Hello Readers,
Seeing as how I live in a popular city like Denver, convenient and safe riding options are not what I would consider ideal. Last year I rode the same trail almost every day and rode around the same state park countless times. This often made training seem tedious and fairly mundane. There were times were I didn't want to ride simply because I was bored of riding the same route. I wanted to try and ride different trials and get to the mountains more often but I didn't have a driver's license at that point. This year I hope to make training more exciting by riding different routes around Denver and also riding in nearby areas like Colorado Springs or Boulder.
If you find yourself getting tired of your training routine I would try tagging along with a friend or teammate on their favorite roads or trails. Or even better, try a mountain bike or cross ride to mix things up a little bit. You don't want to get tired of your training routes during the early season. I can tell you from experience that when this happens you loose a lot of motivation. A loss in motivation is NOT what you want when you're preparing for the upcoming season.
If you have anything specific you want me to write about next time please leave a comment below or message me on Facebook.
Thanks for reading,
Jackson Hootman
Friday, November 27, 2015
Monday, October 12, 2015
First Cyclocross Race
Hello Readers,
For those of you who don't know, cyclocross is the art of racing around short technical loops with a mix of dirt, grass, and road terrain. Added to the mix are obstacles that require riders to dismount, run with their bike, and remount at high speed. In other words, it is absolute mayhem. For a long time I have considered giving it a go but I didn't actually have the guts to show up until last weekend at Primalpalooza. I spent the whole week before-hand practicing dismounting, running with the bike, remounting, and riding through tight grass corners. But in the end I was foolish to think that any amount of practice would prepare me the tornado of chaos that is cyclocross racing.
Forty-five seconds after the start of the first lap someone slammed into me, knocking me on the ground. If your interested in a good laugh, another racer got it on camera (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=feWTQ2F0xMw). Look closely at the right side of the screen at 47 seconds. 0.5 or 0.25 speed is recommended. By the time I was back up and riding I was in last place. To make things worse, I crashed again five minutes later in a gravely corner. And on top of that, both my teammates got caught up with mechanical problems. Things were't looking good but after the first lap I started feeling better. I started passing people and was able to take corners more quickly than before. I was finally able to enjoy the course. By the end of three laps my teammate Zach caught up to me and I was able to follow his wheel to the end of the fourth lap and to the end of the race. At first, 35th place may sound pretty terrible but I was happy with it for my first go at cyclocross.
Overall, I had a blast trying something new. If you're feeling a little bored with road riding then I would for sure give cyclocross a try. Just go in with reasonable expectations and don't be surprised if you crash once... or twice.
Thanks for reading,
Jackson Hootman
For those of you who don't know, cyclocross is the art of racing around short technical loops with a mix of dirt, grass, and road terrain. Added to the mix are obstacles that require riders to dismount, run with their bike, and remount at high speed. In other words, it is absolute mayhem. For a long time I have considered giving it a go but I didn't actually have the guts to show up until last weekend at Primalpalooza. I spent the whole week before-hand practicing dismounting, running with the bike, remounting, and riding through tight grass corners. But in the end I was foolish to think that any amount of practice would prepare me the tornado of chaos that is cyclocross racing.
Forty-five seconds after the start of the first lap someone slammed into me, knocking me on the ground. If your interested in a good laugh, another racer got it on camera (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=feWTQ2F0xMw). Look closely at the right side of the screen at 47 seconds. 0.5 or 0.25 speed is recommended. By the time I was back up and riding I was in last place. To make things worse, I crashed again five minutes later in a gravely corner. And on top of that, both my teammates got caught up with mechanical problems. Things were't looking good but after the first lap I started feeling better. I started passing people and was able to take corners more quickly than before. I was finally able to enjoy the course. By the end of three laps my teammate Zach caught up to me and I was able to follow his wheel to the end of the fourth lap and to the end of the race. At first, 35th place may sound pretty terrible but I was happy with it for my first go at cyclocross.
Overall, I had a blast trying something new. If you're feeling a little bored with road riding then I would for sure give cyclocross a try. Just go in with reasonable expectations and don't be surprised if you crash once... or twice.
Jackson Hootman
Monday, September 21, 2015
The Importance of the Off-Season
Hello Readers,
Given the time of year I thought it made sense to talk a little bit about the off-season. Right now I am taking some time off. I didn't realize I needed it until I spent a whole week off the bike after my last race of the season. I didn't feel tired or sick of riding after my last race but that week long break sure felt good. For the first time in months I was able to eat whatever I wanted, stay up late, and spend the whole weekend just relaxing. It also provided an easy transition when I returned to school. After a summer filled with just riding, sleeping, and eating, hours of calculus homework was quite the shock to the system. But because I didn't have any training to do, I had the time I needed to focus on school and finish all of my homework. Since starting this off-season, I have also been able to look at colleges, start applications, and even apply to join the National Honors Society. I have a feeling that this nice break will have me motivated to start training again when December comes around.
I wouldn't consider myself extremely qualified to be giving training advice but if you too are in your off-season, why not take some time to focus on school or work? Eat some ice cream if you want to, go to bed at midnight if you want to. Now is your time to recharge. Don't be afraid to let loose a little bit and have some fun. It may feel like all your work from the previous season is going to waste but that is far from true. If anything you are rewarding all of the blood and sweat you put into a long season. The only exception being the slim chance Chris Froome is reading this right now. If you're a Tour de France champion I would suspect things are a little different. No ice cream or late nights for you. But for the rest of us, we should just try to have some fun. We deserve to sit back and relax before we need to start building those base miles again.
Thanks for reading,
Jackson Hootman
Given the time of year I thought it made sense to talk a little bit about the off-season. Right now I am taking some time off. I didn't realize I needed it until I spent a whole week off the bike after my last race of the season. I didn't feel tired or sick of riding after my last race but that week long break sure felt good. For the first time in months I was able to eat whatever I wanted, stay up late, and spend the whole weekend just relaxing. It also provided an easy transition when I returned to school. After a summer filled with just riding, sleeping, and eating, hours of calculus homework was quite the shock to the system. But because I didn't have any training to do, I had the time I needed to focus on school and finish all of my homework. Since starting this off-season, I have also been able to look at colleges, start applications, and even apply to join the National Honors Society. I have a feeling that this nice break will have me motivated to start training again when December comes around.
I wouldn't consider myself extremely qualified to be giving training advice but if you too are in your off-season, why not take some time to focus on school or work? Eat some ice cream if you want to, go to bed at midnight if you want to. Now is your time to recharge. Don't be afraid to let loose a little bit and have some fun. It may feel like all your work from the previous season is going to waste but that is far from true. If anything you are rewarding all of the blood and sweat you put into a long season. The only exception being the slim chance Chris Froome is reading this right now. If you're a Tour de France champion I would suspect things are a little different. No ice cream or late nights for you. But for the rest of us, we should just try to have some fun. We deserve to sit back and relax before we need to start building those base miles again.
Thanks for reading,
Jackson Hootman
Saturday, September 5, 2015
A Little Bit About Me: Jackson Hootman
Hello Readers,
My name is Jackson Hootman and I am a 17 year old cyclist born in Utah but raised in colorful Colorado. I race road for the Prestige Imports Cycling Development Team, one of the up and coming development teams in the country. The purpose of this post is to simply introduce myself so current and future readers can have a better understanding of my perspective as a racer.
Cycling has played a large role in my life thus far. It has kept me motivated and has taught me a lot about setting and achieving personalized goals. After heart surgery at the age of 3 and stomach surgery at the age of 16, cycling was the only thing that pushed me to stay healthy and maintain an active lifestyle. In addition, when school gets stressful, cycling is always there to provide an outlet. When I ride my bike, I'm taken to a whole different world. I truly owe a lot to this sport. It has opened me up to a community and to a lifestyle that I have cherished for the last couple of years and will hopefully continue to cherish for the rest of my life.
I have been riding my bike for as long as I can remember but I just started racing 3 years ago. After a slow first year, I've been able to achieve a lot of my goals these last 2 racing seasons. I've won a race out of state, gone to nationals twice, podiumed at a state championships road race, and I also had the opportunity to race for Team USA at the Colorado Junior Challenge. Even though I am proud of what I have achieved, I still think I have a lot to learn and still have a lot of room for improvement. This is the aspect of cycling I look most forward to exploring in my future posts. In general, I'm planning for this blog to act as a catalog of my struggles and successes as an athlete, embedded with lessons for fellow cyclists. As I grow and learn, I hope readers will learn alongside me.
Thanks for reading. You'll be hearing from me again soon.
Jackson Hootman
My name is Jackson Hootman and I am a 17 year old cyclist born in Utah but raised in colorful Colorado. I race road for the Prestige Imports Cycling Development Team, one of the up and coming development teams in the country. The purpose of this post is to simply introduce myself so current and future readers can have a better understanding of my perspective as a racer.
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| Warm up fun |
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| Crit racing in Arizona |
Cycling has played a large role in my life thus far. It has kept me motivated and has taught me a lot about setting and achieving personalized goals. After heart surgery at the age of 3 and stomach surgery at the age of 16, cycling was the only thing that pushed me to stay healthy and maintain an active lifestyle. In addition, when school gets stressful, cycling is always there to provide an outlet. When I ride my bike, I'm taken to a whole different world. I truly owe a lot to this sport. It has opened me up to a community and to a lifestyle that I have cherished for the last couple of years and will hopefully continue to cherish for the rest of my life.
I have been riding my bike for as long as I can remember but I just started racing 3 years ago. After a slow first year, I've been able to achieve a lot of my goals these last 2 racing seasons. I've won a race out of state, gone to nationals twice, podiumed at a state championships road race, and I also had the opportunity to race for Team USA at the Colorado Junior Challenge. Even though I am proud of what I have achieved, I still think I have a lot to learn and still have a lot of room for improvement. This is the aspect of cycling I look most forward to exploring in my future posts. In general, I'm planning for this blog to act as a catalog of my struggles and successes as an athlete, embedded with lessons for fellow cyclists. As I grow and learn, I hope readers will learn alongside me.
Thanks for reading. You'll be hearing from me again soon.
Jackson Hootman
Wednesday, September 2, 2015
A Turbulent Start to Cross
Although this is my second cross race ever, today felt eerily similar to my last cross race two years ago.
Let's take a look back at my first cross race. It was a nice cool fall afternoon in Golden, CO, 2013. I had my first cross bike for a while before and always had fun going out and riding the trails outside my neighborhood. I spent a little bit of time doing some mounting/dismounting practice with my team in some different grassy areas. Cross always scared me, I mean, who likes crashing? Oh and by the way, I hate running, that's why I ride bikes. These kids are crazy to like both at the same time. 'Cause that's all I thought cross was. It took some time for them to convince me but eventually I get the nerve to show up for a race. I don't remember the race exactly because sometimes the brain blocks bad memories, but here is generally how the race went. I roll off the line with about 20 other people, I know that on the road I'm faster or as fast as most of them. I'm thinking I could easily get top ten. The first lap, I head out with the group. As the lap continues something feels wrong. People are starting to pass me. I was going slow, was my brake rubbing? But I don't want to stop, I'm giving everything to try and keep up. All of a sudden, I slide out around a tight corner. I wasn't going too fast and had no idea what happened. I come to the finish line so far back I decided to stop and see what was wrong. I had two flats. Apparently they were both slowly going flat the whole lap. I didn't finish that race. For me, that was a terrible experience so I just avoided cross for the rest of the season and the next year.
This year I started riding those trails in my neighborhood again, just messing around. I felt fast and strong. I figured wow, maybe I could do well in cross this fall. I changed my thought on cross. The key is to stop thinking of cross as a crash-fest and just have fun with it. That's how I came in today. I showed up, registered and started riding around the course for warm up. It's one of those days that's just a little too hot but I'm feeling good and picking up the speed each lap. As I accelerated, I entered a corner too fast and nearly slid out. The air went out of my front wheel so fast that I ground to a halt. There was about 15 minutes to the start of my race. It took me about five minutes to run to my car a quarter mile away. I rushed change the tube and made it to the start with about a minute to go before the whistle. Filled with adrenaline, I think, I feel even better right now. As the group of about fifty people started, people were knocking into each other to make the transition from 10 wide to three wide and then single file. The whole first lap was just the spreading out of the field. The second lap, I situated myself and started picking riders off right and left. I moved up from about 40th place to somewhere around 20th. As we entered the third and final lap, (they are eight minute laps), I felt I could probably catch a few more and finish top 15. About halfway through, I notice my rear tire going flat. Crap, only about three minutes left, I can push it and make it to the finish. Nope, that didn't happen. As I gingerly rounded a corner my rear tire nearly rolled off of the rim. Now it's completely flat, so I just jumped off and started running. That last three minutes is almost only riding, so running, it took me about five. Those 20 people I passed during the second lap started to pass me. I ran all the way through the finish. I left kinda pissed, but felt that before that happened, I was actually having fun and enjoying myself. I'll be continuing to race cross but will need to get some new tubes, and tires, maybe just a spare set of wheels. Or a new bike altogether.
I might add some pictures in the coming days, if anyone took any. Stay tuned as I'll continue to share these experiences as they happen.
Let's take a look back at my first cross race. It was a nice cool fall afternoon in Golden, CO, 2013. I had my first cross bike for a while before and always had fun going out and riding the trails outside my neighborhood. I spent a little bit of time doing some mounting/dismounting practice with my team in some different grassy areas. Cross always scared me, I mean, who likes crashing? Oh and by the way, I hate running, that's why I ride bikes. These kids are crazy to like both at the same time. 'Cause that's all I thought cross was. It took some time for them to convince me but eventually I get the nerve to show up for a race. I don't remember the race exactly because sometimes the brain blocks bad memories, but here is generally how the race went. I roll off the line with about 20 other people, I know that on the road I'm faster or as fast as most of them. I'm thinking I could easily get top ten. The first lap, I head out with the group. As the lap continues something feels wrong. People are starting to pass me. I was going slow, was my brake rubbing? But I don't want to stop, I'm giving everything to try and keep up. All of a sudden, I slide out around a tight corner. I wasn't going too fast and had no idea what happened. I come to the finish line so far back I decided to stop and see what was wrong. I had two flats. Apparently they were both slowly going flat the whole lap. I didn't finish that race. For me, that was a terrible experience so I just avoided cross for the rest of the season and the next year.
This year I started riding those trails in my neighborhood again, just messing around. I felt fast and strong. I figured wow, maybe I could do well in cross this fall. I changed my thought on cross. The key is to stop thinking of cross as a crash-fest and just have fun with it. That's how I came in today. I showed up, registered and started riding around the course for warm up. It's one of those days that's just a little too hot but I'm feeling good and picking up the speed each lap. As I accelerated, I entered a corner too fast and nearly slid out. The air went out of my front wheel so fast that I ground to a halt. There was about 15 minutes to the start of my race. It took me about five minutes to run to my car a quarter mile away. I rushed change the tube and made it to the start with about a minute to go before the whistle. Filled with adrenaline, I think, I feel even better right now. As the group of about fifty people started, people were knocking into each other to make the transition from 10 wide to three wide and then single file. The whole first lap was just the spreading out of the field. The second lap, I situated myself and started picking riders off right and left. I moved up from about 40th place to somewhere around 20th. As we entered the third and final lap, (they are eight minute laps), I felt I could probably catch a few more and finish top 15. About halfway through, I notice my rear tire going flat. Crap, only about three minutes left, I can push it and make it to the finish. Nope, that didn't happen. As I gingerly rounded a corner my rear tire nearly rolled off of the rim. Now it's completely flat, so I just jumped off and started running. That last three minutes is almost only riding, so running, it took me about five. Those 20 people I passed during the second lap started to pass me. I ran all the way through the finish. I left kinda pissed, but felt that before that happened, I was actually having fun and enjoying myself. I'll be continuing to race cross but will need to get some new tubes, and tires, maybe just a spare set of wheels. Or a new bike altogether.
I might add some pictures in the coming days, if anyone took any. Stay tuned as I'll continue to share these experiences as they happen.
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