Podium Again!

Today was the longest and hardest race. It was in the high fifties, and windy as it's ever been. The Lituainian National team came to. I got the second pream. Then a break of two guys got away, with a strong belgium guy, and Adam Lebowitz. Adam is probably the strongest kid on our team on the flats, he can't climb to save his life though. I saw him go up the road so Me and teammate Ian Moore try to bridge. We hold the gap at 20 seconds for a while. Ian popped because he had a slow leek. So I drill it an bring the gap down even futher, but never made it across, so with 40k left to go I was all alone. I held it until 10k to go, when I belgium kid and a Lituainin bridge to me. We dropped the Lituainin on a hill, and I ended up taking the other dude in the sprint for 3rd. I think this is one of the best efforts in a race I've done all year. I was all alone in over half of our longest race, and still managed to get 3rd in the sprint. So two podiums in two days. Oh yea, we had to use our team jerseys today, so I flew the hincapie colors.

aj

Link of The Day

My national team teammate's blog. http://thebozblog1.blogspot.com/ It's Ian Boswell's blog, he is probably the best climber our age in the country.

Race 4

I finally got a podium,

3rd place today. We dominated the race as a team. I got into an early break of 6 riders, and our National team had 4 guys in this break. We eventually popped one guy, so it was four against one. I was feeling very strong, but with to laps to go our team manager told us to attack the guy. So Cody, and Charlie attacked first, and the guy didn't respond, which sucked for me an Ian Boswell because we could chase. I won the sprint for third, and Ian got forth, resulting in the first USA national team to go 1,2,3,4 in a race in history. I was kinda pissed because I felt pretty confident that I could have won today If weren't racing togather. Oh well that's cycling. I'll put up some race pics later.

aj

RACE 2

Well I finally got a top ten.
Tenth to be exact. I went for the preem on the first lap and got it. Right after that Adam(2nd in the nat. tt) went off on a brake. I sat in the pack the next few laps, meanwhile Jacob bridged with one other kid to Adam. Four laps into the race I attacked and got into a group of three, but one kid sat on and the other kid was really weak, so I drove the crap out of the brake, finally when we got about a minuet on the field, we got news that a group of 6 was coming up with two Americans, so we waited. Our group worked well together, for about one lap then it was getting disorganized. So I would take two, even three pulls, more then everyone else just to keep it rolling. We had the leading group in sight, but the people that were sitting on started to attack us, and I couldn't respond. So a group of three got away from out brake, and Ian managed to get in it. So the rest of the brake rolled along, very disorganized until Cody, and charlie(both Americans) bridged with a group. Charlie and Cody went right through our brake and I managed to hop on with them, and that's the group I finished with. So the USA had 6th guys in the top ten, 1st, 2nd,4th,8th, 9th, 10th. which is almost unheard of. That's all i got for now,

AJ

First Race

well as a team we did could. we had two guys in a break of four. that stayed away. we took 2nd and 4th. Jacob took 2nd, and Cody took 4th. i have never raced with such a strong junior team we were so aggressive. I finished 30th in the pack, and they payed 30 deep so that was good. I felt really strong and had some good moves. I put in an attack with 2 to go, and stayed away the whole lap an caught with one to go. the finishing sprint was a straight 2k road, with a tail wind, and with an overpass with 500 meters to go, so it was downhill as well. so it really didn't suit, so with 2k to go, i attacked with some other dude, an dropped the guy, on the overpass hill. at the top of the overpass hill i stood up an cramped. i guess all of my attacks caught up with me. I felt very strong, but i think I might have put in to many attacks. In tomarrow's race i'm going to attack fewer times, but go harder when i attack. On the bright side, I finished fairly easily in the pack, and last year i didn't even finish the first two races, so definatly an improvment there.
thats all i know for now,

aj

Sum cool stuff

Well I made through my first day in Europe. The first day consited of: Getting our team clothes, which are pretty sweet. Then we did a grueling 1 hour ride. But the hardest part was trying to stay awake to adapt to the time change. Never the less, I made it. Today we rode for around three hours. Thats all I know good right now.

Nationals, Europe, and more

Well I'll start out with Nats. First was the time trial, I rode awful in it placing a disapointing 24th. After that was the road race. Despite not having high exspectations for this event I got 4th! Making my first ever national podium. After that was the crit. which I was hoping to win, but unfortunlty i only got 2nd. I'm now in Belgium, and because of the time difference i have been up for over 24 hours! Where all about to go for a ride so I'm gonna get off here.

Prepping for Nats

So this past week I have been getting ready for Nats...... Not doing anything to hard, just a few efforts here an there to keep the legs opened. I'm feeling good, I set a new PR on fort mountain yesterday, and that was a controlled effort. I think I could have gone a lot harder.The plan is for my form to rise from what it was a Fitchburg, until Nats.....And I can feel it doing just that. Hopefully I can maintain my good form over an Europe to.

cool link of the day!

tokd.wordpress.com

My friend, David Talbott's blog.

Longsjo stages 3 and 4.

Stage 3
I started this stage with mixed feelings. I'm not by any means a "climber" but I have been working very hard on climbing lately. On the second to last climb, I was in the lead group of 5 over it. We were caught by the field shortly there after, but I thought no big deal since I just stuck with the leaders on that climb, doing it again on the final climb would be no problem. Well.....it was a problem. I have no clue why I cracked so bad, but anyways, I limited my losses to 58 seconds. I fell to 11th overall, which was very disappointing because I really wanted to finish top 10.
Stage 4
I was out of the top ten by 9 seconds. They're was a ten second time bonus for the winner of the stage. So all I had to do was win the stage. It was a longshot, considering that this was the biggest junior stage race in the country. Well the race was fast.....29mph avg.....I played it smart, conserving my energy all race. With 5 laps to go the guy in 10th place crashed! That was a huge boost of moral, All I had to do was finish, and I would be top 10. So with no pressure on me, I raced on instints. Coming through the last corner I was 3rd wheel. But the guy in front of me dropped his chain. So with 400 meters to go, I launched my sprint. I saw 200 meters to go, and still no one came around me. By the time I saw 100 meters to go, I could here wheels coming from behind me, I crossed the line just in time to hold of the guy in 2nd. I had won! It was the biggest win of my career. Close to 100 kids from around the country come to this race to try to win a stage, and out of all of them I had won a stage!! I still am in shock.....This gives me great moral going into Nats.