New Honey Stinger Protein Bar Review

Check it out: http://www.backcountry.com/outdoorgear/Honey-Stinger-Protein-Bar-15-Pack/HON0010M.html

Personally, I'm always searching for ways to optimize my training as well as nutrition. The Honey Stinger Protein bars have helped to fill a void in my nutrition 'arsenal'. After years of eating energy bars on and off the bike, these bars provide a tasty, healthy alternative as they are sweetened with honey and have a lower glycemic index than bars with less protein and fat. These are my new pre-race meal (usually with a banana) about 3 hours before a long ride. I used this formula without fail for every long ride or race I completed last year and eliminated the GI issues that seemed to accompany other options. Now with the new smaller size, I have a great option for a snack in the afternoon or a pre-ride meal when I want to keep my blood sugar stable (devastatingly tasty with a cup of coffee!) . Even my picky wife has now made these her choice over Clif's Mojo bars. An added bonus, for my fellow Primal eaters is that they do not contain grains.

True story: I actually ate one of these DURING my son's delivery. My wife asked, "did you just eat something with peanut butter" . . . why yes I did!

Enjoy!

Elk Mountain TT #1 & Red Cross Charity Ride

So Thursday was the first TT up Elk Mountain Rd. benefiting Asheville City Schools. I was pretty excited about this event, as was the rest of the team and we had 3 of our riders there with Jason and Andrew out with work commitments, and Eric on the mend. We got lucky with the weather as well as the rain blew in then right out for the start of the race! I came into the race pretty fresh, but with a lack of sleep due to my little boy and his sleeping patterns! I got a fairly early start, and my goal was to go under 23 minutes - my PR for the climb (from the bridge) with better form. Race day, there was a nice tailwind and with the extra motivation from being in a race (and having Chris Emory chasing me!) I was able to shave 75 seconds off my best time, and allowing about 45 seconds for the shortened course, about 30 seconds. Not a super-high power output for me (about 320W), but based on my current fitness my pacing was solid and put me in 4th place behind Cameron Cogburn (with a superb 19:08!), Andy Applegate (21:26), and an impressive returning Adam Ray (21:43). Chris slotted into 5th to stack 3 of our guys into the top 5. Check out the results, and more pictures here: http://www.abrc.net/events/index.htm

In lieu of racing this weekend, the team took part in a Red Cross Charity Ride - Please donate here if you can: http://american.redcross.org/site/TR?px=8163330&fr_id=1246&pg=personal

We had just about the whole team out and all but me completed the full 100 miles, while I cut off about 20 miles to get home for childcare duties! It was a great event and a special thanks goes out to Marios, Alan, and the team for organizing this event! Afterward I had a superb Seven Sisters Abbey Ale from Highland. Refreshing!

As always, thanks to all of our sponsors - check them out: Highland Brewing, Trek & Bontrager, Liberty Bikes, Rudy Project, PML Pathology, Mosaic Realty, Honey Stinger, Swiftwick, Carmichael Training Systems, Dr. Steve Miller DDS, Crossfit Brevard, Joe Lilly Photography, and Affordable Home Inspections.

GTS Reports - another win for Eric!

Last weekend saw the birth of my son, so my racing was tempered a bit. However Eric was out there stomping on the 3s once again in search of the overall GTS title and upgrade points! Check out his progress:

The last weekend of the training series has just ended, and with good results. Saturday was at river falls and the only thing that made the course troubling was the narrow road that made it difficult to move up through the field. The 1k long climb to the finish wasn't as bad as everyone made it out to be. It started like all the others, an attack or two per lap with everyone eager to chase them down immediately. So I stayed near the front and just got into someone's slip stream and follow them with minimal effort. But after seeing that no one was going to let anything get away, I drifted back to about mid-pack. And unbeknown to me, a rider got away off the front and had his team blocking quite well. By the time I heard about him, he had over a minute on us. So I spent the next couple laps fighting to the front to get that gap down. By the time I got there he was something like 1:20 ahead. I got it back down to 40 seconds within a lap and it stayed there until the last lap. We had him in sight as we started out final ascent towards the finish. I got antsy and took off about half way up and had a good gap, but I hit my limit and couldn't keep my pace high enough to stay away, and a small group was able to catch me. I got 10th, but it was a good gauge for me to see where my fitness is. Oh well there's always tomorrow to make up for it.

Sunday is here and it's the last race of the series. I've had good performances here the previous two weekends and I was planning on doing the same. Right from the gun I went off and tried to get myself into another break away. But the bullseye was really big on my back today. I attacked 4 or 5 times on the first lap with no results. I'd look back and the field would be strung out behind me or a couple of people would go with me and then not pull through. It was really frustrating and it went on for four laps! I tried everything, attacking on the climbs counter-attacking an attack that just got reeled back in, everything and still nothing. In the last mile of the 4th lap a group of about 7 riders finally got off the front with about a 20 second gap. I saw my chance and gassed it, I took one rider with me and we caught the group quickly. I yelled for everyone to hit it and that we had a good gap. However there was a problem, only about three of us seemed to know what we were doing. Nobody else was pulling through and we were caught shortly after the start of the next lap. So I sat up and just soft pedaled at the front for the next few miles. The Hincapie riders were attacking as much as me and I was trying to get off the front with one of them since they seemed strong enough to make it work. Coming into the headwind on the 5th lap a Hincapie rider surged a little and no one reacted, so I put in a good effort and only two riders chased me this time. I had one of the Hincapie riders and my break away buddy from the first race there with me. We had a decent gap and when I flicked my elbow to have the next guy take a pull, he said he didn't have anything. So I just put my head down and drove on, opening the gap up even more. Eventually he and the Barley's rider started doing pulls and I was finally able to recover a little. We only had a couple more laps to go and stay away, but after all the work I did earlier, I wasn't sure if my legs would have enough in them to make it the rest of the way. We worked together perfectly and the course marshal informed us before the last lap that we had 40 seconds on a chase group of 6. By the last lap with about 2 or 3 miles to go he informed us that we had 1:40 on them! They must have stopped working together or maybe they all just got tired. The head wind really picked up during the last 3 laps. With about 2 miles to go, I was sitting third wheel, and the rider I was drafting must have gotten blown over a little by the wind because my front wheel managed to just catch his derailleur. One of my spokes snapped instantly and it was just jingle-jangling around making all sorts of racket. I didn't have the presence of mind to open my brakes up, so the rim was rubbing them really bad. I thought I was just getting tired. But I managed to make it to the finish line uncontested for another big break away victory. Now I get to upgrade and do the same amount of work for the team chasing down breakaways instead of being in them.

Thanks to all our 2010 sponsors: Highland Brewing, Trek & Bontrager, Liberty Bikes, Rudy Project, PML Pathology, Mosaic Realty, Honey Stinger, Swiftwick, Carmichael Training Systems, Dr. Steve Miller DDS, Crossfit Brevard, Joe Lilly Photography, and Affordable Home Inspections.

See us online at: www.ashevillecyclingelite.com

RACE REPORT: GTS Cat. 3

From the desk of Eric Muehl (Eric's our 'develepmental' Cat. 3, who's a Cat. 1 badass 'cross racer, in search of upgrade points this early-season):

Well, it's February 20th already and that means it's time for me to get some racing done. The race at Donaldson center is the first road race I've done in two years! The weather has left my training a little on the soft side so I went in with a pretty open mind, not expecting anything great. During the drive down and while warming up I had both Chris' giving me advice on how to race and where to attack and all that cool stuff. Telling me to sit in and that if my nose see's any wind in the first hour, I'm doing too much work. Well the race went off without any problems. I spent the first two laps getting used to riding with lots of people inches away from me on all sides. A few people rolled off the front and managed to get a decent gap, but since this was a 50 mile race, no one jumped at the opportunity to reel them in. With about a mile to go in the 2nd lap I moved to the front and put in a big seated effort thinking I was going to tow the entire field with me to bring back those three guys up the road. When I got within 50 meters of the three I sat up and noticed that only one rider came along. So we got to the others and we all worked together well for three laps. I was doing slightly longer pulls than everyone else because I really wanted the break to be successful. I figured it'd be better to get 5th than to run the risk of being pack fodder in a group sprint. Well somehow the peloton caught back up to us and got to within maybe 50 feet or so with about a mile to go before the start of the 6th lap. So myself and a couple other riders kept the pace high to maintain what little gap we had and on the small hill before the 1k sign I drilled it and took three guys with me. We had opened up the gap a little bit. About a mile into the 6th lap we hit the slightly steep short climb, I upped the pace on it and I heard one of the guys yell " we dropped em". So from then on, it was just myself and a Barley's rider working together. I was probably doing 60% of the work but the other rider was still strong enough to keep the pace high. We were averaging somewhere around 25 mph and had opened up a huge gap. By the time we got to the last 1k, all we could see were two chasers about 30 seconds back. I cruised to victory in my first race of the season and I really had to work for it. I got sick that night and combined with being pretty dehydrated, I was unable to race Sunday. So off to a pretty good start this year.

One week later and my sickness from last weekend really hampered my ability to get any decent training in. So I wasn't expecting much Saturday at Fork Shoals. I tried making a couple aggressive moves early on but I was a very marked man. If I made a move, there was 15 other guys right there on my wheel. So I settled in to the peloton for the next couple laps. There were tons of attacks and each one of them was met with an instant reaction from the group, everyone was really aggressive. I got tired of all the bs going on at the front and so I got to the very front on the last lap and controlled everything. Only a ffew people tried attacking and I was able to reel them in quickly with little energy wasted. I let two guys take off with about 3 miles to go and No one else went with them. On the last two little kicker climbs leading to the uphill finish I buried myself, hoping that I would really break the field up. I softened them up a little, but in the end my legs were only good enough for a top 20 or so finish in the sprint.

After a mediocre day for me Saturday, I wasn't sure what my legs were going to be good for. And after the move I pulled last weekend here I thought for sure I'd have a huge bulls eye on my back. Maybe it was the different kit or maybe most forgot me. There was a strong and steady 15mph head wind on the back stretch and finishing straight. I decided to go right from the gun and I managed to get a good 30 second gap or so with two other riders. They both dropped off pretty quickly so I was left to fight the wind by myself for the next lap and a half. There was a bad crash in the 1/2 field so there was a fire truck and ambulance blocking most of the road. They neutralized the race there and I fell back into the peloton to get a little recovery. As we came to the last section before we hit the head wind, I was upfront and three guys put in an attack. I have come to find that no one will respond to aatacks if I'm at the front. So I let them get a decent gap going into the climb and figured that I'd attack on the climb, bridge to them and we'd have a sizeable gap to work with. My legs were starting to feel pretty good, so I went all out and took one or two guys with me. We had a good gap and by the time we crested the hill, there was a group of about 10 other riders that had gapped the rest of the group.
So we had 15 strong, smart riders working perfectly. We had no problem opening up a huge lead on the rest of the group. No one sat in or tried attacking until the last 3 miles. At that point there was only three of us that continued to rotate. I ended up getting stuck out front for a good minute or so with no one pulling through. Then a rider put in an attack. I got in about 10th wheel and sat in with 1k to go. I started moving up and with about 200m to go, I let it fly. Only three riders were able to come around me, I was able to hold everyone else off for a solid 4th place. I've really been surprising myself lately as well as building a reputation for being one of the strongest most aggressive riders in the area. I can't wait to be in shape.