Super Squadra

“I think this race will reward the first person to lay down an attack,” Phil told me before the start of the inaugural Ronde von Manda. And sure enough, within the first two miles, on the cross wind drag up to the iconic New Sweden church spire, the field began to split. I made my way across to a group of 10 or so strong riders and within a half lap, 20-minutes into the race, the break was cemented. With at least one rider from each of the major teams in the move—including John Koriath (the break’s MVP) from Team SIX, Adam Gaubert (who’s broken rear dérailleur cable left him with only an 11) from Velossimo, Geoff Godsey from TX Tough/Hotel San Jose, Stefan Rothe of Mercy, and Travis Burandt of Sakonnet— the impetus of the decimated pack to put on a chase was diminished, and the lead quickly ballooned to over two-minutes.

In perhaps one of my most mentally grueling days on the bike, the group worked together cohesively for nearly 70-miles. With half a lap remaining Rothe attacked with Burandt and I clinging to his wheel. We took even pulls (meaning Rothe did the bulk of the work) until a kilometer to go when Burnadt attacked without an answer from Rothe or I. Admittedly, I bungled the sprint for second (see frown below) but was happy to follow up Super Squadra’s first TXBRA victory on Saturday with yet another podium (see smile below).

Incredible day and an exceptional ride by Bicycle Sport Shop pb Girling. Not a bad way to follow up Wheeler’s win at the HCTT last week. The race was very aggressive and ripe with attacking riders. Many small groups formed throughout the day, with only one having a shot at success with three laps to go (26- 30min.) A group of three containing Stefan Rothe, Tristian Uhl, and Andrew Willis got a good sized gap, but due to the hilly nature of the course and the wind a small group had to battle, the move didn’t have all that great of odds of rolling to the finish. Those odds decreased when Willis’ front derailieur dropped the chain on the hardest section of the course. From there, Velossimo chased the move back and the race was back to full gas. BSS pb Girling made several moves to soften the group and the sprinters, which led to a well timed attack from GS Tenzing’s Scott Veggeberg that was absorbed only 600- 800m from the finish. Phil single handedly made holes for himself in the finish. Thanks to a pre ride of the course just before our start, Phil knew exactly where 150m from the finish was and launched himself to victory at our team’s race. How great is that ride?

This coming Saturday morning the members of Super Squadra will arrive early and stay late to provide volunteer support at the Belterra Hill Country Circuit Race (dragging family members, friends, and future spouses out to the course with us). As a five man team logistically lacking in race promotion power (not to mention experience), we’ve teamed up with the fabulously prepared event organizers Jennifer and Peter Stankard, owners of Southwest Cycle Sport. Past editions of The Belterra Hill Country Circuit Race were tightly organized, and we expect no difference this year. We already have strict marching orders courtesy of Jennifer.

The one change we do anticipate is a completely different race dynamic due to the new course layout. While previous editions of the race included two steep climbs, easily making it the toughest circuit race in Texas, this year’s race will be run on a relatively flat loop. Rumors abound regarding the reason for the new course—from an increase in traffic on the old loop to a dip in reg numbers because of the former courses notoriety—depending on which TXBRA post you read.

Both reasons are valid. Controlling the flow of traffic from people coming and going to their homes was difficult last year and the field was noticeably smaller. However, I will personally miss the old circuit. Texas has no shortage of tough courses, but truly hilly races are a rarity and bring a different dynamic to the racing scene. Not too mention, when fit, they favor my style of racing. (Note: I was not fit last year and got lapped three times.)

Still, we look forward to supporting and racing in this event while attempting to bring home a Super Squadra victory no matter the course, racing conditions, or field depth.

Photo: Phil suffering on the climb in the inaugural edition of Belterra.

If anyone surfed over to this space over the last 36 hrs and noticed instead of the usual wash of red, white and black photography and self-deprecating posts a huge error message, the crisis has been averted. I was doing some maintenance when I proceeded to upload some bogus scripts to the site and crashed it. My (now) REALLY good friends at OLM hosting fixed it and we’re back up. I’m thinking of adding a banner for rogaine now that I’ll be looking for a way to reattach some of the hairs that fell out trying to fix it on my own.

I think our scene is going to be very fast in 2008. If everyone continues to race the Driveway, I don’t think a non-ATX rider will win a significant race for the remainder of the season. Last night was hard! Allow me to quantify. From the well-calibrated powermeter, the race was 37minutes long and my average power for that period was 376w with a Norm. power of 403w. I am gonna plug Source-e for a place to flesh out exactly what these numbers mean. However to put it another way, if you put that type of power to the pedals and were McCarty-sized (6′ 140ish), you’d be racing in the ProTour contesting the final K’s of Mt. Ventoux. Even at my size, if I held that power for the Ft. Davis observatory jaunt, I could expect to be with Herr Rothe and coolly watch his signature big ring shift on a 20% pitch.

So I must have had a strong ride and won right? That would be incorrect. To promptly pick up where I left off last year, I was second again to (enter THSJ rider here). Yeah sometimes it’s TmfJ, sometimes it’s slick Willy. Once last year I even lost at the hands of Fawley, who was clearly slumming if he was racing with us road d-bags. I really thought drawing Wheeler from their ranks would give me the extra impetus to bag a Driveway win. Maybe next week? Maybe they’ll add the extra loop and Wenger can just ride away from the field with his favorite break buddies Benz and Korioth. I guess it’s not all bad though. According to txbra.org forum post author “thrashed” it was actually the Velossimo train who Will Ross came over the top of for the win. Ha! I’d gladly trade second for not being the guy that blew the win in the final 300m again.

This looks similar to the place where I ended up at the end of the road race on Saturday.  Thanks to the rider that came over on me, put me in the ditch and took away our 2nd place finish.

After the time trial on Saturday evening we went back to the Chicken Coop and enjoyed an amazing lasagna that Daniele had made for us.  We also enjoyed a healthy salad, some vegetables and of course some garlic bread.  Yummy!!!

You can just refer to Dave as Superman after the performance he displayed on Sunday.  What he did was nothing short of “Super” as he went on the attack early and ended up jumping all the way up to 3rd overall after his 90+ mile breakaway.  Bravo Wenger!

This is a picture of a Presidential motorcade.  Why is this picture on here you probably ask?  Well, that’s exactly what Ian and Phil did for me the entire 95 miles on Sunday.  With Dave up the road I assumed the GC position if Dave was to be caught.  So Ian and Phil personally escorted me all day long.  They literally did a two man echelon in the cross wind sections to protect me.  It was an amazing feeling to see that kind of sacrifice and determination something that I think our President must feel when he’s in his motorcade.  

After a long hard weekend we accomplished our goal of getting someone on the podium with a hard fought 3rd place.  Congrats to Stefan Rothe and Alex Boyd who deserved their podium places.  Our team really came together on Sunday and this will be a big stepping stone for us considering the adversity we faced after Saturday’s races.   

Cool temperatures gave way to hot racing from start to finish in the stage three road race. Starting at 8am Sunday morning, the sun had hardly peaked over the white pines as the first attacks charged off the front. We had no more elaborate plan for the day but to get up the road and take time or the win. The 2nd lap again featured a 7s hot spot bonus and apparently Wenger had his eyes on it. Midway through the first lap, Wenger showed the field a clean pair of wheels and rode away with only two riders to assist him, one of whom was overall leader Alex Boyd’s teammate. The field hardly reacted to such a bold, early move and by the time a chase formed, the group was already 2 minutes up the road. Such an aggressive, early move tends to have two obvious outcomes; glory or utter collapse. In the remote chance of the latter, our plan B entailed protecting Steven until the decisive move rolled for time or the elusive win. Wenger single handedly made plan B an afterthought. As the gap narrowed, Mercy riders Stefan Rothe and Mat Ankney traded off a pair of attacks and pulled out only race leader Boyd. Wheeler gambled on the Ankney move but was unable to bridge to Boyd/Rothe without jeopardizing our man Wenger still up the road. As the two strong men of TX spring racing reached the then leaders, all except Wenger and Matt Davis fell away from the lead group. Attacks rolled off the front throughout the final lap, some neutralized, others successful. Most importantly we never saw David return. Wheeler made a strong move at about 1.5k to go and stole seconds from the field and another top 10 finish. Eventually our hopes were confirmed that Wenger’s 4th place on the day bounced him from 7th to 3rd in the overall classification and much of the weekend’s tension and hard work were washed away. Ian and I should be flying in a few week’s time after our big days in the wind. Thanks are due to the town of Fayetteville, the organizers and all the weekend’s competitors.

Despite only making up about 1/25th of the weekend’s distance, stage 2’s time trial is decisive. One might think a time trial held in quaint Fayetteville, TX wouldn’t be such a tech fetish’s dream but they’d be wrong. Full carbon frames, discs, deep wheels (Zipp 808 are certainly de rigeur) and power measuring devices grace the start line from the womens 4’s to the mens 1/2’s. I was very excited to test my preparation for this short but honest time trial. As much as I was excited about my own chances, I was equally anxious to see how my other three guys would fare. Wenger is a favorite for any time trial. Steven was piloting his brand new time trial bike that I spent most of Monday evening (and night) building with him. Ian was also on a brand new state of the art time trial bike that he was to evaluate for Bicycling magazine. He needed no reminder to keep his thoughts on the effort at hand instead of the 2000 eloquent words he might scribe about the machine under him. I had nearly a full hour of time to pedal around and I felt pretty comfortable. Wind speeds were not as dramatic as the morning but would be a factor on each of the three legs. I was last off of the four of us and we all left within 1 minute intervals of each other. I cheered each one of the guys off and rolled up for my own shot. 15s… 10s… 3, 2, 1.

When the dust settled Steven and Wenger each rolled the same time and sat 7th and 8th overall over a minute behind. Travis Burandt and Alex Boyd were the day’s biggest winners following the chrono. My Daniele made a 20lb lasagna (no joke) that we disappeared at dinner with our feed zone aces Emily (Stronger) and Biggest Dille (Don). The Chicken Coop may have been built in the 1840’s but the most anachronistic piece of furniture in the entire house was the ridiculous 11″ TV on which we watched an awful saturday night comedy sequel. Sleep came easily as our work was cut out for us in the following day’s 95mi RR.

Fayetteville Stage Race was this past weekend’s challenge. Super Squadra was four strong with young Ting in Europe or something (kid is so rock star). A relaxed 10am start time to the first day’s ~70mile RR meant we slept in our beds and rolled into town after a short jaunt from Austin. In the name of “green” practices, we stuffed 3 chaps and 6 bikes in a Element and with ample Zipp and Serotta carbon livery in our midst. The first day’s road race was very active with some notable names in two-man breakaway attempts over the first 2 of 3 laps. Stefan Rothe snagged the time bonus on offer by himself and stayed off until midway through the 2nd lap. Last year’s winner Mat Ankney followed Stefan’s catch with a nice counter and two riders were off. Going into the final ascent of “Loan Oak Hill” ie spot bonus hill, the group of two returned and it was go time. After much aggression through the wind swept top of the course, Andrew Willis and quiet stud Alex Boyd went off in a move that began as sheer cheek but stayed away through strength. In the final 5k, Willis himself was unable to stay in contact with the rolling Boyd. As a field of 75+ stared at the on fire Mercy Cycling, Boyd went on his way to one minute win over the field. I led out the sprint for second (inadvertently) for Steven and he was golden for 2nd place until a rider shouldered him into a ditch. Who knew cycling was a full contact sport? To the Chicken Coop for recovery chicken fried chicken…

It’s that time of year. All the South Bys are in town. Teachers are out of town. Time trial bikes are everywhere.

I am predicting a huge weekend for the crew in red. 14min times at Fayetteville should be the norm with the amount of time all of us have spent on our TT equipment, and Phil’s new bearings. Speaking of grade 3 greatness, y’all NEED to check out SRAM Black Box bottom brackets.