Road stage tomorrow should be a blast.

Howdy!

So it's been just over two weeks here in Europe/Belgium (now in France for 5 days), and I like it here. The races are fun, the food is great, and there is no real excuse to ride bad. Almost everything you need is given to you so that all you have to do is ride your bike; that's awesome.

Tour de Alsace starts tonight with an opening 4k TTT. It's more of a show for the people than an all out affair. Team startegy hasn't yet been decided how to ride it. It's not for GC just the opening jerseys. It would be awesome to rock this thing and start off with a jersey, but there are some big boys out to play.


A couple pics of the riding around France.








Heres a pic of the view from our hotel window. That's the Gare train station.



Heres the group out training.

This is a 15-16 here at the house sprinting for 3rd. There was some miscommunication as the 1st and 2nd place Americans were supposed to do a big celebrtion.

TIRED!

So here is a vid of my first race.

Heres my first video blog. I'm not to good at the whole interview thing yet, but i'll get it down one day. I will be doing more of these once the raceing starts. First Kermeese is Sat and then the big show starts Wed.

The House.


So I made it to the house. It seems pretty cool, but we will see how things go once I spend some more time here.


The flight went well, pretty empty flight so I got to stretch out along 3 seats.


Havn't gone on a ride yet, but the weather here looks pretty decent at the moment.

Later tonight I'll get the first of my video diaries up.


jet lag sucks!

Nationals!



Long week to say the least. I had tons of fun with all the guys before we parted ways, for the last big race of the year.

The RR went ok, I did my early work as best I could and then got dropped. A break went with one of our guys in it. Slipstream called the bluff and the break stayed away for the most part. Peter road like a man and didn't quite have it in the very end. Chad came up and got a 7th and TJ came in for a top 20. The TT went well, TJ road for a solid 3rd and Zack came in for a nice 5th. With a day of rest, the guys and I were ready for the crit. Plan was to attack and make the race hard. All the guys did awesome awesome work and I sprinted for 4th.

Overall im happy with the result, and I think i'm ready to survive in Europe.


Sleepy time. I get to spend a lovely 10 hours in the New York airport tomorrow after waking up at 5am. YAY im so so exicted.

PA!


Well arived late last night. Didn't get a ride in like I would have liked but oh well.


The resort place were staying at is pretty nice. We are staying in some condo's at the top of the hill. It's like apartments with full kitchen and those kind of things.


It is real cool to have all the guys here. Well Bookwalter isn't here, but we all miss him, and Sheldon is to old now. But the morale is pretty high, and the climbers are ready to rock. I'm going to help out as long as I can, and make sure no one messes with my boys.

The RR course is pretty wicked, your either in an aero tuck, pedaling the mess out of your 53X11 or climbing something wicked. We did one lap today in the rain, it was sweet. Warm weather plus warm rain equals OK! At one point we couldn't see 100ft or so in front of us for a few min. I'm hoping it rains for our race, it should slow it down a little bit early on.


So I got a video camera before this long long trip, should have some interviews up by the end of the week. The condo doesnt have wireless so I only get the net when we get lunch or dinner at the resteraunt.



Thats it for now.

Long week


After the long travel day on Monday.
Rest day Tuesday.
Scorching hot 4th of July in Davis.
A lite day yesterday.
Track racing tonight.


The body is tired, the legs is tired, the mind is tired.

Im sure basketball in the pool didn't help the body and legs.


I'm not sure how the track is going to play out tonight, not sure how well the message got spread that there was track. Plus the legs feel terrible.


Hopefully tomorrow I can some easy bucks in the morning, and then actually race my bike in the twilight.

Then 3 absolutely beautiful rest days, well 2 and a half. Tuesday is a travel day, but I'm hopeing it's not so bad.


I'm off to nats, and then to europe to get my feet wet in the big boy racing.

That is what's making my mind tired.

What a waste of a day.

I'm in an airport right now, been here sense 9am, had to leave the hotel around 8 so would have been pretty tough to get in a spin that early, with all that packing after. My flight doesn't leave tell 5 wont get home tell 8 so no way to ride after I get home. But what is completely cracking me is that i'm in an airport for 8 hours. this totally sucks.


So the final day of Fitchburg.

The crit.


I found out it is possible to have a 3 corner crit. One big U-turn, a small sweeper then to real tight left handers to a slight up hill drag.

First off the boys absolutely killed it today, road like seasoned pros and showed everyone there we have the strength and balls to ride. Through out the whole weekend we were the only team to really step up and ride as a team. Unfortunetly we didn't get a result besides Zacks flying TT. Back to the crit. An early break got away and got a good gap quickly; with no other teams wanting to step we massed at the front to bring it back. A few Rite-Aid guys were up there, but really ride that hard. At first the gap wasnt coming down, but the boys kept focused and road the hell out of there bikes and started to bring it back. By 10 to go the break really started to sit up and we caught them really quick. Then the counter attacks started to fly, and the pace really picked up. The boys were cooked from the steller work, and I had to start riding my bike. For the next 10 laps it was attack after attack, and the final few laps were pretty hectic in the bottom 2 corners. A last minute swarm killed what I thought was a good spot to be in, and then guys sprinting backwards nearly crashing eachother ruined anything I might have been able to make up.

So in the end I didn't come up with anything for the boys amazing work. At the end of the day I was really frustrated that I couldn't come up with anything.

Overall we got some great team riding in the 3 days of racing, and came together to race our bikes. This is a great thing going into nationals a week or so away.

For me its time to spend some time with my lovely flower Rose, and get my head on straight before a long 40 days of travel.

Ugh more airport time.

Fitchburg Update.


The lack of updates are due to lack of wireless in our original hotel.

So the TT was garbage, I don't do enough of them especially on a TT bike. So the legs don't turn over well in that position.

The circuit race was a tough one. A stair step 600m climb at 10-12%. Then the rest of the circuit was super fast. On the second lap both our GC guys got caught up in a crash along with 3 others from our team, me included. Bjorn was the first up so Ben and I paced him back to the group along with Spencer and Chris who came back from the group. The next time up the climb Bjorn has a big shifting problem and has to get off the bike to fix it. I was still in the back of the group, so I radioed Spencer to fall back again to help pace him back. By the time we hit the climb I was cracked, lucky for me they were using crit rules so I could wait to get lapped and jump back in to help out. After 3 laps easy by myself I jumped back in and got to work. The first half of the race I felt pretty bad, but the legs started to come around when it was necessary. With 2 to go the team got to the front to help string it out and get Bjorn in to position for a good finish. Coming down the screaming fast downhill before the right hander in to the finish, I had Bjorn in perfect position. Sense Bjorn hasn't had much experience with the lead out he jumped way early and couldn't quite make it to the finish. The team road really solid all day and showed great teamwork. Unfortunately 2 of our strongest didn't finish due to injury.

The RR was super TOUGH! I was hearing different story's of how easy/hard this course was. So going in to it I wasn't sure what to expect. It was going to be a long 108miles. Just about 4 or so miles I find myself off the front with one guy who has no draft. So we do a few rotations, along the more up than down 11 mile circuit. As soon as I saw the climb each I lap, I knew it was going to be a brutal day. The climb was something like 200m at 10%ish then right up 6-8% percent threw the feed zone, then a small bit of false flat into a small down hill to the 1500m points hill that just drug on and on. After that came a screaming 95kph down hill back into the rollers before you do the climb again. I got caught by the group on the downhill just after the points. Back in the field the rollers were much easier but that dango climb was the death of me. I made it about 4 times tell I started to get shelled off the back. Luckily enough the car was there to pick me up every time. Power bottle after power bottle with a little bit of pacing got me back in to the field every time. With such a huge time cut I could have easily sat up and taken' a lap and still been OK. But with super motivation from the team car and a really good joke kept a smile on my face to finish. But what made my day was what a SRAM guy said on the last lap. "You have a messed up way of entertaining yourself" I almost fell off my bike when he said that, it was great. I made it up the final 2k climb eventually and got some water and all the after race stuff.


I'm whooped. I'm feeling muscles I've never felt before. Hopefully I can find some legs before tonight's crit.

Wish for me please!