Elk Hunt

Congratulations again to Robert Kron, taking 4th in the Cat 1-2 35+ masters race at Elk Grove! Since when is Chad Cagle 35+?! Holy carp, I’m getting old. Great job by Uncle Gary, and by Jeff Williams and Mark Tank in the 3’s. Probably others I didn’t see as well. I’m off to the Tour of KC this weekend! Not much racing left, so I’m hoping to not suck. Lots of Mackers will be racing up north in Indiana. I’ll be hanging low, doing graduation, having my mom visit, and starting the semester. Ah well, there’s always cross….

Kron takes 2nd at Superweek!

 

Team Mack’s Robert Kron took second overall at Superweek in the 40+, missing out on the top spot by only one point! Way to go Robert! I wish I could have been there! Looks like Robert had great support from Uncle Gary, John Fleckenstein, Jeff Williams, and several other Mackers across the week of hard racing.

Looks like the honeymoon, marriage, and divorce between Lance and Alberto is heading for new lows. That should be good for pro racing.

In local news, a group did not take the illegal cut through Hutchinson Creek the other day. No reports of gunfire….

Superweek!!! Kron leads at the Half….

Ah Superweek….Much better than the tour…After five stages, Nice Guy and Team Mack Hard Man Robert Kron leads the 40+ overall! Someday, I’m going to Superweek…Probably when I’m 50+ at this rate….

Contador seems to have locked up the Tour, barring disqualification. My money for the best performace is on Thor Hushovd! Wow! Cavendish is clearly the fastest guy around, if he has a train to deliver him to the line (which he does). But, Thor is the God of Thunder. In the history of the points jersey, we’ve never seen a sprinter launch over two cat-1 climbs to take a couple of “on the road” bonus points, until now. Incredible.

I was bummed to miss Soulard, a bunch of Carbondalians went, and had lots of fun. Molteni, Chief, Dave, Gary, Sebastian, it looked like a party. Results seem mixed up, since Darrell won the 50+, and he ain’t. Still, if he was scored above Evan Wykes, he must have been up there….

Poppin’ into Champaign!

Blue Sky training camp pays off!

Big congratulations and thank you to Mark Schwartzendruber and his Team Verizon/Scarletfire for putting on a fabulous, classy race in Champaign, Ill. Wow. I will be putting in to do this race on both days next year. It was flawless, except for the rain on Saturday (which I missed!), which can’t be helped. Many a racer DNS’d the masters race, and it was slick, slick, by all accounts. Mark Tank and Jeff Williams were still shaking heads about it when I pulled into the parking lot on Sunday. Of course, Uncle Gary did just fine. Though there seems to be some results problems on that race. Dave Neis was banging pavement in the 3’s, and had to use his Jedi mind tricks to avoid catastrophe. Dave finished 14th on both days. In the Photo stolen from the Champaign newspaper, you can see Justin riding off in the distance….Justin had an AWESOME event, and finished in the top ten both days. Gina Champion was also on the podium, in strong 3-4 competition.

Dave also managed to be quoted extensively in the Daily Illini, to hit on Druber’s significant other Kathy at a bar on Saturday, and to have Druber steal his podium girl. In the latter event, Dave had pretty much convinced this Podium Girl that she should go behind a tree with him, and then Druber drove by in the pace car and did the “kill” sign. Next thing you know, the Podium Girl is jumping in the Volvo with Druber….Seriously, though, Dave did some great racing against serious competition.  I was watching the 3’s with Dave Stone (awesome guy), and he said the Verizon kid who won the 3’s has won every race up north for a while. He’s only 18…Good to see Young Alex Voitik in the mix! Alex scored top 20s both days in the 1-2’s, not bad at all!

Steve Driscoll was in the hunt in the 3’s on his new Stainless Steel Waterford! Very cool looking bike!!! I’ll link this up soon. Steve has a full report on his first half dozen races on his blog. And, it was great to see Jaime Lopez! I was bummin’ on missing Peoria because I always see Jaime there (he saved my ass one year when I flatted my car on the way up). 

Druber didn’t just put on an event, he put on a race. Wow. The quality of the masters field was comparable to what you see at an NRC event, only a bit smaller. Ouch. It seems Druber was able to coax a good number of old buddies to come up from all over the place, many of them heading for Superweek (which hasn’t started its 40+ or 50+ races yet).  The other Stone was calling the race and he called up 8 guys who were current or former national champions…leaving a few others from that category in the field. It was an extremely fast bunch, and the race went from the gun. Gary and Robert Kron made it into the lead break, and a lot of strong guys didn’t. Steve Hall led a group of us on, and we kept a respectable pace and gave a companion doing a lot of pulls a Verizon prime (as Steve wisely suggested). Then, with a few minutes to go on time, we got caught by the break and things got lively. After a few more hot laps, the break was getting testy, and a Nashville guy launched a really strong break and got a huge gap. Uncle Gary motivated us to the front, and Mark, Frank, Steve, Mike Oz, and I chased him down. I wish I had enough to give more lead in the final laps, but it was way too fast for me. It was definitely the fastest race I’ve done in a long time. Great job by Robert and Uncle Gary to finish 5th and 11th (2nd in 50+).

Worst Tour Coverage, Ever

What, you wanted to see Voeckler win?

Versus coverage of the Tour de France is by far the worst coverage in history. Today, French hero Thomas Voeckler put in a hellish attack out of the breakaway group. He shattered Ignatiev, who I thought was gonna win the group, and soloed to victory. But, 100 meters from the line, Versus cuts to a Garlique commercial. We miss the win, and the important clean up sprint for green jersey points.  I’m only suprised that they didn’t cut to yet another stupid Lance Armstrong biopic. Paul and Phil haven’t been following stuff much this year, so they don’t even know who the strong riders are, and the crew of  idiot Americans is even worse. I tried to get the Australian and British broadcasts, but they’re blocked. Great. I’m sure I can find something in Dutch…It’ll make more sense.

State Champs, Webster, & Louisville Fiascos

Thanks to Don Lowe for the pic!

What a week!! First, a big congratulations to Gina Champion, Mike Ozment, and Uncle Gary for bringing back wins at the Illinois State Criterium Championships! Robert Kron narrowly missed the win, taking second in the 40+, and we had a strong crew in lots of the races. I was bummed to miss the event.

Steve Hall and I were both waylaid by family commitments, and had to take the shorter trip to Webster Groves, where Steve was narrowly nipped out of the 50+ win. I wasn’t feeling so hot, and tooled in with the pack. Gary Meredith made the trip up with me, but didn’t get a free lap on a mechanical, which wasn’t cool. Later, Chief and Dave Neis showed to represent So. Ill. Dave scored 10th in the 3’s, and Chief ate oysters.

I’ve been suffering from some bug combo for a while, but I felt a little better Monday morning, so I went ahead and did the out and back to Louisville on Tuesday for the Masters National Championship “Road Race”. It was really a mostly downhill crit on an extremely technical course. Over 100 people started in the 40-44 race, and it was not my type of race. I should have driven up the night before, and should have brought a trainer to warm up–there was no place you could ride in the area. It was the park, which was occupied to capacity by the race, and then busy neighborhoods all around. To make matters worse, there was a scrum for the real starting line after callout, and I wound up behind a guy who was trying to put on his helmet–which put me in the back row for the start. Not that it mattered much.

On the line, there was the usual banter, mostly about pedophilia and beastiality. But, some of this was prescient. Mike McShane from Calistoga was being ignored by the race official who was doing call off. He yelled at the woman several times and asked if he was listed, and she wouldn’t even look at him. I said “gee, looks like maybe it doesn’t pay to be on the home team, eh?” He said, “yeah. We have issues. She put my 9 year old daughter in a stranger’s pick-up truck in rural Kentucky when they took the juniors off course at a race. I must have missed that part of the release form where it says that you agree to have your kid raped by hillbillies.”  So, confidence in the race officials was quite high, especially for the home team.

True to form, the lap counter board was screwed up (I could tell that, I was off the back and had nothing to do but count laps). Then, the lead moto  took a couple of guys who were 75 meters from winning the race, including Columbia Mo’s Dave Henderson, around for an extra tour of the course. Then, they decided to ignore the officials’ error and place the winners where they stood in the pack after doing an extra lap. I’m sure glad I was off the back. Hell, I could have won the race. I should have just sprinted up from the feed zone at the appropriate moment. I probably would have been scored. But, then I would have had to hang around longer.

It was great to see Kurt Russell on the sidelines after my ignominious exit. He was up next for the 45+ and trying to feed Kurt Fletcher. We learned this weekend that white is in. I stood there with Kurt R for three laps, and I only caught a glimpse of Kurt F once—and Kurt R. didn’t see him at all. It was a  sea of studly looking old guys in white with a hint of blue and grey. Kurt F was in the hunt all the way until the last lap, when the final selection was made among about 8 guys.

Robo was in the mix in the 45+, and in the TT. He finished in 46th in the RR, and an excecptional 17th in the TT. Way to go Robo!!!

Tour Time Team Tips

Horner will resume his Rickshaw service this July

Oh boy, the team selections have been announced, and there are controversies in all of the teams with key Americans. First, it was a shocker to hear that Chris Horner was left off by Astana. Horner proved his form in the Giro, but had another mishap. And, Astana is deep. And, Astana had to take a Kazakh….Or else, they’re never gettting paid again. You can bank on that. Even one Kazakh may not be enough to ever get the Kazakh mafia to pay again. Truth be told, Astana had SEVERAL really strong riders  who didn’t make the squad. Including Colom, Rubiera, and Vaitkus. So, Horner was among four really strong guys, one of whom got screwed when they had to choose a Kazakh kid. My take is that Vaitkus is the guy with a beef. He’s been riding strong, and the real reason not to choose Rubiera, Colom, or Horner is to prevent dividing the team in case of a 1986-like team split between Armstrong and Contador. As it is, there are two Spaniards and two Americans, then a full international set (which also maximizes global marketability).

Next, poor Tom Danielson didn’t make the squad at Garmin. At first, I thought this said something about  TD’s form, but now I think  Tyler Farrar is the reason. Unfortunately, Christian Vandevelde is probably not gonna have a great Tour. He may win the Vuelta, but he’s barely raced since his injury this year. So, it’s better to have a Julian Dean as an extra fast guy to help Tyler Farrar, than it is to have TD struggling with Vandevelde. With Wiggins and Millar in the stable, they have guys who could solo off and steal sprint stages, and they’d still have strong guys to help finish it off for Farrar if Wiggo or Millar get caught. It’s a great strategy. Farrar is the shit. He has beaten them all, head to head:  Boonen, Pettachi, McEwen, Cavendish, Freire, Hushovd…and, notably, Boonen and Pettachi ain’t gonna be there. Cavendish isn’t going to finish, even if he cleans up in the first week.  So, Farrar is a strong contender for Green.

Ah, then Columbia. Greipel, their second winningest rider this year, isn’t going. Who hung in the balance? George Hincapie. If you’re all for Cav and all for Cav, then it seems like you’d pick Greipel. But, Columbia wants to win other shit, and they should. They have a legit chance for the White Jersey in Tony Martin, and with Kim Kirchen and Michael Rogers both on form, they want to win some other stages (and maybe a polka dot, who knows?). I’d peg them the favorite in the TTT. With those goals, you’re better off having Hincapie–who can lead out, time trial, and make it up mountains–than having a fifth sprinter for the leadout train. Cav’s gonna win anyway. And, Cav’s been working with Renshaw, who would be the weakest selection on paper.

Winghaven 09, Danny and Kron get some Wings

 

Danny and Justin battling it out, Thx Beth for pic

I was bummed when I saw early on in the season that Winghaven would conflict with an annual father-son camping trip we had planned. I hoped for a delay on the camping trip after the storms down here, but, alas, they found a new site. I really like Winghaven, and I’m usually able to help the team in a race like that. Robert Kron was doing fine, though! Robert’s won this one before, and he was only bested by Dave Stone this year. Dave’s a really nice guy, and an incredible racer. From the chip results, it looks like Stone took it out of a small break which had Robert and Gary Dyer (another great guy!). Mack had a lot of usual suspects in the race, with Darrell coming in next, followed by Jeff, Gary, Robo, Mark, and his brother Mark.

In the 2-3 race, Danny the Rocket Robinson took 3rd! That’s an incredible result for a fairly new (and very young) Cat-2 in an NRC race!!! Wow! Justin Armstead was also up there in 13th! Justin just cat’d up to 3’s, and he’s already scoring points in 2’s races!!! And Gina Champion pulled into the finish in a huge race! That’s serious shit at an NRC race.

I’ll be racing the Masters at Webster Groves this weekend. I can’t swing an overnight stay in Peoria, unfortunately. I love the Proctor Crit, but it’s hard to justify the 4.5 hour drive and overnight stay once the road race got canned. Especially since I can get to Webster in 2 hours. After that, I’ll be giving it a go in Louisville for the Masters National Road Race. Woo Hoo!

Stormin’ Sandia, or not…

 

This hurts....

The Sandia Crest Road Race is one of the hardest races in the US. It sports 7800 feet of climbing over a 57 mile course, finishing at 10,500 ft. Check your TDF info and you’ll see that that Mont Ventoux is 6,300 ft, and the Alp de Huez is 6,100 ft. This race starts at 5500 ft. 

I was glad to once again have Mike Pease helping me out with the details. It doesn’t hurt that he lives less than two miles from the start line. We tooled over to the race start prepared for the usual day of sweltering heat and sun. It was supposed to be cooler and cloudy, but we didn’t believe that and packed four bottles–instead of maybe packing a rain jacket for the trip back down the mountain, or something….

The 3’s race started out just like last year, rocketing off out of the parking lot. A psycho kid was passing our lead car before we even turned the corner out of the Albertson’s. After about a mile, the pack started to chase, and it was strung out for a good five miles before the Sports Solutions kids decided to bag the chase until later. That was good, because I was sitting on lower 190 BPM on my heart rate for a few miles, and was wondering if maybe I should turn back and see if they would let me in the Masters race (which does half the course).

The breaks kept coming, but were mostly short lived until we got to the Mailbox climb. Then, the Sport Solution kids put down a hellish pace. I was worried at first. We were hammering really fast in the big ring on most of the climb. I didn’t know how much I could take. I knew I had to match the efforts or I’d be done. But we were flying, and it hurt. But, gradually, I felt better. I went from not trying to get dropped to making sure I wasn’t behind people who were popping. I was hanging, and I wasn’t the weakest guy in the group. I was moving up as the climb went on.

Then, I saw Pease. He was done. He didn’t feel well that morning, and had some kind of a stomach thing. Pease was heading back down from Mailbox, resplendent in his Big Shark kit, giving me a thumbs up which seemed to mean in equal parts: (1)  good job, (2) I’ll meet you at the top with the car, and (3) I’m going to puke, again.

The kids put in another hellish surge as we neared the top of Mailbox, but I was fine. I’d done it. Getting over that first climb without being dropped was my main goal. There was no way in hell I could be dropped again until Heartbreak Hill, and by that time I’d be in some sort of a chase group.

Then I dropped my chain on a small riser c0ming into Triangle. I couldn’t pull it out. I had to stop. Fortunately, it was a pretty significant climb, and the pack had backed off–which is why I was shifting into the small ring…But, I’d have a tough chase. It was starting to rain, but mostly I had a tailwind, and I hammered fuckless over through Triangle and down the long descent of Hwy 14.

Then the rain started to come down in buckets, and the temperature dropped 15 degrees, and the wind picked up to a swirling gale. I couldn’t see. I couldn’t hold the white line, but I had no follow car on a major tourist highway. I was going 43mph on a long downgrade with a 30-35mph tailwind, and my wheels were slipping on the flooded pavement. I was cold.  But, I was hammering. Then the crosswinds nearly blew my front wheel out. I thought “gee, surely there will be a crash in the pack and I’ll pick up some people.” I slowed down. I was freezing, and I knew there was no way in hell I could climb Sandia.

About the time I should have been crossing the line, Pease and I were sitting at a really nice italian brew pub at the base of Sandia. Even there, 4500 ft below the Crest, it was 60 degrees and spitting rain. I’m fairly certain that if I had not dropped my chain, I would have continued, and I may have wound up in the hospital. Ah well….it was fun to hang for a while.

Congrats to the Mo Chumps!!! Kurt Russell!! Not a surprise in the 40+, the man can climb.  The problem with ST. Gen is that Dave Hixson’s grandkids live within spitting distance of the start line. That makes the 50+ race rather difficult….But I guess he’s not from Mo….

Sandia Crestfall

ouch!

Last year at this time I was racing up Sandia Mountain, which I thought was a better first race back after breaking my hip and wrist than Tulsa Tough.  I’m not so sure it was. It was bad. I was hurting, and was the last fool still trying to climb the mountain–Mostly because I had no choice, since Mike Pease was at the top with the car….

So, this year, I was definitely going to Tulsa Tough. Only, then my kids’ school was closed for a week of ice storms, and then a week of inland hurricane, and next thing you know, the kids are in school until June 6! Inconveniently, we were going to visit the in-laws in Santa Fe the week after school let out….and, wouldn’t you know it, they backed up the date for the Sandia Crest road race by a week.

So, instead of racing that easy flat race in St. Genevieve this weekend, I’ll be stuffing as many water bottles as I can get into my jersey and trying not to get dropped on the first climb. It’s Pease’s last year in Albuquerque, before running off to a REAL JOB as assistant professor of geography at Central Washington University in Ellensburg WA.  Pease claims that this year he’s going to suffer it with me. We’ll see….