JOn's SPoT

Update

2007-07-31T09:00:00.000-06:00

Sorry i kinda put the blog on hold for a little while.

Anyway..the second stage of Cascade went okay. Survived and finished mid field somewhere. Was coming down with something and didn't feel good all day. Stage 3 was 15mi TT which climb for 7.5 mi going out and screamed back. Probably harder than the Gila TT. Rode pretty well considering I couldn't breathe super. Stage 4 was 7 hrs after the TT and was a 90 min crit around downtown Bend. Super fun course, but with the pro teams controlling the race it was single file for the entire 90 min. Stage 5 started on a 20 mi climb and right away my legs had nothing. Once the Nav's started setting tempo on the climb i went straight out the back. Kinda hard to keep up with a 350W+ tempo when your legs can put out 280 before they want to fall off (really bad day). I ended up riding with another guy who had gotten pretty worked by the double day too and we rode most of the course and pulled out in the second feed zone. Not exactly what i had hoped for my first NRC this year, but not much you can do when you get sick. At least I have an idea of where my fitness has to be for next year to make final groups.

Once i got back, went to the doc....and doc says i have strep...doses antibiotics and i take to the couch and bike a little bit. Just getting back after a couple of really slow weeks, but i finally got some good work time in. later

Cascade

2007-07-11T18:10:00.000-06:00

i'm in Bend, OR now for the cascade classic. It's a freaking long drive, but once you get here it's kinda worth it. the town itself is really pretty and cool. I'll post some pics soon, but haven't taken a whole lot yet.

We did pretty well in stage 1. it was a 92 mile RR with a couple climbs. the final climb finished in town on a little butte. I think we had 3 or 4 guys in the top quarter of the race. Corey was somewhere near the top 10 which is pretty sweet. Tomorrow's stage is 80 miles and finishes on a 15 mi climb so that should be interesting and painful. Okay..more updates later since i was informed my blog sucked.

Up to speed

2007-03-31T20:50:00.000-06:00

so the last few weeks have begun the process of getting back into the groove of racing. Some guys come out flying after a winter of hitting it hard, but usually it takes a few races for me to get back into it. Last weekend was probably the messiest race i've ever done. The Cateye Road Race up in Lyons. It was a fun course...but it was raining and had two dirt sections, which turned to mud sections after all of the rain.
The bike took quite a beating, but didn't do too bad on the day. The next day was the last Stazio crit and that was considerably easier than the first one because the majority of the pros were at Redlands. This weekend is the Oredigger classic which consists of a time trial up lookout moutain and a circuit race (pretty much a climbing crit) around campus. The lookout TT went pretty well. It was crazy windy so times were slow, but it was a good test to see where the climbing legs are at.

It's been a while...

2007-03-11T21:45:00.000-06:00

Yeah...I know it's been a while...I'm still alive..just been lazy for blogging. Haven't had a whole lot to post minus alot of the same training reports. So since stuff is starting to get underway, the race blog returns.

A couple weeks ago, a few of us headed down to AZ to get some warm weather training in, escape the snowmelt and in general just get out of town for a while. We stayed in Bisbee for a few nights and prerode most of the race courses down there. Nice town. 5 miles from the border and really really small. We went to Tuscon our last day and got a nice ride up Mt. Lemon in beatiful 75 degree weather.

My season finally kicked off today, since i didn't go to VOS and was a getting over a cold last weekend. Rode the Stazio crit today. Pretty unremarkable course. One hill, 4 corners, but it's always a hard race to knock the cobwebs out when alot of big name pros show up. So i rode as long as i could and ended up getting popped with a few laps to go. The power numbers said it wasn't a bad race and it pretty much went as expected, but i still got a lotta work to do yet before i get back in race shape. next weekend is the CU race, so a crit and a RR, which should be fun.

SUPERSIZED

2006-10-19T16:31:00.000-06:00

Wow..it's been awhile since the last update...um...okay...so school is still going and that sucks. I thought senior year might be cool since I might take classes that I wanted to..but those were hard so i didn't. So i'm in a couple of liberal arts electives (japanese history and culture, engineering law and ethics) and one electrical elective--power systems engineering YUCK :-P. The good news is that the semester is halfway done..the bad news is that the semester is halfway done...and the EIT is NEXT SATURDAY and i still have a lot of stuff to study...but we'll see how much gets done..hehe..just as long as i pass....

The best part of the offseason is YOGA. That and climbing are the two biggest things that i miss when racing is in full swing. The last couple of weeks i've been going as much as I can...and i finally got a program from the physical therapist to get keep me from breaking again next year...and he found that I have some pretty big muscle imbalances to take care of. So that translates into 1.5-2hrs of exercises every day and weights in a few weeks...I still haven't been climbing yet this offseason. Waiting until the hip stabilization period is over then hopefully its not too cold and i can go tear it up a little bit....

We had our 'fall break' last weekend, which just meant that we got monday off. LAME...it was a good time though..i can enjoy college life for a little while and it's pretty damn FUN. If anyone wants to go for a ride and finish with a visit to the Coor's brewery for their 'short tour' (skip the BS and get beer..we call it Coor's Lab..hehe) with me give a shout and lets go!..or just skip the ride part and go for the beer..even better.

!happy_days

2006-10-02T15:36:00.000-06:00

So school has decided to actually start..or more like I've put off stuff long enough and it's finally coming due. Yuck. I spent the day doing an update memo for my senior design instructor and collating 160 exams for the class I'm grading for. I'm supposed to have finished a 350pg book for an exam thursday, but that's not going to happen..and finish power systems hw. I think I'm going to coor's lab. Fuck this. Last performance test tomorrow. Woohoo! Not really, but I get to not spend my afternoon sleeping in class.

Okay enough with the school whining...this is supposed to be a race blog...but i'm not racing any more and it gives me something to do instead of being bored and watching tv. So there might be some utterly random posts and rants outside of the bike..so BEWARE...MWAHAHAHAHA.

Speaking of the bike...I did something totally uncharacteristic this weekend...I actually went for my first mountain bike ride in a year...haha. It was alot of fun minus the non-fit on the bike and that my bike is 7 years old, i think. No pics again :/ but green mountain is a pretty cool place to ride...if you're technical skill are far below par. The majority of the singletrack you can ride comfortably on a 'cross bike and the climbs were pretty loose and gravelly, but it was something i'd never ridden before. I guess that's what i get for telling my coach i suck at mtn biking....HA

Anyway, until next time.....

Yup....

2006-09-27T21:50:00.000-06:00

Sorry for the lack of updates. Been pretty chill here...kinda. Offseason is kinda a funny time of year, in that the bike rarely will sit long enough to collect dust...haha. In the time since racing stopped, I haven't done anything outside my normal riding routine except take away all workouts and have fun. I wish I had a camera (maybe i'll go buy one soon..). Fall is a fun time of year to ride since the trees are turning colors and its usually the perfect temperature to enjoy time on a bike.

So, I'm supposed to be focusing on school now...which hasn't been too successful. I have this HUGE freaking exam at the end of october that covers EVERYTHING I've supposedly 'learned' at school so far. It's getting close enough that I'm starting to get scared enough to study. The ironic thing about today is that I skipped my one class to study this afternoon..haha. This exam is the first step in getting a professional engineering license, which i'm not too sure i want to get, but whatever. Gotta keep my bases covered.

Check this link out. SOOOOOO FUNNY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJnYVm4iaqc

Update

2006-09-21T22:34:00.000-06:00

Well..I have been a little lazy since the season ended last week so here's what's happened since.

The Parker Omnium Road race was a brutal 21 mile circuit that they made us do 5 laps on. There was a total of 1500 ft of accumulated climbing on the course which is a decent amount considering none of the "rollers" was longer than a couple of miles. To top it off, we rolled out into 30-50mph winds which wreaked havoc on the field. I started out in the middle of the field, but it started on a climb and in usual NRC fashion (or so I'm told since this was my first one) the race started from km 0. I managed to make it over the first climb in the second echelon and was trying to find someplace to hide from the wind. I kept getting gapped from the group i was trying to make contact with and ended up riding 10ft behind at one point then blew up and tried desparately to catch on to other groups that were rolling by. The group came back together on the back side of the course as those who stayed in the race were trying to get a little bit of recovery. THe race happend on the second lap, and we got 2 guys in a chase group of 5 which made our lives ALOT easier for the rest of the day since we just had to control the race. Since it was the last road race of the season and most of the teams had guys up the road, we had a nice ride for a couple laps, and they pulled the field a lap early. haha.

The first lap

After we effectively neutralized the race :-D

Sunday was the last race of the season. A 1km D-shaped loop in downtown parker. I had a miss clip in my pedal at the start and lost a whole bunch of places then, and had a really hard time moving up after since it was pretty quick and there weren't any good places to move up without dumping out a ton of power which i didn't have quite enough of. I finished in the field and put a wrap on the season.

Fun stuff, eh?

So now I have begun the joyousness of the offseason, which means a little more freedom to do what you want instead of what you should ;). Now I have to focus on school, which sucks, but I kinda want to be done with it. Enough of this homework crap. Engineering is a funny major since they really only teach us how to think...and not how to do. So, when people ask me "you're an electrical engineer, how do I fix this [insert broken electric component]..." I tell them that I don't know anything. Senior year also means looking for jobs. I went to the school's career fair and it was pretty craptacular. I handed out a few resumes and ended up getting an email to apply for one job, but other than that, people told me to submit my resume online. BLegh..not making my life any easier. ANyway, I think that's enough of a rant for the time being. Check back for more, since I'll probably be going crazy here shortly from not racing..haha

Parker Omnium Day 1

2006-09-15T17:01:00.000-06:00

Today was a ~8 mi TT. The course was sweet and would have been pretty fast, but the wind kicked up pretty good before they let the P1-2's go. I started out and felt bad, and went up the climb on the course and felt bad. It's a bad sign when I'm in my smallest gears grinding away into a headwind and still feeling like I'm gonna blow even though I shouldn't be close. Once the road turned and the wind was cross/tail I did what I could to bring it home. Results will be up later, but hopefully they wont be too bad for my first big race where most of the guys are pros. I'm just glad it's done. Tomorrow should be fun. 105 miles of nasty rollers, wind and probably rain. 2 more races...

Gore pass/Swanky's

2006-09-11T18:04:00.000-06:00

This weekend kicked off with one of the few Colorado Climbing races. It is a sweet race that goes up and over Gore pass outside of Kremmling and does of few out and backs after that. All said and done, there are 7 climbs--some a couple of miles long other 12 miles long. The drive up there didn't look very promising...rain, rain, and more rain and about 40 degrees. It had just started raining when the race started so we were all soaked from the get go. The first climb wasn't bad as nobody wanted to drive the tempo in the cold weather. Once we hit the top, Coyle from VC attacked and one of the Rio guys went with him. Nobody else was interested in a chase. I attacked with Ryan Hamilton from Colavita up the second climb to try to bridge up to the leaders, we got a 2min advantage over the field after the 3rd climb and were still 2+min behind. He had enough and i was solo hoping the field wasn't chasing too hard, but i was caught at the base of the 4th climb. It was all back together minus the 2 leaders who had 4 min for the second out and back. My teammate drilled the 6th climb and demolished the 25 remaining riders to a group of 8. I ended up 11th. .

Sunday was a crit down in the Inverness business park. Probably one of the cooler crits since it's wide open and safe. It's pretty hard since there are two gradual climbs in it and its usually windy. It was pretty quick from the start with lots of attacks until my teammate Jon Garcia went with Scott Moninger and a coupld other guys. All the major teams were represented so all we had to do was watch and make sure it didn't come back. A fun race, and hopefully the form sticks around for next weekend.

Gateway Canyon Classic

2006-09-05T22:28:00.000-06:00

This weekend was the State Road Race Championships, since they cancelled Carter Lake 2 weeks ago :-p. This course was an 85mi out and back through one of the prettier canyons that I have ridden through. Last year in the 3's I wished I had a camera, but this year was a little bit different. It started out pretty tame with a few attacks, but everyone settled in after 2 guys got away. The race didn't start till the turn around which began the second climb. A pretty stiff tempo was being set by the VC guys until the break was caught, then people started attacking. I was able to match most of them except for the last two...when the final selection was made. I was in a group of 5 after the climb and we tried to bridge up to the lead group of 7 for the entire way back. Finished decently on the day, and kinda rolled through the finish pretty bonked, but it was a good day.

The race on Sunday was a crit in "downtown" fruita. Pretty much a barbell course with a big roundabout on one end and a one block square on the other. The race was pretty sane and i took a little flyer about 20min into the race and stayed off for a few laps, but nobody wanted to go with me :-p. Ended up clipping a pedal with 2 corners to go and finished in the back of the group.

Weekend Update

2006-08-28T17:24:00.000-06:00

So this weekend was the first weekend that I have gotten to race with Team Einstein since I joined a couple weeks ago. All the strong guys were back racing after riding three stage races in the last month. A few of us had a little gathering at Brian and Randy's place Sat night in boulder. We rolled around Boulder before the race in Longmont in the afternoon, visited a couple of coffee shops and enjoyed the scenery. The race was pretty routine. Hard fast technical. It was 'L' shaped so there were lots of corners and wide roads. I think we averaged ~30mph for 75 min, which was pretty fast for me since I'm still getting used to racing with pros. A heck of alot harder than racing in Utah last weekend even though it's the same categories racing. I couldn't really do much during the race exccept try to maintain my position, which sucked when the guys were chasing the break, but they cut me some slack since I'm new. Hopefully I'll be ready to roll at the state championships in Junction next weekend.

Tour de Gap

2006-08-24T18:41:00.000-06:00

This weekend I was in Cedar, City UT for the Tour de Gap. A 2 day, 4 stage race that pretty much covered every aspect of bike racing. Stage 1 was a 46 mi flat RR. Nothing was happening in the first 15 miles and I put in a couple of frustration attacks to see if anybody would come with me. I was able to get into the breakaway of the day about 20 miles into the race. There was a group of 6 and we worked together just barely good enough to make it to the line 20sec ahead of the main field. Alot of work for 21sec, but oh well. I got to ride with Randy Riechart, one of the top Colorado amatuers. I got 4th out of 21 on the stage. Stage 2 was a crit in on the tarmac at the local airport. I don't think it was even half a mile long as we were doing less than 50sec laps. Stage 3 was a 55mi RR with 5500 ft of climbing. I was in a breakaway all day with Burke Swindlhurst, a navigator pro, and cracked with about 5 miles to go and got caught by the field with 3 to go. Stage 4 was a 4.5 mi TT which I did good enough in to hold my GC spot. A good race weekend and alot of confidence gained. Bring it on!

Weekend Report

2006-08-09T10:16:00.000-06:00

Last weekend, I competed in my first P1-2 races. It was almost the most fun racing my bike that I have had all year. There was no frustratingly slow times (for me at least..some of the other guys were complaining that the races were slow) and it was so smooth. On Saturday, I raced at the Fed Center Circuit race. This was a 3.4 mi circuit with 12 corners which made for an exciting day. I was pretty nervous before the race started since I didn't know what to expect and didn't know if I'd be totally destroyed by the pace. Once we started, the race continued at a reasonable pace ~30mph and there were alot of attacks, which I kept trying to go with, but nothing stuck. I decided to sit in and hang on since I didn't want to get dropped. A pretty nasty crash happened on the 2nd lap of 9 laps. Some dude crossed my rear wheel and went down hard and took probably 10 guys out with him. The field chilled out a little bit after this since no attacks could get away do to the course conditions and I finished with the main field in 21st place. Sunday I did the Bannock crit, which is one of the best crit courses in CO. It is an 8 corner 1 mi circuit with wide streets and pretty safe minus the huge manhole cover potholes. I was expecting this race to be really fast so I was trying to stay in good position the whole race, up front and out of trouble. A break went with 25 min to go and stayed away. The pace slowed up a little bit and made it alot more tolerable since I'm not used to racing at these power levels. It was a good learning experience about what kind of effort it takes to sit in the field and what it will take to be aggressive. I finished with the main field in 40th or something like that. Racing with the pros is ALOT less scarey than any other category I have raced with. Usually I get scared the last 5 laps of a crit or the last few km's of a road race and thus far I haven't gotten that feeling from this field. The next race is Carter Lake which should be very interesting since I haven't done a P1-2 road race before.

Salida Omnium

2006-08-01T09:36:00.000-06:00

This weekend I went down with the team to Salida for 3 days of racing. We rented a small house and somehow crammed 9 of us in it, which made for a fun time off the bike. The omnium opened with a 7mi time trial friday night. The course was flat-ish and was a straight run into downtown Salida. I sent my registration in the very last day I could and the promoters didn't get it before they made the TT start list so I was the second to last starter. I rode the best TT I've done so far this year and made it into 4th place 14:42, ~40 seconds behind the leader (the kid who won is Taylor Phinney-Davis Phinney's 16year old son...). He passed me with about 2kms to go after starting 30sec behind me and was absolutely flying. I think he posted the second fastest time of ALL the categories.

The next day was the road race. This course is the hardest on the ACA calendar and probably one of the hardest that I have raced this year. The field is what makes a race truely hard but this course was not easy. There were 6 12 mi circuits to complete with ~1300ft of climbing/lap. After a 10km neutral rollout everybody was ready to get underway. A few guys attacked as soon as the race started, but once we hit the climb, everybody floored it and all of the attackers were caught. The climb began with a 400m long 12% kicker and then pitched anywhere from a little downhill to 10%. It then flattened out and started again about 2kms from the finish. Since the climb wasn't super long, and nobody wanted to ride tempo after the climb, the field came back together every lap. A 3 man break was let go on the 2nd lap and one rider went solo from them and stayed away until the last climb. Each lap it was the same, surge up the climb and sit up on the descent ( littered with power climbs :-p). After 4 laps, I put in a surge at the top of the climb to try to shake the guys who kept bridging back on when we were messing around on the backside of the course. It became a group of 9 with one rider about 4-5 min up the road. When we hit the 5th climb, a HART rider, Matt Ciancuilli (one of the guys I rode with at the Dead Dog) and I attacked and got a gap since we each had teammates in the chase group. The leader had 2:30 on us with a lap and a half to go. After riding some quality tempo, we hit the last climb and the leader was 10sec up the road. Matt punched it so we wouldn't drag the guy to the finish with us and blew up shortly after. The next 6kms I was solo and rode it to the line!

I obtained the overall Omnium lead after the road race and was trying to keep it during the crit, but it didn't exactly work out as I had a teammate in a break with Phinney. He attacked 5 times, 3 of which I had to chase down since my teamates had done alot of work early and were tired, and I was a little stuffed when he went the last time and didn't go with him. I was hoping my teammate would take the win, but he didn't and I lost the overall by 4 points, but I did finish 9th in the crit--my best crit finish in a LONG time. He was the only person I didn't feel too bad losing to since he won 2/3 stages and really fought for it during the crit (and he is the spawn of the winningest american cyclist)

All in all a great weekend of racing and now I get to relearn how to win since I got enough points for the cat 2 upgrade next weekend.

Laterz!

Here's a shout-out to my support crew:

Parents, thanks for coming and watching and putting up with me after bad days

Jon Heidemann, my coach, who has done an amazing job in the few months I've been working with him.

George Mullen, fit guy/voice of experience, always encouraging me even when I don't believe in myself (if you ever need a bike fit, he is the man)

Racing again (finally)

2006-07-17T09:18:00.000-06:00

After 2 weeks of not racing, I was seriously ready to get back in the swing of things. Training is all good and well, but isn't quite as much fun as rolling around random parts of the state with 80 of your friends. On Saturday I went out to Ft. Morgan for a crit (a long way to go for a 50min race, but it's racing). It was super hot out there probably 103+ outside and probably between 110 and 115 degrees on the pavement. The course was a pristine figure eight. Wide streets and clean corners made for a non-sketchy race course. The pace was pretty easy at first and then the attacks began. I planned on racing smart and going for a top 10 finish, but on the second lap one of strong guys I know throughs in a little attack, I follow it and ended up getting a pretty good gap almost instantly. I rolled solo for a lap and saw that nobody was going to bridge up and sat back in the field. Lots of small attacks after that, but nobody wanted to work. I ended up missing the winning move and ended up 17th in the field sprint, which is my best crit finish this year (:-p).

Sunday was a hill climb in Boulder that started at the base of Boulder canyon at the Justice center and went up Sugarloaf Rd. to Ned middle school. I hadn't seen the course before, but heard it was tough and thankfully put the biggest cassette I owned on. This was the first hill climb I've done. Usually it's not cost effective since they are short races and there are no upgrade points involved, but I wanted to see how I matched up against some of the climbers in the state. The race was pretty tame for the first half and I was at the front setting the tempo up the steep part of sugarloaf. I don't like climbing sitting in a large group since it's difficult to see which guys are going to blow and then having to reaccelerate to get back with the leaders. Near the top of the climb, a Colavita rider upped the pace a notch and I didn't know how long it went on for before the road went down again. My legs were going solid with about 1k to go on the climb and I couldn't tell how much harder to push it without blowing up, so I ended up getting gapped off from the three leaders and pretty much just rode steady tempo to the finish since the guys behind were a ways back. I ended up 4th on the day, but hate getting dropped and then not being motivated to turn myself inside out. All in all it was good training.

Until next time....

MS150

2006-07-10T08:47:00.000-06:00

Well...for the annual charity tour, this one was probably the most and least fun. ~5000 people showed up at Mountain Vista high school at dawn for a 'scheduled' 6:00am rollout (which meant that i got up at 4:20 so that we could leave our house in littleton and be at the school ready to go at 5:45). I was riding with team halliburton and there were 50 people that rode the tour. It's a pretty sweet deal cuz you get a jersey out of it and they didn't put too much pressure on the young kids and students to raise alot of money, which I hadn't really done yet. So, we ended up starting the ride at 6:20 :-p and right as we rolled out it began to rain. Little sprinkles at first and then steady rain. Great...an82 mile slog after getting soaked in the first hour. Needless to say I wasn't a very happy camper. It went from not very rainy to pouring, just amounting to a miserable day in the saddle. To top off the day, they didn't have any of the luggage unpacked when a few of my teammates and I arrived in Colo Spgs and I sat around waiting for dry clothes for an hour, such fun especially after trying not to get sick all week. The Halliburton BBQ truck was out there with brats and burgers which was sweet.

The second day looked crappy at first so I put almost all the kit I brought with me on so I wouldn't get super cold if it got nasty again. Murphy's law worked and it ended up being a really nice day after a couple of hours. The route was actually somewhat interesting in that we got to climb up and ride across the Royal Gorge, but there was ~50 miles of riding on highways to get there. My Powertap was still a little waterlogged(or the battery is dying) from the rain and didn't want to work all day, which worked out since I got to chill out and enjoy the ride and have fun with the people I was riding with. The Gorge was beatiful as always and I was glad to be done with this event.

Another long weekend in the bag and it's off to the races next weekend and the points hunt continues....

Hurray Weekends!!

2006-07-07T08:33:00.000-06:00

After a short work week (still seems long though) and a rest week I'm ready for more training and racing. This weekend is my annual charity tour, the MS150. Even though I'm skipping two races for it, MS is bad news and I like helping out in any way I can. One of the guys on the Halliburton team has MS and still rides the tour, but do to rapidly degrading health this may be his last one.

It'll be another ~5hr/day weekend which will set me up well for the longer races coming up and hopefully I can nab the last few points I need soon too.

Welcome to the Wired

2006-07-06T12:22:00.000-06:00

Well..I've finally done it and created a blog. First Facebook now this...what is the world coming to.