Red River Gorge

Red River Gorge

Power Meter

I got my power meter on the bike on Monday. In preperation for Red River Gorge I went out and did some sprints. According to Hunter Allen's book Training and Racing with a Power Meter I am a slow cat 1/fast cat 2 sprinter in terms of 5 second mean maximal power to weight ratio.

Last Couple Weeks

Ok. So I don't have a cool photo from Burlingame. So this is just a photo from the race in Benicia. I got 22nd in the Pro 1/ 2 race in Burlingame. Not bad for 95 starters.

Taking third in the field sprint in Benicia.

This is before I did the Pro 1/ 2 race in Benicia. Landis is a really nice guy off the bike. Not so kind on the bike though; he and his team made the race fast and painful. Of the 95 starters 22 got up the road. I tried to bridge to a break group with 20 minutes to go. I didn’t close the gap and had to settle for third in the field sprint and 25th.

This is a picture of me in the pro 1/2 race at Nevada City. Believe it or not Lance Armstrong, Levi and Chris Horner are in the same race, granted they are already a quiet a ways up the road. Apparently there were 30 to 50 thousand people at this race. Lance went on to win, but this was definitely one of the highlights of my season. How often do you get to race with a 7 time TDF champion, and have 50 thousand people watching your race. Also, this is not confirmed, but I think as of right now I am the youngest rider to have been in an official race with Lance Armstrong.

State TT Championships

TTing is an art form. One for most of my life I have been completely lacking in. Earlier this year I did the Berkeley Hills Team Time Trial with Charlie Avis and learnt that a good time trial really comes down to enduring more pain than anyone else. So my goal for this race was to come across the line as close to dead as possible.
Before the race I pre-road the course thanks to Craig’s excellent suggestion. There was a strong headwind on the way out, so I knew that I would need to ride as hard as possible on the way out, and just hope I could spin my largest gear on the way back. This turned out to be an ideal pacing strategy as almost everyone said they wished they rode harder on the way out. As for the race, I just rode as hard as I could and in the end, I got second behind Charlie Avis.

Sprint Finish

Early Bird #2

I raced the p 1/2/3s at the Early Birds today and got some valuable experience. I even got the confidence to follow some moves and work at the front. I also got my first taste of doing some blocking when Larry and Dylan Casey were up the road. On the last lap I was a bit to far back and had to kill myself to get about 5m behind Holloway with 600m to go, just intime to see him open up his sprint. Ane when he went it was like a bomb going off! I ended up finishing in the top 15. Fast Freddy won with Holloway second.

Early Birds #1

I rode the Early Birds today. I woke up early and rode down to Sunol. My parents picked me up there (thanks!) and drove me the rest of the way. I cruised around for a couple of minutes, pinned on my number and started the p 1/2/3 race. I was suprised that the field size was at least 50 maybe more. For the first few laps I followed Holloway around just watching what he did. After an hour I moved up to the front and started racing. I ended up 4th just behind Jackson Stewart from BMC.