Valley of the Sun

Ok so this post is coming a little late, but if you haven't noticed
already I'm keeping a trend of posting one or two days later each week.
I'm not exactly sure why, but it has something to do with me being
really lazy. Anyways this past weekend was the Valley of the Sun stage
race, and the Metro Volkswagen team was well represented throughout
most of the categories. Being the first major race of the year and my
first chance to ride with my teammates, I raced juniors this past weekend. Anyways here's a recap of each event:

Time Trial: The time trial, despite my best efforts in the road race, was
pretty much the determining factor for this race. Being around 25k and
full of crosswinds, the course was not only longer than nationals but
one that would separate
the powerful riders from the week ones. Unfortunately it was a bad day
for me, as I was plagued by a couple of major issues. For one, my rear
disc pulled into the chain stay (not the first time I've done this),
and I had some issues with my legs. Overall I ended up 3:30 down off of
the GC leader.

Road Race: We had originally
planned for me to be leading the race by this point, and that I would
simply have to ride to protect my jersey and get my teammates up the
road. But after the issues in the time trial and what I think was and
underestimation of the strength of the other riders, our tactics for
this day shifted dramatically. I was now going for both a stage win and
the GC. What resulted was close enough, as I rode away solo to the stage win and put about 3 minutes on the field.

Crit: At the start of the criterium
i was 27 seconds down and it was decided that I would go for all or
nothing. After a couple of minutes to let things settle down I began to
attack relentlessly,
but the leaders were simply too motivated and the race was way too
short (25+5!) meaning there wasn't enough time to wear down the field
and slip off the front.

So what did I get out of Valley of the Sun? A stage win, a fourth place GC finish and some racing experience with my Texas based team mates. I guess the only thing that could've gone better would have been if I had put about 4 minutes on the field in the road race, but whatever.

Anyways this weekend will be the Sanford and Lake Mary crits, so I'll probably be coming back from Orlando with a urine-soaked chamois from my first real Pro 1/2 crits.

Team Camp and Beyond

So as of right now I'm in a random town in the middle of Texas, one that consists of a Flying J truck stop and a Days Inn, at which I'm staying. Nathan, Christian, Shannon, Rachel, Gordon and I are on are way to Pheonix for Valley of the Sun, taking along the team van and the accompianing gigantic trailer. The drive's about 15 hours or so, meaning that we'll be finishing the rest of it tommorrow. It'll be interesting to see how we keep ourselves entertained for the rest of the trip, considering that today I ended up singing along to The Police in the back seat in order to keep everyone awake, especially Nate so he didn't crash the van.
The past two days have kind of been down time between mounting tires and sleeping in late. The real excitement was this past weekend, the annual Metro Volkswagen team camp. It was awesome to meet all my new teammates, espcially the juniors, plus I made off with a duffel bag of clothes and a shiny new BH road bike. I got to ride with the team a few times, with us juniors heading out to the track on Friday to work on team pursuit. We then did a little paceline work on Saturday, and then had a lesson on team cohesion. Aside from riding, we took some spiffy team pictures at the Metro VW dealership.
Anyways Valley of the Sun starts Friday, so I'll have a race report after that's over.

Here's some pictures I stole from Shannon's Blog:

Parker Thompson participarting in a pre-photo ritual (my legs remained oil-free)

Me checking out the sweet new TT bike

First Race of the Year

This weekend I offically participated in my first race of the year, the third installment of the "Bring it On" series. I continued my all or nothing streak in these races, finishing virtually last after a suicide attack on the last lap. I have to admit I was pretty scared in the first few laps, as i've been training pretty much by myself all winter and it was strange to ride in a pack again.
Sunday marked the annual running of the Battle of Olustee, not a civil war reenactment but a 120 mile ride/race. It was probably one of the strangest rides in recent history, though it was only my second, as thanks to confounding wind conditions the group stayed together despite the numerous attempts by individuals to break it up. This resulted in about 50 cyclist rolling down millhopper road, clogging up traffic and taking both lanes, which is always good fun. Personally I finished in the group, but I was happy enough just to finish the ride.
On thursday night i'll be leaving for team training camp in Texas, which is exciting becuase not only do i get to meet my teammates and get my stuff, but I also get to take a week off of schoo.l