The End of the Beginning

After nearly seven weeks in Europe I'm finally headed home.  I wasn't selected for the Tour de L'Avenir that starts on Sunday, so I'll be back in Seattle instead.  I suppose it's a little bit of a bummer to not be doing the race, but I'm ready to be home.  I've accomplished more during this past Summer than I ever imagined was possible.  I'd already reached a point of satisfaction way back in June with my podium placing in the Nationals road race.  Being invited to race in Europe was a dream come true.  Winning the Tour de Delta was absolutely incredible. 

I've been thinking a lot especially over the past two weeks about all of the success I've had this summer.  As a good friend and supporter wrote to me, "You're living the dream with your eyes wide open."  I really have been living my dreams over the past several months and I'll remember these times forever.  But what happens after you live those dreams?  Life isn't suddenly complete, but I'd never really thought much beyond the dreams which I was reaching for.  This obviously isn't the end though; it's only the beginning.  Over the past couple of weeks I've been able to create new dreams.  On to the next one.

Thanks for following along here over the past two months.  I'm likely to be done blogging for a while.  I've got a little bit of road racing left back in the US.  Next up will be a miniature (in more ways than one) cyclocross season.  Stay tuned HERE for more regular updates if you are so inclined.

I got a jump start on that 'cross season for my last ride in Switzerland.

Schweizland

Life is great, but there haven't been any thrilling individual events to blog about for a while.  This post might turn into sort of a ramble, but if you just want to know what I've been up to feel free to read on.  Otherwise you should probably go back to looking at pictures of people you don't know on facebook.

My stay at Bernina Pass was nice and I handled the altitude better than I was expecting.  I took it easy for a few days after finishing the Tour de Namur.  After some rest I was able to join my teammates for at least some of their riding.  They had all been at altitude for a week before I arrived, so while I wasn't expecting to be riding much with them I was still able to get some pretty decent training in.

Our director, Marcello, evaluates Nate's mini-golf technique on our rest day.

After a week at the top of Bernina we drove for a long time to do a one-day race in Italy called the GP Poggiana.  I was pretty stoked, there were some steep climbs in the middle portion of the race that I figured might suit me well.  The race started out with 55k of flat roads within some large start circuits.  I managed to work my way into the 30 rider breakaway/field split that escaped after 15k of racing.  Going into the first of the big climbs after 65k we had 3.5min on the peloton.  This was real great.  We started up the first of the categorized climbs and I was riding near the front.  This was real great.  We were within 1k from the summit and I was still up front and looking to make a run for some KOM points.  This was real great.  All of the sudden we were at the top and I followed 2 guys that knew where the summit was, so I was 3rd over the top and picked up some KOM points.  This was good.  Then we started descending.  This is where things turned terrible.  Maybe the 3rd or 4th corner was one of those corners that just keeps on cornering a bit more than one expects.  I was going way too fast, didn't make it, and then summersaulted into a ditch.  I thought I was okay and my bike seemed okay so I tried to get going quickly and rejoin the front group.  The problem was this descent was not yet over.  So I rode off the road two more times on the way down for good measure.  When I finally got to the bottom I think I was about a minute behind the lead.  I tried to pedal real hard up the next few hills in hopes of getting back on, but my right hip was complaining about what I'd done to it a few minutes earlier.  That was pretty much it for me. Eventually the peleton caught me and with my reduced pedaling capablilty I was out the back.  I rode back to the start by myself.  I was real sad for about half an hour thinking of what could've been.  Next I realized how I hadn't crashed in a road race in more than a year.  I got over it.

The next day we scrambled out of Italy and back to Switzerland.  The team wasn't headed back to altitude though so I've been graciously hosted by my friend Christian and his family for the past week.  Christian stayed at my house several times for the Starcrossed cyclocross race in the Fall and recently retired from racing.  It's been great to hang out with him and his family this past week.  While I also have tons of fun hanging out with my USA teammates it has been nice to feel a little more like I'm "living" in Europe.  I'll trade a hotel room for a place in a house any day.

Swiss kids play with tractors.  I think that is so cool!

On Wednesday I met up with my teammates for the local Wednesday Night World Championships in Brugg.  Perhaps one of the coolest things about cycling is that nearly every place has some sort of week night racing series in the summer.  Usually the entry fee is very low and it's mostly for fun and training.  Switzerland does it big though.  There was a good sized grand-stand full of spectators that were able to see most of the 1k long course.  The race was run as a sort of points race. I think it was 2pts for the leader of each lap and then every 5 laps or so there was a sprint for 5pts to the winner of that lap.  It was something along those lines at least.  I was stoked to be racing a criterium again, even if the corners were very rounded and without curbs.  The race started fast and I picked up some points where I could without putting any huge efforts in.  Right at the halfway point my teammate Evan Huffman and I both followed an attack by another rider that came immediately after one of the bigger points sprints.  We got a small gap and starting working well together.  The chasers kept us at about 10sec for a few laps until suddenly the elastic snapped and we were half a lap ahead of the field.  Evan was absolutely killing it and spent far more time on the front scooping up well deserved points.  They announced over the loudspeaker that he was in the lead and we just kept on rolling to the finish.  Evan won and I finished 3rd in the points standings.  Our average speed for more than an hour of racing on the flat and fast course was 29.5mph!

The break with Pirmin Lang and Evan Huffman.

Wednesday Night Worlds podium action.  Serious business here in Switzerland.

I've gotten some great training in over the past few days on some of the longer climbs around Christian's house in Tuggen.  I'm feeling good and having a great time.  A week from tomorrow I'll either be starting a big stage race or heading home.  Only time will tell.

Looking down upon the town of Schwyz and the Lake of Lucerne.

Tour de Namur Stages 4 & 5

Stage 4

The elevation profile of this stage made it look pretty burly, especially in the final 50k.  I was hoping the final climbs would force a selection and that a very small group would finish together.  For a nice change the breakaway went within the first 30min of the race.  The race leader’s team began riding tempo at the front and things seemed to be in order.  My teammates did an excellent job of keeping me near the front throughout the first 100k of the race.  It wasn’t to be without any excitement though…  I broke a spoke at the 80k mark and received me first wheel change ever from a race with a caravan.  I got back into the peloton fairly easily and was back in position before the first of the climbs in the final 50k.  There was a small breakaway about a minute ahead, but the entire Omega-Pharma development team was on the front drilling it.  The race was single file for the next 30k.  With 20k to go I followed an attack over the top of the 2^nd to last climb.  We formed a group of 5 riders, 2 of which were on the same time overall as I was and 2 others who were at least interested in riding for the stage win.  We rallied the descent and with 15k remaining our gap was about 15 seconds.  We had about 5k of flat, a small climb, descent, and then about 5k of flat before the finish.  This was a good opportunity and I did my share of the work to keep our gap.  We worked alright together but the peloton brought us back right at the top of the final climb.

The break riding through town with about 10k to go.

Maybe things could have played out differently if I'd waited until the final climb and attacked there?  No regrets though, I gave it a go.  The run into the finish was quite hectic with several crashes in the final 3k.  I was a bit too far back for any real sprinting, but I finished on the same time as the other GC contenders again.

Stage 5

I went to bed last night just thinking of how much opportunity I had.  I was sitting in 7^th overall before the start of the final stage, only 5 seconds back from the race lead.  The course was fairly hilly, but most importantly finished with a 3k climb up to the Citadel de Namur.  I’d researched the course and elevation profiles carefully.  I knew that the final climb wasn’t very steep with an average grade of less than 5% and that the final 1k was nearly flat.  My chances for distancing all of the other GC favorites on the shallow grade weren’t great, but I knew I was certainly going to try.

Signing in for the final stage as the race announcer says over the loudspeaker, "Steve Feesher, le petite Americaun."

The first 60k of the stage was very hard.  There were tons of attacks, but not just from guys looking to make it into the break of the day.  Pretty much all of the other guys in the top 10 overall were attacking within the first hour of the race.  I did what I needed to do in order to mark the big riders, but I tried to conserve as much as possible.  Finally after 60-70k a break of about 10 riders got away and the race became a bit more controlled.  My teammates did an incredible job keeping me out of the wind and near the front until the finale.

Following one of the many attacks towards the beginning on the stage.

The last 30k of the race featured a handful of climbs before dropping down one last time and tackling the finishing climb to the Citadel.  With the breakaway dangling about a minute ahead the pace up those climbs was nuts.  Over the second to last climb I followed an attack that drew out the yellow jersey and one other rider, but we didn’t get too far.  Going in the base of the final climb the leader’s team was drilling it along the river and I was in good position.  We took a hard left onto the climb and the pace didn’t really accelerate like I thought it would.  With the little lull I attacked coming out of the first switch back with a little under 3k remaining.  I opened up a small gap of maybe 5 seconds and kept on pushing.  I gave it everything, but I was caught with 1.5k to go.  I held onto the leader’s group for dear life over the next 500m knowing the final 1k would be flatter.  A group of riders counter-attacked my move and got away for the stage win.  I finished right behind the yellow jersey in a fairly small group.

Finish of the race in front of the Citadel de Namur.

I ended up finishing 6^th overall.   That is a great result and I’m certainly satisfied with it.  I was tied on time with 3^rd overall though and that would have been incredible.  With no time trial in this stage race, the tie was broken by adding up all of our individual stage places with the lower totals coming out ahead.

Tour de Namur Stages 1-3

My apologies that it’s been a while since I’ve updated here.  I could make excuses, but I try to avoid those.  I’ll just tell you that I couldn’t be bothered to blog during the 5-day long Tour de la Province de Namur.  The racing was going well so I conserved energy by limiting myself to 140 characters at a time on Twitter.  Allow me to bring you all up to speed before some delayed race reporting.  I feel like I’ve got some good fitness again and the team has asked me to stay in Europe longer.  After Namur finished I got in a car and drove to Switzerland.  I’m now staying at the top of Bernina Pass, about 7,500 feet high, in the SE corner of Switzerland. I’ve never been this high before in my life with the exception of airplanes.  But there is pretend air on airplanes and also no stairs to walk up leaving you out of breath. There are 5 other riders here doing a little training camp.  On Sunday we will do a one-day race in Italy.  Then after that my future is pretty uncertain.  I might be staying longer and doing some big bike races, or I might be headed home.  I’ll let you know as soon as I know.  Here is part 1 of my report from Namur:

Stage 1

The first stage of any stage race is always a little crazy and this was not exception.  The first hour of racing was fast with lots of attacks, but nothing stuck.  The biggest climb of the day was midway through the race and I hit that in good position.  I followed a guy on the Fuji Test Team and before we knew it we had a small gap to the field.  Then shortly after none other than Kennett Peterson had come across to us.  This being the only “Cat 1” climb of the day I knew the first guy over the top had a good chance of taking the KOM jersey at the end of the stage.  I sprinted for a red polka-dotted sign after we’d been climbing for a while.  That signed turned out to be informing us that the real line for the sprint was still 1000m away.  Then Kennett sprinted for some other white line on the ground.  Then shortly there after that the Fuji guy sprinted for a white line at the ground where a moto official had stopped to watch the proceedings.  He was the true winner and would go on to take the KOM jersey.

Kennett "Catfish" Peterson racing for the Flanders team in red.

What happened next is sort of the important part.  I guess we’d gone up this climb pretty fast, and what was left of the field behind had also gone fast in pursuit of us.  We were left with a group of about 40 riders over the top and down the other side of the climb.  There was some pretty disorganized work to keep us ahead of the main peloton, but soon enough our gap was up to about 2 minutes.  We still had about 75k to the finish so we needed to get a little more organized.  Fast forward through a lot of Belgians yelling, gesturing, and not doing their share of the work.  There was a short steep climb with 20k left in the stage where it split again.  I dug deep to make the split of 16 riders and most everyone worked well to establish our new gap.  Attacking started again with just under 10k left in the stage.  I was feeling good and didn’t want to let anyone get away.  I covered move after move in what turned out to be the hardest finale I’ve ever taken part in.  I think I was a bit gassed for the sprint and too far back.  I finished 11^th on the stage and in a great position for the rest of the race.

Trying to keep the front group moving up a small climb with a ways to go still.

Stage 2

For whatever reason I don’t remember a ton about this stage while writing about it a week after it happened.  Perhaps the most memorable moment was arriving at the race, unzipping my bag, and immediately realizing that I’d forgotten to bring bib shorts.  Real terror and panic!!!  If you don’t race bikes, imagine if you’d shown up to your quarter-final high-school basketball game and forgotten your right hand.  Yes, you are right handed too!  I needed some bibs like you needed your right hand.  One of my teammates had an extra pair, thing is they were size large.  So 40min before the start and the photograph below is where I’m at.

Thankfully with the help of our director I was able to get some slightly smaller plain black shorts before the start.  The feeling of forgetting your shorts is terrible.  Probably almost as bad as forgetting your shoes.  I’m knocking on wood right now though cause I’ve never done that, yet.  Okay, so then the race happened.  I made a huge effort to get across to what I thought was another winning split through some crosswinds with less than 20k to go.  Unfortunately we hit a less windy part of the course and it all came back together.  We finished up a very gradual 2k climb.  I finished somewhere in the 30’s on the same time as the other GC contenders.

Stage 3

This was my favorite stage of the race.  The flattest of all the days, we thought it would probably end in a bunch sprint.  Think again!  There was a rather small climb 25k into the 150k stage that turned the race absolutely upside down.  We went up the climb pretty hard, hard enough to string out the pack.  It was really over the top of the climb where it was windy that things got crazy.  Before I knew it I was rotating through in a lead group of 35 riders with one of my USA teammates, Eamon.  The yellow jersey wearer had been caught out along with a few other fast guys.  Almost immediately we had 2.5 minutes on the chasing field and the group was working well together.  With still 125k to go I did my best to save energy, but also not let the group slow down much.  The gap grew a little bit more as we rode through head or head crosswinds for most of the day.  By the time we reached the 20k finish circuit I knew the damage was done and our group would go all the way to the finish.  There were some attacks in the last 15k, but nothing gained too much ground and the Rabobank Off-Road team seemed in control of the group. I was really looking forward to giving the finish a go.  There were several turns in the final kilometer and I thought my chances this group were decent.  There was 1 rider off the front by himself by a handful of seconds when we hit 1k to go.  He crashed in a narrow corner with 800m to go and I got shuffled back a bit too far as we navigated around him and his bike.  Eamon tried his best to move me back up, but I had to do most of my sprinting to close a small gap with 600m to go.  I think I finished 11^th on the stage again.  Great day for my GC position, moving me into 6^th overall.  I was a bit proud of myself for riding so well in the wind today as well.  I felt like I’d really used the skills I’ve learned over the past several weeks in regards to positioning and recognizing the key moments of the race.

Take a moment and look at everything going on in this photo.  They guy(s) with the yellow flag ride ahead on motorcycles and stop in order to signal turns or traffic furniture.  If you can find me in this picture you'll see there is no way my bike is pointed towards the apex of that corner.  I made my own apex on the sidewalk. I've learned some things the Belgian way.

Surprise!

On Sunday I raced another kermesse, but this one had 153 starters!  My goal before the race was to make it into the winning breakaway.  Mission accomplished!!!  I only finished 8th from the break of 12 riders which sounds not so great.  I was very pleased to finally make it into the right move and I just didn't have enough speed in the very fast tailwind finish.  After a lot of missing the break, making it was a big success in my book.  One step at a time.

Riding in the break.

That's it and that's all for the kermesse racing though, because now we've moved into a small castle a ways South of Namur, Belgium.  This is where we will stay for the Tour de Namur which is a 5-day stage race beginning tomorrow.

The house we are staying in has 32 beds.  This must be what medieval kings feel like.  Except they didn't have Muesli with chocolate. Suckers.

Last night we went out to dinner.  They speak French rather than Dutch/Flemish in this region of Belgium.  Either way I couldn't truly read the ingredients on the pizza menu.  So when they offered the "Surprise" pizza as a choice I went all in.  The anticipation after ordering this was incredible, especially after repeated winks from the waiter.  This was either going to be great, or I was going to get a pizza with a whole fish on top of it.

Today we did another incredible ride brought to us by Garmin Connect and the Edge 500 mapping abilities.  Just map something out and follow the black line on the little screen that sits on your handlebars.

There are a few things going on in the photo above that I took in Dinant, Belgium, located on the River Meuse.  I'm standing on a bridge over the river, so you might have to imagine just how majestic this place is.  Front and center is the Collegiate Church of Notre-Dame which was first built in 1227!  Hard to see in my photo, but sitting atop that cliff is the fortified Citadel, first built in the 11th century to control the river valley.  That is a lot of heavy rocks being moved without any bulldozers and cranes.

Were you wondering how the "Surprise" pizza came out?  I really wanted to try and share with you the same excitement I had while waiting for my food last night.  It turned out to have fairly normal pizza ingredients inside: mashed up tomatoes, cheese, meats, peppers, artichoke hearts, onions, olives, and overall goodness.  Note that I said ingredients, not toppings.  This pizza had a roof, so you couldn't see what was inside! Surprise!

Meeting the Cobbles

On Thursday we got two do a one-day race called Reningelst.  There were 26 teams of 6 riders each and the race was 14 laps of a circuit to make 170k in total.  The weather was hot, the circuit was mostly flat and it wasn't too windy.  The race started off pretty fast and I slipped into the first move of the day of about 10 guys.  We were working alright together, but it wasn't the right group and didn't get far, getting caught within 10k.  Not long after the real break of 12 guys went and we missed the move completely.  They quickly got 1min and 30sec on the pack, but didn't seem to get much farther up than that for lap after lap.  The pace was fast, but nothing crazy.  Then halfway through the race a group of 21 guys just rolled off the front of the peloton on one of the narrow farm road sections.  It wasn't windy and it wasn't a hard attack.  Just the wrong 3-4 guys were in a row next to each other across the narrow road and I guess couldn't be bothered to match the slightly higher pace of those guys in front.  The group quickly built a huge lead and was well out of sight.  I was kicking myself pretty hard for missing that.  I thought the race was at a fairly stable point, but if I've learned anything here there is no stable point in any of these races here.  If you want to succeed you need to ride very close to the front, at all times.  I was 3rd in the bunch sprint and I think that landed me in 36th place.  That doesn't sound terrible, but I felt a little frustrated having missed out on the break and the split that followed.  I'm wanting a lot more.

Greatness which I enjoyed today.

Fast forward to today and let me tell you about an incredible bike ride!  First of all, if you've got a Garmin Edge 500 and you've never used the feature that allows you to upload a route, do it. Now. Even if you are at home, make a route with roads you've never been on, it's great.  This is my fifth trip to Belgium, but the first for road racing.  My past trips were for cyclocross racing with minimal for training rides of any great length while here.  Belgian cycling is most famous for the Spring classics and races like the Tour of Flanders.  Today I had the chance to ride a few of the cobbled climbs from those famous races. 

The view from the top of the Paterberg.  I had to stop for snacks after this climb that is only 360m long, but cobbled with an average grade of 12.9%.  As you can see the weather was beautiful in Belgium today.

I rode 3 hrs total and did 3 cobbled climbs.  The Tour of Flanders takes around 6 hours and includes upwards of 15 cobbled climbs.  First we rode the Oude Kwaremont, next the Paterberg and then the Koppenberg.  Each one on its own was completely shocking.  I pedaled as hard as I could, to make it to the top.  My body was rattled and my hands aching after hitting each of these climbs with only an hour in our legs.  I cannot even begin to imagine actually racing anyone up these climbs, let a lone after 5 hours of racing.  Seriously, I felt like I needed a full suspension mountain bike.  Those things are rough!

Beautiful riding just outside of Oudenaarde.

Next up I've got a few more days of training and maybe another kermesse before starting the Tour de Namur on August 1st.

Some Success at the Kermesse

I'm happy to say that life in Belgium has improved in many ways since my last post.  I may have been a little bit sad of myself (opposite of this) after getting sick, getting crushed at Liege, and many days of grey weather in Belgium.  So I'll get you up to speed with the good happenings.

1. The temperature has been hovering around 80F with sun for the last several days.  This is much improved over the previous 63F with light rain that happened for the 10 days or so before that.  Also convenient is that the country of Belgium, Belgian bike racers included, begin to melt at or around 79F.  Also Belgian cycling has not yet discovered ice socks.  The preferred heat combativity method here is a cold sponge dangled on a string in the feedzone.  I enjoy watching the sponge hand up and the sponge bath that quickly follows at 30mph while I just hang out in my Defeet UnD Ice baselayer and drink some water.

2. I rested a bit, can eat normally again, and got a massage.

3. This one is the rest of the blog post about the kermesse in Lichtervelde that I raced yesterday:

I think I'm finally starting to get the hang of these kermesse things!  The course in Lichtervelde (about 12k from our house in Izegem) was about half city streets and half farm roads.  The last corner was narrow, featured some road construction and was less than 200m from the finish line.  This was good.  The race was 18 laps of a 6.4k loop.  There was a prime of 15 Euros available at the line every lap except the first one!  The field was small though with only 36 riders ----> several potential starters may have melted on the way to the race.

Start line action.  The rider in black and orange I'm chatting with is a fellow USA U23 rider named Jos.

We rode the first 1.9 laps without much happening.  I was real ready for the first prime sprint after that though.  I went through the final turn real fast in second wheel and did a minimal amount of sprinting to pocket my first 15 Euros.  It was as if the melting Belgians had never gone through the last corner of a criterium before.  Wait, that is true, they don't really have criteriums here and the amount of braking into corners makes that apparent.

Then we went around for another lap and still no breakaways had stuck.  So I did what I just told you about again.  With 30 Euros in my pocket in less than 30 minutes I pretty much already considered this race a success.  For good measure I did the same thing for the 3rd prime as well.  At this point I think the Belgian riders were starting to get a bit frustrated.  Understandable... I was taking all their money.  As I attempted number 4 in a row the rider in front of me grabbed his brakes real hard in the exit of the final corner.  I think this was his desperate and shady attempt to create a gap to me rather than cause me to crash.  Either way I still sprinted around him and kept the streak alive.  Then after another lap I won the 5th prime in row.  

At this point I was ready to make it rain, in Euros.  I was also getting fairly tired though and the remaining Belgians who hadn't melted were riding against me as much as possible.  If attacks went there was a lot of looking at me to accelerate and/or chase it down which was quite understandable.  Perhaps I'd shown my cards a bit early, but at least had some cash in my pocket.  Jos and I did our best to ride near the front and follow the attacks, but right around the midway point of the race a group of 6 got away without us and built a big gap quickly.  We and several others gave chase in the pack, but they were pretty clearly gone.  We rolled around and there were lots of attacks and the main group got whittled down a bit before the finish, but we were far from catching the break.  Jos offered and gave me a great leadout for the field sprint.  I botched it a little bit though when I overcooked the last corner and ended up a bit too far into the construction zone with 150m to go.  I lost a lot of speed and only managed 2nd in the field sprint, 8th place on the day.

The field sprint for 7th place.

Overall it was a great race though and I'm very pleased to have some good legs again.  Sure I could have raced it a bit differently and maybe gotten a better end result, but I had a lot of fun.  Tomorrow we have a longer one-day race as a full team starting in Ieper, Belgium.  I'm quite excited for that and I'll let you know how it goes!

Maastricht

While the other guys were finishing up the rest of the Tour de Liege I did a little bit of exploring to the city of Maastricht.  Not only was Maastricht supposed to be a neat city, but it is also in The Netherlands and not Belgium so adding another country to my bike ride for the day was especially appealing.  I knew that there would be no official border crossing with gates and such between the two countries, but I was surprised that there was literally nothing indicating that I'd entered another country.  There was no sign welcoming me to Holland, so perhaps I was not welcome there?  Either way I stayed for a bit and made my way around the city taking pictures of things I thought were cool.

 

First up is some moped action.  I was a bit surprised to see them on the bike paths, but they were pretty slow and courteous.  It is pretty hard to see in the photo, but the woman who just made the inside pass in that left turn is riding a scooter made to look like a Harley!

The bike paths in Maastricht were quite nice, allowing me to putter along looking every which way without being in too much danger of traffic.  Every major street had a path like this one separated from the road.

Vrijthof Square

City Hall

The Provincal Government Buildings which sit over the Meuse River.  The Maastricht Treaty was signed here in 1992, creating the European Union.

The Saint Servitius Bridge

There was a sign letting me know I'd returned to Flanders, the Flemish speaking region of Belgium, on my way back.  There was also a sign after this announcing I was now in Belgium, but it's main purpose was to let drivers know what the speed limits were.  Where is the welcoming Europe?!

Tour de Liege

I made it to the start of the Tour de Liege, but maybe not in the best shape.  My stomach still wasn't 100% and I hadn't been able to eat much the last several days.  I was excited to race though and wanted to give it a go.  There were 33 teams of 6 riders each making a 198 rider field.  That isn't just a big field, but also a lot of teams!

Bikes ready to go before the start. Note the new Instagram filter, I call it: TintedvanWindow

The race started off fast, very fast!  I tried my best to stay in the top half of the field, but during the first 20k I honestly felt like I'd never raced before.  There were guys passing everywhere; sidewalks, bike paths, roundabouts, speed bumps, etc.  It was insanity, or so I thought at the time.  I felt like I had settled into things after that initial shock and I even worked my way up to the front on the first climb of the day.  I followed some attacks over the top, but nothing notable stuck.  I thought I was even feeling pretty good so I tried to just ride towards the front in anticipation for the bigger climbs to come later in the stage.  We were still going through all sorts of roundabouts and navigating other traffic furniture, but I was already much more comfortable and learning a lot.

The short story is that more racing happened over the next 1.5hrs including one hard hill followed by a bit of cross wind over the top.  It was a little ways after this at about the 85k mark that I realized I was in big trouble.  My stomach was still bad and I hadn't been able to eat much at all in the first 2hrs of racing.  I got dropped on the smallest of rises, my body simply empty with nothing left to give.  I think I got down about 300 calories in 3hrs of racing.  I pedaled slowly for what seemed like an hour, still determined to make it to the finish.  Eventually a group of about 30 riders caught me as we were approaching the finishing circuits.  They'd been dropped earlier on that hard hill and crosswind section and I was glad to see them at this point.  We got to to the finish circuits just in time to see the leaders screaming by for their final laps.  The officials pulled us and gave us what races in the US would call a pro-rated time - meaning we were far down in the results, but allowed to start the next day.  

Right about now I'd like to put in a picture of me racing.  None exist that I know of.  So instead I'll just tell you about the shower here at the hotel outside of Liege.  See below.  There is Caesar.  He looks at you while you shower.

The second stage was to be fairly flat for the first 80k and then hit some real climbs.  Namely the Mur de Huy, as featured at the finish of Fleche Wallonne.  The race still started off fast though with lots of attacks and no breaks getting away until after about 65k.  There was one wicked crosswind section.  I was way too far back and ended up in the the third echelon.  I was surprised how long everyone just rode strung out in the gutter before deciding to form echelons.  I could see the end of this straight road only 3-4k away so I didn't panic much, even if I had panicked I wouldn't really have been able to have done anything about it.  I was too far back, ended up in the third group, and just took my turn riding in the group to get us back up to the front when things calmed down a few minutes later.  I learned more in those 10 minutes of bike racing than I've learned in a long time.

I'd been feeling pretty tired all throughout the first hour of racing and struggling to stay up front.  I knew I needed to move up around the 70km mark before we hit the Mur de Huy, but I just didn't have the legs.  I was on the back and swinging after only 75k of racing and when we hit the base of the Mur at 80k I was messed up.  I was passing guys going up the hill, but the guys I passed were going so slowly they must have had to stop and walk shortly after I passed them.  That hill is steep!!!  I can't imagine racing up that after 5 hours to finish a one-day classic as in Fleche Wallonne.  I made it to the top, but way off the back and empty again.  With the front of the race long gone I pulled out in the feedzone.  It's not a good feeling to just pull the plug, but I think my inadequate nutrition of the past few days had really caught up with me.

So here's to hoping that a couple days of rest and eating full meals again will have me back on my feet.  I promise to fix the picture to word ratio as well.

Kermessy

On Saturday I raced a kermesse in the town of Ledegem.  I had three goals: 1. Have fun 2. Learn as much as possible 3. Get some good training in. The loop was about 8k long and we were to do 16 laps.  For you Seattle area racers, imagine if they put an extended version of the Kirkland crit course together with the Skagit Flats circuit race course.  Oh, and they also cut down that single right lane you are allowed to use on the Skagit course to about half that width.  For you non-Seattle racers, about 2k of the circuit wove its way through town and the rest took place on some narrow and windy farm roads.  This picture isn't from the kermesse, but I rode this the other day and lots of roads around here look like this.

There were only 46 starters, which is a bit on the small side for these races.  The first lap was tough, but the second lap was absolutely ballistic through the crosswind sections.  By the end of the second lap I was in the third group on the road wondering how these guys could possibly sustain this pace for the rest of the race.  Things calmed down a little bit, my group turned into the second group on the road and we were working reasonably well together.  We caught some of the guys that blew themselves out of the front group, but there were still 14 guys in the front group which was making much better progress than my group was.

The officials determined that eventually the lead group would lap us, so out of the kindness of their hearts they rang the bell for us early and shouted "laatste ronde".  I was excited and rode real hard as our group split up through the wind.  I managed 2nd place from my group and was given 16th on the day.  Good enough for 10 Euros in prize money!  While it was a bit of a bummer not to complete the full distance I think I learned a lot and got some good practice riding in the wind.

I thought these guys below were my friends.  It turns out we are worst enemies though.  I spent all day yesterday in bed unable to keep any food down.  My leading theory regarding the cause of this is that my former friends have poor hygiene and while I thought I was racing on a road the other day, I may have been racing through their restroom.

So, to all the cows in Belgium that are far too muscular to be eating just grass, screw you.  Good news is that I'm really light now!  I've been trying to eat a lot of snacks today and so far that is going okay.  Tomorrow we start the 5-day Tour de la Province de Liege, which I will never again call by its full name because what are they trying to prove?  Hopefully I'm able to pedal bikes well again in time for the start tomorrow.  For now though I'll leave you with a few photos that don't fit in anywhere else.

City of Ieper

WWI Memorial in Ieper

Blog's not Dead

My blog was totally dead.  Maybe it's not anymore though? It has been 324 days since my last post, or 27,993,600 seconds if you operate in a finer scale of time.  I've had several requests to start blogging again, this can't be because my writing is as fantastic as Ian Crane's or my stories as grand as Kennett Peterson's.  I will admit though that a lot of cool things have been going on in my life that some folks would like to hear about.  Before I can tell you any recent stories though I feel the need to summarize the last 27,993,823 seconds (note how many seconds it has taken me to get this far).  I'd like to do keep this summary as short as possible. So really, please don't mind the gaps.

Based on my last post back in August of 2011 you probably thought that I enjoyed my outdoor adventure so much I just moved off the grid and into the woods.  Unless you follow me on twitter. That is a hyperlink for a reason...  Instead I finished off the road season with some fun local racing and got ready for some cyclocross racing.

My 'cross season started in September with one last year as a U23 rider with the Rad Racing program.  I didn't travel much at all as I was going to school and wanted to put a lot of energy into the 2012 road season.  I took as much time as I could to hang out with some of the younger Rad Racers throughout the 'cross season.  We had a great time.  I won a few races, won both the MFG and Seattle Cyclocross series overall titles.  I really like this photo from DBC Photo so check it out.  

With some big pressure school, I kept the 'cross season pretty low pressure.  I did feel the need to test myself a little bit so I went down to LA for a UCI race weekend at the beginning of December and came away with my best UCI cross results to date with 6th and 8th place finishes.  That was the true end of my cross season.  I took a week off the bike in an attempt to avoid being completely crushed by some finals at school.  I still went down to Bend, OR though and raced one day so that this could happen.

With my cyclocross season ending much sooner than any time recently I took a little break.  I even got to go on a real deal vacation for a week with my family in Mexico.  Then I  did some skate skiing and started preparing for the upcoming road season.  In January HB had our first team get together, it was grand. #heeleyswag #peacoatswag

 

Then I bought this car, which I considered a fairly large step out of the many towards adulthood.

The Spring road racing season started in earnest and I was feeling better than I ever had before in March.  Still not crushing it though considering that most of my competitors and nemeses had begun their training long before New Years.  I kept doing my thing knowing that my fitness would come when I'd planned for it to come.  I've already done a lot of racing this year and had some notable results. I finished 5th in the U23 Nationals road race!

Nationals was swell.  I was thrilled, but knew that I was ready to keep on giving it for the next month.  Last weekend I took the biggest win of my career in the final stage of the Tour de Delta, also coming away with the overall win!  It was a huge team effort with my teammates riding the front for me all day.  I still can't really even put it all into words, but below is my favorite photo, ever.

 

 

Photo: Greg Descantes

 

Now I'm in Belgium to race with the U23 National Team for the next several weeks.  To sum things up I've been literally living my dreams this year.  I landed in Belgium a few days ago and did my first kermesse today.  I'll write a little bit about that soon.  We start a 5-day stage race in the Liege region on Tuesday and I hope to provide regular updates throughout my stay here.