Super Squadra

Lots of races, lots of race meals. Most are the forgettable sort. A Chili’s takeout we (I!!) choke down late at night, a chain Mexican restaurant in a dry county or some granola and beef jerkey washed down with hotel sink water. On several occasions though with the help of my wife Daniele and some proper planning, the dinner meal transcends simple refueling.

This particular meal was accompanied by iceberg lettuce bag salad, trans-fat special garlic bread and a Wheeler blessing.  The next morning Dille and Wheeler powered a break that would launch him one downhill-attack (perhaps more lasagna next time?!?) away from the Ft. Davis overall GC.  

Some meals were memorable for the wrong reasons.  This in-house job turned our protein source into indiscernible charred carcass. You know what they say though, “When in Possum Kingdom…”

Returning champions of the 27mi two person time trial known as the Tour de Gruene, Bicycle Sport Shop pb Girling’s Phil Wikoff along with honorary Squadra member Patrick McCarty get a real run for their money this weekend. Velonews features them as the 2007 winners of the event set to defend against the like of 2008 Texas state road race Champion Steven Wheeler and TdG partner David Wenger as well as 1999- 2005 Tour de France Winner Lance Armstrong with time trial partner, Super Squadra sponsor, and 2008 masters national road race champion John Korioth. What a field! There’s no such thing as an easy race in Texas, or in the month of November.

 

Cue cheezy morning news show commentary: “And on a much lighter note…” we will be reminiscing on the “Best of ‘08″ throughout the dulldroms of the Texas winter off-season (all 12 weeks of it). Our first installment features the best hair on the team.

After much bitter debate, I was voted as having the most bodacious shag, with Phil as a close runner-up. (I can only imagine the attention his red flowing locks would attract, if he would only commit.) As always, we expect great things from Alan Ting(’s hair) in the future.

Often immitated, never duplicated.

Speaking for myself and the rest of the guys, I want to extend my condolences to the family and many friends Steve Brandt left behind several days ago.  Steve was a very energetic and supportive friend to me and our entire community will miss him.  My dearth of words here owes to the difficulty I am having reconciling this loss.  I hope his family will be in your thoughts.

This just in, Steven Wheeler WINS the Texas state road race title. Bicycle Sport Shop pb Girling WINS the TX Cup team competition. David Wenger and Philip Wikoff go 1-2 in the TX Cup individual competition. What a day. What a year.

After a long 2008 season, the last race of the year took us to Chappell Hill, Texas for the P1-2 State Road Race Championship.  This race was especially important to us since it was the last chance for our team to catch Tx. Tough for the TXBRA Team Overall Championship.  Going into the weekend we were around 80 points behind and needed a near perfect race to pull off the title and that’s exactly what we got.

With our full team present the main plan was to get riders up the road and allow Dave and Phil to sit back and watch the riders that were closest to them in the TXBRA Individual Overall competition.  Then we would just evaluate the situation and see what our best option was to get the victory.  Ian and I were really aggressive from the beginnning and tried to get an early move to stick but the field wouldn’t let a group form.  After things settled down our very own Alan Ting found himself in a two man move that helped take pressure off of the rest of us.  This allowed us to recover from our earlier moves and let us cover counter moves that shot off the front.

With around three laps to go in the race, 2008 Masters National Champion John Korioth, rolled off the front and Collin Davis/MSU and Andy Beres/Colavita joined him.  I jumped on a little rise in the road and bridged up to the three riders and we started trying to establish a gap from the field.  Everyone in the break was working well together and that was a must since it was really windy.  As the laps started to tick down we lost Andy and then a lap later we lost Collin.  Korioth and I went through the feed zone for the last time and took the dreaded turn back towards town.

The last section of the course is very hilly and after 75 miles they seemed more like mountains.  Korioth and I made a deal that we would work together to the very end so we would have a better chance of holding off the field.  I knew my teammates would be back there helping me out as much as possible but after being off the front for so long I knew our chances werent very good.  The moto came by and gave us a time check of around 1:20 with around 7 miles left and I actually started to think we might have a slim chance.  We just tried to keep the pace as steady as possible and tried to ignore the cramps that we’re starting to kill our speed.  We went over the last roller and I looked back and saw the field for the first time since the break had been formed 40 miles earlier.  Korioth and I traded the last pulls up to the finishing hill with around a 20 second gap.  Korioth put in a dig on the hill but I stayed on his wheel and then jumped him over the top to take the biggest win of my cycling career.

By time I had turned around past the finish line I got to see Phil win the field sprint for 3rd place and Dave came in right behind him in 5th.  After seeing what we had done the whole team was just estatic.  Dave and Phil had defended their positions of #1 and #2 in the individual competition and with stacking 3 in the top 5 we jumped Tx. Tough and took over the top spot in the team competition as well.  You have to love when a plan comes together.