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.

Getting Dirty

Oh look, I have some blog catching up to do again...  I'll start with the clean stuff.  After Cascade I did some resting.  Before I knew it though I was off to the Tour of Elkgrove in Chicago for three days of UCI sanctioned stage racing.  That just means that there were some big time bike racing teams there.  The race was super cool with all three days taking place in Elk Grove Village, a suburb of Chi-City that seemed to be one large well groomed American-Dream of a neighborhood.  The road race was 10 laps of a circuit that had 26 corners per lap.  That is 260 corners in just a hair over 3 hours!  That turned out to be a lot of hard accelerations following those big time bike racers around.  Just what I needed to get ready for cyclocross season right?

After getting home from Elk Grove I was looking for a bit of an adventure.  So what better adventure than three days of mountain biking and camping out of the Vanagon with some bros?  Alright so this is shaping up to be a rather dirty adventure...  First I took a ferry boat with Ian Terry over to Winger's house.  I sure was glad that I was only taking this boat for recreational purposes.  A certain few HB team members ride on these boats to nearly every bike race that we attend and sometimes even for work!  That is insane.

Thankfully once we picked up Winger, some sort of cartoon character was able to keep us entertained with a Ukelele from the back seat.

We rode some awesome trails a bit south of Sequim.  The Gold Creek and Lower Dungeness trails if you are familiar with the area.  Green stuff and big trees are good for you.

wingerstudios.com

After an awesome day on the trails we set up camp, ate good food, made a fire, and had 'smores.  Just the usual camping things right.  But then...  There was the Jiffy Pop which we had purchased.  Jiffy Pop seems like such a great idea, but in reality it rarely ever actually works.  Most often it just gets really really burnt and popcorn is probably one of the worst things to eat when it has been burnt.  I read the instructions which specifically said not to cook this popcorn-in-a-pie-plate product over an open fire.  Since our camp stove had long been put away though, I said "whatever" Jiffy Pop lawyers!  I went for it and I cooked that Jiffy Pop so well!  Below we have both the cooking process and the celebratory eating captured by Ian Terry.

After many more camp fire songs it was time for bed.  Winger tried desperately to trick me into cuddling with him by saying that this was a 3-person tent.

I opted for the Vanagon instead and it proved to be quite comfortable. 

All in all it was an awesome weekend filled with three days of mountain biking and many other good times. Getting dirty on the way to transitioning into the cross season.  I'm super stoked to race bikes right now!

July: Delta, Boise, Cascade

I promise my blog isn't dead, it was just resting okay... For more than a month... I guess that is probably considered hibernation?  But perhaps it's better this way because I can spare you all of the boring details of the last month and just give you a months worth of highlights

So after last month's tail safari on the way home for Augusta I did a little bit of resting. (Is it good or bad that I just had to look at my google calendar to see what I've done in the last month?)  Then after resting was the Tour de Delta in Vancouver, BC.  Always a good race and it didn't dissapoint this year. Thanks to Winger's grandparents for hosting us and to these guys for entertaining me on a morning spin through scenic North Vancouver.

Next up was a little drive to Boise with Ian and my new found teammate, Cody Campbell.  Cody is Canadian, so it was natural that we found him after Delta.  Supposedly Cody has been on the team all year, but since I didn't race San Dimas or travel with the Canadian National team to Belgium (those are things that Cody did) I didn't know.  I'm really glad we have him around now though.  Here is a picture taken on the way to Boise.  It's like we are getting ready for a bike race, but really we were just going for a little spin to break up the drive.  Either that or we are 3 homeless dudes living out of a van.

Boise was a pretty cool place to hang out.  Unfortunately the crit didn't yield any great results for us.  But I'd heard that there was another crit less than one week away, so I kept my head up.  Though I soon learned that this crit was deep into some big stage race called Cascade and that getting there would be somewhat challenging.  I'll break down the Cascade from my perspective:

Prologue: 19 seconds down isn't going to matter at all for me by the end of the week.
Stage 1: 18 mile climb? Really?  I'll settle for finishing in the largest group on the road, 16min down.
Stage 2: Another TT? Really?  I wasn't last, but was really far from 1st.
Stage 3: Only the top 150 riders after this stage get to do the crit!  Why does this race start with a 10mile climb?  Woa this is hard, imma be chasing back through the cars for a while when we get to the top of this.  Ah ya this finish climb seems somewhat easier, imma totally win this gruppetto, top 100 on the stage.
Stage 4:  I made it to the next crit! Here is is!  I rode near the front all night, but not close enough to make the break.  I did manage to snag a $200 prime though and finished 33rd on the stage.  Little did I know there were all these skinny dudes "resting" up for some other race the next day.
Stage 5: Woa, hey, is this really hard for anyone else?  We've been going 29mph for more than an hour now guys and its really hot out. Can we slow down? No?  Okay well I'm going to have to slow down now, see ya later Cascade Classic.

So Cascade was tough, but a great experience for me.  Hanging out in Bend is always a pleasure too.  The wildlife really enjoy Hammer Nutrition products in Central Oregon, I'm glad HB Cycling could help out.  Now it's time for some local racing

Tails of Traveling

I'd like to share with you some tails of my travels through the Chicago Midway airport on the way home from Nationals.  Yes. I meant tails, not tales.  Behold these majestic man-tails that I so cleverly captured all within one hour of each other in the windy city:

This is the man-tail is free and loose.  Only restrained at one point to keep this man from looking completely like a woman.  Although with hair groomed as well as this a mistake could still be made from afar.

No, this man is not actually wearing an animal with a long bushy tail on his head.  He is sporting the incredibly rare man-dread-tail.  Notice how he not only achieves great length through the dread process, but also impressive girth and weight.  This tail could probably be used as a weapon to fight off chupacabras and/or terrorists if need be.

This fellow might be new to the ponytail game.  He isn't really sure if he is ready to rock the man-tail, yet somehow he ended up with long hair that was getting in the way.  Rather than let it be free and loose like in the first example he opts for a simple braid.  This keeps his locks in check, yet might also make us question his gender.  This man should make a decision about his mane ASAP.

I've got one question about these men though...  Is it necessary to accompany your man-tail with some sort of strange hat?  I'm not sure if there is any significance here.  But I've got one more tail to share, also from Chicago.  Behold:

 I'll just let you judge this one for yourself.  But imagine following him onto an airplane and watching him tuck his tail in from the aisle when he reaches his seat.  I settled on humming this tune.