So I raced for
the first time this weekend in Greenville…my first road bikin race since the
middle of October…that was only four months ago. It feels like eons ago.

The first race
was at Donaldson Center – 8 laps of a seven mile, rolling course…I think it’s
seven miles…I don’t know though. We messed up and missed the important break
with John Murphy and Scottie Weiss. By the time we got organized to chase the
two had over two minutes on us. We chased for about the next hour and a quarter
and brought the gap down to 20 seconds or so, and then the attacks started and
our chase fell apart, but for that 1:15, it was really cool. I mean, it was
hard, I hurt really badly (especially around lap 4 when I thought I was about
done), but for once, I felt like I could race my bike. I guess I wasn’t racing,
just chasing, but I felt like I could work, be comfortable, and get the job
done. I didn’t feel like I was over my head, dying, or about to get dropped,
I just put my head down and tap, tap, tapped through for the chase. I felt strong,
I rode strong, and it felt good to see that working hard pays off at some point…it’s
gotta, otherwise I might as well go do something else.

Of course I made
a shit ton of mistakes on Saturday, so did our team, but we rode pretty alright
– Manulife helped with the chase a good bit too, Hamblen and Jacob mainly. That
was cool. I felt like I was working with friends, maybe that helped, I don’t
know. It was like we were all out there to ride hard and do it right, and it
motivated me to no end. I felt like I could kill myself 1000 times just cuz
of that.

We stayed up in
Brevard, NC that night – at Jamie Bennett’s parents’ unbelievable house in the
mountains. I’m really looking forward to getting over to Brevard for some bike
practice, but I can’t imagine getting back to the house after a hard day of
bikin – I don’t like recalling how steep the road is to get to their house.
It’s wild. Maybe I’ll take pictures of the road next time.

Jamila came up
for the weekend, and that was awesome – she was taking pictures with the new
camera, but that’s taking a bit to master…it’s a bad ass camera, just a lot
more manual functions, meaning that it takes time to get it right…she still
took some smokin pictures…

Sunday’s race was
cold and wet and rainy and windy. It was an hour and it was hard. Where I felt
strong the day before, I felt completely over my head and just nailed. I felt
like I was getting punched over and over again, and the accelerations and changes
of speed just beat the crap out of me. I thought I was going to get dropped
at one point. After the first few laps, we had the split and it was about 12
or 13 I think, with four TIME boys – me, Pat, David, and Chris.

Chris went up the
road with Thad Dulin and life seemed good, then we sort of messed up royally
and I started to die over and over again. I felt like I could follow most anything,
but I didn’t feel good doing it, and since that was bad, I figured I should
keep it up and attack and hopefully throw some punches myself, but all that
did was punch myself, and then get my doors blown off when someone came flying
by my crappy little attack.

Chris eventually
finished 3rd, old man Pat was 8th, I was 9th, and Mr. Duncan was 11th I think.
It’s pretty cool, because Erik flat out told us that Sunday was awful, terrible,
sorry, etc. If you had told me last year that I’d look at those results and
think that was crap, I’d laugh at you, I think my best finish at a Greenville
Training Series race was probably about 50th before yesterday. That’s why I’m
glad I’m racing for this team. To say that I have a lot to learn would be an
extreme understatement to the point of lying, so thankfully for me – this is
the place to learn.

The team was good,
everybody looks like they’re tough – Brandon and David are two tough sumbitches.
Chris knows how to race his bike for damn sure and Tiago ain’t too damn bad
either. Then there’s Erik and Pat. Erik isn’t even barely riding his bike, but
he gets seriously amped up to race his bike with us, and that’s pretty cool,
cuz Erik knows how to race bikes. Same with Pat, except Pat has got some bad
ass fitness, not to mention stories from the old days. You know he has to be
a good guy if he’s friends with David
Crowe. Nuff said.

Oh well…I’m pretty
tired today…it’s been a long four weeks of great practice and some of my best
rides ever on the bike, so this week will be easy – but after that it’s back
to hard pedallin and hopefully some better good news in the future.

I don’t want to
sound like a starry-eyed reject, but this is good stuff, what’s going on right
now. I’m fit with a long way to go sure, but most importantly I’ve got the teachers
to make myself useful both to myself and more importantly to the team – and
that makes me feel good and comfortable about what I’m doing and there’s just
such good support – and I mean that in the mental way mainly, but also infrastructure
(don’t get me starter). For some reason, that makes me feel like I can go fast…I’m
guessing that that’s important. And if I do something dumb or stupid or shitty
– I’ll be told, put in my place, and hopefully I learn. There’s no mincing of
words, no sugar coating – this is what happened, this is what you were supposed
to do – did you do it, or did you not? Easy as that – if you didn’t, you’ll
be informed, and it’s expected that that is improved upon next time. Maybe not
everybody needs this kind of help, but that sure as hell makes me seriously
motivated to do it right or learn to do it right. Jamie, Pat, Erik, and everybody
involved in the team (Jacob isn’t directly involved, but I would be remiss not
to mention him) want to see us succeed and everything they do is with that goal
in mind. That’s some faith right there, especially for someone like me who has
little to no results to show for myself, and that’s faith that I want to repay
back over and over again by being a damn good bike racer.

This is probably
the corniest sounding entry I’ve ever written, but I guess when you’re hopeful
and feeling good about things it’s hard not to sound dumb. Oh well, I guess
I just realized I probably always sound dumb.

Check out our site:
factorydevelopmentteam.com

We went to the
mountains yesterday and it rained the whole time. I got wet. I rode really really
hard up one of the climbs yesterday and got one of my higher average heart rates
in ages…and I wasn’t dehydrated…and it wasn’t 110 degrees outside…I think
that’s a good thing. I also went fast and the higher wattage was actually a
lot cooler than the heart rate, but I’m going to go with the hr being more intriguing,
cuz I’ve been practicing hard lately, and as of a rest day ago it was way, way
low. So either I’m sick (doubt it), or I’m actually recovering in nice fashion.
Or something like that. I don’t know why I felt it necessary to talk about that,
but I thought that averaging 192 for the last 10 minutes of my 20 minute effort
was interesting…My hands were icy by the time we got back to the car – it
took a two-hand effort to unlock my car and get it started.

I’m going back
to Winstawn tomorrow, which means I get to have my February Christmas, and that
makes me happy. We’re riding Michelin tires this year – and according to Jacob
and Hamblen, the ProGrips are the best tires on the planet. Since I’m such a
good bike driver, it should be pretty important for me this year. And by me
saying that I’m a good bike driver, I mean, I have a habit of driving my bike
like it’s some kind of tractor trailer with no steering.

In other news that’s
worth reading: the restaurant that I used to work at, The Basket Bakery, or
maybe it’s the Village Corner, is about to get busted on the news, or maybe
that happened last night. Turns out that instead of using veal for their schnitzel,
they use pork. Some disgruntled worker called it in to one of the local newsstations
and they were all over it.

That’s some funniness.

I get to race my
bike this weekend. I can’t wait. I wanna go fast.

I was provided
the opportunity to head back to Athens this week, so I’m not in North Carolina
anymore…I’m in Athens. My old teammate Shawn Adams came down to Athens for
the week, so Jacob got me to come down so we could have a sort of coaching conference
for FS Concepts. It’s good stuff.

Of course, coming
to Athens means lots of good things like eating at Locos, riding the WBL, riding
through campus, watching NASCAR, drinking fine GA water, and generally just
being home, or something like that. I guess that means I get to see Jamila too.

I got in some good
bike practice this week, and I feel pretty alright. I’ve finally been able to
string together some good weeks of hard practice, and I’m tired, but holding
on to healthy, and that’s been my big goal all winter: ride hard, stay healthy.
I did the WBL on Saturday and that was a good time. I rode hard, rode fairly
dumb, but I rode hard, and that’s what a winter group ride is all about, right?
I love the WBLs. I want to win one someday…

Next week the racin
starts, so I’m a little happy about that. I’m definitely ready for some racin.

My new Time VXR
bike is without a doubt the nicest bike I’ve ever ridden and will most likely
be the nicest bike that I’ll ever ride, so there’s that. We’re supposed to be
getting our new clothes this coming week too, so that’s super cool. I like getting
new stuff, it feels like some kind of bike dork Christmas, and since I’m a big
bike dork, it would all seem logical that this is probably a bigger deal than
Christmas.

Enough bike stuff
talk.

I’ll be down here
for a little while longer, and then it’s back up to the Winston.

I wrote that yesterday…it’s
today now…I mean, it’s Monday now…I’m at Jittery Joe’s doing PEZ stuff.
I thought I was going to like it that the Tour of California was out on the
left coast, but after being up till midnight last night editing pictures and
the article, I don’t know how jazzed I am about it. I mean, it’s cool that it
doesn’t get in the way of my bike practice, but that’s late for my new trying
to get to bed early tastes.

I’ll probably survive.

We might go to
the mountains tomorrow, or it’s going to rain, one of the two. Good thing that
the weather is perfect today and I’m tired. I’ve got that going for me.

I’m always a dumb
whiner on Mondays. Well, I’m always pretty dumb, and I’m a habitual whiner,
but Mondays really bring out the worst in me I think.

I’m done now.

bye.

Um yeah, so it’s
been a looong time between posts, but I guess that’s the way it is when I’m
responsible for writing.

I’m going to write
more now, and I don’t care if anyone reads it, but I want to post, cuz I like
going back two years later to see what my dumb ass had to say on February whatever,
2000 and whatever.

Anyways, I live
in Winston-Salem, North Carolina now, it’s pretty cool. The northlands are really
cool, there are mountains not too far away and the neighborhoods are posh as
hell, so it’s cool to roll through the neighborhoods. It’s kind of hard to get
out of town without mowing through lots of traffic and lights, but that’s why
the neighborhoods are key and that’s why I have to figure them out…in due
time.

I’ve been training
hard again and it feels good. I’m tired today. I rode today and took a 30-minute
nap, when Jamila woke me up and said it was 430, I freaked out and thought it
was 430 the next day and couldn’t believe that I had possibly slept for a whole
day. I mean, I can believe that, but I was so confused, I don’t know why, but
I was pretty incoherent.

Yesterday I rode
to Virginia with Mark Hekman. That was fun. The roads up that aways are so cool.
We rode on a super sweet road coming back, 66, and it was ridiculous in the
best of ways. I’m looking forward to my next ride to the far north.

I had originally
planned on heading up to VA this coming week to look at the Tour of Virginia
climbs and do some articles with Team Type 1 and some other stuff, but it’s
looking cold as all un-hell for the next week up there, so that idea has been
scratched, and instead, I think I’m headed down to Athens for most of the week
to get some special practice in. I like that idea.

I realized yesterday
that I don’t live in Athens anymore, and that pretty much bummed me the hell
out, but then Jacob asked if I wanted to come down for some practice and coaching
stuff and I was already packing my car in my mind figuring out how soon I could
get back home. Ha. Not to say that I don’t think the Winston is cool, but I’ve
got a hankering for Athens, GA, and after some thought, it seems that it’s the
second longest I’ve ever lived anywhere my whole life…I guess it makes sense
that it feels like home.

Other than that,
nothing too much going down. I’ve started learning Italiano. Jamila got me the
Rosetta Stone for, you guessed it, Italian, for an early birthday present, and
I’m learning, and it’s fun.

Chris Monteleone
is the only other teammate living in the team house right now. He’s cool, and
he made the best damn sweet potato casserole this mouth has ever been so privileged
to taste. Thanks Chris. I’ll be waking up in the middle of the night for a spoonful,
or a plateful, one of the two.

I’m tired. I’m
going to bed now. I’m back though, I’ll be writing at least once a week from
now on, and maybe even more. It’s time for me to get this back on track.