I finally found some time and dial-up (!) to blog a bit about Tour of the Gila in Silver City, NM. After a 13hour drive and a Motel 6 - stop in Pecos, TX, I got here Tuesday noon with my "one-week" teammates from the Marx and Bensdorf Cycling Team out of Memphis, TN. Thanks to Mike Olheiser a.k.a. "Tank", I get to race here and have a nice hook-up with host housing in the Gila Mountains at 6400ft.
They changed the format of the race a bit, and started Stage 1 with the Mogollon Stage instead of the "regular" time trial. That makes things more interesting in terms of GC and team-tactics since the race is more open and the guy who used to win the TT in the past, won't necessarily win the GC, too.
Stage 1
...was a rough one. The winds are crazy here with sustained 30mph and gusts to 50mph so it was a "Gutterfest" all the way to the base of the final 3mile climb. Imagine riding 2hours at threshold while making sure to stay out of the crosswind and riding on the shoulder. 25 guys DNF'd that day. The field is down to 94 riders. Personally, my job was to make sure Mike has everything he needs and protect + help him as much as possible. It worked out pretty good, except that 2 of my teammates and myself flatted 20miles into the race while going 30mph in the gutter. I got a slow wheel-change but luckily the SRAM Volvo motopaced a couple of us back on and I was back in the field 15-20minutes later. So was Mike, who double-flatted on two brand new Conti Competitions. Once we hit the loop I made the front split of 25 guys who chased the break but the field hit the "Panic-Button" and got us back 10miles later. After the right turn to Mogollon it was man vs. man and vs. asphalt :-) Some guys decided to crash in the middle of the front-group of 45 riders going uphill and I needed to clip out with both pedals to avoid going down, too. Oh well, I just rode up my own pace up the climb and ended up 49th for the day. Mike got 30th, a bit under his expectations but he had to chase hard after his double-flat.
Read the VeloNews article
Stage 2
...went a bit better. The "Inner Loop" Road race was "only" 80miles and 5500ft of climbing. Tecos, who won with their Colombian climber yesterday, took the front from start to finish. It was ridiculous. I never raced this race so hard before. We would be single-file going to the first feedzone, single-file after the first long downhill and 27-28mph in the Valley. Mike and me got comfortable, though and it wasn't too bad actually after a while. Our riding in the Top 25 definitely made our day easier today. There was a break up the road with Bissel, Mexico, and Vitamin Cottage but the Tecos guys just gave them max. 2minutes lead all day. With 10miles to go, we reached the last summit of today's stage and the now two up front were just dangling in front of us at maybe 20seconds. I felt okay going up the long climbs and Mike gave me the "okay" to bridge. Nobody had interest to catch those guys right away so I quickly joined Jaques-Mayne and the Mexcian guy. They've been out for 60miles there and I added a bit "fresh juice" to the break but it only lasted 5 or 6 miles as we got caught with 4 miles to go :-( Colavita, Toyota and Successful Living took over and the last 3miles were double-and single-file in the gutter trying to set up the sprint. I finally felt my legs with 1K to go and had to ease off a bit, finishing just behind the lead-group. Don't know mine or Mikes placing but it didn't matter really. I'm more looking forward to the Time Trial tomorrow and the Crit on Saturday. Those events should suit me more although the officials are going to weigh and measure all TT-bikes in order to meet UCI regulations. Kind of funny, because that's usually a "No-No" at most NRC races and after talking to the head official today, he admitted that different chief officials interpret the rule differently...Now that's makes me feel better :-)
Read the VeloNews article
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Quick 2008 Matrix Cup Recap
Good times at the track these past two days: Thanks to the Matrix Cycle Club, Drew Tucker, Paula and the Superdrome staff all competitors had some HUGE prize list to race for.
Teammates Bam-Bam, Mat S., and I did well in most of the races. I was able to win all endurance events (point-a-lap, points, miss'n out, another points race) and took both the sprinter (I don't know how that happened...) and endurance individual omniums. On top of that Bam-Bam, Geoff Godsey, Kevinn Matthews, and I won the team pursuit (well, there were only 4 teams but a win is a win). As a team, we won 5 out of the 7 events offered for Elite Men (Ryan Nelman won the Keirin and new-kid-on-the-block Austin Stewart the 8 lap Scratch).
I'm very pleased to have such great teammates this past 2 days as it would not have been possible to pull off the V's without Bam's hard pulls and Mat S.'s "off-the-gun" attacks :-)
Teammates Bam-Bam, Mat S., and I did well in most of the races. I was able to win all endurance events (point-a-lap, points, miss'n out, another points race) and took both the sprinter (I don't know how that happened...) and endurance individual omniums. On top of that Bam-Bam, Geoff Godsey, Kevinn Matthews, and I won the team pursuit (well, there were only 4 teams but a win is a win). As a team, we won 5 out of the 7 events offered for Elite Men (Ryan Nelman won the Keirin and new-kid-on-the-block Austin Stewart the 8 lap Scratch).
I'm very pleased to have such great teammates this past 2 days as it would not have been possible to pull off the V's without Bam's hard pulls and Mat S.'s "off-the-gun" attacks :-)
A special "Thanks" goes to Kevinn (above) of Tulsa, Okl, who helped Bam, Godsey, and me to win the team pursuit with one of the fastest opening 500m of a 4K team pursuit I've ever done :-) He was so thrilled to wear the Mercy jersey!
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Ft. Davis "HammerFest"
Going into the 3rd TX stage-race of the year I knew it would be hard to repeat the GC win from '06 and '07 mainly because I was lacking one important thing: teammates! Well, I still didn't want to miss the the best and toughest stage-race of the year in Texas at 5000ft in Jeff Davis County, just 80miles north of the Mexican border.
After 440miles driving West and a short night I started Stage 1's TT at 8:01am at 39°. This time the wind blow from the North East, making it a tail/crosswind out and a head/crosswind back to town. I felt good, but not good enough to win. Ended up in 4th place. Wenger, Boyd, and Colavita took 1st through 3rd place. My time was two minutes faster this year comparing to '07 where I won the TT. Ouch!
Post-race quesadillas along with a good nap at the Prude Ranch got me ready for Stage 2, a 16mile "road race" up to the McDonald Observatory at 6800ft. We had tailwind all the way which made the race fast and for most part of the race we let Loren Dodson of Velossimo ride in front of the pack with the GC guys looking at each other and waiting for the final 1K 18% steep climb. Well, I don't like to wait until it gets hard and rather let the others get out of their closet and race instead. I quickly caught up to Dodson and we rode together 'til we hit the final 1K. I knew it would be hard to take the stage since I'm an okay-climber but like more the power-climbs instead of 1K at 18%. Alex and Travis came up to me and Alex took the win ahead of Travis and me just behind a few seconds. That got me in 2nd GC but Alex was untouchable today. Coming from Redlands he was def. the most complete rider.
Pre-Stage 3 saw a GC combination of Boyd, me, Travis, Wenger but at the end of the day that all got mixed up to due the fact that "early break" made it this time to the line w/ out getting caught. The largest gap was 7minutes at one point. I didn't hit the Panic Button since we always caught the leaders somehow before the end of the line. Not this time. I had 3 options: a) sit in and hide and wait for the finish b) attack the group trying to get away w/ a few other riders in an attempt to catch the leaders up the road c) ride at LT all the way to the finish in hope to minimize losses. Well, I chose option b) but other than shelling a couple of guys out the back it did not accomplish a lot. Nobody was willing to help bring them closer in "striking distance" - for different reasons. Jason Short (MSU) ended up winning the race and no, he didn't get lucky, he was the smartest that day and always has the legs, just finally could show it to the rest of us. The GC got shuffled quite a bit and I ended up 5th, so did Sheri in the Women's 1/2. Last year we each won our categories, this year both got 5th. Funny how that goes :-)
Check out this cool clip from the guys of Austin Bikes!
After 440miles driving West and a short night I started Stage 1's TT at 8:01am at 39°. This time the wind blow from the North East, making it a tail/crosswind out and a head/crosswind back to town. I felt good, but not good enough to win. Ended up in 4th place. Wenger, Boyd, and Colavita took 1st through 3rd place. My time was two minutes faster this year comparing to '07 where I won the TT. Ouch!
Post-race quesadillas along with a good nap at the Prude Ranch got me ready for Stage 2, a 16mile "road race" up to the McDonald Observatory at 6800ft. We had tailwind all the way which made the race fast and for most part of the race we let Loren Dodson of Velossimo ride in front of the pack with the GC guys looking at each other and waiting for the final 1K 18% steep climb. Well, I don't like to wait until it gets hard and rather let the others get out of their closet and race instead. I quickly caught up to Dodson and we rode together 'til we hit the final 1K. I knew it would be hard to take the stage since I'm an okay-climber but like more the power-climbs instead of 1K at 18%. Alex and Travis came up to me and Alex took the win ahead of Travis and me just behind a few seconds. That got me in 2nd GC but Alex was untouchable today. Coming from Redlands he was def. the most complete rider.
Pre-Stage 3 saw a GC combination of Boyd, me, Travis, Wenger but at the end of the day that all got mixed up to due the fact that "early break" made it this time to the line w/ out getting caught. The largest gap was 7minutes at one point. I didn't hit the Panic Button since we always caught the leaders somehow before the end of the line. Not this time. I had 3 options: a) sit in and hide and wait for the finish b) attack the group trying to get away w/ a few other riders in an attempt to catch the leaders up the road c) ride at LT all the way to the finish in hope to minimize losses. Well, I chose option b) but other than shelling a couple of guys out the back it did not accomplish a lot. Nobody was willing to help bring them closer in "striking distance" - for different reasons. Jason Short (MSU) ended up winning the race and no, he didn't get lucky, he was the smartest that day and always has the legs, just finally could show it to the rest of us. The GC got shuffled quite a bit and I ended up 5th, so did Sheri in the Women's 1/2. Last year we each won our categories, this year both got 5th. Funny how that goes :-)
Check out this cool clip from the guys of Austin Bikes!
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Congrats!
My college friend Carly Burres from Midwestern State University just won a first prize in Sports Writing at the Texas Intercollegiate Press Association conference, held in College Station last week. Her article of my 2006/2007 Asia Trip got her the first place trophy - Go Carly!
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Track, more track, and Mineral Wells
Friday afternoon I headed up to Frisco to hit the boards of the Superdrome for the first time in probably 6month. Oh, it was fun! Nothing better than pushing 94.6inch (yeah, I know it's a bit big) around the 250m track and working on some speed, sprints and some short VO2max efforts. Thanks to my teammate and 2004 Madison National Champ Mat Stephens I had someone to rely on when it got "hot" on the track...He won the "Fast-Twitch-Scratch" (8 laps), I got the Miss'n Out and the Points Race. Geoff Godsey of TxTough rode well and got 3rd in the omnium without having a teammate and having to chase us down all the time :-)
After a short night of sleep I headed back to the track Saturday morning to teach a Endurance Skills Clinic in conjunction with the ongoing clinics at the Superdrome organized by Paula Felix. We had about 16 riders, including 5(!) women and a 15-year-old junior. I think it went pretty well and hopefully my "students" will race smart the next time they hit the track. Next stop: Matrix Cup, April 19/20. You should come and check it out. Either as a rider or a spectator. Admission is FREE!
The next day (Sunday) I headed to Mineral Wells, knowing that it would be tough to repeat last year's win given the fact that we had about 35 guys in the P/1/2's and maybe a third was from THSJ...! Oh well, luckily I had Kolt and Mat there and was able to "relax" a bit once the break-0f-the-day rolled off the front. Every team had a guy in there (Kolt for us) but that didn't mean the race was calm - not at all! It was actually a pretty tough race, although I was able to take a "natural break" on Highway 4 and chased back on very easily. Once we hit Cherry Pie Hill (after getting caught by the Cat 5 field!) I went a bit harder and only Ian Dille followed me so we TT'd up to a group of 7 or 8 who were chasing the break. Once there, the tempo got slower again and more re-grouping occurred. Again, it was Mr. Dille and me who lid things up and finally Gaubert, Blee, Vargas, RWalker, Dille and me were racing for 5th place which I ended up taking. Houston Kid Travis B. smoked his break-away companions yet again and took the "V". That was a HARD 90miles. Definitely good training for this coming weekend's Ft. Davis Hammerfest. I "lost" only 1 Dollar due to the Entry Fee being $35 and my payout being $34 :-)
After a short night of sleep I headed back to the track Saturday morning to teach a Endurance Skills Clinic in conjunction with the ongoing clinics at the Superdrome organized by Paula Felix. We had about 16 riders, including 5(!) women and a 15-year-old junior. I think it went pretty well and hopefully my "students" will race smart the next time they hit the track. Next stop: Matrix Cup, April 19/20. You should come and check it out. Either as a rider or a spectator. Admission is FREE!
The next day (Sunday) I headed to Mineral Wells, knowing that it would be tough to repeat last year's win given the fact that we had about 35 guys in the P/1/2's and maybe a third was from THSJ...! Oh well, luckily I had Kolt and Mat there and was able to "relax" a bit once the break-0f-the-day rolled off the front. Every team had a guy in there (Kolt for us) but that didn't mean the race was calm - not at all! It was actually a pretty tough race, although I was able to take a "natural break" on Highway 4 and chased back on very easily. Once we hit Cherry Pie Hill (after getting caught by the Cat 5 field!) I went a bit harder and only Ian Dille followed me so we TT'd up to a group of 7 or 8 who were chasing the break. Once there, the tempo got slower again and more re-grouping occurred. Again, it was Mr. Dille and me who lid things up and finally Gaubert, Blee, Vargas, RWalker, Dille and me were racing for 5th place which I ended up taking. Houston Kid Travis B. smoked his break-away companions yet again and took the "V". That was a HARD 90miles. Definitely good training for this coming weekend's Ft. Davis Hammerfest. I "lost" only 1 Dollar due to the Entry Fee being $35 and my payout being $34 :-)
Monday, March 31, 2008
Austin Weekend
Another weekend of racing in the ATX area where you can ride to the start (Belterra) and we house some out-of-town folks (Lalla, Collin, Francis) while attending The Willis' Baby Shower Saturday evening.
Belterra went kind of how I expected it: a field sprint of 40guys with me getting 37th ;-) Oh well, I tried together with Tristan Uhl and the above mentioned Willis but after 2 laps our break-away was doomed to fail as Andrew's chain popped off. :-( At least I got a nice day of riding and high-speed racing in my legs.
Belterra went kind of how I expected it: a field sprint of 40guys with me getting 37th ;-) Oh well, I tried together with Tristan Uhl and the above mentioned Willis but after 2 laps our break-away was doomed to fail as Andrew's chain popped off. :-( At least I got a nice day of riding and high-speed racing in my legs.
Sunday's Ronde von Manda was a totally different story: A bit of rain and some much anticipated wind made it actually a hard race - just how I like it. I found myself in the right move at the right time (mile 1) and at the end of the day Dille, TravisB. and I rode the last 8miles together to the finish. Well, TB attacked and after a "long day at the office" I didn't feel like doing more work and Mr. Dille didn't feel like chasing him down either so we end up 2nd and 3rd respectively.
cool prizes thanks to Velossssssimmmmooooo!
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Random
When I ride the "Free Spirit" in the morning to the office (9miles) I observe several things along the way:
- Guy getting arrested on Manchaca Rd
- Truck running red light, almost hitting cross-traffic on Manchaca/HW 290
- 2 turtles minding their business in Barton Creek
- me trying to avoid squirrels in Zilker Park
- 43x17 does hurt going up Stratford Drive :-)
Sunday, March 23, 2008
A Cyclist's Favorite Breakfast
After multiple inquiries regarding our homemade cereal I finally got the recipe from the mother-in-law. Enjoy!
7 cups old-fashion oats
1 cup sliced almonds
1 cup wheat germ (and/or ground flax seeds)
½ cup sunflower kernels
½ cup honey
½ cup canola or vegetable oil
¼ cup light brown sugar
½ teaspoon of salt
½ cup boiling water
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 ½ to 2 cups dried fruit, such as raisins, cranberries, cherries, blueberries or any combination
- Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Coat a large rimmed baking sheet with nonstick cooking spray.
- Ina large bow, mix oats, almonds, wheat germ and sunflower seeds.
- In a separate bowl, add the honey, oil, brown sugar and salt. Carefully add boiling water and stir. Add the vanilla and stir.
- Pour the liquid ingredients over the oat mixture and mix until evenly coated. Spread into the prepared baking sheet. Place in oven and bake for about 30 minutes. Carefully remove the hot pan from oven and stir mixture. Return to the oven and bake another 30 minutes, or until lightly toasted.
- Allow granola to cool slightly, and then pour into a large mixing bowl. When completely cool stir in the dried fruit. Granola stays fresh for several weeks when stored in an airtight container or plastic storage bags.
Friday, March 21, 2008
The Driveway
So I have done numerous weekly night crits before - Dallas, St. Louis, Minneapolis, Charlotte. But the most fun and competition is still here in my new hometown: The Driveway. Last night we had 80(!) guys entering the Open Race. Wow! For one night I had the honor to wear the black, red and gold jersey but now Will Ross (THSJ) is the KOD (King of Driveway). Good Times! 
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Fayetteville Stage Race
photo by Nicki Ellis- Stage 1: did a little solo, got the 7second KOM bonus, waited for the field for 2minutes going 39x21, chilled in the pack, NOBODY took responsibility for chasing Mr. Boyd down, we (Mercy) did what we needed to earlier, ened up 11th
- Stage 2: lots of sleep, no lunch, just healthy/recovery snacks, 20min warm-up and went hard for 14:20min which landed me in 2nd, 4 sec. behind Travis B., secrets? None! Training, training, training! Rode the new TT rig the day before the first time and got fitted by Dave Wenger. Tire Pressure? Didn't matter! Fancy Zipp Wheels? I don't need them! TT specific saddle? Not for me! Light, TT specific tires? Nope!
- Stage 3: one minute was too much to ask to overcome Mr. Boyd. In Fayetteville, you don't need a strong team to win, you need to have one of the strongest pairs of legs. Boyd rode smart and had the legs. I chilled for 55miles, then went for it and bridged w/ Boyd up to the break, we dropped the guys there, and just TT'd to the finish. I won the stage, Mr. Boyd the race. Fair enough.
- People who deserve recognition: Mat & Mat, Chad, Kolt, Bill, and Bam-Bam for riding hard to make things happen. Mr. Chang and Mr. Mahlmann of TOKEN Products for their continuous support.
- Stage 1 - 11th place - 11 slices (?)
- Stage 2 - 2nd - two slices
- Stage 3 - 1st - one slice
- GC - 2nd - Unlimited Ice Tea
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