Benicia

The course was hard, the heat was unbearable, and the field was strong...

Recipe for disaster.

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After a few laps a large break got up the road without any DBCers in it, so I followed an attack and rode as hard as I could to bridge up in a little less than a lap. I looked around to see 2 Ouch riders, the always present Gerlach, Scott Z, Reaney, Kline, couple of Webcore riders... and some other folks. aka- this break is going to stick.
Sweet picture

In a short amount of time we had 40 seconds on the field, according to bystanders. Our group slowly started to get smaller and people began skipping pulls like it was nothing... So I ended up on the front a bunch.

Once Zwizanski attacked it was over for me. I just could not accelerate anymore. The lead group was now the 2 Ouch guys, Scott Z, Gerlach and Colin Samaan. They fought it out for the win and lapped all but 16 people.

I fell into the next group on the road. Then a group led by Floyd Landis caught us and with 3 to go I EXPLODED.

I finished 16... last guy to not get lapped, and the finish played out right behind me.


Gnarly race, ready for the 4th!

40 Degrees and Raining

This weekend I drove up to Baker City Oregon, for the Elkhorn Classic, with Phil and Nils. The drive up was fairly uneventful until Phil lost his stunnas out of the car window. After that we just laughed for about an hour.

Once in Baker city we dropped Nils off to his team's hotel and set out to find all the the minty boys that Phil and I were staying with. We got put into a room with @StammDance who is friggin hilarious! Room 112 was def the sickest room ever, we had a blast. We could barely walk anywhere in the room, but it was all good. There were all sorts of shenanigans like this.

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As for the racing. Well, the first day was a 72mile road race that had one major climb and some savage rollers at the end. The weather was decent until about an hour into the race we got hit with some monsoon rain! I have never seen that much rain coming from the sky in my life. We were riding through about two inches of water on the road constantly.
I made it over the main climb with the lead group and the rain stopped just as we finished the decent and began the gnarly rollers into the finish. Each roller was about 1k long, but not very steep. On the first one Evan Pickett and a Land Rover Orbea rider attacked and two others bridged up for the finish. Evan took third and that group finished 6seconds ahead of the next group of about 10. I finished 20th 44 seconds down on the leader... Phil had a terrible mechanical where he had to take his chain off to untangle it from his derailleur and put it back on. He lost almost 20minutes.

The TT finished downtown after some switchbacks which was totally cool. Phil crushed it and won by 2 seconds. I finished 1:58 behind Phil somewhere in the 30s and lost one place on GC. According to Phil I railed the chicane like a champ, so I'm happy about that.

Room 112's plan for the crit was to get Phil and I off the front together crushing as hard as we can, and StammDance was going to try for the field sprint. Phil and I did get off the front together, but I kept dropping him in the corners and he was making me suffer in the headwind section. We were off the front a lot in that race and Phil got a ton of primes. In the end it came down to a field sprint and Fred and I were nowhere near it.

For the last day the forecast said 50 and raining in town, which meant 35-40 on top of the mountains. 100miles in the 40-50 degrees and rain is not my idea of a fun time. We rolled up to the school prepared for the worst, and got the best news of our lives... sort of. They decided to shorten the course and do approximately 10 miles of flat and then an 8 mile hill climb to the finish. As you can probably imagine the roll-out was wicked sketchy and there was a huge 15-20 man pileup towards the front of the field. I was about mid pack and avoided it smoothly. Fred and Nils were not so lucky. Fred got a bloody knee, chain rings on his back, and some bruises from being towards the bottom of the pile. He turned around and hitched a ride from a nice lady into town. Nils was one of the first to go down and his frame got crushed real hard. He seemed fine aside from being grumpy, but that's understandable.
After that madness we turned left to go up the mountain and it went fast. I held on well and got dropped about 4k from the summit. Phil dropped off the pace a bit later after taking a monster pull for Evan and we rolled in together in a chase group. Finished in about the 20s again.

Evan ended up 4th overall, which is a real good result. That was a tough race, but it was fun. I had a blast this weekend. Big shout out goes to Tony Anne for the amazing hospitality at the Bridge Street Inn. If you are ever in Baker City, that is definitely the hotel to stay at. The entire town was very hospitable to the race. Good stuff!

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The ride home was terribly long, but in the end Nils pulled through in the final leg and got us home safely. Check out http://twitter.com/TheStaz for updates from the drive and twitpics.

Phil and I got 3 new people into twitter. @StammDance, @gomrpickles, and @dexdahl. Check em out.

Residents of the Greater Davis Area Rock District TT

So I ventured up to Sattley to do some hard 40k time trial in attempt of winning the U23 district title. My dad and I stayed the night in Truckee with the White brothers. Not sure how they slept, but my dad and I slept terribly!

For breakfast we had the usual Janwich buffet and some bagels. Outside I was a little angry because I could see my breath but not the sun. Luckily the sun was out on course and the wind was almost nonexistent.

I was last to start of my category and immediately felt terrible. My 30sec guy and I passed my minute man relatively quickly and at the turn around I was 10 sec closer to Jeremy (my 30sec guy). On the way back I felt a little better, and kicked up the speed... but so did Jeremy. With 3k to go I had him at about 10 sec in front of me and gave it all I had. I finished 5 sec behind him, which meant I beat him by 25 seconds.

I won!

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Also,
In the elite race PaulMach.com2.0 threw down to win by 7 seconds over TheMooneyExpress

And Torey Philipp won the 15-16 junior TT

Looks like the flat lands of Davis and the Wednesday World TT championships are really paying off for everyone!

Time Trials HURT

This weekend I raced the Dash for Cash crit and the Dunlap TT.

On Saturday I was feeling good and tried to get into some breaks along with Chuckleberry and Frank Marrs. We got into a couple, but they never got away longer than a lap. Somehow I missed the winning break of 10 and with 6 or so laps to go I decided it was now or never if i wanted a shot at finishing well. I attacked and took Carmi with me. It took us a lap and a half to close a large gap, but we made it. The last few laps hurt a bunch and Joel Robertson rode away from the rest of the break like it was the thing to do. He soloed in for the win and the rest of us battled for the rest of the prizes. I got 6th, which I'm happy with.

Sunday was the first time I have ever done a 30k TT and had no idea what to expect. All I knew was that PMTG was going to slay it, and he did.
My goal time, after looking at last years results, was a sub-45 time. I ended up getting 41:05 and finished in 7th! I was stoked, my TT abilities are definitely getting better... I should probably thank Phil for that.

I'm doing Sattley this weekend, 40K this time... sheesh, looking forward to the pain!

Slackatron

So as you may have noticed, I haven't been updating this blog thing...

Sorry about that...
I have been really lazy and enjoying my rest from school before summer classes begin.

Here is a little of what happened lately:

Joseph Mendes Crit
- I got in a savage break of 9 and we almost lapped the feild. Took an idiodic flyer with one to go, and finished 9th. Gerlach won.

Berkley Hills RR
- This was a tough one. The winning break/split of 20 or so established within the first mile of 90. I managed to get into it, but fell out with 2 laps to go. Before I got dropped we had somewhere around 6 min on the field. I finished somewhere in the 30s. 31st I believe.

The next weekend was the modesto weekend and it was HOT!

Modesto Crit
- Got into another break with Gerlach again and got 8th out of 9. Hmm... not very good at finishing out of these breaks huh?

Modesto RR
- Team raced real well here. Early we had a break up the road with Keith Hilliest and both of the Blanco brothers. It looked promising and Z, Chuckleberry and I were relieved to have our race over. BUT, Clif missed the break and organized a chase.
Once they got reeled in there was some more attackin, Z took a savage solo flyer and a break went up the road with me in it. Clif made it this time and so did Reeney again, plus Judd, Carmi, and a Reno Wheelman rider who won with a sweet 1k flyer. Caught us all looking at eachother and not pedaling. I won the sprint for second and Keith got into a chase group and finished 8th or 9th. Russ fell out of the chase group but held the field off, and Greg got second in the field sprint.
Great Racin' boys!

This weekend was HUGE, and very painfull.

Folsom Crit
- Gerlach was there, so i fugured a break would go, but nothing went anywhere and I totally blew myself for the finish. Charlie and Z got up to the front and got DerFridge and 8th place! Sayers won.

Mt. Hamilton
-Keith Hilliest drove down with Janwich and me to San Josie to get our legs torn off. Sheet hit the fan real early in the race and the feild exploded. Keith and I were in the second group on the road going into the long climb and I fell out of it with about 3k to the summit. Keith hung on and finished in the 20s. PaulMach.com2.0 won the KOM and finished 2nd with his team mate winning.
I exploded hardcore and crawled in to the finish. Came home to take a 3 hour nap and got to bed at 9. slept a total of 15 hours I think.

Memorial Day Crit
- After all that pain from the day before Keith and I were back to throw our bodys into the hurt locker some more, this time with the Blanco Brothers for company. It was a pro/1/2/3 race so it was a sketchfest in the beginning. I decided another break would be my best option. I followed Gerlach around for a lap and sure enough, he launched with me and Dibble in tow. We got two Webcore riders, Lucas Binder, 3 Berries, and Andy Goessling with us and started to hammer.
The problem was that we didn't have Jackson with us, and he brought us back with 5 to go. We were out there for a good while and I was totally cooked. Russ tried setting up Keith for the sprint, but he got boxed.


So there ya have it, an update on what has been going on as of late. I promise I will keep this thing update more regularly.

Keep suffering

The Twitter Hype

So as you know I have a twitter and it seems to be sweeping through Davis. Even people that had previously made fun of me for it or said things like "I'll never get that rig, looks stupid" not only have a twitter account but update regularly.

One of these newcomers has recently become completely addicted. That's right, PMTG is on twitter and is heavily addicted. It is the only thing I hear him talk about now, and when meeting new people one of the first things he asks is "Do you have a twitter?".

Zach has one.

Cody has one.

The hair has one.

His kid too.

Even Andreas has one.

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If you do not have one, well you better get on it. If nothing else you can updates from the man himself.

It is quite addictive, I must admit. Add one more to the list of things that take up too much time on the computer, but I can't go on with my day without checking it.

What will they think of next.

Improvements

The Wente RR was sort of disappointing for me, but also shows that I keep on improving everything from last year.

This time last year I was a 3...
At the Wente RR I got dropped fairly early and DNF.

Today I was at the tail end of the splits on the main climb, but managed to get back into the pack until we came in to see 1 to go. My legs weren't happy from the start, but that time up the climb they just told me to go fly a kite and left me on the hillside. I finished the lap with Trashton and some Cal Giant guy. Probably finished in the low 30s, still fairly decent and a HUGE improvement on last year... still got a ways to go though ;)

My team mate Keith did his first 1/2 race today and rocked it. I think he finished somewhere in the 20s. He was in the chase groups with me and worked a ton. Good job mate!