cross track and the Andies that loom

I have taken a bit of a siesta since my last post due to my compuer being broken but I have a fresh laptop under my fingers and new typing motavation to inform the public about my life as a cyclist.

anyhoo...

Cross
I Have been dabbleing wih this cyclocross sport on a weekly basis as I will continue to through this weekend as it will be the last race of the year. Results have been hard to come by, a 6th at the cobbs hill cross was my best showing and a 12th in a 60 rider field have been my best. I've had my normal luck as I was in 3rd when my seatpost desided to snap in half in a cross race soulth of Buffalo not to long ago. Much cursing and throwing of my undeserving bike was the result but I'm over it.
I have found that cross is a completly differnt animal from road mtn biking or track(which comes later in this script) It requires power... noramly this is a plus for me but it requires a differnt kind of power that is differnt and probly requires you be on your cross bike more than twice a week. But it also requires you be in the front row off the start no matter what you have to in the front from the start or you loose. Take for example the rochester cross where I placed 12th last weekend I was in the front row when they desided to call the series leaders to the front I got bottled up and had to come back from a 30th place start wasting all of my energy and eventualy fading in the end...live and learn.

Track...

Yea I have been converted to a tracky in the last two weeks, i've scraped all the spare change beetween my seats to buy gas to haul myself up to the Forest city velodrome in London ontario to pull some g's on the 60 degree banking on the short but fast wooden velodrome north of the border. What an experiance it is to fly around at 50kph pulling 4 g's in the corners on my s-works langster...ah bliss.
The 1st week was a introductory school that is mandatory for all new to the velodrome. For good reason because the track is a very intimadating at 1st sight if I may say so but it is a realitivly easy task as long as youy maintain about 18 mph or more. After the school ended ther was an open rec sesion where I met Rob Good the owner of the track and a super nice guy who is truly devoted to promoting track cycling in London an abroad. He envited my to a 2 day school the next weekend and that is where my story continues.
Week 2 was a blast as It was a racing school which ment we went through all of the nessary steps of track racing from time trials to pacelining. I had some decent times in the flying lap and 500meter time trials even with marginal fitness at best. The school was on saturday night and sunday morning followed by lunch at the local boston pizza...
I'm definetly looking forward to racing up their in the coming weeks.

The andies!!!
Yes the andies as in the Peruvian mountain range Todd Jake and I are going to be treking through them on our mountain bikes in less than 20 days and I'm soo excited i cant wait to climb up to 5000 meters in elavation.


Thats my life
r.

I'm a slacker I know, So heres Montreal Quebec and more...

Its been a while i know don't start throwing tomato's and other projectiles yet though I've been on the march the last month racing a ton and doing quite well. I raced the the coveted Montreal Quebec Classic to name part of my race activities since my last post...

La Classique Louis-Garneau
Montreal-Quebec

Montreal is a...a...ah how do I put it, Long race, at 155 miles including the 20k neutral section 252k without it is enough to drive any mortal nuts.
The race is a true classic starting next to Olympic stadium in downtown Montreal and having full rolling enclosure all the way to the finish next to the Louis-Garneau factory in Quebec City. The crew I was traveling with was truly priceless M. Luther, J. Skalski, Mike Mathis, Scott Dorfdawg, Jeff Zygo, Bill Mathis and Sam Jays Girlfriend provided enough laughs to keep my gut hurting for a while.
The race starts at a very early hour of 8 am with a 20k section of neutral riding at about 20 mph. Not speaking the language is definitely a barrier as we (mainly Luther) pulled out some serious power laughs as the race director barked off where we could "make a PP", the French weren't happy with us...lol. Once we were off racing the speed never let up 29 mph became softpedling in a hurry as we were consistently in the 32, 33 mph range for the whole of the first 2 hours. A bunch of attacks were flying off the front with no success until Micheal Luther himself attacked and was off for a good 10 miles before being caught by the Jet Fuel team who was all over the front. The next move was the move of the day 13 riders got off the front quite early and hung at about 30 seconds until a massive pileup happened int he field luckily not involving any Preferred Care riders. The gap then soared to 2 minuets. By the time we hit Trois Riviers the gap wa at 5 minuets where it remained steady for the rest of the day.
The steady cross wind that plagued us the whole day was popping riders one by one the entire time and I was actually dangling for dear life a couple of times in the crosswind furry. at about mile 110 the days ride was just starting to hit me as I was having bad patches and then feeling fine again a couple of minuets later. But miracously when we hit the climbs at about mile 130 I felt great climbing the 1/2 mile assents as the pack dwindled fast.
At about mile 140 I attacked with a Craylon/ Litespeed guy and a Trek Voltswagov rider and we were making great progress until the Litespeed guy started sprinting at every pull and riders started bridging across. the peleton was now down from about 80 to about 30 at the most. Mike Mathis and i kept attacking to keep the pressure on and it was we were still maintaining a 30mph pace after over 5 and a half hours of racing.
The last climb is feared by many as it falls at the 150 mile mark and is the toughest climb in the race. It stands only at 3/4ths of a mile but it kicks to 15% as my ibike power meter told me. So basically it sucks...having never ridden this race before I've only heard of its fury and location so i was looking for it. Mike took off before the climb hoping to get a little head start on climbing it. But it didn't work the second we hit the base a jittery joes guy attacked I was quickly on his wheel now in total delirium. My bid to get over the top with him ended with about 200 meters to go where I totally came unglued and went plummeting backwards through the field which was shattered.
Over the top there was 3 groups as far as i could see because I was in the 3rd and didn't look back... Mike and I managed to bridge to the 2nd group in time for the 1st pass of the factory with 500 meters to go I was tacked onto the back of this 15 rider group so I pegged it to get close to the front where I some how found the energy to sprint and almost win out of the group.
I ended up 34th overall, which i'm happy with considering there were 7 pro teams and it was a suicidal distance. The only thing that was left to do after the race was to deal with the pain of riding and eat tons and I mean tons of food, which happens to be my profession...

Until next time which happens to be Green Mountain since Thater has past and I've neglected to write about it...

Red balls its crack in a can
R.Nye

Empire State Games; GOLD FEVER!

Yes yes the hard ride of the 10th of june was about to pay off as I sat on the starting ramp preparing to roll down into a 10 mile tunnel of pain also known as the Individule time trial ,clipped into my pedles and off I was crushing the first 5 miles in a mere 11 minuts before paying for my early efforts and fading to a 23:16 time at the final. The ITT was a bad event for the team as we were already handi capped with the lack of 2 riders as the rug was pulled from the Dansville duo of Cheyne and Jake who bolth had their issues of not finishing.
The searing heat and the omnious presence of 2 climbs per 12 mile lap inshured that the road race wasto bne a death march. and it was as Jake back from the depths of the cone hiting gods scored the early break that stuck 6 riders strong the break was to make it as we had no need to chase it down. mean while Chyeyne and I lit it up on the final couple acents of the climbs to try to go clear to the finish but the pack had no interest in letting us go anywhere as our acellarations only amounted to a couple 30 second advantages and a desimated field. As we all finished inside the field at the line.
A 28 mph crit was the last thing we wanted to do as we ate our regular 6:30 am breakfast but we pushed on as Jay and michal scored big for us getting 2nd and 4th. I personaly suffered like a dog and pulld it all together to manage a 5th in the final field sprint.
The final mental and physical blow came in the form of a 40 mile 4 man TTT we had a class team of youth with myself and Cheyne bolth pimping junior gears as Jake only 20 was a first times as well. The true experiance came in the shape of Jay Josyln who is a specialist at this event. We started at an alarming rate as we avged 31 mph for the 1st 7 miles enevidly catching out 2minut team that early. We pressed on and won the TTT with a time of 1:26 at a avg speed of 28+mph.

True astonishment rolled through the veins of every one as our true under dog team moved from 5th to 1st on the GC in one quantum leap claming our true dominence once again and proving that the "west coast" is "da place to be" for cyclists.

Empires was truely an awesome experiance that will never be forgotten and will definetly be duplicated by myself in the years to come.

Until next time...
R.R.R.R.R.R.R. Nye the mullet guy (thanks Cheyne and jake lol)

COBBLESTONE

Yes it was today, the infamos Cobblestone criterium ,it is a 4th of July tradidtion in western new york cycling. A tradition that went bad this year as it was raining consistantly for the whole of the day. But the show went on, I was pretty tired opon my arival due to my setting up of the course the previous night/early morning at the horid hour of 12 midnight with Mr Jim Costello himself (who actually never went to bed).

I raced the Jr. Race and the cat 3/4 race today and bolth went well. The junior race was pretty similar to Rochester as I won from a early attack solo. But differed in that I realy didnt ride as fast this time to save a litte more energy, also the lack of fans along the road were a hampering on my solo speed for the duration of the race. (no spectators= ride only as fast as I need to to win).

The 3/4 race went well as I got into a 3rd lap attack with 2 others that was destined to stay away and we did. Myself M.Loranty(sp?) and Joe Halter rode away from the other hopefuls. With a few laps reamaining the cobble pro Halter hit the jets on the cobbles and rode Loranty off his wheel I came to the head of thigs and tryed to peg Halter back only to signal Mike to come through and he jumped. So I was the odd man out and finished a respectivly in 3rd on the day.

Thats all for now...yikes nationals is next week! The argh tt is next on the plate sunday.

Peace out
Ryan

biggest win of career, another (real) win , and the pain of the Boston hills

Welcolm back been awhile since I've bloged it up on this old page of mine. The biggest win of my career as the title said infact didnt involve a single pedle stroke. The Bronchitious that plaged me for the past 2 months is GONE! hahahahah. Yes that means i'm back training like a normal cyclist instead of eating antibiotics and hacking up gren stuff. So RIP Bronchitios 4/07-6/07 :).
I have a solid 3 weks of training under me and I'm feeling better every day. Its been tough because all that I had fitness wize has deteriorated so with nationals in 2 weeks i'm playing super catch up to try to not get killed. I've raced a total of 10 times in the past 2 weeks to try to basically beat the fitness into myself. Tired legs are the result but a easy week and a half is to follow to atempt to "taper" for nationals.
I have just come off of a 3 day mini block of hill training down in the boston hill area 3+ hours a day for 3 days in the betrechory of those hills has been tough but I placed 3rd in the infamos West time trial up the 2 mile asent with a time of 7:14 just 6 seconds off the winning time.
The real win that i described came at the twilight criterium 2 weeks ago where I obliteratedf the junior field going from the gun and almost laping the field in the 45 minut crit Finish line pics are to folllow shortly.

Well thats all for now, see ya on the road...
Peace
Ry Nye

More time off...

This is getting seriously old I'm sick of being sick...this strain of bronchitis that I have is clinging to me like a cheap suit. After Sunday's 50 mile death march the slight feelings of sickness returned so once again I will be taking some time off, This time I'm setting no date of return to the bike...oh wait I am setting a date and it is when I can ride without coughing green slime ever night and falling asleep an hour after I woke up every morning...

And that's the word
Ryan

Empires...

Empires was this weekend and It went great for only riding a couple days before the race after taking a whole week off the bike... it was in Boston with Wayne Jay and I attending. It included a 6 mile tt and a 50 mile Death march in the 85 degree heat.

TT went great Wayne showed his TT dominence getting a 2nd and I scored a 5th...Jay won the field sprint in the not trying time-trialest race over Ken Thomas.

The road race was a suffer fest(for me), flat out no other words could describe it better. Taking last week completely off and couch surfing seemed to help my flat power 10 fold but I now have to learn to climb hills again. The race was decided in the 1st two climbs as after the 1st climb the pack was down to 15. then down to about 11 after the 2nd one. I was chasing non stop after a group got away on the 1st accent of the rice rd climb...I recaught the tete de course group just in time to start the 3 mile accent of Brown rd...and only to make it up half the climb and get dropped. Anywho Cheyne Hoag won after a last lap attack Jay nabbed 2nd, Wayne finished in the 7th( I think) and I capped off the top 10.


Ryan