Hitting the fan, floor, and the hundred steps I'm heading down...

I have officially discovered how STRESSFUL life can truly be. This past week marked my second 20+ hour week on the bike. That coupled with two compositions, and an exam, being sick, and having some other issues to attend to in my life and I was more than happy for the weekend to roll around. The poopy ohio/belgian-esk weather blessed us for a day or so, then things finally started to warm up. So exciting. January and armwarmers.... By the end of the weekend I had logged quite a bit of time on the bike, some good rides chatting with Spencer, and Chris Butler and just some hard earned life time memories. Anywho. So is the life of the overachieving over stressed cyclist student or student cyclist. Choose your priority, both are equal I assure you.

Big news on the bike end of everything is that all kinds of new toys are rolling in for the team. Bikes, saddles, pedals, and soon to be helmets and kits. Being a local to the vacinity of the delivery place (aka Rich's temple of fun and lots of expensive toys) I get the first chance to hop on all the new stuff first. Simply put, out Gian TCR advanced team bikes are (pardon my language) on damn crazy fast bike as dicky glen put it on the other days ride. Amazingly stiff, amazingly agressive, and above all else, amazingly sexy. On top of all this, the team is bringing on Chris Butler, one of the very few people I know here at school, to ride for us this season. I might not sound excited but I am. He's a great addition and one I'm lucky to be riding with, until he drops me going uphill like he always does. I'm not in a creative mood tonight seeing that im staring a second go at revising a paper that was considered "unsatisfactory" in the face before I hit the bed for the evening. Not fun. Here are some pictures for all of you back home wondering what it's been like here. I promise I'm still alive. Barely, but im hanging in there.
Atop Paris Mt. which is approx 2.7 miles from my doorstep. Yeah, NICE

Had to shove myself in here somehow... You can see our school golf course behind me.


The team rig being built... wowsers

Working hard.... and hardly working!

Schools kicking my butt, Im eating pastries on a daily basis, and I have more money in bikes in my apartment than my car cost off the lot. YAYA!



20+ hours on the bike again this week. Im going to bed!

One haaaaard mother trucker...

Just to let everyone know, cold down here is very different to cold in Ohio. See, in Ohio they utilize this space age high tech chemically composed stuff called salt. Although it saves your life and makes it possible to go to the mall, starbucks, school, and wherever your little heart desires, it creates a mess of everything it touches. For months after the winter Ohio tundra that once has disappeared, I would still find myself scrapping the lining of my ear canal, still finding the remnants of....you guessed it. Salt. Now looking here to the lovely Upstate North Carolina area, salt is but of no concern to them. Just as it seems irrelivant to spend the millions in state tax dollars for the fleet of deisle spilling, salt slinging infantry of plow trucks. Although it's nice not being crustified to the point of being considered antiqued, as well as finding that in fact your bike works much better when not completely filled to the bearing camps with liquide salt sludge, it makes descending paris mountain, ceasars head, and the many other mountaintop escapades I I have been routinely making. Moreso, considering the elevation one gains when traveling further into the stratosphere, or maybe just up the side of the mountain, it is safe to say that regardless of how much you wear, you will be sweating your life away by the time you reach the summit, at which time you get to barrel directly back down the mountain, freezing and finding yourself contemplating whether or not you in fact lost a finger breaking for the upper switchback, or if that was the brake pad freezing andf snapping from under you. Something similar, just in lesser craziness to this!


One more thing, when bridge crossings say "Bridge Freezes Before Road" trust that it does so.... it's not a fun feeling to realize honesty is key in road sign creation. I wonder what that means for duck crossings.......

The Pro People
First I thought I would give a shout out to some friends of mine. Velonews announced some continental teams for 08. Congrats guys.
TOSHIBA-AEG
D.S. Gustavo Carrillo

(COL) ALZATE, CARLOS
(ARG) ARONE, Claudio
(CUB) FALCON, Yosvany
(USA) HAGMAN, Alex
(USA) HEKMAN, Mark
(USA) KEIM, Eric
(AUS) NANKERVIS, Tommy
(USA) NORRIS, Keith
(COL) PARRA, John Freddy
(SCG) PROKIC, Predrag
(USA) SWEETING, Robert
(USA) TALANSKY, Andrew
(CUB) TRAVIESO, Frank
(USA) VAILLANCOURT, Daniel
(USA) WEISS, Scott
(USA) DAVID, Winston

DLP Racing
Director: Jon Kane
(USA) BEAMER, Spencer
(USA) CODDINGTON, Joey
(USA) DULIN, Thaddeus
(USA) JACKSON, Scott
(USA) JOHNSON, Boyd
(USA) JUDY, Christopher
(USA) NIELSEN, Owen
(USA) PENDRY, Charles
(USA) ROSEBROCK, Geoffrey

It's finally starting to feel like the season is here and rearing it's lovely head for another killer season. With that being said, I thought I would make some predictions...

--Frank Schleck will win something big. The tour...maybe, an impressive climbers classic such as Amstel...very well could be. Competition for the second scrawniest schleck in the peleton, FOR SURE...

--We will see one of the most exciting finishes to a Belgian classic we have ever seen....Boonen, Cancellara, and Pipo Pizzato going toe to toe in the final kilometer. remember last yar big Cancellara almost pipped him!

--Team Slipstream will make a good showing in the early season, get a bid to the tour, and maybe even win a stage! They will at least be in every break every day regardless of terrain. Look for Mr. Pate

--SOMEONE WILL DOPE, and everyone will say it's the end of cycling, and it wont be!--

Team High road with Big George, Geral Ciolek, Mark Cavendish, and Roger Hammond will be one of the most impressive teams of 2008. Look for a big classics win from George, and look for Cavendish and Ciolek in the bunch kicks. One has a big win in their legs this year.

On the US side of the pond, Phinney will win gold in something...probobly on the track, and probobly since he is setting PR's and shattering persuit records left and right. Oh wait. He won gold yesterday! Also, we will see Mark Heckman on the top step of the podium for USA crit champ. He's got the team, and now the confidence, and he's a helluva fun guy. You deserve it Mark!

RandomRush

I'm going to most likely be failing an exam today at 9:25 in French.... not cool at all!

Other than that, The next post will be absolutely CRAZY!! Wait and see.

Also, check this out! CIPO is back. 40 years old young and a friend of the infamous Michael Ball of Rock and Republic racing... hmmmmm Can this guy do anything else to seem completely out of his mind as a team owner? Maybe attempt to sign Basso, or HEY EVEN JAN ULLRICH! Sorry. Ill let that topic be.

Also check out this interview with the hero and sprint super rock start and classics moster Tom (tornado tom, tomke, or what I enjoy best, Freaking Booooonen) Boonen. Will we see this more this season.... i get the strong feeling YES is appropriate!


Racing is just around the bend, one turn to go and 3 hundred meters to the line. ANTICIPATION!

Doing it the hard way...

four hours, 40 some degrees, rain rain and rain. Sometimes I wonder as Im punishing myself, numb toed, head throbbing as I ride from mountain to hill to steep freaking incline to mountain mountain, just why the hell I actually am doing what im doing. And for one of the first times in a long time I can say why. Because I love it. Theres something about putting my body to the test and overcoming it each and every day that makes me want to keep going, keep getting stronger, keep digging deeper. Every time I wake up and hear rain, I think, GREAT, now this is why I'm going to win races next year. No one wants to hop on the bike, saddle sored, soaking wet, and slog themselves up a 12 K climb only to descend it just a few minutes later, not being able to put into words what the goosebumps under your tiny little fleece lined, strappingly attractive leg warmers make you feel like as you sweep from switchback to switchback, with little to no visibility, only to have the person behind you in their heated little mini cooper flip you the bird out the window as you ride the brakes so you can pedal enough to keep your legs from tightening up to the point of complete oblivion. But it's doing this that makes me strong. Makes me best friends with how to hurt. Makes me no longer care what the weather's like because I know in the end, the guy next to me in the pack a few months from now who has sat on his trainer watching tour de france highlights, or family guy (no offense to anyone who does both---including myself) really hasn't touched this weather because he's afraid to get his bike dirty or because he just doesn't feel like it. pansy! Anyway. Enough of this rant, I just felt like venting my distaste for bad weather and people who are smart enough to avoid it. In essence, I have just made completely logical sense of something I love to do. Call me a hard man. Call me a psycho. Call me a complete idiot. Ill accept any of the above. Until later enjoy.

The road less travelled, at least by most... no where to go but DOWN! brrr.


I figured I would attempt to look like I enjoyed it. Heck it was freaking mythical!

getting normal...if its at all possible.

Things are finally getting normal, if thats ever possible. Classes are going well. I have a wonderful french class, in which I find myself pondering about 90% of the banter my little french speaking, english dismissing hater of a teacher, is speaking over the hour and ten minutes of class. As if not speaking english in class whatsoever weren't enough, I also have the problem of not really being able to understand the syllabus, leading to a free-for-all of confused effort towards and unknown success. If this doesnt make sense to you it's alright, it doesn't make sense to me either.

Aside from class, the whole bike riding thing is going good. base base and more base. This weekend was a great team camp in chattanooga TN. Lots of climbing, lots of townsign sprints, and oh yeah LOOOOOOOTS of food. If I could put into words exactly how much I ate this weekend it would be the most compelling story you would ever read. In stead, I can simply say that it felt something like this.

"My names JAN ULLRICH, I like CUPCAKES AND BEER..." only without the EPO and Doping
I will say the most impressive part of this weekend aside from the nudging aside of several african villages starving to death to fill our overworked, and tired bodies to to the point of disgust, I would have to note AJ's 1980's Zoom jersey, tie die tights and chrome skateboard helmet that he sported for the final days easy ride turned sprint off.

As for now, im off to the good ol' FU for french, and then home for a nice 4 hour ride with Spencer up to Ceasars head.... gotta love 20+ hour weeks, class, and maybe possibly having a life.

oh and one more thing. Dear Ohio State and Jim Tressel, thanks for ruining my wonderful week. It's much appreciated.

Thanks for making us wait ANOTHER 364 days. Thanks a lot.


-love, Dave-

Home sweeeeet home... Sort of

What a crazy time it's been since my last post. Not only have i moved to Greenville, at which time I realized I have faaaar too much crap, become an official student at Furman University registering for a highly eventful schedule of classes (french and poetry), but I have turned 21 (which proved to be HIGHLY uneventful) celebrated new years (which WAS VERY eventful) and realized that although it's great here, I am greatly looking forward to having SOMEONE in town that I actually know.

Luckily, although running non-stop with the move, I have managed to get out on the bike since I've been here, and although I in no way could consider myself "knowledgable" with the roads here I tagged along with George, Craig, Rich and Randy for a nice ride up to Ceasars Head. After realizing just how slow I really am compared to George and Craig (who decided it would be a good idea to big ring workout up the 12k climb) I struggled back, stocked up on a snickers and made it through the remaining hour and a half of feeling like complete vomit legs. Our team camp kicks off tomorrow, which I will have to miss the first day of because of some silly thing called class that thought it would be sweet to kick off the same day. WHAT's UP WITH THAT. Mr. Kearns is coming down to keep me company on the ride to chattanooga so that should be great. Oh! I almost forgot. For all of your southerners and clemson goofs here in the lovely upstate Greenville area, tomorrow, O-H-I-O GOOOOOOO BUCKS! National Championship game better be watched by all!

Considering my creativeness is not coming out tonight, I will stop writing boring babble and leave you with a few pictures of the new pad! ENJOY!

First ride living here. I was a happy guy!


The bedroom, I know kind of metro but im not gay I PROMISE. (intended for beth who will eventually read this.)


Kitchen bar and table. I've actually gotten stuff on the walls so it looks a little more homey.


Horrible picture of the sun room/office. I in no way need all this, but I love it!

NOT: Plasma screen WITH HDTV! Wahoo....

As for now I am off to do what I have done every night since being here. Sit on the couch and watch bowl games, fix a lovely dinner, and actually hang out with some of the guys from the Furman team! Until Later, toodles