My Career...In a nutshell

So, as the season creeps ever closer, I started talking about goals and races past with my super hot way better bike racer than me girlfriend. Jenn succeeded in reminding me about how painful my results at big races have been. Yeah, I have had some good results and I have had some good results in some big races, but lets take another trip down memory lane and look at some of these heartbreaks...perhaps youll be able to read the emotion as my heart break again while I write these devastating tales....I'll hit them up one by one over the next couple of days so everyone has a reason to keep checking in. First up is Collegiate Nationals 2007. This is the first really big race that I was hardcore gunning for. The best collegiate bike racers in the nation were there, and I was amongst them, even though I was in the lowly small school division. Anyway, major flooding in Kansas caused our race to be rerouted onto 1.5 mile of gravel which worked out well in our favor because we had been used to riding gravel. We had a road race earlier in the season with some gravel, and we just rode our crappy bikes on gravel for fun. The first 29 mile loop was fine. Sure, it sounded like a warzone with all the tubies popping, but I made it through fine. The 2nd time through I wasn't so lucky. Above is a picture of how unlucky I was (It was on the home page of Velonews...sweet, Graham Watson took a picture of me!). The guy in the read circle? Yeah, thats me attempting to put my head underground after I ran over a pile of people behind me. It was awesome. I ended up getting up and regaining contact with the peleton before the next gravel section, which was pleased with. There was a big hill right before the gravel section and I followed an attack going up the hill only to look back and see that the race had been blown apart. I was so stoked. We hit the gravel section and I was maybe 300 or 400 yards behind the lead group of 6 with my Maddog and R2G (Matt and Mike, my teammates) and some other randos on my wheel. I threw down to get them up to the group and I got them up there with only a little ways left to go on the gravel. This was it, this was the move. I was for sure going to be in the top 15 in the nation. I had me sweet euroburns and was strong as hell, even after wrecking once before. Check out the dirt still on my jersey, check out the extra bottle in my jersey for domestique duties. This is as e were making contact, miliseconds before some dude blew a tire and skidded right in front of me. POWWWW!!! That was it, game over. That was the day the De Rosa sustained her life ending injury. That was the day I trashed a wheel. That was the day a dream was crushed. Maddog ended up getting 8th, and Mike was off the front of the group for 8 or 9 miles. He even got to drop back to the car to get a coke. So euro. Me? It looked like a bear mauled and when a USCF official asked me what happend, I told her "What do you think happened? You rerouted 150 amatuer ROAD cyclists onto 1.5 miles of gravel when most have never seen a gravel road before. You then graded it to make sure there were no good lines through it, and then everyone with super thin racing tubies and no bike handling abilities had to ride through it. How great of an idea was that lady?"

Actually, I may not have told her that...I probably just thought it, but I gave her a dirty look....fo sho.

Check in again to hear another tale of hearbreak. Yay!

Collegiate race season starts in almost a week! yay for 8 hour drive to kentucky!