Profiled In Bicycling Magazine, Readers Choice Edition

Check out the recent profile done by Bicycling Magazine for the March 2012 Readers Choice Edition...

http://www.bicycling.com/news/featured-stories/joshua-saxe-burlington-vt

http://www.bicycling.com/sites/default/files/uploads/bicycling-readers-choice-12.pdf

Since NE Championships and Looking Ahead...

Since I last blew myself up at the New England Cyclocross Championships in late December, I took some time off to get my legs back under me and recover from 51 races over 9ish months. Now late January, I have begun building base miles for upcoming 2012 season. There are a lot of projects and plans in the works this year.

With no collegiate season ahead, I have turned my focus to a few early races after a pre season venture to South Carolina for training.  In addition, I have teamed up with Bobby Bailey of 1K2GO Sports to build speed and gain my place on top step of the podium.

January thus far has been building as many base miles per week as unreasonably possible.  In other words, hours and hours on the bike.  Additionally to time spent on the two wheeled battled axe, I have managed to squeeze in some time skiing slalom at Cochrans for two evenings during each week.  The quick and twitchy movements from skiing slalom have managed to make their way in to my cycling.  Cadence has increased with proportional power increase.  Each slalom has had huge benefits to what will be climbing and sprinting muscles.  Come time for racing, I can only hope to hold on to, and build on the new found quick twitching muscles.

Looking ahead to the season, I have my eye on the podium for as many races as I can enter.  A large goal, and a tough one to meet.  Building off of last season, up seems like the right way to go.

On equipment; I have a new battle axe for... well, racing, riding and anything else you'd do with a bike.  Based off some awesome new designs, Flahute has released a brand new more aerodynamic sprinters bike.  Tubing shape has also changed, in addition to a new cut out which allows the stem to sit lower and shrink the effective steerer tube, creating a stiffer cockpit which reacts to all movements that make up that minuscule amount at the line.  Full specs on the new bike to be released in late February after on road testing has been completed.

New England Cyclocross Championships - Fitchburg, MA

Remounting and riding away after the barriers for now.

The latest and last race of my 2011 season was this past Sunday.  While many teammates traveled home for winter break, two UVMers made their way to compete at the New England Cyclocross Championships in Fitchburg, MA on a rather cold Sunday afternoon.

With temperatures not rising above 28 degrees, the course remained frozen for all but 2 or 3 laps of the Elite Men's race.  The track was long and flat, twisting and turning over athletic fields and around trees.  Two sets of barriers, a sandpit, and a flyover were laid into the track to test the best of the best.  Being so far into the season, I only made it through 2 1/2 laps before full system shut down and resulting in the first DNF of the Cyclocross season.

Aaaand BONK.

That said, leading up to the full system shut down, I cannot say things felt great.  In warm up, I was able to rip through on my bike, everything was comfortable and I felt powerful from the weeks preparation of both running and riding.  By the time the race came about later in the afternoon, I had lost the sensation of speed and comfort lingered back to the warmth of the van which I would estimate remained at about 50 degrees throughout the day.  A warm refuge after a massive debacle of a race.

Arc hard...

Closing out the season with a DNF is not my idea of finishing on a high note.  However, I think it is myself telling me (confused? good.) that it is time to take a break and let things recover before building for speed in the 2012 spring, summer and fall seasons.  I will be taking the next few weeks (until January 1, 2012) to rest and just futz about with whatever Tubular Adventures come my way.  Rest assured, skiing will most definitely be a good portion of said Tubular Adventures.

Until 2012,  Arc hard, ride fast and go plaid! 

NBX GP of Cyclocross

Working the field from the back... it'll go better next time.

After taking a weekend off, UVM cycling ventured with four competitors to Warwick, RI to compete at the NBX GP race weekend.  Not wanting to get up early, and also having come off of two previous top 10 results, I decided to upgrade with the hops that sleeping in would counteract the unfortunate starting position of DFL.
Both days had fast courses, with only slight modifications from day to day.  Day 1 had a sand run ending on a hill, as well as a ride-up and a set of quick barriers near the Shimano PRO Pit and core center of the course.  Day 2 was only slightly modified, leaving in the first sand run, adding in a second sand run into a dune hill run-up as well as having moved the barriers onto an uphill run just before the core of the race.

Flying through some fast trails towards the beach runs.

Having just upgraded, I was started at the back since I have no points.  Unfortunately, I was only able to move upa few places from there.  I found the 3s to be so evenly matched that starts were everything within that field.  Since I have a terrible start, it was difficult to move up and make up time on the leaders. The only time I felt like I was able to ove up was on the dune run-up on Day 2, which allowed me to scurry up the hill and pass multiple people before remounting and descending back into the starting area.

Making this additionally difficult was the use of improper gearing.  I have since swapped my crankset for a cyclocross specific gearing by attaching a 46/39 to Dura Ace 7800 172.5mm crankarms.  From riding this past week, the gearing feels much better and is moe manageable to for riding trails and varied terrain as opposed to the compact 50/34 of previous rides and races.

I'll be taking this next weekend off from racing to ride and finish up classes for the semester.  Stay tuned for some training adventures and racing updates.  Up next on the calendar is New England Championships in Fitchburg, MA.

Arc hard, ride fast, go plaid!