...and some pictures

Ty was pretty bonked towards the end of our ride, luckily we found him some carbs in the ditch.



Training with big George and company.


Group shot-this picture is on george hincapie's website (georgehincapie.com) with a nice little shout out about the team.

Curbstomping 2009

(warning-this post might get pretty epic)

So now that I've already had the first team camp for next season, I figure it is about time to announce my racing plans for next year. I am racing with the Hincapie Development Team in 2009 as well as spending more time in Europe with the US U-23 National Team. The Hincapie Development team is title sponsored by Hincapie Sportswear, a clothing company started by George Hincapie and his brother, Rich. Last year Rich started the team with a vision to create one of the Nation's best teams for Juniors and U23 riders. This weekend was our first team camp in Greenville, SC where Hincapie is based.

The weekend was great and has me even more motivated for next year. Friday we had dinner at Rich's house where I got to know my new teammates. Well, really, most of them I already knew and the ones that I didn't, I do know. Everyone on our roster seems to gel really well together which will be important when we're in the closing miles of a race and all the pressure is on. Dinner was great and we watched the documentary "Road to Roubaix" afterwards. I also met a lot of the team's mentors, which is one thing i really like about this team-we have a ton of adults surrounding us in charge of logistics, keeping one person from getting overloaded.

Saturday ended up being pretty epic. I was staying, along with Blair Turner, in Greenville with teammate Strad Helms (big thanks to his mom for being a great host on more than one occasion). Strad, myself, Blair and Nicole (one of our female riders who lives near Strad) rolled over to meet the group at Rich's house. Craig Lewis and George Hincapie arrived with some of their riding buddies and we were off. After two hours of easy riding on great backroads, most of the team began to head back. Rich suggested Chris Butler and myself go with Craig and George for more riding. So of course we did, joined by our goofball sprinter contingent of AJ Meyer and Ty Magner. Well, we ended up doing climbing repeats on Ceasar's head-a 7 mile climb! Chris and I sat on Craig and George's wheels while everyone else lagged behind. After that we took a really long way back home and again hit it hard over Paris Mountain, again with Chris and myself hanging onto Craig and George. The whole time Chris and I were trying to figure out if they were going hard at all, but apparently later George told Rich that he was going fairly hard and it demoralized him that we were chatting most of the way up the climb! Also, I managed to break my right shifter midway up the first climb. So I got to ride the rest of the day in either a 53-23 or a 39-23. But I sure as hell wasn't going to get caught complaining in front of a guy who's made his living off the hardest days of sport in the world!

That night we had dinner at Christina Maddox's house, who is George's mental coach and is helping the team this year. The food was great and we had a lecture form her and a nutritionist. After that the whole team spent some time hanging out at Strad's house and around Greenville to further the whole "team bonding" thing.

Sunday was an easy 3 hour ride on some great roads followed by more meetings. We layed out some preliminary plans for the year and everything sounds awesome. In only a couple of weeks we have another team camp in Chattanooga and in late January we'll be back in Greenville.

I heart foam rollers

lots of bike riding means i quit doing anything much other than eating, sleeping, stretching, napping and now, foam rolling. It's awesome.

why does this stuff always happen to me?

Three people walk into a bar. One of them is an idiot. The other two aren't me.

I have a little story to tell you guys.

Two cyclists from Macon, one that curiously looks a lot like me, and another that may or may not ride for Pacesetter Steel and carries the nickname chubby hubby are riding Friday around ellijay. In search of a little turkey burn-off they embark on a nice little ride that carries them out of ellijay, around to the backside of Fort mountain, up and over the 6 mile climb and back down into ellijay.

Two thirds of the way in, but at the base of the imposing mountain in their path, they stop at a gas station for some anti-bonk material. Several cokes, reeses cups and cookies later they head on their way. Upon leaving the parking lot, the cyclist that resembles me heres a loud metallic explosion and almost loses the ability to have kids thanks to his top tube. Inspection shows that his SMALL FRONT CHAINRING HAS SHATTERRED IN PIECES!!!

The cyclists inspect this problem in the parking lot. Only 3 of the 5 crank bolts remain, all next to each other, meaning the big chainring is next to go if they can't move one of the bolts to the opposite side to more stably hold the chainring. Only problem is they don't have the necessary tools. After a few minutes of struggling in vain to remove a crank bolt, they find a man in a van who has the necessary tools. This country gentleman seems bewildered by the request, but the "USA" stamped on the cyclists shorts appear to convince the man that the lycra-boy deserves a helping hand. So, he reaches for the allen wrenches and not the 12 guage.

After the quick fix, the two cyclists finish their ride, with the mishap-prone one thoroughly enjoying the long uphill grind in his 53-26.

happenings

This weekend was another pretty solid good time up in the mountains. I really have come to love North Georgia. Friday we saw the new James Bond at what might have been the oddest movie theatre ever. No pictures, but this place seriously looked like it doubled as an auditorium or Church.

Saturday and Sunday it was obnoxiously cold, including rain, sleet and even a little snow. This was probably good because it reduced the temptation to ignore the good advice of my coach and ride more than i was supposed to. I did get in a nice ride all bundled up in the sleet and rain. I felt tuff. We also watched some cyclocross, got in some prime heckling, and associated other things.

Oh, yeah, pictures.

go time

spent the weekend at the casa mcginnis (http://christianparrett.blogspot.com/2008/07/casa-mcginnis.html).

Road bikes a little bit, goofed off, enjoyed the last bit of fall colors.

anyway, I'd like to wish myself happy new year-now that I've started riding again, I already consider it 2009.

inside my mind-part 1

It's easy to get bloggers block when there isn't a ton of racing going on-what am I supposed to write about? Doing schoolwork, trying not to get fat, and enjoying the fall weather? Soon they'll be training camps, epic weekends in the mountains and other good stuff to keep everyone updated on, but for now I figured I'd partly address a question I get asked all the time.

"What goes on in your head during a race?"

Hmm. All sorts of stuff, from "I'm hungry," to "I'm bored," to "ouuuuchhhhhh why are my eyeballs bleeding." But today I'm going to tell you about what goes through my mind in a special situation. Every time a race get's really fast, hard and dangerous the same thing happens. For example, there's three laps to go in a crit and the pace starts to get lifted to warp speed. Or I'm at some race in Belgium and we make a turn into a crosswind, everyone smashes their bodies straight into the gutter and suddenly we're going 60kph single-file while dodging traffic furniture and bodies.

Without fail, I think about the scene in the movie Spaceballs, where Darth Helmet says "Lightspeeds not fast enough. Go to ludicrous speed! What's the matter Colonel Sanders? Chicken?"




Anyway, I'm not sure why this occurs, but I find it pretty entertaining.

Taking time off the bike might have been fun for a few days but it's been slowly driving me crazy for almost two weeks now. After months and months of training there are some serious withdrawl symptons associated with missing out on all the endorphins. The other day I went on a walk on the AT to combat boredom and itchiness. Got some nice pictures. North Ga sure is perty. Anyway, pretty soon I'll be back to some pedaling so I'm looking forward to that.

off season

I'm gonna have to quote my friend Mike on a phrase he once used, that being "a long time ago, in a galaxy that actually made some effing sense."

I like this quote because you can use it in a variety of scenarios, for example:

"A long time ago, in a galaxy that actually made some effin sense, I didn't structure nearly every day of my life around riding a bicycle."

And now that it's the offseason, this is true once more. At least for a little while. Since Greenville I've been off the bike, my man Eddy Hilger (coach) has me off the bike for a little while to recuperate from a long season and get motivated for next year. It was cool for the first few days, but I'm already craving getting back on the bike after just over a week off. Pretty soon I'll be back on the bike building up for 2009, which I'm really excited for. I think some people here at school think I'm nuts because at random times I get really excited and space out while thinking about racing. Not much else to say, but hopefully soon I can reveal he details on the team for next year. No huge news or big money contracts in hand but I'm excited about the program I'm involved with and want to make 09 a big year.

i can watch football now

So, the 2008 season is now over. here's my quick rundown of Greenville on saturday:
-start
-hang out top five first few laps
-wonder why this race is so easy
-wonder if I really feel this damn good or if this race is still absurdly easy
-sorta attack
-dig my pedal in a corner while sorta-attacking
-fall over really fast and scrape my body up.
-get up, walk to the pits. "what are you doing," asks man who saw me crash. "going to the pit." "wait, are you ok?" I look around confused before replying, "oh, yeah, I'm fine."
-keep racing, move up to the front, attack a lot more in an adrenaline haze.
-cause an 11 man split to roll 10 seconds up the road with 8 laps to go.
-Fill with rage and frustration as everyone in the group refuses to take pulls and we get caught.
-roll in for an astonishing 19th in the field sprint.

Sunday went about the same, except i felt like a truck ran over me after crashing.

apparently i should win more often

I got a lot of blog hits after that last post, maybe if I start winning regularly I can begin to take over the blogosphere? Anyway, thanks to the Helms I have a few pictures of the crit sunday so here are a few.






Anyway, I counted the other day, it's been 18 months since I last got to post the hands up! That's right, a dry spell from April of 2007 until October 2008. During that time I had the worst run of form in my life (this spring) as well as my best ever results, some amazing races and experiences, and plenty of podiums and other results. But, I didn't have any outright wins and I've definitely missed that.

Now, on to Greenville, a race I've never done before. I'm really excited to race and hang out in one of my favorite cities. After that, it's time for a break and then gearing up for 2009.

First pro/1/2 win

I grabbed my first Pro 1/2 Win today in the cycle for parkinsons crit in gwinnett! Pretty stoked.

First, the road race saturday-the race got shortened to 50 miles and the course wasn't too hard so it stayed together most of the day. With a lap and a half ago I went on a ridiculous escapade that involved getting away in several moves, countering myself, and basically spending 10 miles off the front in various moves. Unfortunately I got caught, cracked, missed the counter, and didn't have a great sprint, and ended up 9th. So that was frustrating to say the last and I had plenty of piss and vinegar today.

Today was tough and my legs were trash at the start. It was a small field which makes for hard racing since there's nowhere to recover. The race largely boiled down to Thad Dulin and I watching each other while at the same time keeping one of the Carolina Triathlon riders (who had a 5 man team) from getting up the road. It stayed together until 6 laps to go I ended up in a five man move with thad and 3 others. I attacked with two to go and got caught, Thad countered and I was promptly gapped off. I chased back on with a lap to go and sat at the back waiting to jump into the last two corners. I attacked right when I planned and got a good launch, cooked it through the last two corners, and hung on for the win.

This is myy first pro/1/2 win and the first race i've won in a long while, so i'm pretty stoked right now.

I went to auburn this weekend for my buddy mikes birthday. No photos from the festivities or game we went to, but here's a few from riding. Apparently alabama doesn't suck, or at least not all of it.


Where the tuskegee airmen flew-they were badasses.



sweet half paved/half dirt road



tuskegee air fields




ooh artsy

the football theorem

Right now i'm trying to avoid turning on my TV in fear that monday night football might be on.

Why, you ask?

That's because I've discovered the football theorem, which states that once a cyclist begins to watch NFL football, they're done for the season. Can't race. Thoughts turn to thanksgiving, winter base, and way too much pizza and ice cream. Watching college football also sparks this reaction, although it's not as bad.

See, college teaches you some important stuff.

In other news, I didn't race bikes this weekend, for the first time in a while. I did have a good time but didn't go biking too much. Three more weeks to finish off the season!!!

Some old pictures, just because

recovery riding in belgium


tearing up some cobbles

Training in September?

Training in august was bad enough, now i'm training in september? And I'm not even racing 'cross.

Actually, I'm pretty psyched to be training now and actually have good form. Lately the results have been coming in and I have two more race weekends left to go before a much-needed break. I'm really hoping to get a win before the seasons over but we'll see. Then it's a few weeks off before building up for 2009! Lots of positive stuff on the bikin' front lately and a lot of motivation has me looking forward to trying to tear up some euros next year.

Also, I miss my old roads muchly.

knackered

i'm flattened after the georgia cup around Dahlonega/blairsville this weekend. Dinky litle hillclimb and short road race saturday, plus a monster 93 mile road race yesterday. Got 3rd on GC thanks to a 5th and 6th Saturday and 3rd in the big Road Race Sunday. Also got to hang out for the weekend in one of my favorite places, so it was solid all around. Seriously, i think my classmates thought i had a wicked hangover today, i was slurring words and couldn't walk straight. Think I'll go to bed about 8 tonight.

oh wow....

http://velonews.com/article/82892/sources-lance-armstrong-coming-back

oh shit.

call it what you want, but if Armstrong saves Tour de Georgia, I will thank that man forever.

aaaachhhhh!!!!

Univest started off sweet despite pouring rain all day. within 10 miles I decided it was my favorite race of ever. I was riding well, stayed at the front except for one stupid moment before the first kom, and felt realy good. 50k in I had made the big splits during the warp-speed start and was in the remaining peleton of 50 or so that fought it out for the minor placings behind a 20 man break. Right after that, some guys fell on a downhill, i got around them, sprinted, and promptly slammed into the 11 tooth as my rear deraileur broke. By the time I got a bike the group was 5 minutes up the road and chasing was pointless. Pretty lame considering I felt amazing and think I could have at least finished and fought it out for top 30 or 40 or something in such a stacked field. So I'm about as bummed as you can get although I guess I'm psyched in a way that I felt so good in that strong a field. LAMELAMELAME. maybe more later describing how great this race is when i feel like typing.

Univest!!!

So I'm being a good little cyclist and laying in my dorm room with my legs elevated, just got done eating pasta and a salad, and doing a short spin later. My return to the monastic lifestyle of a cyclist is thanks to my return to brutal UCI racing this weekend! I'm headed up to Souderton, Pa for the Univest Grand Prix. It's one of the biggest one day races in the US and a UCI 1.2. Here (http://www.spartacycling.com/univestgp/teams.html) is the teams list, the highlights include Slipstream, Amore and Vita, Sparkasse, and most of the usual US hit squads sans health net and toyota.

It's a 100 mile race with a 62 mile main loop followed by a bunch of laps of a tough finish circuit. In the past it has blown to pieces and should again this year, especially with rain and wind being forecast for Saturday! I'm really excited, I'm motivated and in good form, so Saturday I just plan on fighting for wheels, riding at the front, and bleeding out of my eyeballs until the race is over or I'm told to stop.

If anyone's interested, the race will be broadcast live on universalsports.com

Shizam

Rolled up to Greenville for the SC state road race on Saturday. Decided to make a weekend of it and hang out for US Pro, the post race party at the Hincapie office, and a tough ride in the mountains monday. It was well worth it, in fact i'm calling a top 5 all time epic weekend.

The race Saturday was brutal, 90 miles and hot and I got myself involved in a 60 mile breakaway. I ended up 2nd, my best result so far in a Pro/1/2 race. The legendary Scottie Weiss won. I understand now why i know that guys name, and he more than likely doesn't know mine. He's strong.

River Gorge

This weekend was the River Gorge Omnium in Chattanooga, Tn, easily my favorite weekend of regional racing of the year. The time trial saturday night and crit sunday are cool in their own right but what makes this weekend great is Saturday morning's road race: 64 miles with a 4k climb smack dab in the middle, plenty of rollers and shorter climbs and a stiff 5k finish climb up to the top of the Racoon Mtn tva facility. Also, the volunteers and organization are top notch and chattanooga is an awesome town.

Road Race:
We had some of the Jittery Joe's boys, the DLP team and Doug Ollerenshaw of Rock Racing lining up this weekend to slug it out with some of the best regional guys. The race started pretty hard with some early attacks and a tough pace over the early hills. Ollerenshaw and Mike Olheiser were in a six-man break that went up the road and gained a minute-ish on the pack.

I stayed at the front most of the day but apparently the field split up a good bit on the run in to Sand Mountain. We lit it up on that climb and everything exploded. I had a bit of trouble at first but settled into a good rythm and made the lead split of four over the climb. Meanwhile, up the road Olehiser and Ollerenshaw shattered the breakaway to just them as we road through the cracked riders. Ty Stanfield was up there and jumped in with us, and Matt caught on with Dirk Pohlman for the descent. We shelled those guys on a quick climb later and that left Trent Wilson, That Dulin, Jonathan Jacobs and myself chasing (with no success) Ollerenshaw and Olheiser. I got worked over almost 30 miles of headwind/crosswind chasing (I'm blaming my increasingly climber-like physique, or maybe those guys are just better than me?) and cracked 100 meters into the finish climb. I road my own pace and held on for a very solid sixth (and first cat 2!).

Time Trial: Not much to say. It's not often I ride a poor tt, especially when I'm in good form, but I did Saturday night. After a brief, very steep climb near the start there was a lot of screaming fast downhill sections and some techy stuff. Apparently I missed the class on how to do that and something bigger than a 53 would have been nice. Ended up 11th.

Crit: The course started wet and really treacherous with brick crosswalks in two corners. Throughout the race it dried out which was nice. I pulled a sweet move for a front row start and was pretty glad I did when Tim Henry attacked from the gun. I sat near the front most of the race and enjoyed the hell out myself, which I normally don't do in a crit. Matt got up the road in a group of four and I just stayed towards the front and covered olheiser and thad dulin to keep them from getting across. Those guys must have been hauling and got a solid gap. Matt ended up 2nd. He also had a strong ride in the tt so moved into 2nd for the Omnium. I slid myself into a solid spot with a lap to go but narrowly missed death in the 2nd to last corner and did a half-sprint for a top 20 (19th, to be exact). I dropped like a rock on the omnium standings but still ended up 1st Cat 2 for the weekend.

Not sure yet what the plan is for next weekend, I may do 100k or might go spectate US pro in greenville and do some training up there. Then it's Univest and Dahlonega for sure, followed by whatever I can find. Racing bikes is pretty damn fun right now.

Training in August?

Who does that?

I guess I do, considering I've done 2 slam-fest 6+ gap mountain rides in the last five days. Gotta get fast here soon. The next few weeks looks like this:

-River Gorge
-US 100k
-Univest GP
-Dahlonega Georgia cup

I'm more motivated and stupid than I've been in a long time and really excited for the late season stretch of racing.

Matt Winstead for a day

Apparently Matt is tired of always making the breakaway while I hang out in the field whenever we race together...so yesterday I got to be his stand-in on the Podium while he was out getting in some extra miles...oh yeah, I also got to pretend to be him and pick up his number at registration! Being Matt Winstead is pretty cool but I don't seem to have picked up superman strength yet.

Anyway, raced yesterday near atlanta in the Cycleworks road race. Small but strong field, Matt took off early with Tim Henry of Jittery's and John Murphy of Healthnet and ended up third. A chase group of 2 took off a bit later but never really put any time into the break. The field shattered pretty good and Eric Murphy and I took off towards the end and stayed away, he knocked me pretty good in the sprint and I took 7th. I'm back to some actual training and felt okay yesterday, I think soon I'll be back in some pretty good form.

really?

Did I ever mention Gwinnett Bike Fest? I did the Norcross crit Friday before last. Not riding or sleeping all week isn't the way to have the best form, but I had an effing blast flying around a super fast and really, really dark course (as in, immediately after the race you couldn't see the final turn looking back along the finish stretch). Hadn't raced a crit in a looong while so I embarassd myself in the corners. Used the little bit of legs I had to try and help my teammate Matt Winstead who grabbed a nice 3rd behind Cesar Grajales of Rock Racing and a Team type 1 rider. Honestly, I didn't do much for him, he's so damn strong not much I need to do.

The road race was a bust, got reaaaallllly sick nasty dehydrated by not drinking post-90 minute crit in the heat, or drinking while hanging out in the sun before the road race. Lasted all of 20 minutes before I found my car and considered dying.

Sooo, these past few days I went up to the mountains and goofed off there followed by ga tech orientation, which was about as big a waste of time as I've ever experienced.

Casa Mcginnis

One of the coolest parts of being a bike racer is the lifestyle you get to live. Lots of time away from home is normal. It's sort of like going on vacation a lot, except you don't actually see or do very much outside of ride a bike and eat and sleep a lot. Anyway, the residents of Casa Mcginnis see me so often that they must think it's my second home. I would actually argue it's my fourth home, after my real house, the belgium house, and all the random hotels and houses in random towns where bike races are held.

But, this post is an ode to the Casa Mcginnis. It's where I go when I want to ride up mountains, when I'm bored, tired of the heat in Macon, or just get the itch.


There's a really steep driveway...

Some really steep mountains...

Sometimes we go fishing.

Sometimes we do nothing.

And sometimes, thomas tries to kill us.

yes

This guy...

(nick savadellis)

is my hero.

Because he's sending me the $30 I earned at French Broad for 4th in the tt.

$30, exactly $2.58 less than entry fee. Also, a few cents more than what I would have earned if mph=$.

(not that i'm complaining about the race, the french broad tt is one of the coolest I've done.)

Happenings

I've been home almost two weeks now and life has stayed fairly interesting. I've enjoyed some bad food, slept a lot, hung out doing nothing, and thought about things other than bike races.

After just a few days at home I headed up to the Mountains to spend a week with some friends, most of whom were doing some last minute training for the Tour de l'abitibi in Canada. I had fun riding in the mountains, we did some solid training rides and the temperatures didn't make me want to die like Macon does this time of year. More importantly, we saw a bear, almost died off-roading, and soaked our legs in an icy creek as tourists snapped pictures of the idiots with tan lines ruining their waterfall shot.

Oh, and I also raced the time trial at French Broad in asheville. I was by no means feeling amazing, but I had a solid ride to get 4th with a 25:24 20k, 30 seconds faster than I road at Nats last year. Some of the best regional tt'ers were there so 4th was a decent result.

Home...

Feels nice to be home. It's damn hot in Georgia though. My last race wasn't much to write home about, I was still a bit sick and riding my bike slowly. I got shelled about 100k in during a pretty ridiculous crosswind section. I really need to learn how to ride crosswinds better. It was a pretty ridiculous race and even with good legs finishing would have been the best I could hope for; it was 190k with legit, big time Pro teams like Landbowkredit and P3-Batavus Transfer (both of whom road some of the spring classics like flanders and amstel).

Winding down

I'm in the midst of my last days in Belgium this trip. Since Dinant I haven't been up to much in the way of pedaling. I took the two days after off and spent Monday in Roeselare. Tuesday we made the trip to Brugge. For those of you who don't know, Brugge is a medieval city about 50k from here. The very newest buidlings are from the 1300s and no new building is allowed within city walls. It's a pretty big tourist destination with plenty of shopping along with canals and old cathedrals to see. We had a fun day although the walking was getting to us.

I also managed to catch a bit of a cold and have felt awful on the bike since then. We pre-rode a race I was scheduled to do Saturday. But I've been moved to racing Sunday, if I race at all. I'm hoping to feel better by then. The race is 187 kilomters and sounds hard, although flat. After that I come home tuesday.

Dinant was really bad...

Well, it was actually really good for a while, when I made the front group of 20 riders just behind a race-long breakaway. I was riding strong, most of the guys in my group were completely destroyed, and I was confident I was headed towards my first top 20 here. Then wicked stomach cramps set in, followed by an excursion to a cornfield to try to relieve the pain, followed by a van ride from some not-so-bright walloons (those would be french speaking belgians) followed by some quality time in the porta-potty. I think it was caused by some race food I usually avoid. Unfortunately we were out of my preferred race diet of gels and clif bars. Mental note-avoid muesli bars.

Only 35 or so riders were even left standing when i had my episode, so I can't say it was a bad race. The course was utterly ridiculous. Climbs followed by crosswinds, climbs followed by false flats, followed by climbs, climbs followed by 2 minute descents and then more climbs...not to mention tiny little roads, sketchy descents, and, oh yeah, climbs and crosswinds. As usual the start was super fast, and I found myself for once at the front, which was nice. The long crosswind section combined with the climbing meant that the race shattered early and just kept breaking up even more after that.

It was also in the prettiest area we've been yet in Belgium. Near a river that is popular for rafting, tons of green forested areas, sweet rock formations and a castle built into a cliff. Not a bad place at all.

A week and a half....

Some pictures from a few races.


I was pretty beaten down after fleche ardennaise. I was exhausted and could feel myself getting sick. Tried to race tuesday but I was so shelled I could barely ride to the race. So I just did the first 60k to practice sitting in the field and doing nothing. Once the race got hard I pulled out to keep myself from digging the hole too deep.

Since then i've taken some days easy and feel better. Wednesday we went to Roeselare and shopped, coffee shopped it up and got a nice, euro style lunch.

Sunday is another hilly race in Dinant, belgium. I'm excited and hoping for a bit more luck this time. After that I race again next weekend, not sure what though. then I come home next tuesday.