crazy

This is the view from my office. Joe T just got home from commuting on his cross bike. I guess the skiing in north boulder park will be good for a while.

MEATCAKE!

it's a new family tradition.

Training Days

eSoles training with Bill Peterson (center) and Shiel Costello (right).

we were lucky enough to examine and scan some very special feet.

eSoles training started with a BANG!

Mainly it was my finger in the car door.

That was Tuesday, I drained it with a red hot paperclip last night. It looked like an erupting volcano. Now I count down the days until my nail falls off. Apparently, the big question is whether or not the nail grows back seeing as I may have destroyed the nail's growth plate.

Room Before

Time for more office remodeling.

False Alarm!

Yeah I know, out of blue comes some off the wall post about my long time "mobile unit" departing. Well not so fast, Katherine will indeed be around for a while serving as a PDA but no longer a PDA phone. She'll continue to keep backups of my client's file available for quick and easy reference. She will no long be used for phone calls or e-mails as she has been replaced by this bad boy:

In other news, I finally put a link up for the Vecchio's Performance Center (VPC). I have worked pretty hard to get all of my new clients up to speed while trying to bring all the pieces together for the VPC. We finally got our contact negotiated with eSoles. We'll be doing training the week after Thanksgiving and be ready for business December 4th. Check out the eSoles website, they offer a great product and we're really proud to be a dealer.

My form has been coming along since getting back on the bike. My thumb and wrist are doing really well. I've had some problems with my hand going numb so there is probably some nerve damage that will be slow to heal. I'm hoping to put all the pieces together for the state cross race on December 9th.

Goodbye old pal

Interbike 2006

Interbike .... half way through day 2.

Back In Action

Got the OK to ride outside on the 1st of September. I wasn't really supposed to race but I'm now convinced it's safer to race than it is to ride on open roads so I didn't hesitate jumping into the crit in Fruita a couple of days later. I've had a good week and a bad week since that point but am now into the swing of things. Despite telling myself there was no way I would race Parker I found myself on the start line of the Road Race and Crit. I've been feeling pretty good and did the group cyclocross ride today and felt like I'm on track for a good cross season. Sunday's first race should be a good indicator.

You can see what I've been up to and keep track of my progress at the training log link on the right-->

My latest business venture is finally up and running. More to follow after a trip to Interbike next week.

Most importantly, my lovely wife and I will be celebrating our first anniversary this Sunday, the 24th. It's been an up and down year with racing, the accident and a big push on the business front. All-in-all it's been great and I've found that married life is AMAZING!! THANKS BETHIE!!

No Carter

By now most local racers have heard, the Carter Lake Road Race is cancelled for 2006. To my best knowledge, Grand Valley will now be Senior State Roads. As a board member this was probably the hardest decision I've had to make yet. I could not vote to cancel until I went to the Lake on Saturday the 12th to see for myself what the traffic would be like on a sunny weekend morning in mid-summer. In my 16 years of riding I have never been up there on a summer weekend. I have no exact reason why that is but my best guess is just plain old common sense. Big trucks towing boats on narrow roads is just a bad thing to combine with cycling.

The Carter race course was a challenge for officials when it was held in April. On any given weekend day in April you could find a handful of boats on the lake. On Saturday I counted 80 on the northern half of the lake alone. I sat at the proposed finish like and counted 39 vehicles pass by in 20 minutes. About 40% of that were vehicles with boats. The bottom line is that having a race on summer Saturday would cause great traffic delays for people going to and from the lake. For the most part, delays lead to anger and frustration. Combine that with a VERY large number of racers who have tuned out traffic because they are tuned into racing and you get a recipe for disaster. It's a recipe that I cannot support, hence my vote to cancel the race.

Hope to see you on the bike in another few weeks.

Learning

My road rash is healed except for the occasional attack of itching. I've discovered some interesting things having both hands casted.

1. I can type but it's slow and full of typos. The worst part is it's not that much slower than before.

2. If you thought my handwriting was bad before, you should see it now!

3. My left hand has the most movement but since I can't make my thumb and index finger meet I've developed a mean CLAW between my index finger and middle finger.

4. You learn 3 real fast when it's the only way get food in your mouth.

5. It was a little harder for my casted left hand to to learn that other daily activity involving digestion.

6. Riding the bus is actually pretty cool.

I got my office all moved into my new space, look for more details in a later post.

Jon's 06 road season = over

the trip to the orthopedist today did not produce the results I wanted. I went in thinking I would get the standard 4-6 week healing time. Luckily this will hold true for my left hand, but not my right. Now they think my right hand might need surgery and will definitely need 10-12 weeks (surgery or not). Dang man, that's 3 months!?!? Oh well looks like I'll be doing some hiking to try get fit for cross. For now I just want my road rash to stop oozing. Oh yeah, the fun never ends, since I'm the type of guy who likes a challenge, the Dr and Nurse decided that a short cast was just to sissy for my right hand. Instead I got a manly man cast. If you thought I was scrawny before, wait until you see what my right arm looks like after 3 months in this bad boy:

It's not fun.

It's just not good when you start out from a stoplight next to a nice big protective truck, only to have the truck accelerate out ahead of a mini-van blowing through a REALLY red light. I was wondering why he had just hit the gas so hard and as I looked to my left past the trucks rear bumper I saw why. The mini van was a whopping 2-3 feet away from me going about 30 mph. I remember thinking "this is going to hurt". BANG- my bike and leg hit the bumper, I roll over onto the hood and then proceed to bounce off in a diagonal direction. I fly a few feet through the air (distinctly like hitting a big jump on skis but WAY off balance). I landed on my left hip bone and slid a few feet to a stop. My bike flew a few feet further. I looked over and was looking at the mini-vans rear wheel.

As I came to a stop I remember thinking, "Wow, that wasn't that bad!" I had a bunch of road rash, my hip looked pretty nasty and my left thumb hurt like hell. It was only later that night when I was sitting in the ER did my wrist start to hurt even though I was on pain killers already. They took a TON of x-rays (I was in the room for over an hour). Everything looked pretty intact except for my right wrist and my left thumb. Both of those are in splints until I go see the orthopedic surgeon on Monday. They thumb might need some repair work.

The good new came the next morning when I discovered I could wipe my own rear end still. Beth was literally jumping for joy over that one. I'm rolling along pretty good for a guy without the use of his thumbs. I can ride the trainer but the sweat breaks down the splints, not the best thing for me to do.

My parents are coming up to help me move and put the finishing touches on the new office. Look for updates on my recovery and the new place soon!

June

June was OK. Beth and I went to visit family in Houston after Hood and I was busy getting my new office remodeled.

Racing was marginal at best. We missed the move at Hugo and despite a long and hard chase we didn't even crack the top ten. Prom park didn't go much better, Chuck and Alan got out manuvered by GS Ciao.

Dead Dog was cool with Christian on FIRE. I ended up 6th, through technicalities and then moved up to 4th through even more technicalities. Wierd race in terms of guy breaking rules.

That racing stuff was all fun and games until tuesday when BANG I got smacked by a car heading out of town.

Mt Hood Wrap Up

Considering it was almost a month ago I've decided to do wrap up on Mt. Hood. Due to many recent developments it's probably the last NRC race I will ever travel to. At Hood:

I ruined a pair of shorts, jersey and socks due to lack of a good washing machine.

The accompanying dryer literally ATE my shoe covers and another jersey.

We made a whopping $000,000.00 in prize money.

I blew around $800 on getting there, rental car, housing, entry fee and various crap.

It was ALMOST all worth it for this attack on the final climb of the last day (after flatting on the first climb):

Lookin purty out now

But it sure wasn't this morning when we were racing. Yesterday was cool except the downhill finish that strangely reminded me of last year's Tour of Utah stage that ended up almost killing a fellow racer in a 40mph finish line crash. It rained the last half lap which added to the fear factor.

Today was wet, kinda cold and a bit lame. I'm always amazed how many guys are afraid to race when a team like Health Net is riding tempo. They only have 2 guys working and if several guy hit it hard later in the race it would really spic up the race. Unfortunately, everyone seems content to see how well they can follow the top 5 guys at the finish.

I tired to spice it up a bit with one lap to go but there was a serious lack of participation from other teams so I ended up burning the matches I needed for the finish. Baker was up there so that worked out well. CC Rider was in the break until 1 lap to go and was again living up to his reputation as an early break specialist in road races. I'm really hoping it will pay off soon with a win at a mtn race like this.

Baker's whipping up a mean smelling dinner, the boy can ride AND cook. He's the real deal.

Greetings from Oregon

It's been a while but I'm back for a while.

Chuck, baker and I are in Hood River Oregon for the Mt Hood classic. This place is pretty cool and we're all looking forward to some good racing. We did the Prologue today and are currently waiting for results.

For now let's Recap:

Last day of gila= Horrible
Wheels of Thunder= Still pretty bad
Storage Wreck= Much better.
RMO= hoping I'm rested enough to race for 8 out of 9 days.

I've done a block like this before but have never done really big races in the time frame. We should know on Friday. It's a pretty long, hard day and it's supposed to rain. Tomorrow will be tense as there's a lot of guys and it seems like there's a wide variety of skill levels. Would be nice to see a race this big be pro-1 with a seperate cat 2 field.

I'm still waiting to find out how Whitey ended up with off the bike activities last weekend in Utah. Anyone?

I'd Like a Gila Wrap

Gila was definitely a roller coaster for me. I managed to make the main break in the crit the day after the inner-loop. Some more not so well planned Cref tactics had our break caught at 6 laps to go. They did luck out with their sprinter nipping the win from an already celebrating Gord Fraser. Ouch, that got to hurt.

I felt pretty bad at the start the next day and it only got worse. I found myself getting dropped by the guy who won the crit on the gila monster. It was pretty much an embarassment. Baker crashed hard on the next decent after climbing like a bad-ass and almost taking the big prize at the top of the gila monster. I stopped to get the story and then start figuring out how we were going to get home on the 20 mile death crawl to the finish. To make matter worse the group I was with took off when I got flicked from a hand hold spot on the "aussie express" tow-ya-to-the-finish-mate car. one second they were there, I don't a spot and then they were gone.

Baker ended up being ok, but not after having four emergency vomit stops on the way home. Perckocet and MacDonalds don't mix very well alone, we also decided to drive one of the most twisty roads in Nem Mexico to add to the fun. He's had a very rough few days.

Bagel Boy Donald won the last day at the race with a superb lead out from wing man Garcia. Now that Oak Glen is gone I think the Gila Monster is probably the hardest non-UCI day of stage racing in the country. There's no easy way to the finish. A big hats off to that team for a very impressive win.

Lucky Day... Almost

Made the first break yesterday which Toyota/United thought was too strong. They brought it back at the base of the climb where a Sierra Nevada guy attacked. The Toyota guys were spread across the whole road and when a hole opened up I shot through it to see if anyone would react. No one did and Dietrich waited for me. I caught him, completely redlined and we rode up the climb. I was finally able to get my legs and lungs back on the decent and we slowly built time. We knew were in luck when our gap was still over 4 minutes at the last feed zone. Toyota/United seemed content to let us take the stage and time bonuses. Things looked real good until TIAA-Cref decided they wanted to bring us back so their sprinter could try for the win. They succeeded in bringing us back, about 25 meters from the line, but it played into Moninger's benefit as he got another small time bonus on Baldwin. No Cref guys made the top ten. Oh well, it was worth a try.

Crit today, I like the course and have ridden well there before. Might be a bit cooked from yesterday though. CC is looking good and should be the man today.

In Reverse

Had a good TT yesterday, I knew I was off pace from my ride last year. I was to conservative on the way out and as a result was 20 seconds slower than last year.

Today was a different story. I was feeling REALLY good from the gun. Made it through the loops around Cliff with ease and then proceeded to get a flat on the way to the climb. Baker and I switched wheels and chased back on, I felt even better after that effort. I was set up perfectly going into the climb. We hit the climb and my legs were all of a sudden not good. I couldn't really go hard at all. Made it over the mesa in the 3rd group and then my body decided to shift into reverse. Guys were flying by me like I was standing still. The worst part was I had NOTHING, couldn't get my HR or Watts up. BAD day for me.

CC Rider made the break for like the 5 th year in a row and produced a 5000Kcal day. Hats off to Coyle for another great ride.

The Cat 2 guys are RIPPING and making up for our GC shortfalls.

More fun tomorrow.

Onto Gila

Had some good races last weekend and was happy with my form by the end of the day on Sunday. Baker and I drove to Las Vegas, NM on Monday night and continued down to Silver City yesterday. Nothing to eventful, except I got real Kick out of watching Baker chase this cat around our front yard with his phone, apparently to take it's photo to send his wife... Here kitty kitty kitty!

My TT start is in about 90 minutes so I'd better get rolling!

More later.

Birthday Boy

Yesterday was my birthday and it was anything but relaxing. Did some work in the AM, wrote up my speech notes and headed to VC "corporate" in Denver for a team presentation. I need to give a big thanks to Dirk, Chuck, Joey, Sharon, Renee, and Beth for taking a lot of time for the short and to the point presentation. It was the annual managers meeting and it was clear by the number of people there that VC is getting pretty big and not showing any signs of slowing down.

Booked it back to Boulder so I could head out and do a test on Flagstaff. It went as well as it could have and after two days off I didn't feel blocked at all. Don't know if that was good or bad.

Headed to La Mariposa for a great B-day dinner with friends and hit glacier afterwards.

I had every intention of getting out on my bike today and it just didn't work, looks like I'll have 3 days off this week. Looks like some of the work I've bee doing to take my business to the next level might pay off. More to come on that in the weeks ahead. Stay tuned!

Grumpy old man...

So this was pretty much me with 3 laps to go in Sunday's bike race:

Whatever happened to make me loose my cool isn't really the point. I lost my temper and that is just not cool, especially in a damn bike race. Racing is filled with karma and I was positive that something bad was going fall upon some of my fellow racers after that race. Given a couple of days of down time it's actually probably the other way around. I probably did something years ago when I was figuring out how to race that partially led to my breakdown on Sunday. We were all rookies at some point. Heck, I still get taken to school in races on a regular basis. Sunday would probably be one of those days.

I do hope the Einstein's guys end up at every local race I end up at. Those guys are still learning the ropes but have contributed greatly to raising the bar of the local scene this year. My guess is that they will do the same thing at the national level, especially later in the year. We could be seeing a lot more of this:







You still can't overlook the "Barney Boys" of VC, we'll be there to make sure they earn every result they get. It's gonna be a good year with some great competition.

Here is my Ergomo .wko file from Sunday's Boulder Beer Road Race

Whooops

One last thing about last Saturday's race...













This was me about 10 feet from the line diving to get my handlebars. I start to that victory thing and I got hit with a little gust of wind. As I was reaching to save myself I had some very vivid images run through my head of me crashing in a heap 5 feet from the line. At the same time I was thinking about this guys mistake from earlier this year.














I've put a link up on the side to my Training Peaks public view page of my training log. Occasionally I'll upload select files to my own server and link to them if for some reason you want look at them on your Cycling Peaks Software (best power meter software by far).

Here is the file from Boulder Larimer and also Here is Stazio

Have fun with it. Hope everyone has a good time in Nebraska, Grand Junction and at the Boulder Beer Road Race!

Ready to Rumble

I took the day off my bike today in order to reorganize my office, catch up on accounting and work on the site. Tomorrow is back to the grindstone with long hard day in the saddle.

Last weekend was obviously pretty good for me. The team was CRAZY good on Saturday. When CC, Dirk, Baker and I rolled it on the second lap I was pretty impressed. There's something about wind races I don't like and that's probably the difficulty. There is also something I love, probably that same difficulty when things go your way.

Big thanks to Timmy Duggan for feeding us. Our team wishes him a speedy and complete recovery from his recently broken collarbone.

we're really pumping the coffee before today's road race.?

Ready for Camps

This is what I'm usually doing before and after each ride I do here. At this point I think I've got a really good grasp on almost all the riding in the area. This is key with the upcoming camps. We'll be able to take off and then do a lot of different stuff on each ride. It's a bit different than your pro job camp that involves tons of hours sitting in the saddle. These camps involve a lot of drills, intervals and work on controlling and evaluating efforts. Should be a good time

We're off to Valley of the Sun tomorrow. The timing is just right, it's supposed to rain while we're gone. With that it's time to clean bikes before the race.

First Race

I raced over the weekend for the first time this year. For the 16th year in a row I filled out the form and pinned on my number. There is definitely something ritualistic about that process. After all these years I still get a bit nervous during registration, especially at the first race of the year. I don't know why but for some reason I always have this fear that something radically changed for the worse over a few months of not racing. Anyway, that was not the case and things went well. In typical teton form I got very frustrated sitting in the group so I attacked the last 3/4 of the race. I knew it was futile but it was fun to push myself for the first time this year. My last move got absorbed with 3 to go and I went straight to the back and waited for the final pile-up. I was actually a bit surprised that it didn't happen.

Yesterday I did one of the sweetest climbs I've ever done. It was 15 miles and 3000ft of really consistent and smooth climbing. The only problem was that it's 2 hrs away and that made for a pretty long day (3800kj's). Needless to say I'm a bit tired today and it's going to take an extra cup of coffee to get going today.

It was nice today

Most people know I'm a big fan of over-dressing on my bike and keeping "rugged up" almost all of the time in the winter and spring. Today in Santa Barbara it was warm enough for shorts and short sleeves. Not only was it warm enough but I was sweating.

Getting excited to see how my form is at the first crit of the year on Sunday.

rollin' down the strip in the lbc (long beach), with tyler.

Urban Assault

Staying at the beach and visiting my parents is great. The weather is pretty nice, definitely better than back in CO. THe problem lies in that no matter which direction you go, it's city and it's city for a while. Seeing as how I've just been "easing into" this big block of training we've been doing a lot of that wonderful urban assault riding. You know the type, jumpin pot holes, trying to avoid getting hit while managing to aslways get just a little bit lost. Tomorrow should be good as it's out first long day, I'll ride and hour up the coast, an hour in to the mountains, and meet Beth for a solid 4 hr loop. SHould be fun if it works out. Should be interesting.

Sunset

And the sun is going...

...going....

...gone is our first day of visiting my home away from home, San Diego.

Happy Thoughts

Since everyone at home in CO is enjoying a nice afternoon of snow I get to spend an extra few hours in Seattle waiting or the plane to arrive. I am currently doing my daily afirmation (just like Stuart Smalley from SNL).?

Ben made a bet with dea that if she didn't cry when she was having that line put in her neck that he would buy her a pair of shoes. well she obviously didn't cry because here she is with her shoes. I'm really glad I was able to get up here. I think ben, dea and her mom (wanda) are finally settling into more of goove. it's pretty clear that dea isn't going to get better overnnight. Everyone seems to be on the same page with being "cautiously optomstic" about the next 7-10 days. Since I've been here I've gotten to see dea pretty much at her lowest only to find her rebounded, mobile and smiling the next day. there will be more peaks and valleys to come but she has really proven to be trooper through everything. thanks for letting me come visit!!

this is the walkway to his house, it really give you the urge to say "ahoy matee" as you are pretty much walking on a pier.

and this is the view from his deck.

Problems

My e-mail server has been down for most of the day and it seems that I've haven't been recieving messages since last night. If you're desperate to send me an e-mail try using my t_ton1@hotmail.com account. It sounds like they will get the server back online by Sat AM. If you sent me an e-mail anytime on Friday the 13th (coincidence?!?) please try resending it to ensure I get a copy of the message.

It's been a big week for me with trying to catch up on work from last weeks illness. I was also trying to cram in a decent block of training. Things have gone well on both fronts other than getting shut out on my ride today.

In other news it has been anything but a normal week for good friends Ben and Dea (see blog link on the right). I made a hasty decision today to get a last minute cheap flight to go visit them in Seattle next week. I'll be leaving Tuesday morning and returning Thursday night. I should be able to keep up on e-mail while I'm there. Ahhh, a pilgrimage to the birth place of Starbucks.

Want Some $$$

I'm still filling spaces for my week long camps in Santa Barbara. If you refer someone to me who identifies you as their reference and they sign up for a camp I'll give you, my blog reader, $75. For more info on the camps either go to my website or visit the following link:

Dang

Not the greatest start to the new year. Some gnarly bug had me down for the past two days and probably contributed to sending me on brief trip to the ER with an asthma attack. I'll be trying to get my self to sit in front of the computer for a while today and hopefully get on my bike again.

Today is the Anniversary of Beth and I's engagement. It's been a roller coaster of a trip since then. I'm very happy that we're finally able to settle down a bit.

To Infinity and Beyond!

This what Buzz Light Year says on regular basis and thus what I heard a lot of while in Texas. Good Old Griffin Fisk is a big Buzz fan.

We're back from Texas and we had a wonerful time. I wasn't feeling so hot travelling yesterday and have a full blown case of the flu today. Needless to say I will be abit slow getting back on my feet. I've already slept a good 14 hrs since 8 last night and am feeling another nap coming on.

In other bike riding news I rode at the ranch while we were in Texas. It was a new experience hitting dirt roads in the sometimes inhospitiable south texas brush. Why is it interesting? Well for one it was 91 on January 1st. That's toasty. Next, I got a book containing all the plants and shrubs of south texas. It was divided into two parts, thorned plants and thorned plats. Basically, if you leave the packed dirt or even cross over from one tire track to the next you'll flat on a 3" thorn.

Now it's back to the gym, bike riding in 50mph winds and a little skate skiing.

Look for updates on what I'm up to. Right now it's R&R until I can stop feeling aches and pains in spots I never knew I had.