What in the world?!?!?

Oh the things you miss when you race road and can not join your friends on a long mountain ride at Weiser State Park. It sure looks like they made the best of it without me anyway. Tom is holding Shawn in his hand. The funny thing is, Tom rides a 26" bike and Shawn giddy up's on a 29'er. Looks to me like Tom should be on a 36'er and Shawn, well, a big wheel. Good stuff.

The Results are in...

It was another windy, cold day for racing in Kirkwood but at least the rain past the night before. Waiting for the start is horrible in those conditions. Your teeth grind down to half their size from chattering so much. When the gun finally went off (at 10:50am) it was a go. The pace was fast but not like the first lap at Strasburg. The peloton held together in the wind pretty well too. No crashes even. We made it about 4 miles into the first lap and the pace slowed to a crawl. I decided to use this slow speed to move up to the upper third of the pack (the safest place to be). I was moving up nicely too. Then we made a right turn into a direct headwind of 20-25mph. I was caught with no one in front of me and no one letting my slip in. I drifted all the way to the back of the peloton. No big deal I thought. I was with Chad so I knew we would be able to move up at a better time. Chad and I were hanging back to stay out of the wind when a gap formed. The riders in front of us were letting the draft get away. In a headwind as strong as it was yesterday losing your wheel is a major no no. If you are hurting you suck it up until you are out of the wind and can recover. I didn't want a repeat of Strasburg so I jumped up to close the gap. The guys that couldn't hang on earlier amazing hung on and then refused to pull through when I wanted to peal off. I knew if I put a big pull in we would catch the peloton but did I want to use all that energy that early in the race? I had to. Chad was sitting about third wheel and couldn't pull through and those in front of him were content to let the race get away so I put the hammer down and big ringed it back to the tail end of the peloton. When I went to rotate behind I was too far in the red to hang on. I was in no man's land again but I got Chad back to the peloton where Jeremiah was sitting comfortably. I used the rest of the race as training miles. When I finished (40th) I saw Jeremiah and Chad waiting for me. They finish with the group and Jeremiah was close to actually being in the top 5 until he was run off the road in the sprint. Long story short 25th for JW, 26th for Chad, and a 40th for me.

Unfortunetly our women's team is done for the season. Mel accepted an offer to ride for a pro feeder team. She later found out she will be out all season due to a hip injury. Then Kim broke her foot. She is supposedly going to write an entry for us.

You say it's your birthday.

So Happy 30th to me. It hit me when I registered for Greenbrier (4-27) and I was in the 30-34 age group. Time marches on I guess. Anyway...

Kirkwood is next on our list of races (3-29). All the important info can be found here: http://redroseraces.com/. Click on Kirkwood at the top of the screen. Our race is at 10:30am. It will be Chad, Jeremiah, and I in this one. Hopefully we can pull out better than 50th this time around. It's looking like it will be dreary out there. Upper 40's with a chance of rain (aka do not ride your expensive wheels). Kirkwood is a lot like Strasburg and will most likely come down to a sprint. My personal best in a sprint finish was 7th so our chances of winning are probably not that good unless we make a break for it. We would probably need about 8 riders to make it work and keep the peloton at bay. This is very much a play it by ear race because of the rolling terrian so we shall see. If something like last week happens, all bets are off.

Our mountian team will kick off the season on 4-6 in Marysville on the Oesterling Farm. This is a 4 hour 4 person relay event. Pretty simple, one goes, three wait...It's a pretty good spectator event for a MTB race. Short laps and fairly visible. Worth the drive.

We came. We saw. We (well I) finished 50th.

So obviously the big news of the weekend was the race. The first in team history. The start to a season of...well, I hope better things...From the gun it was GO! Our first lap of 5.5 miles rolling in at 12 minutes. That roughly 27mph. It was tough but we were hanging on. Right after the start/finish line I hear someone yell "CRASH!" Glancing through the bodies I pick out where I need to be to avoid it. As I'm passing the wreck I see the familiar blue and white of the Allied Milk uniform in the fray. It was Chad. He was standing and appeared to be ok so I kept moving, figuring he would catch up. Meanwhile a gap had formed. Those in front of the wreck had pulled away ever so slightly. Five of us went into full chase mode to try and catch the group off the front knowing that if we didn't get them now we never would due to the high head wind on the back side of the course. We rotated through pretty nicely. I was doing 1-2 minute pulls at around 28mph. Doing everything I could to get to the back of the lead group. It wasn't to be. I saw the gap growing at every corner and realized that the five of us just were not as strong as the 30 (of so I thought)ahead of us. All of us eased off knowing our race was over and the season is a long one. I rolled in with an average speed of 22mph with and hour and 18 minutes as my time. Not too bad for the first race and not wanting to peak just yet. The winner finished in 1:11 though. That just shows you how important positioning is. Chad, I later found out was finished after the first lap. See someone decided to try and win the race on the first lap. They made a stupid move, brushed against someone. That person lost control, folded his front wheel in half, fell into Chad and destroyed his rear wheel in the process. One person cost two people their race and about $2000 worth of wheels. If you click on the right photo you can clearly see where the nipple pulled straight out of the carbon rim. To Ritchey's wheelbuilders credit, the wheel still spins straight. Chad is fine so he and I will be back on the 29th at Kirkwood.

In other news, our team photos are here. I will be giving out a copy to each of our $$$ponsors. The day is was taken it was about 12 degrees (well it felt like it) but you would never know by looking at Tom, Joel, Ben, and JW in their short sleeve jerseys. So those $$$ people can be on the look out for it soon.

Sammi was adopted today. Woo Woo! She went to a family that has no kids or other pets. Just what she needed. I'm sure that her new family turns the heat up past 64 degrees too. Hopefully, their bed is as comfy for her as ours was.

Out.

Strasburg

Strasburg is just 2 days away. I've logged some good miles this week and I'm feeling pretty good. Chad will be coming down and it looks like it will be just the two of us for this early season race. The weather report looks good, 55 degrees 20% chance of rain. I like our odds. This being an early season race, our goal isn't to win it. If we do we'll take it though but honestly this one will most likely come down to a sprint, and we aren't sprinters. We have two races in mind that we will be gunning for, both of which are mid-summer. Either way though we will certainly make the most of the miles for those races.

Samantha

This is Sammi. She is a foster cat that we've been taking care of because she was afraid of being in the Humane League. Too many people I guess. Her favorite things to do are...sleep, get a rub down, sleep, more rubbin' (especially the belly), and sleep under the covers with her head on a pillow just like a little person. She is about 8 years old and came to us at a whopping 19lbs! Yes, that is hefty. We put her on a diet and she is now around 16lbs. She should probably be around 12-13lbs (she is a pretty big cat). If anyone would like to meet her contact Lori at the http://www.humaneleague.com/. Sammi is super nice and just needs a quiet place to call home.

Springin' Ahead

Strasburg is next Saturday. The first race of the season. It's also our teams first official race. If you'd like to check it out go here: http://www.redroseraces.com/index.php?option=com_races&task=listRace&id=59&Itemid=42. It's about 20 minutes from Lancaster city and since we are all in the cat 4 race we will be starting at 11:30. I'd like to get us riding in the 3/4 races by the end of the season. It's still early and we don't need to wear ourselves out yet. Hopefully our tent will be here by then too. That would make us easier to spot (with the 3'x8' banner from ARRO standing out like the North Star). It looks like the temps will be in the 50's so not too bad.

On a personal note, it looks like the bus company is going to pay me off (the damages that is). That's cool with me though. I never really wanted to go any further than that anyway. Cross our fingers and hope the check cashes...I still have to go for an MRI on my knee though. I haven't been able to run since the accident due to the pain.

I know...blah, blah, blah.