Blogs

I'm not much of a blogger, but here it goes...

Until now I've mostly been riding my bike for practical reasons: getting to and from work, class, my garden, and Ward's supermarket. I have a car (a mini van actually...sooo cool) but I prefer to use it as little as possible because I'm cheap and gas is expensive. Plus I can get all high and mighty for reducing the size my carbon footprint, if only marginally. But, occasionally I'll take a bike ride just for the sake of it. I joined this in the hopes that I will joyride more often and meet new people! I've also recently become rather enchanted with the idea of taking epic bike trips, across states and such. But, I figured I should start small :) 

There is a lovely fantasy Tour that was brought to our attention by none other than The Mighty Salmon.

http://www.nrtoone.com/fantasy/cycling/index.php?page=home

Sign up, make up a team name, and pick the riders.

The deadline is 10a.m. the morning of the first stage.

The winner gets to gloat of his or her superior cycling knowledge.

Be there.

T-Tran

Going to a race completely by yourself is a mixed bag of goodness and not so goodness.

Bad things:

It's not as much fun

Driving 6 hrs by yourself without dying is difficult, especially when you are incapable of driving spans longer than 2 hrs without getting tired

You have to worry about sleeping in your car in a Walmart parking lot because hotels require you to pay money

Good things:

You're forced to meet new people

You find free housing with other poor bike races that can sympathize with your situation (Chase is my hero)

Said other poor bike racers with free housing have girlfriends that cook a mean breakfast (Best grits ever)

You can sing in the car without annoying anyone

As there aren't any races in or around the florida area for the next 2-3 weeks, many of the more experienced team florida riders will be in Gainesville for the weekends and will probably be on the 9:15 rides on both Saturday and Sunday (at least I plan to; 3-4 hours by yourself gets pretty lonely). So if you haven't been coming out on the weekends because nobody shows up, set your alarms early for the next couple weeks.

Nat Bricker and I spent the entire day traveling from Gainesville, FL to Memphis, TN in order to race this omnium en route to Chicago. My first race as a Cat 3, so I was really nervous. Nat tells me that it is not so bad, but no more “negative racing” i.e. breaks will stick; people will actually organize to chase them down, etc. Not sure I like that. I wasn’t too sure what the Mexican food situation would be in Tennessee (seems to be an unofficial tradition to meet as much Mexican as we can) but we ended up pretty good at a place not too far from the race hotel. This would turn into a mistake come the next morning. Bad things come in threes, so that was bad thing number one. We woke at 5:30 am to start getting ready.

 
This weekend was the Lake County Stage Race. Great race if you were in the pro, 1, 2 or a 3. Their race featured an 80 mile road race on Sunday that consisted of one loop. Apparently there has not been a true road race like this in Florida for over 15 years now. From the whining the cops were doing, I guess it was a logistical nightmare for the sheriffs since the race covered more than one county.
 

The Ocala Stage Race was this past weekend. Consisting of a two road races and a shortish time trial, this is a pretty popular race in Florida. This was my first race in over a month, so I was pretty nervous entering. The day before I found out that over 60 riders had preregistered for the first stage, so it was also going to be one of the biggest fields I have ever raced against. Joining me in the cat 4s were James Rowan and Mike Bachman.
 

     Hey guys, i am just giving a race report and trying out this new blog thing since i am new to blogging. So, the pro 1,2 race this weekend had one of the worst weather I experienced riding in my life, with the heat index of as much as 110 degrees it felt better to ride your bike because of the breeze which was also hot.
 

Team Florida is currently competing in the USA Cycling Collegiate National Championchips in Fort Collins, Colorado May 8-10.  Jackie Crowell took 3rd place in the Division 1 womens road race and Bobby Sweeting took 4th place in the mens.  Of course they couldn't have done it without their teammates: Heather Davis, Alexis Dabroski, Shawn Gravois, John Moore, and Alex Gil.  Tomorrow is the criterium and the TTT rounds things out on Sunday.  Congratulations and Good luck guys and girls!