I was supposed to race today. It didn’t happen. It went a little something like this:

The racing over the weekend was 100km east in St. Johann. The races coincided with Masters Worlds in St. Johann. There was a crit Saturday evening and a road race bright and early on Sunday.

Originally, the team van was supposed to transport us to and from the race on Saturday and then back again on Sunday. Excellent. But then that didn’t happen, and there was no team hotel (and I don’t have 80+ euros for that), and for someone like me, that means train time.

So I took the train to St. Johann yesterday afternoon, raced (another story), and then caught the train back home around 930pm. Got back to Innsbruck at 10:30, worked till 1 on Vuelta and USPRO stuff, and then went to bed at 130 after getting my stuff ready to go for Sunday. I was supposed to get up at 330 to make sure to make the train at 430.

Yeah, I didn’t hear a thing from two different alarms. I woke up at 550 and there wasn’t much to be done at that point. I’m bummed. I can’t imagine my team is too terribly thrilled with me.

As for the race that I DID do…it was incredible. It pretty much put all of my crit experiences to shame. It was a 1k, 4 corner course, but after that, all semblance with traditional crits? None. Two corners were maybe 6 feet wide, and the bottom half of the course was through the town square on cobbles in front of tons of people – a fast, bumpy, sweeping 180 with gorgeous buildings all around. It was nothing less than awesome.

I don’t really need to explain the race I hope…100 starters, narrow course – within a lap we were strung out end to end and gaps were opening through the technical turns and you just had to be up front to have any hope. Of course I got a bad start, because I can’t for the life of me get a good start, and I started into my traditional desperate move to the front before it was all over.

I needed to get through about 40 guys I figure to get to the lead group and it just wasn’t happening. The only way I could really move up was around dropped riders and dropped groups. I’d catch back onto the tail end not through hard riding, but through really fast driving. It was fun. I felt confident in my driving, and even more confident in my Michelin Pro Grips labeled nicely with I heart Fetty. I think it might have been my best driving day ever. In the really tight turn, I had it so dialled down that I could make up about 50m on a group, not touch my brakes, and brush the fencing with my shoulder every time. It was awesome.

It still didn’t matter. My real chance to get back in the race was catching up to another dropped group, coming around that same turn, and running smack into a wreck. I didn’t fall down, but I was up on my front wheel and had to unclip. I went to the start finish…was somewhat unsure about the free lap rule here, got the go ahead to go…looked around and asked if we were on the same lap as the leaders, got the yes, and realized that the field was less than 30 seconds up the road…so I rode hard.

I had another guy with me. He took a hard pull, then I took a harder one, and then messed up badly. I gapped him off, got within touching distance of the rear of the field, then waited for him, because I felt bad for pulling through so hard, and figured we’d get on easily anyway with him there. Yeah, that backfired. He was ruined, and a points lap came up, and that once tantalizingly close gap ran away. He was dropped right after that, and then I was left chasing solo…it wasn’t happening.

I pulled out a little before halfway through. There were 25 left by my count.

I have no excuses…I know how these races go, and there are only two ways to do well in them: 1. get a good start and stay there, and 2. get caught behind a wreck or get a flat and hope for a good free lap. I got the second, but didn’t take advantage of it properly.

Ashley and I are heading to Heidelberg tonight to watch the Deutschland Tour go through Heidelberg tomorrow and do the big Radtreff Rhein Neckar in the morning, then hang out for the week, and then race over the weekend. Yeah!

Ashley and I went to Vienna, I got sick over the weekend so didn’t race, then we started some bike travel/training. We rode to Bratislava, then Komarno, then Budapest, and now we’re back in Austria. I’m feeling better, but still slow to get back to normal. I’m a bit frustrated about the biking aspect of the world, but perfectly, unbelievably happy about everything else. I had a great time being a bike tourist and still getting in some great training. It was incredible to see Slovakia and Hungary from the road on my bike…with forty pounds of pack on my back, mostly due to taking my computer with me to keep up with work. It really was cool though. Ashley was a great sport and is getting better on the bike everyday. At first glance it would seem that traveling with Ash might make effective training a bit tough, but she’s tough, and when it got a little rough, she’d just grab hold and I’d get some hard work in with her attached. It was really fun. We’d do 5k efforts for the most part – she’d hold on, I’d ride hard, and then when she let go, take a breather, and then when she was good, she’d sit on my wheel and I’d do some tempo and she’d go harder behind. I don’t know, I thought it was pretty cool to find a meeting point to make something like this possible.

More soon…I’m just finishing up my PEZ work for the day, and then I’m off for some training.

Journo World Championships are the middle of September, PEZ wants me there. I’d like to go, but that’s the biggest race of the year for my team…news on that to come.

Might go up to Scotland in October for the Tour of the Trossachs – PEZ’s Ed Hood said he could help me out with a bike and a place to stay – all I’d need to do would be to find a cheap ticket. That sounds pretty good to me…too bad I’m an awful time triallist.

Sorry for the lack of updates…

Ashley and I are catching a train to Vienna-ish in the morning…about six hours from now. We are going to visit my brother in Puchberg – a bit southwest of Vienna. Josef has been working on the Jagersberger’s farm for the summer and he’s about to head home to Colorado. It would be a shame to miss visiting him before he leaves.

Over the weekend, there’s another big bike race just south of Puchberg, so I’ll head down there for that. After THAT, it’s time for a little bike touring – heading to Bratislava, Slovakia and then on to Budapest, Hungary. I’ve never done the bike tour thing (neither has Ashley), so it’ll be a backpack with my laptop safely tucked inside (gotta keep up with my PEZ work). I’m excited. I’ve never been further east than eastern Austria.

I just uploaded a whole bunch of pictures to Flickr. You can find most of them in two sets: Two Day Hikes and Stubai. I might try and make another set for the catastrophe that the American students left behind in their dorm rooms when they left for America last week…ouch. Anyhow, check out some PICTURES.

I just got back from my second big race weekend here in Austria. It went better, but I’m chomping at the bit to do one of these races at 100%.

We did a crit in Rankweil on Saturday and the Tchibo Cup road race in Goetzis today. The crit went well enough. It was super fast – averaged about 48.5kph. I think that’s the fastest crit I’ve done this year. The course rolled really nicely and there weren’t any real tough turns, but still…that’s quick. The start/finish straight was slightly uphill and we raged up that one a few times at over 55kph. Ouch. It was fun doing a points race crit again. The race was 50 laps (lasted about 1:15 I think) and every 5 laps there was a points sprint (5,3,2,1), and between those point sprints there were usually primes.

90 starters.

I got the hang of it quickly and found some good lines to move up, so I tried to do my best to help out as much as possible and keep moving up from behind, tapping a teammate, and taking them on up to the front. That kept me busy for awhile. I raced on the front a bit, but found myself woefully slow in terms of going really fast, but whatever, it felt so good to be a part of the bike race and to move around the field with ease. I didn’t do anything special in the race, but it was a positive sign for sure.

The Top 15 raced again a little while after that – they did a miss and out on the same course. It was a really cool event – every lap the last rider was taken out of the race until there was only one left. The only problem is that the Volksbank rider Rene Weissinger attacked early and just about lapped the group, so there was no contest for the winner. Ha. The Volksbank team was impressive.

Today’s road race was hard, no doubt about it. The course was a lot like one of the Redlands road races – I’d say a cross between that circuit race we did in Stage 1 this year and the Sunset Loop. Sunset Loop because there was a big ol climb and the circuit because there was some open fast stuff after the climb.

Again, I was up for a big effort to show that I’m here to work hard, so I did everything I could to keep the main guys up front and in a good spot going into the big climb. I made it 9 of the 18 laps. Out of the 9 laps, I was first into the climb three of the times, top 5 another three, top 20 twice, and way too far back on one.

Each time up, I was completely spent by the time we hit the climb, so I went from first-ish, to last-ish in the span of a mile or so. I finally realized the brilliance of sag climbing. I could kill it into the base of the climb and do my best to recover up it as everyone passed me. I’d recover slightly over the top and then start passing people on the descent and then hit the sidewalk to take care of the rest.

On the first lap, the winning break went up the road and I tried to bridge to it. I didn’t get anywhere near it, but I did come across the start/finish line alone and heard my name for the first time. That was cool. I got a nice ride up the climb because I had a healthy gap, but I was hurting big time by the top.

So the climb…nice gradual big ring climb for the first almost kilometer, then a hard right into a road that was barely as wide as I am tall that was wicked, stupid, crazy steep for probably 200 meters, then a brief respite to another step of the climb, followed by another quick rest, leading to the next step, and then another step (or something like that). Christ it was a lot of uphill.

I’ve never been able to move around the field so easily as I did here this weekend though. It was so much fun. I’d always been afraid of everything I’ve heard about everything being available for moving up – sidewalks, curbs, roundabouts, whatever…but I started getting creative and looked beyond just the road I was racing on and suddenly so many avenues to the front opened up. Every lap I’d pick up 30 or so on the descent, another big chunk on a sidewalk, another big chunk taking the long way through a roundabout (still way faster because I avoided the major slowing through the narrow side), and then the last bit just pedaling hard to the front.

I was done after 9 laps though. I recovered a bit and then did another 2 hours to make it an ok day. I feel like I did the right thing in the race – I’m still not nearly fit enough to make it a hard 100 miles, but I can go really hard and be useful for 50, and also help myself in the process by actually racing and pushing myself far beyond my normal limits. It’s still frustrating to watch a race from the sidelines as I train on my own.

It shouldn’t be too long now before I really start to get myself in order…I’m ready. I’m hyper motivated to show that I’m not a sucky American. I want to prove myself as a hard worker and someone that’s here to race hard and not mess around. I hope I can prove that soon.

Hi again,

I thought I was settling down to a routine, and then Ashley came home and all that went out the window and things have been fun and hectic again. I love it.

I did the Hinterhorn Challenge last weekend. That was so much fun. The day before, I had ridden over to Schwaz – sidenote on Schwaz: Schwaz is 30km away, so my recovery rides have started to get really long – Adam in 29 Palms looking for cute baristas long – anyhow, so the guy that’s on my team and works there, he’s from the Czech Republic, Budweis I think, and I’m ashamed to say I can’t remember his name, hooked me up with his 13×29 rear wheel. Thank the heavens for 29s. I never thought in a million years that I’d need a gear that big…but I do. Oh god I do.

So Ashley and I rode our bikes over to Gnadenwald…we rode pretty relaxed and enjoyed the morning, got there with about 10 minutes to spare before the race, registered, handed over my 10 euros, and was riding up the 12% average slopes just a few minutes after that.

I had no idea what to expect in terms of what I could do. I had my SRM on, and my 29, so things were always going to be better. I went a lot lot better – to the tune of over 5 minutes over my first try. That was nice. I think was 12th or something in the Elite race, 22nd overall (maybe? Walter said that)…yeah, I was beaten by a whole bunch of non-registered racers…sue me, I’m big.

I was really comfortable for the first 20 minutes. I kept thinking I should go harder, but I’m fairly certain I paced it just about right, because the last bit I started to unravel. I had an awful thought around 500m to go that maybe I should stop. 250m to go still probably took a solid minute or so. That is an awful final kilometer.

Power alert! I averaged 345ish for 26 and some change minutes…that’s some good progress after a decently hard week of training. I figure I’ve got another 10%ish to go.

So that was last week.

This week has been a lot more chill. We have a big race weekend in Vorarlberg this weekend, so I couldn’t go out and do too much. It’s a tight spot in a way – I need to train, but I need to be at whatever 100% is right now for me whenever I race. It’s a bad spot to be in, but hopefully it’ll get better.

More later, just a little update from my second race…

k bye.