You need a local bike shop

If you ride a bike with any frequency and like to ride with any type of pasion, you NEED a local bike shop! (LBS) "Buy why?" you might ask. There are hundreds of websites out there that sell parts cheep, and ebay where you can get anything you want for even cheeper. I myself, at one time, built my wife a bike by buying all the parts online. I hate that bike, I don't really think it fits her well, and I think it doesn't work as well if it was built as a whole.

I know how to wrench on a bike, the only thing I have never done is build a wheel form scratch. I have broken down shocks, bearings, hubs, you name it I have been messing with it since I was a teenager. But I still need my shop, they are like my pit crew. And if I was just some dude that showed up with online parts it could be hard to get what I need as fast as I need it sometimes. That is the true beauty of the LBS. They are your friends, team, partners, in a hobby that for many, consumes much of their time, money, and lives.

The first step when you finally realize you need some people behind you is find a place you want to be. A great bike shop should be like Cheers, a bunch of friends who are always happy to see you, not just because you are going to buy something. When I was looking, my test was just to see if the shop guys treated me like I was stupid and if the sales guys tried to sell me stuff I didn't want. Next, did they stock items that I needed to race or were they bringing in items more for recreational riders. I know that the average Joe is the bread and butter of any shop, but I want people that have the same way of thinking about racing as I did. In the last city I lived in the shops in town did not look at racing that way and it was sad. Last was who was near and where did I feel more comfortable.

Mesa Cycles was the shop I ended up choosing. There were a few other great shops near me that just didn't quite stack up, but they were all very good. How lucky are we in the St Louis area to have so many great shops to cater to our sport. Mesa not only had employees that raced but the owners were BIG TIME racers, and supported Jr. Racing in the area for quite a long time. When they agreed to start helping the first version of my team it was just icing on the cake.

There are times when having a LBS that you buy everything from, pays off in ways that you cannot put a price on. I have examples where my shop stayed open late for me to re-glue tires for me so I could race again the next day. I know loyal customers like myself who have destroyed bikes in crashes or run ins with garages, or wild antelope, something like that, and have a new bike under them in 2-3 days. These are not just a new bike from the store, no, these are new frames that have to be built up, fitted, and tested. That takes time, and to turn that around so fast when it takes a day or two just to get the frame in, is amazing. It is the perks that you get when you are a loyal customer to your LBS. You might pay a little more for that cassette, but in the end the shop will bend over backwards to save the day when you are really in need.

These shops are Main Street America. They are the mom and pop shops that made this country what it is today. They have had to fight to keep this way of life alive for those cyclists left to come. With the deluge of cheep product form online retailers, the LBS has had to get really creative to keep the traffic walking in the door.

Just trust me on this, if you want to get everything possible out of riding your bike you need a shop behind you. Without them it would be like racing a NACAR race car with no pit crew.

This place has a really nice feel, sometimes I just go and hang out.....and stare at the employees awkwardly :-)

They have all the goodies! They have top end bikes, pro level cycling kit, sweet Ipad thingies, and stuffed snow men. Like I said, they pretty much just rock it!

Mesa's staff is top notch, especially that creepy dude in the back with the goofy smile. Is that cake? Mmmmmm cake.

Belleville was a BLAST!

The team had a great day at Belleville, IL today. We had riders race in the 4/5, 3/4, 50+, and the 123. Our super star cat 4 Grant took another 1st place win with a break away. His Dad was not so fortunate though, crashing hard and hurting his shoulder bad. I have not heard yet how he is doing but I hope he will only be sore for a few days and then back in the saddle quick.

This race is pretty sweet. The course has a lot of tight fast turns and plays to my strengths. This meant that I wanted to win, bad. And truthfully I thought I was going to win, right up until 2 turns to go. We had the biggest, (Me, Mike, Brian, Keith, Jason W, and Jason M) strongest team in the race and had a great plan that was unfolding perfectly. Brian and Keith were doing a lot of work on the front keeping the pace high, jumping off the front, and making others have to work for us. This was step one of our plan. Mike was going to do some freelance work and when they rang the bell for a prime (a race within the race where you can win money and other prizes) I asked a couple of our guys to move Mike up to the front. He had a great sprint taking the prime with ease. Very soon after that, about half way through the race a couple riders were rolling away and our man Jason Murphy took up the chase. When he was about to hook up, a rider from Hammer Down decided to jump and I just was there for the ride. We all started to ride very well right away, and with the rest of my team putting the breaks on in the field, we had a large gap on the field quick like.

Like I said the plan was working to perfection. Now to work out how to finish things off. Around 5 laps to go I noticed that I had a rider stuck to my back wheel. He was marking me and I was not able to shake him at all. Soon enough no one would come around me and that is when Jason M started putting in double time. With one lap to go Jason started putting in some really hard digs trying to shake something loose. After a very hard pull going down the back stretch, I jumped, hard. I was sure that I had shaken everyone, and once I made it to the course's tough downhill turn I was going to put the race away. I looked down at by back tire and there he was, my mark had stuck to me like glue, S#*T! I pushed it through the turns hoping that would dislodge him, nope, and then I hammered up the hill hoping I could just hold it to the line, wrong again. I was done for, it was all spent and I had blown all my team's hard work. Jason, even after all his hard work was still able to sprint for 4th, I limped in for 6th, last in the break and one place out of the money. The rest of my team though finished off the field sprint in amazing fashion, taking 1st through 3rd.

I was not happy with myself, and I have gone over what I did right and what I did wrong. The sad thing is the mistake I made is a mistake I've made before, and it has taken me doing it a few times to realize it is a mistake. A goal of mine has always been to not ever make the same mistake twice. I want to be a smart racer, and I can do all I want to gain more muscle and speed, but if I don't use my head and smarts I am going to lose a lot more races than I win.

I rested for about and hour watching Rick race in the Masters 50+. He looked super strong and I am sure had a very good placing. I will have to check out the results though because I didn't get to talk to him before we lined up for the 123 race.

I have done some 123 races before but I have never done too well. I was really just hoping to help my team early in the race and then hold on for as long as I could. We had myself, Bj, Mark, Jason W, and Keith lining up. Our plan was pretty simple, mark the strong guys and see what happened. There was a good showing of teams in the race, with Hammer Down and Dog Fish looking to be the biggest. Dog Fish was active from the start and I was able to keep up with some moves and mix it up. Devin Clark from The Hub was looking wicked strong and put in attack after attack trying to get off the front. Justin Maciekowicz also put in countless attacks and I was only really able to go on one or maybe two. I have no idea how these guys can just go and go. It is pretty astounding to me that when it seems like you can't go any harder, that's when the attacks come from all angles. Good to know what I need to learn though.

After a while Mark was able to get into a move that stuck and the team just sat back and followed moves. The one curious thing about the race was that people were very vocal, more so than even the Cat 3s. A lot of telling people what to do, and a lot of trash talk. I guess being the new guys on "the block" our team isn't looked at as someone that should be there. We like to think otherwise.

Late in the race they rang the bell for a prime and Jason W made a great move. At first I though he was making a move to either bridge up to the break, or was going to try and hang it out there till the end. After I saw him cross the line easily and sit up though I remembered the prime. It was awesome to watch a teammate with so much power.

As the race started coming to a finale I was getting more and more excited that I might make it to the end. I didn't have much left in the tank to try to sprint and coming around the 2nd to last corner I was getting pretty crossed eyed. But finishing in the pack really helped me to feel better about my earlier performance. What was even better was Mark, Jason W, and Bj brought home 3 more great results with 2nd, 6th and 10th respectively. What a day! Now my only regret was I didn't have time to hang around and get a beer to celebrate with the guys. But there will be more time for that another weekend. Great job team!

Race in the rain, again.

Looks like tomorrow's crit is going to be wet. The last couple seasons have been pretty wet early on. I don't mind racing in the wet, I just hate having to clean everything when we are done. I remember racing mountain bikes in deep mud as a kid. That was the worse. Once I used my mom's new white towels to clean my bike after a race. I don't know what I was thinking, they were in with the rags but I should have known better.

Racing in the rain is purely mental. You have to have the desire to get out and be okay with suffering more than normal. You have to have a good amount of confidence when you go through turns at full speed. My biggest worry is just going down with others that go down.

What I like to do when I think it is going to be wet is first, have the best tires I can have. Training tires don't have the grip that the best race tires have. Then I go low psi, lower than I think most like to go. I will race at about 80 psi (I am 155lbs). I often get some pretty crazed looks when I say that but I have raced at even lower (75psi) last year at Snake Alley hoping to not have any slippage going up the steep grade and red brick. The biggest problem with running tires at such a low pressure is pinch flats, where you pinch the tire and tube between an object and the rim of the wheel causing two distinct holes on either side of the inner tube. I find that the more I am able to ride near or at the front the easier it is for me to make sure I will be able to miss hazards that might cause flats.

The other technique I use to be able to take turns at a high speed is to try and straighten out the turns as much as I can. We all learned in drivers-ed that tires really only like to do one job at once, turn or lay down power. So I think of turns more as hexagonal, rather than a smooth curve with an apex. I'm not sure if this is the best technique, but it is the one that has served me best over the last few year.

If tomorrow's race is wet it is going to be tough, but that is what makes some races great. My only hope is that I, my teammates, and all the other riders get through it with the rubber down. Good luck everyone, see you in Belleville.

The Ardie Miller Belleville Criterium Pre Race Report

This weekend will be my first crit of the year. It is crazy to me that I have not done one yet so late in the year. There were a few crits that were canceled earlier in the year, and I missed out on one right down the street from me at Forest Park. I was out of town for work.

I love crit racing. It is fast and technical. There are a lot of people that don't like it because of the speed and "all the turning". When I started racing I figured that turns were a place that I could make up time and save some energy if I was really good at them. I have always liked the rush of pushing the speed through turns. I have done some turns in the wet where I have both tires sliding and just road it out. It was a pretty strange feeling but you just keep your cool and keep your eyes where you want to go. There are a lot of guys out there that can ride like the wind, and I am one of the worst group ride guys, I never win. But put me in a race and it is a different story. I don't ever feel like I work harder or anything, I think other people just go slower......

So this weekend's race is the Ardie Miller Belleville Crit. It is held in downtown Belleville IL on some great roads. It has 6 hard turns and 2 sweeping ones. One of the hard turns in at the bottom of a downhill section, and most riders are very weary of this section. Then we go through another left hander and we go up a slight uphill for about two blocks. We have a left and a right till we hit the home stretch. A couple years ago I won this race as a 4 in a two man break away. I had planned to try a break but I went very early, more on impulse than actual good racing, and held the lead for the next 16 laps. Last year we had a lot of rain which made for a very difficult race.

I am feeling pretty good for this weekend. I have not raced in a couple weeks and I was away from riding all last weekend being at regional championships. So I will just wait and see how it works out. Check back for more details later.

The peak

Peaking in gymnastics is kind of a funny thing. In college we competed every weekend so we had to be pretty much on form all season long. As the year got older we would hit routines cleaner and easier, but when you are expected to win from day one you have to be on your game. This year was the first real season that I decided to peak all my athletes for Nationals/Westerns. The girls are good enough now that winning at the end of the year is really a possibility. Before, we would try to peak for state or regionals just to make it to the next meet. It is a tough idea to sell to kids that are used to winning from meet number 1 of the season at the compulsory level. They don't really look at how a routine was cleaner or stronger, they just know if they made it all the way through.

I think the girls started to understand what we were doing part way through the season. Their routines were getting better, and they were hitting more and more of them in training. Once we made it to state championships the girls were really starting to hit their stride. We were not at the peak, just the start of it, but we were going well enough that the level 9s were able to take the win.

When we are trying to get the girls to peak, we start to back off a lot on what we are doing. For some people I think this is a strange idea. I talked with some coaches last weekend where gyms were upping hours, doing more skills, more routines, more of everything. For us it was the opposite. Girls get their work done and we go home. Of course this is difficult to do if your athlete isn't hitting routines and you haven't done your work earlier in the season.

A former coach that worked for me put if very simply for the girls once and I still use it today. When we train we do things in steps, and each step is very important and if you miss a step you will not be successful. Early in the season it is easy to want to skip steps when you feel you are behind. But when you look at the big picture you have to realize that you are only on step 3 of 10 for example. Skipping from step 3 to 6 would leave a foundation of shaky stones instead of solid concrete.

With that in mind we do large numbers early in the year, and as we get close to the end of the season, it makes it easy to focus on lower numbers, lower conditioning, and more mental preparation.

The mental preparation was the biggest benefit to our team I feel. To achieve that meant we had to have more succes. That meant if an athlete was having a good day we stopped with what we had. We didn't push to get more. And if it was a bad day we quit early too and blamed it on "a bad day", making sure to have a good day the next day. This causes the athlete to feel more successful. The example would be I would rather an athlete hit 2 or 3 of any particular thing we were doing that day, be it routine, skill, or part. Rather than hit 5 of something and miss 5 or 6 of it as well. If the athlete hits her first 3 skills move on, don't "push your luck" trying to get more done. Remember your numbers should have been done long ago. Also I don't want an athlete to go on missing skill after skill, or routine after routine. If I have done my job right one bad day here or there wont ruin anything on the run in to National/Westerns. So if it is a bad day, or just a bad skill, I cut it off in an effort to keep the athlete's mental state high.

There is no replacing your base work in the summer and fall. If you cannot get the numbers in you will not have a consistant athlete. That means early in the year, good, bad, or ugly you do the numbers you need to do. You may be able to get a couple good meets or workouts from pure mental prep, but it is extremely difficult for an athlete to believe in their ability if they have not done the numbers. But combining skill work and mental prep will create a real competitor and can show you and your athlete a lot of success. 

Going back to Minn.

This weekend is the region 4 gymnastics championships in Minneapolis Minnesota. Over the last few weeks the girls have done nothing but get better and better. It is amazing to watch how persistant they all are, and to see most of them looking for every last tenth in their routines. This is what we have been talking about for years, and amazingly it is working.

Over the last few months I had started to work on beam with my assistant coach because she would be gone having a baby during the post season. I wanted the girls to feel comfortable with me working with them so I hung around and started to give corrections. We have come a long way, from no hit days, to now we have maybe missed a routine once each rotation. It is looking like a college workout these day. I remember girls at the U of I that never fell. You knew when they got up on the beam it was going to be a hit. That is what I am seeing now. Girls that I know will put up a great routine and a big score.

The biggest hurdle this year has been the girls mental toughness, I guess that has always been the biggest hurdle. But with our gymnastics improving skill wise, we knew if we didn't strengthen their minds the routines wouldn't come. The biggest issue was the domino effect. If one routine fell, the rest would fall. Over the season I would make my lineup so that our most consistant gymnasts went first. I hoped that this would help keep our hit percentage higher. Some times it worked, some times it didn't. But when we get into the post season we don't have any choice about who goes when. The order is determined in advance. So we had to start making sure that all our girls were the most consistant. That was the hardest part of year. There were a few very tough days when the girls were tired, the gym was too hot/too cold, things just weren't right, and they wanted to "try again tomorrow". I wasn't too happy or nice on those days. But as a coach it isn't my job to be nice or happy. My job is to make these girls the best they can be, and when you are reaching the pinnacle of what you are capable of sometimes it takes being dragged kicking and screaming.

Today was the best day I have ever had on bars though. Every single girls hit their set, and they hit them big. Handstands were on, form was tight, landings were good. I had never been so happy and proud. When that happens this weekend I am going to be delirious with joy. That is all I can ask of these girls, to do their best.

I'm excited about the next few weeks in the gym and at competitions. It is what we all have worked hard for, to go to the National Championships. Here we come.

How do you make cycling better?

There are many people that spend a lot of time and money trying to do just this. Everyday people make headway in this endeavor, and others make it worse. There are places in the US where cycling is the way of life, even a town in South Carolina that is made for bikes only! Other places, and I think this is more the norm, cyclists are looked at as a rodent. Climbing on a bike makes you sub-human, worthy of being hit by a car. This isn't about how terrible people are to cyclists though, it is how am I going to try and make things better. I was recently elected to the position of VP of MOBRA. It's not a big deal, I was the only one that volunteered. The role of the VP is to try and make some type of improvement to bike racing in Missouri.

I have an idea of what to do, but it is going to take a lot of work and is going to take a lot of help and luck. One area that I might need help is from bike companies. But since my goal is to improve bike racing my first question is, do bike companies really see a benefit supporting bike racing? I know that many big brands sponsor pro teams, but is it because they want to be involved in pro cycling, or does that partnership really translate into dollar signs somewhere down the road? In gymnastics the profitable part of the industry is in the recreational side of the sport. Teaching little Bobby and Cindy how to do forward roles and cartwheels pays the bills. Training Mary Lou Retton to win the Olympics helps the ego. In the US it is really only the big 3 sports where an owner can make money off competitive sports. And it is mostly because there is a closed environment, and arena where the athletic event happens. Maybe that is the major reason that people don't look at cycling as a sport, and more as a child's game? How many parents out there think about putting their kid into cycling, unless they were or are cyclists?

So how do you change the perception of cycling into a sport? A long time ago cycling was the number one sport in the US. I'm not joking. And the biggest super athlete was a black man named Marshall Walter "Major" Taylor. The Amateur Bicycle League of America had hundreds of thousands of members that competed in major competitions at local bike tracks called Velodromes. What happened? Henry Ford, the Great Depression, a couple World Wars, and perhaps the American way of big, more power, is god. You change perceptions by changing the way a new generation thinks. You have to start with the kids. Those kids can change their parents, and when they grow up, they will teach the benefits of the bike to their kids......maybe. All good in theory, but bikes isn't racial inequality, women's suffrage, or gay rights.

I have the beginnings of a plan, but there are a lot of parts that have to come together in a perfect storm of awesome. I don't want to really put out much of what I am thinking though because I don't want to get any hopes up. But I want to build from the bottom up. We will see how it goes.

Hillsboro Roubaix Hell of the...........centralish Illinois

Like I said before they call this race the Hillsboro Roubaix because it is in Hillsboro and there are maybe 4 blocks where the streets are paved with red bricks. It is the closest thing we have in the states, or at least in the midwest, to the pave in Northern France. The nickname for Paris-Roubaix, which travels from just outside Paris France, to the town of Roubaix, (no Roubaix is not what the bricks are called in France) is the Hell of the North, hence my attempt at a little humor in the title. hehe

This year's addition was a pretty amazingly run event by the crew from the International Christian Cycling Club, and the town's people of Hillsboro, IL. The day was not the best for racing as we had a steady rain almost the entire time, the weather however has made for some of the most epic bike races of all time. And many an amateur and professional alike dream of one day competing in such an event that would go down in the annals of local cycling history. Maybe today would be that day........nope, just another race in the rain.

Quantum Mesa Cycles had a large team amassed for the 3s race with Mike Rickey, Jason Wulff, Jason Murphy, Eric Finks, Keith Vogl, Brian Smith, and myself. I think were the biggest if not one of the biggest teams in the race. With the knowledge that we would be one of the biggest teams we set out to put our combined strength on display controlling most of the first lap of the race. This was in hopes that setting the pace would make it easier for us to control the rest of the teams and keep things under control for our two protected riders, The Jasons, bum bum buuummmmmm. The quick and easy plan was to get these guys to the end as fresh as could be and they sprint to victory. Both are expert sprinters, Jason W. having racked up a considerable number of wins over the last few years, many with me falling off his wheel when he competed against me. (good recruiting Nick!) With the first lap going the way we planned and things in the second lap starting to pan out how we thought they would go things were looking good. Then our number one sprinter got a flat tire, okay we go to plan 1.5. Next I started telling the rest of the team what we were going to do. We were going to hit the bottom of the hill in the front (note: there is a big hill about a mile from the finish that narrows down to about 7 feet across). I knew from years past that crashes happen here as everyone wants to be first to the bottom and only about 4 people across can fit. Now I have a problem of thinking something and then only telling people half of what I am thinking and leaving out pretty important points. And this turned out to be pretty important as part of my team hit the bottom of the hill in the lead, the other part got stuck behind a crash. (Damnit, bad job Nick! now I'm 1-1) So as we go up the hill we are killin it, my team has lined out the rest of the field and our sprinter (ooo yeah our #1 sprinter made it back up to the race!) is right behind me. As we reach the top, Eric, who lead us perfectly to the bottom of the hill, peels off and I take over on the front. I am feeling good, it hurts but I can do it! I was a little worried about how far I would have to go to the finish line but I would figure it out. I hit the first of 3 left hand turns we had before the finish. The turn was very sketchy, of camber, lots of gravel, and wet, but I took it as fast as I could and started to bomb down the other side of the hill into the brick section. The downhill is even more scary; bricks, bumps, holes, gravel, and wet. I just held on tight and pushed. The next left turn was all slick red brick, I took it painfully slow and I was scared I just blew it. I looked back and the field was 20 yards behind......S#*T!!! I F 'd up again! I dropped my man, and now the pack is coming hard and I have nothing left in the tank. The field flew past me and I had no chance to catch back on. The only thing that made me feel better was that both Jasons and Eric were still in the field and we still had a good chance. These three did their best and all placed in the top 15. A great finish for such a hard race.

This was the first race where QMC was able to put such a big lineup in the race. And over the next few races we are going to be getting better and better and racing with each other. As our team comes together and a cohesive unit, we will be able to anticipate each others moves, we will know more about each other's strengths and weakness'. The more we know the stronger we will be.

Thanks again to Mesa for hooking us up with some wheels for today and 2 tents to keep us dry!

Get Sponsored

I just read this article on the TrainingPeaks.com website by a pro triathlete named Ben Greenfield. I have no idea who Ben is as I am not really into triathlons. But any time that I see something about sponsorships I read it. I am always interested in learning what people do to make oneself or a team more desirable for a potential partner.

My first sponsors were friends who liked racing and wanted to help out and get their name on a jersey. That was really helpful when I first started. Racing is expensive and every little bit helps. But my goal was to have a bigger team, make racing more accessible for those on my team, and grow an elite team (NRC maybe???). These goals all take time and money. To make these things happen I need partners.

The biggest thing that I have learned and something Ben talks about in his article is that it doesn't matter how fast you are, most partners want results for their money. Not necessarily race results, they want monetary results; sales, name recognition, traffic to their stores. Being fast can help that because the more you win, the more you get your name, and your partners' names in print. But if you don't sell for your partners, their wallet's can dry up fast.

I am still very new to finding new partners. The biggest thing I am learning to deal with is that being turned down is more the norm. It is hard for companies to part with their hard earned cash or product without almost guaranteed return on their investment. Since I am running a new team, and am new to the whole process I have yet to figure out all the kinks. But my successes have started to pile up. Partnering with Mesa Cycles was a huge deal for me. I even called my parents I was so excited. The crew at Mesa is so nice, if they had some comfy chairs I would probably hang out there for hours at a time. I just like being in bike shops. They help with so many aspects of our team I don't know what I would do without them.

I am the type of person that always has to make things right, pay back, be fair. A lot of my time working on the team is how to make sure our partners get out more than what they put in. Be that, setting up tents at races with sponsors names on them, blogging, doing functions, or anything they need. I feel, hope, that this is the best way to keep, and keep sponsors happy. It is a bit easier to do this for local partners, we are seen locally racing and riding around, and are known by others in the area. In order for us to grow it might take us learning how to cater to bigger regional, even national companies.

To do that I am going to need to keep reading all the sponsorship articles I can find. But there is always more time, and this is all pretty fun to figure out. So I will just see how things play out over the next few years.

But right now THANKS QUANTUM, MESA CYCLES, COMPUTER TRADE, GATEWAY GROUP MORGAN STANLEY SMITH BARNEY, SLGC, HAWTHORN BANK, SLOAN CLINIC, SPECIALIZED, and SRAM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

http://mesacycles.com/

http://quantummesacycles.com/blog/

https://www.hawthornbank.com/

http://uspcrecycle.com/

jason.jensen@morganstanleysmithbarney.com

http://www.stlouisgymcentre.com/

http://thesloanclinic.com/index.html

http://www.specialized.com/us/en/bc/home.jsp

http://www.sram.com/

Hillsboro Roubaix Pre-Race

This weekend is one of the biggest races in the area for this part of the year. It is the only road race that I know of, and have ever been to that sells out. It is held in the town of Hillsboro, IL. A small town seemingly in the middle of nowhere hosted by a great group of people at the International Christian Cycling Club. It gets it's Roubaix name from the three or four blocks in the race that are paved with rough red brick from a bygone era. The brick is only located in the last mile or less of each lap, and is preceded by the only "hill" in the race. At the end of a long day in the wind it can really hurt. 

I have had the opportunity to participate in this race two of the last three years. My first shot was as a Cat 5, it was my first race ever and I had been talked up by my team that I was going to kill it. I did not, I sucked a lot. The race is mostly flat with a few little roller type areas. The biggest hurdle is the wind, or it has been the two times I have done it. That and the super skinny roads, or the part we are allowed to use. Like I have talked about in a earlier post (Yellow Line Rule) you are only allowed to use half of the road. And the roads around Hillsboro, IL are skinny to begin with. There are moments in the race where it feels like you have 5 feet to work with.

Last year in the Cat 3 race we had a very hard time keeping within the invisible yellow line we were supposed to pretend was there. We infuriated the race ref enough that he actually stopped our race and threatened to cancel the rest of the race if we didn't stay within the line. This was the first time that had ever happened to me in a race and I was pretty scared of it really happening. So scared, it actually inhibited me in a race this year because I would not go over the line to keep a draft. Most racers don't mind people going over the line if you aren't attacking the race and you are being "safe". Safe in the way that you can see what is coming from the other way, not going over the line going up hill.

This year my team will have a really good lineup and we are hoping for a good showing. We were able to  win the Cat 3 race last year with only 3 members, and we are wanting to defend that title, even though we have a new team name. We will also have members racing in the 4s, Masters, and the Pro 1/2 fields.

The thing that really caught my eye about this year's addition of the race was the size and quality of the Pro 1/2 field. Bissell ABG Nuvo is bringing 10 riders, Mercy, TradeWind Energy is super strong, LAPT cycling all the way from Wisconsin, even Brad Huff from team Jelly Belly presented by Kenda. It is a lineup that many promoters would kill for, or pay for.....

It will be an exciting weekend, and it is only the beginning of a long fun season to come.

Im in this picture, it is one of my favorites of all time.

Nowhere near as bad as Paris-Roubaix, but they still hurt.

The state of Men's gymnastics

This is an outside view of what I see going on in a sport that I love. Men's gymnastics is not a big time sport, it is a small niche sport that caters to a different type of guy. Most if not all the gymnasts I knew were amazing athletes, they would have excelled at just about any other sport they did. Except maybe endurance sports. But these guys could run faster, jump higher, we more flexible, and stronger than many of the athletes I knew at the U of I. I would venture to guess that statement might be accurate for most of the colleges that still have D1 gymnastics. I knew gymnasts (weighing under 140lbs) who could bench over 300lbs multiple times, dead lift close to 8 or 900 lbs, just crazy strong.

One of the difficulties of gymnastics and I think a lot of boy's sports is that most athlete's don't start to see their potential until they have reached or gone through puberty. This can leave a lot of time where a kid can struggle, even fail waiting for their body to get it together. I think that even coaches on the boys side of the sport might push too hard too early in an effort to have great gymnasts. There are some kids out there who are freaks of nature, they are doing skill that only 5 years ago international elites were dreaming of. But a lot of these kids wont ever make it to the top of the sport. Mostly because of sheer burn out in my opinion. So the first problem is how do you keep kids in the sport, make them top level athletes, and once there get people to come watch them?

The first part is the hardest I think. Keeping the kids who are great at gymnastics in gymnastics is hard because like I said before they are probably great at a few other sports as well. And as they get closer to high school coaches from other sports are going to start calling. I think you make it easier. From what I see some of the routines at the compulsory levels are harder than they need to be to still get kids to be working on those uber important basics. With easier routines it would also give coaches more time to work more basics instead of all their time just getting these routines ready. Since the boys don't develop most of the strength needed to do the high difficulty skills till later make sure they are developing the base to start training those skills later. Don't start to work crosses until their shoulders have been built up enough to take the strain.

Now this is where my Sling Shot Theory comes into play. If more time is spent perfecting a core group of basic skills, once an athlete reaches a point where their body begins to mature, a coach should be able to "release" that athlete to begin quickly learning new skills. With this idea you would start learning the high level/difficulty skills later but the total amount of time to master that skill should be less. This would also bring in a lot of much needed fun into the athlete's training. Instead of taking years to learn some skills it will apear to the gymnast that they are picking up skills quickly and easily. This will bring up moral and help that kid to remain in the sport when high school sports start calling.

Last is how do you get, and keep fans in the stands once that athlete has made the "show"? That has been a big conversation between a lot of alumni of NCAA gymnastics recently. Many of the older alumni feel that we need to return to the 10.0 that had existed in the sport till about 2006. I flat out disagree. I do not remember at any point during my time in the sport that these types of conversations weren't happening. I do not think that gymnastics has lost any fans because we went to an open ended scoring system. Those people that were confused about the scoring before are still confused, and those who knew it before but are confused now wont stop going to meets because of that.

One great idea that has started to go around the web is being championed by U of I head coach Justin Spring. He is trying to get a head to head style competition started that would allow for a simplification of scoring and perhaps make things more exciting for the crowd. I think this is the way to go. The two big reasons I feel it is the right move are; 1) it allows the gymnastis in the USA to continue to do their international routines. And 2) it awards a simple point to the best routine. That way a meet's score would be something like 15-12. And fans would know where their teams stand as the meet goes on.

Returning to the 10.0 would lead to a total collapse of USA Gymnastics. Our current national team members that compete in the NCAA, (9 of the 15) would have to have multiple routines for the different competitions. This would take away from their ability to train as they would have to split their time between the two routines on each event (12 routines instead of 6). This would also lead to more athletes deciding to not go to the NCAA and just continue in their private gyms. This was a problem back in the 90s when most of our national team were in private clubs. This was because the NCAA used rules much like the collegate girls. So if more athletes are staying home and not going to the NCAA, where they would compete 12-14 times a year in their college season, in front of thousands of fans. The fans would then not have as many opportunities to see great international level gymnastics.

Using the one point per winning routine in the heads up would still allow for the use of the open ended code currently being used. Fans don't necessarily even have to know what the FIG score would be. Those scores would be kept to score AA, and event winners, but for the team competition they wouldn't be needed.

This is an amazing sport that has a log storied history. I feel that it is very similar the cycling. There seems to be a lot of people at the top that have lost touch with what is going on with the guys and gals on the front lines. Both sports are struggling to find a place in a world market. They both attract people who crave individual and team sports. And they both need a lot of help. There are many people out there that think that men's gymnastics only has so much time left. Once it is gone from the NCAA (only 16 teams remain) boys gymnastics around the country will quickly dry up. But it doesn't have to go that way. There are thousands of people out there that want to see it continue. It just takes someone at the top to take some of the great ideas out there and put them to use.

Yeah, I used to be able to do that.

Boonen!!!

Tom Boonen has won the Paris-Roubaix for the 4th time. This man is a hard man of hard men. And the way that he did it was classic. Boonen is well known for his sprinting ability, but over the last few years he has let it be known that he was not going to get involved in the sprints as much. This was because he feels that the sprints have become too dangerous. I think it was because he wasn't winning. This year he has been mixing it up just fine and seems to have changed his mind.

Boonen's win today was off the front and on his own though. He attacked a small group with a teammate and never looked back. He was even too strong for his own teammate to hang on and left him in his dust. It looks like Tom is a brand new man.

A friend of mine has a theory on why Boonen is doing so well and I like what he said. He thinks it is because Boonen is back on a Specialized bike. In my opinion specialized makes the best bikes. Now I have not been on a lot of bikes in my life, (Scott, Trek, Pinarello, Cannondale, Giant, Specialized) but so far they are the best I have ever been on. Also just look at the wins and the number of elite athletes that ride their equipment. I know that Lance and his crew all road on Trek, but after he left Astana I dont think anyone has won the TdF on a Trek. (I could be wrong, I didn't look it up)

I also like to look at all the great riders who have stopped riding Specialized, and don't seem to be doing as well as they did before. For example Fabian Cancelara, who is one of my favorite riders. Since leaving Saxo Bank it seems that he is just missing out in every race. His attempts to blow up the field and power away just don't have that extra 1% that they had a few years ago. Could be he is getting older but I don't think so. More likely everyone knows his tactics and are ready for him. Another rider is Mark Cavendish, I am probably jumping the gun on this one as Mark doesn't generally kill it until the TdF. He is having another lack luster early season, could it be because he is no longer on his beloved McLaren Venge? My Pinarello was not as snappy as my SL4 is, granted it was only an FP3 and not a Dogma 2, but I bet that McLaren Venge was like racing on a hot knife going through butter.

The thing that I really like about Specialized is that they seem to put a lot of work into research and development. They claim they invest more than anyone else, I have no idea if that is true, but with the amount of excellent products it appears that it might be. I am sure that they farm out most if not all of their production of bikes, but it is nice that they are an American company.

It is exciting to see Boonen back to his winning ways. It has been pretty cool that over the last few years there has been a Classics super star just killing everyone else. Two years ago was Cancelara, last year Gilbert, this year it is Boonen's turn to carry the flame. There are only a couple of the Spring Classics races left in the year, I hope Boonen can keep his momentum going and give us all a good show.

That lady wants to know what Tom's favorite color is.

Drool

Cat burglar!!!

We were robbed! Not bad, just had a bike stolen out of the garage. Not even a good bike, it wasn't expensive, Katie didn't use it all that much, and it was years old. But that isn't the point. Being robbed feels like shit. There was some asshole that walked into your home, and walked away with your stuff. What if you just missed them, what if your stuff is only feet away and you will never know. UUUGG so aggravating!

I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago and I was always scared of having things stolen from me. My dad is always making sure everything is locked up. I think that made me kind of go the other way. We were never robbed, so as a kid I thought we lived in a very safe place. Doesn't mean someone never tried, we just had everything locked up all the time. Where I live now I thought it was super safe. Kids leave their bikes laying around all the time. People are always out and about, it just seems like the perfect middle America awesome town. Well my perfect dream has now come crashing down, all thanks to some jackhole who is now riding a girl's bike.

In other news my assistant coach, and another assistant coach both had their babies on Thursday, maybe one was on Friday, but they were within 12 hours of each other. Talk about two girls who like to compete with each other :-). They both had very cute baby girls, and I even have one more assistant coach who is still expecting her baby next month. I don't know what it is but is seems like everyone is having babies. It is like it's contagious or something. Two more of my coaches are talking about having more kids next year, seriously I need to get me some more guy coaches in my gym. I have estrogen dripping down the walls.

Tomorrow is Eater, and more importantly it is the Paris Roubaix, in the North of France. This is one of the most amazing bike races of the entire year. The planning that has to go into this race is almost on par with the Tour de France. Teams come up with completely new bikes, and gear for this one day classic. For those who don't know this race goes over some of the roughest roads in the world. They are made up of what looks like boulders randomly thrown down on the ground. Then for the entire year these roads are only used by farmers and their tractors. The race has almost no elevation change but these roads make it one of the hardest races all year, especially if the weather is bad, keep the finger crossed.

I am going to go up to Champaign IL tomorrow to visit with Katie's family for the day. I am hoping to get three and a half or four hours on the bike. I was hoping to ride O'Fallon and get some big hills in but looks like I will get miles of rolling flat..... With next weekend being what I am calling my real start of the race season, and that start being in Hillsboro, IL flat wont be a big problem though.

I imagine this is what the burglar looked like.

Yeah just throw those anywhere.

P.S. the Illinois Men's Gymnastics team took 1st in this weekend's Big Ten Championships

To big for your britches?

The biggest problem with being successful is thinking that you are too good. I have seen it a lot, mostly when I was an athlete at the U of I. There were a couple years when we were damn good, and we knew it. We tended to sometimes rise to the level of our competition, or should I say drop. There were meets where we barely beat the worst team in the conference or even the country because we thought it was a done deal before we even stepped on the floor.

There is a difference between being confident and over confident. But the line between the two can be blurred and sometimes there might be no way to know the difference. Like I have said before great athletes know they are good, but immature or cocky athletes believe that they are owed the win. I think in 2004 when we had won the Big Ten championships and the NCAA championships were being hosted by the U of I, we felt we were owed that championship. The last time the U of I had won back in 1989 they had first won the Big Ten championships, and were hosting the NCAA championships. We felt it was fate, and that the planets had aligned for us. We were lucky to come out of the weekend still on the podium.

That year, we never had the Big Ten Championships as our goal, the goal was the NCAAs. But we let our guard down. When an athlete peaks it can be very difficult to hold that peak for long. I think a mental peak can be the hardest thing of all. My senior year I wanted to do well at Big Tens, once it was over it was like I was a completely untrained athlete. Everything was hard to do, nothing felt right, and I had the worst NCAA championships of my career. If you feel that you have achieved your goal your mind will shut down. And when the mind is gone, so is the body.

That is my biggest fear now for my team. They had a great weekend qualifying all our athletes to the regional championships and winning a large number of individual medals and winning the level 9 team championships. For the level 9s and 10s their biggest goal of the year has to be their National Championships. (about 5-6 weeks from now) But what if I created a mental peak with putting so much emphasis on the state meet? The mood in the gym is really fun right now, the kids are happy, the skills seem to be coming easier. But is that what we need? I fear that there is not enough pressure, that I am not pushing hard enough. I don't want to have any regrets at the end of this season, and I want the girls to be amazing. This is a new area that I have entered though. It is a better problem to have than being a losing coach, but I still don't want to let them down.

We Did IT!

My goal this year was to take my level 9s to state and win. There was no, "I hope we do good and hope it is enough" it was win or not good enough for me this year. It hit me last year that we really had a great team when we were beaten by GAGE by one tenth of a point at the state meet. Gage is one of the premere gyms in the entire country. They are owned by a man named Al Fong who in my opinion is a legend in the sport of gymnastics. He has been around and training Olympians since before I was born. His girls at the optional level of the sport are always very tough, talented, amazing athletes. When I realized we could compete with them, that was when the fire was lit.

I was blessed with a very large level 9 team this year. The girls are all very hard workers who love gymnastics more than air itself. It seemed like this group also really bought into what we were trying to do in the gym. At first when I said that we were going to win state, I think they thought I was being funny. I don't think anyone had ever told them that it was not going to be ok to lose this year. You might think that is a tough thing to say to a young teen, but at some point these girls have to hear it from someone, that sometimes winning is the only thing that is good enough. At SLGC we like to talk a big game, we like to think that we are the best. And if you are going to think that, then at some point you have to show people that you really are what you say you are. If I had failed this year I would have really taken it as a failure in my coaching and had to have re-evaluated what I was doing to keep us from the top.

There were many times this year that we were shown how much work we needed to do. Twice we were beaten my teams with only 3 athletes on them. That meant that these teams could not fall once time in the meet. This was not something I hid from my team. It was not good that we allowed that to happen to us, and it happened because of my training and their attitude towards winning. I was still working out how to best get these girls ready and trying to time their training so we would begin to peak after state. But I also had to make sure they were ready for state. They still held onto the fact that we just always do well in competition. As lower level athletes they all had been successful, almost without trying in some cases. But we are getting to the big leagues now, and talent alone no longer can do it. It has taken some pretty tough days to break through the wall of adolescence that wants nothing more that to do the oposite of what I want them to do. But when the girls start to see the results it is amazing how they start to come along.

We had a couple big set backs going into the week of state. Two of my girls broke bones and had to scratch from the meet. It is always tough to see girls get so close and lose out on all their tough work. I also worry about how the rest of the team will mentally take losing teammates so close to the big competition. With all the work we have been doing on the little things, mental toughness, presentation, all that can be erased if the girls start to doubt their chances because of the lose of teammates.

Going into the weekend I don't know if I have been more stressed or worried about a competition in a long time. With how I had been talking to the girls and the my coaches I couldn't handle a loss. But once the meet started it was a pretty great day. The girls started on floor and put up some great scores. We had one fall but the rest of the girls stepped up and made up for the fall. Next was vault and it was the best vault rotation we had all year. Only one girl had a fall, the rest hit both of their vaults and again put up scores that were better than all year. Our toughest event is bars. We, as a gym have worked very hard at increasing our difficulty, technique, and form. It has been tough for the girls to keep it all together sometimes though. The nice thing was that the girls never let a fall turn into everyone falling apart. If someone fell then next athlete was able to pick it back up right after. Our best athlete did fall on bars though and that worried me. We missed out on at least another 6 tenths of a point, but this girl had not been able to compete the whole season and we are still getting her into the swing. Beam is also a tough event in gymnastics, not so much physically but mentally. The girls have been doing amazing in the gym however and we were stressing that we wanted to show off what we had been training. Again they pulled through even after our starting routine was a fall. The rest of the team picked up the slack and put up some great routines an scores.

In the end it was close, closer than it had to be. But we were able to hang onto the top spot. I was so proud of the girls and felt like there was so much weight off my shoulders. It was funny at the end of the meet all the parents were thanking me and congratulating me on getting all the girls qualified to the regional championships. This wasn't something that I was worried about at all. If the team achieved the goal of winning the state meet I assumed that we would all be going to regionals. The goal was always to win state, making it to regionals was a given, and now it is getting as many girls as I can to the Western National Championships. It feels like the year has just started again, and I am feeling so excited for the next couple months, years....I am just so proud.