8/5/2006

It was about midnight last night, while I was still waiting for Sam, Eric, and Adam to get to my house, when I realised that I wasn't going to get much sleep for this race.  The race was the Deodate Road Race, near Harrisburg, PA.  The four of us took off for Harrisburg by 6:45, and got a chance to ride a good bit of the rolling course before we started.  Also in attendance was, the man himself, Ron Marquette and the legendary Todd Eroh.

Adam jumped off the front on the first lap, and opened up an optomistic looking gap, so I decided to bridge and try to make something happen.  Luckily, since we were wearing different uniforms, it made other teams behind less likely to chase.  Either way, we were realed in before the lap was over. and it was down to waiting for the field sprint.

With 1.5 k to go, I was riding in good position, about third in the pack, when another rider attacked on the left side.  I did my best to jump on his wheel, but I couldn't manage to close the gap by myself.  I realised that if I stopped chasing, I would be letting the guy off the front win - but if I kept chasing, I would be leading out the sprint.  Looking over my shoulder, I saw Adam sitting right on my wheel.  So it was pretty easy to decide to keep chasing. 

With a couple hundred metres to go, I gave it full throttle, passing the guy off the front, and did my best to go for the win.  Adam passed me with just a few meters to go, and we made it a Bucknell 1-2.  Not too bad.

Tommorrow: Doylestown

7/28/2006

As Sam was actually the last person to "update" my journal, I'll start the recap from the beginning of summer.

There are not many place to ride at my home in South Carolina  (as Todd ,Steve, and Kyle can attest from our winter break training camp last year), so I managed to find a way to stay in the Philadelphia area over the summer - where there are great roads for riding and races almost every weekend.  With a little help from the Cohen family, I found a spare room to live in in Downingtown PA.  I'm working for the summer as an intern at a civil engineering firm in Kennett Square.  The entire point of this is that I can race all summer long.

Working full work days and finding time for training seemed difficult at first, but eventually I found a good solution: live out of my car.  With the 45 minute commute to work everyday, getting out of work at 5 and getting home and on the road by 6:15 really limited the amount of time I had for riding.  Now, instead of driving all the way home and then riding, I keep my bike (and trainer, took kit, and other neccesities) in my trunk and leave for my rides from the parking lot of the office where I work.  It gives me more daylight for riding and by the time I'm done riding, the traffic has pretty much disappeared.  Although the people at work think it's kind of strange that I change into my spandex in their parking lot, I really don't care - it has worked out quite well.  Most of my training during the week is focused around intervals, hill repeats, and sprints; if I'm not racing on the weekend, I try to get out for a couple longer rides as well.  I've also been doing the 'Great Valley Crit' - a weekly training crit that often attracts over 100 local cyclists.

I've done a bunch of races over the summer, even bagging a win at the NJ Grand Prix in Marlton, NJ.  The race was an office park criterium with a turn 100 meters before a slightly downhill finish.  300 meters from the last turn, I was sitting in the 3rd spot, when the guy right in front of my attacked.  I sat on his wheel and we opened up a few second gap on the pack.  Right before the last turn, I attacked him and made it to the finish with a nice gap.  It was definately one of the highlights of my summer with cycling so far.

I'm currently in Altoona, PA for the Tour de Toona with Steve & Todd.  Todd won the first stage of the race today, a slightly rolling circuit race of 40 miels that offers one of the most highly contested sprints I've ever seen before.  Todd set himself up perfectly, and was able to cross the line with a gap big enough to zip up his jersey and give a pretty cool salute.  The best part of this is that Todd is currently the race leader, and gets to wear a yellow jersey for tommorrow's race.  Tommorrow's stage features a huge climb, and Sunday's is a crit in downtown Altoona.  Hopefully I'll be able to offer Todd a good hand so that he can hold onto the jersey and win the GC for the weekend.

-Charlie