@gitabike Graal dialed, ready to rock tomorrow at the @usaprocycling ITT National Championship!
Afflicted by permanent wanderlust, I’ve opted to spend the three weeks between the end of Speedweek and the US Professional Cycling Championships in Greenville, SC at the welcoming abode of one of our team’s gracious supporters just outside of Athens, GA (home of the University of Georgia, the infamous Athens Twilight Criterium, and launchpad for numerous American cyclists).
Having never been to this part of the country before (read: The Deep & Dirty South), I’m still taking it all in and gulping it all down, like a UGA freshman frat pledge doing a manhood-validating kegstand.
First on my list of dispensable observations to expound to the outside world: The riding itself. I’ve never trained anywhere with population so spread out, and so my road choice has always been pretty limited. Here, though, there are roads FOREVER. I could easily create a 300 mile loop on twisty backroads that all look the same from the front door of my temporary domicile. Of course, this necessitates a cue sheet a mile long (yeah, that one was front AND back for a 4.5 hour jaunt) to keep from ending up bassackwards 200 miles away on the coast. While there’s no sustained climbing near Athens, the rollers of the Piedmont offer up spots for good, punchy accelerations on endless repetition of 500 meter-long Murs. Roads are fairly narrow and without the wide shoulders I’m used to, but they’re in really good condition (thanks to the lack of freezing temps in the winter, I’d guess) and typically devoid of traffic. The dirt roads are a blast! Well-packed, and not moondusty or gravel-strewn like the ones near my home in Utah.
The “store stops” here are nearly always entertaining - it seems the locals aren’t as used to seeing cyclists on long rides as they are in the West. I can always count on getting into an amiable conversation with store proprietors about expensive bikes, bike racing, the insanity of spending five hours perched on two wheels, and suspicious questions when informed of my Utah residence.
Speaking of, the church marquees in front of Baptist houses of worship on the backroads are nothing short of comedic gold. I think I might start photographing all of them and making a nice leather-bound photo essay when I get back to the Wasatch.
A day overdue…but this one’s for my mom.
Phenomenal ballet dancer/teacher, tutu-throwing-down-kit-fixing seamstress, impromptu EMT, automotive financier, and litany of other haphazard professions under the mothering clause (not to mention often mistaken for my sister), she pretty much kicks ass on an astronomical scale. I owe her for nearly everything I’ve accomplished so far, and for that I forgive her when she goes into automatic “MYBABYBOYISGOINGTODIEmode” when I race a crit. It’s a rare day when I buy into mush dispensed by a corporate marketing agency, but this P&G ad nails it. Enjoy.
Why yes, I have The Flava.
Rather unknowingly, I entered into a compact of sorts with my teammates during our “Great Southern Revival” tour (aka, the week of Fast-and-Hard-as-Balls Crits). The original details? If anyone wrecked during the week, they’d get a head shavin’. While Tommy was our lucky first contestant with a quick spill at Twilight, he preempted the clippers by turning himself into the sporting version of dear Nikita the week before he got to Georgia.
And thus, the burden fell to me, going for a brief skitter on the second day of racing at Roswell. Given my rather creative and indifferent past hairstyle choices (ranging the spectrum of colors and various methods to make it stand on end), I was pretty open to whatever the uh… extremely dextrous clippers of Mr. Cole House could sculpt. Sadly, as you might be able to tell from the “before” image, things went a little south (think preschooler fingerpainting meets cosmetology school). I let the bizarre amalgamation of the skullet, mohawk, and “creative” designs last a whopping three days before deciding to lop it off in our temporary home of Greenville, SC.
I initially proposed piloting myself to the nearest Supercuts for a quarter-inch shave, but our super-soigneur (and portion of our management staff, and not actually a soigneur) Eric took serious issue, demanding that I visit a “real Southern barbershop, specializing in black hairstyles” (note: He probably wasn’t that eloquent). If you’ve ever met me, I’m northern-European pasty-white Utah boy, with the hair to match…and I’m always up for a challenge! So, I popped “barber” into Google Maps and found the closest barbershop with the most badass name: The Flava. A quick phone call ensured availability, and we were on our way to what appeared to be the sketchiest barbershop on Earth. Upon entrance, Eric and I had a bit of an Animal House club scene moment. Hilarity ensued, and a guy with the moniker “The Mangler” welcomed yours truly into his chair. The Mangler, real name Keith, was rather aghast at Cole’s coiffure creation, and promptly went to work with no less than eight sets of clippers. As soon as he learned I was visiting from Utah, he told me not to mind the nutjobs and that I was already family at The Flava. Eric proceeded to make himself at home, arguing amongst the regulars about the lack of an upcoming Pacquiao/Mayweather fight.
We left the Flava, me $20 poorer, and yet, my mane had been tamed in the fashion of one of America’s greatest role models. Rad.
The Audible Mellow
Music is a huge part of my life. Following the natural course of things, it’s only innate that it ties in with my riding pretty intimately.
Last week, after what was nothing short of a fantastic 75F spring ride in seasonally emerging Northern Utah, I built a nice spring playlist on Spotify. Don’t have Spotify? You’re missing out. No, really, you are. Most everyone I’ve forced it on has had a moment about an hour in - middling somewhere between divine revelation and epiphany. The best way I can sum it up is like the bastard child of the iTunes Store and Netflix, with playlists distributable to nearly all devices (with offline availability), and an EPIC social component built in. It has completely replaced my gigantic MP3 library - iTunes is nothing more than another unused app on my computer now. It’s backed by the major record labels, and while not everything is available for listening, I’d estimate that 90% of what I want comes up when I look.
Anyway, enough about how awesome Spotify is. Like I said, spring riding playlist. It won’t make you feel like you want to tear some legs off (there’s other lists for that), but it might put you into an over-the-top happy mood while cruising in some perfect temps with some perfect people on some perfect roads - AND you’ll get a solid dose of my own bizarre (euphemistically referred to by many as “eclectic”) tastes. Go, download Spotify onto your computer/AndroiPhone, listen, and ride - preferably with a pair of Skullcandy Fix earbuds. Best. Riding. Phones. Ever.
Check out the playlist here: Spring Cycling Extravaganza.
Fantastic weekend! Little bit of local stage racing, little bit of cruising with my progenitor masquerading as Alejandro Valverde 20 years removed from racing (bonus: I think he likes my Dogma), little bit of ice cream, corned beef, and burgers, little bit of mashing for four hours on Sunday.
From the Friday mailbag:
How did you get hooked up with the CC team?
Long story. Kind of. I started working at RealCyclist (CC’s future owners) in November of 2010 putting ordered bikes together in the shop, as well as doing a lot of warehouse logistical fun. Shortly thereafter RealCyclist sponsored the team, and I met Gord when he took a tour of our warehouse sometime in the winter (though I doubt he remembers - he commented on my UHC team shirt and I got some warm fuzzies). Fast-forward a few months, and I’d embarked upon my overly ambitious season-long Cat 5-to-1 campaign. I’d also transferred over to doing bike photography for BC, giving me a lot more latitude when it came to bailing out of work to race.
Anyway, I first met RealCyclist’s athelete sponsorship/cat herding guy, Jonny Atencio, in April at Gila where I was riding in the 3’s (and would eventually take second in the GC). He was a little confused when I begged him for some team kit to give to my New Mexico housing host, but chucked some lycra/beer coozies my way and patted me on the head. I tried to remain in contact with him on an intermittent basis (read: I’d email and beg him for stuff) throughout the season, as we worked in different offices.
Enter early August, right before the 2011 Tour of Utah. Fresh off winning the Cat 2 GC at Cascade and a local stage race, I headed up to DealerCamp in Park City for work and free margaritas. Serendipitously, the then-RealCyclist.com Pro Team was there, meeting sponsors and mingling with the kind-of public. It was there that I met one of the team owners, Jason Kriel, and I asked the rather baldfaced question: “Is there a chance I could ride with you guys next year?”. He asked me to send him a resume, and I wormed my way into going out for a four-hour ride with the team the day after (for the locals: The PC/Guardsman/Emigration/Parley’s loop), a nice 2000 meter, 115km day.
During the ride, we got to talking about the weekend’s upcoming Utah State Championship road race, and myself/Evan Hyde (then Park City resident and team member) managed to con Rabou and Paco into doing it. Coincidentally, my parents live in the town near where the race is held, about 150km from Salt Lake - built in host housing for the crew of four (sidenote: also where I’d find myself the following spring)! The race ended up going 1/2/3 RC, with my ass dragging up 4th. By nature of elite amateur competition, I was awarded the state championship.
The Tour of Utah came and went, Backcountry/RealCyclist fulfilled my dreams of shooting bikes like Competitive by buying them, and the days went on. Enter October (I think), and I got a message from Jason: “You want a spot?”. I had to contain the news for a few weeks, and was a little on the verge of exploding into a bludgeoned pinata of joy for awhile.
So, there’s the novella. Connor Bondlow over at ROAD Magazine did a far more eloquent job of detailing things in the May issue (free digital subscription).
photo: http://cottonsoxphotography.com/ alt title: “How not to win a circuit race.”
Testing waters on a new Friday gig: Ask me anything, and I’ll write a blog post about it?
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