My pride hurts. Not because I've finished off the back every day so far (although that dosn't help...) but because, for the first time in my life, I failed to pee on comand. Yup, I got pulled for a randome doping control today and after 157km in scorching heat w/ about 5 fewer bottles than I needed I was 100% empty. Well ok, not 100% empty. The minimum amout was 75cl. I Mustered up 60cl. Close but no cigar. That 15cl difference was made up after consuming 3liters of water and waiting for 45min in a sweltering room. Talk about perfect recovery. Lets all hope I pass.
Ok, I'd talk more but my room mate has decided it's bed time. Shit, what time is it? 9pm. Humm, he must be tired. Perhaps he should have finished off the back to save some energy like me!
Laters,
alex
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Monday, July 28, 2008
Surfin' France
Paris is cool. The Tour is cooler. Tour de France after parties are even cooler. And all of that with KT and crew is as cool as it comes.
Fun and games end in 9hrs and it's off to Alsace. From what I hear this race is no, "walk." what ever that means.
alex
Fun and games end in 9hrs and it's off to Alsace. From what I hear this race is no, "walk." what ever that means.
alex
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Monday, July 21, 2008
training camp and the tour
training camp is gong well. the mountains are majestic. i'm tired. i saw the tour for the first time in my life yesterday. it was really cool but i had to ride 4hrs in the rain and stand on the side of the road for 15min just to see it. not sure i would do that agin. but, danny pate looked good.
cyber cafes are expensive and i miss my querty key board. i've been out for 5hrs 45min today and my pacence is pretty low.
off to climb the 4 miles home,
alex
cyber cafes are expensive and i miss my querty key board. i've been out for 5hrs 45min today and my pacence is pretty low.
off to climb the 4 miles home,
alex
Friday, July 18, 2008
Summer Time
Well it’s definitely summer time! Yeah the heat is a good indicator of the current season but an even better indicator is the amount of ink on my calendar. Leaving for the alps today. Excited to get some good quality altitude training in with a group of really strong (and a couple of English speakers!) riders. I’ll even most likely get the chance to see a bit of the Tour’ up close! After 8 days in the alps a five hour train ride will land me in Paris for a few days chillin’ with the Slipstream staff (and the lovely Katie Merritt) and some quality Tour’ watching/ English speaking. From Paris it’s off to the six day, Tour d’Alsace. Which if I’m correct, which I think I am… crisscrosses the boarders of France and Germany.
Not quite as crazy as years past (did the math from last year: significant time spent in 13 states and 4 countries for the year’s total) but hey, at least I’ll be out of the house!
alex
Not quite as crazy as years past (did the math from last year: significant time spent in 13 states and 4 countries for the year’s total) but hey, at least I’ll be out of the house!
alex
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Portugal
Well, Portugal wasn’t exactly easy….
I know I was completely wrong in dreaming of warm sun, sandy beaches, beautiful Portuguese women, relaxed racing, and an all round good time as I made the pilgrimage to the wholly land of pain last Monday. A man can dream right? Alas, it was little more than a dream. I’m sure many of you have heard the rumors of the insanity of Portuguese racing and listened to the tails told by Pro Tour riders who, upon returning to their native lands, preached nothing but shocking tails of distain, pain, and caravan surfing. So I won’t elaborate too much on the racing side of things and give you a quick day by day:
Stage 1- “Wow I hope my legs wake up for tomorrow because spending 36hrs traveling from the states then driving 18hrs to Portugal has me in the hurt locker”
Stage 2- “F***!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I could have F***ING WON THAT F***ING SPRINT!!!!!!!!!!!!! F***!!! I’M GOING TO KILL THAT LITTLE PORTUGUESE PIECE OF SH*T TOMORROW!!!! (I got 21st after being 4th wheel w/ 1km to the finish before being nearly killed…. lame)
After stage 2- Seriously contemplating crawling down the stairs to dinner. Legs giving out
Stage 3- “F***!!!!! I SHOULD HAVE MADE THAT BREAK!!!! F***!!! (Shortly after….) “Boy I’m sure glad I didn’t make that break because there’s no way in hell I’d be able to make it over all these climbs”
Stage 4- “Oh Sh*t. Did I really forget to eat for 40km? Looks like I’ll be finishing off the back. I sure do hope they don’t make me ride to the hotel after the race…. Damn it.
Stage 5- “I love circuit races and I slept for 12hrs like a dead man last night! I feel great!.... This is not a circuit race. A 4km climb with a 4km decent is torture.”
All things considering (lots and lots of travel, spare bike that kinda fit (if you can consider a 3cm longer reach “in the ball park”)) I did ok. Nothing special and I did finish off the back on a few days but at least I was still givin’ it hell and making the cracked out (I’m not necessarily saying they’re all dopers but every single one of them is twitchy as hell on the bike…) Portuguese earn their podium kisses. If nothing else it brought me up another level on the toughness scale. A few more races like this and I’ll be up to Clint Eastwood tough.
Anyways, w/ zero regard to the racing, Portugal was pretty damn cool. We stayed in a tiny little Mom and Pop hotel just above a local bar. Aside from the toothless 90 year old men and poorly camouflaged transvestites the place was pretty cozy. There were even a couple of English movies on one of the 4 TV channels! Yeah, Fast and the Furious 2! Although, I’m still trying to understand the meaning behind the psychedelic heard of running horses that would play in substitution of commercials… I think I want to join the Portuguese army?
All our food was home made (the first time I saw the kitchen counter covered w/ dead rabbits I was a bit shocked until I realized their purpose) by a small army of semi toothless old women. And any hair found in the food was quickly forgotten with a smile from the granddaughter who worked behind the bar. The sun was hot, nights were cool and the breeze was always the perfect temperature. We stayed 20 km from the ocean and the day we arrived we were granted the rare opportunity to go on an unstructured team ride to the beach. I took advantage of the situation and can now say I’ve jumped in on both sides of the Atlantic! At the risk of sounding cheesy, I think it’s safe to say my dreams came true. Portugal, I’m coming back for you someday.
I know I was completely wrong in dreaming of warm sun, sandy beaches, beautiful Portuguese women, relaxed racing, and an all round good time as I made the pilgrimage to the wholly land of pain last Monday. A man can dream right? Alas, it was little more than a dream. I’m sure many of you have heard the rumors of the insanity of Portuguese racing and listened to the tails told by Pro Tour riders who, upon returning to their native lands, preached nothing but shocking tails of distain, pain, and caravan surfing. So I won’t elaborate too much on the racing side of things and give you a quick day by day:
Stage 1- “Wow I hope my legs wake up for tomorrow because spending 36hrs traveling from the states then driving 18hrs to Portugal has me in the hurt locker”
Stage 2- “F***!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I could have F***ING WON THAT F***ING SPRINT!!!!!!!!!!!!! F***!!! I’M GOING TO KILL THAT LITTLE PORTUGUESE PIECE OF SH*T TOMORROW!!!! (I got 21st after being 4th wheel w/ 1km to the finish before being nearly killed…. lame)
After stage 2- Seriously contemplating crawling down the stairs to dinner. Legs giving out
Stage 3- “F***!!!!! I SHOULD HAVE MADE THAT BREAK!!!! F***!!! (Shortly after….) “Boy I’m sure glad I didn’t make that break because there’s no way in hell I’d be able to make it over all these climbs”
Stage 4- “Oh Sh*t. Did I really forget to eat for 40km? Looks like I’ll be finishing off the back. I sure do hope they don’t make me ride to the hotel after the race…. Damn it.
Stage 5- “I love circuit races and I slept for 12hrs like a dead man last night! I feel great!.... This is not a circuit race. A 4km climb with a 4km decent is torture.”
All things considering (lots and lots of travel, spare bike that kinda fit (if you can consider a 3cm longer reach “in the ball park”)) I did ok. Nothing special and I did finish off the back on a few days but at least I was still givin’ it hell and making the cracked out (I’m not necessarily saying they’re all dopers but every single one of them is twitchy as hell on the bike…) Portuguese earn their podium kisses. If nothing else it brought me up another level on the toughness scale. A few more races like this and I’ll be up to Clint Eastwood tough.
Anyways, w/ zero regard to the racing, Portugal was pretty damn cool. We stayed in a tiny little Mom and Pop hotel just above a local bar. Aside from the toothless 90 year old men and poorly camouflaged transvestites the place was pretty cozy. There were even a couple of English movies on one of the 4 TV channels! Yeah, Fast and the Furious 2! Although, I’m still trying to understand the meaning behind the psychedelic heard of running horses that would play in substitution of commercials… I think I want to join the Portuguese army?
All our food was home made (the first time I saw the kitchen counter covered w/ dead rabbits I was a bit shocked until I realized their purpose) by a small army of semi toothless old women. And any hair found in the food was quickly forgotten with a smile from the granddaughter who worked behind the bar. The sun was hot, nights were cool and the breeze was always the perfect temperature. We stayed 20 km from the ocean and the day we arrived we were granted the rare opportunity to go on an unstructured team ride to the beach. I took advantage of the situation and can now say I’ve jumped in on both sides of the Atlantic! At the risk of sounding cheesy, I think it’s safe to say my dreams came true. Portugal, I’m coming back for you someday.
Sunday, July 6, 2008
F$#% NWA!
If I'm lucky I'll get to race a five day stage race in Portugal on a spare bike.... If I'm lucky. France shuts down on Sundays and we leave tomorrow at 6:30am.
Remind me again why I got on the plane...
Saturday, July 5, 2008
Flash update
Just got back to France after a looonnngggg day of travel. I thought I'd be able to just jump back into the swing of things over here but, there's no denying the fact that my French has started to rust and a brief taste of home has only left me wanting more. Oh well, no time to cry. I leave for Portugal on the 7th. Just enough time to wash my dirty cloths and take the tub of peanut butter out of my abused and over used bag. Any ways, as the title promises here's a quick list of all the rad things that went down over the last few weeks-
- Tour of PA - Wow, what a race! Felt amazing to be racing back in the states and it felt even better to be racing w/ a group of guys who are not only some of the best in the peleton but some of my best friends! Awards taken are as follows:
- Team GC (as Walker will tell you, it's a big deal because we all got jearsys)
- Climbers jearsy (Won by Peter Stetina after some of the most hardcore racing I've ever seen. Took a couple of pages out of the, "Eastern Block Book for Bikers - We Break Legs for breakfast"
- Best young rider - Won by Peter Salons. If you count nail sanwiches and horse semen recovery shakes* as doping than that kid is jacked.
- Most agressive rider jearsy on 2 stages - I had it one day and Stetina had it the next day.
- Oh yeah, almost forgot..... we won 2 stages! One of them was live on national television! Both were won by Daniel Holloway. That kid is FAST! Everybody was saying how amazing we were as a team riding on the front in the crits trying to set it up for Holloway. Fact is, is that it ain't hard to go hard when you know you've got a guy like Holloway to seal the deal at the end.
- Home - I could write a full book of the events that took place but I'll spare you the details.
- 8hr rides trying to cover every inch of the front range roads I love so much.
- Farmer's market loitering
- Levi's 21st and a steller Hat party
- Goodwill shopping
- Rock climbing (Fred and Vaughters, if you're reading this right now you can go ahead and ignore that last bullet...)
- 2 crashes (one stupid one in a construction zone and one on live television)
- One potato gun shooting (may the Kelly Cannon live forever)
All of that is topped off w/ a healthy serving of quality laughs, tasty food, hugs, and good ol' Colorado livin'.
Well then, It's been 29hrs since I last had a wink of solid snoozin' so I'm off to bed.
Happy late 4th of July,
alex
*The Slovok never actually ingested nails or horse semen...
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