Superweek Wrap-up

First day back at Superweek for the Panther team was a tough day. It was the return to the "Historic" Milwaulkee lakefront road race course. The course, which has been absent from Superweek since 2005, is by far the best road race course that I've ridden yet. Starting right on the lakefront drive, the course starts going south towards the city, then making a sharp right hand turn climbing up into a rich neighborhood, then descending back to the lakefront drive. After following the lakefront drive the course again took a left up and away from the lake up into a park. At the end of the second climb the course winds through the park through first a parking lot, then a bike path for a short while then another parking lot before going back onto a slight downhill on the lakefront drive to the finish.

Greg and I were the only Panther guys racing today, Derek took the day off to hand up bottles for the 130 Km race. Joey also experienced his first superweek race in what was a really tough day. Since road races are double points no one fast took today off. Being on the lake the course had a wicked wind blowing across the course. Once the race hit the flats that ran along the lake shore it was gutter city. In the second lap I tried going across to a large move that looked pretty promising, after chasing for the better part of a lap me and the ISCorp guy I was bridging with connected with what looked like the day long breakaway. It went well for a lap, then we got caught. I was pretty fried and dropped back in the field and got on the wrong side of rather small field split, so it was back to front just in case. It worked out well and I ended up in the second group of about fifty riders with fifteen up the road. It was pretty stop and go with a few more field splits along the way. The group got down to about thirty by the end. To the end of the 140 K race the group was getting pretty lax, with an unnamed pro waving and 'holla'ing at girls running along the beach. We caught a few riders who got dropped from the lead group and ended up 21st.

I totally forgot how much a hundred mile road race will take out of you and got to Racine on tired legs. I was able to hang on pretty well through the technical course, I made it through the tough race selection, but at that point was tail gunning the pack like a pro. Not having any top end power to rely on I decided to drop out with about 20 k to to take out any risk of injury and save the legs. Derek toughed it out going solo in the last few laps to get a $40 prime

This turned out to be a good choice. Friday Joey and I drove down to Chicago to pick up Ashley who took the Amtrak to hang out at Superweek. Friday was the Kenosha kilometer. The course was right up my alley, no brakes through the corners, which were pretty much banked. Paul Martin joined our Superweek trio for Friday and the remainder of the weekend significantly strengthening our ranks. I made it into a small break with one of the Taiwanese riders after a prime, we got absorbed by a larger group with some serious firepower and stayed away for a total of maybe fifteen laps. When we got brought back I took it easy in the pack for a while, meanwhile four riders got away to lap the field, followed by another twelve breaking off the front. However once the four leaders lapped the field those who didn't want more riders a lap up decided to bring the twelve man group back. This was about the same time it started raining. This didn't stop the field setting some of the fastest lap times of the entire day. The group of twelve got brought back and it was down to a field sprint. Being able to be at the front of a field jockeying for position at the end of the race is one of the most fun and exhilarating part of bike racing, and Kenosha was defiantly a blast. It had stop raining and dried up by the end of the race, that didn't stop a second to last lap crash taking down a bunch of riders. I made it around intact and finished 11th in the field sprint.

So since this blog post is getting long I'll abbreviate the rest, that and my legs gave out for the rest of the series and I wasn't riding all that hot.

Downers Ave.: I made it up to the front a few times, nothing came of it. Paul got in a seven man group that lapped the field. I crashed, and got a chainring to the back (not my fault)

Chicago Crit: Twelve days of racing in Sixteen days is not good preparation for an NRC crit...end of story. Plus I flatted last lap, busting a $40 tubular tire.

Finally Breaking the Curse

Taking a well needed break from Superweek, we traveled to Dayton Ohio this weekend to compete at the Troy Classic on the Square, and Tour d’Berg. The entire Panther team assembled for these races. When I say full panther team, I mean about twelve riders (not just elite team). These were pretty local races, but still difficult. Texas Roadhouse and Kenda Pro Cycling both had teams present. Saturday’s race had a really cool course that hit a roundabout twice a lap, the second time going the long way around the roundabout, which combined with being off cambered, got into some pretty hard cornering. Other than that, all the corners were pretty much banked, meaning you could rail them at well over 25 mph.

Being the largest team in the race it was obvious from the start that we would not be letting anything go without some white jersey representation. I had a close call in the first turn when a rider squeezed into a spot on my inside that really wasn’t there, we bashed wheels and he went down, taking out a good ten riders, fortunately I kept it upright. The guy who crashed into me must have been using WD-40 on his drive train because after it my leg was covered in black chairing marks. After this, and recovering form a side stitch, that I’m pretty sure was caused by a soapy water bottle, Paul and Jeremy had gotten into a six man breakaway with two Kenda riders, a Texas rider and one other. With around ten laps to go to Kenda riders went to the front to start pulling the breakaway for some reason, just when this was happening both the Kenda riders in the breakaway got simultaneously dropped, meaning Panther then had two out of four in the breakaway. Coming down to three laps to go it was apparent that no one had the firepower to pull back the break, so we started leading out. The guy’s were doing a great job of leading out, Andy Clark taking early from 3 to go and I had gotten myself into good position from following a late attack from Kirk Albers from Texas roadhouse that got a decent little gap. With two to go Texas tried to spoil our lead-out, but only managed to get one rider up to the front. Another of their riders tried to muscle me off Vince’s wheel but all the practice bumping and grinding at Superweek paid off and I was able to keep my wheel. Greg took over the lead-out halfway through the final lap, keeping it strung out through the roundabout. As an added bonus we caught the Texas rider going through the roundabout in the final lap, meaning we were sprinting for fourth place in the field. With such a sick lead-out from the team there wasn’t really a way for me to screw up the sprint and took fourth place. Not only that but Jeremy won, and Paul was second.
Derek rounded out the top ten and Greg kept it up to get eleventh. You can’t really ask for a better performance. In addition a jewelry store that was sponsoring the race had put up commemorative Tour de France Festina watches for not only the winner of the race, but also the best U23 rider. Lucky for me, all the guys up the road were old..er, meaning I got a new piece of bling:

I also found these awesome pictures of the Troy race online, thanks to Doug Gatto.

With such a great performance on Saturday we were expecting an easy victory, today. The race course was a basic P shaped course, with a small stretch of brick road. This race, unlike Saturday stuck together like glue. There was one point where a breakaway had nearly half a lap but was brought back form attacks. So it was a field sprint in the end. I had not been paying attention to the lap cards and the first I noticed that we were close to finishing we were already down to four laps to go. So I got caught out too far back too close to the end. I did manage to get up to finish fifth through a lot of early sprinting and some luck. Kenda had a great lead-out going, when a big crash happend taking out most of the Kenda leadout along with about ten other riders including Ryan who was out best placed rider at that point. Jeremy and I had been lucky enough to be on the inside of the carnage, passing about 10 riders. The two Texas riders sitting on the Kenda train managed to keep it upright and were the first two through the wrecks and stayed ahead for first and second.

So the team finally broke the drought of not winning with a pretty big result in Troy. Hopefully this translates into momentum going into the last week of superweek.

Superweek Part II

So with the superweek racing starting off with a pretty good result, the next two days didn't go all that hot. Two days ago was the Ray Basso criterium taking place in Bensonville, IL which is right outside of O'Hare Int. Airport. Throughout the race we were getting buzzed by jumbo jets taking off and landing. Wednesday seemed to be the single day that everyone took off because a lot of the big teams were not here. The MTN Continental team from South Africa took the day off, as did both Jelly Belly riders, the Taiwaneese team, Hotel San Jose and the Puerto Rican Team, needless to say the field was considerably smaller than the two days before. In addition to that the entire race venue was a complete ghost town. Aside from a group of toddlers playing at the playscape there was not a single spectator insight, a drastic contrast from the year before when there was a music festival and a boat load of people. Anyway Derek and I tried to stay aggressive in the early part of the race, thinking that an early move would go away due to the technical nature of the course and tough wind. Of course this was wrong and the big 'lap the field' breakaway went away midway through the race right after Derek and I had both been in moves and were pretty gassed. A few laps later Derek managed to make it into a 6 man break that didn't quite lap the field but stayed away for the finish. This left me in a greatly reduced pack that pretty much soft pedaled untill the finish. We got lapped with two to go which automatically turned our race situation into one to go. The breakaway blew past the field like they were standing still, and I tried to jump on the train to maybe net some cash with a top twenty five finish. I finished 27th getting passed by two unlapped riders in the finishing sprint. Derek did manage to get 16th place making us $55 which meant total we made $20 for our three days of racing at superweek. That's how it goes getting into the right move is always a crap shoot with a ton of really strong guys in the field.

Anyway two days of rest then off to Dayton for a few weekend races in Ohio that the entire Panther squad should be there for.

Enjoy this poorly shot video of some Arlington Heights criterium action (note the boat loads of spectators):

Two Days Down of Superweek

After the Tour of Champaign this weekend, we headed back to Purdue for a rest night, then drive up to Richton Park for the first day our Superweek campaign. Richton park is technically a suburb of Chicago, but it's about 40 miles from downtown. Anyway the course looped around a community park and was a little over a kilometer long. If you're not familiar with the Superweek Criteriums, they are some of the only criteriums in America that are still 100km long. Doing 100 km in a parking lot, or around a park, is a really really long way. The best thing to do during Superweek criteriums is to not look at the lap card. Being used to doing hour and a half long crits, you're body will be getting ready to be finished with the race, then you look up at the lap cards and you still have forty laps to go. Any way onto Richton Park...

A Three man break went away in the first five laps, Derek got into a group of 12 off the front. I saw the big crash of the race. Curtis Gunn from Fly V Australia was off the front in an attack when a small girl, maybe five years old, rolled out onto the course on her bike. Curtis must have had his head down or something, but he T-Boned this girls bike, sending him, his bike, and broken bits of his bike flying in the air. The race got stopped for the crash, and pretty sure they didn't quite give Derek's group the full gap they had. They got caught right after the restart. After the lead three lapped the field it was pretty steady. Got up to top three with five to go but got muscled out of position. Ended up finishing 13th. If you're scared of bumping shoulders and chopping fields in a sprint, Superweek is not for you. Because everyone makes the craziest moves, but since everyone is good, people don't crash...most of the time. 13th is also by fart the best Superweek result I've had, so the week started pretty good.

On Tuesday we spent the day in Downtown Chicago getting Derek's Visa to work in Korea. We took the Metra into downtown, then headed to the NBC tower, where the Korean Consulate is. When we walked into the NBC tower the guy at the front desk yelled to us "Hey, where are guys going?". The interior of the building was pretty much solid granite, and all gold looking. Also every single person in there had suits on, so Derek and I in our shorts and our cruddy T-shirts looked like we were going to cause a ruckus. We also had to run around Union station to find our train, jumping on a few seconds before the doors closed.

The second day of superweek didn't go to well for Derek or me. It was an eight corner crit with a set of four corners separated by one block. So after the quick four corners there was a really long finishing straight that you had to absolutely kill it to not open up a huge gap. I got into a twenty guy field split that I really hoped would stay away which would guarantee a top twenty. I even got four red jersey sprint points which actually me into 19th overall in that competition. Anyway I didn't have much of a top end because I spent a bit of energy in the break and couldn't get myself in position of in the sprint. Derek was sitting fifth wheel in the last lap until his skewer popped out causing him to unclip and get out of the pace line. So Derek and I pulled up the rear of the field for 41st and 42nd.

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.

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.