So yeah, I’m sitting
here trying to procrastinate doing anything and everything to avoid the dreaded
EuroTrash Thursday. I have a hard time finding my writing muse in the middle
of a race. I’ll find her in a moment hopefully. Anyways, so there were a few
pictures from me from Grandview on Sunday, and I haven’t done many pictures
lately, so I figured, hey, why not, looks like fun, could be a hoot, let’s throw
in some pics. So here they are. Yeah, pretty anti-climactic.

So that was Sunday.

Tuesday was Stage
1 of the Tour of Ohio and I already talked about that, but turns out they’ve
got results online, so anyone that popped on over to TrueSport.com yesterday
probably saw that I lost 41 minutes. Yeah, no. That was a mistake. I was 32nd
on the stage, 2 minutes back. That’s nicer for mine eyes.

Yesterday, however,
I might have lost 41 minutes. Well, not that many, but a good chunk. I finished
all by myself for 20th I think after getting my head knocked in hardcore in
the last hour. The second to last climb of the day completely broke me and I
almost gave up. Well, I did for about 30 seconds, but thankfully Jimmy Mac rolled
up to me and I figured I’d keep going because I’d be damned if a 17 year old
was going to punk me. No, just kidding, but seriously, at moments like that,
it’s so nice to have someone you know roll up. Words don’t need to be spoken,
it’s just enough that they’re there.

Anyways, so yesterday
was brutally hard. The race was just under 3 hours, but I am oh so happy it
was not 1 minute longer. There were climbs and climbs and more climbs. 2-5 minutes
long, and some of them were retardedly steep, like I’m in my 27 out of my saddle
writhing, doing like 8 bajillion watts just to keep moving forward steep. Jimmy
did it with just a 23. He’s tougher than me though.

Today’s stage doesn’t
start till 445. I like that.

Ok, back to work.

Bye.

Alright, so where
was I the last time I wrote… Ah yes, I had just finished the Summer Solstice
races, well not finished, but started. Oh yeah, and I had used Nature Valley
as a nice warm-up for a weekend of DNF’s. Now I remember.

After that stellar
weekend, I headed to Washington, DC to visit Jamila. So I hopped back into the
car and five hours later, I guess it was Tuesday evening-ish, I was there.

I planned to only
stay until Thursday, but when Thursday rolled around, I didn’t feel like leaving,
so I stayed another day and didn’t leave until Friday afternoon around 2ish.
I didn’t ride my bike once from Sunday afternoon until Friday evening. It was
a very very very nice little break, and I think it did me big time good. Jamila
and I had a grand old time while I was in Washington. We went to the Smithsonian,
walked around a lot, learned some fun stuff, went out to eat, went to book stores,
clothes stores, and watched the new movie Cars. I liked that movie a lot. I
love all Pixar movies. They’re jammin. It’s funny how those kids movies are
better than just about all of the other movies that come out.

Anyways, so I got
back to Macedonia, Ohio on Friday. Apparently, I had done well to come a day
late, because Macedonia got whacked hard by some crazy sick flooding Thursday
evening, and apparently I left Washington just in time, because it just got
nailed by some ridiculous rain. I like it. Stay away from me rain.

I raced Saturday
and Sunday at the Tour de Grandview. Grandview was hard. Really really hard.
The fields for both days weren’t all that big, but good lord, the races were
hard.

The first day was
a 3 mile circuit, which we did 15 times. There were two short, sharp hills that
beat the living hell out of me. I attacked a lot, got dropped, caught back on,
attacked, got dropped, ad nauseam for a long while, and then managed to make
the winning break of 8. I was useless for at least 10 minutes in the break as
I was busy trying not to get dropped, but doing a bad job of it. I came around
towards the end and worked as hard as I possibly could for Marco. He looked
to have the sprint easily, but then cramped. It was still cool to know that
we had someone in the break that could win the race hands down under most circumstances.
It was cool having Gamm there to suffer with as well. We probably looked identical,
except for the fact that he’s 2 feet shorter than me. Well, not that much, but
probably a foot. Gamm and I were 7th and 8th after our smashing lead-out duties.
Ha.

So I thought Saturday
was hard, but after Sunday, Saturday looks like a recovery ride. Sunday was
the hardest race I’ve ever done. I attacked off the line just to get things
going, and that was it. There was this evil 30ish second hill every lap of the
one mile course and it hurt really really really badly. I’m usually not one
for physically gritting my teeth, but I came pretty close to grinding my teeth
down to some little nubs during that race. I did pretty much nothing the entire
42 laps except get stuck through my eye socket with an ice pick 42 times. It
was horrible. In the end I think I finished 8th again…and lost 42 years off
of my life. Well, maybe not 42 years, but at least 42 days.

Those were the
highest normalized power numbers I’ve ever had for a race of about 2 hours.
Hell, almost higher than anything I’ve ever done for 1 hour. At least I know
I wasn’t making it up in my head.

I was pretty wrecked
after that, no rest for the weary though – it was on to southern Ohio for the
Tour of Ohio which started Tuesday. I guess that’s today.

Jacob, Shawn, Jimmy,
and I did 2 hours pretty easy on Monday. I felt like all hell, but at least
I didn’t crack. This area of Ohio is pretty much the unflattest place I’ve run
into in a long while.

Today’s race was
6 laps of about a 9-mile circuit. There were two hills in it…the finishing
hill was steep and hard, but only about a minute long. We went up it really
really hard though, so a minute was enough. There was another hill out on the
course that was hard, and it was followed by a mean false flat, headwind section
which was unpleasant and which was where the winning break went.

We definitely missed
it. The team was flogged all day on the front, because we missed the breaks.
It was good hardwork though. Andy eventually got up the road and finished 8th.
Mark was in my group…Tim, Abe, and I drove it hard to try and keep time gaps
reasonable and maybe bring it back. That was a moderate success. The time gaps
weren’t too big. I think it was something like 15 seconds to Andy from the field,
and another 15 seconds to the winning break. Nothing too huge. Apparently tomorrow
is going to be a lot harder.

I rode really hard
the second half of the race. I blew up a couple of times, but held on, and went
back to work. I like it. I drove it into the finishing climb on the last lap
as hard as I could possibly go. It was fun in a not so fun kind of way. I hit
the climb and just about had to get off my bike. I was pretty happy I had a
27. The field was pretty tiny by that point – maybe 20 riders, with about 10
up the road total. I think about 60 started the day.

Anyways, bed time…

We have to leave
the house tomorrow at 645 to get to Hocking Hills for the race that starts at
1045 I think. The drive should take almost 2.5 hours. Should be tons of fun,
especially considering how well I wake up in the morning.

I guess it has
been a little bit since I wrote last. Last time I jotted something down, I won
a bike race. I followed that up with 111th and a time cut at Nature Valley.
That was fairly impressive. It was also the dumbest riding I’ve ever done in
my life. I rode myself out of that bike race. It was hard, and I was getting
crushed, but I was time cut because I pulled two absolutely moronic stunts in
one day…

1.) I was at the
back when we hit the full fury sent from Hell via crosswind about 20 minutes
into the stage. I had actually been trying to move up, but it wasn’t happening,
and the 160 rider field went single file and apparently Nathan O’Neill was doing
8 bajillion watts on the front. So of course I ended up in some group off the
back, but managed to get in a good, solid group that was going to the finish,
no problems, no time cut. We’re riding around, I’m not really paying attention
for some reason, and decide I want to go to the back, we make a turn and suddenly
we’ve got ourselves a cross tailwind and I’m last wheel and oh wait, what’s
this, 5 people just got tailed off at 8 bajillion miles an hour, so I of course
end up off the back of this group.

Good one. So that
was dumb mistake Number 1. Mildly humorous, but not really.

2.) Then, later
on down the road, I’m rockin and rollin with some dude and we’re making good
time keeping that big group in sight and we come up on my teammate, Mark Hekman.
I was so happy to see Mark, I could have hugged him. I didn’t. Mark was pretty
bummed and thought we were going to get time cut, I was looking for pretty much
any excuse to stop, so when he said that, we slowed down and rolled in.

Turns out the two
people I was with…yeah…they made the time cut.

Ouch.

I wish I could
learn lessons like these without actually having to experience the results of
my actions.

So that was it,
after two stages I was out, Hek too, and Shawn as well.

Oh yeah, I blew
sky high in the Stage 1 TT. I went for the huge ride and tried to do something
that I had never done before – shoot for the stars baby! I went out in 440 watts
and about 4:45 I think, came back for the next 2 minutes or so at 430, and then
about the 7 minute mark, completely lost it. I went the way of napalm in Vietnam.
BOOM! I had to quit pedalling for 30 seconds and when I did pedal again, I was
pretty much not moving. I had at least 30 seconds on the guy behind me at that
point (I know, I checked when I went kaboom), and this fool caught me in the
finishing straight. This all happened with about 1 mile to go.

Pacing strategy?
Yeah, seems that was a bit too high. Once again, learned that one the hard way,
but then again, that’s the first time I’ve ever actually aimed too high. I like
it.

SO…

Shawn and I said
peace out to Minnesota and drove the twelve hours back to Ohio to arrive just
in time for the Summer Solstice races. Well, we missed Friday night’s crit,
but we did manage to rock two road races and yes, another TT.

Road Race #1 –
I attacked bmx-style off the line and rode with one other dude for the next
2.5 hours over the most boring roads I’ve ever seen. It was horrendous. I felt
like hell that morning, thought I was sick, so I figured I’d just blow it out
of my system and ride really hard, so I did. Anyways, so that was fun. We got
caught with a lap and a half to go. I kept working on the front though, and
that was even more fun. I got a flat on the last lap and called it a day. Probably
a good thing, since people started falling down everywhere…

Time Trial – I
paced this one a little better. It was almost the exact same distance and time
as the Nature Valley one, but with that said, I didn’t quite go hard enough,
but whatever, good enough. Andy beat me by 30 seconds. He did like a 9:06. Andy
always beats me, will probably always beat me, but if I can keep him within
say 4 days, I’m not too unhappy. It was good. Shawn told me he’d kick my ass
if I caught him in the TT, so he of course sparked my interest in the matter,
and I caught him.

Haha. I hadn’t
even thought of the idea when we were on the line. I don’t catch people, people
catch ME. I’ve probably done 10 or so time trials in my ‘career’ (that’s a good
one) and I’m going to guess that I’ve been caught in probably 8 of those. Yeah,
impressive. Anyways, so Shawn laid the seed and that kept me fairly focused.
It was good stuff.

Road Race #2 –
I tried to do the whole bmx thing again, but that didn’t work out so well. I
rode at the front a whole bunch, rode hard on the hill, rode hard everywhere,
Paul Martin punked us, we rode really hard, rode really hard some more, and
then I dropped out, cuz I cramped all nice and pretty like. I did pretty well
this week…lemme think here: 111th, Time Cut, DNF, Don’t know for the TT, and
DNF. That’s a good follow-up to that big win.

With that said,
I’m pretty happy. The two d-nuff’s weren’t much of a big deal – Shawn and I
weren’t on GC because we missed the crit, so we had pretty much carte blanche
to work our asses off and hopefully do some good work. I guess it wasn’t so
much carte blanche as it was expected. Anyways, I’m happy. It feels so good
to ride so hard. I feel better about the two road races this weekend than I
do about my win two weeks ago. Funny.

This all got me
to thinking about the last couple of years, namely my time with Locos. That
was a good time, but I am really thankful that no one ever punched me in the
face.

Here’s why:

So I am by no means
a good bike racer…yet…I’d like to be someday and I’m going to keep chuggin
along working hard, learning the hard way, all that good stuff, but I am sort
of starting to figure out how to work hard, be aggressive, and race my bike,
at least at the regional level. Last year, the year before that, no comprehension.

I remember I’d
finish a race, Marc and Dan would be completely cooked and I’d roll up all fresh
because I hadn’t done one single thing in the entire race and never once rolled
into the top 30: wow, that race wasn’t too hard, eh? Pretty easy! How’d you
guys do?

Seriously, if someone
had said that to me after one of those races this weekend, I would have done
my best impression of a choke hold.

So yeah, I’m glad
that Marc and Dan and Phil and Micah didn’t ever beat me up, Reid too, he’s
had to put up with some quality crapola from me in races. They probably hated
me at times, made fun of me, and probably wished that I’d flat out and be gone,
but they were good to me as a whole, and patient, and I appreciate that a whole
bunch. That probably doesn’t mean much now, but it’s rather humorous that it
took me so long to even manage to comprehend the whole artistic rendering.

I hope I can start
to learn how to race in the big races now, and really start to race the regional
stuff. I don’t so much want to get big results as I want to race hard and just
ride myself into the ground. That has to be good, right? I figure after about
28 years I might learn some kind of strategical knowledge, but until then, if
I can keep myself riding hard and focused on staying at the front and racing,
I’ll get stronger and hopefully learn. That’s all I can hope for I guess.

Ok, so on Saturday
I raced my bike. Shawn, Jimmy Mac, and I headed down to somewhere in a southerly
direction to a race called the Tour of Malabar. It was a hard 10-mile loop with
a 4ish minute climb followed by a narsty section of rollers and then a nice
tailwind, flat section leading to the climb.

Anyways, holy crap,
I didn’t know it was humanly possible, but I won.

I won a bike race.

I’ve never won
a bike race, ever. Not as a Collegiate C, B, or A, not as a Cat 5, 4, 3, or
2. Nothing, never, nada.

After a lap or
so into the race, there was a break of six up the road with all three Abercrombies,
and right before the third time up the climb a Torelli guy attacked and got
a solid gap. Shawn told me to bridge up to him, but I didn’t want to, it didn’t
look smart. Then again, who am I to judge what smart is in a bike race. I tried
to bring it back up the climb and was doing well on that task when a horse trailer
stopped in the middle of the road, with its left blinker on. I figured I’d go
around it while it turned left. I went around the right side and the damn thing
decided to stop, and there wasn’t much room on the right. So I walked around
the trailer, caught back on, and was mildly bummed, because the guy’s gap was
going back up. I had to catch back on as we made a quick descent after the climb,
as I caught back on there was a lull in our group, and like the proverbial light
bulb flickering on, there was a moment of Eureka.

I used my little
extra momentum and attacked the hell out of the group and made it across to
the guy quickly and that was that. We rode the next 40k or so without incident.

I was freaking
out, I didn’t know what to do. If I had a cell phone in my pocket I probably
would have started calling people for advice. I felt damn good, but I had no
clue how the other guy was doing. He seemed fine. I tried not to act like I
was feeling excellent, that was hard. We went up the hill together the first
time pretty easy. I couldn’t decide whether to attack on the hill with 10 miles
to go or just keep it easy and ride to the finish and settle it the last time
up the hill. I opted to wait.

So we pulled through,
rolled along, and came up to the climb for the last time. At this point, I was
pretty much freaking out. Should I attack at the bottom? Wait for the top? I
figured I’d follow his wheel up the climb and see what his plan was, if he wanted
to sprint, I’d jump first, close my eyes and hope that all was well at the end.

He decided to wait
for the sprint. There was a little pitch before the hill levelled to the finish
line. I hit hard on the pitch, my wheel was bouncing all over the place, but
after probably 10 pedal strokes it was apparent that he was done and I was going
to win. I hit it hard a little bit more, sat up, and won a bike race.

That just makes
me about as happy as humanly possible thinking about it.

I finally got to
throw up that victory salute that I’ve been practicing since I started riding
bikes. Someone took a picture, I saw them, I couldn’t find them afterwards though.
I would pay money for that picture.

It was a very very
very nice feeling, and I wouldn’t mind experiencing that a few more times.

Shawn and Jimmy
helped me out a lot. The goal for the day was to get me a win, but I really
didn’t think it was possible. I just didn’t. I guess I should have a little
more confidence than that, but whatever, it is what it is. Jimmy and Shawn helped
me out big time, and I’m super grateful.

I won 40 bucks
for my first win. Ha.

There was a big
contingent of Abercrombies down in Kan-tuck, and Rich won there. That’s two
in one day. Cool stuff.

Alright, that was
probably the longest race report I’ve ever done, but hell, I won a bike race,
I figure that has to be worth an ad nauseam account.

I’m in Ohio now.
I’ve been up here in Macedonia since Tuesday. I randomly left Georgia on Monday
because I figured there was no reason for me not to leave any later than that,
and besides, there was a race on Tuesday, and I felt like racing my bike. I
meant to leave around noon on Monday, but as per the norm, I didn’t actually
leave the house until about 4. I’m usually about four hours late.

The drive to Chad’s
house was supposed to take around 10-12 hours, and after talking to Jacob, I
decided to cut the big drive up in two and spend the night in Spencer, West
by God Virginia. That was definitely a good choice. I made smokin time to get
there in 7:30, and was greeted with beer, a hat from Mexico, and salmon. Could
you ask for anything more?

I love Camp Fetty.

The next morning
I didn’t get going until late once again, but I got distracted watching Jacob’s
dad, Jeff, doing his ironworking thing. I think I could have pulled up a chair
and watched the whole day. It’s pretty cool to see.

So I finally got
on the road and headed back north towards Ohio. I forgot to mention that WV
has, um, very curvy roads. Some might take this as a reason to drive with caution,
I figured, like back in Colorado on the road up to my parents’ house – it was
my own personal race track. Yeahhh. That was some fun.

I got to Chad’s
just in time to go race…it was fun. I missed the break, so all was once again
right in the world. It was a good effort though. I felt like I was getting sick
though, so I made a serious attempt at big sleep for the next few days.

I failed miserably
the first day and woke up at 7 in the morning. Seriously. 7. I don’t think I’ve
ever, in my entire life (not counting before the age of 12 when I’d wake up
to watch cartoons) woken up at 7 without an alarm. Something was wrong…

Not really.

Anyhow, so life
is good at Casa Thompson in Macedonia, Ohio. Ohio is a nice place. It’s green,
lots of hills, and even better, for the last few days it has been pretty close
to…cold. Well, not cold, but certainly not hot. Chadwick is a busy man. I
think is cellular rings at least 70 times a day. I can’t bring myself to answer
my phone more than three times a day. I’m glad very few people call me.

Then again, I’m
not sure if anyone ever calls me, because my cellular randomly turns off every
five minutes. Whatever.

Enough for this
post, I’ve got a much, much better one to write in a second.

I’ve waited a good
little while between posts, but I figured I didn’t really have anything to whine
about, I mean talk about. Well, I had a lot to moan and whine about, but I really
am trying to lessen the whining. Trying…

Anyways, so yeah,
two race weekends…oy…

Savannah was alright.
It was hot and it was pretty hard. I almost rode a perfect crit, but I didn’t.
The crit was long for our fairly small 40-50 man field? It ended up at around
90 minutes, or more… I sat last wheel for the first 20 of 40 laps and then
moved up, and right as I moved up the race happened and I hopped on the wheel
that was going to the two-man break that was going to be the winning break.
I messed up though. I was on Keith Norris’ wheel of Aerospace and he flicked
me through to pull, but I was having none of it, I’d just about had both eyeballs
popped out trying to hold his wheel. This ended up causing him to attack me
relentlessly, and one time I swung off hoping that one of the other two would
chase him back, but no dice, and there went the race up the road, cuz I wouldn’t
pull through. Ouch.

The irony gets
better though, because then I’m way the hell off the front with two other riders
and I’m pretty much the only one pulling through at that point, and I pretty
much had a freak-out attack. Yeah…messing up hurts the ol CNS a whole bunch.
We rode around on the front for awhile and got swallowed up about 200 meters
from the prime I had my heart set on. Whatever. Then it started raining…people
fell down a lot…I finished one spot out of the money. OWWWWW.

That’s pretty funny
in retrospect…

The next day was
a TTT and a circuit race. The TTT was hard, I messed up badly, and that’s all
I have to say about that. The circuit race was cool…almost made it happen,
but didn’t, so all I’ve got is an almost. Almost is good right?

Hmmmmmm. Huge.

I did pretty well
in the field sprint…894th maybe?

The road race went
better…I followed an attack off the line and then rode really hard, kept going
really hard, then we were caught and Reid countered and boom, gone. At the end
of the first lap, Jed rode really hard and we caught Reid’s break and it pretty
much looked like a done deal – 15 riders off the front, 5 Aerospace… Life
was good, Aerospace would rule the day, but for once I made a break. Phewww.

Of course it didn’t
work out like that… We rode a long long time off the front, it was hot, I
gradually came apart and started cramping inside the final 40k, which is when
Aerospace and everyone else and their mother started attacking. I was dropped
at least five different times in 30 minutes. I couldn’t go really really hard,
just hard, because my legs were cramping so bad. It was cool though, because
I almost dropped out, but I didn’t, which ended up just prolonging the magic.

Loooong story short,
the field caught us inside 10k to go. Sweet. I was cooked. I rode hard though…that’s
good right? Averaged almost 270 watts for 3 hours… That was cool…too bad
it wasn’t nearly enough to be of any use in the race. Everyone seems so much
stronger than me. Maybe it’s because I’m trying to race now. It’s hard to find
out how strong people are from the back of the field, but when you get it shoved
down your throat, it becomes pretty apparent.

I rode a good little
while on Tuesday to cap off a hard little block and then took a mini-vacation.
This weekend’s races were in Atlanta, so that was cool, no real travelling.

Saturday didn’t
go so hot. I felt like I rode hard, but I also felt like I was suffering something
special. I ended up like 15th or something…Thad was 2nd, some UCL rider sat
on his wheel the whole time they were in the break and punked him at the finish.
Ouch. I’d be pretty happy about that.

Speaking of happy…I’m
starting to get a temper racing, and I need to make a little goal for myself
of being really really quiet and not saying anything, because everything I ever
feel like I say in a race is not, um, constructive. So yeah, at the moment,
I have two goals: make lots of breaks and zip it.

Sunday was good
I guess. I followed an attack 3 minutes into the race, and was off the front
for the rest of the race. The first break got pulled back by Thad, then I sort
of countered, then someone else drove it, then I drove it, and bam, just like
that, break GONE. I worked hard for that…5 minutes at 430 watts I think. I
paid for that effort the rest of the hour. I read somewhere that Tom Steels
knows he’s going well when he can do 500 for 5 minutes – what he considers the
numbers needed to make and establish a break. Yeah…about that.

After that, it
was a miserable experience. I died everytime up the little hill on the course.
John Allison absolutely killed it everytime up the damn hill. I felt like a
fat rec cyclist every single time up that hill. It was horrible. That little
20-30 second effort pretty much ruined my day. I tried to work as best I could
and held on tight up the hill. We had a fun sprint at the end after nearly coming
to a stop in the final 1k.

Yeah…sprinting…not
exactly my strong suit. I don’t think it’s exactly sprinting so much as how
clueless I am. I can count the number of times I’ve sprinted for a win, for
real, on probably one finger. So yeah…I was 6th out of 7. Ouch.

But hey, baby steps
right? I was 6th. That’s a lot better than what I have been doing, and I actually
made a break. It could have been better, but there’s a lot more racing to be
done, and I can do better than that at some point…I hope.

I didn’t know racing
was so hard. It always looked so simple watching from the back…