Mark & Jim's Excellent Nationals Adventure Update

Mark & Jim's Nationals Trip Update - Sunday, June 21

T-minus about 5 days to departure for Louisville

By Jim Langley

As you can see in the photo, we packed Mark's 2 bikes today. Huge thanks to Jay Brodie, Nils Tikkanen and Matt Wocasek for loaning their bike cases. Jay's case is a Giant soft bag custom made for Jay and Mark's Giant with its integrated seatmast, and Mark and I marveled at how beautifully the bike fit. You don't even have to remove the bars or seat! It took a little more to get Mark's Felt TT bike in Matt's hard case, but we got 'er done and it's one less detail to worry about this week.

Our Nationals schedule is (so you can think positively for us during these times):

Sat June 27 10 a.m. we fly out of San Jose

Sun registration, pre ride course

Mon Jim's 55-59 road race - 12pm, 8 x 5-mile laps for 40 miles

Tues Mark's 45-49 road race - 2pm, 10 x 5-mile for 50

Wed Jim and Mark's time trials, first start 8am, minute intrvls

Thurs return home

As of today there are a whopping 1390 riders registered to race at the Nationals so it's going to be a ton of fun. From the registered riders lists it's certain that both Mark and I will be facing the best fields of racers we've ever ridden against. 78 guys are in Mark's RR so far including super star Kevin Metcalfe. Curiously, multi-time winner Thurlow Rogers has not yet registered

but we expect to see his name appear soon. He won last year with an average speed of almost 25mph. Metcalfe wrote about the race, "Thurlow was just too strong."

My race features a cast of all-stars I never thought I'd get to race against including Wayne Stetina, last years' winner Kent Bostick and Tom Doughty (all riding for the Amgen/Giant), plus David Leduc who took second last year. Mark let me know that Bostick's winning average speed last year was faster than Thurlow Rogers' in his race - so it's going to be interesting to see if I can hang.

Mark has updated everyone via email on his excellent training. Mine has been a little different as I coached for a week at a cycling camp in Wisconsin. There we rode 638 miles in 7 days, which I'm trying to recover from now. I hope to get some intensity in this week before going into taper mode for a few days before we head to the airport next Saturday.

Thanks everyone for all your support (my neighbor put this sign on my mailbox to motivate me every time I roll out the driveway).

We'll do our best to update you here on the blog during our trip so please watch for updates. I may also post on twitter, which might be faster and easier. You can follow me at www.twitter.com/jimlangley

Ride safe out there and we'll see you on the road,

Jim Langley & Mark Edwards