New Blog

July 10, 2009 in Miscellaneous with Leave a Comment

Please note: my blog has moved, and I will no longer post here, at least for the time being. Please update any links.

My new blog can be found at: http://andreas.motd.org

Spare Time at Hotel

April 18, 2009 in Race Reports with 1 Comment

Right now my brother, dad, and I are sitting around in our hotel room. Tomorrow morning are the junior road races at Sea Otter. I’m pretty nervous because I’m not feeling very well, and there are a lot of out-of-state guys signed up, including some from the national team. But we had a nice Italian dinner on the way down here, and we’ll get a good night’s sleep and hope for the best tomorrow.

While I have time at the computer, I thought I’d recapitulate my experience at Copperopolis. Apparently my body allocated extra energy to its immune system fighting off a pesky rhinovirus leaving me tired even before the race. In a way that was good because it gave me an excuse for not doing as well as I had hoped other than that I ate nothing during the race and bonked.

I got a mediocre warm-up before the start. I had hoped to make it fast the first time up the climb, but I was not in the shape to do it and ended up setting a mild pace. A first for any juniors race I’ve been in, once we got over the climb everyone started to rotate without anyone saying a word. We went fairly fast, and I was already starting to wear down. The second time up the climb was okay, but on the flats I was pooped. I tried sitting out a few pulls, but Adam Hodes (Tieni Duro) got butthurt.

The last and third time up the climb I was done for. I hung on as long as possible, but once I was done I was ausgespielt. I completely hit the wall and rode back at a laughable pace. Because the field was fast but small, I still came in fifth and won a t-shirt, succeeding again in my universal goal at Velo Promo races.

Now here I am with a lingering sore throat the night before a big race that I really want to do well at, so there is nothing to do but to wait anxiously. My brother is drinking a can of lemonade, and I’m going to eat some oatmeal cookies (no raisins) for dessert. Yeah, it’s a real party here.

An Early-Season Digest

April 8, 2009 in Race Reports with Leave a Comment

I obviously haven’t provided an update for a while. It’s spring break right now here in Davis, and I finally have some free time, so I figured that I’d brush the dust off the old blog.

The next race I did after the Early Bird Road Race was the Pine Flat Road Race, one of my favorite races of the year. Probably because there was a chance of rain, the field sizes were a little small; the 3s race I was in had only 19 starters. It was a fun race nevertheless. Right from the start a Roaring Mouse rider soloed off the front and another guy bridged up to him. Strangely, most, if not all, of the Tieni Duro guys in my race dropped out within the first 10 or so miles. The pace wasn’t very high nor was the terrain terribly difficult, so I don’t know what their excuses were. The remaining group had some trouble getting organized, and there were, of course, attacks. Once we got out of the gentle hills to the flat middle section, however, we got a paceline going. Before I knew it the break was in view. Without the shelter from the hills it got a little windy, and once we got within reaching distance of the break the organization faltered. But we still caught them at the base of the first final climb. Right about then Steve O’Mara of ZteaM got away seemingly effortlessly while I was starting to hurt. Before the descent between the two final climbs Andrew Demas of Third Pillar got away too. With not much left I stayed with the group down the descent. I made an effort with about 200 to go, a small gap opened up, and I clinched third place. I was very happy with the race, and to top it off I got a long-sleeve Velo Promo t-shirt, a first for me.

Here I am taking a pull near the beginning of the race.

The Snelling Road Race was the next weekend. The 17-18 field was surprisingly different because many of the usual suspects have realized that they’ve become too good for juniors races, but there are a lot of good new guys to take their places. Contrary to my usual style, I tried to be a little more offensive, so I attacked quite a bit during the first lap. We didn’t drop too many guys, but it felt good to be in control. Cody was looking good, but the saddle on his newly-built-up Look came loose which pretty much put him out of the running. As usual the race came down to a sprint, exactly how I wanted it to since I’ve never lost a sprint on that course. This year was no different.

Here’s a cool picture of my sprint.

The next race was the Berkeley Bike Club Team Time Trial. Because my dad had health issues relating to his crash from last year, I had to partner up with my brother in the juniors category this year. We did some time trial training leading up to the race, and on the day of I was feeling pretty good. Once the race was underway we quickly passed some other teams. Alex did a lot of work on the starting descent, and I did most of the work on the rollers leading up to the final climbs. But just then Alex threw his chain. It took him quite a while to get it back on, and as he did other teams were passing us. Once we finally got going we also lost a lot of time on the hills. We ended up fifth, but I’m confident that without the chain incident we would have easily gotten top three. No picture for this race, as it deserves no acknowledgement.

The last race that I need to catch my readers up on is the Bariani Road Race. As expected, it was very windy as it usually is. My brother and I just hung on the back, tried to get whatever draft we could, and hoped for the best. A rider stayed off the front on his own, and I weaseled my way up to the front in time to get third in the sprint, putting me in fourth overall.

Here my brother and I are, sitting at the back like losers.

That’s all I have for right now. I’m trying to get over a cold before Saturday’s Copperopolis. I’m looking forward to it because I get to do three whole laps. I’m not being sarcastic.

End of Semester Update

January 26, 2009 in Race Reports with 1 Comment

A week before yesterday my family drove to Walnut Creek for some Mt. Diablo repeats. My dad and I rode all the way up starting from each side. I was definitely pooped by the time I finished crawling up the last steep stretch for the second time. My dad was nice and rode with me, but he could’ve dropped me just as easily.

The week following was finals week at my high school. I have a bad feeling about all seven finals, which might just be my pessimistic instinct. Now I’m nervously awaiting my semester grades.

On Friday night after the last final my family drove to Patterson to the Best Western from which the Early Bird Road Race leaves from. It was rainy, and to make things worse, we arrived before we got to listen to Opie and Jimmy make Erock a peanut butter hat in honor of the peanut butter recall that affected some of our Clif Bars. (This was on Opie and Anthony on satellite radio.) We had a good dinner (veggie quesadilla for me) at a Mexican restaurant that we found last year. Luckily, my brother and I managed to find a hilarious picture of Erock’s peanut butter hat online, and then we tried to get some sleep before we woke up at six in the morning.

We had some continental breakfast (man, that low-viscosity syrup tasted funky!), and then we registered at the Velo Promo tent, which was literally a few footsteps out of the hotel door. After getting back to the room we got ready, which meant slapping on some good ol’ warming cream. We met up with Cody outside and warmed up for just a little bit. My brother and I waited for roll out, which didn’t end up happening. This is what we looked like:

We were approached by a dude who needed his number pinned. We told him that he was better off asking someone else because we never pin our own numbers because our mom always does it. Someone else offered to help him, but he was pretty pissed off that we didn’t do it and told us that someday we would have to pin on our own numbers without our mommy. I don’t understand why he couldn’t pin on his own number if he was going to make fun of us for not doing it.

Then we waited for the start. Only another exciting picture could explain what we looked like while we waited.

The 3s, which was the race that my dad and I did, were pretty fast until the climb. We hung around the back until the climb when I moved up. I blew myself up too early, but after the turn-around at the top of the climb I caught the front group on the descent. My dad didn’t make it back to the front. I took it easy and sat out a few rotations. A few people flatted from some of the rocks washed onto the course but luckily not I, which did happen last year. The race ended up in a sprint, in which I ended up second. I was pretty happy with my result.

My brother was most likely the youngest person racing that day, but he didn’t do so hot in the 4s. Here’s what his finish looked like:

Cody, however, brought home another second place for the juniors that day in the 4s. Afterwards we all went to the Patterson Lamppost Pizza. Davis also has a Lamppost Pizza which we frequent. I beat Cody at pizza-eating, but I have to admit that my pesto-sauce-and-reduced-cheese pizza was probably less hearty than Cody’s pepperoni-olives-and-mushrooms pizza. Cody also walked away second from the Dragon Punch competition after losing to some little kid there, who apparently can punch harder than Cody.

We definitely had a good day. Cody is now only a few points away from his 3 upgrade. And by my count, I now have enough points for my 2 upgrade. But I think I’ll stay a 3 for a while longer so that I can race with Cody and my brother. Plus, I think I would get my butt kicked in any Pro/1/2 road race.

In an hour I’ll do an easy, 20-mile ride with a few teammates. I hope some show up.