Crit International-it's what you make of it

What matters most is the team had a great weekend!!! Mckissick had a great day of sat, Moos and Danilo rode well. Darren and Martin had great tt's. Steve is back getting his legs going again after sitting out for a few months from breaking his collar bone at Qatar. Sayer's is coming around and I'm sure he will be ready to kill it by Georgia. As for me, I'm feeling really strong!!! I'm really happy with my form and feeling better and better everyday. At times I need to remind myself that this is cycling... things happen you can't control. Flats, crashes.. there is always a bright side of things.. it could have been worse. The one thing i can control, where I go from here. I have an opportunity to get some good training in this week in Belgium, with Ian and Sayers. Next week, I'm doing 2 one day races. One in Belgium and one in Holland. I'm looking forward to having a good showing and a good lead in to Georgia in a few weeks.

training ride in france

More pics to come... Taking a while to download for some reason.

Leora and I went out to Santa Rosa for spring break 2008. We had a great week! Thanks to Scott and Jennifer for there hospitality.
I got in some great training with Scott and we caped off the week with the Copperopolis RR with the team. We had a full team, and it was nice to get in a RR before heading out to France. We had a great day.. Taylor got the win and I was 3rd Sayers and Nydam rounded out the top 10 and Brent rode well, working for us in the end.

Thanks to Leora and Jenn for handing out bottles, we couldn't have done it without you.
Tomorrow starts Crit International... looking forward to it.

Northern France

Made it to France!! Crit International starts on sat. I should probably go train. I will update soon.

More Belgium Photos

The best of Jackson Stewart

Moos and his fan club..

West Vlaandren stage 3

Today was pretty crazy!! pouring rain, wind, fast speeds, Cobbles, the Kobbleberg, a true belgian race. I started off the day feeling pretty good and motivated to finish off strong. got in a few moves, but got chased down pretty quickly.. at times I felt like it was a race against myself just trying to stay up front. about 50k in a quick step guy went down and brought a few other guys down with him. all I could do was run into him as he cushened my fall. Finally, got untangled, i was the first guy out of the mess. I started chaseing, when 5 min later another crash happens. After coming to a stop weaving through team cars, and riders on the ground I spent the next 20 min in the cars chaseing back on and came close, but didn't quit make it. that was my day. i think only 50 or 60 guys finished today!! One of those days. This week was a great experience, for my first time racing in Belgium. I learned a ton doing these kind of races. It's only going to make me a better rider!!

Training day in Roeselare, Bel

It was nice taking it easy today after yesterday.. we went out for an easy 2 hrs with a stop at a local pub for some coffee. The pub was filled with people drinking beer at 11 am. nice!
Friday starts West Vlaandereen 3 days.. should make for some good hard racing. Looking forward to it!

Belgium

GP samyn went pretty well considering it was my first race in belgium... 120 miles, wind, fast pace. tight roads.. It was great!!! The team was pretty aggressive, getting in ever move, Ian was off for a while caught in between the field and 2 guys..
Once we hit the circuits, we had 80 k left in the race. I felt great until about 1k to go and got dropped of the back of the front group in this cross wind section... Bummer) I am happy with helping Martin and Danilo in the final few laps moving them in position...
I'm bummed about the finish, but i think for my first race in Belgium it was a good start.. now that i have a hard race under my belt, I think my form will continue to get better starting friday when West Vlanereen starts.... 3 days of about 170 k per day.
until next time...