Mike Stone

I’m sitting in the airport waiting for the security line to go down with Winston, Thomas and Evan. I figured this was as good a time as any to fill you in on whats going on with the Lupus Racing Team.

We had our 10 day pre Alberta team camp in my home away from home, Dahlonega Ga. The camp started on the 18th and ended on the 28th, to fly to Canada. I’ll highlight the best parts.

The team stayed in the Hiker Hostel just north of Dahlonega, right on the foothills of the mountains.

TTT Work- We worked nearly every day on team time trial work to prepare for the 1st stage of Alberta, as well as the World Championships.  There were long hours setting up TT bikes, and getting them dialed in.  Once we were set up, we did a few drills and pace-lines in the north Ga hills.  Once we were comfortable, we went to a track in Dawsonville to practice.  The track is a Formula 1 racing track, that we rented out. We broke into teams of 4 and worked on drills.

TTT Work at the track

There was a lot more TTT work done over the 10 days, and i’m looking forward to the first stage of Alberta. Big thanks to Nathan O’Neil for the help and coaching.

The best part of camp, in my opinion was the long hard rides through the mountains.  Its not often you get to have your whole team down on your home roads.  Ill post my strava profile link if you want to see what we did!

River Gorge- Half way through camp, we went up to Tennessee for the River Gorge RR.  It’s around 100k long on similar terrain to Dahlonega.  We were all fairly tired from the week of training, so we were expecting a hard day.  I kept on checking the radar, until Evan told me to stop, “It doesn’t matter,” he said “stop checking.” We rolled out and there were attacks after attacks.  We followed and tried to pull some stuff away, but it was Sand Mountain that would decide the split. I attacked to bridge up to a move up the road, once I bridged we hit the climb and I was quickly solo going up the climb. I was sure I had the KOM locked up, until a group came by me with all of the favorites around 800m from the top.  The group was full of Lupus jerseys, awesome. Side note: Phil O’Donnell hit a dog in the group, and somehow half bunny hopped it and made it over!

We rolled into the final climb, and sent Thomas off in a group with only one other rider.  He was out sprinted at the line. Congrats to the guy who won, strong work.

We rolled home looking forward to a rest day at Jason’s place with some pool time and burgers.

The rest of the week was more long hours on the bike and some TTT work.  I’ll try to keep you updated through Alberta, Stay tuned!

Strava: https://www.strava.com/pros/296449

Some pics from camp below:

TTT Team

I could write a book on the Vuelta Mexico, but ill try to keep this reasonable.  I didn’t know what to expect going into the race, aside from the fact that its all at elevation and covered nearly 700 miles in 6 days. Ill highlight each day.

Ill skip the travel days, but tell you that we just followed our director and brains behind the operation, Jason Kriel through airports and sketchy van rides all the way to the hotel. Guy knows what hes doing.

Ill do a quick introduction to our staff so you know who I am talking about throughout the post:

Jason Kriel: Director, just follow him you’ll get there

Phil Cortes: Director, life chooser (ill explain later)

Jerome- Mechanic, can fix anything in under a minute

Abii- Soigner, they don’t get much better

Monday- Day off. We literally did nothing all day until the team presentation that evening. Funny story about that… After the team presentation, our van AND team car broke down on the way back to the hotel.  The riders hitched a ride with the Chile National Team.  I don’t know how Jason, Abii, Phil, and Jerome got back.  I think they all just followed Jason, I would. We ended up with a new van and car, so it worked out.

Team Presentation

Hitching a ride! Thanks Chile

Stage 1: Not knowing what to expect, and knowing we were outnumbered, we decided to just sit in and watch for splits.  Mexican riders love to attack, in the field, in the break, in the grupetto, everywhere.  After an hour of attacks, a break finally went.  We did not have a rider in it. Out of nowhere I see Jimmy fly out the front of the peloton solo, getting a massive gap.  After awhile, he was brought back.  I countered, dragging one guy with me.  After a few minutes of rotating, we were out of sight of the peloton.  We were half way across the 4 min gap to the breakaway on a long highway. We could see them, but my breakaway companion stopped helping me.  I was left to try to drag us across by myself. I was making ground but not quickly.  Luckily, a big split was barreling down on us from the main group.  I hopped on and was escorted across the remaining gap to the leaders. once we had a gap, our team car came up to give me bottles and food. Phil yelled at me to do nothing at all, just sit in. After an hour, Evan appeared out of nowhere. How he crossed that gap at that speed still has my head spinning.  We both held on to the last 10k, where I got dropped, then fought my way back to try to lead Evan into the finish. We did what we could but were simply outnumbered.

Stage 2: Ill keep this stage brief. Cold, rain, long.  It started on a 15k climb, hard but we all held on.  Every one of us was shivering for 5 hours, counting down the kilometers.  Coming into the finish, we were going to try to lead Evan out for a high placing.  All but two of us crashed in the crazy last 3k. Downhill wet cobbles, roundabouts on brick, grates and speed-bumbs. Phil has this code he lives by: basically, you have to go for it, but choose life. You don’t want to die or end up in a Mexican hospital.  The Vuelta Mexico was not choosing life that day. Evan, Mike O, and Nick Jowsey all crashed. Everyone was fine.

Still shivering, and seeing double, I was sought out by the UCI for an anti-doping control test.  I had just peed after the race, so this was going to take awhile. Chugging water for around 45 min, I got it done and rode back with Phil and Jerome.

Freezing.

Stage 3: The longest Stage of the race.  208k. It started on a 12k climb again, this time on cobbles and rock.  The field was blown to pieces, I ended up in a group with Evan, and eventually Jimmy after a flat.  We chased hard for 2 hours, eventually catching the now small main field. As soon as contact was made, we hit a steep, 25% grade cobbled climb. I was in bad position and was detached again from the group.

Cobbled Climb. Way worse than European cobbles.

I chased for what seemed like days.  I rode with a group before eventually going solo for 100k on long exposed cross-windy, hot, Mexican roads.  With 5k to go, a large group of riders caught up to me.  I hopped on and rode in with them. This was the hardest day I have ever spent on a bike.  Evan ended up placing 10th after a killer lead-out from Jimmy and Mike O!! He’s on fire.

Stage 4: Another long 187k.  This stage was mostly rolling with a few climbs, all five of us sat in while the leader, Oscar Sevilla and his team controlled the race.  Coming into the last climb, we all tried to get in position.  The field was single file, on a highway climb. All of our riders were within 10 seconds of the charging peloton ahead.  Evan was our only rider within striking distance of the overall, so we had to get him back up there. I drove it as hard as I could with Jowsey and Mike O. to give Evan a launch pad to get back to the group.  Mike got him close and Evan made the bridge.  Eventually Mike O made it back as well, then immediately flatted.  We all rolled in, feeling the week so far.

Stage 5: The hardest stage on paper, and our best day as a team. The stage finished on a climb to the top of the world, at 11,000 feet. We all had a good vibe that day, and wanted to race our bikes.  I flatted around 100k in on a cobbled road.  Shimano changed it, but it was shifting horribly.  I made it back through the caravan and called for service to changed to one of our wheels, after the change I called for bottles. (Jerome changes wheels so fast I barley had to stop)  Jason told me that he wanted one of our guys in the break today, he wasn’t playing around.

After delivering bottles, I went straight off the front in an effort to bridge to the break.  4 or 5 guys went with me and we were gone.  We made it to the break, and quickly gained 4 minutes.  I called for our car to come up.  Jason and Phil told me to conserve to the climb.  I rolled through doing minimal work.  Coming up to a sprint section, the road turned again to cobbles. My front tire blew. Shimano changed it, and left me in no mans land. I called for the car again to ask what to do. Jason and Phil told me to go back to the field and not waste energy trying to get back across.

When I got back, Jimmy and Mike O attacked together, getting a huge gap and creating a new break.  From what I heard, Jason told Mike not to pull these guys around in the last 20k, either sit on or drop them.  Anyone that knows Mike O knows what he decided. He was solo in around 5 minutes, headed into the final climb.  He was caught with only a few k’s to go. Almost. Evan Suffered up with the peloton to hold on the some GC, while everyone else survived.

Mike made his decision

Evan finishing the climb

Stage 6: The last stage was a circuit around a town called Toluca.  We were all exhausted, but were going to fight it out until the end.  Jimmy and Evan had been sick the night before. More sick than the rest of us.  I lasted one lap, had nothing over the cobbled streets, climbs, and soccer ball sized traffic balls in the road. Jimmy came off with me.  Then the rest. Mike was the last to go, old man strength is a real thing.

Summary:  I really enjoyed this race. Our staff was amazing, everything that goes on behind the scenes is what makes it possible.  Thank you guys. Without them we wouldn’t have even made it to stage 2.

I could have made this longer by adding details of all the crazy stuff that went on behind the scenes, but ill leave it with some stuff that was memorable:

– Hotels were great, buffet every night. Couldn’t eat any fruit or water or red meat. Choose life.

– Abii- She was on top of things, always had ride food ready, schedules up, massages.  She made the time in Mexico easy. Not to mention, she communicated for us.

– Mexican Roads- Cobbles, Road furniture, stray dogs, cross winds, police with m-16’s protecting the race, Massive climbs, all at elevation, Rain, potholes that swallow bikes and more.

We raced on this stuff

– My teammates- couldn’t ask for a better group of guy to travel to crazy places and race with.

Check out the week on strava: https://www.strava.com/pros/296449#interval?interval=201518&interval_type=week&chart_type=miles&year_offset=0

I hope enjoyed following along!

Mike.

here are some more pictures,

Mexican Rockstar

Before Stage 6.

Mr. Rugg called everyone up Thursday afternoon and convinced us to pack up last minute  for a “bucket list race,” Rouge Roubaix. It didn’t take much convincing to get a bunch of guys chomping at the bit to go race.

Winston, Sara (Winston’s wife), Oliver and I met Friday morning to head to Tuscaloosa for the first leg of the drive. We figured breaking up the 8-9 hours would be easier on the legs.  In Tuscaloosa we met up with Mike Olheiser and his wife for dinner at Mellow Mushroom, (contrary to popular belief, pizza makes you race faster. Pizza legs is a myth). We stayed at a hotel in downtown and planned on an early departure to Louisiana.

It took about 4 more hours to get to Jackson, LA, about 20 minutes from the race start.  We stayed in a really cool bed and breakfast, called the Millbank House. Its a historic house built in 1836. This place was easily one of the coolest places I’ve stayed for a race.

Millbank House

We checked in, and went straight to the race hotel to pick up numbers and packets. From there we kitted up and went out to recon the course.  I wont detail all of it, but its a crazy course.  There are narrow rough roads, potholes that will swallow a whole bike, Mud holes, sand pits, 20%+ climbs on gravel, and more.

Winston and Mike, the course was Beautiful

I was nervous and excited, aside from Mike none of us had done this race before.  It was going to be epic. That night we discussed race tactics over dinner, and spirits were high.

Race Day:

We had an early start, as the race rolled at 8am. We rolled up with the team van, a car, and Tim’s Winnebago.  Quite the crew traveling around. We kitted up and rolled to the line.  The promoter called out the past winners that were present, including Ty Magner of Hincapie, and our own 2 time champ, Mike Olheiser.

There was a long 5k neutral start, (for those non-bike racers, these are never really neutral. They are a slow rolling fight for position and can be just as competitive as racing when the flag drops.)   A left turn marked the start of a 4.5 hour long battle.  Lots of attacks went, Oliver got into a small move and stayed away for a few miles.  Once he was brought back there were a flurry of attacks, and Winston made one stick.  He was around 45 seconds off the front with Oscar Clark of Hincapie, and another rider. Mike told me to cover moves and be aggressive.  When there was a lull in the pace I launched an attack, making an attempt to bridge. An Elbowz Rider went with me, luckily. We put 1.5 minutes into the Field but were not gaining on the breakaway.

Taken From Instagram, Colin from Elbowz and I chasing the break

Coming into the the first dirt section, about 10 miles long, we had a good gap on the group, but were 2 minutes down on the break.  We decided to keep it rolling and hope a small group bridges up.  Halfway down the dirt section, we came up on a horse, IN THE ROAD.  We didn’t hesitate and sprinted past it.  I turned around and the horse was 10 feet behind us in a full gallop!! I yelled at Colin, “Go go go! The horse is right on us!!” He didn’t hesitate to go full gas.

Taken from IG, this is Winston’s break trying to pass the horse!

Out of nowhere, Colin and I’s break was over.  After 30 minutes of all out effort, we were brought back on the hardest part of the section, I grabbed onto the back of the now shrunken peloton and held on.  I was hitting pothole after pothole in the red zone, bars slipping and gears popping.  All I could do is hold on and keep pedaling.

We came out of the dirt section with a small group, 50 riders or so. Time to re group and recover.  We had quite a ways to go until the next section, time to find my teammates. I rolled up to Mike, and asked what he needed me to do.  I was tired from my effort and told Mike to use me up now because it was possible I would be useless later in the race. He gave me an empty bottle to carry and told me to cover moves until the next section, so that’s what I did. We kept it together until mile 68, where dirt section 2 started.  Mike and Rugg were perfectly positioned for the 180 degree left turn.

Section 2

This was the crazy sand and pothole section, with the hardest climb of the race. I was too far back to make the split, ( I’m still kicking myself).  I could see the group go with Mike and Tim, so I didn’t panic. I was just behind Oliver coming out of dirt, around 10 seconds back, and 30 seconds back from the small group that went over first.  My group was rotating hard to catch Oliver’s group.  All of the sudden, I see a crash…It was Oliver.  He was caught between a rider and a car with nowhere to go. I quickly tried to see if he was OK. He stood up and I breathed a sigh of relief.  Onward we go.

Oliver’s bike after his crash. Yes I took a screen shot on snap chat for this!

To the Finish

The group I was in slowly lost motivation to roll hard coming into the last section. We hit the last hard dirt section and our group of 20 quickly became small groups of 3-4. I rolled with a small group all the way in, thankful to be done.

Results:

Winston Won!!  He rode in the break all day and delivered in the end, what a beast. We also took the team competition! The plan we set out with for the day was executed perfectly.  I couldn’t be happier with our performance as a unit.

Whats Next?

Sunny King next week, then onward to Redlands and USPRO. Stay tuned.

The season has officially started!

Like most years, the season kicks off with a team camp.  All of the riders and staff get together, meet each other, and go over goals and sponsors for the season.  Ill give you a basic break down of one of the best early season camps I’ve been a part of.

Day 1- It was an early morning, waking up at 5am to meet at Brendan’s house. We (Brad, Oliver, Brendan, and myself) loaded up the Lupus Team Bus/van and headed up to Roanoke, Virginia.  On the way we made a quick stop in Greenville, SC to pick up Winston and Nick Jowsey. From there it was a straight shot all the way to the Starlight Bicycle headquarters in Roanoke.  On arrival at Starlight, we all introduced ourselves to new teammates and staff. Clothing, Bikes, and Equipment were all distributed.  Its like Christmas in February thanks to all our awesome sponsors!

Lupus Team Bus on the way to Virginia

From Starlight, we worked our way to a restaurant in downtown for food and a photo shoot.  We learned about sponsors and our management and all the hard work that goes on behind the scenes.

Everyone Arriving at Starlight

Photo Shoot!

From dinner we were off to camp! A place called Camp Easter Seals, right in the heart of the mountains. Equipped with a full kitchen and cafeteria, as well as a breakfast bell to wake everyone up!

Camp Easter Seals Cabins

Day 2- We woke up at 8am for great breakfast cooked my Mr. Olheiser. After breakfast, everyone got kitted up in our new Starlight Custom kits, and headed out for a ride. Roanoke is a beautiful place to ride a bike, we did rolling 3.5 hours with a little throw down on the final climb.

That night we loaded back into the van to head back to downtown for dinner.  We learned about Lupus, and how it affects people.  Visit LupusGa.org to learn about it. One of our goals as a team is to raise funds to bring an end to this horrible disease, and I think educating people about it is the first step.

Day 3-  Climbing day! We had a great breakfast again, a pre-ride meeting, and got on the bikes. The Route featured two big climbs, and great views of Virginia. Dinner was back in downtown, it reminded me of a thanksgiving feast!

Day 4- We all got in a quick ride, with some paceline work.  Everyone got an early departure, as we all had a bit of a long drive.

Above is the whole team after a ride.

All in all, I am honored and excited to part of this program.  I cant wait to see what the year holds.

-Mike

Follow along with the team at our website: http://www.lupusRacingTeam.com

On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LupusRacingTeam

Follow me on strava to check out the rides: https://www.strava.com/pros/296449

“Just hold your breath and hope you make it,” I repeated this way to many times in the 2014 season. It was a great year with the Stans Notubes p/b Proferrin team. The season consisted of mostly NCC (National Crit Calendar) and USA Crit Calendar races. Although this isn’t my strongest area on the bike, I learned a lot and can take away a huge amount of knowledge into 2015. I could recap the year and go over the races, but the stories would be mostly the same… A lot of cornering, big crowds, and adrenaline.

2015 is setting up to be a great year. After the annual scramble to send out resumes and find a good home for the season, Ill be back in the NRC circuit racing for a professional team again. Look for the announcement coming soon!

I am very excited to share updates and stories from the road next year. Stay tuned as I am going to do my best to keep this blog as updated as possible. It’ll include everything from training and racing, to everyday life stuff.

On another note, I only have 15 hours left (5 classes) to graduate college. How did that happen?

Stay tuned for an update,

Mike

This weekend was quite the adventure, the race was just a part of it.  My flight to LaGuardia, on paper, looked easy.  I had a Saturday afternoon departure, then stay in the city and head upstate in the morning.  I hit a few interesting speed bumps on the way that I have to share.  When i checked into the airport, (two hours before the flight) they tell me its oversold and I might not get a seat.  Can you guess the airline? Long story short, a guy didn’t show and I ended up in his seat…bullet dodged, the next flight was at midnight.  Now, on the flight  just before takeoff, there was a lady behind me with a screaming toddler, shaking him to calm him down…counter productive right?  There was an older lady who saw it and called her out, so that the entire cabin of the plane heard her.  This escalated into a full blown screaming battle between these two women while the whole plane watched.  I count this as a fight on a plane, which I never thought I would see. I classify it as a win.  The descent into New York was rough, like if you weren’t buckled in, you might come out of your seat rough.  After landing, everyone audibly let out a sigh of relief.  The rest of the night was smooth. Dr. JLo picked me and we went to his place in Manhattan, got some food and settled in.  Heck of a day.

 Did you Guess right? Southwest counts too.

RACE DAY: It was an early morning departure for the race, which started at 11:30 in Cambridge ( 3.5 hours north of the city).  It was a smooth and scenic trip out of the city, with so many iconic landmarks to drool over.

 George Washington Bridge on the way out.

We arrived in Cambridge with plenty of time to meet up with the rest of the team.  The normal pre race rituals took place, everyone kitted up and we rolled to the line.  The temperature was a chilly 38 degrees at the start, but dry.

Finishing Banner in Cambridge 

The race started and there were attacks almost immediately.  About 10 guys got away and pulled a huge 6 minute gap out.  The field was riding at a neutral pace. Everyone seemed intimidated by the remaining miles, around 90 to go.  I attacked into a climb with the hopes of dragging a group away to bridge to the break.  I put my head down, turned around and I was alone, not good. I pulled a 1 min gap out, 5 behind the leaders.  After a few miles of time trailing, I hit one of the nasty dirt climbs of the day.  At the top I could see a group bridging, breaking away from the peleton.  I decided to save my legs and wait for that group to catch me, then join in when they made contact.  We rotated and pulled the break from 6 minutes to 2:30, with the field still somehow in sight!! (I found out later, the whole peleton became one big team time trial) We eventually got reeled back in, on a climb.  When we were caught, the whole field split, and another group rolled off.  Jacob Mueller, Chase Goldstien, and myself made the split from our team.  The break was still at 2:30.

I have to add in here a little something about how the roads were.  The dirt sections were very rough, deep potholes, sinking mud, and gravel.  When a group of 120 guys roll down these roads full speed, you just have hold on.  I made a point to keep my teeth covered, shielding them from chunks of gravel flying everywhere. On the bad roads, riders were dodging flying water bottles like land mines, bunny hopping and swerving into the mud.  Tyler Wren From Jamis was climbing next to me up a steep climb, when all of the sudden he went over his handlebars into the mud, no warning.  A mud hole that looked dry sucked him in!

For those who have never seen it, this is what Battenkill looks like 

With 50 miles to go, Jacob rolled off the front, and got a sizable gap.  The field hit a crosswind uphill section, and “s*** hit the fan”.  The remaining 60 or so guys became little groups of 3 or 4.  Jacob was caught by a group of three, and went out of sight.  The group rolled on and came back together, hitting climbs and constantly getting smaller and smaller.  We ended up catching most of the group Jacob was in, with 30 to go.  I looked around at everyone, and decided to try an attack, to bridge to a couple guys in “no mans land” just up the road.  After a couple miles of chasing I made contact, 4 of us now in contention for a possible top 20. The four of us caught little groups and reeled in broken men from the early break.  With 5 miles to go we hit the last climb of the day, one of the hardest sections in the whole race.  Our little break of now 6, became two who attacked and got away on the climb, myself and one guy, and two dropped.  Me and my new companion worked well together all the way up to 300m to go.  I led out the sprint with what I had left and somehow held him off for 15th place.  Not what I wanted, but a good result I think.

Here’s the race on Strava if you’re interested!

http://www.strava.com/activities/127725533

After the race we hit a pizza joint and rolled back to NYC, but not before Jacob got recruited to a cult in his malnourished state.  If you’ve ever seen the movie “Wanderlust” it was just like that.  (I think he considered it) haha!!

Once back in the city, I took the bike back out and rode around Manhattan.  It was a fun little adventure. I went and visited Times Square, The Empire State Building, and some other cool places

  Empire State Building from the bike 

The trip home was uneventful, and smooth.  I did get to see the city from a birds eye view, and it was spectacular, I took a picture so that I could share:

Stay tuned for more racing this up coming weekend at Belmont in North Carolina!!

Thanks for reading,

Michael

Team camp with this team was one to remember.  I won’t go into too much detail in this post, but i’ll highlight some of the cool parts. It started with a rainy cold ride around Paris Mountain.  Luckily, Hincapie Sportswear outfitted us with more than enough clothing to keep warm.  From there we loaded up and headed to the team house in the cliffs community, which was amazing.

The House.

Here is a link to all the photos of camp! https://www.facebook.com/SSRNotubes/photos_stream

Day 2- Sponsor Day. The first half of this day was spent learning about all of our awesome sponsors..here is a list, Go check them out!!

• Stans NoTubes
• Proferrin
• Giant Bikes
• Hincapie Sportswear
• Hutchinson
• Fizik
• Rudy Project
• SRAM
• Bike Riders
• Schmitt Jewlers
• Paincave
• Startsmart Cycling

Sponsor Day

Sponsor Presentations were followed by a 2 hour tempo ride through the hills.  Dinner that night was at Restaurant 17 at Hotel Domestique.  If you haven’t ever eaten here, you’re missing out.

Day 3- A big ride day with inter-team races and climbs.  After about an hour of riding we split into 2 teams, sprint team and attack team.  The goal was for the attack team to come up with a way to disrupt, and beat the lead-out of the sprint team.  It was a 3k race, long story short, the attack team won…barely.  Ben Renkema closed a 200m gap faster than I’ve ever seen. From there we rolled up the watershed climb, did some cool roads in North Carolina, raced again (every man for himself) then rolled home.  We came in with just over  4 hours and 7,000 ft of climbing.  Dinner was cooked up by Dr. Jlo and Mr. Housley.

Just after a team race…ouch!

Day 4- Another big ride in the mountains.  Brian Hill loves to take us out to his favorite roads and make us suffer for 5 hours.  After 2 hours we split up again into the same teams and did drills.  Today was my favorite day of camp, the roads up there are simply amazing. After the drill practice we rolled back home, with about 4.5 hours in the saddle.  All of these rides can be checked out on Strava at http://www.strava.com/athletes/296449

Day 5- Last day of camp, another hard ride through the mountains.  Jacob Mueller really started turning the screws towards the end, I’m still hurting from it.  After the ride, everyone got ready to head home.

The season is finally underway with team camp now over. I can say from the start that this team is going to be one to watch this season.  I am going to do my best to keep this blog updated throughout the season, but in case I forget, there are a lot of cool places the team is setting up for you to keep up with us.  Here are the links for a few…

– So You Think You Can Crit..https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTg-tgpJEYS8sG-x08rGgnw (cool place to follow riders on youtube, Subscribe!!)

Start Smart Cycling http://www.startsmartcycling.com/#home (Hub where you can find all of the links to everything to do with the team)

Twitter – https://twitter.com/TeamNoTubes

Instagram – http://instagram.com/teamnotubes

Welcome to my new blog! Cant wait to get this rolling for next season, but heres a brief recap of this year:

You really never know what the future holds, at the beginning of 2013, I wasn’t sure about how was going to get out to the races, training harder than ever before and was more motivated, but didn’t have a team.  I did the first few months of the season “unattached.” It wasn’t until The Fouche Gap RR in Rome GA, that my season truly began.  I ran into Brendan Sullivan, who on a side note…Just won Masters Nationals for the 3rd year in a row! Big congrats to you Brendan.  So at Fouche Gap, Brendan asked how I was doing, team stuff etc.  After a short conversation with Brendan, I was guest riding for the Lupus Racing Team, a first year team dedicated to raising funds and awareness for Lupus.  It wasn’t long before Brendan brought me on the team, during the spring.  It has been a huge blessing to be brought in and be a part of such a great team.  I am not going to go over every race I did this year, but ill mention a few favorites.  Our team is based out of NYC, which means we went up there for some battles this year.  I had never been to NYC before this year, I heard it was awesome but I had no idea how impressive it really is.  I guess thats why people call it the center of the universe…  we went up in april for Battenkill, an epic race with steep dirt climbs and brutal conditions.  Long story short, a great trip and amazing race.

Shortly after Battenkill came Joe Martin, a long standing stage race in Arkansas.  Another really awesome trip and race.  It was cold the whole time with lots of rain, but somehow I really loved it.  I think the most beautiful part of this sport really shines when conditions are the hardest and limits are pushed.

Fast forward to summertime, I was coming into some really good form and confidence was high. Winning a few races and snagging some podiums around the southeast, including Healthy Newton, 2 stages and overall, and the State Championships.  I was feeling great coming to Nationals.  Then disaster struck!! I got a stomach bug 4 days before The Nationals RR.  Trying to shrug it off, we went to WI anyway, raced, didn’t have the best day on a bike but salvaged 25th. Not horrible but nowhere close to what I wanted. No reason to even mention the TT.  Aside from the race, Madison is awesome!

A few more highlights, Georgia Gran Prix.  An awesome 5 day omnium right in my backyard and easily one of the funnest races of the year.  It was a battle for stages and the overall. I didn’t win a stage but managed to come away with the overall, a real morale booster before our upcoming trip to NYC for Mengioni Gran Prix in Central Park and Tokeneke Classic in Connecticut. Another awesome trip, I got to be a worker/lead-out man for our sprinters. We worked together flawlessly, setting the fastest ever lap in Central Park! This trip to NYC may have been one of the best trips of the year. Brendan Ended up winning the next day! (Club Championships in Central Park). Animal huh?

Mengioni

The real highlight of this year is simply being able to do what I love, with such an awesome team and group of guys.  I cant thank them enough for taking me on and giving me a home for the season.  This has been one of the most fun seasons i’ve ever had.

Whats left?

SRS Greenville, and Six Gap.  Shoot me a message if I’m missing a good race between now and then I may have overlooked.  I cant wait to get into next season, I think there are some awesome things coming…

Thanks for reading!! If you made it this far, I promise these posts will get more entertaining..:-)

Mike.