First crash of 2010 out of the way

So this past weekend, I finally got my first crash of the year out the way. Honestly it sucked, I crashed two laps into a ten lap race. I was in a good position, until some butthead(yeah I said it) decided to grab a handful of brake and ride sideways straight into me. Went down hard, tore my newish jersey, busted up my rear wheel, and killed my ego...so now that my rant is out of the way. Yeah, I haven't crashed in a race in about a year so I pretty much was due one.

This was the Cherry Blossom challenge which is the first big race of the year for the NJBA crowd. It sucked going out so early, I really wanted to do well and my team had the numbers to do make it happen. Oh well, such is bike racing with my track record I will crash again very soon or crash sometime next year. Hopefully it's the latter. Lately my weeks have consisted of splitting time in the lab working on my senior design project which I will post pictures of at some point and practice/training sessions with my awesome stevens teammates. This season has been bittersweet for me. I haven't done nearly enough of the ECCC races I would have liked, but I knew it would happen as my job, schoolwork, and my project basically run my life at this point. Luckily the team hangs out all the time, so I see them plenty and most are old enough to legally get a drink. So during the week after practice we usually head over and grab a few drinks and share some laughs. Again bittersweet, more so because I'm graduating. Good thing grad school is right around the corner so I can keep being a poor college bike racer :)

Next on tap for me is the prospect parks Cup series in two weeks; which has been the focus for me for the last few months. Hopefully everything goes to plan and I can get a few stevens guys out there with me representing the collegiate contingent. For now here's the aftermath of my crash, you can guess how from the pic how much road rash I have

It's spring? When did that happen?

As you can tell by looking out the window, spring has finally arrived. It only took a month of biblical rain and flooding that was March for it to arrive. This past weekend, saw some excellent racing weather where yours truly finally raced with no extra layers. This weeks, forecast is looking just as good with nothing but sunshine for the foreseeable future. This past weekend, me and my teammate Nick raced in the Prospect park spring series in the 3/4 race, this would be my last chance to get a tune up race in before the Cup Series at the end of the month.

The race went relatively well, me and Nick stayed in the top 20 most of the race. I tried to get in a break early but it went no where. With 3 laps to go I hear I nice loud pop, yup my my rear flatted so there goes my race. I was disappointed w/ flatting out, but at least I got in a workout and was able to mix it up w/ some higher* cat guys. Nick finished in the field, in what he felt was a pretty good race.

Being easter weekend, everyone at Stevens bagged the races at Bucknell for what I am going to assume was something church related, but I digress. Last week, Stevens co-hosted the Princeton/Stevens race. All in all, it was a good race with little complaints. Both teams interacted well to put on a good race.

I leave you with some videos of this yesterday central park sprints, unfortunately I was in church yesterday and could not participate :(

http://nyvelocity.com/content/gallery/race-photos/2010/spring-series-4410-videos-0