USGP of Super

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.

Sorry no pictures yet. Mark Zalewski is a hater.