Well the team is up in Wisconsin for some of the Tour of America's Dairyland. Last night was a 90min crit in Grafton with some solid riders and some good fan support. There were lots of parties around the course and the fans got pretty into it as the laps wound down.
The team had a pretty sub par performance across the board, with no one really riding very well. We were definitely all kicking ourselves on the ride home, but we just didn't get our asses into the right spots at the right times. We all got near the front with a few laps to go and then just didn't stay positioned well for the finale. This is the first race of the year where we've raced poorly from top to bottom. Personally I was as guilty as anyone of a trash performance and am hoping for some better legs and a little more bike racing sense tonight.
We just went for a spin with the 3 guys from the other host house. We've got a pretty nice situation here in Wawautosa, especially when you consider the price... free. Sorry for the short update, maybe I'll have some more after tonight's race. Time for a shower and some foam rollering. Happy Fathers Day.
Annnnddd, this just in: Lauren got 7th in Womens Open (1,2,3,4's) race at Winghaven today. She probably got a nice chunk of that $2K for the ladies. Tiiiight!
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Le Tour de Mont Pleasant
Sounds pretty official huh? Le Tour de Mont Pleasant was an awesome race in a pretty cool area of Michigan. It was also an opportunity for my to race with my full squad for the first time.
Graham Howard, Me and Dave Williams give it a go.
Saturdays crit was a nice little 75 minute affair, with a few technical corners and a long Start/Finish straight. We had 8 of our 9 guys (sans Jeremy Grimm, probably one of our best crit-ers) there for the crit and face some good numbers from Bissel and Priority Health. Kenda Pro had 3 strong guys too. We decided that we wanted to be aggressive from the start and so that's how it went down. The team rode really well, constantly shooting guys off the front looking for the right combination to form the days move. It was never to be. Greg had a nice solo attempt from 9 to go all the way to 1 to go. It took about 6 guys from assorted teams to drag him back just before the bell lap. As he came back, Graham Howard from the Bissel Pro squad attacked from right in front of me, so I wasn't about to let one of the strongest guys in the field ride away alone, so I jumped on his wheel and he dragged out a nice little gap real quick like. Unfortunately for us, Kenda kicked it into gear and started chasing us down. We were gobbled up with 2 corners to go and I jumped on the back of the Kenda mini-train but was pretty toast and had to pull off and hand it over to Paul out of the last corner. Chris and Paul chased after Renkema, but he had gotten a good jump and a great leadout and they came up just a bit short. Another 2nd place for the Panther squad. That's something like 6 in a row for us. We gotta get over that hump.
Getting the bell
Saturday night we stayed with a professor at Central Michigan University and it was plush, let me tell you. There baked up cookies, brownies, and let us have our pick of his 60 some different home brewed beers he had made. His wife made us a huge spread for breakfast and we hit the road for the start line.
105 miles were on tap, with some KOM's and some Sprint Points too. A break with lots of horse power went about 10 miles in and we only had Greg in it. Graham Howard, Rytlewski, Renkema and some other studs were up the road, so I worked for a while to try to bring the gap down enough to bridge another of our guys across. Dan Campbell made the bridge look like cake and then we were sitting a little bit better.
After an hour of riding 15mph in the field, the break had a sizeable gap, so Paul Martin got the racing started for the second time, with some solo moves. We all took turns getting guys up the road by the handful. The field was too fresh and there were too many Priority and Bissel guys who weren't letting it happen. The racing stayed alive for pretty much the rest of the day. Coming into the final corner we got our guys to the front and set Chris up for the bunch kick. We had a few minor communication issues, but those will be corrected with more time together as a team. everyone did their part and Chris took the sprint for 8th, I was 14th and Paul Martin was 17th. Once we caught up with Dan and Greg, we heard the Greg had been 2nd and Dan 4th. Graham Howard had beaten Greg after sitting on the break for 80 miles or so. Panther had 5 riders in the top 20, but once again we were just off the top step of the podium. Soon we're gonna get these runner-ups turned into victory's.
There weren't all just 2nd places on the weekend, Lauren picked up her first win in the crit on Saturday and got 4th on Sunday. Hopefully I can get some of those "WIN" things.
I'm off to Tour of America's Dairyland this weekend and early next week for a handful of races, then Hyde Park/Grandview and our to Fitchburg for finally my first stage race of the year. If you need me, you can find me practicing up on my TT bike.
Graham Howard, Me and Dave Williams give it a go.
Saturdays crit was a nice little 75 minute affair, with a few technical corners and a long Start/Finish straight. We had 8 of our 9 guys (sans Jeremy Grimm, probably one of our best crit-ers) there for the crit and face some good numbers from Bissel and Priority Health. Kenda Pro had 3 strong guys too. We decided that we wanted to be aggressive from the start and so that's how it went down. The team rode really well, constantly shooting guys off the front looking for the right combination to form the days move. It was never to be. Greg had a nice solo attempt from 9 to go all the way to 1 to go. It took about 6 guys from assorted teams to drag him back just before the bell lap. As he came back, Graham Howard from the Bissel Pro squad attacked from right in front of me, so I wasn't about to let one of the strongest guys in the field ride away alone, so I jumped on his wheel and he dragged out a nice little gap real quick like. Unfortunately for us, Kenda kicked it into gear and started chasing us down. We were gobbled up with 2 corners to go and I jumped on the back of the Kenda mini-train but was pretty toast and had to pull off and hand it over to Paul out of the last corner. Chris and Paul chased after Renkema, but he had gotten a good jump and a great leadout and they came up just a bit short. Another 2nd place for the Panther squad. That's something like 6 in a row for us. We gotta get over that hump.
Getting the bell
Saturday night we stayed with a professor at Central Michigan University and it was plush, let me tell you. There baked up cookies, brownies, and let us have our pick of his 60 some different home brewed beers he had made. His wife made us a huge spread for breakfast and we hit the road for the start line.
105 miles were on tap, with some KOM's and some Sprint Points too. A break with lots of horse power went about 10 miles in and we only had Greg in it. Graham Howard, Rytlewski, Renkema and some other studs were up the road, so I worked for a while to try to bring the gap down enough to bridge another of our guys across. Dan Campbell made the bridge look like cake and then we were sitting a little bit better.
After an hour of riding 15mph in the field, the break had a sizeable gap, so Paul Martin got the racing started for the second time, with some solo moves. We all took turns getting guys up the road by the handful. The field was too fresh and there were too many Priority and Bissel guys who weren't letting it happen. The racing stayed alive for pretty much the rest of the day. Coming into the final corner we got our guys to the front and set Chris up for the bunch kick. We had a few minor communication issues, but those will be corrected with more time together as a team. everyone did their part and Chris took the sprint for 8th, I was 14th and Paul Martin was 17th. Once we caught up with Dan and Greg, we heard the Greg had been 2nd and Dan 4th. Graham Howard had beaten Greg after sitting on the break for 80 miles or so. Panther had 5 riders in the top 20, but once again we were just off the top step of the podium. Soon we're gonna get these runner-ups turned into victory's.
There weren't all just 2nd places on the weekend, Lauren picked up her first win in the crit on Saturday and got 4th on Sunday. Hopefully I can get some of those "WIN" things.
I'm off to Tour of America's Dairyland this weekend and early next week for a handful of races, then Hyde Park/Grandview and our to Fitchburg for finally my first stage race of the year. If you need me, you can find me practicing up on my TT bike.
Monday, June 8, 2009
Getting My Numbers Up
That was my goal for this weekend. In every sense, get my numbers up. My number of races on the year, my number of watts, my number of miles ridden, my number of dollars in my pocket. To accomplish this, I decided to try to do the Indiana State Road Race Championships on Saturday morning, the Winfield Twilight Crit Saturday night and the ABR Crit Champs on Sunday. A fairly tall order considering I had 5 races in my legs for the whole year leading into this weekend.
The state road race was held on a relatively flat lap that the group would do 12 times for a total of 88-ish miles. It was only Greg Christian and I from Panther/RGF in the race, with about 10 Texas Roadhouse guys, so we knew we would have our hands full. Greg did a great job of covering tons of moves and I tried to do my part as well. I ended up in a break with 4 laps to go, with all the important teams represented. The break wasn't working very well together so it ended up coming back to the field with 1 lap to go. Just as the break came back Greg broke his chain and his day was over. I tried to salvage a result for the team by trying my hand in the sprint. It was a long, wide open drag race style sprint, hardly my forte. I ended up in second place, but just couldn't quite come around Kirk Albers from Roadhouse at the line. I would have loved to pick up the win, but was pleased to salvage a result with such little form.
After the race I pounded some Recoverite, slapped on the compression socks and took off to Chicago. With 80-some miles in my legs already that day, I wasn't really sure how my legs would hold up, but I thought I might be have some value to the team. I actually ended up feeling better in this race than I did in any race of the weekend. The team rode well and everyone took turns throwing attacks and trying to get a break to go. Chris Uberti was smashing the field at every prime opportunity, netting the team a cool $300 in primes on the night. The race was all together with one lap to go. Greg went to the front and lead it up the final climb with Chris on his wheel and me a little further back. I knew I needed to get closer to the front by the top of the hill, but in my legs 110th mile of racing on the day, they were feeling a little crunchy. I ended up 6th and Chris 2nd. Greg rode like 4 people, as he always does and Derek was always right there at the front too. A solid day for the team. After the race we went to our host's house and then out for some Mexican food. I think I used my last bits of energy chewing my food, because once we were done I could hardy hold my head up. We finally got the check split 14 ways and got out of there and into bed around midnight. I suffer from extreme car-lag anytime I leave the eastern time zone, even by 1 hour, so with it being 1 AM Bloomington time, I was out in no time.
The sprint in the Twilight Crit. Josh smacked us all around pretty good.
The moment I stepped out of bed on Sunday I knew it was going to be a tough one. The legs felt like cement blocks at best. Luckily the team was awesome and were always there to cover any attacks that I wasn't feeling up to. As the race developed, Chris ended up in a break with Josh Carter and Mike Sherer. With those 3 guys in the move, the three biggest teams best sprinters, we were all content to let them go and fight it out for the win. The rest of our day was spent covering moves and trying to control the race. At then end of the race my legs were screaming every time up the hill and surely every time I had to cover an attack. I wasn't sure if I could do much in the sprint but tried to get my self to the front regardless. In the sprint for fourth I positioned myself pretty well and tried to hold off my move as long as possible because the sprint was another long one. At the line, Ben Renkema had taken the bunch gallop for 4th and I was second to take 5th. Chris ended up 2nd on the day, with Derek in 8th. Greg did the work of an 8 man team by himself again and rolled in in the field after burying himself to keep the field together. I've still got a long, long way to go to get back to the fitness I had before mono, but I finally feel like Im going the right direction.
As always, it was great to catch up with Ben and his girlfriend, whatever her name is. Christy maybe? seriously though, congrats to Christy for winning "the jersey" on Sunday.
This weekend we're getting the whole squad together in Mt. Pleasant, MI for a little omnium with some good cash. Can't to race with an almost full squad.
There are a few pictures from the weekend floating around so I'll try to add those a little later today.
The state road race was held on a relatively flat lap that the group would do 12 times for a total of 88-ish miles. It was only Greg Christian and I from Panther/RGF in the race, with about 10 Texas Roadhouse guys, so we knew we would have our hands full. Greg did a great job of covering tons of moves and I tried to do my part as well. I ended up in a break with 4 laps to go, with all the important teams represented. The break wasn't working very well together so it ended up coming back to the field with 1 lap to go. Just as the break came back Greg broke his chain and his day was over. I tried to salvage a result for the team by trying my hand in the sprint. It was a long, wide open drag race style sprint, hardly my forte. I ended up in second place, but just couldn't quite come around Kirk Albers from Roadhouse at the line. I would have loved to pick up the win, but was pleased to salvage a result with such little form.
After the race I pounded some Recoverite, slapped on the compression socks and took off to Chicago. With 80-some miles in my legs already that day, I wasn't really sure how my legs would hold up, but I thought I might be have some value to the team. I actually ended up feeling better in this race than I did in any race of the weekend. The team rode well and everyone took turns throwing attacks and trying to get a break to go. Chris Uberti was smashing the field at every prime opportunity, netting the team a cool $300 in primes on the night. The race was all together with one lap to go. Greg went to the front and lead it up the final climb with Chris on his wheel and me a little further back. I knew I needed to get closer to the front by the top of the hill, but in my legs 110th mile of racing on the day, they were feeling a little crunchy. I ended up 6th and Chris 2nd. Greg rode like 4 people, as he always does and Derek was always right there at the front too. A solid day for the team. After the race we went to our host's house and then out for some Mexican food. I think I used my last bits of energy chewing my food, because once we were done I could hardy hold my head up. We finally got the check split 14 ways and got out of there and into bed around midnight. I suffer from extreme car-lag anytime I leave the eastern time zone, even by 1 hour, so with it being 1 AM Bloomington time, I was out in no time.
The sprint in the Twilight Crit. Josh smacked us all around pretty good.
The moment I stepped out of bed on Sunday I knew it was going to be a tough one. The legs felt like cement blocks at best. Luckily the team was awesome and were always there to cover any attacks that I wasn't feeling up to. As the race developed, Chris ended up in a break with Josh Carter and Mike Sherer. With those 3 guys in the move, the three biggest teams best sprinters, we were all content to let them go and fight it out for the win. The rest of our day was spent covering moves and trying to control the race. At then end of the race my legs were screaming every time up the hill and surely every time I had to cover an attack. I wasn't sure if I could do much in the sprint but tried to get my self to the front regardless. In the sprint for fourth I positioned myself pretty well and tried to hold off my move as long as possible because the sprint was another long one. At the line, Ben Renkema had taken the bunch gallop for 4th and I was second to take 5th. Chris ended up 2nd on the day, with Derek in 8th. Greg did the work of an 8 man team by himself again and rolled in in the field after burying himself to keep the field together. I've still got a long, long way to go to get back to the fitness I had before mono, but I finally feel like Im going the right direction.
As always, it was great to catch up with Ben and his girlfriend, whatever her name is. Christy maybe? seriously though, congrats to Christy for winning "the jersey" on Sunday.
This weekend we're getting the whole squad together in Mt. Pleasant, MI for a little omnium with some good cash. Can't to race with an almost full squad.
There are a few pictures from the weekend floating around so I'll try to add those a little later today.
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Sweet PRO-ness
I know this has been on a blog or two before, but some of you may enjoy this look into the prep for a season for a (doping)ProTour team. It's in Deutsch, dubbed over in French. So unless you're fluent in either of those, or a total dork like myself, these may not be for you. Each one is about 15 minutes long, so if anyone makes it through all of them, I'll be surprised.
PART 1
Fabian Wegmann La Marge Ultime 1/4 Reportage Arte
Uploaded by maple16. - Check out more sports and extreme sports videos.
PART 2
Fabian Wegmann La Marge Ultime 2/4 Reportage Arte
Uploaded by maple16. - Basketball, baseball, pro wrestling and more sports videos.
PART 3
Fabian Wegmann La Marge Ultime 3/4 Reportage Arte
Uploaded by maple16. - Discover the latest sports and extreme videos.
PART 4
Fabian Wegmann La Marge Ultime 4/4 Reportage Arte
Uploaded by maple16. - Discover the latest sports and extreme videos.
Alright, that's all of the videos for today. I know, Gerolsteiner was a bunch of dopers, but all that aside, I think these videos are cool.
PART 1
Fabian Wegmann La Marge Ultime 1/4 Reportage Arte
Uploaded by maple16. - Check out more sports and extreme sports videos.
PART 2
Fabian Wegmann La Marge Ultime 2/4 Reportage Arte
Uploaded by maple16. - Basketball, baseball, pro wrestling and more sports videos.
PART 3
Fabian Wegmann La Marge Ultime 3/4 Reportage Arte
Uploaded by maple16. - Discover the latest sports and extreme videos.
PART 4
Fabian Wegmann La Marge Ultime 4/4 Reportage Arte
Uploaded by maple16. - Discover the latest sports and extreme videos.
Alright, that's all of the videos for today. I know, Gerolsteiner was a bunch of dopers, but all that aside, I think these videos are cool.
Boom Goes the Dynamite!
I stumbled onto a few pictures of Lars' Euro Mullet. Here he is at the Tour of Belgium (which he is now leading. Behold the power of the Mullet).
Forget the weird look on his face, that mullet is glorious.
Chicks dig the Euro Mullet.
Today I did the first ride, that actually resembled a training ride, in a pretty long time. Chris Chartier and Party Mike and I headed out for some decent hours and ended up doing the route from Day 2 of the Hilly Hundred. I ended up with a shade under 4 hrs on the bike and actually got a couple of efforts in and my heart rate was behaving nicely. I'm looking forward to racing both days of the weekend next month, and maybe even doing a few days of Tour of Americas Dairyland with the team too.
Recently two of my friends have had pretty bad training wrecks, as mentioned in Aaron Hubbel's blog, and both are now due or were due for some time off the bike because of it. It sucks badly, but when something like this happens it really makes you appreciate just going out for a ride of any sort. After being down with mono, a training ride like today really reminds me why I ride and race my bike. It was just great to be out, bro-ing out, taking in the great roads of Bloomington and just enjoying riding my bike.
Keep the rubber side down.
Forget the weird look on his face, that mullet is glorious.
Chicks dig the Euro Mullet.
Today I did the first ride, that actually resembled a training ride, in a pretty long time. Chris Chartier and Party Mike and I headed out for some decent hours and ended up doing the route from Day 2 of the Hilly Hundred. I ended up with a shade under 4 hrs on the bike and actually got a couple of efforts in and my heart rate was behaving nicely. I'm looking forward to racing both days of the weekend next month, and maybe even doing a few days of Tour of Americas Dairyland with the team too.
Recently two of my friends have had pretty bad training wrecks, as mentioned in Aaron Hubbel's blog, and both are now due or were due for some time off the bike because of it. It sucks badly, but when something like this happens it really makes you appreciate just going out for a ride of any sort. After being down with mono, a training ride like today really reminds me why I ride and race my bike. It was just great to be out, bro-ing out, taking in the great roads of Bloomington and just enjoying riding my bike.
Keep the rubber side down.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
RIDE ZIPP STUFF
TestRider.com was working on this feature at Zipp when I was there taking the tour and I guess this is the finished product.
TestRider.com Video
Ride it. It's just better than the other stuff.
TestRider.com Video
Ride it. It's just better than the other stuff.
Alternate Memorial Day Plans
For the last few years my Memorial Day plans have involved heading out to Iowa for the usual big money crits and what-not. Well this year, given my situation, I opted to head to St. Louis to visit Lauren for the long weekend as well jump in a circuit race on Sunday.
I got into town on Friday night and just kind of kicked it with Lauren and her fam for a while and ate and then ate some more. Saturday We went to her brothers High School Lacrosse game, which happened to be the state championship. It was my first lacrosse experience and it was rad. Her bro (RJ)'s team came back from 3 goals down with 5 minutes left to play and forced overtime. Then they scored early in OT to take the win. I was pretty into it and it was awesome to see RJ win a state title in his last game as a high school lacrosse player. Went for an easy hour spin Sat. night and watched the season finale of Lost that we had been holding off on watching. That show is outrageous. I wish I could quit watching, but I just can't.
Sunday we rolled out to the Wildwood circuit race for L's race at 9am and I helped her get ready to massacre some cat 4 women. She had a decent field for her race and managed to get 3rd by about half a bike length to the winner. She lead out the sprint and I think she had it in the bag if she hadn't "forgotten" to reach for a harder gear. Damn Little 5-ers. We ran in to St. Louis celeb Kevin Moore at the race and chatted with him for a few as well.
In my race I was determined to make it into the break, but didn't really think about the consequences of making the break... you have to work it to make it go. Well I got away with two of the local TT guys on the hilly circuit and they were punishing me. We were away for all but the first 2 or 3 laps of the race. For a bit we had Nathan Rice, a good cross racer from that area with us in the move, but he fell off the pace after some of the strong turns from the other two, not me. I tried to do what I could to help them out, but these dudes were seriously rolling it. I told them I wasn't going to sprint them and moved to the back of the break with a few laps to go so I didn't get in the way. They attacked each other with a half lap to go and I just cruised in by myself for 3rd. It was nice to make to move, but it definitely showed me that I've still got a long way to go before I'm back in real race shape.
I averaged 195 bpm for an hour... How's that for hurt box?
After a trip to Panera with K-Moore, Lauren and I headed to her family's lake house to do a whole lot of nothing... and we were successful. Took the boat out a bit, slept, ate. It was a nice way to spend the holiday. The weather was too rainy for me to work on my fabulous tan, but a solid weekend none the less.
A huge shout out to my teammates who had a solid weeknd in Iowa and the others who went to Pennsylvania for the weekend. Andy Moskal picked up a "W" in PA. Greg "Calves" Christian got second to Bergman at Quad Cities on Monday. Paul Martin took 2nd and Dan Campbell 7th at Snake Alley. Friday, Chris Uberti snuck in with the sprinters in the Burlington RR to take 8th. Good work guys. Looking forward to being back out there with you full time.
I got into town on Friday night and just kind of kicked it with Lauren and her fam for a while and ate and then ate some more. Saturday We went to her brothers High School Lacrosse game, which happened to be the state championship. It was my first lacrosse experience and it was rad. Her bro (RJ)'s team came back from 3 goals down with 5 minutes left to play and forced overtime. Then they scored early in OT to take the win. I was pretty into it and it was awesome to see RJ win a state title in his last game as a high school lacrosse player. Went for an easy hour spin Sat. night and watched the season finale of Lost that we had been holding off on watching. That show is outrageous. I wish I could quit watching, but I just can't.
Sunday we rolled out to the Wildwood circuit race for L's race at 9am and I helped her get ready to massacre some cat 4 women. She had a decent field for her race and managed to get 3rd by about half a bike length to the winner. She lead out the sprint and I think she had it in the bag if she hadn't "forgotten" to reach for a harder gear. Damn Little 5-ers. We ran in to St. Louis celeb Kevin Moore at the race and chatted with him for a few as well.
In my race I was determined to make it into the break, but didn't really think about the consequences of making the break... you have to work it to make it go. Well I got away with two of the local TT guys on the hilly circuit and they were punishing me. We were away for all but the first 2 or 3 laps of the race. For a bit we had Nathan Rice, a good cross racer from that area with us in the move, but he fell off the pace after some of the strong turns from the other two, not me. I tried to do what I could to help them out, but these dudes were seriously rolling it. I told them I wasn't going to sprint them and moved to the back of the break with a few laps to go so I didn't get in the way. They attacked each other with a half lap to go and I just cruised in by myself for 3rd. It was nice to make to move, but it definitely showed me that I've still got a long way to go before I'm back in real race shape.
I averaged 195 bpm for an hour... How's that for hurt box?
After a trip to Panera with K-Moore, Lauren and I headed to her family's lake house to do a whole lot of nothing... and we were successful. Took the boat out a bit, slept, ate. It was a nice way to spend the holiday. The weather was too rainy for me to work on my fabulous tan, but a solid weekend none the less.
A huge shout out to my teammates who had a solid weeknd in Iowa and the others who went to Pennsylvania for the weekend. Andy Moskal picked up a "W" in PA. Greg "Calves" Christian got second to Bergman at Quad Cities on Monday. Paul Martin took 2nd and Dan Campbell 7th at Snake Alley. Friday, Chris Uberti snuck in with the sprinters in the Burlington RR to take 8th. Good work guys. Looking forward to being back out there with you full time.
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