Beaufort Memorial Cycling Classic

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?

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...

...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

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...

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...“

“…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

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!