Some Thoughts of 2010 Season

Well Hammer Velo had our best finish yet in overall OBRA Team Bar points, finishing in a solid 2nd place for the 2010 Season. It's been a great year for the team, I think we ended up having 8 state championships for the year, 1 being for me, the highlite of my season and my main goal for the season was to win the Masters State Crit Championships, which I did do. Thanks to Christy (BBOH) for going out every Thursday morning at 7AM, 7 or 8 weeks prior to this race and doing hard sprint workouts with me, we both had some great workouts and it was the key to winning this race....Plus Christy used these workouts and the speed she gained by finishing on the podium at the Ironclad Street Sprints, I was so happy for her....Other highlites for me this year was at the Raven TT series, I ended up 2nd overall after the 3 race series in the Masters. But the second week I really needed to have a good race, got a good start and about 1.5 miles in I was sweeping through a big right hand bend slightly downhill and down on the bars flying, and BANG!!!! I hit a nail or something that rolled up and sliced the sidewall of the tubular on my rear disc....I have no idea how I held it upright as it pitched the whole bike sideways and I was heading across the road into the other lane of traffic heading for the ditch at 30 + mph....somehow I got out of my aero bars and got to the brakes and then stayed upright....Whew...I thought wow, I guess being a good bike handler pays off sometimes even if it's just a natural action to hang on and hopefully not crash....So I popped my shoes off and started walking back to the start area...My day was over....Well I thought it was, Rich the Neighbor had gone by me in his race while I was walking, so when he finished he jumped in his car and drove back and picked me up, then I get back to the start area and ask, can I restart??? They say sure you have about 5 minutes and we will let you go last in line....So back to the truck, I had to swap cassettes from my 10 speed wheel over to my 9 speed off my disc....I made it to the start and I put a foot down and away I went....Ended up finishing 2nd that day after all that and then I had to just finish well the next week and I had 2nd place overall in the series in hand which I did....Other great memories for me were some of the long rides we did as a team this year, Bridge of the Gods 100 milers, we did this 3 times this year with good sized groups, very fun and some great times with team mates. And then the low of maybe my cycling career and for sure in 2010 was letting my team mates down at the Rapha race....It was 100 + degrees about 70 miles into the 125 mile race and I had to bail, the heat really got to me, something that had never happened to me before, but once it did I was done, as my team mates had to leave me in Scappose and I was waiting for a ride, ( Thanks MO!!!! : ) I was tired, emotional and hot and I kinda had a melt down as I watched them ride away....I felt terrible that I could not go on and I was a huge dis-appointment to myself and them...But Mo took care of me, took me back to her place, got me some food and a cool shower and then I started coming back to life....It took me weeks to get over that. But I did and moved on and I was so proud of the other 5 for going on in the conditions and making it through the 125 miles of hell...We have some great and tough cyclists on this team and that is my most important thought of 2010...Looking forward to 2011 with a few new folks on our team and another great season to come....The new design of the Hammer Velo Kit will be out after the first of the year, we are really excited about that, it is very cool....So it was great being involved in OBRA again this year and congrats to all the HV peeps for a great season. Onward and upward for the future. See ya...........Jeff

US Cyclocross Nationals half-lap report....

Read about Wombat's less than stellar outing at the Cyclocross Nationals here.