The most recent occurances, including an encounter with a bear

Sorry for the late post here, but things have been busy over here in Massachusetts. For one, I had my first MTB race of the year at Hop Brook Dam (and my first race at this venue). When I entered the race I had mostly been training on the road bike, so I was excited to hit some dirt, however road bike training does not always directly transfer to the mountain bike, so it was going to be interesting. We ended up with great weather, and I also ended up with the #1 plate, so that was a good sign. As soon as the race went off, I jumped to 3rd of 4th wheel, and when we got the the entrace to single track, disaster hit, the loop was not clearly marked and some rider including myself made a wrong turn. Mass hysteria insued and next thing I knew I was ducking under mulitiple rows of tape and running up a hill to catch back up to the group! I caught back on and got to work. However I was pretty tired after all this early excitement and fell back a few positions, but was able to keep about 4 guys in sight. By the time I was on my second of four laps I had caught these dudes and was duking it out wheel to wheel. At this point I noticed a clunk in my bike, and was not sure what was going on. I started to look down at my rear suspension to see if anything was loose, but I could not see anything. At this point I came to the conclusion that my rear shock had died (this was a very fair assumption considering I am already on my third shock!) Long story short, I was bobbing around like a pogo stick, and my seat would kick me in the butt whenever I had to use my brakes down hills. I accepted this fate, dropped these dudes I was riding with, and came across the finish line in 7th out of ~20 guys.

I am happy with this result, it is a good start to the MTB season and I now that I am hitting the dirt more I think my results should only improve. I would like to thank my friend Melissa for her help with bottles at this race, and for taking the cool before and after pictures as seen below (notice the awesome Competitive Edge jersey!!!).



On other notes PowerBar really came through, and supplied me with tons of the best sports nutrition products around. Below is a snapshot of all my energy food, it will take me a little while to go though all of it, but I am trying out lots of new products and I am very excited about that!


Caroline also came to visit me since my last blog post. We had a great weekend, with an awesome 18 mile bike ride on the road [no bike pictures here, but check out the one below ;)], as well as a great cook out with some of my polymer science buddies. Below is a great shot of us at the BBQ (notice the fohawk, haha, I decided to change it up a bit)!


Lastly on my bike ride yesterday I came across a rather large animal during one of my hill intervals. I noticed something moving in the woods, it was very large, black, and had four legs. If you are thinking a Massachusetts Black Bear you would be right on. This bear and I had a stare down, about 20 feet from one another, until I flexed my muscles and he went running into the woods. This is only the second time I have come accross a bear on my bike, the first being up north when I was on a ride with my Dad and my friend Kevin. Along those lines, I have noticed many interesting animals over the past few weeks, some eagles and hawks, a vulture with a chipmunk in his mouth, and now a bear, of the great outdoors!

Rest Week!

This week is a glorious rest week, after four hard weeks I get to tone it down and have some easy riding. This comes at a good time in the weather, as it rained and rained the first half of the week. This upcoming weekend is supposed to be the best yet, and with Caroline visiting I am sure we will make the most of it! For example, this may not have to do with great weather, but Caroline and I will be making our way to the Hadley Sugar Shack this morning. A sugar shack is a New England fixture where they make maple surip on the spot and you can order delicious breakfast items!

On another note, I was reading some articles this week and came across the the winner of the first Tour de France, hosted back in 1903. I was thinking that I should grow my mustache in the style that this man sports:

I mean lets be honest, if a mustache like that can get you around France that fast, I would have to imagine that it would be great for the trails!

More Centuries and some good mountain bike rides

Rode my third Brattloboro loop in 8 days this past week. Last year I think I only rode 100 miles once of twice, so three times in one week is a drastic increase. This past century was particularly hard, with a killer head wind combined with killer pulls from everyone made for some really tough riding. Normally drafting reduces your effort when you are behind people, but the way the wind was coming there was almost no relief, so you were either pulling directly in the wind or doing an equivalent effort! It was really hard, but that seemed to be the general consensus amongst everyone else as well, so that is always a good sign. Either way, the back was easier with the tailwind and a reduced overall pace, and I felt pretty good when I got home. I then went to upload the exercise file to my computer..... but it was not there!!! This was a heartbreaker because the first half of the ride was so hard, and my power numbers would have been great, it was pretty disappointing. But, what are you going to do?

For the weekend I was originally going to go down to Princeton, NJ to race collegiate road bikes, but I decided to stay back to get work done instead. On the bright side this opened the door for some MTB rides. Sean and I hit the woods both Saturday and Sunday, and although the temperature was a little cold, we were running some pretty hot laps :). Check out some pics from the end of our ride on Saturday:

On Sunday we went to ride the technical trails, and as Sean put it we did out first ride of the year. What he meant was that he got a flat tire! And after using all of our supplies, my rear tire than started losing air, perhaps Sean was right, maybe the season does not really start till you get a flat in the woods.

After a pretty good meal on Sunday, when it got to be later in the evening I was still hungry, and for the first time I can remember I wanted chocolate. I am not sure about your beliefs in evolution or creationism, but I made something that could be applied to both theories, my creation is seen below:

What you are looking at is toast with peanut butter, banana, and Saunders hot fudge (Grandpa be proud), I call it the Peanut Butter Delicious. From an evolutionary standpoint it started as peanut butter and toast, then evolved with banana pieces, and for its ultimate adaption it covered itself with chocolate. From a creationary view I am pretty sure the Lord would have made this thing on the 7th day for a snack after all his hard work the previous week. Either view point, I believe we can all agree that this thing is suited very well for consumption as a late night snack!

New Sponsors and Riding and Racing This Past Week

I am glad to announce three new sponsors for the 2010 Season:

Competitive Edge- Glad to say that the best bike shop in New England will be helping me rip it up. From bikes to skis, its the the place to go!

PowerBar- Everything in the realm of nutrition will be provided by PowerBar, from gels to bars and recovery drinks, they make the best products on the market!

Defeet- My favorite socks and knee warmers will now be a sponsor, all right for aireators and wool!

Links to their websites can always be found on the side of the blog, check it out! I am really looking forward to their support in the coming year.

This past week has been a fantastic week for riding, with great weather and good legs I really enjoyed the riding. After racing last weekend in New York in the rain and cold temperatures it was a relief when the sun came out and temperatures warmed up. To celebrate I just rode and rode, in fact I rode over 300 miles on the road, which is the most to date. This was helped out by actually riding two centuries (100 miles rides) one on Wednesday and another on Sunday. Both rides were a lot of fun, with Wednesday being a bit more difficult, and Sunday I was riding with the Wheelhouse Racing team, which allowed lots of drafting in the pack and lots of good socializing. The ride actually took us up to Brattloboro, VT and with a cool new cycling computer that has a GPS, I can show you the map!(those numbers are the miles)

I also went to a road race on Saturday in New York state. It was a race that took us around a 6 mile loop seven times, and on the last lap we were to turn off the race loop and then finish on a straight road. I raced really well throughout the race and was feeling great, and with one lap to go I was ready to go for it! I had stayed out of the wind for most of the race, so I was feeling pretty fresh, and with about 0.5 miles to go I started to get into position to make the left turn into the finishing straight and put myself in a good position for what would end up being a sprint. I got towards the front of the pack and was sitting about 5th position on the right side of the road getting ready to dive into the left hand turn with full speed, and then right when I was about to start making my turn, no body else was..... The racers ahead of me and to my left just kept going straight, putting an uncrossable barrier between me and the finish line. As I was looking back I saw a group of riders get into a crash, and at then finally some riders made the turn, so in the end someone who was in about 30th place most likely won the race. Well, this is how it goes some days, but I got a great workout in and made it home in one piece.

Overall a great week on the bike, lots of good miles and a good race under my belt, I will leave you with this popular road sign, which apparently also applies to road bike racing.

Racing in the Windy City (not Chicago though)

This past weekend the UMASS bike racing club made our way down to New York City for some collegiate road bike racing. Myself and ten others made our way down on Friday evening, and everything was going so well, until it started raining, which is what we had expected, but had feared. We got to our shady motel around 8:00 PM, after which we unloaded our bikes in the rain and then settled in for some food we made in the hotel room, which consisted or rice, beans, and tortillas, pretty good.

We woke up Saturday morning to pouring rain and gusty winds, and this was only the beginning. We made our way to the city and when we arrived the rain was coming down in buckets, and the worst part was the wind. The wind was just pushing its way around, if you didn't have a sure footing you were going to be a kite without a string, you were never coming back. Long story short, our team had a pretty good showing despite the weather. Myself on the other hand, I didn't do as well as I would have liked, but at least I didn't get blown away by the wind or drown in the rain. Now the good news, the race was at a really cool venue, Grants Tomb in Riverside Park, a memorial to General Grant. It was neat to race in a large city like this, this is what Grants Tomb looks like:

On Sunday we raced outside of the city in FDR Park. This race went better for me, however I didn't finish well, I felt good throughout the race and got some good training in , which is my ultimate goal for this road racing.

Overall it was a fun weekend, however it seemed like the 11 of us were always packed like wet sardines. We had 11 people in one van, then during the races the vans had 11 peoples wet clothes and people, and this made for a very tight wet squeeze. Also, the power at out motel went out, so 11 people were hanging out in a tiny hotel room with 2 double beds, however were not wet, but we had wet clothes drying everywhere. It is nice to be dry now.

As I look out the window now I do not see rain clouds or gusting winds, so lets hope the weather can stay like this for a little while, so next time we race we can actually catch some rays.

Weekend Update

This weekend was pretty busy, and left me feeling tired. On Friday Sean and I went up to Berkshire East, a local ski mountain, and skied from 6-10PM. This was my first time here and it was fun to ski under the lights. That being said they could defiantly use more light, as sometimes you would ski in and out of dark spots, it does not inspire the most confidence especially when we had hard packed snow (it was pretty icy) to ski on.

Saturday I went for a ride outside on my single speed. I went to this snowmobile trail, and it was all right to ride on at first, but as I got deeper into the trail less people had been there so the snow was not as packed down. I then kept on falling through, so I turned around and make it back home. Next my friend Matt from high school and college who lives in Hartford came up, and went on a hike up bear mountain. As the pictures below show, it was a very nice day for a hike.

Then on Sunday I went over to Northfield Mountain to do cross country skate skiing for the first time. I have wanted to skate ski for a while now, so although the conditions were not the best I decided that I would give it a shot. To make a long story short, I tried to learn how to skate while working my way up an icy hill, and let me tell you this, never try to learn how to skate up an icy hill. I spent about 40 minutes essentially walking really funny up this hill, but when I got to the top, that is when I was able to actually practice. I was able to get down some basics and move along pretty well on the nicer snow at the top of the hill. I then spend the next two hours enjoying myself, and by the end of the day I was extremely hungry, tired, and sore, but as any good endurance athlete, I was smiling.

After all of this it was time to do some wash, and then I had to dry it all, so I installed a three line drying rack in my bedroom, check it.

Christmas break and getting going on training for 2010

I headed back home to Michigan for Christmas. It was a busy time where I got to see lots of family and friends. I intended to ride the trainer, but with everything going on, I hauled my bike back for about 1.5 hrs of total riding. Things did get better when I went up north to the cottage, as I did a fair amount of cross country skiing as well as a great night of downhill skiing. Here are some pictures that capture the event.


Its the time of year when getting ready for the next season really starts. I kicked off it off by doing a step test, in which I systematically increase my effort until I fail to increase the effort (or until you want to pass out or get sick). Specifically, you start at a power output of 100 watts (W) and increase 25 W every three minutes. The test went all right, and it will establish my training zones for the next little while.

I have been feeling a little under the weather recently, so as opposed to heading outside to ski or ride I have been doing a considerable amount of yoga. I think that I will continue to do yoga, I have been enjoying it and I think that it is a nice compliment to riding.

That is it for now, I hope you enjoy the pictures!