Marco Aledia's Blog

Some good eats

2011-11-30T22:45:00.001-05:00

Not much to talk about on the racing front except that I have re-signed with Cleveland Clinic for 2012. More on that to follow.

Since not much to talk about I decided to add some posts on some thing's I'm doin while traveling for work. I am in Ann Arbor, MI right which is rough the week after Michigan beat Ohio State in football.

Anyway got a ton of recommendations on places to eat and tonight I checked out Blimpy Burgers. Heard a lot about it and saw it on DDD and man vs food.

I ventured into the U of M campus, sporting my Ohio State hat of course, and found this little dive type place. Pretty straight forward... What do want in the deep fryer? How many patties? Anything grilled? Cheese? Toppings? And that's it. I went with the triple with cheese and an egg. Couldn't decide on fries or rings so went with both.

The burger was super good. Just one of those messy yummy type burgers that you want more of after your done. The fries were average but the rings were excellent. I recommend it for sure. Would be better if it was on Ohio State campus but what can ya do.

If you go make sure you study their ordering procedure online. They are pretty strict and people give you shit if you don't follow the rules. Nothing like having an Ohio State hat on and holding up a line full of people with Michigan gear on.

Hi everyone!

2011-11-05T14:36:00.000-04:00

Its the off season again and if you know me you know I am enjoying it. I have been busier than normal as I started a new job a couple months ago and its been a blast so far. Been working on my public speaking/presentation skills and am loving every minute of it now.

Looking forward to The 2012 racing season already. Some exciting stuff on the horizon. Will update you as I go and hopefully I remember to update this before this time next year.

Hope all is well and I will see you soon!

Marco

Back on track!

2011-06-08T23:53:00.001-04:00

The past couple months have been a bit rough. Slowly getting back into racing after Dylan was born but I haven't been very consistent with my training. Seems like I would get going and then get sick.. or something would come up.. I was planning on using Memorial Day Weekend as a "get me over the hump" weekend of racing. 4 races in 4 days including a 100 mile road race. The weekend was a great success from my standpoint even though the results weren't great. 7th in the road race and 16th at Rock Island and some bad luck in Muscatine with 1 to go. But the legs were pretty good and I finished the weekend strong and not totally smashed. So things were on the up and up heading into last weekends Huntington Crit.

Was looking forward to racing in Huntington as I used to road trip down there back in the day and spent some fun times down there. Training has been full fledge for Nationals at the end of the month so I was looking to smash it after a nice 2 hour training ride in the morning.

The course was tailer made for me.. flat 4 corner downtown crit with a bar on one side of the start finish and a Starbucks on the other.

The team wanted to be aggressive from the get go and I figured I would start the action 2 laps in and went on the offensive with Rolf (TRH). We worked well together and got a pretty nice gap. We could see a group coming across 7-8 laps later but couldn't make out who all was in there just yet. Once they got close enough we realized it was 3 RGF and 2 more TRH. The showdown was on and we had the upper hand with 4 to their 3. We all worked smoothly to gain 3/4 of a lap on the field and then the attacks started. Jim Baldasare followed Rolf again and they were the 1st to take a lap. We were pretty happy with this but we kept rolling to make sure we stayed out front. With 10 laps to go I sent the boys on the attack again to see if we could single out the Roadhouse guys. I sat tight and made sure John Grant (TRH) was held in check as he was their fastest finisher. A couple laps later we also took a lap and I sent Jeff on the attack straight away. This forced Roadhouse to chase and as he was caught I sent JC. He put in a HUGE dig as Grant tried to follow with me in tow. This split us away from the field again with Jon Shell making a nice move to get across to us. We had now singled out a TRH rider which was perfect. We held the gap and coming into the final lap I jumped down the back stretch and held on for my first win of the season. Great to be back! And the team rode great which is a great sign with Nationals on the horizon. They made my job easy today... thanks boys!

Great Video of the Race:

Tri-State Criterium Huntington, WV from Bob Grimm on Vimeo.

Nice Article in the Huntington Herald:

Riders compete in Tri-State Criterium - The Herald Dispatch

RATL #2

2011-04-25T01:23:00.000-04:00

Was a nice day outside today as I traveled up from rainy Columbus. Had a good warm up with Jim and told him I wanted to smash myself today for him and that he was gonna win. Well that worked out perfect. We had a lot of guys so the key was to be active and aggressive and to make sure Jim, Jeremy and myself didn't miss anything. We were in pretty much every move from the get go and the decisive move went about 10 laps in with Jim, Jeff and Josh in it. Jeremy and I got away but had a big gap to come across with just 2 of us working and 2 others sitting on. We finally made it and kept driving the break. As we got closer to lapping we started attacking and Jeff was the 1st to lap with Dan. We didn't like that so Jim and I chased and we finally lapped with the rest reshuffling the cards. Eventually we started 1-2ing the group and with one to go Jim attacked a 5 man split and soloed to win. Jeremy and Jeff out sprinted the others for 2nd and 3rd and I won my group for 6th. All in all a great day or racing and the team rode great.

Vandervorts Road Race

2011-04-25T01:22:00.000-04:00

Was a nice windy and warm day and RGF was 3 riders strong. Myself, Corey and OB. Our plan was to be aggressive and race to win. We didn't want to get wrapped up in defending the overall series lead as if we just race to win the overall will fall into place. We certainly weren't going to do anything to jeopardize the lead but we didn't want to race negative because of it either.
The race was pretty aggressive from the get go and OB finally got in a 3 man move on lap 2. I had Corey sit in and relax and I covered moves and kept things in check. We were hitting the last part of the crosswind section and I could tell everyone was feeling a bit torn so I told Corey to get on my wheel and I smashed it in the gutter until we turned into the tailwind. Only 1 other could follow me with Corey in tow and we set sail. Eventually we dropped the other and Corey and I were out in no mans land. OB's break was a good bit up the road so Corey and I were just cruising. A small group eventually caught us and a lap later i split off with another rider. With about 1.5 laps to go i hit something in the road and got a flat front tire with no race support and was SOL. OB rode away from his companions for victory and Corey scooped up 6th to extend his lead. Legs were great and we won so all is well minus a very fast front wheel.

My list...

2011-03-04T00:06:00.002-05:00

Things are starting to come to form in the house. We have a ton on our plate right now and looking forward to moving forward on so many things. The season is on the horizon, the kitchen remodel is almost done and in less than 2 weeks our daughter will be arriving! Been trying to check off a lot of items on my list before her arrival and one of the most important ones got check last weekend.... her bedroom!

One of the great things about owning the house you grew up in is having the memories and history of the house. We chose my father's office for our daughters nursery. What a great place and a great vibe for her to grow up in... all the great thoughts and things my father drummed up in that office and now a new chapter gets to start.

We had some great help with the nursery along the way from my big sis, brother in law and mother. They got the ball rolling (to our surprise) one weekend when we were in Canada and my sis helped us paint once we were ready. So it made it feel like it was done in a flash. We basically stripped the whole room as it had the original shag carpet (house built in 1971) and the craziest wallpaper I have ever seen. It was actually pretty cool though and wish I could have saved it. We added some cool chair rails, 2 tone paint and some nice baseboards and molding and it came out better than we expected. Also added a nice chandelier for some bling factor. Tara has been spending most of her time in there organizing all her clothes which she seems to already have more then both of us and she hasn't even been born yet! crazy too me. Here are a couple pics but there are more on my facebook page if ya wanna see the whole thing. http://www.facebook.com/marcoaledia

So I can check that off the list and keep rolling on my the other projects.. looking forward to checking everything off this list, but non more than the the last one: The arrival of our Daughter.

Team Launch this weekend!

2011-02-28T22:36:00.000-05:00

If your in the Cleveland area please join us for a special night as we are launching the 2011 Cleveland Clinic Sports Health/RGF Cycling Team p/b Felt Bicycles. Gonna be a ProTour style event with a team introduction, food, drinks, raffles... and its FREE!.. check out the flyer or go to our facebook page for more info. Hope to see ya there! www.facebook.com/rgfcycling

Check out the new kits!

2011-01-23T23:26:00.001-05:00

Just a quick update on my training and the new team.

I finally was able to kick my cold and am back to full strength. Been hitting it pretty hard and the form is slowly but surely coming back. I am working with the same coach (Andy Applegate, CTS) as I did last year and am super stoked... but I think he is trying to kill me:-) Its crunch time... just over 10 weeks till the 1st big event!

The team is coming together nicely and I was lucky enough to have a hand in designing this year's kits. Super stoked on how they came out and can't wait to rock these bad boys!

Looks like we are having our team meeting at the end of Feb now to get all our new gear including our new Felt F1's... can't wait! Should be a pretty cool event as it looks like we are gonna do a big gathering at The Cleveland Clinic. I will keep everyone updated so if your in the area you can come join us.

that's it for now!

M@

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

2010-12-30T11:33:00.000-05:00

So far so good with the holidays... we had a safe trip back and forth to Canada to spend Christmas up there. The weather has been crazy in Buffalo but thank god we missed it all. It was a nice 4 days off and I got some very good training in while I was there. Gonna have a low key New Years.. dinner and hanging out with the fam... need to make some good progress this weekend on my kitchen remodel. Will post some pics as it moves along... prolly easier on my facebook page so check that out. www.facebook.com/marcoaledia . My team has a new FB page as well so make sure you become a fan of it. www.facebook.com/rgfcycling.

Nothing to fun to write about but I thought I would atleast post something for everyone (mostly Casey, since she yells at me when I don't update this:-)) to read.

I want to wish everyone a Happy Holidays and A Happy New Year. 2011 is gonna be a great year! Lots of new things on the horizon and I'm looking forward to every single one of them!

God bless and see you in the new year!

A weekend of some firsts, good quotes and a little bit of bike racing...

2010-12-09T22:10:00.001-05:00

This past Sunday I participated in my first cross race. I say participated because I don't really call what I did racing. I tried one of these a long time ago for shits and giggles but I did it on a mountain bike with football cleats so that didn't really count. I have had this beautiful bike from Masi and all this gear for cross but never seem to pick going out and racing in the mud over watching football. Well this past weekend was just meant to be as the race was close, and the Patriots played Monday night:-)

So Tara and I headed out to Smith Farms to see if I could not embarrass myself. A few last minute wrinkles... I was setting up my shoes the night before (don't ask) and noticed the cleats I had didn't fit my shoes... so had to make a few desperation calls and luckily Joe Hall came through for me with some pedals and cleats. So I had fun installing those about 10 minutes before the race...

Didn't get to ride the entire course before we started but I got most of the technical part in... tried to figure out how to do that dismount thing but that was a bit awkward. I was hoping to just bunny hop everything but it seemed the barriers were a bit close together and a little to close to coming out of a turn to do so... plus my legs wouldn't get me going fast enough to attempt it.

It was cold, probably 27 degrees or so, and super windy... but the sun was out... so not too brutal. This is how these races are supposed to be right? Add in a few snow flurries and I was loving it. Of course at the start line I looked around and most had on only 1 layer.. me, I had on full winter gear.. 3 layers with thermals... haha... maybe a little over dressed....

Well the start was fun and i shot to the front... but i remembered shortly that I hadn't gone hard since pro crit nats in August and my legs and lungs were doing a good job of reminding me of that... stayed at the front and hit the 1st barrier/dismount section about 3rd and once I got on my bike and going again I was about dead last... guess I should have practiced that one. The rest of the day was spent riding by myself and having fun. Certainly got better from a technique standpoint as the race went on... Was nice to have a ton of people screaming for me even though I was sucking (even the guy who yelled, "Marco its not a road race"... guess he doesn't know me real well... I don't do those either).... 1st person I saw before the races said "there's something you don't see everyday" and I imagine he was talking about me riding in the cold?? who knows:-)

All in all it was a blast and I am glad to see that this sport is on the up and up... probably won't be hitting anymore this year, but I also might not sell my bike just yet. Thanks to my wonderful wife who didn't make fun of me too bad but did have the quote of the day...I got done and said.. "I didn't get last did I?" and she says to me..."well ya certainly didn't get first" haha love ya! Thanks to Adam as well for coming out and watching in the cold and for everyone that yelled for me during the race... good times...

My training is in full tilt now with eyes on 2011. The team is full and we have a great roster which should be announced soon.

Till next time!

M@

Some good pics taken by Blair Fraley...

oh, and yes I did BLING my cross bike.....

Happy Thanksgiving...

2010-11-24T22:23:00.000-05:00

What a great weekend we are heading into. A 4 day weekend is great but we get to celebrate Thanksgiving and cheer the Buckeyes on against our rival from up north. This is the 1st year they have put the 2 on the same weekend so it makes for a nicely packed weekend.

This is also a big weekend for us as our annual Beat Michigan fundraiser event for my fathers charity is this weekend. This is the 3rd year we have done it and it seems to get better every year. We have some great supporters again this year with Mama Mimi’s coming on board and supplying all our food. This party is a blast as we have a huge tent butted up against my garage and make it more of a tailgate atmosphere. I constructed a huge 12 foot screen to watch the game with a huge stereo system. Teddy Crunkspen will be performing again this year and they always keep the party going after the game. We look to have just as much fun and raise even more money this year in my dads honor. He was a HUGE Buckeye fan and this is a great way to keep him cheering them on! If you can’t make it feel free to donate on his website: www.ftafoundation.org. Every little bit helps! Hope to see you there! (email me for details)
Hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving! Be safe and eat way more than you should! GO BUCKS!

Looking forward to a fun weekend, then its time to start getting serious with training for next year.. I’m ready!

Some pics from our last couple tailgates:

Back to training...

2010-11-07T20:25:00.000-05:00

Haven't had a chance to write about the amazing news Tara and I got last week. We found out we are having a baby girl! It makes it seem even that much more real that we will have a little baby crawling around here soon... It also open the gates for Tara to start shopping... oh man.. I might need a 4th job now.. anyone hiring??? haha

Started back on the bike today for more than once a month.. and of course it was the coldest day of the year... 27 when we left this morning but ended up being a nice 3.5 hour ride with good company. Looking forward to getting some more time on the bike and getting some more fitness.. god knows I need it!!

She's number 1!

Getting the band back together....

2010-10-24T21:46:00.000-04:00

My new team is starting to come together. I am super stoked to be reunited with 2 of my teammates from last year, Rich Harper and Jim Baldasare. We will all be reunited with our teammate from the A&F days in Mark Hekman. All 3 of these guys are good friends of mine and I am super stoked about racing with them again. We always seem to race well together.. and, of course have fun together! 1 more spot to fill and our roster will be complete. So far we are 5 strong: myself, Jeremy Grimm, Rich Harper, Jim Baldasare and Mark Hekman.

Mark at I after 1st stage of Tour of Ohio in 2007.

New team for 2011!

2010-10-12T07:31:00.000-04:00

I have signed on with a new team for 2011. RGF Solutions Cycling Team p/b Felt is my new home! I will be posting a full write up on my new team, leaving my old team, and what the future holds soon. I wanted to get this press release up asap. Thanks for your support and lets Get Sum! in 2011!

Full release: http://www.rgfsolutionssportsmarketing.com/news.asp

test

2010-10-07T10:38:00.002-04:00

Testing out my new driod app

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.2

2010 is over

2010-10-07T07:16:00.000-04:00

What happened to all my posts from the beginning of the year till now??? wait I didn't do any. Sorry the year has flown by and twitter is just so much easier:-)

I have some new things on the horizon, including a new team and my 1st child on the way. So some exciting things to write about...

I plan on revamping this entire blog with a fresh start... that's my plan.. now if I actually do it is another thing...

2010 underway

2010-03-11T23:02:00.002-05:00

Time to get serious.. I'm back and will get to blogging asap. Fresh back from training camp where I met alot of the new guys. We always have a great group of guys and this year is no different. Looking forward to the season with them. I will get some photos up when I get them.

Training has been great.. a bit slowed lately with a sickness and a wisdom tooth pulled tonight which was a blast. It has been long over do getting that bad boy out.. been making me sick off and on. So here's to a healthier start and getting back on track.

Gonna try to get my 1st race under my belt Saturday, but we'll have to wait and see how the mouth is healing from the surgery.

Hope everybody is doing well and is ready for the new season... I know I am!!

m@

Good Luck B2!

2009-12-22T22:06:00.002-05:00

A good friend of mine, Bennet van der Genugten, is hanging up the wheels... Sad to see him go...

Good luck trying out for "The Jersey Shore"

http://bvdg.blogspot.com/

m@

This is great! A must see...

2009-12-08T23:20:00.001-05:00

Hey Hey

2009-11-16T22:45:00.002-05:00

Once again I am slacking on my blog. Everyone keeps asking me why I don't write on here anymore and I don't really have an excuse... except 1:-) I am addicted to twitter! haha.. I will be better as more things come along.

Right now I am just chilling enjoying my off-season. Last year was a rough one mentally so I have taken some much needed time off. Time to get healthy and re-focus for next year.

I will update ya when more news comes my way.. but for now im chill-axin!

hope everyone is well! and check me out on twitter!!! @marcoaledia
m@

I'm here!

2009-08-15T01:02:00.002-04:00

Sorry for the horrible lack of blogging lately. Not sure where time has gone. I was driving to a race, raced, then drove home, then drove to another race, raced, then drove home, then repeated. Not much to write home about except I have had some nice form and not much to show for it. Was at Elk Grove, Charlotte, Hanes Park, and maybe another before that.. I can't remember. I had a good ride at Elk Grove the 1st day winning the field sprint for 6th. But other than that I just have been stuck in the wrong spots at the wrong time.

My good friend Rahsaan Bahati has been staying with the wife and I which was great as we wanted to really hit it and gear up for crit nats. Unfortunautly we both caught something in Charlotte and have been sick all week. I am feeling better everyday and hope to be 100% for Sunday. I tested the legs one day this week and they were good so I am hoping they should be great Sunday.

I am in Downer's as we speak gearing up for another run at a title. A nice warm up race tomorrow then the big show on Sunday. Its been a frustrating year but I keep telling myself 1 great race will salvage the season... I'm banking on that race being Sunday.

Time for some rest,
m@

Good Weekend of Racing

2009-07-23T12:21:00.002-04:00

This past weekend we had a couple nice criterium's in Dayton Ohio. Its nice to have some nice races close to home and get to sleep in my own bed every night.

Saturday was the Troy Classic in Dayton, Ohio. Super cool course that was flat with a bunch of turns and a cool round-about to the finish. Kenda was 5 strong: myself, Chad B., Ben Renkema, Tim Swain, and Jim B. Roadhouse had a good team present and Panther had about 10 guys. We tried to ride super aggressive and put 2-3 guys in every move. Eventually Jim and Ben made the decisive move and we were good to go.. at least we thought. As we were patrolling the front we saw both our boys coming back to us... PANIC! Chad and I chased our tails off and got it close but could not bring it back. 3 guys stayed off in the end and I gave it a go but didn't have much legs left after chasing. Was 6th in the end.

Sunday was another cool crit with a bunch of turns and a brick section. We had a bit of a change up in our line-up: myself, Chad B., Tim Swain, Ben, Jake, and Braum were here to mix it up. We came up with a new game plan as things just weren't working with our current way of racing. So we said what the hell. Our plan worked great and in the end we lined it up for a field sprint. We wanted to get Chad, myself, and Ben into the 2nd to last corner on the front.. we thought there is no way we can lose if we do this correct. We lined it up great with 5 laps to go and stuck together great. Jake hit out on the last lap and had Chad, myself, and Ben in tow. The last 2 turns were more like 1 big turn then like 400 meters to the line. Chad hit out going into the 2nd to last turn with myself then Ben. I am licking my lips as I feel great and have the perfect lead out and then.... man down! Chad leads us into the corner and must of hit something in the road as his bike just went out from under him. I slid around him and managed to stay upright but was up on the sidewalk and Ben went down with Chad. Game over. Frustrated day as I believe we woulda been 1-2 but that's racing. The good news is that we rode great as a team and our lead out finally got together. This is great news with some big races coming up.

I am in the homestretch now with big events every weekend and Nationals 4 weeks away. This weekend we are in Chicago for a big show. Chicago Criterium and $25,000 prize list. Lets get some!!

Tour of the Valley

2009-07-17T21:32:00.005-04:00

Last weekend was a pretty cool 3 day event in Youngstown, OH. It had a TT, crit, rr, and another crit. I of course skipped the TT mostly because it started super early in the morning and I woulda had to spend another day on the road to do it. Plus I didn't see anywhere that you had to start every stage to be in contention for the overall - more on that later.

The 1st crit was tough with 6 Jittery guys and a ton of Panther guys.. like 8 I think. And I was the lone Kenda rider. I was feeling good and just tried to cover and go across to as many breaks as I could. It was tough b/c every break seemed to have 2 Jittery and 2 Panther in it. I made the decisive move but with 5 laps to go a Panther and Jittery guy got away from me. The rest of us looked at each other and ended up getting caught. A couple more got away and I held on for 7th.

The road race the was absolutely brutal.. at least for me. Over 4000 feet of climbing in 65 miles with a 2 mile climb along the way. I was hoping I could get away early to make the hill easier but I tried and it failed. I was in a group that got caught right at the bottom of the 1st climb but I managed to suffer over that one... The next one I was not so lucky. I lost contact about a kilometer from the top and as I got over the top I almost turned around.. but I thought, ah I'll give it a dig and see if I can catch on. My legs were going good over the rollers and I caught on and suffered through a really hilly section. As it flattened out I attacked again up to a little group and soon we were 7. We started working pretty well and all the sudden we had a minute. I was actually just hoping to get back to the town but we had 2 minutes coming through town.. but with 33 miles to go. We kept working well and ended up staying away the whole race. With about 5 miles to go we split as the official was talking to us.. All the sudden 3 guys were up the road. My legs were on the verge of cramping as we had no feeds but I tried to close it. In the end we worked hard to stay away and I was 5th on the day. Nice ride boys! You know who you are! Needless to say I was pretty wrecked after that one.

The last day was pretty much of the same. I went with moves but missed the winning break and was 10th on the day.

All in all I ended up 8th overall.. even after a "certain rider" protested to get me out of the GC. But the race was done on points and said nothing in the bible about having to start each day. So I protested and proved my point correctly. So in the end I was back in the overall at 8th. Not that I really cared to much about 8th but it was more to prove I was right and YOU were wrong! haha...

This was a super cool race especially for the 1st year.. will be a big one and looking forward to it already next year... check it out at Tour of the Valley.

A couple nice regional races this weekend with good fields. My fitness is right on track for the big races coming up so I'm super stoked about that. Looking forward to riding with the team this weekend and doing some damage.

Here are some pics from the weekend:

Hard to shake the Panther boys...

2nd place!! again...

2009-07-09T18:31:00.005-04:00

Last weekend I traveled down to Louisville to compete in the Master 30-34 National Criterium Championship. Tara joined me and we made a nice little weekend out of it. I also got to catch up with a ton of old friends which is always nice.

This was a bit of a last second thing for me so I needed to get down there and register the night before. USA Cycling decided it was so hard to do race day registration that they doubled the entry fee. Not to mention that it is ridiculous to begin with that the entry was $65 and no prize money.. Yep, they charged me $130 to register... If anyone can come up with a good reason for doubling an already ridiculous entry fee I would love to hear it.

Anyway, onto the race... It was 66 laps of fun on a quick little course at Churchill Downs. Same course as last year so I was looking forward to it. The weather turned crap the morning of and by the time I raced it was pouring down rain. The interesting part was I was riding some prototype Kenda's and I had never ridden them in the rain. Of course I had complete faith in them but I needed some piece of mind so I found a nice neighborhood and bombed some corners to get a feel for them.. figured it was better to crash before the race then in it.. But of course the tires were better then I thought and I was basically glued to the road.

So the race started super fast as a handful of us were drilling it at the front trying to get rid of the dead weight. A few breaks went here and there and I was having to do a lot more work than I was hoping but no big deal. Pretty hard race and everyone road super aggressive but in the end it came down to about 10 of us. I sat 2nd wheel for most of the last 10 laps and reacted to every attack. With 1 to go I was still 2nd wheel and on the backstretch a guy jumped from behind. Was straight onto him and exactly where I wanted to be. Through turn 3 and into the last turn the guy decides to pussy foot around the corner and in my head I'm thinking if someone has a run on us I'm in trouble. Sure enough the masters world TT champ who had been ripping my legs off all night got a run on us. He went right and I went left and with only 150 meters to go I closed the gap to him but didn't get around him. They gave us the same exact time and went to the film and he had won it by inches. Never did get to see the tape but def would like to see how close it was.

All in all it was a good race and the fitness is on the rise for the rest of the season. That's 3 silver medals at National Championships now... What do I need to take it up a notch?? Back to the drawing board, coach and I will find it... I"m sure of that.

Good little stage race this weekend that I am using for training so that should be a fun one. 2 crits and a road race. I will keep you updated.

And thanks for all the notes on my 2nd. Its a tough one but you guys all make it a bit easier with your kind words....

much love
m@

Grandview Heights weekend

2009-06-30T21:43:00.003-04:00

Was a fun weekend with a cool race in Cincy in Hyde Park on Sat and Grandview Heights on Sunday. The fields were pretty stacked this year and we had 7 guys both days. My race ended a lap to early on Saturday night as Chad and I got caught in a crash coming out of the hairpin. Bummer. Was feeling pretty good and sitting pretty.

Sunday was a tough race as it was super fast again. I rode for the team and was trying to help Crater (guest riding for us) and Chad out as much as possible. I covered as many moves and such as I could but I blew to bits a little over halfway. The race finally split in the last 10 laps with Jake and Crater making the front group. Jake gave a great lead out and Crater gave it a go but came up a little short as Emile Abraham (Aero Cat Cycling Team) got him on the line. Emile had a great weekend winning both races.

I am pleased as my fitness is heading in the right direction. Another couple weeks and I should be full gas. Heading down to Louisville to do the Master National Crit Champs on Sat. Should be a fun one.

Here are some pics from the weekend.

Round the Outside! love the sneak attack...

R.I.P. Gloved One...

2009-06-27T08:51:00.004-04:00

In case you didn't know I am a HUGE MJ fan. So sad to see this music legend pass. His music brings back so many great memories... Much Love Michael!

Tour of Ohio OVER!

2009-06-26T20:07:00.002-04:00

Well the last stage has come and gone with nothing to exciting to report. Had pretty good legs the last day but a bit of negative racing did me in for the day. A group of 4 rolled up the rode and I missed that move. They ended up staying away and lapping the field so we were sprinting for 5th. I lined it up pretty good and from what I could tell I was 2nd in the field with a few of the riders that lapped in front of me. But somehow I ended up 9th?? Oh well, not gonna cause a ruckus for 3 places... if your not 1st your last anyway right?

All in all it was a great week for my fitness and I have carried it over well into this week with some more great training. Feeling a ton better and on the up and up. Some nice regional races this weekend in Hyde Park and Grandview Heights. Kenda will be rolling DEEP so looking forward to smashing it up with the boys to!

Stay tuned for updates!

Tour of Ohio stages 3,4,5

2009-06-21T12:33:00.002-04:00

Well I found out on the 2nd day that they were doing the sprint jersey completely different this year. Its actually now "the most consistent" jersey I guess as they are giving more points for top 10 finishes with smaller point sprints here and there. So with all the hilly races I decided to not go for any points and just go for wins. I was kinda leaning that way anyway b/c I really wanted to give a go at winning the Worthington stage and not wasting my energy on intermediate sprints.

Anyway, stage 3 was a doozy and I finished off the back. too many hills.

Stage 4 was my hometown crit and with tons of family and friends there I was gunning for this one. The course is a tough 1 mile circuit with a good hill in it. I thought with this being a stage race that the teams would not let a break go and it would be a big field sprint but I was completely wrong. I chilled for the 1st 5 laps but noticed breaks were getting a little more time then I thought they would. So I changed my strategy as I saw a break of 5ish guys get a good gap with another couple trying to bridge. The field slowed down to a crawl and thats when I jumped and got away on my own. I made it across to the 2 and then a couple others joined us. A couple laps later we were 10 off the front with a good size gap. It continued to grow and I was hoping we didn't lap as I was confident I could win if all these guys didn't have their teammates. Jittery Joe's waited to long to shut down the break and we ended up lapping with 3 to go. A ton of chaos and in the end I just got worked over and ended up 4th. Great ride today by Jittery Joe's as they take over yellow.

Stage 5 was another hilly one that ended on a even hillier circuit. I made it close to the circuits and then just rode the rest of the race out. It was blown to bits all over the place like a cross country meet. So I don't even know where I finished.

Today is the last stage and finally a flat criterium! My fitness seems to be getting better everyday so I am definitely shooting for a stage win. Let's see what happens!

Happy Fathers Day to all!

Tour of Ohio stage 2

2009-06-18T12:02:00.002-04:00

Pretty uneventful stage although the leaders did take the wrong route about halfway through. oops. I pretty much chilled all day as it was super hilly again. over 3000 feet of climbing and a big one at the finish. I tried to go with the climbers over the big hill and blew to bits! Blew so bad the field went right past me! haha.. I gathered my senses and chased back onto the field on the flat section and finished in the field. I think 10 guys were away by a couple minutes.

I just don't have the fitness right now to go up hills but its all good training and have to keep telling myself that I am hear for training this year and not to win everything like the past years. Don't get me wrong I will still give it a go but its a bit of a different mindset by myself racing against teams of 8 guys.. Im used to have the 8 man team...

Today is another hilly one with some huge climbs. Just gonna try to survive and get onto tomorrow's crit. Here is a nice article in my hometown paper about me and the race tomorrow. enjoy!

Worthington News Article

Tour of Ohio stage 1

2009-06-16T20:56:00.006-04:00

Stage 1 was a 60 mile road race in the city of Gallipolis Ohio. With a 10am start I had to leave the house at 6:30am.... I hate getting up that early! The stage was really rolling with about 3 decent climbs. We shot back into town and had a sharp left hand turn into town then about 4 blocks to the finish. I pre-road the finish to get a feel for it and I told myself to be patient as it was a long way out of the corner and into a headwind.

I was pretty active but mostly just followed wheels today and hung out. A 2 man break was gone most of the day but was caught with about 7 miles to go. All together for the finish and I was floating back and forth between GlobalBike and Jittery Joe's leadout train. Jittery made the corner 1st and I was 3rd wheel, a little closer to the front then I wanted. They hit out and I was patient like I told myself but a bit too patient as a GlobalBike guy hit us over the top. I tried to run him down but was a little late and ended up 2nd on the day. Little mental error but I'll take it considering the situation.

It was good to be back out racing.. feels like its been forever. A little rusty at the end but I will make sure that doesn't happen again. Tomorrow is a 70 mile hilly road race again which should be fun. Lots of up and down but a flat finish. So just need to survive over the hills again. I start in the green jersey tomorrow but actually am 2nd in the competition. This is the 5th year in a row I have worn the sprinters jersey at somepoint which is pretty cool.

Looking forward to the rest of the week as I think I should get better everyday.

Wanted to give a quick shoutout to my athletes that I coach. They had a great weeekend at the Ohio State Road Race Champs last weekend. A little bad luck for Billy and Ron but they were in the mix at the end, a great 1st State Champs ride for Daryl and Josh capped a great day with 2nd in the Elite race. Nice work boys! We launched our site as well, needs a little more work but its up! check it. www.nextlevelcycling.com

time to rest!

Back in green..

Tour of Ohio??

2009-06-15T22:29:00.000-04:00

Been back to some good training and feeling super fresh. I thought I was gonna have a handful of weeks to kick it up but I actually have to start Tour of Ohio tomorrow. Talk about last second! Oh well happy to be doing it and looking forward to using it as good training. Super stoked about stage 4 in my hometown of Worthington! Can't wait for that one! Haven't really prepared for it but I'll certainly give it my all. I will be the only Kenda Pro Cycling rider so it should be interesting.

I did an interview today for the race so I will post the link when its published. Well early start tomorrow so I'm off to bed. 6 stages, lots of climbing but has 2 crits... Tour of Ohio here I come!

Down time...

2009-06-04T10:32:00.005-04:00

Not much to report as of late. The team had a great race weekend with Somerville and Ricola but came up a lil short of a great result. My legs had been feeling mint but a slight sickness set me back a little which bummed me out a bit. Didn't get to make the trip to Tulsa which I was super bummed about. Was looking forward to some great racing and catching up with some of my old homies that were gonna be there. Damn! oh well, another time.

I am home chillin with some down time right now. I have a nice couple weeks with no travel. Just looking to recharge the batteries and gear up for the 2nd half of the season. Here are some pics from the last trip which is always a good time with the boys.. its nice to have a band of brothers to travel with.. makes being on the road and away from home a lot easier.

Oh yeah.. look for Kenda Pro Cycling at Philly this weekend.. looking for a good ride from the boys there.. and you can follow them/us at www.twitter.com/kendprocycling. tweet tweet!

Did I say I love Jersey?? "Jager Bombs!"

Birdman is always stuntin.. even when chillin in the hotel motel

Remi loves shirly temples... explains alot

In case anyone wondered what he was doing now after basketball.... well he is managing the wonderful hotel we stayed in.

RFK Criterium

2009-05-25T00:24:00.000-04:00

Pretty cool race around RFK Stadium in the Capital City. 1.2 mile course and flat as a pancake. Kenda rode great and we were active the whole race. We lined it up perfect at the end for yours truly but with 1 lap to go I flatted. Had great legs today and was in search of a great result. That's racing!

Chad B rode great and was top 10. After the race we spun around DC and did some sight seeing. We ran into the big motorcycle parade which was super cool. Its really cool to see everything in DC. Every time I come here I still get overwhelmed with the history and patriotism all around. What a feeling!

We packed up the car in route to Somerville and scooped Ty up in Philly on the way. A nice team dinner and now time for bed.

Feeling a bit under the weather for some reason tonight. Feel like I got a bit of a bug as well as my allergies being bad. Good nights rest should cure it.

Tour of Somerville tomorrow. Great race with lots of history. Time for some rest and I look for great things tomorrow.

M@

Nothing exciting...

2009-05-24T09:49:00.002-04:00

Last weekend was a rough one for me. I over did it a bit with the training last week so my legs felt like dead wood. So nothing exciting for me at all. Chad B had a good ride on Sunday getting 7th at BikeJam so atleast the team got a result.

I have had a nice long easy week to get the legs back under me and they have been feeling great the last couple days. I am back in DC, again, for the RFK Criterium. We only have 4 guys today... Rich, Scottie, Birdman, and myself. This will be the 1st time this year I have raced with Scottie so looking forward to it.

Today kicks off a lot of racing for me as we have today, Sommerville tomorrow, and Ricola on Wed. Then I fly to Tulsa for 3 days there. Glad I am going into this with fresh legs.

I will get this updated from the road but you can always follow my twitter. www.twitter.com/marcoaledia The team also has a twitter now as well. www.twitter.com/kendaprocycling. So check that out.

Okay I'm running late... we race in 2.5 hours.. attack!

m@

2009-05-15T15:58:00.000-04:00

Wow where has time gone. Its been a while since I've blogged. I think I'm addicted to twitter!

Let's see what has gone on since my last update... Been traveling a ton.. Raced twilight, roswell, sunny king and sandy springs. Been active and racing well but just a bit of bad luck at the end of races has kept a good result from me. 18th is all I could muster at twilight after almost crashing with a half lap to go.. And 12th at sunny king after almost going down with 2 turns to go.

Last week I got some good rest and a weekend off with the wife was nice. Back to hardcore training this week and some big races this weekend in Bank of America Grand Prix and Bike Jam.

The form is good and the mind is even better so looking forward to better things this weekend. We have a strong team for this weekend so I expect good things.

The next month is busy as after I fly home from this weekend I am back to Sommerville, NJ then straight to Tulsa, OK, then home. Lots of airplane time!

I figured out a way to blog from my phone finally so I will keep this more updated... But if you want instant updates follow me on Twitter! I promise to keep ya entertained! www.twitter.com/marcoaledia.

Time to fly!
M@

Deer Creek Road Race

2009-04-16T23:14:00.004-04:00

Last weekend was a nice road race about 40 mins from my house. Another great week of training and ended it with a tough race. A 70 mile race with super high winds.

We rocked up 7 riders and our plan was to be on the attack all day. I was on the 1st move literally straight out of the parking lot with 3 others. Really did not want to be there but wasn't gonna let the wheel in front of me ride away. So I just sat on and enjoyed the warm up. One of the guys decided he was gonna ride me off the back of the break and I just kinda laughed and took him back to the field with me. We ended up catching the 2 after the 1st lap and then the attacks started.

Jake ended up with 5 guys up the rode and another group of 5 or 6 were trying to cross. We didn't have anyone in the 2nd group and they were going away in the crosswind section. I looked at B2 and said lets go.. I launched to try to get him across but he mis-understood me and I was all by myself.. ouch. I sucked it up and got across the 20 sec gap to the 2nd group and we worked well to catch the break. We lost a few in the process so it was 8 strong. We smashed it for a lap and had 3 minutes pretty quickly. The break rolled smoothly to a 5 minute gap. Jake and I decided to keep it together as my legs were good. With about 5K to go the attacks started and Jake and I messed up the race completely. Just read it wrong and I panicked a bit with 3K to go and basically isolated myself. In the end I ended up 5th and Jake 7th. B2 had a nice ride and ended up 10th. Not real happy with the way I have been finishing races.. Racing tired has been frustrating and it seems the legs go a bit towards the end.

So this week I went back to my doctor as my leg (old injury) has been pretty sore. She said it was worse than I thought and I was losing about 30 percent b/c of it. I have been getting some treatments and its almost all better. So maybe this is a little why my legs aren't so hot towards the end of the race.. or its the training.. we'll see next weekend at Athens when I have some rest before racing:-)

This weekend is a TON of training and another local road race on Sunday. A few hard days next week then off to Speedweek!

If you haven't already, check me out on twitter at www.twitter.com/marcoaledia I will try to keep you entertained:-)

till next time,
m@

Race weekend...

2009-04-08T11:38:00.007-04:00

Had a great week. Back into full training and some new workouts. Got behind the motor for the 1st time this year in prep for the big crits and had a blast. I love smashing it behind the motor.. Its been a bit frustrating racing with tired legs but I know it will all pay off at the bigger races. Sat was a pretty cool course that I guess Greg LeMond crushed everyone on for the 1980 Olympic Trials. The wind was pretty bad so it made the entire backstretch feel like you were climbing. Swain rocked up with me and the race was pretty aggressive. Jeremy from RGF is riding his arse off right now and I kept him contained until about 4 km to go. He put in a huge effort and I was a bit late to react and he rode away for the win. Mental error like 400 of the season.. Hopefully getting these out of the way. Anyway I won the little group for 3rd.

Sunday I got together with more of the boys... B2, Chad B, and Ben made the trip over and we were 4 strong. Back to Hueston Woods so a 10 mile circuit with 3 hills a lap. We had a great plan and worked it to a T. B2 was on the attack early and rode like an animal. Solo for the first 50 miles of the race! Chad and I did most of the covering and we let Ben sit in to save his legs. Once we caught B2 Chad and him rode tempo for the next 20 miles to keep anyone from attacking. Pretty impressive on both their parts. I chilled and looked after Ben. Coming into the finish Chad reacted to everything and got us close to the base of the final hill. I went to hit out with Ben on my wheel but the young fella beat me too it and just took off! Was pretty funny.. so I just sat up and let him go.. I gave him a nice gap and he won by a good 10 bike lengths.. I was cramping like crazy but made it up the hill for 4th. Great day for the team.

Legs were pretty tired after a long week and my 1st 2 day race weekend but super happy how I have come out of it. Here are some pics from the weekend.

Ben making it look easy..

Chad B.. one of few pics of Chad that his helmet is on straight

B2 killing it off the front

Katsu's work is never done.. poor guy just came to race and ended up working on our bikes..what a rockstar!

Ben trying to be pretty

B2 always stuntin'

Swain out for his 1st race of the year

This awesome band got us pumped up before the race..

Twitter...

2009-03-31T22:39:00.002-04:00

Follow me out on Twitter... http://twitter.com/marcoaledia

Race was pretty boring again on the weekend. So glad my rest week is over. RGF rocked up 6 or 7 guys again and my legs were pretty stale from the rest. The good news is I am WELL rested and back to some serious training this week. Racing both Sat and Sun this week and looking to do some damage.

Hueston Woods Road Race...

2009-03-25T23:12:00.003-04:00

Last weekend was a pretty cool little road race at Hueston Woods State Park. A 10 mile circuit with 3 small hills per lap. Was a good turn out for the race and I got to race with Chad B and Ben for the 1st time this season. Was a great day for the team but a pretty uneventful race. Chad B basically split the race in 2 by himself on the 1st lap... and then rode away from everyone except for Jeremy Grimm from RGF. I was stuck in the 2nd group and knowing I had the 2 fastest guys up there I wasn't gonna do much to help bring em back. Chad and Jeremy stayed away the whole day with Chad taking his 1st win of the season.. nice ride Chad! Ben did a nice job winning the field sprint for 4th and I just limped in with the rest of the field.

It was nice to finish up a huge block of training last week and I could certainly feel it in the legs racing Saturday. Some rest this week and I will be back to full fledge training for Athens Twilight at the end of April. Time to get those fast twitch muscles going!

Mid Ohio Grand Prix

2009-03-20T11:08:00.002-04:00

Where has the week gone?? Last weekend I kitted up to race at the Mid Ohio Grand Prix Course in Lexington, Ohio. This is a super cool race around the race car track.. although it would be much more fun in a car.. but a bike was my only option.

Pretty small field again with only about 20 of us but this time RGF brought about 6 guys including Grimm and Paul Martin. The race was pretty aggressive and I had a decent plan going in but completely F*d it up. I was hoping to let Grimm get up the road early with no other teammates and then get across towards the end.. which I figured would be with Paul. Well I did the 1st part good then fell asleep.. not sure what I was doing to be honest.. a couple guys attacked and for some reason I thought there was more riders with us and the next thing I knew I was off the back with 5 riders going away from me.. Paul was just sitting on my wheel so now we are both off the back... oops.. I started to chase and bit and Paul started attacking the crap out of me so it turned into a little 2 man battle off the back... pretty funny. Paul finally stopped attacking me and we started to work together to close the now 40 seconds back to the 2nd group... great job Marco! The rest of the race was pretty boring as we finally caught with 3 laps to go.. The break was now 2 but it was too late. I took out the sprint for 3rd and that was that. Felt okay today.. in the middle of a big block of training so racing a bit tired right now... but will all be worth it in the end.

Off to another tough one tomorrow in Hueston Woods.. till then..

1st Race of the year....

2009-03-09T11:08:00.005-04:00

Over the weekend I got to have my first crack at a race. I have been pretty tired after our camp so I have just been cruising trying to get back on top of things. Started feeling a little better towards the end of the week so I thought I would give the race a go.

A super hard 6 mile circuit with crazy strong winds. And of course it had to finish up a climb that hit 18%... fun fun. The rest of the course was real rolling and it ended up being right under 3000 ft of climbing for the day. Ouch. Anyway there were only around 20 guys starting so there would be no where to hide. The race was super aggressive as Jeremy Grimm from RGF was there and attacking as usual. We had 8 cracks at the hill and with 4 to go 4 of us split away over the top. We rolled pretty good and stayed away. I had been feeling pretty average all day but was hoping the fitness and all the training would help at some point. The last lap was super aggressive but no one could get away. The 4 of us came to the hill together and I sat 2nd wheel.. About halfway up one of the riders cracked and then I noticed Jeremy wasn't looking so good on my wheel so I hit out and rode away from them all to net my 1st win of the year.

Pretty happy I made it through it as I did not feel real good. Haven't really gone that hard yet this year and it was a bit of shock to the body.. guess I had to do it at some point! Was a great day as my wonderful wife made the trip with me and got to see me win my 1st race of the year!

Win number 1.

Camp is here and gone...

2009-03-05T21:20:00.008-05:00

Wow did camp go by fast. Sorry I did not have any updates while we were there. The bossman had us jam packed everyday and I didn't even have time to take my laptop out of my backpack! Was a great week getting to know the new guys and catching up with the old mates. The team put us up in The Westin which was a step up from the Travelodge from last year. We got to see the Hincapie Headquarters which was very nice and everyone there is super cool as well. I had some more issues with my shoes so I spent alot of time with our fitters (sorry guys) to get it correct. Most of our time was spent getting new gear and in meetings but we did manage to ride here and there. We also had a team bonding day and got to beat each other up playing flag football in the mud and rain. It was a blast and thank god no one got hurt.. although I think I am still sore almost a week later! All in all it was a great camp.. Our team has something special this year and you can just see the fire in every one's eyes. We will all definitely keep each other motivated through the year. Here are a ton of pics from the week..

That right... my face is on a wine bottle...

The Crew...

Chillin at Hincapie Headquarters...

Working with the super fitters...

A little flag football

That puddle was cold...

I brought my expresso machine and Ty and I might have set a record for the most shots in 4 days..

B2 trying to get all aero...

My ride has been officially pimped!!

2009-02-23T11:13:00.004-05:00

2 days till camp and my new ride is completely ready... As most of you know I rocked the bling last year. but this year I had to step it up a little. Check out the new ride!!!

Camp is almost here...

2009-02-21T00:07:00.004-05:00

I'll get to camp in a sec but I wanted to share a pretty cool day I had the other day. One of the classrooms at my wife's work has been been doing some fun stuff with cycling as a topic. When I first heard this I donated a ton of stuff for the kids to use and my wife took pictures in of me and our team (of course). Tara works for the Franklin County Head Start Program that helps low income families attempt to break the cycle of poverty and give children opportunities they may not have otherwise. The kids loved the stuff so much we decided to set-up a little appearance there and spend a little time with the kids. So I took my teammate Ryan Gamm with me.. he is about the size of a little kid so I figured they would relate well to him:-) We took one of our bikes in and talked a bit about safety and how our bikes work. It was great to see how excited the kids got and how curious they were about everything. We finished the day with Ryan doing some laps on his bike for them... with his helmet on of course:-) Was a great day and I wanted to thank everyone involved for letting us spend some time there. Hopefully I will have some pics from this soon and I will post them as soon as I get em. Looking forward to doing this again!

Okay, onto camp. I have been getting ready and excited to get amongst it. Looking forward to getting all our new swag but mostly getting together with the team. Camp is always a great time to get together and start that "family" bond. I am a big believer that the tighter our family is the more success we will have. So I know I will do my part to make this the closest family so far. I leave in 5 days.. can't wait!

Training has been great and I am all set up on my new rig. I know I said I was gonna post some new pics but I am waiting for the finishing touches and will have pics up in the next couple days. Jimmy B made the trip down from Kent and fit all the guys a couple weekends ago which was awesome. Our bike fits take so much time up at camp it will be nice to have mine done. Although I do plan on spending tons of time with the Jim, Andy and Tom (our Wobble Naught fitters) to fine tune and perfect my fit:-)

Team Cars are ready to roll!

Jimmy B doing his thing...

Back to the cold...

2009-02-08T20:30:00.002-05:00

Been back in Ohio and getting some good training in but mostly a little rest after the big week in Florida. We had a bit of a heat wave this weekend and it was like 45 and sunny out today! We got a nice little group ride organized of about 20 and it was good to see everyone and ride outside.

I finally got my new bike set up.. just making a few minor adjustments and will be rocking it soon... I thought our bikes were cool last year, but wow our bikes this year are 10 times as cool!! I have a nice little wrinkle for mine and I will post pics of the new sled soon.. they are unreal!!

2 weeks till camp.. can't wait to see everyone!

I made it!

2009-01-29T12:00:00.005-05:00

WOW! What a great week of training... I actually made it in one piece down to Key West with no problems at all. We broke it up nicely... 150 miles the 1st day, 100 miles the 2nd, and 100 miles the 3rd. The only problem was since we were riding down the coast I only got sun burn on one side of my body... oh well. We ended up in Key West and hung out for a little before heading out. I had been there once before and forgot how cool it is there.. Definitely have to go back again soon.

Well, I jumped on a plane the very next day and right back into a snow storm. But I don't wanna talk about that. Here are some pics... Only 3 weeks till training camp and can't wait to see the boys! and girl (didn't wanna leave ya out Janis).

Beautiful scenery along the coast...

Me riding across the 7-mile bridge in The Key's

We ended at the southern most tip of the USA

The Crew...

Mike didn't ride hard enough so we made him pull us around the island...

Ran into some of Rich Harper's friends in Key West... what a small world..

Good to be outside...

2009-01-23T20:23:00.003-05:00

Been a nice couple days in Florida so far. Has been a little chilly by Florida means but a nice upgrade from the freezing snow up north. Just did a couple nice 2 hour rides and getting ready for tomorrow. 155 miles down to Pompano Beach.. and that's if we don't get lost. I don't think I did 155 miles in a week all of last year so it should be a little shock to the body... kidding, well kinda.

Been camping out at the local Starbucks that is right on the water.. coffee and the ocean.. love it! Well wish me luck tomorrow! Lets see how the endurance is...

Florida, Here I come!

2009-01-21T13:31:00.002-05:00

I don't think I have ever been this excited to get to some warm weather. The temperature in Columbus has not gone over freezing in like a month.. its crazy!

I fly out bright and early tomorrow so will be on the beach by noon!! I mean on my bike by noon! Ok, maybe by the beach by noon and on my bike by 2...

We have a long weekend planned which should be some fun. We are riding from Melbourne to Key West. I guess John has the route planned out with our stops and such but should be between 120 - 150 miles a day for 3 days. Gonna be cruising down the coast and hopefully I will get some sweet pics to share.. Can't wait to actually steer my bike a little bit!!

It's Cold!

2009-01-17T10:49:00.003-05:00

Training has been good even though the weather has been crazy cold. Yesterday it was -5 and it is supposed to be even colder today. Needless to say I have been spending long hours on the the trainer watching movies and playing Madden. I head to Florida next week for a handful of days which will be nice. Need to break up this indoor training as I think I have only been able to ride outside once in the last month.

I love this time of year though because all our team stuff starts showing up and its like a late Christmas. Its always a little boost in the motivation when you get new clothes and a new bike. We are riding the same sleds as last year, Masi 3VC, with SRAM Red but this year they are in pimp white. Which match our new pimp clothing by Hincapie. We have some kick ass new sponsors so our gear will be better than ever. Now just need to make it go fast:-)

Happy New Year!

2009-01-01T10:26:00.000-05:00

Hope everyone had a fun and safe New Years Eve! I kicked it pretty mellow this year and just hung out with the family. Have a nice day of training planned today as well as a great 09 planned:-) Hope to see everyone soon!

Happy New Year!
m@

Merry Christmas

2008-12-26T16:07:00.002-05:00

Hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday season! Merry Christmas!!

Back to biz

2008-12-14T18:52:00.004-05:00

I returned back to Ohio and there was 2 inches of snow on the ground! What a difference a day makes. I have been back to training and this weekend we had our 1st team meeting of the year. Was nice to see a handful of the guys and meet some of the new faces. We got a sneak peak at our kits for this year and they came out sweet. We also got the 1st look at 1 of our team cars which also came out great. A nice weekend of training with the boys and its nice to be back into the swing of things.

The new ride

Little practicing with the new team

Sharks!

2008-12-04T10:42:00.004-05:00

Well I meant to post something the other day really cool that we did down here but we have already topped it.

Today we had a huge outing planned… in a nutshell this is what we did…. A private boat and tour guide picked us up bright and early… we went fishing… caught some fish, then our guide cooked the fish and lobster we caught.. we ate, then went to a couple cool places to snorkel. Pretty fun filled day.

A few parts were worth more detail than that… the fishing was super cool as we were catching some pretty big snapper… then we decided to give a go at some barracuda’s… and sure enough got a hold of 4 of them… man these things were huge and fought you like crazy to reel em in…

Our first stop for snorkeling was a famous place Shark Ray Alley. Yes you get the idea… tons of Sharks and Sting Ray’s… Sounds like a completely stupid idea to me but everyone said it was safe so what the hell. I have lived my life so far with a motto of “do something everyday that frightens you”. Now this can be anything big or small. But since we have been down here I have been pushing the issue with this one. A couple days ago we paddled a kayak out about 1 mile into the ocean and jumped into snorkel. Just Tara and I... no guide.. just us in the middle of the ocean. I saw my first Sting-Ray there and thought I was gonna crap myself… and now I was standing in a boat with these goofy fins on my feet and a mask.. looking into the water at about 10 sharks and a handful of HUGE Sting-Rays. Ramone (our trusting guide) kept telling us, “just jump in”, and then giggled with this funny little laugh. We weren't sure to take him seriously or not but we said what the hell. We jumped in and as nerve racking as it was, the nervousness quickly went away and we just swam around with all this incredible sea life. What an incredible experience and something I thought I would never do. We took an underwater camera and I will post some pics when we get them developed.. I hope they came out because the sharks and sting-rays were literally a foot away from us! Unreal.

Looking forward to our last 2 days in the sun before we head back to the frozen tundra and my real training starts:-) What a great way it has been to get my head on straight before the season… maybe I’ll do this every year:-)

One of the HUGE Sting-Rays we swam with.. yep, the same thing that killed The Crocodile Hunter.. scary

Big Barracuda!

This pic was for you B2.. yep, rockin the wife beater.. suns out guns out!

I'm in Paradise!

2008-11-30T11:00:00.005-05:00

I didn't think this trip would this amazing. Our first day was unreal. We flew into Belize City and had to take a little 8 person jumper plane to another smaller island. And if that wasn't secluded enough, our resort picked us up and from there we took a private boat about 20 minutes out to our resort. Of course Tara and I had em stop at the local store to get some beers for the trip:-) As we docked at the resort our host greeted us with drinks! I love this place!

Needless to say we didn't do to much but relax and snoop around the first day. We took the boat back into town for dinner but ended up headin back and chillin at the resort bar... nothing like a bar on the beach with your own bartender!! The boat ride back in the dark was pretty freaky but super cool at the same time. Gonna plan some excursions today, can't wait for those. Time to be lazy and lay on the beach!

The view from our little "Fantasy Island" plane

Our resort

What a view!

Me and T being lazy...

What a great name for a liquer store...

Time for some fun in the sun!

2008-11-29T06:25:00.003-05:00

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. Our day was great as we spent it with the family stuffing our faces. Training has been great but I have a nice relaxing week off this week and then I return to start buckling down on the training.

Tara and I are heading to a little island in Belize... Ambergris Caye.. We planned our honeymoon perfect.. As much as we wanted to go away right away we decided to wait and go when it was cold outside. So as we are leaving, Columbus is expecting snow..and its 87 in Belize.. perfect! So I will be MIA for the next week kicking around the white sand and swimming with the dolphins! I actually have to spend a week without my Blackberry which is gonna be crazy.. but well worth it. I will shoot some pics up here during the week and keep in touch with the fun stuff Tara and I are doing.

Hope all is well!

Florida weekend

2008-11-20T22:00:00.005-05:00

Last weekend I traveled to sunny Florida to do a bit of practicing and mix it up from being in the cold. My buddy John was going down there to do the Horrible 100 ride and I thought I would meet up with him and get a couple days of good training in.

So I flew in Saturday and hit up the 100 mile ride on Sunday and a nice little spin on Monday before flying back to the cold. Was a good time as I spent some time on the beach and met some great people. Monday we did a nice leasure ride up and down the coast with this guy Mark, a buddy of John and Daryl's from down there. Mark was fresh back on the bike after having some heart trouble and it was inspiring to hear his story and to see how excited he was to be back on the bike. I am looking forward to heading back down south and catching up with everyone soon. It was a blast!

The view from the condo

John, me, Daryl, and Mark

Beautiful backdrop for a ride

Great Sunday Ride

2008-11-10T15:39:00.006-05:00

Our Sunday ride is turning into a great ride. We have done it the past 2 weekends and it is starting to grow. This week it was a cold and windy 38 degrees and we still had almost 20 guys show up. You know its cold out when Grisvard actually has sleeves on...:-) We even had people drive in from Granville to do the ride. It was a nice 3 hour ride at about 20 mph. This is a great ride for this time of the year since everyone is at different fitness and skill levels. We even had a new guy show up that has only ridden for 6 months. So if your thinking about coming out.. come out.. this ride is for everyone... Hope we can keep this rolling and get a good casual social ride through the winter. Its nice to have a ride where everyone gets along and just catches up... even if it is cold out... Just what we need in the bus!

Ride Info:
When: Every Sunday
Time: 10am
Where: Starbucks in Old Dublin on rt161 just west of the river
For who: All catagories, All levels
Info: very casual social ride just to get some bike time in. There will be no hard efforts, just a constant 20 mph.. no sprints, nothing hard. We will wait on riders with flats and will have designated pee stops if need be. Don't be scared come ride!

Cold day.. had to wear every piece of cycling gear I own.

Isiah trying to catch snow flakes...

Back on the sled...

2008-11-07T11:43:00.004-05:00

Getting some good practice in.

So we have been super lucky so far and have had some nice weather here and there. I got back on the bike last weekend and got some good riding in. My good buddy John talked me into doing this 85 mile ride with over 6000 ft of climbing on it. Good 1st ride after not touching my bike for almost 6 weeks:-) I finally took my bike out of the case on Friday to make sure it worked and right before the ride on Sat realized I hadn't even tightened the headset or put my seat at the correct height. Good stuff. Anyway it was a great ride and wanted to thank COBC and everyone that was involved. They had a nice food stop and some food after.. was a great ride and well organized event!

We started up a pretty chill Sunday ride last week as well. I think we actually had 14 guys show up which is nice. Was a nice easy long ride which ended at Starbucks for some afternoon coffee and treats. If anyone is interested we are doing this ride every Sunday, 10am at the Starbucks in Dublin on 161 by the river. Its 3ish hours easy...EASY!

Off Season News...

2008-10-29T16:59:00.005-04:00

Couple good things to report. I have officially signed on with Kenda Pro Cycling for next year which I am super stoked about. The team has stepped up big time and support from sponsors has been great. We have signed a hand full of great guys.. on and off the bike so it looks to be a great year. check it: www.kendaprocycling.com

I have been super motivated to get to training this year and to come out guns blazing. I wanna be the fastest mo fo out there. So I thought why not bring on the fastest mo fo to get me there... which I did. My good friend Rahsaan Bahati is now coaching as well so we are working together to step my game up.. so that will be great until I start beating him and he fires me as a client:-) haha.. Rahsaan is a great guy and anyone looking for a coach/program should def look into him. Check him out at www.bahatiracing.com

Needless to say I have been staying fit off the bike and am actually throwing a leg over starting this Saturday Nov 1. I usually don't get back on the bike till Jan 1st so look out!

Hope everyone is doing well...

Big Poppa

2008-10-20T14:00:00.002-04:00

Today marks 5 years since my father's passing. Still seems crazy to me as it feels like it just happened the other day. I hope whoever is reading this got a chance to meet him as he was a blast... so where ever ya are have a drink or something in honor of my pops tonight!

Have some fun stuff coming up with his foundation as well so looking forward to that. And if you haven't checked our foundation out please do.. all the info is on there if you wanna make a donation (every dollar helps) as well as updates on the events/fundraisers we will be having. And we are always looking for cool ideas to tie into so if you have any suggestions let me know! thanks for looking..

www.ftafoundation.org

Look out for Cyclists... great video...

2008-10-06T17:07:00.003-04:00

Awareness Test - Watch more free videos

Thats a wrap...

2008-09-30T17:30:00.003-04:00

Sorry for no updates lately. Just been trying to press on and get through to Vegas.. which is now over thank god. Was a good time out there but the race went pretty average. Was good to see the boys one last time and take part in my good friend and teammates last race. Vegas was Jeff Hopkins last race as he is retiring after this year. Jeff and I raced together one of his first years in the states and I am glad I got to race with him in his last year as well. We had a little champagne toast after the race and everyone was wondering why we were celebrating when none of us finished the race.. haha pretty funny..

Well its onto the off-season now which I have been looking forward to for a while. I can't wait to put this crazy year behind me and get a fresh start on next year. Really looking forward to a hard off season so I can come out with my guns blazing next year. Will keep ya updated on the team front and what colors I will be wearing next year. This year is always an exciting time:-)

Thanks for every ones support this year!! was a tough one so I really needed it.. thanks!!! m@

Labor Day Weekend...

2008-09-04T23:59:00.003-04:00

I've been back to some good training and trying to keep my head in the game so I can make it through to Vegas (Sept 25) with some good form.

This past weekend Tara and I packed up our new car:-) and headed to Windsor to race. It was cool because her parents made the trip over and we got to visit with them.

The Windsor race is a cool race... 100k on a pan flat 4 corner course. With only about 80 guys and some big teams there I thought a break might go and since I was the sole Inferno rider I figured I'd go for broke.

Well I made the break of 9 with a little over halfway to go. The mix was perfect with 2 Roadhouse, a Team Race guy and a JetFuel rider. We gained almost a minute and then the organization just fell apart. We ended getting caught with like 10 laps to go which was a bummer. I tried to mix it up in the end but was pretty dead so my end result was nill. Oh well gave it a go.

Monday was a race in Detroit and I raced pretty average after a night of no sleep. Good race but not much excitement for me and I ended up 20th. I raced hard all weekend and got some good fitness from it so all is good.

I ran into a buddy of mine that I haven't seen in a bit this weekend... Jamie Smith. He has been announcing bike races since I started forever ago and has put out a pretty sweet book explaining the life of bike racing called "Roadie". I have only started reading it but it is very good so far. I will finish it up this weekend and will have a review up next week. Pick up a copy and help out a fellow cyclist and an all around good cat. (you can get it on amazon.com)

Next stop Priority Health in that state up north. 2 big races and probably my last weekend on the road for the year until Vegas.... Thank god.

Nationals race report.. mixed emotions..

2008-08-25T12:11:00.004-04:00

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....

2008-08-17T23:36:00.002-04:00

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

Marion

2008-08-14T14:09:00.002-04:00

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

2008-08-05T10:58:00.006-04:00

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.

training training

2008-07-26T09:42:00.003-04:00

Not to much has been going on since the Louisville race. I have been hitting the training pretty good trying to get out of the rutt I am in. My legs have just felt like dead wood and I think they are finally starting to come good again. We did a couple local races last weekend and they were about 1.5 hours from the house. Got some nice training in the mornings of and then tried to race through it. I raced pretty average and just tried to help the team as much as possible. It was kinda frustrating but I think it actually did me some good as this week I have been feeling much better. I actually rode almost 6 hours on Wednesday! yeah, thats about what I normally do in a week so as you can see I am actually training:-)

I am off this weekend and just been getting in a huge week before the big run of huge races in August. Next week we have Elk Grove which has a 4 mile TT, 100 mile RR and a 60 mile crit. So that will be good for the fitness as well. And I get to ride my super cool new TT bike which I finally got set up. After that the Marion Classic which is a super cool new race and then the big daddy in Crit Nats. So hopefully I am on the up and up and will have a good August.

Just a quick note to let everyone know that since my father passed away our family has been trying to get his foundation up and running. We have finally got all the kinks worked out and have fully launched what we hope will be a huge success. This is something I have been wanting to get going for a while and I am super stoked its finally a go. We are going to be doing some really cool events and things to raise money and are always up for ideas. So feel free to post em if you got em! for now you can check it out at www.ftafoundation.org make a donation! it will make ya feel good:-)

till next time,
m@

Louisville - back to business

2008-07-18T12:07:00.004-04:00

Sorry for the delay in the update. Last weekend I was back on the bike as Team Inferno hit the LMPD Crit (nrc) in Louisville with another cool crit the following day. Day 1 was tough. 90 Minutes in some CRAZY heat! I thought my eyeballs were gonna explode out of my head. A great field with Toyota United, Time, and Roadhouse in full effect. We started off good with Jim scooping up the 1st prime and I followed with winning the 2nd. Soon after a break went and Matt was our lone rider with 2 roadhouse, 2 Time, and Hilton Clarke from Toyota. We would have liked another guy in the break so we tried getting across.. I must have attached atleast 5 times until I blew to bits.... the break ended up lapping so we looked after Matt but int he end Hilton was too fast taking the win and Matt had a great ride finishing 4th. The rest of us clawed in in the field and wanted to jump directly in the river it was so hot.

My buddy Daup and Shawn put us up for the night just outside of Louisville. It was good to catch up with some old friends. Thanks guys! The next day was a crit in this little stand alone town. It was basically a little housing development that was self contained. It had its own grocery store, and a bunch of little shops and bars. Basically like Truman Show.. you would never have to leave there.. kind of scary. Anyway, the race was aggressive but stayed together and in the end it was a battle between leadout trains.. Roadhouse lined up with like 15 guys, and we were on 1 side of them and Time on the other. I was sweeping Hayden's wheel which was fun b/c everyone seemed to want the world champs wheel.. but I was having none of that.. We cooked it up with 1 to go and Hayden and I go separated and swarmed like crazy... we couldn't recover in time but Matt came through huge again and finished 3rd with Adam Myerson taking the win. Jbald rode great as well finishing 7th, Hayden in 10th and I scrapped in for 17th.

Overall my legs were trash this weekend again. Just real flat and have no snap at all. So I have been trying to find them. I know there is some fitness in there but I need to get that dead log feeling away and have some freshness in the pistons. We have a good race weekend close to town sat and sun so hopefully the pistons will be firing on all cylinders.

Just wanted to share a funny video of me and my boy chad breakin it down at my wedding... Look out So you think you can dance!!

Wedding Bells....

2008-07-08T15:48:00.005-04:00

Haven't been doing much pedaling lately. Had a little time to rest after tour of ohio but the main reason was because of my wedding:-) Had this big plan to do all this training during my week in Canada but that just didn't work out so good. I had friends coming in from all over the place so I did a ton of catching up. It was great to see all my boys and the wedding turned out better than I could have imagined. Tara and her parents (and everyone else that helped:-) did an unreal job and the big day went off with no hiccups at all. Tara looked more beautiful than ever and I couldn't be more happy to be her husband:-) I had a good 3 solid days of just staying up till 5 in the morning catching up with the boys. Its crazy how most of my friends live all over the country and we may only talk here and there... but when we get together its like we haven't missed a beat. Was great to see them all... Well I could ramble all day about the day, but I won't. Here are some pics from the big day, I will post better ones when I get the professional ones back from my photographer. Oh yeah, I tried to race master nationals after the wedding.. wow, that was shocking. Worst legs I have had in a long time.... hope that's not what marriage does to ya.. haha.. had no legs at all and was in perfect position to win.. 3rd out of the last corner but had nothing and just sat up... forgot there were more medals up for grabs.. oh well.. its win or nothing. Got 6th. boo hoo... anway.. here are some pics!

Me and my pimp wedding party

We had quite the spread.. this was only the 1st of 7 courses.. yummy anti pasta bar..

Our Head Table was amazing... and thank god no one got drunk enough to knock it over

My brother and best man Franc

Me and Tara with her parents and my mom...

My Fam....

Danicin with moms...

Gotta love the chocolate fountain....

Tour of Ohio FINAL

2008-06-22T11:59:00.004-04:00

Well we pulled it off! We raced great once again as a team and completed a great week of racing for Team Inferno. I played my cards right and let a move go away for the 1st bit of the race and they ate up the sprint points so I kept my green jersey for the 4th year in a row. We looked after Matt as the weather went to complete craziness with 40mph gusts and hail. The race was shortened a bit and we drove the race pretty good into town so Matt and Bennett could have a clean look at the finishing climb. It was quit crazy as the weather was wet and crazy and the course was crazy enough in the dry. In the end the boys rode great with Matt finishing off the week with a 3rd place and Bennett had a great ride as well moving up and taking the College Jersey as well. Joe also held onto the Polka Dot Jersey making it a clean sweep of the jerseys this year.

We had a great week of racing and the team really raced well together especially since it was the 1st time a few of us had ridden together. I am happy I had some form although I still have some work to do to get back to top shape. Only having 3 weeks or so of training going into this definitely hurt me in the hills but hopefully I will come out of this super fit and ready to rock the rest of the year.

Time for some rest today as the team is gonna roll over and have a few quite beers (just a few) poolside. Should make for some good fun.

Tour of Ohio Update

2008-06-21T11:55:00.003-04:00

Stage 2 - Hocking Hills

Today was by far the hardest stage of the race. 70 miles and tons of hard hills. I was a bit worried about this stage as I usually have to be in pretty great shape to get up the hills. Well since I haven't been back on the bike for very long I wasn't sure how I was gonna go up. We had a good race plan and my job was to cover early. Which I did but my day was over pretty quickly over 1 of the big hills. The boys did a great job looking after Matt and in the end he made the 3 man break taking 2nd to Dan Campbell and Dickie. Matt stayed in 2nd but now by 2 seconds.

Stage 3 - Gambier-Coshocton-Gambier Road Race

This was a tough out and back 70 mile road race. There was 1 sprint basically at the turn-around so my job was to try to get over the hills and contest the sprint. We were hoping to get a break off to eat the points up as we only really needed to watch 1 guy that could take the green jersey from me. We did great placing Joe and Bennett in an early break but the only guy I couldn't let win the sprint went across in a group over the top of one of the hills. The 2 groups joined and the team didn't realize he was there and he won the sprint taking the jersey from me. Joe did a great ride winning a hand full of KOMs and took that jersey. My day was over on the way back as it was too much climbing for me. The team did well again leading Matt out into the final uphill sprint and Matt sealed the deal taking out the sprint for his 1st stage win and the Yellow Jersey.

Stage 4 - Worthington Criterium

This is my hometown race and it just gets better and better every year. The neighborhood seems to be getting into it more every year as well. With 3 sprints today we set out a plan that Josh would help me and we would sit Hayden and Matt for the end. The 1st sprint rolled around and we were all together. Josh gave me a sweet lead out and I left it perfect getting the sprint and leaving Josh to get second ahead of the green jersey. This gave me a 2 point lead now. Soon after another break rolled away with Bennett and no GC threats. So we let it roll out pretty good and it sat about 40 seconds most of the race. The team did a great job covering and letting Hayden and Matt rest. In the end the break came back and we were all together. I was pretty waxed from covering moves but coming through to see 2 laps to go I took Hayden from about 50 guys back to the front and lead him up the hill as far as I could to see 1 to go. I left him in perfect position and was hoping he would cap the day off. Sure enough the world champ came through to win and to make it even better he had Matt in tow for 2nd. Inferno 1-2!! great ride today. Its not often you set a plan out and it works to perfection, but today it did.

So we head into the last day and its a tough one. We head out and do 8 laps around a rolling circuit then head back into Granville for a death circuit with a steep cobbled climb. The race is still wide open and with KOM and Sprint points today as well. We currently hold the Yellow, Green, and Polka Dot jersey and Bennett is close to the Red (collegiate) Jersey as well. It will be a hard day for the team so hopefully we are up for the challenge. Will keep ya updated.

Tour of Ohio Stage 1

2008-06-17T23:07:00.002-04:00

Stage 1 was a tight little half mile crit course with a bit of a hill on it. With 100 guys it was bound to be chaos and the promoter decided to make no time splits. So if you lapped the field there was no time benefit and if you got dropped there was no time penalties. Pretty weird but whatever. We field a pretty sick team: Tim Swain, Ryan Gamm, Bennett VG, Joe Cooper, Josh England, Matt Winstead, Hayden Godfrey, and myself.

Our team plan was to keep our GC boys safe and for me and Hayden to go after the 3 sprint jersey sprints and then see how the end played out. I was immediately in the 1st break-away as D Dickey went off the line. Our group swelled to about 10 with Bennett joining me. At one point I thought we would lap but it got shut down in about 15 laps. The race stayed really aggressive but we were all together for the 1st sprint and Josh did a great job leading me to the final corner and I took care of the rest winning the 1st sprint. I stayed out of trouble and on the 2nd sprint there was a group of 5 away and I jumped across to them catching them in the 2nd to last corner but came up short running the leader down and got 2nd in that one. Back together for the 3rd sprint and I told the boys I needed to win this one. Josh lead me and Hayden to the 2nd to last corner and Hayden launched me around to win the 3rd sprint. Back in GREEN!

After the 3rd sprint the race picked up and I was struggling to hold on. There were only about 30 guys left out of the 100 that started and the race got super aggressive. With about 15 to go Matt flew off the course and smashed into a spectator which was pretty scary. He recovered well and instantly went off the front and made the winning move of 4. He did well finishing 2nd on the day and I survived and finished in the field.

All in all a good day for the team. We like to win but not having the jersey might do us some good the next few days. For me, I am super stoked about going from being hurt to being back in the green jersey. We have 2 road stages next with no sprints so I will atleast keep it until Thursday. Will post some pictures when I get them.

Time for bed as we have an early start tomorrow with lots of climbing...

I'm back!

2008-06-17T13:55:00.002-04:00

Well my 1st weekend back racing was somewhat successful. I did the 1st 2 stages for Summer Solstice Stage Race that was about 1 hour from my house. A 50 mile RR on Friday night and a 65 mile RR on Saturday. Friday night was raining and pretty crappy. We were outnumbered big time and in the end I was 2nd in the field sprint for 6th. Not bad after doing a fair bit of work.

Saturday was nice and hot just the way I like it. The team rode well and we just came up short catching the breakaway and I ended up 3rd in the end. So pretty happy with the fitness and my true test will be tonight at Stage 1 of Tour of Ohio. We have a strong team here again this year and we are looking forward to nothing but success this week. I will keep this updated as much as possible. Super excited to back in the game.

till next time!

New meaning to Murdered-Out team truck...

2008-06-02T10:27:00.003-04:00

I have been hitting it pretty hard training and have been feeling great. It is crazy when you are healthy how much better you feel. I have not been racing as I want to just really ramp it up and get some great training in and come back swinging for the fences when I do race. Looks like there isn't much around this weekend so I plan on some good long rides with the Kiwi's and relaxing by my pool:-)

Some good news and bad news for the team this weekend. We were spread out all over but had a super successful weekend. Hoppy kept rolling at the US Crit Series and is now in the overall lead after Tulsa Tough. And the rest of the team swept the podium at 2 different races in Ohio with Jimmy B taking out Garrett Wonders Memorial Crit in Westerville and then Joe "Brit" Cooper took out Rusty Boots Brick Criterium in Nelsonville by impressively lapping the field 2 times by himself. Great job boys! Can't wait to get back to racing with ya!

Well it can't always be good news as our Murdered Out team truck put good use of its name smashing into a deer that forgot to look both ways before crossing. A bit of a mess but luckily everyone was ok... has Hayden put it it was team truck vs deer and the truck won.. well sort of. Joe being the soft sentimental guy he is tried to revive the deer but to no success. Apparently they do CPR and mouth to mouth a little different in New Zealand.

update...

2008-05-21T12:48:00.003-04:00

Just a quick update on my injury for everyone. I have been going to rehab 3 times a week and getting some pretty intense work done on my leg to fix it. I rode last weekend for the 1st time with little or no pain which was exciting. So I am heading in the right direction. I feel like I could go pound the pedals pretty good right now, but I still have the governor on through this weekend. Just going to up the time on the bike and hopefully be back to full swing training next week... so look out!!! here I come!

With my time off I popped out to Vegas for some fun time:-) We rolled deep out there... too much fun...

the boyz....

our pimp room....

Man down....

2008-05-15T16:15:00.003-04:00

Well it appears my leg is as bad as it feels. My injury has spread up into my hip and was actually to painful to even ride last week. The good news is that my doctor thinks with some easy riding and her "special" treatment I should be back to full training in 2 weeks. So I guess all in all its not too bad but this has cost me a lot of training time. I am heading in the right direction though and after 2 treatments I can tell a huge difference. I am back on my bike but only for an hour a day real easy... but I am doing pretty intense rehab 3 times a week so hopefully I won't lose to much form.. the good news I barely train more than an hour a day so I'm not far off:-)

I'm pretty bummed I am missing some racing and not there for the team.. but I will be back soon and swinging bigger then ever! cya soon!

m@

Long week...

2008-05-08T11:31:00.006-04:00

Well Speedweek has finally come to an end. It was a long week but a successful week for the team. Hoppy came through huge and had a hand full of top 5's that earned him a 3rd place overall. The team scraped together enough points as well to finish 3rd overall in the team classification as well. The team rode great with a few break out rides from Matt Winstead and Bennett as well.. The downside of the week is we did have a ton of bad luck as well. We must of had over 10 flats, a handful of broken carbon wheels, a couple broken shifters, and 1 smashed frame to top it off. Richy Rich had the worst of it smashing into a rider that fell off his bike. This smashed his bike and in the process smashed his elbow as well. A big loss for the team as he will be out 4 weeks.. but knowing his crazy ass he will be riding the trainer for 4 hours a day no handed to stay in shape. Heal quick Rich!

My week was pretty rough as I did not come off my injury as well as I hoped. It started acting up mid week again and the legs just wouldn't go fast enough. Let alone I could not stay away from crashes.. although I never hit the deck I had some very close calls and seem to get stuck in almost every crash. I tried to survive all the races and use them as a fitness booster which I think I was successful at. The only issue now is my leg does not feel very healthy and I am back to the doc Monday for a check up.

Here are some pics of our broke down gear... I am off this weekend as I am off to Vegas for my bachelor party...:-) can't wait for that and looking forward to some much needed R&R time...

till next time,

Birdflu hard at work...

Rich's bike after smashing into someone at 35 mph

Carbon vs Chainring is a bad match for Carbon

Poor lil guy...

Off to a rough start my friends.....

2008-04-30T09:46:00.008-04:00

My week started off pretty rough. Tara and I caught our flight out of Columbus and headed down south. Was hoping to have a nice easy flight down Friday evening, get down there and relax and have all day Saturday to chill before the race. Well, that was far from what happened. We made it to Charlotte easy peasy and then that’s when it all went south. A handful of flights got cancelled and our final option was blown to bits as well finally at 10:30pm. They cancelled the last flight to Atlanta so we were stuck in Charlotte. We shacked up in a nice roach motel that the airline suggested and finally got to bed around 2am. Up bright and early on Saturday to get back to the airport and we finally got out of Charlotte and into Atlanta around noon. Another hour car ride back to our host housing and we finally arrived for the race with a good 7 hours to spare. Yikes.

Tara and I stuck at the Charlotte airport.

Was hoping my crazy travel didn’t take effect on my legs but I was so wrong about that. Warming up I knew my legs were rough but I was just hoping they would come around.

Twilight was twilight with crazy crashes all over the place. I came pretty close to dying at the beginning of the race when a handful of guys decided to cuddle up on the pavement. The field split like the red sea and as I tried to make it around on the right side I quickly realized there was no way I was gonna make it and my only option was up and over. So I braced myself and pulled off the best bunny hop of my life. After just knicking the front wheel and handlebars that were stuck straight up in the air I smashed back down and somehow was still riding straight and not on the pavement.. shhhwwew! That could have ended ugly. Needless to say I made it through that, but jacked my carbon handlebars. I got stuck in a couple other crashes and my legs just would not get going so my night was cut short.

Pretty bummed but that’s twilight. The team rode strong and Hoppy did what Hoppy does putting himself right in the mix for the win. It was close in the end but Hoppy ended up 5th in a great ride with my good friend Rahsaan Bahati taking the win (congrats my ninga!).

With a couple days off we chilled at my old friend Brian DeRose’s house. Brian and his wife Kim put us up last year and were generous enough to have us back again this year. They have a beautiful house in Atlanta and apparently don’t mind filthy bike racers. They also have a beautiful new baby Emmy that I got to see for the 1st time. Thanks guys for putting up with us for another year!

Sunday night we were pretty bored so we headed out to a nice little place called Taco Mac. Sounds like a Mexican joint but ended up being a sweet sports type bar with over 100 beers on tap! Yes Baldy, I know you are jealous…. You would have loved this place. This was Tara’s last night with us too so we had some fun with the highlight of the night being B2D2 doing a famous shot called a buffalo fart (you don’t wanna know whats in it). Had some good beers and called it a night.

nice selection of beers....

me and T

B2D2 looking the part...

True athletes downing some chicken wings...

A nice little bike ride down to the damn on Monday and then onto our next city. We are in the car as we speak heading to Beaufort, SC where we kick of 5 days of racing tomorrow night. Hopefully I will find my legs by then! Till next time…

Here we go...

2008-04-25T11:28:00.003-04:00

Speedweek and Athens twilight are here! Today I jump on a flight down south and hit Athens Twilight on Saturday. We follow it up with 5 crits starting Tuesday again through Sunday. Last year we had great success here winning Athens and the overall. It gave us incredible momentum for the whole year so hopefully we can kick off the season on the same note. I am super excited about our squad down here again this year and look forward to these upcoming races. I have been feeling pretty decent this week but we will have to see what that relates to in the big show. Tara is coming down for the weekend which I am super excited about. This is her first time to twilight... can't wait to show her how crazy it is down there! We don't race on Sunday so it will be good to catch up with some old mates after the race:-) Will try to keep this updated with pics and what not.... here we go.... m@

Good race weekend....

2008-04-21T17:36:00.003-04:00

This week was great. My leg is feeling better and better and I had my 1st real good week of training since I have been hurt. With big races on the horizon I opted to train straight through this weekends racing. So I was a little tired but the leg held up great.

Saturday, Josh, Joe, and I rocked up to Cleveland to do the 1st RATL race of the year. We hooked up with Chad "the boss and don't you forget it" Thompson and Jeff Braumberger to make us 5 strong. We rode a good hour out to the race and had a good go. We had a good team plan and I was lucky enough to be able to just be aggressive and do my thing. Our plan worked pretty good except we only put 1 rider in the break... Josh was teamed up on pretty good but showed his talent in keeping the 5 man break together and then beating all of them in the sprint. Jeff gave me a great lead out for the field sprint but I got a little antsy and jumped to early into the headwind and didn't have enough gas to hold it to the line. So I ended up 8th on the day and was pretty happy with that. A nice ride back to Chad's made a great day of training.

Sunday we rocked up just the 3 of us and the weather was pretty rough. 50s and raining... not my favorite race weather. A pretty small field with our biggest threat being Kirk Albers from Roadhouse so our plan was to try to attack the field as much as possible. This we did as Joe, Josh, and I took turns attacking. Joe had the ride of the day as he soloed for about 25 miles and was finally caught by Kirk and a little chase group that included Josh with about 15 miles to go. Joe went again with about 5 miles to go and got caught with about 500 meters to go but set up Josh perfectly to take home his 2nd win in as many days. Joe hung tough for 4th and I rode in with a small group for 8th.

All in all it was a good weekend for the team and was great to be back in full swing. Next week we start Speedweek with Athens Twilight on Saturday. and then 6 straight days of big money crits down south. Really looking forward to hooking up with the team and getting some top notch racing in. I am sure I will have a ton of updates, hilarious stories and hopefully some great pics as well as some great results.

Look out for these gansters.... they will be running around all over the south reaking havic in a city near you!!

till next time... m@

On the up and up

2008-04-14T14:13:00.004-04:00

Well the leg is getting better and I am almost back to 100%. Have still been training but the doc told me to have the governor on and not to ride to hard and be cautious of real quick twitching like sprinting etc... which is pretty difficult when you are racing... so needless to say I have just been training waiting to get back to 100% so I can really give it a go. Thanks to everyone that has sent me messages or asked about how my knee is doing. I didn't realize people actually read my blog, so that was really cool.. thanks everyone!

If you haven't seen our add in ROAD Magazine go pick up an issue.. I have a full spread in there and there is a great article about our team in there. Here is the add and a couple pics from a race I did a couple weekends ago. A couple of our friends from Canada came down for the weekend as well and were Team Inferno's number 1 fans for the weekend.

All Fired Up.....

Our friends Chris and Sarah from Canada

Great News! and bad news

2008-03-31T11:40:00.002-04:00

First the good news... my teammate and good friend Hayden Godfrey won the World Omnium Track Championships!! Congrats Hayden and looking forward to see ya mate! cyclingnews.com has a write up about the race and I am sure Hayden will have some things to say on his blog.

So onto the bad news, I have been fighting a bit of a leg injury since training camp and it has come full fledge in the past week. I saw a doc about it last week and got some PT and thought I would be ok.. but I gave it go this weekend and tried to race. Bad idea... I was ok for a bit but the pain in my leg just kept getting worse and worse and by Saturday night I was struggling to walk normal. So needless to say I had to flag the race on Sunday and back to the doc this morning. They treated me and luckily it is all muscular... but its pretty deep, almost like I got punched by Mike Tyson in the leg... They are telling me they should be able to fix me up pretty quick so hopefully I won't be out long as Twilight and the US Crit series are approaching quickly... we'll see...

Happy St. Patty's Day!

2008-03-17T16:33:00.002-04:00

Just wanted to wish everyone a Happy and Safe St. Patty's Day... I'm sure I will have some fun photos to post after tonight:-)

Winter Wonderland..

2008-03-08T22:20:00.005-05:00

I am back from camp now and it was a blast. We have a great bunch of guys and I am really looking forward to the season. I will post some more pics from camp soon but I thought I would share what I came home to first. I had one nice day after getting home and then we got pounded with snow in the past couple days.. went out to shovel the driveway and there was like 2 feet of snow! Its pretty crazy out as people are literally snowed in... Was hoping to get out and do a bit of racing but that idea got shot down pretty quick. But of course its supposed to be like 60 here on Wednesday. Gotta love that Ohio weather!

Team Camp

2008-02-29T09:50:00.002-05:00

Back down south again for Team Camp in good old Macon, GA. Our 1st day was a busy one with lots of bike fits and a late ride. I will post more but wanted to get some photos up of the new team and our new pimp team ride. More soon!

Our wonderful WobbleNaught fittings...

Me and Harp doing our thing...

Our Murdered out team vehicle....

what a difference a day makes...

2008-02-19T22:37:00.004-05:00

Yesterday I was here......

Now I am here....

Where I am at now is much better. I left the frozen tundra of canada and flew down to Florida for some sun. Its nice to actually ride my bike outside and enjoy the weather. I am here for a week before my training camp with the team so I am really looking to step up my fitness a bit here in the next couple weeks. I got all my new gear before I came down here and it is just next level. I thought our bikes were nice last year, but this year they are just ridicoulous. And yes, we are rocking pin stripes.....(see below)

Update

2008-02-12T11:41:00.001-05:00

Sorry it has been a while since my last post. Things have been going good and my training is on the up and up. I will be heading to Florida next week for some fun in the sun and then off to our training camp in GA. Really looking forward to seeing all the guys. We have a great bunch of guys again this year and it seems everyone is pumped for the season. Here is a little teaser of how pimp our new bikes from Masi are:

Well its official as well as my good friend and old teammate will be riding with us this year. Here is the press release from cyclingnews.com that includes our final roster:

"Godfrey joins Team Inferno Pro"
"Ohio-based Team Inferno Pro Cycling expanded its roster for 2008 by bringing on two more riders, including former multiple New Zealand National Champion Hayden Godfrey, for a total of 18 racers. The growing squad also added a goal – the Tour of Pennsylvania. Young fellow compatriots 2006 New Zealand U23 Road Race Champion Joe Cooper and returning member Joshua England will accompany Godfrey stateside.
"Hayden is a journeyman and experienced leader in the pro peloton, both in the states, as well as international competition," said Team General Manager Chad Thompson. "He has multiple national titles to his name, including the 2006 criterium title and will most likely be in Beijing this summer, representing New Zealand." The addition of Godfrey reunites him with former sprint-ace team-mates Jeff Hopkins and Marco Aledia.

2008 Team Inferno Pro Cycling Roster: Marco Aledia (USA), Andy Applegate (USA), Jim Baldesare (USA), Jeff Braumberger (USA), Joe Cooper (NZl), Joshua England (NZl), Ryan Gamm (USA), Jaime Gandara (Mex), Bennet van der Genugten (USA), Hayden Godfrey (NZl), Rich Harper (USA), Jeff Hopkins (Aus), Remi McManus (USA), Christian Parrett (USA), Ryan Rish (USA), Timothy Swain (USA), Chadwick Thompson (USA) and Matt Winstead (USA). "

It's time!

2008-01-15T22:59:00.000-05:00

Well I finally took the bike out of my case from Vegas (yes that was September) and started doing a bit of practicing. I hooked up with some good buds last weekend including my teammate Tim and we got a nice little group ride outside with some decent weather. That was short lived as it is back down to the teens again so I will be spending a lot of time inside.

I am super pumped for this year as I am back with Inferno (formerly A&F) and re-united with a couple of my old teammates Jeff Hopkins and Hayden Godfrey. We rode together on Team Columbus before all heading our separate ways in the pro ranks. Funny how we have come full circle and are back together... if we could only steal Greg Henderson back from T-Mobile we would really be getting the band back together...

Oh yeah, pick up a copy of ROAD Magazine.. yours truly is in there a couple times...

yeah, thats me with no helmet.... oops

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

2008-01-02T12:25:00.000-05:00

Hope everyone had a wonderful holidays and a great new year.. Sorry I have been laying low lately... Will be posting an update soon on whats going on in my cycling world. Looking forward to 08!! Just had to post this pic of my niece and nephew holding down the Aledia name on new years eve! (it was fresca not champagne, don't need any nasty emails from viewers:-) She's got great form though...

Great Weekend!

2007-12-03T11:24:00.000-05:00

The Buckeyes are back in the National Championship game! We needed one of the top 2 teams to lose and they both lost putting the Buckeyes at #1 again. 2 years in a row playing for the title.. thats unreal.. this year will be a different story..(i hope) Guess its time to start planning another party:-)

GO BUCKS!

GO BUCKS!!!

2007-11-19T11:56:00.000-05:00

What a weekend... Tara and I decided to throw a huge tailgate party at the house.. we rolled out all the stops... a Huge 10 foot screen, tons of beer, tons of food, party tents, and of course a live band... as ya do... The best part of the whole day is that Ohio State beat Michigan... again.. Here are some pics..

Its OVER!

2007-11-01T14:35:00.000-04:00

Tara and I have completed our full cleanse... wow that was a tough 11 days. The last 2 days were cleanse days and we didn't eat any food at all.. just drinks and almonds.. not too mention we had the entire family over for Halloween and there were cupcakes and candy everywhere! not to mention my moms lasagna.. that was a rough test. But we made it through and feel great! Proud of Tara.. shes a trooper!! And it feels great to eat again! I guess the true test is how we feel this next week but I already feel great. I lost 12 pounds on this.. crazy! Thought I would post pics of my first meal back.. First Watch this morning.. yum!

And of course Starbucks!

Cleanse update

2007-10-29T17:01:00.001-04:00

This cleansing has been super tough. You get enough nutrients and such but I just want to eat something. I miss eating! Only 3 more days and I will be all clean! Then its time to dirty myself up again.. haha.. here is a pic of my lunch today:

And yes Rich I like Will and Grace... just like I like boy bands..haha...

Time for fall cleaning....

2007-10-24T13:25:00.000-04:00

So not much has been going on since the end of my season. Just been resting and getting things done that I put off all season. Since I had some down time I decided to do this cleansing program from one of my personal sponsors Isagenix. Basically what it is in a nutshell is for 11 days you barely eat, and take these shakes and cleansing drinks. The theory is that it is supposed to clean out all the bad toxins in your body and make you healthier. So I figured between all the coffee and beer I drink there should be quite a bit of toxins in me. So what the heck. I am 3 days into it and it is tough!! Not really that hungry but I just want to eat... guess I will tough it out and come out a lean mean machine... Will keep ya updated time for a tasty lunch of a glass of water and 2 un-salted almonds.. mmmm my favorite

Pics from vegas!!

2007-10-12T10:58:00.000-04:00

Onto the real fun stuff.. Vegas was a blast hanging with my boys, my teammates, and my family:-).. Got a ton of pics, some I can post and some that just had to stay in vegas.. you know what they say...."when in Rome...."

Our Pimp living room at the Wynn

Our Balcony at the Wynn that holds you and 100 of your closest friends...

Tara in our Porno shower that fits 6 people comfortably...

A & F rolls in limos baby....

Rich trying to find his favorite country station....

The crew tore up Tao Nightclub... VIP poppin bottles...

Me, Hek, and Dupri....haha love that guy

My boys Sham and Skulley...

Jen and Tara...

The classic Kiwi sandwich....

Whats going on here???? hmmmmm

Hek, Eric, and I... our VIP area had a nice comfy couch just for Hekman

I love vegas....

Criterium Worlds

2007-10-01T17:59:00.000-04:00

Worlds was a tough one... super tight course where staying at the front was a must. Got a good start but got stuck in a crash literally 100 ft off the start line.. Great start! I was thrown back in at the back and busted my balls to get back into the top 40 before the splits happened. I sat pretty comfy in the top 30 and just waiting till the end.. and hearing the bell with 1 lap to go i was bombing the outside about 12th wheel when a huge crash in front of me made me come to almost a complete stop... I tried to get the machine rolling but was in a monster gear and basically had to do a standard start that blew my legs to bits... a couple of teammates passed me with about a halflap to go and ended up 15th which leaves me to believe top 10 would have been achievable... oh well.. i never really got the machine rolling again and finished way back.. Kinda frustrating but thats racing. Will post more when my hangover goes away.. have some great stories and even better photos!

3 days to worlds...

2007-09-24T16:51:00.000-04:00

Nothing much has been going on here.. just been healing up finally and fine tuning my training for Crit Worlds in Vegas. Really looking forward to this race and the fitness seems to be good at the moment. I get into Vegas Wed morning and I am going to have to be good all the way until Thurs night.. for anyone that knows me this will be a tough task... no laying in the sun, gambling, or partying.. hmmm. I guess gambling doesn't hurt the form??

Anyway, for those of you that don't get to be in Vegas for the race you can watch it live on the internet. http://www.wcsn.com/ will have a live feed all night... Should be pretty cool. This is also the last stop in the US Crit Series... so I will be looking to move up overall and A&F will be trying to take back the team competition. Wish us luck!

Latest Greatest

2007-09-11T21:31:00.000-04:00

Just a quick update on what has been going on. After Thater I was in Canada with Tara for a bit over a week. We did a lot of driving and spent some time with the fam at a cottage up north. Got some decent training in but was still healing up. I caught some decent regional races on the way home. One of the longest running races in Windsor Canada is a 4 corner flat race in the Italian district. I chilled for most of the race and found myself sitting pretty with a few laps to go. A break of 3 actually stayed off and I kind of messed up the finish.. with about a half lap to go I was about 30th somehow..oops.. shot up the inside on the backstretch and with 2 turns to go I was 5th wheel.. right where I wanted to be... came out of the corner and just could not pull on the bars to sprint.... so basically only passed 1 guy and finished 7th on the day. The next day was a tough one as well, especially after I was at the blackjack tables till 33o am. Yes I won:-) Another break stayed away and same thing in the field sprint. My back and hand just won't let me tug enough to sprint the way I need to so I ended up 6th. I have been resting a bit and now in full tilt training for Criterium Worlds on Sept 27th. Really looking forward to this race and to having a good time in Las Vegas. I am feeling a ton better and almost back to 100% health wise. My stitches are all out of my hand which helped a ton. So time to train my ass off and give it one last run for the season!

Here's a lovely pic of my finger/hand I have been trying to race with... enjoy:-)

Chris Thater

2007-08-31T18:15:00.000-04:00

Well I thought I was ready to race but that was not the case. A pretty tough technical course with a hill and some tight downhill turns was not very good for my sprained wrists and sore back. Would have loved this course otherwise but my body is just not recovering from my injuries as quickly as I thought. Which is really unfortunate as my shitty race dropped me out of the top 10 overall.... Mark also lost the overall lead and we lost the lead in the team classification... wanna kick my dog while your here???? It is Friday now and I am still pretty sore as my hand is not healing very quickly. Still pretty hard to grip the bars and my back and wrists are getting sore quickly. Just been taking it easy hoping to heal up as I race in Windsor this weekend. Hoping to heal up quickly so I can be full tilt for Worlds Sept 27th. I get my stitches out next week and hopefully that will help the healing process. I'll give it another go this weekend as the course is flat 4 corner. Should be alright... we'll see.....

m@