Naked Men...

I'm taking racquetball this semester. As I soon realized you get quite sweaty playing racquetball in those small stuffy courts. So after every class I hit up the locker room to change before heading out to my other two classes. First off you should not schedule normal classes right after Kines classes. Stupid mistake.

My beef starts in the locker room. Why do old men feel the need to prance around naked? Now if they didn't have a towel handy while changing, that's cool. But walking around the locker room naked with a towel hanging around your shoulders is just unacceptable. Even better are the old men who feel the need to weigh themselves while butt naked. All of these men are overweight. Is the quarter pound towel really going to break your goal for that day? I've done a little data collection and I've found that there is a one to one linear relationship between how overweight the dude is and how willing he is to walk around naked in the locker room:
I must share, though that my most traumatic naked man incident did not occur at the IM building this semester. And no it not feature Joe Whitman. A few summers ago my boss at my co-op also frequented the locker room where I showered after doing noon-time workouts on the bike. One time he happened to be there after doing a jog on his lunch break and he flagged me down and gave me some things to do that afternoon... all while butt naked in the middle of the locker room. I had a towel on. I sort of felt like I should have taken it off and just let her fly out there in the air. Am I alone on this? Towels are there for a reason.

New Commuter....

Well I decided to go the much easier route to get a new bike to kick around town with. Lady called into the shop the other day. She was cleaning out a shed in the back of a place she rents. Had a few bikes there she wanted to get rid of. One was a Schwinn Varsity. Some other junk with some duct taped stems. But there was also a 97-98 Trek VW Mtn bike. 19". 7 speeds. So I fixed her up a bit, and will have all the parts I need once I get some stuff off my old mountain bike that was junked together from freezethaw two years ago. I haven't ridden since I almost died riding it (wasn't my dumbass fault that time though) because it's an absolute piece of shit. But the cranks/BB are good, as is the front wheel, and that's all I need to get this thing running. Maybe a 7 speed cassette too. Those aren't too spendy though.

Yeah. so it's purple... can't really tell in the picture. But it'll take some fat tires and fenders, so this will work all winter long baby. Sahweet.

Also had another idea regarding switching bikes around. I think I'm going to use my old race bike, Ti Airborne Zepplin, as my new TT rig, and sell the Nova (current gay looking yellow TT frame) on eBay. I think the better fork and stiffness of the Zepplin outweigh (pun fully intended) the weight savings of the Nova (Al) over the Zepplin(Ti). So... look out ECCC, I'm going to have a Titanium time trial bike. That kid must be really fucking fast. He has flames anodized onto his Ti TT frame!


Going to put some more flames running down the downtube, and then something where the bike brand would normally go. Ideas are welcome. Stud has already been considered and is likely. Chrono is also up in the running. Maybe I'll figure out how to do those voting online things and we can have a slugfest, and maybe JUST MAYBE Steven Colbert will find out about this and ramsack my election and I'll have to write something like "Colbert" on my bike. That would make my day.

Forks aren't supposed to bend like this...

I finally sold the Redline cross frameset, but I was oh so very close to ruining the frame, and my body, before ever selling it...

I was riding down the sidewalk next to College Ave near Hout's on my Fuji commuter, holding the Redline in my left hand. A car looked like it was about to pull in front of me, so I went to hit the brake with my right hand. Now... I have my brakes crossed up, so this was my front brake. I looked down at the caliper to see it engage the wheel, and then move forward, because it was loosening up off the nut, and then give way. So I immediately loose all braking power and am just coasting. The car doesn't pull in front of me... it sees me coming and is waiting, but it doens't matter because I never made it as far as the car. My front caliper swings once or twice in front of my bike, and I'm thinking... shit I got to stop and catch that thing, so I take my right hand off the bar and try and reach for the other brake, which I can't get with my left hand becuase I'm holding the frame that I'm on my way to sell!! But before I reach that brake...

Boom. caliper runs inbetween some spokes, and completly jams up my front end. Bike flips over. Somehow I manage to jump off my moving bike (around 10-15mph) and land, running, in the middle of the traffic lane of College Ave. Now thankfuly there are no cars in College, just that one car looking to turn onto it. Well that car waits a second, sees that I'm still living, and takes off. I slowly collect the fact that I'm the luckiest piece of shit roadie ever. If I were some BMX or mountain biking fiend, then that would be a cool dismount, but hell, I shave my legs. I never run off my bike while it's doing flips underneath me, and not while I'm holding a frameset in the other hand!!

So... damage to the bike: The fork is absolutely fucked. As you can see in the pictures below both blades are bent back, and obviously not planar anymore. Riding the bike now is interesting... getting out of the saddle is out of the question. I ordered a new fork for it with cantilever brake mounts, and I got some braze-ons for the back that I'm going to weld on. I'll have to remove the bridge in the back that supports the seat stays and replace it with a bridge further up, or a plate up by the seatpost. So basically I'll have a single speed cross bike. Schweet. I'll post some more about the construction of this later on...

Check out the fork... and how close the front wheel comes to the downtube....




This picture is square on from the side of the bike. You can clearly see the bend in the fork, and the fact that the blades are no where near planar anymore. Sahweet. Maybe I can make a toilet paper roll holder out of this fork.

The paint came off the part of the fork that was put under tension. The front wheel here is very close to being in dish, so you can tell that the fork is really out of wack.... The metal stretched out causing the paint to flake off. The paint is fine on the front end of the frame, and nothing indicates that the frame was effected at all.




Another shot of the paint off the fork blades, and my extremly clean braking surface.

Good vibrations

I'm sitting in class the other day and someone's phone starts to vibrate. Ya know, that quiet reminder that everyone in the room can hear. Now I know full well that my phone is turned on silent. But as the vibrating noise is heard for the third time I reach down just to make sure. Open up my phone carrier thing on my Timbuk2 bag, and nope, not me. But right when I reach down the noise stops. The teacher looks at me. What!? seriously man it wasn't me!! So now I'm trying to find a pencil or pen or something I can pull from my bag to say, "see... here! that's what I was reaching for, not my phone!". But I got nothing, so I go up empty handed, taking the blame for the phone noise. That got me thinking.

We have custom ringtones. Why not custom vibrators? Now I know the ladies out there are saying, "hell yea!! I want some custom vibrating action." But seriously. If you could also program your phone to tap out some simple rhythm, then you'd know if its your phone right away. Now certainly this wouldn't matter if you had the phone in a pocket, as you'd feel it right away, but with everyone putting phones in bags and stuff, it's really hard to tell who is vibrating and who isn't. So here is my challenge to the cell phone companies out there: get me a phone with some customizable vibration action.

No more Ivan with CSC

Well the breakup with Ivan Basso and CSC finally officially occurred today. I figured this one had to be coming since reports were circulating ever since the Tour that Basso and Riis were not talking at all. Ivan has been in contact with Discovery Channel and Team Milram. I can't see how Discovery would ever sign him. Doping has been a problem that has not been much of an issue for Discovery, and I would hope they would want to keep it that way. I'd also feel really bad for Levi if they added Basso. Levi would still be a prominent rider for them, but I don't think he'd get the same 100% support at the Tour that he is likely to enjoy if he is the sole leader. I'm not even sure Basso is going to make much more noise at the Tour anyway...

Basso is going to have a quiet future. He'll join a team, and race without doping... which for him means getting dropped on the climbs that he had enjoyed success on before. I hope to see Ivan go to the Tour next year with Milram, be in the top 5 or so going into some mountain stage, and loose 10 minutes. Then of course NOT gain 9 back the next day by injecting testosterone directly into his testicles.

I'll be happy this Spring racing in the Men's B field in the ECCC, as I'll know that no one there is doping.

Energy Consumption... by States

I'm taking an online Energy course, EGEE 101. It's basically the easiest thing I've done here at PSU, and keeps me full time. Anyway, I came across this graph below (originally shown without the colors) that shows total energy use, and energy use normalized to population.

I realize you can't read anything in the image above, but if you click it it will come up full size, and should be readable. The first graph is the total energy per state. As you can see the red/blue (as defined by 2000 Election) is relatively well spread out. But the second graph is the energy use normalized to the population, basically how much energy is used by each individual person in those states (the black one is the US average). The first 16 states went to Bush. 16 states! These weren't the states that were close either, these were the blowout states of Texas and the midwest. Ya know, the ones they colored in about three weeks before the election. What does this tell us? Republicans use more power than Democrats? Not exactly, but it's interesting to see that the Republican dominated states are much less energy conscious. Now certainly places like Alaska have the fact that they are constantly heating their homes, which is a huge part of personal energy use. Other than that though, you have 15 states in the main body of the country that says, hey... the hell with you, i'm burning some oil in my front yard in a large barrel and you can't stop me, and I'm going to vote for child molesters.

Ohio and back

Took a little road trip out to Columbus, OH this weekend to visit Karin and my brother Todd, and my niece Cheyan. 18 months old, seriously coolest baby ever. She knows most of her colors... though most of them are usually "yeah-yo" until you tell her to guess again.

Here is a picture of me helping her pump up Dad's wheels before his cross race:


And a picture of us hanging out in the car



I drove back to Happy Valley Monday morning after the weekend and was pretty freeking tired. Stopped at a gas station that had a Starbucks attatched, and got a coffee and a lemon pound cake thing. When I went up to order, I asked for a "large coffee and a slab of the lemon pound cake". The recently employed hippy looking no good cashier looked at me and said, "You want a venti?" I just looked at her.... I wanted to say "I don't want a large Farva, I want a litre cola." But I felt like she wouldn't get that one. I just nodded.

A Venti? Are you freeking kidding me? Your company is from Seattle, shut the hell up venti. Is that italian? Starbucks? Quit it with your stupid sizes.

Bored in Engl202C

This is how much I care about Engl202C (Technical Communcation)

how about those geography skills. Don't be jealous. And yes I know I re-drew the Maine/Canada border a bit... but seriously... who cares, some moose?

Riding

Took an hour cruise around Centre County this afternoon. Knee felt pretty freeking allright for the first time in a few weeks. So hopefully the 6 advil a day and icebag of frozen corn is helping. Definetly going to keep a low profile until mid-November though, when I hope to start piling on the base miles and lifting. Maybe I'll have a powertap and a new CAAD9 frame by then... that'd be pretty sweet.

Also found out that my helium wheels I got at the swap are pretty f'ed up. I heard that some tubular helium rims had a problem with the nipples pulling through the rim, and upon close inspection the rim definelty has a lot of little micro-cracks (like the technical jargon?). So.... eBay! Fucking swap meets... good and bad. Just have to be careful... wrap it up.

Lehigh Valley Swap

Woke up at a brisk 4AM to head out to Lehigh Valley for the Fall Velodrome Swap. I packaged up a bunch of my junk to try and sell. Ended up parting with about 40 bucks worth of stuff I won't be needing. Spent most of the time working for the shop selling bikes and gloves and stuff. Big catch of the day.... 90 dollar pair of Mavic Heliums! Not bad! I'll probably use them as a low weight road race wheel set (ie when I don't want to use the front carbone/powertap) and then for cross next fall. Sahweet. Netted about 30 bucks, Mavic Heliums, and an Ultegra crankset which I realize I probably won't need when I buy this before cross next year:
I am looking forward to cross in the fall, but most of all I'm just hoping that I can put in all the training that time allows for this spring. Getting sick of injuries piling up. Therefore I will be wearing kneepads 24/7. And to answer your question Whitman, no.

Study Day

Well I took the GREs today, and I sucked it up. I don't think it'll kill me for most of my schools, but doesn't help my case for reaching for places like RPI or Cornell. I was especially pissed because I never really had trouble with the timing while practicing, but I pretty much screwed it up on the real thing. The problems were getting harder and harder, which is a good thing if you know how the GRE works, but I only had 6 seconds for the last question, and just guessed without even reading the whole question. Blows. I must have missed about 3-4 questions. I don't think I'll take it again though, time is pretty short and I'll still be able to get into a decent enough program I hope.

Also finally got a Dr. appointment for my left knee problems. Penn State Orthopedics..got in about three weeks sooner than at University Orthopedics. Freeking a man... I need to be better by mid-November to start putting some base miles in. Hopefully I can get some good tips to help get this taken care of as soon as possible.

Applied for a few spring internships too. One in State College, and one in Allentown with Air Products. I'm hoping to land something for Spring and Summer, and register the spring section as an offical internship with PennState...so I can race! I might have to register the whole thing as an internship and graduate at the end of the summer, but we'll see. Push comes to shove I'll just do an internship for the spring and work at the shop again this summer and race on my PSU CAAD9 as much as possible. I'm looking forward to that thing now... reallly looking forward to that.

GRE + Grad Schools

Well time off the bike has to be filled with something... and for the last few weeks it's been practice GRE tests and grad school hunting. After talking to professors and a bit of web searching my list is, in somewhat of a semblence of order:

1. RPI
2. Cornell
3. Virginia Tech
4. Penn State
5. UConn
6. Univ Central Florida
7. Case Western

I'm looking to get into a program where I can specalize in fuel cell technology. I really dig the elective I'm taking on the topic this semester, and I think it's a cool new wave of the future... as long as we can figure out how to get some hydrogen without raping the Earth.

I'm taking the GRE's on Friday... all the way down in Harrisburg, the closest testing center to State College. I'm not too worried about them, as I've done as much practice as possible. For those familar with the test I keep screwing up those damn quantitative questions dealing with the graphs or figures. I don't know why, I guess I'll just have to make sure to take enough time and not rush through those. Everything is pretty easy, you just have to figure out the easy way to think through the problems.

I'm getting pretty close to having the cash for the PowerTap. I have about 400 on hand, will be getting 130 from my security deposit (and another 130 once I keep threatening legal action) and whatever my Redline cross frame gets on eBay. I'm hoping to get at least 350. Hopefully I'll get the PowerTap and can put it to good use right away. Also trying to put some cash away for a CAAD9 PSU custom painted frameset for 375. That would rock... need to get some paychecks for that though...

And one more note, the party was off the hook. Thanks for those that showed up, and thanks to those who got girls to walk all the way from Burrowes. Clutch. Look for another 1105 bash when the weather is warm again... it's not an indoor party kind of place. This weekend we'll be crashing our neighbors party though, feel free to join us.

Cross delays...

Well cross hasn't started yet... at least for me. Went out on a 2 hour easy ride on the cross bike a few weeks back before a cross clinic I was really looking forward to. Unfortunately I tweeked my left knee pretty good. I think it was a combination of commuting a fixed gear for a few days, and the q-factor being off on the cross bike. Seriously people, check to make sure you're not an idiot like me and that you don't have a 113 BB in there... piece of junk. Been hitting the ice and advil like it's my job for the last few weeks... and finally today I went out for my first real easy road ride that didn't want to make my cry when I got home. Schwell.

Other goings on... finally got a list set for grad schools I'll be applying for. Somewhat in order of preference: RPI, Cornell, PennState, Virginia Tech, UConn, UCF, Case Western, UDelaware. That's a whole lot of application fees. I'm also saving up for a PowerTap SL. Also throwing down for an extra receiver for the TT bike, so no matter where I go, I'll be dishing out the power. In a months time or so expect to see an influx in the number of graphs that correspond to my base training on this site.

Other than that, normal last semester at school. Trying to land an internship of some sort that will keep me in State College and as a full time student. Trying to find a paid one, but one without money is cool too... keep me insured and racing my bike.

One final item: party at 1105 West Beaver Ave on Saturday. Come on down. Keg of yuenling, some imports, some domestics, and some high school chicks. Rockin'

My first MTB race... or was it a cross race?

I skipped out on the XC course this past Saturday, saving the demo bike from further damage. Instead of racing I slept in and iced my knee which was bugging the heck out of me. I was relieved to see a bunch of bruises surface on it though, confirming that it was likely just inflammation that was causing the pain and not anything more serious in the joint. I felt a lot better by Sunday and decided to do the Short Track Cross Country race (STXC).

Now I haven't even raced my cross bike in a cross race yet. I haven't even really taken many turns at speed or done much technical riding at all on it. So this was quite an intro to handling a bike at speed offroad. One turn was about 160 degrees, and thankfully somebody had worn out a New Jersey style jughandle to make the turn easier to take (not necessarily faster). The other dangerous turn was a pretty fast turn covered in gravel. I fell in both of those spots once on the course, and possibly twice at the sharp turn, I don't remember. I made up a lot of ground on the smoother sections of course on the parking lot and along the top of the course though. I felt bad about crashing in front of people, especially Matlin who I would pass a few times and get passed back due to my being on the ground. It all ended up well and dandy though, with Chris Ruhl taking off by himself and lapping almost the whole field, some UMass kid getting 2nd, and myself taking 3rd. Matlin was not far behind in 5th. Good start to my cross season. I think I'll consider this race a cross race without any barriers.

Looking forward to this weekend which should feature my first real cross training. Ry Leech and some other fast dudes are putting on a cross clinic, and I intend to soak up as much cross knowledge as possible.

Mountain Biking is hard.

I went out to Rothrock to test out the XC course today after class on the shop's Epic demo. Full suspension means I'll go fast right? Goddamn mountain biking is hard. First thing I noticed right off is that you need a lot more arm strength than road riding. Pushing and pulling that front end around is a lot more effort than even wacking my bars around in a sprint on the road. I progressively took better lines through obstacles while doing the technical loop on the course. I got to a point where I figured if I were lucky I'd probably be able to ride all the level rock gardens during the race. I handled the steep rocky downhill section a lot better than I thought I would. I just placed my nuts all the way behind the saddle and tried to touch the brakes only when I really needed to, which was most of the time. I did sucessfully hold a front wheelie for what seemed like 10 feet, but I'm sure was closer to 2 feet, over one of the steeper sections. Endoing on that descent would fucking hurt.

Speaking of endoing....I was riding the smooth back section of the course and being a bit lazy taking my lines through things when I pulled my front wheel up onto a large rock thinking I'd just ride over it. Well it was steep as shit on the other side and I quickly found myself flying over my bike. Fucking a. Bust up both of my knees and must have landed oddly on my left hand because it's sore as hell. I noticed later on that my right knee is swollen pretty bad, pretty near to my surgical site... not a good memory. I'm not sure if I'll race tomorrow at this point, I'm sure it'd be fun, but I don't want to push myself if I'm swollen for a race that ultimately doesn't mean much to me.... props to mountain bikers, that shit is hard. I had fun when I took good lines through the gardens, but I really don't see myself consistently going out to Rothrock with the desire to beat the shit out of myself.

Last Bikereg Transaction until March

Andy Munas (notice which way he is eating the bananna), Ben Smith, a WVU rider Geoff Moy and I descended on Waitsfield, VT for the Green Mountain Stage Race.

The first stage was a hillclimb up past our humble abode of a ski lodge, to the top of "App Gap". The 3 race featured such exciting features as a nasty wreck in the fast "neutral" section and yours truly getting dropped from the leaders relatively quickly to end up in 78th. Geoff notched the biggest gain by getting 6th, while Munas was up there in the points as well. Ben featured pretty well in the 4s, somewheres in the teens. The juniors were fast as fuck, and the triathlete chicks who were climbing up the climb were hot.

Second day was a rolling circuit race. I got dropped right off the back on the feedzone climb on the first lap. I worked up into the field after a few miles thanks to the help from my brother's buddy Kyle from ECV. Each sucessive lap I got dropped less than the previous, so I was able to catch back on after the climb on the last lap relatively easily. When I got up to the front, there was a group off the front who was looking to soak up the 100pt finish bouns from the field, and my bitch Andy. So I worked with the guys in the front as much as I could. Did a few turns and the group came back somewhat. On another little riser before the finish I had trouble staying in the group, and it was all I could do to finish with the group at that point. Andy snagged a 10th place for the ever important 1 bonus point to go with the 100 finish points that stemmed from that group getting caught riiiight on the line. Geoff got dropped, as the 70 or so miles seemed to take their toll, but Ben finished up in the points again to keep his spot on GC in his race.

Third day was a nightmarish road race, on a good day. On a bad day it was freeking fun, but painful. We started in 50 degrees and pouring rain. The course featured three climbs, with the last being an absolute beast with pitches up to 24%. I thought I flatted on the flat sections before the first climb, so I stopped and got a front 404. Really I just wanted to be like Munas though, as he had broken a spoke the day before and sported the Zipp then. Motorpacing back to the group is fun, and highly reccomended. So of course on the first climb I got dropped, but descended like a son-of-a-bitch and made it back to the albeit slow moving field before the real fireworks went off. I managed to get up to Munas and Geoff and made sure they didn't need anything. Once again I got dropped on the first hints of uphillness leading up to the final two climbs. I was impressed with my effort anyway though, as I paced myself up the whole last part of the course, slowing picking off everyone I got within sight, and was only passed on the climb by some 40+ finishers who were duking out the finish.

I think I picked up a bug from somewhere on that rainy day though, as I was in absolutely no condition to race the next morning. I literatlly was running to the bathroom every 10 minutes in the morning. So I packed up my stuff and went up to the big city to watch the boys crit race. Ben was feeling allright in his race, but got caught in a crash and possibly fucked up his carbon stays. Geoff had some trouble from the getgo with a bad start and apparent lack of motivation in crits, while Munas stuck it in the group to finish off the day.

Then we drove a quarter way down the eastern seaboard to go to classes. I'm looking forward to collegiate season again...

GRE

Eariler in the summer I scheduled the GRE Exam for Monday, 8/28. I heard from my parents that the GRE people called on Saturday to let me know that my test has been cancelled. I'll need to call and reschedule tomorrow, when I call in and bitch at them. I'm not sure when I'll be able to take it now, seeing as I'll be gone later this week racing in Vermont, and then classes start soonafter that. They don't have any tests during the weekend, so what sort of problem do you run into on a Saturday that you didn't know about on Friday? I'm also pretty worked up about it because this same thing has happened to other people as well, so this isn't an isolated case.

I really feel like checking into what it would take to start my own test center in State College. Set it up with the standarized testing companies, get a small buisness loan to cover the rent and computer crap, and hire up a few dorky computer kids. I think I'd make a killing doing the GREs, MCATs, LSATs..etc.. all of which I believe you need to travel a good distance to take. Maybe that'd be a good part-time gig if I were to do the teaching route. Freekin-a.

Christiana

Christiana didn't start out better than anything else this summer, but it ended with a bang.

Saturday:

Road Race:
I was feeling pretty good all day in the field. Much much more comfortable than last year when I got shelled out of the 3/4 field on the first climb of the first lap. This time I used the climb to move up in position, and kept my ground for most of the course, usually loosing a little bit in the beginnings of a windy section. On the 4th time up the climb we caught the remnants of the women's race, which made things really complicated. I was chugging along on the climb, surrounded by people as usual, when I realized that me and the few guys around me had gotten dropped, and were surrounded by girls. Now usually this wouldn't bother me, but right then I wasn't in the mood for that sort of thing. Not a huge deal, did a little bit more work than I would have liked, but made the gap up relatively easily. Had to chase back on at the same spot on the final lap as well, but that was due to my loosing contact with the first 10 over the climb. So it all regroups, and a pretty large group of about 40 guys is heading into the finishing uphill section, not even a climb. Well I heard a crash behind me, and was happy to be in front of it... but the next crash that took up the entire width of the road was in front of me, and I couldn't quite get around it in time. Had to unclip, cyclocross over some poor bastard with half a face, and finished out of the points. I was feeling good and ready to put the hammer down on the last 300m too... I was only like 6 or 7 guys back. Oh well. No points.

Sunday:

Time Trial:
I thought I would be the only disc wheel fully aeroed out geek in the 4 field, but oh was I wrong. There were some funky stuff out for the 4's, and some other strong TT'ers, which I didn't expect. I finished up 3rd, about 20 seconds off the pace. I think this is a good sign still though. Even though last year I would have won the 4s by a good minute and a quarter. I'm still working on my position, I can get a little lower, and I don't feel as comfortable spinning up hills in my position now as I did last year... I'll be ready to fly by collegiate TT time. So... got some points.

My arms look really high right? Don't worry, I already bought an adjustable stem.

Crit:
I was pretty happy to be sitting top 10 after only scoring in the TT, thanks to the fact that the people who scored in the road race couldn't TT very well. With a good finish, I'd be able to get some GC money. Got a great start, and was 3rd wheel the whole time around the first lap. The first two guys kept switching, and trying to get me to come through, but I just sat on... I'm not going to pull on the first lap numbnuts. Well they both crashed out... first and second guys through the last turn on the first lap.



suckers. I stayed at the front as much as I could during the whole race. I felt pretty crappy in parts, letting some gaps go, but was lucky enough to always have someone next to me that was willing to close it down, and I was able to recover. The junior Polish kid took off with a few laps to go- I didn't even see him go. I just noticed that the kid who looked like was getting lapped had the pace car in front of him for a whole lap... hmmm. I moved up on the technical part on the backside, and was in a pretty good spot for the last turn. I took it pretty far inside, and started my sprint from a ways back. My legs felt much better than I anticipated and I took about 10 or 15 guys in that last uphill straight to get 6th.

Those placings on Sunday were good enough for 4th overall. Look out GMSR! You best be careful for the kid with the big quads going backwards fast on the hills, don't get caught behind me.

Doylestown

This Sunday was a circuit race out in Doylestown that a bunch of PSU folk made it out to. I did the 3/4, and felt pretty comfortable in the rolling course for the first two laps. At some point a break of two riders had a relatively significant lead, so I decided to jump across. I did so a lot more easily than I thought I should have been able to, and the reason for that become apparent quite quickly. The first time I went to pull through they both yelled up to me to ease up. Are you serious? Jesus, I just bridged up to you dudes and you can't sit on? So you can guess how that break ended up... As we were being caught another group of two tookoff, and I decided to give it a shot again. This time the other two guys were much stronger, and were taking some long hard pulls. I did my best to match their pace, but found it a bit much after about half a lap. Once I dropped from their wheels I glanced back quickly and saw the field, and decided to not kill myself and just wait for them. I didn't realize how far back they really were, or maybe I would have turned myself inside out to stay with the leaders. Turns out that the two stayed away for the win. Johan from Faulkner Honda jumped with 2 to go, and I went up to him and tried to work up to the leaders, but that wasn't shaking. Didn't have much in the tank after all that work, as I just finished up with the field. Legs felt pretty good so I'm looking forward to Christiana next weekend.

Altoona Recap

Well this is a bit late, but I'll recount the Toona race weekend real quick.

The first day is the "race to the corner" circuit race. I felt pretty good the whole race, but should have known better than to try and take it solo down towards the end. But I felt like I was Jens Voight, so I took a good hard flyer off with about 200 or so meters to go before THE TURN. I took the turn with a gap, and held on for the uphill section after it, and after taking the next turn found myself being swarmed by the field already. I rode it in for 65th.

Second day went a bit better. I gunned it on the opening straight to get right to the front. I hung out up there for a few miles, and was being steadily shoved a little further back than I would have liked when I got pushed clear off the road by a kid trying to avoid a dude who dropped his chain. Not much harm done, chased right back to the front, and drilled it as hard as I dared on the first 1/2 of the climb to string out the group. I was hoping to form a small group right from the get go, but thinking about it now, riding tempo, however hard, is not really the way to make a selection even on this "road race" course. I slipped towards the steep KOM and come across behind, but reintegrated with the 2nd group over the top. I did a ton of work, but it was clear we weren't bringing anything more than people who had given up back. I sat in for last kilometer or so and easily took the field sprint to save some face. 19th.

Third day was the crit. I didn't finish this last year so I was hoping to at least do that. I got a second row start spot and took advantage of that to sprint out in the top 10 through the first lap. Certainly a lot easier than being in the back. I routinely moved up on the finishing straight by going real close to the barriers and wide around the uphill turn. About halfway through I got caught behind a crash on the last corner. I had to unclip, and sort of took my time getting back on my bike and snagged a free lap. By this time the field was relatively small so I didn't have any trouble getting back up to the front. I felt pretty good and stayed up there for the rest of the race, but just didn't have the punch to fight for the top spots for the whole last lap. Have to set yourself up first, and then hope you have something left for the sprint, not the other way around. 21st.

All in all a fun weekend. We had what seemed like 10 people staying at our new place, so it was a bit hectic. Again the highlight was Lisa taking 3rd the first two days, and despite a crash in the last corner of the crit, she managed to keep her 3rd place, even though we didn't realize that for a few days after.... oops