School last semester started out great with me finally having a roommate that didn't smoke himself stupid all the time and eat all my food. That was a definate plus, and finally the dorm room wasn't quite so lonely. Over the Christmas break I finally got myself my first road bike. My Giant OCR 1 was definately one of my best friends of 2006.
AAs soon as I got it I started riding all the time, at first I rode solo then I started getting some groups together with Nick Morgan and a few people weather permitting and kind of just got out when I could.
My season started off with my first crit ever at our home race in Greeley. Definately and eye opener, and just pretty much struggled to hang on to the pace of everybody at the race. After my first race I knew I was hooked and that I really wanted to take it seriously. The very next day we had the race at the CSU oval. There was a large crash in the second lap that a few of my teammates were involved in, which made the race interesting, and near the end I passed Koch in the sprint. Which he wasn't too thrilled about because Dana passed him in the race the day before.
My next race was the Mines race located in Golden, with a time trial up lookout mountain, and a crit in nearby Golden. I have never been confident on hills anyway so going up lookout mountain was a humbling experience. Especially with Tommy D passing me on the switchback like I was standing still. The crit was fairly uneventful, didn't feel great all day but our team did well with Albert King taking second place for the team.
Our next race was in Durango, which I was very nervous about because of the reputation that all of the Durango kids have. The drive out was just as fun as all of the races, with Dana suffering from food poisoning, and me still being hungry after his throw up session. There was a TTT, an ITT and a road race all in 2 days. The TTT was very wet because of the rainstorm the night before. We were down a guy because Dana was not feeling well. It was our first TTT as a team, so our communication wasn't very good and we didn't know what we were doing. The ITT didn't go well for me seeing as I am so confident on the hills. The road race was very humbling with a lot of climbing, roughly 800 feet of climbing per lap of the road race. I finished somewhere near the back, I still don't know where, but it was a lot of fun. The drive home was very interesting, with having transmission problems with the van to blowing a tire all in the same day.
Next race was Grand Junction, which is where I had my best race of the year. There was a road race, a TTT, and a crit. The road race did not go well for me due to 2 mechanicals, and riding by myself the entire race. The TTT went way better with the UNC team winning the TTT. Communication was good, and we all worked together very well which was a huge step for our team. The next day was the Crit, which was very flat with lots of turns and very fast. The race went well for all and we were all in the top 12. I can't wait for that race this year. Afterwords we watched Corey tear it up and take 3rd in the A group. That weekend Corey made me love the song, "Soul Meets Body"
Last race of the year was in Wyoming which wasn't exactly fun. When we went to the road race it was 20 degrees and snowing, I ended up spending just short of 4 hours on my bike not so fun.
For my first season of collegiate road biking I felt I did pretty well, for not training a ton I improved every race and this year promises to be much better.
After school ended I moved into Corey's house for a couple of weeks, and started work at the International Bike. I loved the job right away and kept very busy with it. I got a new mountain bike, (Cannondale Rush 1000) and some new parts for my road bike. After living in Corey's bike Room for a couple weeks, I moved into my house on 11th Ave in Greeley. I really liked it at first but later not so much. The rest of my summer was spent working, riding my bike, and drinking.
School started and all of my other roommates moved in and I new that it would be a very long semester. The place started getting very dirty, and well...you get the picture.
I did a couple of collegiate mountain bike races, and had pretty good results with my highlight of the year taking 8th at the CU race. Not long after mountain biking Corey and Scott thought that I should test my legs on the cross bike. I spent the rest of the fall focused on that with Corey lending me his old Surly. Cross turned out to be more fun than I could have expected and I found myself every weekend going to races around Colorado. Never felt great in the races, but then again you probably shouldn't feel good when your on a cross bike. But we made a new tradition of the wednesday morning cross rides at a nearby park. That turned out to be a lot of fun, even if the weather was bad. I'd like to thank corey for making my cross season possible by letting me use the squirly surly!
This December I picked up Scott Wenzel as my new personal coach for all the cycling that I am doing now. I started my base training last month, and I know that this season is going to be way different than last season.
I came home for christmas to take back my seasonal job at St. Nicks selling trees and outdoor lighting to our local community here in Littleton. A big decision was made at this time though. I won't be coming back to UNC next semester. I am now going to attend Metro State College of Denver. I did this because of my wonderful living situation in Greeley, my grades, and the friends that I lost this fall living in that house.
However I did think that I made some great friends who made me realize who my real friends are.
So, As for 2007 I think it looks brighter than 2006 already and I plan to do better in school, hopefully win some bike races.
well I just did a fair bit of rambling...
thanks for checking in
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