The first week of my off season has already passed, and as I look at the calendar, the first training camps and even the 2010 season are just around the corner.  Sometimes I feel it might be easier if we just continued racing, and that might be the case in the near future.  It wasn’t so long ago that the real racing didn’t begin until almost April.  Now teams and riders are putting more importance in doing well in races in February and even January.

I have really enjoyed my break so far.  I am still putting in a few hours here and there on the road and mountain bike.  My goal is to stay relatively fit this winter to have a great start to next year.  Off the bike, I traveled down to Charleston with Courtney for a few days.  There we caught up with some good friends and even snuck in a nice and increasingly rare night alone.

I had not been in Charleston in many years so I was a little surprised at how much I enjoyed my time there.  It has a very European feel, and I love the fact that we were able to walk everywhere and never had to use the car.  We did a little shopping and even a run one morning along the Battery, but we spent most of our time trying a few of the amazing restaurants Charleston has to offer.  A big group of us went to Lucca one night and dined family style, with endless plates of anitpasti, fresh pastas, meats, cheeses, wine and desserts being brought to the table.  By the end of the night, with very full stomachs, we all agreed that it was some of the best Italian we have ever had.

It was nice to get  away with Courtney for a few nights, but I was happy to get back into my own house and put away my suitcase, even if its not for long.  We are off again next week to Texas for a clay shoot that benefits a local charity and the big NASCAR race the following weekend.  It should be a great time, and we are looking forward to catching up with our family there.

I can’t think of any other race throughout the year that could motivate me so much so late in the season other than the Giro di Lombardia.  Last year I had the best result of my short career at this race and I was hoping to go even better than that in this edition.  I was better prepared both mentally and physically and was more confident than ever before.  The day just didn’t go that well.  I felt good, I just lacked that extra gear and was unable to follow the accelerations.  I have noticed that I have been lacking that extra something since Ireland really.  Maybe it just comes with the long season of racing I have done.

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If I accomplished anything during the race today it was that I came to the realization that I want to live in the Piemonte region at some point during my life.  From the start to the finish we were surrounded by some of the most beautiful scenery that you could possibly ask for. 

The days prior to the race Thomas Lovkvist and I rode on quiet one lane roads and up and over countless hills, some gradual and some way over 20% grades!  We past vineyard after vineyard and village after village and hardly ever came across any traffic, something that I thought would never be possible in northern Italy.  I am not sure if it is the food, wine, culture, sights or scenery, but I am always excited to be in Italy and to race through one of my favorite regions, Piemonte, was even more special.

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The GP Beghelli is the final race in a series of the same name.  Starting with Coppi Bartali in the spring, a few one day races in the late summer and finishing with the Giro dell’ Emilia and GP Beghelli this weekend.  We actually started at the Beghelli factory today just outside of Bologna.  From what I could piece together they make security systems.  Regardless, they are obviously big fans of the cycling world so I support whatever they are making.

The race started in the loading zone area of the factory, yet just ten feet across the other side of the road were rows and rows of grapevines.  I always find it surprising in Europe to see how they somehow blend industrial areas with farmland, using every piece of land to its fullest.

As with every other Italian race I have done, once the flag dropped for the race to begin the attacks started left to right and we constantly hovered in the 50-60kph range.  Today was a little strange in that we never really came out of that range.  A small group did mange to get away, but we kept them on a short leash and that made the race quite difficult in the end.

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We woke up today with some threatening clouds, and that seemed to lower the morale within the team. After all, who really wants to be racing in the rain at this point in the year? I even have my doubts that it would be possible to make it up the San Luca in the rain. We struggle as it is in the dry, throwing our bikes side to side, trying to squeez every once of power we have into the bike. If you take away some traction with the wet roads then we would have some problems.

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I never really seem to sleep well the night before a trip. Thoughts in my head keep me busy all hours of the night, especially when I am going somewhere for a long time.  There is a long process of not only making sure I packed everything, but also shutting down the apartment for the winter, and making sure ill have a few essentials(water to drink) when I return.

The alarm sounded way to quick this morning and the race was on to make it out of Spain and to Bologna, Italy from my last block of racing this year.  Being Friday morning didn’t seem to help things move quickly either. We all but came to a stand still as soon as we reached Barcelona. Bumper to bumper traffic turned the usual one hour drive into close to two hours and gave me little hope of making my flight. The only hope I was holding onto was that the Spanish would once again live up to their lifestyle and be at least fifteen minutes late for everything.  Fortunately for me, they did and my tickets were printed the second they closed the flight. Doesn’t get any closer than that.

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My final stay in Girona for this year has had its ups and downs to say the least.  It took a little longer to expect to recover from the World Championships.  I would basically pass out around 10PM and I would stay that way for a solid ten hours each night.  I guess my body was just not used to seven hours of racing on the bike.

I did start to come around after four or five days of rest, so I started to get in some good days on the bike.  As soon as I was feeling like my old self, I headed towards the hills and ended up on what was one of my favorite loops.  A really nice climb followed by a gravel descent towards a massive reservoir and up another mountain.  Sounds awesome, right?

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There are only a few races each year that carry the same vibe and excitement as the World Championships.  The only other ones that can maybe rival it are the spring classics and the Tour de France.  The media attention, the crowds and the history make it a very special race, and representing your country is always pretty cool.  Even if I am surrounded by riders I have raced against all year, for this one day we come together for a common goal, to do the best we can for the US.

Our team plan was pretty simple, just watch after Tom Danielson, and hope he is good towards the end.  The course was about as close as you can get to racing over big alpine passes, yet never doing a climb over two kilometers, sounds strange but it is true.  We were either going up or down, and there was always a constant pressure on the pedals.  The Italians and the Spanish, being the favorites for the win, did most of the work throughout the day, with the Australians biding their time to perfection, and placing Cadel in the winning move.  There is not much more you can say about the race tactically.  We traveled around the 13K circuit a total of 19 times, with a total of 4600 meters of climbing, and by the end I was shocked at how fast seven hours went.  With the laps so short and technical you had to always be focused so the time just flew by.  The race was also very steady and the distance basically wore everyone down.  All it took was a little nudge and the race blew apart.

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