Greg @ Mequon crit

Mike @ Mequon crit

Greg and Mike @ Mequon Crit

Eric Knuth @ Mequon crit

LaCrosse Omnium race report

Hey 50+ Guys -

Thanks for all your pain and suffering in punching the 1^st and 2^nd 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 5^th 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 3^rd 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 3^rd 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 3^rd .

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 8^th 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

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.

practicecrits.blogspot.com

Starting this week!

For all the details:
http://practicecrits.blogspot.com/

Honeymooner

Teammates Diane and Mike got married Sat April 23rd.   The Fast and Furious Crit was Sun April 24.

During our TMT Masters 50 + pre-race strategy ( there are 8 of us ! ) and beer night,  Life Coach John Riley (Dr J) and El Capitan Eric figured it was highly unlikely that I’d be able to show up to race the day after the wedding.  They each put up 10$ that I would not be there.    During Saturday evening and when the Sunday plans became the topic of conversation, the option of me racing came up.  After an initial look of death from Diane, followed by some discussion, her only requirement was I had to be hung over. No problem meeting that requirement and Dr J and El Capitan are paying up.
  

The WCA Masters 50 + races have already had some serious good talent and racing happening.    TMT is in a great position with up to 8 guys in the 50+ towing the starting line.  We have been aggressive and managed to be in every break and have had come away with some decent results.  At the end of 5 races, we have one win, a second, and a couple of 4ths.   El Capitan is leading the overall series,  the Honeymooner is in 4th , and Ferguson in 5th.

TMT 50+ are far from hitting our potential but are starting to get our strategy and tactics worked out – and actually putting some of them into play which makes racing a whole lot of serious fun.   Look out this weekend and LAX !


Mike

Trek Midwest Grinds Gravel At Dairy Roubaix

(L-R)Glen Jones, Kari Myrland, Amanda Mack, April Beard, Josh McKinney

The Trek Midwest team made the short journey to Prarie du Chien for a beautiful Saturday of riding gravel. The temperature was predicted to almost hit 80 degrees and it did. The team was well represented and fun was had by all through the rolling hills of the ride and hanging out in the parking lot to share stories afterwards.

Amanda Mack laying down the pain. (L-R) April Beard, Diane Schlipper, Amanda Mack

Spring training