Christian Helmig

Visas and Europe

2009-09-16T12:16:00.004-07:00

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?

2009-06-19T08:13:00.002-07:00

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

2009-06-10T18:34:00.000-07:00

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

2009-06-04T19:58:00.002-07:00

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

2009-05-20T21:50:00.002-07:00

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

Some Pics from Joe Martin

2009-05-14T23:09:00.001-07:00

Joe Martin wrap-up

2009-05-11T13:14:00.003-07:00

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

2009-05-08T21:17:00.002-07:00

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

2009-05-08T10:23:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-30T19:34:00.002-07:00

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...?

2009-04-13T17:23:00.006-07:00

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

2009-04-08T09:45:00.004-07:00

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

2009-04-07T10:46:00.002-07:00

… 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

2009-04-03T20:00:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-27T22:54:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-25T22:28:00.005-07:00

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

2009-03-22T22:06:00.001-07:00

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

2009-03-15T10:33:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-10T12:24:00.004-07:00

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

2009-03-09T20:30:00.003-07:00

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

2009-03-07T17:46:00.002-07:00

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

2009-02-26T18:05:00.001-07:00

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...

2009-02-23T16:50:00.001-07:00

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?

2009-02-12T18:45:00.004-07:00

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

2009-02-11T08:28:00.001-07:00

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

2009-02-06T07:25:00.001-07:00

"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

2009-02-04T14:01:00.002-07:00

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

2009-01-30T01:56:00.005-07:00

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

2009-01-25T02:50:00.001-07:00

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

2009-01-17T09:41:00.001-07:00

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!

2009-01-11T14:50:00.003-07:00

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.

Happy New Year

2008-12-31T11:15:00.002-07:00

I nearly killed myself today during my training ride. It has been rather cold the last couple of days (sub zero) and I was quite surprised when it started raining on me about an hour into my ride. Well, rain isn't that special this time of year but with temperatures at about 25°F it was kind of unusual. Anyways, as you can imagine with a solidly frozen ground, it didn't take too long for the water to turn into ice (about 5 min or so). At first it wasn't too bad but after a couple of minutes the roads were covered completely with a solid layer of ice... those 23C tires are NOT made for ice, let me tell you. I had enough on my plate just to stay upright but apparently driving a car in those conditions isn't too much fun either as quite a few cars swerved by me in a somewhat uncontrolled manner. Nevertheless, I survived the ride (it took me 2h to get back home, the same way I had ridden out in 1h...)and made it back home safe and sound. Let's just hope that next year will get better ;-) That being said: Happy new year!

Oh, and here's a little something to cheer everyone up. It's kind of a tradition in Germany (at least with the people I know) to watch this little video on new years eve. I also plays on tv every year on the evening of the 31st. So, without further ado (do you spell this like that?), here it is:

Who would have thought...

2008-12-30T14:10:00.003-07:00

that I am a celebrity? Well, I didn't but apparently I am because I now have an official "fan page" on facebook. I'm not exactly sure who's behind all of this but I've got some ideas... Thanks anyways, I'm flattered.

Check it out!

Cold... FREEZING COLD!

2008-12-28T17:35:00.001-07:00

Ok, usually I would not complain about the weather as long as it is dry. On top of it all, we had really nice sun shine and clear blue skies the last couple of days but it has been darn cold! According to some online conversion thingy, the highs yesterday and today were about 24° Fahrenheit… that is measured on the SRM, not some theoretic numbers the guys from the forecast came up with.

This time I really had to pull all my tricks to stay warm but I still managed to get 4h plus rides in both days, so we’re good. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, right? Well, we’ll see…

Christmas Ride

2008-12-26T04:26:00.003-07:00

Christmas is a holiday... yeah, right. At least I didn’t have to go out on my own as my cousin Johannes was there with his dad for Christmas. He too is a passionate cyclist, even though his studies and woman keep him off the bike more than he would like. Anyways, we got a couple of hours in before the big feast. Good times.

Side note: today, Friday, is my off-day. Now, guess what kind of weather we have today, compared to yesterday. Any ideas? Correct: today we have sunshine and a clear blue sky; yesterday (on a 4h ride) overcast and just plain nasty. Oh well, what did I expect, right?

Enjoy the rest of the holidays! Let's go ride.

Happy holidays everyone.

2008-12-24T09:04:00.002-07:00

For those of you on the team, take the opportunity to indulge one last time before getting really serious about this upcoming season (yes Peter, that would be you ;-) ), for all the rest, just have a good time with family and friends.

I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Mercyfull Weather-Gods

2008-12-15T16:45:00.001-07:00

After a week of absolutely miserable weather with snow, sleet, rain and temperatures around 30, the weather gods had mercy with me last Sunday and we actually had a clear blue sky and temperatures in the mid 40s for the last long ride of the week. I rode with some friends in a group, so I had some company, at least for some three hours out of the six. By the time I got back home I had actually managed to clock my first 100-miler for the season… Yey!

This week will be a little less time on the bike and more time spend trying to get all the stuff for Christmas. I guess that I won’t have time for that once the off week is over… so better get it over with now (once I made up my mind what to get everyone here).

Getting Lost in France

2008-12-11T10:33:00.006-07:00

Well, not exactly but my ride today took way longer than anticipated. I’m in Freiburg, Germany with my girlfriend at the moment, which is pretty close to the French border. The river Rhine actually forms the border between Germany and France here and - big surprise - it is nice and flat, perfect for base miles. Unfortunately, you need bridges to get over a river (at least one as big as theRhine). And exactly this was my problem today. So what basically happened is that I got stuck on the French side for much longer than I had hoped. Actually I knew how far I had to go to get back over but there was a darn strong wind blowing right in my face and I hardly made any progress… Anyways, I finally made it back, just shy of 6 hours and about an hour after the sun had set. Needless to say, it was snowing all day long and being out there in the dark was just plain nasty. Fortunately I came prepared and don’t even take off my back light during winter training, so I was somewhat safe at least.

Anyways, I made it back all right but I am really looking forward to a day off tomorrow and the whole next week for that matter: off week! I guess I’ll be busy anyways with Christmas shopping and all… maybe the bike sounds better after all.

Oh, by the way, here's the forecast for today and let me tell you, it was pretty accurate.

For those of you non-metric-people: 0°C = 32°F

Some Pics from Sunday

2008-12-01T12:50:00.005-07:00

more to come

Cyclocross... Euro-Style

2008-11-30T10:50:00.002-07:00

So I found out last week that there was an international UCI C2 Cyclocross race here in Niederanven, the town I live in in Luxembourg, right around the corner so to speak. As it was so close I decided to give it a shot… Well, I’ve got four words for you: fast, pain, cold and mud. I experienced a lifetime worth of all of these today! But first things first.

Winter finally hit somewhen last week with snow and all. Over night, we got another dusting but the snow didn’t stay but turned the course into one big puddle; I guess we ended up in about 8 to 10 inches of the stuff. Now, the mud we have here isn’t your typical Texas-mud. Here, it is really gooey and sticky, clinging to everything and making riding a hell of a lot harder than if it was dry. So besides turning the downhills into something more suitable for skis, it also made a big part of the course absolutely unridable. Those who know me are aware that I HATE running, so you get the picture. Not to mention that the bike was about 20 pounds heavier after two laps or so (and I for one do not have multiple bikes parked in the material-depot).

Oh, and did I mention that it was just not cold enough for the darn ground to stay frozen? So mud it was with a temperature in the low 30s. So much for the mud and cold part.

Next up: fast. Guess what: apparently everyone in Europe was bored this weekend and decided to head over to this one race (except the really fast guys from Belgium and the Netherlands). Just to give you an idea: we had multiple national champions line up, among them the champs Germany, Demark, Luxembourg, France and the Belgium champion (without contract, i.e. ONLY the amateur champ…). Enough said.

Add the former three points together and mix in a ton of climbing and what do you get? PAIN. Fortunately, it didn’t last too long. I got pulled after 45 min with 2 laps to go when the leaders caught up with me and lapped me (Figure that: they ran away from me…).

All in all it was a fun (but cold) experience with lots of spectators and a cool atmosphere. I don’t know where I came in but I’m afraid it wasn’t enough to earn some UCI points (not that I expected to get any). Oh, and the fact that cross races are free here in Luxembourg made at least the financial consequences bearable. Still, I think I’ll stay away from cross for a while (at least racing) until I start training at a little higher intensity. Just being pack-fodder isn’t too much to my liking.

Some pics of the fun should follow shortly.

Riding my Bike

2008-11-17T11:37:00.001-07:00

I just realized that nearly a month has gone by since I last posted something... How time flies. And the weird thing is that nothing exciting happened during this month that would explain how it went by so fast.

Basically, I spent most of my waking time/ daylight time on the bike with rides ranging between 3 and 5 hours daily over the last three weeks. For most of that time I was in Freiburg, Germany with Christine but I also spend a week or so at home in Luxembourg with my parents. Actually, most of the time in Luxembourg I spent at the house of my parents but without them as they had flown to Cuba for two weeks… but so I had some time to enjoy my childhood home and return to the roads I first started riding on and I must say it is still beautiful.

On one of my last rides here in Freiburg a small group of riders caught up with me and I recognized one of them as an old friend of mine. I used to race mtb with him back in the days here in Germany and we chatted a while. I was so caught up in our discussion that it took me a while to realize that I also knew one of the other riders in the group: Heinrich Haussler, ex Gerolsteiner pro, now Cervelo Test Team, was riding at the front of the group and was setting tempo. What a small world. I didn’t get the chance to chat with him as the group was turning “the wrong way” and I had to split off. But with the amount of riding I’m sure I’ll meet some more celebrities out there soon.

This week is an off week, fortunately. So I’m looking forward to a week of easy riding, a lot of rest and another wedding. Christine’s brother is getting married this Saturday, so we will head to Konstanz near the Swiss border towards the end of the week. There’s nothing better than a party to get ready to get back on the bike on Monday!

Back on the Bike

2008-10-19T13:56:00.001-07:00

After enjoying some three weeks of laziness, complete with tons of home-made food, sitting around in coffee shops and just plain what-ever-you-do-don’t-touch-your-bike time, I’m ready to get back to work and hop on the bike again. Today was a beautiful day here in Heidelberg, Germany (low 50s but sunny) so I joined one of the local group rides with some friends to rediscover how it feels to ride your bike. Now, for those of you who have never done a group ride outside the USA, this ride was a real no-drop ride, i.e. easy pace and multiple regrouping points which we didn’t even need as the whole group stayed together (yes, even on the 1000+ foot climbs). It was a great ride, giving me a chance to chat a lot with friends and catch up with what is happening on this side of the ocean. Despite the easy pace I was ready to call it quits after 2.5 hours (and cold feet) but decided to switch bikes and go for another easy mtb ride with my girlfriend Christine. Turns out that even an easy ride isn’t quite as easy if you have ridden a couple of hours with a group before it but the views at to top of the climb and the following downhill were well worth it.

Right now we are packing up and I’m getting ready to drive Christine back to School in Freiburg (about a 2h drive). If the weather holds, we’ll go for another ride in the morning. Freiburg is one of the coolest places in Germany for cycling with a lot of pros living there; riding there is pretty good and the weather usually the best in all of Germany. So, I’m looking forward to another day of fine riding.

Home Sweet Home

2008-10-06T07:52:00.004-07:00

I know, it has been a while but I’ve been busy getting everything sorted out before leaving the States for Europe for the winter. I’ve been on a packed schedule but, after sleeping off my jet-lag, things finally seem to quiet down a bit. But first things first.

We didn’t stop racing with Metro after HHH (something you might have thought as that was my last post…). We raced three events since then, the TX Tough GP, Cotton Patch Classic and the USA Crit series finals in Vegas. We had planned on doing the San Francisco Twilight instead of Cotton Patch but unfortunately half the team, including Andrew, went down hard at TX Tough and we decided on staying in Texas instead. That being said, TX Tough didn’t go too well for us.

Cotton Patch was pretty good, Peter got some upgrade points and Andrew got his long-awaited first win of the season. After that, it was off to Vegas. Las Vegas itself was pretty cool, we saw some interesting new things at Interbike and the crit, the main reason we went there, sucked big time. Apparently it was my turn to take extensive ground-samples and break some wheels. It was a rather sketchy course but the main issue was the sketchy riders. I didn’t even make it past the first turn in the first lap without hitting the pavement (even though I was sitting top 15 or so). Got up, changed bikes and jumped back into the fun, only to have the same thing happen to me a couple of laps later: turn one, some highly-skilled-rider swings wide and runs squarely into my rear wheel (take notice: we were already THROUGH the turn, I was already standing up to accelerate out of the corner…). Well, the bike stopped again underneath me and I went flying again. Fortunately, I only ended up tearing my skin suit to shreds and loosing some skin but no major injuries. I even managed to finish the race (after Nathan “persuaded” to get back in and sitting out another lap or two). So, the crit was not so hot. We had a lot of fun after that though…

After Vegas I flew back to Dallas, packed the rest of my stuff and hopped back on the plain again. Right now, I’m back in Heidelberg, Germany. How I have missed the European fall (NOT!!!): 45 F and rain, perfect.

Well, for now I don’t need to ride my bike, so I get to enjoy some off time. Not that I would get bored though: it’s been over a year since I’ve been home, so I’ve got a lot of catching up with friends and stuff like that to do. Besides that, it has been a long season anyways and a little time off the bike feels pretty good right now anyways… but, then again, I’m already itching to get back on the bike and get ready for next spring.

Change of Plans

2008-09-03T17:06:00.002-07:00

After racing the last two weekends at Hotter N’ Hell and 100k, we had planned to fly out to Philli this upcoming weekend to start in the Univest Grand Prix. It is an invitation only race and the team got the invite but we couldn’t gather enough people to get the required 8 starters… so no racing this upcoming weekend :-(

This might not be that bad though, as we’ve been busy racing the last two weeks. Hotter ‘N Hell was a great race for the whole team, even though I’m not a big fan of the course. Nevertheless, the team did an awesome job and we pulled out a win and four top ten finishes. For a complete race report use this link to go to the FCS homepage.

Last weekend we drove up to Atlanta, GA for the 100k Classic. It was a weird race with a (too) early start and bad roads. The fact that we were 180 guys at the line didn’t help safety either. So there were a lot of crashes but all of us managed to stay upright. Andrew had to drop out though due to mechanicals (his crank arm came loose) and that messed up our tactics quite a bit. We adjusted on the fly though but got caught out at the sprint because we were following the wrong wheels. Well, that happens. I wasn’t too happy with the whole weekend, spending some 26 hours in the van and racing for only 4 hours with nothing to show for it. At least I know what to expect next time.

Now we’re back in Dallas for a while, getting ready for the Texas Tough Grand Prix at Victory Park on 9/11. This is going to be an awesome race! If you can, come out and watch (or even better: come out and cheer us on ;-) )

A week without the bike (kind of)

2008-08-19T15:21:00.001-07:00

It felt good to finally have a race-free weekend and some time off the bike. I only rode a couple of hours last week and I feel ready to rock now again. I also did a threshold test, as I always do after my off-week and the results were encouraging. So I’m really looking forward to this upcoming racing block, starting with Hotter Than Hell this coming weekend and continuing with 100k and a lot of other fun races still further away. It will keep us on the road pretty much all through the end of September but it should be fun.

Unfortunately, they are patching up the course for the “Tuesday Night Worlds”, so no racing tonight. Bummer! I was really looking forward to that. But oh well, at least that gives me some time to update my blog. Hopefully the weather will hold tomorrow, though, so that we can go out and play at the crit in Ft. Worth.

Tornados and Air Travel don’t Mix.

2008-08-11T13:30:00.001-07:00

My stay in LA was shorter than anticipated as Leo called my up after just a couple of days there and asked me to meet him up in Chicago for the Tour of Elk Grove, a two-day event with a separate cat 1/2 race and a lot of money. It didn’t take a lot of convincing on his part and so I found myself at the airport Friday morning at 6 (thanks Corey for getting up so early and driving me there). Problem was I was flying standby (can’t afford anything else) and so I spend pretty much the whole day at the terminal until I finally made it onto a flight in the afternoon. That put me in at Chicago at around 10 pm. It was then that I found out that we didn’t have a hotel for the weekend… So, after a couple of phone calls and a 30 min cab-ride I finally arrived at the race venue, where Carlos (Vargas) and John let me share their hotel room (thanks again). I think it was around 1 am when I finally lay down; not the perfect preparation for a race.

Racing this weekend was ok, I finished 10th and 11th, which put me in 9th overall. I wasn’t too happy with the results as I had hoped for a little higher placing but it made me enough money to at least pay for the trip.

On Monday it was back to the airport to get back home to Dallas (finally). The problem: Monday morning a pretty decent thunderstorm came through the area and a lot of flights were cancelled. So what happens to you if you are on the standby list? You are pretty much f*?%ed. With all the extra people trying to get on flights, I ended up somewhere in 160^th place on the standby list… no way to make it onto any flight soon. So I settled in for a long day at the airport (PSP is the best invention EVER!) but it got even better. At around 10 pm storms picked up again and the weather got so bad that the authorities even issued a tornado warning… So we had to move away from windows into the food court (which had a glass ceiling…). Needless to say that ended all my hopes of getting out that day and so I settled in for a good nights sleep in one of the corners of terminal 3. I finally made it out the next morning after rebooking my flight to go through Newark and than to Dallas (otherwise, I would probably be still in Chicago as we speak).

The rest of the week was rather eventful, being stuck at a friends place without a car (the van is still out in LA with the boys at Nationals). I did race at Rockwall this past Saturday though, which was a rally but with money for the first three. As was to be expected, a lot of people showed up and it was a good race. I felt pretty good that day and ended up in a break, soloing in for a win with 2 km to go. Thanks to Gary at Mad Duck for pointing this rally out to me, I had a blast. Oh, and the best thing besides winning on Saturday was that they had free ice cream at the finish! I’ll be back next year, you bet!

LA is Shaking...

2008-07-30T18:06:00.000-07:00

What a way to start our stay in LA! We only got here Sunday night and pretty much next thing you know, we are in an earthquake. Interesting. I must say, we were a little dumbstruck at first, just looking at each other as no one of us had been in one before. It took us a couple of seconds to realize what was actually happening but by that time it was almost over. Fortunately, it didn’t do any damage to our host house. So we survived an earthquake.

Besides that, nothing much has happened here in LA so far but we raced in San Marcos last weekend. It was a 1.6 mile circuit with a decent climb in it…and a really stellar field. Healthnet, Jittery Joe’s, Successful Living, Toyota United… yep, they all send at least a rider out there. It was a really hard race and none of us made it into the final move that stuck. I finished 10^th, second of the first chase group and Corey came in with the second chase. Unfortunately, Will and Phillip both got dropped. Peter is still healing up. He’s getting better and is out riding but last weekend was too early to get back in a race. Hopefully he’ll be good to go for nationals.

For me it is already nearly time to say good buy to California as I will be flying out to Chicago this Friday for Elk Grove. Leo is coming too, so we should have some fun. I’ll keep you posted.

California

2008-07-21T12:26:00.002-07:00

We finally made it: We are in California. After leaving our great host family in Bend, we drove down to Sacramento where we stayed with yet another fantastic host family for a couple of days before we moved on to San Luis Obispo. We got here last Friday in the afternoon and jumped on our bikes to shake out our legs a little bit. Turns out "a little" ended up being nearly two hours but at least we finally got a glimpse of the Pacific. Yep, apparently the ocean is further away than we thought... Unfortunately, we didn't have that much daylight-time left, so we couldn't stay long but maybe we'll have some time today on out off day to hit the beach.

The reason we decided on San Luis Obispo for our next stop was that there were two races this weekend: a circuit race on Saturday and a crit on Sunday. The circuit race turned out to be pretty hard with on short but very steep climb and one more sustained climb. The fact that quite a few pros showed up didn't make it easier. Also, we had to observe the yellow-line-rule. What was that again? I've been racing on closed roads for the last couple of months (pretty much ever since Mississippi in May) so that was interesting again (by the way, I still don't like it). The plan was to ride for Corey and get him some points but one of the Successful Living guys took off and was never seen again... so we raced for second. Still enough points, so I got to the front on the last climb and set a steady tempo which I had to keep up pretty much all the way from the climb to the finish too, as no one else would do it. So I ended up pulling the last 5 miles of the race and then leading Corey out. We were sitting pretty good in the run in to the finish but unfortunately got boxed in a little at the end. Ultimately, I couldn't start my sprint early enough to really launch Corey and actually came in in front of him... bummer. Still, 5th for me and 7th for Corey wasn't too bad.

What was really bad though was the fact that Peter crashed hard and separated his shoulder. That's even worse as we are getting close to nationals... At this point we don't know if his ligaments are just stretched or torn... Let's hope for the best! So I spend most of my Saturday afternoon in the Emergency room with Peter... at least, nothing broken (including his head; looking at his helmet, that was NOT a given).

So Sunday, we were one short for the crit. We still did ok, Phillip did pretty well during the race and I managed to come in 8th against some pretty tough competition. You would think that all those pros got something better to do than show up at all those local races but apparently not. Still, it was a good race (no crashes for us). Corey couldn't quite perform at his best though because his shifter cable started fraying and he couldn't get into his lower gears... not so good in a fast crit. I had some technical trouble myself as my chain skipped in my 11. Also, not so helpful in the sprint. Oh well, better luck next week.

We will probably stay the rest of the week here in San Luis Obispo and then make our way down to LA. The road trip continues!

Cascade Cycling Classics

2008-07-16T10:21:00.005-07:00

This past weekend I got to play with the big guns at the Cascade Cycling Classics in Bend, Or. We drove in on Monday last week from the east and got our first surprise when we crossed the border into Oregon from Idaho: everyone was expecting lush green forests and mountains but instead we got high desert and flats. No trees whatsoever… Next surprise was when we stopped for gas: in Oregon you are not allowed to pump your own gas, so there is someone there to do it for you. Very weird. Anyways, we made it to Bend and, fortunately, 10 miles before we hit the city the forests started and Bend turned out to be absolutely gorgeous. We stayed at a great host family that took exceptional care of all our needs and made sure we didn’t lack anything.

On Wednesday the Race finally started for me and it definitely exciting riding next to Levi, Chris Horner, Botero or Tom Danielson who were all in the race. The first two stages were both road stages with a mountaintop finish. I’ll spare you the details but I felt good on the first day but, as always, I flatted just before the KOM halfway through the stage and found myself chasing like crazy for the next hour to get back on. At the end I managed to get back into the field and finished 33^rd. On Friday I didn’t feel too good and made a stupid mistake at the bottom of the final climb (I was sitting way to far in the back when the climb started) which resulted in me ending up behind the split. So I came in somewhere around 50^th place on that day. On Friday there was a time trail in the morning and a crit in the evening. The tt was very painful and I got a package by Levi, who put about 4 minutes on me. With a length of about 24 k, that comes down to me loosing 10 seconds every kilometer… autsch! The crit went pretty well, I avoided all the crashes and finished safely in the pack. There were tons of people out to watch, so the atmosphere was great.

On Saturday we had another road stage with a mountaintop finish. I was pretty tired by that time but wanted to make sure to hit the final climb in a better position than on Thursday. I did a decent job at that until the teams started to put their leaders into position. I was sitting top 20 all the way before that but once the trains started forming I got swarmed big time. So I ended up in the second group again… It was a hard day. On Sunday the race finished up with a hilly circuit race. A break went just at the start of the second lap. I only realized that something was up the road at the bottom of the first climb but managed to bridge up to it on that climb. We worked well together for the next three laps but it started to get unorganized with one lap to go and so we got caught with just 5 k to go, just at the foot of the last, steep climb. Bummer! I was pretty toasted at this point and couldn’t stay with the leaders but I guess that was all right. There are Articles on Velonews and Cyclingnews covering this stage if someone wants more detail on it ;-)

It was quite funny as I started out 33^rd in GC after the first stage, dropped down a bit during the race but managed to finish in 33^rd at the end of the five days. More results can be found on the Cascade Cycling Classics home page.

Today we are already down in Sacramento, on step closer to LA. I had originally planned to go to Boise, Id but that fell through at the last moment. Not too happy about that. It would have been nice to do another high caliber race (Boise is part of the US Crit series) and also try to get a good overall result in the Series but instead I’ll have to settle for some regional racing here in California… Anyways, I’ll get over it. Hopefully, I’ll get over my cold by the next race, too. Will has been coughing for the last two weeks and I guess he finally got to me. But enough rest and sleep should do the trick and I should be good to go by next weekend.

On the Road Again

2008-07-06T22:03:00.000-07:00

Tonight: Salt Lake City, Utah; tomorrow: Bend, Oregon. We finally broke down camp in Colorado Springs this morning after 10 days of good riding there. Thanks again to Brad and David for letting us stay at their place.

So after a good breakfast at Einstein Bagels we got on the road at eight and pretty much drove all day to get to Salt Lake. We managed to get here in time to go for a little ride and shake out our legs after sitting in the van for over ten hours.

So tomorrow is going to be pretty much the same: pack up the van, grab some breakfast and drive, drive, drive… good thing I got my PSP before this trip!

"Mountains, Gandalf; I want to see mopuntains again..."

2008-06-30T17:55:00.006-07:00

Wow, so I fell behind on my blogging again... Sorry. The excuse this time: trying to plan our eight week road trip to Nationals in California in August. It was pretty stressful but we are finally on the road. First stop: Colorado Springs. We piled into my old van this past Tuesday and drove through the night to get here on Wednesday morning. The van was pretty packed: four bikes on the back, two inside together with stuff for eight weeks. On top of it, Will, Phillip, Corey, Peter and myself had to fit too.

We got some solid riding in, about 30 hours last week. We've got another week before we'll move on to Bend, OR to race in the Cascade Classics. Should be a lot of fun: racing for five days with some of the best riders in the country (Levi, Danielson and Co decided to show up...). After that we'll head on to Idaho for another of the US Crit series races and after that we'll finally make our down the coast to LA for Nationals. I won't be able to start there but it should be fun watching the others and lending as much support as I can.

But there also was a life before the road trip: the weekend before we left we were down in Austin for the AMLI AT&T Crit, also part of the US Crit series. It was pretty hard because I tried to get in a break. I was up there but unfortunately non of them stuck. So it came down to a sprint. I got stuck on the back stretch but still managed to come in 18th. Considering all, I was pretty happy with that. Unfortunately, it didn't go that well for some of the others: Will went down with five to go after some guys in front of him decided to tangle up on the straight and go down; fortunately, he only lost a little skin. Rachel wasn't as fortunate: she went down hard in the women's race and broke her collar bone. Very unfortunate, so shortly before Nationals.

Get well soon Rachel!

Big Mistake!

2008-06-17T07:42:00.001-07:00

Ok, so I got a PSP recently and it is great for traveling and killing time... but it can also keep you up way too long at night. Just wanted to through that out there in case you didn’t know ;-) Oh, and by the way, never start playing Metal Gear Solid Portable Ops Plus at night if you are planning on getting a good nights sleep… you’ll be awake a while (im my case until about 3 in the morning).

The last couple of weeks...

2008-06-16T11:07:00.001-07:00

Have been pretty packed, so I apologize for not keeping you updated. To my horror I just realized that my last post dates back to memorial weekend so I’ll give you a short rundown of what has happened since.

The weekend after the State Crit we drove up to Tulsa for the Tulsa Tough omnium. Leo and I did the Pro/ 1 race while the rest of the guys did the 1/ 2 races. In hindsight it might have been better to help the others get some upgrade points in the 1/ 2 races as Toyota United showed up and dominated the races. All we could do was to hang on and that was about it. I hope my top 40 finishes were enough to get me some points for the US Crit series overalls (of which Tulsa was a part of) to get invited to the finals in Vegas at the end of the year. Both Leo and I have our sights set on that race and that was also the reason we did the Pro/1 race in the first place although we might have had more fun in the 1/ 2. Well, this weekend we’ll head down to Austin for the AT&T crit, which is also part of the Crit series so hopefully it will go better there.

After Tulsa I flew back to Phoenix one last time. Christine is done with school there and so I helped her move out and all that good stuff. It took us the better part of the week to get that done and then we decided to spend her last couple of days here in the States at the Camelback Inn Resort in Scottsdale, AZ to relax after all the stress. Those were some nice two days, floating in the pool and relaxing (in the process of which I drowned my cell… but after drying it out in the dry Phoenix heat, it turned back on… Nokia rocks!) but unfortunately they only lasted that long and I had to drop her off at the airport to let her fly back home to Europe.

The rest of last week I then spend with loading and unloading my van and driving the 1000 miles from Phoenix to Dallas with what little belongings I had left. It was endless drive but at least the van held up and I made it back to Dallas.

This past weekend I finally got back on the bike to race in the Matrix crits here in Dallas. It was hot and humid as always and the races were hard. I could tell that I had been off the bike for the better part of two weeks but still managed to hang in there and finish 11^th each day; not what I had hoped for but not so bad considering everything else.

So, that’s it for now. This weekend we’ll be in Austin before some of us will head up to Colorado Springs for some good training for a couple of weeks. We are all looking forward to that so it should be a lot of fun.

More on the Texas State Championships in the Ft Worth Star

2008-05-31T10:08:00.004-07:00

Link to the Article in the Fort Worth Star

Memorial Weekend

2008-05-31T10:03:00.002-07:00

Ok, sorry for taking so long to get you updated on this but I had to take some time off after the past weekend and spend some „quality time” with my girlfriend, Christine, who had come to visit for a little bit. Now I’m sitting in Tulas, OK at the Tulsa Tough and waiting for the rain to pass and race time to come around. But back to last weekend.

The team did the Glickman Memorial on Saturday to practice rotations and the lead out a little bit. Unfortunately, it was very hot and Nathan pulled most of us out in order not to overtax ourselves. By that time the break had gone up the road and the race was pretty much over. The only to guys that stayed in were Leo and myself. We had planned to ride for the team so none of us was in the break; I went with a late attack and we managed to get close to the leaders. At the same time the five guys in the break started to attack each other. We couldn’t quite catch the leaders but managed to catch the remnants of the break to sprint for third. I felt good and went for it. It was a pretty long sprint, but it worked out just fine. So even though we missed the decisive move early on, we still managed to salvage a third place.

But my day wasn’t done just yet: I jumped off the bike and into the car, raced home, took a shower and got into my suit to go to a wedding of a friend of mine. It was a fun party but we couldn’t stay too long because we had a team dinner a little later at Lee’s. It was funny seeing the guys and girls’ looks when we walked in all dressed up (and not in team apparel). It was a fun day.

Sunday I finally got to ride my mountainbike for a change. I hadn’t been on Northshore since it was flooded last year and I had a blast just cruising along. Christine took her brand new Santa Cruz Heckler out for a first ride and loved it. Thanks to Clarence and Gary from Mad Duck for building her such a great bike. She loves it! So everything was good for Monday.

As I saw a lot of you out at the race on Monday, I’ll be brief. The original plan was to keep it steady and all together and set up Nathan for the sprint. Unfortunately, Nathan’s hand wasn’t as good as we had hoped and the tempo was to sporadic, so we had to change our strategy towards the end of the race. I started covering moves within the last 30 minutes of the race, basically just following wheels. With about 20 minutes to go I found myself in a break with Tyler, Ian Dille and Andrew Dahlheim. That was the break. Leo did a great job at shutting down Stephan and we opened up a good gap. We worked together pretty well and it started to look really good. I didn’t have to work at all throughout the first hour of the race thanks to the great work by the rest of the team so I felt pretty good towards the end. With five to go, we flew though the second to last corner; I was sitting third wheel but carried way more speed through the turn than the two in front of me. I hadn’t planed on going that early but the opportunity was too good to pass so I accelerated hard out of the turn and had a gap immediately. From there on it was all about going as hard as possible. The way the course is set up, I knew that I if I made it into the last lap with about five seconds I would be able to stay away, so I went really hard to establish a solid gap with two to go. I was actually able to increase my gap and I think that was when the elastic snapped and the others started to attack each other, which gave me some extra breathing room. The last lap felt weird, I knew that I had it but with all my mechanicals lately, I didn’t feel save until I was over the line. It was a great feeling. There were tons of people at the race, the atmosphere was great and winning put the icing on the cake.

Overall, the team had a great day, with Jenny riding away with the Women’s tile and Rachel winning the 3s.

Ok, so that wasn't that brief after all but I hope you enjoyed it anyways :-)

Let’s play

2008-05-25T21:04:00.000-07:00

Memorial Weekend is finally here! Everyone on the team is ready and eager to show what we can do tomorrow at the State Crit. So hold on tight because it will be a blast! Come out and watch; it will be a great showdown. See you there!

Mount Magazine Podium

2008-05-24T21:34:00.002-07:00

Metro Volkswagen on Cyclingnews.com

2008-05-19T12:44:00.004-07:00

We made it onto CyclingNews.com on stage 3 of the Tour of Arkansas. Check it out.

CyclingNews.com: Tour of Arkansas, Stage 3

No Internet, no News...

2008-05-19T12:27:00.000-07:00

First of all, sorry for not keeping you all updated on what is happening but we were on the road the last two weeks straight and, can you believe it, had no internet connection throughout the trip... Well, now we’re back in Dallas, getting some rest and getting ready for Memorial Weekend; and we finally have internet again! So here’s what happened over the last two weeks.

Joe Martin Stage Race

2008-05-19T12:25:00.002-07:00

Two weeks ago the team went out to Fayetteville, AK for the Joe Martin Stage Race, a four day stage race. We started off on Thursday with a short 3 mile uphill time trail. It went really well for me: I beat my time from last year by 30 seconds to finish third, tied for second, only 3 seconds back. So, off to a good start.

On Friday we got to spend a lot of time on the bike because we had to ride a 110-mile-stage. Everyone kept on talking about the big climb of the day, Mount Gaylor… turns out it was more like a bunch of rollers than a really sustained climb and most of the pack stayed together. Unfortunately, we had a break off the front and no one wanted to chase. The plan for the day had been to ride conservative and conserve the GC but after the guy up the road got a four minute lead and still no one was doing any work I had to help out and get some kind of chase organized. We ended up pulling it back down to 40 seconds but had to spend a lot of energy to do it. It cost me a spot in the GC but everything was still rather close together.

Stage three was a 23 mile loop which we had to do three times. There was a pretty steep climb in the first part of the loop but it wasn’t very long. As with the race on Friday it all stayed pretty much together over the climbs but Carlos Vargas took off with about 30 miles to go. I figured that it was way too far and we had some teams that seemed to be willing to pull it back, so I didn’t go with it… and that was a mistake. We chased hard but couldn’t pull him back. So there went another spot in the GC, down to fifth.

With all the positions lost over the last two days, it was up to us to ride an aggressive crit to make up for lost time on Sunday. Unfortunately they guys from Texas Tough had the same plan and really drilled it from the gun which killed most of our team. After the first couple of laps we were down to only about 20-30 guys. With about five laps in I attacked hard over the steep section of the course and managed to decimate the group further, down to about 10 guys. More importantly, we shelled the overall leader and fourth place, so now it was up to us in the break to open up enough of a gap to move up in GC. We worked together well until halfway through the last lap when the attacks started. We let two guys go because they were no threat in GC but sprinted it out for third. I came in fourth of the day which moved me back to third overall. So a hard day’s work paid off at the end.

It was a good race, the team worked well together and we managed to pull off a good result. With this in mind we packed our stuff and headed down the road to the next stop, the Tour of Arkansas in Russellville, AK.

Tour of Arkansas

2008-05-19T12:24:00.001-07:00

The Tour of Arkansas was our first big Pro 1/2 Stage race. We got to race the likes of Jelly Belly, Health Net and Type Time 1 among others. It was a really hard race too, with 4 stages combining to 350 miles and 23,000 feet of climbing. The second stage finished on Mount Nebo, a brutal 3 mile climb with an average gradient of 18%; the third stage finished with a 10 mile climb up Mount Magazine, so we got to do some serious climbing for a change.

The first stage on Thursday was a 100 mile stage with a lot of “little” climbs; didn’t sound too bad but there were no real flat sections at all. The pro teams set a real hard tempo over the first 40 miles to get the pack as small as possible and it turned out that only about 25 guys made it in with the first group. The second group (about 60) came in about 10 minutes later… I managed to make it over with the first group, even though I had to dig really deep to stay in. It was probably one of hardest races to date but I still managed to come in top 10 in the sprint. I was really happy with the race but the others from the team just made the time cut, so that was close.

Friday’s stage ended on Mount Nebo after 97 miles, with two smaller climbs along the way. The plan was to sit in until the end and then just survive. Unfortunately, I got a flat only about 20 miles in just 5 miles before the first climb. Peter gave me his wheel and with the help of Corey, Peter and Will I made it back into the pack safely before we hit the foot of the climb. We all made it over the first climb but Peter got more mechanical problems and had to stop to fix it, which cost him dearly. He couldn’t catch on to the group after that and had to ride the rest of the stage pretty much by himself. The other two guys made it safely thought the stage with me and led me into the final climb. It was a hard fight for position and I didn’t get in as far to the front as I would have liked but still within the top 15 to 20. It was a little too far back to hang with the lead guys but I settled into a good rhythm and thanks to Philips awesome costume and support managed to drag myself over the line in seventh. So, suddenly, I was sitting in seventh overall…

On Saturday we started and finished on top of Mount Magazine. Again, the plan was to sit and be conservative. It was a rather boring stage until, guess what, I got another flat… So, poor Peter had to sacrifice his wheel again and drag me back into the pack. The team did an outstanding job at pulling me back in. After that we just sat and waited for the final climb. Towards the end of the stage we started to fight for position a bit too early and wasted some energy doing so. I tried to get the guys to take it easy but my radio decided to quit on me. I didn’t notice it at first and just sat there and wondered why no one was reacting to what I said… In the end, I could still hear them and Nathan but they couldn’t hear me. Anyways, all this fighting for position prevented us from riding to the foot of Magazine in the position we wanted. This wasn’t too big of a problem, though, as the pack didn’t go too hard in the first part of the climb. The tempo picked up a little later though and a couple of attacks got our lead group down to about 10 guys. Nathan was constantly giving me updates on gaps but I couldn’t answer him though the radio so we had to rely on hand signals; that must have looked pretty funny for the guys around me, me starting to wave my hand for apparently no reason…

Anyways, the attacks started flying within the last km and when Pipp went, I knew I had to follow but I was boxed in. So I had to wait a little and followed the next best wheel. He didn’t get away far but managed to stay off by a few seconds. I still managed to come in third of the day in the sprint. It was really nice to be on the podium after a stage like this, especially beating guys like Lang and Chadwick. Also, it was a great birthday present!

Needless to say, moral in the team was great after stage three, with a podium and seventh in GC. So for Sunday we only had to sit in and finish with the pack in the crit. At least that was the plan. Unfortunately, this didn’t work out too well. It was pretty fast from the gun after a break went off the front. The four guys nearly lapped the pack and that would have cost us out GC position. We fought hard just to make it to the front of the pack but lost Corey in the process. Will had to abandon a little later due to mechanicals and Peter got taken out and went down hard. I managed to fight my way to the front only to get told by the Team Type 1 guys that they didn’t want any help and wouldn’t let me work with them. So all the work for nothing?! Well, Team Type 1 managed to keep the break in check and they didn’t lap the field. After expanding so much energy to make my way to the front, Nathan told me just to sit and recover. That was hard enough because we were more or less single file and people tried to move up regardless so I had to fight a lot for wheels. I was really looking forward for the race to end but as I should find out the hard way the day wasn’t over yet. The pit closed with seven laps to go (i.e. no more free laps) and things weren’t looking too bad with four to go: The break was only 20 seconds off the front, they were riding an acceptable tempo and I was sitting safely in the middle of the pack. And then it happened: FLAT! Can you believe that? Third flat in as many days and of cause it had to happen when the pit was already closed! Well, I stopped regardless and got a new wheel (but no free lap) and got back out there to chase like mad to not completely loose my position in GC. The fact that the officials tried to pull me didn’t help at all but Nathan got to them before they could pull me off the bike. I ended up chasing like mad for the reminder of the race and pulling myself inside out to not let all the hard work from the last couple of days go to waste. It wasn’t enough to keep my spot in GC but I somehow managed to salvage tenth.

All in all, it was a great experience even though the weekend ended on a somewhat bitter note. Regardless, it was interesting racing with all those pros and getting to do some real climbs for a change. Also, Corey, Will and Peter did an awesome job throughout the week to look after me. Nathan and Lee made sure we didn’t have to worry about anything except; big thanks to all of them at this point.

Now, hopefully, we will come out of those two weeks of racing with good legs for Memorial Weekend; but everyone is very motivated and ready to go. So it should fun finally racing back in Texas!

A Third Place Did The Trick!

2008-05-06T20:13:00.001-07:00

I just got the approval from USA Cycling for my upgrade request to a Cat 1. Thanks to Speedweek I finally got enough points (even though I needed to put the training races in there to get the required 30 points) for the upgrade. So now I’m officially a Cat 1. What that basically means is that Nathan doesn’t need to pull any more strings to get me into the bigger races (like Speedweek). Apart form that I’m afraid not much will change: races are still going to be fast and it will just hurt as much as with a Cat 2 license. But then again, maybe not…

Speedweek is over...

2008-05-05T16:57:00.002-07:00

and I finally got to sleep in after we got back to Dallas today morning at around 9 am. I had a great time out there on the east coast but I’m happy that I do not have to race tonight for a change. All the traveling and racing gets really taxing after a while and I think everyone is happy that they get a little break now.

Between all the traveling and racing and staying at funky hotels without internet access, I didn’t really get a chance to update my blog recently, so there’s a lot to be covered. For those of you who don’t have the time or nerves to read through all my ramblings, here’s the latter half of Speedweek in a nutshell:

After Beaufort we traveled to Walterboro, SC. The course was fun but pretty rough. Result: 30^th.

Next day: Uptown Greenwood, SC. Wide open and fast. The pack stayed together and a big field approached the line for the sprint: Result: 35^th.

Friday: Spartanburg, SC. Crash fest. Made it through all of them alive but got stuck in the last crash in the last turn of the last lap. Still managed to come in 13^th.

Saturday: Dilworth, NC. Nice course with a sharp turn onto start/finish and a decent rise to the line. Result: 7^th or 8^th.

Last one: Sandy Springs, GA. Really cool course, decent rise to the line and a swooping, fast downhill on the back stretch. I attacked early on and we established a six-man break that stayed away to the end. I was a bit too nervous in the break, working just a tad bit too much but still came in 3^rd. What a way to end the week! I pretty much accomplished everything I set out to do and more. I finished (nearly) all of the races, got a call-up at the start for the last two races, was in a break, made it onto the podium and finished in the top 10 overall. WOW.

Now I just need to recover and conserve my form for Joe Martin, Tour of Arkansas and Memorial Weekend.

So much for now. More detailed race recaps from Speedweek will follow soon.

Beaufort Memorial Cycling Classic

2008-04-29T20:32:00.002-07:00

Not much to talk about. I had a shitty day, getting to ride for a whole of three (3) out of the 75 laps. In the second lap my saddle came loose so I had to stop at the pits to get it tightened down; unfortunately, a loose saddle doesn’t qualify as a mechanical problem that would get you a free lap, so they send me back out there to chase the field. Yeah, right! Coming through the next lap I got pulled. Thanks for even sending me back out there. So I rode back to the trailer, switched back to my training wheels and rode for some 40 minutes, trying to get at least a little workout today. As you can imagine, I wasn’t too happy. The fact that the others had a hard time didn’t help either. By the time I got back from my ride, they were already loading up the trailer while the race was still in full swing. So, not a good day for the team.

Hopefully, we’ll have more luck tomorrow.

Athens Twilight?

2008-04-28T08:09:00.002-07:00

What light? It was pretty darn dark! Plus, for a good portion of the race I was going so hard I couldn’t see straight anyhow ;-) But let’s start at the beginning. On Thursday, we made our way from Blue Ridge down to Athens, Georgia. Friday got a bit stressful because we had the “Grid Qualifiers” in the afternoon and a PR/ promotion-thing at 1:30 pm. We went to an elementary school and talked to a bunch of first to third graders about bikes, bike racing and bike safety. It was really cool because the kids were really interested in what we said and asked a ton of questions. To top it all off, we let them walk through the trailer… fun, fun, fun.

After this we hastened over to the race venue to do our qualifiers. Athens Twilight is a pretty crazy race and because it is the first race of the US Crit series the hold the qualifiers to determine the staging position. This position is pretty important, as the race is so fast that it is hard to move up; also, it is easier to stay out of trouble. So, what they did was to put eight guys on compu-trainers and make them race six laps of the course as a time trail. It was pretty hard but I managed to come in second of my heat and 15^th overall. I didn’t make the finals but got a spot in the second row for the race! Sweet! Peter did really well too, finishing 18^th overall.

Saturday was race day. We started at 9 pm, in the dark. The atmosphere was awesome. The spectators were standing some 5 deep and it was just crazy. I love college towns ;-) Anyways, the race was fast (some 31 mph average) for 1 hour and 40 minutes. I managed to hold my ground and stayed out of trouble. I avoided a couple of crashes but got caught in the last and all important crash of the day. With three laps to go I was sitting somewhere in the top 25 and some guys about 5 spots in front of me decided to take a soil-sample in turn one: bikes flying left and right, the smell of burned rubber in the air and the college kids at the side going crazy. I managed to stay upright somehow but still had to get off my bike and jump over heaps of bikes and bodies to get back on my bike. I ended up chasing for the rest of the race because I just didn’t want to get lapped so close to the end. I haven’t seen any results yet but I should have come in somewhere in the top 50. That’s cool because that’ll mean some points for the overall and better staging position for next race, tomorrow in Beaufort, SC.

So that was my first Athens Twilight. It was hard but a great experience. Next up is Beaufort. Looking forward to that. Hopefully, we’ll have internet access for the rest of the week, so I’ll try to keep you updated.

Brasstown Bald...

2008-04-23T16:31:00.003-07:00

...is a rather steep climb, I found out today. Not very long, but steep! We did it at the end of a three hour training ride and I must confess it hurt. It was all worth it once I got to the top, though: great view, bragging rights and a killer decent! The riding here is superb anyways. The landscape reminds me of a mixture of the Black Forest and the Alps back home in Europe but it definitely beats the weather over there ;-) The only drawback around here riding wise is the fact that there are no flat roads around here and the guys that built the roads never heard about the brand-new invention of “switch backs”, so the roads usually go straight up the hills… just how steep they can get may be deducted from this picture, showing Shannon cresting one of the aforementioned not-so-flat-roads.

After the race last weekend, Nathan, Shannon, Carli and I drove up to Blue Ridge, Georgia. We are staying in a gorgeous log cabin, with a three mile dirt road climb as only way to get to it. It is just awesome up here. Unfortunately, we’ll have to leave tomorrow to drive to Athens to get ready for the crit series. But until then, I will enjoy the scenery and quiet of this great place.

Mississippi Grand Prix

2008-04-22T18:43:00.001-07:00

After a rainy Friday, which resulted in the cancellation of the first stage, we got our racing-fix on Saturday with a double-stage: an 80 mile road race in the morning, followed by a 4 mile time trail in the afternoon. For the road race we had to do three laps on pretty narrow roads, which promptly resulted in a lot of yellow-line violations. Some of our guys also got send to the back but I still got pretty frustrated trying to move up fairly just to get passed by 5 guys on the left on the other side of the road. Anyway, we controlled to race for the first lap until things started to pick up and attacks started flying left and right but all of them got shut down until we were about halfway through the second lap. At this point three guys managed to open up a gap at the front… and we had Peter in there! That was great, as this was our plan for the day and we were shooting for the team overalls. The three stayed away all the way to the finish; unfortunately, Peter got dropped with 6 kilometers to go and just barely managed to stay ahead of the field. Joe and Nathan lead me out for the field-sprint but I lost Nathan’s wheel going into the last 300 meters, so I had to fight for myself. Still managed to come in 5^th of the pack, so 8^th overall. Two guys in the Top 10, not bad. But not good enough, as two other teams did even better.

In the afternoon we had a chance to make up for lost time in the time trail. We got to ride to the race to loosen our legs a little before starting the warm up for real. I felt decent during the warm up but as soon as I got out of the gate and accelerated to tt-speed, my legs made it very clear that they wouldn’t do what my brain told them to do, i.e. GO FAST. I ended up mashing a huge gear (spinning didn’t work at all). It helped that Leo had started right in front of me and I was determined not to let him get away. I ended up 5^th, about 13 seconds down. I was pretty happy with that. Nathan did well too but Peter was pretty blown form his effort earlier in the day and lost some time. So overall, I was sitting in 6^th, Nathan in 9^th and we were still third in the team-gc.

Well, we had one more chance to advance in the overalls with a circuit race on Sunday. It was a rather short course, so it played out more like a Crit than a circuit race. The plan was to get Nathan and Leo in a break to get some time but that didn’t work. Nothing stayed away longer than a couple of laps. Will and Peter did a great job in pulling back stuff all through the first half of the race. I made sure we were represented in the breaks in the second half and actually found myself in a four-man break with 3 laps to go. But again, we got sucked back in and with one lap to go it was one big pack again. Nathan, Leo and Joe came by me with half a lap to go and I jumped on their wheel. Nathan didn’t get the lead out he would have liked to but found a fast wheel for the sprint and came flying by everyone else to take a solid victory! First one for Metro Volkswagen! Of cause, we were all stoked that it finally worked out. I managed to come in 6^th of the day; Leo came in 9^th, so you could say that it was a successful day. Unfortunately, we didn’t manage to move up in the team-gc but that was ok. Nathan also got a time bonus for the win and actually bumped me back one place in the overalls. Turns out, after doing the math, that I’m missing one point for my upgrade to a cat 1 after this weekend… Now guess how many points I lost by loosing this one spot in the overall. Grrrrrrrr, thanks Nathan ;-)

This next weekend we will start the US Crit Series… that’s going to be painful! But a lot of fun at the same time.

More Cancelations...

2008-04-22T18:38:00.002-07:00

I finally made it to Mississippi on Friday, in time for the first stage of the Mississippi Grand Prix... which got cancelled due to rain (the course supposedly gets really sketchy when wet). So it turns out I stressed out for nothing.

Anyways, while hastening to my terminal I couldn’t help but notice the sign blow and had to stop to take a picture. Now, I ask you, go left or right? What kind of choice is this in the first place?

„Thank You For Choosing American Airlines BUT...“

2008-04-17T16:26:00.004-07:00

“…we regret to inform you that your flight has been canceled…” Yep, that’s the phone call I got this morning, just as I was getting ready to head out of the door and drive to the airport. As it turns out, I’ll have another day here in Phoenix… Next try: tomorrow morning at 6-something am. That should be enough time to get to Mississippi (I should get there by one pm or so). Well, the Mississippi GP stage one only starts at 7, so I guess I’m lucky.

Anyways, the bright side to it is that I get to spend another day with my parents. Yes, it just so happens that they are here for vacation, over from Luxembourg. They decided to trade the rain and 30ish degree temperatures for some desert sun; can’t say that I blame them ;-) . It’s nice to get some extra time with them and as all the bags are packed, I really have some time to enjoy it as I’m not continually stressing out about the upcoming trip. My folks will stay here in Phoenix for another couple of days before they hit the road and travel around a bit themselves (Las Vegas, Death Valley, Grand Canyon to name just a small portion of their program).

I’d like to take this opportunity to officially thank both mum and dad for their phenomenal support. All this experience in the USA would not have been possible without them and I really appreciate their patience with me (“when do you get a real job?”…). So here’s us three on South Mountain, enjoying the view (and the weather).

Day Off

2008-04-14T19:53:00.004-07:00

For those of you who wonder what I do on my off-days... usually nothing ;-) but once in a while I like to take my good old heavy duty mountain bike out for a spin on South Mountain. That’s exactly what I did today (it will probably be a long time until I get the chance to ride South Mountain again). We have an awesome trail there, called National Trail. Actually, it got voted as one of America’s Top 10 Trails in some magazine and I totally agree that it is great. Anyways, here’s me getting my adrenaline-fix on a tricky part of the descend. Oh, how I’ll miss that!

Fast Crits and not so fast (because steep) Climbs

2008-04-13T22:15:00.002-07:00

I finished up my last week of preparation with two races this weekend before taking a week off and rejoining the team later this week for the Mississippi Grand Prix. I’m happy that I finally get a break from the hard training and I am really looking forward to getting to travel with the guys and girls again.

Anyways, yesterday we had the Arizona State Crit Championships here in Phoenix. I rode my bike out to the event, as it was only some 15 miles from my place. The crit was right downtown Phoenix, on super smooth pavement and wide roads; unfortunately, that meant that the race was pretty fast, as you didn’t really have to hit the breaks at all and had to pedal through the turns… There were two strong teams that kept the whole affair under control and made it really hard for guys like myself who were in it for themselves. I nevertheless got my 5 minutes of fame when I was off the front (in the process of which I also got a prime, yeah!) but there was no way to stay away with all the horse power in the pack. At the end I messed up a little, as I was way too far back with 5 laps to go and everybody was suddenly riding like crazy (I got shoved around pretty good and ended up jumping curbs twice…) with at least one crash. So I ended up 14^th, which was ok, but not great. After a little chat with the guys I packed my stuff and rode back to my apartment where the traditional chocolate milk awaited.

Today, Sunday, I drove out to Superior, which is a small “town” in the middle of nowhere, some 60 miles east of Phoenix. The race featured a pretty hilly course with two extended (and that is NOT Texas-extended, i.e. longer than 2 miles) climbs. There was again a strong team that dictated the pace and gave us a hard time in the crosswind sections (try to get some people to open up a second echelon when the whole lane is taken up by a bunch of green jerseys…) and they finally managed to launch one their guys off the front. The whole thing fell apart with 15 miles to go, as we approached the final long climb(s). I managed to get in the chase group of five and after setting a hard tempo up the climbs, got the group down to three. Unfortunately, I was dragging a team mate of the guy in front around with me and the third guy was hanging on for dear life, so I ended up pulling most of the way in. That was ok, as I could drop the others and we also had a tail wind, so it didn’t hurt too much. I pretty much just made sure we didn’t get caught from anyone behind. As it turned out, I was the freshest anyhow and won the sprint of our group, finishing second of the day. Finally! I was really happy with the race and the way I felt. It was a relief to see the hard work finally pays off after all the mishaps earlier this season.

Now, it only remains to hope that it all caries over into the “real” racing period with the team; but I’m pretty optimistic. Not just did everybody work really hard over the break, Cory should also be back from his collarbone injury. It’ll be nice to have him back for the upcoming races!

Cookies and Ironmen

2008-04-10T18:07:00.001-07:00

So here I sit and am barely able to keep my eyes open. I just got back from my training ride for the day and it was a pretty long session in the saddle; so I am pretty toasted right now. The whole week has been pretty taxing, as it is my final week of preparation, so intensity and duration of my training is high right now.

Yesterday evening I did our “Wednesday-Nighter” here in Phoenix: a 45 minute crit in a parking lot. It was really fun, even though the course was very simple (4 cones = 4 corners) but I definitely got my training in. It was racing right from the gun and I kept attacking until we were down to eight guys; in the process of which I also won a prime: The COCKIE-PRIME! I couldn’t have picked a better one (who needs a $5 gift certificate from a bike shop?). I ended up 3^rd in the final sprint, which was good too.

This weekend we will host the Arizona Ironman here in Phoenix; as it happens, I rode the bike course as part of my ride today and those people-made-of-metal will have their work cut out for them: it’s a rather flat course but, man, it was windy today and will probably be windy on Sunday. Good luck with that one. Anyways, I ended up playing guide for a bunch of lost triathletes who couldn’t find their way through Tempe to the transition area… Well, I guess even at with events of this magnitude some problems are just the same as with every event, course marking being one of them. I’ll be racing on Sunday but hopefully I’ll be able to catch at least the swim part of the Ironman… No wait, they start at 7 am… Hmm, maybe I’ll rather watch the transition from the swim to the bike…

More Flats?!

2008-04-08T19:09:00.001-07:00

Something’s not right here: I got another two flats today while training... And the crazy thing is that one flat happened while I sat on the trainer this morning… Well, I hope this will do it for this year with flats. Let’s hope for the best.

NMBS Results

2008-04-07T09:54:00.001-07:00

So results are finally posted... I came in 45th yesterday after my two flats. Looking at the results, I was running somewhere between 20^th and 25^th when I got my first flat… That puts me in 27^th overall. Not too bad, after all.

For more results go to http://bluewolfevents.com/results

Good Times, Bad Times... NMBS Style

2008-04-06T22:03:00.002-07:00

Good news first: my form seems to be getting better and I am starting to feel stronger on the bike; Pivot Mach 4 is an awesome bike: climbs great, handles super snappy, is nice and stiff and the rear suspension works! Weather was fine too; support from all the guys at Pivot (especially Jason) was tremendous . Thanks again for that.

Result: not so good. I don’t want to whine too much, so I’ll try and keep it short: it started all wrong before the race even began. I was sitting 23^rd overall, and, according to the promoter, this should also have been my starting position for the CC race today… was not! I lined up somewhere in the second to last line (i.e. somewhere around 70^th place). As the course doesn’t offer too much passing opportunities, that was great of cause. But we didn’t even make it into the single track, as a bunch of guys locked handlebars and went down about 100m into the race. Fortunately, I didn’t go down but got stuck behind the carnage, so that wasn’t too good either. Anyways, after that I started to get in a groove and was working my way through the field (in the process of which I inevitably hit a cactus; I still got some in my little finger on the left hand…) until, halfway through the second lap my rear tire blew out. I know, in an earlier post I complained that the course was too fast and groomed… so that is what I got for that remark. I fixed it but by the time I got going again I had dropped back some 15-10 positions (I had worked my way up into the top 30 before disaster struck). I got back on the bike and started to pick up some of the guys that had just past me when, about a lap later, I found myself standing at the side of the course again, fixing, again, my rear tire… Needless to say, this pretty much ended all my hopes for the day of a good finish. I caught some of the stragglers on my way into the finish but I guess I was pretty far of the back at the end. I couldn’t find any results posted before I left (which was pretty much after everyone else, including the promoter, had left) so I don’t know where I finally came in and how that screwed up my overall ranking at the end of the day…

So there you have it. I just hope that next weekend will be better. To end on a positive note: I didn’t crash and I didn’t get selected for the doping test yesterday, so no harm done there; and, I still had a lot of fun.

There only remains one more thing to say:

METROVOLKSWAGENFIGHTNEVERDIES, so I’ll keep trying!

NMBS Short Track

2008-04-05T21:08:00.001-07:00

PAIN! That’s all I felt for the better part of 20 minutes this afternoon during the NMBS Short Track race here in Phoenix; and it still wasn’t enough to not get pulled. Well, I made it to the two-to-go-part of the race, so I was pretty close to finishing the race. I think I finished somewhere just inside the top 30 or so, so that was ok. Especially after having to run up the only steep hill every lap due to a) traffic, b) deep sand thanks to all the other categories that ran up it before us, and c) lack of power on my part when I had a clear shot at it. Anyways, it was still fun (even though painful) but, man, even the so-called pros need to work on their breaking techniques: going into the downhill on the first lap, it was so dusty thanks to everyone in front locking up their breaks that I could see absolutely NOTHING! I really don’t know why you had to hit the breaks in the first place but I find myself contemplating this pretty much every race I’m in. Anyways, I bombed down it flying blind… and made it though no problem thanks to the Pivot. So, all in all, a successful day. Except, I forgot to check the USADA board afterwards… hopefully I wasn’t picked but I guess I’ll find out tomorrow…

NMBS SuperD

2008-04-04T21:13:00.000-07:00

Did the first stage of this weekend’s Nova NMBS race here in Phoenix today, which was the SuperD. It was a really long course (winning time just under 16 min) and not a lot of elevation loss, i.e. a lot of pedaling. It actually felt more like a Short Track race intensity wise. I came in 22^nd out of a 70 plus field. I’m pretty happy with that, as I was within a good minute of the leader and, given the length, that was really good. It also gives me some hope for tomorrow’s Short Track event; the goal is to stay in the race and not get pulled and, with today’s time, this could just be possible. Then again, I will have to start from ways back and might get stuck in traffic. We will see tomorrow.

NMBS is Back in Town

2008-04-03T20:53:00.001-07:00

Just got back pre-riding the course for the NMBS in Phoenix this weekend and what can I say? It hasn’t changed since last time… unfortunately! Still the same fast, groomed course with Texas-style climbing i.e. nothing. Well, it’s just for fun anyhow, right?

The NMBS in Phoenix this year will be in the form of a stage race, so we’ll kick it off tomorrow with the SuperD. I’m still not sure if I should take it easy and play it safe or go balls out but I guess as soon as I’m on the line tomorrow this question will solve itself. It should be a lot of fun anyhow, even though there is a lot of pedaling and no technical stuff but my Pivot will get me trough it! I really love the bike and it is perfect for this kind of racing: stiff, turns well and also climbs great (even though I wont need that this weekend).

We’ll continue on Saturday with the Short Track and have the Cross Country race on Sunday. I’ll keep you posted on how it goes…

Weekend Recap

2008-03-31T14:33:00.002-07:00

As this is a cycling blog I feel that I owe you all a little more insight into the Tucson Bicycle Classics (TBC), i.e. the stage race I did this past weekend. As I mentioned earlier, I wasn’t even sure if I would be able to race, as my road bike was still “missing” on Thursday night and the TBC kicked off on Friday with a three mile time trail. So I was rather stressed out on this Friday morning, trying to figure out where my bike had landed, as it was supposed to be here Thursday… turns out it was here Tuesday but FedEx didn’t leave me a note (I would think they didn’t even try to deliver it to my apartment, as I was home all day Tuesday…) and dropped it off at the office. So I grabbed the bike, pulled it out of the box, threw it in the van and off I was for Tucson.

The first stage was a three mile time trail with a “brutal 5% climb followed by rollers and a 6% grunt to the finish” (yep, that's what it says on the home page). Reading this, I played it a little conservative at the start to have something left for the “grunt” at the end. I still caught two guys who had started ahead of me but it turned out that I didn’t go hard enough anyways. I kept waiting for the climb to kick in but it was more a false flat with 2 (very short) ramps… so I ended up 10^th, 40 second down. I might have done better if I had known the course but having my tt bike here would have helped a bunch. The steep sections were short enough to power over and it was really windy. But reading the description, it didn’t really sound like a tt-bike-course and I didn’t have my tt bike here in Phoenix anyways. So no point dwelling on that issue.

The second stage was an 80 mile road race with, supposedly, “approx 700’ of climbing, including a solid, sustained climb just after the S/F line”… I must have a wrong understanding of “sustainable” or at least I must have missed that part of the course. To make matters worse, it was darn windy again. My main issue was that I didn’t know whom to watch, as it is early in the season and I haven’t raced a lot of those guys here in Arizona; so I decided to watch for the well placed riders on GC… and missed the three-man-break that stuck and stayed away. Well, my mistake but I still tried to get away from the pack with 10 miles to go. I got a gap all right, but not enough, so they reeled me back with 5 k or so to go. Fortunately, I was able to recover and still finished second out of the group, i.e. 5^th for the day. GC position didn’t change, as the three guys from the break were now in front of me but three that had been placed higher in the tt got dropped. At least I got some upgrade points out of it!

Stage three on Sunday was a circuit race on a 5.8 mile course. I had driven over the course on my way back home on Friday and was really looking forward to it as it promised to have some climbing… at least going the direction I drove it. Unfortunately, we raced it the other way round; a nice long, straight descend and no sustained climbing (again!). Why does that always happen to me? The course could have been so much more fun if it had been run the other way round… But oh well, nothing I can do about it. Anyways, it turned out that the racing time of just under two hours was way too short to break up the pack. Nevertheless, two guys managed to get away at the start of the race. There was a time bonus halfway through the race and I had determined to go for the 10 seconds, as everything was pretty close together and those seconds would have put me in 5^th or so. So I attacked hard and nearly caught the couple but not quite. Darn. Sounds familiar? What I’ve been doing all year long so far: close, but not close enough. The end of the race played out similar to Saturday: we had two guys off the front (yeah I know, I should have known, but to my defense, I was blocked in when they went and I hesitated just a little too long) and so I tried my luck with an attack in the last lap. For whatever reason, every time I attacked, I either had EVERYONE react, or no one! Well, so I found myself chasing alone, a couple of seconds in front of the pack and 30 sec behind the lead duo. I nearly secured the third place this time, but got swallowed with 50 meters to go… no comment. Needless to say, I was rather in a bad mood after the race but, after sleeping over it, it might have had something good to it after all: I stayed in 10^th place overall but the guy that won on Sunday moved up and ended up two seconds behind me. Probably, if the pack hadn’t picked it up to chase me down and I would have sat in, those two seconds would have been lost too. So there is always a bright side to everything.

I hope your eyes aren’t sore after this SUPER SHORT post (I promise to post after each stage next time if I can). This coming weekend should be rather fun, as the NMBS is in town and I get to play in the dirt again. The guys at BH gave me one of the mountain bikes to race on. It’s a Pivot Mach 4 and should be great fun (it looks awesome, that’s for sure). For those of you who don’t know: The guys at Pivot actually import BH, so they only do BH road bikes and their own mountain bikes, Pivot. Check it out at http://www.pivotcycles.com/

Quick Update

2008-03-30T21:34:00.000-07:00

Sorry, I’ve been kind of slow with my postings lately but I was pretty busy and stressed out. For one, I had some friends from

Germany

over for a while. This was really fun, as those friends are my biking buddies (and gals) from back home and they brought their bikes over with them. So I got quite a bit of “good old mountain biking” during the two weeks they were here. Unfortunately, this also meant that I was on the road quite a bit because they wanted to also see something of the country (i.e. Grand Canyon, Sedona…). So there went my posting-time.

On top of it all, my road bike took forever to get to Phoenix and only arrived just in time for the past weekend. This was very helpful as I had registered for the Tucson Bicycle Classics, a three day stage race in Tucson. So I pulled the bike out of the box, threw on some wheels and put in the seat post and off I was to the race. All in all it was ok, I finished 5^th in the road race and 10^th overall… not what I had hoped for but, considering that I went with the wrong moves and missed the important ones (as always…), I have to be happy that I didn’t end up further down.

Today’s race ended on a slightly bitter note because I came close to a good finish but only close: I was chasing a lead duo alone but got swallowed by the pack with 50 meters to go… well, better luck next time. At least I got a great workout.

More Travel

2008-03-25T11:56:00.003-07:00

It appears that even when I’m not racing, I am on the road all the time. I just got back from a short trip to the Grand Canyon. I met with a couple of friends from Germany who happen to be there on vacation right now. I spend the weekend up there, getting some nice riding in at 6000 ft. Weather was nice too but the nights where rather cold.

As you can’t go to the Grand Canyon and not hike a “little” to admire the scenery, my friends decided that it was time to ignore the warning signs that state that it is “absolutely not recommended” to hike down to the Colorado river and back in one day. So we set out and pretty much walked for the better part of 6 hours; turns out that this is just as strenuous as (or even worse than) base mile riding and provides a good workout: my legs, back and shoulders are pretty sore today… Nevertheless, we made it down to the river and, after a short swim, back up. The views were absolutely incredible and the whole canyon looks totally different from down there. It was definitely worth the effort!

As a nice side effect, I am absolutely fed up with hiking now and am really looking forward to get back on my bike. I hope that my road bike finally shows up tomorrow so that I can get back to work. In the meantime, I’ll just sit back, recover and let the experience and impressions from yesterday sink in some more.

Back in Phoenix

2008-03-19T19:31:00.003-07:00

Holliday is over. We got back from San Diego last Saturday and what can I say? It was great. It felt good to get off the bike for a little bit and relax. But it wasn’t all fun and games. As promised, we tried surfing… well, kind of. I actually managed to stand on the board a couple of times but, man, it was quite a workout. The pros make it look so easy but it is hard work… which translates into a lot of sore muscles. Never the less, it was a lot of fun.

Today I was back on the bike and put in some solid hours. Next race for me is the Tucson Bicycle Classics and I’m really looking forward to it.

Where did my Luck go?

2008-03-11T11:50:00.002-07:00

As I am typing this I’m sitting on the plane back home to Phoenix. It feels good to know that I have an easy week in front of me and that I am going to get to spend some time with my girlfriend. As a matter of fact, I will be sitting in the plane later today again, heading out to San Diego: Oh yeah, it’s beach time!

Anyways, I finished my first racing block yesterday with the Rouge Roubaix race in Louisiana and what can I say: even though the outcome wasn’t as I had hoped for, I still had a blast. For those of you who never heard of this race: It is a 100 miles over rather bad roads with 3 gravel road sections (adding up to about 30 miles of dirt overall) and some decent climbing. This in itself would have made for a fun race but we finally were able to work as a team this weekend too. The Metro Volkswagen Cycling Team pretty much controlled the whole race, from the start to about mile 80. It was a beautiful thing to watch: 3 to 4 guys setting the tempo at the front, keeping a nice tempo, sheltering the others. Everyone did their job exceptionally well. Gordon, Anuthee and Parker set the pace leading up to the first dirt section; Will, Peter, Mike and Joe pulled us to the second one before Peter joined in to lead me and Nathan right to the bottom of the steepest climb of the day, right at the start of the last dirt section. From there on it was up to me to establish a break and go for it. This all worked out perfectly well for a couple of miles: I pulled away on the climb and had a solid gap to the next guy, who himself had a good lead over the first bigger chase group. I was feeling really good and was going strong. By the time I was about halfway through the last dirt section, I started to ease up and pick my line a bit more carefully. This, apparently, was not the best idea: just as I was starting to play it safe, I must have hit something, even though I didn’t feel anything. All I know is that my rear tire blew and was flat within a second with a dime-sized gash in the sidewall… Mike was the first of our guys to reach me and immediately sacrificed his rear wheel, but by this time about three groups and 5 minutes or so had gone by. With Nathan and Peter’s help, I managed to get back into the second chase group but that was about it. The guy that had been chasing me alone before I got my flat managed to stay away, even though the group chased hard. I am pretty sure that I could have finished right there with him, had I been able to avoid the flat. But that’s racing, I guess.

So we had a somewhat disappointing finish to a great day. On a positive note, the girls had a very good race too with Shannon finishing third. Also, as mentioned earlier, the team worked really well. So I guess with a little more luck next time we might finally start winning some races soon ;-)

For now, I’ll have a little break from racing. This week will be an off week for me. That’ll be nice, only some easy training and some time off the bike. And if the weather holds up, I might even be able to try my luck at surfing in San Diego! That should be fun…

Never Trust the Weather Forecast

2008-03-06T18:38:00.000-07:00

Ok, so the forecast was wrong... again. I wouldn’t mind so much if it erred on the good side (say, 80 degrees today instead of the predicted 35) but that’s not what happened today. Anyways, after fighting through rain, hail, sleet, snow, rain again, snow again… earlier today for two hours, I finally had to call it quits as the roads just got a little too slippery. I managed to make it back to the shop (Mad Duck) and, by that time, I was just happy to be out of that sludge. I hopped on the trainer for a little (just to warm back up and, honestly, I planned on getting back out there and at least ride home as soon as the roads cleared a bit). Well, everyone who knows me knows that I’d rather ride outside in the nastiest weather than spin on the trainer but, needless to say, the roads never cleared and I ended up finishing my ride on the trainer (woo-hoo: 3 hours of fun!!!). After that, Debby picked me up (in a WARM car) and we made it home safely.

All in all, I managed to get the hours in I had planned for but it wasn’t as much fun today. At least one thing went the way I had planned: I got my hot chocolate as soon as I got back!

Tomorrow will be a travel day, as the team will be leaving for Rouge. It will be a rather long drive but I bet it will be a lot of fun as a lot of guys are going down, so the trip should be entertaining. Also, the weather is supposed to be nice down there this weekend. At least, that’s what the forecast says…

Back to Work

2008-03-05T21:44:00.004-07:00

Yeah, I must say I wish I had more time riding my mountain bike. I really had a blast this weekend in BarH. But now it is back to “work”, i.e. putting in hours on the road bike; or rather on my TT bike. After playing around with seat position and height as well as bar setup all afternoon, I think I finally found an agreeable position. I’ll have Clarence at Mad Duck double check it tomorrow before I take it out for my 5 hour training ride… no, wait: a short spin… well, we’ll see how it goes. Looking at the forecast (rain, low 30s, 20+ mph winds), I’ll probably be home sipping hot coco in no time; but then again you got to do what you got to do! I just hope I don’t get any frostbite ;-)

Playing in the Dirt

2008-03-03T14:30:00.003-07:00

Yesterday I got the opportunity to race at the Bar H Bash, a mountain bike race of the Texas State Championship Series at Saint Jo. As in the last couple of years, the event was a lot of fun and very well organized, thanks to Cap and Tobin’s tireless efforts. Well, as the team had a weekend “off” (i.e. no racing) and the event was sponsored by Mad Duck Cyclery and Yeti Cycles, I got a chance to get back on a mountain bike for a change and see how far my skills had already degenerated after riding on the road that much ;-). As it turned out, it wasn’t too bad and I managed to finish the race in third place. This was not quite the result I had hoped for, but I still had a great time. The fact that I got to ride the new Yeti ASR Carbon only added to the fun! Rachel also raced and came in second in her class.

All in all, everyone had a blast, no crashes and got a great workout. I had forgotten how different mountain bike races were from the rather steady efforts of road racing. There’s no sitting in and rolling with the pack; you have to red-line it from the get-go and never look back. But then again, this is just part of what makes riding your mountain bike so much fun. And if nothing else, this weekend was a perfect preparation for Rouge-Roubaix, the next “road” race the team will tackle this coming weekend. With plenty of dirt roads, this race should hopefully be just as much fun as it was yesterday!

Thank you, Ladies!

2008-02-28T22:03:00.005-07:00

Last weekend was the first hot race of the season and I guess the team went through at least 1 million (or more) bottles during the road race at Pace Bend. Given the chaotic conditions in the feed zone, you might wonder we managed to get all those bottles on board during the race: Thanks to our phenomenal feed zone crew, of cause.

As every single one of them can tell you, it is not an easy thing to feed a team during a race. For one, there is the battle for position in the feed zone; then you need to find your riders and make sure, none of the competition grabs a bottle. In between laps, you need to find and collect the tossed bottles, refill them and, of cause, wrangle your way back to a good spot to do it all over again the next lap.

So I’d like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who helped out this weekend. We couldn’t do it without you and I hope, you guys and girls had a little bit of a fun at the race anyhow.

The Sun is HOT!

2008-02-27T13:28:00.001-07:00

One little piece of advice here: even if it is still cold outside (and might not even be that sunny at times): PUT ON SUNSCREEN. I was sitting on my trainer outside on the deck yesterday and, the weather being finally nice, was only wearing a sleeveless jersey and shorts. I was only doing some intervals for two hours and it was earlier in the day, too, but guess what: it was enough to earn me a slight sun burn on the shoulders… So, I guess winter is finally on the retreat, even if the temperatures aren’t that high yet. But the sun sure is strong already.

Heads up, Corey!

2008-02-25T22:22:00.004-07:00

I just found this clip on the net and it is hilarious. I dedicate this one to Corey, who is probably in quite some pain right now (except if he is still on painkillers). For those of you who haven’t heard yet: we had way too many crashes yesterday in Pace Bend, the worst of which happened right on the straight towards the finish line. Corey and Leo got tangled up in it, with Leo “only” loosing some skin, but Corey went down hard. The crash destroyed his bike, helmet and, unfortunately, his collarbone too.

So here’s the video.

Something to Smile About

2008-02-21T10:28:00.002-07:00

The weather is bad, it is freezing cold outside (compared to Phoenix) and, surprise surprise, I’m still a bit sick... so here’s a little something to lift the spirits. Watch and enjoy!

Getting Better

2008-02-20T13:17:00.002-07:00

I seem to be getting over my cold! This morning I was feeling way better than the last couple of days so I hope to be back to normal tomorrow. Hopefully the rest of the team is also getting better and we will be ready to rock this weekend at Pace Bend.

VoS Results

2008-02-19T22:47:00.001-07:00

Valley of the Sun results are posted at:
http://www.wmrc.org/vos/

To Phoenix and Back

2008-02-19T22:45:00.001-07:00

What a week! I guess I spend more time in the van than anywhere else this past week. It wasn’t too bad though, as it turned out to be one of those classic road trips. The destination was Phoenix, Arizona, for the Valley of the Sun Stage Race. So we spent Tuesday and Wednesday on the road, which turned out to be rather fun. As everyone who has ever driven through Texas towards El Paso knows, there are some quite long stretches of road where there is neither cell phone nor radio reception (and for whatever reason we didn’t bring any CDs) so Mike took over as entertainer and helped pass the time (his singing talents are quite remarkable!).

Anyways, we finally made it to Phoenix. All of us were looking forward to some nice desert climate, i.e. clear blue skies and sun… Yeah right, sun! Temperatures in the 50ies and rain for the TT on Friday… GREAT! TT didn’t go too well for me, I thought I was going pretty well until the guy that had started one minute behind me came flying past on the way back in… I ended up 30^th, some 3 minutes down. There went my ambitions for GC… I was somewhat disappointed, as I had expected more but that’s the way it goes. Corey was still struggling with a cold and his TT went even worse. With no more GC goals we decided to focus on the individual stages. That worked out a little better: on Saturday both Corey and me came in the top 10 and on Sunday I managed a 8^th place in the Crit; overall, this bumped me up to 17^th. So I guess the weekend went ok after all.

Today I’m back in Dallas and, unfortunately, got a little head cold. Corey did a great job racing in AZ while sick but I’m afraid he passed it on to the rest of the team so most of us were sniffling and coughing during the drive back to Dallas. I’m feeling a bit better though and hopefully will be back to normal tomorrow or the day after. In any case, I hope that we all are over our “team sickness” by this weekend and we all are on top of our game this coming weekend for Pace Bend. We should have a rather strong team down there and hopefully a shot at winning.

Until then, I hope the weather holds (no rain, please) and I my cold might just miraculously disappear over nigh. We’ll see if that’ll work…

Feels like Christmas!

2008-02-08T10:31:00.000-07:00

Just a quick update from training camp here in Dallas: we got here yesterday and got most of our stuff and bike. Everyone was very excited to get on the new equipment and later today we will get a chance to try it all out on our first training ride with the team. But first we need to get the bikes fitted and some lunch; weather is fine too, a bit windy but not too cold. It should be fun to get out and ride with the whole team and get to know the others better.

Dallas

2008-02-06T00:13:00.000-07:00

Finally training camp is here! I’ll be flying out tomorrow to Dallas to meet up with the rest of the team for out first get together of the season. I’m really looking forward to that, to meeting the other team members and getting onto the new bikes. It’s going to be a blast.

Bike Troubles

2008-01-25T17:17:00.000-07:00

Yesterday didn’t end too well, as my frame finally gave up on me completely. This was the more annoying as I was just packing and getting ready to drive up to Vegas for the first road race of the season. Needless to say, with my new bike still on the way, I had to ditch this plan… Right now I’m pretty disappointed, as I am feeling really good at the moment and can’t wait to put my form to the test. Oh well, I guess that has to wait another couple of days.

Back in Phoenix

2008-01-21T20:27:00.000-07:00

Home sweet home! I just got back from Sierra Vista where I spend the weekend with my girlfriend and some friends. It was very relaxing and we had a good time but after driving back for three hours it feels good to be back home (and it's warmer here in Phoenix too).

I also kicked off my racing season on Saturday with the McDowell Meltdown, the first mountain bike race of the Arizona Championship Points Series. It was my first mtb race here in Arizona and I must say I had a blast. The organization was good (even though not quite as smooth as what I'm used to from Texas) and we raced a nicely groomed, screaming fast track on the outskirts of Fountain Hills; as a matter of fact, it was the same course as the NORBA Nationals, which will return to the venue in April. As this was the first race of the season, a huge field showed up and I found myself lined up with at least 20 to 30 other racers in the Pro/ Semi-Pro class... and everyone wanted to get into the trail first. After the initial chaos, I soon found myself in a four man lead group. As the lap count increased, the group dwindled down to three, then to two, and with one lap to go I stepped on it on one of the climbs and dropped the last one too. So, in short, it was a perfect way to start of the new season.

Next weekend I hope to head up for Vegas for a three day stage race. We will see, Vegas being what it is, I might as well stay a day longer and enjoy the city... I'll keep you posted.