Photos From Day 1

A few from the streets and the ride today. My new labels for my tires/ wheels. And the bikes outside the bakery.

Enjoy.

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Belgium Day 1

Pardon my less than original title, but I'm trying to save all my creativity for my Cyclingnews Journal entry later this week. I did finally make it to the house here in Izegem after a pretty terrible travel day yesterday. I was supposed to get in at 8:15 AM and ended up getting in at 10:00 PM. I had cancellations, delays, missed connections and weather issues. And it seemed like there was an ever present Euro couple publicly displaying their affection for each other practically on my shoulder. Pissin' me off a little bit.

When I got to Izegem, everything was covered in a fresh layer of snow and all the people at the house were asleep. I found my room and went right to bed since I had basically been up for 30 hours or so. I slept like a rock. I woke up an 9 AM Belgium time, did breakfast and then watched the mechanics build and dial my bikes. The mechanics seem like good guys, so nice that I almost feel guilty making them work on my stuff. Steve Fisher, Jerome Townsend and I went for a ride on the "roads". Some of them were more like narrow ice skating rinks. Steve was the only one to crash, but lots of close calls and two wheel drifting.

It constantly smells like something... either cow poop, some kind of grain, or a bakery. We also rode down the famous Canal Path and stopped at a coffee shop/ bakery. It seems like the snow is here to stay for the near future, so the World Cup should be awesome. I've got a strategy for adding some pictures to this post, but I'm not sure if it's gonna work, so if they don't show up, you'll understand. Maybe racing a race for openers tomorrow. Haven't decided yet, so maybe tomorrows entry may be a race report... YOUR FAVORITE!

Thanks for reading, silly Americans.

Bend Over

I'm currently sitting in the Salt Lake City airport in the midst of a 4 hour layover. I should find my way back to Bloomington by 11pm or so tonight, giving me a whopping 36 hours before I'll be leaving for Belgium. I feel like I've got most of my ducks in a row, but still a few major things to take care of before then.

Portland and Bend have been really great times these last few weekends and have had great atmospheres at both of the venues. My results haven't really been anything to write home about, but I'm starting to feel better every day, as some freshness returns to my legs. It's definitely a weird feeling not focusing solely on the national championships, but I'm hoping that will pay off in the next few weeks.

We had our first Euro Cross Camp gathering on Saturday night in Bend to talk about logistics and race schedules and what to expect as a first timer. I'm excited to get to know the group of guys, because apart from a few of them, I haven't really spent much time around the group. Geoff Proctor seems to be a really nice and welcoming guy. He seems to be really focusing on not just the results side of the camp, but that the riders can grow as people as well as bike racers through the experience. During our time at the house we're going to have a Sports Psychologist come by and chat with us, which should be really cool to see what he has to say. I'm down with Sports Psychology. As far as racing goes, it looks like my first race will probably be on Saturday in Lichtervelde, and then there is a World Cup in Kalmthout the next day, but we haven't decided if I'll be doing that one yet. If not there are some other options for racing on Sunday. I literally can't tell you how excited I am to get over there and mix it up.

It was nice to finally get some nasty mud to race in on Sunday at Nationals, because I was really hoping that I wouldn't get to Belgium and have that be the first mud I'd seen all year. Bend was good practice, but I'm hoping that at least some of the courses in Europe will have a little less "heavy" mud than we saw in parts of the course yesterday. Either way, I guess everyone has to ride through the same stuff, so come on wit' it!

I really want to thank all the people who have been taking care of me of over the last few weeks. First, the KCCX crew. Bill Marshall and Tom Price have been working the pits for me, transporting bikes, gluing tires, washing bikes and just generally take care of all my needs. It's hard to roll it solo at some of these races and these guys have gone out of their way to make my life easier, so thanks guys!

David and Kate have taken care of me off the bike for basically the last two weeks. Taking me to and from the airport, feeding me, laundering my clothes, letting me use their car and just generally being hilarious. I really enjoyed getting to hang out with them so much.

The guys at Zipp have been a huge part of making this trip to Nationals happen, as well as the entire cross season. From product, to transportation, to meals, to hotels, these guys have taken such good care of me and gone out of their way to help. I'm really lucky that these guys will still give me the time of day considering the other cross racers that they take care of.

And the last shout out goes to Corey Greene and the Cincinnati cyclocross crew for driving my bikes the 46 or so hour journey back to Indy from Bend, effectively saving me 400 bucks in airline fees! And also Spencer Petrov for washing and polishing up my bikes after the mudfest on Sunday. You guys are awesome!

EDIT: Since I started writing this blog entry on the way back from Bend, I've been too preoccupied with prep for Belgium that I hadn't had a chance to finish it until now. I'm back in the airport again, this time I'm taking THE trip. After some flight issues, I'm about to board for Belgium. Earlier in the post I said I wasn't sure if I'd be doing the Kalmthout World Cup this Sunday, well now it's a go. Thrown in at the deep end... I'll be kickin' my legs.

Excuse me, Sven.

So if you scour the internet like I do, then you've probably already seen the news. If you have a life, then I guess you can find out here... I've been selected to go to Belgium with Euro Cross Camp and the US National Team Director, Geoff Proctor. I'm going to BELGIUM TO RACE CYCLOCROSS! SORRY FOR YELLING, I'M JUST EXCITED!

I'm leaving on December 15th and coming home on January 2nd. While I'm there I'll be living in Izegem, Belgium at the National Team house. There are 8 potential races while I'm there, including 2 World Cups (Kalmthout and Zolder), a Superprestige in Diegem, a GVA Trophey race in Loenhout, and the GP Sven Nys in Sven's home town of Baal. Serious stuff. I'm excited, motivated, and a little scared, but the good kind of scared (if there is such a thing).



Knowing that this was on the horizon has made this last block of training so much easier, it's unbelievable. Thinking about cutting that last interval short? Better not. If you do , Sven and his pal Zdenek will lap you in 20 minutes. Not a difficult decision to put in the effort.



I know that this will be a humbling experience as well as one that can teach me so much, so quickly. I'm not going into this with any individual goals, but more the goal to go over and race as hard as I can, be as mentally tough as I can when I'm in these difficult environments, and gain every possible bit of knowledge that I can from these 3 weeks. Oh, and have fun. I think that this will be a life changing experience and hopefully give me lots of knowledge to take away.

As you can imagine, a three week trip to Belgium isn't cheap by any stretch of the imagination, so I'm working on raising some money to help offset the cost of my trip. We're guessing it's going to cost somewhere around $3,500- $4,000 to make this happen, so any little bit helps. I'm going to put a PayPal button up so that anyone who's interested in helping can make a donation. If you don't have a PayPal account, shoot me an email at knapprd@gmail and we can figure something out.

I should be able to update this thing quite a bit while I'm over there, so check back for updates during the Holiday season. And also before then, because I've still got some racing to do stateside first.

Thanks to all of you who have supported me along my journey so far. I really appreciate it. I know that I wouldn't even be in this position if it weren't for so many of you helping me over the last 3 years.

As you know, Cross Nationals and the USGP Finals, and some other important races are just around the corner for me. I'm nearing the end of my final training block for the year and just got back from Iowa this weekend. Before I can give you the short and not so sweet low-down on Iowa, I need to report on my racing in North Carolina the previous weekend.

My dad decided to make the trip to NC with me and it was nice to get some time with him rather that karokeing in the car by myself during the drive to and fro. We got in late Friday night and I decided to ride the trainer for a little while to see if it really did any good for my legs the next morning. Well even though I had put in some pretty hard training days that week, a little trainer riding and foam rollering had my legs feeling pretty nice for Saturdays race. I guess I'm gonna be one of those trainer riding guys from now on.

Saturdays and Sundays courses and races were nearly identical in all aspects. The front group was pretty big because there were long open sections in between the technical sections and that would always allow things to come back together to some degree. Although the groups were a bit bigger, there were really only a few guys showing their face at the front and "racing". It became pretty tactical and a lot about positioning for the last lap of the race. Luckily there were a few harder sections at the end of the lap that allowed the race to be sorted out and didn't result in a big, road style, bunch kick.




I felt good through the entirety of both days, but think I wasn't quite strong enough to match Matter and Fratinni at the end. I also think I should have raced more aggressive in the finale both days as well. I ended with two 3rd places, but I was nearly as pleased that I had good legs after such a hard week of training. I really believe that taking care of them better after my rides and the drive down played a bit part in still being able to race at a decent level in the midst of a training block. Learning is FUNdemental. And good for UCI points.



I don't have much time, and don't really want to, so I'm not going to say much about Jingle Cross. Crashes, rolled tubulars, bad legs, bad bike handling, and who knows what else. I'm glad that weekend is behind me and I can focus on the bigger things coming down the pipe.



My crash as a result of a rolled tire on an off-camber. If I had known how the rest of the weekend was going to go, I'd have just kept rolling down that hill, all the way back to Bloomington...

You win some and you lose some. I'm still feeling pretty good about the way things are going. See you in Portland.

Kenny Tarmac

"Hey, Guy, I just landed! Yeah, IND to BDL!" Sorry if you don't get the reference. What I'm trying to say is that I've been on airplanes too much recently. Those things just fall out of the sky for no reason, ya know?

I've racel a lot lately and some have gone well and others haven't. I really raced poorly at the USGP in Louisville, then I went to New Jersey and raced a lot better, but still not great, and finally, I was in Northampton, MA last weekend and didn't really ride very well either. Kinda bummed about it, but I feel like I'm going the right direction since I shit my pants (not literally... ahem, collegiate nats RR 07) at the USGP. I was happy to get a "real" podium at Beacon Cross, but besides that, I feel like I've just been a bit off from where I need to be, should be and would like to be.

New Jersey was an experience all together. I flew with two bikes in two giant hard cases and took the train to John Minturn's place in Manayunk for the weekend. I aint from the city, so that was a bit of an experience, especially with the two giant boxes. John was an great host for the weekend and staying with him/ carpooling to the races saved me millions of dollars and actually probably made the rest of my cross season possible. Because I got dinged 350 big ones by the effing Delta bitches, I was looking for a way to avoid flying my bikes home and then right back to MA the next weekend. Adam Myerson and Lyne Lamoureux from Podium Insight each came through for me and each took a bike from New Jersey to races in Massachusetts. That potentially saved me 700 bones. So thankful that bike racing isn't like golf. Many less dousches. John Minturn even fedex'd the empty boxes home for me. Nice people are awesome. Not to mention all the nice people with the C3 team from Baltimore who were trying to help me out with my bikes situation too. Sorry to make this so sappy, but I've really just been amazed with all the great people going out of there way to make shit happen for me.

Northampton, MA was my next destination for Adam Myerson's Cycle-Smart International races. I got home from NJ on Monday night and was back at the airport again on Friday morning at 6 AM, a bit too short of a turn around for my liking, but then again, I'm going to race my bike, so I really have nothing to complain about.

Massachusetts was perfect. I don't know why I like that area so much, but I've been looking forward to going back since Fitchburg last season. I stayed with Steve Roszko, the owner/ founder of BikeReg.com. He lives right on a bike path that runs directly into the park where the CSI races were held. Rough set up, I know. Steve and his wife took care of all my meals and I had a nice bed to sleep in thanks to their 7 year old son, Oscar, lending his out to me. I was able to do the 10-15 minutes spin to and from the course every day and it couldn't have worked out any better. I almost forgot, I got off the plane and Steve was waiting by the curb with the BikeReg team car and my bike already picked up from Myerson, waiting for me in the back. Unbelievable. I felt like Burt Reynolds or somethin'.

I'm glad that I've refrained from giving you guys the boring details/ excuses about these recent races,I wasn't sure I'd be able to do it. I've been thinking about how I just wanted to do a post about all the people who have been helping make this last block of travel and racing possible. Thanks to all of you who have been going out of your way to let me play the bike game this year. It's fun. I'm not really traveling to race this weekend, so I'm actually going to do some hard training and sleep in my own bed. I've gotta put some serious efforts in the bank during these next few weeks, because Nationals and the USGP finals are just around the corner.



Anyone around Bloomington want to motorpace me soon?

Thanks for reading.

P.S. I decided not to post any pictures with this entry, even though there are lots of good ones from Podium Insight, because I'm sick of seeing the stupid face I'm always making when I'm racing cross.

P.P.S Jonny Sundt is a nice dude. We've been talking a good bit at these races recently and he might be the nicest bike racer I know. I told him I used to hate him because he yelled at me. He didn't remeber, but didn't doubt it.

Ice Socks... Wha?

That was some seriously un-cyclocrossy weather! The Cincinnati UCI3 Weekend has come and gone and I employed the ice sock tactic at a cyclocross race. Unbelievable.

I seem to forget how hard these 3 day cyclocross weekends are. Stage race hard. So, I was talking to (name drop coming up) Jeremy Powers on Sunday and we decided that this was definitely harder than Joe Martin. You try to do 3, one hour time trials in a row and see how you legs feel. Anyway, it was all in the name of fun and UCI points.

Friday was a new course from last years slog in the mud, but no less brutal. Very, dry, dusty, and some said "mountain bikey". It was one of those courses where you couldn't really ride it easy. With temps in the mid 80's too much time above red-line and there was no coming back from it, the theme for the weekend. I got an uncharachteristicly good start and slotted in 3rd wheel behind Powers and Trebon, exactly where I didn't want to be. I was afraid I'd go too hard, too early, following those two, but the pace wasn't terrible so I decided to follow for a few. Eventually I settled into a group with Chris Jones and Troy Wells, racing for 6th place. We weren't really close to catching anyone, or being caught. I was comfortable for a while, but started feeling it with a few laps to go and went out the back. I was able to ride the last few laps solo and avoid being caught by Jake Wells in 9th. I was toast afterwards, but pleased with the placing.



We stayed at Chris and Kim Chartier's as we do every year for these races and it was awesome, as it is every year. I knew my legs were milked, so I tried to do the "professional" thing and drink water instead of beer and give my body a good shot at recovery.

Saturday was hot and dusty again, but the course had less elevation change and was more wide-open. I spent the time before the race trying to convince myself that my legs felt ok and that they'd be fine once we started racing, and I did a good job of it. I lied. I felt like trash for every second of that race. Not only did I have shit for legs, I had shit for brains. I couldn't seem to hit any of my lines and I felt like I was giving up 10 seconds a lap, in about 5 different spots on the course. It was just one of those days where I couldn't put it together. Group after group spat me out the back until I limped in in 13th place. Bummed, but optimistic for the big C1 on Sunday.



My legs felt infinitely better turning the pedals during warm up for Harbin Park. With all the traffic, the course was disintegrating by the hour and I spent a good amount of time pondering tire selection. I checked the with others and some were riding Mud tires and others, semi-slicks. There was no continuity as to the tread du jour. I Felt like my FMB semi slicks were hooking up well, so I went with them. I decided not to ride the course between the women's race and our race, which in hindsight, may have been a mistake. I got an average start, but I guess I was just far enough back that I felt like I had a million bees buzzing around my head through every corner, so I took to moving up through the first few corners of the course. No sooner than I take the "hot line" through a slippery off-camber corner, I find myself on my ass. Crashed. Chain dropped. Race riding away. I scrambled to right the ship and get to chasing. After one balls-out lap, I found myself in the group racing for 13th. I'm ping-ponging off of riders trying to get through that group and in search of the next targets. Just as I'm about to head out the good end of that group I come up on Derrick St. John at the bottom of the screaming descent with the "g-out" at the bottom. Since I was in kamikaze mode, I didn't touch the brakes. Apparently he isn't familiar with the Ricky Bobby mentality and was just fine with 13th place and taking it easy through that corner. Before I knew it I was on his ass, and soon after that we were rubbing wheels and I was body slamming myself on the fastest part of the course. Perfect.

I ate it hard. While I was going down, I thought to myself; "welp, there goes the collar bone. I can't believe you've done it again." I managed to tuck and roll and avoid breakage, but I had knocked the air out myslef and proceeded to roll around on the ground for a minute, regaining composure. I thought about dropping out, but decided that was for losers (so is finishing 23rd, but less loser-ish than quitting). I found my bike, straightened the bars and shifters and set out riding hard out of anger and desire for gas money.



It was really nice to hear all the cheers for me even though I wasn't preforming well. There are so many awesome supporters in the Ohio Valley and honestly, I didn't want to set an example for all those Red Zone kids that quitting is the thing to do. I was nearly last after the second wreck and managed to make it up to about 19th or 20th, but riding with reckless abandon for an hour caught up with me on the last lap and I gave a few spots back as I limped in.

It's hard to say that the weekend was a failure, because it was so much fun and I managed to get one decent result, but it was nowhere near what I was looking for. I feel like I missed a huge opportunity by letting the C1 points slip away, but as they say, "that's bike racing". I wish I could personally thank everyone who came up to me with something nice to say, or encouraging words during the race, it really means a lot to have such a home field advantage when I get to race a UCI in my area. Thanks to everyone who cheered, regardless of how fast or slow I was going this weekend.



Coming up we've got our OVCX race in Bloomington this weekend, BloomingCross. Barry Wicks is coming down to do a clinic on Saturday at 4 pm and then we're doing a bonfire/party after the clinic. The after the bonfire/party we're taking Wicknasty to Kilroy's for a Jager Bomb, Bear's for a Hairy Bear and Upstairs for an AMF. All the while, I'll be drinking water. Gotta find some way to beat him on Sunday.

See you this weekend!

Thanks to Lyne from Podium Insight for all the photos!