Matt's cycling blog

Tyler Farrar Cofidis, Ian Mikkisik BMC, Doug Ollershaw Health Net, Evan Elkhan Jittery Joes. All fast pros that can turn a nice 80 mile road race in the sun. In to a very long day.

The course was pretty fun it had a good section of climbing that was 3 miles, then it went downhill for a while then into one laned farm roads. There were alot of splits mostly on the hill. I was sitting about 40 riders back going through about a mile cross wind section. I wasn't hurting at all I looked up and see a split of 20 riders which all the big pros were in. I immiedatly got out of the saddle and powered around struggling riders. I tried to clear the 15-20 second gap, I got close, but when they turned the corner and went into the tail wind and they were gone. I settled in with the second group 4 of our riders made the split so team wise we were in a good position. I could do nothing, but sit in and wait. First it was 30 seconds then 50 seconds the a 1:20 then 1:50 then we brang it back to 1:30 then it went up to 3 minutes. Basicly it was a long day of watching the race go up the road. I easily took the sprint of our 2nd group the legs felt really good my back was super sore I guess thats to be expected with the first few of these 80 mile road races. Cross winds can really ruin your day, even if your feeling good it only takes one rider to open up a split, and rip the field in half.

Went up thomson a bit faster today.













2nd climb of the day, tried a new climb today it was a little bit steeper then thompson. Pretty fun climb nice and twisty.

let the fun begin

Luck has nothing to do with it.

Just an update on the road race I did today. It was a hilly 80 mile race with a good 4 mile climb each 16 mile lap. I got off in the early move, we got a max gap of 2 minutes. Chad Hartley from bmc and a few guys from First Rate Morgage bridged up. Game Over. It was all a matter of of deciding who finsihed where out of the break. With 30 miles to go I attacked the group and opened up a minute gap. Chad and Kenny bridged which is what I wanted put the 3 of us together and its over. I wanted to sit on for a few turns to catch my breath after being alone for 10 miles. Kenny didn't like that or thought I was dogging them and just sitting on. He let chad go and told me to chase. Since I was working with Chad I half rolled through, not really chasing. Kenny attacked me once and I hit him back. I almost got up to chad but hit the wall when I was 30 meters behind him. Kenny attacked me up the start/finish climb after being alone and in the break since mile 2. I was gassed and didn't have the legs to go with him. My back started aching which made going fast almost impossible I would stand for miles straight. I thought I had 3rd locked up, but 2 miles before the finish I saw a group of 5 guys coming fast behind. They caught me and I sat on. I could have taken them in the sprint, but my legs cramp with 200 meters to go. I sprinted through the cramp and got 3rd in our little group sprint. It just leaves a bad taste in my mouth 5th is good but I should have easily been 3rd.

At least I had a good training day.

Tonight was the the local ciruit race down at the ol race track. Oil + wet slick pavement= disaster! We didn't even make it around the first corner before the first rider slid out. He was attacking and just slid out and took out the guy who was going with him. I went on the attack with 4 other guys including Kirk. You put 2 fast sprinters in the break GAME OVER. We stayed away for a long time and Kirk and I went 1,2 in every points sprint. With 3 laps to go a group of 5 riders bridged up. Didn't make much differnce. Kirk followed the attack of one rider on the last and he beat him in the sprint so he had enough points to win. I followed suit, and won the sprint for 3rd and had enough points to hang on to 2nd overall race.

I went out today with full intentions of just going on a recovery ride. My legs had other plans sometimes they have a mind of there own. I ended up riding along the river for a good 35 miles to the base of Mt. Larch a good 14 mile climb to the top the last 4 miles are still blocked off do to snow. I felt really good going up it really relaxed ticking over a quick cadence. 3 weeks ago I first rode this climb and was gasping for air in the 39-23. I was ticking over the 39-17 with no problems at all. Did I mention it was raining? Just another day in Oregon. I didn't bring gloves so the ride down the mountain at 45 mph was a brutal one I could barely grab the brakes by the bottem.

Tommarow is the cicuit race at the track maybe I'll have a shot to win it since Even and Doug are at Tour of Goergia. Doug got 2nd in todays stage. Mad Props to him.

WOW is the one word I can think of to describe it. With over 10,000 registered athletes road, mountain, downhill, bmx, anything on a bike and they had a event for it.

On to the race, we had a rough day to start off with pouring rain and gusty winds put a stop to the women's race. Then our start was delayed an hour. Then as were shivering on the start line in the pouring rain they decided to delay it another 30 minutes. BRRRRR! We raced back to the car and watched people ride around to warm up. The first 10 laps was rainy and must have been bad for peoples spirits, because half of the field was gone. The pace wasn't hard at all just the 300 feet of climbing for every 2 1/4 mile lap wore on some people, and any attack at the wrong time could really put you majorly in the hurt locker on the next lap. I raced really conservatively for the first 21 laps just watching and waiting making sure not to get caught out of any splits. The last 10 laps I got a huge boost of confidence I finally figured out "hey, wait a minute I can do this." I launched up from the main bunch to a chase group of Shaun Milne, Steve Tilford, Jonathan Baker, and 3 other guys. Kirk attacked and joined our group the next lap. So we had some cards to play. Baker seemed like the only one who wanted to work. I pulled through 5 or 6 times but ended up always pulling through the cross wind right before the climb so I just sat on up the climb. Baker attacked and he was gone with the rest of us looking at eachother. I had the power to chase him back but didn't want to waste the energy then see 5 guys fly by me and drop me so I just sat in. The last lap Finally came around and Milne pulled super hard up the hill I popped slightly along with Steve Tilford, I dug deep and sprinted over the top just barely catch back right before the corkscrew. Steve caught back on when we slowed up in the final kilometer. 500 meters to go Milne is on the front not much happening, He stuck to the left hand side of the road so if we wanted around him we had to go through the wind to do it. 250 meters to go Milne starts the sprint, Tilly is 2nd wheel with me 3rd. Everyone went left so I launched up the right popped it in the 53-11 went as hard as I could, and I took them to school. Taking the sprint for 18th place!! Kirk was right on my wheel for a 19th place. The 2 breakaways came together at the front and we ended up with Dan Harm in 10th and our ace climber Aaron Tuckerman with an impressive 5th place.


After the race I was surprised to find out I won the Young riders jersey which is for the rider under 23. So I ended up with a sweet Jersey and a kiss from the always cute podium girl.



With 140 starters the team cars were mostly full before the finish, only 32 riders finished the race. I'm really happy right now this is by far the biggest result of my career. I'm looking for pictures from the race so if yah find any send me the link.


Cheers

Power sliding



Throwing it down.

With sunny skies on the drive to Seattle today it looked to be a promising day. With one of our riders Dan Harm living a few blocks from the race. We had a place to change and get ready for the race. We rolled out a good hour and a half before the race. Mistake #1 I didn't wear any leg warmers. As soon as we got to the course dark clouds rolled in, it started pouring 30 minutes before the start of the pro race. The course was pretty technical a 1k crit course with sharp corners. There were around 60 riders on the start line, I officially started in the very last spot. It started out very quickly and on such a short course moving up was difficult. I finally made it to the front only to see a group of 8 riders off the front, including 2 of my teamates. I sat 2nd wheel in the pack following Tom Peterson from team Slipstream who missed out on the break. I sat in the top 5 following the moves. Not much doing, we caught 3 of the break away riders who fell off of the break, our sprinter Kirk got 2nd out of the break and our other guy in the break Aaron crashed on the last lap. I got 2nd in the field sprint ended up 7th on the day. It was a hard day for many riders half the pack dropped out or got pulled.

Went down to the big city tuesday, and jumped in a circuit race around the local indy car type track it had some hair pins s curves and a super long straight away to the finish. I didn't really know what was going on when they rang the bell with 12 laps to go of a 15 lap race. I found out they run it like a points race with sprints every 3 laps of the 1.8 mile circuit. I went on the attack trying to time it to win some sprints I won 1 and got caught right before one. The final sprint gave the most points 10, 9,8,7,6 and so forth giving points to 10 places. After a early jump by Evan Elkhan of Jittery joes with 500 meters to go 2 riders got on him, I was boxxed and ended up 4th almost beating Evan at the line, he went way to early into the wind, but it worked out for the guys on his wheel. They was a good 82 rider field and It is a weekly thing here so I'm hoping now that I know what is going on I can win next time.

Wensday I went out and did the noon ride at nike I got 2nd in the kom I was holding a good 360 watts all the way up the climb and tested the waters a few times hitting the high 400s but backed it down right away. Chad "the bmc pro" sat my wheel and attacked me right before the top, he gave me a smile and said see ya as he few by. To bad all the fast guys took the day off.


Thursday I went to the nike ride by myself Chad headed to richmond for a big pro race with his team. It was interisting I like the ride because they mix it up alot. Today we did a 4 on 4 team race. One of the finishes was at the top of a 4 mile climb. I took 2nd I didn't know where the finish was so I followed Steve Wrights wheel he sprinted and I hung on for dear life I couldn't have gone around him so it didn't matter anyway. It was the first time I was able to hold Steve's wheel all the way to the top of a climb so I was happy with just that. The next race was across the top of Skyline a pretty famous road out here. It ended up being a 4 up sprint. Steve attacked and I sat on him when the 3 of us caught back up to him he was forced to lead, but wasn't going all that hard. I spotted the finish line, and Steve wound it up. I gave it 110% and slowly inched up around his rear wheel and we went neck and neck across the line. I nicked him with a bike throw. I really enjoy riding with these guys. They're all mostly ex pros who have raced in europe, so I have also been learning alot just by talking to them.


Today was a 3 hour coffee ride, nothing super hard I kept the heart rate down and just spun after a hard 3 day block the legs were a little sore.


Tommarow I'll do some openers to loosen the legs up. Then Sunday we are doing a race in seattle with a 2000 dollar prize list. Hopefully with 7 strong guys we can take most of it. My orbea orica comes in monday.

So look for a race update and some bike porn


dueces

Check out some pics from the race sunday


http://photos.oregonvelo.com



sweet pic of the field sprint

in the break

race oregon blog

I got mentioned in a blog comment on here!

Think about riding around a giant crit course and that was the course for today 17 mile crit course we were doing 4 laps 68 miles. The field was alot harder today about 70 riders, amoung the big names were Doug of health net preparing for the tour of goergia and Evan of Jittery Joes who had a really good sprint. The attacks never really stopped all race nothing got to far until laps 2 or 3 thats when I started throwing down some shit down. I was attacking or following attacks for a entire lap straight and at one point got in a break with doug and evan that was really an awesome feeling throwing it down with some high quality riders. We got caught though, I was really suprised it didn't stick. We were hauling. My teamate aaron got off in a break with another guy and Doug bridged the gap I wanted to sprint up to him, but I didn't want to drag the pack up to Aaron. The 3 of them stayed away, and Aaron ended up 3rd. As for me I was in a good position with 400 meters to go sitting 5th in the main field. Evan started the sprint around a corner with 300 meters to go, he got a small gap and someone locked up around the corner I was forced to touch the brakes, and Evan and another fast local sprinter got a 30 meter gap. I led out the sprint of the field, and one rider of our "rival" team out here CMG was the only one close to coming around me. He thought he nipped me so he stuck his tounge out and gave a stupid grin and said "Got ya!" I just smiled back and said wait for the results. The camera was on my side today, and I beat him in the race for 6th. It has given me something to chuckle about even though I wanted to be sprinting Evan.


Tommarows agenda,

Watch day time TV until I get bored

Then ride till dark.


2 weeks till sea otter