Time to kickstart the bus

August is gonna be a barn-burner for sure. Racing is back in full swing after a light month of July. The

Farmall Series

starts up again, Highland Forest,

Suicide Six

and then another solo 24 hour race up in CA;

Hot August nights

. A perfect set of tune-ups leading to Hot August nights. Right now there are over 40 solo men, and it'll be nice to bust out a good ride without having raced the day before.

Been packing in some long rides this past week to get myself ready. Wednesday I hit the Naples area for a nice 6 hours off-road including some time at night. Was sweltering hot, but trails were in good shape and the shitload of climbing that is down there makes most climbs at any race around here seem pretty short. It was a little freaky at night when I was out there in the woods all alone, didn't help any that I was listening to a Widespread Panic show and it was a little Doors esque freaky solo session as I was cruising along. That always helps the mind get right at ease! I was pretty spent after that ride.

I recovered in time to head out for a nice 6 hours on the road bike this Sunday. Left G-town with a decent group of riders heading towards Watkins where Casey and I peeled off to head West across the ridgelines where a boat load of climbing awaited us. Was a good day of working on the tan and getting a nice bit of a workout in there too. We had a good time; and the 2 of us are usually treated to some rare occurances such as the kid faking the fall out of a wheelchair that cracked us up. But nothing has ever been better than coming across the Dungeons n' Dragons group at Cutler. It was a little bit surreal with the costumes and language, but we still get kicks out of bringing it up.

My

bro EJ

hooked up me up with some new sweet ass stickers for my ride. Come check out the paragon at any of the above races if you wanna see em. (I'm too damn lazy to get any pics up right now)

Landis Fails Drug Test!!

"Tour de France champion Floyd Landis tested positive for high levels of testosterone during the race, his Phonak team said Thursday on its Web site."

In related news... teamates realized something was wrong with Landis when he started approaching females near the finish line asking if they wanted a "pizza and a f#@k." When they answered in the negative he proceded to ask "What?... do you not like pizza?"

Well? Time will only tell what the truth is. IT was a pretty amazing turnaround.

Just say NO
~J

Dryer

Headed over to Dryer yesterday for an easy day of speedwork on the trails. Been a few weeks since I've been there and had a good time. Brought Lizzy along with me so she could have a bit of fun too. I was pretty tired after tuesdays ride as I had pretty much crushed it for 3 good hours. But somehow the more intensity I start to add the better the legs feel each day. Yesterday was no exception and I was rockin the trails.
I had perfect flow workin the whole ride, it was like the lines were painted for me as I was just smooth. I love those days when everything comes together perfectly.
Lizzy was even having a great time, it was a little bit warm for her so I let her take a few baths in the giant mud puddle. She loved it. I tried to take her over to the creek to wash up and cool down with some fresh water, but I saw a buck running through the woods. I had to make a quick stop and grab her or I woulda been waiting a while for her to chase him down and then come back. She had already done her fair share of chasing as she came super close to catching a squirrel. What she would do with it though I'm not sure of.
Bummer that I missed out on this morning ride, everyone was heading down to Casey's place for an early morning singletrack session followed by a breakfast, then heading out to hit some g.n.a.r. trails (home grown acronym: Greater Naples Area Riding). I'm thinking of rocking the lights tonight and heading to Spencer to pull of a 6 hour epic. I haven't been to Spencer in a bit and it will be great to train on the course as the final

NYSERS

race is there in a few weeks. I think I will hold out on an epic in Naples till this weekend.
~J

Discovery is making some moves

Ullrich admits Discovery interest

Jan Ullrich is reportedly in talks with Discovery Channel after it emerged that the German will have one last pop at Tour de France glory.

Eurosport

7/25/06 11:12 AM Cycling

Armstrong: We'd have Floyd back

Seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong insisted he would be happy to welcome Floyd Landis back into the Discovery Channel team.

Eurosport

7/25/06 2:48 AM Cycling

Leipheimer leaving Gerolsteiner for Discovery

Levi Leipheimer is leaving Gerolsteiner at the end of the season, and will sign for Discovery Channel, which is expected to confirm his signing later today.

Long Stretch

This has been my longest stretch of not racing in years. Its been what 2 weeks since 6 HOP and I'm getting the jitters! I need me a dose of the good stuff. Gonna be a bit before I can taste it too as this weekend is off again. Hopefully by then I won't have me the shakes.

Over the weekend Erin picked up a mountain bike so she could start doing some riding with me and lizzy girl. Naturally as it's her first time on clipless pedals; she falls hard and takes a nice chunk of skin off her arm. I give her credit though, she jumped back on the next day and had no problems.

I beat my brother again today in another round of golf. No longer a fluke I am just plain kickin his ass nowadays. Hell, I even had a few pars in there!

Congrats to Floyd!

Good Job Floyd!!!

(photo: AFP)

Go Floyd! Go Floyd! Go Floyd!

What a stage! What a day! What a way to never give up! Today's stage of the tour was absolutely incredible. I haven't seen anything better ever. After losing everything yesterday Floyd pulls one over on all the contenders and is set up perfectly for the time trial Saturday!
Hurrah for Floyd! I'm rooting for him

CyclingNews Report

Another page in the Naples Trail Handbook

The amount of trails and area of riding in Naples keeps getting better. Yesterday; Casey, Mark, Suzanne and I hit mostly all new stuff down in the Naples area. We were out scouting and working on figuring out how to link it all up for the Horrible Hundred (nickname for the 100 mile epic in Naples). I need to start carrying my camera with me on my rides and get some good pics up here for everyone

Conditions were still a little sloppy as the rain that poured down last wednesday left quite a few mudspots but other than a few tough sections, everything was ok. Temperatures yesterday were freaking brutal; tough to start a ride at 11; even tougher to do it with a hangover from my buddies 30th birthday party. As Suzanne said after we crossed a field "Remember in Poltergeist when the guys face melted? Thats what I feel like". It was hot, thats for sure.

As usual the DEC descent caused its normal rate of carnage. I got a nice chunk of mud right in me eye at the top and had to spend a few minutes cleaning my contact off with good ol' spit. After I saddled up to continue I came across Mark fixing a flat and Casey putting at new der hanger on. DEC 3 Riders 1. It's very rare that you make it down the descent without it causing a problem for someone in the group. The descent is gnar and eats bike parts for lunch.

The highlight of the day was dipping the feet in Naples Creek and washing up a little bit at the bottom of the DEC. Always a great summer time fave. The other highlight was taking a break at the Hanglider jump-off and chillin out for a few minutes checking out Italy Valley.

I did manage to see a few hangliders ready to jump ship off of the Stid Hill jump-off on my way home. Those guys are insane!!

~J

Golf

Played some golf on this past Tuesday as my brother was in town. It was a grudge match for sure. For several years now, he has whupped me with no problems. I think that I have maybe defeated him once in all our matches. Well this match was close to more of the same as he was beating me down with the clubs. I was 4 down after 6 holes! But then his "Mickleson Meltdown" started to come around. He was hitting the ball left, right, everywhere but where he should. After 9 holes I was only 1 down, giving me a little bit of confidence. On the back 9 he continued to crumble as we diced back and forth. I brought the match over to my side and was 2 up with 2 holes to go. He won 17 and I headed to 18 with a 1 hole lead. He scared me with a a great drive, but I matched it, I got in the green within 6ft and putting for birdie as he was chipping on for par. Naturally I missed the birdie putt cause I suck, but still managed to make par and my victory was complete.

It was amazing, he came tumbling down like a house of cards. Cracked under the pressure! Can't wait for the next match to defend the title, hahaha!!

6 Hours of Power

Finally broke the 3rd place curse at Ellicottville. The past few adventures I finished 3rd and thought that I was destined for another one yesterday. In a weird prize arrangement, I was given 1st place in my age category. Technically I was 2nd, but 1st had won the overall so is ineligible for age base prizes. I finished either 4th or 5th overall out of 75 or so competitors. I'm pleased about that as I thought I was having a really bad day (more on that in a bit). Finished with 7 laps at 6:41, 1st overall was 7 laps at 6:05?. With the placing I pretty much wrapped up the NYSERS race series title as its only 3 races long and best 2 count. Looking forward though to the Suicide Six at Spencer Park and hopefully I can keep the streak going. I haven't raced there since it was an xc race and looking forward to going back.

6 HOP breakdown.
After a shitty Lemans style run that seemingly goes on forever, I was dogging at big time I slammed it up the climb to end up 3rd wheel into the singletrack. Had a tough time getting a decent rhythm in the woods. Coming down the 1st descent and out onto the super fast ski slope descent, I forgot it was a hard 90 immediately into the woods; carried way too much speed and to the photographers delight ended up tangled in some bushes and trying to get back onto the course. Came through the line around 5th place, about a minute down. 2nd lap was more or less the same as the first; lost a little more time, by the finish of the 3rd lap my lap time had dropped off by a few minutes and I was dying hard. Thought I was going to pull a "Levi" as it was feeling like my worst day ever. I finished the 3rd lap and wanted to just lay down and die; my stomach was a little bloated from drinking a bit too much gatorade in the heat and every inch of my body was aching, I grabbed some advil and a little caffeine and by the end of the 4th lap was feeling much better and saw that I was on par for 7 laps. I continued to push hard and my body started to come around and with the switch to water so did my stomach. Lap 6 I was chasing a few riders around the course and almost killed myself on one of the infamous waterbars. I had forgotten that the last one was pretty major and hit it full on with as much speed as possible. As I soared about 15 feet through the air, I was wondering how they were going to get a stretcher up her into the woods. I could feel the front end of my bike lowering down a bit too much and just figured I was going to kill myself at this point, but luckily I leaned back just enough and pulled it out. I let out a big "whoooo" when I landed. The rider on my wheel gave a "Holy Sh#t; how did you land that one?". Lap 7 was just a final run around, but I must've pulled out a few passes as I moved up quite a bit in the overall. I did manage to jam my chain in the spokes, was passed by a solo rider but fixed it quick and gave it everything to get up and pass him back.

Right now I'm just looking to recover, My man Casey wants to do some scouting for a 100 mile off-road route down in Naples and has some nice new singletrack that he's found. I'm sure that'll be a bitch of a day; 100 miles on the dirt with 15,000 feet or so of climbing. Might get us ready as were going to attempt to pull off the Mountaineer/Highlander Double in September. 35 miles/7,000 ft climbing off-road followed by 100 miles/10,000 ft climbing on the road.


Later
~J

A Nice break

Took a nice little break for a while there. After that huge week with 2 24 hour races and a 200 mile road ride in between, it was time for a little R & R.
My family reunion was on 7/2 and it was nice to see everyone and hang out and drink some beers. It was a long weekend though...
I did manage to scoot out on monday morning for a quick road ride to loosen my legs up. They were quite a bit rusty, and the few extra pounds from the beer swilling and grill fest didn't help (not that much though!).
Yesterday though, I got back on the paragon for a nice ride and to blow everything out with the

6 hours of Power

coming up this weekend I needed to get my head (and body) back in the game.
I took off for a ride down in the usual Bristol/Naples area. Plans were for a nice long one finishing in the dark. I had brought my light with me, but the riding at night thing ended when I crashed on OCP and busted the lens so I had to cut er short. Hopefully I can get it fixed. Trails were in pretty good shape considering all the rain, but damn someone needs to get a weed whacker out there. Mid-summer growth on some of that stuff is unbelievable. The weeds at points are over your head and you are just praying you don't hit something. Not to mention that my arms look like a wild pack of family cats attacked me from all the pricker bushes. I did manage to take a few pics.
Don't gimme any crap, they were taken with my phone! I'm working on getting a good digital camera
I'm too lazy right now to put in all the code to get the fancy stuff working so you get what I give ya!

The setting sun from the top of Ontario County Park (OCP)

Stid Hill Trail



The Long climb up Stid Hill, The pic accurately reflects my vision at the time

Stid Hill Final descent comes right down the ridgeline

Cutler Shale Rock Climb-Cleaned it for the first time in a while



Cutler Orange Trail Overlook