gay (bike) racer

Steal Bars FTW!

2008-07-24T21:03:00.000-04:00

steal-bars.blogspot.com

For your music sampling needs ;-)

FAIL blog epic jump the shark FAIL

2008-07-24T21:01:00.002-04:00

failblog was funny but has totally jumped the shark with its lame posting of the afroman ninja video. Fuckin thing is as old as the internet. What next? tron-man? dramatic chipmunk?

Taking gay bike blogging to new heights of gayness

2008-07-22T23:16:00.004-04:00

If you could have any one — and only one — bike in the world, what would it be?
Duh the BMC Time Machine with Competitive Cyclist's PPP custom fitting process.

Do you already have that coveted dream bike? If so, is it everything you hoped it would be? If not, are you working toward getting it? If you’re not working toward getting it, why not?
Um, no. No, It's like a $18,000 bike. Even if I could afford it, I'd be that douche with the 18 grand bike.

If you had to choose one — and only one — bike route to do every day for the rest of your life, what would it be, and why?
Firenze-Siena. Did it back in 2002 when I first started riding. It's the most beautiful roads I've ever traveled between two gorgeous cities full of hot Italians. I'd probably have to include some extra loops from my original route since back then I used to think 80K was a lot, then again I was traveling with about 50 pounds of gear.

What kind of sick person would force another person to ride one and only one bike ride to to do for the rest of her / his life?
Michael Ball?

Do you ride both road and mountain bikes? If both, which do you prefer and why? If only one or the other, why are you so narrowminded?
Just road riding for now, my mountain bike was stolen in NYC. Maybe stolen is the wrong word because the last night I ever saw it was a night where I got so fucking shitfaced I came to wandering around the Meatpacking District with my shirt off (where did it go??) I also didn't have my bike or Kryptonite chain with me anymoer, so who knows what happened to that. I think I may have just neglected to lock it properly and someone rolled off with it. I'll be getting back into mountain biking this year with my downhill racing friend Levi.

Have you ever ridden a recumbent? If so, why? If not, describe the circumstances under which you would ride a recumbent.
No. I'm gay, not retarded.

Have you ever raced a triathlon? If so, have you also ever tried strangling yourself with dental floss?
Yes. No. It was at the Out Games. I wanted to shower with multitudes of other gay triathletes afterwards. But yeah, tris are gay.

Suppose you were forced to either give up ice cream or bicycles for the rest of your life. Which would you give up, and why?
Give up ice cream, I like having a six pack.

What is a question you think this questionnaire should have asked, but has not? Also, answer it.
"Why don't more gays race bikes instead of wasting their lives inside gyms?"
Because they suck. And also because usually there are no gang showers on-site at most bike races, which is why most gays workout in the first place.

You’re riding your bike in the wilderness (if you’re a roadie, you’re on a road, but otherwise the surroundings are quite wilderness-like) and you see a bear. The bear sees you. What do you do?
Depends what kind of bear I guess. If it's a hot daddy bear, then we go back to his place, maybe do it in his truck or on a log. If it's a big fat gross bear then I guess I just ride away.

Now, tag three biking bloggers. List them below.
Comrade Chris
New York Chris
The Wagon Team Mate

Gaywads in the Military

2008-07-21T21:57:00.002-04:00

I started writing this post about the retarded "Don't ask, don't tell" policy but there are so many things that are anachronistic and absurd about that policy that it quickly got out of hand. So let me just keep it short: there's congressional hearings this week concerning this policy, and there's an online petition that people can sign to give support to opponents of the it.

Here's the press release and link, sign it!

It has been fifteen long years since President Clinton signed “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” into law. Fifteen long years later, it is eminently clear that it is a failed policy.

With your support, Congress could soon admit that too.

On Wednesday, July 23, the House of Representatives’ subcommittee on Military Personnel will hold the first hearing on “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” since its inception.

We need to tell Congress that it is unacceptable to allow the military to openly discriminate against gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Americans. Please sign this petition hosted by the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network and tell Congress how you feel.

http://action.sldn.org/petition

Together we can finally have a military that truly reflects the freedom they’re fighting for.

TdF preview

2008-07-21T20:56:00.000-04:00

Hey yallz:
Classic Alpine stage from 1986:

Fitchburg After-Party video

2008-07-15T21:24:00.001-04:00

I finally got around to capturing the video I shot at the after-party held by the Bissel boys in their dorm suite. They had invited the juniors squad from Australia.

MacArthur street graffitti

2008-07-14T21:24:00.001-04:00

Before you even ask: I am not the guy who spray painted the word "cock" on MacArthur blvd. It does make me laugh every time I roll over it tho. I'm immature like that.

MABRA Crit Championships - AKA Hagerstown Challenge

2008-07-14T21:10:00.003-04:00

Cam was kicking ass lately in crits so we thought we'd try to get him the win. I still felt knida run down from Fitchburg and not sleeping well because of all this awesome road rash I have on my back, shoulders and hips. I was going to "work" for Cam, which gets me off the hook for actually getting a result. Dope!

The race started off real well with some riders stacking it on the first turn on the second lap. I was a party to this event, so that's 3 crits in a row that I bounce off my ride. Thankfully, I just slow-mo endo'd into some grass so I got my chain back on, got my free lap and was back in the race. I love all you 'tards in the pack telling us to go to the back of the pack when we're coming off a free lap. If I remember correctly, the official told us to go so if you have a beef bring it up with him. Also, there were 30 laps to go, so I don't think it would have made much of a difference in the long run. But geez, some of you need to take a pill.

I initially wanted to try a breakaway, but the course seemed too fast on the back side and the long straight-away a bit daunting for a breakaway. After seeing a few pitiful attempts at breaking away get reeled back in with no effort at all, I think I made a wise decision. Halfway through the race, Tom MacKay of ABRT put in a pretty solid attack and I went along for the ride. He asked me if I wanted to try staying away, but since there 16 laps to go and I had the aforementioned misgivings, I told him it was too early and we sat up.

So we went around for 15 more laps and nothing happened. On the last lap I attacked on the hill after turn 1 and kept the pressure on for the rest of the lap. After I made turn 2 I heard a big ass crash sound and I pushed as hard as I could. I saw ABRT Tom on my wheel and I thought it was just the 2 of us and everyone else piled up in the street. I stayed out front and crushed it up the hill after turn 3 and saw that we weren't exactly alone. As we went around turn 4 I knew I was pretty much over but hoped Cam had come along for the ride. As we made the last turn, all the contenders were there, Jorge, Strimbu, MacKay and Cam. Cam played it a bit too conservatively and only got 5th and I rolled across for 9th. Decent, but no championship jersey. Fun race nonetheless.

Hawt Sprints

2008-07-11T01:00:00.003-04:00

Today at Hains point either DCVelo or Harley brought a pal in a Smart car and yeah, those are almost as gay as Segways, but you can pile more people behind them then a Vespa and we were pacing that shit. I didn't have my Powertap but we were going fast as fuck. I held on for almost the whole lap but I lost touch somewhere near the end. A look behind revealed only Opria (uh, I think, some older-than-me Evo guy on a LiteSpeed) and 1 DCVelo still there. A few laps of doing that and I think some cops warned Smart car to quit it. The kids from the day camp sure seemed to think we looked cool.

On the subject of sprints... Is there anyone hotter than Cav in the Tour? I don't freaking think so. He's got the best finishing move too: hands to the helmet then froward and arms raised in victory. I wouldn't mind peeling the bib shorts off that muthafuggah.

With Bennati (pretty hot too)

Fitchburg-Longsjo Classic

2008-07-07T11:16:00.004-04:00

Five NCVC Cat-4s drove up to Fitchburg Mass for the Longsjo Classic this past weekend. I had unabashedly high expectations for the race. In our funding proposal to the NCVC gods, I announced we would have a man on the podium in every stage, win the GC and have 3 riders in the top 10. Pretty ambitious, eh?

The crew going up was myself, Drew and Cam, not total suckers. So although those were pretty lofty goals, I thought we could deliver something pretty close. We did all right.

TT:
6.5 miles at 3% average grade. The 4s went of first. I got the best result of our group with a time of 19:14, placing me in 5th place on the day. Drew got 19:26, placing him 11th and narrowly avoided a falling tree as he came back down the course. Cam got 19:50, for 20th place. Pretty good start, we were excited.

RR:
45 miles around a 10 mile circuit with a 1.5 mile steep climb up Wachusett mountain. I got the best result here at 20th. I fucked up the finish though. I pretty much rode the perfect race until then, not taking any wind and staying at the front the whole race. I didn't contest any sprints or even push the pace on the climbs. I figured all that would do was shed people off the back who were of no consequence to the GC. Looked like everyone agreed. As we approached the turn up the final climb, I looked all around me and it was basically the top 10 GC. The climb was one big grind and I went as hard as I could, which apparently was not as fast as 19 others. Whatever. What can I do? Get stronger and lighter I guess. I lost about 37 seconds on the day and was now 45 seconds behind the race leader and slipped to 9th place. Drew got a flat 2 miles into the race and waited for 3 minutes for a replacement. He then spent the rest of the day tring to make the time cut. He did. He finished 100th over all. Cam got his massive frame up the hill in 30th place.

Circuit Race:
I talked with Matt Cuttler of Affinity cycles out of NYC before the race since he and I were sitting 8th and 9th about 15 seconds behind 7th place and suggested we attack on the last sprint lap, with 3 to go. As we got to the sprint lap, I attacked with 2 others who were vying for points an we got pretty large gap. Neither of them were in GC contention I guess and so didn't care so much about breaking away. I got as much as 15 seconds into the field but the long downhill section before the wall is so fast that one guy can't stay away from a charging peloton. I was caught halfway up the wall. On the last lap, I had recovered and was following the Enforcer through the pack as we approached the final climb up the wall. Another jerk stole Cameron's wheel and I was relegated to being in the middle of the pack as we made the last turn. I was feeling pretty good charging up the hill and was passing tons of people on my way to the line, but I started too far back and finished 31st, same time as the finisher. Cam got a well-deserved 7th place.

Crit:
We had a sick strategy for this race. Drew was so far back on GC that he didn't care so much about winning this race. I was going to attack on the last sprint lap and Drew was going to fall back, get dropped essentially, and we were to rejoin together and work together to help me stay away until the finish line. Unbelievably devious tactic if you want m opinion, but totally legit. Whatever. My front wheel was taken out when another rider and I broke away midway through the race and he swerved for no reason. I crashed again and could only crouch in the middle of the road and hope to not get plowed into by one of 120 riders. Once they went by, I grabbed my bike and ran through the crowd to the pit and got a replacement wheel. I spent the rest of the race adjusting the breaks and moving up the pack. I was a bit confused and thought there was another lap to go when in fact it was the last one. So when we made the final turn and people started sprinting, I thought we were just trying to shed the pack and not actually sprinting for the win. Lame on my part since I had great position for a top 5. Instead Cam charged his freight locomotive self up the road to a photo-finish 2nd place. I got pipped at the line by Cuttler and got 11th. Bastard.

Overall:
I maintained my 9th place. Came home with no upgrade points and Cameron now has 16 and finished 23rd over all. Final tally for the weekend was: 3 top 10 finishes for the stage race, one podium and one top 10 GC. I suppose that's OK. We had a pretty good time and enjoyed hanging out with the elite team. The town of Fitchburg is a dump though, ugh.

Better get this out before the weekend.

2008-06-25T07:16:00.002-04:00

We drove up to Hagerstown to participate in the local 3-stage Stage race this past weekend. We were hoping to get similar results as at Ephrata and I was hoping to get a sense of my fitness coming into Fitchburg. My results didn't exactly measure up to what I'd hoped but I did OK. Briefly, I got 13th, 7th and 31st, for an overall placing of 14th. Had I not slid out with 2 laps to go in the crit, I definitely would have got top 10 over all. Whatcha gonna do? I just hope I'm not cementing my reputation as a sketchy rider. Ironically, I had moved to the front of the pack on that lap because it was definitely safer to be first coming around that corner. I guess I took it a bit too hot and just laid the bike down. Didn't get hurt, just ended the race prematurely.

A few thoughts on the weekend, like I've said before I like racing against the same guys every week. Everyone is pretty genial and as a new guy in town I find everyone approachable and humble and nice to shoot the breeze with. There was a screw up with our hotel reservation and we were forced to stay in smoking rooms that reeked of awful stale cigarette smoke. Even my clothes that I never took out of my bag wound up impregnated with the stench. My team mate, Little K, had a great race, coming in 4th in the RR and 2nd in the crit. It looked very cool to see him pounce and pass 3 guys as he made his way to the line. Had he started his sprint sooner, he probably could have caught 1st place, he said he still had some power left in his legs. He's upgrading to cat-3 now (ahem, Brigham, Jose...)

In conclusion, I feel ready for Fitchburg. I trust my time trialing will be the key to securing a good placing at the start and I'll be able to stay with the lead group (as usual) in the 2nd stage circuit race and have enough left in my legs to with the climb up the final hill. The 3rd stage will be more of the same of staying with the lead guys and not losing too much time to the rivals, again I don't think I'll have trouble staying at the front. Finally, depending on the GC standings before the crit, I'll ride conservatively so I actually finish. Since this is not an omnium style stage race, putting in a fast TT is the key.

Birf-Day weekend

2008-06-15T20:36:00.003-04:00

That's right, ho's, this bitch got 1 year closer to death and i celebrated like a big nerd, riding my bike.

Saturday morning we drove down to Church Creek to do the 4-man 3/4TTT. It was gonna be Drew, Chris, Cam and I. Chris jut got back from a week in France, where he was - GASP!- not biking, but imbibing copious amounts of Cotes du Rhone and Chateauneuf-du-Pape and eating rich french food. Cam had just got his new bike after something like 6 weeks of only riding his fixed gear, so it was going to be weird. Drew, Chris and I were all rocking the aero bars and I had my Rudy aero helmet (endowed with Ken Johnson's brain sweat). Anyway, the course was very nice and the weather was pretty much perfect. I was feeling phenomenal and was taking nice long pulls, about 1-minute each time and trying to get the speed up to 28 or 29. Of course, I wouldn't surge when my partner would pull off, I'd gradually increase the speed in order to keep everyone together. Chris was on my wheel and I guess after about 12 minutes or so his legs felt like crap and he had to be dropped. After some confusion as to whether I should drop back and try to get him back on, we reorganized and were left to complete the TTT as a 3-man outfit. We pushed it pretty hard and on the home stretch I was pushing harder and harder and had to be asked by Cam to slow it down a bit or otherwise face the disintegration of our paceline. I tried to push it over 30mph on a few occasions and although I guess it hurt the team mates, I think over all it was a good strategy since it got us the maximum speed and each took his pulls at the power they could provide. Cam gave me the right feedback so I wouldn't push it over the top and ruin everything. he probably had it the hardest since he's 7" taller than I am and probably didn't get much drafting off of me. Sorry. One final note on this event, our result wasn't posted to the results page, so it sucks a bit to pay and participate in an event and not really get anything official out of it. It's not super important, but I believe this counted for some MABRA BAR points or something, so it'd be nice if we got scored. I heard the DC Velo squad got like 50 minutes, we were slightly slower, sub-58...

Sunday continued the birfday festivities with the Wilmiington Jason Gundel Crit. Small field, like 50 or 60 or so. We probably had the biggest crew out there. It was going to be fun, the course was sick with nice turns and we had some strong crit racers, Drew, Cam, Kendall Bros and myself. My plan was to sit in as much as possible and not get too much time in the wind. This course wasn't very conducive to passive riding though. You really had to push it to not get dropped and Steven, who had previously won the junior race, clearly knew where all the turns were and right off the bat was driving it really hard, torturing the old farts in the field I'm sure. So anyway, pretty basic crit riding for the first half of the race and I felt like I was doing a semi-decent job of staying out of the wind. I was staying close to Will from Route 1 since I knew those boys were most likely to animate the race. Coming on lap 10 was the first prime lap and as we went around turn 7 I figured I might as well get some shwag out of this race, so I crushed it up the hill and across the home stretch. I got the prime (more on that later) and turned around to see that I had a huge gap. Of course I may be gay but I'm not a fag, so I was going to capitalize as much as I could on this. Like Bear Mountain, I was off the front in a solo break with half the race to go. I put my head down and pushed it at full throttle for as long as I could. I got as much as 15 seconds and the field was getting destroyed by the effort. Route 1 got anxious when they could no longer see me anywhere on the backstretch. Jose, god bless him, then worked all by himself to pull me back and finally I was caught with 3 to go. The field was reduced to 15 or so. In the intervening laps, Drew was crashed by some dork who went down on the straight before turn 7. Steven got stuck behind some other dweeb who went down in turn 6 so we were left with Cam and Brad. Lap 2 was uneventful except for it being a prime lap that no one was gunning for, although I totally would have jumped for it but I was stuck in the middle of 5 other guys who didn't really have the guts to go for it. Finally, on the last lap Brad went WAYYY early on the outside of the back straight and I got on his wheel. We ramped it up the little hill and I was screaming at him to keep going as hard as he could until we got to the line. That's when everyone else woke up. Junior ABRT and guy in blue who just sits in all race long in every race then jumped, Will and Jose jumped too and it was a drag race to the line. Brad got 6th, I was bout an inch behind him (almost got him at the line) and got 7th, Cam was coming right around and managed 9th. Thanks Brad for that last effort, wish we could've stuck it.

THE PRIME:
So before the race the sponsor announces that they have some way cool primes, including a mag trainer. So, I officially won one prime. You'd think that being off the front for the rest of the race I'd get all the rest of the primes, much like a breakaway gets all the bonus points in the TdF, but nope, jose got prime #2 and guy in blue who sits in all race long got the last prime. OK, I can SORTA see that you can give the primes to the pack or something (whatever!) but it would have been nice if they'd given me the actual nice prime. Instead, I got a water bottle, a pair of socks and Hunter Allen's "How To Train with Power". This has got to be the GAYEST prime ever.

Other Birfday Activities:
I got laid more times this weekend than most of you get all week (and no, not because it was DC Pride). Boyfriend Paul was the perfect partner this weekend and did everything right. You're the best!

The FUCK am I doing at work at 1AM??

2008-06-07T01:02:00.003-04:00

Love this song.

Yo RayMan! i'm calling you out, Betch!

2008-06-07T01:02:00.001-04:00

Where's that freakin PHOTO??

Holy Shit!

2008-06-03T08:57:00.002-04:00

Tragic.

And it happens a few days after the Murad race, held in mmorial for 2 brothers killed by a drunk driver.

Don't drink and drive.

Hottie of the week

2008-06-03T01:56:00.002-04:00

Dominique Rollin, duh.

He hit each step of the podium this week, 3rd at Kelly Cup, 2nd at CSC and 1st at Ricola. He's like the Quebecois Tom Boonen. Being a Quebecois myself, I feel a certain kinship with this guy.

He fills those bib shorts nicely too, EH??

No Sympathy

2008-06-02T08:44:00.002-04:00

Before Saturday's race, I was expecting some boring parade around Poolesville much like the Smiths vid. You can't get away and you can't move up, etc. All I can say really is that you basically get the race you make. Unfortunately, most cat-4s are complete pussies who don't make any race and are really just pleasure riders who like to tell their friends they race.

The day's goal was to get the win for team mate Drew who was after his last points to get the coveted cat-3 upgrade and wanted to achieve them in style. We had a couple of plans of action. First was to get Drew in a breakaway on lap 2 or something. Because of concerns about moving up during the race, we all staged right at the front. First time that actually works out. As the race begins and we roll out of the gravel parking lot, Drew immediately sprints out of the start, much like he did at Poolesville. I have to say that during my warm up I was feeling pretty shitty. I'd had a pretty hard week of training, lots of weights and hills. I also was carrying a pretty serious sleep deficit and I got home from work at 2:30am and had a grand total of maybe 3 hours of sleep before the race. My warm up made me think I'd have a completely shitty race. So seeing Drew blast off the font right at the start was kind of interesting. Since I was right there I sprinted right up to him and there we were, 10 seconds into the race and we had a decent gap. We figured we'd practice our TTT skills and paced ourselves. We got up to 40 seconds on the pack and stayed away for basically half the race. On lap 2, a rider from ABRT bridged up to us, which I gotta say is pretty impressive. He was gassed but we let him rest a bit before we enlisted him in our pace line. We thought that this was pretty perfect to have a 3-man break and a 30 second gap (if only there was a Route 1 and the race would have been over). We couldn't even see the pack most of the time.

Of course it ended up not working. I heard that a series f bridge attempts caused the pace in the pack to increase enough to catch up. Maybe we just suck. But FUCK it. At least we tried something. And I much prefer going hard with a team mate in a "suicide" effort to win than just sit around in a pack and be bored. Once we got caught, you might have thought there'd be some kind of counter-move. That's usually the best time to do one. You have a group of riders who are just gassed from breaking away, another that's gassed from chasing, so if you're not in those 2 groups, you should take off right then. Of course, in a cat-4 race, if you're not in a break away or chasing one down, you're most likely pack-fodder and have no balls to do anything. This goes for basically everyone in Saturday's race, sorry. Route 1 gets a special exemption because their whole strategy appears to be to let everyone else do all the work so Brigham and Jose are fresh for the final sprint, and that plan works and gets results, so I'm not gonna criticize it. (It's just kinda boring).

Plan A didn't work, so plan B was to keep Drew fresh and not let any moves go anywhere. I took this to heart and stayed at the front for the last 2 laps. One thing I'd like to add here is: moving around in the pack in this race was not difficult at all. I don't know why some people thought it'd be shoulder to shoulder with nowhere to go. I was able to go anywhere I wanted in the pack. I never went beyond 20t place or so but still, no reason to worry about that. So yeah, I patrolled the front, tried to pull hard as I could, which probably wasn't that hard anymore after the break away. Every time there was a little surge or break attempt, I was covering it. There was only Kyle Murphy's move that I let go because I wasn't in the right place to do anything. Anyway, there were other team mates that were around to get Drew out of the wind and cover the front when I wasn't there. Last lap at least had some dynamics and the pace seemed pretty fast. I saw some guys go down on the last stretch on River Road. That must have sucked since we were going pretty fast. How do you crash when you're going straight?? After it happened, All-American guy screamed "Go! Go!" which I think is maybe un-sportsmanlike, but I kinda get the point, heh. After the last turn, Drew was ahead of me and there was a small split in the lead group. I got junior team mate on my whel and got him back to the front group. I watched as Drew had a pretty nice sprint battle with Jose and Brigham, Steven also had a nice sprint for 8th. It looked like there were a lot of NCVCs in the final group, which is pretty sweet. Drew didn't get the win, but 3rd place and a cat-3 upgrade is rad nonetheless.

Luckily for me (us), he's gonna stick around for a few races to help us get some points to get us in the 3s as well. I hope to be able to upgrade after Fitchburg-Longsjo.

Post-Script: Big thanks to my bf for hooking us up with his car, got 3 of us to the race safely and carbon-efficiently. He also spent the rest of the weekend helping me move into my new condo in Capitol Hill. I have arrived, ladies.

Murad

2008-05-30T22:12:00.001-04:00

This is what it's gonna look like:

Memorial Day Race Weekend.

2008-05-27T21:02:00.004-04:00

This weekend was pretty sweet.

The stormin mormon drove Drew and I to Baltimore even though he would not be racing since his freakishly huge bike hasn't been assembled yet. Such a nice guy! At least we gave him a show and made it worth the drive.

Bike Jam was fast from the start. Artemis and ABRT had 2 guys off the front really early and no one was actively chasing them down. Coming around the back stretch, one of my team mates zoomed up the right side of the pack and I went along for the free ride up to the break. It was a sweet move but looked like Route 1 was not going to let 2 NCVCs join a 2 man berakaway and they immediately chased us down. This consequently led to the pace getting pretty high and the shelling of racers had begun.

I saw Lance (this week's winner of nicest rider to look at) make his move as we crossed the finish line but didn't do anything about it. This turned out to be a really bad decision on my part because next thing I knew, it looked like there was Lance + some Route 1 guys, Evolution, maybe DCVelo and they were pretty far up ahead of us. Drew and I were killing ourselves trying to pull it back but I just ended up helping Jorge of Artemis bridge up to the break. That eliminated another team from helping bring back the break. So anyway, I stopped wasting myself and hung out in the back and middle of the pack. I don't know when it happened but at some point there no longer was a breakaway. I figured it out just in the nick of time and I placed myself maybe in 10th place on the last lap. I avoided that huge pile-up right before the line and rode in behind Jose and Stephen Wahl for 6th place. Money and points, sweet!

RFK Crit was going to be fun. I saw it as a NCVC-Route 1-Bike Doctor 3-way brawl since we all had large contingents. I didn't really know what I was going to do but more experienced team mates said we needed to have a leadout train coming around the last corner in order to deliver our man to the line. OK. Considering we never practiced that and I actually never train with team mates, I thought this was a great strategy. So the race starts and next thing I know I'm already off the front with 3 or 4 others. It was reeled back in quickly but it continued like this for the whole race. It felt like I was in almost every move. Often, I had 1 or 2 Route 1 guys up there and I thought it would work since we had 3 or 4 escapees and the large NCVC and Route 1 presence in the pack could help us out. It never gelled though. I don't know if Route 1 were just playing games or what, softening up the field so Jose and/or their other sprinters could kill us in the final drag race to the line. On the final lap I saw the 2 DCVelo guys line themselves up at the front and Chris in 4th wheel. I sneakily placed myself behind Butters and when I saw his team mate pull off and say "Ok, it's all yours" I pretty much knew this was where it all came down. The only problem was that we were still pretty far from the line. Butters was pouring it on and it took everything I had just to stay on this bad-ass's wheel. When whoever was on my wheel decided to attack, I could not react and Butters just blasted off. I saw Chris jump too, so I figured my work was done and let everyone else sprint and I contented myself with drifting off to the left. I wonder if I could have gotten a top 10 if I had sprinted with whatever I had left, but maybe I would have just been a danger to myself and others since I was redlined. Anywho, I'm content in thinking that I helped Chris get a podium. It was after all what he wante dme to do...

Final thoughts on this weekend:
both races were super fun, Jorge M is a rider I was underestimating and will keep an eye on from now on, I really like racing against the same dudes every week, Brigham and Jose on Route 1 are officially my nemesises (nemesi?) and again, this week's winner of nicest racer to look at is Lance Lacy.

PS: This is a great 2 hour mix. Get it and go do some intervals!

Hains Point Hints

2008-05-23T18:04:00.003-04:00

I'm not going to pretend I'm a local veteran or anything, I just moved here in January. But I spent 4 years in NYC and got into the habit of having and sharing my opinion with everyone about everything. Here's all I got to say about the Hains Point rides: have some consideration for the other riders and don't let giant gaps open up. The whole point of the lunch time rides is to get a fast pace line and then sprint on the back stretch. Today I was riding behind this big guy while we were going along the short straight between the finish stop sign and the start point and after a little while he flicks his wrist as if he'd been pulling at some hard pace. I look around him and there's about a 300' gap and of course there's the whole DCVelo squad over there with Chuck (I think) of Harley, the big Evo guy and the fast ABRT guy. They're all hammering along and I'm wishing I was with them since that's kind of the point of showing up there at noon. I spent a whole stupid lap chasing back on and only finally catching up basically at the point where I lost them. I suppose that's a good workout but my goal wasn't to go 8 minutes at MSO. Whatever. It's just annoying, if you can't maintain the pace line, don't join the group...

If shaving your legs, obsessing about your weight and wearing spandex didn't turn you gay... this will.

2008-05-22T21:22:00.001-04:00

yea sorry this has nothing to do with biking.

More videos from the "Flex and the City" channel at Heavy.com

Gay ass Bike Jam

2008-05-22T01:14:00.002-04:00

Upcoming weekend seems pretty exciting.

First up is BikeJAM in Baltimore. I've never been to that city, but TV makes it look pretty ghetto. I've known a few people who lived there and told me that it sucks ass. That there's essentially one street that's safe and if you walk one block north or south and you put your safety at risk. Of course, this was a pussy-ass New Yorker who told me this. A co-worker who lives there told me that it's very bohemian. I think that's probably just a different term for ghetto. A ssecurity guard here who happens to really be into bike racing told me to not leave anything valuable in my car and to not leave my bike unattended. That really makes me wonder how bad this place is.

Anyway, this Bike JAM event looks pretty cool. I'm excited to see a NRC race after the Crystal City Classic, which was kinda boring. I prefer watching crits, personally. The cat-4 race will seem pretty anti-climactic after seeing the pros go at it for 90 minutes.

I feel like I haven't raced against the MD/DC/VA boys in a long time. Didn't race last week, was in NYC before. I guess 3 weeks ago was Poolesville, but that didn't feel the same. Definitely was not a crit. I'm excited to do a crit now that I have a better idea of who is whom. I got my eyes on a few Route 1 boys, especially that motherfucker Brigham Lumm who seems to be kicking a lot of ass at Greenbelt. I guess he's lucky I work nights so I can't ever go out there. Jose's obviously always a threat. I'm guessing Bryan Burns will be trying to extricate his final upgrade point. The question remains however: will he upgrade without winning a race? What kind of indignity will that be? I'm looking forward to racing this Kyle Jones guy, see if he's REALLY coming into form or what.

We're heading in there with a few heavy hitters ourselves I suppose. Drew was ripping it up until he went and smashed his face. He's already up and racing, which is good to hear. Chris is registered but I don't know if he's actually racing or if he upgraded or what. I guess he did since his points were expiring in early May. Bummer. Of course, I'm happy for him, but it'd be nice to have him around. Cam kicked major ass in Ephrata but he busted his bike since then and hasn't gotten a replacement yet. His status is therefore quite up in the air. I hope he gets his bike. The K brothers will be there and they're always a force to contend with. I'm glad they're on my team. I'd hate to be beaten by a 14yo kid. This way, if he finishes ahead of me, I can say I was working for him ;-) That being said, I feel like I've been getting steadily better. My shitty result at the Ephrata crit belies the fact that had it not been for a slight fuck up on the last lap, I would've got a top 5. Of course, crits are all about avoiding the slight fuck ups. The Poolesville race showed me I can chase hard for 10 miles all alone and have some strength in reserve. Bear showed me I can hang off the front for 30+ miles, which happens to be more than your average crit. I'm still feeling good and I got the white handlebar tape.

I'm looking forward to a very fun and action-packed race. Everyone is probably feeling strong and hoping to perform in front of what will surely be a large crowd. That makes me think this race is gonna be fast as fuck, and I love that shit.

Here's some pro-ass:

Here's a video of an album I downloaded today, good shit:

Getting Caught

2008-05-13T09:43:00.003-04:00

After ~30 miles off the front...

thanks to Marco Quezada for this pic.

Bear Mountain Race Report

2008-05-12T11:36:00.004-04:00

Well Blogger is being totally stupid and not posting if I just copy-paste so this is a short version of the report.

This was a 4-lap 56 mile race with one long, though not very steep climb up Tiorati road. It's about 2.5 to 3 miles and is sort of a step-climb. The approach to the climb is a screaming 55mph downhill into a hairpin curve. That's followed by some flats around the lake, some technical turns around traffic circles and finally some rollers coming into the finish line. The finish is actually a downhill sprint.

First lap was pretty uneventful. Some guy went off the front and his team mates, Westwood Velo, did a good job of controlling the pace. No one really chased and he was basically caught by the hairpin curve on lap 2.

The second time up Tiorati the pace was a bit higher and I stayed near the front. As we got to the lake, 3 guys attacked, 2 of which had many team mates that I thought would do a good job of blocking. So as I was riding 2nd wheel at this point I jumped and joined this group. We got a good paceline going very quickly and we got a nice gap. As we approached the rollers, I was riding first wheel and led the break through a series of tight turns. I pushed the pace into the rollers and when I turned around, I had dropped all my break mates. I wasn't going to slow down, but was hoping at least one of them would grow some balls and bridge back up to me. It was, after all, only lap 2 and didn't want to be off the front all by myself. But, that was my lot in yesterday's race and there I was riding solo with 35+ miles to go.

I got into time-trial mode and maintained a high-pace, aero position and meted out the effort so I wouldn't blow up to early. As I went through the feed zone, I saw some riders coming up behind me and was dismayed that the break was already over. It turns out that it was the pro12 break away so I had to let them go and was drafting off my pace car as I screamed downhill. I messed up the hairpin but kept the pros within sight so I could pace myself up the climb. I passed some cat-3s and got passed by another pro chase group. This went on for the rest of lap 3. I was finally caught halfway up Tiorati on the final lap. The pack had been shredded to only 10-15 guys. As they went by, I stayed with them and recovered on the back. As we got into the flats, I made a few attacks to soften up the group and annoy people who would just be content with sitting on wheels. One guy got leg cramps in the last rollers and screamed in pain and fell into the grass. As we approached the final sprint, everyone was waiting for Colin Prensky to make his move. I was riding behind 3 guys that looked mighty fit: Colin Prensky, Affinity Cycles rider (with super sweet Cinelli bike) and unaffiliated rider from DC (who actually reads this blog). It was getting very fast and I was ready to sneak between DC and Prensky, but DC pulled his foot out of his pedal so I had to swerve to avoid what looked like imminent disaster and my front wheel hit Affinity's derailleur. I snapped a spoke and kept going, making it across the line in 6th place without crashing!

This is my best finish yet and I'm mighty happy with it. The solo win would have been a wet dream but wasn't meant to be. I tried to cajole the guys into letting me win, but no one was really into that...

Bears

2008-05-08T18:48:00.004-04:00

Take 4x and call me in the morning.

Coming up on Sunday. I'm feeling good about this one.