No More........Please

Its getting hard to keep the fitness going between races when you keep coming home to this.

Merced Crit

A picture is worth a thousand words.

Snelling RR

No pics today, just a day of racing. The race was super fast. We averaged just under 28mph and finished the 90miles just over 3hrs. The wind played some factor creating a single file line of riders as far as you could see guttered on the edge of bumpy roads. I tried going with early moves, but when a pack moves that fast there is no staying away. I tried to conserve as much energy then to the end but wasn't abel to pull a good sprint out of my legs. I ended up 15th or so. I haven't seen official results yet but I bet out of the 120 riders we started with not many made it with the main group to the line.

Prep

Only in CA.

Today was a prep day for the race tomorrow. I drove up to Merced from Fresno and preroad the RR course in Snelling.

The course is in the scenic wine country of Cali, but that also mean a wide open course.

Not much else going on, probably going to hit the sac early tonight to try and catch up on sleep.

Fresno, CA

Sorry about the lack of updating. I've been running around crazy getting ready for this weekend. I catch a late flight tonight to Fresno then hit up the races on Sat/Sun in Snelling/Merced. If I've got access to the net I'll get info posted on how its going when I can.

Tour of Cali

Props go out to my former teammate from Einstein's Jason Donald, who know rides for Slipstream (formerly known at TIAA CREF). As 7th man out of the gates he broke the record for the Tour of Cali Prologue TT ( 4:50) and held the win all the way till the last man off the block, Levi (4:49).

A second place against the world champions, cheers to you my friend.

Back

I'm back in Colorado, back to the cold, back to the snow, and back to the trainer.

What Kind Of Room Service Is This

Well I know that I'm not going to order anything here.

Cali Day.......Whatever Day It Is

I am definitely cracked, long back to back days have finally gotten to me. Tomorrow is a recovery day, then its back to the grind for a few more days before heading back to CO. The trip is great training but its missing something.......oh yeah, CSC. What happened was a week ago when CSC showed up at the hotel, there just so happened to be another team staying here too, Discovery. So CSC got mad and let for a more northern CA training camp leaving me here saying, what about me. I guess nothing was guaranteed, I just missed out on trying to raise some eyebrows, for now.

Cali Day 2

Today was another day of up and over Figueroa Mtn. but this time paced with Carter. Once over the top I was sent on my way further down the road and Carter headed off leaving me to suffer on my own.
After a good solid day of training I decided to take in some of the local culture and wonder around the town. There was this street shut down for a farmers market, I got some dried fruit, so much better than the stuff in the store.

Tomorrow is another day up Figueroa but with some changes the last half of the ride, rain is in the forcast so the ride will be a little more challenging than normal.

Texas To Cali Day 1

The day started out way too early, and is still going strong. All I want to do is sleep, but here is the wrap up of the day.

I got to see home for a short while, a whole hour while I waited in DIA to catch a connecting flight from Austin to LAX. Atleast I got to wave in the general direction of Lex.
LA just seemed dirty even from a few thousand feet up.

Once on the ground and in the rental I saw the famous LA traffic jam.

I made it to Solvang later than what I wanted since Carter still had me scheduled for a four hour ride today. I still headed out on it.

The ride wasn't an easy "Welcome to CA" ride, it was more of a"Welcome to getting your a$$ in shape week". I climbed the famous Figeuroa Mtn. and it punches back hard with narrow alpine style roads.
It looks like it will be a great week of hard training and beautiful scenery, just like the one from my balconey at the hotel here in Solvang.

I headed to the grocery store this evening to get a few staples to hold me over, this wasn't what I was expecting to find, but I guess when you are in the middle of wine region, then even the small local grocer will have 5 rows of wine.

I wonder how much wine I can fit in the bike carrier?

Texas Day 9

Well today is my last day in A-town, tomorrow its off to CA.

Texas Day 8

First off the day started with an early TT. Up a hill, across the dam, through a park, back arcoss the damn. Not too bad but without my TT bike and TT equipment I had the short end coming up 10th but I could have had it with my stuff, but I rolled the road bike.

The damn, dam. I will be your dam tour guide, save your dam questions for the end of the dam tour......


The second half of this early morning was a crit on a 2.1mile rolling winding course. It was balls to the wall the entire time and I tried getting away with 2.5 to go with 3 guys. We laid down some rubber but in the end the pace of the pack was just too fast for any break to stick, so we got caught and in the last mile a huge crash too a bunch of guys out but I was able to avoid it and stay with the front group. The finish was 100m past a 90 degree corner and it was sketch hitting it. I just settled for the pack finish, its just and omnium so it really didn't matter.

Not to get mushy about the past again but I passed this area that my dad and I always fished around this time of year, memories.

Time for a little rest and super bowl watching.

Texas Day 7

I know I'm lame like Blake for not posting pics, but I was busy racing today.

The race was only 70miles but totally different terrain that what I am used to. Mostly flat, windy, and some power rollers, so not built for a guy like me. With about 15 to 20 to go, I powered off the front and pulled one other guy with me, we stomped a huge gap and stayed away until 10miles to go and it was over. The guy I was with wasn't very smooth when he pulled through making me jump more and not allowing me to rest and recover between pulls, which where three times as long as his to begin with. So at that point I just let him go and started my own pace, he didn't get far without me. However the down side was that the pack caught us and the race was over for me when it came to a sprint finish so I decided to live to tomorrow and let the sprinters push and fight for the line.

Tomorrow is a short TT and a crit. Not a great set up since there is only 50minutes between the TT and the crit, not much time to recover, but oh well what can you do about it. Time to get grub and try and get a good night sleep after my sleepless night last night.

Texas Day 6

I forgot to post this yesterday. Scott rode these power cranks during our ride. They are both independant of each other and only work when both are used in a perfect pedal stroke, I gave them a shot, all I can say is that its damn hard.

Today was an intensity day so I did repeats up the longest climb here out of the damn. Not to reminis too much but that dry river coming out of the damn used to be a lot higher and my dad and I would fish right here......ah the good ole days.

This afternoon has been a long one and I've gotta get up early in the morning to hit the race, so later.

Texas Day 5

Today wasn't much different from yesterday, cloudy, cold and wet. But I am here to train so no more backing out and riding the trainer. Scott Henery, the Texas version of Nick Martin, and I headed out for a three hour high tempo ride.
The road was vacant, they built this wide open new smooth road and haven't opened it yet so help ourselves to some carless riding.

This afternoon my parents came to A-town to visit a little while and I took full advantage of it. We hit up IKEA to grap some little stuff for my new place.

For those of you who haven't been in one, they are massive. I'll take one of those, no not down there, one of those on the top, wayyyyy up there.

After that we hit up some good grub here in Round Rock and we'll have some breakfast in the morning before I head out on the bike and they head back to Fredericksburg. It was good to see them, but now they have to come and see me in April to bring me all the stuff we got at IKEA.

Texas Day 4

What's up man! Ya know I'm cool like that.

Just hanging with my dawg.

Yesterday was a let down day. I got up suited up and got ready to walk out the door for my ride and I should have looked out the window before getting ready, cause it was raining outside. So I have to resort to my not so good friend, the trainer. Thats okay though cause I had other stuff that needed to get done, like turning down a team that wanted me to race for them. Let me just say it sucked, it would have been great but in the end it was that they wanted me to relocate to Mayland and that just isn't going to happen right now. Colorado is just a much better place for training and mentoring by Carter, so thanks but no thanks. I'm sure like everyone keeps telling me, that just means there is something esle bigger and better waiting.