Musings of June

Anybody need bikes? My reign as the king of too many bikes needs to end. I am moving into a Houston apartment with Ally. She has graciously allowed me to keep one bike inside, but the other ones need to go! The problem is that they will not sell! I had planned to sell my former race bike for at least $2000. Yes, its worth that much. I know there are people out there that need race bikes, but I am having trouble getting the word out. Craiglist used to be an amazing outlet to sell bikes at, but there are over 100 listings a day, which means that your lowly small posting will have problems being seen. An alternative is eBay, which is daunting because of the hefty price of shipping involved with bikes. I just don't want to deal with the extra processes that go with it. I might end up having to do this though.

My mountain bike is another issue all together. Being the first bike I ever bought with my own money, it is really old. Most of the parts have been replaced. I have probably put about $1000 into the bike over the last 2 years, but I would guess that I would not be able to sell it for more than $200. It just has no market. People looking for mountain bikes are either looking for a Walmart bike for under $100, or they are looking for a sweet, awesome, bodacious mountain bike and are willing to pay for it. The bike I have is somewhere in the doldrums in between these two categories. It has some great parts, but others are complete crap. It needs work.

If I don't get my bikes sold, it will be an interesting rest of the summer until I start my job. I honestly thought that whenever I started to run out of money, I would just sell my old race bike and then everything would be hunky-dory. It has been a lot harder to sell it than I thought. Hopefully my luck will turn!

Engagement

ALLY AND I ARE ENGAGED!!!!

After many months of her worrying whether it would ever happen, I finally popped the question at the Arboretum last Thursday. I found a secluded area where it was just us and got down on one knee. I tricked her into thinking I was taking a picture, when I was really taking a video! That can be found on facebook. It might be a little mean, but Ally said it was okay for me to post it. Needless to say I am pretty excited.

Our website that Ally made for our engagement can be found here.

We have set a date for Sept 11. It is a perfect date, except for the fact that everyone I will tell will be saying, "OOOOOH Sept 11?" Seriously, I don't think that the day is that bad. I mean yes, one of the biggest tragedies in our nation's history happened on this date, but I don't think that means that we can't get married then. Actually, if we don't, George Bush would say that the terrorists won. I just don't want the terrorists to win. :~)

We are living in Houston near the Galleria in a place called Broadstone Apartments.

In other news, I have been off and on the bike for a little while right now. My drive for riding is not completely there, and it is extremely hot and muggy in Austin right now. I am still racing twice a week though, but not really training. This means that sooner or later my fitness will begin to wane, but for right now I am just enjoying the fact that I put in all those mile earlier in the year. I have also been golfing a couple of times a week in preparation for the business world. I shoot around a 100, which is really good for me! I think if I could do that consistently then I should be able to hang with a boss or two in the oil and gas industry.

I find it funny how life changes constantly, but the speed at which it changes is never constant. There has been a lot of good change in my life the last couple of weeks, and I am excited to see what is next.

Beware the Crashes of Spring

Both season that I have raced, I have crash. Hard.

This year it was at the Manda Road Race. After placing 8th the day before I was feeling like the world was mine to take. I could win if I wanted. I could take the race by storm. My confidence was sky high. I suppose the cycling Gods chose to humble me in the bloody kind of way.

At the start of the race, these Gods were already mad. The biggest and most evil of the cycling Gods is Wind. He frequently rears his ugly head in Texas road races and tends to get angrier and stronger as races progress. Sunday was no exception. The wind was blowing worse than I have ever seen (well, felt) it. I'm going out on a limb and say it was blowing at least 200 mph. Maybe a little less, I don't want to over-exaggerate.

We started in a gargantuan echelon across the road, and I tried to protect my teammates as much as I could. After the first full lap we started back in the cross wind, and I was in a sheltered position near the edge of the road. All of a sudden, a new cycling God wanted in on the slaughter. The crack. A huge crack suddenly opened up in front of me, and my tire thought it would be fun to play in the bottom of it. Not so fun for my skin. I went down hard on pavement. I did not keep the rubber side down. I took two people with me.

I had to pull rocks out of my skin, and I completely destroyed my bibs (they look like Texas Tech bibs now). Needless to say I learned my lesson the hard way from the cycling Gods. I was humbled. At least until the next time I win a race.

What is most important is that I was up racing again four days later at the Driveway, and did reasonably well. The hardest thing to get over in crashes is not really the physical ailments and road rash, but the mental recovery. It's hard to not be twitchy. But so far I'm doing a good job. Hopefully I'm done crashing for a bit.

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.