FCCC!!!!!

This past weekend was The Tour de FCCC. The Tour de FCCC is a three stage juniors only stage race in allentown pennsylvania. This was my first stage race and to be honest I came into it knowing I wasn't very prepared. The week before I had been on vacation and only had the opportunity to train twice for one hour each time. I got back from vacation late thursday night and left early saturday for pennsylvania. My family and I stayed in room 328 at the comfort Inn about 15 minutes from the time trial and road race venue. On friday night my family and I ate at a restaurant called Bostons. I ordered lasagna and it was blegh but that's beyond the point.

I didn't get much sleep friday night as I was watching Lockup Raw. (Only the greatest show about Mendocino county ever.) so I woke up early on saturday morning so i could indulge in the bountiful feast that was Comfort Inn's continental breakfast. It was lovely! I had taken a drive around the TT/RR course the night before and I knew that it was going to be rough. I think my course reconnaissance only made me nervous. I got to the venue at about 7:15 or so, so I could check in and get my TT start time. During the time while I was waiting for my TT start time Kevin and I got in a lap of the course so we could get a feel for the hills. At 8:30 the TT times were posted and i was set to go off at 9:27. I relaxed for about 20 minutes and this made me nervous because I knew I should have brought my Aero-bars but I didn't I then started to warm up about 40 minutes to shuttle launch(A.K.A. my weak example of a TT). The TT did not go well at all I was hoping for a a sub 12 minute for the 4 mile route but ended up with a 12:40. I was passed 2 times and one was within the first 3 minutes. This was pretty disheartening.

The 15-16 mens road race was set to start with the 17-18 women at 12:32. This left about 3 hours after the TT to go get something to eat. The team and I all went to Cracker Barrel and I got some real breakfast. We showed back up at the venue about an hour early for the Road Race and Aidan and I decided to sit in the car to keep cool. Aidan and I had a few flaws in our race prep because we barely drank any water which was a huge flaw. The road race started slowly but quickly heated up and I soon found myself off the back with a young lady named isabella before the first lap was even over. I rode one more lap at a painfully slow pace and decided to call it quits on the Road Race. I hated myself for dnf-ing but I had to. Aidan dnf-fed one lap later we both didn't drink enough. We watched Kevin race in impressive fashion.

I woke up the next morning thinking I wasn't going to race the crit (even though I dnf-fed the Road Race we were allowed to race the crit with a time of 2 hours for the RR.) just because of nerves but Aidan convinced me to. I am so glad that i decided to race the crit because this had to be one of the most fun races I have ever done. The crit was set to be 20 miles (my longest crit so far). The race stated off pretty fast and I was holding on but having a great time. Aidan attacked with a few other guys which lifted the pace further and I was dropped. I eased off to recover and waited for the pack to come back around so that I could hop back on. I got back on with about 8 laps to go and I held on until the last lap and I finished just behind the pack.

Congrats To Aidan for getting 12th in the crit and congrats to kevin for racing strong all weekend. I will speak for the 3 guys that went up to The Tour de FCCC and say that I hope we can bring more teammates next year and maybe get a good result on GC.

RANDOM INFO:

The 15-16 and 17-18 TT's were both 4.1 miles. Both RR's were 7 laps or 29 miles. The 15-16 crit was 20 miles and the 17-18 crit was 25 miles.

Thanks for reading,

Nick Caddenhead

time for a break

Its time for a break I've been training a lot recently and also recently my legs have strted to feel dead. I don't want this to turn into anything more than temporary dead legs. I will be taking about a week off ill be doing tour de fccc in july I'm pretty pumped about that. Thanks
Nick c

recent thoughts

Sorry for the lack of posting really just haven't had much to talk about. Since last post I have done bike jam. Bike jam was a really hard race and I have discover why I think I'm always off the back. Not a good enough warm-up. I was chasing for the whole race but eventually got lapped. Whatever. I also flatted my rear tubular damn vittoria tires. That was cool I didn't need it again till this weekend which was the church creek tt. Love continental sprinter. But anyway I cut 5 mins off last years time and if I would have manned up and stayed in the aero tuck I could have done even better. Since may 16 I have done a few greenbelts. I usually would just surf the pack in the c race due to the sketchiness. I recently did the b race and still surfed the back but I was way more comfy and it was harder I had to take a lap with 9 in after going into the red to close a gap. I have also upgraded to cat 4 which is exciting and I am feeling stronger on the bike which is also good. Thanks
Nick c
Also I plan to soon buy a helmet cam and upload some race vids but not for a while.
Oh and I did a 4 hour trainer ride because of thunderstorms yesterday. That sucked

Thanks again
Nick c

no post for a while

Sorry for no post in quite some time nothing too exciting has been happening. I crashed in april that's really nbd. I did terribly at bunny hop after training really hard the week before. I got some new shoes. And group rides have been awesome I can feel I'm getting much faster. I will post more often

some real adventures

Last thursday after the davidsonville ride I was talking to some of my teammates and we decided to put in an easy 50 miler on saturday. So I show up at the b and a park and ride and get ready to ride and then we rolled out. First doing the around the river ride and jioning the airport loop. I hate bike trails. So I was feeling good all ride until 3 miles from the finish. Some guy decided to turn around while jogging I guess right in front of me so I nailed him. This made me so angry. It chipped my brand new shifter which is minor but still what an ass. So I recovered from that and all was good. Tuesday was the spinervals dvd shoot which was hard. We did 3 5 minute intervals with 2 minutes rest. Then 2 minuters with 2 rest and the 45 seconds with 1 minute rest. Wednesday I did 2 by 20's with sprints every 5 minutes. Thursday was davidsonville. I felt good but my back hurt. On rte 2 we did fast pacelining and I popped after my third pull I couldn't accelerate at all to get on the back. Later I discover my front brake was rubbing which made me mad. We then took a little break. But I picked it back up on sands and we kept it that way to the finish. It was the fastest d ville ride yet for us. At 19.5 which sounds slow but what can I say we are all cat 5 juniors. Today I went on the around the river ride with aidan and mr ian that was funny nothing too hard at all. Just a fun ride.
Thanks nick c

thursday night jrs ride

So the juniors squad planned on riding from davidsonville 30 minutes before the adults which I thought was odd but I was open to it. My friend robbie who used to be on abrt had a new bike and wanted to ride so he came out. We started off the ride with me on the front down rossback and onto patuxent where robbie started pulling and he pulled for a long time. He started my frustration robbie wanted to get off so he used the standard elbow twitch and for one of my teammates to pull through but I will not name names. No one would pull through! We got across 214 and aidan was pulling so that was good and he pulled for a while but then no one would pull through which made me angry so I went to the front and did some work but then I kept finding just aidan robbie and I at the front. It was frustrating. So we stopped at the gas station because kevin wasn't feelingtoo good. Once onto route 2 we started pace lining so I was on the front first then robbie. Then me again no one would freaking pull!!!!!! Then aidan and mr ian got on the front and they are fast so that was good. A perfect pace. Kevin was otb at this point so he decided to take the short cut so the rest of us went the long way and still (the only person there that I haven't yet mentioned) still wouldn't pull. Which was frutrating me. So we caught back up with kevin and I kept a very easy 20 mph for about 3 miles on bayard and sands. and then the ride was pretty much uneventful except for the fact that my said team mate pulled only 3 times during the ride. We got within about halfmile of the finish line so I went and I hauled for a while with just kevin and aidan I believe with me still. So then I just held it off to the line. Then what really made me angry was when I was keeping it up after the finish mr ian and aidan went to the front which wasn't what made me mad but then I got fropped because of my high effort at the real finish. And then I was with andrew. And he like attacked which made me mad on 2 fronts we were alrwady finished and now all of a sudden he is so strong. Why couldn't he pull during the ride. His attack didn't phase me though. Just thought it was dumb.
Thanks nickc

WALKERSVILLE

As most of you know the tour of walkersville was this weekend. I went into this race to just try and stay with the field. Welll i partially accomplished that. The neutral start and the first lap were really sketch there were 2 pretty bad crashes that i almost went down in. With me representing the ABRT juniors were Andrew, Aidan, and me. We were all closse to the back of the fiels during the neutral start and the first lap. After the last turn on the final lap there was a big crash with 5+ guys in it so me being right at the back got caught behind and so did andrew. I got on a chase group with a guy in a 53x11 kit and i believe and ncvc rider. I stayed with them for the better part of the second lap but they were just too strong so i hopped off to form up another chase group with andrew who was further back. With andrew were all of the juniors besides 3 so we were all working together the whole race. While andrew and i were trying to get the the first finish of our group by some luck all three of the juniors up the road dnf'd. one of them sadly was aidan who was having chain trouble and some how got lost which was disappointing of course. So andrew and i decided to try to lift the pace high after the last turn to try to pop off josh wilcox who was using a lot of energy the whole race. Andrew and i wanted to make sure we got into the final corner first and second so we could break up the group with our acceleration out of the corner. I went hard to get to the corner first and managed that but when i came out of the corner and accelerated hard josh was still there and andrew hard totally not even tried to accelerate like we planned. so i stayed on the front till the final 200 meters still trying to hold a high pace(i know tactical error but what ever) i managed that but with 200 meters to go 4 riders suddenly came around me in full sprint. I was in too high a gear to get it turning over quickly enough so shifted down and started the sprint. I passed a masters 55+ rider on the way to the line and got oh so close to the other 3 riders but couldnt make up the ground. I managed 4th and andrew held off an artemis rider for 5th. I believe that this 4th place finish while it might not seem like much was the confidence boost i needed to keep my focus and keep training for the races ahead. Mr. palmer got third in the cat 5 35+ race. I couldnt be there but aidan was a t tysons this morning and managed a 7th in the 15-18 jr category. Good work man. I also heard Chris brin finished well in the cat 5 race.