Just to clear things up.

So I just want to set the record straight and let everyone know. TxTough and myself have parted ways. For people that cant draw their own conclusions, it was just a bunch of different things. Eventually something had to give. A week before nationals was not the best of timing, however it needed to be done. It was a mutual decision and no relationships were harmed. That I can see anyways. It is a disappointment, but not a surprise. I had originally just wanted to finish out the remaining part of the season unattached, but that was not very cost effective. Thanks to all the friends that gave me advice and support. I will be finishing the year with Metro VW starting with u23 nationals. My schedule is a little different than originally planned but it should still be good. After my departure in California I will head back to Dallas for a few days then straight to Chicago for crit nationals at Downers Grove. Then Hotter n Hell and 100k in Atlanta over Labor Day. I will also get to race the remaining crit series races with San Fran. and then the finals in Vegas. 

I'm pretty excited to get a new start with a new team. I was pretty lucky Nathan offered me an opportunity to ride for his team.

A huge thanks to Mike Gacki, Gary Woolfolk, Woody Smith and Jim Hoyt at Richardson Bike Mart for loaning me a bike since I have been back from SuperWeek. They definitely made things a ton easier on me.

Our first race isn't until Thursday with the crit at the Anaheim Angel stadium. The tt is tomorrow. We rode the course today and its pretty tough. I wish I were doing it, but its kinda expensive to fly 2 bikes. Maybe next year.

The road race is on Sunday. Its 186k, luckily its pretty flat with some gentle climbs. It should still be pretty hard though. 

Wish me luck.

Unexpected trip back to Dallas.

SuperWeek is officially over, however i have now been back in Dallas since Wednesday. I only raced 11 days before returning home. While racing in Bensenville, I crashed with 4 to go and broke my bike. I was ok, not even a bit of road rash, but I managed to get a 3-4 inch crack in the center of the top tube of my bike. Awesome. SRAM support was worthless so I continued to race it for another 5 days or so. On Tuesday I woke up feeling like a pile of crap and decided not to race. I told Barry and we agreed going home would be best.
I did manage to salvage a 7th place finish in Ripon before heading back. Not bad considering I was riding in support of Carlos. I think the rain made it easier to get a good result. All you had to do was not crash and stay at the front. Carlos had maybe the best Superweek he has ever had. Even after a slow start. He finished 3rd overall, 3rd in the sprint competition, and 1st in the top amateur competition. That's pretty solid considering he did it basically all by himself. He's the man.
Nationals is next on the agenda in just a couple short weeks time in the great state of California. The following week is crit nationals in Downers Grove.
This is all assuming I get a bike to ride and an airline ticket from my team to get to Cali. For the time being, Richrdson BikeMart has been very generous in loaning me a bike for training while I am in town and until Scott can come up with another one for me. I see myself riding a Speedster in the near future. Awesome! What an upgrade.
On the upside I did win the u23 state crit championship. We can just forget that the turn out was sub par for the event. For obvious reasons. A jersey is a jersey I guess. Bryan won another one too.
Out for now.

More Superweek.

Almost halfway done with Superwwek 2008. All in all its going ok. We had our first off day on Thursday, skipping the Shorewood crit, and used the day for travel from Chicago to our host housing in Cedarburg, Wisconsin. Carlos is around 10th overall, 2nd amateur. He has been consistently finishing in the top 10 on every stage. On day 1 in Bensenville, he lapped the field with 7 other guys and finished in 5th on the day.
Coming into Superweek, we all knew that it was pretty dicey if you chose to be competitive, and that it wasn't a matter of IF but when you were going to crash. The team fairing well in the crash department so far. (knock on wood). Only Barry, John and myself have crashed. All on the same course. Luckily nothing too bad.
Yesterday was our first race after the rest day in Ripon, WI. The course was a kilometer long with 2 punchy climbs. Start positioning was crucial, groups were getting pulled 8 laps into the race. A group of 3 got off the front and eventually lapped the field. With 20 laps left it began to rain. For the next 12 laps there were crashes on every other corner. The race finished with myself, Carlos and Tyler all in the top 20. Today's course is in Waukesha. Last year this race had to be stopped and restarted twice due to crashes. Hopefully it goes better this year. However, rain is threatening, so it could get worse.
Before the race yesterday, I noticed a crack on my top tube a couple inches long. Still not sure if its all the way through the frame or just paint. I better find out soon though. Still a lot of racing left.
Internet is sorta hard to come by at the moment. I'll post back as soon as possible.

Thursday was also my dad's 52nd birthday. Just want to shout out to my biggest supporter and sponsor. Thank you for everything you do and the shit you have to deal with. I couldn't do it without you.

SuperWeek

We are up in the Chicago area for the first few races of Superweek. After Wednesday the remaining races will be up north in Wisconsin. The first races have gone by OK. No one has crashed....yet. Carlos is sitting in the top 20 overall and showing signs of good form despite being sick the entire trip up. Yesterday he spent over half the race in a 3 man break before getting caught with 30 laps remaining. He has been finishing consistently in the top 20 everyday. The races are much faster this year then I remember. Kelly Benefits has 6 guys, Kahala La Grange has 6 guys (at least). Plus Rock Racing is sending their squad from Cascade up to join the 2 jersey wearers, Rashaan and Sterling. Tyler, myself, Tristan, and newly adopted team mate John Trujillo are trying our hardest to support Carlos. The legs are feeling better and better each day. We all knew the first week was going to be the roughest. Hopefully things just continue to get better each day. Still 13 days left including 2 road race which have double points. We are a little further back then we were hoping but there is still a ton of racing left.
Check back in for updates every other day.
Today the race is in Bensenville, IL. About 10 min from our hotel. No more sitting in traffic for 30 min to get to the race. Finally. 2 1/2 hrs and 100 kilometers of death.

Also, Thank you to the following people for continuing to donate to TX Tough in my behalf.
Nancy Donahue
Betsy Murphy
Tammy Rice
Alan & Kathy Johnson

Back to Austin.

I've been back in town for a couple of weeks now. I can't believe I went so long with the lack of training in Dallas. Its not that its bad, Austin is just far better.

While I was in Dallas I managed to play a ton of golf and match my all time number of wins at the Tuesday niter with 2 in a row. I know its no 7- straight. But it will do for me.

The Matrix Challenge went alright. No wins for the team but some money made and still some solid results. I basically sucked, but rebounded nicely the following weekend to make up for it.

Carlos also won the fastest lap and in doing so scored a sweet Trek cruiser bike, or the "scraper"  bike as Tristan calls it.

Last weekend was the 5th annual AT&T downtown criterium. This weekend as a whole was probably one of the coolest moments of my racing career thus far. Top 5 for sure. Thursday was the driveway as per usual, but this time with the Colavita boys, Rashaan Bahati and some out of towners. Saturday was the big show. A twilight crit in front of a few thousand drunk spectators. Always a good time. Colavita won again, with Toyota going 2-3-4. As predicted, the top 2 amateurs in the race came from our team. Carlos got 6th and won the top amateur jersey, and I finished 12th and won the best young riders jersey. Tristan and Tyler also put in solid rides. Making their presence known at the front.

We had this past weekend off from racing, and after one more "off" week, we leave for SuperWeek on the 8th. This kicks off our season. At least the part of the season we care most about. We have very high expectations as always. After Superweek we fly out to California for nationals. From there we will see how everyone is feeling. Gateway Cup and Vuelta Chihuahua are also on our schedule by seasons end.

Hopefully the ORIGINAL rat-tail will join us for some of our expeditions.

Also, thank you to everyone who has continued to donate to the txtough.org website in my behalf.

Keep the $$$ coming. :)

Andrew

Happy Birthday!

Just another day. I think I'll go ride my bike today. :)

big number 20.

Thanks.

Tulsa Tough

Last weekend was the Tulsa Tough. I love coming to this race. It's harder than a Txbra race but its not completely demotivating. This year was a little bigger than last year. The purse was larger, and the competition was tougher. This year there was a cat.1/2 race, followed by the Pro/1 category.

Carlos, myself, Tristan, and Barry did the Pro race. It went pretty well for us. I managed to finish in the money all the days. Not too bad considering Toyota United came with their entire Tour de France squad. I guess they were prepping for Philly. They took 1-5 of the overall and pretty much every stage looked very similar to that also. Carlos scored an 11th on the very hard 3rd stage. Thats amazing considering 10 guys got away early and were never seen again.

I finally felt like I had some fitness. Now I remember what thats like. I was able to surf around the pack and attack and cover attacks. It was nice. Hopefully it just gets better from here.

My next race will be the Matrix Challenge followed by the AT&T downtown criterium in Austin. 

Thank you to everyone who has donated to the Tx Tough.org website in my behalf! Keep the donations coming, its for a good cause!

Mike Dahlheim

Jan Diliberto

Dave Diliberto

Judy Bonacci

Kathy Radford

Ken & Lydia Ferguson

Michelle Shuffield

Frederick Kelly

Farl Maxwell

Sorry for anyone I missed!

Thanks again.

Andrew