Tour of Qatar final stage

Mark Cavendish went on to win stage 6 of the tour of qatar and win the overall race. He also achieved four straight stage wins in a row. Impressive right? mmmm....maybe not. everyone know im mark's biggest fan.....but...there really wasn't much competition there for him. As ryan bum-g says "hes a man racing amongst boys". Who was he competing against in those stage wins phinney? eisel? if they would have "bested" him i would have been more blown away than i am about 4 straight stage wins.

OPQS LEAD OUT IS YET TO BE PROVEN

Yes this was a good show for " team omega pharma quick step" but i am yet to say they have achieved what the manx missile had at htc highroad. I'm confident that they will protect and work better then sky did last year, and we have seen that this week, but i still dont know if they can navigate the troubles like mark has had in the past.

CHALLENGES AHEAD

Andre Griepels team looks solid this year and i think they have a squad that is committed and trusts the "ape". this will be marks main challenge i believe. but, you have to watch out for peter sagan. i dont think that team cannondale even knows what a lead out train is or even how to spell it but sagan has an amazing ability to squeeze himself onto whatever train he wants and has an impressive track record of getting wins out of it. "What about tyler farrar" some might ask. to which i say "hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha dudes a joke"

BOTTOM LINE
it all comes down to one thing. if delivered properly mark cavendish will win every time. on smooth seas i have confidence opqs can do that but when there is chaos in the last kilometers griepel and sagan deliver. they can get out of shaky situations with grace and vengence and can get their heads back at the task at hand. ( ie. peter sagan bunny hopping a crashed rider at in the final kilometer last year then going on to win the stage)

On an unrelated note kudos to bookwalter and the bmc crew for a solid week.

Tour of Qatar stage 3

I'm amazed at how long of a sprint this was. they all really lost their lead out men early. kudos to cav for killing it as always.

hopefully wed-sun i can get some hard training in because next week ill have to take it easy in preparation for saturdays race. first "real" (cyclocross was just for fun) race of the season. I'm excited to see where I am at. But the real peak needs to happen in June for Race Across the West.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_6UuVPGX2M

Strava

Strava has created a "widget" for blogs. figured i better check if it works on mine. I love strava. it puts me in a competition mindset when no one else is around and is a great tool for tracking progress. k now im going to see if i can get the "widget" to work.

three posts in one day!!!!!!

my goal is to do this more often and just accept that they be shorter. but i didnt mean to do 3 in one day

this reminded me of what i try to focus on during races and that is "the pain you will feel over the next few weeks remembering your weakness or failure in the race is exponentially worse then pushing through the temporary physical pain now."

speaking of pain I HAVE TO figure out whats going on in my lower back pain because it is KILLING ME during hard pushes.

CROSSING in to another year older

i tried cyclocross for the first time. decided it would be humbling to humiliate myself on my birthday. i actually didnt do as bad as i thought and look forward to giving it another try one day. the course was really tough and the crowd was absolutely amazing and i had so many friends and family out there cheering me on. it was a lot of fun.

whatever happened with the high speed rail

so i watched the peoples choice criterium (prelude to tour down under)yesterday (also know as midnight when i wasnt able to sleep) and it doesnt matter what super teams or racers are in a sprint finish (including cav) i always miss the finesse in which htc highroad demanded control of the race in the final kilometers. there was none of this back forth of what team was in control............it was htc in command and everyone else duking it out for 2nd.




oh by the way the manx missle just won the first stage of tour de san luis. spoiler alert whoops.

#OPQS

I won't waste time talking about how "I'm back to blogging" or "this time ill stick 'wit it'" cuz im sure the next post will be in 6 months ;-) but i just had to chime in on one thing. omega pharma quickstep.............i am SOOO excited about this team it is insane. Tom Boonen and Mark Cavendish are two of my absolute flavor flavorites and the rest of the team is action packed as well.

Now as you may have read before i'm not usually a fan of the super teams. for instance thor's talents are wasted on bmc and having griepel and cav on the same team was a waste of griepels. so typically when i see a star studded roster i get worried. BUT these guys seem to be diverse enough that i think this team will just work.

Tom Boonen, mark cavendish, sylvain chavanel, peter velits, tony martin and niki terpstra all under the direction of Brian Holm! i mean..........im just really excited.
oh and this picture of tornado tom and the manx missile is just sick

*photo credits to road bike action magazine's facebook page please don't get mad at me zap