First Weekend Back in NE

Well, to start things off I lost a bike race to a teenager. Yeah he might be more accomplished than me and a protege of LANCE ARMSTRONG, but hes still a child compared to me, and he beat me in a sprint! Gavin jumped before me, came around me, then I wasnt able to re-open and close his door. The Portsmouth Crit was awesome and I was legitimately beat and I am very happy that I got the opportunity to race there this past weekend. There were a lot of good riders from the local scene, and it made for a fun challenging race. I put out much higher numbers at portsmouth than I did at the USA Crit finals in Dallas. Consider that at dallas I was hiding out the whole race and at Portsmouth I was trying to make up for Richard Fries not giving me a call up, so I was riding off the front as much as I could, but for a local race it was pretty good.



I have been sitting around starbucks since 9am... chillin and interneting. I've drank two grande cups of Italian roast and a sausage breakfast sandwich. The toughest decision that I have made today was calculating what screen brightness to use to assure that I will have enough battery life to last until 3pm when I go for a bike ride with my very busy, but very close good friend Ben Coleman. If your wondering I calculated right. 2:07pm with 1:27 battery left.

I have no idea what to do with my time this fall. I could stay here in burlington doing nothing, but being with my friends, then move to Tuscon after christmas to start training for 2011 race season, or I can move back to the TMK team house in winston-salem and have free housing and a job! I know what decision I should make, but its not really the one that is going to make me the happiest. If anyone knows how I can make money in Burlington please let me know, Escort services is not an option, sorry.

My dads coming up to VT to go fishing with me tomorrow or friday. I hope his old man wisdom will help make this decision a bit more easy.

USA Crit finals tonight!

so first thing, im not very committed to the blog... clearly. But I intend on working on our relationship in the next few weeks. Im super bored with writing about bike races, soon my life will get more interesting. Tonight it the finals! tonight I have to defend the jersey for one last day. Im feeling good and the team is really riding good. My two older brothers flew out to watch the race and I was lucky enough to get them two VIP passes, courtesy of Geoff Godsey from Texas Tough. Shits gon be Dank! Im pretty nervous, but I am confident in my abilities and Im confident in my team. So, on that note, let me just post a few pictures of things that make me happy.









soak it up while you're waiting for us to tear it up tonight.

Boise Idaho is NOT a shit hole

(downtown boise as seen from outside the french cafe where we ate breakfast every morning)


(This is the Boise River, hundreds of people float down on tubes every day, but we opted to just jump off "the tree of life" as one kid called it)

Boise Idaho was the first place that I have gone that I have been thinking about my return to the city before I actually have even left. I had so much fun on this trip. Boise is like a whole different world than anything that I have ever been exposed too. I’m actually upset that I am flying home.





I don’t even know how to explain it. The mountains, the rivers, the people, everything about Boise was awesome…. Except that it in Idaho. I took a bunch of photos to help capture what I am talking about, I foresaw having difficulty explaining this place.
Before I get to dreamy about fly fishing and hiking in Boise, I can’t forget to talk about why we went here in the first place. The NRC Boise Twilight Criterium, USA Crit series stop number 6.
The race took place right in downtown outside the swanky studio 43 hotel where we were being put up by the USA Crits series.



The flat four corner crit was unpredictably hard. I’m not sure if it was the course, the 101 degree dry air, or the pressure of chasing the USA Crits overall that made the race so difficult.
All night dangerous moves kept rolling off the front but in the end it did come down to a sprint, and that shit was a bitch to say the least. Fly V had all 8 of their guys lined up on the front for the last tens laps. The battle for the rest of us was for the spot in the back of their train. I smashed and crashed my way onto Hilton’s wheel, who was first behind fly v, but jamis was not happy with that at all. With 3 laps to go luis ameron hit me harder than I thought possible, and all my efforts to win such valuable real estate were instantly negated. I had to settle for Hanson’s wheel who was sitting on Borajo.
With two to go Fly V still had 8 guys pulling, they picked the pace up real quick. For the last two laps we averaged 36 miles per hour. I tried one last time to sabotage Jamis for what they did to me, so in turn two on the last lap I took the inside and went in to try to get back Hilton’s wheel, but my energy was just wasted. At 36mph I could only go a couple mph faster, in an all out sprint, they easily shut my door.
I put my tail between my legs and went back behind Hason. My position didn’t change in the sprint, I ended up 7th after all the lead out guys fell off in the last 500 meters.
I’m not thrilled with my result. My job was to sprint and I got last out of the group of well-known sprinters that were there. I have some stuff to learn about smashing in the final laps, but really I think that I just need Adam or Mark to help guide me through the last few laps. I am strong enough to sprint with these guys, but as Hilton said to me after the race, “you have to win to get the respect”. Its kinda lame, but I totally understand it. No one is going to let me in, or give me a wheel in the last few laps, until I have kicked their ass enough times so that they know I am a good wheel to sit behind.
I still feel a little weak from the break that I took at the beginning of July, but I have a couple 10-12 days of solid training before I head back out to Chicago for Elk Grove at the beginning of august. Thanks for reading.

Wheres Izak been up to? hmm

Well I just spent the first half of this flight to Boise working on my athletic resume. All this thought about next season reminds me about how I have been keeping everyone in the dark about what in the hell has been going on in my life this season!
To start. I just got off a 5 day break in the beginning of July. It was exciting. I went Camping with Megan and my family and basically just sat on the beach and drank wine mixed with pineapple juice, which is exceptionally tasty btw.

I needed that break big time, I was starting to get really cracked on being on the road and my legs were starting to feel like they were taking a turn for the worst. I did 6 races in 10 days before my break. They first 3 were in Milwaukee and the last 3 were in Ohio.




If you haven’t yet heard from elsewhere, I am no longer in the leader Jersey for USA CRITS…. Ohh wait. Let me first say that I GOT SECOND at grafton and took the Leaders jersey, but that’s right, I’ve already lost it. Its all good though, Im going to get it back. Like I said I spent 5 days on the beach drinking and decompressing, it was to be expected that I would be a little rusty when we started racing again.



In addition to taking the series lead during our ten day trip to the Midwest, I also experienced two new firsts for this season. Most notably, I got my first win of 2009 at the Maderiea Centennial Criterium in Cincinnati Ohio. It was a cool that that had two 180 degree turn arounds, that crushed the dreams of anyone trying to break away. The race came down to a field sprint and I jumped into the last corner first and managed to hold off the field to the line. It was a pretty awesome feeling, but it quickly was shadowed by the events of Hype Park Blast (USA Crits) the following night.




After just coming off a win the previous night, the team was very confident in our prospects if the race should come down to a field sprint. Plus considering I was in the leader jersey, it was important to work on building my lead In the overall. The team rode flawlessly, killing themselves to assure that the race would come down to a bunch sprint so that I would have the best shot at taking another win and asserting my leadership in the USA Crits series. It “almost” played out like that!

The long 500 meter sprint tested my patience and positioning tactics more so than previous races, and to be honest I messed up a bit by misjudging the strength of the 5 riders in front of me coming out of the last corner. I expected that atleast two of the riders would be eliminated by 300 meters to go and that all I would have to do is come around 1 maybe 2 guys as the other 3 would fan out across the road in attempt to out kick each other for the line. Well that didn’t happen.

Only first guy pulled off and everyone just sat on the second guys wheel as we inched closer and closer to the 200 meter mark. I realized that I would have to jump first to have enough time to pass all those guys to win the sprint, so I went early and made it past two guys and just waited for a second on the outer slipstream of Emile Aberham who was 3rd wheel. With about a hundred meters to go I made my last surge to come around the remaining three guys but just as I was passing emile he slammed into his teammate who was on his right side (rider 2) bouncing off of him and ramming into me. We both toppled over at 41.6mph (as per my power file that graphically reports my almost certain podium finish followed by quick deceleration as my body ground to a halt).



Immediately after that crash I was able to spring back up and walk across the line, still finishing in the money in 27th place. It was the most upsetting thing that has ever happened to me in a bike race. All I could see in front of me before I went down was empty space, followed by a face full of pavement. Luckily I walk away from the crash with only road rash, because it could have easily ended my season. I am very thankful for that. On the down side, that is where the current series leader made up a lot of ground on me because he went on to finish 3rd that night.

There is tons more racing to be done (as I am finishing this blog now sitting in the hotel killing time, awaiting the start of the boise twilight in 4 hours) and I still have to write about my Iron hill and Capital Crit experiences. I have taken a lot of photos from here in boise. This place is awesome. I will most certainly post more tomorrow as I will have 8 hours of travel to get it done. Thank you for reading.

Just the Tip in Ricola Twilight

So I finally got a result! I was inches from getting the 3rd step on the podium but a few things went wrong that resulted in my 4th. Truth is that my 4th place is great for me and all, but it didnt get me any attention and I'm going to need to do better to get any press.

This photo clearly shows me in 3rd.... camera must me wrong :(

Wednesdays race was blisteringly hot, like the kind of hot that when you get sweat in your eyes it feels like you sprayed lemon juice in them. I would ride around to warm up then have to drink a ton of water, but so much that I would immediately have to pee. This is a big problem with crit racing because you want to make sure that you are completely hydrated for the race, but you dont want to drink to close to the time of the event because there will be no chance to pee during the race (like you can in road races) because it is just way to fast.

The race got off to a slow start. There were a bunch of delays for cars being parked on the coarse, but even once we got rolling the race was still pretty tame for a while. Everyone was really limited by the heat. It made me feel like someone just put a bunch of weights on my bike. I could still go really deep, but the results seemed to be a lot less that the perception of the effort.

I spent the race just slowly surfing around the field. Sometimes I would drift to far back and have to make a big effort to get back in a safe position, but for the most part I didn't do much during the race. The team was pretty sure that the race would end in a field sprint, so they felt good about having me sit in, but we made sure to have a couple guys working the race to make sure we didnt miss any thing.

Sadly, we still did miss the break that seemed like it was going to stay away. A couple guys worked to chase it back to a small gap and I tried to jump across to the break of 5 when the gap was brought down to about 5 seconds, but I just wasn't able to make it. Right when I got caught a group of three attacked and they were able to make it to the group.

Now the break had 8 guys in it and that totally changed the dynamic of the group and guys started sitting on in the break away, which quickly lead to the breaks demise. With 3 laps to go Neil and I hooked up in the front of the field and I told him to stick with me through the sprint.

I thought we had great position. I came out of the corner 5-6 wheel and I thought for certain the sprint was to long so that 2 of the guys would get shelled out of the sprint and then all I would have to do is come around 3-4 guys (which I'm confident could have been done) but the guys on the front managed to maintain their speed all the way to about 200 meters to go, so now I was having to sprint from 5-6 position.

I knew that I couldn't win at that point because it was just to much of a gap to close on the lead guys, but I quickly realized that I was quickly catching the 3rd rider. I swear I got the Bissel rider on the line but the camera doesn't lie and where the camera was he had a tired width on me. DAMNIT!

What I took from this race is that A) I'm going good enough to contest these NRC crits and B) that my sprint is way better than I think and I should hit out way earlier.

My previous theory on sprinting was to constantly accelerate through the finish line, but since then Ive been corrected and I guess the correct way to sprint is to go early enough that you are on the cusp of starting to slow down right when you pass the line. I will use this new information to recalculate my sprint for Somerville. Should be helpful seeing as the sprint is like 500 meters long.

Here is a link to a write up about the race. There is a pretty cool video of the sprint. http://baskingridge.patch.com/articles/video-world-class-riders-speed-through-basking-ridge-in-base-camp-international-race#c

Road Rash Sucks

Most people who haven't personally experienced crashing on a bicycle are still able to imagine how potentially painful crashing can be, but if you can't, imagine what it would be like to jump out your car window naked. That is exactly what crashing on a bicycle feels like, trust me, I have done both.

One of the 5 crashes I endured at Downers Grove last season

Surprisingly, in most cases the initial injures are not that painful. The real pain does not set in until several days after when the road rash starts to heal.

I'm writing this post to bring gravity to the magnitude of pain one faces when recovering from road rash. There is nothing sweet about the "raspberries" that liter the skin of cyclists after a crash. I always manage to get road rash right on places that bare weight when walking, sleeping, wearing cloths, and or everything. These puss spewing injuries hurt like a bastard all that time.

Clearly this post is motivated by the good sized scrape that I acquired at Wilmington. That sucker has forced me to sleep on my left side all night because every time I move I am woken up by the shooting pain that fills my body.

Picture of my puss filled hip

My crash was actually not bad at all, it could have been a million times worse. I just wanted to make a point to anyone who hasn't crashed on a bike. Even though the rider usually gets back up and continues racing after they crash, they are going to be dealing with an ever increasingly painful injury that will last for weeks to come.

On that note, its time to go get dressed for Ricola Twilight... dont worry, I've been knocking on wood since I started this post. I'll be good.

Getting Back to the Game

Man, it has been such a long time since I have last written a post. I want to apologize to the loyal select few who have chosen to read read my blog over the past few months, I've been kinda lazy. Well, there is more to it than just being lazy.

Speed week was a total wash for me personally, and even though I do not speak as a representative for the team, I am pretty sure that as a team we did not live up to every ones expectations. Last season Speed week was my first team race, and our team absolutely crushed the competition, it was really hard for me to deal with having such high expectations for myself and then going to the race and not performing. Clearly there were unforeseen obstacles that limited my performance, but that aside, people only care about results.

I choose to wait a while to write a post about speed week because I am determined to keep my blog from becoming an arena for me to make excuses for under performance, and all I had until now were excuses.

Every race at speedweek had a video summery made that can be seen at http://www.youtube.com/user/USACrits2010 . Id say that they are a little biased against us as I dont think we were ever mentioned in any of the videos, but that is kind of a representation of how the week went. I am preferential to the Athens Video as it does give some mention to the epic chase that our team put on after missing the winning move....

In the end I came out of speedweek with 2nd in the U25 classification, 7th in the Sandy Springs Crit, and 11th overall in the Series. All of these results were far from what I had expected, but there is not enough time to dwell on my shortcoming. I needed pick myself back up and get ready for the next showdown.

After speedweek I had 3 weeks of solid training before my next race in Wilmington Delaware. This was one of the most lonely 20 days of training I have ever done because all but 2 of the rides I did were solo. I did 725 miles by myself in the past 3 weeks, and it totally sucked! I am pretty sure that I now hate the new White Panda - Versus Mixtape, because I listened to it about a hundred times. Dont get me wrong, the tape is awesome and you should download it now (link included!) I'm just sick of it

BJ Basham from Peaks Cycling Group is my coach and he has really put the hammer down on me to work on my 1 to 5 minute power since the California trip, and the extended training block that I just went through really gave him the opportunity to beat me up with intervals without much rest.

Forgive me if this sounds stupid, but training actually works. When you have a coach who can identify your weaknesses and can keep you working on them, you get better. I haven't had that direction before and especially now that I have a power meter it is awesome to be able to see how quickly my body can adapt to handle the types of training I am doing. Makes me feel very confident that with BJ's direction, I can get really really fast.

The one thing that know one seems to be able to help me with is how to win a big race. I feel like I am strong enough now to contest these big races, but for some reason shit always goes wrong.

Wilmington Grand Prix NRC Crit was two days ago and I had more crap happen to me that ruined my chance of contesting the finish. For the first time this season our team races well. I say "well" because for the first time we races like how we did last season, and last season we killed it every day. As we team we stopped waiting for other teams to dictate the race and we went for it from the first lap and initiated almost every breakaway on the day. Sadly, in the races most decisiveness moments it started to rain. Our team had three guys in the top 5 who all ate shit on the down hill because the pavement turned to glass the instant it got wet. I was won of them. Right before I crashed I was preparing to attack because I knew that the rain would cause the field to hesitate some, and the field was already exhausted from the previous hour of hard racing. Anyways, I ate shit along with two other teammates and almost immediately after 2 riders attacked and got away and stayed away until the finish. After getting back into the race I already had lost the race.

unclip to prevent from doing the same.">

Cycling news captured a photos of my teammate Will Hoffarth falling in the same stretch that so many of us had fallen the previous lap.

I not bitching/making excuses for not performing because I clearly didnt adjust my riding style quick enough to avoid crashing once the pavement got wet. Tons of guys didnt crash... so they were all doing something right. However, I am still really really bummed that my results dont represent the race that I raced. I need to finish the job and get it done.

Luckily I have a ton of races in the next few weeks and if I have the legs now, Ill likely still be fast in these upcoming races. Wednesday we are racing in Basking Ridge NJ, and on Memorial day we are racing in Somerville NJ. Then we are driving back to Winston-Salem for the night and Will Neil and myself are leaving for our All-Star trip to Tulsa Oklahoma for 3 days of Crit racing, competing for a prize purse of over a hundred thousand dollars! Great timing to be coming into some fitness.