RI day 2 DSJ 3rd, Elliott 2nd

Where to begin? We awoke to a few cm of snow and some brisk weather. You'd think that the course would have been sloppy. But somehow it wasn't. We had Natasha roll the first warm up lap on her 34 Grifo's. They felt awful to her so she did a lap on the Shwables, the muds felt better, so we had her roll on the Dugast Rhynos. You'de think seeing the snow, what looked like really muddy conditions, slick course this would have been the tyre of choice. But it was as if the course was changing every 15 minutes. Tasha just couldn't get the tyres/pressure right. She did a bike change at a perhaps inopportune time and the pit was really slow entrance and exit due to the fact that it was off camber. Laura VG capitalized on this and Tasha rode consistent and clean to come 2nd once again. We talked about how this is what "experienced" really means. Sometimes you make poor equipment choices and you don't feel good on the bikes, it feels all wrong. The positive aspect is that a year ago we could have put mountain BIKE TYRES ON HER BIKE AND SHE PROBABLY COULDN'T HAVE NOTICED THE DIFFERENCE. So Tasha is becoming quite savvy at knowing what equipment is working and what isn't. It probably didn't help that we had to do some last minute adjustment to her bike in the hotel room and in the parking lot as well. This was a course where if you didn't have full 100% confidence in your gear you were screwed. Perhaps I should have insisted a little more that I thought she should run higher pressure yesterday. I was actually going to play a trick on her on put a little more air when she wasn't looking, but then had this vision of her biting it over the frozen roots and I thought naaah, maybe I'll just let her do her thing. She usually gets it right. I figure we best brush up on our excuses before heading to Europe, cause there it is very chic to blame "a big week of training" or "poor tyre choice" as the reason you did not win. Also when it is too hot or too cold, that is always accepted. The best one I have heard lately is "it was so cold, my eyes were frozen, I could not focus and I could not see therefore I had to abandon".

My race. Well I'm not sure if you read the race report on Cycling news.com but trust me it was a lot more exciting than they would have you believe. If I would have written it, it would have said things like "DSJ laid some massive attacks down, most notably a full throttle sprint from the pavement onto the uphill barriers where he flew over the barriers as if lifted by Santa's Reindeer bound to deliver the gifts of smack down to all the Cross fans for Christmas". Yah for sure something like that. So anyways it was great to be racing like that. We had a group of about 8 guys or so racing around for the lead. Guys took turns throwing their attacks in, taking the lead. I decided to run just under 30 PSI in Gomm Italia "magnums" (I like that name, magnum sounds serious). Maybe it was a tad bit much in the front, cause once it started snowing I thought I was screwed, but the course really reminded me of a Belgium course and it was just sandy, not muddy at all. Anyways I took full advantage of some of the road sections throttling it down as hard as I could, for as long as I could. This worked well to shred guys off the back, caus e it was a little twistier than the previous day. There were a few times I had a gap on the chase group and actually started believing that I could really win it. I felt like the New Englanders were teaming up on me a bit, cause as soon as I let off the throttle Driscoll punched it and they let him have his gap. It was as if they were programmed to let this guy have his gap. As soon as I could I attacked and got a gap, I made a bobble and two guys came around me. I was sure as heck not going to finish forth again. We hit the beach and I was in 4th. But I just ran as hard as I could to get around Myerson. I actually ran so hard I felt my face being pulled to the back of my head. This was an interesting sensation. I thought Spinelli was going to bobble and I was waiting for him to make a mistake in the last half lap but he rode really well and clean and I just scrubbed the last corner a little too much to have any chance of coming around him in the sprint. So I ended up 3rd. Maybe I played it a little too safe by not trying to over both guys at once, it may have cost me second place, but I really really didn't want to finish 4th again. I've been trying to get back on the podium since Alberta.
http://www.cyclingnews.com/cross.php?id=/photos/2008/dec08/nbxgp2_08/nbxgp2_082/amen125
Overall I was really pleased my racing. More so than day 1. I felt like I rode my brains out on day 1, rode harder but with my brains in on day 2. If you know what I mean.

Thanks to Alex Sanna for pitting for us. It was a huge help. Even though I didn't need a bike it's nice to know that the support is there. Alex just launched his business and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend his services. He was kind enough to donate his services to us this weekend as his contribution to our campaign in Europe.

Also I love hearing people telling me that I'm "putting the hurt on". Rick Meloft managed to scream my name in between sips of beer. Again, it's just one of those things, when you have the support and you feel like people believe in you, you just believe in yourself that little bit more, you dig a little deeper, you squeeze every last possible amount of power into those pedals.
I just pushed so hard I was trying to rip the cranks off the bike and snap the chain.
I know I've said this before, but the support we have recently had from all the community in Ottawa and Ontario has really inspired me. I feel like there is fire in my riding now. When I'm hitting the the intervals in the basement during the week I imagine that all those people who showed to Mooney's to help us out are helping me squeeze out that extra little bit that are making the ordinary into extra-ordinary. So next time we race, it will be in France at the World Cup in Nommay.

Ready ,set, go, here we come.

DSJ