We're in Cairo

Helen and I pushed off from the Burlington airport at 11:30 on December 28th. We arrived in Cairo around noon on December 29th. Helen's roommate Molly gave us a much apprciated ride to the airport - and my parents were at the airport in Egypt to pick us up. They had a nice large van there as well and we drove right to their apartment to drop off our bags and take showers and eat some food. Once we were clean and fed - we hopped in a taxi and took a B-line to the Nile. We hopped on a felucca - a cool Egyptian sail boat that has been around for thousands of years. We cruised around on the Nile for a couple of hours and ate snacks and had drinks. Quite relaxing. Now, its time for bed because we hardly slept on the plane last night.

Helen and I with jackets on departing from chilly Vermont.Helen and I with jackets off arriving in Cairo.On the boat - cruising the Nile. Drinking juice and eating pita with baba ghanoush. Life is good!Very Happy, but Very Tired. And my mom wearing a turban

Keeping Some Tradition Alive

So, my sister and I just had our annual Christmas Eve dinner with some of our best family friends down in Charlotte. This year we ended up doing it a day early - so really it was Christmas Eve Eve. None the less, we kept some tradition going and some normality to the holiday season. This coming Christmas day will be the first spent without my parents company. My sister and I will be hanging out together and will probably do some epic ski and visit some friends.

The dinner tonight was good. It was lasagna and I ate a lot of it (and red wine goes well with lasagna). I did a lot of training during my two day off this week and I think I actually over did it a little bit. So, my appetite was kicking and and my body working on repairing itself. I was riding the trainer and x-c skiing and doing some circuit workouts. Lots of good stuff, but I didn't eat enough. Eating's important you know. But, its hard to do when you have too many dirty dishes in your sink...oops.

Well, here's the crazy-awesome nordic skiing euro-techno, makes you want to train and race like an animal, video link of the week - thank's to Helen's brother, one Paul Smith - the freshman phenomenon that is sweeping UVM. Turn the volume to 11 and Enjoy!
http://youtube.com/watch?v=73XmR0pptTo

Pictures from Richard's visit

I finally have a couple pictures from Richard's visit. This was the last day in Burlington without snow. It was already very cold though.

Snow, Egypt, Racing, and Pole talk.

We are having the best snow year in Vermont in a long while. It is only December 20th and many of the downhill ski mountains have already had 100 inches of snow so far! I distinctly remember going out for a classic roller-ski the second weekend of December last year. This year I was doing a double ski race weekend - 10k skate race in Lake Placid and Craftsbury. Lake Placid wasn't so good - it was a mass start and as usual I got pretty tangled up with people on the first hill. I felt "off" the whole race and skied almost 5 minutes back from the winner. Crafstbury was an individual start and a course that I'm much more familiar with and I really enjoy the race. I placed about the same (low 20's) but I think it was a deeper field so I was happier with that for now.

Then, last weekend I raced the 5k skate race that my sister put on at Bolton Valley. I thought I'd be feeling tip-top and ready to go from the two 10k's the weekend before. It was 3 laps on a short course that had some sweeping turns. Well I had a nice quick first lap (maybe a little two quick) and then in the second lap as I came off the sharpest turn on the course I lost my balance. Well, before I knew it I was down on my keister. I can't remember when I last dumped in a skate ski race (I did take 2 spectacular falls in last years Icebods Revenge race, a 10k classis at Sleepy Hollow). Ooops. That put a fork in my race. I got up and tried my best to get my rythm going again and ski it in. I ended up 6th.

I've gotten some new ski poles this week from Madshus. Thanks Charlie! They are the Carbon Race 100HM. I skied with them today for the first time and I have to say, I'm pretty impressed. The shaft is pretty standard for a rediculously high-end pole - really light and really stiff - but the handle and strap seem to be well thought out. They fit great and they seemed to help my skiing immediately. I've been using Swix poles for the last couple years and still have them (and like them) but if I had to choose I'd take this strap over the Swix strap (something I never thought I'd say) . All that being said - I am still pretty intregued by the Force 10 pole from Swix. We've been selling them at the Skirack and it definitely seems to me like that's where high-end pole shaft technology will be heading. I know a lot of the WC skiers are choosing to use the Swix Star instead (old-school preferences) but I you'll see other companies doing things like that Force 10 shaft for Vancoover (the next Olympics).

My sister gave me an early christmas present - some rechargeable AA batteries for my digital camera. So, its official - but blog is going green - so hot right now. Renewable resource - ecofriendly - climate change - carbon neutral. Wait, no - I love carbon fiber!

And now its time for the lightning round!!!!!
(the round for dropping knowledge, info, and names)

-Former CCB rider Tim Johnson dominates in Kansas and wins the National Cyclocross champs
-For my birthday this year (January 7th) I'll be embarking from Cairo on a 7am flight to Sharm el Sheikh and will be walking through a remote desert on 3-day Camel trek in the Sinai Peninsula by 11am.
-My dark horse pick for the U23 national cyclocross championships, teammate Will Dugan, was not able to race as hill elbow is still messed up, but Burlingtonian Jamie Driscoll got 2nd (in a tight sprint) and won the college title for the second year running.
-I think I've been drinking too much coffee lately. Oh well.
-Those two CVU boys who I had a picture of a couple entries ago have been dominating the high school ski races thus far this season. John Dixon and Adam Terko - taking care of business.
-I think I've been eating too much chocolate lately. Oh well.
-A US skier won a cross-country ski World Cup race this past weekend for the first time since 1983. Kikkan Randall lit it up in the women's sprint final and showed everybody who's boss. Killer stuff.
-I got a voice-mail from CCB-West SuperMaster's racer and all around good guy John McKone today. He was looking for Mike Cody's phone number. Classic.
-Kim Loeffler was in the Skirack the other day checking out dimensions on the Cervelo bikes. I guess we may be helping her get a P3 to zip around on next season.
-The Great Pyramid of Giza covers 13 acres - stew on that.

You're A Peeing? No...European!

So, we had one Mr. Richard Geng (the German sensation of Fitchburg '06) visiting Burlington last weekend. He and his girlfriend came to Burlington after visiting another friend down in Southern Vermont. They were just here for a day and a night, but it was fun. Helen and I and the two Germans went to see American Gangster on Saturday night. It was a great movie. Its long (2 hours 40 minutes) but the story is really interesting and I'd definitely recomend it. They stayed over at my sisters apartment and then we took them over to Bruger's Bagels the next morning. Dan and Erin met up with us and we all talked about biking and bike racing way to much. It was fun. Richard's girlfriend is actually a physical theropist for the T-Mobile mens bike racing team. As in Tour de France and all that jazz. They ended up heading back to Boston early though because of the huge snow storm that was coming (and has since made the skiing amazing!)

Then, the next day I got a call from Sasha. He is in search of a road bike to send back to Belarus to his dad. His dad was a bad-ass racer back in the day, and is getting back into riding. I heard he was on the USSR "A" squad back in the 1970/80's. For those of you who don't know, that essentially means he was a Tour de France level rider. The USSR had the best amateur team in the word back then. Sasha and I also talked about Sasha's winter visit to Vermont. We're going to do some x-c skiing like last year, but some downhill skiing as well this year. Should be good.

Speaking of skiing, the first races of the year are this weekend. The NYSEF Opener on Saturday in Lake Placid, NY - and the Craftsbury Opener on Sunday in Craftsbury, VT. It is going to be a great weekend. I was out skate skiing this morning over at the Catamount Family center with my friend Anja and I had an "ah-hah!" moment while skiing. I sit a little bit too much in the "back-seat" while skate skiing and all of a sudden really shifted my weight forward by bending more at the ankle and pushing my hips forward. That change really made things a lot better. Its really interesting how long you can do a sport and keep tweaking things and trying to improve.

Here's a seasonal picture from Richard training last year in South Africa (a popular place for German Pro's to go train). He was sporting the CCB colors on this day of training.

Look Closely

So, I found a great side shot of Dan riding his time trial bike. I posted pictures of his TT bike a week or two ago to show how much drop he has. This is a great picture of a very strong time trial rider mid-flight.....oh, but look closely.

Reading glasses and brown argyle socks? Dan was punished by the cycling fashion gods half-way through this time trial in the form of a flat tire.

On a technical note - Dan's been using the ISM Adamo saddle for the better part of this past year on his TT bike and it really seems like a good product. There is a rule as to how far forward your saddle can be (5cm behind your bottom bracket) and many riders have their hip angle closed off by sitting to far back on their TT bike (which reduces power). This saddle seems like a really good option because you can sit really far forward on it and won't need to worry about the 5cm rule. Dan even got CCB masters rider Dimitri Buben to switch over to the saddle. Dimitri is a former Masters World TT podium finisher.

A Good Bowl of Soup

This is the time of the year when I really enjoy a good bowl of soup. What I will do often for lunch is go over to one of the restaurants that does a good soup and get a bowl of soup and a small dark roast coffee.

Now here's where it gets tricky.

Generally, you get a nice big piece of bread with your soup, and sometimes some butter for that bread. Butter that piece of bread up and break it in half.

Here's why.

Because when you can go over to where they have the milk and sugar for your coffee, there is usually some honey there as well. Put honey all over one of your chunks of bread. Now you've got desert too! And the honey will be all soaked in by the time you're ready to eat it. All for under $5. And you have your other piece of bread and butter to mop up some of whatever delicious soup you have selected.

Now, here is a little guide to some of the soup genres:
Bisque - The king of the soups.
Chowders - A close, and jealous 2nd to the bisque.
Stew - Arguably something different altogether - but really just an rowdy soup.
Miso - Salt! Salt! Need the Salt! Where's the Salt? Its salty good.
Cream - A lazy cousin of the Bisque. Only to be eaten in dire circumstance.
Minestrone - Jack of all trades, master of none.
Noodle - For when chewing your noodles is just too much.

Good skiing today

And here's who was heading out when I was heading out. (I was skate skiing at Bolton)

A couple of the CVU boys had already gotten some skate skiing in and were switching boots and heading out for some classic. I think these guys are going to have a great season. They've got focus.Dan and Erin. Classic. Erin was using some Karhu Novas I had sold her the day before.Eric and Sarah. They were rocking out today on Karhu Escapes. I need to get a pair of those.Lee Mallory. Legend in his own right. All Smiles.

Thanksgiving Food and Phone

My sister and I made the trans-New England voyage from Burlington, VT over to North Hampton, NH to spend Thanksgiving with our mother's side of our family. Our aunt and uncle Cathy and Pat live there and their son Ryan was there as well. Our grandparents came as well along with another aunt and uncle, Trice and Denis, and their kids Callie and Meg. It was a great to spend Thanksgiving with everybody. Liz and I went for a 50 minute run down to the ocean and back in the morning which was good to get the appetite warmed up. Over the years I have thrown down pretty hard on Thanksgiving, so I have a bit of a reputation to live up to. A couple years ago I ate with the intent of finding out exactly how much I was capable of eating. Boy, did that hurt! This year I did two plates of food and two plates of pie. Pretty modest, considering. And one beer and the Lions/Packers game too.

Another nice thing was when my parents called. My dad called my sisters cell phone and my mom called the land line at my aunt and uncle's house. The phones were passed around and everybody got to talk to them. It was really nice hearing them. My father and I talked a bit about my upcoming trip to visit them in Egypt with Helen. Ciaro here we come.

Food - I must say the gravy was especially great.Pie - one big slice of apple and one tasty slice of pecan. and then another of each.Here's the whole table. Good stories, lots of food, and big candles.Liz and I talking to our parents.Our parents, in Cairo, talking to us.Showing my grandmother and my cousin Ryan my blog. She liked the Catamount Cyclocross pictures. She watched my sister and I run cross-country races there in high school.

And One More Thing

A note about Amos (Brumble - teammate and captain), he really showed me an important lesson in my first year with CCB that you really can race with anybody and kick some major ass without doing drugs. That's an important lesson to learn as a cyclist just starting to do the "big-time" races for the first time and wondering how you're ever going to be able to compete. He's really showed me how much you can improve yourself with these things:

-Bike handling skills
-Attentive/aggressive racing
-Proper nutrition
-Good recovery
-A thought out, well balanced training plan
-Proper bike fit and equipment selection
-Just straight up guts.

In this picture he is chasing down a doper (Heredia) with another doper (Tardaguila) right behind him - all while riding right away from guys like Dominique Perras, Karl Menzies, Frank Pipp, and Anthony Colby. This was the Univest GP in 2005...still to date the most exciting sporting event I have ever watched.

A couple Shout-Outs

-Happy Birthday Pat Walsh.
-Congrats Dan Vaillancourt on figuring out 2008
and
-Thanks for dying turkey so that I could eat you tomorrow

I really meant to win a bike race this past year. I didn't. I had this whole "Academy Award type speech" planned out where I thanked everybody who's helped me out. I've gotten some big time help from people and wanted to acknowledge it publicly...

....oh but wait...

...I have a blog now!

So here goes:
Thanks Mom and Dad (creators and omnipotent beings)
Thanks Liz (sister)
Thanks Helen (girlfriend)
Thanks Scott Oliver (friend, mentor)
Thanks Steve Pucci (team manager, mentor)
Thanks Skirack (flexible, friendly employer)
Thanks Dan, Will, Amos, Matt, Jeff, Sasha, Shawn, Ciaran, and Yahor (incredible teammates)
And Everybody else.

You all (Ya'll?) are so nice and give me so much help and god knows I need it. I always deeply appreciate it!

Jared Bunde Doping - Weird.

So, a racer I raced against a fair amount this year - Jared Bunde, of the GS Mengoni team - has just accepted a 2 year ban for doping. He got busted from a test while out at Superweek, a race series that happens out in the Midwest in July. These are the same races that Alvaro Tardaguila got busted at. Tardagulia was a Uraguain rider racing for the team Mike Fraysee runs that was sponsored by the University of Pittsburg Medical Center. He got busted for EPO and Steroid use. Of the times I interacted with him, he seemed friendly.

Jared is also a nice guy and got busted for using Clomiphene. Not sure what that is exactly, but it gets you two years. If you dope and you're reading this Blog - STOP! And remember, not all the bad people are dopers and not all the nice people aren't. Its weird that way. There are some people who are real jerks who are really intense about not doping. There are some people who are really friendly and genuine who stick needles in their butt and pop pills.

Its pretty annoying that people do this. I'm interested in racing as a professional and there are people out there who are using drugs to ride better than they can actually ride. Its absolutely not ok.

I do want to give a shout-out to Eugene Boronow, of the GS Mengoni team, who is a great guy. I've ridden with him a lot in races - both off the front and off the back. He's told me a little bit about how the NYC cycling scene has a weird doping culture. All I can say to any and everyone is - Just Stop - NOW!

Le Doper de Jour

The Finer Things in Life...and Crazy drop

Here's a few of the finer things in life. This stuff is just straight up pretty to look at.

Time VXR Proteam ModuleMadshus Carbon Race 100HM PoleSram Red GroupsetRCS Carbonlite Skate PlusMavic R-Sys WheelsetCervelo P2C FramesetAnd, as promissed, some pictures of Dan Cassidy's TT bike - and one of his road bike. Copious amounts of saddle to handlebar drop. These bikes will be coming soon to a long time trial, breakaway, and hillclimb near you.

First Day on SNOW

I went skiing today at Bolton Valley. Helen and I drove up to Bolton after a lazy morning of lounging around. Her mouth is still not completely healed from having her wisdom teeth out so she didn't want to ski quite yet - but she took a nice long walk in the snow up there. I brought my classic equipment but barrowed a pair of waxless touring skis from the rental skis. It was really excellent conditions and they are getting out tonight to do some grooming. There were no rocks and lots of snow. Not quite all the water has frozen so there's still some water under the snow at certain parts of the trail. Here are the pictures you've all been waiting for...SNOW.


Dork.My sister just happy to be pointing out all the snow. She's got a good gig up at Bolton.As you can see, the trails are well covered. It felt good to be going uphill on a pair of cross country skis again. Nothing gets your heart pumping quite the same way.Eric Tremble, who races for the Kenda/Raleigh team in the summertime, was also out and about on a pair of classic skis - with a big grin on his face just like me.Enough talking...back to the skiing.Me pointing out how much snow there is on the trees.I got back to the Sports Center to find my sister hard at work...ensuring that the snow was of the highest quality - so that everybody could come play in it.

Bike Work @ Green Mt. Rehab

So, yesterday I had off from work and spent most of the day training and work on some bike stuff. I just changed the saddle on my bike to a Fizik Arione and changed them orientation of the cant wedges I use between my shoe and cleat.

After a morning run - the first good run since the crippling half-marathon - I drove into Burlington with my bike and went to Green Mt Rehab. Andy and Eric run GMR and it is located in the same building as the Skirack. I started going there after last season, just over a year ago. I primarily use their services in the off-season for figuring out improvements to my bike position (they also help me with stuff like VO2Max testing). They have the knowledge and equipment to figure out if bike and equipment changes are resulting in more effeciency and power or not. That is the great thing about the bike being a machine, you can actually calculate fuctional differences when you change something like the footbed in a shoe - something that's much harder to do with running or x-c skiing.

But, honestly I think the reason I and most everyone else likes these guys so much is that they are just really nice and fun to work with. If they were any more laid back they'd be laying down.

Yesterday I was working with Andy. This is me on the computrainer. Just getting started and warming up. It looks like my most recent changes have resulted in improvement.
My co-worker Dan came up and we talked about what I was doing. I explained to him how when I first got on the computrainer just over a year ago that I pedaled 60-40 (left leg to right leg) and how today I was finally at 50-50!Like I said, Andy is a very smart guy - but he's not a bore. Here he takes a goof-ball picture of himself with my camera while I'm not looking.Success is ours. 50-50 power output between the legs. Spin scan numbers in the high 70's to low 80's (vs. low 60's). Sitting squarely on the saddle with no rocking. And pedaling 300 watts at about 155 HR. (makes me wonder why I couldn't pedal worth a damn at Putney last week). I'll keep working with Green Mt. Rehab over the next couple months and keep dialing it in. Its important to work on making any changes to bike position and equipment during the winter and not during the season. Thanks Andy!

I'm Using My Camera Finally...

The following is photo documentation of my friend and co-worker Peter and I going to Mirabelles for lunch on 11/14/07. These are the first pictures I have taken with the digital camera I have owned for over 2 years.

This is Peter clockin' out on the computer system - it looks like he's really into it...keyboard in hand.
This is the obligitory "holding the camera looking back at you" picture. Peter and I decided this was going to be a serious lunch break.
The menu. We were having a late lunch and thus missed the window to get breakfast for lunch. That is a Croque Monsieur I see on the right side though! HMMM.
I've spotted the Monsieur...but alas, I make the hard decision to go with the avacado and black bean panini. Au Revoir Monsieur!
Damn straight I'm part of the clean plate club. My good friend Nate Koeppel is one who showed me that there nothing to be ashamed of about polishing your plate clean when eating. Thanks Nate!
Peter and I were stuffed, but we just new we had to get a couple big cookies to finish off this wonderful lunch break.
Here is a picture of Peter with his boy P'ditty. That's the Cervelo P3 he got from his summer boss. Expect him to kick-ass and take names on it next season. For now, its the fastest and coolest commuter bike in Burlington. Fix-gears for commuters? Lame. P3 for commuters? Edgy.

Putney? more like Put-don't

So, my bread and butter excuse for why I haven't done well in my limited cyclocross racing over the last year has been that I just crash too much. Well, I went down to Putney on Sunday for the West Hill race - I didn't crash once - and I still sucked. So, this means I just rode slow. Even so it was still fun :-).

Ben Coleman, who also works at the Skirack, won the Cat 3 race & Matt Monbouquette, who also works at the Skirack, got second in the Cat 4 race. It was great fun watching them race so well.

There will probably be some pictures from Putney up in the next day or two...

4 Weeks until my first x-c ski race of the year! Stew on that.

Oh, and Will Dugan is my darkhorse pick for the U23 Cyclocross National Championship. I gave him a superlative pep-talk this evening...I'd elaborate, but I think you kinda had to be there.