Yup! I'm still alive!

SO it has been a while to say the least. I think where I left of was sometime in the middle of the summer, but you would be here a while if I talked about everything in detail since then. Basically finished up the summer by mountain biking a lot and taking a trip out to Colorado. It was sweet and if you want to hear more about it go here:

http://itsandyshaw.blogspot.com/2009/09/colorado-madness.html

After that came up to Purdue and got swamped with school work. I managed to do most of the collegiate mountain bike races earlier in the semester and ended up doing alright in A's. Besides those races I haven't really been riding my bike much. I think I have ridden my road bike 4 times total this semester (sad, I know).

I got swine flu which sucked, and had two weeks where I did absolutely nothing so needless to say, I am pretty out of shape.

The good news is Iceman is next weekend and it is going to be sweet! Also, no shave november just started!

Oh, and I'm 21 now so I can legally drink all the beer I want!

That is about all that is new, that you might care about.....seeing how this is a biking blog.......

Two Top Tens! Barely....

Bloomington Crit went well a couple weekends ago. It was a fun race and Sustainable Cycling was able to get a lead out train going at the front to slot Cody in at second and Truemper at fourth! Unfortunately I couldn't get on the back end of it, and ended up ninth. Fast forward another weekend, the MTB race at Versailles got postponed a week so I went up to the Zionsville Crit with Spencer. Blake ended up winning and I hung on for ninth again! So thats two top tens in two weeks!

I'm planning on doing the Versailles mountain bike race this weekend, then the following week I'll be heading off to Colorado for a little over a week before school! Can't wait......

Lots of MTBing

So the XC race at North Vernon a couple weekends ago didn't go well. Long story short, after a few hard falls and a lot of mud I DNF'd.

Although I had a bad weekend of racing mountain bikes, I did have a great following week of riding them. I rode out at Brown County State Park quite a bit, and on Sunday, Drew and I hit up all the trails in one ride. I also came to the realization on a road road during the week that it had been over a week since I last rode on the road...that's definitely a record for the year 2009.

It ended up being about a 3 hour ride and I think we covered a little over thirty miles! We even hit up the new Schooner Trace trail which has some pretty crazy stuff. It is definitely an "expert" trail and if you want to ride a challenging trail you should definitely check it out.

This weekend is the Indiana State Criterium Championships in Bloomington! It should be a fun race, but I don't know what to expect due to my lack of road training. Thats it for now, I'll keep things short....

Wisdom Teeth, Construction Site, Hyde Park, Grandview, and more Flats...

I'll start off with two weekends ago. It ended up being my first weekend without a race since the end of finals, because I had to get my wisdom teeth out. It was an interesting experience and the first time i had to be put out since I can remember. Its crazy that one moment you are sitting in a chair talking to the doctor, then the next you are being carted off in a wheelchair with 4 less teeth. The weekend was spent sitting around, being pretty much worthless, but it was kind of nice for a change. The pain only lasted about 4 days, but I still have big holes in the back of my mouth!

The following week was a little out of the ordinary, because I got sent out to do some construction observation for my internship. My job was essentially to watch the general contractor on a road construction project and make sure they didn't do anything stupid. This turned out to be me standing around all week watching them dig a big hole (not to exciting), and the hole was also very smelly because the soil was contaminated by an old gas station. I also had to be there if the contractor was working, thus working long days in the heat and humidity. It could have been worse, but I learned to appreciate the AC and predictability of office work. Luckily, I was just filling in for someone and only had to be there for three days.

Fast forward to the weekend, and it was time for some bike racing. I had the Hyde Park Blast in Cincinnati lined up for Saturday evening and the Tour de Grandview in the other Columbus on Sunday. I ended up driving myself since I was the only one from Columbus racing both days, and met up with some of my Sustainable Cycling teammates as well as some friends from Purdue. We had our own reserved "racer parking" which was pretty cool at Hyde Park. The event was a packed house with tons of people partying in the surrounding streets. The course was a little crazy and consisted of a 180 degree turn, a super long straight, a narrow climb into an even narrower alley, then back down into an even longer straight. I fumbled my clip in at the start which made my life a lot more difficult. It was really hard to work my way up because the field was large and it would string out single file in places and then bunch up in others having an accordion-like effect on the peloton. I finally made it to the front near the end, but couldn't hang with the pace and finished just off the back of the sprinting group in 23rd. The Pro 1,2 race was pretty brutal and very few of the riders who started finished. It was a pretty cool one to watch and got me pretty psyched for racing!

5 of us stayed with our friend, Todd, in Cincy and his parents made us Skyline Chili. I really liked the taste of it and would definitely suggest trying it if you are in the area!

Sunday, we hit the road for Tour de Grandview in Columbus, OH. The course was much more wide open and meandered through an older neighborhood that had some pretty cool houses and lots of big trees. There was a really tough big ring climb just before the finish line every lap. The cat 3/4's race was pretty brutal. We started with about 75 and around 30 finished. I was 27th after getting popped of the back with a few laps to go.

After looking back on the weekend I was pretty satisfied with my performances. It was one of the hardest weekends of racing this year and I finished near the top quarter or third of the field both days. I would, of course, like to be in it to win it, but considering the amount of training I have been doing lately and that I just upgraded not too long ago, I'm pretty happy with where I'm at. With that being said, I could definitely see myself returning to Hyde Park and Grandview next year with the intention of winning in Cat 3's.

I have spent some time pre-riding the mountain bike trails in North Vernon this week in preparation for the XC race there tomorrow. I went out there today for some short track racing, only to get a puncture in my tire early in the race. I have no idea what would have cause this on the course, but regardless, my day was over. I then proceeded to try to find this puncture so I could reseal my tire with Stan's and had no luck. Oh well, I suppose running a tube won't kill me tomorrow. It was been nice and rainy all day, thus promising an interesting race tomorrow.....I'll be sure to update sometime in the next year or two how the race goes, but knowing my luck, I will have some sort of catastrophic failure of equipment....

Been a while......

Sorry for not updating recently.....I'm sure you all have been wondering where I have been and what I have been doing! Well, let's see where I left off. State RR happened which all ya'll know about, then on Sunday of that weekend, I hit up some new mountain bike trails down in Versailles State Park. The trails were pretty cool, with lots of rocks, some 150 foot dropoffs next to the trail, and quite the variety of vegetation. I ate it pretty hard towards the beginning of the ride when I came sweeping out of the woods into a rock garden (which I of course didn't know was there) and then later came close to bonking. It was still a lot of fun though and if you ever get the chance you should definitely check out the trails.

The following week saw a little more mountain biking, lots of rain, and very little training. I planned on doing a mountain bike race up in Fort Wayne last weekend, but ended up going down to Louisville to race with my team, Sustainable Cycling, at the Tour de Olmstead. Expectations were low due to the lack of training lately, but I was pretty happy with the way I performed. The course was a 3 mile circuit with some climbs and fast downhills. We had a rider in every move and I was planning on sitting in for the sprint, but for some reason (unbeknowest to me) I attacked with two laps to go and bridged to a rider up the road. Blake later bridged to us with another rider, then I blew up and floated back to the pack, but Blake won so it was a great success!

On Sunday, Drew wanted to do his first century so we decided to ride to Bloomington. it was a pretty sweet ride, and we stopped at my friend's place in Btown for some lunch. The ride ended up being pretty easy, because Drew started to blow up around mile 80. It was a good time.... Besides that I have only ridden three hours this week. It has been too wet to mountain bike, and every day when I get home from work after five, it has been storming. Kind of sucks, but I'm sure it will all work out!

Well enough of my ramblings cause this blog is really starting to be lame.....

3 flats in a week! Sweet!

Yup, you read correctly....3 flats in a week. The first, you already know about and of course those were on my mountain wheels. Second, training ride on my training wheels. Third, Indiana State RR on my race wheels (and don't worry, I was off the front again). What are the chances? Three different wheels, three flats! Oh well, I suppose luck doesn't always go my way. Good news is I should have tubeless set up before next weekends mountain bike race in Fort Wayne....maybe I can nab a good result finally.

Back to the State RR. It was my first race with my new team, Sustainable Cycling. Things were going great for the beginning of the race til everyone started getting flats. My flat occurred after I rode a lap off the front of the field. I probably would have got caught, but I guess we will never know......Hopefully someone steps up with a new course for the State RR next year. Not to be negative, but the current one BLOWS!

Getting flats sucks!

Today was my second mountain bike race of the year at Brown County State Park and I was stoked for it. Not only was it my home course, it also suits me and my new 2-9er perfectly. Long climbs, fast and flowing descents....you get the point. Well I got a gap on the road climb heading into the woods and was tearing up the downhills, I was about to extend my lead on a tough uphill section, then I got a flat.....that sucks! And then I realized that I forgot to put my CO2 in my back pocket....that sucks even more! Luckily, Gavin was there to drop some off for me, and then it took me forever to get my tire changed. Well there went my victory. Congrats to my friend, Drew, though for finishing with the win!

The cool thing about mountain biking is even though things didn't go my way, I still had a good time! Its not like I had to drop out of the race. I still got to mountain bike for a while which is always a blast.

I'm looking forward to gearing up for some summer training this week and then joining Sustainable Cycling this weekend at the Indiana State RR Championships!