Tour de L'Abitibi

The first time I heard of this race was 2 years ago back when I was 14 at the southwest regional camp in Lubbock Texas. Tour De L'Abitibi is the largest and only UCI jr stage race in the western hemisphere. The race takes place in  the small town of Val d'Or in Quebec Canada. In order to get to race you must be on a team that gets invited and have a racing age of 17-18.

Getting to and from this race has got to be one of the most difficult accomplishments I have conquered. I left Pearland and flew to Tulsa where I met up with teammate Alex Battles-Wood and was then picked up by the team director Tim Redus before we headed on the 3 day drive to the Great White North. Once we got to Detroit we met up with the rest of the team which composed up Will Rader, Cody Tapley, Alex Parks, as well as our mechanic Mike Wooderd and Soigneur James Karthauser.

After a very long drive from Detroit to Val d'Or we finally made it to where we would be racing for the next week.

Stage 1

The first stage in the Tour de L'Abitibi was going to be my first taste of what racing against some of the top Jrs in North America would be like. In the first 200m of the first race there was a major pile up directly in front of me causing me to have to dismount my bike and jump of the pile of bikes and bodies. I was able to quickly rejoin to main group after a few minutes of chasing with a few other guys that got caught behind the the crash with me.  Once I caught onto the group again it was time to start moving to the front of the 156 person peloton and prepare for the rest of the day's stage. As the stage progressed I found that I was able to move up to the front of the field relatively easy  since we had full rolling enclosure. The only hard thing was that I was having some trouble staying up at the front as was cycling through from the front to the middle of the pack for the rest of the day. After a very fast run in to the city circuits I was at the back end of the pack and quickly found my self surrounded by dropping riders. I did my best to sprint around the opening holes but I couldn't get around all of them and I found myself solo in no mans land just about thirty seconds off the back of the dwindling main group. I went into TT mode to try to catch the rear end of the group that I was never able to catch. I finished about 1 minute behind the group. Not the best way to start a stage race.

Stage 2

The start of stage 2 was a lot smoother off of the line as there was no crashes in the first two minutes of the race. I started to move up as soon as I could but the race was still in town and it was  on some really narrow roads we were riding on. That was when there was a major wreck directly in front of me and I had no where to go but into it. As I ran into the pile up I was locking up both my brakes and my rear wheel was fishtailing around the right side of me. As I hit the group I flipped over the right side of my bike and landed on my side and side of my helmet. The worst of the wreck was when I was sliding on my back  when some large rider ran into my bike and he flipped over and landed on my legs pushing them enough to hyperextend my back causing excruciating pains. And before I could get up a second rider rode into the side of my face tearing up my sunglasses and somehow knocking my contact lenses out of my eyes. Once I stopped sliding across the ground like a rag doll I stood up as fast as I could to find my bike and begin chasing back onto the group. But by back felt terribly wrong and I couldn't stand up straight. The race doctor saw this and made me lay down to make sure I didn't break anything. After laying on the ground for 30-45 seconds she let me up and said I could get in the ambulance if I wanted to but I said no and got on my bike and started chasing. By this time however the caravan and the field were way out of sight and I still had about 60 mile / 95 k left to the line. After I cleared my mind and got focused on the chase I relized how bad a shape I was in on my solo chase, my back was in unbearable pain, my helmet was shattered, half my face hurt from where I was ran over, there was a crack in my fork, my left shifter blade was cracked strait through, I was bleeding out my left knee, all my water bottles fell out, and the worst of it all was that I had no way to see the road up ahead  of me since I somehow lost my contacts in the crash with another 2.5 hours of racing to do. While I was mindlessly chasing I caught 2 more riders. Out of this group I was the strongest and was taking massive pulls for 5 minutes at a time to try to keep the pace as fast as possible. The other riders including one of my teammate Booey where taking shorter pulls since they didn't want to slow the speed down and he said he wasn't feeling well.  This continued till it was about 40k from the line where I couldn't even hold the pace I was pulling at earlier for even a minute. Shortly after this point I hit the wall when all my emotions, pain from the wreck and fatigue from chasing so hard with no sign of the group started combining leaving me feeling the worst I've ever felt on the bike. After barely able to hold onto the wheels of my group I was able to make it to the circuit where I was quickly dropped by my Teammate on the climb on the circuit. I finished the race cold, sore, bleeding, blind, and crestfallen, and in extreme pain. And over 30 mins behind the stage winner.

Later that night after being checked my the doctors I received the worst possible news. I missed the time cut by a mere 90 seconds. After hearing this I couldn't believe it. I never felt so torn apart. The only good news I heard was that Booey, who was with me after the crash and was in my small group of chasers made the time cut by only 8 seconds. One of the narrowest margins ever at this race.

Stage 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

For the rest of the week up at the race I was pretty much team support and got to see how the racing was from a mangers point of view and see the stress of the caravan first hand. Something that seemed as stressful as the racing itself.

Well I would like to give a special thanks to all the people that made this experiance possible for me. I would like to thank my team Will, Alex B, Alex P, Cody and Booey. As well as my team Director Tim Redus, Mechanic Mike Woodered, and Soigneur James Karthauser. I would like to thank my sponsors Hotel San Jose, Juwi solar, Reed and Scardino,Austin Subaru, As well as Metro Volkswagen, The Pearland Cycling Club and the Pearland Racing Team. I also want to thank my coach David Wenger of Durata Training for preparing me for this race. And most of all I want to thank Mom and Dad for all there love and support.

Now I want to head back next year even stronger and make a good showing next year.




Sent from my iPhone

Off to L'Abitibi

Heading off to canada. I will try to update blog when I'm up there but no guarantee.

Nationals 2010 17-18 Bend Oregon

After a years worth of Training and preparation I finally got out of my plane and into the familiar Pine Tree scent of Bend Oregon. The very first thing I noticed about Oregon was the Temperature, Or more like the lack of Temperature. When I got off the plane I was blasted by cold winter like air from the 55 degree weather that has been covering the state. A very nice change from the scorching heat and melting humidity of my coastal home back in Pearland Texas. Well After retrieving my bike box and luggage at baggage claim I headed out to the curb to be picked up by my Coach David Wenger of Durata Training. A few minutes later Picked up fellow teammate and Will Rader. Me, Will, and Wenger then headed towards the house that we would be staying at for the next couple days. Before finishing out the rest of Nationals with the Rader Family

24K Time Trial

The first event of road nationals for the 17-18 was the time trial also known as the race against the clock. After getting my Gear Checked by an official and pumping my tires I headed out for a warmup before the start of my race. As I was warming up I was doing my routine gear check making sure everything was working like it was supposed to like the shifting, turning, and brakes. After a 45 min warmup I went over to the starting house and started getting focused on what i have to do. The final 10 minutes before the start of any Time trial are always the slowest for me. I just tried my best to relax and think of were I need to expend my energy on the course and were I have to take it a little easier. Soon enough I found my self getting held up by an official as he gave the 30 second countdown. This is when time seems to speed up as The Official gave the familiar five-second finger count. As he waved me through I gave a long sprint down the ramp to get my speed up before I tucked myself into my aero position. After a few early turns in the first two Kilometers I took the right hand turn onto the main road were the majority of the course is. For the first part of the time trial things were going steady, my power was up, my speed was up, my breathing felt regular and in control. That was until I reached the first steep pitch of the course and everything started to fall apart. I quickly shifted to my small chain ring as my speed started to plummet and I got out of the drops and in the bull horns to try to spin my way up this first steep gradient. Once I got over this first steep pitch there was a slight downhill where I got into my big ring and tried to get back into the rhythm I was in just 3 minutes earlier. I was quickly noticing my speed was gradually getting lower on the false flat that I was on and noticed that I was starting to lose power as well. I did my best to muscle through this part of the course all the way till I made it to the second steep pitch of the course. I slammed my chain into the small ring and spun up the hill like I did with the earlier. Once I made it to the top I still had a little over a mile till the turn around and then a long down hill. At the turn around I made my turn and started drilling it back to the finish. In my head I knew that I chocked on the way up the hill so I was doing everything I could to try to get the best out of what was left of the time trial. My speed quickly reached 42 miles per hour going down the steep pitches of the course and I never saw the speed drop below 35. I was humming the entire way down doing my best to spin my 52x14 as fast as I could to end this time trial. When I hit the line I could see that my time was a solid 36:47 which would be good enough for 33rd place. I was shooting for a top 15 but I just couldn’t make it up the hill like I wanted to.

50k Criterium

After a little bit of a drive to downtown Bend for the start of the crit everything was looking good, my equipment worked, I was feeling strong, as well as hydrated and ready to go. Once the officials opened up the course for a warm up lap me and the team took advantage of it and got a nice look of the rectangular four corner course that we were about to race around. the majority of the course was three lanes wide with only one tight section going through corners three and four. After two laps of preview the officials allowed us to line up and await the pre race instructions.

I got myself a pretty poor starting positions as usual for large jr races since everybody is rolled out at the line right before the start. The race started with the shot of a gun and everybody was off the line at full speed. I took the first lap very gingerly waiting for the pack to thin out a little before I start making my way towards the front of the pack. The first eight laps were at a brutal pace as everyone was eager to stretch out the legs a little. I was able to slowly move up two to four positions a lap as the hammer was still on full throttle. When I finally made it up to the front half of the pack disaster struck as there was a large wreck in corner three about 5 positions ahead of me. I slammed on both my brakes as I t-boned a bicycle and flipped over the handle bars and landed in a pile of bikes and bodies. Luckily my speed was slow enough that I caught my self before my face hit the pavement and was able to get up and check my equipment before I went to the pit to get my free lap. When the pack came around again they were in full attack mode chasing a small group off the front. I gave it everything I had to sprint up to 33 mph to get onto the tail end of the group. As we were coming around I could still see a few bodies on the pavement that went down in the crash I walked away from without a scratch. The pace was still going at full speed and I was stuck at the back of the pack because of the wreck. I could see infront of me that some of the Jrs in front of me were starting to let gaps open. I did my best to pick around them without leaving myself exposed in the wind, but since the last 30 positions of the pack were signal file that was impossible. That is when the worst possible thing happened, a rider about 4 positions ahead of me opened a gap and couldn’t close it. I did my best to sprint around him to catch the pack but I didn’t have enough speed to catch the tail end. I quickly got as low as I could and started to get into a steady pace to try to catch the group again. I could see that they were still pulling away slightly but I didn’t stop. After about five laps of chasing solo off the back I was able to make connection with the pack again. After making the connection I was able to quickly move up to the front like I’ve been trying to since the race started. After catching on and moving up there was a hard acceleration out of the corner into the headwind section and I got up on the pedals to do my best to match it but I was falling back at  very dangerous speeds and I saw the very back of the pack go flying by me. I gave it one more stamp on the pedals to try to catch that last wheel but I missed it and was off the back for a second time, the only difference was that I was truly spent and there was no catching back on this time. I then rode around for a few more laps before I was pulled by an official, something that I haven't had a lot this year.

I then watched the rest of the crit from the sidelines in anger and disappointment, leaving me one more chance to try to get a good result in the road race

70 mile road race

The start of the Road race was a pretty normal one with a massive pileup about three seconds into the race. The course itself was a loop that we would hit 4 times each lap with two large climbs as well as several smaller ups and downs. 

As the race progressed I slowly moved my self towards the front of the pack with little or now effort and pretty much just sat there waiting for the hills to come. The first lap around the course was more of people getting comfortable on the descents and figuring out where the uphills were in relation to each other as there were few attacks and large accelerations. The second lap is where the real racing officially began as large groups of strong riders would attack the uphills. I did everything I could to stay near the front to make sure a large group would not getting off the front. Heading up the steepest part of the course on the second lap shredded the field down as riders were going off the back faster than those going off the front. I gritted my teeth to try to hold the wheel in front of me as we made it to the top of the hill before the decent and the start of the third lap. The third lap was no different from the second except that a small group of riders had gotten off the front of the pack and the pack itself was a quarter the size. As the pack was chasing down the leaders I slowly moved myself to the front after catching my breath from the efforts up Archie Briggs (name of the road with the steep hill) Once I made it too the front no one looked fresh and the misery of two more laps was setting in the face of the riders. The third lap seemed a little bit easier than that of the second because not everyone was attacking as viciously from being tired. The third time up Archie Briggs had a few attacks but nothing was going off the front. On the fourth and final lap I was still in the main group and there was a small group of riders still off the front of the group. On the false flat after the feedzone climb I put in a hard attack to try to get away from the tiring field. I quickly found myself in no-mans land solo between the leaders and the field. I was hoping someone would jump with me but no one was on my wheel I then went into TT mode to see if I could get farther away from the pack but they were slowly bringing me back into the fold. I was then caught about two kilometers before Archie Briggs and held onto the back of the pack for dear life as the final attacks of the race went underway. After summiting the climb it was a short three kilometers from the finish. I gave it everything I had one more time to try to move up but I couldn’t get to the front anymore, everyone was swelling at the front to prepare for the sprint. As I was doing everything I could to try to move up we reached the roundabout about one and a half k from the line and there was noway I could move up now, so I just sat mid pack and sprinted in mid pack for an even more disappointing 47th place. 

Post Nationals.

Although I didn’t do as well as I wanted in all three of the events up in Bend I had  a good time without any hard falls or loss of skin. I can’t wait for next year to race this course in 2011 Nationals. 

I would Like to thank my team Metro Volkswagen, my coach David Wenger, my friends back in Pearland, and Houston, the Pearland Racing team, Pearland Cycling Club, Chris Sanders at MSHC.net, and everybody else that supported me throughout the earlier part of the year

I also want to thank the Rader Family for taking care of me up in Bend for almost a week. Without you guys I don’t know what I would have done.

I want to give a special thanks to my parents though, because without them I wouldn’t be anywhere in this world, with all there love and support that they give me all the time, and the sacrifices they made along the way to help me.