No racing this past weekend for me. I made the decision to save my money and basically just drive around north GA and watch some of the best bike racing you could possible watch in one weekend. On Saturday I drove to the mountains to watch stage 6 of the Tour De Georgia. The riders in the tour were sent over what are probably the two toughest climbs in the southeast! The stage started off in Athens and made a 128 mile journey to Brasstown Bald, the highest peak in Georgia. This was one of the few times that the state opens the road for anyone. Typically the road up to the peak of Brasstown is closed off, but they made an exception for the race promoters so they could torture everyone!
I arrived to the mountains and caught the riders as they were coming off the backside of Hogpen, making their way over to young-harris for the sprint points. Two guys made their way off the front by that point and the postal boys were up at the front putting down some tempo to try and rope them in. After the cops let the road open up a sea of cars headed down Ga-180 over to brasstown. To get to the base of Brass you have to head up Jaxx Gap because brass actually sits at the base of it. When I finally got over there I seriously could not believe how many people were there. Literally from the base of Jaxx up to the top and back down the other side of jaxx there was NOTHING but cars. I ended up parking about 2 miles down the backside of Jaxx and ran with a friend to the base of Brass. We met up with some friends then walked up to the spot where the road first started to steepen up a bit. After standing around for a while and being harassed by a couple cops the first pack finally came through. ALL the big name climbers were in the pack together while postal was setting the pace. Apparently Caesar attacked right out of our site because he was with the group when we saw him. The second group that was riding together was basically all the sprinters. A cop stopped and told us before they got to us to tell us that "super maaaaario is in next pack". I never thought I'd hear the day when a GSP (ga state patrol) officer would be saying "super mario".

I'm out of time right now, gotta go to my next class, when that class is finished I'll post more up later because I've got a LOT more to tell!!!!

This weekend I had a lot of racing to do. The weekend started off bright and early Saturday morning with me speeding down the back roads through Clarke Co. Ga. to get to the SEC collegiate race (i was running late). When I finally got there I went straight to the registration table and signed up for the B road race all the while checking out the mile long line for the ONLY portapottie the guys n gals at UGA decided to get for the race. I was not happy b/c I REALLY needed to use the portapottie but knew if I waited in the line I was going to miss the start of the race. After picking up my # I ran back to my car to suit up and headed over to the line. Ron, one of our local uscf officials, gave us the low down on the race and off we went. The Lees-Mcrae boys went balls out right off the line, but we were all expecting that b/c they've done it pretty much every race so far and it wasn't long before they chilled out and the paced backed off a bit. The course was a lot of fun but tough. It was a 7 mile loop that lead us out through a series of 4 short steep climbs then rolled around for a bit to short climb, then off to the short steep finishing climb. We did 6 laps of that and each time up that little finishing climb pecked away at our legs. Nothing really special went down on Saturday for me, to be honest I didn't feel really all that great. My legs were still a little tired from all the stuff I'd done during the week so I decided to just roll with the pack and finished in the field. After the race a teammate of mine who races on the A team, his girlfriend, and myself all went out to eat. We decided to eat at Barburritos, which is like moe's i guess on a level but much better. From there we all went and got ice cream, mmmmmmmm ice cream, it was awesome! I had some flavor called wacky waffle cone but the guy working there fucked up when I told him I wanted more and scooped up some of the cheesecake flavored ice cream. Drove home immediately after that to go and clean up and get ready for my mountain bike race the next day in Clemson, SC.

Thankfully Clemson wasn't to far of a drive so i got o stay at home and not have to wake up super early. I got up at 8, loaded up, and headed out the door to make the 2 hour drive. Got there with plenty of time to do whatever the hell I wanted to. First thing I did while it was still fresh on my memory was go had over my hard earned money to the "nice" people of USA cycling. Sat around a while in the shade and watch the sport racers make their way around the course. THe expert/semipro/pro 19-29 shot off about 15 minutes late. We were sent up the finishing climb to kinda spread us out on the first lap before the single track. the only thing that i think did any spreading was the large cloud of dust that was shot up the second we hit the trail! I couldn't see a damn thing and held back a bit to prevent cobbering anyone while trying to push it and gaining some positions. Got up to the top of the hill and made my way into the single track in the rear of the group. The section of trail after that was fast and tight so was a bit hard to really pass anyone and the one person in front of me for a while everytime i went to pass him he'd gas it. the entire first lap he did this and there weren't to many places to pass so the entire first lap i was stuck behind this guy. i lost a lot of time behind him and tried to do what i could to gain it back. the second lap i rode a bit faster but the dust and heat were finally getting to me. it was 90 degrees for the race and it hasn't been that hot here in a while! each lap on the long ridge section i made up a lot of time on ppl. it was basically just a gentle rolling area with a few right hand turns that required you to come accelerating hard out of. each lap on that section i caught and passed a few ppl and tried to use that section to the best of my advantage. i caught and passed 2 ppl on the seond lap about midway through and never saw those guys again. going into the last lap i was going to do whatever i could to last in the race. my legs weren't feeling that bad but i wasn't exactly sure how much i had left. i started to push myself a little more because one of my friends started to catch me and i really didn't want him to pass me so i started to push myself more and more. he eventually caught me and i went to move over for him and he started yelling for me to pull him so i gased it and gave it EVERY thing i had. frickin laid it down, haven't ridden that fast on a mtn bike in a while and it felt good to not only go that fast but know that i was capable of going that fast for an extended period of time. after a couple of miles i could start to feel the effects of the tough road race coming into play and backed off and let my friend by me. my legs weren't cramping and didn't feel that bad but it was like i couldn't pull anything out of them anymore. i basically just rode the race out and finished up where i was, in the back HA! this was really the first weekend where i raced both on the mtn bike and on the road on the same weekend and thought that considering that and the fact that i went way to hard on thursday i didn't do that bad.

the twilight and TDG are this week!!!!

Well this is my first post! Seen a bunch of fellow racers use this site, or similar sites, to keep in their sponsors, friends, etc. up to date on what is going on not only in their life but with their race results. Not exactly sure how much I will end up using this but it's a good idea none the less. For those of you who may stumble across this check out a new website dedicated to people who ride IF's and their bikes

Got a decently big race coming up this weekend. The SEC collegiate road championships are being held in Athens, Ga. so it should be a decently rolling course. Supposedly it's going to finish on a steep, short climb. Hopefully i'll be positioned where i won't get bogged down in the field sprint like last weekend before i was taken out at 40.......we'll see how it goes though!