Madera madness

This weekend had its ups.. and downs...it started off my co-pilot for the weekend Tim G (Biscuit) calling in sick due to some bug type thing that kept him on the DNS list for Madera. The Ben Hur TT on the road bike for me was a lack luster ride, others picked TT's and thats what I'll do in the future. I could see that the bets were stacking up on Hernando's blog for the following TT with me VS BPG's JA. It kept me motivated, but I always feel better the second day and I rolled pretty good ride. Thats the thing, I'd be lying if I said I didn't like winning, but with a TT' I just want to ride to the best of my ability.

I do have Marco Hellman (AMD) and Dario www.wholeathlete.com to thank for getting me closer to my best on the TT bike this year!

The real madness started with Tracey and Julie (the other biscuit). At the crit they had a combined 4 flats before the thing even started. There were a couple of guys around to help the maidens in distress- Hernando was there to lend a hand too. (Thanks)
Then I met them back at the Madera Inn for a TT set up. I got Tracey set with my DISC and funny helmet for her TT, we put the bikes on JG's car rack...(back mount) which I thought would be fine.....WRONG!!!!! About 10 minutes later I get a call...the bike went flying off the car on 99 at mucho MPH...uggghhh. Just before they realized it flew off...JG says"Tracey where is your bike?" its sliding across 99 HWY. Good thing another racer was following and didn't run it over! Tracey put it back in the car and I asked her if it was OK???she said that she would take a look when they got to the TT..Heart rate must have been max-ed at this point...
They gals get to the TT...Tracey says"Julie, where are your pedals?" Julie says..."^%U%^RTGV@%! They're on my other bike back at the hotel!"

then she says..."thats it I'm going home"...Tracey says "go find some pedals" another knight comes over to help and gives J a set of pedals for the TT.
TT starts...I told them not to miss any turns-it happens every year...no problemo they say, well 5 minutes into the TT Tracey's left bar goes straight down and she has to balance it for the entire ride so that it wouldn't go into the front wheel...then when she missed the last turn and goes over the train tracks she had to circle back and finish...for almost a top 10! Madness!!!!

Ok onto the RR, for us long and pretty tactical. Spine, BPG, Strawberry's, & AV were all being pretty agressive. AV got stuck chasing most of the day when we had Spines up the road. Then Kyle (Spine) and Miller (Strawberry jam) went on the long ball busting break, Kyle won with Miller coming in pretty close behind. We won the Pro 12 RR, TT & GC- I dropped down to third just by a few seconds, Buckley (6th GC) was on the BPG like glue in the next group and that stuck too. BPG's JA was giving it a soild try for the first few laps,he took a few shots at me in the final K. good fun and kept me on my toes.
It was good to see Briggs n Straton back out there getting some race miles in on the healed up femur. I never really warmed up to him until recently, but since we have broken legs in common things are much more social and I'm looking forward to seeing him light it up very very soon.



The real madness was in the feed zone. There was exciting stuff..."feeder down" flopping into the pro 12 women. Never seen that one before, then the Velo Promo tent almost flew into the woman one lap later. The poor Velo Promo guy took a shot in the head. Not to much damage, but sure made for some madness.

I also have had a question burning in my head for the last few weeks...how many miles does Sputnik have on ther OD????

Here it is under the dust.



Thanks Velo Promo for getting me to Madera for all the Madness!

Madera....its gonna be a cooker.

Well I settled for Madera rather then doing Bisbee. Lots of reasons its closer, travel's gonna be big the next two months, the GF,etc but I do want to do Bisbee and Gila next year for sure! This marks half time for the season for me and I'm happy that I won't be going to the Central Valley anytime soon (No offense CVC) and I'm ready for a break. Been training since November and I can see the signs of overtraining are getting closer..recovery takes longer, harder to get motivated to get on the bike, not wanting to race, not sleepin well...

I must admit, I am looking forward to them TT-zzzz, one with a uphill and the flat one the next am. Air should be good for both, fast and I hope the messin around with my position last night helps..not hurts. I've never been able to do a good ride at the flat one so I hope to get the monkey off my back. I'll have a couple of Spines there to back me up too, or maybe I'll be doing the work all weekend. Either is fine with me, I just want to nail the flat TT.

Franks and beans

A week on the TT bike every day..makes for chaffing. I tried a little Brave Solider chamois cream and looked down after a shower only to find...a serious irritation..stay clear of the brave soldier Friction zone FYI.

If you hit the deck this stuff Brave Soldier is great! Just don't try the friction zone..stick to Bag Balm or the Udder balm..

Cycling news is crap.

I think I'm done with cycling news. They say if you watch the TV news in the am its a sure fire way to start things off on a bad foot due the the shootings, fires, accidents, drugs, etc.

So for the past 5 years I get up every moring, fire up the coffee maker and sit at the computer to see what the bike racers are up to around the world. Today I cracked, I'm changing the page..all I saw was Unibet is bitter, WASADA is on a witch hunt before the tours start, Pro Tour teams (I never really understood that one) are all confused as their leaders are vampires, Basso's fucked-finally a needle in the Disco's balls and they are going to nail his sister too...guess looks and brains don't always go together (I got the shaft in both)...they deserve it, drugs, liars, lawyers. I'm sure they have a little mini fridge somewhere..I mean come on how the hell could they win 7 tours when all the other players were running on top fuel...?? I remember seeing commercials with Bristiol Meyers Squib and A..rong...you think they didn't make a recovery drink?

Blah, blah, blah..Albarino or Hondarrabi Zuri Tracey?

So I'm tryng to be good, not great just good and not drink a bottle of vino tonight. Its hard because this is when all the new fresh vintages come out and I get a ton of samples to taste...I know...I know its a tough job...I'm not going to give it up anytime soon.
So I say to Tracey, you want to try the Albarino from Rias Biaxs or Hondarrabi Zuri from Chacoli de Guetaria...and she says...when you ask me which wine I want to try all I hear is blah,blah,blah,,,you just pick one.

It was the Hondarrabi Zuri from Chacoli de Guetaria, tasting notes to follow. Its so frickin good, I'll probably drink the whole thing.

Grilled salmon burgers and Pancetta with pasta..yummy. Make that 3 hr ride on the tt bike 4hrs.

Wente Crit with Proman

I'm here thinking about this weekend's racing. Feeling pretty fresh after only racing one day and was happy to be a "Bike bitch" at the Wente crit for my girl and then ended up being promoted to DS Proman woman's team. Tracey was really getting excited weeks before this race, I got daily weather reports, leg reports, team reports etc as the days got closer she got more anxious. Since I'm not much a fan of the fast twitching races that go round and round industrial parks and this one seems to have a good history for bumper bikes I wanted nothing to do with racing.
Then Tracey asked me to do a little DS for the Proman team...man I thought I must have them fooled. You would have to scroll down pretty far to ever find my name in the results at the Wente Crit, but at least I had something to do and was a little nervous and excited all at the same time.

First off, these girls are serious and so willing to help each other I was totally impressed. They all have different strengths and are a very well balanced team. Nicola has done a great job with her recruiting and Tracey always has nice things to say every time she is able to race with her Proman chicks.

Then out came the radios...the only fast twitch muscle I have in my body is my mouth and I was going to try to keep the f-bombs and filter on so I didn't embarrass my girl. The race started out pretty aggressive with Rachel on the front, then Kristina went up the road. I noticed that she was on the hoods into the headwind and I told her to get down on the drops. She did it immediately...holy crap these radios work...it was very very cool. Then a break of 4 had Emily and Kristin trading pulls smooth as glass until one lap to go with a 20 sec buffer. I saw that Emily was on the back just after the start finish and told her to attack up the left and she took off with one other rider jumping on...holy crap..if this didn't work out I was going to feel like a jack ass and would probably never be invited back...then Kristin who is ultra savvy in a break attacked the other girl and was trying to bridge to Emily..E was able to sit on patiently and jumped into the headwind with 150 meters with perfect timing to the line for 1st place! Kristen came in 3rd, then Lori, Kristina, Rachel gave it 110% with keeping the pace up on the last lap where Nicola and Tracey took the next two spots (5th & 6th)! All the girls thanked me at the end and I thought I'd like to help DS in the future, but then I also thought it would be good to keep a perfect record.

this is where it all started...

At Wente someone who will remain nameless said" act your age" and implied that I should be doing the Masters race. I gave it a bit of thought and if I was going to really act my mental age,,of where I stopped any type of mental development I'd be the only bald guy in line at the Jr roll-out.


However when I woke up at 2am and had to get some advil for my hip and back, well the age thing sank in.

Wente was more Brutal this year, it was fun just racing flat out for the day and I was in most of the key moves. Just ran out of a little gas on the final climb. Today I'll be Proman support and looking forward to not even riding my bike.