Christopher Jones: Jonez World

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TT1 team took its first overall stage race win this past week at the Tour of Arkansas. The team rode stellar and continued to gain momentum heading into Philly week.
I have always been impressed watching how a team rally around their man in yellow, riding on the front all day, shuttling food and bottles back and forth, day in and day out. Prior to this past week have never had the opportunity to be the one on the front protecting the team’s lead and often wondered what it would be like. Exhausting and fulfilling are the two words that best describe my past few days. We delivered Chaddy to where he needed to be each day and in turn he rewarded TT1 with a couple of stage wins and the overall victory.
I am on the way home now after what feels like forever. Big changes are on the horizon with #1 graduating a week from today, a move to the west coast, and hopefully a condo sale. Yes, I am happy to say that our tour in Ghetto Haven is almost over. Time has flown by here and we are ready to move back closer to our family. Congrats to #1 for graduating from an Ivy with honors (more on this later).
On a side note, they just loaded the plane with a dog carrier that contained a pig…who flies with a pig?

We’re in Arkansas for the next few days racing in the Joe Martin Stage race and the Tour of Arkansas. In light of the recent weather they’ve had in the area I located the nearest one of these:

Stage 5 was the longest of the tour at 133 miles. Ed’s foresight in sending vaLarry and I down to preride the courses for stages 5 & 6 paid off. Larry found his way into a break of four that lasted about 115 miles and was caught with about 1 mile to go. Moises capped of the day with a top 10 in the sprint. After the stage we were in such a hurry to get moving that I didn’t even have time to hit up my favorite ice cream shop.
Stage 6 was the granddaddy of the week with a cat 1 climb, followed by a cat 2, and finishing of with the HC rated Brasstown Bald. The team’s plan was to try to get I-mac up the road in the early break and if that didn’t work then conserve for the climbs. As we started brasstown TT1 was the only team left with atleast five guys in the 51 person group. The group just ripped to pieces as soon as the climb started. It turned into every man for himself as we all went deep into the hurt box for the next twenty minutes. The fans lining the roads were awesome and it was so loud in places that their yells almost covered up my gasping for air. We ended up putting four of us in the top 20 including a stellar ride by Moises.
Stage 7 was the circuit race in downtown Hotlanta. As we pulled into the race to sign in the skys let loose and the rain came down. As most of you know I am a serious softy from CA but for some reason racing in the rain seems to suit me well. The formula for success goes something like this, when it is raining whine and complain to teammates and enemies to psych them out. Once the race starts attack, attack, attack until the break sticks because you do not want to be in the field going around all of those wet corners. Once off the front ride and pray that you don’t flat out of the break…
Overall I was stoked on the team’s performance. We had a run of bad luck leading up to Georgia, but are on the upswing now and will be knocking off plenty of wins soon.
This was my first trip to the big show and was a big learning experience. I was suffering at the begining of the week with allergies and the speeds. Each stage I started to feel a little more comfortable and the allergy medication slowly started to work so I was able to enjoy myself more and start racing. My only real disappointment was that I didn’t break the top 10 on b-town, but that gives me some extra motivation for next year.
The amount of staff TT1 had was incredible and we couldn’t have done it without them, so thanks guys and gal.
Next up is a trip home to the Ghetto Haven followed by a race around the Pentagon and some racing in Arkansas.

I’m sitting at a coffee shop in the Ghetto Haven right now attempting to write a paper while really just watching crazy people out the window and eating a big chocolate chip muffin while drinking a big cup of hot coffee. That was a serious run-on sentence but I have written so many papers in the past few days that I feel entitled to write a run-on sentence. Oh yes, I was going to tell you that I’m at this coffee shop and the song playing in the background is “It’s Business Time”. Hilarious and random. For those of you who don’t know about this song just google it. It’s hilarious.
Chris had a good race in Georgia and is currently on an airplane headed for Connecticut. When he gets home he’ll have to change all the light bulbs that burned out while he was gone.

Nothing much to report about the last two stages that you haven’t already read about, or maybe I’m just too tired tonight to write… I’m enjoying my first TdG and learning a ton each day. The TT1 staff is taking great care of us as always and we don’t have to anything besides ride the bike, yep we’re spoiled. Tomorrow starts the uphill fun and the finish of the stage is about two blocks from one of the best ice cream places I’ve ever been too. So based on those two facts, tomorrow is going to be a great day!

The past few years I have been intrigued by people and their sayings. Cass’ family has some great ones. They range from “A bird in the hand…” or any number of not PC logging references. My roommate for the week is our sprinter Emile, who is from Trinidad and while discussing the stage last night he said, “It is on like boiled corn!” Sure dude, it is on like boiled corn…

Time for bed.

They say that there is no such thing as bad press, but after being reported in the live coverage as flatting and crashing yesterday I would disagree. I will stand by my flat and accept that it happened. The credit for the crash however, should be given to my pint sized Type 1 diabetic teammate Fabio. Poor guy was unlucky and in position right behind a rider who’s feed bag went into his front wheel. The guy crashed, took Fabio down, and stabbed him in the leg with his shifter.
Other than that, the tour has been going well.

TT1 sent two riders and a mechanic, (vaLarry, me, and Doug) down to preview stages 5&6 of next week’s Tour of Georgia. We rode stage 5, the tour’s longest, today after summiting Brasstown yesterday. Both stages would be tough on their own, but stacked back to back they are going to hurt. Yes Brasstown is as steep as the rumors you hear and stories you read say it is. The cat. 1 prior to ascending B-town will start the fun, the cat 2 will keep the lactate flowing, and Brasstown will suck any remaining life out of our legs. Expect to see quite a few TT1 jerseys in the final selections on these stages gunning for the stage win. While the riding up here in northern GA. is awesome and reminds me of nor-cal, the people are a little…different. At the local coffee shop this morning we overheard a lady explaining to the entire coffee shop how two horses escaped her ranch yesterday. By the time she found her four legged friends the cops had aprehended them. Yes, the cops arrested/ impounded the horses and charged the lady with five different citations for each horse. Outraged the lady proclaimed to her friends that it is time they tool a stand against such injustice. We just sat there speechless. Then this afternoon I saw this in a laundry mat window:

I will just ignore the fact that this is my first post in nearly 2 months… Okay, I’m glad we can all forgive and forget.
So, I’m no longer a race widow and Chris and I have been squeezing in as much fun as possible before he leaves again in 3 days. Last night we went to the Michael Buble concert (aka “The Boob”). It was at Mohegan Sun which is a HUGE Indian casino about an hour up the coast in CT. It seriously puts Win River to shame (Sorry Redding folks, CT’s got you beat on that one). So we headed to the casino and smoked our pack of second hand cigs, ate some scrumptious buffet food, and watched a very entertaining concert. I would recommend it highly, sans the pack of Marlboros. We even tried our luck at the slots but turns out the machines didn’t like the dollar bill I brought. I took it as a hint and spent my money on a tasty pastry instead.
It’s finally getting warmer here and yesterday I went outside without a coat for the first time in 4 months. I felt naked and cold but liberated.

This little 1 pint of thirst quenching goodness cost me more than 1 gallon of regular unleaded.