Some good eats

Not much to talk about on the racing front except that I have re-signed with Cleveland Clinic for 2012. More on that to follow.

Since not much to talk about I decided to add some posts on some thing's I'm doin while traveling for work. I am in Ann Arbor, MI right which is rough the week after Michigan beat Ohio State in football.

Anyway got a ton of recommendations on places to eat and tonight I checked out Blimpy Burgers. Heard a lot about it and saw it on DDD and man vs food.

I ventured into the U of M campus, sporting my Ohio State hat of course, and found this little dive type place. Pretty straight forward... What do want in the deep fryer? How many patties? Anything grilled? Cheese? Toppings? And that's it. I went with the triple with cheese and an egg. Couldn't decide on fries or rings so went with both.

The burger was super good. Just one of those messy yummy type burgers that you want more of after your done. The fries were average but the rings were excellent. I recommend it for sure. Would be better if it was on Ohio State campus but what can ya do.

If you go make sure you study their ordering procedure online. They are pretty strict and people give you shit if you don't follow the rules. Nothing like having an Ohio State hat on and holding up a line full of people with Michigan gear on.

Hi everyone!

Its the off season again and if you know me you know I am enjoying it.  I have been busier than normal as I started a new job a couple months ago and its been a blast so far.  Been working on my public speaking/presentation skills and am loving every minute of it now.

Looking forward to The 2012 racing season already.  Some exciting stuff on the horizon.  Will update you as I go and hopefully I remember to update this before this time next year.

Hope all is well and I will see you soon!

Marco

Back on track!

The past couple months have been a bit rough. Slowly getting back into racing after Dylan was born but I haven't been very consistent with my training.  Seems like I would get going and then get sick.. or something would come up..  I was planning on using Memorial Day Weekend as a "get me over the hump" weekend of racing.  4 races in 4 days including a 100 mile road race.  The weekend was a great success from my standpoint even though the results weren't great.  7th in the road race and 16th at Rock Island and some bad luck in Muscatine with 1 to go.  But the legs were pretty good and I finished the weekend strong and not totally smashed.  So things were on the up and up heading into last weekends Huntington Crit.

Was looking forward to racing in Huntington as I used to road trip down there back in the day and spent some fun times down there. Training has been full fledge for Nationals at the end of the month so I was looking to smash it after a nice 2 hour training ride in the morning.

The course was tailer made for me.. flat 4 corner downtown crit with a bar on one side of the start finish and a Starbucks on the other.

The team wanted to be aggressive from the get go and I figured I would start the action 2 laps in and went on the offensive with Rolf (TRH). We worked well together and got a pretty nice gap. We could see a group coming across 7-8 laps later but couldn't make out who all was in there just yet. Once they got close enough we realized it was 3 RGF and 2 more TRH. The showdown was on and we had the upper hand with 4 to their 3. We all worked smoothly to gain 3/4 of a lap on the field and then the attacks started. Jim Baldasare followed Rolf again and they were the 1st to take a lap. We were pretty happy with this but we kept rolling to make sure we stayed out front. With 10 laps to go I sent the boys on the attack again to see if we could single out the Roadhouse guys. I sat tight and made sure John Grant (TRH) was held in check as he was their fastest finisher. A couple laps later we also took a lap and I sent Jeff on the attack straight away. This forced Roadhouse to chase and as he was caught I sent JC. He put in a HUGE dig as Grant tried to follow with me in tow. This split us away from the field again with Jon Shell making a nice move to get across to us. We had now singled out a TRH rider which was perfect. We held the gap and coming into the final lap I jumped down the back stretch and held on for my first win of the season. Great to be back! And the team rode great which is a great sign with Nationals on the horizon. They made my job easy today... thanks boys!

  Great Video of the Race:

Tri-State Criterium Huntington, WV from Bob Grimm on Vimeo.

Nice Article in the Huntington Herald:

Riders compete in Tri-State Criterium - The Herald Dispatch

RATL #2

Was a nice day outside today as I traveled up from rainy Columbus.  Had a good warm up with Jim and told him I wanted to smash myself today for him and that he was gonna win.  Well that worked out perfect.  We had a lot of guys so the key was to be active and aggressive and to make sure Jim, Jeremy and myself didn't miss anything.  We were in pretty much every move from the get go and the decisive move went about 10 laps in with Jim, Jeff and Josh in it.  Jeremy and I got away  but had a big gap to come across with just 2 of us working and 2 others sitting on.  We finally made it and kept driving the break.  As we got closer to lapping we started attacking and Jeff was the 1st to lap with Dan. We didn't like that so Jim and I chased and we finally lapped with the rest reshuffling the cards.  Eventually we started 1-2ing the group and with one to go Jim attacked a 5 man split and soloed to win.  Jeremy and Jeff out sprinted the others for 2nd and 3rd and I won my group for 6th.  All in all a great day or racing and the team rode great.

Vandervorts Road Race

Was a nice windy and warm day and RGF was 3 riders strong. Myself, Corey and OB. Our plan was to be aggressive and race to win. We didn't want to get wrapped up in defending the overall series lead as if we just race to win the overall will fall into place. We certainly weren't going to do anything to jeopardize the lead but we didn't want to race negative because of it either.
The race was pretty aggressive from the get go and OB finally got in a 3 man move on lap 2. I had Corey sit in and relax and I covered moves and kept things in check. We were hitting the last part of the crosswind section and I could tell everyone was feeling a bit torn so I told Corey to get on my wheel and I smashed it in the gutter until we turned into the tailwind. Only 1 other could follow me with Corey in tow and we set sail. Eventually we dropped the other and Corey and I were out in no mans land. OB's break was a good bit up the road so Corey and I were just cruising. A small group eventually caught us and a lap later i split off with another rider. With about 1.5 laps to go i hit something in the road and got a flat front tire with no race support and was SOL. OB rode away from his companions for victory and Corey scooped up 6th to extend his lead. Legs were great and we won so all is well minus a very fast front wheel.
 

My list...

Things are starting to come to form in the house. We have a ton on our plate right now and looking forward to moving forward on so many things. The season is on the horizon, the kitchen remodel is almost done and in less than 2 weeks our daughter will be arriving! Been trying to check off a lot of items on my list before her arrival and one of the most important ones got check last weekend.... her bedroom!

One of the great things about owning the house you grew up in is having the memories and history of the house. We chose my father's office for our daughters nursery. What a great place and a great vibe for her to grow up in... all the great thoughts and things my father drummed up in that office and now a new chapter gets to start.

We had some great help with the nursery along the way from my big sis, brother in law and mother. They got the ball rolling (to our surprise) one weekend when we were in Canada and my sis helped us paint once we were ready. So it made it feel like it was done in a flash. We basically stripped the whole room as it had the original shag carpet (house built in 1971) and the craziest wallpaper I have ever seen. It was actually pretty cool though and wish I could have saved it. We added some cool chair rails, 2 tone paint and some nice baseboards and molding and it came out better than we expected. Also added a nice chandelier for some bling factor. Tara has been spending most of her time in there organizing all her clothes which she seems to already have more then both of us and she hasn't even been born yet! crazy too me. Here are a couple pics but there are more on my facebook page if ya wanna see the whole thing.  http://www.facebook.com/marcoaledia

So I can check that off the list and keep rolling on my the other projects.. looking forward to checking everything off this list, but non more than the the last one: The arrival of our Daughter.

Team Launch this weekend!

If your in the Cleveland area please join us for a special night as we are launching the 2011 Cleveland Clinic Sports Health/RGF Cycling Team p/b Felt Bicycles.  Gonna be a ProTour style event with a team introduction, food, drinks, raffles... and its FREE!..  check out the flyer or go to our facebook page for more info.  Hope to see ya there!  www.facebook.com/rgfcycling

Check out the new kits!

Just a quick update on my training and the new team.


I finally was able to kick my cold and am back to full strength. Been hitting it pretty hard and the form is slowly but surely coming back. I am working with the same coach (Andy Applegate, CTS) as I did last year and am super stoked... but I think he is trying to kill me:-) Its crunch time... just over 10 weeks till the 1st big event!

 

The team is coming together nicely and I was lucky enough to have a hand in designing this year's kits. Super stoked on how they came out and can't wait to rock these bad boys!

Looks like we are having our team meeting at the end of Feb now to get all our new gear including our new Felt F1's... can't wait! Should be a pretty cool event as it looks like we are gonna do a big gathering at The Cleveland Clinic. I will keep everyone updated so if your in the area you can come join us.

that's it for now!

M@

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

So far so good with the holidays... we had a safe trip back and forth to Canada to spend Christmas up there. The weather has been crazy in Buffalo but thank god we missed it all. It was a nice 4 days off and I got some very good training in while I was there. Gonna have a low key New Years.. dinner and hanging out with the fam... need to make some good progress this weekend on my kitchen remodel. Will post some pics as it moves along... prolly easier on my facebook page so check that out. www.facebook.com/marcoaledia . My team has a new FB page as well so make sure you become a fan of it. www.facebook.com/rgfcycling.

Nothing to fun to write about but I thought I would atleast post something for everyone (mostly Casey, since she yells at me when I don't update this:-)) to read.

I want to wish everyone a Happy Holidays and A Happy New Year. 2011 is gonna be a great year! Lots of new things on the horizon and I'm looking forward to every single one of them!

God bless and see you in the new year!

A weekend of some firsts, good quotes and a little bit of bike racing...

This past Sunday I participated in my first cross race. I say participated because I don't really call what I did racing. I tried one of these a long time ago for shits and giggles but I did it on a mountain bike with football cleats so that didn't really count. I have had this beautiful bike from Masi and all this gear for cross but never seem to pick going out and racing in the mud over watching football. Well this past weekend was just meant to be as the race was close, and the Patriots played Monday night:-)

So Tara and I headed out to Smith Farms to see if I could not embarrass myself. A few last minute wrinkles... I was setting up my shoes the night before (don't ask) and noticed the cleats I had didn't fit my shoes... so had to make a few desperation calls and luckily Joe Hall came through for me with some pedals and cleats. So I had fun installing those about 10 minutes before the race...

Didn't get to ride the entire course before we started but I got most of the technical part in... tried to figure out how to do that dismount thing but that was a bit awkward. I was hoping to just bunny hop everything but it seemed the barriers were a bit close together and a little to close to coming out of a turn to do so... plus my legs wouldn't get me going fast enough to attempt it.

It was cold, probably 27 degrees or so, and super windy... but the sun was out... so not too brutal. This is how these races are supposed to be right? Add in a few snow flurries and I was loving it. Of course at the start line I looked around and most had on only 1 layer.. me, I had on full winter gear.. 3 layers with thermals... haha... maybe a little over dressed....

Well the start was fun and i shot to the front... but i remembered shortly that I hadn't gone hard since pro crit nats in August and my legs and lungs were doing a good job of reminding me of that... stayed at the front and hit the 1st barrier/dismount section about 3rd and once I got on my bike and going again I was about dead last... guess I should have practiced that one. The rest of the day was spent riding by myself and having fun. Certainly got better from a technique standpoint as the race went on... Was nice to have a ton of people screaming for me even though I was sucking (even the guy who yelled, "Marco its not a road race"... guess he doesn't know me real well... I don't do those either).... 1st person I saw before the races said "there's something you don't see everyday" and I imagine he was talking about me riding in the cold?? who knows:-)

All in all it was a blast and I am glad to see that this sport is on the up and up... probably won't be hitting anymore this year, but I also might not sell my bike just yet. Thanks to my wonderful wife who didn't make fun of me too bad but did have the quote of the day...I got done and said.. "I didn't get last did I?" and she says to me..."well ya certainly didn't get first" haha love ya! Thanks to Adam as well for coming out and watching in the cold and for everyone that yelled for me during the race... good times...

My training is in full tilt now with eyes on 2011. The team is full and we have a great roster which should be announced soon.

Till next time!

M@

Some good pics taken by Blair Fraley...

oh, and yes I did BLING my cross bike.....