A look back on the 2013 FSC

coming soon

FSC #1 Tallahassee

Tallahassee has always been a very fun and fast course. It proved to be that way this year.  My endurance is better than it ever has been but my top end speed is not quite here yet.  Not a problem though as we have 10 races in the series.  The ITT was Saturday afternoon and I was hoping to do well.  I didn't.  I simply have no top end right now.  I was hoping that Sunday's 3 lap race would be better but the course was too fast and too short.  The race was pretty uneventful until the last lap where I was fighting for 2nd place.  I passed 2nd before the BMX track and knew I could out sprint him but a lot of people were on the track that were not in the race and I got blocked by a kid and his Dad going into the second turn.  I had to lock up my brakes to keep from crashing into them.  Third place was able to go around with no problem and by the time I caught back up we were in scoring and it was just too narrow for passing.  But, as always, I had a great time.  My training program was adjusted a few weeks ago and my speed will be here soon.  I left the first race of the series with a 3rd place finish and pumped for Fernandina.

I would like to give a special thanks to Leroy's Bikeworks for continuing to support junior racing and helping me get my bike prepared for the race.

Nationals

After having trouble accessing my blog account I can now do an update!

I spent the week before Nationals in the mountains of North Carolina training.  The weather was perfect!  I think the high temperature was 68!  I was able to find a recreation center in town that let me use their aerobics room to set up my road bike on a trainer and get a few rides in.  I was also able to get back over to the Dupont trail system for a ride also.  I was feeling good during my training since CycleYouth camp and felt like my body was starting to peak. 

The trip from NC to PA was a long one and the closer we got to PA the hotter it got.  The morning after arriving I prerode the course and TRIED to find some good lines.  There were so many rocks that the good line was where your front wheels bounced too.  I did stop to work on a couple of sections but still was not able to find the lines I was looking for.  After the ride we headed to Gettysburg.  I stayed off my feet most of the day but Gettysburg was so interesting I had to walk around some, and I'm glad I did!  The next day I met with the rest of the CycleYouth team and we did a preride together.  I remembered a lot of the trail and felt I was ready for tomorrows race.

The heat was bad on race day so we all pinned ice packs on the back of our jerseys to stay cool and stood under umbrellas at staging.  When the 19-29 CAT 2 was in staging USACycling opened up the gate and then called them to the start line.  I lined up on the front row at the gate but when the gate opened for us everyone took off before scoring called us up.  The gate opened on the right and I was on the left so I got stuck behind the gate watching everyone else go to the line.  I ended up starting in the second to last row and knew I had my work cut out for me.  When the gun went off it was just a big mess of tangled handlebars with 40 other racers.  The trail was really open and long before getting into the singletrack so I had to push it really hard to make up time.  I was weaving around racers and making quite a few passes but ended up getting blocked in with a rider in front, a rider to the right and barriers to the left.  Unfortunately they were riding the same pace.  As we approached the single track someone crashed and we came to a stop.  Now I was in a walking bottleneck.  The course was hard to pass on because of the rocks so I could only gain positions on wide climbs and the few gravel road sections.  I managed to pull up to 17th for the finish but went home knowing there was nothing more I could have done.  It simply just wasn't my race to win.

Overall I had a really fun time at Nationals and learned a lot for next year.  During my 2nd preride I had Todd Wells brush against me, Georgia Gould follow me up a climb and ended it with breakfast the next day with Drew Edsall.

Special thanks to Leroy and crew at Leroy's Bikeworks for unlimited support to all cyclists and my teammates for cheering me on!

I took a week off after returning to Florida and started my new training program for the Florida State Championship Series.   

Central Florida Sports--Athlete Spotlight

I was contacted by Central Florida Sports to be their athlete spotlight earlier this year.  The final cut is ready and will air on PGTV Friday June 4 at noon.  Here is the youtube link.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWsi_5PBr_w&list=PLBWPhCrv3wIAKM_fOipQoyiQe6R_MOA0p&index=1

Enjoy!

SERC 5--Conyers, GA

Well the trip started off great.  The weather in Conyers was perfect.  It was in the 70's and the trail was dry and fast.  I have never ridden Conyers dry so I was really anxious to preride.  I rode with CycleYouth founder Andy and teammate Adam Cohen.  The first half of the course we flew through the trail and using Ethan Quehl's cornering technique that I learned at camp last year made the trail that much faster.  The downhills were smooth and the climbs seemed almost too easy.  The second half of the trail was on the granite section and IT WAS BUMPY!  I have only ridden over there once due to bad weather conditions and had to go slow.  So, this side was really new to me.  Andy took us off the course to ride some other sections of Conyers and there were some big climbs that hurt.  But with every big climb comes a big downhill!  After our ride with Andy I decided to do the first half again and I slowed it down a little to pay closer attention to some lines.  The next morning it started raining, then it started pouring.  I was hoping it was going to quit so the first wave could dry up the trail some but it just never quit raining.  When our wave started it had almost quit raining but the trail was already soaked.  Since I had more experience riding Conyers wet I wasn't too worried.  The whistle went off and immediately everything from my tires went straight to my eyes.  I had a hard time seeing where I was at but so did everyone else.  I didn't go into the woods where I wanted so I had some ground to make up.  I could see the leaders and was closing in on them.  I was going to try to catch them on a downhill section and released the brakes and started cruising after them.  BAM, I went down hard.  I went high on the corner and my wheels were out from under me before I knew it.  I slid down hill and ended up about 6 feet from my bike.  As I was running uphill back to my bike I realized my right knee had an issue.  I mounted back up and took off again.  I took off hard to try to catch back up with Adam who passed me during the crash.  I lost my confidence in the corners and that made it hard to catch him.  After the first lap I was on 9th place and had a lot of work to do to catch the leaders since the race was cut short by a lap.  On the second lap I started to gain my wet, muddy cornering confidence again and passed two people.  I started flowing the trail pretty good and I guess I got too confident again because I went down again.  Landed on the same knee again but this time the bike sled with me.  I once again mounted back up but never caught up to anyone.  I ended up 7th and covered in red Georgia clay.  This was not a good race for me but not every race can go as planned.  Congratulations to Carter Anderson for taking the win Simon Xhauflair on 4th, both of CycleYouth.  A big thank you goes out to LeRoy at LeRoy's Bikeworks for helping me fine tune my Niner RDO before the race and Allegheny Millwork for their support too.

SERC 1--Santos

I have always been a huge fan of the Santos trail system so I wasn't too disappointed when I found out it was not at Gainesville.  Plus, I never seem to have a good SERC race at Gainesville.  For some reason I am always sick this time of year.  This year was different.  I was healthy.  I wasn't really in sprint shape because I had done so much endurance training since the FSC but my Dad started throwing in some interval workouts and some additional sprint training.  My top end speed wasn't there but I could ride for a long time. 

We pre rode the course on Saturday and I loved it, so much I did more laps than I usually do.  I felt confident and was ready for Sunday.  There was a chance of rain on Sunday so tire selection became our biggest concern.  With it staying overcast we decided to stick with our normal race setup and lined up for our three laps.  My strategy was to follow one particular person the first lap because I knew he would go out hard.  On the second lap I was going to make my move and sprint the third.

The first lap was pretty uneventful.  I simply followed the leader with my teammate Sam right behind me.  On the second lap the leader started attacking right away.  I countered every attack and stayed right with him.  About the mid way point I made my move.  We had an open section and I sprinted it out to gain the lead.  Second place kept trying to get back around me so I picked up the pace just enough where he wouldn't have room to get around in any open sections.  Coming through scoring he attacked again to try to regain the lead.  I opened it up a little to keep him behind me.  The first part of the lap was easy trail so I picked up the pace quite a bit as planned.  Next thing I knew I was riding all by myself.  I slowed down my pace a little to save some for the finish.  Next thing I knew Sam was catching up to me.  We were able to ride out the rest of the third lap without having to give it too much effort.  I could tell my endurance training had paid off.  As we came to the finish line I was prepared for Sam to try to out sprint me but he never did.  We were able to cross the line at a comfortable pace. 

The CycleYouth team had a great day at the SERC.  1st and 2nd in junior sport and 1st, 5th, 8th, and 10th in 10-14 and 3rd and 6th in 15-18.  The rest of the LeRoys Bikeworks team also had a great day pulling a few wins and many other podium spots.

SouthEast Bike Expo

The SouthEast Bike Expo was better than I could have imagined.  I was ready to do some mountain bike riding outside of Florida and Conyers, GA seemed like the best spot.  Although it was 40 degrees and rainy we still were excited to be there. 

We arrived on Friday night and had dinner with Josh and Ty from Orbea.  Those two are really cool to hang out with and we had planned on riding with them but they were too busy at the expo.  Next time guys! 

First thing Saturday morning we hit the trails.  Conyers wasn't like I remembered it.  It was muddy and open.  The area was logged last year and it opened up the area a lot.  The last time we were there it was rainy but the trails held up better than they did this time.  The climbs were still there and I did some of them several times just to get some training in.  Since it was so wet we skipped the granite side and got cleaned up and headed to the expo.

A lot of vendors were there and we got to see the new products and talk to a lot of people about their products.  The highlights were meeting the Vee Rubber Tires crew and getting to see their complete lineup of tires and the SRAM tent had me drooling for some XX1.  Vee Rubber Tires is one of our CycleYouth sponsors and I really enjoyed seeing all their tires first hand.  They have a tire for every kind of bike riding and my Dad and I spent a lot of time with them.  I saw about 5 different tires that would work great here in Florida.  We have hard packed, sand, mud, clay, and everything else in between down here and just about every state series race could require a different tread.  Vee Rubber has us covered!  Thanks for all the swag guys!!!  The socks are super comfortable!

We did another ride that afternoon and hit a small portion of the granite but it was still slick so we cleaned up again and headed out to dinner.  The next morning a few of us went for another ride and the trails had dried out some and the sun was out.  We were able to ride the granite side this time and got some good mileage in with a lot of climbing.

I headed back to the expo for the final time and ran into some of the Georgia CycleYouth team.  I went to the KMC tent and hung out for a while and then made my way to Vee Rubber Tires again.  I feel I have some good tire combinations picked out and can't wait to try them out.

The expo had a lot of vendors and plenty of swag to go around.  I got a lot of samples of gels, tshirts, key chains, water bottles, stickers and beanies.  I can't wait until next years expo!