Monday, April 27, 2009

MIT weekend pictures and such

Here are some pics from this past weekends X-Pot hosted by my so called engineering brethren MIT...





So the last picture was taken while stuck in traffic Friday night on the West Side highway, definitely my favorite picture of the weekend. I will give a recap sometime this week, mainly b/c I'm too lazy to write one up now...

Thursday, April 16, 2009

Manhatten VeloDrome

So one of my teammates from Montclair sent me this link. Here is a bit of the article...

NEW YORK, NY (BRAIN)—Cadence Cycling & Multisport Centers co-founder and president Matt Heitmann will be stepping down in order to pursue a new position heading up an effort to build a world-class, 250-meter indoor velodrome and community events center in Manhattan.

"The new velodrome will be a fully green, 100 percent sustainable site. It will also serve as a community center to promote healthy lifestyles, leadership values, and positive life skills for youth through the sport of cycling. "

Monday, April 13, 2009

Yale Weekend pics and recap

Recap: we came, we saw, we got rained on...that's a quick summary of Saturday. We didn't stay for the circuit, mainly because we're allergic to rain. Sunday, I attack on lap 2. Big mistake, i hadn't really found a rhythm yet but said what the hell let's attack. Naturally I couldn't recover afterward and ended up finishing last. Oh well, such is bike racing. Our D team did well with podium finishes in the TT and Circuit races. Even though my season is not going that great, it makes me feel all warm and tingly inside to see my team mates develop into better riders as the season progresses. That's more important to me than results, helping and watching my teammates become stronger and smarter racers.

Well here are some pics of us moseying around the parking lot on Saturday.












My favorite picture is the one of the worm, that pretty much sums up our weekend. There are few more adventures that we had on Saturday, fortunately I'm not as crude as some other bloggers and won't be posting pictures of us boozing it up at the hotel. Long story short, some people ended up falling asleep with their shoes on :)

Most of us will not be at Dartmouth this coming weekend, the semester is winding down here at Stevens so we're all pretty swamped w/ schoolwork. We'll have a few people there, hopefully they can represent well and bring back some points.

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Army weekend recap and pics

This past weekend Stevens showed up to West Point for the much anticipated USMA race weekend. We stayed at Ray's house for the weekend, which was awesome. Free food and free housing, doesn't get better than that. We also hosted 4 riders from UMass, they were all great guests. Friday night we all arrived just in time for a big dinner courtesy of Raymond's mother. I must say its nice to have a home cooked meal after several weekends of eating out at and gross school cafeteria food. Later that night me and Uri from UMass had and epic battle of connect four. I was told by his teammates that he was undefeated. So naturally I said this finance major is not smarter than yours truly, a pretty savvy Mechanical Engineering major. Long story short after 2 hours of playing we ended 2-2 with about 7 consecutive draws. I must say finance majors are smarter than i thought.

So the next morning we woke up bright and early(5am) to make the TTT and circuit race. TTT went well, our top team finish less than half a second out of the points. Later in the day our D team grabs 2, 7,8 in the circuit race. In the C race, I felt like crap after not warming up properly. No warmup due to letting my teammate borrow my pedals after he broke his 10min prior to his race. No regrets though, that's what a good captain does. Help his teammates when they need it, I know he would have done the same for me. The next day was the HC and crit, our D guys tore it up again grabing top finished in both events. As for me, I had no legs on Sunday. I had a terrible time on the climb, where last year i posted one a great time of 12 minutes. In the crit, I grabbed a bad line through a turn. The wheel i followed was the one of a rider about to be dropped, I realized this way too late. I grabbed two other guys from McGill and Dartmouth and tried to bridge back to the field. One of these riders wasn't pulling through hard enough to get us back, he coughmcgillcough kinda hindered our attempts to get back to the field. Oh well, that's racing for you. You win some you lose some. As for our UMass guys, well you can read about their races here

As promised here are some pics from the weekend









Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Which shades should I get?

So, I lost my pair of racing shades while on spring break in Florida two weeks ago. I have been using a regular pair of shades for racing and training. So, yeah they suck pretty bad. I like how they look, but training and racing they suck some big balls. They fog up and don't stay on my face on descents. So I have been looking for a new pair of shades. I have pretty much have narrowed my choices down to Oakley Pro M and Rudy Project Exowind. The general consensus from my team is the M frames as they are reliable and look pretty bad ass. But once I saw the exowind I was dazzles by the Euroness of it.

I don't know which one to pick, I will probably get the one that I can't get a better deal on. Either way I have to wait another two weeks to get the final choice, I need to pay some bills first. Here are pics of both shades, who knows which one I will pick.



Update and some random thoughts...

So its been a while since my last post, time get things rolling again...

Since the Stevens race, we have been rather busy. Great news is we have picked up 3 women riders since then. At this rate we will have more women riders than men, by the end of the season. Its always good to have more women riders, you can never have too many female friends as my womanizing uncle puts it...

Our season is going pretty well, our D2 team is racking up points on a regular basis. Some are talking about moving up to C soon, which would help me out a whole lot. Personally, I have not really done as well as i thought. I really have just had a string of bad luck. My season started well on Feb. 28 in the cat. 4 race in Prospect Park. Felt strong the whole race, took a few pulls and even attacked the field. I ended up finished top 15 in a large 85 man field. Since then it has been downhill...

Week 1 at Rutgers I crashed out of the circuit race w/ 3 laps to go, The following week,I avoided a crash at Grants Tomb. Avoiding that crash caused me to end up in the back of the pack and wound up being spit out. I couldnt race at Stevens due to a lingering injury from the previous crash. Then at Delaware, I just didn't feel well and had no motivation to race, naturally I DNF'd twice and had a subpar TT. I had a family commitment on Saturday, so no Philly for me. I had my bike tuned up(it really needed it and was a big factor in my recent DNFs) and got to do some training. I feel much better now and ready to really let it rip at West Point.

All this training and racing has gotten me thinking about the whole training program idea. Mainly why most USAC racer i know follow Friels training bible to the letter. Many of my masters on my club team say, March races are C races. Or, I am trying to peak in June for the masters road race. The current trend is to do 'periodization' for some 'goal' later in the season. Everything else is 'training' or preparation. But aren't all races 'A' priority? If they weren't why would people show up? I personally want to do well in all my races, yes I do have long term goals for the season. But should one train to race, not race to train? I haven't seen much of this in the ECCC, but all the USAC racers I know seem to talk this way. I think I may use that as an excuse if I don't do well this weekend. (I got this idea from a fellow ECCCer, I will buy you a beer if you can figure out who ;))

Also, I have been racing on a borrowed frame. My old bike was a Trek Madone, who is now residing in my apartment. If you must now, the frame cracked after some a misunderstanding w/ an opening car door. It's ok though, I won the argument as the said door no longer functions properly. Either way, I am now borrowing my teammates old frame for racing. I got good news yesterday, I have a substantial refund check coming from Stevens. The exact number is not important, what is important is that I now have enough working capital to invest in a new machine. I've had my heart set on a Specialized Tarmac SL2 ever since I saw the commercial for it.
Well, I may not be able to afford that particular model but I am open to suggestions. Maybe a BMC like my teammated Ray or a another Trek. I don't know yet, maybe I should use my coming money to pay some bills or put money towards my first car...nah I think I should stick w/ a new bike. Priorities are priorities are priorities...