Would you look at the time.....

I am slowly getting tired of riding the bus to school. I live about 3 miles from campus and ride a bus five days a week to and from classes. At the beginning, I had no problem riding the bus. Saving the environment, right? Don’t have to pay for gas, right? It’s just as fast as driving yourself, right? Not always. It’s nights like tonight where I tire of the Lake Austin Bus Route.

I got done with church at 9:00pm and left the union in the pouring rain, which is another thing I am growing weary of. After a 5 min walk to the bus stop, I was greeted by one person standing under the shelter. This is a terrible sign. One person means that the bus had recently come by the stop, and had already left. In the evenings, the bus only runs every 30 minutes, so I had some time to wait.

I tried to strike up a conversation with the girl standing next to me out of boredom, but she awkwardly walked away after a minute or so of me commenting on the beauty of lightning. I guess she thought I was hitting on her. Her rejection of conversation did not surprise me, as most people that ride my bus route are married grad students, who seem very set in their ways and not interested in undergrads who still have hopes and dreams.

9:30 pm rolled by and I began to wonder what was going on. As my boredom and imagination take hold of my thoughts, I am convinced that the rain has caused an accident, and that the bus will take hours to get back to campus. At 9:45, my impatience takes over. “I wonder where the bus is?” turns to “ Where the F*%^ is the F(#*$(%$ BUS?!” I have things to do. People to see. Homework to accomplish. Bike trainers to ride. I’m wet. Cold. Starved. Wasting away. Over-exaggerating? Of course. But in all seriousness, the bus needs to get here. I pass the time by bouncing up and down and playing with the puddles nearest my feet. It could be worse though.

Solace! The bus has finally come! Time to be home…. By 10:15. Homework time!

So that’s why I’m tired of the bus. I need to learn some patience, but really, who has time for that? What I really need is a helicopter.

Spring Break!!!

Since the DFW Road Race on Sunday, I have been in Red River, NM, relaxing and skiing for spring break. I brought my bike, not knowing whether I would have good enough weather to use it or not. As we were driving in to the cabin, it was snowing huge flakes.

The first day we cleared off the snow from the walkway to the front door. This was harder than I originally thought, as the snow had piled up to almost 4.5 ft in some places! Ally and I took all afternoon to clear it, but finally dug out a path to the road.

Tuesday morning could not come soon enough, as I was ready to ski! Ally and Isa were apprehensive at first, so I went up the mountain by myself while they stayed on the bunny slopes. The slopes were in the best condition I had ever seen. Usually Red River doesn’t get that much snow, but this year there was plenty and all the runs were open. Even the moguls on the blacks didn’t have ice in the bottom of them due to some snow they had gotten right before we got there.

One afternoon, Ally and I built a snow cave near the cabin! It was big enough for both of us to crawl into, but there wasn’t much room to move around.

Riding my bike was definitely interesting, as the high altitude was not good for huge efforts. Just a little work and I was breathing heavily. It was fun to do some long climbing though, so I didn’t really care that it wasn’t the best training. In effect, I have taken a little over a week break from hard training, and feel fully recovered and very motivated to put in some hard work before the end of the collegiate race season!

2010 DFW Race Weekend Race Report

2010 DFW Race Weekend Race Report

After a week of being sick after Tunis, I was at first apprehensive about the DFW race weekend. I wasn’t sure that my fitness would be there for the hard racing I was sure to encounter I think a 3^rd, 1^st, 4^th, placing is pretty good though!

First race on the list was the TT. Thankfully, I did not have my usual problems of not being able to eat correctly early before the race. Jacob and I drove out north of Frisco to the start, to find out that the were about 30 minutes behind. The course was a long 11 mile out and back course, with rolling hills, and headwinds on the way out. I passed a couple of riders, and then got passed by the eventual winner, Roy from MSU. I decided to try to more or less stay with him and let him pace me to try not to lose any more time from him. This strategy worked for most of the race and I ended up finishing 30 seconds behind him. I’m not sure who got 3^rd, but I think it was someone from A&M.

After a quick lunch at Betty’s Café, it was time for the Criterium. I slowly warmed up and started to feel really good about the race. My strategy was to wear down the two MSU sprinters, which would be my main competition for winning. This was accomplished by putting in attacks and making sure MSU was chasing me down. The first attack was put in by UNT which was brought back by MSU and A&M. A&M could be a problem. If they felt like doing the work for MSU, there was a good chance that MSU would let them and they would still be fresh at the end of the race. I talked with some of the A&M riders and told them they might as well attack, and they thought it was a pretty good idea. With A&M attacking, the only people to catch the breaks was MSU. I put in an attack and stayed away for about 3 laps, also winning a Prime in the process.

After I was caught, Whitney did some great work by attacking the field and not letting anyone recover. More counterattacks were put in, and you could tell that the field was tiring from the constant breaking away going on. With only about 4 laps to go, I decided that I should attack one last time, to test the field and see if anyone would chase. I waited and then put in a huge effort to get away by myself. After about 30 seconds of going hard, I looked behind me to see what the field was doing. They had sat up! No one was chasing me yet and this meant that I might have a chance to stay away. I had three laps to go, and I would have to give everything I had to try and stay away. At this point, I had played my card, and I was either going to win, or get last. I gave it everything I had left, and by the middle of the last lap, I knew they were not going to catch me. I slowed up a bit to make sure that I didn’t crash and tried not to think about winning until after I crossed the line. As I crossed the finish, I put my horns up! It was a great way to end the day of racing and get my first win! And I got some swag for the prime.

The road race was on Sunday and I woke up not feeling very great. It was hard to put down food, and I felt sick to my stomach up until we rode out. This is not that uncommon, as I sometimes feel this was before races. Our plan was to attack with the Aggies and try to get a break with no MSU riders. After a couple of different attacks by my teammates, I tried one that stuck. Roy caught me, and then three other riders ( A&M, LSU, and OSU) bridged up to us. At first I didn’t want the break to stick because Roy had caught on and I knew that he was stronger than me. When the three others riders bridged, I knew it would stick and I had to go along for the ride. The field sat up because all of the big teams had riders represented in the break. We worked really well together, everyone taking their share of the work. As we came to the finish though, I was tired and knew that I didn’t have enough left but for a desperate attempt at a surprise attack. I surged ahead, but didn’t have enough in my legs and was caught. I ended up fourth behind MSU, LSU, and A&M.

I was a bit disappointed with how the Road Race ended up, but overall was very happy with how the Team and I did this weekend. Go Texas!! Pictures are on txbra.org.

It's not over 'til it's over

I have never won a single road race yet. I have won some crits, but the road race victory continues to elude me. Tunis Roubaix was no exception.


Tunis is a very interesting road race, because most of the roads are dirt. This year, saying the course was on dirt roads really tends to misconstrue. Sand and fist-sized rock roads is more representative. Early in the race, we started the off-road section. We soon hit a section of very large rocks, that were devastating to the field. I heard atleast five flat tires as I prayed for my own tires to hold up. Some how they did, and I kept on riding. Another section of 2 miles or so was deep sand. In sand, bikes tend to lose all traction and slide around, sort of like a car on an ice rink. It took a lot of energy to keep pushing the pedals forward and stay focused.


By the end of the second lap, four of us had broken away from the shattered field: Matt Sauls(MSU), Jen (MSU), Josh (Texas), and I. Josh and I decided that we should try to slowly drop Sauls by keeping the pace high and relentless. After two more laps, it worked, and we were left with Jen from MSU. Jen is a woman's A rider, and therefore would not contest the Texas win for Josh and I. All we had to do was keep the pace high enough to stay away for two more laps.


By this time, I was really tired and beat up. We ended up staying away and thought we were home free for the finish, when I made my one mistake of the day. For some reason I broke my concentration for just a second and crashed. Just plain fell over. I have no idea why. Because of this, it took me way too long to get on my bike, and an MSU rider caught up with us. I was completely done, so all I could do is pray that Josh could take him. He ended up riding really smart and patient and won! I took third, which is okay, but I could have had my pick at 1st or 2nd. It is frustrating to get that close to a win and then lose. But that's racing. I know that I learned a valuable lesson for the future: the race isn't over until you are across the finish line. That was my takeaway for the weekend. And a cool brick/3rd place trophy thing.

I'm tallest short dude I know

I think in the grand scheme of things, most people know where their body geometry fits in to different body geometries of the mass population. They can use describing words such as fat, skinny, big, tall, short, petite to describe themselves. While it would seem that these words are totally dependent upon how you perceive yourself, I have recently discovered that this body image is also a function of the people around you. Statistically speaking, this would be a sample.

I discovered this because of a disconnect that I have been having with what I perceive my body image to be, more so with height than weight. Am I tall, average, or short? I think that most people would tell me that I am average, but this is only the case when sampling a large group, or everyone. But when I am on the LA bus going home, I feel very tall compared to the people around me. This is probably because 95% of the bus riders are Asian and tend to be shorter in stature. Conversely when I am walking to lunch with my petroleum engineering friends, I tend to feel short and very thin, as the guys I eat lunch with are all at least 6 inches taller than me. When I’m at church, I seem pretty average, maybe a little taller than average. When I’m around my biking friends, I feel a little overweight, because they are all super thin.

This just goes to show that height and weight, like many things, are pretty relative. This means that you must have a sample to judge against. Even though I say that I don’t care about what people think about my body (as do most people) I still have to be aware of other’s weight if I want to get a comparison so that I can rightly judge my height or weight. Not that height and weight are all that important, but I just use these ideas as an analogy for other possibly more important things in life. How do you know happiness without anger? How do you know good without bad? How do you know okay without awesome and terrible?

Ideas for the Future

Courtesy of Boulder indoor cycling association. (boulderindoorcycling.com)

As my hobby of biking becomes more of an obsession, I enjoy continually thinking of ideas on how to fund my habit and help others understand how sweet things are when you are straddling a bike. My newest dream involves a velodrome and indoor mountain biking park.

Austin needs a velodrome. Austin is arguably one of the best cycling communities in the country (most certainly in Texas) but doesn't have the infrastructure to incorporate one of the integral parts of cyclism: track cycling. There are plenty of people that have been pining for a velodrome in Austin, and I am sure that there would be plenty of ridership to make the place profitable.

The problem with velodromes is that they are too specific. You can only ride track bikes on them. This means that it would be hard to have such a niche business. How do you make money if there aren't enough people to come and ride your track? Enter mountain biking. All you would have to do is build cool tracks and rock gardens around the velodrome track in empty space. So you have space optimization and more clients. Complete it with a retail space (coffee shop?) and a pro bike shop and I think you could have a pretty successful business. There is a business like this in Boulder, here's the link: Boulder Indoor Cycling. Ray's mountain bike park is another cool place that is mountain bike and bmx biking.

I don't know if this could ever come to fruition, but I think I will ask around and see if there is any interest. Any suggestions would be really appreciated.

My first Omnium win

After a great day of racing in the first day of the Texas Tech Omnium, I was sitting pretty in second place behind Roy from MSU. The last race was a crit, with a very technical course with 16 turns per 1 mile loop! I was excited to see how my new Gary Fisher Cronus would perform in the sweeping turns.

As the race started, my original plan was to sit back and mark Roy through the whole race. While this wouldn't get me 1st, it would keep me at second, which at first I was satisfied with. I started to notice that Roy, for whatever reason, was struggling today and not at top form. Two MSU riders were already up the road, so I decided to go with an attack that an Aggie rider started to see if I could drop Roy. At first it was me, and SMU rider, the aggie, and Roy with one of his teammates. The SMU rider wanted me to help chase the two MSU riders up the road, and I told him I would as long as he helped me to drop Roy. Roy was trying to stay on, but couldn't quite keep up with our relentless attacks. He soon fell behind.

Now it was just A&M, UT, SMU, and one MSU rider. We tried to chase the group ahead but never quite caught them. I was really okay with this because I knew I just needed to be ahead of Roy to win the overall. At the end of the race, the aggie took a flyer to get third, and I outsprinted the SMU and MSU rider for fourth. Roy ended up at 9th, far enough down for me to overtake him in the overall.

I was glad that I have been working so hard all fall and winter long, and that all that hard work is finally starting to pay off. I like to say all the time that races are not won the day of the race, but in the weeks or months leading up the event. This was definitely true.

Next week at Tunis, we will have a full team of riders and should expect great results at that race. Hopefully my training will go well this week!

Also, congrats to my lovely girlfriend Ally, for passing her exams to become a nurse! Now she has a 2 month internship to complete before she can call herself a full-fledged RN! I am excited for her!