Tour of Shenandoah... whoooooowheeeee!

My leg pieces be hurtin, but isss all good...

In the last 3 stages, I've spent 245 miles in breakaways. Also in the last 3 days, I've been passed/dropped by the lead group before the finish line. Awhoops? Nope.

It's all part of the Rite Aid Secret Strategy (RiteASS). With the help of my awesome teammates who drove the breaks on stages 4 and 5, I claimed first place climber points on Mount Vesuvius and some smaller climbs. Now I've secured the Mountains Leader jersey, and there are no more hills in this stage race, so the jerz, she's a mine.

But that's not even the best of it. My boy Zach has been crushing it all week, and he scored some points in the Sprinter Classification on stages 2 and 5. Yesterday after he helped me get the climbers jersey, I drove the break to help it stay away. I eventually cramped and exploded, but Zach's group stayed away and he took second on the stage, and now he has claimed the Sprint Leader jersey.

So now Rite Aid has two leaders jerseys, and we've got our work cut out to defend the Sprint Jersey in Sunday's last stage. If you live nearby come check out the crit in downtown Waynesboro. 3pm Sunday.

Ian is having an awesome race too. He's climbing like an all-star, working for his team, and making the front split everyday to get into the top 10 overall.

Schwing!

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Good morning! It's hard to believe that we still have 3 more days to race. This is an awesome race!

I'll summarize the results. In the first long stage (stage 3), Christoph was in the long break for the day, but got caught, and me and my team had a lot to do with chasing the break down during the day. I finished 7th or 8th (but they messed up the results, hopefully they'll fix them!), and made it to 11th overall. Christoph will need to do his own post about his racing.

Stage 4 was the supe-long massively hilly stage and we missed the long break again, which Christoph was in again. He got a massive KOM up Vesuvius, and I got a 2nd and a 1st in two of the other KOMs. I ended up gaining on GC after a late attack on the final hill, and got 6th, and am listed as 6th on GC too. Yay.

Today is long day with many, many, many choppy hills. It is imperative for me to make it into the good break of the day, with the high GC guys. There is time to be gained or lost today. Also, tomorrow's long TT will have a big effect on the GC. This race ain't over people!

Sorry not much time to blog but that's the quick summary! Thanks for readin' peeps.

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Prologue done. It was my best TT ever! I got 12th. It was my first time riding my new TT bike, and the first time I've ever raced a TT bike. I owe Felt a huge thanks, and a blog about the bike and Felt's awesome athlete rep, Beverly.



Our composite team is sponsored by Byvik Financial Services, owned my Larry Byvik, who is a bike racer of course, and a really great guy. I've only known him for 4 hours, but he's totally pumped about sponsoring our composite team, and I'm psyched to be part of it! visit www.bfsllc.net



Christoph somehow got a 1 second penalty for something... but he finished 32nd, but would have finished 29th. I will let him explain the penalty. It's probably because he was looking too good :)

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Tomorrow starts the Tour of Shenandoah!!!! I am super-psyched because I'm with a sweet composite crew (Byvek Financial) and my fitness is supe-hi. My primary goal in the race is to drop Christoph, and secondarily to smile during the climbs.

At this point in my cycling career (of 4 years) I feel like I have mastered the organizational side of racing. Tonight, Katie came over and helped me make post-race "recovery vessels." (as seen in photo) Each vessel contains Endurox, L-Citrulline, L-Arginine, some other BCAAs, extra Vitamin E, N-Acetyl Cysteine, and D-Ribose. This formula only works for me, so don't try it, CAT 3's.



Also, the TOS race registration was at the Harrisonburg Best Western. During the pre-race meeting, I went into the pool house and put my feet in the hottub. And then, I saw the sign!

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The following are selections from my 7th grade yearbook. Enjoy!

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So who's in charge of "damaging and destroying" unattended baggage at the airport? That's gotta be one of the coolest jobs ever. I'm seeing a post-cycling job opportunity here: Christoph Herby: professional damager/destroyer. I would definately wear my name tag off the clock.

Right now I'm flying over Alaska on Northwest Airlines flight 12, Tokyo to Detroit. The view is specacular. It's an endless expanse of jaggedy-craggedy mountain peaks, all blanketed in snow.

I just woke up from a chemically-induced sleep, and I'm pissed that we're not there yet. Pop another sleeping pill? no. get another plastic cup of orange juice from the stewardess? nah. play another game of minesweeper? lame. read book? nope, I already read like 23 pages. The guy stuck in the middle seat next to me has been reading the same book for about 5 hours: Helpful Business Phrases for Japanese Businessmen. It has tips on picking out an English-sounding nickname like "Jackie" or "Rick". Most of the book is filled with extremely helpful phrases, organized by category. Right now we're in the arts and crafts category. "Hello, I am a purveyor of wood glue".

Wheee........ this blog has taken me another 9 minutes closer to the Motor City. I could watch the movie Chicken Little but it started while I was asleep, and I hate half-watching movies. Ya know... what's the freakin' point?

Okay, we're making progress here. Maybe this is Canada. There's something on fire down there.

Thanks for reading along.

I'll leave you with this picture of Ian in my house, pretending that he just got kicked in the nuts.


and one of my favorite pics from the china trip.

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Tour of Chongming 2006: done!


Today's stage was defined by rediculous winds. It felt like a storm was brewing the whole time, with gusts of wind coming from all directions.

The team rolled really well today, sticking together at the front for the entire race. Three guys from other teams broke away and gained a little less than 2 minutes.

With 40k to go, I launched the big one. I attacked into the crosswind and openned a pretty sizeable gap. For advice on riding in heavy winds, search for 2beefypros.com. It's not my cup a' joe.

Anyway, I rolled in time trial mode, HR 191, and openned a maximum gap of 1 minute, 25 seconds. I got within 22 seconds of the leaders. The team car cruised past the field and joined me up the road. That's always pretty badass. Good photo op.

open road,


As I passed 15k to go, the field began closing in on me, and they caught me with 12k to go. The peloton absorbed the lead trio shortly thereafter.


As the finish approached, I promptly got blown out the back to roll home solo, and my teammates bumped it with the big boys in the field sprint. I haven't seen results yet, but they finished somewhere in the 20's.

Now it's time to pack up the bags, hit the hay, and wake up at 3:30am tomorrow to begin the journey home.

Thanks for reading, and I'm stoked to see you Virginia peeps soon.

p.s. for all the ladies wondering where Zach is..... he's been competing at the Track Cycling World Championships in France, where he finished 14th in the pursuit. Schwing! Come see him wearing the white/red/blue Rite Aid kit next week at the Tour of Shenandoah!

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Happy Accident today!

Today was a great day. Sorry for my negativity yesterday. Bike racing is the shiznit, and I love my job.


Team Rite Aid really pulled together today. We played this race big-time.

Setting out for 208 kilometers, the Australians and British teams were happy to set tempo at the front of the race to protect the Aussies' lead on GC. They rolled steady at a medium pace to keep things smooth. We cruised happily in their draft for the first chunk of the race.

and then.....

44.39 kilometers into the race, a big Mongolian dude dumped it hard in front of me. I slammed into him at 25mph and flipped over my handlebars. I landed on my cleats and skated across the road while dragging my bike by the seatpost. 15 seconds later I skidded to a halt, bike in hand, standing in the middle of the road.

My front wheel was destroyed, my handlebar was ripped up, and my shoes got shredded, but my body was unscathed.

My Diadoras took one for the team:


Anyway, let's get back to the race. I got a fast wheel change and got rolling pretty quickly. I hopped in the team car's draft and drilled it behind the Volkswagon Fox as we chased back towards the peloton. It took me a good 20 minutes in the caravan, but I eventually got back into the race.

With about 50K remaining, the shit hit the fan. Attacks started flying, and Team Rite Aid was all up in that business. We raced mean today.

I attacked with a South African and a Kazak, and we opened a fine 30-second gap. Woah.... I felt good! We drilled it full-force, freakin' slamming it at 28-30 miles an hour. Looking back at the peleton, it was a scary sight. The group was lined out single-file chasing us down. My victory dreams came to a close after about 10 minutes of XMW - Xtreme Maximum Wattage.

In the closing kilometers, my teammates were feeling solid, and we worked well together to get near the front for the finale. In the final sprint, Brad took 10th and Josh finished 14th. Team Rite Aid ranked 2nd in the team classification today. Not bad for a UCI 2.2 race, eh?


While the four of us raced, Arch, Jon, and Russ cruised around the course at a leisurely pace. They had a great time meeting the locals and enjoying the sights.


When we're not logging hours in the spandex, we've been doing some great shopping. Arch found an awesome remote controlled car. There's nothing more entertaining than chasing a cockroach around the bathroom floor with a Mini Cooper.


I also found a hot t-shirt:


I think my new mission in life may be the pursuit of Happy Accidents.

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While Christoph has been racing his pork knuckes off in China, I have been home, alone, & eating away my sorrows; I gained 50 pounds from eating all of the Colavita pasta stockpiled in my bedroom. I am also making Colavita Olive Oil & protein shakes. Email me for the recipie. How am I going to climb in these races coming up????



Seriously, I gotta do some serious climbing in the next month. Next on the schedule are: Tour of Shenandoah, Tour of the Gila, Joe Martin, and Tri-Peaks. Combined, that's gotta be like 800,000 feet of climbing. I am preparing for the hills by doing lots of extra core work, and by actually climbing hills. By climbing hills in training, I am strengthing my body in ways that will help my climbing in races. I am also training to talk while I am climbing like Jamie Paolinetti; because sometimes when you are already at your lactate threshold, you need to go extra hard and accellerate. I am also practicing how to think straight during the times that I am over my threshold and talking simultaneously. It is during those times that I come up with ideas for blogs. (FYI... that is the secret to 2skinnypros)

Today I am declaring the shoulder officially healed. I can now make the 'A' in YMCA without pain. Thank you for reading, everyone.

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hell is a windy rice paddy.

125 kilometers. the race exploded in the crosswinds. four of us made it into the second echelon. 28 mph average.

over half the field finished 30+ minutes behind us.

today might have been the hardest bike race I've ever done.

deez nuts spent over two hours pinned on the rivet.

we finished:




208 kilometers tomorrow. oh my god.

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woah. rough day.

180 kilometers. flat roads. nasty cross-winds. really fast australians/kazakhs/south africans.

happy Easter!

Things didn't go so smoothly in the Rite Aid camp.


We raced aggressively at the beginning and placed Josh in the first major break of the day. It looked like a solid move with all major teams represented, but the Kazakhstan team wasn't happy and they drilled it back after 60k. Then we started to suck. Two big groups rolled away and got a really solid gap. There were over 20 riders up the road, and we got caught with our thumbs up our butts. Awhoops! We all have personal excuses, but we basically just dropped the ball. The breakaways gained time while we resigned to setting tempo at the front of peleton so the pace wouldn't slow down to a crawl.

Personally. I couldn't breath. That sucks. I haven't had asthma problems in 2 years, but the air here is thick with dust and coal fumes, and my lungs are pissed. Major kudos to the guys who train and race here year-round.

While we set tempo, the chinese dudes got a big thrill out of attacking us repeatedly during the last 50k. Each time they attacked we just gradually reeled them in, and then they would suck wheel again. At the finish, these jabroneys lit up the sprint for 30-something-th place. Yess!!!


No worries, though. The season is long, and we'll get everything dialed in real soon.

It wasn't all bad news today. We did find the grocery store and get some great breakfast items: soy milk, cheerios, and egg n' milk stars. Way better than kurd tarts.


Also, it's awesome exploring this surreal world. I love bike racing because it takes me places I'd never go otherwise. How else would I find myself visiting Bumblefunk, Pennsylvania or Chongming, China?

Check the sights:

Swifter, higher, stronger!


The spectators are really cool too!


p.s. Last night I had a dream that I was visiting Ryan McKinney at the school where he teaches. There were llamas at the school, and we had to feed them. Ryan put all kinds of fruit in his mouth and tilted his head back so the llamas could eat the food.

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Saturday:

Our first race day started with the elaborate openning ceremonies. There were lots of well-behaved Chinese kids in attendance.



We paraded across the stage with the "2001: A Space Odyssey" soundtrack blaring on the soundsystem. No joke.


Before the race, we were pretty stoked to be rockin' our new team kits. So white. So crisp. So.... hot!


The streets along the 4-kilometer course were totally lined with curious onlookers. I'm not sure if they think we're totally awesome rock stars, or just freako spandex parade of white people on wheels.


The racing was pretty fast on the wide-open course, and Team Rite Aid raced really aggressively. We found our way into every major break of the day, and maintained a controlling presence at the front of the race. It felt good to really take the helm and race like big boys. Johny D and Ryan bumped shoulders to take a few intermediate sprint points.

In the end, the race finished in a pretty chaotic field sprint. We finished all our boys safely in the bunch. I definately felt the effort, but it's nothing a pork knuckle dinner won't help me recover from.

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Friday:

We settled into the awesome Shanghai Tianhe hotel. They're as excited to have us as we are to be here.


The view from our 17th floor room is pretty sweet. That huge body of water is the Yang-Tze River. Notice the people in the bottom right of the picture doing choreographed group exercises.


We put our bikes together and then we explored the local dining options. Ryan and I found a fun little fast-food joint that served some mean dumplings. They smelled a bit like poo.


However, the bubble tea was really tasty.

With full stomachs we went out for a little ride to open up the legs and preview the crit course. Ryan did a little showboating for the locals. We were lucky to arrive on special chair parade day.


Our team car is a sweet Volkswagen Fox. Our director Jamie approves.


As I mentioned below, we had an awesome dinner banquet with some local specialties. The fresh crabs were especially peculiar.

(thumb inserted for scale. these are some tiny-ass crabs.)

That evening Ryan, Arch, and I explored the town via rickshaw while the rest of the crew caught some Z's at the hotel. Ryan managed to keep himself out of trouble and away from the police. Amazingly, the police here don't cary any guns, mace, or even big sticks . "Freeze! or else I'll be forced to yell freeze again!"

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Okay, how's about I start this story from the beginning? We left Baltimore at 4am on Thursday April 13th. From there, we took 3 airplanes: Baltimore-Detroit, Detroit-Tokyo, and Tokyo-Shanghai. By the time we got to Shanghai we were feeling pretty worn.


Arriving in Shanghai, I realized realize I didn't need to change the time on my watch. This is perhaps the only benefit of a 12-hour time difference.


Our supercool translator, who goes by the name "Peter", met us at the airport. Next we jumped on a bus.


The bus took us down a major freakin' highway to the port. There were lots of big trucks on the highway. We didn't see a single passenger vehicle. Industrial style, baby. At the port, we waited wearily for our ferry to arrive.


Brad picked up some nasty food poisenning prior to leaving the US, and he was not a happy camper. Even the complimentary green tee didn't calm the angry spirits in his bowels. It did however get Josh pretty sparky.


We finally arrived on Chongming Island after 34 hours of travel. I don't care about time change. It's bedtime.

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hello people! We made it to China. The trip was a brutal 34 hour medley of planes, buses, and boats, but we're finally here on Chongming Island. Last night I took my first ride on a rickshaw:


Ryan, Arch, and I piled onto a little rickshaw to cruise around town last night. The driver/pedal-pusher was this old dude who smoked a ciggy the whole time. He was definately pushing some mean wattage while he dragged our 3skinnybutts around. We couldn't understand how much to pay him, so I think he made some seriously good cash off these three naive whiteys.

Well, Stage One starts in 2 hours. Time to get my bottles filled and slip into our new Team Rite Aid kits!

more news soon....

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I am soooo blown out. Long hours of training are taking a toll on Ayers. I am sitting on my bed just completely blown out. I am just staring at this computer screen wondering what to click. Hello computer, tell me what to click on. Maybe I'll make boxes with the mouse on my desktop. That's fun for about 4 seconds. I just took my heart rate for 20 seconds... it's 84. Thats faaaaaast. My little muscle-building men must be making more mus with the Boca Burgers I ate with my dindin.

Today marked my 2nd to last day of spin class I'll be instructing this spring. I really like doing them. Today's classes were at UVA. Last November, I never had held a formal public-type job. Then, I got a job as a waiter, and a spinning instructor at 4 gyms. It's been very educational to be front of people in roles that place full attention on myself. I was so apprehensive when I started. Now, I can't wait to do those jobs. I need to hold myself back in spin classes or else I will make people uncomfortable. There are so many cool people that take cycle classes... I wish I could get to know everyone. It's interesting to see the look on peoples' faces when they're going really hard. Some people grit their teeth, some sorta smile, some always look up, some go cross-eyed, and soooo many cock their head to the side. I wonder why so many people head-cock. So many bike racers do it as well. WHY???? As an instructor, it's like I've got a class full of these:



Also, check out this website, funny:
http://www.freakingnews.com/cache/gallery/contestcache.asp?contest_id=718&display=photoshop

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I won a massage for a prime at Tysons last weekend. The therapist, Cary Bland, is in Washington, DC. From what I hear, Cary is EXCELLENT. His website is: www.cbmassage.com. Thanks to Cary for sponsoring the Tysons race, and for his support of cycling.

I am selling the massage Gift Certificate (a $75 value) for $50. I will mail it to the first person interested straight away! Email ian@2skinnypros.com.



Click image to enlarge

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As you might recall, our good friend D-Gal, who fell very ill in the Dominican Republic race in early March, is still very sick... doctors don't know exactly what's wrong with him, and he has no energy and has splitting headaches all day. While we know that he'll be back towards good form soon, these weeks of the bike are pretty devastating, but D-Gal is in good spirits. While the doctors are musing over what is causing his affliction, I am offering up another solution: NanoBots



I took a class as an undergrad at UVA about nanotechnology. Nano, described on Wikipedia, is: "any technology which exploits phenomena and structures that can only occur at the nanometer scale, which is the scale of several atoms and small molecules." The possibilities of nanotechnology are virtually limitless. Without question, if I ever get any money, I will invest it in nano companies. Anyway, one day, nano scientists/engineers will develop some awesome bots that can be injected into a body to seek and destroy specific viruses, so ye' can be healed. These NanoBots are super-awesome, and they don't take shit from no viruses. NanoBots are way smaller than MicroMachines. Do you remember those little things? Remember the guy who used to do the commercials that talked really fast? I have a pretty big collection of MicroMachines, and Thundercats.

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Our token "Canadian friend" Zach Bell is hosting a terrific contest on his website, www.zerailleur.com

Basically you submit your favorite superhero and explain why he/she/it would kick ass on a bike. After April 18th, a panel of experts will judge a superheroic cycling showdown. They have to be real superheroes, like Captain Planet (combined power of 5 dorky prepubescent kids = 467 watts?) or Donald Rumsfeld (chaired the bipartisan U.S. Ballistic Missile Threat Commission in 1998). You can't just make up your own imaginary superhero like Ridiculously Awesomely-Defined Calves Man.

Personally a quick Google image search for "superhero" yielded some great inspiration:


Hero submissions are first-come first-serve, but fortunately nobody has claimed Catwoman, curiously smug Superwoman, Superwoman's runt sister, or That Girl Nobody Asked to the Dance.

Find the complete rules here: http://zerailleur.com/blog/archives/30/

Prizes include an assortment of stuff that Zach collected on his recent trip to Australia, including 3 packets of airline "zesty mix" and some Commonwealth Games schwagg.

2skinnypros are on the judging panel, mostly because we've run out of productive material to discuss on training rides. The other day Ian used a Star Wars reference to describe some awesome curves in the road. I just said "uh-huh" even though I haven't seen Star Wars. Then Ian got irritated and decided that he's going to start making false movie references to challenge my Hollywood expertise. I'm not allowed to say "uh-huh" unless I actually understand.

This is ludicrous. We need new brainfood. Enter the contest.

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Came up to the Philly area to do a TT & crit with T-Wren.

It was 34 degrees and raining at the start of the TT... i am THANKFUL that I didn't have full-fingered gloves, or my hands might not have frozen... then I wouldn't have had an excuse to quit the race 1/4 of the way through. I got back to the school and ran my hands under warm water for 10 minutes before i could begin to feel them. Freezing precipitation mixed with the rain. Awful. Stupid.

At least Tyler won the pro12 category... had I finished, at worst I would have been 2nd, because there were 2 of us in the cat.

But the worst part of the day wasn't the weather:



A guy was wearing the ASSOS Commander Thermal Body Suit. This masters-aged racer had a custom-painted Cervelo P3 with full Zipp wheels, and warmed up in the freezing rain on his rollers. The $700 full body time trial suit pretty much guarantees the guy that he's going to hell, or possibly a place where every day is a cat 5 race and he crashes in the first corner, every day for eternity.

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As per DS Frankie McCormack's training plan recommends... I am "chasing" my weekends of racing with 2 hard days. So, hard days are Sat, Sun, Mon, Tues. Today I pushed a big gear for 4 hours and did a 95% 15-second jump every 5 or 8 minutes. My mental motivation for continuing the jumps is best described using big-O notation:


Where f(x) is the function described by the linear combination of (my blood sugar level & the NRG level of the mix on my MP3 player), and g(x)= 1/x where x GTE 0 , and a is about 35 to expose this behaviour.

By the way, the NRG level on the MP3 player was very high, as Desyn Masiello was along with me. He's my favourite DJ, absolutely worth checking out. I highly recommend purchasing a subscription to www.freshlymixed.com for $2.50 a month, and downloading some DM. The mix archive has just about every Essential Mix, and loads of other productions spanning many years. Highly recommended. Here is a photo of Desyn, who is pretty good looking for a DJ:



As a bonus, on todays ride I broke my PR for CP180, pushing ever closer to the elusive 300 watt number. Also, about 20 minutes from home, I was blown off the road by a gust of wind that I can only describe as the breath of Satan. The sky was stormy... and then all of a sudden, I was in a ditch on the other side of Garth Rd. with hail slamming my helmet, huddling in a position like a sandcrab in a bucket in the sun at the beach. Thank you red line for nearly killing me and also giving me a salty face-drenching beverage to enjoy the last 30 minutes:

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This past weekend marked the first official race road trip for the 2skinnypros. We raced the Walkersville RR and the Tyson's Corner Circuit Race.

I brought my bike and bag out to my car Saturday morning to load up, and found that my car had been absolutely slammed with bird doodoo. I mean, at least 20 solid hits, all over the hood, windshield, bike rack, everywhere. According to the P-Hen, I parked my car under the "shit-pole"- a telephone pole where birds go to poop on the car beneath. When I was at the gas station before picking up Christoph, I washed the windshield with the squeegeee thing, and also decided to wash off some of the other doodoo from the hood & sides... but I just ended up smearing it all over, and for the weekend, my car had large patches of white smear on it. Anyway, today it's supposed to storm... so I'm hoping the showers will save me a trip to the car wash.

Saturday's RR was extremely windy, with 40+ mph gusts I'd guess. A few break attempts went up the road early in the race, which I tried to get into some. I flowed into a few, but they got reeled in. A break got away, which I reeled in with a hard effort... then another break went, which ended up being the big break of about 16 for the day, which I missed. Herby & teammate Brad Vierra were in that break. Zwizanski (Kodak/Sierra Nevada), eventual race winner wasn't in it either, so we set tempo for a mile, then he dropped back, and I ended up pulling for like 7 miles reaaaly hard, and the big break got closer. Goooood training, but not strategically the best move. Then Scott put in a big bridge effort and I couldn't stay on his wheel. Herby sat on the break, and eventually made a spectacular move with I think about a lap to go, and he and Scott and a Rockville dude jammed it to the line, aaaand Herby got 2nd. A magnificent day for the skinnypro. For the little it was worth, I kicked it in hard from what was left of the field, and won what 3 out of 5 people would call a field sprint for 19th.

We then were treated to fillet mignon at the famous Dvorak household. Great company and great accomodations.





Sunday's Tyson's Corner circuit race was suuuuper fun for me. After the initial flurry of attacks settled down, I attacked with some other guys representing all the larger present teams, except Rite Aid. We worked together pretty well for several laps, then I was taking all the hard pulls for while, and the break stayed away for probably a bit more than half the race. This weekend I felt really solid, and even though the break didn't stay away, it was cool, because I'm now ready to make the transition from racing conservatively with the fractured shoulder, to trying to win bike races. I won a prime for a massage in NoVA, which will be going on sale shortly. Christoph's Rite Aid squad put in a good lead-out effort for sprinter Cam, which took 2nd in what was obviously a pretty shady finish:



These photos are taken by Bill McCarrick (www.buffalo2step.com), who is a good friend of 2skinnypros. A whole blog needs to be dedicated to Bill, which will happen this week. He is a cycling legent in Charlottesville, and one great guy to smash a big-screen TV with.

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