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.

So here is a vid of my first race.

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.

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.