Tour of Ephrata, Summer is here!!!!

So here we are. Another weekend another race. We’re sitting in a hotel room up in the Armish area of PA. This time John Parks and I have prostituted ourselves out once more, this time donning the NCVC jersey for the weekend. The NCVC guys were in need of a couple riders to fill out their roster for the Tour of Ephrata. The guys were very nice to accept us and have us join them for the weekend. Here's a BIG THANK YOU to NCVC!

Today was the road race. A 130k race on flat and windy roads in a “Northern” style of racing. I felt really shit all day, (possibly due to the past few days of riding). The racing was really hard and I suffered like a dog. Not the greatest day in the world but there you go. It was good training if nothing else. The organizers did have the extremely dubious idea of putting cone in the center line in the middle of the road in sections. No surprises it caused a few crashes and incidents! There were a few stupid moments of crashes once again out there today. I still can’t quite figure that out. In 3 races here I’ve already seen more crashes than in 1 year in France. The course was pretty much an oversized crit, and as Roger Hammond said, US riders seem to have an uncontrollable desire to shoot up on the inside on corners, bunching everything up and scaring the crap out of me… but there you go.

It was a warm and sunny day, and we were racing through Amish country, with horse drawn carts and simpler living styles. I love that part of the racing. It’s so cool to be racing through areas that are that different. Overall a pretty good day. We polished the evening off with a cold beer in Ephrata PA, with the NCVC guys, which is the perfect end to a pretty good day! Life could be worse!

Next up is a Team Time Trial tomorrow morning with a steep uphill finish… that’ll be…. Fun? Should at least be a little bit of training for the Team Time Trial Champs the day after I get home in France on the 21st of May. Tomorrow afternoon is the final stage, a washing-machine, I mean Crit in the afternoon… UGH, I hate crits, I SUCK at them!

Finally some miles...

I got 200k in on Sunday, so I figured I was on course for a good training week. I’ve been gradually doing less and less miles each week I’m here, and I’m not feeling really good about it. Monday and Tuesday it rained, so I didn’t do much but drink coffee. But then Wednesday I got in a nice 4.5 hours on the bike in the sun and in relative warmth. Thursday I got in 2 rides totaling 5 hours, this time it was pretty windy but at least it was dry… and Friday I got in another nice 2.5 hours. Looks like the warmer weather is finally heading this way…. Not sure what the future holds in terms of races yet though…

Tour of the Battenkill,

Well, this was actually good fun. It’s nice to do a “real” race again where things are steady and controlled. The gravel sections really weren’t the descider of the race as I thought they would be. I actually did better than I thought I would. I didn’t think I’d finish this race, especially as that “northern classic” stuff isn’t my style of racing… and I hadn’t raced 200k since 2004 in Austria, and the last time I did a “long race” of 175k was at the Tour of Cameroon at the end of 2007 season. My training has also been steadily decreasing since I’ve got to the US. So needless to say, I was pretty happy to finish, even though it was, as Darren Lill said to me in a E-mail “albeit LAST”. I got popped with 40k to go and rode the last 30 odd K alone. That was pretty horrible. I felt like total shit then!

All in all it was a great weekend. I had really good fun, enjoyed the racing. I really want to thank all the guys who helped out up there, gave us feeds etc. Special Thanks to Terry who drove the team car in the caravan having never seen a caravan before, and he did a great job.

Tour of the Battenkill. Pro Invitational

Early start today. We left at 8am… and got here (northern New York state) a little after 5pm. The drive was actually fine, it didn’t feel as long as it sounds, partly thanks to the really spacious and big US vehicles. A drive that long in the Castel Team bus or one of the cars would have felt a lot longer I’m sure.

We went straight to a “Press conference”, and then had a good old New York Pizza for dinner. That was pretty cool! Nicely American!

Apart from that not much to report. Sounds like it might rain for our race on Sunday. That will really suck for me!

In other news Tyler Hamilton has sadly taken a step down from the sport after an out of competition positive drug test for a agent contained in an anti-depression medication he took. It’s a real shame to see Tyler leave the sport that way. No matter what people say the guy is a true legend! Regardless, you can never take away what he has achieved in cycling! It’s also a real shame to know that the US national champion jersey will not be worn in the Pro Peloton this year (even if Tyler’s Team Rock Racing did put together a horrible “version” of the National Champ jersey which was sadly not easy enough to distinguish from the rest of the team jerseys.

Final Battenkill Preparation

Well, it’s done nothing but rain over the day I had really wanted to get out there and ride myself into the ground, before having 3 nice easy days in the run up to what will be a hell of a race. So my final prep has involved a lot of coffee and chatting and relaxing with our hilarious host Greg. Not great for the race, but I’m not complaining, it’s been great! My idea of a perfect morning… get up, have coffee… then another… then another… then… another… and so on.

The race is shaping up to be a big’n. We are traveling up to New York state on Friday with the team. It’s a composite team and John Parks is also on it. So that’ll be cool. We’ve also got a guy from Rock Racing joining us apparently. The rest of the field for the race includes some “real” riders. Floyd Landis will be up there along with teammates Tim Johnson and Bobby Lea. I met Bobby a few years ago in Vegas, and I know his parents a little from Austria. Team Type 1 are sending some good riders. Team BMC will also be there hot off their participation in one of the world’s hardest and most historic races; Paris Roubiax. Also on the start list are some strong riders from the Bissel Pro team of New-Zealander and until last year Albi Velo Sport/AG2R rider Pete Latham. It’s gonna be… fun?!

Fawn-Grove Roubaix

Second race of the season. This was a race up in PA (USA) with a lot of gravel roads. Now this isn’t usually my style of racing. As my “results” indicate I need some long hills usually, and the flat, windy “power” type races are really not for me. But this was going to be one of those “classic” races… and with it being held on the same day as the Tour of Flanders, I couldn’t resist it.

The Race:
Well, I ate Humble Pie for about 2.5 hours. The gravel sections were covered in pretty deep gravel, and there were even downhill corners covered in Gravel. It was pretty hard core! I got put in the hurt-box pretty much from the gun. The first section of gravel was after just about a km or 2… and I was already in trouble. John Parks was out there with me again and he was looking pretty good.

I got dropped from the main group early. John then got a flat and before I knew it he had already caught back up to me. We formed a small 5 or 6 man group and chased hard. John was pretty impressive and was obviously using his experience from all the races he did in northern France. He picked the right moments, and did most of the work to pull our little group back up to the front group after about 20k of racing.

John Parks was looking really good, but 3 flats and he was out...

We were back up at the front with a fighting chance. Then we hit the gravel again, and I was slowly but gradually gapped AGAIN. After a while I had to watch a group of 10 ride away from me. John got another flat from the front group but wasn’t able to get back up to us again this time sadly. It took him a while to get a new wheel… and that one ALSO went flat… so after 3 flats, he was pretty much forced to DNF. Shame as he was looking on for a really solid performance!

I settled into a rhythm and spent most of the rest of the race in a 3 man group. I really wasn’t feeling great at all this weekend, and add in the fact that the race was not suited to me and there wasn’t much I could do. But I have a fair bit of experience in small groups, so we rolled on. We kept the front group of 8 or 9 in our sights for a while, but as I felt I was the one doing 80% of the work in the group, it quickly became clear we weren’t going to get back on, and so I relaxed a bit and the 3 of us shared the work a little more equally.

Our Group of 3: with New York Pez reader Colin Prensky on the right.

In the end we caught a couple of tired guys from the front group, and as we approached the line we were racing for 6th place. There was a fair bit of money for this race, so every place counted. Somehow one of the guys in our group let on that he was a track rider… which was a big mistake. I felt I was stronger than they were, and I had been planning to wait for the finish and outsprint them (or at least try with my pathetic sprinting abilities)… but when I found out he was a track rider, I knew I had NO chance of outsprinting him. So I attacked with 1k to go and held them off to the line, taking a nice little 6th place. Not a bad result. I didn’t really feel satisfied at the end of the day as I had suffered more than I felt I should have. I didn’t feel like I deserved that 6th place as I didn’t really go out and get it, I felt like I sat back, let the race control me rather than me controlling the race.

That all being said, it was a very fun race. One of those races that is horrible to do, but is fun to have done! Good race, fun day, and one to be remembered!
Thanks to John Neusbaum for taking me up to the race in his massive truck which was very spacious and comfortable on such a long trip.

What next? Not sure. I’ve been feeling pretty flat on the bike for the past 2 weeks. I think that until now I’ve been riding on borrowed fitness from AUS, and now my lack of proper training (due to the cold and shitty weather) is starting to kick in. So a nice weekend of riding whilst watch Paris Roubaix on TV hopefully, and then next weekend is the big 200k dirt race up in New York state with Floyd Landis and Time Johnson among others. That should be fun.