I guess i wont ride my bike anymore!!

So, just found out that bones dont actually come back together as fast as i thought. I figured since my collar bone felt alright then it MUST be back together... but turns out that the body produces this weird glue stuff when it breaks a bone and that holds it together for a while until the bone starts to calcify and get stronger.. But during this process the bones can still move around, so its best to not use it at all.

I cant pick up my bike with one are like i used to do!!

Long story short: i should not be riding my mountain bike everyday like i have been. Even though ive been riding on easy dirt roads and smooth trails, im not supposed to have any pressure on my arm at all.... So thats a bummer. I thought since i was an elite athlete that is really healthy, my bone would heal faster than the "average" person. But i guess i have to settle with being just average during my recovery and i am now officially on my break from riding, a little earlier than i would have liked.

Cool thing tho, i still came in second in the nycross.com race series!! and the last race of the series i got to watch anthony smash the race for his first elite race win of his career! During that time i got to enjoy several fresh pulled pork sandwiches and a bunch of beers. so that was enjoyable.

So now that i realize that im not a super human and i have all the people around me like my coach/mentors/ friends Alec, Jeremy Powers, Mukunda and brian hayes telling me to stay off my bike. I guess i will listen to them and take it easy and get rested up so i can start doing base!! i plan on going to Southern California for base this year. Hopefully i will be gone for a little more than a month. So if anyone has any connections down there, let me know!! trying to do the trip on the cheap.

I have the coolest team in the world! and i will tell you why right now. Not only do we have some of the best racers in New England, we have the nicest people in the entire world on our team. Al and Mukunda care more about the team than i can even imagine. They put so much time and energy into running a very successful program that they are now in the second year of running. After two years of great sponsors and a great bunch of people, the team is getting even more awesome next season. Nothing can be talked about now, but there is some sweet shit happening that i will discuss once the team officially announces it. Besides that tho, we just bought Mairena Arostegui from Nicaragua (http://bit.ly/ax2IqS) some pigs and hens through the KIVA.org. Check them out. Every time that we win a bike race, we help someone around the world with there business by offering our race winnings. And while we dont win a lot of money racing bikes, it still really helps someone that could really use it! So our team is just awesome.

Go to the teams website and subscribe to the newsletter to stay up to date on what we are doing and how awesome we are becoming with each passing minute.

http://www.wheelhouseracing.com/

I wish it was summer still, so i could be doing this again!! jumping off trees into rivers..

Thats all i have for now, but hopefully there will be more interesting things happening soon.

goodbye

Double Rainbow win! and broken bones!!!

so this weekend brought me a set of wins in the new england cross scene!

It was great. The first day was pretty easy when no really fast guys showed up. I took the hole shot and had a gap the rest of the race. It was the least "cyclocrossy" course ive ever riden on. It was very straight, lots of pedlin' and no hard turns. perfect for me!

The second day brought the Saratogo springs Nycross race. These are my favorite races and it was going to be good racing against Alec for the win.

Al got the hole shot and then proceeded to turn really slowly, so i tried to go around him and crashed on the 4'th turn of the course. that was cool! got back on and it was just me and him with a good sized gap after the first lap. We were riding comfortably together and playing a game i call "cannondal-cyclocrossworld.com" . What happens in this game is you choose a rider from the cannondale team to be, and then whatever rider you chose to be, that real life rider will get the same result you did in the game.

It worked out pretty good cuz i was "Jeremy Powers" in the race and i won and Al was Tim Johnson and he came in third. And then Powers also won his race and johnson came in 3'rd weird... good job us! ha.

Al was really sticking it to me for a while and not letting me catch up after he rode the run up and got a big gap on me (http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=610249179085). So i chased really hard for about 4 laps and then he rolled his tire and i got ahead of him and was able to maintain my gap for the win!

This is the awesome podium they had at the race!

I won a sweet GORE jacket thats probably worth a couple hundred dollars, so that was really cool.

So that was an awesome weekend. and now im sitting in my bed cuz i broke my collar bone yesterday at cross practice!! typing with one hand is challenging

on the left side of the picture there are 2 pieces of bone that are supposed to be together.... but they are not.

I guess thats what i get for trying to hop the barriers like a cool guy. heres a video of me doing it last week. im the second person through. http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=609509780845

I had it down really well yesterday, but just messed up a little on the last time through!! and bam, i immediately knew it was broken and it strangely didn't hurt that much! but now it does! good thing i have lots of drugs to numb the pain....so if this post sounds dumb just remember im on drugs and typing only with my left hand!

if only i had a really beautiful nurse to take care of me! that would be the best!

in other news. my brother is traveling to cambodia and is raising funds to help support talented young kids that dont have many resources. http://timdurrin1.blogspot.com/ thats his blog, check it out and donate if you can!

im gunna go take some drugs now and vedge out. the pain feels weird.... almost as if there are 2 bones just hangin out not connected in my shoulder... and every slight move makes them want to yell.... weird!

Selling my HED Stinger 6's

I am selling my 2010 Hed Stinger 6 wheelset to make room for new projects I have going on. I put under 200 miles on these and were never crashed! These were only used for 2 road races and 1 crit, so you're getting an almost new set! I definitely babied these wheels and the front wheel is absolutely brand new and never been glued. Just out of the box. THE FRONT WHEEL IS BRAND NEW WITH RE-DESIGNED RIM BED. The HED Stinger 6 is a 60mm deep carbon wheel set and features the C2 23mm wide rim that gives you more traction than imaginable while providing the most aero wheel available! Jump on the opportunity for some great racing wheels. HED skewers also included! The set will be packed by a local bike shop and shipped to you in a wheel box to ensure they arrive safely. Feel free to contact me with any questions you may have. Due to the expensive nature of these wheels I will only ship within the US to a valid/confirmed paypal address. These wheels retail for around $1,600 so this is your chance to get a nice price cut on a really close to new wheel set.

Fall Season. bike racing, hiking, apples. and im on the UCI worlds rankings for CROSS!

So its fall now... that means apples, leaves, hiking, and cyclocross.

Ive done all these things in the past week.. i think

On Monday i did some work and then went hiking with a friend Julianne and her two friends from Worcester.

It was perfect weather and we had a great time, and after we even visited a cool little biker bar that ended up being really cool and played some great jukebox music and played punching games, that were very overpriced i might add.. yea it was cool.. i know your jealous!

Tuesday myself and jeff cronin indulged in a few adult beverages in the evening time and ended up shooting an awesome dance video showcasing some sweet new cycling pants. Lots of controversy surrounded the release of the video, so I apologize to you for telling you about it, and not actually releasing it to the interwebs! sorry.

Wed/thursday/friday were normal boring work and ride times.. no fun.

Saturday the team headed out to NYcross.com race series at Troy NY. These races are awesome and i have been doing well at them. From the gun i was off the front of the race in search of the first lap prime of $50 which i got!! so that was awesome. Al and I ended up in a group with one other rider. So we worked together to get rid of him and i ended up off the front of the race by myself while he helped protect my lead. I ended up taking the win and Alec a close second. AWESOME racing.

So that was day one. Day two looked just as promising. I shot off the line and got the first lap prime again. I was ahead by a good amount with one other rider when i suffered a flat tire and had to run a bunch to get to the pit! that stunk. But luckily Alec caught and dropped the other rider i was with and won the race for the team!! i came in 7'th.

So the weekend went really well. being able to win some money at these small little races in upstate NY is always a great change to the big Verge series races. Sunday night was also great! did some fun things to top off the weekend on a high note.

On top of all that fun bike riding/ hiking stuff going on. I made SO MUCH APPLE SAUCE! with the apple season in full swing i made a lot of apple sauce that i have been consuming all day everyday! its great. i love it.

another thing. I made the UCI worlds ranking list for cross. im ranked 166 out 194! thats really cool! http://www.uci.ch/templates/BUILTIN-NOFRAMES/Template3/layout.asp?MenuId=MTU2MTc&LangId=1

So that means that i dont start dead last anymore in cross races and i actually get a call up now!

Things are going really well tho! and cant wait to see whats in store for me over the next few months! yea. cool stuff.

This is my little cuz. Shes the newest recruit on the team for next year!

thats my life.

Long time coming blog entry... NIGHT WEASELS

I havnt updated my blog in a long time, but the race i recently did called the night weasels definitely deserves a blog update. this race was so much fun, it was held a ski ward in shrewsberry MA. Colin from crossresults.com was promoting it and he did an amazing job.

this is only my second year racing cross, but this was the most fun ive ever had on a cross bike! EVER.

High fiving the fans! they were so helpful with there loud cheering

The field was pretty stacked and i had hoped for a top ten finish. I started behind Johnny Bold, the masters national champion, thinking that he would have a great start and put me in good position. That didnt happen, he slipped and missed his peddle and we ended up sitting around 25'th position into corner one. It was bumper ball for most of the first half of the course and then finally it lightened up and i got to get in a little groove for a bit.

I ended up with Johnny for the first lap, the lead group of about 8 or 9 was already established and riding away. So i started yelling at johnny to get moving and chase them down.... people were cheering for him a lot since he was national champ... i went around him and had a bit of a gap for half a lap... then i crashed so hard and he came cruisin right by... and that happened again for the next 2 laps....

I had a good gap from the chasers, but i couldnt figure out how to ride my bike that night and kept crashing! I felt bad for Peter Bradshaw, i must of crashed in front of him about 4 times. Sorry Peter.

I had such good legs, but it didnt matter because there was nowhere on that course to peddle really hard, and i just ended up going to fast into the corners and crashing every lap. Although i did ride the stairs about 5 or 6 times, and the announcer didnt give me any love about it.... All he talked about was the stupid pro, Adam Snyder, who was doing it.... Lame!! Nonetheless, it was fun to be able to ride something pretty challenging that noone else was riding. I think im going to call up Matt White and ask for private lessons on hopping barriers next.

I ended up being chased by Peter Bradshaw, who i can never seem to beat in cross races... and James Morrison and Steve Hopengarten were heckling in amazing fashion.. it made it so much fun... I enjoyed yelling at Peter as he was catching me and not taking beer feeds or riding the stairs. Which i think was lame, cuz hes a cool guy and should be doing cool things like riding stairs and drinking beer.

So i was enjoying myself very much, i was very muddy and couldn't ride my bike at all. I ended up 14'th overall which stinks, but at least me and johnny bold are now best friends since i got mentioned in his blog http://jonnybold.blogspot.com/ .

My coach and teammate Alec Donahue came in 3'rd over Adam Myerson which was great! His interview is here: http://bit.ly/c2CUaT

And my buddy Sean Kennedy had a great ride in the 3's race and also gave a really funny interview: http://bit.ly/ahfV46 .... check it out

I bought new brakes and put a new shifter on my bike... so its gonna be real fast this weekend at Providence! o snap.

But i need to go ride my bike now. hope you enjoyed my update

Heres a pic of a cool plane... $20 to anyone who knows what race you see this at when your driving there.

Longsjo Race report

me leading the pack in the circuit race

so this was my first big boy race since my cat 1 upgrade. Everyone has told me how crazy i am for upgrading right before the "big race", that is the fitchburg lonsjo.

Being from Fitchburg, i wanted to show that there is someone actually competing from the local area. I made the paper a few times

http://www.sentinelandenterprise.com/sports/ci_15427640

http://www.sentinelandenterprise.com/ci_15434756?IADID=Search-www.sentinelandenterprise.com-www.sentinelandenterprise.com

The first stage was the circuit race. This race is said to be one of the harder races in the NRC race circuit. i had talked to a couple pros before the race and they said this race was really hard. So i was in for a good time!!

I started in the first row to make sure i was up front for the climb at the beginning of the race. it was pretty fast from the beginning, but not all that bad. I stayed up front for the first 5 laps or so. I even came in second for the first sprint lap and snagged some point which was pretty cool.

After racing about 20 of the 25 laps, things started to get fast as the pros started pushing it at the front to try and set up there riders. I was still sitting very comfortably in the pack at this point. But with 4 to go, there was a crash around a corner right before the fastest part of the race, i got gapped off the group pretty good. My teamate dan greenfield who had already been lapped, worked with me to try and shoot me back up to the pack. He drained himself to get me back up, we were just reconnecting with the back of the pack on the hill when there was another crash that we got caught behind. This caused enough of a hesitation that i couldnt reconnect with the pack and rode the next 3 laps with a few other guys. I finished about 1 minute and 45 seconds back from the field. Not to shabby.

Me and teammate Adam Sullivan before the first race

The second day was the Road Race. This is the one race i was looking forward too, and i was also very nervous that i would cramp because it was going to be hard, hot and a long day in the saddle. The first few laps i stayed up front and raced my bike for some early breaks. I was in a couple splits that looked promising, but the leader of the race wasnt in the first one, and the second one i was in noone seemed to care wether is stayed away or not. The race was pretty difficult at this point with people trying to escape the main field. The 4 time through the feed zone and up the finishing climb a group of strong guys started to get away and gained some good time on the field. I didnt think they would get away through the feedzone area because we were chasing hard. I was wrong, and while we were riding at a blistering fast pace at this point, a few riders at a time tried to bridge up to the break. Noone really made it up to the initial break, but there ended up being about 35 riders up the road with significant gaps on the field. So the rest of the race was the main peloton riding around at a relaxed pace as the main break away gained about 10 minutes on the field. I finished in 40'th place on this stage, i rode at the front to bring in the peloton.

This stage was good, it was a great test for myself. I didnt cramp, i raced early for breaks, and i felt great all day. The pros race really hard. But its almost as if they have a script that says "These riders can get away, and once they are gone we get to relax". This race was a real learning experience, because it was very well known among the pros on how the race would unfold. I was unaware of any of this, and i learned a lot about how they race.

Next day, TT. Now originally i was looking forward to see how i would do against the pros, but after lots of hassle with my borrowed bike being very illegal, i went out hard in the TT and then realized that the position that i was in was not comfortable at all and rode the rest of the TT at a nice tempo pace so i didnt kill myself for nothing.

In these big races there are some strict rules for the TT bikes. My boss let me borrow his TT bike and i have been practicing on it a lot and feeling really comfortable on it, but the seat was about 2 inches to far forward and the aero bars were about an inch too long. So that made for a lot of changes to be made about a half hour before my start time. Needless to say, i didnt get to warm up much because i was freaking out about being able to make my start time with a bike that they would let me ride. I finished in about 20 mins and 9 seconds. Thats a minute faster than my time last year, which is good because i didnt do a full effort.

the first time ive had a feed in a criterium. I had some pro feeders too!

FINAL RACE. the criterium. This race i was going to try and get into an early break and be the local home town hero, or something like that. So i started in the second row and was ready to race aggressively. I raced for a bunch of early breaks, was in about 6 or 7 little moves that ended up not getting any time on the field and after about 15 laps of racing hard and trying to follow all the moves, i decided to take a breather and sit in the pack for a little bit. and just as i did that, a break of about 6 riders gets off the front. Weird... that sucked but whatever. so then i surfed the front for most of the race, and nothing really got away until the final laps. with 8 to go i remember the race getting very fast. I was right up behind the Kelly Benefit train on the front and accidentally mixed into there riders a little bit. They dont like when that happens. so i had one of there riders come right next to me and push his elbow and knee into my side and got pushed out around a corner. I then lost about 25 positions and ended up just hangin out until the finish.

a cool grainy photo by some dude. Me trying to get on the jamis train

It was a good race, i had fun. I forgot to mention tho that it was a million degrees out and i think i overheated a little bit because i had a really bad headache, i could barely eat or drink anything after the race and i felt really bad all night. I tried going down to hang out with friends at the Boulder, i drank one beer and could really keep it down. so i went home and fell asleep.

This was my first big NRC race and i am very happy with how i felt during the race. Those guys race really hard, but not at a pace that is too unbelievably hard. so thats a good thing. I will definitely be racing next year and looking to do better and maybe get the pros to notice me.

This is a funny picture of my teammate brad warren feeding me. A feedzone in a criterium can be dangerous!! bottles be thrown everywhere. I think he almost lost an eye!!

Also, you should come to the Jeremy Powers grand Fundo on july 17'th. http://grandfundo.com/

Beers and pig roast after the nice ride!

o, and i finished 77'th on the GC.

good bye internet

new job

So its been a little bit since my last post but i have a new job at New England Bicycle Consulting. Its a shop that specializes in custom bike fitting by the professional fitter Carl Ditkoff. Its a really cool process and really helps out a lot of people who have no idea that a good bike fit and increase power and overall fitness on the bike

Bike racing has been going pretty well the past couple weeks. I did Bear Mountain 2 weeks ago and there was a really strong field with a team of jamis pro riders and kelly benefit riders. We did 4 laps of a 20 something mile loop. with one giant climb each lap that really shows who was the strongest. the first 3 laps were not to shabby. the field was dwindling down from around 120 riders to a group of about 50. There was still no break up the road yet so the last time up the climb was gunna be brutal. The attacks started coming early in the climb and i made right about to the top of the climb when cramping set in HARD.. ouchies. my teamate gave me a little push, but by then if i had even made the group it wouldnt have mattered because my legs were shot. so i fell off the back and ended up riding with a group of 15 riders that fell off before me. The race was over, but a small group of us decided to sprint anyways for like 30th place. I believe by looking at the results i was one of the first cat 2's if not the first to cross the line. So thats cool.

This past weekend was Sunapee. I was racing with a full team of 10 riders. And my coach really wanted me to get in the break during this race because he thought i could do well.. He told me when the break would go before the race, and roughly what riders would be in it. And he was right! it must be nice to know when the break is gunna go, because he is the one who starts it every year at the race. so i saw him go and he got clear and i knew it was about to all go down!! and it did. I got into the break with 7 other riders, one of them would end up falling off. the pace wasnt bad in the break and i was feeling really good. I was the new guy in the break so i skipped a lot of pulls and they didnt seem to really care until the final section when Robbie king went clear and Thom Coupe looked at me and said i had to start working... but then my coach and teamate attacked and i got to continue sitting on a group of really strong riders. It was a perfect situation because i knew Gavin Mannion from Trek Livestrong was most likely going to come in the top 2. so as Alec kept attacking to keep me from doing any work i was just sitting on waiting for the final move. And then we had to stop racing because of an accident. at this point we were about a mile from the finish and i was well recovered and feeling strong. So much for that. we sat for about 45 mins while people got put on backboards and rushed to the hospital. i hope they are ok. Then they had the break start and sprint it out. which of course was bad for me. and i took 6'th out of 7. it was my best result ever. so thats pretty cool.

and yesterday i did about a 6 hour ride with some strong guys in the hilltowns... i wont be racing this weekend as i will be training, and killington is too expensive.

Going to see a house today that i will be renting out with 6 other guys this summer. its gunna be good.

-j

Post Nationals

So Nationals was probably the most weekend of bike racing i have ever had. The road race was epic. Meeting people from all over the country was really fun. The crit was crazy fast, the course was easy but fun. And staying with Pavel Gonda was so much fun. The dark lord really knows how to have fun.

To start, a little crit re-cap. It was cold again for the crit, but not bad. Surprisingly i got a third row call up. not sure how but it was awesome. You can see how big the field was in this photo.

The race basically started in a flat out sprint for the first 3 laps. i was lucky enough to get into about the 10'th position so i didnt have to work to much with the accordion effect around the corners. The race slowed for maybe 5 seconds, but attacks would fly the whole race keeping us above 30 mph the whole race. So i knew that nothing would be able to get away. I felt really good during the crit, wasnt to hard to sit in and i knew i wasnt gunna get off the front. All though i did go with 2 or three attacks because it was easier to be right near the front than 20'th wheel. Surfing the front of a super fast crit is something i definetly need to get good at.

I think about half way through the crit i kinda learned how to race them better. something clicked in my head and i realized i was riding the corners like an idiot and was tapping my breaks to much. and from then on in the race i litterally didnt touch my breaks unless i was going to run into the back of someone. This realization was awesome cuz i was taking the corners so much faster.

I yelled at Max Korus once because he was racing like he was at an ECCC crit and chasing things down. I knew that he had a good chance cuz he was surfing the front like a pro, so i told him to get the hell off the front because other stronger teams would pull things back.

When the last 10 minutes of race came, they still hadnt put up lap cards which i thought was weird. we came through with 9mins and 30 seconds and they finally put up 9 laps to go. WE WERE DOING a little about 1 MINUTE LAPS.. fast as hell... i was around 15'th wheel going into 2 laps to go and feeling good about it, then one straight away a flurry of movement happened and i found myself in about 30'th position!! WTF. that sucked. i knew i was going to need to use some energy to get up front, so i got back up to around 15'th wheel again and was OK with that, then the dude in front of me got a flat and litterally couldnt turn so he went straight bumping me waaaaay of my line and causing me to slow really bad going into the final 2 turns.. that was the race! Pavel Gonda races like a champ coming in 5'th place and max korus right in front for 4'th. It was great seeing the ECCC represented on the podium at nationals.

Also Arielle Filiberit absolutely dominated the DII field with wins on both RR and Crit. WAY TO GO DARTMOUTH!!

The banquet was fun, i made a pit stop up at UVM's room to see if they were going and immediately found my water bottle being filled with Alcoholic beverages. So i took my water bottle down stairs and had a few celebratory beers with Pavel, and some chocolate cake!! Pavel was pissed at this point because he didnt win, but after a few beers and a lot of recognition at the banquet he was happy as can be.

Max and Pavel on the Podium for the crit

Pavel in 4'th for the individual omnium. and he didnt even know he made the podium before they called his name!!! a very pleasant surprise. Some of the best cyclist in the nation are on the podium. Including Rotem Ishay who wont MTB nats xc and stxc. Pavel was very happy to have beaten him.

The after party was really fun. There were some huge parties going on, Northwester college threw the best one with having different rooms connected to make one big party room. although the party got broken up by some cop. (funny story on how we got invited to this party, Pavel met this girl and needless to say, after he won 2 medals she wanted his number! haha so then we got invited to this sweet party)

Then we went to the bars with some cool people and cute girls. I lost my shoes, so i was lucky enough to have Panpan let me borrow her size 7 girl sandles. haha. We hung out with the 3'rd place finisher from the road race that was from Cal Poly, really nice guy. And the rest of the night was history. I didnt sleep much, maybe a half hour because i had to leave for the airport at 430.. that was rough. and i flew the whole way home without shoes!! that was a good night. Some stories will not ever be told over the interweb because of the content that is involved!

sorry for the long post, Nationals was great and everyone should experience the sheer awesomeness of it some day. but only collegiate nats are probably this fun, i cant imagine the professionals raging as hard as we do!

good bye

-Jeremy Durrin

UMass Bike Racing

Pain in the Rain

This was no easy race by any means. To start, i thought that since i was from New England that i would have a huge advantage because of such shitty conditions. It was low forties and pouring rain the whole time. I felt good the whole race, just had some slight problems on the last lap. The race was very hilly with the first half of the lap pretty flat and rolling and the second half, hill after hill after hill... no easy hills either. The grades were somwhere around 13% on the short climbs and ranged from 6%-10% on the last long climb. After the long climb there was a long descent, and it was very cold. After the first lap with the pack i was at the front sitting very comfortable heading into the down hill section, the precious lap everyone was on there breaks so i decided to get to the front so i could descend as i pleased.

Well that went well, as i had practiced this descent twice the day before. I got into my tuck and bolted away from the field without even pedaling my bike. I think i had like 15 seconds at the bottom of the climb, and i wasnt looking to get into a break. So i was soft pedaling waiting to the pack to catch me when a rider attacked out of the pack and said "lets go", so i followed him. He was probably very excited to be off the front cuz he was pulling his brains out. We were off the front by ourselves for like 10 miles when another guy from california bridged up to us. he must of been a time Trialist cuz we was pulling for long periods of time in a TT position. So i felt like i was in a good situation when i was barely doing any work at about 2 mins ahead of the field... So he continued to pull for long periods of time and then when he signalled me to pull through i would lightly pull through for about a minute trying to preserve as much energy as possible because i knew we would get caught by the good guys at some point. After being of the front for a full lap, the second lap on the big long climb there was a chase group of 5 guys and they had about a minute 20 on the field. And i thought to myself that this is the perfect situation for me to be in. Right before the climb i dropped my chain, had to get off and fix it and then caught back up to my guy that i was with and the 5 guys still chasing. As you can see in the pic below. Now we had a strong pack of 6 or 7 guys including a friendly face of Tristan baldwin from UVM so that was nice.

Sitting comfortable up the climb knowing that we would soon be caught by a strong chase group. We would eventually be caught on the 4th lap after being out front for the whole day.... i was expecting a small group of the strong riders... nope, there was like 25 or 30 guys still together. So my plan went wrong, cuz i thought i would be caught by the winning breakaway.
When Pavel is suffering, you know that everyone else is. and he does not look comfortable in this picture.

This is the finishing climb, im all by myself as i had pulled away from the small group that i was with and was chasing down some riders that fell off the peloton.

So the last lap i had some mechanical problems with my rear deraillur. the chain was not sitting on the gears when i was in my little ring. It kept skipping and i couldnt get a smooth pedal stroke when climbing the steep hills. I knew this was a huge problem and didnt know what to do. I was desperate, so i kicked the deraillure once and it helped a little, but not for long. Up the lap 4 long climb i was comfortable and well rested when heading into the climb. But i couldnt get a smooth pedal stroke and i was falling through the field as i started on the second wheel to be in good position.

I said to myself that i was gunna fall off if i didnt do something, so i shifted into the big ring and put it in my 25 on the back and tried grinding out the climb with the pack. I couldnt stick with them and they had about 15 seconds as they took the turn for the descent... not good. needless to say i couldnt catch back on cuz they were screaming down the descent into the final lap and things got really hot. so i was left chasing with 3 others who were fading fast. I was pissed. we made it to the final climb together and then knew that we just had to try and pick up stragglers but it didnt really matter at that point. i rode away from the small group i was with, picked up a couple riders ( while riding in my big ring) and i was left to finish almost ten minutes back of the leader. Very frustrating when my legs were feeling so good.

So, as it was my first nationals i am glad that i had a strong performance and theres nothing could have done about my bike. and i made it into a USAcycling article about the race. http://usacycling.org/news/user/story.php?id=4888

I was mainly pissed because i let the ECCC down. Joe Kopena was chearing for me, and it really motivated me to put my all into the race because i know how much he puts into the ECCC and it must make him feel proud when all the hard work pays off with strong representation at nationals like previous years.

i will update about the crit later. but probably not till monday because there will probably lots of post race brewskies being drank, which means i will not be coherent enough to post on my blog

goodbye, time for me and Pavel to head to the hot tub!

-j

Americas Dairlyland

So im am now in Madison Wisconsin for Collegiate nationals. Madison is really cool, awesome biking city. Ive seen some cool stuff, but for the most part madison is pretty normal. i guess i expected to see cow-tipping hilbillies or something. Its a big college town so there are lots of young people out and about.

My plane ride here was interesting. I took a plane from Boston to chicago which was perfect. no problems. But from Chicago to Madison was another story. The plane i was on was the size of a peanut. It was tiny. So therefore lots of turbulence. It was supposed to be a 45-55 min flight depending on wind. Well it was really windy and when we came in for landing we were about 100 ft off the ground when the plane got blown about 50 feet to the side... it was crazy, so they pulled up and had to loop around for about another 35 mins before we could take another sketchy approach. We made it the second time, but not without the fear for my life! it was nuts.

So im here now, i got my bike together at a local shop. I couldnt get into the hotel cuz i was waiting for Pavel, the dark lord, to arrive because im staying with him.

Pavel is an interesting character. He definetly has some dark powers that gets him to the finish line in front of everbody. I wonder what it will be like staying with the superstar!? hes hilarious to say the least. I went out to eat with Pan Pan and the dark lord himself. here are some clips from my time here in madison.

I guess this is how he prepares for races. Drinks wine and eats the nastiest piece of pizza. And this man does have a great taste for wine. he impressed the waitress.

pavel and Pan Pan with there fancy wine
I think this picture was taken during one of our converstations on how lesbians and gay peoples minds work
Bike assembly
Me with the capital building behind me. It was a beautiful day. just really windy
And right now we are doing our homework on whos good in the race. Theres a lot of people that could win this race.. which means it gunna be hard.

More to come from me after the races, Friday is the road race and saturday is the crit. Tomorrow we pre-ride the road course a few times and also get up early to go to I-HOP because Pavel has never gone. and we will eat copious amounts of pancakes.

Im going to bed. goodnight lamp

-jeremy

How do i win a bike race??

Im very frustrated right now with my cycling. I have not won a bike race yet this year. I won a field sprint at the Army road race, but a victory still has not been had and im starting to get frustrated!!

So yesterday i went out to a race in Merrimac MA. This was a really good opportunity for me to win a bike race since it didnt have the ussual cat 1's and only 2's and some 3's. The race was going well, i felt perfectly comfortable during the race, even during a few failed breaks i was in. I definetly felt like i was the strongest guy in the race because i didnt have any trouble in the race. So with 2.5 laps to go, i get in a move with another rider and we look at each other and shrug our shoulders, as a weird non verbal agreement that we will work together and give it a shot. We knew it would be tough to stay away with just us 2 and we were soon joined by a couple other people.

Still not that far away from the field we have one more guy from team CCB bridge up to us and then we hit it pretty hard to get away from the pack, and it worked really well because we had a pretty huge gap after a short amount of time. I was still feeling really comfortable.

After one lap away in the break there were a couple of deadweights that werent doing anything, so i hit it hard on a hill hoping to beak the group a little bit and get away with the only 2 guys i knew were real strong..... that failed and it looked like it would come down to a sprint, which i didnt give a lot of thought into... so thats my first problem, cuz i didnt have a plan on how i would win the race.

So the sprint comes, and im in OK position. We start sprinting and one guy goes to the left and another too the right, i head to the right forgetting that there is a significant bend in the road that favors the left side.... needless to say, that was the dumbest thing i could have done and made up some space but it was too late and i lost by about a half a wheel, and one other guy threw his wheel in front of mine so i took third.... annoying.

Last year this would have been a great result, but this year im a lot stronger and expect more from myself. if i cant win a cat 2 race, how am i ever gunna win a pro 1/2 race.... i got lots to learn

enough complaining tho. Next weekend is nationals in Madison Wisconsin. It should be an amazing experience. I hope i do well there, it will be my first national event that i have gone too, so it will be cool. My legs are feeling good. but i cant win bike races!!

so after i get lots of school work done this week, i will be heading out wed morning. Updates of nationals to come as soon as i get back

later

-j

Longest race ever!!

So yesterday i participated in the 120 mile pro 1/2/3 road race around the quabbin. It was awesome to say the least. It was definitely one of the hardest races ive done. it wasnt all that bad which was crazy, my legs felt great and i was able to follow moves and actually move around during the race. It was fantastic. With a main group of riders up the road after the first lap, the field didnt really think there was much left to race for. So my team, wheelhouse racing, moved a couple riders to the front and tried to keep the pace up for a while. and after a while at the front, people started racing again.

I learned a lot about racing yesterday. i spent a lot of time next to jeremy powers in the pack. and he would tell me what was about to happen and when it was going to get hard, he was very close on all his predictions, and sometimes within seconds of when he told me. so it was cool racing next to him and telling me what i needed to do. I am very happy that i just finished the race, nevermind actually being able to ride hard the whole time. I even actually through down a little attack before a big climb on the back side hoping someone from bikereg would come with me, but they didnt and that was a big wast of energy so then i just sat in and waited to the racing to happen.

At the end of the race we were going over some rollers and things started getting interesting. bikereg sent a few guys, then the rapha pro dudes followed and al told me to wait for the pros, they went and so did al (team captain and coach), and i was a few seconds to late and missed the final move. i was desperate to get into it because i was feeling so good. i followed one guy and then tried to bridge but it was over at that point. (and this was about 115 miles into the race!!) so then i sat in and waited for the final climb. Then powers turned to me and said "you better hit this hill so hard, i dont want to see you again!!" so i waited for the incline and went for it. I got a pretty big gap and the BAM!!! my legs started to seize and they didnt want to move... so i sat up waited for the group. got back in. and powers said the same thing on the next part of the climb.. "put it all out there" he said. so i went again, got a descent gap again and started pumping... the hill got steeper and so did the pains in my leg as they were cramping, a group of 4 guys bridged up to me and passed me just before the line. But i left it all out there at the end and came in 24'th. in very happy with that, being the longest road race i have ever done. it was pretty awesome.

So that was an awesome part of the weekend. Im very happy with the way im riding and cant wait to race the rest of the season. Ever since i got my coach (alec donahue) i have improved so much. and this race season is looking good so far with the way im training and racing! cant wait to see whats next.

no pics right now, but here is an awesome video of Lee Peters from UVM absolutely losing it at the end of the race on saturday. he unclipped from his pedal as he crossed the line.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79STP9QvOPk

it was a nasty end of the race, i went down in the corner coming into the sprint. so that sucked. but im fine and my bike is as well!!

later

-jd

almost graduated!

so these past few weeks its been really tough to balance the work/school/ biking in my life. With the end of my college career winding down there has been a lot of stuff going on. A lot of group presentations that are worth 50% of my grade, papers for finals and still having to go to class. This really hurts my riding time. but because i love cycling so much, i usually will bail on a class during the day or skip out of a meeting a little early just so i can get my training time in. Priorities! But this semester is coming to a close and i have one final out of the way and two more to go.

Last weekend at army was really fun. The whole UMass team did so well. and as the president of the team it makes me really proud of the new guys that have come onto the team and stuck with it. It great to see them having there chance to do well in races and have a blast like i do. I still need to get hucker joe to realize that being directly on the front at the end of a race is not a good thing at all!! hes so strong and could definetly win the C's. UMass is bringing out our secret category C weopens this weekend, so you all better watch out during the C road race for some UMBRC action. and hucker joe, the king of going down hills.... he came in 3'rd at the Army Hill climb... thats nutsssss.

As for me, i did pretty well. i was very happy with my results at the circuit race when i won the field sprint for a second place. too bad max was way the heck up the road for first place, but whatever. winning the field sprint was really cool. I cam in 8'th the next day in the hill climb and 6'th in the crit. so i scored some points and hopefully will go to nationals to get spanked around by guys like Pavel Gonda who has been dominating everything he enters.

this pic is me winning the field sprint

Needless to say, racing is the funnest thing that i do. And this weekend i am preparing for the hardest race i have ever been in. Its 120 mile really hilly road race with a really stacked field. There is a pro team from the UK coming, a lot of guys that races the Pro UCI race last weekend. basically, i thought this race would be really cool to try and do well in last week. but now, i just want to survive in a field like this and hopefully help my stronger/smarter teamates do well. Like Alec Donahue, my coach, who finished with the lead group at Battenkill last weekend. Hes very strong and can stay with these guys at the Quabbin race. so it should be some fun times.

last night i Glued tires to my new HED stinger 6's wheels... and that was the worst thing i have ever done!! it was very sticky and extremely difficult to get the tires on straight. it took us about 3.5 hours to do my wheels and his.. I never realized how much work goes into those things and feel bad for the people that have to glue 25 of those wheels for a pro team! But now i understand all the work that goes into it and it makes me appreciate it a bit more. and i definetly will only be racing on them. After sniffing glue for 3 hours we were a bit light headed and wanted to get some good food. and we ended up at a pizza place at 11pm eating lots of pizza. i blame it on the glue.

But im at work right now and should probably be working.. not blogging... This weekend is also the conculsion of the ECCC race schedule at dartmouth. should be a good time. and the end of year banquet will be going down as well!! good stuff

this beer is awesome and everyone should buy it.

have a good weekend everybody

-jeremy

bike racing and business plannin

So, im sitting here near Westpoint NY at another ECCC race weekend. im eating frosted mini wheats out of my empty hungry man dinner plate thing. The hungry man was definitely a good choice, since the rest of the team had to wait a half hour for rice to cook and have a very lame rice and bean burrito.

Last week was the battenkill race. It was less epic than last year, the dirt roads were very hard packed and not that bad. The race was ended when Pavel Gonda took off from about 14 miles in and stayed away all day. I am very jealous of his victory and his victory salute as you can see in the below image. He looks very happy. I had the privelage of brining him down to Yale after the Battenkill race. He talked about how his legs hurt really really bad. A very nice guy and i wish the best to him as he will be leaving us to head back to the Czech Republic after he graduates from NYU. Congrats Pavel.

Ive recently realized that i need to keep the things that i love most in my life, an active part of my life. So many time you lose track of the things that you love, like friends and hobbies and other things that you may love. Im about to graduate from college, and then im in the real world. I just dont want to work 40 hrs a week for the next 40 years, retire and then do nothing. I want to keep my life a full and active as possible. I think thats the main reason i am starting my own business, so i can have the freedom to be my own boss and be in charge of the amount of money i make by worker hard for it. So before i graduate i want to make sure i have my priorities in line and keep the things that are best in my life as active as possible.

I have completed my business plan for the Real estate investment company i am starting. Although i still have not come up with a name yet. I thought i would take an Native American word, since i am native american, that meant something like security or safe or something. So i looked up some words and they are all a million letters long and un-pronounceable. so now im back at the beginning. I would appreciate some help. if anyone that reads this blog of mine, feel free to comment on this post or message me with some ideas. It needs to be serious and have nothing to do with bike racing. Awesome.

i dont really know why i have this blog. i hope you enjoy reading my crap.

These guys are so fly:

will update on what happens at westpoint at a later date. and hopefully there will be pics

later

New team, new year

So ive been back from Peru for about 6 days now. That was the most amazing trip i have ever been on. I saw so many incredible things while on the trip. The culture there is really cool. Almost everyone is poor there, but they seem to be genuinely happy with the lives they live. It like going back into time before the industrial revolution or something. They dont have factories, they dont have many tractors. They use mules to farm there land, and farming is all they do.

Some parts of the trip were a little crazy, when i took a bus up to Huaraz which is north of the capital we were driving on this windy road that was about 500 ft above the sea, but it was a sheer cliff with no guardrail that separated us from falling into the ocean. it was intense, especially when our bus driver was passing potato trucks on the left side of the road with oncoming traffic. I guess they have no road rules down there.

We stayed in some awesome hostels, including this place where this is what my view in the morning was:

the only difference in the real thing is, i could usually see the white cap mountains that surrounded the entire town.

There were a lot of other cool things that happened, i will tell you a few since it would take me forever to write it all.

Went sandboarding. one of the highlights of my trip:

There was almost a small riot in cusco about water:

I visited this cool town that was made of ancient incan ruins. the people still live in the dwelling of the incans. pretty cool

and on the last day that i was there, i tried a dish called "cebiche". Its basically raw fish. Except its cooked in the acidic juices of lemon and limes. It was actually really good, even though i have never tried sushi or other raw fish in the US. so i was a little nervous that this "raw fish" stuff was going to give me amazing travelers diarrhea, but luckily it did no

So my trip was amazing, and i saw a lot of things. I also picked up a little Spanish which was really cool. I really hope i can go back down to south america some other time, its truly an amazing place.

So besides my trip to peru, i am now back on the bike. And since i missed team camp while i was gone I got my new bike and team stuff when i got back.

The bikes that the "wheelhouse / NCC" team will be riding this year are the carbon fiber BH connects. They are really cool and the only carbon fiber bike i have ever riden, and also the first new bike i have owned!! We got Rudy Glasses and helmets. And the kits are really cool as well!

So i went down the Johnny cake in NY with the team this past Saturday instead of going down to Princeton to race collegiate. The team did well, we had 2 guys in the break and San greenfield came away with 4th place, tremble in 7'th. Nathaniel took the field sprint and that was that. It was fun to race with the team.

I am just really siked to be on an actual team this year. I am very grateful that they gave me a spot on the team. I am really excited to race with the coolest team in the northeast.

Now that i took 11 days off, its time to start re-basing and getting the miles in so i can race well at Battenkill and hopefully i will be going to collegiate Nat's.

But besides that, i am back to school. I dont really care about my classes anymore. I do what i can to get a descent grade. I am more worried about the business that i am trying to start. Its also an independent study, so i will be graded on my business model. Its basically a real estate investement company that i am trying to start. Would be cool if it was profitable in 2 years. We will see. right now im working on meeting the right people and also trying to find investors for the business since i dont have $500K to start it!!!

but that all for now, time to get back to the grind.

o and here is a picture of my dog. His name is Boston, yeah thats right. He is the coolest dog ever.

later

High Altitudes

Wow, peru has been absolutely amazing so far. Im sitting in the Lima airport after an overnight 8 hour bus ride (which i slept for most of) and getting ready to leave for cuzco which is only an hour flight. I hope the race weekend for all collegiate riders went well. I did a 7-8 hour hike 2 days ago at about 15,000 feet altitude. So my blood is as thick as magma, which means i can basically climb mountain one legged on my bike, so watch out!!!

I have seen so many things that fast few days and Peru is truly amazing. I had Guinee* pig yesterday for the first time, it wasnt all that bad. Not a lot of meat on it so i just had to pick it up and gnaw on the bones to get the meat off. They literally serve you a guinee* pig chopped in half and then fried up with head and paws and everything. a little weird, but the locals love it and its not to bad.



The coffee and juice here in peru is absolutely amazing. The coffee is very bold and extremely cheap. I sat in a cafe for about 2-3 hours yesterday in down town Huaraz and drank 4 espresso and it cost around 4 dollars or 12 soles. and i drank fresh squeezed papaya juice and also a banana papaya and pineapple juice, it is a large glass it usually only cost about a dollar. its amazing!!!

We still have so much to do on this trip and i cant wait to see what other parts of the country has to show. I have met so many cool travelers from all over the world, its really cool. Im picking up a little spanish, but im definetly not at the level where i can communicate. But being able to understand what people are saying is a big help.

Liz and I also met up with her friend who is serving in the peace corps right outside of Huaraz and hes in the most poor area of the town and is picking potatoes and living with a peruvian family for 2 years. His stories are amazing.

But we are about to board our flight so i will just post a quick pic of our hike in the andes mountain 2 days ago.

i will keep posting when i have interweb access. but for now we are headed to beautiful cuzco!!

later

IM IN PERU!

hello everyone, So i never updated my blog with a good race report because i have been really busy getting for my Peru trip. Well i am here now and its amazing.

Short race recap. Brought 14 brand new cyclists to the race for UMBRC and they all had a blast and want to come back. Jeff cronin who races C's crashed and shattered his Specialized Tarmac frame and had to go to the hospital to see if his knee was ok. Hes fine. I raced the A's. The race wasnt that fast until about a half hour into the race when attacks started flying and then countered. I got into a move with about 8 guys, we were not riding well together and 3-4 riders got up the road.
After they got up the road, me and Lee Peters of UVM were not having any of that and Lee atacked and i followed closely. We made the break and finished in a 4 man group. i wasnt feeling strong about my sprint so i made an effort to get away before the sprint. didnt work, and then i had to tow the rest of the group to the line because Chris Hamlin was about to catch the break, and theres nothing worse than 2 strong UVM guys in a sprint finish. So i came in 4'th and im very happy with the way i raced.

But enough about bike racing, IM IN PERU!! we landed in Lima Peru last night at 10'ish. Immediately getting into the airport it was like nothing i have ever seen. People yelling at you for taxi services, and following you trying to get some type of business from you. We had to walk in this "ring" of taxi people and crazy screaming Peruvians, i was very frightened but we it to our driver who was waiting to pick us up and bring us to the Hostel where we are right now.

The hostel we are staying in, is in Miraflores a sub-section of Lima, and one of the nicer ones. When we got to the Hostel everyone was way nicer than we could have expected, it was amazing. The building itself is 3 stories and the way its set up is very strange. we walk out our door and down the hall and then we are litterally outside..... but still kinda in the building. its weird but i wil post pictures when i get a chance. There is a rooftop bar at the hostel and we were really tired after our flight but we said, what the heck, and went up and got a few beers. These beers by the way were giant! like 40's! it was very cool. So we drank our large beers and sat out on the rooftop in the 80 degree weather overlooking part of the city.

I have only been here for 3 hours when i was awake and im already having an amazing time, seeing new and weird things and just relaxing. So i cant wait to see where the next 10 days takes us.

Today we are going to get breakfast, then maybe walk to the beach. Then we are catching a bus north to Huarez, (http://images.google.com.pe/imgres?imgurl=http://www.peru-tours.com.pe/huaraz/huaraz.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.peru-tours.com.pe/huaraz/huaraz_tour_5dias.htm&usg=__FLI5EpFFpB6AhtsKMOBjY7qD1_8=&h=340&w=452&sz=22&hl=es&start=16&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=ajRqyvQ45zES9M:&tbnh=96&tbnw=127&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dhuaraz%2Bperu,%2Bcity%26um%3D1%26hl%3Des%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26tbs%3Disch:1)

All i know is i cant wait to see whats out there. I will write about the food i eat as soon as we have some good. food.

later

Mid race post for Rutgers

Hello. So we are here in New Brunswick, NJ in the awesome Howard Johnson hanging around after a sweet day of racing. Just thought i would do a quick update on how the race is going so far.

We had about 10 new riders here from UMass so getting them all set up for the time trial was a bit hectic. But everyone but one rider got off on time and the one who didnt forgot his shoes at the hotel.... real nice... But most of our guys enjoyed there first TT and had a good time, we had some people in the top 10 in the D and intro fields so that was good.

as far as the A race went during the Crit. it went really well. I was the only UMass rider in the pack so covering attacks is sometimes pretty difficult, but i did a good job at getting in the right moves even though they went nowhere. The race was pretty hard but not as hard as last years crit for me. I was feeling really well going into the last lap and was on the guy from NYU's wheel going into the last turn as the second wheel looking for a big W or a top 3 but a crash had happened right before the last lap and changed the lines taken into the last turn, making NYU take it a little sharp and me the opposite. So i came very close to NYU guys wheel and tapped it slightly going through the corner and went down unfortunately... It sucks and im frustrated about it.. but thats bike racing and i had a good time and got a good feel for where im at in the pack.. and im feeling good about it.

i hope to do better tomorrow, so we will have to wait and see. We have the hour and twenty minute circuit race in store for us, so that should be fun.

Jersey is a dirty place, i dont reccomend visiting it soon

i will have a full update tomorrow in the circuit race.

later