I've been busy. Hate to be neglecting the blog since I think this is the longest I have ever kept it. We'll go thru a quick recap of some recent races.
Poolesville- DNF
Break goes off the gun. I wait a few miles and am bridging in a small group. Course marshalls led us the wrong direction and realized it 2min later when we came to a dead end. Would happen that no one in the break had ridden the course before.
Leonardtown-
Feeling decidedly better after a great night out in D.C with the team and the gf's family. That and the fact that we survived the drive to Leonardtown in Hurricane like weather.
Onto the race. This was a pretty big race for the team with the MABRA crit championship on the line. Pretty hard course with a decreasing radius uphill turn and a surprising heat wave. Out goal was to make the race hard and hopefully try to force a breakaway, with myself being the final leadout for Tim Brown if it came down to a pack sprint. Brown and I rolled the last few turns before the race a couple of times to decide exactly how we would play the finish.
It ended up being a very hard race. Harley was on/off the front all day. I almost stacked it once when a rider crashed right in front of me in a turn and I locked it up only to miss his head by inches. I couldn't believe that the race was going to come down to a field sprint.
With a few laps to go, Mason got into a 3 man break, and we were able to play off other teams for the finish rather that having to take control. Coming into the last lap, Russ hit the front and a few Kelly riders came over the top of me before turn 1. It's times like these that you have to stay calm, and I was hoping that Brown would trust me to put him where he needed to be when he needed to be and not panic. Sure enough, with 500meters to go, the course drifted right and I hit it hard on the inside with Tim on my wheel, coming over the top of the Kelly riders about 5mph faster. We managed to catch the remanants of Mason's break with about 300m to go. We had a big gap coming into the second to last turn and Tim hit it right before the last turn as planned taking the big win. Mason managed to jump onto the back and held on for 3rd and Chuck came home in 4th.
This week was the first Bryan Park race. This is an awesome mid-week series put on by Matt from Altius Cycling. This is a great time to strecth the legs and put in some good efforts. I managed to sneak the out a win after getting into a break with Tim Mullins, Dan King and Andrew Troy.
This weekend is Wilmington. Should be fun
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Monday, May 9, 2011
Sad day for cycling
I was going to write a race report, but given the circumstances I feel it's better off to take this day to remember the life of Wouter Weylandt. May your rest in peace
Monday, May 2, 2011
Tour de Moore and Brick City
Good morning everybody! All sorts of exciting news on the interwebs this morning. I passed out last night after coming home from the races, so I'm sitting here with a giant pot of coffee just trying to catch up on everything. Well, let's get to the race reports.
A while back I decided not to go to Athens as my team had plenty of guys much better suited to that race and I didn't feel like crashing and getting beer poured all over me. I mean look at this guy.
Yep, the Tim Rugg. He was rocking it in the race, making the big 18 man split late in the race before being taken out by a UHC rider. What can you do. Hopefully he heals up soon cause he was flying!
Tour de Moore
Keck and I decided to make the 4 hour drive down to Southern Springs, N.C for the Tour de Moore. We'll definitely be coming back to this race in the future. We were lucky enough to be hosted by the Finnin's who were absolutely amazing hosts.
Although the race was advertised as 103mi, it ended up being 110, something that would definitely come into play later in the race. We were to roll 12mi out to the loop, complete 8 laps, then race another 12mi back into town for a 500m uphill finish.
Keck and I were definitely outnumbered. Hincapie had 14 riders in the race, not to mention the 6+ riders each from Globlabike, Happy Tooth, RGF, Chemstar etc. We knew we had to play it conservative. Still, we were a little worried when 10 or so riders got up the road early in the race and carved out a 4min lead. The centerline rule stifled a consistent chase as it was hard to even make your way to the front of the pack. I finally decided to lay down some firepower in the uphill crosswind sections to stimulate the chase and it worked with the break being caught with 40mi to go.
About 30mi to go, I latched onto a good break and 5 of us quickly got a gap. I was on one of those days where I was feeling amazing and started taking big pulls. Unfortunately, a Hincapie rider who was in the break with us was reluctant to work despite having won the race twice in the past. I was trying to keep the group consistent and trying to give the other riders in the group a rest by taking long pulls.
We pulled out a 1:30 lead pretty quickly before our break started to shatter. One rider who was sitting on got dropped on the hills and my breakmates pulls were getting shorter and shorter (props to them though for rolling through even though I could tell they were hurting). A quick look back and I realized we were down to 3 riders. We held off the bike as long as we could, but were finally caught with 4mi to go. C'est la vie. Luckily Keck manned up and pulled out a stellar 3rd place in the sprint finish, nabbing us some moolah.
After hitting up the Chinese buffet, we headed back to the Finnin's for a much needed nap and a great outdoor dinner with some grilling and wine.
Brick City
Most of the people who were at the race the day before showed up the Brick City criterium. Keck and I stayed at the front and covered moves, but it was pretty obvious that the race was coming down to a pack sprint.
With 10 to go, I got Keck on my wheel and he pulled some serious bike ninja moves to stay there. At one point I took a corner with riders leaning on both my right and left shoulders. A few teams were trying to take control of the race and start a leadout, but for the most part is was mass chaos. Coming into one to go, the RGF team of Rich Harper and Jim Baldesare put 4 guys on the front. The lead rider slowed down a little too much, and fearing that we were going to get swarmed, I jumped hard and took Keck over the top of the leadout and we actually had a gap going through turns 1 and 2. The backstrecth unfortunately was a headwind, otherwise I would have easily been able to take Keck through the last 2 corners on the front. However, we were passed about 100m before the 3rd corner and Keck slotted into 4th wheel and that's the position he stayed in all the way to the line. It was a good move by the 2 of us, and jumping the leadout train was pretty fun, we just needed one more teammate to help us seal the deal.
A while back I decided not to go to Athens as my team had plenty of guys much better suited to that race and I didn't feel like crashing and getting beer poured all over me. I mean look at this guy.
Tour de Moore
Keck and I decided to make the 4 hour drive down to Southern Springs, N.C for the Tour de Moore. We'll definitely be coming back to this race in the future. We were lucky enough to be hosted by the Finnin's who were absolutely amazing hosts.
Although the race was advertised as 103mi, it ended up being 110, something that would definitely come into play later in the race. We were to roll 12mi out to the loop, complete 8 laps, then race another 12mi back into town for a 500m uphill finish.
Keck and I were definitely outnumbered. Hincapie had 14 riders in the race, not to mention the 6+ riders each from Globlabike, Happy Tooth, RGF, Chemstar etc. We knew we had to play it conservative. Still, we were a little worried when 10 or so riders got up the road early in the race and carved out a 4min lead. The centerline rule stifled a consistent chase as it was hard to even make your way to the front of the pack. I finally decided to lay down some firepower in the uphill crosswind sections to stimulate the chase and it worked with the break being caught with 40mi to go.
About 30mi to go, I latched onto a good break and 5 of us quickly got a gap. I was on one of those days where I was feeling amazing and started taking big pulls. Unfortunately, a Hincapie rider who was in the break with us was reluctant to work despite having won the race twice in the past. I was trying to keep the group consistent and trying to give the other riders in the group a rest by taking long pulls.
We pulled out a 1:30 lead pretty quickly before our break started to shatter. One rider who was sitting on got dropped on the hills and my breakmates pulls were getting shorter and shorter (props to them though for rolling through even though I could tell they were hurting). A quick look back and I realized we were down to 3 riders. We held off the bike as long as we could, but were finally caught with 4mi to go. C'est la vie. Luckily Keck manned up and pulled out a stellar 3rd place in the sprint finish, nabbing us some moolah.
After hitting up the Chinese buffet, we headed back to the Finnin's for a much needed nap and a great outdoor dinner with some grilling and wine.
Brick City
Most of the people who were at the race the day before showed up the Brick City criterium. Keck and I stayed at the front and covered moves, but it was pretty obvious that the race was coming down to a pack sprint.
With 10 to go, I got Keck on my wheel and he pulled some serious bike ninja moves to stay there. At one point I took a corner with riders leaning on both my right and left shoulders. A few teams were trying to take control of the race and start a leadout, but for the most part is was mass chaos. Coming into one to go, the RGF team of Rich Harper and Jim Baldesare put 4 guys on the front. The lead rider slowed down a little too much, and fearing that we were going to get swarmed, I jumped hard and took Keck over the top of the leadout and we actually had a gap going through turns 1 and 2. The backstrecth unfortunately was a headwind, otherwise I would have easily been able to take Keck through the last 2 corners on the front. However, we were passed about 100m before the 3rd corner and Keck slotted into 4th wheel and that's the position he stayed in all the way to the line. It was a good move by the 2 of us, and jumping the leadout train was pretty fun, we just needed one more teammate to help us seal the deal.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)