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Monday, October 26, 2009

Facelift




As you can see, I made a couple changes since the road season is more than officially over and cross has begun. I’m pumped since the new kits are my favorite color scheme ever! It is also my first experience with Giordana clothing and I’m really impressed. It’s quality stuff. I’m also digging the new Ridley Crossbow. I’m probably not the man to do an all out review of a cross bike since I spent most of the time creeping through the woods, hauling ass on the straits and generally praying I didn’t spend any more time on my ass but I can tell you it looks sweet and seems to get the job done with much more panache than myself. If that’s not good enough for you come by the Mock Orange tent at the next race and ride or race on one of the demo bikes.

As for the races themselves, it was a frustrating but overall positive weekend. Due to a little license misunderstanding I ended up doing the CX4 race on Saturday. I swear, it wasn’t my fault but to all the people giving me shit before the start about doing the 4 race, I told you not to worry. Almost 90 guys lined up and luckily I muscled my way onto the front row. On the line it started to rain. Awesome, I’ve never ridden a bike in the mud before in my life, much less in a cross race. The first time I’d ever ridden’ a cross bike was Wednesday. Even so, I knew I was going to catch all kinds of hell if I didn’t win. The whistle blows and I can’t get clipped in, nice. First corner, crash, I avoid it; second corner, crash, I avoid it. Now there’s like six guys ahead of me. I cautiously get around all but one guy who is going fairly fast so I sit on his wheel for a while. Only a couple laps in and I can’t even see third place. The guy I’m with is slowing down and I know he’s about to blow, hard. I decided to wait till that happened, pin it, and wax everybody. It was a great plan till he crashed and I crashed avoiding him. I was riding tubeless wheels and the front tire burped letting all the air out. No sweat though, I’m right at the pits. I’ll just pull in, grab a wheel off the spare bike and rock out. Too bad everybody was busy drinking and didn’t put the spare bike in the pit. So I walk over to the tent, grab a wheel and get some practice in. Not a big deal, if I had raced at 11:00 I probably would have done the same thing and I should have made sure the bike made it to the pits anyway. Oh well, live and learn. It’s cross, I’m not going to get upset about it and my teammates are too awesome to be mad at. If it wasn’t for them I wouldn’t have had a spare bike anyway.
With my first race done I was looking forward redeeming myself on day two. I got the license issue worked out and did the CX3 race. The course was awful for me. I don’t want to think about how many turns there were. My tactic was to use my fitness to haul ass on the fast sections and be cautious through the technical parts so I didn’t crash. It was a good plan except there were really only a few places I could open up the throttle. After pre-riding the course I made the mistake of hitting the bathroom right before the start and was the last one to line up out of 39 starters. The race starts and the first time into the woods it just stops. I ended up running the first wooded section since guys were going so slow. Thirty seconds into the race and I can’t even see the leaders anymore, just a never ending line of guys in front of me. At this point I’m like ok, I can’t do anything about it now except go as fast as I can and see what happens. So I focus on finding good lines and pushing the fine line between going fast and crashing. The whole race I’m passing people. I don’t know what position I’m in and it really doesn’t matter. I was going as fast as I could go without taking any big risks. With one lap to go I can see Joe in front of me and he finished third the day before so I figure I’m up there somewhere. I end up 7th which wasn’t too bad considering I started at the very back and it was a terrible course for me.

With the racing done it was time for a beer, a brat and some heckling. A luxury not often experienced during road season. I’m super pumped to be riding for Mock Orange. It’s an awesome group of guys that ride hard and have fun. It’s a nice break from the road since I’m trying not to put any pressure on myself and not sweating the little stuff. I’m saving that energy for the road. Next weekend in Boone, NC should be a good time and I’ll be looking for a podium finish.

Hopefully I’ll have some news for the next year’s road team soon. If everything comes off as planned it’s going to be an awesome situation but it’s not 100% yet so I’ll hold my tongue. It also looks like I’m moving to Winston this week which will be a nice change of pace and much needed change of scenery. Hopefully I’ll find some more pictures from the races to put up as well.

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Hello Old Friend

So it’s been forever since my last post but a break was much needed, from everything. Now that I’m mentally recharged it’s time to do work. The road season officially ended and I’d have to say I’m ok with how things went. I made a ton of progress across the board and I’m ready to do the same thing again next year. Right now I’m trying to focus on the fast approaching cross season. Training is back full force and it feels good to get back on the bike. I think I’m on track to give cross a full go so I’m excited about the first race.

I’ll leave the road team situation for next year to a different post. Things are constantly changing so anything I would say could change at this point. Instead of constantly updating I’m just going to wait till it’s set in stone and fill you in.

My rant for the day is the fact that it finally happened. I’ve been beaten by somebody that was definitely on drugs. Mitch Comardo won the French Broad Road Race and it was just released that he tested positive for a whole slew of crap. He didn’t steal any money from me that weekend. If you remember my post from that race it was probably the worst weekend I’ve had all year. The prize money wasn’t anything to write home about anyway, that’s not what got to me. It was the fact that he took away somebody’s opportunity to ride across the finish line and throw his hands up in the air. That’s why we all race bikes. It’s that feeling we get when we come out on top. It’s what we think about when we’re freezing on a five hour ride in January. If you’re not Mark Cavendish it’s a feeling that you rarely get to experience. Then he tries to spew some crap about how he’s taking full responsibility, not contesting the results and accepting his punishment like that negates what he did. Admitting you did something wrong doesn’t make it right…jackass. Have fun not racing bikes for two years. I’m out.