Well I survived my week off the bike and it was actually pretty nice because it gave me a chance to catch up with some friends who were around for the holidays and do a whole lot of nothing. I am definitely above my fighting weight at the moment, but not too bad considering the disgusting eating habits I've been displaying recently.
Christmas was good, I wasn't really sure If I would get anything since I couldn't come up with anything that I really wanted. But as usual, the parents came through and found some quality gifts. I'd have to say a couple of the favorites would be my new GPS for the car, and Joe Parkin's new book A Dog in a Hat. The book is awesome, I've only got a couple chapters left, but its shaping up to be one of the best cycling reads I've managed to finish. It's really just about the good, bad, and the ugly of trying to make it racing in Europe.
I've got my first week of training in the books and it's going a good bit better than last year. The knee is cooperating nicely and the weather has been tolerable enough to actually put in the majority of the miles outside. I did 3 hours today and found some really good, long sections of gravel with some good climbing too. My bike is a wreck though, it's almost 70 degrees out, so I may just give it a nice cleaning outside.
I've been watching to see how the group of Americans crossers are doing over in Euro-land and no one has really kidded it yet, but Jamey Driscoll had another solid ride, with a 26th in the World Cup in Zolder. That dude could be the next big thing from the US. Tonight I'm having a little dinner meeting with Toby Cole to talk 2009 schedule and how to finance it. I even made an Excel spreadsheet yesterday. I was really hoping to stay away from Excel forever. I was rusty so say the least. Alright, I've got lots to do before I go, so I'll check ya later.
Well with no races to report on for a while I guess I need to fire up some creativity so that I can keep this blog running during the off season. Today I'm just gonna be taking it easy around the crib, watching some good college basketball on the tube. Last night I finished building up the training bike for the next little bit until the team Felts come in. I got an older S-Works aluminum frame on ebay for really cheap and slapped on some parts I had layin around. because of the annodized frame, the letters in the decals are really fragile and have been rubbed off in some spots, so that why it was so cheap. I don't really care too much, it fits what I was looking for nicely.
I've been doing this whole Twitter thing recently and I was a little worried that it might take away from the blog, but I'm not gonna let that happen. I'll try to keep some fresh stuff poppin' up on here in addition to the hour by hour updates from Twitter. I'm sure you're all so concerned about the fact that I burnt my pancakes today...
In other news, my bromance with Fabian has been raging out of control recently. I was youtube'n around yesterday and naturally stalked Fabian for a bit and came up with a pretty solid "Best Of" video. It's pretty good, but the music isn't up to snuff. The Fabian deserves better, maybe like some Benny Benassi perhaps. Either way, his stage 3 win in Yellow at the Tour in 07 still gives me chills to watch. The bro is a freak.
Watching all these highlight videos isn't making my time off any easier. I've already got cabin fever and I've got to make it 2 more days.
Ok I'm off to dominate my legs with the foam roller. Hopefully I don't cry that loud.
Well I'm back in Bloomington and the dust has settled after my final race of the season, 'cross Nats. If you're reading this you probably already know, I got my ass kicked. Love, Ryan. I don't really know what happened. I got out there plenty early, did some good laps on Saturday, got a good warm up on Sunday, got a good start, and rode a good first half of the race. Then my legs decided that they couldn't wait another 30 minutes to end the race season, so they were going to clock out now.
My 1 UCI point got me number 52. Not great, but middle of the pack. The start went pretty well and I avoided carnage and moved up when I saw openings. I ended up riding in the high 20's, with some pretty solid guys after a few laps,Adam Myerson, Brandon Dwight, Molly Cameron. I was even with Jon Baker and Erik Tonkin for a while. Sure, I was hurting, but I really didn't foresee this massive explosion.
The face says it all
The course had a pretty long hard climb in the first half of the lap and it was beating everyone up. The ground was like cookie dough. It was really soft, but not really like mud. It just zapped any momentum and speed you had anytime you weren't thrashing the pedals. After a good while to reflect on my race and why I just didn't have it, I'm not really sure why. I knew I didn't feel great on the warm up laps, but thought I could ride through it and find some legs. I really don't think it was a great idea to skip the bigger races at the end of the year in favor of winning the overall in the OVCX, because I never really had to go UCI hard. I was just riding kinda hard for an hour. Then I get here and it's literally all out from jump street. My body didn't know what to do. I guess it makes sense though. The last time that I really had to dig really deep and give it full gas for more than 30 seconds was back at the end of October at the USGP. Lesson learned. I don't really know what I was thinking. I would have never tried to prepare for Crit Nats by doing a bunch of local races, it just doesn't translate. And this isn't me bashing the OVCX either, that series is awesome and I love racing with that group of guys, but realistically it isn't the best training to prepare to go fight the likes of Trebon and Page (and apparently Driscoll).
We'll thanks to all of you who were so supportive throughout the season and even yesterday when you saw my stellar performance pop up on cyclingnews. It was a great year for me and I feel like I learned a lot and met some awesome people along the way. Last night I spent 2 hours on the phone planning big things for 09. After a week or so off the bike, I'll be getting the ball rolling towards a new set of goals. See ya on the road.
P.S. I've just gotta attempt to clear my name a bit: When it says "2 laps down" in the results, it doesn't mean I was lapped twice. I means I got lapped when I had 2 laps to go. Just throwin' that out there.
Sunday was the Indiana State CX Champs and the last race in the OVCX series. Over the weekend we started getting our first measurable snow fall of the year, and the forecast for Sunday was showing a high of 25 degrees. I like racing in the snow, but was hoping for a bit more warmth. I was struggling to get my head right on the drive up because I kept thinking about ways to not lose the overall, rather than just taking the same approach I've had for the last few months and just going out there to win the bike race. I still wasn't feeling too confident when I rolled up to the start line, but soon enough the gun went off and we were racin'.
Early in the first lap
I hadn't really given strategy much thought before the race, but when I hit the grass at the top of the first hill in second wheel, I followed Andy Messer for a couple corners and then decided to give it a whack. I wasn't really keen on watching other people attack, so I decided to play my cards right away and see how that went over. I had about 5+ seconds or so going through the start finish the first time. I was in the hurt box pretty good, and thought about waiting for Isaac to get up to me to work with him for a bit. I decided against it, and put my head down to try to stretch the gap. There were a surprising number of fans out to support, considering the temps were so low. I had quite a few people giving me splits around the course, and was able to keep the gap going in my favor for the rest of the race. I actually flatted on the last lap and nearly ate it as I leaned in to take a corner off of the pavement. Luckily the conditions called for low pressure and I was able to limp it in for another victory and the series win on top of that.
Hurting on the road section
There was a nice double staircase run up in the middle of the lap with TONS of spectators waiting at the top. I kid you not, that little section of the course was like a throwback to Cross Vegas. Those guys up there were going nuts. They had Geraint Parry and John Gatch doing the announcing, throwing those two guys into the mix made for a pretty cool atmosphere. Thanks to everyone who came out to support. The 'cross scene in the Midwest is alive and kickin'. Also gotta say thanks to Fowler for bringing me some champagne to celebrate with. I had to wait until I got home to pop the bottle, but it was a good thing I did. When I got home I was going to open it inside, but wasn't sure how the cork was going to react, even without shaking. So I opened the back door and pointed it outside just to be safe. Good thing I did. When I shot the cork off, it went 50 feet out the back door and was still 15 feet off the ground when it disappeared into the night. I hope I didn't put any ones eye out.
In other news, I recently had my eyes opened to Twitter, or Twittering. Not really sure on all the terminology yet. For what seemed like a week, everyone I talked to was either twittering for themselves or following someone else on Twitter. I decided to jump on the bandwagon and start one for myself. I don't really know exactly what I'm supposed to do with it. Kinda seems a lot like Facebook status, but I've convinced myself that it's way better.
So this morning as I was going through my rotation of sites that I frequent, and I came to Truesport and found a section of a recent article that was posted pretty interesting. Let me give you an excerpt.
"What I really want to know, is will Ryan Knapp have the gaggle of girls that I've heard referred to as his "roadies" there to cheer him on the podium. You know you've hit the big time in cyclocross when you have a bunch of young girls yelling your name at races every week. You are the man Ryan."
I promise I am not the Masked Prognosticator. I guess Lauren constitues a gaggle? Either way, I'll take it.
After the last week of cross riding my bikes are in serious need of attention. I think I may have power washed them everyday for the last 3 or 4 days now, that may be more times than I've washed myself... it's close. Nothing a little WD-40 can't take care of. Turkey Cross and Hoosier Cross were awesome considering I never get to ride with anyone, a group of 20 people on cx bikes was a real novelty. We has some celebrity in attendance as well.
The course was solid with a nice mix of roadie sections, technical stuff, and a huge semi-rideable hill to put you nicely into the red. I wish I could make it out to these more often.
After some Hoosier cross tune ups, I went south an hour to Louisville to the KY state Championships. The venue was where they had the USGP a month or so ago, but we used a slightly modified version. That place and I have a love hate relationship, mostly hate though. This trip to Louisville I did avoid hurting myself in the sand pit that usually gets me in trouble though, moral victory there for sure.
The conditions were pretty cyclocrossy, with some low temps and rain/wind for most of the day. I did my usual preriding and started out with about 25 psi in the tires and by the time the race rolled around I had decided on running 18 psi front and rear. That's the lowest I think I've run since the mud fest at Nationals last year. We'll it turned out to be a decent number because I was able to keep it upright all day and ride a "clean" race to pull out another victory. Luckily there was no sprint to botch this week, but I got some new cleats courtesy of Andy Messer, just in case.
As you can see, people came out in waves to see the spectacle...
Well next week is The Indiana State Championships and the final race in the OVCX series. I've got a nice lead going into the race, but I still need to put in a solid ride to wrap up the overall. I'm starting to back down the training load in order to be nice and rested for Nationals in KC in just under 2 weeks. Hopefully I can kick this sickness that has just attacked me in the last few days and put together a nice end to the year.
Cyclingnews has an awesome article on the wattage savings one can expect to see for certain aero items. They have some unbelievable data in the article. Odds are that if you are visiting your cycling sites and are all the way down the the bottom of your list at my blog, you have probably already been to Cyclingnews and seen the article. If for some reason that is not the case, well HERE you go.
I've got one more nice link for you, that I have also added to my links list on the side, its Biking Bros. It is Chrisitian Meier and Svein Tutf's blog, both new additions to the Garmin squad. Some solid stuff in there. Much better than this thing.
Today I'm heading up to Indy for Turkey Cross with the boys up there. I owe my body some serious beatings after my disgusting behavior at the dinner table yesterday. Luckily I've got Turkey Cross today, Hoosier Cross tomorrow and Kentucky State Championships on Sunday. That should do the trick.
I had been looking forward to this race for a while because this was where I got my first cross win, and I had some pretty good vibes about the whole thing. Well I didn't realize they had changed the course and location from last years race. The course this year was ok, it had some nice semi technical stuff on about 1/3rd of the lap, but the other 2/3rds of the lap were out in a windy field. Not the best of conditions to go it alone.
I got a mediocre start and went into the first corner 3rd wheel and after a half lap looked back and it was still gruppo compacto. I don't know if I've ever seen that in my life. I guess that's a testimate to the lack of technical bits. Anyway, once the pace slowed I threw my first attack and got a nice gap, but it came back together with about 5 or six of us out front. The DRT boys came to the front to play teammates for me (thanks guys). John Card, one of the strong guys who I notciced was registered, seemed pretty content to let the pace get pretty slow. In an attempt to avoid falling over from the slow speeds, I threw another attack and this time it was just me and John with a pretty good gap on everyone else. From this point on the race got pretty boring. I would attack, get a gap, then slowly get dragged back. Between attacks we traded pulls, but seriously week pulls. I kept attacking and getting pulled back until about 2 to go. I realized that wasn't getting me anywhere, so I started resting for the sprint. I was always pretty comfortable with the idea of a sprint, I just didn't want it to be a 40 man field sprint. John and I literally cruised the last 2 laps talking about cross nats and other racing stuff. The sprint was set up perfectly for me, he lead it out of the last 180 degree corner with about 250m to go and I was ready to throw down. We both hit it and I pulled out to the left to come around with about 150 or so to the line and my foot came out of the pedal. I slammed my knee into the under side of my handlebar and fumbled to find my pedal again, as if I still had a chance... Race over, win streak over, life over. Well not actually that last part about my life being over, but it really sucks to lose when another W is staring you in the face. I guess I'll survive, but it made that drive home seem twice as long as the trip there.
Chartier threw down his best result of the season with a top 15 in the A's race.
Thanks for all the support from everyone at the race. It was nice hearing pro Ryan Knapp shouts from the spectators at John Card's state championship, even if it was just a "go blue guy", from the older woman on the run-up. It was also pretty cool to meet some of my new RGF teammates too.
Since the season is winding down, it got me thinking about some things. It looks like after Cross Nationals I will have done:
17 Cyclocross races, 53 Road races, and 1 Mountain Bike race. 71 Total races for 2008.
I don't really know how many races other dudes out there are doing, but I'd guess my number is somewhere in the middle of the spectrum. I think I did a few more races this year, compared to last. But I can definitely say that I'm feeling a good bit better and the end of this season than I did last year, mentally and physically. Maybe I'm getting old man fast...
One thing I though was interesting was that I did 28 new races in 2008, that I didn't do in 2007. It felt like a similar schedule to me, but I guess not.
One thing I didn't try to figure out was how many days I spent on the road. I should just get rid of the apartment and get a sweet van to live in.
Also in other news Alex Boyd signed with Rock Racing. That dude knows how to race his bike. Cool to see him getting that kind of opportunity though.
Watching the weather all week, I was hoping that I could avoid what seemed to be coming my way this weekend, the first muddy cross race of the season. Well it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, but it did require a trip to the car wash and few bucks in quarters. It was stop number 10 on the OVCX schedule, Veteran's Park in Lexington, KY. If you've been reading, you know that the cross has been going pretty well of late, but I was still having some trouble getting my head wrapped around the cold and mud. It's normally not a problem, but the first muddy race is always a bit of a shock.
I did less than my usual number of warm up laps in favor of staying in the warm car. The course wasn't too technical, but some of the slippery corners needed full attention. I got an average start and went into the first corner top 5 and Mike came to the front right away and put in a good dig. So after about 1 minute of racing he and I had a bit of a gap. Mike, never one to let the pace slow, kept the hammer down and dragged us well clear of the rest of the field. I sat on for about 3 laps and then decided to test the waters with a hard pull at the front. My little mini move got me some real estate between Mike and I, so I decided to go for it and see if I could hold on for the last 5 laps. Being able to ride solo and have unobstructed lines helped me stretch the gap to a comfortable distance and take home another victory. I'm in pretty unfamiliar territory here, having a little Chicago Bulls-esqe 3 peat going. Believe me, I know that these wins are not USGP's by any means, but just winning a little bit has changed my mentality for the better. I hope I can keep some of this good mental state I've got going, over to the road for next year.
Only 4 race weekends left in my 2009 season. I'll officially be taking a break from the bike after Nationals on December 14th, for some recovery before kicking it up again around the New Year.
Finally, I've got a couple sets of wheels I need to get rid of soon.
2008 Reynold's KOM's with Continental Sprinter Tubular's glued up
2008 Edge 2.68 Wheelset built to DT 240 Hubs with Revolution spokes
Both are lightly used but in great shape. Shoot me an email or comment if you're interested and want more info.
I've got some pictures from this weekend, but I would have to download 821 photo's off of Lauren's camera to import the handful of ones from the bike race. Not sure how I feel about that.
EDIT: Chartier said I had to put the pictures up, so 821 uploaded photos later... here we are.
Like I said yesterday, Jeff Jakucyk came up with some pictures from this weekend, so I figured I would pass some of them along to you guys.
As for how the race went down this weekend, it was pretty uneventful. I got a call up front and center for being the current overall OVCX points leader, but managed to botch my clip in about 4 times. This actually didn't hurt me as bad as it probably should have, because I ended up 3rd wheel into the first corner. I wanted the get the hole shot, because there was a pretty hairy sandpit early in the lap, and I didn't want to deal with traffic. About halfway through the first lap, I went to the front and out in a hard pull and looked back to see that I had a bit of a gap. I decided to give it a go from there and see how it turned out. It was really nice because I had Fred Rose there to give me splits so I could gague my effort. I had 15 seconds or so after the first lap and was able to slowly keep putting time into the chasers for most of the race. I think the last split I got was 48 seconds to the group racing for 2nd. It was nice to be able to enjoy the last couple laps compared to last weekend where I didn't even know if I had won for 10 minutes after the race.
Tripping over the barrier
Saved it
I'm still looking for some pictures from the finish and maybe some of the logs/ barriers some of us were able to Bunny Hop, maybe some will turn up in the next few days.
All of this OVCX stuff is great and all, but I'm missing out on Hoosier Cross. The Indy crew has been putting on a Wednesday Worlds like cross race that goes down Saturday mornings at the Butler University campus. It seems like my racing schedule is pretty booked up, but I'm gonna make some time to go up there for sure. Last week I think they gave a Zipp carbon bar to the winner, thats like a 300 bucks.
This weekend is the Lexington OVCX race. I wasn't exactly planning on going to all of these, but I think I have a decent shot to win the overall, so it looks like I've gotta go.
There is a bit of news to report on around here these days, so here it goes. First off, I'll be racing for a new team next season. I've signed with RGF Solutions Elite Cycling squad in 2009. This was a pretty late development, but I'm really excited to move on to the next chapter in my bike racing career. It wasn't an easy decision to leave all my friends at Alderfer Bergen, especially since I feel like that was something that I had a hand in developing, but those guys have picked up some serious horse power this off season and should be pretty tough next year.
RGF is going to be a totally new experience for me, from bikes, to races, to teammates. It also can't hurt to have 2-Time Elite National Champ Paul Martin as our Rider/ Director. Look for a press release on the full squad some time soon.
In other news, I won the OVCX race in Dayton yesterday. Lauren came to support and brought her camera, but was too busy shivering to take any pictures during the race. So looks like no pictures yet, but I'm pretty sure my boy Jeffrey Jakucyk will come through with some solid pictures here in the next day or so. I'll hold off on the race report and the boring details until then.
By the way, I just discovered playing Wii while riding rollers. Now it won't be a problem to crank out 3 hours inside this winter, that's just a couple good rallies on Wii Tennis.
Have you ever noticed how often cyclist use the word Super? Like super frequently. Seriously though, keep your eyes and ears open, you'll be amazed.
So the first 2 rounds of the USGP were this weekend in Louisville, and after some late night promoter stalking on Friday night I was able to get myself into the races that I had forgotten to register for. Thanks to Steve Roszko and Mike Hewitt for helping a moron out.
Friday night finished gluing up a minty new set of 09 Zipp's with the new hubs. Pretty awesome. Thanks to the boys at Zipp for getting me dialed in time for this weekend. Sooo about that racing... Me, Lauren and Isaac headed down on Saturday morning early enough to get some good preriding in and not be too rushed. After a bit of rain on Friday and some early sun on Saturday, the course was pretty much perfect by our race at 3:00.
Mike and I got our call up for our few UCI points (or point) in the 3rd row, right behind some guy named Todd Wells or something like that. All I could think about was "I hope this bro doesn't miss his pedal on the start because I'm going through him!" Actually I was just hoping to not cause a pile up and embarrass myself. Well, avoided that and got an ok start, somewhere in the low 20's. It was quickly apparent why when I start at the back that I never see the front guys again... these guys killed it for the first 2 laps. I was seriously in the hurt box trying to hold onto a group with some Lalonde's and some other pretty quality guys. In the midst of my crosseyed-ness I missed my line in the deep sand pit and had to get off and run the second half of the pit. That was the end of my time in that group. I kept the gas on pretty well for the rest of the day, but ended up 28th. Not great, not the worst I could have done either and a whole lot better than my 60th place on day 1 last year.
Going into Sunday I was hoping for a little better legs and a little bit more clean riding in order to get my goal of top 20. Well we started in basically the same spot, but I found some nice holes and found myself just at the back of a train with the BIG BOYS. There was just one person between me and Tim Johnson, Barry Wicks and Trebon. And Believe me the pace reflected that. When I dismounted at the first barrier set, it felt like I was jumping out of a moving car and my feet could barely keep up with my body. Those bro's were rolling it. I managed to not Sven Niijs my face against the barriers and hold my position pretty well. About 3/4th of the way around the first lap, U23 leader Adam McGrath laid it down in front of me and I had to get off. Then when he got up we proceeded to dance like fools when you are trying to avoid someone in a hallway and you both keep moving the same direction until you run into each other. After we got ourselves untangled, the Bullet Train that was the front of the race that I was lightly tethered to was probably about 8 seconds up the road, but it may as well have been 8 minutes. They were gone. I was scooped up by a nice group racing for my goal of top 20, and I actually felt like I could handle the pace there and almost recover a bit at times. Welp, I got Sand Pitted again. Same thing as the day before, and I lost my group. Chased hard for the next lap, but wasn't really denting the gap. Next time through the pit, over the bars. My confidence in the sand had officially been murdered. I continued to try to catch people but I just didn't have it. With about 2 to go, I started to pick through some riders who had exploded and was able to pick up a couple free spots and finish in 25th place. I don't know how I finished better on Sunday, but I did. Oh well. Better than the 59th I got on day 2 last year...
I will leave you with 2 videos. The first one is from the USGP last year of me pummeling my man region on the top tube of my bike in the same sand pit that beat me up this year. I may have put this one on here before, so if you've seen it, deal with it.
Number two is a video of us going through the same sand pit this year (opposite direction). I'm the last guy the video shows coming through the sand pit (in white shoe covers of course)
That was actually one of the times it didn't make me look that stupid.
So as you may or may not know, in my previous life I was a golfer, and I'm currently in the process of planning my next life. This all started with my little camping trip a few weeks ago and reading "Between a Rock and a Hard Place" just threw some gasoline on the flame. To top it all off my brother, a recently retired bike racer himself, introduced me to the site 14ers.com. The site is basically a guide to all of the 14,000+ peaks in Colorado, from how to get there, to what routes to take, to what you'll need supplies wise and even what time of year is best to summit these bad boys. A lot of them actually look surprisingly do-able, but there are some on there that will be a good ways down the road in my mountaineering career. I've also been spending a goof bit of time on SteepAndCheap.com after John Meyers opened my eyes to the sweet deals you can get on goods over there (I would link to it, but don't want you guys stealing my stuff...). I think we're going to cut our teeth on some Appalachian Trail hiking and camping before we head out West, but don't worry, I'll still be planning mountaineering adventures around my bike racing. I feel like I've got a lot left to do in this life.
Also, congrats to all of my friends who are soon to be O-fficial Pro-fessional bike racers. I'm sure you should start seeing some familiar names popping up once everyone's 09 rosters are released.
Hilly Hundred festivities start tomorrow. I hope I'm ready...
I wasn't really sure what to expect this weekend because of my less than ideal training over the last few weeks, but I seemed to get a bit of everything over the 3 days. Here's a day by day rundown of how they went.
Friday Cyclo-stampede C2 I got an ok start and was riding in a group with the usual suspects, but in what seems to be a pretty regular occurrence, a crashed myself out of that group and into no-mans land. I rode there for a while before I had a tire going down so Pam and I did pretty nice, unrehearsed bike exchange. I got the new bike and rode around mentally checked out for a few laps and finished off the race in 27th place. Not so hot, but what I deserved after riding a mentally weak race.
Saturday Java Johny's C2 Saturday I got to the course plenty early and did lots of preriding to try to get tire pressure and my lines dialed before it was go time. I felt quite a bit better going into Saturday than I did about Friday's race. Another CrossVegas-esqe pile up happened about 20 feet off the start line and I got tangled for a bit and had to get off my bike and run through the carnage. I eventually made it back to the back of a reasonable group, but burnt a few too many matches making it there. I spent most of the day on damage control trying to hold on, but blew up in the last few laps and came in 24th, just inside the payout. I rode a good bit better Saturday, and was able to live with myself a little bit easier knowing that I didn't take any laps off mentally during this race.
Sunday Bio Wheels C1 I woke up feeling pretty wrecked from the two previous day's efforts, but it seemed that almost everyone was in the same boat. I did a good bit of preriding and the course seemed like it would suit me ok with a good amount of climbing and some semi technical areas. I played it a bit safe at the start and hung back trying to avoid the pile up that plagued me the day before. I found myself in a huge group that the front was about 15th place and it was probably 20 people deep, so if I blew out of that group any decent place was long gone. Luckily we got rid of some people and the group was down to about 3 or 4 of us pretty quickly. People came and went in the group, but I could seem to get away and up to the UCI points just up the road. Going into the last lap it was me, Dan Campbell, and some Cal Giant Strawberry's guy and the pace was getting pretty tough on me. They dropped me on the climb with about a half lap to go and I was able to ride in fairly easily for 20th spot. Not great, but I felt better about it than any of the other races of the weekend. I just need to get rolling a little better to get some more UCI points. I feel like it's coming though.
After Sunday's race we went back to Chris and Kim's for a shower and some food. We were so ready to go home, but we didn't realize how wrecked we would be after the long weekend and Lauren already bought tickets to a concert in Cincy. We were on the fence as to what to do with them, but we ended up going in for about an hour and then skipping out for Bloomington. We got home at around 1:00 AM and it was all we could do to stay awake on the drive. Overall it was an awesome weekend and just a preview to the good times to be had this weekend at the Hilly Hundred.
So this blog post comes to you from the over-hyped and underwhelming city of Miami Flori-duh. If you've just started reading my blog for some unknown reason, you may think that that I'm kind of a big deal judging from all this traveling I've been doing. Bouncing around to some of the most clubbinest cities the US has to offer (Vegas, Bloomington, Miami...). You would be mistaken. I just prefer to get all of my traveling out of the way in one hectic week and a half period.
Anyway, with the USGP's in Loui-tuckey in a couple weeks and the triple UCI weekend in Cincinatti this weekend, I had to drag my cross bike with me so I could get some car dodging in. I actually found a decent little sidewalk type thing that runs along the ocean called the Broadwalk that gets me off the main roads and provides a little better scenery.
(that's right, sun's out gun's out)
I'm here on some for some business stuff. Yes I have a real job and no it's not as a bike racer. I just pose as one on the weekends. But the place we're staying is pretty lavish. Quite possibly the nicest place I've laid my head. So the ackward stares were plentiful as I rolled through the lobby all kitted up.
Last night we went on either a tiny cruise ship or a very large regular boat up the intercostal waterway for a few hours for some drinks and socialization. I just watched the Red Sox game.
I'm still trying to get over some leg soreness from my little mini camping trip I took last weekend. Myself and someone else went to the Deam Wilderness just south of Lake Monroe and did a 6.5 mile hike on the was into our lakeside camping spot and a 5 mile hike out with 40 or so pound packs with all of our stuff. If you're wondering why the way in was 6.5 and out was only 5, that's because I apparently can't read maps that well. Anyway, muscles I didn't even know I had were sore. Maybe not that extreme in your mind, but try it, I'll bet it hurts more than you'd think.
Getting pretty jazzed for this weekend and next weekend (UCI's and the Hilly Hundred). For that matter all of October should be pretty awesome.
OK I'm out.
P.S. If I can read at the 5th grade level on my plane ride home, be on the lookout for a book review of "Between a Rock and a Hard Place." It's the story of Aron Ralston, the guy who got his arm trapped by a falling rock while canyoneering and cut it off to free himself. It's been awesome so far, so I'll keep you posted.
Our days out here have consisted of not sleeping, going to Interbike, and putting out the vibe at the pool. I have tried to document some of the happenings with the camera, but haven't done such an awesome job yet. I still have one more day to try to try to improve on my photog skillz. The picture above is from our room at the Hard Rock which over looks the ridiculous pool and faces the strip that's a few blocks away.
The Hard Rock keeps some Lambo's on hand just in case someone like me shows up and needs to sit in traffic in style.
The pool out here is sick. Once again, this is the view from our room, but this doesn't do it justice. I'll try to take some better pictures of the scene at the pool. It will be tough to get a good shot because I can hardly see the pool through all the D-Bags standing around it...
Fowler gettin' that money made in the Zipp booth. If he looks pretty important with that phone up to his head, it's because he is!
At a cheap $560, I'm sure I'll have a few pair of tthese very soon.
Tyler Hamilton, Rasaan Bahatti and Fred Rodriguez meeting with the big wigs at Ridley. Looks like Fuji is locked down as their bike sponsor just yet... (Michael Ball was just around the corner looking very important as well.)
These girls asked if they could get a picture with me... I said ok.
