Kristian House writes...

Well first of all I would like to apologize for not writing more. Both emails and race reports. A lot of things have been going on over here and I haven't been that motivated to tell people about it. I really appreciate all the emails I've been getting for most of you telling me to kick butt in the races and wishing me the best. The support I've got from all of you is really awesome, it means a lot. Anyway. Ill get on with what ya'll wanna hear.

I've done about a million races since that first report back in March. Seem like forever since then but I guess its really only been 3 month. My new team, De Lombarden, is really great. All the guys are good really cool, the management is awesome too. Michel Polleinter is a great guy, he's always calling to make sure everything is ok and never puts any pressure on you. My racing has been going ok, well it was going ok until the end of March, and then I kind of went into a slump and it seems like I'm just now crawling out of it. Michel kept putting me into the races, and I would finish them, but not they way I did before. I feel now that my form is coming back, so hopefully I'll get some more results and will be more motivated to tell ya'll about them. Hopefully.

I guess while I was in my "slump" I got to thinking about why I'm doing this and if I really want to continue with it. I love racing and living over here, but I sometimes just think I could go to UT and get my degree and do whatever I like. I don't like what's going on in this sport, although I'm sure it's similar in most other sports, as far as the drugs go. Before it was IF I could go pro or not, now its whether or not I WANT to go pro or not. When you look at what has happened in the Giro D'Italia, it kind of makes me sick. I've heard stories (I don't know if they are true or not) of Syringes being thrown out the windows, and riders crawling out the hotel rooms at 3 in the morning, when the police decided that they were going to do a raid. It just makes me think about why I'm doing this if when I get to the pros it seems like you're going to have to be doping. I know that there are people that I'm racing against now that are taking things that they shouldn't be and sometimes that's hard just knowing that. From what I know at least Pro teams do look at your blood to see if you are already taking things, but I think that's cause if you are they can't really do anything more with you. I know, or at least I think, that there are people out there not doing anything wrong, so that's what's keeping me motivated to keep trying. I have decided to keep focused on my goal of going pro by the way.

So, the last race I did was Great Britain Under 23 national champs this past weekend. I woke up that morning and for the first time in 2 months (that I can remember) I felt good. The race was a pretty hilly one, rolling in the beginning then a few pretty long hills one was like 8km or so. When we hit the base of the first big hill the race was already all split up, I was in a group that was about 5 sec behind the first and the next group behind me was about 20sec. It was pretty broken up already. I jumped to go with another guy to the first, and my chain snapped. I pulled to the side and waited for the car, but because it was all broken up the cars were still behind the last rider. The car came to me and gave me a bike, but because someone had already crashed they gave me a 55cm bike. I jumped on it and got to chasing. I think I passed about 50 racers on the hill I kept progressing my way closer and closer to the front. The car came up to me again and said that they would give me my bike back at the top of the hill with a chain of course. I made it to the top, I don't know how far I was behind the first group at this point, switched bikes, and started descending. Then I got a flat. I got a new wheel and got into a group that I had passed on the way up. From this point on everything went ok. I raced well and would drop a group on the decent or on a climb and catch the next and do the same again. I worked my way all the way back up to 18th place. The first group was a group of 17 that kind of splintered up in the finishing laps. So there I was, knowing that I had a good day, but couldn't do anything about it. Now you start thinking about the "what ifs". I know I could of won that race, and should have but that's bike racing. Right? I'll be doing the senior national champs with the pros on the 1st, so maybe I can get a good result there. We'll see.

Ok well I'm going to leave it at this, I'm going to try and write more often hopefully ill have more exciting news to tell too. Again thanks for all the emails giving support. I really appreciate it. Talk to ya'll later.