Check out some quick bar cam footage from Sunday’s Hoogerheide World Cup pre-ride. Stay tuned for some higher resolution footage!

I’ve finally been able to catch up on my sleep and kick this head cold I picked up after nationals. Thank God.

I need to say thank you to everyone for so many awesome, inspiring messages after nationals. I read every single one of them. Shortly after nationals my phone stopped working and couldn’t accept any more messages, the amount of people who took the time to say congratulations was so incredible!

My trip coming over to Belgium after nationals was a bluuurrrr. Sunday night we celebrated as a team. Considering the circumstances, it felt appropriate. Monday morning I flew back home for about 12 hours where my entire family, extended family and friends all came over and packed my house with basically our entire cycling community from Western Mass. It was so great to share the victory with everyone! We have a great group of people and riders in Western Mass. and many of them have helped me get to this point so it felt great to share the night with them and thank them all before I left for Europe.

During that gathering I had my laundry going and the next morning I re-packed my bags, added a couple things (3 jars of peanut butter and lots of coffffeeee!) I went for a spin and headed back to the airport.

The flight over was all kinds of awesome. I got to share the front of the plane with my mechanic Tom Hopper and TImmy J! That was great, but I was a little restless on the flight. You know how sometimes you’re SO tired that you can’t actually sleep… well that happened.

The travel over to Europe is hard no matter what way you cut the pie. It’s never easy, but this time I couldn’t get my sleeping rhythm on track, waking up at all hours of the night the entire week leading into last weekends world cup in France.

The head cold I picked up wasn’t getting better, what with the lack of sleep. So, I laid super low all week and then on Saturday put together a ride that I felt was enough to blow the cobwebs out of my legs. I opted to stay at our house versus driving to France to recon the course and pick-up our numbers.

Doing that bought me a few extra hours of sleep on Saturday and I got in a nap and put my legs up. When we got to the race on Sunday I started riding at noon and didn’t stop until after the race.

After we arrived, I immediately got my course recon going before the race, pinned my numbers then got right on the trainer to keep it movin’.

After really buckling down and putting in some good effort on Saturday and Sunday I was really happy with 14th and being in the sprint for 12th. And then, for everyone’s entertainment, after the race our camper got stuck! And this big piece of yellow French machinery came and pulled us out!

With everything that happened getting over here and all the craziness that comes with winning nationals, I’m happy with how I rode in France and I’m looking forward to improving on that 14th this weekend in Hoogerheide!

Yesterday Tom, Zach, Trebon, Chris Milliman and I headed down south a bit to ride with our pals from the Cannondale p/b Cyclocrossworld.com team. We got in a nice two hour recovery ride with some good rolling climbs and than had lunch at the Sint-Sixtus abbey, which is home to the most famous beer in the entire world. If you’re ever in the West Flanders you have to roll through. Tomorrow I’ve got a massage planned, a good training session and the rest of our Rapha-Focus team comes into town so it’s going to be ALL hands on deck for these next two weekends.

If you guys get a chance, GO CHECK OUT THESE BEHIND THE BARRIERS IMITATION CONTEST VIDEOS. Ohhhh man. Some of them are classic and funny as hell. One of the videos has ME in 20 years – season 20, episode 11 of behind the barriers in 2029 – after a failed marriage with Katy Perry.

Then “like” the video on Facebook so each of these participants gains a vote for A LOT OF FREE STUFF! Wheelsets, Helmets, Oakley shades, the whole shabangabang… So check some out, “like” them and thank you for coming by and reading!

The Disco Fries Present – Liftoff! [Mixtape] by DiscoFriesMusic ]]> http://www.jpows.com/the-disco-fries-present-liftoff/feed 0