USF Cycling Team

Samuel Adams White Ale

msuv — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 00:52:09 +0000

“This unfiltered wheat ale is a fresh American version of a classic Belgian white ale. An intricate blend of unusual spices creates its distinctive and refreshing taste. White ale is unfiltered and displays a beautiful cloudy haze with a fine sediment at the bottom of the bottle. Cheers!” -from the label of the bottle

Ok I know I haven’t posted here in a long time so I thought I’d post something new. This is Sam Adams White Ale that is supposedly only produced in the Spring season. This beer has all the classic elements of a good wit beer- hints of citrus, hazy and unfiltered, and a good clean taste. This stuff is probably the best American version of this specific brew I’ve had but there are better Belgian ones out there. I’d definitely save this for a day when your taking it easy and grilling outdoors. It’d also be good for after a good day of fighting the British and throwing tea into the harbor- just like Sam Adams!

University of Florida Weekend (February 7th-8th)

anthony — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 02:57:37 +0000

2009 has been an amazing year so far for the USF cycling team. With a whole new group of riders and talent, we have been able to rekindle the cycling spirit here at USF. The races that we have participated in thus far have not been reported on, making our website one step farther from completion. A weekly report will now be written following the progress of the team and the races that we compete in.

Our first race was held in beautiful downtown Gainesville, where the uphill finish and cobble stoned corners made every rider push themselves to the limit. It was a great place to watch a bicycle race and it drew a very large crowd. Because this race was many weeks ago, the details to how each race went are not available to me, however, the results are. Starting with the women’s “B” field we had two participants. Lilly Richardson participated in the Criterium on Sunday where she earned an 8^th place. Our other Woman’s rider, Cheryl Weldy, did the opposite and rode in the individual time-trial earning herself a 7^th place finish. These two Women, along with Sarah Milton also rode together in the TTT where they finished 3^rd place.

In the Men’s “C” race there were two riders who were both racing for the first time. John Stelljes and Chase Powell both impressed everyone in their first race, but a crash caused John to loose his rhythm and he ended up with a respectable 8^th place and Chase finished the race in 12^th place. The “C” team also competed in the TTT earning a well-earned 3^rd place.

USF had only one rider to participate in the Men’s “B” race. Dayne Johnson rode a very aggressive race earning a 3^rd place prime but falling below his expectations in the final finish at 17^th place.

The A race will be much more easier to report on since I was in the race.Seeing that it was my first college race ever, I was a little nervous at the beginning because I did not know what to expect from these fast riders. The race started off very fast with a few attacks and breakaways, but nothing lasted very long. Our team consisted of Anthony Astrab, David Wright, and Myself (Jimmy Page), which proved to be an excellent group of teammates.Roughly 20 minutes into the 60-minute criterium Anthony found himself in a breakaway, which lasted for a few laps before it was caught. When this happened I attacked, along with three other riders and managed to create a very nice gap on the field. With 30 minutes to go we knew it was going to be tough to maintain this distance on such a demanding course. However, my teammates, along with the UF riders were able to break apart any rotation in the main field. By the end of the race our breakaway attempt proved to be successful and I finished 4^th behind the other riders in the break. Back in the main group a sprint still had to take place where David and Anthony did their best to finish 11^th (David) and 12^th (Anthony).

The Weekend also consisted of a Team Time-Trial where we were able to have a team compete in every class except the men’s “B” race. John Stelljes was my hero in this event. As a first time racer in the “C” class, he stepped up to be the 4^th man for the USF Men’s “A” TTT team. He rode a very impressive race, giving the other three riders just enough time to rest before going and pulling again. The team came in 3^rd place behind UF and Clemson, which is very respectable for our first TTT.

Congratulations to the whole USF team, it has been great meeting a whole group of new people my age that are into cycling as much as I am. I will not report on the ITT rides but I will list each rider and their position and time.

Name	Pos.	Time

Men’s “A”
Anthony Astrab	8th	22:42
Jimmy Page	9th	22:45
David Wright	14th	23:21

Men’s “B”
Mike Suver	14th	25:52

Men’s “C”
John Stelljes	8th	25:01

Women “B”
Cheryl Weldy	7th	29:48

Downtown Tampa Crit

anthony — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 23:10:38 +0000

We raced this past weekend in Downtown Tampa. It was a sweet crit.

I wrote this 8 days ago.

chrisbloome — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 14:13:10 +0000

. . . and never got around to posting it.

I like my computer, a lot, I really do. However, of all of the computers that get used regularly, as far as I can tell, mine is probably one of the oldest.

I received it for free 2 years ago, from my best friend from high school. She used the 2003 Dell Inspiron 1150 till it was barely functional, and instead of throwing it away, she offered to give it to me if I could return it to a functional state. If I had another computer at the time, I probably would have used it to experiment with lynix, but I was (am) a broke college kid, and I didn’t.

I pretty much went through and deleted anything and everything that I wasn’t going to use. I kept Microsoft office, and the entire 10 gig music collection (the hard drive holds 25 gigs, total, but i used to really like music). I deleted everything and anything else, and within an hour, I had 6 gigs of “Berkin wireless utility,” “Spam blaster 9.0,” “Kazaa,” and all sorts of shareware riddled garbage in my recycling bin. In the process, I got rid of every virus protection program i found on the hard drive, figuring if the computer had a problem, I didn’t want to know about it.

Within a week, the computer was fine. Granted you had to overlook the fact that it would overheat after streaming one youtube video. However, over the past 2 years, it all sorta figured itself out, and today, it works better than most computers half its age. I am not a computer nerd, but I like fixing things.

At this point in the story, (especially when the reader knows how amazing the first weekend of racing went), you almost expect the author to go on about how, now it is time to do the same sort of cleaning in his life, deleting the unnecessary to allow the important things to function without hindrance and however true that may be, that’s not the direction I am going.

Recently, I have felt the urge to download new music for the first time since I changed my major a year and half ago. Don’t worry internet police, I am doing this legally, but the format that the files default to is incompatible with my choice of music playing programs, and the program that plays the file’s default is incompatible with my old computer. So, right now, I am lying in bed listening to new, delicious music and watching my “CPU usage” on my task manager jump to 100% for 30 seconds, before dropping down to 20% for a brief recovery before then jumping up again as it starts converting the next file. My lungs are burning watching my computer do this to itself.
To the team:

Cycling is going to be a big part of our lives for the next 9 weeks or so. I anticipate spending a lot of time on the bike, and with my teammates, and in rental cars and hotel rooms, and that makes me really happy. I got to know a lot of you a lot better this weekend, and I really had an amazing time. To those of you I didn’t get to spend as much time with (or maybe flat-out alienated), I am truly sorry, but we have the next 9 weeks to make up for it.

Ps. our men’s A (and john) are unstoppable. I said it.

In regards to the prior entry.

chrisbloome — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 14:03:56 +0000

the one about Lance Armstrong.

(click more)

I take it all back, Lance armstrong is awesome, for a MASH kid. I am going to keep my eyes peeled at the Value pawn, looking for that black and yellow Madone.

did you hear?

chrisbloome — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 19:27:38 +0000

Lance Armstrong is a great cyclist, I think everyone can recognize that. His work for charity and tour performances are blatantly legendary, and he is the person people think of when you tell them that you “do not ride motorcycles, but ‘bike-bikes.’ ” While he has done his fair share of cool things (namely, the infamous stare down at Ullrich, the time he got his handlebar stuck on that girls bag, and the time he cut through a giant field and kept up with the pack) he is not what one (me) thinks of when you think of a “cool pro cyclist.” Until now.

When Lance came out and said that he was coming back to the tour, I couldn’t help but think that his comeback was more for the “Livestrong Fan” than the true “cycling fan.” I mean, I am super glad he is bringing the spotlight back to our nearly spectator-less sport, and i am interested in his dynamic with Contador, but the battle of Boonen and Cavindish is going to be what gets me to turn in at 8:30pm every night in july, at least in the the flat stages.

However, today i read that Lance may be attempting greatness in a field unrelated to the stage racing. He may be thinking about maybe planning to maybe take a shot (i love the internet) at not one, but both of the Hour Records. For those of you not in the know, the hour record is the longest distance one can bike in an hour. It was set a long time ago by eddy mercx, and not matched for a while. When it finally was obliterated, it was done so on a TT bike with disk wheels and all of that. After this, the people who decide what defines a record decided to split the record into “bikes that Eddy Merckx had access to in 1972″ category and the “bikes that he didn’t” category. Lance Armstrong is apparently thinking about maybe going after both.

Swamp Classic Weekend

lily — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 13:58:08 +0000

Check our Flickr account! I just posted a ton of photos from this weekend. Hope everyone had a blast!

The results from the crit were:

Collegiate
C:
4->John Stelljes
12-> Chase Powell
14-. Chris Bloome
36-> Richard Hessler

B:
12-> Dayne Johnson
18-> Michael Suver
21-> Tyler DeWitt

W:
10-> Lily Richeson (overall placement)

A:
4-> Jimmy Paige
11-> David Wright
12-> Anthony Astrab

USCF:
5:
1-> Chase Powell
2-> John Stelljes (AFTER A NASTY CRASH!!! right on!!)

4:
7-> Michael Suver
18-> Rodney Urquhart

3:
TBA–Dayne Johnson and David Wright

sweet tasting cookies

chrisbloome — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 03:50:59 +0000

This week was crazy busy for me. Between school and work and all of the bike riding I squeezed in, I really though I had it all under control. Yet, somehow, I could tell when I woke up this morning that my race was not going to happen, something just felt wrong.

Even still, even after the pack sorta rolled away in lap 5 (seriously, 15 freaken minutes in), I didn’t exactly stop working. According to my watch, my average heart rate was 184 (with a max of 201), I just didn’t really make it happen. I won some cookies (after I convinced the guy to give the three of us chasers a sympathy preme around lap 12) and at the end of the day, I still had loads of fun.

We had five of us racing, with John placing 8th and mike suever in 14th. Thomas from UF wiped out in the last lap, and while we all made it though the race safely, we did have a post race incident (I won’t go into it, though everyone is going to be okay).

We have two weeks till the official start of the season over in Gainesville and there are at least two groups of people from our team riding over in San Ann tomorrow morning. I for one am going to make it happen this time. It’s time (at least for me) to ride alot, and ride hard, and see what happeneds.

ps. I think I might cut my hair like Tom Boonen. ( trashy haircuts > mustaches ). What does everyone think?

web log review part 1

chrisbloome — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 02:18:14 +0000

I used to not own a TV. When I moved into a different apartment this past May, my friends mom asked if I needed anything appliance wise (because you know, people have extras of stuff in attics and garages). I mentioned that I could really use a coffee machine, as I like coffee, and would probably always chose a trip to starbucks for a $1.50 coffee over a trip to Wal-Mart for a $25.00 coffee machine. For some reason, I also received a 14inch television.

Though I told myself I would only use it for the news, election coverage, and the Tour de France (it was the summer, and the tour was approaching), over this past year I broke down, and started watching cartoons and other sorts of televised garbage. Thankfully, I think I am officially over TV (I know only watch King of the Hill on adult swim [I don’t really know why either]), and even though I have always been a fan of Cycling blogs (almost as much as convoluted sentences), I have been catching up with their archives.

There are many greats in the cycling blog world, but I am going to start with a blog I sorta stumbled upon when looking up the price of a Belgium Knee Warmers.com water bottle. It’s about a 24 year old healthnet rider, and can pretty much be summed up with a summery of a training ride of his:

“Average speed: I am gonna guess it was between 10 and 30 Mph (or for you eruo dudes (i heard Cipo reads my “piece”) i would have to say 16 to 49 kph.

Average HR: 305.2

Miles: Lots.

Number of Digits from chicks: 0

Number of times chicks laughed at me for my ridiculously ugly hat i bought at TJ max last night: 4-5 ( by the way i wear my helmet, but sometimes take it off on campus for the mad chicks)

Number of times i took the laughing as them being interested in me: 6

Number of drivers that yelled someting at us: countless

The average IQ of those drivers: 37

The average size of their vehicles tires: 22 inches

Ounces of diet soda consumed today: 97

TImes i went into the little ring: 1

Number of Thomas J Schuylers I saw on the ride: 1

Weight after ride: 165, yeah thats true

Weight after the burritos i had 10 minutes after i got home: 171

Number of sleeves i have on my button up shirt right now: None “

I just thought I would share that hilarious excerpt (it was either that or plagiarize it). You can read the rest of the blog here:

http://web.archive.org/web/20030211052025/spokepost.com/diary/jones/

I promise there is a bike snob review coming up, just sit tight.

okay, back to reading, bye.

Bring it On Pics

lily — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 21:03:11 +0000

I managed to realize I had my camera for the mens 4,5 race. They didn’t come out great…but I tried to get some of our team in the frame!

Check it!

I had a great time. It was definitely excellent practice for the season ahead!