Cyclocross... Euro-Style

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

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

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

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

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)

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.

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!