Chasing Clouds, Mopeds, and Dreams...

All cyclists run into the occasional challenge while on their bike, whether it be riding away from a dog, racing cars around the drillfield, or the random student on the moped. The other day I tried to race a cloud. I was riding in a tail wind on the SAYG route in the warmth of the sun, when the shadow of a cloud came right over me. I picked up the pace pushing it to 500 watts for a minute trying to stay in the warm, wonderful sun. The cloud won.

Another challenge commonly run into by cyclists are dogs. Out on these country roads people don't believe in leashes, and fences are for farms. Running into dogs can sometimes be dangerous. The best defense? Squirting water. Dogs hate water. Normally I am not that afraid of dogs, though I do participate in the ritual of riding really fast when I see one, but something happened to me last week which changed my fear for dogs. I was riding "the fun way," (a shorter version of the SAYG route) behind Foxridge when I came across an old lady walking her dog. She saw me coming, so I thought it was safe to pass. The old (senile) woman did not hold on to her dog, and it bit me in the leg as I was riding by. At first I didn't think it broke skin, but I looked down and saw my leg was bleeding. I went back to get the lady's information, but she refused to believe her dog bit me even though my leg was clearly bleeding. I threatened to call the cops but she just walked away. It makes me mad just thinking about it.

In other news, if you read fruitloops blog you'll see that I called him out last night. This is true. Let the smack talk begin.

5 dollars if you kiss this:


JZ

Start of a New Era

I'm sorry I haven't posted for a really long time. The time missed could be seperated into three seperate eras...

Moving In :

I moved into my new apartment in Blacksburg with my good friend Eoin who also rides bikes and with a friend of a friend named Andrew. For awhile, life was grand. We had a HD projecter set up on the wall hooked up to a Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii and all the games you could need. The most important game of all being Rock Band. The band got together at least once a week to "practice are f*^#ing balls off," and we started to sound great. However, Andrew, due to a sequence of unfortunate events, resigned from Virginia Tech, so he moved out, taking his Xbox, guitar hero and his projecter with him. But, I think we will survive.

Program:

Going into school I was probably riding every other day for at least an hour (SAYGing it up of course), until the VT home mtb race. The short track was on Sunday, so I thought I would try it out on my cross bike. "PSHHHHHHHH" would be the sound of the day. Someone pointed out to me that even though I raced for free, I went through 15 dollars worth in tubes. Thanks alot buddy. The main problem with the course was a path of rocks that everybody had to ride through every lap. It was kind of skecthy and I was kind of afraid that I would crash in front of the massive crowd. Thank god for Tim.

Ben King won the race, but later got disqualified for not racing his category. Nice job sandbagging the A's...

Due two weeks after the race, hence the name of this era, was THE PROGRAM. The program was assigned the first day of class, and we were informed to start working on it right away. Two weeks before it was due, the professor said in class "if you haven't started yet, drop the course." I believe more than half the class started the program the next day, including myself. So I started working, my head buried in my computer for two weeks straight. I believe I invested more than 45 hours in this program in 2 weeks. Throw that in with my other school work and I didn't have any time to ride. In fact, I didn't even change my flat tires from the race until the day after I submitted my project. I handed it in 2 days late, which is not too bad considering alot of people were still working on it when I turned it in.

Post-Program/Riding Again

Free from thinking about c++ for awhile, I started to focus on what I was going to do for training. Currently I am in the process of reading Training and Racing with a Power Meter and also looking at what coach Friel has to say. I am trying to get a bunch of different feedback from different people about what I should be doing right now. If somebody has any advise, don't hesitate to comment. I don't think I'll get a coach this season still, but I will not do strictly what Joe Friel tells me to do. I plan on combining everything everybody else tells me into one crazy looking plan.

That's it for now, I will try and post more often from now on.

Day 2:

The TT (20 km)(21 riders)(Windy):

After a good result yesterday, my dad decided to let me use his TT bike because I was in contention for the omnium. The course was basically a lap of the road race course, a little shorter. I missed my start time but fortunately they gave me a new one. I started behind Tom Burke, which sucked, because I never saw him after the first corner. Big Ray started 1 minute in front of me though, so I chased him. I knew I would have to beat him to have a shot at the overall. The TT went well, and I placed 6th place (29:22), beating the two riders who were ahead of me in the RR. Big Ray was 8th, and the rider who came in 2nd in the RR was 9th. My teammate, Chris Aten, placed well with a time of 29 flat for a solid 4th place. Burke won the TT with a time of 27:50. I still had to figure out where I was overall, but I had the feeling I was within grasp of 1st.

The Crit(60 min)(30 riders):

Before the crit I went and had a chat with Ray and we discussed tactics. He told me the count down for the top ten. I was in 5th overall, but only 9 points shy of 1st. A win today would most likely wrap up the whole onmuim. Health Net is relentless...

The course was the worst ever. 8 turns in .7 miles. Two of the turns had potholes scattered about in them, and another was blocked by a big banner that the race put up, so you couldn't see all the way through it. The race started, and I stayed near the front keeping an eye out for the GC guys. The guy in fourth went off, but I decided to wait and see it come back, but it never did. The guy I was mainly marking was Tom Burke, because I knew on a course like this he could easily stay away. He took off once, with me on his wheel. We stayed off for a couple laps, but ended up being caught by the field. A few laps later he went again, but this time I was too far back to do anything. I tryed to jump up with the help of Alex, but after a couple laps of working really hard on the front, I just couldn't close the gap. With two guys in front of me in the GC, my hopes of winning the overall have vanished, and I just focused on making the best of the situation. In the field sprint I put several places over Ray, but one other rider passed me up in the GC. I stayed in 5th overall, still not a bad result.

"Pancake" Stage Race

This weekend was the Pancake Stage Race in Indiana, and they weren't kidding when they said pancake, there isn't a hill in sight.

Day 1:

The course(RR):
15 miles loops, first half - tailwind, second-half - headwind. Pretty strong winds. Length -5 laps(75 miles) Field - 35 riders

The RR:
I wish there was a most aggressive rider award cause I would've gotten it. Today, I was our teams "breakaway" guy, which meant I had to be on the front following attacks from the get go. Right off the gun I saw Tom Burke, a good man to watch, attack in the very first K. I went after him with one other guy and the three of us worked well together from there, putting over 2 minutes on the field. After one lap, I looked back and the field was about 30 seconds behind. I was definitely the weak man in the break, and the truth of the matter was, either I skipped a couple pulls or I was getting dropped. I was on the rivet ever since we got out of the headwind. I opted to getting dropped and waiting for the field, the more demoralizing option, but it turned out to be the better choice. The two riders stayed away for the next two laps. Finally, when the two riders were about 40 seconds in front of the field, I told Chris (same team, same team), to sit in and recover while I took hard pulls on the front in the head wind section of the 3rd lap. I don't want to brag and say I pulled them in by myself, but basically I did just that. I got them within 2o seconds and the field took over from there. A series of attacks went off when the break was caught, but nothing seemed to be sticking. Big Ray got off the front with 2 laps to go, however, with one other rider, and I knew I couldn't let that go. I jumped up with one rider on my wheel, and started the second of two breaks of the day. We dropped a guy right away, so 3 of us worked hard to put the field out of sight. A big thanks to Chris and Rob for blocking for me while I was away. John Rigdon flatted early on in the race, where Eric and Alex went back to bring him up to the field. Unfortunatly the pace quickened in the field, and they never made it back...

With a half lap to go, I thought I had the win. I knew I could beat both riders in the break in the sprint. I was already riding this blog entry in my head, that's how confident I was. My legs were cramping big time in the last headwind section and I knew if I stood up to sprint, me legs would seize. So I attacked with 1 km to go, starting my attack a few bike lengths behind so I could ramp up my speed before I passed them. It worked! I was in the clear! But then my legs seized up and I lost. 3rd for the day wasn't too bad though, best cat 1,2 result yet. Big Ray took the win and the other guy got second.

A Couple Crits

This weekend can be summed up in three words: Texas Roadhouse Domination. Not only did they have the strongest riders, but they were 8 strong for both races with 40-50 rider fields. They placed 1,2 in both crits, as well as a bunch of other top tens. It was like racing against the Virginia Tech cycling team...

The Troy classic was on Saturday. A 9 corner crit with smooth roads, this race proved to be alot of fun. The race was 50 laps, or about 50 miles. About a quarter way into the race, a break went off with a bunch of TR guys and I felt that this was the one. My teammate Alex jumped off the front with me on his wheel. After his heoric effort, I pulled through and managed to bridge up to the break with the help of a couple of other riders. This break, however, was not the one. I need to be more patient.

About half way through the race, everybody locked up on the first corner, and I slammed into the rider in front of me, taking a spill. It wasn't a bad crash however, and I was able to walk back to the pit, get a new wheel and jump back into the race. While I was getting a wheel change, the winning break went off the front. I tryed to bridge up when I got back into the race, but I didn't have the power to do it, so the break was gone. I road around in the very back of the peleton after that, coming to the front to win a $25 cash prime, then falling back again to where I was for the finish. 26th for the day out of 40 some riders.

The Tour de Burg's course was not as nice. It had a wicked chicane, into a slippery brick section (with missing bricks). The crit had 6 normal corners with bumpy roads all around. This was definitely not my favorite course. For this race I decided to sit in for at least the first half the race, which ended up being really easy because for most of the race there was one Texas Roadhouse guy off the front and team Inferno were doing tempo to reel him in. It started to rain in the middle of the race, which made me very nervous, and I tried not to think about what it would feel like to fall on my road rash. There was one crash that I saw- a group of 6 riders went down on a slippery corner, but I managed to avoid it and stay upright. With one lap to go I was in bad position and was looking to move up. Coming into the second to last corner I found the courage to dive the outside to get behind the texas roadhouse train and a RGF rider in about 6th position. I held that all the way out off the last corner, but I stood up for the sprint, and my legs had nothing. 10 guys passed me before I got to the line, I ended up 16th for the day.

The next race coming up this weekend is the Indiana Pancake stage race. There I will compete in a Road Race, TT and Crit on Sat and Sun. Thank god, I am getting tired of crits...

Blacksburg Weekend

As far as bike racing is concerned, this weekend was a disaster. The weekend started off on friday with my brother and I getting up at 6:30 in the morning to leave home from Michigan. The crit in Roanoke started at 6:15 pm. I drove for the first 5 hours of the trip, then stopped to refuel. My brother Sam then took over for a little while. I told him to just drive down the highway that we were on until we got to West Virginia. I then proceed to fall asleep in the passanger seat of the car.

One hour later I wake up and we are on the wrong highway by Pittsburg which is COMPLETELY out of the way of where we were going. After calling for directions and getting back on the road, I took over the driving and sped all the way down 76 to try and make up for lost time. I knew it was going to be close, so we made one quick stop for lunch to go, then back on the road again. We got stopped by an accident which put us back another half hour. After awhile I realized we weren't going to make it (aka when the clock in my car read 6:15) and I slowed down. I arrived a half hour late to watch the end of the race, thoroughly dissapointed for missing it. I would like to note, though, that it was not my brother's fault for driving in the wrong direction. I never told him what highway he needed to stay on, and right after I put my head back was the junction of 80/77 and he simply guessed the wrong way. He even woke me up to ask me if we were supposed to be going east. We were supposed to be going south but I assumed it was just a turn on the road that wer were supposed to be on without even looking up. My bad.

Day two of ID3 (Independence day), was the uphill TT. I gladly skipped that to move out of my apartment. I should have took a picture of the room that I stored all my stuff into, but I forgot. Let's just say I made good use of the space.

Day three of ID3 was a crit in Blacksburg. The crit was basically Rockford, for all my Michigan readers. It had a decent sized hill every lap, with a some what technical decent for which to recover. "Bang" the gun went off and by the end of the first lap I was off the front with Andrew Olson and one other rider for a lap or two before getting caught by the field. It was sometime in the next few laps that John Hamlim of Time pro cycling team made his move on the outside up the climb. We chased hard for the next 10 laps, and I was barely hanging on. After about 5 laps of going all out on the hill, I found that I couldn't recover fast enough. The pace didn't let up, and I soon found myself off the back on the climb and out of the race. I am not sure why I did not feel good, but whatever did happen resulted in the biggest dissapointment of the year. I did not want to race bikes the half hour or so after the race. That dissapointment, however, turned into a training drive where I am determined to become a better cyclist and to stick to my training schedule for the rest of the summer. John Hamlin ended up lapping the field. Congrats to Ben King and Owen Nielson for getting 2nd and 3rd respectively.

Sorry there were no pictures today, I will try harder to remember to bring my camera in the future.

Until next time,

JZ

Broken Bike/ Rockford

So after riding my bicycle through a crazy thunderstorm, I noticed that my bottom bracket was moving around inside my frame. I took it to the bike store for a better look, and it turns out there was a crack at the chain stay in the carbon fiber that I should be more concerned with. After talking with Trek for a few weeks they had decided not to warrentee my frame, so I am now without a road bike.


For now I will be sporting my Felt cross bike. I am OK with the change. I have already raced it at Allen Park and Rockford, and I can corner and handle my bike just as well as anyone else in the field. Plus, it looks cooler then my trek which is always the most important thing:


The next bike I buy will most likely be aluminum, considering I can't afford anything else.

In other news, Rockford went alright for me. I finished with the main field and strolled in for an easy 22nd place. Unfortunatley for me I did not realize they were paying to 20, so I should've tried harder that last lap.

Allen Park

Every year at the Allen Park Crit there is a break, and this year was no exception. The break went away with 7 riders about 30 minutes into the race, and unfortunately I was not in it. Because the course was wide open and windy, it made so that a group of this nature could work well together and put some major time into the field. They quickly built up their advantage to over 30 seconds and I knew the race was over. I stopped trying to get into chase groups, nothing was getting off anyway, and went to the back of the pack to chillax for a little while. The race, however, was far from over.

Sitting in the back, I see a chase group of about 8 riders forming off the front of the field and I knew I had to be there. I attacked the field and made way to bridge up to the chase, bringing along some other riders behind me. Three laps later I caught the chase, and was able to sit on while three Lathrup guys pushed the pace on the front. We closed down the gap to the break to about 10 seconds, when the only Saturn of Toledo rider in the break was dropped, causing Jon Card (also Saturn of Toledo) to help with the chase. We eventually caught the 7 riders, lapping the field at the same time, so there was now a group of 20 riders left in the race.

From there on out, everything was in slow motion. I went off in a couple breaks from this group, but everybody was tired and the group eventually brought everything back. It occurred to me at this point that a late breakaway might stick, since the field was tired and unable to follow attacks. So I gave it my best shot, with three laps to go I went solo off the front and put in a decent gap between me and the field. Here is a video of me coming through with one to go, with the field not too far behind:

I was caught right before the final corner of the last lap. Ben (the winner) had it right. Watching this video, he is the guy behind the Bissell master team lead out train, which totally made sense in this situation. I attacked with 3 laps to go. They had 3 guys and plenty of time to reel me back in. I should have either waited a lap with a stronger attack, or waited for the sprint, basing my timing with their team.

I will not be racing for another 2 weeks, so please stay tuned until then.

Rain Rain Go Away

Today was the state road race championships here in good ol' Michigan. There were around 50-60 riders in the field, and our race was 102 miles. Sitting in the staging area, the group was lectured by the referee on a storm that was headed this way. We had a 10:00 start time, so the goal for the day? Beat the storm.

The race started off with an usual supsect, big Ray from Wolverines, going on a solo breakaway. The field surged and backed off several times while he was off the front, closing the gap to about 3 bike lengths. Big Ray, however, just kept on chugging with that engine of his and pulled out to 20 seconds again whenever the field let up. Eventually he was caught and another breakaway went away. That break was pulled back where then yet another breakaway went away. It went like this for pretty much the whole race. People would constantly launch attacks to the break, until the whole field was up there, then somebody else would start the next break. I managed to get into 3 or 4 of this little breakaways, including 1 or 2 promising ones, but nothing slipped away too easily.

On the 4th lap of 6 the field had come together right before the biggest climb of the course. I noticed this and got ready to get in what I thought would be the game-winning breakaway over the top of the climb. 5 riders attacked at the base of the climb, however, and held their gap over the top and increased it from there. I tried attacking away from the field 3 times to get into the break, but too many people were thinking the same thing. When the gap to the break increased to about 30 seconds I gave up my efforts and let it slip away without me. No worries though, the break came back within a half lap and the actual winning break slipped away in a counter of about 7 guys at the start of the 5th lap. The biggest mistake I made today was not being at the front when this break slipped away.

The storm hit us 3 km from the finish at the end of the 5th lap. We rolled in with downpouring rain and lightening, finishing a lap early. One rider on my team, John Ridgon, took advantage of the situation and attacked as the rain got bad. I think he held off for a top 15 finish. Nice! I was sastified with making it home alive, so I took my time, happy with my pack finish. All in all today was more of a learning experience then anything. Today I noticed that the riders who made the break were consistantly on the front the whole race, always attacking the field. I need to be more aggressive on the front and maybe do less work in early parts of the race when a breakaway is not as likely. So stay near the front, yet again, is what I need to be telling myself for upcoming races.

I would like to throw out a special thanks to Kris and Mark for helping out in the feed zone. Without out you guys I would have died of thrist over that long 87 miles!

Until next time,

JZ

First Blog

My first blog. I will start off this blog by posting a picture of me lined up at the 2008 Tour of Leelanau next to the former u23 national champion and BMC professional cyclist Brent Bookwalters. We both got call ups for this year's Tour of Leelanau. I was called up first. I felt incredible unfit to be in that position next to Brent, for I was not a pro, and I wasn't even going to finish the race. But it symbolizes where I hope to be in a couple years...