Hey Skiers,

I just got back from an awesome 2 week training camp in Lake Placid.  I had a great time and it was the perfect way to jump start my season.  I made HUGE steps forward in fitness and technique.  I have had 3 weeks of large hours and now I am back home to continue quality training.  It will be good to not travel for a bit.  When I was in the Chicago airport I realized that it was the 6th time since August 1st I had been in the O’Hare airport.  TOOO MUCH!!!

This morning at 8 am the ODT team had practice.  We woke up to find an inch of snow!!!!   We ended up driving south away from the snow and into the rain for a good practice.  The snow is continuing; here are some pics of my backyard:

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

It has been far too long since I have updated.  I recently returned from my two and a half week trip to Belguim and Switzerland with the US National Cycling team.  The trip was great!  The National Team’s home base is a big house in Izegem, Belgium, which is a small little Belgian town in the Flanders region of Belgium.  It is cool that there isa home base because they are able to keep tons of equipment, team vans, and team cars all stationed in one place.

The house is fully staffed with Belgians, half of which do not speak English.  The only American on the staff is the head coach of the Junior National team, Ben Sharp.  This was nice because we were immediatley immersed into the culture and had a staff that knew how to race in Europe.  The sougniers and mechanics took great care of us and treated us to European delights such as oil rub downs before races, massages at stage races, and other advice.  Perhaps one of the most Euro feeling moments was going down a downhill in Switzerland at 80k/h in the middle of an 180 person pack and reaching in to the pocket only to small pasteries wrapped in foil rather than “American” Powerbars. The culture in Europe is so much for cycling as well.

Cars driving by us on training rides would roll down the windows and chant USA USA.  People were always saying things like, “succcess” to us before races.  We would pull of to starts in the USA bus and the Belgians would be motioning to us to park in there driveway, then proceed to take pictures of us as we got ready.  At our first race a woman had us go in her house and use the showers after we were done.

The racing itself in Europe is just so fast and furious the whole race.  In Belgium the roads were tiny and rough, and the wind was hard.  My real welcome to Belgium moment was in our first race.  The racing in Belgium is called Kermese, or “Carnivals”.  The race comes to town to entertain, and unlike in the US the juniors are the race.  There is no adult category afterward it is just us.  We also got paid to race in Belgium.  You would pay like 3 euro to enter, but get like 7 back for retruning your number.  The people make money on the race because they gamble on us.  There is a large board where old Belgians put money on riders and try to win the big bicks.  In one race I was going as hard as I could on a cobble road (start/finish) through cigarette smoke, past the gambling board, while a Belgian man screamed in Flemish and I thought, “This is where I want to be.”  It was great.  And I picked up some Dutch along the way.  Here are some pics:

Marshal Opel is a good Buddy of mine and made the team as well.  He placed 3rd at this year’s Nationals!!!!

way to go Marsh.  He is a fellow Nordic racer and together we have traveled all over the place.  Last I saw of him was Switzerland.  Next time, West Yellowstone.  Hotverdoma Marsh!!!

My summer has been ridiculous!!  I have been everywhere.  I have been on more planes this summer than ever before.  I am a bike racer in the summer and the schedule is intense.  In bike racing, the emphasis is more on racing, and recovery from race to race, than training once the season hits.  Thus, I have been traveling around rocking the free world one race at a time.  I raced in Kentucky with Marshal Opel and the trip was crazy.  Marshal is from Glacier and we went from snow and 40 degrees to 95 degrees with 80 percent humidity in one day.  Here is the best part!!   You know the day before the race, where you hydrate, rest, open up the body, stretch, eat and what not?  Yeah, so here is how Marsh and I spent our pre race day.  We got up at like 9 am walked outside our cabin into freaking Jurrasic Park ( we were miles from civilization and the bugs were huge and loud, the trees thick and native ) and locked ourselves out until 5 pm.  Here is what we had with us for that time period.  1 pair boxers each.  That is it.  No water, food, phone, shoes, anything.  It was 97 degrees with 90 percent humidity and we sat on a porch.  It was great for getting the body ready for a 3 day stage race.  Shortly after I went to Massachussets.  That was good.  On the last day a huge French Canadian crashed me going 38 mph.  I have never slid that far on pavement in my life.  The frame of my bike cracked, my handlebars broke, I slid.  From there is was off to Boise for 7 days and tons of other areas.
So the coolest thing I have done was race my first international race.  It was in Canada and it was epic.  It was 5 days 6 stages and 27 teams 180 riders the nationals teams were abundant: France, New Zealand, Australia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan (yes like Borat) and Japan.  The race was ridiculous.  There were people everywhere, camera crews, helicopters. Little kids and girls wanted pictures, autographs, and water bottles.  So my coolest day was like this: The day started off super fast.  ( we were doing 100 k stages in 2 hr 10 min).  First it started raining really hard and a huge cross wind blew.  This made the racing super hard.  Then a camera helicopter had the good idea of descending to about 40 ft off the ground to get a great shot.  Instead, he created a rainy tornado.  Riders were crashing everywhere and it was super hectic.  About 20 ks later I got to see a French national rider and an Ukrainian national rider get into a fist fight on the bike.  That was different.  Then I flatted and got to chase back through the caravan following the race.  It was sweet because the were 45 cars behind the race and my team car was just going crazy to get me back up.  I got the hang up grabbing the car mirrors and slinging my self up one by one.  Once I got back up I was in a twenty rider pile up.  For some reason I was actually just loving life at this point.  I was bleeding badly, my clothes were ripped, my hand was bleeding all over my white handle bar tape, my bars were crooked, and I coudn’t use my front brake, but I was just laughing.  I finished safely and rode back to the hotel.  Once there I went to the medical office.  French woman just saw me and threw me this sponge and said “scrub!!.”  It was nice to know that she cared.  Bed felt good that night.

I am now in California at Junior Nationals!!!

I have good news though.  I have been put on the National Team.   This means I leave for Belgium on the 18th.  I will be there for about 2 weeks and will be racing in Belgium and Switzerland!!!

Free as a Bird.  yeah  ..    Max Durtschi

The team with Fortress Peak in the background.

Moraine Lake to Lake Louise.  14 miles.  2 passes.  Epic views.  5.5 hrs.

The run out from Fortress Peak.

Sean Dumke leading the scramble up Fortress.

Glacial dip reveals more work to do in the strength room.

Julia Bowman and Makayla Cappel on Fortress approach.

Soaking the legs post run in Louise.

Scramble up Fortress.

Hike 3: Castle Peak 7hrs.

Rick Kappala recharging the system.