Kicks

Converse Jack Purcell V4

Macbeth Schubert

High-tops and Velcro making there way into the foot wrapping apparel market. Scan the pics and get your fix. Don't be walking around with your feet just on the ground. Don't just perch some sunglasses on your schnoozz, put it low, gravity is just not holding you down so you can't fly, yeah. So you keep your feet all feeling nice and get some new kicks for schooling.

PR Flyers Center Lo-Velcro

Gola Vanish

Adidas ORIGINALS STAN SMITH 2.5

PUMA Suede Mid Weave

Lacosta Carnaby

shoe sources: http://www.zappos.com/

http://www.loserkids.com/index-exec/

Suffer

The Fitchbugh Hammer

Just before we set off to the Fitchburg stage race, Dave sent me an e-mail with a picture of a big hammer and some words of inspiration for the upcoming suffering. I decided to print out the picture in all its 8x10 glory and post it in the hotel room. Each night, the men’s cat 4 team would vote on who deserved the “Drop the Hammer Award”. It wasn’t necessarily the person who has the best result that day but rather the person who caused themselves, others or both to suffer. There are many ways to drop the hammer; here are a few.

Stage 1: ITT
We all decided before the stage that anyone who puked during or right after the TT would automatically win the award for the day. Well no one did that but when Chris DeCarlo came across the line, the left side of his face was COVERED in snot. He had suffered his way into an awful mess and he was crowned the first Hammer of the race.

Stage 2: Mt. Watchuset
As any competitive cyclist knows, it’s much easier to suffer when you at the front of the race. Towards the back motivation can easily fail. Well in this stage of huge mountain climbs, Charles Gardiner found himself towards the back for a long way but he kept his head down, determined to make it to the finish ahead of the time cut. As his 5 teammates stood on the summit wondering what happened to him, he mystically appeared out of the fog the shrouded the mountain and, upon hearing our cheers, sprinted up the steepest part of the climb across the line, despite having ridden so many miles alone. He suffered a great deal that day in the toughest of conditions and was crowned with the Hammer that night!

Stage 3: Fitchburg State College Circuit Race
After the huge stage the day before everyone’s legs were beat and EJ Klock-McCook was at the top of that list. However, after suffering up the circuit race climb 8 times, and being last coming over the climb on the bell lap, he rode right to the front, blew past the 3 Cambridge Cycling guys who thought they had the lead-out organized and stomped down the back side of the course. Chris had hopped on EJ’s wheel and said the man on 3rd wheel was making all kinds of grunts and groans trying match EJ’s pace. When he was finished, EJ dropped his teammates off at over 30 mph despite almost being dropped from the race a few km previous. For that, he was given the Hammer award!

Stage 4: Fitchburg Downtown Criterium
9th in the TT, 4th in the RR, 15th in the Circuit Race, 5th in the Crit and 5th on GC. Need I say more? The final day’s Hammer went to Sean McLaughlin who time trialed, climbed, sprinted and suffered to truly spectacular results in the biggest amateur race on the east coast. WELL DONE!

-E.J. Klock-McCook

Cross is in the Air.

With about 1.5 months until my first cross race, it will creep up very fast. With the road season still chugging along with stage races, some crits, followed by more crits, sandwiched in between intervals, group rides, training races, rollers, the trainer, more intervals, recovery, more intervals and more recovery. I know it is getting close to cross and I can smell it in the air. What does it smell like? Well, it smells like me not caring about intervals anymore, not caring about training for the road. The powertap is not working well, I don't care. My bike goes from being connected to watts, heart rate and all that training data to being off the grid. I just do care about watt, kjs. The chain is dirty, the water bottles stinky and I just don't care. I find myself out on training rides and I want to find stuff to bunny hop. The road bike is itching to be a cross bike. I like to train for cross on my cross bike, this leaves me without the powertap, and I go on perceived exertion and I sort of like it like that. After months of staring at watts and and maximizing workouts, it is nice just to go out and just ride ride. With the MAC schedule mostly UCI races and that will mean that pretty much every elite cross race I do will hurt more than any road race I have done this summer. That road training will start to transition into cross training in a few weeks and I am excited, counting the days until that cross bike is the main bike in the stable and the training consists of short threshold and above intervals followed by some technical riding in the trails around philly. The hopes of cracking top 30 in the UCI races is what it is all about for me.

Ok, it's not cross, but it gives us that fix until cross season

Fellow Zoomers...

Mt. Snow in Vermont hosted Mt. Bike National this past weekend...and it was EPIC. The course was a 5-mile loop that climbed climbed traversed and climbed the ski slope for about 3.5 miles and then bombed down some killer rooty and rocky singletrack. The women's sport race was at noon on Friday and although it was not "South Philly hot", it was still quite balmy and unlike the Pro's, Nikki and I didn't have anybody to stand over us an hold an umbrella until the whistle blew...(there is a tone of sarcasm in that statement...sarcasm can be tough to express via e-mail).

So, the whistle blows and we are hot out of the blocks. Nikki had a great start and I worked to stick to her wheel. The first 1/2 mile was a short loop with a tight steep climb and then a bomber downhill before the real climbing began. Another girl, Nikki, and I had bridged a gap from the group by the bottom of the descent and just as we started climbing again, I let out a few words my mother definately didn't teach me...as my front tire was flat. %$#^@!!!!!!!!!! Nikki used the manors her mother had taught her and offered to help me change it...I looked at her and told her, "NO...GO GO GO!"

Then, I played a game I like to call "flip the tire level in a rage of panic" for about a minute before I talked myself down, changed the flat with too small of a CO2 cartridge and carefully remounted to try and catch the pack. The climbs were hot and long....but the drummers at the top of the mountain boosted everyone's spirits. I started to pick off some riders, but never managed to catch the leaders...Nikki in second and the speedy Vermonter in first.

We rode two hard laps...Nikki took second, I took third...and we both walked away with lessons learned about changing a flat in a race, why to ride tubeless, and how to manage long hard climbs in the heat of the day as well as many small victories over roots and rocks. With joyous smiles we treated ourselves to hot dogs and fries...then realized what a mistake that was...

Cheers....
Kristin