Mark's Blog

The last week has been an interesting one.  On Monday I took the day off of the bike because of the heat.  I didn’t need to ride THAT bad.  Tuesday I went on the InComp ride and made a tactical error and missed the lead group.  I know that I had the horsepower to stay there but made a stupid mistake and fell out of the break.  I was one of 4 riders to force the break originally but I guess you learn from your mistakes.  I also got to teach 6th grade for a day, that is interesting.  Nothing like catching kids cheating on their science tests and having to take it away from them.

Wednesday, I had to sub for high school P.E.  That wasn’t to bad except for the last hour of the day because certain kids are just pains in the ass.  Then it was off to the camp for the customary 2 laps.  It was nice to get out on the mountain bike, it had been a week since I touched it.

Thursday, I didn’t have all the fitness that I wanted for this ride.  I could hang on but didn’t have anything when it was my turn at the front, so I just sat in except for the two sprints.  The first one I broke one of the rules that I don’t like breaking, crossing the center line.  We were going for the sprint in Little Rapids and I took off so I could get a jump on the rest of the riders, then Rebecca turns to the left and wanted to join the foray.  I had a big speed difference on her already and it was to late for me to jump on the brakes to stay behind her and then I made the decision to jump over.  No accidents, which is a great thing.  Thursday also involved a first for me, teaching Kindergarten.  Kindergarten takes a different person, they need to have all the energy in the world.  I couldn’t do that job full-time.

Now I was told that I need more pictures, here you go Becker:

This weekend was fun, on Saturday Steve and I decided to go and ride.

Before picture

After

To me my bike looks more bad ass with the Zipp’s on it.

The ride on Saturday was pretty fun.  We started out a little slow because of my lack of climbing skills.  Once the ride started to get going I started to ramp up the speed to try out the effectiveness of the wheels.  All I can say is, “WOW!”  Once I pushed the pace to about 22 I could feel the wheels just wanting to pull me along.  At the half way point Steve was starting to feel it a little bit so I told him just to let me do most of the work.  From Kaukauna to Wrightstown I was averaging about 24 without dying.  Needless to say I was thoroughly surprised.  I don’t know if I would spend the 2300 for the set just for that since there are so many alternatives out there.

Fast Steve

Non-Fast me

Later

I get there and b.s. with a bunch of people as usual and then go for the usual warm-up for the race, ride up and down the road. Then it was time to go and line up, all I was thinking about was that I wanted to finish the race unlike last year I only got about 25 seconds of the race in. Well as soon as the usual “GOOOOOO!” was said it was off, I tried to stay in the front group. That goal was accomplished, I looked back after a little bit and I noticed that there weren’t that many people there anymore.

After that there wasn’t that much going on with me and then I cross the start/finish line and the first women catches me. I decide to burry myself and try to stay with her, she then pulls me up to Steele. Then he starts to go harder since he sees that I am there. I stay right on his wheel for part of the first lap and then going up a hill I shifted to an easier gear and then the dreadful “snap” of the chain. Lets just say that I was pissed that that happened at that time. So it was time for me to do the walk-in/coast downhill to the finish line. It was a long way back, even with skipping most of the single track.

I get back and see Holcomb and I stop to talk to him and then I go and I wanted to see where Steele finished and that made me even more disappointed. He finished 3rd with Paul just a few seconds back, so I could have been there close to the podium. Nothing like having bad luck for the first two races.

Later