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.

Mt Snow Classic

This past weekend was the Mt. Snow Classic cross country mountain bike race in Vermont, a true classic (as far as I understand it been going on for years, and in my past few summers I have now raced here 5 times.) I was hoping to get a great result, with a 5th a few weeks back and a 3rd last weekend I was hoping to keep up the streak. Enter the problem, a high level of fitness is hard to obtain but easy to have slip away. The past 5 weeks I have done 8 races, averaging one every 4 days, and I knew I was slipping but I was hoping to have one or two more races left before meltdown.

My friend Sean, Tom, Joe, my self and a few other stayed at Sean's house right next to Mt Snow, and I headed up Saturday to make a weekend out of the race. Saturday was pretty fun, got to watch the Mt. Ventoux stage in the Tour and had some dinner and a ride. Sunday morning we awoke to wet roads, a sign that it had rained the night before, which is to be expected with the almost constant rain the past week, which only makes Mt. Snow more interesting, however I have never raced it dry so its really hard to say.

Fast forward to the race, after an all right warm up I ended up lining up against 28 pro/cat 1/open racers, a great turnout, and the field was strong to boot. The race went off, and everyone was jocking for position as usual, and we hit the first climb and I felt all right, I was heading up the hill in 4th position or so, and feeling all right. We then went through some sloppy single track, and started the longer climb in the race, and this is where the 8 races in the past 5 weeks would either make me or break me, and unfortunately for me, they broke me. I just had nothing in the tank, and tried to keep pedaling but people were killing my up this hill. I think I dropped into something like 20th place, and seriously considered dropping out, but I like to finish races that I start regardless if I feel great or terrible. So I bit the bullet and kept grinding it out. On the second and third lap I was able to keep my head down and pass 7 or 8 guys, and I was just looking for the finish. On the last lap I was able to catch an old time rival Ben Moore, from the MidWest Cycling Conference, and pass him as I was trying to cook down the final hill to the finish line. I ended up coming in 9th place out of the 28 startes and actually not a bad result considering how I felt, but not where I was hoping.

I am now going to start building up some base fitness again, as when I was racing so much I pretty much just raced and recovered, with little actual training or nice longer rides. This should be a nice break as I will be able to get back to some fun riding, however there is a race this upcoming weekend that is tempting me, depending on how I feel I may or may not show up.

In conclusion, see the photo below:



Mt. Snow got the best of me this time, but there is always next year! (not to mention the winter when a chair takes me to the top, haha)

The Horror at Harding Hill

This past weekend was mountain bike national championships out in Colorado, but unfortunately I could not make it out there, so instead I traveled with my buddy Sean Kennedy up into New Hampshire to race The Horror at Harding Hill. I also got to see and race against my friend Tom Sampson, as he said the trail was cool I hold him partially responsible for getting me get up there. The weather had been pretty dry lately (relatively speaking), with a few showers here and there, so I was hoping to break the streak of being covered from head to toe in mud. However after talking to a few people who had pre-ridden the course, they said that there was some "mud bogs," so much for it being dry.

The race was a mass start, with every field taking off within ten minutes, so as the elite riders lined up there were a lot of spectators! The race started and I was second going into the double track behind Matt OKeefe, I then got passed by Brad Perley I stayed there for a little bit until we came to the first mud bog, at this point I picked a terrible line and these two guys soared through the mud and got out way before me. We then started a climb and I managed to get back on board with them, which is where I stayed until the mother of all mud bogs, it was at least 100 yards long, and about 75 yards in I sank in and had to run the rest. Matt and Brad again found the right line and left me stumbling through the mud. At this point I was joined by Thom Parsons and another dude, which was a great asset, because as we got to the top of the next hill I blew by the trail (to my defense I say an arrow but I did not see trail so I decided to keep climbing) Thom then saved my race and was yelling telling me that I did in fact miss the trail, thanks Thom. After a lot more mud bogging and a few more climbs we finished the first lap. It was at this point that the mass start nature of the race became a problem, as I was saying "on your left" about as much as I was pedaling for the rest of the race. I eventually was able to say so long to Thom and keep on riding.

I spent the rest of the race trying to find the best lines through the mud bogs, as they were really slowing me down, however unfortunately even after 5 laps I felt that I was not able to do so. I did however, feel really good climbing, so at the end of the day I ended up crossing the line in third place.

As seen below the mud did do a number on my bike.


This bike was covered, and I had to spend an hour Monday morning before work cleaning it up!


I have to congratulate Sean for an awesome race and crossing the line at the front of the expert class, way to go! Also, I am glad I was not wearing white shorts


We ended up going swimming to get cleaned up after the race, which made the trip home much better. On the way home we also go to drive by the Bartlett Blueberry farm, I wanted to stop by to see if I got a family discount, but I decided to eat a pear instead.



Overall a good day coming in third place, got covered in mud for the 100,000 consecutive race it seems, and I will be spending the new few days cleaning up!