School's out. Lets Ride!

I took a selfie. Get over it.

With the fall semester coming to a close I am very happy to say that I made it through another semester as an engineering student. My grades were a bit below what I wanted amongst all my classes. I was able to keep everything at a 3.00 gpa. I had a great star to the semester which gave me a false sense of security in my grades. I ended up not doing so hot the second part of the semester and my grades slowly went from all As to Bs. Well live and learn. Next semester I will not let any sort of security trick my mind and study habits.

My first weekend on Winter break I decided to retreat up to Austin to get a few days of riding in, as well as see my friends and have some fun.

Jersey change for 2014. Astellas Professional Cycling

Wanting to keep everyone up to date on my endeavors. So I just want to say that I am very excited to say that I will be racing with Astellas Oncology through 2014. I am very excited to be giving an opportunity like this and plan to make the most of it. It is a little saddening that I will be leaving the Squadra family that I have been apart of for the two years. It is a change that I have been working hard for since I joined the team in 2012. Now I will be following Shane to the Continental level to continue on in my cycling career.

River Road and TT mode at Tour De Gruene

Start house!

The last time I pinned a number to a skin suit in the month of November was back in 2011. Why would I do such a thing? In a time of the year that is usually accompanied with leisure from travel and time with school, I suddenly found myself prepping a timetrial bike. The reason I would do such a thing is because of a promise. A promise of fun and memories guaranteed by Jason Bently. I fell for this back in 2011 and I fell for it again in 2013. The event is the Tour de Gruene team time trial. This is an approximately 26 mile 2 man team time trial that takes place throughout beautiful parts of New Braunfels as well as Gruene Texas. After months of persuasion from Jason starting in September, I finally agreed to race with him again.

Down and Dirty at Tough Mudder Houston 2013

Kristin, Alex (Dad), Becky, Kelsey (sister), Myself, Sheri
from left to right. Cajun Chaos 3.0 was the team name

What is tough mudder? That is the exact question that I had to ask myself a week before the event. My sister has been hyping up this event for several months now, and I wanted to see what the big deal was. She even was able to make my dad do the event with her. As the final days approached to the event I started to dig around and find some information and what exactly tough mudder is. A few google searches later I came to the conclusion that tough mudder is a basically a 12 mile course that you can do solo or with teams. Where in between the start and finish line there are many obstacles that would need to be circumnavigated as well as lots of mud to sludge through.

A long awaited close to 2013. A season of learning and growth

Stach Watts

In my opinion 2013 feels like it has been the longest season of my cycling career. This season would end up being my 6^th season since beginning racing back in 2007, as well as my 2^nd season on team Super Squadra. My goals for the season would be to improve upon the great 2012 I had. I knew that I would be capable of it. My winter training before the season was flawless and my motivation for racing was the highest it has ever been. I finished 2012 with some great results to my name. Including an 8^th at my first u23 national road race, 4^th at Pro states, u23 state champ, and the youngest winner of the Fayetteville stage race.

Keeping it together at u23 State championships

The blog post for this race is going to be on the team blog. It is a really good write up in my opinion and I recommend everyone to take the time to check it out.

***HERE***

But I will now post it here in honor of Shane's retirement (temporary) from cycling

When I woke up at 5 a.m. for the age based state road race championships, I had no idea how I was going to feel. The previous day, at the skill based state championship, I was blown out of the water and only able to complete one of the three, 33-mile laps. (A big disappointment, considering I finished fourth in the skill based race the year prior, and my teammate finished second.)

I looked at my phone, and the weather looked terrible. It was going to be wet, cold, and windy. All things I did not want to wake up to.

Article in the Racing Post

Just want to give out a shout that I have an article in this months Racing Post about my adventures spent with the USA Jr Camp I did back in June. This article is a lot longer and more in depth then the write up found on my blog from a while ago. I would recommend for everyone to go to their local bike shop and pick up a copy. You can also find the PDF version of this month's racing post at their website which can be found HERE. My write up is on page 7. I recommend checking it out when you get a chance. Andy Hollinger has been putting together the racing post for as long as I remember. He also supports texas racing through the hosting of races and events. The Racing Post has a website of their own which is at theracingpost.us

An Alan Ting Sighting at a Bear Creek Crit!

I ended up taking the series overall
with the win tonight

School has finally started and my legs still want to go fast before they get too bogged down with assignments. Today would be the final Bear Creek Criterium as part of the summer series put up by my friends at sun and ski sports. Before driving that way towards the race there has been a few text messages going on between the well renowned Alan Ting and myself. For weeks Kevin Kremke (his boss) and myself have been putting on the pressure to persuade Alan to pin on a number and race his bicycle. Alan, is a teammate of mine, has not ridden a bike since Nationals of 2012.

The Close of a Summer and the Start of a Fall Season

            

Shasta and I

So as summer comes to a close, the Texas cycling season goes back into full gear.  The Hotter Then Hell Omnium is this weekend, and my first day of fall classes the following Monday. My excitement for these fall is out of this world. With HHH, Tour of Austin, Chappell Hill, and the Texas State Championships. Couple that with the fact I will be surrounded by college women again on a daily basis gives me a reason to look forward for the next couple months.

HTX Team relay Ham Cycles summer Series. Allycat style racing in Houston!

The winning team (team drunkstrong) posing with Crystal

I got the invite from what would end up being my teammate for the event, Dan Morgan. He messaged me saying that there would be some sort of relay going on in downtown Houston. He said it would a little “for fun” event and he thought it would be a great idea for me to give it a try. He was right.

Kicking off the Fall part of the season with a little Driveway!

Had a fun day in Austin yesterday. This fun consisted of racing the driveway, and then going to Kevin’s 21^st birthday. The Driveway itself was brutally hot as always. I decided I was going to wear my skinsuit (I regretted it) and just sit in for as much as I can. It was the speed loop and the pack typically ends in a field sprint… This field sprint assumption of mine for speed loop as been wrong 100 percent of the time. Maybe it’s this hope of “sitting in” and “taking it easy” that makes pinning on a number in three digit temperatures a bit nicer.

Cascade 2013. My first shot with the best in the country.

The drive to Bend from Portland is
beautiful

When I found out that I was going to be racing the Cascade Cycling Classic I could not believe my ears. I have heard so many great things about this race, on top of the fact that it is one of the largest and the oldest NRC stage races in the country. Although I have done a few NCC criteriums, I have never done an NRC road race. Let alone a week long stage race. I found out that I would be racing with the Fire Fighters Cycling team along side my squadra teammate Shane. The two of us were super motivated to get some good results during this week of racing, especially after a bit of a lack luster U23 nationals. Although I was able to get in the early break of the u23 road race and have a good ‘ride’ I really wanted to walk away with some hardware.  Shane was in a similar boat, he had two great results with a 12 in the TT and a 7^th in the crit. But without a medal to hang, there was a feeling of something missing.

USA Jr Devo Camp

Although this was a long while ago, I want to put in a few words about the USA camp that I had the honor of being a coach for.

For a week, I got to be a coach and the Dorm Daddy of a USA cycling Jr Development camp. What that meant is I got to make sure all the camp attendees went to bed on time and did not get into any trouble, as well as help out with drills and the rides/races that will all be going on.

The Start Of A New Blog

Today I am creating a new blog. This one I plan to make bigger and more broad then previous blogs. I will have the typical race reports, as well as more posts on just general travel to and from races. I will post a bit more on my training along with some school posts here and there. For big race reports I will probably have them on my team blog which I will post a link here that will direct you to the Squadra blog. Be patient on the first couple weeks of this blog. I will be tinkering with HTML codes trying to make this blog look and feel the way that I want it to. Hopefully this blog will hit stride soon and I can entertain others with my stories and adventures.