Jose Marteen days 1 2

We're here in Arkansas for bike pedaling and general adventurous times with bros in the sun.

Wait, rain.

And thunder.

Adventurous times however- those have been had.

Arkansas is full of good times. I have no outline or schedule for this post so really, what you are going to get is going to be the result of me not wanting to move from my hotel bed + three coffees this morning. I feel equivalent to the main character from the Pixar movie cars when he bails on his racing career and goes and hangs out with the hillbillies. I'm not calling my roommates David and Danny hillbillies, but I also do not really know where I was going with relating Cars to my current situation.

This is awesome

I just got out of bed and went and did some things. Came back and re-read what I had written so far. Wowwwwwww.

Before I get to the racing, do you think it would be possible to cover this distance via a jump? From railing to the top of the Jamis trailer?

Winger thinks that it's possible, honestly because he thinks that he is the fake-Canadian version of Jason Bourne. It's not possible because the distance is one inch longer than the Women's world record for standing long jump. And letsbehonest, Chris Wingfield is NOT a better jumper than the absolute best woman in the world.

Before we get into racing, here is a sign that was outside a children's playground at the finish line of stage one.

Art is very important in Fayetteville.

Thursday we did the uphill timetrial. I (Doug) took my water bottle cages off in order to achieve maximal weight savings. I forgot that I'm over 6ft tall and don't weight 112 lbs. This means that 3 grams of cages probably didn't make a difference. Not much can be said other than that I hit the watt bag really hard and finished 31st. Colby massively cranked-dat for 20th and earned himself the Best Young Rider jersey.

Important story. Colby and I went to warm up on the neutral trainers and when we got there, there was a woman already warming up for her race. Colby and I did our warmups, our races, a wheel change, a Recoverite fill-up, and then returned to the trainers to cool down. The woman was STILL THERE! I hope she crushed it, because she did at least a two hour warmup.

Friday was stage two, maybe stage one. It's a 110 mile road race with some wind, some terrible weather, and an insanely hectic finish. Rumor has it is that as we were approaching 3k to go, the race radios in the car started blaring:

"We've got cars all over the road. This is mayhem!"

Twas.

We all made it through alive. Well, mostly. Danny was in a four man break for about 70 miles. This means that as I was coasting in the pack, Danny was pedaling HARD up the road. Here is a photo-montage of his afternoon.

Part one:

Part two:

Part three:

Massive props to Danny for making the rest of the team's day relatively simple.

Today we have another road race, and tomorrow is a good old fashion criterium.

Keep it real.

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Dat Walla Twice Nice

Lots of exciting things happened at the Tour of Walla Walla. For one, Alan Schmitz paid for four tacos at Yungapetis and in exchange for his currency, received eight tacos in return.

It's Lang! He has a big head

Lets rewind and start from the very beginning. There are many theories about where the earth came from, and since I was a Communication major I do not know about them. So we’ll move on from the beginning and focus on Thursday afternoon, when we were driving to Walla Walla. Due to some logistical troublemakings, we had to take three vehicles to Wine-land. This is not the huge warehouse off of 45^th in Seattle, but in fact a colony settled by artists in Eastern Washington.

Winger drove one car, I drove another, and Doug drove the van. Since I’m lazy, I relied on Wingding and Alan’s local knowledge to get us to Walla Walla. Which means that I was in charge of keeping up with Chris’s TDI wagon while I chugged along in the CRV. Which stands for Crane (is) Really Veryawesome. However hard I chugged a long, I’d like to point out that Doug was also going for the caravan technique. Doug was driving a sprinter van. Doug made every single one of the passes that Winger and I made. It’s tricky, like Run-DMC, to maneuver a big ol’ van at TDI speeds, but Doug got it done. This three-car caravan sticking together was a perfect start to the Tour of Walla Walla.

Stage one confused the living hell out of Danny and Staz. It was cold and windy all morning, and while David and I were giddy over the potential of having to start a fire while racing to stay warm, the Californians stressed over future hypothermia. It was 51 degrees.

Stage one was moderate, and the guys were great. A big chase by the HB cycling guys took 1:40 out of the breakaway in the final 20k. Colby and I unfortunately were not able to close the rest of it down in the finish, and we crossed the line in a group two seconds behind the breakaway riders. Important thing to know from this stage: based on my power data, the neutral rollout was the second hardest time up the climb of the race, behind only the finish.
 

Stage two had us hangin’ in a parking lot like the good old days in high school. The TT starts at Walla^2 C^2 and is an 8.1 mile romp, where going all out I was only able to do a touch over 27 mph. This was the windiest TT I think that I’ve done and I was having a good time fighting the wind while trying to stay aero. I rode a TT that I was strategically happy with and finished up the day 2^nd, only four seconds out of the stage win. After stage two, I was second on GC, 18 seconds out of the lead.
 

Credit: Darcy Miller

Clearly losing time at the line. Credit Darcy Miller

Stage three was the downtown crit. We had a pretty simple plan on paper: win the time bonus, win some primes, and win the race. We knew that if I could be up there on the time bonus and finish I’d maybe take the lead, and if not that, scoop up lots of seconds and get closer. The guys, once again, were incredible. We won the time bonus at the mid-point, and after a furious lead-out by Winger/Danny/Staz, David and I passed the breakaway rider (JesseDreams) in the last corner, and I was able to sprint for the win. With that, David sacrificed his record of “My worst place ever in the crit here is 5^th”. We rode really well together, and everyone did his job to perfection. That is not the amazing thing however. The real mind-boggling thing was the speed that Staz took David and I into the third-to-last corner. It was one of those moments where you haven’t actually cornered that hard yet and all three of us, and I’m sure the bros behind us, got a little loose in that corner.

David and I. Credit: Darcy Miller

The time bonus and the finish bonus got me 13 seconds, and going into the Queen Stage I was 5 seconds behind.

This day started out quite appropriately. I was preparing for the stage in the parking lot. Putting sunscreen on, listening to that rap music scene, and getting in the zone. My zone was suddenly a lot buzzier and more aggressive when the one and only Sam Johnson arrived with an ACTUAL power animal for me. Usually I channel imagined things, only made real to me by my imagination and strangeness. Sam brought me an ACTUAL killer bee. At first, my reaction was mixed. Why would I want to be an insect? For this stage I should be something incredibly strong and evil, like a Rhino that stepped on a lego. Something like that. Sam explained to me that there is nothing meaner than a bee. Nothing more agile than a bee. There is nothing else that's entire existence is to sting you violently. I fully jumped on the killer bee train. I became that creature and prepared to pounce.

I told you that Sam brought an actual creature for me

We were here to win, and we figured that the best way to go about doing this was for me to win the stage, get the time bonus, and hopefully win the GC. We knew that if I were to win the stage, the only way I could lose GC would be if the current race leader got 2^nd on the day.

FF’d 65 miles into the race. A break has gone and is 3:40 seconds up the road. No one is chasing. We take control of the race with five guys on the front. After ten minutes of pulling, the guys shattered the field, leaving only 35 guys left to hang on to the massive tempo they were putting out. They kept it up, each riding outside of their minds to chase the break back. HSP was the only team that helped us chase. There were only three teams represented up the road, but only one team lent us some riders. I’d like to think it’s because everyone was so destroyed by the massive tempo that my teammates were setting. The guys caught the breakaway with 4.5 K to go, and turned their “chase the break for an hour and a half” speed into a “we’re doing a full on leadout” speed. They turned it and burned it, and dropped David and I off within the last kilometer where he perfectly set me up for a 200m sprint. I won the stage, which was Goal #1. Now was the time to see who got second.

It was the race leader.

Road race finish. Credit: Darcy Miller

After 7+ hours of racing and four stages, the GC came down to one second. It is pretty easy to look back at a stage race and think about where I could’ve picked up a second or two, but that is truly irrelevant. We rode incredible as a team, and did what we set out to do. I’m usually pretty anti-GoPro videos in races, but this is one weekend where I wish I had one on my bike. I got to witness some incredible riding and winning two stages to back up that riding was the least that I could do.

Also, I ate a pumpkin and squash curry for dinner on Saturday night. It was really good.

From,

Ian

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Get Rich Schemes Number- Back In Business

It's been awhile since I've had to resort to brilliant ideas in exchange for financial sustenance. Butttttt

These sort of things are expensive. Other examples of expensive things are groceries, gas, shirts with collars, bike tubes and almond butter. You may remember that I have a job now, which is awesome. But it turns out that in order to live a lucrative lifestyle without having a real job you have to reach into the intelligent recesses of your brain and plan oodles of inventions and creations that will positively change the lives of millions of people and in exhange, bring oodles of currency into your kitchen. Wallet.

So with that, I've been thinking of many new ideas that I guarantee you will like and will want to invest in immediately. In fact, let's just take my word on it and you can invest right now before learning about these plans.

Here we go.

1- Razor blade gloves.

I'm lazy, you're lazy, and Danny Heeley is lazy. Shaving is time-consuming and annoying. Who wants to spend such a long time shaving their legs or face or back or head or eyebrows or lower back or armpits? If you answered no one, you're correct. That's the thing about shaving- you commit to it, but then half way through you're emotionally over it. Then you are left with the decision: do you do a hack job for the rest of your process, do you rush shave and miss spots, or do you waste your entire afternoon/sanity finishing the shaving ordeal?

Well my friends, none of the above. I am more than pleased to present my newest invention. These are soft, delightful gloves made of velour or angel hair that you wear while shaving. There are razor blades on each of the fingers. Now you can shave five times faster and with much more dexterity than you have with a massive plastic attachment razor.

I'm not talking about Freddy Kreuger hands, but simply cartridge razor blades that are attached to wonderfully comfortable gloves. Now you can shave safely and efficiently. You are welcome hairless-America.

2- No-nose Winose

That is a brilliant product name, I promise. Once you hear about it you'll agree. It's fun, a play on words, and is super catchy. Swag surfin.

No-nose Winose is a product for people who want to look refined while getting that last drop of wine from their glass. Everyone who knows anything about wine and life in general knows that the older the wine gets the better it is, so I can't stress enough the deliciousness of the last drop in the glass. It is the oldest so it is the wisest.

However, it is impossible to get that last bit without going bottoms up on the wine glass and shoving your face into it like you're some sloppy pig in a trough trying to get at the last bit of compost. Face it world, this is refined wine drinking- you're not throwing back a 4-Loko and you're not drinking a milkshake.

I introduce you to No-nose Winose: A specially produced wine glass that has a cut out for the bridge of your nose, enabling you to tilt the glass at less of an angle to get the last drop. Instead of pouring it on yourself like a bucket of Gatorade after winning the championship game, you can now classily consume that Pinot-No-Nose.

I mean, look at this animal:

It's pretty much the same thing:

3- Paninian's

This is my second restaurant that I'll be opening, behind "Wrap Music".

I will serve paninis only, and they will be amazing.


With regards,

Ian

ps: I'm at the Tour of Walla Walla right now. It's raining and windy. Danny and Staz are sad because it's sunny in California.

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Redlands day four

I went from posting day-of stage to finishing up four days late. That's because I JUST finished Sunset loop. I was determined to cross that line so I kept riding.

The real reason for my absence is I've been feeling similar to what I imagine those who live in sarcophagusi (plural of sarcophagus, duh) feel like. Immediately after finishing up Sunset, I ate a really disgusting amount of food with Staz. We did not want to waste it, so we ate it. Sort of like how when after lions are done with their jackalopes, birds come and pick apart the remains. Staz was like one of those birds. I was more refined and used a fork.

Then, with food in the bellies, we got in the van to head North. By we, I mean Alan, David, Winger, Staz, and myself. We then proceeded to drive 22 hours until arriving in Seattle. I slept a total of zero minutes. It's a curse: moving things + me sleeping does not equal success. The absolutely amazing part is I predicted to the minute what time we would arrive back in Seattle from the southernmost part of Oregon. The second most amazing thing is the way that Winger managed to sleep in the car. The third, least amazing thing, is that David drove almost the entire way. Wacky.

Midnight snack at In-n-out. I got water.

I just realized I never talked about the crit either. It was good fun. I rode top 30 the whole race, trying to save as much energy as I could for Sunday's Sunset torture chamber. With about 3 laps to go I realized I was thinking like a GC rider, not a crit rider. I got embarrassed by that, but it was much too late to remedy the situation and instead of doing something gnarly to participate in a sprint, I watched from a safe distance.

Winger Studios

Highlights of Sunday (before I talk about bike racing):

- Seeing Honest Gabe. He's still as nice as ever:

- Our host's daughter had a small gathering of friends over on Saturday night. They were playing some drinking game that involved slamming things against the kitchen table and giggling. Here's a photo of the table on Sunday morning!

I couldn't get a photo of our host's expression, but this doll in my room summed it up fairly well:

20 dollar baller

- This was actually Saturday, but while at the coffee shop pre-Crit, we saw this incredible setup. Photo credit to Brad Huff because I couldn't get out of my chair to take a good photo. But you can see us enjoying life in the background:
 

 
Ok, bike racing.


Sunset Loop is a really tough day in the saddle. I'm just going to go ahead and say that it's the hardest day on a bike in the NRC circuit. You start by doing two crit laps. There are sprint points on both of these laps.

Then, you turn onto a wide boulevard to climb 1100 feet up to the circuits. As soon as you get on the circuits, it becomes a narrow and a technical descent, followed immediately by the start of the climb. On the first lap, there were KOM points AND a time bonus at the top of the climb.

What this means is that positioning going into the circuit is unbelievably important. In the years past, I've been completely gassed before even getting to the climb on the circuits because I was using so much energy staying up front. This was the thing that I was most stressed about going into the stage. However, Chris "I will position you" Stastny told me to follow him no matter what, and that he would get me to the front for the beginning of the laps.

So I followed Chris. We were near the back for the crit laps. Near the back for the majority of the climb up to the circuits. With about a K to go before the circuit, Chris started moving up through the middle, ignored the first swarm, and threaded a tiny needle with about 200 meters to go before the loop. All of a sudden, I was 4th wheel and we headed onto the loops with me in perfect position, fresh, and extremely excited. Chris is rumored to have thought to himself "chillll" as he dropped me off into the loops. Thanks Chris!


I was feeling very confident going into this stage. I had been climbing with the top 15 guys at Beaumont and knew that if I had a similar day that I would be in a position for a good result. I crested the KOM on the first lap in ~10th wheel, feeling relatively comfortable.

Unfortunately, that was as far as I made it. Each lap after, I started to fade and the climb + positioning leading into the climb became harder and harder. About half way into the race, I came off the front group of ~45.

It was just not a good day of pedaling. I did as much as I could and had full support from my teammates, but I could not capitalize.


I initially was really bummed with how things turned out. It was a huge group that sprinted at the end of the day. On paper, I should've been in that group and had a crack at the finish, but that wasn't how things turned out. Looking back on Redlands from the past, I've gradually improved each year. I lasted way longer in the front group than I had in the past, and even though I didn't last the whole race it was much better than before.

I would have loved to have some magical ride, but I am content with how the weekend went. I got my first top 10 at an NRC race and our team worked very well together. There is nothing but positives that can be taken out of our first big race of the year. I expect to see us turning some heads over the course of this season and I look forward to sharing those moments with you.

Next up for the team is the Walla Walla stage race followed by the Joe Martin Stage Race. These are races that I like. I like all races actually. Bike racing is cool.

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Hello from BROMONT

I just learned a wonderful new way to speak of the city of Beaumont. BROmont. Thanks Jon. I learned further that moto-bros have no idea of the actual city of Beaumont. But if you tell them BROmont- "ooooooooh".

This is bad news. I just found out that we're going to go to Trader Joe's (round 3) right now, and that means that Kennettron will post before me. I get sad losing the blogging race.

Wait, never mind. We no longer have a ride to the grocery store. Can anyone help? Thx. I'ma break down today's race and the exciting events that occurred in or around DAMNIT we're going to Trader Joe's in Jon's car. BRB

Ok, I'm back. As an apology, here's this fun photo:

Now we've got all that madness out of the way, I'm sure you're interested in what I got at the store. I got: two apples, one box of cereal,  one San Pelly, one beet juice, and one rice pudding. Delicioso.

Today was a good day pedaling. Stage two of Redlands is a 120 mile road race with one uncomfortable climb and one really hard climb. It looks like this:

The race was pretty chill for the first couple of laps, and then things for some reason kept getting harder near the end of the day. Proof in heart rate form!

As you can see, I was trying pretty hard to ride easy-ish the first couple of laps. It is a long race (200km) and in the last couple of years I was always real tired by the last two laps up the KOM hill.  This year I wanted to make sure that did not happen.

Important to know: It was foul weather at the beginning of the day- heavy fog, light rain, and dark. As I put sunscreen on in the van before the race, Steve goes "ha! I'm going for the just get burned method if it gets nicer".

He got a sunburn, sucka!

The guys were incredible all day. I had little to zero stress for the first three hours. In fact, by far the most stressful thing that happened to me in the first while of the race was when I was riding behind Kennett. I'm not referring to dangerous riding. You see, Kennett has this habit of just deciding to pee while riding. That's pretty normal in bike racing... except everyone but Kennett pulls to the side of the group and pees off the bike. Kennett tends to just pee himself, shorts and all. Then the stream goes where it needs too. Unfortunately for whoever rides behind Kennett, this usually means it will go on them. This caused me great amounts of stress because while I was riding behind Kennett, I noticed that several other racers were taking a pee break. I was tremendously worried this would lead to Kennett doing the same, so I immediately passed him and made sure that he did not Hagens-Chop me into the next corner.

Hornbeck got his swerve on and made one of the significant days of the break. Wow, I just wrote that. I meant breaks of the day. This was optimal for me, because it meant that I could sit 12th wheel and just chill playing the teammate up the road card.

Photo credit to Brian Hodes of Veloimages

Things were extra special the last two laps up the KOM climb.

Shoot, now we're leaving for dinner. Maybe I'll finish this later.  Maybe by then there will be some photos or something.

Here I am again. I've returned, for you!

I ate tacos.

Just had to re-read where I was going. I said "Things were extra special the last two laps up the KOM climb".

Photo  credit to Brian Hodes of Veloimages

With two laps to go I went really hard. Mind boggling hard. As in I was the LAST guy to make the front split of around 12 over the KOM, struggling to hold onto Kennett's wheel. I did, and nothing came out of it. Steve brought me a bottle, moved me into position, hand slung me onto Jon's wheel, and then Jon towed me into the base of the climb on the last lap. Then we both rode as hard as we could up the climb and both barely made the split of nine that went over the top.

This was really exciting. We had two guys in the front split of 9 with maybe 10k to go. I told Jon to ride as hard as he could until he was dropped. I was confident that if we stayed away, I could do well in the sprint, and I needed Jon to get us to the line with me being as fresh as possible. He was taking some massive pulls, but unfortunately we got caught by a group of 25 with around 2k to go. There was a group of 4 dangling 10 seconds ahead of us the whole time.

Things got very hectic with maybe 500 meters to go and I had to brake, which was not optimal. I lost a couple spots and went into the last corner maybe 8th or 9th wheel, and started my sprint early. I came around a couple guys and ended 10th on the day (6th in the group).

photo credit to Lyne from Podium In Sight

I'm definitely content after today, but very hungry for more.

Crit tomorrow!

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Red

I can't be bothered to type any further in the title spot. Nice.

Things are happening here in California. Lots of citrus fruits and construction. Speaking of which, I'm going to go eat a grapefruit.

Ok, I ate it. Twas good. Let me tell you about these grapefruits. You see, the Trader Joe's in Redlands is the place to be if you like to eat food. I fit into that category. We went there (twice so far) and I decided I needed to buy some grapefruit, because I, like most intelligent people, enjoy the flavor and tartness of a grapefruit. TJ's offered me the price of one grapefruit for .99 cents, or a huge burlap sack full of grapefruit for $3.99. As if I would've chosen anything different. Armed with enough fruit to satisfy my citrus cravings for about a day, I continued to walk around where I found this:

Turns out that all cyclists need to eat are stacked on this island: oranges, bananas, coconut water, cliff bars, and trail mix.

Silly Trader Joe's, you forgot Fage greek yogurt. (I at 50+ g of protein in greek yogurt alone yesterday. Take that Atkins!).

A lot has changed for me while I've been in California! Not only was I welcomed into a grocery store, but I also encountered some small fame thanks to Christopher Wingfield.

Winger instagrammed the living s out of this s and then Castelli Cycling shared it. Then, my left elbow and apparently gigantic feet became a subject of either A)amazement or B) mockery on the internet. Keeping it real. Bro.

Next, we raced a time trial.

Then we went to a Starbucks!!!! Let me tell you about how exciting this was. Not only was it in a small Bavarian castle, but instead of coffee, they served potatoes!

Sorry the photo is blurry. I was so excited by the fact that I could eat a tater with my coffee that I could not keep my hands still.

Here are some photos from the drive back from the TT. I have nothing witty to say about them. In fact, I think I feel a little drunk on thick air right now. The race today was at I think 75,000 feet of elevation, so now that I'm back at sea level I've been choking on all the available oxygen.

This is a tree

Let's talk bike racing! We drove to the race listening to angry rap. Specifically, MOP. They called themselves Monkeys on Parole in their lyrics, and everyone knows that I love to embody crazy monkeys while racing.

Today we had ourselves a 7.8 mile time trial on a really fun road. There were up and downs, turns, and for Danny, beautiful views.

TT's are very easy to look back on afterwards and find some lost time, but the reality is is that you go as hard as you can, and that's that. I used the same word twice in a row twice in that sentence. Looking back at my TT, could I have gone 7 seconds faster for top 20? Sure. If I could've done that, I may as well have gone another 30 seconds faster to move up even farther. And now looking back on it, I don't think I pedaled harder than recovery pace on the way out so that's looking like another minute. OH! And I forgot to zip my skinsuit all the way, so that's like four minutes extra.

TT's. People seem to love 'em or hate 'em. Ever since getting on my new Jamis Xenith T2 I've been comfortable and loving them. So sure, it would've been great to go ten, twenty, sixty seconds faster today- but the reality is that I went as deep as I could. I'ma keep working on these things and I'll check in with you later.

Also, to everyone:

Grammatically incorrect <3 from our host house bathroom.

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