Keeping it simple

With the tour of Hermann over and done, things have slowed down and back to a normal pace. The tour took me off the bike for a week, would have been too much to try and train and get ready for the race at the same time. Recipe for disaster there. Learned my lesson last year.

Once back on the bike it took a few days for the cobwebs to clear but by Thursday of last week I was feeling back to normal. Jose and I headed over to STL for the Tour of St. Louis on Sunday. First time I've done this race, nice park and good times were had. I felt alot better than I thought I was going to. Pushed out several hard efforts and finished with the pack.

This week I've had some good training days, the aerobic base my coach has had me working is coming along well I think. I'll be adding a new tool to the training in a few weeks with a powertap. Have had this in mind for a better part of a year and finally pulled the trigger Tuesday.

Sunday is a Midwest Fat Tire points race. Right now I sit in 4th place, just one point behind 3rd and about 10 points out of 1st. I'm super pumped for this weekends racing, can't wait to get out there and see what can be accomplished!

Tour of Hermann crit down hill

Guys were hitting near 50 mph - standing there watching and listening to the sound of the bikes go by was awesome.

2nd Tour of Hermann in the books

2nd annual Tour of Hermann is over, what a weekend it was. Fitting in three stages over two days with rain all weekend and new set up over last year was challenging but all went very well.
I had a vision in my head what this event would look and feel like. With the assistance of many that vision came true.

The goal for this event is to bring to each rider and “Pro” like experience. This year was a giant step in that direction as all those involved from rider, to volunteer, to coordinators, and City Officials; we all walked away feeling the weekend was a success.

Now as things slow down and life gets back to normal, time will be taken to look for ways to improve this event. There has been some very good feedback from riders and volunteers that will help make next year even better.

Stone Hill Winery has already given their commitment to sponsor the event next year! Dates will be April 17 and 18, 2010 with the same set up, TT and Crit (may call it a circuit race next year) on Sat and RR on Sunday. A few minor changes to the TT course but the Crit and RR course will be the same.

There is a tone of photos on the tour site that Dawndi Cam took, www.tourofhermann.com, head on over there to view these awesome shots. I think they capture the awesome back drop Hermann offers this race, and the pain and agony of some extraordinary efforts that took place by many. I have received so many thank you email and stories of how hard this event was. Even so, those that say it was hard, say they will be back again to battle the Hermann Hills next year!

Thanks to all the volunteers, the city of Hermann, those that worked with me side by side all year to get this event off the ground, and to my wife who is so supportive of my cycling and event promotion, she is the best! See you all again next year, rain or shine :)

Tour of Hermann this weekend

As of yesterday I was officially in race mode for this weekends events. After pre registration only ended last night, total count for the weekend look like this.

There are 270 unique athletes on Saturday
Three are 265 unique athletes on Sunday
There are about 360 total unique athletes for the event

211 racing the TT
231 racing the crit
265 racing the road race

There will be a surprise for the athletes at the start line for the TT..... should be very cool if I pull it off right.

Today and Friday is all about getting the course ready, marked, cleaned and prepped. Hermann is ready and the welcome mat has been rolled out!

Check out www.tourofhermann.com for daily updates from local web news feed. Hermann Muenster is a net based news page all about Hermann. Jeff Noedel does a great job covering local events and news.

Results and photos will be up as fast as I can get them posted.

Ultramax Duathlon Race Report

Saturday Dawndi and I competed in our seconds team duathlon. Last year we did the Route 66 race in Rolla, had a great time so we looked into this year for another couple races.

Mark and his crew at Ultra Max always put on a nice event, with near 400 participants it was a big day of racing.



Dawndi was training all year for this event but unfortunately got sick three weeks before race day. Sickness came on at the wrong time, kept her from getting those high end workouts in to help maximize her speed. Due to that she was a bit nervous how she would perform. You can't tell from this photo but she was.


Dawndi hit up the 1st leg, 2.5 miles run feeling good coming in to the transition area at 22:51 putting us in third out of 5 teams after the first run. The first two team were super fast coming in at 15:05 and 18:22. Goal for us was to hit the first run at 24 min our better. Coming in at 22:51 was awesome.


I headed off on the bike for the two lap 16 mile TT. Pulled out the skin sute for this one :). I had a good bike leg, put the hammer down from start to finish averaging 22.7 mph. I ended up with the 3rd best bike time on the day at 38:44. Bike stats

Hit the transition area where Dawndi was waiting for me, we switched out the timing chip and off she went for the 3rd and final leg, another 2.5 miles run. Dawndi did an awesome job again of keeping a solid pace only loosing 20 seconds from her first run for a time of 23:08 . Total time for event 1:27:04, good enough for 3rd place Team and 45 out of 162 overall.

It's always fun to get out and do these events together, I'm fortunate to have a wife who will join me in my passion for racing.

Tour of Hermann -

Hadley says, if you have not signed for the Tour of Hermann yet, well it's time to do so. In the mean time, she'll keep guard over the T- shirts shirts for all 86 volunteers that it will take to pull off this race.