Almost Free Ice Cream at Baskin Robbins Tonight Only

http://www.baskinrobbins.com/Promotion/31cent.aspx

I'm not going to lie I'm jealous...

of Lukie Boy's new bike. He has been patiently waiting for his new bike I promised to him and I finally received and built it today. After my training ride tomorrow I'm going to grab Lukie Boy and take him out for some Cold Stone ice cream before we pick up his yellow bike as promised. I tried and I'm still trying to find his yellow gloves but no luck and the women's sizes are just too big for him. Check out pics, pretty cool bike.

1+1=2

2 guys finished ahead of me with 1 guy way off the front and his teammate catching me right at the line to take 2nd. The guy who won was super strong and he deserved to win for his solo effort. I think a lot guys were looking around for us to bring him back considering we controlled the entire race except that one move. There were plenty of teams with 4-6 guys each so he should have been caught but would of could of should of. Knowing this guy was going to win I set myself up for when I planned to attack given the wind direction and course layout. It was about 500m out and it worked except one guy was able to latch onto my wheel and I couldn't shake him. No excuses, just didn't have the legs. I'm happy with 3rd place and I'm even more happy with how our team worked as a 'team'. We just had a couple of guys who really stepped it up and made a big impact on the race. Not a bad way to end the spring season.

I don't have any race plans the next couple of weeks so I'll be looking to build up again for a great summer season with some long hard rides and plenty of happy hours. I think I've just learned that when you are happy you race well. Speaking of happy I bought my nephew Luke a new yellow Transformer BumbleBee bike and it arrives tomorrow. I'll never forget getting my first new bike from Sears when I was maybe 5; it was a pretty cool feeling. I also owe the kid some new yellow cycling gloves and Cold Stone ice cream. I forget the kid is old enough to remember promises so I must keep my word. If you have any luck finding yellow kids cycling gloves help me out and let me know. Someone want to buy me a new bike?

I love wind

Loving the wind was half the battle today. I repeated the same solo attack I did last year and it turned out to be the winning break once about 8 guys bridged up to me. I removed myself from the break thinking I had a flat, I didn't. So I found myself in the chasing group with 3 of my teammates and about 10 other guys. I sacrificed myself and left everything on the road to bring that break back. We never got organized and never caught the break. I dropped off pace and finished probably around 25th place out of 85. Not bad but my placing wasn't important. I really wanted this team win and we came up short with our top placings being 9th, 12th and 15th. Oh well that's racing and we get to do it all over tomorrow. Time for some shut-eye. Good night.

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Deer Trail RR & Primus Mootry Crit.

It was a year ago when I went on the solo attack early in the Deer Trail RR and stayed off the front for the first 50 miles. Although I was eventually caught and passed by many I had a blast. This year will be a blast but different. I've been looking forward to this race for many months now and my condition is good and I feel 100% ready to throw down. Coming off a win last weekend and having two wins this season well lets just say things are working out. My brother is racing too and this will be his first race of the season so I'm excited to see how he does because he was moving last week in training. We'll have a solid team in the Cat. 3 field and we have a number of cards to play. My guess: It will stay together until the rolling hills and then major explosion(possibly me). My role: I'm riding support for my teammates covering breaks and setting tempo but if the opportunity is there for a field sprint, well I'm going to win that so other teams should know better. We have a couple of guys flying but have had bad luck the last couple of weeks so hopefully we can pull it together this weekend.

The Primus Mootry Crit. is this Sunday in Niwot/Boulder area. We'll have numbers in this race which will be the first time all season. My two wins have been solo efforts so it is going to be ridiculous when I roll up with 6 other teammates who are just as fast and fierce. Alls I'm sayin'. I think teams will be looking to cover me throughout the race but little do they know we have others who are ready to pounce. I consider myself a tactician, I'm nowhere near the strongest guy but I've raced long enough to anticipate certain actions by others given the situation. I will play the lead role and bark out orders to my teammates. The goal is simple: TO HAVE FUN! What's fun you might ask? Making others suffer when they don't want to and coming across the finishing line screaming, drooling, cross-eyed as you win. When this team was created we made it a point to be aggressive and take the race to others and we have done that this year. Man it's going to be a great year! Come support us Sunday and watch Studio 1 Dental in action.

Arby's owner buying Wendy's for $2.34 billion stock deal

I guess I have options now on Monday nights.

The one and only.....

ski helmet, bicycle helmet, space helmet, scuba diving helmet, Wii helmet, welding helmet, football helmet, hockey helmet and any other helmet you can think of. This thing covers it ALL. I think you might even be able to make popcorn in that sucker.

This guy is good, just listen but hit pause first on the right.

Racing Pictures From Air Force Road Race

Pre-race coffee at the Shank's B&B



My Cheering Section



Feeling good early on in the race


The grind up one of many hills during this race


I'm hurting so bad I can't stand to look at the hill anymore


At least someone is having a good time!


Finished

Expect The Unexpected

Every guy goes into a race thinking they can win and I'm no different. The reality of bike racing is you rarely win and your often on the losing side but yesterday was one of those rare moments. Coming off a good week of training and still bummed about my bad judgement last weekend I wanted this win really bad. I knew after just a few laps, winning a 6-pack of beer prime and covering a few breaks that my legs were good and this time I counted down the last 5 laps to go correctly. There is a short and steep hill followed by a 90 degree left turn and another 75m to the finish. I knew going into the last lap that I would make my move to the right-side of the hill and just gun it and see who follows. I managed to break everyone but just a few guys into the turn and from that point I made a split second decision to lead out the sprint and it turns out I was able to gap the 2nd place finisher by two bike lengths. I'm pretty sure everyone in Colorado Spring heard me cross the finish line. It was an amazing win and even more special with my sister and her family there to watch it happen. The last time I won I had my nephews there watching and this time Makenna my niece watching so I guess they're my lucky charms. After a horrible 2007 season I came into this season with the mindset of have fun and have more fun. As weird as it may sound my motivation has been external and I simply just don't do this for me. I've tried that and it just doesn't work for me, I get way too serious and stressed out and those are things I deal with on a daily basis with work and life. Cycling and racing to me is now about just having fun. I ride hard when I want to ride hard, I ride easy when I want to ride easy, I don't do intervals and I eat Wendy's every Monday night. It seems to work and life is good so I guess I'll stick with it for now. Checkout some pics from my race.

Nothing like taking....

My second win of the season in front of my niece Makenna and my sister Claudine and brother-n-law John! Yesterday I won the Colorado College criterium in Colorado Springs and I have a road race this morning at the Air Force Academy. More to come on my win and hopefully another win by a teammate today. Check back for a full update and tons of pics. Ciao!

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Nothing like nature's alarm waking you up in the morning.

5.4 earthquake rocks Illinois; also felt in Michigan. I bet some would argue this has to do with global warming. I'm no scientist, hell I'm not even a fighter pilot but I'd be willing to bet this has nothing to do with global warming or the Bush administration. Alls I'm sayin'

http://mobile.chicagotribune.com/detail.jsp?key=155578&rc=CHIBN_012808&full=1

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Thomson Reuters Lipper Bravo Vector Foxtrot Zulu Charlie...

The official merger of Thomson and Reuters was today. It was tagged as Day One and us lucky Lipper employees were treated to a wonderful breakfast and presentation on the 38th floor of the Hyatt know as the Pinnacle Club. The view was amazing and I must say it did distract me a few times during the presentation. Nothing like bacon, eggs and champagne to start off your morning. The Lipper organization is not changing much and I'm lucky to announce that I still have a job as I write this post. I think our emails will eventually change from @lipper.reuters.com to @lipper.thomsonreuters.com.... pretty exciting stuff I tell you and just maybe we'll get some new mouse pads.

http://www.reuters.com/article/businessNews/idUSL1553044220070515

An Interesting Weekend of Racing

Saturday was the Haystack TTT and I sucked! I'm not really sure what happened but I just could not get on top of my big gears to help my teammates out who were crushing it and dragging me along for the ride. I finally had to throw in the towel about a mile from the finish for the sake of my team. We ended up 8th which is not good.

After having such a difficult time yesterday I was eager to race today. I was a bit nervous before the start not knowing how my legs would respond yet excited to throw down with a couple teammates. The field was stacked with well over 70 racers and for the most part it was a steady hard pace with many failed attacks. My legs came around about 15 minutes into this 60 minute race so I had a couple digs and managed to bridge to a couple breakaways with relative ease. I decided to wait for the last lap to make my move since my legs felt great but a lack of concentration kind of spoiled my chances. I somehow thought we had two laps to go but then I heard the bell lap which is the final lap of the race and before I know it I'm freaking out because I'm about 40 guys back. So I drill it and snake through the group as I'm kicking myself in the head only to come into the final turn in maybe 10th place. I wind up for the sprint to find myself boxed in and coasting behind some guy who just gave up 100m from the finish?? In about 0.0005 seconds I decide to go right and squeeze through the smallest of smallest gaps, punch a couple hard pedal strokes and lunge for the line. So am I happy with 6th? Not really because this race was mine, I had the same feelings I had at the DU crit. but I just didn't execute to the line this time. Well at least I have accumulated a few more upgrade points towards my goal of racing with the big boys (Pros) and most importantly I have all my skin. Not a bad weekend but a lot of work in the next couple of weeks to get ready for Deer Trail road race. Some pics from the Crit.

Me Rockin' On!


Me Drafting


Me Attacking!

Yeah I taught him those moves!

My little nephew Luke and I kicking it at the Crush game a couple of weeks ago. The kid can dance.

Need a good laugh, check out Human Tetris and Binocular Soccer!

Expect The Unexpected

The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable 

by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

If you know me well you know that I have a short attention span when it comings to reading.  A magazine article is a stretch.  Well a friend of mine mentioned this book and the theory behind it and well I'm hooked.  A must read.

2 Races in 1 Day....

yup that's what I did and boy did it hurt. I raced Koppenberg in the morning and right afterwards drove down to Golden, CO to race the Colorado School of Mines criterium. The Koppenberg was most important to me due to the BAT competition but unfortunately my day came to a halt as I avoided a nasty high speed crash that took out about 10 guys. Luckily I did not go down but I did come to a skidding halt in my biggest gear. As I got back up to speed I could only watch as the guys in front of the crash rode away not losing any speed at all. My teammate Ian made the lead group and finished a strong 13th place. After getting stuck with a mixed group of guys who didn't want to race hard and guys who just talked way too much I ended up dropping all 7 or 8 guys to take 24th place. A bummer for my team because they only score the top 20 guys for BAT points. Legs felt good and the climb wasn't difficult but again I wasn't in the lead group so who knows how hard those guys were throwing down but I wish I did, maybe next time.

The afternoon in crit. was probably one of the hardest, fastest and most technical crit. courses in all of Colorado. That said it was tough from the beginning.  I  pre-rode the course and man was I in for it. I was the only guy who came from the other race so these guys with fresh legs I knew were going to make it hurt that much more. I love racing and to me it's the best way to really get in shape so I had a lot of fun even though I got lapped and was pulled after 45 minutes of suffering. This is all setting me up for Deer Trail April 26th, that's the really big race in my head so just need to keep chugging away.

Huge props go to my brother Michael and my sister-n-law Lacey who came to both races and cheered me on with every grueling minute. Michael will be racing soon and is training hard for Deer Trail so I think watching me race motivates him. We had huge Cheeseburgers at Capital Grill in downtown Golden to cap off a great day of racing. I came home with all my skin so I guess that's kind of a win? More to come...

We've got a new little fella in town...

and his name is Brody Bender.  Karina and Brody are doing great and I'm sure Brian's 9 months of diaper training will pay off. Brian is a great friend and teammate of mine, we've spent many hours on the bike together, not enough beers together yet lots of racing together.  Karina is always at the races but now with little Brody we'll have a slightly bigger cheering section. Can't wait!

Game OFF...Game ON!

Well, Koppenberg race is back on and has been set for this Sunday.  This is the first BAR/BAT competition which BAR stands for Best All-around Rider and BAT stands for Best All-around Team. We are primarily looking to win BAT for 2008 and go back to our winning ways of 2006 when we took top honors.  I finished 5th in BAR back in 2006 so that might be a little side objective for me but this year is really ALL about the team. Other teams have seen us out there training and throwing down so I'm excited to slap-on this purple kit with a bunch of teammates and do it when it counts. The weather looks good leading up to Sunday so I'm guessing for a super fast and fierce race. I can't wait!!!