Visas and Europe

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

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

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

News?

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

Racing Update

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

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

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

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

Crazy

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

Home Sweet Home

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

Some Pics from Joe Martin

Joe Martin wrap-up

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

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

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

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

Hope to have some pics from the weekend up soon.