Mike zipped the jersey, fist pumped the air
and thanked the guy who gave him the talent to do what he
does. He just won his 3rd national title!
Photos by Richard
Distlerath
The celebration at the race site was short
lived. We had to get back to the hotel and pack up bikes
for a 5 a.m. flight to Massachusettes. We parked in the
parking deck, pulled out bikes and tools and bike boxes and
proceeded to pack up our bikes. We disassembled our bikes
over a celebratory brew (or two).
After a quick shower, we met up with
Darrell O'quinn and his wife Kristina and we all had
dinner. Darrell and Kristina was celebrating their 14th
wedding anniversary. Darrell is the only guy I know who
can convince his wife that going to a bike race on their
anniversary was a good idea.
Darrell had a good race that next
day. His field was stacked with ex-pro's and other strong
riders. He finished a respectable 20th at his first
nationals.
Shortly after arriving into Fitcburg, we
lined up for a 7.5 mile time trial. The course could best
be described as chip and seal, but without the seal. I
train on dirt roads that were better and smoother than this
road--good ole New England roads. You had to go fast just
so you wouldn't get beat up.
I chose not to fly with my time trial
bike. Tristar had a large contingent of riders at
Fitchburg, so I borrowed one of the younger rider's tt
bike. Kids.... The Stefan Swecker had a 26.8 post in
a 27.2 seat tube. Needless to say, the bolts had to be
torqued down. Add my wieght to the combination of too
small of a seatpost and stripped out bolts and this equalled
slipping post. I had ridden the bike to the start line, so
I had to borrow the SRAM neutral support bike for the tt.
No aero equipment, plus not my bike, plus never having used SRAM
before, didn't equal a necessarily good time trial. I lost
almost 3 minutes on the leader.
My goal was to not let Mike O catch
me. He started two minutes behind me. He caught me
in the last 1.5K. I attempted to serve as a carrot for
Mike. I drilled it when I saw him coming behind me.
I knew he would try to catch me and I knew if I worked harder to
stay away, then he would have to pedal his 56 faster and
hopefully crack the top 10 in the TT.
Mike had a decent time trial. He
wasn't overly happy with his performance.
Mike and I rode back together. We
made it back to the start line just as the clouds opened
up. We saw Brian Toone rolling down the road in a
downpour. We later saw Michael Lanham completely
soaked. The rain wasn't cold, but when you are a skinny
skeleton like Mike (135 pounds at about 5'9), you don't have
much insulation to keep you warm.
Today we raced 104 miles over a circuit
that was about 9 miles long. Each lap had several smaller
hills that stung the legs and one longer climb. The base
of this climb was fairly steep for about 1K and then leveled off
a little. My goal (other than to finish) was to employ the
time tested strategy called "SAG Climbing". You start the
climb at the front and then SAG your way to the back by riding
your own pace. Ideally, with 150 guys, you are near the
top of the climb when you reach the back of the pack. I
was able to employ this strategy mostly flawlessly.
I say mostly, because on one lap Mike had
some mechanical problems with his derailleur. Some
"donkey" crashed into him and slammed his rear derailleur.
This bent the hanger and only gave Mike about 4 gears. He
dropped back to the caravan, unclipped from his pedal and
started kicking the derailleur with his heel. He asked me
if it was straight. I said "no". He kicked it
again. I said "good enough". By this time we were at
the base of the climb. Mike danced his way up the steep
part. I prayed I'd stay in contact. I was off the
back on the steep part, but I was able to power back on when the
hill leveled off a bit and was able to slam my chain onto the
53.
At some point during the race, I wanted to
kick Michael Lanham. He was chattering away at 90 to
nothing like "Mikey" does about how it was easy for him to float
up the hills after he lost 15 pounds and went from 150 to
135. This happened to be on the steep part of the climb
and I was fighting to lug my frame (a product of a 5'4 mother, a
6'3 father, a 6'4 grandfather who wieghed over 300 of mostly
muscle in his day) up the hill. If I could have unclipped,
"Mikey" would have weighed 145 when I stuck my
foot....
Mike O finished the day near the top
10. The finishing climb was 2 miles of steepness.
The little climbers were able to punch it on the steep
parts. So, combined with the steepness and not knowing
where the climb ended, Mike didn't want to go too hard and risk
blowing.
Stefan Rothe, our rider from Austin, TX,
was in a two man break most of the day. He was able to get
enough sprint points to put himself into 2nd place for that
competition. Unfortnuaely, he flatted and came back to the
group.
The winning time for this 104 miles was
about 4:25!
Photos.
July 5th 75 mile circuit
race
Today was 75 miles of pure hell. The
circuit was about 3 miles long. We did a 500 meter climb
that was fairly steep 24 times! The hardest part wasn't
necessarily the climb itself, but the section after the climb
where the pace was high and the group was strung out. The
climb was hard simply because 1. it was a climb and 2.
there was a 90 degree turn at the bottom and taking the wrong
line caused you to lose momentum.
Mike and Stefan were going for sprint
points. Mike would gun the pace to the base of the climb
and part way up and Stefan would sprint and get the
points. They were successful and racked up
points.
Today, for me was
hard. The crowd was large and cheered everyone up the
hill. Tristar, a club that the team affiliated with (along
with Amateur Cycling Club of Memphis) brought a large contingent
of young riders-all under 19. I remember being that age
and thinking that anyone racing in the pro 1 category was a
'god', even if they were pack fill. With this in the back
of my head, I gritted my teeth and got up the hill each lap and
fought back onto the pack of the pack each time I didn't.
I knew the young guys were watching and I didn't want them to
see one of their senior teammates get dropped, quit,
etc.
Brian Toone and I survived, as did
Sam. Mike Lanham, with only 4 weeks of training, wasn't
able to finish the day. But, he battled to the very
end. Mike O and Stefan animated the race and made life
hard for the high budget pro teams such as Colavita and
Bissell.
We
averaged 27.2 miles per hour today.
July 6th 50 mile
criterium.
Only 50 miles separate me from finishing my
first stage race. Hopefully the wheels won't fall of like
they did at the start of the Tour of the Gila (food poisoning)
and the Mt. Hood Cycling Classic (time cut on day 3). But,
the crit wasn't going to be easy. Everyone except for Mike
and I only had 3 days of racing in the legs. We already
had 4 days in (nationals). The crit had three turn.
Two traditional 90 degree turns and one 180 round-a-bout
turn.
The promoters were tossing out $100, $170,
$500 and $1500 primes. Plus, every 5 laps was the sprint
points primes. Mike O went out and won a prime, plus won
two sprint point competitions. He did this to relieve
Stefan of having to sprint to defend his placing.
We
eventually finsished the 55 lap criterium unscathed. There
were a few crashes toward the end that I managed not to get
involved with. I could have easily bagged it then and just
rolled around the course for 10 laps and finished, but my
goal coming into the event was to finish with the group.
So, I gave all I had to catch back on.
At
the end of the day, we all had a good ride. Mike narrowly
missed out on his goal of cracking the top 10. He finished
11th, only a handful of seconds out of 10th. Stefan
finished 2nd in the sprint competion. Mike won a $170
prime. Brian Toone finished strongly. The wheels
stayed on for this race and I finished 5 days of
racing.
The average speed of this race was 28 miles
per hour!
Thank you to all of our sponsors who made
this race possible! Thank you to Jason Barksdale with
Birmingham Bicycle Company for keeping our machines working and
making the 20 plus hour (one way) drive up and handing us
bottles during the road races.
Results Photo
1
Photo
2
Photo
3
Until next time!
Travis