Hot Hot Hot… 8:00 start but blazing hot before 10:00 am. Stayed with the front group and made the mistake of pulling a few times. Not part of the plan. Looked like everyone was stopping for water at the 50 mile rest stop but 8 to 12 others continued on. 2 min. water fill-up let Reger, 1 other rider and myself to not really chase but see if we could catch the front couple of guys. The trailing pack caught us 5 or so miles down the road. Stomach turned on me at 60 miles. Made it to the rest stop at mile 82 picking up a few people coming off the front group and with what was left of our group down to about 7 people. Could barley drink now. Avg pace so far was 21.8 mph with avg watts at 181 and NP at 214 for 3 hours 45 minutes. The engine was gone, no food or drink going down, just back up at mile 87. Crawled to the finish (4.5 hours total) Ride was 94 miles with an optional loop around the park to get to 100. I passed. Thanks to Adam for dragging me back to the start even though he was cramping and to Dana for driving me back to Atlanta and lastly Reger for leaving a perfect text message to the world and made me smile at the end even though I didn’t feel like it. No more century rides for me if the temp is in the 90’s! Start weight 168 lbs. Finish weight 155 lbs. 5122 feet of climbing for the day.

19th, decent race average finish due to missing the breakaway that stuck. I’ll get back to this post.

After a non-scheduled recovery week (only rode Tues since last Sat.) because of work, weather and 0 motivation I managed to make it out both days this weekend. 2 parties on Friday with alcohol helped (fun party Jeff!)

Tucker Ride Sat. around the usual pace 23.76 mph (242 avg watts for the group ride and 276 normalized power - group ride is about 1.5 hours). Adam led me out for the final sprint (got 2nd). Out to Silk Sheets (the sunday ride group) today. 70 miles, 22.2 mph (210 avg watts and 251 normalized power for 3:08 ride time) and as Chad has stated before… a death march. Great weather, did lots of work for the first 2 hours and paid the price for the last hour. Burned up way too many matches. Didn’t bring enough food but managed. Fun day on the bike. Surprisingly good legs for not doing much the last two weeks.

Headed to the state crit champs next Saturday and the Cartersville Century on the 27th, anyone… anyone?

Transfered to new servers and have had some issues with the blog ever since. Haven’t been able to make any updates. Not much to talk about anyway.

Recap: Giro’s over, I’m sad. Watched every day, great race. Parents came for a visit. I raced stage 5 of the Tour of Atlanta, 15th place. They took the GC category out so no point in doing 7 races. Went and saw a local MMA fight with Reger. Took Aidan to see UP yesterday because he’s a super duper pooper! Non scheduled recovery week this week. Thinking about riding the Cartersville Century on the 27th. Lots of work to do, just need to find time to do it… IE 6 causing me some headaches… who uses it now anyway? Family night at the neighborhood pool and then off to Jeff B’s party.

Is Aidan getting a swim lesson or pickin up older chicks?

… Saturday is a day I will remember for a long time. I race my bike as an amateur because I love it. I put the hours in because I’m a competitive person and want to race well. I’ve always been one for trying to find my limits in whatever it is I’m doing. The upfront cost is time away from family and friends and the potential for injury. The rewards are a healthy lifestyle and bragging rights… because it isn’t for the money.

The outcome of the day gave our team 3 podium spots including 2 state champion jerseys and 4 injured riders including 2 that went to the hospital and 1 with a broken femur. My family asks the question, “is it worth it?”

The races – Kirk Corsello won the Masters 40-45 (and the race) with the help of 4 other teammates (Jeff B, Keith, Ty and Reid).

Our race, Cat 3, was 68 miles with 5 loops around a rolling hills course 13 miles. Mostly downhill on the front half with up on the second half. Timing was good for me because I’ve scheduled my season to peak around this time of year. Good legs and ready to go after the jersey. Breaks tried to form throughout the race, unsuccessfully. They never lasted more than 5 miles.  On the last loop, about 10 miles from the finish, a group of 6 or so riders got off the front. People were bridging across and started to look dangerous as the group grew to 12 people. Chad wanted to bridge across and had an opening on the right side of the road to move past the front of the peleton. We were bunched up, one lane road, going just over 30 mph. As Chad came even with the front line, the rider to his left moved to the right and they locked handlebars. Chad went down pulling the other rider on top of him. Most of the peleton went down in the domino effect after that.

I was sitting on the far left, next to the yellow line trying to find a line through the front (the yellow line rule says we NEVER cross the center of the road except in a sprint). As the pile of riders started to fan across the road I darted left, across the adjacent lane into the grass and around a road sign 3 feet into the grass. (Of course while other riders were dodging moving everywhere). I made it back onto the road and looked back to see the carnage. Knowing I couldn’t do anything, I hit the gas to catch the remnants of riders who made it through. 15 or so of us grouped together. I desperately wanted to join the front group and started yelling at the riders to work together and form a rotating pace line to chase down the breakaway. Only 4 of us were doing any work while the others sat in and drafted. On a few occasions riders would attack us trying to bridge up by themselves which we knew wasn’t going to work, why waste the energy? After 4 or 5 miles of not getting much help and not getting any closer to the front group, Greg, a teammate also in our group, reminded me that we had 2 guys in the breakaway who a  better chance to win if we didn’t catch them. True. I moved back and sat in to let some others work for a little while. None of the peleton survivors caught us but not sure if they ever formed much a group either.

Greg was going to help lead me out for the sprint if we’re all still together for the final. He did anyway even though we were going for 13th place. Perfect lead-out and I took off at 300 yards for the line. Thought we were done, didn’t hear or see anyone but got picked on the line by somebody. Finished 14th. Never let up, but just didn’t have a huge reason to kill myself for a spot so far back.

At the front, Nate won the race with Adam taking second. A state jersey and 2 podium spots.

4 teammates went down in the crash. Steve and Erik ended up with road rash. Graham went to the hospital. Nothing broken, just bruised and beat up. Chad has a broken femoral neck (where the leg attaches to the hip). 3 screws to put it back together. Surgery went well but he has months of rehab.

I moved out of the Cat 4’s to get away from all the crashes. Not much has changed here in the 3’s. Masters?

I’ll be on the bike tonight…

The development team including Frequency 650, Ground-0 Communications and Hamiter Inc won a silver award at the Horizon Interactive Awards (http://www.horizoninteractiveawards.com/) from over 2000 entrys world wide for http://www.peterislandvillas.com/.

http://gigzee.com - put in your zip code and move the map around town to see who’s playing tonight. Links to the artists website, venue, cost and start time. Great tool!

If you didn’t know, the first of the 3 grand tours has started. Today was Stage 4. Universal Sports picked up coverage at the last minute and can be watched every day on Comcast here in Atlanta (which I don’t have since Direct TV doesn’t have it) or online at http://www.universalsports.com. I have yet to see the live coverage (got some kind of error today) BUT, they post the coverage on the site to be streamed later in the day. Watched Stage 3 while on the rollers last night.

http://www.ciclotte.com/ - sculpture, design, work out

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10231713-2.html?tag=mncol

Saturday May 2nd in Aniston, AL. The only NRC race in the Southeast this year other than the 100K at the end of the year. I was in for the Cat 2/3 race. A little above my pay grade. I didn’t expect to do great but thought I could hang… I was wrong. Made it exactly 30 minutes of the 1 hour crit before the engine shut down. Not as fast at the Roswell crits the weekend before but the long uphill drag on the front took it’s told on the legs and lungs. Avg hr at 185. Above that after the first 10 minutes. My fitness is starting to drop. Work stress, I haven’t put the hours in and my slack diet are starting to take a toll.

Photo by Carol and Jeff

http://www.rmbondurant.com/ - General contractor for residential construction. New homes, renovations, kitchens, baths, hardscapes, wine cellars and decks.

http://www.theshopsonelpaseo.com/ - The Crown Jewel of the Desert.
Programmed in flash for Blue Marble Media / The Voyager Group - A simple portal website for the high end retailers in this shopping location.

Saturday Cat 3 Athens morning qualifier. 99 racers. HOT. Few racers cold figure out how to go through the corner without a fist full of break so it was 45 minutes of BREAK, SPRINT bunch up, no passing, repeat 4 times a lap. Had nothing in the legs for the sprint in the end. Never felt great. Didn’t qualify for the night race. Stayed for the day and watched the Am finals, women pro and start of mens pro. Props to Mike Pisarri for finishing 25th in the finals.

Athens photos (thanks Adam)
        

Leslie and Aidan came for the day and watched me race Roswell. It was great to have them around.

Sunday Roswell Cat 3/4  race. 80+ riders. 26.7 avg mph. 180 avg hr. Felt very good the entire race. Team tried a break  but got pulled back. Chad went to the front with 3 laps to go but no one else was around so we got swallowed up with 2 laps to go and were too far back for the last lap. Made up a bunch of spots on the back side and in the sprint but not enough. Finished 17th.

Sunday Roswell Masters race. 80+ riders. 26.9 avg mph. 185 avg hr. 44 minutes. Just barely faster than the first race but made it difficult to move around (being my second race for the day also didn’t help the legs). I was supposed to help Kirk for the finish but in the end was just holding on. Giant mess at the finish, lap counter at 2 to go, announcer called 1 to go. Motorcycle chasing us calling 2 to go but couldn’t get to the front with all the riders strung out. I hammered out another lap thinking they may call a finish on the next lap. Half sat up. Offered us a 3 lap sprint off to make up for the mistake. Left the course and didn’t know what was happening until after it started. Our guy Kirk won the real race but they didn’t give it to him. As usual, Roswell is a mess.

Roswell photos (thanks Carol)
   

http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2009/04/14/10-cool-things-well-be-able-to-do-once-ie6-is-dead/ 

Sunday photo shoot with the team. These guys are the Masters, Cat 2 and Cat 3 racers.

Ouch. Tired from the car ride home yesterday, not enough time on the bike the last 2 weeks and the 2 hard days in the wind in Florida. This is the usual Sunday hammerfest ride with the big boys made up of mostly Cat 1,2 and masters riders. 25 or so riders today. Slow start, broke away with 1 other rider after the first nature stop to get things going. There was a spit at the half way point. Had to bridge up to it. After that 3 riders, including my teammate Kirk, pulls for 30+ minutes. One long line of riders, dead quiet, everyone was working. Ried (another teammate) on a TT bike hits the front at 35+ for a solid effort and annihilates the peleton leaving only 5 of us left for the final 15+ miles. Only took a have a dozen or so pulls today, mostly chasing. Power file says the ride wasn’t any different than the last few races but seemed much harder.