The Paul Mach Blog

An interview with Bissell's Ian Boswell

paulmach@gmail.com (Paul Mach) — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 05:47:18 GMT

Today we have something special, an interview with Ian Boswell of Bissell Pro Cycling. He's a 19 year old stand out and first year pro from Bend, Oregon, now living in Chico, CA.

PaulMach.com: Thanks for sitting down with me Ian. But lets get right into it, when did you start reading PaulMach.com?

Ian Boswell: After the Paskenta Century in February. Am I the first one to be interviewed on the site?

PM.C: No, we actually did a two part interview with Paul Mach himself last year (Part 1, Part 2). But I'll be asking the questions. When did you start riding bikes?

IB: I did some BMX, but it started with the kids race at Cascade when I was 11.

PM.C: Isn't that a little old for a "kid's race."

IB: Not really, I mean, a win is a win.

PM.C: Okay... so you're headed off to Europe in a few days, when did you start racing over there?

IB: I did 3 weeks with the national team when I was 16. The next year I did a youth exchange to Belgium for school. I raced a bit while I was there. Last year I raced the spring in Europe too.

PM.C: How does that work with school?

IB: I graduated a semester early so that helped. But teachers are usually pretty supportive if it's for the national team.

PM.C: Now for something more interesting, are you heading into Europe single or are you doing the long distance thing?

IB: No, I'm single.

PM.C: Have you been looking then?

IB: Yeah, I'm on the prowl.

PM.C: Does being on Team Bissell help with that?

IB: Sure, now that I have business cards. I've been scattering them all over the park in Chico.

PM.C: Any success?

IB: So far no responses, but I'm keeping my phone on vibrate.

PM.C: Okay, so when you're not riding and not looking for a date, how do you spend your time?

IB: I like cooking. I'm always in the kitchen trying something new. it's fun.

PM.C: And you can't find a date? I'm sure this interview won't hurt. One final question, what are your goals for the season?

IB: I just want to learn from the older riders. You know, about stuff like blogging, tweeting and taxes.

PM.C: Alright, thanks Ian and good luck at those European races.

So to recrap: we have a young, single, professional athlete who has traveled the world and loves to cook. What's not to like?

It's automagical

paulmach@gmail.com (Paul Mach) — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 05:48:13 GMT

Today I've added a new feature to the blog. It answers that question I know you're always asking, "Where is Paul Mach?" Now, just a quick hop to PaulMach.com and you've got your answer in the nav bar on the right.

At first I wanted this feature to show my exact location. I figured it'd be cool for people to find me and get autographs.

Later I realized that might be a bit much. I don't want to make it too easy for people find out where I live. "Cough" Chris "Cough."

How does it work? It's automagical.

Well, not really. First, satellites over 12,500 miles away help my phone find its location. That information is then sent to my local cell tower before being transfered through a "series of tubes" to PaulMach.com. On the server a script asks Google to convert the lat/lng coordinates into a street address, part of which is displayed to you.

Pretty simple, and it all happens in about half a second. The technology took decades and billions to develop and now, finally, it's being used for something you care about.

Taking matters into our own hands

paulmach@gmail.com (Paul Mach) — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 05:15:54 GMT

The Madera Stage Race ended today with some serious drama. It was an 80 mile, 5 lap, road race. But first, let me share with you the GC going into the day:

Ben Jacques-Maynes
Paul Mach at 32 seconds
Rob Britton at 1:30
Jesse Moore at 1:48

The race started off with the typical attacking for the first lap. At the start of the second, Ben and Jesse got off the front with 4 others. A chase organized but it wasn't sustainable and the gap kept growing. As it climbed past 1:30, Rob and I started to worry.

So lets recap. We're just vibing in the pack while our leader is off the front, riding us out of the GC. We strategized a bit and came up with a plan to attack over the rollers with 2 laps to go.

That worked, and now Rob, Jim Wingert and I were on a direct flight to Suffer City. The gap wasn't coming down that fast and it took a while for Ben to learn we were chasing. Once he did, he attacked and soloed to the win.

Meanwhile, after an hour of chasing and a half lap to go, we finally caught what was left of the break, Jesse and some Yahoo. Jim and I attacked and finished a little bit ahead of the rest. The finish order was Ben, Paul, Jim, Jesse, Rob.

In the end the GC was unchanged, but man did Ben and Jesse make us work for it.

The pecking order is reestablished

paulmach@gmail.com (Paul Mach) — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 06:51:14 GMT

Ben was all business before today's time trial, and for good reason. I mean, there was a lot on the line after yesterday. Long story short, he smoked it, set a course record at 20:39 and beat me by about 40 seconds. Well played Ben, well played.

Day two of Madera features two stages. After the flat, 10 mile TT in the morning, there is a crit in the afternoon.

So after a bit of lunch we suited up again for the crit and man was it cray cray, cross wind all over the place. Ben and Rob spent most of the race off the front in a 4 man break, I hung out fighting the wind in the pack.

Overall, Rob managed to get some time bonuses to solidify 3rd on GC, Ben and I are still first and second, respectively.

Now for a little reward for those of you that have read this far. It's a little graph of the time gap between me and Ben during Friday's TT. Pretty interesting.

Battle speed! Attack speed! Ramming speed!

paulmach@gmail.com (Paul Mach) — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 07:10:04 GMT

The Bissell team is continuing their central valley tour with the Madera Stage Race this weekend in, wait for it... Madera.

This morning we drove a bit out of town for stage 1, the Ben Hur Time Trial. It featured 6 miles of rolling followed by 4 miles of climb. Bissell pwned it, I won, 4 seconds ahead of Ben JM, Rob Britton was third and Ian Boswell was 5th.

It was nice to finally get a win after a number of near misses but you know Ben must've been upset. To top it off his fortune cookie at dinner said, "Failure teaches success." Ouch, now he's going to be extra focused tomorrow.

The rest of the race features a flat 10 mile TT tomorrow morning followed by a criterium in the afternoon. Then there's a road race Sunday morning.

For those of you looking for results, you can find them here.

Merco gets the Bissell deep clean

paulmach@gmail.com (Paul Mach) — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 07:46:48 GMT

It was another one of those flat, straight, 120 mile days at the Merco Foothills Road Race. You know, long, fast and did I say flat?

It was also the first team road race of the season which made it the first without radios. So what's the verdict? Well, it was different and I kind of liked it. But I'll reserve final judgement 'till we do some bigger events.

As for the race, the attacks started right off the gun. A number of small groups got off the first lap but they all came back. The winning break of 13 went with about 3.5 laps (80 miles) to go. All the major teams were represented so we quickly got a gap that hovered around 2 minutes for the rest of the race. Me and Ben were there for Bissell.

About 70 miles later the group started angsting for some action. The attacks started but we made it through the rollers intact. I tried a few moves in the last few kilometers but nothing worked. However, I like to think that those, plus my super leadout, softened the field so Ben could take the win. I finished 8th.

The picture above is by Wil Matthews. The one below is also his and features both of the princesses in my life, Sara and the Pinarello. It was taken at the Marin County Triathlon and is currently number 9 in this gallery.

A romantic weekend in Merced

paulmach@gmail.com (Paul Mach) — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 06:05:06 GMT

Every year I pick a special weekend in early March to spend in Merced. It just happens to always coincide with the Merco Cycling Classic.

To spice it up a bit this year I decided to head down on the romantic 702 San Joaquin. Luckily my Pinarello race bike was already down in Merced so I just packed my backpack full of high quality italian made Giordana spandex and was on my way.

I arrived just in time for a spin with the guys. We headed out on the TTT course from the day before. A course that the Bissell guys deep cleaned.

As for the crit, well, lets see. It was the same old attack, attack, chase, crash, block, chase, attack, hang on. If you need more, read the report soon to be found at PodiumInsight.com or something.

Tomorrow we'll have to cowboy up because 125 miles with a bunch of Giant Yahoos who are full of Energy, United, and looking to Clean Up will surely lead to hard racing.

Snelling: The NorCal season opener

paulmach@gmail.com (Paul Mach) — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 03:37:23 GMT

I consider Snelling to be NorCal's season opener, so naturally, I had to be there. For those that don't know, Snelling is a flat, flat road race that runs 6 laps and about 75 miles for the P/1/2.

The wife and I arrived early and it wasn't long before we started hearing rumors of enormous puddles/lakes/secret fishing holes on the course. Would this year take us to Crazy Town or just Levanger again? I couldn't wait to find out.

Well, it was Crazy Town. Attacks, crashes, and hecka hard racing all put me deep into the box for the the first few laps.

Thankfully, a group of about 15 finally got off the front. Bissell had Danny Holloway up there and since he was riding a replica of Ben J-M's Pinarello training bike I was confident in his ability to win. This allowed me to spend the next 3 laps just sitting around talking to people while Chris Jones and Will Routley hammered on the front.

With a half lap to go, I attacked over the Merco finish hill with someone yelling, "No, Paul" from the field. But with a gap of still over a minute, I figured it was fair game to start racing again.

A little chase group formed with Phil Mooney, Will, James Mattis and some other dude. I never thought we could catch the break but it was splittering so we started picking people up.

At that point I backed off 'cause I wanted to let Holloway do his thing up the road. He did and won. I managed to somehow win the chase group sprint for 7th. After suffering so bad for the first few laps, I was pretty happy with the result.

And for those of you that skipped because of rain, it turned out to be a wonderful day, my wife even said she "got some color."

It was straight up Chuck Norris

paulmach@gmail.com (Paul Mach) — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 07:36:32 GMT

The last few days at camp have been pretty standard. Yesterday we scouted the second half of Stage 2 in this years Tour of California and Thursday was picture day. It was long, but lead to this beautiful picture of Ben and Frank in their Merrell casual wear. Today, however, was the big show, the Chileno Valley Grasshopper. Last year was fun, but this year was straight up Chuck Norris, tough as balls.

It's an 80 mile course with about 8000 feet of climbing. It starts in Occidental and heads right up Coleman Valley, down Highway 1, left on Marshall road and then loops back to finish up Joy road.

The winning break went at like mile 5 and was made up of me, Jared, Andrew, Wohlberg, Ben and Rob. Wohlberg was reliving the glory days and putting everyone in the cave but I still managed to pump him for the Bodega Bay and Marin County sprints.

We chopped off for the next 3 hours till we hit Joy. Some crazy stuff happened but we all just kind of rode into the bottom together. I got 3rd and Ben was 2nd and Andrew won.

So, one more day of camp, if it rains I can take the day easy, and to be totally honest, that's what I'm hoping for.

Stoked to be at camp

paulmach@gmail.com (Paul Mach) — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 00:59:03 GMT

I'm going to just come out and say it, I'm stoked to be at camp. Last year someone took time out of their day to inform me that, "It's not pro to be excited for camp." I'm sure that same someone also hates Christmas.

Why am I excited for camp? For one, lots of new chamois and other cool stuff. But mostly, it marks the start of the season. I can't be the only one that is tired of base training and ready to go out and race.

So what have we done so far? Well, Tuesday's "Make sure your bike is setup ride," turned into a Ben JM easy ride, ie. 3 hours full gas.

Today we checked out the Geysers. Director Wohlberg came with us so we slowed a bit on the climbs as an act of professional courtesy. Thus allowing plenty of time to check out how beautiful it is out there.