Visas and Europe

So it has been awfully quiet about me lately, the main reason being the I spent most of the summer back home in Europe. I traveled a little, followed up with old friends and rode my bike. I also hit some races here but mainly for fun. I am lacking some motivation without a team here to go out and race each weekend, so I must confess that I bailed on a couple... Nevertheless, my form is still decent (hopefully).

Now, the reason for spending the summer in Europe was that we finally decided on straighten out the visa situation. I applied for an athlete visa and in order to do so you need to be out of the US. So here I am and the whole visa issue finally went through too. I'll pick it up tomorrow afternoon at the US Embassy here in Luxembourg and will be flying back to Dallas on Friday. From there we will continue to Las Vegas for Interbike early next week. If I can I would love to race Cotton Patch this weekend but I'll have to wait and see how bad of a jet-lag I'll have.

Anyways, I can't wait to be back and I'll hopefully manage to write here a little more regularly in the next couple of months.

News?

Not really. Nothing big happening here, just riding my bike. I wish there were some local races to go to but everyone is complaining about the heat... There is a race out in Copperas Cove on Saturday but they start it at 7:30 am! "...Otherwise it will get too hot!" Well, I would go and race in the heat but starting that early is going to make me think very hard if I want to go down there. We shall see.

Racing Update

Ok, so here’s a short summary of the last couple of races we did. After Joe Martin we headed out to Shreveport, LA for the Rocky Mount Stage Race. Russ Walker hosted the team and he and his wife are awesome! I must have picked up at least 5 pounds thanks to the great food and all… Anyways, the racing went all right, I ended up in a breakaway on the first stage and finished second, the same place I ended up in GC. I lost a lot of time in the TT, partly due to the lack of tt equipment (helmet and disc) but I don’t think I would have been able to catch Mat Davis anyways, so no biggie. We controlled the crit pretty well but Phillip got jumped at the finish and came in second. All in all, two podiums on stages and a second GC was ok.

Next up was Memorial weekend and the Texas State Championships. We raced really well, were super aggressive but just lacked that little bit of luck. Also, Heath Blackgrove and Team Hotel San Jose rode extremely well. Also, Andrew had a bad day, otherwise the result might have been different… well, you can’t win every time.

Finally, last weekend we were in Tulsa for the Tulsa Tough. Andrew, Benji and I did the Pro/1 race all three days. Benji did well, finishing top 20 each day. I went on the attack on day 2 and 3 and spend some time in a break with Floyd Landis on Saturday (even though Cyclingnews thinks otherwise) and most of the day off the front on Sunday. Unfortunately, I got caught with 5 laps to go and the counter stayed away… Bad timing. Oh well, I still got my moment of glory and had a good time. Now, if we can finally pull it together and get some wins, everything will be good.

The next couple of weeks will be somewhat mellow racing wise, nothing big coming up. As a matter of fact, me and some of the team will be at the Mad Duck ride this Saturday. Come out and ride with us, if you can. See you there.

Crazy

Sorry for slacking on blogging lately, I'll catch up on posting about the races shortly. In the meantime, here is something pretty entertaining. Enjoy.

Home Sweet Home

Now, if I only go as fast as Taylor through those streets in Esch/Alzette, Luxembourg...

Some Pics from Joe Martin

Joe Martin wrap-up

Man, that was a hard weekend. After Peter's awesome ride on Friday, which put him in 1st GC and the loss of Andrew due to a mechanical, I was the only team mate he had left to defend his lead over the weekend. I am not a big fan of Saturday’s road/ circuit course and after this weekend I dislike it even more. It was super hard! Of cause everyone tried to attack Peter asap and we didn’t even make it onto the loop when the on slaughter started. Knowing Peter, I tried to set a steady tempo at the front of the pack, especially over the climbs while keeping tabs on the other contenders and keeping the breakaways close. I ended up sitting at the front of the pack for most of the day and even ended up in a breakaway at one point. For good measure, I also put in some attacks to not give everyone a free ride, after all, I was sitting 4th overall so by making the others chase Peter got a free ride and I didn’t have to react to other rider’s attacks. It turned out we did a good job. Everyone was too tired at the end that Peter actually managed to ride away from the pack within the last couple of miles again (how they could let him go I do not know or understand) and he solidified his lead before Sunday’s crit. I came in with the pack, still sitting in 4th GC but man, I was tired.

With Peter now leading by a solid 22 sec over second place and myself only 8 sec out of second, we approached the last day with two goals: first and foremost, we had to secure Peters spot. At the same time, knowing how hard the crit course at Joe Martin is, we were also eyeing second GC for me. We rode an aggressive race and Peter’s GC was never in real danger. With one lap to go, Peter himself went to the front and put in one of his signature one-lap-pulls-that-blows-away-your-mind and got me into the last corner third wheel. I was pretty tired at that point and couldn’t quite unleash the power I needed to get up the finish climb in first but it was enough to finish second. That’s 7 sec time bonus right there. When I looked back, I saw that we had a small gap to third… It would be close. They ended up scoring third place 1 second down on me but that would have put me at the same time as the second placed guy in GC and because he had had the better TT he would have stayed second. Fortunately for me and thanks to Peter’s outstanding lead out, there was a split in the field and second and third GC got caught on the wrong side of the split.

So, to make a long story short, I moved up to 2nd GC while Peter stayed in 1st!

Now I’m back in Dallas and, as of 4 pm, still in bed. I’m “slightly” tired but I guess that’s ok. I’ll be back on the bike tomorrow, but for today, I’m just gonna chill and enjoy the win. Maybe some Braum’s later tonight… That actually sounds really good right now.

Hope to have some pics from the weekend up soon.

News from Joe Martin

So here we are after Stage 2 of the Joe Martin Stage Race and we have something to celebrate: Peter won the race today - solo of cause - and is now leading the GC! He was sitting 5th after yesterdays TT. The plan for today was to just sit back and see what would happen. 110 miles are a long time for events to unfold. Andrew got a flat and thanks to some "awesome" wheel-changing-action, where he lost about 2:30 minutes, he didn't finish today. I was a little more fortunate when a spoke on my front wheel broke and I needed to get a wheel change. I didn't loose too much time and was able to catch back on. So with a little less than 10 km to go we got to play out our little tactical game we had layed out before the stage: I was to attack first, maybe get away - but the likelihood of that was pretty slim - but mainly to give Peter a chance to counter as soon as I got caught. It worked perfectly and Peter was off the front solo for the last 6 km. I made sure no one would pull him back and covered moves. I still managed to come in 5th of the day, barely missing top 3. It would have been nice to finish in the time bonuses (top3) but Peters win compensated for that.

The only unfortunate thing about the whole situation is that we only have two guys left in the race: Peter and myself. Sooooo, tomorrow will be a hard piece of work...

30 minutes to the start of RR 1 at Joe Martin

Just wanted to let you know that we are still alive and kicking. Made it back from Speedweek last Monday and we are at Joe Martin right now.
More soon, hopefully tonight.

A VERY Short Update

Ok, so not a lot of news lately, sorry for that. I’ve been extremely busy between planning our trips, traveling and racing… and the lack of internet access also didn’t help. So here’s the rundown on the last 3 weeks of racing.

First up: Mississippi Gran Prix. The weekend went ok but not as good as we had hoped. We finished 5^th, 6^th and 7^th in GC, Peter and I were in a break in the road race and got caught within the last 10 meters and we finished 2^nd in Team GC. All right but we had come there with higher goals…

Next: Matrix Challenge. On Saturday I ended up in the winning break but didn’t feel too good so I was hoping that the guys would bring it back so we could set up Andrew. Unfortunately that didn’t happen and I finished 4^th out of the 4-man-break… Sunday, we held it together for a sprint but Andrew got pinched in the last turn and couldn’t get the result we were hoping for, I think it was 6^th or so. Again not what we had hoped for.

Finally: Speedweek. We hopped in the van right after Matrix and drove the 17 hours to Baufort, SC for our first shot at one of the Speedweek crits. Considering the drive and the fact that the crit was one of the faster ones we did all right, Benji came in 13^th, Andrew 16^th and I finished 24^th. Yesterday we traveled on to Spartanburg, SC and the race itself felt a little better but the finish was a little sketchy and the best we could come up with was a 21^st place. Not too happy with that but we are all looking forward to tomorrow’s race. After an off day today we should be good to go and hot for the race.

For instant results and other race coverage go to the Speedweek Homepage or to cyclingnews.com

Off Week...?

Well, at least in theory. I did manage to cut back on my hours on the bike and did NOT race this weekend but I sure was busy the whole week long. I'm in the process of planning our next two road trips, the first this week to Mississippi for the Mississippi Grand Prix and the second in two weeks time to USA Crits Speed Week. Both are multiple day events and at least Speed Week requires quite some travel in between races. But it is fun to take care of the organization for those trips. But it keeps you busy.

On top of it, Brad got some of us out to ride on Thursday. It was a good ride but I ended up with close to 4 hours in the saddle that day. A little too long for my liking for an off week.

At least I had some down time this weekend. I finally got back on the trails to ride a little mtb on Saturday. The guys at the duck let me borrow an awesome bike again and Chlue, Pete, Demian and all the others have really done a great job on the new sections on North Shore. I had a blast. In the evening, Demian let me play around on his new PS3. Wow, that thing rocks but it got rather late... figure that. After sleeping in on Sunday, I headed over to Demian and Debbie again for a really nice Easter lunch. Got to watch Paris-Roubaix too and to prevent all the good food to slow me down too much in the weeks to come we went for an easy spin afterwards.

All in all an awesome weekend. Thanks to all the folks that invited me over and really made me feel at home.

Now we have only a couple of days left and it will be back on the road again. Looking forward to Mississippi and especially Speed Week. Everyone on the team is hot and ready to go so I'm sure we'll do rather well at the upcoming races.

Stay tuned!

Tuesday Night Crit

Didn't ride it yesterday but took some photos of the team. Andrew, Gonzo, Austin, Ashley and Brad were out there. Congrats to Brad for finishing 2nd in the B race and hanging in there afterwards in the A race. The boys rode a smart race and it payed off with Andrew winning the day and Austin coming in 4th.

Check out the pics on my Facebook

The first Metro Volkswagen Crit Skills Clinic

… was a great success. Thanks to all who made it possible and especially to all of you who cam out there. I think everyone who joined us out in Plano for the weekend could see some improvement in their riding by the end. Then we got to finish it up with a real race. Fun!

During the weekend the riders acted as instructors to teach interested cyclists about skills needed to ride a crit successfully. On Saturday we taught basic crit skills, like starting, cornering and moving in the group as well as riding in a pace line. We had a pretty strong wind out there so it made teaching pace lines a little easier as people could definitely feel when they were in the right position and in the draft. Cornering was a little tentative at first but that was also the area where most people made the biggest gains and by the end we hauling through the turns.

On Sunday Rahsaan Bahati came out to lend us a hand. He explained the basics of sprinting and how to position yourself for the final sprint. In the afternoon everyone could put their newly learned skills to the test in a real race. The girls blew their race completely apart. For the guys the main objective was to put the cat 2 riders into a position to where they were able to get some upgrade points. It was a hard race, especially with a strong wind blowing all day but we managed to achieve our goal. It wasn’t enough for a win but Gonzo got second (behind Rahsaan, no shame there), Phillip got 4^th and Evan 6^th, all in the points.

All in all, it was a very successful weekend. Maybe we will do it again but please with less wind and maybe a little later start times (I don’t like getting up at 5 am…)

This week is going to be pretty mellow for me as it is another off week. We’ll be racing for the next month straight with the Mississippi GP, Matrix, Speedweek and Joe Martin coming up all within 4 weeks. So I’ll enjoy a little time off and get ready to kick some serious behind on the upcoming weeks.

Cheers

Redlands Roundup

So we are finally back in Dallas after two weeks in California. On the one hand the trip turned out to be disappointing as the racing didn’t go as we had hoped it would. On the other hand, we had some awesome hosts and met some great people. Thanks again to Randy and Lisa, as well as the Gornays for taking such good care of us.

The second stage in Redlands was a crit which turned out to be a crash fest. I managed to stay out of trouble but Andrew and Chris weren’t so luck and hit the deck. Both were able to finish though. We got though it but weren’t a factor during the race. Benji (aka Princess Bebe) salvaged the day by finishing 19th. Not great but at least something. GC didn’t change a lot, I think I moved up to 78th maybe.

Sunday was the big one. A 10 km circuit had to be tackled 12 times (plus some out and back). The circuit had NO flat sections, either up or down. Whit time bonuses and KOM points in the first 3 laps the tempo was brutal and it didn’t take long for the field to fall apart. I held on the longest but also got caught on the wrong side of the split and ended up in what turned to be the main group. It was a decent result but nothing to brag about. I had hoped to do better but just did not have the legs to do it. As a saving grace, I moved up to 50th in final GC. Yay!

The drive back was pretty much a straight shot and we made it back to Dallas on Tuesday night, just in time to get ready for the FCS Metro Volkswagen Crit Clinic this coming weekend. Besides teaching some crucial crit skills we’ll also have a race on Sunday out in Plano. So, come out and join us for a great weekend.

Redlands, Day 2

Today was the first stage of the Redlands Bicycle Classic, „The City of Baumont Road Race”. We had to complete 4 laps of 39 km, which came out to 155 km of fun. As we got out of the van at the start we were nearly blown off our feet… this wind also made the race pretty hard. Fortunately, we didn’t have too many cross wind sections but in the few that we had the race got very chaotic. People just don’t know about echelons here apparently, so everyone rather sits in the gutter and open up gaps when they pop… Enough said.

As if that wasn’t hard enough, we had a couple of miles of super smooth, slightly downhill roads with a tailwind. Now, that doesn’t sound bad but according to my SRM I maxed out at 191 rpms and about 55 mph and still couldn’t hold some wheels. Not my favorite part of the race.

Anyways, the race blew apart a couple of times but rolled back together until the last lap. Once we hit the climb on the lap, my legs where so shot that I had nothing left and had to let the pack go. I found myself in the fourth bigger chase group after it was all said and done together with Andrew. We finished 1:41 down and I dropped to 80^th in GC. Not the kind of result I was looking for but I feel that this is about what I am capable of doing at this point so I have to be happy with it.

Tomorrow we’ll race the crit. It looks very technical and should be hard again. But I am confident that we will do all right and am actually looking forward to it. I’ll keep you posted.

News form California

It is Wednesday night, the eve of the Redlands Classic Prolog. We had a couple of days to recover from the rigors of the San Dimas Stage Race and I must say Randy Lisa, our hosts, made our time very enjoyable. Between beach time, great home made food and great breakfast at the beach, we are all ready to go and can't wait to finally all race tomorrow. But take a look for yourself.

Today we prerode the prolog course here at Redlands and the team is pretty undecided on what bike to use. Most of the course is uphill, even though only the last kilometer of the five are really steep. I guess I'll go with the road bike as long as the wind doesn't pick up over night... we shall see.

You can find out if the choice of material was the right one tomorrow night - right here.

Mobile Update from San Dimas

I don't have internet up here so here is just a very brief update from this weekends racing. It was a very strange experience as we got here and didn't know if we were even racing as the race was full and we were on the waiting list. So we had to actually sit at registration all geared up and wait and hope that someone would not pick up their number. I was the "lucky" one to get the first and only spot that opened up; the others didn't get as lucky and had to watch from the sideline. Very disappointing!
As for the race itself: the TT went ok, the circuit race was extremely hard and the crit super fast. I got dropped at the end of the circuit race but still finished within the time limit. In the crit today I was so tired though that I was happy just to hang on and finish with the pack.
Hopefully I'll be able to recover from this weekends ordeal and be better prepared for Redlands next week.
More soon.

Rouge Aftermath

Most of this week was spent dealing with the side effects of racing on dirt roads. Also, I didn’t have to ride that much because I was on an off week and the weather was pretty miserable, so it called for some indoor activities. It took me quite a while to get the all the dirt off my bike and gear.

I also finally got a new phone this week. No more begging to use a teammates phone to write a text and no more missing out on team dinners due to the lack of availability. I spend a lot of time this week just getting used to the new thing as it has many more features than any of my old phones. A nice toy for sure.

The rain this week also prevented me form going down to Waco to race another mtb race of the TMBRA series. The promoter postponed the event due to the adverse condition on the course… so much for rain or shine. I was pretty bummed about that as I always liked that race and also because I will probably not be able to race a lot more mtb races this year.

The good thing about all of this is that I got to sleep in most of the days and just had a lazy week, recovering and getting ready for our California trip. We will be leaving tomorrow far about two weeks, racing San Dimas and Redlands over at the west coast.

Stay tuned for more on that trip.

More Rouge News

First of all, I completely forgot to mention that the girls had an incredible showing at Rouge as well. Casey finished 1st, Ashley 2nd, Whitney 4th, Shannon 5th and Andrea finished 9th. Good job!

Now, I'm sure you've seen this video on one of the others blog already but just in case you haven't here it is. Look for us in the first part of the video but keep watching to get an idea of just how painful that last dirt section was ;-) Enjoy.

Also, we made it into the New York Times! Check it out.

Rouge Roubaix

Last Friday it was about this time of year again to head down to Louisiana for Rouge Roubaix so we put on some 25C tires and loaded up the van and drove down to St. Francisville near Baton Rouge. Saturday we prerode some of the course, which makes sense as there area about 20 miles of dirt roads to cover during the race. The dirt was much looser this year as it hadn’t rained in the last couple of weeks so that made it just that little bit harder. Good thing we knew what to expect for Sunday.

The problem with this race is that it starts darn early (plus we lost an hour due to the time change) and that, no matter how good you feel, there is always a good chance that you will have some kind of technical problem. I for example flatted last year in the last dirt section, a mishap that probably cost us the win. This year, Ashley started it off on Saturday, not with a flat but a more serious issue. Her derailleur hanger broke and her derailleur ended up in her spokes, getting caught between the wheel and the frame and snapping the seat stay… not a good start. Unfortunately, this would not be the last technical issue of the weekend but at least the only one for Saturday.

Our strategy for this weekend was very different from the one we used in years past. Instead of controlling the race for the first 80 miles until the last dirt section, we send guys off early and rode much more aggressive. Mat was the first one to take off. He attacked just a couple of 100 yards into the race and was out of sight in no time. It took a while until the pack started to react (this might have been due to the fact that it was still only shortly after 8 am) but after about 15 miles a group of about 10 guys went off the front in pursuit of Mat. Cory covered that move for us, so we already had two guys off the front, just as we had planned. The idea was for Mat and Corey to attack early and try to make it as far ahead up the road so that we would have someone to bridge up to for Benji, Peter, Andrew and myself at the end. So, so far, so good.

As we approached the first dirt section, the lead pack had a gap of about 3 minutes but that changed dramatically by the time we got though it. At first, we just sat in the top 5 to10 but people were picking such bad lines that I decided to pick my own line. Apparently I picked up the pace in the process and Andrew and Gonzo took over the pace later on though the dirt section. By the time we had cleared the section, the pack had dwindled down to about 15 guys and the lead group was back in sight. Shortly thereafter we bridged up to the lead and now had the whole team in the lead pack of about 30 guys. At this point Mat, Corey and Gonzo went to the front and rode a nice tempo, just to make sure the group wouldn’t fill up by guys riding back into it.

Shortly before the second dirt section, Peter and Benji attacked simultaneously and got a little gap on the group. Unfortunately, the move came a bit too close to the dirt section and the two couldn’t get a big enough gap to make it over the KOM. As soon as we caught them, Andrew and I went to the front and forced the pace. I managed to ride away a little form the rest and go over the climb in first. This year a made sure to actually grab the bill for the KOM price. As a side effect of winning the KOM, the pack blew apart again and only Andrew, Peter, Travis Burandt and Evan Hyde were left at the front. The other two guys wouldn’t work with us, so we decided to let the chase group catch us. That left a lead group of 12 with Peter, Andrew, Benji and me in it and one more dirt section to go. At this point, we had covered about 66 of the 101 miles of the race.

Ten miles later, Mat Davis attacked and no one would chase him down. He is a good time trailist but I was not overly worried as we still had one dirt section to go and a pretty hard run-in to the finish so I told the others to stay calm and not waste any energy on chasing him down. Apparently, not everyone was of that mindset and the others in the group started to complain that we were making a mistake in letting Mat go and, as we were the strongest team in the group, we should chase him down. Instead, Peter attacked and chased by himself, taking any kind of pressure off our back and the others had to organize the chase. This put us in an excellent position to attack into the last dirt section. As soon as we hit the bottom of the climb at the start of the third and last dirt section, I went to the front and put the hammer down. The climb wasn’t very long but with 15% on gravel pretty steep and I opened up a gap pretty easily. Andrew followed Travis’ wheel up the climb and as soon as he was cracking, jumped across to me. Together we went on to hunt for Mat and, sure enough, about half way though the dirt section we had him reeled in. We tried to drop him on one of the shorter climbs but couldn’t shake him at first but I managed to open up a gap on the downhill and pushed hard up the last climb in the dirt section. That opened up a gap and Andrew, after seeing that Mat would not be able to close the gap, attacked on the same climb to drop Mat for good.

Once out of the final dirt section I waited for Andrew and together we worked hard to consolidate out gap. Those last 20 miles were really hard as we were going into a head wind and the roads were neither smooth nor flat. With about 5 miles to go Andrew had to sit on more and with about 2 to go he dropped off my wheel. I wanted to wait for him at first but as we didn’t know how big our gap was, I decided to play it safe and keep pushing to make it to the finish. Also, I figured if our gap was big enough, he would make it anyways but if not, we might loose everything.

So I got the honor of finishing up a great piece of team work by riding in by myself to win our first Rouge Roubaix. Andrew came in second, Peter fifth, Benji seventh, Gonzo 13^th and Joe 16^th. What a result! Everyone on the team preformed terrific and we had great support by Andre all weekend long.

This was definitely one of the hardest earned wins so far but it was well worth it. As always, the race was just epic and despite the pain a lot of fun. Hope to be back next year.

For some pics check out Shannon’s facebook and http://www.firstpics.net

A week in Austin

As mentioned in the other post Andrew, Gonzo, Benji, me and my girlfriend Christine stayed in Austin after Pace Bend for a week. Thanks to the UT cycling house for letting us stay there for that time. We got some real good training rides in and I also got to spend some down time with Christine chilling out at the local coffee shops while the boys went exploring the UT campus (I’m sure you’ll get to read on their adventures on the respective blogs). All in all it was a fun week and we finished it up with the Saturday road race at Lago Vista. We rode pretty well as a team, Andrew making the lead group and Benji and myself controlling any attacks. Unfortunately, Andrew couldn’t quite hang with the leaders towards the end of the race. I took a flyer with one lap to go and got a good gap but got caught with about 500 meters to go. Not that it would have made a big difference as I was only racing for 5th. Benji ended up finishing 13th, I finished last of the pack and Andrew had already called it quits as soon as he got caught by the pack…

Sunday we were back in Dallas and Demian, Christine and I drove up to Bar-H to race some dirt for a change. Mad Duck supplied me with a bike to race on (thanks for that by the way) and after a little playing around with it I had it to where I felt comfortable enough on it despite freezing temperatures (we started at 9 am and it was about 27). The race went really well even though I could definitely feel my legs from the previous day effort. I ended up riding away with a win, the first of the season.

Right now we are sitting in St. Francis, LA killing some time and getting ready for Rouge-Roubaix tomorrow. Everyone is really hot and ready to race. Hopefully we will make it though without any technical issues… 20 miles of gravel roads hold a lot of potential for flats. I’m optimistic though and I am convinced will do just fine.

Cerial Champ

We have a new Cerial Champ: Andrew Dahlheim. During the “hour of power” he beat Peter fair and square even though he fell behind early. Both are a little fed up with Cinnamon Toast Crunch right now but, maybe in a couple of weeks, Peter will get his revenge. If not, I am seriously thinking about challenging the new Champ myself… but then again, both didn’t look too good after the challenge, so it might not be too good of an idea. Oh, and the 2400 calories will not help with getting into race shape either…

It’s been a while...

Since my last post. We did two races since, Valley of the Sun Stage Race and Pace Bend. Neither of them went too well. Unfortunately they neutralized the road race finish with just 2 k to go which was too bad because we were doing really well there. A split had just happened at the front of the race and both Andrew and I where in it when they stopped the race. Too bad…

Pace Bend just didn’t go well. I wasn’t feeling too good during the race but the team controlled the race until the last lap. That’s when it started falling apart for us. We just messed up the finish… well, better luck next time.

Anyways, we are staying in Austin with Peter this for the rest of the week. I’m really looking forward to getting some good riding in with some “Texas climbs”. Should be fun.

More soon.

Everything's bigger in Texas?

I don't think so!



It took me over 3 month to finish that baby. 3 kg of Nutella will last you a little longer than those little thingies you get here...

Hallo There

I’m back! Just flew in yesterday from Frankfurt straight to Phoenix. Oh, how I missed this place. Flying in at sunset over the city, all the memories form last year’s winter which I spent in Phoenix with Christine came back and I must say I still like it here.

I met some of the team who got here yesterday, too. It was nice to see some familiar faces again but also some new ones. I also got my “goody bag” (thanks Brad!) and got a sneak peak at my new bike. Very cool! I’ll get a chance to ride it a little later today.

So much for now. I still feel a little jet lagged but it is definitely good to be back.

Quote of the Day

"It’s not as if I like the bad weather, I just go better that some of the others. We are more used to bad weather in Luxembourg." Kim Kirchen on his win last year at Fléche Wallonne on Cyclingnews.

Enough said.

Just like Cipplolini

So for you who thought Europe was cycling-crazy/ -friendly, let me tell you, you are wrong. First of all, the weather sucks ;-) but despite snowy conditions I decided to go ahead and do my motor pacing session as planned. I didn’t get too far though. We were cursing along at a decent pace when suddenly a cop car showed up and pulled us over… well, turns out that Mr. Police officer didn’t like cyclists (at least that’s the only explanation I could come up with) and started lecturing me and my dad on how dangerous “whatever-we-were-doing” was. As if that wasn’t enough he really wanted to drive his point home and stomped back to his car to browse through the fine-catalog and write us a hefty ticket. It took him forever (I guess he couldn’t really find a punishable action that fit motor pacing) but he finally presented us with a ticket over € 98 (that is $ 126). Actually, he gave us two separate tickets. One was for “dangerous speed” (we did 45 km/h through a village; max speed in Luxembourg in villages: 50 km/h...) and one for “use of hazard lights” (which we put on to warn other people on the road that we might be a bit slower then the rest; seems to be a bad idea, especially in the weather we had today).



Anyways, stupid stuff, but nothing we could do about it. So we paid the fine and I rode the rest of the way by myself (they wouldn’t leave until my dad had taken off, so no more motor pacing for the day). Let me tell you: riding at lt by yourself for over an hour is no fun compared to doing it behind a car. Plus it is really hard to hit the speeds you would like…

Well, at least now I can say I’ve got one thing in common with the big Cippolini: getting a ticket for motor pacing (even though I wasn’t doing 70 km/h on a highway). Europe might not be as harmonized as the States and cultures are very different but at least when it comes to giving tickets to cyclists, Italy and Luxembourg seem to be on the same page…

Motorpacing

Training is starting to pick up speed (in the truest sense of the word). I did start to pile up some miles behind my dad’s car as soon as the temps were above freezing for a day or so. Actually, weather is pretty nice here lately, at least we have sunshine; and, I must say, I can’t complain about cold temperatures here anyways after reading Sinead's blog.

Anyhow, here’s how the car looked after the motorpacing session this week: apparently, the roads aren’t all dry yet but we are getting there.



At this point I want to thank my dad again for enduring all the angry folks on the road and all the honking. Also, it must be pretty boring to cruise along a totally flat piece of road at 45 km/h for 1.5 hours. So, thanks again dad!

Flat Tires and Candy

I am starting to like the under aged-drinking law in the US… As you may know you can buy alcohol at a tender age of 16 here in Europe. That in itself would not be a problem but Friday was the last day of exams at German high schools and that usually means celebrations afterwards. This, too, is fine but this year the kids went a little overboard, it seems, and a lot of bottles shattered. As most of those “parties” happen outside, guess where all the glass ends up… Anyways, we went on a pretty nice ride yesterday, weather was good, we even had “summer-like” temperatures of about 50° (first 5h ride without winter gloves, yay) but I never had to stop so often during a ride to fix flats. At one point a friend and I had a flat at the same time! So we stopped to fix the flats and while we were standing at the side of the road, competing about who would change the tube faster, an older lady came out of a bakers shop on the other side of the road and offered us some candy! Needless to say, the flat-changing-competition lost its appeal immediately and we focused more on the right selection of sugary goodness. Turns out the lady runs the shop and saw us standing outside and thought we might need a little “boost”. I never had anything like that happen to me before in Germany and I must say I was very positively surprised. Maybe in need to change my perception of The Grumpy Germany to something nicer…

Sauna and Frozen Lakes

As part of the recovery process during off-week and because Christine took some time off school, I decided to tread myself to a nice afternoon of sauna. I guess everyone knows how it works but it’s more fun if it is really cold outside (which it still is around here by the way) and we got a real nice sauna place here around the corner. It is darn expensive but every once in a while it’s ok. They have a couple of differently themed saunas, I guess like three inside and four really cool ones in separate cabins outside. So you walk outside (only with your towel wrapped around you) though the cold (and snow) to get there to start with. Pretty cool. But the best part comes after you are done. As every educated sauna-person knows, you are supposed to take a cold shower after each sauna-session. This trains your skin to close the pores faster and become more resistant. It is also supposed to be healthy. Well, as an alternative, you can also take a bath in a cold pool… or a frozen lake! Yep, that’s right, they have a lake just outside the cabins and as it has been rather cold lately, it was (still is) frozen solid. Only a small hole enables you to take a short (!) dip. Now, let me tell you, if there is ice on top of the water, the water is pretty freaking freezing! It was pretty sweet though and today I really feel reenergized. We did this three times last night and, man, did I sleep well afterwards.

Anyways, we had a lot of fun. Nevertheless, as I said before, I can’t wait to get back: I had about enough of the cold now. Even worse, the next couple of days are supposed to be warmer but also wetter… great! Enough whining though. I’m looking forward to VoS in a couple of weeks. Hopefully, the next block will boost my fitness somewhat. After reading what the team did at camp, I feel like kindergarten where I am right now. But the next block will feature some good solid workouts and I should be ok by February.

Oh yeah, sorry, but I have to mention this: the above mentioned sauna-area was “textile-free”...

I'm glad that's over!

It is done! No more base miles (well, not really) but today was officially the last day of base training. I got to finish up the training block with some nice 6 hours in the cold (but it is already getting warmer: 25° F) but fortunately, I had some company. Thanks to Lorant and Johannes for getting me through the day. I rode with my cousin Johannes for two hours in the morning and, after dropping him off, rode over to Lorant's place to pick him up for another two hours. So I had some company for four hours at least.

Next week is going to be a welcome break from the bike (and the cold as I will be spending a lot of time INDOORS) but I am really looking forward to the following week. Finally, I get to put the hammer down a little in training instead of just that boring, monotonous base stuff. Should be fun.

I should have some pics from around here soon, so stay tuned.