DJ Wheel Crusher's Race to Sun Picks

I am on the road right now, but I got an electronic mail message from my hype man "Crash Masta Z" this morning reminding me that Sunday begins one of the most mysteriously overrated races of the season, Paris-Nice. For those that don't have my french skills, Paris-Nice is not nice. From what I've heard, Nice isn't even that nice.

Paris-Nice gives the mountain goats and stage racers something to do during the spring to distract them from their whiny fear of cobbles; and of course, to help them forget they are not "hard-men" that can win hilly classics like Fleche-Gilbert and Liege-Philippe-Liege. The only other purpose the race serves is to give one-week stage races specialists a chance to shine. Last I checked, there was only one of these specialists in the world, Tony Martin.

To me, one week stage races exist to fill the schedule, and make promoters some coin. While Grand Tours tend to lose my interest due to my ADHD; and classics leave me wanting more; one week stage races are nonetheless pretty "meh". Reason being, the results are based on the formula of "every stage is pretty much the same, either hills or flat, and THIS year, we threw in a (fill in the blank with mountain top finish or time trial) to mix things up!". You're confused? So am I.

Take the Tour of Oman this year as an example. Without looking, who won? Andre Gri-nope. Oh yeah, it was Peter Sa-nope. Peter Velits. Yeah, you didn't know that. I didn't either until I looked it up. All we remember is Andre Greipel, Peter Sagan, and Marcel Kittel having a badass contest over whose balls were bigger. But apparently the organizers threw in a hilly stage somewhere and shook things up.

Or remember when Cam Meyer won the Tour Down Under in 2011? Yeah, probably not.

You see people, my job is to pick races. I have no other choice. If I don't, my hype man will be calling me, and the 26 people that clicked on my post yesterday will be disappointed that I left out the Race to the Sun. So ask (implicitly) and you shall receive.

DJ Wheel Crusher's 5 Spoke Favorites:

• Tony Martin - again, I hate putting everyone's favorite in my 5 spoke category. Makes me feel like there is no point in me typing this boring post. But let's be honest, Tony Martin is the man. He declared boldly last year that he was going to specialize in 1-week stage races. As you can imagine, I laughed at this. But you can't fault a man for wanting to get that paper (and share it with his teammates). Further adding to Tony Martin's chances, he has probably the only other guy in the world that could successfully be a 1-week stage race specialist (but refuses to acknowledge it, unless it involves beating up on 20 year olds and Conti teams in the US) Casper Leipheimer. My only concern with Tony winning is that he built up too much beef on those hammies in his successful bid last year to topple Fab's Time Trial World Championship dynasty and he won't be able to hang on the climbs in France.
• Alejandro Valverde - I love a good upset story. What I love even more is "haters gonna hate" story. Don't get me wrong, giving Valverde the benefit of the doubt, he still a huge dirtbag. But then again, in all likelihood, so is that good American cyclist. (Haven't met either of them). Common thread? They both are awesome at riding their bikes. If I wanted a popularity contest, there's a lot more American Idol on TV in the US than cycling. Valverde has shown that he doesn't need dope to win, or at least this time he found a better way to do it. Either way, I wouldn't be surprised to see navy blue and green on top of the podium in Nice.

DJ Wheel Crusher's 4 Spoke Favorites:

• Simon Gerrans - GreenEdge basically took Australian cycling and made it super lame, but that's beside the point. Gerrans showed earlier this year that he has good early season form, mostly due to Australia's mandatory backwards weather. He's also got a solid dose of old-man swag. GreenEdge probably won't win anything major for the rest of the season that doesn't take place on a track, so this would be a good chance to slip in a W.
• Denis Menchov - he's shown since randomly winning the Giro that he doesn't intend to take a major win for the rest of his career. Lately, the only thing he has won is the contest to see which rider can hop to the most dysfunctional team every year (I'm calling it, Cristina Watches when his Katusha contract is up). So it's about time he prove to us he still knows how to win. If he has done any training this winter, which is not a given, he could shine in this race. Especially in the final stage time trial that may or may not be a legitimate uphill time trial.

DJ Wheel Crusher's 3 Spoke Favorites:

• Tejay Van Garderen - I think we're getting to the point where we can stop wondering if Tejay is going to be the next lance. I'm not a physiologist, but it seems logical that he would be better suited for one-week stage races rather than three-week slugfests. He showed last year that he could ride with the big dogs, especially on his home continent. I'm ready for him to bust out in Europe on the big stage, and not just for one stage.
• Richie Porte - Porte would be a 5 Spoke favorite for sure if it weren't for one very lanky, very pale reason. Porte has the unfortunate burden of being on Bradley Wiggins team. In two years, Wiggins went from being one of my top favorite cyclists to being my least favorite. After selling out to Sky, he has shown a startling proficiency in disappointing and holding down his teammates in the process. My guess is that Porte will be the Froome of Paris-Nice and Wiggins will get 4th.

DJ Wheel Crusher's Darkhorse:

• Thomas Voeckler - Voeckler's a darkhorse? Yeah...because if he isn't he'll disappoint. Voeckler has shown over his long career that the only thing in his life rivaling his love for suicidal breakways is his hatred for expectations. This is why he won't ride for a ProTour team. So now that I have framed him as a darkhorse, I expect him to shine. If he can race in a somewhat logical fashion (highly unlikely), I think he might go somewhere in this race. It is not going to help that he will be missing the most badass French cyclist since Jeannie Longo, Pierre Rolland.

That marks the end of my picks for this weekend. Feel free to leave comments if you agree/disagree/want me to stop writing this crap.

DJ Wheel Crusher's Strade Bianche Picks

If you know me, you know I'm not a very good bike racer. I'm built to be a football player. Totally kidding, I'm not built for athletic activity. Thankfully, for my arteries, I enjoy sports (does this counteract my love for sweet and sour chicken? questionable)

I've spent a lot of this off season doing things off the bike (ok, I mostly spent time studying for the CFA, but that is neither here nor there.) I became the Treasurer of the Illinois Cycling Association, I did whatever I could to whore out the talents and intangible property of Rhythm Racing in an attempt to get new sponsors (with questionable success), and I spent countless hours reading about transfers, team training camps, new equipment sponsors, and even some boring stuff about doping. This is a long transition to my next point. I am really good at picking race winners.

Totally kidding. In the past couple of years, I have gauged my race picking success through my performance on Rouleur Derby. If you haven't been on Rouleur Derby, quit being silly. It is fun, challenging, and supporting Luke is good karma (you probably still owe him for all the years he ran CBR, let's be honest). I knew when I picked Nick Nuyens to win Flanders last year, I had a gift. Well, maybe that was a shot in the dark that made me look good. But, I still take pride in picking Todd Wells to win the 2011 US CX Championships. In the same vein, I still take pride in betting the farm against Cadel in last year's Tour. That worked out well.

So I decided to start writing about cycling again. Just this time, not about myself. People like this blog. I don't know why, I think they're insane. But ask and you shall receive. This might be the only post I write this year. This might be the start of something awesome. In a year, I might be the next Neil Browne. Ok, I hope I forget that I wrote that sentence by the time I get to the end of this and click "publish".

After a four paragraph intro (I don't mean paragraph in the correct grammatical sense, don't get me wrong), I think we are ready to get started.

DJ Wheel Crusher was born a about three years ago when I started riding a road bike. I weighed way too much to ride a road bike (in reality, I still do) and I was riding factory built, crap wheels. I became notorious for breaking them. There's nothing better than being 30 miles from home and breaking a spoke. Rhythm is sponsored by the best wheel builder on the planet, Psimet, but that didn't stop me from totaling a hand-built, 32 spoke, RR585 wheel last year (on a solo training ride...)

Without further ado, time for DJ Wheel Crusher's race picks for the week.

This weekend, our favorite Pro Tour, Pro Conti teams, and some random team from Columbia are taking on a random Italian race chalk-full of history (sorry for the pun). Strade-Bianche is mostly famous because a big part of the race takes place on crappy dirt roads. For the local Illinois riders, basically, a bunch of Italians copied Leland. I'll be honest, I like to ride on either pavement or grass/dirt, that's it. Gravel and stuff that isn't called gravel but is basically the same thing, scare the s*** out of me. Why people want to race on this is beyond me. Either way, I guess guys that are getting paid to race on gravel are all for it because some of the biggest names in cycling with be at Strade this weekend. From what I can tell, the course includes a fair amount of hills and a downhill sprint. Sounds pretty much like the Burlington Road Race plus a bit of gravel and no center-line rule. Since I have raced Burlington, I have an inside view of what Philippe, Christian, and the guys will be faced with on Saturday. Here are my picks:

DJ Wheel Crusher's 5 Spoke Favorites:

• Roman Kreuziger - this former Czech phenom (he's still Czech, just not as much of a phenom anymore) moved over to Astana last year after shining on Liquigas but having to race in the shadow of other badasses like Basso and Pellizotti. Kreuziger's lack of success becoming a real GC contender in the grand tours has me convinced that this is his race. Plus, I think he lives in Italy.
• Philippe Gilbert - I don't really think Gilbert is going to win this race. The problem is that he can if he wants to. So if he decides he wants it, I'd look like an idiot not putting him here.

DJ Wheel Crusher's 4 Spoke Favorites:

• Peter Sagan - Sagan would be a 5 Spoke favorite, but I suspect he might have to ride for Nibali at some point. I don't think Nibali is in condition to win this race, or really wants to, but Italian politics are confusing and weird. That said, when Nibali gets dropped and Sagan realizes he's the only one left, he will proceed to crush everyone in the sprint (never heard that story before...)
• Giovanni Visconti - Visconti is an Italian on a Spanish team. That's important because this race is in Italy, and Spain, as a country, is not doing well. The guys on Movistar could be riding for a job every race, especially if their entire country folds (although Lance might bail out the cycling teams, he does stuff like that). Movistar has had a quiet start to the season, and I wouldn't be surprised if Visconti threw together some old-guy-magic on Saturday. (I looked, he's actually 29, wonder who I confused him with...)

DJ Wheel Crusher's 3 Spoke Favorites:

• Fabian Cancellara - it's really, really trite to mention Fab in classics picks. Sorry. Basically, I'm thinking if he gets into a small group, he'll turn on his "engine" and ride away. I don't think he'll get in a small group, and if the better climbers start kicking each other in the nuts on the gravel hills, Fab might be out of his element, but if they let him stick around, things might get weird.
• Ryder Hesjedal - I'm a pretty big Ryder fan boy, but this pick is real. Ryder has the legs to win this race and I think he should. He crushed in the 1 day Canadian races last year, mostly because he was Canadian. But my hope is that he realized in those races that Grand Tours are for weirdos like Cuddles and he should start crushing hilly classics. Come on Hes-J!

DJ Wheel Crusher's Dark Horse:

• Darwin Atapuma-Hurtado - why? Well, for starters, his name is Darwin. He probably has no chance of winning this race. He races on a Columbian team I've never heard of. Ok, I couldn't name any other Columbian team right now. He has probably never seen hills as small as the ones in Strade. But he could easily find himself in a break, and if he can escape from the break, the guys in the peloton might completely forget about him and accidentally race for second.

Tune in next week when I will talk about a race I actually know something about and recap my successes/failures of the weekend.

(This post would not be possible without the inspiration of Dan Wuori, Neil Browne, and Whit Yost.)

xXx Jackson Park

Yesterday marked the beginning of the Chicago Cross Cup with the first race taking place at Jackson Park on the southside of Chicago. Same park as Relay Cross, but totally different course. I was excited to race and test out my fitness. I was also curious to see what it would be like racing with 99 other guys. Chicago Cross Cup upped the field limits this year, so my category now has a 100 rider limit. In a race where starting position has a major influence on the outcome, having 99 other people to line up with is an interesting proposition.

I got a ton of rest of Saturday night and felt ready to race on Sunday. We drove down early and got to watch a lot of the races. The temperature was mild and the big question on the day was the rain. It rained in the morning but slowed down to intermittent drizzle by noon. My race went off at 2:45pm so there was no telling what would happen. I had the chance to pre-ride the course twice. The first time, I let Evan adjust my tire pressure with his hands…so my first pre-ride lap was at about 27psi front and back. Being a bigger guy riding clinchers, that was a bit too low. I finished the first lap nervous about how little traction I was getting. After I got a pump, and put my tires back up around 37-38, my second lap felt much better. I was ready to rock…but first, staging.

100 nervous guys excited for the first race of the season, plus a 1/2/3 race that went off about 10 minutes late equaled people staging an hour before our race start. I ended up standing about 45 minutes in the staging area and starting in the fifth row when all was said and done. To add to the nervousness/excitement, it started raining in earnest while we were staging.

The start was fast and aggressive to say the least. The rain added a whole new dimension of slipperiness to the starting chute, but hey, this is cross right? There was a ton of bumping and ridiculous lines through the start, but after racing crits, it’s not all that intimidating doing it on grass. Mid-way down the starting chute, there was a huge pile-up. Probably the gnarliest cross crash I have seen. I leaned into the guy next to me and barely missed out on that pile of fun. The first lap was full of crashes…everywhere. It basically turned into reverse drafting, meaning if there was someone in front of you, you didn’t want to be directly behind them so you could get around them when they went down. I was feeling great on the first lap. I thought that I was holding position where I needed to and moving up where I could. Coming into the second lap I’m fairly sure I was sitting in the upper 30’s or lower 40’s.


The second lap was where things got a bit shaky. My body felt fine but was definitely ready to blow up. I pushed on though and tried to focus on staying upright. I couldn’t believe how many people were going down. Straight aways or turns, everyone was going down. Judging by the traction (or lack thereof) in my back wheel, I knew I would be joining them soon. I went down on the infamous off-camber turn by the pond (no worries, I was nowhere close to falling in). The crash was slow and I didn’t even lose any spots (see the awesome picture from Bill Draper below), but I had the crappy luck of hitting the buckle of my shoe on the ground, which released the main strap on my shoe. I jumped back on and was unable to adjust the buckle because it was caked in mud. I ended up having to stop to fix it and watched a lot of people fly by me. In retrospect, it’s good that was I still in a part of the race that was competitive, but frustrating that I had to watch them ride by me.


The rest of the race went by quickly, as I tried to put as much power as I had left in the pedals. The course became more slippery and my handling skills deteriorated quickly. I stayed up for the most part but was going through turns too slow and putting my foot down too often. I definitely want to try and get more skills practice in this fall. I think it will help me immensely in the end of races where my body is low on oxygen.

Overall, the day was really challenging, but I had a lot of fun. I am excited to keep training and working on my cross skills. Next race will not be for three weeks, so in that time I’ll try to find some other spicy content for you to consume or possibly post a boring updated about training. With that, I leave you with my best pain face of the day (thanks to Eric Goodwin for the pictures.)

I like to watch other people on bikes too!

First race of the Chicago Cross Cup coming up this weekend at Jackson Park in Chicago! I race at 2:45pm if you want to stop by and heckle. Info here.

In the mean time, I highly recommend you watch this video of guys doing crazy awesome things on bikes:

xXx Relay Cross

This past Sunday marked the first official unofficial kick-off to the Cyclocross season in Chicago with the second running of xXx's Relay Cross race. Relay Cross has a unique race format where teams of two take turns racing laps. The race also has a "Le Mans" style start where the racers start off without their bikes and run a couple hundred meters to the transition area where their partners are standing waiting to give them their bikes. I raced in the Cat. 4 race with my teammate Dan and the Co-ed race with Melissa, a new Iowan friend that just started racing 'cross with Rhythm's sponsor, Iron Cycles. My training had been going well and I was excited to try out my legs on the grass.

I woke up Sunday hungover and not too excited to race. Since the race was at Jackson Park on the South side of Chicago, and the behemoth Chicago triathalon was taking up just about the entire city between my apartment and Jackson Park, I decided to ride down the race. I met up with Dan and we took a nice leisurely roll through the South side to the race. The ride to the race was a great easy warm up for the legs and got rid of the hangover.

We decided Dan would race the first leg since he could run faster. For those that aren't aware, Dan is a freaking gazelle, at least compared to the other Cat 4's. After a nearly flawless bike exchange, Dan left the transition area in the Top 10. After his lap, we were still Top 10, so there was a little pressure for me. With that, I embarked on my first race-pace cross riding of the season.

Right off the bat, my cornering skills were definitely a bit rusty but my legs felt awesome. I got passed by a couple people that were cornering better than I, but stayed close to them. As we came around to the three-barrier section, I noticed everyone taking the right side of the barriers, so I went left. Someone on the right had trouble and I ended up passing about five people through the barriers. I jumped back on my bike elated and quickly realized I was redlining. This is cross though and that's the point. Plus, my lap was going to be over soon. I kept the legs moving and held my position through the rest of the lap into the transition area. After tagging Dan, I looked down. Max heart-rate for the season. What a great start to cross!


The rest of the race went by without too much excitement. Both Dan and I faded a little bit and we ended up 18th. We were happy with the result though with it being Dan's first time on the cross bike this season and my first time riding my cross bike in earnest.

The coed race was quite the experience. Melissa insisted that I take the start, so I lined up a little nervous to see what my running skills were like, especially in cycling shoes. A lot of people had trouble with traction and I made it in and out of the transition area Top 20. Pretty good for a fat guy! After the race, someone told me "you have impressive running form. I didn't expect you to be so smooth!"

I was pretty tired after already having races once, but I still had a great time. The coed race format was interesting because there were so many people of different abilities out on the course that it felt like I was racing with different people every lap, getting a lot of chances to pass and be passed. In the end, Melissa and I got lapped by the leaders so I lucked out and didn't have to race the last lap. Even better, the officials scored us as if we hadn't been lapped, so we took home a "Top 10" finish in 8th place!

Overall, Relay Cross was a terrific start to what I hope will be an awesome cross season.

It's Been A Season

It's been exactly a year since I last posted. This fact is mere coincidence, but kind of neat in itself. The past year has been wonderful and at times wonderfully crazy. My life has seen lots of changes. Namely, starting a new cycling team, meeting a wonderful girlfriend, and changing jobs. Thank you to all that supported Amalgamattion through this year of silence. Whether or not you realized it, those random comments (albeit many of them in jest) about the absence of posts is what eventually drove me to re-do the layout and start posting again. Perfect transition into the two-wheeled side of things.

First, the new team. As many of you know, myself and a couple of my teammates chose to leave Spidermonkey at the end of last season and start a new team. For me personally, the decision was based on the fact that I wanted to be a part of team dedicated to racing and also get to be a bit more involved in how the team was run. Specifically, I was interested in working with sponsors. We ended up joining forces with another local team, Rhythm Racing and a few other important characters, to form the new Rhythm Racing. From the beginning I took on an "Executive Board" role as the Vice President of Sponsorship. It has been an interesting and challenging endeavor trying to find sponsors and help with the administrative duties of running an amateur cycling team. For me, the most challenging part has been keeping the "amateur" part in focus while sometime having to put in more than amateur amounts of work. Overall, the team has been a huge success both on and off the road. We are already getting started on putting together huge and awesome plans for next year. (oh and if anyone reading this wants to sponsor us, you know where to find me!)

For me personally, this road season was a bit of wash. I went through a tremendous off-season where I trained diligently, dropped 20 pounds, and was excited to crush the early season crits with my new teammates. However, in February, I decided I needed to focus a bit on real-life and chose to start studying for the GMAT in case I wanted to apply to business school this summer. I took the GMAT in June and got the score I wanted, but my training and racing suffered considerably. When I attempted to start racing in June, I realized that while my brain had been training, my legs had missed out on important training...and too much of it. I put in a couple of starts in June and July without much success even sitting in the pack. Riding off the back of Cat 4 crits on a frequent basis is not something I'm interested in.

I rolled up to the line in Elk Grove at the beginning of August feeling in pretty good shape. I knew the race would be fast as many people target it, but I felt ready to take on whatever. Unfortunately, my race didn't go so well. About half-way through the race, I was caught up behind a crash and ended up in a chase group that didn't want to chase. Feeling good enough to do the work myself I began dragging them back to the pack. This was going well until I hit the hallmark 180-degree turn of the course on the front of the group about 25 meters behind the main pack. Since every lap before I had been behind someone going into the turn, I hadn't been paying attention to the speed we were taking the (wet) corner at. When I hit the corner on the front of a group, I apparently didn't slow down enough as my front wheel washed out and I went sliding through (across?) the turn. Jesse Williams, who I presume was taking pictures of his teammate behind me caught the whole thing on camera. I jumped back in the race and ended up crashing again, this time on a wet crosswalk, but after the first crash, I was pretty much done anyways.

This was my first "real" crash. In cycling terms, I came out great. My helmet did it's job and since I was on wet pavement, I was saved a lot of road rash. Mentally, I was much worse. Even a month later, I will occasionally panic while taking a corner, even on a slow commute to work, and freak out that I am going to wash out. I had planned to race the Gateway Cup in St. Louis over labor day weekend, but after deciding to go, I spent the next few weeks dreading it. I decided that it wouldn't be a good idea to go and try to race three days when I didn't feel like racing three minutes. So I shut down the road racing for the season.

Since July I have been training with a new coach and am excited for the upcoming cross season. I used to think Cat 4's training with coaches was overkill, and it may be, but I have really enjoyed the experience and have enjoyed watching my quads grow. I will try to put together race reports during cross season assuming that my schedule allows me time. xXx's Relay Cross was this past Saturday and was a ton of fun. I will put up a quick report on it later this week or early next week. Thanks for reading!

Ronald Reagan Criterium 2010

This past weekend, I returned to where it all began. The Ronald Reagan Criterium in sunny Dixon, IL, the childhood home of the last great Republican president.

Last year as a somewhat fatter Cat 5, I raced twice and got dropped twice. This year I came in with a season of racing under my belt, waning fitness, and a recent upgrade. My fitness has gone into the dumps recently with my work schedule being what it is. Sometimes life gets in the way of bike racing, and you have to pay the price. I signed up for the 3/4's race and 4/5's race. I went into the day with low expectations and was just there to enjoy some cham-time and turn the pedals in anger for one last time before things get cold. Zens and I met up around 11 and headed out to Dixon, making one last fateful stop at the Dekalb Oasis for some Panda Express (excessive foreshadowing).

We arrived in time to watch the 5's race. It was a nice feeling getting to watch someone race before my race...haven't had that experience in a while. I got in a good warmup and felt great heading into the 3/4's race. I expected to be nervous, but was really not. I figured things might be faster than normal but I had also heard that 3's brake less in the turns which is helpful for me. Both of these things were true. The race was fairly small, less than 30 starters I think. I was hanging in just fine, sitting midpack, for the first 10 minutes of the race. I was surprised at how good my legs, lungs and head felt, especially with the small hill that was added to the course this year. At around 11 minutes in, coming through the start finish, I knew something was wrong. My legs felt dead and my stomach felt alive. Lets just leave it at: the Panda won my 3/4's race. I was sad to DNF less than half way through the race, but seeing as I had a race more fitting to my ability later in the day, it was not too tough of a decision. I got to watch my teammate Brandon grab an impressive 3rd place. It's awesome to see such a hardworking guy finally get results in a big way.

We had to wait until 5:30 four the 4/5's race. By that time I was feeling a bit lethargic and bored. But I was somewhat motivated by the fact that most of the people I would be racing with already had a full race in their legs while I had just a warmup. I staged well in the second row and the race went off on time. The race started off fairly slow but was quite smooth for a 4/5's race. The wind was blowing hard in our faces on the backstretch up the hill, so it was difficult to find a place to move up. My race was pretty uneventful. I sat in the top 20 the whole race and tried to stay out of the wind. Coming into the 3 laps to go, I narrowly avoided a crash right at the start/finish line that only took out a couple of riders. I ended up sitting next to my teammates Zens and Dan. Zens said that it was time and set the team strategy in motion (which I was not a part of). Zens and Dan started moving up the outside on the hill to try and meetup with Brandon and eventually lead him out. I was feeling quite good at that point and jumped on Dan's wheel. Dan got pushed out slightly and narrowly avoid a cone which I actually ran over the base of. Happy to not have crashed, I had lost Dan's wheel and a lot of speed. Zens and Dan had successfully made it to the front and Zens laid it down with 2 to go and eventually brought the pack up to the break. Coming into the final two turns I came up the outside, past a shelled Zens, and was gaining position, but there was not enough room in the turn. I scrubbed speed to avoid a "front-yard" ending to my race. As I looked into the next corner I saw two Spidermonkey jersey's flying through the turn in perfect position. It was truly a thing of beauty. Our team tactics had worked...or something close to it! Brandon sprinted for a 3rd and Dan came in right behind him in 4th. I subscribe to the school of thought that sprinting at the back of the pack is pointless and dangerous. So I took an easy roll into the line extremely happy with how I had raced.

What a fantastic day for the Spidermonkeys and a great way to end my season. I am excited to take a break and then get back into training mode for a full season of 4's racing next year.

I will post some reflections on my first season later this week or next so check back for those.