Ohio State Road Race - cat 3

Woke up at 4:00 after five hours of sleep so I could be at Caesar's Creek by 8:30. I slept a bit in the car (dad drove), but nothing really restful. got to the park and it was 45 degrees. cold! It warmed up a good bit by the start though, a little under 60. I knew it would warm up so I just wore a thin long sleeve base layer under the jersey. First of four laps was pretty calm, a few weak attacks went but they were all brought back within a mile. The hill wasn't bad. Everybody said the first time up was the hardest. I definitely semmed the easiest to me, maybe just because I worked so hard the rest of the race. Three miles into the second lap, another attack went, but everyone went with it so it didn't get far. Then an Anthem guy attacked and everybody sat up. He was pullling away fast, but I knew I could catch him, so I went. I figured that if I could draw out a Team Dayton rider, nobody would chase. Those two teams together made up at least half the field of forty-five or so. Nobody from Dayton went with me, instead the lone Lake Effect rider came up. We worked together pretty well except the Anthem guy wouldn't do any work. He said he was hurting real bad, and I could see it in his form, but if that was the case, I don't know why he attacked in the first place. About ten miles in we were caught by a bridge from Nail City. We had a pretty good gap but it was hard with just the two of us working. Nail City was trying for the KOM, so he agreed to concede the finish if we gave him the KOM points. I was shooting for the overall anyways and didn't need any attacks within our group of four. We go another five miles up the hill and past the start line, and I can see the pack brought us to about ten seconds. I stop taking hard pulls, and we get pulled in after another mile or so. I was ready for the counter but when it went we didn't stay away long at all. The rest of lap three I rested, trying to get some energy back for the finish. I had drifted to the back and didn't notice a break go with Dayton, Anthem, and Stark (I think) until they had fifteen or twenty seconds. I made a few attacks but stopped when nobody would go with me. There were a few splits in the field, but I always stayed in the front so those weren't a problem. By the time we reached the hill on the last lap, we had brought back the break. Everyone busted it up the hill and by the top the last twenty or so in the field went down to thirteen. With a mile to go, the same kid that attacked the feed zone at the Jr. State RR tried to go off the front. He got brought back and John Lowry countered. He ended up soloing to the win as I surfed wheels trying to get a good position for the sprint. I went into it fifth, passed two guys, wound up my junior gears, and got passed back to finish fifth. pretty good I think considering I had five h ours' sleep, no teammates and did a heck of a lot of work. one week off then cross season!

Nothin' To Do

Here I am, sitting in the school library with nothing to do. I guess I'll write about the two months since my last post. First thing was the Junior State Crit, the day before I got my knee stitches out. I got fifth, I think. Not super, but at least I beat the kids that sat in the whole race. Next week was Zoar. I had one good attack on the third lap, bridging up to a three-man break, but everybody else wanted to be there too, so that didn't work. I couldn't really recover after that and got dropped on the last hill. I probably could have caught the field if it wasn't for my 52x14 junior gearing. Excuses, excuses. The Milk Race didn't go much better. I was, once again, off the front for a bit, only to be dropped a lap later. Junior Road States was better. A few guys from around here made it hard (esp. Tony) until Team Dayton attacked in the feed zone and made Tony lose his bottles. The kid ended up winning, too. That sucks. Anyways, I got third after leading out the sprint. Decent finish and I felt pretty good, so that was OK. August 23 was Valley City. Not much to report, I just hung in the field while Jeremy Grimm solo'd almost the whole race for the win. Greenford was last weekend, agreat race run by Elves & More with lots of help from Stark Velo. Definitely reccommended if they do the race again next year. There were fifteen to twenty 1/2/3's, a pretty good turnout for a first-year event but they definitely deserved more. Anyways, I only lasted four laps, but they were probably my best four laps yet. Second lap I was off the front with Ray, Matt Weeks, and Dan Quinlan. Ohhhhh it was so fast, but we were brought back anyways. Things slowed down a bunch on the third lap until Batke and an IRMC got away. It looked for a while like they would be brought back, but when they had about 25 seconds, Matt Weeks went to bridge up. I went with him and we went fast for a few miles, but we were brought back. About a mile after we were caught, I dropped. Nice try, though, I think. After the break came back, the IRMC guy dropped and I rode with him foor a while. He pulled off when we came to the S/F, I rode a lap alone, and then I finished DFL (9th or so, lots of guys pulled out) with a guy from ProGraphics.

Only two weeks until states! I'm feeling pretty good, I'm thinking a month's worth of long rides and no racing should get me itching to go fast.

-Russ

It Hasn't Been That Long

Well, yeah it has. Anyways, everybody probably forgot all about this tag thing already.

So here we go, countdown style.

Number Six: I'd rather drink warm water that anything else.

Number Five: I'm seventeen. Not a big deal, really. Everybody just thinks I'm older.

Number Four: I think recumbents are sweet. Not the big, long, cushy touring 'bents with fat, old guys on top. No. I'm takling about 50 MPH, full carbon racing machines. Trikes are even better since you can go to sleep and not fall over.

Number Three: I know how to have a good time. The secret is that a good party is spontaneous. Just take a strobe light, some music, and a dark room and you have yourself a party.



Number Two: My threshold wattage is... Yeah right, like I'm actually going to tell you. I did do my quarterly power test yesterday, though.

Number One: I was the youngest person ever to have an Ohio fishing license. At least as far as I know. There was a newspaper article about it, framed at my grandpa's house.

I'm probably going to hold off on tagging more people until BSNYC comes back from vacation. I think I have a chance if I get a podium spot on the comments.

-Russ

Hello Again

It's been a long time since my last post, almost two weeks. I don't really know where all the time went. Mostly yardwork, I think. I've done two races since Grandview. The Twin Sizzler was nothing new. Same nasty roads, same unmarshalled intersections. I dominated the expert 18 and under by at least four minutes, but that's not really saying much since only two other kids signed up and one didn't show. My dad rode his first race and wasn't even close to last. Better than he thought he would do and way better than I did at my first race (I was lapped twice at Euro Hill). Mom ran the 5k and had a pretty good time, adjusting for the cop who stopped runners every two minutes or so (within sight of the finish!) to let a line of cars through.

Sunday mom and I went to Wilmington for the Team Dayton Crit, my first race as a cat 3. I was doing pretty well, sitting between fifth and tenth wheel pretty much the whole race, and I made the one break that had any chance of sticking. Too bad nobody wanted to work. Also too bad I crashed on the last lap. We were going around turn one and the guy in front of me went way wide, almost falling off the road. I was on the outside of his wheel and saw it coming so I went into the grass, figuring it wasn't a big deal and I'd just hop back on in a minute. So I was on my way back up onto the pavement when something on the side of the road caught my front tire and put an inch-and-a-half long hole in the sidewall. I blew out half on the road and half off and totally lost it. I went down mostly on the grass, but must've been run over two or three times. For sure somebody hit my ribs, right where my heart rate strap goes. It knocked the wind out of me pretty bad and now my chest says POLAR across the front (it's backwards though, it took me a while to figure that one out). My knee went into somebody's bladed spokes, that needed six stitches but definitely could have been worse. I can still bend it all the way, so it shouldn't keep me off the bike at all. No broken bones either. Just a little cosmetic damage to the bike, one big-ish dent and a few medium-deep scratches. Dad and I took it to Bike Authority today, just in case. Props to them for getting everything looked at and truing my wheels in almost no time at all, thanks guys! Good news is that I felt amazing during the race, everyone around me was breathing harder than I was. Mom says she could hear it from the side of the road. I think I'll be looking to score at least a few points by the end of the season!

New party music's up if anyone cares about that.

All for now

-Russ

College Search Round 2 + TdGrandview

Not much happening last week except that Mom and I went on a little road trip looking at schools.

Day 1: Bucknell, Lewisburg PA (Amish country)
Definitely my favorite. Everybody was nice. There's a little town only 3 blocks away, definitely riding/walking distance. I don't really like the big city, so that's definitely a plus. The roads are amazing, with smooth pavement and almost no traffic. I rode for three hours after our tour and got passed by at most twenty cars.

Day 2: Lehigh and Lafayette, Easton PA
Definitely my least favorite. Easton seems to be a very industrial kind of area, not good for riding. Nobody said hi when we were there, I know that might seem a little nitpicky but I think it says a lot about the people. In a bad way.

Day 3: Princeton, NJ
Decent, but disappointing. All the buildings look great from the outside, but they wouldn't let us go in anywhere. It almost seemed like they were hiding something. Maybe the insides of the buildings are kind of nasty, and they just don't want you to see. I hope that isn't the case, but that's what I have to assume I guess.

Day 4: Swarthmore, Philadelphia PA
Nice, but not what I'm looking for. The campus is beautiful, more like a park than a school, but the town of Swarthmore is dying and it seems like the big attraction for everybody is the proximity to Philly. There really isn't anywhere to ride within fifteen miles, either.

Grandview Crit: not much to report, really. I got down there in time to watch Jim G and Rich in the Masters. Rich looked to be in position to place until he crashed in turn three of the last lap. Kinda like me at Garrett Wonders last year. Anyways, in the 3/4 race we had six guys from NE Ohio rolling together: Me, Noah, Jim G, Cameron (RGF), Jared (Stark), and Matt (TT1, fresh off of RAAM). The start was insanely fast, or maybe it just seemed that way because I warmed up an extra lap and lined up last. I knew I had to move up, so I started working on that. Of course, I'd rather move up in the draft than go around in the wind, so that's what I did, just picking my way between the little gaps that opened up. That went great, until one guy moved over into me, which didn't really bother me but totally freaked him out, so he hit his brakes a little and came back into my handlebars (not on purpose, I hope). So that almost took me out within the first five laps, but it didn't, so that was exciting. Lap 7 or 8 there was a move that didn't look good for us so I attacked to try and bring that back. Lap eleven-ish there was a prime, and I was in good position so I went for it and lost. That totally wasted me for the rest of the race. I tried to stay up at the front where the cornering's easier but I kept sliding back. Fast forward seven laps and we have one lap to go. I've hung on for the whole race and have kinda recovered, when in the last corner, some guy rolls his tire and takes out a whole row of riders. Thankfully, I ended up scooting right between a guy and his bike, and I didn't go down. Unfortunately, that left me with no chance to sprint, securing my back-of-the-field finish. At least I didn't go down. There were at least four wrecks at as many near misses during the race. Try again next week at the Team Dayton Crit.

-Russ

New Site

The old Summit Freewheelers website was getting a little bit, well, old. So Bob Iden offered to help us out and set up a new one. It's not too much different, but it looks a lot nicer and a lot of the pages can be edited by club members. Real nice, I think. Thanks Bob.

-Russ

Like a Balloon

The quality of life on my end of things has only been going up lately, and now I'm convinced it's because of all the stretching, sleeping, and other healthy stuff I've been doing. This week was pretty amazing, once again. My dad and I rode the Great Ohio Bicycle Adventure (GOBA), a seven day ride with 50 miles/day and 100 on Thursday. The weather was perfect. There wasn't one drop of rain the whole week, at least not while I was awake. The Tour of Ohio always has a crit stage in one of the same towns (Mount Vernon this year) that GOBA is staying. That's always fun to watch. The course was Tym's "Mt. Vernon Classic", a great course around the square, downhill through an "S", up a brick section, and back to the square. After the Tour stage, there was a cat 4/5 race. I entered even though I already rode 55 miles, figuring it was my last chance to do a 4 race. The first lap was hot, but everybody wanted to take the corners slow and I was pretty sure I could do the whole course without brakes (thanks, cyclocross!). There was an early attack that brought out about five guys, including me. On the second lap, everybody hurt, and they slowed down more than usual for the corner into the bricks. I sprinted out of the corner, up the bricks and around the wide turn to the S/F, hoping to draw out one guy that I could ride with for a while and try to drop later. Well, nobody came with me, and I had already burned up too many matches to quit, so I went solo. I put about two seconds on the field per lap for about six laps just by not touching the brakes, then they quit chasing and I lapped everybody. It was just like a juniors race, now that I'm thinking about it. Anyways, I came away with a $10 prime, a pair of Tym's Torelli carbon handlebars , and my first win of the season. It's about time!

-Russ

PS: new party music

Unplugged

For this year's GOBA I've decided to unplug. The powertap's going to the shop to be trued, so I thought it might be a nice adventure to totally shut myself off from the bike computer world. This week I'll have no idea how fast I'm going, how long I've been riding, or any of that kind of stuff. It should be relaxing (at least after a day or so of getting used to it), and I'm hoping it will increase my mental endurance (not knowing how much further I have to go, especially on the century). This week should be a good tune-up for the Junior State RR, which will be a 60 mile race for the 17-18s.

I went down to Wilmington last night for Summer Solstice Stage 1. In a field of twenty cat 4's, there were nine Anthem guys, three Saturns and one of everything else. I figured "hey, Anthem has almost half the field, they're going to start a break." So I went with everything they sent, and we got away about four miles into the 36 mile race. It was me, and Anthem, and a Saturn, but we dropped Saturn in about a mile. Another Anthem bridged up, and we started to do work, putting about two minutes on the field over the whole race. Too bad for Saturn, they thought they still had a man in the break and didn't try to organize any kind of chase. My plan was to get away with a mile to go, but that didn't work and I got third in the three-up sprint. Better luck Tuesday at Mount Vernon, I guess.

Perfect Summer: stretching every morning helps me wake up, I think. It's making me more flexible, too. That's always good.

There's new party music this week, found here.

-Russ

Good, Better, and Best

Good: I've been volunteering at Bath Township Safety Town this week. That's where five-year-olds go to learn about fire trucks, how to not talk to strangers, and stuff like that. Today we went across the street to the police station, but as soon as we got there all the cars had to go to some big emergency. All the kids were super disappointed until we went back for snacktime. They sure do love their snacks.

Better: Mill Creek was pretty much amazing. We only had three guys (me, Rich, and Doug) but we controlled pretty much the whole race. I tried to start an early break off of a prime, but that didn't stick. Doug went off on the next one, but some guys decided to pull back their own team in the break. On the last lap, Doug and Rich get away with a Snakebite (I think), Rich goes from there, and Doug and the other guy get brought back right at the bottom of the hill. Rich takes first, and I get fourth for combined winnings of $140, more than enough to pay for entry fees and a good lunch. Delicious.

Best: So I was wandering through craigslist today, looking for nothing in particular, when I stumble across some guy's 2008 Cervelo P3 with SRAM Force and a ceramic BB for just $2100. It sounded a little cheap, so I clicked to see why he's selling. As it turns out, he's frustrated because he bought all this expensive stuff, put in 100 miles, and he's still not fast. Don't you hate it when that happens? Read it yourself here. It's amazing, really. Just amazing

-Russ

Mill Creek Criterium and Other Stuff

Short story: Rich and Doug broke away on the last lap, Rich stays away for the win and I get fourth. Total winnings (per person) for Race for Alex and Mill Creek combined was $66, for a net of $16. I also finished up with my upgrade points today, now all I have to do is send in my results and I'm cat 3!!!
Long story: maybe tomorrow

I've installed a new feature, the Party Music of the Week. This week's selection can be found here.

Perfect Summer Update: things have been pretty normal so far, but it's only been two days. I expect to see some improvement in my overall feel-goodness by the end of the week.

That's all for now
-Russ

Riddle Me This

Wow, three posts in a day. It's all right I guess since I'm out of school now. All that free time also means a lot more thinking time. A lot more thinking time has led me to a question. Which came first, the name "Victor" or the word "victor"?

Scenario #1 (the word comes first): A mother-to-be is thinking about names for her kid. She wants him - or her I guess, but who names their girl Victor? - to be a successful guy, so she names him "Victor", because a victor is someone who wins at something.

Scenario #2 (the name comes first): There's this guy named Victor. He's a real war hero in his home nation of Unpronouncablistan, the guy who saved his country from the invading Roman Empire, or something like that. So to immortalize Victor the War Hero, everybody starts calling people who win the "victors".

Just some food for thought.

-Russ

Reflections On A Broken Seatpost

So I was riding around today, minding my own business, when this car decides to pass me right before a patch of potholes. I can't swing out, and even with the cleanest line, I still hit one or two of the smaller holes. My bike made a little bit of a popping kind of noise, but I thought everything was ok. See, the springs in my brakes aren't as strong as they used to be, and they weren't good brakes to begin with, so there's a good bit of play in the levers. Usually they rattle around a bit when I hit something, so I thought that was it and just rode on. As I kept going, I noticed that my seatpost had a kind of vibration-dampening quality that I hadn't noticed before. Kind of unusual because I've used the same post for the four years I've had the bike. I thought it was no big deal until vibration-dampening slowly turned into mushy-feeling. I decided I didn't want to end up riding ten miles without a seat, so I went home. Turns out my post had a two-inch-long vertical crack, one inch in each direction from the collar. So now I'm using an old Bontrager Select we had lying around. I have yet to see how it rides, but I wouldn't mind it being a little harsher than the old one. I'd rather feel connected than not have a sense of the road.

-Russ

Perfection

I was going to wait until Sunday to write about this, but since today's my first day out of school and the official start of my new life, here it goes.

This summer I'm going to be perfect.

Yeah, I know you're thinking "What? It's summer break! Party time!", but no, it really isn't. This summer I'm going to do everything right. I'm going to stretch, every day. I'm going to eat right, every day. I'm going to go to bed by eleven, every day (unless I'm not home). These are just a few of the good choices I'm going to make this summer, every day. And I'm going to write about my journey to well-being every day I post, for a little bit of extra motivation to keep me going.

Wish me luck!

-Russ

Thanks Again To Chagrin River Cycling

They've just posted another video, this time of the Race for Alex. The one they took of RATL was pretty good, I'm hoping this one is too. I haven't actually watched it because the computer is acting up a bit, and I don't even know right now which race it is, but enjoy anyways.

A First-Class Week

What a week. Here's the breakdown by day.

Sunday: Race for Alex, with possibly the largest field I've ever ridden (54 to be exact). Except it wasn't any different from any other race, since I didn't go any further than ten back. I cleared the tracks every lap, much better than last year, when I just rode over them. Here's the breakdown. First lap, everybody's got ants in their pants or something, because they all want to go like 30mph. Nobody even tries to break away, they just ride a 5-man TTT on the front. Second lap everybody comes to their senses and they realize nobody can win after a 20 mile TT effort in the group. So they try a 20 mile TT off the front. Solo. So I tell everybody to let each one go, and they listen. Ten minutes later we just roll up, not really chasing, to the guy who fried himself off the front. So the strong but not too smart guys are taken care of, now I just have to worry about guys who are saving their energy. Lap three was pretty bad for me. A guy went off the front, and I thought he was somebody else. When I looked around to make sure he was ok to let dangle, it turns out the guy who I thought just went off the front was sitting behind me and the guy up the road was his teammate, who could actually stick it out solo. So off I go, trying to bridge, and I get away. But I don't have enough to make it all the way across. I hang out for three or four minutes but I know I'm wasting myself, so I let the pack get me. Doug keeps things moving and eventually we catch the other guy. Lap four and five I sit in, trying to recover some for the sprint. Lap five I float back a little too much, and Rich brings me back up to third wheel going through the last corner. I get in the line, but the two guys in front of me decide to pull off, so I'm left in the wind. We're real close to the 200m, so I thought I ought to just go for it instaed of pulling off. So I sprint too early and still end up sixth. I feel pretty good about that considering all the work I did in the race. And it was worth $55. Sweet!!!

Monday: Ok, so nothing really happened Monday biking-wise, but it was still an amazing day. I'm in AP Chem right now (well, not anymore, school ended today) and since we took the AP test in the middle of May, we don't have anything to do. So today, we made fun stuff with chemicals. Like smoke bombs and contact explosives. All in a closed, supervised, scientific environment of course, but it was still crazy fun.

Tuesday: One-hour rain ride. I'm trying to get used to riding in the rain a little more ever since I really sucked it up at RATL 3. So the ride went pretty well, and then I cleaned my bike, which is really relaxing for me for some reason.

Wednesday: Another 20 minute set of 30-30's, just like last week. And, just like last week, I raised my 20 minute peak power, which I use as my LT power. So far it's up 3% since the last time I did a power test. I think I could get at least another ten watts if I did a straight TT, well rested and no intervals. After my 30-30's, I did another 20 minutes at z4 and averaged the same as my LT power from the last test. It didn't hurt nearly as much as I remember, even after 20 minutes of intervals.

Thursday (Today): Last day of school. We got out at 10:06 and went across the street for the end-of-the-year Band Bowl. After about ten minutes The Man decided to stick it to us and said we had go further away from the school. I'm not really sure he can actually do that, we weren't on school grounds or anything, but we left anyways. The next closest place to play was the Bath Community Center, four miles away, so we went there. I had my bike, everybody else went by car. I got there while everyone was still getting out of the second car, no headstart except for the time it took for everybody to pile in. This just reaffirms my belief in bikes as the ultimate commuter vehicles, and hopefully riding to band camp every day this summer will win me some converts.

That's all for now, hopefully I'll get an update in after Mill Creek on Sunday.

-Russ

Sharpening the Saw

One day, a long, long time ago, there was a woodsman. On this particular day the woodsman was running a little bit late to his job cutting down trees. To save himself a little bit of time, the woodsman decided to skip sharpening his saw, a bit of maintenance that he usually did every day. So the woodsman gets to work just in time and he starts cutting up some trees. The woodsman notices right away that his saw really isn't sawing quite as well as it should. It takes the woodsman an extra ten minutes to take care of the first tree. As the day goes on, the woodsman's saw just keeps getting duller. In the end, the woodsman finishes his work an hour and a half later than he would have with a sharp saw. The moral of the story: Think long-term. It's usually better to do something that will make you slower in the short term if it will make you faster later.

Today I sharpened my saw (really my legs) for the Race for Alex tomorrow. I felt pretty good - almost 100% - and I'm hoping that today's ride loosened up the legs enough to make a difference. Only six more points for my cat 3 upgrade!

-Russ

Perfect Ride

What an amazing day. 60 degrees, just warm enough to be comfortable, just cold enough that I barely sweat. Mostly cloudy so I don't get the sun in my eyes on the way home. Hard intervals, hard enough that I almost puked at one point, but I still finished them all. Eight stoplights, all timed perfectly so I never even had to slow down. The tire I found flat this afternoon and pumped up before I left still held 90 psi when I got back home after two hours. I live for rides like that.

In the humor department, I rode by this house today with a flooded front yard that hadn't been drained for probably a month. Next to the water, which was at most a foot deep, was a sign. It read:

Danger: New Pond

Private Property

Please No Fishermans

Signed, Mrs. Crazy

No, that isn't really her name, but yes, she really did sign it. Just though that was worth sharing.

-Russ

Faster Than A Speeding Bullet

This guy built a bike. It has a jet engine. His bike goes 50 MPH. Last year, my top speed was 55 MPH down Wheatley Road into the valley. I don't have a jet engine. That makes me feel good just thinking about it.

-Russ

Change of Plans

No Mid-Ohio for me this weekend. My legs felt super bad riding yesterday, pretty much anything over 275W burned pretty bad. So I'm taking the weekend semi-easy, maybe I'll try something Sunday, we'll se what comes up. My main focus right now is to get upgrade points, and since Tyler's races are ABR this year, they really aren't a big priority. Next weekend is either Race for Alex or Garrett Wonders Memorial Crit (hopefully both, if I'm feeling good). But I have to go to graduation that Sunday, so Alex might be out.

5 a Day + 30 mm = Mucho Speed

Yesterday was an amazing day for bike practice. I went on my second team ride of the whole season, since track has been gobbling up all my Tuesday nights for the past two and a half months. To make a long story short, Rich and I pretty much dominated. To make a long story long, here you go.

I started off from home about five minutes late, but somehow I managed to get to the parking lot a little early. That was a good sign. So just as we roll out, Ed shows up on his TT bike. I'm thinking "great, he just finished warming up. get ready for a thumpin'" but that didn't happen. We rode off down Riverview into a pretty good headwind and turned right onto 303. We started climbing out of the valley, and at first everyone was together. Kurt was at the front, taking a nice pull, but Ed was sitting second wheel. So Kurt pulls off and Ed does his thing, and soon it's just me, Ed, Rich, and Kurt. And then it's me, Ed, and Rich. And then it's me and Ed. So here I am just hanging on and we start to take turns pulling. Oh it hurt. But Ed gets to the top and I get to the top and we're still together. So that was good. And that took me within 2 watts of my 10 minute peak power.

So everybody regroups at the top and off we go down Olde 8. We're about 1/3 into the ride and ed decides it's time for him to go home. OK. Now it's me and Rich going back and forth over the hills and through the woods and all that until we get back onto Riverview. We've passed Ira, heading for the town line. Kurt takes a pull, Ted takes a pull, and Rich goes. I go with him wondering why we're doing this when we're still at least a half-mile from the finish. As it turns out, Rich thought the sign was around the wrong curve, so he gives it everything too early, and I scoot around and finish alone. Not really a town-line sprint, but I'll take it. I ride home for 60 miles in 3:05 and that's the end of that.

I attribute this ride to three things:
1) Hard training (duh)
2) I put on a new 120 mm stem, up from the 90 I used to ride (short stem = uber-quick steering and not enough weight on the front wheel, Shawn says that might be why I was crashing so much). It feels so smooth, like I could ride the white line for miles.
3) Eating the recommended "at least five servings of veggies daily". Any time eating more food makes me go faster, I'm totally down with that.

Anyways, since I've shared all my secrets (eat right and exercise? sounds familiar) I expect to have some stiff competition coming up soon at Mid-Ohio

-Russ

Props

go out to two people today. First to Drew, who won at the Can-Am Stage Race in NJ this weekend. A heated battle between Drew and his challenger Thomas Wrona came down to the final sprint, where Thomas got smoked by Drew's 35+ mph top speed. Way to go Drew, time to start racing cat 4's and get those upgrade points.

Second props go to my dad, who went for a ride with me this weekend for the first time in forever (not really, but close). We even got rained on, which is a thing he really tries to avoid. So, good ride dad, thanks for giving me someone to brave the elements with.

Time to ride, I have 2.5 hours to do and only 2 in which to do them.

-Russ

BTW: I'll be @ mid-ohio this weekend. I've never raced there so it'll be a grand adventure. Update soon. Like Sunday-ish, maybe.

RATL #4 vid

Sweet video by Chagrin River Cycling. That's me with the blue helmet. I've been told it really stands out. Whatever

RATL's 2, 3, and 4

#2: feeling prety good after hitting a new 5-minute peak power (for me to know and you not to find out) on Wednesday. the first laps were pretty uneventful until, with five to go, Nate, a Spin, and a Stark went off the front. SBR tried to chase, but couldn't put it together. Nate dropped the two guys with him and solo'd the last lap for the win. He had a pretty big gap, so I went right out of the parking lot, taking another guy with me. He came around right at the line and I ended up a solid third.

#3: should be called "Race In The Lake" for all the rain that was going on. Seriously, the stuff was at least an inch and a half deep in the corners. Anyways, everybody raced slow today, saving it for the finish. Definitely not my kind of race. The group split in half one time, but nobody really attacked and the dropped half just caught back on in a few laps. I tried the whole "go super early because I really can't sprint" thing again, but this time everyone's expecting it and they don't let me go. I get passed by seven guys, leaving me in eighth.

#4: beautiful day, even though it rained all night. We probably had about forty guys out, with seven representing Rainbow Inks. started off pretty slow, so I attacked to get things going. Nate and I took turns going off the front until lap 6. This time he goes off the front, gets pulled back, and a buch of guys counter all at the same time. So now there's exactly one guy from each team up the road, myself included. we atke turns like a nice break should and end up dropping SnakeBite and another guy. So now it's just me, a Stark, and a Spin left to TT for eight laps. We go. And we go. And we go. By the end we get about a minute on the field and end up in a sprint finish. I start up the hill third in line, waiting for Stark (sitting #2) to lead me out. He does, we both pass Spin, but I can't get around. Overall, good race for a decent finish. Back in the pack, Rich took a prime and came pretty close to taking the second one too.

I don't have to take the ACT again!

Because I scored a 36 (out of 36, if you didn't know)! No word yet on the writing part of that, I suppose reading millions of essays nationwide could take a while.

I'm Back

Well, it turns out that people actually read this thing, so I'd better keep going. A lot has happened since March. I got my SAT score, 2250. Woo-Hoo!! I've also been doing a lot of bike practice, mostly working on not crashing. So far I've had two this year, most recently flipping over a six-foot drop and landing flat on my back with my bike about five feet away. Probably my most exciting wreck yet. I landed in a nice squishy pile of leaves, so no big injuries.

Racing this weekend went pretty well at RATL #1. Tons of guys showed up since the weather was so nice, at least 30 for cat IV. Representing Rainbow Inks were Ted, Steve, Rich, Andrew, Doug, Nate, Ben, and myself. There were also a bunch of guys from Spin, Stark, and Snakebite. Drew was there too. We started off pretty easy but the pace picked up fast. Every lap, Spin sent a guy up the road. If he stayed there long enough, they would send another to work with him. If they stayed away for too long I would bridge up, but as soon as I got there, they would just let the field catch us. That happened about four times in the first six or seven laps. by then I was pretty much sick of bridging, so I just hung in the pack for a while. A few times I found myself way too far back and had to move up. At around four to go, Ben came up to me and asked if I was feeling good. I was, so we made a plan to shoot me off the front with about half a lap to go. Doug got in on it too, and with two to go we got together mid-pack. Doug took us to the front through the headwind and halfway up the hill. Ben finished off the hill and took me over the top. Four guys came around us goind down to the parking lot and I followed them. I took the lead coming out of the parking lot and got a gap. I rode as hard as I could and had a good gap going starting up the hill. Unfortunately, the pack sped up enough for me to get passed by one guy in the sprint. So yeah, good race and even better teamwork guys!

Arnold Classic

Ok, so today was the Arnold Classic down in Columbus. A good race overall, despite some trouble with registration (to be expected with any Tym Tyler race, I know it was promoted by Fat Rabbit Racing but Tym was definitely running the show). Dad and I got to the site at about 8:00 with the race scheduled to start at nine. We stood in line for fifty minutes before finally getting a number, and I still wasn't fully kitted up. So at about 8:50 I run to the car to finish getting ready and get my number on, all of that good stuff. By the time I'm ready, it's five after nine. Fortunately, the race was postponed by ten minutes be cause of all the trouble and I didn't miss the start. But I still didn't get a warmup and had only seen about a quarter of the course. At the line were Drew Bercaw, Robert Sroka, a few guys from Dayton, and the big guns Team Turner Logistics from somewhere in Kentucky. I knew the race would be fast from the start and strategized a bit with Drew to take turns attacking, possibly throwing the Turner guys off guard. That didn't work. They sprinted from the gun, and while Drew got close, he didn't quite make the break of me and two of the Turner guys. They still had three guys in the field, so I ended up doing pretty much all of the work for the eight or so laps to the finish. Occasionally one of them would try to get away, but he never did. The other guy (Cory, I think) just sat in the whole time. By the time the finish came around 20 minutes later, we had lapped almost all of the field and passed the 4/5s who started a minute or so before us. At the finish I was leading through the last corner, but Cory came around and won by about a length. Overall, I think the race went pretty well, but it would be nice to have a good junior team to ride with around here.

Semi-Pro was pretty good Friday night. Of course, with Will Ferrell in the starring role it had to be. Some parts were a bit predictable, but still funny.

Post Number One

I guess we have a lot of catching up to do, better get started. I'm Russ. I've been racing my bike for about three years now, I play drums in the school band, I like to read (if you have any suggestions, feel free to leave a comment), I like to cook, and I especially like hanging out with my friends.

This week was exam week in school. Today I only had to take two tests, so I got out at 10:00. Then I went to the band room to clean out the drum closet with some friends (we're going to start repainting it over spring break), it was a fair bit more work than I thought it would be. We took some ammonia and scrubbed the walls. By the way, don't mix that stuff with bleach or you'll kill yourself. Unfortunately, not everybody knows this and it's not something you want to learn the hard way. Anyways, back to the story. There was writing all over the walls, mostly from us. It's amazing how permanent a regular #2 pencil is, especially once it's had time to settle into the paint a bit. So the scrubbing took about an hour. Then we patched most of the holes in the walls. Some were from accidents, but we definitely put most of them there on purpose, especially the three in the brick wall. Those took some work. Anyways, today wasn't all work. Before we started cleaning, we played a few games of marbles. After cleaning, I kicked the sack (hacky sack, that is) for a while with Derek. Also, Kate (graduated last year) came to visit for a bit. Tonight I'm going to see Semi-Pro with a few people for Alex's b-day, it looks pretty good. Review to come later, probably Sunday after the Arnold (yes, Schwarzenegger, for all you non-racers) Classic. Link here and here for more.