Koppenberg 2009?

Logan emailed these pictures out of the Koppenberg climb that we're supposed to be racing up about 24 hours from right now!

Looks like it'll be an interesting race, but it should be fun. I'm thinking MTB shoes and pedals for sure, possibly full on cross bike. I guess I'll have to make a call when we get there tomorrow.

Should be a good one to watch, so if you aren't doing anything tomorrow afternoon, happen to find yourself in the Boulder area, and have a sick desire to see people suffering miserably, you should swing by.

Thanks for checking in.

Finally caught up to my 2009 racing age.

Quick run-down on the weekend.

- Turned 25 on Friday.

- Rode like crap in Grand Junction.

That's all.

This weekend is Koppenberg, usually it's a good time.

Thanks for checking in.

CU Research Park Criterium.

Not sure how many races I've done at research park now, maybe 7 or so... The look on my face pretty much sums up todays effort. As always it's a fast course, but for the first time it was run as a Pro, 1 race which definitely made it safer, but I think also made it harder. At one point it was so strung out and there were so many splits that I found myself in the 4th group on the road. Managed to claw our way back to the main field, but I couldn't get into position to help anyone out in the field sprint, so with 1/2 a lap to go I let myself drift and stay out of everyone's way.

Good training, fast racing, tomorrow is another day here in Greeley. Last time I did this race I was 3rd. We'll see how tomorrow goes. As for tonight... Karma and I had a big day and we're off to sleep.

Thanks for checking in.

The gossip column. It's back, but this time... it's the TRUTH.

#1 Phil Zajicek recently won the Metro State Roadrunner TT in Morrison CO with a broken wrist. Little known fact... his cast was put on in the wind tunnel to ensure it's aerodynamic qualities. The thing is actually faster in the crosswinds like a Sub 9. Aerodynamic guru Steve Hed was called in to make sure the setting was done correctly in the wind tunnel, and after Sunday's TT effort he was quoted as saying, "This thing is so fast, probably cut 1.16 second off Phil's time." Phil's time without the cast - 19:51, approximately one second slower than Corey Carlson.

#2 A certain local professional cyclist has recently gotten SRM to program an alarm into his power meter so a "beeping noise" goes off when a certain wattage is achieved. This was done to ensure he doesn't break any more bones by throwing down too hard.

#3 Another aerodynamic tidbit. Dan Porter spent a few hours in the wind tunnel this winter and found that although his larger than normal calves (cows) can produce a ton of power, and the mere sight of them can scare people off his wheel, they are in fact quite an aerodynamic obstruction. To smoothen things up, Steve Hed was once again called in, and recommended Dan mount a small instrument to his handlebars that acts like the dimples on a golf ball, creating a stream of ultra-turbulent air that allows Dan's cow to slip through the surrounding air without increasing his aerodynamic drag. The instrument is pointed out by the arrow below, the turbulent air-stream is also visible. Dan claims it's for some crazy new web-developing-business venture he's into. Likely story.



#4 Floyd Landis was innocent. I just read his book, trust me.

#5 Tyler probably was too.

#6 Now that the elderly population of women in Boulder have stopped paying attention to him, a certain Mr. Ryan Hamity has decided to start racing bikes again to see if he can catch the eyes of the over 35 population again.

That's all for now, there is sure to be more juicy TRUE gossip as the year goes on.
Thanks for checking in.

Another weekend of racing in the books.

DU hosted their home race at City Park on Saturday. The collegiate races went well with some break-out performances by our Men's C riders, as well as some great performances by our women, as well as our Men's A riders.

The Open races went smoothly as well, and I got to race in the Pro, 1,2 field. We got two riders into the early break of 5, one of them came out of it, but the break looked like it was going to make it.



We rode pretty defensively in the group, which got really boring. With 15 minutes to go things got fiesty and I had the chance to sneak off with one other guy. Allen Krughblog and another guy came up to us and Krugher-blogger when right through us, so I had a lap to sit on.



We caught him with a few laps to go, worked together to stay away from the group, and sprinted out for 5th. Allen took the hot line through the last roundabout and easily took the sprint, so he was 5th, I ended up 7th, and our teammate Caley Fretz was 2nd in the actual sprint. Good day for team Rio.



Yesterday was the Metro State TT. Once again DU had some good performances, highlighted by a 3rd place in our Men's A Team Time Trial, only 15 seconds off the win.

I raced later in the afternoon, took almost a minute off my time from 2 years ago, but still managed to get beaten by over a 1.15 by Phil Z. Turns out he's fast even with a broken wrist. In the end I was happy to feel good and powerful on my TT bike, so I guess I'll have to keep riding it. Tito tells me I have to win the State TT this year to defend his win from last year. We'll see.

Racing again.

This weekend marked the first races of 2009 for me and a lot of people along the front range of Colorado. Saturday was the 341st annual CSU Oval Criterium. "The Oval" is one of Colorado's classic crit courses with a half mile oval linked with 6, 90 degree, back to back to back to back to back to back corners. It's an absolutely great course by my standards, and usually a good turnout, this year being no exception. A lot of the local heavy hitters were there, including almost the entire Rio Grande team.

I thought we rode really well as a team, had a guy in the break, and a guy in a group going across when with 5 laps to go, I flatted right in the apex of a right hand corner. My bike got a little sideways, but I kept it upright after a little brush with the curb.

My teammate Dan Porter was riding with a handlebar mounted camera and happened to be right on my wheel when it happened. You can check the video on the YouTube. The drift isn't real dramatic in the video, but if you look closely you can see it get a little hairy right around 8.00 into the video.

Sunday was the Colorado College crit here in Colorado Springs. I can't tell you how nice it is to hop on your bike and ride to a course within a mile or two. The course is a stark difference from The Oval, but a great course nonetheless. A much smaller turnout, added to a course with less recovery, and a little too aggressive attitude on my part, led to an all around tough day for me. On the bright side, I felt decent, got some great efforts in, and had a little fun at different points during the race.

I guess that's all for now, thanks for checking in. Maybe I'll update this a little more often now that we're racing.

Also, I'm on twitter now, so lame. twitter.com/coreycrlsn

One more thing, a couple years ago I did a mean thing to Logan Garey and really made him hurt. Read all about it.

Running.

I did the Pueblo Rock Canyon Half Marathon last weekend as an official end to my off season. I had prepared a little for it, did a 10 mile run once, and then got sick the week before, traveled and didn't run at all.

The race went alright, I had been shooting for 1:40, but ended up a few minutes slower at 1:43.03. I decided that day to throw my running shoes away and never run another stride in my life. But....
After finding this picture, that look on my face makes me miss running and I just can't wait to get back out there. False, I will not be running any time soon.

Base started this week, I'm already sick of the rollers, but had a great ride outside and it looks like there will be more of the same today. I just need to remember my iPod this time.

I got hooked on stalking people via "Twitter" on Tuesday as a means of postponing trainer time. I almost started my own account, but then realized, no one really cares what I'm doing every few minutes, otherwise they might read this pile of garbage. To add to that, I don't have a smartphone anymore, so how lame would that be? Anyway, I'm just glad that I can check up on my good buddy Lance and see his every move.

I think that's all, thanks for checking in.

Dog Photos.

I did a cross race last weekend. The course had 3 sets of barriers, two doubles and a triple. I could hop both the doubles, so it made for a fairly fun course aside from the loooongg bumpy flat parts. I ended up with a huge blister on my thumb because the course was sooo rough. Anyway, I'm doing another one on Sunday in Boulder.

If you're not doing anything Saturday you should head out to Red Rocks for the Red Bull Soap Box Race. As I'm sure many of you know, my friend Justin heads up the defending team "The Good, The Bad, and The Nerdy. The race should be a lot of fun, hopefully the nerds will pull it off again. Make sure to cheer for the #2 Pencil.

Now, for the good part.

Karma's new favorite ale.

We heard a loud noise in the bathroom and this is what later emerged.

I found Karma taking a nap the other day in the backyard.

Thanks for checking in, hope to see you at the races this weekend.

Hey Everyone.

I'm back, at least for now. I tried to update a while ago, but it didn't work, I lost interest, and that's that.

I won't piece together my past year for any of you, but I'll catch you up quickly. I raced this summer and I sucked. I moved to Colorado Springs, which doesn't suck nearly as bad as I thought it would. I got a new job at a different mexican restaurant.

Also Jami and I got a dog. Her name is Karma and she's totally awesome.


I haven't gotten to do a cross race yet this year, but I plan on changing all that on Sunday in Fort Collins. I'm pretty excited to get out and do the race, although I'm positive I'm going to get throttled. Oh well.

On a final note, I think I'll be racing with The Rio Grande team again next year. There were doubts about what was happening with the team, but it looks like we'll be around next year, probably on just a local level though.

I still suck, but maybe not for long.

Any of you who have been following my racing or results from this year know that so far this season I've pretty much sucked. I've been battling some crappy form, which makes my lack of motivation even worse, but the last couple weeks I've felt things finally coming around a little. I've gotten in a couple of really good training rides, and actually felt OK in a race or two.

I've been planning all year on going to The Cascade Cycling Classic this coming week, but over the last month it's become clear that I wouldn't be making the 6 man team that Rio Grande is sending. I considered going and paying my own way, but that would have meant buying a return ticket to get home as the team is going on to BC Superweek and I don't have a passport and didn't realize I needed one to go to Canada until it was too late. Since traveling isn't happening, I'll be sticking around Colorado to represent the team at some local crits, then heading home to SoDak for a week or so to see some family and get some stuff for my new house.

Back to the original focus of this, I'm starting to feel a little bit more like myself on the bike lately. Last week at Dead Dog I was able to ride at the front in the crit, be a little aggressive, and contribute (in my opinion) to the team absolutely dominating the race. As a team, we won 4 of the 5 primes, I got one, as well as winning the race with an outstanding effort by Logan Garey and putting 4 riders in the top 7.


Hopefully this weekend will be more of the same for me, although I'll have to get back to my roots of riding crits without teammates and being a little smarter and more tactical than I have been in the past few races. Wish me luck, or come out to Niwot and make some noise on Sunday.

Thanks for checking in.

More Pictures.

Here are some camera phone pictures of the last couple weekends.  I need to start carrying my camera with me more often I guess.

Here is Dan Porters calf (cow) implant.

Sunday after the Rist Canyone Hill Climb, the team and some others continued riding up to Glen Haven.  Here is Dan, the proud owner of those calves.

An unfortunate incident with some sharp rocks and poor communication occurred and ended with a couple flat tires.

Joe decided he needed his race number taken off immediately.  The flat changing had to be put on hold until he was officially no longer a racer.  Joe would go on to flat again, crack at least three separate times, then bonk, I supposebly he finished the ride with a full chamois.

Tito Taylor took time out of his busy pointing and laughing schedule to change a tire.  He won up the switchbacks where we discovered the crew from Cycle America.  They were probably some of the coolest people in the world at that point as the generously offered us free water, Gatorade, and all the brownies we could eat.

It was a good day, thanks for checking in.

Stolen Photo.

I snaked this photo from another blog.


That's me on the front, followed by some people, most notably, my teammates. The first Rio rider behind me is, Allen "I don't understand Television," "Labrador Recreeper," "Squinty eyed, messed up hair that looks like I don't care" Krughoff. Behind him is Logan "poops in his hand" Garry, then Dan "My cows rub on my seat tube" Porter.

The photo is from the Rist Canyon Road Race where I was active early, then sucked horribly. I think the team made it's presence known, as the photo shows.

Thanks for checking in.

New House.

We don't move in until July 15th, but here are a few pictures of the outside.


That's our house on the left, just across the street from it is Boulder Park.




That's Memorial Medical Center on the right hand side of the picture. Jami will be able to walk a half a block to work.

Mt. Hood is over... For me.

Since I last updated, we did a circuit race around about a 20 mile loop, half uphill, then half downhill. We did 4.5 laps, which meant 5 climbs and 4 descents. It started off pretty aggro, but the break went about 3/4 of the way up the first time, so we got to chill out over the top and the next couple laps as Bissell just rode the front setting tempo. The 4th time up I noticed I was slipping dangerously close to the back, and then it kicked up a little bit about 10k from the top and the next thing I knew I was in the caravan. I put on a little chase, and watched the Bob's guy in front of me hang on to a bottle from his car and get dragged away from me up the road. I rode an easy tempo for a while then picked it up to make sure I didn't get time cut.

The Time Trial the next day was by far the coolest TT course I've ever done. I didn't pre-ride it, and since a smoking fast TT would have kept me in last place GC, I decided to take it easy and still maintain my last place.

Yesterday was the Wy,East Road Race. It was 100 miles with like 39,000,000 ft of climbing. It started out so fast. For those of you who haven't been following the racing out here, Rory Sutherland from Health Net took the leaders jersey after the TT, so it was there responsibility to ride the front. I was hoping a break would go early and we could just chill out for a while but instead, groups of like 30-40 kept going away, and Health Net would string it out single file to bring the break back, but since they were so big it seemed like it took forever for them to come back, then another huge move would go and we'd get strung out again.

Meanwhile it's 90 degrees and we're going over roller after roller. I just kept telling myself to hang on over one more roller and then it would slow up, but it never did. Even through the feed zone it stayed single file, so of course I got caught out in the 3rd group on the road. I helped chase back to the 2nd group, but they were still chasing the first group and I came off just as the caught the 1st group. I chased as hard as I could through the caravan because I knew there was no riding the next 60 miles alone. I made it up to like the #2 car in the caravan, but then I blew up for real, and limped it for a few more miles in a little grupetto before I hopped in a car.

Now the race is over for me, the other guys get to do a 75 minute crit in downtown Hood River this afternoon. It's on a .4 mile course with a 180 degree corner, so it sounds interesting. I'll just be hanging out, getting ready to put my driving shoes on since I'm sure I'll be the one who gets to drive first.

That's all I've got right now, Hood River has been awesome, the courses have been really cool, but I can't say I've enjoyed racing on them that much! Hopefully I'll come out of this week with a little bit of form that I can use later this summer. Thanks for checking in.

I kinda finished again today.

Today was the Mt. Tabor Criterium in Portland. The race was run on an extinct volcano just outside of downtown Portland. The course basically went up one side of the volcano, then wound around the other and back up. Not a flat meter of road, with a 90 degree turn that the group slowed and stopped in every lap, followed by a fast narrow descent, and 135 feet of elevation gain per lap.

I of course started in the back and tried to move up until we came to a dead stop in the corner at the top of the climb. The group strung out right out of the corner, so it was 53x11 the whole way down, with a tiny break at the bottom before the climb through the finish started. Then we repeated that again and again. Sometimes there was more of a break at the bottom, and other times it stayed single file up the climb.

In order to not get time cut you had to last at least 30 of the 90 minutes of the race. I lasted 60 before the kid in front of me let a gap open up and I couldn't close it, and that ended my race. As soon as you were off the back the group rode away sooooo fast it wasn't funny.

I'm not happy with the result, but I get to race again tomorrow, so we'll see how it goes. 80 some miles on what looks to be a horrific circuit.

That's it for tonight. No new gossip. Thanks for checking in.

I finally finshed a race.

It's been a while since I've finished a race, but I did it tonight.

I'm currently in Hood River, OR, here for the Mt. Hood Cycling Classic. Tonight was the 1.7 mile prologue in downtown Portland. It was an out and back on a basically straight road right along the Columbia River. I finished in 3.06, good enough for a hundred and somethingth place. The winning time was 2.45, so I was a good ways off, but on a brighter note, the winning women's time was 3.08, so I would have dominated that race.

Tomorrow is a 90 minute crit in Portland, then a couple climbing road races as well as a long hilly time trial and another crit on Sunday to end the week.

I haven't updated in a while because racing has sucked. I crashed out of Gila on the first day, so I did support the rest of the week. Last weekend was collegiate nationals, highlighted by the guys getting third in the Team Time Trial, and Katie Ronsse's 9th and 7th in the Road Race and Crit. My personal highlight for the weekend happened Friday afternoon after the TTT. Taylor Shelden and I were running our bikes over to Jose Supersteinez's house so the van could take them out here to Hood River. Someone turned out a few cars in front of Taylor who was driving Amy Secor's car in front of me. Taylor stopped, I stopped, but the genius behind me didn't. He rear-ended me, and pushed my car into Taylor in front of me.

My car got a little crunched on both ends, rear bumper, trunk lid, front bumper, grill, front right fender, and hood. Amy's car just got the rear bumper messed up. I've talked to a few insurance people already, so hopefully it'll all get cleared up soon.

I think that's all the news I have for right now. We have awesome host housing which is a huge relief since "Crazy Jack" in Silver City was interesting to say the least. I'll try to keep this updated with results while we're out here, but we'll see how the week goes on.

In other news, if any of you read the comments on this, you may have heard some more gossip, for those of you who don't...

- Supposebly, Contador crashed out Zabriskie at the Giro because he was upset about Slipstreams inclusion at the Tour de France.

- Colin Don has nightmares about waking up, looking in the mirror, and finding a that he has an unfashionable haircut.

- Team Jelly Belly is planning to bring up a new rider from their "farm team" (Waste Management), as soon as they are allowed to adjust their roster. There are rumblings around the rumor mill that the new rider may be none other than Boulder's own Keil Reijnen. But the question is, who will be replaced? Perhaps a rider who needs time for their skeleton to catch up to their musculature.

- Team Tecos, which recently won The Vuelta de Bisbee, and The Tour of the Gila is said to only show up at races stateside when they know that USADA will not be there. According to secret sources, USADA made a surprise appearance in Pinos Altos after the final stage of Gila. Keep your ears peeled for any news on that front.

- Ryan Hamity had a life-changing experience as a young child at the zoo. He witnessed a gorilla vomiting into it's own hand, and later devouring it's vomit completely. Ryan immediately got a bunch of piercings and is now only attracted to women over the age of 35.

I think I'm out of gossip, please leave any good juicy info in the comments section, or feel free to shoot me and email. If it's good, I'll definitely add it to the list.

Also, I started reading Under the Banner of Heaven. It's really good, pretty disturbing, but interesting. I kind of want to read The Book of Mormon now because it sounds hilarious.

That's all for now. Thanks for checking in.

The gossip column.

I was in the car yesterday and I was told that to liven things up around the web log, I could just start posting gossip, mostly lies, but possibly some truth.

- I won't name any names, but a close friend of mine, knows a guy that can honestly say some un-named pros took drugs to get faster.

- Saunier-Duvall was probably paid to not start TDG because it was easier than battling Rock Racing in court.

- There are certain riders in this sport that don't stand a chance of getting a decent result, or finishing a race this year.

- A certain pro team got in trouble for painting some of their old team Orbea's so they looked like the new team GT's, I guess Wal-mart race bikes aren't appreciated by that race organization. Although I would like to add that there are certain riders on that team who are probably too fast to be racing in the states. I actually heard that one guys skeleton was giving up because his muscles are just so damn strong.

- Ryan Hamity had hair transplanted from the top of his head to his joules in order to look more like Alex Candelario and Joe Saperstein (always wearing a hat????) all at the same time.

- This just in from a Euro Correspondent, Kazakhstan is threatening to cut off France's oil and energy supplies following Astana's exclusion from the TDF.

- A certain U23 world champion apparently borrowed and wrecked his team director's car without permission one night, but won the rainbow jersey the next day before he could get in trouble for the car.

- Allen Krughblog.photodump@yourcycling.com/edu-org apparently got dumped this week because he ate his date's entire meal while she was in the bathroom. Sorry Allen.

That's all for now, hopefully I'll get some more juicy stuff later. Feel free to leave more interesting "facts" in the comments.

I suck at blogging.

And I'm ok with that.

I keep getting pushed and prodded by people telling me that I need to update this web log.  Well I haven't.  I haven't written on here because I haven't felt compelled to share anything happening in my own weird little world.  I'm tired of reading about what people ate for breakfast, what they wore on their ride, etc... there is a lot of boring stuff posted everyday on the interweb and I happen to live a pretty mundane life myself.  I figured I'd just do my part to offset the boredom being written on the Double You Double You Double You.com by keeping my boring life to myself.

Moving on.

Training been going, not great, not bad, just going.  I've been riding my new (old) singlespeed mountain bike at least once a week, and that has been awesome.  I've missed mountain biking a lot the past couple years, so I'm making a concerted effort to ride it at least once a week.  Anyone up for tuesday mountain bike rides? I am.

A couple weeks ago I did a road race in Grand Junction.  I got second.  There were four starters. I got 2nd place, finished in the top half, and was last placed finisher.  Hopefully that's the only time in my career that I finish a race with stats like that.  

This past weekend there were collegiate races in Golden.  Colorado School of Mines hosted an individual time trial up Lookout Mountain, then a circuit/crit on Sunday.  The DU team rode well, then we went for pancakes at Ben Quinn's house.  After a full belly of pancakes I went and did my first power test of the year up the Lookout course.  My numbers were right where I wanted them to be, but I'm still a little chunky so my time wasn't too blazing fast.

Sunday's circuit played out the way most collegiate crits have this year.  Small break with no organization behind it.  Steve Forbes of the DU team took the chase upon his own shoulders and drove the chase group averaging 300 watts for the hour long effort.  Not bad for a little 140 pounder.

After the race I cruised to Boulder for the Koppenberg Circuit Race.  The race went well, I got into a little chase group just toward the end of the third lap, and ended up 7th.

This weekend I'm headed to Utah for more collegiate stuff, not sure if I'll get any racing in, but hopefully I can figure something out at least one of the days.  Thanks for checking in, sorry for the lack of interesting content.  

Are there any pictures of Koppenberg out there?

DU Crit, March 9th @ City Park

Be There.


Download the color version here.

In other unexciting news.

The next person to visit this site will be our 20,000th guest and will receive nothing as a prize. 20,000 hits seems like a lot, but it's been pretty spread out, and I'm almost sure that Scott Wenzel has accounted for at least 12,593 of them.

Thanks for checking in, time to go ride back down to my car in The Springs. Good thing it snowed last night.