Bart Torre's blog

First race back

2006-06-24T17:24:00.000-07:00

well, today was my first rae back after 6wks of no racing. I stayed local and did the Brownstown RR. Lucky for me it consisted of roads I ride on daily, so, there were no surprises. When leaving my house I thought for sure I would be racing in the rain, but we were lucky enough to have none! The course in itself didn't really consist of anything hard besides a small power climb every lap. The whole first lap I was pretty paranoid about pulling hard on my bars since I haven't done it yet. Well......that stopped after the first lap seeing how everything seemed to be holding together. The race was pretty fast/ well contended by many strong local riders. With this being m first race back I wanted to take it one step at a time and not do anything DUMB. I pretty much just wanted to only see the red zone when I really needed to, which usually came out of every corner and the power climb to the finish. Our teammate was in the 5man break the whole time until maybe the last half lap and at this time it just got nuts. Well.......I finished the race but felt only about 50-60% there. My endurance and work around LT is ok, I just need to work on top end speed and VO2max.

This race also showed me another thing, I'm not even close enough to race Fitchburg. If I went up there I would be dead after the CR. So, I'm trying to get my whole $210.00 back from the promoter but we'll see what they say. Another thing is that just after this short 50mile race my shoulder is very sore, so, I can't even imagine what it would be like after 4 hard days of racing.

The junior rider I coach also raced today in the junior 15-16. He rode strong the whole race and just missed the win. But, again, all his strong performances are a good indication of his form for nationals. He also told me he just bought a Cervelo P3 TT bike! Now the fun part comes when we really hone in his TT position.

Well....thats about it for now. Lets just hope for some good weather tomorrow!

Bart

Fitcburg Longsjo Classic coming up quick

2006-06-21T11:00:00.000-07:00

There is now only 1wk before the start of the Fitchburg stage race. This year the race organizers decided to make a pro/1 category! Due to this many better teams will be lining up such as; Colavita, Target Training, Navigators, TIAA-CREF just to name a few. All the races will stay the same as yrs past, but more than likely a bit faster.

Due to not racing in 6wks I have decided to use Fitchburg as good hard training. Fitchburg will land on wk 3 of my 4wk build for U23 nationals. Training so far has been going ok. Last week I started back up with LT intervals and climbing over in York. For wk 1 I had a total of 420miles/22.5hrs, so pretty good. This week should be a bit more @ 23.5hrs with more LT training. So far the shoulder is holding up well with all my training and hopefully keeps feeling ok.

Looks like I'll be able to get one race in before Fitchburg this coming Saturday @ Browntown RR. I'm still a bit timid when it comes to really pulling hard on my bars, but , hopefully this will fade. I've been using our local Tuesday training rides to do some good race efforts as well as slowly work back into pulling on my bars. I start physical therapy tomorrow and go 2x's/wk for 1 month. I've been doing therapy at home since last thursday and have made good progress. I feel that by the end of this week I will be close to full ROM.

I'll make sure to keep everyone updated on my progress with both racing and therapy.

Bart

First field test

2006-06-17T12:04:00.000-07:00

Well, today I got to go out and do a solid 4hrs of training(90degrees) in the hills of York county. My first stop however was Cool Creek Rd. so I could do a quick uphill field test. It's 1.6miles in all, with the first 3/4 being a good steady grade before you make the right turn to Sam Lewis St. Park; then it kicks up hard all the way. While descending down the backside I looked at my power, HR, speed etc...from my effort. I was pretty surprised when I saw 387av watts/ 179av HR! This is without doing any threshold work in 6wks!!! This is a climb that I used last yr for hill repeats leading up to Toona and when climbing well I did 6 efforts averaging 408watts. Now keep in mind that I'm a measley 62kgs, so last year I was doing 6.5w/kg and now with my new field test I'm at 6.2w/kg. I was a little stressed before hand, but after seeing my numbers I have no doubt that I'll be good for nationals and Toona (7/10 and 7/24-30). For Fitchburg I'm going to be using my training bike w/ SRM to get another good field test. So under race conditions and a bit longer effort I'll get another quality field test to hone in my power zones that much better.

Lately I've been following the America Tour and Europe Tour scene's pretty closely. This in part is due to the fact that I'll being seeing the TIAA-CREF and U23 Nat. Team guys July 10th @ nationals. Currently it looks like TIAA-CREF is running a double program both in europe and in the US; europe: Rud du Sud US: Tour de Beauce. After looking at how they're currently riding I have a feeling they could be a bit tired; this is very good for me. Also, the U23 nat. team is doing some hard racing now as well and looks like they could possibly be getting tired. All this can help me since I'm fresh from 6wks of no racing/ easy training. But...like always we'll have to wait and see b/c these guys are all quality riders and I applaud there efforts.

until next time,

Bart

p.s. All you 15-16yr old juniors better watch out for Graham Coy at nationals. He's coming with some great form. He recently won the Philly TT 15-16jr. men by 1min 26sec and this was only in an 8mile TT.

Training, weather, etc....

2006-06-17T04:11:00.000-07:00

Ok, well first things first; I saw Dr. Gish on Thursday and he gave me the "go ahead" to start standing up! Wow I've waited 6 whole weeks to hear those words. Only thing is, now I'm so used to sitting that I don't really need to stand very much. Now that I can stand up to climb, I decided to head over to the Red Lion/ York area. I really missed riding out there as thats where the better rolling climbs are. I actually found some new roads that were pretty nice. The weather now is great for riding, since the 9am temp is about 65 and by 10am it's time for the leg warmers to come off at around 75 deg. Most people around here think I'm nuts for wearing leg warmers like I do (up until a steady 75 degrees) but, it's something I picked up from my past coach and europe. Today it's suppose to be a high of 85deg with a pretty high humidity and tomorrow around mid 90's. Thats one bad thing about PA summers; when the temp is hot the humidity is usually pretty high. Take last summer for instance; there was a 2wk period where it was no less than upper 80's-upper 90's with 70% humidity. That meant the heat index was usually no less than mid 90's and a few days it was actually a bit over 100 deg. If I remember correctly, on those 100+ deg. days I actually drank 10 bottles over the course of 5-6hrs.

Well, training is full on now. I'm currently at the end of my 1st week in my 4wk build to nationals. I figured that since my speed isn't quite up to par, that I would use Fitchburg as a hard 3rd week of training. After that I have about 10 days until the U23 RR, which I figure I should be good for. I know the distance will be no problem, since the past few weeks all I've been doing is long hours. But we'll have to wait and see.

I've actually been training the past week on my team bike, since my training bike was at the shop. I'm happy to have my training bike back though since thats what my SRM is on. For those of you who don't know of "Shirks Bike Shop", I suggest that you go and check it out. It's located out in Leola, PA way back in farm country. If you were going for your first time you'd think "no way can there be a bike shop out here", but there is. The shop is in Luke Shirks' barn next to his house. Oh wait.....I forgot the coolest thing, Luke and his family are Mennonite! However, don't let that title fool you into thinking he doesn't know anything about bikes. It's actually quit the opposite; I feel him and his son James can fix a bike better than anyone. If you think watching a pro mechanic is fun, you should watch these guys work on any and every type of bike known to man. At one moment he could be working on a 30yr old beat up cruiser and then the next they could be working on my $5,000 team bike. Oh yeah, if Luke doesn't have something, he will order it for you or if all else fails he will even make it for you! Yes thats correct, he can make it! Since he grew up mennonite and his family farm he is a very good machinist and can actually grind down cassette's to make them fit or even make an aluminum sleeve for your damaged carbon steerer. I've even witnessed him fix a bike noone thought could be fixed. It was an older beater bike where the threads to the bb actually stripped. So, instead of telling the guys to buy a new bike he along with his son James made a sleeve to fit in the bb area in the frame. The sleeve was then some how fixed to the inside of the frame and had perfectly new threads for the bb. Then all they had to do was put a new bb in and it was good as new! All I could say was, "wow any other bike shop would tell you to chuck the bike". So, if anyones having problems that no bike shop can fix take it to Shirks Bike Shop. They have helped me out so much the past 7yrs I could never thank them enough. Oh yeah....if you want to get on their good side, I've heard that Luke Shirk likes creme filled doughnuts (boston creme I believe).

One last thing.......Tim, you did a good job putting my bike together; thanks a bunch buddy.

later,

Bart

1st training race in 6wks

2006-06-14T09:42:00.000-07:00

well.......my training has been going as good as possible the past 6wks. Now that I'm at wk 5 post op. I have started to do some intensity. Yesterday I did 3hrs endurance in the morning and then did our local tuesday night training ride which added another 2.5hrs. At first I was planning on just sitting in and doing some speed work, but after half a lap i threw that out the window as I found myself in the first break. Since I'm not allowed to stand up or pull with my right arm until this thursday, I was forced to use my newly improved leg speed. I was active the whole time as I wanted to really get in some good training. I now understand why Lance destroys everyone in the mountains and TT's. It all has to do with his high cadence, since with high cadence you ride more on aerobic capacity. There was many times yesterday when I just went to the front and simply rode away from everyone. Since I can't stand up to accelerate I just simply increase my cadence and bring the attack in like it's childs play. All in all, my power is good and fitness is good, but since I haven't raced for 6wks speed was lacking.

My first race back will be 6/24 which is just a small local race; but none the less a good test for the legs. After that I then will use Fitchburg as a good launching pad for nationals. I actually feel pretty comfortable going into these races; we'll see what I can pull off. After nationals my main objective is Tour of Toona, which I did well at last year. Since I'm super fresh compared to many this time of the year I really feel like Toona will go well for me.

Ok....well thats all for now. Until next time,

Collarbone photos

2006-06-10T18:23:00.000-07:00

notice the visible drop in the right shoulder(1 wk after break)

side view after 1 wk

2days post-op. I'm very messed up due to oxycodin and morphine.

Intro.

2006-06-10T14:56:00.000-07:00

Hi, my name is Bart Torre and I'm 22yrs old. I started racing bikes back in 1999 with a local junior team called Red Rose Rockets. Back in the day, this was a jr. team not to be messed with, as we had some strong riders. As I progressed out of the junior ranks, I then rode for Trek/VW/LSV out of Baltimore, MD. At the end of 2003 I earned enough points not only to go up to cat.2, but also up to cat.1. In 2004 I made my first trip over seas to race in europe with Cycling Center-Bio Racer. This is a mostly american team based out of Hertsberge, Belgium. I did half the 04' season with them and had the opportunity to get some quality experience. I liked it so much that I went back again for 2005 to again try my luck. Going over in 05' I knew I was in good shape as I trained during the PA winter months with a teammate( Jaime) in his home of El Paso, TX. To make a long story short, I had some mental struggles this time so I decided to come back home from europe early while I still enjoyed cycling. Once back home, I pretty much had no team and with US races being wicked expensive this isn't a good thing. Luckily a great group of guys called Tri-State Velo from Philly, PA saved me for the rest of the season. It's not very common for a team to take a new rider in June, but they were very willing to help me out. With Tri-Sate Velo I had a fairly good Fitchburg and a surprisingly good Toona. Unfortunately, nationals out in PC, Utah didn't go to great for me. With me coming from 150ft or so and PC being 7200 ft, lets just say my body was hating me.

OK........that pretty much brings you up to this year. This season I'm racing for an elite team out of West Chester, PA called " Team Alliance Environmental." This is a very well rounded team, with guys for every type of Race. Currently I'm sidelined with a distal (type III) clavicle fracture, grade III AC seperation and I also tore off part of my trapezius muscle (back in April 29th). Luckily I found a great doctor, Dr. Michael Gish from Orthopedic Associates of Lancaster. I talked with him and 2 days later I was having surgery. So far everything is going very well. I go back to see him again on the 15th of June; for a 5wk post op visit. Hopefully then I will start physical therapy.

I always hate writing background info on myself as I find it boring. But, now that the initial post is over and done with, my future posts should be much more exciting.

Until next time,

Bart