Bike Racing is Hard

Yesterday was the Air Force road race. I got a few good training rides in last week, so I was hoping my legs would feel better for this race. The race started out well, but on the 2nd of 5 laps, Brad wanted me to go to the front on the big climb and set a fast pace to try to widdle down the field and help to bring back the break that had gotten away. I took 2 good long pulls at the front, and was able to make it over the climb with the lead group. However, on the 3rd lap the effort from the previous lap caught up with me, and I got dropped on the climb. I ended up soloing for another lap and a half, then called it quits. There was no way I was getting back up to the group, and my legs were shot. Oh well, at least I was able to help out the rest of the team before dropping out. Maybe after a few more weeks, I'll be back in racing shape. This entire week is supposed to be in the 70s, so hopefully I can get some good training in. It's finally starting to feel like spring is here. It's about time.

Where do I start?

Since September, a lot has gone on. I raced the collegiate mountain bike season, got a cyclocross bike and did a few 'cross races, went to a few concerts, went snowboarding, turned 21, broke my wrist/had surgery, and went to Moab. All of that with a lot of school in between. It's mostly been fun, but it's gone by way too fast.

Mountain bike season was a blast. I raced well, and just enjoyed the good times and relaxed atmosphere of each race. Collegiate mountain biking is a nice change from a summer of really uptight and intense road racing.

I decided that I couldn't go through another fall/winter in Boulder without racing some cyclocross. However, that required getting a new bike. I ended up getting a Bianchi Cross Concept from a friend, and it seemed to do pretty well. I only did 3 races, but I picked up the nuances of the sport pretty quickly, taking a 5th place at the Boulder Cup. The bike also served well to train through the snowy months.

Snowboarding was pretty fun this season too, although I didn't get to go as many times as I wanted to. I got in a few good powder days, and Mike and John came out again this year for our annual ski trip. This year we holed up at Breckenridge, and had an awesome time.

One big event recently is that I (finally) turned 21! I know my mom is probably even more excited about me turning 21 than I am. But it did feel quite good to be able to go into a bar and buy beer at the liquor store...

I also recently broke the navicular bone in my wrist. It happened at the CU crit, on the last lap of the Men's A race. I was sitting about 10th or 12th wheel, and some idiot a few riders up tried to shoot a gap that was way too small, and took out another rider's front wheel. It took a bunch of us down, and I ended up with some pretty bad road rash and my bike took a beating. I didn't really suspect my wrist was broken until hours after the crash. It just kept throbbing and hurting more, so I decided to go to the ER and get X-rays. Sure enough, I cracked the navicular bone in half. Options for recovery were to be in a cast for 8-10 weeks, or to have surgery and get a screw put in. I opted for the surgery since it would only take 2-3 weeks for me to be back on the bike. Everything went well, and now I have some metal in me. I got to race the road race this past weekend, but I definitely lost some fitness after being out for 3 weeks. I got dropped like a bad habit.

For spring break I had planned on going to Moab to do some mountain biking, but breaking my wrist threw a monkey wrench into the works. I had to schedule surgery over spring break instead. However, I did manage to get out to Moab for a few days before surgery just to camp and hangout, and it was still a lot of fun. I got to go hiking in Arches National Park and dabbled in some 4-wheeling with my Jeep. It was great to get away for a few days for a much-needed break.

Well, that's the last 6 months in a nutshell. Here's a few pictures from my adventures.

Preview of Things to Come...

As you are probably well aware, I haven't posted in quite some time. A lot has gone on in between then and now, and I hope to be able to catch you up on some of the bigger events that have occurred. I'll also try to throw in a few choice pictures. However, all of this will occur AFTER my physiology test tomorrow (don't worry Mom and Dad, I am actually studying). Sorry for the long break...

Start of a New School Year

The first few weeks of school are under my belt. Classes have been going pretty well, and I'm getting to ready for the first round of exams. I'm taking some hard classes this semester, including anatomy and the second semester of organic chemistry. I just had my first test in anatomy lab this past week, which I think went pretty well. This coming week is another anatomy test, as well as an organic chemistry test. Ouch. Lots of studying to do...

Well since school has started, I've been to 3 football games. The first one was the big rivalry game with CSU at Invesco Field in Denver. The roomates and I went down early and tailgated, and then got to watch a good game that resulted in a CU win. The following weekend I didn't get to go to the home game, but I did get to race my mountain bike at the first collegiate race of the year. I took 9th in the short track and 16th in the cross country. The weekend was fun because we also got to camp. It was kind of cold at night, but overall it was good racing weather.

Last weekend I got to go visit Mike in South Carolina. I flew in on Friday night and went to the USC-Georgia game on Saturday. It was blistering hot and much more humid than I was used to, but it was still a great game nonetheless. USC put up a good fight against the number 2 team in the country and the atmosphere was really cool. SEC football is pretty exciting. I flew back to Boulder on Sunday morning after a way-too-short visit, but it was a good trip despite the brevity. It was good to see Mike and his new apartment. He is definitely in a nice place.

This past Thursday was the big CU football game against West Virginia. It was nationally televised on ESPN and the fans decided to "blackout" the stadium. It was a really fun game to go to, especially since we beat WV in overtime! Maybe we'll make into the top 25 after the weekend is over... Tomorrow I'm off to Wyoming for another collegiate mountain bike race. I've never done this race, so we'll see how it goes. That's all for now. Until next time...

Catch-Up

Sorry for the long time between updates. I have been pretty busy recently traveling and such. A couple weeks ago Mike came out to visit for a week. We had fun hanging out in Boulder, going to Water World in Denver, and going to the Mile High Music Festival and seeing John Mayer, the Roots, the Flobots, and of course, Dave Matthews. It was a really hot day for the festival, with temperatures pushing 100 degrees, but it was still a great atmosphere and the shows were really entertaining.

After Mike left, I had a week before I flew back home. I spent it doing a fair amount of riding. To end it, though, Jacob, Chris, and I decided to go climb two 14,000 foot peaks ("fourteeners") west of Denver. The two peaks we attempted to climb were Grays Peak and Torreys Peak, which happen to be right next to each other. This is nice because it makes it easy to climb both in the same day. We drove up to the trailhead on a Tuesday afternoon, and prepared to hike part-way up and then find a campsite for the night. Unfortunately when we got there, the trailhead was already at treeline, and it wouldn't have been safe to hike and camp higher than treeline, so we just camped in a nice grove of pine trees at the trailhead. We spent the afternoon exploring the area and soaking in the amazing scenery. We cooked dinner, then went to bed early in preparation for the next day. We woke up the next morning at 4:30 a.m. and ate a quick breakfast before setting out on the trail. The first part of the hike was still pitch black, so it was nice and cool. It was neat because we got to see the sun rise over the mountains, and the lighting of the early morning was beautiful. We climbed up Grays Peak first, which is 14,270 feet high. We had to stop multiple times on the way up to snap pictures of the amazing views. It seemed like every new angle just had to be captured. After about 3 hours, we finally summited Grays Peak, my first fourteener! It was probably between 45 and 50 degrees at the summit and it was kind of windy, which made for a cold wind chill. I was glad I brought layers. After taking some more pictures and signing the summit log, we descended to the saddle between Grays and Torreys, and continued our trek to Torreys Peak, 14,267 feet. The climb up Torreys was steeper and more challenging than Grays, and I became much more tired than I had anticipated. But it was worth it because the views from the summit were incredible and we got to summit our second fourteener of the day. On the descent, we saw an awesome mountain goat that seemed to just climb up over the cliff that dropped off the side of the trail. We made it back to our campsite by about 11:00, and then packed everything in my Jeep and 4-wheeled out on the same gnarly road we drove in on. It was a cool way to top off a great couple of days.

After my mountaineering experience, I flew back home for two weeks. While I was there, I seemed to be continuously doing things. I got to go visit Lesley and Jim and the boys a couple times, see some friends, go to Gettysburg to visit family, go to VA Beach to see a Dave Matthews concert, go to Wintergreen multiple times to play golf, and I got to go on a great hike up Old Rag Mountain with Dad and Mom and Mike. All-in-all, it was a pretty packed trip. I didn't really want to leave, but Boulder was calling. Now I'm back in the 303 and school starts soon. I guess I'm excited for it, but I'm also not really ready for my wonderful summer to end. I did get to do a lot of cool stuff this summer, so I guess I can't really complain. That's all for now. Enjoy the pictures.

Random Stuff

It's been a while since I've last updated, so here's what's been going on. Last week was really hot. I didn't get to ride much in the beginning of the week, and then I got sick later in the week. I think it was food poisoning of some sort, but I'm not sure. That lasted for a few days. Then on Saturday John, James, and I decided to go ride some trails in the southwestern part of the state. We drove to Kenosha Pass and stopped there to ride the Colorado Trail. We did about 16 miles on that, which was pretty cool. It was a nice day for a ride, but that meant that everyone else was out also. It was pretty busy for a trail, so we kept the ride to 2 hours. Then we hopped in the car and drove the rest of the way to our final destination, Salida. We found a good camp site and set up camp, then went back into town for dinner. After dinner, we pretty much just went right to bed because we were planning on waking up early the next morning to catch the shuttle to the Monarch Crest Trail.

Sunday morning we woke up at the crack of dawn and ate breakfast and took down the tents and stuff. Then we drove into town to the place where you catch the shuttle, and caught the 8 o'clock up to the top of Monarch Pass. From here we planned to do an epic 40 mile ride back down to Salida. The first part of the trail was awesome. Actually the entire trail was awesome. The first part is just rolling singletrack above treeline, which seemed like another world. The elevation was about 11,500 feet for the first part of the trail. And oh yeah, there were still massive snowbanks. Check out the video.

Then we hit some cool descents and some more climbs, and then it was time for a lunch break. After lunch, we had another really fun descent, but this is where the trouble started. John had one flat not too long into the descent. Fairly routine. Then he and I both flatted about ten minutes later. At this point we were kinda pissed because the loose rocky descent was destroying our tires. And to make matters worse, John realized that he had broken his rear skewer. This rendered his bike unridable, and we were still a good 6 miles or so from the dirt road that would take us back to town. This meant it was walking time. So we took the next cutoff trail and walked/pushed John along for a good 4 or 5 miles, then I took John's keys to his car and went ahead to get it.


After another 6 miles or so, I reached the car and drove it back up to meet John and James. It was kind of disappointing to have to cut our ride short, but we still got a good 4 hours of riding in, and the trail was probably the best I've ever ridden. I'll have to go back for sure.

Yesterday was another sweet ride. This time it was just John and me, and we decided to go to Buffalo Creek. I had never been here either, but now I sure want to go back. This area has a bunch of cool trails that you can connect into pretty much as big a loop as you want. John had a general idea of where we were going, and with the help of the map we came up with a super cool loop that incorporated more of the Colorado Trail. The whole trail was pretty much a sandy consistency with very few rocks, which made it smooth and fast and it had a good flow to it. The scenery was pretty too. All in all it made for another excellent ride.



Today John and I planned out a course for the short track race tomorrow, and this weekend I have the Mt. Evans hill climb (which is probably the hardest thing ever) and then Mike comes out to visit! I can't wait.

This is what some of the riding out here is like, for those of you back on the East Coast (sorry, the first one is sideways):

Dead Dog

This past weekend I was in Laramie, WY for the Dead Dog Classic stage race. I did this race last year in the 4's and did pretty well, so I was pretty excited to go back. I drove up Friday night and stayed with a few guys from my team in the classy Ramada. Saturday was the road race, and the day started out with an early wake up time. Fortunately, the forecast was for sunny skies, calm breezes, and a high of only 75- basically perfect weather for a race. The road race was 87 miles, with close to 7,000 feet of climbing. It was definitely a daunting stage. The race started out pretty calm, but about 25 miles in we hit the first of two big climbs, and the race immediately splintered. I was caught almost immediately in between the lead group that was quickly pulling away on the climb and the stragglers behind that couldn't hold the pace. I got into a good rhythm, though, and climbed pretty well. Two of my teammates caught up to me close to the top of the climb, and we worked together the rest of the race. The second climb was just as long and hard as the first, and my legs were really starting to hurt. It was a welcome sight to see the summit, and long descent helped me to recover slightly. The flat road back towards the finish was plagued by a strong crosswind, so we had to roll a sweet ecehlon which actually worked pretty well. The last 11 miles were rolling climbs, and that is where I really hit the wall. I was so spent from the climbs and the crosswind stretch that I could barely turn the pedals over. The last K was absolutely brutal, and my body was screaming at me to stop. I finished, but it wasn't pretty. I crossed the line in 18th out of about 50 riders in my category, so overall I did pretty well. It was probably one of the hardest road races I've ever done, and I was glad when it was finally over. The rest of the day on Saturday was spent sleeping, eating, and just recovering. I had to get ready for the crit and time trial on Sunday.

The crit was the first stage on Sunday. My legs were still brutally sore from the race the day before, but after a good warm-up session they felt a lot better. Early in the race, a break got away and nobody seemed willing to chase. So I went to the front and put in two really long efforts to try to close down the gap. But both times people weren't willing to continue the chase, so my effort was all for naught. Oh well. The rest of the race I just kind of sat in and tried to stay near the front. It came down to a bunch sprint for 3rd place, and I ended up coming in 12th. I was still happy with my race because of the amount of work I did and how I was still able to be in the mix at the end, which I hadn't been able to do in the last few crits I've done.

Immediately after the crit was the time trial. It was a little over 10 miles and started out downhill, then turned around and came back uphill. It's a hard course for sure, and my sore legs made it even harder. During it I just felt like I had zero power left in my legs. Oh well... I guess that's to be expected for not having done many really long rides this year and then trying to go out and do a brutal road race followed by a crit and a time trial. I finished pretty far down in the time trial, but ended up taking 22nd overall, which I felt wasn't too shabby. Overall, I was pretty happy with how the weekend went.

Now I'm back in Boulder and starting my last week of summer school! I can't wait until that's done. I don't have any races planned for this weekend, so hopefully I can get in some good long rides. I'm also really pumped for the 4th of July. I think a few of Jacob's friends might be coming up from New Mexico, so maybe we'll have a small party or something. Anyway, that's all for now. Thanks for reading.