team weekend

We had another team weekend a few days ago at the Hincapie headquarters in Greenville, Sc. Originally this camp was supposed to be when we got bikes, kits and all our equipment but with things running a little late that didn't happen. We still got to view our kit design, have some important meetings and get some of our sponsor equipment. Big thanks to Oakley and Giro for the great stuff we got this weekend. I also got in a ton of training and had a great time with my teammates and the staff. I want to give a big shout out not only to our bosses Steve Carpenter and Rich Hincapie (who both couldn't make the camp this weekend) but also to Nicole Johnson and Steve Baker for keeping things organized in their absence. Also, I may be doing some guest blog posts for our team blog soon, so I'll post the link and be on the lookout.


The U23 contingent-Chris Butler and I.


aj and I doing some nintendon boxing


fi'zi:k is providing us with great saddles this year. I wanted to test the comfort of the saddle in the aero position.


I got caught posing badly in my new Oakleys.


Showing off the new Giro helmets that will match the kits-and some Hincapie casual clothing-Aubrey Moore, Blair Turner, Cinthia Lehner and Stradford Helms.

back when i was young and crazy

hmmm.....things

I got my Cat 1 upgrade just now. It almost seemed like an afterthought when I sent it off. But now, I guess I'm fairly proud. I'm hoping my license eventually ceases to have numbers on it though.

I've been training a lot lately. Right now I'm parked on the greatest couch in the world at Casa McGinnis. Thanks to will for letting me stay. After riding 5.5 hours in the gaps I was not up for driving home. I'm just now almost coherent. Also, i just want to mention that Will dropped me today. yes, he was 20 minutes into his ride and I was almost 5 hours in, totally cracked, and riding easy. But nonetheless, he put like a minute into me on wolfpen gap.

epic

I'm in Greenville again for the long weekend for a long weekend of training. Greenville, for those of you familiar with Old Greg, is definitely Greg's place.

Yesterday was pretty epic. I don't like overusing that word, but with the freezing weather sweeping the area, we left in 26 degree weather and headed North into the mountains where it was even colder. Will, Nick and my teammate Chris Butler headed up Caesar's head, turned around, headed back up another climb into the mountains and then descended back into Greenville. In between we were shredding on Greenville's finest country roads that make me want to ride all day. Suprisingly there was no ice on the roads but there were lots of cool icicles hanging off stuff and entire ponds frozen over. We got in just over 5 hours and in that weather, I'm calling it an Epic.

Also, props to Nick Savadellis for not being a whiny, complaining wussbag and actually enjoying himself on a hard ride.

Happy 2009

Since my last update plenty of stuff has happened, but not really much worth talking about. You know, training, sleeping, eating, Christmas, all that stuff. It was great to see the family and do the Christmas thing, and now I'm straight back into hard work with school and training.

We just finished our second team camp in Chattanooga. It was a solid four days of training despite some nasty weather. Everyone on the team looks fit and motivated and we are all super excited for 2009. Both my US and European schedule are shaping up, the form is headed steadily upwards, and I'm enjoying training more than ever.

...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.