Tour de Champaign

Ahh, good to be back to the steadfast race reports. Last weekend was the first year event, Tour de Champaign. If you have not yet noticed, all but a select few bike races here in America are named in honor of the only cycling event that non-cyclist know of: Tour de France. Anyway this year's race is for sure the closest race any of us will be traveling to at just under an hour and a half drive. Our drive out there was slightly slowed by some torrential rain that forced us down to about 40 mph on the interstate. Luckily, we were not in the categories that were racing during the monsoon. The course was a pretty average four corner downtown criterium, less than one km. Panther and Texas Roadhouse were the major teams of the race, and no breakaway got away without both. Since the field was pretty small and the course relatively non-technical the race stuck together like glue for the first half of the race. About midway through a massive break formed of fifteen riders. Ryan and Vince both had made what was really more of a field split, so Derek and I were trying to cover moves in the field, hoping to keep it together or get towed to the break. Ryan was out best finish netting a podium spot at 2nd. Coming into the last lap Derek lead me out and we took 2nd and 3rd in the field sprint for 13th and 14th.

If you've been keeping track you should notice we finished higher than what would be expected with a fifteen man break up the road. That's because when we came around the last corner we saw Vince running down the finishing stretch while a hand full of riders were lying on the ground on the outside of the corner. From what I gathered after the race Vince and ISCorp rider had broken away from the breakaway. The ISCorp guy had been leading the last lap, so Vince felt pretty confidant in scoring the first big team victory. What they didn't know was that a group of riders were chasing them down and caught them at the last corner. John Puffer from the Texas Roadhouse Cycling team decided to chop the corner (cut to the inside of a group of riders through a corner), a little too fast, slamming into the ISCorp rider, crashing himself, putting Vince into the Hay bails, and crashing out two other riders (one with a broken bike afterwards). I rolled with Vince for a cool down lap, when Puffer rolled by Vince asked him why he made such a reckless move. His notable responses were "Look I'm not going to say it's my fault", "You shouldn't have been taking up the whole turn", and my personal favorite: "You two shouldn't have been going so slow in the sprint". I'm pretty sure Vince was just looking for something to the effect of "I'm sorry". However humility is an all to rare trait in top level Amature cyclists.

Day two went a little better for the Panther squad. Another four corner crit, however with nearly twenty more riders than the day before pushing the field size to near sixty. Also with the addition of Brad Huff and Bryce Meade from the Jelly Belly Pro Cycling Team. I tried to measure my efforts a little in this race now that I had regained some racing nerve after a two weeks away from racing. The only two Pro's in the field were marked and chased like Paparazzi chasing Lindsay Lohan. Because of all the pro chasing, Vince got away in a three man move. I covered a move from a Nuvo rider, we got a pretty decent gap right away, and since there were no Nuvo riders in the break an still quite a few left in the field I decided to work with him to chase down the break so we could get two in five. We were within sight of the breakaway for a very long time, closing the gap to within five seconds. After we got down to five seconds they started riding away again, so I jumped away from my breakaway companion to try to go it alone. I couldn't make it across the gap and joined up with the Nuvo rider again. At this point the field was pretty close and the announcers called a prime, I thought we were part of the prime so I pushed it hard going for the prime, keeping the pack away. When we crossed the line we had a couple seconds on the pack, in the next lap we were joined by three more riders who attacked after the prime. Our group stayed away for the rest of the race out of sight of both the field and the breakaway. Joey did an impressive ride making it into the group, and sort of did a lead out for me for the finish. I took first of our group in the sprint, good for a 4th place. Vince got 3rd, being pretty tired from the day before, and Derek 14th again. Ryan also put in a suicide move for a $200 field prime with three to go, but got nipped at the line.

Overall a pretty good weekend, great organization for a couple of first year races, and best of all: not too long of a drive. We scored two podiums on the weekend, but are still cursed without a big win in quite a while. We also got to ride through Illinois campus which was pretty cool. Purdue should be jealous campuses that have legitamate towns nearby, not just Chauncy Hill.

That's it for Champaign, now of to Stupid Week (Points Premium Rootbeer International Cycling Classic) for three days to get some ass kicking of myself.

CCCP vs. NASA

So as it is I have a bit of bloggers block going on. And I can't fall back to the usual race reports because I have not raced in two weeks. Tour of Champaign is this weekend and Superweek also starts today, Derek and I will be heading up to do the first three weekday races in Chicagoland.

I lieu of a sweet blog post, here's some video's of the Soviet's Space Shuttle. And if you ever wonder why the Soviet space program achieved so many things, more efficiently, and faster than NASA these videos give the answer: Russian disco music.

My favorite part is 2:10 of the second video. Our own Space Shuttle, who's first flights coincided with Regan's Strategic Defense Initiative (STARWARS), could be used as a first strike weapon. By changing the shuttle's re-entry trajectory, it could launch Nuclear weapons at Moscow. From time of launch of the weapons it would take roughly three minutes for the bombs to reach Moscow. This time window was too small for detection and response, meaning it could take out the capital before a second retaliatory strike would be ordered. So, there's a good reason why the Soviets rushed the development of their own space shuttle.

Rest Week

Not a lot to report on during a rest week. There are no epic stories from the ranks of amature racing, no great training stories, and no peleton gossip. Instead I've been able to shift my focus from myself to the upcoming largest event in the cycling world: Le Tour. The first thing I would like to say about Le Tour is that I will never be doing it. After doing a lot of small talk at my brother's graduation party this past weekend I was reminded that most people think Le Tour is some cool bicycle touring event that Lance Armstrong happens to be really good at. While there are LA's at bike touring events that think they're winning the race, I assure you this is not how Le Tour works. For all those who read my blog and are pondering asking me, or any other competitive cyclist for that matter, if they will be racing the tour next year, I will answer in general. It is completely unobtainable. Think of it this way, the tour consists of 180 of the fastest cyclists in the world (not counting a certain sprinter who loves to party).

The level of cycling that you are at is largely based on which team you are on. Only the best 20 teams in the world get to go to the tour. The majority of these teams, 18 to be exact, consist of the UCI Pro Tour teams. These teams are the best of the best, and get entry into every top level UCI race. Two 'Wild Card' teams also gain entry into the Tour. This year these teams are Skil-Shimano and the Cervelo Test Team. Both of these teams are UCI Professional Continental Teams. These teams are a step down from the Pro Tour, but still pretty good and are typically isolated to a Continent. These are smaller teams that don't have enough funding to become Pro Tour, or are simply new and have not obtained the necessary results to become Pro Tour. Keep in mind that all of these teams are quite large and only send nine of their top riders to the Tour.

So I'll keep on going down the list. The next lower level are the UCI Continental teams (note the lack of professional in the title of this level). These teams will never ever have a chance at racing Le Tour. They are the first level of 'Professional' cycling teams in that they are the first level where the riders really get paid to race bikes...sometimes. Almost all of the "Professional" teams in America are at this level. Another interesting aspect about these UCI Continental teams is that they are officially 'development' teams, meaning that most of the riders have to be under 25 or some other odd age restriction like that. Which means that, in America at least, the older you are the more chances that you'll be SOL when trying to find a pro team to ride with.

Below the ranks of the UCI Continental teams are the teeming masses of 'Elite' amature racers. The Panther squad falls into this category. These teams most definitely do not pay their riders. However they sometimes help their riders out in terms of travel and other cycling related expenses. The benefit of this category, is that you obtain a lot of the same advantages as the Continental teams just above, but have more personal control over race schedule. Also, It is possible if not common to race with Continental teams.

Below this are the club teams that have members from the elite racing categories to the lowest beginners.

Obtaining passage from one level of racing to a higher level of racing is very difficult, and you pretty much have to be the shit in your level of racing to advance (or you know somebody, or have a famous mommy and daddy).

So to answer your questions, extended relatives, I will not be racing in Le Tour anytime soon.

TOAD Wrap Up

Yup it's over, the first inaugural Tour of America's Dairlyand is officially done. Of course, our TOAD was finished at 8:30 on Wednesday night at the end of the Fond du Lac Criterium, where we took three of the top 15 places in the race with Dan nabbing a podium of 2nd behind Frank Travesio in a two man breakaway. The race was another hot day with a relatively small field. Both of these factors lead to some pretty major pack splits in the second half of the race, I ended up on the wrong side of these from a bum knee (who knew racing on injuries leads to not getting better?) and a set of really tired legs. Anyway it was a really great result for the Panthers, as most people call our team these days, and really pulled the week of racing into the good results category after a bunch of mediocre results.

Tour de Grandview and Hyde Park Blast were also this weekend which I sat out, much to my own disappointment. Instead I helped out at my brother's graduation party getting things ready and such. It was a lot of fun and gave me a chance to take a needed break from the bike. My own plan is to recover a bit and take the next 4th of July weekend off for some good training, that and I'm trying to save up all my traveling energy so that I'm fresh for Superweek, which is a pretty big set of races out in the Milwaukee area that I'd like to preform well in. I definitely have much more fond memories now of last year's Superweek than I did last year. Time heals all wounds, and I'm once again ready to do 100 kilometers circling parking lots in different suburbs of Milwaukee. I'm really using this to gauge my progress this year, as this is the first year I will have been racing in the same races at the same category as I did the year before. Hopefully I pull out something better than a solitary top 20 finish. We will see, in the meantime, enjoy this extremely cheesy Superweek promotional video.

TOAD pt. 2

Yesterday was the rest day in the Tour of America's Dairlyand. So, as most P-R-O's would rest there legs and be boring, we drank beer. After an early morning recovery ride to the beach of lake Michigan, we decided to tour a brewery, paying homage to the great Wisconsin tradition of drinking.

The original plan was to tour the Miller factory, but after some debate and fact finding we discovered that the Miller tour was not quite as cool as it used to be, mainly because they have out less free beer. Instead we decided to follow a recommendation of one of our host families and tour the Lakefront Brewery. This turned out to be a great tour, and the best $6 I've ever spent. For my $6 I received the tour, a nice Lakefront Brewery Pint Glass, and Unlimited sampling of the beers offered from the brewery. Not only was our tour guide awesome, and really happy if you know what I mean, but he also knew the drink was the main reason we were all on the tour and encouraged us to sample the many brews.

Unfortunately we did have to get back to the racing action. Tuesday was the Fond du Lac Road Race. The course was fairly easy, but because of the heat, which was around 100 degrees during race time, and lack of shade, the race played out more like an extremely mountainous stage. We got Greg into an early move of eight, which was the game plan. However by the halfway point of the race any game plan went out the window. People were dropping out of the race like it was the cool thing to do. I got into, and was really struggling to stay in, a move with series leader Frank Pipp and Adam Bergman which stayed away for half a lap, but those guys were too marked and the field caught us after the feed zone. The next lap we passed Greg who had blew sky high from the breakaway. I was starting to get chills and blurry vision, so I decided to drop out, but before I got to the feed zone I tried to drill it for about a mile so Dan could get across to the leaders, I ended up dropping most the field except for a few including Dan, the blew up myself, my heart rate not leaving the 210's. I finished the race early and sat in the shade delirious for about 10 minutes before I could muster up enough strength to get up and get changed.

Today's our last day at TOAD so hopefully we can finally crack the top five, which has seemed to elude us the entire series. After that it's back to Purdue, the back home to Michigan for my brother's graduation party, then maybe Grandview?

Anyway here are some pictures I've snapped, and am finally able to upload now that we have the Internet figured out here at the host housing. Most of the pictures are from Thrusday's Road Race that I sat out for the most part.

This is the Leaders coming up the big climb with two laps to go.
Dan also dropped out but was sure to recover right while returning his neutral wheel.

Greg with 300 meters to go.
For whatever weird reason the town was really into Trolls.
Derek giving Greg some motivation on the final climb to the finish, the grade here is over 12%.

The results of my crash.

Finally some pics of our recovery days in downtown Milwaukee.

TOAD pt. 1

This past week I've been spending some quality time in Wisconsin at the Tour of America's Dairyland (TOAD). Today (Monday) is a rest day, which is another fancy way of saying this first year event couldn't find a venue for today. Not that anyone is complaining, as racing for four solid days straight is a little tiring. My first two days of TOAD had been particularly rough. Thursday, the first day of the series went out to Blue Mound Park, which is the highest point in that region of Wisconsin, and the course proposed for the Chicago 2016 Olympics. We got out there on Wednesday to a hotel that looks like it hadn't been renovated or cleaned since the 1970's. We checked out the road course on Wednesday and it was really really hard. Two climbs on the back side of the course of a mile at about 20% grade and the final climb went 3 miles at 9-12%. Unluckily I didn't really get to race the course. Fourteen miles into the first lap the field crested a hill and made a left turn, after which I glanced back to check out the situation with the rest of the pack. When I turned my head back around my front wheel was in another guys rear derailleur, the valve stem caught on his derailleur cable, sheering clean off. My front went flat and I lost control really quickly, hitting the ground in a spread eagle position. My race was over at that point, I could have kept going and been in excruciating pain for the next three hours, but I decided against it. I got a ride back in the SRAM neutral car, after a minute I realized both my knees were producing a good amount of blood, I asked the mechanic driving if he had anything I could use to keep from getting blood all over his car. He turned around and gave me a handful of McDonald's napkins, the perfect gauze pads. And that was the end of my day, I'm not too worried about it, I'll have another shot at the course in 7 years.

Friday was a 1.6 mile circuit in Waterloo, the home of my most favorite bicycle manufacturer: TREK. The course was pretty cool, two long straights, with a twisty narrow road and climb on the back side of the course. The race went out pretty hard. We all got up to the front at the end and things were looking pretty good. I got caught up in a crash in the last lap that was just like a bunch of domino's falling over. The good part about it was that I landed on a guy slid to a stop on top of him, never touching the ground. The bad part was that when the guy slammed into me he jacked up my bike frame in two places. We did have a couple place in the money.

Saturday was Grafton. At the end of the race we were all pretty bummed about being pack fodder.

Yesterday went a little better we all took a big part in the race. Following moves, going for primes and jockeying for the finish. There was a lot of swarming at the finish I got caught on the outside, that and I'm not quite confidant enough to physically push a guy off a wheel so I got passed. Fortunately Ryan and Derek both got around on the inside and finished inside the top ten.

Anyway today's the rest day, we have a lot of exciting events planned. Most importantly we're touring a brewery here in Milwaukee. It's pretty famous, maybe you've heard of it: Miller.

A New Curse

So last week I was all about "Breaking the Curse". Now though, it seems as if I had made the wish with some cursed monkey hand and now the wish has come true and turned into another sort of curse. I'll list off some results and we'll see if you can see the trend:

Hell's Kitchen Road Race: Greg - 2nd
Snake Alley Criterium: Paul Martin -2nd
Quad Cities Road Race: Greg - 2nd
Koehlinger/Kelley 40K TT: Greg -2nd
Indiana State Road Race: Ryan - 2nd (but first Hoosier)
Winfield Twilight: Me -2nd
ABR Nationals: Me - 2nd
Tour of Mt. Pleasant Criterium: Me -2nd
Tour of Mt. Pleasant Road Race: Greg -2nd
Tour of Mt. Pleasant Omnium: Me-2nd

So it's pretty obvious we're on the right track, but can't quite seal the deal at these races. However the summer is long and there are many more races to come so I'm not too worried.

Anyway on to the races, Le Tour de Mount Pleasant. This race, in it's first year, was incredibly well organized. Usually first year races are hit or miss, and this race was definitely a hit. The criterium, taking place in the downtown area of Mt. Pleasant, was a very fast six corner criterium with wide open turns and two very long straights. This race also saw another first, it was the first time this year when the entire Panther team was together at a race. In all we had eight riders for the criterium and nine for the road race. The fields were no slow pokes either, with Bissell, Jet Fuel Coffee (Canadian Pro team), and Kenda lining up at the start. As expected the crit was very fast, but with a large field and a few large teams nothing really got away. I tried getting in some moves but decided to sit in as the race started getting close to finishing. Greg went off the front with about 10 to go and stayed out there by himself until the second to last time down the finishing straight, picking up some cash money primes, and more importantly a Rum Poster prime. With one to go I managed to catch Derek's wheel and he killed it bringing me to the front near Paul. In the last lap it was the dueling lead-outs trains of Kenda riding for Ben Renkema and Panther. I thought I had great position flying down the second to last straight sitting right on Ben's wheel. The last two corners were at odd angles and on some rough pavement. Going into the second to last turn I just hesitated/wimped out the slightest amount, feathering the brakes, and lost one wheel. I'm pretty sure that's when I lost the race. Coming out of the last turn there was still 350 meters to the finish, Ben started his sprint right out of the corner and got a large gap quickly. I came out of the last corner right on Paul's wheel, accelerating behind him and coming around and trying to close the gap. I closed the gap to within a bike length of by the finish line but it was just too far for me to pull a Cavendish:


Sunday was the 102 mile road race. I'm getting to spend some time with Ashley, which is a not such a common occurrence this summer, so I'll keep the report brief for now. The road race was a big 102 mile loop, so no laps at all which meant that Ashley and Jeremy's dad were literally racing around the course to the feed zones to get us water so we didn't end up dead on the side of the road. Greg and Dan both got into a group of 8 about 20 miles into the race. The field shut down after that point, letting the gap balloon to six minutes. After sixty miles and some bumpy KOM's Paul Martin opened up the hostilities, and for the next hour and a half Panther was "75% of the counter-attacks" (as described by another rider). The race up the road split up and Greg finished 2nd and Dan 4th. We got a bit of a lead out going for the finish. I sprinted with the JetFuel Team sprinter, and thanks to a 10 meter early bike throw on his part, took the field sprint for 8th.