Jeremy Powers

A bunch of things

jeremypowers — Thu, 08 May 2008 14:16:48 +0000

Its allergy season. Every tree, flower, and piece of grass is blooming and maaaannnn my allergies have been kickin lately. There is pollen everywhere. I’ve been using Singulair for the last few years when my allergies start acting up and I just read the other day that there are a slew of warnings surrounding the drug and some nasty possible side effects. The FDA are worse then the weather people, I want a job where I am paid to be wrong too. It could go like this (Jeremy:) “Hey Danny sorry the break went up the road today and we didn’t have anyone in it.” (Danny:) “Powers, no problem, we’re actually going to double your salary next year!” Sounds good right? To continue on with my negativity, I got pulled over two months ago. I was baffled, I waited for the officer to get up to me, “why don’t you have a front marker plate” The story went, and this is the truth, I had just became a masshole, I took one of my Connecticut license plates off but lost the bolts somewhere. I had to jet to an appointment and I didn’t have the front plate on… The guy read me the act “this car could be stolen, we can’t have people out committing crimes with no front markers on their vehicles…(okkkaaayyy) So he wrote me a ticket, but “just to make sure I got the plate back on my car” So I put the plate on when I got back, just as I planned on doing. Mailed in my ticket not guilty and finally went to court. Court took about 30 seconds the prosecutor looked at me and said “not responsible” and off I went. So that was a waste of everyones time. Continuing on, Delta is now charging for the second bag, so you show up with two bags at delta, and your going to pay an extra 25 clams. Getting back to bike racing, The team and I are down in Arkansas stayin at our old teammate Bryce Jones place. Great accommodations, really beats a hotel on any level. My teammate (the bird) is comfortable here, look at this guy. Today is the uphill time trail and then tomorrow we head out for a 100 miler and from there the racin begins. I haven’t heard much about Tim Duggan or the big man Zirbel, but I wish those both those guys a quick recovery! The podcast is going to happen, when I get home, I’ll post the first mix. Seeya!

Note To Self

jeremypowers — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 02:51:29 +0000

Don’t try to break away from the field on the longest stage of the tour de georgia and ride 35 seconds off the front for ~1hr w/ tom zirbel and some kazakstan dood from astana. Ends up, you’re gonna wear out your legs, get dropped & suffer like a dog with his tounge draggin on the ground for the next 100miles. Zirbel is a good guy. A gorilla, but a good guy. He kind of reminds me of lurch from the adams family after a couple weeks in the gym. see what I mean?

Alright, I’m smoked. Timmy J is a big deal, he wins the masshole cup, hands down, good job buddy!

Good Job Saunduh’s

jeremypowers — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 01:47:14 +0000

My laid back teammate nic sanderson kicked his way to 2nd place today in the first stage of the Tour of Georgia. The team rode well and Bernard (who we all call Bernie, (which is halarious)) Made the days break which was kept on a pretty tight leash not gaining much over a minute. Overall the team is riding great. We ended up with two Jerseys, best young rider and the sprint competition, the latter was mainly because Ivan can’t wear em’ both. But, the mood is good here. Georgia is super nice place, medalist sports is the organizer who puts on the race, have done a great job and got us all a cool place on the Atlantic, with a big ol’ beach a stones throw from our balcony’s. So to get off the topic of bike racing. I like to hold true to keepin it real and not just talk about bikin races. Couple things, first, I’m trying to get some licenses to start a podcast for my site, this way I can break some new tunes and showcase some of my practice on the turntables, which I finally think is ‘listenable’ (i’m not even sure if that a word) Regardless. I’m working on it, if its going to happen, I’ll have it up in a couple weeks. Really just depends on what the final cost of the license(s) is going to be. Do you know if I did that I have to get three license’ two for the artists and then another for the writers. Oh well. Just to be random, I bought these at whole foods the other day. How cool are these? Peanut Butter Pows. I bet mike jones is at lowes with his dad right now buying gutters. seeya

Racin days

jeremypowers — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 16:14:55 +0000

A ton of stuff has happened in the last couple weeks and I’ve been saying “man I want to update my blog” It just hasn’t happened. 1) internet is abundent, but not wirelessly, so I don’t have any way of getting my pictures from my phone and computer over to my blog. So, this post is going to be a little less exciting on that front. For me my trip to California has been great. I finally got out of cold Massachusetts and was able to get some good mileage in my legs and some much needed sun. San Dimas was an interesting race. I’ve never raced it before this year, and for the most part, I haven’t been so lucky with my early season form/fitness/luck. If its not injury its ussually something else. On Saturday I couldn’t believe my luck on the circut race, I flatted twice, which suck’d. I was a little stunned too, when the Shimano wheel car gave me a wheel, sent me off (thank you) but then, flew by me after the change and I was left out in the middle of no-where doing a 15minute time trail to get back onto the group. No caravan at San Dimas so it was tough. This week has been fun, my teammates and I have spent the week between races training together, looking at the courses coming up and practicing our TTT (team time trail) for the upcoming tour of Georgia. Today is the first day of redlands and starts out with a uphill 10min tt. Should be interesting to see the top 20 as I think it’s gonna be stacked with quality riders. Talk to everyone soon.

Gettin it movin again

jeremypowers — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 14:20:32 +0000

Long time since my last post and for the most part, I’ve been enjoyin the relaxation, riding a bit and just being home for a couple weeks in cold Massachusetts. I went on a great vacation in the Bahamas to small island off the coast of Nassau. Emily and I had a great trip and barely saw any another tourist which was nice. Now I’ve never been to Todd/Meg/Troy Wells Mexico pad. But I think this spot would give it a run for it’s money, The Bahamas is pretty sweet. Just harder to get to then Mexico. So you kno what I’m talking about…from the back deck Besides getting tan, I’ve been riding a fair bit, slowly getting ready for my upcoming road races. I don’t think I’m going to be breaking anyones legs at the April races, but the motivation is high and everything is going well. Ever since last seasons tendinitis in my achilles tendon, i’ve been into getting my cleats pretty far back on my cycling shoes, to take some of the tension off the achilles. This year it just wasn’t happening the way I wanted it to, so. I went outside of my comfort circle and drilled my shoes to accommodate the odd cleat position I desired. I’m no carpenter, like Mike Jones, but I was happy with the way it turned out. When I started the job I didn’t actually think I was gonna get the job done with out ruining the shoes! Speaking of Lake shoes, I just got their new carbon Mtn. bike shoes. I’m looking forward to trying them out, Lake has the most comfortable shoes I’ve ever ridden in and I’m happy with this new upgrade! How about taxes? I finally finished mine up and I learned a lot this year about that whole credit process, doing taxes, 1099 forms, separate accounts for business and personal stuff. It’s been a lot to take in, but once its all finished its not too bad and it’s something you only have to learn once (which is good!) I’m finishing up a cool mix tape for everyone to download for anyone that is wondering how the DJ’ing is going. Hopefully before I leave to California in a week, I’ll upload it for all to download. (I’m still a beginner though) Seeya!

Sunday Morning Snowboarding

jeremypowers — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 13:11:52 +0000

This post is going to be short, but since I wasn’t going to write anyways, you shouldn’t be too disappointed. It’s Sunday morning and the first of my official time off the bike. A couple of my roommates and I are heading to a small mountain in western, MA called Berkshire East. It’s about 40minutes from the house and snow was falling here all night, so you know its gonna be good. I’ve got a cup full of home made mud water and we’re off and running. I had to post this video someone showed me. Its too funny not too.

San Diego

jeremypowers — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 18:46:46 +0000

Finally I have some time to update my blog now that the storm has passed. The best news I can tell everyone is that I’m officially on vacation. lets start with Cross’ world champs. The venue, people, training around Venice and FOOD was tip top. In the race I finished 27th which was a little outside of what I was looking for, I got some stomach crap the night before the race and it left my legs flat on Sunday. I felt like it took me about half the race to feel normal. While it wasn’t ideal sometimes you have to make the best of the situation and I’m sure I wasn’t the only one battling one obstacle or another on that given day, sometimes thats a problem with one day racing, in stage racing you can bounce back, one day racing has a lot of factors that come into play. Overall, I’m happy with how the season played out, I won a few races, raced competitively in Europe and I’m looking forward to next season. I flew pretty much directly from Italy to Jelly Belly’s training camp in San Diego. Once I got to sunny California, the team had pictures taken, we met all the new sponsors, got our new bikes, etc. All the sponsors this year stepped up to the plate and we are really looked after, tons of clothing thanks to champion systems, custom GT frames with Jelly Beans all over them, Rudy did custom helmets. No doubt we’re official this year. All the sponsors really took care of us! Sunday after the super-bowl a couple of us headed over to double x action sports radio and we did 1hr radio show which you can listen to over at there website, linked above. My duties were fulfilled at camp and I made my way back to Massachusetts to catch up on sleep and relax so I can get back to the action come April. Unlike some have been saying, I will not be racing in the Tour of California. Sorry. I opted out a few months back after tearing up my achilles tendon last year going from my cross’ season right into California. On Monday we all rode out to Palomar mtn and it was a good ride, the team this year is cool. Danny put together a lot of fun riders with tons of experience and aggressive attitudes. I think Jelly Belly is going to have its best season ever this year. During the first couple days at the camp I got to catch up with ROAD Magazines, Neil Browne. Neil did an article on me in the most recent issue of ROAD and put Tim J on the cover for winning cross’ nats. Cross’ is in effect in the last edition! Everyone should pick it up, its sold everywhere, if you haven’t gotten familiar with ROAD Mag yet this is a good month to start! So, I might update if I’m bored, but, I’m gonna walk away, go on vacation and throw the legs up for a couple weeks. Until next time, thanks again for all the good comments, e-mails and prank calls. Stay Classy MissingSaddle-

Checking out

jeremypowers — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 08:24:03 +0000

My racing stint in Belgium is just about over. As I write this, I’m still picking the pebbles out of my eyes from this weekends races…Tomorrow Tim and I are flying down to Italy where Stu and Lyne (tims wife) are picking us up at the airport in Treviso. Amazing how Ryan Air was able to blow us out tickets for 1 euro. Pretty awesome. I’ve only been hearing about rain in Italy, so it could be another epic race! I’m polishing up my mud skills over here. I don’t consider myself a ‘mudder’ but, considering over half the races here are in the peanut butter. I gotta refresh, remember that skill set that I’ve so easily forgotten racing in the states for the last two seasons. I raced in Zonnebeke,Belgium on Saturday with the my crew, Stu and Mark. I was creeping, especially during this one nasty muddy running section, I was horrendous. I needed the time out in the mud, so I raced over there. Not that nice of a course, but enough about that. Yesterday was the world cup in Hoogerhiede, Netherlands where the world championships are being held next year. If you’ve been putting off going to worlds, go in 2009, its gonna be awesome! They changed up the course a lot from the years past and regardless of how the course goes, the venue is awesome, the ability to see a lot of the race is great, the town is awesome, its a really nice place. I came across a couple articles that I thought were pretty good reads (what else am I going to do in Belgium?) One is about working out in the cold like we do in cross. The article says, if your not a wuss, there isn’t any difference in warm versus cold. The other article is for me. I’m a big mover and shaker on the bike. I always train with my ipod and I’m down with all the new music. This article is about how music at a certain BPM (beat per minute) actually stimulates something in our brains and makes us push ourselves. I had read about that once before, but since nytimes wrote about it, I guess its more official now.

In other gossipy cyclo-cross squawk, The US UCI schedule has been thrown around, take a look; I probably shouldn’t but I’ve been hearing some rumors about the US world cup while I’ve been here in Europe. I hope we can pull it off. I give a lot of credit to the people who are working on that race.

20.09.2008 Nittany Lion ‘Cross Fogelsville, PA
20.09.2008 Kinetic Systems - Tailwind Cyclo-cross 1 Springfield Township,Michigan
20.09.2008 Star-crossed Redmond
21.09.2008 Kinetic Systems - Tailwind Cyclo-cross 2 Springfield Township,Michigan
21.09.2008 Rad Racing GP Lakewood
24.09.2008 Cross Vegas Las Vegas, Nevada
27.09.2008 Mad ‘Cross 1 Sun Prairie, WI
27.09.2008 Schoolhouse ‘Cross Montpelier, VT
28.09.2008 Mad ‘Cross II Sun Prairie, WI
28.09.2008 Catamount Grand Prix Williston, Vermont
04.10.2008 Providence Cyclo-Cross Festival/World Cup Providence, RI
05.10.2008 Providence Cyclo-Cross Festival/World Cup Providence, RI
08.10.2008 Darkhorse UCI Burlington, KY
11.10.2008 Java Johnny’s - LionHearts’ Cross Middletown, Ohio
12.10.2008 Bio Wheels / United Dairy Farmers Cyclo-cross Cincinnati, Ohio
11.10.2008 Gran Prix of Gloucester 1 Gloucester, MA
12.10.2008 Gran Prix of Gloucester 2 Gloucester, MA
18.10.2008 Granogue Cross Wilmington
19.10.2008 Wissahickon Cross Philadelphia
25.10.2008 USGP of Cyclocross - Louisville Louisville, KY
26.10.2008 USGP of Cyclocross - Louisville Louisville, KY
01.11.2008 Boulder Cup Colorado
02.11.2008 Boulder Cup Boulder, Colorado
01.11.2008 The Cycle-Smart International 1 Northampton, MA
02.11.2008 The Cycle-Smart International 2 Northampton, MA
08.11.2008 Beacon Cycling & Fitness Cyclo-cross Beacon, New Jersey
09.11.2008 Highland Park Cyclo-Cross Highland Park, NJ
08.11.2008 Eco-Cross Los Angeles, CA
09.11.2008 Dam ‘Cross Los
15.11.2008 USGP of Cyclocross - Mercer Park West Windsor, New Jersey
16.11.2008 USGP of Cyclocross - Mercer Park West Windsor, New Jersey
22.11.2008 Whitmore’s Landscaping Super Cross Cup 1 Southampton
23.11.2008 Whitmore’s Landscaping Super Cross Cup 2 Southampton
22.11.2008 North Carolina Grand Prix 1 Hendersonville
23.11.2008 North Carolina Grand Prix 2 Hendersonville
29.11.2008 Baystate Cyclocross Sterling Massachusetts
29.11.2008 The Jingle Cross Rock 1 Iowa City
30.11.2008 The Jingle Cross Rock 2 Iowa City
06.12.2008 Continental Championships Boulder, Colorado
06.12.2008 USGP of Cyclocross - Portland Portland, Oregon
07.12.2008 USGP of Cyclocross - Portland Portland, Oregon
06.12.2008 Lower Allen Classic Camp Hill, PA
06.12.2008 NBX Grand Prix Warwick, Rhode Island
07.12.2008 Capital Cross Classic Reston, Virginia
07.12.2008 NBX Grand Prix Warwick, Rhode Island
13.12.2008 US Cyclo-Cross Nationals Kansas City, KS
14.12.2008 US Cyclo-Cross Nationals Kansas City, KS

why’s the sky in belgium always grey?

jeremypowers — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 15:00:35 +0000

This is exclusive, Tim has made a new discovery. When the T.V says 60% chance of rain…that actually translates to ‘it will rain 60% of the time during through out the day. Not, a chance of rain, like your led to believe. Thanks to Patagonia to giving us all our rain gear this year, Belgium would have cracked me long ago with out it. Our main man Stu from cyclocrossworld.com has arrived and is in the building! Thats a nice feeling, having someone so meticulous working on the bikes and equipment is awesome. Anyone who’s had someone as good as Stu working on bikes knows… a mechanic that knows each riders little particular things like how the hoods should be angled, making sure the tension is perfect on the brakes and having just the right amount of pull on the brakes, all those things make such a difference. He’s that good and I owe a lot to him for his effort this year. It’s always harder to write a good update when you get your can kicked all over France and Belgium like I did on Sunday at the world cup. I’ve been training hard and I know where I’m at, I’m not going to focus on one result over the weekend, I’m more concerned with getting a good result in Italy in two weeks and I think thats going to be the objective for the coming days and I’m on track for that. Basically I’ve been riding and training which has been keeping me busy. The weather in Belgium at this time of the year isn’t luxurious as you can imagine. It’s been raining a lot and today there were 100k winds coming over from the UK today. I managed to get out for a while, but it took a lot out of my tank just fighting the wind. Last night Tim, Lyne, Stu and I went into Brussels, we hit the english book store and got some good reading material for the next cpl weeks. Also migghhht have ate a waffle and even found Mr. Jelly Belly at ‘chocopolis’ in Brussels! I’ve given away plently of Jelly Belly’s in Belgium but I hadn’t actually seen them for sale, so it was a surprise for me to see the man over here, he’s everywhere! Lyne even actually had some sport beans with her and we showed those to the owner, but he didn’t think Belgians would enjoy them! He’s crazy, of course they’d like them! They are delicious! Last week we headed out to lunch with our man David from Ridley. He let me take a mountain bike from a photo shoot he had just finished up. Word on the street is that Ridley just developed an extremely light carbon single speed mtb. As for my experience, It was cool to be back on the mtn. bike. It was a blast from the past. Check this beast out. SRAM equipt’d, rock shox, the whole shabanga bang. The trails out here in the forests of Belgium are cool, the town actually cuts out all the brush in the forests here. No thorn bushes and old trees layin’ on the ground, its like a manicured forest, makes it look cool when your riding, kept me entertained thats for sure. Alright, looking forward to getting out there this weekend and I hope I can report back with some better results and some good stories! Seeya!

Season Enders…

jeremypowers — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 10:33:44 +0000

With 3 weeks left now of my season most guys are worried about getting to the races healthy, un-injured and in good form. A lot of hurdles jump out sometimes and create something I call “Season Enders” Here are some of the temptations in the kitchen that seem to be adding up and could present a ’season ender.’ I realized this year I’m being good about what I’m eating, maybe its less stress, maybe its more determination, whatever, its something. I took some pictures on my phone of some of the ‘items’ I happened to peruse before I actually settled on a bowl of granola and some eggs. Season enders don’t just have to deal with food either, they can be that big night of drinking and doing something dumb that results in time off the bike. It could be your girlfriend breaking your heart, it could be jury duty for weeks, maybe riding with out your helmet (well that could be a “life ender”) Anyways, you get the point. Be careful of these obsticals in the final weeks of your season(s). I came across this interesting article on NYTimes.com. It’s all about how people drink alcohol in the cold. I’ve always wondered if it was effective in keeping you warm because they do this at a lot of big euro cx races. Alcohol at the finish line in some sort of tea w/ honey. Taste great, not going to hear a peep out of me on that. I first got this concoction in Switzerland when I was a junior back in 2001! Look at this article, it smashes that euro logic down, ends up not being not so great after all. Check it out here! Today is the Belgian nationals or the 1st of 2 world championships. The Belgie champs is a mini worlds. I’m going with Sven for the Jersey, but thats obvious. Tim J put his money on another rider, I can’t believe it. We’ll see. Just noticed Radomir Simunek didn’t win his national title. Bummer. I’m gonna try to persuade him to come over and race in the states next yr. He’s a nice guy and always goes out of his way to say hi to me at the races. Maybe he’ll come out for cross’ vegas too. On one last note. I noticed for everyone thats not making the flight over to worlds in Italy. It’s going to be live on WCSN. Heres the link to that I should mention, direct flight from JFK to Venice on Delta is 600 bucks round-trip. Alright, I’m out to train, seeya!