My own worst enemy!

I am sitting here a day after the Gaslight Crit and kicking myself. There is nothing that compares to racing and feeling tremendously good. I have been playing the conservative game just to get back in the swing of things. Well yesterday I wanted to rip and I was ready, but I played the wrong tactical game and came up short. Nothing was wrong and everything went well. I was sitting 4th wheel going around the 140 degree turn with a lap and a half left. On the backside I was still sitting pretty until right before the same turn we got swamped from the left and the right. All of a sudden 20 guys are in front of me and the race ended with a bitter taste in my mouth. You live and learn and I guess I put myself too close to the front with too much of the race left. Oh well life goes on..... To those of you who may have said on your left or right during the race I will not apologize. It is not my job to let you in or help you move up if my bars are in front of yours. That is your job to make your own race.

Kensington recap

Ah so the first road race of the year for me, and I can say I am happy and unhappy. As all of us cyclists know, one can not be completely fulfilled unless a "W" is in your bag. Going in I had mixed feelings, would the race be hard or would it be easy considering the hills and the extra distance to cover. I chose to stay conservative and see how things played out. First few laps went by without a hitch, a few small breaks, but nothing that would stick. On the 5th lap on "snot hill" I felt good, so I gave it a go and got a 10-15 second gap. Knowing that no one was on my wheel I figured what the hell, but this time I did not go all out or even near. I knew the field would bring me back, as I did not feel incredibly snappy. So I plugged away for 5-6 minutes until I felt the field right behind me. After that I realized each lap our field kept getting smaller and smaller. I thought to myself how the hell can all these guys get dropped and I have done very little work on my bike this year????? Then I remember that I have an incredible endurance background. Nothing else happened each continuous lap, more dropped riders, even guys who weigh very little and have beaten me all year until this point. Onto the last lap, I felt that I needed to have good position coming out of the turnaround to secure a good result. I shift down and hear a crazy noise which I would later find out was a chainring bolt falling into my chain and out an the ground. Forgot to tighten the chainring bolts down as I was told.....oops. Coming into the last 5k I realized there were 2 guys up the road. It was so hard to distinguish who was in our field and who we were catching that had been dropped from other groups. Then I look up and see a mass of cars at a standstill and hope to get through safely. During our meandering through the cars a few guys tried to pull a quick one and gain some ground before the last time up snot hill. Approaching snot hill much slower than I would have liked, I had to stand and really put the power to the pedals and for the first time in my life my legs felt like I was being electricuted by a tazer. I am not shitting you, it was awful, from my quads to my hip flexors. Must be some residual power I lost not racing last year. I stayed on the group and gave as much as I could to the finish, grinding past people while staying seated through the whole sprint. I came in 16th, but the sensations I got reminded me why I love this sport. I am also dissappointed I did not fair better, but did better than most. Onto the next weekend of races.

Note: None of the aforementioned details are excuses, they are what happened and to be honest I did not have what it took to win this race. The best rider won from our group and Kudos to him for sneaking away and staying away.

Good vibrations

Since my last post I have found out what is wrong with my bike. Lets just say the Ksyrium SL rear wheel I have is toast. Everytime I would freewheel this wretched noise would come from somewhere, so after buying a whole new drivetrain I realized this was not what was causing the noise. Oh well, I really needed some new components and it feels great to have some crisp shifting. Tonight I went to the Wednesday night ride, and this was one of the most low key Wednesday night rides I can remember. I got my workout in and did not expend much energy at all. I was hell bent on sitting up coming into the final sprint, which is uphill. Then I was sitting 6th wheel so i decided to give it a dig. Even though I was really overgeared I still felt surprisingly well. Every week, I am getting good sensations and the riding is progressing very well. Tomorrow I will join my pal Alvin for our semi-monthly coffee shop ride. Good Day!

Whew!!!

The last few days have been good. The Wednesday night ride turned into a massacre. We started with 25-30 riders and about 30 minutes in the carnage began until only 9 of us remained. Thanks to Hamilton, Myers, and the Birmanns. After taking the first sprint I was content to sit in until the last half of the ride, where I felt good and made a few decent pulls. Progress and patience are my two friends right now. After a few low key days on the bike I joined Alvin and Hamilton today for a ride. Jeff snuck away for a few hours to ride with us. Alvin had some tempo work and I did a nice LT workout (which sucked). All in all it was a very uptempo day on the roads with just us 3 and I came home with 62 miles in 3 hours. Then I headed to Mr. Frayer's house to work on my bike. Nothing feels better than a new casette, chain, bottom bracket and chain ring. I may even decide to keep this chain lubed and clean. Now while things have been going well I think it will be interesting when everyone shows up for the Wednesday night ride. When I say everyone I mean Josh Tarrant, Bart Carlson, Zach McBride, Mark Olson, and all the others. That is when I will see where I really stand, which may be a hard pill to swallow. Otherwise everything is chill right now, and I can not wait for Kensington.....

Stupidity

So to start off I will talk about the riding, which has been going well. Last week, I caught the first Wednesday night ride that I could attend and it did not dissapoint. It basically was 10 minutes of a roll out, then 40 minutes of hard riding with half the group getting dropped, followed be on and off the rest of the way. I love that those who get dropped take a shortcut to get back in the group before the ride is over only to get dropped again. Coming into the last 10 miles or so are the usual hills that spread the group out and Alvin jumped a mile or so before the first, seeing that no one was going to chase I set out in pursuit. Usually when you chase and get on terms with the leader you sit on for a brief moment to relax and recover, but I went right to the front and pulled up the first climb, then let him take the decent, only to pull again on the second climb and right near the top I realize Alvin had eased off and about 5 guys come whizzing past and I collect the wheels of those five. Everyone regrouped and the ride ended up being a good motivator for me, as I have not put in much work at all this year. Now on to my personal stupidity that occured today after my riding. I went to Speedway to fill my gas tank, and as I step out of my car I see a piece of shit with at least 24 inch rims and a nice sound system. At that moment I thought, why do people put all this money into a car that looks like hell??? Then I realized I had locked my door......with my truck running. The joke was on me it seems. About a minute later I see an attractive blond about to pull out of the gas station and took a chance and asked her if she would drive me to my place to get my spare keys. To my surprise she was like yeah no problem jump in. She did not question a thing and come to find out she was a cycling fan who was from Italy and grew up near lake Como. I found it odd that she actually waited for me to get the apartment manager to unlock my place and retrieve my keys. She drove me back and would not accept the $20 I wanted to give her for her help, but I slid it in the car as I was exiting. After all this I never thought to ask her for her number, because she was really a cool girl, and with her thick accent and looks it made it all the more appealing. And she even was cussing in American as she almost missed the turn into the gas station to drop me off. I guess karma does exist and I have been doing something right.