North Jersey

Oh where to begin?
I guess I will skip the details from last week. I worked, trained, and prepped for the Memorial Day race weekend in NJ. Relative boring shit.

We had a great weekend of racing in NJ. We had one good result (Stanimal was 12th at Tour of Somerville) and a bunch of hard racing. Saturday was the Tour of Somerset Hills and it is by far the sickest race I have done to date. It is an 80+ mile single loop race that winds thru 13 counties in NJ with 3 (?) major climbs. It was insane. We had a true rolling closure (a first for me) with literally 20 police cars, a dozen motos, sag wagons, etc. I can’t emphasize how well organized the race was and how crazy it was tearing thru towns making lefts and rights that you didn’t know were coming, etc. Frattini and Walters rode away from the group on the last climb. Only Jon and Tom made it to the finish, but it is a race that will be in bold letters on next year’s race calendar.

Sunday was Bound Brook. Not too much to say. I sucked. Not sure why, but I had nothing. It was hot, the pace seemed ridiculously fast, and I got dropped half way thru the race. Jon, Stan and Tommy made it but no results worth writing about.

Monday was the Tour of Somerville. It went much better from a team standpoint as we were all in the race and racing hard. Our crit “tactics” are still lacking, but at least we were in there racing and mixing it up. I felt much better, but still not good enough to make a difference in the race. With about 5 laps to go Tom and I found each other and tried to get to the front to help Stan. I dragged Tom down the home stretch trying to move up, but we never made it to stan. Stanimal surfed the front solo and was able to to just miss a Top 10. A totally solid result in a race that had 150 dudes.

Other than the racing, we had some quality team bonding. We watched WAY too much MTV, drank a few beers and busted on each other constantly.

A few awards from the weekend:

The Koolest Women’s Team Award goes to the TravelGirl Squad for pounding beers after their race even before they took off their shoes or got out of their chamois’

The Hottest Groupie Award goes to the Rite-Aid squad for having a super model bottle biatch.

The We Got Game Award goes to the Puerto Rican Masters/Cat 3 squad for swilling and singing at night, kitting up before breakfast and then showing the goods by being in the money every day in their races.

The Tom Boonen Faux Hawk/Mullet Award goes out to all the Juniors rocking the Boonen-esk hair-style. Seriously, every Junior I saw was rocking the Belgian’s Doo. Maybe it does make you fast.

The You Have to be Kidding Me Award goes to an unnamed teammate that “has never used” chamois lube. Maybe we need to up the budget next season to get that boy a tub Of Assos.

And finally a little crack at myself . . .
The TV Time Award goes to myself for spending more time on my socks, booties and wrist band than I did at the business end of the race on Sunday! Doh!

Random Thoughts

Did the Thursday Night Worlds last night and it cracked me. We just kept attacking each other until we could barely turn the pedals and then someone would go again.

There was a crash. Not exactly sure what happened, but there was a slowdown, someone rubbed my wheel from behind and then one dude went down. No broken bones, but he had plenty of road rash and bruising.

Pat McCarty is currently in the break at the Giro. I hope he makes it.

No racing for me this weekend, but the Sunapee start list looks impressive.

Finally, I definitely didn’t need to see this photo of AM . . . http://www.goodstorysteveo.blogspot.com/

Cold Rain

It is raining, it has been for awhile now and it doesn’t look like it is going to be sunny anytime soon. That said, I won't tell you how much rain sucks. You already know that 411.

This weekend was Sterling. I won’t bore you with the details. In summary, it was raining, 46 degrees andI thought about not racing until Stan showed up. I lubed up the legs and chamois, pulled on the rain cape and decided to “get a workout” in. I did that, racing at times stupid hard, but I got some “work” in. I finally decided to pull the plug. I checked with Stan to see if he needed my left over water/food, rolled out the back of the bunch at the bottom of the finishing climb with more than 40 miles left in the race and “hit the showers”. It was miserable and a waste of $35 entry. I am pretty sure there isn’t a Belgian bone in my body.

We got in a good ride at home yesterday although my legs were absolutely killing me. They were sore like after a bike racer tries go for a run type sore. 46 degree rain will do that I guess.

Bike to Work this week . . .all the Kool Kids are doing it.

Moose Watch

The weather yesterday was a nice surprise! We had cold rain in the forecast, but ended up with mostly sunny and temps in the 60s. Sweet. Did some flat intervals last night. Man do I suck on the flats. I have no trouble hitting my zones when the road pitches up, but on the flats it is a struggle the whole time. Martha and I had similar workouts so we were able to workout together. That doesn’t happen very often, so that was nice. We saw a moose last night, my first sighting of the season. Martha drives down moose alley to get to work so she sees them daily, but I hadn't seen one since Fall. Regardless, I never get tired of seeing those beasts, they are crazy looking. We saw an amazing rainbow too, as the front rolled in over the ridge with black clouds on one side and sun on the other.

Thanks for all the input on the tubulars. I did use the tape and the tire looks pretty good. I will ride it tonight for a bit to make sure. Looking like rain this weekend . . .yippie.

Country Song

So I figured it out . . . . I climb like a sprinter and sprint like a climber!
I used the Tufo Tape last night . . . and feel like a sellout.
I am itching for cyclocross season . . .odd since I swore off the sport just 6 months ago.
I missed Sushi Night last night . . . and am bitter.
Did sprints last night . . . with Martha . . . guess who put out more watts.
Intervals tonight . . . in the cold rain . . . all Belgian and shit.

Glue

I am an engineer: the kind that shouldn’t pick up wrenches or work on anything. I am a “design” engineer (that is the worst kind!). I can tell you how to do it, but I can’t physically do it myself. I don’t carry wrenches, I don’t try to true wheels, and I definitely don’t attempt to adjust my front derailleur! So that leads me to my big dilemma of the week. On Saturday both Martha and I got flats in the race. Actually, Martha got TWO flats (I think she did it just to torture me this week). We both run tubulars. Why? I don’t know, probably just to make life more difficult. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Right now I am not too sure. So this week, I am a gluing fool. Hopefully I can get it done without too much swearing, throwing of wrenches, yelling at my wife or kicking my dog.

All the Weekend's News

What a weekend. Saturday was Jiminy Peak. It rained for the first 40 minutes. I wasted a bunch of energy in the first 30 minutes chasing crap. About 60K into the race things started to heat up. The boys and I were mixing it up in the front. I came thru the right hander onto Route 7 slotted in about 10th. It was single file and going pretty hard. I hit some debris in the road and punctured. Game over. I drifted to the back, pulled over, popped my rear wheel off and waited for neutral support. Merlyn was up the road in the SRAM car with the break so we had a volunteer follow car. I was happy to have him, as it would have been a long ride home on a flat, but it wasn’t exactly a Paris-Roubaix Wheel change. I chased for a little while, but it was no use. I was gone. At the moment, I barely have enough fitness to stay in the race when it is single file, never mind chase back on after a 2-3 minute wheel change. I climbed off in the feed zone and watched the boys finish. The team rode well and Tommy G had a great result in 15th. Good showing for the squad.

Sunday I went to Kingdom Trails and had one of those epic days. We had a huge posse, blue-bird skies and bone dry fast conditions. It was one of those days that I wasn’t expecting, but had a killer time. We finished off several hours of ripping riding at the pub. As usual, I abused myself: 3 pints of Trout River, Burger with bbq sauce/onion rings/fries and finally Moose Tracks Ice Cream. That’s living.

Thursday Night Worlds

I went to the Thursday Night Worlds last night. Man the nice weather brought people out of the wood work and most people were looking very fit. The ride was literally in my back yard, so I road to the start, sat in for a while, gave the town line a go (which I think BigRing pipped me at the line) and then rolled off the back and headed home. I got in a solid two hours but it was tough to bail early on the ride.

Jiminy Peak RR is tomorrow and I want to make sure the legs are fresh. Even with fresh legs, tomorrow is going to be real tough for me. Hopefully it won’t be windy. That could make it a death march.

It looks like we are skipping the Williams Crit, which is cool with me. Kingdom Trails is opening this weekend and I could use a day on the dirt, in the sun, at the motherland.

It is raining, my legs are still VERY heavy from this past weekend and my iPod is dead. Three reasons going to the bar sounds better than my workout today. Some time ago I left my iPod in my jersey pocket and it got washed. Needless to say it didn’t survive the spin cycle. I didn’t think I would miss it, but days like today, make me realize I need to replace it. A few hours in the cold rain would be much easier with some tunes.

I added a link to Steve-O’s blog. He is a cycle-smart dude, all around nice guy and fast finisher. Also checkout Alberto Contador’s blog to understand the comments below. Not much else to report. Jiminy Peak RR is in 4 days . . . .150 km of hilly punishment.

It's all about the Tanning

I had a pretty good weekend on the bike. There were times I struggled, mostly on the flats in the wind when the race was single file and in the gutter, but in general it was a pretty successful weekend. While I am pretty sure McCormack won’t be calling me for a stagiaire position this season and the Canadians babbling French into their race radios weren’t asking who I was, I survived a long weekend of hard racing.

I had a nice ride into the sand/dirt in the finale yesterday when I tried to move into a gap that wasn’t big enough. Oh well, it looked big enough, but with 600 meters to go I was pretty bleary eyed and needed 5 more seconds of patience so the gap opened up a bit more. I have no idea what position I was in at the time, but I was trying to get in front of Tom to give him a little shelter and sling-shot him in the last 0.5k. Instead, I went cyclocross style for a little while in the sand and jumped back on the road without killing anyone behind me. Sand is slower than pavement. Lesson learned.