Great racing with Ford

This weekend marks my first real races with the Ford Team. Saturday we had the Willow Run Time Trial. The course really suited me well, with 13miles in 6laps on a flat course with a lot of wind. My strategy was to utilize my power in the head wind and use the short tailwind to recover. I think i road as good of race as i could have, i felt pretty good but not as good as i felt a few weeks ago at the Purdue TT. I ended up finishing 4th. I was a little disapointed but satisfied. I guess you can't ever really be upset with a top 5. Sunday was the finally of the Ann Arbor Training Series Crit. We had 60laps to do. This was my first non TT race with the guys. I have always like the way these guys race, so i was very excited to see how it was going to go. From the start i covered a move by Danny Klein. We were gone for a few laps, and as soon as we came back Rob was off with a few guys. This pattern continued. I have to say, it was absolutley awesome to see teammate racing aggressively and countering each other moves. I have never had that before, and it just goes to show why this team is so strong. They race really hard to win. Finally with about 45 laps to go Rob D. got off with Ray Debowski and one of his teammates. I bridged accross to them and formed a break of 4. The next lap Rob punched it up the climb and dropped Ray, which in hind sight we probably should have let him stay with us. Rob and i continued kill it and opened up a pretty good gap. The wholefoods guy with us didn't contriube either because he couldn't or chose not to. We stayed away for a little over 30laps and got caught with about 13laps to go. We continued to cover attacks but with 4laps to go, it was in our interest to keep it a field sprint with Brians quick finish. With 4 to go i kept all the late attacks a resonalbe distance and then with 2 to go i stung the field out single file as hard as i could go. I took Brian and Rob into the last corner in the top 5. Brian ended up 2nd and Rob 3rd along with 2 prime wins on the day. I have to say it was one of the coolest races i've done. I've never been on a team that works this fluidly together. Everyone does their job selflessly. Even though we didn't win, it was very awesome. I have never been this excited about not placing in a race before, because i helped to contriubte to a great team effort and good result. We are definatley going to win some races this year. Tune in next weekend for Cone Azalia report.

Regional Pictures

Collegiate Regional Road Race

On sunday we had the collegiate regional road race outside of Danville, Illinois. The course was a short circuit with 2 walls per lap. I really like this course, I think it is a great power climbers course. The race was unfortunalty very negative and not quite hard enough to seperate the weaker riders. Everyone was racing to save their aquired points and marking the stronger riders. I made some really hard attacks and was in a few moves i thought would make it, but they just never materialized. A few riders slipped away and made 2 groups up the road. On the last lap, we caught the chase group of 5, but it still left a group of 2 up the road, 3 guys slipped away in the last 3miles and we ended up sprinting up the finishing climb for 6th place. I hit the top of the climb first and drove it to the finish line about 300yards. Jake came around me right at the line for 6th and i finished 7th. Still a good result and enough to move me up to 3rd overall in the conference. I am looking forward to nationals and to racing with the my teammates on the Ford Team.

Collegiate Regional Crit

Today in wonderful Rantoul, Illinois we had the regional crit. The course is set on an old Air Force Base on some of the roughest roads i've ever raced a crit on. I guess i can't complain considering some of the surfaces i've raced on in Belgium it wasn't that bad. The worst part of the race had to be the guy burning leaves in his yard, we all got smoked out every time through the start finish area. Anyways, getting down to the actual racing, it was regionals which means double pts for everything. First place primes were worth 10pts so i was up to trying to win as many as possible. I ended up winning 3 of them. Unfortunatley i just didn't have good legs today, i felt like i had a powerful sprint, but i just couldn't keep the hammer down. The 3rd prime i won was with 10min left of racing. I got a pretty large gap so thought i would give it a go and see if someone would come up to me. After a few laps by myself, i finally saw the field again and it was Jake Rytlewski on the front of the field pulling me back. It was too bad i didn't get some company, but I don't think anything was getting off the front without Jake's team Marion involved. Pretty much the race was set to be a field sprint so i started getting myself prepared and set up in the right position. On turn 2 on the last lap i was sitting 8th wheel just to my left i heard the inevitable crash and swore i saw the dark blue of Marion. Coming into the last turn of the race i was 4th wheel, with Brandon Gavic leading it out, Jake on his wheel and a Northwestern guy in front of me. In the last turn a few guys tried jamming the inside, lost their lines and slammed into me, which sent me bouncing off the curb, i was able to keep the bike up and finally threw a little elbow to get untangled and restarted my sprint. I was able to overtake a few guys, but could only manage 7th. Nothing really to get upset about, because it's bike racing as usual. Guys who don't hold position well will always jam the corners and try to punch their way to the front, I just have to be more aggressive in pushing back and holding my sprint despite getting jammed into. The worst part of the day was the flash of blue i saw crashing into the ground was Jon Swain and John Royal of Marion. After the race they were still laying on the ground and we thought for sure they had broken something. It turned out to be a lot of road rash and no broken bones. Tomorrow we have the tough road race at Kickapoo State Park. Hopefully i can pull down a win, but we'll have to see how the legs are treating me.

A Good Day :-)

Today was good day. I got my new DMT shoes in and will kick my new Shimanos to the curb. Not to knock on Shimano, i believe they are a great shoe, they just don't do well with my feet. I've been riding with foot pain all year. The best part of today was meeting with someone who had an outside view of me and my racing. It was good to hear some constructive criticizm and to learn some changes that i need to make in my approach to the sport. The meeting went well and i learned a lot. I don't want to go into any details, but I have an opportunity to prove myself as a team player and worker. I spend almost all of my racing trying to win for myself, i look forward to racing as a team and working for others. I think given a specific set of directions and a goal i can do a good job. Anyways, more to come. Wish me luck this weekend and in up coming races. I'll keep you informed. Thanks for reading

Me and Tara after the Western Race

Not too happy with getting dropped from the winning move today, i just couldn't hang in the hills with Jake attacking that hard up every climb.

Winding down the School year and Collegiate season

The collegiate season is coming to a close, this weekend I have Regionals in Rantoul Illinois. I'm a little bummed because it is my Anniversary with Tara and we won't be able to be together. Last year she came down with me to Regionals and we had a good time. This year she's too busy with work and i think she is convinced that if she is at my races i don't do well. School is also almost over, with one week of regular class and finals on Mon and Wed of next week. It will be great to get on my summer schedule and get some good training in and some great racing. My work schedule will settle down and really allow for some great training and recovery time. I am very excited to start racing with the Ford Team. They are a great bunch of guys that i think my style will mix well with. It will be great to have a number or strong aggresive team mates around me. I hope to have good races this weekend at regionals to maintain or advance my 4th place overall in the conference. More to come from the weekend.

Michigan Challenge

I heard recently about the new Michigan Team challenge. Basically what it is, is a team competition between the teams in michigan. A few select races are targetted and points assigned for the best 3 finishers in each team. I think it will be a good competition and a good way to showcase the depth of teams in Michigan. Included in this challenge is 2 individual time trials and one team time trial. This is good news for me since i have a lot of confidence in TT's and the TTT will be great with the depth on our team. Hopefully we will see Ford riding away with the win in this competition. Till next time.

Western Michigan Race Pictures

Here are some good pics taken by local KBC member Zolton. The weekend sure was nice and good pictures are pouring in.

Racing at home

This weekend Western Michigan hosted 2 races here in kalamazoo. First of all, it was awesome not to have to travel to race. I got to sleep in, see my family and race in front of a home crowd. The saturday race was a long 85mile road race just south of Kalamazoo in Schoolcraft. The course was a flat wind section set to the background of farms and golf courses. Unfortunalty the wind was not quite as stong as i was hoping so the race wasn't hard enough. Only about 4 of the strong guys from our conference showed up including Jake Rytlewski, Jon Swain, Brandon Gavic and myself. The rest of the field ended up racing the typical long collegiate road racing style which is race as negativley as possible, chase down all the strong guys and let the lesser riders ride away with ease. It was so frustrating that Jake and Jon actually quit the race about half way into it. finally with about 35miles to go i forced a break by digging really really deep. Fortunalty it worked, but the downside was that i went a little deeper than i really wanted to go. I ended up getting 7th in the race which i felt was a pretty poor result considering how strong i felt. On sunday we had a 13lap circuit around our college campus. We have great terrain on our school grounds with 2 nice steep hills per lap about 3miles total per lap. On the second lap of the race, I attacked with Jake, Jon and Brandon and we got a huge gap in a hurry. We were really going hard in that break. Jake and Jon were both really frest from not finishing the previous day, not to mention they are lighter by 30lbs and better climbers than i am. Brandon is all of 130lbs and goes up hill pretty well himself. Jake attacked pretty hard on the finishing climb with 6laps to go and i couldn't go with the move. I chased as hard as could for as long as i could, but ended up getting caught with a few laps to go. I was pretty toasted by this point and struggled to try and finish with the group. The best news of the day how well jeremy raced. He performed great and finished what i think would be his hardest race yet. He also finished well the day before in the long road race. I think he is starting to come around. I have next weekend off because of Easter and the following weekend is regionals in Illinois. Thanks for reading.

Another TT win

This past weekend I had another collegiate race weekend at Purdue University. Saturdays race was a 10mile TT. With 5miles out and 5 miles back. At the end of the way out there was a 1mile climb that kicked pretty nice at the top. After you reached the top you flipped around for the fast tailwind section home. I ended up winning by over 30sec. over Todd Yesefski from the pro team Nerac Outdoorlights. I was very happy with the result. The next was suposed to be a crit, however it wouldn't stop raining and they kept delaying the race. I decided to bag it and head home to study for an Aero exam. I was content with my decision when i heard that there were crashes in the race so i think i made a good call. Until next time, thanks for reading.