Nature Valley

So here I am up in the Twin Cities after arriving yesterday for this year's NVGP in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area. I got some sweet host housing with my good friend Mike Lalla who also picked me up from the airport yesterday. I'm actually lucky that my bike got here because first the lady at the NWA desk told me the plane might be too small for my bike-box! That was a new one for me, but they figured it out and I was on board and on time on a CRJ900; pretty bumpy flight once we got to MSP since it's windy up here, but I'm used to that from the GREAT riding in Wichita Falls ;-) Mike, his girlfriend Leslie and me headed out to the local Tuesday Night crit last night and I did my second 45minute crit on a race track in 2 days after racing in Austin last Sunday. The local racers up here are using a Truck Driving School course as their weekly crit course. A lot of fun and HUGE turnouts for the races. I did the 1/2/3 race and in lap 2 out of 18 they guttered it in the headwind and I jumped in there and for 40minutes I rode with 4 other guys at HR 180 a team time trial. Exactly what I was looking for before tonight's 1st Stage of the NVGP. I tested my legs with one to go and pushed hard into the headwind and one local guy stayed on my wheel and I let it go with 400meters to go since I'm not up here to win Tuesday Night crits but to get a good workout in before the 'big game' this coming days. Actually, most of my friends up here were happy that he won because he's been racing and winning 3's races for a while and has like 60 (!) upgrade points. After that, we went and got some Coldstone Ice Cream and had some Frozen Pizza. Oh well, gotta do some 'loading' before I'll burn it off in the next 5 days ;-)
I'm racing for the local Nature Valley Team up here and that's our line-up for the next 6 stages:

Mike Olheiser - '06 Masters World TT Champ
Jonathan Page - '06 Vice Cyclocross World Champion
David Pierce - Sprinter from California who has a PhD from Stanford
Doug Swanson - local strongman from MSP
me - you know

Thanks to the locals Paul Komp, Aaron Johnson, Tim Ramos, Andrew Dahl, David LaPorte, and Hector Mendoza for getting me here.

Tonight is the 1st stage, a 60minute crit with 140 guys on a 1km course through downtown St. Paul. That will be exciting as the course is supposed to be pretty narrow and if you're on the front of the field you'll almost be able to see the tail of the peloton.

AT&T Crit...and more

70 minutes, 81deg. F, 28mph avg., 194 (!) HR avg., 32miles, early break, primes, avoiding crashes, pulling back late break-away for Chad, he finishes 5th, I roll in at 24th, pizza & shinerbock at "La Taverna". Thanks Barry Lee of THSJ for such a great event. You're the man!

from cyclingnews.com:
"Kristian House (Navigators) and Stefan Rothe (Mercy Cycling) kept their faces at the front to make their presence known early in the race."
>>> looks like I'm known now for being in early breaks which don't stick???

Results Saturday:
1. Frank Trevieso
2. Frank Pipp
3. Ivan Stevic
4. Henk Vogels
5. Chad Cagle

This morning I came out to the "Driveway Crit" in East Austin and had 45 minutes of fun on the "track". It was a small, but quality field and I got a good workout it before heading to Nature Valley on Tuesday. My new favourites for rainy crits are the Michelin Pro Race tires. Didn't slip once in today's race.

Results Sunday:
1. Ivan Stevic
2. Carlos Vargas
3. Henk Vogels
4. Stefan Rothe
5. Kristian House
6. Barry Lee

USA Regional Junior Training Camp

The past 6 days I was in Lubbock to help coaching about 30 junior/U23 riders at the USA Cycling Regional Camp. It was a great time, and I even got to ride my bike, too.
Jarred and me drove down there on Sunday morning and spent the rest of the day getting people registered. Over the next couple of days the kids got to ride a lot, did some power-based testing on Computrainers, raced 20K time trials and 3K hill repeats. All of us coaches (Tim Redus, James Karthauser, Mike Keitz, Richard Wharton, David Mayer-Oakes, + mechanic Ricky) stayed like the riders at the dorms of Texas Tech University.
First, I wasn't too excited having a training camp in the middle of hot, windy West Texas but it's actually not too bad. They have the Ransom Canyon there, which is like a oasis in the middle of plain, flat West Texas Farm land. You ride on some small farm road with no tree left and right and suddenly you go down a steep descent and green trees, bushes, and hills appear out of nowhere. That's something we need in Wichita Falls! Right next to it is Buffalo Springs Lake, located on the outside of the Canyon and a very nice place to own property in the Lubbock.
Next to riding our bikes a lot, we also got to listen to some good presentations by my friend Juergen and his wife Julie (USAC Officials), USADA, and I also talked a bit about training with a Powermeter.

You can watch a video from one of our skills sessions as aired on the local TV station here.

Gotta Love Lubbock...

Training Texas Style

The last couple of days I got to ride a lot and spent some hours on lonely Texas roads in 90+F heat. The best thing: lemon-berry Slushes @ at the end of my 3-4 hour rides! I was at 4 different Sonic locations in 4 days. And on top of that, B1, KC, Sheri and I went to FREE Root Beer Floats on Thursday night. Gotta love Texas in the summer time!

My next Tubular is a Hutchinson...

from cyclingnews.com:

Meticulous preparation or just plain good luck? The Saunier Duval-Prodir team had a combination of both on their side at this year's Giro d'Italia, not suffering a single puncture throughout the entire 3442 kilometre route. In fact, team mechanics didn't even get out of the car once during the race. The team itself took four stage wins thanks to its climbing trio of Gilberto Simoni, Ricardo Ricco and Leonardo Piepoli.

Not so tough at Tulsa Tough

This weekend was Tulsa Tough, a big $$$ event for a 2nd year in a row now. It was fast as always and with some more pro's even harder than last year. That's how I felt at least. Coming to Tulsa, I didn't expect too much in terms of performance since I've been racing the last 6 weekends w/ out taking a break (if you consider a rally not a race...). Especially my coughing is still bothering me - Chad Cagle called it "SARS" and others told me to stop smoking...Well, I don't know what it is.
Anyways, Friday Night's Blue Dome Crit was a wet 80minute crit and it was more a question of who can go fast through slippery turns w/ out falling. I didn't fall but my head was just not in the right place that night and on top of it I flatted. I got a Zipp 404 from Jose of SRAM but that slick Michelin at 120psi didn't help at all so I called it a day. Chad placed 18th and was the best place rider that night for us.
Saturday's race was way more fun and relaxed comparing to the night before in downtown. I felt better but still not great. We rode more aggressive that night and I was able to help Chad at least once to get a prime. With 11 laps to go I tried bridging from the field to the winning move of 3 guys (2 Successful Living) - unfortunately, I fell short about 10 yards as it took me a lap to get close to them and finally losing them right in front of me. I just don't have it right now; my HR avg. was at 180 that night. Way to high, and my legs can go only one lap out.
Sunday's race was my best finish last year (15th) and it looked pretty good at the beginning, too. Chad was out front solo for a lap and I got to counter attack and was later joined by "great Dane" Brian Jensen, Brad White (Einstein's) and some SL guy. We rode well together and the move stuck. But I messed up again, as my chain flew off right when we hit the base of the grueling climb up to backside of the course. It was horrible. I couldn't get it back on w/ out stopping and seeing Jensen & Co. riding away. Well, I was back in the field after a push from some stranger (THANKS) and that was pretty much it. I tried to help some more but the race was over for me as soon as I was out of the break. They ended up lapping (!) the field...and Jensen won.
Now I'm taking a little break from racing and shift my focus on other important things like write my thesis, plan a wedding and applying for that magic card, the Green Card that is ;-)

new site is up...

The last couple of days I spent racing in DFW and playing with the blog - and came up with this. Make sure to check in every morning from approx. 8-10am CST to see the live video & audio stream from the Giro. It's in Italian, but pretty cool to watch.
As far as racing goes: I spent 60minutes in a break of four at the GS Tenzing Crit yesterday and my numbers were pretty bad (HR avg. 182), 4th place. At the State Crit today I was only able to do the "shake" part of the famous "shake'n bake" (Talladega Nights). Once it started raining the racing/crashing/dropping/sliding went nuts and at the end only 25 guys finished our race, I did my part and came in 40 seconds after Nathan of CD who won the race.
Oh well, Chad pulled off another Top 5 result for us and hopefully by Friday I will get rid of that cold which is bothering me since Joe Martin so we can lighten it up for Tulsa Tough.

Chad takes 3rd

Today's Glickman Crit was lame, for me at least. Don't have the crit yet legs yet so I did a one-lap pull for my "man" Chad up to the front group and called it a day after that. Tomorrow I will go out and play again, this time in Frisco. Maybe I can get 60minutes in and be ready for Monday, huh?

Confessions of "Generation EPO", Mister 60%

This is getting bigger and bigger; now day by day another former Telekom-rider comes out of the closet. Today: Bjarne Riis. He said abot his 1996 TdF win: "The jersey is in a cardboard box in my garage, if you wanna come and pick it up, you're welcome." When asked about side effects he experienced with the use of EPO, he simply said: "The only effect was that I was riding faster." It's a good thing, though. Maybe next week Jan Ullrich? It would be time. Erik Zabel's confession was very emotional...He admitted using EPO and said [..."the point is that it was forbidden to dope, and I doped. I doped, I lied"...]