CARS!!!

Really tired of cars!

Living in San Diego over the past few weeks has really shown me the reason that I hate the city, and how truly great places like Chester and Chico really are!

Yesterday I got hit by a car again, luckily (knock on wood) the two times I have been hit now have been relatively minor. It is still however no fun to get hit by cars, moments of inattention that people have when they are driving. As you may recall I posted about this on twitter a few days ago, and yet again I strongly feel that we need a much stronger system for driving in this country, much like the one in Finland! People must realise that when they get behind the wheel of a motor vehicle, they have in their control a deadly weapon. Pedestrians and cyclist are not incased in a metal box that will protect

them, and when they are involved in a collision with a metal box usually the outcome is less than desired.

Obviously since it is my job to ride my bike living around cars is not ideal, and a place with less of a populous is more ideal. However there are many people who do live within large concentrations of people and cars, this is a cry out to drivers anywhere!

PLEASE PAY ATTENTION WHEN YOU GET INTO A CAR! PLEASE!

Swamis / Michelob Ultra Cycling Team

It has been a while since my last post simply due to the lack of news, until now. My new team for the year will be the Swamis Michelob Ultra Cycling Team, out of San Diego California, we will be doing an array of larger races near home and scattered about the USA. I am very excited to be a part of this developmental program, as we have some fast racers and I believe that we can come out with some big results on the year. The Swamis development cycling team has been going on for a few years now, but this year it is about to take off in a big way, no year has the development team had this sort of schedule or this sort of talent all bundled up into one. For this reason I feel that not only will the team help to bring riders to the next level I also feel that the riders are going to help bring the team to the next level. With the amazing pool of talent that is in the San Diego area it is a surprise to me that this sort of team has not already sprouted up. This just tells me that we are on the ground level of something happening that has the potential to flourish into something much larger, and I'm excited to be a part of it!

Winter Training

It has been a good while since I have posted on the blog, sorry about that. After Cascade Cycling Classic, my season had pretty much ended, without any large races for the rest of the season, my intention was to race throughout Aug- Sept, however after a few races in Aug I quickly realised that the compounded exertion of the season thus far had caught up to me.

For the past month I have been managing the bike shop, and doing pre season prep in the gym getting ready for the much anticipated start of training on Monday the 11th. I am really excited about the upcoming year, with the additions that I have made to my pre season training this year, and the abundance of knowledge that I have coming to me from 3 or more coaching sources I feel really confident about the season, and my abilities to help the team a lot.

This year I will be living and training in Chico, CA. I have been sorting out a shed behind my friends house to live in that is coming along quite nicely, a few more necessities and will be the perfect getaway for the long winter season that is upon us. anyone who would like to come and train or visit is more than welcome!

Cascade Cycling Classic

Hello everyone,

It has been a while since I have put up a post about my travels, most recently we traveled up to the Cascade Cycling Classic in Bend, OR. The trip was a blast, this would be the the last major trip with the team for the season, and it already started off interesting. As the team arrived to pick me up in Red Bluff, CA they thought they had room for me! Cool, good start. Well turns out that they did have room for me, and we made it up to Bend after all.

In bend we stayed with a very gracious host in Sun River, it was a bit interesting on getting rides to the start of races as we hijacked Bosco's van sorry bro, thanks for letting us use it all weekend man. Cascade is a very hard race as most of us had figured out quite rapidly, the quote of the trip came from our best placed rider Dave Santos "why do people do this?" good question my man.

My tour started off rather bumpy, with a crash in the prologue I was then at the bottom of the GC, and a rather hilly stage the next day put me even further down. I however did my work for the team and was not so bad in the end. I am looking forward to the Cascade Cycling Classic for next year, and would like to thank all those involved in this years edition.

ToAD

It has been a while since my last post, mostly due to lack of motivation to post something on the blog. the last race that I participated in was the ToAD (Tour of Americas Dairyland), this was a great race. Situated in eastern Wisconsin, the race had a bit of variety for everyone, leaned mostly to the crit side of things but that is ok. Unfortunately upon arrival I had encountered some difficulties with Fed Ex and not all of my equipment was delivered in the box that it was supposed to be in, after some fighting with Fed Ex and not getting much of anywhere it was time to just get on with it.

The racing in the midwest was faster than expected, after a few races I finally started to get the hang of things a little bit, with a 24th as my best finnish it was not a great toad for results but the experience of racing there and the people that I met along the way made the trip worth while.

Some of those people, That I would like to thank again include the Verizon u25 cycling team, and our gracious hosts Peter & Margie. Thank you all for the good times and your generosity it was much appreciated.

Mt Hood Cycling Classic

This past week, James Williamson and I competed in the Mt. Hood Cycling Classic, a 6 day stage race in northern Oregon. The prologue was a wet 2 laps around the Portland international speed way, no hills and smooth surface made for a good opener to the race, except maybe for the standing water on the track, and maybe the fact that they ran the majority of the riders in the pitch black.

Stage 1 was a so-called crit! more like an extremely short circuit race, every lap had about a 1.5 km climb, also the road was covered in green moss that was really slick. After a bit of rain earlier in the day, the first few laps where quite dangerous, but still a fun race and a great course in the right conditions.

Stage 2 the first road stage, I think it

was a little harder than some people expected and was really really fast! I had decided to make it even harder on myself by attacking and going into the break for the first bit of the race, good idea! after I had my go I got popped from the group and had to do the majority of the second lap on my own. ended up finishing over 20min down on GC which was not to my worry because I was not really going to have a chance in a climbers race like this one.

Stage 3 The TT stage was fun and scenic, but as far as the race went not the best for me, also didn't have a TT bike.

Stage 4 Mt Hood RR anticipated to be the toughest day of the tour, so my goal today was to survive as long as possible, I successfully did this feat until just before the bottom of the last climb on the day. The climb was the last 20k of the stage, boy that was fun I tried to climb my pace and finish with a respectable ride, which I was successful and was able to move on to the next and final stage.

Stage 5 it had been raining all day outside of our host house in hood river which only could add up to a rainy crit. The course had

some scary parts to it but was good over all and with the exception of the Portland International Speedway, followed the trend of the rest of the tour, climbing lots of climbing. All in all it was soon over and I had finished this hard tour, happy with my performance.

We have already booked our tickets for the Tour of the Dairyland in Wisconsin, we will be leaving the Reno International Airport on tuesday and the next few weeks will be doing some good rest and prep for the 10 days of racing ahead. Fun times ahead!

HOME!!!!

Tour of the Gila went well, although I suffered a knee injury from using another bike for the TT. The first few stages went ok tho, I enjoyed the racing and enjoyed my time there, although I could not finish. The best part about Gila was the fact that we where the main spectacle of the town, to me it seemed like the people wanted us there, as compared to cyclist just being in the way. Silver City is a very cool town, maybe sometime I can spend some time there and venture around to see everything the area has to offer.

After Tour of the Gila, it is good to return home. Being in Norcal again has just cleared my mind I don't have to deal with traffic and people, and it is some good time to relax and get in some good training. This past Sun I did the Crit at the Tour of California before the stage finnish in Sacramento, this was a great experience and a good tune up race before the journey up to Portland OR for the Mt. Hood cycling classic. Unfortunately I was brought down with 3 laps to go in the race, so another pack finish was chalked up, but that is bike racing.

I'm looking forward to spending some more time at home before I have to head off on more travel, which doesn't look like it will slow down in the near future. Next stop Portland, OR for the Mt. Hood Cycling Classic, hope to see some there and will let other know of my progress.

Ciao

La Vuelta de Bisbee

La Vuelta de Bisbee, is a classic race in a classic old mining town in the southeast corner of AZ. This race was said to be a very good race, and it did not disappoint, we headed out to the Vuelta de Bisbee as the start to a 2-3 week trip including Vuelta de Bisbee and the Tour of the Gila.

We left Los Angeles on Tuesday afternoon before Bisbee, after doing the whole drive in one shot we slept well that night. The next afternoon we went for a training ride on the TT course and prolouge course, both of

the courses where either uphill or had decent size hills in them. The prolouge was very hard only 2 miles but all out uphill effort defiantly burner. Stage 1 was a 90 mile RR, in which a break was let away from the field early, to begin we had two people in the break but they both came back to the field, so I spent all day with team Exergy and Bike Religion trying to pin back the riders whom had gone up the road, we where however unsuccessful. Stage 2 was a Time Trial, 7 miles out and back which I soft pedaled most of in effort to conserve energy for tomorrows stage. The last Stage I unfortunatley got dropped, but such is life, it was a fun race and a good time.

Now forward to the Tour of the Gila!

SoCal

I am not a big fan of the SoCal area, the city and amount of people condensed into a small are is not exactly my cup of tea, but as I have stayed down in so cal for the past 2-3 months I would like to say thanks for the hospitality that I received. Be it from teammates or good friends and family, I was housed and taken care of grandly and this most beneficial in my conquest in cycling.

Thank You All!

Picking Up

This is the point in the season when things start to pick up quite considerably, the training becomes harder and lots more races packed into small amounts of time. I have been down in southern California for the first part of this year, the racing down here has been good, the riding not so enjoyable. I am quite ready to get back to sane amounts of traffic on the roads, I will be finishing out this week in southern California then next tuesday the team will be traveling for a 2-3 week trip to Arizona and New Mexico, where we will be doing the Vuelta a Bisbee, and Tour of the Gila. These two races are big races on the calendar and events that I have been looking forward too for a while now.

I have had some ups and downs in the past few weeks, and sometimes motivation is hard to come by, but as the classics season has gone on it has given me much motivation towards cycling and now realizing that the tour of the Gila is just the start of things here for me. My main focuses for the year are to come much later, this is when I intend to get the better results so as I have had a slow start to the season this trip is a bit of a turning point and things are about to get crazy and exciting.

There is only one thing that I can do, that is ride my bike! everything else will fall into place.

San Diego

San Diego holds fond memories for me, I recently went to spend some time in San Diego with my friends the Klinesteker's. Bryce is a professional baseball player, working his way up to the BIGS, and all around fun guy to hang out with. Shawna is a doctor and Cathy (mom) is a teacher. this is my second family. In san diego I was planing to get lots of training in, in preparation for San Dimas and redlands, now Redlands has been removed from our schedule, so the prep. was all for San Dimas and the rest of the season. There is lots of good training in and around San Diego, to the east there are many hills and remote roads. If its a relaxing type of day up the coast to carlsbad is always a good ride, little busy at times but good overall ride. In San Diego proper there is fiesta island and the velodrome to ride on. Last but not least north east county of San Diego there is the famous Mt. Palomar, a good long climb and a day that held many adventures. I had a great time staying and training in San Diego, Torrey Pines is a really cool place to hang out, spent a little time there but not as much as I would have liked, oh well a reason to go back. I have always like the energy in San Diego, as far as active people, there are always people who want to get outside and do something. Except on rainy days, I figured something out when I was riding in the rain one day, there are only two types of people that are generally out in the rain. Professional Athletes (who have to go out, rain or sine), and women. Women where always out and about when I was riding my bike in the rain it was pretty cool to see a lot of athletic women who where not deterred from a little rain. Good job girls!

VOS 2010

Valley of the Sun is a stage race in phoenix AZ, It usually beckons riders with good weather and a laid back atmosphere, but not with payout, although the winnings are quite low its still a fun race to be a part of. This year VOS was a great time, 80 degree weather and good racing always makes for a good time. My TT was decent, not going to put me near the top of the leader board but yet a respectable 25th. After the TT we rushed back to the hotel room to make sure that we Didn't miss any of the opening ceremonies for the olympics, after watching the malfunctioning ice formations we retired to get good rest for tomorrows adventure. The RR was great, we departed at 12 and this gave it plenty of time to get as hot as possible, when we left the start line the temp had gotten up to 75, being from Norcal this was great weather to ride in. The RR didn't quite go as planned i thought we had one less lap than we actually did so I buried myself to make up a little time on the group, I finished 1 lap to go off the front of the pack thinking it was the last lap and thinking i made up some quality time on the group when in fact there was yet another lap so I was hanging on to the pack for as long as I could, and finished the day 10 min behind the group, oh well that won't happen again. Finally the crit and time for a little redemption, the race went well, and I tried a few attacks without sucess so then I saved myself for the final sprint. 5 laps to go I was at the front in good position right behind BMC, then final lap still in good position, then second to last corner BMC attacks, and i hesitated, shit another mistake I won't make again. I ended up 13th but BMC won and if i went with him who knows what would have happened, oh well next time!

Results at: http://www.cyclingnews.com/races/valley-of-the-sun-stage-race-ne

Boulevard Road Race / Red Trolley Crit 2010

New Team Bike Religion!

It has been a little while since my last post on here, But since then I have been quite busy getting things together for the upcoming race season. I Traveled down to Socal in the beginning of February for the mothballs crit, and to pick my bike up from the team, also the weather forecast was looking pretty grim for next few weeks in Chico. I took the train down to SLO to meet up with some friends and drive down to santa barbara the next day, I would miss out on the Road Race in Santa Barbara because I would receive my bike on this day and I wanted to dial it in a bit before I raced on it. That night I got to hang out with a few of my new teammates, and we went bowling which was a great time. The next day wast the Mothballs crit in IV, so that day we hung out in IV for a while and then went and watched some racing before getting suited up to race. The race was fun, I got a pretty solid first race 22nd, after we had some pretty solid burritos at a special place in IV and hit the road home. Over the next two weeks I stayed at three different teammates houses, and the first weekend of February did the Boulevard RR and Red Trolley Crit. As usual the RR was miserable conditions and the crit was nice weather, we had more of a team turnout in both of these races and I got a 21st in the RR and 8th in the crit, Marked up as another quality weekend. Now its time to get on the TT bike for Valley of The Sun.

Team Camp Escalera Racing

This past week I was given the opportunity by Escalera racing to join them at team camp for a week of hard training down in Ventura CA. The week was one of the best experiences that i have had, associated with cycling. Everyone on the team was really nice and I enjoyed the company, I started off the training camp a little later than the rest of the boys, and right away was doing 5 1/2 hour rides in the sunshine. Through the duration of the next Five days we logged over 24 hours and 440 miles. At no point was the weather bad enough to force us to have to wear knee warmers, a few times we had to leave the house with long sleeves or arm warmers abut those where quickly shed. All in all the training camp was a major sucsess, Great riding, Great company, and Great weather. I would like to thank everyone who was a part of it, It was a great time!

check out http://www.escaleraracing.com/ for more on this team.

Thanks Guys!

Colorado

This year I did something a little different than usual, instead of staying home for Christmas i went to go visit some friends in Dolores, CO and it was a great time. Its always great when you meet new friends, I met plenty in the first few days I was there, although most of them are snowboarders, I forgive you (Gus and Brittany, good job, my fellow skiers). A few days after I got there my buddy Sam Kelly who has a band Plying In Traffic, took me to one of his gigs in Durango, CO. naturally this was a great time, but that is often the case when you mix good live music and good friends. Christmas was a breeze this year, everyone was so nice and it made for one of the best Christmases I have ever had. The day after Christmas Sam, Clare, and I went up to Telluride for some skiing, Initially we where only going to go on Sunday, but some events made it logical to go both days. The skiing there was top notch, but most of the mountain had little snow cover, this however did not stop us from having the time of our lives. After two days of skiing I was sore in my whole body, which is how you should feel after skiing, so this required two days of recovery. After my two days of rest it was unfortunately time to leave all my new friends and head for home, so I could spend New Years with the folks. Great memories, great times.