It’s official, my ticket is in my inbox: I’m headed to California on Tuesday, and Ashley will follow on Friday. I’ll be in Morgan Hill with Specialized for the first three days to take part in their BG Fit class. I’m not going to become a bike fitter myself, but I will write an article on it. I’m excited about that opportunity.

After that, the fun begins. Ashley gets in on Friday to LA. There, she’ll pick up the car that Maddie is so unbelievably graciously allowing us to use for our stay, and driving up to meet me in Morgan Hill.

From there, I’m not quite sure where we’re going just yet, but we’ll have a little over two weeks to do the second project: ride a ton of California’s best climbs. We’re going to take pictures, take notes, and write an article about our adventure at the conclusion of the trip.

After our two weeks of gallivanting around California, the real work will start: we’re going to work with ROAD Magazine and follow the Tour of California for the first six stages. THAT is going to be a pretty awesome opportunity.

Amongst all of that will be tons of day to day work from the Giro and normal stuff as well, so it’s going to be a fun, but still very work focused trip.

We’ve got some other irons in the fire as well, and they could result in the best stuff I’ve ever been a part of. Fingers crossed!

In the meantime, check out the Flickr page. Tons of new pictures.

www.flickr.com/smashred/sets

We had a rough go of it on Tuesday. It was just one of those crappy days where everything goes wrong, bad news comes pouring in, and by the end of it, you’re just sapped and reeling.

I thought that in this time of misery, I might be able to clear my head with some writing. What I found from that decision, was that was an entirely horrible idea. The two pieces I wrote were crappy, and even better – they had already been written earlier in the day on the site.

I got the painful email the next morning: Hi Jered, you’ve received the dubious honor of replicating not one, but TWO already completed articles.

I’m still grimacing when I think about that.

I guess it was a lesson that needed to be learned. I should stick to picture editing when my head needs clearing. Avoid public work in those moments.

The next post is going to be more fun, just you wait.

Seriously, we’re thinking hard about it. We’ll pull the trigger in the next few days, but if we do it, we’re going to do it big: two or three weeks, from San Francisco to Tahoe to LA and everywhere in between. I’m hugely excited and conversely scared at how to make it all work once we get there. With Ashley’s help, I’m sure we can make it work.

More soon, I’m so done with writing for today. I’ve rattled off eight articles in the past 24 hours, edited a couple of pieces, done some picture editing, and now, I’m spent.

It’s in the mid 70’s outside, I’ve got a new bike waiting for me – time for some bike riding.

I sent my former team, Ion/UnitedHealthcare a resignation note of sorts on Thursday and had planned to just do my own thing the rest of the year. I realized that my season isn’t going to be how I envisioned it, and I very much didn’t want to mislead them in any way, so I tapped out before there could be any issues. I’m disappointed to have to take that step, but I feel like it was the right thing to do. I love the guys at Ion. They’re such a great group of people, but the chances of me doing more than five more races with them this year are looking to be close to nil. That makes no sense at all, you know?

So, I’ll be returning all my stuff and hoping that they’ll still be nice to me. Maybe Andy will still be my friend. Haha.

And as that door closed, a new one opened with Herring Gas. I hadn’t planned on doing anything with any team after the Ion deal, but that option came about late and suddenly and appealed to me. It should be a fair fit for me for the rest of the year. I don’t think that I’ll be racing all that much, but when I do, it will almost certainly be in the Louisiana area – so when I race, why not race with Herring? They too are a great bunch of guys, they have a great time, and they race their bikes hard. I have to admit that I have a weakness for riding with positive, fun teams. I’m happy to move forward with Herring and hope that I can be of service to them this year.

Did that sound like a press release? I don’t mean for it to. I don’t want any of this to come off poorly on anyone, especially me. I love what they’re doing on Ion/UnitedHealthcare. I think it’s fantastic. If this were any other year, it would have been the perfect team for me, but I’ve ended up, whether I like it or not, becoming a resident of Louisiana. I think they were concerned about that on Ion early on, and apparently rightly so. I tried to convince them that, no, no, no I’ll be spending a ton of time in Athens! After about five of those 8 hour drives though, I came to the realization that that is not how I want to spend my year. I’ll be in Athens from time to time – sure, but not nearly enough to warrant them wasting anything on me. I feel like that’s what it would be – a waste. I still want to help in any way that I can with the team and hope that I can do so.

As for Herring – I guess this is what I had imagined would happen with Ion this year…except this is where I live now. I live in Louisiana. I’ll visit other places, and when people ask, I’ll say that I live in Louisiana. Whether I like to admit it or not, New Orleans is home…and I love it. I’m happy that Herring took me on, happy that they understand my situation, and happy to be of service to them for the rest of the season.

Yep, not a single one. The week in Belgium was a whirlwind tour at its finest, but it was probably the most important trip of my working ‘life’ at this point. I finally got a chance to break out of my little self-contained bubble and got a chance to meet a group of, I guess there’s no better word for it that: my peers. I got a chance to meet other journalists, editors, other people involved in the business. It was an amazing opportunity. The best part? It was loads of fun. The people at Specialized are a ’special’ group. They’re not just good at what they do, and that they are very, very good at – they’re incredible to just be around – always laughing and fun…whilst being one of the best teams in the bike business in terms of great products, continual innovation, and desire to make a flawless product. After a week with them in Kortrijk, I’m hooked on what they’re doing. I think it’s fantastic. I look forward to doing anything with Specialized in the future…same goes for Zipp.

I don’t want that to sound all sales-pitchy or anything, but I’m just calling it like mine eyes hath seen it. I was agape at what I saw, and always in the best way.

I’m back home now. It was a long, tough road to get back home, and a welcome moment to see Ashley again on Thursday. It was such a happy evening to be back home with my darling. It wasn’t long enough though – I was back on the road to go race the Mississippi Gran Prix by Friday afternoon.

More on that in a little while…

Back to EuroTrash!

To say that this has been a hectic last couple of days would be an evil understatement. I’ve been at it full-on since Sunday, and I’m still struggling valiantly to get my head above water before walking out the door tomorrow morning. I’m starting to actually get closer to completing the long, long to do list, but the final activity on the to do list will be my most difficult: packing. Packing for this trip will be quite the effort considering that the Belgian Spring is one of the more notorious on the planet: 40-50-60-70-80 – all possible. Sunny? Sure. Most likely it will be 50 and raining though, but either way, that makes for some serious packing woes. Oh well, cry me a river, right? I guess it could be a lot worse.

Speaking of worse, it’s 75 degrees in New Orleans today, and I haven’t set foot outside.

I think all of the basic details are set for the trip. Ashley was a superstar with this one: she called the bank to clear our cards for international use, set up a temporary international data plan, deposited a check for us, bought some adapters for our electronics, picked up some odds and ends at the store, AND took care of our wedding invitations in Baton Rouge today. The entire time that she was doing all that awesome productive stuff, I was either hunched or slouched at the table tap, tap, tapping away. At least she has something to show for her efforts. Thank you, Ashley. Really, thank you. You’re the best.

In other cool news – my Mom made me my first ever business cards. We got them in the mail today. That was such an awesome little present. I’m excited to hand them out to everyone that I see.

Ashley and I went shopping the past few nights for some more appropriate clothes for my burgeoning professional appearance. We bought some new pants, a belt, some shoes, some shirts, and suddenly, coupled with a fresh haircut and shave – well, I don’t look like a bum anymore. I feel pretty awesome in my new clothes. People aren’t lying when they say the right attire makes a difference…it makes a huge difference in the way that I look at MYSELF, I can’t imagine what it does when other people look at me. I think that’s pretty cool. I think it’s about time to graduate from sloppy.

Great photographer, Darrell Parks, also helped me out with this trip. Darrell sent me down a spare camera body, so that I can have two when it comes crunch time at Flanders on Sunday. That’s going to be such a huge help. Ashley also helped in the photographic department – she ordered me two new lenses that I’ve had my eye on for a long while. I think they’re really going to help me do the work that I’m dreaming about in my head.

The only thing I can hope for now is that the weather cooperates just a tiny little bit. It will be hard for me to take a lot of pictures on my bike if it’s pouring down rain everyday. Ah well, we’ll see, I’ll take it as it comes.

Ok, back to work, still not quite done.

Thanks to everyone that has helped make this trip happen. I really could not have done this without the help of my darling Ashley, my parents, Ashley’s parents, Tim Schamber at ROAD, and Nic Sims at Specialized. Thank you so much for your help and patience with me. Hopefully I can do something good enough to make all this effort worth it.

In three days’ time, I will be in the airport with Ashley waiting to get on the plane for Belgium. I can’t believe this is real. I really can’t.

Specialized is doing some testing on their new road tires in Belgium around the Spring Classics, and I’m going to represent ROAD Magazine.

With that said, I’ve got so, so much to do between now and when I leave on Thursday. I wrote gobs of words last night, but still only scratched the surface. I woke up early this morning and got EuroTrash posted at an early enough hour, so now it’s back to the real writing. I need to do three big articles today, take some product pictures from a clothing review and a review of CycleOps’ new Joule…and somewhere in there I need to get my haircut.

Biking went well last week – I did almost 15 hours! Ashley even rode 7 I think. Poor thing, she was so tired yesterday after a big four hour ride on the North Shore. I’m proud of all the biking she’s doing. She’s doing fantastic. It will be hard to get in real biking this week for me, but I’ll do my best after today. I think I’ll be sentenced to the desk today, but if I can get everything done, that will open up the possibilities for the next two days.

Oh! Ashley and I went shopping for some new clothes for me. I think everyone realized that I can’t go walking around looking like a bum forever. I’m excited.

Ashley just reminded me that I haven’t updated my site in a long time. I know. I’m sorry. This past week has been a wild one. I started with high hopes of a big week of training in Athens after the long drive on the 14th. It wasn’t to be. I got sick on Monday and spent Tuesday and Wednesday trying to hold it together enough to get the important work done – the Mountain Khakis press stuff, while desperately trying to get some good rest.

It actually went pretty well in the end. I got a couple of nights of good sleep, did a lot of great work with Mountain Khakis, and even managed a 6.5 hour ride with Adam on Thursday. I was pretty happy about that.

I spent Friday frantically trying to wrap everything up in Athens before hopping back in the car to get back to Monroe. Yikes.

I made it to Monroe without too much fuss, oh wait, that’s a lie… I managed to rake in two tickets at once about 20 minutes south of Athens. I don’t want to talk about it. It was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad circumstance. I hope that never happens to me again, and I hope no one else has to get a double whammy either. I try to avoid thinking about it as much as possible. The monetary penalty for my 30 seconds of semi-indiscretion will haunt me for a long while. Oh well.

Ashley’s Grandmother Rosedale celebrated her 90th birthday today in Monroe. It was a pretty special party to be a part of. She has amassed quite a lot of special people in her world over the past almost century. I think the next stop is 100 for her.

As for me, I’m happy to have made it to 27. That’s good, right?

I’ll try and get a solid update on my training tomorrow or the next. Sorry to have neglected it. Ashley and I are heading back to New Orleans Monday afternoon.

On the road back to Athens to get some coverage on the Mountain Khakis team camp. Looking for updates? Check out the Twitter feed that Jess just installed for me. Look to your right a couple inches. Yep, that’s it.

I had such a great last few days with Ashley and her family. Looking forward to heading over to Monroe next weekend.

3.5 hours into the drive, and I’m halfway there…been missing Ashley for 3.5 hours.

Two training files to take care of here. First up, Wednesday’s 4×15 minute tempo session. I was feeling pretty good about my 4×15s, then I just saw my teammate Andy Baker’s 90 minute straight tempo effort (350!), which pounded all of the following efforts. I guess it just puts things in the right perspective – there’s always going to be someone stronger, always, always, always. In this case, I’m happy about it. I hope Andy starts winning some big time bike races. I’m his #1 fan.

Anyhow, for Wednesday’s workout, Kenny Bellau joined me, and I was glad to have him along…as always. We headed over to the levee and got down to business. I didn’t do any Andy numbers, but I was still pretty happy with the improvement over the past two weeks of 4×15s.

SRM #1:
Duration: 15:01
Work: 300 kJ
TSS: 25.6 (intensity factor 1.011)
Norm Power: 334
VI: 1
Distance: 10.473 km
Min Max Avg
Power: 249 534 334 watts
Cadence: 74 112 91 rpm
Speed: 31.2 50.8 41.8 kph

SRM #2:
Duration: 15:02
Work: 304 kJ
TSS: 26.2 (intensity factor 1.022)
Norm Power: 337
VI: 1
Distance: 9.585 km
Min Max Avg
Power: 282 408 337 watts
Cadence: 68 101 89 rpm
Speed: 30.2 45.4 38.3 kph

SRM #3:
Duration: 15:03
Work: 312 kJ
TSS: 27.6 (intensity factor 1.049)
Norm Power: 346
VI: 1
Distance: 9.718 km
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 456 345 watts
Cadence: 66 94 87 rpm
Speed: 31.6 45.6 38.7 kph

SRM #4:
Duration: 15:02
Work: 321 kJ
TSS: 29.3 (intensity factor 1.082)
Norm Power: 357
VI: 1
Distance: 9.326 km
Min Max Avg
Power: 261 463 355 watts
Cadence: 73 97 88 rpm
Speed: 30.4 49.4 37.2 kph

To compare…

Week 1: 320-325
Week 2: 319-342
Week 3: 334-355

There’s no arguing with that. That’s just solid improvement. I love it.

Entire workout (233 watts):
Duration: 3:01:17 (3:15:15)
Work: 2535 kJ
TSS: 208.8 (intensity factor 0.831)
Norm Power: 274
VI: 1.18
Distance: 95.329 km
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 1118 233 watts
Cadence: 29 250 83 rpm
Speed: 0 50.8 31.6 kph

Today, I was down for a more steady, just get out on my bike and ride type effort. I got all of my work done early and went out for a good, long day. I started wicked early with Ashley at about 7am. We rode down to the levee to meet Vivian. We rode together for a solid 90 minutes and finished up down in the French Quarter where we met up with Kenny. As Kenny and I hopped on the ferry to head over to the West Bank, Ashley turned toward home and school. I had a great time riding with her. I can’t wait to do that a lot more!

Kenny and I had an awesome ride. We took four ferries, rode some awesome new roads, and very nearly found Nowhere. There are some pretty lonely roads not too far out of New Orleans. We’ll be back out there for some more exploring in the coming weeks. I’m excited.

Entire workout (189 watts):
Duration: 5:12:25 (6:31:40)
Work: 3538 kJ
TSS: 248.4 (intensity factor 0.691)
Norm Power: 228
VI: 1.21
Distance: 150.101 km
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 1150 189 watts
Heart Rate: 0 45 0 bpm
Cadence: 29 226 76 rpm
Speed: 0 56 28.8 kph
Temperature: 18 33 23.5 Celsius

This was a pretty atypical ride for me. Normally, I start hard, ride hard all the time, then crack somewhere around 4 hours in. This time, I started off easy with Ashley, rode a bunch of Zone 2/3 with Kenny, then finished strong on the way home. I felt great. I’m looking forward to getting in a lot more rides like this in the coming weeks. I need to spend some more time on my bike. I want to be able to stick those long breaks if the opportunity arises again in the future. Haha.

Friday, I’m taking it easy, then it’s the Giro on Saturday, followed by the long drive to Athens, and then the Mountain Khakis team ride on Sunday. I’m looking forward to it. I’d say things are looking up.