Super Squadra

‘Lil break in over the HH100 weekend and luckily we’re not missing much other than a size small Trek TTX bike. No wheels on the bike at the time it was stolen. Black bike, vision front end, red Adamo saddle, black 165mm Rival cranks, and otherwise Ultegra components should make this bike pop pretty easy.

Also, a 2006 Shimano Ultegra pre-built front wheel as well as 36 spoke Mavic MA-3 with black Shimano 105 hub and Shimano 105 11- 25cassette are missing. Both have Specialized S Works tires.

Thanks for any leads.

Please look for this bike!

Now every time you see me sprint
Every time you see me climb
Every time you see me in your state or town
Say wat’s up? Yeah…. Yeah… Alan Ting Tell ‘Em

Alan will be turning his swag on in Austin full time now as he completes studies and prepares to “go all godzilla on these books” at UT. Super Squadra can retire our outdated sprinter model and at last sport the newest import instead. All wrapped in a tasteful red, white, and blue, stars/bars color scheme.

I put my team on, did my theme song
Now it’s time to turn it up, yeah… Yeah…

So that title pretty well sums up last night’s racing at the Driveway. Monthly series leader David Wenger and recent Texas State TT silver medalist (I can’t quit you Wenger) played a cool and intelligent hand in the patience game while teammates Ian Dille and Steven Wheeler hurled themselves off the front in search of a new white blouse. We were bested in that pursuit however by Colton Jarisch. Fine rider and bon viveur while earning his degree at St. Ed’s. I did not do much last night save for marvel at the difference between racing on training wheels and 808’s. I was without my usual equipment as my Zipp wheels have been sent up to Chicago a few days early to be inflated with helium over at Fermilab (truly minutes from Downers Grove). I’m impressed that they can accelerate small particles to about 70% the speed of light but seriously try getting my rear end up to McDonald Observatory sometime. That’s worth some grant money.

Asides aside, the final laps were a flurry of attacks and prime accrual. We did not contest the gambler’s prime but with 1 to go Wenger was firmly locked in my wheel. I took Wenger from just beyond the far end of the course to the final bend about 25m from the line before I saw his persimmon jersey surge to the lead. We’ll be using crit nats this weekend as a tune-up before next week’s all-important August 20th Driveway Crit. We planned to race for my wife in honor of her birthday but she will be in China so we will race for Ting instead because he is Chinese-American. Ahhh the transitive power of bike racing.

Every year around early August bike racers all over Texas leave their road bikes at home and drag out their time trial bikes for the annual state time trial championships. This year the event was held in Castroville, Texas for the very first time. The individual race was held on Saturday followed by the team time trial on Sunday with both events being 40K in distance.

The individual races on Saturday were a mixed bag of results for the members of Super Squadra. Dave Wenger, our time trial expert, had an amazing ride and ended up with the second fastest time on the day for a silver medal. Ian and I rode as hard as we could but ended up with an 8th and 12th place finish. More importantly, we both beat our times from last year so we know that we’re slowly getting better in this cycling discipline. 

With the individual races behind us, the team went to back to our really cool historical bed and breakfast called the Landmark Inn. After spending a couple of hours hanging out on the porch we went down to the Medina River and took a nice little dip. With the team time trial starting at 7:15 the next morning we packed it in earlier than normal to be  ready for our big race. 

The team time trial was an important event for us and we wanted to improve on our third place finish from last year.  With our team not consisting of the best individual time trialists we knew our ability to work as a team would be that much more important in our bid for the top spot on the podium. Our team had ridden together multiple times to work on our pacing and to practice the art of riding cohesively together at such high speeds. Dave, our time trial superstar, set a blistering pace from the beginning and a quarter through the race Phil was hurting from having to hold onto the wheel of the silver medalist. Soon after, we were down to three and Ian and I had the unfortunate job of trying not to get dropped from the pace that Dave was setting. We knew that we needed to go this hard to have any chance of winning but in the end we just couldn’t give Dave enough help and we ended up in third place only 14 seconds off of second. 

A rider from another team asked me afterward why we didn’t just add some stronger time trialists to our team for the event since other teams ride as composite teams.  I was quick to respond that even though we might not be the strongest time trial team the camaraderie and time together is more important to us than our result.  Losing together is better than winning apart.  That’s what the definition of team is to us.

This past Thursday our team wrapped up a fifth month in row of mini-series victories. The seasons have changed quite a bit since the first three-week March mini-series. I recall the very first Driveway of the year was wet and with temps in the 50’s. Wenger attacked in the first 15 meters and the standard was set for the rest of the season. He took out March after a win and a few solid podiums.

April arrived and with stage races still on the agenda, the local criterium legs were still coming around. I lost a few, that’s right more than one, bunch sprints to Stefan in April but perseverance and attendance yielded a win, a handful of podiums and finally, the monthly prize. I resented getting the five race mini-series short straw within the team but I ended up needing every point I could get. Cycling’s version of a mulligan.

May saw total Wheeler dominance such that we were even able to skip the last race of the month in favor of a few frosty ones at SIX Lounge before taking on Tulsa Tough. I’d love to write something interesting about his wins but they were virtually uncontested. I took him on in the finale of the third week and it wasn’t to be. I ended up on the ground with road rash all over my body as Wheeler coasted it in. Never challenge your team leader lest his God smote you and leave you covered in tegaderm.

June was a wild month to defend as the temperatures soared into double the degrees Fahrenheit we raced through that first Thursday in March. I took out the first week’s win but was abysmal the second wind-swept week where Steven and Wenger left me in the dust to represent the team. Wenger asserted himself even stronger the last week with a late attack and decimation of the breakaway.

After a successful but boring defense of the jersey last Thursday, we head into the month of August ready to face its challenges. State time trial, criterium national championships, and HHH as well as another month of Driveway crits will give us plenty of opportunities to excel.