SNOW!!!

Over 6 inches of snow fell on Tuesday and unlike most cyclists in the area I couldn't be happier! It gives me a good excuse to wax up my cross country skis and do something different to build base other than just riding the rollers and lifting weights. Yesterday a few friends and I also hit up some sledding on Purdue's infamous Slater hill. After a few runs we decided we would hike around the golf course looking for crazy sledding runs. We found a bunch including a big drop off a retaining wall, a few steep runs through the woods that ended on a frozen creek and a big jump with a super steep landing. I used to really love sledding and did it a lot all the way up through my senior year of high school (I know it is kind of dorky). I really enjoy the chance to sled when I get it here because there isn't nearly as much snow here as in Minnesota where I grew up. Hopefully the snow sticks around for at least another week or 2 so I can get some good skiing in.

skiing and swimming

This week was pretty good. I got to bike outside twice once was for 3 hours too. The bike felt pretty good but I still have a long way to go before I will be ready to race. I went skiing with the cycling club this Saturday. My girlfriend came again too. She got a lot better at skiing. This time we went to Bittersweet in Michigan. It was bigger and steeper than last weekend. It had a few cool single track trails through the woods and some fun drop offs. I think I managed not to crash the whole day too which was good. It was a blast going with the club too. Today I went swimming at the Corec with my girlfriend who really likes swimming. We raced a few times and she beat me!!! This was a major victory because it is the first sport we have done together that she has beaten me at. I still had fun tough. Next week I am stoked to meet my new RGF teammates on Sunday!!

skiing picture

First week of school

My first week of training and school went pretty well. I have almost finished my Dietetic internship applications which is pretty exciting. My classes this semester look like they may be sort of tough but nothing that I haven't done before. It got really cold this week as you may know so I have only ridden outside once since being back!! I went skiing on Sunday with my girlfriend Ellen and it was awesome. We went to swiss valley in Michigan. Ellen had never skiied before so I had fun teaching her how to snow plow and turn. She was a really fast learner and even made it down a black diamond run at the end of the day. Today I taught 4 people from the Purdue club how to lift weights at the co-rec and now I am working on homework. My house has been really busy lately. It is almost like a bike house fraternity because we constantly have people over riding rollers and the trainer in the living room. you almost never need to ride inside by yourself which makes it a lot more fun to do. Well I hope it warms up a little this week or snows a bunch more so I can go XC skiing.

Training and School

This is the first week of my last semester and it is also my first week of training for the 2009 season! Lots of exciting stuff going on and lots of homework too. If you wanna know what my super sweet training plan is here it is
Monday- Lift in the morning and ride rollers in the afternoon for 1 hour or outside if it is nice
Tuesday- Off or easy because I have a lot of class all day
Wednesday- Lift in the morning and ride rollers in the afternoon for 1 hour or outside if it is nice
Thursday- Long ride outside or try to ride rollers for a long time but I can usually only do 1 hour
Friday- Lift in the morning and ride rollers in the afternoon for 1 hour or outside if it is nice
Saturday- Long Ride
Sunday Long ride
If it is too cold outside to road bike I usually mountain bike on trails near campus or XC ski if there is snow on the golf course at Purdue. Basically I do this for 3 weeks then I do an easier week that usually has at least 2 days off the bike and 1 less day of lifting. It just snowed like 5 inches today too so maybe I will be able to ski a little bit.
The finish of winter break was fun. I went to Champaign IL where my girlfriend is doing a masters degree in Food Science and it rained ice so everywhere we walked we could run and slide on the ice everywhere. It was incredibly fun but I am pretty sore from falling on my butt on the ice! School this semester is gonna be tough I have a lot of classes and hopefully I can avoid getting senioritis too. I have to finish writing up my research project this semester too which will be the culmination of like 2.5 years of work!! Right now I am really sore from weight lifting but I know I need to do it to win this spring!

Weinheim, Germany

I spent 2 days with my dad back at their apartment before getting on a plane in Frankfort to go back to the US. It snowed about 3 inches at my parents place and I guess it doesn’t normally snow so the people seemed excited. The local sledding hill was packed with kids! We went on a hike through the small mountains by their house and walked to 2 castles one of which was build in 1200!!! It was pretty awesome that they have castles everywhere and they are open like public parks. My dad says in the summer they have beer gardens so you can ride up to the top of the mountain and have a beer with your friends outside while enjoying the awesome view. After this trip I have a really good impression of Europe the only complaint I had was the food. It seemed like the only thing we ate was meat and cheese and bread. While this was awesome at first it got a little bit old I definitely think China and Korea has Europe beat in the food department for me. But the beer in Europe is great! In Holland they drink Heineken and Grolsch like it is Miller Lite but it tastes a whole lot better. Now I had better start some serious training collegiate racing starts in less than 2 months!!!

Holland is Bike Crazy!

If you have never been to Holland you would not believe how much people there bike! We drove up from Germany about 5 hours to visit my cousins who live near Utrecht which is about 40 km from Amsterdam. When we got there my uncle took us on a walk in downtown and there were people on bikes everywhere. People carry babies and dogs in baskets on the bikes. Young, old, rich or poor everyone rides bikes there. They do a lot of their shopping and short trips on bikes. Holland is a bike transportation advocates dream. In the country side they have side roads next to the other roads especially for bikes. They have their own stop lights and everything. My sister and I went to the local bar with my 19 year old cousin and we rode bikes. There must have been over 100 bikes outside the bar!!! You wouldn’t believe it. Also in Holland and a lot of Europe the drinking age is 16 and as it turns out the bar we went too was full of kids in high school!! I never thought at 21 I would be the oldest customer at a bar but I am pretty sure I was at this one. It was very fun though. The Dutch almost all speak English well and are very friendly and outgoing especially compared to the Germans who tend to be quiet and don’t usually talk to people they don’t know. My dad has 4 cousins who live in Holland and we visited all of them and their kids. We went to the sea one day too and saw a bunch of people biking on the sand on mountain bikes. There were an amazing number of people out walking on the beach for the fact that it was just above freezing. When you go to Holland it is easy to see why they are skinny and we are fat even though their diet isn’t much different from our own except they eat fattier meats and more cheese!!
Sunday we went to was the International Veldrijden (cyclocross in Dutch). It was great we saw Bart Wellens, Richard Groendaal, Thisj Al, Ben Berden and many of my other cyclocross heros duke it out. It was a nice course and it had a bunch of twisty single track in it too. Lots of people came out to watch but they don’t really cheer very much. I felt kind of dumb clapping for everyone and yelling things at even a few of the racers. I think each person there usually only cheers for one person and many of them are in fan clubs for the racers complete with custom jackets. We ate French fries and Mayo at the race too which is a Euro favorite. This was definitely the best organized cyclocross I have ever seen they had specific crossings for the course with volunteers working at each one.

Munich and Germany!

After skiing we drove to Munich and stayed for 2 days. Munich is very cool! The drive there was really beautiful and we passed a ton of people cross country skiing on trails around little villages. I was jealous not to be skiing any more! Our first night in Munich we went to the Hofbrau house which is kind of the hub of Oktoberfest. It was packed even on a Monday night and basically you just walk around until you find a at one of the big tables. They serve beer in 1 liter mugs here and we had a very good time and ordered pigs knuckle to eat for dinner. We stayed at a friend of my dad's apartment and rode the subway everywhere we needed to go. Munich is very crowded and everyone lives in apartment buildings with little parks all over the place. We went to the zoo and the olympic park too which was sweet. In the olympic park they made a big hill out of scrap from WW2 and they covered it in grass lots of people go walk up it for a good view of the city and at the top there were 4 guys on downhill bikes with full face helmets, goggles and the whole set up. A guy got all the pedestrians to clear the way so they could bomb off this little drop off. It was kind of lame but still cool to see how into biking Germans are! On the way home we saw a 15 car pile up on the highway!! I think that is what happens when people drive 120mph on the highway in the rain! Last night people all over the town lit off fireworks at midnight in front of their apartments. It looked really cool fireworks going off absolutely everywhere and today there were burned up fire works all over the townsquare. My dad took me driving around some of the roads by the house and this would be an awesome place to bike!!! Lots of 5k climbs and forest with mtb and hiking trails absolutely everywhere!!! This is a bikers paradise!! I might have to come out here in the summer and ride or something!! Tomorrow we are leaving for Holland to see my second cousins visit Amsterdam and watch a sweet CX race!! I hope everyone had a good new year!!!