Today I went on the Bike Lane ride and it seems I haven't done that ride in a year, but it was more like a month ago. On the 12 mile ride to the start my legs felt like crap, so I did a few opener sprints just to loosen up a little bit and that seemed to work a little bit. I guess its because yesterday was my first day back on the bike since we got back from Canada.

On the ride, there was a guy that was visiting from California, who I believe was a pro, and Travis B. and I would always attack him after pulls and stuff just to have fun. He didn't know what any of the sprint places so we just made some up as we went along. We had a lot of fun messing with him until the very end of the ride back into the parking lot. We led out a long sprint train and he sprinted around right past the parking lot and kept going when everyone else pulled off. After the ride I rode back and he joined us as well and he realized that I was just joking with him, but its always fun to act like a noob when those kind of people come in to town.

Tomorrow morning I am heading off to UTSA for orientation until Thursday night, and don't really know if I will be able to get much riding in, but I plan on it.

Off the bike L'Abitibi report

There’s another aspect to the Tour de L’Abitibi besides the fast racing, and it’s the part that takes place off the bike. Some of these topics are where we stay and what us racers do during the time that we are not on the bike, even though it seems like all we do is race up there.

An interesting fact, before I get started, is that the language of Quebec is French. Many of the people my age are bilingual and know both English and French, but there are quite a few that only speak French. Something I realized was that all the road signs in Quebec are French only, but in the rest of Canada they have both English and French.

about this race is that instead of staying in hotelsThe first thing that many people don’t know or host housing like other races, we actually stay in a high school. Each of the 26 teams that are racing get a school room to themselves, and they are all located on the second floor of the school building. When we arrived to the rooms there were desks and tables piled up in the back of the room and there are eight foam pads for everyone to get one. Six for the racers and one for the team director and mechanic.



Early on in the move in process after we put the desk together to have beds that were off the ground surface.











James knew a girl named Mereilliea from previous years of going up to the race, and she wanted to be the masseuse for us, since James told her we were the best team he had ever taken.














Next topic is the food. For every meal we eat in the cafeteria of the school and the food is actually pretty good. Toast is served with every meal so you can’t get sick of it. This year in the beginning they didn’t really have themselves organized so there would be huge lines to get food but later in the week it got much better, but the Holland guys on the Rabo-bank team would cause a lot of trouble and cut in the line when they showed up late, but they got awarded the award for the most team spirit, and they sure did deserve it.

For the crit that took place in Amos a restaurant generously catered dinner, and I think it was the best meal that I had the whole week, and everyone that was working there was excited that we were there to join them for dinner.









Travis left his credentials in the van so they let him get double food because of his medal in the time trial earlier that day.





The other meal that stuck out in my mind was the one in Preisac before the final road race.

All the seats were packed so Travis found some alternative seating.

Japan was a team that everyone showed interest in since they had traveled the furthest and acted completely different than us Americans and Europeans. One of my goals for the last day when we trade stuff was to get one of the cool track jackets that they wear all the time, and I was the only person that had what they wanted to trade for them, since they were such a difficult thing to attain.

Another cool person who I met that I heard about for a really long time was Aaron Smathers, who races and lives in Oklahoma. You may be asking yourself what’s so good about this Aaron guy, but the reason that I had heard about him so much is because he also had a heart defect as a child and he races bikes as well.

Chicks dig scars.













I also think that he is related to Travis Troxtel because they look like twins.

















At the Amos crit James found a corner marshal cop, and he comes running over to the van and tells us he saw the “hottest cop in the world.” She was going to arrest him for taking pictures, but I don’t think he would have minded that.









We also bought him a really cool hat at the gangster shop, on one of the days that we only raced once.

Tour de L'Abitibi Race

Tour de L’Abitibi is a 10 stage 6 day race that takes place in Val d’Or which is a city in the Abitibi region of Quebec during the third week in July running parallel to the Tour de France. There are 26 invitation only teams consisting of 6 riders, making it a field of 156. This is the only junior UCI stage race that takes place in North America and is by far the best race I have ever been to in my life. Tour de L’Abitibi is professionally run and is exactly like the Tour de France apart from it taking place in France.
This year we went as Team Hotel San Jose/ Silicon Labs, which is my home team, and since there are only 2 Juniors eligible for the race, Cat 3 or higher, we had to make a composite team including these riders, (order from left to right): Jordan Hester, Thacker Reeves, Travis Burandt, Carmi Schulman, Travis Troxtel, and Me; with Troxtel and I being part of Team Hotel San Jose. Also James Karthauser was Director Sportif, his wife Darlene was our soignuer, and Ricky Scholomer was our team mechanic.

The race starts out with a prologue which took place Monday night and it was a 400 meter drag race through a side street in downtown. I didn’t have a really good time in it, mainly because I’m not a sprinter, but all the times were within a second of another, so no big time gaps could open up. Taylor Phinney, riding for the U.S. National team won this event.
The first true stage took place on Tuesday morning and it was the Rouyn-Noranda Stage which is a race from that city back into Val d’Or. I mainly sat in this race because the TTT was later that evening, and helped Travis Burandt when he got into a break that lasted about 10 kilometers midway through the race.
Second stage, which started Tuesday evening was the team time trial. The team time trial took place in downtown Val d’Or and did two 4 km loops making it an 8 km race. We had really high expectations for this event since our team consisted of Travis who got 2nd at Nationals, and me, as well as the other guys on the team. Our plan for this short TTT was to have Burandt and I take turns pulling and everyone else on the team just hang on for dear life, and finishing with three riders. This plan worked great and we got 7th place as a team out of 26 teams, all being national teams except for Major Motion out of California who got 6th. The conditions for our TTT weren’t good at all, cold and raining, but we weren’t going to let that stop us from getting a good place, and putting us, as a team, in a good GC position.
On Wednesday we got lucky and had a single stage day, and it was sanctioned for later in the afternoon so we had time to sleep in. The race started in Senneterre, and we raced back into Val d’Or. To get to the race James Karthauser, director sportif, drove us in the team van, which makes it less stressful on us from taking the school bus. Taking the van as opposed to the school bus is better also because we get to see the course backwards, since that’s how we get to the city. In this race there was a bad crosswind so the field was strung out from the beginning riding mainly single file. Early on about 15 kilometers into the 93 k race, it started pouring and I got into a break of about 11 riders. At about 60 Km in we had a minute and forty seven second gap on the field. There was about 10 people in the group so I thought that it would stick. When we got into Val d’Or we had to do 3 circuit laps in downtown and the field kept gaining on us through the circuits and I took 8th in that stage and we finished 20 seconds above the peleton, which put me into 14th place in the general classification.
Thursday morning was the individual time trial, and this is one of my favorite stages. The time trial starts underground in a mine shaft, and we have to race 500 meters uphill at an average of 20% grade to ground level then complete the rest of the 14 km time trial. To get to the start there are 6 waves that take a rider from each team down. I started in the last wave since I was sitting in the highest position on the team so I got to sleep in a little later than everyone else. For the time trial they take your bike down into the mine the night before and it just sits there until its time to go. You ride down into the mine in a mine cart, then you get 5 minutes to warm up on a stationary bike, then another 5 on your personal bike on the normal trainer, adding up to a total of 10 minutes of warm up. This year I was less stressful while underground since I could recall the order of things from last year, so I could manage my warm up a little better since I knew what was going on. I started my TT and everything was going perfect and I was aiming for a top 10 finish. Up until the last 400 meters my chain randomly got locked up on my bike in between the frame and smallest cog. I was borrowing Jordan Hester's disk wheel, and the cassette may not have sat right, but it sure did make me go faster. I couldn’t get it undone so I had to grab my spare bike off of James’s car. This bike swap took at least a minute and thirty seconds off my time, and gave me the place of 72 in the TT. After my bike incident I just stayed positive after I calmed down, because I knew I was only half way done with the race so I could prove myself later. Travis Burandt placed 3rd in the TT so he got to be the team G.C. man., and his time put him in the top 15. My placing put me on the second page of results so all I could do now was work for Travis and attain my new goal of getting on the front page of results.

After hopping on the road bike

Thursday evening after the TT we had a crit in a town called Amos, and this had to be one of the hardest crits I have done in my life. The course was about 2 km long and had a super steep climb in it along the finish line, and the rest of the course was downhill with a 60 degree hair pin turn at the bottom of the course. The whole race I was concentrating at staying at the front and staying out of trouble, and trying to save myself for the climb we had to do about 40 times. A break went half way through the race and I wasn’t able to catch onto it, but at 7 laps to go I rode off the front with a few guys from various teams and stayed off until halfway through the last lap and we got caught. When we got caught the field was strung out so we just stayed at the front and I got 10th in the field sprint, which put in the top 25 in that stage.
On Friday we had a circuit race in Val d’Or during the evening that took place on another super hilly course. We had to race ten 8 km loops adding up to 80 km. In this race I sat in and tried to get into a break but nothing could get away and stay more than half a lap. Early on in the race Travis Burandt went down and Jordan Hester helped him as much as possible to get him back into the race. The race started at the Belvederre tower, which is the highest point in Val d’Or and finished on it as well. I placed top 20 in this stage.

Saturday’s race was a road race that started in Preissac and ends in Val d’Or with some circuit laps. This is my favorite road race of the whole stage race, and they save it for the last couple of races. All the racers arrive to this race 3 hours early because the town donates food for a lunch, and this year it took place in the hockey rink. All the food they provide is delicious, but I don’t know if it was good to eat that much right before the race, yet everyone engulfed themselves in it. This course has the most amount of climbing of all the courses, and that’s the reason I like it so much. In this race Thacker and Travis B. got into separate breaks and got there name called over the radio, but nothing was able to stay on the course do to the tail wind that we had the whole way back in. I placed 27 in this stage, and in the overall I was sitting 42nd which was the very top of the second page of results, so the next day I needed to move up to get to the first page.

Sunday was the final race, I didn’t like this one at all, and I don’t think anyone else did as we only had two guys finish in the pack. It was a crit that took place in Val d’Or and used mainly the same parts of the circuits from all the road races, which has a big steep hill in it, that sucks all the power out of your legs. Travis Burandt flatted early on in the race about 5 laps in. Since it’s the UCI they decided allow free laps in the race. Well when Travis flatted, Carmi dropped back with him, and I nearly did but glad I didn’t because its not a good idea to have the top 2 riders on a team off the back. Travis’s wheel change took a while, so both him and Carmi couldn’t catch back on and get in the pack, so our GC man wasn’t able to stay in. Both of them got lapped and Travis Troxtell wasn’t able to hold on for the last few laps. In the team GC our place was calculated based off your top 3 guys in the race, and it was only Thacker and I that had a good placing in the last crit, so it took our team GC from 8th to 16th, and Burandt dropped from 14th to 88th in the overall GC.

We went through a tough week of racing, and this year was much harder than last year, but to all the guys that were racing for Team Hotel San Jose, you guys Rock!

Internet Access

I am back in the states so I have access to the internet and my phone. I'm on the road now so I have plenty of time to write up some news for my viewers to read. I was able to post my report from nationals last night in the hotel, and plan to have more in the next couple of days from Tour de l'abitibi which was in Val d'Or, Quebec, Canada.

A special thanks to Barry Lee, Lizzie, James Karthauser, and all of Team Hotel San Jose, Cliff Bar and the other sponsors for all the support.

Nationals

On Thursday I had my time trial, and I arrived there with two hours to spare in order to get a good warm up in. My start time was at 2:03 so I started to get everything ready so I could be on the trainer by 12. I drove to the course with James, and my dad was already there in the morning for the starting ones to take pictures for his website, cyclepics.net.
We arrive by car and park under an overpass since the course is in direct sunlight and its on a highway.
To describe the course it is a highway that is about 5km long so we had to go out and back 4 times making it a full 20km. I wasn’t able to pre ride the course earlier in the week since it was on an extremely busy highway so all I could do was drive it, which we did the day before in Kart’s car. Well the course was set up with the start at the bottom of a hill then you have to climb it, then turn around at the bottom, climb back up, and go down what we went up at the beginning.
I get on the trainer to get a really good warm up in and I did many intervals to open up, and get prepared to take off.
I go and wait at the starting gate to start and all of a sudden it starts pouring, and I was a little mad about that since it hadn’t rained for anyone else’s time trial. Well I start out and we had to climb up a highway on ramp, and I was spinning as fast as I could, then make a 180 degree turn at the top, with wet roads, then do a screaming descend followed by the climb I was talking about, which was approximately 2 km long each way. The course was extremely windy, so I had to work extremely hard and the Plasma TT bike helped a lot with that. I finished right at 27 minutes flat and that was good enough for 14th place of the 126 starters in the Junior Men 17-18 field, and Travis Burandt riding for The Woodlands Cycling Club Race Team places 2nd after sitting most of the day in first.
After the race we hung out with Mirek Mazur, who was parked next to us the whole day. Mirek Mazur used to be the national coach, and a world renowned coach from Poland. He was very impressed with me and compared me to Dave Zabriske.
Saturday was the Road Race so I went to bed early to get some good rest for it, since I wanted to do well in it. Travis Troxtel, the other junior on Team Hotel San Jose, was sleeping in the same room as I and neither of us could go to sleep since we were so anxious for the road race to approach. We got to the race at 6:30 for a 7:30 start time, and I spun my legs for about 30 minutes to warm up for the hardest road race I had ever done.
The course this year was different than last year because we started in Seven Springs, rode downhill for about 5 miles, then did 4 loops, and road back up the hills that we descended on.
We lined up and I got on the front line, and I was feeling like this was going to be a really good race for me. The gun fires and we take off on a steep hill and I’m leading the field since I didn’t want anyone in my way to take me down. After that climb I settled down a little and sat in near the front and let the other people pull up the two next early climbs before the descending started. The next couple of miles were a roller coaster because we were constantly going 55 mph+, but the fun soon ended when Track National champion Justin Taylor went down, and about 50 riders went down too, including my teammate Travis. Luckily I didn’t go down, since I was in front of it, but Justin broke his femor and he was suppose to be on his way to Track worlds after L’abitbi where I’m going to be.
We get out to the loops and I think I am feeling the best I have ever felt. Half way through the loop there is a mile climb that is super steep and on the second lap I attacked on it, third lap also, so I thought I was going to do good, well at least I was feeling good. On the fourth lap up that climb Danny Summerhill dropped his chain or something of that matter and he was blocking the side of the road so I was forced to ride into the gravel, that was about six inches deep, so I had to hop off my bike and get a running start and hop back on cyclocross style to gain back my minimal momentum. After that I was near the back, of the already strung out field, and someone was up the road attacking so I had to put it into over drive and really suffer just to get back in. It was smooth sailing the rest of the loop.
After finishing the four loops we had to ride back up to Seven Springs, and I found out I wasn’t fresh anymore. There’s a huge steep climb, well it was the downhill that the crash occurred, and the field finally shattered up. With it shattering there was 2 groups up the road, the second group had Travis Burandt, who placed 2nd in the TT and is on the Team Hotel San Jose L’abitibi team, and I got caught up behind some straggling riders so I had to work double as hard as the racers who were maxing out up the hill to shatter it. That is when my legs gave into all the lactic acid that I hadn’t felt prior in the race and my whole body just locked up and I had to soft pedal the rest of the way in. I still finished in the main caravan, and took 59th place.
All in all it was a good racing experience for me but the josephtokarski.blogspot.com ride of the day is gonna have to go to Junior 15-16 second place Cody Foster racing for Southern Elite. It feels good when the home town boys place good in these races.

Wednesday News

I started off my day by hopping in the car racing to get to the start of the U23 race to watch my fellow Team Hotel San Jose teamates in the national championship road race. When I arrived I found James and then watched the riders start off. While we were over there Toby Stanton, of Team Hot Tubes, and the lovely Sherry walked with us to the coffee shop and bought us some hot beverages.

After that we fed the boys in their road race, they sure looked good on there Scott CR1 road race. Nothing more pro tour than sporting matching team bikes, can't wait until I graduate junior racing and make it to the big show.

In the feedzone my pal from L'abitibi last year, Kevin Soler, and Bjorne Sealander's dad Dag Sealander hammed it up for the camera and provided some entertainment. Kevin lost his tooth in a crash in Belgium and Dag was just born that way... just kidding.

On the last lap I had to race back to give my mom the car back so she could pick up my dad and Travis Troxtel.

Once my mother had the car I put the Zipp 404's on my Scott Plasma, and went on a cruise to make sure all my equipment was working correctly.

Got back to the condo and then my parents and Travis were here with the new team clothing, I felt like a kid on Christmas morning, as well as the other guys. Thanks Santa Barry and elf Lizzie Horn.

We enjoyed a team dinner at Ruby Tuesday's and I had an amazing experience. The waitress called me a jerk, but she repayed me with a huge delicous dish of pasta.

After dinner Kart was getting nervous about gas and I snapped this photo from my Samsung Black Jack of AT&T.

Were back at the condo now, soon to go to bed.

Pre Rode Road Race Course

Today I woke up around nine and James and I went to pre ride my road race course that I am going to be racing on Saturday morning. The course is a lot of fun, and seems to be a good fit for me with some nice rolling hills as well as some few mile climbs. During the ride Barry Lee, team director, called and had some good things to say, wishing me luck, and was happy I made it here altogether. When we started the ride it was raining and stayed wet pretty much the rest of our ride.

As soon as we got back to the San Jose condo it started down pouring and I'm glad we were not out in that. So far it has been raining all day until now, and it is extremely foggy.

We went driving to the TT course since I haven't seen it yet, and all I can say is that it is gonna be a fast TT, mainly because it is out and back four times down a highway interstate for twenty kilometers.

After drivng the TT course we went back to the road race loop and took another lap in the car just so I could get a little more acquainted with the course prior to Saturday.

Tomorrow I plan to take the Scott Plasma TT bike out for a spin to get everything finely tuned in before my time trial on Friday.

Pre Drove Road Race Course

Today Kart and I went to drive the road course and we took a short cut to get to Seven Springs which we found last year but all I can say is that it is a "SUV" only type of road. The course is completely different than last year but I think that it is better, but I am going to preride it tomorrow to find out.

In Pennsylvania

We started off the drive by stopping in Tennesee on Saturday and staying until Monday with my aunt and uncle, who live in Nashville.

On Sunday we had a family get together, which are always fun, and got to see my cousins house that she is building and can hopefully move in soon in a few weeks.

Yesterday we finished the drive in which was another 13 hour drive, and arrived around 6. Since I didn't know when it would get dark I just hopped on my Javelin and rode on the trainer for about 30 minutes, spinning my legs out from the drive.

Today I got out on the Scott Plasma and rode for about an hour. I rode with James Karthauser, who made it in this morning after having a rough drive up.

Leaving tomorrow

Well tomorrow morning I am off on my journey to Nationals in Seven Springs, Pennsylvania, then after that I am going to Val d'Or, Quebec, in Canada to race Tour de L'abitibi.

I'm not taking my computer with me, but I will have limited access to a computer so I will try to post as often as I can, mainly just race reports and some ride reports.

In Canada there is a athlete lounge area with computers so I will type up and spread some news then, but if its anything like last year its a whole bunch of euro kids wanting to use a limited 4 computers.

Fireworks

To top off the night for the fourth of July we had some fun with some fireworks. We started shooting them off around 9 and ended at roughly 10:30, and it was a lot of fun.

About half way through the time I decided to make a fire with the trash that we had collected and it was pretty sweet.

Around 10 the neighbors came out, and a couple cars pulled into their driveway with more artillery, and they had the fireworks we've fantasized about our whole life..."The Punisher." For those of ya'll that aren't familiar with this lingo, it is a firework that runs roughly $90, and this is the first time we've ever seen one shot off. This was the "real deal" and had about 5 shots of the fireworks they have at the shows, so I would say that these were show quality. They had about 4 of these, and called a stop to our show with the big shots.

4th of July

Well today I hopped on the rollers because I wasn't motivated enough to ride in the rain. I rode for an hour and did a few intervals while listening to my ipod.

Yesterday I was suppose to pick up my retainer from the orthodontist office on 1960, right across the street from Bike Lane. Well I go there, the office is closed, so I look them up on the internet from my phone and get the numbers for the other offices, since they change every week. So I call the main number and I talk to the lady and she says that there in Kingwood this week, which is about a 30 minute drive down 1960 all the way to 59. So I start driving over there, and the whole time I am on hold and getting very annoyed with the whole situation. So as I finally get to Kingwood and I call her back because she said it might be in her car or something. Apparently she doesn't have it either, so I have to drive on back to The Woodlands office since it might be over there. Well its not, so I wasted about 2 hours of my day driving around north Houston searching for my retainer which hasn't even been made yet, since they lost my molds.

Epic Sunday

Today I did a pretty epic ride.

My plan was to do the Bike Lane Sunday ride then do another loop on "The Dog Loop" after to get in about 4 hours of ride time. Well I got my bike out of the garage ready to roll out and I felt a little rain, so I went inside to get my shoe covers so my new shoes wouldn't get all dirty and wet. After putting the shoe covers on I went back outside and it was a total downpour. It was pouring for only about 2 miles out of my 15 to get to the ride start, so it was pretty good, but I hate starting rides into the rain. I was completely saturated the whole ride and the insoles of my shoes and socks were wet, so when it started to get sunny I took the shoe covers off hoping for my shoes to air out, which never happened.

I show up to the ride just in time for them to be rolling out, which I find perfect since I hate stopping like that. We start the ride and a few miles after they warm up I'm off the front hammering with a couple of Woodland's riders. We stop at the regroup point and the weather is still perfect, and we start riding again to the second regroup point in front of a neighborhood.

We ride through the neighborhood and as we get out I decided to ride where I did yesterday instead of doing another loop on the dog loop. Yesterday on our ride there was a lot of traffic on the roads, and today there was hardly any, which is a good thing when your out on those country roads. So the weather is all good still until it all of a sudden gets pitch black, so I stop and put my shoe covers back on. Right when I remounted the bike it starts raining harder than it did when I was leaving my house. I kept riding through it for about 15 more miles and it cleared up again.

My iBike also was acting up, and I found out it needs a new battery because the last time I switched it was before the Texas Tech camp.

My ride totaled out to be about 90 miles, and took about 4 and half hours, but it was epic because it was mostly solo and it rained twice.