Pace bend cat 3s 60 miles

Pace bend cat 3s 60 miles
After spending the night with Eric Benz at his house along with fellow
houstonian Jason Bently. We headed to the start of pacebend in the
early afternoon at around 10:30. The weather was perfect, 70 degrees
pluse and very sunny. I gotto the race and got my numbers and got
everything pinned, even wore my new shorts that came with the kit. I'm
pretty sure that metro v dub has the sexiest kit on the txbra cuircuit
right now, sorry patty and Zach.
The start of the race was very slow and leisurly which always makes me
happy. The race was 10 Laps long. There were severall attacks and such
but nothing got more than 20 seconds on the field. Me, Will, and Ian
used this race as a great oppurtunity to practice our teamwork and
communication in the pack. At the start the team decieded to make me
the leader and expend their energy to try to get me the win. There
were a few times I called on Will, Ian, or Todd (one of the club
riders) to move up to the front to bring back a break that had
potential to be a threat. At one point I we had every Volkswagen guy
rotating at the front to bring back a break that had alot of teams
represented. For alot of the race nothing super interesting happened
there were no big crashes and such for the first nine laps. Heading
into the final lap the field had a completly diffrent mentality than
the begining. The entire race I was fuiling perfectly. Drank all three
my bottles and ate all my GUs. The entire race leading up to the final
lap me and my team were taking about how we where going to set up a
good leadout to try to get me up the hill first. But Ian was cramping
bad on the final lap and when crunch time was approaching we couldn't
find eachother right away and the finish was approaching really fast.
Will had made it to the front and was trying to raise the speed to try
to catch the lone rider still off the front but the pack let him go
and he was between a solo leader and a dangerous cat 3 field with less
than a kilometer to go. Back in the pack things were getting pretty
physical. I had to even had to headbut a rider to protect my position
and stay safe. We then hit the bottom of the finishing hill at 30+
miles per hour and I was holding the white line on the far left of the
road. I then started revving up my sprint and was making up enourmous
ground on everyone. That is when disaster struck and the rider.
Directly infront if me crashed with 200m to go and I ran into him
(didn't crash though) causing me to lose all my speed and momentum.
All I can do now was watch as the guy I was about to pass get third
place and Will
Get caught with 100 meters to go A for sure podium postiton loss in a
fraction of a second after spending over 3 hours getting ready for
that final charge up the hill.
Race was very fun, I love this course good job by San Jose for
hosting. Got to give a very special thanks to my teamates for all the
work they put in for me, so close yet so far. Also have to give thanks
to Eric Benz for letting me sleep at his place Saturday night and
Jason Bently for driving me to the race and all the way back to P-
land. Next race might be Lago.

Walburg cat 3s 72 miles

Walburg cat 3s 72 miles
Walburg , one of the most miserable courses in the state of Texas,
this was my first race in 2010 and I've been looking forward for it
for several months. I left for the race after school friday with my
old teammate Rich. We headed up our hotel and slept pretty good
considering we were watching figure skating. The morning of the race
we packed up and drove off to a burger king for some breakfast yatta
yatta yatta. ...... We got to the parking lot and everything was dry,
a change from the normal walburg experiance. I found my Volkswagen
guys and was able to get the new kit to open my season in. I was
unable to warm up the way I'd like to from the fact it took me a
little longer to get ready
The start of the race was very slow and leisurly which I liked,
72 miles is a pretty long race. From what I saw about halfway through
the first lap a break of around 6 had formed and the pack didn't seem
that interested in chasing. The break by the end of the first lap had
built up a lead of around 90 seconds or so. Teammate Will Rader took a
few really hard pulls to try to get an effective chase to go on, and
it worked temporaraly becuase the break was well in sight with a small
30 second gap with about 10 miles to go in the second of three laps.
The pack then decieded to sit up even though the break was very close
and the leaders then slowley started to pull away and by the end of
the second lap they were back to a 90 second gap. I attacked the
finishng hill to see if the pack was gong to do anything and they let
me go for a couple mins untill they decieded to chase me and a few
others that came with me down. I was starting to get really frustrated
with the fields inability to keep the pace up. In the final 15 miles
or so there where some attacks to try to get away but the field wasn't
letting anything go too easily, with about 9 miles or so I attacked
after the field went pretty hard up a hill and started to build a gap
from the field, I quickly caught one rider that was off the front and
joined by two other riders that bridged to me. The four of us then
went into overdrive and started pulling away from the field very
quicky and before I knew it we were 30 seconds up the road. Have to
give credit to Will, Rich, and Todd for good blocking. By the time we
reached the final kilometer the lead break was within 20 seconds of us
and almost touchable. Half way up the hill one rider jumped a little
early and I sprinted after him and claimed 5th place. Really pleased
with this result, great way to start the year.
Got to give another thanks to Rich for the ride up and some blocking
as well as Will for blocking and trying to bring the break back. Great
race up on by all the officials, going to race Pace bend tomorrow
afternoon.

Sent from my iPhone

Metro Volkswagon Teambuilding camp

Metro Volkswagen team building camp

The final weekend of January I was privileged enough to get to fly up to Dallas to meet my new team for 2010. I have been waiting to go to this camp for a long time for it would give me an oppurtunity to meet my jr teammates Will, Ian, and Kyle. As well as the elite men.

Of course the weekend I decided to come to Dallas a cold front had came through and brought the weather below freezing for the majority of the weekend. For the weekend i stayed at the Rader's were they gave me a place to sleep as well as some very good food to eat. The first thing that we did as a team at the camp was that we watched the Dallas Stars hockey game inside one of the VIP booths. The game was really cool And I got to meet all the jrs and alot of the elite guys. After the game i went back to Will's house (it was snowing) and rest up for the long rides we where planning on doing in the morning.

The next day we had planned two long rides with the team, the only problem is that is was way too cold to ride. 28 degrees. After the ride had started I was frozen, it was a goodthing Will had some extra clothes to keep me warm cause my Houston winter gear wasn't cutting it. About thirty mins into the first ride my bottles had actually frozen for the first time. After the first part of the ride we rode for around 90 mins or so just ridng in a double paceline the place. After this ride we went back to the shop and sat around for a little while. once everybody got warm again we headed out for the second part of the ride. For the second part of the ride we rode for around 4 hours around a diffrent loop, this second ride had a bit a drama. It had tears, blood, crying, a bunch of really miserable looking faces, and one car wreck. (no one was hurt, just bad truck driver hitting a car) between a moving truck and some old people. At the very end of the ride I got to strech my legs a little and do some chasing with the elite guys and even after 100 miles (omgwtfbbq) still got to power through.
After this ride me and Will drove home ate some of his mom's ravioli and got cleaned up for the team presentations that night. At the team presentations I met everyone and got to see what the bikes are going to look like for next year as well as get a team polo :).



The next morning was another long ride, but was more of a hard group ride were you can just let it hang. This was another very cold moring but I was prepared for once and was nice and warm, I even wore my state champion jersey for the ride ;) I had alot of fun ridding through dallas This day. the weather felt alot warmer and we were going alot faster so warm blood was pumping keeping me alot warmer then yesterday.. At the end of this ride some of the elite guys went for a sprint about a mile or two out and i tagged along for the sprint. after the sprint the ride was over and we just cruised into the start of the.


After the ride me and the Radar's grabbed some chinese food and went to the house to pack for my flight back to Pearland.


All in all I can say is that im really happy to be part of the Metro Volkswagen team for the next season and look forward to a very fun 2010 racing season.