Drives Ride

I did the drives ride this week, not really meeting up with anyone in particular, but I ran in to Woody and Dan, Ashley D., and a handful of others. Woody and I discussed ways we could save the Philly International Pro Race. Fortunately, they didn't need our help.
I realized that, while it is a good workout, the benefits (hard effort, race pace, ?) don't outweigh the negatives (too big a group, lack of competitiveness, sketchiness, guaranteed crash, etc) for me on that ride. The AM sprint workout is harder, more race like, and even more competitive, for a more all around effort. And the smaller groups means there's no hiding.

Lower Providence Race Report

Craig Matt H and I lined up with one goal, deliver Craig to the line for the field sprint. We weren’t terribly concerned with breakaways, but we weren’t going to let something silly get away, like a group of 10 or something. The race was mostly status quo, save for the bakers dozen QCW riders at the line. Literally, thirteen of them. They raced smart and repeatedly counter attacked until they finally got two riders up the road, Sean and Tyler I believe. They only had 5-10 seconds for a few laps, and I wasn’t too worried about it. I asked Craig if he preferred I work to chase them down or save it for the lead out, as I only would have juice for one or the other.
Since he chose the lead out I just decided to forget about them. I was still surprised that the other larger teams couldn’t put a chase together. Everyone seemed to think they could bridge solo, instead of working together. With the windy course, that wasn’t going to happen. Due to the wind though, drafting was very key to staying safe, as there was a head or crosswind on three sides of the course. I think this was a factor in lots of people getting dropped.
What finally gave the break the last little push it needed to succeed was a terribly disgusting sounding crash, that I could hear echoing off of the buildings before I could hear the sound directly. I was in second wheel with Craig dutifully right behind me and all of a sudden there was the tell tale metal crunching, tire popping, brake squeeking nastiness of a multi-rider pile up. Matt H crushed some guy after sending his own bike (and Craigs wheels) sailing through the air. He was able to walk away thankfully. This happened in the right shoulder cross wind section and resulted from over lapped wheels.
So we’re down to the last three laps. Craig knows to hang onto my wheel like he owns it. We are doing a great job staying at the front and playing it smart and safe. We’re coming into the last lap and Craig starts telling me “all the way around, keep it up”. As a couple guys had tried attacking already on this lap, I was thinking “Okay this is it, grit your teeth and go”. I dial it up, not sure if it was actually fast, or just painful. I take it around two damn corners into the finishing straight. I’m thinking with Craig in second wheel I’m gonna drop him off too early. But I dig deep and start sprinting. I’m dying, digging so deep I can’t think. I shift it two gears harder. Out of the saddle not even looking ahead.
I can’t believe Craig hasn’t come around. In fact, no one has. Is Craig letting me take third?
RING RING RING RING RING goes the bell signaling last lap. FUCK!
I pull off, apologize to Craig for being a total idiot and leave him to fend for himself. I swallow the puke in my mouth, cool down for two laps, and go straight to the car and drink six beers while watching the ladies race.

Early Riding

Got up early to meet Mike C. to ride for a couple hours. Here's the sun rising behind the city and my big head. We headed out W. River and did six of the eight hills on the usual ride out to Conshohocken and back. Keeping a steady tempo, we were back at the Art Museum bu 8:15, a solid 1h45 of riding and a total of 2h15 for me, after a super hard 2 hours the day previous. I've had a nice two easy days since and I'm ready to tear up the wet roads tomorrow. I'm going to head over to NJ for the UNO ride, I hope there's someone else with the same idea!

New Mobile Site

You can now access the basic details of my coaching fees via your mobile phone. Go to http://gofullgas.everywhereigo.com/ to view.
This is a cool new mobile application that optimizes your mobile browser viewing and even has a fully integrated direct customer marketing tool, that I won't be using mind you, but has lots of interesting opportunities.

No rest for the weary

This past weekend was the 2-Day Philly Cycling Classic, hosted by Philadelphia Ciclismo and Cadence Cycling. I did both days of racing, working really hard for the team sprinters, Dan and Mike. With this new onset of allergies, I barely scraped together five hours of sleep the past four nights but I managed to get up this morning for the usual sprint workout in Fairmount Park.
Surprisingly, I actually rode stronger today than I did this past weekend. I handily crushed two of the seven sprints, attacked hard a couple times, and generally worked my butt off.
Now I find myself incredibly exhausted at work, after three cups of coffee to try and prop me up until 6:30. Yikes.
I am excited about my new team and the guys I'll be racing with, people I will work hard for and will work hard for me. I look forward to this racing season for sure!