1 + 1 + 13 = 1

Fun weekend in Greenville, TX! Kolt Bates and I lined up for a 7:30am, 85mile road race and I made the right split with the right guys (incl. "Big Daddy") and we were able to hold off a charging field. Kris French, C. Trant, Dille and I rode away the last few miles and I was able to win the 40mph false-flat downhill sprint to the line.

The TT at 6:30pm was short and painful but just like the the South Mopac TT in Austin a all-out effort and a 10/10 on the "pain-scale". The lone Austin Flyer, Brant Speed, finished in a respectable 2nd place, only 13 seconds down on me.

Since the whole thing was based on points rather time, I just needed to watch a few guys in the crit and it was very unrealistic that someone would come around me for the Omnium win. A rear flat with 6 to go and a on-form Russ Walker made things a bit hectic in the end but I just had enough points to win the Omnium.

Thanks to teammate Kolt for working his a$% off and securing us another Mercy win in a Texas!

Greenville's newspaper, The Herald Banner, as a good story about the road races here.

road race win
(photo courtesy of Mike Brooks, commiebiker.smugmug.com)

Univest GP

Just got back from three interesting days in Eastern Pennsylvania. Great event, great host house (Thanks to the Balzer's!), and some very fanatic fans everywhere made those 3 races pretty epic - along with 58F and drizzling rain :-) More later.

ToA

Racing 4 races in 5 days here in Austin was a rare highlight. Maybe we can have a 5day stage race in 2010? I guess only Willis knows :-)

My race legs are coming slowly back under me after a little time off and vacation pre-HHH. Thursday's Driveway was (yet again) - the hardest race of the 4 race days - at least by the numbers. Thanks to the THSJ boys and Mark Purnell a.k.a. "The Announcer" we had a very exciting and interesting race where I ended up 4th.

Friends Lalla, Francis, and JPurcell came into town on Friday and we had a little MSU cycling team reunion at the house for the whole weekend. Manda RR was a total miss and I barely finished in the Top 30. Sunday's Pickle Crit went already better and I was able to squeeze into the right break w/ 2xTHSJ, Colt T, and PMc. For the 3rd time this year I was only able to see Heath' rear wheel and had to be content with a 2nd place. Riding w/ out a team here (the 'A' squad was at Gateway-Cup) definitively makes it a bit more tricky to get into the right moves.

Labor Day's eRacing Stigma Crit ended up in a bunch-sprint this year and it definitively felt harder then the inaugural edition last year. Besides some extra $$ in primes and a 12th place I couldn't achieve anything noteworthy comparing to last year when I was able to score a win out of a 4-man move.

Thanks to Andrew & Co. for giving us such a great event here in Austin. Daniel Norton took some cool pictures over the last 3days. Check them out here. I also hope "The Announcer's" voice is back by the time he's reading this :-)

Hotter'n Hell 60

Well, I/we did the 100miles but it was actually quite chilly - 60.8˚F to be exact at 6:50am on Saturday morning.

Friday Night

I was part of a two/three-man team for most of the 3days and it was rough. After 5 days in the sun (see post below) - and having no bici with me - I definitively lacked "the legs" to be competitive. Still was good enough to help out Chad in the Friday Crit (he got 3rd) and finish 4th myself in Day 3's Crit. Due to an unfortunate mechanical mishap (always tighten your saddle bolts!) we lost 2nd place in the Omnium on the last day and Chad slipped to 7th.

random shot somewhere Northeast of WF (check out the TALL Team Type 1 dude)

DR

After a busy month of July and lots of racing in early August we headed for 5 days of R&R to the Dominican Republic - a country of contrasts to be honest. Host to the (then) biggest city in the "New World" (Santo Domingo) you can discover lots of colonial history and follow C. Columbus' footsteps around the island.

...just back-up to the water beach and enjoy a "Presidente"