...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.