Summertime

Sorry it has been soooo long since I have updated this. It has been a long summer for me, and most of it unfortunately was not on the bike, and I also was not around the computer much, as I had to wait to purchase a new one after the old one died.

I started the summer in grand spirits, with going to the Aliquippa for crit and finishing only one spot behind Adam Anderson, I knew I could take him at Tour of Tucker County. I did not train as much as I would of liked to but I headed to Tucker County knowing the hills were going to be painful.

With a large showing I threw my leg over the top tube and descended into the valley to pedal away. I felt comfortable going over the first climb and knew it was only going to get harder. The descent was sketchy as several riders found themselves in the ditch, satisfied to have survived I settled in to repeat the climb. I started to fade at the top but found something left inside of me to catch back into the group. Descended safely again, and once the final climb started I waved good-bye to everyone and found myself only 5 minutes back at the top at the finish line.

Two days after Tucker Couty my summer riding found a sudden stop. On a training ride in Wheeling, a lite rain occured. I made a descent and saw an open graite iron bridge, knowing it could be slippery I slowed some and preceeded. As soon as my wheels hit the bridge my bikle came out from under me and slidding across the bridge I went. I picked myself up and walked across the bridge, with my shorts ripped and my thumb hurting a lot. I hoped back unto my bike and found my brake lever turned 90 degrees from the shifter and forced it into position and rode until I found cell service to call for a ride. I called and rode into town, to be transported home, since it was raining and I was hurt with only one brake.

I lost my motivation to ride much afterwards.. I did the OutSPoken ride for 4-H and hung up the bike minus wednesday nights.

Fat and outta shape, I have returned to Morgantown.

ACCC ROAD CONFERENCE CHAMPIOSHIPS

What a weekend!!! I was afraid when the trip began that we might have the same bad luck as last year but it turned out to be a great weekend for everyone.
Saturday was a sunny and warm day, Brock had Elliott and myself up at 5:30 in the morning, and we hit were ready to race. The road race was an extremely flat course with less then 500 feet vertical over 65 miles of racing. With a flat and narrow course this course definately favored the sprinters and put me at a disadvantage and gave Brock a great chance. The Men's A and Men's B fields finished as a group sprint, with both having 1-2 people off the front. Brock positioned himself well and took 3rd overall and won the field sprint for the Men's B. I was getting set-up but was uhnlucky and got boxed in, and finished 23rd in the field sprint. The Men's D field shattered and Elliott has his best ever finished and placed 7th, after getting pimped shortly before the sprint.

Since we did not have a TTT team, we headed back to the hotel for a shower and a great nap. We woke and then attended the conference Banquet, we ate a ton of food!! Then Ryan and I stayed for the conference meeting. We won the bid for the Conference Mountain Bike Race for Fall 2009, and our Race weekend for road 2010 is April 10-11, the weekend before Champs at Virginia Tech.

Sunday, elliott woke up early, walked out the hotel door and hoped on his bike for the crit. With me sitting on the course and Brock watching from the hotel room, Elliot started the Downtown crit, he complains of a car on course but was able to finish in 13th place.
Hours later Brock jumped on his bike and was ready to terrorize the Men's B field. He went early and attempted a break in lap one, after a few laps of all out effort he was a caught by a small group and sat in for the rest of the race. He made a great move for the "W" at the finish and took about half a bike length in the sprint. Giving Brock a great Championship weekend. Then it was Emily's turn with the Women's A. She's not a WVU member currently but she'll be here next year, in a stiff competition for 1st place in D2, Emily was able to pull it off, and even though she did not win, she was able to take the overall conference point and earn herself a pretty pink jersey. Finally, it was my turn to push the pedals. After a rough day on Saturday and still being sore from the dog incident, my game plan was to sit in, and just enjoy the ride. Brock was very nervous watching me sit in the back of the peleton for the first 15-20 minutes of the race. I saw a small break start to happen on the backside of the course and I knew it would be able to stick, and my adrenaline picked up and I wanted in that group, the pelton came around corner 6 and no one was responding to the break, so in one move I jump from the back and came around the peleton, and was chasing solo to the break, I caught in b3 turn 3, and started in rotations, Wake Forest was trying to block to break and bring it back, but after a few others joined the break, it was home free. I was able to take a 4th and a 1st in primes (my first ever 1st place prime) and then with 4 laps to go, the break could see the peleton just ahead. About half of us wanted to stay out of the peleton and our pace slowed, until a WF rider jumped and forced all of us to chase, mixed into the group, it was an intense final lap, I missed the jump through the pack, and sprinted in the group, grabbing a 7th place finish overall.

While cooling down, about 90 seconds into it actually, I noticed my rear wheel felt weird and found a large splinter through my tire, luckily I was able to finish the race before the flat occurred.

It was a great Weekend for all of us, and I am ready for a great summer season now.

Dogs are Dangerous

After becoming a cyclist I gained a person issue with dogs. Not all dogs and hopefully not your dog.
LEASHES, CHAINS, INVISIBLE FENCES, properly taking care of dogs all good things, but the dog that runs into the road VERY BAD.
This is my second crash in 6 months on the road bike, and this is the second time in 6 months a dog has been the reason for the crash. The first time was in the fall, I was riding with Mon Bike club, a few dogs came into the road and one ran into my front wheel, knocking me down and causing me to break my saddle.
Today, While I was riding alone in Preston County, I took my usual ride out McKinney Cave Rd. This road in my eyes is known for it's dogs. When making the turn onto the road a dog came into the road and barked at me, I yelled "NO, STOP" and the pup went back into it's grass. I came across a few other dogs who have an invisible fence, who barked but had nothing on me. I was about 3/4 of the way complete with the road and out came a German Sheperd, I yelled "NO, STOP, NO," this did not phase the dog. I was trying to go fast to get away, but I grabbed my water bottle, and sqirted the dog in the face, he paused for a moment and came again, this time moving to the opposite side of the road, so I squirted again, did nothing to the dog, I was out of water, and hoped fetch might work, I throw my water bottle, dog still kept comming.
The dog caught my foot, I started to look back, and nnext thing I know I am going over my bars. My face hit the asphalt/rocks first, and my hand shoulder and hip all on the right side also too impact with the road. I found my bottle cage broken and the dog had ran off. I slowly got onto
my bike, and pedaled away. At the end of the road, I checked my equipement and everything was ok.



I made it home, went to Med-Express, had my wounds cleaned, and had X-Rays of shoulder and face. No Stitches needed and no broken bones. I am thankful for this, and plan to be back in the saddle soon.

Racing at VT

Another exciting weekend of RACING...
6 riders and an official traveled to VT for a fun filled weekend of racing.
We attempted to depart Morgantown at 4:30 on Friday but that failed and we finally got on the road shortly before 6. Along the drive the Cucumber (not pickled yet), AKA Elliott, claimed to have witnessed 3 moons (2 which came out at the same time). We stopped in Fayetteville, WV for some Mexican at Diogi's, and made it to "Big Watts" Hanson's House around 11pm.
We all took the chance to claim our sleeping space and after some school girl giggling and Chad partying with the neighbors (AKA asking them to turn their thumping bass down), we all fell asleep.
Morning came a few hours later at 7am, and the coffee was brewing and the bike packing went into action.
We loaded the vehicles and headed for the road race. Steve decided to take the lead without directions and got lost, and after getting on the correct road, the horribly unfortunate occurred. A deer found the headlight/hood of Steve's car. After some blood was shed, and fur relocated into the bumper, the entire team arrived safety and prepped for the race.

The racing was intense. Men's A went off first, followed by Men's B and Women's A.
James M. Schulte 3rd (men's A)
Janel C. Bedard 2nd (Women's A)
Steve Nutt 9th (men's B)
Brian Talbott 21st (men's B)

I don't know about the other races, but I broke away at mile 10 (solo'ing for about 20 miles and held upfront for close to 55 miles) and even though I did look back, I kept charging forward and it payed off for me in the end. This was my best ever ACCC road finish.

After a brief intermission and a slight course change the Men's C and D races took off. (these races had a different, much easier finish)
James Braswell 19 (men's C) having dropped his chain very early on and had to chase the whole race.
Chad Lowers 21 (men's C)
Elliot "Cucumber" Iannello 24 (men's D)

All of them looked fast as they went through the race.

After the race, we left Ryan to officiate the TTT and we went to took some showers and ate some food at the Cellar. YUMMY food!!!

After, an anti-climatic evening (minus Ryan's free drink from taco bell, and frosties) we hit the hay.

Waking up at 7am for round two. CRIT action.
The crit racing was intense, with Talbott asking for a pity win on the start line... After 7 years of racing for WVU this was his last ACCC start. The field laughed offered a prime (silly man denied a free prime, and said all or nothing). (prime- pronounce preem).
Elliott took 9th in Men's D
James and Chad took 20th and 22nd respectively
Talbott took 16th and Steve (after a flat and several attempts to solo) took 6th and a 4th place prime.
Janel took 1st place with the big W, shaking off "Big Watts" for the sprint.(with 1-3rd, 3-2nd's, and 2-1st's primes)
and I was unable to repeat and finished 22nd.

We'll miss ya Dr T, even though you never did win

Overall, an AMAZING WEEKEND.

Wednesday Night SufferFest begins

The weekly Wednesday night'er has started for the MonBike Club. Tonight's ride had an outstanding showing, and was brutal as soon as the neutral ended.

As the group was riding and everyone was cheery, we rolled under the train bridge and some Malaysian kid and some pale pasty white kid in a spongebob jersey had to ruin the fun and attack. I proceeded to grab onto the Visitor Ryan Nye (Team Preferred Care (Janel's Friend)) and grab onto the leaders. It was a decent size group and everyone was doing their part nicely. The first bump occured in the road and Adam A. Attacked, with Ryan and myself able to follow, we left the work up to Adam (as my heart rate was through the roof at this point). Threats were made going into the climb and about half way up Ryan flatted. The re-groupping occured at the connection of 19/100. Once everyone was in the group proceeded towards the stateline sprint.
Adam went to the front to ramp up the pace and I made sure to follow his wheel, Jason started the sprint and it was a tough call of who actually took the sprint (I'll yield and give props to Jason).
The pace stayed high until the turn around point, and even then it was still hard. We lost some people on the return, and waited for a bit, but the bike meeting was starting and I needed to get back. A small group returned back into town.

here is the ride if your interested in joining sometime, or curious what you did:
http://www.trimbleoutdoors.com/ViewTrip.aspx?tripId=374329

Jeff Cup (ouch)

The 19th Annual Jefferson Cup was supposed to have two representatives from WVU racing in the men's 1/2/3 race, but at the last minute it came down to only myself racing. Ryan was there to be a moto official and keep me company on the long drive.

After loading Ryan's Motorcycle into my small pick-up and me cringing the entire drive from not only the dense fog but in fear of the moto failing onto my bike. We made it to the hotel with extremely horrible time taking almost 6 hours to arrive. The highlight of the drive was after passing senecea rocks we encountered Layman pedaling his mountain bike down the road. (he didn't recognize the vehicle or sponges moto, but inside saw my handlebars and recognized my bike)

The race day was very long, as I woke up early to go with Emily and cheer her on during the women's 1/2/3 race/ She did very well winning the field sprint from the chase group. The women's race split almost in half with about a 5 minute gap between groups.

Finally, at 2:30 the men's 1/2/3 lined up and then after a period of time we played in the parking lot and re-lined up. The delay was caused by a crash in the mens 4 field at the finish line.

The men's 1/2/3 showed up with some serious competition (125 riders), with Harley davison and PA elite racing for 1-2 at the finish line. Other noteable teams included Kelly Benefits, Kazane racing, and several others. The neutral roll out was very agrressive going about 23-24 mph, and I went from the 4th row to the back after being battled around almost like a pinball. This field was brutal and very fluid with riders constantly changing lines and battling for position. I was doing well following Tim from VT and trying to just survive with the intense changings in tempo. The line when strecthed out was HUGE. With many riders falling of the back of the group, I eventually was unable to respond and also fell into no man's land. After a few miles of intense chasing the follow cars came around me, but i refused to give in that easily. I kept my head down and charged ahead. Finally, I jumped into a small chase group of about 6 riders and we worked together for about 10 miles or so, 4 of the riders dropped out and 2 us continued forward. After mile 60 and being overtaken by the men's 35+ field, I was pulled from the race and was able to watch the finish. It was very exciting as a small break survived and sprinted to the line. 70 riders were able to finish the race. It was an intense day and I hope I was able to take away some valuable feedback and next time, be ready for this big of a race.

Sunday riding

After weeks of snow and ice, a beautiful day came along. A rare 45 degree first day of February and I took full advantage of it. Erik, met me at the bike house, and we left shortly after 11 am. As we made it to the intersection of Steward and University we saw Ben, Evan, and James. The 5 of us headed to Preston county. We rode up dug hill, took a short crit lap around the new housing development and then headed up snake hill. We found plenty of ice on McKinney-Cave road. Evan and I had no problem and slouched through, will James and Erik struggled. With Erik, falling into an icey puddle. We made it back to morgantown, and the trip was about 35 miles.

After making it back to the Bike house, I ate a quick lunch, and headed out with Zerbe and Steve. Zerbe set a brutal pace out Fort Martin Rd. Steve and I made sprint at each line with a rather fair split between us. Zerbe typically played lead out and Steve and I went for it. Steve took both PA and WV lines, as well as the grandville sign. I was able to take the Ft. Climb,, and a few other lines also.

Zerbe made the mistake of asking how far till home, and never fully recovered from mental break-down. After arriving home 35 miles later, the sun was setting, and football was about to be played.

As for the game, the Steelers won.