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.

Back in the saddle

Its been nearly a year and a lot has occured, but I found life very dull without my trusty bicycle adventures. As many of you know I returned to school and have been doing well enough to earn a full academic scholarship if I maintain a 3.0 GPA. Currently I have a 3.94 with one BA that I would rather forget about, and I have yet to receive anything less than an A through Calc 2. That part of life is well, and I also have been serving tables now for nearly a year. The money is much better, but sometimes the stress sucks the life out of you. Onto racing though, and how I have felt thus far in my "comeback" to the scene. I began training about 7 weeks ago now with weeks of 7 hrs, 10 hrs and 11 hrs, but have yet to do any specific speed or anaerobic work. I decided to begin my racing with the Fisk Knob Time Trial near Grand Rapids. The first 12 miles was successful as there was a massive tailwind and I was rolling, mind you this was mostly downhill. The last 6 miles was into a dreadful headwind and it was miserable. I ended up riding 45 and some change for 18 miles, so all in all not a bad start. Then I proceeded to do 2 STS races in Ann Arbor and the first was horrible as I forgot how to corner in my time away and totally forgot about the accelerations out of corners. The second race was the last STS race of the spring and I felt like Hincapie (no chain), but I was told to sit in and get used to the flow of races again. This past weekend I traveled with Alvin Nordell, my recent training companion and race traveling buddy, and it could not have went worse. I worked 10+ hours the day before spending all of that on my feet, then ate a greasy pizza for a prerace meal. I figured I would not show any ill effects. When I got to the race and started to warm up, I still felt incredibly full and sluggish. For the first time in my life I produced a self-induced vomit scene, to try to lighten my stomach. This did not ease the problem, so I thought the hell with it and got to the line with a minute to spare. I started out and didnt feel particularly snappy as I would have liked. Long story short, I could not get on top of any gear all day long. It just was not my day I guess. During the ride, I did notice two gentleman 15 seconds ahead of me going back and forth in each others draft, and anyone who rides a TT knows you stay out of the draft of a rider, as to not get a time penalty. You know who you are and should be happy that two of you could not beat someone who has been training for 6 weeks. Anyhow, there are bigger fish to fry this summer and I am looking forward to progressing into where I once was on my bike. Hopefully I will maintain this over the summer, but in retrospect this blog means very little to me. OUT!

If anyone knows where pictures of the races can now be found please leave a post, as it would be greatly appreciated.

Revelations

After all the bullshit that goes on in this world I have came to a conclusion........ I do NOT want to be a pro cyclist, I really want to be the best in what I endeavour.... and that is teaching children. I am so fed up with professional cycling and all that it entails. It makes me so depressed to ride everyday knowing that all those I look up to may be cheating. I trust 4 people in the cycling community, and those are Josh, Jeff, Alvin and Dave. They are like family to me and I consider no one else true friends. Until then keep injecting yourself trying to make a machine that is NOT you. GOOD LUCK!!!!!

Jeff and Josh "easy days" vs. Jeremy "easy days"

So I am out cruising on a nice ride today just enjoying the great weather and I run into Jeff Hamilton. So I pull a U-turn and we proceed to ride for a while, and I immediately ask if he is going hard today. he says, "no just an easy spin." Now for those of you who do not know there are two people in Kalamazoo whose "easy days" are not so easy afterall. Josh Tarrant and Jeff Hamilton are just on another level, so their easy days are more of a decent tempo day. Back to the ride, after a bit I see this menacing hill in front of us and Jeff picks the pace up, and the climb was a stair stepper, up-false flat-up-false flat-up some more. Needless to say Jeff had to sit up for a minute and wait for me, but I had already ridden nearly 4 hours on the day. Anyhow I just wanted to clarify what easy to me and to others may be. I decided to ride until dark and get in a good 5 and a half hours today. So all in all twas a good day.

Are you feeling it evil???

Today was the first day in very long that I was feeling it!!! Just effortless! Enough said. Other than that I have been working a lot and skipping out on morning rides, which must change soon. Last night I had an adventure that consisted of gluing a tubular on and it went well until I realized I forgot to place the nipple for the valve on first, but I took care of that. I probably looked like a jobber riding my Zipps at a group ride, but I had to see if my glue job worked. All systems go for Kensington now, but this is still a building race for me and I will be working for whoever is the strongest right now on the team, but I know I will soon be where I expect myself to be. 3 more weeks and I should be rolling HARD! Over and out dudes!

deposit

Got a good workout in today. Went out and did the Wednesday night ride and missed the hammerhead festival by 5 minutes. I ran into Tony on the way out and a minute later he flatted so I decided to wait with him and we did the "B" ride. Wow I haven't been in a field of sketch balls like that in a long time and I really missed riding with guys who know what a paceline really is. Anyhow it was a good ride and I ended up adding an hour and a half after. Winona Lakes this past weekend was a disappointment as I only lasted about 20 minutes. I heard the announcer say we were going 40 MPH down the backstretch though, I just could not close any gaps and my acceleration is awful right now. It will all come back soon though. Dave did fairly well though just barely missing getting some cash. Thats it for now. Later dudes!!

#200

Well this is post #200 as the title reads. Wow, today was a ripper. I have been riding really hard everyday to get into shape and I payed for it today. Not to mention the lack of calories in my body to try to lose weight. We started the Wednesday night ride and it started fast. About 15-20 guys got dropped in the first 20 minutes. It ended up slowing down a bit and then came the two decent hills on the course and the first one was no problem, then Josh, Jeff, and Zach went to the front on the second one and it blew up. At that point Taylors dad flatted and I didnt know whether to wait for him or try to bridge up to the few guys in front. Then the stars appeared and it was lights out. I never remember a Wednesday night ride being that hard, but I am also not in shape at all. Its so fucking frustrating seeing where I was last year and where I am now. I just have to keep riding and relax, it will all come. All I can say is that Josh is a goddamn cyborg this year and I see why he is winning races. It is all effortless for him it seems. Anyhow thats about it for today. Night night kiddies!!!

Positive

Things are looking really good right now, even though I did skip class to go ride today, haha. I hate missing class, but it was well needed, and also well worth it. I also got some more great news from my Calculus class, which would be that I received a 94% on my 3rd test. The average was somewhere around 40% so this means a huge curve will be placed on it. Anyhow this shows me I have made a good choice in my career path, and only need a 42% on the final to get an A. All the work and sacrifice paid off, even though I really do miss training everyday for 3 hours and racing with my friends and teammates. Soon enough though fellas. OK, time for work kiddies. Yippee!!!

Fuck the freeze and the breeze

Now I do not know how many people ventured outside today for more than 10 minutes at a time, but I did something very different than most. With no end of the rampage of snow in sight I chose to just have a go for as long as possible. Well it was a pisser of a day, and I mean wretched. I ended up spending 2 hours getting pummeled by the snow and wind. I can not remember the last time I was standing at a stoplight and almost got blown over, but to say the least I was alive and able to ride, so it was a good day. Anyhow, it is almost 2 am and I have to be up in 4 and a half hours for school so I am out. Get bent man!!!!

off season blunders

So I realize that my offseason preparation has been very lackluster and I am finally understanding why. This offseason I have had a serious lack of motivation, cracked a bone in my pelvis falling on ice, and had mono which later turned into walking pneumonia. Good news is that I am on the mend though, and back to riding nearly every day. I notice form coming along very quickly, but will need to race soon to salvage the season. After next Thursday it will be smooth sailing for a bit and I will be putting in some punishing rides and hours. I know that I have let some teammates down by not racing collegiate, but I need to worry about me first, not anyone else. So that is that and if they have a problem with it then so be it. I have kinda realized cycling is not life, it is something 99.9% of us riders do for excitement and a little competition. So chill, and take er easy!

Recognize that

Its been quite a while, but things are looking real good. My education class is seeming like I may have some time to have a life after this week and that in itself is GREAT!!! I have recently gotten back on the bike and I realize I am out of shape. I had a few months where I didn't really ride at all, maybe only once a week. I worry about the bullshit in life rather than just taking it day by day. So I am opening up the season in 2 weeks and I am excited. I may have to ride B's until I get some form or just get into race shape. Such is life I guess. On a really positive note, my "brother" aka Josh Tarrant won both races this weekend, which is huge for him. Finally this shows how strong he is, and no one can say he is not a good racer. He used his head to win, rather than just using his extreme power, and I can not be happier for him. Congrats big T!!!! Out for a cycle, then some Education HW and working late tonite. Peace homies!!!

BUSY LIFE

Heres my schedule and the reason I have no life outside of work or riding.

Monday- Class 8-9
Math Lab 9-10:30
Ride 11-2
Work 4-10
Tuesday-Class 8-9
Math Lab 9-11
Class 11-1215
work- 1-8
Wednesday- Ride 10-1
Work-1-8
Thursday-Class 8-9
Math Lab 9-11
Class 11-1215
Ride 1-330
Friday- Class 8-9
Ride 10-1
Work 2-10
Saturday- Work or racing
Sunday- Racing or 4 hr group ride
Study ass off!!!

That may be why I am never on this blog anymore, but I will do my best to keep you informed. Later, off to work!

BOO for snow

So I just got in from a ride and the current weather is Cloudy and Windy with a 30 degree temperature rating, which feels like 18 with the wind chill. Add in the wind blowing in my face while riding 17 MPH and I will say it felt more like 3 degrees outside (which I lasted 2 and a half hours outside). Other than that not much has been going on. School started yesterday and I am going to love my math class and I will find out about my Education classes later. Other than that I have to work 30 hours this week and take a MI Teaching Certification Basic Skills Test. So things are busy and racing starts soon enough. Off to work, I bid you adieu!!!

What are you???

For the first time in my collegiate career I can proudly say I am a 4.0 student. That means all A's bitches. Now I know I may come off as an ignorant self righteous prick, but when it comes down to business I can get it done. Feel my wrath and feel my pain, as long as you feel me. Haha, maybe the blogging will get back to normal soon, but many things must be done before that can happen. Peace homies!

Ciolek

Gerald Ciolek may be the future of cycling. Lets face it Petacchi is getting up there in years, Zabel has had his time in the sun and McEwen has got to be on the down swing. At 20 this guy is the next super sprinter. It may take a few years. but I suppose he will supplant all those big names. I still have high regards for Jens Voigt, because he is a true MAN and no one can dispute this, but Ciolek is the up and coming star. On my own riding, I must say things are looking good, I did do a nice TT ride on Wednesday and Averaged over 24 MPH for 3 x 20 minute efforts, so for thsi time of the year I am pleased. Otherwise, I got a 4.0 GPA and I am totally psyched for more math. Anyways I may be intoxicated, but I will get up early to get a nice 5 hour ride in. Cheers!

J Dubya

Leelanau

Note the last event on the USA Pro Cycling Tour for 2007!!!

2007 USA Cycling Professional Tour

Feb. 18-25: AMGEN Tour of California – California (2.HC)
Apr. 7: U.S. Cycling Open – Richmond, Va. (1.1)
Apr. 16-22: Tour de Georgia – Georgia (2.HC)
June 3: Commerce Bank Lancaster Classic – Lancaster, Pa. (1.1)
June 7: Commerce Bank Reading Classic – Reading, Pa. (1.1)
June 10: Commerce Bank International Championship – Philadelphia, Pa. (1.HC)
June 17: Austin Men’s Invitational – Austin, Texas (1.1)
June 23: Saturn Rochester Twilight Criterium – Rochester, N.Y. (1.2)
June 30-July 7: Larry H. Miller Tour of Utah – Utah (2.2)
Aug. 19: USA Cycling Professional Criterium Championships – Downer’s Grove, Ill.
Sept. 1: The Cliffs USA Cycling Professional Time Trial Championships – Greenville, S.C.
Sept. 3: The Cliffs USA Cycling Professional Road Championships – Greenville, S.C.
Sept. 8: Univest Grand Prix – Souderton, Pa. (1.2)
Sept. 11-16: Tour of Missouri – Missouri (2.1)
Sept. 15: Tour de Leelanau – Traverse City, Mich. (1.2)