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14 Days and Counting
Written by Steven Cozza
Wednesday, 24 August 2005
Yesterday the 23rd of August we raced in the Zottegem Road Race which was ranked as a 1.1. This means that it was a pro category race and that only pro teams or national teams could take part. I was totally stoked to be doing this race with 5 other pro tour teams and many smaller pro teams. Most of the guys we were racing against had been guys I had watched on TV and always looked up to. It was really cool because Freddie Rodriguez was in the race and I know him pretty well from when I raced as a junior on Team Swift so I was able to talk to him a bit and that made me a bit more comfortable and feel more at home. He had just flown back over from California after having a child with his wife so that was some pretty cool news to hear about. It just amazes me how guys like Freddie can do what they do. Being a leader of a completely foreign team and make it the way they do. It sure takes guts and courage, that is for sure because the racing is definitely not easy over here both mentally and physically. Going into this race I was a little bit more nervous than usual mostly because of all the big names in the race. I had never raced along side guys like Peter Van Petagem or VDB and so on. The race was only 190 kilometers so I knew I could handle the distance just fine. The speed at which these guys go is just amazing. It isn’t so hard to hang in the race and finish but it is totally hard to move up or go with breaks. You really only do have 3 big matches in a race like this so you have to make sure to save them for the right moment. On one of the up hill 1.5 kilometer short climbs, there was a switch back so half of the field was taking the turn sharp up the steep part and the other half wide. I decided to follow up the steep part that included having to hop up a little cement lip a little less higher than a curb. I miss calculated and landed right on the angled part of it washing out my front wheel and causing me to crash. It wasn’t a big deal because I was traveling at such slow speeds at the time but I definitely needed a bike change because my seat broke from the impact. I got the bike change and chased back on taking my time, catching my breath, going from car to car in the Caravan. Passing all the big name cars was quite exciting actually. If only they could notice me and wave a contract out the window (ha ha). All it takes really is one good ride in a race like this and you could have yourself a contract for the next year. I kept this in my mind the whole time and it made the suffering that much easier for me. I found the race to be quite doable and not as hard as I imagined it to be. We covered the grueling rain soaked 190 kilometer route in a smashing four hours and twenty minutes. That has got to be the fastest I have ever done that distance that's for sure. After the race brought back a four-man break that had been away for most of the day, the Peloton was flying into a field sprint. At this point, the field was almost half the size. Going into the last turn before the finish, I was in a really bad position near the back but there was a crash at the front so from this, I was able to zoom up the right side squeezing in-between grounded riders moving up about 50 spots while others had to stop and get off their bike to walk through the carnage. I crossed the finish line in about 52 places which wasn’t so bad for me. The trick to placing good on a course like this or even being able to help out a teammate who could of placed good was to stay near the front and to go into that last turn in the top 15. Just moving up at the finishing speeds was a battle for me and I could merely just about hang out on the wheel I was on when it came to about 16 kilometers to go. Well what a day this was. This race just built my confidence that much higher - telling me I can do it. I see these races being winnable in the near future. Now, I am off tomorrow to a stage race in France called Port Ocean. I did this race last year so it will be nice going back and seeing what I can throw down a year later.
More soon,
Steven
Mud in the Eyes, Lungs and Ears
Written by Steven Cozza
Friday, 12 August 2005
Stage 2: cobbles and chaos
Today’s 164 kilometer stage was fast, flat and raining. We started off with a 120 kilometer big lap and then four 11 kilometer finishing circuits. The big 120 kilometer lap was nothing but attacks left and right but nothing managed to stick. All 180 riders were flying into every turn and taking great risk to be at the front. I swear the roads here are designed to eat cyclist. For most of the race, we are racing on cement slabs with a huge crack in the middle that eats tires for dinner and crazy lips on the both sides of the road. Every turn is filled with gravel and sometimes cobbles which are slick as ice. As we came into the 4 finish circuits, all was still together and it was an absolute battle to get to the front before the right hand turn into the 5 kilometer cobble section. I managed to go into the cobbles in the top ten which was very good since the section was about 5 feet wide and covered in mud. Mud and cobbles are a horrible combination so there were crashes all over the place. Just imagine 180 racers charging down this crazy cement road with a hug crack in the middle going about 60 kilometers an hour into this hairpin right hand turn straight into a cobble path about 5 feet wide. Yes, it was nuts and I made sure to fight with all my might to be in the front every time going into it. I came off the cobbles the first time through in first with about a 15 second gap with one other rider. We took it for about 7 kilometers trying to get away but they just wouldn’t let us go and the charging now split to pieces field brought us back. We went over this cobble section another 3 times before the race ended in a field sprint with about 50 riders in it. I am not the field sprinter type so I tried to lead my only two remaining teammates out to a top 15 finish. It wasn’t so bad but I know we can win these things. If I wanted to win today, my best option would have been to attack 3 to 1 kilometers to the finish which is called a flier and is my best chance being a Time Trial type of guy and not a sprinter but I opted to help the teammates today and it went quite well. Well that’s about it for now from this race. I sit top 20 overall now and about 25 seconds down so that is good because we still have a 120 kilometer road stage tomorrow and then a 195 kilometer one for the last day. Plenty of road to still make up ground.
Al is Hout
Steven
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Diamonds Everywhere
Written by Steven Cozza
Thursday, 11 August 2005
The first day of Ronde Van Antwerpen was today here in Belgium and was both great and not so great. The first day was a double day with a 4.6 kilometer prologue and then a 145 kilometer road stage later in the day. For the prologue it was a pretty fast simple course with about 3 turns in it with very smooth roads. Since we arrived to the start pretty early I decided to pre ride the course like 4 times just so I would have a good idea on how short it really was and to reassure myself that I could go pedal to the plastic the whole way without tiring before the finish. I started off with a good gear fast and strong but a higher cadence. About half way through, there was a left hand turn to the straight-away back to the finish where I through it in the 54x11 and just rolled it with the most power I think I have pushed in a long time. It felt really good to be able to roll this gear into a slight head wind. I came across the line seeing everything in quadruple but I could tell all the fans were giving me the look of “Where did this guy come from? He tore it up today!” I did tear it up coming in 2nd place with my teammate John Devine close to follow in 3rd place. This was totally awesome. We had two Americans on the podium today and we also both got race jerseys to wear for the later stage. I had the Points Jersey since I finished 2nd and it looked great. It was green, my favorite color, a really cool green at that, with a Belgium Beer label called Duvel and a really cool shield design. It looks great so I am definitely going to keep this one. Not only did we get two guys on the podium, our third place guy was like 12 so we for sure had the lead for the best team competition as well. We were all stoked going into the later 145k road race so that was good. Motivation was high and we were ready to roll. The first break of the day got away with about 12 guys in it including teammate Brad Viera. This was good because we had a rider in it and we could just sit back and wait for other riders from teams who didn’t have anybody in it try and bridge up which then we would go with most of the time. This break ended shortly and about 30k into the race the first little climb came. It was a fight for good position to start this skinny road 1k climb so I was fighting for position like I always do when we came into the right hand turn to the climb way too fast. Everyone slammed on their brakes and I was way too close to the dude in front of me and ran right into his rear wheel. This sent me flying over my handle bars keeping it pretty clean except for I landed on my right hand with most of my weight pulling off sort of a brake dancing looking move. I broke my left shoulder before so when my arm popped out of my shoulder for a second, it didn’t worry too much and popped it right back into place. It was a weird sound but surprisingly I was pretty good to go and more mad about having to chase back on. By the time I got back onto the back of the main peloton I looked ahead and saw a break of about 20 racers. I thought, “Man, I hope one of our guys is in that,” but when I got to the front I found out there wasn’t one of us there. The gap was only 30 seconds so the first good chance I got to attack to try and bridge up, I did. By this time the main field of racers were pretty attentive and not letting anything go so we started chasing. Four of our guys where up there working with a Dutch team that had a really good sprinter and wanted the race to end in a field sprint. The break got quite a bit of time and by the finish had about 55 seconds on us. I was pretty bummed because I knew I had the strength and smarts to make it into that break but hey what can you do when you hit the ground? Live and learn and there is always tomorrow. This is a 4 day 5 stage race so there is plenty of time to shine, that is for sure. Well that’s about all for now. Tomorrow should be great. We are surely not going to miss the break again.
Steven
Fast And The Furious
Written by Steven Cozza
Thursday, 04 August 2005
After spending about a week getting over our jet lag and plane legs, we entered in our first of many stage races, the five days Rond Van Vlaams Brabant of Belgium. This race was an Amateur level race so we were up against some form pros and much older racers. The routes for each stage were pretty flat, fast and had the occasional cobbled climbs on a few days. Going into this race, I didn’t expect much but just to use it to get my legs back up to European speed. After the second stage (that consisted of around 160 kilometers and 12 short but hard climbs), I found myself sitting in 20th on the GC (general classification). I then knew I had a shot and a reason to try for a good GC finish. Since there were just about 200 guys who started this race, you can just imagine how nuts it was during each stage. On every “very small” little farm road they had us racing down at 50 kilometers an hour. Every single day was very fast and dangerous. I managed to ride myself into every break in every stage and just kept moving myself up. Stage 3 was an 11.5 kilometer time trial that consisted of a totally straight out and back boring course. I knew I had to do it, so I got it over with coming in 9th place just a bit out of 3rd. In a Time Trial of this short of distance, the top riders are all usually within a close distance of each other so like they say “every second counts" - it really does in a short TT. After the TT, I moved up into 17th overall and now had two more road race stages to try and move up even farther. Both of the last two day stages, I made the breaks and road in the breaks all day. I came in 13th on stage 4 and 18th on stage 5 moving me into 13th overall on the GC. This was really good for me, but even though it looks like I rode ”super” - well there were plenty of places where I could of done better and even got myself into the top 5 on GC or even into the lead. After every race, thanks to the expertise of our director Noel, he always goes over what we could have done to do better. It just amazes me sometimes how right-on Noel can be. In every single stage of this stage race he predicted exactly what was going to happen. He told us when a break was going to go, when it was going to rain and what riders most likely would be in the winning move. He was right every time. Having a director like Noel is great because you learn to be a master of racing over here but it sure is hard to impress a guy like him because with so much knowledge of the race there are so many ways to mess up. Yeah, we could have some dummy as our director and always say good job simply because he doesn’t know anything or what is going on or we can really learn and be told we screwed up at this moment or this moment of the race. It’s really interesting because the first year over here as a U-23, I was learning from Noel how to simply ride in the peloton and how to finish the races over here. Now, I am learning how to ride in the winning breakaways and the next step is to learn how to win out of them. When they say it is a “process”, boy is it ever! I mean this sport isn’t rocket science and a lot of it is common sense, but I tell you when the adrenaline is flowing and the heart is racing it sure is hard to control your physical reactions to things that are going on around you in a race. At every race I get better and better at keeping calm and not wasting energy but it takes time and sure isn’t happening overnight for me. The other racers can sense your nervousness just like I am learning to sense their thoughts and feelings. They can read you and beat you before the race is even over. I look at racing as hunting almost. When I am out there, I am like a predator, ready to strike and kill at any moment. Kind of like a cat that waits in a field for hours till the mouse comes out of its hiding spot and then strikes with great power and speed. Well I’ve got the great power and speed part of being a predator. I just need to work on the waiting for hours and hours part and staying focused on the prey part. So I am willing to learn from one of the greatest and smartest cyclist of all time and I have learned more than I could have possibly imagined this year.
Now the team over here is getting big so Noel has split us up into two teams. Half of the guys are going to the Tour of Namur and I am going with the other half to an U-20 race in France which should be pretty good. Well, we will see. I’m going into it with a little lack of confidence because right after the last race I got a stomach bug and got quite sick and weak, but I am just getting over the hump and building back up for this race in France. Will it have been enough time? I don’t know but we will see anyway.
My new favorite quote that I just thought of is:
DOUBT ME I DARE YOU. I think that is a good quote to live by.
Thanks,
Steven
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