Nice!

http://amyjones.zenfolio.com/p746541536/ebd5b33e

Sprinting for 3rd never looked so good!

Thanks Amy! You take some great pictures. I gotta make sure I start sticking closer to your husband so I can get in more of them, except in the sprint, then you can get some nice shots of me pulling away from him.

Jeff Cup - didn't drive that far for nothin'

Waking up Sunday morning I wasn't quite sure how the weather was looking in Charlottesville and checking MSN's weather report wasn't making me very pumped up, but I knew I had teammates that were going to be out there so I decided to take my butt down the road anyway. Throughout the drive down 29, the weather was looking nicer and nicer and I was starting to get pretty excited about racing.
I got to the school to start getting ready at around 1. Got warmed up and lined up for the neutral rollout to the start/finish line feeling excited, hydrated and fueled. The race was your usual Cat 4 race. The pace wasn't too difficult and when we caught someone who had broken away, everyone slowed down. When we came to a hill, everyone slowed down. When we turned into the wind, instead of forming a good paceline or echelon, everyone slowed down and even when we went downhill, lots of people still slowed down. There was the usual bumping of elbows, overlapping of wheels, riding in the gutter and sending people into the gutter, that happens in these races. Swearing and yelling abounded.
At some point on last 4, the last lap, a group got off the front. I had no idea this group was away. I knew there were two people up the road that were still in sight and I figured we would catch them on the final stretch to the finish, which we did. But, apparently there were two more guys in front of them. My legs felt pretty good going into the finish so I knew I had a pretty good chance of winning the field sprint. I felt like my position was horrible with about 800m to go so I knew as soon as I saw some daylight I was just gonna go. At about 500m I got that opening on the outside edge and I just stood on the pedals and sprinted in for 3rd place and $30.
My real "fun" started after the race when I realized my lights were left on, so my battery was dead and my keys were locked inside my car. I spent the next 3 hours trying to track down a slim jim, tow truck and waiting for AAA to come and break into my car so I could get home. I ended up giving my winnings to the tow truck guy who eventually got me into my truck. I also want to give a huge thanks to Dave and Cheryl Osbourne who helped me out big time and actually stayed with me and my wife to make sure we were squared away.

Tradezone numero cuatro

I didn't do that great this race. I went into it with a specific plan and got caught up in all the hooplah. I ended up racing outside of my comfort zone and that sucked. I feel like I'm kind of forced to do that when minimal teammates show up to ride. I really wish more of my teammates would've come out to these training races. So far the only people who have shown up are people I've never really ridden with before and I say that literally. I mean I look on bikereg and see that some of them are registered for races and that's great, but I feel like these training races (especially when the weather is great), are just as important because that's when we learn what each other can do. Racing is fun, but it would be a lot more fun with teammates.
ABRT, Bike Doctor, WWVC and a couple other guys were in attack mode firing on all cylinders, and that was cool. Definitely makes the race a lot more interesting. Next week I plan on sticking to my plan, which is super top secret.

From H.P. to Paris-Roubaix

For starters, the weather was actually pretty good down at H.P. today, and the amount of people that showed up for the noon ride justified that. I love these mid-week crits, so to speak. For me, it seems like I always learn something new about the way I ride or find out something new that I never want to do again. I try to use the times I go down there as a learning experience and so far I think it's paying off.

Anyway, for the latter part of the evening, I bought I ticket to go the Road to Roubaix movie at the Arlington Drafthouse. The event ended up selling out so I was pretty glad that I didn't wait till the last minute. I think the mixture of cycling, food and especially beer really gets a lot of people excited, so it was easy to see why this event would sell out. For me, I really just wanted to see a good film. Since I don't drink, that didn't factor into the equation at all for me.

After getting a good seat around 10 after 8 pm, the movie finally started at about 9:45 after raffles and sponsor shout-outs. My personal opinion is that the movie wasn't that great. I've seen Off Road to Athens. I own it, and I really liked that documentary. I figured this documentary would be along the same lines but to me it lacked something. I guess I was expecting to see a little bit more about how the cyclist prepare for Paris-Roubaix. I wanted to see something about the training and the equipment selection and everything that goes into racing the race. I thought that everyone that spoke just kept saying the same thing over and over for 75 minutes. "Paris-Roubaix is a difficult race and takes mental toughness" and "You have to be a little crazy to do Paris-Roubaix", with an English, French, German, Italian and Dutch accent. I was just a little disappointed, and I like road racing more than mountain biking so I really wanted to like this movie. Maybe if I had had a couple of pitchers of Dogfish ale in me I would've liked it a little bit more, but that's just my opinion because I'm sure there were people there that absolutely loved it and thought it was Oscar worthy.

I'm allowed to change my mind!

Ok, so I woke up this morning feeling a lot better so I decided if the weather holds I will race at Tradezone #2. We shall see.

Come on already!

I'm getting really anxious for the warm weather and the real racing season to start. Unfortunately it's also causing me to lose a little bit of my training motivation. This was my first real winter of actually training and right about now I'm extremely sick of riding inside most of the week. The weather is really starting to get on my nerves as well. When it's beautifully sunny outside, it's freakin' windy, I mean wind tunnel windy. Take last Thursday for example. After waiting all week to get a chance to ride outside I get down to HP for the noon ride and I have to battle 30+ mph wind gust! Very discouraging! Literally at one point I think I was leaning into the wind at a 45 degree angle just to stay upright. Then, when the weather is warm, it decides to rain. Mother nature needs to be shot and I got the Glock .40 to put her down.

Anyway I guess I'm really just looking forward to the season starting more than anything. I just want to make sure I don't end up as one of those riders with good early season form that fades and fizzles into nothing towards the end of the season. I was getting excited for UMD but because of LAX we gotta wait for Jeff Cup. Tradezone #2 is scheduled for tomorrow, but so is rain and snow. I've been battling a bit of a cold for the past week or so, and I'm thinking that even though I'm registered for the B race, I might be sitting this one out. As a matter of fact I know I'm sitting this one out. I want to make sure this cold doesn't try to hang around any longer than it has to. Thanks for reading.

Tradezone: Part 1 of many

I decided for this race I would do the B and C race. Not because I think I'm that great, but because I definitely need the training.

So the C race went like this, I won. That's about it. It was about as interesting as you would've expected a C race to be, there were no breakaways and no crashes that I know of. Actually, from being in both races, I think the C race was far less sketchier than the B. Who would've thought. On the bell lap a guy in a nondescript black uniform took off after the first right hand turn. I saw this and moved up to the front, not chasing the guy in front of me because I knew he would be cooked before coming into the finish. On the backstretch with all the pot holes another guy shot past me to bridge the gap and I rode his wheel across until we caught the guy and took off at the bottom of the uphill leading to the finish and that was all she wrote.

After the C race I was actually feeling pretty good. I still doubted my ability to finish the B race once I saw all the familiar faces in the B race, but I figured might as well give it a go. Now, the B race was a race, and I loved it. Attack after attack. I could definitely tell there are a few teams that are on the ball, and two worth mentioning, Route 1 and ABRT. I am not on either team, but I love when they show up to race because I know there will be some good tactics going on to make the race more interesting and feel like it makes me a more intelligent rider. Since this was my second race, I was trying to conserve a lot of energy and make smart efforts, which I did for the most part. I was feeling pretty good until about 5 laps to go. Then the hammer of Thor came down upon me and both my thighs cramped like crazy. I knew I could still hang on but every lap it felt like a cramp kept popping up in a new spot. By 3 laps to go, my hamstrings started to cramp. At this point I seriously thought about just pulling off but I figured I could still finish as long as I didn't try and stand up, which I never did for the rest of the race. Needless to say, I was able to finish in the field and definitely not contesting the sprint. I was upset about that, because I was definitely in good position on the last lap.
But it was a learning experience and now I at least know I need to tweak my race time nutrition a little bit because I refuse to not be competitive in anymore races because of cramps.

By the way, had anyone notice how skinny Kyle is looking these days?! Awesomeness!