Bad Luck Tuesday Night

Just finished up a good block of training. I attempted to race Tuesday night at the Rush Course, It was going be a nice hard one, but I didn't even make it one lap in as my Derailleur cable fixing bolt snapped right off on the climb. I didn't panic and just threw the bike on top of the car and headed over to Dryer Rd to hit the dirt. Ripped it up

Yesterday, I headed down to Naples with Casey and we pulled of the quadruple, 4 massive climbs.. We essentially did the entire mountaineer course from the Highlander. It was a long day. See pics below

Today I jumped out and hit it early in the am for a good ride.

I'm going to head up to the great white north this weekend and do the Ontario Cup in Ottawa; we'll see how that one goes as its the first true xc race of the season. I've been feeling good the past few days so I hope to do well.

Stid Hill, our first climb right off the bat



Bristol Mountain, the final climb is up over the backside and then descend the ski trails, yup we had a few snow crossings to deal with.

Gary Fisher Demo Days May 5th-6th

Demo Days at Dryer Rd. More information is available from Towpath Bikes or at Victor mountain bike club.

Unfortunately I will be out of town ;( But I am going to connect up and see if I can't get my rides over there for you boys and girls to play on.

Word on the street is there will be plenty of chicks on hand, so shave those legs and chammy up looks to be a good time.

Pictures from Bristol

I put up a video on my site, it is of the flooded road when I was in Alabama; more of these to come!

I have a few pictures that I took on my phone on 4-15, thought I would share them.



Can't figure out how to throw text between them so; In order
1. Gannett Hill from the view looking down the finish line climb on the Bristol Course
2. Canandaigua Lake > North looking at Vine Valley (between the hills on the right)
3. Canandaigua Lake > South Naples Valley
4. Bopple Hill > looking at the top of the climb
5. Bopple Hill > The top, this is where you go when you die as you hit the 24% gradient at the top

Finally Back home

I disappeared off the radar for a week as I was down in Birmingham, AL for some work. Man was it hott down there! A few days it was in the 90's, of course there were also some pretty heavy thunderstorms. I'll try to see if I can upload the video that I took while I was driving my rental car thru the flood! Pretty amazing as you watch the water come right over the hood! Good thing it was a rental.

But I'm glad to be back. I worked in that it was my rest week for training so that worked out good. I hate rest weeks. For some reason for me they only make me sluggish. I love my 3rd week of my training block, usually tired as a dog, but somehow thats always when I tend to have some good legs.

Speaking of good legs, mine were definately missing today at the GVCC Spring Classic, I got popped hard about the 5th time up Furman hill. I just had no legs at all, never found my rythmn. Usually on the climb I dig it as it suits me well. I rode around for another lap then bailed as it was cold and wet. Just another sign that if it's missing rocks and dirt, I should be somewhere else...

Hopefully my legs show up tuesday night.

How about the intense racing that went on this weekend. Tommy D diced it up with Floyd at the Tour of Georgia or How about Valverde pulling off the double! I think he could be a real contender for the tour this year.

Link Dump

I don't feel like a real entry; It's time to get off my ass and out the door for a ride and my knee is killing me from crashing at Dryer Rd yesterday. So I decided to grab a bunch of links for ya to read thru if you'r bored.

The New Gary Fisher Race Day at Sea Otter

Eurosport Feeds

Twentyniner.net

Twentynineinches

Ok to lazy to keep going time to go ride while the sun is nice..

~J

Paris-Ancaster

Sunday was my own Version of Paris-Roubaix, or more precisely Paris-Ancaster.  60k mix of road/off-road riding from Paris, ON to Ancaster, ON.  Most everybody was on cross bikes or fat tires.  Seeing as how I have 700c rims on my mtb, I put a set of cross tires on.  Perfect set-up.  1400!! racers registered.  I was in the first wave of 400, corraled up like a group of wild mustangs hungry to charge out of the gates.  They let us out onto the road and quickly we hit a dirt carriage road.  
Super narrow, it's hard to move up in a pack of 100 riders, how the hell do you do it with 400 other guys.  I got as close to the front as I could.  After about 10k we hit a 90 degree right, right onto a farmers field, total chaos, lost about 50 spots as everyone had to shoulder the bikes up the hill, and I hate running, especially with a bike.  Thru the field and onto the roads, it started to split up here.  I was giving it everything to make contact but the early pace whipped my legs and my stomach was grumbling.  After lots of mud and roads I put out a huge charge at the 30k point straight down an elevated railroad bed for about 10k, I made a huge move and gained tons of ground ala Van Petegem on the cobbles... I got into a group of 10 guys and another guy and myself were swapping pulls, I got mad  and biatch slapped em verbally to get working and we started to gain on all the groups in front of us.  

Soon a tandem came by and myself and another jumped on the wheels and we were flying away from our group and I was running out of gearing.  Ugh oh, my stomach was hurting again.  Headed down this huge mudslide where you had to run, and stomach got worse, time to emulate Bob Roll, (think switzerland, family picnic...anyone getting the picture ;)  After a 10 minute time out somewhere in the woods I lost 70 spots or so, jumped back on the bike and groveled my way to the finish hoping nothin worse would happen.  

Ended up 120th 21 minutes back on the leaders...

I made it home just in time to catch the 2nd half of Paris-Roubaix. Poor Hincapie, man does that guy have zero luck in that race. At least he has a hot wife to comfort him while he nurses his injury back.

So, seeing as how 2-4 were disqualified for crossing the tracks with the gates down, why wasn't Boonen and the 2nd chase group? There gates were down also...

~J

Saul Raisin in Coma after accident

Well, I was going to write up about the Wheelman's cup and then the 1st G-series race from Tuesday night, but then I checked the Eurosport feeds...seems kinda trivial compared to this

Credit Agricole's Raisin in coma

Today, 08:11 AM

American Credit Agricole rider Saul Raisin has slipped into a coma after crashing on the first stage of the Circuit de la Sarthe race.

Read more…

BTW Congrats to Frank and Claudia Overton on the Birth of their Second Child!!