Under sunny skies and warm weather the team gathered for the first hundred mile training ride of 2011. Perhaps one of the most boring rides routes in existance but when a group of 15 or so rides it becomes a hoot.  The roads are straight as an arrow with some rolling ups and downs from DIA to Deertrail, Co – a one horse town. Today we rolled nice and tight 2 x 2, chatter and bs’ing about.  It is winter and of course it would not be complete with multiple flat tires – once november rolls around everyone should put on some heavy, slow winter tires, just sayin.  The ride is fun,  organized and has a few moments where it turns into a race,  not the whole ride but a few key moments ( town lines ).  Since there are only 3 towns in 100 miles we sprint for each town and miles before the sprint things start to line up, everyone becomes quiet and the pedals are moving with a purpose. I lead out the last sprint from a ways out and it was fast and single file,  a young new comer tried to come around me but I shut that down! It was great to be out on such a nice winter day, chatting, looking at bikes, hearing of plans of old and new. It is going to be a good 2011 and I am looking forwards to this weeks Deertrail team ride.

A new year and already things in my head are swirling around like bike racers rolling around a velodrome.  New years bring new starts? No?  If that is the case than I would like to put 2010 behind and perhaps forget about it.  It was an interesting year with extreme highs and extreme lows.  So,  with all the new thoughts swirling around my head I decided that my body needed to swirl around and around as well. I have given great thought to get myself some time on a velodrome,  learn the ins and out of riding on a track.  When I lived back in Philly the Lehigh Valley Velodrome was just a bit to far for me to take advantage of.  The plans were always hatched but in the end things just never worked out – logistically it was to far, the beginner class was to early and on and on.  When we moved to Boulder at the end of 2009 I had a renewed interest in riding a velodrome especially with a indoor velo just a few miles away. I hatched another plan,  made a visit to the velo, watched in awe as riders whipped around on the super steep banks of the Boulder Indoor Cycling Velodrome.  I was frightened just standing there and watching as 8 second laps were thrown down at high speeds.  Just like anything new there is a sort of childish excitement that engulfs my body,  this anxious nervousness to wrap my head and [...]

Back in 2005 I raced the Housatonic Hill road race cat 3 race.  A pretty long cat 3 race at around 54 miles with a bunch of climbing each lap.  The finish not part of the race course and the finish only goes up there,  it is a longing climb up to the finish.  This race is relatively not the memorable for me,  I had a good result and the race was tough,  up until this here moment I had not even thought about this race but then I read about the passing of Paolo Zenoni,  I met him them day because we suffered and worked together to get away from the peleton and attempt to bridge to the break. The race started out pretty mellow,  but up the first pitch of the day a group rolled off the front of 4 riders,  it was given a leash and usually they come back,  but on this day it did not.  So,  with one lap to go I attacked and just went for it,  an suicide attempt to bridge to the break which was coming back but was not going to come back.  After I separated myself from the 78 other riders I looked back and noticed a rider coming across,  I stayed steady and he eventually caught me. It was Paolo Zenoni,  he came through and worked as hard as we could to the base of the finishing climb. We were both evenly matched,  we knew the front was gone [...]