Salou, France

Made it down to Spain yesterday and Oh My God. I cannot believe how amazing it is here. I was getting pretty tired of Belgium. It was wet, cold, flat and windy while the minute I touched down yesterday, it was warm, I got to see the Pyrenees flying in and even better it is dry! This week I am staying at a resort hotel for the race and it is mostly British folks on holiday here. If there is one thing in the world that makes my heart melt it is a British accent. I have been in much worse situations in my life. The best part yet though is our food situation. I have a BUFFET! Yes, unlimited food and yesterday we took advantage of it. I had about 4 plates of dinner and oh boy was it amazing. Better yet, there is also a dessert table and I indulged a bit. I ate until I was full and even got myself a baby stomach. Because of this, we felt that it would be important to take a nice little walk to work off some of dinner and settle our tummys down a bit. These photos should give you an idea of what I am working with this week. To say the least, my happiness level has risen considerably. All of this can only bode well for the week. FYI-that is the Mediterranean Sea.

Do I learn?

Well, after my fun day at Paris Roubaix recon I woke up feeling like junk. My hands were swollen, my body felt like I had been hit by a car and it truly hurt to sit on my butt. Hoping that I was not the weakest link in the group I headed on down to the breakfast table to talk to the other guys and alas, the others felt just as I did. What a relief. I cannot begin to explain how excited I am to not be racing tomorrow as it has been raining all afternoon and the general saying is not if you will wreck on the cobbles in the rain but how many times you will.

So being pretty tired yesterday we decided to do a fairly relaxed 3 hour ride and I was taken off to the rolling hills a few hours away. This is what greeted me.



What is this you ask? This is the Paterberg of the famed Tour of Flanders race. It is another one of the classics of the Spring bike racing calendar and while the cobblestones of Paris Roubaix are flat, these cobblestones are all uphill. Feeling like junk, I should have probably just stayed on normal roads, but when presented with the opportunity to ride on such famed ground my mouth began to salivate and I had to take it in. I guess I don't learn to well. Did they hurt? You bet that they did, but I found it somewhat pleasing at the end to finish each sector. While I did not ride all the sections, my respect for the racers that battle on these roads has risen considerably this week.

So, tomorrow morning I am flying down to Spain for a stage race this week. Extremely excited to be getting out of grey, wet Belgium and down to sunny, hot Spain.

Paris Roubaix Recon

Just got back from a hellish 6 hour ride. What did I do today you ask? This Sunday is the U23 version of Paris Roubaix, 27 sectors of cobbles and all the fastest espoir riders. Today the USA cycling team went out to recon and ride the course to get a taste of what was going to be coming up. We headed out to the ride with the Garmin team and had Scott Sunderland giving some points along the way-he was the guy working for team CSC helping teach Stuart O Grady and Fabian Cancellara to their wins, once again this guy knows his shit. Funny enough, we also ran into the team of Trek Livestrong doing the same thing as they have a favorite in Taylor Phinney going into the race. But, not wanting to give away their secrets or anything, either rode in front of our group or way back all day. Pretty easy to tell that Garmin and Trek Livestrong do not like each other. Going into today, I was thinking that I have watched the pros ride over these roads and it looked fairly smooth, a bit bumpy. How bad can it really be? I mean, I have ridden dirt roads before on my road bike. However, once again, my bike leaves me humbled. Today we rode 27 sectors and I promise you, by sector 3 I could not hold onto my handlebars and was in a very bad place mentally. I set out to try and take some photos, but about 100 meters into the first sector it was determined that my camera would be much safer in my bag and not bouncing around in my jersey pocket, so sorry, no photos. No amount of tips or try riding them here and not there could help me today. My level of respect for the men who win these cobbled classics year after year has risen considerably today. Was I hating it every time I hit the bone jarring cobbles, you bet I was. Am I glad I stuck it out and suffered through the day, you bet I am. Gotta say though, taking a lap of that Roubaix Velodrome was pretty darn fun after that ride. Funny part of the day though was that we finished in Roubaix, France roughly 25 kilometers from the house in Belgium. Andrew Talansky and I are going to ride home and are given rough directions on how to get back. Between the 2 of us, we have all of 4 rides in Belgium, but hey only 25 kilometers is a stones throw so we set off. 50 kilometers later we arrive at our house, not really knowing how we got there. We do know that a freeway was involved, lots of directions asking and general retracing of path, but we got home thank god.

And now the best part, whenever someone remarks while watching a cobbled spring classic race, "wow, that looks like fun," I can reply "hell no, been there, done that and I am pretty sure that you do not want to do that." But, who knows, maybe I might have to remind myself of it every now and then.

final recap

What a race that was. We were able to put out GC guy, Andrew Talansky, who is having a breakout year on the final podium in 3rd place overall. Was a great feeling to help him out as best as I could. I felt like I was getting better as the week went on, or maybe it was just I was feeling a little less sore everyday from the wrecks. Speaking of those, I saw some of the gnarliest crashes I have ever seen in my life. To give you an idea, our stages on Saturday and Sunday went up climbs like I have never seen before in my life. We would be on a rolling valley road, take a quick turn and immediately begin gaining large amounts of elevation. Well, what goes up has to go down and we were hauling coming down the descents. On multiple occasions, riders appeared as if they would never walk away from a wreck. One specific descent had us riding a one lane mountain road through a tiny village and a rider from AG2R missed a turn and went straight into the wall of a house-from what I was told he was still out 10 minutes later and another rider was airlifted out after lying in a pool of his own blood. Even a teammate of mine witnessed a rider miss a turn and fly off a cliff. All in all, yes, we had wrecks on the team but they could have been much worse. We began clicking much better as a unit as the week went on and are now expecting much bigger things out of ourselves for the weeks ahead.

After the race yesterday, it was immediately into the car to head back up to Belgium, nothing like driving across a whole country in a night. Dragging a bit this morning, but nothing that a little Belgian coffee shop ride can't fix right?

Ronde De L Isard day 3

Ouch. that about sums up my day. I did not win, nor was I close. But, my teammate Andrew Talansky is now sitting in 3rd overall with one stage left and I am looking forward to helping him out as much as I can tomorrow.

To recap todays stage, 4.5 hours over 3 different KOM's. We rode over 3000 meters of climbing today and I absolutely blew with about 50 KM's to go to the finish. But, I rode in with a teammate of mine who unfortunately had a nasty wreck on one of the coolest descents that I have ever done in my life. He went to the hospital and got himself some stitches and will not be taking the start tomorrow. I am feeling pretty sore from my wreck the other day and the chest is especially sore and bruised from it. The race doctor told me I would know if any ribs were broken and that more than likely the soreness when I laugh or breath in deep or move too much just means that I bruised some stuff pretty good. Hope to make it through tomorrow, help out team as much as I can and get some recovery in me.

Sorry nothing better to say, bit tired and off to bed.

day 2 Ronde De L Isard

Today ranks up there as one of the harder days that I have ever had on a bike. I woke up a bit sore from yesterdays wreck and even though managed to escape without too much road rash, lots of bruising was to be had. Previewing what the day was going to be like, it appeared that today was pretty straightforward. It was supposed to be fairly flat and a little bit of wind. The race bible was predicting a 4.5 hour stage and we figured that this being a stage race, the team of the leader would control the festivities. Boy, were we wrong. We finished the race in 3 hours 55 minutes. The day was about as french as one could get, a breakaway never went in all of 175 kms and the day was non stop attacking. The team of the leader was even attacking themselves. Our director, Patrick Jonker, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Jonker, I suggest you check out the link, trust me, he knows his shit. Multiple tour de Frances and even winner of Australias Tour Down Under. He cannot figure out why the French are racing like they are and are riding like Juniors he says. Good news is that, we had 3 riders finish in the front group of 50 riders that separated on the days KOM climb. And yes, I was one of the 3. On a side

I am looking forward to tomorrows mountain stage, I have absolutely no idea how my legs are going to respond to these mountains, I have been living at sea level and have not ridden a mountain climb in about 4 months.

And on another note, after yesterdays wreck, I had numerous people come up and congratulate me on finishing yesterdays stage, especially in the front group as they thought I was a goner. I even spoke with the head UCI official here and he was quite worried about me after yesterday and he was glad to see nothing seriously wrong as he was got to watch me go flying. Pretty neat actually, especially given the fact that I spoke with him in French, hopefully that improves his opinions of American riders.

Ronde de L Isard day 1

This is currently what I am doing, icing my ankle. Why am I doing this you ask, well check out the next image.



Do you notice anything different from left foot to right foot? Well, had a nice big wreck today at about 30 miles an hour. Went straight into one of the hundred of traffic islands we had on course today. Fortunately, all I have is a bum ankle, some road rash and no broken bones, we hope. I actually landed directly on my chest after flipping in the air, but fortunately my heart rate monitor took the brunt of the damage. Other than that, a ripping fast day with lots of fun racing. I finished on same time as the winners, even with a broken rear wheel upon further inspection after the race. We had someone in the main breakaway of the day and raced really well as a team. Hoping to feel better in the morning. In other news, yesterday it was commented that I am wearing my shorts backwards, I want to report that no, I am not, USA lettering just faces inwards. Gotta set the record straight, I am not that much of a rookie.

Southern France

Made it down to Southern France yesterday. Flew into Carcassonne, France, if you have not heard of this place you should google it. Hands down, one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. The town is the last standing town in the world fully enclosed by its outer walls. It does not look like anything has changed in the center of town for 1000 years. I am actually staying near St. Girons in the heart of the Pyrenees. My hotel is in the middle of the mountains and today took a little 2 hour spin with the rest of the guys to open up and it was so hard not to just go and explore all over and check out so many of the cool roads. Living in France is cool, Northern France was neat, but Damn, I am in love down here in the mountains!

Tomorrow is the first stage of the race, its called Ronde De Lisard. Results should be able to be followed here http://www.cyclingnews.com/races/ronde-de-lisard-2-2u/stages.

Been interesting being around the other USA cycling team guys. Our team director, mechanic and masseuse drove our caravan car and other team cars down and the riders flew down from Belgium. In Belgium, either Flemish, French or English is spoken and the English is very little. Well, naturally living in France I have learned a bit of French and got put to the job of translating for the other guys-a handy tool especially moving through security. I was able to get one guys liquids through and spent about 15 minutes pleading with a security officer to let my teammate keep his multitool, but it did not work and it was confiscated. The irony-another teammate had the same multitool one line over and they let him have it on the flight. But out riding in the USA kit and being able to ask for directions in French and get around has proven to be extremely helpful and the people here are much nicer after discovering that.

Wanted to share a quick pic with ya guys from todays ride. Pretty easy to see why it might be hard to leave.

train station

so, sitting here at train station. got 10 minutes before I take off to Paris. Oh yeah, I am heading up to belgium today to go and race some stage races for US national team. So, I get to take my first train ride ever today and I get to change train stations in Paris-this should be fun, interesting take your pick. Super excited to do some racing with this program. Tomorrow, flying down to southern france to do a race called Ronde Isard in the Pyrenees and then have another stage race in Spain in a few weeks, in their pyrenees mountains. This should be a good block of racing for me and am excited to get going. Will take lots of photos, not sure on internet but will try my best. alright gotta go, train to catch.

change

Not sure where to start folks. Well, tomorrow morning got a fun race close to Paris. On last thursday, the normal chit chat at the start of the race was a bit different than normal. Normally, we are talking about random things on t.v. or the weather, but everyone had tomorrows race on their mind. Why, well it gets things started at the wonderful hour of 8 a.m. and everyone was trying to figure out who had the worst transit to get there. For me, it means an awesome 4:45 a.m wake up call and a departure of 6 a.m. Not bad, but I have a feeling my roommates aren't going to be liking that so much. However, there are quite a few folks leaving their homes at 4 a.m to be able to get to the race-thats a bummer. Hoping for something good to come out of it.

In other news, just found out this morning that I am off to Belgium on Monday morning for a few weeks to race for the USA cycling national team. That will sure put a skip in someones step. I have been working my butt off training hard and want to do my best to represent my country and pay back the opportunities that have been given to me. Will update with more information, but right now, off to the train station to go get myself a ticket. thanks for reading and the support.

erik

Grey

Well, just got back from my race today, want to know what happened. I did not win, nor did I even make the podium. Bummer right, well yeah, it really is a bummer but I have no one to blame. My bike performed awesome, didn't miss a bottle nor did I wreck, I just plain missed the breakaway, simple as that. Oftentimes life and racing is seen as black and white, did you win or lose. But there is much more to that, the wonderful land of grey. Am I able to step back from today and see mistakes that I made, you bet I can, the biggest one is that I was just too timid in the race and not grabbing it by the horns and expecting some others to do some work. But, I did try and once I realized that the win was unattainable, the day became a workout. Something else to take away from the day that I can be happy with is that I did not give up. There were all the usual big teams racing today, teams of anywhere from 8-13 guys on the squad and then me and my teammate. These larger teams are able to control the races much easier and often get most of the results.Today the largest team around here, VC Rouen ended up winning the race and as today was the finish of the U23 series cup also won the overall of that. While I certainly tried today and came out without a result on paper, I did get a result in my eyes. After the race, 2 of their riders came up to me and congratulated me on my hard work on the day and for trying, something many other racers were not willing to do. So today, learned a few things, got in a hard workout and will try again this Sunday.

College and girls

As I write this, I am sitting comfortably inside sipping some Earl Grey tea and watching another massive rainstorm batter Normandy. I will make it out for some training this afternoon, hopefully it warms up above the current 5 degrees. It really is quite calming to see the grey skies, raindrops pelting the river with all the foliage reflecting right back at you. But, what was the title again, oh yeah, college and girls. Well, May marks the time of the year that college ends for the year and for my high school class of 2006 this is quite an important year. It is pretty darn crazy to talk to friends that have either already graduated college in the past week or are preparing for it in the next week or so. While I am not participating in these festivities, it feels like it was yesterday that I was just a young freshman off to college 4 years ago, how time does fly. Am I bummed, not at all, I am absolutely in love with the life that I have and am living my dream every day.
And girls, well have made a few friends over here, some on the bike, and some off the bike. One of my buddies over here has recently gotten himself a girlfriend and I am astonished at how previous to this, he had quite a bit of free time to kill but now, 5 minutes of free time is a lot of time for him. It is just downright amazing at how that can change, maybe I should look into trying that out sometime?

Well, off to go make another cup of tea, thinking 4 cups of tea should get me out the door today, but certainly open for a few more if need be. Off to race on Thursday and Saturday this week too. I will leave you with a cool shot of one of the climbs around here from last weeks sunny day. Trust me, as pretty as it looks.

Happy mothers day mom and 50th pops

Most important, want to wish my mom a big Happy Mothers day. Sorry that I cannot make you breakfast this morning and want to wish a happy birthday to dad, the big 50. Sorry couldn't be at the party but I am sure it was a great time. Unfortunately, had plans of being able to deliver another win yesterday for ya guys but I ended up coming short. How did the day go you ask?, well it was a pancake flat road race with a decent amount of wind. The thinking on the day was that getting into a move would be a smart idea, however that was not going to work. If you can think back to last weekends racing, there was a rider that I ended up with off the front that did not want to work, well he and his whole team were again racing and wherever I went, he and at least one other teammate went. Bummer. At one point yesterday after ending up in a breakaway a teammate looked at me and asked me what I was doing because any move I was in was going to get brought back. Upon further inspection looking back to the field, this other team was massed at the front pulling us back. Double bummer. So, what do I do, well I just begin to shadow this other rider while letting other teams and teammates have some fun. But, alas, with 20 km to the finish I saw a slowing down and hit out hoping to catch some folks off guard and I did, for a bit. But, once again I looked back and 3 folks are bridging, a teammate, the rider already mentioned and his teammate. My teammate got a free ride up to me and with 15 km to the finish 4 guys up the road should be awesome right, no! Deja Vu, this same rider/team will not work, they just decide to sit on and even with constant attacking I cannot shake this rider. With poor cooperation we were swallowed up by field with 5 km to the finish and I tried my best to recover for the eventual sprint finish. Sprint finishes can be crazy and had an awesome place but got boxed in with 300 meters to go and was only able to salvage a 4th place finish, bummer; however, my team took the top team honors on the day and the other rider that won't work, well for all of his antics he did not get the win so there is something there to be happy about.

Should I be happy with another top 5 over here, you bet. Am I? No. I am a competitor and want to be the best that I can. Am I content with how I raced yesterday? You bet, I tried to race and get a result but forces larger than me, like large teams had other items on their agendas. What can I do to fix it, keep on training hard and keep on racing hard because you can't win always sitting back waiting for things to come to you, sometimes you have to go out and grab them.

bike fit

Have had a nice couple of days fairly easy leading into another race tomorrow. As I have written about in previous posts lots of things seem to be backwards over here in France logic wise, Nutrition and training for the most part. I now have a new item to add to the list. Apparently, my bike fit or "position" is wrong and unfrench. What is wrong you ask, my saddle is too high, and my seat angle is all wrong and I am not stretched out enough on my bike. While these things seem like they would be pretty individual, apparently to my director there is an ideal template that racers need to be able to fit in. I do not fit that template and I am constantly reminded of it. While that is a bummer to always be nagged about something, nagging is just words, not actions. Well, compound that to heading out in the garage and finding the director with your bike and a level and hex keys and that becomes action. He says I Need to move my setup to be better and no amount of me saying, "I like this setup, has worked for me for years and I have no pain with it," will change his opinion. I am essentially speaking to a brick wall. Hopefully, this is just an empty threat and nothing more. Even worse yet, the team that my team feeds into is even worse, if you look at the teams' bikes, all the riders have the same setup-no spacers underneath headset, bars down as low as can be and saddles all level and as far back as can be. To the French, a very stubborn bunch I might add, what the pros do is the ideal. Even worse, reading the french version of Velonews is adding to all of this nonsense with nutrition and training advice that makes no sense from so called "experts in the field."

So lesson to learn is that I cannot leave my bike out of my control and keep all measurements taped so that if something does get moved it might be a bit easier to notice. Just one more thing to have to deal with. Hoping for a good ride tomorrow to continue to show folks that I know what I am doing.

Wednesday Market

Getting into a pretty awesome routine nowadays. Every Wednesday morning in the town center of Vernon, 6 km away from my house, is a big old open air market. They have everything from fresh fruit and veggies, folks from turkish background selling rugs, stalls that are 50 feet long of just cheeses and even various butchers. I am telling ya folks, this is pretty darn cool. The first image is of a pretty darn big operation. This stall has got everything from Oranges from Spain to vegetables that I have never heard of and I lost track of how many types of mushrooms. The second image is of a charcuterie, which specializes in the meats of ham and pork. For beef, and other meats there is a boucherie, or butcher shop to purchase other meats. The last image is of the market in the background. Wednesday mornings' market is smaller than Saturday mornings' market but still takes up a big area.

Personally, the most rewarding thing for me about shopping at the market has been the relationships that I have built in all of 10 weeks. I go to the same stall week after week to buy my bananas and another stall next door for carrots. I buy my apples from a local farmer and he knows what variety I really enjoy and how much I normally need for the week. He will ask me when I plan on eating them and adjust accordingly as some might be more crisp in a few days and he actually sorts them out to make sure that I get what I want. To be honest, these apples are hands down some of the best I have ever eaten too. And its pretty darn neat to not buy meat wrapped in plastic in a freezer, but to specify what I want and watch my cut of meat actually get cut off the animal. The best part is that, while I still frequent a supermarket for cereal, oatmeal and things of that nature, it is actually cheaper to buy produce direct from the source. A better product for a cheaper price, cannot beat that. And even more, I really enjoy going to the market because I get the opportunity to see the love and hard work that people put into their products.

Sunday/Monday recap

Sunday
After Saturday had a pretty sour taste in my mouth after what was yet another close call to getting a win. I knew that this day was going to have to be a hard race and that I would need to make the race happen rather than sit back and wait for others to take action. I spent much of the day trying to be aggressive and go off the front. I finally got up the road with 5 other riders with 50 km to finish. Myself, 2 others from same team and 2 other riders. Knowing these odds are not great trying to race against a teammates I was able to spit 2 of the riders out on a hill with 40 km to finish. Here I am thinking that this is alright, even though I have this little shit french racer with me who never decides to work, only attack. This is the 4th time I have ended up in this situation with this guy and he is an absolute ass hole racer, a typical french racer. With 30 km to the finish, once again this guy attacks me and he and I end up off the front of the race and instead of working together to build a gap over the field, he decides that he is going to attack me as much as he can and alas, people are able to bridge up to us. But, with 7 km to the finish, I attack and this guy and one other try to come with, but are at around 20 seconds behind me all the way to the finish. Yes, thats right, I WON SOLO! This was quite possibly one of the best tasting victories, not just because I won off the front but I was able to control the situation. After the race, that little shit french racer, well he had 2nd place locked up with me off the front, right, well he ended up 3rd and all I could do was laugh at him for that. I mentioned to him that had he worked with me instead of attacking me for the final hour he could have had a chance at the win. Funny part all he can come back with is that Americans are dopers and that is why we win. Once again an ass hole and will take every chance I have to stick it to them. Unfortunately, do not have a photo from finish just yet, trying to track those down, not sure which photographer was at the line.



Monday
I should have known that today was going to be difficult. The start of the race was about a mile away from the Atlantic coast and as we drove closer to the start, I began to see more and more wind turbine farms. We ended up having a smaller field yesterday at only 150 but with a day that had all the big french teams there, plus a few of the Belgian outfits, the day was going to be a hard one. The race starts at the bottom of a hill, awesome, legs love that and after the hill is 100 km/hr winds and tiny farm roads wide enough for 5 riders. Echelons were the name of the game and a breakaway went up the road fairly quickly. Not making the break, I decided that I would try to chill out in the field on this day and was working out until the caravan cars needed to go up to the break. As the cars were racing alongside the field a driver misjudged and ended up driving into the peloton and causing a crash, one of the gnarlier ones I have seen. The rule is that when you hear a wreck, hit it even harder and well that gap caused by wreck meant I never saw front of race again, bummer. For awhile I thought that I might be able to, but alas, the concept of just pacing our efforts in group and slowly pulling the front group back was out the door and all the little frenchies decide to attack as hard as they can, blow up, come back and try again. So, rolled in for something like 30th place, nothing to be excited about but had a good 4:30 hour workout.

Now just a bit of recovery for a few days before I do it all over again. Sorry for the length on that, been away for a bit. Leave early in the morning for races, and get home late.

breaking the snap

Well, finally broke that 2nd place streak that I have had going for the past 3 weeks. Unfortunately, I broke it going the wrong direction and finished in 3rd place today, bummer. But, on the bright side I have another race tomorrow to try and redeem myself and I get to race again on Monday for a 3rd chance on the weekend. I am feeling fairly good about how the racing seems to be going. Today, I once again was able to sneak into the early break which was great. But, I gotta say it is a bummer to once again be outnumbered in a move, we had 9 in the breakaway and guess what, somehow the really big teams always find a way to put 2 or 3 team riders into a move. When I first arrived I could not even imagine making it into the breakaways that seemed to go away at breakneck speed and now I am consistently making it into the move. I am even recognizing the situation in the race of being outnumbered and am trying to figure out how to race against bigger teams and being a small fish in a big pond. The best that I can do is keep on attacking and hope to catch someone on their heels. Heres to another good 2 days.