NO PHONE

MY PHONE WAS STOLEN FROM THE HOTEL HERE IN FITCHBURG BY SOMEONE WHO WORKS HERE. SO AS OF NOW I HAVE NO PHONE UNTIL SOMETIME NEXT WEEK WHEN THE INSURANCE COMPANY SENDS IT OUT. ALSO A GUY FROM SIERRA NEVADA TEAM GOT 400 BUCKS TAKING FROM HIS ROOM. SHADY PEOPLE DOWN HERE.

IF YOU NEED TO TALK TO ME AND I FEEL YOUR IMPORTANT, EMAIL ME AND ILL GIVE YOU THE HOTEL NUMBER AND A SELECT FEW WILL GET MY HOUSE NUMBER. A, I DONT MAKE THE RULES, I JUST PLAY BY THEM!!!

PEACE

all man....

I'm a LOT under the weather. My teammate Taylor was sick when he came to Mass and he’s my roommate and now I'm sick. I have throat, running nose, headache and possibly a hernia.

Not good. So I road the TT yesterday in the rain and I felt horrible.
Lets see what happens today in the circuit race. If I feel really bad ill pull out because this race is not that important to dig myself into a hole before all the crits I want to kill next month. Wish me luck.

Whats the Deal?

Racing with a select ‘hit squad’ of Siro Camponogara, Hilton Clarke, Vassili Davidenko, and Shawn Milne, the Navigators Insurance Cycling Team continued its showing of good form by winning the Saturn Rochester Twilight Criterium tonight. Perhaps the biggest pro cycling event in New York State, and now a featured stop on the National Race Calendar (NRC), the 2006 Rochester criterium featured its deepest field to date. With their corporate headquarters just down the road, the Kodak-Sierra Nevada team pulled to the line with no less than 9 riders, and big squads from the Toyota-United, TIAA-CREF, and Colavita teams insured a fast race would be on order.

The blistering pace kept the field single file throughout the night, as rider after rider was dropped from the main bunch. The small Navigators Insurance squad kept its presence in breakaway after breakaway, until it became obvious that the small remaining field would be racing towards a sprint finish.

With Camponogara heading the train, the Navigators team launched Hilton Clarke at 200 meters, and the Aussie sprinter popped ahead to take the victory in front of Kodak’s Dan Schmatz and Colavita’s Sebastian Alexandre. Davidenko and Milne rounded out the top 5 with Camponogara also finishing in the top ten for the men in blue.

Results:
1. Hilton Clarke (Navigators Insurance Cycling Team
2. Dan Schmatz (Kodak Gallery/ Sierra Nevada)
3. Sebastian Alexandre (Colavita Sutter Home)
4. Vassili Davidenko (Navigators Insurance)
5. Shawn Milne (Navigators Insurance)


Okay this is pretty funny, I know they want their sponsors to think that they are extremely good but how do you mess up the results? I thought I was 5th and they didn’t even mention Marty Norstien, the "Olympic champion" saying he crashed so he could get free laps.

Keep it real!!!

Under the Night Lights

I have limited internet right now so ill have to make this quick. As a team we are getting much better and I hope that we are learning from our inexperience mistakes. After a long hard aggressive race which all of my teammates really kicked ass and showed everyone there that we mean business, the large field came all together at the end for a field sprint at the 4th annual Rotchester, Twilight Crit. With 8 to go the team got onto the front and stated to ride tempo for me which was okay but I think way to early when you have other teams with more horse power waiting to jump or bone. With 2 to go, it happen sierra Nevada and the Navigators team went flying around up and now I'm left alone to fight for myself. With one to go, I found Brad Huff and yelled at him to go....Well I lost great position with half a lap to go and came out of the second to last corner about 15 back and just started my sprint there. As I came out of the last corner I see the lead guys sprinting and I'm closing good ground but not enough to get a win, I finished 5th.

All in all I feel really good, powerful, fast, confident and very hungry for a race win.

Ready for Crit season

Now that Philly is over and almost all the stage races that ill be doing this year are done, it's time to get ready for all the crazy crits ill do for the rest of the year.
But first I have Fitchburg Stage race coming up next week.

I leave for NY Friday to race in Rochester, NY for a NRC crit Saturday night.
From there ill do the stage race then back home.

Today I did my last long ride of the season. I did close to 5hrs and from now its all intensity on some 3-4 hr rides.

My daughter brought tears to my eyes on Fathers Day. My wife took me to breakfast with the girls and after we ate, we got in the car and Ayahna gave me something she made at her day care and it had special words on it just for me. It was a really a nice moment. She also gave me a picture of herself in a frame she made from different things she found at school. That moment really made my day and made me feel very proud to be a family man.

Okay so tomorrow I just train light. I go to the gym and do 3hrs with 1 hr of intensity.


YO TINY IF YOU SEE THIS, SEND ME MY PICTURES MAN AND TELL YOUR HOMIE TO GIVE ME ONE OF HIS 21 BIKES.

Tour of Beauce stage 1

Tour of Beauce

Today was the first stage of TOB and its really hard here. There are no flat roads what so ever, so today was a 160k-day, don’t sound long but when you’re out there racing on the hills, it’s a long day.

My legs felt really bad all day. After doing Philly, then all the traveling to get here, I just had bad legs and I hope I got all the bad stuff out for tomorrow’s stage.

From the start TIAA-Cref was pretty aggressive covering moves and trying to make moves. Plan A was to get me to the finish because the final 2k was all for me. However after a few attacks a group of four got away and after we tried to bring them back, they put more time on us. The last 10k were so brutal. I mean we had these huge rollers that never ended and never evened out. You think you’re at the top and its false flat up hill.

So at the end, there were groups all over the course and I was some where in the first main group breathing very hard.

Tomorrow is longer and tougher so we will see what happens. I just hope to make it to the last 2 days so I can win the last two stages.

See ya later.


Check out cyclingnews for pics.

Philly Pics

Philly 6hr 26min

Today I raced the long 156 miles 6hr Philly road race and it was a rough one.
My job today was to get Danny Pate to the corner leading into the Manayunk hill, which is 19% for the most part. So not only do I have to ride hard into the false flat head wind to get my guys to the right position, I have to make it over the hill with the group, lap after lap. Well race fans. I did it! Lap after lap. After 200k the group split because of the chase from CSC and now I find myself in a possible winning move. I’m in a group of about 30 and CSC is just driving it to bring back the 4 guys off the front.

We were caught the next lap by the chasers at the top of Manayunk. “I survived another lap” is what I’m thinking and I only have to do it 1 more time before we do the small laps.

Leading into the last lap going into Manayunk, Danny ask me to do it one more time, and I dug so deep going up the false flat (some what of a roller) hill with my team lined behind me. I knew I was going fast but didn’t know I was going 33mhp after 6hrs of racing until I looked at my powertap meter. I looked back and I put a split in the field and I pull off to let my other teammate finish the push. I’m thinking my day is over…I was the last guy to turn the corner about 10 bike links off the pack, however as the hill started to get steep, I can see guys and the crowd on Manayunk were “next level” they were yelling, screaming, shouting, pushing and giving every bit of encouragement to the riders. I even had my own little fan club in the middle of the climb. I owe it to them for me getting attached with a small group that formed at the top of the climb.

So now I’m in a small group that would just ride to the finish. I was happy that I did what I was supposed to do for the team 110% hands down. And I finished.

Mike Freeman was out best-placed rider at around 6 or 7th.
Not bad for a bunch of youngsters.

Also check out http://www.cyclingnews.com/road/2006/jun06/commercebank06/?id=live/commercebank064

and see what some of the weak reports had to say during the race. They gave me a couple of shout outs.

photos to come.

Pics From Philly

Some Pics from my Trip

Redding June, 2006

June 8th
Round 2 of the Triple Crown

This year’s second stop skipped Trenton, NJ and stayed in Pennsylvania. We raced in nearby Redding, PA, which is 1hr outside of Philly.
We got a chance to see the climb that we would tackle each lap and after seeing it, I felt that it would be a good race for me.

Sense Danny Pate is in the running for the Triple Crown after getting 6th in the first day, our weekend is strictly to race for him. (If he wins, we would get 10k plus a SUV hybrid valued at 45k)

So from the start, Chad, Ian and myself our job was to get in the breaks and keep things looking good for Danny. Well…I think I did a pretty good job at it. I was in maybe about 5-6 breaks and some of which I went across on my own. My legs were feeling really good.

With 2 laps to go, teams started to chase 2 break away riders who had been away for 2 laps. Now CSC, Health Net, United Pro and Tiaa-Cref are chasing and we bring back the break on the last lap on the final climb.

Danny Pate made it over the climb in a group of 4 and was caught at the line by a group of 10 but he still managed to sprint for 3rd place. I rolled in after a long day of work for the team. It feels good to give back and show the team that I can return the favor and sacrifice my race for the team.

Danny’s 3rd place puts us closer to winning the Triple Crown.

June 6, 2006

So today was just full of sixes. Five of us had to do a six-hour ride, on the 6th of 2006. It was a long ride. The first 3 hrs really suck, it seem like it would take forever to finish the ride.

At 4hrs in we started in we started to motor pace and that’s when my ride got fun. I let the other guys ride on the car and I stayed on the back for the most part and I told Danny Pate and the other guys that they can have the draft "so they can work on there leg speed".

So now, I'm at the hotel after going to this Italian restaurant with no windows. The food was okay, but not that great for the 20min drive.

I’m sleepy. And tomorrow is an easy 4 hrs so we should be ready for the race on Friday.

Lancaster 2006

June 4th 2006
Lancaster, Pa

We had a very late start to the Lancaster race so that gave me plenty of time to just relax and think about what I had to do to be successful.
We left the hotel around 2pm for a 3pm start. It was about a 20min bike ride into town and the legs felt really good after the big effort from the day before at CSC.

The announcer gave me some love and called me “one of cyclist finest persons” that was really cool and made me smile and also helped humble me even more.
The race started fast because we have this long 3k down hill drag to the first climb and it’s like racing the last lap of a crit every lap. I remember from last year how to get to the front easy for the hill, so I just did the same thing. (It’s a secret)

Every lap I put myself in a position to start the climbs in the front and “sag climb the rest” and it worked every single lap. The legs are good, my mind is good, and everything is working out.

With 5 to go, my back started to hurt really bad and there where times when I could stretch it out and for a minute or two it would feel fine. With 3 to go, the pace got higher and I used more efforts to get over the hills. There was one particular hill we where going over and I was right on the front, as I saw a Navigator rider attack, I went to follow his wheel and it felt like I pulled something in my back and it hurt really bad. I suffered through that whole lap and when I got to the feed zone climb again, I couldn’t stretch my bike and I was really stuck. I pulled over to Laura Pate and she helped me off the bike. I knew that it hurt but as she unzipped my jersey and lifted up my under shit, there was a 3-4in hump in my lower back and she said “ oh my God” that really scared me. I put my hand back there to feel it and it hurt so bad I couldn’t even stand up straight.

People in the feed zone were really helpful by assisting me with getting ice, helping get off the bike and also giving there knowledge about what I need to do to fix the problem.

Danny Pate finished 5th and Taylor Tolleson finishing somewhere in the lead group also.

CSC 2006

CSC

I was praying so hard today that it didn’t rain on us. We had some dark clouds hanging around the skies and that made me a bit nervous.

I got a call up to the line so that gave me a chance to start in the very front.
The race started off very fast with my teammate Bard Huff taking a flyer and staying away for 10 laps alone before another rider joined him. Those two stayed away for another 10 laps before Hinton Clark (navigators) joined the two. As the gap grew pass 25 seconds all teams came to the front and started to chase. They chased for about 30-45 minutes and the gap didn’t come down. Not until late in the race when the now 2 riders are getting tired after the third guy crashed himself out, the gap started to come down. With 10 laps to go the field is down to 24 riders and I have 4 teammates in the group. Perfect right? Well within the last 10 laps 3 of my teammates tried solo attacks and went for primes and that killed my chances for a killer lead out from my team. With two to go I’m sitting pretty and Mike Freedman takes a flyer for a???? So now it’s just Brad Huff who spent the whole race out front and myself. I yelled, “I’m on your wheel” Brad gave me the nod with one to go, so I thought we had the race won. Well Brad mental said yes, but his legs said no and I didn’t get a chance to win the race. I finished 7th. It was very disappointing to have it so close. Beside my guys going for solo attacks, there were a few other factors that added fuel to the fire and gave me a less chances of winning. I’m really upset in myself for not putting myself in a better position to win. (I mean because if I were there alone with no teammates, I would have been in the right position). We also didn’t use race radios, so there was limited communication between the riders and Voughters during the race. With radios, the situation would have been totally different because the team would have been aware of what exactly was going on.

It was a good strong race for the team and it clear that we can race our bikes against the best guys. Now we just have to build out blocks the right way.

CapTech Classic

CapTech June 1st 2006

All I have to say is Danny Pate, Danny Pate, Danny Pate, Danny Pate, Danny Pate, Danny Pate, Danny Pate, Danny Pate, Danny Pate, Danny Pate, Danny Pate. Okay that’s enough Danny Pate’s. This guy single handedly dropped at least 25-30 guys by taking 4 lap pulls to bring back the break. Bow down!!

There were times when I thought I would get dropped if he continued at this pass, but I had a lot of determination. Last year I didn’t even make it pass 10 laps, this year I made the final selection of 30 riders.

The Captech classic has to be one of the toughest races in the United States. With the hill’s, turns and decent, it makes it really difficult and demanding and also makes you focus.

I kelp good position pretty much throughout the whole race while the team spent time attacking and covering moves. After only ten laps of the 42 lap race, I felt really bad and almost had some bad thoughts run into my head by I quickly pushed those out and just suffered for laps to come until I felt normal again and that came around the half way mark at 25 laps, but that is still an 1hr of racing and going up the hill.

Well at the end, after Danny Pate dogged the whole feel, I was the last TIAA-CREF man standing and the break was 50seconds up the road. With no one in the group willing to chase, we were racing for 6th place.

Going into the last 10 laps, single attacks were going and it put just enough tension on the field to loose a few more riders. This went on all the way to the end.

Well…I finished the race I think at 19th (un official). Very big improvement from last year this time and I hope CSC Saturday will be the winning race for the team and I. (there are no hills) haha and I always do well there anyways. So, of we go driving to Arlington, VA.

See you guys.

June 1st Richmond, VA

Richmond, VA
June 1st 2006

After flying half the day yesterday, I finally arrived to Richmond International Airport around 10:50pm. As I got off the plane, I was walking next to this lady and she heard me talking on the phone and when she looked over at me, she grabbed her purse as if I could take it and run all the way through the airport without getting caught. It kills me!! I also saw this billboard in the airport with Juan Hiado and Gordon Mcaully. (ill leave a pic of it) Anyway, all my bags arrived and now I’m on my way to the hotel in a taxi. I guess I went to sleep around 1pm and got up about 8:00 for breakfast.


We are staying at the crown plaza hotel just two blocks off the racecourse. And the streets are full with team cars, vans, trucks, trailers and busses.
The ride today was HOT. Its so hot and humid here its crazy. We did an easy 1 1/2 ride and the first 30min was riding through a housing project in the inner city and it was so funny, all my teammates at the same said “Rahsaan you go in the front”. But I’m sure they were surprised to hear the welcome the people in the community gave them/us. They were excited to see cyclist ride down their streets, yelling, screaming, whistling and just having a good time.

Back at the hotel now and just going to relax before the start at 7:30pm.

Ill sign back on and let you know what happens.

Also, you guys should check out www.thebroadbandracer.com
I’m doing a video blog for the site and if you check it out now you will see the likes of Christian Vandervelt, Fred Rodriguez and more. So go check it out. Its really cool and unique, there is nothing like it.