. I can't wait until next year. Looking ahead, IU has qualified for Collegiate Road Nationals again, so I will be traveling to Madison, WI to compete in the National Championships along with some other Hoosiers. I'm excited to see what our team can do and I'm glad I can finally return to Nationals. It's been too long!

Marian/Purdue Weekend

2011-04-06T16:00:00.002-04:00

This past weekend I ventured up to Indianapolis and West Lafayette to jump in some collegiate and non-collegiate races. I was sad that I missed Miss 'N Out, but it was good to get some racing in. Saturday was the Marian Crit up in Indy on and around the Marian University campus and the Major Taylor Velodrome. To nobody's surprise, Marian took the top 7 placings with 5 riders off the front in two groups. I hung in for 14th, nothing to brag about, but I just was in all of the wrong moves and then overcooked the legs. After a short break I hopped into the 1/2/3 race at Marian for a second race on the day. Again, was in the wrong moves and missed the winning break and wound up 10th.

In the headwind section at the Purdue Road Race. Photo courtesy of Andy Jessop.

After a delicious dinner at the Scholars Inn on Saturday night, it was off to Purdue early Sunday morning for the second collegiate event of the weekend. Both the Men's A and Women's A team time trial teams came in 3rd at Purdue, and after a long break, we finally suited up for the road race. The wind was incredibly strong on Sunday and only got worse throughout the day. The men's A field splintered and I missed the split because I was too far back. This wound up being the story of my day, as I sat at the tail end of the pack all day with my legs groaning in protest.

Going up the finishing climb (which we did 10x) in the Purdue Road Race. Photo courtesy of Andy Jessop.

I managed to finish, but just out of the points in 23rd place. All in all it was a good weekend of racing, but without any results to speak of. Yesterday I went out on a nice easy ride with Matt Ewing and my legs were definitely still feeling the effort of this past weekend. Hopefully all that work will help boost my fitness in the coming weeks...and also hopefully I'll be able to get some results.

On a separate note, Jordan Bailey from BKB rode a solid Miss 'N Out to place 3rd. Solid work by him and the rest of our team at MNO. The girls from AXiD all moved out of the first round except for one girl and had the 8th best team score for the event-surely a good sign for race day! Up next on the L5 circuit is Team Pursuit, then it's race week already! I can't wait!

Little 500 ITTs 2011

2011-03-31T18:15:00.002-04:00

Yesterday saw the Little 500 riders compete in Individual Time Trials, or ITTs. There were no surprises in the winners, as defending champions Caitlin Van Kooten and Eric Young both successfully defended their titles this year. All in all it was a pretty slow day at the track, partly due to cold temperatures and poor track conditions.

Amy wraps up her warm-up and takes a second to pose with Erin for me!

After a rather slow Wednesday Worlds, I turned around and booked it back to the track in order to see Amy ride. I think the ride home was almost as hard as the Wednesday Worlds! Amy had a solid run and I was really glad I got to see it. It was a cold evening to be riding as hard as you can for 2-3 minutes! I was glad it was somewhat warm when we were doing Wednesday Worlds.

My girls did rather well, improving their average placing significantly from last year. We had a couple of PRs too, which is always nice, especially with less-than-ideal conditions. I'm happy with how they performed, especially with all of them coming off of some solid training. It's never great to go into an event with tired legs, but sometimes you have to in order to prepare for the end-goal. They all still had solid rides and showed that they are a much stronger team than last year.

The view from atop the Press Box is great. Jordan takes in some ITTs from this awesome vantage point.

On the men's side, BKB held its own with some solid runs as well. Dan Kinn was the surprise for our team, turning a time just a fraction of a second slower than Jordan to slip into 12th place on the day. Not bad for a guy who just started riding last fall! The white jersey competition looks like it will be pretty close this year, we'll have a better idea after Miss-N-Out as to who may win it. Just a couple more days until Miss-N-Out!

Little 500 Quals 2011

2011-03-27T20:02:00.002-04:00

Little 500 Quals 2011 is done! Both of the teams that I coach made it in (not that we didn't expect to), which is nice. It's always a relief to know that you're safely in the race. The story of the day was either Sigma Nu snagging the pole from the Cutters late in the day, or FIJI almost getting bumped out of the race, but just barely staying in (in 32nd place) by .64 seconds. However, since I have no vested interest in either of these events, I'm going to talk about my teams. The Alpha Xi Delta girls had a morning run and did a good clean run on their first attempt coming in at 2:59.25.

Happy to be done with Quals and safely in the race!

While they've ridden faster laps in practice, it was good to see the girls overcome their nerves and complete 3 solid exchanges on their first attempt. The girls also showed off their kits for the first time on the track (I think) and got plenty of compliments, so that's good too! All in all I'm really happy with how they did. They got in the race, did it on their first attempt, and improved on their Quals position from last year. Heading in the right direction.

The BKBs had a mid-afternoon attempt and after a solid first half, Jordan fumbled getting on the bike and lost a few seconds after taking the bike from Mis. Smoot, our last guy to go, wound up sliding out in between Turns 3 and 4, forcing us to go to a second attempt.

The Black Key Bulls wound up 6th on the day with their time of 2:29.09

This wound up being a good thing, as Mis-to-Jordan's exchange was great on the second attempt and Smoot seemed to not care about crashing and went just as fast (without crashing) on the second attempt. We wound up with a 2:29.09, good for 6th on the day. Outside 2nd row is a great starting position, so we'll be in a good spot on race day. I'd say the guys did a great job not only forgetting about the first attempt, but coming back and doing a better second attempt, which can sometimes be nerve-wracking. All in all a solid day, the weather was cold, but dry, which is typical Quals weather. Looking forward to the next few weeks! This is the best time of year!

Lexington Spring Circuit Race

2011-03-21T23:44:00.004-04:00

Spring Break has come and gone once again and it's back to reality for me. It's been a busy return to school, but Spring Break was a nice...well, break. I wrapped up most of my grad school stuff, just waiting on some letters of recommendation and I should be squared away. I did get the chance to do quite a bit of riding though, which was nice. I started out by logging almost 10 hours on my TT bike over Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, which was great for me to get used to the aero position on that bike. After a nice easy Tuesday during which I got on the track to "relive my glory days" it was back to training with several long road rides with a Wednesday Worlds thrown in there for good measure. I managed to start the year off right at WW, but most of the real firepower was missing. Still, I'll take it.

I got to spend a lot of time with the BKB guys, although this was the first time in 4 years that I did not spend the week at Eagle Pointe as is normal. I did spend a few nights there, which was nice. Our party was much less wild this year than it has been in years past, but we still had plenty of fun and enjoyed the company of all who attended. Zach managed to dominate the pinata this year by whacking it in the weakest spot and destroying it...not quite as dramatic as it has been before, but still cool.

Settlers of Catan was the hot game at the BKB condo this year. Euchre was also up there.

All in all it was a great week of training for me, but I definitely missed being on the track and being a Little 5 rider. My legs were fried after logging a solid 4 hours on Friday with Hamilton, so Saturday was a nice easy day going into the Lexington Spring Circuit Race. Alas, one day was not enough to recover and even spinning around before the race I felt sluggish and tired. I think I wound up riding alright in the race anyway, but I had hoped for better. The rest of the guys on Scholars Inn Bakehouse/Team Tortuga made up for it though, as we placed 2 guys (Clayton and Scott C.) in the break to get 2 in the top 7 in the finale. I managed to squeeze in 12th, which was alright considering how cooked my legs felt. It was a fun race, the weather was amazing, and the trip was a great way to kick off the season. Unfortunately, our new kits are not in yet, so we were all in a hodge-podge of old stuff. Hopefully we'll get our kits soon so we can look sweet together!

Graham (camouflaged in a Beta jersey), myself, and Fred patrol the front in the 1/2/3 race at the Lexington Spring Circuit Race. Photo courtesy of Melinda Balchan.

Looking forward, Qualifications for Little 500 are this coming Saturday, so I'll be here fulfilling my coaching duties. Notre Dame is also hosting the collegiate race for this weekend, so a group of us will likely make the trip up there on Sunday to try and gather some points. It's going to be a busy week!

First Race of the Season

2011-03-06T18:55:00.003-05:00

The first two race weekends have come and gone already. Collegiate racing is on in full swing now and to nobody's surprise, Marian University has a stranglehold on the Midwest Conference standings. Last weekend I went with IUCC to Lindsey Wilson College for the season opener, but I skipped Ohio State this weekend due to inclement weather. Instead, Shanahan, Atwell, A-Rod, and myself got a solid 4 hours in today on some roads we'd never been on. It was refreshing to pound out several hours on unfamiliar roads and it was a fun ride despite overcast skies and cold temperatures.

Atwell, Rodkey, and Shanahan head down Spearsville Rd. on our ride today

The team time trial could have gone better at Lindsey Wilson, but we managed to slot in 5th place even though we were missing some of our strongest riders. The road race was a tough 75 mile course with numerous climbs on it and Scott Catanzaro and myself both manage to score some much-needed points for IU.

Scott pulling me and Isaiah over the top of the finishing climb. Photo courtesy of Emily Palmer.

As expected, the larger teams from Marian, Lindenwood, and Lindsey Wilson established a breakaway early on in the race and kept a tight hold on the pack the rest of the race. It was still a fun race, especially since it was sunny and around 60 degrees. The weather for the crit however, was terrible, thus leading me to pull myself out minutes before the start of the race. Clayton did manage to score a few points for us in the crit, but unfortunately none of the other IU A's guys finished the race.

Kiel and myself roll through a turn in the road race at Lindsey Wilson. Photo courtesy of Lindsey Wilson College.

All in all I'd say we had a good weekend, I definitely had fun. We had awesome accommodations in cabins by a lake. This weekend the guys went to Ohio State and Eric and Scott both scored some points in the road race. The crit today was canceled due to ice. Up next is Missouri next weekend and I think we should have a strong team traveling there.

Moving Forward

2011-02-22T13:31:00.003-05:00

Well, the time is upon us again- this week the Little 500 track at Bill Armstrong Stadium will open for veterans to join the rookies, who have been practicing on it for the last week. In addition, the Collegiate racing scene starts this weekend with the season opener at Lindsey Wilson College in Columbia, KY. Cycling season is upon us, and it's all happened rather quickly in my opinion. This week also marks a sad occasion for Bloomington cycling, as Geraint Parry, the man behind Bloomington Velo-News, has departed to begin his faculty position in Liverpool, England. Congratulations on the new beginnings GP, and good luck!

Bloomington Velo-News will continue to be update by a consortium of sorts, consisting of some representatives from different sectors of the Bloomington cycling community. Unfortunately, we will never replace GP, but we can hope to fill some of the void he leaves. Maybe people will keep reading...

A trip to the range is always a nice break from the normal routine. Photo by Chun-Yu Shei.

Anyway, we got the first signs of Spring last week with temperatures soaring into the mid-60's and a healthy dose of sun. My former BKB/IUCC/Alderfer-Bergen teammate Isaac was in town and it was nice to catch up with him over some beers as well as log some miles on the road together too. I was reminded of my first couple of years in college when Isaac, Mike, and myself were riding through the Forest together, and I have to admit, I missed it. The faces around have definitely changed in the last few years.

This year's Little 500 bikes feature some unique colors, representative of IU's traditional Cream and Crimson.

Speaking of new faces, there are a lot of new guys around the Little 500 track. I feel like I don't even know half the people on the track anymore, and of the half I do recognize, I don't even know their names. I'll have to work on that...

Anyway, the new bikes are in, and as you can see above, they feature a new color scheme. Some people like it, some don't, I suppose everyone is entitled to their own opinion. Like it or not, though, that's the bike that 33 teams will be racing on come race day.

Alex Farris of the IDS was kind enough to snap a shot of me during Rookie Week. I believe I'm rambling on about dismounting a bike. Photo by Alex Farris.

Today is the last official day of Rookie Week. For me, it's been fun to be on the instructional side of things once more as a member of Rider's Council. I'd say that the rookies this year have been pretty easy to work with and have picked things up rather quickly, both on the men's and women's side. I've had the privilege of working with both the men and the women during Rookie Week and it's hard to say which group was the faster learners. Either way, this bodes well for regular track practice, as hopefully the skills the rookies picked up during Rookie Week will keep the track safer.

There should be a lot of exciting things happening in the next few weeks, and I can't wait to see how everything goes. I want to see my teams succeed on the track. I'd be happy with some success in Collegiate racing myself. I'd love to see IUCC perform well over the next couple of months and earn a spot at the National Championships. I'd like to get into graduate school. There's just so many things coming up that I'm savoring these last few moments of free time because I know that they will be few and far between in the upcoming weeks. Some people might think that's daunting, but for me...well, that's just the way I like it.

Another Season

2011-02-02T16:30:00.003-05:00

Well, another season is upon us. Rookie week for Little 500 starts in less than a week, weather permitting, and road season for collegiate is less than a month away. I'll miss being in Little 5, but I'm looking forward to this Spring as a coach. We have 5 new guys on BKB, 3 of whom need to complete rookie hours and on AXiD there are also 3 rookies. It'll be exciting to see how everyone does on the track this Spring, especially the rookies.

Look for these jackets around the Little 500 track to identify RC this year!

The jackets look great this year (a big improvement over last year I think) and they are appropriately in IU colors instead of baby blue. The weather has been insanely bad these last few day, driving pretty much everyone to ride indoors and the forecast is predicting more snow on Monday the 7th (the first day of Rookie Week), but we'll see how it goes. Even if the track is not ride-able, we can still teach exchanges (at least getting on the bike), so hopefully we'll still be able to have practice.

I'm pretty happy with how everyone's training is going so far. The BKBs are doing what they're supposed to (at least that's what they tell me...) and I think everyone is just building on what we accomplished on our training trip. The AXiD girls are really stepping it up this semester and riding a lot more than they did last semester. They're getting a lot of quality in too, I've been pretty happy with how they're doing with the training. These girls are way ahead of where they were last year, so hopefully they'll see the result of that hard work when they get on the track.

New kits for the Alpha Xi Delta girls. They have to earn them though.

As for me, I've been putting in a lot of trainer time (for me...) and while it really sucks, I think it is helping me a lot. Ryan has been nice enough to provide me with workouts and feedback on my training/workouts, which has been a huge help to me. This informal arrangement has done wonders for me mentally too, which is always a good thing. The few times I've been able to get out on the road have been pretty good and I can see that the trainer work is definitely paying off. I've also finally re-cabled my cyclocross bike and done all of the much-needed maintenance to it that it was lacking before, so I've been enjoying being able to ride it again. I have convenient access to a lot of off-road riding from where I live, so that's nice. It's a good change of pace too, especially when the weather is bad.

Anyway, this Spring has been going pretty well so far, so I'm excited to see what the future brings. Things are starting to come together and I can't wait to see where they lead, particularly with BKB and AXiD.

Looking Ahead

2011-01-13T22:04:00.002-05:00

Well, now that the first week of classes is almost over, I'm thinking this semester won't be terrible, but who knows. It's weird that this is my last semester of college, but I want to stick around for a little longer. Grad school is on the horizon, so I guess I'm not off the hook academically yet. Anyway, looking ahead, collegiate season is coming up fast. Even sooner is Rookie Week and track practice for vets. BKB is looking pretty good so far and I'm interested to see how things play out on the track.

If I could squeeze into this, it'd be a very aero jersey.

The ladies of Alpha Xi Delta are also back on the bike now that recruitment is over. Scott and I are hoping that they surprise us on the track this year, as they have put in way more training time this past Fall than they ever have. I'm looking forward to what will hopefully be a very fun Spring and I can't wait until things start picking up in a few weeks. Hopefully the weather will improve too.

Winter Trip

2011-01-11T17:54:00.002-05:00

The Black Key Bulls kicked off this year with a week-long trip down to Florida. We opted to stay on the panhandle, giving up warmer temperatures for a much shorter drive. It was a very nice place and worked out very well, so we didn't mind having to wear sleeves. We had a blast and got some solid training in too, although we didn't get as tan as we'd hoped to.

Robin from Robin's Bike and Fitness was a great help to us.

Leading up to the trip I called down to a bike shop close to the place we were staying and spoke with the owner, named Robin. He sounded like a pretty cool guy and said to stop in when we got there. We did, and he hooked us up with lots of route info, advice on cool places to check out, and of course, told us to stop in if we needed anything. The roads he showed us turned out to be awesome, long, quiet roads with no traffic, almost no dogs, and smooth pavement. We kicked off the week with a couple long rides and some openers and intervals.

We rode across this bay almost every day. The sunsets were amazing!

Going into the last few days we had an optional two-ride day (a few of us rode with Robin's group in the morning; followed by sprints) and finished off the week battling a stiff headwind. We relaxed and unwound Friday night, even venturing into the Gulf, and proceeded to pack up and clean early in the morning. We rolled out of town before dawn and arrived back in Bloomington safely that evening, just in time to catch the Colts game.

Sometimes nature calls.

All in all it was a fun trip and we all had a blast. The team definitely got closer on the trip and there was plenty of good times off-the-bike. We also discovered that Jordan cheats like a madman in Monopoly, but once someone starts, everyone follows suit. I don't think a single game of Monopoly ended properly...but whatever.

The crew for the week.

Along with the riders, we also had myself, Valentin, and Brant along, which was nice to throw in some more competition on the rides. Val also helped out the new guys with their bikes and had a little clinic on rollers too. This year had a lot more routine to it with daily wake-ups followed by some morning PT, and lights out much earlier than we've done in the past.

I thought about riding in these shades...but decided against it.

Nobody complained too much, so I'm going to assume that they were ok with it. I was surprised with how well everyone did with both the on-the-bike and off-the-bike workouts, which was a good thing. I was also surprised at how well we ate this week. Our menu for the week was awesome. I think if we had a cook-off against all the other teams (new Spring Series event?), we would definitely win. Anyway, it was a great time with great training, and great bonding. Now we have 3 months to go before showtime.

New Year, Long Time No Blog

2011-01-01T11:30:00.003-05:00

So, it's been quite a while since I've made a post here. It's been an insanely busy semester, and I also haven't had all that much to write about. School is school, riding is riding, nothing that new has happened except good training. No race updates to talk about, so this blog has fell into disrepair. There is hope though! It's a new year and there should be plenty to talk about this coming spring, so I'm looking forward to being able to share that.

Our annual New Year's party at Maddie's.

I had a great new year, which was great to end 2010 on a good note and begin 2011 on a good note too. The BKB's and myself will be leaving tomorrow to go on our annual winter training trip, so I hope to have good things to report from Florida!

Strait

2010-11-14T17:58:00.002-05:00

As you might guess, the premise of this post is to talk about how awesome George Strait, a.k.a. King George, is. I suppose I should give some sort of rudimentary update on what's going on in my world too. I've been doing very well lately, although I'm constantly swamped with school. I've managed to squeeze in some good riding though, and I also learned how to build wheels (I rebuilt my PowerTap wheel!), so that is cool. Just did a 20-minute test yesterday and had a personal best by 20 watts, which is also cool. It's nice to see the training pay off like that.

BloomingCross by Dion at Easthouse.

Since I haven't been racing and also haven't taken too many pictures lately (aside from stuff that goes into my Random Stuff Facebook photo album), I posted some old pictures from BloomingCross that a friendly photographer named Dion took. Great guy, good pictures.

Between the sandpits at BloomingCross by Dion at Easthouse.

Anyway, back to the basis of this post. So George Strait is basically the man, and anyone who likes country music will tell you that. Somehow, I've found myself listening to a lot of George Strait lately, along with a lot of older country too (like Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Loretta Lynn, Conway Twitty, and Randy Travis). They are all awesome artists, but the gravity of George Strait's success cannot be ignored. The dude has a ridiculous number of #1 hits (57) and there's so many songs of his that I like, I probably couldn't fit them on one CD.

Rode down to Allen's Creek the other day, it's so nice down there. photo by Me and my awesome cell phone.

Anyway, here is a rundown of my Top 10 George Strait songs:

1) I Cross My Heart
2) Heartland
3) The Cowboy Rides Away
4) Ocean Front Property
5) Give It Away
6) Let's Fall to Pieces Together
7) Troubadour
8) The Fireman
9) Does Fort Worth Ever Cross Your Mind
10) Adalida

There's definitely a bunch more that are just as good, but there you have it, my favorite Strait hits. I suppose a cheap cycling tie-in would be to say that I hope to achieve a fraction of the success King George has had in country music in cycling. However, I think I'll just focus on increasing my FTP a few more watts and worry about success later.

Autumn

2010-10-19T16:10:00.004-04:00

Things have definitely picked up this fall. School's starting to actually take work, riding is consuming more and more time, and all in all life has just been busy. However, it's been a lot of fun, so that's nice. I finally picked up my cyclocross bike a few weeks ago and started riding it, although it's given me a rash of mechanical issues ranging from broken derailleur hangers (yes, multiple), to a broken derailleur, to out of true wheels, and even some braking issues. Anyway, I think it's finally sorted out and it behaved well at the BloomingCross race this past weekend.

I think I've mentioned it before, but just to re-iterate, Scott Mueller, my BKB teammate/fellow alumnus, and myself are teaming up to coach the Alpha Xi Delta sorority for Little 500. Hopefully we'll do as well as our other BKB alumnus Ryan Knapp has with the Delta Gamma girls. It's been pretty fun so far, and the girls are training harder than they ever have this early in the school year, so hopefully that bodes well for our spring. Scott coaches the girls last year, but didn't start until second semester and they still wound up finishing better than they have in the last few years, so hopefully with a full year's training they'll be even better.

Scott and some of the AXID girls out on Bottom Road.

Like I said, I finally started riding and racing my 'cross bike, and it's been super fun. Cyclocross is great for me because it's not something I'm particularly strong at, but I can still be competitive and have fun with it. It's also nice to work on my handling skills and off-road riding while getting an awesome workout in. A couple of weekends ago Ryan Kiel and I ventured down to Louisville for the "Tour de Louisville" Ohio Valley race. Kiel won the 3's race while I finished 4th. It was a hard, but fun course that definitely suited my road/climbing fitness and strength.

Tour de Louisville OVCX race. photo by Caitlin Coar

I did take the following weekend off from racing, which wound up being good since I broke my rear derailleur riding at Wapehani that Thursday and would have been unable to race anyway. Instead, I put in some hours at the shop and got some good training done.

Tour de Louisville Cyclocross. photo by Tom Mulpagano.

This past weekend saw me return to racing at the BloomingCross OVCX race where I again raced the Cat 3 race. After a much better start than I had at Tour de Louisville, I oversmoked a corner on the first lap and went grass-surfing. This is much more forgiving than pavement-surfing, which was nice for my skin, but it still cost me a lot of time in the race (my chain fell off too). I got back on and rode hard and wound up 6th, which I'm pretty satisfied with. This was also my first race on my newly-glued tubulars (the Spinergy FCT's that I won two years ago), and they performed very well. All in all it was a fun weekend and hopefully the fall will continue to be great.

BloomingCross. photo by Ashton Wischmeier aka Dan.

Return

2010-09-21T16:18:00.002-04:00

I think it's safe to say that I've returned to my old self. I'm finally back in shape on the bike, and may even be marginally faster, as I set a new PR at the Forest TT last month. School is back in session and I'm having a great senior year. Classes are still somewhat of a pain, but not too bad. Riding has been more enjoyable than it has been in the last two years, which is a great place to be for me. My next hurdle, however, is coming up with a plan for post-graduation. I've got several ideas in mind, but I'm not quite sure what I myself want, so obviously no decision has been made. However, as this sign clearly states, I have to do something so that I can still live.

A funny sign from the basement bathroom at Dogwood Springs

I'd really like to stay in Bloomington if possible, at least for a little bit. I would also like to be able to continue riding and racing my bike. The break that I took this summer has probably been the best thing that's happened to my cycling in the last two years. I feel so much fresher and excited to ride my bike. In addition, I just got a PowerTap, so that's also making riding a lot more fun. Hopefully I can use these two things to finally get off this plateau I feel like I've been stuck on. I must admit, life is pretty good right now, and every day I'm appreciating the little things and seeing more beauty and value in everything that I don't think I saw before.

A beautiful sunset over the College Mall.

It am finally going to get my Spinergy FCT's glued up with Vittoria 'cross tires and make some other small changes to my 'cross setup. I can't wait to finally suit up for a race again and be excited to compete in it. I'm making a delayed entry into the cyclocross racing season, with my first race being in October. Anyway, time to go work on stuff, but hopefully I'll have more cycling-related stuff to post about soon.

Content

2010-08-17T17:02:00.002-04:00

Training and working lately has been awesome. I'm finally getting back into shape, work is the same as usual, and I feel pretty good in the water too. All in all I'd say I'm pretty content right now, although I'm definitely still working at getting some better form. I'm enjoying riding and training more than I have in the past year or so, and I've gotta say, it feels really good. I saw this picture on one of my friends' Facebook profiles, and thought it was cool. These two guys have ridden together for the better part of two decades and won seven Tours de France together, yet here they look like two regular dudes who just love riding bikes and hanging out together. While I'm not a crazy ProTour rider, I can share that sentiment.

George Hincapie and Lance Armstrong, back in the Discovery Channel days. In this picture they look like two regular guys who just love riding bikes.

I've been staying busy, which is why I haven't updated this blog lately. I have had a chance to see a lot of friends from high school and hang out with some new friends, so I'm pretty happy about that. Riding-wise I've made leaps and bounds and I'm even feeling pretty good in the water too. I've gotten 2x20s on the bike and 3000m swimming in twice in the last three days, and although I'm pretty tired today, I feel great when I'm training.

Zach rocking the camo hat while playing darts at the Vid.

Kirk was nice enough to let me borrow his PowerTap this morning and I finally got a taste of what it's like to train with power. It's all pretty new to me, but it's cool and obviously a great way to train.

A last little hurrah at Jordan's before everyone moved out of their summer places. Luke stole all the attention though.

All in all, things have continued to roll smoothly and although I'm dreading starting school again, I'm ready for the regularity and routine that comes with it. I also can't wait to see everyone again. So, I guess even though classes suck, I'm looking forward to starting school again.

Turnaround

2010-08-05T15:25:00.002-04:00

Well, I'm pretty much doing the same thing as I was last time I posted, but things have definitely turned more in the right direction. I started working again, I've been training pretty hard and am finally starting to show signs of decent fitness (but there's still a long way to go) and life has been pretty good in general lately.

That's one HUGE circular saw... (from the logging in Yellowwood).

I've been at the pool pretty much everyday the last couple of weeks and I'm finally starting to feel good in the water. I've also been on the bike just as much and while I don't feel great, I'm starting to feel more like my old self, albeit much slower and not as snappy. On the bright side, I'm on the road back and hopefully in the next few weeks I can build some fitness, just in time for cyclocross season.

We recently got these in the shop for glove displays. This could be trouble...

I'm really looking forward to 'cross season this year, as I have pretty much given up on road. My cross bike is working pretty well right now and I'm going to glue up the Spinergy FCTs that have been sitting around for the last two years and use them for 'cross. The heat has been crazy to train in lately, and while it's enjoyable enough to suffer in, it's a far cry from what we'll be battling during 'cross season. 'Cross worlds start up here in two weeks, I can't believe how fast this summer has gone by!

They can also be used to greet/entertain customers.

It's been a good summer to meet new people and get to know some acquaintances better, and I look forward to spending more time with my new-found friends this coming school year. It's a little early to tell, but I think this coming year is going to be the best of my college years. We'll see.

Or they can display hand positions on the handlebars.

Work at the shop is about the same as usual, but it is very nice to be back. It's about to get crazy with the students coming back, but what else is new. I suppose the bottom line of this post is that I'm pretty content with where I am right now, and I hope things continue to roll in the right direction. I'm getting excited to be on my bike again, which is always a good thing, and I'm getting more motivated everyday. I think the guy in the photo below has the right idea.

This is one photo I've been meaning to take for years and finally got around to. This is on the bathroom wall at the shop. I think it speaks for itself.

Let's hope I can take that attitude and make it my own.

Coffee

2010-07-26T02:00:00.002-04:00

Well, another weekend has come and gone. This summer is flying by, it's unbelievable how fast it's going. It's crazy to think that this is my last summer as a college student. The impetus for this post has to do with a far different, but somewhat related topic: coffee. It's unbelievable how many people, especially on this campus, regularly consume this beverage. Coffee is one of those things that can be both relaxing and stimulating. Wikipedia tells me that coffee was first cultivated and consumed in Arabia and northern Ethiopia in the fifteenth century, which means it's been around for a while. Not quite as long as some other beverages (e.g. wine), but still, it's up there. Anyhow, it's funny how a simple cup of coffee can get your morning rolling, or how it can help you stay up that extra few hours to cram for an exam or finish a lab report or paper. But at the same time, a nice cup of coffee can warm you up and calm your nerves after a chill trek in the cold across campus.

We now have 4 different coffee-making vessels in our apartment. Obsessed? I think not.

I bring up this topic because we recently acquired the most common coffee brewing vessel: the drip coffee maker. For some reason we didn't have one before, but I finally caved in and snagged the one from home, as it was going unused there. So now we have four different ways of brewing coffee, each with their pros and cons. But that's the topic of another post. And as I sit here in the early hours of the morning, I am enjoying a nice hot cup of Joe. This summer heat has few people thinking about a cup of Joe outside the local cafe while waiting for a group ride to assemble, but soon enough the temperatures will start to fall and the leaves will change and before we know it, we'll be riding in leg warmers and winter jackets, craving that hot, invigorating beverage pre- and post-ride, and maybe even mid-ride.

My riding lately hasn't been anything to get excited over, but it's been a nice steady return to the sport. I've also had a chance to do some much-needed bike cleaning on both my road and cyclocross bikes, and they are both looking much nicer now.

Lake Lemon. This is the site of our famous "BKB" tracing in the snow.

I have to admit, my fitness still sucks, but I'm slowly making my way back. It's weird going out for rides and coming back tired from every single one, no matter how long or short, hard or easy. I've also been hitting the pool daily and that's helping me work back into shape too. It's also evening out my trademark cycling tanlines...how weird!

As I was heading out for my spin today, I saw/heard this gentleman playing Scotland the Brave on his bagpipes at the 10th St. Post Office.

There is another time trial this week out at Morgan-Monroe State Forest, so I have a chance to redeem myself from the disaster that was my last attempt at the TT. Hopefully the last two weeks of training will have made some sort of difference, but this sort of thing takes time, so I'm not expecting anything outrageous. But a respectable time would be nice.

As I was rolling in from my spin, I had the fortune of seeing Showalter Fountain as the sun was going down.

Today's ride was rather uneventful, as I just cruised about spinning for about an hour. It was a nice opportunity to sit back, relax, and look around a little bit. The humidity wasn't too bad and so the heat felt somewhat pleasant, especially compared to the last few days. It felt good to stretch the legs after a hard ride yesterday, I was actually starting to feel a little more like my old self. This is a good sign (I think...).

Later I saw the full moon from our balcony.

Today was an all-around relaxing day, with very easy swimming and easy spinning and not a whole lot else going on. It wasn't what I planned, but it was definitely what I needed. Hopefully I'm reloaded for this coming week...and for weeks to come. We'll see I guess.

Summer

2010-07-21T01:05:00.002-04:00

The heat and humidity here reminds me of Taiwan and Quantico. It's definitely summer, as evidenced by the construction everywhere as well as large groups of incoming freshmen and their parents wandering around lost on campus. Due to this fact, I thought it appropriate to regale whomever decides it is worth his or her time to read this blog with some pictures of our campus. First: below we have the famous Maxwell Hall, home of the University Division advisors, with whom most freshmen will become acquainted. I was fortunate enough to not have to experience that.

Maxwell Hall.

Next up we have the Sample Gates. I think everyone who has been to IU has seen these, probably taken a picture of them, and surely has seen someone else take a picture of them. They are more well known in the cycling community as a gathering place for rides, most notably for the famous Wednesday Worlds.

Quintessential IU picture: The Sample Gates.

Lastly we have the Student Building. This is the source of the loud chimes every 15 minutes, as there is a gigantic clock tower housed in this building. Of course, if you're far away from the Old Crescent, you can surely hear the red clocks that are scattered around campus chime. I actually had a class in the Student Building my freshman year, and I don't recall ever hearing the chimes inside the building during class...how odd.

The clock tower on the Student Building.

Anyway, there's not a whole lot to report. I haven't been up to much interesting, just riding and swimming and taking care of some boring stuff. The precipitation/storms lately have been a bit of a bummer, but I guess we have to have bad weather to have good weather. Maybe the humidity will go away soon? I'm clearly very out of shape, as evidenced by the 24:54 I turned in at the last Forest TT...a far cry from the 22:04 at the last one I did back in May. Oh well, I'm just taking it day by day and trying to build my fitness back up. Otherwise it's been good to be able to catch up with my friends, both high school and college, but mainly high school. Maybe I'll have some more interesting stuff to talk about next time I post. I do turn 22 in 3 days...although I doubt there will be anything interesting from my birthday.

Lately

2010-07-08T16:10:00.003-04:00

Well, since I've been back I've been relaxing a little, getting stuff done that needs to get done, and just generally trying to maintain/build my fitness. It's weird not having a daily routine, but it's kind of nice to be able to take things as they come.

Butler Winery offers a great selection of wines. They're winery out on Robinson Rd. is a great place to relax and try some of them out.

Not a whole lot has been going on so far...I just built up a single speed commuter from my Bianchi that used to be my TT bike. Pictures will come eventually...I'm just lazy right now. The weather here is still hot and humid, but it feels much better compared to the heat in Quantico. It almost feels cool...almost. I've been swimming a lot and it's been nice to be able to cool off in the pool. I haven't been doing a whole lot of volume, but I'm slowly getting back into it. I've also gotten back on the bike. My knee feels pretty good while riding, so hopefully I'll be able to keep riding on it without any problems.

The trails at Lake Griffey are a nice escape and close by too.

Went on a short hike the other day at Griffey just to relax a little and get outside. It was hot, but not too bad and I got to cool off with a good swim afterward. I definitely want to do more hiking this summer, but battling the heat is somewhat tricky and sometimes makes me lose motivation to go. At least on a bike you're guaranteed a breeze. Anyway, I hope to resume work at BGI soon and hopefully the doctors will clear me to run so that I can resume that. Looking ahead, I need some fresh events to train for, so I'll be working on some kind of plan for that.

Oliver Winery is also a source of great wines.

In other news, I finally set up my Twitter so that I can text updates in. I also started using my dishwasher and using the camera on my cell phone. I feel like I'm modernizing. Who knows what could be next...maybe a motor on my bike?

Back

2010-07-05T12:54:00.002-04:00

Well, it's a little earlier than expected, but I'm back. Hurt my knee during the inventory PFT, trained on it the next few weeks, got worse, got put on light duty, missed too much training, so now here I am. Will get evaluation and physical therapy, so hopefully it'll heal up fast.

Outside the chow hall.

In the meantime, I am swimming a lot to stay in shape, and hopefully I'll be able to ride fine too. I definitely can't run, but hopefully I can pick that back up as I heal. I'm looking forward to training the rest of the summer and getting back into racing shape. This year has definitely been a little different than I expected, but not in a bad way.

Alpha 5's squad bay.

OCS was a crazy experience. At first it was a little shocking, but you get used to it after a while. However, you're forced to constantly re-evaluated why you're there, and I quickly discovered that perhaps I wasn't there for the right reasons and also that I'm not ready to make the kind of commitment necessary to serve as a Marine.

Obstacle course

I definitely learned a lot there, both tangibles and intangibles. The biggest take-away I think was what I learned about myself. You're under so much stress all the time that what you do well gets you through, but what you don't do well glares back at you and makes you work that much harder. Anyway, I like to think that the short time I was there helped make me better.

Portrait shot. Photo courtesy of Greenwood Photography.

It's definitely nice to be back, although for the moment I don't have a whole lot going on. It's a sharp change from the daily routine at OCS and always being busy, but it's a nice break. I'm ready to get back to work and training though. Hopefully the doctors say I'm good to train and I can get back into a routine. For the time being though, I'm a swimmer again.

Ductus Exemplo

2010-06-02T08:48:00.003-04:00

For those of you who have not heard, I am attending Officer Candidates School this summer for the United States Marine Corps. So if you're wondering why I have been conspicuously absent on the bike racing scene, that's why. Today is my last day in Bloomington, I leave for Indianapolis tonight and then ship out to MCB Quantico tomorrow. I will be gone for 10 weeks, completing the Platoon Leader's Class-Combined course with OCC-204.

I'm a little nervous, yet excited. This is going to be a very different experience for me, so we'll see how it goes. For those of you who would like to contact me, I will try to post my contact info as soon as I get a chance to get on the internet, but it probably won't be for at least 3 weeks. My mailing address will be dependent on which company and platoon I'm assigned to, which I will not know until after receiving, but the rest of the info is as follows:

Candidate Ren-Jay Shei 7592
x Company x Platoon
Officer Candidates School
2189 Elrod Avenue
Quantico, VA 22134-5033

I have a lot of last minute things to take care of before I leave, so I'm going to get going, but I'm hoping this summer goes well! See you all on the other side.

Taiwan

2010-05-28T12:05:00.003-04:00

I just got back from Taiwan a few days ago. After finals I went back to visit family and see a few sights. All in all it was an awesome trip and I got to see a lot of relatives that I haven't seen in a long time. Throughout the course of the trip we had various relatives take us to see some more "touristy" sights, which was pretty cool.

Sun Moon Lake.

Sun Moon Lake is one of the more famous sights in the middle part of Taiwan. The name comes from the shape of the lake when viewed from the top of a mountain. Half of the lake looks like a sun and the other half looks like a crescent moon, hence the name. It's gorgeous, although it's definitely been developed into a tourist destination. There's still plenty of natural beauty out there though, and it was great to see.

Bridge at University Pond in Shitou.

We also went and walked through part of Shitou Forest, up in the mountains (although not too high up). That place was super cool and there were tons of places with great views of the mountains. We also stopped by a famous oolong tea region, where my mom's uncle bought a ton of tea.

My cousin and me in front of the National Palace Museum.

Overall I had a blast. Taiwan is very different from the US, but like any place, it's got good and not so good parts. I definitely wasn't used to the hot and humid climate and a lot of the food was weird to me, but there was also a lot of good food too. All of my relatives were really cool and super nice, and there's definitely a more close-knit feeling, even among extended family. It's nice to be home though, and I'm pretty much adjusted back to Bloomington time.

Today is also Maddie's 21st birthday, it seems like yesterday we were celebrating her 5th. Time flies. We're getting old.

Happenings...and the Little 500

2010-05-03T13:54:00.004-04:00

A lot has happened since my last post. I've just been insanely busy. The race has come and gone, and so has rider's week. The race did not go as planned and I gotta say, I'm disappointed with our result. We rode the kind of race we wanted to, but a couple poorly timed mistakes led us to lose a lap to the field. We all tried our best to get it back, but we never seemed to be able to close the gap. We'd get about a half a lap up, then get chased down again. Anyway, I left it all on the track and that's some consolation to temper the loss.

Me leading the pack near the beginning of the race. Photo courtesy of Chun-Yu Shei

Looking forward, I'll be back next year on the sidelines or in the pit doing my best to help the guys finally pull it off. It was nice this year to have two alumni, guys who we have spent hours on the road with, in the pit backing us up. Our alumni base is building, and Quay and I are the most recent additions.

Me giving a teammate the thumbs up from the pit. Photo courtesy of Molly Quanty

It's definitely a little disappointing to walk away essentially empty handed, but I'm glad we laid it all out there and I guess another small consolation is having two All-Star riders on the team. In the end though, nobody remembers the All-Stars, just the winners.

The rain begins...going through a turn in the rain. Photo courtesy of Chun-Yu Shei

The week since the race has been crazy, and I gotta say, it's been a blast. I miss the Little 500 already. The regularity of track practice, of seeing friends day in and day out is something that I truly will miss. I just got hit with a major post-race/post rider-week let down...that empty feeling when something that's been routine ends. It's been a really fun year and I've had the time of my life and met some awesome new people along the way.

From a drizzle straight to torrential downpour. Epic. Photo courtesy of Kelsey Wright.

As I look towards next year, I'm wondering how I'll adjust to my new role. It'll be weird not being in the race next year. I've always been one for action and watching from the sidelines just isn't me. I just hope that I can contribute something to push the guys to be that much better, and hopefully it'll lead to something great.

Losing hurts...JB's got my back though. Photo courtesy of Molly Quanty.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I had the time of my life this semester. Thank you so much to everyone this year, especially this spring. You guys made my last Little 500 more fun than I could have ever imagined, and I wish all of you well and look forward to many, many more memories.

Quals, ITT, and More

2010-04-03T14:54:00.002-04:00

A recurring theme seems to be me not updating this blog often enough. Quals has come and gone as well as such events as jersey/pit selection and ITTs. In an unusual departure from typical Quals weather, this year we found ourselves looking at sunny skies and warm weather instead of the usual clouds and near-freezing temperatures typically found at Quals. The only thing that sucked was the wind. We went in the middle of the afternoon and had a clean run, finishing in 2:24.25, which was good enough for 7th on the day. While not terrible, it would've been nice to be one place higher so that we could be on the outside in the starting grid, but we'll be fine regardless.

Heading through turn 4 at Quals. Photo courtesy of Ashton Wischmeier (aka Dan).

While the rest of the guys grew real mustaches, I had to resort to wearing a fake one, as I am incapable of growing a mustache myself. As far as I know, they seemed to be a great source of humor amongst other teams, particularly our "Leave your mustache on the track" slogan for Quals.

Flooring it across the start/finish line at Quals. Photo courtesy of Molly Quanty.

All in all, Quals was not the kind of statement we wanted to make, but it was a clean run, we're in the race, and in the end that's a good thing. It was a fun day, and there was plenty of festivities later that night. Next up was jersey/pit selection. While we were hoping to get our baby blue jersey again this year, Dan Brown of Phi Psi shattered our dreams by picking that jersey. We wound up with a light gray/silver-ish jersey and a pit in the front stretch 3 from the end in turn 1. The other disappointment of the night was that we were hoping to pit next to our farm family buddies the Gray Goats, but wound up with someone in between. Oh well, we'll still spend plenty of time chatting at track practice anyway.

Me during Quals. Photo courtesy of Chun-Yu Shei.

Next up was ITTs and this time while the conditions appeared nice, the track was actually pretty slow. Wind and a loose track combined to make the times much slower than last year. I had a pretty crappy run, I guess it happens. I just couldn't get my legs to turn over. I'm still not quite sure where I wound up, but I think I was out of the top 20 and went over 2:30...yikes. I'm pretty sure I've gone faster than that in practice... Anyhow, I'm not too concerned about it and I've been having a lot of fun at track practice and seem to be riding pretty well.

Wondering why it hurts so much at ITTs. Photo courtesy of Chun-Yu Shei.

This weekend is an off-weekend due to Easter, and while the Marian Criterium was today, I decided to fore-go it because a) it was raining, and b) because I just straight up didn't feel like going through the whole racing process. Miss-N-Out is coming up, and the race will be here before we know it, so all focus is on that. I am now realizing that this is a marathon post (another recurring theme...maybe if I updated this more often my posts would be shorter?), so I'll digress, but this spring has been flying by, but luckily I've been enjoying it a lot.

Me at ITTs 2010. Photo Courtesy of James Brosher.

Moving Past Spring Break and Onto Quals

2010-03-25T12:17:00.003-04:00

Unbelievably, Spring Break has come and gone yet again. As cliche as it sounds, this spring is flying by. Quals are this Saturday and we've got an awesome time. Black Key Bulls will make their qualifying attempt at 1:55pm immediately following Pi Beta Phi, Plan B, and the Cutters. Teter women will go shortly afterward, so if you're looking for a good set of teams, early afternoon is a good bet!

Spring break was awesome. We changed up the training a lot this year and I think it paid off. There was less overall volume and we spent a lot more time on the track and I think my legs hurt as much, if not more, than last year. We were definitely blown out by the time we did our motorpacing session this past weekend, and I think all of us were ready to take it easy for a few days this week, which works out since we should hopefully be properly recovered just in time for Quals.

Bike Whisperer: Me sitting on JB's wheel spurring him on. Photo courtesy of Ashton Wischmeier (aka Dan).

We spent a large amount of our time at the track and throughout the course of this, we all got some awesome tanlines. As everyone knows, these, along with clean shaven legs and tall socks, are the trademarks of pro cyclists. All in all, I had a blast over break and our training couldn't have been any better.

Getting down to business: Serious warmup before a workout. Photo courtesy of Ashton Wischmeier (aka Dan).

Unfortunately, the only damper over break was Dan (our rookie) being injured still and having to spend more time on a trainer than actually on a bike. Even more unfortunate was the fact that he couldn't do his penalty pushups. However, we came up with an interim solution: making him do wall-sits! Great Success!

Sun! Somehow, I still decided to keep my arm warmers on instead of working on my tanline. Photo courtesy of Caitlin Coar.

We had out now-annual cookout at our condo, pinata and all. Dan got positive points (and therefore negative pushups) for finding a bull pinata. Fortunately the riders took it easy, but we had plenty of fun regardless.

Pinata: a BKB Spring Break cookout tradition. We even got a bull this year. Photo courtesy of the Delta Gamma girls.

Beer bong: Essential Spring Break training tool. I believe this is the riders living vicariously through the coaches, since we were training... Photo courtesy of the Delta Gamma girls.

Looking forward: we've gotten some rain, which is good since it will pack down the track and hopefully make it insanely fast for Saturday. Otherwise the spring temperatures are really nice. I'm seeing more and more people in shorts and flip flops, which is my kind of attire! I know it's not going to happen, but I really hope I can put away my winter jacket and thermal booties for the year.

The only thing standing between me and Quals is a biochem test tonight. So, with that, I'm off to study.

Looking Ahead- Spring Break

2010-03-12T00:42:00.002-05:00

Wow, I can't believe Spring Break is here already! Well...not quite yet. I have to finish off my biochem worksheet and also attend that lecture. And go to cell biology lab lecture and take a test. But that's not much standing in between me and spring break. So far the track hasn't been that great, with some terrible, but manageable, ruts. Overall it's been fun being back out on the track and seeing the other riders.

We ran into this guy during our winter training trip. I think he can be our new unofficial mascot.

Winter break seems like it was ages ago. Hopefully what we did then will help us be able to train at a higher level this coming week and in the weeks to come. In other news, our rookie Ashton a.k.a. Dan was on a road ride this past weekend and hit a pothole and went over the bars. Damage was a few cracked ribs and a hairline fracture on his collarbone, plus the usual whiplash and scrapes (his road rash isn't too bad thanks to a winter jacket!). Fortunately, the doctors say he should heal up fairly quickly. Unfortunately, he's got to take some time off/easy. And more importantly, he can't do his penalty pushups until he heals up!

Anyhow, the collegiate scene moves to Depauw this weekend for some more awesome racing. I'm excited to get back to racing and hopefully my dumb cough won't bother me anymore. Plus, it'll be fun with a TTT this weekend. Here are some pictures from the event last year:

Joe Kukolla (Marian), Will Nowak (Northwestern), a Lindsey Wilson rider, and myself try to escape off the front in the opening stages of the road race. Note Will and my choice of socks!

Digging hard during the windy, overcast criterium.

Warming up before the crit with Isaac.

We have not been practicing the team time trial, and I'm not quite sure if the ability levels of our riders are close enough that we can ride a good one, but I'm optimistic. We have a young A's squad this year and a bit of a learning curve is to be expected. After two seasons in the A's I'm still trying to figure it out! I was lucky enough to have a lot of pretty solid older riders around when I started my collegiate career, so hopefully I can share that experience with everyone and we can continue to grow as a squad and do some solid racing while we're at it.

Mike Sherer, myself, and Isaac Neff finish the Team Time Trial at the 2008 Regional Championships. We narrowly defeated Marian and eventually won the MWCCC overall.

Last note: the weather has been awesome (aside from the rain today) the last few days, and I was lucky enough to be able to enjoy a couple brewskis on the deck yesterday in 70-degree temperatures. Hopefully the weather during spring break will be equally good (once this rain moves off...) and we can enjoy it as a team! Look for an update at some point during the week...I dare not promise daily updates!

P.S.
for those who have twitter, mine is rshei (http://twitter.com/rshei), if you want to follow me, just ask...although I can't promise you'll be amused by my updates...

Track's Open

2010-03-05T09:47:00.002-05:00

It's happening again--the track is open once more. The opening of the track was delayed by bad weather (what else is new, right?), but now that it's open, people are flocking to it like pigs to mud (yes, I probably listen to too much country music), and it's about the way I remember it. It's still a place where you can workout and suffer. It's still a place where you can hang out and be social. It's still...the track. Looking ahead, spring break starts in a week and then Quals are the week after that...it seems like time is flying by.

The BKB team in the fall at Cyclocross, with coaches/alumni Scott & Isaac

Back in the fall it seemed like the race was so far away, and all the miles in the snow in between just seemed like another step along the way. Well, hopefully the snow is gone for good (but probably not...) and now we're taking the final steps to prepare for the biggest race of the spring. Soon the series events will be in full swing, and before we know it, it will be Jersey Night already.

Relaxing a bit before warming up for a series event.

In terms of our team, JB & I are confident that we're just as strong, if not stronger, than last year. Our rookie Dan is riding well, and everyone else is being themselves. Hopefully we'll be prepared to (and have a bit of luck to) Git-R-Done on race day.

New Year, New Training

2010-01-01T23:51:00.004-05:00

Well, another year has come and gone. I've been so busy this year that this blog has taken a backseat for sure, plus there wasn't a whole lot to talk about for a while.

Anyhow, this holiday season was pretty good, I got to catch up with old friends and spend time with my family, both of which are up there on my list of things that I like to do. Unfortunately the weather, my sleeping habits, and general lack of motivation has put a damper on my riding schedule, which is obviously not good, but I've been squeezing in rides here and there. Today was a very cold one. This week has been a lot better weather-wise and I've had more free time too. The highlights this week have not been cycling-related though. A bunch of us from high school finally got together after Christmas and then again for New Year's, and it was great to be able to spend time with them again. It's so weird having us all scattered across the country now instead of all congregating at North daily.

Maddie, myself, and Arianna, at the annual Holiday Party. photo by Chun-Yu Shei

Anyhow, I don't have a whole lot to say, except training this year will be a little different than in years past I think. I am leaving on Sunday to go on the BKB winter training trip, which should be awesome. We have a solid team this year and we are also taking Isaac and Ryan down with us too, so it should be a good trip. So with that, I bid everyone who may stumble across this post a very Happy New Year!

Climate Change

2009-11-18T22:58:00.002-05:00

Well, the warm weather has left us...maybe for the rest of the year. It finally feels like fall, with chilly temperatures and some rain too. The semester is winding down i.e. getting busier ahead of finals...

For some reason I have been sleeping and unusually large amount lately...I've been unable to wake up for my 8am class on MW, which isn't good. Even worse, I've missed out on several hours of riding due to this. Also not good. However, classes are seeming manageable now, which is good. And I've gotten several sessions in at the SRSC, also good. Rode the TT bike today with some moderate tempo, that was fun. Also good. So overall I guess things are going pretty smooth. My chemistry test last night? NOT good. Oh well, it happens.

I'm really scatterbrained right now...in between writing a paper, debating whether or not to study for nutrition, and researching for my lab report. Gotta love copper glycine complexes! Interesting note though: in your electron transport chain (i.e. where lots of ATP comes from), you have something called the cytochrome oxidase complex, which contains bound copper. I wonder if some of the amino acids that big the copper are glycine? Well, I'll just have to go find out...

-RJ

Back At It

2009-11-08T13:52:00.000-05:00

Well, it's been a while, but not much has been going on. School is still keeping me busy, I'm still riding my bike, and I still try to sleep as much as possible. What else is new?

I'm finally back to riding consistently and throwing in weights too, which is good. So far it's been going well, although I woke up with a super sore knee today, so I don't know what the deal with that is.

I have no pictures to share right now, no real news to speak of, and no provoking thoughts to put forth. So I think I'm going to call it a post and just say, I'm still here and still doing the same old thing. Just been too lazy to post here...haha

-RJ

Lazy Monday

2009-10-12T13:07:00.004-04:00

Well, it's the start of another week and today sure is a nice lazy Monday. So far I have realized that I suck at physics (had an exam this morning...) and also that I forgot to do a nutrition assignment that was due online yesterday. Why then, would I say that today is lazy when these two ordinarily stressful things have occurred? Well, the answer lies in my nonchalant attitude toward these two events. And also in the fact that after my exam I took an awesome nap.

Furthermore, I have prepared myself a nice lunch from scratch (ok, I used a box of pasta) with no recipe, and it turned out pretty well. Screw Hamburger Helper!

My self-fabricated, no recipe needed, lunch.

Also, I'm listening to Norah Jones sing a Johnny Cash classic and it's awesome. What a great voice.

Anyhow, I have to head to class in a bit and I need to also work ahead on some homework so that I will be able to attend Bloomington's Beer Fest this week :-)

p.s.
the Fall Cycling Series concluded yesterday. Summary: Kiels dominated in cyclocross and Scott Catanzaro showed that his summer paid off by destroying the 10 lap ITT. Great job guys!

Busy Busy!

2009-10-07T20:07:00.002-04:00

Well, it's been a while since I've posted, mostly due to the fact that I am super busy. In fact, I am working on my physics homework right now but got distracted (and I also can't figure out this problem), so I decided to throw up a post. There hasn't been a whole lot going on lately...been riding (not as much as I should), going to class, working some, and not racing. That's right, I've done a grand total of 0 cross races...oops. Oh well, I think I'll try to make it out to the Bloomington OVCX race, then do one day of Louisville the next weekend to kick things off.

In other news, our good friend Adam Fryska just moved out of town this week. It'll be different not having him around the shop and on rides...and at the Vid... I for one think he's going to come back after his Appalachian Trail adventure for Law School, but who knows.

I should probably get back to my homework, but I need to give a shoutout to Ryan Knapp for his 24 UCI points, good for 62nd on the rankings and Mike Sherer for his 3 wins so far this season. Keep up the good work guys.

School, TT, and whatever

2009-09-01T23:58:00.002-04:00

Well, it's official, school is back in session. So far I have only fallen asleep in one class, and that was for a rather brief period of time! In all seriousness though, it looks like I have my work cut out for me this semester, but the content seems pretty interesting in most of my classes.

Today was also the last "official" TT of the season out at MMSF. I rode my Equinox for the first time at one of these, with good old Easton EC 90s, and this helped significantly improve my time. My previous best for the year was 24:03, and my best from last year was something like 23:10 or so. Today I went 22:39. Not blazing by any means (Ryan won with a "sub-par" 21:15, a full 30 seconds slower than his best, which is also the course record), but definitely an improvement. I'm going to be a tool and throw out that I'm still regaining fitness lost from my collarbone crash. But all things considered I'm pretty pleased with my ride.

I'm also settled in at the condo I moved into with my brother and my buddy and swimming teammate from high school Scott. Everything seems to be working pretty smoothly so far (knock on wood), so hopefully it'll stay that way. I'm also starting to get into the "school" routine, so I guess that's a good thing.

Only 2 classes tomorrow, but plenty of things to do.

I'M BACK!!!!!

2009-08-21T21:02:00.002-04:00

That's right, I'm finally making a new post! A lot has happened since my last post. My collarbone is in one piece again, I'm back on the bike, I picked up running a bit, I got a new bike (below), classes are about to start, I'm moving into a new place...the list goes on.

Anyhow, I made the return to racing at the Warsaw Downtown Criterium where I thought I was feeling pretty good in the early stages of the race, but after about 1/3 of the way, I blew sky high and before I knew it, I got lapped. So after about 30 minutes of racing, I dropped out, much to my dismay. The rest of the season will be focused on cyclocross, which should be fun.

I also just got a new TT bike, a Trek Equinox 7, and it just got finished yesterday. I took it out for a short spin today, and boy is it fun! I think there are still some tweaks to make, but for the most part the position is in the right ballpark.

Oh...other big news: I'm on Twitter! Follow me at http://twitter.com/rshei

Collarbone

2009-06-05T14:30:00.003-04:00

As some of you may have already heard, I had a little bike crash yesterday and ended up breaking my right collarbone. I can't figure out the software on the CD the hospital gave me so I just took this jank photo of my computer screen:

As you can see there is a nice little break in there, which put me in the current club of Bloomington Collarbone Fractures with John Meyers and Randi Cox. We should get a photo together in our crippled states. Anyhow, this is the first time I've ever broken a bone so it's all kind of new to me. The doctors say I should be up and running in 4-6 weeks, so I guess we'll just have to wait and see. In the meantime, John and Randi--if you're as bored as I am we should make a cripple club...

Bike Shop Boys

2009-06-02T19:23:00.003-04:00

As I cruise to town in the morning, I try to feel out how my legs feel, and also where my head is at. When I arrive at The Bicycle Garage, I see Fred's car...he must have come early to drop some stuff off too. Our meeting place in the alley behind the shop is still empty, not yet teeming with the men and women of the day. It's mid-morning and a small group of bike shop boys are planning to get an early ride in before work. I top off my water bottles and take one last pee break while there is still a toilet available. Slowly the group assembles and rolls out of town.

6 of us lazily roll out of town, even though there is a slight time crunch...after all, we have to open the shops up in a few hours. But, as with any group ride, spirits are high and the group atmosphere fosters gentle conversation. Our pace is slowed further when an untimely red light splits us up. But alas, all is not lost--for some of us that allows more time to roll along slowly, still trying to wake up the legs, for others it's an opportunity to pee again, but nobody is in a rush, so we keep cruising along. Slowly as we leave town the pace picks up and eventually we settle into a collective rhythm. Cadences pick up slightly, the click of shifters is audible, even as cars roll by, and steadily our breathing (and heart) rates rise. We're moving along at a fast tempo, upbeat, but nowhere near an all-out effort. Each rider takes an even, steady pull, a last ditch attempt to warm up before the real speed comes. We make our first turn in the country, and pace increases, and soon we are a chugging along like a locomotive. Silence surrounds us, punctuated by the occasional warning for cars or road hazards, or a laugh when a rider does something stupid (like point at a hole then run into it). Kilometers roll by quickly and before we know it, the first big climb looms ahead. Our group of 6 has diminished to 5, and A.Rod begins to drive it up the climb. The elastic begins to stretch a little. A timely (or untimely depending on who you were) pee break at the top allows A.Fry to regain contact and continue onwards.

Soon, the pace reaches a race-like speed and we hit the second, largest climb. One of the steepest climbs around, it is a legitimate "hors categorie" climb...at least for around here. Our group shrinks to 4, and the rest of the ride is steady. As we roll into town, the mood lightens again and laughs are abundant. As we split up to go clean up before work, I can't help but smile, knowing that next time, it'll be just as fun. The work day looms ahead, but somehow, even being worn out from the efforts of the ride, each of us feels revitalized and ready to help others enjoy their bikes as much as we just did.

Adam enjoys a fine wine occasionally

...and so do I!

Some rides end like this...but others don't

Joe Martin Wrap-Up & Rest

2009-05-18T00:46:00.003-04:00

I haven't had too much to post about...Joe Martin ended pretty well, I finished in the pack in the crit (22nd I think), and stayed in 18th in the GC, so it was nice to take a little money home along with a top-20 in a GC. Mike rode like a stud and hung in the Pro crit for about an hour (out of 90 mins), and wrapped up the race in 88th in the GC.

Since getting back I've done a lot of sleeping, catching up with friends, a little bike maintenance, and lots of easy riding. Bad news is that my front wheel (which was so adeptly taken out by a rider in Stage 3) is still umm...broken, and Trek does not have the spokes I need. Alternate solutions: use regular 279mm spokes, or get black ones and paint them white...? Anyway, I'll have to get that figured out so that I can get that wheel up and running again, as I really like that wheel. After perusing some old results/photos of the cycling world, I came across this, which I thought I would share:

This picture, from cyclingnews.com, has a caption which reads: "An LPR rider is not sure what he is eating, but it was so cold and snowy at the top of Brasstown Bald, that he did not care." I found this mildly entertaining and equally mildly inspirational.

Another random thought: for you Pandora users, I suggest creating the following stations:

Herbie Hancock Radio
Matt Nathanson Radio
Five o'Clock Somewhere Radio

These are all very different, yet awesome, and I think you will enjoy each thoroughly. Anyway, I'm going to go pass out, hopefully I'll have more to talk about this week!

Joe Martin Stage Race Day 3

2009-05-09T23:49:00.000-04:00

Today was the third stage of Joe Martin, a 92 mile road race. I finished 22nd on the day, but the GC is not posted yet. I was in the main pack, so I suspect I'm probably about the same. Tomorrow is the last day, a crit on a 2K course with a decent sized climb. I'm pretty out of it, so I'm gonna hit the sack. Probably the last update before we get back, again media-less. Other guys did fine, Isaac was 59th in the pack while Mike rolled in 120th after spending the last 50K or so alone.

Joe Martin Stage Race Day 2

2009-05-08T22:55:00.002-04:00

Today was the second day of JMSR, 110 mile road race with 4 decent sized climbs. The rain let up right before the start, so we had a pretty dry day of riding, which was really nice. My race wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be, but I'm definitely pretty tired now. I rolled in with the pack in 15th place, as a Metro guy soloed off with like 20K to do and held it for the win. John Meyers and Ryan Freund from ABD, who we've been hanging out with, got 6th and 7th, which is pretty sweet. Ryan held onto his 10th place in the GC while I moved up from 19th to 18th, at something like 51 seconds down. Isaac and Mike both finished pretty well today, which was sweet, although Isaac had some bad luck in the last 5K with someone taking out his front wheel. He ended up rolling in right behind the main pack and is in 116th overall I think. Mike had a solid ride for 56th on the stage and moved up to 96th overall. Will had some bad luck, crashing about 8K in. After a pretty decent chase, he wound up too far back and had to drop out. I haven't found any pictures, so this will have to be a media-less post.

All in all it was a pretty fun day, with about 4.5 hours on the bike, and none of it too terribly hard. Funniest moment of the day: with about 5K to go until the huge climb for the day, someone who will go unnamed (hint: he was leading the overall), was riding next to me and naturally I was trying to make conversation. It went something like this:

Me: I hope this climb starts soon, I just want to get it over with
Him: Yeah me too, I really gotta poo
...

Anyhow, tomorrow is a 92 mile road race with more climbing than today, but rolling, so we'll see how that goes.

Joe Martin Stage Race Day 1

2009-05-07T22:51:00.003-04:00

Well, today was the first day of the Joe Martin Stage Race, only my 3rd race since getting my upgrade. I'm down here with Mike, Isaac, and Will, all from Alderfer Bergen, but they are all racing the Pro/1 event with guys like Ben Jacque-Mayne and Rory Sutherland (and Floyd Landis), while I'm racing the 1/2 race with good old Duane Dickey and John Meyers. Today's stage was a 2.5 mile TT with a short flat section and then about 2 miles uphill. Ben Jacque-Mayne killed it and won in 8:03 in the Pro Men's race. Isaac had a solid ride with a 9:17, good for 92nd. I managed a 9:26 for 19th in the 1/2 race while Mike and Will both rode 9:31s, good for 115th and 116th. Tomorrow looks like it'll be pretty wet during the 110 mile stage...

Map from today:

I'm Alive! (And Little 500)

2009-04-30T21:51:00.002-04:00

Wow! I just realized it's been almost a month since I've shared my thoughts and activities here. So needless to say a lot has happened. First, the old news: I haven't raced on the road since Michigan, IU did not qualify for nationals as a team for the first time in a long time (Kristina Heath and Jenna Johnson did both qualify as individuals and will be representing us in Colorado though, so congrats to both of them!), umm...I sucked at Miss-N-Out, and we won Team Pursuit and just barely missed going under 9:00 and also just barely missed the white jersey. Ok, onwards!

The 2009 Little 500 is done and as you probably already know, the Cutters won their 3rd straight, and 10th overall race. None of us (the rest of the field) have an excuse, as the Cutters had not one, but two penalties, and a couple wrecks at various points throughout the race, so being able to come back from that and still win...unbelievable. We had a solid race too, taking 5th place. Two footnotes: we had two mechanicals in the last 40 laps. Not and excuse, as I just mentioned the Cutters had their share of problems too (so did many other teams including Fiji who got 3rd), but just throwing that out there.

BKB on the front of the pack. photo courtesy of Nick Sovinski

Anyway, this was my first time riding in the race and I had a blast and definitely look forward to coming back next year. Starting the race was a lot less nerve-wracking than I thought it would be, and it actually came pretty naturally. Best advice: get up front, go fast, turn left. I also finished the race for our team...this part was also equally less overwhelming. Again, it's down to your instincts and I just came up short and wasn't able to win. But again, same advice: get up front, go fast, turn left.

Staying up front. photo courtesy of Brian Holthouse

So needless to say I did not race the Brown County State Park Road Race the following day, but defending champ Jake Rytlewski finished 3rd with two "newcomers" taking the top two spots. The following night was of course, Jersey Night. Long story short: BKB did pretty well, mostly thanks to Val. Then, Wine and Cheese, again, Val definitely carried us. Last night was the banquet and Jordan and Val earned All-Star awards while I got a Rookie of the Year (along with Dave Ellis, Zach Trogdon, and of course, Eric Young). BKB also got the sportsmanship award, something we're pretty proud of. More importantly, we got Frattiest Independent Team AND Frattiest Independent Rider (Val...duh). I think we got something else, but again, that's mostly thanks to Val (most shameful Jersey Night maybe?). Oh yeah, Steve--I couldn't resist putting this up:

Good help is hard to find...unless you're on BKB! photo courtesy of VeloNews

P.S. I'll be racing up at Winona Lakes this weekend with the full Alderfer Bergen team, so that should be loads of fun, I'll try to keep this updated!

Oh, and Jackie Moeller rocks

Yet Another Post

2009-04-03T23:20:00.003-04:00

Ah...Spring is here! There has been so much going on and I have been so lazy in posting here, I don't even know where to start! First things first: tomorrow is a) Miss-N-Out (very important for Little 5ers), b) Purdue Road Race (somewhat important for collegiate, mostly to reaffirm IU's superiority to umm...that other place), and c) Hillsboro-Roubaix (somewhat important since it is rapidly becoming a Midwest 'Classic'). Ok, well I will be participating in 'a' and hopefully can improve on my result (or lack thereof) from last year, which was being the first one out of the semifinal.

Ok, some quick catch-up er...things: first of all, Quals were last weekend (seem like a long time ago) and our team got what I consider the money spot: 6th, which is outside, 2nd row. Props to Teter Women for smashing the quals record while taking the pole and also to Phi Delts for taking the pole in the men's. Next, after quals were over after sticking around to sufficiently chat and get some facetime, keeping with my "Little 500 groupie" status (I've been at it since middle school!), it was pack and go as I headed up to Ann Arbor, Michigan with Kristina to meet Isaac and get some racing in. While I'm at it, yes I realize I have been using parentheses A LOT this post (I really like them). Ok anyway, short version of Michigan: "let's just relax and be chill"; "ok"; Isaac and Kristina both scored some points in the circuit race and ITT while I again had a sub-par performance finishing 25th in the circuit race and 24th in the ITT for a big old 0 points.

The weather at the DePauw Crit was somewhat gloomy. Hopefully this weekend will be better. photo courtesy of Sarah Lukas

Anyhow, this weekend will be Marian and hopefully the weather will be ok and I will have a chance to redeem myself. So to keep tally, including time trials, I have 8 races on the legs now. Time to start showing some form.

Onwards! This past Wednesday brought a well-established spring class...at least in Bloomington it's a classic. Little 500 ITTs! Eric Young showed everyone that he is indeed extremely quick by winning handily by over two seconds with a time of 2:18 or so. I made a common mistake: go out super hard, die, hang on. Just like I swam the 200 Free... Ended up 16th place. Fiji had a strong showing and is currently killing everyone in the White jersey competition. On the women's side, Kristi Hewitt smashed the field while breaking the ITT record, set two years ago. Anyway, most of the happenings at ITTs have been discussed ad nauseum at BloomingtonVelonews, the IDS, and of course, Pedals and Spokes.

One thing was going through my head during ITTs: GO FASTER. photo courtesy of Chun-Yu Shei

I did forget to mention that the IU Mini is this weekend. For those of you who have the time/energy/general inclination to do it, I would highly recommend it. The course is really fun, very challenging, and it supports the a good cause (Circle of Life). Plus, if you're a cyclist, you can put on runner's garb and show off your sweet tanlines, like I did:

The IU Mini is a great event...even if you are not a runner (like me)

More recent happenings include...lots of rain this week, colder temperatures, and of course, a big party in Bloomington consisting of many not-normally-in-town cyclists being well, in town. Some of these include: Paddy Kilmurray, BVDG, Bri Kovac, and Guy East. I'm sure I forgot someone, or multiple someones, so don't feel left out, my brain just isn't working at the moment. Oh yeah, also this recent drop in temperatures comes right as I decided to buzz my hair again. So needless to say, I find the cooler temperatures irksome, as I have nothing to keep the heat near my noggin. However, when it gets warm again (and it will), I'll be enjoying the cool breeze on my scalp.

I'll just leave you with some old pictures I found that I liked. This one is from 2004 when deCycles did the California trip, which is still one of my favorite trips. The route was amazing and the people were super fun. Doesn't get much better than that.

Climbing Tioga Pass (10,000 ft!) back in the day.

And here's something else! Most of you have probably noticed me sporting my camo hat more often recently. Believe me, half the reason is a joke, the other half? Well, I just really like my camo hat...

If you think my current camo hat is ridiculous, you should've seen this one...I wish I still had it!

Spring Break Wrap Up & Notre Dame Race Weekend

2009-03-25T11:34:00.003-04:00

It's official: Spring Break is over. Today was the third day back at class and so far this week has been a whirlwind of business. However, today should be somewhat relaxing...I hope. Anyway, our break ended pretty well with everyone thoroughly exhausted from the week's training. A timely (or untimely if you weren't us) track cancellation on Friday morning resulted in an easy spin on road bikes for us and allowed us to take off somewhat early to get up to Notre Dame for collegiate racing.

Goofin' around at the end of track practice

We did pick qualifications times this past Monday...looks like we are going at 1:25pm, so if you have nothing to do this Saturday afternoon, come out and watch! There are several other notable teams going close to our time, for the full schedule, click here.

The end of Spring Break...the only time we can have all 7 BKB's on the track at once

Our trip up to Notre Dame was super fun, with Scott's parents opening up their house for us to stay in. Big thank you to the Mueller's for that! The road race was talked up as being Belgian-esque in road conditions, but turned out to be a pretty clean course with some bumps and gravel here and there, but nothing to fret about. In what seems to be becoming a pattern this year, I missed the break again, sat in the pack, and got schooled in the field sprint. Oops... Fast forward to a quickie campfire/s'mores session, then the following morning the crit at Rum Village Park, the same course used at the IN State Crit last year. It was go from the gun with speeds soaring into the upper 30s on the backside of the course. Isaac rode a great race, making what appeared to be the winning break which was re-absorbed going into the final laps. On the last lap with a few riders still dangling in front, it was Marian College that ramped it up and caught the floundering break just before the line to make the finish grouppo compatto, with Danny Estevez of Lindsey Wilson College winning the sprint. Isaac rolled in 4th behind him and Valentin 7th. I finished mid-pack, just out of the points in 22nd...another disappointing result. So now with 6 races on the legs and 0 good results, I am starting to get a little frustrated, but these are all good training, setting up for later in the season when I will need to be fast.

In other news Lance Armstrong wrecked out of the Vuelta a Castilla y Leon with a broken collarbone, and being a Lance fan myself, I hope he recovers in time for the Giro d'Italia. Wouldn't it be great if he added a pink jersey to those 7 yellows he's already got? Anyhow, I need some lunch and I have one more class to go. I'll leave you with this:

The Black Key Bulls 2009

Still Going Strong So Far

2009-03-17T23:48:00.002-04:00

Well, we're still plugging away at the training. Track practice went well yesterday with some pretty good workouts by everyone on the team. We definitely all felt it today but plugged along and got through the workout just fine followed by an afternoon easy spin to work out the kinks. Everyone is definitely feeling the strain of training, but we're still hanging out and having fun.

Sometimes it's a squeeze to fit 15 bikes in one cabin

Bags/cornhole and Xbox seem to be the main modes of entertainment while not biking. That said, other things such as eating continuously between workouts, napping, sitting in the jacuzzi, and using The Stick have also been done.

Home looked pretty good after the second ride of the day

I think everyone is starting to figure out that eating about double what they normally do is not only good, but necessary to survive the week. Pasta has been a staple, as well as chocolate milk and some other goodies. Tonight we enjoyed the pasta bar at the clubhouse where each plate is made to order right in front of you. Some housekeeping and logistical stuff was sorted out and now we're all just hanging out. I'm at the clubhouse patio since the internet doesn't work at our place.

Almost home

The weather has been incredible with temperatures in the 60s and 70s and sun, so no complaints there. The track is a dust bowl, but a healthy amount of water and some timely rolling has kept it manageable. Nevertheless, the number of teams there is still pretty big and there are the usual good and not so good teams. Qualifications and Spring Series events should help you figure out which are which.

Heading south towards quarry land

Anyhow, it's getting a little late and with more workouts on tap, I should probably be getting to bed. Let's hope we all feel good tomorrow!

The train museum is pretty cool

Spring Break Begins

2009-03-16T14:24:00.003-04:00

Well, Spring Break 2009 has officially started and I am currently out at Eagle Pointe with the other BKBs. The weekend was taken up with some shenanigans and some rides down south. Chilly temperatures greeted us Saturday morning when we woke up and it didn't warm up too much as the day went on. We still got a solid few hours in, so I guess it was ok. We had some ladies over to enjoy the evening with before hitting the sack so that we could ride again in the morning.

The view from the back of the group

Sunday we ventured south once again and made a stop by one of the world-famous stone quarries of Southern Indiana.

Throwing rocks into quarry pools never gets old...

Brant ruined our groove by flatting about 8K from home and delayed our fajita enjoyment. Luckily, we had some girls over once again and the night was salvaged.

It's a long way down...don't fall

Anyway, the week has been going pretty well, we just finished our first ride of the day and are getting ready to head back to Bloomington for workout #2. Temperatures are back in the 60s with some clouds and sun. So hopefully it'll stay nice for the next 4 hours or so until we're done with our track workout.

Classic townie picture...

I did think it humorous that we managed to have an organized cease fire during our Saturday ride. I guess this might be umm..."comportment correct?"

Sometimes, IUSF won't balk at an organized and rural cease-fire like this one.

Anyhow, I'll try to write something of consequence when I'm not semi-comatose between rides...

Collegiate Racing

2009-03-10T22:22:00.002-04:00

Well, I just realized that it's been too long since I last shared my thoughts here, so here I am playing catchup. First of all, the Murray State road race was MISERABLE. It wasn't too bad to start out with, and I had ok legs...but then it started to drizzle. Then it turned into full on rain. Then sleet, snow, and hail... Oh, and it was windy and 33 degrees. I managed to roll in 26th place, somewhere in the field after the winning break left without me. Oh well, it happens, first race of the year, crappy conditions, etc. The crit...was ridiculous. So ridiculous of a course that we chose to abstain (as did Marian). Enough said.

Onwards! This past weekend saw us travel to Greencastle, home of DePauw, where we contested the traditional road race at Heritage Lake. The race began under partly cloudy skies with temperatures at a balmy 70 degrees! The wind however, was blowing such that it was a straight headwind on the finishing straight. The good news? The backside of the course was 35mph everytime around.

I looked pretty relaxed before the road race. photo by Kristen Metherd

I started off by opening the hostilities at "KM 0," quickly forming a group of 4 with Joe Kukolla (Marian), Will Nowak (Northwestern), and a Lindsey Wilson rider. As expected, we were quickly re-absorbed by a fast-chasing pack. The next 20K or so played out like you'd expect, with attacks going, getting chased down, and then the whole process repeating itself. Finally a group assembled off the front and started to gain some significant time. Two Blue Raiders from Lindsey Wilson were up there, a Purdue rider, a Marian guy, and two Hoosiers! The rest of the race for me was spent either sitting on the front, chasing stuff down, or trying not to get dropped in the middle/back of the pack. The break succeeded in staying away, with one of the LWC riders winning and the two IU guys (Isaac and Erik) finishing up 5th and 6th. I was somewhere in the field...maybe 40th?

A quick snack and a short "transfer" later, we were gearing up for the TTT. Needless to say, after being totally wrecked from the RR (not literally!), I had bad feelings on the line.

Trying to stay focused and convince myself I'll go fast... photo by Jack Leibovitz

Unfortunately, I was unable to contribute more than a couple short pulls in the TTT before being unceremoniously dropped and riding the remainder of the TT by myself. Luckily the other guys were moving pretty quick, and managed to score some points.

The crit was even windier than the road race. The same thing happened this year as last year: the wind blew the race apart. I was caught on the wrong side of a split and thus spent the majority of the race in a small group or by myself trying to chase back on. Fortunately, we made it back to the main field (which was shattered already at this point), and I learned that there were two IU guys up the road: 1 in the "break" and one in the "chase." I use these terms loosely, as the groups were mainly survivors, not necessarily attackers...but for sure they were the strongmen who placed themselves in the right place at the right time! Here's where I will only speak briefly about my frustration.

The officials told our group, the main pack, to sprint early, as the break was getting closeto catching us. Naturally, we duked it out and much to my surprise, I managed to roll across the line first. This is good, right? Well, it was until the officials said "one to go!" and we (the main pack) turned to each other with "WTF!?!?!" looks...and went another lap and this time I was fortunate enough to...oh wait, I rolled in the middle of the field. Oops. The break experienced a similar problem, sprinting it out and then being told they had 3 to go. Double whammy! Anyway, from what I gather, Mike Sherer got 2nd, a sweet result for IU! Anyway, I digress.

Taking a page out of the John Meyers playbook and attacking at the gun. photo by Jack Leibovitz

This week should be mostly feel good, then a weekend off of racing and spring break. Notre Dame is the following weekend. Hopefully I'll have more to post about in the coming days. Until then, thanks for reading!

Must Be Spring!

2009-02-25T07:37:00.002-05:00

Well, I saw the first sign that Spring is quickly approaching. Bloomington's original gangster, the now-infamous Kirkwood Honda Guy (KHG), now pimped out in his new ride (well, new as of last year) was sighted cruising around town once again, blasting his usual eclectic mix of music! My brother managed to snap a shot of said icon lazily making his way down Indiana Ave.

That being said, things are now starting to pick up. The old Little 500 track has been open for a week and counting now, and the first collegiate race of the year is coming up this weekend at Murray State. While I can't say I am very fit nor can I say I am reasonably fast, I can say that I am looking forward to competing again, even if I am OTB in the first hour. After all, it can only go up from there, right?

Quick new music recommendation: cajun music a la Louisiana. Just pretend like you're on the bayou! (recommend Beausoleil)

Lance Retaliates Against Doping Allegations!

2009-02-21T12:20:00.003-05:00

For all of you who haven't yet seen this, it's pretty hilarious:

Step 1: piss off Lance

Step 2: get dominated by Lance

Step 3: fall on your ass

Step 4: yell at him in vain (while Chris Horner and Mr. Schleck laugh at you)

Very Nice!

photos from http://www.pedal.com.br/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=5157&PID=66502#66502

Shoot To Thrill

2009-02-07T22:45:00.002-05:00

It has finally warmed back up, bringing the fair-weather riders out, as well as providing the opportunity for those who have been freezing their asses off outside to relax a little bit and wear about 2 lbs less clothing while being considerably warmer on the bike. Friday saw temperatures hit about 50 degrees (about 10 Celsius for you metric nerds) with considerable sun and only mild winds. Needless to say, I took full advantage of this (especially since I only had one class!), getting over 3 hours of riding in. Today a group of guys from Marian College came down, led by their newly-hired assistant coach and IU alumnus, Brett Stewart. Of course, the trip would be frivolous if they did not get to do the famed Nashville 90, so consequently after the last late comer (umm...the author in this case...) arrived, we quickly rolled out 446 to get the party started. The pace was upbeat, but sociable as we chatted and caught up and/or got to know each other. While the group was comprised mostly of collegiate-eligible riders, there were a few with us who are no longer on the collegiate scene, but I think in the back of everyone's mind was the upcoming season, whether it be USCF or NCCA, or both.

the group had to recover a little bit after climbing and descending the monster known as Bear Wallow Hill

The pace remained steady as we reached our turnoff onto 58, and after a quick snack break, the pace quickly increased to a manageable, but noticeably faster pace. The rest of the ride played out as one would expect, with moments where we were going unexplicably fast, but for the most part still being a nice Saturday ride. We did take the opportunity, however, to expose our friends from the north to one of the larger climbs around here, Bear Wallow.

Former IU rider-turned Marian coach Brett Stewart models the "grit face" look

All in all the ride was a success, and the group meshed surprisingly well. The only real downers were the clouds and the poor (and extremely wet/sloppy) road conditions. With temperatures expected to stay above 35 overnight, I hope that most of the snow will finish melting and the roads will dry up somewhat.

I had a little bit of the "grit-face" going on...but not much

Judging from the 5 Marian guys who came down (with a few noteables absent such as Junior National TT champion Adam Leibovitz), Marian is going to be a pretty strong team, which should make this collegiate season that much more challenging...and interesting. With the MWCCC opener just 3 weeks away, things are starting to ramp up and hopefully I'll be able to make some good fitness gains before then. I'm glad we got to showcase the awesome roads down here to the Marian guys and hopefully they'll be more appetent to make the trip down here to ride in the future.

the oh-so-beloved dirt lines from socks and knee warmers...

Snow...? I guess it's do-able

2009-01-31T22:55:00.002-05:00

Well, the past couple days have brought some slightly warmer weather--enough so that the cycling community of Bloomington has began to venture out on the roads! While 446 is arguably the most-traveled (and definitely safest) route available, today our team decided to deviate from the norm and head out SR 45 to South Shore on Lake Lemon, as we had already ridden on 446 the previous day and had no desire to repeat that experience. However, as things look, tomorrow may be another 446 day...at least we got one change of scenery.

So anyway, about this past week: classes were cancelled for the first time in over 30 years on Wednesday due to the massive amount of snow, ice, sleet, and general crappiness of the weather. What that means is, I got to sleep in post-meridian, wake up, and do virtually nothing all day. Anyway, things were back to normal by Thursday and the rest of the week took care of itself in the usual way. I have had a few good workouts despite the foot or so of snow we got, including a nice swim with Ryan and another infamous trainer session at his house during which I increased my average power by umm...a lot more than I expected (34 watts!)

Friday brought a snowy ride with the other Black Key veterans and today as I previously mentioned, we ventured out to Lake Lemon, this time with one of our freshmen. Along the way we couldn't help but notice the nice snow-covered, frozen lake known as Lake Lemon. Right before we climbed out of the valley, Scott and I decided to venture down onto the frozen body of water and proceeded to trace a reminder to everyone who might see it, that BKB was here. After determining (very scientifically, i.e. jumping up and down on the ice) that the surface was sufficiently frozen, I decided to bring my cross bike on down to the lake and try and do a little riding on the lake, as evidenced by this picture:

The comment was made that this is "winter training at its finest." I can't argue with that.

Snow = Bad Training Weather...

2009-01-27T18:36:00.003-05:00

Well, we got slammed with some more snow last night. I was surprised to see as I was leaving our monthly IUCC meeting that everything was covered in snow, and it was still going strong. That certainly put a bit of a damper on my training plans for the week. As I walked to the bus stop to go to campus this morning, I took note of how crappy the roads were, as shown here from the bus stop:

Indeed, navigating the sidewalks became treacherous at times, as I probably saw at least 6 people fall on my way to my first class, with many more to follow throughout the day. Fortunately, I did not join them in biting the dust...er, snow; however, there were numerous close calls. I've noticed that in the cold and/or rain/snow/sleet/hail, etc, that people tend to walk with their heads down...I've found myself doing this sometimes too. It definitely makes it harder to be aware of your surroundings, but I guess you can focus on the 12 inch square immediately in front of you...and it's probably a little warmer too. I actually did a fair bit of walking around downtown today grabbing lunch and making a run to the MCPL. The road conditions improved a little bit...but as this photo from Grant St. shows, even in the afternoon, things were still not great.

On the bright side, the snow makes our campus look pretty:

I also failed to mention in my last post that I recently came across a new pair of Giro Instigators. These glasses are awesome! Just stylish enough that they don't look like cycling glasses and can be used for everyday applications such as leisurely ambling about, but just sporty enough that they work when you're on two wheels too. The fit is great, lenses are great, earpieces/nosepiece are super comfy, they sit pretty well on my head, and field of vision is superb. Not much to gripe about here, they even fit into my helmet perfectly.

However, something I am going to gripe about is class. Week 3 and I still feel like I haven't really done much, yet we are expected to regurgitate materials as soon as next week in some classes on the dreaded exams...

It never fails to amaze my how many people stop coming to classes. I'd say on average if you have 90 or 95% attendance on the first day, you probably drop at LEAST 10-20% throughought the first week and by the second week there are probably 20-30% less people in class than there were on the first day. Now that we're in the third week, I've already noticed, once crowded lecture halls have given way to spacious seats, with many students (such as myself) afforded the luxury of having an extra seat to put backpacks, coats, etc. in. All in all, I suppose it's inevitable, but nonetheless, the fact that these students are paying literally thousands of dollars (or having them paid by someone else) and are skipping classes not just once in a while, but every day is still somewhat mind-boggling. I've been guilty of skipping and/or sleeping through classes now and then, but I'd say overall I'm there most of the time, sometimes if the lights are dim and the topic boring, I might be enjoying a nice little umm...recharging time ;)

So this post is getting a little long and there hasn't really been much cycling-related in it...but there really isn't much to report. If the weather is ok I will be looking to do a cross ride (in the SNOW!) at least once or twice this week, there will probably be some trainer and roller action, some swimming, weights for sure, and the usual core stuff. Hopefully next week the snow will all be melted, the temperatures will be in the 40s (or 30s at least), there will be lots of sun and no wind or any form of precipitation. And maybe some speedy rides.

I'll leave you with this little guy I saw on my way to my last class today:

Happy New Year!

2009-01-26T02:11:00.002-05:00

No, I'm not crazy, I know the "new year" was almost a month ago. However, today is New Year, and I'm happy to report that this is the year of the ox. I don't know why I'm happy about this, as I was born in the year of the dragon, but nonetheless, it's nice to have another new start (in addition to the one we already had...) It is now early in the morning and I just finished up a lab report for my organic lab...that was more tedious than riding into a 30mph headwind for 145 miles, trust me, I've been there! (incidentally this headwind day was the day after a 207 mile day) Anyway, I've been keeping it pretty low key this week, hoping to recover a bit and maybe start to feel a little better. Weather was incredible last Thursday and Friday with temperatures soaring as high as 50 degrees! I enjoyed a nice ride with Brett and Erin who were in town on Friday, and then had a nice "fun ride" on the IU Cross Country course with Sarah while Adam, JP, Ryan, and Buzz and Addie (Ryan's awesome dogs) ran. It felt good just to go dick around on a bike with no real purpose other than to enjoy being outside and hang out with friends.

Unfortunately, school is picking up now, after two weeks of nearly-nothing. I suppose that will keep the old brain on its toes, although I don't mind a few days of doing nothing. Had a nice indoor workout today, and my first class (which is an 8am) got canceled tomorrow...er, today. Anyway, just thought I'd throw something up, as it had been a while. Celebrated the new year with the family with a more traditional mean, a.k.a. a hotpot (literally "fire pot"). It was delicious.

Happy Rice-Eaters' New Year to you!

School Sucks

2009-01-18T17:05:00.002-05:00

Well, school is here again, unfortunately, and I'm figuring out when I have time to squeeze some riding in. It looks like I'll have a decent amount of time to ride, but not an abundance of time. It could be worse. So far classes are going fine...did the whole "go over the syllabus" thing and started to get lectured at. Unfortunately, the weather has been terrible ever since we arrived back from North Carolina, prompting me to break out the cross bike and rollers to try and get some time in the saddle in. I have started a Tuesday/Thursday morning core/lifting routine before class, giving me an excuse to fall asleep in class. It feels like morning practice back in the swimming days, only without the whole team and the yummy breakfast...

Most of the days in the past week have looked like this:

...and the days that haven't looked like that, it has been sunny and a whopping 5 degrees...MAYBE. I was fortunate enough to get a decent cross ride in last week before it turned cold, and then rocked out on the rollers, as well as one day on the Tacx iMagic trainer. Yesterday I got out for 60 miles with Mr. Shanahan, who proceeded to break me...the last 15 miles were pretty painful. Interestingly enough, Ryan was also savvy enough to point out that the difference between 0 (the high on Thursday) and 30 was like the difference between 30 and 60...and that just blows my mind knowing how much warmer 60 is than 30...

Anyway, got out again today for 2.5 hours, nothing crazy this time though. Have tomorrow off of school for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day so hopefully the weather will be decent enough to ride (they are calling for a high of 25...), at least for a bit.

I can't wait for more days like this: (taken at the beach in Oceanside, OR where we began a trip riding back to Bloomington)

New Year, New Goals

2009-01-11T19:32:00.003-05:00

January has come and with it a comes a fresh start--new semester, new season, new team...and numerous other new things. For me, the year was kicked off with an awesome ride to Bear Wallow with the usual suspects (Ryan, Fred, Adam...plus Val), which set a good tone for the year. After keeping it pretty even on the way out, things took a turn on our way back, with the usual debauchery subdued by a "keep the group together, but hammer the poo out of everyone" mentality, which I think more than one person appreciated.

Fast forward a few days and I was enjoying the warmer temperatures (and ironically enough the RAIN and WIND) of the Carolinas. A solid week of riding, traveling, watching cycling videos, and the inevitable shenanigans with the Little 500 team capped off what's been a pretty solid winter break. We returned to Bloomington to find somewhat mild, but rapidly falling temperatures, rain, mist, and fog.

There was considerable rain and fog mixed with some winds when we conquered Paris Mountain down in Greenville...as you can see, visibility is virtually nonexistant.

Things back here were kicked off in style with a team breakfast at Village Deli after a night enjoying the comforts of home (or the dorm...), and a couple decided to go out and brave the elements armed with warm clothes and lights to stave off over-zealous drivers. Another evening of debauchery led to me sleeping well into the afternoon hours, and a day of relaxing has brought my present state of contentment. I have not quite achieved my reading goals this break, but I have had to pleasure of beginning Johan Bruyneel's book We Might As Well Win and so far it's been great and I'd recommend it to everyone, particularly those with an interest in cycling.

However, there were periods of non-fogginess

As I sit here preparing myself for the long slog to summer vacation, I can't help but think about the things I want to do this year. I want to get straight A's, I want to win Little 500, I want to help get IU on the podium at Nationals, I want to build on a successfull 2008 season, I want to relax more and spend more time with my friends, I think these are all pretty typical/resonable things. We'll see how it goes.

Photos courtesy of J.B.

Year's End

2008-12-31T20:18:00.003-05:00

Well, we've done it again--made it through another year. And what a year it's been. All over newspapers, websites, magazines, and anything else I see, there are 2008 recaps, best and worst of 2008, most memorable moments, etc. and I can't help but wonder, what am I going to remember about 2008? I couldn't come up with a very good list, but a few of the things include:

-finishing my first year of college
-racing in my first national championship event
-spending a full summer working at the bike shop
-winning a race in downtown Chicago
-missing my first deCycles trip and swim season in 4 years
-figuring out there is more to life than sports, booze, and work

All in all it was a fun year, and I'm sure I'll think of better things that happened this year, but I'm not quite firing on all cylinders right now. In other news, yesterday was my last ride of the year and boy did I end the year in style...

Morning workout went pretty well, smoked some climbs and flats with Fred, Ryan, and Adam, then chilled at home for a while and re-fueled and headed back out for the 60K. About halfway through it I realized "hmm...I am not feeling so great" and so I proceeded to eat a PowerBar Harvest and drink some more fluids. That kept me going past the dam on Lake Monroe, and it was all downhill from there... A few miles later I was bonked out of my mind and Valentin was literally dropping my ass like I was standing still. Luckily I made it into town, but could not make it home, so I had to throw in the towel and get picked up. Whoops. I think I've been training a little bit too hard these last few days, but a day off today and plenty of food, sleep, and fluids, and hopefully I'll feel better tomorrow. Got a New Year's Ride to Gatesville planned, and it should be a good one!

So to everyone out there, way to make it through '08 and let's kick some ass in '09!

Season Wrap-Up and Such

2008-12-20T00:09:00.002-05:00

Well, the year is nearly over and what a year it's been. I'll say it now: this is going to be a marathon post. So first off a big shout out to Isaac and Mike for throwing down like champs for IU, finishing 8th and 5th, respectively. Some other guys from the Midwest Conference had some sweet finishes too, with Kip Spaude (LWC) taking 7th and Clayton Omer (LWC as well) taking 12th. On the ladies side, Ashley James took 3rd and Sarah Lukas 15th, both from LWC as well. Ryan had a rough race (you can read about it here), finishing 51st in the Elite race, but let's face it, racing against the likes of Trebon, Powers, Johnson, Page, and all of those guys isn't easy. I think all would agree it's nice to be done and have some time to reflect on what's been a long season.

The weather down here has sucked recently, which is OK since it forced me to stay inside and study for my finals...First off, I want to state for the record that finals totally suck. That's pretty obvious, but really, having 4 or 5 exams in which you are expected to regurgitate a whole semester's worth of material is just a little bit excessive I think. Oh well, such is life. Moving on...I've been trying out some new workouts, one in particular devised by Mr. Shanahan, and I'm very interested to see how things turn out in a couple months. Hopefully I'll be able to throw down pretty well come March. Onto the real topic, the 2008 season:

So I tallied it up, I didn't really actually race all that much...counted up 31 results on the resume, including 5 cyclocross races. I'd say the highlight of the season was placing 4th in the MWCCC Regional A's Road Race, and also winning the Cat 3 Chicago Crit. I definitely learned a ton about racing hard, working with teammates, and all-around suffering, as I did a lot of that in the A's and 1/2/3 races I did, especially Nationals and Tour of Ohio. Hopefully next year I can spend less time suffering in the back and more time helping out my teammates. I managed to collect enough points to upgrade to a Cat 2, which I plan on doing in the spring. This was one of my big goals for the year and I'm really glad that I managed to accomplish it. My other big goal was to race Nationals and Tour of Ohio, both of which I did do...I didn't get any stellar result at either, but I think I rode well enough that I can respect my performance. I did hit some minor setbacks, like illness after Regionals, some mild burnout in May and July, but all in all I think it turned out ok. Gotta prepare for some more racing next year, and working out the bugs as usual in training. I had a blast traveling and racing with everyone this year, which was a huge plus. Cyclocross turned out to be a blast and I definitely picked up a lot from that, and plan on continuing my off-road adventures, particularly this winter when the weather is nasty.

Anyway, today marked the last day of classes for the Fall 2008 semester and I am glad to be done. Brookside was my last race of the year, and I am glad to be done with that too. All focus now turns to Spring semester, Little 500, and Collegiate season. Each of these will bring a unique challenge, but it should be a lot of fun. Spring schedule consists of : Evolution, Cell Biology, Biomechanics, Philosophical Foundations of Coaching, Organic Chemistry Lab I, and Personal Fitness. Little 500 should pick up around the end of February and Collegiate around then as well. The Black Key Bulls are planning on heading to North Carolina the last week of Winter Break, so look out for some posts/photos/shenanigans then. The next couple of weeks will be great--sleeping in, meeting up with high school friends, being able to devote all my attention to training, maybe cleaning up my room a little bit...

But, for now...I will browse the internet

...in style!

Brookside, Season Wrap-Up

2008-12-10T00:29:00.005-05:00

This past Sunday saw me travel up to Indy with Ryan to race the Brookside CX race, the final race in the OVCX Series (which I have only done 1 other race in) and the IN State Championships for 'cross. As previously mentioned, it snowed a bit on Saturday and the snow was still there on Sunday, as well as sub-20 degree temperatures. As we made our way north, I was nervous about the cold weather and snow, but excited for such epic conditions at the same time.

We arrived early enough to leisurely walk to pick up our race numbers and use the bathroom, change, and roll around briefly in the cold. This was followed by much sitting in the car with the heat cranked up and some runs to snow-covered trees for relief. A quickie lap of the course later, we were lined up and ready to go. I think the temperature at the start of the race was 22 degrees (Fahrenheit, NOT Celsius!). It was a surprisingly aggressive start and I was in a decent position in the top 10. Then we hit the icy off-camber part of the course and I instantly shot to the back of the pack. Eventually I started getting used to the conditions and the course and moved up to about mid-pack. This was my first 3's race and my first time riding in the ice, so I was not sure what to expect. Anyway, after a few small mishaps (dropping my bike, also snagging it on the tape in front of a barrier) I finally rolled in to finish 16th on the day. Ryan was right behind me in 18th, and we were soon changed back into the warmest clothes we had and again sitting in the car with the heat cranked.

The bikes took a beating this weekend:

Here's a shot of Fred running up the long set of stairs we had to go up:

admittedly, Fred didn't have the best race in the world, but he definitely fought the battle and wound up 2nd overall in the whole series, which is no small feat, so a big congratulations to him! Ryan Knapp also wrapped up the title in the Elite Men, picking up yet another win and a very successful cyclocross season, hopefully this good form will continue for nationals this weekend, good luck man! (he also got facetime on VeloNews for those of you who haven't seen the "Knapp Time" article)

All in all this has been a fun year, with some great road racing and a lot of enjoyable cross races too. I'm pretty happy with how it's gone, but more about that later, gotta get to bed now!

Snow/Pre-Brookside

2008-12-06T22:11:00.003-05:00

Warning: It's the "I rode in the snow today and I'm that guy who broadcasts it to the world instead of just saying to myself 'just another day of riding'" post.

This morning I woke up to a text from Ryan Kiel that said "cross tomorrow is gonna be awesome." and looked out the window and thought, "yeah, he's right"

So this was the view out my window, and it kept snowing for a couple more hours. Met up with some of my teammates for a nice big breakfast at Village Deli soon afterwards, then we split up and did our thing. Some people went to hit up the two Tacx iMagic trainers while some of us went over to the SRSC to swim some laps. Luckily as we left the SRSC the snow had stopped and many of the roads were plowed. After wolfing down some more food I suited up and headed out for a little foray in the snow on my cross bike. Headed all of like 1/4 mile over to my alma mater, University Elementary School. It's close, there's a decent amount of space, and I didn't really want to chance it on the roads today since I must've seen at least 5 wrecks on the way to breakfast.

After some warm-up, I made my way around the playground and building where I went to school for 7 years (K-6). Shortly thereafter I had established what I thought was a pretty decent course including some runs into the woods, up a hill by the soccer fields, through the sandboxes, a handful of 180 degree snow turns, and of course some sweet curb hopping (which I am definitely not good at, but enjoy nonetheless).

Entering the woods:

Out and back in:

Anyway, after pounding out about 7 or so laps some sledders showed up and I decided to not try and run over them and spun around some more and headed home. By this time it had started to drizzle some sleet/hail pretty steadily and the thought of a hot shower and some hot chocolate sounded way more appealing than staying out until my toes froze off. I have to say, the novelty of having a cross bike still hasn't completely worn off, which is probably a good thing. It's nice to have another option when the weather is like poo, especially since all I've done in the past is ride on the road. Anyhow, tomorrow is the Brookside cross race, the final race of the Ohio Valley Series as well as the Indiana State Championships. I recently upgraded my cross license to 3 and A in USCF and Collegiate, respectively, so this will be my first 3's cross race. We'll see how it goes!

Recovery

2008-12-04T22:08:00.004-05:00

It's been a while since I last posted, but not that much has been going on. The usual training stuff is...well, same as usual. The weather was unusually good for Thanksgiving (high of 52 on Thanksgiving!) resulting in some big hours over break. To sum it up, it was a blast :-D

Now the long 2-week grind until finals...1 more day this week, then only 5 more days of classes! I have a theory that some professors like to make classes easy in the beginning and then hard at the end to punish those who slack off while other professors like to make their classes hard at the beginning and easier at the end so that all the slackers drop out by the designated "last day to drop." Lucky for me I seem to have more of the latter, however, the classes are so beyond me to begin with that the "easier" is just now making sense...

http://www.shrimppesto.com/static/images/2003.12/08-finals.gif

Anyway, on to the real topic of this post: recovery. So I have another theory (one of many actually). This theory consists of some of my own thoughts and a lot of things stolen liberally from various sources, but here it is: the easiest, but most effective (for the effort you put in) thing that most athletes can do is simple: recover better. Most people know that the sooner you eat and drink after working out the better and that stretching is good. That's all well and good, but what do you need to eat? How much? What to drink? How much? What kind of stretching is the best? I think recovery is somewhat like brushing your teeth: everyone knows they should do it, most people don't do it enough, nobody knows the right/best way to do it, and it keeps things working right.

Well, I think there is still a lot of debate about these questions, but I think a good way to find out is a) to read (which I'm not that into) and b) to try things and see what works best. Here are just a few things that I like to do/use:

First and foremost, a big shoutout to the boys at PowerBar for hooking me up, if you are not sure what kind of nutrition stuff to use, this is a good place to start. So PowerBar makes a nice recovery drink mix that comes in several forms: individual packets, small canisters, and the monster canister you see in the image above. It's a rather simple mix, consisting of some carbs, some protein, and a lot of electrolytes, all stuff that needs to be replaced after working out. I usually like to drink 16 oz after a workout. Next is their recovery bar. While these don't exactly taste like candy bars (Triple Threats are good for that...), they are not bad and if you are in a hurry, munching on one of these post-workout is pretty awesome (make sure you pound some water too...or recovery drink...or both?).

Next, the idea of compression. There is a lot of debate about compression, but in general I think it's a positive thing, if nothing else it makes you think that you're helping speed your recovery along, which most people will agree is a good thing. The downside is that this stuff is really expensive. Last year one of my friend/teammates hooked me up with a pair of Skins shorts and they're pretty sweet, especially for long car rides (I wore them all 17 hours to collegiate nationals last year), but let's not hold and illusions: I don't use these on a regular basis! The nice black and gold socks seems to help too. These are a new addition and the jury's still out on whether they help or not, but I also like how they keep my whole lower leg warm too. I realized after getting them that they happen to be in Purdue colors, but I can circumvent this problem because my Little 500 team, Black Key Bulls, also happens to be black & gold ;)

The last major thing I can think of is The Stick. This thing is awesome, no doubt about it. I was first introduced to the stick by Mr. Cvengros on the cross-country trip we did back in 2005. We were in the middle of nowhere (Montana maybe?) and I had been having some issues (during a 6-day, 850+ mile week) and he had brought a Stick on the trip and let me use it. I wouldn't say the results were instant, but my condition improved over the next few days. This is one thing I will try to use daily.

Anyway, this post is getting a tad long, but moral of the story: take an extra 5-10 minutes post-workout and maybe another 5 or 10 minutes in the evening and pay a little attention to your body and facilitating recovery. My other recommendation for getting faster is listening to opera music. Dave Stoller loved Italian opera and no one can argue that he's a BA.

Until next time, Cheers :-)

Lindsey Wilson College CX

2008-11-23T18:03:00.007-05:00

This weekend saw us travel ~3.5 hours south to Columbia, Kentucky, home of Lindsey Wilson College, to do some more 'cross racing, including the MWCCC Championships on Sunday. Packed up early Saturday morning and headed down...unfortunately we missed the memo that there was a time change (from EST to CST), so we left an hour earlier than we had to...oops. Another unforseen event was Ryan's car breaking...so we packed up 3 bikes, all our gear, and ourselves in Matt's little hatchback instead:

As it turned out, we had plenty of time to chill, snack, and pre-walk/ride the course, as well as discover how warm and comfy it was on the couches in the Turner Center (which we could've used as a place to stay if we really wanted to...). Eventually we got to bike racing and some pre-start shenanigans (i.e. running to the bathroom) led me to set my bike down minutes before the start. Upon returning I picked it back up and re-claimed my spot on the line, ready to go. Well the whistle went off and we started as usual and I heard an unusual noise behind me that sounded a lot like something rubbing the rim. "wow, sucks for the dude whose brake is messed up" I thought...then it didn't stop. "Hmm...that noise seems to be coming from...underneath me!" Turns out my brake pad had gotten knocked under my rim, so after stopping, unhooking the brake, pulling the stuck arm out, and re-hooking it, I finally got my start behind the girls. Absolutely killed myself for the next 3 laps and worked my way through the field eventually catching the winner of the races last weekend, Lewis from the host school. The course today was pretty cool, featuring a long trip up 32 stairs, a steep run-up, and a flying somewhat technical section downhill, as well as another run-up over some steps (similar to the wood stairs at the USGP Day 2).

Anyway, caught up to Lewis and sat on him for a while and then took a couple short pulls and then before I knew it we were on the last lap. Dismounted early and sprinted up the run-up, throwing down my "attack" of the race and got a small gap. Unfortunately I have terrible handling skills and on the next technical downhill he caught right back up, but now I was in front and that was good. Managed to hold him off for the victory around the last turn. It was nice to finally win a race. Stuck around and watched the A's race where there was some un-cool shenanigans (including a raging fist-fight...no joke), and then we made our way over to the apartment of Sarah Lukas and Ashley James and cleaned up, grabbed some cheap Mexican food, and then hung out. After watching Wall-E (Sarah's new favorite movie) and trying unsuccessfully to find Wal-Mart (it's in the middle of nowhere) and going to the IGA instead, we finally settled in for the night as people came and went (apparently Sarah and Ashley are friends with everyone on campus), we all went to bed since there was another race today.

Today's course was much different from yesterday's, almost completely flat and with two passes through the sand. Lewis decided after three top-2 finishes he was ready for A's (which he did well in), so that left me and the rest of the B's to duke it out. Got an ok start this time, traded some pulls with my teammates Matt, and was feeling ok after yesterday. Tested the waters with an acceleration and got a gap, held it for the rest of the race and picked up my second cyclocross victory. I'm starting to get the hang of cyclocross, and it's a great change from road racing. Anyhow, we packed up the car and headed home ASAP, especially since we lost an hour coming home. Looking forward to Thanksgiving Break, hopefully there will be some good riding getting done. All in all it was a fun weekend, with some good racing, so I'm really glad we made the trip down. Unfortunately I don't think there are any pictures of the B's races...and if there are, they are probably all of LWC people...

And we packed the car literally to the max:

Alas, no pictures

2008-11-20T23:56:00.002-05:00

Well, I've been waiting all week for pictures from the Purdue CX to surface, but I have yet to find any. Oh well. It was a fun weekend, I headed up with the Kiel brothers and a couple of their roommates Friday night, stayed in a sweet (gigantic) house just off campus (and like a 5 minute ride from the course), relaxed all night and woke up to cold, wet, nasty conditions. Grabbed some breakfast and whatnot, headed over to the course, and registered, and proceeded to find the nearest open building that was warm, which happened to be the swimming pool. Sat there until it was closer to race time, then did a quickie warm-up and off we went. I started first row in the B's race and got the hole shot, but proceeded to take the worst line imaginable and got passed by two people. Caught up quickly, then re-passed on the next straightaway to get into 2nd wheel. Duked it out for a while, then Eric Young and myself got a little gap over the rest of the field--ideal position, IU 1-2! Unfortunately he slid out on one of the turns and then a Lindsey Wilson College dude caught me on the last lap and then I slid out too! So I was left second behind the LWC guy and other Hoosiers rounded out the top 5 (Matt Kiel was 3rd, Eric 4th, Ryan Kiel 5th); meanwhile Mike flatted in the A's and finished like 7th or so and Isaac rode away from everyone finishing 1st.

Heading down to Lindsey Wilson College this weekend for the final Collegiate Cyclocross races of the year (except for Nationals), so that should be fun.

"You Can't Stop the Thunder"

2008-11-11T22:42:00.003-05:00

I woke up this morning to a typical cold November day, but it quickly turned into an all too typical wet, cold November day. Still, there was hope that it would dry out or even not get that wet. Fortune was not on our side this day, though, and indeed it kept misting, and drizzling, and even a few spirited rains at times, but moral of the story: it was nasty outside today. After getting out of my one and only class for the day early, I ran some errands, bought some new CDs, paid a visit to my high school, and was generally lethargic when I got home. As 4:00pm neared, I got excited to do some cross riding with the other IU guys, in appropriately nasty weather. As I suited up and headed down to Revolution, I began to think about how much I missed riding my bike and was actually looking forward to today's ride. Little did I know, it would not be the ride I had planned. The aforementioned bad weather had led to the other guys deciding to call off the ride, but luck had it that Chris Kelley dropped by Revolution on his fixed gear on his way out for a ride. So I headed out with him, me on a cross bike, him on a fixie. Just cruising out Bottom felt good, but as I did not want to do a whole road ride on my cross bike I jetted off on Williams Rd. and left him to do his own thing. Williams starts with a nice climb that turns into gravel, and it was a blast to ride. I had scouted this route earlier in the Fall with Ryan Kiel, on an equally chilly, but dry day. Here is part of the road:

As I made my way towards Highway 37 I did some nice dismount practice and shouldering the bike, which I am starting to get a feel for. After hitting 37, I made a quick turn onto Fox Hollow, back to Old 37 and on home the usual way. Side trip to the trails at Griffey on the way home turned out to be lots of fun and as I exited the woods and started pedaling home, a light mist settled in, turning into a lazy drizzle as I made my way through town. The temperature was already dipping down into the 30s, and the sun was setting. A quick push of some buttons and the Frog lights that graced my handlebars and seatpost were instantly flashing brightly, so that I may avoid being hit by cars. The one thing that really struck me about todays ride was that even facing the dreary weather and unplanned route, I had a blast. It reminded me of adapting to the circumstances, and riding your bike simply to enjoy riding your bike. After these past few weeks, I had become somewhat disillusioned by training, but I finally realized today that training is fun, just like riding your bike. Yeah, it can suck at times, but as a whole, the joy training and competing is what drives athletes to do what they do. I had an inkling that my passion for riding and training would return, I just didn't know when. And so as I slowly made my way home on the wet, dark, and somewhat chilly road, I was able to smile to myself and say what I have been longing for weeks to say: I'M BACK!!!

Still In A Funk...

2008-11-08T23:54:00.002-05:00

A month later, still on autopilot! This is probably not a good sign, but I'm doing the "smart" thing and listening to my body, right now I'm taking the cue to keep cruising. After my proper two weeks off I started back up some not-too-crazy, but regular training and just was not into it. Think like...trying to make a dog chase a frisbee when all the dog wants to do is lay down and chew on a bone. Now I'm slowly getting back into it...like maybe the dog getting up to tug on a rope or something. I could blame it on a number of things, long season, busy school schedule, getting sick, the works, but I have yet to figure out the core cause. Oh well, I'm still getting workouts in and enjoying it, particularly riding my cross bike, which has turned out to be uber fun! Went out with the BKB dudes today and pounded out 2.5 or so hours on Buskirk, with it being pretty chilly, but not too bad compared to what we will be facing in a month or so. Interestingly enough, the bridge on Old 37 just past Anderson (if you're going out) before the so-called "pig farm" climb is out (construction???) and we discovered this on the way home (racing the sun...it was starting to get dark already)...luckily we were able to shimmy off the road and run across some well-place dirt/grass, and jump back on the road, but it would've sucked big time if we hadn't been so lucky!

Arguably one of the most popular rides around here: Forest Loop.

Halloween

2008-11-01T18:47:00.003-04:00

So Halloween has come and gone, and IU has lost another game (today to Central Michigan...37-34, we were so close!), and yet, it still feels like September to me. I can't believe midterms are over and that Thanksgiving is only a few weeks away! After some last-minute costume shopping, I finally cobbled together a cheap, simple, yet hilarious costume: I was going to be a monk! I scooted over to Scooter's place and he buzzed most of my hair off, leaving a simple ring around my head. Sweet. Had a good Halloween, no mishaps! Great Success!

Earlier in the day, I actually did some real work on my cross bike, including chopping the skyscraper off of my steerer tube, re-cabling the whole thing, and putting some Tektro long pull canti's on that Mike hooked me up with. Also got a chance to move my hoods up :-D

I used the Gore Ride-On Sealed Cable System, save for the shift cables. For some reason these coated cables would not thread through the shifter, so I finally got really frustrated and gave up, and put the Teflon-coated XTR cables in instead. The rest of the setup went alright, although my shifting feels really funky now...still gotta work that out. But, I did get to ride the bike today for ~1.5 hours, and it feels awesome!

Bike:

Pic from the ride:

The obligatory self-taken pictures illustrating my sweet haircut and monk outfit:

To Sum It Up

2008-10-30T21:27:00.002-04:00

Wow, lots has happened since I last posted. Raced my first cyclocross race on Sunday on the USGP Day 2 course in the Cat 4 race (i.e. not the real USGP, but I did get to stick around and watch Tim Johnson slaughter everyone). Started last row out of 115, finished 19th, had a BLAST. I'm officially addicted to cross now. Only one major mishap, when someone decided to stop dead in front of me in a sand pit and make me wreck into them, sending me over the bars, but no real damage done, I just lost a bit of time. Unfortunately I forgot my camera, so I don't have any pictures...whoops.

In other news, school is starting to bend me over and have its way with me...midterms totally suck! So do 8am classes...especially when you never seem to do anything, but still have pop quizzes. It is no October 30th and I still have no costume for Halloween...maybe I'll be a biker? Other funny news: two banks in Bloomington got robbed within the last week (not the funny part), by the same robber, who happened to get owned by dye packs on the second robbery. He was dumb enough to a) exchange the stained bills for change at a laundromat and b) carry around the same backpack he was wearing when he robbed the banks as he was walking down the sidewalk. Now the funny part: a detective just driving down the road sees man with backpack matching the description of the one in the robbery. The man fits the description too, so the detective says to himself, "it can't hurt to check if it's him"...he pulls over and has the man open up the backpack, whereupon he discovers oodles of quarters, and the aforementioned dye stains. Burgalar gets owned!

I was looking through my old deCycles pictures the other day, and found this one from the cross-country trip in 2005 and thought I would share it:

Hilly Hundred, Start of '09 "Campaign"

2008-10-17T22:04:00.010-04:00

Wawaweewa, the IUSF Fall Cycling Series has come and gone already and this weekend is Hilly Hundred! The final event was Street Sprints and surprisingly I made it to the Semi-Final before getting spanked by the eventual winner Ali Camara--way to go dude! Matt Neibler put in a strong ride to take 2nd place--DTD is gonna be good this year! Anyway, I ended up 3rd in the overall behind my teammate Valentin (in 2nd) and the winner, Neibler. Tons of old friends are in town for the Hilly and today a few of us IUCC guys spent some time selling raffle tickets and clothing at Edgewood High School i.e. home base of the Hilly.

Today marked my first road ride in probably 2+ weeks, and I'd say it went rather well, so hopefully I will not die on the Hilly ride tomorrow. Anyhow, this coming week will mark the official start of my training program, so I will no longer be riding aimlessly and for pure enjoyment. While I hope to still enjoy it, there should be some loose semblence of structure as well as a "point" to what I will be doing.

Saw some interesting things, such as this sweet train trussel over Lake Lemon:

This is one of the more annoying climbs around here:

And this was an interesting thing I noticed on the ride home, note the 3 Obama-Biden signs on the left side of the street and the two McCain-Palin signs on the right side of the street. Talk about Partisan!

IUSF Faux-CX

2008-10-13T00:29:00.002-04:00

The second Fall Series event, the annual IUSF Cyclocross, took place today, consisting of 12 laps for the guys and 10 laps for the girls around the famed Little 500 track, but with hay bales set up in each turn as well an exit off the track and some stair-running before returning to the track in turn 3. The day started off pretty well for BKB, sitting in the top few places, but the DTD team of Greg Maves and Matt Neibler pulled away and were followed by the Jimmy John's team. After more battling for position a few laps later, Jordan (my partner) crashed in turn 1, this was shortly followed by me trying to pass lapped riders and then having to skid on pavement and blowing up my rear tire and crashing as well. We slipped from 3rd place to finish 7th on the day while our teammates Scott and Val finished 3rd. For the overall series we are sitting 1-4, with 1 event to go, the Street Sprints on Wednesday.

No pictures right now, hopefully some will pop up on Facebook and I can shamelessly jack them for this blog.

On a side note, with Pam Loebig as the new race director, and a new Steering Committee, things at IUSF are improving. The Time Trial in the Forest was very well run, even though the weather totally sucked and the race today was again well organized and flowed smoothly. I think the biggest change that this fall has brough though, is that results from the series events (as well as the overall) are posted literally in the evening after the event is completed, which is AWESOME. Kudos to Pam and the new Steering Committee for getting things done both quickly and "right."

Recent Happenings

2008-10-10T00:15:00.007-04:00

It seems as school wears on, I have less and less time and stuff to post about. No real racing going on right now, just some little fun competitions, nothing sanctioned. I've recently taken a liking to Elvis Presley (more like rediscovered) and also can't stop listening to Tequila Makes Her Clothes Fall Off by Joe Nichols...call me a hick, but that's a great song (funny too). The election has gotten more and more heated and some say, exciting, but me being the apathetic piece of crap that I am, don't really have much of an opinion, and agree with things on both sides anyway. However, it was brought to my attention that during the recent Vice-Presidential debate that Sarah Palin was quoted as saying "John McCain has tapped me" and there was YouTube evidence of it (just type in "Sarah Palin McCain Tapped"), and it is hilarious.

On to the bike related stuff. Been keeping with the "program" of recovery and revitalizing...and I suppose it's worked (besides having to stay up to do homework and study...which is happening more and more often--perhaps I care about school now?), like today I did absolutely nothing but go to my one class and nap for over 5 hours. However, when I am riding, I have found it to be much more enjoyable as there is no real purpose other than to stay somewhat fit. Riding my cross bike is been AWESOME and I have fallen innumerable times and flatted more than I did on the road all year long. Oh well, it's still awesome.

The 2nd Annual Monroe County Hillclimb Challenge took place almost two weeks ago out at Pinegrove, a nice ~4K climb from Lake Monroe up to SR 446. I booked it home from class and then hammered out there to make it on time and surely enough, the first rider was just going off as I arrived, so I quickly took off all clothing I deemed unnecessary (yes, I was still properly covered) and rode down to the bottom where I anxiously awaited the start. Up the road, Jon Palak was the first rider off and he turned in a solid time for 5th place on the day. Ryan Knapp and Mike Sherer also threw down some good times, right around where they were last year (with Mike being the defending champ), good for 4th and 3rd. I went, followed by Ryan Shanahan and we ended up 1-2, so I guess working at BGI might help you go uphill? Anyway, Geraint made some cool trophies, and gave them out to me, Shanahan (over 25 category), Randi Cox (1st Female), and Greg Moves (1st Frat). The turnout was about double this year from last year, so hopefully this will keep growing and continue to be a fun challenge for people to come out and do.

Little prize, and my new hat!

IUSF had their annual fall time trial out at the Morgan-Monroe State Forest, a short out and back 10K TT that's way harder than you think it would be, but not impossible. I cleaned up the old Bianchi and Ryan Shanahan was nice enough to loan me his super sweet aero gear and I was hoping to pull off a win, but alas, I was the second loser. Mike beat me by 16 seconds and Jordan took the cake with a 13:21 to beat him by one second. Isaac was 4th and David Richardson-Rossbach rounded out the top 5 with an awesome time (13:45 I think), so congrats to everyone. BKB looked pretty good with Jordan taking first, myself 3rd, Valentin 6th, and Scott 7th, but there were numerous people missing who could've and surely would have thrown down some good times.

They were giving out cool Little 500 water bottles! I also ordered there Race X Lite Hard Case tires from Bontrager to try out this winter:

Other news, I shot my first Steel Challenge with the new XD-9 Subcompact and finished DFL in the GSSF (Go Shoot Steel Fast) category, so there is definitely room for improvement there.

School Business

2008-09-27T20:43:00.003-04:00

Wow, it's been so long since there has been a post thrown down on this lame blog! School's been occupying the majority of time, closely followed by my lackadaisical training, as well as work. Good grades are a must-have, especially to prevent my quickly-falling GPA from dipping below the minimum for keeping the scholarships! I've been slacking big-time on training, which to me is acceptable as my road racing season is over and I will soon be laying the foundation for the spring season (i.e. Collegiate Road Racing). Took a week completely off the bike, started lifting and swimming again, partied a little too hard last weekend, and now I'm sick as a dog, having slept for about 18 hours straight last night (passed out on the couch after coming home from class at 5:45pm). Gotta get some schoolwork done tonight, then work, team meeting, and Matt Nathanson concert tomorrow!

Other happenings:

Tore the sidewall on my front cross tire:

Made a trip to the range with the new gun:

Yippy-ki-yay

2008-09-08T23:03:00.002-04:00

Sweet! First week of class: done. First cross ride: done. First flat on the trails: done. Team search for 2009: done. Eventful week with last Sunday bringing my first real extended cross ride with trails & whatnot, but it ended up being mostly on the road. Oh well. Labor Day was spent out on the lake getting sunbured and beat up from tubing, followed by some grillin' and general chillin' which was a good change from the usual rigors of riding and working. It's official: my class schedule blows. It happens I guess. On the bright side, I have many distractions while riding through campus now. I just hope I keep getting lucky and not wrecking when my head is turned...

Anyhow, went out on a nice hammer-fest ride on Saturday with the usual suspects: Mike, Isaac, John, and Graham. Tailgated afterwards and then IU collected its second win of the season over Murray State. We get what we can I guess... Yesterday I rode out to Wapehani with Ryan Kiel and rode the trails out there and proceeded to blow up my front tube...fixed it up and then rode some more, and then took the Clear Creek Rail-Trail back to town. This will be a sweet ride in the winter when I just need to get out for a short-ish ride and want to do something that's not road-biking. Well, Homer's great epic The Iliad isn't going to read itself, so I'm off to see which Trojans kill which Achaeans and vice-versa again...

Oh, and Lance may or may not make a comeback...keep a close eye on VeloNews for that. What you probably won't find on VeloNews though, is what team yours truly is riding for...which happens to be the Alderfer Bergen Elite Cycling Team.

Very Nice!

Bustin' Records

2008-08-30T18:54:00.003-04:00

What a week! Tuesday night we had our last official TT out at the Forest. Both Ryan Shanahan and John Meyers threw down record-breaking times. John's old record of 21:14 (for 10 miles) was shattered when Ryan came blistering through the finish to clock a 21:00 (avg 28.57 mph) and soon after John came through with a 21:03. It'll be interesting to see how things stack up next year between these two guys!

Today John, Ryan, and myself took a crack at the famous Nashville 90. The record for this ride is 3:31 starting at the flashers on 446 when you first leave town and finishing at 10th and the Bypass. In classic fashion, John was blazin' right from the start, with him and Ryan keeping a super fast pace with me throwing in a short pull in between. A quick stop in Freetown for water and Coke later, we were on our way to Nashville cruising down one of the slower parts of the ride. Going out hard soon came back to bite us in the arse with John beginning to cramp and Ryan feeling the effects of riding 28-32mph the first hour. I couldn't see straight, so I was just trying to hold on for dear life. Thankfully, we made it into Nashville for our second water stop of the day and just 2 hours and 28 minutes of riding. As we rolled into Nashville I started to get some legs back, with the help of a tailwind and some good recovery time sitting behind Ryan and John. After climbing out of Nashville on Helmsburg Rd. we continued to try and keep the pace steady on the climbs while staying on pace to go under 3:31. I was having visions of the record line catching up to us (like you see in Olympic swimming when someone goes out WAY to hard), but holding out hope that we could stay in front of it. Luckily we did and we came smokin into town stopping the clock at 3:27! Great Success! But for now, I'm off to dinner and hoping that everything isn't packed with students and parents...but it probably is...

1 month until Matt Nathanson comes back to Indy :-D

check out some of his stuff on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlQKR3NI4wI

Warsaw Crit and South Bend "Crit"

2008-08-24T23:25:00.002-04:00

Another weekend, two more crits. Or rather, one crit and one pseudo crit-circuit race. Two more lame finishes. Oh well. Started out the weekend traveling up to Warsaw, IN where there was a flat, four corner crit right downtown. Pretty cool event, with loads of support from the famed Alderfer-Bergen team and pretty decent crowd sizes for a local crit. Race was alright, 6 got off and lapped the field...4 Bissell guys and Mike Sherer of the aforementioned Alderfer-Bergen team as well as Greg Christian from Turin. Mike managed to pull of a great sprint to stick it to the Bissell guys and take home the win. I took a flyer with 7 to go and got caught with about 4 to go and then sucked it up in the sprint to finish towards the back of the pack, I think in 18th.

Today was the State Crit Championships...but it was more like a circuit race with a grand total of 0 turns. This time instead of having 5 guys Bissell brought 8 and three of them lapped the field and nothing could get away. I got a gap with a few laps to go with some other guys but it got brought back, tried again, got caught on the bell lap, then finished in the back of the pack for like 28th or something...

Other news, IU is coming back to life again, and official move-in day for the dorms is this Wednesday. In other words: BEWARE OF IDIOTS DRIVING. There was even an article in the local newspaper warning the residents of Bloomington to watch out for out of towners moving their kids in. I plan on riding my cross bike on as many off-the-beaten-path routes to work as possible. This massive influx of college students also means that the majority of my good friends have left or are leaving...which sucks, but I guess I can hang out with people from IU now...but you can't beat the friends you've known for 10 or 15 years!

Anyhow, no pictures to share unfortunately...but good news is that Leipheimer and Contador finished 1-2 in the Clasica a los Puertos...so Astana is ready to take on the Vuelta. Support Astana (and BGI)--buy Trek!

Mass Ave and Carmel Crits

2008-08-18T00:25:00.002-04:00

Another weekend of two crits...took off early Saturday morning for downtown Indy racing a flat, triangular crit on Mass Ave. Didn't feel good and was very bad in the corners...but found a sort of rhythm in the second half, missed the break (what else is new...) and got off the front with 3 other guys chasing the break. Led out the sprint and took 9th overall in the 1/2/3...pretty ok with that.

Today was the Zipp West Clay Classic (aka the Carmel Crit), which was not as well attended since the big day of Downer's was today (most prominently missing were the Texas Roadhouse guys). Anyway, this was a much more fun course with wide open turns and all flat, although it was windy. After many frutile attempts at breaks and wasted energy on the front, one finally went and as usual I missed it. Adam Leibovitz powered it on and lapped the field with one other guy leaving 6 others hanging off the front of the field. I did ok in the field sprint to net 13th...but I really didn't ride well and this race left a lot to be desired...but I broke even on the weekend, so I can't complain.

Big thank you to Erin for putting a roof over my head this weekend! (she also got 2nd both days!) No pictures yet...

Cross Bike!!!

2008-08-15T19:31:00.003-04:00

IT'S HERE!!!! My much-anticipated first cyclocross bike has arrived and I finally got around to finishing it up on Wednesday.

I did resist the urge to ride it and hopped on the road bike to throw down at Wednesday Worlds. Small turnout and low motivation though, and so it was just 3 of us, with myself and Mr. Shanahan doing the lion's share of the work only to be schooled by Ali in the sprint (what else is new?). Ali is riding very well though, as we both made pretty hard efforts to drop him. Kudos!

First ride last night on the cross bike with Mason, mostly just around town. SUPER FUN. Almost crashed it in the creek too! (got chainring cuts to show for it...) Definitely like the feel of the SRAM stuff.

Mass Ave. and Carmel Crits coming up...taking a pass on Downer's, but hope everything goes well for the friends & locals. Stole the Race X Lites off the cross bike and threw them on my road bike:

UPDATE: PHELPS 5-for-5!!!

2008-08-12T23:45:00.000-04:00

Ok, it's official--Phelps just set a new world record in the 200-Fly and helped the US smash the world record by 5 seconds in the 800 Free Relay. He is now 5-for-5 in this Olympics, all with WORLD RECORDS!!!

Olympics ROCK!

2008-08-12T22:15:00.002-04:00

Ok, so a lot of things have happened in the short time since I last threw a post up. First of all I did my first MMSF 10-mile TT and threw down a 23:14...not incredible, but I'll take it. Now that I'm at home eating Goldfish (who came up with that anyway? I mean...you wouldn't look at a goldfish in a bowl and say "oh, that looks tasty," would you?), it's easier to be disappointed with that time, but all in all it was sort of a slow day and I think I was 5th best on the day behind 4 guys on TT bikes...

Next of all, the US totally owned France in the last 10 meters of the 400 Free Relay. Easily one of the most incredible races I've ever seen, you should check it out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsgwhGYNrIc&feature=related

Funnier part of the story is that the French were saying how they would "smash" the US before the race. Moral of the story: don't talk smack if you can't back it up.

Other news: juniors from Indiana rock (see US National Championships to see why), Olympic RR was exciting with Sanchez taking Gold and Spartacus taking 3rd in an uphill finish. Women's race was in the rain, but still exciting nonetheless with Nicole Cook winning. Michael Phelps is 3-for-3 with world records in each event he's won. Willie Nelson rocks.

Upcoming: Olympic TT tomorrow. For the Women: Kristin Armstrong, Emma Johansson, and Judith Arndt are my picks. For the Men: Fabian Cancellara, Dave Zabriskie, and Levi Leipheimer. This weekend is Downer's Grove aka Crit Nationals. I however, will not be participating, but tons of other Btown riders are going, good luck to y'all! Meanwhile, I will be racing the Mass Ave. Crit in downtown Indy on Saturday followed by the Carmel Crit on Sunday. Both are 1/2/3, so I'm hoping to throw down with the 1's and 2's, we'll see what happens. The usual Wednesday silliness tomorrow with Forest-North Shore/South Shore on the menu.

Wawaweewa!

2008-08-09T22:01:00.008-04:00

This weekend consisted of two races for me, both in Marion, IN. First a few shoutouts: Thanks to Julie for giving me a ride up there and Chris Beck for the ride back. Also to Val for letting us all use your house as a home base for the races. Onto the races!

Friday was the Marion Classic Village Criterium which consisted of a flat course with two very long straightaways and a nice series of 3 turns at the end of the back straight. Not really my kind of course...but I figured attacking is fun right? So I took a page out of John Meyers' book and attacked on the first lap, and after about 10 minutes of being chased down and counterattacking I finally got a pretty good gap and was off solo. Clayton and another dude bridged up and so the three of us rolled it. Lost the third dude midway through, so then it was just me and Clayton. Two laps to go: Clayton has a mechanical. I finally attacked him at the end of the back straight and managed to pull off a win. A bit surprising, espcially given the course, but a pleasant surprise.

Today was the Marion Classic Riverwalk Criterium which suited me a little more, with a hill and a wide open descent. Now because of my race-long breakaway yesterday I had a big target on my back today. Nonetheless, I attacked from the gun and sure enough, it was snuffed out just a couple laps later. Luckily Chris Beck countered and we kept trading attacks until we felt the field was sufficiently tired. Mid-race prime for a set of carbon Spinergy tubies made for an interesting dynamic, but things thinned out to 4 guys when I jumped on the little uphill, and Clayton led it out coming off the hill and I came around him, but was shocked to see him pulling around me right by the start/finish. I ended up winning the prime, probably by about a tire width, so now I'm sitting at home with a brand new set of wheels. The rest of the race was spent making sure nothing too crazy happened (like breaks with no teammates...or crashes...etc.), and sure enough it was all together going into the final lap. Surprisingly nobody tried to attack on the little hill on the last lap, but on the backside Chris moved up to the front to set up for the field sprint and I figured "ah, what the hell, why not try this again?" and attacked my brains out in one final solo effort, much like what happened at Chicago. Well it worked out again and I managed to keep a respectable gap all the way to the line and celebrate a little bit. Chris took 3rd in the field sprint behind me, so Tortuga had a strong 1-4 finish in the 3's today.

So all in all I'm pretty happy with the weekend, especially since I'm not a big fan of crits, but somehow those are the only races I've managed to win this year.

Other notes: Tortuga had a pretty good weekend overall with Taylor Gaines taking 3rd both days in the Cat 4s (not bad for a 15 year old!) and Sydney taking 5th on the Women's today and Julie finishing a strong 8th and 9th.

Hopefully I'll find some more pictures later, but for now, these will have to do:

Mid-race prime schwag (half of it anyway):

Hardware:

Revamp #2!

2008-08-02T18:10:00.004-04:00

Wawaweewa! Finally feeling good and riding well again! So I guess the cunning plan worked out pretty well. Had a great ride this morning with some other Tortuga guys and Ryan Shanahan. Met up at 8am for the Martinsville-Mahalasville Loop, about 60 miles of FUN. Everyone was riding well, with Myron and Gary trading pulls with Ryan and myself and Geraint throwing in between our pulls. As usual, Gary and Myron were strong up the climbs and Ryan was relentless on practically every part of the ride, but he was climbing especially well today, at least it seemed that way. Anyway, I had a blast and we had a great average and I got home in time to shower, eat and get to work on time.

In other news, I went through and redid parts and replaced parts on the old Trek 1000, and it's looking pretty nice...for a Trek 1000. Brett hooked me up with some sweet white bar tape and I chopped the skyscraper (a.k.a. steerer tube), so it's almost more Pro-looking than my LeMond!

Chicago Criterium

2008-07-29T19:19:00.002-04:00

This past weekend yielded an awesome weekend that was pretty much totally different from what I had planned. Originally I was planning on going up to South Bend for the Pancake Stage Race, put on by Steve Goar, but then I found out that not many other people were going, so I made the quick and rather easy decision to not go and stay here in Bloomington and do some good long miles. So my new plan was that I was gonna try to throw down some big hours on Saturday and Sunday since I had the days off of work anyway, but then I discovered that Jackie was going to go up to the Chicago Crit. She had been at Superweek all week, but came back Friday and we drove up Saturday and stayed at her place in Valpo and then made the short trip over to Chi-town for the crit on Sunday. Good race for her, netting 2nd place. Good race for me, my first win of the season! Did the Cat 3 race and made a couple efforts to get off the front, but with me being the only Tortuga rider there and with a few other teams having like 5 or more guys in, I figured I should play it smart. It worked out and with less than 1K to go, I made a huge attack and managed to sneak away and stay away to cross the line solo. Got a nice jersey and medal out of it, so that was cool, but I'm just glad I won't have a win-less season. Stuck around to watch some more racing, including the beginning of the Pro/1/2 race which included Chris Horner and a bunch of other pretty good dudes. Mike, Isaac, Ryan, and Tom were all in it, as well as John and Brett. John had some good facetime off the front at the beginning of the race, which was cool.

I'm really happy that I decided to go to this race, it was a super fun weekend and the race was a blast too. Great course with wide open corners, reasonably good pavement (no real big potholes or anything), right smack in the middle of downtown Chicago. Great turnout and a good atmosphere too, it felt like a big party. Plus, everyone I talked to there was pretty cool. I'm definitely planning on doing this race next year!

Proof that I actually use my oh-so-faux-pro number holder:

Cat 3 podium:

Doubly!

2008-07-23T22:06:00.002-04:00

Finally! I've been wanting to do a double for a while, but never seem to find the time or the motivation to do it, but today it worked out great. Woke up early and headed out at 8am with Julie on her pretty new De Rosa and did Paragon...then did the usual food, nap, & stick routine and then headed back out for Wednesday Worlds where we did...Paragon. Including the town riding and some easy spinning, got almost 6 hours of saddle time in which I'm pretty stoked about, and also had a good ride at Wednesday Worlds, being off the front after the climb out of Paragon with Fred, although he flatted about 7 or 8K from the finish, so I went it alone and made it! Lucky me I guess.

Last Saturday was the IN State Road Race Championships, and it was a pretty well attended event, especially for the men's 3's and 4/5's. I think the 4/5's had a full field of 75 and in the 3's we had like 65. I wasted a lot of energy in the opening 50K's trying to get a break to go and one was promising, but some lame-o juniors team with 2 guys in the break helped chase it down...oh well. Didn't feel great, so just kinda hung out on the front and sat in with plan B being helping set up Chris for the field sprint. Geraint and Adam did a great job of squashing a late solo break and the aforementioned lame-o juniors team which had been sitting in the whole race organized a big leadout train and came up to the front in the last corner. Me being me, decided that it was prime time to bust into the leadout train with Chris on my wheel, and so I did, although at this point I realized I had pretty much no legs for the sprint, so I just kinda did the bitch thing and wheelsucked until I hit the front and just went as hard as I could, pulled off, saw Chris come around me and sat up. It worked out pretty well, he got 2nd in the field sprint, however the guy who won had blown up a wheel and inadvertantly cut the course to get back on (while following the wheel truck) and got relegated, so Chris took the win.

This post is getting kind of long and a bit boring, so I'll end it there, but got new schwag from PowerBar too:

Oops...

2008-07-11T19:09:00.003-04:00

This past Wednesday we gathered for our usual fun-filled bike ride, with 8 laps of the 446 loop on the menu. I went into it thinking I might finally be feeling better, and after the start, I followed wheels and took a few pulls, nothing out of the ordinary, conserving a bit more than usual. As the ride went on, I started to feel better, and eventually on the 5th lap Brett attacked and I followed, and we quickly gained a small gap. Going into the turn from 446 back onto Knightridge, I made one of the most basic and probably one of the more stupid mistakes I could...I clipped my inside pedal... Now sometimes you clip your pedal and keep going...other times you don't. Needless to say, I did not keep going. Luckily I was the only one to suffer from this brain fart, and Brett smoothly went around me. A bit of humor was involved though, as when the pack was coming to the turn, I heard Fred warning everyone: "Man down! Man down!" Well I immediately went into recovery mode checking to make sure I didn't break anything (on myself) and checking to see if my bike was rideable. While trying to get my chain back on, I discovered that my rear derailleur hanger was bent. Bad. By this time the pack was gone and a few guys had kindly stopped to see if I was ok. After Ryan unsuccessfully tried to bend my hanger back, it snapped. Oh well, it needed to be replaced anyway. John and Brett were nice enough to ride into town to get a car and pick me up, thanks a lot guys! So now I'm all fixed up and have a hanger on order, and a bike to ride (loaner--thanks Mason!), so I think everything should work out. I'm still pretty disappointed in myself for making such a dumb mistake...but as they say "shit happens."

Here's the remnants of the hanger:

Revamp!

2008-07-07T19:50:00.004-04:00

Yay! Finally got the stuff on the bike with more than a little help from Mason--thanks bro! Had a bit of trouble with the front brake not returning, but it's working alright now after Mason worked his magic, otherwise the bike is working pretty well I think. While I had the bike apart, went ahead and gave it a thorough cleaning, throwing most of the stuff in the parts cleaner and whatnot.

Bike:

Dirty bottom bracket shell:

Done!

New Race X Lite stem & Race Lite bar:

Ready to ride!In other news, Will Frischkorn from Garmin-Chipotle had an awesome ride today in Stage 3 of the Tour de France, starting a break just 3K into a 208K stage. The day-long breakaway amazingly made it this time, and he just came up short, taking 2nd behind Samuel Dumoulin of Cofidis. Still, an awesome ride from Frischkorn who is American! Way to go Garmin-Chipotle!

Maintenance

2008-07-05T20:07:00.003-04:00

Just got an order in from Trek with tons of replacement parts for the bike. Finally replacing the chain, some brake pads, got some nice DA cables & housing, also a new bottom bracket. One day when cleaning my bike, I discovered a very stiff, not-so-smooth feel in my bottom bracket...and they sure are cheap (if you get EP), so I just decided to get a new one. Also got a new bar & stem, stuck with good old aluminum, but I'm interested to see how my new position is (got a 7 degree, 110mm to replace my 17 degree 100mm stem) with the new stem.

So the bike is getting some maintenance, but what I'm more concerned with is my physical/mental maintenance. I'm not quite sure what it is, but lately I just haven't been riding well at all. I don't know if I'm just getting out of shape or fatigued or if I'm just kinda plateaued while everyone else is going up, but I've just felt like I didn't have legs these past couple weeks, even after lots of recovery time. Anyhow, I have a cunning plan (top secret of course) to hopefully fix that, so we'll see in a couple weeks how it works out!

In other news, everyone should rock out to this at least once: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qw-ie2ZzvFQ

Catchup and the Zionsville Grand Prix

2008-06-29T22:16:00.003-04:00

So I've been slacking pretty hardcore lately on the blogging. There hasn't been a whole lot to report. The last day of the Tour of Ohio was a pretty short race, starting in Granville and then heading out into the country onto a road race circuit which we covered 4 times before heading back into Granville for some finishing circuits (think Champs-Elysees style) featuring a brick climb and a descent with a 180 degree turn. Well the weather wasn't on our side, as we got rained on, hailed on, and hit with super strong winds (that blew some people off the road). By the time we arrived at the finishing circuits, the executive decision had been made to only do 4 laps of the circuit instead of the 10 we were supposed to do. I ended up finishing about where I'd been coming in all week, in 51st that day, good for 43rd overall. Overall it was a super fun week and I'm glad I did it and hope the experience and fitness I gained from it helps in the future.

After coming back I began a much-needed and much looked forward to recovery week, with some off time and some easy spins, even a mountain bike ride. Gave the bike a thorough cleaning after it got beat up in Ohio, so it's working nicely now, still need to get some replacement parts (chain, cables & housing, brake pads, the usual stuff).

Today was the Zionsville Grand Prix, a little race in Zionsville, just northwest of Indy. It is a flat, four-corner crit with a brick fronstretch, and it's a rather fun race. Jumped into the 1/2/3 field today, didn't really find my legs until about 30 minutes into the race, and was tentative since I've not been doing much all week. Basically I did not race aggressively and it stung me in the end. I missed the break, but snuck off the front in the final lap to take 10th place. Not too bad, I'm satisfied. Field was decently large, with about 50 guys starting. Jake Rytlewski came out and raced, gearing up for the Fitchburg-Longsjo Classic, which he won last year. Best of luck man!

Pics of the Women's Race from today:

Old Pictures:

Tour of Ohio Stage 4

2008-06-20T23:32:00.003-04:00

Second-to-last stage today here in Ohio, about a mile away from our hotel, so most of us just rolled over kitted up and got ready to race. Long-ish 1+ mile loop with a screaming downhill and pretty much no technical turns, and a climb that hurt you every time we went up. I had a good starting position up front, but started to move backwards as my legs weren't really down with the high-intensity bike racing. Eventually I found a pretty comfortable front-middle of the pack position, but then I started sliding back a little and before I knew it I was towards the back. I kept fighting and staying in it, but with 5 laps to go I popped and packed it in for the day. Picked up a water bottle from the "crowd" and then rolled across the line and got pulled. Ryan had a pretty sweet finish, around 10th or so after Inferno went 1-2 with Mr. Track World Champ Hayden Godfrey and Matt Winstead taking second (and keeping his yellow jersey). Sadly, John lost the green jersey by one point to Marco Aledia (sp?), but all in all it was a super fast, super hard day. Chris had some experience with neutral support after his bike started shifting funny and he got a neutral bike to ride the rest of the race. Other cool thing is that I got some facetime on Cyclingnews:

Tour of Ohio Stage 3

2008-06-19T23:38:00.002-04:00

Today marked the third day of racing here in Ohio. Pretty cool rolling stage with a few big climbs. We started in Gambier and rode to another town called Coshocton and then back to Gambier. On the way out we rode on a pretty worn, rutted road from some Amish buggies, then when we hit the town there were people lined up all over the place, it felt like we were pros riding in a spring classic in Europe. As we hit the town we made a left turn straight into a WALL. Anyway, coming back in was a tough affair with some more tough rollers and some climbs. I was kind of hurting and started to bonk a bit at the end, but the other dudes rode pretty awesome today. Isaac and John Meyers were both off the front several times, with Isaac being off for like 45 minutes early on and John attacking towards the end as well as taking the intermediate sprint in Coschocton to secure the Green Jersey!! Ryan pulled off a sweet finish taking 3rd behind Inferno's Matt Winstead. The finish sucked since there was a big wreck towards the front with less than 1K to go. Uphill finish, Isaac, Bennet, and myself finished together towards the back of the group. Overall a pretty successful day with Chris doing a lot of work and Isaac riding in the breaks all day, I was kind of weak sauce and could only contribute a few chase-efforts and covers. Turns out I am 3rd in the White Jersey competition I think, we'll see when results come out tomorrow. 40-mile crit tomorrow on a long-ish circuit, we'll see how it goes.

Ohio Update

2008-06-18T18:28:00.002-04:00

So we finished the second stage today. Yesterday's stage was a rockin .5 mile crit loop, 60 laps to make it 30 miles. I only made it about 10 minutes into the race and got pulled along with about 50 other people at once. I think out of a reported 122 starters only 33 finished, but the organisers had the good idea to make the stage not count for GC so everyone got the same time. Today was a 107K road race with several huge climbs. One of the toughest races I've done. Was pretty active trying to help out the other guys early on, hung on the later climbs, but got dropped on the last climb and rolled in a couple minutes back from the pack with an old friend, Craig Luekens. Tomorrow is a 60 mile road race with 4 KOMs and then we do another crit and finish up the week with a circuit race. The other guys rode decently well, Isaac had a great ride finishing around 15th and Ryan was in the next group a little way back. We don't have the results, but I really want to see if I am high up in the Cat 3 classification (for the white jersey), so we'll see. Good luck to everyone who is racing Bloomington and/or McCormick's Creek this coming weekend.

Washout

2008-06-03T23:50:00.002-04:00

Well it's been a while since I've posted. Not a whole lot going on, haven't raced since Nationals. Was riding pretty decent a couple weeks ago, then something happened...and now I've been riding like poo for the past week and a half or so...not sure why. Gonna plug away a bit longer then try to recover and hopefully feel good before the Tour of Ohio.

Anyhow, woke up this morning and was going to meet Ryan and Fred at 9am for a ride, but a quick radar check reveals a huge line of red heading towards us. Bad news. Stayed home and then drove to work and chilled most of the day, pretty slow day 'cause of the rain. It cleared up towards the end of the day and we met up back at the shop after work. Took off a bit after 6:45pm and did one loop of the Forest. We made a little stop at Anderson and Ryan took off for a TT effort around the Forest with Fred and myself starting 30 seconds back trying to catch him. Turns out it should've been the other way around! He finished 1:45 faster than us...

At Last!

2008-05-20T19:11:00.004-04:00

Computer issues and general laziness have prevented me from making a post lately...but here it is at last! So nationals ended up alright, IU pulled off an 8th place in the Omnium largely thanks to a strong showing by our women...led by Louise who finished 12th overall after taking 11th in the RR and 9th in the Crit. Sarah also had a good performance with a 17th place in the RR and 21st place in the Crit for 18th overall. On the Men's side, Isaac and Mike both crashed in the Crit, but still finished 28th and 25th, respectively. After the Crit there was much fun had at the hotel including making a cooler out of our sink. We also found creative uses for aero helmets! Anyhow, all in all it was a really fun trip, I had a blast, got a taste of bike racing at the next level, and am now super-motivated to get strong so that I can actually participate in the action next year instead of just hanging on.

Haven't done a whole lot since getting back, just a few rides here and there when I feel like...getting ready to start a new cycle to tune up for Tour of Ohio. Sadly I'll miss the Memorial Day weekend races for various reasons, but I'm not too disappointed. I'll be working (i.e. making some $$) and I'll be able to do my own rides, which could be a good or bad thing...

Anyhow, here are some sweet pics from Nats:

Pre-riding the road course...this is the first climb:

Sweet IU decals for the discs:

Girls finishing the TTT:

Guys on the line for the TTT:

Ladies out on the road course post-race:

Isacc in the pack in the Crit:

Mike in the Crit:

Quick Update

2008-05-10T18:21:00.002-04:00

So a lot has happened. I guess we are all struggling with one thing or another...altitude or illness and whatnot, but the TTT went alright with the girls taking 7th in the Division I race and the guys taking 11th to put us in 8th in the omnium. Road race today was INSANE. Girls had an awesome race with Louise coming in 11th and Sarah 17th. I believe Kirsten and Julie both scored points as well, but not sure on their places. On the mens side, I came in 60-something and was the lone finisher from IU. Not in the points...

Tomorrow is the last event, the criterium, which should be super exciting. I think both guys and girls can do well tomorrow, just need to be on. Not sure on other news/places, more later when I know. For now, I feel like poo and I'm in the business center here at the host hotel. It's cool being in a hotel with hundreds of other bikers from around the county--everyone's a biker dork! Anyhow, pictures and whatnot when I get home.

Ready, Set, Go to Nats!

2008-05-07T00:29:00.005-04:00

So...last post before we leave for Fort Collins, Colorado for Nationals. Not a whole lot's been going on...finals are over, finally (managed to squeak by with A's & B's...) and I've been working at the shop a lot, which has been loads of fun, I'm glad I'm back there working more than just Sundays!

It looks like we are taking 5 guys and 5 gals to Nats with Isaac, Mike, Brett, Graham, and myself on the mens side and Pam, Louise, Kirsten, Sarah, and Julie on the women's side. It should be a blast, and we will hopefully pull off some good results. On the guys side it'll be Isaac, Mike, Brett, and Graham rockin it in the TTT, then all of us in the RR providing we get 5 spots, and then Isaac, Mike, and Brett in the Crit on Sunday. I have no idea who is doing what on the girls side...we'll see I guess. Anyhow, I'm really looking forward to this trip, it's been one of my goals since I came to IU to make it onto the Nats squad as a freshman, and I didn't think it would happen, but I guess I got lucky. I'm really excited to get out there and throw down with the best collegiate riders in the country. Hopefully I'll be able to contribute to our team's finish out there. I should be getting to bed though, as we are leaving early tomorrow morning (er...today...) and it will be a long trip. Next update will probably be after we get back next week.

Anyway, I'll leave you with some more pictures from Regionals that Tom Schwoegler took

The crew (sans Nick...don't know where he was) before the Road Race:

Going by the S/F in the break:

Me warming up for the TT:

Ladies TTT:

Men's TTT:

Finish of our TTT:

Louise winning the Crit:

Regionals Team in front of the Wisconsin Capitol Building:

BCSP Road Race

2008-04-28T23:09:00.003-04:00

Yeah...they weren't kidding when they said this was going to be a hard race...

So after being sick all week and only managing 2 rides (one of which was Wednesday Worlds at which I proceeded to get dropped very quickly), I was super-apprehensive and nervous about doing a 100K road race in Brown County State Park, which is renowned for how beautiful it is...and how hilly it is. Rolled over nice and early with Jackie and chilled, watched some racing and whatnot, finally got to 1pm and I was on the start line...still not feeling great, but thinking I could at least finish. Small field with less than 30 starters. A little over 8K circuit with a 2K climb each time around, 12 times through...I had 99.8K at the finish, so I guess their distance was right on.

Anyhow, we rolled our pretty easy, flew down the descent (which had some nasty turns) and Jake Rytlewski aka Breezer proceeded to thin the field by setting a fast, but not unbearable tempo up the climb.

One lap later he did the same thing and a group of 6 formed off the front. It was him, myself, Kip Spaude who I've been racing against in collegiate (from Lindsey Wilson), Erik Hamilton, guy named Matt from Turin, and Chris Kelley. A lap later we drop Chris, then another lap later Jake has a rear wheel/dropout issue...stops on the climb, gets a wheel change, gets back on, and proceeds to catch us before the top of the climb...yeah...he's a Pro...

Anyhow, he rolled away from us at some point around 50K and so it was down to our group of 4. We rolled it and on the last lap we all rode pretty neutral up the climb, then it was the classic cat and mouse game on the last section from the climb to the finish. Turin guy led it out with Kip coming around to take the sprint for 2nd, Erik took 3rd place, I got 4th, with Matt in 5th after leading it out. Not too bad I guess...4th place in my first 1/2/3 race? I'll take it. So a few interesting things happened during the race: I experienced descending and going through an S-curve at over 70kph for the first time...did the hilliest race I've ever done, got my butt kicked by a pro, and dug pretty deep trying to combat illness to finish with the breakaway. I think it was a good race to tune up for Nationals, which is pretty much all that is on my mind now. I really hope I have a good ride there and can help out the other guys, maybe help set them up for a top 10 finish, or even the win if possible. No illusions though, it is not going to be an easy race. My feeling is that I'll be in good shape once I get healthy, and I know the other guys are spot on with their training and fitness, so either way I think I'll be the weak link. I still feel really new to racing at this level where everyone is better than me, so I guess I'm just trying to stay afloat and learn what I can. Being around guys like Brett, Isaac, and Mike who have lots of experience in racing at the elite level is good for me. It's also nice that we get to race collegiate together because during the summer I'll be racing in the smaller or lower cat races more often. Anyhow, more finals tomorrow, so back to studying for me!

Sweet pics in this post from Sarah Lukas--thanks!

MWCCC Regional Championships

2008-04-22T17:56:00.007-04:00

Wawaweewa, what a weekend! Little 500 banquet Friday night, then 13 of us packed up and left (late due to my slowness...) for Sheboygan (a little past Milwaukee). Arrived a little before 4am Bloomington time (3am local time) and rested up for the road race. IU had some great success in the road race with Louise and Pam taking 3rd and 4th in the Women's A's, Ryan Kiel in 3rd in the Men's B's, and I got 4th in the Men's A's. It turned out to be pretty much the best race I've ever had. Rolled off the front of the group about 5 miles in with Bennet van der GetKrunkten from Marian, Dallas from Wisconsin-Madison, and Will from Northwestern. I think I burned a few too many candles early on, as I was trashed by the time we got to about mile 55...luckily they let me sit in for a while and recover, then I ended up getting dropped about halfway through the last lap (we did 8, 10-mile laps), and went into TT mode to try and hold off the pack. I managed it, but barely, for arguably the best result I've ever had. And it was the longest road race I've ever done. Yay. Bennet took away the win with Will in 2nd and Dallas in 3rd.

Road Race pics from James Polivka:

You can see how close the pack was to catching me:

Sweet TTT pic from James Polivka:

Onto Sunday. After getting an awesome dinner at Chili's thanks to Tom, we got up early for the TTT at 8:30am. Girls rolled in 2nd behind Michigan and we barely beat out Marian (by only 5 seconds this time) for the win. Way to go Hoosiers! Sunday afternoon saw us race a sweet 4-corner crit around the state capitol building. It was about 1K each lap, and Men's A's did 75 minutes worth. Isaac and Mike both got top 10 for us. I was in the back of the pack most of the race, moved up a couple times and went right back to the back. Legs were trashed. Ended up flatting with 4 laps to go--no more free lap! Oh well, would've been a field finish anyway...although I'm bummed because it is my first DNF ever. On the Women's side Louise destroyed everyone on the last lap to take the win handily by multiple bike lengths. Pam also pulled off a 4th place, another finish with two IU in the top 5! Very nice! Other props need to go out to Purdue (yes, I am a Hoosier congratulating the Boilermakers...) for taking 1-2 in the crit. And also to Bennet for taking the overall conference title over John Meyers in what can only be described as an epic battle. Team totals aren't up yet, but rumor has it that we won the overall title and the A's title...that remains to be seen.

Me in the crit (pic by Polivka again):

Most baller women's team ever:

Party Hardy

2008-04-17T20:33:00.003-04:00

"Whee!!" That one single word pretty much describes how I felt for the first half of last night. The second half... "waaaa"...OOPS. So the day started off pretty normally with the usual school stuff and burrito eating, followed by the weekly Wednesday Worlds. We did 7 laps of the infamous 446 loop and after spending pretty much the whole time at the front, I squeaked in for 3rd place behind Sherer and Clayton. All in all with how much I've been drinking and how little comparatively that I've been riding, and how crappy I felt, I think I did alright, but hopefully I'll have a stronger showing next week. On to the fun stuff! So after making a rash decision to mullet-fy my hair, I ran over to my friend Jamie's place where she grabs scissors and attacks my hair. DIRTY ASS MULLET. Mission Accomplished. Roll over to the annual wine & cheese, this year hosted by Gerber and Kuschnick (sp?) So pretty much everyone noticed how amazingly stupid I looked. Yay-rah. Fast forward...DONEZO for the night. One of the last to leave and somehow I get home and get to bed, wake up still in that condition, and go to class. Oh dang that sucked. Good thing there is a white line to follow on the side of the road.

So after some V8 and soup to speed the recovery, headed out for a failed-ride with Scott and then buzzed the rest of my hair off so now I am my usual bald self. Finished off the day with dinner at the Pi Phi's and quickly made the decision to take the night off of partying. Victory Banquet tomorrow. Regionals this weekend. I'm PUMPED.

Oh, and Boonen pulled what has now been deemed "a Bennet" (no offense dude...but you can't live it down), check it out on VeloNews:

Post-Little 500

2008-04-15T01:23:00.005-04:00

Well this weekend was full of surprises. First Delta Gamma rode an awesome race to claim their first win ever in the Women's race. Props to all those girls for an amazing ride...and props to their first year coach Ryan Knapp. My friends on Teter pulled off second place handily over Delta Sigma Pi and Kappa Alpha Theta. One other team that I'm extremely proud of is the girls at Pi Beta Phi. Now this is a team of essentially all rookies who took a team that finished 26th last year to 8th place this year! They rode an awesome race and all of us at BKB are proud of them. They also got facetime on cyclingnews.com:

Next, my teammates were involved in an early wreck which put them behind, then we find out that Isaac is out of gas due to food poisoning, so the guys keep fighting out there solo and eventually get lapped. After riding a pretty aggressive race with essentially only 3 guys (who are all rookies), trying to get off the front to make up our lap around lap 120, we rolled in for 8th place, a lap down behind the winners the Cutters. Bummer for us. However, the race did go well for many other teams that were not as hyped up: nice job to Wright Cycling for a good ride putting them in 7th on the lead lap. Also Ride DMC had a good ride for a 6th place finish. Gray Goat also put in a hell of a ride for 12th place. Full results at http://www.iusf.indiana.edu/Events_Programs/Little_500/Results_Records/Current_Results.html I think this is record time for IUSF to get result online!

Cyclingnews had some decent coverage:

Women: http://www.cyclingnews.com/track.php?id=track/2008/apr08/little50008/little500081

Men: http://www.cyclingnews.com/track.php?id=track/2008/apr08/little50008/little500082

Tom Boonen also confirmed his bad-ass-ness by winning his second Paris-Roubaix this weekend.

Another shoutout: to Matt Ewing for being a sweet race director and all-around good guy. I'm sure many people agree when I say it's been good having you around as Race Director, and we're sad that you're leaving. Best of luck!

Overall this was a pretty good weekend, I'm still recovering from it, but there were a lot of good and bad things that happened. So the race didn't go the way we wanted to...but we learned from it and hopefully next year things will go our way.

sorry for the long, scatter-brained post

Little 500 Week

2008-04-08T19:24:00.004-04:00

You can tell the whole campus is ready to forget about class and party like it's the GREATEST COLLEGE WEEKEND...i.e. Little 500 Weekend. Turns out our time of 9:20.08 was good enough for 4th in team pursuit behind Cutters who won in 9:02.03. The past couple days I've been at track practice to make sure I finish up my rookie hours so I don't have to do it next year, but it's been tough watching the guys practice knowing that I won't be out there on race day. I've been recovering pretty slowly from the weekend, so mostly I've just been doing some easy rollers and watching the guys do sets and practice exchanges. They are looking awesome, it's gonna be nuts seeing them tear it up on race day, which might be cold and wet according to the forecast, which seems to be changing daily.

Oh, and we finally have evidence that Jordan indeed does know ALL the girls: