Weekend in Ft. Collins

Well I had a weekend out of the ordinary in Ft. Collins. I drove up on Friday night to spend the night at my brothers house in Ft. Collins, so I could have a short drive to my races at Beaver Meadows this weekend. I had a awesome week of training, and was feeling in very top form. My hard workout on Wednesday on the MTB went better than ever and I felt very confident. Somewhere in between Ft. Collins and Beaver Meadows, my father's truck took a nose dive on me and I was stranded with no phone service, and a broken down vehicle. Luckily about 5 minutes after the incident a old man pulled over and helped me out. While we were figuring out what to do, a tow truck driver who was in the same vicinity stopped as well. He said that he was on his way to pick up somebody else and that he would pick me up on the way back. After waiting about an hour, he picked me up and we made our way back to Ft. Collins. I thought that AAA was going to take care of the charges but I was wrong. Apparently I am not a "plus" member of AAA so they don't take care of towing charges after 4 miles. I payed a whopping 93 bucks to get the truck pulled back, how wonderful.
Once I got back to my brothers house, I took a nap for a couple hours and then tried to figure out if I could find a way to the race the next day, or find a way back home. Since my brother was in Grand Lake I couldn't steal his car, so I tried to enlist the help of Dana. He decided to spend time with the wife and kids, instead of go to a bike race. So I basically sat on the couch and didn't do anything the whole weekend. On a brighter note I have my first cross race this weekend in Breckenridge. I'm super pumped for it, and I can't wait. I just got done with a run this morning, and I remember why I like riding my bike a lot more. It sucked and I only ran for like 20 minutes! Anyways, I took the day off of work today to get some stuff taken care of, and try to fight off this cold that I seem to be catching. Hopefully it doesn't get worse. Thanks for reading.

Labor Day Weekend

Hey all, well I made the trek up to the high country this weekend for the final Mountain States Cup race. I stayed up in Edwards with Koch, Jeremy and Allez. I drove up on Friday because I had an early morning on saturday. I got up around 6ish, drove all the way to keystone only to find out that short track regestration was closed and I couldn't get in. I used the time to register for Sunday's XC race, and prerode the XC course for the next day. I found out later I rode the XC course incorrectly during warm up. Anyway later on Saturday we went to Oktoberfest at Beaver Creek drank a couple of beers and hung out. Later that night a few of Matt and Jeremy's friends came up from Nebraska, and also Dana. We went on a little pub crawl on saturday night, ended up coming back pretty late considering I had a race the next morning. I woke up about 6 or so and Dana and I made the Trek down to Keystone from Edwards. We got to the race feeling a little hung over, and morale was low for the race, but I opted to race anyways. The course was nothing short of very difficult. Lots of climbing on fire roads, single track, and very technical descents. The majority of the race was climbing and we actually end up climbing the entire ski mountain. I stayed with the main group for the first climb, and first descent. When we hit the second climb, I blew up and rode solo for the last part of the race. After the second climb, you descend down to the finish, very quickly. I finished, not sure where I did but I was pumped just to finish. After the race I drove home and me and the family went the Yonder Mountain String Band last night. Fun times for sure, check them out. Looks like I will be heading up to Ft. Collins this weekend for the Beaver Meadows MTB race. Then after that its Cross time. Thanks for checking in.

Happy B-day to me

I turned 21 today, it feels good to finally drink legally...I am having my get together tonight at the Old Chicago on Broadway and Mineral tonight at 7ish, would be great if everybody came!

CX Team

Well its official everybody, I am now a member of the Boulder Cycle Sport Cyclocross team. I'm pretty pumped for the season, and can't wait for it to start! Since I am taking a little time off of school, I can work save up some money, and hopefully rip the legs off of my oppenents this season. Anyway big soccer game tonight, thanks for reading, more later.
PS New songs on the the "whats on the pod" section

Looking for a team for cross this season...

Well everyone, cross is almost here and I can't wait. I'm hopefully gonna be building up the steed for this coming season soon and getting some solid training in. I plan on doing a couple of the mountain states cup races in next couple of weeks one in Nederland and one in Keystone. Anyway wondering if any of my faithful readers know of a team that is looking for some riders to add to their squads. I've talked with Rocky Mounts a little bit and its kinda looking bleak. I talked with the Boulder Cycle Sport team about the team that they are putting together for cross and I havn't heard back yet. Anyway if anybody has some advice, or someone to contact, let me know. Thanks for reading

A little break

Sorry for the lack of updates but I'm back for good! I got back from Santa Fe on Monday afternoon for a much needed little vacation. I got to ride quite a bit while I was there, and even had a solid day in the mountains of New Mexico. I rode from my Grandparents house to Santa Fe Ski Area and back which is a grand total of about 50 miles, give or take.

This was my way up the mountain, not that steep but it sure was long, about 14 miles up.

This is when I stopped at a campground to fill up my waterbottles

The Cockpit

Anyway my ride up the mountain got cut short by some bad weather and lightning that rolled in. I was only about a mile from the top, but bad weather made me turn around. When I rolled back through town, I was cruising through the plaza in Santa Fe, when I stopped to watch a guitarist play. It didn't take me long to realize it but it was none other than Esteban, the guy who sells guitars on infomercials. I hung out and watched for awhile and it was awesome!

Saturday night was spent at the Santa Fe opera outside of town. They did a performance of "Platee" which is a story of Greek Mythology but sung in French. It was really interesting for sure and a really nice setting.

Aside from my little vacation not much has been going on, just work, ride, sleep, repeat. My last road race of the season will be Sunday, at the Bannock St. Criterium. I would ask you to come watch but it starts at 7am. Just sleep in I'll tell you about it.

Longmont Criterium and such

Well been a busy guy the past few weeks. After the Firecracker 50 I took a much needed couple of days off, went for a recovery ride 2 days later and still felt horrible. Ive never had such a hard time recovering after a race, I can only imagine what those endurance MTBikers go through. Anywho I have been still riding the mountain bike a lot, and the only time I have been riding my road bike is to work and back and stuff. Ive found the MTB training I have been doing has definately helped my endurance in races, and really giving me more solid base. I went out with a guy from work who is a semi-pro and did about 4.5 hours race pace style training in the foothills near my house. It was hard, really hard, but a good thing for sure.
I raced in the Longmont Crit on Sunday. It didn't go to well, I had a pretty bad position from the start and moving up in that field was a harder task than expected. There were lots of 90 degree turns and not much time to move up if you wanted to. There was a crash about 35 minutes in, that a lot of people were involved in. I had to unclip to avoid it, and decided to use my free lap. I did so, and the pace seemed to be even faster than before the crash. So I finished in a chase group, and that was it. I was pretty dissappointed in myself, but we have good and bad days I suppose.
I hope everybody has been watching the tour, it has been pretty exciting thus far. Its so hard to say who might pull away in this one. I thought Vino had a chance, but its gonna be hard on him for the next few weeks. My wildcard right now is Iban Mayo, he looked super strong yesterday, and he could do it! But who knows, its wide open at this point. Anywho, I'm off to get some sleep, tuesday night crit tomorrow! There are some new songs for all you folk to check out as well, take a look!

Firecracker 50

I knew it was gonna hurt, and it did, really bad. With the combination of lots of climbing technical climbing and really steep elevation, it was a hard race. I had to do 2 laps of a 25 mile course. The first part of the race went really well, and I was feeling better than I ever have in a mountain bike race for sure. Then about 20 miles in I crashed, it wasn't too bad, bike came out from under me a little bit, and I just jumped back on and tried to chase back to the group I was with. I made it back to them then I managed to crash again, this time a little worse. I chased back to the group again, and I could see the lap marker up ahead, in which case we had roughly another 25 to go. Then thats when I crashed really hard, and it wasn't one that I could just get up and keep going. While I was descending on a jeep trail I took a really bad line and ended up over the bars and onto some rocks and gravel. Lets just say I had to sit there and collect myself for a few minutes then I got back on my bike went through the finish line and decided that one lap was enough. I HATE not finishing races, but I knew I needed to throw in the towel. I watched Jay Henry of Tokyo Joe's smoke everybody and finish at least 5 minutes ahead of the second place guy which was Ryan Trebon. Overall it was a fun race and I would totally do it again in a heartbeat. A much longer race probably doesn't suit a rider like myself but, it would be a good workout, and something to work towards. Thanks for checking in...check out the new songs on my pod

This is gonna hurt...

I'm doing the Firecracker 50 today...its gonna hurt

Hitting the dirt

Went mountain biking again this morning, it was my 4th time this week! Been hitting up the local mountain bike trails a lot and giving the mountain bike some love. Been doing really early morning rides before work with my manager John and my fellow co-worker Frye. Anywho, thought I should do the write up on my mountain bike so here she is.

The bike is a 2006 Cannondale Rush 1000 with the Siemens Mountain bike team paint job. I bought the bike barely used from Mark Cooper the current manager at the International Bike in Greeley. I hardly did any research on the bike before I bought it, and I have had no regrets whatsoever.

The wheels are Mavic Crossland UST that came stock on the bike, I currently have Maxxis Crossmark Tubless tires on it. The wheels have been awesome, completely bomb proof, everytime I tune up the bike and put the wheels in the truing stand I don't have to touch it! The tires are what came on the bike as well and have been fantastic. Just recently I have put a lot of holes in the tires so I'm not running them tubeless right now. I might be getting new tires soon, any suggestions?

This next picture is of my rear derailleur and cassette. The shifters are SRAM X-7 Shifters with a SRAM X-9 rear derailleur. The front derailleur is a shimano LX. The SRAM shifters are really nice, and all the shifting is done with your thumb.

This next shot is of my cranks and pedals. I have the FSA afterburner crank, and crank bros candies for pedals, as you can see my shoe has rubbed all of the powdercoat off of the crank (thank you answer mountain bike shoes) but I guess it makes me look hardcore...not really. The pedals I picked up on closeout nice and cheap. I was running eggbeaters for a long time, but I like the candies much better.

This next picture shows my Avid Juicy Seven Hydraulic brakes, which are awesome and I highly recommend. In the backround you can see the SRAM shifter, the pedros lock on grips.

This next shot is of my FSA K-force handlebars. These aren't the stock bars that came on the bike, this was one of the little upgrades that mark had done before he sold it to me. Carbon bars are a nice bonus.

This next shot is of my seat and seatpost. The saddle is a Fizik Aliante Sport saddle, basically a cheaper version no carbon pieces and such. If you want a LAZ Boy style saddle Aliante is the way to go. The saddle sits on none other than a Thomson Elite seatpost.

The rear shock is a Fox RP3 with Pro Pedal. The Pro Pedal really helps with climbing and gives you more options than just a lockout. Flip it to the plus side when you climbing and down to the minus with descending, it makes a difference for sure.

This last shot is of the Cannondale Lefty Fork. It looks a little goofy but, it does perform, and has taken everything that I have thrown at it. It has a lockout and a rebound knob right next to the stem, for easy access.

Whew, I hope I didn't bore everybody to tears but thats it. Anyone who is considering getting a Cannondale Rush, don't look any further because it is awesome.

One more thing, this is for Colin Don and Corey.
MILKSHAKE!!!

I was reading Matt Shrivers blog and I could hardly believe it! He is even on a BMC it makes my night.