Finally A Podium

Yep, I made it! Second place at Mansfield Hollow 45+. Yeah, it was a small race and some of the fast guys weren't there, but there were a lot of other fast guys there. It felt good! Thanks to all my new team mates and everyone else who was cheering me on. Really fun time with a good showing by the Expo team. Lets see How many team mates I can remember: Me, Dave, Hildebrand, Cliff, TJ, Lance, Keith, Martey, Tall Paul, Paul Novatosky, Brian Specyalski, Steve Yau. There's probably more that I didn't see or didn't know were team mates.
That was a fun race, good atmosphere. There's nothing like a whole big batch of free food after your race, and the generous payouts and prizes.
Hopefully we'll see a good turn out next week at Hartford.

A Gloucester Documentary

So here it is the not long awaited premiere of my first ever attempt at video. All I can say is it goes downhill fast!
Check it out anyway. Constructive criticism accepted!

I think drill!

Providence day 2...A better day! I felt SO much better today. I think mainly because I wasn't any where near as nervous. I won't go into a lot of details, but just say I think if you can drop a group or bridge to a group then you have to. I ended up 17th today out of 60 starters. I'll take it. Paul and TJ raced the 3 race and finished ahead of mid field. Paul seemed pretty relaxed and happy with the day. Congrats on your 3rd place finish in the 5k at the Hartford Marathon. Dave raced the 35+ masters and I think his ass hurts. He was riding TJ's bike and it's always tough to ride someone else's bike. Not to mention that that group is only a small step below the elite men's field.
Fun day and weekend. Looks like a lot of people will be going to Mansfield this weekend. Good!









TJ suffering

Chris Jones and Tim Johnson. Johnson ends up winning, Jones 3rd.


Checked out this cool trials demo. Forgot the dudes name

To Drill...Or Not To Drill...

Providence day 1 is done and I'm a little bummed I shouldn't be! 21st out of 70 starters isn't bad. I'm bummed with the way it went down. I rode good, got a good start, didn't go down, didn't really make any mistakes and I pushed myself cross-eyed (lost a contact, right one this time), so why be bummed? Because I really think I could have made 18th and not 21st. Wtih a lap and a half to go I caught the guy in front of me, with a lap to go we caught the guy in front of us, with 7/8 of a lap to go another guy catches us, so we're now a group of four. I really thought I could ride away from the group and thats what I proceeded to do, try anyway! I drilled it for the last lap and everytime I looked they were all still right there. So with a quarter lap to go, one guy goes and they all follow, except me I'm cooked from trying to drop the group.
So here's the question. Did I do the right thing and continue to drill it or should I have sat up and played tired and let someone else set the pace? Maybe I could have just let off and the group would have followed my pace. I doubt it, cross never seems to be any thing other than full gas, or is it? See why I'm confused.

Day 1...Can you say rain?

Wow did it pour today! I know I've been saying how I like to race in the rain (and I do), but it can get tedious. All the trying to stay dry while you're warming up and try to get warm after you've raced is kind of like work. The actual racing part is awesome though. You have to stay so focused that it seems like the race flies by. Today went pretty well, I definitely made a few poorly timed blunders, but that's racing. First lap I had ridden up to about 8th place and hit a rut which shot me off course, right off the course and behind the tape. By the time I got off my bike and back over the tape I lost at least 10 places. Then with 2 laps to go, I had just caught and passed a group of 5, as I made my way through the backstop curve... same thing with the rut, only this time I shot right into a stake and the netting. Bye bye 5 guys. I caught that group again but wasn't able to gain any more places back.
So now we're ready for bed. Belly full of Pizza joint food, laundry done, tweets sent, blog posted. Time to get ready for tomorrows nervous stomach and more awesome Gloucester racing.
But there is some bad news. We've told that gorilla man or monkey man as his friends told us has had to move away to pursue a real job in Philly. It's a sad day in cross and he will be missed. Come on young devil, time to step up.

We made it

We're here!! Yee haw. We made it without a hitch thanks to Maggie's navigating skills!? Drove up to Gloucester after we checked in to the hotel to check out the course and get something to eat. The course is quite a bit different from last year and looks quite a bit tougher. Should be really fun in the rain. I heard there's not going to be a sand pit on Day One, which is good (I'm not a fan). Ate at The Gull, one of the local dive joints. The food was actually pretty good, better than I was expecting.
Now we're all sitting here, Maggie, Nikki and I, typing into our computers and chatting, but it's time for me to hit the sack. Looking forward to tomorrow!

Heading to Gloucester

An image like can mean only one thing...Some serious cross racing is about to go down. Maggie and I are heading out to G-ster tomorrow for the weekend. We're picking up our friend Nikki at Logan and then heading to our hotel in Peabody. Nikki works with Christian Vandevelde's father, so she and Maggie got to be friends through the VdV fan club.
Paul and I raced up in VT last weekend. Those were two hard races, but I managed to get some points, so I should get a call up to the second row (for day one at least). I've been racing in the masters 45+ races. So far it feels like the group I belong in. I'm by no means the fastest, but I feel like I'm holding my own and because most of these guys are really fit and they have good riding skills it's forcing me to step up my game. I realized in VT that you can't make mistakes if you want to stay anywhere near the front, plus when you're getting beat by guys your own age you can think "if they can do it I can Too". When the 20 year old kids are kicking your ass you just say "I'm old, leave me alone".
I don't know who knows what, but team Delta is being retired as I've joined up with the Exposition Wheelmen Club both as a member and as a sponsor. We don't have our kits yet so in the mean time I'll continue flying the Delta tricolor.
Anyway, I haven't put anything up here in a while so I thought I'd do that. I'm going to bring a computer to Gloucester and try to post a race update. We'll see.
Check out this picture of Paul Railing a corner at the recent Crossin 4 Canines race. Later!