Good Day Today

It's been a good day for the Embrocation Team. Clearly it's too early to be scoring high placements in races. These days, our young team measures victories by accomplishing the tasks and projects necessary to get a burgeoning team off the ground.

I started the day in Nashua, NH riding with my friend and colleague, Justin Spinelli of Svelte Cycles. He kicked my butt. But what do you expect for a guy who sleeps in an altitude tent? It was good for me because, ironically, my training has been interrupted by trying to get the team off the ground. Boo hoo.

Anyway, it was a good 3 hour ride through the hills near Nashua. After, Justin nursed me back to health with a protein shake and a glass of grape juice. Seriously.

After regaining my strength I went down the street to pick up our new Embrocation T-Shirts, which will be available for sale on the website soon.


On to the next thing. Over to Merrimac, MA to visit teammate Pete Smith, who is also the mastermind behind Mad Alchemy Embrocations. Pete had just finished up our Team Edition summer embrocation. Unlike many of Pete's concoctions, this is a non-heating embrocation designed for warm weather road riding. It is a solid within the bottle, but as soon as it hits the warmth of your skin it becomes a light oil that smells of cinnamon and clove. Light and refreshing, it's yet another reason I'm ready for summer to get here.



Again, this special mixture will be available on the Embrocation online store very shortly. Stay tuned.

So, a good day and a few steps closer to the racing season and selling some really cool products to help support the team effort. More stuff to come soon...

James

Welcome, it's about time...

Welcome to the Team Embrocation Blog.

After a whirlwind cross season full of good results, great times and lots of photo opportunities, we're ready to move on to the road. The Embrocation road team will consist primarily of Cat 1 and 2 racers with a smattering of overqualified (sandbagging) Cat 3 racers. The whole idea is to field a team composed entirely of Boston-area racers capable of racing at a high level throughout the region.

Here's a little preview of what we'll be doing with this blog:

- Race and training reports: No, we won't be posting power data and crap like that. Only pictures of great training rides and some race footage to boot. It will be stuff like this: yesterday Bradshaw rode 75 miles up to New Hampshire to join his brother in partaking in his wild boar bacon, then rode back to the city. Pete's brother is a proud member of the illustrious Bacon of the Month club. More on this bacon thing later on from Pete himself...

- Team Equipment Highlights: We have a really unique blend of team equipment we'll be employing this year, especially for an amateur team. There's nothing really stock about what we're doing and, whenever possible, we're trying to keep our equipment suppliers local, with US-produced product.

- Rider journals: Don't expect a consistent voice. We have 7 team members and so at least that many contributors to this exercise in journalism. It will be nice to hear from the various personalities and styles our team represents. Most of our riders are also small business owners in the community, so we might get all serious and economic on you once in a while.

- Sponsor Highlights: In keeping with the spirit of Embrocation Cycling Journal we're trying to keep it local here, too. This team is supported by local business and by the sale of their products through the Embrocation web store. We'll talk about those products from time to time, not just because their sale supports our racing efforts, but also because we really liked most of these products before they ever gave us a dime.

- Product Reviews: For the most part, we buy all of our team equipment outright. Sure, we get good deals on stuff but nobody except Gaulzetti has shown us the largesse of full equipment sponsorship. We feel that we get to give honest assessments of the gear we use so you can feel good about dropping the big bucks on the good stuff, while avoiding the crap.

So that's basically it for right now. More to come soon...

James