Free Rolling

my bday is coming up... I'd rather just hang out then get gifts or anything... but I was thinking if you really wanted to get me something one of these would be pretty cool. ~1990 Moser TT bike.


I am off to Portland on friday then Seattle the next weekend for some good fun racing. Numbers the last few days are promising. I hope that they peak upward a little bit more with rest this week and I do some crazy fast riding up north. Either way though... I am ready for some fun. Hope to see you there.

july 17-19
http://www.alpenrosechallenge.com/

july 24-25
http://www.fsagrandprix.com/


ciao,
g

"... i would get around a women and I just freeze up....now whenever I see a pretty women I'm like.. Hold Up. I'm Lando Calrisian. I blew up the second death star."

word.

I think the Hellyer AVC was a huge success. really cool. fields were maybe better then anything I've seen or even heard of in a long time anywhere in the US. The weather was warm all evening and the party in the stands was rock'n. Particularly on friday night. Total madness out there.

lots of thanks to Rick Kevin Warren and the crew.

The kiwi guys Hayden and Jason particular impressed me with their punch that just kept on going. And Daniel with his new found turbo diesel... just keeps rolling and rolling at warp speed. And Laura and Liz the beauties from down under that kept the unstoppable Shelley Olds and team on their toes all weekend. Gideon and Jame with their finesse and insane bike handling, and Jimmy with his track record setting rocket power. Basically tons of amazingness.

Hanan and Jimmy S. the super-surprise winners in the women scratch and the men points were absolutely on fire. class.

The vibe on the infield was as warm as the day was hot... and then later as goofy and silly could be as we emptied every bottle of Rob's wine that we could find in the every cooler in every tent..

hey Seattle people!? where'd you run off too? thought we were going to tare up Palo Alto late night?


A rock'n weekend fo sure.

------------------------



my racing --- not so rocking.

fun but no results. a lot of bad luck and a bunch of dumb give aways....take this for what its worth, but " I feel" I was between the 2nd and 4rth strongest sprinter there (definitely after Jimmy, but in pretty close with the next couple). I could'a should'a would'a. :|. but I messed EVERYTHING up. some give aways, some bad life/diet decisions keeping me up at night, some messed up keirin starting rules, some bad lane draws, and some inconsistency and lack of focus, and too much attention paid to things other then my racing. really kinda makes me angry thinking about how much investment i've made to let it all go like that with zero results. ARRARRRRRRRRR!!!

but it was a spectacular weekend and wonderful racing and I am trying to remember all the awesome things and people that were happening.

here's a little play by play. ho-hum...(warning...this won't be very exciting)
1) keirin round 1. for some reason I got in the same heat as my 2 teammates. only one advances. we had a loose plan... and it all fell into place with Pete being the man... Yay! Pete. We took over the front and went full gas with sweepers and a possible late pass... basically keirin 101.

2) keirin 2nd chance qualifier. weird tournament format and super strong field create an almost exact replay of last years field for the final. I got a crap start spot (7 of 8) and no push (apparently I was the only one following the officials 'strict' directions) and had to ride a crappy ride from the back. A few little hooks from Peleaz and Sam on the way around the outside (4-wide) and the best I could manage was 3rd. I just never committed to it and had to go the long-hard way... and there you go first looser... 2 advance. (Peleaz and Gideon, who later went 1-2 in the final)

3) miss-n-out. Just a fun race for me, no pressure... I got myself into a nice little pocket near the front and cruised along easily for 10 -15 laps or so... then the field folded around me and I found myself surprised to be at the back. Generally i don't mind the back, but this time I wasn't really focused and miss calculated the crazy speed of the pack and ran out of space and time to come around the top a lap or two later. Fun ride. no expectations in the endurance races so this was just candy for me.

4) sprints... well my warmup effort was good... ~5.60s for 100m . to bad my real effort was 1mph slower from start to finish. @ 5.75s / 11.5s I don't understand why really. I hit the exact same ramp up speeds (all recorded in the SRM), but for some reason my HR was way higher and I was tired and flat already when I jumped. strange. maybe i was holding my breath. i don't know. so that put me back in shit'ville for the sprint tourney. I met Jimmy in the first round and I didn't even bother trying. (dumb, 'cause in retrospect there may have been some windows when Jimmy wasn't paying enough attention, and you never know...). Then I faced Daniel W in the first rep... this was a pretty good ride. finally a real race. I led out and controlled the jump very well and drag raced Daniel arond the bend, loosing by a couple inches. Daneil went on to soundly beat Pete and Kalyn and take the 3rd place spot. The end of sprints for me.

5) what the heck... A scratch 45lap race! why not? nutz fast. I'm betting it was 31-32mph average, but I lost my SRM data for that ride so I can't be sure. I made a bold move to try for the pack sprint (2nd) at 700 meters. I was looking good for a bit, but by 200m to go a couple guys started closing on me and I got smoked at about 100m to go. A train of 6 or so came screaming by as I started fading and I am ashamed to say I stopped fighting and coasted in. But I was happy for some small amount of glory just the same... a little glory-candy to end the weekend and send me home a little more satisfied.


SRM wise, my power was 100wats lower then 3-4 weeks ago, but maybe that was because of the longer more wound-up efforts instead of the more idealized 'jumps' i do for training. or maybe I was off.. but power wasn't really the problem, a whole to of everything else.

Hi All,

Just wanted to drop you a line and invite you to stop by the bicycle races this weekend in San Jose...

This is the biggest, fastest, bestest  racing and party we have all year.   Lots of racing,  easy to watch,  food/beer, free (except for parking), family friendly.  Come and go anytime, there are lots of races (generally best-for-last).   Friday night 7pm - ~10pm. Also lots of racing saturday.   Schedule is here.   http://www.ridethetrack.com/avc/2009_avc_program.pdf

Below is a press release from a few weeks back... the latest update is that even more international athletes... including olympians and world champions have signed up.   (lucky for me this press release went out before some of them signed up... or I may not have gotten my name in there ;)

If you come down remember it sometimes gets a bit cold out at night still.

cheers,
giovanni


-------------------------------------------
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE


International stars and top US cyclists to compete at American Velodrome Challenge in San Jose, CA

The American Velodrome Challenge (AVC) will be held at the Hellyer Velodrome in San Jose, CA on June 26 and 27. The event will feature sprint and endurance racing including Montano Velo Keirin, Concept Cyclery Women's Points Race and Peckham Memorial Points Race as well as SportVelo Miss-n-Out, Scratch, Madison and Sprint events. Racers will compete for nearly $15,000 in cash prizes.

In the endurance women's events, Shelley Olds (Proman) will be back to defend her Concept Cyclery Points Race and Testarossa Scratch Race titles. "Pocket Rocket" Shelley Olds says, "The AVC is one of the highlights of my season every year. It combines highly contested racing with a great atmosphere for spectating. It's fantastic to have a race of this caliber at my local track." With $1,000 going to the winner of the Concept Cyclery Women's Points Race, the race is guaranteed to be rocket fast. The women's sprint events will see Jen Featheringill (Bike Central) defend her Keirin and Sprint titles against USA elite national champion Cari Higgins (Proman) and Cristin Walker, the USA U23 National Sprint Champion.

The Peckham Memorial Points Race will see the 2008 winner Kenny Williams (First Rate Mortgage) defend against the 2007 winner Benjamin Jacques-Maynes (Bissell). Also chasing after the $1,000 that goes to the winner of the Peckham Memorial Points Race will be Jason Allen (Subway - Avanti), a track World Cup Gold medalist, Daniel Holloway (Holowesko-Garmin), US Elite Champion and World Cup bronze medalist, and New Zealand's Hayden Godfrey (Subway - Avanti), the 2008 Omnium World Champion. Godfrey says, "I have heard great things about the American Velodrome Challenge and I'm looking forward to compete in this year's event". Other nations represented at AVC include: Canada, Slovakia and Germany.

Gio Rey (Montano Velo) will be back to win after being piped at the line in the 2008 Montano Velo Elite Men's Keirin. Expect Jimmy Watkins (Empower Coaching), current USA Sprint and Keirin champion, and his Team Sprint teammate Kelyn Akuna to make the race fast.

Rick Adams, co-promoter of the AVC said, "I am proud of the local business support to bring high level racing to Hellyer." Bruce Hollibaugh, Concept Cyclery's owner said, "Sponsoring the AVC helps our community prosper and sponsoring the Women's Points Race aligns with our many successful women customers."

Racing will be on Friday (June 26) from 7pm - 10:30pm and Saturday (June 27) from 6pm - 10pm. There is no entrance fee to the velodrome and food and drinks will be provided. Park entrance/parking at the County park is $6. Complete information can be found at www.ridethetrack.com/avc

Hellyer Velodrome is located at the Hellyer County Park, 995 Hellyer Ave San Jose, CA 95111 and can be easily accessed from Highway 101, exit "Hellyer Av."


Contact

Andreas Vogel
AVC communication
andreas.vogel@gmail.com
415 341 3438

Rick Adams
AVC promoter
oldtrackie@gmail.com

Hellyer Velodrome, San Jose, CA
http://ridethetrack.com/AVC

Directions
http://www.ridethetrack.com/map.html

check this photo of Ben and Lance and Levi off velonews....jeez' Ben, stop smiling so much you are making lance and levi look like they are working. dude. shelley also. the happy pain face.... guys, teach me that trick ?! ;)

this mornings race reports from nevada city totally made my day.







--------------

friday night was a kick also. thanks to the mice for hosting pirate night. I was a little woond up trying to figure out how I was riding going into next weeks big race. having all the happy silly hellyer folks to play with was awesome.

racing wise, i was pretty happy with m 10 laps following you guys around in the scratch race. 31.7mph average and it was smooth sailing for me [in the back]. I didn't want to burn any matches... just staying warm so I jumped ship after ~10laps. you dudes at the front were killing it. Seriously big races often don't run much faster then that. not sure how the pace went after I quite, but it looked like it stayed high.


I was going way to easy in the miss-n-out. seriously didn't know I was at risk until 5 feet from the line... oops. that never works out well. bummer because I wanted to take a shot at winning that one, but I was distracted from having to chase at the start and also clashing with jnr joel... he was crowding me for lap after lap, I thought 4 laps of that was enough... gave him a warning headbut, then on lap 5 of running my good tires through the gutter and riding in his unprotected arm pit I had enough and clobbered him... freaking out alden and a few other dudes... I take no responsibility, I told them deal with it or don't crowd me... guess that earns me the grumpy old dude prize for the day. I think he thought I would give up Brians wheel eventually if he kept it up... hahahahaha. I "thought" I was being hell-a-nice letting it go that long before taking action.


sprints were good. speeds were decent but not spectacular... rest now, spectacular speed should be ready next weekend.



oh, yeah... they boo'ed me for the sprint win. ??!?? haha. Pete... sounds like you are the new crowd favorite. I'm gonna have to start wearing all black... I can do a dark, stealth ninja, Racer X good/bad guy sort of a thing.


-----------

This Friday night 6/26... Come watch, drink beer, check out what we do... the race fields are spectacular. Seriously spectacular, international superstars in top form.






http://ridethetrack.com/AVC

Hard training and new projects...

Lots of successful training the last month or so. Really awesome... and now this... a new team, we have lift off!!!. Nothing fancy, no big ego's, nothing really to boast about except us doing what we want to do and going faster then anyone else.

Sorry if I haven't made it clear, but my days with MV track are over. I put in an effort to merge this group and that but it wasn't to be, so this year I am rolling as LTO Velo with a renewed focus, new sponsors, and new amazing teammates.

check it out:




yes, I did the web work myself.. expect lots of typos. feel free to email me corrections.

ahhh... oooowwww .... aaaahhhh....


ok, well I like it anyway. meet my new toy. got some modifications I need to make. 2 projects done, 1 to go. this weekend I redid the exhaust shielding near my left foot after a blue-jeans and boot combustion incident. then I invented an exhaust deflector contraption (photo: right) so that I could motorpace (or be motorpaced) by this bike without feeling like I was back in a bar in Pittsburgh's south side. one last little project... the mirrors. right now the toy round things are pretty much only good for looking at my breasts. (unimpressive). I am going to violate the previous owners fashion sense and put standard mirrors back on. Then I am ready to go.

this thing it fun!! just fun and easy to ride. non of that scary "what happens if I twist this too far" sensation, but still fast enough to break some laws and scare my mom. Don't tell mom, but this thing is the wheelie king... stopies too... think how much I can save on tires by only using one at time. I also did my first supermoto style corner the other day... :D damn that was fun.

(for the uninitiated: the actual racing [that I have no intention in participating in] that originates this style motorcycle looks like this)




----

Here is my sea otter report... went down, said hi to a dozen or so of my favorite bike people, did the ducati demo ride, went home. Ya, sea otter is way over rated... but friends and ducati's, now you got something.

no, don't get excited, no glory here... just a graph I thought was interesting. this was one of my timed 200m runs from yesterday on the 250m track. the cursers are pretty close to the right spots for the 200m start and end time.

red is HR, pink speed, green is power, blue is cadence.

"if you turn left far enough you will find yourself turning right"

Race car sounds identified. D1 drifters.

Zzzzzzooommmm ... Screeeeeech....zooommmm

LA training camp v.2.0 April.


Last week, las vegas.... lots of work but some good night out action as well. The venicitian is awesome. love the fake sky and the fake italian piazza, sorry no pic. Plus, best part was my expense account for a wolfgang puck lunch. kept going back everyday until they started giving me free deserts just to get me to stop trying to talk to them. ;)

alas, a week of pressed flesh with folks from every corner of the world at the trade show, and then tequila and debauchery at the equally packed clubs at night kinda cost me my health for a few days... but when its time to go play at ADT for a track training camp, you just gotta go. wouldn't miss it if my eyeballs turned grean and had moth buggers shooting out of my nose and pink fuz everywhere.





Pete praying to the hipster gods in Long Beach fixie shop...




Me praying to my chocolate god in Long Beach cafe...






When ducks want to migrate do they always just fly? If i were a duck I would weigh my options? should i drive to LA? "no, honey, lets drive this time." "Flying is so exhausting and they are going to make us check our flippers at security and you always get sick when we fly. bird flu sucks"



Oh, yes, we did some riding as well...

was happy to hit a 43mph top speeds around the bend once, yeaaaa-haaaw! but something doesn't seam right, I think the default SRM wheel size must be wrong, 'cuase the top speeds and 200m times don't line up at all. 200m times were very unimpressive. Anybody ever analyze this? I'm using a normal 23mm clincher tire. 153rpm in a 49x14.

hark... the destinctive sound of race cars ripping it up outside the hotel. I have no idea what's up... but this merits investigation. Long Beach GP next week. (but I won't be here)

ciao,
Giovanni

Not writing; it felt like undone homework for a while, but after a month or so it all just drifts away into faded memories. Triage. Get done what I have to… starts with eating and sleeping. Work. Training. Friends when I can. Other commitments like coaching and teams. Then a good bit of time to try and reign in my wandering mind. Thoughts of motorcycles and vacations and looking for fun of all sorts.


Actually a disappointing week. Very busy and lonely and full of little disappointments, 'work', team drama, and bad health. Took a ding to my motivation this week as the shit seams to hit the fan with the Hawk team. I can’t say a lot since things still seam to be in flux, but let’s just call it a royal mess. Thank goodness for my friends who race with me. I’m lucky to be surrounded by folks that think more-or-less like I do. Future personal glory is a goal and would be great icing on the cake, but what makes it all work and all worth doing is the people you do it with. Team or no team.


I do want that chocolate icing on my cake though. So I’m training my arse off …got to say I feel better then I ever have while training this hard. I think it is nutrition and keeping a lid on the personal drama (more or less ;). RE: The nutrition. I’ve become and emergen-C addict. Tons of vitamin B and C. Also I am onto glutamine, BCAA, glocosamine, and fish oil. I think the main thing was the vitamin B and C though. The jury is still out on the other stuff.

Some more good stuff: New road bike this week. Got a lightspeed Icon frame from Paule. It is amazing. It rides smooth as silk, just gliding over the road without all the vibration. It also is much stiffer then my last bike, much lighter then my last bike, and is all click'itty click with a fresh cables and drivetrain. Awesome.







New dancing shoes.(actually weight lifting shoes, but I bet I could dance in them). Would like to say I put up an extra 100lbs on my squats today because of my shinny new shoes, but that isn’t completely true. They did feel good though. Very stable and the raised heal made that extra 2 inches of depth that I wanted completely painless. Not quite “ass to ankles” but I’m now definitely in the “hamstrings to calves” realm. Ok, I hear it coming: NO. deep squats are not bad for your knees. Badly done squats of any depth are bad for you knees… do them right or don’t bother.



Some folks love numbers. Ok. Then here you go. Lots and lots of numbers. Analyze away.

In 10 weeks since the first of the year I have put 752 miles on my road bike, 462 miles on my track bike (track plus rollers). I have squatted or deadlifted. 352000 pounds. And launched myself 2400 feet up onto plyometric boxes. SRM data looks pretty good... I'm hoping for some pretty big spikes whenever I finally taper a bit. In the past I've always managed that in late June or early July. Big jumps in performance to come. I can't wait.


The routine is 2 days at the track doing big gear work, medium length sprints one day and starts the other. 2 days in the gym focusing on upping my 6 and 8 rep squat PR 10lbs per week… every week. 2 or 3 road rides, 2 or 3 roller workouts and tons and tons of food. Adam told me to go ahead and gain weight while I do all the strength training… but I had to cap it at 195lbs. I am not going over 195… I just can’t., my pants don’t fit.


Upcoming tidbits: Las Vegas for a week March 29tht. Then a training camp in LA April 9th

ciao,
giovanni

No time to type, recycling my text. Hope yinz don't mind... ("yinz", its a Pittsburgh thing... seems like a good day for some 'burgh talk, stehlers and all).

LA and back last weekend to do some training, and get out of dodge for a day or two.

Was a good weekend. easy travels and great riding.

We killed it friday afternoon sprint training. Adam and Travis coaching and riding, Pete, the Walkers, 2 other texas folks and me training. Also Sarah Hammer and Sparks showed up... I think they were just there to make us feel bad in our warmup though ;) love those steady 35mph warmups, not.

I'm the only one that raced friday. Everyone else was resting. Gluton that I am. Then back on again saturday morning doing sprint work.

Hit some good numbers. New high for 10 and 20 second max power. Didn't really do the right sort of jumps to hit 1 and 5 second maximums but they were close as well. With the help of a big lead out train I also pinged some 43mph top speeds coming around the corner once. Damn that is fun.

This week is big in the gym, then a rest week. This weeks goal is 4 sets of squats at 315lbsx10 deep and fast. Will be hard, but I think I can nail it.

A new Alpenrose race video popped up on Facebook this week. I linked it in FB. check it out. http://www.lormormedia.com/movie/avcpromo.php

What else is new...hmmm... ah, yes, I finally gave in and dropped by GNC to stock up on all the goodies that everyone has been recommending. Protien recovery drink, L-Glutamine, Fish Oil, Chondrotin, Glucosamine, BCAA, and a new multivitamin.... on the first pass, this has resulted in one hell of an upset stomach and a mild headache. sweet. well can't say "it doesn't do anything" ;)



ciao,
g



thank my sis for this one ;) she is always trying to help me understand women.


oh, and a note from Mom:

subject: Re: yeah!! stealers
from: Carol
to: Giovanni

steelers...ironworkers
stealers...thieves
!!!!

oops ;)