Tuesday, May 31, 2016

Road Racing

I've purposely decided to race less and family/kids more this year.  It's worked out great as I've ridden more on the weekends than I would driving to a Crit and racing for an hour.  Nevertheless, fitness was on my mind going into the LAPT race which I had flagged as "peak" on my training schedule.  

I was happy to see that Mike, Eric, and Jon joined me and Sanjay in the M123 as we could all use the support.  A flurry of attacks during the opening lap went little to nowhere as the stiff wind and fast pace prevented anything much from materializing.  Somewhere around lap 2, a small break of 3 guys went off the front.  I was "doing my part" with the others at the front to maintain the leash on the would be escapees.  Suddenly a black freight train of TMT blew past me and everyone and took up the pace making.  Reeling the break back 100m or so, I was launched off the front and quickly made contact with the break.  Unfortunately, we were soon joined by the rest of the peloton who, I think, read our tactics.  Nevertheless, I'd never felt so "pro" in a race; we worked that move flawlessly.  I later would miss the winning move which gapped to wide for TMT to attempt another round of what we'd done so successfully before.  Judging those around me for the rest of the race, I knew I was in prime shape as I was never taxed into my red zone.  A small bobble in the sprint, but happy to be upright and in at 8th overall.

Coming in the Palmyra Road Race, I was hungry.  I'd had a bad taste in my mouth since last year where a break never materialized and I was overcome with cramps in the sprint.  My home roads, I new every bump on this course and when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em.  Happy again that Mike and Eric would join Sanjay and I for the M123.  Opening climb fairly mild as each rider was feeling out the competition.  Having started near the front, this is where I stayed where I could smartly mark any real threats.  Similar to the previous weekend, breaks went but never materialized in the stiff wind.  Coming around the climb the 2nd lap, things were getting a little more serious with attacks coming and going.  I was able to stay up front though wasn't sure where my TMT mates were; I wasn't about to look!  With some smack talk starting, I stayed focused on 3 people I deemed as threats.  When they went; so did I.  Coming into the back stretch of lap 2, the biggest threat went just as a couple of the other favorites had finished a strong move.  We he jumped I followed!  We quickly built a lead of 50m the 100m.  We both were gauging our progress as well as calculating how far we had left - nearly 28 miles!  He asked, "good teammates?"  Yes! I replied, and smart.  True enough, TMT was in full blocking mode slowing the progress and foiling rhythm.    My Polish mate and I worked seamlessly together for the next 28 miles though he was definitely doing the bull's share of the work and a 2-3mph faster pace than I.  

With the pace-moped announcing we had a 1:40 gap with 1/2 lap to go, we each knew we were safe.  Playing small amount of opossum ( I didn't have to act that much...I was toast), I tried to force my breakaway mate around me in the final km...he was too smart for that.  He came around me inside of 100m though skipped a gear and allowed me to pull near.  Given another 30m I may have gotten my tire across first.  2nd on the day next to that guy was winning in my book.

Thanks so much to Eric, Mike, Sanjay and Jon for helping me these last 2 weeks.  I fortunate enough to ride for a great team with great people.  Thanks continuously to my wife and family for putting up with the hours being away riding and racing.  

See you all at New Glaurus and State Roads

Monday, May 9, 2016

LaCrosse Omnium race report

Hey 50+ Guys -
Thanks for all your pain and suffering in punching the 1st and 2nd overall 50+ LaCrosse Omnium podium tickets - Meteyer winning and El Capitan (Eric Knuth) second place.   Having a 7 man team showing up was impressive and surely had our competition wondering how they were going to cover all of us.

Meteyer, ElCap, and Gordy got off to a great start with taking 1st, 2nd, and 5th place in the 2 mile uphill TT. 

That gave TMT lots of options in the road race on Saturday.  Gordy and Barney got the race up to speed just after the start.  We wanted to make the race hard from the start.  Barney took on a flat early into the race. That really sucked since he drove all the way there that morning for a 8:30am start.   He’d been riding strong so we hated to see him out of it.  Gordy pressed on with attacks and after the first time up the climb managed to solo away.   We sure would have liked to have seen at least one other guy go with him with the amount of head and cross wind he had to deal with alone. 

He got up to 30 sec lead before a group of 4 started working to chase him back.  ElCap and Meteyer managed to disrupt their pace line at times but they were intent on getting him back and managed to do so about a mile prior to the second time up the climb.   ElCap took up the pace on the climb.  Half way up, Meteyer lifted the pace to the top.   TMT managed to create a break of 6.   Gordy’s earlier effort caused 4 strong guys to burn some matches. None of those guys made the break. It took a while for the break to get organized but we managed to get up to a minute by the start of the 3rd lap.   A couple of the guys were skipping pulls frequently and looked to be hanging on.  So TMT put in a long hard attack up the final rise prior to the first corner.  And to our surprise it  didn’t drop anyone.  No more free rides after that.  Everyone was made to take their pulls.   

Last time up the climb, ElCap started up at a hard tempo,  again followed up by Meteyer taking over and lifting the pace over the top.   We managed to shed one of our break-mates.  The others showed some signs of cracking and we tried a couple of attacks but they managed to respond.  At a mile from the finish Meteyer attacked and one guy managed to hang on and they went to the finish line.  Meteyer was out - kicked me for the win.  It was probably the right move since one of the guys that he left behind with ElCap was in 3rd place in the Omnium.  But nonetheless he was disappointed that he didn’t manage to take the win.   ElCap out sprinted the other two guys for 3rd .

At the start of the Crit, Meteyer was leading the Omnium and ElCap was in second 4 points behind.  There were only 3 guys that could overtake  TMT for the overall and when we rolled up to the start line only one of those guys showed up.   Gordy, ElCap and Meteyer traded off attacking repeatedly but never managed to get a break established.   At 4 laps to go,  a guy managed to get away and made it stick for the win  and the rest came to a field sprint.  Meteyer took 8th in the crit  which was good enough for him to hold onto first in the Omnium with ElCap in second.  


It was a great team effort resulting in TMT’s  1,2 podium punch.  


Mike

Thursday, May 5, 2016

Tom Hooyer

Our teammate Tom Hooyer passed away yesterday after battling ALS for the past few years.
Thanks for the rides, Tom. You’ve been a great teammate and friend, we’re going to miss you.