Andy
My name is Andy Reagan, and you're looking at my website! I'm a student at Tech, and am into racing bikes, sustainability, and having fun! Check out what I've been up to, my resume, and my plans for this coming summer!
Homepage: http://andyreagan.com
AIM: marcellusbball32
Posts by Andy
Moving in and Week 1
Aug 28th
So I never really got a chance to finish this post…but moving in was good (a lot of work), my classes are great, I’m loving it as a math major and have research coming up soon at the VBI, and just celebrated my one year anniversary with Lauren last night! This coming weekend I plan to compete in VT’s home MTB race, and since my bike has been broken I’ve been running and swimming a fair amount…and am looking at triathlons but who knows if I’ll do one haha.
Driving down/day 1 (8/19)
Lauren and I made good time on our way down last Thursday, getting to my house in 9.5 hours with stops. We had just missed Dave, but James was there to let me in and give me a key. First walking through the house was really weird, because it was so moved in to and foreign. The front yard was sprawled with scrap wood and the fridge was full of random food, and all that was in my room was the mattress and some of James and Daves stuff. After moving my stuff in from her car, into a pile in the corner, we went to Mike’s for dinner and then to Mary Kates for my car and things I had stored there.
My car was still stuffed full to the roof, and we put some things in Laurens car so I could make just one more trip…so much stuff! After letting my car run for a minute, it began to rev from 1k to 2k rpm in idle…not good. I was going to try to drive it home still, worried though, and told Mary Kate that I would call her when I got home to let her know I made it. The way home was scary, the car creaking, revving in idle, and complaining in general after a summer of neglect. To my relief, we made it up the hill up Harding to my house, I was bummed that the car was not working though. Lauren and I were both tired from all day driving, and I unloaded my car the remaining floorspace in my room and went to bed not long after, having bought new sheets at Target on the way there.
Friday, day 2 moving in
In the morning I went with Lauren to help her move in, and we got checked in to The Village. It was amazing how different her living situation is…its so clean and new, she had brand new carpet and all the furniture is from like target haha not the home depot scrap lumber bin. She was the first there, and after a little bit her parents got there and I helped to move all her things in. One by one the roommates were showing up and I helped moved them in as much as I could. After a little while she took me back home and I started to move stuff into my place.
Since the car was still running weird, I went to advance auto parts to pick up oil and an air filter to change those. The guy there said that he thought the car just needed to be opened up and driven. To get the last of my stuff (chair, TV, speakers) and drive the car, I headed to Mary Kates and on the way there drove the car hard across Lusters Gate Rd. After loading it up, on the way back it was no longer revving by hovering near 1100 rpm shakily. Up harding though, the check engine light came on and I thought I had killed it haha. Back at Advance, they read it with their computer and the code said I needed a new Idle Air Controller. That make perfect sense, bc the only time it was having trouble was idling. The part was $200 but I needed it, so I ordered it and it was supposed to come in on Wed. Good news was that I now knew what was wrong and driving the car wasn’t going to hurt it.
Back at the house, I unloaded the car and now all of my stuff was in my room…in piles around the mattress haha it was a mess with no desk or storage at all yet. After that I went out for dinner with Laurens roommates and her parents who treated us to Red Robin and it was really good. Got a chili burger that I had to eat with a fork and a bottomless root beer float!
Saturday: Burke’s Garden Century and Day 3, shelf building
I got up super early in the morning and rode with Greg to a flat century that’s been going on for a few years now, about 30 minutes away as a get away from all of the campus traffic. Long story short, I finished the century in just over 5 hours, at an average pace of 19.9 MPH! It wasn’t entirely flat, there was one climb that we did both sides of, but 80 miles were at less than 1% grade haha. Going out, I thought that Greg and I were with the fast group when we broke away from them 20 miles in, until we got caught by Justin C and John Delong’s four hour group! They smoked by us, and I actually got caught up in their paceline and did a few pulls at 27-28MPH …and was recovering from that for the rest of the day. With stops, I got back to my house at 2PM and showered and took a nap haha. Then I spent the rest of day trying to get some shelves built so I could start to unpack.
My time home in NY
Aug 19th
In the morning, about 6 hours from now, I’ll be headed down to Virginia Tech to start my third year, driving down with my girlfriend Lauren. I’ve spent right about two weeks recovering and having withdrawals from this summer on Bike and Build at home in Marcellus, NY and have spent most of my days sleeping in and drinking around a bonfire haha. Lauren came up on the 14th and I have really enjoyed showing her around my home town, more like eating around my home town, and I think/hope she has had fun too.
For the first while I was back, I did manage to ride my bike after sleeping in till noon every day but with playing basketball with my dad and spending time with Lauren this most recent week, I’ve got a chance to spend this past week out of the saddle. Every day it’s weird because I feel like I should be riding, and just have the urge to ride my bike all the time…adjusting to the real world where not every day is a 70 mile day haha.
I’ve tried to take some pictures of what I’ve been up to, and played some with my new 50mm f1.8 lens as well, which I really like. So here’s what I got:
The Great Race!
Aug 9th
This year marks the 6th year that Lindsey and I have teamed up in Auburn’s annual team triathlon. I think the full name is the Captain Myles Keogh Paddle, Wheel, & Run. We had won our first three years in the under 18 age category, and even our first year in the 18-39 category by a narrow 13 second margin.
There were 8 teams in our age group now, and it was a close finish. My Mom ran for the second year, and did awesome with a 7:27 pace making her the second woman over 50 yrs old! It was 151st place overall, and I was even suprised to see her so early at 23 minutes, and congratulated her before taking off.
Going out of the changeover zone is always a little scary, and you have to go really slow but after I was out of the gate I hit it hard. Accelerating in a sprint to over 30MPH into the headwind, I was trying to keep up with some guy in full aero gear on a P3. Eventually I caught him, and stayed with him for a mile or so before we caught a Bike and Build alum!! I was super excited to see that jersey, and shouted “bike and build!!” like we always did before catching up to him. I talked with Max for a little while, and then we got to the steeper hill and I took off again. I had lost the cervelo guy which felt good, and was passing people by the truckload going up the gradual incline at 25MPH into that headwind. I lost steam pretty quickly though, and hung on to 18MPH over the rest of the hill into that wind before me made our left turn. From there, I just went head down in the aerobars and hammered. I was still passing people but it was thinning out.
I flew by the guy I had seen before the race on a Pinarello and thought about asking him to trade with me haha. I knew the course well, and sprinted hard up the two steep little hills before the gradual downhill to the finish. Never leaving my big ring the whole race, I felt like I was going to throw up at the top but relaxed approaching the second and made it over, never seeing below 20MPH on either of them. I could hardly see anyone in front of me, and figured that by now I had to be near the front. The gradual downhill to the finish had a tailwind, and I was going over 40MPH for a while which felt sweet. It was not too long before the end that I passed Mike’s girlfriend, who’d had a 6 minute head start on me after Mike ran a 17minute 5k. Going into the changeover I sat up, and looked at my computer which read an averaged pace of 24.3MPH without the transitions, and that felt good on this windy and hilly course. I was tired coming into the finish, by the time I left the changeover I felt like I should’ve gone harder…
I had a really good feeling about how I did, since I didn’t get passed at all, and looking at numbers now had passed 133 bikers on the course. After cooling down I couldn’t find my parents and had actually missed Lindsey finishing, but found them after a long search at her car loading the kayak. It was about an hour after the race before I finally got some water (which I hadn’t taken with me) and some food.
It took a really really long time for them to post results of the bike leg, like three hours, but after I saw that they were up, I rushed over. Able to see over the crowd, I started scanning down from 10th place for my name but didn’t find it. So, I started at the top where Parker’s name was. He has won every year that I have done the race, and his family’s team I don’t think has ever lost. But directly below his name, was mine!! I got second!!
Second place baby!
3rd place team!
I was super excited, with the continual improvement every year since I started leading up to this. My dad had seen Parker finish and he was on a TT bike, with an aero helmet, disc rear and deep front wheel…and I (with just aero bars, no helmet or bike or wheels) had lost to him by a mere 7 seconds! With equal gear, there is no doubt I would’ve won and it felt great knowing that I was likely the strongest rider on the short course of the 394 teams.
Lindsey had a strong kayak leg, I had our best biking time yet by a full 3 minutes, and my Mom had run well, and it was our best time ever in the race! Beating 2007 by 11 seconds, 2005 by 17 seconds and 2008 by 38 seconds haha. We were third this year in our age category, out of first by only 30 seconds…
Aquanubs 2010!! 