4.10.2005

04.10.05 - end of week update

whew - been a long week.

update on the shorts - tried to get it out two days ago and blogger was going nutty. went to post and the site went down. bummer.

quick on the shorts - garneau wrap around shorts, ergotex pad and their best short. enough said. couldn't skimp on these, as i hate a bad pad and short. gotta be comfy.

saturday ride was with an old teammate ej down in my old neck of the woods in pittsburgh. just south of the 79/76 interchange is a decent sized park called north park (no affiliation to the tv show south park). to work on my skillz, i took the k monkey and tried to stay on his wheel as we rode through the trails at north park and he floated across everything on his asylum. he's been tinkering around with the large version of the frame which i believe is now in it's 4 generation. the bikes i will be receiving shortly are mediums. ej is basically our "test dummy" for how light we can get the bikes and to see what will work and what won't. well, ej is king of bling and he now has his full suspended asylum 29r down to 23 pounds. sick-o. i do belive this qualifies as stupid light.

so, i chased him around for 4 hours. skills started coming back pretty quick, but i need to hone them razor sharp....

sunday - a silly road race in ohio. wasn't expecting much as i knew coming into it that i was going to be feeling a little flat if my training was going as planned. well, i felt like i had good stuff, but i was flat.

it was a circuit race, 7 laps of an approximate 6 mile loop. approximately 40 riders or so, inlcuding no less than about 7 category one riders, of which 3 of them were full time pro's at one time. with the temps at around 50'ish and everybody feeling frisky under clear skies, we set off.

rough roads lead me to loose my only water bottle of the day on the begining of the second lap, leaving only a hammer gel flask for me to gulp down when there was two to go. there was a few attacks early on, but my goal was to wait for the big guns to go. they made their attack on the third lap and had a gap - i immediately jumped over to the gap with another guy. the major contenders sat their looking at each other, and two miles later the main group caught, but dropped about 20 riders or so.

2 riders escaped on the last lap and noboday chased. two cat ones got up the road and it stayed that way. into the last corner where there is still about a mile to go to the finish, somebody attacked and had a little gap. not known for my spriting ability, i jumped about 20 seconds after him hoping to catch him, get his draft for a few seconds, and then sprint away.

well, i just about caught him and saw that former national champ and navigators rider paul martin was on my wheel. he rode behind me for a second, then jumped and road away for third. pack was soon on my heels, and i rode in on their coat tails to finish around 12'ish.

oh well, it's a road race. bigger fish in a few weeks.

sunburned and thirsty,

sologoat out

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