Author: kennettron

“Now maybe it’s just me, but college was very confusing times.” —Forrest Gump

These are some confusing times too.  While people are finally beginning to stand up for their right to party too, Thomas T. has had to re-think his world as well.  His partner in crime, the long-standing oak tree in the backyard, is no longer standing.  For years it’s been both the bait on the string and the box tipped up by a stick, happily trapping many-a squirrel for Thomas to bark at for hours on end.  My dad cut the tree down this summer, mainly, I think because he was bored.  Chain-saws cure boredom.  It’s a fact. Look up ‘cures for boredom’ in wikipedia’s discussion page. While the absence of the tree has opened the backyard up to the sky and sunlight, it’s closed Thomas’ dream of squirrels leaping into his gaping jaws from the branches above.  Of course there are plenty of other trees for thomas to tree squirrels in, but it just isn’t the same.

This was a special tree.  This was the tree that Thomas would run to and start barking at, no matter what, even if the squirrel ran the opposite direction.  If Thomas was sleeping in the garage and you were downstairs and make any loudish noise that might have sounded like a door opening, Thomas would sprint out of his dog door straight to the base of the tree and start barking at it, just assuming that there is a squirrel in it.  Thomas learned this ritual after months of conditioning.  I’d yell squirrel and open the backdoor for him to chase it.  99% of the time he failed.  But a couple times (meaning he’s chased 100’s of squirrels) he caught them.  And a few other times they even leapt into his mouth from the oak tree after hours of being treed.  The few times he’s caught squirrels from the tree have engraved themselves into his brain as being more succesful than reality, so even when he’d see the squirrel escape into the blackberry bushes he’d return to the empty oak tree and bark up at it for hours.

Now there’s no tree for him to bark at, but the empty void in the sky and the stump in the ground seem to occupy a large space in his mind.  He’s even made it his new spot to lie and chew on toys while he thinks about life.  He spends a lot of time sniffing around the area, searching for squirrels.

Speak of the devil.  Just now I spotted a squirrel approach the stump of the oak tree looking for a trunk to climb.  I yelled squirrel.  Thomas, who was in the garage, sprinted out and treed it in different tree.  Standing at the base of that tree, he’s facing the opposite direction barking towards the empty space that the old oak tree used to occupy.  Habits die hard.

But where one dream is cut down, another will take its place.  An hour ago Thomas spotted a low-flying great blue heron soaring right above the oak stump.  Thomas took off barking at it, trying to sing it down out of the sky like a squirrel from a tree.  This time the heron got away, but Thomas, you keep dreaming.  99% of those herons and squirrels will get away, but it’s that 1% you’re after.  That greedy 1% that eats too many fish, hoards too many nuts in its mouth, thinks it’s above the laws of physics, and plops out of the sky right into your mouth.

The good old days.

Some people, beknowest to me as numskulls, call the entire fall/winter the off-season.  I don’t know why they call it that.  It implies that we don’t do anything bike-related during this time.  Of course this isn’t the case since November through February is really the only time for unencumbered  training without all those pesky races getting in the way of things.  I, for one, like to call the off-season that brief time between the last race of the year and when real trainings start again.  Last year I believe my off-season was on a Tuesday.

No but seriously, last year in mid September I spent two weeks backpacking and running and then began training on October 1st, clocking a 20 hour week or two before November saw its first flakes of snow.  Too soon, just like jokes about

This year I’m treating the off-season a bit differently.  For one, I’m tireder than last year.  For two, I hate it when I start making a numbered list mid-paragraph so I’m going to end it after this sentence.  After a telephone conversation with my wise coach Sam Jansen, I was convinced to treat the rest of October as a time to re-charge, learn a new skill, and keep my mind away from training and racing so my tank is full for 2012.

I don’t have batteries to re-charge and I’m growing tired of metaphors, especially overused ones, so re-charging and re-fueling the tank has been a fail so far.  I am, however, feeling pretty fresh already.  Despite not doing any training or riding, I felt amazing the other day while commuting, better than I have for a month or more.   I was riding in street clothes heading down Highway 99 from King City after buying a #2 attachment for a set of hair clippers, when a roadie caught me at a red light (I’d dropped the clipper attachment out of my pocket and had to circle around back for it, which is the only reason he caught me in the first place).  Anyways, he thought he’d try to pass me when the light turned green.  That didn’t happen of course.  Instead he ended up sitting on my wheel for a little under a minute until I SMASHED him to pieces and dropped him.  The fool!  My ego intact, I rode home and gave myself a haircut.

That was last week and I’ve successfully resisted going out and riding, even though the weather has been fantastic.

My new pass-times include going on short runs, dancing, eating, reading, and playing the piano.  I’m only good at one of those things.  I’ve also been doing some kayaking and plan on climbing Mt. Washington this weekend, but overall I’ve been very good and haven’t done anything taxing.  I’d like to end all my posts with a joke from now on.  So here’s one:  What do you call a donkey with a sore throat?  A little horse.

And now for what you’ve all been waiting for….my grand performance on the piano.  Vimeo link here.

It’s working now.

Most of the photos are mine, but the good photos are from these people:

Lyne Lamoureux Podiuminsight
Chris Wingfield Winger Studios
Pat Malach Oregon Cycling Action

Thanks. Here’s the Vimeo slideshow link. It’s 20 minutes long.  Enjoy.

http://vimeo.com/30516098

October 9th. It’s 12:07 AM here in Zingem, Belgium. I’m in bed right now with eyes stinging red in fatigue, holding off sleep for my final thoughts to be typed out before I forget them by morning. I raced the final race of the season today with a decent result, coming in 11th. It was the same course in the town of Hooglede that I did a week ago, though today was infinitely harder due to the weather. It was cold, windy, dark, and with five laps to go the clouds opened up and rain turned the dirt on the road to a slick film of road icing.

Justin, Jake and I headed out to one last race in the red team car, putting along 10 km/hr under the speed limit because we’ve had four camera speeding tickets in the past couple months. Jake had good enough legs today to attack a lot and put the hurt on, but missed out in the finish. Justin held on for a lap or two. Here’s how I did:

I started out at the front and lasted there for a good lap and a half before retreating back to the depths of the bulge, somewhat sheltered from the wind, while fearfully avoiding covering any of the splits. I had no killer end-of-season form today. None at all. Just the opposite. I’m completely, thoroughly, 100% cracked. After the race on the 4th in Sint-Lievens I took two full days off the bike with one easy ride yesterday to open back up for today. And yet I was still blown by the second lap today. With 20 laps remaining I promised myself that as long as I raced all out today and fully depleted the fumes in the tank I’d reward myself with NOT racing three days later on the 11th, which is the very last race of the year in Belgium. So I set about making sure I’d make it to the end, which meant conserving and moving up when things got dangerous.

I survived. I never let the wheel go but half a dozen times when the guy in front of me did I wouldn’t have had the will or strength to close it down had he or someone from behind not done it. There was a considerable amount of time spent seated, head down, staring at the tiny gap of pavement between my wheel and the wheel in front of me, stomping as hard as possible, twenty guys back, with the only thought in my mind being, “WHY is the guy in front of me so damn short!!!!” It was one of those races where you pray to whoever’s listening that if you could just finish the race on this lap in the position that everyone’s currently in, you’d be very grateful (and you’re only mid pack).

With seven or eight laps to go the peloton was down to 40-50 guys and the pace seemed to let up temporarily–the reason being that the two guys were up the road were slowly getting out of sight on some of the straight-aways. I moved up and began following attacks. With five laps to go, like I said before, it began raining. Almost immediately, on the same corner that I crashed in last week, someone’s wheel slid out and he hit the pavement. I shot through the gap (slowly), following and bridging up to the front split on the hill over the next few kilometers. We had maybe eight guys and a good gap to whoever was left behind. The field was in complete disarray at this point with groups of five and ten (judging by how we were eventually bridged to). I thought we were good to go but our cooperation stagnated and we ended up just letting everyone regroup a lap later (I don’t think it was out of kindness though, just cracked legs and even more severely cracked heads). Once we were caught I went straight off the front and pulled away by myself for the next kilometer just in case either someone crashed in the dangerous corner again or the field just took it super slow and the field sat up like it did when the two guys up the road had got away. Not the case. I got caught but felt good enough to spend the next three laps attacking and following moves, though I was pretty far-gone at that point and never had much to offer once I got up the road with whomever.

We were sprinting for third place (though I thought it was for 2nd) and I came into the final three-corner uphill 800-meter drag a tad bit too far back. It would have been the perfect spot had the pack been larger and people’s legs been fresher, but that was not the case. Someone about ten spots in front of me let the wheel go with 400 meters and four or five guys rode away with a big gap. I came around the couple guys who’d blown up with 200 meters to go and died very shortly afterwards with 100 meters left to the line. I had to end the sprint seated. Luckily everyone else was equally screwed as me and I held off the surge from behind to earn some good Colruyt cash for 11th place, though I don’t have much desire to go to Colruyt anymore. We completely overdid the samples the past couple days.

And so ends the 2011 season. I’ve been sick since the beginning of September, which wasn’t hard enough on me apparently because just recently the bike gods decided to give me nonstop diarrhea–for the past five days. My body is dying and it needs a full horse-trough of salad and fruit to halt the self-destruct count down sequence. I head back to Oregon on the 11th. It’s going to be weird not being here in Belgium racing my brains out every couple days, while in between riding to Colruyt for free samples and stopping off to feed the cows grass along the way.

From left to right: Justin, me, Michael, Jake. In reality we’re all cracked. It’s been a trip of a lifetime with hopefully more to come.

I’ve heard that when you do cocaine there’s a momentary feeling of bliss that’s immediately followed by an overpowering craving to do it again—like immediately. Sometimes bike racing is like this. Today was not. Today was more like coming off a meth high–cold, sick, and broken, promising yourself that you’ll never do it again, though in reality you know you’ll need a fix by tomorrow.

The “extremely hard course” today was once again altered because of road construction—just like the last race was. Both today and the last race were supposed to have some ultra steep walls in them but they ended up being pretty blah. Today’s race in Sint-Lievens-Houtem had a small, low-grade tailwind hill, followed by a gradual descent with crosswind. It was hard, but not hard enough to permanently split things up. The weakest riders were dropped well before the 16 laps were up but the peloton was still bursting with packfill coming into the final kilometer.

I raced aggressively right from the first lap, hoping to get away in an early break. I had a hunch the early move would stick today and I was right. I didn’t end up being in it though. 10 guys broke free on lap four, with my teammate Jake making it in there.

After a few laps of them being away I began attacking again, though I was certain that the winning move had gone. The pack kept splitting up on the climb and crosswind section but always seemed to come back together in the headwind. I fought hard to be in the front splits, hoping one of them would stick.

Early on in the race I found out that something in my water bottle from the other day had gone sour. Unwisely, I decided to save it for the last couple laps in case I HAD to have water—in which case the rotten whey protein or whatever was in there wouldn’t have time to make me ill before the race ended. This idea backfired. Number one: because the first couple gulps I took on the first lap were potent enough, and number two: because I began drinking out of it again half way through the race.

With four laps to go we caught the break. Jake was thoroughly disappointed since this was his last race of the year and it seemed destined to be the winning move–a top10 guaranteed. I’ve had this happen to me half a dozen times out here so I knew how he felt.

You can’t be in all the attacks so I decided to stay off the front for the next lap after they were caught. I put all my chips in the gamble that the second counter move would be the one that would stay away. Everyone thinks that when the break is brought back the next true move that sticks (the first counter attack) is the one to be in. In reality it’s the second counter attack that works. Usually. Sometimes. Maybe. I don’t know actually. Not today at least. I was wrong and the winning move formed on the third to last lap and we could never close down the 30-second gap.

To piss me off even more, I had to slam my breaks on in the sprint with about 400 meters to go and I lost out on even a top 30 and making 10 euros for my Colruyt day. It was a hard race but only because I made it hard for myself. If the course had only been the regular course with the giant wall and been hard for everyone…arghhh!!

After the race was over I crashed hard on the sidewalk about 20 feet from our car, right in front of a huge crowd of people. My front wheel slid out when I didn’t hop the curb correctly and I went straight down on my right side again, landing exactly like I did when I crashed a few days ago. I reopened all my wounds and got another bout of whiplash as my head smacked the pavement again. I was not pleased and made it apparent to everyone within screaming distance.

I sat in the back hatch of the car with Jake as we both stared off into space, wondering, as usual, what had gone wrong. My stomach gurgled loudly in anguish and for the first time all year, I couldn’t eat after the race. OK, I ate, but not very much. And I threw it all up in the toilet when we got home. As I sat there I thought of all the shit things—not winning or getting a good result, bleeding all over my favorite V-neck, upset stomach and the chills, an even sorer neck and hip than when I woke up, headache, coughing, incredibly backed up sinuses with mucus practically coming out my ears, and a bruised ego from crashing on the sidewalk after the race. I burst out laughing at this last one. If you can’t laugh at yourself it means someone else gets to. I got to race my bike hard in Belgium and make a lot of people suffer. It was a good day. Nothing serious to complain about, though I can tell I’m getting pretty cracked. Just a few more races and I’ll be very ready for the off-season. But as long as the legs are willing there’s no way my mind won’t follow.

Oh and by the way, if you think you’ve lived in a shit hole apartment, guess again. Along with our legs and heads, the end of the season seems to have cracked our apartment too because the hot water heater is flooding the kitchen, the sink has been clogged for the past two weeks, the TV just broke, the coffee machine broke (and after trying to fix it we fried the circuits in the apartment and had a power outage for a day), the coffee table broke, the left side of the couch broke even more than it already was, the mold in the shower is growing thicker, and the crazy Greek (Michael) has taken a turn for the worse and is going completely nuts. Yesterday he finished building up a single speed bike in his room and demonstrated it for us in the living room. Right when he sat on it the back wheel fell off and he almost fell on the ground. He hadn’t tightened the wheel bolts down because he didn’t want to scratch the aluminum dropouts. His conclusion: the frame was sabotaged. We argued with him about it for the entire evening, trying to explain how to solve the problem. We did not succeed. Today he was three hours late for his job interview and when he got there the guy basically told him to screw off. Michael’s conclusion: “The guy wasn’t decent and he had it out for me from the beginning. I can’t work with someone like that! If he can’t handle me being three or four hours late every day then I can’t work with him. He’s a jerk and he’s just not respectable. I don’t want to get a job anymore anyways. I just want to build my bike, have a soft bed, and have money for chocolate.” You can never get through to a crazy person even if you genuinely try, which makes the arguing that much more fun because you can say anything you want to, including rapidly changing the subject to throw him off. Today I got Michael on the subject of the Big Bang and the mind-numbing question of how there were any particles to cause the big bang in the first place. He knew a surprising amount on the subject.

Getting my leg all swoll without even hitting the gym.

Our new TV has three count them THREE channels that play Jim–Belgium’s finest music TV station. Doesn’t get much better than this.

It’s summer here finally. Elsewhere in the northern hemisphere, signs of winter are approaching. However, rain and cold temperatures are not on the schedule here in Belgium. After 11 ½ months of depressing, dreary clouds and suicide-inducing rainstorms, Belgium is being treated to two weeks of warm sunshine while the cornfields slowly bronze and the trees piss themselves yellow in fear of the coming darkness.

Like summer, my cold is still lingering. I believe it will linger for the rest of my life. I’ve accepted this unfortunate fact and have decided to just get on with it. I raced on Thursday in the city of Tielt. The course was a bit boring, with a lack of hills and a straight section of road that was longer than 1 kilometer (someone forgot to tell the people of Tielt that kermesses should have no less than six corners per kilometer).

I was able to attack a bit and ride near the front of the 130-man field, though I wasn’t at my best. I botched the final bunch sprint, which was the first bunch sprint I’ve seen in a kermesse, and I ended up 41st. I didn’t have anything left in me at that point though so I was satisfied with just being somewhat well enough to race. On the way home I decided to stop for a hitchhiker and pay back humanity for the the dozens of times I’ve been picked up. We delivered her to her door at her parents’ house, ending her 6-month backpack trip around Europe. We expected good karma to follow for our next race.

Jake and I took an easy ride/Colruyt day on Friday. On Colruyt’s menu: coffee, cake bread, scalloped potatoes in a ham and cheese sauce, pork, dark chocolate, milk chocolate, pea soup, grapes, oranges, and Bella cheese circles. Jake and I spent an hour and a half making the rounds before we went to the bike shop and picked up a new bottom bracket for the Flanders team bike I’ve been using over here. Despite my excitement for using something as a lugged carbon frame, I miss my Blue.

Saturday’s race took place in Hooglede. The hot weather brought somewhere between 160 and 180 riders to the race, as well as EVERY attractive girl in the country. Jake thought he might just spectate and make small talk with the ladies instead of doing the race, but then he remembered he’s afraid to talk to girls and decided to race instead. The communication that goes on between bike racers during a race is much simpler anyways. There are really only a handful of subjects we discuss, most of which requiring only minimal body language and hand signals.

1) This hurts
2) Take your pull
3) I’m cracked
4) Move out of the way
5) Fuck you
6) Sorry

So it’s not all that different than a conversation during sex. My apologies, I shouldn’t be making jokes on a sad day like this. As everyone is certainly well aware of, today bore witness to the deaths of 1,200 innocent Americans in a horrific attack by yet another terrorist group. Just when the world thought it could breath a sigh of relief now that Osama is gone, another terrorist organization seems to have taken his place. Philip Morris has released video footage triumphantly taking credit for the 1,200 American lives lost to emphysema, coronary disease, lung, mouth, throat and various other types of cancer. Nations across the globe are voicing their condolences while concerned Americans are already asking the tough questions. Could this have been avoided? Is more airport security needed? And, most importantly, in what country do we start dropping the bombs?

Back to the race in Hooglede:

For the fifth time this season, I crashed. I came away from it with nothing but a bit of road rash, despite landing hard on my right shoulder again. The good news is that my collarbone must be fully healed by now to take that sort of blow (my good karma I guess?). The bad news is that I’d been feeling somewhat strong again and I had just helped form a split of 20 riders during the hard section of the course. I was seven riders from the front when we entered a sharp right-hander that had been picking off riders all day. I took the same line at the exact same speed as the guy in front of me. I must have narrowly hit an extra thick patch of dirt (the roads are pretty dirty around farm fields these days due to the harvest). I went down hard, cracked yet another helmet, rolled off the side of the road, pulled my bike with me, and barely missed taking down the rest of the guys behind. I spent too much time getting my bike sorted out and didn’t get back on until the single-file pack had just passed me. I chased hard and almost made it to the tail end a kilometer later. Too late though, the false flat hill was over by then and it was the flat tailwind section for the next kilometer. No way I could have caught on at that point. The follow car and ambulance passed me. I changed, showered, and got a very minimal amount of help from the medic in the sports center.

Jake had been right behind me when I crashed, and later he told me that everyone in our group sat up when I went down. I never would have guessed they’d do this and it’s a nice sign of respect. They were caught by the pack shortly afterwards, the early break was eventually caught, and the entire field came into the last lap together. I watched the finish from the sidelines. The 90-man pack was torn to shreds after the final time up the “hill” during the 1K tailwind finish. Some guy had a small gap with 500 meters to go and won by a second or two. He must have picked up multiple hitchhikers after his last race.

The mustache in full healing effect:

After a bike crash there’s nothing better to wake up to than a chocolate bar mysteriously placed at your doorstep.

It’s not really the flu, but that made a better title.

It’s been a long recovery process but I’m finally, sort of, nearly, almost but not quite over my cold. It’ll be another couple days before I race. I’m not taking any chances this time. Up until this bout of sickness I’d been pretty healthy this year, only getting sick twice—once in March before San Dimas/Redlands and once in July during Cascade. Great times to get sick, I know. Judging by my training journal, those other two times were due to coincidence. This time was definitely my fault. Racing three times a week without a rest week every fourth week was too much and I ruined my chances at Univest because of it. Sam warned me about this but I didn’t listen closely enough.

The first thing I did when I realized I needed to get healthy FAST was to start growing a mustache. It’s coming along pretty well, though it’s been a week now and the progress has seemed to stagnate in the past few days. I’ll report back in another week.

Aside than the mustache, I started some heavy cough meds after I touched down here in Belgium, which seem to have helped–the most potent one being a eucalyptus slash codeine syrup. Codeine lives in the same narcotic family as morphine and has been giving me some pretty good dreams the past week. 12 hours a night of ‘em. Just solid dreaming the entire time. Dreaming of bike races, being late to bike races, dreaming of not being able to fall asleep, dreaming of eating desert foods, dreaming of waking up to check the clock in the living room to see if I’ve slept long enough, dreaming of much stranger things that I can’t put into words. OK, I’ll try: aeovcmwk ao ekdk lalsdl lsdn ioeqp snnvba slieh. See, couldn’t put them into words.

My brain is so tired from dreaming all night it needs the majority of the day to recover, so I let it watch Belgian TV, which is basically the crappiest American TV shows. Maybe my brain isn’t tired from overuse; maybe it’s just out of shape. It’s been a while since I read a book. The Deschutes public libary (yeah that’s how you spell that word) has been hounding me with emails politely asking me to return my overdue books. It’s been more than two months now since I was supposed to drop them off. I think I must owe like 21 cents by now.

Sleep by the numbers:

Tuesday (7 hour nap during the day+12 at night)=19 hours
Wednesday 12 hours
Thursday 11 hours
Friday 13 hours
Saturday 12 hours
Sunday 11 hours

That 13-hour night is a PR by the way. I don’t think I’ve slept that long in one sitting since I was a toddler.

I don’t have mono because I don’t feel especially tired during the day. I know I don’t have it because I choose denial over the truth every time. Except in the second half of that sentence.

Big news here in Oudenaarde. 1) The Ronde de Vlanderen (Tour of Flanders) is finishing in Oudenaarde next year, 2) Colruyt is being cheap again and is putting out crappy muffins instead of cookies or waffles, and 3) the TRACTOR PARADE HAS COME TO TOWN!!!!

Behold the tractors of Oudenaarde!!!!

Behold the people watching the tractors pass by on the highway on their way to the tractor festival, not actually there at the festival yet—just people setting up lawn chairs on the side of the highway to get a glimpse of an every day tractor that they see all the time here anyways since there’s farmer’s fields everywhere and there’s really no reason to have a special tractor festival or to go watch them especially on the side of the highway for three hours straight unless they’re throwing out candy, which they aren’t despite my shouting out the window for them to do so.

Behold me watching the people watching the tractors because I don’t have anything better to do either. I don’t actually have a picture of this because then I’d have to continue with the ‘beholds’ and take a picture of me taking a picture, which would require two cameras and I only have one.

This blog post has been the culmination of six day’s worth of thoughts and events. I started writing it on Wednesday.

This past week has been non-stop action. Waaaay too much travel, hard racing, sleeping in a different bed almost every other night, large groups of people in which I had conversations with non bike racers…it’s been stressful. I’m back in the comfort of Belgium now, preparing for three more weeks of kermess racing to cap off the season, you know—just in case I’m not fully depleted yet.

I’m still sick. Even worse than when I left. I’m having big regrets about racing the Sunday before last at that Rochefort interclub. If only I’d rested instead…things would have gone much differently this week. Or the same. Or just slightly differently. Or medium differently. One of the four.

Each time I’ve been on a plane the past two months I’ve been one of those people everyone loves to hate: a sick person-—hacking, wheezing, constantly blowing my nose, asking the person next to me if they’re “going to finish that.” I avoided the awkwardness of begging for leftovers this last flight by waiting for the woman next to me to fall asleep before I snuck the untouched bun from her tray. Sneaky sneaky!

The only good thing about being sick while traveling is that I wasn’t worried about getting sick. My usual paranoia was replaced with such carefree relaxation that it almost made up for being sick. This time I’m doing things right and recovery fully before I start up again. I think it will just be a short while too, because the nice woman at the pharmacy gave me a bottle of codeine. In fact, I’m pretty sure one dose of it cured me. Race tomorrow?? Nah, JK.

I already talked about the road race, so here’s a quick power-less point presentation of the Univest crit:

Point A) It was hard.
Point B) I was in a short breakaway, after which the race seemed even harder.
Point C) Gabe attacked a lot.
Point E) 90 minutes in, Cody told me he was deep in the box. At the time I was in too much pain to think of a sexual innuendo.
Point F) Ian got 4th!!!!!!!!
Point G) We ate Chipotle afterwards in celebration, bringing to an end the longest span of my life without Mexican food.
Point H) There is no point D.

Although I didn’t get the results I wanted, I can’t complain about the weekend; it was one of my favorites of the year. The race was awesome (there needs to be more hard one day circuits like this in the US), our hosts were amazing, it was a breath of fresh air to meet some new people who weren’t English, and it was great seeing my teammates one last time before the winter.

Here’s some pictures, none of which are of the race. For those, just imagine a bunch of bikes with people on them sweating.

Every bus in New Jersey is a short bus.

Post race party at the Mayor’s house on Saturday night. “Oh my God look at all these people. What do we do!!”

Answer: Retreat to a dark corner amongst ourselves, leaving only to get more food. And speaking of food:

The next night after the crit we were forced to eat even more good food. Philly cheese-steaks, Italian sausages, and grilled vegetables.

Philly cheese-steak/Italian sausage combo. Had to be done.

Chris had never tried putting a sausage in a taco before. He said it was good.

Desert time! Kennett want ice cream!!!! NOW!!

Wish granted.

It was a great weekend and I’m missing Pennsylvania already, though I don’t quite understand the name. I didn’t see one veiny pencil the entire trip! HAHAHA. You’re welcome for that.

And now….well, I’m back to this:

A quick trip to paradise and it’s back to living the dream in a dirty Belgian apartment. It’s cold, damp, and it almost feels like home. Uh oh. I’m upstairs typing on the computer in the windowsill and just saw Evgeney hit a parked car. And the owner saw it happen. Time for drama.

I’ve traveled back to the States for one last race with Hagens Berman for the 2011 season. I had high hopes for today–a hilly circuit race in Souderton, Pensylvania (just north of Philly). It was a course suited to my strengths and reminiscent of a kermess/interclub. The final UCI and NRC race of the year, Univest Grand Prix has been on my mind for quite a while. Spoiler alert: I didn’t win!

Here’s Cyclingnews’ take on the race.

It was a long voyage to get here, spanning two full days of, trains, flying, shuttle buses, and driving, but I made it safe and sound to the warm, muggy East Coast in high spirits and ready to crush some fellow American legs. I hate to start this next sentence with this word I’ve chosen, but I have to do it. Unfortunately, for what ever reason, I did not have it in me to pull out a good result today. My best guess as to why that is, is that I’m still fighting a cold. I hate to use an excuse like that and I was really hoping I’d be able to write a positive race report for once, but…whatever. The race gods decided to keep me down today. Surely they’re saving up my big victory for something soon though. The race is done and over with and there’s nothing to do now but continue looking towards the future. Positivity is my middle name!

I felt OK in the race until half way through when I began lagging a bit. My legs just didn’t want to turn over like they were supposed to and no matter how much I willed them to do so, they didn’t have it in the end. The pack had been whittled down to 40 riders or less with half a lap to go, while three guys made a late race attack to steal the podium. I struggled up the final climb and pretty much just coasted through the finish line since there was no where to go in the final 300 meters of downhill before the short, 100 meter riser to the finish line. My positioning and race tactics were not a problem today whatsoever. If anything, I was too attentive for the first 3/4ths of the race and spent too much time being smart! My forte usually doesn’t lie in positioning, cornering, chopping in corners, and conservative race tactics, but today I realized I had to rely on them if I wanted to have a chance at the finish (plus my brain decided to be intelligent today). I threw in a few attacks mid-race on the climbs, nothing too serious though. I mainly followed wheels and maintained a top 20-30 position throughout the 17 laps. In the end I took 25th, which sucks considering I thought and knew I was capable of a top 10 here. With the way I’ve been riding the past month, I knew if I had a good day this would be possible.

Tomorrow is the crit. Not sure how my body is going to respond to the hard efforts today. I’m hoping my immune system holds it together and doesn’t take a nose dive because I’ve still got some fight left in my noggin.

Team-wise, we actually had a very good showing today. Gabe took second in the KOM, which unfortunately doesn’t award him any money, but is still a great achievement, and Ian, Gabe, and I all finished in the lead group taking 17th, 29th, and 25th respectively. Not too shabby for just an “amateur” team. I despise that word by the way. The only amateur thing about us is that we don’t get paid…which is actually the definition of an amateur. Soooo, in that case my contempt doesn’t make any sense. Anyways, Cody, Dan, and Chris also had good races, with Chris and Dan both making good comebacks after some serious injuries. Chris, who had a life-threatening head injury in June during Mt. Hood, even crashed today, got back up, and continued racing! Nerves of steal. Over and out.

PS I WASTED you in our blogging race today, Ian! Take that!

If you want a spot on description of what my time in Belgium has been like thus far, look no further than this song, Loca People.

It’s a completely accurate picture of my normal day to day…minus the drinking. And the dancing girls. And the partying, the sun, the fun, the night club, and the guy named Johnny. Other than that it’s the same, as in:

“When I came to Belgium and I saw how people race bikes I thought to myself, ‘what the f—?’”

All day, all night. Bike racing. Everywhere. Every day of the week. In a country smaller than Oregon’s Willamette Valley, having eight races to chose from on a Wednesday is pure insanity. Eight hard races with equally hardened riders, all willing to tear themselves inside out, get in a fist fight at 50km/hr, and tear themselves inside out all over again…just for 38th place and 10 euros. Belgium: the land of cycling that we all dream about.

I’ve only raced twice since my last post about the Denderhoutem kermess, and although I said I wouldn’t write about a race unless I got top five, here I go anyways (I didn’t place top five either day).

The past two races I’ve done have been interclubs—those 100 mile races that take between 3:20 and 4 hours.

I woke on Monday morning with a slight trickle in my throat. The slightest of trickles, which I passed off as just needing a little more protein and fluids (a trick I tell myself to keep my worrying at bay and continue training/racing). So instead of rest, I upped my food intake a little and continued on with my week, racing on Monday with good legs. Tuesday was an easy ride in the rain–just an hour spin with one good hard effort to keep my legs open for Wednesday. The trickle was still there.

Wednesday was the interclub. It took place in the city of Wingeme and was named thusly. It was 12 laps of a 14.8–13 km circuit (the circuit varied). It was pan flat and fairly windy. In fact it was one of the more exposed, windier races I’ve done. Lots of cross wind sections made for a hard day. We began with a short, 2km neutral section, which saw my heart rate skyrocket and my legs burn in agony to turn over as we sprinted out of the still-neutralized corners. In fact, after 10 minutes of racing I wasn’t sure I’d be able to finish. I was feeling pretty cracked already and I could tell my energy levels were already low from my cold. I continued on of course.

Fighting for position was a big one today. I’d get up on the sidewalk in one particular corner and make my way into the top 15. From there I’d slowly drift back for the majority of the lap (not on purpose) until the next time we got to that particular corner, where I’d again chop 100 people with my brilliant sidewalk maneuver.

Six laps went by until I gave it a go off the front. No dice. We were still clipping along at 55-60 km/hr in certain tailwind portions, and the early breakaway hadn’t been caught yet. It was still dangling, just 20-30 seconds up the road.

On lap seven or maybe eight, just when the break was finally caught, I threw in another few attacks and followed wheels off the front for a bit, but it was still too early for the winning move to get away. I was feeling better and had figured out which way the wind was blowing on each section of the circuit by now, so my confidence was fairly high compared to how I felt at the start.

On lap nine my teammate Michael (the Scott) moved up past me. I knew to follow him since he has a keen sense of the winning move. We were both hovering around the front in the top 15 or 20 when he followed some wheels off the front. Someone sat up a few places behind him and let the gap open. I had been on his wheel 30 seconds earlier but lost it temporarily. I thought of jumping to close the gap, but feared it would ruin the move’s chances, plus I assumed someone else would cover it. Even though the gap was only10 bike lengths, every second spent in the wind adds up and every free ride helps.

I cursed myself for not being directly on his wheel as the gap increased to about 10 seconds over the next few kilometers, finally getting up to 30 by the end of the lap with three to go.

The next lap was the hardest of the race. I spent the first four kilometers of it following moves and bridging gaps as everyone tried to get in the next move. A group of 20 got away, chasing Michael’s lead group of 16, and the front end of the peloton dwindled to just 15 of us as we punished ourselves to catch that second group of 20. We made it…and were doomed to spend the next half lap suffering at the back in the crosswind. I was so cracked at one point that I just prayed I’d either crash off the side of the road or that we’d get caught by the peloton. Neither happened unfortunately, and I was subjugated to a severe amount of torture. There’s no worse pain than that being dealt to you in a crosswind section, especially as you look back and see everyone behind you has been dropped and there’s no place to retreat to. You’re at the mercy of those in front, those lucky few who are in the relative comfort of a well-formed echelon, protecting each other from the crosswind as you surge at 500 watts for 20 seconds, let off the pedals and coast for four seconds, surge again for 16 seconds, let off for seven, surge again for 40…it’s never-ending.

Two laps to go. I sat in, not doing any work because some German team had missed out on the front group and had five guys in ours, working hard to get up there. We got agonizingly close–to within 12 seconds. I’d started taking pulls by then as we came to the finish line with one lap to go. Then it all went down the drain. Everyone began attacking and our group blew up. I missed out somehow, despite getting into a few initial moves. My brain wasn’t really working at that point and I spent a bit too much time in the wind alone. I’d taken a couple corners poorly the lap earlier and had also almost crashed into someone on a straight section of road. I was nauseous and felt more and more flu-ish. My vision and sense of balance were taking a nosedive, as were my energy levels. Just a lap to go though. Got to hold it together.

Half of our group had gotten up the road in groups of threes and fours. The rest of us rode the last 10 kilometers at an easy tempo. The peloton was minutes behind by now. We took even turns pulling through, silent in our defeat. I attacked with 1.5 K to go anyways, just in case a top 25 spot was still available (in the money). I rode in alone for 30th (no money). My teammate Michael was 10th and another teammate, Jake, was 44th. Our team’s top three places were good enough to get us 10th in the team competition (which awarded us 15 whole euros! Divided five ways is three bucks each. CA-CHING!!). 10 overall also made our team director pretty happy since it got some points for the team, which are needed to keep getting interclub invitations.

I felt absolutely awful after the race. Really tired and sick, though at the same time high on adrenaline and caffeine as usual. I was pretty sick for the next couple days and didn’t touch the bike. I spent my days sleeping 12 hours a night and eating split pea soup and oranges and drinking chicken bullion broth.

By Saturday I was still feeling bad, but decided to ride anyways and test out my legs for the interclub on Sunday—a hard, hilly race in the Ardennes (the southern Wallonie region of Belgium). I rode for 17 minutes, felt a near bonk coming on, turned around, and went home. On the mend but still sick. Tomorrow was going to be a long ass day. I’d been looking forward to this race for a whole week and wasn’t going to miss it. Plus the next race after it wasn’t until Univest on the 17th. Plus I couldn’t pass up a free meal of rice pudding sandwiches and granola bars (race food provided by the team).

Sunday: Rochefort interclub. Six laps of varying circuits and 12 KOM climbs. The team van came and picked Jake and I up at 9AM. I slept during the two-hour journey and awoke to pissing rain. TO BE CONTINUED!!!!!

Nah, changed my mind. I’ll write it all now. I fought violently with myself the entire race to not drop out. I felt like shit, though I raced OK. I got in a break mid way through, got caught, stayed near the front and made the front splits with 2.5 laps to go. I died 100 deaths up the next climb and a further 1,000 during the following crosswind section when things broke up even more, made the front split of 10 guys (there were still 10 up the road in the early breakaway though). We sat up a bit on a descent and our group swelled back up to 30. At that point I felt content about my efforts for the day and was happy to just follow the wheel in front of me. I decided to just follow wheels. I would spend absolutely no more time spent in the wind whatsoever. I was too screwed to do anything else and was still trying to just convince myself to finish, let alone continue attacking and bridging gaps. Unfortunatly the wheels I followed up the next climb didn’t work out and the guy I was sitting on didn’t cover a gap over the top section of the climb. Small groups merged and formed a group of 15 that got away from us while our group was eventually eaten up by the rest of the 20-man groups behind us, finally becoming the peloton again when we really sat up with two laps to go.

The final 40km were ridden easily, with a few groups going away initially to take up 25-40th place. After our slow jaunt for the last two short laps, apparently unofficially neutralized (much to my appreciation), the sprint was on with 1K to race. Go figure. came in 57th place on the day. I’m licking my wounds as well as my chops for another hilly interclub like this. Coming into one of these healthy and firing at 100% will be a whole different story, which will probably go like this, “I attacked a lot, felt strong, but missed the winning move and the second move and the third move and got 56th–one place better than that other time when I was ill.” Ha ha, nopefully not. Yeah, I just used the word “nopefully.” When it goes mainstream, remember, you heard it here first.

Wingeme. Enjoying a tasty pudding sandwich.

After Rochefort.

Post race subs on the house!!!

It was a long car ride back. No, that isn’t 1.5 liters of lemonade. The width of this opening requires quite a bit of concentration… aiming into such a small hole. No pun intended there. I redeemed myself today, for the last time I attempted this procedure it ended up in disaster. Sorry Lang, but your old car is in the dump anyways now so you can’t be mad at me for telling you now.