Saturday, December 29, 2007

time warp

So we stayed up till 2:30am drinking home made wine and slept through the 11am group ride start ;-)  We're on Djuna time here.


We did get out for a few hours...there is some incredible riding around here.  Great roads and huge rollers.  Time for more wine....

Friday, December 28, 2007

Change o' plans

We decided to head up to tennessee to see some friends...gonna do the Johnson City group ride in the am.  In prison you go upto the biggest, meanest dude and punch him in the face...we'll see how tomorrow goes.

Thursday, December 27, 2007

"easy" loop

Kiddo is still in Ky so Jules and I got to do another rare ride together...did a loop in the fort, 1:30.  Jules felt good and hates to ride slow so I just put it on autopilot at 220w and cruised with her on my wheel.  We both got a good workout.


They're clearcutting a lot of trees on Dixie so I'd recommend doing the "detour" as the main road is pretty messed up with tree limbs etc.

Next big ride will be saturday morning...planning on doing another 4+ hours if it's not raining.

Wednesday, December 26, 2007

South

We're headed back to Cola today.  I'm semi-recovered from yesterdays outing...I was pretty fried last night.  I drank some wine and hit the hot tub then the lights went out at around 10:30.  


I've been thinking about next years races--I think we'll have a pretty solid "team" with me, langston, karl, ladd and brian.  I don't see too many 3's or masters teams having that kind of horsepower.  If we had a pure sprinter like derek I think we could win a bunch of races.  Maybe we need to start a columbia hybrid team with some of the harrells guys too.  That would be some talent. 

Tuesday, December 25, 2007

repeat

4:30, 78 miles, 2500kj, awesome day....and that's all I'm gonna say about that.

Monday, December 24, 2007

Ex-mas

Sometimes it's good having a workout nazi as a wife...sometimes it's bad.  This morning we roll out of bed and it's 26 degrees and she goes "when we riding?"  I gotta admit I most probably definitely absolutely would not have ridden today...but we ended up with 2:30 in temps hovering around 35 degrees with a stout 15mph wind.  Ouch.


Now I can handle the cold--I've ice climbed 800' frozen waterfalls in the canadian rockies, climbed to nearly 21,000' in Peru (this peak was pretty freakin cold too) & winter camped in Yellowstone at minus 30........but today was damn cold!

Now it's time for the hot tub, a few beers and about 10 hours of sleep.  The plan is to do a suicidal 4+ hour ride tomorrow...it's supposed to be in the 40's.  

Thursday, December 20, 2007

damn

So nutty went and bought a sweet bike...that SUCKS. Why? because last year it was easy to follow him around on that POS tank of a steel bianchi he rode. Now his bike is gonna be 5 lbs lighter. The skinny little bastard is gonna be fast next year. I really got to lay off the chips and beer now...Anyway, I don't know of anyone riding one of these in cola except the little bastard. Here it is:

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

mud & snow

Not much new around here...just some velodyne rides to keep the weight down. We're headed to Louisville, KY for Xmas so we're taking bikes. We'll see how the weather holds up there...Last year I kicked off my 4-5 hr rides up there. Here's a shot of Jed at Cross Nats, he got 7th in masters and 50th in elite's...crazy fucker:

Sunday, December 16, 2007

media

Some photo's of the new wheels.


and here's crusty getting things all riled up at E's party.

Saturday, December 15, 2007

Parabens a voce

No photo's of the wheels yet but they are pretty friggin sweet. Very fast and stiff. I put on an old pair of Michelin Pro Race's on them and just ran 100psi to soften the ride and they were about perfect. I'm happy. I'm still trying to figure out if the new PT hub reads about the same as the old one...will take a few more rides to see if the PE's about the same. Seemed pretty close today.

For the group ride today my goal was to ride on the front, and ride hard. That about summed it up. It was a nice ride in the fact that in the morning it was 50 degrees and never got any warmer so there was no need to pull cloths off. It was about perfect temps the whole day. Got about 3 hours in.

Later E's 5th birthday went off...I even had to send Nutty for a beer run ;-) At one point there were about 12 five year olds in my kitchen and a drunken Crusty yells "here's a new game...who here can scream the loudest" Nice going. It was actually pretty funny but some of the soccer moms didn't think so. I got it all on video by chance so I'll have to put it on youtube.

Friday, December 14, 2007

Shhhh-a-wing

The new wheels are cleaned, re-decaled, re-tired, re-tubed, re-mounted. They are s-i-c-k. My total bike weight is 16.9lbs with 46mm clincher wheels and PowerTap. Nice. Photo's tomorrow after the ride. If you were to go to the store and pay retail for this setup it would cost ya $3534. Meet my everyday wheels ;-)

duuuude, pass the...

Since my "LSD is Dead" post a week ago I've been getting a lot of hits from google searches for LSD, the drug. Trippin' dude. Up on cripple creek...

My Reynolds wheel is done...gonna pick it up in a few minutes.

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

SST & Bjork

I got out of work a bit early today and wanted to get in 3 hrs...The legs were a little tweaked from yesterday's threshold workout but once I warmed up a bit they were fine. I basically just tried to keep the wattage at around 85% of my FTP (230w) and just cruised listening to tunes. I got a solid 90min at this intensity--your garden variety "sweet spot" workout. It was pretty easy to stay on target and I would punch it up the hills. Overall a great workout, I'm pretty trashed right now.

My weight is down to 152...that bodes very well for next year. I usually pack it on pretty good in the winter. If I can get down to around 146 this year things could get interesting. We'll see how the holiday desserts pan out.

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

82 degrees

The weather has been freaky...Went out at 3:30pm today and wanted to do some threshold work. Ended up riding close to 2 hours with 1x35' at 272w thrown in. Generally the wattage came easy but near the end the downhills were a killer. I was going to do 40' but pulled the plug early cuz I was suffering.

Last weekend I bought a 1984 Honda Elite 125 scooter for cheap. I've been using it to commute to work and it kicks ass...will easily do 50mph (and gets 80+mpg). It's gonna see some major motorpacing action later this winter.

Friday, December 7, 2007

coolestwebsiteontheplanet

belgium knee warmers

Wednesday, December 5, 2007

Hour of Power

Tonight I jumped on the velodyne with the idea of just getting some exercise. Since my PE has been pretty high on the velodyne I started out at a 2% grade and just found a gear that was "comfortable" but at a good intensity. I warmed up for 10 min then settled in at about 230w which felt a lot like an outdoor 275w (threshold). I did 15 min then decided to do some 5 minute intervals at 275w...I just went from 2 to 3% grade and these were hard and I had to really concentrate to complete them. I ended up doing 3 of these 5 min and in between kept the wattage at 230w to keep the TSS up. It was a great one hour workout.

I'm getting my "pain distraction" set up dialed...got a powerbook on the velodyne showing cyclocross (and internet connected) and an iPod with my good intensity mix. My fan is sooooo kick ass that I had to start out today wearing armwarmers (fan was in front of an open door and 55 degrees outside).

Saturday, December 1, 2007

LSD is dead

Remember when we used to ride slow in winter...those days are over. Get used to it.

This morning was freakin cold, 38 degrees...but warmed up fast and everyone started shedding clothes. I started with a full jacket and am-fib tights but ended up with a longsleeve jersey and just bibs. Incredible day today.

Did a couple huge efforts with the longest most sustained being from the G-mart all the way to the sprint. Karl took off (fueled by the 18% alcohol content) then LL and I bridged and then it was just pull as hard as you could and hang on. I was getting fried and was on the front coming up to the little climb...should I lead over it to ride at my own tempo or just sit on Karl?. I made a very poor choice--I sat on and paid a dear price. He killed it and I suffered like a dog. Coming up to the sprint I knew I had nothing so I led it out and LL (who was wheel sucking all day) took the sprint. Just kidding....LL was drilling it every chance he got.

Karl...our intrepd Austrian wanted some "fruit juice" at the G-mart so this is what he ended up with. Classic.

There's an issue with Google...clicked photos won't span a new page. They're working on it...update: I think I found a workaround, it should work now.

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

quickie

I took kiddo to gymnastics today and sat for 1.5 hours but I got to listen to the Sandinista album by the Clash...that's some good shit. It was kindof surreal--me sitting in the middle of all the soccer moms, rocking out with my iPod at full volume.... Soooo, I didn't have that much time to ride so i jumped on the velodyne, warmed up for 5' then did 25 min at 260w. My PE is a lot higher than on the road so I'm slowly working my way up. The other day I did 15min at 272w and thought I was going to die. The power output is just so freakin relentless. It's all good.

The new Powertap hub's on the way...I must have been a good boy.

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Part 2

just got a 24 hole Powertap SL off ebay for $600...it's getting closer.

I've been on the velodyne the last 2 days...nothing like a steady 260w for 30min.

Sunday, November 25, 2007

here's a tip...

Green Team!!!

oh yeah...nsfw

Thursday, November 22, 2007

Scooter


That's my new nickname for Jed...I felt like i was motorpacing today. Sure he's racing pro cyclocross for Jittery Joes but damn, he was just ticking it off today at 30mph...It was a great ride today (in shortsleeves) with a solid group of 7 of us starting out with Jed, Treze and I going longer. I haven't seen a TSS over 220 in a while. Bring on the tofurky.

Speaking of Jed...here's a good pic of his cross fan club at Hendersonville. A very drunk Nutty is the "J"

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Speedplay JERKS

So I've got an auction on eBay for an old pair of Speedplay X2's and the asswipes at Speedplay actually contacted eBay and had the auction pulled for "copyright violation". It seems my description of these pedals somehow caused them harm. Way to go speedplay, you won a great victory today. Time to shop for some new pedals...

update: got an email back from them saying...

We are sorry for the inconvenience. We do have a reason for the way we handle eBay auctions with stolen material. If you would like to discuss our policy please call us at 1-800-468-6694.
Andy
Speedplay Customer Service
Yeah...stolen material. Screw you andy...

It also looks like Andy's been reading my blog...

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

1x30

Freakin freakish weather...another 78 degree day. Went out to do a threshold workout and just go with the flow. Ended up feeling great and doing 30min at 270w so I'm pretty happy with that...steady progress, don't try to kill it...yet. Hooked up with Chris and we cruised in. I'm lookin to put together a 3-4 hour group ride on tofurky day.

Sunday, November 18, 2007

carbon fetish

Saturday was cold but it warmed up pretty quick...did 3.5 hours, mostly tooling around. I tried to ride at the front a lot for exercise and to keep the TSS high. Did a couple of hard efforts.

I rode the new reynolds wheels and they were sweet, but I am coming from a PT Pro hub and open pro rim that has around 15k miles on it. The reynolds were fast, held their speed well and were incredibly stiff...nearly too stiff. I gotta run lower air pressure with these. Now I gotta find a PT hub.

2 riders, exactly the same except wheels (reynolds on one, 32 spoke box rim on the other). The more aero rider will be 14m ahead after 2k. I'm sold.

Thursday, November 15, 2007

*smack*

I just watched the Jaarmarktcross Niel race from a couple weeks ago...Lars Boom got a 10s gap on Bart Wellens in the last lap and then Boom was struggling and then he started smacking himself in the face, first a right then left...Hard.  I ain't never seen shit like that before.  Cross rules.  Wallens ended up catching him and winning.


If anyone wants a CD-ROM with these races on it let me know...

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Let's Go

Today was 82 degrees and I was able to get out at 4pm...Sweet!

For my first interval of the winter I set my sights pretty low and did 1x20 at 260w which is probably what my FTP is right now especially with the last 6 weeks of no real structured training. It wasn't that hard but I was glad when I stopped.

The plan* right now is to do 1x20's twice a week for a few weeks then bump it up to 1x30's...then to 2x20. Weekends are for longer and harder rides (SST and VO2 efforts).

*subject to change every hour

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Day 1

Today was close to 80 degrees so I decided the vacation was over and it's time to start training again. I got out and did 2 hours at about 85% of FTP...basically just hammered in the sweet spot. Jersey and shorts only--very nice. Ended the ride in the dark...but not really thanks to my Niterider H.I.D. That thing kicks ass.

Oh yeah...I'm up to 156lb. Chips and Beer, baby! I've also been downloading the Euro Cross races from this dutch guy...I just watched the Koppenberg --> Nys is a friggin monster.

I'm half way to a very sweet Powertap wheelset. Now I need a 24 hole wireless hub to rebuild the rear. I'm selling a set of Rolf Prima Vigor clinchers for $300 (I may already have a buyer...)

Great story on This american life this week.

Saturday, November 10, 2007

Mr Mom

Julie's lecturing at NYU so I'm solo with the kid...My runs are up to 30min and I can walk the next day. The word from today's group ride is that panties got all in a bunch and people got dropped hard...sorry i missed it!

Tuesday, November 6, 2007

Sweet Spot revisited

It took him 2 years but Frank at FasCatCoaching put up a "part 2" to his article on training at the Sweet Spot.  It's a "must read" and something I'm planning on using for a lot of velodyne hours this winter.


Also there's a new massage therapist in town who's rubbed the legs of some of the best cyclists in the country when she worked as a soigneur for HealthNet.  If you're interested shoot me an email for her contact info.

Sunday, November 4, 2007

bike practice

2 hours...near 70 degrees...bibs...jersey. Scha-wing.

Saturday, November 3, 2007

winters here

The cold temps are here so a later start today was warranted. A group of us did 2.5 hrs and we rode steady to hardish tempo. I got some VO2 work in chasing Karl and Lang. Incredible day in the high 60's...the legs felt pretty good.

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

dee pain dee pain

I went for a run on Sunday...25 min at a fast walk pace. Monday I couldn't straighten my right leg all the way, overall pain in the legs hovered at a 7/10...it got better though. Today Chris and I did 2 hours and I did a 20 min interval at FTP with her on my wheel. Karl met up with us and we cruised in...Next run planned for tomorrow.


Alison Krauss and Robert Plant...Amazing

Sunday, October 28, 2007

Colbert '08

Here are some pic's from the "event" today...

Saturday, October 27, 2007

nation...

Steven Colbert will be given the key to the city of cola at 9am on Sunday at the USC horseshoe...I'm so there.

Thursday, October 25, 2007

meow

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Gore'd

90 degree's on Oct 23rd...WTF??? Managed a loop in the fort...

Sunday, October 21, 2007

On the wagon

It's always hard to tell how you're gonna feel after some time off the bike but saturday was a pretty sweet day--the legs felt good. Perfect temps and about a 3 hour ride, a good group too. Today I did an easy loop in the fort with the island crew. Now after a couple of hours of chasing Dorothy and toto around the Halloween at the zoo I'm hitting the vino pretty hard...

Monday, October 15, 2007

vaca


so very drunk...so very sunburned:

Monday, October 8, 2007

dee plane dee plane

Rode a hard loop today but now it's time to head to the islands...we're headed back to St. John's in the USVI (kid free...first stop is duty free). Be back in 8 days with a record high TSB.

Saturday, October 6, 2007

burnin kj

a little over 3 hours today so that's 3340kj for the last 2 days...should more than offset the beer I'm gonna drink tonight.

on a lighter note...or not:

BUSH: …I believe in private medicine, not the federal government running the healthcare system…

STEWART: Yes, I don’t think there’s an uninsured kid out there who wants to be suckered into some slippery slope socialized medicine scheme. These kids don’t want the government telling them what they can or cannot die from. It’s just wrong.

Tuesday, October 2, 2007

TNWC...fini

Tonight riding over to the crit I had this "uh-oh" kindof feeling...the legs felt like crap. Warming up my RPE was high and the legs felt heavy so I did a little effort to try to clear em out. 1 minute at 300w...Big "uh-oh" This was not going to be good.

So I basically sat in most of the night (while everyone else chased Karl, Jay and Charles), I did a few half hearted efforts then almost sat up at 1 lap to go but decided to at least sprint a little...I actually went pretty well on the final sprint (for starting at last wheel). I passed a lot of people at least so that was fun. Then I rode tempo home to get some exercise and beat the darkness.

I'm out of town the next 2 tuesdays so that's it for the racing for me this year...The saturday ride is now at 9am at the circle.

Sunday, September 30, 2007

T-Keo'd

Jules and I got out for a rare ride together. We did 2 hours with me still stuck in my small chainring which was actually good cuz I wanted to spin. My legs were a little tweaked from yesterday. Awesome weather out there today.

Met up with Dean at the wildcat gate coming back in and just before the descent of the wall Dean stood up and snapped off one of his Look Keo pedals...he hit the ground--Hard. He landed on his back and had a huge hematoma on his knee and lots of scrapes...he's gonna be sore tomorrow but luckily he didn't break anything. We were looking around for his pedal and finally we found it...still attached to his cleat. I'm having a hard time figuring out how a normal pedal just snaps off at the spindle.

So dean had to ride back with only a left pedal and me pushing him. At hilton field I called Phillip...no answer so I called right back which is the universal code for a 23 y.o. "I know you're on the couch and totally hung over but pick up the phone anyway" So he met us at the gate...looking like he had just hit the pavement too.

Saturday, September 29, 2007

spinnin'

Nice 3.5 hr ride today...I found a solution to my mashing tendencies--just snap the front derailler cable, be stuck in the small ring and there you have it: 120rpm trying to stay on Karl's wheel.

I had a nice McEwen moment today...coming up for the eastover sign sprint I'm sitting 6th, Lang's drilling it with Mark on his wheel then Chris. I sneak up and give a little tug to Chris' jersey opening the gap, I slipped in then I'm sitting pretty (my iPod drowned out the screams of protest). Karl must have saw this cuz he boxed me in and took the sprint.

Also...Directv just added 30 new HD channels including Versus and they're gonna show the tour in HD next year. Cool!

Friday, September 28, 2007

wristSTRONG

Phillip apparently wasn't so lucky in the crash tuesday...fractured wrist:

Thursday, September 27, 2007

must...not...press...bid...now.

I gotta stop looking around ebay (my high bid was $1400 but the winning bid of $1525 was still a damn good deal, I showed some rare restraint)

Saturday's gonna kick ass -------------->

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

exercise

Did 2.5 hours in the fort today...tried to keep the wattage at 200w which is around 70% of my FTP. This tempo is easy enough to do everyday and hard enough to burn a lot of Kj. I'm starting to think about my winter plan. I'm gonna find a workout that can be done in a little over an hour but includes both threshold and Vo2--and do this at least weekly.

On the PM front I've got crusty checking out the new Quarq powermeter at interbike...it looks pretty cool esp when you can use a Garmin Edge 705 as the computer. Hopefully this unit will be as accurate and reliable as the SRM.

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

TNWC...crashfest edition

the racing: I did what I planned to do which was ride hard and was in a few breaks--one with Charles for a couple of laps...that hurt, he's a strong dude. It was a big crowd tonight and everyone was riding hard. Most attacks got reeled in pretty quickly. Karl and a couple of others had a decent gap with about 3 to go so ladd pegged it for a while then he sat up and I drilled it across to them but we never could get that far away and was caught...then with 1k to go Ladd again tried to give me a launch board but having 30 guys on my wheel didn't bode too well so i just led it out from just after turn 3 to 400m to try and keep it fast and safe. Somebody won. One area of my fitness that's going bye-bye very fast are my V02 capabilities...long hard pulls at 320 to 350w just killed me tonight.

the crashing: with 2 to go (and we were flying...) apparently someone slid out on turn 4 which dominoed about 5 guys into the median. This was the 2nd trip into the grass this year for Nutty without his bike...at 35mph. Robin and a couple others went down but the best display of bike handling and bad luck went to Kevin--he was able to bunny hop the 1st curb but somehow became de-biked and flew across superman style to the pavement on the other side. Lots of road rash, grass stains and scrapes but everyone was ok.

Monday, September 24, 2007

maintain

I've been in cruise mode lately...just riding to keep the weight in check. Tomorrow I plan to try to be more "active" in the crit. I wanna be fried at the end so we'll see how that works out.

Today I was riding in the fort sort of daydreaming, listening to my iPod and I almost nailed a huge ass turkey...

Friday, September 21, 2007

homeland security

I love this photo

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

TNWC

Play by Play: Karl and Toby are away on the last lap....Toby puts in a hard pull of 27mph down the back stretch, Karl comes around him at 27.8mph on turn 4, toby counters at 27.9mph and drills it for 400m then karl powers away at 28.2mph and takes the win in a hotly contested seated-hands-on-hoods sprint which reminded everyone present of Chipollini/Petacchi.

I was in the chase group (but not really working) with Jay, Langston, Robin, a very fresh Ladd and a couple others. We were all a bit miffed when when someone called 2 laps to go with about 45min left (didn't we say 50+2 at the start?).

Anyway...With the break dangling just ahead of us I knew that if I worked hard to bring them back Jay would just win easily so on the last lap I shirked a couple of pulls and left it up to Jay to pull the 2 non sprinters back (which I though he could do) so i sat on him and he took off as predicted but he died with about 400m to go then I jumped on Lang's wheel and got a good draft and started to come around, but Karl had just crossed the line...good ride by the two skinny guys, they were away for a very LONG time.

Then there's This.

Monday, September 17, 2007

crusty speaks

This is what crusty sounds like in real life....but somehow they edited out the parts where he says "go f*ck yourself.....get f*cked.....you suck.....shut up.....f*ck you.....f*cker"

Sunday, September 16, 2007

Corbett retires from Health Net

After keeping this news under wraps for the last couple of months, it's official: Crusty's hanging it up...Seeing as this means he'll be in town a lot more I've suggested some alternative careers: Long haul trucker, submarine navigator, Oil Tanker captain, astronaut...anything to keep him out of town and give us all a break.

Saturday, September 15, 2007

caesars head

Great day in the mtns....65 miles and temps in the 70's. We went up Caesars head then over to 178. Lots of good climbing and 2300kJ burned. At the stop sign at hwy 8 and 276, before the first climb Karl says "start the time here..." needless to say I watched him ride away very quickly as I settled into a nice threshold tempo. He did 31min...me, longer than that.

Karl also informed me that he checked his odometer for this year and it's at around 1500miles. I'm considering homicide or just something that will have some permanent, painful, lasting effects. A guy who can climb/race with Cat 1's and 2's and pretty much ride away from any 3 without really training. HE MUST DIE. Sorry Chris, it's just gotta be that way...

View Larger Map

Friday, September 14, 2007

us cycling

Navigators and Kodak are gone for next year...Slipstream, Rock Racing and BMC stepping up in a big way. Plus another big "local" news item not public quite yet...Should make for an interesting year if everything pans out like I'm hearing.

Thursday, September 13, 2007

head for the hills

Julie's back....thank god. Time to head to the mtns for a "fun" ride on sat. Since the "season" for me is officially over I'm just trying to keep the pounds off and just take it easy.

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

ballet

Julie's in London so I'm playing single parent this week (which is similar to double parent, but with lots more drinking). I had some childcare set up to be able to do the crit but E's ballet class ran late and then I just stayed home and did our bath/book/bed/beer routine. Gonna try to get out for 2+ hours tomorrow but we'll see. Julie's back on thursday afternoon so I should be able to make it for the group ride.

Oh yeah...seeing "I'm drunk when I'm not riding or in class" 23yo Phillip driving Ella around to school and gymnastics is pretty humorous. I hope child protective services doesn't read this blog...

Saturday, September 8, 2007

Exercise

The Sat ride today was huge...20 people??? what's up with that...It was also freakin hard. I always could tell when Karl hit the front cuz the speed would go from 26 to 29 (33mph on the newly paved section)...and stay there. I like the rides where it's not just double paceline all day...today when you hit the front you could drill it for how ever long you wanted. I did a hardish 2 hour ride yesterday so I wasn't feeling super today but overall I'm pretty fit for this time of year.

Wednesday, September 5, 2007

tnwc

After racing this weekend and a hard 2 hours yesterday I wasn't that motivated for the tuesday crit...luckily noone else was either. It was one of the slower and mellower crits with everyone just cruising along. I was just looking for some exercise and would take full lap pulls for fun. There were a few attacks but most died of apathy and the "chase" was usually mellow--steady enough to keep the break at bay but pretty easy.

Late in the race Karl rolled away with Charles and Toby. Tom S tried to organize a chase but he was too worried about me and Derek who were just sittin in and chatting (I wasn't going to chase Karl down). With just over a lap to go Tom gave up and I took advantage of the lull and launched a 5 second half hearted "attack" then sat up and quit. Derek used this as a spring board to get across to the break but it was too late and Charles took the win.

Sunday, September 2, 2007

USPro

The US Pro RR was today in Greenville. Levi won it on an amazing break solo for 30 miles. I got to ride in the HealthNet team car with Crusty, Mike and Nick the mechanic (who worked for CSC last year in europe). It was a good time and I shot a lot of video that I'll put up soon (Jeff-->heavily edited, of course!).

You'd think that time in a team car for one of the top US squads would be dominated by lots of talk of tactics and race related stuff. Not really...I'll break it down: 75% of the time we were either scoping out chicks on the side of the road or talking about chicks, 24% of the time we were giving Jeff shit about how he was driving, 1% of the time we had to deal with the riders (a tire change, the radio and handing out water bottles). Ahhhh the life of a Pro Cycling director.

Saturday, September 1, 2007

Bling

Today Brian, Karl and I went to do the 35+ Masters State RR in Greenville. The course was 60miles (4 laps of 15 miles) and was constantly rolling with no major climbs so it was fast. 2 Dudes rolled away at the start then 3 joined them. The break hovered around 1 minute till the last lap when it went up to 1:40. There wasn't really an organized chase, just lots of guys looking at each other for the first 3 laps.

On the last lap Brian radio'd that he was feeling good so Team Outspokin hit the front with Karl and I driving the chase to bring back the break (Karl doing the majority of the work as usual). Within 10 miles the break was down to 30 sec and was all together soon after that. I got in a spot of bother at one point when I put in a massive pull up a small climb only to have someone attack just as I pulled off...it hurt pretty bad getting back in the group and I recovered pretty well but that effort was a major "match" (actually more like a flame thrower).

The finish came down to a bunch sprint--I was pretty fried and got tweaked by the last little climb a mile or so from the finish but Brian was positioned well and had a good sprint getting 6th and was the 1st S.C. rider so he gets the Gold and the state champ jersey. Pretty cool.

Derek from Cycle Center also is the new state champ by being the 1st S.C. rider in the 45+ Masters (he got 2nd and was beat in the sprint by a guy with toe straps! Just him getting beat in a sprint is pretty strange...but that's downright bizarre).

Lots of Columbia riders racing today...Phillip, Ladd, Nick, Toby, Damon, Jamie, Langston, B.L. Ken, Tom S. & Team Sippy Cup.

Friday, August 31, 2007

Fixie

I got all into the fixed gear thing a couple of winters ago thinking I was all hipster and it would make me a cat. 1...this guy is brutal and has a great blog. All I got out of 3 months of riding a fixed was huge legs that really didn't make me go any faster, actually slower cuz I could never lose enough other weight to make up for it. I had a really nice pedal stroke though. My "fixie" is now a SS and only goes to publix.

Thursday, August 30, 2007

the ONION

Non-Doping Cyclists Finish Tour De France

The Onion

Non-Doping Cyclists Finish Tour De France

PARIS—A small but enthusiastic crowd of several dozen was on hand at the Tour de France's finish line on the Avenue des Champs-Élysées Tuesday to applaud the efforts of the 28 cyclists who completed the grueling 20-stage, 2,208.3-mile...

Tuesday, August 28, 2007

TNWC

Tonight's race was a pretty good one...lots of stuff happening. My plan was to just have a good time and not kill myself. I was in a couple of breaks but nothing serious. A small group went away with a couple laps to go and I was hoping for a hard chase and catch on the last lap but they stayed away. I got robin to drill it to turn 4 then I launched trying to catch them and ended up dragging Joe with me but I didn't make it. No biggie...

I've been purposely ignoring all power/wattage stuff right now cuz I'm not at the fitness level right now that it would be that interesting...I'm still downloading it all (to keep the CTL data going) but not really looking at my PMC. I'm usually pretty burnt around this time of year so we'll see how it goes this weekend. The course isn't super selective so I should be ok.

Monday, August 27, 2007

More maps please

meet Miss South Carolina

in unrelated news:

South Carolina's SAT scores fall
By SEANNA ADCOX - Associated Press Writer

COLUMBIA, S.C. --Average reading and math SAT scores for South Carolina high school students fell 1 point this year.

Sunday, August 26, 2007

Weekend Update

Friday was the beer ride with Ella...It was a good time and we did the whole loop so it was her first hour and a half on the bike. She's a trooper.

Saturday was a hot and sweltering 2 hour ride through Hopkins then we hit the pool.

Sunday was going to be a 2 hour ride but I met up with Brian C. on the fort and we got talking...long story short is that I'm gonna do the state road race next saturday (35+ masters). So I changed my ride plans and did 4 hours...all in the fort, a triple loop--iron cross--turn around loop. About every option I could think of--riding not too hard just steady. I ran out of water for the last 40min and stopped at the "shoppette" just past the traffic circle. That's the coldest damn water in the city...it kicks ass. Speaking of ass I've started using this on every ride and it's made a world of difference.

Thursday, August 23, 2007

Thursday

Fun ride tonight...not too crazy hard but some good digs. I'm getting my legs back but still can't really put the smack down. Karl was drilling it all night as usual and he hurt me bad when we got away on airbase...a trick when you're hurting and in a small break is to not just quickly pull through but to ride the front and recover there at a hard but manageable intensity. Plus this gave Karl a chance to recover a bit from his long pulls. There was a decent headwind too which didn't help so it all came back together.

Coming up to the sprint I was just chillin' when I saw that Les Amis kid come off the front leaving Mark in the wind with a long way to go so I jumped getting a good gap--leaving everyone else boxed in. Nice blocking Mark!

Karl was Mr. 35 mph Leadout on Shop road and when it was time to sprint I didn't feel like I really was going that much faster and then slowed to try to entice Robin, who was away, to sprint again. I like to inflict pain whenever possible.

2 new guys showed up and it's hard to gauge ability just standing around. It would suck to get dropped out in Hopkins with no idea where you were and tonights ride is prime for that as we only sortof regroup a couple of times. One guy made it, one didn't. The one who did is a super nice guy from Athens. We'd be chatting and I'd say...hold on a minute...to follow Karl or sprint, then come back and continue to conversation. I think he had a good time.

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Young man...

Here's why there's no Finnish pro cyclists.

and Ouch!

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

TNWC 8/21

The crit tonight was pretty freakin hot (right now at 9:45pm it's 92 degrees)...that combined with my lack of riding lately made for a mello affair. I just sat in and tried to talk myself out of following attacks. I knew I had one shot at it tonight and I had to plan it to perfection.

On the last lap I was sitting about 8th wheel and it was pretty fast...but around 100m before the 3rd turn there was a slight lull and I attacked hard up the right gutter. I got a gap but it wasn't that big...maybe 5 seconds. I also drug Sammy with me but I knew it was all or nothing so I just put my head down and went as hard as I could. Sammy came around me at around 200m and was caught at the line by a couple of people. Apparently 2 went down on turn 4 and one person tweaked his shoulder...maybe broken/dislocated.

Overall the race tonight felt pretty easy but I'm longing for some mello temps to actually be able to train outside.

Thursday, August 16, 2007

al dente

Tonight was just 100 degrees so I did the thursday ride...good group heading out which ended up being 4 of us hammering down airbase. Me, Karl, Francisco and...Chris.

I figured Chris had something up her sleeve...she was a bit worried that her non sprinter hubby would get shelled in the sprint at the end of airbase so she took action. After I took a monster pull I was at my limit and drifted back looking for a wheel. Chris saw her chance and being last wheel she drifted back gapping us then sprinted up leaving me high and dry. Francisco was hammering at that point and I never got back on...Flicked! Damn Kaisers.

It was good to get back on the bike even though it hurt...

The Japanese know how to cool off. And This...then read this. Hilarious.

Friday, August 10, 2007

brrrrrr

Right now it's sunny and about 68 degrees...

I'm right HERE

Thursday, August 9, 2007

fleece jacket

I'm off to Seattle for 5 days...


Tuesday, August 7, 2007

a dry heat

There's no way I'm racing tonight....Gonna
get on the Velodyne take a nap instead.

Saturday, August 4, 2007

$25k

Went up to watch the Charlotte Pro Crit race. Karl and I hung out with Crusty who yelled at his team for 90min...that boys got some issues ;-) but we all know that.

It was a great race for HealthNet...They had a guy in an early break which forced Navigators to chase pretty hard to bring it back which fried them and then with about 10 laps to go Frank Pipp attacked with another guy and got 30s on the field, worked together and Frank got the win...and $25k.

Pipp is a good guy...he stayed in our guest room for a couple of nights earlier this year after Georgia and this is definitely his biggest career win. He's been riding very strong this year and is someone to watch at USPro in Greenville.

Dan Schmatz is another guy who stayed with me a few years ago...he had a good ride tonight bridging to a pretty dangerous break late in the race. He only had 2 other teammates with him tonight.

HERE are some pic's I took. I like focusing on the guys suffering in the back!

Friday, August 3, 2007

40 licks

It's tough sometimes being self coached...cuz you sometimes want to do shit for no reason. Tonight I was rolling out to the fort to do a threshold workout and I had the bright idea to instead do VO2 intervals. I then had to ask myself "why?" and I couldn't really come up with a good reason. This is my 3rd day of training. I'm nowhere near peak form and I had a disaster of an attempted VO2 workout last week. I need to build now and keep the intensity in check until later. Thanks Coach, you're soooo smart...and good looking too.

So back to my original plan of 2x20min at 275w. I wanted to go out pretty conservatively as I would rather have a lower ave wattage and complete the entire workout than go out strong and not get it all done. So with an eye on the PT I started up the hill on Washington...

The legs felt great tonight and as I was getting close to 20min I was in a good rhythm and the wattage was coming easy so I decided not to stop and just plow through till the end. The "rest" is only supposed to be for a minute or two so it didn't make that much difference. The last 5 minutes I tried to push it. Overall the 1st 20min was 275w, 2nd 20' was 277w with the last 5min at 285w. Textbook pacing....I'm pretty happy with that.

Thursday, August 2, 2007

the dude abides

I was feeling a bit flat tonight for the group ride and ended up just riding easy...that seems like what everyone else had in mind too. I only went hard once, on the small hill of airbase to see if I could get away with Karl then just played around on the run into the sprint. Overall a pretty mellow ride. I'm gonna do some threshold tomorrow...The plan is to do 2x20 at 275w but at this time of the year I'll take what I can get.

New music I like: Spoon "Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga" and the new Interpol

Wednesday, August 1, 2007

bike practice

Nutty and I got out for a long ride this afternoon after the rain. Mostly tempo riding with each of us doing some threshold. The legs feel tired but pretty good. Karls back tonight so everyone bring their suitcase tomorrow. He just spent a week at altitude...think of the normal Karl with a few more RBC's. Ouch.

The girls are away so my night consists of a few beers and The Big Lebowski on the tube.

Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Wee-ridin

I didn't make the crit tonight...The girls are headed to Seattle for 3 weeks so I wanted to spend some QT with the kiddo. We rode around Shandon hitting the park, the park again, EarthFare then Yo Burrito. Her new pink flowered Bell helmet came today so of course we had to show that to everyone too. Lots of new upgrades on the way for her bike....new rear $29 bmx wheel (the rear stock hub is seriously bad), grips, stem bag, horn, bell, water bottle holder. That's gonna be one pimped out WeeRide. I also need to figure out her SS gearing...when we hit a hill I yell out "kick it" and she gives me a good boost, most of the time though she's just free wheeling and waving to people. Oh Yeah...I got some $4.99 MTB slicks too...those should be some sweet rollin' tires (6tpi?). It's all good...

Sunday, July 29, 2007

Sunday

I spent 3 hours swimming with a 4 year old this afternoon ...so when I went out later to do some intervals I was pretty shot. The ride out to the fort was good, the ride back was good...it was that middle part that sucked.

Actually I got a few 5 min VO2 intervals in at tank hill before I called it quits and I found a good pacing strategy: ave power for the first minute, then actual watts for the middle 3, then back to ave for the end. That made sure I didn't go out too hard (which I usually do) and then am able to nail the target wattage near the end.

Saturday, July 28, 2007

Saturday

We got a reprieve today as it was overcast with some light rain...if the sun would have been out it would have been brutal. I got in 3:19 which was shorter than I had hoped but oh well. I felt pretty good today and tried to take long hardish pulls when I hit the front.

Tomorrow it's time for some VO2 intervals. I wish I had Dick Demol riding behind me in a car...that TT was incredible.

Here's a forum devoted to doping, like--how to do it and get away with it...Interesting?-----> Very Interesting...

Friday, July 27, 2007

Le Beer ride

I wanted to spin the legs around for an hour so Ella and I headed down to join the beer ride. I've got one of those "wee-ride" things attached to my Trek Fuel Mtn Bike. She loves it and it's tons more fun than the Burley trailer. So we met everyone at Cycle Center and cruised up through heathwood where we turned off and headed home...She was fully kitted out with jersey, shorts and a number pinned on from an old race of mine. Fun.

Thursday, July 26, 2007

Thursday

Good ride tonight, fast and steady. Not the usual death march since Karl's gone but hardish all the same. I'm feeling a bit stronger but still a couple weeks from where I'd like to be. Thanks to Derek for speed changing my flat. A casual 4 minutes.

Tonight Derek was flying...coming down airbase he thought it would be fun to attack hard everytime he pulled through. I switched the rotation so I was behind him and the times he didn't attack I wouldn't pull off right away and leave him hanging in the wind...that'll teach him! He still crushed us all in the sprint. It's gotta be the mirror...

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

SST

As a transition day between hard days I wanted to get in a good workout but not trash myself for tomorrow...so time for some Sweet Spot Training. In the 2hr ride I did 90min at 80% of my FTP (which was around 220w) and racked up 104 TSS points (1300kJ). It felt good and was relatively easy to do.

My playlist today was good and made the time go by...started out with an hour of This American Life then some live Clash, Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison, Bjork, The Cure, and Morrissey.

I've heard rumblings that something big happened at the tour today but I'm on a media blackout so I have no idea...I'm firing up the tivo now.

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

TNWC 7/24

My game plan for tonights race (and questionable fitness) were as follows: follow all serious looking breaks and bridge early before the gap gets too big and pray for a bunch sprint.

It was a pretty animated night with lots of attacks/counters and the pace was kept pretty high. I felt comfortable and didn't miss any serious looking breaks--the legs felt good. Karl was putting the hurt on all night.

At about the 44min mark there was a lull and Ladd and I found ourselves with about a 30m gap and I said "GO!" and we drilled it and opened it up to about 10 to 15s. We worked well to keep it but near the end I started getting fried and on the final stretch I told him to just take it to the line and I really didn't have anything left to contest the sprint. It was a nice finish against a strong field.

The Big News Today!


Lindsay Lohan gets another DUI!!!

Oh.........and Vino drives a stake through the heart of pro cycling...

Monday, July 23, 2007

Rinse, repeat

Not much going on to speak of lately...the weekend was spent at the beach with Chris and Karl which was great. With work, some riding and 3 hours of Le Tour to watch each night there's not much time for much else. Thank gawd for Tivo...I haven't watched one commercial this year (well we had to see the miller one, that was pretty good).

Crit tomorrow...I'm psyched. Haven't been in a few weeks and Karl who's got some serious form right now's gonna be leaving town wed so he'll be especially killing it. Beware.

Thursday, July 19, 2007

Sufferfest

Tonights thursday group ride was brutal...Heading down Horrell hill I found myself with Karl and a few others. It was the hardest we've ever gone on this stretch, Karl was absolutely killing it (and us too). All I could do was roll through. He probably did about 40% of the work in that break then rolled away on the climb...freakin mutant!

Down airbase...same story. Karl drilling it and me just trying to hold on. I had langs wheel on the sprint and felt pretty good, got a jump and was pulling away (very slowly...) until Derek came roaring by. Big strong sprinter types are supposed to get shelled on that little rise...not tonight. Derek is about as pure of a sprinter as you can get...think huge thick legs and track pedigree, he's very hard to beat. And he's hard to sneak up on with that damn mirror!

Overall I'm happy with how I felt tonight. I was able to hang in there and know that with some structured training in the next couple of weeks I'll be back in form.

Ladd's doing the Asheville races this weekend with his first TT tomorrow...my prediction: 1st (I should get into sports betting...I'm a genius)

Wattage junkies...you gotta check out this page for some great analysis of VandeVelde's 2006 tour...a 3 week TSS total of 4,711 and a CTL of 150. Amazing.

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Wednesday

Decided to work on some threshold today so I did 2x15min on the Velodyne at around 270w. It didn't feel great and was a bit of a struggle to maintain the power due to my loss of fitness over the last 2 weeks but I got it done.

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Missed Crit

I couldn't make it out to have Karl and Perry pound on me for an hour...instead of a good solid workout I ate around 3500cal at MoMo's Bistro with my parents who were in town. Things should get back to normal tomorrow. The tour sure has been rockin'......Carbon meet dog--->

Saturday, July 14, 2007

A rare ride...

I finally got out today. Did 58 miles with the group and it was mostly mellow paceline stuff. A week off being sick can make a rough transition back to riding but I felt pretty good today...I couldn't really push too much past threshold but didn't really want to either. The plan is to do a solid 2 weeks of hard training to try to get back some kind of form. We'll see. Right now my TSB is through the roof.

Saris has a pretty good series of Tour power related video's with Alan Lim and R. Ventura HERE. You gotta enter your email address to view em. I thought the one about w/kg was good.

Also some great video's from Velonews HERE. My favorites were Chris Horner talking about getting a slice of pizza from the Saunier Duval Car and today's winner Linus Gerdemann saying:

"On zee last K of zee climb, ees vas zooo long und I vas fighting zooo long und I vas always looking at my SRM and zee vatts vas always going down, down, down..."
Also Dave Z's got a lot of good stuff. funny shit.

Thursday, July 12, 2007

How do you rate?

Still no riding for me...I'm not feeling 100% and don't want to push it. One thing I gotta make sure of is that I don't get too used to just taking naps after work...sure is nice though!

I found the power file for Christian Vandevelde for today's stage...You can download it HERE. It's pretty cool to see as he did a ton of work today. His FTP is 370w and he weighs 152lbs...that's some crazy shit! To put that in perspective since I basically weigh the same as him--at his threshold wattage I would last under 3 minutes before I died. And today his NP of 306w for 5 hours is what I could hold for maybe 30min (a hard tuesday crit is NP 280w for 50min). Damn...

Here's the description of the file from the WKO+ guys:

An incredibly hilly stage in the last 2 hours, and a chase to keep Cancellara in the yellow jersey, Christian was on the front a lot today in the 2nd half of the race.

After the usual first 22 minutes spent at mach speed, the peloton relaxed a bit and Christian got to spend a couple of hours hanging out before having to push hard. Those first 22minutes were indeed difficult as Christian averaged 358watts normalized for the time.

At the 60 mile mark is when he had to earn his pay though, and for the next 30 minutes, he rides just below his FTP. When you examine this section of the race, you'll find that this is an incredibly hilly part of the race
and many of the times that he's pedaling, he's pedaling at this Level 5 & 6 or Vo2 max and Anaerobic Capacity wattage. Compared to the stage on Tuesday where he only spent 7% of the entire race in level 5 & 6, he more than doubles that percentage in today's race.

Once his work is done for the team and putting Cancellara in the front group, Christian is popped from the peloton going up the La Croix d' Liberation and he shuts it down for the day and cruises to the finish 11:15 down on Pozzato.

The question that I am wondering is whether or not Christian is as fit as he was last Tour. Based on today's file, I am going to claim that he's not as fit as he was last year. Last year, he had many rides where he averaged over 380 watts for extended periods. With the hard chase today and then him blowing up on the last climb, I am revising his FTP to 370 watts, down from 380.

Tuesday, July 10, 2007

energy

forget gatorade...I need some of THIS

Monday, July 9, 2007

sicko

I came down with a nasty headcold on the way back from KY (thanks Chris & Karl) so I've been taking some time off the bike and generally just taking it easy. I may skip the Crit if I'm not feeling any better. I had planned a break around this time so it all works out...I'll start ramping it up again next week.

Friday, July 6, 2007

CTL's a risin'

Did 2 1/2 hrs with Jules today and the legs felt incredibly good. Effortless 230w for long stretches. It's amazing what the difference in recovery is with a CTL of 78 TSS/d as opposed to 50. More of the same tomorrow...

The Cogganism rings true: "the more you train, the more you can train"

Thursday, July 5, 2007

the data

Here's the graph and numbers for the July 4th ride...nothing that spectacular or interesting to speak of, just a big day and some big TSS numbers. Today I slept till 10:30 then took an afternoon nap. That was nice.

Tomorrow Jules and I are gonna do 3 hrs through some horse farm country between Louisville and Lexington. There's some stellar riding up here.

Wednesday, July 4, 2007

2:53

The Fab 4th ride was today so it meant a 4:20am wake up and drive to Tryon, NC. Thank you Jittery Joes Espresso Blend...

500 or so people started the ride this morning and the first 15 miles felt like a Cat. 5 race...I was totally gripped with people swerving, dropped chains & bottles and a general high degree of sketchy-ness. I made my way to the front and sat about 20th wheel for the rest of the day...that was much better.

The TSB don't lie and I felt incredibly good today. When we got to the lake Jay and another dude took off and when they got out of sight the pace dropped considerably...one major factor was the guy in the break with Jay was on the same team as some of strongest guys there (Bianchi--Boyd's team) so they didn't do any chasing. So the lake loop felt relatively easy. One nice thing about staying near the front here is there's no accordian effect around the whoop-de-do's and you can go fast through the turns (thanks to karl for that advice).

Over Camp "Old Indian" I stayed with the front group and just cruised along until the watershed. Once we turned uphill I tried to be in a position behind Boyd and his boyz because I knew he would drop the hammer and I at least wanted to be near the front. He set a moderate tempo for the first half then drilled it. I lost contact with the 20 or so Cat 1-2 types and just kept climbing at my own pace. People were getting shelled right and left.

Funny...once I got dropped a Mini Cooper came crawling by with 3 guys "motorpacing" (if you want to call it that at 12mph!). Of course I jumped on the train and he pulled us up for 5-10 minutes until a final steep spot popped me again.

I got over the watershed just as a group of 10 riders caught me (with Toby S. and Jamie from Harrells). Man, that's a fun descent...I got on the front and drilled it...then just sat in the back for the last couple of fast miles. Jay finished second at 2:49 and I came in at 2:53 and overall I'm pretty happy with the way I rode. Karl was sick so he just rode along then waited for Chris at the watershed. A healthy Karl today would have made a big difference in my comfort level! (and the outcome)

The Fab 4th ride is great but it's even better due to the nice lunch (and Cokes!) they provide at the end and the showers, massages etc. Lot's of Columbia folks were there today as usual, and it was nice to hang out after the ride. I'll be in Louisville till Sunday (those 5 hours sitting in the car didn't feel too good...).

Monday, July 2, 2007

Monday

Went and did a loop in the fort today...an easy hour and a half. The legs didn't feel that great but came around at the end. I'm gonna skip the crit this week and just do an hour with some openers, usual stuff. The bad news is that Karl's sick and most likely isn't gonna ride on Wed, that sucks as it's nice to have people around that you know. On the other hand that's one less person to drop the hammer on the watershed!

The PMC chart is updated through today....

Saturday, June 30, 2007

Saturday

It was tough rolling out of bed this morning. A freak lightning storm came though last night keeping us awake. Today was all about just getting some easy miles in...3.5 hours at a very easy pace. We don't do that too often during the summer, it was a nice ride. 2 hours at the pool with E and too many beers at the Disco's and I'm ready to crash...no riding for me on Sunday.

Thursday, June 28, 2007

Thursday Night

I was looking for a hard ride...one that I really suffered and had to dig deep. That's not easy to achieve sometimes on a big group ride so I softened myself up a bit by doing 3x5min VO2 intervals @ 115% of FTP before the ride. That did the trick! Tonight really hurt (bad). I tried to ride aggressively and attacked in the normal spots but the legs just sometimes would not go. I'm glad I didn't do the 4 intervals I was planning...I would have gotten dropped!

3 beers at El Burrito's Bluegrass night got me right. Now it's taper time for the 4th of July ride...this weekend is gonna be chill.

Wednesday, June 27, 2007

A tale of 3 riders

Here's a comparison of 3 riders at Blood, Sweat & Gears. ----->

Boyd Johnson is an ex-Columbia Cat. 1/Pro who lives in Greenville. He set the course record this year and you should check out his insane training schedule. If you want to be a pro cyclist look at his website to see what it takes.

Here's his description of BS&G:

Blood Sweat and Gears ride in Boone, NC. This wasn't a real race, but it's one of those rides where all the racers show up and it turns into a race. The nice thing is the terrain is much harder than any actual race that will be put on this year.

The course started out climbing pretty much right away. The pace is always fast on the first climb to weed out the majority of the riders who start the event. Usually there is a group of about 60-70 who make it over the first climb. About halfway up, I got to the front and upped the tempo. I carried on the front all the way to the top and there was about 30 people left in the field at this point.

I knew I was feeling really good today and made it a point to get to the front on every climb. I would set a pace on the front during the climbs and get away solo. At the top I would wait for the group and hang out for the flat and downhill sections. There was another major climb about the 60 mile part and I knew that would be where the final selection was made. I sat on the front from the bottom of the climb and soon found myself alone. I set a tempo the rest of the way up and had enough time to grab a couple waterbottles at the top. I set off solo but not super hard and soon two guys came up to me.

We rolled it from the bottom of the descent and built up a lot of time on the chase group. I found myself dropping the guys on the climbs, and there was one more big climb (2 miles at 8%). I opened a good gap and tried to go solo from this point, but got caught just before another mile long steep climb. I got to rest a little before the climb, so I hit it again on the climb and got away. . .this time for good.

I tried to keep a time trial effort going, but it was hard to keep threshold on the slight downhill. There was one more short steep climb a few miles before the finish. I only had about 30 seconds at the base, and I cracked hard when I reached it. I was worried about getting caught again but soon found my rhythm and opened the gap again. From there I descended and rode the last mile and a half into the finish. It ended up being a new record for the course, and I was feeling great when I finished. This is a big confidence booster for nationals. . .even if it's not a "real" race.

Tuesday, June 26, 2007

TNWC 6/26

Well, since it's 95 degrees--hell didn't freeze over--but I did win tonights edition of this weeks biggest race in Columbia. It was a photo finish with Ladd but the near unanimous verdict was that I got it...the lone vote for him was from some lady with 2 kids, last name started with an L or something.

The legs tonight felt like crap warming up tonight but I expected that. Karl got things rolling with the usual attack at KM 0 and I thought "what the hell..." and went with him. It was Karl, Francesco, me and some other dude. Karl and I were drilling it and we stayed away for 13min but we pretty much knew we'd be caught but it made the others chase us.

My legs started feeling better as the crit went on and at about midway there was a lull so I attacked hard up the left gutter...I picked up the remnants of an earlier break and was working with Derek and another dude. By the time we were caught the field was pretty thin and the next big attack was the final selection.

The final break had about 6 riders including Phillip (who was killing it all night), Karl, Ladd, The Harrell's duo (toby and damon), and maybe a couple more. Derek was shelled earlier so I liked my chances sprinting against all these climber types. I also started skipping some pulls to conserve a bit for the sprint. The one person I was worried about was Ladd so in the last 2 laps I stayed glued to his wheel.

Karl drilled it the entire final lap which limited any late attacks then after turn 4 Phillip took over then sat up. Ladd knew I was on his wheel and I could tell he was twitchy about it (he kept checking over his right shoulder). Phillip pulled off to the left at 300m and Ladd drifted over with him, he lost some momentum and glanced left...that's when I jumped HARD up the right gutter. I didn't really want to go at 250m but I got the gap and could see in the last 50m Ladd's wheel coming up from looking between my legs. He came around and it was a drag race to the line...a fun race.

Saturday, June 23, 2007

Meltdown

Today was pretty epic...I started out climbing great and stayed with the front group of 30ish riders over the first major climb up to the parkway (did 30min at 281w NP). I recovered and really was feeling good when my rear derailler started jumping around...it wouldn't stay in a gear.

After it got real bad I had to stop and check it out...goodby group. It turns out that a link in my chain had chosen the biggest ride of the year to meltdown...luckily I had a chain tool with me and removed the link. The problem was that with a shorter chain I would forget and shift big-big and my whole drive train would seize up in a tangled mess...Then I would have to stop, get off and pull the chain out.

By this time I was way behind and several very large groups had rolled past...bummer. I had a mental meltdown thinking about riding alone for 70miles and my hands were solid black with grease. Not fun. That was a bad next hour on the bike.

When riding alone for this long you gotta try to figure out how to pace yourself to survive...I felt pretty good at about 220w so I tried to keep it there. I ended up jumping from group to group and found some good riders to work with but I usually wanted to go faster so I'd eventually end up alone. It was a long day but I actually enjoyed it a lot and kindof liked pulling people around.

I finished in 5:45....not much to say about that, I would have like to see how far I could have lasted with the fast group and I can imagine the meltdown associated with that would have been far more spectacular. Karl killed it as usual and finished 7th at 4:57 (he was close to bridging to the winning 3 but they saw him coming and drilled it) and Ladd--the new climbing sensation--at an amazing 5:03. Brian at 5:15 and Francesco just behind him. Mick and Treze both had good rides and Chris was the smartest of the bunch and found a great shortcut.

And Jules was 39th (6th female) in the 50miler.

Thursday, June 21, 2007

Thursday

I did a very easy loop with Chris tonight then headed to El Burrito for the bluegrass. Now I gotta get my 27 put on, some new bartape, some new rubber for Jules' bike....then bed.

I talked to Karl tonight and we have a plan...at the last feed station a few miles before snake mtn he's gonna attack with me on his wheel (that's assuming I'm still with his group...). He'll drag me along and we'll get a couple minute gap so I can get over the climb without getting dropped from the front group (this is exactly what he did last year but I wasn't even close...).



Tuesday, June 19, 2007

TNWC 6/19...a rare win.

Hey...I won tonight. That doesn't happen too often but it was pretty cool how it went down.

There was a strong wind blowing up the final straight and when warming up I thought that if I could attack with 1k to go and get a good gap noone would catch me with that tailwind. I even did the play by play to karl before the race.

So the first 50min was all about doing no work...at all. This was due to the big ride this weekend and my planned taper for it. So I sat in, surfed wheels and soft-pedaled a lot. I averaged 192w (224w NP) for 50min which is ridiculously low for a crit. So I felt pretty fresh!

There were breaks going up the road all night but nothing stuck until a dangerous one went at about minute 45...this played into my hands as the group had to work pretty hard to reel them back in. We were going pretty hard for the last 3 laps so when everything came together at a half a lap to go there was the usual pause....then I attacked HARD up the right gutter (wind coming from the left). I had an instant gap but Francesco was trying to get across....luckily for me he didn't make it.

I did 10s at 600w to get a gap, 40sec at 375w to keep it, then 22sec at 470w to win it. The last 300m I stood and sprinted with my head down and just remember pain and a blur of pavement.

Ella was standing at the start finish ringing her bell like crazy so I got to zip up the jersey and give her a wave as I crossed the line.

Monday, June 18, 2007

New Links

The new links I added are from the Velodynamics Coaching site and are a great resource...there's lots to read on training, racing and power from Charles Howe who's a heavy contributor to the Wattage list.

Resources (start here, lots of great coggan, howe, stern etc, articles)
Technical Links (basically a list of some good links)

Sunday, June 17, 2007

Father's Day

Woke up to lots of attention from the kiddo (cards, breakfast, laffy taffy) then Crusty and I went out for an easy 2.5 hours. The legs are feeling good and it took some effort to hold back from riding too hard...I just wanted to go easy today.

My TSB is now hovering around zero which is perfect and at this weeks TNWC I'm gonna spend some "quality" time at last wheel...until 2 laps to go.

Congrats to I-was-a-cat-5-two-weeks-ago Ladd L. who crushed the 3's field on Saturday in Savannah. You just had to pick cycling this year as your new hobby ;-)