Nationals race report.. mixed emotions..

I wanted to thank everyone first for the emails and txts about nationals. Was pretty bummed for a few days and I kept playing the race over and over in my head.. if I would done this, or this... but bottom line I didn't so I will just learn from this year and give it another go next year.

Also wanted to thank everyone for their concern with my mother. Was a pretty crazy post race for me as my emotions were already all over the place and then to have my mom trip and fall was just crazy. Having to send my mother off in an ambulance then jump on the podium for the awards ceremony was pretty tough but thank god my wife was there so she could ride with her to the hospital. Everyone was awesome during this crazyness (except the 1 paremedic I almost knocked out, but we won't talk about that).... including the race organizers, the announcer and even USADA as they worked with me to be with my mom and still get my drug test done. Thank you everyone!

My mother is doing much better. She ended up cracking her humerus bone right by her shoulder. She is healing up well and it looks like she will not need surgery. So that is good.

onto the race...My mindset was as always for this race this year. I was pretty sure the legs were coming good but not 100% sure. I did a bit of an earlier warm up on Sat so I could relax on Sat night which I think helped a ton. My original plan was to chill at the back of the race for the 1st half.. which I have done alot in the past.. but Sunday morning I woke up and said, I am making my mark at the front early and I am gonna stay there. So I started at the front and probably only left the top 20 for about 5 laps or so. The legs were great and I was having a blast floating around and staying up front. We were short manned with only 4 of us but we still had a good plan. Matt was to try for breaks all day and I was to chill and make sure I was good for a field sprint. We also wanted to try to scoop up the mid race prime which was $500 bones. Matt got away for a prime and was by himself with a good gap.. he only had about 6 laps to the mid race and field was just kinda chillin. So Matt kept it down and Rich and I tried to interrupt the chase as much as possible so he would stay away. He did a great ride and scooped the mid race prime and then came back to the field to chill.

A big threat came when Roadhouse and Giant got 2 of their strongmen away together and somehow they quickly had 30 seconds. Rich did a great job riding tempo and keeping it close and Matt hit it hard to try to get across and the next thing we were all back together. The last 10 laps were crazy as Roadhouse, Giant, and Bianchi all had trains of 5-6 guys wanting to be at the front. I was a train of 1 and parked myself right in the middle of all 3. I fought my ass off to stay there and roadhouse finally took over with 2 to go. Matt had done a great job to stay with me and he protected my wheel. I was nestled nicely on the roadhouse train as they started peeling off 1 by one. Over the hill and on the downhill I thought for sure I gonna win. Giant jumped over the outside going into 3 turns to go but roadhouse still had the inside lane. Giant got over em with 2 turns to go and chad from roadhouse jumped on the 2 Giant guys and I was glued to chad. Thinking back now I should have takin the Giant train... damn! About halfway down the 2nd to last straight away Hanson jumped with Chad and myself. Chad started going inside which was great and I was licking my chops as we were coming into the last corner. It was a bit of a headwind sprint so I wanted to be 2nd or 3rd wheel out. All of the sudden Chad changed his mind about inside, kinda sat up and tried outside. This gave Hanson about 2 bike lengths and when I got around chad going into the corner Hanson probably had 3 or 4 bike lengths on me. I tried my best to close it but could only get within 1 bike and that was that. Oh so close to a championship...

I have been somewhat close before but this was a true taste of it. This will be a huge motivation to me and I am already planning my attack for next year...

Wanted to say congrats to my boy Rahsaan who won the pro race... We talk every year about both winning on the same day and we almost pulled it off this year.. guess we'll try again next year:-)

Nationals....

picture says it all. After the frustration of being so close wears off I will write more.

Marion

Last weekend Team Inferno took part in a 2 day race in Marion, IN. I guess they had this race last year but this year they really wanted to step it up and make it into a premier event. We took 8 guys there and the racing was hard all weekend. We cooked up Fri night trying to lead Hayden out but we still managed to place 4 guys in the top 15 with Hayden 3rd. I was 11th and the legs seemed to be coming pretty good.

Friday night the mayor invited the riders to a dinner which was super cool and the boys had a few quite beers after which is always fun.

Saturday the course was pretty tough with a big hill in it. It was super cool through a residential area and then down along the river. We rode ok for the 1st bit but after we did a bit of chasing we fell apart and missed the winning move. All in all the race was put together sweet and they are putting out a DVD of the race... so can't wait to see that.

Next stop is Elite National Criterium Champs in Downers this weekend. This has been a goal of mine all year and I think my legs are starting to come good just in time. We'll see!

Elk Grove

So our team had a bit of a mix up on the weekend, well actually prior to the weekend. We got an awesome invite to ride the big dance pro race at Elk Grove which had some really good money. We had 7 guys registered only to find out we could only have 6. So I decided to just help out and DS the boys and let one of the young guys race and I would just do the amateur race which still had good money.

We had an awesome host house that actually housed all 9 of us! Insane crazy and they took great care of us even cooking and feeding us like champs.. thanks so much to Sarah and Lance.

So my race was 2 crits with an overall based on time... kind of odd to do it that way but whatever. Friday morning we went for a decent ride and the boys dialed in their TT bikes. Big time world champ really had a sweet position that looked faster than everyone Else's... have a look:



The boys did alright with Winnie getting 18th and Hayden got 2nd to last after cutting the course by accident. I think he would have run top 20 as well.

So onto my race on Saturday and my plan was to just chill out today and get the best placing I could. I went for a handful of 3 place sprints that I completely misunderstood. I thought they were doing them different so it turned out to be a complete waste of time and energy.. anyway a group of 4 stayed away and I had an average field sprint almost dumping it with 200 meters to go and came in 9th. Nothing really exciting except the legs were feeling better then they have in weeks. After the race I drove up to help the boys out as they had a 110 mile road race. They had a great day and hayden and winnie were sitting both in the top 10 in the final corner which was about 700 meters from the line when they got stuck behind a crash.. bum luck as I think the team would have had a great result here.

Sunday I had a couple teammates that had mechanicals on Sat join me for the race. I convinced Remi he should rock pig tails during the race for the pure intimidation factor...







The race was good and pretty aggressive. Tim and Remi went for primes and I just sat in waiting for the end. I needed to win or be top 3 to pop into the top 5 overall. So in the end 1 guy slipped away and I put myself in perfect position for the field sprint. With about 175 meters to go I had played it right and was hitting out on the front with tons of legs left when my chain decided to just snap into pieces.. HOLY S*@T!! it felt like my bike just went out from under me and both my feet came out and my hands came off the bars which left me supermanning it with my chest on my handlebars.. Somehow I managed to save it and not crash but I honestly don't know how. Someone was definitely watching after me because I still can't believe I didn't crash. The funny thing the entire time I was thinking I could still somehow coast in in the money so I didn't hit my brakes until after the finish line.. haha real smart. That didn't happen and my chain cost me about 2 grand. love it. That is the 2nd time this season that I have pulled off something crazy and I will have to admit this one tops my bunny hopping at Twilight.

Well the good news is my legs are feeling great but of course I had to bash my knee pretty badly on my stem so hopefully that heals up quickly.

NEXT STOP: We are scheduled to ride the Marion Classic this weekend which is supposed to be a pretty sweet race.. so really looking forward to getting back into that.


till next time.