Holly Crap...

Photo from Lyne Lamoureux. Checked out podiuminsight.com?

Has it really been since Pilly that I last updated this thing? Ouch, sorry. No matter, here is the scoop:

Philly- DAMN! Good legs all day. Came into the finish ready to dump 5 buckets worth of sprint and ended up dropping anchor when a few guys stacked it in front of me. boo to crashes at the front.

Beauce- WHERE IS THE FLOW???? Had really good legs all of Beauce, but just could never find the flow. Hit 5 moves, 6th one goes... Spend all day killing it trying to get something going, nothing goes... So frustrating. Oh well, it was a good learning experience.

And the fluff- Since Beauce I have just been laying low soaking up all the supreme radness of Boulder, Colorado. Summer has been good to me. Been training hard (had THE BIGGEST day on a bike ever last week) but not too hard. Mentally fresh and physically fit. That's the way to be. Made a trip to Dead Dog. Raced my little booty off and got in some fun high altitude camping. I have decided that pasta is only worth eating when cooked over an open flame and mixed w/ beans and tuna. Doesn't hurt when a cute girl cooks it either...

The Future?- "Training Camp: Goin' Colombo '09" officially kicks off this evening with the "Aero Dinner." We are going to slam it in prep for the second half of the season. Motor pace the valleys and race the climbs; that's how we are going to get our babies off Top Ramen. After camp it's Cascade, Nationals, Utah, and hopefully Missoura.

Hopefully update sooner rather than later,
alex

P.S. Walker was the very deserving winner of the mustache competition. Well played good sir, well played.

Brotherly Love

Little interview with me and Holloway after Philly. We did the interview at a pub after 6:30hrs of racing and a couple of brews so be warned...

http://www.podiuminsight.com/2009/06/09/daniel-holloway-on-his-philly-adventure-or-if-you-wave-we-will-drink/

Philly Prep '09

Couple of long rides between Roubaix and Philly. Jet lag is gone. Head is great. Legs are good. I have plenty of Clif bars, agua and an atitude. Got nothing better to do other than rock the socks off of Philly.

Bring it.

Roubaix '09

This race is stupid hard. Made it through the first few pave sections with the group no problemo. With about 80km to go I heard Kirk yelling, "HOWES!!!!!!!!" from about 20 riders back. Flat tire. Boo. Seeing as he was one of the leaders on the day my front wheel was now his front wheel. I sent him on his way, waited for the cars (loooong wait) then chased until I though my poor little heart was going to pop. Rolled up on Holloway who was in the early break and tossed out the parachute. Even with just rolling the last 50km my legs were still trashed the next day. Not to mention my hands and back. Huge props to Taytay Phinny for winning in the velodrome. Guess all that time on the track paid off.

Training for Philly/Beauce right meow. So ready to get back on the road and in the races!

alex

Just A Little Warning If You See Me Sometime In the Next Couple of Weeks...

ANNOUNCING the First Annual FELT-HOLOWESKO PARTNERS-GARMIN
Mustache Growing Contest!

Grow your 'stache! Impress your friends! Alienate loved ones!Any rider, staff, or sponsor welcome to comptete in the First Annual F-H-G Mustache Competition. There will be only two categories - Men and Women. The competition will end on June 14, 2009 and correspond with the final stage of the 2009 Tour de Beauce. If unavailable to attend the final judging ceremonies in Quebec please send detailed photos and Mustache CV via email todaimowrench@******.com. Daimeon Shanks (beloved inventor of the exclamation point and mechanic for Felt-Holowesko Partners-Garmin) will be judging the competiton. Although Daimeon will be recusing himself for the competition, he will be growing a 'sympathy' mustache.Mustaches will be judged on a variety of categories including (but not limited to):
- Volume
- Moxy
- Stick-to-it-tuiness
- Longevity
- Frenchness
- Swagger
- Firefighterness
- Dancability
and others!

Winner will receive an All-Expenses-Paid trip to their local barber for a mustache shave!*Please forward this email to any appropriate colleagues or interested parties (my email address book is NOT complete!).

Sincerly,

The Commitee for the First Annual FELT-HOLOWESKO-PARTNERS Mustache Growing Contestc/o Daimeon Shanks

Pic From Olympias

April and May

Dang, it has been a while since I have updated this thing eh? Sorry about that. I guess I just kind of forgot I even had a blog. Thanks for the reminder ma. Ok since it has been so long I will revert to bullets to save us all precious time and to save me the effort of organizing things in to paragraphs.

• Sea Otter- That race is a zoo! So many people out there. Great trip all around. Road tippin' out there with Daimo and the BB guns was heaps of fun, crashing at Holloway's was easy on the body and mind (thanks again to the Holloways for putting me up!), and the races were just the right kind of hard. Highlight of the racing was spending over 1/3 of the race off the front solo. Didn't win but it was still rad.
  


• Dana Point- Amazing part of Cali. Got the full Dana Point tour from Steve Blick. Muchos Gracias senior. Big thanks to Coryn Rivera for letting me and Holloway crash there for a couple of nights! The race was... well... a crit. I survived just fine and bridged up to the late race break away. We got got. FYI if I bridge up to a break it will get caught. Happened at Sea Otter and Dana and it will happen again I am sure.
  


• The Gila- What a race. France Armstrong and crew decided to show up along with every Armstrong fan in NM. Pretty cool seeing one of my favorite races blow up into such a spectacle. Even cooler is showing up with the legs and head to pull off a couple of podiums. Stetina was riding real fast like and the whole team rose to the occasion. Aside from racing old man Stetina home, I would say the highlight of the trip has to be having out team running around Walker's beat up Subaru before the TT tying to get everything together with the Astana crew set up right next to us in a giant plush bus. Nothing like stealing raisin bran from the hotel so you can throw blows with Levi, Lance, and Horner. Oh, and a HUGE thank you to Dale Stetina and Steve Owens for all there help at the Gila. Those two did the work of 5 staff members and did it well.
  


• Between Gila and Europe- Thought it might be worth mentioning since there might be some questionable photos of me popping up on the internet, graduation season is awesome. Almost makes me want to go back to school. Almost.
  


• Olympias Tour- That race was nuts. Give a man an inch and he will take 10 miles. Going into this race I figured it was just another race. Turns out it was the Dutch world championships or something to that effect. Just thinking about taking a drink of water would put you in the cars and moving into the top ten required the fee of a first born child and a brain aneurysm. Regardless, the race was a relative success. We took 4th in the TTT, Raymond only finished outside of the top 10 once (that kid is a f**king rocket!), I won the most aggressive rider jersey on the 5th stage, and Caleb had an AMAZING day on the last day to pull of 2nd on the day and 6th overall.

So what is up next? Paris-Roubax! The team is wicked motivated and there are good legs all around. Aside from a couple of little head colds, we're all firing well. Tomorrow, we will be previewing the course with the national team and possibly with the Livestrong crew. After that it is off to Philly and Beauce. Really, Really motivated for both of those. If all goes as planned, I should be going mach 10.

Bueno. That is all I have for now. I will let y'all know how Roubaix goes down.

Cheers,
alex