Hey there SVSEF blog readers. It’s been a few months since I posted anything, but I figured it was better late then never. This is pretty much an overview of my life after the 07-08 ski season, including my summer on the bike and my entry into the Colorado University at Boulder.

Early in the spring of 2008, I could be found preparing and training for my cycling season. 2008 was a particularly special year for my biking because I had just upgraded to a Cat 2 and would be racing professional teams and the fastest men in the country for the first time. Expecting huge competitions, I began riding (alone for the most part) 3-4 hours a day, everyday. Now, the locals of Sun Valley and surrounding areas might remember that this spring wasn’t exactly the most warm seasonal change we have had. It was brutally cold. At least it seemed cold to me every time I jumped on the bike. For example, I remember one ride particularly well. It was mid April and I decided to ride from my house in Ketchum up to Galena Summit and back. As I rode north and approached Galena lodge, the lightly overcast skies began to darken and the temperature plummeted. One and half hours into my ride and just past Galena, both of my water bottles were frozen! I don’t mean the valves were frozen; the entire bottle was icing up and rock hard. So that was fun. Oh, then it started to snow and I almost froze to death!!! I don’t think I have, or ever will recover from that ride completely.

Anyway, the general image I have of my spring was a combination of cold, wind, and hours upon hours spinning away on my bike. It might not have been the most enjoyable thing ever, but it did prepare me for my races. The first competition I had was Mt. Hood stage race. Max Dutchi and I were there competing in the same field of cyclists. After 3 days of races, I had a 12th place finish (circuit race), 6th (road race), and 2nd (criterium). I was stoked because I didn’t know how I was going to do coming in to these races and I left as one of the top finishers.

The rest of my summer was full of races similar to Hood. Some days I would get dropped; other days I would finish on the podium. All in all, it was a very successful season. And all my training and racing culminated in Tour of Pennsylvania, the biggest U-25 race in the world with over $200,000 in cash prizes! The Tour of PA was 6 days, 7 races, and 500 miles across the state. There were racers from dozens of countries around the world totaling 110 riders.

The first day of racing we had a 3k prologue (I got 30thish) and a criterium. In the criterium I was sitting in good position the entire race and things were looking promising for a top 10 finish. Unfortunately, with 3 laps to go, some kid cut me off and his derailleur went into my front wheel. Every spoke on that thing shattered, and I went over the handlebars at 35 miles an hour. . . .My face slowed my down. There was blood everywhere, my bike was in 3-4 different pieces, and all I could do was curl into the fetal position and hope no other racers would hit me. Eventually I came out of that race with road rash all the way down the left side of my body, a damaged wrist, and half a face that resembled ground beef lit on fire, and doused in a bloody/gooey refuse. Definitely good stuff for the cameras!!!

I was given a 3-minute time penalty (because I didn’t finish) and allowed to keep racing. On the start of the second day, I was 105 out of 105 riders (5 dropped out) and more sore and tired than I had ever been in my life. Over the next week, I slowly felt stronger and stronger, I made it into some breakaways and made back my deficit bit by bit. With one race to go, I was in 34th place after putting over 15 minutes on most of the racers in the previous days. The last event was another criterium in downtown Philadelphia and to make a long story short: it rained like crazy, I crashed 5 times, a tornado warning canceled/delayed the race, and only 20 people out of 105 finished (I was not one of them). All in all though, I think I did pretty well if you cut away about half the race. I felt stronger than ever before and even though I had some bad luck, I still finished with the top racers.

My last race of the year was the prestigious twilight criterium in Boise Idaho. I felt great and ended up winning the mens Pro 2 field. This was one of the biggest wins of my career thus far. It was the perfect ending to my cycling season, and I look forward to doing even better next year after I upgrade to a Cat 1.

(I’m writing way too much, so I’ll put the school stuff on another blog)

Here are some cycling photos for your entertainment

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 23rd, 2008 at 5:23 pm and is filed under Sun Valley, Training. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.