So alot has happened since my last post. Sorry to my mother (and anyone else who reads this) for skimping on posting an entry for so long, but October has been one hell of a month, mostly crammed with a midcrit and travel. I'll start with the end of September.
(I'm somewhere in the first two rows of bodies)
I decided it would be cool to go to at least one concert while I was here. I saw one of my favorite bands (Dream Theater) headlining the Progressive Nation Europe Tour at the Berlin Arena. It was an awesome experience, I've never been up front for an entire show (over 5 hours...) but it really was worth the fatigue in my legs for standing up that long. The other bands were good, nothing great but it introduced me to Opeth, which I'd never paid much attention to but I was really impressed by their live performance, you have a new fan! DT played perfect like the insane musicians that they are, I'll see them the next time they come around Boston.
So on to my travels, we have two individual (optional) travels, so for the first one I wanted to experience Northern Italy. My roommate Greg and I decided to head to Milan for the four days. However, it dawned upon me in my trip research (only two days before we left) that there really wasn't that much to see in Milan. We made a last-minute decision (with the suggestion from our professor) to take a day and a half and travel east and see Venice, with a stop in Bergamo along the way. Bergamo is an awesome city with an old hill-top medieval town, really good for a four-hour stop if you're headed somewhere else. Its a really steep incline to get up there, you could take a ski-lift if you wanted to, but I'm the 'sportif' type, so walking was a good choice too. We missed the staircase though, and ended up walking along the road to the backside of the hill. Although a lot longer, it was definitely more scenic: On the way down, since we had time, we took the actual staircase, which was stupidly long. It actually made us grateful for taking the long way up, since it would have been a bitch to go up these:So then we hopped back on the train for three hours and made it to Venice around 6. The light was really nice when we got there, and by the time we made it to Piazza San Marco, night was on setting so I got some good photos. We stayed the night at some tourist campground, which was interesting, and then left the next afternoon. Well worth the trip I think. So after wards we headed back to Milan to see Internazionale take on Udinese at the famous Italian stadium, the San Siro:Our seats were pretty awesome for 36 euros each, plus I got to play with my ginormous zoom lens. Inter won the match 2-1, scoring the winning goal in injury time, and I've never seen a crowd erupt like they did. On Sunday, we just chilled in the park, getting some work done, saw a Frank Gehry exhibit, and flew back that afternoon. EasyJet is probably the best way to cruise around Europe if you're not carrying much, much recommended. Wow I forgot how long these things take to write. I'll continue later.
So, when I'm not in studio relentlessly wasting my life away with work that I'll end up changing ten times, I'll relax a bit back at the apartment. We don't have internet there, so I'll watch or play something on the computer, but most of the time I'll kick back and watch one of three channels that I'll understand. One is CNN International, so I can see what the hell is going on in this world (in english), the other is Eurosport. Eurosport isn't in english, but watching a race or soccer doesn't necessarily require it to get whats going on. And then there is MTV.
For those of you who don't know, MTV is a huge network which also owns Comedy Central and VH1, as well as other channels. So on MTV here in Europe, we get a vast array of entertaining shows from the good old USofA, including but not limited to Rock of Love (and spin-offs), Hogan Knows Best (and spin-offs), WildBoyz, Nitro Circus, Pimp My Ride, and of course, Chappelle's Show.
Now, I can't say that I'm a fan of the VH1 reality shows (Rock of Love, I Love Money, Charm School etc.) but to watch an episode here or there can be pretty entertaining. You can tell that alot of these people competing in these shows are absolutely fake, but to purposely act like complete bitches and assholes, while completely wasted most of time, is for some reason funny. I don't get it either.
(not my sketch, but funny still)
Next, all the shows with Hulk Hogan are awesome, well, because he's Hulk Hogan. I'll admit that I watched wrestling when I was younger, and as much I knew that it was all staged and fake to a point, something about the charisma of all the characters intrigued me. I've moved past this since middle school, but Hulk Hogan is still one cool jabroni in real life. I mean, the handlebar mustache is iconic. Then there are the Jackass spinoffs. Nitro Circus is just crazy motorbike stunts, which gets old after a certain point, but Wildboyz is great. Take the two funniest guys from Jackass and throw them in the jungle with animals, and you get hilarious. Don't you want to watch someone get bit in the ass by a crocodile? Its obvious that Germans and nice automobiles go hand in hand. But to put $40,000 worth of body work, paint and electronics into a car usually worth less than $500 just seems crazy. Maybe that's why they love it over here. Who wants to see an AMC Pacer with rims a sweet paint job, tv screens in the seats and a 2000-watt sound system? I do. Last, but certainly nowhere near least, is Chappelle's Show. Oh how I miss Chappelle's show (we all do, right?). It really took sketch comedy and racial comedy to a new level, and there was never a dull episode. He took the basics of racial comedy and applied them in a way that didn't make anybody feel uncomfortable, and afterward I felt like there was a new openness that everyone could laugh about. Its unfortunate that Dave left the show, but I can understand how people took the sketches too literally and make all that is of Dave Chappelle's image associated with the characters he played on the show, rather than his normal stand-up comedy which was alot funnier than most of the sketches on the show to begin with. Keep it real, Dave.
As for my biking while I'm over here, its sad to say that I won't get out to ride any of the Alps. Its just too expensive to get over there for four days, and coming back on Sunday is the most expensive flying day in Europe. Anyways, I'm going to Milan for my first travel and maybe we can work out a day riding some of the mountains north of there. However, for the second travel at the end of next month, I'm headed out to Belgium to see some real cyclocross. GVA Trofee - Koppenbergcross and Superprestige Hoogstraten, there should be some epic racing going on there.
I'll make my comeback to collegiate cycling when we get back to the States, hopefully I'll be in some form of shape. I'll look to maybe go to CX nationals this year! (joking) Road nationals are already planned on, but I'll need more than two weekends of cross to consider going out to Oregon. Maybe next year, assuming I get into the Master's program.
Sorry I haven't kept up with posts the last two weeks, I'm working towards a studio deadline tomorrow so the free time hasn't been plentiful. Last weekend we traveled to Prague for our Urban Studies class, which was a pretty awesome place. I got a bike, nothing specially really, it just works (barely) and gets me from the apartments to studio, shortening a 40-minute commute to 25 and saving me $6 or so a day. I'll post a pic of it later.
Well now I'm kind of settled in Berlin, in studio and kicking my self for deciding not to ship my cross bike. Bikes here aren't as cheap as I thought, I was looking for something like an old 80's road bike or something, with not so great components but decent enough to use for a long ride apart from commuting. I've been to five different shops so far and the best price I can get for something decent is 300 euros, or roughly $435-US. I know I'd be able to sell it before I leave for 75% of what I bought it for, but I don't want to drain my funds completely. Public transportation here is damn expensive, comparing it to the T in Boston, one ride is three times the price ($3.05 one-way).
So now here is the second part of my Amsterdam tale.
Day Three: Rotterdam
What a nice city. It got totally leveled in WWII, so since then its come along way. There are a lot of modern buildings, overall very clean, and a very lively marketplace. In the morning I had a presentation at the Kunsthal in the morning, it went pretty well. I still have to present the Dutch Embassy when we get to Berlin, and then the rest of the class is a 10-page paper comparing and contrasting the two projects.
I was surprised that I got to present my project in the auditorium, which was a special occasion. I’m still not sure what the smile and frown faces on the glass represent, but I’m sure I’ll find it out at some point in my research.
This is a typical OMA-Rem Koolhaas building, with main program spaces split by a main trajectory path that is blurred from interior to exterior. You can tell they were very happy with the result:
We spent some time wandering around Rotterdam, but there wasn’t much else to do so we took the train back to Amsterdam fairly early. I was hoping to get the Heineken Brewery tour in tonight, but they changed from their summer hours, so we got there after it closed. While we were out eating it started to rain, so the night was called early.
Day Four: Utrecht
Very interesting buildings were seen today. The Utrecht University seems like a really cool campus. It was Sunday morning there, so not a lot was going on, though at one point a pack of 200+ girls went out for a bike ride. I caught a photo of a few tailing off the back:
I think there were at least 15 girls for every guy we saw. Coming from Wentworth, that’s seems like a pretty amazing ratio. Sometimes it makes me think I should transfer, but I’m two semesters away from my bachelor’s so why bother. As for grad school, well, we’ll see. One more year at Wentworth makes financial sense.
We visited the library at the University, which had a very neat texture on every panel of the building, and even on the glass as a print for shading:
The inside was probably the most wide-open library I've ever seen. The idea is that everybody can see everybody, which encourages more social interaction. It also can serve as a motivator to someone like me where if I can see everyone else studying, I should probably be too. After wards, we walked down to the one, the only, Schröder House! Holy crap was this place pretty beat up, but thinking about it, its more than 80 years old, and that type of house wasn't designed to last. It was a bummer we couldn't 'make pictures' inside (every European tour guide's favorite expression). After that tour, we broke for lunch in the historic center of Utrecht. There was some were nice scenery, and its a city I wouldn't mind living in. I made it back to Amsterdam, took the tram straight to the Heineken brewery to see if I could make the tour. We just missed the last tour, which was a shame being our last night in Amsterdam, but the shop was open so I got some souvenirs anyway. A good group of us went out and enjoyed our last night in Amsterdam, out hitting up the bars. The highlight of the night was three of my friends accidentally stumbling into a gay bar to go to the bathroom, getting lots of racy comments from all the guys in there. It was almost a bad idea with a group of about 10 or so drunk Americans parading the red light district and surrounding bars, but then again most of everyone around that area are tourists anyway. Its nice not having to worry about getting much sleep, because of the very long bus ride we had the next day. I think I might be back sometime in the near future. Next stop: Paris!
Sorry for the lack of posts on this first travel elective, I really haven’t had the time to go out and spend it on the internet. Not that it isn’t widely available or anything, we just don’t get it at the hostels, we’re on our feet from 7 in the morning until 5 traveling around, sketching, photographing, studying etc. all the awesome architecture that’s over here. So once we’re free for the day after that’s done, we’re going to do something a little more fun and lively for the night, rather than go find an internet café or something of that nature. Here’s a recap of our time in Amsterdam, feel free to read in parts because it will probably be long.
Day One: Arrival Our flight landed around 7:40 AM at Schipbol Airport just outside of Amsterdam, I can say for the most part that none of us got more than 2 hours of sleep (I managed only one) and knew this would be a long day. We had no presentations that day, but Rolf Bachman and John Ellis (our professors) were eager to introduce us to the city. We took the tram to the hostel, to learn that we couldn’t check in until 2. So they let us drop our bigger bags in a closet to keep safe while we walked around until then. We walked all the way back towards Central Station, taking in the beautiful street scenery along the way:
We headed over to Amsterdam public library, where they were having a cool exhibit on Rietveld’s furniture, and a cafeteria with roof deck. We stopped and ate, took a look around the building (which was also very cool),
and eventually wandered back to the hotel. Greg and I got a sweet balcony on the second floor overlooking the canal next to us, and a view of the vibrant nightlife in the theater district. We took a nap for a few hours and went out to grab some food. We found a coffee shop with some good stuff (I won't say anymore), wandered over to the Red Light District to see what it was like, and called it a night early to help with the jet lag.
Day Two: Amsterdam We woke up early to see quite a few buildings. I won’t go into details about everything, but the housing development here was really cool, each floor had a separate façade material which gave each apartment a unique feeling: One of my favorites was the Muziekgebouw by 3xNielsen: The parti of the building is very simple and works amazingly well; there is a large performance hall for modern classical music, and a smaller one for jazz music. Around is a glass box that encloses the space between to two for lobby, bar, and restaurant areas. Very cool theater effects indeed: The best thing about Amsterdam (I thought) was the sheer number of bikes. Bikes outnumber cars by a long shot, although 99% of the bikes were cruisers: In a city as old as Amsterdam, efficiency is a huge priority; fewer cars, less pollution, more tourists, then more people on bikes, walking and using public transportation. I wish more of them were road bikes, but most people are solely commuting, so a leisure bike does the trick, and you don’t have to worry about someone stealing your particular bike because they all look the same. We saw two of Hertzbeger’s Montessori schools, which were somewhat interesting. Our tour guide was very enthusiastic when it came to demonstrating the importance of the learning environment, which included some great posters with important lessons: Somehow, I think this sort of openness wouldn’t fly in America, I’m sure there is some stupid code for educational settings that prevents a six-story drop anywhere in the building. I mean, some kid in the US would probably jump this: We retreated back to the room, checked out the Red Light district on a crazy Friday night, and got to bed not too late, I had a presentation the next day.
I’ll split this part into two, we’re gonna go out to watch the Swiss national team match at a bar somewhere downtown.
P.S. Found this on the side of a building, even though the numbers are technically wrong, it's still awesome:('05 Tour de France Prologue)
Thursday, August 27, 2009
I’m on the plane right now, trying to get some sleep but the 6-hour layover will kill me later (it’ll be like pulling an all-nighter, right?). So I figure now is a good time to document my thoughts on Fitchburg.
After spending about $350 to race CTSR (boat fees, gas, registration, food, supplies etc.) I convinced myself I could not drive off-island to race Fitchburg. Luckily, I have some great friends and teammates, notably Steven Hopengarten for coming down to Woods Hole to grab me, put me up at his place in Lincoln for the long weekend, drive out and provide race support for GLV, and lend me his car to drive back to Woods Hole with Keith. We would have liked to have him racing with us in the Cat.3 field, but he was logging a long season already and needed a break (which some of you might have read already). I would also like to extend a thanks to Steve’s parents, who were great hosts for the weekend providing the team plenty of sleeping room and breakfast/dinner after the long and hard days.
Day one: ITT – I forgot my aero equipment in CT, which only consisted of clip-on bars and helmet, but in general those were huge benefits I wish I had. The weather was misty and cool, the roads a little slick but I had hoped to perform better than I did in the CTSR TT. I of course (again) went out a little too hard, and noticed that the course would be mostly false flat/small rollers after the turnaround. I was passed right before the turnaround by a fellow who goes by the name Austin Moran (no relation) but its always cool to see someone with pretty close names be racing the same field at a NRC event (and he was also rocking a nice TT setup as well). I struggled on the way back, placing late-seventies, 20 seconds in back of Keith and 25 in back of Lachance. As a lot of us expected, the Soul Train blasted through the course to grab the TT win. We thought he maybe should have been a 2 beforehand, but why not sandbag a big stage race, win some money and upgrade after? Genius.
Day two: Circuit race – This race ended on a nasty little drag up to the line, rumored at about 15% for the last 400 meters of the circuit. I had no ambitions with that climb at the end; just hoping to not get gapped and finish with the pack would be fine by me. I found it hard to maintain position for this race (not that I can climb anyway, but I can hold my own powering up it if it only lasted a few hundred meters. On the backstretch you could make up some considerable position and move up on the left side of the divider, though there was a decent headwind and some sketchy riders making me nervous. In the end I stayed out of trouble, finished with the pack and conserved some energy for the next day.
Day Three: Road Race – After driving this course the day before, I knew this was not the road race for me. The major climb leading up to the finished kicked up three times without any real place to recover, but I was going to give it a good shot nonetheless. Keith nabbed some point in the Circuit race, and was only 5 points off the jersey lead, so I was going to try and help him get some more to see if he could be in contention for it going into the crit the next day. On the first of six laps, I got to the front with Keith and kept an eye on things, taking turns with the pace making. As the climb started, I felt good until the last kick before the finish turn. I started dropping back a bit, but I noticed Keith ahead of me, but dropping back fast than me.I went alongside him, saw if he was alright but he seemed to be in a lot of discomfort. I tried to pace him to keep up with the pack but we were gapped going into the feed zone, and after a downhill saw the field pulling away from us. We continued to go at it together, picking up and dropping stragglers, hoping to catch back on but we knew it was a bit too late. Even the field getting neutralized wasn’t enough for us to get back on. I was taking the long descent conservatively, with the speed wobbles becoming a nuisance I didn’t want to risk losing control like I did at CTSR. On the lap 4 climb coming into the finish line, Keith noticed my rear tire was losing air. I hadn’t felt it while climbing but he easily could see it. When we got to the top of the hill before the descent, I told Keith to go it alone because I was going to take absolutely no risk on the descent (with no neutral service behind you, you might as well keep going, right?). So I took the descent at like 25-28mph and by the bottom, the tire felt pretty low, and I was just praying for some neutral service to come and save my day. By the time I started climbing it was pretty much flat, and I had some nice words for the race officials at the finish line when they informed me I still had to complete the final lap despite my flat. Whatever I said must have garnered some reaction, because by the time I got to the end of the feed zone, the SRAM car came speeding up behind me, gave me a new 404 and I bolted down the descent and the rest of the final lap to finish only 25 minutes down. Great. Keith finished maybe 10 or 15 minutes ahead of me, and Lachance managed to stay in the pack the whole race (great showing for him in his first Cat.3 race). At least I was in the time cut, but I got thrown towards the back of the GC. Afterwards Steve took me to a post-race BBQ at Frances’ (Mt. Holyoke) place in Fitchburg. There were many collegiate racers on hand, most notably the UVM guys, so it was a good end to a good day, despite the poor finish.
Day four: Crit – This crit course was fast and furious, with a lot of jostling for position and a brutal headwind in the finishing straight. Keith had a very active race up from netting a few prime points here and there. I was up there at the beginning, but a crash in turn 3 coming out of a long downhill caused me to hit the guy in front of me while slowing down, and the guy behind me also hit me but we were back enough that we stayed upright, and rolled over to take our free lap. I took a rear pit wheel for safety, and once I said I had campy, the guy pulled out an 808 from the piled, what an awesome wheel to race on! I felt like I could accelerate a lot better (probably because my 404s are older), and I made my way back to towards the front again. I saw Lachance long enough to have him flat right in front of me, but I got around him just fine, at least it happened in a straight part off to the side. I got to the front with 4 to go and prime lap, and chased down an attack from a Westwood Velo guy on the downhill with Keith on my wheel. Keith proceeded to counter attack right before turn 3, but took it a little too hot, hit a bump, knocked his seat off the rails and went down. I was third wheel, so I slowed down as much as I could to hit the hay bails and keep moving , but by the time I regrouped, the pack was gone, people were pissed off with no free lap and I rolled in behind the pack after three cool-down laps to get awarded the same time as the finish. So at the end of the day, we weren’t in any position to hold our heads high, but it was fun for my first Fitchburg nonetheless and I hope to come back next year in better form and with a big Cat.3 GLV turnout.
I’m gonna try and get some sleep now, lots of buildings to see in a few hours.
Two more days and I'll be in Amsterdam. Great way to start off a study-abroad semester I think, four days based based there with day trips to Rotterdam and Utrecht, should lead to many fun times. I'll be sure to take up the Heineken Brewery Tour, I hear its a blast when big groups take it together so I hope everyone will come out for one of the nights there. From there we'll move on to a road trip day, stopping to see and sketch a few prominent buildings, making it to Paris that night. Three days in Paris, seeing alot of Corbu along the way, and then a travel day to Basel. One full day there, and then a half a day in Zurich, with our flight to Berlin that night. What a way to start eleven days in a three month abroad semester. We'll also have a three-day trip to Prague in September and a six-day trip to Rome in October, and numerous day-trips to other German cities. We have two optional travels as well, so I'm going to try and work in going to see a big Belgian cyclocross race.
My relocation to the Vineyard for this past summer (and all the previous summers) put a hinder on my intended big summer of racing. But, I had two races that I set my heart on for the year, the Connecticut Stage Race (being right next to my hometown of Torrington) and Fitchburg. I was able to get off island for CT, driving back home and hosting a couple of the GLV riders at my house, and getting amenities for those I couldn't fit at my place. I was hoping for a good GC result, but that also means you must have at least a top-10 in the time trial. I had a hard time transitioning from shorter 2-5 miles TT's to the 8-mile one, like the ones at CT and Fitchburg. It has alot to do with the courses, but I also felt like I wasn't warming up right and going out too hard, finding the last 2-3 miles hurt alot. I finished mid-field, got passed by two monsters in full TT-bike setups. As a key to stage race success, I hope to work alot on my time trialing ability over the winter and through collegiate season. At least I got a cool snapshot:
The circuit race was a bad experience, it reminded me of a certain circuit race at Rutgers where I had a mechanical the second lap. However here, I dropped my chain first lap before the drag up the finish, it took the neutral support guy almost a minute to pull my chain from between my crank and frame, left a nice chip in the paint, dropped me off the back for the rest of the race, and the guy gave me a nice hand print of grease on my new GLV bibs. I had to put some serious hurt down to finish within the time limit, so I could do the road race the next day. I saw nobody for the whole race, except the pack lapped me on their sprint up to the finish while I kept chugging away with one lap to go. I saw one guy ahead of me halfway through my last lap, somebody who must have gotten dropped awhile back, and managed to pass him on the last climb up to the finish to save DFL humiliation. I guess there were a few DNF's too, but it sucks to lose ten minutes on GC just like that. At least I got within the time limit and could race the next day.
The road race was a bit of an epic, 91 miles for all fields (even cat 4's!) but I expected it to be hard for me, being there some steep rolling hills in the second half, and hurting a bit from the circuit race effort. Five miles in, there was a really long desent, and I caught myself with my hands on the hoods, and kinda panicked when I got some violent speed wobbles. I thought I flatted, but I knew I was losing control, and didn't want to go down in the middle of the pack and on the pavement. There was some nice meadow grass on the side of the road, and I proceeded to hit the brakes and slow down as much as I could while gliding into the tall grass, eventually landed gently (about as gently as you can slowing from 55mph), recollected myself, surprised that I wasn't flat, and was paced back into the pack by neutral support. I only had a few scratches on my knee and a nice hole in a new jersey from the number ripping off in a corner. I continued on trying to relax at the back of the pack, and soon felt the need to make my presence at the front and stay near Keith and Mark. I got gapped in the feed zone looking for a feed, not noticing my teammates had grabbed everything for me, and Keith came back to pace me back in. As soon as the steep rollers started, I knew I was in trouble. I made it over the first few, but soon just accepted the pain I was in, from all factors, was too much, and I dropped off the back to solo the last 37 miles, coming in maybe a half an hour down. Not the result I wanted, but it was a good experience racing near home and hosting the team at our first big stage race weekend. We as a team were pretty well prepared, I thank all the GLV teammates and supporters for a great weekend all around, we had some awesome results for the Cat 4 field.
Wow that took awhile, I'll talk about Fitchburg tomorrow.
I ended the collegiate racing season in less-than-good form, basically riding maybe once a week and just racing on the weekends. My final project kinda took over at school, and called it a season. Next year I am planning on going back to A's and staying there the whole season, whether or not I get shelled. Maybe I'll get lucky one weekend when nobody shows up because of some big USCF race and I'll score points for nationals, I heard it worked for this one kid at Union.
So came my summer, and having a required co-op led me to search all over, despite the rough economy. I ended up going back to Martha's Vineyard for the NINTH STRAIGHT SUMMER. Don't get me wrong, I love the vineyard, its a great vacation spot, but dealing with a disconnect from the mainland and dealing with the boatloads (literally) of tourists gets to you after nine years. However, it wasn't all that bad as I got to go back to the great job I had last summer interning at Hutker Architects. I got to work on a lot of cool projects this summer, and on top of all the work they have despite a turning economy, they're getting ready for an office renovation, a website update and a book coming out soon, so I forward to seeing great things from them in the coming months.
Now, the main reason why I have decided to pull up this blog again is for my coming semester abroad trip. I want to keep my friends and family updated on the cool stuff we're doing around Europe, with plenty of photos and talk on how much we're (not) focused on studio work. My flight for Amsterdam is this coming Wednesday, and from there we'll head to Paris, Basel, and eventually Berlin for the rest of the semester. I just got an awesome new camera to help in my travels, finally getting past a point + shoot and moving up to a sweet Canon Rebel XSi DSLR system.
I'll update tomorrow with some details of my racing season (and all other misfortunes) of this summer. Off to bed, last day of work tomorrow.
Gute nacht (I'll attempt to learn German at some point)
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.
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.
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.
I'm a graduate student of architecture at Wentworth. I usually get little amounts of sleep due to the amount of studio work I have, on top of training and running the Wentworth Cycling Team. I am a Collegiate A, Cat. 2 Road and Cat. 3 Cross rider riding with all the other Boston-area ECCC badasses for Green Line Velo.
(I'm somewhere in the first two rows of bodies)
However, it dawned upon me in my trip research (only two days before we left) that there really wasn't that much to see in Milan. We made a last-minute decision (with the suggestion from our professor) to take a day and a half and travel east and see Venice, with a stop in Bergamo along the way.
Bergamo is an awesome city with an old hill-top medieval town, really good for a four-hour stop if you're headed somewhere else. Its a really steep incline to get up there, you could take a ski-lift if you wanted to, but I'm the 'sportif' type, so walking was a good choice too. We missed the staircase though, and ended up walking along the road to the backside of the hill. Although a lot longer, it was definitely more scenic:
On the way down, since we had time, we took the actual staircase, which was stupidly long. It actually made us grateful for taking the long way up, since it would have been a bitch to go up these:
So then we hopped back on the train for three hours and made it to Venice around 6. The light was really nice when we got there, and by the time we made it to Piazza San Marco, night was on setting so I got some good photos. We stayed the night at some tourist campground, which was interesting, and then left the next afternoon. Well worth the trip I think.
So after wards we headed back to Milan to see Internazionale take on Udinese at the famous Italian stadium, the San Siro:
Our seats were pretty awesome for 36 euros each, plus I got to play with my ginormous zoom lens. Inter won the match 2-1, scoring the winning goal in injury time, and I've never seen a crowd erupt like they did. On Sunday, we just chilled in the park, getting some work done, saw a Frank Gehry exhibit, and flew back that afternoon. EasyJet is probably the best way to cruise around Europe if you're not carrying much, much recommended.
