John Murphy

• New Site!!!

  This is my new site, go here now!  www.jpmurph.com Save this new site please.  Thanks Posted Apr 17 2008, 07:52 PM by John Murphy

• Taiwan

  Somewhere in Kaohsiung... Overlooking Kaoihsung. After Traveling halfway across the world to get to Taiwan, we had a good start to the race yesterday. With Gritters and I hitting the intermediate sprints hard I took the green jersey I tried to take O'bee to the win but couldn't catch the break with enough time to do it. The last 200 meters was tight and when we caught them there wasn't enough room to make the pass. so It was 6th and 7th with O'bee and me. Posted Mar 09 2008, 05:32 PM by John Murphy

• Racing Started

  So racing officially got underway at the Tour of California a bit ago. I'm just settling enough to do an update about it. I'll just start off with saying that the conditions of ToC were REALLY hard. It was just not the sunny California that everyone was hoping for. At the prologue I had a good run at it holding the fastest time until Dave Z knocked me off. Then 18 others did too. I think if I hadn't had screwed up the Stanford oval(had to hit the brakes hard not to slam the barrier) I could have been a bit faster. But that's how it goes. Then from there on out it was just a suffer fest. All the days were tough. I had enough legs to try in a couple of the sprints, so that was pretty cool. Stage 4 was ridiculous. That's all I have to say about that. I spent the following week recovering from the week long effort. I decided to head down to Albany GA for the first GA Cup of the year to push the legs again. It started with a 3.6k prologue. I had a good run at the 12 turn course and won it by two seconds with a time of 4:07. The crit I felt strong but the sprint was screwy and I was just glad I got out of it without going down with another guy. I was able to stay in the GC lead(yes it's a stage race) after the crit. Sunday was a 140k road race pretty flat. After a few attacks, I made a bit of a mistake by forgetting about the yellow line rule and got disqualified for attacking over it. I didn't get ONE warning or anything. Just disqualified. The official had complete disregard that I was leading the race and just wanted me out. I would have thought they could have at least given some sort of warning but nope! So that blew my WHOLE weekend. I'm off to Taiwan on Thursday for the Tour of Taiwan. A good week stage race should be fun. Posted Mar 04 2008, 03:02 PM by John Murphy

• Health Net P/b Maxxis 2008

  Getting Started Starting a new season off is always an exciting time. Some new teammates, staff, gear etc etc. For me as a returning rider things are pretty simple; Most our sponsors are the same, only a few new teammates (Collier, Cooke, and Zajicek) and a few staff changes. This makes it much easier knowing what to expect at training camp and stuff. We are wrapping the camp up now which was in Salvang, Ca. We got in some quality kilometers on our new Super Six Cannondales which are fully carbon awesomnous. We gave the bike some good testing up the local "Figuroa" climb. We also got to set up our new Slice full carbon TT rigs which are superfast. I'm hoping to improve on my TT'ing from last year and this bike WILL help. I'm actually on route home to Athens, Ga as i write this. For me this year is a big one. My training has been going pretty well now since December. I'm doing ToC so I've been focused and the power is good and continues to improve. The slightly smaller team this year should open up more opportunities as well. A couple more weeks of training and ToC will kick off the season. Posted Feb 05 2008, 10:31 AM by John Murphy

• My birthday and Todd graduates house party

  We had house party...and beer pong... Posted Dec 18 2007, 11:11 AM by John Murphy

• Brasstown Bald...

  I went up and did 6 gap in dahlonega GA on Monday and decided to take some photos of the mountains. These are pics from the top of Brasstown. Yeah, I did brasstown in the midst of a 6hr ride. I figured it would be a good way to break my legs in for the year. Great views though Oh and by the way my "choice" to live in GA is paying off a bit right now. It was 75 degrees and sunny all day in the mountains. Riding in just shorts and jersey in December... Posted Dec 13 2007, 08:14 AM by John Murphy

• Asheville

  The boys(Crane, Rory and myself) just finishing the Mt. Pisgah climb at the Blue Ridge Parkway. We pretty much smashed it. Lauren is obvious not wanting any part of this photo. Another shot from the parkway.Smile for the camera Teddy(the guy in the "other" green health kit) Posted Dec 07 2007, 08:42 AM by John Murphy

• Back to it

  It's been a while since I've put anything up here, but honestly it seems like only yesterday my season just ended. I guess that means it's been a pretty good time since. I started riding again with a huge wake up call doing the "Fall Tour". This is a 4 day mountain biking event that's only for the lovers of pain. 4 days of 5+ hrs of riding in the north ga mountains was amazing. But now I'm back on the road bike for a while and even incorporating a bit of gym work this year. I've never been a fan of the gym but I figured I could probably use the strength to try and prevent injury or something. Anyhow, it's been good getting in there and finding out how weak I actually am. Oh yeah I'm talking about the gym...This is the second highest point in Ga, we raced to the top... Oh yeah and I also spent a week in Bermuda with a bit of "offseason racing." Russell Downing won the final stage and the overall with Menzies winning all the other stages. Posted Nov 19 2007, 10:12 AM by John Murphy

• 100k, NRC and that's a wrap

  Yep, it's official. Health Net Presented by Maxxis officially won the Overall Team NRC Title this monday in Atlanta. Menzies took 2nd with Rory close behind in 8th in the 50mph sprint. Rory also stepped over BJM for the Inidividual NRC title also. Good work boys, good work. Posted Sep 05 2007, 11:53 AM by John Murphy

• Portland and stuff

  It's been a bit since I've done a blog update. Anyhow I just got back from Portland for a Health Net Twilight Crit. If the name doesn't give a clue the team needed to win this one. I attacked off the front with around 15 laps to go and stuck it for a solo vic. Doug jumped off the front on the last lap and took second. Hartley was third after chopping Kirk and almost crashing him. Chopping the just recent national crit champ isn't really a great idea but maybe he didn't know it was him. Kirk was still 4th and Roman rolled in with 10th. Anyhow, for flying across country Thursday, race Friday, and flying back Saturday it was a pretty cool weekend. I have to say that Portland is one of the coolest towns I've been too in a long time. We spent some time downtown Friday night and it was going off. Really cool town. Posted Aug 26 2007, 01:39 PM by John Murphy

• Nature Valley TT and Crit

  Another flat tt 8k out and back. I took 5th, about 14 seconds behind teammate and winner Nathan O'neill. My power was good and I held almost the exact same split on the way out as on the way back in. The team had an impressive showing stacking 7 of us in the top 15. Kirk took his second win this evening in the crit to put Health Net at 3 wins in a row. He is in second overall with Stevic of Toyota in the leaders jersey. Tomorrow's gonna be a blast... Posted Jun 22 2007, 11:58 PM by John Murphy

• Yeah Nature Valley

  So the first stage was a 1 hour crit. I didn't get to ride yesterday so I was just hoping I could open up during the first part of the race. I felt like crap for the first 30 minutes, but then came around. I screwed the finish up and was too far back when it got wound up. Kirk went 2nd with Rory 5th and Pipp maybe 10th. I'm hoping to get up there and at least do some better work tomorrow. Posted Jun 20 2007, 11:54 PM by John Murphy

• Philly

  (Manayunk Wall) Posted Jun 12 2007, 09:25 AM by John Murphy

• CSC and Lancaster

  CSC- The race was on from the gun with Victor Rapinski(Navigators) almost lapping the field 40 laps. He eventually lost steam though and was brought back. Lots of other attacks but nothing stuck. It was so hot I was taking as many water bottles as I could and pouring them on my head and back. In the end Milne was our best finisher at 5th, and Rory at 10th. I went like 23rd I think. The next day was Lancaster which I was pretty excited to race for the first time. The conditions were wet from rain all afternoon. I had some bad luck about 25km in with a front flat right before the main climb. I got a change and started to chase back in the cars. Half a lap later I got back in the main peloton. Tim Johnson(TJ) was up the road with 10 riders and a 2 minute gap. After that though my stomach was really bad, and my legs even worse. I threw up a bunch and had no power. I found myself unable to hold the wheel in front of me on the climbs and out of most the corners until I was eventually dropped. Tim winded up flatting out of the break and that pretty much ended his day as well. The break was eventually caught and the race reshuffled to put Pipp in the next break. Pipp winded up 3rd when Eisel(T Mobile) and Lagutin(Navigators) got off the front in the closing kilometers. Posted Jun 04 2007, 11:01 AM by John Murphy

• Edgar Soto Stage 4

  The final Stage of this glorious stage race ended with a 109 mile route that finishes on a 5km summit finish. That would make for an exciting race cause my yellow jersey was just a 19 ahead of 2nd place Neil Shirley(Jittery Joes). The Jittery boys and Menzies kept the race in check and let a safe break get up the road. The roads were really nice, always going up and down and twisting. I ran into a bit of trouble about 25 miles to the finish when my rear derailer cable snapped. Luckily SRAM Neutral support was there and I went back for a neutral bike. The mechanic was super helpful and got me set up right away. 57cm, ok. Speedplays, ok. Seatheight, ok. And just like that I was off. I got a draft from the car and within minutes back in the race. It was a bit of different setup, but that's expected. Anyhow, after about 12 bottles of water(thumbs up for neutral feeding and about 7 feed zones), we got to the bottom of the final climb with the break caught. Cesar(Jittery) attacked almost right away to soften the group. Shirley, Pipp and I were glued to his wheel. He attacked again and this time he rolled off the front of us. It was Shirley's job to drop me, so he then started throwing in the attacks. He would attack, Pipp and I would cover. He attacked, we covered. This happened maybe 10 times. I stayed on the wheel until there was only 6 of us left(Shirley, Pipp, Me, Henriksen, S. Stewart-vmg, and herbalife). Cesar still up the road. With 1km to go it would seem Shirley had given up on getting rid of me. But then Herbalife rider attacked and it was the acceleration I just couldn't follow. Shirley saw I was behind and just drilled it to the finish. Pipp stayed glued to him. They caught Cesar with about 200 meters to the line and Pipp took the stage win. I winded up 7th, losing 49 seconds and subsequently the race overall. Pipp slid into 2nd and I fell to 3rd on GC. Menzies took the Green(Sprint) Jersey with me in 3rd and Pipp in 5th in that comp. A solid weekend for the boys getting ready for Philly week. Just one place in the GC higher would have been nice for us, but we gave it all we had. Next week is the real deal and we are rolling. Can't wait. Posted May 31 2007, 09:06 AM by John Murphy