Redlands Classic day one

Well I didn't expect much going into Redlands, one of the biggest stage races in North America, and its a good thing, because I didn't get much. I am now sitting in a lowly 143rd place out of 200 riders in the mens pro field. I actually felt pretty good in my warmup, but something strange happened when I got into the starthouse. I was starting to notice my breathing getting out of control before I even started, and by the time I was about a minute into the 10-minute or so all-out time trial, I was completely out of air, with my throat and lungs burning. Meanwhile, my legs were good to go, and in fact that was the most frustrating thing about the race - my breathing was so out of control that I could never even get a good burn in my legs, and feel like I was actually going hard. It felt like someone stuck a governor on my internal engine, and I was not happy about it.

The calm before the storm. Warming up with the team and rocking out to the Rx Bandits.
(I'm in the cap second from right)

This is what we call 'Hanging on for dear life' in the bike biz. 500m to go.

I have a couple of possible culprits in mind, but I'm thinking the cause was the pure methol I stuck in my nostrils for the majority of my 2-hour warmup. The last time I used this stuff in a race, known as 'Olbas' to the Euros, I had the same lung burn symptoms. The other thing in common with that particular race the fact that it was also a prologue - a short time trial kicking off a stage race, which involves a special type of anaerobic effort that I'm not that well-suited to. Maybe I just blew up. It sure felt different from the normal kind of blowing up, and usually when I blow up its a good thing and I wind up getting a decent result.

I could have done better with my equipment choice as well, I thought. I used a full-aero TT setup, when I was only going at TT speed for about 20% of the total time of the race. I feel like I would have been able to do a faster time on a regular road bike setup, because I would have been able to put out more power on the climbs (which made up most of the course), and I probably would have been able to breath a lot easier if I wasn't hunched over in my rather-radical aero TT position. They say this is one of those TT's that you have to do a few times at full speed just to get a feel for the course and dial in your equipment setup. Well, there's always next year.

All that being said, I am only a minute and a half behind the leaders, and I'm told that this race usually blows up to the high heavens on tomorrow's road stage and the 4th and final stage. This means that though I may have lost a minute today with a really bad ride, I could make up 10 to 15 minutes tomorrow with a great ride. On the flipside, if things don't go so well again tomorrow, I'm told I may stand a good chance of being completely dropped (They say the 2nd and 4th road stages usually have a really low finishing rate, due to repeated trips up narrow, steep climbs and down twisty, treacherous descents).

So I'm gonna go out tomorrow and spill my guts, trying to gain some respect in the ranks here. It sounds like a decent course for me if I can manage to stay out of trouble and maybe have some good luck. I've got dinner in my belly and a massage in the legs and now its time for bed...

Tune in again tomorrow evening for the scoop on the first stage on the open road.

The 9 to 5

A four-day, 20 hour training block is now in the books, and thankfully I have a day of rest to look forward to tomorrow. I'm walking a bit laboriously tonight, treading lightly on my weary bottom-half. I've got the slows so bad I'm finding myself listening to Norah Jones as I write this. Overall I'm actually feeling pretty good about training, mostly just happy to be able to put in this kind of mileage, with the new longer days and the perfect weather.
Here's an outline of what I've been up to for training in the past weeks:

The general format is three to four days on, one day off, then do it all over again. During the three to four day 'block', I'll do mostly long (5-6 hour) rides each day in the hills, with one shorter day of speed work, like sprinting or motorpacing. This usually means that most days you will find me in the foothills up near Nevada City, on one of a few of my favorite climbs, like the 2.5 mile, 8-15% grade from Bridgeport up to French Corral (If you are a cyclist living in the Yuba-Sutter area and have never been up there, you are really cutting yourself short, but that's a topic for another post I guess). Now just because I'm doing all these long rides doesn't mean I'm just toodling around at a "base pace" all day. In fact, most days I'll try to keep up a steady quick endurance pace on the flats and downhills, and on the hills I'll do long intervals at or just below threshold (the level where the body can just barely supply itself with enough oxygen, and has to begin to resort to alternate energy pathways, which means lactic acid in the legs and hurtin for you). I can personally attest to the fact that my legs exploded like tin foil in the microwave yesterday when I did 5 repeats at threshold up the Bridgeport grade, which takes about 12 minutes a pop.

This format will change as the season moves along, and I get into more racing, and get closer to the time of year in which I want to be 'peaking', or in my best form. For right now, the name of the game is building up endurance for riding at or slightly below threshold. Once I build up enough of this foundation fitness, I will start to do a lot more short, harder intervals to train the body to operate anaerobically for extended periods and to recover quickly from such efforts. During this time I will not be doing quite as many hours per week as I am now also. It really is a matter of timing in all this - one can only really be in peak shape for a few weeks, so since this isn't the time of year when I want to be zippy, I'm not doing much anearobic workouts just yet. It must be a slow development - to do these types of workouts all year round would have me riding so-so pretty much all year (at least until I got so tired of VO2 max intervals that I wanted to quit riding my bike).

Well I guess thats the idea...
I wish I had some pictures I could share of my training and all the cool places I go to ride, but unfortunately my cell phone is one of those stone-age artifacts that doesn't even have a camera on it. Makes me feel like a real old-timer.... Ha, wait a minute, I was born in the 90's!!!
Yeah that's right, Believe it.

Enlighten Thyself (Or Just Have a Good Time)

For those of you out there that have never seen a real live bike race in person - felt the rush of wind as the riders fly by at 30mph, heard the cowbells ringing on the final lap - Your time is coming. Two weeks from yesterday, Saturday, March 21st, I will be competing in the Land Park Criterium, a circuit race taking place in William Land Park across the street from the Zoo in Sacramento. The Pro/Elite event, which I will be riding in, starts at 4:30 pm.

This race is great for spectators, as the loop is less than a mile long, quite wide open, and the racers complete about 30 laps, so anyone in the audience can see just about all of the action, from start to finish. It is always a fast and aggressively contested race, with a good atmosphere, and average speeds around 30 mph. And of course after the race, if you haven't had enough fun, you could always walk over to Funderland and ride the WWII fighter planes (a child favorite - you just might find me there as well).

This will, for all intents and purposes, be my first race back since last season, and is one of the few races in the Sacramento area that I will be riding in this year. If there are any of you that had wanted to come out and see one of my races this year, this is the one. I would really appreciate any home-towners I could get rooting for me, as I will be riding without the support of any teammates. I've been doing this race every year since began cycling, and I'm really looking forward to getting out there and testing myself a bit against some local talent.

This race is also one of the few around here that has a great lineup of kids and junior races. For aspiring Armstrongs from ages 5 to 18, there are free races that anybody can compete in. These races range from 1 mile for the ankle-biters to about 15 miles for the juniors aged 14-18. No need to have a fancy racing bike here, just a good attitude and two wheels. There's no better way to get a kid hooked on the healthy habit of cycling than letting them experience the thrill of a real race. It only took one race for me to decide that I wanted to be a bike racer. You never know how many other kids there are out there that just need to get their feet wet... Bring 'em out!

Check out all the info for the race right HERE.

Looking forward to seeing a big crowd out there...

A Typical Morning

I'm sitting here enjoying my typical (maybe even obsessively habitual) breakfast of a bowl of Honey Bunches of Oats cereal, followed by two slices of bread with Adams Peanut Butter and Honey. I think I've had it almost every morning for about as long as I've been riding. My hair is fashioned as it always is at such an hour, with my 4-5 inch curls somehow defying the laws of physics and sticking straight towards the ceiling (I usually have a helmet on my head by 9:30 anyway, so...).

This morning there are a couple of things different, however. I am of course, in Blog-o-land (yes, watch out 'blogosphere', my phrase is going to take over). A truly typical morning, however would have me buried in the latest issue of Scientific American, which then sometimes requires trips to WikiPedia for background research. You may find me reading Popular Science as well, but that would have to be within 2-3 days of when it arrived in the mail, because every other page is an Ad, and the articles they do have are mostly illustrations anyway.

You may be surprised to know that I pretty much never read cycling magazines. VeloNews is expensive, RBA, which is still sent to me every month with a "This is your last trial issue!" label on it, even though I don't subscribe to it, is too full of those bike-review columns that basically just say that every bike is wonderful, and every time I catch myself reading Bicycling, I always wonder, do I really need to know about how to get rid of a beer belly, or how to tour the French wine country? On top of that, you can get to exactly what you want on VeloNews.com or CyclingNews.com for free and in about two seconds. Now under no circumstances would I ever be just eating breakfast. For some reason, it seems boring and unproductive to not use my time between bites (or courses in my case) to learn something about the world or at least check my email.

The other thing about this morning that is quite unusual is that I am coming fresh off a rest day, and preparing to do a tough motorpacing workout today. It also seems quite unusual that the sun is out and it looks quite nice outside, considering I've been having to ride through some pretty thick gloom (and rain) for the past week or so.

But back to the motor pacing -
I have, of course, got quite a bit of experience motorpacing behind cars, as this becomes a necessary survival skill in European races, when you're bound to flat, crash, or have to drop back for water or a teammate at some point in just about every race. This puts you in the caravan of team cars, referees and support cars, and if you don't know how to draft and use the cars one by one to make it back into the peloton, you will be DNF'ing a lot of races.

I have never, however, done motorpacing behind a motorbike just for a workout. This is a staple of speed-work training in Europe, and so I thought I'd give it a try. I even went so far as to craft my own little derny-bike for the purpose. It is essentially a small modified mountain bike frame with 24-inch road wheels, some tricky gearing, and a weed-wacker type motor on it, and somehow the thing manages to go over 30 mph on 23cc's and way less than one horsepower. It is truly a marvel, and its perfect for motorpacing because it is fast enough to put me on the rivet, but throws about as much draft as a large-breed dog, so I will be pretty much doing my own work, with the bike serving as a rabbit for me. If all goes to plan, the motorbike will not fall apart, my brave companion will come out unscathed, and I will come out of it with a great workout and a pair of tired legs.

Alright, well lets get to it. I can only imagine what people who happen to see us will think...

Team Website

So this doesn't mean that I'm going to stop updating this blog, but I am happy to announce that my team, Trek-LiveSTRONG, has started up its own website. Most of the parts of the site are still under construction, but before too long there should be lots of photos, videos, and reports on races and what's going on with the team. Check out the page HERE.

Laying Low

I still can't seem to shake this cold that caught me at the beginning of the week, and it's been a disappointing week on the training side of things for sure. I had planned to go down to Merced for the Merco Road Race today, and try to come home with my piece of the $4,000 purse, but I decided that it would be best for me to just stay home and rest, maybe train a bit. I guess my ill-fated trip down to Arizona has turned me off to racing for a little while. Interestingly enough, "resting" turned into "building a land yacht with my friends". Check out the end result:



So we didn't exactly finish it off with the steering pedals and other minor details like seats and brakes and whatnot, but it worked and our proof-of-concept got us up to about 20-25 mph with some strong winds, according to the photographer, who followed in a truck on a couple of runs. We have become quite used to making a spectacle of ourselves when testing out our contraptions (the pedal-powered surfboard and camouflage-badged tandem bike definitely turned heads), but this time we had a first - a couple of guys who happened to be passing us on the west end of Bogue road busted out their phones and slowed down to take pictures of us on our 20-foot-high rattle-trap. We just might have made someone's PIX message. What an honor.

For those of you wondering why I would do such a thing, I will have it be known that this is how most of my weekends go: working on some ridiculous quasi-engineering project in my buddy's garage, between training and other obligations. I can also assure you that doing things like this is in no way dangerous (especially if those who are reading this are involved in team management for Trek-Livestrong). Indeed, I was wearing a helmet.

So I guess thats what things come to when I'm not racing much. I can't write about my races, I don't really pay attention to other people's races, and you wouldn't really want to hear about my training rides. Please don't assume my blog is "going soft" just yet. Before too long, I'll have more racing going on than I can keep up with.

Update on Pro Cycling Manager

I've finally got the scoop on the Pro Cycling Manager Video game. As I write this my computer is busy downloading the game from the publisher's website. If you are interested in getting yourself a copy of the game (and maybe winning races in cyberspace as yours truly), here's how to do it:

First, click here to go to the PCM website. Then click the bar on the left to download the 2008 version of the game. It costs $19.99, compared to about $60 when you try to buy the disc online.
Then you just follow the directions to download and install the game.

Not so fast...
If you want to play the game with all the 2009 season teams, including team Trek-Livestrong, you have to download Pro Cycling Manager's 2009 database update. Click Here to visit the page to download the update, click the download button, install the patch, and you're off and running.

Flattery reaches an all-time high

After hanging out with Lance Armstrong and the Astana guys for a week, being followed around by film crews and photographers everywhere, and having my cleat screws turned by the inventor/owner of Speedplay, I am happy to say that I have topped it all on the 'pinch me' scale.

It has just been brought to my attention that I have been immortalized in cyberspace as a character in the Pro Cycling Manager video game. Check out this screenshot from the 2009 version of the game, which is set to be released this June I believe.



The game is quite popular in Europe and has a decent following in the US (all my mates from DBC play religiously). I will of course now be buying the game. This way, when my competitors are picking their characters, trying to decide whether to be Tom Boonen or Fabian Cancellara, I can just say "I think I'll just be myself". I mean how often do you get the chance to do that?

If you look closely you can read all my "rider attributes", which fall into categories such as MO (mountains), FL (flat), DH (downhill), and SP (sprinting). Interestingly enough, my best attribute by far, according to the game, is downhill riding. I wonder how they came up with that. Well I guess I can't complain, because going downhill fast is truly the mark of a badass on a bike, and now I can tell the rest of my team that I just must be the biggest badass on the team. (if you asked anyone who rides with me in the US if I'm a badass downhiller, they would certainly laugh at you, by the way). As to how they actually obtained those numbers, I haven't a clue. I just hope I don't suck in the videogame.

Reserve your copy now and I'll see you online!

Back on Solid Ground

I returned home from a 2,000 mile journey the other night. My teammate and I were supposed to be going down to Arizona to race our bikes, but I can hardly remember any actual bike racing taking place over the course of our five-day adventure. It was a pretty dismal trip, and on top of that we were left out of WiFi range for most of our time on the road. I apologize for the lack of updates for the past week or so.

So as for the supposed bike racing...
I entered the Valley of the Sun Stage Race thinking it would be a good tough training race, with a strong field, that would help get me ready for some of our domestic pro racing later in the year. Alongside our four-man team, OUCH and Bissel also had small teams there, as well as a full Waste Management squad. By the time it came to actually leave for the race, I was dreading the whole idea of it - the drive, the race, the drive back. We decided to go anyway, having already paid the entry fee, and took off for the 14-hour drive to Phoenix. Before the next days' TT, my legs felt like rubber, and I couldn't get my head into it (go figure). I went out a bit easy in the first 10k or so, got caught by Roman Kilun while still trying out new hand positions on my new TT bike (this was about the 2nd time I'd ever ridden it). Then when I decided to pour it on, I caught him back, and we ended up riding side by side for pretty much the entire race until I tried to get a bit of an edge at the end. I ended up 13th place. It was pretty unsatisfying, but considering how I felt and my botched effort, I guess it showed some decent form for February.

The next days Road Race is pretty easy to describe - pretty much flat, no one was actually racing and anytime one did they would promptly be brought back into the fold by OUCH or Bissel. We essentially rolled around course for 90 miles waiting for the sprint, and then, just when the only actual bike racing of the whole day was about to occur, the sprint never even happened. That's right. Our race was neutralized with 1k to go, and every rider was given the same time, even ones who had gotten split off the back in the end-game (which took place on a little wanna-be hill). I was sitting about 5-6th wheel back on the Bissel train, getting ready to sprint for it and make my trip down there worthwhile, and the race moto pulls up alongside us and tells us our race is over. Something about a big crash at the finish in the race before ours. It was especially funny when we rode across the line, and it was totally clear except for some ambulances on the shoulder. I tried very hard to restrain myself from giving the race organizer an earful, and succeeded.

As if my week wasn't going badly enough yet, the crit threw me some bad breaks too. I didn't feel spectacular, but I was thinking I would for sure be able to sit in for 70 minutes. Turns out I was wrong. I started dead last on a really tight course, and within the first 3 laps I found myself being split off the back about ten wheels in front of me. Now I guess I should have had the legs to recover from starting in the back row, but I didn't, and a few stupid splits later, that was the end of my race. As a matter of fact, my entire team was out after about 20 minutes, left to wonder what may have happened if we had gotten it together enough to sit on the front line before the start.

So that was that. Some bike race.
We drove to Long Beach afterward to stay with a friend of mine and spent an enjoyable day riding highway 1 and then going to the ADT velodrome for an evening training session, which was by far the coolest thing we did along the way.

Now I'm just glad to be back home where I can get in some solid training and sleep in my own bed. I'm heading out right now for a six-hour ride into the Sierra foothills, thinking I should just back away from racing for a little while, until my first big team races.

Set your Tivo!!

I will be making an appearance on News10 on Wednesday, February 11th at 11am, in an interview about the DBC race team, the T.O.C. and my transition to the pro ranks. Be sure to check it out.

Catching a break

So found some time to make it down to the coffee shop again. This time I am sitting across from Alberto Contador, Yaroslav Popovych, Jesus Hernandez, and a bunch of the Astana guys. I'm enjoying an Earl Grey (remember my tea addiction?) and some excellent live music as well.

Anyway, today was not unlike most training camp days. Lots of eating, riding, massages, more eating...

The eating tonight was made quite a bit nicer by the fact that Lance joined us, and the riding was beautiful, even though it was pretty wet out. We're looking forward to a dry sunny day tomorrow, and with all the sun, out will come Lance to make us all cry for our mommies when the road points upward. And speaking of Lance, if you haven't checked out VeloNews' photo gallery from this week, here's a link to it. Have a look at this particular picture, in which the "big boss", Lance, looks rather dwarf-esque among his inferiors. The word around here was that Lance was starting a new U23 basketball team... Lance laughed, and then frankly said "We will definitely need to re-do that one" He's not really that short, but his photographer, who must have had it in for him, had us stand in a bit of a U formation, with the tallest in the middle and shortest outside, but closer to the camera. The effect was that all the riders look as though we are about a foot taller than poor Lance.

I will hopefully have some more pics up shortly.

Looking forward to coming home to the real world..... NOT!

The Big Show

Sorry for the lack of updates in the last few days. They tell me the type of uppity hotels like the one we're staying in here in Santa Rosa don't generally have free internet access. What a trip. Giant Plasma TV, granite bathroom, down bedding, but no WiFi. You learn something new every day...

Anyway, there has been a lot going on here at camp - maybe too much to even write about, but a quick snapshot of a day here has looked like this: Wake up, eat breakfast, get ready to ride, wait on Taylor Phinney to get ready to ride, ride, eat lunch, meet with sponsors, get free gear, eat dinner, get more free gear, and sleep. Yes, it's quite a days work, especially when you consider that the whole time that we are doing all of the above things we are being filmed and/or photographed by any of about 5 different camera crews from Versus, VeloNews, Trek USA, Trek Japan, and some other documentary filmmakers. The idea is that when our website goes up sometime next week, we will have a bunch of cool footage and photos for everyone to check out. I'll let you all know as soon as the website goes live.

As far as the actual training is concerned, things have been pretty much perfect. On Tuesday Lance joined us for a four-hour ride through the hills between here and Napa. There are a bunch of photos of the ride on Velonews here. After an unassuming first hour of doodling along, Lance took us up the back side of Trinity grade, which was about a 6-mile long steep climb on narrow roads. It was beautiful, but the beauty quickly faded as Lance took to the front for a nice 'Tempo' effort. Before we were halfway up the climb, he had shattered our whole team, and left me gasping for air. I ended up making it to the top second out of our team. The cool thing about it was that while desperately trying to hold his wheel, I set some personal-best peak power outputs (by a longshot), and apparently everybody else did too. It was pretty amazing climbing next to Lance at 400-500 watts, and watching him pump away smooth as butter while I was clawing at my machine like a madman.

After the carnage, we regrouped and did some sweet descents. I thought I had stuck it to Lance on one particularly fast and curvy descent, only to have him fly by me on the inside like it was nothing and ride away from everyone. After being flogged once more on another climb back toward Santa Rosa, we spun it in on the flats for a while. There was a car following us the whole ride taking footage for a documentary, and riding at the front meant splitting time between trying to look good for all the cameras, and chatting with Lance about everything from fine wines to our preferences and roots in music (he was quite proud about having been first chair cornet in the middle school orchestra - "First chair man, number one. I was it man...").

The next day we did a 5.5 hour ride over King's ridge and back along highway 1. It was hands down the most beautiful ride I've ever done. We kept it at endurance pace, which was a blessing because my legs were still burning from the day before. We rode mostly on one-lane farm roads that wound up, down, and side to side through the redwoods and cow pastures, and then dropped down an amazing 10-15% descent onto the coast, where we cruised for a while before heading all the way back. It was a wierd feeling being so tired but still wanting to ride. After a massage and about 5000 calories worth of Italian food, I went to sleep and slept like never before, looking forward to a bit of a recovery day to follow.

So today was a bit of a recovery ride, and we brought along a bunch of sponsors. It rained like heck, but I was glad to only have to spend 2.5 hours out in it, instead of 5 or 6 like the rest of the Astana guys. It was also nice to chat with all the guys that have helped out our team with all the awesome products we've gotten over the past few weeks. From there it was off to lunch and a photo session (again), and now I find myself here in the Flying Goat Coffee Shop trying to get all my internet stuff done in the hour or so that I have before the next item on the itenerary.

Well that was a long post, but I feel like I have only covered just a bit of all the exciting stuff that's been going on here. I'll have more on my experience here soon...

In the books...

Paskenta 2009 has now come and gone, and I have to say it was a nice ride, but a bit of a brute for sure. The forecasted 5 mph winds became 10-20 mph winds, which served to rip apart the field from about 300+ to just 30 after less than half of the 100 miles. The winds were howling out of the north, which meant strong crosswinds on nearly every part of the course, which runs mainly east-west. The field split into echelons early and this all added up to no rest for anyone. So here's a brief play-by-play:

We take off at 8am sharp, with a huge field of probably between 300 and 400 riders, and for the first 20 miles or so I stayed mostly hidden out of the north wind near the front of the pack. Things started to speed up a bit after about an hour or so, but everything was still staying together in the established front group of about 100. Things went on at a moderate pace until after Corning, which was about 35 miles in or so. When we got out of town and started to get slammed with the crosswinds, the strong riders knew it was their time to thin out the pack. By this time I was comfortable, but the pace went way up for about 15 minutes and I found myself caught out a bit. I found myself in the second echelon, as I wasn't paying much attention when things hit the fan. Before I knew it I was cranking out over 400 watts for a while, and feeling a kind of suffering that I haven't felt since last August. I didn't miss it at all...
I calmed down and waited patiently for things to come back together a bit, and sure enough when the carnage was over, the first two echelons had converged to form one lead group of about 30-40. We rode along at a decent pace, with Jesse Moore dangling off the front on several occasions. I got to the front leading into the infamous gravel section, and no one really seemed to challenge me for my perfect spot at second wheel. What a weird feeling for someone who's used to racing against pros that will do anything short of knocking you off your bike to get the sweet spot. Jesse and teammate Adam Switters were off the front a bit going into the gravel, but I wasn't worried, as we still had about 45 miles to go at this point. We had a ripping tailwind on the gravel, and I had a good time flying along at 30-40 mph around the gentle bends, with the back wheel sliding about. The monster that was the 5-mile gravel sector gobbled up most of our lead group, and we came out of the dirty mess with just 7 riders, and another 3 or 4 up the road including Jesse and Switters. I wasn't too worried about the break, but only a couple of the guys in our group were willing to work. After about an hour of steady chasing, we (mostly me and Judd Van Sickle of DBC) had caught the break and so there were about 10 of us in the lead going into the final 10 miles. I was feeling pretty cooked at this point, and thinking of the training camp I had to go to the next day and all through the next week. I played it conservative and let Jesse go up the road again with one other rider. The only trouble was that it left his teammate Switters in the chase group with me, watching my every move. Sure enough, when I finally worked it up to take off in pursuit of Jesse, Switters was right on me, and he stayed there all the way to the line. I was statistically screwed, and I knew I had no way of winning with about 5 miles to go. If I caught Jesse, Switters would easily take the win, as he had been just sitting on my wheel for the whole last 10 miles. If I didn't catch Jesse, then, well, of course he would win. I just kept on riding tempo and resigned myself to third place, and that's exaclty how I did. I actually felt pretty good at the end, so it was tough to be in a tactical position where I couldn't really race for the win, but all things considered, I would say I felt like my fitness is coming along quite well for this time of year. I would really have loved to take home that trophy for the second year in a row, but you know what they say - TBR (that's bike racing) - as in, sometimes bike races just turn out that way.

OK well I gotta go to dinner here at training camp in Santa Rosa. I will have more for you about how things are going here later on. Things are pretty busy but very exciting to say the least.

I've been pressed!

Check out the Appeal Democrat article that came out this morning.
Not all that extensive, but ink is ink...

Click here to the view article

Paskenta Century 2009

On Sunday I will be heading up to Chico for my first outing of the season in any kind of a 'race atmosphere'. Starting at 8:00 am from 1-mile recreation area in Chico, the Paskenta ride is a long-standing informal race/ride that has 50, 80, and 100 mile routes. The 100 mile route is a competitive event, with a lot of top area talent turning out each year to test the waters for the first time of the season, or just log some winter miles. Its a fun ride that you can make as hard as you want (I usually tend toward making it pretty hard), and considering 300+ riders have been known to show up when the weather is good, any rider should be able to find a nice group to ride with, no matter how things split up between the hard-core racers.

I will be setting out to defend my title from last year, and if I do, I'll get to hang on to this sweet perpetual trophy for another whole year....

It looks like the weather is going to be perfect this year, so for those of you riders that have been hibernating this winter, come out and play!

I'll see you all on the road...

Photo Recap '08 continued

Here are some more shots from the 2008 season. They might be a bit out of chronological order, but oh well...

Me at the Sea Otter circuit race. My first NRC pro race. Also my first race on deep carbon tubular wheels, and there were 30 mph winds. Needless to say, the race did not go so well.

Here I am, doing what I always seem to find myself doing in Criteriums - riding off the front of the pack solo. This particular race, the Cherry Pie Crit in Napa, left me solo with just 2 laps to go, after my breakaway companion (David Veilleux of Kelly Benefits Pro team) blew a tire and called it quits. I ended up getting caught right at the line, and had to settle for 15th place.


Here's a good one of me and teammate Alex wick pulling the old 1-2 punch on the junior field at the Land Park Crit. We were able to win almost every junior race we entered if we worked it this way. Alex would attack solo, stay out there for a few laps while the rest of the field got tired of chasing. Then I would attack 'em, come across the gap to Alex, and we would ride off into the sunset (and the prize money)


Here I am nearing the finish of the Worlds Trials Time Trial in Kentucky. If you look closely, you'll notice that I have a regular clincher rear wheel, as opposed to the standard carbon disk wheel. A blowout in the starthouse with 2 minutes to go before my start left everyone scrambling to find me some rubber to ride. All the excitement had me starting the race with a racing heart, and a bit of a sunken morale, as I knew I was at an aerodynamic disadvantage to the rest of the riders without that disk wheel. I ended up second place after a great effort, and yet again did not qualify for worlds. But...


...but while the USA team (or what was left of it) was at worlds in South Africa, I went to the Spring Hill Road Race, and got my first win in a Pro category road race. I'm about to cross the line in the above photo, after outsprinting my breakaway companion. And yes, I was quite excited.


I know this one's kinda fuzzy, but it's such a cool shot. This is me riding up out of the gold mine shaft at the Tour de L'Abitibi in Quebec. The individual Time Trial starts out 400 vertical feet underground in a gold mine, and the riders must ride up out of the cold, damp, slippery shaft before riding the rest of the 18km course. I ended up 6th place on the day, and the team (USA national) ended up clinching the victory in the team classification as well as winning the best young rider jersey and coming within 1/4 of a second of winning the GC (with Charlie Avis). I did this amazing race twice as a junior and sadly I will never to be able to do it again, as I am now too old. It was one of my favorite races ever.



Me again at the front of a race in Germany, trying hard to set tempo on the climbs and take care of teammate Nick (pictured, far right in polka-dots), who was defending a lead in the King of the Mountains classification.

The podium at US nationals in August. Evan Huffman 1st, me 2nd, Marshall Opal 3rd, Ryan Zupko 4th, Nick Bax 5th. This was my last race of the season, and a bit of a heartbreaker, as I spent the last 3 miles solo off the front, only to get caught by fellow NorCal rider Huffman right in view of the line.

And when the racing was all over, I spent a few days on a 500-mile bike tour to the coast with a couple of friends. Here we are riding through the redwood forest. This was the ride that started all the knee problems I've been having, as I was pulling that big old trailer there over mountain passes every day, and riding up to 12 hours a day, with normal racing gears on my bike. The thing weighed anywhere from 75 to 100 pounds! Looking back on it, maybe this wasn't such a smart thing to do.

Training and The Oddities of being a Pro Cyclist

So after a 6-hour, 103 mile, 4500 kiloJoule mountainous training ride, I am, of course, glad to be here in front of the computer, doing something a little more low-key than riding. This coming week is looking to be a bit lighter on the training hours, as per the request of my team director, Axel Merckx, who would be known as "de big bos" in the quirky Belgian tongue of Flemish (this phrase translates roughly in English to "the big boss", I believe).

Though it will be nice to spend a few less hours in the coming week on my bike, and maybe a few more studying, my body has become quite accustomed to all the miles I have been riding - so much so that I actually seem to feel worse on rest days, or the day after, when I should be feeling the most rested. This may be hard to understand, but this has been the trend lately, as I seem to start feeling really good about 2 days into a hard block of rides. This was again illustrated to me clearly today as I spent the first couple of hours of my ride feeling sluggish. I had taken a much-needed rest day yesterday, yet today, it took three hours to get my legs (and my mind) to awaken. Then, interestingly enough, in the sixth hour of the ride, I found myself putting the old man into a spot of bother and loving every minute of putting out about 400 watts. (Dad, who had decided to meet up with me for the last half of the ride, was probably regretting his decision to do such a thing by this point). Sorry Dad.

I also witnessed an amazing display of the importance of aerodynamics in cycling today. See, I had put on my waterproof training jacket when I left for the ride in the morning, after looking at the weather forecast, which showed that I would have a 90% chance of getting rained on in the afternoon. It turned out to be sunny and probably almost 60 degrees by the time I was heading home. Way to go Weather.com. Anyway, I still had my jacket on when I was having a go at a sixth-hour threshold effort (going pretty hard, for those not up on the lingo), and I was slogging along at about 25 miles an hour, with the jacket ballooning up on my back, and poor me pruning up on the inside of it, which quickly turns into a sauna during efforts. Amazingly, when I took the thing off and got going again, I was cruising along at about 27-28 miles and hour, putting out about the same wattage. Of course, the old man was not so happy with this, because when the jacket came off of my back, so did he, if you know what I mean. Apparently in my endorphine-induced euphoria, I had failed to notice that he was quite well on the rivet the first go round. Sorry again, Dad.

Moving onto more important matters, I have exactly one week before my Team Trek-Livestrong's second training camp. This camp will be a joint camp between our team, and the big-boy's Team Astana. In any other situation, I would say it would be pretty stupid to train specifically for a training camp, and even more stupid to then taper down for a week before training camp. But when you're 18 years old and your training camp will involve you riding with three of the top stage racers in the world: Levi Leipheimer, Alberto Contador, and the man himself, Lance, I think this is perfectly acceptable. Apparently director Axel thinks so too, as he has asked me to cut some training hours this week, so I can be 'rested' going into camp, where I will be 'tested' (a.k.a. 'tortured') a bit.

There you have it, another oddity of pro cycling, which would seem entirely backwards in any other line of work. The boss asking you to cut hours, with no effect on $$$. I'm loving every minute of it. Well, at least until I have to start doing VO2 max intervals.

Anyway, I am of course super excited about the upcoming camp, and I will be sure to let you all know how it goes.

2009 Racing Schedule

I've now got a pretty good idea about how the season is looking for me for '09, after receiving schedules from both team Trek-Livestrong and the USA National U23 team. Here is a quick breakdown of the races I will be doing this year:

February:

• Training camp in NorCal in early Feb. in conjunction with the Team Astana pre-T.O.C. camp. Should be a fun one.
• Possibly Snelling Road Race and/or Merced Crit with one other teammate

March:

• First team race with Trek-Livestrong - Redlands Classic, 26th-29th in SoCal
• Also Land Park Crit on the 21st (individually). Come out and see this one! It's a great spectator course in Sacramento.

April:

• Possibly entering Copperopolis RR, Sea Otter, or Martinez Crit on individual basis
• Racing Tour of the Gila in New Mexico as team race with Trek-Livestrong (29th -may 3rd)

May:

• Leaving for Europe on the 10th with Team Trek-Livestrong. Racing in the Fleche du Sud stage race in Luxembourg with team Trek (20th-24th)
• Possibly racing Paris-Roubaix with team Trek (can't wait)

June:

• Racing a campaign with the USA National team including Vuelta Tarragona in Portugal, several UCI one-day races, and finishing with the Het Volk race in Belgium (27th)

July:

• Likely racing Davis Crit. Also racing U23 nationals (8th - 12th).
  
• Racing Cascade Classic stage race in Oregon with team Trek (22nd - 26th).

August:

• Likely racing elite district championships at Fort Ord.
• Tour of Utah stage race with team Trek.

September:

• Tour of Missouri with team Trek. Still not sure about this one, but I hope to make it out there.

So that's pretty much it. I will probably throw in a local race here and there, and things may change as far as team Trek's schedule is concerned, but all in all it looks like a pretty good year - not too full, but definitely enough to keep me sharp and get me exposed to more of that higher level of racing both in the US and Europe. I'm looking forward to diving in...

Am I losing my mind!??

I will be sure to finish up the 2008 recap soon, but something so strange happened on my ride this morning I just couldn't wait to share. The gist of it is that I believe I rode my bike through some sort of a hole in the space-time continuum today. This distortion of reality seems to be located somewhere in the foothills above Oroville, CA.


It all started quide ordinarily. I got on my bike at about 7:45 am, rode off to meet Jason B, and we headed up toward Loma Rica for a four-hour or so ride. Things got weird when we decided to take a left and head south at a T-intersection southeast of Oroville to head back toward home. Last week, we went right and rode north a good ways before dropping into Oroville, so this time I figured going left would send us south, away from Oroville, back down into the valley toward Gridley. After turning left at this T, we proceeded to get very lost, as I missed the road that I knew would get us into the valley (by now it is also raining very hard- go figure). We took another left to head south, figuring that this way we would at least be heading in the right direction, away from Oroville, and back home. Somehow, after riding south (or so we thought) for about 20 minutes, we came to a town. It was Oroville, and we ended up in the exact same part of downtown Oroville that we had come into last week, after riding north from this now infamous intersection. How could this be possible? Both Jason and I spent the whole rest of the ride wondering what had happened. Maybe I lost my bearings after two 4+ hour rides in the pouring rain. Since that explanation is both boring and makes me sound incredibly weak, I am sticking to my theory that we simply rode through some sort of a spacetime disturbance, maybe a wormhole or the like.

So, now you know, there is a tear in the spacetime fabric somewhere near Oroville. If you want to become utterly confused, and have your training ride lenthened considerably by getting really lost, head out there and don't say I didn't warn you. Otherwise, stay in the valley and enjoy the perfectly smooth spacetime.

Recap 2008 in photos

Since I was 'offline' for all of the '08 season, I thought I'd try and catch up on what I was up to last year. I'll skip the drawn-out race reports and just go with lots of photos, because its early and I have to be on the road training in about half and hour. Considering a picture is worth a thousand words, and I type about 15 words a minute (pathetically slow), I should save myself about 1.1 hours worth of pecking away at the keys for each shot. I am all about efficiency, so here goes...

I started the season off in really good shape (too good for January), and took the win at the Paskenta ride in Chico. Looking forward to going back next weekend and trying to keep the sweet perpetual trophy they gave me.

Crossing the line solo to win the Sea Otter Circuit Race. This was a great weekend for myself and the DBC team, as we had won the road race the day before on a daring solo move by my mate Alex Wick.


I took things overseas to race with the US national team in May. This is a shot of me doing what I did best over there - being a domestique, or a team workhorse. With me pounding the climbs like this and teammate Nick destroying the KOM sprints, we came home with the KOM prize, the polka-dot jersey from the Trofeo Karlsberg in Germany.


Next up after Germany was Switzerland, and the mountainous Pays de Vaud stage race. I was feeling under the weather, battling a sinus infection I think, but I managed to make a long break on stage two and ended up second place - podium, flowers, and all.

OK well I gotta go get on my bike now. It's pesky having riding as a true job sometimes. Could be worse I guess!
I'll have more photos of the '08 season up soon.

In case you were wondering...

... why I haven't written anything about an actual bike race yet, it's because there haven't been any yet this year. I will be doing my first races soon, and I will be sure to let you know how things go. I will also be writing about my upcoming team training camp in the first week of February. So for you action junkies, please do sit tight and read my arguably less exciting off-season material. The racing season is just about upon us.

I hope you all enjoy...

The Power of Power

If the image above means absolutely nothing to you, you are not alone. The modern bike racer would, however, say that you are behind the times, and are cutting yourself short on your training by not sitting at a computer analyzing your rides for about as much time as you spend actually riding. I would say I envy you, and that you should feel lucky for not being held accountable for every second of every ride you have ever done.

The above graph represents a bike ride I did this week, in terms of power, torque and all that other stuff vs. time. It was produced by a wonderful little device called a PowerTap, which I have recently begun using for all my training rides. This little computer consists of a special hub in the rear wheel of my bike that measures the force I am applying to the drivetrain, as well as my speed and pedaling rate. This data is then relayed wirelessly to a small unit on my handlebar which crunches all the numbers, and displays all sorts of important measurements while I ride. Then at the end of the day I download all the data to my laptop via a handy dandy USB cord and email it off to the trainer so he can check out what I've been up to (and crack the whip when I've been cutting those 10 min. intervals down to 9 minutes)

Now you may be wondering why anyone besides some sort of physicist would want to know how much power they are producing on a bike. You would then, of course, be placed in the category of people who are very far out of the know. Fear not, for I will fill you in enough to allow you to fit in just fine with any bike-geek friends you may have.

See, Power is defined as a rate of work over time. Work is defined as a force applied over a distance (force x distance). Thus, Power = (force x dist.) / time. The standard unit for power measurement is the Watt, which is equal to one Joule of work per second (a Joule equals one Newton of force applied over a Meter). So now when you hear someone say they put out 1000 watts yesterday, you will know that they did 1000 joules of work in just one second (for whatever the heck that is worth). So, for practical purposes, knowing how much wattage you are producing is very useful, because it is a direct measurement of how hard you are working. It is basically the best way to gauge one's effort on the bike for any kind of workout. For instance, coach may say "do six four-minute intervals at 420 watts". I would then go out and do my intervals, splitting time between staring down at the display to make sure I was keeping up this insane amount of wattage, and wishing I was doing anything else in the world but riding at 420 watts. Then when I am done, I could look at my data from the ride, with the purpose of quantifying the misery I put myself through, and seeing whether or not I actually kept up the wattage when I blacked out near the end of the interval.

In all seriousness, I love my PowerTap power meter, and I wouldn't train without it. It allows me to be very precise with my training, and gives me a sort of virtual training buddy to egg me on when I need it (or make me feel pathetic when I'm on a bad day). All I need to do is a periodical lab test to set where my wattage 'zones' fall (what wattages correspond to what levels of effort and how different wattages affect my body). I try not to get too into all the technicalities of training, but this is one device I wouldn't want to do without. Lucky for me, I will never have to be without a power measurement device this season, as all of team Trek - Livestrong's race wheels, including TT disk wheels, will have the PowerTap hub in them.

Now when I post graphs of training rides that I have done, or start talking about how awesome my wattage was yesterday, I will expect you all to be on board.

Farewell to Sanity

Today was my first day of classes at Yuba College, which I went into still undecided about whether or not I would actually be going through with school this semester, considering the huge amount of time I will be spending on the road this racing season, and the 20-30 hours a week I will be devoting to training. After a few long discussions with my professors, I have, for some reason, decided to stay a full-time student for this season. I will also, of course, be a full-time cyclist. Somehow right now I'm thinking being 'full-time' at two things at once will probably leave me looking for more time in the day. I suppose it is possible though, through some clever mathematics, to budget this all out and still come out on top. I have thus come up with the following equation:
2 x (full time) x (1/2-ass) = 1(full time)

Unfortunately, I can't really afford to be half-assing anything this year, so I will be stuck with being extremely busy. As a racing mate of mine would say, I just might be making regular trips into the pain cave. (Watch out for continued usage of this wonderfully descriptive little phrase)
This is all made worse by the fact that my classes are right in the middle of the day, which means I will rarely have time for a good long ride, and I will have to take up doing two-a-day workouts to get in enough hours on the bike.

All that said, I should be able to pull it off, as I have been doing for the past couple of years. I may just be prolonging the inevitable I guess, as I will surely have to abandon school at some point if things really go my way with cycling, but for now I really want to keep my mind sharp and stay on track for my engineering degree. I know I will eventually have to give up bike racing for a living, and I don't quite think I have the panache to make it as a Bob Roll-type TV personality. After all, I wouldn't be a true pro in the Belgian tradition if I didn't retire to a desk job and gain 100 pounds.

Stuff I'm Riding, Part 1

With the new year comes a new team, new sponsors, and most importantly, new gear. Well, maybe not most importantly, but new gear is pretty cool.
So I thought I'd start a little periodical running down all the cool stuff I'm riding this year. Naturally, this first installment will detail the most important piece of equipment I ride - my bike.
Here it is, the Trek Madone Pro, known as the Madone 6.9 if you try to find it in a bike shop.
Draped in a full SRAM Red component group, with Bontrager wheels, bars, stem and saddle, and Speedplay pedals, this thing weighs in at about 17 Lbs. Now I hate playing the weight game, and considering I way almost 150 lbs. myself, a pound or so here and there will only change my total weight by less than 1%. But, this bike is freakin' light. That 17 Lbs. may not sound so amazing, but consider that weight includes a PowerTap Power meter, heavy-ish 'training' wheels, training pedals, and alloy bars and stem. When we get our race bikes in a couple of weeks here, with carbon wheels, bars, and stem, and race pedals, I think our mechanic may have to get creative to keep this bike over the 15 Lb. UCI weight limit.
All that being said, weight isn't everything, right? Of course, a bike must also be judged by its stiffness, ride quality, and aesthetics (otherwise known as 'lust factor'). To start with the stiffness, which I personally consider to be the most important aspect of bike performance, I need say no more than this is the stiffest bike I have ever ridden, period. I have ridden several ProTour bikes in the past and this one smashes them all in the stiffness category, and just may be the stiffest out there right now. Now for those of you wondering why one would be so concerned about a bike being stiff, consider this: when I'm sprinting up a hill on my bike, producing around 1500 watts and hundreds of Nm worth of torque, I want all of that power to go into pushing me down the road, instead of into flexing the frame around. Now when I look down at the bottom bracket of this frame (the part where the crank attaches), I see an industry-first 90mm wide bracket, which is at least 20mm wider than any other bikes out there. And wider means more material which means stiffer. It also has a unique integrated seatpost system that allows the frame to be solid at the seat tube, with no opening for a seatpost. Again, more material equals more stiffness. Any one can take a look at this baby and know it isn't going to give much.
Now I think I can be pretty short about the ride quality. Considering this bike is carbon fiber, just like every other Pro race bike out there, it has a 'carbon' feel to it, like most other race bikes. It soaks up small road vibrations and sort of bounces you over the big ones, like riding on the wide side of a two-by-four. The small difference with this bike is the tubes are actually a bit narrower in the horizontal direction than on most bikes (because they are massively wide in the other direction), which gives the bike a bit more vertical give, which means a happier hindside for me after a five-hour ride.
As for the 'lust factor' of this bike, I'll let you decide. Everyone has different tastes I suppose, but take one look at this bike just screaming "race me!" at you and we both know you hope your other bike won't find out about the way you feel.

The aftermath...

Here I am, its 9:00 am, and I'm not on my bike! Amazing!
In the aftermath of a big training week, I'm taking a morning off, to catch up on this blogging thing, which I just might be coming to enjoy. Soon I will leave for Davis, CA, to do some photos and an interview with the Davis Enterprise Newspaper. It seems people in Davis actually care about bike riding. Imagine that.
Anyway, be sure to catch that article, which should run later this week as a sports feature, and will give the scoop on a pretty rare and cool event that just happened: two Davis Bike Club riders went straight from the DBC program to the Pros. The other former DBC standout is Paul Mach, whose serious wit and web-design expertise combine to yield an awesome blog that makes my humble blog seem pretty pathetic (seriously, check out his site here). Oh, and he can ride a bike quite well also. If I tried to list all the amazing things he's done on a bike, I would get tired of typing things after a while, you would not think I was nearly as cool after reading the list. Just take my word for it, he's the real deal, and I think you all will come to know his name, if you don't already.

Training Camp part one

So last week was the first even for the newly formed Trek team, our pre-training camp in Lance's stomping grounds - Austin, Texas. You may have already read all about it on VeloNews, but if you haven't, Click Here to check out the article. As you may get from the article, the main purpose of the camp was to allow everyone, riders and staff, to get to know wach other in a relaxed setting, while also taking care of some business such as visiting the Lance Armstrong Foundation building and doing physical testing. The whole 'getting to know each other' part included plenty of dinners out, a bowling trip, a movie, dancing, and just hanging out at Lance's Spectacular new bike shop, Mellow Johnny's. Oh, and we did ride our bikes a bit too, I guess. The riding was not so great in my opinion around Austin: flat, windy, and terrible road surfaces. It was OK by me that we only rode about 3 hours a day.
If I made our supposed 'training camp' sound really cushy, that's because it was. It was my first experience with the big perks that come along with being a Pro. Every morning I would sit down to my all-you-can-eat-or-drink breakfast in the Juan Pelota Coffee Shop (A delicous mocha, muffin and breakfast wrap, for the record), and think to myself, "How did I get here?". Who knows, but I think we all had a really good time, and I can't wait for our next training camp, the BIG one, here in Northern California in early February. This one's sure to be full of those befuddling "new-pro moments", where I have to wonder, "Is this really happening to this former chubby kid from Yuba City?"...

Back at it...

Welcome to my new Blog!
After a long break from the internet scene, I'm back for the '09 season, which is shaping up to be a very exciting one. I have decided to switch to the Blog format as I'm hoping it will be much easier than maintaining an entire website. For those of you that have followed the TaylorKracing website, I apologize for the long silence on my part, and I hope I can keep you all updated with enough race info and the like, in the coming year (and beyond).