…I was welcomed onto the most prestigious team in the world of triathlon. Today, I am still honored to be a part of this incredible family and cannot imagine my world without the Timex Multisport Team.

Throughout the years, we have had many different sponsors and supporters. Each of them has brought something different to the table and has allowed all of us to try something new and excited from year to year. We normally run our major sponsors for 2 concurrent years and 2012 was a year to re-sign or find something else. After lots of great chats, our team manager did what was best for the overall group and brought on some new and exciting brands!

The first major change was our bike sponsor! Partnering with American Bicycle Group would mean that the triathletes would the flying on the new and improved Quintana Roos and the roadie’s and off-roadie’s would be smashing it on Litespeeds. I’m very excited about this as I’ve never ridden a Litespeed and our contacts at ABG are extremely eager to work directly with the athletes. From mountain bikes to road bikes to cyclocross bikes, look for some great product review posts throughout the season on my new hardware :)

The second major sponsor change for 2012 was our clothing provider. Champion System offers a variety of custom clothing for all types of athletes. With a strong cycling and triathlon background, it was a no brainer that CS would be a great fit for the team. If you haven’t jumped on Facebook and seen the sneak peek pics of our new kits, I’d highly suggest it…we’re gonna be one sharp looking team this season!

New all around for the Timex Multisport Team in 2012 is a bicycle tire sponsor. Challenge is an extremely well known brand in the cycling world and has a reputation for having some of the best tubulars (sewups) on the market. Not only do they have a sweet selection of cyclocross tires, they are also one of the only company’s to produce a tubular mountain bike tire. This will definitely be a first for me but I’m really excited to give it a go!

After an extremely rough couple of years, I have a lot of really exciting things to look forward to in 2012! My number one goal for the entire season is the stay healthy and major injury free for 12 consecutive months. Although that might seem easy on paper, I haven’t even come close since December 2008.

I’ll spare you the details, but I had a phenomenal chat with coach Neal Henderson yesterday and we have a concrete plan that should have me rockin’ and rollin’ for cyclocross season this upcoming fall. For the first quarter, I’ll just build back into shape on my own doing minimal exercise and strength training – it will be treated like any normal off season. In the second quarter I will buckle down and become more structured with specific power work and higher intensity training. By the third quarter, I will be racing the Winter Park MTB series that will help build my base and lung capacity. And fourth quarter will be my peaking season to kick ass and take names in Cyclocross. As always, I will be racing the entire RMEC off-road moto series and misc road and MTB races in Colorado, but those will all be for fun and practice as CX is the number one focus this year.

Here’s to an awesome 2012 Timex, I cannot wait!

There’s no doubt that holiday shopping is a difficult task! How do you find the perfect gift for someone who already has everything? Who wants to battle the insane crowds anyway? Personally, I absolutely despise shopping malls but I do like to find that “perfect” gift for my friends and family. Below are my top three holiday gift ideas for the endurance athlete that may seem impossible to buy for!

Nordic Ski Package – In all honesty, as much as we try, type A personalities just simply cannot rest during the winter. Our lives wouldn’t go forward without some sort of daily exercise, even if it’s running in below zero temps or getting on the bike trainer and suffering for hours. Although this gift is a higher price point item, it’s definitely an investment. Whether skating, touring or classic skiing, any form of nordic skiing is a great way to cross train for endurance sports in the winter time. It’s new and exciting so you don’t get burned out, it’s outside, and it’s a killer workout! Packages start as low as $250 new but going to your local ski swap is perfect way to find inexpensive used gear that is perfect for starting up. Check out this link for new Nordic Ski Packages – http://www.skiessentials.com/browse.cfm/complete-packages/2,333.html

Timex 80 Watch – In case you haven’t noticed, the 80s have been creeping back into style :) Personally, I’m not that into clothing but I absolutely have to have matching hats and watches. The Timex 80 watch is a fun gift that is assured to get tons of compliments and within a great price point. Check out the full line at www.timex80.com

DVD of Choice – This item is not only the best bang for your buck, but totally customizable for any type of athlete. Whether you’re rocking out on the bike trainer, smashing it on the treadmill or just enjoying some hot cocoa on the couch on a cold winter night, an entertaining sports flick/documentary is where it’s at. Since I’m a big mountain biker, I like to shop at www.mtbmovies.com – they have a variety of videos that suppress that itch to go out and shred the trails. In our house, we call watching biking/moto/ski videos “e-riding”. There’s nothing like a rad video to you get you motivated and excited for the sports you love. I have to admit that opening new bike videos on Christmas morning is certainly the highlight of the day!!!

Seeing that I’ve been racing almost every weekend since the cyclocross season has started and now I’m sidelined once again by the evil Epstein Barr Virus, I figured it was the perfect opportunity to share with you my thoughts on the Orbea’s newest carbon Cyclocross ride! As you can tell right of the bat, this is one gorgeous bicycle! From the colors to it’s sharp lines, this is without a doubt, a serious eye turner. Not only is the frame a beautiful looking product, the engineering and construction of it is also spectacular. Created with Silver carbon, the bike is extremely light and perfectly rigid for the ultimate race blooded rider. The ATT Ergonomy System technology took all things cyclocross into consideration and gave the bike an asymmetric horizontal frame design suited for ease of carrying it on your shoulder. All cross racers know how difficult it is to properly lift your bike up and place it correctly on your shoulder while your heart rate is near 200 BPM, but with the Terra, you have no worries. The frame design makes it much more comfortable and makes running up those stairs is that much easier :)

Along with the brilliant frame shape, the designers also routed all of the external cables to the right side of the top tube for yet another ergonomic feature when shouldering the bike! Lastly, along with all of the new Orbea’s, the Terra incorporates the new GORE cable housing throughout the bike. This housing is perfect for the CX racer because we all race in a variety of conditions and it allows the cables to remain smooth and debris free no matter what the weather is like. There’s nothing like getting a gunked up cable and not being able to shift during a super muddy race and the GORE housing will completely prevent that from happening.

We all know that Shimano has the most reliable products on the market so I went with an Ultegra 10speed shifting setup with an 11-25T cassette. Since Shimano’s CX components will not be released until 2012, I’m running an FSA SL-K crankset with 46/36T chainrings and feel as though the gearing combination is perfect. A lot of people choose to race on a single front ring set up to avoid dropping their chain but I find having the gear options is much more advantageous. I prefer to use the same Shimano XTR pedals that I use for mountain biking for reliability and ease of getting in and out of no matter what the conditions.

Until all cross bikes convert to the disc brake system, in my opinion there will never be the perfect cantilever brake. These brakes are extremely finicky to setup and never seem to work worth a damn in any other condition except when it’s dry with zero dust :) Can you tell I have beef with CX brakes?!? Coming from a mountain bike background, I’ve been spoiled with unbelievably great working hydraulic disc brakes so it’s difficult to switch to the polar opposite and I find myself forgetting how different they are when racing! However, like everyone else, I cope and have found the Avid Shorty Ultimates with Swiss Stop yellow pads to be the best working combo for both carbon and aluminum rimed wheels.

Wheel and tire setup might possibly be the most important part to a successful cyclocross race. Most competitive racers want to run the lowest tire pressure possible to maximize traction while braking and cornering. Each second you save in a corner is multiplied by the hundreds of corners on the course. The preferred setup with most racers is a stiff, lightweight carbon wheel in conjunction with a tubular tire filled with sealant. On the plus side, without the use of a tube inside the tire, you don’t have to risk any pinch-flats. However, unless you have multiple sets of tubular wheels, you have to choose a suitable tire that you won’t have to change throughout the season as gluing and ungluing tubular tires is NOT fun! For my personal race wheels, I’ve chosen to the Vittoria Cross XG Pro tire that is multi-directional (at least for the front wheel) for a choice of tread pattern. Colorado doesn’t have too many mud races so it’s overall the best option for my specific race terrain.

My training/pit wheel setup, however, has multiple options. The Shimano Dura-Ace C24 wheels have a tubeless ready rim (similar to mountain bike rims) so you not only have the option of easily changing the tire for various conditions, you also have the option to run the setup without a tube. Although the tubular setup allows you to get away with a slightly lower tire pressure, the tubeless setup is a great alternative and may even be a bit lighter!

All in all, I couldn’t be happier with my 2011 cyclocross rig and have nothing but great things to say about how Orbea has gone about constructing this phenomenal bike. If the Luna Chix are winning World Cup and USGP races on it and I can manage a podium here and there in the Colorado series, I don’t think anybody would disagree :)

The Boulder crew of the Timex Multisport Team committed to adopting a 2 mile stretch of road for the next 2 years. As adopters, we are required to do multiple clean ups a year so today we did our first round! Although half of the ground was covered in snow, we were all amazed to see how much trash there was and how much more efficient we could be with several more people.

We managed to fill up twice as many bags as we thought and had a blast working together to give back to our amazing community. We plan on inviting more than just Timex team members next time so we can clean up double or triple the amount we did today! Great job team, it’s so great to be apart of such a fantastic group of people :)