bliss

As I wheel my bike outside and begin to ride I begin to think to myself, "How lucky am I? This is such beautiful weather to be riding in. I am so blessed to be able to riding today." Cars begin passing me as I turn on to the somewhat busy Oak Ridge Turnpike. I continue, passing through a construction zone, something that has become pretty normal for Oak Ridge. My wrist and thumb begin being put through the rigors, going over bumps from the construction. I begin hitting smoother roads as I go on my way towards Lawnville. I turn off the busy highway immediately to a nice rural road. I adjust my IPOD and begin playing TV on the Radio. The song Dry Drunk Emperor comes on as I ride through the scenic farmland. I begin to think to myself, this is amazing. As the road begins to go upward, I decide to test the legs. I begin going faster, as the roads gets steeper. What an amazing sensation. The road levels off as I enter Kingston. The downhill begins and I test my flexibility by getting into the drops; still needs some work. As the rural roads continue, I think to myself, "This is the most perfect ride I have ever been on." As I begin heading towards my house, I can hear my stomach begin to growl. I am hungry. The closer I get to the house, the more hungry I become; I have bonked. With that being said, I still believe this is the most perfect ride. As I go back through the construction zone, the bumps begin reoccurring. I get into Oak Ridge and the pavement turns smooth again as I begin riding on the bike lane. I get home and think to myself, "That was perfect."
A ride like that is the reason why I still ride. I used to think nothing of beautiful rides like that. I used to take them for granite. Through this wreck, I have learned to enjoy every perfect moment life decides to throw your way, because it takes nothing for it to be gone. I am thoroughly blessed that I am able to enjoy an absolutely perfect ride. Despite the busy road early on, it is absolutely perfect. You know it's a good ride when you bonk and still feel amazing (in the sense that the conditions are amazing. not in the sense that my legs feel amazing.) I am blessed to be able to ride a bike!
The Crow

baby steps

Well back again in my attempts to have more updates. Things have been going well for me. I have rode for the past 6 straight days. Granite, none of the rides have been more than a hour and a half, but I'm getting the consistency back. Although I am getting the consistency back, I am still frustrated by the amount of volume that I'm doing, or lack there of. Don't get me wrong, I know it's not an overnight thing, but I want to be doing long epic rides. It's like I want to jump straight into 4 hour rides, but I don't want to mess with the 2 hour rides and under. I know I have to work my way on up, it's just frustrating, that's all. I was telling someone in my spin class, "It took me 6 years to get to where I was. I'm not going to get back to that point over night." I wish I could though. It's hard to continue, knowing what I was expecting out of myself this winter, and what is actually happening. It's easy to throw in the towel and say I am done with racing, I'm just going to ride for fun. But that is not the case with me. I mean I do have fun while riding of course. What I mean is it's going to be a challenge, I understand that. But isn't that what cycling is all about, the challenge? Do you think it is easy for anyone to complete the Tour de France? Do you think it's easy for anyone to even complete a century? NO! And it's not going to be easy for me to come back. Wait, did I just say come back? What am I talking about, I'm not having to come back from anything, forget what I just said. What I should have said is it's not going to be easy for me to get to where I was, in terms of my fitness level. It's going to be hard, but that's what it's all about. I still have 4 months before racing season. Yes one month of winter training is over, but I still have 4 months left. That is a lot of time. You may say I am procrastinating, but that is not the case. I am taking my time KNOWING I have 4 months left. As I said several posts ago, "My whole cycling career I have been in a rush, this time it's different." I am going to hold true to that. In general, if you rush through anything, mistakes happen. I am going to take my time with this. I am looking at it with a whole different attitude. It's crazy to say this, but that wreck truly was a life changing experience. It changed my whole outlook of riding a bike. I have learned a lot of things from it. as well as getting closer with God. My whole outlook has changed. I have changed. I would like to think I have changed for the better, but we'll see on that one. Either way, I am moving on from this experience as a better person. Thanks for reading the ramblings yet again. Til next time,
The Crow

road i.d.

Well back again. Not too much has happened this week for me. The biggest thing being the arrival of my Road I.D. For the longest time, I thought road i.d.s were "uncool." I always sore not to wear one due to the uncool-ness. But, it only took one bad wreck to change my mind. I know think they are the greatest things in the world. BIG thanks to Jamie and Danny Johnson a.k.a the Mayors of Gulf Wood for getting my road i.d. for me. Before, I didn't know they cared about me that much. But now, it is good to know they do! I am very thankful for those to going through the trouble of getting it for me. As soon as I get out of the shower, it is the second thing I put on, and it is the last thing I take off before I go to bed. It is now apart of me. Big thanks to them!
As I enjoy my Sunday, I begin watching the movie Road to Roubaix. It is not the most motivating movie, but a good movie none the less. It is a documentary about the Paris-Roubaix bicycle race. In my opinion, it is more of a documentary of the atmosphere of the race, and not the race its self. Non the less, it is a good movie. Something about it makes me feel very happy to be able to ride again. As I was watching the movie, I was riding on the rollers for the first time. Just by watching it, I was imagining I was on the Cobbles of Northern France. It was a very good feeling. One of the people on the movie said something that really struck a chord with me. He said, "the people come out to watch these cyclist ride THEIR roads. The admire the cyclist for riding on the cobbles and not giving up. That is pride. The locals have pride in those roads." For some reason that hit home with me. Maybe it's because people over in Europe have a different life style, a lifestyle that I admire. Over here in America, people are always looking out for themselves. Over in Europe, especially in the small towns, people think about other people. Not that I've been to Europe, but just from the things I've noticed. I really enjoy that lifestyle and hopefully one day, I will be able to make an extended trip over there. There is just something about the culture and way of life that I absolutely admire. I'm sure some off that has to do with the border line socialism of many countries over there, but still, everything is so laid back. I love it. Well anyways, thanks for reading. Look for an update maybe mid-week about how I'm doing with physical therapy and things like that. Til nest time, thanks for reading and have a safe and happy Halloween,
The Crow

therapy

Well I have been to physical therapy a couple of times and its helping a lot. I have learned that my wrist is in worse shape than my thumb. I guess I had a pretty severe sprain. I have heard a lot of times, sprains are worse than actually fractures. This is probably one of those cases. I can ride and do some other things (changing flats not included) and my thumb will be fine, however my wrist is generally the cause of pain. It, like everything else, is going to take time.
My motivation is something that is going to take time. I talk about riding and building up to some epic rides, however when the time comes to actually ride, I don't. Perhaps it is because I know the level of fitness I was at, and knowing where I am at now is very frustrating. It's like I expect myself to go out and ride for a couple of hours with no problem. When in reality, I bonk 2 hours into a 2:15 minute ride. The level I was at before the wreck and even last winter, that's when my legs would have started coming around. Last year I was riding outside; rain, snow, sleet, or shine I was riding. Where as now, it has to be absolutely perfect. When I say perfect I don't mean the temperature, I mean wind. The wind has always been my achilles heel and I hate it. It turns me into a sketchy rider and if I am sketchy, I run a risk of wrecking. I am not afraid of wrecking again, I am afraid of the repercussions. Like yesterday for example, it was slightly windy. So I decide to move 6 tons of gravel instead of ride. I figure I will ride later in the day, but when the time came I was so tired from moving all the gravel around I just didn't have it in me.
O well. Riding is riding. What good is it if I'm not having fun? I have to keep having fun. Granite it is frustrating knowing how much fitness I have lost, but at the same time, riding bikes is supposed to be fun. If I have fun by doing a 45 minute ride then so be it. Where as if I do a 2 hour ride, and I don't have fun then that is not good. The way I see it, This is the time of my life where I am rebuilding the mental capability of riding long hours. I will begin the physical part later, but I need to get the motivation first. I apologize for the rambling about the same stuff over and over again, but it's amazing how one experience can change everything. Thanks for reading my repetitious ramblings,
The Crow

oops

Well my apologies for not giving my mid week update. There has been nothing to update you on. Life has been normal. I planned on wrenching at the Blackberry farms cycling camp, however those plans fell through. I just got back from Michigan. I went up there to see my Grandfather. He is not very well and we (my parents ad I) needed to see him. We left on Friday and came back on Sunday. It was a very short trip to say the least. I saw my Grandpa for 20 minutes, andd he was sleeping at that. I am not disappointed at that, I understand he is loosing control of his body and he cannot do anything to gain control of it. He is currently at a nursing home which is good for my grandma. She would kill herself trying to help him, and there was only so much she could do. She loves him so much, but like I said, there is only so much she can do. He is always sleeping and she would always have to clean up after him. Him being in a nursing home was the best thing she could have done.
The drive to and from Michigan was good. As I grow older, I am enjoying traveling a little bit more, even if it is in a car. I used to hate going through Ohio. It used to be and endless road with nothing but farmland. Now, Cincinnati and Dayton are two of my favorite cities and the flat farmland is somewhat reminiscent of the Tour of Ohio, my first big stag race. I am learning to l0ve the drive. The leaves were unbelievable this trip. Absolutely breath taking! Going through the Cumberlands all the way to Michigan they were gorgeous! The beauty carried over to today. On my ride today, I really learned how blessed I am to be able to ride a bike again. I went out and did a 2-2.5 hour ride (which is the longest ride I have been on since the wreck) With my friend Mig. I was taking the beauty of rural roads for granite. Today was like a beauty overload for me. I even stopped to take a picture. I couldn't believe how perfect it was.
Tomorrow, I will start consistently weight lifting. I teach my 5:30am spin class then I go about lifting. At this point, I am unsure if I will ride again after that, or if I will call it a day after the lifting and my 1.5 hour class. Either way I am becoming more consistent and that is what I need the most right now. Regardless if there is something to update you on or not, I will update the blog again before the week is over with. Until then, thanks for reading,
The Crow

catching the bug...again

Ok, I'm not getting a bacterial virus or anything like that, I am catching the cycling bug again. In other words, I am getting motivated to train again. The last part of my recovery, I was getting pretty demoralized and discouraged about riding. I had just had my crash, and I would just stare at my bike and dread riding. I didn't even hook it up to the trainer, I would just dread riding. It's not the fact that I was scared of wrecking again, to be honest I don't know why I was dreading it. Perhaps it was because I couldn't rest on my hand, or grip a bar. Or maybe it was because I couldn't shift. Who knows, all I know is I didn't want to ride. Well starting today, I want to ride again. Today was my FIRST time riding outside since my crash. It was my fourth time in five weeks that I had ridden. I just rode for a hour, but just the sensation I was getting was making me feel like I was a beginner. It was a good feeling. I was like a little kid, not knowing how to clip in my pedals, and not holding my line straight. I wasn't holding my wattage, and my heart rate would spike very frequently. To most racers this is aggravating, but for me, this is a good feeling. After "training" for the past four years, it felt great to let loose. Not only am I feeling like a beginner, but I have the fitness of one as well. I was extremely slow, and my wattage was pretty horrible. But you know what, I don't care about that. The wattage will get back to where it was sooner or later. The past five weeks were the first time in a year and a half I have had a real break. Last off season break, I was forced to do a couple of rides in the middle of it. My mid season break this year was interrupted by my spin classes. So the past couple of weeks were the first weeks I had not ridden in more than a year, I needed that. Now I am in the mood to start rebuilding my base. Not only am I prepared physically to do long slow miles, but I am mentally prepared as well. I have turned my music choice around and I am listening to more calmer bands. Bands like Iron and Wine and Nickel Creek. For me, I have learned that long endurance rides require a different attitude, and the music change helps with the attitude change. Like I said, I am trying to update my blog a little more frequently so I will try to update on Tuesday. That is when I will be a volunteer mechanic at the Blackberry Farms cycling camp. George Hincapie will be there, and the will be the first person I will have talked to that was at the race that I crashed in. It will be good to hear if he can recall anything from the race and tell me about the wreck. Til then, thanks for reading,
Jon

pin-less

Well, I got the pins out of my thumb this morning and I am on the home stretch, sort of. I am still recovering from my concussion, but I haven't had any loss of balance or dizziness issues of late, so I am trying to ride again. I am starting with very little riding. To be honest, I don't see myself doing more than a hour and a half this week. The start of the endurance time has been pretty anticlimactic, for obvious reasons. I was hoping to put in another good winter. Last year I begun to enjoy riding in the winter. I love the long hours in the saddle. The slow pace or extremely low intensity. I was hoping to ride my but off, but that will not be the case. I foresee myself taking it easy on the bike for the next month. No intensity, and nothing really over two hours. Oh well, that is life. This whole experience is another hurdle life has thrown my way. I am not only learning from this experience, but getting stronger from it.
Well anyway, it's been a month since the wreck and it's time to quit talking about it. I am starting my weight lifting today. I can't wait. I am limited to exercises because I still have some road rash on my shoulder. Because of that I can't really lift a bar or put anything on my shoulder. Also, I can't really lift with my right arm cause my hand is still in a brace/cast. There are still several things I can do. My friend Mig got my bike in riding condition yesterday, I got my pins out this morning, just those two things have me wanting to ride outside. I was contemplating about riding outside for a good long while. However, I realized I have to teach a spin class this evening, so I will just do that and lift weights afterward. Seeing how I am doing better, I hope to be blogging more. All you readers out there will be a little more informed on how the Crow is doing.
Til next time,
The Crow

gaining experience

Well time for somewhat of an update. My bike is finally here, but I still can't ride it. I had been frequently loosing my balance and feeling light headed so I decided to go to the Doctor. He informed me that it is caused by my blood pressure. Just by doing an activty such as standing up spikes my blood pressure. That sharp blood pressure change is what causes me to fall and loose my balnce. Also, just by standing, my heart rate increases by about 25 beats per minute. This is a normal post concussion side effect, however my blood pressure and heart rate changes are a little high compared to normal. Therefor, even though I got my bike back almost 3 weeks after my last race, I am deciding to take another week off of exercising. Ever since 2006 I have been in a hurry to start training. This time, I could care less. If I don't allow my HEAD to heal properly, then I will regret it sooner or later. At this point, it is between being mentally off for the rest of my life, and having a bad upcoming season. I would definitely take the later of the two, and just by taking a 4-5 week break in September an October doesn't mean I'll have a bad year. It doesn't even mean I'll have a bad early season. It does mean that I will have done everything possible to prevent some sort of permanent injury. Some may thing I am over reacting to my concussion, however better safe than sorry.
So what does that last rambling have to do with gaining experience? Well, look back to Avery Trace 2006. I had a similar crash that ripped off half my face. Instead of taking time of the bike, or even visiting the hospital, I ended up racing a couple of hours later. I believe that because I did not take the proper recovery steps, I "dulled my edge" (if that makes any sense.) It takes me a little longer to process things. And that was after a wreck where I was conscious the whole time. This wreck, I was unconscious for 30-35 minutes. I am sure that came with repercussions. Because of the experience I gained at Avery Trace, I am smart enough to know to recover properly. I feel like this wreck will dwarf wrecks that I used to think were serious. Kind of like showing up to big races, then going to local races. The big races will ease the nerves during local races. I think this wreck will ease the nerves during smaller wrecks (I am refering to my own wrecks and no one elses of course. Every wreck has a different affect on different people.)
With all that being said, I am still planning some epic rides for whenever I do get back on the bike. I figure, I am missing out on my century season so I have to make it up. Right now I am for sure doing a century to Crap Orchard and back. As well as a century to Tellico Plains and back. I am working on an epic 4 day block that I will fill people in later on. In the immediate future (this weekend to be exact) I am going to middle Tennessee. I am hoping to hang out with friends as well as family. I have been missing middle Tennessee as well as a lot of my friends and family. Anyways, thanks for reading my ramblings,
The Crow

back to normal, kind of

Well, my facial wounds have almost completely healed. I returned to normal life this past Tuesday. To say the least, it is tough. Even though my face is getting back to normal, my right hand is still in a cast and half my right shoulder is still missing. For someone that is right handed it makes everything difficult. Day to day I am relearning how to do things and it is such a struggle. Although I crashed and hurt myself, I am very fortunate and blessed not to have it worse. There are so many other things that could have been broken or damaged. I am so blessed that all I had were some stitches, road rash, and a broken thumb. I would never consider myself an extremely religious (although I strongly believe in God) person, but what else could explain how lucky I was in that wreck? I have began to learn that there comes a point were you cannot control things and someone/something else begins controlling them. Take, for example, my wreck. I am flying. unconscious, through the air. I have absolutely no control over my body, but some how something manipulates my body to fall in a certain way. This way allowed my collar bone to go unscathed, allowed my ENTIRE lower body to go unscathed, (my shorts have no holes in them) and allowed my whole left side of my body to go unharmed. Think about Lance Armstrong recovering from one of the worst forms of cancer. Someone took control of his cancer and that is how he recovered from it. It is impossible that a human could have taken control. Some people will look to science, or luck to explain things like this, (that is fine with me if they feel that way, It is not my place to tell someone they are wrong or right) but I believe it is God that allowed me to fall the way I did. I can envision Gods hands around me as I fly through the air, creating a shield around my body.
I try not to be controversial, and I try to see where people are coming from, but what else could have made me fall the way I fell? I believe it was God. I also believe that nothing happens without a reason for it happening (even when I wasn't the most religious person I believed that everything happened for a reason.) I believe the purpose of this wreck was not to get me to quite riding my bike, or quite racing my bike. The purpose of this wreck was to bring me closer to God. Like I said earlier on, I was not the most religious person before the wreck, and I'm still not the MOST religious person. But this experience definitely brought me closer to God. Before the wreck I would have never come out and be the religious type in public. But after thinking about it, I need to make people aware that I believe in God and I believe the reason why I was not more harmed in this wreck was because of God.
Some people will think o man, Jon's the religious type and now he's going to be telling people they are going to hell, and they are wrong for doing stuff, but that is not the case. I am going to be the same person. I will still make some wrong decisions and I am not going to be perfect. But hopefully I will react slightly differently to my mistakes. What I am saying is I am still the same Jon as before, just slightly different.
Sincerely,
The Crow

If you are just a blog reader looking for an update

Well labor day weekend was upon me and so was the 10K Cycling classic. This race was going to be one of the biggest races for me this year. Not only were there some big pro names in the domestic scene present, but big names in the European scene as well. I show up to the start line and none other Tour de France stage winner and multi-time Paris Roubaix podium rider George Hincapie was racing. This is what I get motivation from! So the race starts and it stats off pretty fast. About 2.5 miles in, the rider in front of me begins going over these pot holes. The holes are not bad, but for some reason the guy in front of me tries to get out of this line. With me on this guys wheel, he goes off his line and crashes. I see a gap just to the left, in a split second decision, I try to shoot the gap. The rider to the right of me hits this guys bike bike and pushes it into me. I go down! The last thing I remember is seeing this guy grimacing on the ground. The next thing I remember is waking up in the ER. I had been in there for a couple of minute before I even gain consciousness. Just before I get transferred out of the ER, I get about 20 Stitches in the right side of my face as well as the news that my thumb is broken. That Friday, I get surgery on my thumb as well as I get my facial wounds cleaned up by a plastic surgeon. I still have stitches in my face, but it looks alot better since he cleaned it up. Tomorrow (Monday, a week since the accident) I will be going to get the stitches taken out. I will get the 2 pins out of my thumb in about a month, and another 2 weeks after that before the cast comes off. A BIG thanks to the Macnaughtons! Through cycling I met a guy named Josh Macnauhton. Josh's dad is an orthopedic surgeon. So thankfully, I had a true family friend doing my surgery on my thumb. I am very thankful and honored to be able to call the Macnaughtons my friend! Josh and his family are AMAZING!

amazing!

Most of my readers know me. They know whats been going on the past week that I have not updated, and they think, "Where did he come up with the name of this post?"
Allow me to elaborate. This past Monday (a week ago tomorrow) I raced my last race of the season. About 3 miles into the race, I wrecked. I was knocked unconscious before I even hit the ground, and did not wake up until I had been in the ER for several minutes. I was at this race by myself, not knowing a single person there, so tracking down my parents was very difficult. While I was at this race, my parents were visiting my AMAZING sister and her AMAZING house hold. Seeing how I was in Atlanta, and my parents were in Virginia, it made options very limited. The hospital knew virtually nothing about me, and I pretty much knew nothing about my self. Through the AMAZING effort done by the AMAZING ER staff, they were able to track down my AMAZING mom and she was able to fly down asap. While my mom was in the air, the ER staff was unbelievable! Not only that, but people in general were AMAZING! There was one woman (a mom to a bike racer that was also in the hospital) that offered to stay with me! She offered to help track down my mom, and offered to virtually stand in as my mom until my real mom came! I was AMAZED by the curiosity of this woman. Not only was this woman so nice, the hospital staff was AMAZING! I had a very cute ER nurse that was assigned to me. She was so nice and thoughtful. I can remember her rushing in to tell me she got hold of a family member. and her going way out of her way to do things for me. I also remember another ER nurse who's husband was a fire fighter that was working at the race. She was an avid bike rider with a 5 series Madone. I think her and her husband do triathlons and she was so gracious. She even went through the trouble of tracking down the race promoter and video of the wreck and things like that. I also remember my ER doctor. This guy was extremely nice and very funny. I can remember just before I left the ER somehow hot women got brought up between he and I. I can't really remember who brought it up but I asked if the nurses up stairs were as hot as the nurses in the ER. He replied saying that the nurses upstairs were no where near as hot, and he was right haha. The entire hospital staff was AMAZING. I cannot even begin to describe how gracious and nice they were. I only wish I knew their names. AMAZING!
As my AMAZING mom flew down to take care of me and bring me home, my AMAZING step dad drove home from Virginia. As soon as he get home, he began tracing down my bike. This task my sound easy, but it was far from it. It took my AMAZING step dad four days to finally track down my bike. For those four days, he was tirelessly calling people trying to find my 4,000 dollar bike. I think it was Thursday morning when it finally showed up. I'm sure it will be broken, however it will be nice to put my mind at ease. Although for some reason I am not very worried about the bike. Perhaps it is the medicine, but for some reason I do not care about my bike being broken. Either way, my bike would still be in Atlanta if not for my AMAZING step dad.
Once I got home on Tuesday, I immediately began getting hold of my bosses. First was the guys at Cedar Bluff Cycles. Gerri and the rest of the guys were AMAZING. I knew that MIG would be AMAZING seeing how we are practically best friends. What surprised me is how AMAZING and thoughtful Geri and Tim were. Not only did they give me the necessary time off, but they have been passing the word on to all my friends, but they have been very sympathetic. Not only did I contact the guys at Cedar Bluff Cycles, but I also contacted my bosses at the Rush. I some how managed to email them and let them know of the news and they were so helpful. My main boss Erin has been very understanding and AMAZING for that. My Oak Ridge boss has just been all around AMAZING! Julie has been so helpful with finding subs. She has been so sympathetic. I'm sure she has gone so far out of her way to make it easy on me and I am so grateful for that. All my bosses have been AMAZING!
And finally my family and friends have been AMAZING! I would have never imagined this many people giving me their wishes. It has just blown my mind! A friend like Maxey that has called me everyday! People like the Sweckers (my bro Stefan and his parents) that have sent me gifts and nice phone calls. My Facebook profile has exploded with friends wishing me luck! I had no idea this many people care about me! It is AMAZING! Dozens of friends giving me their wishes. I am so appreciative that I cannot even describe! And family, geez talk about be blessed! I have family members constantly calling me, praying for me. I even have people that I don't even know praying for me and wishing me to get better. AMAZING! I've got my entire Dads side of the family constantly praying for me! I've got my step-moms co-workers and church members constantly wishing me luck and praying for me. People I have met once in my life sending me their wishes. I am AMAZED by the support of everyone! My parents (I have a lot of people that parent me even though they are not my birth parents) are all being so supportive and AMAZING! And all my moms (like I said there are several people that are not my parents that are like parents) are so supportive, they are AMAZING!
I know this is not a conventional blog post, but this is not a conventional time of my life. Seeing how I virtually have no left hand, it is very hard to type. I will give an actual update later on. I just feel like I have to thank everyone! This battle is far from over for me and I hope to continue to have all this support over the next month. The Doctors are not expecting my thumb to get back to normal for another 6-8 weeks. Please continue giving me this unparalleled AMAZING support!
Sincerely,
Jon

poo poo crit

Well, I'm back. This past weekend was the River Gorge Crit. I was able to carpool there with my good friends Robbie Kidd and Michael "The Manatee" Weber. Webers race was earlier in the day. He proved that he is getting better and better. He was placed well late in the race, however he got stuck to close to the front with one lap to go. I think he ended 16th or so. Every race he does he improves. He still struggles on maintaining good position, but he will get the hang of it. Robbies race was before mine. His race was a selective crash filled race. After sitting in the field conserving his energy, he sacrificed his position to avoid crashing (a good sacrifice.) Had Robbie wrecked, he would have ruined his wheelset. Once he avoided his wreck he slipped to the back of the course. The course was extremely narrow and technical making moving up very hard. He ended up coming in mid field in the sprint I think. My race was delayed due to a guy wrecking and the ambulance being on the course. Kinda scary knowing the course is sketchy enough for a guy to be wheeled off in an ambulance. My race starts and it is hard from the gun. To be honest, I was in the red zone for the first 20 minutes, no rest. Even though I was hurting, alot, I was still doing a decent job of staying near the front. I knew how hard it would be if I were at the back, so I tried with everything to stay at the front. As I was covering some moves at the front, my two teammates where chilling at the back, which kinda sucked cause I was dieing trying to cover this stuff and they were no where to be found. As the race goes on, we are constantly dropping riders. about 30 minutes into the hour long race, I begin to get some pretty severe stomach cramps. The race doesn't sit up til about 40 minutes in. Once the race sits up, a d-bag rider attacks and stays away for the win. About 45 minutes in, there is a small split int he field. At this point, my stomach cramps are getting worse and worse. I decided I was going to drill it to make the split, and if I didn't make the split, I was going to drop out to relieve my cramps. Well, I don't make the split, so I pull out and go strait to the restrooms. Once I get done, I go to watch the race and I realize there are only like 15 riders left in the race, 35 started. The winds and technical course destroyed the race. I definitely learned some things from this race. Kinda suck it ended up that way, but I learned. So whats next you may ask? Last race of the year is coming up a week from today, US 10k classic. I can't wait for it to come. My power is getting slightly better. More than anything, I am looking forward to letting loose for a couple of weeks. My discipline is getting weaker and weaker. It's ok in my opinion, for the first time, I am not physically or mentally burned out at the end of the year, its kind of a crazy feeling. Yes, the sensations of being peaked have left my legs. However, I still feel good. I might give a midweek update, if not, I will definitely give a post race/season recap.
Til next time,
the Crow

thank god thats over with

My apologies for the late recap, here's how it all went down this past weekend. Friday night, I agree to meet with the Rigbys (race officials) about approving the feed zone area. I agree with them to meet at 6 o'clock at roan state community college (that is where race packet pick up is.) They finally show up at 6:30. They get there and I say cool lets go check it out. They then tell me they must wait on another official to get there. What? I got crap todo, at this point, I still have to go to Knoxville ad overhaul my bike. So here we are, waiting for this guy to show up. Finally, 7:30 comes and he shows up. After they talked for 15 minutes we finally get going. IT took them roughly 15 minutes to approve it. In that amount of time, we could have approved and been back before the official even got there. So I am on my way to Knoxville and it is roughly 8:30. I haven't had dinner yet, and I still have to overhaul my bike. So I get to the shop and I then begin the whole process of cleaning, putting new bearings in, etc. I get on my way home around 10:30. Knowing that I have an 80 mile road race the next morning I begin eating pasta as if I were a vacuum. I finally get in bed around 11:45.
The next morning comes, and I have more stuff to do, therefor I have to get up at 5. So I get up, put everything in the car and immediately go out to the course and begin sweeping some turns. So here I am, outside someones house at 6 in the morning sweeping gravel off the road. This took me about 45 minutes and by the time I was done, I was dripping sweat. I head to the start area and begin to get ready to race. As I'm getting ready to race, one of my co-promoters begins sending people my way. If someone asks him anything, his response was go ask Jon Crowson. He literally sent 15 people to me in the span of about 5 minutes. THANKS ALOT. Thanks for screwing my warm up. So the race finally starts. The course has a one mile climb, right after the descent of the climb, there is a short, but supper steep roller. I get over the climb fairly well, towards the front. We hit the roller and I am dead. My guess is due to my lack of sleep I could not recover. I go out the back like a brick and I pull the plug to start volunteering. Due to pouring rain, less than half the expected volunteers showed up. It was a huge pain in the butt to find wheel vehicles and lead vehicles for the second heat of races. I could not have done it without my lead and wheel vehicles for the second heat. Thanks so much to those guys! The day finally ends, and I am beat. I skip the tt and take a good nap.
The next day was the crit. I decided to announce for the race, so whenever I got up, I headed over to the crit. I get there around 10 and begin announcing. My race starts at 3:55 and I announce all the way up to that point. I begin my warm up and my legs are feeling horrible. I start the race and immediately go off the front to try and get them going. That was a FAIL, instead of warming them up, it just put my in the hurt box for the rest of the race. I get in a couple of moves, but with no avail. Thee race comes down to a sprint and luckily enough Stefan was in good enough position to sprint to 6th. I am way back in the field and I cannot move up in time. I probably ended up getting 20th or something.
After the weekend was all said and done, I have decided to not promote the road race next year. I will continue to try and get a twilight crit for next year, but thats it. I have had it with this, I don't enjoy being part of screw ups, which is what the road race was. Was some of it my fault? possibly, however the fact that half of my volunteers showed up was the cause in my opinion. I was not head of the volunteering area.
So the next race is the Chattanooga crit on Sunday. Hopefulyl my legs with come back around cause a couple of Mondays from now is the 10K classic. Possibly the biggest race of the year. A super high speed circuit race with a 45+ mph sprint. I will give another update probably on Sunday. Until then,
The Crow

crossing the T's

Well after a break of blogging, it's time to give my few readers an update. My life is now complicated. Mostly complicated with stupid stuff, but stuff none-the-less. The Oak Ridge race is this weekend and it is taking up more of my time as each day goes by. Sunday, I was out riding the course. Once my 90+ mile ride was over, I went back out there for a couple of hours to mark the course. Today, I was back out there for even more hours. Lou (race co-promoter) and I were out there putting fliers on every single mail box. Might not sound like much, but it is. We started with 200 fliers and ran out with about 100 houses to go. I will probably go back out there on Friday to sweep a couple of the turns, but then I 'm done. I'm actually focusing on the race this year, so I will probably show up right at the start time so I don't get stressed out on race day. Those are the perks of living a 20 minute ride away from the staging area. I am also doing the Oak Ridge time trial. It will be my first time trial all year, so I will probably crush it. Especially since my tt setup is probably worth 1/5 of what my teammates setup is. O well, no need in getting worked up over it, if nothing else it will be good to spin my legs out. The crit is one of my top 5 favorite crits. The only way it could be better is if it was on Saturday night (in the works.) I'm also looking forward to Atlanta 10K. It says 10k but really its 100k. The race is very fast and I think that would be a cool way to close out the season. It's crazy that I'm already talking about my end of the season break, but hey it's almost September. I think once 10K is over I will take 1-2 weeks of absolutely no exercise then start doing some cross training. To be honest I don't want to take a break, I want to race the whole time, but at this time of the year, life starts getting in the way. I start becoming more and more busy with none cycling stuff. Once my break is over, there is a triathlon that I'm looking forward to doing in late October, then I am doing a 6 hour mtb race in mid November. To be honest, that is what I'm really looking forward to. I can't wait to hang out with some of my friends from Murfreesboro. I went to college with some super cool guys and they will be there representing their bike store MOAB. Also, I'll be going over ther with my good friend Mike "The Manatee" Weber. He is a cool guy that I work with. He is getting stronger every day, I think he has a good chance of winning the mountain bike race. I will probably post an update Saturday night giving a race recap. The road race should be very hard and fun. I love long road races, so this should suit me.
til next time
The Crow

back to reality

Well, my week long vacation has come to an end. Boy did it end with a bang! The second to last race (Friday night) went well. I started on the front row, got a good clip in and it was on. I felt great early on and probably did too much. I was too near the front early on and got caught out covering some breaks. It was not smart of me, but at least now I know I can compete on this level. When it was all said and done, I got popped with 3 laps to go, but I hung in there and finished the race. It was not a good result but it was good for my mentality and I now know I have improved from last year. Also, it was good to see more familiar faces. Not only was Stefans awesome family there, but Greg Casteel. Casteel is a great masters racer and a local legend. When I was really struggling at the end, I could hear his voice. A voice that is so distinct due to the large amount of heckling he gives me.
Saturday, the last race was about to happen. Most of the big guns were doing the big NRC race that evening, so the field was noticeably smaller. The race starts, and for me, it was significantly slower. I begin doing very well, I bridge to a break to open my legs and recover well afterward. With about fifteen laps to go, I am sitting about ninth wheel. A Mountain Khakis rider in front of me begins slamming on the brakes, so I am forced to slam my brakes on as well. In order to prevent from hitting the rider dead on, I slide to the right just a little bit. He begins to go to the right a split second later and takes me out. A begin to roll several times. I think four riders end up rolling over me and they themselves go down as well. I get up and get my bearings strait. I try to ride on, but my bike is too screwed up to compete. Not the best way to end the series.
So whats next? Well, it's back to reality for me. Going back to work tomorrow. The Oak Ridge race is coming up and I must meet with police and volunteers and deal with that headache. My other bro Josh is leaving for college in the next couple of days so I might be able to hang out with him one more time. Stefan is going to college next weekend so I will for sure hang out with him before he leaves. Real life is starting as the summer is ending. I will be pretty busy this week, but I will try to do a midweek post to let you know I haven't succumbed to the stress.
thanks for reading,
The Crow

crossroads pt. 2

As I'm driving to the host home, (Stefans Aunts house) I am thinking to myself, what could I have done differently so that Stefan could have won? Rewind 1.5 hours. I am standing on the front row of start line. A steady drizzle of rain is coming down. Lightning lights up the twilight sky in intermittent segments. The race starts and my foot stutters. Riders begin coming around me as if they were a swarm of ants on a dropped piece of food. We go into the first turn, Stefan is fifth wheel, I am thirtieth. Four turns later, we hit the first long stretch of the entire crit series. As the rider in front of me slowly begins pulling away, I realize I don't have the legs. Four turns after that, we hit the second long stretch, the finishing stretch. My legs begin to crumble. I realize, it is not a question of IF I get dropped, but a question of WHEN am I getting dropped. Seven turns after we cross the finish line, my rear wheel skids. The guy behind me slides and takes my wheel wheel with him. I do not go down, however, I do get gaped. I continue on, trying to close gaps that I, myself opened. Around five laps in, I can not do it anymore. The constant turning, wet corners, and wet potholes have taken their tole on me.
As I head back to the car to begin changing, I think to myself, "What happened?" I cannot come up with an excuse other than I just did not have it. The legs were not there. The wind was not there. My heart just wasn't in it tonight. I change and head back to cheer my Aryan teammate, Stefan, on. As I begin stand near the finish line, Stefan is continuously in good position, around the top 10. A couple of laps later, a five man break is up the road. None other than Stefan is chasing them down. With one lap to go, Stefan is around 10th wheel. Coming into the finish, Stefan is in fourth wheel and there is a huge gap to fifth place. I immediately begin cheering, but at the same time, I am thinking what could I have done differently to get him the win?
Well for starters, I could have had better legs. Is that control-able? Probably not, but I could have done something differently leading into the race to have better legs. If Stefan had a lead out of some sort, he could have killed it. If he didn't have to reel in that break away, he probably would have won the sprint. It's so surprising for some to think that one mid-race effort can change your result, but it can. I believe if I had closed that gap instead of Stefan, the outcome would have been different. But there is no use in playing the what if game, I just have to look to the future and learn from the past. The next race suits me a little better. It is a "lumpy" L shaped course. Many of the big teams will be saving their legs for tomorrows big NRC race, but I am not. I did not get in that race, so THIS race is MY race. Stefan will be at tomorrows big NRC race so he will be conserving a little today. Possibly not even finishing. That is fine with me, after seeing him yesterday, I believe he can get a top 20 in Americas richest Crit. I will probably give a recap in a couple of days.
Thanks for reading,
The Crow

CROSSROADS

Well Crossroads has finally come. Needless to say, something always goes wrong. For some reason, every time I plan on doing well in a race, I never do well. Last year, I was peaking for the Jerry Springer road race. When the Springer road race comes, I end up having the worst day on the bike I have ever had. Bar none, nothing has even come close to that day. I felt horrible. So what happens here? About a week before the races, I begin feeling weak. The day before the race, I begin vomiting. I vomit three times, the third being pretty bad. Needless to say, after that, I have nothing in my stomach and I can't hold anything down. So I'm going into Mondays race and I am afraid to eat much. I just got done recovering from some illness and I am getting ready to race the biggest races of the year.
Well, I show up to the start line and there are "only" two full U.C.I. teams there. When I say full, I mean 10 guys per team. The first race had about 70 starters. My broseph Stefan and I were the only ones representing my team. We get to the start line and we are stuck at the back. The race starts and I don't move up immediately. Instead, I take my time. I decide to take it easy at first cause too many times have I blown up trying to move up too quickly. So Stefan immediately goes to the front and starts mixing it up with the big guns. He does great! Midway through, I begin moving up. 40 minutes in, there is a prime and everyone goes on the right, I am stuck on the left. I somewhat salvage my position, but it was just too much. I try moving up again, but my stomach begins hurting. We are coming into the last couple of laps and some is dropping the hammer. I am holding on for dear life, but I still hold on. With 3 laps to go it eases up, but I am too tired and I can't recover. We go around the first turn on the last lap and I see Stefan on the ground. NOT COOL! I go around, finish the race, then make sure he is ok. He bike got somewhat mangled, but it ended up being ok. I come across the finish line near the back of the field, but I still finished. Last year I could not even do that on this race. I am happy with the performance. After being sick, I didn't know what to think. I figured I would have be dropped very early on, but that was not the case.
The next race was last night (Wednesday) The course is the shortest course at only .4 miles long. Last year, this was the only race I finished. (we averaged 29) The race starts and it is chaos. This time, there is another full team in the mix, Team Bissell. They show up with 9 guys. There are constant surges and the race wasn't quite as smooth as last year. Stefan begins mixing it up yet again, and I take a more conservative approach. The course has alot of pot holes and Stefans wheel ends up coming out of true, to the point where he could not go on. So I am the only one remaining. With about 30 laps to go there is a split in the field and I am in the second half. About this time, my stomach begins hurting and I am very uncomfortable. The bomb gets dropped with 8 laps to go, and I am shelled. I do not finish this race. Tonight is the race in Salisbury. A larger course which I will probably do better on. I will let you know how I do tomorrow, race time is at 8:45 pm.
The Crow

1 year

Well a year and 5 days ago I was upgraded from cat 3 to cat 2. My first race was the Pro/1/2 crossroads classic. Ouch, that race lit my fire. I was super motivated over the winter just to do well in that race. The time has come to step it up. The first race is on Tuesday. My legs are still not 100% but I'm trying to be optimistic. Staying optimistic is something I always fail to do. I consider myself a little more of a realist. I look at what is possible. If there is not really a chance of completing a goal, then what is the point of even making that a goal? To be honest, I'm not the best at making goals. I remember, my little senior quote in the year book was from the movie Dodge Ball of all things. My quote was, "I've found that if you have goals, you might not reach them. But if you don't have any goals, you will never be disappointed." And to be honest that is how I've gone about so many things. Not only cycling related things, but life in general. Currently, I'm not even looking past 5 years down the road. I know what I would like to do 5, 10, 20 years from now, but there is probably less than a 1% chance of that happening. The hardest part of life is not dealing with the problems you expect. But the hardest part of life is dealing with the problems you don't expect. Perhaps I look at the problems to much. Perhaps that is what keeps me from being optimistic. How do you go about changing the way you think? Is it even possible to radically change the way you view life and its problems? Is it possible to change the way you deal with things? I understand there are life changing experiences, new people come into your life, people leave your life, things just happen. I guess looking back on it, I have had a couple of these experiences, and they have changed certain points of my life. But there are still several things that I need to change if I am going be successful in life. Nothing is going to happen over night. But as I said before, the time has come to step it up. Not just with the Crossroads race, but with life in general.
The first race starts Tuesday around 9 pm. I will probably give some sort of recap Wednesday. Thanks for reading
The Crow

parking lot crits

PARKING LOT CRITS SUCK! So the plan for the weekend was to go to ATl for some hardcore racing. Well that plan fell through do to going to hard the week prior. So my bro Stefan and I decide to race in Nashville. This crit in particular is on some nice and cool black asphalt, not fun, and the best part is, it was 100 degrees. What a great idea to do a parking lot crit in 100 degree weather when the legs already feel like crap. Well, needless to say the race did not go so well. I started out hurting bad. I was sitting 5th wheel, and my legs felt like I was off the front. I was hurting that bad. The break goes and Teammate John Hart is in it. Great! A couple of laps after the break goes, I get popped. I contemplate dropping out, but I decide to train through it. When it was all said and done, Hart ends up getting 2nd, Stefan ends up winning the field sprint for 6th. As I finish the race, I begin having goosebumps and begin to get dizzy. I fall down into the seat of my car and realize I have heat exhaustion, that would explain the horrible performance on my part. After the race, Stefan and I decide to go to downtown for a bite to eat and to celebrate my birthday. Out of all the restaurants in Nashville, we decide to go to Sbarros HAHA. O well it was good pizza. After we finish the pizza, we head back to ktown and hang out at market square for a little bit. Overall, it was a hot day, and a long night. Ended up getting home around midnight (I know that is not very late for some, but after suffering from heat exhaustion and racing a bike around a parking lot, it was)On the bright side, once I fully recover from my build, I think my legs will be on fire, in a good way that is. We found a hotel for Crossroads and it is just around the corner. Luckily, the hotel has wifi so I will be able to keep everyone updated on how the racing is going.
thanks for reading
the crow

tired legs+hills=not fun

Well this past weekend was the French broad race weekend. The road race was 65 miles with a ton of hills. The race starts, and for the first time ever, my legs fill p with lactic acid as soon as i start pedaling. this is not a good sign. First we start the 25 mile junior loop. This loop was super hard. Not a single flat section. Every hill was steep and 1/2 a mile long, not fun. As we are going over this first loop no one is talking, most of the time people are talking during the race, making jokes, etc. not this race. We start the 2nd loop which is the loop that everyone does. It is a 40 mile loop with longer, more gradual hills with longer flat sections between. somewhere round mile 40 of the race, my computer quits working and I don't know how long we are in the race. At a certain point I start to see some of the bigger named riders heading to the front so I do the same. before I know it, I am passing riders while going up hill. sure enough we are on the second to last hill. This is a long hill, about 2 or 3 miles with a 3 mile false flat section leading into the hill so overall it was a long climb. With about 300 meters to go on the hill I loose contact with the leaders. then I get in the laughing group with my bud Stefan and go easy for the rest of the race. I end up 30th or something like that. Not bad for having some of the most tired legs I've had all year. If I had been somewhat rested, I feel that that 30th could have been turned into a top 15 very easily. The next day was the Criterium. MY legs felt noticeably better. The race starts and it is sunny and hot. I am doing well, staying towards the front of the field with my bro Stefan. About midway through the race, there is a 50 dollar prime. At this point there is a small break up the ride, but they are chased down right at the last turn. I am sitting 10th wheel and I begin to think to myself, my chances of getting a top 10 are slim to none, so I go for the prime. Surprisingly no one else did and I won the 50 bucks. I look back and i have a good gap so I keep pedaling. Shortly after I am joined by Eric Murphy. My legs are blown form the sprint, so I can't really work with him. I drop out of the break because one of the major teams is not in it and it is worthless to try. I get back to the field and it starts dumping rain. They begin shorting our race. With about 6 laps to go, puddles in the road are like 1/2 inch deep, and water is pouring into my eyes, I can not see a thing. Coming into 5 laps to go, the rain is still dumping and I am sitting 10th wheel, 2 wheels behind Stefan. I am not hurting too badly, but I can not see a thing. I decide to sit up and not deal with the rain in the eyes. Would I have been able to get a top 10? Probably yes. But do I regret sitting up? Absolutely NOT. I have the worst eye problems and the last thing I want to do is make them worse. Because of Stefans great positioning and good sprint, he was 3rd place behind some super legit pros. Great job Stefan! What a way to turn things around from the day before. Not bad for either of us coming off a 20+ hour intense week. Crossroads will be harder than this race, but this is a good sign for us both. This Weekend I'm not sure what I'll be racing. I might have to work on Saturday, but Sunday I would like to race somewhere. There is a race in Nashville and Atlanta. Also, Sunday is my birthday, so gong to one of those races could also be a fun night in the city. Thanks for reading the recap
the Crow

coming around

Sorry for the late update/race recap. This past Sunday was the ETJC criterium. Boy was it action packed. The race starts and cool dude Graham Foster goes of the front. I bridge to him, then we get caught. Another guy goes off the front, this time he is from the Metrosexual cycling team. I chase him down and go into the hurt box 10 minute into the race. oops, so much for controlling myself and waiting til after 15 minutes have passed to start getting in moves. Now I am in a 4 man break OFF THE BACK. Dang, another crit down with a pointless performance. But wait, the 4 man group I am with is working together. We are consistently 10 seconds back. We come around after a couple of laps and I hear a prime bell, I know the poop is about to hit the fan in the field so I do a hard pull to bridge back up, and I do. GREAT SUCCESS. I sit in for several minutes. Another guy on the Metrosexual cycling team is off the front and the field is completely content with letting him go. He stays off the front for several laps, I think 15 or 20 minutes. Dirk Pohlman is pulling the whole time, so as soon as I feel recovered, I go up to the front to help him out. I pull until I see the guy blow up, then I sit up. Soon after he is caught, my bro Stefan goes off the front and brings a Metrosexual with him, now they have a 5 bike length gap going into the last turn. Going through the last turn, the Metrosexual literally hits Stefans back wheel and they both go down. I go by and the Metrosexual is dog cursing Stefan.

WARNING! RANT IS ABOUT TO HAPPEN! if you would like to skip this rant, skip to the next paragraph. OK so this Metrosexual is dog cursing my bro Stefan. As I ride by, my initial reaction is to get under his skin, I do this very well. I am much smaller than him, probably by a good 150 pounds (for a Metrosexual cyclist, he was very fat) So I cannot start a fight and throw my wheel at him, so I have to get under his skin. So as I pass him I yell watch the language. Stupid, I know, however I think he his the kind of guy that would get annoyed by that. Later the next lap, I ask Dirk what happened, he was sitting on their wheel and had a front row seat, he said the metrosexual dude was sucking Stefans wheel, Stefan slowed going into a turn and the Metrosexual hit him and is "bitching" Stefan out for it. As the Metrosexual gets back in the race, I told him look dude, there are a bunch of kids watching this race, watch your language. A few laps after that he comes up to me and tells me,"Dude I don't know what you were telling me, but shut up. You don't know me so don't talk to me. Your f-ing team can't ride bikes." I tell him, "You doing a great job of making yourself look like an idiot." He then mentions something like we should try a bike rodeo? What is a bike rodeo? I tell him, "I ride bikes, not bulls, SHUT UP YOU ARE STUPID" By the end of the race, this guy was "bitched out" by almost every single Tennessee rider in the race. I hope he gets the idea he is not welcome in Tennessee. It was funny hearing his teammate say, "That guy is pissed off on a good day." After the race he was completely ignored by his teammates.

So Stefan gets back in the race and John Hart is able to make the break. He is the only guy on the team in a 6 man break so it was kinda risking letting it go, but I didn't have the legs to bridge up. As the race goes on, I go up and pull, Dirk is on my wheel. After a lap of pulling, my teammate Jeff Mcgrane starts yelling GO GO GO! I look back and I can't believe it. Dirk opened a gap up to my wheel and Jeff immediately bridged up. So at one point of the race I am off the back, at another point I am riding people off my wheel, how is this possible? A couple people bridge up, Dirk being one of them and the chase group is now 5 people. I don't have the legs to stay up there so I go back to the group that Stefan is in and finish with him. End up getting 11th. Big props to my team. They dominated the crit. They didn't win the stupid meat head competition,(Metrosexual team won that competition) but they did win the we race smart and we do what it takes to make the best out of a situation competition. John Hart ended up taking 2nd and Mcgrane ended up taking 6th or 7th. I think Stefan was right behind me or 13th. This weekend is a good sign that my legs are finally coming around. Also, it taught me to never think I'm completely out of a race because I was dropped. This upcoming weekend is the French Broad Cassic in Asheville. This is a REAL race. Big fields, big pros, and hard courses. I've never been climbing this well, EVER, so hopefully I will do well on this mountainous road race. I will let you know how it goes on Saturday after the race. It's going to be one of those races where I do amazing, or I do horrible. Either way, I am going to get a good ride in and good prep for Crossroads. Also, didn't get invited to Presby (huge NRC race where winner gets 10g) The promoter said Cat 1's only, so I might submit an upgrade request just so I can do this race. I'm not sure if I can get upgraded, or if it's even worth it. Cat 2 bonuses sure are nice, not that I'm getting them or anything. BTW I do not have any problems with metrosexuals, I have a problem with this one guy on the Metro cycling team out of Asheville. I apologize if I offended any metrosexual reader, I doubt I have any readers, but just in case there is one out there.
Thanks for reading the long posts
The Crow

piney flats

Well, time for a race recap. Yesterday, Saturday, was the Piney Flats road race. For some reason I was completely nonchalant about this race. I didn't know anything about this race, not even the distance. All I knew is there was going to be a road race on that day in Northeast Tennessee. Friday night, I finally decided to look at the flier. I mean after all, I need to get an address for the start so I can get directions. I got on the website and realized that it was a 35 dollar race. Kinda steep for a race that only pays 8 deep. I began contemplating going, until I saw the distance, 86 miles. WOOHOO! Finally, a race with a REAL distance. Longer races suit me. I hate these road races that are only 60 miles. I love the longer races. With that being said, I had to go race it, even if I don't do well, it's still a great day of training. Saturday morning comes early, real early, about 4 am. The race starts at 8 and I am 2.5 hours away. I wake up and immediately start having lower back pains. Not sure why, maybe used the wrong pillow or something, I don't know why. Anyways, I start driving and the back pains persist. I get to the start line and they are still there. Not only that, but I have a water bottle in my back pocket. At this point, I don't even know if I'm going to finish 1 of the 20 mile loops. The race gets going, and before I know it, the pain in my legs was over powering the pain in my back, so I don't really notice the back pains again until after the race. Once the race starts, Jeff Mcgrane (my Teammate) gets in a 4 man break. Sweet, I get to sit in all day. As we just start the 2nd lap, a train stopped the break which had about 30 seconds on us. Luckily, the ref gave them a head start. Once we got going, it was like a club ride, lot's of coasting. the course was rolling, with 3 notable hills that were about 5 minute hills. As the laps pass, I begin looking around and I realize that everyone else is breathing harder than me, cool. Around the start of the 3rd lap, an Industry 9 rider goes on the attack, and immediately gets 15-25 seconds. I begin to bridge to him, and that's when the field bean to get smaller. We started with 25 riders, after we regrouped from this attack, there was probably only 10-12 riders. Coming into the first hill of the last lap, I see Dirk Pohlman head towards the front, and I knew I had to get on his wheel cause the poop was about to hit the fan, and sure enough it does. Dirk begins doing a super hard pull up the hill to try and make a selection/bridging group. I am sitting 2nd wheel the whole time, about 3/4 of the way up the hill, I look back and the field is shattered. There are only 4 guys left. Dirk continues pulling on the downhill and tries to get some type of organization going, but there is none. Everyone is scared of him. We regroup once again. As we regroup, there is a rider that we pass from the break. After this, I am the only person in the selections that has a rider in the break, thus I can sit on the whole time. We come up to the 2nd hill and Dirk heads to the front yet again. This time, my teammate John Hart, was on his wheel. I was sitting 4th wheel. I could see John was struggling and the whole time up the hill I am thinking john don't blow up, John don't blow up. He blew up, but luckily the rider behind him was able to close the gap to Dirk. As we pass John, I tell him "good job" he gave me a much needed break. As we crest the hill, the group is now 7 riders. Everyone is yelling at dirk to do work, but he is doing work. I don't understand it. They were all sucking his wheel, they ALL should have been doing work. We are close to the 3rd and last climb, I attack. I am tired of this stupid lets sit on Dirks wheel game, it is annoying the CROW! I attack and immediately get a gap. 1 guy from Texas bridges up and we work together. After a mile, we are reeled back in. Coming into finish (about a mile) I take a flier. I stay off the front for awhile until I see Dirk chasing me. DANG IT DIRK. Dirk catches me and sort of has a gap, but not really so then that is it. Everyone in the group I was with could outsprint me and so they do. After the flier, I have no legs for the sprint, so I finish 10th, just ahead of Dirk. My teammate Jeff Mcgrane (who was in the break) ended up 2nd. After the race, Dirk comes up to me and tells me he should have just let me go, I feel like this is a very nice thing to say, it meant a lot to me.
I am happy with my form, I'm not peaked or anything like that, but I am a lot better than where I was at the last race. Every week goes by, I am getting better and better. In my entire cycling career, I have never been able to attack on a hill, I am always going towards the back or getting dropped. This was the first race that I actually attacked on a climb in my entire cycling career. I can't tell you how surprised I am. Here I am racing against pros and I can attack them. Whereas when I was racing juniors, I was getting dropped. I really don't know what to think about this other than it is very cool. Although my result doesn't say to much, I feel like my performance did. As I said in my last post, I am willing to sacrifice results in these smaller races for the peak race. Today is the criterium in the same area. Hopefully, I can pull out a similar performance as yesterday. My bro Stefan will be there making his racing comeback. He took a little break from racing when he went to Italy for 6 weeks. This will be his first race back, and he is doing well. We have been training quite a bit the past week or 2. It will be a lot of fun. I'll probably be posting later on tonight giving a recap of the crit.
Thanks for reading my blabbering about racing,
The Crow

race riding

Time for the recap of this past weekend. I didn't have any races this past weekend. However, my favorite organized ride took place. The Rocky Top 100K. This ride has the coolest roads and a super cool post ride atmosphere. The ride leaves from Barleys Taproom and Pizzeria in downtown Knoxville. 15 minutes into the ride you are on some great roads with some pretty big rollers. Last year I "won" the ride, so the big joke around work (we close up shop just for this ride, plus it is always around the 4th of July so that is our holiday. Everyone at work takes this ride very seriously) Is that I was going to defend my "title." Going into the ride, I let Stefan know about it and told it was a great ride. 100k on awesome roads with free pizza afterward, he didn't think twice about coming. Going into the ride, both of us needed more racing, high intensity in the legs, so we started pretty hard. The ride never really got organized. For the first half of the ride, it was mostly Stefan and I doing the work, maybe one other guy at times. About halfway in, I decided I was going to start taking it easy. After a couple of 20+ hours weeks, my legs were shot. Around the 45 mile mark people start attacking and things like that. Around mile 50 Stefan attacks and stays off the front. My stupid boss, Geri/Jerry/Gerry/I don't Know how to spell his name, was being an idiot. We was pretty much sucking my wheel, if I would put in a good effort, he would just sit there and be an idiot. It's like his goal was to beat me, like he (washed up cat 3 from 10 years ago, never trains in the winter, Miata lover) was comparing himself to me. We are coming into something like 10 miles left and at this point I am so mad at Jerry my goal is to beat him, (I know it's not a race) so after a really good break check and some name calling, I "attack" on this climb (3/4 of a mile long). He is immediately 2 bike lengths off the back, then I drill it and get a pretty sizable gap. I start bridging to Stefan. He gets caught by a traffic light and we regroup. It was nice riding into town with my bro Stefan. We had a good time eating pizza. I think our time was 2 hours 47 minutes. Gerrys group was like 2 hours 50 or more, something like that.
After the ride, I went and hung out at Stefans house. The next day, we had another "race ride" on tap. This time, we actually had intervals and what not. Overall, it was a very hot 4 hour ride that was probably 10 times more beneficial than the 100k ride. We did all kinds of intervals in some really hot conditions. After the ride, we were pretty zonked. however, we had to immediately go and work for his parents at a shaved ice place for the fourth of July. Overall, the weekend went really good. I accomplished a lot this weekend and feel pretty good. Now it's already mid week and only 3 days til my next race, the ETJC road race and Crit in northeast Tennessee. I'll be sure to keep my very few readers posted on how it goes. Thanks for reading.
The Crow

Training, it feels good again

Well, I'm back. After a short break of blogging it's time to get back in the game. Since Avery Trace and Cookeville, I have gotten my head back in the game. My Power Trap is now working, and I am getting used to training with power once again. I once had a power meter back in 2007, the summer before my first year at college. Once I was in college, I trained with it for about a month. After that, I didn't really care about it. After a couple of attempts to get it back on the bike, it would not work. After a couple of shipments to Saris and still no luck, I finally decided to get a new one. Once I started training with the power meter, I immediately saw low watt numbers (lower than what I expected) Generally, I compare my wattages to my friend Stefan. We are very close to the same fitness level, and very close to the same weight (or so I thought) After doing a couple of rides and feeling like crap, I realized I had been over training for the past 3 weeks (I was house sitting for a guy. The house had really bad roads for training, short steep hills, not good for taking it easy) or so. As I start riding with Stefan more and more, I realize my numbers are just a hair lower than his. So what do I decide to do? I weigh myself, something I NEVER do. Seriously, I probably weigh myself once a year. Once I step on the scale, I realize I am a whopping 15 pounds lighter than Stefan. Ok so I was a little off on judging my efforts. That is ok with me. I now have my head in the game, I'm gaining confidence, and I am feeling an all around difference, for the better. Overall, things are looking good for Crossroads. I have a couple of races this weekend that will be good prep races. At this point, I am very focused on Crossroads ad I am prepared to sacrifice some results in these smaller races, to get stronger for Crossroads. I'll probably post a recap of the weekend next. I did a couple of "race rides" and I'll fill you in on how they went.

sub par-ness

Well I'm back to the blogging. Time for a weekend recap. This past weekend was the Avery Trace road race and the Cookeville Criterium. For some reason, I think of the Road race as having 3 spread out hills, then a long flat section, then a finishing hill. Boy do have the wrong idea! The race starts and immediately riders are up the road, about 3 of them I think. I decide to attack and try to get in the break, that was my goal, to get in the break. So I attack over a hill and a Piggly Wiggly (a grocery store) came with me. He asks me if I had a teammate in the break. Foolishly I say no, he then continues to tell me that he does and he will do very little work (this turns out to be a lie and Karma will hunt this man down.) My bridging attempt to the 3 riders fails, however it did give us a head start on the first climb, the peleton doesn't catch us until halfway up. Immedaitely, the other guy is dropped (yes karma is a female dog, maybe next time you will learn what goes around comes around.) As the lead of the peleton crests the hill I am just slipping back, containing myself. Everyone riding next to me is breathing like they are about ot explode and I am just pedaling around, not feeling too much pain. We go down the hill, no wrecks, GREAT SUCCESS. After the first descent the second climb start immediately. My teammate, Jeff Mcgrane starts doing a hard pull, then super strong rider, Chris Brown, goes to the front and a gap opens up immediately. Dirk Pohlman then bridges up. I knew my teammates weren't able to cover the move so I knew I had to. I jump from about 10 wheel up to the 2 riders with Brad Spears on my wheel. we crest the hill with a small gap, but we regroup on the descent. Go down the descent with no wrecks, GREAT SUCCESS. s soon as we reach the bottom of the descent, this ion healthcare guy attacks, (the same guy that won the Rome road race, super strong right now) I immediately jump on his wheel and we have a gap. I start working thinking there is a somewhat long way til the next climb. Well I was wrong, the next climb started immediately and I was toast. The transmission was stuck in reverse and I was going backwards. Needles to say, I get in a chase group and we paceline/attack our way to the finish (stupid attacks on their part, if you are off the back there is no need for attacking.)
Seeing how I didn't feel like buying a hotel room, my bro Josh and I decided to camp out at a camp ground a mile form the finish of the road race. We get to the camp ground and there is electricity at all the sites and it is full of RV's and rednecks. the only flat place to put the tent on was gravel so we were sleeping on rocks all night. Also, it seemed like every single car that drove by had flowmasters. Not the most tent camping friendly place. We decided next year we are bringing a microwave.
The criterium was on Sunday at 3 o'clock. The race starts out and my legs feel good. The shims that I had put in earlier this week were really helping (thanks Eddie Sloan http://bikedomestique.com/) About 15 minutes in, a rider is off the front and I decide to put in a good dig to chase him down. I catch him with the field struggling behind me. I sense this and decide to keep on going. I have a 5 second gap for about a lap and a half, I look back and seeing a rider chasing me with the field behind him. I get reabsorbed and my teammate attacks and the race winning break is formed. My teammate takes fifth and I don't really like the the heat so I pull the plug about halfway in (I couldn't unzip my jersey with one hand so I had to sit up to unzip it. a gap opened and I tried closing it but blew up in the process. not the smartest thing on my part.
Overall I'm happy with how the legs felt. They felt much better, probably because the shims. I was much faster. Now if my power tap would hurry up and get here. I am not going to let my sub par results (mid 20's both days) get in the way. I am happy with how my form is. I can't win every race, I'm just happy the legs finally felt good. That's all for now, I might give a midweek update, who knows.
peace love and happiness,
the crow

Feeling Hot

Yes it's that hot, and super humid as well. I think everyday of June has been 90+ degrees. However, if I recall from last year, July was not as hot as June. Hopefully that is the case. I'm going to go the Avery Trace Road Race and the Cookeville Crit this weekend. Both races are notoriously hot. The Road race is probably the one race that I have done multiple times and not had any luck. In 2005 I sucked that year and puked on top of the first climb and got dehydrated. In 2006, I face-planted on the first descent. Half my face was gone after that. Many people still come up to me and tell me how they remember seeing my race with a half missing face. It's very cool to know that people still remember that. The most recent edition of the race, 2009, I flatted a mile from the 3rd and steepest climb. As I was chasing back on, I dropped my chain. With stupid SRAM, I had to get off the bike and put it back on. Race over. Needless to say I have never had any luck with that race. Honestly, even if I had good luck on that race, I would probably still suck. It finishes on a steep, 1k climb. I may be skinny, but I suck at hills, I can fake it on the hills leading up to that last climb, but on that last climb there is no faking it. So why am I going you ask? 2 of my teammates are 1,2 in the Tbra cat 2 standings, honestly, they are owning the points race. I am going to support them, and get in a good work out. I was fitted on Wednesday morning and immediately noticed a huge difference. There is a 1.5 centimeter length difference in my legs, And I had been riding with no shims or anything like that. Needless to say, once I got some shims in it made all the difference. Hopefully the crow can put in a good ride, maybe get in the break or get a team mate the win, we will. I will post a race recap either Saturday night or Sunday after the Crit.
thanks for reading,
the crow

The problem with winning

Just 10 months ago, I upgraded to cat 2. I went from racing cat 3, to racing with the big boys. The first race I did was Crossroads. It's a week-long Twilight Crit series. It was my first set of Pro/1/2 racing and boy was I in the deep end. My buddy Stefan and I showed u to a start line full of nrc teams that were fully supported. Kinda a punch in the face for me. Not the best first time experience. However, I love jumping into the deep end. It makes it seem like the local race stuff is easy. So anyways, I started this year not knowing what to expect. Majority of the time, "rookie" cat 2's generally have an off year their first year. I didn't know if that was going to happen to me so I went into the year ready for whatever and knowing I was going to keep my head high regardless of what happens. Well guess what, I won a race 2 months into the season. Ok, the normal person would say thats awesome, but I am not a normal person. It was awesome at the time, and for a good month afterwards. But right now, IT SUCKS. I'm kinda in a slump right now, I'm getting dropped in races, not putting out any power, doing what a normal cat 2 "rookie" does. But wait, I have already won a pro/1/2 race, I can't be getting dropped in races. It sucks because that race raised my standards. I'm a big fan of having low standards (when it comes to racing a bike that is) so that way I'm never disappointed, but some how the opposite has happened. And it sucks cause I can't meet those standards. So what am I going to do? Well I'm starting off by getting my power tap running. I ordered one 2 months ago and it is supposed to get here this week. I think that is a good start. Something like that makes all the difference. Also, it's time to start training and stop riding. I enjoy riding, but I have found out that I enjoy winning more than riding. Having a training plan saves alot of time and energy. Why ride 4 hours when you can ride 2 hours and do some organized intervals, and that 2 hour ride is better for your legs. I'm a big fan of doing whatever you want to do when it comes to riding a bike. However, that is obviously not working for me right now, so it time to start training!

unprofessionalism

Koman Coulibaly. He made a terrible call and has yet to explain it. The closest thing to an explanation is he did it because he hates America. He has come out and called us racist and crybabies. He is also saying that if you disagree with his call then you are either A) an American or B) Corrupted by the Americans biased media. Are you serious? This is his response to someone asking him for an explanation of the call,

"You’re right about one thing, this whole thing really needs an explanation. How can they doubt me like this? Why is FIFA going through this “witch hunt”?

I really have to wonder, is it because I am Malian?

Best,
Koman"

Are you serious dude? You think people are questioning your call because of were your from? referees are supposed to be professional, and be able to put personal feelings aside. HE has done the opposite. In his first press release, (which he has since edited) he voiced his opinion about the war in the middle east. Is it me, shouldn't the "Official" press release be concerning soccer, not political matters. In my opinion, his personal feelings made him blind to the obvious. How much more unprofessional can you get?

When in Rome

Well, time for a race recap from the crows point of view. This weekend I decided to go down to Rome Georgia to try my hand at some large fields and hard selective racing. I got what I paid for, kinda. Early in the morning, there was a team time trial, I decided to skip that so that i would not have to stay at my friends apartment in Chattanooga more than one night. Saturday evening was the Criterium. I was really hoping for a large field, but that was not the case. I showed up to the start line to see only like 20 riders there, very disappointing. Last weekend at the state criterium, I started on the last spot and from the gun I was in the hurt box, not fun. This weekend, I vowed I was going to start on the first line in order to save myself the trouble of having to move up the field. As I said earlier there were only 20 people there, so that was pointless. The course had 2 pretty steep climbs and was less than 9/10ths of a mile long, thats means it was going to be hard. The first lap was super slow then the 2nd lap, the poop hit the fan. As I was sitting 3rd wheel, I see Ty Magner (6th in Athens Twilight Pro) O'niel Samuals (former pro Jamaican national champ) and AJ Meyer (super strong 19 year old) go past me. I immediately jump on the wheel and we have a 5 second gap. After 2 laps pass we get caught and I decide to sit in. After several laps pass, the break had been formed, and slowly riders attacked the main field, I decide to look back and there are only 3 riders with me. The main field was up the road, and I was not in it. THIS SUCKS! Yet another bad criterium result, I lasted 30 minutes into a hour long race. I was hoping my legs were getting better but they are not. The next morning was a 70 mile road race that started at 9 am. Due to 85 degree weather at 8:30, the race director decided to cut our race to 50 miles as the temperature was sure to hit 100 later on in the day. I would have liked to do a 70 mile race, however that heat sucked. The course was very selective. 1 steep roller and one climb that was around 2 miles long. The loop was around 25 miles long, and we did 2 laps. The finish was on top of the 2 mile climb. As I show up to the start line, I see a slightly larger field, around 30 or 35 guys. As the race starts, I was trying to get in the break so I was very active. The most notable move was more of a selection, 10 of us working very well together however someone decided to shut us down. As soon as we were caught 2 riders attacked and stayed away. As we approach the start of the climb, we had already dropped 10 riders. The climb started, and true to form, I sucked. I was dropped. As i went over the climb and started the descent, I was joined by another rider. We worked our butts off to get to a group of 5 riders. The whole time I was contemplating dropping out, but I just kept going for some reason. We caught the 5 riders, and all of a sudden, the moto ref tells us there is a group of 5, 1 minute up the road. We catch the 5 and that is the main field. I was originally thinking there was like a group of 10 up the road, but apparently it was only 3. At this point there is only like 16 people in the race. Again, we Start the climb up to the finish and I suck. I end up getting 13th out of 16 finishers and 30ish starters. At first I wasn't to happy with that, however, the more I think about it the more I am happy with it. That was a truly grueling race and it showed, roughly half the field dropped out. I'm somewhat happy with that, and at the least, it was a great day of training. That is all for now, I might do a blog post mid week. The next race is the Avery Trace classic. Another super hard race due to the heat and hill top finish. Hopefully this will help my form for Crossroads, my peak race.

What If?

As I sip on my morning cup of coffee and get ready for my trip down to Rome Georgia, I started playing the what if game. If you are not familiar with the what if game, it goes a little something like this, What If I were a good racer? What If my mom still didn't have a job? (I would be lie-ing if I said I wasn't dependent on my parents. However, compared to some other people my age, I am hardly dependent.) This is probably my least favorite game of them all, so why am I playing it in my head? It makes absolutely no sense to me. I'm sure it has something to do with the race this weekend. The last time I raced in Georgia it was the Athens/Roswell weekend. Possibly the defining moment of my best friends, Stefan Swecker, career. We were doing the Athens Amateur race (one of the most well known races in the country). The week before, I had won the Dogwood crit with Stefan taking 3. That race was pretty much luck, it was Stefan and I against 2 other guys from other teams, we knew one of us would win, It was just luck that i was the one that won. Anyways, back to Athens/Roswell. We are at one of the most prestigious races in the country coming in with half a lap to go, I was sitting 2nd wheel as the group was going super slow. A small gap opened in front of me and I drilled it, no one followed. As I make the last turn, my legs begin to crumble, 100 meters later, I blow up and everyone passes me. Stefan WINS. Later that evening, he wins the finals race. At that point everyone knew about us. Everyone in Tennessee was dumbfounded. So is it fair for me to think about what would have happened if I didn't take that flyer? Stefan is practically my brother, that was the happiest I have ever been, so why am I now thinking what if I didn't do that? I feel like everything happens for a reason, I took that flyer for a reason, the reward was Stefan winning, had I not taken that flyer, Stefan would have been too far back to put in a sprint. Although I did not have the individual glory, he did. I am very happy for him. Living life with no regrets is something that is very important to me. All this what if crap is regrets, regrets are stupid. As I get ready for the Rome race, I hope that I end the weekend with not only a good result, but also the knowledge that I did everything possible to get myself as good as a result as possible, was not over aggressive or overly conservative, I played the race right. If I can say that, I will probably have another top 10 under my belt. For me, playing the race the right way is very hard. It is something I have to learn, but everything that happens is a learning experience. I try to soak up as much as possible. Sorry for the long post, I just feel like rambling this morning.
Crow

First Blog

Well, seeing how everyone and their brother is blogging right now, I decided it's time for me to jump on the band wagon. I guess I'll start off by filling you in a little about me. My name is Jon, I race bikes. I work at a bike store called Cedar Bluff Cycles. The nick name CROW was given to me during my first semester of college, it has stuck ever since. During my first collegiate season of bike racing, the term Crow Nation was given to all my "fans" at the races. Its pretty much a joke, but its still kinda funny. Therefore I decided to name my blog the Crow Nation. I will pretty much talk about whatever I want, but mostly bike racing. In person, I don't really like to talk about my racing, and working at a bike store, people come in and ask me about my race. I don't like talking about it, so I can tell them to visit my blog and they can read all about it. My next race is this weekend. Its the Georgia Cup Rome. Should be a fun race with a challenging hill every 30 miles. I could do well, or I could suck horribly, time will tell. I might post a blog before this weekend. If I don't post before the weekend, I will definitely post on Sunday giving a race recap. Enjoy the reading.
Jon