Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Upen races, DONATE!

I'll keep it short and sweet . . .

First off, I'm BEGGING you all, my wonderful readers and devoted friends/family/fans and the people who keep me motivated and going 110%, to PLEASE DONATE ANY SMALL AMOUNT TO MY TEAM, CICLISMO RACING!! It means a ton to us and we'll get you hooked up with the bi-weekly team newsletter, and with your help we'll even be able to afford chamois cream.









Here is a link to sign up for our NEWSLETTER, and here is the flyer for our soon-to-be-famous launch party:


On Saturday I had planned to ride from Princeton down to the Philly circuit race, do the race, and ride home. Well, I got started a touch late and ended up doing a decently hard TT with a full backpack on for two hours, only to get hopelessly lost in a great part of North Philly (wink wink). I ended up watching the race and heckling some guys, then rode home. But again, the ride home was a bear because I had a headwind the whole way and took an even longer, more circuitous route! ARGH. Got home after 6+ hours of riding and 5000kJ.


Notice the large spike in HR and elevation at around mile 50? That's the Manayunk Wall! Brought back many fond memories . . . it's crazy to just ride it after only racing on it, and it definitely hurts at the top!!


The team got up before dawn on Sunday (I didn't even get off my bike on Saturday until 8PM!) to drive down and race the TTT and criterium. We rode the TTT on our fast bikes, but did about 85% to just get things smooth and figure out our communication and rotation. We pushed it a little near the end, but were really happy with how controlled and smooth the effort was. We won by over 20 seconds!


The criterium was a very fast but easy race on a wide-open flat course with only three huge, smooth turns. A sprint finish if I've ever guessed a race correctly! With 6 laps to go, a break had been off the front with a consistent ~10 second gap for much of the race, and Austin and I finally decided enough is enough so we got to the front and ripped it. We had a lot of help from Chris Ruhl which lead us to bring the break back in just under 3 laps! Argh . . . to early. After some amazing late-race moves by UVM and the ever-powerful Josh Lipka, Austin and I did our best to get Big Bennette a leadout. I was tapped out just about 50 meters too early, and Nick had to do the whole final drag against UVM's endless stream of guys--he got third to a fast Colin J and a coordinated UVM team effort. Kudos.


Now I've been locked in my room for over a day writing my nuclear physics paper--AHHHHHHH!!! Then tonight/tomorrow I have to do my automatic control systems take-home midterm--DOUBLE AHHHHHHHHH!!!

"Just four weeks left, Nick . . . "

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