A Couple Links

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.

Ohio State CX Champs

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.

Photos courtesy of Lauren Half photography.

A Season By the Numbers

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.

Alright, I'm out. Thanks for reading.

Zipp OVCX #10 -Promotion Cross

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.

Photo's and Stuff

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.

News

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.

OVCX # 8 The Gun Club

Start.














Finish.



Feels good.