Cycling 2009 Recap and 2010 Goals

2009 - This year was a very up and down year for me. I found a crack in my carbon fiber road frame, so I was no longer able to ride that bike. It was replaced by Specialized with a brand new 2009 model. Thanks Specialized and Wheelfast Bicycle! My mountain bike was on top of the car when we tried to pull into the garage. That frame was destroyed. Got a brand new mountain bike (NINER) and after 2 weeks of riding discovered a cracked rear triangle. Soooo, had to ship another bike back, and it was replaced with a different frame, (once again thanks to NINER and Matt at Wheelfast), with a new frame to come in spring of 0'10. It's hard to train consistently when you are constantly taking apart and rebuilding old bikes and new bikes. The first mountain bike race of the year, I crashed and landed on my face. That hurt a little bit.... I cracked my helmet in that crash and had to borrow a helmet for the next race. Eventually I was able to get a new helmet. I spent more time this year talking with bike companies and working with Matt on getting new bikes, than ever before. Hopefully I am done with that for a while. I like to ride, not so much a fan of the business side of it...Despite all of the downsides, there were some upsides to 2009. I did a time trial near Glenwood Springs, CO, where I averaged 26.98 mph for 20k. That was over 1 mph faster than my previous avg in a 20k time trial. That was much faster than I expected, and I was super pleased with that time. At this time trial, I also got to meet and shake hands with Levi Leipheimer and Lance Armstrong who showed up from Aspen for a little pre Tour de France time trial action.The only other notable result on the road bike was a crit at Copper Mountain where I got 6th in the 3's. This result was exciting in the fact that I didn't think the race was that difficult, and people afterward were complaining about how hard it was.

On the mountain bike, I gained much invaluable experience in the valley race series. I raced Sport this year, and kind of struggled at the beginning of the series. But as the summer went on, and I dropped a bit more weight to get down around 175 lbs, and worked on my climbing quite a bit. I also figured out that I had to ride "my" race instead of trying to stay with the leaders on the climbs. On one of the races I without any huge long climbs, I was able to grab a 5th place. This was pretty awesome, especially since my teammate got 1st place. That was some good points to help out the team. Pic. In the last race of the series at Beaver Creek, I was feeling amazing and was climbing really well....then I got a flat tire and took about 20 minutes to change. It was refreshing knowing that I had been going so well.

To end the season I headed down to MOAB with my entourage.... (Natalie and Torrey) for the 24 Hours of Moab. It was a blast and an awesome challenge. I ended up with about 115 miles and 7 laps in the 24 hour period. There were many highs and lows in that period of time. Highs included heading into the dark for the first night lap, and seeing the sun come up on the last night lap. Lows were definitely the cramping that occurred early in the race. Another high was the support at camp! Natalie and Torrey did an amazing job of taking care of me and making sure I had everything I needed. 24 hours of Moab will come up again in the future I am sure. I believe I can do 12+ laps solo with the proper training. Maybe not anytime soon, but it will call again sometime I'm sure. pics

With all that being said, I'm not sure what 2010 holds for me. A new addition to our family! This will be the most exciting thing to happen this year I'm sure. I still have cycling goals set for 2010, they are just set to allow me to be home with my wife and child as much as possible.

Cycling Goals 2010:
1.) Break an average of 28mph in a 20k time trial on my road bike.
2.) Get enough points (and hopefully a win) in the Vail Rec Mountain bike series to help my team win the overall, and to help me move up to Expert class.
3.) Beat Torrey and Jeff in the swim/run portion of the triathlon we are doing in April, while hopefully achieving a top 10 position in the overall.

Here's the catch. I will achieve the first two goals while only training for 1 hour/night with 1 longer ride per week. I believe I can do this by being very specific with my workouts. By doing this I will be spending much less time on my bike than any other year, while being able to spend much more time at home learning to be a daddy! :)

This above anything else will be most important to me this year. Being the daddy my baby needs, and being the husband that my wife needs me to be.

A few Thank You's:
Thanks to Matt at Wheelfast in Chatham, IL for all your bike help this year, and for being such a good friend!
Thanks to Torrey for your help at Moab when I needed a fire started at 4:15 in the morning so I could have something to eat before heading out for a lap.
Thanks to Charlie at Mt. Pedaler for all your help in building up new bikes at the last minute!
Thanks to Paul from school for trying to teach me how to put my own bike together.
Most of all, Thanks to my beautiful wife for being so supportive and allowing me to chase my dreams even when they sometimes seem kind of extreme or crazy.