The Tour of Utah will begin next week on Wednesday, the 13th.  It is going to be a very difficult race with the higher altitude and the hot dry heat.  It has been reaching the mid to upper 90’s each day for the past month.  Growing up in the West, I can say that I am used to this kind of heat, but haven’t raced in it much lately.  This race is going to favor the riders that are good climber’s at altitude on long climbs.  The second stage has over 10,000 feet of climbing in it and will be the first real shake up in the overall.  Then the last two stages, stage 4 and 5 will surely decide the winner.  Stage 4 has nearly 15,000 feet of climbing.  Follow that with a flat windy time trial the next day and it should be an good exciting race.

This season I have focused more on training for specific events such as Utah.  I have been using some events as training races and B priority to work towards my target races.  Earlier this season I trained specifically for the B.C. Races.  Knowing what the courses were like it made it that much easier to prepare with specific intervals.  The climbs in B.C. were short hard power climbs.  I spent many days doing 1-2 minute climbs over threshold power to get ready.  It seemed to work well. 

For Utah, I have been working on my time trialing and also longer steady climbs at altitude.  I haven’t been in Durango much so my altitude training and acclimatizing goes back and forth.  Over the past month, I have tried to get into the passes for long sustained climbing up above 9,000 feet and on up to 11,000 feet.  It is very tough to recover from any kind of effort at this altitude.  I am hoping that these rides will help me next week in Utah.  I have noticed that my climbing seems to be improving and also my time trialing. 

Now at this point with the race beginningin just five days, I am tapering down and just focusing on some good rest, with short hard efforts.  I may do a Mountain Bike race tomorrow in Dolores.  I found out last night that it is going to be a local world cup.  Todd Wells and his teammate Burry Stander (Burryis currently leading the U23 World Cup) are both in town before heading to Beijing for the Olympics. Not to mention the dozen other pro’s who will be in attendance. 

With the Tour of Utah on the horizon, the season is winding down fast.  After Tour of Utah it is off to US Pro in Greenville, South Carolina and then maybe Univest.  From there, straight into Cyclocross before taking a break in October.  I am excited for this next block of racing and already thinking about next season.

Out here in Chicago area at the Tour of Elk Grove.  I went down in the road race doing about 50kph. Somehow I didn’t even get a scratch on me.  A few bumps and bruises along with some stiff muscles, that’s it.  Lucky!  I landed on top of the Inferno guy that overlapped wheels with Ivan Dominguez. As I was watching it happen I knew it was going to be close.  At first I thought I could shut it down and avoid him, instead I landed on top of his bike and I think that is what saved me. My bike was tangled in his and fine, just a bent deralier hanger and the wheels were a little wobbly. No worries, just pace back up right? Wrong! They left us for dead.  The race was going so fast that by the time we got everything changed and going the official just left us.  My Inferno friend and I were moving up quickly, then the official told the car to go up ahead and that he would bring us up.  What? There was no way we were goin to make it as the course was flat and the race was going flat out still.  I yelled at the official and he said he would go up to the car and tell it to come back and bring us up.  Never saw it again!

I found out later that I was a victim of the “figuring it all out process”.  The official is brand new on the job so he wasn’t to sure about how it all works.  He later ended up letting other riders that had been crashed or gotten flat, hold onto the motorcycle while he towed them back up to the group. What?

Anyway, enough winging.  Congratulations to David Veilleux from Kelly Benefits for taking the overall win.  It was impressive to see him go over Toyota for the win.  The kid is a monster. The weekend was a bit of a wash for the rest of the guys on the Jittery Joe’s team as well. Although Chad ran 6th in the road race bunchie without any kind of lead out, just sniveling his way in there.  Good work Hartley! 

Back to Durango tonight for a little bit of altitude before heading the the Tour fo Utah.  I have been looking forward to that race all season.  It is already here.  Take a look at the stage profiles if you haven’t already.  It is going to be a tough tour. www.tourofutah.com.

I posted a bunch of Photos from B.C. Super Week taken by Photographer Greg Descantes. www.descantes.com. Check them out on the flickr page or on my photos page.

What an incredible day yesterday! I repeated my overall victory at the Tour de White Rock in B.C. It was a battle like non other that I have experienced in bike racing. I turned myself inside out so many times and dug to a completely different realm of pain to do it. The teammates rode incredible, and I didn’t want to let them down after setting me up so well and controlling the break. When Chris Horner hit out on on eof the steep hard climbs and I was able to follow, I new that I had it. This is a great feeling! I love this sport, it can be so unrewarding, but the feeling you get from completing the job with your best friends is unreal. Thanks guys!

I have to jump on the plane now as I write this back to Durango. A little rest and some good training. Next up is Elk Grove in Chicago, then the Tour of Utah. Beauty!

We have been racing every night since Wednesday. Tour de Gastown went pretty good for us, but still no victory. The Symmetrics team is riding super strong. We have been so close. Evan finished 5th at Gastown. The following night was Giro de Burnaby. We had a descent evening but the leadout got pinched on the inside and that was the end of it for our sprinters.

We are now in White Rock finishing up the trip of racing and it has been good for me personally so far. Not off to as good a start as last year. I just didn’t have it in the hill climb and finished 3rd. Tonight was the crit and I felt good, went into the last two corners in 3rd wheel on Andrew Pinfold’s wheel with Chris Horner leading it out. We almost crashed in the last 200 meters. I hit out to late into the final corner that is a downhill sprint. Both Horner and some other dude got me at the line. I finished 4th on the day. So here we are again. So close to a win, but so far away. I am either sitting in 1st or second now on points because it is an omnium. It will be a good battle tomorrow and i have 134 Kilometers to figure it out with the help of some good teammates.