some new stuff

Well new equipment keeps coming in. I finally got my carbon frame, I've been using an alloy one thats much heavier. Now the bike weights 7.0 kg as pictured with the SRM and rides as smooth as butter. Its the best bike I have ever ridden, SL2 included.

Who cares about brand name when the bike is this nice.

I've also finally gotten my new Time shoes, which seem to fit really well on first impressions. I definitely won't be having any heel problems like I did with the Specialized shoes since the heel cup is so tall and secure.

The only thing left to get is a new saddle, I've had this Toupe for two years and I think after that crash in Mergelland, its past its best. Take a close look at the rails
Ok, time to go out and enjoy the sunshine.

an up and down few days

This weekend we did 4 local one day races in Denmark, the first one on Friday was a time trial and then three road races each of the next 3 days. The TT was decent for me, I didn't set any records, but I placed in the money and was off the winner by 1:10. And that was after cracking slightly in the last 3 km. The power wasn't spectacular, but at least my position is good. After 3 years of working on it, I can finally say that I don't think I can really get into a position that is too much better. All it took was getting onto the smallest Cervelo they make, but hey, it works.

The first road race had 1300 meters of gravel each lap and we did 10 laps for a total of 157 km. It was pretty predicable: we went hard in the gravel each time, then there would be a ton of attacks on the roads after the gravel, then about half way through the race a good break went with all of the teams represented and we sat up. Then after it was obvious that the break wasn't coming back, we started attacking again until anyone who still felt like racing was off the front of the peleton. I was in a good group and we were catching a bunch of guys in front of us, but as we hit the gravel for the last time I started getting dropped a bit and instead of fighting it out for what I though was 25th place, I sat up and took it easy. Turns out we were racing for 13th and some decent money, so that was definitely my mistake. Next time I'll just go to the line, an extra 5 minutes of suffering won't kill me. We had Berling and Luthando in the break and Luthando went with the guy who won but couldn't get on when the winner attacked him and faded to 7th, but Berling won the sprint for 2nd.

Then Sunday was basically terrible. It was a flat, windy race with a lot of slow corners that we would sprint out of each lap. I felt like I was on the limit from the start and was basically useless all day. With 40 km to go I was actually getting dropped from the "peleton" which at this point was just all of the guys who weren't off the front. I'm going to put it down to dehydration cause I ended up drinking a lot during the race and a whole lot more afterwards. Our director, Michael Skelde, told me to go for an hour spin after I got home and had something to eat, so I did it and it seemed like it may have helped. It was hard to tell since I was completely cracked though.

Then yesterday was better, much better. I was a part of the race and set up our best sprinter to get into the break of the day. He easily could have won the race, but messed up the finish a bit by showing his strength too early so everyone was staring at him in the finale. Honestly the best way to picture these local races in Denmark is a mix between a collegiate crit and the aggie race ride, but for 3 hours, and with a 100 guys who are all pretty good. Basically its just attack after attack until they all get a bit tired, then they take it easy for 10 minutes, then they do it again. Repeat, repeat, until the break goes that all of the teams are basically happy with, then pause for 10 minutes, then repeat. Honestly its not a kind of racing that I am good at, all of those sprints basically fry my legs. My 850 watt max power is just not cutting it, and I end up having to spend some time in the wind closing gaps more slowly. I would really prefer if we could just go super hard for like 30 minutes and then I could actually have a shot of getting away. These races basically cater to my biggest weakness, so at least I'll get better because of it.

So far here in Denmark, I have been using an aluminum bike, but the team finally got the carbon frames that the rest of the guys use in the 58cm size so I spent the day moving my all of my parts over to it. I still need to cut the steerer tube down so that I don't have 3cm of spacers above my stem, but I'll take a picture and give you a rough weight tomorrow. Even with the SRM is should be right at 6.8 kg or maybe even a bit lighter with race wheels. Its pretty sweet. Who cares about brand names when the bike is super light and stiff. Only problem is that we've already broken 4 frames this season, so they don't exactly stand up well to shocks. But I'm tired of crashing, so it shouldn't be a problem.

Speaking of broken (and I appologize for this post getting increasingly rediculously long), we have managed to break 3 cars in the last week. First, at Mergelland our team car was rear ended in the caravan and needs a new bumper and rear door. Then Luthando got our team van stuck in a ditch, one of the sponsors was able to drive it out eventually, but not before doing some serious damage to the clutch. So although it made it to the TT on Friday, when we attempted to drive back it wouldn't get into gear and wouldn't move, luckily there was some extra space in some other cars and we all made it back home that night, but the van had to get towed back a day later. And then some really nice mechanic replace the clutch on Easter Sunday so that that van could go to France this week for the Tour de Loire. Then on the drive back from the race on Saturday, one of the backwards facing bikes on our second team car didn't have the rear wheel tied down and swung around on the highway and dented the roof and smashed the rear window. Because that car also had to go to France this week, they took the rear widow out of our first team car and just covered the hole with plastic. Now that first car is with the insurance people and the second car is in France doing the race and looking almost normal. Basically it hasn't been a lucky start to the season for me or the team. But what can you do other then just hope that it stops.

PS. Promise to have more photos on this blog soon. I am just bad at taking them.

Oh man, when will it end?

This weekend I started the Hel van het Mergelland a UCI 1.1 race. It was in the Ardennes, following a similar course to the Amstel Gold race, so a course that is pretty good for me, full of climbs between 1 and 4 kilometers long. Present were Milram, Lotto, and Rabobank, as well as a half dozen good Pro Continental teams. The race started off super fast like I expected but I managed to move up to the top 30 as we hit the first climbs. Going up I felt really good, the pace was fast but not at all difficult and I could basically move up whenever I wanted to on the climbs. Then 15 km into the race we were going down long gradual right sweeping turn when guys in front of me ran into each other and then suddenly there were a bunch of guys on the ground in front of me. I slammed on my brakes and went from 55 km/hr to about 20 km/hr until I eventually ran into one of them and hit the ground. I was basically ok, although my right knee is a bit bruised and swollen, but my bike was messed up. I had to stand there for a minute and a half before it was even rideable and even then I couldn't use my 11, 19, 21, and 23 cogs because my derailleure hanger was so bent. I chased and got to within 200m of the back of the field and then exploded. Eventually rolled home with a group of 6 guys who were also dropped for one reason or another. Mathias Gade had an awesome ride for a 19 year old to finish in the peleton for 41st place, he is two years younger then the second youngest finisher.

At least I got a good photo taken:

Then yesterday I did the GP de la Ville de Nogent-sur-Oise, a UCI 1.2. Considering I didn't finish the day before they put me to work covering all of the attacks and chasing down dangerous moves that we missed. I rode pretty well and did a ton of work, but 30 km to go we missed a big move of about 25 and so we needed to get to the front right away to start chasing. Three of us made it to the front. I was the last guy and when I got to the front they still had a decent gap so I ended up spending 1.5 km on the front going 50 km/hr to catch the break. I did it, but the problem was that I caught them 500m before the start of a decent 2km hill. Being at the limit before the bottom of the last real hill in a race is not usually a good idea and so I just missed the front split over the top. And my day was done. Berling had been saving himself the whole day and had good legs coming up to the finish but got a puncture with 10 km to go so he could not get back to the front before the spint. So basically it was an unlucky weekend all around. But oh well, there are plenty more races this year starting with the four I do this coming weekend.

I just gotta stop falling off my bike.

Just riding around

Well not much has happened since I got back from Germany, I had a recovery week on the bike so I didn't ride too much this week. The weather has gotten much nicer from the snow we had last week and I even took off my gloves for the last hour of the ride today. The sun felt good. I am just about done packing to go to Holland and France for this weekend. Saturday's Hel van het Mergelland is going to be one tough race. The start list includes Baden Cooke, pro tour teams Milram, Rabobank, and Silence-Lotto, and a bunch of Pro Continental teams. Luckily the weather is supposed to be pleasant so hopefully I'll be able to last better on the climbs then some of these pro guys. We'll see. Sunday we drive to France and do a 1.2 UCI race, which should be much flatter, and windier, and after Mergelland it will probably seem pretty easy.

Meanwhile here are a few sights that I encounter training basically every day.
The local park in the center of Horsens:

Some of the local scenery, I will take more when I get back, some of the views from the hill tops can be really nice.Finally, one of the perks of living in Denmark:

North Germany

This weekend we drove an hour and a half south to northern Germany where we did the Rund um Ascheffel on Saturday and the Giro Nortorf on Sunday. The races were pretty small and were basically dominated by 3 Danish teams and 1 German team. So although there were 100 guys on the start both days, the race was really about 30. The first day the weather was pretty terrible, it was about 40 degrees (5* C) and raining pretty hard. The course was a bit rolling and had a good hill right after the finish line, we did a total of 7 laps. The first half was pretty hard with non stop attacks. I put in a few good efforts and followed countless others but all that really happened was that we dropped 70% of the field in that first hour. Then eventually a 9 man break did go and we had Luthando and Nicolai there, so we were pretty happy at first. However, Luthando had a wheel problem and had to stop to fix so he was out of the break. Back in the field we started to ride a false tempo to try and stay warm and to give our guy in the break a reason to sit on so that he could say we were riding behind. Regardless, I froze solid and for the last 45 minutes I was having a hard time peddaling my bike. I was dressed well for NorCal rain, but this was significantly colder so once the race slowed down, it was definitely not enough. At least I learned for next time. Anyway, the break stayed away, but Nicolai cracked a bit and only managed 7th.

The Giro Nortorf was held on a super flat course. I mean Davis flat, there were two overpasses per lap over the freeway and that was the only elevation change on the whole course. We did 11 laps that were 11km each. At least the weather was better, it was a few degrees warmer and dry, the sun would even poke through every now and again. Basically it was a bit of a repeat of the day before, with countless attacks in the first hour and a half untill a break of 7 went and we had Ricky Enø in it who is one of our better sprinters so we were pretty happy. Once that happened we focused on following any attacks that went from the peleton and trying to go off in small groups to give our guy up the road more excuses to do less work. In the end the break stayed away, but only by about 5 seconds on the line and Ricky got 2nd. Berling tried his hand in the sprint and finished up there, but I am not sure exactly where. I rolled in mid pack for like 30th place.

Overall it was a pretty good weekend, but I was hurting a bit on Sunday. I think freezing on Saturday definitely hurt my body a bit for the next day. That and I felt like I swallowed a gallon of muddy water, which may not be far from the truth, so my stomach was feeling a bit wierd for the rest of the weekend. This is a much needed rest week so I will chill for a while, but then this weekend I am doing Mergelland which is going to be quite wickedly hard. Probably the hardest race of my life so far. Its going to be sweet.

Well at least its not raining....

....even if it was snowing. That was the view from the front window of my house this morning. It got me a bit worried, but actually by about noon the snow was basically gone and although I got hit by a couple of light flurries in the first hour of my ride, the day turned out to be pretty nice by Danish standards. It was like 36 and sunny after about 1 or 2pm.

As you can see today I actually went to the store and got a download cable for my camera, so this blog will have some visual aids from now on. Although I admit I'm pretty bad about taking pictures, so don't expect that many. While I was parking in front of the store to go buy said download cable I managed to completely ignore some signs and park in a space reserved for something or other. So in the half hour I was inside the store I managed to get a 510 DKK ticket, which is about $90. When I came back I looked at the signs and they clearly said that the space was reserved for something, I didn't really figure out what, but I was pretty clearly not supposed to park there. You'd think after living in Berkeley for 4 years with its "interesting" parking system, I'd have learned to look carefully at the signs, but no such luck. Oh well, you live you learn.

Tomorrow we have the team presentation where we get to ride our bikes onto a stage and then mingle with important people afterwords. Should be fun times.

End of the honeymoon

Well the honeymoon with the Danish weather ended today. So far the weather has been basically pleasant everyday. We've had a lot of sunshine and even when it was cloudy it was still pretty warm. Today, however, that changed. It is currently about 36 Fahrenheit and raining and snowing at the same time, not perfect cycling weather by any measure.

It doesn't help that yesterday I crashed again, the second time in 9 days. It was completely idiotic too, I was taking off my cycling hat from under my helmet since I was getting too warm. Then soon after I put my helmet back on, but still when I had both hands off the bars I came out from the shelter of some trees and got hit by a 20 mph crosswind gust that just sent my front wheel skipping away from under me. I am not quite sure what I was thinking riding with no hands on a day that had 20 mph winds gusting up to 30 mph. Basically it was stupid. I usually crash about 3 times in a season. In the last month and a half I have now crashed three times. At this rate it means I am either going to have a really painful season, or I am done crashing for the year. I am hoping for the latter. I just need to remember to not be an idiot.

Oh well at least I have all day to ride and considering my crash yesterday its only for two hours, so I am going to wait it out and see if it gets better, the forcast seems to think it will be done before 5pm, so I may sneak in my ride then, before dark.