Tour de Toona and the comedy of professional cycling!

Tour de Toona Day 1
I was coming into tour de Toona with high hopes of a top ten GC finish and some good fitness... luckily one of those happened. Sort of. The first days race was an intense and short circuit race in the boonies outside Altoona P.A. deep in the realm of Menonite (Floyd) country. It was a rolling circuit that came into town for a very tight very very fast crit like thing coming into the finish before heading back out on the bigger circuit. I was able to ride agressively, and actually got in an attack on the final lap that had promise. Sadly, when the pace of the field is over 27 mph it's hard to stay away. Coming into the finishing circuit everything got REALLY scetchy and I ended up not risking my life and coming in with the WAY TOO INTACT field. Oh well.

Tour de Toona Day 2
After checking out the course the night after the circuit race, I knew it would be a day of work for me to get Justin in the front group. My legs havent been reacting to climbing well this year and considering im about 6 pounds heavier than I need to be to climb well, today I would be a work horse and was I ever. I spent the majority of the first 40 miles toward the front going with a few stupid yet possibly good moves then all hell began. Blue knob signs began to show up and the closer we got the faster we went. At the base of the climb I started hurting and I did what I needed to to get Justin in the front. Then boom, the wall of 10-15% grade hit the thighs and I was finished. After about 15 miles of chasing in a sad belief that we just might catch one of the front groups we started picking up small groups and sadly one had Justin in it. Poop. In the end we had a fun little finish sprint that I finished 2nd in. oh well. Sunday I kind of hurt my knee so I didnt get too far into the crit. Good thing. It was a hellish course and I was not even 50% so I called it a day and watched the remainder of the race from the sideline. Oh well.

Chalk up another and another gone

Iban Mayo is a doper.

Sweet... who else? With that being said, the clean team in America is looking to grow. Sliptream is adding not only David Millar, THE Dave Z, and Christian Vande Velde and "a past winner of Paris Robaix" Check out the article here. I remember reading a few months back an article about big Maggie Backstead and how he hoped to work with up and coming pros when he got older. Considering Van Petegam, Boonen and Stuey are all pretty set in their teams and their roles on those teams my money is on Big Maggie. This could make NRC racing in the states pretty intense if they decide they want to come over and "play" wahoo.

Any way, its time for me to get on the bike. I have a two week block to get ready for Georgia Cup Stage Race and then it's vacation, school, and greenmountain or Windsor. yaya

What the hell is happening?

The Situation
The yellow jersey Michael Rassmussen puts the hammer to the best riders in the world on what many call the hardest day in tour de france history. It seems like life in the cycling world is calming down and finally starting to clean up. WRONG! Less than an hour after finishing his amazing march up Col d'Aubisque Cristian Moreni of Cofidis comes across the line and is welcomed with open arms by french police. He tested positive for testosterone. Once again, the system is cleaning up and everything is good. less than six hours later all hell breaks lose. Rasmussen is removed from the tour, in yellow, for lying about his whereabouts durring the off season. SO.... yellow jersey gone, Moreni and his entire team GONE, and Astana GONE, I guess I have to settle for the fact that again discovery will win the tour AGAIN. Yes I'm American and yes I'm glad to have freedom of speech and all that other nice stuff like food, clean water, obesity and suv's but im deffinately not one walking around with a bald eagle on my head dawning a stars and bars toga. In all honesty I'm a little tired of american teams and riders winning. Luckily the newly changed yellow goes onto the shoulders of a 23 year old spaniard. But still. Discovery.... dang. It's like the yankees getting into the world series AGAIN because some guy on some other team is on steroids or something! Er...wait... but...nevermind. All I can do now is that everyone wrecks in the TT Cadel makes it through unscathed and becomes the first Aussie to win the tour and that the rest of the top 10 gets caught as drugies so that horner and maybe just maybe Luxembourger Schleck can take a podium like he deserves... maybe Jens Voigt or even Tom "the tornado" boonen? Nothings impossible in todays world. So here is my conclusion for tour winner:

AND WHAT IS HIS "SUBSTANCE" OF CHOICE!?!?!?




Life for us Normal People
The hunt for a new home is underway as I said. I realized I only put up one potential place of possible export this winter, but there is another. Hopefully I will know in the next few weeks which one is going to work out best. HOPEFULLY! As for now, myself, J.Anderson, Kerman, Billy "the yorkshire beast" York, and B-Unit Tim are off to Tour de Toona. yaya! Wish us luck! 6 hour drive with 5 guys. yeeeeeeeeees!

Need more coffee. J.A. Your a pansy!

The chicken, life, and learning how to fall

Les attaques de poulet!
As many people, even those who dont give a flying whi cares about cycling know that there is some big bike race going on right now in France. Apparently it's a big tour, and apparently it's kind of a big deal. For me this has been one of the most entertaining cycling spectacles I've ever seen (unless you count the naked bike races @mountain bike nationals). Not only is the race so wide open that a freight trail could billow through it, but the leader of the tour is a 130 pound 5'9" dane who's nickname is the chicken... Need I say more.


Learning to get up
Sunday's racing landed at one of the more interesting, tough, yet fun courses in the local vacinitiy. Tour d'Burg is a comprised of no less than 7 turns, with a poopy brick section, 90 degress turn with a sewer grate in it and 3 brick walkways to work your way through when turning. Fun I know. After a rather agressive start, I could tell Justin was feeling good, and decided to get him a result he so desperately needed. So after getting away twice in the first 15-20 minutes (with roadhouse riders on wheel again) Justin was able to go with a counter and make the first real group. It was up to me to shut the field down seeing that no other team really "wanted" to. So, after 20 minutes of fun chasing, attacking, and tempoing on the front, Kirk of course went. HARD. Thinking twice I hesitated and missed probobly my best chance at a good result for the rest of the year. Oh well. Coming into on of the backside turns on the course, "ahhhh". Yeah, on the deck I went. Hip busted, elbow bleeding everywhere, I made my way back, bike unscathed to the pit for a restart. Luckily there were only about 7 laps to go so I sat on, waited for the sprint, and gave it what I could given my condition. In the end just got 10th or something, and I, have no idea where I finished. Who cares. It's Ohio.



Moving on
Finally, it looks like I have a new home coming soon. Keep me in your thoughts (prayers if thats your thing), as I am making a big step in chance, and hoping it pays off well in the end.

Troy Classic Recap

First I have to say there is nothing like living the professional amature cyclist life. Riding, working every once in a while. Traveling. Eating. Sweeeeeet. Yesterday marked my return to Troy classic and although the result did not come as well as I thought it would I can say I'm very happy with my fitness It doesnt help when you roll into a race with 12 guys from Texas Roadhouse and no a combined 1,2,3 and U23 field. You have to love Ohio. Paul Martin was there in his stars and bars jersey so that was a cool thing to be riding with. Even better was the fact that he was my mark for the day. Wahooo. The race was negative as is every race around here with roadhouse putting three in a move with Grimm from Team Godspeed. It was up to me and a guy from team sweet to play the agressive idiots and try and pull back the 30 second gap. Needless to say, no one helped. With 10 laps to go I moved to the front to string it out and try and limit the attacks for alex. He got in a conflict with a roundabout but made his way back and was riding agressively. With 5 to go I again moved up and was drilling it just to see he had been dropped.... Yeah. Awsome. I swung off and had a bit of a conversation with some people in a raised voice and the field came in for a sprint. Big suprise. I started the sprint too far back and didn't feel like sprinting for 20th place so I just coasted in for 30th or something. again, not a result I like, and not one that shows my fitness. Oh well, thats bike racing! Got some good pictures, so enjoy!
Assessing the damage!?

Stringing it out AGAIN. Looking relaxed eh? I guess im fit or something

Sitting in again. The calm before the storm of 10 to go!

sitting comfortable in 5th wheel

Call it a day...

Gett'r DONE!

So im sitting here watching one of the most entertaining tours in years, being stuffed to the gills with Chicken and garlic sauce from Phan Shin uptown and I thought it would be a good idea to take care of a few things. Firstly, I guess I needed to register for toona since It has been one of the focus races of my season. Secondly, i finally sat down and figured out my total schedule, and WOW, is it busy.

So here it is:
7.21- TROY CLASSIC CRITERIUM
7.22- TOUR DE BURG
7.27/29- INTERNATIONAL TOUR DE TOONA
8.1/5- CROSSROADS CYCLING CLASSIC/HANES PARK CRITERIUM ***NRC***
8.11/12- Tour of Elk Grove
VACATION to GREENVILLE
8.25- Rockford Criterium
8.26- Chagrin Falls G.P.
8.31-9.3- Gateway Cup

So yeah, for those of you wondering where ill be, ta-duh! Thats where ill be. As for now, im going to bed. yes it's 9:30. I really dont care!

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...

Im back in ohio from nationals and needless to say, I have had better experiences... Points to highlight:
1. Driving to 7 Springs BLOWS from ohio.
2. Meeting two cocky Kodak Gallery Riders at Ruby Tuesdays is entertaining
3. Getting wrong directions from the host hotel and missing your national RR start SUCKS!
4. TT's on INTERSTATES with headwinds DONT suit me!
5. 30 mph average crits ROCK
6. Making a drive from PA to OHIO starting at 8:30 p.m. is nearly impossible.

Theres a lot to explain so im going to avoid a lot. Firstly, YES we DID miss the start of the RR, NO its NOT my fault, and YES I was REALLY pissed off. The TT the fallowing day in no way suited me, and I hope they find a different way to handle it next year, and yes, I will be in better shape thats for sure. As for the TT here is a picture of my buddy BEN GABARDI winning the 14 year old age group TT... this kid can fly. Tell me when you last saw a 14 year old guy look like this!


As for the crit, I have to say, this course was very nice, yet very hard at the same time. Simply put, 3 corners + 90 some riders x No one getting away means that this course was FAST. And considering I found my way off the front once at 30+ with 3 others and got pulled back in less than one lap is a perfect example. I was in great position for a top 25 finish coming into the final corner until a rock and republic rider found a way to force the field into chaos, allowing oh about half the field behind to move into a better position than myself with less that 500 meters to go... thanks bud! To make it even better. The guy whos wheel I was fallowing for the last 5 laps (Cody O'Reily) found his way onto the podium avoiding the insanity behind. AWSOME...

Overall, it was a learning experience and I look forward to next year, know how things work and being in much better form. Maybe some top 25's or even better.... after all i have only been on a bike for less than 2 years!

as for now, im running solely on coffee and pop-tarts from last night and this morning and am now off to the shop for an 8 hour day of dealing with bikes I really dont care about. We'll see how this plays out.

until later
-dee-

p.s. two fun local races coming this weekend. Everyone should come out and support!

"Looking for a slap and tickle": A few long weeks!

So it seems it has been quite a while since posting so figured I would keep he few people who read this entertained for as long as...well... Someone with as oddball a life can keep anyone entertained. Last weekends races were as hit and miss as the bars can be here in Oxford in the summer (Ill explain later).

Hyde Park treated me alright. I pulled out a 7th place regardless of coach KIM giving me a workout to do durring it. That course is fun, but sometimes, I dont know, after a CRAZY hard week on the bike, you just can't go as hard as you wish. So after making some money, I headed up to columbus to be BLOWN out of the water in Grandview. I havent been dropped from a crit in 15 minutes since... well... now that I think about it, I NEVER have. Gammers rode like a raging angry little man as always and beat up on the pros and ex-national champs for second place. Hes a stud!
Here are some pics from saturday:
Trying to bring em back!
STILL off the front
SUPRISE... OFF the front

This weekend i came off a rip rearing hard week on the bike again trying to get ready for nationals so i decided to only do one race. Considering state road race champs were going on, why not. Lucky me my body reacted better to stress this week and I pulled out a podium getting second. I completely dehydrated myself and my feed wasnt at the right place on the course so i did nearly have the race on "E" In the end I was pretty happy but hurting REALLY bad. Which leads me to the section of the post called LIFE.

I have decided to move back to Oxford for the remainder of the summer considering the travels will be frequent why not. Since back here on tuesday my days have ended at bars... lots of bars.... and the encounters have been downright unexplainably funny! in a few short quotes I think I can lay out how things have been...
"PONG!"..."There not coming i guess"---Getting ditched
"6 in an hour!?"---reaction to getting ditched
"YOU LAUGH at me?--From an angry cagefighting boyfriend we have tagged as crazys**t
"NOOOOOOO!" ---two girls reaction to my requesting of drink at 45 east
"It was my idea to take them home"---why cage fighter wanted to kill me
"I guess I enhaled some chemicals at work and I feel terrible, I guess I have to stay up late so I see if i die or not!"
"What do you do after you leave bars... in Austria bars do not close till 5 or 6 o'clock...."
the always favorite...."where'd my pants go??"
then the QOUTE OF THE WEEK"Did you know theres a possum outside the door of your apartment....?

I love Oxford! Thanks Gamm and Tyler for a hellafun week. Thanks to two funny funny girls with BIG boyfriends. Thanks to Austrians. And thanks to fun girls with 21st birthdays. Thank God im not staying here much longer the next few weeks. I might die! 4 days until NATIONALS in 7 springs PA... WAHOOOOO