Suhr the Blur

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Alright time again for another chapter. After returning from Stuttgart, I took a little off season, i.e. three weeks, which was very much needed after the almost 12 month season. There is no doubt that racing as much track and road as I did in that year has seen me grow leaps and bounds. I mean I went into the Gent Six (blog Nov '06) having never raced an international madison. But at the end of Stuttgart, I have raced four international madisons and a half of dozen madisons around the US. So in the past year I have advanced well past the rookie stage, well at least on the track. So after a little time off the bike I was invited back to Trinidad and Tobago to race in the Southern Games. With two weeks to go, I jumped back on the bike. And put in as many miles as I could, a couple of efforts, and then it was off to the races. The Southern Games consisted of two days of racing with 8 total cycling events. The biggest difference about this race is that it was held on a grass t...

I know. I know. I am very OTB (of the back) on this one. I have now been home for almost a week, but I am going to post the scoop now. Better late than never. The trip to Europe for the second leg of my winter six-day season turned out to be a big disappointment. The travel over and the preparation for the race in Stuttgart was perfect. We were all set up to ride at our highest level. The racing started out with a short 25 lap Madison points race. We were in the front of the field scoring points and controlling the race. It came down to the final 2 laps. Ryan was in second position. I was setting up for an exchange with one to go looking back into corner three for Ryan. I heard a crash and when the field came out of corner four there was no Ryan. He was attacking over the guy in first when another rider passed him on the outside and pulled down track before he was past Ryan, chopping Ryan's front wheel out sending him to the ground. Unfortunately, Ryan ended up breaking ...

The last week has been pretty uneventful. Most of the time was spent recovering from the speed "training" we received in Canada. and then running last minute errands for this trip. Now I am trying everything I can think of to try to stay awake until a decent time this evening to go to bed. I arrived in Izegem, Belgium this morning after traveling all yesterday, thus I am trying to force my body onto the new sleep schedule. Luckily, we did not have any problems with our flights or the trains and we arrived smoothly at the USA Cycling house for a short adjusting/training period before we race. We are scheduled to race the U-25 3 day race, which is happening in conjunction with the Stuttgart, Germany Pro Six day race. Our race runs Friday through Sunday. Anyway, this sleep deprived blog is now finished. Hasta manana.

Still holding strong. Results: Burnaby Six Day Photos: www.descantes.com

Ditto. News: Cycling News Coverage

Photo Courtesy www.burnabysixday.com Day two was much better than day one in terms of the shock to my body. Day one was an extreme shock to the system but night two felt closer to a normal night of racing. Unfortunately, the world cup racers are still destroying us on the big gears. We are riding a 88in gear because the U-25 races are restricted to no bigger than this gear. Where as the world cup racers are used to riding between a 90 and 96in gear in the one day world cup madison races. We still believe that six day racing is a different game and thus the legs survive the six consecutive days much better when you start out on the small gear. So we will stick to trying to find our track spin, which is very important when trying to keep up on a smaller gear, as the big gears keep winding it up and taking laps. However the signs of some tired legs are slowly appearing, and we can only hope that by the end we will be able to climb our way back up to an honorable placing. Updates in...

A Vancouver, BC photographer, Greg Descantes, has been taking some awesome photos at the race. Check it out at: www.descantes.com

Courtesy of Canada's Pedal Magazine

Over the last couple of days I have made my way up to Burnaby, Canada. There is a nice 200m indoor track up here that holds a six day race every January. If you have been following the blog long you might remember that we missed this race last year do to an unfortunate turn of events . As for this year it is quite the opposite. We had a nice relaxing trip up here and were well recovered for the race. Now I am recovering from the first night of racing! It was very fast due to the amazing field that has turned up to tune up for their next big races. At least four of the riders have been racing the world cup schedule this year and showed a nice turn of speed tonight. As for us we had a rough time keeping our head above water. This is mostly due to the fact that we haven't raced since October nationals and with a good block of training under our belts we now need to clear out the cobwebs in the legs and get them back into track shape. All in all this will be the best prepar...