Cali

Well, the first two races are over. Overall they went pretty well. The only bummer thing is that since my training started a solid month late or so the form just isnt quite there. On the bright side I should be on good form by the time the team heads to europe and mentally fresh. Our schedule over there is, Olympias Tour, U23 Paris-Roubaix and Circuit Montenez(if the race is held) Then we come back and do Tour de Beauce in Canada and Philly week.

Hopefully I can be on good form for all of this.

The really cool thing that we were able to accomplish at Redlands was winning the Overall Team classification, youngest team to ever do that. Hopefully things will only get better.

Walker

Getting ready!

I am super excited to leave tomorrow! Finally I will be able to see if all this training that I have been doing has been enough to propel me to some good results this season. Howes and I will be getting on a plane tomorrow morning and will be joining the rest of the team to race San Dimas and Redlands. I did the races last year and they are really fun. The uphill TT the first day of San Dimas is a really cool climb, it would be equally cool to have some good climbing legs; so i guess we will see. Keep the fingers crossed.

It will be really fun when Toast joins us at Redlands later on this week. Its always fun hanging out with that kid. So leading up to these races I have only been able to race two collegiate crits and one pro crit. The collegiate crits are really fun because it is a lot more like a game and can actually try some tactical things and see what works with out having to dig very deep.

Well gotta go pick up the new kits from the service course, hopefully they are pretty cool. Also have to figure out what my plan of attack is to get to the airport!

Hello?

Well I will start this off with a big o'l SORRY. I know its lame that I havent posted anything since... um... June. Ya thats it, june. Wow that was a long time ago. Well a lot has occurred since then. Finished up the season, rode well but never got a personal W but was an asset to the team. So after a hard season i signed a lease for a new apartment in Boulder with my friend Tag who is a really good downhill ski racer and is racing for the CU ski team this year. Started classes in the fall and have been training a lot and working on my education at the same time. Sometimes this proves to be hard but luckily i havent had to cut class time short for riding time.
One cool thing that happened this fall was going to Grand Cayman Island for a "bike race" The race was temporarily cancelled due to a Hurricane. Of course, we knew about the hurricane prior to leaving but me and team mate Stetina figured we were up for a little adventure... Flew to Miami thought, well if they cant fly us to the Island worse thing that happens is that we have to fly back home. Fortunately we met up with the only other team mate I was able to convince that it was a GOOD idea to fly into a Hurricane and we got on the last flight to the island. Got there the rain and wind were crazy. One cool thing was that Christian VdV had actually been up for an adventure aswell and was there with his wife. In the end we did get some solid riding in but more time was spent swimming with Stingrays, Snorkeling and sampling the local food and of course the Pina Coladas. Wow, those are good.

Stetina, showing how the fierce wind could hold you up.



The calm after the storm


Stingrays feel weird



We did get some racing in too

Christian won over all and Pete got the stage

On the final day we went snorkeling. I almost had to lay the smack down on a huge fish.

Well now all I have to do is keep training and I look forward to racing soon. I think I might do some collegiate racing to build up for the more important races this spring. Ok well this whole catch up thing is tiring. If anyone still reads this I will try and keep up with the updates.

Been awhile

So I think last time I checked in I had just finished up Tour of the Gila! Well since then I have been doing a lot! Actually thats a lie. Most exciting thing that I have accomplished lately has been securing my housing in Boulder for the next year starting on August 1st. So thats pretty cool, me and my friend Taggart are going to live in an apt. together, he races for the CU ski team so it will be nice living with someone who is also focused on their sport.

As far as racing goes, I havent done to much lately except a local MTN. bike race last night! It was really fun. Mr. Filipe Merheage was there. He was fast. I was happy cause he didnt beat me by too much! haha. Only 1min 40sec. When he passed me I broke out a little bit of the flemish that I have been able to pick up over the past few years. He did a double take, responded then rocketed past me. I know that I would have been a lot closer has my technical skills been up to par. Since I have only ridden my Mt. bike twice this year i was a little sluggish when the trail when down. Im hoping to get some pics for you guys to see, but until then...

Have fun
Walker

Gila!

So the first stage was pretty hard, mainly because of the rough cross winds. I was riding well and some people got gapped off so myself and 10 others had to chase back on. At the base of the finishing climb I was in the front group of maybe 40, but of course i was 3 riders too far back and a mile into the climb there was a crash. So I had to stop and walk over the people on the ground; i was feeling good and definitely think I could have atleast been up in the top 20-25 on that climb.

Stage 2 I crashed on the decent and had to chase back on by myself in a tail wind section, that sucked. Got back in and just finished in the peloton.
Stage 3 I felt alright, i could tell I was using someone elses TT bike but not too bad. At least I had a TT bike (thanks Peter)
Stage 4 just sat in trying to conserve for the last day.

stage 5! I was good over the first climb, I felt good but it was hard. I was gapped off on the downhill mainly because I was lacking the balls and then once I saw the crash it made me think that my feeling of the decent being sketchy was legitimized. On the second climb I was with Baldwin and some other good riders but soon remembered that I was stuck with a 42x25 and was grinding at 55 rpm when they were at 75-80 rpm. I decided to take it a little easier because grinding so hard was not feeling so good. On the last climb up to Pinos Altos I rocketed up there since it was shallow enough for my gear to be alright. So I felt really good and I finished strong, did 3800 kjs.

Now I am at home just enjoying summit county, but not enjoying the mass amounts of snow we have been receiving and more is on the way! Apparently this is all due to Global Warming. Weird, warming=snow?

I came across an interesting article while I was perusing my friend Alex Howes blog. Go and read the article, kinda paints a gloomy picture of the future!

Walker

Good Day Sir!

So I am just sitting in a Motel Six in Silver City NM. This is quite the lavish lifestyle, let me tell you! Last time I updated I had gotten back from California. Well coming back I did a race in Co. Springs. It was awesome! Although I felt like my heart was going to explode when I went a little too hard. The road course was really cool, it was the 1986 World Championship course and had a good amount of climbing. I felt really good and think that had I been acclimated I could have done something. Hopefully I am now ready to tackle the Pro1 field here at the Tour of the Gila. Wish me luck. I forgot my camera cable so I wont be able to upload pics until I get home.

Walker

Cali

So I must apologize for the lack of updates. I have been some what busy and have lacked motivation to get on here and write something....So here is a race re-cap...

San Dimas...
Well I was a little disappointed after the uphill TT. It went up Glendora Mt. for 3-4miles. I think I would have done a lot better had it been a little longer, that said I didn't do horribly. Just not what I had wanted. Oh well. For the road race I felt really strong but I lacked good judgement. So when we went up the climb I would freak out and go from 3/4 of the way back up to the front of the peloton; needless to say but after 10 times up it I was tired. So i rolled through the finish in with the grupetto. Unfortunately we did not make the time cut. So i had to sit out the crit the next day. LAME i know. So the uphill TT was not horrible and although i was strong in the RR my strength could not make up for my stupidity...

This is a section of Glendora Mt. RD. pretty cool



Redlands...
So the prologue was alright, nothing special. I am pretty sure on a course like this a TT bike would have been much faster but whatever. I was still in the top half of the race. But I was also at this race to work and to learn. So because Peter and Tommy D were the fastest the next day I had an opportunity to suffer for them... HealthNet was really dumb letting a strong break with Botero and Baldwin go up the road and get 5 minutes. They started to chase but were not getting anything done so Kirk and I were told to go help. Sitting in the train I was having to try and recover at 380-400 and pull even harder. One lap of that and I was fried. So then with my job done I was able to just roll in behind the peloton. While Kirk and I were at the front we managed to pull back about 2 minutes on the break... that felt good, it was also nice to see that in the group that I was rolling in with there were 3 HealthNet guys with me.
In the Crit all I did was sit in and suffer. With so many corners my back was screwed afterwards. My back was out of alignment it turned out so that probably did not help.
Now Sunset was really cool. Really hard but really cool. There were alot of crashes which was not good. It was nice though, I think after 3 or 4 laps the field was down to 50-60 riders. My back was still bothering me so I wasnt able to do much. I made it up Sunset with the lead group 10 out of 12 laps before I was fried. I think part of it was my back and just from having done so much work all race...
So all in all Redlands was really good I learned and lot and suffered. It was really cool just being able to ride with Tommy D and learn from him...

This is Kirk(on the left) and I(on the right) during sunset



Peace
Walker