Easterns win and US Air Force Cycling Classic on Sunday!

I'll keep this short because I need to go to bed.  Last weekend went very well--the Princeton team kicked things off with a decisive win by 30 seconds over Dartmouth in the Team Time Trial at their home weekend hosting the Eastern Conference Championships.  Then I went away solo in the crit after about 10 minutes and lapped the field before going off the front again to win it handily.  I was hacking up a storm as I had been sick for the past couple of days, but the legs went well and the team worked things to perfection!  It is a great feeling to finally get towards my racing form, and this win does a lot for my confidence going into my first season as a professional.  I was also psyched to see a new record 1hr normalized power of 390 watts, with 376 average, for a nice FTP of 5.20 watts/kg.  Not bad for a big time-trialist!

On Sunday the road race from Hell began: 102 miles and two 1500 foot climbs each time around the two laps.  Nick Bennette and I pulled out 65 miles in to keep from burying ourselves, while Austin trucked away in the front group before going into the sprint blindly and finishing in the middle of what was left of the field.

I have been taking it super easy this week and am now feeling excellent!  I have been doing a lot with school and Sol Cycles so it has not been a stress-free rest week, but the legs are feeling completely fresh now.  I will do some openers tomorrow, then drive down to Arlington, VA on Saturday afternoon for the US Air Force Cycling Classic.  This is a USA Pro Tour race, UCI 1.2, with all the major teams from Georgia.  It is 150km on a 12.5km circuit with only one 100 foot hill in there at about 5%.  Basically it will be a super-fast circuit race but probably finish in a sprint.  I am excited to do my first BIG race with TIME, including Jon Hamblen, Dan Ramsey, Tom Soladay, Jered Gruber, Erik Barlevav, and Andy Baker.

Here is a map and profile of the course.  It looks pretty sweet, as it travels around the Pentagon and includes the Armed Forces memorial roundabout!

I'll have an update after this Sunday.

AHHHHH, FORM!

Sorry for not posting for 3 weeks--it has been a very busy time!  I will keep this one short in anticipation of a longer one after Easterns at Dartmouth this weekend.

First of all: Sol Cycles is in the Daily Princetonian!

Second of all: I got 11th at Battenkill after leading out the sprint!  I was one of only 19 guys to make the final selection . . . the race was awesome and went very well for me, I am definitely finding my racing legs.  In case you have never heard of this race, here is a great description from Cyclingnews.com:

Largest one-day US race set for April

The 2008 Tour of the Battenkill Cycling Race in Salem, New York has become the largest one-day race in the United States, organisers announced Thursday. With 1200 current registrants, the race has already surpassed Monterey California's Sea Otter Classic, and more than 1600 racers from across the US and Canada are expected to race on April 19.

The event, which is hosted in cooperation with the Towns & Villages of the Battenkill Valley will benefit Farm Team Cycling of Cambridge – an area Junior-level cycling team, and the Public Libraries of Southern Washington County, NY. Starting and finishing in the rural village of Salem, New York the race features one of the most challenging and unique race courses on the North American calendar with a single 55 mile loop, rolling countryside, direct passes through small villages, covered bridges, and the un-paved roads that have become the race's trademark.

Challenging sections of the course include Juniper Swamp Road in the Town of Salem – a 1/4 mile un-paved climb with a 15% grade, Meeting House and Becker Roads in Easton – four very difficult un-paved climbs that come late in the course, and the challenging climb up Willard Mountain at mile 30.

The Elite and Professional Men will race on an extended 82 mile course that will feature the rarely-traveled McKie Hollow Road in the Town of White Creek – a half-mile unpaved climb that averages 12-15% in grade, and a final seven mile circuit in the Town of Salem. Along the way, racers will pass directly through the Villages of Cambridge and Greenwich giving spectators several opportunities to see the race.

There are 17 separate races from Junior to Professional Men's & Women's races. Among the Professional teams attending are the Advil/Chapstick Women's Professional Cycling Team, Kenda/Raleigh Men's Cycling Team, Calyon-Litespeed Professional Cycling of Montreal, Target Training Elite Development Team, Team RACE Professional Cycling of Ontario, Fitness Together / IF pb Lionette's Men's Elite Cycling, MetLife Pro-Am Cycling, and VW/Trek of Quebec.

Third: I got 7th at the Lower Providence, PA criterium against a stacked field of Colavita and Rite-Aid riders after being off the front for 13 laps with Chris Ruhl (PA Lightning) and Luca Damiani (Colavita), with a 30 second gap, but Rite-Aid gradually pulled us back.  The final 10 laps had many attacks but the field was pretty much whittled down to Colavita, Rite-Aid, and a few guys not on those teams including my teammate Jackie Simes.  We worked well together covering moves, but it was gruppo compacto for the final lap.

I went into the fast penultimate turn in perfect position, 7th place, and knew that I was feeling really good for the uphill, headwind sprint after the final turn . . . until a car pulled onto course and I narrowly avoided DEATH by only ripping off its driver's mirror with my forearm and hip!  I then kept on the gas a bit and made it back up to the lead 6 guys for a decent placing . . . mostly I was just incredibly scared, grateful, and pissed about the car incident.

Here are some photos from theshutterworks.com:

After stringing out the field for the first few laps in pouring rain, the elastic snapped and Ruhl, Damiani and were were three for the road, getting up to 30 seconds.

We worked pretty well together, and put in a valiant effort, but the gap started to drop about 1 second per lap as some people chased hard . . .

Who missed the break??  OOOOH, Rite . . . ;-)

Rite-Aid set some tempo, and there were a few attacks in the final 8 laps, but we all came together in the end, just in time to almost crash into a car at 35mph.  I just tried to wait it out and make sure that any dangerous break had Jackie or me represented . . . and of course I know which sprinter's wheel to follow!

I should mention that the previous weekend was the Boston Beanpot, the best weekend of collegiate cycling all season.  We won the TTT handily, by over 40 seconds on a 20 minute course, and then later that Saturday we played our tactics to perfection, getting Nick Bennette off the front with Toby Marzot (Dartmouth) and Jamey Driscol (UVM) helping out--Bennette won.

Princeton: 2.  Everyone else: 0.

Then on Sunday we raced in the infamous Tufts Criterium, a very technical and extremely difficult race with a poorly-paved steep climb and some bad cobble crosswalks, not to mention a 30+mph downhill, off-camber second corner.  I had won this criterium every time I had done it, in 2006 as a freshman and in 2007 as a sophomore.  I knew the race was from the gun, with a break of strongmen always winning.  Ben Showman (Army) and I decided to go from the gun, and I got the holeshot and led the first lap at a blistering pace.  Then Ben came around for the second lap, and then we had only one more with us: Isaac Howe (UVM).  We worked well together, and were soon joined by Josh Lipka (Penn State).  We were just drilling it thinking the pack was close by, when after 20 minutes of racing we saw the pack . . . IN FRONT OF US!  We lapped the field, I quickly moved through to the front, and then we started attacking each other for pretty much the remainder of the race.

Josh countered one of my attacks, and everyone looked at each other and let him go for a little bit . . . give Josh a leash and HE IS GONE.  With the win already sealed up, I tried to get away a few more times, but in the end it came to a sprint and my legs were cooked, well-done.  I got 4th, but definitely had good sensations and put out a HUGE power file that now dwarfs every file I have previously recorded.

Princeton: 2.  Everyone else: 1.

SKETCHY second corner!

Three for the road . . . Ben, sorry about those wheels!  :-(

Four for the road . . . Josh is a beast.

Driving it through the chicane.

POWER FILES

Beanpot TTT . . . 351 average and 389 normalized for 20 minutes, not bad considering my ride at nationals last year was also 351 average but just 356 normalized!  We worked together very well, and even though we just had three guys (teams are four), second place was still WAY behind.

First five minutes of the Tufts Criterium--I TOLD you we went hard those first few laps!  420 average and 461 normalized are close to my highest ever five-minute recordings.

Tufts Criterium, the whole race.  Definitely the biggest hour I have ever done.  In the words of Mike Chauner, "that race was like a really hard test--you know it is going to suck and you just sit in your seat and do it."  I don't know that I have ever experienced that much pain during an exam, Mike . . .

The breakaway at Lower Providence with Chris Ruhl and Luca Damiani.  Notice the huge 30-second efforts: those were when I pulled from turn 4 through the uphill, strong-headwind finish and into turn 1, every single lap.  We worked pretty well together, but it was not to be :-(

Thanks a lot for reading, I will have some more updates after the Eastern Championships at Dartmouth this weekend and then fly down for the ARMED FORCES CIRCUIT RACE MAY 4TH IN D.C. WITH TIME PRO CYCLING!

AHHHHH, REST!

Well, right after camp I got down to business with some serious and seriously hard training . . . and forgot that I had scheduled 4 days easy/off at the tail end of Spring Break!  Now I am not one to declare that I can predict the future, but I know myself pretty well by now and I NEEDED that break in order to build back up through April and race strong in the Armed Forces circuit race on May 4th.

I went really easy on Wednesday and Thursday for around an hour or so, and was WHIPPED!  I could barely get up from my chair to mess around with this stupid robot that the Fantastic Four (Sol Cycles founders, Tom Yersak, Will Watts, and Doug Wolf, that is!) had to get to autonomously follow a light.  That is a whole other story that is too depressing to talk about now . . . let's just say that not ALL of our classes are stimulating and inspiring!

So I do some good openers on Friday morning and then we all caravan to State College, PA for what should have been an AWESOME weekend of racing: tons of climbing in a decently-long road race, a sweet and windy ITT Sunday morning (short, but hey, I'll take any ITT!), and then a cool 60-minute crit later that afternoon.  Well, after crashing <10>

Then things got interesting: I took Tylenol on an empty stomach, after a demanding race, and then by dinner time I was feeling the need to pray to the porcelain gods.  Well, none were to be found, but an alleyway outside the race banquet suited me just fine!  Needless to say, I missed dinner and had to cram down some gas station sandwiches just before a terrible night's sleep on sore hips and road rash before waking up at 6:30AM to suit up and warm-up in sub-freezing weather for a prologue TT.  Yeah, this is collegiate racing.

I was throwing up in my mouth while pre-riding the TT course, and wisely decided to call it off before it started.  I cruised back around town found some breakfast, then went back to our awesome host house and proceeded to crash on their futon for over 3 hours.  The whole day is pretty hazy to me--I was just completely whipped from a too-long stint of training and racing, some serious stress from school and crashing, and not enough sleep in the previous few days.

As cyclists, we tend to push through things because to get good, you have to know how.  That said, it is very important to listen to one's body and think days and weeks ahead and KNOW how different training and races are going to affect you, as well as quantifying non-cycling stresses which play just as large a role in your performance.  After looking at my performance manager and seeing the blue Chronic Training Load line just flat for a long time, near my peak-to-date of 135 training stress points per day, that tells me a lot: I have been holding on to a lot of fitness for too long without a break and another build-up period.  I know I could have stayed with that front group up the climb because when I was with them and watching the watts, they were easily 40-60 below what I can do for 20 minutes.  However, I could definitely NOT do it that day!

Now I know what to watch out for in the future, and I know at least a ballpark limit for myself: when I get above 130 TSS/day, I should only hold it for a week or two at most before taking a nice break and recovering.  Your fitness as an elite cyclist is not the kind of "fitness" that 99% of the populations talks about--rather, it is an incredibly high level of stress that your body has adapted to for a finite period of time.  The hardest part of cycling is not getting to that point, it is figuring out how to arrive at that point on or during your most important events, and then doing it multiple times throughout the season.  I am not talking of a "peak" because those are often far too difficult to predict, I am just talking of having an overall form of 7+ on a scale of 1-10.  From there, you just have to do a lot of events and know that you will really hit it out of the park in only a couple.  It is a LONG season, after all!

By the way, look for big things from Sol Cycles in the coming couple of months . . . those bamboo bikes are getting quite a lot of interest!

Camp, Newsweek International, and kickin' butt in Cali!

First off, way to kill it out in Cali, boys!!!  Check out the results.  And while you're at it, check out our team's awesome website!

I just got back from a great week in the mountains of North and South Carolina . . . I flew down on Thursday, March 13th and drove with Erik Saunders and my teammate Eric Barlevav (A.K.A. "Barbeque" and "blah-BLAH-blah") to our sick cabin in the woods near Brevard, NC (THANKS JAMIE BENNETTE & PARENTS!).  Now this cabin is at 3300 feet of elevation, and the entrance from the main road, about 17 miles away, is under 2000 feet . . . yeah, LOTS of climbing and suffering to be had out here!

We got in late, crashed on some air mattresses with all 12 racers and Erik and Pat in one house (!!!), and then woke up early to go to the Hincapie Sports headquarters to pick up our sweet new duds and have the team photo shoot.  The clothing is amazing, and I made sure to stick out like an awkward, gigantic, sore thumb in every photo because of my stars-'n-bars jersey for the U23 TT.  I got a lot of crap, but my self-deprecation probably accounted for much of it!  The team gets along great, and we definitely hammed it up during the photos and afterwards.

So this one is almost as close to "serious" as we got . . .

. . . then Jon felt that we just weren't working it enough, so he showed us how it's done.

Adam showed why he is a captain . . .

. . . and I gave some tips on stretching for time trials and just looking like a doofus in general.

Saturday consisted of a crazy circuit race--excellent 6.6 mile course with some good hills, total of 60 miles--that was held during a rain and HAIL storm, and subsequently shortened to a total of 13 miles.  INSANE--BUT WE WON IT!  Mike Stoop continued his string of blazing performances, and Jackie and Tom both came in with the front group of around 8.  Dan Ramsey and Jon Hamblen and I were all in the second split after doing some serious and ill-timed efforts (and being completely closed up after a big block of training and then no riding for over two days!).  It was a crazy experience, and we were happy to come away with a victory after losing another day of training and racing.

Sunday the other half of the team raced in the Food Lion criterium, with Daniel taking a great win and Adam Myerson leading home the chase group for 3rd and Barbeque taking the field sprint for 9th.

  

The race actually didn't go well in the first half, with our team missing the major break of 6 top guys including England and the King brothers.  However, the captains demonstrated why they are captains and Dan soloed up to the break before jumping them in the final laps and taking the W.

Back at the cabin, Guttenplan (A.K.A. "The Gut") and I went for what I am sure was one of my best training rides this season, a 5 hour adventure down to Paris Mountain to scout much of the USPRO RR course.

We did some serious efforts, especially up Paris and Caesar's Head, the monster 35 minute climb back to the cabin.  I shattered many of my old numbers, but the one I was most proud of is my new, 398 watt 10 minute number up Paris!  We went about 95%, but I know that if I had really killed it and known where the top of the climb was, I could have easily broken 400.  I am guessing that an all out 10 minute TT will net me closer to 410 watts.

Monday and Tuesday I did some more big rides, but unfortunately no one wanted to ride with me on the second half of Monday's ride or Tuesday because of imperfect weather :-(  The training is amazing down there, and I really tried to make the most out of it.

We had a little shindig for Saint Patty's Day, including dinner and some nice Guiness on tap at an "Irish" Pub in Brevard, Jamie's treat (THANKS AGAIN!).  Wednesday we cleaned the house early and shoved off for Winston-Salem and crashed at Erik's house after a short spin in a monsoon!

Then things got "interesting" or, more accurately, TERRIBLE . . . 

We woke up at 3:15 AM to drive to the Greensboro Airport and get the guys on their super-early flight to Cali.  3 hours of sleep is never a good thing, but then I had to kill another 6 hours at the airport since my flight was not until 11:30 AM.  The time finally passed and then I was in Charlotte, NC and rushing to my 1:15 flight to Newark--until it was delayed and then canceled due to high winds in the NYC area.  Oh, and that means you go BACK OUT to the front of the airport and claim your bags only to stand in line with literally HUNDREDS of other NYC-area travelers to get tickets for flights later in the day.  Well, that is if you even HAVE all your bags--turns out one of my bags made it to Newark, while my bike was stuck in Charlotte.  Oh, and then I find out that the best flight I can do is at 10:15 PM TO JFK AIRPORT!  Then a series of trains (AirTrain to Long Island Rail Road to New Jersey Transit to AirTrain (Newark Airport) back to New Jersey Transit and then Princeton).  Oh, but the trains don't actually run at those times--SO I SLEPT IN PENN STATION ON TOP OF MY BAGS WITH BUMS ROAMING THE CORRIDORS.  Then I took the 4:40 AM train to Newark, located my duffel bag, and arrived in Princeton at 7:15 AM.

For those of you counting, that is a total of 28 hours of traveling with a total of around 5 hours of very fitful sleep while carrying 5 bags totaling well over 100 pounds.  WOW.

After sleeping for a few hours, I got out and enjoyed some amazing weather for a wonderful 4 hour ride to Frenchtown that Friday afternoon.  

The legs are definitely coming around, as I am resting a bit more and then when I am riding, I have been putting in some huge sub-1-minute efforts.  Notice there were 24 intervals of over 500 watts, most of them averaging over 600 watts for around 30-45 seconds!  Definitely the kind of stuff I need to work on.  I think the 1-minute-to-5-minute range is going to have some serious work over the next few weeks as well . . . exactly six weeks until my first BIG race with Time Pro Cycling, the U.S. Air Force Cycling Classic around the Pentagon in D.C.!!!

Saturday morning I got up pretty early and took the train BACK UP TO NYC (I was shaking with fear as I passed through the doors) with Will Watts to meet with a reporter for Newsweek International, Lily Huang, about Sol Cycles.  It turns out she is an '06 Harvard grad and raced in the ECCC in '05 and '06!  Pretty cool . . . she is super into our company and our ideas, and we will be appearing in an article on innovators in the blossoming bamboo industry in the coming weeks.  Will and I took advantage of some spectacular weather to fly through the streets of NYC on our bikes, riding through three separate protests (one for the Beijing Olympics due to child labor or something, the other two for Bush, one more war-centric), before heading to the NYC Auto Show!

The Auto Show was SICK.  I would definitely like to take home at least 20 of the cars there, but I have to give the nod (as most of us did, including Will's two homies Carlo and Armoral and his dad) to the new Nissan GTR.  Anything faster than a Porsche Turbo for under $70k is just insane.

After having some fine Red Truck wine ;-) we crashed at Will's girlfriend Mary's sweet NYC apartment on 47th and 2nd Ave (barely East Side, THANKS!).  Her couch is more comfortable than my normal bed.

Finally I took advantage of another great day in Princeton to do some good miles and efforts on our little mole hills.  I guess it is time for the last 6 weeks of classes for Junior Year to start tomorrow!  Lots of work in a condensed period, but then RACING SEASON!!!!!!!!

Great camp, but first thing's first:

Barrack Obama is going to be the best president we have had in a very long time.

5 reasons why I love the Charlotte airport . . .

1) the wireless at the airport is FREE!

2) the people are SUPER nice and happy

3) the airport is lined with quaint, white rocking chairs in an atrium with sunlight pouring in and real trees growing inside

4) the airport has many Jamba Juices and Fresh Stands for great fruit smoothies

5) uh, THE WEATHER!!!

Sol Cycles blog!

We are hard at work getting a cool website up, but until then I will post all of the news and information about Sol Cycles on the new Sol Cycles blog at wp.solcycles.com!

Now I have to go to bed so I can catch a 5:00 AM train to Newark and be in Charlotte, NC by 10 for our trip to Hincapie Sportswear headquarters for team photos!!!  We are racing this Saturday in a nice road race, I will have updates.

Sol Cycles splash, racing/training, and a friendly USADA visit!

First of all, check out the new Sol Cycles splash page--Mr. Thomas Cocuzza with Wells Ideas, Inc. is hard at work getting a sweet website up and running, but in the mean time you can salivate over a few pictures on my blog :-)

So this weekend went very well, with the Princeton A team time trial masters taking first in a joint Atlantic and Eastern Collegiate Cycling Conference weekend at Upenn (that means twice as much competition, folks!).  Not to make anyone feel bad, but Austin was wearing a *WINDBREAKER*, none of us had discs or aero wheels, and I was breathing through my nose and shouting "Let's ramp it up!" most of the time.  Great things are soon to come . . .

As for the rest of the races, our team had a short leash, to make the understatement of the century.  I felt great and got in plenty of good training (Saturday race was changed to a crit after a monsoon flooded what would have been a sweet road course with serious climbing, so I rode the rollers for 3 hours watching the other races) and racing (TTT Sunday morning, then a cool circuit race [unfortunately only 31 miles] in the afternoon with a couple good hills each lap).  I set some new record power numbers that I am very pleased with, and I can feel that my legs are reacting very well to the intensity of some race efforts.  I am planning on really coming into form over the next couple of months, in time for mid-May to late June, my first big peak.

My mom came in for a long weekend because it was my 21st birthday on Sunday (no craziness, just great champagne and filet mignon with one of my favorite people in the world!) and also Amanda Scott (Vanerbilt varsity XC runner and chemical engineer who interned this summer in Boulder where we met through Nicole) came up to visit us and she and Nicole came to the race weekend!  Great times, including a not-very-fancy-but-huge-portions Italian dinner near Tom Yersak's house outside Philly.  Speaking of Tom, he is reputedly a "monster" on the bike and was shelling the Princeton B TTT team as well as the whole field in the criterium where he *initiated* and then *attacked* the break to come in a stellar 4th, as well as staying away from a charging field for over a whole lap of the circuit race only to be caught with less than a kilometer to the finish.

Now I have been training a ton Monday and today, and now am studying for midterms tomorrow before heading out to team camp Thursday morning.  I got in just over 10 hours, 200 miles, and 9700kj in the span of 26 hours on Monday and Tuesday!  Pretty good after a full weekend of racing.  Then I was greeted by the USADA OOC (Out Of Competition) testers at 5:00PM today and thankfully had some left in me to give a sample.  It is very encouraging that they actually go after ALL the OOC people, not just the big fish like Levi or George.

Well, that is all for now . . . I will have a ton of great posts during and after team camp when I have more free time!!!

P.S. here are some pro-quality pics from the Rutgers Criterium and Circuit Race, thanks to our great alumnus and former prez Chris Wynnyk!

VeloNews!

Thanks, Steve Frothingham!  Check out our nice blurb in The Bible.

Sol Cycles comes through with flying colors!

This past weekend was the first collegiate race of the season, aptly named the Rutgers Season Opener, with a short prologue and criterium Saturday and a short circuit race Sunday.  I raced on the first Sol Cycles road model, and it attracted such incredible crowds of people that I could barely warm up for my races!  We are working on a professional company logo, website, and color brochures, so that should help a lot!

The races went very well, with Princeton placing in the top 10 in every single race.  I personally had great sensations and am clearly the strongest in the field, but I have nothing past about 80% of race pace!  This is perfect because my first big TIME Pro Cycling team objective is the Tour of Virginia starting 9 weeks from today.  In the next 9 weeks I will really build up my intensity and I should be flying through May and June, when all of my first big races are (Philly week, Nature Valley, Tour of PA, Fitchburg).

As far as the bike goes, it is AMAZING!  I am so proud of it!  It is incredibly stiff and lively, almost like a steel bike ride with the snap of an aluminum bike, but it is very comfortable over rough pavement like carbon.  Bamboo is just an amazing material because nature has found a way to optimize stiffness, strength, durability, and pliability over millions of years of evolution.  The bike fits like a gem and I am very happy to ride it over the next 8 weeks of collegiate racing.

Here are some great photos from Rutgers.