eightplustwo.com

In my first job out of college, we had this HR assistant girl who one time replied to an email of mine and told me I was verbose. I took great offense to that, but I took it with a grain of salt because she was pretty bitter that I had declined her offer to go see a John Mayer concert with her. Despite the fact that it would have cost me nothing, I still passed on her offer because she was annoying. I still stand by that decision.

Anyway, my point here is that I’m going to try to keep this short and sweet. This is the final post on eightplustwo. The time has come; this thing has run its course and there is no sense in putting it off. Updating this blog has moved down many rungs on my priorities of things to do. New job, new hours, baby on the way in less than 2 weeks. For a brief, fleeting moment I thought that maybe I would keep the blog going after our daughter arrives. You know, surely there will be hilarious antics to follow. But let’s be real; I’ll have even less free time and the free time I do have I’d rather be doing other things. As a matter of fact, I have literally had the intention of writing this post for weeks now but simply haven’t had the time of motivation to do so.

I am going to miss this blog, I just won’t miss having the pressure to update it. Besides let’s be honest, my adventures on a bike aren’t that interesting. For every story I have to tell, there’s at least 100 people area with practically the same story. I did the derby, I raced Thu worlds, I raced a local race. You know how it goes.

I’ve got no regrets on this blog. I made a lot great new friends through this thing, had a lot of great times, etc. Sure there were a few rough patches, and yeah most will say this thing jumped the shark. I’m not disputing the fact that it did jump the shark, the only debate is at which point. Probably many times. But given the chance I’d do it all again.

This isn’t the end of eightplustwo; only the blog. Eightplustwo will always be the ethos those working class athletes, who put in their 40 hours a week and still find time to train. That won’t ever change. I’ll still be doing it.

Thanks to everyone who’s been a part of this thing for the 3 years of so it’s been going on. It wouldn’t be what it was without the readers. To anyone I offended, I apologize. And to all the haters, keep hating. The world needs you too.
Well look at that, I guess this post turned out kind of verbose. Maybe that bitch was right.

Take care, see you out there.

Matt

…I am still alive. You can call off the search team, I’m fine.

Nobody cares how busy I’ve been, or how my schedule has changed or blah blah blah.

Crit was fun tonight; fist time in weeks it hasn’t been stupid windy and it was pretty steady. We clocked in around 68 minutes, nearly 5 minutes faster than last week. No wind. More consistent.

That’s about all.

I’m not even sure where to start. I know, I know…it’s been two weeks since me last post and the title of that was some crap about being long over-due. Truth is, I’ve just been really busy lately. Nobody wants to hear excuses but the facts are I started a new job with new (later) hours,  and while I love my new job it does get me home significantly later than my former. Couple that with a growing list of yard work and getting a nursery ready, and this guy’s been pretty damn busy these days. All good though.

I decided l’m going to try to bring things up to speed. So I poured myself a tasty Bell’s Oberon pint from my band new kegerator (man cave status at The Service Course just jumped up several levels) and here goes. Grab yourself a beverage of choice and pull up a chair.

Lower Providence was the most recent “real” race I did; I say real because it’s important to differentiate between real races and training. Myself, Ryan, and Kuklis piled in the go-kart and headed down to the outskirts of Philly for a classic PA race that I love to hate. The weather was sunny and warm, but *stupid* windy out. Add to that one of the strongest fields I’ve raced again in a while and I knew it would be a tough go. We had 101 starters, so we’re told, and it took not so long to reduce that drastically. When the first hard go went I was further back than I should be and dudes were dropping off fast, but I made the selection and it settled in a bit.  However the next time the throttle was rolled I was at the back end of business and it wasn’t where I needed to be. We were strung out single file, getting guttered into the wind. The cross and head wind sections were brutal, and they took their toll.

With 15 to go I was done; the best part was Minturn was on my wheel and starts yelling “oh come on, at least get me to that wheel” after I gave him the flick letting him know I was done. Dude, are you kidding me? If I had the gas to get to onto the wheel in front of me, I’d be holding it myself. I was pretty bummed but all said and done I think 40 people finished the race. Bobby made a valient effort and almost locked it up the road, but the AXA gave good chase with all 5 of their guys on the front in the closing laps to shut him down. Clinton made a move on the last lap and nearly held it to the line, but Kline unleashed a wicked sprint and took it with a throw at the line.

Ryan and Kuklis hung in there, and we stopped at the Mexican joint (Cha Cha Cha’s?) on Trooper Rd right near the course. Seemed like the place to be for bike geeks, and rightfully so because they made a mean burrito.

What else? Oh, Thu night worlds has been typical. My favorite part was 2 weeks ago, on the first bell lap when CycleDrome’s Brian Evans HOOKED Chip no sooner than the bell rings. I’m not kidding, he literally threw his shoulder and weight into him. In nothing short of an amazing feat of acrobatics, Chip keep his bike upright.

This past Thu was pretty interesting. Another stupid windy day so no doubt it would play havoc. Elliston and Bobby got  up the road after the second sprint and were gone. Back in the group there were moments of brilliance vs the usual chasing on and sitting up. At the end of the night it ended up being slowest night of the year so far. Which is fine, because you know…it’s just a training race.

That’s about it. Derby this morning and a medium sized group, which was to be expected considering it was Easter. I got a 6:30am wake-up call, church at 7:30, finished painting the nursery til 9:35, and then rolled out to the derby. So you know, if you’re going to complain and give excuses for why you weren’t on your game today…I don’t want to hear it. It wasn’t too bad today though, Pauly and a few others got up the road a bit just before the rollers so not sure who won. I rolled back with Cush, taking the long way through Alburtis because it was so nice out and I wanted some extra ride time. Not too much though, I had a lawn waiting to be mowed and fertilized when I got home. Living the dream, kids.

Well first and foremost, I’ve got to apologize for slow week of posting. I started my new job last week and it’s been pretty busy with training and transitioning. Anyway, I digress…no excuses.

The first I must mention is that Thu finally brought the opener of the Thu Night Crit, aka worlds, after a being rained out for the regularly scheduled opening. Not much to say other than it was a big crowd that was fresh and motivated, so despite many attempts no break got  up the road. I got in for one sprint, while Bonzai and Pearson were snagging  up the majority of the points.

Sat I headed back to NJ, to scenic Newark along with Mr. 420 for the Cherry Blossom Challenge. I’m a big fan of that race, so I was looking forward to it. The weather was good and we got there to find out they were running nearly an hour behind due to a crash in the 4 race. Cripes. They made up some time but cutting a few laps from a few races.

The course was a little beat  up, on the backside and out of the final turn. However the last section before the start/finish line was freshly paved so that set the way for a good sprint. Once again plenty of break attempts but nothing would stick. In the end it came down to a field sprint, with Augusto Sanchez of Mengoni going early and taking the win. Willly Federico of Van Dessel took 2^nd, and Steve Ward rounded out the podium. Gabe Lloyd made a great move and snagged 5^th place – dude knows how to put himself into position in a bike race. Note to self: follow him next time out of last corner. For me, I was behind the sprint and ended up pack fill but felt good in the race. So, take it for what it was worth.

In the 35+ Van Dessel went 1-2 with Bill taking the win and Edwin right behind from a break. In the 45+ Bonzai missed the initial break, but was able to bridge up with some help and then went on to take the sprint for the win. Congrats to all.

Today was the derby for me and I knew it would be small group between Battenkill and The Naval Yard Crit. We had about 35 peeps, nothing too crazy but a good day regardless. Up in Cambridge, Ryan represented for Team LionOfFlanders.com with a solid 7^th in the 30+.

I’ve done my best to avoid all social media, the interwebs, and anything else that could ruin the Paris-Roubaix results. I decided to lay down 2 coats of primer in the nursery to preoccupy myself, so come 7:00pm I’ll be watching P-R on Versus.

I recently switched my daily multi-vitamin, from a brand that I’ve used for some time but was never completely happy with. It was a blend that was formulated for athletes so it claimed to provide all the necessary vitamins and minerals needed to properly support an athletic lifestyle, and I was just thought it was enough.

That was, until I tried something different. I first read about FTM’s SportMulti vitamin in Peloton Magazine, and was immediately drawn in due to the fact that FTM produced their supplements to cGMP standards. On the surface this might not seem like much, but its a huge deal in the fact that a cGMP facility ensures contamination-free supplements through a total quality policy. That means for athletes, they don’t need to worry about a possible positive test from a tainted/contaminated supplement.

I think FTM does a great job of explaining the SportMulti:

SportMulti® is a multivitamin and mineral supplement for athletes. We made SportMulti® because we believe that every athlete should take a multivitamin and mineral supplement designed to address the unique needs of our bodies under the added stresses of training and competition. A high potency and complete multivitamin and mineral supplement in its most bioavailable form should be the foundation of an athlete’s nutrition program to help reach optimum performance and maintain overall good health. For complete information visit www.sportmulti.com.

We created SportMulti® as our first FTM Brand® supplement product for two main reasons. First, we believe that the right multivitamin and mineral supplement should be at the core of every athlete’s nutrition plan. If you could only take one supplement, it should be a multivitamin and mineral complex as long as it’s the right one. That leads to our second reason. We wanted to offer a simple but yet effective multivitamin and mineral complex that was complete, high potency, naturally sourced, and used the most bioavailable forms of nutrients. Nothing else should be added to ensure you get the most powerful multivitamin-mineral blend per capsules. Other nutrients, if needed, should be obtained from food sources or other products. To be effective, a good supplement should only contain vitamins or minerals, period. Simple but hard to find on the market today, until SportMulti®.

I was excited to start using the SportMulti. The first thing I noticed is that they were much easier on my stomach; in fact, there was little to no stomach issues when taking them with breakfast. My previous multi, even taken with a meal, always made for some level of stomach discomfort. Immediately I was already more satisfied with SportMulti, but a true evaluation takes time. Using them is simple: take 3 each morning, and on days you train take 3 more in the evening with dinner. It’s that simple.

I must say that after using a bottle, I feel stronger and healthier. It’s hard to quantify the effects of a good multi-vitamin but I think having a taken another brand for a few years and noticing a difference after a month of taking SportMulti speaks volumes. So maybe you think your current multi is good enough, but you should be wondering: how much better could it be?

Yesterday’s race almost didn’t happy for me. I talked to Elliston Sat evening and the plan was that he’d be at my place at 6:30am, to be on the road and down to Mullica by 8:30am. I went to bed Sat night and set my alarm for 6:00am. As is typical when I know I have to be up, I didn’t sleep all that well; I woke up several times wondering what time it was and hoping I hadn’t over-slept. I got up to go to the bathroom at one point and noted it was still pitch black out, so I was ok. Then I heard my wife say those words: what time is it? I opened my eyes and it was light out.

Mother f***ker. It was 6:38am. I jumped out of bed, ran downstairs, and opened the garage door. Bill was waiting, got out of his car, realized what happened and was laughing at me. I threw him my car keys so he could be it out of the garage and get the bikes loaded, while I got ready. 7 minutes later I was dressed and out the door, with a little help from my awesome wife who made me breakfast and put it in a Tupperware to go. This, folks, is why you always pack your race bag the night before. After some laughing and me standing on it most of the way down there, we made it only 10 minutes later than planned.

We found a good parking spot and got out to register. Our field was full before prereg even closed, and yet there were some notable day-off people that showed up that were not on the prereg list, such as Dave Chauner and Tom Soladay. All good though, they would surely make for good racing. That along with a few of the AXA guys, Evan Fader, and all of the strong PA and NJ guys meant it would be a good race. The weather was sunny and warm, with an increasing wind that would also be a factor.

The first lap got started pretty easily, but didn’t take long for Chauner to make the first attack with Elliston in tow. I saw the move and got right on. We didn’t get too far, and a few more catches and counters had the field a little stunned. That’s when the group rolled off – Minturn, Whitman, Fader, Ward, Maurice from Van Dessel, and a handful of others got a gap and were quickly up the road. All said I think the group ended up with 13, and coming through lap 2 they already had 1:20 on the group. Game over.

Just as we started lap 3 and out of the first turn, the chase began in earnest. Chauner and Soladay led the charge, with a small group rotating at the front into the headwind section of the course. Still, after all the work was done we still didn’t have them anywhere close to being in sight. Lap 4 came and the group rolled a good tempo, biding its time for the finish even though all the money was up the road.

Coming into the final lap I knew positioning would be important; the course was basically pancake flat and a triangle shape, with two corner and the “third” actually being two quick turns pretty close together. Going into turn two on the last lap, the field began to swing left to make the right turn when some panic hit: a car was in the turn making a left into us. The marshals couldn’t stop him, and to make matters worse a group of motorcycles was coming onto the course in the direction we were turning. Disaster adverted, we rolled on. I knew the name of the game would be getting into position before the final corners, to be in a good spot to float for the long final stretch.

That’s just what I did, I was top 20 going into those corners and out of the last corner it was still some 3 miles to the finish. I stayed left, to give myself room to float and because the wind was coming from the right side. I stayed attentive, held my ground, moved up a bit and looked at the Garmin; still 2 miles to go. Sh*t this is a long finish. About 500m to go, I heard the dreaded sound of bikes on pavement. I did not see it but it went down on the right side, and I made it clear through it. Shortly after Woitas attacked with a teammate, but they were reeled in quickly. Then I saw the move; Durso went to the front with a steady roll of the throttle. I got on his wheel and looked back; we were leading this thing out with a little leash. Durso realized it was lead it out scenario for him, so he ramped it up and finally started his sprint. I sat behind him as long as I could, with the finish slightly uphill and the wind I knew I didn’t want to be out a long time in the sprint. I made my jump and came around him to take the field sprint so assuming the break was 13 then I would have been 14^th?. We didn’t stick around because results were taking a while, and they were only paying 10 deep (though the flyer said 20 deep and we had a more than full field?).  I know it wasn’t for much, but it felt good to put in a good sprint and pull down a top 15 in the first real race of the year. It was a confidence boost that I needed; affirmation that those long cold miles through the bitter winter will indeed pay dividends this season.

I’m told that Minturn won, countering an attack by Maurice shortly out of last turn and he went solo. His teammate Whitman took the sprint, so AXA went 1-2 on the day. Good on those guys.  I haven’t seen the official results posted yet so that’s all I know.

The USADA announced yesterday that it was lifting Tom Zirbel’s ban effective 21 Mar 2011. As you’ll recall, Zirbel tested positive for DHEA and was subsequently banned for 2 years. Zirbel always maintained his innocence and proposed that he had unknowingly ingested DHEA through a tainted supplement. While he could have pursued that case, he realized he faced a costly and lengthy battle. He opted instead to accept his ban, to his chagrin.

Zirbel went through a couple stages after his ban, from anger to considering walking away from the sport he loved, to getting back on the bike and participating in an unsanctioned TT in Texas where he broke one Lance Armstrong’s previous course record. Homeboy still knows how to ride his bike…fast.

I am speculating here, but I think the biggest slap in the face to Zirbel had to be the Contador case. To see him get popped for clenbuterol, offer up a defense of tainted steak from Spain, and to be acquitted for accidentally/unknowingly ingesting the banned substance (with a zero tolerance limit, mind you) must have been a gut punch to Zirbel. But that just goes to show you what star power, money, and political backing can do for you. Of course, Contador isn’t out of the water yet.

Zirbel is now cleared to race, thanks to his participation in a pair of doping cases. He explains:

“I have been allowed to race the rest of the 2011 season and beyond, though I do not currently belong to a team,” said Zirbel. “Well, my ‘substantial assistance’ amounted to me putting USADA in touch with a person who had incriminating knowledge about an athlete who USADA was building a case against. And I actually did this in two separate cases that USADA was or is pursuing.”

I don’t know Tom Zirbel, and he doesn’t know me; but I like him. I honestly believe in his innocence, and I’m happy to see him returning (early) to racing. I think the general consensus in the domestic peloton is that Zirbel is both well liked and well respected. I believe he’ll be welcomed back when he takes to the line again this season, and fully expect him to get a pro ride for 2012.

Welcome back Tom, and good luck this year.

First and foremost, I’d like to give a big congratulation to Laura Van Gilder for winning the Eastern PA Best Rider March Madness p/b the Frying Dutchman Donut Shop & School House Coffee competition! She’s a pure class act and I’m happy to see her have won. Thanks again to everyone who voted. I will announce winners of coffee & donut prizes soon…stay tuned.

Next up – racing this past weekend, or should I say lack thereof. Rich Ruoff and his Road Cycling League looked to kick of their season of redemption, as well as his Super Series, this past Sat with the Yellow Springs Road Race. Despite having a decent number of preregs, especially for March, the notice went out Thu evening shortly before prereg was to close:

The race was cancelled.

Ruoff, Ruoff, Ruoff. Here we go again. There are several theories floating around as to why he cancelled

I went back and looked at the map I used last year in planning the course to see why I didn’t see it.  On the map I used, townships are divided by color.  Unfortunately two townships share a similar color and I’m color blind.  I just did not notice it!

I still shake my head and laugh, no matter how many times I’ve read that. I’m sorry; it’s just a lame excuse. Even if that were the case, it’s poor planning on his part. As a promoter it is his responsibility to make sure that all permits are in place long before the race is scheduled to go off. And considering that Ruoff is fighting a difficult battle to regain the trust of local racers, he damn well should have had his I’s dotted and T’s crossed. But he dropped the ball, big time.

Or did he? Some people think that he shut it down because he didn’t have enough preregs. This is possible; we’ve seen it done many times in the past. But as one seasoned rider pointed out, in early season it’s difficult to prereg due to crazy weather changes. The forecast for the Sat was sunny and dry so undoubtedly more people would have registered day-off.

Another theory is that the permit thing *is* true, however he knew about it longer than he let on. Knowing that the race couldn’t go off, he still let prereg run its course and then notified people. This allowed him to lock in those racers already registered for his next race. An interesting theory for sure, but it’s also plausible.

We may never know the real story behind Yellow Sping, but this much is true – Ruoff did himself no favor by cancelling that race. Good luck with the rest of the season and your Super Series, just don’t be surprised if you don’t get the support you hoped for. Sad to say, but I think the win goes to Butterworth for that gran fondo he put on this past weekend; at least he didn’t cancel it.

You know what they say, Ruoff: fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice…

Bill Elliston versus Laura Van Gilder

Mentor versus Student.

Two incredible cyclists whose accomplishments are topped only by the amount of class they have, and what they give back to the sport that defines them.

Both started their professional careers with the Navigators teams. Bill would go on to race professionally with Sony Music Studios, TARGETRAINING, and Rite Aid Pro Cycling. Laura would go on to race with Schwab, Trek Plus, Saturn, and Quark Cycling.

Bill has racked up over 65 career wins, 225 top tens, a couple PA crit championships, a couple MAC cross championships, won races in Belize, and much more as he continues to race today for the Van Dessel Factory Team while running his coaching business.

Laura is one of, if not the most, winningest female cyclists in the country. She’s won everything from the Tour of Somerville, Chris Thater, Bermuda GP crit and circuit, Wendy’s International Cycling Classic, the CSC Invitational, a stage at Tour de Toona, Bike Jam, and much more including first in the NRC and a USA national crit championship. Oh yeah, she also represented the US in cross worlds. Laura continues to race with the C3/Mellow Mushroom team.

This will be one incredible match. Get your vote on.

Wow! The Elite Eight not only brought the biggest numbers of votes, but also brought the biggest upset thus far. In a down to the wire battle, Bill Elliston locked up the win to advance over Marty Nothstein by 1 vote! He goes on to face Scott Zwizanski, while Bobby Lea faces Laura Van Gilder for what will surely be another fiercely contested match.

Here’s the updated bracket – get your vote on! Voting closes tomorrow at 8:00pm EST.