So, it's August...

...and motivation is teetering. Lets go back to the days immediately following the Superweek run. In my head I had it all planned out...I would not allow my body to relapse after a 3 week run of good form. By "relapse" I mean general fatigue and/or sickness. Before I could even put my plan to action, I was ill. I got back from Wisconsin on tuesday, and rode for the first time on thursday night (Rosebowl). Felt amazing on the ride out there. Ready to ride hard and everything, then a couple pedal strokes into my 2nd or 3rd attack (trying to bridge to Gord Mccauley and Christian Valenzuela...who attacked during the "neutral" roll-out), the body hit the off-switch. Nope. I then hopped out of my chase group, rode in the back of the pack for a bit, and even that was too tiring. Gingerly rode home, and as expected, woke up sick the next morning. This same thing happened after San Dimas, in the same way. Won't happen again, I just need to ride easy and not drive cross-country following long runs at big-time form. It wasn't too bad, however...I skipped the race that sunday, and did some mellow rides on monday, and the legs felt fine.

Okay: A road race to report on....Sisquoc. Things were up in the air. A couple teammates were going up, so I figured I'd go. Turns out they wouldn't be able to make it, so I carpooled with a cat 5 friend of mine, and we got out there. First thing I notice upon arrival is that my front tubular is flat. Bummer. I don't know when it flatted. I hadn't ridden it since the final day of Superweek, and inflated it that morning. Bummer. Luckily, Lea Adams was kind enough to let me borrow her spare front wheel. Filled up/mixed my bottles, and we was good to go. Oh. The entry fee for this race was $35. $2 cheaper than Superweek, yeah!! Slight difference, however: Superweek's purse is $3000 per race. This one was $700. Ridiculous. A waste of time, really, but I went anyway, certain that maybe i'd make taco money.

We line up. As I thought: Paltry, low-quality $700 field of 20 guys, max. Bummer. Bowl regulars Valenzuela and Rigo Meza were there. Thurlow and Walker, 10 (I'm serious) LaGrange guys, and a handful of others. Ah well. First lap starts blazing fast. I was having a conversation with one of the Lagrange guys, and bam, giant gap. Typical of such a small field, I guess. We closed it, and eventually, a group of 5 was off. I missed it, but wasn't alarmed. The group was 1 lagrange (not one of their threatening riders), thurlow, walker, rigo, +1 more. A couple minutes later, Thurlow and a LaGrange are dropped from the break. Odd. I ask Thurlow, and it was a pretty genius move: The Lagrange guy wasn't pulling. So Thurlow gapped him off, and waited for him to pull through and back to the group. He didn't, and they came back. It's fine for Thurlow, because the onus is on LaGrange (who, with 500 guys in the group, were not represented in a serious breakaway)......annnnd no. Nothing. LaGrange sat there, and it was game over. Instead of organizing a chase, they sent feeble attacks up the road to try to bridge a 4 minute gap. Eh. Eventually, they got 1 guy up the road a good way, with Thurlow. So now it's 3 up the road, 2 in between, and a peleton of maybe 10 left? Eh. I still wanted to get across to that second group...they were only 1 minute up the road. The legs felt good, and did what I asked of them. I put in some hard moves, and knew LaGrange would have to bring me back, and was pretty upset after a particularly long solo bridge-attempt that failed...Some of the individual (without teammates) riders pegged themselves at the front in an effort to bring me back. Idiotic. I had some words, and I think they understood that in fact, it should be LaGrange to have to chase me down. Eh. Shortly afterward, I attacked again, taking a weaker LaGrange guy with me. I knew he wouldn't work, but I didn't mind dragging him along for however many miles -he's not gonna gap or outsprint me, no worries. As expected, the group let it go. The legs were good, and we had a minute or so. Then...my seat came off. Yeah. Game over. I made a U turn, got my seat, and waited for the peleton. Rode the 1k to the feedzone, and pulled off. One guy had tools/parts lying around, and got it working, but I lost a good 5 minutes. I rode the final 3 laps solo, dehydrated, with my bottom bracket clicking loudly with every stroke. THAT'S really annoying. Eh. Ended up 13th, I guess a few guys dropped out. On a positive note, I officially have the best/safest/fastest downhill tuck in the history of cycling. And on an ironic note, my bike was STELLAr for all of july through crazy crits and crashes and rain and all that, and in my first race back here I get the front flat, the atrocious noise from the BB, the broken seatpost....

Coming Up:

Manhattan Beach 8/13 $10,000
North Park Classic San Diego 9/3 $6000

Gotta keep the form going for at least another month...somehow...even with that F-in bottom bracket noise. Also, immediately after Manhattan Beach, I go up to AYF camp for a week. A week off the bike, could be just what I need to help prolong the season a bit more.

And some photos:

Riding to the Rosebowl
Giro D'Italia...right here in SoCal