Suhr the Blur

As I stressed out this morning about how we were going to get out of the freakin' Third Blizzard of '06, my madison partner, Ryan Luttrell, ended up falling off his bike on the way to the grocery store and getting a stage two concussion. Therefore, he will be unable to race next week and we will not be traveling to Vancouver for the Six, thus my off season starts today. However as I am disappointed that we will not be able to try our legs against those Canadians' or experience New Years outside of CO, I am excited at getting the off season out of the way while the endless amount of snow melts off all the streets.

As the holidays wind down, and I finally recover from my college experience, I am looking forward to a long road trip and to racing some of the best riders of Canada and North America at the Burnaby Six. I will be heading out on the 30th, stopping by Portland to spend New Years with one of my friends from high school and college, and then arriving in B.C. on the 1st. I am really excited to relax on the open road and experience a New Years outside of CO. I will try to bring everyone the events of the trip as they unfold, internet permitting. The organizers, a team effort I believe, have already been very accommodating as we are set up with host housing. I can't wait to see the North West and Southern B.C. Everyone keeps telling me it is amazing. The Dome of the Drome From Space (Thank you Google!) Burnaby Velodrome Homepage

24+ inches of snow in 24 hours + done with finals + 4 crazy skiing roommates = I got to be the first one off the house! Merry Christmas!

If you haven't heard the title sponsor of my Spike Pro Cycling Team, BioTest Laboratories has backed out of their three year commitment of $300,000 per year, after just one year. This leaves 10 riders with a full line of equipment sponsors but no monetary sponsor, which eliminates all travel plans thus ending publicity and forcing the rest of the equipment sponsors to back out if this becomes reality in 14 days. Therefore, if anyone that reads this blog knows of a business that would like a title sponsorship, or an individual that would like to support the Olympic Track Sprint Team hopefuls for the '08 games, then please send an email to codyracing at aol dot com. Full Story

I am finally feeling recovered and getting back into the swing of things in college. Only two weeks left until I will be finished with my undergrad in Physics, and it feels great to see the end in sight. I uploaded some videos of the Pros racing at the Ghent Six. This first one is of the top three teams taking a lap on the field. You can see how precise their riding is, always trying to stay at the bottom of the track as to ride the shortest distance each lap, and the way they weave their way through the other riders on relief. This second video is of another event that is part of the racing each night. It is called a Derny race and consists of six riders each being paced by a motorbike. For more video from the Ghent Six go here: Google Video Search

Click the title for a good story about an ESPN reporter trying to find her ticket to the Olympics, through any sport. The first part is how it feels to ride a track for the first time.

The last two days have been sobering to say the least. After not making the finals in the U25 race we went back the following night to watch the racing. Just after midnight in the second madison of the pro’s race, rider Isaac Galvez of the current world champion madison team was tragically killed in a freak accident. He passed of internal injuries after running full speed into the guardrail with his chest. It has been exactly 50 years since another rider was killed in a Six. The rest of the riders were very saddened by the loss of one of their family and the Six was cut short with no racing on Sunday. For the full story go to: Cycling News Story As for our last race, we put up a hard fight; gaining a lap to the team we needed to beat but then having them pull it back after we were the only ones working to keep pace on the front of the field. Then with a quarter of the race left, I put in one final attack, only to make it about a quarter lap up before crashing on my own. We are ...

It has been a hard three days of racing thus far. We feel that we have been riding conservatively since we are still getting used to riding at this tempo and with this caliber of riders. But I have a feeling this is going to pay off tonight. The top 6 teams in each heat are going to the final two days of racing and we are currently in 7th. However, last night we saw two teams loose their legs and both lost a lap. Now there are only 5 teams on our lap and two supper star teams ahead on laps. So tonight we are going to go throttle the race and see who is next to go. Ryan, my partner, feels like he is getting his legs under him, since we have been mostly on the road for the last two months it has taken some time to get the track speed back, but he feels it is there now. I am feeling good, ready to race for everything. We came here to make the final and tonight we will prove it. Below are some pictures of the start of the first night of racing, just to give you a little idea of wh...

Sorry I have been a bit out of touch on the race updates but we just found out yesterday that the hotel has internet, well one cord that ten teams get to share. But it is good so here comes some updates! Click on the title for the story.

This afternoon we headed down to the 6-day track in the middle of Gent, Belgium. Bernard plugged it into his GPS and 30 minutes later we were there. We arrived at the velodrome right as they were finishing painting the last signs on the track. Since it seemed like we were the only ones there, I was not sure if we were going to get to ride, but after about 20 minutes they said it was fine to ride. We were more than ready and ended up being one of only three teams on the track. It was very nice to get used to the track without any traffic and get in the exact work we were planning on. Ryan and I got in some throws with our friends from PA and with one of the top Pro Madison teams, riding for Capri Sun this week. After getting the legs opened up and putting in some decent work, I tried out the race wheels. Everything felt good and I sure could feel a difference between the race 404's and the Training/track specific overbuilt 404 Zipps just sent to us. They will be great to tr...

Today is a special day for all because it is pouring out. It has rained every night that we have been here and the last to days it has rained during the day, so we will be on the rollers for a nice spin this morning just like yesterday. Later today we are going to the 6-day track to get some training in. I am very excited! The track is only open for the 6-day every year so we are expecting it to be very busy. I will write on the track tomorrow but just as a teaser, it is a 167m track with I think 49degree turns, but I will have to check on that. We are finally on a Belgium sleep schedule, which is just in time to have to change to the 6-day sleep schedule. But that shouldn’t be too hard since it is just staying up later and sleeping in. The Cycling Center run by Bernard Moerman and Ann Dusauchoit has been a wonderful way to be introduced to Belgium and a nice place to start off my first trip to Europe. Before arriving here, two of my roommates gave me some insight to the center...

Today was a pretty eventful day overall. Woke up at 7am, and ate a wonderful breakfast made by Ann, Bernard’s wife, consisting of eggs & bacon, granola & yogurt. Then at 8:15 we were off to the Eddy Merckx Track in Ghent. It is in a national sports facility with 2000m rowing lake among other venues. The track has been redone in the last two years making it indoors and doing overall improvements on it. It was very nice indeed. We ended up riding during the kids program so we were staying above the blue line, riding different pace-lines for about an hour. It felt amazing to be on an indoor track again, after freezing our butts of in the springs the last couple of weeks and having some stressful midterms at the beginning of this week. Riding the track is very meditating especially when you are tapering for a big event, just spinning the legs and riding in circles. Just a side note, one training session a couple of weeks ago in the springs was in the low 40’s with a bit of...

Wow this trip to Belgium is already off to a bang. Since I am a wonderful procrastinator I have slept 6 of the last 49 hours, for my normal sleep schedule this would be more like 18 of 48 or more. But since I had a paper due the same day I was flying over here, I decided to pull an all-nighter before catching my flights. So getting that paper done at 7 am and catching a bus to DIA at 7:30, then flying to DC, and then on to Belgium arriving this morning at 8:30am, this has been quite a ride. Luckily all the travels went well. Then after we got here, Bernard from the Cycling Center, where we are staying for the first four days before we go to the race hotel, picked us up from the airport. Then the rest of the day was filled with eating and riding a bit. In summary I have been doing things for the last 49 hours with a two long naps on the planes. I guess this is kind of what it would be like for med students fulfilling their residency. But I have to say; I have not actually felt ti...

Here is a link to some photos of going to the Ghent 6-day as a spectator. They just make me really excited! I can't wait! Four days until I leave!

Wow, being 22 and getting ready to graduate in December, having a long term goal that will not support you fully nor work with a full time job is all draining on the sprit and hard to imagine how it will all work out. But I guess this is what is part of the sacrifice that comes with having a dream. I guess this should be the best part of life, not being tied down with a family or stuck in a job because of a family, just a time to enjoy all the opportunities that one can dream of. Boy I only wish I could relax and enjoy the ride.

Provided by the very talented Mark Legg. Enjoy.

Over the last five years of training to become a professional cyclist I have always had an offseason around September and October.  But now that I am a Pro cyclist and have decided to focus on track cycling there will be no "off-season" until maybe Feb.  Even that is a huge MAYBE?!?   How could this happen?, you ask. Well there is a little know part of cycling called Six-Day racing.  This used to be the most popular sport in America around the turn of the Century, even madison Square Gardens was built for velodrome racing.  But now since Americans are so in love with watching NasCars fly around a track at Mach 1 until a big ass American wreck occurs and then we can all shit our pants at the same moment and hope that no one is unjured in these gas guzzeling balls of steal.  Anyway, in short not many people like seeing men push the limits of human conditioning at the "slow" pace of cycling. Luckily in Europe the sport is still flurishing.  Each Six-Day the tracks are ...

Google does it again! By allowing plus addressing in gmail accounts, Google gives you a way to keep track of who is selling your email address! Read how to use it at the link.

I would love to have one of his drawings!

That is a pretty interesting thought and probably no doubt has some effect on obesity in America. Go multi-billion dollar companies producing sugar water.

is this man representing us?

How unfortunate it is to have no spaces in URL's.

Check out the team’s new has a website: www.spikeprofessionalcyclingteam.com Also register for a $7000 road bike at www.spikebike.com and tell all your friends!

Since I am not one to play catch up this will only be a quick recap of the first week of our four week trip. There will be much better coverage of the events as they unfold for the rest of the season. After driving for 26 hours straight through, from Colorado Springs, CO to Trexlertown, Pa, Kevin “Pit Bull” Selker. Ryan “Frankenstein” Luttrell, Mike “Toolbox” Hall, and I arrived for our first weekend of racing in the National Track Calendar for the 2006 Season. Our races were scheduled for Saturday June 3 and the following Friday June 10th. Not much to speak of. We are still getting our track legs under us, and the fields where stacked with European racers, which made for very fast racing. And unfortunately Ryan and I rode quite possible the toughest Madison of our lives simply because of our lack of positioning through the entire race. We ended up racing from the back and riding above the blue line for most of the race meaning that we ended up riding about 33% farther than the...

So after sitting in Topton, Pa for the last week, I decided that I needed to start a blog for a couple of reasons. First off, I am sure everyone is wondering how the racing is going. Secondly, I have managed to find quite a few interesting things on the internet in the past week. Maybe because I have searched the internet for almost 30 hours this week, since it is the only thing to entertain oneself in this town of less than 2000 people. And lastly because of the amount of free time I have found myself with while traveling as a rider on the SPiKE Professional Cycling Team. Unfortunately we do not currently have a website but I am sure they are working on that for next season. I will post in the coming weeks more about the team. Therefore welcome to my little place on the web and a start of my new hobby while I travel, adn please bare with me as it will take a few days for this thing to get up an running, but I have many ideas to make this not just your boring cycling web blog.