Back to racing...finally

Well, I'm close to finishing my season, or ready to start another...All depends on if I pick up a cyclocross bike or not. I've never tried cross, but riding in the mud sounds fun, just the running part sucks. Maybe I'll just bunny-hop the barriers :)

After taking a month plus long hiatus from racing, mentally I'm refreshed and ready to tackle the remaining few races, but physically I think I've lost a little fitness as feels like it has gradually declined due to the 'fun' riding rather than 'fitness' riding.

It's Friday night, my babe is in Boulder and I am sitting home with absolutely nothing to do. How boring, but it might be a blessing in disguise. I am looking forward to the seasons end so I can do a little bit of hard partying on the weekends...


-J

My Second Podcast is Up!!

Go to the iTunes store and search for podcasts>This Week in Cycling, or cut and paste the following url into iTunes>advanced>subscribe to podcast.

http://www.jasonhilimire.com/files/podcast.xml

Thanks

Weekend Wrap-up

I'm here still in the adirondacks, at least until tomorrow night...

I did some more riding with a CO from Clinton Correctional (co= corrections officer). Shaun and i hit a local weeknight racing hotspot and his local stomping ground. Shaun is a former mtb racer himself and looks like he can still tear it up without any problems. It was fun and wrapped up my weekend of riding. Most of my earlier riding had been off road but not on singletrack.

Singletrack for mt. bikers is like Edmund's turkish delight, once you have a taste of that oh so wonderful treat, it is all you want and all you ever think about, causing some unfortunate souls to do such things as spend all their income and time riding a bike, taking days off from work to ride and forgetting about life in general as your next piece of singletrack is your sole focus. Oh the white witch is wicked. wicked indeed...


Tom Boom-Boom Boonen pulled off a huge win today taking the World Championship title!! hell ya, that-a-boy Boonen, he kicks some ass i tell ya

What the hell happened to my bears!! KO Kyle Orton was ko'd by the bengals today with 5 freakin interceptions, ahhh!! It's only cause I watched part of the game..

Jim McMahon proof that he is a better quarterback than Dan marino...Most wins without a loss as a rookie...and a super bowl ring...take that bub!!



Listening to ''My Coco'', by Stellastarr* (Play Count: 19)

Adirondacks part deux

Where to Begin...
The final GVCC race went off last Tuesday night, my sorry ass was whupped from all the mt. biking I had done over the past weekend. I covered some early attacks, even took a solo flyer for a bit before I was bridged up to. After that I went back to the pack and proceeded to simply die a disastrous death. I was spent and slobbering on my stem so I hung a left and rode home.

My drive is a little low right now, the end of the season is nearing and I'm getting tired. Besides that my job sucks ass, typical work crap, but apparently I was born without my mindreading skills so that means I can't perfom my job task as properly noted in our employee handbook.

Fortunately plans are moving forward for a possible ship-jumping maybe at the end of next summer.

I'm up in the adirondacks again working. This time I skipped bringing the road bike and brought the mt. bike. I headed down to Mt. Van Hoevenberg the site of the 1980 Olympic XC skiing games and the 24 hours of the Adirondacks. Bummer that was cancelled this year as it would have been this weekend. The complex is closed during the week at this time of year so I tooled around and got lost trying to remember the 24 hour course. I did head over the the bobsled run and checked that out. I rode to the top of the hill, put my bike in the run and started to head down, my brakes were squeeling like a banshee from hell so I decided to make an early exit before I got caught (there were some lights on and a few carss). Besides that stuff was pretty steep, those fellas are nuts!!


The new Gary Fisher 06 lineup is online check it out here



Listening to ''Fix You'', by Coldplay

Weekend/New site features

I spent the majority of sunday, in my saddle enjoying the late summer sun and 7500' feet of climbing down in Naples. Mark and Suzanne Hartman, Jim Hogan and myself decided to take a nice epic ride up and over every mountain bike trail that we could find, forming a nice 55 mile loop. The ride was killer, super hard technical stuff, tons of climbing, incredible views.

It was pretty much the best ride, I've been on all year. All of us enjoyed ourselves and the beautiful day, HUGE PROPS to Suzanne who could've opted out but decided to slog on and finish the ride.

I was suprised that I had anything to finish the ride with as my babe e and I attended a wedding the night before. I was all prepped to mow down on some wedding buffet, but what did I get...crackers! Nothing but apps, so I had a nice long day on a stomach full of crackers....

Check out the sidebar to my site now!
Images and links to my sponsors, plus a button that lets you know if I'm on aim or not. If I'm online and you have aim click it and it will im me, pretty cool. Took a bunch of time learning some html, but I will learn some more and get some cool stuff up.

Don't forget about the podcast I put up on friday either!!



Listening to ''Hoppípolla'', by Sigur Ros

PODCAST IS HERE

My podcast, aptly titled This Week in Cycling is here! It's a little bit rough around the edges and I will hopefully polish it up in the coming weeks.

To listen to it thru iTunes for now click on the RSS Feed link and copy the link, open iTunes, go to advance > subscribe to podcaste and paste the link there (http://www.jasonhilimire.com/files/page0.xml).

I will figure out how to get it so that you can subscribe thru the iTunes music store soon enough.

For being as quiet and shy a person as I normally am, talking into a microphone for the whole world to listen to is a little a bit of a scary experience. It is much harder than most people could imagine.

Dopers Suck!

What the Hell, Mr. Sheppard were you thinking??

http://www.velonews.com/news/fea/8879.0.html

Doping is just wrong, I don't care if its shuffleboard, baseball or cycling. Why put your body thru the after effects of it all just for some piece of glory. How do you explain to your grandkids that you were on top of the world, but then you couldn't race for 2 years or the rest of your life.

I'd rather finish last in every race knowing I was clean than finish 1st once on dope. IMHO

GVCC-Riga

Races seem to be getting quite a bit shorter, with the daylight dwindling. Plus know all the team are using some real tactics. The course isn't overly hard and its tough to get an attack off or a break going anywhere you try. After a few unsuccessful attempts, I sat in for a while and went on the hill on the second lap. Had a gap with Matthis, John Deshaw (sp?)and a Towners (not sure who), Matthis said he would work and I knew John would also, we got up to speed quick and Chris Riley bridged across. The 5 of us worked well together and were not going to get caught. Coming into the final k's it was game on. I found myself on the front, not exactly where I want to be, I did slip off on a rise and should've probably attacked, but I was hesitant, cause I actually wanted to sprint. Well no one made any moves and we came 3 wide into the final 600 meters, I decided to jump on John's wheel but gear skipped and I lost contact with them, ended up 4th with John taking the win.

Can't think of a title

I spent the majority of my weekend mountain biking on some awesome trails with Casey a bro of mine. We had a hell of a good time as it was part of the Highlander and we had decided to do the 25 mile loop twice. We started out around 7:30 in the morning and finished up in the late afternoon. You couldn't have asked for a better day, the sun was out and the sky was a clear blue. We weren't really pushing the pace by any-means and stayed relaxed and enjoyed ourselves. We had some great conversations on multiple topics that were all over the place. I even ran into my ESG coach Bob DeRoo and rehashed the games, what a blast that was! The best part of the ride was the fully stocked SAG stops, packed with cookies and pb&j sammies! The crazy part was that we were the fastest riders of the course without even putting forth any real efforts.

I've been doing pretty much all of my riding on my mountain bike, I have to say that September is my favorite time of the year. I love the cold, crisp morning, hot afternoons and cool but comfortable evenings. Plus the trails are in awesome shape, and the smell of the woods is ever intoxicating. Besides, I feel really comfortable now on my cake , but I guess soon I might be trading that one in for a 29er! I am pretty excited to ride one for the 06 season.

Football season started this past weekend, and with it starts off the fantasy football action. This week I nudged past my brother and lost a key player to injuries. If I pull of a 1st place this year like last year I'm running a dynasty for sure.

I'm racing tonight at the GVCC Riga race so I'll give a full update, and actually have a report of some racing news up here :)

oh well...flats happen

Ej hooks me up with some fat stickers for my rides, if you see me out there, let me know and I'll show you his work.

So the highlander tt went off, I thought I was doing pretty well, till I hit the base of the main climb and my front tire started to go soft. Pretty much had to stay seated the whole time and thats tough on such a steep climb, at the top I swapped wheel with a spectator. Them's the breaks. 22:15, winner was 19:55...I shoulda been around 20:30-45.

Will do the mountaineer part of the highlander tomorrow, possibly twice

29ers, hmmmm!! ;) I like em alot

Highlander

Tomorrow is the Highlander Time Trial up Gannet Hill.

Hopefully, I have recovered from this cold and I can put some power down.

Profile



Ya, quite a bit of climbing there.

This entry is short cause football is starting woohoo!!

work, work, work...

Well, looks like work will get in the way of racing again. I have to head back up to the Adirondacks the 21st-25th to cover for some personnel up there. At least I'll get to do some great riding again.

I'll be up there with my brother, staying at his place, so we will just have to eat like King's on the company credit card!

I'm sitting here similar to last week at work and not feeling good. I could feel it coming on again last night and it kinda put a damper on any hard efforts. Hopefully, I will shake this cold soon

Last night was the GVCC race at Mendon Ponds. I get pretty much screwed over a little at these races. I have no teammates to help me so I'm stuck covering most breaks, while all the other team get to keep some fresh legs in reserve. 3 guys from all the teams there get up the road, I wait thinking they might not chase me down, make my move, and a car comes, essentially killing it. After that, I was covered by the whole pack. Oh well, thats racing.

I am super excited to be meeting the new area rep, Matt Koss for Gary Fisher/Trek/Lemond on Friday. We are going to try to hash out the details about the 2006 season. I'm can't wait, if its a deal similar to this year I will be super pumped. Fisher makes some sweet rides, and I am pumped about there 06 line-up.

I'll be at the Highlander this weekend so I will let ya know how that goes with the Gannett Hill TT and I think I am going to do the mountaineer...


Did anyone see the new nano pod was released today?? Apple is without a doubt kicking some butt in the mp3 player arena.

J

Goodbye Summer

"Squeaky swings and tall grass
The longest shadows ever cast
The water's warm and children swim
And we frolicked about in our summer skin

I don't recall a single care
Just greenery and humid air
Then Labor day came and went
And we shed what was left of our summer skin"


Listening to ''Summer Skin'', by Death Cab For Cutie

So it's here and gone, summer is pretty much over. For most road racers, this was pretty much the final weekend of racing, cyclocross racers are chomping at the bit as they start up soon, mt. biking has a few weeks left, but the trails are in the best conditions of the year.

You'll notice at the bottom of every blog entry is a comments link, If you click on it you can add a comment for anyone to see that visits the site.

I went down to Naples on Saturday and did the OCP/Cutler/DEC epic, I love that route, 30 miles of mt. biking with about 4 major climbs and the most technical descending ever. I went by myself, no iPod or anything else, just hammered the trail away with my own thoughts. I needed that ride, it was great, trail conditions were perfect, the smell of the woods was incredible and everything went right. I was completely lost within the trail and came out with my soul totally cleansed. I love those kind of rides and it seems like fewer of them happen every year as racing becomes more and more important. One thing I did come across that was pretty funny and odd; I am out deep in the woods and I hear some movement so I keep riding thinking its deer or something and I come up on some people. Turns out to be a guy and a girl walking, however no hiking clothes or gear, the guys doesn't even have his shirt on and the girl is walking pretty far ahead and putting her shirt on. I think someone was looking for a little nookie action! But they were a long way into the woods for that!


Block Party--Yesterday was the traditional end of Season Neighborhood Block Party. Before hand I played some golf with my best buds, Eric, his brother Adam and Andy. After playing about every sport possible together growing up, we finally got to play a round of golf together. It was a blast. I played golf a ton last year as I as a member of a country club, but this year I've only played twice (including this match). Considering we have a free course right out our back door, that is unusual. So I was quite a bit rusty, but started to come around big time on the back nine and we had some good laughs. It's good to hang out with the old gang.

Speaking of the old gang, the neighborhood block party is an annual tradition, of which I just re-entered. For a few years I had been skipping it because I was usually of racing. I went last year and had a ball. This year was no exception, everyone always comes back that has lived on our street. The mix of new and old friends, young and old is a humble celebration of summer and small town life. All of the friends you grew up with that have scattered away, you get to spend the afternoon re-hashing old times with.

Don't let your summer slip away just cause Labor day has come and gone, get outside ride your bike, play with your dog (or cat). I refuse to let is slip through my grasp...

TGIF

It's Friday, I'm at work bored and feeling like shit. For the past few days I've had unbearable nasal/sinus congestion and body aches. I'd be sleeping at home, but I work for my family which means, unless I die I'll be at work. It probably didn't help that the last few laps of the GVCC race on tues was in the pouring rain.

My leg seems to be coming around, although every now and then when I stand up I get a little twinge of pain

If you use AIM or the new Google Talk, my aim name is livtoridedirtusa and my google name is sprocketjockey@gmail.com. You can send me a message anytime you feel like...

Here is a sneak peek at the Gary Fisher line-up for 2006. I hope that they re-up with me for next year. I'd love to be on a raceday for 06 and kicks some tail.

Right now I'm pondering if I'll even race on the road next year. I really enjoy the Nationals and I'm thinking about hitting as many of them as I can and basically just racing those and a few local races. Who knows though.

Have you filled up your gas tank? If prices get any f-ing higher I might be making my commute to work on my bike. It'd be a nice 70 miles everyday...That would add up for some nice volume by the end of the week.

I'll be at the Highlander Cycle Tour next weekend, I'm going to shoot for the Gannet Hill TT, and maybe break 6 hours on the road the next day...