Chilling at the Squrriel nest in bama. Course looks good. About 50/50 pavement and trail. Not too hot. Hoping for a top 20?? Maybe? I dont race until 3. Later.

Welcome to the USA!

Sorry folks, I didn't mean to keep you in suspense. I made it back. But you might have already known that from my Brevard post. That is if you read the Brevard website.

So, it took forever but I finally made back into the US of A. Pretty happy not to struggle with ordering food or finding the bathroom or other simple tasks. I made a mental note to improve my language skills and stop being so ignorant. A big eye opener as I figured it would be. So that's good, I don't know about me but the parents get really excited when I start talking intellectually.

I also will say; that even though I couldn't really understand any of what they were saying, the Frankfurt Airport has some of the most attractive airline representatives that I have ever encountered. Germans are smart, use the most attractive people you can find for customer service. So when they charge you 300 Euro for your bike, you bat your eyes at them instead of the price. FYI and a fun, interesting side note for you travelers.

Saturday was the hill climb, wait I can't even remember if I did a report on that. OH ya, I did. My B. So Sunday we drove up to someplace where I don't remember the name. Hang on, Solingen Germany, that's it. So we drove up, kitted up, and headed out for a lap. It was a pretty fun course, nothing too steep, which I like. And a downhill start. They started the U23 riders with the Pros but they separated the classes for awards. E-tan and I sunk up to the front after we got called up at the back. I got a good start in about 5th and sat in on the descent. Some pro guy just launched off the front and the 2nd place guy started chasing him so that left me with Ethan and some other dude who we thought was a U23. The three of us rode together for most of the race until the other guy attacked and dropped us. We started chasing and Ethan ended up dropping me and another two pros passed me. To make a long story short, the guy who we thought was a U23 guy was actually a Pro so Ethan won it and I got second. Pretty rad.

Mitch was pretty bummed because he just missed out on a podium in 4th for the second time. But he probably made the most amount of money from his 4th at the hill climb. Trevor and Colin both had good races too. Stephen crashed and was bummed and Kevin was burnt out and happy to be going back to the states.

So what am I doing now? Just chilling at the house in Ga trying nail down everything I need to do before summer starts. I can't really tell you my plans for the rest of summer because I'm going to have to start doing secret training. But I will be at the Bump and Grind this weekend hopefully running it wide open. For you 828 residents I am coming up there next weekend and I'm bringing some presents too. So keep your eyes open.

I add some pictures too since I can finally up load them in a reasonable amount of time. Late, T.


Busy packing bikes after a long day.


Chilling at the airport and trading stories.


Podium shot.


Apparently they don't use pants in Germany.

Road to Up

Yeah ok, hill climbs suck. A ton. I don't really like them, well time trials might be better than mass start hill climbs but neither are really much fun.

Probably the worst race so far over here, got a good start and jumped on the back of the leaders and then got popped on a super super steep climb right off the start. Got back on before we hit the gravel. 11.5K climb, 2K on pavement, rest on gravel roads. And then they accelerated just as I got on. Slipped back through the groups until I rode with Stephen and Trevor. We tried to attack another dude since we had three vs. one but didn't really work as we were pegged. Well I think Stephen got him in the end. Mitch was pinned and got 4th and a ton of money. They said they were going to mail it to him. Awesome, sucks fo you. I finished just outside the top 20. Bum-er.

Tomorrow is really early get up to drive up to the race. Don't know much about the course but it's probably pretty flat and about 4 or 5K long. We do like 6 laps. So a fairly short race. It's pretty early in the day (1:20 start time) so we should have plenty of time to pack up and check out Frankfurt. Hopefully.

Well, it's been sweet over here, but I want to get back and start hanging out again. Or not as I have different plans....secret plans.

I'll write some more as soon as I can. Later Uh-merica.

The Start of the End

So here it is. The last weekend over in Germany. It's been pretty freaking sweet and only three weeks long. Well not even that either. Oh well, this weekend is going to be pinned. Saturday is a late start with a hill climb at 3 this afternoon. It's about an hour away and it's a mass start race. Awesome. I want to do better in Sunday's Bundlesgia race. After the race today we drive back and pack up and clean the rooms. Sunday we're out of here at 6:30 and driving four hours to the Bundlesgia race. That is another afternoon race at 3 or 4 tomorrow. Then we are staying up at the race and packing the bikes before getting up and shuttling to the airport on Monday. Hopefully nothing goes bad and I'll be back home around 12 Monday night. Sick. And then the real world comes back. Bummer.

It's been some awesome times over here. The riding's pretty good, the guys are awesome to hang out with, and the racing is insanely hard. Although I'm going to miss it, it will be nice to be back. It's not the same as going to a camp in the states or something, you are freaking lonely over here. It's just a bunch of people who don't speak English or very little.

Haha, I'm just thinking about tomorrow. About 24 hours from now my boys will be just about back from the 12 hours of Tsali. A super big race for the team and I'm missing it. Not cool, but I'm sure they'll pick up the ropes and throw down for me.

Anyway, not a very interesting post so I guess I'll have to add some pictures. Haha. I'll probably be able to write another one tonight and tell you how the race went today but unless I can get some internet at the airport or hotel the next time I write will be back in Uh-merica. That is if the plane doesn't run out of fuel.

Later nerds,
T

Oh yeah more press, scroll to the very last line.

Midnight Musings

Sup folks of course I forgot to post pictures again. I really don't like to because the internet sucks here so it takes forever to get anything up. I might rememember to do it tomorrow though.

In the meantime, I found some interesting stuff to watch. Sick vid of Bubba triple, triple, triple at the best place to ride in downtown ATL. And a interesting news story brought to you by KKK-wood. Thanks bro.

Dudeeeesss
I found some good stuff here. It's the results from the race we did on Sunday so you can make sure I'm not making stuff up.

Oh yeah I did say I was going to post some pictures but I forgot. Probably tomorrow then but I'm going to take some more first. And if you guys haven't noticed I added the other guy's blogs on the side so check them out. They're awesomeness in a bag, or on the web, or floating in cyber-space or...whatever.

Send IT!!!

Homies, I'm kind of liking this whole time change thing. I can wait until after lunch time to write my blogs because I know none of you are going to be up at 3 in the morning checking your email. How do I know this? There's absolutely nothing to do after we get up except sit on facebook waiting patiently for someone to get on. And I know you won't be online unless you're studying and doing homework or you're one of the those people who tries to talk to people at 3 in the morning completely wasted. I know who you are...

I thought I could talk about the race, but I'm pretty much flat wore out. IF you want to read about the race in depth, check out the post I did for the Brevard Website. It took me forever by the way. I'll even give you the link so you don't have to go search for it.

To make the story short, I pretty much rode the same pace the whole race. Didn't feel good and didn't really feel bad either. Just the same speed. Got a bad start and first lap and missed the "move". I ended up 23rd but if I was like 2 minutes faster then I probably would have been in a big group. And then I could have got a possible 12th place. I guess, I hope. No, that's all theoretical. But the chance was there.

The course was pretty lame, total euro. Crazy start, long gradual climb that pitched up hard for a while and some really muddy spots at the top. The downhill was pretty lame, the DH'ers used the same course and made it really choppy. It was pretty freaking rough in some places, some big wheel size holes and stuff. Nothing really that bad about it, mostly one line with some places where you needed to enter with a little less speed or enter it wider. Pretty tame. After pre-riding and scaring the daylights out of me on my dry tires (Fast Tracks), our mechanic changed over to my Sauser Winds, which was probably the best tire for that course. They were hooking up. So, props to Specialized for making that sick tire that I could run. Worked great.

We found a good Italian food place after the race and hung out for a while eating and trading stories. It was pretty cool and we had some sweet ice cream two times after that.

I went for a ride witH Jimmy, Joey, and Mitch this morning. We rode down to Freiburg and checked out some stuff. I forgot my camera so I'll probably go back some time this week.

This weekend is going to be pretty pinned. We have a local hill climb on Saturday and then an XC race in the north on Sunday. We think it's a afternoon race so we'll probably leave Sunday morning and drive up. I think it's like 4 hours away. Not really sure where it is though. Then after the race we have to pack our bikes and bags before we drive down to the airport in Frankfurt and I get on a plane and go home. I'm still sorting through pictures and stuff, so I'll probably post something this afternoon some time or tomorrow because I'll probably forget today. Oh well.

I'm going to leave you with some sweet vids.

The first Trevor found of the race that we did. It's from 2007 though. Similar course but there's some new stuff that I never saw.

The second one is pure awesome. Great song, great riders, great racing. They were lucky I didn't race downhill on Sunday.

Free Music Fridays

Today is a great day. Not really sure if it is yet but I’ll find out. I figured I needed a little bit of Ice Cube to get me going. Today is Friday. It is also laundry day too. I really, really need to do some. “I’ve been wearing the same dirty underpants for three days now”. Ha-ha, just kidding.

Since the weather over here is still deciding whether it wants to rain or not, I’m still trying to decide whether I want to ride or not. We are passing the time by “sharing” our music with one another. I have some pictures I could up load but it takes forever. I might start it now and hopefully when I come back from my ride they will be up. Perhaps.

Well, uh….what have I been doing? We rode to the top of some mountain the other day. About an hour or so climb and a 20ish minute decent. It was pretty cool at the top because we got back into the snow line. The decent was pretty fun, but it was really steep so you really had to stay on the ball and chill on the straight bits to make the hairpins.

I found out a little bit about the race on Sunday. It’s in Northern Germany. You can get on the website here. The English is terrific. At this race there is an actual class for the Under 23 riders. Pretty cool because we don’t have to race the super, super world cup guys that would lap us. Come to think of it, the fastest U23s are probably just as fast as the Elites so I’m probably still going to get lapped. Hooray!

The kicker is that there are 104 U23 registered. One hundred four!!! That’s freaking nuts! The biggest race I’ve done in the states had like 100 guys of all ages in there. This race has over a hundred in ONE class. Not cool guys. There are more Under 23 riders than in the elite (pro) class. Easy race? NOT!

It’s hard to explain how hard these Euro races are. In the states, the courses are usually long (8-10miles per-lap) and hard. In Europe the courses are short and relatively easy (1-3miles per-lap). Although the total distance is about the same (it depends on terrain but it will be around a 2 hour race) the Euro races have twice as many laps. You’d think that the “easier” courses would be “easier” but that’s usually not the case since you can go so much faster and carry more speed.

Anyway, we’re meeting a German team at 9 tomorrow and driving three hours up to the race and going for pre-rides and chilling at the hotel tomorrow. I think we race at like 9 something tomorrow which is like 3 in American time. I don’t think I’m going to bring my computer so I’ll write a report on Monday when we get back.

Don’t float away America, someday I’m coming back.

Moving day

Yo, sup. I told you I'd be back. Today the U23 guys left to go to Luxembourg and do some road racing. So, Kevin and I had to move our junk from our sweet room to the room vacated by the U23 guys. This required me to give up my alpha male room and I was not very happy about that. Oh well, I now live in a tiny room with three beds. And no counter tops or shelf space. Bummer. I'll take some more sweet pics soon though.

Before I forget, I need to give Brevard College props for putting me up on the website for the whole thing about going to Germany. I'm going to start writing blogs for the Athletic site too so you can read those too, but it's pretty much going to be the same and you'll get pictures over here. But they're trying and they need props.

Also found some more info on the development camp. Pretty sick. And USA Cycling did an article too, but it's the same article.

Rob woke us up when he left so we've been up since like 6:45. Made some coffee and started the marathon hangout on computers. There's really not that much stuff to do here, other than ride your bike which is what we are supposed to do. I think we are planning a trip next week to France since we are only like a few hours away. That would be sweet, since I at least know basic conversation terms in French than German. Ok, Mom, you were right this time. It probably would have been nice to bring a travelers guide to German on this trip because really no one except Joey, the mechanic, knows German.

I will be happy to be back someplace where people speak American. And I don't have to struggle to complete simple tasks like going to the bath room, ordering food, ordering plain water instead of gas water.

We just finished planning our dinner so I will probably go back to watching the Giro.
Later nerds.

No lie

Yo, I found the race we did on Cyclingnews.

Check it out.

Windmills, bakery, and racing

C'est la vie. Howdy folks, I'm back from being busy sitting on my butt. It's been awesome.

Let me start with Sunday's race. It was really, really short. Under 10min laps. It went straight up this super steep climb and a gradual downhill before climbing again and a really fast loose downhill to some grass back to the start. It was really short, did I say that before?

Anyway, we had to do 10 laps for about 20K total. It was a much smaller field than the Swiss race but still there were 30 guys in our race. We rode from our hostel to the race and then back home after it was over. It took about an hour of easy spinning to get down there. So we raced 2 hours on Saturday, rode Sunday morning for half an hour, rode down to the race, raced for an hour, and rode back. Pretty long week end. I'm a little tired of riding my bike.

The race went good, I figured most of the guys would be gassed by the super steep climb so I sat back and chilled until the top where I could make up time. Didn't really work because the Euros were thinking the same thing. Anyway, Tad drove the front for a few laps and it got whittled down pretty quick, I rode in 3rd for most of the race before blowing big time on the last couple of laps. Rob passed me and caught 2nd and I ended up sprinting a dude for 5th. Pretty sick, I didn't get on the podium but I still got paid some Euros. Sickness!

Monday we rode with Rob on this super long ride where we climbed for at least an hour. It was pretty cool but probably not the best thing for after a race. I took some pictures at the top when we hit the snow line.

Today, we rode some more trails and rode up to these three wind turbines and hiked up to the top of a tower and then rode some pretty sweet, steep trails down. I took some pictures at the top. After we were done riding I walked around town and took some more pictures of Kirchzarten.

Tonight, Mark and his wife, who are staying outside Kirchzarten are going to cook us dinner. We are going to go up there and hang out for a bit and probably play some soccer with his kids. Sounds like some good times.

Later Ameica, I'll be back soon.









This is one of the bakeries in town by the way. It's good, but not as good as BMB.

Hello!

So, I'm back. I was able to get connected to the internet last night but didn't really have time to do much as it was pretty late and I had been up for like...uh...several hours. I did post the blogs about my exciting time in the airport. It was awesome. And some pictures, the pics took wayyy longer than normal to post so I might not be able to do a bunch. We'll see.

I tried to sleep a bit on the plane, it was really nice that I didn't have anyone sitting next to me but I was planning on staying up as late as I could and then sleeping and waking up on the "German" time. It kind of worked out. I woke up this morning at 5 but that might have been because of the thunderstorm we had last night.

Anyway, yesterday was the first race. I got 35th out of 75 or so starters. I was the 4th American and 11th?? U23 rider. Not bad for the first race. Of course Nino and Florian Vogel beat me by 20 minuets. But Nino got third at the Olympics last year.

I spent most of the race stuck in a big group of like 10 guys with Tad Elliot, Rob Squire, and Mitch Hoke. All the Euros wanted us to work since we had 4 guys but Tad and Rob kept trying to break it up. Eventually they did and gapped me and Mitch. We rode 8 of 9 laps after the leaders lapped us about half way around our last one.

Tad was the only one from the US that didn't get lapped, he got like 27th or something so big props to him.

The course was about 60 or 70% pavement with a short but really rooty and slick as hot butter climb. The decent was pretty fun, some cool places were you could make up so time and my big o'27 inch bars were doing the work for me.

The climb was pretty steep with some snot covered roots, I didn't get any pictures but I'm hoping to go out and some today. Oh yeah, I forgot again we are racing today too. Not really sure how long or how big the race is but there's one in the next town (Freiburg). I heard something about 10 laps and 20K so hopefully pretty short because the legs are a bit pissed at me for racing twice.

The race itself was pretty cool, there was a huge expo with tons of companies and bike and free stuff. It was like twice the size of a US race. Kevin put the race into a good perspective. In terms of prestige in wining the race and the size of fields it's like a Mountain States Cup (Mid-west race series-small fields, small purse, etc.). But in regards to who shows up to these "small" races it's more like a ProXTC race in the states (a national level race).

Anyway, there's a ton of stuff I'm missing like the food we have and the places we've eaten out at. I'll probably have to do another post tonight after the race. Whatever happens in the race, I'm stoked because I'm in Europe and above all I'm racing my bike and that's all that matters.

Peace out America...I miss you...a little bit....not much.


P.S.
Pretty funny, near the end of the race some Swiss chick was cheering me on and I'm certain that she was saying: "Time for a change, time for a change."

German Pictures

My room in the hostel/condo thing.

Our kitchen. There are three suites on our floor and each place has two rooms. A bed room and a kitchen/living room.

Airport, non-internet, and food

May 6
12:17 pm (ATL airport)

Well, it’s not even 12 o’clock yet and I’m pissed. In addition to my ticket, over priced water, and baggage charges the freaking internet is another expense at the airport. Oh well, at least I have two movies I can watch, but Stars and Bars will get boring after the second time probably.

I’m stuck, the whole plan was that I could watch some Family Guy on Hulu, download some new releases from iTunes and steal movies from my parent’s Netflix account. Not happening anymore. Sucks in a very major way.

So, right now I’m just hanging out in the ATL waiting for my first flight. It’s supposed to come in at some time, I have no idea when but I’m posed to leave at 1:15. Then it’s a short 2 hour one to the home of the gangsters. From there it’s a 5 hour layover before the big 9 hour flight to Germany. I’ll probably be walking back and forth in that tunnel a TON, right Chaput? You know what I’m talking about.
I will say that I was pretty stoked that I didn’t get charged at all for the bike. Which was sickkk. But I am going to be charged for intent. Go rot in some cave airline people. I’m adding you to the People I Don’t Really Like At All List. Along with dentists, doctors, and college text book publishers.

I am extremely bored if you haven’t guessed and this is the shortest part of my journey. Not good. I was a bit bummed to be leaving the 828 yesterday. That lasted until about halfway home when I remember all the food at my house. Haha, just kidding. Nah, there are some good people up there and I’m going to miss seeing them around. Some are leaving Brevard for good, some are going home, and some are staying there. I’ll be seeing you folks soon, after I you know, come back and everything.
T-Walker called me a little bit ago and said that my blog might be on the Brevard College webpage. That’s pretty cool, I guess I’d better not say anything bad about the College now. Not that I do haha.

This is going to be kind of interesting because I don’t really know when I’m going to be posting these entries. So I guess I should include dates and such.

I’ll let you guys go for a bit, this laptop is frying my legs and I should probably go back to wondering what type of driver I am….



May 6
5:05 home time

Chicago Airport

Ok…I officially hate airports. They suck. I still cannot get on the internet and I have no movies to help take up some time. I could go find one…that is an idea I just thought of. I might explore that possibility after I’m finished writing this post. Atlanta had a better deal too with the internet I wish I had gotten some there.
I finally got some food too, Quizzno’s, I was right next to a Mickey D’s but I wasn’t really feeling it so I went with a sub. Turns out it was like 8 bucks for a six inch sub, rip off. Then I found a nice deserted terminal where I sat down to enjoy my sandwich. I was invaded by a family of non-Americans. (They were nice people I’m sure who didn’t speak American (English), but they didn’t have control over their kids who started jumping on my stuff and crawling around my nice previously deserted area.) Whatever. I should have stayed American all the way and eaten my 5 dollar Big Mac.
Well, I’m still sitting here. Only three more hours to my flight. I walked around a bit when I got here and ended up getting lost a little bit and then finding my way to the right terminal. I’d better find some internet when I get to Germany or I’m going to be pissed.

I had a pretty nice flight over to IL. I sat next to this talkative fat guy who sat on the outside. He was pretty nice, especially when I almost put on head on his shoulder when I fell asleep. Can you say “awkward”?

The weather has been wired. It started raining in Atlanta and stopped when right before I left. It was clear and sunny in Chicago but it’s just started to rain now. We’ll see how the weather is in that other country.