Friday, May 26, 2006

KM'S, BIRTHDAY AND SUMMER, IN THAT ORDER

So after my first successful tour result in....like.....forever, I wasn't ready to rest on what form I thought I had. It had been my plan for the year to use this week and the upcoming Tri-peaks tour as training and good preparation for the biggest and most important races which are coming up over the next few weeks. So on Tuesday I headed out with the plan of a 4hr ride with Kate and a further 2hrs by myself. Unfortunately for Kate.....my map reading skills and distance judgment weren't exactly up to par and after 170km together we finally got back home....she was a little shattered and frustrated....but made it through that hard time together.....

My next day was even more monstorous (I'm not sure if that is a word and if it is, I doubt its spelt right).....I rode solo for 7hrs, racking up 220km (big ring all day). It was exactly how I wanted to spend this week......tiring myself and pushing my limits.....it was going to be interesting to see how I recovered for Tri Peaks......a tour that doesn't particularly suit me.....crit, road race (3 climbs) and road race (2 climbs, the last being a 4km climb at >20%).

But before I could get to the race it was Kate's 24th birthday. I have to say that it is really hard to make an exciting day out of a 2hr trip to Russellville, AR.....it is pretty much as dead end a town as you could wish to spend a birthday. So I gave her the presents that I had prepared and then took her out for a meal.....Ruby Tuesday's......for those Aussies, Ruby Tuesday's is about the equivalent of a Sofia's or a La Porchetta....I'm class all the way baby! I hope I don't pay for it the rest of our days......

Tri Peaks....much to my surprise ended up a success. I recovered far better than I expected from both Joe Martin and my big training days and ended up taking a 5th on stage 2 in a big break away of 23 and then 10th up the big climb on stage 3 and 6th on the GC. It was far better than I had expected and my team did an awesome job....we are finally start to put some good things together on a more consistent basis. Kate won her crit on the friday night and then had quite an adventure over the next 2 days in the heat and with the women covering an equal distance to the men.....she didn't go so good, but it was great prep for her upcoming world cup.

Zirbel racked up the podium for our team this weekend with a 2nd in stage 2.....and thus starts my bitching session for this blog entry.....first read this race report, paying particular attention to the comments made by the director from AEG-Toshiba ....http://www.cyclingnews.com/road.php?id=road/2006/may06/tri-peaks06/tri-peaks062.....This Cubric fella needs to take a long hard look at himself....I really hope he was miss quoted because he has blatantly taken credit for my move and tactical genius. I was the one who planned the attack....Zirbel was the first to launch the attack....Zirbel was the one who drove it to the line with the AEG guy sitting on and Zirbel got no credit. Ripped off!!! His guy took nearly 1km to close a 5m gap to Zirbel and then pulled about a 200m turn with 1.5km to go and then sat on till the finish and only just pipped him. It may just be sour grapes from my side....but I just thought I should let everyone know the truth and now its out. To tell you the truth, I was just so glad that 1 of the 3 Toyota riders who had sat on all day didn't win.......good ride by AEG, don't get me wrong but they claimed our move....That's not cool.

So that's it for me....thanks for letting me get that off my chest.....I'm back in Michigan for a week before we hit the big stuff over the next few weeks. Kate has just left for Montreal after racing a rain soaked local race with me and the Michigan clan last night......those white knicks took a battering. It was a fun and hard race though.....perfect for where were are both at. Ill keep you up to date with all the big stuff to come....make sure you keep a look out for me up the front of those races, because if motivation is anything to go by then I am up for a big one.

Later

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I hope AEG reads your blog. That'll show those turds who's the boss. Peace Rich.