Fun in Delaware

My teammates backed out of Columbia, so I didn't get to go. I love that crit too. This past weekend, I wasn't going to miss a weekend because my school is maybe incapable of sending my team long distance. Luckily, Natan and the guys at BU were able to bring me along for an awesome weekend. I left my studio class at 2 on Friday, headed over to the BU lot to wait for the vans, load them up and leave just before 4. I would say Natan had a good drive down, but we did get pulled over on the Garden State Parkway, and luckily garnered a warning to a van full of 11 collegiate cyclists. We hit Olive Garden in Cherry Hill around 9:30, eventually got to the hotel around 12, crammed 7 to a room, did a quick shave and got to bed before 1. Woke up to realize we had a 7-minute drive to the race, and decided to hit up Waffle House across the street.

The Road Race on saturday was awesome, the B field didn't let any break go more than 200 meters up the road before we eventually reeled them back in. I felt great the whole race, and was happy with 11th but I know had I not got cut-off in the last turn and almost taken out by a crazy crash, I would have been on the back of the UVM train and probably could have pulled a top-5. I give all the credit to Chebot for the win, I could see him jump at the right time as I was trying to get by as many people as I could. Nice victory salute, and I'm not going to say I advocate taking your hands off the bars in a sprint finish, but to those who do it in a non-dangerous, non-sprinting situation can benefit from how to Victory Salute Like A PRO:

Robby knows how to do it right.

Saturday after the races we hit up main street in Newark, grabbed dinner and headed back to the hotel to shower, watch Super Troopers on TV and pass out early. Sunday we woke up at 5:45 to get in some Waffle House before the ITT. The course was fun, I got to ride it beforehand, but wished I spent more time on the trainer getting loose. Nevertheless I got 11th with a decent time, felt like I should have pushed it in some parts and upped the cadence a bit, but what can you do. Anybody have ITT pictures? I'd like to see if there is a pic of me looking weird in an aero helmet but no TT bars.

Most of you that may or may not be reading this knows how things panned out for the crit on Sunday. Many people were going down in a blind S-turn which included a flat brick crosswalk interupting the slope, which sent 4 or 5 to the hospital including the motor pace bike driver! Needless to say, after seeing so many ambulances come and go on the course, I wasn't taking any risks on that turn in Alan Atwood's death crit. It was hard for me to find a line through it that I was comfortable with, and fell back quick, and 4 or 5 of us got gapped from the main group and just fell back. At this point I really didn't care anymore, my only ambition of the day was to not get injured so, taking it easy I eventually got pulled. Whatever, I'm finding that I prefer a road race to a crit anyday, but crits are essential to racing in this country, and I better start sustaining the constant hard effort and accelerations alot better, I think I'm sprinting well but I just need to get a little more comfortable taking turns at speed.

We didn't get back to Boston until about 1:45 AM, which prompted me to ride back to WIT, drop my stuff of and head to studio to stay up and get my work done. Lets just say, sleeping didn't happen. I was impressed with myself, I didn't resort to caffeine pills or anything like that to help me stay up, I was running on adrenaline (I guess?) which is hard to do regularly, let alone after a day of two races. The key is to stay on your feet, as soon as you sit down and lay back all it takes is ten seconds to fall asleep. So after a two-race Sunday, I didn't get to bed until 10PM Monday. Not bad, its just the nature of architecture. I got some work done to help saturday night and the car ride home, but we all know that for the most part not much can get done on race weekends.

My wallet is empty, and therefore I am not making it to Philly, I also would not like to fall behind on my studio project. I'll hit Wells Ave of course to get some action in my legs on sunday, and hopefully get out to Army and Yale in the coming ECCC weekends.

Rutgers/Princeton Awesomeness

Well in the first race weekend of the year, I could say that I was pleasantly amused at the outcome. The weekend started off great, Greg and I won our studio competition project after sitting in on the jury session for over three hours on Friday. We had a bit of a rush getting all packed to head out, but were finally on the road at 6:30. Only making quick stops, and maintaining a fairly high speed throughout, we made it down to our hotel in Edison by 11. I couldn't figure out the Days Inn wireless password, so we were going to take the longest way to the ITT, but luckily some cool Kutztown guys gave me the quick route from the hotel.

The ITT was the start of some signs of a bad day for me. My thought was it was going to go well, especially with doing the Landry's ITT the week before. My hopes for winning my heat at the event were high, until some bloke from Princeton entered my heat, but I ended up getting third out of 16 in the heat, 25 seconds off of Bennette and ended the day sixth overall in collegiate, 335 watts over 19 minutes isn't bad (if only I could lose some weight!). So even though the previous ITT went well, it ended up not so much. Maybe it was the short length of the course that made me go too hard, maybe it was the bad stomach ache and subsequent bathroom rush right beforehand, but I wasn't going to be full strength. I shot out too fast, felt great though until after I came back past the start, began to feel a little fatigued, and right before the second turnaround I got passed by the Kutztown rider starting behind me. DAMN! After that I didn't have the same kick left to get a great acceleration out of the turnaround and ended at 6:24, 16 seconds better than last year but given better weather and general level of fitness I should have been alot faster.

Then, the crit. What a great course this was, and even more fun was coaching the Intro fields to get to preview the course a bit (as well as give out advice to the newbies). By the time the A race came along, I had ridden the course alot and thought I would be as ready as ever... nope. I lined up on the front row, which would have given me great starting position had I not slipped my pedal on the whistle. I still was mid-pack going up the climb, and everyone was flying off the bat, it was hard just to keep pace up the hill, and once you got to the top the acceleration downhill was brutally fast, and taking the corners at blazing speeds wasn't bad, it was just the intensity of the accelerations after the corners that my legs weren't feeling good for. I popped off the back on the third lap, saw Steve drop his chain on the hill, which was a shame because he's a good crit rider and just made a silly mistake that can cost you, which I had one the next day. Steve, myself (barely), Derek from UVM and Anna McLoon (the all powerful girl who can destroy the Women's A race and still sit in the Men's A race after for quite awhile) were kind of in a pack strung out because of my inability to accelerate, but all got pulled once we were lapped by the mighty Nick Frey and eventually the field.

Given a good meal and decent amount of sleep, Sunday should have went pretty well... nope. I avoided riding around too much before the race, periodically doing half laps of the circuit between races to stay fresh, got on the trainer awhile beforehand and was feeling really good. Here comes the big mistake: I put my computer magnet on my wheel upside-down. The race started and after two laps of the circuit I felt really good staying in the pack, but all of a sudden I hear a ticking noise. My wheel magnet rotated because of the wind pushing against it being upside down, and it started to hit the cadence/speed sensor mounted on the chain stay. It got annoying and I got worried, so I reached down just to push the sensor out of the way, and one of the two zip-ties that was holding it snapped, causing the sensor attached to the other zip tie to fling around the end of the chain stay and knock against my spokes. Obviously, I had to stop at this point and rip the sensor off the other zip tie and throw it in my pocket. In the ten seconds it took me to stop, get off, rip off the sensor, and get back on, I already los significant ground on the main field, and after a hard lap of pounding the pedals, I knew I would never catch back to them. So after 5 laps of soloing way off the back (pissed off enough to keep pushing it but wasn't going to just quit) I finally got pulled. I rode slowly around the course in disgust after feeling really good about the race, the field went by, but on the backside of the course was Graham from Brown, a UMass rider and Anna McLoon pacelining off the back of the field. They told me to hop on the back, to which I replied "I've already been pulled,..." at that second, I realized I was displeased with myself enough to just hammer it away on the bike, and I added "but I'll hop on anyway!" So I started pacelining with them for two or three laps at a pretty decent pace, even though I was already done I didn't care, I wanted to keep going. Our group got pulled after a few laps, before the field came around again, but afterwards I felt much better.

And thats my story of how I got pulled three times in two races. Beat that. My ambitions for next Columbia are pretty good seeing as how B suits me better for a category. For someone who barely gets in 8-12 hours a week on the bike, I couldn't train enough to keep up with the A's all season. Architecture studio work will pick up here and there, and there will be weeks where I can't get in 6 hours on the bike because of work, in the end I'd rather be competitive and give A my best shot for next year.

My favorite AToC pics (and others too)

So after a week of a studio deadline while glancing at the Tour of California tracker now and then, I'd like to bring up some photos which describe what I enjoyed about the race this year. First off, the online tour tracker was great, because I don't get Versus on campus and was in studio most of the time anyway. Second, Frankie Andreau isn't the greatest commentator in the world, but he still makes Craig Hummer look like a retard (he is one). Bob Roll has started to grow on me, so I don't mind adding his thoughts to the mix (as long as they are somewhat understandable, he knows what he's talking about for the most part).
Also, Johan Bruyneel getting to shave Roll's head: priceless.
There were some fantastic looking kits to see for this year, I had to start off with DZ's awesome US TT champ skinsuit, and the equally matching bike (all he needs is the helmet to be red white and blue)
Rock Racing's kit is just awesome. I mean, they'll probably take a step back from last year supplying their own clothing and a different kit for every major race, but Louis Garneau was glad to pick up the slack. ANARCHY!!!
Columbia-Highroad's kit is interesting. Not a fan of the fake six-pack, but the white and yellow is starting to grow on me. Cavendish thinks anybody who dislikes the kit can suck deez nuts:
Now, on to the fans. Oh, these people do get their 15 seconds of fame very stylishly, and this year's race didn't keep any of them from coming out. Big hair superfan is a definite hit:
The pope gave the peloton his blessing:
Gigantic Sumo guys bounced around as their small legs moved really fast up Palomar:
The Montana classic becoming more common:
This year the Longhorns made an appearance, giving more proof that this should be done in the ECCC:
Just when you need motivation, and the pain is getting so bad that it becomes the focus, all you need is a reminder:
For if you don't pedal, you could grow weak, and maybe end up looking like this guy:
And my absolute favorite, probably because of the blatant shot at Lance, is Mr. LIVECLEAN:
Leave your EPO at home kids. Lets start some outrageous ECCC costume-chasing crowds, preferably on climbs or time trials.

Okay, don't feel bad if my training power makes you feel like a 5 year old

You guys had to just go about posting your training data on your ECCC blogs, when no one wants to see how puny you are. I wasn't posting my data because I didn't want to make any of you feel bad, but you've left me no choice it seems.
Basically, yesterday I went for a 12-hour ride to home in CT and back, the first two hours or so I did 18-minute repeat intervals, but then whipped out some sprint paced intervals at roughly 4000 watts or so and jumped on the Mass Pike for awhile, getting alot of strange looks too. I called my mom on the way in, and she handed me the t-shirt I went to get via musette bag. On the way back I was just doing steady-state on the hills in western Mass averaging about 26. After I got back I recorded the data, but I was surprised to see it didn't graph my power output above 1800. Oh well, pretty much my average ride data not much changes as far as numbers.

I think I'm gonna return the SRM, I don't need it to school all you noobs for the collegiate season. In fact, you guys should really just quit now if you can't even post moderate power numbers. Take your bike, sell it on ebay, because you're all a bunch of tools, go ride your fixie around town without brakes and smash into cars because there is no place for you in the ECCC.

I'm going to hang out and play guitar with John Petrucci, who is pretty much the equivalent on guitar to me on a bike. Later

Wentworth's Top Secret New Team Kit

So our design man Greg Foti spent a good nine months or so on this design (on and off of course). We went with Hincapie Sportswear this year for clothing, thanks to the deal that they offered ECCC teams (thanks to Columbia for coordinating that) and we didn't stop short of accessories. Much to my despair, we couldn't get skinsuits because of the minimums for the very small team that we have, but going full-out with jackets, ls/ss jerseys, bibs, arm warmers, caps, t-shirts, gloves and booties. A $6K order is alot for a small team, but just about everyone got more than the basic jersey and shorts.

Now for the design:

TO BE UNVEILED AT RUTGERS

Yes, this design is going to be a hands down favorite for the Best New Jersey on the ECCC Survey at the end of the season. But I will give some hints:
White is very Euro, the pureness of style. For those of you not familiar with the concept of Euro, you should read up on the Rules of the Euro Cyclist: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/group.php?gid=2258201150&ref=ts

Now this is our mascot, the Leopard. One of our Architecture professors was asked to create a small face logo to be used for printed admissions material and so on, he was nice enough to let us incorporate it in our design. Don't assume that we just tiled them or copied a polka-dot pattern, this is unique and won't be seen anywhere else, you'll just have to wait for Rutgers to see.

Another ECCC Blog!

So out of a spur of the moment decision, I now have a blog. I probably should be doing CAD drawings, but I've had enough of that this week. When I have more time this weekend hopefully I'll fix up this layout and wide picture above.

I'm pretty pumped for starting the collegiate road season, after a good winter break of logging many hours a week on the bike, I've decided to start the season racing the A field. This will probably be the biggest wake-up call of my life, but after discussing with NU's Mark Theeman, its better to start in A because the B riders still crash as much as the C's and D's, especially in the begining of the season. I intend on getting my ass kicked to a certain extent, I'm a Cat 3 so I'm kinda qualifyed for A's, but I'm not training with Powertaps or SRM's and the only hint I have of what my power levels are come from a Kurt Kinetic Computer that only is accurate when I'm on the trainer. I got a Garmin Edge 705 over the winter though for when the race bike comes back from Calfee (thats a story for another time) and maybe down the road I'll make some investment into a SRM or PT.

Crashing is lame, and made me get four stitches at the Beanpot Crit last year because a Tufts rider couldn't corner a course on his own damn campus:
Here's the guy going down, MIT is about to slide and I'll get the instantaneous reaction of sliding too.
There I go, and for some reason I don't put my hands in front of my face, and...
BAM! This lucky photographer happened to capture the exact point my face hit the ground. That resulted in an angry ambulance ride to get stiched up, there's still a slight mark in my skin from it but for the most part you can barely notice it.

Back to CAD, might get to sleep around 4ish tonight, hopefully I can get some outside riding in tomorrow before it pours on Boston and drops below freezing again.