This week in riding

There was a race this weekend, but I did not go to hang out with some ol'college buddies. This weekend two friends from UMich were in town, Sean M. and Mattison B. and we had planned on some pretty good rides. Thursday we did a good 3 hours at the local rocky loop. We suffered two flat tires, and by the end pretty flat arms (this thing works you!).

Friday was a rainy ride in the woods with Sean K., we got there pretty late so we only got about an hour in, but it was still pretty fun. Saturday was supposed to be a road ride with Sean M. and Mattison B. but that hurricane off the coast made for some cold, wet, terrible to ride in weather. later that night I did hit the road bike for a while, and got a sweet tailwind coming home, sweet!

Sunday was the last ride with Sean M, and Sean K tagged along. This was a confusing ride because having two Seans on one ride is tough, especially when you are yelling while out of breath you don't have enough air to add that last name letter. Either way, it was a pretty sweet ride with stream crossing (which were ripping from the weekend rain).

I am glad I got to ride with my UMich guys, especially because Mattison will be in the peace core for 2.5 years, and Sean M. knows the trails better than me, so he is always good for a ride (and yes Sean K you are good to ride with too, but you are local so I am sure I will ride with you again this week).

On a final note I have also been wipping up some t shirt designs for the upcoming collegiate season. Below you will find the almost final UMASS MTB shirt design, its first public unveiling, enjoy!

Weekend riding and those long miles

This past week I rode over 200 miles, which is the most I have ridden in about 18 months (I had longer weeks on the trainer, but you don't actually go anywhere, so that does not count). The gem of the week was a ride on Saturday with Sean that was meant to be over 100 miles long. The ride was going to take us over a few big climbs and then take us to the highest point in Mass., Mt. Graylock! However as these things go, it was raining the whole time, and as fun as the ride could have been riding in the rain for 6 hours is not all that fun. So instead the ride was 5 hours long and we covered 80 miles.

We did make it to the top of a big climb where we found this sweet deer statue:

The most exciting part besides the rain came when we were about to descend for a long time. I stopped at this restaurant to get some news papers to stuff down my jersey to keep me warm, however this did not go as planned either. The guy there went looking for newspaper but did not find any. He then offered me a sweatshirt, which I declined. The guy then said "Wait one minute" and then he came back with a t shirt, which had apparently came off some guys back! I tried to decline again but he was not having it , and insisted I take it. So I did, and below you can see how amazingly good I looked in the shirt, and it did in fact keep me warm.

We will have to complete this ride another day (that is when it is drier), because of the 80 miles I say, it was great.

The Take Over, The Breaks Over

It seems like I have not been on a bike in ages, however true it may be. This past week I spent most of my time on Cape Cod, hanging out with my girlfriend and some other friends. The week before I was studying till my head hurt for my exam (which I passed by the way, so it all paid off). Now with the break over its time to get back to work on the bike, and get ready for the rest of the season. I have a list of races to choose from between collegiate, Root 66 races, and perhaps even some cycle cross races. The real bummer of the whole situation is that the next cumulative exam (and my last if I pass) for school happens to be the weekend of collegiate regionals, which kills my chances of any sort of high overall placement, so I will have to focus on winning other races throughout the season. I will hopefully have it all planned out in the next week and I will post it on the side will all of my previous races. ttfn.

The updated racing schedule

Well the exam is final over, and the headache it always seems to cause it also finally gone. I feel pretty good after the 6 or so days off the bike (I did commute to work a few times in there), I was due for a break. I topped off the weekend with about 6 hours of riding, with a nice easy ride on Satruday mixed in with some pretty tough riding with Sean on Sunday for about 3.5 hours.

In terms of racing the Windham race this upcoming weekend I am going to pass for a few reasons. Reason # 1, my girl friend Caroline will be in town and I would rather not spend two days of her time driving over to New York and then racing (I am sure there will be many more opportunities to race big races in the coming years!!!). Reason # 2, I still think that I could use a little more time away from racing so I can come back strong in September and October to finish the season off right.

Well thats it for now, but I think I will be heading over to Cape Cod for a few days break form work and I hope to get in some cool rides out there, hopefully I will post some pictures.

Ta Ta for Now.

Break time and one last good ride

With the legs feeling a bit less than strong and with a very important exam coming up in my grad. school endeavors I will take the next week off from riding. This was a planned break but with my legs feeling drained it has come at a good time. This sort of thing happens when you start training in January, by the time August rolls around you have been going at it for 8 long months, and I am physically and mentally a bit tired. I hope to build back up in August and be ready for some more racing in September and October (might do the US MTB Cup final on August 15th if the body feels up to it).

With that being said Sean and I went out for a great 5 hour ride today. The weather was perfect, and we had a nice route with some nice climbs and cool views. By the time I rolled back to my house I was cooked, I had a head wind on my way back after I left Sean and that is a tough way to end out a 80 mile ride with 5000 feet of climbing (some of which was pretty steep!)

All right, speaking of that exam I should start studying, over and out.