Race dates

Here are the races and the dates of the races I will be doing.

Belgium Interclub Hoboken May 1st

Czech RepublicCourse de la Paix May 6th-10th

Germany 3-Etappen der Rad May 15th-17th

Belgium Vlaamse Ardennen May 22nd -24th

Back in Belgium

I’m back in Belgium at the U23 house in Izegem, Belgium for another chance at the European field. Things haven’t changed much over here, Belgium is still Belgium nothing glamorous but still famous in itself. We have a strong group of us riders; Jacob and Austin both from Portland, Oregon, Charlie and Ryan from California and Andrew from Colorado. Our first race is a hard interclub this Friday, but only made harder by the presents of my trade team, team Hot Tubes. They will be in Europe doing that race then a big junior stage race in France that Nathan won last year. During that same time the national team and I will be racing course de la paix (the peace race) in Czech Republic which is know as the hardest junior race in the world. it’s a 5 day 6 stage, stage race with almost every strong national team sending a team. I’m looking forward to the challenge and having a good team result do to the strong team we have.

We are off today to ride some of the famous tour of Flanders climbs. I’ll post again later

Ian

Team Camp is over

After an awesome week of; riding, ping pong, bowling, and rafting its time to pack my bags again for another road trip, this time to Boston. This camp has been one of the hardest and most fun weeks on the bike I’ve had this year. Our team is amazingly strong and incredibly fun, we have a total of seven riders and all are from different states and one in even from Canada.

North Georgia is home to some of the hardest riding anyone on our team has ever done. Everyday was around 70 miles with over 7,000 feet of climbing. Three times we climbed hog pen gap a hard climb used in the Tour of Georgia and once we did Brasstown Bald. Every climb is supper steep as well, most having grades from 15-25%.

The camp ended on Saturday and the drive back to the team house in Boston began. It was a long drive but I saw states and cities that I’d never seen before plus the others riders we good company. Now I’m off to Europe where I will be for a month traveling and racing with the national team. However Hot tubes will also be in Europe at the same time and we will even do a race together.

I have lots of good pictures I will try and post and I will take lots more in Europe.
Ian

Team Camp By Lawson Craddock.

I'm here in Georgia with the Hot Tubes Development Cycling Team for our very first training camp. The riders that I am here with are Gavin Mannion from Massachutes, Nathan Brown from Tennessee, Ian Boswell from Oregon, Stuart Wight from Canada, Anders Newbury from Vermont, and Ben Gabardi from Mississippi. Yesterday, I flew into Charlotte, North Carolina to meet up with Toby for the three hour drive down to Tiger, Georgia. That night we received all of our new equipment including all of our clothing and our brand new Cervelo R3 SL's with Sram Red and Mavic Carbone SL's. We then proceeded to eat dinner before assembling our bikes. After everyone was finished putting the finishing touches on their bikes we played our luck in a game of Texas Hold 'Em. I ended up taking third and left the game without any money. Ian and Gavin went one, two respectively and split up the pot. Today, we woke up at around 9:00 for breakfast and a ride at 11:00. For the ride we did a 20 mile loop before riding about 40 miles out to a town called Helen for some sandwiches. We then rode about another five miles to a huge 10 mile mountain. The group whittled down to Anders, Nate, and I until about three miles into the climb. My legs then exploded and I was then passed by Stuart and Gavin. I then just tried to ride at a pace higher than four mph (seriously!). With about 3/4's mile of a straight wall Ian and I decided to call it quits and jump into the van. We then proceeded to turn around and drive until we found Ben to pick him up as well. After picking up Ben, we drove to the top of the mountain to find the rest of the team waiting up there. They then got into the van and we drove back to the house that we are staying at. We ended the day with around 75 miles and a little less than 4 hours. Tomorrow we plan on riding up the Brasstown Bald which should be oh so much fun! I'll keep y'all posted on how it goes.

new bike, kits and the gulf coast

Last week my new team bike and our new team kits arrived. The new Cervelo R3 SL with Sram red is a big upgrade from the 20lbs steel bike I’ve been riding for the past few months. The new kits are also a bonus as always having to wash shorts to keep riding with clean bibs won’t be a problem any more.

I spent Easter weekend with Ben and his family at the Mississippi Gulf Coast. It was a good mental vacation in between all of my traveling. We went deep sea fishing and were very successful and even had time for some good riding. However not everything at the coast was exciting, even today three years tafter he destruction of hurricane Katrina can be seen. I was amazed at the destruction it caused to the entire area, we saw houses that were flooded and left vacant as if the hurricane was only yesterday. As we walked around the beach and town Ben’s mother Ellen pointed out where things were before the hurricane and as I saw were there no longer. Although some people did come back and chose to rebuild, I question there decisions as another storm of Katrina’s force is bound to happen again.

Luckily there are no hurricanes in Oregon
Ian

Southern Cooking

Well ya’ll know that the food down in the south has its own style and flavors, which is more than tasty and usually fried. Fried chicken is a southern food found even in Oregon, but the fried catfish we had at “catfish haven” the other night was truly a southern specialty. A plate of French fries, fried cornbread and fried catfish is what I ordered and common mean down in this part of the country, but my favorite thing in the south has to be the sweet tea. The sweat tea is amazing, I’m not one for soda or sugary drinks but this is delicious, and what make a good sweet tea great is the ice. The smaller the ice cubes the better the sweet tea, I never thought ice could make such a difference but it does.
Staying in shape isn’t hard down here as Ben has been showing me some great rides but staying lean for the hills might catch up to me if I keep up with the southern ways.

Ian

Tour of Tuscaloosa

The Tour of Tuscaloosa started Saturday after noon for Nathan and I with a junior criterium in downtown Tuscaloosa, Alabama. The junior field had some good riders but Nathan and I had not problem finishing 1-2. After our short junior race it was time to start thinking about the nights big event, a 50 minute pro ½ twilight criterium. I have watched twilight criterium before, however this was more than a twilight crit. The course was a long 1.2 mile loop that passed through downtown which was lit well, however the course then descended a steep hill to the river which lead to a series of dark streets that were not lighted. I’d ridden the course earlier in the junior race so I knew how to take all the turns, but on lap one of the pro ½ race I felt as I was on a course I’d never ridden.
Despite the dark streets as strong winds the race went on and turned out well for our team (Hot Tubes). Nathan got in an early group of the front which happened to hold off the chasing pack until the end. He was under geared in his small junior gears for the final sprint but still took 3rd. Ben and I both finished in the pack behind, and road in a supporting role of Nathan.
The road race the following morning started less than 11 hours after the finish of the twilight criterium, so we didn’t have much time to rest. We woke the next morning to cold humid air, we arrived at the start and were ready to race. Ben, Nathan and I covered every move for the first three laps thinking that something would stay away off the front. However nothing did and after 4 laps Ben called it quits and Nathan followed on lap 6. I managed to finish in the pack. It was a hard race and good training as well.
Now I’m at Ben’s house outside of Jackson Mississippi where I will be for a few weeks until our team training camp in Georgia April 18th .

Ian