Now for the short and pissed off version.
Managed 5th overall and 3rd age at the Singletrack stampede. Broke my chain on the 1st lap & then next lap, busted up my front derailleur. After a few adjustments, was forced to stay in the small ring. So congrats to J Bixby who won by a few minutes, while I spent triple his advantage on the side of the trail.

Saturday was 126 miles on the road bike with Brendan, Staffo and Barney. Hosed completely after that ride. Brendan broke a shift cable in Italy Valley and drove it 18+ miles in the 53×12. I was gassed a bit from the race still and when we got to CDGA decided to roll the last 30 miles home. Frick, my legs were cooked after that ride.

Last night was Farmall #2. Was sitting pretty till I burped a tire at the end of the 2nd lap. Was dumfounded for a second, the realized there was a floor pump in the trailer as I was right near the finish line. Rolled over and pumped it up. Had fallen into about 6/7th place. Lost pretty close to a full minute on that. Damn near impossible to make up on that course. Drilled it the next few laps and brought the gap down to under 30 secs (EDIT: gap to 2nd place not 1st) and made my way up into 3rd. I wasn’t gonna close 30 secs on the final lap, so kinda sat up a bit. Was a little frustrated at my luck again, but oh well that will happen. All part of racing.

Next week is Farmall #3. Gonna be a shootout for the overall! Then no races till Shenandoah 100!

Back to bike racing:

After the 24 hour, decided to don my Minerva Design kit and head over and hit up the GVCC Crit.  Legs were still a bit cooked, but managed to jump in and stay in the main break for 30 minutes or so out of 40.  Pack pulled us back in, was able to work my way to the front and challenge for the sprint.  Coming up the hill, had a solid jump, 2nd place was starting to move up.  Dropped another gear and still had some in the tank, and then ‘schlecked’ it as the chain jumped on the cassette.  Sat up as I saw Zito had 2nd wrapped up, then realized I still had a bit to go and raced to the line for 3rd, but was nipped and will settle for 4th.  Been a while since I earned some GVCC points but was super fun to race.

This past weekend went out and did a pretty good size ride from home around Canadaigua Lake.

Great View around that lake for sure. I slogged and suffered like hell on the ride as I didn’t get much sleep the night before, but still managed a pretty solid ride.

Farmall XC Summer Series #1

Farmall Summer series kicked off this past tuesday night.  Good to get back in the flow and get back to some hard racing again.  Managed to botch my start and mis my pedal and dropped into 4th, gasp!  I pushed my way up to 3rd and then followed Staffo into the woods in 2nd place.  He was ripping it up the climbs, but I fought the good fight, and even though he got a slight gap out of the woods, I managed to pull him back in before the end of the lap.  A hard charging Tim Pilato was hot on my heels and we managed to both get past Staffo around the start of the 3rd lap.  Got some separation from Tim after a few laps and held a steady gap to the line for the W!

But enough about the racing!  It’s about the post-ride I did with Lake!

Right after this, we were ripping down the grass, and at high speed, just before the 180 turn, it gets a bit choppy. Well, he grapped a wee bit too much front brake and did a massive high speed endo. Hit the ground face first, and the bike slammed him hard in the back of the head. I think if he did have any teeth he would have lost em in this crash! After a few minutes of tears (I think I would have cried had I crashed that hard), he was back on the bike and ripping it

Up this weekend is Sprague Brook: Singletrack Stampede! Looking forward to this one, gonna be a ton of fun!

Sunday though was the Naples Throwdown.  If you’ve been with me down to Naples for a mountain bike or road ride, you know my evil ways.  I pretty much picked a doozy.  77 miles, 6k+ of climbing, with majority of the climbs averaging well over 10%.

Good group of GVCC’ers were brave enough to show up and throwdown for the event.  Though I mighta scared a few of em off with the dirt road descents

But Hey, there were some great views.  Though my eyes were crossed at the top of Bopple Hill (27% will do that to you)

Even though Housler partied it up the night before, never did manage to get him to puke.  Ah well, believe me there was plenty of suffering to go around.

Nothing like a massive climbing day where the average cadence is 75 rpm.  After Flint Hill, I looked down and it said my average was 53rpm, that was 3+ hours into the ride!!

Tonight:  Park Ave XC finale at Camp Arrowhead.  Booyeah.  Feeling good and looking forward to ripping it up!!

Weekend:  Thinking a massive 85-100+ mile day on the mountain bike, then taking it easy Sunday and hitting up the boat.  Gonna head with Bridget and Lake to camp in the Adirondacks the 5th & 6th and not gonna do any training so a mondo weekend is in order!!

Super fun time, but I’m still tired and still trying to catch up on everything. Racing some cross country this weekend at Williams Lake. Not sure why I signed up for a race thats 4 hours away, but ah well. It’s xc racing and it’ll be a blast!

Headed east on Friday with the Minerva Design crew for Battenkill-Roubaix. Got there nice and early and plenty of time to chill in the hotel with Brendan. For first time in a long time I slept like a log when away from home for a race. It was unprecedented, but def worthwhile. Brendan, Drew & Jeff were all in the cat 3 race, while I got lucky and got do an extra 20 miles in the 2 race. Things started great and I had really good position thru the bridge and onto the dirt without issue. Bottles flying everywhere, but managed to sit comfortable at the front. There was a nasty steep dirt climb that nearly cracked me, but I held tight. …. Till the next time we climbed it as we looped back onto the course again. The wind was blowing like crazy and I was just off the back off the much smaller main field. Gave chase for a bit, but the wind had other plans. Decided to just roll it back to the car and tend to my wounded ego. But, Brendan put on big show in the cat 3 race and took home a huge Win in a 3 up sprint. Soon enough I’ll be working for him in the 1/2 races if he keeps up the win streak.

Sunday was the GVCC’s first ever mountain bike race. It was nice to see something that Todd and I had chatted about really come to fruition. The weather was gorgeous and I had laid out a really kick as 2+ mile loop course. Had a few tough climbs, some good single track and some fast field sections. Lake even kicked off his race season in the kids race. He was a little outgunned by the big kids and their bigger bikes, but nonetheless he did his 2 laps around the soccer field and was super pumped all day just to be out at the races. Plus he got to go play on the playground most of the day too! No kid will argue against that!

We had some huge numbers for the race & nearly filled out the expert class with 47 racers! The short prologue field helped thin things out before we hit the single track and opening climb. I made it into the woods in 2nd place and held it till we came out of the elevator climb. Dan Staffo (on a cx bike) attacked hard in the upper field, but I couldn’t close the gap. Spent the next 3 laps reeling him in on the single track only to lose him on the climbs and in the fields where he could fly. On the last lap, Doug Rusho had been breathing down my neck and passed me on the way up A-train. I kept him close and was ready to attack up the moon valley climb, but washed out on the corner before hand and was never able to recover and close the gap.

This let the 5th place rider (Rob Pilato) close the gap to me. He hunted me down and off the final descent into the field he used his momentum to swing past me and try to drop me in the grass heading to the finish line. Little did he know i was fully prepped for his move. I simply sat in on his slipstream, let him pull me to the line and jumped him in the final 100 meters to keep 4th place! 1st place was way off the front but 2-5 were only separated by 15 seconds! That’s some great xc racing! I had a ton of fun and hope everyone else did too!

Huge thanks to the GVCC & Full Moon Vista for the setup & support! Hopefully this event continues to grow over the next few years.

This weekend is the Bloomfield road race, then my personal favorite The Prattsburgh Rambler!

Here’s some Pics from the weekend….

I can’t really complain. I quite enjoy it back here. Plus the road riding is just as good if not better!

Onto the workout; some 5 x 1 minute intervals, not all that hard, but not all that easy. But, big changes! 40 watts over last years workout, ya ya altitude counts (but when I came back I saw about 5-7% improvement). But a few other things weighing in, I’m nearly 5kg lighter than last year and my CTL is -35 from compared to where it was then! That’s a fairly stout improvement!

Enough of the geek speak, time for the pretty pictures…..

I’ve still got lots of work to do before racing really kicks in, but so far pretty happy with how things are progressing. This weekend is the last weekend of Giros’, then a big weekend of training and time for both my road and mountain bike season to kick off!! Battenkill and then Dryer Rd Mountain bike race. It’s gonna be a busy month in April!!

I managed to get in some great training and more importantly just have some fun on the bike!

The fun even carried into this past weekend. I went and did both Giro Training races on Saturday and Sunday. Saturday was doing pretty well hanging with the bunch, but the extra lap and mis-fire on my shifter had me coming off the back on the hill before the finish line about the 4th lap. Seems like the 5th lap was pretty tame though, as I sat up and was really only rolling behind the pack for most of the remainder.

Sunday, even with the tired legs decided to go race. I was berated by my teammate “Big House” (who had just won the Philly race the day before with utter dominance) to come out and ride. So I did. We had a bit of a smaller group and played around a bit with some attacks and had some fun, but it was destined down to a field sprint. Even made it over the hill and was able to sprint in the bunch for 5th, while Big House took the W. Been a while since I’ve been in a big ol’ group sprint, but don’t think that I’ve really lost too much of my edge A few more and I’ll be nice and sharp. Next weekend is the last weekend of the Giro’s, who knows what’ll happen then but I’ll at least be there saturday to mix it up again. Maybe even sunday too….

Amazingly temps have been incredible for riding in March, we got crushed with a snow storm, then bam 45-50- even 60 degree days with loads of sunshine!! I’ll take it!!.

Cause with Sunshine comes loads of motivation. Getting out there and drilling it for some “Over-Unders”

Fun intervals but, they are painful!!

Then of course, my tried and true Criss-Cross Intervals, these are even good for roadies as they help simulate riding in a paceline. Plus these aren’t boring by any means. The tempo part goes by quick and the hard part isn’t really super hard either.

In mountain bike news

The Dryer Rd. Mountain Bike Race is on!!

April 11th presented by Genesee Valley Cycling Club & Full Moon Vista. Will be a kick ass course at Dryer Rd. (designed by myself!), CA$H-MONEY prizes for Expert/Sport category!! Even the beginners walk away with some nice medals. No tube & lube for the winners here!! GVCC is really stepping it up and helping bring mountain biking up to the level it belongs. Go Pre-Reg on BikeReg.com and save $5. See you there!!

Gonna be a big weekend on the roadie!! Giro’s & some hill climbing in Naples. Hoping I can skirt the rain and stay dry!

Few days last week I managed some early morning road rides along the lakefront. Something quite serene & peaceful about it. Everything is still & it’s nice to have the solitude. Unfortunately so early in the am causes some unawakened legs also, but just takes some getting used to.

This weekend was great. The sun was out & got to race my bike on Saturday & get in a good ride again on Sunday. More importantly spent loads of time with Lake! Bridget is in NYC for a few days so we’ve been hanging out. Went for a bike ride, played some snow soccer & played some indoor hockey (don’t tell Bridget!) & all the fun stuff that little dudes do. He’s way too much fun, gotta keep it coming in doses though!

Thus week should be another killer week. Fitness is rapidly climbing & another giro again this weekend. Might skip Sunday & go climbing the hills of Naples for a big ride. Gonna be gorgeous! Maybe I’ll even get some pics up on thus thing & blog more than once a month!

Here’s what’s happened:

Rode my mountain bike in the snow with the dogs, it was fun but the snow was actually deep in a few spits

I rode my road bike some, some on the roads some on the trainer… yah that’s about it