The Bus Stop is an adult entertainment establishment on the north side of Boulder. I like to frequent this location on Tuesday or Thursday nights, mostly because of the excellent group ride that leaves there at 5 PM. This ride is a race pace 1:30-2 hours of rolling hills that is frequented by local pros, visiting Pro Tour riders and all the local fast guys/gals.

This time of year we see a lot of out of town pros showing up getting ready for the Tour of California.   Last year Greg Henderson from Sky and Baken Cooke graced our presence. 

If you have been following my reports recently, it is clear I have been suffering a bit this season.  Especially recently and I was getting pretty bummed out about my performance at some of my favorite races.  I have had glimpses of good rides here and there, but no consistency.  So I was happy to finally have a good ride at the Bus Stop.  (That could sound really bad out of context.) 

The ride started out OK and I felt like it was way too easy.  Which is usually a good sign, but with my legs being so sore and tired lately I had a hard time believing we were out for something more than a chill ride.  As we went into Lyons and up Apple Valley I kept finding myself on the front of the group taking pulls at 80% and finding out that the field was strung out behind me.  Huh, odd.  We regrouped on the descent into Lyons and hit Old St. Vrain pretty calm.  A group attacked up the road that included the most likely candidates, including Timmy Duggan of Liquigas and a host of super strong riders.  The group of 6 worked well together and began to blow us away.  So a Mix 1 rider decided to try to bridge up and I decided to go with him.  60 seconds later we had bridged up to a power house break and I only had to go 90%.  OK, this is what it is supposed to feel like.  We then worked together and opened up a HUGE gap.  So big that we waited a full revolution at a light about 5 minutes later and still didn’t even see the group. 

This is a good reminder that cycling can be finicky. We have all seen it.  Even guys like Cancellara, Boonen, and Gilbert have had huge swings in performance due to unknown or small issues.  Keeping the faith is important and not losing that confidence.   I needed this ride to give me a sense that my fitness is not totally gone and there is hope.  This was confirmed by a 6^th place finish in last night’s race.  So maybe I am getting there, finally.

So there are days that you never want to end and there are days that you want to forget immediately.  Yesterday was the latter, as far as bike racing goes.  I had a great set up to the race: A good night sleep (rare for me), a relaxing morning (another rarity with the house, yard, kids) and I arrived early enough to be calm getting dressed and geared up.  As soon as I pedaled my bike warming up I knew it could be a tough one.  I have had sore legs a few times before a race (not tired, but actually a tinge of pain like weight lifting soreness) and it has never gone well.  Never.  But I tried to ignore the legs and hope they would come around.  They didn’t.  The start was fast and I think the field dropped about 1/2 the riders in the first 3 miles.  I survived up the killer climb fine, but just couldn’t push the pedals hard on the top when needed.  I just couldn’t go over a tempo pace.  Aerobically I was fine, but my legs just wouldn’t respond.  So I went into internal suffer mode and just tried to make the best of it.  I ended up finishing a distant 28th place in the race with most of the field dropping out totally.  Tough day on the bike.  But just like a corner in football, you have to have a one play/one race memory.  The next one is around the corner and it is a new ballgame.

One of the coolest things about cycling is the focus on charitable events.  There are several “Charity Rides” that support a variety of causes and gives us cyclists a chance to give back while getting on the bike.   I have been fortunate to be on cycling teams and around other individuals that really brought a lot of energy to a number of causes.  Studio One Dental (a main sponsor a few years ago) sponsored our first Bike Rodeo at my kids elementary school and this year it was just awarded the number 1 elementary school in the country for children riding or biking to work.  These things have impact and make a big difference in our communities.

A family friend has created a charity after suffering a personal tragedy.  (Details below)  I personally hope anyone reading this site will consider joining this ride and giving back while getting in a great ride.

The Koppenburg is a spring classic climb AND a sweet spring classic bike race in Colorado. The 1/2 dirt circuit race is a short 44 miles that always feels like a 100 when you are done. The aggressive racing and constant awareness required on the loose dirt wears you down over the race. And then there is the steep climb every lap that adds just enough pain to often decide the race. The climb used to be REALLY hard. It was pretty much 18″ wide and the race would be decided by who made it up the climb w/o walking or getting caught up in a crash. It is still tough and narrow, but just a bit easier and less complicated than before. I have had some good legs in this race to be squashed by bad luck (broken frame). This is also the race that I totally spaced out last year and missed the winning move. My goal this year is to pay attention and put myself in a good position to do well. We have guys flying on the team right now and I hope we can put together a good race.

This new site format doesn’t allow me to post video, however the Sonic Boom Racing team has a YouTube site – SBRBicycle that has some up to date stuff on myself, our sponsors and the team.  The racer diaries are kinda cool for checking out how each racer lives, views training, andapproaches racing.  Check them out.

So after coming back from China it has been GO-GO-GO at work and home. Life gets complicated sometimes and bike racing/training has to be secondary. Usually I try updating my site every 2-3 days, but with all this going on it has been tough to put anything together. I have a ton of material started, but getting it up has been impossible. When things get crazy at work or home for athletes, there are some small ways to keep a certain level of fitness.

Here are some tips I use:

• Ride to work. Even 20-30 minutes is enough time to get in some intensity and just getting on the bike can be helpful.

• Run. 30 minute run can be a good workout and will maintain some level of cardio fitness. This can be dangerous if you don’t ever run, causing massive soreness.

• Concentrate on eating right. Don’t eat as much if you aren’t training as much.

• Work in 1 hour rides and focus on intensity. LT, VO2 efforts in a short time can really keep you in good shape. • Keep perspective. Hopefully this is just a small window of time and you will be back to normal soon. Sometimes you will come out of these rest periods flying on the bike and others will be slow getting in shape. But it only takes a couple of weeks to get back if you have been training all along.

This race is one of my favorites.  I don’t know exactly why since I have never finished it.  I have either flatted or broken a spoke.  So it has been a bit of a love hate relationship.  I love the course.  I love the concept.  I love this time of year.   I hate not finishing races.

I arrived at the race just in time to roll up and get a good start position.  In the past the first dirt section has been killer fast and I wanted to be ready.  The first lap started out pretty slow and I was having a fantastic time.  I spent most of the lap in the front 20 racers and smiling.  Looking around and seeing several Bissell, Jelly Belly, Wonderful Pistachios, Optimum and other pro riders in on the front with me was cool and fun.  I felt fantastic.  My legs are finally coming around and I couldn’t have asked for a better set up.  I came through the first lap exactly where I wanted to be.  My teammates were looking equally as comfortable and riding in the front or surfing around.  The dirt was in fantastic condition, except a couple of areas that warranted extreme caution.  (Turn to finish line, a couple of big /wheel swallowing pot holes, etc.) 

Second lap was a bit faster with more attacks, but it was still very comfortable.  The wind started to pick up and I got excited.  I usually can do well in the wind and started to pay more attention to positioning in the cross wind sections.  On this lap we screamed up Nelson.  I was in my 53×15 up the climb, pretty much going as hard as I could.  Attacks and bridging was occurring and I was suffering.  I crested the climb in perfect position, but on the transition to a flatter section my left inside calf cramped.  This has been happening a bit this year and I can’t figure it out.  I switched to Speedplay pedals, but other than that I haven’t had any changes that warrant this cramp issue.  I had been metering my water more than I should due to the fact I only had 2 bottles for nearly 80 miles of racing on a dry hot day.  But I didn’t want to take it all in too quickly.  I guess this was my mistake, because I had to drift to the back to let me leg de-cramp.  I slammed some Gatorade and a gel, but by the time my leg came around I was about 10 seconds off the back.  I began to chase in earnest and caught 2 riders.  We began working pretty well together and started the 3^rd lap of 4 a few seconds back.

As we were just about to catch the main group (which had slowed once the break was established) I made a critical mistake.  I was the last of the three after taking a pull and kinda riding on the edge of where the road fell off into the ditch.  The rider in front of me drifted right and rubbed my front wheel.  I overreacted (I shouldn’t have been crossed wheels anyhow) and went into the ditch.  I tried to recover and shoot back out, but instead wrecked.  I didn’t go down too hard, but I did slip into the ditch again.  I crawled out, put my chain back on, and chased.  I lost a minute or two and was now way back.   My knee was bleeding and swelling up a bit, but really no damage had been done.  My two compadres caught the pack just as they turned onto Nelson and I was full gas chasing.   I was pretty upset with myself for this lack of concentration.  The wind was picking up considerably then and I began to lose time to the pack.  Race was over.  However, I hadn’t had any mechanical at this point so I decided I must finish the race.

A teammate had passed me as I went down and was about 40 seconds ahead of me, chasing the group.  I began to see if I could make it up to him and work together.  He was too fast and I ended up chasing him for about 20 miles.  Eventually he blew up and I was able to make it up to him.  We tried to work together, but poor Ryan had blown sky high.  I offered gels and what little water I had left, but he was done for the day.  I took a few pulls and he told me to go on since he was so spent.  I ended up pushing on a bit to the finish. 

It was a long tough day.  I was disappointed to waste good legs, but I also was pleased with my fitness and the fun course.  I had three teammates finish in the front group, just off the winning break.  The team is riding great this year.  I am excited to see how they do at the Tour of Gila in a few weeks, a big goal for many riders on the team.